Morning Must Reads: Liabilities

Grape.

good one

Adam,
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Are you and TIME going to make a Calendar with all the movie star quality pictures you show of President Obama each day?
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They are certainly breathtaking though they do give the impression of TIME as a very partisan outfit with the uniquely chosen role of promoting a “Cult like Image” of President Obama.
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I guess I’m a little surprised that you and TIME make it so obvious that you are trying your best to promote and support the Obama Administration.
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I actually thought that the role of a “Free Press” in our Democracy was to try and be unbiased and provide information so that the citizens of our Democracy could make informed decisions. Silly me.

are you going to acknowledge that I answered the question you wanted me to, and are you going to answer mine of you?

OK gang, let’s roll up our sleeves and fill in for grape_crush…
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Susan Tompor opines that the time for a GM IPO is “Not Necessarily” bad…
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She has also suggested that the public be given the chance to get in on the ground floor…
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Chrysler posts a Q2 profit as well…

Another Obama Myth- Transparency

“President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Obama-closes-curtain-on-transparency-468557-100595914.html#ixzz0wUozP4T9

Pakistan in need of immediate aid due to flooding
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(UN humanitarian chief John) Holmes pointed out that almost one in 10 of Pakistan’s population had been affected by the floods and at least 6 million were in need of immediate humanitarian aid.
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“The floodwaters have devastated towns and village, downed power and communications lines, washed away bridges and roads and inflicted major damage to buildings and houses,” he said.
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High levels of gastroenteritis and water-borne diseases such as scabies were already being noticed, he said.
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“There are literally millions of people tonight in Pakistan who are sleeping out in the open on high ground… not having adequate shelter, not even a tent or a piece of plastic sheeting,” he added.
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“We need to expand this response radically and very, very fast.”

The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050412/the-stunning-decline-of-barack-obama-10-key-reasons-why-the-obama-presidency-is-in-meltdown/

And there are way more than 10! It is not unexpected as the MSM were cheerleading a community activist who voted present when things were tough

“Silly me.”
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We have a starting point, something we agree on.

mycophile,
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If I have not answered it alraedy it will be answered today. I had some problems with my computer yesterday and until you reminded me I thought I had already answered your questions.

allthings,
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Thanks for agreeing with the subject of my post. It’s nice to see a liberal who realizes how really biased TIME and Adam are.
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Thanks agin for your reply. Keep up the honest work.

Good Post,
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Hard to agrue with the 10 points. They are obviously correct.

Wow. At this rate in ’12 he’ll only beat the Repub candidate by fifteen electoral votes!

But, to us, the IPO will be proof of something else: a White House that purposefully trampled the legal rights of investors — many of whom, like us, are small savers — to benefit its political supporters. Rather than a model of success and foresight, the GM episode is a model of corruption and cronyism.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/model_corruption_ttyHIpNuoQRwVTkBZuhHeM#ixzz0wUtnTeUs
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Ford without any government help earned multiples of what GM made largely from the help of a tax benefit.

It’s nice how opinions are being portrayed as facts….

I wasn’t aware that the Free Press called itself “Freep.” All this time I was using it to denigrate a certain poster here…. I’ll be more careful now!

I wasn’t aware that the Free Press called itself “Freep

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The list of things you are unaware of far exceeds the above.

Seeing that everyone’s got one, calling you “A**hole” would be a term of endearment so I won’t use it.

…and up is down, right is left and Mona Lisa was a man who wants to overthrow Prop 8

Wow. At this rate in ’12 he’ll only beat the Repub candidate by fifteen electoral votes
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Keep holding onto that string. The suicide hotline is going to get heavy use in th enext couple of elections
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It’s nice how opinions are being portrayed as facts

Funny since you wouldn’t know fact if it bit you. No one portrayed anything as fact in this post. But go ahead declare victory take a lap then go lie down.

freekinpathetic quoting opinion out of the UK. Guess he’s wondering why Socialists think Obama is failing to be Socialist enough. Obama not doing enough to control your life freek? You take advice from the UK now? Some patriot. Some capitalist.

“a term of endearment so I won’t use it”

Feel free. It would just add to the birdcage liner that is your other brilliant insights.

“It’s nice how opinions are being portrayed as farts….”
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Fixed it for accuracy re the tea partiers.

“They are obviously correct.” – 3xfire3 @ 6.1
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“No one portrayed anything as fact in this post.” – freeinpa @ 6.5
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Thanks for walking into a wall yet again, freeinpa.
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I thoroughly enjoy this…

freeinpa lives for spankings, foghorn…

“You take advice from the UK now? Some patriot. Some capitalist”

I listed an article. What does that have to do with “taking advice” and Patriotism? I have several books by William Shakespeare and Chaucer. I must rank up there with Benedict Arnold.

Step away from the keyboard fools

At least as intelligent as anything else you contribute.

You can now battle IQ3 in the race to a zero IQ

Walking into a wall. You are self delusional in addition to being retarded.

You confuse reasons and explanations with fact. Fact: Obama and the Demo party is plummeting. How is that for falling into a wall

What would Rusty, Freedumb et.al. have rather happened – for Chrysler to die, GM to be sold off and thousands of direct and indirect manufacturing jobs evaporate? Good grief.

freeinpa:
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You really need a different approach. You really need to bring facts to the table when you eat with us…

No comprende, senor?
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“Obama and the Demo party is plummeting.”
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No, it’s been slowly dropping since the beginning of his tenure as POTUS. ‘Plummeting” is your opinion!
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Also, 3xfire3 was referring to the “10 points”, which are also an opinion. He referred to them as ‘correct’.
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Comprende?
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Now, next in your reading comprehension lesson is the fact that I wrote “walking”, and not “falling”.
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Obviously, you’re pretty short on the innate grasp of gravity that most of us animals higher than a fish are familiar with.
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But, have it your way, freeinpa, keep on falling into those walls…

3xfire3~
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Good to hear (not about your computer, but if there was not so much chance of misinterpretation in this medium, I wold have allowed that pun in jest)
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1) you will find the questions I refer to on Dems Slap Pelosi@6
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2) you will find the answer to you I refer to on Obama’s SIlence on Cordoba @ 4.6
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3) I finally just now read through the Good For Farseed that you suggested I might find interesting. I did. Several main things struck me about those who were engaged in the “civility” discussion:
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A) A feeling that everyone (except for groen, and apr) may not be able to let go of being unpolite (to use a general term for various forms of unproductive discourse tone) unless all others will. (It feels like apr could easily and groen couldn’t ever)
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B) Almost all, and certainly both you and patrick, often do not carefully read one another’s words, often respond to what the read triggers in the reader’s thoughts without first asking the writer to clarify, upon most forms of subsequent clarification by the writers still yet respond again from the reader’s original interpretation, and do not act like they TRULY respect one another’s life perspectives as valid. (again, I find apr to strike me in these ways far less than others, and groen provides not enough data for me to be sure, but, if I were to look only at the data set I have on that, I would easily hypothesize that groen has this problem “clinically”. I also would say that you, 3x, exhibit these characteristics less so than does patrick, but not less so that they don’t contribute in a significant way to the dysfunction. I would also say that there are others besides groen that are more extreme in these ways than either you or patrick are.)
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C) That all said, and despite the fact that I earnestly wish for a public discourse vastly more absent of these types of dynamics, their presence is due to each and every one of us, including myself. The fault lies in how we have been taught by human culture, and this medium, especially, is a fertile breeding ground for it. Some may recall that, when I first appeared in the Swamp, I remarked that I religiously (sorry) avoid the blogosphere because of that, but I found myself fascinated by several aspects of this corner of it, most notably the degree of civility. I stayed kinda’ like why I stay in the USA — it has many problems, some of them quite egregious, but it also has the greatest potential to be better, even fantastic. I stay to put my shoulder to the wheel of positive change where I feel my efforts will produce the most bang for the buck
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D) When folks like newf claim that they they are not the ones that “start” the personal slurs, that is first of all not literally true, and secondly obscures the operant condition — the ENERGY (tone, if you will) of criticism is the driver, not its form. If I were to comment, for instance, on a blog’s report of statement made by a Republican governor that I or the blogger think is lame, by me writing “another example of Republicans lying to themselves”, anyone reading that statement who fancied themselves a Republican, and proud of it, would feel that I was attacking the personal character of the reader.
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E) Now, how that reader REACTS to that feeling is where the buck stops or passes. The reader can knee-jerk react, escalating the dialogue towards direct personal mud-slinging, or count to ten and fashion a response more educational than mine was, devoid of the energy I injected. The responder can even begin with “Gee, sorry you feel that way right now. But what do you think of this other aspect of this blog that I noticed?” Or even go farther: “I understand. Sometimes I have a similar reaction to things I read about or hear from Democrats, too. Of course, it’s easier for me not to make generalizations like that when it is a Republican making a statement I think is lame, and instead focus on the individual who made the statement. So I’ll try to help us both here and focus the discussion in that direction, and maybe you can do the same for both of us when the shoe is on the other foot sometime. How would you describe the inaccuracies in that statement?”
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F) lastly (for now): Again, this medium makes that difficult to do. Perhaps there is another, less cumbersome, more quick technique. Ignoring all negative character comments could be one of them, but somehow I don’t think that is going to happen.

P.S. to 2.5~

Now reading more comments on this thread (below) made while I was typing (I am a SLOW typist), I am reminded of another theme — many of us get enjoyment out of being flippant, doing word play, and correcting word usage and syntax of others’. It helps us fancy ourselves clever. In that process, we don’t work hard at addressing what the commenter was actually trying to say. If the commenter feels lessened in word skill rating, the commenter then attempts to lash out in kind, instead of merely clarifying their original intent. And they are motivated to criticize their critcizer for dissecting their language. All of this detracts from discussing the real issues.
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It seems to me that the 1000 words posts are the appropriate outlet for that fun. Maybe there should be more of them to give it a place to exhaust itself, instead of working on how to oppress it.

For the absent grape_crush, a must-read story of bankster-ism:
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The Checking Account Scam – How Wells Fargo Gouged Its Customers

We’ve often talked here about the bank practice of extracting equity from customer accounts. Now comes a 90 page ruling from Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California against Wells Fargo Bank, showing in detail exactly how the bank engaged in “gouging and profiteering” when it managed customer checking accounts.
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Nor is this one of those polite judicial rulings where the judge waits to the end to conclude whether or nor the defendant engaged in bad behavior. Judge Alsup is biting and nasty throughout his ruling, barely able to hold his disgust at what he concluded was a deliberate attempt by Wells Fargo to profit off a system that trapped customers into overdraft hell…

http://agonist.org/numerian/20100812/the_checking_account_scam_how_wells_fargo_gouged_its_customers
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As a note, this is not supposed to be the kind of thing that our courts must be relied on to remedy after the fact. We’re supposed to have a government that corrects for this entirely predictable corporate behavior before ordinary people lose their hard-earned money to rent-seekers.
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Nor are we supposed to have to wait until a court finds the facts in order to see reporting about a nationwide swindling operation! The press corps should have been capable of drawing public, individual and official attention to ubiquitous harmful practices well in advance of legal action, if they were reporting on what matters to Americans.
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Where is good government? Where is the vigilant press corps?
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Who is watching out for us? Who is on the side of ordinary folks in this country?

and another thing~
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I think it really is OK to present opinions, not just facts. and it really is OK to say one’s opinion comes from such-and-such of a perspective that one has. But if one wants to have one’s opinions respected as the opinions of one person, then one should not try to discredit teh opinions of another by claiming they are not “facts”. it IS a “fact” that they have those opinions.
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Again, we should give some slack in this medium. My posts are evidence that using a lot of words, (like:”It is my opinion that the John Barley’s book about the moon substantiates that the moon is made of green cheese”) instead of writing in short-hand (“The moon is made of green cheese”) is not user-friendly. One does not have to respond to the latter form with “Until you can cite proof that the moon is made of green cheese, STFU.” One can write : “Wow. I don’t know how you came to that conclusion. I feel strongly that the moon is not made of green cheese. I think it is made of rock.”

kbang,
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“She has also suggested that the public be given the chance to get in on the ground floor…”
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As a businessman with over 50 years of business experience, an MBA degree and over 30 years of experience as a CEO of a significant size business, I would not consider this getting in on the ground floor at GM a very good investment. There all thousands of investments that would be a lot better and GM probably will never be the significant factor in the automotive industry that it once was. It could even be an investment that tanks rather ever makes money for the investors.
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“Chrysler posts a Q2 profit as well…”
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Why did you only post 1/2 the Headline?
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“Chrysler reports $183M second quarter operating profit, $172 million loss overall”.

3x:
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re: GM. The article was about providing taxpayers with the opportunity to buy shares of the new GM at IPO prices. If you don’t want to buy ‘em, no one’s stopping you…
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re: 1/2 a headline. It’s called a recovery – signs that the business outlook of a major US company is getting better.
(Q: You’re in a hospital waiting room, after a loved one is recovering from surgery. Would you rather have the doctor tell you, “Heart rate, respiration and B/P are all stable.” Or: “Still unconscious…still unconscious…still unconscious…”)
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Here’s your mug, 3x: http://www.despair.com/pessimistsmug.html

‘Who is watching out for us? Who is on the side of ordinary folks in this country?’
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That’s why it is so critical to have a good person appointed to the new consumer positiion created by Fin Reform.

mycophile: Please give examples of how my postings are anywhere near the negative imputs of groen. I really resent your statement to 3x that I am an unrepentent poster on the same level as the reactionary rightists who post here. I have often posted my appreciation of those Reps I thought were reasonable, I have documented as much as possible. Have I used snark on occassion, much as 3x has, yes I have. If you can’t have a sense of humor than you need to find another hobby.

mycophile,
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“1) Did you consider the possibility that when formerlyjames typed “most free floating right wing anger”, that it a) might be true, and b) would not include you?”
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I already answered this question in an earlier post. If you did not see it let me know and I will find it and give you the location.
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“2) While you and I might both wish for a political system wherein loudly, firmly, and consistently speaking one’s truth was the rule and a virtue, you do recognize, don’t you, that, instead, we have a poisonous system in which gamesmanship if the only means by which one can have any influence. I’m not saying that you (or I) should stop stumping for integrity, but let’s not forget the practical realities. There is a reason why this blog is called Swampland.”
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I’ll have to disagree with you a little on this one. Yes there are dishonest people out there and politicians have more then there fair share of them, but I believe a substantial majority of politicians and people in general are honest and try to do the best job they can.
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There are always around 5% that are not honest and they make a lot of noise and get a lot of attention and appear to represent a larger number than they really are. I do not believe our system is as poisonous as you seem to think.
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You probably will not like to here me say this but it is my perception and opinion that you tend to have a typical liberal view of the world. You perceive evil all around you and think a large number of other people especially politicians and business leaders are dishonest and do not care about anyone but themselves. I think these views about our political system and our free enterprise capitalistic system are what drive liberals in their passions and beliefs. It is why so many choose to hate people who have different views then they do because in their minds the system and the people in leadership roles are evil and therefore anyone who supports our government and economic system must therefore also be evil.
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I’m not saying liberals are bad people. I am saying that their world views tend to make many of them very hateful individuals and they see nothing wrong with that hate.
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“What do you think would happen if the Dems all started being 100% honest but the Repubs did not? And if the outcome was that the Repubs would garner a super-super majority in government, do you think that would be good for this country?”
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Again I think the fact that you would even ask such a question illustrates the points I made in my preceding answer. I believe that a larger percentage of non liberals will be honest. Non liberals do not feel the passion that liberals do about their political opponents being evil.
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Most non liberals believe strongly in the basic good of our country and that it is the best in the world. Too many liberals seem to truly believe “That The End Justifies The Means” since in their mind so many non liberals are evil and that there are so many evil things about our country.
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Non liberals tend to believe that liberals an irrational because of the hatreds espoused by so many of them. Many non liberals are very concerned about the direction that President Obama is taking our country. They feel it is in the direction of socialism and since they see our country as a good and caring country they don’t like what they see in the actions of this administration.
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I expect you will be honest”
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Something you will learn if you maintain an open mind is that I don’t lie. I am a very honest person and will tell you what I think. I may make my share of mistakes but I will not intentionally lie.
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There are people like Patrick that will question what I say and accuse me of lying because I will not give him my name and personal information so that he can verify what I say is true.
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Patrick is only 39 and is not too mature or worldly but God is not done with him yet and he will increase in wisdom over time.

Hope this doesn’t offend micophyle.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/07/bruce_bartlett_deficit_economy_and_vat
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Statement by Bruce Bartlett former advisor to Reagan and Bush Sr.:
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“I am no longer a member of the Rep. Party and longer consider myself part of the ‘consrvative movement’. That is not because I changed but because I believe they have…..the stand for nothing but the pursuit of power as an end in itself with no concern whatsoever for what is right for the country.”
He called the Reps the “greedy, sociopathic party”.

3xfireX@ 2.8
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1)

mycophile: Excuse me if I am not clever enough, but what does your response mean?
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I expend a lot of effort not responding to the rw reactionaries on this site. I find the dialogue with them gets repetitive and non-productive. However, noting your usual postings, I would welcome a dialogue with you. However, I prefer you not brush me with the meme of intolerance for other opinions.

It’s also critical that the person for that position be present and in control while the new agency is being created and setup.
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Oh well…

“You really need a different approach”

You must be trying comedy now. You mean a different approach like you, declare my opinions as facts, declare victory and then proceed you post idiotic posts that make sense in your head only.

I am much more particular about who I eat with and it certainly doesn’t include you. You are nowhere near as brilliant or funny as you think you are. You are much closer to being in serious need of mental help. Try that approach then come talk.

3Xfire3@ 2.8~

1) My comment about expecting you to be honest was sincere. I have not yet perceived you to have been dishonest, and I take people at their word until they demonstrate that to be foolish of me. I have been burned, of course, many times, but I have discovered a few gems that I otherwise might have missed. To write it, however, WAS as a means to encourage you to be thorough in doing so
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2) I’m not sure why you would think that I “probably will not like to here me say this but it is my perception and opinion that you tend to have a typical liberal view of the world.”
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But the only thing I don’t like about it is that it feels to me as if you do not believe that any people who are self-described “conservatives”, nor any people whom other “conservatives” claim as their own, or anyone in any other ideological category has people in it that have the view of the world you describe as being a “liberal” view (and which I will get to in a minute, as applied to me by you.)
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That opinion, to me, is belied by my own experiences, and I have been politically aware, quite gregarious, and quite vocal in the public square for 41 years now, begfnning when I was 16, a member of the Young Americans for Freedom in John Birch Orange County, California, with the likes of John Wayne, Bob Hope, and Richard Nixon on our Board, whom we found to be so hypocritical in the practice of their Politics and politics compared to their Republican platitudes that we began to help form the Libertarian movement and got excommunicated. I used to debate Republicans Democrats, SDSers, and Black Panthers, all at the same time. When the Libertarians began to form a political party, I bailed out, because such a thing is antithetical to Libertarian philosophy.
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I was staunchly aPolitical for 20 years, but intensely political. Many people sought my advice as to how they should vote, and, when it came to voting for elected offices, I advised them based on listening to what mattered to THEM, because otherwise I would have usually advised them to write me in, because none of the candidates on the ballot struck me as properly big-pictured.
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3) Now, all of that, lest it become obscured by my biographing and horn-tooting, was written for the purpose of informing you that I am no ignorant when it comes to the range of views that (at least west coast) Americans have on their governments. My father, by the way, was a two–term City counclior, a two-term county commissioner, and an America-equals-apple-pie, top-security clearanced, world-class computer expert in the belly of the defense industry. I do have a certain perspective from direct and near-direct experiences about the attitudes and tactics of those with great influence on Politicians, and about how those Politicians respond to those influences.
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Yes, it is true that most, just like most lawyers, begin their careers with integrity. Lawyers who think that they are going to be the defenders of justice discover that the game is not really about that — it is about who is the most clever arguer of complex and esoteric other such arguments. Once in the institution, only a few politicians are able to keep the integrity of acting from their ideals intact for long, because their ability to influence the flow of massive financial benefit puts them in the swamp of greed and power. Compromise to maximize gains and minimize losses of advantage and position is the name of the game, not collaboration for the collective good.
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Does that make them evil? No. Though some become so by mutation, and some are already. Most simply become pawns in the games of others. There is a psychological label for a particular type of person called ‘Anti-Social.” Anti-Socials can be spotted by Kindergarten teachers — they are the ones who hit other kids, and when the other kids cry, it doesn’t phase them one bit. They will do it again, and again, and even if they get pummeled by other kids for doing so. They hit whenever they don’t get what they want. Why? Because they have no ability to emphasize. In other words, it does not register that they are hurting another human being. I read studies (20 years ago) that had tracked “Anti-Social” identified children into adulthood. Statistically, a large portion of them became either criminals or politicians.
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Are all politicians Anti-Socials? No. But the ones who are push and push and push and feel no incentive to be nice. We call them “formidable”,”tough”, etc. They are the ones who end up having the most sway over the parts of final languages of legislation that do the real deeds And they are not looking out for you or me, because even when we are the ones buying them, it is themselves they are looking out for. Like mercenaries.
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Do I hate them? No. Do I have no illusions about them? Well, maybe I do, but I have no illusions that they are working in my best interest. I don’t have enough economic clout, and my interests are not those of the “growth” model of consumerism or empire.
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I know,and have known, numerous politicians to whom doing the best job for the commoners and the noble ideals of America is, and was, extremely important. Most abandoned politics — it was too dirty of a business and too hard of a fight. Those that remain find ways to live with having to go along with things which they feel are harmful to those commoners and ideals, in order to have any influence over mitigating future attacks upon them.
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4) I find, in your characterizations of the make-up of the mindsets of “liberals” and “conservatives”, that you paint the “liberal” field with a similar broad brush as you accuse me of using in my assumptions about the “conservative” and “economic system”. I invite you to carefully analyze what you wrote in that regard. I shall not attempt to walk you through that.
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5) You say that “Non liberals do not feel the passion that liberals do about their political opponents being evil . . .. Too many liberals seem to truly believe “That The End Justifies The Means. . . Their world views tend to make many of them very hateful individuals and they see nothing wrong with that hate.. . . in their minds the system and the people in leadership roles are evil and therefore anyone who supports our government and economic system must therefore also be evil.”
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Funny, though, now that you mention it, my experiences of “conservatives” has indeed been that there are many who do consider their political opponents to be “evil”, and many more who see them as low-life enough, dangerous enough, and freeloading enough to be worthy of ceasing to exist, and/or deportation. Notice I did not say all or even the vast majority — I don’t have enough data to judge that true or false. And I would readily say that it has been my experience that too many “conservatives” have seemed to truly believe that the ends justify the means, and that their world views tend to make many of them very hateful individuals and see nothing wrong with that hate. Ever lived in a backwoods, redneck logging town sporting long hair and a “Save the Old Growth” bumper sticker while the timber industry was laying them off as per plans made 20 years prior due to a business plan to cut trees faster than they could regrow, but using the media and their boughten politicians to spread the story that it was all the environmentalists’ fault?
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Allowing you to view me in your “liberal” camp for a minute, I did not write or mean “evil”, I wrote “we have a poisonous system in which gamesmanship if the only means by which one can have any influence.” Now, that was not as well written as it could have been for greater accuracy, but it matters not, because the theme I was emphasizing got emphasized. You just happened to change it in your mind from “poisonous” to “evil”. I am in the wild mushroom business. To me, “poisonous” does not mean “evil”, It doesn’t even mean “fatal”. Most often, it means it will make you sick to your stomach and involve a lot of sh!t

6) my question of you about what you thought about the effects on our country would be if the Republican Party were to obtain a super-super majority in the federal governing offices was NOT about what would happen if the percentage of evil people or liars or crooks were to become a super-super majority. I think you interpreted it that way because of your bias about what my view of Republicans and Democrats were.
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My question was about what you think would happen if the Republicans who are power-hungry, selfish, and favoritism-bestowers had only those Republicans that were not as any kind of counterweight to them? Even though you misperceived my question, you did provide me with the means to construct one for you — You think that there then would be a greater proportion of honest politicians in the Federal government, and that would solve everything
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Well, I don’t. Because there would still be the questions of would the honest ones be enough to thwart the dishonest? Would honesty be enough to result in good laws and policies? I could be President, be a died-in-the-wool Hitler, with my Goering as my Security agency Czar, sign an Executive Order giving him supreme authority over the FBI and CIA and all the secret ones, and open Gitmo prisons by the score, and have enough of my jack-booted friends in the legislature to keep the good guys from being able to override my orders, and tell everybody straight to their faces what I stand for, and still I would be poisonous to America.
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Of course that is an extreme exaggeration of anything remotely possible, but its point is the same. I wish I could have thought of a different example, because that one has a lot of charge in today’s mud-slinging I guess I am tiring (ge, I wonder why?) How about, then, if Obama were to say he admits that he really does believe we should be Socialist, and all the Dems in Congress came out and said so too. Would that change anything about what they could or could not do that they already have done? Were Republican votes needed? Would it now be good for America in your eyes because they were being honest about it?

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@ 11.1~
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I hit a wrong key somehow. The real post is @ 2.9
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I will now respond to your 9, and then 10

First of all, since I did not even imagine that your posts were anywhere near those of groen’s in character, either I mis-composed our you mis interpreted, or something.
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Even though I hesitated to reference you with any hint of slur-style, because my gut told me you were not in the club, I did choose to slightly include you (and include myslef) But I also did not want to open myself up to be discredited for falsely characterizing you as wholly exempt. The best thing to do in that case would have been for me to go back to Good For Farseed and look more carefully at your posts than in my first read of the blog, and construct a more sure characterization.
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It was a calculated risk, in the interest of time. I am on Pacific Time, patrick told me once that puts me at a disadvantage as a latecomer in comment, and I feel it due to my length of post style and slow typing skills.
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The way you pointed out your objections to how I treated you already confirms my gut feelings about you — iI may have become intellectually confused by the way that newf, earl, groen, etc. respond to your posts. I will now do the penance and do the post-publish review.
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I will be gone for a while reading GFF again, and then my post upon it.
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That I would be concerned, and express so, about you complaining that I falsely represented you, and spend the time to review myself and report, is, of course, one of the behaviors I find lacking in such folks as free and newf and 2th, etc. I think 3x has exhibited a moment or two of chagrin at possibly having acted thusly, and I know I have seen one or two from patrick, but I certainly don’t recall any reaction from others who were called out for that kind of thing. What I recall is a lot of re-explanation about they were right in the first place somehow.
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If they see my contrition as weak, liberal waffling, I guess they will succeed for a moment in getting me to say that if wanting to and owning up to hurting someone’s feelings unnecessarily, and apologizing for it, makes one a “liberal” in their eyes, then I resemble that remark.

I changed my mind. I am reviewing my own post first
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I find two paragraphs where you are referenced:

1) “everyone (except for groen, and apr) may not be able to let go of being unpolite (to use a general term for various forms of unproductive discourse tone) unless all others will. (It feels like apr could easily and groen couldn’t ever)

This says what I meant it to say, but maybe easy to confuse
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Everyone may not be able to let go of being impolite.
There are two exceptions to this blanket statement
One is apr and one is groen.
apr is an exception to the rule because it feels like she could easily let go of being impolite
groen is an exception to the rule because grown couldn’t ever let go of being imnpolite.
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2) “Almost all, and certainly both you and patrick, often do not carefully read one another’s words, often respond to what the read triggers in the reader’s thoughts without first asking the writer to clarify, upon most forms of subsequent clarification by the writers still yet respond again from the reader’s original interpretation, and do not act like they TRULY respect one another’s life perspectives as valid. (again, I find apr to strike me in these ways far less than others, and groen provides not enough data for me to be sure”
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This too, says what I meant to say, and is probably less easily confused, but is more sloppy
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my sense is that apr does not do these things anywhere near as much as others do
i haven’t seen enough of groen to be sure, but I don’t have the same sense I have of him as I do of apr
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#) Now I will go to GFF and see if I can refine my perceptions for apr for the record

Actually, i loved it.
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I’m going to send it to my father.
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It concerns me that you might have meant by your comment “Hope this doesn’t offend micophyle.” that you would worry about how I would treat you in dialogue. That would be a very unfortunate outcome of my use of you in reference in my 2.5

mycophile,
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“I think it really is OK to present opinions, not just facts. and it really is OK to say one’s opinion comes from such-and-such of a perspective that one has. But if one wants to have one’s opinions respected as the opinions of one person, then one should not try to discredit teh opinions of another by claiming they are not “facts”. it IS a “fact” that they have those opinions.”
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Good Post.
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Way too many people think theirs or some other sources opinions or perceptions are a facts. This confusion between fact and perception/opinion causes a majority of the anger and disagreements between people on the right and left.
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Often people want to believe something so badly that they claim it is fact when there is no proof then it is more then an opinion or perception.
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Look at the case of Dan Rather. He wanted his views of Bush to be true so much that he was willing to risk his carior on unsubstantiated information.
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90% of what people on this site claim to be facts are really only perception/opinions, but in their hearts they think and want it to be true.
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The left makes all kinds of comments about Bush they claim to be true but they can not prove it except by sighting sources that can not be proved either.
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The right does the same thing about Obama. Neither side has real provable facts 90% of the time.
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I agree opinions are OK to use. We all need to realize that we are really using opinion not provable facts.
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10% of the time we are using real facts.
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If we debited the issues, understanding we are really using opinions, and then did our best to show why our opinion makes sense we would all learn a lot more and have real debates rather then all these Pis*ing Contest that no one really wins. All we do is call each other names for not see each others views. Nothing of any merit gets accomplished.
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For something to be a fact it must be a provable truth.
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For something to be true it must meet all three of the following criteria:
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1. It must be true.
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2. It must be the whole truth.
This is the one point that gets everybody in trouble. Comments or videos taken out of context or partial truths and therefore are not truths.
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3. And nothing but the truth.
Meaning you can’t give a bunch of BS to try and influence whether something is truth or not.
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If something doesn’t meet all three of these criteria’s it is not truth.
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I have had liberals on this site say that something doesn’t have to meet all three of these criteria to be truth. I then informed them that this is the oath we use in a court of law to determine truth.

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The Left shows their true stripes on this one.
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Not one person on the Left at swampland has said anything to condemn this hateful person for wishing that a prominent person of the other political party had been killed.
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If a Conservative or a member of the Tea Party had made such a comment about a Democratic Leader, the left would be demanding that all conservatives condemn this person and claim many other conservatives probably shared this same evil view.
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I have a real problem with this Hypocrisy of the Left. That they can think that their actions are OK in these situations makes one wonder how they can sleep at night.
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How can you guys and gals justify this totally irrational hateful behavior? You continue to claim that Conservatives are the evil ones and your actions prove that you have found the enemy and it is you.

apr2563 @9~
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Whoops. Bad dog. It looks like I added up a few little sticks and it felt like a pile big enough to light a fire with.
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I found only one comment from you on Good For Farseed, that had only one sentence in it that I consider to have any degree of denigration, and it is very mild.
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In my inexperience, haste, etc, I think I confused momentomori’s handle with yours in my mind, took mom’s 5 comments there, with only one sentence with any denigrating aspect to it, and put all those pieces in the same bag with yours.
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And you both otherwise not only avoided getting dysfunctionally riled up, you refrained from taking bait. And, as you, apr have done in other posts, mom also encouraged others not to feed the fish.
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So, it seems I have done you both a disservice.
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I hope this email will set the record straight wherever it matters to do so.
——————————————————————————.

The following, then is a related, but separate matter, for completeness. It is as much as I can make out of what degree of denigration I picked up on in your post there. Let me be clear, it is not a complaint, and you may disagree with any or all of it or find it making a mountain out of a mole hill, when I see it more as making an anthill out of a molehill, but you deserve an answer to your request of me to please give you examples, although, as I hope I have already explained, there is no way that it even gets off the ground to where groen traveled.
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You began your post with a claim that “Not responding directly to the right wing reactionaries lets them talk to their own unsubstantiated paranoia.”
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.Let’s imagine a person reading it with the following profile:
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a) They consider themselves “right wing”
b) They are or are not paranoid of something
c) Regardless, they do have a reason to be opposed to a construction project. Perhaps bigotry, perhaps cultural elitism, hatred, fear, or anything else
d) They don’t want to admit that reason
e) So they profess to have another. Maybe it’s even true.
f) When accused of being disingenuous, they adamantly deny that they have any other reason than the one they stated
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Now accused of having unsubstantiated paranoia, here is how they react:
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f) they hear “unsubstantiated” and are immediately reminded of their disingenuity. They must again publicly deny it
g) even a paranoid does not believe they are paranoid, because that is a state of mental disorder, so, paranoid or not, they now have an excuse to channel their impulse to deny truth into outrage at being acused of mental disorder
h) They recognize that their urge feels quite reactionary
i) Now, they are compelled to, even more vehemently than ever, deny any and all elements of your statement
j) but, other than repeating only the original disingenuous claim, they now must also deny their new reactionary feeling
k) there are only two ways to do that – baffle ‘em w/ BS, like those bastards patrick and myco do (.), or cry “foul” and foul ‘em back harder in the same way claiming to to have been fouled, to provide the impression that, see, it really was a foul because otherwise why would it have hurt me so bad that I would hurt you back in the same way?
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Then there is on more piece to it. The phrase “right wing reactionaries” is commonly known to be commonly used as a put-down. So, while you sentence could just as easily been interpreted as saying: “Not responding directly to some right wing people who happen to also be of the percentage that are reactionaries lets them talk to themselves so that one does not get drawn into their reactionary dynamics”, it is, instead, more likely to be interpreted as making a generalization that all right wing persons are reactionaries. That provides them with yet another angle from which to respond in attack mode.

However, to someone who considered themselves to be right wing, and who is also someone with a reason to be in opposition to something but has been denying that they have that reason, it would be quite provocative, eliciting charges of denigration via false accusation,

that little (.) was supposed to be a smile. don’t know what happened

3man, can’t you please stop it with the Left and Right stuff?
C’mon, get a grip. You did SO good @ 12 with presenting that fallacies no no political boundaries.
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And don’t you know we are all Hypocrites, only some of are more so, and a lot of us don’t can’t understand how it is we are being seen as such?
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A better way of discoursing, such as you and I advocate (and you just town-cried for @ 12!), yet we both fail to consistently apply, has to happen as a movement, and movements start with one or two people and then grow. In this case, there are already at least two regulars here with far better track records of at that better way than either you or I are, so we don’t even have to take on the whole burden of always counting to ten in order to persevere to git’ it started. And several other people have opined that they would like it too, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get them to follow a crowd.
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I know some stuff sticks in your craw. But that’s the kind of problem the Palestinians and the Israelis have. Don’t we want to do better? And who are the adults here, wise elder? I guarantee you there will never be a better dynamic on Swampland if you relapse too often. The youngsters will emulate. We need more and more examples of sustained respect if its gonna’ happen. Maybe this will help: turn the other cheek.

Thanks Stuart for filling in for grape’s invaluable contributions to this blog, (hope he comes back) you too make your own outstanding contributions– but it’s nice to see others help fill grape’s important role.

Thanks for this great link, I’ve had issues with other banks–about the same things and reading the comments from the article you reference, hmmm, there’s definitely an ongoing theme with many banks—both large and small. The one caveat is to know ones not in this alone.

——————————–

It seems the world in general has become so impersonal–especially because of mega corporations and those very few citizens of the world who become super-rich because of the way they structure their corporation’s policies and customer service and how this impacts the vast majority of people–and because of the politicians who enable these mega-corporations and the press corps who turn a blind eye to the goings on.

I remember after 9/11 and the response by Bush & Co. The incoherent reasoning for the Iraq war for one. I remember telling my advising professor at the time— “they’re going to take the money and run”, not knowing who exactly I meant, but just a sense that it would happen, and I see it has pretty much come to fruition.

Just several weeks ago I had a huge issue with one of the airlines and I very seriously doubt it was just an infrequent and isolated incident. One miss click online and I accidentally purchased 2 tickets for a grand over what my intent was! So I immediately call customer service and it took forever to get a real person, then it was someone who had a very difficult time communicating in English (and yes I do feel empathy for these outsourced employees, after all, all they are doing is trying to make a living). So, they gave me wrong info that I would be reimbursed in 10-13 business days, so I wait patiently for that time, just to call back and have another out-sourced employee tell me no, I had to apply for a refund on line, wait 7-10 business days to see if my refund was “approved” and if I am fortunate enough to be, I will get my over-charge removed in 1-2 billing cycles.

Immediately after I made the error, (I called the customer service rep, I corrected it to the economy class, flew economy class) I went to my bank two days in a row (guess who? WF who also reassured me they would take care of it if the airline did not). Now I had a go around with them in which their customer service rep says their department doesn’t do that and I tell them, “Well my personal banker told me you would, and all I get back is, “Well you’ll have to go back to the personal banker, our department has a policy that will not do anything about a customer initiated transaction on-line”. All this for one false click. Wow. I now wish I would have done it the old-fashioned way–go to the airport and purchase the tickets in person. But gee, we’re told how convenient it is for us to do everything on-line. So impersonal, so easy for the higher-ups and policy makers to hide behind all these intricate, complex and disingenuous maneuverings.

I don’t hold these employees responsible (after they are just doing what they are told and they probably need their jobs)

Usually my biggest complaint with the mega corporations and the super-rich is that they have outsourced jobs for their own financial gains and have left middle-class US citizens and down with no prospect for decent jobs–but giving incredibly poor service and out and out ripping the American public off and…. the whole world for that matter is just getting so disheartening.

Seriously, the world population was estimated to be about 700 million in 1776 and now it is over 6 billion. As our world gets smaller and more convenient with super-technology, it also makes it much more easy for these mega-unethical, mega-rich corporations to make it real inconvenient for us regular folks to deal with them, yet we have little choice but to.

So what is there to do?

To add to my 8.3 comment how I unintentionally made the false click:

I was scanning my flight info vertically, to make sure it was correct, and hit the accept button. When I saw my mistake, I went back and saw that in small writing at the bottom (horizontally) it asked if I wanted to upgrade to premium. Yes, I made a mistake, which I then corrected, but I think they use a very visually tricky marketing maneuver, as I’ve talked with others who have made the same mistake. I guess I didn’t read the fine print on page 34 of their terms and conditions that if you make one false click and correct it through customer service you are still responsible to pay for: the economy seat you used, plus the first-class seat you and someone else paid for. My bad.

mycophile,
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Thanks for you detailed post 2.9. I have printed it off and will write an answer later today as I have some honey do projects I must do first if I don’t want to sleep on the coach tonight.

mycophile,
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“3man, can’t you please stop it with the Left and Right stuff?
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C’mon, get a grip. You did SO good @ 12 with presenting that fallacies no no political boundaries.
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And don’t you know we are all Hypocrites, only some of are more so, and a lot of us don’t can’t understand how it is we are being seen as such?”
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Please reread my post 13.
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As a man of faith, I have a real problem with the fact that liberals on this site made no effort to condemn a hideous statement like this. Its one thing to disagree with someone politically but to celebrate one persons death and wish another person had died, with their only sin being they had a different political view, “”is way way over the Top.””
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That people on this site sit there and feel no need to condemn this act is morally wrong. This is the point I made in my prior post about hatred of people we disagree with being politically being totally wrong.

3x@ 13,2
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I re-read it
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I still feel the same way, only now, with you additional comments, I have some more, too.
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1) I was not, and still am not, familiar with the comments you reference, other than now your report concerning them. And I am not going to take the time to research them.
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I am not a “liberal”, nor a “person on the Left”. But, since you think am, perhaps I can provide you some satisfaction.
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If some Democrat, Liberal Leftie said that they wished that a prominent person of the Republican Party, Conservative, Rightie, or Loonie, had been killed, I condemn not only that statement, but that attitude.
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2) May I now count on you to do likewise the next time a similar comment is made regarding a Democrat/Liberal/Leftie?
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You might not have to wait very long. I saw a post, I believe of momontori’s not long ago that quoted, I believe, newfreedomblog or freeinpa as having posted on Swampland something like:”I have an idea for you. Why don’t you eat sh1t and die quickly?”
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3) I emphasize now that it was completely unnecessary for you to single out the “Hypocrisy of the Left”. Perhaps if you had, instead, pleaded wih all Swamplanders to condemn the comment, and you did do every time you saw such a comment, and you left out any reference to t the political affiliation of either its author or its subject, you might find a plethora of condemners in response.

I found it
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endoftherope, at 12.3 on Obama Breaks his Silence, commented to newfreedomblog: “Please remove “freedom” from your name, it really shouldn’t be there.”
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In response, newfreedonblog@12.4:
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“How about this idea, why don’t you just simply eat $hit and die quickly??? Of course that is just my opinion too. Enjoy!!”

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/13/obama-breaks-his-silence-on-cordoba-house/#comments#ixzz0wdJY2UK1
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Don’t bother trying to argue that this was not a comment made to a TV reporter about a prominent politician that had not just criticized the commenter. I know that. I also know that to state a wish for the death of someone who has not demonstrated any interest in violent behavior, even in jest, is inappropriate, at best.
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And you know that, too
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But no Democrat/Liberal/Leftie Swamplanders (nor you) took newfreedomblog’s comment to task “condemning this hateful person”. I don’t know about you, but I suspect the reason others did not do so was because they already know he is a condemable, hateful person, and that to point it out in response would do no more to change anyone’s mind about newfreedomblog, nor whether endoftherope deserved to die, nor any other reality, than newfreedomblog’s own words already have or will.
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But, for you to remain silent risks you having to wonder if you should not have cast the first stone