patrick.net

There should be absolutely no restrictions on gun ownership.

Abortion on demand.

If I marry my canary, then eat the resultant eggs is it considered abortion or breakfast?

God is real! And he's a Republican!

(now we have all three...God, Guns, n' Gays!)

SoftShell says

If I marry my canary, then eat the resultant eggs is it considered abortion or breakfast?

Life begins at constipation.

Dan8267 says

There comes a point when the best thing you can do to save face is to simply admit that you were fooled by the lies of Fox News and demonstrate that you have learned something and won't listen to their lies anymore. To express doubt that the lie is really a lie, is to tell the world that you are still so stupid as to believe the lie even after it has been thoroughly exposed.

That was your out, but you double down on a clearly wrong position.

zzyzzx says

Using your chart, welfare is 19 + 9 = 28% welfare, and only 13% for defense. And this is only at the federal level. At the state level there is almost no defense spending and boatloads of welfare spending. I'm sure that Obamaphones aren't in the welfare section of your pie chart either.

1. The chart shows welfare spending is 9%, not 28%. It cannot be clearer.
2. The chart is for all spending federal, state, and local as it clearly states on the top.

3. There are no such things as Obama phones. The program you hypocritical conservatives bitch about, the SafeLink program, was started in 2008 under the George Walker Bush Administration. You know, this asshole.

So blame Bush for that $2.1 billion a year spent on Bush phones.

4. Bushphones aren't a part of the Welfare program. They are paid for by Universal Service Fund and are not at all funded by the income tax.

5. But at least one can make the case that Bush phones alleviate poverty and make it more likely the poor will get jobs. Compare that to the tens of billions of dollars wasted on the F-35 fighter or the half a billion spent on tanks the army doesn't want for fighting the Soviets in 1982. People in the Warfare industry are the biggest welfare queens.

Nonetheless, I have no problem getting rid of the Bushphones. However, as I've shown once again, all the expenses you mentioned are utter fucking insignificant compared to the tax payer money wasted on the warfare industry. Unless you're willing to slash that budget, you are a hypocrite regarding government spending and taxation. And so far, you keep dodging what really is wasting our taxpayer dollars.

zzyzzx says

freak80 says

So who are the freeloaders? The "welfare bums"? Or Buffett and friends who do nothing but collect the profits reaped from the labor of the rest of us?

Someone who pays 25% federal income taxes and a bunch more for state income and property taxes is not my definition of a freeloader.

He most certainly is if he has produced no wealth and has acquired his income by siphoning off the labor of others.

SoftShell says

So according to you almost 100% of the population does not work.

Obviously not. You decided to define "lazy" as "not wanting to work" rather than "not willing to work". Your mistake, not mine. I'm simply demonstrating that when it comes to making legislation, you must define your terms specifically and accurately. Put some thought into it or your legislation will not do what you intended. This happens all the time.

zzyzzx says

freak80 says

Whoa, how did this thread turn into a "gay war" thread?

One of Dan8267's posts a page back.

SoftShell says

Someone 'dared' to disagree with Uncle Dan, and once he gets started it usually ends up here....

freak80 says

Whoa, how did this thread turn into a "gay war" thread?

Those two responses so perfectly illustrate how conservatives refuse to acknowledge reality when it conflicts with their ideology even if the proof of their incorrectness is so easily obtained just by scrolling up.

This thread turned into a "gay war" because Shrek, er Softshell, went off topic

Marriage use to mean a union of man and woman. Now you can mate with your canary under the term.

I refuted his nonsense succinctly and then suggested opening a new thread to continue the argument if he so wished.

Finally, if you want to debate the legal or moral legitimacy of marriage, let's open a new thread. I'll take on anyone in this subject.

However, instead of taking the discussion into another thread, Shrek decided to start spewing anti-homosexual propaganda in this thread. Yet, I'm the one to blame for this thread getting off track? Nothing gets inside that conservative bubble.

Dan8267 says

1. The chart shows welfare spending is 9%, not 28%. It cannot be clearer.

2. The chart is for all spending federal, state, and local as it clearly states on the top.

Of course welfare spending is low if you don't count Obamaphones, food stamps, section 8 housing, paid utilities, medicare, medicaid, and a few more welfare programs that most people think of as welfare, Sure the actual cash payments are low, but the benefits are many times more what they get in cash. You need to take all the medicare and medicaid and count it as welfare, because it is. There is way more to welfare than cash payments!

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-240.html
Welfare benefits are especially generous in large cities. Welfare provides the equivalent of an hourly pretax wage of $14.75 in New York City, $12.45 in Philadelphia, $11.35 in Baltimore, and $10.90 in Detroit. For the hard-core welfare recipient, the value of the full range of welfare benefits substantially exceeds the amount the recipient could earn in an entry-level job. As a result, recipients are likely to choose welfare over work, thus increasing long-term dependence.

Table 1 shows the total value of welfare relative to work by state.(8) (The appendix contains a detailed summary of the compilations and results for each state.) The full package of welfare benefits actually provides recipients with incomes above the poverty level in every state. There is a wide disparity among the states regarding the attractiveness of welfare. The value of the total package of benefits relative to a job providing the same after-tax income ranges from a high of $36,400 in Hawaii to a low of $11,500 in Mississippi. In eight jurisdictions--Hawaii, Alaska, Massachusetts, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island--welfare pays at least the equivalent of a $25,000 a year job.

welfare got booted from the "farm bill" ... and that put a spot light on welfare. But, the friggin farm bill is welfare too. Arrrggggg!!!

The difference is this, welfare that takes from producers and creates cosumers is a very bad thing, where as welfare that helps consumers by helping producers, like the farm bill, is less evil. Kinda.

zzyzzx says

Of course welfare spending is low if you don't count Obamaphones, food stamps, section 8 housing, paid utilities, medicare, medicaid, and a few more welfare programs that most people think of as welfare,

The data I sourced clearly includes food stamps, section 8 housing, and all other parts of actual welfare. I've shown both federal spending and total government spending at all levels. Medicare and Medicaid are expensive because Republicans blocked real health care reform for the past twenty years, and they'll continue to be expensive until the Republican Party wields no power. And Obamaphones, are, as I've shown, really Bushphones.

The bottom line is that Fox News blatantly lied to you because Fox News thinks you are stupid enough to fall for their lives. Unfortunately, they are right. Even worse, when someone confronts you with the truth that you are being used like a fool by those jackasses at Fox, instead of getting pissed of at those jackasses, you try to continue to twist reality into contortions to avoid admitting the truth that your source of information is really a source of deliberate misinformation.

The truth is that the warfare industry has been the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars and the biggest welfare queens for the past fifty to seventy years. Yes, people like me who are really concerned about government spending would cut welfare, Social Security, and Medicare, but those of us who are sincere about cutting government spending will always start with the biggest waste, the war industry. When balancing any budget, you slash the biggest and most irresponsible waste of money first, and that has been the war industry for at least over half a century.

The fact is, you pseudo-financial-conservatives don't want to cut government spending at all. You just want to transfer it from welfare and social safety nets to the war industry. In other words, you don't mind people sucking from the government teat, as long as it’s the right kind of people. Obamaphones sounds like lazy black people getting stuff. What you really want are all those nice lazy white people in red states getting cushy government jobs that produce no wealth -- hell, actually destroys wealth -- but pay a damn lot, can't be outsourced, and aren't going to get downsized. Welfare is for black people, whereas no-bid government defense contracts are for good old country boys. I got news for you. Those defense contracts are welfare.

You aren't concerned about government spending. You just want that spending done on your people, your tribe, not someone else's. And that is hypocrisy.

Dan8267 says

He most certainly is if he has produced no wealth and has acquired his income by siphoning off the labor of others.

Buffet would have been wiped out in 2008 if it hadn't been for the criminal taxpayer bailouts. I'd take 90% capital gains for everybody if you make my investments guaranteed failproof in return, but not for others ;)

Everybody likes to think their company would have been the last one to fall. But there are plenty of companies outside of the FIRE sector with no or little debt who would have just kept on churning. Not to mention the sudden buying power of all the people with no debt, savers, responsible business owners (there are more of those running their business debt free than you think), prospective house buyers not looking to take on 30 years of debt. The world would have continued fine without Buffet, GS, AIG, JMP and other TBTFs. Yes, it was criminal, as it crushed the middle class at the expense of the connected wealthy.

Dan8267 says

The data I sourced clearly includes food stamps, section 8 housing, and all
other parts of actual welfare.

I must disagree here, Dan. Many forms of welfare are hid hither and yon. It is hid in education, medical, farm, EPA, FDA, ect ect. Lots of "programs" out there that fall under the gerenal term of "welfare". Meaning, "personally getting a good or service that is paid for, in whole or in part, by someone else through taxation."

Bap33 says

Dan8267 says

The data I sourced clearly includes food stamps, section 8 housing, and all

other parts of actual welfare.

I must disagree here, Dan. Many forms of welfare are hid hither and yon. It is hid in education, medical, farm, EPA, FDA, ect ect. Lots of "programs" out there that fall under the gerenal term of "welfare". Meaning, "personally getting a good or service that is paid for, in whole or in part, by someone else through taxation."

Prove positive that too much fox is worse for your brain than drug addiction.

Nominated for the nuttiest post of the year. The EPA and FDA are a form of welfare? What sort of welfare comes from the EPA for christ sakes. By your definition air traffic control and the weather service is welfare. GE didn't pay a cent of taxes last year but got billions from the government. Since corporations are people that makes GE the biggest welfare recipient in the country.

But Fox News tells me The Truth (tm)!!

As Bap and zzyzzx demonstrate, Fox News watchers are like battered wives who deny that their husbands beat them, and if confronted with indisputable evidence, will say that they must have done something to deserve it.

I got a new theme song for Fox News...

God I feel like hell tonight
The tears of rage I cannot fight
I'd be the last to help you understand
Are you dumb enough to be my man

Lie to me I promise I'll believe,
but please don't leave.

SoftShell says

Dick jokes are being warehoused here.

http://patrick.net/?p=1229249

Try to keep up....

Dan8267 says

2. You cannot marry a canary under any adopted or proposed marriage equality laws. As for mating with your canary, well, I wouldn't be surprised if you were size-appropriate for that.

Dan certainly likes his dick jokes, doesn't he? Stuff like that never gets old to Dan.

Homeboy says

Dan certainly likes his dick jokes, doesn't he? Stuff like that never gets old to Dan.

Most of homophobia is caused by insecurity in one's own dick.

bob2356 says

What sort of welfare comes from the EPA for christ sakes.

um, well, here in mexifornia's central valley, if you have a diesel powered ag pump or generator that is over 74hp and is older than X years, there is a PROGRAM that gives you MONEY towards replacing your old smoggy engines. That money for that engine comes from where?

(I did not mean to put FDA, I meant USDA, but screwed up - I honestly was thinking "food and dairy" for some reason) anyways, USDA has $0 down loans for house buyers here in the central mexifornia valley. And gives free milk to kids in school.

As for the real FDA, it seems they spend your Fed taxes on stuff for others -- kinda: Here is a portion of the story:
""" What does this cost? McKinsey has signed contracts for more than $17 million for work at the FDA since 2008 including $10 million in 2010, according to FedSpending.org. And Feldman's firm has contracts worth $7.9 million, the paper writes.

Helen Winkle, whose office oversees the generic-drug division, tells the paper that going to Antietam was so useful she visited twice. The lesson was about "just trying to get people to understand better how to lead their staff here," she says, although three employees in the division, who requested anonymity, says the seminars didn't contribute to solving specific problems in the division.

As for McKinsey contract, Winkle says the firm found that about half of the 2,000 pending drug applications were still sitting with drugmakers that hadn't responded to FDA questions. But Joe Barton, who is the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is not impressed. "Why on earth are FDA managers spending money for a consultant to tell them why they have a backlog of generic drug applications?" he asks. That's a good question.""""

seems like maybe FDA has some cash to toss around, but I'll keep looking.

bob2356 says

By your definition air traffic control and the weather service is welfare.

lol .... you put the straw in strawman on this one. If they are SUBSIDIZED, then you bet, they are welfare supported. But, they provide general services to the masses, not individuals gaining access to goods or services they did not pay for, so, like the farm welfare, it is less crappy.

Dan8267 says

Fox News watchers are like battered wives who deny that their husbands beat them, and if confronted with indisputable evidence, will say that they must have done something to deserve it.

Replace the word "husbands" with "God" and it sounds a lot like the religion I was raised in.

So when is defending the original definition of the word 'marriage' by using a canary as an example interpreted as 'spewing anti-homosexual propaganda'?
You are one paranoid SOB....

Dan8267 says

However, instead of taking the discussion into another thread, Shrek decided to start spewing anti-homosexual propaganda in this thread.

Really? The link you posted talks about marriage between man, woman, and a canary. No mention of homosexual marriage or 'gay war'. Yet you insist on thrusting gayness into the mix. Why is this? Are you feeling left out?

Seriously, go to walmart, cheap eyeglass section, pick out a new pair....Your fog will lift.

Dan8267 says

This thread turned into a "gay war" because Shrek, er Softshell, went off topic

Please point to the offending phrase that you interpret as "anti-homosexual propaganda". I want to see the origins of paranoia, as well as this fictitious character you call 'shrek'...

Dan8267 says

However, instead of taking the discussion into another thread, Shrek decided to start spewing anti-homosexual propaganda in this thread.

Reading some of his posts, it was not apparent at first, but i'm starting to see the pattern....

Homeboy says

Dan certainly likes his dick jokes, doesn't he? Stuff like that never gets old to Dan.

Jesus Christ...can we start talking about the liver for a while???

Dan8267 says

Homeboy says

Dan certainly likes his dick jokes, doesn't he? Stuff like that never gets old to Dan.

Most of homophobia is caused by insecurity in one's own dick.