patrick.net

Karma payback is a biatch:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/asia/3-walmart-suppliers-made-goods-in-bangladeshi-factory-where-112-died-in-fire.html?_r=0

"In a related matter, two officials who attended a meeting held in Bangladesh in 2011 to discuss factory safety in the garment industry said on Wednesday that the Walmart official there played the lead role in blocking an effort to have global retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve their electrical and fire safety."

I'm big on law and order, but I have no sympathy for Walmart.

I agree: we desperately need entitlement reform.

1) we need to end entitlements for the top 0.1%, a.k.a. their ultra-low tax rate of 15%. Those parasites contribute nothing to society, they simply sit back and collect the fruits of everyone else's labor.

2) we need to end entitlements for defese contractors. Those parasites contribute nothing to society, other than killing brown people overseas.*

*I realize that killing brown people overseas is a high priority for the far-right, but it's really not all that productive.

errc says

Now that's a good one! Walmart will turn down their life blood?

A rent seeker, turning their backs on a rent tap?

THAT'LL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN

Which is why these companies shouldn't be left to their own devices.

errc says

Oh dear, he called the shit, poop!

Hey--even if you slightly misquoted it, I have to give you credit for the excellent movie reference.

Nah...maybe half a paperback....

Bigsby says

The fact he didn't reply to it speaks volumes.

Bigsby says

He is very deadpan though. It's pretty easy to take what he says literally if you forget what he really thinks.

True. I guess that's why someone came up with the term "Poe's Law."

Yes, I know about the quote. I just happen to disagree with the idea behind it, which is often interpreted as theories are useless and cannot reflect true reality. I like to give the opposing viewpoint.

You know what I think? They should stop funding the freeway system. Want to know why? Because I heard a story about a few select people who were "abusing the system". They were driving their cars all over it and that to me is a waste of my tax dollars! The freeway is another example of government waste. Nevermind that I and everyone else actually uses it every single day and that my taxes are used to keep it paved and driveable to and from my job, its all a big conspiracy of big gubbermint!!!

My favorite quote from the article:

"There is no way to predict the price of stocks and bonds over the next few days or weeks,"

I certainly wasn't on the panel, but I bet one of the reasons he got the prize is that he is not a total media whore yes man. He has spoken out against the trend regardless of whether or not it came true. Please see quote above.

edvard2 says

You know what I think? They should stop funding the freeway system. Want to know
why? Because I heard a story about a few select people who were "abusing the
system".

Even worse. A buddy of mine said that he knew a guy that drove through a toll without paying.

Dan8267 says

time dilation

From what I'd heard, Quasars, the most energetic and furthest away objects did not depict time dilation effects and thus, there's still evidence to be gathered, to complete the relativity effect. But you're correct, scientific theories have a framework from which to develop experimental paradigms, economics doesn't.

Time dilation is definitely a thing. The GPS satellite clocks have a rolling adjustment to compensate for both general and special relativistic effects.

upisdown says

So now Wal Mart is going to quit accepting SNAP payments?

LOL, I know, the whole point of the OP was to inflame some people and denigrate others. It's just that there's hardly a human alive that will feel any sympathy for Wal Mart.

Total fail.

The funny thing is: WalMart won't lose a penny - it will all be paid back to them by government. So I'm not sure what exactly are you celebrating here: if you're a taxpayer, you're paying for this party.

Straw Man says

The funny thing is: WalMart won't lose a penny - it will all be paid back to
them by government. So I'm not sure what exactly are you celebrating here: if
you're a taxpayer, you're paying for this party.

Holy shit. You mean the American taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the extra $1000 in food??? Stop the presses. The $1 Trillion budget is going to be killed by this nefarious activity.

What I think, when I see that memorial closures are the thing that gets conservatives in the streets, is that movement leaders and rank-and-file activists alike cannot be counted on to identify and take on the most serious issues facing veterans, or the most serious threats to liberty. Instead they spend their time seizing on symbolic issues that promise to result in the best optics for a given news cycle — World War II veterans traveled to Washington and can’t visit the memorial dedicated to them!

Think what victory would mean in this instance: the barricades would come down, which will happen anyway as soon as the government reopens. In other words, there’s no substantive upside for this particular rally, whether you’re concerned about benefiting veterans or safeguarding liberty. It was held so that Cruz and Palin could aggrandize themselves, so that conservatives could revel in their self-image as liberty loving patriots who honor veterans, and so that the Obama Administration would look bad. Protests are nothing more than political theater for these people. Or if they actually intend to effect change, their strategy verges on nonsensical.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-wwii-memorial-protest-a-big-fuss-about-almost-nothing/280542/

Bigsby says

errc says

Now that's a good one! Walmart will turn down their life blood?

A rent seeker, turning their backs on a rent tap?

THAT'LL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN

Which is why these companies shouldn't be left to their own devices.

Not sure what you mean by left to their own devices. Care to elaborate?

I'm enjoying this stuff: it takes me back to the Lincoln Bedroom outrage days.

Of course, GW Bush proceeded to sell access to the Lincoln Bedroom throughout his Presidency, but AM radio did not carry the story, for some reason.

Call it Crazy says

And 3/4 of American's get their news from left leaning news sites.... What a surprise....

Nice McCarthy tactic. A clever ploy used whenever the right is wrong and has nothing in their pockets except the blame the "Liberal media" while ignoring the fact that the LARGEST cable news network is a right-leaning network.

Call it Crazy says

Hey Eddie.... Took your advice and read some polls.... tell me what you think:

Nice. Except that WASN'T the Poll I was talking about. The Poll I was discussing was over what percentage of the general population blames the GOP for the government shutdown. BTW... GW hardly ever has as high of an approval rating as Obama has for most of his presidency so far.AverageBear says

Only a sad, sad man would put up barricades to 'close' 'open-air' monuments, huge sections of ocean, and small, privately owned businesses, alongside a national park. Deny veterans access one day, but allow illegals/La Raza, etal, to use the same areas the next day. (I guess every day is vote-buying day in "Obama-Land".....

What a small, petty man our president is...

Repeating the same crap over and over doesn't make wrong accusations anymore correct than they were the first time. your beloved GOP were responsible for shutting down the government. So if you want to cry a river over it, place blame where the blame belongs.

HydroCabron says

I'm enjoying this stuff: it takes me back to the Lincoln Bedroom outrage days.

Of course, GW Bush proceeded to sell access to the Lincoln Bedroom throughout his Presidency, but AM radio did not carry the story, for some reason.

I'm sort of finding this entertaining as well. All of the millions and millions of Tea-Party dollars spent on behalf of that fake grass root's corporate benefactors will soon, if not already realize that shutting down the government will have negated all of that spending seeing as how the general public is dropping the GOP like a hot potato. The best part? They did it to themselves! All of the crap they've done for the last few years to try and get their way will have all been for naught.

Poor, poor GOP...

The problem is the system. You let people take advantage and they will. No one has moral restraint anymore these days.

That looks like a drop in the bucket of the national problems we are facing.

errc says

Bigsby says

errc says

Now that's a good one! Walmart will turn down their life blood?

A rent seeker, turning their backs on a rent tap?

THAT'LL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN

Which is why these companies shouldn't be left to their own devices.

Not sure what you mean by left to their own devices. Care to elaborate?

They have little compunction to do the right thing when faced by the demands of share holders. Profit is the motivator and people and the environment get abused as a consequence unless laws are introduced and enforced to counter that. What the major companies do in Asia they'd do in Europe and the US if they had the opportunity. What do you think has contributed to them not being able to do the same anymore?

HydroCabron says

What harm could patriots carrying Confederate Flags possibly do during a staged GOP anger-generation event?

I am grateful to you for telling me I should be livid over this vague, mild symbolic outrage.

What else has Rush told you to seethe about lately?

Hydro,

Thanks for playing, and projecting. I'm just stating that it's a sad day, when Obama goes out of his way to shut out veterans (and tourists) from open-air monuments, but the next day allows the same 'monument' to be accessed by La Raza. I don't know about the confederate flags waving. Other than sports, I don't watch much TV, but get most of my info off the 'net. It sounds like you watch Fox more than I do, and that's pretty funny.

You'd imagine that w/ 3+ years to design, plan and implement Obamacare and its 'delivery' via web, that it would 'work'. Instead, it doesn't (on the scale of 'massive failure'), and is being handled by folks with arrest records. nice. Puts the warm and fuzzy feeling into my heart, that with these immediate results so far, the same retarts are now controlling 1/6th of economy, yet intrusive more than ever.

I can sum up Obamacare in one sentence: "Shit in, shit out"....

AverageBear says

I don't watch much TV, but get most of my info off the 'net.

Where on the 'net?

HydroCabron says

This is heueuge - could be the final blow to the Obama dictatorship.

Everywhere I go, people are seething over the IRS scandal, Benghazi!, and the Long Form.

Once they are told by Roger Ailes to be angry about this, it's the end for Obama.

You are pretty smarmy on discounting some big flaws in Obama. The trick is, can you actually point to something useful that Obama has actually done since being elected president?

FortWayne says

The problem is the system. You let people take advantage and they will. No one has moral restraint anymore these days.

I agree. The global elite have been taking advantage of the global capitalist system for too long. You let people take advantage and they will. They have no moral restraint anymore these days. In the good old days, the wealthy elite made worker safety and fair wages a high priority.

AverageBear says

Thanks for playing, and projecting. I'm just stating that it's a sad day, when Obama goes out of his way to shut out veterans (and tourists) from open-air monuments,

Dude, sorry, but Obama DID NOT shut down the veteran monument. Your GOP DID. So stop projecting absolute rubbish. Like I said before- most Americans are smart enough to know what the deal is and hence why most of them blame the GOP for the shutdown.

Give me a few minutes. I'll find some random bullshit article that shows some sort of GOP legislation being used and abused and then use that single instance as a lame attempt to paint the entire program with a broad brush...

Dan8267 says

The language of the universe is mathematics and the expression of mathematics to describe reality is theory.

Unfortunately, the language of economics is most commonly known as "bullshitting."

AverageBear says

The trick is, can you actually point to something useful that Obama has actually done since being elected president?

Sure.
1: Obamacare

2: Saved auto industry. To date US auto industry is doing better than it has done in decades. Republicans wanted it to go bankrupt.

3: Expanded pell grants and got bacnks out of federal student loans

4: increased spending on veterens, passed new GI bill worth 78 Billion dollars. Created tax credits for businesses who hire veterans.

5: Passed credit card laws that stops CC companies from raising rates without a notice.

6: Expanded stem cell research. This was restricted under Bush.

I agree with CiC, but have zero sympathy for Walmart. How? Because the taxpayers are footing the bill for these thieving low life's and I am having a hard time understanding why! Walmart loses nothing. They have found their faithful clientele, and as long as EBT payments are made by tw tax payers, Walmart profits will deliver return to shareholders.
It has always struck me as a supreme irony that the very same people who lost jobs because of Walmart activities are the most avid patrons. Then again, in many thousands of small towns, Wally's World is about the only store.

The language of the universe may well be mathematics, but this is not to say that our current understanding of math is adequate to describe it. Just as bodies in motion required the invention of calculus to describe, the inner truths of the universe may require additional advances to even comprehend, let alone describe and predict.

Quigley says

the inner truths of the universe may require additional advances to even comprehend, let alone describe and predict.

I think you've been reading too much Deepak Chopra. ;-)

freak80 says

Unfortunately, the language of economics is most commonly known as "bullshitting."

I believe economics is the number one elite school (meaning Ivies, Chicago, London School of Economics, Stanford, etc) major, which places its converts into management consulting or banking firms. This is where one's alma mater's brand name matters.

In other words, they form the alpha whereas B-school forms the omega, of the world of MBA-ology.

Then, the few who go on to get PhDs and becomes academics like Milton Friedman, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Lester Thurow, etc, become DC/govt/industry policy makers for the rest of us.

Most economic "theories" are little more than ideologies. An ideology exists to benefit the ideology's creator (often at the expense of others).

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."
-- John Maynard Keynes

AverageBear says

HydroCabron says

This is heueuge - could be the final blow to the Obama dictatorship.

Everywhere I go, people are seething over the IRS scandal, Benghazi!, and the Long Form.

Once they are told by Roger Ailes to be angry about this, it's the end for Obama.

You are pretty smarmy on discounting some big flaws in Obama. The trick is, can you actually point to something useful that Obama has actually done since being elected president?

You're not hearing me: it ain't Obama that this is about.

Obama is just a black Reagan, eager to kill Americans to save face (Afghanistan), although, in fairness to Reagan, he pulled ground forces out of Beirut after the barracks bombing in '83. Obama should be in jail, if not for the NSA, then for Gitmo. And the bank bailouts were a moment of shame for America.

But that's beside the point.

The real issue is wingnuts who feel outrage at monument closures, instead of veterans benefit cuts, and get angry at exactly what they're told to get angry about.

What makes your blood boil: Terry Schiavo and flag burning, or spending $3 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan with nothing to show for it?

HydroCabron says

Sounds as if you were there. This is a serviceable description of what
happened.

Many carried Confederate flags,

Many carried Confederate flags? Now you are just making shit up. I've read all the liberal bed wetting over this dude and the flag, and they could only find one guy. Surely you can find a bunch of pictures of other guys if "many carried" that flag - right?

Now I seem to remember how the media and libs were very careful not to label the OWS and anti-war movements as a bunch of Commies just because they had ton of hammer and sickle flags at their rallies.

But liberal hacks got to do what they do. Even if that means putting up barriers in front of WWII vets in wheelchairs and then calling them a bunch of racists.

Charming bunch you guys!

edvard2 says

AverageBear says

Sure.

1: Obamacare

2: Saved auto industry. To date US auto industry is doing better than it has done in decades. Republicans wanted it to go bankrupt.

3: Expanded pell grants and got bacnks out of federal student loans

4: increased spending on veterens, passed new GI bill worth 78 Billion dollars. Created tax credits for businesses who hire veterans.

5: Passed credit card laws that stops CC companies from raising rates without a notice.

6: Expanded stem cell research. This was restricted under Bush.

7: Not being an outright braying wingnut who hates science, along with pretty much every institution but the NRA, churches, and the military.
8: Having just enough brains to understand that in an economic collapse, federal spending should increase to compensate for cratering state and local spending.
9: Believing that the world is older than 6,000 years
10: Believing in the competent administration of disaster relief

socal2 says

Many carried Confederate flags? Now you are just making shit up. I've read all the liberal bed wetting over this dude and the flag, and they could only find one guy.

You're right: very few in the conservative movement ever wave the Confederate Flag, which is why it has never, ever adorned the bumpers of pickup trucks or the cupolas of southern state houses.

After all, I'm sure that the patriots of the GOP would never countenance racist traitors in their ranks, now would they?

HydroCabron says

You're right:

See that's not so hard.

Please refrain from making shit up in the future.

Thanks