patrick.net

shrekgrinch says

Do you even know what a Luddite is?

You proved that you don't. Maybe you should call other people an idiot more, which as far as I can see is the closest you will get to seeming like you have a clue.

I would say it for you again slowly but I don't see how that's going to make a difference for you. Jackson is not protesting the existence of the technology, or even that it will displace publishing. You really are even far more of a fool than I ever realized.

Bring back the fairness doctrine. Really it's about ongoing education. We should all be life long learners, and we deserve to hear both sides of issues (regardless of whether our emotional biases prevent us from being open minded about the truth.)

clambo .... excellent post. Now get ready for the all the attacks from the Kool-Aid drinking radical left in here.

almost opened at $50 today

shrekgrinch says

marcus says

I consider myself a conservative, but I am a liberal too.

Then you are nothing but a walking contradiction

Ah, shrek buddy… I know that this may be hard for you to believe, but there are many “liberal” and “conservative” views that are not mutually exclusive.

Bear with me here, but if you could just metaphorically take a look to your left...

See that massive group of people? … now take a look to your right…

See that tiny group of people? All those people are your hardcore conservative/teabaggers…

Now, if you take a look to your left again… yep the big group…

Almost all of those people are called “moderates”. They have some combination of conservative and liberal views.

Now, don’t strain your eyes too much, but look way in the distance…

Yeah, that little clump of people all the way at the end…

Those are the liberal hippies you are so afraid are going to run the country.

@leoj707

>"Bear with me here, but if you could just metaphorically take a look to your left…
See that massive group of people? … now take a look to your right…
See that tiny group of people? All those people are your hardcore conservative/teabaggers…
Now, if you take a look to your left again… yep the big group…"

I love this explanation...can I use it?

@shrekgrinch

Would you consider those advocating massive military spending (the US currently has) to have a conservative or liberal view?

American in Japan says

@leoj707
>”Bear with me here, but if you could just metaphorically take a look to your left…

See that massive group of people? … now take a look to your right…

See that tiny group of people? All those people are your hardcore conservative/teabaggers…

Now, if you take a look to your left again… yep the big group…”
I love this explanation…can I use it?

Of course, but just for good not evil!

clambo says

His total complete lack of experience making any kind of decisions shows and he is worse than a weak leader, he is not a leader at all. He is a follower, complainer and fiddler-while-Rome-burns-in-chief.

You aren't by any chance one of them thar Teabaggers are'ye ?

clambo says

I would like proof of his intelligence, not his birth.

That's a good one.

Here from another thread, about how out to lunch the teabaggers are:

clambo says

The Tea Party are people who are concerned with too much government intervention into our lives, which would include meddling in the housing market. Whether or not you wish to pay higher taxes, no one who wants to keep their own money in their pocket is “full of crap.” Stick to talking about houses being a bubble.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong, and Clambo is a guy who usually votes for moderates, often democrats but just really has some legitimate criticisms of Obama to share. COmpared to other mainstream moderates that Clambo has voted for, he is just really unhappy about Obama.

marcus says

Bring back the fairness doctrine. Really it’s about ongoing education. We should all be life long learners, and we deserve to hear both sides of issues (regardless of whether our emotional biases prevent us from being open minded about the truth.)

A reinstated fairness doctrine would be irrelevant. The doctrine applies only to broadcast media and a large percentage of electronic media is now wired through cable or the Internet. The fairness doctrine was never applied to print media.

Eliminating the fairness doctrine gave a boost to issue oriented broadcast media, particularly radio. Most people tune in what they want to hear and mixing opposing views would be like mixing heavy metal and country music.

Issue oriented broadcast media is well past it's peak, anyway. Most of it's audience is over 35 and advertisers are less interested in an audience which bases it's buying decisions on experience.

The question was, "How do you like Obama now?"

I still like him - he super cool, and I can't wait to watch him in reruns.

How about just hiring a good property manager?

I suspect that after all of the Oil is gone, we'll discover the Earth was using it, for Tectonic lubricant.

Simple: reduce military spending (which is really vote-buying by scattering jobs and plants through congressional districts), reduce medical costs through single-payer, and leave Social Security alone.

and end the wars of occupation. (As opposed to stopping all military endeavors that are short by design).

Return the taxes at least to pre-Reagan rates, and compromise to Clinton rates.

CL says

leave Social Security alone

The ages for when one is elidgeable for benefits needs to be raised by at least 5 years and benefits frozen (not adjusted for underreported inflation figures).

shrekgrinch says

Not on this thread, but plenty of others you have maintained that we can tax out way out of the deficit or at least make a severe dent in it via some belief that we’d actually get revenues from increases in income tax rates that would do just that.

I can't believe you continue to spew this nonsense.

Fixing the problem is pretty simple, mathematically. Even without raising taxes.

- Fix social security by raising the retirement age to 75 (phased in over 20 years, 6 months at a time), and, if necessary, raise contribution limits from the current $106k / year maximum (lots of other variations on this, but social security is not the hard problem)

- Fix defense spending by ending the wars, ceasing purchase of new tanks, planes, and ships that won't ever be used, and ending no-bid contracts to defense contractors.

- Fix medicare / medicaid by copying the health care system of just about any other country that has a decent one.

Now, it's mathematically sound, but as soon as you suggest such simple changes, the reactions are predictable:

- Reducing spending on unnecessary military spending means weakening american defenses
- Spending less on medicare means cutting benefits
- Raising the retirement age means raping your grandmother with a hot poker

My prediction for what will actually happen:

- The actual deficit will shrink thanks to the wars winding down and the economy picking up
- Obama will win in 2012, and will be more willing to fight for things, so he'll prevent a renewal of the 250k+ tax break
- Inflation will kick into high gear starting around 2013, eeking up into the 7-8% range. After 10 years the deficit and debt to GDP ratios will seem a lot more like they did in 1995.

Buy commodities.

Kevin says

Fix social security by raising the retirement age to 75 (phased in over 20 years, 6 months at a time), and, if necessary, raise contribution limits from the current $106k / year maximum (lots of other variations on this, but social security is not the hard problem)

Social security isn't broken and doesn't need fixing, not until it runs through at least half of the $2.5T t-bonds it holds. The FICA cap might need to be raised since rich bastards are living longer, but if we need to make social security actuarially balanced, RAISING FICA is a million times better than expecting people to work as great grand parents.

Troy says

terriDeaner says

He fell to a vote of no confidence this year, courtesy of the liberal party:

He’s not out of the picture yet. No confidence just means they have to have an election, and if anything Harper will come back stronger this time around.

We'll see... but don't be too sure. Check it out:

NDP winning support on the right and left, poll suggests
http://patrick.net/?p=688601

"Treat landlording as a business. Develop a system and a set of written procedures for all steps in your rental process. "

The one thing he never mentions is making sure that renting is actually economical. You need to calculate your capitalization rate to make sure you're getting adequate return. Otherwise, why take so much risk for so little reward? This should be #1 and is the most important part of treating landlording as a business.

"How about just hiring a good property manager?"

That can work, but you need some oversight of your property manager even if they are "good." That said, it's hard to find a good property manager who isn't trying to screw you when you're not paying attention.

Another mistake that people make is having a rental property nowhere near where they live. You need to keep an eye on your property and what's going on with it.

@Kevin,

You may be right. Do you also see wage inflation picking up in 2012 or 2013?

I wouldn't mind seeing inheritence tax rates go up for over $5,000,000 (40% marginally) and $15,000,000 (50% marginally). At the same time I would like to see no inheritance tax on the first $500,000 and only 10% on the next $700,000.

Kevin says

Fix social security by raising the retirement age to 75 (phased in over 20 years, 6 months at a time)

The age needs to be raised 6 months every year until the minimum age for any benefits is 75. Not any of thie nonse about people born after a certain year like last time.

Kevin says

- Fix medicare / medicaid by copying the health care system of just about any other country that has a decent one.

Actually the fee for service needs to be replaced with something more along the lines of a HMO type of thing where they get a monthly fee instead.

Note the race of the Father. African. Wasn't it Negro back in the early 60's? That's strange.

Was this a mistake? I've said before that they should have saved this silver bullet for after the RNC selects a presidential candidate. With this action, Pres. Obama has declared he doesn't want to run against The Combover, but instead relishes competition from a real Republican candidate. Will be interesting to see if a Bill Bradley emerges to run against Obama in the primaries, as he is now effectively running a ship slightly to the right of center. Perhaps he can drop Biden from the VP slot and pick up Romney on the 2012 ticket -- I joke...

About time - now the kooks can move on to "Bill Ayers wrote Obama's first book" conspiracy or some such drivel.

Troy and others practically screaming denials instead of being smart and screaming ’show us the long form’ to get this out of the way instead...
Have you even read Troy's posts, they are a bit more nuanced than you suggest. At one point, Troy even hinted that there may be 'buried bodies' on the long form and that may be why it hasn't been released. Your brush paints with too broad a stroke...

shrekgrinch says

Tax receipts history proves this absolutely

It would prove it, if there was any evidence that the government actually tried to raise more than 18%... See, that's the flaw in your theory.

“I’d never vote for him,” he said. “I will never vote for anybody who has a terrible record like that, who’s done what he’s done for Wall Street and turned his back on the people who need him.”

Ditto!

shrekgrinch says

Likewise, I don’t think the same type of damage caused by the entire birth certificate thing will just ‘go away’ either. Maybe out of direct sight, but it still took root like the Muslim thing. These things take on a life of their own after a certain momentum is reached, apparently.

I'm laughing my ass off. Democrats would LOVE this to be the issue. They win every day and twice on Sunday if the birthers run the Republican party!!

watching you chatter around on these subjects is like watching a ball roll around on jello... there's never really a position, just endless reactions...

just sayin'... and yes, I suppose this was a troll post...

Well I don't care who wins, I just want to hear some whining and pissing and moaning out of Left, when Sarah Palin wins. Then we can start to look for effective leadership and put the age of Patsyism, that has been around for the last two decade or so behind us. Obama is continuation of Regan, as has been every son of a bitch that has been in the Oval office since then.
And it is all possible because people follow politics like it's their home football team going to the playoffs. No matter how shitty the politician.

We need the Donald/Palin to win, then we might take politics more seriously in this country.

Unfortunately, the long-form doesn't show "Frank Marshall Davis" as Obama's father.

Now the next line of attack will have to be trying to figure out if Dr David Sinclair was the actual attending physician . . . he died in 2003 . . .

As for what I was saying about the birth certificate, I guess this is the best summary:

/?p=618795&c=718482#comment-715997

shrekgrinch says

As for the Dems loving it to be an issue, with inflation and national bankruptcy on their plate…I bet they really would like the ‘distraction’ (as Obama calls it) instead of having to face their real record

Uh, that was my point Shrek. You start off telling me I live in la-la land, and then go on to write 3 paragraphs explaining my point. Perhaps you should actually think before you post.

The Obama team has said as much in unattributed emails--they wanted to keep this birther stuff going as long as possible. The word is that Obama finally decided that it wasn't good for the country to keep focusing on this nonsense....

If you truly think the birther stuff has helped the Republican party then you really do live in a fantasy world.

(And fyi--that last quote you attribute to me was from Troy)

Why do I fear this interchange from Oprah will become birther fodder. She inadvertently gave him a question that was tough to answer without sounding a bit silly:
"When it first came up, were you thinking, I hope I was born here?" Winfrey asked, according to a transcript provided by her production company.
"Can I just say I was there, so I knew," Obama said. "I knew I had been born. I remembered it."
"Of course you did," Winfrey said.

Trump: 'I've done a great service to the American people'

i.e. My Ass

Goalpost moved!

"The word is," Trump told the press, Obama "was a terrible student when he went to Occidental [College]. He then gets to Columbia. He then gets to Harvard."

"I don't know why he doesn't release his records," Trump said. "Why doesn't he release his Occidental records?"

Trump On Obama's Birth Certificate: I'm 'Honored' -- But Where Are His School Records?