The Watering Hole: August 11 – The Mayan Calendar

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The Aztec calendar, an adaptation of the Mayan calendar

August 11, 3114 BCE in the Gregorian calendar marks base 0 or creation on the of the Mesoamerican Long Count or Mayan calendar. December 12, 2012 marks when the 5th creation is slated to start.

That is when all shit hits the fan. It is not clear whether the new creation is in a new universe or the one we live in will be replaced in its stead. In any case, plan for a short Xmas shopping season and be sure to turn out the lights if you are the last to leave.

This is our Open Thread. Please feel free to present your thoughts on any topic that comes to mind.

216 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: August 11 – The Mayan Calendar”

    • Didn’t you hear? some aborigine tribe in the deep Amazon rain forest got raptured – the rest of us are doomed!

      😉

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  4. The ghost of Roy Moore walks the earth, and he isn’t even dead yet.

    Another Round in Ten Commandments Fight Hits Fla.

    The folks who live in this sparsely populated rural region along Florida’s upper west coast don’t like outsiders butting in, especially when it comes to their religious beliefs.
    They’re miffed, to put it politely, and appealing a federal judge’s order to remove a five-foot high granite monument that prominently displays the Ten Commandments in front of the Dixie County courthouse by Sunday.

    These hicks want a loud and clear message on their courthouse steps: ‘if this rock bothers you, you aren’t welcome here’.

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    • House,

      Cross City is named “Cross City” for a reason.
      And it’s not because they are a crossroad for anything.
      They are about as Baptist as Baptist can get.
      If I’m not mistaken, their inmate population exceeds the unincarcerated population.
      Cross City is also a speed trap and a shithole.

      There is also a giant billboard with the “ten commandments” as you head eastbound on I-10 just outside of Tallahassee.

      Welcome to buckle of the bible belt, how do like your grits?

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  5. So an old HS friend on Facebook (who happens to be pretty much a Tea Partier) just became unemployed. So rather than reject government help, he’s trying to sign up for unemployment.

    He couldn’t resist making a political statement complaining about how you don’t need a social security number to sign up. (Alleging, of course, that undocumented workers are milking the system.) But as you watch the comments unfold, see if you can spot the error. Of course he won’t admit the error.

    Poster: Just called the Massachusetts Dept of Unemployment. Cant get through. The recording tells me no agents are availible now. Just for kicks I call back and hit option 3 for Spanish. Guess What!?!?! Im not required to enter a SS number. Big shocker there!!!!

    Commenter1: I called right at 830 and had an agent online in seconds. She said I had to file in RI, which I did yesterday.

    Commenter2: You can only call in on certain days, depending on the last number of your social. Friday is a free for all where anyone can call.

    Poster: Damn, that must be what most people did, right at 8:30. I was on the phone at 8:38 and I couldnt get through.

    Poster: Ahhhh, I see what your saying on the website. It probably hung up on me regardless if there were agents because the last number of my social is not for todays callers.

    I guess you need a Social Security number after all.

    I’ve chosen not to respond, even though rightly I could. It just feels like I’d be kicking someone when they’re down.

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  6. Well….in a sense it will be dooms day for millions of the sick, the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, public workers, teachers, our air, our water, etc, etc, if Bachmann, Romney or Perry become president, while the minions of Satan, better known as the republican party, hold on to the majority in the house and take back the senate.

    I’ve read where the Mayan’s and others from Central and South America referred to the land of the North as being occupied by a great, evil serpent. Who knew the republicans were around back then?

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  8. Okay… December 12, 2012. Happens to be the 2nd Wednesday in December 2012. That happens to be the trigger day for the meeting of the Electors to pick our next president. By law it’s the first Monday after the 2nd Wednesday in December.

    So perhaps this means Palin/Bachmann are going to win the election. That would be the end of the world!

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  10. If, according to the Mayan Calendar the world comes to an end everytime you need a new calendar, then, according to the Christian Calendar, the world comes to an end every December 31.

    For those who wake up with a massive hangover on January 1, they feel like it did….or should have….

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  11. Quote of the Day:

    “His [Rick Perry’s] Saturday speech in South Carolina will make clear that he is entering the race for the White House and will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win. A C and D student, who hates to govern, loves to campaign, and barely has a sixth grader’s understanding of economics, will lead our nation into oblivion.” — James Moore, Texas-based Emmy award-winning former national TV news correspondent and co-author of the best-seller, “Bush’s Brain.”

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    • Well that is depressing because it’s probably true. Perry is the kind of brainless empty suit that the richest and most powerful know they can control. I guess we should be grateful that they won’t force him to take Cheney as his VP and so they’ll be less obvious about the whole charade.

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  15. Since somebody brought up Project Runway last week I thought I could bring up my new favorite show although I’m not really sure why I love it. “Roseanne’s Nuts” starring Roseanne Bar is about the macadamia nut farm she bought in Hawaii. Here is the link: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/roseannes-nuts

    Episodes are available online and in the episode called “Dark Energy” she brings in a shaman who is Senator Akaka’s son to get rid of the ghosts haunting the museum she bought. If anybody else likes it let me know I’m not crazy. 🙂

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  16. So is “The Undefeated” still tearing up the box office? (Wasn’t that prediction, that it was going to be the most awesome movie ever?)

    Is it actually still showing anywhere? BMM, with your connections to the biz, do you have ways to find out how much it actually made/(lost)?

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  19. Alex Pareene with another great rant:

    “I mean, Rick Perry may be a neo-Confederate sympathizer with a recurring tendency to bring up secession, but he doesn’t look as weird in a photograph as Bachmann does, I guess.

    Perry’s flirtations with neo-Confederate organizations and symbols — ably documented by Justin Elliott — are so extraordinarily reprehensible that it should immediately and permanently disqualify him from being taken seriously for national office. The Confederacy was not a bunch of generally well-meaning dudes who went a little too far, it was a gang of racist traitors who launched a bloody war to defend a monstrously unjust institution. Having neo-Confederate sympathies in America should be equivalent to supporting the reconstituted Fascist party in Italy, or worse. It should not be considered something that 50 percent of the nation should be willing to look past, or even embrace.”

    http://www.salon.com/news/rick_perry/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/08/09/rick_perry_frontrunner

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  20. DeMint DeMentia:

    DeMint: Obama Administration The ‘Most Anti-American’ In My Lifetime

    Conservative power-broker Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) ran through his litany of complaints about President Obama on Janet Meffered’s Christian conservative radio show Wednesday, and concluded that of all the anti-American administrations in his lifetime, Obama’s is the most anti-American.

    “We saw within a few days that this President was going to be heavy-handed, he was going to implement his agenda and pay back his political allies, and it just went on from there to ObamaCare and then to Dodd-Frank,” DeMint said.

    It has been the most anti-business and I consider anti-American administration in my lifetime. Things that are just so anathema to the principles of freedom, and everything he has come up with centralizes more power in Washington, creates more socialist-style, collectivist policies. This president is doing something that’s so far out of the realm of anything Republicans ever did wrong, it’s hard to even imagine.

    Via Right Wing Watch.

    Just in point of fact, Obama’s health care law is modeled on the Massachusetts health care system, created by former Gov. Mitt Romney. Its success inspired DeMint to support Romney in the last Republican presidential primary. Dodd-Frank was a fairly bipartisan, if insufficient, effort to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. And pretty much every significant thing Obama’s done since then — temporarily extending the Bush tax cuts, funding the federal government, raising the debt limit — have been done on GOP terms, to end three different hostage crises, and passed with bipartisan support.

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      • dycker, I think he has already been kissed by a dementor. He’s an empty shill, which is filled with whatever his puppetmasters need to fill him with. Mainly shit.

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      • Uppity, yes. I wonder how DeMint explains the eye holes in his white pillowcase to his wife?

        Actually, the only thing Obama’s done ‘wrong’ is that he’s yet to accomplish virtually all of the things we progressives hoped would happen in the first four years, if not the first fortnight. That would include, of course, the permanent retirement of each and every DeMent(ed) idiot in DC.

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  21. Here’s one p.o.s. getting his just desserts, and something like 4,000 kids getting theirs.

    A long-serving judge has been ordered to spend nearly 30 years in prison for his role in a bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to overturn thousands of juvenile convictions.

    Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr was sentenced on Thursday to 28 years in prison for taking $1m (£617,000) in bribes from the builder of two juvenile detention centres in a case that became known as “kids-for-cash”.

    The Pennsylvania supreme court overturned about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

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  22. Thom Hartmann just got that asshole Peter Ferrara to literally scream at him. 😆

    I guess Thom shouldn’t have asked him a question for which he had no answer. Boo.

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    • How about the guy who just asked Thom not to have Ferrera on anymore?

      No Thom. Ferrera has not calmed down a bit. Today was proof. And he’s not entertaining.

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      • He’s always nuts, as far as I’m concerned. Nothing he ever says has any relation to reality, so it doesn’t give us an idea how these people think — it merely confirms that they’re insane, and we dismiss them as such. That’s not really learning anything about them.

        It’s definitely not entertaining. I usually turn the sound down when Ferrara is on, but I was doing something else and couldn’t get to it.

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  23. Speaking of DeMint’s DeMentia, here’s a fresh example of DeMitt’s DeMentia:

    Romney: ‘Corporations Are People, My Friend’

    Mitt Romney told an Iowa crowd on Thursday that the country should not raise taxes to shore up Medicare and Social Security because “corporations are people” too.

    Responding to a question from an audience member as to why Social Security should be included in deficit talks when it doesn’t add to the deficit, Romney drifted into a defense of corporate rights.

    “Corporations are people, my friend,” he said. “Of course they are.”

    After receiving jeers from the audience over the quote, he elaborated: “Everything corporations earn goes to people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”

    Romney went on to suggest raising the retirement age rather than increasing taxes on business in order to fix entitlement programs’ shortfalls.

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    • .
      “Everything corporations earn goes to people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”

      Delusional – oh yes please allow this brilliance to be president/

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    • Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that every penny a pay toilet earns also ends up in someone’s pocket. Does that mean pay toilets are people too, Mitt?

      I’m not sure exactly how it all happened, but a sizable segment of this country has fallen off the intellectual edge. In seventy years of hanging around, I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything that even approaches what today is simply parcel to the daily routine. And to think I once thought Nixon was dead from the neck up. He’s a fucking genius from another planet; he’s Gort’s Klatu Borata Nicto compared to today’s flock of turkeys.

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      • Nice reference to Gort. 🙂

        You’re right. The dumbing down here is reaching critical mass.

        I observed friend’s kids growing up from elementary school through college, and they don’t have the good well-rounded education that I think we got 30+ years ago.

        A lot of it I think, however, is they’re allowed to engage in too many distractions. They believe (and I saw a documentary on this recently) that they are expert multi-taskers. Unfortunately, they’re too distracted to realize that they aren’t actually very good at multi-tasking. And they’re the dumber for it as a result.

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  25. “Everything corporations earn goes to people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings, my friend.”

    It goes into pockets of people that may have nothing to do at all with the product that that corporation produces, so why should someone who sits on their hind quarters in a McMansion eating bonbons NOT have their taxes raised?

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    • And his simplistic comment doesn’t take into account that corporations have their own bank accounts. So not every penny goes to people. A lot of it stays in the corporation.

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          • An arachnid, yes, but not a tarantula. Back in the very early seventies, I was helping an old college buddy put up a large patio in the backyard of his new house in Phoenix. He had gotten hold of six old “used” wooden utility poles to hold up the new patio’s roof, and together we dug the holes and figured out how to set them in the ground, proper height for each above ground, without having to cut them. In the process, we’d set one in its hole, and while I held the pole and a level, he started the backfill with rocks and dirt.

            In one of the poles there was a hole, went all the way through, right about the level of my eye when I was holding it. When I looked through the hole, there the critter was. Or more likely the dried remains of a former critter.

            Anyway, I had my camera handy and when the pole was set, I snapped a few shots through the hole on b/w film. Made a print of the best one, then thirty years later when I had a scanner, I made a jpg of the print and have had occasional fun with it ever since.

            Sometimes it can be fun to have a camera handy, even when you’re building a patio from old utility poles. Ya never know what’s waiting! 🙂

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            • .
              It’s a great capture!

              I’ve been watching two (same species it seems) spiders – who haven’t a clue the other exist – each in a separate window.
              They are not the most artful web spinners. Actually rather haphazard stringy-kind of thing…

            • Are they black widows perchance? They’re about the least artful web spinners I’ve ever run across. They are fascinating to watch, though.

              Personally, I like spiders and always try to leave them alone to do their own thing. They’re far more useful to the biosphere than, say, Republicans, and a whole lot more pleasant as well!

        • Of course we should go easy on Mittens. By “people’s pockets” he means “executive pockets.” So yes, he and his friends benefit handsomely when corporate taxes are reduced. The rest of us? Not so much.

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          • Maybe that’s where they get the idea that one can cut one’s way to prosperity? After all, when a person er… corporation wants to increase profits, all it has to do is downsize employees. Right?

            Right?

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  26. .

    Best Ways to Watch Perseid Meteor Shower, Despite Full Moon Interference

    As the Perseid Meteor Shower approaches its peak time in the overnight hours of Friday and Saturday, the best viewing days of the dazzling sky event have already started.

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  27. .

    Rick Scott Pays $360 a Year for State Health Insurance

    Florida’s anti-Obamacare governor and his tea party allies in the Legislature pay less for state-funded health insurance than janitors, cops, or teachers.,

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      • Pssst… Project Runway on tonight… 🙂 (Don’t let the other Zoosters know. They would tell us to just say “no”.)

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        • I’m watching now. I mentioned yesterday how my new favorite show is Roseanne’s Nuts. Have you seen it? I don’t even know why I like it. Must be the closest I’ll get to my dream Hawaiian vacation.

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          • Ok…(whispering) yes I have seen it. My spouse and I spent six days traveling around the Big Island of Hawaii this summer as a Anniversary gift to ourselves. I started watching Roseanne’s Nuts just to see where her farm might be located… I keep watching for places that we might have gone that they filmed at. And now, just like a train wreck, I cannot look away…

            We even had dinner at the Blue Dragon before our red-eye flight home, so that
            was a surprise.

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      • Thanks, LL. I’m only on page two and it’s making my blood boil. Here’s one of the better quotes so far:

        “The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.”

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      • No shock here…

        Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network’s viewers are old, with a median age of 65. Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, commercials for products such as Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical (“Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven’t had since I started using catheters”). The audience is also almost exclusively white – only 1.38% of viewers are African-American. “Roger understands audiences,” says Rollins, the former Reagan consultant. “He knew how to target, which is what Fox News is all about.” The typical viewer of Sean Hannity’s show, to take the most stark example, is a pro-business (86%), Christian conservative (78%), Tea Party-backer (75%) with no college degree (66%), who is over 50 (65%), supports the NRA (73%), doesn’t back gay rights (78%) and thinks government “does too much” (84%). “He’s got a niche audience and he’s programmed to it beautifully,” says a former News Corp colleague. “He feeds them exactly what they want to hear.”

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  30. .
    [Apologies if this was already posted, and I missed it]

    VIDEO: Michele Bachmann’s Auschwitz Warning

    In 2002, the tea party leader and GOP presidential candidate filmed a movie that warned Minnesota’s educational standards could lead to a second Holocaust.

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      • Speaking of Bachmann and Chapman, I seriously doubt that poet Hughes Mearns had any inkling that they’d ever so much as even show up anywhere on the planet when he wrote the following little verse. I also wonder if today he might just dedicate it to the both of them!

        “As I was going up the stair
        I met a man who wasn’t there.
        He wasn’t there again today.
        I wish, I wish he’d stay away.”

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    • The Republics aren’t going to like that. Will Faux mention it, or will they find some way to explain it isn’t real? “Obama is trying to distract us from his visit with the bereaved!”

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      • Reminds me of a comic strip newspaper cartoon from the last century. B.C. Remember that one? Cave men? One was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking over the valley and the distant landscape. With arms outstretched, he said, “What can I possibly do to improve this magnificent world?!”

        The little guy in repose, leaning on a rock a few feet behind, says, “This is almost too easy.”

        Amen, amen, and amen, esp. for pRick pERRy!

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  36. Good afternoon, everyone.

    I haven’t had a chance to read through the thread but I was wondering if anyone caught Peter Ferrera on Thom Hartmann today? He’s always been a rabid wingnut but I think that recent events have really pushed him over the edge. He was spouting off about cutting spending and Thom asked him; “can you name one country that has cut it’s way to prosperity” and the poor guy completely lost it. He actually screeched. But that’s not the funny part.

    The funny part is that he tried to make a claim that Warren Harding created a boom by cutting spending but neglected to mention that the spending he cut was the military and that the the tax cuts associated with said boom were the beginning of the conditions that created the Great Depression. Since the poor freak didn’t have a response for that he fell back on yelling that President Obama should be impeached and that Thom shouldn’t be allowed to even discuss economics. It was pretty sweet.

    You can check out the podcast or I’m sure that others will post the clip because it was a great example of what happens when a wingnut is challenged by simple facts that can’t be, logically, denied.

    http://www.thomhartmann.com/

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  37. Wouldn’t it just be so appropriate and ironic if the Mayans were right? I mean if are still around and the 5th Creation goes along the lines of the Age of Aquarius.

    If we aren’t, the only bad part would be not being able to gloat in the Fundie’s faces that a buncha savages in Central America got it right the first time?

    Or if the R’s were to pull off their wet dream and win control of everything in the November election only to have the world end before they get all the goodies and power?

    That would be worth asking Quezalcoatal if he could hold off for just a day or two so we could get our laughs in.

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    • Here’s the thing: the Mayans were a highly intelligent and focused civilization. My guess is that on or before what we call 12-12-2012, they would already have extended their amazingly accurate calendar well into the future, and that said future would continue without a hitch.

      Enter Christianity. Spain, et al. The highly intelligent and focused civilization falls to the boot heel and the once grand continent is renamed Amurka and becomes populated by a tribe which can’t comprehend any level of cosmic continuity. Said tribe runs across the Mayan calendar, finally learns to decipher it, and takes a collective shit when it notices the last day on the calendar is 12-12-2012. And there are no Mayans around to ‘splain it. What then?

      WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!

      Ok. And on 12-13-2012, someone will come up with a reason why we ain’t all dead. Assuming, of course, that the world hasn’t already ended with the Rapture already scheduled on 10-21-2011.

      Conclusion: My cat is smarter than the vast bulk of the human species, combined, since its origin. With the probable exception of the Maya. I’m sure she’ll fill me in as 12-12-2012 approaches. Assuming I survive the Rapture, of course.

      Speaking of Shadow the cat, I’ve just been ordered to serve her supper, gotta run.

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  40. Rain washes away 40 feet of US-Mexico border fence

    A 40-foot stretch of mesh border fence east of Lukeville in Southwestern Arizona was knocked over Sunday by rainwater rushing through a wash.

    This is the first time any part of this 5.2-mile stretch of fence has been knocked down by floodwaters since it was built in 2007-2008, but it is the latest in a series of challenges for the barrier during rainstorms, said Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Superintendent Lee Baiza.

    The design does not allow for the free flow of water in natural washes intersecting the border, he said. In washes, the fence has grate openings at the bottom that are 6 inches high and 24 inches wide with 1-by-3-inch bars.

    “The fence acts as a dam and forms a gradual waterfall,” Baiza said. “It starts to pile up on the bottom as the grass, the leaves, the limbs start plugging up. The water starts backing up and going higher. The higher it gets, the more force it has behind it.”
    […]
    In October 2007, before the fence was built by Kiewit Western Co. for $21.3 million, Organ Pipe officials told the U.S. Department of Homeland Security they were worried that the design would impede the movement of floodwater across the border; that debris would get trapped in the fence; that water would pool; and that the lateral flow of water would cause damage to the environment and patrol roads, according to a report issued by Organ Pipe in August 2008 about flooding that summer.

    In response, the Border Patrol issued a final environmental assessment with a finding of no significant impact. It also said the fence would not impede the natural flow of water or cause flooding.
    …

    Another product of the Republican/wingnut “thought” process. Now they’re doing it to more than just the border and Organ Pipe National Monument, though; they have the entire country in their sights as well.

    Shaking head yet again.

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  41. Christine O’Donnell’s Amazon page ‘bombed’ with dildos

    Readers searching for failed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s new book may get more than they bargained for.

    The book, Troublemaker: Let’s Do What It Takes to Make America Great Again, isn’t due out until next week, but clever detractors have already “bombed” O’Donnell’s Amazon.com page by associating her name with products like vibrators, sex guides and books about witches.

    The tagged items are clearly intended to mock O’Donnell’s past statements.

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  42. Is our childrens learnin’?

    I won’t even start listing the things that are utterly nuts about the Huckster’s little ode to Raygun. However, if one is going to peddle a steaming pile of bullshit like this? One should include a shovel and a big can of Raid to deal with the flies.

    I would also like to go on the record saying that, if God ever decides to save me from an assassin, I would prefer Him to arrange a misfire rather than allowing a painful life-threatening chest wound.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201108110017?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+County+Fair%29

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  43. Exclusive: Fox obtains DNC Memo about the Iowa Debates

    Fox News has exclusively obtained a Democratic National Committee memo which paints the Republican field of presidential contenders as Tea Party flaks pushing tired, divisive policies which elevate the rich and predicts much of the same at tonight’s Fox News co-hosted debate in Ames, Iowa.

    “As we expect to see tonight, the GOP candidates’ extreme aims to appease the far-right wing of the Republican Party shows that Republicans are more concerned with protecting their special interest friends and the wealthy than protecting working families,” the memo, penned by DNC National Press Secretary Melanie Roussell, reads.

    Now certainly Fox has access to RNC Memos that describe the Democrats in critical ways. I wonder why we don’t see those published?

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    • Oh now, of course, Fox as the GOP Response. (Actually they didn’t call it a response, they said the GOP “Fired back.” Always with the gun/violence metaphores.)

      Don’t often see them printing talking points for the DNC do we? Or ever?

      The Facts:

      ON THE DEBT CEILING DEAL: President Obama ignored the warning signs for years as Republicans spoke out against his binge spending that has earned him the undisputed title of Debt King. Then, when Americans needed leadership, Obama sat on the sidelines, refusing to put forth a plan as Republicans dragged him kicking and screaming to a deal that included as much spending cuts as we raised the debt ceiling by and didn’t raise taxes.

      S&P DOWNGRADE: President Obama likes to say he inherited these problems, but one thing he did inherit: a AAA credit rating.

      ON SENIORS: The Democrats attempt to vilify Republicans for outlining plans to tackle difficult issues like entitlements but they forget it was Obama who offered to cut hundreds of billions in Medicare during the debt debate.

      ON GOP CANDIDATES: Every single one of the Republican candidates has better solutions to turn our economy around than this president whose binge spending and lack of leadership led the U.S. to our first credit rating downgrade in history.

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    • ,
      The truth is always painful to hear. Yet the Regressives, being divorced from reality don’t see that as their reflection in that looking-glass.

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    • … a Democratic National Committee memo which paints the Republican field of presidential contenders as Tea Party flaks pushing tired, divisive policies which elevate the rich …

      Boy, did the DNC nail those fuckers or what! 🙂

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  44. Here’s a goodie:

    I’m sure you’ve been watching this mess in Washington.

    I’d like you to know how I feel about it.

    I haven’t voted for one of these lousy budget packages for years and I won’t vote for this one.

    It would raise taxes on the wrong people.

    Unlike some folks around here I think everyone should pay their fair share. Including the rich.

    We need to protect our seniors from Medicare cuts too.

    I don’t care if the President or Congressional leaders twist my arm. I won’t support any deal that isn’t a fair deal for the working families of Kentucky.

    “If you were around in 1990, you would have heard that from McConnell. This was from an ad titled ‘Fair Share’ created for (Mitch) McConnell’s 1990 reelection campaign.”

    http://dailykos.com/

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  45. Speaking of debates…

    When did the various networks start having exclusive debates? Back in the “good ol’ days” the presidential debates were sponsored by the League of Women Voters sponsored the debates and all the broadcast networks carried them. The fact that We The People must subscribe to a particular network, or even cable in general, in order to watch a debate just doesn’t sit well with me.

    That being said, I have a question that I would like Mittens to answer after his “corporations are people” comment. If corporations are people; does anyone know of a good method to potty train them?

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    • That was before the Candidates were allowed to see the questions ahead of time, dictate the number of minutes to put out their two minute hate message and respond to attacks from their opponent… including being sure that their opponent doesn’t interrupt them.

      I miss the League of Women Voters. They asked the questions that Americans wanted to know the answers to.

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      • Indeed. I’m kind of glad that my old debate coach didn’t live to see the mockery they’ve made of a tradition he loved so much. At the very least he would probably take an axe to the TV.

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  46. Meanwhile, as predicted, Sarah Palin just rolled into Iowa in her Big Yellow Bus “We the People” Shrinkwrapped RV.

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    • It’s just killing her that others, especially Crazy Shelly, are getting more attention than she is. The last few times I’ve seen her she’s looked absolutely frantic.

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  49. Just want to repost the link that LibertyLover shared a few minutes ago.

    This is a must-read, in my humble opinion.

    And it answers someone’s question from earlier about when did the networks get int he business of staging their own debates. For one party.

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  50. Hey look, NEWT!

    Gingrich attacks Chris Wallace, and the mob backs Gingrich. Newt wins. The GOP crowd even hate FOX NEWS.

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    • He seems oblivious to the fact that the rest of his party, if they had their way, wouldn’t let him through the front doors and wouldn’t let him join the company behind the walls if he wasn’t carrying a tray of drinks.

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  55. Every single one of them would walk away from a compromise that cut the debt by a combination of 10 – 1 spending cuts to tax hikes. That’s how extreme the GOP is. And when two-thirds of the public want some increase in taxes on the wealthy, well, good luck in the general election.

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  63. Commentary from TPM:

    “This debate is AWESOME. They’re all so horrible, and yet in totally unique and enjoyable ways. I think Bachmann was the clear winner in her bout with Pawlenty, and she strikes me as the early winner. She’s cornering a market and her messaging is pretty focused. Simply as a politician in the strictest sense of the word, she has really improved a great deal over the last few years. If this debate is any indication, this Republican primary process is going to be a blast.”

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    • Totally loving this debate. Easily the most entertaining I’ve sat through in a long time.

      Byron York, whadda douchenozzle.

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    • It’s hard to watch… All of these people would be horrible for the country. But Ron Paul is rocking them all… even though I hate his FREE trade stance.

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      • I finally realized my dad has no idea what’s going on in this country politically, so thank goodness he hasn’t turned on the Fux “debate.”

        I don’t think I could actually watch the damn thing.

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  69. 10:29: Crowd booing Byron York for asking Bachmann if she would be submissive to her husband as president. Bachmann says that she interprets “submissive” to mean respect. That’s not what that word means to anyone else in the world.

    Interesting!!

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    • “Submissive” doesn’t mean that in evangelical circles either. Besides, we all know Michelle wears the pants in that family. 😉

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      • My sister believes in being “submissive” as well. Basically, it just means that they arrive at a decision she can live with, and then she lets him make the decision.

        Ugh, so manipulative.

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    • What are they supposed to save? Dust bunnies?

      Basically, we already have savings accounts for the unemployed. It’s called unemployment insurance.

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    • So “they could save their own money”.. WHAT MONEY!! That is why they are drawing unemployment insurance in the first place—THAT THEY ALREADY PAID INTO! They are drawing it because they don’t have any money!

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    • Yeah, savings accounts… with the interest rates as low as they are, you’d need 1000 years to save enough to do anything with.

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    • I used to work in environmental labs for the majority of my working career, and some of the inspectors were pretty anal… but, they were exacting because of the possibility that any of our work could end up in court and it had to be defended. Of course, all that changed in 1994 when the Republicans who came into Congress started changing regulations to “risked based” pollution levels and defunding EPA at the same time. So it is amusing to me that the R’s hae been defunding EPA for years… it’s only a shadow of it’s former self.

      I still have a friend that works at the EPA in Baltimore. I’ll let her know that she is considered a terrorist.

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    • This is very cool indeed. I’ve been to the LOC, but you cannot go to the main research room and browse the stacks. You have to have a membership (it’s free) and you have to have a reason… like researching your family tree or something….so this is much better.

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