The Watering Hole: Wednesday, November 23, 2011

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Pity the poor rich man,
The well-paid pundits say,
The masses so despise him,
It takes his joy away.

For he worked hard, and labored long,
And wealth is his reward;
His birthright gift of silver spoon,
Inheriting his hoard.

The rich all have their troubles,
Requiring plots and schemes,
To mass e’en greater fortunes,
Beyond their wildest dreams.

Yes, pity the poor wealthy,
And let them eat their cake,
For you are blessed, to be their guest,
Oh, sorry, my mistake.

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139 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: Wednesday, November 23, 2011”

      • Most in that party idolize Reagan. Gingrich essentially took the Reagan approach. And he’s going to suffer for it.

        And the sad part is those who claim to love Reagan won’t see the disconnect.

      • But he’s taking a hit for one of the few decent opinions he’s offered. I figured his popularity would begin to tank as more people realized what an arrogant prick he is.

        I am amazed that he stuck his neck out that far, though.

    • The damage Newt did among the lunatic righty base might be partially offset by both Latino voters he swayed into his camp…

  3. I wish “someone” in the media, the White House or the democratic party would go on a speaking tour and say:

    When we talk about raising taxes on the 1%, we aren’t trying to redistribute the wealth or pushing for social equality for all. We are simply saying that those who have had financial success in this country, need to start paying a bit more in taxes, for the good of our country.

    These tax hikes aren’t going to plummet the 1% into poverty, millionaires aren’t going to start vanishing. We simply need to create more revenue and ask for shared sacrifice as the middle class have been shouldering the burden for far too long.

    Taxes today are at there lowest for the 1%. There was a time in our history where the 1% paid as much as 75%. Our country is in trouble and its time for those who can afford it to start paying more taxes to lessen the burden on the rest of our citizens.

  4. Newt makes my skin crawl. He is the poster child for what is wrong with our politicians today. Greed driven hypocrites who live in an alternate reality than the rest of us do.

    Many of our politicians have sold their souls to the devil (corporations/Wall Street). Evil, evil, evil!

  5. The rich getting richer
    The poor get the picture
    The bombs never hit you when you’re down so low
    Some got pollution
    Some revolution
    There must be some solution but I just don’t know

    - Peter Garrett

  6. I’m still reminded of crazy Shelly’s comment a week or so ago regarding those who don’t work.

    Crazy Shelly: If you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat.

    How many Americans are unemployed today? They should just be allowed to starve to death along with their children? What about the disabled, the sick or handicapped, should they too be allowed to starve to death because of their inability to work? How about our Senior Citizens?? Nice Christian compassion there, crazy Shelly. Supply side Jesus hearts you.

  7. The rich get rich,
    The poor are getting poorer,
    A thousand points of light,
    Its the same old story…

    (A verse from an old original song titled “State Of Confusion” written during Poppy Bush’s term as corporate puppet.)

  8. Don’t Pay Taxes

    Don’t like roads?
    Don’t pay taxes.
    Don’t like safe water?
    Don’t pay taxes.
    Don’t like safe food?
    Don’t pay taxes.
    Don’t like healthy people?
    Don’t pay taxes.
    Don’t like socialism?
    Don’t pay taxes.

    • I don’t….didn’t pay taxes because I don’t like meaningless wars that line the pockets of the corporations, oil companies and the defense industry.

  9. Gee….let’s go with that 20% flat tax plan. Those folks making so little now that they don’t pay any income taxes – about half the country – will suddenly have to make due with a 20% pay cut. Those folks making so much they pay the top rate – 35%, will see an immediate 15% pay raise. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?

    • Sounds about right. That and the low, low 15% capital gains taxes that they pay on their investments, should make the “job creators” create more jobs. Right? Right?

  10. Neuter wants to privatize Social Security like it’s done in Chile…if your broker (who would get commissions on your social security account) out-performs Social Security – you win. If your broker doesn’t (he still gets to keep his commissions) the Government will bail you out (assuming, of course, that in the event of another market collapse enough votes can be found in Congress to fund such a bailout – and it only takes 1 Senator to block such a vote).

    Neuter wants to give us the illusion that our Social Security will be as safe under his plan as it is now, while allowing the gamblers on Wall Street unfettered access to new trillions to play with.

    • I don’t think that there is any more mood for privatizing Social Security than there was when Bush rolled it out in 2005. Except among the rich and the Randians.

  11. Good morning!
    I tried to write a poem but can’t get past the first few lines:
    The rich should be richer
    The poor can stay poor
    According to Newt, the old corporate whore.
    In Virginia news, we’re going to get our very own “personhood” bill, courtesy of Delegate Sideshow Bob Marshall, stipulating that “unborn children at every stage of development enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of the commonwealth”. Great.

    • Outstanding, poetry isn’t my field either as you can see by my entry. Fortunately, we both get first prize. Reminds me of grade school track and field day where everyone got a ribbon.

    • Of course, that means test tube people, frozen for over 21 years, get the right to vote. And, when they turn 35, can run for President – hmmmm…..Imagine a debate between the current crop of Republicans and a frozen embryo….who would come out on top in the polls?

      • The frozen embryo could well seem quite intelligent and well informed compared to Perry, Cain, and Bachmann.

      • Not sure they would be allowed to vote. Do they have a photo ID? What about a piece of mail of mail that proves a permanent address — such as a utility bill or driver’s license?

    • So isn’t she in some deep shit for violating her security clearance confidentiality that allowed her to be privy to this intel? Wonder what the consequences of her using this intel as political leverage will be?

  13. We are getting a full bathroom makeover. It is supposed to take three days, starting today, but they are making a fast start!! A bit hard to concentrate on my current programming project so I am now doing some of the odds and sods I have been putting off.

      • We are way ahead of you. Thanksgiving has come and gone. We do, however, participate in Black Friday – or should I say the retailers want us to join you in that wondrous occasion.

        Looking forward to the football games tomorrow though.

        • Dycker, are you ready for the great War of 1812 bi-centenary. The Amurkans think they won that you know? Just like they won Vietnam…

          • Oh yeah! Just sent my bayonet to get sharpened. Apparently we have some kind of celebrations planned. That war was really an early defining moment for us even though we were not a nation yet.

            • well they call the other spate, the one where most of the major European powers ganged up on Britain, the ‘Revolutionary War’ or ‘War for American Independence’

              Seems to me the War of 1812, started by the Americans in an attempt to annex Canada, should be called ‘The War for Canadian Independence’.

              Which I believe was a ‘home win’ for the hosers… ?

            • You got that right TtT. And we never needed a war to gain Nation status – although the Revolutionary War probably helped that eventuality.

            • Do you lot think you could pull yourselves away from the hockey long enough to burn down Washington again?

              Please?

            • Bayonet? What kind of patriot are you? Don’t you know that you have to celebrate by buying an AK47 or something?

            • And Canadian Thanksgiving marks what anyway?

              1. Wayne Gretsky’s birthday?
              2. Start of hockey season?
              3. First Tim Horton’s opening?
              4. Ejection of rabid Amurkans from the St Lawrence river valley in 1814?

            • TtT Calgary it is! Home of a useless hockey team and bastion of conservative thinking. And our thanksgiving is earlier because… I haven’t a clue!?!

              Liberty Lover, it’s way harder to get an AK47 here.

  14. Welcome to the modern ages
    Close the chapter, burn the pages
    Looking back is not the way
    To embrace the modern age

    The stories of the modern ages
    Are playing out upon life’s stages
    The scenery is rearranged
    To suit the players as they change

    When will we all realize
    The past’s a veil before our eyes
    And how much makeup will be worn
    When we see the veils are torn

    Human ants trapped in our hills
    Believing we still have free will
    While plastic puppets hypnotize
    With pornographic exercise

    Useless users use their whores
    Wake up thinking they have scored
    And how much makeup must be worn
    Now that all the veils are torn

    • Yes but Newt will stop them presumably by illegal search, wiretapping, arrest without habeas corpus and torture…..

      Where was the followup to his ‘yuk yuk’ line last night?

    • Wow, that’s quite a collection of ReichWing terrorists. But we don’t need to regulate or control automatic weapons, or have any barriers to unrestricted WMD, no surrah.

      • Of course, the Reichwhiners would just say that there’s no such thing as a Reichwing terrorist. Only hippies and Muslims can be terrorists.

    • This is the most appropriate way for this pea brained numbskull to communicate…except maybe for hieroglyphic.

  18. Here’s a Shakespearean-style sonnet I wrote a few years ago when GWB was president, one which described the slippage of America into the black hole of national failure, the hows and whys of the process. Note the message embedded in the first letter in each of the fourteen lines, in sequence. I forget what they call that nifty little technique. :)

    Elegy on America
    The Legacy of George W. Bush:
    Gone, Wasted, Broken

    Gone now, America’s halcyon days
    Where Reason stood tall and grand in the sun;
    Brilliance defined Her equanimous ways –
    Gone now, expunged, all Her triumphs hard won.
    E. pluribus unum: Her goal was clear.
    One chosen from many, She alone rose
    Reflecting the grandeur of cause sincere –
    Gone now, forever corrupted by woes:
    Environments: Poisoned with gas and fume;
    Waters: Mercurial, deadly as wars;
    Broken: A people, too cold to exhume;
    Uberty: Ceded to desolate shores.
    Still, some see not what others are mourning:
    Haste become greed become waste – sans warning.

  19. On CNN there’s an article wherein their ‘Truth Squad’ fact checks the Republican debate…
    conclusions?
    Pricky…
    Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry challenged the Obama administration’s decisions involving national security, accusing the administration of being “an absolute failure” in spending to support military intelligence during Tuesday night’s debate.
    Misleading. Whether the administration is spending enough to keep the next terrorist attack from happening is subject to debate, but the total represents a significant increase in spending over the course of Obama’s tenure. The Obama administration also has been responsible for the capture and killings of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, so to call it “an absolute failure” is not justified.

    Batscat ~ Michele Bachmann said the issue of Israeli aggression came up only because of Iran’s possible nuclear capability.
    False. While Ahmadinejad is no fan of Israel or the United States, he did not state in August that he wants to eradicate Israel. Because he does not acknowledge pursuit of nuclear weapons, he could not have threatened to use them against Israel or the United States.

    and on and on, every single fact check came up with False or Misleading.
    No wonder these candidates are in bed with FauxSnooze.

    • CNN pretty much destroyed whatever regard I had for them by allowing a bunch of war criminals ask questions that were, mostly, predicated on lies. I found the fact that they didn’t even try to make the point that, during Obama’s Administration, border security has been increased and we have followed a vigorous program of deportations to be particularly egregious. Anyone who watched that “debate” in a vacuum would come away with the impression that Obama has thrown the border open and done nothing to deal with illegal aliens in this country. That was, arguably, the biggest falsehood of the night.

    • Thank you Bill O’Reilly for your sterling service in the ongoing ‘War on Big Oil and Big Coal’…

  21. Pamela Geller is outraged! Again! About Sharia turkeys!

    Jeebus. I’m dying to know how many outraged fellow bigots actually complain to Butterball. Five?

    Non-Muslims in America and Europe don’t deserve to have halal turkey forced upon them in this way, without their knowledge or consent. So this Thanksgiving, fight for your freedom. Find a non-halal, non-Butterball turkey to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday. And write to Butterball and request, politely but firmly, that they stop selling only halal turkeys, and make non-halal turkeys available to Americans who still value our freedoms.

    The hysterical irony being that halal slaughter and kosher slaughter are essentially identical. And Pamela Geller is Jewish.

    I’m not a huge fan of Butterball turkeys and much prefer fresh local birds, but I’m tempted to buy one anyway.

    If you don’t actually read the TPM article, you really have to look at the link anyway, just to see the photo they used to illustrate it. Priceless.

    • Pamela Geller, thank you for your service in the brutal and awful ‘War on Thanksgiving’

      • This may come out wrong but… I hope that something really terrible happened to Geller as a child. I find it unsettling to think that someone can become so twisted without a great trauma damaging their mind and soul..

    • I seem to recall seeing a story about Muslim and Jewish leaders approving of making kosher and halal foods interchangeable. There are some minor differences but they are not mutually exclusive.

      You’re right about the picture. I might even make it my wallpaper.

      • I’ve seen a couple of references that say Muslims consider kosher food halal, but Orthodox Jews do not consider halal necessarily kosher. It seems likely this has nothing to do with the actual procedures.

        • That could be what I saw. i don’t pretend that I found the subject very compelling so I may have gotten the whole thing wrong. still, to the best of my knowledge, there isn’t a great deal of difference.

            • Heck! I’ll eat any critter I can catch. I once made the mistake of going through the list of “odd” things I had eaten on a first date. I hadn’t even broken down the list of rodents before she had to go to the bathroom and sneak out without me. Then I ate the veal she had ordered.

    • I say we hold her down and stuff pork sausage stuffing into her gob until she can’t take no more.

      • Why waste good food on a lost cause? If I were to hold her down for any reason it would be so that a nice old Muslim lady could kick her for awhile.

        Damn! Now I have a craving for spaghetti with home made pork meatballs.

      • Oh I remember that one, all right.

        I was somewhat surprised she didn’t make a video for Easter in a slaughter-house where bunnies were being killed for their lucky feet.

    • Is her objection that it be slaughtered, humanely, in the name of Allah?
      That can be the only reason.
      Then my question would be – how much different is that than when xians say ‘blessings’ before consuming a meal?

      • I think the real objection is that Butterball was halal-friendly and therefore supported the destruction of Western Civilization. By stating that their turkeys were halal, they implied that this was a good thing rather than the means of smuggling terrorists into your dining room.

    • I’m a lot more concerned about how the things are produced that how they are killed, or who might have prayed over them. While I’m no Butterball fan, I hope the nonsense spread by this stupid attention seeking harpie doesn’t affect their business. And yes, the picture is great!

  23. Wish I could have gotten a picture of this but driving on I-39 a bit ago I was passed by a pickup truck. Across the top of the tailgate in 3″ reflective letters like you use on a mailbox or boat was…”VOTE NO TO SOCIALISM!” . Down on the bumper was an official sticker identifying him as a fireman.

      • That brings back an amusing memory. Back in the 80′s our 6 year old came home and repeated bigoted remarks he had heard from other children. My husband told him that he was black (he did have tightly curled hair). We never heard another bigoted remark out of him.

      • I suppose that things may be different in “Pat’s” world but here in Minnesota mac and cheese is a staple of every church pot luck I’ve ever heard of. Maybe “Pat” is so holy that he doesn’t have to mingle with the rubes in a church?

  25. News alert from the BBC on my phone:

    “Seven held in Amish hair attacks”

    Slow news day…..

  26. It was a dark and stormy night, forty years gone by, when on a Thanksgiving eve D.B. Cooper bailed out of the tail hatch of a hijacked airliner with $200,000.00 and a parachute. Still somewhat of a mystery as to even who he was, much less what ever happened to him, I can’t help but ponder whether he was paying any attention to the little voice that must have been telling him all along:
    “Bad idea, DB…”

  27. For personal gain
    the rich cause much pain
    With increasing disdain
    they admonish “Don’t complain”
    On the best they dine
    with light heat and wine
    while the poor stand in line
    and wonder “Where’s mine?”

    • I spent more than forty years in Arizona and while there, I lived among, worked with and worked for various Mormons. I all those years I met exactly two that I trusted, who were as they appeared. The rest were like Mitt Romney.

      Don’t be surprised at anything he pulls, no matter how covered with crap it might be. He comes by it honestly, probably can’t help himself. and probably wouldn’t even if he could.

      • I’ve always held that anyone who can buy an angel and gold tablets in upstate NY as the basis for a religion will not only buy anything but have no qualms about selling anything.

        • This is for you too, frugal.

          I make no secret of the fact that I find all religions to fall somewhere between wishful thinking and severe mental illness. The Mormons are just about the weirdest of the bunch. I read most of the Book of Mormon and to call it utterly unbelievable is about the kindest thing I can say.

        • I read recently that Christians don’t like Mormons because when you read what it is you are supposed to sign off on as a Mormon, it simply brings into focus what you have to sign off on to be a Christian.

          Mormonism is the episode in the history of Christianity where Fonzie ‘Jumps the Shark’

          • It seems like a growing percentage of American Christians don’t like anyone; including themselves. I find it truly incredible that they have managed to pervert Jesus’ lessons of love and tolerance into such an exclusionary world view. I realize that’s nothing new but I am more than a bit surprised that it has become so pervasive here in the second decade of the 21st Century. I had hoped that we would be able to learn from the experience of other theocratic states but I fear that it will take lots of blood to teach us just how destructive theocracy can be.

      • Probably have not met as many as you have, but the ones I’ve met are untrustworthy. It’s almost as if there is a coda about what you can do to ‘infidels’ same as some of the tenets of some more fundamental Muslim branches.

    • Willard is out to make his campaign into a strong LMAO one. Both laughing and lying…take your pick.

  30. Rick Santorum believes that the Christian thing to do is allow children to starve — it’s good for them.

    That is not a healthy thing for children, it’s not a healthy thing for society … Suffering, if you’re a Christian, suffering is a part of life. And it’s not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life … There are all different ways to suffer. One way to suffer is through lack of food and shelter and there’s another way to suffer which is lack of dignity and hope and there’s all sorts of ways that people suffer and it’s not just tangible, it’s also intangible and we have to consider both.

    My own opinion is that Rick isn’t suffering enough, although it’s also got me wondering whether he’s a member of Opus Dei and a self-flagellant.

    • Ah, yes. The persecution complex. When someone like Man-dog Boy isn’t suffering he just makes up something to suffer over. Sick, sick, sick little monkey. It must be a miserable way to exist.

    • I am, as always, stunned by the sheer stupidity of people who believe in a deity who puts them in a veritable garden so they can suffer. No wonder Western society is so warped.

  31. And we can go after Batshit all we like, but in the public forum there’s comedy and then there’s not comedy, *this* is not comedy and is offensive

    Fallon needed to apologise – not funny. He should have focussed on demolishing the absurdity that is Michele Bachmann’s world view. Instead he went gutter.

    There I’ve said *two* nice-ish things about Batshit today…

    • I don’t think it was supposed to be funny. It was an expression of contempt that I share. I also think it’s an accurate description of Batscat’s character. Even her “bombshell” about six Pakistani nuclear sites being attacked has been shown to be pure fabrication. I have no mercy for those who promote falsehoods in order to make people hate and fear other people. I have only two objections to the use of the song.

      1. It might cause some people to sympathize with Crazy Shelly.
      2. They didn’t keep playing until she broke down in tears and stormed off the stage.

    • Not being a big fan of Fallon, to expect him to be more than juvenile in his humor is a bit of a stretch. And I don
      t find the choice of song anything close to dishonest. If Mitt had been the guest they could have played the theme song from ‘Flipper’. The fact is, Shelly is lying her ass off on a daily basis and not enough people are calling her on it.

      My 2 cents.

    • Yes but all that will be remembered now is how Bachmann was the victim of a sexist ad hominem insult……. plays into her victimhood.

      I think the contempt we all share can be used differently to destroy liars like her.

  32. Christianity is just plain weird. The biblical writings about Jesus show that his purpose was to take away the sins (and suffering) of the world so humanity could have a shot at avoiding the suffering he took on for them. Instead, the religion has promoted the idea for centuries that the only way this deity will love you is if you are hammered with suffering like Jesus in his final day.

    While their are many sects today that really don’t believe that tripe, the vast majority do. God wants his children to suffer to earn a place in heaven. Seriously sick.

  33. Bathroom reno is going at warp speed. All the old is out. New sub floor and new dry board around the tub is in. Now only the tiling left to do. About 10 times faster than my wife and I could have done it and with 100% less of the inevitable arguing and 1000 trips to the store!

  34. We have a problem in the US. Some of our most serious news reporting is being done by comedians. No major network, cable or broadcast, has any individual who has a reputation for honesty and impartiality. No one has picked up Edward R’s mantle and forged a reputation for being fearless, impartial and honest in their reporting. Instead we have a quagmire of blathering, anything goes unless it pisses someone off, pretty faced pablum laced with half truths, lies and distractions. Guts went out of style with peg leg jeans and Southern Rose Butch Wax.

    • I remember when those clean-cut all-American boys, the Smothers Brothers, got censored and cancelled – because they dared poke fun at the political powers that be.

  36. I am the one percent,
    I’m not content.
    I have alot, to be sure,
    But I want to insure,
    I’ll have it all!

    I want it all!
    All the wealth and toys!
    And power too, to make some noise.
    To drown out drown out the pesky cry
    Of the poor folks when they die.

    I want it all.
    What I have is not enough,
    I want it all.
    My life is tough,
    I want it all.

    The little people bother me,
    They want to take what’s mine;
    With peaceful protests silently,
    “We are the 99″

    But I’ve got armies
    I’ve got the law!
    I’ve got Congress, Judges too,
    Firmly in my claw.

    I am the one percent,
    Of that you’ll not forget,
    My hired guns will hunt you down,
    Your protests you’ll regret.

    I want it all,
    The 99 get nothing, that’s right.
    I want it all,
    And I have all the power and the might,
    To have it all.

    I’ll have it all.

    Until…

    …I…

    …fall.

  38. Wide stance Republicans in bathroom stalls
    See brown people in suburban malls
    What will they do to prevent their fall?
    What in the world will they do with us all?

    Offensive fences
    Offensive fences
    Offensive fences
    And paranoid walls

  39. I don’t know how much that I will be around tomorrow, but I want you all to have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

    Although I don’t necessarily believe in a deity anymore, I still bow my head (because it is comforting and to be honest, old habits die hard) and give thanks for the abundance that the universe has given me and my family in spite of all of our trials and tribulations.

    My wish for you this Thanksgiving is that as you gather with your friends and family to enjoy their company, my wish for you is that you stay safe and warm and may you have joy.

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