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I am free from phil without the RIP thingee, I am free not to read his comments, the day I need a computer program to screen what I read or not is the day hell freezes over for me. I quite like the banter from time to time, if I am in the mood.
Phil is easy to ignore (as anyone is) if you don’t feel like wading through the punctuation, but he sometimes makes some interesting comments. What has been noticeable is the significant reduction in interminable baiting and niggling that was far worse than the initial posts. I don’t like the idea of selective screening, but I like the result when some have chosen to do that – although some can’t resist going on about it anyway.
String theorist and theoretical physicist Professor Michio Kaku, is suspecting that there may be many universes out there that we don’t know about yet. His BBC interview from Youtube.
The multiple universe theory (MUT) was first proposed in order to fix philosophical problems of quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics (QM) has excellent track record to date, since it’s birth over a hundred years ago, ie, its predictions confirmed by observations have been accurate, which they match reasonably well. The problems with it though (ie, QM), was not the accuracy of its predictions, but for it’s purported correspondence to physical reality, since it advocates contradictive ideas such as being located at 2 different places once or in different points in space simultaneously or information can be instantaneously communicated from point A to point B in zero time, regardless if A and B are separated by meters or vast intergalactic distances. Einstein labeled all this stuff spooky action at a distance, when he criticized QM theory, because such interpretation is really unphysical (God-like in linguistic terms). Physical processes must always have a time elapsed when the cause is produced at one point (A) then travels to a different point (B) where the effect is observed instantaneously (zero-time-lapsed).
MUT was then proposed advocating that what QM called, being at 2 places or points in space at once is in fact not the case. The object (particle from our universe) is indeed only located at one place, but there is a virtual particle (complete replica or image of the particle from our universe ), just pops in from another parallel universe (which there are infinite of them out there according to MUT) and interact with the particle from our universe. MUT says that only the end result of the interaction between the virtual particle and the real particle from our universe that is observable in our universe’s frame of reference, since the virtual particle itself can never be observed directly in our universe. Any attempt to detect (experimentally), this virtual particle is deemed to fail. The example of this is the double-slit-experiment, when one puts a measuring device to see where the particle goes thru, only to find out that the particle only went thru one of the holes and not both.
Now, both theories are excellent in their predictive capabilities where there predictions are the same and it doesn’t matter which theory that the physicist will choose to use in his work, because the outcome is the same. But what about their supposed portraying of physical reality? Philosophically, they’re are not theories of physical realities, since one (QM) is advocating the notion of being at 2 places at once (which is unphysical – ie, ghostly nature) and the other one (MUT) is advocating the notion of infinite universes every time a quantum event takes place somewhere in our universe, where the original universe splits into 2 identical universes, and those 2 will split into 4 identical and those 4 will split into 8 identical which are all parallel and so on. The splitting is never ending, since there is always a quantum event that takes place in our universe every nano-second or micro-second.
So, predictive power of theories in relation to observations is completely a different matter from claiming that the theories themselves do correspond to physical reality directly. It looked like that QM & MUT, while excellent in their predictive power, must be a reduction of some unknown more general theory that is yet to be discovered.
The Palin poll rise is indicative of how lean the GOP pickings are.
Is the family name too tainted, or is Jeb in with a chance? I’d have preferred him over his brother last time, and maybe over a few of the current prospects, but the name…..
What gets me is what are the thousands of delegates going to Copenhagen actually going to do? About one in a hundred will get a chance to speak. If they all had five minutes the talk-fest would go on for a year. I guess Copenhagen in the early winter is quite nice.
Back to the smacking law for a moment folks if I may..
The NZ Hooerald in an editorial today hammers a nail into the coffin of Nigel Latta as a conservative figure. It praises Latta’s stand with Broad and the other civil servant on the child smacking law. It praises Latta’s conclusions. Says Granny Hooerald:
Let the Latta report be the last word. Common sense has prevailed in law and practice.
The Hooerald editorial bestows a Ph.D. on Latta, calling him Dr Latta. From Latta’s web site, it appears he doesn’t have a Ph.D. This is trivial in the smacking debate, but an indication of the standard of the Hooerald editorial articles.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting that Brian Edwards on his site, obviously writing earlier, suggests Latta is a “closet social conservative”. Lefty Edwards is reflecting on Latta’s TV entertainment centred on parenting.
A quote from Edwards on Latta’s The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show:
…Behind the hip psychologist I was sure I could detect the shadow of a closet social conservative…
Hip psychologist? Latta appears to be as much an entertainer as a psychologist, hence the Key team getting him as the celebrity front for Broad’s review of the smacking law.
“Redbaiter – who’s your pick for the GOP nomination?”
If you’re asking me to accurately predict who that will be, I don’t know, and there is nothing that I could use to substantiate such a prediction right now.
The thing that has to happen next US election is that the power bloc of the establishment, the socialist status quo, has to be shattered. As well as the death grip the left has on the political discourse, we must break their hold on a perverse academia and the corrupt and degenerate mainstream media.
The Government of the US must be restored to its constitutional principles.
If I had who I wanted it would be Palin/ Bachmann. The left fear and hate those two above all.
(Cheney was looking good until he endorsed that loser Kaye Hutchinson in Texas)
I am free from phil without the RIP thingee, I am free not to read his comments, the day I need a computer program to screen what I read or not is the day hell freezes over for me. I quite like the banter from time to time, if I am in the mood.
The RIP thingy frees me from excessive scrolling to get past philu’s posts. I was getting RSI from using the scroll wheel on my mouse and eye strain from looking at all those full stops.
redbaiter – theres not a lot of candidates putting their hand up. huckabee must be fucked after the cop killing incident.
they wont give Palin the nod. maybe she goes independent, takes a chunk of the vote and then runs as a republican next time round. that would drag em back to the right. just means 4 more years of obama. ouch.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
As well as the death grip the left has on the political discourse, we must break their hold on a perverse academia and the corrupt and degenerate mainstream media.
You really are a control freak, aren’t you? Why won’t you allow the market to work, the media to follow their owner’s instructiions and the consumersm to buy or not as they see fit
If the Republicans are serious about winning next time around then the very worst thing they can do is select Palin as their candidate.
This is not to say that I do not support the lady, personally I think she would be great but middle USA is not going to vote for her given the way the left wing media will set out to destroy her.
As much as some here will not like it they need to select a more moderate Republican, yes he/she should be pro choice (as much as that annoys me) but he/she can also be anti partial birth abortion.
If they really want to mount a serious challenge then they could do worse than choose Condoleezza Rice or David Petraeus.
To win in 2012 the Republicans have to take the left wing media bias out of the equation as much as they possibly can, a black female presidential candidate would have the pinko media in total panic, they would be unable to play the race card, they would be unable to play the age card, they would be forced to look at the issues.
The same could be said about Petraeus, while he is obviously white, the middle or independent voters will not take well to seeing a decorated war hero attacked by the left wing media.
Bringing the USA back to the centre right is going to take time, selecting a bible bashing hard right candidate is only going to ensure another four years of this corrupt, racist and frankly incompetent Obama administration.
big bruv – no matter who the GOP select as their candidate they will be attacked mercilessly by the left wing media. It wont be easy for any of them to get any media traction.
Geeze Brian..with all due respect you really need to harden up. Like your humour though ( I presume you are joking right?)
It is advancing decreptitude, lofty. The fingers aren’t as nimble as they once were and my latest prescription of glasses have lenses like the bottom of coke bottles. When I saw the full stops in philu’s posts I kept thinking I was taking a test for Age Related Macular degeneration.
I think you are on to it there Bruv, all of the current front runners have serious drawbacks. The problem is with people with some respect and credibility like (debatably) Rice and Petraeus is that if there is any inkling of them not toeing the line on things like abortion they will be attacked more mercilessly by the hard right, the left won’t have do do much at all.
“..David Koch, co-owner of an oil and gas empire, has funded all of the major organizations dedicated to debunking the facts of global warming.
Right-wing billionaire David Koch, who along with his brother Charles owns the oil and gas empire Koch Industries ..
.. constantly presents himself as a champion of science.
Next year, a wing of the Smithsonian will be named after him because of his generous donations.
Indeed, in accepting Koch’s donations, the Smithsonian Human Origins Program director Rick Potts attempted to whitewash Koch’s philanthropist history:
POTTS: What we find in David Koch is a person who’s committed to doing things for the American public that has no relationship to politics
Koch apparently relishes this perception that his money buys.
In an interview earlier this year, Koch pretended that he opposes organizations which politicize and distort science:
Q: What role do you think politics should play in educating the public about evolution?
KOCH: That’s an interesting question. I think politicians should really stay out of it and allow scientists to present the facts and discoveries. I hate to see it politicized.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe yesterday, I observed that Koch has manufactured a positive image for himself by giving to laudable causes ..
.. while at the same time, quietly “funneling tens of millions of dollars to more subterranean efforts that reflect his conservative politics.”
Despite his funding of the Smithsonian, Koch has done more to politicize and and undermine the public’s understanding of science than any other single person.
Koch has funded the leading groups dedicated to spreading skepticism of climate change:..”
You have got big kahunas calling redbaiter a control freak!
It was the likes of you and your leftie cohorts who have slowly and insidiously wormed your thinking into our society to the extent that journalists, educationalists, academics, and those in whom we put trust to educate our children, are completely blinded by any other viewpoint, even when they think they are not.
I do not doubt that, however, they (the GOP) have to play the hand they are dealt, yes the media will go after them, yes they will be biased, this is the reality of USA presidential elections, so, the GOP need to nullify as much of this attack as they can.
If the GOP are smart about it they could use these attacks to their benefit, it could well bite the pinko’s on the arse.
I do not like (and actively dislike) the new Karma buttons. They are far too intrusive and for short posts look like part of the comment. Can we please go back to the old buttons? Or at least right-align them or something.
You have got big kahunas calling redbaiter a control freak!
Yep, I DO have big balls, thank you for noticing.
I am not the one demanding the media conform to my views, that’s redbaiter’s territory. For some reason, he hates the idea that private business owners should be allowed to set their own goals.
Bruv- Condoleeza Rice most likely voted for Obama. The cold hard fact is that you have to put your personal distaste for religion aside if you want the left power bloc destroyed.
..and its time we stopped doing things based on fears of what the “left wing media” will do. Fuck em. We take them on and we destroy those stinking cowardly partisan scum. They’re going down the tube at a faster rate every day as it is.
They’ve already done they’re utmost to destroy Palin and she’s only one point behind Obama.
And what the fuck is the “centre right”? Just a propaganda term for more socialism but with the reality swept further under the rug. You want to duplicate John key in America??
Fuck the centre right. The outcome that has to occur is a return to Constitutional Government. The American Constitution is the greatest document on individual liberty ever written in modern times. Right now the US government is light years from the intent of that document, (and has been for half a century or more) and going for any “centre right” compromise is still a galaxy away from Constitutional adherence.
Palin can do it, and the only thing that will stop her is Benedict Arnolds running around repeating the left’s talking points and propaganda for them. Turncoats like Frum, Kathleen Parker and other elitist pundits. The anti Palin forces are the ones who are responsible for making the Republicans practically indistinguishable from the Democrats. They must be defeated for they are in reality the damn fools that allow the left such a death grip on the status quo.
Hiding comments based on karma seems to weight things for the active majority. I guess time will tell what the effect is.
I often post knowing it will get a lot of negatives, but that can sometimes be a deliberate part of the game, sometimes it’s just the consequence of being prepared to challenge the choir.
If the rules change does one change the way they play or do they find another game? Do you only post what you think will get favourable karma so you aren’t excluded?
It would be a shame if it ended up simply a karma competition.
If Kharma is leading to comments being hidden, then this is a screwed up system.
Many comments draw considerable negative khama early when all the left wing trolls are about, but as the day goes on, (and more productive readers are able to visit), the khama gradually swings the other way.
How will this happen if the comments are hidden by a primary collection of negatives?
This is one subject that I you and I will disagree on (for different reasons)
As much as we both like Palin the reality is that she will never be elected, what I want is to get rid of Obama and Rahm Emanuel, IMHO, Emanuel is more dangerous than B Hussein Messiah Obama.
Politically the fact that Rice voted for Obama is fantastic, this can only help her with the undecided voters, yes you and I can beat our chests and say “fuck the centre right” but that is not going to get us anywhere, the USA needs to be weaned off Obamaism and socialist policies.
The other reality is that the GOP just cannot avoid is the media bias, it is a fact of life and something the GOP would be foolish to ignore, to do so would be to hand Obama another four year term.
You rightly mention the USA constitution as being the greatest document known to man, the founding fathers were also sure in their determination to have a separation of church and state, the reality is that bible bashing hard right Republicans are no more interested in freedom than the hard left liberals/progressives, a man or woman’s religious beliefs should have no bearing at all on their ability to do the job.
We both have the same goal Red, we both want the end to progressive/liberal politics, we both want an end to the state controlling our lives but we differ on how that should be done, selecting a bible bashing hard right candidate will only make that goal harder to attain.
Yes it might mean that we will have to suffer a few ‘moderate’ Republican Presidents but surely, that is preferable to seeing Obama, Pelosi, Emanual and Reid stay in power.
Because the second thing to note about Malek is that he was the man who drew up a list of Jews to be fired from the civil service under the Nixon administration. I am surprised that so many people have allowed themselves to forget this—and that Palin has never been asked a single question about it. In the early 1970s, Nixon, whose White House tapes show consistent evidence of anti-Semitic paranoia, gave orders that the Bureau of Labor Statistics be purged of what he called a “Jewish cabal.” The job of drawing up the list was given to Malek, whose information led to what was called the “reassignment” of some officials within the Labor Department. Malek later tried to give a weaselly excuse for his conduct, but was caught by my Slate colleague Timothy Noah.
“the reality is that bible bashing hard right Republicans are no more interested in freedom than the hard left liberals/progressives”
I’m sorry Bruv, but there is no way I can agree with that. It is a perspective that derives from a leftist political contruct that as all of them, bears no relationship to reality. To say that right wing Christians and Progressives have an equally perverted view on individual liberty is just crazy. To suggest that Palin, because she is Christian, would implement the same freedom destroying policies as Obama is just nuts.
I find your above analysis, especially your statement that the US “needs to be weand off Obamaism”, in strange conflict with your criticism of John Key.
Its not just Obamaism. Obama is only a small part of the problem. The problem is every President and almost every politician over the last few decades.
Palin can do it. The Republican establishment and the left wing media can be defeated. (She defeated them in Alaska).
Recent polls (I referenced one yesterday) show The Tea party party (if it existed) would be far more popular than the Republican party.
Red, I know you’ve been promoting Palin and I admit I think she’d do a good job and I note others suggesting Rice (who I don’t rate) but the reality is that only a WASP male will attract enough votes throughout the country to defeat both the incumbent clown and the slime.
“To say that right wing Christians and Progressives have an equally perverted view on individual liberty is just crazy.”
It is far from crazy, the left want to control what you do and what you say based on the communist doctrine while the right want to control what you say and what you do based on the ‘teachings’ of the bible.
This is the same self serving doctrine that makes the libertarians a fading political force.
You’re overlooking a major point of difference. Christians advocate a personal morality and ASK you to consider and abide by that morality. Progressives legislate to force you to comply with their beliefs.
Christian morality advances individualism and personal behaviour as solutions. Progressives advocate compulision by force of government and collectivism as a solution to every individual’s problems. (and they seek to destroy morality)
Mr. Tinman, you’re playing right into the hands of the left. Allowing yourself to be manipulated by their media sycophants and propagandists. Don’t you think its time the right stopped allowing the left to set the agenda? Don’t you think its time the right stopped doing the left’s propaganda and work for them???
One major group in the Tea Party movement — named after the famous Boston Tea Party — is set to host its first convention in February, with former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as its keynote speaker.
But there are fractures in the movement that threaten its future. And if history’s any guide, such movements tend to flame out.
The Tea Party movement erupted on April 15 — tax day — over criticism of President Obama’s economic policies and what organizers called big government out of control. The movement, made up of local, state and national groups, continues to protest what it considers fiscally unsound policies.
And the movement is well funded. Action groups like FreedomWorks — chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey — helped organize and fund its April 15 rally in Washington.
Other groups, including Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Patriots, are also vying for the helm of the movement, and it’s creating what some are calling “competitive chaos.”
Some Tea Partiers have voiced anger and concern over whether the powerful groups are “astroturfing” what is supposed to be a grass-roots coalition — the idea that the movement is being organized by old-fashioned GOP bigwigs to promote their agenda.
Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.
Christian morality advance the bible as a solution, a classic example of this is the growing problem of teen pregnancy, the hard right advocate abstinence or the bible as the solution, this same hard right do not want to allow any discussion on the subject of contraception.
“Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.”
OK Bruv, give me an example of legislation that Sarah Palin might implement that is driven by her Christian beliefs and that will impinge upon your liberty, property rights and income to the extent that socialist legislation does.
“the hard right advocate abstinence or the bible as the solution”
Abstinence is a solution. I cannot see the problem in advocating such a concept.
“OK Bruv, give me an example of legislation that Sarah Palin might implement that is driven by her Christian beliefs and that will impinge upon your liberty, property rights and income to the extent that socialist legislation does.”
Does it matter what the legislation is?, you cannot claim to be a lover of freedom and personal responsibility and then support legislation that takes away our liberty or personal responsibility simply because that legislation is written by our ‘team’.
Abstinence is not a solution, abstinence is an option, nothing more or less, we should offer all of the options in the battle to slash the growing number of teen pregnancies, if contraception stops one abortion then I am all for it.
The reality is that unless we offer all of the alternatives and then take away the safety net of welfare nothing will change, our kids should be taught all of the options and at the same time be told that if you fuck up then you are on your own, they should not have the option of welfare.
give me an example of legislation that Sarah Palin might implement
The problem is, who would know what she might implement? She has not exactly been prolific with her policy ideas.
It could depend on who ends up pulling her strings, and how much she will try and tie them in knots, I don’t think she is as compliant as GW was.
Christian morality advance the bible as a solution, a classic example of this is the growing problem of teen pregnancy, the hard right advocate abstinence or the bible as the solution, this same hard right do not want to allow any discussion on the subject of contraception.
bruv, we have kids leaving school who can’t spell abstinence, yet can put a condom on a banana with one arm tied behind their back.
And given the STD prevention rate of abstinence is better than that of condoms, perhaps the Bible’s guidance is simply aligned with sensible health choices.
I was rather hoping that this discussion would not degenerate into one where we argue the merits of religion.
By all means, you teach your kids about the value of abstinence, in the mean time I will teach mine all of the options (including abstinence), one thing is true, the ‘just say no’ campaign has failed miserably.
Of course it does. You said above that you would not vote for a religious person on the grounds that they would introduce legislation that stems from their faith and that would impinge upon your freedoms.
I ask you to seek out any legislation that Sarah Palin enacted in Alaska (where she enjoyed high public approval ratings as governor of a population not known as bible bashers) which meets that criteria, and to advise of any policy you think she may implement if elected POTUS that will also meet that criteria.
Now either you must have some evidence for your statement or it becomes just a hollow prejudice.
Furthermore it has been the left’s strategy right from the period of eminence of Marx to crush religion, as they see it and the patriarchial family unit as two of the biggest impediments to totalitarian socialism. They have, by means of generating the kind of sentiment expressed by yourself and others succeeded in driving a wedge into the political right, and it is the divisions that resulted from this wedge that have allowed them the successes they have enjoyed over the last few decades.
We must heal that division, reunite and defeat the Secular Progressives.
Surely the point that in this argument you are enjoying the support of most of the extreme left who pollute this forum is enough to warn you of your mistake??
“Of course it does. You said above that you would not vote for a religious person on the grounds that they would introduce legislation that stems from their faith and that would impinge upon your freedoms.”
I said no such thing, let me be perfectly clear, if I was a Yank and was faced with the option of Palin v Obama I would vote for Palin every day of the week and twice (voting twice is popular in Chicago I hear) on Sundays, she is my ideal President.
However, as strong as my support for her is my dislike (hatred) of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Emanual is far greater, I want them gone, I want them banished from the white house, if this means I have to swallow a more moderate Republican then so be it.
It is no secret that I have no time for religion, however I will defend the right of you to worship what ever god you like until the day I die, what I object to is being told that I must modify my behaviour based on your religious belief’s.
And frankly I have had enough of being told by you that I do not measure up in your eyes, I do not need you or anybody else to judge my level of commitment, I do not need you or anybody else to tell me how ‘right wing’ I am based on the teachings of a middle eastern con man of 2010 years ago.
Just because I do not agree with every word you say does not make me a fucking liberal or communist, I totally reject your comment that the left have succeeded in changing the way I feel, I decided that religion was a joke all on my own.
It seems that to be a real ‘righty’ in your eyes one has to agree with you lock, stock and barrel, well, that is never going to happen, anybody who truly believes in freedom will always allow debate, anybody who truly believes in liberty will always allow distension, you are just as bad as the left your profess to hate in your determination to silence anybody who does not agree with you.
Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?, politics should not be about cheering for everything your team stands for, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the left, they have an inability to admit that some of the things they have supported or support are wrong.
News this morning reorganisation of Newstalk ZB in The garden city with ex breakfast host John Dunn now local news reader, morning host Ali Jones and Saturday afternoon sports jock Malcolm Ellis to finish as at 18th December. Thanks and best wishes to them, the one I will miss most will be Malcolm Ellis as we will lose most of our local sports news, he has had some very good guests over time and as I don’t bother with the dead tree press it will be harder to follow local sport. On the positive though I will get Leighton Smith without having to go to the marginal reception from Timaru NewsTalkZB.
I was rather hoping that this discussion would not degenerate into one where we argue the merits of religion. By all means, you teach your kids about the value of abstinence, in the mean time I will teach mine all of the options (including abstinence), one thing is true, the ‘just say no’ campaign has failed miserably.
So was I (and didn’t think ether of our comments were heading us there..). Also, I support your absolute right to guide your kids as you see fit. Morality and life choices are too complex and too important to be installed in state-run campaigns, which is why I support the old-fashioned idea that the family home is where this stuff belongs.
Presumably you have no issue with Van Jones, Bill Ayers and others pulling Obama’s strings though.
Bruv, there far more strings in the US than in the Fender factories and the NY Philharmonic. They are not confined to one side or the other. The US is a balls-up of string. There are that may vested interests, lobby groups, think tanks etc etc that I think they could be heading for inevitable political and economic disaster – yep, worse than it is now. I think their democracy is a disaster zone.
You pigeon hole me just like you admonish Red for doing. Just because I don’t think Obama was born on Kenya doesn’t mean I am a fan of his, far from it. Some things I am ok with him on, some I’m not, and a lot I really don’t know yet. The economic measures when first becoming president were as much Bush’s as his. He inherited the wars. That’s a huge task to try and deal with – my bank still operates and we are not in a nuclear winter so he hasn’t been a complete disaster, yet.
I think all this “the left”/”the right” delineating is nonsense, everyone has mixed views spread across the spectrum, even Redbaiter (he just won’t admit it). I cheer for what I see in front of me, I don’t pre-judge from an x-sided straight jacket.
US Republican candidate selection is irrelevant. That’s the path that leads to John McCain. People (including the godforsaken candidate himself) thought that his ‘warm’ media relationship from the 2000 Republican primaries would ameliorate the lefty bias. More cynical observers said that the media would dump on him as soon as he won the 2008 primary – and they did. Witness the total sham of the NYT’s speculations on his marriage – a tabloid piece that ran, and ran, and ran on their pages. Sure, their obudsmen finally beat the reporters up and it did not appear to have any affect – but that did not stop them trying their hardest.
Look at the different reception given to the inexperienced, blow-dried fake of a VP candidate – John Edwards – in 2004, versus the endless focus on the inexperience of Palin. Not to mention the dumpster diving by reporters on her family background vs his, right up to the 2008 Democratic primary where his affair and love child remained hidden until a tabloid got it.
Were Rice ever to come within a whisper of the nomination (and she has repeatedly said she’s not interested in political races) she would find herself facing an onslaught of subtle, implied, racist ‘doubts’ as to whether she is an authentic black woman – it being understood that in the modern left no such person can actually be a right-wing Republican. Something similar would apply for Patreaus; have you ever seen much (any?) condemnation from the Democrats of the “General Betray Us” campaign? From what I saw that actually gave cover for as senior a Dem as Hillary Clinton to basically call him a liar during his congressional testimony on the ‘Surge’ in Iraq.
One may as well just accept that the following will remain in place irrespective of the candidate:
– there will be a different standard for the Democrat vs. the Republican, on corruption, on family background, on marriage, on business connections, on intelligence, on ignorance, …… on everything.
– the modern media don’t operate on digging up facts and reporting them, they operate on emotive narratives, with facts and reporting picked up or dropped as required to support whatever narrative the herd has congealed to. Sometimes this backfires on the Democrats, as when the presumed front-runner Hillary Clinton, found herself increasingly scrambling against a ‘new, fresh face’. All of sudden questions began to arise (none too subtly aired and pushed along by Obama’s minions) about her ‘possible’ racism and such like.
– There is a simple, rather old-fashioned, tribal quality to reporters in the US, which is to say that many will simply defend ‘their’ favoured ideological representative (political or cultural) irrespective of the ‘facts’. Look at some of the shit that was published about Ted Kennedy, where there was even speculation that Mary Joe might look back and decide that her death served a greater purpose in pushing an agonised Kennedy forward to do great things for all the people. Look at the Polanski issue. Sickening.
- The ‘most decent people think……’ meme that is always seized upon: every issue reduced to an endless barrage of ‘resistance is futile’. The most recent example being with Abbott in Australia. For ages, people fearfully muttered about how the Liberal/National party could not afford to be seen as ‘extreme’ on the issue of dealing with Climate Change. It would lose votes, it would result in an electoral catastrophe, yada, yada, yada. I heard the same sort of things about ‘Milk Snatcher Thatcher’ and ‘Ronnie Raygun’ – all that advice helpfully delivered by lefties concerned about their opposition going off the deep-end and doing dangerous things like trying to break union power, reforming social welfare or eyeballing the USSR – and in many cases those charges were muttered sotto voice by ‘moderate right-wingers’ concerned about electoral viability.
What has to be done is to recognise the emotive narrative and the debate framing that goes on and take those things out of the equation. That has to be done two ways. First, spend all the effort, money and other resources to go around the media and get directly to people. The Web, Twitter, Facebook and other tools are increasingly available to do that, and it’s apparent that the ‘moron’ Palin is doing that more successfully than anybody else at present.
Second, stop allowing these fucks to frame the debate – i.e. allowing them to argue about what they want to argue about. If any future Republican is ever again asked what newspapers they read they should give a quick sound-bite to the effect that they read widely but only touch the NYT or WaPo if they want to understand Democratic talking points or as examples of piss-poor fact checking – and then laugh in the reporters face. The unquestioned implication of the query itself is that the NYT and WaPo are what smart people read to find out what is happening in the world. That has not been true for a long time (Walter Duranty ring a bell?) and if anything, both sources have increasingly proved themselves to about the worse places to go to find out. But that implication is buried in almost every question, and it needs to be confronted head on.
There are two classic examples of debate framing on this thread – courtesy of Pete George and the utterly Sullivanised joe90 of course:
Pete
……if there is any inkling of them not toeing the line on things like abortion they will be attacked more mercilessly by the hard right, the left won’t have do do much at all.
Joe90
…….Because the second thing to note about Malek is that he was the man who drew up a list of Jews…….
The Democrats have ruthlessly culled pro-life Democrats over the years, right down to denying Casey the right to simply address the Democratic Convention (in ’92 I think).
They ‘mercilessly’ attacked their own former VP candidate of 1984 – Geraldine Ferraro – when she had the temerity to attack Obama as an utterly unqualified, inexperienced, lightweight candidate.
They ‘mercilessly’ attacked Joe Libermann in 2006 – and he was a down-the-line liberal on almost all issues – except the Iraq war and Israel. But that was enough. All their good deeds in the service of the Democrats and Progressive causes over many decades counted as nothing.
And of course we now have a US President who sat in a church pew for 20 years listening to an insane old man rant endlessly about the Jews. Obama not only never confronted him about this shit until Wright outed himself, but actually sent his daughters to be instructed by the same man.
This is Perlstein thinking – real Stalinist stuff – but all swept under the gently smiling face of ‘moderate’ centre-leftists who prefer to natter on about ‘hard-liners’ and extremists in the right-wing.
It’s a war over word definitions and more than that, about the emotive definition of the words and the terminology. So the Liebermann situation was portrayed as the genuine, grass-roots of the Party rising up to assert true Democracy, whereas the recent bunfight in the NY23 district over Dede Scozzafava’ was portrayed as being about mysterious, outside forces subverting the will of the people in an anti-democratic coup.
The root of such debate framing and Borg-like behaviour, is that for all of the raucous trumpeting by the left of the general superiority of their ideas, there is an intellectual cowardice that constantly sends them shuffling over to the right for support even when they have the majorities to implement their most beloved plans. So the Rudd government is perfectly willing to shove an ETS down people’s throats – as long as they’ve got right-wing support: cover for when the slings and arrows start being shot by all the little people getting screwed. Similarly in the US with the healthcare debate and Cap-and-Trade. The ability to say that the resulting fallout and fuckups are all bipartisan, that blame must be shared, that it’s nobody’s fault, that There Is No Alternative. The ability to avoid being held responsible for their own ideas.
I’m reminded of George Smiley’s description of the KGB ‘mole’, Gerald, that he hunts in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy :
Everything to do with Witchcraft is secret, of course, but a lot of people are involved – transcribers, translators, codists, evaluators, God knows what.
It doesn’t worry Gerald, of course. He likes it because the art of being Gerald is to be one of a crowd.
And lest I be accused of being partisan here let me point out that countless numbers of supposedly ‘right-wing’ politicians suffer the same intellectual cowardice and seek the same ability: they are afraid of taking the consequences for their decisions and their ideology. All it took to derail the Australian ETS was for one politician to take a stand and risk the claimed electoral backlash: in the US the Republicans have (amazingly) managed to hold together long enough to refute the standard leftist line that the American people ‘overwhelmingly’ want more government health care and to pay vastly higher prices for Rube Goldberg energy schemes.
I don’t want ‘moderates’ to be expelled from National or the Republicans. I do want them to stand up on their hind legs and take intellectual and moral responsibility for their ideas and, when compromise is needed in the usual political sausage grinder, to explain why they are doing so – and NOT in terms that involve being afraid of being booed, mocked or losing votes.
It’s not so much ‘moderates’ that I object to – it’s the ‘Geralds’ – they’re getting harder to find since there are more of them than ever, and they swim in increasingly murky political seas.
“Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.”
Unquote
“I want them banished from the white house, if this means I have to swallow a more moderate Republican then so be it.”
Fair enough. I do not agree with this sentiment, as I believe it is this very willingness to compromise that has allowed the left to obtain such a firm grip on the political culture. It has to stop, and now is as a good a time as any. That is what the Tea Party movement is all about and I am right behind them. No more RINOs.
” I will defend the right of you to worship what ever god you like until the day I die,”
I do not doubt that, however I do not worship any God. I have never been in a church or to any religious assembly in my life apart from the odd wedding or funeral. I merely recognise the moral and political advantages of an alliance with Christians in the war to defeat the left. Christians are by and large decent people. I find most Secular Progressives odious and repugnant.
“what I object to is being told that I must modify my behaviour based on your religious belief’s.”
See above concerning my religious beliefs, and I am not at all saying that you “must” do anything. I am merely trying to persuade you because I think you are worth the effort.
“And frankly I have had enough of being told by you that I do not measure up in your eyes, I do not need you or anybody else to judge my level of commitment, I do not need you or anybody else to tell me how ‘right wing’ I am based on the teachings of a middle eastern con man of 2010 years ago.”
Well, if you can’t stand a bit of differing opinion, I suggest you find somewhere else to vent your spleen. I modify my speech and ideas for nobody. As for the rest of that paragraph, it leaves me speechless in its apparent ignorance of what we are discussing here.
” I decided that religion was a joke all on my own.”
Yeah sure you did. Your disparagemnent of religion fits the exact profile of the Marxist influenced useful idiot. If you had the nouse to see how you were being manipulated, you would recognise that religion is nowhere near the bogeyman you imagine it is.
“It seems that to be a real ‘righty’ in your eyes one has to agree with you lock, stock and barrel,”
The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence.
” in your determination to silence anybody who does not agree with you.”
I have not the slightest wish to silence you. I think your comments, whether I agree with them or not (and I often don’t but have bigger fish to fry) make Kiwiblog a more interesting place. What have I said to you to make you think I want to silence you? Could you identify it please so I can endeavour to set you right?
“Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?, politics should not be about cheering for everything your team stands for, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the left, they have an inability to admit that some of the things they have supported or support are wrong.”
“So tell me. What is one of the left’s best ideas? ”
Who said they had good idea’s?
I said “Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?”
The point I was trying to make is that I have no problem at all if a few of them agree with me, I do not see this as a warning nor does it set the alarm bells ringing.
The issue I care most about is animal welfare, if somebody joins this cause or agrees with me then I could not give a toss if they are right, left or Green.
“The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence”
If you keep pushing that line Red then we are doomed to and endless line up of “progressive” leaders, one does not have to side with the bible bashers to win, indeed, given the rapidly declining rate of religion it may well be a case of the Christian Conservatives having to side with the rest of us.
You do not beat radical left wing parties by offering up the radical right wing bible bashers as an alternative.
The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence.
Simplistic stupidity? Or trying to fool fools into backing your side.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence.
Simplistic stupidity? Or trying to fool fools into backing your side.
Simplistic stupidity, its the only tool red’s got.
A large proportion of christians are secular, that is, they believe in the separation of church and state. reddy’s simplistic worldview equates secular = atheist = communist.
A large proportion of christians are secular, that is, they believe in the separation of church and state.
Indeed, and as such, a group that even an atheist like me is far less concerned about than a chunk of society who desire “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State.”
“Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
Most sensible Christians recognise the difference/separation of Church and State. Over secularisation tends to lead to moral reativism, whereas most sensible Christians recognise that their faith gives them a moral compass. And besides, Western society has done pretty well over the past centuires – all guided and in part, set up by the early church.
I don’t see any issues, except for the very small percentage of fundies at both ends of the spectrum.
Moved here cos I was sick of fucking bomb threats fucking up transport. Don’t need any more of this bullshit, because the next stop is fucking Tokelau. I’ll get peace there, by Christ, even if global warming might drown me.
What the hell, I heard drowning was quite peaceful. Win-win.
PS3 got the yellow light of death last night. Fired it up today briefly and it booted up properly at least. Still too frightened to turn it on and leave it on in case it bricks again. Fingers crossed the USB memory stick can hold saves.
Comments made in the year 1955!
That’s only 54 years ago!
‘I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $10.00.
‘Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $1,000.00 will only buy a used one.
‘If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. 20 cents a pack is ridiculous.
‘Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter
‘If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.
‘When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.
‘I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN in it.
‘I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.
‘Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the President.
‘I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.
‘It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.
‘It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.
‘I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.
‘Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government.
‘The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.
‘There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel.
‘No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $15.00 a day in the hospital, it’s too rich for my blood.’
‘If they think I’ll pay 30 cents for a hair cut, forget it.’
It seems that the feminists are now pushing for mandatory balanced boards, senior management etc for companies listing on the NZX. This is sexual discrimination at its worst. In a country where it is illegal to discriminate in employment based on gender, making it mandatory for equal numbers of each gender is stupid, unnecessary and outright immoral.
It sounds like France is proposing such a law where at least half the board seats in companies in the CAC40 must be female… imagine what would happen if there was 100 possible candidates for a job on the board, 95 male, 5 female, the current gender ratio on the board is 5 male, 4 female, that means that immediately, 95 candidates will not even be in the running for the position just because of their gender and regardless of whether they are the best fit.
I’m going to write to my mp, the ACT party and the human rights tribunal as such a proposal is as bad as proposing that only 50% of nurses can be female.
Perhaps the “Bible’s guidance” doesn’t have a clue about reality. Procreation is a fundamental urge. Abstinence is not.
That is a big assumption you are making Pete.
The bible came well after our natural urges. Monogamy is older than the bible, it is a natural urge for many people and that is why it was written into the bible.
Redbaiter (8103) Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Mr. Tinman, you’re playing right into the hands of the left. Allowing yourself to be manipulated by their media sycophants and propagandists. Don’t you think its time the right stopped allowing the left to set the agenda? Don’t you think its time the right stopped doing the left’s propaganda and work for them???
Red your talking ideology, I’m talking practicality.
The Kenyan/Clinton thing will taint US politics (and the views of US voters) for years to come.
The rest of your post is just another of the frequent communistic posts I expect from you but yes, I think it’s time you stopped doing the left’s job for them and started showing the tolerance both right wing beliefs and your religion is supposed to support.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Just want to plug that RIP thingy to anyone who hasn’t yet installed it. A godsend for one’s bloodpressure.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Agreed dimmo – I don’t miss all the full-stops at all
December 9th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I see people replying to what for me are now echoes of philu. It is refreshing. Go on people, load Firefox and RIP and set yourselves free.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:43 am
I am free from phil without the RIP thingee, I am free not to read his comments, the day I need a computer program to screen what I read or not is the day hell freezes over for me. I quite like the banter from time to time, if I am in the mood.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hallelujah!
— and positive karma to all above, but don’t give him the pleasure of letting him know you’re ignoring him, just ignore him.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Sarah Palin now at 46% favourability in new Gallup poll. One point lower than Obama.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Phil is easy to ignore (as anyone is) if you don’t feel like wading through the punctuation, but he sometimes makes some interesting comments. What has been noticeable is the significant reduction in interminable baiting and niggling that was far worse than the initial posts. I don’t like the idea of selective screening, but I like the result when some have chosen to do that – although some can’t resist going on about it anyway.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Redbaiter – who’s your pick for the GOP nomination?
December 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
String theorist and theoretical physicist Professor Michio Kaku, is suspecting that there may be many universes out there that we don’t know about yet. His BBC interview from Youtube.
Multiverse theory by Dr. Michio Kaku
The multiple universe theory (MUT) was first proposed in order to fix philosophical problems of quantum mechanics.
Quantum mechanics (QM) has excellent track record to date, since it’s birth over a hundred years ago, ie, its predictions confirmed by observations have been accurate, which they match reasonably well. The problems with it though (ie, QM), was not the accuracy of its predictions, but for it’s purported correspondence to physical reality, since it advocates contradictive ideas such as being located at 2 different places once or in different points in space simultaneously or information can be instantaneously communicated from point A to point B in zero time, regardless if A and B are separated by meters or vast intergalactic distances. Einstein labeled all this stuff spooky action at a distance, when he criticized QM theory, because such interpretation is really unphysical (God-like in linguistic terms). Physical processes must always have a time elapsed when the cause is produced at one point (A) then travels to a different point (B) where the effect is observed instantaneously (zero-time-lapsed).
MUT was then proposed advocating that what QM called, being at 2 places or points in space at once is in fact not the case. The object (particle from our universe) is indeed only located at one place, but there is a virtual particle (complete replica or image of the particle from our universe ), just pops in from another parallel universe (which there are infinite of them out there according to MUT) and interact with the particle from our universe. MUT says that only the end result of the interaction between the virtual particle and the real particle from our universe that is observable in our universe’s frame of reference, since the virtual particle itself can never be observed directly in our universe. Any attempt to detect (experimentally), this virtual particle is deemed to fail. The example of this is the double-slit-experiment, when one puts a measuring device to see where the particle goes thru, only to find out that the particle only went thru one of the holes and not both.
Now, both theories are excellent in their predictive capabilities where there predictions are the same and it doesn’t matter which theory that the physicist will choose to use in his work, because the outcome is the same. But what about their supposed portraying of physical reality? Philosophically, they’re are not theories of physical realities, since one (QM) is advocating the notion of being at 2 places at once (which is unphysical – ie, ghostly nature) and the other one (MUT) is advocating the notion of infinite universes every time a quantum event takes place somewhere in our universe, where the original universe splits into 2 identical universes, and those 2 will split into 4 identical and those 4 will split into 8 identical which are all parallel and so on. The splitting is never ending, since there is always a quantum event that takes place in our universe every nano-second or micro-second.
So, predictive power of theories in relation to observations is completely a different matter from claiming that the theories themselves do correspond to physical reality directly. It looked like that QM & MUT, while excellent in their predictive power, must be a reduction of some unknown more general theory that is yet to be discovered.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:26 am
The Palin poll rise is indicative of how lean the GOP pickings are.
Is the family name too tainted, or is Jeb in with a chance? I’d have preferred him over his brother last time, and maybe over a few of the current prospects, but the name…..
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/gaming-out-gop-2012-scenarios.html
December 9th, 2009 at 9:35 am
“I’d have preferred him over his brother”
Of course, but we don’t care for the preferences of the left wing. (If you like anyone, its a sign they’re deficient.)
Jeb Bush is just more of the same. A Republican Socialist. Had enough of them. Just like we’ve had enough of National Socialists.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:36 am
The delicate Charles Chauvel joins Green MPs on a trip to Copenhagen’s talkfest. Do we need more Luddites, considering Nick Smith is already there?
Ah, the demanding life of these tossers.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:39 am
What gets me is what are the thousands of delegates going to Copenhagen actually going to do? About one in a hundred will get a chance to speak. If they all had five minutes the talk-fest would go on for a year. I guess Copenhagen in the early winter is quite nice.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Back to the smacking law for a moment folks if I may..
The NZ Hooerald in an editorial today hammers a nail into the coffin of Nigel Latta as a conservative figure. It praises Latta’s stand with Broad and the other civil servant on the child smacking law. It praises Latta’s conclusions. Says Granny Hooerald:
The Hooerald editorial bestows a Ph.D. on Latta, calling him Dr Latta. From Latta’s web site, it appears he doesn’t have a Ph.D. This is trivial in the smacking debate, but an indication of the standard of the Hooerald editorial articles.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting that Brian Edwards on his site, obviously writing earlier, suggests Latta is a “closet social conservative”. Lefty Edwards is reflecting on Latta’s TV entertainment centred on parenting.
A quote from Edwards on Latta’s The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show:
Hip psychologist? Latta appears to be as much an entertainer as a psychologist, hence the Key team getting him as the celebrity front for Broad’s review of the smacking law.
The Links:
1. The Herald editorial:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10614300
2. Latta’s web site with his professional and academic background:
http://www.goldfishwisdom.co.nz/?t=3
3. Edwards on Latta’s TV show:
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2009/07/i-do-not-care-for-nigel-latta/
December 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
“Redbaiter – who’s your pick for the GOP nomination?”
If you’re asking me to accurately predict who that will be, I don’t know, and there is nothing that I could use to substantiate such a prediction right now.
The thing that has to happen next US election is that the power bloc of the establishment, the socialist status quo, has to be shattered. As well as the death grip the left has on the political discourse, we must break their hold on a perverse academia and the corrupt and degenerate mainstream media.
The Government of the US must be restored to its constitutional principles.
If I had who I wanted it would be Palin/ Bachmann. The left fear and hate those two above all.
(Cheney was looking good until he endorsed that loser Kaye Hutchinson in Texas)
December 9th, 2009 at 9:51 am
The RIP thingy frees me from excessive scrolling to get past philu’s posts. I was getting RSI from using the scroll wheel on my mouse and eye strain from looking at all those full stops.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Geeze Brian..with all due respect you really need to harden up. Like your humour though ( I presume you are joking right?)
December 9th, 2009 at 9:58 am
redbaiter – theres not a lot of candidates putting their hand up. huckabee must be fucked after the cop killing incident.
they wont give Palin the nod. maybe she goes independent, takes a chunk of the vote and then runs as a republican next time round. that would drag em back to the right. just means 4 more years of obama. ouch.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Redbaiter (8093) Vote: 1 1 Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
As well as the death grip the left has on the political discourse, we must break their hold on a perverse academia and the corrupt and degenerate mainstream media.
You really are a control freak, aren’t you? Why won’t you allow the market to work, the media to follow their owner’s instructiions and the consumersm to buy or not as they see fit
December 9th, 2009 at 10:10 am
To Like or Dislike. That is the question.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am
If the Republicans are serious about winning next time around then the very worst thing they can do is select Palin as their candidate.
This is not to say that I do not support the lady, personally I think she would be great but middle USA is not going to vote for her given the way the left wing media will set out to destroy her.
As much as some here will not like it they need to select a more moderate Republican, yes he/she should be pro choice (as much as that annoys me) but he/she can also be anti partial birth abortion.
If they really want to mount a serious challenge then they could do worse than choose Condoleezza Rice or David Petraeus.
To win in 2012 the Republicans have to take the left wing media bias out of the equation as much as they possibly can, a black female presidential candidate would have the pinko media in total panic, they would be unable to play the race card, they would be unable to play the age card, they would be forced to look at the issues.
The same could be said about Petraeus, while he is obviously white, the middle or independent voters will not take well to seeing a decorated war hero attacked by the left wing media.
Bringing the USA back to the centre right is going to take time, selecting a bible bashing hard right candidate is only going to ensure another four years of this corrupt, racist and frankly incompetent Obama administration.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:16 am
big bruv – no matter who the GOP select as their candidate they will be attacked mercilessly by the left wing media. It wont be easy for any of them to get any media traction.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am
But David Latta believes in psychics and so as Phil Ure.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:20 am
It is advancing decreptitude, lofty. The fingers aren’t as nimble as they once were and my latest prescription of glasses have lenses like the bottom of coke bottles. When I saw the full stops in philu’s posts I kept thinking I was taking a test for Age Related Macular degeneration.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I think you are on to it there Bruv, all of the current front runners have serious drawbacks. The problem is with people with some respect and credibility like (debatably) Rice and Petraeus is that if there is any inkling of them not toeing the line on things like abortion they will be attacked more mercilessly by the hard right, the left won’t have do do much at all.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:24 am
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/right-wing-billionaire-funding-swift-boat-campaign-against-global-warming-science/
December 9th, 2009 at 10:24 am
@MNJ 10;02..
You have got big kahunas calling redbaiter a control freak!
It was the likes of you and your leftie cohorts who have slowly and insidiously wormed your thinking into our society to the extent that journalists, educationalists, academics, and those in whom we put trust to educate our children, are completely blinded by any other viewpoint, even when they think they are not.
That is control MNJ, that is control!
Collective freakism?
December 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
getstaffed (4425) Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:10 am
To Like or Dislike. That is the question.
That is about as difficult a question as “should you spit or swallow?” as some US 14 year olds were asked by the Safer Schools Czar
December 9th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Brian
I do not doubt that, however, they (the GOP) have to play the hand they are dealt, yes the media will go after them, yes they will be biased, this is the reality of USA presidential elections, so, the GOP need to nullify as much of this attack as they can.
If the GOP are smart about it they could use these attacks to their benefit, it could well bite the pinko’s on the arse.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I do not like (and actively dislike) the new Karma buttons. They are far too intrusive and for short posts look like part of the comment. Can we please go back to the old buttons? Or at least right-align them or something.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:36 am
How long have the new comment karma buttons, and hiding badly rated posts been going? Love it
December 9th, 2009 at 10:37 am
The GOP are as likely to bite their own arses though. Smart doesn’t seem to be high on their list of attributes at the moment.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am
love the new buttons! first thing i saw when i logged back in a min ago was a comment by toad.. that was hidden HAHAHA
December 9th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Falafulu Fisi, “that there may be many universes out there”. Shit in one post Falafulu Fisi explains the origins of the left and lefties.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:43 am
love the new buttons!
Surely an experiment, unless DPF thinks its important that all the lefties end up with their comments hidden, which seems unlikely.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
lofty (447) Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 10:24 am
@MNJ 10;02..
You have got big kahunas calling redbaiter a control freak!
Yep, I DO have big balls, thank you for noticing.
I am not the one demanding the media conform to my views, that’s redbaiter’s territory. For some reason, he hates the idea that private business owners should be allowed to set their own goals.
THAT is a control freak.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Ugh … Dislike the new background colours. It breaks up the flow of the debate.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Bruv- Condoleeza Rice most likely voted for Obama. The cold hard fact is that you have to put your personal distaste for religion aside if you want the left power bloc destroyed.
..and its time we stopped doing things based on fears of what the “left wing media” will do. Fuck em. We take them on and we destroy those stinking cowardly partisan scum. They’re going down the tube at a faster rate every day as it is.
They’ve already done they’re utmost to destroy Palin and she’s only one point behind Obama.
And what the fuck is the “centre right”? Just a propaganda term for more socialism but with the reality swept further under the rug. You want to duplicate John key in America??
Fuck the centre right. The outcome that has to occur is a return to Constitutional Government. The American Constitution is the greatest document on individual liberty ever written in modern times. Right now the US government is light years from the intent of that document, (and has been for half a century or more) and going for any “centre right” compromise is still a galaxy away from Constitutional adherence.
Palin can do it, and the only thing that will stop her is Benedict Arnolds running around repeating the left’s talking points and propaganda for them. Turncoats like Frum, Kathleen Parker and other elitist pundits. The anti Palin forces are the ones who are responsible for making the Republicans practically indistinguishable from the Democrats. They must be defeated for they are in reality the damn fools that allow the left such a death grip on the status quo.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:53 am
See Bruv- Pete George is with you. That at least should make you think.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Hiding comments based on karma seems to weight things for the active majority. I guess time will tell what the effect is.
I often post knowing it will get a lot of negatives, but that can sometimes be a deliberate part of the game, sometimes it’s just the consequence of being prepared to challenge the choir.
If the rules change does one change the way they play or do they find another game? Do you only post what you think will get favourable karma so you aren’t excluded?
It would be a shame if it ended up simply a karma competition.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
How do you view the hidden comments?
[DPF: Click on the text which says hidden comment]
December 9th, 2009 at 11:14 am
How do you view the hidden comments?
Doesn’t it say?!
edit: i could be wrong, vaguely remember seeing one around somewhere.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
What hidden comments?
If Kharma is leading to comments being hidden, then this is a screwed up system.
Many comments draw considerable negative khama early when all the left wing trolls are about, but as the day goes on, (and more productive readers are able to visit), the khama gradually swings the other way.
How will this happen if the comments are hidden by a primary collection of negatives?
(I can’t see that they are)
December 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Red
This is one subject that I you and I will disagree on (for different reasons)
As much as we both like Palin the reality is that she will never be elected, what I want is to get rid of Obama and Rahm Emanuel, IMHO, Emanuel is more dangerous than B Hussein Messiah Obama.
Politically the fact that Rice voted for Obama is fantastic, this can only help her with the undecided voters, yes you and I can beat our chests and say “fuck the centre right” but that is not going to get us anywhere, the USA needs to be weaned off Obamaism and socialist policies.
The other reality is that the GOP just cannot avoid is the media bias, it is a fact of life and something the GOP would be foolish to ignore, to do so would be to hand Obama another four year term.
You rightly mention the USA constitution as being the greatest document known to man, the founding fathers were also sure in their determination to have a separation of church and state, the reality is that bible bashing hard right Republicans are no more interested in freedom than the hard left liberals/progressives, a man or woman’s religious beliefs should have no bearing at all on their ability to do the job.
We both have the same goal Red, we both want the end to progressive/liberal politics, we both want an end to the state controlling our lives but we differ on how that should be done, selecting a bible bashing hard right candidate will only make that goal harder to attain.
Yes it might mean that we will have to suffer a few ‘moderate’ Republican Presidents but surely, that is preferable to seeing Obama, Pelosi, Emanual and Reid stay in power.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Palin’s Pals
Because the second thing to note about Malek is that he was the man who drew up a list of Jews to be fired from the civil service under the Nixon administration. I am surprised that so many people have allowed themselves to forget this—and that Palin has never been asked a single question about it. In the early 1970s, Nixon, whose White House tapes show consistent evidence of anti-Semitic paranoia, gave orders that the Bureau of Labor Statistics be purged of what he called a “Jewish cabal.” The job of drawing up the list was given to Malek, whose information led to what was called the “reassignment” of some officials within the Labor Department. Malek later tried to give a weaselly excuse for his conduct, but was caught by my Slate colleague Timothy Noah.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Falafulu Fisi 9:22 am.
Holy Hell that is mind Blowing.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:33 am
“the reality is that bible bashing hard right Republicans are no more interested in freedom than the hard left liberals/progressives”
I’m sorry Bruv, but there is no way I can agree with that. It is a perspective that derives from a leftist political contruct that as all of them, bears no relationship to reality. To say that right wing Christians and Progressives have an equally perverted view on individual liberty is just crazy. To suggest that Palin, because she is Christian, would implement the same freedom destroying policies as Obama is just nuts.
I find your above analysis, especially your statement that the US “needs to be weand off Obamaism”, in strange conflict with your criticism of John Key.
Its not just Obamaism. Obama is only a small part of the problem. The problem is every President and almost every politician over the last few decades.
Palin can do it. The Republican establishment and the left wing media can be defeated. (She defeated them in Alaska).
Recent polls (I referenced one yesterday) show The Tea party party (if it existed) would be far more popular than the Republican party.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Recent polls (I referenced one yesterday) show The Tea party party (if it existed) would be far more popular than the Republican party.
And split the vote, marvelous.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Red, I know you’ve been promoting Palin and I admit I think she’d do a good job and I note others suggesting Rice (who I don’t rate) but the reality is that only a WASP male will attract enough votes throughout the country to defeat both the incumbent clown and the slime.
Leaves the field wide open really.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Red
“To say that right wing Christians and Progressives have an equally perverted view on individual liberty is just crazy.”
It is far from crazy, the left want to control what you do and what you say based on the communist doctrine while the right want to control what you say and what you do based on the ‘teachings’ of the bible.
Both want to control how we live our lives.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Tinman
“a WASP male will attract enough votes ”
Which is why I suggested Petreaus as a possibility.
December 9th, 2009 at 11:57 am
“Both want to control how we live our lives. ”
This is the same self serving doctrine that makes the libertarians a fading political force.
You’re overlooking a major point of difference. Christians advocate a personal morality and ASK you to consider and abide by that morality. Progressives legislate to force you to comply with their beliefs.
Christian morality advances individualism and personal behaviour as solutions. Progressives advocate compulision by force of government and collectivism as a solution to every individual’s problems. (and they seek to destroy morality)
December 9th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Fuck the RINOS. I’d rather live under socialism.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Mr. Tinman, you’re playing right into the hands of the left. Allowing yourself to be manipulated by their media sycophants and propagandists. Don’t you think its time the right stopped allowing the left to set the agenda? Don’t you think its time the right stopped doing the left’s propaganda and work for them???
December 9th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
It emerged in anger and it threatens to split in anger.
One major group in the Tea Party movement — named after the famous Boston Tea Party — is set to host its first convention in February, with former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as its keynote speaker.
But there are fractures in the movement that threaten its future. And if history’s any guide, such movements tend to flame out.
The Tea Party movement erupted on April 15 — tax day — over criticism of President Obama’s economic policies and what organizers called big government out of control. The movement, made up of local, state and national groups, continues to protest what it considers fiscally unsound policies.
And the movement is well funded. Action groups like FreedomWorks — chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey — helped organize and fund its April 15 rally in Washington.
Other groups, including Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Patriots, are also vying for the helm of the movement, and it’s creating what some are calling “competitive chaos.”
Some Tea Partiers have voiced anger and concern over whether the powerful groups are “astroturfing” what is supposed to be a grass-roots coalition — the idea that the movement is being organized by old-fashioned GOP bigwigs to promote their agenda.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Red
Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.
Christian morality advance the bible as a solution, a classic example of this is the growing problem of teen pregnancy, the hard right advocate abstinence or the bible as the solution, this same hard right do not want to allow any discussion on the subject of contraception.
I equally despise both groups.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
“Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.”
OK Bruv, give me an example of legislation that Sarah Palin might implement that is driven by her Christian beliefs and that will impinge upon your liberty, property rights and income to the extent that socialist legislation does.
“the hard right advocate abstinence or the bible as the solution”
Abstinence is a solution. I cannot see the problem in advocating such a concept.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Petraeus will smoke out the treasonous ‘Messiah’ Obama, and will make the Illinois senator a one term President like the feeble Jimmy Carter.
Ideal choice of candidate.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Red
“OK Bruv, give me an example of legislation that Sarah Palin might implement that is driven by her Christian beliefs and that will impinge upon your liberty, property rights and income to the extent that socialist legislation does.”
Does it matter what the legislation is?, you cannot claim to be a lover of freedom and personal responsibility and then support legislation that takes away our liberty or personal responsibility simply because that legislation is written by our ‘team’.
Abstinence is not a solution, abstinence is an option, nothing more or less, we should offer all of the options in the battle to slash the growing number of teen pregnancies, if contraception stops one abortion then I am all for it.
The reality is that unless we offer all of the alternatives and then take away the safety net of welfare nothing will change, our kids should be taught all of the options and at the same time be told that if you fuck up then you are on your own, they should not have the option of welfare.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
The problem is, who would know what she might implement? She has not exactly been prolific with her policy ideas.
It could depend on who ends up pulling her strings, and how much she will try and tie them in knots, I don’t think she is as compliant as GW was.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
bruv, we have kids leaving school who can’t spell abstinence, yet can put a condom on a banana with one arm tied behind their back.
And given the STD prevention rate of abstinence is better than that of condoms, perhaps the Bible’s guidance is simply aligned with sensible health choices.
December 9th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Pete
“It could depend on who ends up pulling her strings”
Presumably you have no issue with Van Jones, Bill Ayers and others pulling Obama’s strings though.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
getstaffed
I was rather hoping that this discussion would not degenerate into one where we argue the merits of religion.
By all means, you teach your kids about the value of abstinence, in the mean time I will teach mine all of the options (including abstinence), one thing is true, the ‘just say no’ campaign has failed miserably.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
” Does it matter what the legislation is?”
Of course it does. You said above that you would not vote for a religious person on the grounds that they would introduce legislation that stems from their faith and that would impinge upon your freedoms.
I ask you to seek out any legislation that Sarah Palin enacted in Alaska (where she enjoyed high public approval ratings as governor of a population not known as bible bashers) which meets that criteria, and to advise of any policy you think she may implement if elected POTUS that will also meet that criteria.
Now either you must have some evidence for your statement or it becomes just a hollow prejudice.
Furthermore it has been the left’s strategy right from the period of eminence of Marx to crush religion, as they see it and the patriarchial family unit as two of the biggest impediments to totalitarian socialism. They have, by means of generating the kind of sentiment expressed by yourself and others succeeded in driving a wedge into the political right, and it is the divisions that resulted from this wedge that have allowed them the successes they have enjoyed over the last few decades.
We must heal that division, reunite and defeat the Secular Progressives.
Surely the point that in this argument you are enjoying the support of most of the extreme left who pollute this forum is enough to warn you of your mistake??
December 9th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Perhaps the “Bible’s guidance” doesn’t have a clue about reality. Procreation is a fundamental urge. Abstinence is not.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Red
“Of course it does. You said above that you would not vote for a religious person on the grounds that they would introduce legislation that stems from their faith and that would impinge upon your freedoms.”
I said no such thing, let me be perfectly clear, if I was a Yank and was faced with the option of Palin v Obama I would vote for Palin every day of the week and twice (voting twice is popular in Chicago I hear) on Sundays, she is my ideal President.
However, as strong as my support for her is my dislike (hatred) of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Emanual is far greater, I want them gone, I want them banished from the white house, if this means I have to swallow a more moderate Republican then so be it.
It is no secret that I have no time for religion, however I will defend the right of you to worship what ever god you like until the day I die, what I object to is being told that I must modify my behaviour based on your religious belief’s.
And frankly I have had enough of being told by you that I do not measure up in your eyes, I do not need you or anybody else to judge my level of commitment, I do not need you or anybody else to tell me how ‘right wing’ I am based on the teachings of a middle eastern con man of 2010 years ago.
Just because I do not agree with every word you say does not make me a fucking liberal or communist, I totally reject your comment that the left have succeeded in changing the way I feel, I decided that religion was a joke all on my own.
It seems that to be a real ‘righty’ in your eyes one has to agree with you lock, stock and barrel, well, that is never going to happen, anybody who truly believes in freedom will always allow debate, anybody who truly believes in liberty will always allow distension, you are just as bad as the left your profess to hate in your determination to silence anybody who does not agree with you.
Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?, politics should not be about cheering for everything your team stands for, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the left, they have an inability to admit that some of the things they have supported or support are wrong.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
News this morning reorganisation of Newstalk ZB in The garden city with ex breakfast host John Dunn now local news reader, morning host Ali Jones and Saturday afternoon sports jock Malcolm Ellis to finish as at 18th December. Thanks and best wishes to them, the one I will miss most will be Malcolm Ellis as we will lose most of our local sports news, he has had some very good guests over time and as I don’t bother with the dead tree press it will be harder to follow local sport. On the positive though I will get Leighton Smith without having to go to the marginal reception from Timaru NewsTalkZB.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
So was I (and didn’t think ether of our comments were heading us there..). Also, I support your absolute right to guide your kids as you see fit. Morality and life choices are too complex and too important to be installed in state-run campaigns, which is why I support the old-fashioned idea that the family home is where this stuff belongs.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Bruv, there far more strings in the US than in the Fender factories and the NY Philharmonic. They are not confined to one side or the other. The US is a balls-up of string. There are that may vested interests, lobby groups, think tanks etc etc that I think they could be heading for inevitable political and economic disaster – yep, worse than it is now. I think their democracy is a disaster zone.
You pigeon hole me just like you admonish Red for doing. Just because I don’t think Obama was born on Kenya doesn’t mean I am a fan of his, far from it. Some things I am ok with him on, some I’m not, and a lot I really don’t know yet. The economic measures when first becoming president were as much Bush’s as his. He inherited the wars. That’s a huge task to try and deal with – my bank still operates and we are not in a nuclear winter so he hasn’t been a complete disaster, yet.
I think all this “the left”/”the right” delineating is nonsense, everyone has mixed views spread across the spectrum, even Redbaiter (he just won’t admit it). I cheer for what I see in front of me, I don’t pre-judge from an x-sided straight jacket.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
No!
US Republican candidate selection is irrelevant. That’s the path that leads to John McCain. People (including the godforsaken candidate himself) thought that his ‘warm’ media relationship from the 2000 Republican primaries would ameliorate the lefty bias. More cynical observers said that the media would dump on him as soon as he won the 2008 primary – and they did. Witness the total sham of the NYT’s speculations on his marriage – a tabloid piece that ran, and ran, and ran on their pages. Sure, their obudsmen finally beat the reporters up and it did not appear to have any affect – but that did not stop them trying their hardest.
Look at the different reception given to the inexperienced, blow-dried fake of a VP candidate – John Edwards – in 2004, versus the endless focus on the inexperience of Palin. Not to mention the dumpster diving by reporters on her family background vs his, right up to the 2008 Democratic primary where his affair and love child remained hidden until a tabloid got it.
Were Rice ever to come within a whisper of the nomination (and she has repeatedly said she’s not interested in political races) she would find herself facing an onslaught of subtle, implied, racist ‘doubts’ as to whether she is an authentic black woman – it being understood that in the modern left no such person can actually be a right-wing Republican. Something similar would apply for Patreaus; have you ever seen much (any?) condemnation from the Democrats of the “General Betray Us” campaign? From what I saw that actually gave cover for as senior a Dem as Hillary Clinton to basically call him a liar during his congressional testimony on the ‘Surge’ in Iraq.
One may as well just accept that the following will remain in place irrespective of the candidate:
– there will be a different standard for the Democrat vs. the Republican, on corruption, on family background, on marriage, on business connections, on intelligence, on ignorance, …… on everything.
– the modern media don’t operate on digging up facts and reporting them, they operate on emotive narratives, with facts and reporting picked up or dropped as required to support whatever narrative the herd has congealed to. Sometimes this backfires on the Democrats, as when the presumed front-runner Hillary Clinton, found herself increasingly scrambling against a ‘new, fresh face’. All of sudden questions began to arise (none too subtly aired and pushed along by Obama’s minions) about her ‘possible’ racism and such like.
– There is a simple, rather old-fashioned, tribal quality to reporters in the US, which is to say that many will simply defend ‘their’ favoured ideological representative (political or cultural) irrespective of the ‘facts’. Look at some of the shit that was published about Ted Kennedy, where there was even speculation that Mary Joe might look back and decide that her death served a greater purpose in pushing an agonised Kennedy forward to do great things for all the people. Look at the Polanski issue. Sickening.
- The ‘most decent people think……’ meme that is always seized upon: every issue reduced to an endless barrage of ‘resistance is futile’. The most recent example being with Abbott in Australia. For ages, people fearfully muttered about how the Liberal/National party could not afford to be seen as ‘extreme’ on the issue of dealing with Climate Change. It would lose votes, it would result in an electoral catastrophe, yada, yada, yada. I heard the same sort of things about ‘Milk Snatcher Thatcher’ and ‘Ronnie Raygun’ – all that advice helpfully delivered by lefties concerned about their opposition going off the deep-end and doing dangerous things like trying to break union power, reforming social welfare or eyeballing the USSR – and in many cases those charges were muttered sotto voice by ‘moderate right-wingers’ concerned about electoral viability.
What has to be done is to recognise the emotive narrative and the debate framing that goes on and take those things out of the equation. That has to be done two ways. First, spend all the effort, money and other resources to go around the media and get directly to people. The Web, Twitter, Facebook and other tools are increasingly available to do that, and it’s apparent that the ‘moron’ Palin is doing that more successfully than anybody else at present.
Second, stop allowing these fucks to frame the debate – i.e. allowing them to argue about what they want to argue about. If any future Republican is ever again asked what newspapers they read they should give a quick sound-bite to the effect that they read widely but only touch the NYT or WaPo if they want to understand Democratic talking points or as examples of piss-poor fact checking – and then laugh in the reporters face. The unquestioned implication of the query itself is that the NYT and WaPo are what smart people read to find out what is happening in the world. That has not been true for a long time (Walter Duranty ring a bell?) and if anything, both sources have increasingly proved themselves to about the worse places to go to find out. But that implication is buried in almost every question, and it needs to be confronted head on.
There are two classic examples of debate framing on this thread – courtesy of Pete George and the utterly Sullivanised joe90 of course:
The Democrats have ruthlessly culled pro-life Democrats over the years, right down to denying Casey the right to simply address the Democratic Convention (in ’92 I think).
They ‘mercilessly’ attacked their own former VP candidate of 1984 – Geraldine Ferraro – when she had the temerity to attack Obama as an utterly unqualified, inexperienced, lightweight candidate.
They ‘mercilessly’ attacked Joe Libermann in 2006 – and he was a down-the-line liberal on almost all issues – except the Iraq war and Israel. But that was enough. All their good deeds in the service of the Democrats and Progressive causes over many decades counted as nothing.
And of course we now have a US President who sat in a church pew for 20 years listening to an insane old man rant endlessly about the Jews. Obama not only never confronted him about this shit until Wright outed himself, but actually sent his daughters to be instructed by the same man.
This is Perlstein thinking – real Stalinist stuff – but all swept under the gently smiling face of ‘moderate’ centre-leftists who prefer to natter on about ‘hard-liners’ and extremists in the right-wing.
It’s a war over word definitions and more than that, about the emotive definition of the words and the terminology. So the Liebermann situation was portrayed as the genuine, grass-roots of the Party rising up to assert true Democracy, whereas the recent bunfight in the NY23 district over Dede Scozzafava’ was portrayed as being about mysterious, outside forces subverting the will of the people in an anti-democratic coup.
The root of such debate framing and Borg-like behaviour, is that for all of the raucous trumpeting by the left of the general superiority of their ideas, there is an intellectual cowardice that constantly sends them shuffling over to the right for support even when they have the majorities to implement their most beloved plans. So the Rudd government is perfectly willing to shove an ETS down people’s throats – as long as they’ve got right-wing support: cover for when the slings and arrows start being shot by all the little people getting screwed. Similarly in the US with the healthcare debate and Cap-and-Trade. The ability to say that the resulting fallout and fuckups are all bipartisan, that blame must be shared, that it’s nobody’s fault, that There Is No Alternative. The ability to avoid being held responsible for their own ideas.
I’m reminded of George Smiley’s description of the KGB ‘mole’, Gerald, that he hunts in ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy :
And lest I be accused of being partisan here let me point out that countless numbers of supposedly ‘right-wing’ politicians suffer the same intellectual cowardice and seek the same ability: they are afraid of taking the consequences for their decisions and their ideology. All it took to derail the Australian ETS was for one politician to take a stand and risk the claimed electoral backlash: in the US the Republicans have (amazingly) managed to hold together long enough to refute the standard leftist line that the American people ‘overwhelmingly’ want more government health care and to pay vastly higher prices for Rube Goldberg energy schemes.
I don’t want ‘moderates’ to be expelled from National or the Republicans. I do want them to stand up on their hind legs and take intellectual and moral responsibility for their ideas and, when compromise is needed in the usual political sausage grinder, to explain why they are doing so – and NOT in terms that involve being afraid of being booed, mocked or losing votes.
It’s not so much ‘moderates’ that I object to – it’s the ‘Geralds’ – they’re getting harder to find since there are more of them than ever, and they swim in increasingly murky political seas.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
“I said no such thing”
Quote
“Hard right Christian republicans do not ‘ask’ you to consider how you live your life, they are as adamant in their determination to legislate their beliefs upon the rest of us as the hard left.”
Unquote
“I want them banished from the white house, if this means I have to swallow a more moderate Republican then so be it.”
Fair enough. I do not agree with this sentiment, as I believe it is this very willingness to compromise that has allowed the left to obtain such a firm grip on the political culture. It has to stop, and now is as a good a time as any. That is what the Tea Party movement is all about and I am right behind them. No more RINOs.
” I will defend the right of you to worship what ever god you like until the day I die,”
I do not doubt that, however I do not worship any God. I have never been in a church or to any religious assembly in my life apart from the odd wedding or funeral. I merely recognise the moral and political advantages of an alliance with Christians in the war to defeat the left. Christians are by and large decent people. I find most Secular Progressives odious and repugnant.
“what I object to is being told that I must modify my behaviour based on your religious belief’s.”
See above concerning my religious beliefs, and I am not at all saying that you “must” do anything. I am merely trying to persuade you because I think you are worth the effort.
“And frankly I have had enough of being told by you that I do not measure up in your eyes, I do not need you or anybody else to judge my level of commitment, I do not need you or anybody else to tell me how ‘right wing’ I am based on the teachings of a middle eastern con man of 2010 years ago.”
Well, if you can’t stand a bit of differing opinion, I suggest you find somewhere else to vent your spleen. I modify my speech and ideas for nobody. As for the rest of that paragraph, it leaves me speechless in its apparent ignorance of what we are discussing here.
” I decided that religion was a joke all on my own.”
Yeah sure you did. Your disparagemnent of religion fits the exact profile of the Marxist influenced useful idiot. If you had the nouse to see how you were being manipulated, you would recognise that religion is nowhere near the bogeyman you imagine it is.
“It seems that to be a real ‘righty’ in your eyes one has to agree with you lock, stock and barrel,”
The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence.
” in your determination to silence anybody who does not agree with you.”
I have not the slightest wish to silence you. I think your comments, whether I agree with them or not (and I often don’t but have bigger fish to fry) make Kiwiblog a more interesting place. What have I said to you to make you think I want to silence you? Could you identify it please so I can endeavour to set you right?
“Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?, politics should not be about cheering for everything your team stands for, this is one of the biggest problems I have with the left, they have an inability to admit that some of the things they have supported or support are wrong.”
So tell me. What is one of the left’s best ideas?
December 9th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
“So tell me. What is one of the left’s best ideas? ”
Who said they had good idea’s?
I said “Finally, if a few on the left agree with the odd thing I have to say then so what?”
The point I was trying to make is that I have no problem at all if a few of them agree with me, I do not see this as a warning nor does it set the alarm bells ringing.
The issue I care most about is animal welfare, if somebody joins this cause or agrees with me then I could not give a toss if they are right, left or Green.
“The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence”
If you keep pushing that line Red then we are doomed to and endless line up of “progressive” leaders, one does not have to side with the bible bashers to win, indeed, given the rapidly declining rate of religion it may well be a case of the Christian Conservatives having to side with the rest of us.
You do not beat radical left wing parties by offering up the radical right wing bible bashers as an alternative.
December 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Simplistic stupidity? Or trying to fool fools into backing your side.
December 9th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Pete George (2579) Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
The battle is in the most broad terms between the Christian Conservatives and the Secular Progressives. You need to choose a side, for its no longer going to be possible to sit on the fence.
Simplistic stupidity? Or trying to fool fools into backing your side.
Simplistic stupidity, its the only tool red’s got.
A large proportion of christians are secular, that is, they believe in the separation of church and state. reddy’s simplistic worldview equates secular = atheist = communist.
December 9th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Indeed, and as such, a group that even an atheist like me is far less concerned about than a chunk of society who desire “Everything within the State, nothing outside the State.”
December 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
“Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
Most sensible Christians recognise the difference/separation of Church and State. Over secularisation tends to lead to moral reativism, whereas most sensible Christians recognise that their faith gives them a moral compass. And besides, Western society has done pretty well over the past centuires – all guided and in part, set up by the early church.
I don’t see any issues, except for the very small percentage of fundies at both ends of the spectrum.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Bomb threat in Wellington?
Moved here cos I was sick of fucking bomb threats fucking up transport. Don’t need any more of this bullshit, because the next stop is fucking Tokelau. I’ll get peace there, by Christ, even if global warming might drown me.
What the hell, I heard drowning was quite peaceful. Win-win.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
PS3 got the yellow light of death last night. Fired it up today briefly and it booted up properly at least. Still too frightened to turn it on and leave it on in case it bricks again. Fingers crossed the USB memory stick can hold saves.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Comments made in the year 1955!
That’s only 54 years ago!
‘I’ll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it’s going to be impossible to buy a week’s groceries for $10.00.
‘Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $1,000.00 will only buy a used one.
‘If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. 20 cents a pack is ridiculous.
‘Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter
‘If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.
‘When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon. Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.
‘I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN in it.
‘I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.
‘Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the President.
‘I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.
‘It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.
‘It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.
‘I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.
‘Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government.
‘The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.
‘There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel.
‘No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $15.00 a day in the hospital, it’s too rich for my blood.’
‘If they think I’ll pay 30 cents for a hair cut, forget it.’
December 9th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Falafulu Fisi (376) Says:
December 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Multiverses.
Have you read Chuck Missler on dimensionality and universes?
December 9th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
I just read a very scary article on the herald: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10614320
It seems that the feminists are now pushing for mandatory balanced boards, senior management etc for companies listing on the NZX. This is sexual discrimination at its worst. In a country where it is illegal to discriminate in employment based on gender, making it mandatory for equal numbers of each gender is stupid, unnecessary and outright immoral.
It sounds like France is proposing such a law where at least half the board seats in companies in the CAC40 must be female… imagine what would happen if there was 100 possible candidates for a job on the board, 95 male, 5 female, the current gender ratio on the board is 5 male, 4 female, that means that immediately, 95 candidates will not even be in the running for the position just because of their gender and regardless of whether they are the best fit.
I’m going to write to my mp, the ACT party and the human rights tribunal as such a proposal is as bad as proposing that only 50% of nurses can be female.
December 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
And Schoolteachers CharlieBrown
December 9th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
That is a big assumption you are making Pete.
The bible came well after our natural urges. Monogamy is older than the bible, it is a natural urge for many people and that is why it was written into the bible.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
The urge to procreate is much older than monogamy. Monogamy has since become a common cultural thing but it is far from essential.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
NZ gets a mention.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/revenge_of_the_computer_nerds_1.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/global_warming_fraud_and_the_f.html
December 9th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Red your talking ideology, I’m talking practicality.
The Kenyan/Clinton thing will taint US politics (and the views of US voters) for years to come.
The rest of your post is just another of the frequent communistic posts I expect from you but yes, I think it’s time you stopped doing the left’s job for them and started showing the tolerance both right wing beliefs and your religion is supposed to support.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:52 am
took some people long
enough to realise fletcher’s
a stalinist fuck