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realthogI report, you decide. Well, in fact, it's Harper's Weekly that reports:
The House and Senate reached agreement on a $789 billion economic-stimulus plan, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law despite a lack of support from Republicans. "When Roosevelt did this," said Representative Steve Austria (R., Ohio), "he put our country into a Great Depression. That's just history."
Um, no, Rep. Austria. It's not.
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Date: 2009-02-17 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:37 am (UTC)If I'd made a poll of the question I'd have created a "Both" section just for folk like you.
Myself, I reckon Rep. Austria's just unfathomably dumb, whether a liar or not: you've got to be quite extraordinarily stupid to think no one's going to call you on a piece of BS so completely BSish as that one.
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Date: 2009-02-17 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:37 am (UTC)They do education?
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 08:34 pm (UTC)the highly competitive title of "Dumbest Republican"
Well, it's a big field with a lot of very strong contestants . . .
Oh! My! This is not very bipartisan of us, is it? Shame on us!
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Date: 2009-02-17 10:26 pm (UTC)Ignorant, though, yes they are. But again, it is their choice. Because if they know things this knowledge jiggles their focus on the prize of destroying the nation in order to save it. They believe this sh*t. That isn't stupid. That is terrifying.
Love, C.
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Date: 2009-02-17 10:42 pm (UTC)The field is even stronger than I thought it was. A friend has just sent me this: http://www.alternet.org:80/blogs/peek/127329/is_michele_bachmann_the_most_idiotic_member_of_congress/
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Date: 2009-02-17 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:40 am (UTC)"She won't be challenged on her claims"
Which is a very great pity -- not just because her policies are those of the gulag or the madhouse but because distortions of reality like hers are damn' near as murderous as putting anthrax in the water supply: they destroy countless people's lives by making them ignorant.
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 11:54 pm (UTC)A million bucks doesn't go as far as it used to. Gosh.
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Date: 2009-02-17 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 11:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:40 am (UTC)Can you two get a room?
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-20 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-17 09:56 pm (UTC)...
Cognitive dissonance: let me show you it.
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:44 am (UTC)I think you might have to show Rep. Austria how to spell it first.
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Date: 2009-02-17 10:23 pm (UTC)Off this topic, however, is a book someone sent Vaquero that might be of interest in your science projects: Dr. Mary's Monkey: How the unsolved murder of a doctor, a secret laboratory in New Orleans and cancer-causing monkey viruses are linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, the JFK assassination and emerging global epidemics (2007) by Edward T. Haslam. The publisher is something called TrineDay. Vaquero loves conspiracy books. This one is disappointing because so much of the actual material is factually correct, which he knows himself. Whether the conclusions are, though, is something else. But it got him through some very slow subway commutes to office in LI City.
Love, C.
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:52 am (UTC)Thanks for the book tip, C. I don't have the time left before the (already multiply extended) deadline to add yet another to the reading list, but I'll note it for the next vol . . .
"to make everything so very bad that people will cry out for tyranny"
Unfortunately for their Machiavellian schemes, all they're succeeding in doing is making GOP support plummet; meanwhile support for Obama is up around the 68-75% mark, depending on the poll you choose -- a remarkable figure given that it's not that many weeks ago he got just 53% of the vote.
One could simply cackle and watch the fuckwits of the GOP doom their party for at least a generation, but it's not good for the country to be without a "loyal opposition". All governments, even the ones I support, require an effective, intelligent opposition to hone their ideas and keep them on course -- rather in the same way that even the best of authors need a competent editor, even if that editor changes not a comma. We all need some kind of a sounding board or we're likely to do silly things.
Well, all except me, of course.
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:10 am (UTC)That's. All.
Rally round the knichts that say nicht!
Love, C.
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Date: 2009-02-17 11:35 pm (UTC)This might need explaining?
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:34 am (UTC)It might? Hey, if even a Brit educated ina land where school history lessons saw no particular reason to do more than glance at past doings in the Colonies . . .
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:47 am (UTC)Ha. I don't remember my school history lessons even going that far.
I _might_ get it or I _might_ be missing something. I don't know. But I think it's the second case.
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Date: 2009-02-18 12:57 am (UTC)It is indeed the second case. Roosevelt was elected after the Great Depression was in full swing, and the measures he introduced analogous to Obama's helped first alleviate its hardships and then eventually end it.
Who do you fancy in the return bout between Oz and SA, then?
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:08 am (UTC)Definitely the second case, but now all is clear.
I haven't been following, but SA seem the safer bet.
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:30 am (UTC)I have been following, you bet! Thanks to cricinfo.com even here in the States one can gat ball-by-ball coverage of Test matches all over the world.
I'm not sure which side I'd back, to be honest. The Ozzies must be itching to get their own back having lost the series to SA just a few weeks back in Australia. On the other hand, the home side always seems to have an advantage. So . . .
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:45 am (UTC)Aus seem to be out of form, or maybe past their peak, and I see SA as traditionally their strongest rivals. More experienced cricket watchers might disagree.
I lost interest in international cricket because it became predictable. TV ads promoting the World Series were trying to stir up enthusiasm about who would become the second team into the final!!! because we all knew who would the first team in. It does seem to be more balanced now though.
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Date: 2009-02-18 03:55 am (UTC)"I lost interest in international cricket because it became predictable."
I know what you mean . . . and it must have been ten times worse in Australia.
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Date: 2009-02-17 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 12:32 am (UTC)"One of the current Republican talking points is that Roosevelt started the Great Depression."
The tactic's like something out of Goebbels, isn't it?
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Date: 2009-02-18 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 04:01 am (UTC)There's a useful book in this context called Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen.
But I think all nations colour thewir history atrociously to make themselves look good -- or at least they used to: most of the European ones have learned to face up to reality a bit better, with the Brits acknowledging the many vilenesses of the colonial period, etc. And even when I was a kid it was admitted openly in history classes that, yes, the Brits had been in the wrong in the events leading up to the American Revolution/War of Independence. The US is being a bit slower to catch up in this respect, is all.
But then, to the European eye, the US is pretty goddam odd and atavistic about patriotism, and that's probably a part of it too.
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Date: 2009-02-18 02:13 pm (UTC)If only there was a certified plumber who could answer that question.
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Date: 2009-02-18 02:27 pm (UTC)The only one I can think of offhand is even stupider than Rep Steve Austria. I think Faux News have hired him . . .
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Date: 2009-02-18 03:47 pm (UTC)Not to sound like a broken record, but I was afraid Palin/Plumber would WORK. McC lost states no Repub had any business losing. This party has been reduced to the status of gadfly and irritant. I'm sorry there's not a more intelligent and well-meaning opposition.
What astounds me is that Obama came in seeming to think he needed to cater to them. I wonder what he thinks now.
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Date: 2009-02-18 03:55 pm (UTC)"I'm sorry there's not a more intelligent and well-meaning opposition."
I think it's appalling for the nation that there's not a sane, consructive, intelligent opposition party in sight. My guess is that Obama thinks the same and is trying to coax the GOP into acting as one; but surely he must resign himself pretty soon, if he hasn't already, to the fact that the current crop of fruitbats, mythologists and treasonous crooks is unlikely ever to come round. He'd be better off, if keen on public bipartisanship, to import a few Greens into his cabinet.
As you imply, he might as well start simply ignoring the Congress GOPers and their rabid media attack dogs and concentrate on getting the job done.