A question: do you think that the shuttering of the various government asylums and mental hospitals may have had an impact on this as well. Sure some of those people got taken in by their families, another portion of those people perhaps can function in society on some level and another large portion live on park benches and homeless shelters but I would assume the worst mental cases end up either dead or in prison.
Very interesting. An alternative thought on the last paragraphs of your post; the porn industry has been badly hammered by the flood of amateur and free (or near free) porn that the internet has unleashed. It is possible that rather than relocating what we could consider the porn industry may fragment, shatter and wither. The end of porn as we know it?
Yes yes Scott, just as the right claims free speech while demanding book cencorship (on morality, sexuality, and decency grounds), media cencorship (oh won't someone think of the children!), press censorship (national security), protest cencorship (flag burning) the list goes on and on. My point to ward was that trying to attribute this kind of hypocrisy to only one group in the country and claim that a side as vast as the right is free of such sentiment or behavior is doomed to failure and then quibbling afterwards about which side is "more" hypocritical about this issue or that is a fools errand.
Yes it reads as the opening movement of a rally the base symphony. Frankly that makes me nervous because I've always been skeptical that the Dem base can pull off the whole election even if riled up. We'll have to wait and see.
SOTU full of pap. SOTU packed full of pandering hypocrisy. President’s party underwhelmed. President’s opposition party and Libertarians indignant and predicting dire consequences or indicators of oncoming ruin. Yup sounds like a standard SOTU address, glad I missed it.
Pessimism is certainly a better bet Jay, but maybe the Dems are close enough in time to Bush's re-election to remember it and avoid that mistake? God(ess?) knows I'm hoping for a Newt victory but I still think it's unlikely. Even if Newt somehow got the nod and rammed his party into a wall couldn't that be a Goldwater like moment for the GOP?
Yep. Employment has been inching down. Various indicators have been flickering from red to yellow and from yellow to green. Obama doesn't need low employment necessarily to win. He just needs a good solid trajectory to point at.
Generally conventional etc etc... though I'll note that Meryl Streep probably deserves to have her name carved into every Oscar for best Lead actress from now on for her performance in Iron Lady.
Agreed. The League has relatively strict standards for trolls. If you want to be considered a troll here you're going to have to increase your noise to signal ratio a lot and provide less interesting conversation and useful discussion.
Yes that's probably about right. On the other hand that perception isn't entirely or even majorly wrong. It does currently appear that Israel, having established that none of her enemies is capable of destroying her, has decided that if she wants something done right she'll have to do it herself.
Do you think, Nob, that the American Revolution helped or hindered this process? I can see arguements either way:
It hindered the process, as you noted, by giving abolitionism a rebel branding initially.
On the other hand the revolution also removed from the British Empire the entire American South with its slave industries and powerful vested interest in slavery. That is a powerful financial and political voice that essentially was removed from consideration by the British politicians and lords.
Alternative history crack... if the American Revolution hadn't happened or had failed would British abolition have not occurred or would it have occurred and then sparked a new American revolution (in the south at least)?
On “A Grim Alternative”
Thanks Greg!
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A question: do you think that the shuttering of the various government asylums and mental hospitals may have had an impact on this as well. Sure some of those people got taken in by their families, another portion of those people perhaps can function in society on some level and another large portion live on park benches and homeless shelters but I would assume the worst mental cases end up either dead or in prison.
On “Underripe Thoughts On Inevitable Litigation”
It should be interesting to see how it all develops.
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Very interesting. An alternative thought on the last paragraphs of your post; the porn industry has been badly hammered by the flood of amateur and free (or near free) porn that the internet has unleashed. It is possible that rather than relocating what we could consider the porn industry may fragment, shatter and wither. The end of porn as we know it?
On “Insert Your Own McRib Joke Here”
Yes yes Scott, just as the right claims free speech while demanding book cencorship (on morality, sexuality, and decency grounds), media cencorship (oh won't someone think of the children!), press censorship (national security), protest cencorship (flag burning) the list goes on and on. My point to ward was that trying to attribute this kind of hypocrisy to only one group in the country and claim that a side as vast as the right is free of such sentiment or behavior is doomed to failure and then quibbling afterwards about which side is "more" hypocritical about this issue or that is a fools errand.
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Thanks for sparing me having to plug 60 seconds of time into google Mark.
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Hypocritically claiming tolerance I'll give you Scott, but no wing embraces morality more loudly, feverently and hypocritically than the right wing.
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Conservatives and liberals both have their nuts Ward. Neither have the monopoly on speech stifling wingnuttery.
On “David Frum Vs. The Liberal Media”
Gotta echo Morzer here Elias, that first third was written so convolutedly that I almost had to draw a chart.
What this all seems to boil down to is:
-Sully tut-tutted left wing liberals for not liking Obama as much as Sully does. This makes left wing liberals vexed.
-Frum tried to contradict some of the stuff in Sully's article but did a bad job about it.
On “SOTU Reactions”
I don't know whether to laugh or scream nob.
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You and me both Russell.
On “Obama, Punditry, and the State of the Union Address That Ensured a Second Term”
Yes it reads as the opening movement of a rally the base symphony. Frankly that makes me nervous because I've always been skeptical that the Dem base can pull off the whole election even if riled up. We'll have to wait and see.
On “SOTU Reactions”
Personally I'd have found the speech much more interesting if he'd accidentally baked a baby while kissing a raw apple pie on the dias.
"
SOTU full of pap. SOTU packed full of pandering hypocrisy. President’s party underwhelmed. President’s opposition party and Libertarians indignant and predicting dire consequences or indicators of oncoming ruin. Yup sounds like a standard SOTU address, glad I missed it.
On “Win Or Lose In 2012, Obama’s Got No Class”
Pessimism is certainly a better bet Jay, but maybe the Dems are close enough in time to Bush's re-election to remember it and avoid that mistake? God(ess?) knows I'm hoping for a Newt victory but I still think it's unlikely. Even if Newt somehow got the nod and rammed his party into a wall couldn't that be a Goldwater like moment for the GOP?
"
Yep. Employment has been inching down. Various indicators have been flickering from red to yellow and from yellow to green. Obama doesn't need low employment necessarily to win. He just needs a good solid trajectory to point at.
On “2012 Oscar Nominations Have Been Announced”
Humm I should see it then.
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Generally conventional etc etc... though I'll note that Meryl Streep probably deserves to have her name carved into every Oscar for best Lead actress from now on for her performance in Iron Lady.
On “Race, Privilege, Music, and The N-Word”
Agreed. The League has relatively strict standards for trolls. If you want to be considered a troll here you're going to have to increase your noise to signal ratio a lot and provide less interesting conversation and useful discussion.
On “Job Creator”
Obama's total what?
On “As Old As The World”
Yes that's probably about right. On the other hand that perception isn't entirely or even majorly wrong. It does currently appear that Israel, having established that none of her enemies is capable of destroying her, has decided that if she wants something done right she'll have to do it herself.
On “Can States be Moral? The Curious Case of British Abolitionists”
Agreed, well done.
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Oh yes assuredly, an excellent post, I should have said so in my own comment.
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Do you think, Nob, that the American Revolution helped or hindered this process? I can see arguements either way:
It hindered the process, as you noted, by giving abolitionism a rebel branding initially.
On the other hand the revolution also removed from the British Empire the entire American South with its slave industries and powerful vested interest in slavery. That is a powerful financial and political voice that essentially was removed from consideration by the British politicians and lords.
Alternative history crack... if the American Revolution hadn't happened or had failed would British abolition have not occurred or would it have occurred and then sparked a new American revolution (in the south at least)?
On “Weekend Jukebox: Canuck Edition (Reasons to love/hate Canada)”
Oh I agree it's an utterly futile and facile theme and gesture. But it holds none the less.
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