Close to four years ago, I posted a parody of a local right wing message board full of drunkards, giving my interpretation of their wackiness. I wrote it in a matter of minutes based on various inebriated attitudes that were prevalent on the board.
Turns out just three days ago Science Daily reported of a real life study suggesting that whites at least believe they are now victims of racism more than blacks. No, really.
Some excerpts from Science Daily:
Whites believe that they have replaced blacks as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America, according to a new study from researchers at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School.
*snip*
Sommers and co-author Michael I. Norton of Harvard asked a nation-wide sample of 208 blacks and 209 whites to indicate the extent to which they felt blacks and whites were the targets of discrimination in each decade from the 1950s to the 2000s. A scale of 1 to 10 was used, with 1 being "not at all" and 10 being "very much."
White and black estimates of bias in the 1950s were similar. Both groups acknowledged little racism against whites at that time but substantial racism against blacks. Respondents also generally agreed that racism against blacks has decreased over time, although whites believed it has declined faster than blacks do.
However, whites believed that racism against whites has increased significantly as racism against blacks has decreased. On average, whites rated anti-white bias as more prevalent in the 2000s than anti-black bias by more than a full point on the 10-point scale. Moreover, some 11 percent of whites gave anti-white bias the maximum rating of 10 compared to only 2 percent of whites who rated anti-black bias a 10. Blacks, however, reported only a modest increase in their perceptions of "reverse racism."
"These data are the first to demonstrate that not only do whites think more progress has been made toward equality than do blacks, but whites also now believe that this progress is linked to a new inequality -- at their expense," note Norton and Sommers. Whites see racial equality as a zero sum game, in which gains for one group mean losses for the other.
Sadly, back then I thought these people were just the fringe twenty percenters.
Sarah Palin has announced that she is rejecting almost 30% of stimulus money to her town, err I mean state, of Alaska. The bulk of her rejection money goes to education. Considering she speaks as though she has a fourth grade education, no surprise there.
Other Republican governors also rejecting "portions" of stimulus money:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week announced that he turned down $555 million of federal stimulus funding that would expand the state's unemployment benefits. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he would not accept nearly $100 million to expand unemployment benefits. And South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has said he only wants to use the federal money to pay down debt.
Unemployment benefits give a much greater bank for the buck than tax cuts do. But don't be fooled by these asshole governors. Palin et al KNOW that unemployment benefits help more than twice as much as tax cuts do, but are counting on the economy to FAIL so they have justification to run in the next Presidential election cycle. How un-American. How treasonous!
Already, we are seeing problems with early voting in West Virginia where voters using touchscreen machines have claimed that their votes were switched from Democrat to Republican. Thankfully, SagaciousHillbilly has been poundingaway at the issue and asks "where's the outrage."
A good summary of the issue of election fraud, as opposed to voter fraud, comes from a DemocracyNow clip where NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, author of Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, and a book I actually read, Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform, explains just how perilous this has become for our democracy. Although there is virtually no evidence of anyone turning up at a polling place, risking jail by actually voting as Donald Duck, and consequently throwing an election, there is substantial evidence of voter purging, suppression, and defective machines that all seem to flip for a Republican - all of which ultimately do throw elections.
Side note: I'm not the least bit surprised there's a strong correlation between those fanatics who are hell bent on saving babies from being aborted and their seemingly justified effort to steal elections via electronic voting machines. I won't make any immediate allegations, because this is just one of my cock-a-mammy theories, but while posting on the Heavy Hitter Message Board in 2005 and 2006 (I won't link there anymore because it's virus infested), the moderator was hell bent on completely deleting all discussion of election fraud and those piece of shit electronic voting machines. That same moderator also made it a habit of posting disgusting pictures of aborted babies as a way to make a case for life. As Sarah Palin would say: "I'm just sayin'."
Listen here to Rob Rupp, commie liberal professor at West Virginia Wesleyan, and one of the authors of the poll, explain that one in five West Virginia voters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim - still!
This is also a good indicator of the same 20% of the American people who are right-wing lunatics that will always make up the Bush/McCain/Palin prejudiced base.
Many critics love to cite Bill Clinton as being responsible for the economic woes we are seeing today. That is true only in the sense that he was el Presidente at the time the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed.
But first, let's be clear:
The repeal enabled commercial lenders such as Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, to underwrite and trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations and establish so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs, that bought those securities.
In other words, it allowed the big banks to compete in the world of risky lending and investment practices that smaller derivatives such as mortgage brokers were already engaging in.
However, had stringent regulations been implemented and executed by the Bush White House for all these risky investments and loans, and had this ideology that the market takes care of itself not been revered as gospel, then it would not have mattered that Glass-Steagall was ever repealed. Glass-Steagall did not provide the regulation of the mortgage industry. It simply allowed the big boyz to enter riskier markets and had there been regulations in place, then the big boyz who are too big to fail would have never failed to begin with.
The bill that ultimately repealed the Act was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and in the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA) in 1999. The bills were passed by a 54-44 vote along party lines with Republican support in the Senate[8] and by a 343-86 vote in the House of Representatives[9]. Nov 4, 1999: After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bipartisan bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90-8-1 and in the House: 362-57-15. Without forcing a veto vote, this bipartisan, veto proof legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.
Clinton's hands were essentially tied by the Republican and Corporate Democratic controlled Congress and banks have been lobbying for the removal of the Act since the 1970's. Of course, if he was as disrespectful to the Constitution as Bush, he would have just issued a signing statement to serve as a line-item veto to get rid of the disliked portions of the bill.
Anyhow, take a look at Clinton's take on this mess in the clip below from the View:
"We basically made too much money out of money." -Bill Clinton
Frontline did a piece on the history of credit, mortages, and interest rates that follows nicely to what Clinton was getting at before HasselBitch wanted to move on to his Global Initiative around the 5 minute mark.
Mortgaging the Future
Interest rate deregulation dovetailed neatly with a seemingly unrelated phenomenon: the bidding war for suburban housing. The mortgage industry shook off its interest rate regulations just a few years after the credit card industry. In the new world of unfettered mortgage lending, no longer would the middle-class family be restricted to a conventional 80 percent mortgage. The floodgates were opened, and families could get all the mortgage money they ever dreamed of to bid on that precious home in the suburbs -- even if the price tag was more than they could realistically afford.
And as nicely as Clinton pointed out in the clip, every home owner that goes looking for a loan only thinks of one thing: "Can I afford the monthly payment." If they can, then sub-prime rates, interest only loans, sneaky legal language, and the like do not enter the minds of most average Americans. Therefore, placing blame on the people who took out these loans is questionable at best. Of course, many probably should have known better, yet these banks should have never been allowed to issue so many risky loans in the first place.
So to the degree that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act allowed banks to get into non-traditional banking activities like investments and stupid loans, sure, that was a factor. But I believe the lenient regulations and failure of self-regulating internally within the company (i.e. the free hand of the market) hold the biggest burden of the blame than anything else. Again, it's this type of altruistic market philosophy that the Republicans have been hammering for, and winning, for the past 30 years.
These large banks are not in trouble due to the fact that they may have a brokerage branch. They are in trouble because they hold bad mortgages as a result of de-regulation.
"of its liberal teachings..." "who are ruining the country," "and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets." Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his "hatred of the liberal movement," "Liberals in general, as well as gays."
Meanwhile, officers searched his home and
found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.
Also,
The church's Web site states that it has worked for "desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights" since the 1950s.
So, for all you unfortunate peons who aren't privy to reading Jerry Waters Heavy Hitters Message Board, I was able to finagle my way in under a super secret username and password, copy screen shots, and show them all to you. Cause I know how much you care what the Heavy Drinkers are talking about.
click images for larger view
This screen shot is just the main page. Special members will see this page, while unregistered losers merely see the ads about God and Who is Online.
However, you are now privileged. Below is a top secret topic Jerrie DOESN'T want you to see!!
Don Surber posted the following at his blahg concerning dumbass Republicans walking out after Dems refused to debate the extension of spying on Americans FISA.
The walkout
“If Al-Qaeda is talking, we should be able to listen.” — Republican Congressman Eric Cantor.
So let’s see, we have the FISA expiring and instead of voting on whether to re-up, the Democratic leadership in the House decides to issue bogus contempt citations against 2 officials who are no longer a part of the Bush administration: Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers.
Because I'm at work playing on the internets, I decided to comment on his blahg that Josh Bolten is the current Chief of Staff to the WH - still! Surber responds to me that it's AP's fault for the error.... and it isn't his job to check those pesky facts before he makes excuses for Bush.
Reply: That’s what AP said: “The House just voted to hold Josh Bolten, President Bush’s former chief of staff, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, in contempt of Congress.”
Then edits his original post after AP corrected theyselves.
UPDATE: AP corrected itself; Bolten is still White House chief of staff. I’m thinking the writer confused him with John Bolton who left his UN post.
You were obviously confused too, genius!
The Surbmeister's entire argument for the Bushies is centered on the idea that "bogus" contempt charges are forged against "two officials who are no longer part of the Bush administration." If you are a political editorialist, who is published in the Daily Mail and all over the country, and you can't name the top tier cabinet members to the WH...off the top of your head....then you don't deserve to be taken seriously - ever.
So I was sitting at my computer this evening drinking a cold Sierra Nevada and reading the Heavy Hitters Message Board when I came across a peculiar post. The topic was a heated one, wrought with passion and unbridled prejudice. Entitled "Dirty public school books and the Gay agenda," Mr. Waters seemed determined to convince his readers that liberals and gays were the reason our society has become what it is - whatever that is...gawdless or something.
But what caught my inquiring eye was his last post on the subject, and in particular, this first sentence:
Some of you self-proclaimed mavens of intellect, consistently use the same, weak, ad homonym tactic to convey some kind of all-knowing superiority over those of us that do not fall within their political or ideological view, especially when it comes to religion.
I thought to myself, gee, that's quite a sentence there Jer. It had a cadence to it. A nuance of an experienced writer who was resolute with his ideas. It was nothing like I had ever seen from the Decider. And to be quite honest, I had to know what a "maven of intellect" was. Well, with a quick click of this here mouse, I highlighted that whole aformentioned sentence by accident and hit search on Google before I could even say "maven of intellect." And it churned out ONE hit:
Naturally, I clicked on the link and it brought me to some archive of comments about an anti-Japanese propoganda film. Ok, whatever. Made no sense until I scrolled down a bit to the 11th comment made by a "Delineate" who said this:
Every post I read in this thread, posted by self-proclaimed mavens of intellect, consistently use the same, weak, ad homonym tactic by using words i.e., red state, redneck, hillbilly, neo-con, etc., to convey some kind of all-knowing superiority over those of us that do not fall within their political or ideological view.
Take out/add a few tiny words and you basically have the exact same sentences! How can this be? Perhaps it's mere coincidence that two people can actually talk that way....but I doubt it. Omg, is Jerry Waters this "Delineate" guy and figured hey, what a great quote, might as well use that baby again? Or did he simply Ctrl-C that sucker and try to pass it off as his own? Either way - LAME! hahahaha!
Climate skeptics like to use the word "hoax" when they want to dismiss the science behind global warming. Wouldn't it be great to create a fictional study group with fictional scientists and fictional findings that go against global warming science and watch the skeptics get all hot for it? Well someone did just THAT! haha! Skeptics jumped on the spoof study like mad, cause the study claimed that ocean bacteria, not humans, create global warming! The apparent author of the fake study was interviewed and said:
Q: Why did you decide to construct the fake website? Was it purely a joke or did you set out to make people taking your paper at face value look foolish?
A: Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of scepticism.
Q: Are you surprised at the pick up your coverage has generated?
A: Not really. Equally ridiculous claims - like those in the paper attached to the "Oregon Petition" or David Bellamy's dodgy glacier figures - have been widely circulated and taken up by the ‘sceptic’ community. But you can explain this until you are blue in the face. To get people to sit up and listen, you have to demonstrate it. This is what I set out to do.
Even lardass Rush Limbaugh fell for the hoax. Must have been off the drugs or something. Just shows you skeptics are nothing more than propogandists looking for anything to push their agenda - and that they truly don't understand a goddamn thing.
Check DeSmogBlog for a funny acount of those that created the hoax and the assholes who fell for it.
Wow. The Heavy Drinkers have really out done themselves this time. I did an Alt print screen deal and was able to save an image of this latest topic before it got deleted by the Decider. Heh, I'll show them!
British author J.K. Rowling divulged that Albus Dumbledore, one of the main characters in the ever popular Harry Potter books, is gay. And apparently this is a huge issue among conservatives.
Why is it that when a large sect of people like the white male Christians, who have a complete stronghold on the way our culture and public policy operates, get all a tiff when they find out something as simple as a book series, albeit very popular, doesn't conform to their narrow minded bigotry? It can't just stop with their unhinged taboos of anything that doesn't affirm Christians as the be all end all of greatness (which again takes me back to Salem Town and the Dark Ages) but they have to go a step further and degrade another small percentage of our population. The ever frightful, wickedness of homos! Ahkkk! Run before they have a big orgy in your backyard, where you might actually get turned on!!!
How much you want to bet Surber has never even read a Harry Potter book? Or if he did, his reading comprehension is desperately suffering. Because the main theme of all of the Harry Potter series is the message of tolerance. And this need for tolerance is only reinforced by these illiterate bigots.
Which, of course, says so much more about their own deeply disturbing repression than it does about any anti-Christian homosexual.
Does that mean the popular Irving Stone novel, "The Agony and the Ecstasy," that is also a high school favorite, will end up being banned too? I mean, with all the homosexual references in there? How about we burn "Fahrenheit 451" just for kicks instead.
Book banning reminds me of the the Puritan times. Ahh, memories.
This action of banning "Prince of Tides," that has about as much sex as FOX drama's do on any given week night, goes right in line step with abstinence only teaching in sex ed. But this goes deeper folks. There is an undercurrent and strong desire to eliminate public schools altogether and it starts with these religious sex deprived zealots.
Holy rollers need to take their kids and put them in private snake handler schools if they want to raise them to be idiots, and leave our public schools alone.
Update:
Raging Red has a great write-up about the controversy (with Steve, the teacher, comments and all) and a link to Pat Conroy's letter to the Gazette:
I heard rumors of this controversy as I was completing my latest filthy, vomit-inducing work.
*snip*
The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You’ve now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but writers and English teachers do.
If anyone's ever read my rants on global warming, the primary point I continue to drive home is the cost-benefit analysis of doing something as opposed to nothing. Below is a video response to another video called Junk Science: Global Warming Myth Busted. The junk one is some couch potato doode with a fucking ball cap on trying to get all sciency on us. It's very looong, you can't see his power point, and to be honest, I didn't watch the whole thing. But let's assume what dirty hat guy says is true and what every free marketeer screams is true: That the worst possible scenario for action combating global warming is economic depression. However, you then must look at the worst possible scenario for doing NOTHING.That's what the video below does in simple terms. This video instead has a nerdy looking guy obviously holed up in his lab. I tend to favor the nerds as opposed to the goatee wearin' pieces of shit holed up in their living rooms. But that's just me.
Kidding of course. But what happens when a radio talk show host loses their job? Answer: They either call up their old band mates in hopes of a rawkin' summer tour, or they get enough free time to play Decider on a local West Virginia message board. With his unique blend of uberness and how much local leebural politics suck big time, Jerry Waters had one of the most wingnuttery successful talk radio shows this side of the Kanawha. Unfortunately, his show was subsequently cancelled. Hopefully the board doesn't end up going with the show, because it is a very insightful place to talk to ubercons.
Update:
Here's a quick peek at the massive protest held a few days after the cancellation.
Update II:
The board was removed. So the only link above that works is the protest one. But he started a podcast and has a new message board.
