Not sure what is worth watching tonight, if anything. Might be another CIV V/Angel night.
Open Thread
by John Cole| 80 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
by John Cole| 80 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Not sure what is worth watching tonight, if anything. Might be another CIV V/Angel night.
Comments are closed.
MikeJ
Done any multiplayer civ?
Amanda in the South Bay
Whew, finally I can vent:
1. Sitting at a bus stop this afternoon, this guy sits next to me and makes small talk about the weather. Okay. Then, he starts talking more, asking me about who I am, what I do…sorta creepy. He ends by asking for my phone number. I guess its flattering to think I pass that well, but its creepy as all fuck. Does this guy not realize I’m trans?
2. I recently posted an ad on craigslist, suffice it to say it was a personal ad, not at all directed to men, and identifying myself as trans. I got a reply this afternoon from a military officer, from a bona fide .mil address.
That…objectively speaking is risky as fuck to do from a .mil account (speaking as a vet myself). And officers, regardless of their branch, are fucking dumbasses.
Kryptik
I’m hoping Gamefly comes through for me tomorrow and I get SSFIV in. I could use something to punch virtually rather than IRL.
arguingwithsignposts
“I personally stopped the public option…” new tagline. nice one, JC.
Tom
Ghost Hunters!
Violet
@Amanda in the South Bay:
1. Maybe he didn’t realize? Or maybe he’s okay with someone who’s trans? Sounds like you just got hit on.
2. What the heck? What kind of dumbass replies to a personal ad from a .mil account? Just in general that’s stupid.
Has anyone tried watching this new JJ Abrams show “Undercovers”? It was on when I turned on my TV, so I watched a few minutes of it. Definitely some very good looking people wearing skimpy clothing. That would be one reason to watch.
WereBear
Mythbusters!
Oh, wait. Maybe not. Dang.
Oh, well, at least the new kitten is still cute.
Mike
Terriers! It is pretty great.
(on FX btw)
Cat Lady
Why has Wednesday night always been teh suxx0r for tee vee as long as I can remember? Is it because every single group and committee in the world meets on Wednesday night, so the rest of us who let the joiners of the world run things get punished?
PurpleGirl
@WereBear: Cute. Very cute.
Southern Beale
Don’t know if folks read the 13-page “Punking CNN” plan but it shows you what kind of alternate reality these folks live in …. we’re all scratching our heads wondering what the hell James O’Keefe was thinking but just read the plan and you realize they sorta view themselves as hero warriors in some bizarre war.
arguingwithsignposts
@Southern Beale:
I read earlier that O’Keefe claimed he didn’t write it. A competent analyst could tell if it was his writing or not based on earlier writing, style, etc.
Bnut
Netflix has the whole first season of Pillars of the Earth on instant watch. Love it.
Also too, why do I have to access this site through an IP blocker? I don’t recall being banned, what’s up with that…
Restrung
Hedvig! I know a guy who is well into trans women. Preferred, even.
edit: meant Hedwig. speaking out loud into the keyboard.
Mark S.
@arguingwithsignposts:
He claimed it wasn’t his “work product.” He actually didn’t write it; some other dipshit underling wrote it (I’m too lazy to look up what his name is). However, he did rent the boat, so he certainly followed some of the instructions.
merrinc
If anyone is considering buying a house via short sale, allow me to advise stockpiling a very large supply of Valium. (Or whatever pharmaceuticals are used to calm one’s nerves these days.) We made an offer on June 9 and we might, just MIGHT close on Oct 13 – if the approval letter allegedly written by a sentient being at BofA doesn’t preclude us from getting good and marketable title.
Oh, and I haven’t packed the first box. And that’s Obama’s fault.
akaoni
How’s Civ V looking? I’m a long time Civ player but I’ve been too busy to pick up the new game. I’d love to hear any opinions of the game’s new features.
merrinc
@WereBear:
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
That is definitely a cute kitteh.
MikeJ
@merrinc: Bullshit. There are no sentient beings at BofA. In fact, I could produce examples of code they’ve written and use it as evidence in committal hearings if anyone ever wanted to lock up their devs.
Corner Stone
HEY!
Kommrade reproductive vigor killed the “Let’s stir things up” thread.
Fucking hyphen bomb.
Texas Dem
Spend some time as the darling of the right wing lecture and media circuit, with hordes of Fox News babes throwing themselves at you (because they think you’re going to be the next Rush or Hannity, and they’ll finally get that mansion with the personal trainer and nanny), and nearly any man will start to think he’s James Bond.
Beeb
@WereBear: Very, very, very cute.
I’m going to try Law & Order:Los Angeles. The worst it can do is suck.
bemused
On our way to visit family, we’ll be driving through West Virginia and Virginia and would like to do a little touristing. We are thinking Harper’s Ferry would be a stop but would like other suggestions too. We like historical sites and stopping to look around unique small towns.
meander
Part 2 of Ken Burns’ “Baseball, the Tenth Inning” series is on PBS in my area tonight. Part 1 last night was good, covering the beginning of the steroid controversy, the rebirth of the Yankees, players from Latin nations, the McGuire/Sosa home run battle in 1998. Tonight promises significant coverage of the Red Sox’s World Series victory.
MikeJ
@akaoni:
Good:
City states are neat. Now the way you win a diplomatic victory is to win over the small countries that aren’t going for a win themselves.
I like the new culture system, some people don’t. I think it’s much richer and better.
Resources are interesting. If you have access to, for instance, iron, and you build a swordsman, you have one less iron. In the old days, one instance of a resouce fed your whole civ. Now you might have access to some oil, but not as much as you think your civ needs. Of course it does make it easier to buy surplus from other civs since they don’t have to sell all or nothing.
Bad:
AI is really, really, really stupid. The other day the Aztecs attacked me after they wiped out the Germans. The mega continent we shared was really down to him, some city states, and me. I fought back, took two cities (hint: don’t attack French musketeers with spears) and the Aztecs sued for peace, handing over a dozen cities.
Eye candy is disappointing. No cool victory videos (I’ve only won space race and culture, but none for those.)
Steam is required.
Mods don’t work if Steam (and therefore Civ 5) is not installed to default location.
General Stuck
The Missing just came on NF instant, so I will watch it. Filmed here in NM, mostly northern part, but a good western imo, and there are so very few of them made these days.
Oh, and also too, another new NF instant on the modern republican party. I’m saving it for Saturday night though.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@WereBear: Sigh. Eddie loses a couple of toes tomorrow, or at least most of them. Hay fever turned into an amputation.
arguingwithsignposts
@bemused:
Which parts of VA, WVA?
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@meander: Has he gotten around to mentioning that the Tigers won the 1968 World Series? Or is he still too busy gushing over Bob Gibson’s strikeouts to notice that Lolich beat him heads up in Game 7?
Violet
@bemused:
Where are you going from and to? Northern or Southern WV?
These aren’t historical sites or small towns, but the Monongahela Forest, Dolly Sods and Seneca Rocks, are beautiful. If you’re in the area, definitely worth a drive by.
merrinc
@MikeJ:
Well, that’s why I worked the “allegedly” qualifier in there. The uber-geek spouse who used to work for Wells Fargo is in full agreement. He is happy he no longer has to work for banks, thank whateverdiety.
You’d think with what’s been going on in the housing market for the last few years that lienholders/loan servicers would have obtained some degree of competency with the short sale process. Alas, no. Bankers could fuck up a wet dream.
arguingwithsignposts
@bemused:
If you’re going through VA, it wouldn’t hurt to drive the Lee Highway (Hwy 11) instead of the interstate West to East. Some good parks along and beautiful scenery.
demimondian
Hey, J.C. — you used to be a probation officer. O’Keefe is on three years’ probation as a result of his Landrieu crimes. Does this CNN business violate the terms of his probation?
jeffreyw
Dinner is served.
PurpleGirl
@Bnut: That’s the whole story… not a first season. It was a mini-series and it does cover the whole book. A lot was cut of course, but the whole story is there. (The book is pretty good.)
jibeaux
Abingdon, VA, is adorable, in a cutesy way. Don’t know what areas you’re going through, though.
And the Rolling Stone interview with Obama that someone front-paged before — Ann Laurie? — really is worth reading in its entirety. We have a good president.
beltane
@efgoldman: My big male cat routinely manages to piss off the local skunk, and always by my bedroom window. Being a very clever kitty, he never gets sprayed himself.
suzanne
Well, might I suggest everyone watch “Citizen Architect” next time it’s on your local PBS affiliate?
http://citizenarchitectfilm.com/
I’m slightly biased. My graduate thesis adviser is in it. It’s wonderful.
@JMN: Give Eddie some extra lovin’ tonight. Poor baby. I’m sure he’ll be just fine, but it’s so hard to see them in pain. Have a drink, too.
jibeaux
Ezra Klein used to do a regular “eMusic” blog back when he had a blog that was, maybe 5% less wonky than the current one. I have 30 eMusic credits, who has a musical recommendation for me? I like lots of genres, but I guess I would say I’m fairly conventional in my taste. You know, melody and a good voice are still good musical ideas. Could use something not too depressing right now.
arguingwithsignposts
@jibeaux:
Caitlin Canty if you like singer-songwriters. Also, Ingrid Michaelson is up-tempo. For a couple of suggestions. Also, I *highly* recommend Redbird (Peter Mulvey, Kris Delmhorst and Jeffrey Foucault) – whole album is worth a download.
jeff
It’s impossible to vote in New York unless you are really determined.
Since I moved, I must take a day off and go in person and wait in line all day to see someone.
My point is: why offer a PDF, but make it a custom size, and then insist it be mailed in, not emailed? Why must they make everything so fucking hard? Indeed: I just freaking moved a block or two, so why the whole re-registration?
The PDFs they offer for mail-in change of address are on custom-size paper and will not print on 81/2X11, though they may print on Legal.
WTF is up with this shit?
I’m about to give up, and I’m pretty motivated.
(BTW, if anyone says I only need to pick up a form at the post office–well, there are none.)
bemused
@arguingwithsignposts:
We’ve been through the western side of both states a couple of times so we are going to check out the center areas but not too far east.
jeffreyw
What is the sound of one kitteh playing?
Just Some Fuckhead
@bemused: You must see Foamhenge.
PurpleGirl
@jeff: What forms are looking to get, which agency do you mean, when did you move?
Did you have your address changed on your Drive’s License? You can register with Board of Elections through Motor Vehicle (Motor Voter law).
Lunarmovements
@Amanda in the South Bay: One possibility is that this officer’s “buddy” answered your ad in his name as a “joke”. Alternatively, with DADT in the news so much lately, this could be someone’s (ignorant hateful) way of trying to (forcibly) out a fellow officer they dislike. Even if you were remotely interested, my instinct would be to ignore this reply completely. It sounds like nothing but trouble to me. Possibly really deep nasty trouble.
As for the guy at the bus stop… I’d say take it for the compliment it was meant to be.
jayboat
You’re kidding, right?
Ken Burns’ Baseball: The Tenth Inning
TuckerD
So someone sent me the lame tax parable again tonight, and I am trying to rewrite it to send back. Any help from this witty community? Below is the parable, then my draft:
My response draft:
Bar Stool Economics
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing, they wouldn’t get a stool to sit on, and the beer itself would be from the skunked keg in the corner, but they were allowed to trek across town (being too poor to afford a car of their own, they would bum a ride or take inadequate public bus for an hour and a half) to a bar that had beer and only occasionally kicked them out for looking suspicious or being unable to afford to pay for a beer. But the beer was all they had, and they were grateful for the sustenance.
The fifth would pay $1, representing 20% of his daily income to receive warm flavorless beer in a can, but he would be allowed to stand in the bar and watch the other drinkers. His bus ride home would be long and smelly, but this is the way it has been for his family for as long as he can remember. He can’t complain.
The sixth would pay $3, representing 15% of his daily income, but his single Budweiser beer is cold, and his seat at the end of the bar may be wet, but it is his. Most nights, his second hand car would get him home in fine fashion.
The seventh would pay $7, and get three beers. His 5% entertainment budget is a point of contention with his wife, but there are privileges to being able to live close to the bar and be a regular, be part of the system, and he intends to take advantage of it. His home mortgage consumer much of his income, but he is living the dream. Some nights he drinks trendy imported beers, some nights even wine. He is on this way up in the world, so he thinks. This bar tab is an investment in his future.
The eighth would pay $12 for an all you can drink menu. A man of his stature and privilege has a bit of ownership in the bar, like his father before him. Wine and well drinks are his for the asking, and his portion of the bar has special service from attractive bar maidens who flirt with him and make him comfortable. Still, he feels poor. He spends a great deal of time and effort to get the benefits afforded to the ninth man, but can’t get there. He is paying a full 20% of his disposable income (after paying for the house, the vacation house, the nanny, the 401Ks, and other investments) to come drink at this bar. That seems like a lot.
The ninth would pay $18. There is a special roped off section of the bar – a nightclub – if you will, where his $18 buys him bottle service and offers of sex and favors. He buys and sells portions of the bar to 1-8, allowing them to gamble and speculate, and skimming a little of the top of each transaction. His money buys him access to all the wheels of power with which he makes himself richer, and lowers his bar tab. Still he knows he pays too damn much. What about all those people who get beer for free? Why should he have to subsidize them? As much as he pays to the bar – almost 10% of his disposable income (if you count the NetJet account as a necessity) – seems outrageous. Yes, due to creative accounting he is paying less of his earnings than #8, but what kind of a rip off system is this, anyway?
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. The drinks for him, are always free and delivered to his suite, but his special ‘club’ membership has a minimum, and this is as low as he can get it. In fact, the total bill to him was almost 20% more just a few years ago, but the recent bartender temporarily lowered the rates for him alone. When it looked like they would go back up, he screamed he was being robbed, and went back to one of his 5 homes on his private jet to have a little tantrum and try to get the new bartender fired for being black.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement (there was no violent revolution, after all), until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
“Since some of you are complaining you pay too much,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. Of course, the bar was in debt and in danger of bankruptcy, which would help no one. Out of 2/3 of the 8,9,10 group thought that they were paying too little, and thought that while the bar could use to be better run, they would rather pay more and have a solvent drinking establishment. But the rabble rousers had convinced the bartender to lower the prices, so lower them he did.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men still paid nothing. The first and second were told they were a drain on society and would never amount to anything anyway, and this was their fault. The first was jailed for being poor and Latino looking, so the sixth started having to mow his own lawn. The second was told that temperance was a virtue and if he spent his time reading Ayn Rand instead of trying to get a drink America would be free again. But hey, if they could sneak into the bar, they would still drink for free. The third and fourth were still able to get their skunked warm beer in the corner, as long as they never expected to sit down on a stool.
But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’ bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before, right? The first four continued to drink piss water for free if they could find it. And yes, there was a lot less of it around, but at least they weren’t paying anything for it, right? Why should they complain?
Once outside the bar, the remaining men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!” He was resentful, and it was unbecoming. But here he was, with a small one bedroom house an hour commute from work, and this guy with 5 homes gets his bill lowered by so much? He doesn’t need the money!
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
The first four, as always, were largely silent and forgotten unless they infringed on the drinking of the others.
Meanwhile, the tenth man contemplated whether he should just find a way to get his drinks through a Caribbean republic, just like old forgotten eleven does. But then he gets a better idea.
The tenth man convinces the seventh man that maybe he could be number nine or ten someday, while together with the ninth man he writes laws to make sure that all of the bar contracts go to their own distributorships, ensuring their position forever more. They further threaten that maybe the tenth man and the ninth man won’t show up to the bar anymore, stiffing the rest with the bill. To maintain control of all of their perks, they just need to convince five and six that they should be afraid of one through four because they are brown or terrorists or poor. If one, two, three and four will just stay home from the the polls everything will be okay! (Until the revolution comes.)
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@efgoldman: When I was in high school, a skunk moved in under the shed attached to the house, which was right next to the side door. No one got sprayed (even the dog, amazingly enough). If you were coming home at night, you just made sure to make a lot of noise as you walked from the sidewalk to the door. No sense surprising her.
She did a good job keeping down the varmint population, too.
jeff
@PurpleGirl:
Hey! Well, I already voted successfully for years. However, I moved. In New York, you cannot vote if you’ve moved without registering to vote anew. Unfortunately, the only response I’ve gotten when I’ve asked for a form is to try other post offices or request that the State mail a form to me at home. The PDF they offer–which is the only quick way to get a form–is on bizarrely shaped paper which I cannot print.
So, it’s actually much, much harder to change address than to register. I registered when I got my driver license 10 years ago.
If I’m missing something, please let me know. It’s pretty much not possible to change your address in order to vote. By the way, I paid the USPS to register my change of address with the authorities. They did not.
I want to add: I know this is trivial. However, people are spending a lot on “get out the vote”. I thought this would be informative.
Boudica
@jeff: Did you try looking at the public library? We have voter registr. forms at our library in Texas.
PurpleGirl
Jeff: NYS Board of Elections
http://www.elections.state.ny.us/Voting.html#RegisterVote
According to the Board of Elections web site, you can register on-line. You can fill out the PDF on line.
When I moved 10 years ago, I moved about 2 miles and had no problems changing the address with the Board of Elections. Sorry I don’t remember exactly h ow I did it.
jeff
@PurpleGirl:
Holy shit! This prints on 91/2×11. Hallelulia and thank you!
Why the fuck does the .gov form not!???
Thanks again
nick
Civ 2 still pumps my nads (I just got over $800 for a delivery of uranium). I’m THINKING of laying out $9 for Civ4. Civ 5 is years away.
PurpleGirl
@jeff: @jeff: Your welcome. Glad I could help. I find it interesting to search for things and to learn to navigate different web sites.
D-boy
RIP Greg Giraldo
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/comedian-greg-giraldo-dies-at-44
one of my favorite comedians
Comrade Jake
Nobody suggested Modern Family? That show is gold.
arguingwithsignposts
@TuckerD:
tl;dr dude(ette)!
Martin
@TuckerD: The parable is wrong on it’s face. It assumes everyone is consuming the same amount. They’re not. The richest guy is consuming much, much more. He’s really drinking 8 beers all by himself. The commerce department provided grants to his company to be more competitive. The state department helped his company deal with a trade dispute with China. The military ensured that the goods his company sells can get to foreign countries without being pirated. When some other companies tried to infringe on his company’s intellectual property, the US judiciary was there to hear the case and take action. The federal government has worked for two centuries to ensure that we have secure borders, low crime, good infrastructure, fair court systems, a large pool of highly educated workers – and all of those things benefit the guys at the top far more than the folks at the bottom. They’re all profit and success magnifiers. So yeah, he makes more, but he’s gotten more help to get there. He just needs to pay for what he’s gotten.
jeff
@jeff:
Awesome! Balloon Juice just surpassed Daily Kos in voter registration!
Thanks and best to you!
4tehlulz
I understand why Andrew Cuomo won’t debate Paladino; he’s afraid Carl’ll stab him if he wins a debating point.
Bailey
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
In this part (“Tenth Inning”) Burns is only covering the years 1994 – present, so no mention of the Tigers of Lolich.
Side note: my dad played on the same Portland, OR metro all-star team as Lolich in, I think, 1958. (Have to check dates on that.) Both were pitchers. Dad considered him a good friend.
JGabriel
Southern Beale:
Really. Any punking plan that takes more than 7 pages to communicate is far too elaborate.
Kind of like right wing conspiracy theories.
.
stuckinred
Just finished watching La Mission written and staring Benjamin Bratt. Great flick about hispanic culture in San Fran dealing with reality.
Allen
I’m with Comrade Jake. Modern Family is my favorite comedy since Arrested Development was canceled.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Bailey: I’m mostly reemphasizing the fact that I was profoundly unimpressed with Baseball. It was the same paean to Boston and New York that everyone else provides. The 1968 Series is just my favorite example, since I’m a Tigers fan. It was sandwiched between the Impossible Dream Red Sox and the 1969 Amzain’ Mets, so it merited about a minute spent on Bob Gibson and nothing else. It epitomized the whole damned series (other than the first couple of episodes from before there was significant baseball in New York).
Overall, I just find Ken Burns to be vastly overrated.
hilzoy
@MikeJ: “There are no sentient beings at BofA. In fact, I could produce examples of code they’ve written”
Mwahaha! I used to write that code! Or, well, I hope that my code has long since gone into the dustbin of history — it was supposed to be used on a little computer with, and I am not kidding, a one line screen. As a special bonus, it made the world’s most horrible beeping sound whenever you did anything wrong. Such a joy during testing. — But I did used to write computer code for B of A, back in the day. And I was sentient.
The fact that that was not my worst job ever says something about my employment history. I hated it so much that I used to go to the bank every payday, withdraw my entire paycheck (which they forced us to have direct deposited into B of A), and take it down the street to deposit it at Wells Fargo, just on principle.
They had a lovely system in which there was a maximum speed at which you could advance. As best I could tell, it would have taken me two and a half years to be paid for the job I was actually doing. The only way around this was to be stolen by another division. Excellent for morale and teamwork.
I took a three day class in Time Management, partly out of boredom and partly to see what they could teach us that would make up for the three lost days. It turned out to be all about ethics — the teacher felt that procrastination was caused by one’s life not lining up with one’s values. I didn’t say much — I was trying not to be an obnoxious philosophy major — but towards the end, he started to tell us about moral exemplars we should use as models, and the one he chose to dwell on was, and I am not making this up, Albert Schweitzer.
I was trying to figure out how Albert Schweitzer, of all people, was supposed to serve as a model for us, and I couldn’t, so I asked: “Albert Schweitzer decided that living according to his values meant that he should give up his career as an organist and start a hospital for the poor in Gabon. Do you think that we should give up our careers here at Bank of America and devote ourselves to serving the poor?” Oh no, said our teacher. No, I don’t think you need to do that …
I also took a class in technical writing. You will no doubt be interested to know that good technical writing does not involve trying to get your meaning across clearly, or anything like that. Instead, it involves trying to get a low score on something called “the Fog Index”. To calculate your Fog Index, take a random paragraph that you’ve written, and multiply the number of words per paragraph by the average number of syllables per word. Then — and here is the stroke of deviant brilliance — multiply the result by 0.4. That’s your Fog Index.
I
Guess
This
Is
The
Best
Kind
Of
Writing.
If I hadn’t quit that job, I’m not sure how much longer my sentience would have lasted. Though the sheer pointlessness of the 0.4 in the Fog Index made me smile for days afterwards.
Comrade Luke
I’m about to blow a gasket.
A friend of mine posted a link to Krugman’s latest editorial about how structural unemployment is a canard, and some guy comments about how Krugman is always wrong, the emperor has been shown to have no clothes and the problem is spending.
I normally keep my mouth shut (really, I do!), but people espousing nonsense like this in public forums really bugs me, because other low-information people will read it, absorb it, and then repeat it to other low-information people, and so on. So simply comment “Krugman, as usual, is correct.”
The guy replies by posting an link to some blog post from a guy who is a follower of “the Austrian school of economics” that supposedly debunks Krugman’s article, and says “Please don’t reply unless you have solid data to support your argument”. If you go to the guy’s blog, the very first comment calls him “intellectually dishonest”, and a few comments down someone posts a link to government data showing he’s wrong, so I go point that out and say “Where were these deficit clowns during Dick and George’s Excellent Iraqi Adventure? They could have saved us a trillion dollars.”
Then he goes off on how Hayek was great, spending is wrong, and how Obama has spent more on the stimulus than we spent on Iraq and we have nothing to show for it, blah blah blah. I just said “If you don’t like deficits, tax the rich, get rid of the estate tax, tax capital gains as income and get out of two unfunded wars in the Middle East. Easy-peasy.”
I come here and shake my head when reading about how we’re supposed to support Democrats even though they’re shitty, but then I see these jokers and have to agree. These people just go on and on and on, and they’re coming out of the fucking woodwork.
It’s. so. damned. frustrating.
asiangrrlMN
@Amanda in the South Bay: Maybe he just liked you.
@WereBear: Very cute. And much needed.
@jeffreyw: Yum. Looks wonderful, as does Homer.
Now, all I need are Tunchie pics.
MikeJ
@hilzoy:
I went to one of those where the guy told a roomful of programmers that in his last class with 23 people, 95% had said it was worthwhile. Nobody needed a calculator (sorry DougJ) to start laughing at him.
General Stuck
Dumbass of the day.
General Stuck
I wanna go.
Sentient Puddle
@nick: Civ IV is great, and should be a no brainer at $9. If you skipped over Civ III, stuff like culture and how they handle resources might feel rather intimidating, but it all comes together really well to make what I think is the best game in the series.
(Still playing the hell out of V trying to determine how I think about it in relation to IV)
PurpleGirl
@Comrade Luke: Do you mean Sean from Florida? He drives the commenters to Krugman crazy. (Probably drives Krugman crazy too.) I see his name and pass up what he’s written. I think he has a set of comments that he pastes in everywhere. He is exasperating.
hilzoy
@MikeJ: Fact: I arrived at BofA knowing Fortran but not knowing Basic, which I was going to program in. They told me it would take me about six weeks to learn Basic. Since Basic is, of course, a sort of subset of Fortran, I spent six hours — it would have been a lot shorter, but I thought I must be missing something, so I kept testing and retesting myself to be sure.
Six weeks? For Basic? Srsly?
In fairness to B of A, it was tough for them to hold onto programmers with Silicon Valley so nearby. I was only working there because I had no clue how to find a job after college, and one of my friends took pity on me and said: look. You’d be good at computers. I am going to teach you to program. So he did, and I got the job at B of A. It took me around 4-5 months to get the first job offers out of Silicon Valley, without making any effort whatsoever to get them.
Having worked for B of A was one reason why I never really fell for the “corporations are so awesomely efficient compared to the government” line. I’m sure many corporations are. I’m equally sure that the one I worked for was not.
FlipYrWhig
@TuckerD: More like the 10th guy, who’s drinking a ton and doing it for cheap, gets half of the other guys to beat up the people who aren’t paying anything, because it’s very important that he pay even less, and they’d understand it too if they were 10th-guy rich like him.
morzer
I strongly suggest one of the front-pagers takes a look at this:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/09/floridas-kangaroo-foreclosure-courts-judges-denying-due-process-on-behalf-of-banks.html
It’s really quite astounding to see what “activist” judges are capable of.
Mark S.
@General Stuck:
Try to catch a ride with mclaren.
WereBear
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): Goddam, I’m sorry. Poor Eddie and poor you.
akaoni
@MikeJ:
Thanks for the review Mike. I’m especially interested to see new combat and resource system. I always thought it was funny to get one source of iron or oil and be set.
I’m planning to pick it up some time soon but it seems like I have less and less game time anymore…have Steam though, so that’s a plus.
Cheers