Write it down: Americans Elect. What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life — remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in. Watch out.
Yes, watch out idiots with more money than sense, because here it comes:
A group clearing the path for an independent White House bid on Tuesday canceled the first phase of its search for a bipartisan ticket because declared and draft candidates aren’t mustering enough preliminary support.
Americans Elect scrapped a virtual caucus that had been planned for next week. Another round of voting set for May 15 also is in jeopardy; a third is to be held on May 22. Candidates must meet a certain threshold of support to be eligible for the caucuses.
Ileana Wachtel, a spokeswoman for the group, says no one gathered enough online “clicks” to qualify.
These compulsive masturbators raised $22 million and spent $9 million on their website. Kudos to whomever fucked them out of that chunk of change–what an epic killing that was. If there was a hall of fame for IT screwjobs, this one would be in it.
(via Kos)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That Friedman quote is hilarious. Thanks to all of you who read him to pick the comical out from the merely boring so’s I don’t have to. As to this:
He knows no one in the two party duopoly is trying to stop people from voting. Oh, wait….
Mark S.
Write it down, put it in the bank, get in a hole and grab a couple shovels.
Shirt
Why isn’t there a hall of shame for screw-jobs? Even if you don’t know the perp, you know the job. The swift-boaters would be right up there along with goldman-sachs
chopper
nice work if you can get it. that’s some grift.
chopper
speaking of ‘deathwatch’, has anyone heard from cato after the horrible jobs report oh wait it’s not came out?
arguingwithsignposts
At what point does the burning stupid become a violation of the Geneva Conventions on torture?
redshirt
I think they can pull it together in the next six months or so.
schrodigner's cat
We should convince MoU to run for some office. With his foresight and charm, he is sure to win, meanwhile, that will read NYT of its worst columnist. Of course, that still leaves us Bobo, Chunky Bobo and MoDo.
ruemara
Daaaamn Skippy. I wish I was on the team that landed that fat pr/branding/collateral contract. Nice work and it showed some epic fail.
Scamp Dog
I was doing some voter registration last weekend for OFA, and one of the forms I turned in was from someone who had checked the box for Americans Elect. The full-time organizer I turned it in to didn’t know about AE. I was mildly surprised, but not so much once I thought about it. Apparently these wankers aren’t even making an impression on people who are politically involved, so I now have no worry that they will accomplish any of the mischief I had originally worried about.
Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts: I can’t comment on this. I got crushed by all my Schadenfreude.
BGinCHI
What drugstore.com did to pharmacies??
Could there be any more drug stores in this country? There must be ten of them in a 5 block radius from us.
Fucking Mustache, how does it work?
butler
Make it easier to buy anonymously from the comfort of you own home?
Dave
Redshirt @ 7 ftw
…give them time: they should have a candidate for November’s election by mid 2020. Serious hedge fund money, you guys.
the Conster
Makes you kind of appreciate what that half black skinny guy with the big ears and funny name from Kenya accomplished last time, dunnit?
schrodigner's cat
I is being moderated, HALP!
schrodinger's cat
Hey I is being moderated because I typed my handle wrong, my kitteh is on my lap and is not letting me type.
arguingwithsignposts
@the Conster: I’ll spare us the firebagger incursion – He’s worse than Bush! He sold us out!
MattF
Supposedly, somewhere in the multiverse, there’s a space-time continuum in which Friedman makes sense. There’s also an “Earth where sea mollusks have created an advanced land-based society with wholly inappropriate bipedal keyboards…”
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/an-important-message-from-cave-johnson/
jl
Write it down, put it in a bottle, throw, throw it in the sea
Ages, epochs later it will wash up on a far far distant shore
An obscure antiquity
Of an historic bore.
Or, to paraphrase a more accomplished rhymer:
They went to sea in ter net they did,
In ter net they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In ter net they went to sea!
And when ter net turned round and round,
And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our ‘net ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
In ter net we’ll go to sea!’
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the centrists live;
schrodinger's cat
GIST of my moderated comment, which is lost in the vast intertoobz.
Lets convince MoU to run for office, with his wisdom and charm
he is a definite shoo-in. We will get rid of the worst columnist NYT has. However that still leaves us with Bobo, Chunky Bobo and MoDo.
amk
To paraphrase barnum – every other american is a dumbass sucker.
Culture of Truth
To be perfectly fair, Tom Friedman is an idiot.
arguingwithsignposts
I am saddened by the lack of nameless cabdrivers full of wisdom in this thread.
jrg
Friedman is such a chump. When he’s not stating something that’s been obvious for years, he’s endorsing an imaginary “third party” that holds the same positions as the dems,or making completely ridiculous predictions like the one above.
If credibility was money, he’d have lost his a long time ago with asinine predictions like the iPod garbage above. Buy high, sell low! Wheeee!
How the hell this tool still has a job is completely beyond me.
Nutella
AE did have some value: It extracted $22mill from the pockets of the rich who are hoarding it all and pumped it into the economy.
kdaug
$9 million on a website.
I’m having difficulty processing this.
I could easily do it for, say, $6 million.
Plus postage and handling.
Culture of Truth
He meant iTunes, although he’s right that due to blogs no one reads his crap anymore, except to point and laugh.
gbear
@butler: It also killed your abitity to randomly browse, talk with informed locals who work at the bookstore, and occasionally get to meet Authors when they went out on book tours. Only a wanker like Friedman would claim that what Amazon did for bookstores (and books and authors) is a positive model for anything.
Tom Q
@BGinCHI: You couldn’t be more right, there. Every time an old business shuts down in my neighborhood, what replaces it is either a bank or a Duane Reade.
I never cared for Friedman because I thought he had Israel-tunnelvision (freely admitted: on an ABC historic review show in the 80s, he said, for him, the major events of 1973 & ’74 were not Watergate and the Nixon resignation, but the Yom Kippur War and Arafat’s address to the UN). But I didnt think he was as flat delusional as he’s become in recent months. He actually appears to believe that, were Obama were to advocate a 50 cent a gallon gas tax and slash social security and medicare, he’d win a landslide.
These people have got to get out more.
Monkeyfister
I do find it fascinating that these Uber-Rich “Job Creators” have $22-Million to throw at lost causes like Americans Elect and $10-Million to Newt Gingrich’s campaign… and on.
But, when it comes to actual JOB CREATION, they suddenly have moths in their wallets.
But, they INSIST that they be called JOB CREATORS, and not have their idled wealth taxed.
Bit of a disconnect there, I think, and I hope others with bigger soap boxes will point this out some time soon.
–mf
Culture of Truth
Exactly, and how many candidates ran this year?! Herman Cain is the DuaneReadization of Politics!
gbear
@kdaug: and you could have even thrown in printing and copier costs for free.
General Stuck
The US of A is a thunderdome political death match between two parties, which reflects well, or badly, on the citizenship at large. A multi party parliamentarian like system the founders did not give us, because it is in our nature for winner take all, and not to have the kitty split 3, 4 or 5 ways.
The Other Chuck
Looks less Amazon, and more Webvan.
Culture of Truth
AE is the A&E of politics
gbear
@Tom Q:
Friedman can’t find his way out of his house.
DH
Does this mean the world isn’t flat either? Say it isn’t so Little Tommy!
The worst part is that-you can bet your life savings on this-Friedman will be back before 1 Friedman Unit goes by with another insightful column on how some mythical third party or Bloomberg should rescue us from partisanship. Blatant evidence of his stupidity will not change him.
chopper
@The Other Chuck:
wanted to be amazon, ended up pets.com.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
Write this down. M.A.R.S.
The Dangerman
Someplace, Pud (of FuckedCompany fame) is laughing his ass off.
dmsilev
I wonder whether they’ve succeeded in attracting enough suckers, err small donors, that the seed money “loans” from their hedge fund backers could get paid off.
Hope not.
schrodinger's cat
Also a multiparty system is no panacea, and has its own set of problems, namely that parties on the fringe have far more power than their numbers dictate. Case in point, Israel and India. In our system the lunatic fringe is contained within the two(mostly actually one) main parties.
burnspbesq
@schrodigner’s cat:
Montgomery County Executive is a pretty do-nothing office, but I worry that Friedman would find a way to do harm.
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ, Head of Infidelity: How was the karaoke night and what did you sing?
geg6
@chopper:
I’d been wondering about that myself. Not that I actually want to hear from him, mind you.
OT, and hey! First time in weeks that I’ve seen the html tags!
schrodinger's cat
@burnspbesq: I don’t think he could convince 5 people to vote for him. So there is no chance of him getting elected to anything.
General Stuck
Oh, so this is Friedman’s big idea. The centrist Waffle Party.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Silly Friedman. The way you take over a political system is you take your money, set up a propaganda system (start with AM radio and graduate to TV as you gain momentum) and then make sure that a bunch of desperate, poor, low-information, angry, easily manipulated citizens have access to plenty of guns and ammunition.
Problem for Friedman is that the Republicans already figured this winning formula out 40 years ago.
Roger Moore
What Pets.com did to pet stores…
Steeplejack
Sometimes it is stunning to be reminded what an absolute ass Friedman can be as a writer/pundit. Even though we joke about him all the time. That is just . . . wow.
LittlePig
@redshirt: I see what you did there.
That’s what Americans Elect needs…just one more F.U.
schrodinger's cat
Meanwhile in India, my husband, his sister and mother, who per tradition have to stay at home till the 13th day ceremonies are performed after the death of his father.
Are going slowly crazy. They are going through all his affairs right now and there is a lot of pouting, sulking, tantrum throwing going on (from mostly my SIL, MIL is acting all stoic and martyr like), my husband is sandwiched between the two, is also slowly losing his cool. Also MIL has no idea about the financial affairs since FIL took care of everything.
P.S. FIL passed away last week from complications after his heart attack earlier in March. Husband’s family are extremely orthodox South Indian Brahmins, who follow all the ancient traditions to the T.
MattF
@burnspbesq: No. I live in MoCo. No. NO. NO.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
The decline of A&E is a sad thing. It used to be pretty good. Brought us the Ioan Gruffudd Hornblower series, for example. Now, just more dreck.
Kay
@dmsilev:
The best part of AE, to me personally, is that they inspired a whole bevy of AE “watchers” on blogs, and the watchers have an enormous amount of fun with it.
Every single one of them knows way more about AE than Tom Friedman does.
rda909
Tommy boy, Suck. On. This.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QIBxAtMubw
arguingwithsignposts
@Kay: because centrists don’t freep online polls. They just write stupid columns for the newspaper of ‘record.’
Randy P
@chopper:
I think there really is a coordinated troll campaign being run by the RNC. A feeble attempt to try to defeat the powerful and effective vox populi that blogs provide. They probably haven’t issued talking points on the jobs report yet.
Jennifer
@schrodinger’s cat: Have you read The Toss of a Lemon? About a South Indian Brahmin family.
Catsy
There’s that obsession with “flatness” and “flattening” again. One wonders if the Mustache of Understanding has issues with boobies.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
There are ways to avoid this sort of thing. The Germans have a threshold of popular vote you must reach to actually seat your party’s members in the Bundestag, for example.
The Israeli system is out and out crazy, allowing little tiny religious parties to hold the big guys totally hostage.
pseudonymous in nc
America is truly the land of the grifter.
Nylund
These guys really do think that they’re Galtian Overlords. With their money, power, and Randian super-powers, just a few of them can change the course of American history!
I’m very happy to see that America has spoken back and basically said, “Shut the eff up, you’re not special.”
General Stuck
Speaking of Deathwatch. The Big Branes at Powerline are at it again, with a new offensive in the war on irony.
The wingnuts are raking in gazillions of secret donation dollars from gawd knows who out of Citizens United, and they are whining about some doctored up credit card allegations against Obama.
Steve
The next six months will be make-or-break for Americans Elect.
Randy P
@pseudonymous in nc:
The Republicans, being the party of “I got mine, screw you” seem to be especially prone to being fleeced by their own.
Kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
They actually had serious (regular) people, from what I could tell, reading comments. These are people who are disgusted with both parties, you know the drill. But the thing about those people is, they aren’t really motivated or attached to a particular outcome, they just want “centrism” to “happen” without much effort on their part. It’s all sort of vague and passive. So they’re not the greatest “base”, in terms of sticking around. They’re almost by definition ready to bolt at any moment.
feebog
The chumps who put together this clusterfuck are supposedly super smart hedge fund managers and other equally rich asshats. Yet they managed to spend 9 million dollars on a website a 10th grader could have put together, and can’t even attract enough interest to hold an online election. I’m wondering how much of that 22 million is left, and how I can get a little slice before it is all gone pffft.
schrodinger's cat
@Jennifer: No, but I think I have enough material to write a book myself. Thanks for the suggestion, though, I will look it up.
The weird thing in all this is that my husband is even more irreligious than I am, bordering on being an atheist, but is performing all the ceremonies, since he is the only son, (to get moksha, or release of the soul to a higher state of being,the eldest son has to perform the death rites)
gaz
For $9million I could build a small datacenter. Not just a website. LOL.
The single largest project I’ve worked on other than Microsoft Windows was a land-management and requisition software suite for Plum Creek – the largest real-estate holder in the US.
It was a 1.5mil-2mil development job.
Whoever built that website had one HELL OF A SCAM going on. More power to them.
arguingwithsignposts
@Kay: I’m not going to click on their site, but did anyone sign up around here? Weren’t Colbert and RonPaulvolution leading in their centrist ballot at one time?
pseudonymous in nc
@Villago Delenda Est:
The craziness of the Israeli system isn’t so much the threshold (though that’s still pretty bad) but the single list, which treats the entire country as one district. So there’s no sense of local voting, just national factional interest.
(And two-party systems sometimes behave like multiparty ones, both in terms of the regional differences and the primary system. It’s a wide spectrum.)
arguingwithsignposts
@gaz: imagine the buzzwords that must have flown through that room. $9 mill on a web site. face/palm
dmsilev
@Kay: The funniest thing about that link is that not even the Paultards can be arsed enough about American Elect to get together 10,000 votes for their messiah.
the fugitive uterus
a large slice of “independent” voters are just embarrassed republicans
Tim in SF
Thank you for titles like “Radical Centrist Deathwatch.”
Every week I listen to KCRW’s Left Right and Center. I listen because I like hearing Robert Scheer go on his liberal tears, which he does at least once a show. But that irritating host, Matt Miller, part of the self-described “radical center” is reliably more irritating than whatever conservative they have on that week. And he’s been pimping that American’s Elect nonsense for months and months.
Titles like the above fill me with joy.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: It is clear to me that Pete Seegar has the best job in the world:
Getting large groups of people to sing (simple songs)
together.
I would make an effort to emulate that. Not really karaoke, but who cares.
andrewsomething
You’re laughing now, but just wait until the unlimited corporate cash starts flowing. VICTORY!!!
Kay
@dmsilev:
I never understood the basic premise. I think it’s silly to pretend the Vice President is an equal to the President, so that D, R or R,D makes it even-steven, “balanced”. Were they looking at the Cheney-Bush model? Co-president? That was supposed to be a one-off. That’s not our actual system.
catclub
@gaz: “It was a 1.5mil-2mil development job.
Whoever built that website had one HELL OF A SCAM going on. More power to them.”
This makes me think that maybe AE is exaggerating the amounts it has brought in, and spent.
Since the key financial thing I remember was they changed their constitution so that five guys could fund it, at 20% each, maybe that is all they had.
Warmongerer
@schrodinger’s cat:
I initially read your comment as your family dealing with all the affairs your FIL had been having.
rlrr
Where can I a sucker willing to pay me $9 million to set up a web site?
kdaug
@gbear:
No, I outsource that to India. But I charge a discount rate.
Mickey
Yes, Friedman has truly earned his wanker of the decade title.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/04/one-true-wanker-of-decade.html
Culture of Truth
everyone is upset with both parties. Duh. That doesn’t mean they want a stupid mustached fascist in charge.
Chrisd
@Tim in SF:Matt Miller is less irritating if you take a drink every time he interrupts Scheer’s rants
Bob…Bob…Bob…Bob…
schrodinger's cat
@Warmongerer: Oh noes! poor soul, forget affairs, he never even drank anything stronger than coffee, and was a strict vegetarian. I laughed though, because it seems so implausible. BTW I would totally understand if he had an affair/affairs. MIL is crazier than some of our BJ trolls who shall not be named.
Cato
So the latest Quinnipiac poll says this race is TOO CLOSE TO CALL in Florida and Ohio–two must win states for Obambi. And given we control the Governors mansion in both, I like our chances in a tied race, if you know what I mean. ;)
the Conster
@Cato:
WOLVERINES!
Chyron HR
$50,000 for the servers.
$10,000 for site design.
$50/year for DNS registration.
And the rest is for banner ads of half-naked elves saying “Save the electoral process, my lord!”
rlrr
@Cato:
Actually they’re must must win states for Romney. There are several scenarios where Obama can lose Ohio and Florida and still win the Presidency. There are exactly zero realistic scenarios where Romney could lose Ohio or Florida and win the Presidency.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Well, if the election were being held in May, we might be concerned.
But it’s not. The Rmoneytron has six full months to further stumble and fuck up. Lots of time left to make them landslides for Obama. Plenty of time.
danimal
Stories like this are why everyone should ignore the trolls (ie Taco) who claim that RMoney’s MILLIONS and MILLIONS of SuperPac dollars are going to crush Obama and the Dems.
They waste money. Lots of it.
rlrr
@rlrr:
Also Romney’s plan to let the auto industry fail will be a tough sell in Ohio…
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR:
Need a current address for your shipment of the intertubes.
Ben Cisco
Such soaring mendacity, such searing dumbassery.
The BOLDNESS of his stupidity has stunned me.
He is so bravely…thick-skulled.
rlrr
@Shit for Brains:
Notice how our troll only reports on polls which fit with his wishful thinking…
Southern Beale
I know this is OT but people need to read about this deposition James O’Keefe gave in the lawsuit over his ACORN footage.
Pretty fucking amazing. First of all, Andrew Breitbart paid him $65,000 for the video. But secondly, mister boy reporter admits to some pretty shoddy journalism techniques (I know, we know this, but really!)
Wondering when our media will notice that this guy is not a journalist but a conservative attack dog?
Cato
It is getting closer and closer to November and Obambi can’t close the deal. Remember, undecideds break for the challenger, and then there is Citizens United and the new election integrity law. Everything is going the way the Republicans planned since January, 2009…
Chyron HR
@rlrr:
What you don’t understand is that 230 electoral votes is the WILDCARD NUMBER, and if Romney gets exactly that, the election goes into overtime, and if he can catch the Golden Sneech, he automatically wins the election.
SCARED YET, LIBS?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Oh, so you’re admitting right here, in the open, that in the event of a close race in those states, the criminal shitstains that are the governors will commit electoral fraud and put them in the Rmoneytron column?
You’re basically providing the prosecution will everything they need to put you and yours in front of a death panel.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato:
You know, you’re gonna need a better fastball if you want to make the big leagues.
Cato
And even liberals like Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook say Obambi has no chance in NC or VA this year.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cato: BOOKMARK IT LIBS!
Chyron HR
@Cato:
Holy shit. ReaIity Check understands how linear time works? He’s smarter than I thought.
arguingwithsignposts
@Chyron HR:
I question that analysis.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR:
Stopped clock, twice a day, etc.
I still remember his predictions that the Rmoneytron would crush all opposition in Minnesota and Colorado.
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
BET THE FARM ON IT! GO TO VEGAS AND BET THE FUCKING FARM! AND THE NEIGHBOR’S FARM! AND YOUR FIRST BORN!
TAKE IT TO THE BANK!
(Um, RC/Ver1tas/Cato, the bank is on line one, and they’re pissed…)
rlrr
@Cato:
Let’s hope the “popular” Republican governors of Ohio and Florida spend all their time stumping for Romney…
Catsy
@Cato: Not too sharp there with math, are you sparky? You know as well as we do that Obama could lose Florida and Ohio (which he carried in 2008) and still win 318 to 220. You have a very curious definition of “must-win”.
Conversely, Romney must flip at least two of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and must flip North Carolina, Indiana and Colorado. He can only lose one of the latter states if he flips all three of the first three. And even that only gets him a narrow, nail-biting victory. [source]
It’s not my opinion, troll. It’s simple math. Feel free to deny it; it’ll make your humiliation (or more likely, your cowardly disappearance and refusal to admit you were wrong) that much more satisfying to watch in November.
rlrr
@Shit for Brains:
There were a lot of liberals who thought Obama had no chance in NC or VA in 2008…
arguingwithsignposts
@Catsy:
simple math is beyond Taco.
Chyron HR
Pay no attention to Karl Rove’s liberal lies! Romney is way ahead in this too-close-to-call race!
rlrr
@Chyron HR:
I say Rove knows Romney is toast and wants to concentrate his efforts on the down stream races and 2016.
rlrr
@Villago Delenda Est:
He’s admitting Romney’s only chance is wide spread election fraud.
danimal
AZ is in play, CO is safely blue, IN is about to throw the senatorial race into major play, VA is +5, and the governors in FL and OH are major DRAGS for Team Red.
Other than that: VICTORY!!!! hehehehe
Villago Delenda Est
@rlrr:
It’s only May, and I can smell Rmoney’s crusts burning.
Cato
It is all gong to come down to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania in the end, folks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
Clearly, the endorsement of Rih Santorum (who lost his Senate seat by what, a 17% margin?) will turn the tide.
To make PA solid blue.
rlrr
@Shit for Brains:
John Kerry disagrees.
Chyron HR
@Cato:
Pennsylvania, my friends! HENH HENH HENH!
Catsy
@Cato: Not that I expect you to have anything to back up that laughable claim, since you’re just an idiot troll–but for entertainment value, suppose you describe exactly what electoral map scenario causes Pennsylvania to decide this election. Numbers and specifics or sit down.
Keep in mind that Romney has to hold ALL of the McCain states (which he’s not going to do), AND flip all of the must-win states I wrote about above.
Get your popcorn ready, folks. This should be good.
Cato
Corporate Super PAC cash and ads, swift boating, the fragile economy, election integrity laws, Republican control of state governments, Obambi can’t survive all of that.
Kay
@Cato:
Well, then, why didn’t you tell us that Obama widened his lead in Pennsylvania against Romney in the same swing state poll you’re citing? OH narrowed, FL narrowed, but PA widened.
I’m starting to think you’re not the most reliable reporter.
Hill Dweller
@Cato:
But if he wins, doesn’t it reaffirm your party’s incompetence?
Ruckus
I can’t decide if I would rather have taken their 9 mil or thrown my name in the hopper for pres. I can use the work either way.
OK I thought it over. 9 mil it is.
Let’s see,
1. An hour with a crappy website template
2. 10 bucks for URL registration
3. 20 bucks for a hosting site(won’t need much bandwith)
4. Profit!!!
Cato
Romney gets all the Bush states back plus Pennsylvania.
rlrr
@Shit for Brains:
What exactly are these ads going to tell us that is different from all the “information” Fox “News” and right wing talk radio has bee spewing for the past four years?
Chyron HR
@Cato:
Well, if you said it on the internet, it must be true.
rikyrah
he’s been wrong for forever and a day. Have absolutely no sympathy for him. makes me sick with his centrist nonsense. choose a side, you waste of space
Catsy
@Cato:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
….HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, shit, that’s awesome. Thank you, kind troll. I’m going to be giggling all morning over that knee-slapper.
Now I know you’re not even trying.
RalfW
Late to the party, but so glad dropped by. I needed a fresh glass of schadenfreude.
Ahhh, sooo tasty. Won’t you have some, Thomas? No? Well I’ll call ya a cab so you can be on your way.
Jeff Spender
You know, sometimes it does bother me when a thread devolves into a great troll hunt.
But I have to admit when it comes to Cato and his millions of puppets, I actually enjoy the free-for-all that results.
He’s obviously a disingenuous troll, arguing from a dishonest position. Facts and research will prove most of his claims wrong very quickly, and his logic is on par with a three year-old’s.
But damn are your responses gold. Like the one about how he understands linear time (which doesn’t actually exist, probably maybe) and the retort about questioning that analysis.
GOOD TIMES.
drew42
This is fucking inane. What Amazon.com did to books is totally different than what the blogosphere did to newspapers, which is totally different than what the iPod did to music. I have no idea what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, because I’ve never used it — but I’m pretty sure it’s nothing like the other three.
Here, let me try:
“What Ali did to Frazier, what carbonation did to soft drinks, what the Moon did to the Earth, what you did with my wife, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life.”
Nellcote
Does Ron Paul have enough delegates to challenge Rmoney at the convention yet? They have half of MA now.
Hill Dweller
In advance of his trip to England, the Romney camp is attacking British PM Cameron. If said attack was for his economic policies, I’d nod my head in agreement, but they’re going after Cameron for being nice to Obama at the recent State dinner.
Is Cameron supposed to attack Obama during a State dinner thrown in his honor? Willard’s campaign is awful.
Jeff Spender
@Hill Dweller:
Yes. Yes he is. It’s simple decorum for world leaders to bash each other. Remember when George Bush the senior threw up on the Japanese PM? That wasn’t a simple case of illness–that was a calculated foreign policy move to tell the Japanese what we thought of their domestic agenda.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
FTFY, Tom.
MariedeGournay
@redshirt: win
SatanicPanic
Um, I for one don’t like what Amazon did to bookstores, so that strike one right there
liz
OT: Can someone please explain this whole Chen/China situation to me please? Who is he and why am I supposed to care?
chopper
@Cato:
plus, with today’s horrible job numbers, mittens is a shoo-in!
SatanicPanic
@drew42: Win!
Uncle Cosmo
@‘Kay-d’Oh!:You need to change your handle to something like “Incoherent Fuckwit Troll” to obtain even minimal verisimilitude.
Better yet, as they say in the NATO alphabet, Foxtrot Oscar Alpha Delta.
Catsy
Stepping aside for a moment… you know, I understand the urge to troll. Really, I do. At its core it’s a plea for attention. And sometimes it’s fun to get a rise out of some douche on the intertrons by poking them with a sharp stick. I get that.
What I don’t get is how someone can entertain themselves by spending their entire day–day after day for years!–trolling poorly. The troll knows it can’t back up the transparent nonsense it’s spewing. It’s so banal and repetitive that I can’t fathom getting any feeling of cleverness out of it. The troll isn’t smart or skilled enough to disguise its style, so it gets identified within minutes of picking a new pseudonym. And no matter what it says or what kind of front it puts up, it has to know that it’s nothing but a laughingstock with less credibility or value than a noob on Xbox Live chanting “ur gay” at everyone. It has to be aware of how utterly pathetic it is, that its idea of entertainment value is to pass the time commenting on a blog where it gets completely humiliated day after day. If it really is a conservative, it doesn’t change anyone’s mind or truly anger anyone, and if it went away it wouldn’t be so much as a footnote in the memory of the Internet. That has to eat at a person’s sense of self-worth–assuming, that is, that someone that small and desperate for attention has any self-worth to begin with.
And if they’re a spoof by someone who thinks they’re doing something clever or original, well… man, that’s even more pathetic. Truly. That’s your hobby? Really
I mean, front all you want dude, I know you can’t do anything else–but everyone knows the score, and so do you. It’s nothing but a desperate attempt to fill a hole in your life.
eyelessgame
@Cato:
I see what you did there.
Uncle Cosmo
Obama is more likely to win WV than Oven Mitt is PA. That’s West-by-God-Vir-fuckin-ginia, damn it!
Jeff Spender
@Catsy:
I used to know some truly great trolls. It’s all about subtly, and making a decent counter-argument by interpreting information slightly differently.
Cato’s main problem is that he doesn’t engage. He throws some random crap against the wall, and then poops in everyone’s cereal.
When he does respond, it’s not a witty rejoinder, and usually doesn’t even address the point he’s responding to.
The great trolls actually engage in debate, using logic (albeit slightly twisted logic) to argue. It can be a thing of beauty.
Surreal American
I see El Loco Gato sprayed all over this thread. It reeks of troll pee.
lacp
It really is and always has been the most cunning of plans: in a political environment limited to two well-known parties that stand for empty promises, introduce a completely unknown party that doesn’t stand for anything at all. All your presidential elections are belong to us.
Hill Dweller
@Jeff Spender: Cato engenders pity.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Cato:
Please kill yourself.
Catsy
@Jeff Spender: Yup, this exactly. Any twelve-year-old kid can throw poop against the wall and break up a discussion–and lots of them do, because it’s the only way they can get attention or overcome their sense of powerlessness or lack of self-worth. You know, “hah! look what I made you do!” That dynamic hasn’t changed in over 20 years, all the way back to BBSes. It’s just… well, kind of pathetic and lazy.
different-church-lady
Why do I get the feeling a lot of that 9 mil didn’t actually go into the website, but instead made it into some non-IT pockets along the way, and merely got reported as website expenses?
Frankensteinbeck
@jrg:
To get back to the original topic…
No, he’s endorsing an imaginary third part that holds the same principles as the Democrats, but somehow the same positions as the Republicans. It is, top to bottom, a claim that liberals should vote conservative, if necessary by throwing away their vote.
It’s working about the way I expected. The public isn’t interested, the few that are interested are conservatives, and rich fuckheads are pouring their money down the grifter drain.
aimai
@schrodinger’s cat:
Schroedinger’s cat, sounds like a very interesting time is being had by all. If you have some juicy, rage filled stories, you should totally join the online advice board “Dealing with the In Laws and Family of Origin” (google it). They have women from all over the world and the women married into Indian families have some of the most amazing struggles with their in laws.
aimai
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: Remember the days when people were saying we didn’t need PBS anymore because we had quality cable programming like A&E and the Discovery Channel?
schrodinger's cat
@aimai: I am in Godless Massachusetts right now, far away from the action and the crazy. Thank Ceiling Cat. My solution to dealing with the in-laws is simple, be polite and keep them at an arm’s length.
I have one friend in my husband’s extended family, who is considered a black sheep by one and all in the family, she is a journalist, never been married and has a significant other who she lives with. She is my source to all that is going on, other than my husband.
I sometimes think I should write a book. My crazy in-laws let me show you them.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I can see that, though. Rituals exist because people find comfort in them, plus there’s some satisfaction in doing things the way your FIL would have wanted them done even if it’s not the way you would conduct your own ceremonies.
This is how G and I found ourselves at an open-casket wake last summer for a guy we had never met — he was my brother’s long-time boss and my parents couldn’t go, so we had to go and represent the family for my brother. It was a little weird to be standing there looking at the corpse of someone you’d never met in life, but … family.
Gabriel Bellatrix
@Cato:
Hey, that’s what I told myself through all of 2004! As it turns out, when you have to rely on spurious arguments like that, your case ain’t exactly solid.
@Cato:
The Quinnipiac poll you just cited has Obama winning PA by 8 points–for comparison, that’s about how much Romney is winning Texas by. But maybe you’re saying that Texas is in play now? It’s hard to tell through all the second-rate trolling.
SamR
@Cato: “Undecideds break for the challenger.”—What I kept saying to myself during 2004.
The Other Chuck
@drew42:
“What my moustache did to my face, Americans Elect will do to the two-party duopoly.”
See, I’m convinced it’s just the visible portion of some organism that’s strangling his brain and as a side effect, causing him to become fixated on the word “flat” and imprint on taxi drivers like a baby duck would.
Davis X. Machina
@schrodinger’s cat: Have you seen The Namesake? An interesting film about generations and continents and cultures (Kolkata and Rt 128…), and people falling through the cracks between them sometimes. A trip back to India by an only son for an ashes-scattering plays a prominent role in its ending.
Another Halocene Human
Gosh, Friedman’s “write it down” sounds remarkably like “bookmark it, libs”. Gary Ruppert lives?
Another Halocene Human
@Mark S.:
Bookmark it!
schrodinger's cat
@Davis X. Machina: Yes I have seen the movie, I liked it. I tried reading the book but found it too melancholy and sad.
ETA: I am a fan both of Tabu (the actress who played Ashima) and Irfan Khan (who plays the father, Ashok).
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Yes family, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
Amir Khalid
@Hill Dweller:
Mitt 2012 is attacking the Tory PM? For being nice to POTUS? What the fuck is wrong with those people? So when President Mitt makes his state visit to Britain, does he expect to be greeted by the Queen with a middle finger and a YANKEE GO HOME sign?
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: He is playing to the base, the crazy 27%.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: Doubt it, but I for one would pay good money to see the Queen literally flip someone off.
Another Halocene Human
@burnspbesq:
Noooooooooo.
Is there such a thing as lt. executive or executive assistant or advisor to the executive?
Didn’t Glendenning go from glad-handing Montgey County Exec to Goobernator and go on to take money out of the Baltimore County Schools budget to spend on a football stadium?
Oh yeah, the kids are dropping out, killing each other, catching chlamydia and gonorrhea and horribly underperforming on the MCAT or whatever it’s called, but WE STOLE A FOOTBALL TEAM FROM OHIO. RAAAAWWWRRRRR!
Fuck that guy.
Davis X. Machina
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s one of my favorites…. The Ashoke character reminds me a bit of Mr. Biswas, in Naipaul’s book. (As a father, I collect other fathers.)
Another Halocene Human
Btw, the residents of Balto are blah people. Teh whites, who attend these Ravens games, live just outside the political limits. They ride a special transit line built just for them, from Linthicum (I think? I mean there’s a development/parking lot by the FORMER McCormick pepper mill) MD or Tinnitus or whatever they call it, straight to the stadium. Also, too, a parking garage for SUV owners who can’t be too far from their precious baby. So they drive in or ride their POP OPTO LRV (that means NEVER INTERACTING WITH A BLAH PERSON). Utopia on the bay!
C***s***ers, every one, and I DON’T mean in the positive sense of the word.
Robert waldmann
For Americans Elect the next six months are critical.
Six months from today they may even have a cadidate with two days to spare before the election. If not the following six months will be critical.
schrodinger's cat
@Davis X. Machina: I haven’t read any of Naipaul’s fiction. He is a darling of the Hindu Right in India, I guess mainly because of his critical look at the Islamic world.
He writes well but is one smug bastard, isn’t he?
Catsy
@dmsilev: That would be the greatest video clip in the history of ever.
Also, Romney is falling into the same trap as McCain: Obama is inside his OODA loop and as a consequence he is focusing on tactics at the expense of strategy.
danielx
Ranks right up there with management genius Mitch Daniels cancelling the $1.4 billion state contract with IBM because he finally figured out that IBM had screwed the pooch right, left and sideways. That one’s going to keep a battalion of lawyers busy for years, but hey, Mitch is still a goddamn genius.
Now then…
Little Tommy Friedman strikes again. I really and truly do not understand how one human being can be wrong so often about so many things and still be regarded as one of (if not the) premier pundits of our time. Oh wait…George Bush got elected. Twice. Well, he got put in office by a judicial coup d’etat once and then “re”-elected after my fellow citizens had four years to figure out the guy was a complete fuckup. Now everything is falling into place. Nevermind.
But back to Tom (Suck On This) Friedman, I don’t know how I missed this gem at the time.
http://buffalobeast.com/73/feature4.htm
Origuy
@dmsilev: As a Brit, she would make the V sign, palm inward. Romney, of course, would think it was V for Victory (which is palm outward.)
pseudonymous in nc
@Catsy:
In the taxonomy of trolls, Biggus Dickus is the mosquito: an irritating distraction.
Hob
“If there was a hall of fame for IT screwjobs, this one would be in it”… nah, I think it should take more than ludicrous overbilling to get into the hall of fame. I’m thinking of the GOP.com “branded URL shortener” that allowed you to mash-up any website of your choice with a little talking Michael Steele, roaming around and gesturing approvingly at whatever obscene images you chose to navigate to… no matter how little they paid for that, it was too much.
Jason
Another example of the long line of suckers who said “We don’t need to build a base of support by sitting in boring grass roots meetings in churches and community centres in front of six people for 12 years cos we have TEH INTERNET!!”
Tonal Crow
@kdaug:
Ha! I can do it for $45 million, specification, design, engineering, deployment, testing, support, and removal of backdoors extra.
LongHairedWeirdo
Compulsive masturbators? Hey! Compulsive masturbation doesn’t hurt *anyone* else… unless you do it in public… and, you know, not just technically in public, hidden from view, but, like, you know, with *advertising* and so forth… which they’ve been doing… uh, yeah.
Okay, carry on.
Rocky Rococo
oooh, I know, I know, that means President Katy Perry!
gloryb
@rlrr: Yeah, that’s what I understand too. Supposedly, no republican has ever won wirhout Ohio, many dems have won under a ,ot of different scenarios.