Displaying 19,471 To 19,500 Of 19,504 Comments I’ve revised the article to reflect those figures. Irony aside, this is a naked attempt by Republicans to grab power at the expense of the lives and health of the American people. The GOP has sunken to a depth that’s almost a parody of itself, who else would steal medicine from babies in order to win elections? Yep, that Family Values party. What do they run on for the next 40 years, “Vote GOP, we’re willing to sacrifice your lives to get power, shouldn’t you?” » Posted By AdLib On July 21, 2009 @ 4:06 pm Very thorough article, well done! I am getting a bit antsy now that talk is growing louder about the Senate not having a bill to vote on before the August break and the Repugs crowing about how they will use the delay to kill it. Pres. Obama’s approval ratings have declined as has public confidence that he will get reform passed. Time and Republicans are the enemies of Americans and ending the health care crisis, the sooner a bill is drafted, the better. » Posted By AdLib On July 22, 2009 @ 9:15 am Is Holder Freaking Kidding Us? Thanks FlyingLotus! So nice to see you here! Hope you’re doing well! Kick off your shoes, have a refreshing beverage and write an opinion piece here on any topic you’d like! Make yourself “to home”! » Posted By AdLib On July 15, 2009 @ 6:02 pm Thanks, really appreciate the props and your coming over! BTW, your separated-from-birth sister says hello. » Posted By AdLib On July 15, 2009 @ 6:21 pm Fantastic analysis and update! Your points are well taken. Actually, it is astounding that “anti-tax” Republicans have been insisting on one of the biggest, if not THE biggest single tax on the majority of Americans to be part of any health care bill. Why aren’t the Repubs being more brutally attacked for this enormous hypocrisy and their desire to tax the majority while always protecting the wealthy from ANY taxes? For example, the average monthly premium for a family in New York is $4,354/mo. The average American family that resides in NY has an annual income of $45,000 (if they still have a job!). The Repubs want them to be taxed on an additional $52,248 in health insurance benefits! Taxed on more than twice the amount they received in pay! Now, as slimy as these Repubs are, I would doubt that they are insisting that the amount of tax would be the same as Income Tax (that would total over $14,000 in new taxes per household) but whatever the amount, I think it would be a record increase in taxes on the middle class. And that 25% that mindlessly follows Rush and the Repubs would applaud their own taxes skyrocketing thanks to their party? I’ll tell you how we pay for public/single payer health care…pass a Stupidity tax! Make the stupid people pay for what they cost this country every day. They won’t care or even notice…after all…they’re stupid. BTW, I see that Baucus’ bendover to the Repubs is continuing to deteriorate and that the Senate Dems are now presenting that a tax on the wealthiest 5% of Americans will finance health care reform instead of taxing 95%. Much better, I think Americans would be happier having the Health Insurance companies forced to make amends by helping to finance a public plan…along with Wall Street, bank, hedge fund and all other kinds of obscenely wealthy and greedy people and companies out there who have only profited while damaging the lives of the majority. Finance health care off those who have squeezed the middle class dry, have and continue to decimate health care coverage for Americans and destroyed the world economy. That doesn’t seem so politically risky, does it? » Posted By AdLib On July 9, 2009 @ 10:51 am Why Do Liberals “Hate” Sarah451? What genuinely amuses me is how amateurish and simple-minded she and her transparent facade are. Two thirds of the nation see her for the lying, incompetent, desperately ambitious, also-ran beauty queen she is. She could never be elected nationally. And yet, one third of this nation, the most uneducated, intellectually-challenged and gun-clinging ones (see: Remaining Republicans) so hate black people, intelligent people and reason that they cherish her as a national treasure. I wonder if the original Homo Sapiens had the same problem with Neanderthals when they began to greatly outnumber them. Or is this just a continuation of that? » Posted By AdLib On July 7, 2009 @ 7:29 am New Time Religion – Church of the Woo Woos Talking about conspiracy nuts, here’s an exchange I just had today on the page for the YouTube NOM Parody video I made:
mbowlin5 (6 hours ago) This video is just as dumb as the commercial it parody’s, and more mean-spirited. Example: You know you’re a loony liberal when? you think a man who engages in plumbing work is lying about being a “plumber”, because in your mind the English word “plumber” actually means “a person with a piece of paper from the government saying he’s a plumber.” AdLibFRT (2 hours ago) Saying something is “Dumb” is “smarter” criticism than parody? Mmm-hmm. So if you ever need surgery, you’ll be more than happy to have someone operate on you who doesn’t have “a piece of paper from the government”? Good luck with? that. mbowlin5 (1 hour ago) Unfortunately, medical licensure is indeed used for the secondary purpose of artificially limiting the number of doctors, so as to increase how much money doctors make, at great cost to the rest of us. (Although it also has the valid purpose of keeping quacks out). With plumbing, the “secondary purpose” is the only purpose. No? one is obligated to pay a plumber who fails to fix his pipes. State plumbing licensure is an anti-consumer scam. Either way, the word “plumber” means what it means. AdLibFRT (1 hour ago) Why do you folks work so hard to ignore simple logic and grasp so desperately for wack conspiracies to explain the world around you? Us reasonable folk would prefer heart surgery performed on us by someone who is properly trained, educated and has proven this by passing rigorous testing and licensing. You see, we don’t want to die. We want competent, intelligent people as our doctors and presidents. You? Repubs instead like Bush, Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin and conspiracies in every direction. mbowlin5 (53 minutes ago) Adlib, I am not a Republican. I did not vote for any of the people? you named. I have not referenced any conspiracy theory. I agree with your statement about who should perform surgery, and nothing I said suggests otherwise in the slightest. The statements I’ve made are simply correct, and nothing you’ve said contradicts them, or even seques appropriately off them. Jesus Christ, Adlib, please take a Valium and a nap! AdLibFRT (14 seconds ago) You said: “medical licensure is indeed used for the secondary purpose of artificially limiting the number of doctors, so as to increase how much money doctors make, at great cost to the rest of us.” That’s a conspiracy theory. Who are these powerful overlords who created artificial limits on doctors in all 50 states? Many Repubs have posted Repub POVs here but insist they’re not Repubs (guess it is embarrassing? to admit). I’ll take you at your word. Though would you be a Ron Paul supporter? » Posted By AdLib On June 20, 2009 @ 10:59 am Part of what I think is interesting to explore on this is where the psychological and emotional need comes from to believe in extreme and unrealistic conspiracies. I do agree that some of it comes from validating anti-semitism but I also think that another driving force is that of people who feel helpless and inadequate in their lives and believing in conspiracies, that there are evil all-powerful others out there who are controlling everything, lets them off the hook for being responsible for their own failure to realize the life they wanted for themselves. It’s almost always poorly educated, low income people who make up the majority of conspiracy theorists. Coincidence? I don’t think so. There are people living lives that they feel are failures and instead of blaming themselves for their own ignorance and bad choices (plenty of people from the most difficult neighborhoods have common sense and can make competent decisions in their lives, we’re talking about a minority of people here). So, there is cold comfort in being able to blame their plight on those who “have power over them” and are perfect scapegoats for the ignorant to blame for their disappointment in their lives and/or their dire straits (Nazi Germany anyone?)…Da Jooz. I would add that there may also be a crumb of the need for everything in life to have a reason that’s simple enough for such dimwits to understand. Shades of gray and the complexity of why things happen hurt their little two-cylinder brains. They need simple, black and white explanations that will fit in their tiny minds. No need to consider hundreds of years of history, greed, corruption in business and politics, etc., if they can just boil everything down to “the bad guys” always being the same, life makes sense to them. They’re evil, they killed Christ. They were and will always be the ones responsible for all evil. As Mel Gibson said, “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world!” I don’t know about you but one good thing about electing Obama president is FINALLY breaking the string of Jewish presidents who keep getting us into wars. Anti-semitism…it’s easier than thinking. » Posted By AdLib On June 20, 2009 @ 9:01 am Barack Obama, Straussian-in-Chief Just added a “shady” graphic for you, hope it’s okay. You can do it! » Posted By AdLib On June 10, 2009 @ 12:04 am I agree, it’s a difficult and a complex situation. I can understand the desire to delay the facts while they remain very recent history and could pour gasoline on fires in the Middle East but I can’t go all the way to condoning the withholding of the truth permanently. Soon, the crimes of Bush & Co. will be far enough in the past and Pres. Obama will have accomplished enough over years to have established that he is not Bush. At that time, the truth should come out (and the Bush Crime Gang should be put on trial…if not in the U.S. then elsewhere). And as for the color scheme here, I do still like the brown and yellow/green too. As I mentioned, I think going “green” may be more resonant and memorable for visitors to connect “green” and “planet”, marketing-wise it might be better. Still, these colors are not locked down, we could try something in between. Not terribly hard to change the whole or part of the color scheme. » Posted By AdLib On June 9, 2009 @ 11:52 pm That’s why I proposed a 4th branch of government…we need to kick their asses! There are some strong voices in Congress for this, it’s not likely but not impossible. What we need is to pass Health Care so that’s off the front burner then we need someone to come forward with some new eyewitness info, to get the topic back at the top of the pile. We can certainly keep the issue churning here. » Posted By AdLib On June 9, 2009 @ 11:38 pm The thing is, as you mentioned, once Obama backed immunity for the telecoms and spying on Americans, it became clear that he was not a down the line liberal. He does make political calculations, he did hire some of the same people who were a part of the financial meltdown to fix it and handed out billions in bailouts to companies without requiring the failed CEOs resign or that the taxpayers who way overpaid for these companies have control. I am glad we have President Obama in office but I am not happy about his trading justice and precedent away for Health Care. We can have all of them in this country. You do have to add the complications in though, any investigation to the Bush crime team will likely include Pelosi, Reid and other top Dems as conspirators in war crimes. They knew about torture, that’s why “impeachment was off the table”. Could Pres. Obama get his agenda accomplished with the heads of his party in Congress being tried along with Bush? There is a calculation here one can recognize and understand. However, there are various approaches. First, the majority in Congress should do their jobs and start hearings, presenting any potentially criminal findings to the DOJ. Second, let’s get health care passed ASAP then that excuse is gone and of course health care will be available for all. Pres. Obama will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing in this case because its not politically convenient and it would polarize him. Nevermind that the same 30% who are polarized against him now would be the only ones polarized against him if justice was to be served, he doesn’t want that brand. So, it’s all about Congress now. So WTF is their problem and why does it have to be bi-partisan or not at all? We need a fourth branch of government that only regular citizens can be elected to and have the power to kick the asses of the other three branches of government until they say “uncle” and carry out the responsibilities that they swore on a bible they would. » Posted By AdLib On June 9, 2009 @ 10:44 pm I’ll try not to hold it against you. Heh! » Posted By AdLib On June 6, 2009 @ 12:49 pm It’s like the guys who always brag about getting laid, they’re always the ones who get it the least. It’s insecurity and inauthentic to have to insist on something that should be self-apparent. » Posted By AdLib On June 6, 2009 @ 8:56 am I actually like it because it emphasizes the comments of people over the ancillary information surrounding the comments. Also, since this is meant to be a better blogging experience for people, I think the bigger font is easier to read without being too big. If people get used to it here, they may get a vague feeling that the blogs at HuffPo and other places are somehow “smaller” than ours. Heh, there is a psychological angle to it as well as a functional and aesthetic one. » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 11:15 pm Yep, trying some font resizing to make the comments as legible as possible. Too big now? » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 9:53 pm This bug in the “reply” function is annoying though! Yep, we can fully edit our posts and comments. It also means we can see each others’ email addresses too and I think, considering the option is not being able to edit, we should all be okay about that. Definitely, Afgahnistan will be a great debate topic as will what to do about the Middle East. I’m thinking we could have a poll during the week for people to vote on which topics they’d like to see a debate on, host a few debates on different topics and have one of them Admin’s Choice so we can choose a topic on our own too. Or maybe during the week, we have a forum for discussion on different debate topics and pick two debaters from reading their comments. Then again, Authors should be just as eligible to join in on the debate fun. I know I’ll want to. » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 4:53 pm You hit a home run on it! You spoke previously about wanting to write big picture articles and this certainly is one. Very thought provoking because of that approach. This is a shining example of the kind of thoughtful, fact-backed and strong perspective pieces that I would be thrilled and honored to have appearing at this site. It is an evergreen article so it will remain here as one of the lead stories for the public launch (you may have noticed, I included it in the Featured category which is what sends stories into the glider at the top). Yes, the article you’ve mentioned on Dr. Tiller sounds ideal, looking forward to reading it! Thanks for the feedback on this theme, the layout and colors seem to be a hit with Kalima as well, good to know what works for people and what doesn’t. Whatever happens with the upcoming themes, I don’t think we’re going to see the original theme I started with again, heh-heh! » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 4:45 pm Wow…this is an incredible article! Well done! I have a lot to add to this conversation but only a little time now, will return with more later. However, it is shameful that our leaders stood by to allow such “violence” to be done to American citizens by their corporate czars, the disconnection of people from a sense of community, a sense of belonging to something more than their family (if they even have much of one. The ongoing crushing of the individual, like corporations squeezing oranges for more juice, sometimes force the pressure to explode in different ways…though not as unexpected as they used to be. It is frankly the denigration of a healthy society. Can we arrest the destruction and turn it around under our more enlightened president and his administration? I really don’t know. If it is possible, it probably wouldn’t really happen until Obama’a second term (knock wood) when he won’t be running for re-election and could stop compromising with corporate interests…if he chooses. Time will tell… » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 4:19 pm It’s not a big thing to fix. For some reason the code is calling for the whole page to reload then pops back down here afterward. I’ve already emailed the designer and even inquired about his availability and fees to make whatever revisions we might want to customize this site…if we choose to go with this one of course. » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 5:23 pm Thanks! It really wasn’t terribly time consuming to switch themes. This one does seem a bit cooler. I have several more to try out on all of you before locking one down. The previous theme had a few bugs, this one has less but there’s one problem with the Comments, when you reply to one the page jumps around then leaves you at the bottom to comment. It does place your reply in the right place but it needs some fixing. I’m not going to invest my time (or money) in any big code fixes until we’ve settled on a theme so I hope you can bear with this one’s hiccups. » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 4:31 pm Thanks! I have a few others that are very cool too! Still a couple of glitches in this theme but fewer than in the previous one. I do think it is a bit hipper! » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 1:40 pm Nope, I thought I had selected the option that said if a post was deleted, the comments just moved up. Is that what happened? » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 1:27 am I » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 1:22 am Fixed it! You remembered the “v” below! » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 1:02 am Sneaky me. I’m going to fix KQuark’s YouTube video above just by adding that “v”. » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 12:42 am Just a test…you can embed a video in your posts by adding a “v” after the “http” in a YouTube link like this: “https: //www. youtube.com/watch?v=?????” (just don’t put in the spaces I did, had to do so to illustrate).
» Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 12:37 am What crashed and burned? On this site? Keep me informed, this is a work in progress! » Posted By AdLib On June 5, 2009 @ 12:00 am YEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heh. » Posted By AdLib On June 4, 2009 @ 11:58 pm And BTW, love the image!!! And the sentiment! » Posted By AdLib On June 4, 2009 @ 11:31 pmComments Posted By AdLib
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