Electric Monk
Electric Monk's JournalSince "woo" and "homeopathy" are hot topics here again, may I present: Tim Minchin's STORM
Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work?
Medicine.
Did your brain hurt as you typed "Liberthoritarians"? That's chock full of cognitive dissonance. nt
Gun "Enthusiast" In Your Life? Here, Let Me Make It Easier. (re: pro-gun talking points)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/20/1180504/-Gun-Enthusiast-In-Your-Life-Here-Let-Me-Make-It-EasierIt gets old, doesn't it? It gets sooooooo old. We've all been there (and by "we", I mean people with a healthy view of guns) (and by "healthy", I mean we're willing to talk about regulation and don't use bickering over irrelevant minutiae like cartridge power or lack of a threaded barrel to deflect attention from the larger point, which is no more dead children)-- Sorry. I digress. Angrily.
Back to the point: repetitive talking points. It's getting to be like arguing with a forced-birther, especially on social media. The more fixated and fetish-driven of our gun-owning friends (you know who I'm talking about; the hardcore, I'm-gonna-start-killin-people-YouTube-video-making ones) can spit out the same, shop-worn talking points on command, and often do so rapid-fire, leaving you buried in a cross between word salad and half-baked-idea jambalaya. And what the hell do you do with that mess?
Well, if they're just going to be boring and repetitive, you might as well join them. So, as a public service, I've decided to write down some convenient anti-talking-point talking points. All you have to do is memorize a few key phrases, and you can turn back to your regular life with a minimum of commitment to the gun puppy yapping at your feet.
Join me below the fleur de kos. It'll save you precious hours and blood pressure.
So basically, the format here will be Talking Point (TP) followed by one or more simple Answers. Get the answers down, and all you'll have to do is repeat one of them whenever your "worthy" opponent stops talking. If you really get them down, you can enjoy a nice book while doing so. Ready?
TP#1: Guns don't kill people; people kill people.
Answer: (Eye roll) Then us good guys don't need guns, since we're only protecting ourselves from people, and not, you know, guns.
(Note: A particularly stupid argument deserves a particularly sarcastic answer. No need to be clever on this one.)
much more at the link
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/20/1180504/-Gun-Enthusiast-In-Your-Life-Here-Let-Me-Make-It-Easier
Remember what then Senator Joe Biden said back in 2006, about NSA collecting phone records?
Watching this video may well land your IP address in a NSA database, for all we know, but at this point, whacha gonna do?
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1613914n
I think he made some very good points, fwiw.
Three corporations withdraw sponsorship of Commission on Presidential Debates
Source: opendebates.org
For Immediate Release
October 2, 2012
Washington, D.C. – In response to an organized email and letter-writing campaign, three of the ten corporations identified as sponsors of the Commission on Presidential Debates have withdrawn their sponsorship. Over the past week, advertising agency BBH New York, nonprofit organization YWCA, and tech giant Philips North America have terminated their sponsorship as a result of accusations that the Commission is anti-democratic and subservient to the major parties. Never before has a sponsor of the Commission withdrawn its support.
(snip)
Since its creation by the Republican and Democratic parties in 1987, the Commission has raised millions of dollars from its corporate sponsors. Anheuser-Busch has been, by far, the largest contributor to the Commission, serving as national sponsor of every debate held since 1996. At the debate themselves, Anheuser-Busch girls have distributed Bud Light and pamphlets denouncing beer taxes to journalists and campaign staff.
The Commission is co-chaired by individuals with loyalties to the major parties and a history of lobbying on behalf of corporations. Co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf is the former chair of the Republican Party and the nation's leading gambling lobbyist, as head of the American Gaming Association. Co-chair Mike McCurry is the former press secretary to President Bill Clinton and has lobbied extensively on behalf of the telecommunications industry.
In 1986, the Republican and Democratic National Committees ratified an agreement "to take over the presidential debates" from the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. Fifteen months later, then-Republican Party chair Frank Fahrenkopf and then-Democratic Party chair Paul Kirk incorporated the Commission on Presidential Debates, and it has sponsored every presidential debate since. The Commission exercises a monopoly over the presidential debates and routinely implements and conceals debate contracts that are drafted behind closed-doors by the Republican and Democratic campaigns. Those contracts have often contained anti-democratic provisions that sanitize and weaken debate formats, exclude viable third-party candidates and prohibit additional debates from being held.
Read more: http://www.opendebates.org/threecorporationswithdraw.html
All you really need is a pyramid and just a little luck
If you fold a dollar in the shape of the pyramid that's printed on the back
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/20bill.asp
(for old time's sake)
edit: fixed image link
Which side are you on?
http://www.righteousbabe.com/ani/whichsideareyouonhttp://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858819684/
30 years of diggin'
got us in this hole
the curse of reaganomics
has finally taken it's toll
lord knows the free market
is anything but free
it costs dearly to the planet
and the likes of you and me
(...)
so are we just consumers
or are we citizens
are we gonna make more garbage
or are we gonna make amends
are you part of the solution
or are you part of the con?
which side are you on now
which side are you on?
The complete works of Shakespeare, free
http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/And art made tongue-tied by authority.
— Sonnet lxvi
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Member since: Sun Sep 13, 2009, 12:24 AMNumber of posts: 13,869