Good morning Christy

*giggling away*

Curbing spending is a good thing. I guess that you all think we can spend and give away money to get out of this crisis. That really seems to be working well. So if someone come up with something different there is an attack. Sad.

The only way out is to stop spending. Get the gov out of our personal lives.

I may be laughing about this for a week. This is my favorite budget-esque goof EVAR.

Honestly, this looks like Monty Python runs the government.

“Ooooh — here’s a lovely flow chart with very little substantive content, but with a picture of a smiling family. I’m so totally convinced this is awesome now!”

Curbing spending is awesome. Have you read the report? That’s just about all it says “curbing spending is awesome.”*

*We’ll tell you how we plan to do it on some later date. Please just go with the “we think it’s awesome” for now. Trust us.

For example — this is an actual header from the GOP “plan” (and I use that term loosely) — note the lack of any supporting details as to how this will be achieved, where cuts will be made, what is important in terms of priorities or anything else. It’s a marketing statement akin to a Luntz 30-second spot with no substance:

OUR PROPOSAL:
curbs spending
• Limits the Federal Budget from Growing Faster
than Family Budgets
Instead of spending money on wasteful
programs under the guise of “stimulus” and
“investments,” Republicans seek to ensure that
the federal budget cannot grow faster than
families’ ability to pay the bill.

Nate Silver has a good version of their flowchart, too

Is there one of those little notes on the back that sez something to the effect of: “This waste of perfectly good trees just cost you the taxpayer XXXXX dollars”?

Someone at FARK said you could substitute the word “MAGIC” in any of the flow charts as the “action taken” bubble and it still makes sense.

Now, I can’t look at the damn report without thinking “MAGIC OCCURS” in those bubbles. Makes it a little more amusing though.

Kind of like that “in bed” thing at the end of a fortune cookie. *G*

No numbers and yet the corporate broadcast media covered the release of the GOP budget “plan” yesterday in all seriousness giving it “legitimacy” it is hardly deserves.

Good morning, Christy. Thanks for more giggles to start a day!

A couple of additional grins…

Joe Scarborough mocked this as much as anyone this morning. And Glenn Thrush’s blog on Politico quotes Paul Ryan (who actually is, apparently, doing homework)…

“The problem is that somewhere along the line, someone got the mistaken impression that we were going to roll out a budget alternative today,” he said. “What we all signed off on was a preview—the real [alternative] is coming next week.”

…but then has the video of Bronzo Boehner proudly proclaiming, with pamphlet in hand, “Here it is, Mr. President” as his defense to the accusation the GOPers have no budget.

Heh.

This really does epitomize “Epic Fail,” doesn’t it?

:) :) :) :) :) :)

Watched the Homeland Security Hearing the other night. McShame and Graham have joined their buddy Lieberman there and were trying to tell the director that she needed more money than was in the budget. They were going to offer budget ammendments increasing the budget without knowing what for. Fiscal conservatives my ass.

Actually, Contessa Brewer openly laughed at it on MSNBC because it wasn’t actually a “budget” but a pamphlet advertising “budget may appear soon.” It was hilarious.

As did Norah O’Donnell. TPM’s “what happened yesterday” mash-up vid is a lovely parade of MSNBC guffaws at the “budget.” Hilarious, indeed!

CBS Evening News wasn’t laughing. They gave the story legitimacy it did not deserve.

Thanks Christy.

digg is open

Here’s the “GOP health care plan” from their “budget” — no, I’m not kidding:

Republicans support leveling the playing field through
policies that will provide tax incentives for millions more
working families and small business owners to obtain
access to coverage.

Republicans also support breaking down the balkanized
barriers within our current health insurance industry,
allowing individuals to shop across state lines to purchase
affordable policies that best meet their needs.
Independent estimates suggest that as many as 12 million
individuals could obtain access to health insurance
through this approach alone—health insurance that
would be more responsive to individual consumers’
needs.

Republicans support reasonable limits on non-economic
damages, along with penalties for trial lawyers who file
frivolous lawsuits, among other reforms necessary to
preserve patients’ relationships with their physicians and
end the unnecessary defensive medicine practices
increasing costs for all Americans.

With regard to entitlements, Republicans support the
notion that wealthy seniors like Warren Buffett and
George Soros can afford to pay $2 per day more for their
Medicare prescription drug coverage. But we would go
further to save Medicare, by simplifying the current
benefit structure in traditional Medicare to include a
catastrophic cap on out-of-pocket expenses for the first
time in the program’s history. And Republicans plan
vigorous efforts to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in
order to make traditional Medicare more efficient.
unsustainable debt, and freedom of care versus
bureaucrats in control. And we will be on the side of
patients, doctors, and the American people.

Recently back from following a comment thread over at Washington Monthly in a post that apparently attracted an unusual number of trolls. Not being a follower of any reich wing blogs, it was amazing that “We are are doomed” seems to be the preferred winger comment of choice.

Yeah, yeah…..I really have been living a sheltered existence. *g*

btw, my favorite part of that is the “balkanized barriers.” Oooooh — alliteration.

Has Limpy Limbaugh figured out how to blame the Democrats for this Republic “budget” yet?

I won’t pay the document the click to actually look at it, but I thought there were some numbers: a cut in income tax rates of the rich from 35% to 25% (which, btw, would be a nearly 30% cut in their taxes).

That concept worked really well for Hoover, didn’t it, troll?

Bonjour les pups.

The current bunch of retardlicans are mostly ex-college republicans, who as we all know where not the brightest bulb in the otherwise distinguished box of normal university students. They are running their Party they way they ran the nation for eight years. It’s just more out in the open because they no longer have the power to shut down the news, and because they are up against an administration that actually does its homework. They seem still to be in denial. I thought they’d been well along to anger by now.

I can understand the fear that everyone has. The GOP will come out and disclose the details of the budget and the country’s smart people will follow. A budget of spending is not a budget, it should be called a spending.

The president came to Capitol Hill and laid out his blueprint for his budget during the State of the Union. He didn’t offer his details until days later. No comment on that, again sad and one sided journalism.
So now just like pres the GOP come out with a budget yesterday, offering a different blueprint and says details to come at a later date.

Let’s wait for the real number before commenting.

They talk about tax reduction — but there is no discussion of offsets to pay for it — it’s a throw-in paragraph with no underpinning beyond “boo yah, we lower your taxes” and then a lot of blather about how taxes are the devil’s handmaiden. I didn’t exactly consider a random throw-in of percentages on tax reduction as a “budget number” but YMMV:

Republicans propose a simple and fair tax code with a
marginal tax rate for income up to $100,000 of 10
percent and 25 percent for any income thereafter, with a
generous standard deduction and personal exemption.
Republicans would allow any individual or family
satisfied with their current tax structure to continue to
pay those rates, while dropping the two lowest rates by 5
percent to provide every taxpayer with a tax cut.
Republicans would also permanently fix the Alternative
Minimum Tax (AMT) so that millions would no longer
have to fear the possible imposition of a huge, new tax
each year.

This is what doing too much PowerPoint does to the brain. That programme has visited more damage on our collective grey cells than television, which set the standard.

You mistake laughing our asses off and mocking for fear. I get that.

But don’t pretend that having a lovely, glossy color-photo pamphlet that they billed out to the National Review as “their alternative budget proposal” as a successful outing. Even the National Review was pissed at having to walk it back after Boehner’s presser fizzled.

I can understand the fear that everyone has.

Speak for yourself, troll.

The fear card is old and shabby. Even the Rethugs told Cheney to STFU with his fear mongering. Following the Heritage Foundation, which has never had a good idea, won’t do anything for the Rethugs this time round.

SouthernDragon — did you see the kitteh pix I posted yesterday, btw?

Have you ever checked out this site?

Not until this minute. Thank you. Mama Jao Chu is gorgeous.

Ah, to live in a place where they sidled up to ya in the bush.

Have you ever had to sit through one of those masterfully dull, re-imagined “bring in outside consultants to re-invent our business culture” sorts of seminars?

The kind where your company supervisors bring in highly paid outside people to come in and tell you that you should (1) enjoy your job more so that you can (2) be more productive and thereby (3) make your boss more money so s/he can move up the corporate food chain?

The Harvard MBA shakedown scam the employee more work, less pay, less jobs ? Yep

Republican Plan Numbers: $2 + $2 =$1,435,239,221,711.02

Since you seem unsure of what a budget is…
budg⋅et   /ˈbʌdʒɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [buhj-it] Show IPA noun, adjective, verb, -et⋅ed, -et⋅ing.
–noun 1. an estimate, often itemized, of expected income and expense for a given period in the future.
2. a plan of operations based on such an estimate.

and, how about they announce their “budget”, when they actually have one.

Uh. Mah. Gawd. There goes another 2 hours of my day.

Thanks!

I was just pointing out that the R “budget” calls for a nearly 30% reduction in taxes for the rich. Can’t wait until next week when they publish their numbers and see what that does to the deficit. Though I suppose they’ll argue that the economy will improve so much as a result that such a tax cut will actually shrink the deficit. It’s what they always do.

And it took all the economists at Heritage a month to come up with that figure.

I can understand the fear that everyone has. The GOP will come out and disclose the details of the budget and the country’s smart people will follow. A budget of spending is not a budget, it should be called a spending.

Yes Spending Which is exactly what FDR and Keynes did during the Great Depression if anything I want more Stimulus Spending and not a penny for tax cuts!

It’s Stephen Colbert’s favorite site.

Nah……don’t bother the Boss with such a simple task. They should delegate the explanation for their maaaaaaaarvelous budget to michael steele; he seems to be doin’ real well in the “Here’s why my gaffe isn’t a gaffe department” these days. ;-)

Yes, because that worked so well at deficit reduction through the Bush years.

O.o

I often balance my own family budget by simply taking many of my expenditures off books and pretending they don’t exist. My bank totally goes along with that when I have to borrow large sums of money from China to cover my ass. Doesn’t yours? *G*

Aw, shit, I’ll never get to work if I play with this.

OT

Obama sez: be afraid, be very afraid. Afghanistan is “increasingly perilous.”

Dilbert-esque, isn’t it?

Can we get Scott Adams for the book club his take on Bush’s Harvard MBA and the current GOP budget could push even Punaise’s Snark to a new level.

Heh. Trapped you!

I did that with my student loan. Sallie Mae was more than happy to oblige and wipe it off their books as well. Riiiiight.

Hmmm. Never asked. Sounds like a plan! *g*

F – - – - – - -
(like the dream sequence in A Christmas Story, only not.)

Nah, after 3 I put it away. It’ll be a lot of fun later tonight, though. Talk about a pleasant time killer. Thanks.

Obama sez we’re not in Afghanistan to control that country.

Oh sure.

Well, as much as I don’t like it, he did say that he was going to do this when he was campaigning.

-G

I swear, Obama’s speech on Afghanistan sounds like an only slightly more refined retread of W’s speeches on the same subject.

One of the few campaign promises he’ll keep.

Good Morning Christy and Puppies.

If I close my eyes real tight and wiggle my nose, I can almost see the lil’ critters huddled over their combined homework pages, erasers worn down to the metal on their grubby stumps of pencils, chew marks abound. S’pose there’s real lead in the paint on pencils?

Alternatively, they’ve twittered the night away and have nothing to show for it. Mebbe dad will phone it in. But who’s playing dad in that nitwit crowd.

Yes, it’d be hilarious if only it weren’t our kids’ future they’re wasting away. Everything I’ve seen since election day ‘08 speaks of repubnut obstructionism. It seems to be the only thing they can figure to do.

I want to grab the nearest pugnit by the scruff of the neck and shake ‘em, & scream in his/her face, WHY DON’T YOU CARE?! Either Help Or Get Out Of The Way!!!

Hehe – right, if we just stop spending, the economy will get better…
Doh! no spending = no economy… period

Warmongering is one of the few reliably bi-partisan traits in US politics.

-G

I wonder if the GOP being run by a bunch of half-wits is a good thing for Obama and the Democrats.

In legal matters, for instance, you are almost always better off if the opposition is well represented as opposed to having to deal with a half-ass. I imagine the same would be true in politics.

I gotta go to work. I’ll catch it in full later. Back to the streets. These fools are gonna learn, sooner or later. At the cost of how many American and Afghani lives?

Off to swim in the great capitalist (bwahahahahahahaha) cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Republicans also support breaking down the balkanized
barriers within our current health insurance industry,
allowing individuals to shop across state lines to purchase
affordable policies that best meet their needs

Forget state lines how about Canada thats real free market competition.

I’ve been wondering that, too — you don’t have to raise your game if the opponents are on oxygen.

I can’t believe that after eight years of recent experience with this trickle down nonsense that there are morons that are still espousing it. Proof positive that medical science needs to study mental atrophy.

You betcha. Oh, and more infrastructure spending to Afghanistan, down the rathole of U.S. contractors.

Obama keeps talking about AQ. But it’s not AQ that’s the problem, it’s Pashtun insurgency against foreign occupation. Obama shows no evidence of understanding the problem.

Hey Dragon! Been eagerly awaiting your arrival to see the babies and their beautiful parents. You sure u want to sidle up to ‘em in the bush?! Google or somethin’. I’ll bet every pic you turn up from the wild will be on a wind-swept mountainous, usually snowy crag. Beeoootiful, tough little kitties! ;->

Mornin Christy and Firedogs

cbl has a question for Congressional Republicans (5 sec)

Thanks for all the diggs, gang — for some reason it doesn’t seem to have attached at the top of this page — no idea why. So I’m repeating the digg link from Boo just so folks have it…

I’m a fairly fearless person, but I AM afraid. I’m afraid Bohner has completely lost it. But this tripe in a shiney blue folder with a fancy seal and no one will notice there’s not a real “budget” in there.
I’m not through my first cup of coffee. Someone tell me I’m still dreaming.

Ok,can someone explain to me how the government is supposed to run without taxes of any kind? What other income is there to keep government afloat? I’m thinking this would include,oh,the salaries of elected officials and their healthcare,yes?

The Boner needs to step away from the bronzer/self tanner too,hell,that right there could save the taxpayers a few grand a year.

And how in the fresh hell can you have a budget without spending? At my house,the budget is directly related to income vs outgo(also known as SPENDING),but maybe I’m missing something.

Do yourself a big favor and read the cartoon lnked above at “Dilbert-esque” — and have a giggle at the absurdity of it all. *G*

I couldn’t believe Boner yesterday thinking that he could get away with lying to the press about what he was presenting, on top of making them sit around and wait on him for 1/2 an hour. What COULD he have been thinking? But then the note that MSNBC cut away from Obama’s live online townhall coverage to cover Boners presser, and there you are. He wasn’t thinking. He was desperately looking for a way to upstage the President. I’ll bet Ryan is furious with Boner this morning for upstaging his budget!

It’s not. You are missing the key point that they think government sucks, all the while driving on roads, having fire and police protection, sending their children to schools, and getting government-paid-for health and dental benefits.

Obama sez that more foreign experts will make all the difference in Afghanistan, because those brown people are too dumb to do it for themselves. (He didn’t say the part after the comma, but it’s the unspoken part of what he did say.)

Thanks for this, Christy. Absolutely amazing. You’d think the pugs would be embarrassed to offer up this stuff. I keep remembering Boinger and his show-&-tell dropping the spending bill with a big THUNK on the floor.

Now they return to let their slim little pretend-plan float gracefully on the slightest breeze. Idiots!

No, you people don’t understand, Karl Rove told us all that the GOP is NOW fiscally responsible!

What a pack of clowns.

-G

My favorite really has to be the pre-presser call they did with National Review and other press outlets promising all sorts of awesomeness and details at the press conference when they revealed the “alternative budget.” And then, after the presser, the folks at the Corner had to walk back what they’d previously posted because the numbers weren’t going to be out for another week at least and they were unable to substantiate any of the claims made on the grandiose pre-presser call.

Classic.

Oh, let’s not waste money on that study. We all know that when a muscle is not used, it atrophies. The brain is a muscle isn’t it. Like that old commercial. This is your brain. This is your brain when you never, ever use it. Hint, get out the magnifying glass.

Didn’t the dillholes at PoliticHo get punked too?

-G

In my ignorance, I call “Foul”. Only a yellow card this time. Call it a gift.

I think that’s a bit unfair as a characterization. Sarah Chayes has an op ed in the LATimes today that’s worth a read on the subject of what is needed. Since she’s actually been living in Afghanistan since 2001 and running an aide agency since 2002-ish, it’s got some good detail.

Yup. I believe so.

Sorry. I’m gonna call in sick and go enjoy the kits.

food safety……………dont their little darlings eat PEANUT BUTTER

That is funny. Would be more so if it weren’t so true. And, thanks for that tip. I’m avoiding all links these days, ’cause my computer is dying an ugly, slow death and if I click on a utube it freaks out. Will get a new, non-dinosaur, computer as soon as I get some cha-ching. Ha.

But…but…their pamphlet had some glossy color photos in it!

What a pack of clowns

hey indeedy – did everyone see they are to roll out ‘da numbers’ on April Fools day ?

I try to label any YouTubes and PDFs for folks so they don’t click on something their computer can’t handle. Just so ya know…

Uh. Mah. Gawd.

Lack of Adequate Records Limits FDA

*

By JANE ZHANG

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators found that many food companies don’t comply with federal recordkeeping requirements, hobbling the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to trace the source of food-borne illnesses quickly, a top government investigator told lawmakers Thursday.

A 2002 bioterrorism law requires food makers, processors and distributors to keep records showing from whom they bought products and to whom they sold them – known in the industry as “one step up, one step down.” But 60% of the 118 facilities surveyed by the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general didn’t keep those records; some said they didn’t know about the requirement and others said the recordkeeping was too difficult. The watchdog agency also tried to trace 40 items such as fresh tomatoes, whole milk, oatmeal and yogurt from retail stores to the farm where they were grown, but could do so for only five items.

“We don’t have the compliance envisioned by Congress,” HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson told members of the House Agriculture Committee’s appropriations panel. The lack of adequate records, he said, “limits the ability to trace food products through each stage of the food supply chain back to the farm or border.”

I am tired of the press manipulation…

I am tired of the lies and deceit with regard to the rule of law…

I am tired of the hollow promises of the government working smarter from Repugs who left our country in turmoil…

I am tired of paying taxes that support the jobs of public servants who are bought and paid for by the corp elite as well as other countries…

I am sick and tired of listening to Bohner acting and playing around with his constituents…

I am tired and hope the energy of liberty and justice can somehow find it’s way to light the path to recovery…

Please find someone to run against Bohner. He can go sell used cars.

The toxic assest sale insured by uncle sam was hammered this morning by Paul Krugman in the NYT

Darlin’, if you’re a republican, your kids don’t *need/have* to eat PB; they get to eat cake. Problem solved…….

The Republican Party – The Party of faith-based radicals and Useful Idiots.

When in power, the radicals rule the government.

When out of power, they trot out the useful idiots sock-puppets (like Ryan) who are the voice of fiscal moderation and restraint, and preach small government.

When they regain power, the radicals take over control again, and create SUPER BIG government, and SUPER BIG deficits. The Useful Idiots are then nowhere to be seen or heard, until they are again needed.

Pitifull, AND Destructive to America.

Hi demi. Yep yep yep to purty much everything you’ve said above. There are times when it’s healthy and prudent to be scared.

It is way beyond my pay grade to understand why the pugs still would be playing pretend. They just don’t get it, or they think the rest of us don’t.

I think the brighter ones are too scared themselves to pretend they care. They simply don’t have the foggiest notion what to do. So it’s easier to bluster and play child-like gotcha games than to pretend to help pick up the broken toys.

Fiddling Twittering while Rome their world and ours burns, as it were.

Ps….was in hospital this weekend with FOOD POISONING……………..dumbass REPUKLICANS

Very good to know.
And that Sarah Chayes, if she’s the woman I’m thinking of, is awesome. I first saw her on Bill Moyers.

what eCAHN is writing now (@70) is completely in line with what i was told would happen by an afghani (who had worked with the UN, and was at that time spending a year at the harvard school of public health as a visiting scholar before going back home to afghanistan). this, by the way, this was jan or feb of 2002 – when i organized a showing of the movie jung from the human rights watch international film festival. i was looking for someone to lead a discussion afterwards and this was the person recommended to me by the someone at physicians for human rights who had been to afghanistan many times.

at the time i didn’t really buy it, thinking that usa assistance might, on the whole, actually be assistance. i was wrong.

Hope you are feeling better.

Do you know what caused it? Are you doing OK now?

’mornng, all-
Money equals power. Therefore, if government is spending, government is exercising power. If the government is exercising power, than the people are not, and thus the people’s freedom is being restricted.

A College Republican at USF explained it to me yesterday.

uh huh. you tryin’ to git me to look at their lil’ report? ‘Fraid I’ll pick up a virus ’round those numbskulls. mpffftz! on all their houses and condos and vacation retreats and sordid hideyholes!

Jane’s got a new post up
Eric Holder Sides with Bush, Blocks Mortgage Discrimination Probe Against Banks

(((((sadlyyes)))))

their website has an explanatory video on tax cuts

sorry, couldn’t resist

Morning Adie. Still packing? When’s the big move? You found a buyer?

Ok.

On the lighter side. Went to the book store with the little klynns and Mr. klynn. We discover our local bookstore manager has a sense of humor…

A book display had the following books arranged in an eye catching order. In the middle was Ann Coulter’s Guilty. To the right of Guilty was Jimmy Carter’s Peace In The Holy Land. To the left of Coulter was (and my personal fave to place next to Coulter,) Work In Progress, An Unfinished Woman’s Guide To Grace by Kristen Armstrong. And sitting above our book of “don’t-read” was Dreams From My Father, A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama.

Our whole family stood in front of the book display and laughed our arses off. Many people, curious as to what was causing the laughter, came over and also appreciated the arrangement of the book display with us. When the manager came over, we gave him a standing ovation.

I don’t think anyone here was arguing with the substance. It was the “tone” and none-too subtle slap at brown & ‘bama.

thanks Christy,tis was at a very elite eatery in Miami,ate a bad muscle,food borne illness can happen anywhere(can be deadly too)we need the tools to track it..GOVERNMENT is the only agency capale….a good TV add for dems too run would be,a gorgeous woman spreading peanutbutter on toast or bread,for an adorable toddler,voiceover,do you really want government out of your daily life,as she hands it to the child

Someone explain this to me. If a company has more than 500 employees, say 560, they’d have to lay-off 61 employees to get the 20 % deduction? They wouldn’t actually do that would they? That would be mean.

Adie March 27th, 2009 at 7:16 am
100
In response to sadlyyes @ 92 (show text)

(((((sadlyyes)))))
——————-
very painful,they gave me morphine,imaginethat

Mod, was the middle content of that comment somehow offensive? Just delete the whole comment. It makes no sense with the description of the arrangement of book title missing.

refresh your screen — we’ve got some sort of weird glitch that eats portions of comments until you refresh sometimes. We’re working on it.

btw, I meant to mention — I will be out of town for part of the weekend doing a family thing. Posting will occur, but I may not be around much in some threads. So, if you ask me a question and I don’t answer you right away? Don’t take it personally.

I need a break, and I’m taking a bit of one. So everyone enjoy their weekend and I promise to answer questions as I can if everyone promises not to freak out if it takes longer than a few minutes. *g*

Got it.

would it make a difference if obama was a little green man from mars? because in 2002 i don’t think anyone was thinking about a black man being president and you should have heard what that afghani had to say (and the tone he used? – oh my!)

personally, i’m not such a big fan of “tone” issues – reminds me of the bush years when any criticism of the blogosphere’s “tone” was met with laughter, mocking and offers to get the smelling salts and fainting couch. cuz, you know, when people are being killed the most important thing is the tone we use to object.

It is way beyond my pay grade to understand why the pugs still would be playing pretend

mine too. a la Rachel’s intro last night about what the standard response of a Minority Party would be in this situation and how they opted for this clownish crap . . .

an awful lot of these guys got there via pan global Spin, gerrymandering, fawning media, voter suppression and fraud, and then had 6 years of uncontested power – why would any of them know what to do, they are completely untested as politicians

Hi gal! Mostly still giving away stuff, selling a little, only just called realtor. It’ll be awhile. The group that holds our conservation easement apparently has one of our nifty resident wild critters (hummingbird moth) featured on the front of their quarterly newsletter in glorious color! That might help. link here is same species. they love bee balm/Monarda and are very tame. Meanwhile, the birds are tuning up something fierce, and that helps too. ;->

i hope you have a wonderful break. enjoy!

On the refresh, I see the book titles. Whew! I was thinking when I first read your comment that maybe I needed to add something to my coffee. But, I thought, well, it’s nice that klynn’s family was having a good time. Still think that. *g*

fabulous ! enjoy

Have a great weekend Christy! Glad to hear you can take some time for yourself. ;->

We’re exhausted. FIL has been here 5 months, so family is coming over to hang for a coupla days and the hubby and I can get a little “us” time. Desperately needed respite.

We figured we’d take a break before we got totally burned out to try and maintain some level of sanity. Here’s hoping, anyway. *G*

yes Christy have a great recharge…step out alittle…….g

That chart is highly amusing to me. It looks like the Republican road is cutting the link between health care and spending. Or, it’s one of those bars that go across European Do Not Enter signs. Or, it’s a censorship symbol that’s been slapped over the point in the line where the needle is inserted, sucking all that good health care and government spending money below ground into the GOP strategic reservoir of evil

I could go on and on…

I think we’re talking past each other. Mebbe a return to the source (#70) would help. If not, apologies. Eye of the beholder and all that good stuff.

If you think that chart is funny, take a peek at the one on ”energy policy” on page 13 of the GOP plan.

It’s a beaut.

We don’t get to freak out? But, but, wahhhhh, spit, fussell….oh, alright. We’ll be good.
Good for you and yours. Waiting-for-Spring-Fever’s gotcha, huh? And, don’t forget about that V-Day present.

GOP Balance Sheet

Assets = Liabilities + Fund Balances
0 = 10 trillion + (-10 trillion)

Hence, no need for a budget. There is no government.

I was thinking I not only needed more coffee but to just get back in bed! I sat here wondering, “Did I just think those titles out and never type them?”

alternative energy sources such “oil shale”????? Are they fracking kidding? Their definition of alternative energy is more fossil fuels? Hehehe.

Aaahhhhhh sooooooo. *snerk*

Yes — they finish their lovely chart with a picture of an oil rig. But it’s a “clean energy” oil rig, ya know.

There was a commercial on last night’s Lehrer (i think) with some earnest whiz-kid guy speaking with great wonderment in his tone of voice as he extolled his delight in prospects of extracting real oil out of really really incredibly hard rocks. Oh Joy!

Choose your nitwit. Gawd they must think we’re dumb!

Tone only matters if the speaker cares about how the listener receives the message. If the goal is to affectively transfer knowledge or opinion, then tone must be taken into account. If the goal is merely to feel better about ones being right, then tone does not matter as much.
That’s a generalized comment about how I perceive communication. Not meant as a personal judgement of any specific commenter here.

The ones with “circles and arrows and paragraph on the back of each one” ?

cut taxes to zero, cut all government programs to zero. Mad Max rules + a barter economy. Rich rethugs will throw money into a pot that’ll be used to pay Blackwater (aka, Xe) to provide police and security services for themselves

okay ma.

or alternatively, rich rethugs will offer up their children to provide personal services for Xe thugs, in exchange for protection.

Was that too pedantic?

i tease too much. you’re a sweetie. carry on dear gal! *smooches*

The Donkey-ho-T ate my homework.

i agree. but i also note that it is when the content of the message is uncomfortable, that the tone of the messenger is made an issue of.

No numbers? A budget with no numbers is like a melody with no notes. It is like the Zen koan of one hand clapping. I heard a little of the Republican presentation of this on CSPAN. Boehner was taking Obama to task for saying that the Republicans had not offered a budget of their own (which since Boehner was just releasing it what Obama had said was true). Now it turns out that it was all a hoax.

I have problems with the Democrats and Obama across the board, but could anything be more deceitful, bankrupt, and just plain empty than the Republicans? Currently, we have two parties in this country: a Democratic party with almost no redeeming qualities and a Republican party that has absolutely none.

I figured that. But, if you had said yes, too pedantic, I could say, well, I rest my case, or that I meant to do that. Oh, just, ha.

Yes, I see and that is most likely very true. But, if the content is uncomfortable, all the more reason to use words that convey the critical nature of the message in a way that the listener will Hear.

Oh that news conference was so juvenile! One that my grannies would have put together. When the wig man held up that ‘book report’ folder, all I could say was ‘is that all’

Boehner, hasn’t gotten the memo, that his a@@ is grass and Obama is the lawn mower, yet. He still believes he is dealing with the national dummy, and he is too stupid to know that our President is no brought ‘C’ but really a ‘F’ student. Nothing like being showed out by one who had to ‘earn his degrees’, and has more degrees than a thermometer. That kiss he gave Laura, and the snub he gave Michele on Inaugration Day, will cost him the rest of his term in office. But he doesn’t know that yet! He is being ‘played’, and ‘dazzled’, and he is so out ranked, by one who can ‘play’ and will ‘dazzle’… Loving it!

because the responsibility is all on one side? listeners here as well as messengers don’t have an equal responsibility to both listen and speak the truth as best as we are able?

You’re right. Both sides have the responsibility of trying and I won’t quibble about who has more, or less responsibility. I guess we all try as much as we care.
((Selise))

thanks demi. i think am just totally burned out that it doesn’t seem to matter how much evidence i bring to the discussion, what matters is if it fits the narrative or not. (and i don’t consider my stupid comment above evidence, it was a transparent appeal to authority which should rightly be ignored, but sadly seems to carry more weight than actual evidence sometimes). maybe i need a break too.

The GOP plan methodically takes the Democratic bill apart. On health care, it complains that “Democrats propose to finance nationalized health care,” and says a better solution would be allowing people to shop across state lines for insurance policies.

On spending, the Republican plan lists specific objections to Democrats’ plans, but proposes only that the GOP would “cut overall nondefense spending by reforming or eliminating a host of wasteful programs deemed ineffective by various government entities.”

Taxes would be lower, the Republicans promise, in a “simple and fair tax code” with a 10 percent tax rate for incomes up to $100,000 and 25 percent thereafter, as well as “a generous standard deduction and personal exemption.”

However, Republicans also would “allow any individual or family satisfied with their current tax structure” to pay those rates, though it would drop the two lowest brackets by 5 percent. Rates currently range from 10 percent to 35 percent.

On energy, the Republican plan would open the Arctic Coastal Plain to energy exploration, while making it easier to build new nuclear reactors.

And the party says it would help ease financial industry turmoil by discouraging bailouts and creating a climate of “certainty and economic growth.”

Try selling that to some of your moronic Rethug friends, troll.

I think we all need a break from time to time. But, know that if I quibble with you from time to time, it’s because I care about what we are talking about. And, I care to speak to intelligent beans…human beans. You are one.

Brilliant article, Christie. Except in this sentence “browse through it’s mundane ignominy” please lose the apostrophe.

If you aren’t sure if it should be there, please say to yourself “browse through it is mundane ignominy.”

Nope. Doesn’t make sense. Must be “browse through its mundane ignominy. Your readers will thank you.