Re: Ladies and Gentlemen, Attican Bedshitter....
 

And it never, ever plays any Blowjob Camels.

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen, Attican Bedshitter....
 

I made an Alkaline Trio channel and would militantly stop songs I didn't like quickly. It got me to my fave band, Jawbreaker, so I do appreciate that the algorithm works. But after I kept trying to find new bands, ever hopeful, and dismissing quickly anything I didn't like. Then Pandora decided I would like a gay-metal hardcore band whose song started with "Fuck me up my ass hard!"

You all know I am not homophobic. Of course I am not a power bottom, but still the thing that bothered me most was it thought I liked metal?

Re: Ladies and Gentlemen, Attican Bedshitter....
 

It does occasionally play something from the Attican Bedshitters, though. But only the newer crappy major-label stuff released after they sold out.

Re: Run the money-changers out of the temple; put the Carpenter in.
 

Yup. It would amuse me if they had that but not separate ones for each of them.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...-of-scheduling

Re: Run the money-changers out of the temple; put the Carpenter in.
 

The very notion of a Billy Bragg and Wilco Pandora channel (could anything be whiter . . . an Abba and Kenny Chesney harpsichord cover band?) makes me realize that I cannot move forward with my new signature line without taking some affirmative steps. Accordingly, having been inspired by Thurgreed's tireless work on the fashionable lawyers chatting board in the semi-nudity oeuvre, I will be dropping a daily dose of funk here. It might be more appropriate for the fashionable lawyers chatting board, but God knows this board needs it more. Daily Dose #1 - Skull Snaps -- It's a New Day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDEof4hOOo

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

This posts evidences such an ignorance of Japanese history and culture that it compels me to question your claim to having spent 7 years in Osaka studying to be an Itamae?

Re: Run the money-changers out of the temple; put the Carpenter in.
 

Thanks for this -- I bought the album.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I'm sorry, when you talked about "achieving goals" and "bipartisan support" and "reform" and "bucking the idiot voting bloc" and "serious reform", I thought you were talking about passing bipartisan legislation to reform the criminal justice laws, not a kamikaze mission to start the discussion.

Ahead of a curve that he and lots of Democrats and moderate Republicans are already on? Wow, good point.

I don't think Obama is being cynical at all. As with gay marriage, I think he understands that sometimes he serves a cause better by not adding his voice to the debate. If you cared about getting something done instead of a kamikaze mission to start a discussion, you would respect that.

Hey Sebby!
 

Just in case you still believe that, as President, Trump will surround himself with smart people (or appoint them):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...uld-look-like/

TM

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

I assumed (the link was abbreviated on the board) this would be about Carson being promised a cabinet post, and how a man who thinks the pyramids were filled with grain is going to be the next surgeon general.

The actual link is somewhat disturbing, but nothing truly horrifying. Politics is filled with degenerates, and they're often the most effective operatives. (Carville, Atwater, etc.) I still think if Old Orangehead gets the prize, he's going to acquire a cabinet of serious, skilled people. He's going to need it, and I think a number of skilled people who care about the future of the country would volunteer, the thinking being, "My God. If he doesn't have the best in there advising him, this country's going to have some serious fucking problems."

(Of course, the possibility of Carl Icahn as Secretary of the Treasury isn't exactly encouraging... But then, Kasich may get it instead. And either would be better than Larry Summers, who truly, seriously needs to Go The Fuck Away [Bezos should be slapped crisply across the lips for giving that bloviating academic gasbag a weekly column*].)
__________
* Summers might be the most dangerous idiot to have held sway over policy in the last thirty years. He might even be more dangerous than Trump, who has actually run a business (even badly), has been moderate on regulation, and has not advocated idiotic policies like banning $100 bills.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Evergreen note to self: Do not listen to Sebby on economics.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

I said years ago that the economy was fucked, and not really improving. The rise of Trump hasn't proven me entirely right, because I didn't see the exact bifurcation of haves and have nots which created Trump. But I was hell of a lot closer on where things were going than you have ever been arguing, "Oh, everything is doing well. You just wait and see and the policy people will be proven correct."

If our recovery, based in large part on policies advocated by Summers, is such a broad success, why are there tens of millions of Americans, from all classes, voting for a demagogue? Why are millions of Americans stating they are angry, dissatisfied, and feeling "left behind" in poll after poll after poll? Is it all... racism?

I'm just a poor sole in the unemployment line/my God, I'm hardly alive.
 

Here's an interesting article from October 2015 in The Guardian by Chris Arnade (a good follow on Twitter, btw) that lays out the point I was trying to make re working class discontent last week.

The fact that the working class has been screwed is real. The fact that many of the working class blame immigrants is real. The fact that many in the working class are racist is real. (Hi to my now-dead father and uncles, proud union men who were pissed when the NLRB started pushing unions to desegregate in the 1970s.) What I think Trump has been able to do is to add these grievances together in a way that the sum is greater than the equal of the parts.

It's not a choice of taking one position from column A and one from B and saying "this is what Trump's appeal really is." Nope. You can't disassociate one part of his appeal from the other. What you can do (as Flower put it) say "I don't want a racist to be president," and act accordingly. (Or, I suppose, if you are a free trade racist, "I don't want a protectionist to be president.")

ETA "poor sole"? Jesus H. Christ, I fucking hate auto-correct sometimes.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

The greater mystery to me was how Larry Summers convinced a Republican Congress to enact his vision over the last six years.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Yeah, and you were wrong.

Except that's not what created Trump.

Yes.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

I still think you cray cray. Here is Daily Dose of Funk #2. For all you old school De La Soul fans out there. "Bra" by Cymande:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuLnxjVo6bk

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

From the link:

Well, thank goodness Kevin Drum was able to get on Google to explain to us why Trump voters vote for Trump. I mean, why bother actually talking to them in person in places like Youngstown or Skokie or Gary? I mean, I can't blame him - those places are kinda hard to get to and you probably will have a hard time getting a decent craft beer.

Had he, say, interviewed 200 people over three months* like Arnade did, perhaps his opinion would be spoiled by anecdotal evidence. I mean, polling and economic data are much more accurate about why people vote the way they do than actually talking to a bunch of people.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...traits/405907/

Re: I'm just a poor sole in the unemployment line/my God, I'm hardly alive.
 

To be fair, I think this is right.

On trade, I'm interested in listening to this podcast about this paper reviewed in this blog post.

A take away seems to be that we have not done enough to counteract the distributional harms of trade with China. That shouldn't really be a surprise. Nor is it the fault of immigrants or the Chinese. But its easier to get outraged at those people and at trade than at the GOP that was completely opposed to functioning government.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

A. You ignored the data he cited both here and in prior posts.

B. He's got cancer.

Yes, they are.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

No, I didn't. I simply don't think data tells the full story. And even the economic data he mentions doesn't tell the whole picture. Ok, the economy overall is Not Bad based on growth and inflation and other metrics - but what about wage stagnation, for example?

Well, now I feel like shit. I incorrectly assumed that he chose not to do shoe leather reporting.

You did see that Arnade interviewed 200 people, right? That may actually be more than the number of people questioned in the polls Drum cites.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Your ability to explain away the craziest behavior without a substantive thought (or to liken it--ridiculously, I may add--to what you think is the equivalent on the left) is stunning. People are already talking trade war. If you think Bush's cronyism, which resulted in needless deaths of poor people in New Orleans and countless deaths based on a war he was bullied or tricked into starting, is bad, just wait til Trump gets in office.

You are comparing apples to turds. You're not making sense.

TM

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Billy Bragg is not mad, but he's veeeeeery disappointed in you.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Dani Rodrik says Sebby is right. Or at least isn't entirely wrong.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

You are batshit crazy if you think that Summers has "held sway over policy" anywhere at any time. He couldn't even hold sway over Harvard. (Although while he was President, he ran an enterprise worth far more than Trump's businesses, and I'll bet it appreciated during that time.)

Why you can't accept that Republicans have run Congress for the last six years? I don't get it. You're in denial. You can call them cretins, but you can't accept that anything is their fault.

for GGG
 

We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/743d91b8-d...#axzz43GZoUrIc

But just in case Sebby doesn't click through.

'Yet, as Robert Kagan, a neoconservative intellectual, argues in a powerful column in The Washington Post, Mr Trump is also “the GOP’s Frankenstein monster”. He is, says Mr Kagan, the monstrous result of the party’s “wild obstructionism”, its demonisation of political institutions, its flirtation with bigotry and its “racially tinged derangement syndrome” over President Barack Obama. He continues: “We are supposed to believe that Trump’s legion of ‘angry’ people are angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things Republicans have told them to be angry about these past seven-and-a-half years”.

Mr Kagan is right, but does not go far enough. This is not about the last seven-and-a-half years. These attitudes were to be seen in the 1990s, with the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Indeed, they go back all the way to the party’s opportunistic response to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Alas, they have become worse, not better, with time.
Why has this happened? The answer is that this is how a wealthy donor class, dedicated to the aims of slashing taxes and shrinking the state, obtained the footsoldiers and voters it required. This, then, is “pluto-populism”: the marriage of plutocracy with rightwing populism. Mr Trump embodies this union. But he has done so by partially dumping the free-market, low tax, shrunken government aims of the party establishment, to which his financially dependent rivals remain wedded. That gives him an apparently insuperable advantage. Mr Trump is no conservative, elite conservatives complain. Precisely. That is also true of the party’s base.'

TM

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/a6/a61d...f99e90c52a.jpg

TM

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

On Fridays, I think it might be a good idea to get the Daily Dose of Funk out a bit earlier. So it can do more good. If the opening guitar line sounds weirdly familiar, imagine it sped up considerably. Right? You know what I'm talking about now. PE sampled it for Timebomb off their first album. It's Daily Dose of Funk #3 - Just Kissed My Baby from the Meters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoBIp817miY

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

http://uproxx.com/tv/who-said-it-don...ump-or-archer/

Archer or Trump- who said it?

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Flower as introductory survey course professor of music is my favorite Flower. Not Kidding. He reminds me of my Econ 101 professor who tried to get us interested in macroeconomics without belittling our ignorance. And he was entertaining, too. He demonstrated elasticity of supply with a bra strap (probably Not Kosher, but I didn't know better) and would show pictures of Buffalo Bill Jack Kemp getting tackled when he was using then-current GOP economic policy to illustrate some point he was making in class.

Anyway, I liked the first two Flower assignments (really do sound like something from Sly and the Family Stone).

ETA: Until I googled, I did not realize how long the Meters have been around. No wonder they sound like classic funk - they are. Anyway, carry on.

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

I think it goes back even farther. The Whigs of this country, that is, the protectors of moneyed privilege, have always needed an alliance with the know-nothings, the angry, hateful lynch mob, to win elections. This goes back to Millard Fillmore and the traitors who brought us the civil war.

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

I think that we can safely put the Democrats down as the party that caused the Civil War. The Mexican War was viewed at the time as driven by a desire to add slave states to the Union to strengthen and spread slavery. Who pushed it? Democrats like Stephen Douglas. Who opposed it? Whigs like Abraham Lincoln (and Winfield Scott, who nonetheless followed orders from his civilian bosses as a good general does, and kicked the ass of the Napoleon of the Americas).

The party allowed itself to become the vessel of slaveholders and pushed pro-slavery policies even when non-southern Democrats like Pierce and Buchanan were President. It is the shame that stains the party that it was the party of -anti-black racism until, maybe (if you are a generous soul), FDR. And was more realistically the party of anti-black racism until LBJ.

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

That no-nothing element went from the whigs to the dems, form Filmore to Pierce and Buchanan.... whoever had them on board was reprehensible. The southern whigs of Bell were probably less reprehensible than the southern dems of Breckenridge, but that's a Trump/Cruz kind of difference.

But it's an interesting time because the parties were so fluid, with different factions moving back and forth. The Republicans really gathered good guys from both the defunct whig party and the split up democratic party (like van Buren's free-soilers). But you're right, my point was off - the whigs can win by allying with other groups, not just the no-nothings. But like most factions, they do need an alliance and the no-nothings are a common one, and they've been the favored choice of the whigs at least since Reagan.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

Punch "Summers," "Rubin," and "Greenspan," in any order, into Google.

And you took my comment in an unintended direction. I'm not blaming him for the GOP Congress's blunders. That's not his fault at all. I just detest the guy because his guidance helped to create the mess we're in today, and now, at this late date, unlike Rubin and Greenspan, who've refrained from getting involved, that fat fuck still can't shut his mouth.

I'm sure Larry's technically a brilliant economist, and he sounds impressive waxing academic and theoretical between bear claws, Frappucinos, and Big Macs. But we're past the time of mandarins. To tweak the economy to better deliver for all classes requires a person with some actual understanding of business. Someone whose private sector resume includes a bit more than a brief stint consulting for a quant fund.

That person is not Trump, whose business record shows way too much appetite for risk. But truth be told, if you had to pick one of the two to run a business, you'd have to err on Trump. Summers ran a University. That's nice. But it's a "can't lose" job -- nearly govt work by another name. (And his big mouth even fucked up that gig for him.)

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

I don't know why the Trumpkins must be labeled exclusively protectionists or bigots. These things aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they often go together, both in terms of groups aligning and individuals holding both mindsets.

Of course he's right that GOP policies have created a class of deluded people who think Obama is an illegitimate President. And most of these people harbor at least some bigoted views. But this author is really lazy, even for a short opinion piece, in dismissing out of hand the argument Trump has grabbed a ton of his voters by appealing to concerns regarding wage stagnation and lack of jobs for lower skilled labor.

He stumbles into a bigger and better point at the end of the piece. Trump is succeeding because, unlike all the other GOP candidates, he's addressing the GOP voters (and Dems crossing over to him) as populists rather than conservatives. Conservatism is on life support. The GOP base, including the tea partiers, loves programs like SS and Medicare. They're not free market sorts, but convenient socialists. The programs that provide for them are great. Those that provide for "others," including things like food stamps and Obamacare, are terrible.

Re: Hey Sebby!
 

I'm actually familiar with all of them without having to Google them. But otherwise that would be a helpful hint, inasmuch as I might have used Bing, Yahoo! Search, Yandev, Duck Duck Go or some other search engine which would not have opened my eyes to the material on the web which one can find through Google.

It is clear that you detest the guy, and likely other people who are fat and who thus disappoint you, but setting his physique aside, I'm not sure why, since "the mess we're in today" seems to owe much more to many other people, some of whom were almost certainly fat too.

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

People who talk about the Democratic party as the party of racism and the Republican Party as the party of Lincoln (like these legacies are connected to the current parties somehow) are the same as those guys at the gym who, after a series of shirts v. skins pickup games, insist that skins won every game, even though by the time 5 or 6 runs are over, all of the guys who started off as "shirts" finished as "skins."*

TM

*I have a few of these people in my facebook feed. It's like interacting with our favorite brick.

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

I give up. You're just repeating yourself. I'm not interested in doing so anymore.

TM

Re: We need some Alien Overlords to Welcome
 

Dude, I am a proud Democrat. And I agree that the GOP stopped being the party of Lincoln starting with the Compromise of 1877. I was just responding to GGG's assertion that the Whigs were the ones who led the country into the Civil War.