Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I don't object to online (or any other type) of home schooling, except when it is used to keep evil influences like people of differing opinions or skin color. I'm sure it can be a fantastic supplement to a school that at be struggling in certain areas.

I don't think it's used to supplement public classroom education in Georgia. At least not for most of the people I've met here who use it.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Thanks, I just had a chance to listen. Tell Graham I am a fan, although if I were asked to describe the Ghetto Funk sub-genre based on his mix, I would have a hard time capturing it (other than "eclectic"). Today's Daily Dose is "Fatcakes" by Jimmy McGriff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmKF9YuPlvw

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

We been schoolin' Homie Hank here for years, but it ain't done shit.

Anthony works in the grocery store ....
 

.... at least he will be if he applies using a different name.

The soon to be former Mr. Huma Abedin is proof that a seemingly smart guy can be pretty fucking stupid. His marriage is over and may not see his kid again any time soon, thanks to the Post.

Poor Huma -- and that poor kid. I sincerely hope she changes his name - going to middle school with the last name of "Weiner" would have been bad enough three Twitter scandals ago, but this is just ridiculous.

Got to give myself a little talking to this time.
 

Although I don't *need* another expensive liquor habit, your life advice has never led me wrong, so Macallan 18 it is. (I drink higher-end Irish neat, so I don't think that I will be offending anyone by putting ice in it.)

Sadly, that was unintentional fucking with. I knew that Dr. John had a hit in the 1970s, and I got my doctors mixed up. That kind of thing happens to me - I frequently mix up Donovan and Nilsson (single-named sorta quirky solo artists of the 60s/70s), the Black Crows and the Counting Crows (uh, crows), and Duke Ellington and Count Basie (titles of nobility).

Forgive me. Although I do quite like the Dr. Hook line I quoted.

Often wrong, but never in doubt.
 

Interesting interactive from the NYT -- At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won't Vote for Trump.

I have to admit, I am surprised how early (February!) some of the neo-cons spoke out against him, and how they didn't recant their apostasy even when Jeb!, Cruz, and Rubio fell by the way-side.

Re: Got to give myself a little talking to this time.
 

NotBob, that is just plain ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as when you swore that Captain and Tennille was the original riot grrrl band or that Creed "had a lot of elements of punk rock, both in its subversive arrangements and its subtly nihilist lyrics." But plain ridiculous it is. I sentence you to listen to Dr. John's Gris Gris by yourself at midnight in a room lit only by candles. You are welcome in advance.

Re: Got to give myself a little talking to this time.
 

I had some Teelings in Dublin, which I quite enjoyed, and I've started to see it over here. Unfortunately I'm not sure which one it was.

Re: Not Bob Wishes He Was Someone Just a Little More Funky...
 

That statement may be the one thing that could bring about a Slave/Paigow reunion tour...

Re: Anthony works in the grocery store ....
 

One of the best comments I've seen on this so far is that Anthony Weiner's continued existence is proof the Clinton don't have people killed.

I can just see the headline writers at the NY Tabloids knocking off early and going home for the rest of the week. These headlines will write themselves.

Re: Got to give myself a little talking to this time.
 

18 is too smooth, and too expensive. And none of the Macallans are enhanced with ice. Laphroaig Quarter Cask is the whiskey you want if you're seeking premium flavor which is improved with ice or water. But it is a quite peaty, so be warned. (Once you develop a taste for it, however, it's hard to drink anything else.)

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Don't pretend that back to antiquity, every time technology disap0lced a mass amount of workers, there hasn't been an interim period of extreme pain before that same technology created enough jobs to replace to those lost.

Economists, being McScientists and McAntropologists of the most dubious sort, love to cite laws in the absolute, out of context, and without consideration of time. Only a profession so full of shit and so often wrong would offer the argument, "Technology always ultimately creates more jobs!" without noting the process is lengthy and savages those unlucky enough to live through its more extreme instances.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

True. But wages? Not so good: http://www.epi.org/publication/chart...ge-stagnation/

Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for President. Normally, I'd agree apocalyptic results would be outlier possibilities. But... Well, I'm not so quick to take anything off the table anymore. We are living in a bit of a Bizarro Universe.

The population has been growing on Earth for a pretty long period of time. In almost every country, its statistically impossible to state that there are less jobs as a result of tech than there were in years before. Inevitably, sooner or later, more jobs appear as more bodies appear. People tend to find stuff to do. The shitshow that took place during those tech upheavals is the interesting story.
Jesus, man, really? Investment in education? Retraining? These are the most tired salves trotted out by the most uncreative politicians. They're the liberal equivalent of the conservatives' tired argument, "Just lower taxes on business and the job creators will fix everything!" That these "solutions" are still bandied about in the political sphere shows the intellectual stagnation of this country. Or more ominously, the collusion of the two parties to offer nothing more than competing forms of lip service to serious problems.

Re: Not Bob Wishes He Was Someone Just a Little More Funky...
 

And give Chris Robinson a stroke.

Re: Not Bob Wishes He Was Someone Just a Little More Funky...
 

I rent an apartment on the UWS from the Black Crowes road manager. Are they the cool band or are CCs?

Re: Not Bob Wishes He Was Someone Just a Little More Funky...
 

The Counting Crows guy has dreadlocks, which are counterculture, so probably them. Let's freak out a little with some Funkadelic. "Funky Dollar Bill" for the Daily Dose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVSqQ7FcDY

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

There is one and only one sensible solution to what ailes us in politics today.

And, yes, that is it.

Re: Not Bob Wishes He Was Someone Just a Little More Funky...
 

Let the record reflect laughter.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

There was some smashing of the aforementioned looms, but no, I don't think there are any significant historical examples of "extreme pain" in the form of meaningfully lowered living standards for any significant portion of the population.

I mean, it's possible I'm not aware of them, but you'd think something like the "steam engine famine" would be something we'd all know about.

Again, this is a historical observation as much as an economic one. History is simply lacking in examples of technology making the world poorer.

You seem to be thinking about this in a much too static way. As if Day X has level Y of employment and technology, only to be disrupted on Day X+1 with a large shock the needs time to sort out. Instead, there's constant variability in employment and technology and few or no massive shocks. Day X+1 might have three fewer bank tellers than the day before, that one of those people got a different job for the same pay, one took a job with lesser pay and one was unemployed for a bit until they found something else. There are problems to be dealt with there, but no, technology didn't great a great mass of unneeded workers.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This is a fundamentally different observation than "technology is going to leave us with a lot of unneeded workers."

I also saw something today about more recent, short-term data on improving wages, but I didn't look at it closely (Teddy hurt his knee!), and can't put my finger on it right now.

It's much less bizarro when you accept: (1) racists gonna racist and misogynists gonna misogyny, (2) the abject weakness of the rest of the GOP field, (3) the complete failure of the GOP to define themselves as for anything other than "not Obama" and their increasingly unpopular culture war.

Regardless, the rise of populist movements tells us a lot about voter sentiment. It doesn't tell us much about the economy, which no one, much less those voters, really understands.

Yes, you're getting it now.

Do tell.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

True and timely story -- I was dropping some old books off for Podunkville's Our Lady of Perpetual Motion's annual rummage sale yesterday after work, and saw a bunch of CDs for sale. Within mere inches of each other were copies of "Shake Your Moneymaker" and "Recovering the Satellites."

When I saw CDs from Better Than Ezra, Moxy Früvous (!), and the Wallflowers, I realized that someone bit the bullet and finally decided to clear out the old bedroom of their thirtysomething* child.

*Maybe even fortysomething at this point. Yikes.

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

Can I just say, I've laid in extra popcorn for this Mexico trip/immigration speech combo. What could go wrong?

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

Someone who has digital music went all Marie Kondo.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

For Sebby.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

But you're not.

Even a cursory look at the history of debates on "technological unemployment" shows most authorities holding mixed views. It's only in the last 150 years where economists' views conveniently start dovetailing with those of industrialists, who obviously profit from and deflect criticism with the academic consensus, "Technology always employs more than it displaces!"

The theory that severely disruptive technology leads to more jobs should be modified to "Disruptive technological revolutions eventually- after a long period of time during which new jobs develop as a result of them - appear to create more jobs than they initially displace. Most of the initially displaced, however, do not receive these new jobs. In many cases, economies only eclipse initial jobs lost with new jobs gained decades, or perhaps a generation, after the introduction of the disruptive technology." That describes the phenomenon in total, as it should be explained.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

He's been a man of his word. Between this and the feds declaring they will use no more private prisons, I'll happily concede to TM that I was wrong, and I have egg on my face. Obama has been beyond exemplary on this issue, and for this alone he should be ranked among the best Presidents we've had.

This issue is That Big. If we're the kind of people who'd jail our own citizens so cruelly, and let the most vile of predatory industrialists and financiers profit from it, the rest of everything about which we argue is immaterial... A country with that kind of rot in its core should collapse for the better of humanity.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Yikes. You're citing the state of knowledge of 150 years ago as superior to today's? After 150 years of the most rapid technological change in human history? Okay.

And you continue to argue against a straw man. I'm not claiming that technology instantly makes new jobs. I'm saying that your view - that technology has rendered large groups of people useless - is wrong. This is primarily because people find things to do rather than remain idle.

Which is why the problem is stagnant or declining wages - because some of those things aren't a valuable as what people were doing - rather than mass unemployment.

Again, you're talking about technological change as if it happens in a single point in time, and only occasionally. If those thing were true, you'd have a point. But they aren't. New technology isn't adopted instantly and disruptive ones are being invented all the time.

Frankly a better argument for your worldview would be that past technological changes are poor guidance because they happened in a world where labor was a scarce input and thus could be redeployed to other productive use. Maybe today is different, because we've reached a technological threshold at which there are no other productive uses for labor. In other words, this time is different.

I don't happen to think that, but it would at least be a coherent point.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

http://memesvault.com/wp-content/upl...ce-Meme-16.png

https://media.giphy.com/media/5xtDar...dOCc/giphy.gif

http://media.tenor.co/images/d9c2ecd...51ed415ffa/raw

TM

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

Better Than Ezra is one of my least favorite band names. Ever. Time to freak the fuck out with some pre-Go Go-era Experience Unlimited. Back when they were seeking alternate consciousness musical funk-based realities. NotBob, have you listened to Gris Gris at midnight in a room lit only by candles yet? If not, maybe listen to this first, at dusk, in a room that has electric lighting, but nothing too bright or glaring. It will be a good first step for you. The Daily Dose is "Funky Consciousness":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbEk8Tbmzqg

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

Pretty Little Flower is my second least favorite sock name. Ever........................................ 256 tied for first! Haha. Just tricking! Luv ya like a bro!

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

That would make him your 257th least favorite sock name.

TM

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

Details.

I'm toying with making Thursdays into "JB Thursday" on the Daily Dose. Because, well, why the fuck not? Here is the long version of "Soul Power." Sometimes longer versions tend to be a bit self-indulgent, but I never find that with a good James Brown funk jam. Rock to this shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0OJUcxdL24

Re: Ollie wants to be Bob Dylan ...
 

I applaud this! We should all make decisions and pronouncements like this..... While we can. Once Trump takes over .......well

Not amusing
 

In the category of thoughts that aren't fully developed for more more public expression: while a confession in the Jacob Wetterling case confirms horrible things, it also could have been worse. Patty said he was alive to them until they found the remains last week, it's probably better that he was killed shortly after being taken rather than subjected to prolonged abuse.

Re: Not amusing
 

Watching Stranger Things over the three days that this story unfolded was somewhat freaky.

Re: Not amusing
 

Spoiler SPOILER SPOILER














I was very disappointed in that show. Loved it at first, but the resolve was STOOPID!

Re: Not amusing
 

Why?

TM

Re: Not amusing
 

You watched?












Okay, 11 was great and the kids too. And all the drama of the monster and the mystery of the goop in the basement.

But there's this top level government agency apparently doing mind control experiments with at least one gifted person. Are there others, or is 11 unique? I assume there are others, but nothing more about it, or the goals of the program, other than some hints.

But that wasn't my problem. The government had little idea what the monster or the goop was about? They sent their guy in there to find out, but that didn't go well. So this monster, who steals people to be hosts for it's babies, has taken up residence in this otherwise protected lab; but there's no apparent tie to the mind control stuff. At a minimum, say the government hopes to someday harness this monster, at least move the mind control stuff somewhere safer. I mean I didn't see the upside down as anything the government really knew about, or did I miss something?

It just started with "here's a bunch of really weird shit," and the promise of explaining it, but the end was "well that was some really weird shit." Disappointing.

Plus it sucks Will is likely dying.


P.S. just saw there's a season two so maybe they go into stuff more?

Re: Not amusing
 

SPOILER














I thought the upside down was something they discovered through Eleven when they were trying to get her to expand her telepathy to spy on the dude in Russia. Her freak out after her first interaction with the faceless monster was what tore open the hole between the two dimensions.

I don't know exactly, but I got the impression that she broke out of there very shortly after that happened, and the whole series took place over the course of a week or so. The government shifted focus quickly to the upside down as soon as it was discovered, but it wasn't the primary aim of that lab.

And she still had a connection to the upside down place. She knew where Will was in relation to his own world, and she was able to see Barb's corpse without actually GOING there. So if they wanted to study it, going telepathically was infinitely safer (for everyone but her) than sending in idiot volunteers to get slaughtered.