Jun 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Endgame
New week, new nonsense to explore:
— VDH thinks Obama is “more at ease with virulent anti-Westerners” than with decent folk.
— Andy McCarthy thinks Obama secretly wants tyranny to prevail in Iran but is restraining himself because “It would have been political suicide to issue a statement supportive of the mullahs.”
— Kit Bond thinks banks provide “too much information” so there’s no need for consumer protection.
— What happens when New America Foundation scholars stop being polite and start getting real.
Your song of the day is the surprisingly upbeat “Catastrophe”.
39 Responses to “Endgame”
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June 22nd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Rainer Maria always reminds me of Superchunk circa 1993. Only with more women.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
- Why is every TP post so full of holes? Seriously, nearly every single post there is incredibly bad, whether they’re concentrating on minor issues, playing the role of TomParson’s kids, smearing, misleading, engaging in LogicalFallacies, or just plain lying. Surely, MattY knows what I’m talking about, right? Right?
- Here’s a list of some of the “arguments” that hacks like MattY use. In fact, everything BHO says about that issue uses those like a small set of Legos.
- A couple days ago, MattY promoted yet another Weigel article about the BHO cert issue. Maybe he could ask Weigel why he hasn’t simply picked up the phone and confirmed his assumptions as I’ve challenged him to do several times. When someone points out to a reporter that their assumptions are wrong, it’s incumbent on that reporter to either confirm their assumptions or print a retraction. Yet, Weigel can’t even make a simple phone call. How many phone calls have you the reader made so far today? It’s not difficult, is it? Yet, Weigel just can’t do it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Why is Lonewacko so desperate to whore his shitty racist blog in the first comments of every Endgame post? Is it for the same reason that he’s never actually asked a hard question of a public official and put the answer on YouTube?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
1) Speaking of “Catastrophe”, here’s Spam du Jour from my Inbox:
“Dear Newsmax Reader:
Dick Morris’ new book ‘Catastrophe’ hasn’t even been officially released — that happens Tuesday — but it is already exploding on the best-seller lists.
Our e-mail about this book, which rips the lid off of Obama’s plans to radically change America and socialize our healthcare system, brought in a record number of book orders for our incredible offers.
Though Dick Morris’ book is already in on the Amazon best-selling list, and it hasn’t been released yet — Newsmax has two incredible offers for you that are even better deals than Amazon can offer!
Just pick one of two options:
1. Get ‘Catastrophe’ for just $9.95 — save $17 — Click Here (current and former Newsmax magazine subscribers are not eligible for this offer) or ”
2) Question 1: If Morris’s book hasn’t been released yet, how can it be exploding on the best seller lists? Also, why are they discounting it around 63 percent before it is even released it is is such a hot seller?
3) Question2: Is book writing just a new form of money laundering — in which billionaires buy propaganda by buying up huge stacks of books –that would never get sold otherwise– in order to inflate a pundit’s rep and message? Even if the books are destined to be pulped and recycled?
4) Question3: Is Dick Morris still working for Bill and Hillary Clinton? Or is he now worshipping strange gods?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:27 pm
PS The Title of the Morris book is not as Terse as I thought — it’s full Title is “How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests Are Transforming a Slump into a Crash, Freedom into Socialism, and a Disaster into a Catastrophe …and How to Fight Back”
Just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? See if the saleperson at Borders blinks when you rattle it off three times.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Also, you may want to work on that High Speed Train concept, Matthew. Something tells me there’s a few bugs in the system:
“WASHINGTON – The mayor of Washington, D.C., says four people are dead after a collision between two transit trains. Mayor Adrian Fenty says that would make it the deadliest accident in the history of the Metro train system. According to an emergency rescue official, two other people have life-threatening injuries, and 70 people in all were hurt.
The collision took place at around 5 p.m., EDT, near the border between Washington and its Maryland suburbs.”
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Don, and how many people died in cars the same day?
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:35 pm
On average, 90. Give or take.
If he was good with numbers and able to think rationally, he wouldn’t be a conservative.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
My solution for universal health care. Have the federal government take over all the emergency room operations in the US from the States.
This idea has a number of very nice properties. Number one it gives the socialized medical core something to do. It removes a huge cost off the backs of the states. Equalizes the immigrant health subsidy costs, and get Congress direct access to what ails its citizens.
Forces Congress to Triage, and from that Congress learns how to structure health mandates to the States that create efficient clinics. It moves the country to the position where basic medical services are clinics, and the private docs can find profit in the seams and extras. Efficient.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
No comment from Matt about the English Only conference with the misspelled banner? Hmmm, I wonder why that is.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
No comment from Matt about my ginormous cock? I mean, really huge. No wonder he feels the need to dodge the subject.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Re Fencedude at 7: “Don, and how many people died in cars the same day?”
———-
Irrelevant. They don’t usually televise car wrecks prominently on the nightly news, people know there are hundreds of millions of cars out there and people assume it won’t happen to them because they are in control and they are such good drivers.
Trains require HUGE public investment. The QUICKEST way to kill that idea is to have a few more trainwrecks like today’s. It’s the same reason that Airlines go to great lengths to avoid plane crashes.
People have to put their trust in pilots — and if they think that trust is not justified they will start moving to alternatives. It doesn’t take much politically to ..er. run mass transit initiatives off the rails and into the weeds.
Big Oil and its Congressional whores don’t like mass transit,for obvious reasons.
Which is why this crash needs a thorough investigation.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
While Matthew has been discussing various trivialities the past few weeks, the Republicans have been running a subterranean campaign to undermine Obama. I’ve gotten some Robo-calls (my wife is registered Independent) with the usual hogwash. Blaming Obama for THEIR mismanagement of the financial sector. Robocalls are kinda unusual 16 months out from an election.
I keep telling you guys — the Democrats and Obama are making a HUGE mistake trying to play nice with these fuckers. Obama should have used his Presidential soapbox to kick the living shit out of the Republicans for causing this mess — and kept at it until Tim Delay et al were lynched by howling mobs.
Instead, the Republicans have been allowed to escape ACCOUNTABILITY for their past deeds, their credibility has been left partially intact ( among the morons who make up roughly 50 percent of the electorate ) and the Republican major donors are funding a nasty propaganda blitz. Said blitz would not work if the Republicans had been discredited.
I fucking told you so.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
You say this like they didn’t go to great lengths to avoid this crash.
Four people died in a train crash, which sucks, but…thats actually pretty impressive. Two trains collide, and only four people are killed? Thats better than what generally happens in aviation when things go tits-up.
June 22nd, 2009 at 9:33 pm
…”thinks?”
Did you look at the names you were typing?
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 pm
“Liberals” who like Atrios will get an especial kick out of this post from over five years ago.
P.S. Here’s some good advice: you’re never anonymous on the internet. Write everything like, one day or another, it’s going to be the #1 search result for your real name in Google.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
McCarthy (?!) makes clear that Obama is so disposed to tyranny because his (Obama’s) political philosophy and upbringing are based in Stalinism. Really. He writes that.
National Review has never been much of an intellectual stimulus, but i just can’t put my finger on when it started this horrible slide. it is now what Glenn Beck would be if he could compose compound sentences.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Andy McCarthy. What a d-bag.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Oh, LW’s recycling old bullshit. The fact remains that the Lonewacko Ask Hard Questions For YouTube Project is a job that Lonewacko can not (or will not) do.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
“Liberals” who like Atrios will get an especial kick out of this post from over five years ago.
Yes, a post in which… you ask Sidney Blumenthal if he’s atrios. He denies it. Wow, you really got him there.
You know, sometimes I wonder what’s going through your head. The rest of the time I either ignore you or laugh. You make me feel better about myself.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Re Fencedude at 14: “Thats better than what generally happens in aviation when things go tits-up.”
——-
Uh ..apples and oranges. Compare what happens to an airplane if it comes to a dead stop vice what happens to a train.
Human beings make mistakes but
I would have thought rail control systems would have been computerized by now — so that an alarm would be automatically triggered if two trains are projected to occupy the same space.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 am
As far as songs go, these two keep running through my head in the last week.
Sharon Corr – Dream Of You – Isle Of Wight Festival (with longtime Corrs musicians Anto Drennan on lead guitar and Jason Duffy on drums)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOG8WqhwK10
Sharon Corr – Ears Painted On – Isle Of Wight Festival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7jQ3jdFfRY&feature=related
I’m really looking forward to Sharon’s new album to be released in coming months.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:22 am
Andrew McCarthy may be my favorite example of what happens to many of the people who are totally emersed in the right wing echo chamber. He just keeps going farther and farther around the bend.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 am
It’s worth noting that this is only the second time an accident on the Metro has resulted in a fatality. And it’s not like the DC Metro is the crown jewel of America’s public transportation infrastructure, so I’d say that reflects pretty well on trains overall.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 am
And it’s not like the DC Metro is the crown jewel of America’s public transportation infrastructure
What would that be, exactly? Metro has its problems, but there aren’t too many serious competitors. New York is obviously better in terms of coverage, but it’s also much older and more unpleasant to use. The same is more or less true for the other major systems, like Chicago and Boston. What is the “crown jewel of America’s public transportation infrastructure?”
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:19 am
Trains require HUGE public investment. The QUICKEST way to kill that idea is to have a few more trainwrecks like today’s.
That isn’t untrue, but it is worth noting that the voters of Los Angeles County passed Measure R, a sales tax increase largely for mass transit, with more than 2/3 of the vote less than two months after the Chatsworth Metrolink collision killed 26 people. Voters statewide also passed (by a majority vote) a nearly $10 billion bond for high speed rail on the same day.
So it’s good to know that people don’t let their fears carry them away, and instead actually realize that train wrecks like this, while tragic, are ultimately pretty rare events.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:39 am
I also think Metro counts as one of our local public transportation “crown jewels” (maybe not the only one, but high on the list at least). And this accident doesn’t change my view.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 am
What is the “crown jewel of America’s public transportation infrastructure?”
Fucking New York, obviously. As Disco-Swanky as the DC Metro and BART are, they’re glorified commuter rail lines. Yes it’s crowded and dirty. Yes it smells. That’s what motherfucking democracy smells like.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 am
Disco-swanky?
Two-thirds of the people who work in DC live outside DC. The city needs glorified commuter rail lines, and plenty of them. More of them, really.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 am
Just so everyone knows, LoneWackOff censors comments over at his CrapWebSite.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:53 am
This news article notes that a surge of commuter train wrecks have occurred in the past several months, after 18 years of a major DECLINE (30 percent) in train accidents per mile traveled:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090623/ap_on_re_us/us_dc_metro_train_derailment_trend
In the two prior major accidents, conductors were texting on their cell phones when the accident occurred. I would send the assholes up the river for about 10 years if I was on the jury.
But these accidents occurred on relatively SLOW commuter trains — imagine the carnage if the trains had been traveling 150 MPH.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:56 am
Airline pilots are subjected to rigorous qualification testing , have years –sometimes decades — of experience flying, and are often products of the military’s highly disciplined programs.
Trains, in contrast, appeared to be driven by guys who washed out of Burger King.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:12 am
But these accidents occurred on relatively SLOW commuter trains — imagine the carnage if the trains had been traveling 150 MPH.
Indeed. And as we know, 150 MPH trains will frequently be stopped just outside stations waiting for the 150 MPH train in front to pull out as yet another 150 MPH train is approaching from behind. Because HSR is going to be just like Metro, except everything will be moving much, much faster. Scary!
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:26 am
Re DTM at 33: “Because HSR is going to be just like Metro, except everything will be moving much, much faster. Scary!”
————-
1) Well, In the sense of likely being operated by erratic fuckups, probably “just like Metro”.
Of course, Metro has reasonable control of its rails. High Speed Train likely will not. If we can’t secure our southern border, how will we secure HST rails?
2) Anyone remember that Amtrak train that made the classical dismount out in Arizona during Bill Clinton’s administration?
Last I heard, they never found the fucker responsible for that op.
From http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=14688
“At 1:23 a.m., the desert stillness was broken by a grinding crash as engines jumped the tracks. With a sickening scream of torn metal, both engines and eight cars left the rails, some of them toppling down an embankment. Mitchell Bates, a porter, was killed. Seventy-eight people were injured, a dozen seriously.
The Sunset Limited had been sabotaged for maximum damage. Those responsible pulled 29 spikes that held the tracks in place. They used jumper cables to reconnect wires so that a red-light warning system failed.
…”Operation Splitrail,” as it became known, was the nation’s second-largest terrorism probe to its time, behind the Oklahoma City bombing.
Janet Napolitano, then U.S. attorney for Arizona, declared: “It may be a day; it may be a week; it may be a month. But we will be successful.”
Ten years later, the case remains unsolved. But FBI Special Agent Scott McKee has not given up.”
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 am
Anyone remember that Amtrak train that made the classical dismount out in Arizona during Bill Clinton’s administration?
No, actually. What does that tell you?
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:40 am
By the way, maybe Don’s goal is just to demonstrate how pathetic any attempt to scaremonger with respect to trains is likely to end up being. If so, he is doing a great job.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:47 am
I’m confused. Isn’t Mixner responsible for transportation trolling? Did somebody nix Mixner?
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Yup.
Somebody sure did.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
It was an epic struggle. Everytime one of his sock-puppets was slain 2 would arise to take it’s place. We called upon our charioteer to cauterize the wounds with his torch as each puppet was hacked asunder and that put an end to him.