Hello everyone, I hope all is well.
The wife and I decided to stay one more day for a last family event here in Idaho. We’re getting ready to head out soon, but it’s a 6 hour drive.
Several people suggested I create an open thread so you can post in the comments about a topic of your choosing.
A great idea.
So here’s your thread. I’ll see you bright and early on Thursday, and my apologies for being away so long.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:48 PM
Here, I will kick this off. Did you know that Washington State has an official state muffin? Any guesses what it is?
October 7th, 2009 at 4:27 PM
It’s the blueberry muffin and Tim Eyman is the States official horse’s ass
October 7th, 2009 at 5:17 PM
Have you seen LightNotHeat’s irreverant conspiracy theory re: what she/he calls the BIAW4, or MEFIRST4 (knutzen, luke, kershner, teigrob in comments to the letter “Wants new blood on County Council” (a pretty gory image, that . . ). Basic idea is that the 4 were brainwashed long ago by futurewise masters, don’t even know this themselves . . .
I think it’s pretty funny, but then I have a rather twisted sense of humor. Which helps these days.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:35 PM
A big no-prize for you, Steve, well-done!
October 7th, 2009 at 5:37 PM
We have a number of aspiring disinformation artists posting comments on Herald articles. In fact, I just posted a blog on the topic.
P.S. Sam, drive safe! We look forward to having you home again!
October 7th, 2009 at 5:38 PM
Hey, Good News!
You won’t read it in The Herald,
but our old allies,
The Taliban,
have assured The West that they mean us no harm!
We win!
So let’s pack up the MREs and get the hello outta that place.
What are we waiting for?
October 7th, 2009 at 7:59 PM
Afghanistan is a complicated issue. There are regional, ethnic and political rifts there dating back hundreds of years. I don’t fault Obama for taking his time, working with both Military and Civilian experts to come up with a feasible plan.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:29 PM
Thanks, Sam. Good idea. I’ll submit a topic and hope it sparks genuine discussion:
A right wing poster with screen name “John Galt” said Gregoire owed her election to the efforts of ACORN. I challenged him to cite his “source(s)” and he cut and ran instead. A few days later he surfaced on another thread. Again I challenged him; again he ran away. The same thing happened again this week.
A person using the screen name “MIss Odie” accused McShane his wife and others of what would have been shameful behavior at the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum. The only problem: it was all a lie, as shown by comments from several people who were there, including ST.
So my (serious) question is: why do right wingers routinely post outrageous lies, then run and hide? Do they poke their heads out of their Echo Chamber (Faux News, KGMI, etc etc etc) just long enough to lob a lie into the reality based world and hope it sticks?
October 7th, 2009 at 8:55 PM
Why do they do it? Because it works. They’ve learned at the feet of the masters of deception –Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly, et al.
Bill O’Reilly has admitted, “Conservative people tend to see the world in black and white terms, good and evil. Liberals see in grays. In any talk format, you have to pound home a strong point of view. If you’re not providing controversy and excitement, people won’t listen, or watch.”
People on the right are far more organized and focused on delivering a consistent message, even if it means harping away, pounding home ridiculous ideas. They don’t care if it’s true or not. They are perfectly willing to assist their enablers (the radio yakkers) to treat an unexamined piece of “information” as the truth until it is pounded into the American consciousness as THE TRUTH.
Critical thinking is not taught in the schools any longer.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:26 PM
AFY; QQQQ and other cut & run hyper-simplist purveyers of logic- and fact- impaired incoherent ramblings waste bandwidth. Even more annoying is their ppompous insistance that anything they believe or say is, by definition, true — and that anyone who doesn’t agree with their (unsupported) beliefs/statements isn’t very smart and a ‘futurewise puppet’ of dubious origins.
Ask them to explain their viewpoint — or even DESCRIBE it in detail, watch ‘em run and pop up later under another cowardly anonymous tag. Mark Twain had them nailed: “Drunk on the smell of their own corks”
I stopped commenting, mostly, because it became clear that the cut-and-runners were just wasting my time & energy. There are far more useful games to play than whack-a-mole. Still, I’m glad some folks are hanging in there responding and calling folks on nonsense. Ignoring these folks does NOT make them go away, unfortunately.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Check out “The Century of the Self” (youtube, netflix) if you want a really good, hard look at how we got where we are. Combined with books like The End of Overeating (same story, but in the context of our food habits), the “Century” documentary proved really eye-opening for me. I highly recommend this nonpartisan look at the modern origins and effects of propagandizing in America.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:49 PM
Good question BhamBill - it does work. For example the ’story’ going around that the county is enforcing against farmers on the critical areas ordinance farm plans. The CAO has been around for years, this is all nothing new. There’s been perhaps one farmer who was fined because the cows were in the creek year after year after year. But that’s not how the story goes for those using it as an organizing tool in the elections.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:11 PM
What makes me sad is that there are some very good, thoughtful and articulate Conservatives out there. Brilliant people whom have different ideas than me about the role of government in our county, commerce and community life. Unfortunately, I feel they are being shouted down by those that value volume over veracity.
Here is where I’m going to loose a few people.
I miss Condoleezza Rice. I don’t miss her being in power, but she very effective at laying out the intellectual framework for a Conservative view on foreign policy. I disagreed with her, but she never resorted to screaming people she disagreed with and always countered with sharp and mostly factual assertions. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) comes to mind for someone who is still in office who has similar sensibilities.
Perhaps some of you people who are a little more advanced in years can come up with some better examples. There are effective and good Conservatives, we just need them to reclaim the microphone.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:51 AM
caroline wrote, “People on the right are far more organized and focused on delivering a consistent message, even if it means harping away, pounding home ridiculous ideas.”
I finally watched the September 30 county council candidates’ forum on the BTV10 website, and I’d like to know who coached the conservative challengers and helped them write all of the prepared statements they read. Almost without exception, their 30 second questions and other remarks were well-crafted attacks loaded with spiteful sound-bites and dubious assumptions.
Given the common themes and tone of these statements, I suspect persons associated with the BIA helped produce these malicious diatribes.
October 8th, 2009 at 7:56 AM
“Perhaps some of you people who are a little more advanced in years can come up with some better examples. There are effective and good Conservatives, we just need them to reclaim the microphone.”
Riley, I agree. I seldom if ever agreed with Condi, but I always respected her thoughtful civility. But she was overwhelmed in the Bu$h White House by the black/white, them/us, strong arm tactics of Cheney, Rove & Co.
There was a time when the GOP produced some sane leaders. Everett Dirksen, Edward Brooke, Charles Percy come to mind. When I lived in NYC years ago I voted for Republicans John Lindsay for mayor and Nelson Rockefeller for governor. But sad to say those kinds of conservatives have been driven out of the party by the extremists now in charge - as Paul Krugman so aptly put it, “13 year old brats.”
I sincerely wish the GOP would rebuild itself with leaders of integrity as it once was. We need a two party system (maybe three?)
October 8th, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Condi Rice is an intellectual?
Must be talking about a different Dr. Rice than the one that chorused adherence to Bush and Cheney’s simplism.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:04 AM
Someone tell me if I am getting my facts correct.
If the current Medical Insurance Reform bill passes, the practical effect is that if I do not have medical insurance, then I will be forced to purchase this insurance from the select few that are licensed in Washington State. If I cannot afford the insurance, then the government will fine me (not a tax), so that I will have less money to purchase insurance with, which I could not afford in the first place.
There are a lot of issues surrounding this debate, but I am only interested in whether this is the factual situation.
Am I being forced to buy insurance, from the insurance companies which were labled evil by the President?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:09 AM
The strategy to post a political lie is simple. Repeat a false statement about an opponent’s positions, statements or actions. Repeat again, and again and again.
The very assertion of the falsehood puts the target on the defensive. If the candidate ignores the false accusation, it gains traction. If he disputes the lie, he dignifies it, giving it greater publicity, and sounds suspicious; if he calls the lie an lie, he comes across as accusatory and mean-sprited.”
If a member of the community speaks out against false information, the disinformation artists attack the credibility of the individual posting the truth. It’s a never ending vicious cycle.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:34 AM
Elisabeth,
I am only asking a polite question.
Are my facts correct?
I did not post a lie. I only asked a question.
Please, please, please correct me if I am wrong.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:22 PM
Yes, Condi Rice is an intellectual. She is an expert on Russian-American relations and quite thorough in her arguments. Yes, she was one of the cheerleaders for the Iraq war, something I vehemently oppose. However, she argued for it without screaming, using logic as opposed to sheer emotional appeals. Its something I respect, even if I disagree with it.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:41 PM
Todd2 - it’s hard to know who’s coached the conservative candidates but its clear someone has. They seem to have been trained together. Information like that is usually listed as an expenditure in the PDC forms so everyone knows who’s doing what. Could be the property rights group out of King County that appears to be setting up a chapter here.
I think you’re right the BIA is somehow involved. There’s always money at stake when some people want to develop land.
But whoever coached them favored an ugly tone with little substance.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:50 PM
On another topics, I went to Google Maps today and they now show parcel boundaries. This is as awesome as when they added terrain and contour maps.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:10 PM
No intellectual would allow the wholesale bastardization of all they purported to study simply to fit into a preordained political ideology.
Which is exactly what Condi Rice did for eight years.