Tuesday, April 28, 2015

LOOTERS.

As you may expect in the wake of the Baltimore riots, on the right it's all ooga-booga all the time. The Mayor of Baltimore said that in giving citizens space to demonstrate, the city had also given "those who wished to destroy space to do that," which to normal people means that if you choose to have a free society, as opposed to a police state, some people will abuse the privilege. To professional bullshit artists like Paul Mirengoff, however, it was evidence that the Mayor was telling rioters to go nuts. Fox's Lou Dobbs said the mayor had "basically have given a free pass to those who are tearing up property," and his guest Keith Ablow responded, "if you want to tear down the system, you might be taking your cues, by the way, from a president who has given the appearance that there is every justification for any level of anger at our country because we're such despicable people." Further proof that ObamaHitler is responsible, from Warner Todd Huston: "Priorities: Obama Sends THREE Reps to Freddie Gray Funeral–Sent ZERO to American Sniper Chris Kyle’s and British PM Thatcher’s Funerals."

At American Thinker, Thomas Lifson decried the "paltry number of arrests" in Baltimore, and quoted his colleague, racial obsessive Colin Flaherty, who said that it didn't matter that crime has gone down in Baltimore, what's important is that "in Baltimore, police will not arrest black criminals" (apparently they were just giving Freddie Gray a lift -- as they've done frequently to others), and the cops, the statisticians, and the media are all siding with their friends the Negroes against persecuted white people:
The idea that crime in Baltimore is going down comes up every time a case of black mob violence hits the local news. Which is pretty much all the time. Everything except that black part, that is, which they leave out.
This, folks, is the modern conservative movement -- a toxic stew of racist paranoia and Nixonian lawn-order. It has nothing to do with that "libertarian moment" PR campaign from last summer, the memory of which gets more grimly funny every month. There's an election coming up and they need to get as many horrified honkies as possible into the van.

Speaking of libertarianism,  here's Robby Soave at libertarian flagship Reason having a rap session with the Baltimoreans:
Violence is violence, and it’s wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.
Fight the power! Next week he'll tell them about the grave injustice of affirmative action and the Civil Rights Act.

190 comments:

  1. petesh10:39 AM

    Reported crime may be gong down, but how many cop crimes are reported?

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  2. M. Krebs10:43 AM

    Why won't this song ever get old?

    https://youtu.be/girnJH7tvpM

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  3. Jon Hendry10:54 AM

    "There's an election coming up and they need to get as many horrified honkies as possible into the van."


    But not the police murder van. A different van.

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  4. BigHank5311:00 AM

    Enough that Baltimore has spent over $13 million in the last four years on (a) defending accused cops, and (b) cash settlements to victims.

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  5. Hey guys, I'm back from Tucson! What did I miss?

    ...Oh, for fu-

    *sigh*

    All right, fellas on the other side of the blogging aisle. I realize that empathy is a lot to ask from you guys, especially when the victim is of a different hue. But in light of what's been happening as of late, I don't know...maybe throttle back on the ooga booga a little?

    Hey, I know. Remember that black Tea Party guy who faked an injury and then started showing up at media events in a wheelchair like he was a shill at a faith healer's show? Remember all that phony outrage you guys mustered over that? Try doing that again. Yeah, I know it's not as much fun without a "because liberals" in there, but something the medicine's a little bitter, you know?

    (Actually, there was a police-related incident near Tucson while I was there - an officer rammed a suspect with his car, and the whole thing was caught on dashcam. And hey, I'm pretty sure the victim in this case was Hispanic, so the brethren can ramble on about "illegals" and alienate another chunk of America)

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  6. Coates makes sense. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/nonviolence-as-compliance/391640/

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  7. Ted the slacker11:26 AM

    Dear Wingnut friends,

    Subject: RAISE your game
    I don't want no pussified ooga-booga, no washed-over dog-whistlin' lawn-order tropes, I want rapture-level, Defcon-1 warnings. Leave no depends unsoiled. We need this:

    http://twitchy.com/2015/04/28/matt-drudge-offers-up-ominous-warning-over-the-baltimoreriots-the-country-could-fall/

    I don't want to soundtoo melodramatic, but it's now only... [takes off shoes - ooh, toe fungus!]... 18 months till the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVAH. Bring the fear, and bring it now.

    Love and Kisses,
    Matt Drudge

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  8. Buffalo Rude11:36 AM

    Violence is violence, and it’s wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.


    2ndAmendmentsaywhat?

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  9. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed.

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  10. J Neo Marvin11:41 AM

    Here we go again.
    https://m.soundcloud.com/earcandleproductions/smells-like-smoke-x-tal

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  11. "Violence is violence, and it’s wrong."

    I'm kind of marveling at how empty that sentence is. It just kind of floats there, above all circumstances and complexities. It's got an echo of some kind of morality in it that places importance on human life, but just a very faint echo.

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  12. M. Krebs11:47 AM

    Bestiality is bestiality and it's wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.

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  13. I'm Gladney you brought that up...

    http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/kenneth-gladneys-supposed-victimhood

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VSjdKAQpeMw/SoNeMOsHa6I/AAAAAAAAGJs/RuMBuDmBA-4/s400/KennethGladney.jpg
    ~

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  14. DN Nation11:48 AM

    "Priorities: Obama Sends THREE Reps to Freddie Gray Funeral–Sent ZERO to American Sniper Chris Kyle’s"



    Perfect distillation of wingnut butthurt, here.

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  15. J Neo Marvin11:51 AM

    Freddie Gray didn't kill enough Muslims to make his life matter, in other words?

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  16. "in Baltimore, police will not arrest black criminals"

    i was chatting with a friend last night while we were watching the milwaukee-chicago playoff game and telling him about this very distinct memory of sitting in class during my first couple of weeks at baltimore city community college back in early 2001 and talking with this really sweet younger kid (I forget his name, but he looked like kevin garnett) who was telling me that he had to be careful when he left in the mornings, because there were days when the police would come into his neighborhood and pick up every young man they saw on the street. That wasn't policing, it's counterinsurgency tactics.

    i remember guffawing and expressing my amazement, but people i talked to after that and things i heard, mostly when i interned with ACORN**, made it clear that that was just how things got done in the city. what's funny is that at the time this was perceived as not being enough, and martin o'malley, who is (maybe?) trying to position himself to the left of hillary clinton, was lauded for bringing in rudolph guiliani's CofP to make things even "better."

    i don't have any contact with B-more now, no friends or anything like that back there, so i can't speak to the situ on the ground, but i can only imagine that things have gotten worse with the amount of gentrification (of both black and poor white neighborhoods---i lived in hampden, a decrepit area of low-slung, mid-50s houses and filled to the brim with white teens on the nod, with my girlfriend for most of my 3 years there, and i remember being blown away that some cake-making show with tattooed hipsters was set a block from our old apartment), and seeing the CofP's comments last night about thugs and parents taking care of their kids, it doesn't seem like things have improved any. but, the CofP is black, so that's progress!



    **remind me to tell you guys sometime about the bratty 23-year-old who interviewed me for a mayors-against-gun-violence position organizing job here in denver about 2 years ago and expressed her dismay over the fact that i worked for ACORN for a summer, and was even so gauche as to list it on my resume. LAUGH. RIOT.

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  17. J Neo Marvin12:00 PM

    Yes. A platitude you can exhibit or ignore at will.

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  18. DocAmazing12:04 PM

    Violence is violence and it's wrong, except in the protection of personal property or in the execution of "freely-entered-upon" contracts. And if the person performing said act of violence feels threatened in his person or property (see above). And if the person perfoming said act of violence believes that he is protecting another's person or property.

    Foundational Libertarian principles: as subject to convenient interpretation as any other part of their Koch Is It! philosophy.

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  19. oh, right---so eat a dick, flaherty.

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  20. "Violence is violence, and it’s wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing."

    And that's as far as it goes, cause once a libertarian has pronounced something a principle, any issues arising from reality are from non conforming to said principle.
    In this case, it's a great tool for lining up behind the status quo, but with great lament in one's heart.

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  21. At the end of the day, the real root problem in dealing with racism in America is the fact that White people don't have even a vague idea what it's like to be Black and subjected to the generalized racism in which our society marinates. Add in being Black, poor, and stuck in the inner city of any major metropolis and you have a world that is simply so far outside the experience of White Americans as to be completely unimaginable.

    If we were even 10% as amazing, exceptional, leading-edge-of-civilization as conservatives claim we are, we'd take ten years worth of Pentagon budgets and use that money to educate our fellow citizens, give them proper housing and healthcare, and ensure them productive and satisfying jobs. Or we could just keep throwing them in jail for being poor.

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  22. Two things about the B'more riots on the plus side: I now REALLY know which of my 'friends' and neighbors are pants-shittingly racist fucks...and parking is now easy in my once working class white, now rich white, dudebro, 4 cars per rowhouse 'hood. Guess they all went back to mama in the county so their Jettas don't get scratched.

    Where's that meme generator?

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  23. Well, that's only for retaliatory violence against the state, which obviously all libertarians are for as they have so clearly demonstrated.

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  24. Should be our national anthem these days.

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  25. no, no--*chris kyle* didn't kill enough muslims to warrant a visit. UP YOUR GAME, GUYS

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  26. Ted the slacker12:16 PM

    It should surprise no-one that TNC is saying what needs to be said.

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  27. tigrismus12:17 PM

    Somebody get those black folks some tricorn hats and Gadsden flags.

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  28. Ellis_Weiner12:24 PM

    Do not attempt.

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  29. The laws must be changed so that those settlements and fines are paid by the police themselves, and not the taxpayers.

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  30. Jay B.12:31 PM

    You so much as say Happy Holidays to these emotionally atonal assholes and they whine about being oppressed — that they have no concept of the grievances that are driving these protests and riots isn't surprising, it's just more proof that white people are the absolute worst.

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  31. LookWhosInTheFreezer12:33 PM

    except in the protection of personal property or in the execution of "freely-entered-upon" contracts.

    Or disciplining his child/wife.

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  32. Marion in Savannah12:35 PM

    Your mileage may vary. Packaged by weight, not volume.

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  33. Gromet12:40 PM

    Ohh, I see. Human dignity is sacred and we are not to hurt each other -- unless a window, pair of sneakers, or forty bucks cash is at stake. Then kill.

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  34. coozledad12:45 PM

    Sent ZERO to American Sniper Chris Kyle’s and British PM Thatcher’s Funerals.

    Indicative of a shortage of pedophilic snuffers in the current government, more than likely. Could have deputized Derbyshire or some bishop from the Boston Diocese.

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  35. yeah but it's the principle of the thing being able to have child porn and an AR-15

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  36. coozledad12:53 PM

    And pretty thin-skinned, for the most rapacious murdering crooks on the planet.

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  37. Greatest idea for performance activism since giant puppets from bread and puppets. This will totally work.

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  38. So is it "mahatma Gandhi was really Ayn Rand or Ayn Rand was really Mahatma Gandhi?

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  39. coozledad1:02 PM

    That's an iconic photograph. The moment tea-party gran sucked the final shred of dignity from Kenny's skull, giving him sub-membership in the brood.

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  40. BigHank531:04 PM

    I had a friend who was rehabbing a row house in Baltimore in the late nineties. She came home one evening to find a homeless teenager with an advanced case of Karposi's sarcoma sitting on her front steps. "Just resting," the kid said, and then she staggered off down the street. The city had the highest rates of IV drug use and HIV in the country.

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  41. b-more could be absolutely, stunningly beautiful at times, but it was also one of the most depressing places i can think of--depressing in that bizarre-and-tremendously-cruel-big city-karposi's-sarcoma-on-your-doorstep-way. i only lived there a few years, but all my weird and scary big city stores come from mobtown.

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  42. petesh1:15 PM

    You think they got them all?

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  43. Fifty fucking yrs. since Watts & the problems are the same, the bullshit from the racists is the same, the "Oh, we have to restore this community & give them hope" bullshit from is just the same, & it will obviously never change.


    Why anyone does anything but try to destroy everything is beyond me at this point.

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  44. I don't know whether to vote this up as a depiction of just how stupid, gullible, and dishonest the Teahadis are, or to vote this down for exactly the same reasons.

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  45. May contain traces of peanuts and other allergens.

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  46. Close cover before striking.

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  47. RogerAiles2:15 PM

    Warner Fred Flintstone fails again:

    "The White House tapped ex-Secretaries of State George Shultz and James A. Baker III to lead the American delegation [to Maggie's funeral], which also includes Barbara Stephenson, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in London, and Louis Susman, former U.S. ambassador to the U.K., according to The Associated Press."

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obama-margaret-thatcher-funeral-90210.html#ixzz3Yd0lPqW3

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  48. Shorter Rightwinger whining: "Look, I really hate that Black guy in the White House, so I'm SURE he didn't send anyone to Thatcher's funeral. And while I know I could look that up with 2 seconds of Google, why spoil my outrage or inform my readers?"

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  49. both. is your mind objectivistly blown?

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  50. Why anyone does anything but try to destroy everything is beyond me at this point.In my case, at least, it's partly spite over the other side having gotten there first.

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  51. Rough estimate: 380 people in these United snakes killed by the po-po in 2015. So far.

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  52. Look, guys, I'm sorry, but if Mr. Gray didn't want his spine severed while in police custody, he shouldn't have run from the cops in the first place.

    [Cut-'n'-pasted from my father-in-law's take on the Walter Scott murder in South Carolina. Some days I wish I were a drinking man.]

    Keith Ablow responded, "if you want to tear down the system, you might
    be taking your cues, by the way, from a president who has given the
    appearance that there is every justification for any level of anger at
    our country because we're such despicable people."Oh, if only, Keith. Because, yes, all of you walking shitfunnels at Fox are utterly despicable people, completely devoid of even a shred of decency; and in my darker, unworthier dreams, you are in fact dragged shrieking from the wreckage of your monstrous democracy-destroying Temple of Lies and torn apart by an impoverished, raging mob that has finally caught on to your con. And yet this over-the-top revenge fantasy is more plausible than any of the rancid shit you've catapaulted at Obama over all these "justified" murders of black people, when not even Luther has come close to using the words you keep putting in the President's mouth. "Given the appearance"? Fuck you with Victor Davis Hanson's purloined chainsaw, Keith.

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  53. Brother Yam2:56 PM

    Second Amendment solutions, anyone?

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  54. GeniusLemur3:46 PM

    "Violence is violence, and it’s wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing."
    Bullshit. The one and only foundational principle of libertarianism is "I get my way." Everything else is just highfalutin gibberish and smokescreen.

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  55. I wish no one had gone to the warmonger asshole's funeral. Except for a designated pisser.
    ~

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  56. BigHank534:18 PM

    Why'd you use a slash instead of a hyphen?

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  57. his guest Keith Ablow

    Well, if we're talking about proof of despicable people...

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  58. LookWhosInTheFreezer4:36 PM

    Some(Peaceful) assembly (by some people) required forbidden.

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  59. There's an election coming up and they need to get as many horrified honkies as possible into the van.

    They're the guys offering you a lift to the candy store, that your Mom warned you about all those years ago.

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  60. Odd how that foundational principle never gets brought out in, say, opposition to Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran/whoever this month.

    Unless it's "blah blah Israel are our masters" and reasonable people start sidling away.

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  61. Or we could just keep throwing them in jail for being poor.

    You've been peeking at the 2016 GOP Presidential platform again, haven't you?

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  62. The mass arrests thing was a standard police tactic - if I remember correctly from my EVIL LEFTIST magazine articles about it, the idea was to control "gang activity" by rounding up as many black kids as possible and entering their particulars into the PD database, so you could "keep an eye on them". Or, more like, so you could just arrest them at any time for the flimsiest of excuses and sock 'em away.

    Which I suppose is in a sick, sick way superior to just shooting them outright. Says something about our country when the mass arrests are the LESSER EVIL.

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  63. Helmut Monotreme4:47 PM

    But it's not racism, because it's never racism. Look how many investment bankers mysteriously died or had their bones mysteriously broken sometime between their arrest for crashing the economy and the police station, or how Cliven Bundy was beaten within an inch of his life for grazing his cattle illegally on federal land and ignoring millions of dollars of fines. Police brutality is totally color blind.

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  64. . It's got an echo of some kind of morality in it that places importance on human life, but just a very faint echo.

    So, typical Libertarianism, then.

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  65. I'd like to see someone do this, seriously.

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  66. Do not taunt Happy Fun Objectivist.

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  67. The death penalty is NEVER wrong.

    It's the only other thing they don't have a problem with the State doing, other than policing Someone Else More Dusky Than I.

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  68. See my quote from Lucy Parsons from the other day.

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  69. But "wahh waahhhh Waco!"

    See, one religious fuckwit shooting back at the security forces is JUST EXACTLY LIKE the dozens of unarmed black guys killed by police, because shut up that's why.

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  70. satch5:11 PM

    "Marana police chief defended Officer Michael Rapiejko's actions in
    February when he drove past another patrol car to strike Mario Miranda Valencia, 36, who was being pursued in connection with numerous crimes across the Tucson area. "Somebody had to take action," Chief Terry Rozema said Wednesday. "We had an officer who saw an opportunity and seized the opportunity to take the suspect out."


    What are the odds that Officer Rapieljko won't even have to pay for the cruiser he destroyed while "taking the suspect out"?

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  71. John Wesley Hardin5:23 PM

    We didn't send a representative to Maggie Thatcher's funeral? We officially missed our chance to bring party hats and buy drinks for all in attendance.

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  72. John Wesley Hardin5:28 PM

    Reality is reality and it's wrong. That's a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.

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  73. Rent Chumbawamba to do "Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead".

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  74. waspuppet5:40 PM

    "... there is every justification for any level of anger at our country because we're such despicable people."

    They only tell the truth when they don't mean to, don't they?

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  75. susanoftexas5:49 PM

    And keg of beer.

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  76. redoubtagain5:54 PM

    I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!


    (From one of their heroes, whether they acknowledge him or not.)

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  77. "Pardon me, Ms. Thatcher; I'm going to pour this wine on your grave, but I need to pass it through my kidneys first..."

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  78. FREE ALL THE ALLIES!

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  79. M. Krebs6:39 PM

    I still wonder if Elvis Costello went to the funeral. Probably not, but it's still fun to imagine.

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  80. HKatz6:41 PM

    Extremism is extremism, and it is wrong, except when it's not.

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  81. M. Krebs6:48 PM

    Low fat and gluten free!

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  82. M. Krebs6:50 PM

    ... and that’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.

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  83. montag26:51 PM

    Obligatory:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGShQsxiy1c

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  84. The white zone is for loading and unloading, only, if you should feel the need to load or unload.

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  85. Jaime Oria6:55 PM

    Professional pundit on (epistemically) closed course.

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  86. And pot. Lots of pot.

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  87. In all seriousness, I really wish she was getting some money from this. It got picked up by someone over at CheezBurger years and years ago and it's become a part of internet society. She deserves much better than this.

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  88. This story is from 2001 but I think it might explain what happened to Gray.


    "Battered cargo: The costs of the police 'nickel ride' In city patrol wagons, suspects slam into walls and slide across the floor. Paying the price are the injured and the taxpayers - not the police." http://articles.philly.com/2001-06-03/news/25322977_1_wagon-police-officer-police-van

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  89. Paying the price are the injured and the taxpayers - not the police

    What, someone's expecting public servants to have some kind of responsibility for their actions? Pffffft. Crazy talk.

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  90. JennOfArk7:12 PM

    She got a book out of it at the very least, and I did my part by buying several copies, one for me and the others as gifts for suitably warped friends and family members.

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  91. montag27:14 PM

    That seems to be the working philosophy of most of them, but particularly of Assrocket.

    "Sounds in character to me. Run with it!"

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  92. JennOfArk7:16 PM

    I love Chumbawamba. They are so seriously underappreciated, probably because their worst song is the only one that was ever a "hit" in these United States.

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  93. JennOfArk7:21 PM

    IF ONLY it was only the rightwingers whistling this tune. See Wolf Blitzer "interviewing" Deray McKesson here, and suggesting, as McKesson rightly points out, that broken windows are somehow more important than broken spines.


    It reminds me of that time during Katrina where all the pundits were sitting around on couches clucking about how awful those looters trapped in a flooded city were, while grandmothers were still drowning in their attics thanks to the utter disregard of people just like those shallow and vapid pundits who were in charge of the government at the time.

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  94. Gromet7:27 PM

    Yes! I have given her book twice as a gift. And I have my own copy, of course.

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  95. M. Krebs7:30 PM

    A lot of lines are being blurred in this, since the divisions are by "media market." For example, much of northern GA is skewed by Atlanta.

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  96. J Neo Marvin7:47 PM

    It's not bad, just overplayed.

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  97. coozledad8:27 PM

    Or Roger Waters.

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  98. montag28:33 PM

    I have the feeling that there was no shortage of designated pissers.

    Even today, I'm betting that hers is the only tombstone in the cemetery wearing a raincoat.

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  99. coozledad8:49 PM

    It was heavily attended by NAMBLA, and Keep Britain White.
    Who the fuck else matters?

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  100. M. Krebs8:58 PM

    Really? Why must you torture me, coozledad? Why?

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  101. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:04 PM

    There's an election coming up and they need to get as many horrified honkies as possible into the van.

    Are you ready for some politics?!
    We got the Klowns in the Car, got the honkies in the van
    The GOP is runnin' for the White House again!



    With absolutely no apologies to Hank Jr...

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  102. god yes the pot. and the ultra violent video games.

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  103. coozledad9:06 PM

    there is every justification for any level of anger at our country



    Oh, like the fuckers who've had an excruciating public shit spray over the clear majority election of someone who was not only not a motherfucking Bush approved Dixie cracklicker, but black as well?


    That justification? That anger?


    It's like Rand Paul claiming the negros raised his son.

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  104. coozledad9:11 PM

    Oh, I'm just guessing. Who else would have gone besides Jim Baker and Father Makenzie?

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  105. M. Krebs9:19 PM

    Ah! So, just Poe's law at work, ladies and gentlemen. Nothing to see here. Please move along.

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  106. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:21 PM

    Lotta nervous laughter in his phone interview with TPM...

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  107. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:23 PM

    All your biases are be wrong, to us...

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  108. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:34 PM

    That echo you hear is the empty space at the end where ",but..." was the last time those words crossed his forebrain. And the next.

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  109. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:36 PM

    Think of it as morality plating. Thin, just a flash...

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  110. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:39 PM

    They'd be arrested on suspicion of...oh, hell, does it matter?

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  111. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:42 PM

    Do not fold, spindle, staple, or mutilate...

    (Remember when you could actually see that at least once a week?)

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  112. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:16 PM

    When the irresistible force of the GOP's love for "personable responsibility" meets head-on the immovable object of their love for lawn order, well...I wanna be in the next county over. In Kansas. In a tornado bunker.

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  113. AGoodQuestion11:02 PM

    Here's what the mayor actually said:

    “I made it very clear that I work with the police and instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech,” Rawlings-Blake said. “It’s a very delicate balancing act. Because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well. And we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate.”



    And here's the funny thing. That part about de-escalating? Mirengoff, Ablow, Lifson and the rest are pretty much just ignoring it. There could be a number of reasons for this, among them their not bothering to learn pinko words like "de-escalate." Or maybe something else. I'll spend a few minutes looking at a picture or Rawlings-Blake and try to figure it out.

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  114. Tehanu11:04 PM

    I asked a Brit friend once about her. He said, "You mean Hitlerina? Attila the Hen?"

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  115. AGoodQuestion11:11 PM

    Maryland was the home of John Wilkes Booth and in general seems to have been the most dubious of the states that fought with the Union. I'm sure the state has made quite a bit of progress. And speaking for myself I had a great time a few years ago staying in Columbia MD and seeing the sights in B-More. But that progress hasn't come evenly and the not-so-good-old-days have left some deep scars.

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  116. AGoodQuestion11:18 PM

    Not to scale.

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  117. AGoodQuestion11:19 PM

    You might want to buy "ultra fair" pancake makeup in bulk too. Just a hunch.

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  118. AGoodQuestion11:28 PM

    I thought the foundational principle of libertarianism was "Whoever dies with the most toys wins," but with cryogenics and the Human Longevity project you might have to add something about the most centuries too.

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  119. JennOfArk11:41 PM

    Seriously. He should be apologizing to us.

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  120. JennOfArk11:45 PM

    Unless they can solve the telomere issue, we won't have to worry about human longevity. Thank god.

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  121. AGoodQuestion11:45 PM

    All my racist friends are coming over tonight.

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  122. GeniusLemur11:48 PM

    Libertarians want the most toys, so if they don't have the most toys, they're not getting their way.

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  123. Violence is violence and it's wrong, except in the protection of
    personal property or in the execution of "freely-entered-upon"
    contracts.

    But not if that contract is a collective bargaining agreement.

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  124. John Wesley Hardin1:22 AM

    You deserve more than my simple upvote for that, so consider mine a proxy for all the millions you should be getting.

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  125. John Wesley Hardin1:25 AM

    You know, we were fine when I thought that said "god bless the pot.

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  126. smut clyde4:44 AM

    The Scottish chose to express their grief at Thatcher's passing through the medium of interpretative dance.

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  127. smut clyde4:52 AM

    The Life Extension Foundation degenerated long ago into an on-line shop for hinky "selenium supplements", while the various cryogenics outfits displayed some inadequacy in the paying-the-power-bill department.

    No-one could have guessed that movements motivated by the ethos of "personal gain is the highest morality" would be taken over by scammers and grifters.

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  128. smut clyde4:54 AM

    It takes a lot to disgrace the profession of psychiatrist, so kudos to Ablow for trying.

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  129. montag26:08 AM

    Geez, black people in whiteface, tricorn hats, breeches and Gadsden flags.

    They could just stand there, doing nothing, and it would be the best guerrilla theater evah.

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  130. Well, yeah. A principle of libertarianism is to collect all the weapons in the world to keep 'em away from those that would use them. Just pile 'em up in a deep hole and bury them away. So peaceful.

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  131. And even that is understating the magnitude. Isn't there a cap of $200k each for these incidents?

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  132. tigrismus8:45 AM

    "Oh my dear Lord, PIRATES!"

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  133. satch9:24 AM

    NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!!! Obama should have gone personally and thrown himself on the coffin as it was being lowered into the ground!

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  134. gleeb9:30 AM

    If you lived a block away from where they made the cake-making show, surely you were living in Remington, not Hampden.

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  135. no--it was on 36th, right? the cake show? we lived on elm. there was an ice cream store on the east corner, and then to the west there was a green chile place.

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  136. Halloween_Jack10:15 AM

    “But at least 15 police officers have been hurt, 200 arrests, 144 vehicle fires — these are statistics,” Blitzer countered, robotically reading a police press release. “There’s no excuse for that kind of violence, right?”

    “Yeah, and there’s no excuse for the seven people that the Baltimore City Police Department has killed in the last year either, right?” McKesson shot back.

    “We’re not making comparisons,” Blitzer stuttered. “Obviously, we don’t want anybody hurt. But I just want to hear you say that there should be peaceful protests, not violent protests in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King.”



    "I want to hear it from your lips: Whitey don't have to pay."

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  137. Halloween_Jack10:21 AM

    Add in being Black, poor, and stuck in the inner city of any major metropolis and you have a world that is simply so far outside the experience of White Americans as to be completely unimaginable.

    Hardly unimaginable, but the ratings were never that great.

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  138. BigHank5310:23 AM

    Objects in mirror may be more fascist than they appear.

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  139. I remember marveling at how all these White coddled TV people were just shocked and outraged that folks trapped in New Orleans without food or water would just break in to stores and steal food and water. Apparently many of the TV people felt that folks trapped in New Orleans should have just manned up and died in the heat, rather than take a bottle of Perrier that they didn't pay for.

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  140. Halloween_Jack10:26 AM

    Ask your doctor (who made up his own professional certification because FREEDUMB) whether Libertaria is right for you.

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  141. BigHank5310:26 AM

    I look forward to the right applying the "Violence is violence, and it’s wrong." credo to ISIS, Iran, and whatever other people get up their noses next.

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  142. BigHank5310:32 AM

    Why do you want to hear that, Mr. Blitzer? Would it be that you would like to hold all black people accountable for the failings of a few? While simultaneously declaring that any failure on the part of whites--like, for example, making sure their delegated representatives of state violence are actually held to the standard of behavior they claim to have sworn an oath to--because from my house, Mr. Blitzer, it sure looks like you're being racist as fuck.

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  143. Even The Wire did not capture what impoverished inner-city African Americans face.

    Consider that we as a society have spent the last 45 years doing our best to arrest as many African Americans as possible while making sure the schools available to these citizens are terrible. We made sure they couldn't get an education, but nearly guaranteed they'd have an arrest record. Which pretty much makes them unemployable. Add in that welfare "reform" bars them from obtaining benefits AND that a felony conviction bars them from voting, and you have three generations of people who have been excluded from the society they're trying to live in.

    Fuck all these "live on food stamps for a month" challenges. You really want to experience something, try being unemployed with no resources, no education, and a criminal record in a part of town where jobs are few and far between. Then get back to me about how America is the land of opportunity.

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  144. Was there more than one cake making teevee show? The one I remember was out of a place on Remington Ave itself. I only saw the show once, anyway, but I know the bakery is still there. I was still living in Midtown in 2004, though, so there may have been another bakery and another show. These things tend to sprout in groups, like shoe stores.
    Holy Frijole's is still there, but the thrift store and the big antique store across the street have gone. Money has come to 36th street, you know.

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  145. jcricket11:05 AM

    "violence is violence, and it's wrong."

    unless of course, it's a Brooks Brothers riot. Then, we give the rioters jobs afterward,

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  146. JennOfArk11:31 AM

    In a very real way, we've extended prison to the outside. People in these communities are treated like inmates are treated by prison guards - ordered around, told where and how they can walk, ordered not to "loiter" on their own front steps. American police forces must have watched Escape from New York as a documentary about the future.

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  147. It's even worse. I saw an interview with a woman whose 8-year-old son almost died from a gunshot wound he received from a stray round that came through a wall of her apartment. She called 9-1-1 and the cops were the first to show up. They proceeded to grill her about gang-bangers and area street crime, looking to find something to take her away for. Meanwhile, her kid was bleeding on the floor.

    "We don't call the cops because the cops don't want to help us, they just want to arrest us."

    Just imagine what the reaction would be if that was the relationship the police had with any White community.

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  148. i only knew the one reality show--said gf pointed it out to me on a return trip in 2003, when she was living downtown, near the gay bookstore. that particular show was in hampden. like, a big heavy dude, and he had tats, and was cake master or something?

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  149. You don't actually want to be in Kansas, though. Maybe Iowa.

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  150. Cake Ace? All I recall is recognizing the neighborhood, and that they used an inordinate amount of fondant.

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  151. no clue, and i'm not going to bother googling it. all i remember is that it made me want to hit.

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  152. Thanks to the GOP presidential field of 2012 and 2016, that's becoming less and less likely.

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  153. Christopher Hazell1:25 PM

    "basically have given a free pass to those who are tearing up property,"

    Well, it seems that folks who tear up human spines get a free pass, so, you know, I guess it's not that surprising.

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  154. PersonaAuGratin1:29 PM

    Dress for the job you want, not the job you've got.

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  155. a big heavy dude, and he had tats, and was cake master or something?That does sound like Ace of Cakes. But Duff Goldman supposedly started Charm City Cakes in Mount Vernon, then moved to Charles Village before ending up on Remington Avenue. And his reality show didn't start until 2006. From this I am forced to infer that dex is a slider from an almost-parallel universe. Quick, dex: Who was Al Gore's vice president during his second term?

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  156. Hey, at least they have a job, amirite?

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  157. I'm sure they use the N word plenty these days in Maine,but maybe no one can understand their accent.

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  158. Wolf Blitzer certainly wasn't acting like a news reporter, and I'm glad you put the word "interviewing" in quotes.


    Blitzer wasn't reporting at all; he was working hard to frame the circumstances a certain way. Deray McKesson did great at pushing back on that, not allowing Wolf to get away with manipulating the way people might look at all of this.

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  159. Interestingly, that song made the Top 10 chart on the week of her passing, due to a sudden spike in sales:

    http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/10/thatcher-death-ding-dong-witch



    (to be fair, it IS a catchy tune...)

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  160. Obama: Lay her in the earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring! ... Hold off the earth awhile 'til I have caught her once more in mine arms.

    (leaps into the grave)

    Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, 'til of this flat a mountain you have made!

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  161. John Wesley Hardin3:55 PM

    And his other hit, "None of My Racist Friends Have Settled Down."

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  162. i'm completely lost. maybe i'm wrong about where this show was shot (i coulda SWORE it was hampden).

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  163. The death penalty is NEVER wrong.

    "The police don't arrest innocent people."
    Attorney General Edwin Meese

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  164. Word.


    I cannot improve upon your statement, except to add the fact of 80 years of Jim Crow, which ensured that black Americans would have little to no access to decent education, political representation or economic opportunity.


    Wait! That's what you were saying is happening today.


    Funny 'bout dat.

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  165. Der Woflie isn't the fastest tractor on the farm.

    I think my favourite Blitzer Spitzer is still this little gem.



    And do you notice any similarity between this and the McKesson intvu? Yep, like every great journo in the history of newsgathering, Der Wolfie tries to put his words in the mouths of his interviewees.


    What a fucking clown.

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  166. He couldn't jump in because Reagan was already there.

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  167. Kind of old timey, but Blitzer did the same thing in his report on the Iraq War protests on the big day back in February 2003. 10 million people in the streets around the world and Wolf spent more time talking about the 200 people arrested for vandalism in NYC than he did about the marchers themselves. I could not believe my eyes.

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  168. Why would anyone google the word, I wonder?

    Perhaps someone who doesn't speak much English who genuinely wonders what the word means might google it, I guess. I can see people running across a variant of the word in pop culture googling it for clarification (and probably winding up on Urban Dictionary.)

    It seems to me that racists know full well what the word means. Maybe I'm missing the point somehow, but honestly, how does the "Google search volume for the N-word" measure which places in America are the most racist?

    I read the Washington Post article, and even the study they reference,
    http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122963

    but I'm still not getting it.

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  169. JennOfArk6:10 PM

    I remember what CNN's focus was that day: they ran a special report on "what reporters are doing to get into shape for covering the war in Iraq." Their reporting on the protests took up about 20 seconds of "reporting" - that entire day.

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  170. billcinsd7:13 PM

    How many Muslims are worth the life of one Americans slain by the state?

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  171. billcinsd7:22 PM

    or Crispus Attucks

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  172. billcinsd7:58 PM

    or gilding the Eli Lilly

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  173. I think "clown" is being too generous. Blitzer is far and away the stupidest man on television. Others may act stupid; some actors portray stupid: Blitzer is genuine stupid.

    I would not be surprised to discover that CNN provide Blitzer with a golf cart and driver to ferry him around the studios because he keeps getting lost and trying to broadcast from the supply closet down in maintenance.

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  174. realinterrobang9:05 PM

    A good friend of mine owns a row house in a bad-ish part of Baltimore. That neighbourhood is a lot better now than it used to be; when I first got to know him, I used to hear gunshots in the background of our phone conversations on the semi-regular. Now, I never do.

    That said, with his being visibly genderqueer and not white enough (not black, but looks like Osama bin Laden's stunt double), he's had some interactions with the Baltimore police that have given me grey hairs at second hand. No beatings, but he has been arrested for essentially "contempt of cop" once IIRC, and threatened with arrest several times, for doing nothing illegal. (For example, once he was sitting on his own front porch while some cops were harassing his next-door neighbour, and they told him to go home, and when he said he was home, they threatened to arrest him.)

    Not only that, but they mostly don't even bother to show up in his neighbourhood even when something serious happens. He called 911 to report a home invasion (which he thwarted with a sword). The cops showed up the next day, and were basically like, "Yeah? So? What do you want us to do?"

    So it isn't even just black folks. You just have to be poor and/or live in the wrong place, and/or look slightly the wrong way, or some combination of all three. Hell, I'm a middle-aged blue-eyed pasty white woman, and if I lived in Baltimore, I'd be wary as hell of the cops. I've had very little but bad interactions with the cops locally, and their reputations aren't nearly as self-sullied as the Baltimore police's.

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  175. realinterrobang9:11 PM

    If you smoke blessed pot, do you get extra high?

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  176. realinterrobang9:13 PM

    I want to take all the pills with this comment.

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  177. realinterrobang9:16 PM

    Hell, most of those white coddled tv people didn't even admit that any of those people were actually trapped, because like everyone has a car and can just pick up and leave whenever they want to, right?

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  178. realinterrobang9:18 PM

    So did I, because the option of targeted lawn maintenance wasn't available.

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  179. Regardless of race, or even economic status, there are all sorts of reasons why people can't or won't evacuate before a storm.
    For decades, anyone with a pet could not go to a public shelter--so the no pets rule prevented thousands of people from evacuating.
    Some folks have disabled persons to care for who can't be moved.
    Some folks are emotionally incapable of leaving their possessions behind.
    And, of course, some folks just can't afford to get away--no car, no money for transport, no relatives to get a lift from.

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  180. billcinsd9:51 PM

    Much of the upper middle west has no black people, so not much active racism. If you searched for whatever the primary term of racial hatred of Native Americans, however, we'd be #1

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  181. AGoodQuestion11:34 PM

    I think "clown" is being too generous.
    He could never figure out how clown cars work.

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  182. AGoodQuestion11:40 PM

    I've done Google searches on the contexts in which people were using it. Got to be too depressing, though, so I stopped.

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  183. Does the book include the story of How Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas? Because then my own Christmas shopping will be done in one fell swoop.

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  184. The media could've stopped that fucking invasion if they'd wanted to. Talk about your "accountability" and your "personal responsibility."

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  185. Halloween_Jack10:14 AM

    Escape from New York seemed oddly plausible at the time, if you had a really shallow grasp of the social sciences--major crime, particularly in urban areas, was going up, and it was one of those science fiction stories that took a particular trend and asked what the world would be like if it continued ad infinitum. (See also Logan's Run, which was originally predicated on the baby boom continuing indefinitely with an ever-more-youthful population simply outlawing old people eventually.) That the crime trend eventually reversed--which has been plausibly attributed to getting rid of lead in paint and gasoline--makes no difference to the lawn-order folks, though, who insist that it was their policies that made the difference and that they need increasing amounts of military gear and decreasing amounts of oversight lest the Bad Old Days come back.

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  186. disqus_T5V0xsvCzj10:31 AM

    M&M peanut package says "MAY contain nuts" MAY?

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