A new Rasmussen poll reveals that 58% of people polled would like to see Flight 253 bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tortured for information. It is not just an indictment of our values but another byproduct of President Obama’s blocking of any independent investigation and prosecution of torture under the Bush Administration. By protecting Bush officials, Obama is reinforcing their argument that such measures are merely controversial and not crimes.
The poll asked individuals: “Should waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques be used to gain information from the suspected bomber?” The result was 58% yes, to only 30% who said no. I was asked the same question during this segment of The Situation Room.
What is astonishing is that this poll occurred virtually as people were leaving for churches and synagogues to celebrate the holidays. I guess that walking on water thing was just a prelude to waterboarding the Pharisees.
For the full story, click here.
BTW, I do an outstanding gorilla impersonation. Spent a lot of time at the zoo as a kid with my dad.
“When caught, the racist will always deny the intent.” Isn’t that cute. The psychotic, er, psychic troll thinks he’s laid a trap. It’s a box propped up with a stick and a carrot under it. Duh . . . where does that sting lead to? Please.
More amateur night argument.
You think it’s racist to use monkeys as analogy? No. It’s accurate. Monkeys and chimps are our closest relatives. It’s not a black thing. Being a monkey isn’t about skin color. It’s about human behavior. You could be plaid and still be a propaganda monkey dancing away for your corporate masters. Every one acts like a monkey sometime. EVERYONE. We are a poo flinging, misbehaving species. Unless you think me calling Bush Chimp Boy is racist (because he looks like a monkey being shown a card trick and has thrown feces on the Constitution). In which case, you’d just be, duh, stupid.
Here is what a REAL racist would say when caught:
“Fuck you, Nigger.”
Yep. It’s that simple. When I was a bouncer down here? I stopped a dozen fights that were started with that very sentence. Were I a racist? That’s how I’d start.
I should know. I’m in a state full of the color BLINDED morons and I grew up around them too. I have relatives incapable of speaking about blacks without using the word. If I wanted to call him a nigger I would. But I don’t. Because I’m not a racist. And if I were? I don’t pull punches on ANYTHING else. Why would I pull punches if I were racist? Hmm? See, I own what I am. If I were racist? I’d go all out, genius. Unlike bdadupe. Who won’t own his own evil.
And while were on the topic of color – I no more believe bdaman is black than I believe Cheney is a patriot. The only thing that interests me about bdaman is that he’s 100% evil puppet. And he dances for his masters just like a trained monkey. His postings over time belie that he is black and I’m not the only one here who thinks he’s a white male, 35-45 years of age, educated – just not very well, Roman Catholic and on a payroll. The psychological professional here even agrees with most of that profile. His little spiel confirms that analysis.
Isn’t that right, Wayne? Got your ass kicked and then come back with some wild story about what a good time you’re having . . .
Pattern analysis isn’t your strong suit either.
If you have a problem with organ grinders or trained monkeys being used to describe the relationship between a troll and his masters?
That’s your problem bdaduh.
Again, English isn’t your strong suit.
Contrast with making entire posts in Amos and Andy speak and calling people Christ Killer. Which is both racist and bigoted. Which bdaman is. And a confessed troll. Accuracy is a bitch, ain’t it?
And what does a confessed troll do when caught?
Try to distract.
With an argument that anyone who knows me knows is ridiculous. I’ve said and demonstrated on more than one occasion that I find race, gender and sexual orientation one of the least interesting AND least pertinent facts about a person. I judge people by the content of their character as my grandfather taught me. A lesson he learned in blood during WWII.
And badtroll only has bad character. He even wallows in it.
So he can still dance, monkey, dance.
If that, duh, offends you? Too damn bad. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again.
You need a better trap than that. I’ve seen every Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Duh:
Buddha is not racist in any form or fashion, he does call them as he sees them. He has no bones with any man because of skin color, but he will call anyone out if he thinks they are wrong.
Buddha:
personally, if my trees were going to save people, I would sell them for the market value prior to the pandemic. I think it would be bad form to take advantage of a situation like that.
However if the tree enzyme was discovered before the pandemic was on the horizon and the market price had risen 4 or 5 times, I would sell them for market value.
I would not raise the price. Although there is evidence to suggest that when high prices are charged in an emergency more goods and services are delivered to the disaster sights faster because of the higher prices that are charged.
Goods and services that would have been used by the portion of the population not affected are redirected to the disaster area because of the opportunity to make more money. You can make the case that lives are saved because of the speed at which a market can respond.
Theoretically, once the goods and services are diverted it will only be a short time before the prices come down because of an over supply. The first people in will make a good deal of money but the next wave will not make huge profits. And the last guy in will be giving the stuff away.
Even Mother Teresa was not selfless, although she did what she did for an eternal reward. But is that any less selfless?
AY,
You’re correct. We all have these flaws to some degree.
Duh,
Do you dance? I do not think that Buddha is racist. Can you admit that we are all racist about something? How about seeing something outside of your norm? And not accepting it for what it is. Whether it be gays, Arabs, Islander, Bush, Obama. We all have our prejudices in some way, some fashion. I don’t care who you are, unless comatose.
AY,
It was intended to be a racist remark. The subconscious racism will always surface in the heat of battle. When caught, the racist will always deny the intent.
Buddha,
If per chance Bdaman is black as he claims, even the Al Jolson type. Telling him to dance is racist. Don’t you agree?
Even though a Chimpanzee can learn to type. I am unsure if they have brain, hand cooridnation.
Blah blah blah.
1) Try is about right.
2) You are simply noise. Sound and fury signifying less than nothing.
That’s my point, troll. You are a fraud. Nice to see your NY resolution was to blast right in here and admit you are as perceived: an ignorant puppet of evil men. A barking dog with no teeth.
You try. You fail. You repeat. Has it occurred to you your bosses mission plan for you was aped from the back of a shampoo bottle?
Glad to see you’re still a legend in your own mind though.
Welcome back, consistent hobgoblin. Nice to see you can still make a long post that says absolutely noting of value. Except further illustrate why you are our pet troll here. The designated bad guy.
Ask not for whom the calliope calls. It calls for thee.
Dance, monkey, dance.
First, let me say, thank you for such a long dedicated post, all to Muaw. How lucky am I.
And this comment
Stealing and misrepresentation are your specialty. We expect as much from the King of Copy Pasters.
Got me in a sky box at Land Shark Stadium Sunday, Jennifer Lopez is hot. Thanks
The operation is not about original thought, it’s to TRY and drive a message, propaganda as you say. This aint KFC where you can choose, crispy or original.
Fraud, hoax, sham, who cares, same thing in my book. It’s a shell game and I’M SHOCKED as you say.
Is releasing terrorist without a trial or charge against the law? Whatever it is, it’s not real smart. Oh, and your right about the warehousing. Exactly why they need to be moved to Illinois state prison, you know, the one thats empty that will provide lots of jobs and some more stimulus. Today we find out that not only did stimulus money go to non existent congressional districts, it went to non existent zip codes as well. See what happens when you follow the money.
Again I’m not here to win a personality contest and B da man has more than just one meaning. Lots of kids look up to Bdaman. Bdaman has his own TV show, video games and get this, Comic books.
Terrorist are a moving target. Yemen just happens to be the latest. PSSSST, in case you haven’t heard they closed a couple of embassies yesterday and releasing terrorist without a trial or charge is just as bad as holding them without. Terrorist are world wide they just operate under different names, Abu Syyaf, Chechen Rebels, FARC, Al Qaeda. Some even operate under their own names, Bill Ayers come to mind, oh wait, that was the Weather Underground.
The group thing, again I’m not here to win a popularity contest. If it wasn’t for the modus operandi I would be posting in a different group where the views would be similar to mine. I could give you a few sites where you could post and you’ll see what I’m talking about. But you feel all to comfortable here cause you da boss, boss. Your not willing to go outside your comfort zone and I like being the bad guy, every movie has one Morpheus.
I can kill a man with two fingers
So can I. I first started my training at ATA before moving to Hop-Ki-Do. I can even do it with one, followed by a loud bang.
Again thanks, and keep em coming, I’ll leave the light on for ya.
Byron,
Greed does create jobs. Bad ones. Like the job “growth” in this country. It can be managed by regulation and taxation.
Altruism can be promoted by tax breaks.
Your assumption about rational self interest is still flawed.
1) Rational. Not everyone is rational.
2) Self Interest. Ego centric thinking. Me, me, me. You don’t have to be a genius to know that’s what got us the Fascist States of America.
You are defaulting to your Rand habits. Rational Self Interest is none of those words. It’s a cloak to hide and justify greed. In addition your example is facile.
You give an example based on personal inheritance and disposition there of.
Pointless. That’s not what I’m talking about. Do what you like with your property, I’m talking about markets and the rules required to keep them from destroying society for a black balance sheet.
What I am talking about is regulating the market to prevent abuses from any and all actors and promote the general welfare of society. That’s socialism.
Systemic reform, not telling you what to do with your stuff but rather putting limits on how you can sell it. You can burn it if you want. But you can’t screw someone over with it. That’s called just and equitable.
Let’s stick to your trees for a minute.
Say your trees were needed for a specific reason that benefits the public and no other tree would do. They contain an enzyme needed to fight a pandemic. When you find this out, you quadruple the price. It’s in your rational self interest to do so. Even if people die. That’s called price gouging in peace time. In war time or emergency, it’s called profiteering. Yeah, it’s rational. It’s to your self interest. It’s also killing people. If you think your property right in that tree trumps the social value of saving a life? That’s simply soulless. Flat wrong too.
And reason? Let me tell you something else about reason and logic. Ian Ketterling said, “Logic is a way to go wrong with absolute certainty.” Reason and logic do not always make right. Hitler had lots of reasons and Heydrich was very logical and the two of them killed six million people. Reason/Logic is a tool. It can used correctly or incorrectly. This has been demonstrated here in the many conversations we’ve had about basic logic. I’m sure you recall some of the arguments that are formally logical but totally incorrect but here’s a refresher.
All telephones are beige.
All UFO’s are beige.
Therefore all telephones are UFO’s.
Formally logical. Totally wrong. Reason is just another name for logic. But rationale and rational are two different words.
To justify ego is using the tool incorrectly. The individual cannot survive without society. Individuals without society? That’s called barbarism.
Socialism isn’t about redistribution of wealth. That’s a fiction perpetuated by the fascism crowd. That’s communism, not socialism. Socialism is about regulating markets key to the survival of the nation and humans as a species. Socialism is about maintaining the minimal requirements for society to function in times of crisis and times of wealth.
Right now we have your “rational self-interest” playing out on the Hill. It’s in Sen. or Rep. X’s best interest to take the bribe and do what their masters say instead of doing their Constitutionally defined job in caring for all their constituents, not just their Money Sugar Daddy. TV time is pricey. But the result is an ever angering populace tired of being lied to and stolen from and being told to like it by clowns not smart enough to realize eventually it’s going to blow up in their cake eating faces. Viva la guillotine!
Do you really want to say this is a success for rational self interest? If so, you’ve been re-integrated back into the Matrix, my friend. Someone slipped you the blue pills.
Another example. If you think our system here has worked, I suggest you look at the FEMA response to Katrina . . . and shut the hell up. I was there. It was a travesty. A huge fucking joke subcontracted out to the highest graft bidder who provided toxic trailers and inadequate supplies and got paid for rebuilding structure poorly or not at all. Had FEMA been run the way Carter set it up? As a social safety net run by the government and deployed by the National Guard? It’d have worked like a charm. After Bush and Brownie were done with FEMA? It was a give away to mobsters and corporatist filth. It was so bad they even joked about it on The Sopranos. IT WAS A JOKE THAT MADE IT TO ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR SHOWS ON TV. ABOUT GANGSTERS.
Yep. That’s rational self interest at work.
The Rand way is simply ego worship, Byron. You want to think because you might do the right thing, everyone would. And that’s simply bullshit. We wouldn’t need laws at all if people operated like that. People like Cheney wouldn’t exist if that were correct. He’s reasonable all right and self interested to the bone. Also an evil treasonous traitor who has killed not just our soldiers but many many civilians all so he and Halliburton et al could profit. He deserves to have his head cut off and put on a pike in front of 1600 Penn. as a lesson to future sociopaths about what happens when they misbehave and betray the Constitution.
Your rational self interest fails for two reasons. And they are ironically the same reasons communism was a failure and pure capitalism is also a failure. It not only ignores human nature on the whole (people don’t like being screwed with even if its in your rational self interest), it also manages to appeal to the very worst instincts of man – greed and ego worship. The law exists in part to protect us from unreasonable people. Your assumption fails on that alone. You assume reasonableness where there is often none. It also fails because no one self is more important than the whole. Individuals can exist because society creates the room needed to them to develop. Without society, it’s a survival free for all. And let’s see how many Van Gogh’s emerge from that mess. I’m going to go all Spock on you now. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” This is why LeMay was a war criminal for bombing Dresden and Truman wasn’t for using nukes to end WWII. One was death for the sake of punishment. The other was killing many so we didn’t have to kill many many more – and rest assured, had we physically invaded Japan? The death toll on both side would have made Hiroshima and Nagasaki a drop in the bucket. We’d have had to kill them all. At considerable cost to us too. Japanese terrain is mountainous and volcanic. One giant Guadalcanal.
Sorry, your fourth way is another path to Hell trying to justify profits over people.
It’s a way to go wrong with absolute certainty. Because society isn’t the individual. It’s all of us.
Socio. In English it’s the Latin derived root of both society and socialism. It means “of society, pertaining to society”. It comes from the Latin socio, which is a verb meaning “unite, join, ally; share in”.
Gyges:
In this scenario I have knowledge of forestry.
But you are right, if I had that happen now I would probably grow my enigneering company. But I would tuck away a few hundred acres and stock it with elk, grouse, quail and turkey. Maybe put a big pond on it – 15-20 acres and stock it with those big accomadating trout you have in Colorado. The ones here in the east are too dam smart.
One can dream.
But Bob, Esq.
That is why Timothy Leary had a plan to escape or an escape plan. I am not sure which but I know I did not so I did not go as far as I know.
Denis Leary puts it all in perspective in his book “Why We Suck”
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Suck-Staying-Stupid/dp/0452295645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262644858&sr=8-1
Byron,
The word “sell” should be in there somewhere, I’m sure you’ll figure out where.
Byron,
Alternately, you could (since you have no appreciable forestry experience), to a timber company and use the money to grow your engineering firm. Which would also be in your rational self interest.
That’s a moot point though, because people aren’t reliably rational or self interested. We didn’t evolve that way. We evolved to be both altruistic and self interested.
Buddha:
“However, promoting altruism and punishing greed can both be systemically managed.”
meditation on greed, altruism and rational self interest:
say I inherited a 10,000 acre property filled with timber. The land is worth $3,000 an acre and the timber is worth $650/acre. The total value of the land and timber is $36.5 million.
If I am greedy I sell the timber and the land and get $30 million because I want a fast sale.
If I am altruistic I give the land and timber to the Sierra Club (or any charity).
If I engage in rational self interest I determine how long it takes to grow trees to maturity, how much can I harvest for a sustainable income and what types of trees I can replant to maximize my profit on a yearly basis. I then open a saw mill and process my timber to sell to builders or furniture makers. I have also captured a bunch of carbon in my trees so I am a good steward of the earth as well.
Greed and altruism don’t create jobs but rational self interest does.
So you see there is a fourth, better way – Rational Self Interest.
Swarthmore mom
From FiveThirtyEight
Is Rasmussen Reports Biased?
by Nate Silver (January 3, 2010)
Excerpt:
But there are other respects in which I’m much less sympathetic to Rasmussen’s case. In particular, this has to do with their choices of question wording and subject matter. The Politico question, for instance, points toward an August question in which Rasmussen asked “It’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.” That is not a question designed to elicit the most accurate reflection of public opinion.
Likewise, Rasmussen recently produced a poll in which they purported to describe the Democratic health care plan to their respondents. Several other pollsters have found that support for the plan increases when it is actually described to respondents, but Rasmussen showed no such increase. However, the second sentence in their description reads:
The plans before Congress would prohibit people from choosing insurance plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles.
I don’t particularly know where this comes from; Rasmussen claims that its questions came from a ‘summary of the legislation provided by the New York Times’, but such a depiction of the health care policy appears nowhere in the New York Times article. But there it is in the Rasmussen survey, where it appears to be designed to build a relationship in the respondent’s mind between the Democratic plan and higher premiums.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/is-rasmussen-reports-biased.html
I think Rasmussen is a pretty accurate pollster. Nate Silver likes his work. He was the only pollster to get the Bush Kerry race in 2004 exactly right.
From Think Progress, 1/4/2010
Politico fails to fact-check Rasmussen’s claim that he ‘has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.’
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Reporting on criticisms of right-leaning pollster Scott Rasmussen, Politico presented as fact his official bio as “an independent pollster” who “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant.” The article quotes Rasmussen’s critics, but fails to question his supposed independence:
While Scott Rasmussen, the firm’s president, contends that he has no ax to grind — his bio notes that he has been “an independent pollster for more than a decade” and “has never been a campaign pollster or consultant for candidates seeking office” — his opponents on the left insist he is the hand that feeds conservative talkers a daily trove of negative numbers that provides grist for attacks on Obama and the Democratic Party.
According to the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, Rasmussen has been a paid consultant for the RNC and President Bush’s 2004 campaign. The RNC paid Rasmussen $95,500 between 2003 and 2004 for items listed as “survey,” “survey cost” and “voter data.” Bush’s campaign paid Rasmussen $45,500 for “survey research.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/04/politico-rasmussen/