One more slacker.

Fresh open thread for Friday. I finally got to the doctor today, to learn I have? An ear infection. Like a little kid, yes. I even got the little-kid medicine, amoxicillin. But only five hours after swallowing the first dose, the pain is markedly reduced on one side of my head and I hope will be entirely gone on both by tomorrow.

Antibiotics. I avoid them at much as possible, but when you need them, they are miraculous things.

So I spent the evening doing memo-writing instead of blogging. You take what you like from the internet and discuss it at will, eh? I’m hoping I’ll be back at 100 percent by Monday.

Posted at 12:57 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

87 responses to “One more slacker.”

  1. Brandon said on June 8, 2012 at 3:16 am

    “You take what you like from the internet and discuss it at will, eh?”

    Is EDM the music of today’s youth instead of rock?

    http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-06-05/david-guetta-brings-electronic-dance-music-mainstream/55385368/1

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  2. Crabby said on June 8, 2012 at 7:14 am

    Make some music here:

    http://www.sembeo.com/media/Matrix.swf

    click on squares to turn on or off, horizontal axis is time, vertical is pitch.

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  3. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 7:29 am

    Did someone here post this? Doesn’t matter, worth posting again. God grant that, if I’m writing at 91, I could write half this well at 91 (or 51, for that matter).

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/04/120604fa_fact_bradbury

    And I had a molar explode in two last night, half in and half in my hand, so I’m off to spend my last two freelance pieces at the dentist for a crown, which is about what they cost, regally speaking. But when the throbbing in my jaw makes it hard to type . . . can you imagine what a person a hundred years ago felt when this happened? Not a death sentence (although infection-wise it almost was) but something nearly as horrible. “I will now feel this way until I die, without ease other than whiskey.” In which case, I’d be saying pass the whiskey.

    Update: it was Prospero yesterday, at #51. Hat tip to you, sir. But it still bears repeating.

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  4. alex said on June 8, 2012 at 7:47 am

    In Citizens United, corporations got what’s tantamount to their own Personhood Amendment. And it appears to have achieved its desired effect.

    Romney’s taking credit for the auto industry rescue even though, as we all know or should know, he’s on the record in the New York Times in 2008 condemning the effort in a lengthy opinion piece that would do Ayn Rand proud. The media are asleep at the wheel as usual, but then they’re serving a public for whom facts no longer seem to matter as much as skin color or party affiliation.

    Just a few months ago the Dems were far outstripping the GOP in fund-raising, but now that Romney’s the last one remaining in the clown car (with Ron Paul being dragged on the pavement throwing sparks) the Republicans are raking in cash like never before and stand to outspend the Democrats just like they did in Wisconsin.

    Alas, in this election cycle I’m afraid we’ll be forced to lose the hope and settle for the change.

    On edit: Jeff, hate it when that happens. Most of my molars are gold. And, like you, I have no dental plan. I shudder to think what it must have been like in pioneer times for people with infections like Nance’s.

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  5. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 8:29 am

    God bless my dentist, who as it turns out was off today and working at the community health clinic; he got my message, called me up, and says it looks slow and he will swing around to the office and catch me at 10:45 with something more effective than Evan Williams and a temp cap that will survive Cub Day Camp next week. Gotta love a dentist who does a halfday of free work each week, but I think I’ll be helping him make rent for June.

    Re: the Rez — http://stephaniewoodard.blogspot.com/2012/06/carnage-on-prairie-part-1.html

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  6. Connie said on June 8, 2012 at 8:44 am

    Jeff, I am trying to decide between a bridge and an implant, it will cost me a ton, and that is with health insurance. And root canals are miracles.

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  7. Julie Robinson said on June 8, 2012 at 9:11 am

    After a lifetime of having great checkups and almost no cavities, my teeth are cracking. Five crowns so far, more to come, could have been one very nice vacation. Or maybe two. And that’s WITH insurance. My sympathies, Jeff.

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  8. adrianne said on June 8, 2012 at 9:21 am

    Ouch, Nance, sorry to hear about your ailing ear! Hope the antibiotics perform some miracles to put you back in the saddle.

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  9. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 9:35 am

    Nancy is your amoxicilin the pepto pink milk-shakey liquid kind. Did you get the tubular, dosage-inscribed spoon to go with it. Glad you’re feeling better, keedo.

    Alex, RMoney’s pocket change is something like $270grand in speaking fees. I feel the individual American’s vote is so devalued by corporate citizenship, I’ll vote for the Sock if he sends me the pocket leavings from his nightstand caddy. Of course, Citizen’s United is Exhibit A for the case of never allowing a GOPer to appoint a Supreme Court Justice again. The umpire is a partisan activist POS, and the next time somebody tells you there is no “privacy right” in the Constitution from which to infer Roe v. Wade, ask the intellectually dishonest bastard to point out where the Constitution says dollars are speech and corporations are people too, my friend. Do these morons understand that Citizens United allows the US Chamber of Commerce to become bundlers of foreign money, French and Chinese, for God’s sake, in complete secrecy, to warp American elections. And I want Holder to mobilize the NatGuard to arrest the federal felon Rick Scott for fucking with voter rolls in FLA, like Bobby removed George Corley from the schoolhouse door.

    Cool toy Crabby. Is that Appleton?

    This situation is dire. Romney has the radical anti-American mullah Bork lined up to nominate John Yoo as the next SCOTUS justice. A fracking disaster in the making. I’m with JT on the sorry future of this country the way things look these days:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATivgsbV93k&feature=related

    Willard’s stand on Detroit signature industry was about as clear as the infamous Daily News Jerry Ford headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead.

    A dentist song for Jeff:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOiaZRDlePM&feature=relmfu

    And that brief bit of prose from Ray Bradbury reminded me of Something Wicked…, Dandelion Wine, and the Halloween Tree. The latter is must reading for fans of A Ripple in Time. It was a dark and stormy night…

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  10. Connie said on June 8, 2012 at 9:52 am

    My Dad was a small town dentist and took those kind of screaming pain calls at home regularly. He would go in on his time off quite regularly to help people with sudden major tooth problems. And as for free dental work his contribution was made at the area migrant camps every summer. And yes they were called migrant camps.

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  11. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Prospero — try this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTNIqJE80nQ

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  12. Dorothy said on June 8, 2012 at 10:23 am

    Everyone I know has a body that is breaking down one way or the other, it seems. Me? I’m having a knee replacement in about 6 months. Just talked to the orthopedic doc yesterday. I’m looking forward to walking without pain in my left knee again and hope I’ll be dancing at my son’s wedding next spring. I’m glad you’re on the mend!

    Who needs another time waster on the web? http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/83055D4D7200?z=1

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  13. Sue said on June 8, 2012 at 10:27 am

    One more thing re the Walker recall attempt – a reasonable conclusion might be that you were more likely to vote against Walker if you were being directly affected by his policies. Have fun Wisconsin! Even with the probable switch in the Senate, you’re about to get your democracy good and hard, as the saying goes.
    http://jakehasablog.blogspot.com/2012/06/so-what-hell-happened-on-election-night.html

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  14. LAMary said on June 8, 2012 at 10:54 am

    I had a tooth fall apart about two weeks ago. I know even with insurance I’m looking at lot of money once the permanent crown arrives. I think I have four already and yes, it would have paid for a nice vacation or a good used car.

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  15. basset said on June 8, 2012 at 10:55 am

    I’ve had rotten and crooked teeth for as long as I can remember, but enough of them have been pulled or root-canaled that at least they haven’t hurt in awhile.

    Project for this weekend: help get a rescued boxer pup from Great Bend, Kansas, to Mebane, NC, outside Greensboro. Owner give-up at one end, family with a ten-year-old boy at the other… we have organized a string of volunteers who will drive him an hour or two and hand him off for the next leg. I’m taking a section near Nashville, he’s scheduled to reach his “forever home” Sunday night. Still need to find someone for Cookeville to Knoxville, TN, though.

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  16. Heather said on June 8, 2012 at 10:56 am

    Maybe TMI here, but frequent issues with cystitis make me also thank God I was born in the age of antibiotics. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be stuck with those forever–or until you died of kidney damage when the infection spread. I don’t like taking antibiotics a lot either and I’d like to find a more holistic approach, but until then–bring on the Cipro.

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  17. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Where we’re shopping:

    http://www.mbprealestate.com/

    The great internet defense of Walker was that he only attacked the evil, venal public employees unions, which of course never did anything worthwhile for anyone. Apparently, his infamous “divide and conquer” video with his unaccountable multi-millionaire backer, was difficult to translate. Were Wisconsin voters too dumb to understand that Walker created a budget crisis with tax cuts targeted to further enrich rich people so that he could attack public servant that had already made huge concessions regarding legally contracted pension and health care benefits that were not signed under duress? Kasich pulled the identical cheap redneck trick in Ohio, where he had already cornholed public pension funds by steering investments into toilet paper securities and stock funds and private equity swindles, when he represented Lehman Bros.:

    http://rethinkecon.org/2011/03/07/john-kasich-and-the-temple-of-state-pension-funds/

    I’m sick of living in a country whose future is decided by shamelessly gullible lamebrains that succumb to the sort of toxic snake oil promulgated by the Krooked Koch Konspiracy minions that are the midwestern goober-nors.

    Cabo, here we come. Both my knees sound like John Bonham when I get up after sitting more than five minutes, and the heat will do me good. And government in Meheeco? At least they own their corruption instead of being all holier-than-thou about it, like the GOPer voter fraud frauds.

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  18. Bob (not Greene) said on June 8, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Jeff (TMMO) and Prospero,

    Sorry, guys, but this has to be the official song of dentists all over the nation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smZA9Jv3qH0

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  19. Sue said on June 8, 2012 at 11:06 am

    basset, great dog story, let us know what happens. Pics?

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  20. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 11:07 am

    No matter what they say, dentists would rather folks didn’t floss. And they’d give away Tootsie-roll Pops in the waiting room if they could get away with it. With school loans and startup equipment costs, it’s no wonder American dentists are a seriously suicidal group.

    http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2301/do-dentists-have-the-highest-suicide-rate

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVUXPjFWfX4

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  21. alex said on June 8, 2012 at 11:19 am

    Sue, I noticed one of the commenters there also thinks that the Democratic party organization isn’t as strong in parts of the state as it used to be. Probably the same here in Indiana. I admire the courageous people who campaigned for Obama here in 2008. One friend in particular told me that while going door to door, some people were very receptive and some were polite but “no thanks,” but some became so threatening and verbally abusive that she’s not sure she could do it again.

    The weakening of local Dem organizations is very likely, as Nance has discussed here before, the result of the right’s mastery of the art of dog-whistling and wooing away what had been natural Democratic constituencies.

    Probably all of us have been through the standard-issue Fox News sales pitch a bazillion times too many and can always see it coming as if it were a huckster in a cheap suit approaching the house with an off-brand vacuum cleaner, and I’m experiencing what seems to be an uptick these days. It always starts out with the tirade about liberal media and then on to the solution–Fox News because it’s the only one that’s fair and balanced. Dare to differ and they get anywhere from testy to outraged and will accuse you of calling them stupid when you’ve said no such thing. Nod politely and you’re in for a crapload of unwelcome politics shoved down your throat.

    The performances are so similar every time you’d almost think Fox had trained these people as a sales force. They really think they can browbeat others into buying their shit and probably do meet with some success, or non-resistance anyway. But they’re so offensive, coming out swinging with smack talk about the TV stations I watch and the president I voted for, that I simply cannot take it anymore and I want to tell them off.

    I wish I knew of a way to make it clear to them just how insulted they would feel if I came at them pushing my politics in this manner and that I would never presume to do such a thing. But these folks don’t see discourse as a two-way street and no one’s gonna make ’em.

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  22. Connie said on June 8, 2012 at 11:20 am

    You are wrong Prospero, dentists would prefer that you not have those problems. My dentist dad always said that his dentist generation did such a good job of teaching about tooth care, promoting flouride treatments etc., that they practically put the profession out of business. He went straight from dental school to the air force and always said he did dental work there that he never saw anywhere else, mostly on country boys who had never been to a dentist in their lives.

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  23. Suzanne said on June 8, 2012 at 11:21 am

    Prospero, can I come to Mexico with you? I’ve about had it here.
    If the top people could only be a little more humble, maybe it would help. (Which is what I loved about the commencement speech I linked to the other day: http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-lewis-princeton-commencement-remarks-2012-6).

    I heard a rebroadcast the other day of a speech the CEO of Cummins Engine gave to some business group. He spoke in glowing terms about how they had been down and out, but had made some good business decisions and now were growing and doing extremely well. But the little hidden spot of rot in the middle of the speech was his mentioning that in putting the new business practices in place, they had to let a bunch of people go, people, he said he knew, that were at a spot in their careers at which they would not be able to find another job. And then he just moved on to how great the company’s finances are doing now. His attitude? Too bad, so sad, stinks to be those people let go.

    It made me incredibly sad. I knew one of those people. Knew, because about a year after he was forced into early retirement, he had a massive coronary and died. His family is pretty much of the mindset that the stress of wondering day after day after day for several years when he would be let go, and knowing that when he was, his likelihood of finding another position was zilch, is what led to the heart attack. His work record was impeccable, job performance great, but what did it matter in the end? To the people in charge of the company, not a d**n thing.

    Do these people making these decisions get that human lives are involved in these business decisions? I think not. It’s just a game to them and one that they assume they will always win.

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  24. Julie Robinson said on June 8, 2012 at 11:22 am

    What? No one has mentioned Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist in Little Shop of Horrors?! This must be corrected right away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQNj3-BAHLk

    Keep up those antibiotics, Heather, I developed sepsis from a bladder infection and almost met my maker. Knee and hip replacements are in my future too, but at least I know what I’m facing, since many friends have already been there: LOTS of physical therapy.

    Crabby and Dorothy, great fun! I’m saving those for a day when I have more time.

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  25. Jakash said on June 8, 2012 at 11:25 am

    Jeff (tmmo),
    Guess maybe you weren’t around here much when I asked about this on Wednesday, so I’ll give it another shot. After settling for watching the Transit of Venus via the magic of the internet, I wondered how your viewing at Alligator Mound went. Did you have a fair turnout and clear skies? Oh, and sorry about your tooth. You certainly deserve a good dentist who’s as compassionate as you are.

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  26. paddyo' said on June 8, 2012 at 11:43 am

    Thanks, Suzanne @ 23, for the story of our times, current edition. The Princeton commencement address is excellent — but the sad and infuriating story of the Cummins Engine CEO is even more instructive. Particularly now. I see it everywhere in my former career (newspapers). A lot of people are stressed out and scrambling as self-important corporate dicks pat themselves on the back for “saving” their companies. I was lucky to get full-time work not too long after taking a buyout. And yes, “lucky” is the defining word. And I didn’t have to attend Princeton to figure that one out.

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  27. Joe K said on June 8, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    Suzanne @23,
    So what would have you done? I don’t know but I imagine that ceo probably tried to find a way to keep those employee’s but when do you reach the point when you have to make unpopular decisions in order to save the rest of the company? Could he have cut salary’s? perhaps, but maybe the plan they were going to did not require the same number of employees? Its a tough climate.
    Pilot Joe

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  28. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    Joe, Obscene CEO compensation is the fly in that ointment:

    http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-the-99

    And that is not counting the truly bizarre going away packages these folks get for running companies off the rails and into the miasmic fens:

    http://visual.ly/golden-parachutes-how-bankers-went-down

    And those bankers took down far more than just theire own companies while getting filthy rich and skating on any responsibility or accountability for their greed-infested feeding frenzies at the trough of imaginary financial instruments based upon larcenous compunctions.

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  29. brian stouder said on June 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    I’m with Alex 100%, regarding my conflicted view of the proper way to respond to someone’s unwanted political harangues. One mode I tend to shift to is fatherly (not to say paternalistic!), wherein I say something like “I understand what you’re saying” and then maybe, if the atmosphere seems conducive – maybe I’ll venture something like (in a calm, not quite condescending tone) “I’ve read something similar to what you’re saying, but…” Basically, I’m a weenie, for the same reason Alex points to; I just would not foist a verbal political diatribe upon a work colleague or casual acquaintance.

    Aside from that, here is a genuinely disturbing article, about the Air France A-330 that went into the ocean two years ago; a fairly quick read, but troubling, and then, upon reflection, more troubling.

    http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877

    The nut paragraph:

    Neither weather nor malfunction doomed AF447, nor a complex chain of error, but a simple but persistent mistake on the part of one of the pilots. Human judgments, of course, are never made in a vacuum. Pilots are part of a complex system that can either increase or reduce the probability that they will make a mistake. After this accident, the million-dollar question is whether training, instrumentation, and cockpit procedures can be modified all around the world so that no one will ever make this mistake again—or whether the inclusion of the human element will always entail the possibility of a catastrophic outcome. After all, the men who crashed AF447 were three highly trained pilots flying for one of the most prestigious fleets in the world. If they could fly a perfectly good plane into the ocean, then what airline could plausibly say, “Our pilots would never do that”?

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  30. Peter said on June 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    Suzanne and Prospero, I’m not disagreeing, and I haven’t done any research to see if (or how) things have changed, but I remember Cummins being a very benevolent employer, giving back a lot to the community, not in it to suck up every penny they can, etc. For all I know they turned into a division of Trump Industries, but I’m thinking that they were closer to what Joe was thinking.

    Being in architecture, I can tell you that I’ve been with a few firms that sank into the muck, and it’s never pretty. Jump ship like a rat before you’re pushed or hold on to the bitter end? It’s just another example of how income inequality is so corrosive – in the ’70’s, when wages were more equitable, you’d lay off younger folks and hold on to the senior staff – you can pay a little extra and have a core ready to hit the ground running when the tide turns. But for a few decades now, it’s turn the old geezers out and see what happens.

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  31. Sue said on June 8, 2012 at 1:08 pm

    Any thoughts on what TPM and more recently Salon have been reporting, that Republicans are finally waking up to the fact that the Supreme Court could very well kill health care reform, and Republicans’ promises (including Romney’s) to repeal Obamacare are about to come true and bite them very vigorously in the behind?
    If this weren’t so deadly serious I would be settling into my seat with a big bowl of popcorn to watch the show.

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  32. Suzanne said on June 8, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    I’m not saying a business need to keep people that aren’t necessary, but the Cummins CEO mentioned nothing about trying to hire any of those people back when the company regained their foothold. Maybe they did, but I doubt it.
    I think, for me, it was more his attitude. He said he felt bad tossing older workers out, but then went on about all the new people they hired, and how great everything was, and how many people they continue to hire. No mention of how many laid off workers they hired back, so I don’t think he felt too bad. I’m sure it is a great company, but do the people that, for years, helped make it so deserve nothing but a paycheck that may be snatched out of their hand at any time?

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  33. Jeff Borden said on June 8, 2012 at 1:16 pm

    One way to deal with unwanted and unpleasant political commentary is to smile wrly and say, “Well, that’s one way of looking at it,” then moving quickly away.

    I’ve been downbeat all week despite weather in Chicago that would be the envy of San Diego. I’ve been staking my optimism on the notion that the next generation is more socially liberal and remembers the horrors wrought on the nation by conservative Republicans when W. was president. The Citizens United decision fucked things up so severely, however, and the other side has such an enormous monetary advantage in attacking the institutions that traditionally have supported the Democrats that I fear it may not matter. We may be on our way to an institutionalized one-party system.

    Make no mistake about Wisconsin. It was NEVER about saving money because the public sector unions agreed to every concession the GOP sought. It was ALWAYS about destroying the unions. The move will shift now to the private sector unions. We know this because there is video of the unctuous Scott Walker assuring a billionaire backer that he is committed to making Wisconsin a right to work state and will pursue a “divide and conquer” strategy to reach that goal.

    In North Carolina, a Super PAC will have a huge say in the election of a state judge! Citizens United has raised the bar to compete so high that only those with access to the ultra-wealthy –who are overwhelmingly conservative– will be able to run effective campaigns.

    The Roberts court is changing America. And good Lord, they’ve only just begun.

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  34. Sue said on June 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    Jeff Borden: it already has.
    Manitowoc: http://www.scfl.org/2012/02/04/manitowoc-iam-accept-union-busting-contract-while-labor-and-community-rally-to-their-aid/
    And Ashland: http://www.ashlandwi.com/news/local/article_459c7476-a6cc-11e1-9ead-0019bb2963f4.html

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  35. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    Damn, the Magliozzis are quitting Car Talk in September:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nprs-car-talk-ending-new-programs-but-continuing-with-rerun-versions/2012/06/08/gJQAQCRjNV_story.html?hpid=z4

    It will take owverweening hubris on the part of the conservoactivist SC justices to overturn ACA. The leading judicial conservative experts on Commerce Clause Congressional powers have all ruled against the challenges in lower courts. Like this acknowledged expert in the most reliably reactionary court in the country:

    http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/11/09/appellate-court-upholds-aca-in-opinion-by-prominent-conservative-judge/

    Of course, Scalia answers to no authority but his own grossly inflated self-regard, and Clarence Long Dong, the homunculus, answers to nobody but Scalia and Cheney, so who the hell knows. Cash should be spent pointing out that the mandate was born in the Heritage Foundation incubator, and remains the core principal of Romneycare. But I fear understanding that unadulterated truth would take more actual critical thinking than dumbed down Americans can manage in concert.

    I will generally say “How does anybody dumb enough to believe that shit manage to breathe and feed himself?” And it was never about saving money in Wisconsin, because sleazy scumbag Walker created a phony budgetary crisis by cutting taxes on rich backers to set up his assault on the middle class through unions.

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  36. basset said on June 8, 2012 at 1:42 pm

    Sue, of course pics. Still gotta find someone for that stretch of I-40, though.

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  37. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    In North Carolina, a Super PAC will have a huge say in the election of a state judge! Citizens United has raised the bar to compete so high that only those with access to the ultra-wealthy –who are overwhelmingly conservative– will be able to run effective campaigns.

    The jig was up on the judiciary when the murderous Don Blankenship bought Massey Energy its own pet judge in WV:

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2010/04/08/don_blankenship_of_massey_coal_bought_off_a_judge.html

    A great Achenblog post:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/post/the-bradbury-space-telescope/2012/06/07/gJQAQvN3KV_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

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  38. LAMary said on June 8, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    I love my dentist. The other dentist in his practice took care of me for a few years, then died of AIDS. I stayed with the practice when a lot of patients bailed out of stupidity. I think Rob, my current dentist, probably treats everyone well, but I suspect I get a treated a little better because I didn’t leave. He’s a total mensch.

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  39. brian stouder said on June 8, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    And they cut-off “I’ll Have Another”.

    Huh.

    (Must have something to do with risk/reward/market value)

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  40. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Jakash — we had a frustrating early outing just after Venus broke the arc of the sun, because there were a few openings, but not where we needed them. My sister, up from Athens by way of Bloomington, her son and my lad went down to the village for a band concert, and at the end, there was a “breakout” and I broke out the eclipse glasses. We attracted a small crowd, including (to my delight) the emeritus prof of astronomy here who wrote the book on lunar capture (that the Moon is a captured hunk of debris from the early system, not a hunk bashed out of the Earth where the Pacific is). He walked by, did a double take, and then said “can you see it?” So and his wife and the president’s wife all got a gander.

    We rushed back up to Alligator Mound, and there was another lengthy opening, about 8 to 8:25, and plenty of clarity; a couple dozen folks either returned seeing my tweets, or followed us up from the village. You can see an album of my shots and my sister’s at http://www.facebook.com/Knapsack – just scroll back a ways. It’s an open album. I didn’t have a scope, so while it became quite distinct to the eye, I never got a shot with the digital camera (Canon SureShot) through the eclipse lens.

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  41. mark said on June 8, 2012 at 2:13 pm

    “The leading judicial conservative experts on Commerce Clause Congressional powers have all ruled against the challenges in lower courts.”

    That is simply wrong. The Court faces a difficult, novel issue, and intellectually sound arguments can and have been made pro and con by very able lawyers cutting across the political spectrum. The “all reasonable people agree with me so you must be evil/stupid/racist/etc” claim doesn’t fly here.

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  42. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    Brian,

    Maybe it’s dramshop laws.

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  43. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 2:19 pm

    “all reasonable people agree with me so you must be evil/stupid/racist/etc” claim

    Mark, that’s bullshit, and it’s a deliberate and dishonest misrepresentation of what I said. I made no such claim. But conservative judges that are considered experts on the Commerce Clause have ruled in favor of ACA and the mandate. That is an incontrovertible fact. You can claim that didn’t happen, but it did. And the mandate was most definitely a Heritage Foundation brainchild when RMoney produced Romneycare. You can say it wasn’t but that would be spurious. Actually, warping my post so much is a lot like protesting too much.

    edit: Here’s another conservative judge that thinks striking down the individual mandate would represent wrong-headed activism, a Raygun appointee at that:

    http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/why-judge-silberman%E2%80%99s-decision-on-health-care-reform-law-matters

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  44. Dexter said on June 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm

    My doctor has been taking care of me for 35 years now. He’s from Mexico City, and his education has been from several universities, the last degree was from U Cincinnati. He’s a smart cookie; he attends seminars all over the place and shares his new-found knowledge with his patients, and he knows exactly what ‘scripts I need to control my maladies, and all my numbers are great, except that number on that scale in his office. Damn it. I trust him completely, except for the time he said “I’m sending you out for bariatric weight loss surgery…” WHOA! I decided against that, and now I see other folks who did have that surgery and they are flitting around on their tiptoes, skinny and healthy.
    Doc’s nurse is one of them. I bet she lost eighty pounds.
    My dentist is a small town guy from Kenton or somewhere down there in Ohio…he’s a great dentist and he filled my teeth and installed a few crowns in my head over the same 35 year span as my doctor. My insurance used to pay 100%. Now, my dental insurance has been taken away. For the first time in my entire adult life, I have no dental care plan. Maybe some of you have to fund your own plan 100%…if so, you are rich. It’s prohibitively expensive. Now in the mails comes a notice…my co-pay for my medical insurance will increase by…get this!—$630 per MONTH! This starts in 2013. Six months and a few days. I ain’t desperate but I’m shaken.

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  45. mark said on June 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm

    No prospero, you merely describe your preferred conclusion as “unadulterated truth” and proceed to attribute any disagreement to corrupt motives or stupidity. “All” conservative jurists (or all leading ones) have upheld the constitutionality of ACA? Really? There are scores of conservative (and progressive) jurists in the federal system, almost all of them extraordinarily well-qualified by education, experience and intellect. There are sound “conservative” arguments supporting ACA and many finding the opposite. It presents a novel exercise of federal power, and who first farted the concept of ‘individual mandate’ matters not at all.

    Have you read the briefs, the decisions and the argument transcripts? These are serious issues with honestly divided opinions and competing, cogent arguments.

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  46. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    The only thing I said was unadulterated truth is that the Heritage Foundation invented the “individual mandate”. It did. I know conservatives find that disturbing, but it did happen. If you read what Judge Silberman said, he was warning against “originalists” ignoring the actual text of the Constitution in favor of superimposing “small government” catchphrases and shibboleths. It’s difficult to take such a warning any way but seriously when the “originalists” claim the Constitution says corporations are people and money is speech.

    Undoubtedly, I say things that may go overboard, I sure don’t need you taking them out of context or otherwise misrepresenting.

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  47. Suzanne said on June 8, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    I am depressed about the end of Car Talk. Some people find the brothers Magliozzi annoying, but I find them hysterical.

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  48. Joe K said on June 8, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    Bravo Mark
    Pilot Joe

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  49. Peter said on June 8, 2012 at 4:01 pm

    Pilot Joe: Have you read the Popular Mechanics article that #29 Brian posted? That was an interesting read, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this would have happened if the controls were connected, like a Boeing, instead of being independent, like the Airbus.

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  50. brian stouder said on June 8, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Peter, it was news to me that the Airbus A330 controls are independent of each other.

    And did I understand it correctly – that if you and I are in the right seat and the left seat – and I pull the stick back, and you pull it back a different distance, or push it forward for that matter, that the computer averages the two inputs??!!

    Surely I misunderstood that…

    Or else, what could possibly go wrong with that??!!

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  51. Julie Robinson said on June 8, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    The Brothers Magliozzi and Garrison Keillor, both to retire soon–along with our joint replacements and dental issues, we know we’re getting old.

    Dexter, ouch. My part of our premiums went up to $10K this year and it’s hard not to feel like a parasite. My little church finance job won’t begin to cover it, and I sure hate to find out what they’ll be next year.

    But in the meantime, the weekend approaches and I’ve got pizza dough rising. See you all on the other side!

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  52. Jakash said on June 8, 2012 at 4:32 pm

    Thanks for that report, Jeff (tmmo). Glad you got at least about a half-hour for good viewing. “either returned seeing my tweets, or followed us up from the village” That’s swell. One method from the 21st Century, one from the 17th (or 7th).

    I tried the link, but I guess not being on Facebook myself is a bit of a dealbreaker, as I only could see the photo of you in the glasses.

    The end of “Car Talk” is depressing news, indeed. A wonderful show — just hearing that music come on is enough to bring a smile to one’s face.

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  53. brian stouder said on June 8, 2012 at 5:09 pm

    1. Dewy, Cheatham, & Howe; with transportation provided by Pikop Andropov….

    2. I think I can smell Julie’s pizza from here!

    3. Not to put too fine a point on it, with regard to healthcare, but Dexter’s posts make me think that it would be only the barest minimum thing the United States should do: that a person who the nation drafted into a war on the other side of the planet should get to visit a doctor or dentist (or whatever else), without charge, forever.

    4. The shit-storm that comes up when the Supreme Court releases its decision – whichever direction the decision goes – will define (for better or worse) all of the national elections in 2012.

    Whatever the Court does, Sandra Day O’Conner – a real, live, living legacy of Saint Ronald Reagan – wouldn’t have played it this way. This will do real damage to the Court, and by extension, to our nation, I think. It is damaging more of the links that keep our society civil, just as the spectacle of the United States Congress toying with the debt ceiling (ie – the Full Faith and Credit of the United States of America), AGAIN is the damnedest of damned political wrecklessness – if not outright hostility to the very idea of the “full faith and credit of the government (if not the more abstract notion of the nation of the) United States of America

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  54. Joe Kobiela said on June 8, 2012 at 5:43 pm

    Pete
    If it don’t say Boeing I ain’t going
    pilot joe

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  55. beb said on June 8, 2012 at 6:14 pm

    Pilot Joe, does that include the Boeing 787? The one made with all the composite material? I guess I’m old fashioned enough to want real metal under whatever I fly in.

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  56. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 6:39 pm

    No shit Mark. Was the mandate a GOPEr idea or was it not? Whatever. I may tend toward outrageous pronouncements, but ACA is purely a GOPer invention. And now they find it heinous because it’s the brown President? Sorry. This idea of the other is assuredly racism. And I didn’t say you were a racist Mark, I said the movement is pure Mark Fuhrman.

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  57. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    Let’s see if this gets you in without registering (it may be you just need to hunt for an obscurely placed “Skip” button):

    http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150948501444679.438968.811054678&type=3&l=9b25a33e5a

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  58. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    Those accusations are so gd stupid, I’m outta here.
    so long y’all.

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  59. Joe K said on June 8, 2012 at 7:13 pm

    Beb,
    I would fly a 787, composite is strong, and flexible, they have been building composite airplanes for some time now.
    Pilot Joe

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  60. Judybusy said on June 8, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    Jeff, thanks for sharing your pictures–wasn’t it just wonderful? A few friends and I also went out to watch as part of an event organized by a local observatory (build by the shop kids in the 50’s–the shop teacher was an amateur astronomer and BUILT the telescope still in use.)Thanks to a special filter, we also were able to see solar flares and sunspots. I hadn’t any idea this think existed until March, when I went there to view the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. I may have written here about it then, because I was so very thrilled.

    I am once again appalled reading about the high cost of healthcare/non-existant coverage. I really don’t understand why so many people put up such a fuss over universal coverage. Was it here that I was directed to an article talking about the very different attitude in Europe? There, even the most conservative of business people appear to take it for granted, framing it as a mroal issue as well as a financial one that ultimately helps companies’ bottom line.

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  61. Prospero said on June 8, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    I’ll duke it out for my self, but I think Mark was pulling some pretty heinous shit on me. I know I might be somewhat obnoxious but I’d say I’m also frequently gracious. Mark misrepresented me seriously, and it is annoying, because he ascribed some attitudes to me that just don’t stand any sort of reality. What he was pulling was like the infamous RMoney ads where Willard misrepresented Obama by flat out lying. I wouldn’t say this to everybody, but fuck you Mark. Nothing you claim I said is remotely connected to reality. Fuck you ahole.

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  62. brian stouder said on June 8, 2012 at 9:37 pm

    George Carlin has an exceptionally good riff on the 7 words you can never say, and particularly the word “fuck”, which can be an expletive, a noun, a verb, and adjective (with some work), an adverb; really, the thing is one of the hardest working F&*#ing words in the whole language!

    But, despite the versatility of that word, and despite the altogether pleasant nature (technically) of some senses of that word as a verb, I must say that I don’t think any of the regular visitors here – even including our occasional trolls* (or moles – as they show up and mar the garden that the proprietress hoes for us**) – should have that word flung at them.

    I believe that we generally can communicate the points of view that we want to – even acidic ones – without that sort of business. Throwing the f-bomb around, every once in awhile, can be fun (as Carlin reminds us), but really, we shouldn’t pitch it “high and tight” at our fellow posters, right?

    Of course, what the fuck do I know, eh?

    *btw, I’m not calling Mark a troll; thinking of the Dwight the troubled teen here. I may disagree with Mark just as completely as Prospero does, but I take his viewpoint as seriously presented, and not as tomato-throwing trolling for the sake of trolling.

    **not to say that the job of our under-the-weather proprietress is to hoe around this place, mind you….!

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  63. basset said on June 8, 2012 at 10:05 pm

    Looks like you’re slipping, Prospero – usually takes you longer than two hours and ten minutes to come back after one of your “I’m outa here” stomp-offs. Work on it.

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  64. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 10:19 pm

    Didn’t think Mark imputed much of anything to Prospero, other than disagreeing with him. Saying all GOP adherents are de facto racist evidence tampering pederasts comes up quite often here, and it’s just not an argument that’s going anywhere, so I let it alone. The nature of “data” and “evidence-based” is going to be aggressively disputed into the foreseeable future, whether on anthropogenic climate change, or the ideal funding mechanism for early childhood education. I love science, like data, but don’t much enjoy seeing polling and statistical modeling turned into absolute truths.

    Peter, I have not much more flying experience and knowledge than an Aviation Merit Badge would indicate, but the PopMech story leaves me with the distinct impression that either separated controls are a bad idea, or you really have to train the snot out of older pilots who’ve never known anything but jointly controlled pedestals when they are captaining a dual control split operation aircraft. That line about the captain going to get a nap and the writer adding “Everyone on board would be dead within the next twenty minutes” sent a chill down my spine on this hot summer night.

    And on the “don’t try to lump people into tidy categories” front, I hear with delight that the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America is considering a form of local option for council executive boards on the adult leadership standards issue, i.e. gays & lesbians as Cubmasters or Scoutmasters. My guess is: this is a trial balloon, and they won’t follow-thru . . . yet. But the movement is gathering steam, and those of us with pull in local councils will keep up the pressure on our end. It will happen.

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  65. basset said on June 8, 2012 at 10:26 pm

    Joe, while we’re talking about composite aircraft, I was privileged to see one of the early flight trials of the Beech Starship proof of concept model back in 1982 or thereabouts… everyone else, this was a truly strange and beautiful aircraft with backward-facing turboprop engines, the main wing all the way in the back, and the tail surfaces in the nose, all made out of composite materials. It was supposed to compete with business jets, didn’t work out, and the manufacturer ended up selling just a few which they bought back and scrapped. There may be one or two still out there, I don’t know.

    Anyway, we’re standing along the Beech plant runway in Wichita watching this eight-tenths or whatever scale it was aircraft getting ready to take off when a black limo rolls up and one of the windows comes down just enough for a withered little hand to slip out. Olive Ann Beech her ownself, co-founder of the company with her husband Walter some fifty years before, back when they made cloth-covered wooden biplanes. After a few minutes the window went back up and she left.

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  66. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 8, 2012 at 10:28 pm

    (Fumbles to click a non-existent “Like” button for Basset’s post…)

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  67. basset said on June 8, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    Thanks, Jeff TMMO… as Brendan Behan used to say, I’ll take the will for the deed on that one.

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  68. Kaye said on June 8, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    1) Thrilled to hear of positive movement by the Boy Scounts.

    2) Dexter, I expect you, but not your wife, would qualify for inexpensive healthcare via the VA. Perhaps not as convenient as your current provider but, overall, good care at a fair price.

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  69. alex said on June 8, 2012 at 11:09 pm

    And on the “don’t try to lump people into tidy categories” front, I hear with delight that the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America is considering a form of local option for council executive boards on the adult leadership standards issue, i.e. gays & lesbians as Cubmasters or Scoutmasters.

    I didn’t think I’d live to see the day. It’s amazing how things change. Of course the GOP is suddenly getting religion as regards the Affordable Care Act and the Bush tax cuts, so anything’s possible in an election year, but maybe the pushback on Susan G. Komen is scaring the bejeezus out of the nonprofits that are supposed to be apolitical and beloved by all. It’s heartening to know that these organizations, at least at the local level, have people in high places who want to do the right thing.

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  70. Bob (Not Greene) said on June 8, 2012 at 11:24 pm

    Basset, I’m a little late to the party, but well played. Pros, I agree with most every political position you take, but man you sure do get your feelings hurt easily. And I disagree with just about everything Mark says, but you lose the high ground quick when you just go into ‘fuck’ mode. And this coming from a guy who uses that word with relish!

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  71. Kirk said on June 8, 2012 at 11:29 pm

    What Bob said.

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  72. Joe K said on June 9, 2012 at 6:01 am

    Basset,
    I got a chance to sit in one once, neat airplane. Beach bought them all back except one or two and cut them up, didn’t want the liability, check out the piaggio avantair flys them,fastest turbo prop out there.
    Pilot Joe

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  73. Prospero said on June 9, 2012 at 7:03 am

    Proof of concept is a fascinating idea. I guess the Spruce Goose (Hughes H-4 Hercules) was the ultimate proof of concept airplane. But Jeff, I don’t make those arguments. And Mark clearly distorted what I did type. The idea that conservatrons are some victimized class is odious as it is ludicrous. And the idea that Obama derangement conspiracy shit isn’t race-based is just fracking lame. It’s also looney. And it has nothing to do with hurt feelings, meretricious lying and misrepresentation just pisses me off royally. And I guess Olive Beech was the Mary Pickford of the airplane game.

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  74. Prospero said on June 9, 2012 at 7:32 am

    Hercules: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2406/how-come-howard-hughess-spruce-goose-flew-only-once

    Bob, these people are nutjobs. And that sort of meretricious conservovictimism is fracking hilarious. And exceptionally annoying. I pointed out two well-considered conservative jurists, and suddenly I said “all”. What an ahole. It’s not about hurt feelings, it’s about lying like the rug on the Trump.

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  75. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on June 9, 2012 at 10:32 am

    Actually, in #35 you did say “all,” which was his point, and his quote. And the fact that the Heritage Foundation floated an individual mandate approach doesn’t make ACA “a purely GOP plan.” I think there is a conservative, free market argument for the mandate, but your better point wd be that it isn’tt discussed for purely political reasons. I think there’s an even more conservative case to make for baseline federal single payer, but I ain’t running for anything.

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  76. Connie said on June 9, 2012 at 11:23 am

    My brother is building an airplane in his garage. Really. You buy the kit in sections, he is about done with the whole tail portion. Whatever.

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  77. alex said on June 9, 2012 at 11:30 am

    Saying all GOP adherents are de facto racist evidence tampering pederasts comes up quite often here, and it’s just not an argument that’s going anywhere, so I let it alone.

    I very much doubt that Mark scolds people at conservative blogs for making foul ad hominem attacks on liberals. Like me, he probably forgives his own for venting. Unlike me, he isn’t in the political minority in Fort Wayne and doesn’t have to suffer people insulting him to his face as a fact of everyday life. Why he seeks it out by coming here Lord only knows.

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  78. Dave said on June 9, 2012 at 11:30 am

    Connie, I’ve a friend who has built two airplanes in his garage, he took me up in one of them and I’m still here to tell the tale. He spent years perfecting it and then sold it when the desire to build another became too much.

    I think I’ve mentioned before that my father, a very young Navy man, was in the harbor and saw Howard Hughes’ only flight of the Spruce Goose.

    Alex, Fort Wayne is completely lopsided, I see that WOWO has relieved their most recent afternoon host of his duties because of the conservative backlash. I didn’t think he was particularly good at what he was doing but the comments you can read about his predecessor and how fair he was make me grimace, he was fair only when he was agreed with or else he would talk over the caller and cut them off, if things weren’t going well. Alas, there’s little hope here but you already knew that.

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  79. basset said on June 9, 2012 at 12:01 pm

    Joe, if I remember right Piaggio and Beech had some kind of technical partnership going about the time the Starship was in development. I see Avantair’s P180s pretty regularly going in and out of JWN, just a few miles from my house.

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  80. brian stouder said on June 9, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    Dave – the thing about the self-proclaimed “big round mound of rightwing sound” was that he seemed to be absent more often than not – between his poor health (and he’s an insurance agent of some sort, I believe; who rails and rails against the Affordable Healthcare Plan; sorta like an alcoholic who runs a distillery and who crusades for temperance!) and his tea-party activism.

    And the new guy – yet another white fellow (from Detroit) with a buzz haircut and all the answers, is a flatly racist pot-stirrer.

    At some point, I will call in and argue with him, if only to say that I’ve done it.

    The one time I called Pat Miller, the sickly insurance agent, was the day he took it upon himself to attack the husband of the member of congress (Gabby Giffords of Arizona) who was the target of the madman mass-murderer. Our local lip flapper assumed a stentorian tone, and informed his audience that it was entirely improper of that man to voice any opinion about the murderous attack that nearly cost his wife her life (and did cost several others, including a little girl and a Federal Judge their lives).

    I basically took a “Have you no shame?” tack, and opined that Giffords’ husband was welcome to publicly voice any opinion he wanted, and that it was ridiculous in the extreme for anyone (let alone a WOWO shock-and-outrage operator) to seriously suggest that he should be muzzled. Pat restated his belief that it was just wrong, and in fact cheap and undignified, whereupon I calmly stated something like “You’re simply wrong” and then he announced time was up, show was over, see y’all tomorrow, blah blah blah.

    But the new guy does a trick similar to what that Greek father does on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. ION the movie, the father can connect every word back to its genuine Greek roots; and similarly, the new guy on WOWO can connect every public issue back to race, and then he can sit back and tut-tut when his bumpkin amen-corner calls in and affirms his dumbass theories

    edit: basset – last week on C-SPANs Book-TV they featured a guy who wrote a book about Beech, alongside the daughter of Olive Anne and Walter

    http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/306274-1

    Looks like a good book, too

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  81. LAMary said on June 9, 2012 at 6:32 pm

    Brian, I was a fan of Pikup Andropov, but I liked the staff statiscian better: Marge Inaverra. The leader of the working mothers support group was good too: Erasmus B. Dragon.
    I think I spelled Marge’s job incorrectly. It doesn’t look right to me.

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  82. Dexter said on June 9, 2012 at 7:47 pm

    statistician…you need another “t”…now tell me why even though I have spent all day uninstalling old and installing new plug-ins , going through a two hour dr-frag process, re-installing Firefox three times…doing everything I possibly could, Firefox will not play any videos at all, while on my wife’s page Firefox works perfectly (same computer), and IE plays everything for both of us…it’s driving me nuts…I have gone to all the “ask” and support sites and spent hours following their suggestions and now I GIVE UP! Unless someone knows whassup wit’ dis shit.

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  83. Dave said on June 9, 2012 at 9:25 pm

    Dexter, I’ve used and discarded most of the browsers at one time or another. Google Chrome seems to work fine on my laptop and I use it all the time but use Firefox on my aging desktop and have no problems with it, either. Google doesn’t seem to work well with Windows Vista, in my experience.

    I’ve tried Opera, no problems, but seemed like they were always sending me news I could care less about and I got tired of it, didn’t care who won a match of any sort in Scandinavia.

    All I’m saying is that is how I would give up, I would try another browser and see what I think.

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  84. LAMary said on June 9, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    Thanks,Dexter.

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  85. Brandon said on June 10, 2012 at 12:21 am

    “And the new guy – yet another white fellow (from Detroit) with a buzz haircut and all the answers, is a flatly racist pot-stirrer.”–Brian Stouder

    Is it this guy?

    http://www.radio-info.com/news/gregg-henson-named-om-for-federateds-newstalk-wowo-ft-wayne-1190

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  86. brian stouder said on June 10, 2012 at 12:42 am

    That’s him!

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  87. Prospero said on June 10, 2012 at 8:52 am

    Evidence tampering? Well. No shit. Let’s consider Fawn Hall and Ollie North. I do take exception to any nitwit misrepresenting what I say, as Mark clearly did. What a moron. Claiming melanin has ho part in the great Obama derangement is almost hilarious. Funny if it weren’t so sad. Will the real Martians please stand up.

    Yep, I used the word all, but Mr. Marky Mark took it ridiculously out of context,and I wouldn’t rely on the Heritage connection as proof of anything other than the racism inherent in Obama derangement syndrome. I also cited two well respected comservative justices, one a stalwart of the DC bench, the most conservative court in the country, where shitheels like Cucinelli go justice shopping. Single payer is what any san and humane person would support, but Obama got the camel’s nose in the tent, in the face of rabid obstuctionism, much of which is clearly based on his skin color. And the two conservative judges I cited are the two experts on the Commerce Clause.

    And trying to claim that anti-Obama lunacy has nothing to do with race is a refuge for scoundrels somewhere beyond patriotism.

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