As to the pendulum, it has been remarkably stable at the presidential level. Almost a perfect pattern of swinging every 8 years for the past 6 decades. The legislative branch and state positions tend to follow this cycle on a 2-4 year delay, but the past 8 years that pattern has been more exaggerate...

Apropos of nothing in particular: "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - F. Nietzsche . I also like the quote from the much lesser R. Pirsig on a related point - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many peop...

I do suppose that the phrase "government mandated kindless" is rather inflamitory - it was merely a retort to the previous article where it was said that Ayn was against kindness. She was very much against social programs and most other government programs for that matter - some of which do kind th...

Ya know, as far as I've read, Ayn Rand was never against kindness, she was against government mandated kindness. Those are two different things in my opinion. I'm sure there's a point there in her thinking, but "government mandated kindness"?? That's such an intense and defamatory framing that who ...

here's a good piece that goes into some detail on the point that Cole and Lotus were discussing. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/republican-party-obstructionism-victory-trump-214498 Damn you mean I didn't have to type all that? Well this may not be exact truth, but it's pretty much e...

The Democrats were anything but "decent" when they had total control of the government during the president's first two years. There absolutely is equivalency because both of these gangs of goons ride in with guns blazing when they have the numbers advantage. Harry the Reid paved the way for the Re...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/national-security/trump-spoke-with-taiwanese-president-a-major-break-with-decades-of-us-policy-on-china/2016/12/02/b98d3a22-b8ca-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html This man will get us all killed. I imagine this is exactly the kind of...

At least weed is legal in many many places, and easy enough to get everywhere else. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. It won't help anything other than your psyche, though, but that cold comfort may just be enough to navigate the next 4+ years. I spent several years only smoking weed very, very occasionall...

this is sad and tragic If there's anything else to say, I don't know what it is. The implications of this kind of "thinking" are presumably obvious and definitely terrifying (and yet we know who won the election so maybe not). This is literally Dark Ages stuff. The Dark Ages!! :cry: :cry: As I unde...

BOOM! Everything that's wrong w/ politics today unintentionally summed up in a casually tossed off couple of sentences in today's WaPo: " it seems doubtful that Trump will be able to get Democrats to help him pass his nontraditional Republican policies. Politics, after all, is zero sum. If you win ...

https://i.imgsafe.org/b7e1242392.jpg @RealDonaldTrump is a fake news/conspiracy theory account! Hahahahaha This is "let me distract from the reporting on my conflicts of interest by citing an infowars (home of the Sandy Hook hoax claims) story also exaggerated on fake news sites, and also start som...

. She should be Won't work? Meaning what? Electronic voting with no paper trail is what's reprehensible. Regardless of the politics of it it is a good idea to investigate. It's not about trying to overthrow the presumed results of the election( well I guess that may be a part of it but not why I su...

Jill Stein is raising money for a vote recount in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. https://jillstein.nationbuilder.com/recount That is one of the most cynically opportunistic things I have ever seen. After doing her level best to pull Clinton votes away and get Trump elected, she's now fundrai...

Running out of quoting space, but I work in an east-coast university. I am a progressive in the mold of Arkansawyer - I just want people to be able to live and breath and not constantly be made into commodities or hourly robots or be put in jail for anything that was nobody else's business to begin ...

There is shit in this article which can curl your toes. Good article, toes notwithstanding. I agree with this, for the most part at least: I think that the left is making a huge mistake by labeling everybody on the right “alt-right.” Because what they’re doing is they’re pushing people into the arm...

John A Arkansawyer wrote:

lotusamerica wrote:who did what and what does it mean

Cooley plus Patterson in eight words--good work, man!

All night in my sleep my mind kept singing "Trying to be the boss on a Beaver Brown budget..."

So thanks for that.

who did what and what does it mean Cooley plus Patterson in eight words--good work, man! Oh, and this: Truth time (my truth anyway). Hillary Clinton was a dedicated public servant, and a greedy self-dealing politician. Donald Trump is a lying, bigoted, narcissistic and most likely dictatorial bozo,...

For some reason, this passage from Robert Pirsig's Lila keeps coming into my head this past week. One of those things I'd read years ago and I don't even remember really noticing it at the time, but I woke up with it in my head the other night. I don't know if it fits now, I don't even know if it's ...

The simplest explanation works for me: Trump no more thought he'd win than anyone else did. Ok to both Arkansawyer and BTB (and yes to Zip for a variant on Occam's). I guess I am fairly troubled that it appears that Russia did hack emails, that there was contact with them and some Trump reps, that ...

This one is for BTB, who has successfully talked people down from this ledge before. I'm only occasionally prone to conspiracy theories, but watching the 3rd debate I wondered why would Trump make such a point to say he might not accept election results, and my very immediate reply to myself was tha...

So, Clinton won the popular vote but not the electoral college, and then graciously conceded rather than filing lawsuits or demanding recounts. What an evil fucking American-hating corrrupt bitch.

Looks like....Republicans will now have Presidency, Senate, House, Supreme Court, majority of federal courts, majority of governorships, majority of state legislatures. It's a complete sweep and changes American politics in an unprecedented way. There is not a single check left on Republican power.

Can I just add that I don't take much of what any top tier politicians say very seriously. This is generally a highly orchestrated, focus grouped and polled competition. They say what their handlers have determined will pull the most votes based on loosely defined coalitions that they are seeking to...

I certainly don't blame FiveThirtyEight. I love me some Nate Silver. I saw the graphic before these jamokes but never in my wildest nightmares did I think serious people would discuss repealing the 19th. I don't blame 538 for the response to their work. I blame them for their work. What kind of mor...

Long time...not much happening here even after the Hillary barely even stumbled or on the other hand might die before election day event?

John A you made me laugh about taking up hi ting to make the vegetarians mad. Lol. I don't know many people who are anti hunting and fishing as you can imagine but I have to admit to deliberately needling them some. One kinda pissed me off recently telling someone who'd offered food, "No, I'm a veg...

My facebook post from a couple of days ago...reposting here to see if anyone has any thoughts. --- Context matters. Black lives matter. Only black lives matter. Black lives matter too. When you hear "black lives matter" which extra word do you hear in your mind? We are wired to interpret ambiguous i...

I'm declaring myself the winner of the internet for today. My comment on the op-ed piece "There is No Scientific Method" in today's NYT has garnered over 380 "likes," by far the most of the over 230 posted comments. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/there-is-no-scientific-method.html?commen...

I made a decision a while back to not participate in partisan political discussions for a while. Gotta say, it's not been easy, with all the dumb shit going on, and some of the facebook comments my friends and acquaintances are making, but I guess that's kind of the point - to detach without withdra...

Elections matter, but despite all the teeth gnashing about Trump, I don't see him as any worse than say GWB and the neoconservative crew he brought with him, or Hillary as any better than Bill, who sent our jobs overseas, locked up hundreds of thousands of minoorities in the drug war, and moved neol...