Yates

Fair enough. If you want to split hairs, the Tea Party is a MOVEMENT. I kind of like that descriptor better anyway since I had a "movement" this morning... No. Certainly not. It does, however, indicate that there was enough cohesive ground swell to necessitate the creation of an organized online presence that exists to this day representing TODAY’s Tea Party. I can’t argue this point. I can only point to THEIR stated purpose on THEIR website as evidence of what the Tea Party stands for. This is the point where you start getting into MY wheelhouse, Macro Economics. The way the government spends money can not and should not be equated to balancing a home budget. While I agree that we need some better decision makers at the helm, I disagree with the Tea Party’s stated method of doing so. You live in New York, right? Let’s take a look at how INTELLIGENT government spending has rescued parts of Upstate New York, revitalized manufacturing in the State, and been a boon not just for New York State but for our Country as a whole… Back around 1996 or 1997, a Physics professor at a SUNY college was able to convince New York State to give him a couple million dollars to build a special type of research facility for something called “nano technology,” a foreign term at the time. That money, along with public/private partnerships with companies like IBM, AMD, Tokyo Electron, Applied Materials, etc. has blown up into a multi BILLION dollar research institution, the creation of a new SUNY College, thousands of jobs for upstate NY, and new sites coming up in Utica, Rochester, and Buffalo. What's awesome about this model is that WE own the facilities and the tools. Since the tools are worth upwards of $150M-$200M a piece [especially for Alpha tools] PLUS specialized installation knowledge, it would be extremely cost prohibitive for any of these companies to try to pull out. We are doing it for 1/10th of what it would cost them to do it privately anywhere else. So this prevents a full pull out - a la Kodak or GE - and any type of a bubble burst. Thus, this strategy not only brought jobs to New York State but has actually created a situation where they pretty much HAVE to stay at this point. As a Republican, you've got to love that we grew and have a strategy for MAINTAINING jobs, right? One of the outcomes of this initial investment was the ability to save two solar manufacturing and research companies and to bring them to New York State. In fact, this is being built on a brown space [the former site of Bethlehem Steel] in Buffalo, NY. As a Republican, you’ve got to love the fact that we are supporting research and manufacturing that will lessen our dependence on foreign oil, right? And that’s not even taking into account the thousands of high paying jobs that single program will be responsible for creating. It also set upstate New York up as the new “Tech Valley” and a place that companies want to be in order to take advantage of the high tech resources, training, and talent pool we have in this area. International SEMATECH relocated their headquarters from Austin to Albany, as one example. MW Group, a construction firm that specializes in cleanroom buildings, moved their headquarters from out of state to the Watervliet Arsenal, a 10 minute drive from downtown Albany. Moves like this is what fed Global Foundries’, an Arab company that is a manufacturing subsidiary of AMD [the guys that compete with Intel], decision to build their chip fab plant in Malta, NY – 30 minutes from Albany. They chose Malta in the United States of America over areas like Taiwan, Singapore, and Dresden. That Fab created almost 2000 jobs directly [process engineers, tool specialists, gas and chemical technicians, etc] with an average salary that borders on 6 figures. And that doesn’t take into account all the startups that have been popping up to support this industry [cleanroom supplies, special cleaning services for cleanroom gowns, chemical and gas supplies, etc]. As a Republican, you’ve got to appreciate that as a big win for our COUNTRY, right? And none of this would have happened without an initial INVESTMENT by our GOVERNMENT in education. I hope that wasn’t directed at me. I’m not trying to define you, if it was. I just think this is a polarizing issue worth healthy, intelligent debate. And frankly, if I didn’t respect you I’d just call you an idiot and wouldn’t bother with discussion! Since I think you are NOT an idiot, I am fascinated by your decision to support the Tea Party and I’m trying to understand it.

Which is why I am seldom sober.

I could feel his warm breath on me and smell that VERY distinct dog fur smell he had. It was just so real. No idea why I was dreaming about him randomly like that. It isn't any conspicuous occasion. Maybe just thinking about "family" - he was my family for 13 years - and Christmas? I don't know. I just feel like I got to steal a few more moments with him. And I look forward to stealing a few more.

Well, political satirist, but mostly yes. I'm not looking at The Daily Show as a news outlet. lol. It was just funny that I was typing in this thread while the show was on and they did a bit on this Duck Dynasty debacle and just happened to cut to about a dozen cut aways from FOX News that were - obviously given the context of the show - hillarious. Awe shit. Now we are in a fight! This is the part of the thread where I embarrass you. I apologize in advance for the spanking you are about to receive but it is unavoidable. Here goes: You claim you “don’t make widgets’ and that politics is “what you do.” Then why don’t you know your own party? 1. Reason #1 is to stop “Obamacare? “ Well… the Affordable Care Act was introduced by New York State’s 13th District Representative Charles Rangle in 2009. Source: Tea Party.org Between you and me, the roots of the Tea Party actually extend back to the 90’s and Tax Day Protests but what’s a decade between friends? 2. There are TWO reasons and TWO reasons only that the Tea Party exists and anything else is a fabrication? Also from Teaparty.org. Just click on the about link. Seems like more than “two” reasons to me. The problem I have with the Tea Party is that they cut off their nose to spite their face and have been dragging religion in to WAY too much of their political chicanery. Regardless of your own personal relationship with God and/or Jesus Christ, if you are going to be a Constitutionalist you need to leave that stuff at Church and recognize that you are legislating for Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and everything in between. In other words, there’s a REASON our forefathers expressly forbade the creation of laws that would establish a religion or prevent the free exercise thereof. Further, feel free to read about the plight of Roger Williams – some guy that fled the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations - in regards to the separation of Church and State. I could break each of these 15 points down line by line but I’d be here all night and it’s almost 02:00 in the morning so I need to get some sleep. The one point I will address is the second point you brought up to “stop out of control government spending.” So, our Country fell into this recession for any number of reasons [don’t get me started on the Glass-Steagall Act repeals]. To anyone that thinks the way to get OUT of a recession is to downsize government and limit government spending, I ask you this; What got America out of the Great Depression? Was it: A. New Deal Spending B. Selling goods during WWII C. All of the Above If you voted C, you are correct. My point here is that the bigger picture has to do with HOW money is being spent and less on how MUCH is being spent. Look, you and I want essentially the same thing – a safer, stronger, better America. We just disagree on the steps our Nation needs to take to get us there. We are behind Canada, Israel, and Japan in terms of education. We are 105th - yes 105 - in intentional murder. To give you some perspective, the 5 SAFER nations immediately above us are Laos, Suriname, Georgia, Yemen, and Turkmenistan. Libya, Iraq, Iran, and Djibouti are all WAY safer in terms of homicide rates. We rank 34 - lower than CUBA - in infant mortality rate. These are not fantastic markers. And I'm going to completely ignore our world image at this point. Because there's simply no debating that we have a LOT of ground to make up in that regard. The fact that a Belgian thinks it's okay to take a dump on the US military and our role in the liberation of Belgium should speak volumes to that point. Okay. I'm starting to ramble. Tea Party - Bad. Yates - Good. More discussion tomorrow.

Woah. Let's take it down a notch. I think Sim intended to make a silly joke but it touched a nerve. That said, take a look at tonight's Daily Show. There's a series of clips from FOX News that actually makes Sim's point. It makes FOX News look really REALLY silly. And it's hard to take them serious when they embarrass themselves like that. I feel the same way about our party. I don't even know what the current Republican Party is. They are so out of touch with the world that I find it extremely difficult to identify with them anymore. And every time they kowtow to the Tea Party crazies I feel like another piece of the party dies. This, however, isn't the point of the thread. I still maintain that the biggest surprise here was GQ interviewing a hillbilly.

I have never watched that show either. Continue to have no interest or plans to. I would probably watch The Real Housewives of Hackensack before I'd watch this.

955

As someone who self-identified as a Republican for purposes of elections in Primaries, I would agree to this larger point.

957

Biggest surprise here: he was being interviewed by GQ??!!

959

Macbeth

I had a dream last night that my dog - that I had to put down last year - had actually been stuffed instead of cremated. So I had this taxidermy version of my dog in one of my rooms and I was randomly eating pastrami. I thought I saw my dog's eyes move so I started moving the pastrami up and down and his head started to follow. Finally I threw the pastrami like I was playing fetch and my dog ran after it. I was like "why did you fake your death?!!" And I gave him a love tackle. It was a nice dream.

Yeah. That's a tough one.

Just now. When is the last time you played forum mafia?

Trotsky. Not even a question. Dr. Martin Luther King was a more effective version of Malcolm X, imho. Would you rather win $5 Million or live 25 more healthy years?

globe

bikini

963

Perhaps a refresher course in WWII history? Not to sound overly patriotic, but I'm quite certain Americans fought as hard as they did to protect the Trappist Monks. Thus, BEER [glorius beer] saved your nation.

Bikini

Bikini

965

SERIOUSLY injured? Broken arm and dislocated shoulder Freshman year of high school? Or one of the times I was shot in the Army. Or maybe some shrapnel from an IED. But the break was the worst. When was the last time you ate an animal that wasn't cow, chicken, pig, fish, lamb, turkey, or duck?

Not enough chlorine in the gene pool ever since Jarts were outlawed, imo.