June 4, 1989 at the Gate of Heavenly Peace

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Wednesday June 04, 2014 · 1:43 PM PDT

2014/06/04 · 13:43

Something happened 25 years ago today. Something we should strive to remember as vividly as if it were happening right now. A bunch of college students occupied a public square to mourn the death of a reformer and protest against government corruption and for freedom of speech and other democratic reforms. They were joined by laborers and public intellectuals on the square. Eventually, the square swelled with their ranks, until they were a million strong. It seemed as though they might even succeed, as even some soldiers sent to disperse them declined to do so.
Everyone watching around the world was filled with hope and awe.

megaplayboy

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Tuesday August 09, 2011 · 6:55 AM PDT

2011/08/09 · 06:55

Well, folks, it's taken a while to get to this point, but thanks to the Teahadis, the Tealiban, the FundamenTealists, and the LiberTearians, we are now about to embark on a "wonderful" new adventure, one not experienced by any generation since the 1930s. The government's sterling AAA credit rating has been downgraded to AA+, our unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for more than 2 years, our GDP is scraping along, government workers are being laid off and/or union-busted in droves, the market is skydiving without a parachute, home values are largely underwater already, and nobody's buying anything(well, except for rich people, but I digress).
But don't worry folks, the same brain trust that brought you Debt Ceiling Crisis I: Give Us What We Want or The Economy Gets It, and Debt Ceiling Crisis II: The Economy Gets It Anyway will soon be bringing us relief. They will be looking to get rid of that Kenyan librul soshulest facist and his comrades in Congress, in order to:

megaplayboy

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Monday December 14, 2009 · 6:43 AM PST

2009/12/14 · 06:43

Once there was a man named Harry who wished to buy some bread for his hungry family. He went to see the bread merchant, Holy Joe. Holy Joe was the only bread merchant in town, and he was very, very fickle and peculiar man. It so happened that Holy Joe had just received a fresh loaf of the most delicious variety, when Harry arrived at his shop. Harry spied the loaf in the window...what a marvelous sight! There was enough there to slice the loaf into 32 pieces, plenty to feed his family for a whole week.
"How much for the whole loaf?", asked Harry.
Holy Joe frowned.
"What! You want to buy the whole loaf?! I couldn't possibly sell you the whole loaf. Maybe I could sell you half a loaf, that's still a lot, but more reasonable. I can't go selling you the whole loaf! What will the rest of my customers do?"

megaplayboy

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Wednesday October 29, 2008 · 8:58 AM PDT

2008/10/29 · 08:58

Well, it does look like there's some slight tightening in the polls lately. The RCP average has dropped from about +7.5 for Obama down to just below +6. The R2k, Ras and Gallup polls all show tightening. But so far, it mostly seems to be McCain's numbers moving up slightly, rather than Obama's numbers really going down. 538 still has Obama at about 96% to win, with well over 300 electoral votes. The polls in crucial states really aren't showing this tightening effect. But it's understandable, in light of the past two presidential elections, that folks would be worried about any trend towards a tightening race as we get so close to election day. I have a few thoughts on this, after the jump, but feel free to vent in either direction in this thread.

megaplayboy

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Thursday June 28, 2007 · 7:16 AM PDT

2007/06/28 · 07:16

I was thinking the other day about the question that was posed in the debates, about a terrorist WMD attack on two American cities, and how each of the candidates might respond if president. I wasn't completely satisfied with any response I heard, though all of them came fairly close to what I expected to hear.

But it got me thinking: what SHOULD the response of a Progressive president be to such a horrific event, and in what significant ways would it differ from, say, a conservative or neo-conservative response? How could a progressive approach safeguard the American public from further attack and determine an appropriate, forceful response, and at the same time avoid eroding civil liberties in the name of safety?

I regard the probability of such an event as being pretty low(single digit percentages over the next 20-30 years), but nonetheless, it seems like a good way to identify and/or develop how exactly a progressive approach to national security policy would be different from what has gone before.

megaplayboy

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Thursday May 03, 2007 · 12:11 PM PDT

2007/05/03 · 12:11

Huh. Awk-ward.

http://rawstory.com/...

megaplayboy

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Wednesday February 14, 2007 · 5:55 PM PST

2007/02/14 · 17:55

In light of the recent to-do about Jonah Goldberg's proposed wager with Juan Cole(which he would have lost, badly), I was struck with an idea: an "opinion" wager.

My "rough draft" of this idea is as follows: talk with a conservative acquaintance, particularly one of the "we'll stay as long as it takes/we're making progress" variety. Propose the following wager:

megaplayboy

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Friday September 16, 2005 · 7:08 AM PDT

2005/09/16 · 07:08

From the speech last night:
In this place, there's a custom for the funerals of jazz musicians. The funeral procession parades slowly through the streets, followed by a band playing a mournful dirge as it moves to the cemetery. Once the casket has been laid in place, the band breaks into a joyful "second line" -- symbolizing the triumph of the spirit over death. Tonight the Gulf Coast is still coming through the dirge -- yet we will live to see the second line.

WTF?!? Thousands of Louisianans and Mississippians and Alabamans are mourning their dead; millions of Americans still have images of floating bodies and human misery haunting their minds--and he wants to invoke jazz funerals?

The rest of the speech was tolerable, but that made me want to retch.

RSS

June 4, 1989 at the Gate of Heavenly Peace

Welcome to the Great Teapression

Health Care Reform and the Parable of the Bread

Meaningless poll speculation thread

The "two cities attacked" question: a progressive response?

Edwards campaign scrubs "War on Terror" from site

A wager with our conservative counterparts?

"Jazz funeral" metaphor most tasteless ever? WTF?!