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November 4, 2008
Election Day 2008!
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Irreverent and Unrepentant Satire and Irony
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Nasties & Crawlies
41 comments:
What's Frimark running for today?
I looked for him on the ballot...but just couldn't find him.
Monger is right. That does look like Bean.
Anon at 8:59 - local elections aren't until 2009. If Liemark *were* on the ballot, he would be running unopposed under the heading "Municipal Jacka$$"
Anon @ 12:40 -
I know he's not on the ballot this time around, I was just goofing around.
I do have one question though about him that I'll throw out to the group.
Anyone know why Frimark didn't throw his hat into the ring to challenge Kotowski?
Just curious.
HF is seen running from ward to ward
checking on the numbers for his crew:
- RM
- DK
and more....
Stay safe tonight!!
I.
Don't.
Think.
So.
Yeah. I think Bean is a guy.
Hardly. Bean is a woman, and a fine one at that.
Anon at 2:32:
If by "DK" you mean Dan Kotowski, I don't think he's been a Frimark guy. I'm pretty sure Frimark supported Axley 2 years ago.
PRU - I really don’t like this graphic! I’m usually thrilled with your choice of clever images but this one just offends me. I tried to approach it as retro or kitsch and it just doesn’t work. What’s your point in choosing it?
5:14pm... Get over it.
Let's move on people. Enough of Frimark. The USA is about to be guided by a unabashed socialist and surrounded by a frightening team of hard-core lefties who know nothing about economics.
I'm not worried about Howard but having my business a year from now.
And where's a stud muffin for the female readers?????
That particular color scheme is a recent (2000ish?) thing. Years and years of leftist/communists "reds" cannot be undone in the minds of many who grew up/old with that. IMO, the left side was tired of the association and pushed for the change from red to blue.
who would ever vote for frimark for anything?
Anon@5:14 --
What about it offends you?
Ok!!!!!!!!!
Its a great morning with a new
president - elected.
get out my check book ? the
people are already saying ??
Wow....
Hey!
Is Dave Schmidt running
for office ??
If you've been loping along, lunching, golfing, shopping and getting monster raises and bonuses as your company goes down the crapper, you may have a point. But if you've been running like a demented gerbil for 12 hours a day at work and seeing da boss take home your record-breaking productivity increases in his own pocket while crying poormouth, you should be thanking God today. If your family has spectacular health insurance that costs you next to nothing because you can write it off as an expense or because you're an exec who gets it as a perk, you may be unaffected. But if you are paying $12,000 a year or more for halfassed coverage and pray every night nothing really goes wrong for your family, you should be thanking God today. People, get a clue. Obama is a self-made man, a family man who isn't trading up to a cuter, younger wife like his detractors all did, a man who was smart and hard-working enough to make Harvard Law. And don't dare say it was affirmative action; you know better. Obama is far more conservative in any real sense of the word than the cynical squanderers we've lived (and died) under lately. He openly supports personal responsibility, turn off the idiot box, merit pay raises for union employees, carry your own water, stop borrowing -- and then he models it. You have much less to fear and more to gain than you think. If you buy into the fear, you're the same people who Frimark sold on a shrunken, uninformed, unaccountable Council under the knee-jerk banner of "smaller government." His robo-call promised City government would cost less, too. How's that been workin' for y'all? IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO LIVE IN PARK RIDGE, YOU HAVE A BRAIN. USE IT.
"Gird your loins."- Joe Biden
Anon at 6:38:
So, we're "about to be guided by a unabashed socialist and surrounded by a frightening team of hard-core lefties who know nothing about economics."
I guess American Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, who championed healthcare socialism, knew nothing about economics, either. He favored individual health savings accounts for minor expenses, but proposed mandatory catastrophic healthcare coverage run by the federal government. Ronald Reagan, who was clearly yet another socialist, liked this redistributionist idea so much he proposed its enactment.
Friedman also favored a negative income tax system - basically, using refundable tax credits. While this scheme has clearly not been widely adopted, a similar refundable tax credit, the earned income tax credit, became the favorite tool of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in combating poverty.
So yeah, socialist hard core lefties who know nothing about economics.
Feh.
And as long as we're tossing around Veep candidate quotes, may I offer the following:
"What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?" Palin, to Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons, about banning books right after taking office in 1996.
Bean - it was intended as a compliment.
E.I.E.I.O. - ditto.
PRU - I like the picture and it is tame compared to any beer commercial you can see at any hour on TV.
Anon. 12:01 - a year ago, a week ago, hell 24hrs ago, there was a point to making your argument. There isn't any longer. There was, to our eternal shame as a nation, an 8yr period where afactual blather (He's a socialist! He's a Muslim! Etc. ad nauseum) had to be disputed. We in the "facts based community" had to rage against the dying of the light. As of 11pm last night, we don't. Now those of us who believe in objective fact instead of living in a world of labels (McInSane is a maverick!; Palin's a hockey mom!; Reagan's a cowboy!) again run the country. Instead of the dying of the light, we have a new dawn. Those who want to live in their echo chamber of nonsense can do so. Let them go. Seriously. Maybe we get lucky and they talk themselves into running Palin in '12 (I've already got my check written to support that cause). Anyone who can stare into the face of the gov't buying equity in every major bank, owning most of the mortgages in the country, etc. (the very hallmarks of socialism), and then label someone else a socialist as a pejorative is beyond reasoning with. Anyone who can look at an explosion in the unemployment numbers and watch the freezing up of the credit markets (forget the stock market, the credit markets are what almost took us into a depression) caused by this past administration and then say they worry the new guy is going to ruin their business, is in denial about the carnage this administration has caused. In short, you are trying to debate with someone who is delusional. It is like arguing with a drunk and if you've ever done so, you know how that goes. As of 11pm or so last night, you can now safely just ignore people like that. They can either open their eyes, stop thinking in platitudes and start thinking for themselves, thereby rejoining the reality based community, or they can continue on echoing the banalities they hear on Faux News while the rest of the world moves on. In either instance, the decision is for them to make - and as of last night, there's no sense even debating the points any longer.
Charles,
Thank you ever so much for clearing that up...
...speaking of clearing things up...
How did your chat with the local bandito go? Did you manage to set him straight too...? Granted...understanding constitutional reasoning can be a bit more difficult than learning to appreciate inaccurately bestowed compliments...but I'm sure you tried...
PRU --- I don’t like the image because it’s uncomfortably sexist. It leaves me thinking that I’m missing some subtle point, some variation of the Reuters Sarah Palin leg photo perhaps. http://www.nancarrow-webdesk.com/warehouse/storage2/2008-w40/img.369628.html
Anon@9:46 --
What about it do you find uncomfortably sexist?
Sounds like Charles et al have their purple ribbons out...
Charles...it was actually the democrats, (Clinton), who pushed banks to loosen up mortgage requirements, not Bush. There's plenty of blame for that mess to go 'round. The credit crunch is the natural market reaction to the foreclosure mess.
Bush failed to see the train blazing down the tracks and do something. As is/was his style, he stood like a deer in headlights. If he can't send the military to shoot it, he's useless. Sarah Palin appears to think the same way and McCain sold out by picking her. I'm happy we dodged that bullet.
Now all that's left is to wait and see if Obama will realize he can't do most of the things he campaigned on. We simply don't have the money. Whether you agree or disagree with his politacal philosophies, he's an intelligent man, so I'm hoping he gets it.
As far as the right wing calling him a socialist, wake up folks. To a certain extent we already have socialism in this country. Do you kids go to public school? Do you even have kids? If not, too bad, your wealth is being redistributed to pay for someone elses kids education. We've had regressive income tax rates forever, Obama didn't invent any of this.
Related to the sexist comment, I have to remember that my reactions and opinions on issues are colored by my experience and, at times, even my gender.
There were questions that were asked of one of the candidates that were called sexist that did not illicit the same response in me. Having said that, I can see how an "undressed" photo of a lady wraped in the flag to remind people to vote might be seen by some, like the previous poster, as sexist. I do not necessairly agree but I can certainly see how some might look at it that way.
Anon@9:59 --
What about it is sexist?
PRU- While I don't necessarily agree with this, I believe the arguement is that the picture degrades woman. By degrading them, it implies that you believe woman are inferior to men, which would make is sexist.
I'm uncomfortable with the photo because her figure is better than mine....I need to go to the Community Center.
Anon@12:26 --
Not a bad effort on your part.
The argument to be made about how the graphic may be viewed as sexist is not that it degrades women -- that is something that could follow from those who view the graphic as being the totality of what women have to offer.
The descriptive word you are looking for, that connotes sexism, is "objectifies" women. The graphic may be said to reduce or diminish women into being nothing more than the sum of their parts.
What follows that sort of diminishment and reduction, through the use of objectifying graphics, is what may be said to be what is degrading to women and thus, sexist.
All that being said, the Crew does not find the graphic to be sexist because we do not view women as being merely the sum of their parts. We view women as whole people with some really terrific parts that many enjoy viewing. To deny the physical elegance of the female population, in deference to some idea that if you don't look, leer, admire or take note, then you aren't being sexist, strikes us as the height of stupid feminist philosophy. Women are beautiful. Especially beautiful women are nice to look at. The Crew finds much to celebrate in the soft curves of the female form and we remain profoundly amazed at what that soft curvy body is capable of doing. We will continue to celebrate the female form in all its glory.
And whether our elegant female readers can appreciate that sentiment from us or not is their choice to make. We have faith in our women readers for their own sense of self and security -- we can't imagine that too many of our women readers are so deeply insecure and threatened as to not be able to handle the posting of a graphic with an especially good looking woman in it.
But they should be sure of one thing -- when it comes to discussions about public policy or community interests we will neither ignore what they have to say just because they are women, nor celebrate what they have to say just because they are women -- that would be sexist.
Anon 9:27 - No. You are now living in a post Nov. 4th world and everything has changed. Facts again matter. Not false equivalencies or ascribed mutual culpability.
You mention Clinton, but in the wrong context. He was in office when Gramm/Leach/Bliley was passed, the eponymous Gramm being he of deregulate everything fame and then most recently the "you're all a nation of whiner's" statement. Said G/L/B did a number of things, but most importantly in this context it ended the distinction between investment and savings banks, and thru other aspects allowed the nationalization of the banking industry. That's the Fixed New Talking Point on Clinton.
Carter, who you meant when you said Clinton, told regulated lenders that they had to end their redlining practice, using zip codes, etc. as a method of denying mortgages to people (e.g., in that era if someone lived in a zip south of Congress, they got redlined and no mortgage). This Faux New Talking Point was an effort to pin the collapse on Fannie and Freddie on the Dems. But, alas, the facts don't match up the allegation. In point of fact they rebut it. Regulated lenders, banks mostly, pushed far, far lower bad paper onto Fannie and Freddie. It was the strip mall store front lenders who signed up anyone who could move a pen that created the vast majority (90+%) of what is now the bad paper.
Here's a further problem with the little shared culpability mantra that remains a Talking Point. When asked by Henry Waxman while under oath testifying before Congress, do you think Fannie or Freddie contributed to the current crisis his unequivocal answer was No. Look it up.
The game for the past eight years is to see the burning house, see a guy holding a match and a gas can and then to hear that guy say, "it was the house builder... if he hadn't built the house, it wouldn't have burned." And then that gets reported, "House Builder and Guy With Match Each Reponsible for Burning of House." But... dude, that's such pre Nov. 4th thinking.
Anon. 7:51 - purple ribbons? Nope. Just an American Flag.
Charles...
Someone once said "He who ignores history is doomed to repeat its mistakes", so your Post Nov 4th world facts better include pre-Nov 4th history.
A lot of talk went around in the purple ribbons and also with our Gov. Blago about "taking on" the "politics as usual"...
Only change that happened was the names of those getting the kickbacks...
Let's hope that the past is not repeated...
And as for GLB, even Bill doesnt buy your story...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_40/b4102000409948.htm
Sorry, that link was:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_40/b4102000409948.htm
and BTW when you mention Carter and the CRA, dont forget to mention that Carter's version included no real teeth since the act tried to "encourage such institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation..." but Clinton's revisions to the CRA in 1992 and 1995 enacted quotas (which he resolved to enforce by almost vetoing GLB if it reduced them, see that link for his reference to that very point) Clinton fought to enforce and expand CRA reach.
So yes, the current administration showed up and saw a burning house. But you have to get your facts straight on who had the match and gas can...
Even Bernanke has questioned (in 2007) an underlying assumption of the CRA "that more lending equals better outcomes for local communities may not always hold."
Included in that gas can was a 1992 law that required the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to devote a percentage of their activities to meeting affordable housing goals.
By the time the GLB came along in 1999, the fire had already started and Clinton and GLB all fanned the flames.
mutual culpability...
Oh, and Charles...
I've had my American Flag out for years and still do...
PRU-- I believe you do adore women for their beauty and respect them for their minds. But I think that the picture itself-- irrespective of your own thoughts and intention-- objectifies women. You could have chosen any of a thousand images to encourage your readers to vote and yet you chose that Playboy-type image of a scantily clad sex kitten with a package of physical attributes very few women actually possess. My question back to you is "Why that image, for that purpose?" It was in the choosing, I think, that the sexism occurred. It seems gratuitous. As a mother, I am concerned with the sheer quantity of the objectifying images of women that we face daily, without being able to choose whether to see those images or not. It is one thing to choose to go to a Vargas exhibit and quite another to have a Vargas-type image pop up on a billboard or on a political blog as a way to encourage readers to vote. And as much as you and othes might enjoy looking at those images, they often have a negative effect on women who can't ever measure up to them. Which is probably why some of the posters here said they felt uncomfortable with or offended by the image. I'm not saying you can't look at such images, and I am not saying your female readers can't handle the posting of this type of graphic. We can, we handle similar images a lot in our lives . I am just asking you to understand that such images might be offensive to women, that we face them a lot in our lives, and that feeling offended is not an irrational response to the image. It's just not something we should be told to "get over" (to use e.i.e.i.o's term). I hope I've been able to explain myself well enough.
Anon@1:20 --
You did indeed explain yourself. We disagree with your position.
We liked the graphic and that's why we chose it. If you are a regular reader then you know this is not the only graphic of beautiful bodies we've posted. If this is a deal breaker for you in reading our blog so be it. We will continue to post graphics we like just because we like them.
anon 1:20:
I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post your well written and well stated response. As a middle aged white male, I am in a catagory that often does not have the same gut level response to issues of sexism (or racism for that matter). That does no mean I do not see where you are coming from and I in no way think you are irrational for taking offense.
As an aside, when I went to college my school was known as the Warriors. We are now known as The Golden Eagles. I do not have the same gut level reaction to that issue either but if changing the made it less offensive to others I am ok with that. Whatever the name, we still have not won the national championship since 1977.
Anon 12:29:
Great stuff; couldn't get the link to work, but I like cites and appreciate someone who uses them to bolster their argument.
Here's the problem, numbers. As in both (1) default rates, and (2) dates.
(1) How many of the CRA mortgages are in default? By percentage, less than the over-all average of mortgages in default. For this Carter era legislation (later updated) to be at fault, as the Republicans have tried so desparately to argue, the reverse would have to be true. It isn't. CRA didn't cause the default crisis. Fannie and Freddie didn't cause the default crisis, as Greenspan himself said.
(2) The mortgage crisis is the result of mortgages going bad. What mortgages went bad? Predominantly those issued at the end of the boom (high prices, lowered standards, no money down, etc.). If CRA was the problem, you'd see a constant percentage during the duration of the legislation above the average. You don't - or at least not in a sense that contributes in any significant way to the current crisis.
In short, the house wasn't burning. I know you want it to be, so blame can be spread, but... think about what you're in fact arguing: that the administration inherited a burning building and did nothing, said nothing for the first 7yrs it was in office. Are you so eager to find some antecedent that by implication you're going to state the administration willfully ignored the problem?
Regarding GLB, if it alone was the problem, then (1) there would be calls in gov't to repeal it - and there none, and certainly (2) we wouldn't see the consolidation it allows being expedited (don't you wish you'd bought some JPMorgan?).
Hey... great fun having this discussion. I get to PRU, when I get to PRU, on lunch break or during con calls (now, for instance). Follow-up, rebut, dispute, etc. I really dig the fact you back your argument up with cites and it is nice to get the brain humming along on something other than another con call.
Charles
Sorry about the links...
Here it is in 2 parts(cut and paste maybe?):
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/
08_40/b4102000409948.htm
and there was another from Bernanke:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/
speech/Bernanke20070330a.htm
and another I will have to dig up again...
So... Charles, dont be so quick to be sure (re: the house wasnt burning) that I "... want it to be, so blame can be spread..." and yes I am saying that the current administration did (practically) nothing to put it out...maybe not "WILLFULLY ignored" but possibly "ignored", "was ignorant about", or even "handled poorly"
[We can debate the theoretical pros/cons of misaction and inaction some other time...]
I have heard in discussion (but dont have the nice cites yet) that there was some attempt to stem the tide. Even if this is true... too little, too late...
What you are implying is that "I" want it to be NONE of the current administration's fault. We both know this is false.
Much like 9/11 and its aftermath, fires were lit long before the current admin was in power, but coming along with a spray hose full of gasoline (and then flailing wildly) only made things worse instead of better.
As for the number or percentage, you are assuming the "straw that broke the Camel's back", ignoring the rest of the straws, and not considering the shifting sand beneath his feet...
Even if the percentage of CRA defaults was greater, the problem didnt really skyrocket until the tenuous position was hit by the bursting market bubble. The previous policies "consistent with the safe and sound operation" had gone by the wayside. The CRA required a minimum of high risk accounts (and along with the other bad ones like you have stated), these were enough to weaken the institutional position to a point where the bubble burst (and other coincident economic factors) could not be absorbed.
In essence, your arguement is the "straw that broke the Camel's Back" was the other bad lending but this alone MAY not have led to collapse.
I am reminded of the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc which is sometimes stated as "If A, then B...therefore A caused B" One example of this is "the car didnt break down until you started driving it"...the false conclusion is that you driving the car caused the car to break down. Other factors, including the state of the car when you started driving it should be examined.
As a side note, I think I remember also that Clinton almost vetoed GLB but didnt veto it (as amended) when he was satisfied that the CRA minimums WERE NOT AFFECTED. My take on this is that he may have even seen some possibility of "not-so-sound" practice but allowed it to happen to further his pet project of the CRA...
Politics at its finest (which is still pretty crappy)
Have a good weekend Charles. Remember that not everyone is on the other side of the aisle but many (and I consider myself one) stand firmly within the aisle. This position gets tiring when we get it from both sides and continue to get tugged from left to right and back...
I never feel fully represented but continue to have my flag flying...
Oh yeah... sorry to forget to clarify.
I meant to clarify my previous post that match and gas can were different administrations.
Blame to go around back to the 70's
(much like some other problems we've had)
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