Disqus - Latest Comments for HappySurge

Re: As BART Cries Poor On Twitter, They Hand Out $3.3 Million In Bonuses

HappySurge — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 16:06:39 -0000

"Which, that's not wrong! But if someone tells us that they're short the thousands of bucks they need to pay rent, we're still going to look askance at them if they go drink a couple of $17 artisan cocktails."

Contractual labor obligations are not artisan cocktails. This is more like paying to maintain your car because you need it to get to work every day even though you also have other financial demands which are much larger. Or, I guess in the case of BART, paying for your Clipper Card. It's not an extravagance and it's not counter-productive, unless you think incurring a lawsuit for breaking a labor agreement or facing another strike with cause would be a better use of the funds.

Re: Hulk Hogan just got fired, brother

HappySurge — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 13:30:41 -0000

They've really come a long way in their calculated corporate response from the days of the Chris Benoit memorial episode.

Re: <i>UnREAL</i>: “Fly”

HappySurge — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 13:32:11 -0000

My only regret about this episode was not the suicide, which was phoned in from the get-go, but the fact that they kept bringing up the helicopter and they didn't even have the decency in opting for tastelessness to end with Mary jumping out of it. It was the Chekhov's gun of this episode and I was ready to be like 'oh, she's been talking about this damn helicopter all day on the episode that's clearly going to take us into Scandal-when-its-crazy territory, time for somebody to jump out of and/or take down a helicopter on the way to a date' but nah. Just straight off a roof. Not even on a roof where a helicopter could land.

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 12:50:21 -0000

Obviously, you can be unhappy about it and it doesn't look like it's an end to the things involving this case to be unhappy about that have to do with government agencies.

However, Sanctuary City policies exist in a wide variety of cities, each with their own context and have for some time. In San Francisco, it hasn't resulted in a long-standing history of homicides committed by undocumented immigrants or, as in this case, a person who was deported multiple times. The initial post said that the difference between liberals and conservatives on sanctuary policy is whether they've lost anyone via a homicide committed by an undocumented person. And the reality is, for almost all San Franciscans in the past decade, that hasn't been the case. So by that poster's logic, almost all people would be liberals on this issue, but they're not. Because people fear or get angry about things substantially out of proportion to their likelihood of happening especially when they have something that is a nightmare scenario. People aren't worried about what has happened to them, they're worried about what happened to someone else happening to them, even though it's highly unlikely.

I think it's generally right to assess the city's policy and response and whether it resulted in catastrophe in a particular case and to determine liability that way and propose amendments to policy while at the same time recognizing that this specific outcome is very much an outlier/anomaly and it required significant failures to occur as it did beyond just a Sanctuary City policy which produces this outcome almost never on its own in any of its iterations across multiple cities, San Francisco being the most openly mock-able on the national stage for its association as a liberal hotbed despite the massive changes it has undergone in the past few decades which are reflected all throughout the city and its government.

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Wed, 08 Jul 2015 12:30:13 -0000

I don't know if it's all that kosher to bogart the grief of a family don't know as an excuse for pretending things aren't the way they are. It's not like if I referenced the temperatures for the past 7 years, you'd be like 'tell that 'average temperature over 7 years' bullsh*t to the people who just experienced a 97 degree day.'

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 19:00:29 -0000

That's fair, I did phrase it in a confusing way.

"somewhere between the likelihood of having a cousin struck by lightning and having that same cousin win a five figure sum from a state lottery. It probably didn't happen."

I meant to say it's like either of those two things happening to a relative, not both, which, you know, is to say it's not impossible, just not particularly likely or a real threat to happen to what constitutes almost all people in a given year.

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 18:08:10 -0000

The odds of an American getting hit by lighting in a given year are 1 in 700,000. The odds of winning at least a five figure sum in a state lotto range from anywhere as low as 1 in 40,000 to anywhere as high as 1 in 1.5 million per game with the average for more popular games like Powerball being roughly 1 in 650,000 for getting 4 and the powerball and getting a $15k sum out of it.

So, yes, to be accurate, you're probably even less likely, in a given year, to be killed or have a family member killed by an undocumented immigrant than for either you or your family member to be struck by lightning or win a five-figure sum from a state lottery game.

You can feel free to go to the California or New York Lottery websites and National Geographic to verify the lottery and lightning figures respectively or you can just trust that I've obnoxiously done more research than is necessary and save yourself the time I've wasted.

The point being, this is what happens the least of the time and to treat it, as the original poster does, as an inevitably some of us have simply had the good fortune to avoid is pretty dubious considering the reality where it almost never happens to anyone.

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 17:31:03 -0000

SF's population is over 800,000 people. 4 deaths over 7 years over 800,000 people currently living here means that the chance is pretty far from being an even remote concern to most people. I'm sure over seven years, four people in a given metropolitan area get hit specifically by piano delivery trucks, but I'm not going to treat it like an epidemic.

Re: SF Police Union Lashes Out At 'Elected Official' Over Kate Steinle Shooting Death

HappySurge — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 17:23:37 -0000

A liberal is a person whose family member hasn't been killed by an undocumented immigrant yet.

Having a family member killed by an undocumented immigrant is, at best, somewhere between the likelihood of having a cousin struck by lightning and having that same cousin win a five figure sum from a state lottery. It probably didn't happen.

You phrase it like it's just something waiting to happen, like flu season. "Oh, never had a porcupine fall on your head while doing a mime routine? Well, you'll see." "No, I really don't ever think I will. That happens almost no times to anybody."

Re: The Metreon Is (Hopefully) Getting Booze

HappySurge — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 17:39:43 -0000

Just to clarify, in my experience of going there about once a week, Landmark Embarcadero Center does let you take beer and wine into the theaters, so you can have them during the movie as well, in either the screening lounges or the ordinary theaters.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:35:20 -0000

If we lived in a country called "The United States of America and Christianity" I'd understand your shock at the President's call for basic empathy a little better.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:23:54 -0000

Your understanding of the history of the Middle East and broader Islam is comical. I mean, go to the library, check out any book about Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, even Egypt, and just read. You don't even have to dig very far back. You could start in the 1930's and just press forward. The idea that Islam doesn't have philosophy or doesn't have lessons or reformers or ideas about freedom or peace or justice or fairness or decency or human rights is ridiculous not just on the basis of Islam's holy books, but on the basis of the life of Muslims throughout, but not limited to, just these past few decades.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:21:40 -0000

Yeah, it's almost like the President believes in what he's saying and will repeat it pretty much verbatim to any audience respective of their make-up.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:19:11 -0000

Here's a speech from 2008 in Egypt given by the President before he was even President. Maybe you should read it in between playing hypocrisy detective:

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:17:43 -0000

Yeah, I remember the part of the President's speech where he said "we shouldn't fight ISIS."

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 14:07:54 -0000

FDR interred Japanese Americans in a great stain on human rights.

Woodrow Wilson responded to World War I by signing the Sedition Act which was used largely to target such dastardly foes as groups of workers.

So, yes, the President is unusual in the fact that he at least tried to close Guantanamo Bay instead of being the one to open it up in the first place.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:37:56 -0000

He didn't say "don't judge the horrors of ISIS." He spoke about Islam. Islam isn't a communist dictatorship, so it's not like Obama's going 'hey, don't judge Kim Jung-Un, remember Pinochet?" The President didn't spit in your face. The President is a Christian. He was saying Islam isn't ISIS and for those who would judge Islam because ISIS uses it to kill, that they should understand how often violence is accounted for by a call to God, and he cited his own God in this, a God which has been used to terrorize people as well as to lift them up and unite them. It's giving support to those set upon whose relationship to their God is that of peace and love and unity, not of destruction.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:34:07 -0000

I'm thinking back to Coates' article about Shirley Sherrod and her family. It's hard not to draw parallels between the scenes portrayed there against her family, and the actions of ISIS and Boko Haram. A family just trying to live set on by murderers, over and over. This aside from the larger historic parallel of the growth of white supremacists movements and sections in the wake of the Civil War through to the Civil Rights movement, how they moved from town to town on their campaigns, how they murdered and burned.

It's hard not to see the Civil Rights movement itself as even more remarkable given that level of terror. Could you imagine the courage required, for example, in the towns currently terrorized by ISIS, to stand for one's own existence against those who deny your right to even that, with no certainty of support despite it being a requirement for you to move in any measure.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:24:56 -0000

I'm also fairly certain the people standing against the President's understanding of history as drawn from these comments would argue that the use of the cross in burnings was strictly traditionalist and at worst, non-denominational.

Re: The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response To Obama's Prayer Breakfast Speech

HappySurge — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:21:07 -0000

I wanted to highlight the words of the former Virginia governor:

“He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

There's a lot of problems with this. The Governor could be saying that Christianity is a value all Americans share, which is fairly dismissive of large portions of human beings. Or perhaps the Governor is saying that all Americans, regardless of their creed, would be offended by the demonization of a religion, in which case, he should understand perfectly well what the President is speaking out against.

Underpinning all of this, always, is the idea that the President is criticizing us while not being one of us. That in actuality, he's the leader of some other country and we're waiting for the big reveal. In fact, not only was his message supporting human beings around the globe and our fellow citizens at home, he was applying a critical perspective to something that has been a part of his own life as a church-goer, and something heavily tied in many complicated ways to the civil rights movement as well as its opposition.

The big fear is that someone will look at ISIS and the Klan, the larger fundamentalist movement and white supremacy, and not see much space between their number. And perhaps note that our country has been terrorized and injured by both movements over the course of its history, that there is not altogether that much between Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden, between the shooters and the be-headers, between those who terrorize the unarmed abroad and those who do so here at home.

Re: Blue Lives Matter

HappySurge — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:28:32 -0000

Erik, I think your phone auto-corrected when you tried to type in 'patriot.'

Re: Blue Lives Matter

HappySurge — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:47:38 -0000

I'm sorry for my assumption, then. Can you clarify which side of the issue is not being heard? Based on your previous comments about work environment, I really believed you meant the police officers. I apologize if I've misread you.

Re: Blue Lives Matter

HappySurge — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:33:43 -0000

"The real issue here is all those poor mentally ill folks that we should be trying to put away forever. Until all mentally ill people are getting the care they need inside of a penitentiary, we can never have any other discussions about anything. We can't ignore this issue. We must bring it up as a reason to ignore all other issues."

Re: Blue Lives Matter

HappySurge — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:15:31 -0000

What's even worse is that the petition to keep the mayor away from funerals was circulated well before the shootings. Lynch has been saying this sort of thing since 2011, but back then he was saying it about Occupy.

Re: Blue Lives Matter

HappySurge — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:01:25 -0000

I mean, to start, say it out loud while being Commissioner of the Police Department.

You could hope for the termination of all the officers involved, but in a case about insubordination, maybe, you'd probably just be advocating for a huge pay-out for wrongful termination to all those officers and the union arguing with an arbiter about speech rights of civil service employees in a somewhat legally incoherent way that will likely still build a nice financial cushion for all those involved. I think it's a morally entirely appropriate response, but if a police commissioner's responsibilities in handling the department only fell into the context of what is morally appropriate, we'd be living in a totally different world.