Disqus - Latest Comments for GreenDreams

Re: Constructing An Illusory Compromise by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly

GreenDreams — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 12:36:06 -0000

The House Republicans think they can assert line-item veto power over the federal budget -fund this, defund that- which neither party has granted to any president. And they think they can attain it through extortion, permanently weakening the presidency itself.

Re: Federal Reserve To GOP: Take A Hike! | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:11:21 -0000

Hahaha. Loved Ezra Klein's headline on the original story. "Nice central bank you have there. Shame if anything should happen to it.." Maybe this story could be headlined "You try to touch my central bank again I'll cut off your caucus and shove it down your throat."

Re: Obama’s Short-Term Stimulus Won’t Help U.S. in the Long Run: Glenn Hubbard - Bloomberg

GreenDreams — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:19:06 -0000

Question to republicans: Are you stupid or are you lying? I know plenty of CEOs. I'm a CEO myself. There's not a one of us who says "if my personal tax rate goes up I won't hire." Less money in my pocket is irrelevant. I need money in the public's pocket. The problem is there's no demand (duh). Even if my tax rate was zero and employees would work for free, I simply can't hire people to make something that no one is buying.

Hubbard tosses out "truisms" without any supporting evidence. He says "The president’s advocacy for higher
marginal tax rates on the well-to-do dampens both job creation
and asset prices." Really? Prove the connection between top marginal tax rate and job creation, because, 30 years of history completely fails to bear that out. Squeezing the middle and bottom, our workers, means less expendable income, hence less consumer spending. This is what WE did. By constantly pushing the nation's wealth into our own pockets, we no longer have a vibrant consumer economy. More goodies for us won't help AT ALL.

Re: 'We Get The Sacrifice, They Get The Wealth': A Fired-Up Pelosi Tears Into GOP Deficit Plan | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:27:22 -0000

What a crock! California is suffering big time from exactly what the GOP wants for the whole nation. Inability to raise revenue. It's like a company firing the sales department (IRS cuts) and amending their charter to say "No sales, ever, unless 70% vote allows it."

Re: 'We Get The Sacrifice, They Get The Wealth': A Fired-Up Pelosi Tears Into GOP Deficit Plan | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:17:33 -0000

Who broke the bank? The GOP. Not that righties care about facts, but for those who are paying attention to the facts, it's $12.5 Trillion of our national debt on the GOP's watch. the right, including backsds, denies this, but the facts are clear and undisputed.
www.zfacts.com

It's all there.

Re: 'We Get The Sacrifice, They Get The Wealth': A Fired-Up Pelosi Tears Into GOP Deficit Plan | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:21:27 -0000

Nor did we have a Democratic senate willing to change their own rules to stop the 40 vote "majority" and eliminate "anonymous holds" and the whole charade that made this possible. Nor did we have a president willing to call in Harry Reid and say "Change this! Change it NOW. Damned if I'm gonna let a MINORITY run this country!"

Re: Administration Backs Off Tale Of Osama Bin Laden Using Wife As Human Shield | TPMMuckraker

GreenDreams — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:32:29 -0000

None of us knows what happened in detail and likely none of us ever will. Speculate all we want, but the facts as we know them are that there was gunfire from those inside, not just from US soldiers. Whatever their intention when entering the compound, our soldiers were greeted with gunfire. What should our soldiers do in such a situation? Well guess if you need to, but the correct answer is you fire. A whole house full of "hostiles" and a gunfight ensues. People get killed. No one has suggested -ever- that bin Laden held up his hands and shouted "don't shoot. I'm unarmed. I surrender!" Honestly, who believes that?

Re: Poll: Wisconsin Voters Turn On Gov. Walker, Back State Unions | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:47:38 -0000

brilliantly and succinctly summarized.

Re: Poll: Wisconsin Voters Turn On Gov. Walker, Back State Unions | TPMDC

GreenDreams — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:23:13 -0000

40% of the world's population lives on <$2 a day. That's less than a quarter an hour (less than, because 8 hour work days are American, not third world), and 1 billion people live on HALF that. No intelligent people believe American workers can -OR SHOULD- try to compete on labor cost with the world's bottom wage-earners. Think about it (because czadco apparently doesn't). No one in America can live on $0.25 an hour, or 4 times that, or 8 times that. So, first, there is no way to reduce American wages enough to "compete." Second, if American workers did get their wages slashed to developing world rates, they could not buy anything in America and our economy would tank. Are all Republicans this dumb?

Re: Comment Shutdown: A Technical Perspective

GreenDreams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:09:22 -0000

Thanks to everyone at TMV, authors and commenters alike, liberals and idiots alike <g>

I'll still be here, but I guess no one will know it. Thanks for the 1484 points and the 742 likes. I'll treasure them. Once again, let me recommend a visit to TPM to see how they handle this issue. Main posts usually have commenting turned off. Readers can post replies as posts on TPM Cafe, which has comments enabled, and recommend button. Those with enough recommends rise to the top, and become the comment threads for the post. Of course, their readership seems a bit less diverse of opinion, but still some are quite diligent about finding and linking to facts, not just flaming (there's some of that too). There is frequently good humor in the comments too.

Perhaps those who have blogs can quote articles from here on their sites that do accept comments. My own blog is mostly dormant and I'd say there is a 10:1 ratio of spam comments (which I deny) to real comments, so I certainly appreciate how much moderation is needed. Not sure what the solution is, other than cross posting comments here to a site that will carry on the discussion..

Re: The Most Explosive Exhilarating Music Is Often Greeted By Total Silence

GreenDreams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:45:56 -0000

maybe we could compromise. Golf applause?

Re: Obama Visits Afghanistan, Challenges Karzai, and Talks Up the War

GreenDreams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:10:17 -0000

disagree. The Taliban were coming back in a huge way. Within a few years they would be back in charge. Al Qaeda was safely hiding out on the Pakistan border. Now they're dieing by the dozens, more Qaeda top operatives killed in a single year than during the entire Bush admin. The Taliban have been routed from one of their major strongholds. They didn't flee or fade into the population. They made a stand and died. (many of them anyway)

Not that there is any victory there in any meaningful sense, but as I have said all along, our passion for military "strength" blinds us to the strength of our economic power. The entire GDP of Afghanistan is far less than we will spend trying to kill the Taliban. We should buy it. We should buy and hence control 100% of the Afghan economy, including 100% of the opium. This deprives the black market of income and product and ultimately forces them out. It deprives the Taliban of income and power and ultimately drives them out. Next year, we tell the farmers to plant food crops instead of opium (they're often just as profitable or moreso).

There would still be a role for the military of course. Among other things, they would police our trade stations, so if Taliban tries to interfere with our purchase of THEIR opium, we take them down.

Re: People Believe What They Want To Believe

GreenDreams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:55:07 -0000

Looks like this is a "right-only" thread. Don't you see the irony of your doing exactly what you accuse the other side of? Take a look at any comment by DLS or SD and substitute their "isms" for the ones you list. To them, and perhaps to you, everyone on the left is "childish" "kiddies" who want "open borders with Mexico" and no one in the Obama admistration could possibly be sincere when they extend unemployment benefits or support Affirmative Action. No, they're "buying votes."

So to use your words, "If the [left's] ideas are grounded in [childish, pandering, magic pony, socialism et al:] then these ideas can be solidly discredited based on lack of merit, and ought be. There is no need to discredit based upon the thing which is taken as a given."

Re: Discontinuing Self-Published Reader Comments

GreenDreams — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:15:14 -0000

Last day? A few final thoughts. First, Kathy, I was just talking about the ability to receive an email of replies to my comments, to which I could reply by email. I often do that. Of course, if someone says "Greendreams is a nimrod" without directing the comment to me, I wouldn't see it.

As for an idea about how to fix this, I would direct your attention to the other three-letter-acronym political blog with a T and an M in it, Talking Points Memo. I know it's bigger, and I don't know the behind the scenes details either, but here are some features.

Comments are turned on or off per post by Josh, presumably. So on the main page, in many if not most cases, there's no comment thread. There's a "Reader blog" called TPM Cafe, to which any registered person can post. All of those have comment threads. The best of them rise to the top 10 via "recommend" clicks, and appear as "best reader posts" on the main page of TPM Cafe. So, someone has something to say about a main post, (s)he posts a comment as a post. If it resonates with other readers, it gets recommended into a position where it is likely to be seen, and commented on.

I don't know if their staff spends a lot of time moderating.

Just a model of how a similar site handles this.

Re: Quote of the Day: Frum Says Health Care Reform Will Help Democrats In November

GreenDreams — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:37:27 -0000

Good post. A preview of how the rhetoric will play out comes from Obama's recent speeches. Paraphrasing, 'repeal? You think Americans want to put the insurance industry back in the driver's seat?' That's the giant challenge for the GOP, which has painted itself into a corner calling it a "takeover of health care," as most Americans WANT the abuses of their hated insurance companies reined in. There's no way for the GOP to portray their opposition as other than siding with the businesses that most citizens see as heartless, greedy and out of control.

Everyone who has lost or couldn't get insurance will side with the Dems, and everyone who feels job locked or fears losing coverage.

Re: Two Amazing Graphs About Consumer Spending

GreenDreams — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:24:54 -0000

This is not good news. I'm reminded of a USA Today cartoon with a couple talking over coffee. She's reading the paper; headline "Economic Slowdown". He asks:

"When can we go back to wasteful consumerism
fueled by reckless borrowing against
our childrens' uncertain future?"

[btw, one of the shockers here? the prescience of cartoonists. The cartoon is dated Aug 08]

Re: Discontinuing Self-Published Reader Comments

GreenDreams — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 10:20:47 -0000

I have to agree with the sentiments of other commenters, though I completely understand the problem. There are times that the comments are so predictable and aggravating I wonder why I read them. But then the discussion is often fascinating, and certainly more diverse than at more monochromatic blogs.

That said, I already use Disqus' email system for comments that respond directly to mine, so I would not find an email comment system much of a problem. I'm certainly willing to try it. It could generate much more thoughtful comments if they only appeared based on merit.

Re: Rush Limbaugh Moving to Cost Rica?

GreenDreams — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:12:17 -0000

gcotharn, I clicked like by mistake. have a worthless freebie.

I think maybe some of you have mistaken me for someone who gives a ship about what Limbaugh does. Medical tourism? It's happening already, all over the world. Helloooooo. You can now get American quality Lasik for a pittance in China, great dental in Mexico, a wild buffet of services in Thailand, etc. So WHAT?? That's supposed to be a result of Obamacare?

As for "distortion by ellipses," yawn...

Re: Rush Limbaugh Moving to Cost Rica?

GreenDreams — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:15:51 -0000

Yes, Costa Rica, like virtually all other modern nations has universal single-payer health care. Rush would not qualify for a long time even if he became a naturalized citizen of Costa Rica. As for doctors leaving the US to set up a lucrative practice of ex-pats and those fleeing "Obamacare" for a good old fashioned for-profit doc in Costa Rica, I'll answer with a double positive. Yeah. Right.

Re: Marijuana Legalization in California: Doobie or Not Doobie?

GreenDreams — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:50:50 -0000

According to the USDA, pot is our #3 crop already, behind soy and corn, ahead of wheat. Of course, making our #3 cash crop tax-free and illegal is foolish, plus prohibition has not and will not work.

Legalization is preferable to decriminalization because of the tax issue and as for consequences, Dr. E, we should know. It's now legal in Denver, or at least decriminalized. And state-wide it's a class 2 petty offense, beneath the class 1 petty offense of littering. The sky is not falling here.

As for medical marijuana, Colorado now has over 35 strains grown locally, no Mexican drug cartels or mob connections needed. If I smoked the stuff, I would be relieved that I was buying a local product and was NOT feeding the black market. And as Gov Schwarzenegger pointed out, it costs $42 K a year each to imprison nonviolent drug offenders under minimum sentencing guidelines brought in by prohibition.

Last, and this is more detail than probably appropriate for here. Cannabis is a methyl group donor, which helps to convert norepinephrine (the crouch and hide hormone) to epinephrine (fight or flight) so we can eliminate it (we can't eliminate norepinephrine without that conversion first). The conversion happens in the lower lungs, which is why exercise reduces feelings of stress, aggression and fear. Excess norepinephrine is associated with all diseases of stress and aging, including heart disease and cancer. Of course, there are other methyl group donors (arginine, betaine, MSM), but it is a rather special property and not well investigated.

Re: Earth To Planet Obama — Rescuing Drowning Homeowners A Hoax

GreenDreams — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:30:50 -0000

The idea here is that many of those facing foreclosure CAN afford the house they're in, at its true market value. Since that's all the bank can get anyway*, after going through foreclosure, eviction, vacancy, selling, realtor commissions, closing costs, etc. everyone's better off with those who are truly in need (I don't really think Jazz qualifies) staying in their homes and start making lower payments.

Others have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They would get a 3-6 month break from their mortgage under this program. Again, the alternative, foreclosure....costs is devastating to the homeowner and costly to the bank. And the likely result is a needy American on the street, the bank losing money, and the house taken by a speculator, the real beneficiaries of housing bubbles.

* in fact, the banks will get far less because the market is slow and speculators are buying only at "steal" prices.

Re: The Prudent Man’s Burden

GreenDreams — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 20:57:49 -0000

"Well, duh, Jazz. There are those who pull the cart and those who ride in it. Only idiots are still in the first group."

Funny. I think most Americans, especially middle income and below would say the same. They're in no doubt about who is riding, and it's not them. I'll bet they won't be voting for the affluent whiners who feel so put out at every attempt to help the needy instead of the greedy.

Re: Police Confirm Gas Line at Democrat’s Relative’s House Deliberately Cut

GreenDreams — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:33:57 -0000

"Looks like a responsible comment by the area GOP don't you think?"

yes, and good for them.

Re: The Prudent Man’s Burden

GreenDreams — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:29:46 -0000

good plan, Jazz, if your credit rating is not important to you. The same, in fact, could be said for declaring bankruptcy or getting a settlement on your credit card debt. None of this is new.

The GOP fiscal policies ravaged the treasury for the benefit of a wealthy few and corporate interests, including war profiteers. Ultimately, though, "deregulation" of banks was foolish, because that market did not, and does not self-regulate. They drove the economy into a ditch, requiring a number of lifelines to be thrown, as mentioned by others, at banks, car companies, etc. That seems to have dramatically improved the situation on Wall St. but not so much on Main St. Now, recognizing the plight of many families, perhaps including your own, caused by the GOP-induced recession, lifelines are being thrown to those on Main St. This includes the unemployed, those facing medical bankruptcy and those facing foreclosure. The cost is high, just as it was to bail out the rich, and when our fortunes improve, we can address reforming the federal government in ways that make it work better.

Jazz, I too have been responsible and paid my mortgage and credit card companies, and all the rest. Unlike you, I guess, I do not resent the lifelines now being thrown to those less fortunate than myself. Even though you and I rarely agree on much, you are part of my tribe, the American tribe, and I believe in my tribe being adequately nourished, clothed, housed, educated and cared for when sick or injured. I am convinced that this will improve our ability to thrive and to compete globally.

Let me mention, too, that the improvement in house sales is almost all the effect of speculators snapping up foreclosures at bargain prices. That's not good, IMO. BTW, though I don't think you're comment above is serious, it may be fruitful for you to demand to see the original signed note on your property. With all the bundling and reselling, it can often not be found. In that case, the house is yours, no further payment necessary.

Re: Police Confirm Gas Line at Democrat’s Relative’s House Deliberately Cut

GreenDreams — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:57:41 -0000

The GOP whipped up this wrath intentionally and with just as much flaming rhetoric as the Tea Nuts. They own this. They incited rage and continue to do so. In case you missed it, while Tea Nuts were spitting and cursing Dem legislators, a group of GOP legislators held up the same signs as the "protesters" and cheered them on. Now they blast the media and Dems for reporting what is legitimately a news story, and a continuing one. Further, the right-tilted commenters here continue to own the rage they have rationalized and supported. This is a PR disaster for the GOP and a self-inflicted one.

Of course, as always, I'm glad for them and their supporters to keep aligning with the Beck/Limbaugh/Palin Tea Nut contingent, so all may know them by their actions. Keep it up. Let America know that you're with the flaming extremists and that is the face of the Republican party.