Disqus - Latest Comments for roro80

Re: Sullivan Challenges Rove

roro80 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:36:19 -0000

You really are the most ridiculous person ever, DLS. I know that I'm attacking you and not your argument, but I'm happy to own that at this point. Look at what you wrote. If I made an assumption from your statement that you were being critical of the Dems for opposing Bush's proposals re Social Security (as was the quote you based it on), it's only because that was clearly implied. And there was nothing remotely "emotional" about my response -- I am perfectly happy to own up to my emotions as well, when I have passion for an issue. When you accuse people of being overly emotional when they're not being remotely emotional, it just makes you look like an idiot who is using the old, tired silencing method of seeing emotion or passion as a reason for discounting someone's argument. The funny thing is, of course, if either of our posts show emotion, it's most certainly yours. [sighhhhhhhhhhhh] [big frown-y face][shakes head sadly] Seriously: get over yourself.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:27:08 -0000

Hey StockBoy -- I don't know that I agree with your interpretation, but I could be wrong. I must admit, that after this statement (which I'm sure we've both heard four thousand times followed by a homophobic rant):

I am just aching for someone to come along and call me a homophobe, or a hater, or whatever else is in the lame-o arsenal....
Fact is, I don't fear nor hate anyone for being gay, lesbian, bi, or heterosexual.

I didn't pay all that much attention. Generally when someone dares others to call him a name, it's indicative that he is embodying that name, and I therefore try to take him up on it.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:20:51 -0000

Hey Paul -- I disagree with most of what you said about gay people, but I definitely appreciate your apology for the word "lame". It is common where I live, and is used for a stand-in for "pathetic", but that's what makes it offensive. Like, for example, using the word "gay" to stand in for "bad".

Re: Sullivan Challenges Rove

roro80 — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:58:22 -0000

"Bush [...] did try to reform Social Security. [...] the Dems said no

As I've reminded people many times before -- don't know if it got through the fog, though, then or now."

You're really going to defend Bush's attempt at "reforming" Social Security? No mention of how obvious that plot line was? (Hmmm...there's this whole pile of money just sittin' there, and none of my buddies can make any money off it...what shall we do? Privatize!) So maybe it's not that all us crazy lefties are too densely fogged over to see that the Dems blocked that, but that we actually stand up and applaud the fact that our seniors' money hasn't gone down the tubes like everything else in the stock market.

Re: GMA Cancels Lambert, Books Brown

roro80 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:07:24 -0000

It really shouldn't be all that surprising that our culture is more freaked out by gay people and sexuality than by beating the snot out of a woman. Sad and enfuriating, but not surprising.

ETA: and "homosexuality" by women for the male gaze is a totally different thing, because it's still for the pleasure of straight men. Which is kind of the point of everything according to most of our cultural narratives.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:23:57 -0000

"I am just aching for someone to come along and call me a homophobe, or a hater, or whatever else is in the lame-o arsenal"

Wow, it's like you don't even realize that "lame" is ableist language.

"In all these situations over the past few years... I am sooo sick of seeing the words
hater
hatred
homophobe
racist
discrimination
"

Hmmm...if you see those words over and over again in regards to things you say or write, you might want to think about why. If you make an effort to stop embodying these words, you might hear them less.

Re: Sullivan Challenges Rove

roro80 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:59:03 -0000

Interesting thread. The idea that a year washes away 8 of Bush's disasterous economic policy is pretty offensive. When you've got an economic mess the size of the Exxon Valdez spill, you can either sit by blithely and watch the life around you die in a sticky pool of blackness, or you can start the hard work of cleaning up, and hoping that someday your efforts will make the toxic land around you livable once more. Either way, you're looking at a great deal of damage, and both will come with great cost. I personally would have preferred a bigger bailout, more quickly disseminated, without the 450B in tax cuts, and tightly focused on certain industries and public works. That's pretty much what China did, and what Canada did, and both are looking a far sight better than we are right now as far as their recovery. I also would have liked to have seen a TARP system that was about the same size, but more carefully conceived in ways that the righties seemed to think was "governement controlling business".

Dr. E -- That's pretty frightening grapevine information. Looks like the so-called "invisible hand" really belongs to a bunch of right-wingers trying to control the market. It kind of reminds me of 20 or so years ago when GM went around and bought back and destroyed all its own electric vehicles and tried to covertly cover up that they'd ever even existed.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:02:00 -0000

hahahaha! That's right, because the only people who could possibly think gay men (and gay women!) are people and are not disgusting and deserve rights are gay men. Obviously, you have absolutely no coherant response to what I said, so you try to insult me by calling me a gay man. You forget, yet again, that I don't consider "gay" or "man" to be insulting; they're just morally neutral terms that happen not to apply to me.

Re: You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:59:29 -0000

Oh barf. I guess if he's being electronically monitored it'll be hard for him to leave, but hell -- I can think of little more comfortable than a winter in a mansion of a chalet in the Swiss Alps, eating raclette and drinking cherry liquor next to a fire. Tough gig. Asshole.

Re: The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:22:01 -0000

I greatly enjoyed my second stint working with "Expanding Your Horizons" this past weekend. The organization is a group of women science, math, technology, and engineering professionals who do day-long workshops and experiments with middle school-aged girls for the purpose of getting girls interested in math and science-related fields.

My workshop, sponsored by the American Vacuum Society, dealt with the following experiment: put a small beaker of water under a bell jar and use a vacuum pump to empty the air out of the chamber. The water boils almost immediately, and then the temperature of the water drops until the water freezes. So cool to work with the girls and to get them to understand why boiling can happen at room temperature and why boiling water can make it freeze. We also did experiments putting things like peeps and shaving cream and loud ringing bells under vacuum to see what happens. Great day, awesome kids.

A link to the EYH site: http://www.expandingyourhorizons.org/

A link to the AVS: http://www.avs.org/

Re: On Church and State

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:40:44 -0000

redbus, just to add to what Dorian is saying: one of the points that CM is making, and that I think is a very valid one, is that there is a difference between what we should personally do to uphold our own morals, and what the law should allow. For example, it's not within my moral code to eat meat, but I don't think it should be illegal. Likewise, most churches do not condone sodomy, but even Texas has taken all sodomy laws off the books; it's not that the Texas legislators are all out committing sodomy or that they even think it's a morally neutral thing, it's that morality is not and should not be dictated by the law, insofaras a particular act does not infringe upon the rights of another.

Of course abortion is a bit more complex, but the same principle stands. A law maker can be for liberal abortion laws while being personally morally against abortion. What the church is trying to do in this case is conflate one with the other.

Re: Noted Scumbag to do Hard Time in … Swiss Chalet?

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:26:35 -0000

We all should be so lucky to spend the winter in a Swiss Chalet -- kind of makes your head explode that this scuzzy dude got out on bail at all. I'm getting extremely nostalgic just thinking of raclette and cherry liquor next to a fire in a chalet on the hillside outside of Verbier...

Re: Muppet Rhapsody

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:23:47 -0000

Hey Patrick -- Is this new, or just getting a sudden burst of web popularity? I saw it yesterday for the first time and giggled so much I had to send it to all my friends. "Nothing really matters....but MOI!"

Re: Sanford Facing Impeachment

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:51:37 -0000

Way to bring up false equivalencies. Or maybe you just didn't click through to see that he's being accused of 37 separate ethics charges? None of them is "committed adultery". It's quite probable that when his affair and the circumstances surrounding the affair came to light, that's when his ethics violations came out. It also makes the public feel less bad about throwing him under the bus while others get away with huge ethics breaches. However, the affair itself is not what is driving this process.

It remains to be seen whether the 37 crimes can be proven and are deemed serious enough to actually get the guy out of office, but that's why there are trials and hearings involved.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:37:22 -0000

F_T -- I'm not sure if this was meant for me or for Polimom; it most certainly wasn't meant for StockBoy. I don't really care, I'm going to answer it anyway.

(1) The idea that you "know" gay men is extremely telling (and highly amusing) if you take the word "know" in the Biblical sense.
(2) The idea that you "know" gay men better than I do (and I would guess better than Polimom as well, since what you seem to know about gay men couldn't fill a thimble) is patently ridiculous.

(3) The idea that you "know" gay men is highly offensive in and of itself in that it assumes that gay men are some sort of monolith, who all have the same view of women, and who are all pretty much the exact same person. They are not.
(4) The idea that you "know" this particular gay man or his feelings about women is also stupid. Maybe you missed from previous comments that I actually have met him on numerous occasions and have friends who know this particular gay man very well. You don't know this man. You don't know how he feels about women, and there's nothing in his statement that implies hate of women -- and this comes from a woman who takes mysogyny much more seriously than you ever have.
(4) If a significant percentage of gay men hate women and express mysogyny, I can pretty much tell you that that percentage is not as much as the mysogyny expressed by straight men.
(5) As a woman, I would ask that you cease and desist from trying to protect the poor, stupid female population from the hatred of gay men. Thanks, but no thanks, and by all means, please go jump off a bridge, 'cause we've got it covered.
(6) Pretty much, this comment is full of male bovine feces. Every word of it.
(7) Yes, overt homophobia is *so* suppressed. I'll cry a river for your oppression.

Re: Question of the Day

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:31:58 -0000

About 15 years ago I had a beef stroganohf so pudrid and gross that I spent the next couple of days throwing up. I haven't eaten meat since.

Re: On Church and State

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:36:36 -0000

That was a pretty awesome clip. I like CM, but I've made it a point never to watch segments of his where he talks with or about women or "women's issues", because he's so often such an *ss. This was a pretty awesome smackdown, and it focused on one of the grandmothers of women's rights issues; so I stand corrected. I've never seen someone on tv really ask the question: "what punishment should a woman have for getting an abortion?" I think it should be asked more often.

Re: Obama In China: SNL Style

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:15:00 -0000

Blackface and ching-chong and rape jokes, oh my!

Helluva skit, SNL.

Re: Of Phones, Phonies and Gadgets

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:56:57 -0000

"And exactly how do you avoid hitting oncoming traffic while you check your google maps?"

By pulling over? And while it's not uncommon to have old guys yell at me, "pull over and drive" isn't exactly the gist.

"Seriously, is it better to learn to follow directions or to learn to navigate? Batteries die much quicker than brain cells."

So, I don't know if you're making a joke, or if you're in earnest. Anywhere I've ever been once I can get back to. I happen to have to drive to a lot of places I've never been.

Re: Of Phones, Phonies and Gadgets

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:19:49 -0000

Teehee! Love it. Kids these days! I suppose that as a child of the tv generation it might be missing the point to tell you how much more convenient it is for someone like me who tends to get lost whenever she drives anywhere now that I have google maps at all times...sure beats having to pull over take deep breaths on the side of the road while mustering the courage to ask that scary dude sitting on the curb for directions...

Re: Can we blame Main-Street yet?

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:55:04 -0000

"Encouraging local banks to work with local low-income home buyers was a very small part of this problem.

I can't quite agree with that. The encouragement included Fannie and Freddie, offloading and implicitly guaranteeing trillions of dollars of mortgages."

Hello again Dr J, not sure if this topic has fallen off, but I just wanted to add something here. While I don't disagree entirely with this sentiment, I don't think we can separate this from the application lying. There wouldn't have been problems in having Fannie and Freddy guarantee these loans (at least not to anywhere near the same degree) if they had been made using real numbers. The problem here is that the same people who were being encouraged to get these loans were by far the most likely to not understand that their loan applications were full of BS. That probably sounds elitist as all hell, but there is correlation between education and income, and the low-income people were much more likely to have lies all over their applications, and much less likely to have realized what they were signing up for. Of course all of that goes out the window once the economy collapses and half the world loses their job. We know that that phenomenon also disproportionately affected those with less income and education.

"all the free-market proponents I know agree the government has a role to play to keep the markets free. "

They might agree privately, but the lobbying of big business paints a much different picture. Heck, even after all this mess, they're denying that regulation would do the system good, calling it "socialism".

"Banks lobbied for the change, but it was the government's job to say no, and the government blew it. "

Agreed.

"Regulating well is a super hard job"

Of course it is, but that doesn't mean we just let things ride. We seemed to have done an ok job between the great depression and a decade ago, so I don't actually think it's impossible to do a good job at it.

"we should do no more of it than we absolutely have to."

Well, we've seen what doing as little as possible has done. It ain't good.

Re: Ignoring Krauthammer or aiding Second Coming? Palin predicts Jewish “flocking” to Israel

roro80 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:07:32 -0000

Hey Jill --
I'm not sure, but I think I may have crossed a line with my line of questioning, and if so, I want to apologize. It looked like you were willing to answer other people's slightly off-topic questions asked in good faith, and since the internalization of bigotry by members of oppressed groups is something that I encounter a lot in my own activism (and is something I certainly have to fight in myself at times), I was hoping you'd be willing to share if you've encountered it with regards to this topic. If I was out of line, again, I truly meant no offense.

Re: Question of the Day

roro80 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:44:11 -0000

Panna Cotta from Delphina on 18th Street in San Francisco. Oh so much yum.

Re: Former NIH Director, Bernadine Healy rejects new mammo guidelines

roro80 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:20:41 -0000

Hey pacatrue -- Your statistical analysis is very interesting; I've done my own. Here's my statistical info on breast cancer by age: http://www.imaginis.com/breasthealth/statistics...
There were a couple of numbers for false positives for mammograms, between 3.5% - 8%, so I split the difference and used 6%. I also used a method where those whose mammograms indicate cancer go on to get a biopsy (much more expensive and invasive, and generally the next step you take after an irregular mammogram). False positive for this I used 1%. I used a false negative rate of zero, for simplicity, which is not exactly accurate, but it doesn't change the results much. Here's what I come up with:

A woman who gets a mammogram between ages 20-30 and is diagnosed has a less than 1% chance of actually having the disease; 30-40 has a 7% chance, 40-50 has a 20% chance, and 50-60 has a 32% chance. This is after the initial mammogram.

However, this seriously narrows the full range of people who should be tested by biopsy. Among those left in the test group (who were diagnosed via mammogram), a woman who tests positive on the biopsy who is 20-30 years old now still only has a 45% chance of actually having breast cancer; 30-40 years old has an 88% chance, 40-50 has a 96% chance, and 50-60 has a 98% chance of having the disease after the two positive tests.

It's an interesting problem, because even in the 50-60 age range, false positives outstrip the real positives. It should also be noted that younger women tend to get more aggressive forms of cancer which develop from stages 0 or 1 to higher, more deadly stages more quickly. So that needs to be weighed as well, although I'm not sure how to statistically analyze that one.

Re: Adam Lambert Plays the Gay Card

roro80 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:34:22 -0000

Hmmm...interesting. Yeah, it was a crowd shot. I'll certainly agree that it was pretty racy.