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Taerkar posted:It took me a few moments to realize that that was referring to the procedure of fracking and not some strange replacement for "loving". This is actually a very accurate interpretation so don't feel bad.
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# ? Jun 27, 2011 20:09 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 02:19 |
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CaptBushido posted:I thought the point of opposition to fracking wasn't that they're pumping harmful materials into the ground, but that by pumping water they loosen up petroleum, heavy metals, etc. that are ALREADY in the ground which then flows into the water supply. It's pretty standard for fracking advocates to claim that any of the harm caused by fracking was already present in those areas before fracking began. So, if you watched Tom Ridge, current fracking lobbyist for the natural gas industry, on Colbert a couple of weeks ago, you'd have heard him claim that the video evidence of flammable water in areas with heavy fracking isn't the fault of fracking because the natural gas in those areas was already doing that before the fracking began and most of the fracking material is water and sand. This is all extremely disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, but the lobbyists and energy industry don't give a gently caress about the truth, they just want to profit without any kind of regulations getting in their way.
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# ? Jun 27, 2011 22:27 |
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The Columbus Dispatch is pretty typical in the editorial department. I see Cal Thomas every now and then, and most letters published seem to follow the news formula of "give both sides equal time". Most of the "crazy" ones are relatively tame talking-point pieces, although I have seen straight-up chain e-mails sent in and printed. This was in today's: quote:I respectfully disagree with the Sunday Forum column “Photo-ID law is as shameful as a poll tax” by Thomas Suddes. Suddes thinks the polls that show that Ohioans are concerned about purported voter fraud are a result of “the oceans of cash spent nationally by Republicans on low-fact, sky-is-falling vote-fraud propaganda.” "Voter fraud is real because people who commit credit card fraud and other crimes vote and therefore they're defrauding the voting booth."
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# ? Jun 29, 2011 13:34 |
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Hahahaha jackpot. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/06/29/illegal-aliens-guide-to-top-five-best-places-to-live-in-america/ quote:Opinion
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 02:30 |
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Abandoned Toaster posted:The Columbus Dispatch is pretty typical in the editorial department. I see Cal Thomas every now and then, and most letters published seem to follow the news formula of "give both sides equal time". Most of the "crazy" ones are relatively tame talking-point pieces, although I have seen straight-up chain e-mails sent in and printed. More importantly, he's completely ignoring the point of the letter he's responding to that actual research and statistical analysis don't bear out a conclusion assumed by people fearmongering about voter fraud. It's a pretty classic response from fearmongers when they get challenged with real evidence to use some (often tangentially related) anecdote in their defense, as if the plural of "anecdote" is "data." This often comes up in discussions about healthcare reform where right wingers, who against any kind of universal healthcare system like those used by every other first-world nation, use some horror story anecdote about someone who had a bad experience in one of those systems (usually stuff about "lines" and "death panels") to refute all the statistical evidence about lower costs, better health outcomes, and overall social improvements from those "socialized" healthcare systems.
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 10:31 |
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Quetzadilla posted:Hahahaha jackpot. I loving hate these kinds of xenophobic, anti-immigration screeds. The worst part is that they are selectively leaving out all the information that would show how their opinions are the polar opposites of what actual facts and research demonstrate. E.g. that author claims various costs endured by the state of California from illegals, including "criminal justice," but he fails to tell the reader that a study from 2008 found that, in California, "Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S.-born citizen to commit crime in California." quote:Among men 18 to 40, the population most likely to be in institutions because of criminal activity, the report found that in California, U.S.-born men were institutionalized 10 times more often than foreign-born men (4.2 percent vs. 0.42 percent).
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 10:49 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:It's a pretty classic response from fearmongers when they get challenged with real evidence to use some (often tangentially related) anecdote in their defense, as if the plural of "anecdote" is "data." I was amused because the letter assumed that the singular of "anecdote" is "data".
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 13:36 |
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Kevin Myers, Irish Independent, June 24 2011 posted:How can do-gooders possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in Middle East? Link Kevin Myers, Irish Independent, May 25 2011 posted:Strauss-Kahn is one of those politicians who serve only power and their own craving for it. Link This guy is easily one of the worst columnists I have read in recent times. The first is verbose whataboutery. I will never understand how the implication that there are places in the world in greater need of aid (and therefore Gaza doesn't deserve it), can in any way be called an argument. It also implies that as long as a great inequity exists, you shouldn't put time and effort into righting (arguably) lesser inequities. I think its really despicable to criticize anyone trying to be a positive force for change by saying "you should be a positive force for change somewhere else". Not surprisingly, this columnist got hammered in the letters to the editor section for (amongst other things), getting the UCRC Gaza Delegation Director's name wrong and going a step beyond misquoting her and into the realms of all out character assassination. The second one is appalling for different reasons. It was so thick with analogy that I lost the point he was trying to make. Then he brings up a completely unrelated example "because I want to". Its a very poorly formed argument and this guy has a history of, pretty much just trolling the poo poo out of readers. I have no idea why he gets published and he reflects badly on the paper as a whole. He has long been a parody of himself and now hes just a professional troll. A bad one too. He also wrote a flat out racist column entitled (quote) "Africa is giving absolutely nothing to anyone - apart from aids (/quote) which I cannot quote because it has (unsurprisingly) been retracted by the paper and removed from its archive. This article should have ended his career in print media. You can google search the title to read many of the reader responses to it. He also dominates this thread. WanderingKid fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jun 30, 2011 |
# ? Jun 30, 2011 16:21 |
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WanderingKid posted:Manipulating UN oil-for-food programme so that thousands died? Nothing. Yes, Saddam's manipulation of the program was the problem. I don't understand how anyone can hear the phrase "Oil-for-food program" and not immediately retch at the idea that we will starve a population for the actions of its leader unless said leader will give up that sweet light crude. quote:They all want power, whereas the rest of us would flee screaming from its responsibilities, like a gay vegan from a piece of raw liver with a vagina.
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 18:18 |
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I'm a heterosexual meat-eater and I'd probably running screaming from a liver with a vagina, too.
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# ? Jun 30, 2011 22:12 |
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Lady wrote to the local paper complaining about how the Massachusetts State Senate voted 6-32 against an amendment to Romney-care requiring identification when accessing medical care. So what would happen if the amendment passed and an illegal still needed medical care? To busy screaming "MY TAX DOLLARS" to see the answer to that one.quote:I wonder when the Environmental Protection Agency will declare the taxpayer an endangered species in Massachusetts?
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# ? Jul 1, 2011 01:29 |
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm a heterosexual meat-eater and I'd probably running screaming from a liver with a vagina, too. Maybe "raw liver with a vagina" is what Myers calls his wife in the sack?
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# ? Jul 1, 2011 01:43 |
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Neptr posted:Lady wrote to the local paper complaining about how the Massachusetts State Senate voted 6-32 against an amendment to Romney-care requiring identification when accessing medical care. So what would happen if the amendment passed and an illegal still needed medical care? To busy screaming "MY TAX DOLLARS" to see the answer to that one. That's not really an ice burn because the author is ignorant as hell of our tax system and how healthcare and medicine work. Socialized healthcare systems like those in every other first-world nation actually cost less and insure each nation's entire population while the US spends wildly more (in absolute terms, per capita, and as a percentage of GDP) than those nations to insure a fraction of its population. If that writer really cared about the American tax payer, they'd be in favor of socialized system like that of Massachusetts. That author is also implying the conservative trope about how only something like 50% of Americans actually are "taxpayers," which is to say that a large portion of Americans aren't net payers of federal income taxes. This completely glosses over the fact that the reason for this is that those "non-income tax payers" only don't pay because they are so loving poor. It's also ignores the fact that those poor people still pay their other taxes like FICA, sales tax, and property tax, which are the regressive taxes that hurt the poor far more than the rich. As for your question about what would happen if illegals still needed medical care, these kinds of conservatives give zero fucks about illegals and view them as subhuman scum. If they think what Joe Arpaio does to illegals is ok, they probably aren't in favor of providing medical care to illegals with tax dollars, even if illegals are a crucial part of our economy and providing healthcare to them saves us money on and cuts the costs of doing business.
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# ? Jul 1, 2011 10:35 |
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Here are two absolutely awful and hateful editorials from neo-con PR executive Eliana Benador. The links are to the rightwingwatch.org entries about the articles because the first one was pulled from the Washington Times website and the second one requires you have an account at Tea Party Nation. Eliana Benador on the Anthony Weiner scandal posted:Congressman Weiner‘s indiscretions, however, might end up inconveniencing the present Administration’s plans. “How?” you might ask. Eliana Benador on non-European immigrants posted:Some may agree that we have forgotten the lessons taught by slavery -and may be prone to not identify it even if it knocks at our doors, when we see a silent invader roaming our streets and we don’t dare call it as it is: It's pretty obvious that Benador is a racist and anti-Muslim bigot, so it says volumes about Tea Party Nation and tea baggers in general that they would embrace this awful person.
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 07:35 |
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Ugh, I saw this one in the paper before I went on a family trip for the Fourth of July weekend and it made me want to slap the guy who wrote it. David Harsanyi: Too many people? Not a problem posted:For years, the Sierra Club and other environmentalist groups have warned us that too many babies will destroy the Earth. There are so many things with this article I just... argh. His argument basically boils down to: "Animals died for millions of years without humans, we still haven't run out of fossil fuels even though they said we would, population control is a liberal conspiracy to get rid of undesirables, and population is still growing and we're not seeing any strain on resources." Not to mention he ignores things like The Green Revolution, even with which nearly a billion people in the world go hungry and even more are in crippling poverty, the destruction of entire lakes and ecosystems, and thinks that the science and theories of the affect of population upon the planet hasn't progressed beyond Thomas Malthus' essay. gently caress you, Harsayni.
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 17:18 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:That author is also implying the conservative trope about how only something like 50% of Americans actually are "taxpayers," My uncle was attempting to engage me in a political discussion the other day, and he was saying that 50% of Americans are on government "assistance". Seriously? Does it take too much critical thinking to examine that number enough to realize it is ridiculous? I think Fox News pushes that statistic, as it was blaring in his living room when I was over there. My uncle started talking in maniacal tones as well. Seriously, politics makes people loving crazy.
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 18:13 |
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The other 50% are marginalized and kept too stupid and poor by those that get the government assistance. The original 50% are the companies/rich
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 19:16 |
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From Monday's Buffalo News:http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/from-our-readers/letters-to-the-editor/article477335.ece posted:Mamet has exposed hypocrisy of liberalism
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# ? Jul 6, 2011 19:56 |
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I've read my local newspaper for years and one of my favorite sections is always the "letters to the editor" section, simply for the sheer stupidity and insanity expressed in the letters. I recently started going online to the paper's website, where you can actually comment on the letters that have been printed. Interestingly, most of the comments on the website are quite intelligent, sane, and insightful critiques of the printed bullshit. So, does this mean that the newspaper's editorial staff just sucks, that most of the people writing to the newspaper (you can submit the letters via email, too) looking to have their letters printed are stupid and crazy, or that there is some kind of age divide between the reactionaries that write to the paper and the younger, more sensible people that comment on the paper's website? Bruce Leroy fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Jul 7, 2011 |
# ? Jul 7, 2011 01:13 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:I've read my local newspaper for years and one of my favorite sections is always the "letters to the editor" section, simply for the sheer stupidity and insanity expressed in the letters. It may be because of where I'm from, but I've never run into an intelligent online newspaper audience. THIS is the talkback section of the Athens Banner-Herald. It's a universe where the letters (which are on the paper's actual website) are more sane than the comments. That stated, in Athens if it isn't associated with directly UGA or directly with the Banner-Herald, there is a 95% chance it's insane. As far as the printing of letters, it depends on the paper you have, really. Some editors get their jollies with insanity. Some do it for readership, to try to get responses. A few do it to try to say their views are balanced.
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# ? Jul 7, 2011 03:17 |
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RC and Moon Pie posted:It may be because of where I'm from, but I've never run into an intelligent online newspaper audience. THIS is the talkback section of the Athens Banner-Herald. It's a universe where the letters (which are on the paper's actual website) are more sane than the comments. That stated, in Athens if it isn't associated with directly UGA or directly with the Banner-Herald, there is a 95% chance it's insane. That makes sense. My local paper also gets a lot of "letters" from different groups that are basically just press releases reworked to sound like they aren't generic forms just slightly reworked for the dozens of newspapers they are sent to. Even worse are the ones that are sent in by actual citizens but which are actually those form emails that conservative groups get their members and readerships to send in under the guise that they are legitimate grassroots support/criticism when they are actually just obvious astroturf. Recently, one particular astroturf letter was submitted multiple times by different people with the exact same wording and all of them were published by the paper just a month or so between each. I checked online and several other readers pointed this out but somehow the paper missed it. Bruce Leroy fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Jul 7, 2011 |
# ? Jul 7, 2011 06:51 |
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RC and Moon Pie posted:It may be because of where I'm from, but I've never run into an intelligent online newspaper audience. THIS is the talkback section of the Athens Banner-Herald. It's a universe where the letters (which are on the paper's actual website) are more sane than the comments. That stated, in Athens if it isn't associated with directly UGA or directly with the Banner-Herald, there is a 95% chance it's insane. Do you post on there? I do as Ned, obviously, and let me tell you that I am so happy I have moved half way across the world from those idiots.
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# ? Jul 8, 2011 08:40 |
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Ned posted:Do you post on there? I do as Ned, obviously, and let me tell you that I am so happy I have moved half way across the world from those idiots. Are the newspapers where you currently live any better with their editorial content and letters/comments from readers?
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# ? Jul 8, 2011 10:13 |
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Bruce Leroy posted:Are the newspapers where you currently live any better with their editorial content and letters/comments from readers? I live in so I don't bother to read the local paper. I actually met with the folks from the major newspaper company here but they don't want to allow commenting on their website and the system they use is terrible. I grew up reading my hometown paper and the site is actually quite good considering the circulation of the paper.
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# ? Jul 8, 2011 12:11 |
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Ned posted:Do you post on there? I do as Ned, obviously, and let me tell you that I am so happy I have moved half way across the world from those idiots. No, I don't bother with it. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only paper where I post comments. Even with the idiots and Paul Broun, it's still more liberal than the south Georgia podunk where I'm from.
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# ? Jul 8, 2011 20:12 |
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Quetzadilla posted:If you don't already know this, it's worth noting that these pieces are generally written by industry advocates (lobbying groups) in an attempt to intentionally mislead readers. That's why the one on fracking is long, extremely well-written, seemingly well-researched while still being completely disingenuous, and also not credited to an author (not even a first name). I would know, I got paid to write them. http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=7479 This is a link to part of a document that an Ohio resident found in her driveway some time after being approached to lease her land for fracking. It is a guide of talking points for agents of fracking companies to use while talking to homeowners. It gives you an idea of how disingenuous energy companies can be when trying to get people to sign leases. Major talking points include "talk about independence from foreign oil!" and "just get them to sign any kind of lease and then we can do whatever we want and legal can deal with it later."
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# ? Jul 9, 2011 01:42 |
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Lets Pickle posted:http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=7479 The absolute worst was when Tom Ridge was on The Colbert Report and said that he's not a lobbyist for the natural gas industry, correcting Colbert who said he was. Then, Tom Ridge goes on to describe what he does for the natural gas industry, which is pretty much the textbook definition of what a corporate lobbyist does. He also pulled all that bullshit about fracking that "it's mostly sand and water" and he claimed that all those people who have flaming tap water after fracking began in their communities were wrong to blame it on the fracking and that it was already happening before the fracking began.
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# ? Jul 9, 2011 07:51 |
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Lets Pickle posted:http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=7479 Holy crap, spreading this around to everyone I know. I have family down in southern ohio who have seen people approached by these assholes. The bit where they go so far as to tell agents to never compare db levels to anything tangible, while minor, is hilarious in it's depravity. EDIT: Worst "point" goes to "only have the husband look at the lease and negotiate if at all possible, it's legal to have just them sign it and them womenfolk ask too many questions." It's like they lifted this straight out of a used car salesman's book. Babby Formed fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Jul 9, 2011 |
# ? Jul 9, 2011 11:58 |
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Babby Formed posted:Holy crap, spreading this around to everyone I know. I have family down in southern ohio who have seen people approached by these assholes. The bit where they go so far as to tell agents to never compare db levels to anything tangible, while minor, is hilarious in it's depravity. Can you tell us anything about your family being approached by these folks? Can they identify the company in question? Can you show them this and ask them if the tactics outlined in this document sound familiar?
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# ? Jul 9, 2011 12:17 |
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Pope Guilty posted:Can you tell us anything about your family being approached by these folks? Can they identify the company in question? Can you show them this and ask them if the tactics outlined in this document sound familiar? Nobody actually related to me has been approached yet, just neighbors and friends of theirs. I'll see if I can't ask my cousin to press for some details and show the neighbors the document though.
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# ? Jul 9, 2011 12:28 |
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Babby Formed posted:Holy crap, spreading this around to everyone I know. I have family down in southern ohio who have seen people approached by these assholes. The bit where they go so far as to tell agents to never compare db levels to anything tangible, while minor, is hilarious in it's depravity. How exactly do conservatives maintain their deregulatory, laissez faire positions when poo poo like that happens? How does all that cognitive dissonance not put them into vegetative comas?
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# ? Jul 10, 2011 10:55 |
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Lets Pickle posted:http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=7479 So what's the deal about stressing that China's bought more oil than us?
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# ? Jul 12, 2011 08:13 |
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Grey Mage posted:So what's the deal about stressing that China's bought more oil than us? People are dumb as poo poo and you can get a lot out of people by appealing to nationalism.
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# ? Jul 12, 2011 08:20 |
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Suck the devil's dick in hell Cal.quote:Millionaires and Billionaires
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# ? Jul 12, 2011 17:49 |
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^ gently caress me. Check out Cafe Hayek, the Austrian polemic 'Dan Bordeaux' regularly posts vitrolic letters into NYT and copies them to his blog.
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# ? Jul 12, 2011 18:57 |
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God, Cal Thomas is so loving horrible. His pieces are always the worst, and his stupid little head shot makes him look like a smug Mrs. Doubtfire. I especially liked the part about the poors' attitude towards entitlements. Hmm, think he could expand on that? Apparently if you're poor you just want more and more sweet government titty.
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# ? Jul 13, 2011 15:36 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html So if I'm reading this right, according to Friedman, we're all hosed unless we either work in social media or are willing to reconsider our jobs/roles every three months. I don't even...
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# ? Jul 13, 2011 17:04 |
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My God, Thomas Friedman, the truth is in the middle! Why didn't I see this before?
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# ? Jul 13, 2011 19:01 |
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Boondock Saint posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/opinion/13friedman.html I think his point is everything is fine and everybody under 35 should just invent their own facebook if they have a problem being wage slaves working in shipping depots for online shopping sites.
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 04:01 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 02:19 |
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katlington posted:I think his point is everything is fine and everybody under 35 should just invent their own facebook if they have a problem being wage slaves working in shipping depots for online shopping sites. It's great that he's citing bloated market capitalizations of social media companies as proof of the new, dynamic, START UP OF YOU! society. Clearly the interconnected nature of the Internet has allowed a broadening of social networks as well as a flattening of the barriers preventing an entrepreneur from leveraging their personal drive and social capital to bring dynamism to Yesterday's concepts and birth the dreams of Tomorrow. Remember, the next Zuckerberg isn't going to find himself by fruitlessly digging into the status quo, but by vaulting over that pit into the fields of possibility.
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# ? Jul 14, 2011 04:21 |