Babylon Astronaut posted:

Sha-na-na-night train!

Bassetking posted:

Try using a Honey Vanilla Vodka in your White Russians. 375ml 100 proof Vodka to 6oz mesquite honey, and a vanilla bean. Put all of those in a mason jar, let it sit for three weeks, and shake it once each day. At the end of that time, strain it through a wire mesh, and then add it to your beverages, or just drink it straight. It's cheaper than buying Stoli Hunni, adds a note of mesquite smoke, and those lovely vanilla undertones, and is potent enough to make arguing with Fishmech seem like a good idea.

Talmonis posted:

In my own experience it's that when already emotionally drained people hear about the poo poo going on behind the soundbites, they get really uncomfortable. My wife for instance, gets actively angry at me for talking about politics when I point out things that shatter the Just World view. Believing in a Just World is comforting and simple. Seeing that it's all a horrible lie hurts far too badly, so they just wave it off and listen to the talking heads. "If I don't hear it, it doesn't exist and I can get up and keep going the next day".

Grundulum posted:

Is the trend towards pessimism/nihilism a new development in politics? The top three politics threads in D&D as I type this are all some variation of "abandon all hope". What's the historical precedent for wide-ranging dissatisfaction with politics, and what happened to change it?

_{Please don't tell me that it's always been this way and I'm only now old enough to notice.}

Bunleigh posted:

See I think that idea might have passed muster in the 90s or even when things were still relatively okay in the Bush years before the crash but now it seems inescapable.

I'm not talking about vindictive people. I've known people who will know about the crazy poo poo Michelle Bachmann says, for example, and talk about how awful and crazy she is, and bitch about the government shutdown and even correctly identify that Republicans did it, but then say they think Democrats do it too. I know a guy who basically has liberal views on every issue I've ever heard him bring up and doesn't seem wedded to any of the usual rightwing cargo cult beliefs about taxes/military/whatever but resists actually just deciding he's a liberal because Democrats must be just as bad as all the Republicans he complains about, even though he never actually has any examples. You can lead a horse to water, I guess.

A Winner is Jew posted:

It's whiskey or even bourbon with coke. Scotch should be enjoyed with a splash of water at the most unless it's garbage scotch... which then begs the question why the gently caress aren't you drinking decent scotch.

moller posted:

I think you'll find that Scotch is actually a kind of whisky.

SedanChair posted:

"Do anything?" Who the gently caress do you think we are, Tim Geithner?

e: Tim Geithner's anguished though

Neo Rasa posted:

http://aattp.org/breaking-mitt-romney-urges-gop-to-raise-minimum-wage-video/


...


...Third times a charm?

SumYungGui posted:

RATIONAL ACTORS, FREE MARKET...oh gently caress why are so many of our educated people leaving the country?

Though I am a bit curious. Do they not see the student loan bubble coming and think this can go on forever, is there some reason it won't actually happen that I don't understand or is there some finance industry horse-poo poo wizardry with no grounding in reality that can be pulled to somehow suck even more money out of the situation as the whole system burns to the ground?

It's the last one isn't it?

Joementum posted:

Hold on guys, Karl Rove is saying there's still a chance that Hillary has brain damage....

Also, did we ever get to the bottom of those real estate deals?

Pohl posted:

There was a post about this a few pages back? Or was it the Freep thread?
Somebody help me out here. The post owned. I wish I could conjour it up for you.

What you have to ask yourself is, why is he/she a good friend of yours at this point?

JonathonSpectre posted:

This poo poo drives me loving bananas. For years and years and years when I would hear that "War of Northern Aggression" poo poo I would just ask, "So, uh, who started the actual shooting part of the war?" and watch them tie themselves in knots trying to explain how it was really all Lincoln's fault. But then I read, on this very forum, the perfect comeback, which I have used every time since I read it and which I could not possibly love any more.

"Well, you know, during the War of Northern Aggression-"

"Wait, you mean the War of Southern Treason?"

It's right up there with, "Well, the Civil War wasn't about slavery so much as it was about state's rights."

This should be met with an enormous grin and a nod, then the question, "What state's rights were at issue?"

Then you ask, "Hey, can I look something up for you to read real quick?" Then you just go to this place right here and put that great bigass grin back on your face and look at them silently while they read.

"Oh, look, it appears the Confederacy disagrees with you! Now how about you Google for 'Alexander Stephens cornerstone speech' and CTRL-F for the words 'white supremacy' and continue your sadly-lacking education."

Very little in this world is more enjoyable than emasculating and publicly destroying neo-Confederate chickenshit motherfuckers.

Oh yeah, here's another good one for state's rights motherfuckers. Hey, look, the Confederate Constitution actually grants their states LESS rights than the U.S. Constitution! That's a funny way to stand up for state's rights! Just like it's kind of funny to claim the mantle of Washington and say you're fighting for freedom when your real object is to continue brutally enslaving more than four million people!

zoux posted:

It's a very good question and a difficult one to be sure but it starts with an equitable and effective progressive tax code and the gutting of the military industrial complex.

BiggerBoat posted:

Hahaha. You dick. No, I honestly seemed to remember him mentioning it but your post was funny. I also always think his avatar is Al Pacino (although I'm pretty sure it's not). None of this is here nor there really but I'm not even sure what this thread is even about anymore so what the gently caress.

Dystram posted:

I was one of those kids who "just didn't get math," now I do Math stuff on Khan Academy and Udacity sometimes and I think it's the coolest and I understand it.

The way we teach kids in this country is horrible but it's because of a lack of funding, too-large class sizes, and teachers not getting paid enough, and not "bad teachers" as right-wingers like to claim.

inkblot posted:

As someone who struggled a lot with calculus, I mostly found it hard to grasp the abstract nature of it. Hell, even just the simple concept of a limit doesn't have a physical counterpart and you can't really visualize it. Not to mention one of my teachers had such a thick German accent he would frequently substitute German words for English ones and he lectured at a break-neck pace and just kind of scribbled notes wherever he felt like on the board.

So in my defense it might've just been that I had a really bad teacher.

shrike82 posted:

It's pretty telling that any discussion of math pedagogy in the States starts and ends with algebra and calculus.

Rexicon1 posted:

I think I initially misinterpreted your statement, Magres, about teaching math in college as "a bunch a useless poo poo for ivory tower intellectuals". But I read it again and I think what your saying is that math is actually very useful to learn but it's taught in a way such that it's a 'filter' to weed out students who are unworthy or whatever of doing a field. Is that what you meant or are you actually saying math in college is garbage?


Wait a minute. Is the physics major/ nuclear engineer proposing that learning a discipline that nurtures abstract thought is worthless? You realize that college is more than just rote instruction on tools to use in a profession right?

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

People always laugh at us philosophers for having a useless humanities degree, but I learned more about doing math in my graduate mathematical logic courses (taught in the philosophy department by philosophers) than in any math class I ever took.

As a consequence I can probably explain mathematical thinking better than most K-12 teachers now, and math makes so much more sense, it's actually pretty easy to pick up new skills now .

SedanChair posted:

This is my favorite

Mo_Steel posted:

The shakiness of my editing makes it look like the image of Ted Cruz is shaking in some sort of mockery of him.

Stultus Maximus posted:

Not sure if this answers your question, but

http://www.dailyflagstatus.com/14.html

comes along bort posted:

Jeedy Jay posted:

"False flag!"

Evil Fluffy posted:

It's believed that when they found out McCain's family connection, and thus value, they took extra care with him because regardless of what info he did or did not have he was going to be rather valuable alive. In 2008 when people thought it'd be McCain vs Hilary there was a lot of huffing(of glue) on the right and Talk Radio about how Clinton had dug up dirt on him to paint him as selling out the country as a POW or whatever. You know, something that certainly would not have a chance at backfiring horribly because holy poo poo are you seriously attacking a political opponent for being tortured by the Viet Cong?

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Hmm Cruz has been the quiet side recently, what's he up to?


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ted-cruz-democrats-repeal-first-amendment

JonathonSpectre posted:

I don't know about for billionaires, but for "normal" rich people a lot of it has to do with stupidity and spite. Anecdote ahoy.

Before Obama was elected back in 2008, I was talking to a local business owner who "just knew" that taxes were going to skyrocket under Obama, and that "anyone who makes over $250,000 was going to have whatever they made over that confiscated," and so they were going to limit their own business to making $250,000 a year no matter what. After pointing out that this was ludicrous and there was no evidence of this anywhere, I asked them what they really thought the worst case scenario was under Obama. They said, taxes go up 50% from where they are right now. We quickly did the math and though I forget the exact numbers, if they went out of their way to limit themselves to just $250k, they were going to end up forgoing ~$70,000 in profits to avoid ~$10,000 in taxes. When I pointed out this didn't make any sense (and btw, the lady had NO IDEA how marginal tax rates worked despite being so wealthy) she said something I have never and will never forget:

"Well, I might be $70k down, but at least it's not going to help anybody who doesn't deserve it. gently caress everyone but me."

The beating heart and motive force of the religion of conservatism, right there. gently caress everyone but me. Christ.

ThirdPartyView posted:

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." - George S. Patton