I need to vent about Sarah Palin.

[snuffbox 0]

Outside of such worthwhile occupations as garpage pick-up, the idea would also include Peace Corps and the like, national/state parks, etc.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I'm not sure "you donated to a public library" is a slam, but okay.

 

I sort of see the good in it, in that people will have basic labor skills they wouldn't otherwise have and thus be ready to assist in a state of emergency. Take me, for instance: my dad's family is almost proud of its complete inability to perform manual labor. It's a miracle if we successfully move a couch, to say nothing of putting out fires or building roads or whatever our friend from Chicago's fashionable north side wants us to do. It's great to envision an entire nation of hard-working do-gooders gleefully laboring for their government, but it's also in no way feasible, not in 2009 and beyond. First of all, where is the money coming from to enact such a Big Idea? We're broke as it is. Second of all, it's non-wartime involuntary servitude, unconstitutional right out of the gate, at least till it's declared a "living breathing document" and such a concept is deemed outmoded. I'll clean a state park if I damn well please, however.

[Jingus 0]

Which is noble enough, but as Czech pointed out at length, if you force people to do it you're gonna get shitty results. Ask any old soldier how the enlistees felt about the drafted recruits back in the day for a good comparison.

 

I'm not sure "you donated to a public library" is a slam, but okay.

You sometimes really have no idea when someone is legitimately trying to pick a fight because they hate you and when they're just being chronically cranky because they're a person who enjoys complaining and bitching like myself, do you.

 

(Admittedly, I have not read any of Blume's books since they stopped forcing me to back in grade school. Was I missing some kind of overlooked genius in the prose stylings of Superfudge! and the like?)

 

(Hey, was she the one who wrote that I, Houdini book about the hamster? I did like that one.)

[snuffbox 0]

Nobody is being forced to do anything. The 2 years service is for college tuition.

[Jingus 0]

Once again though: where is the money coming from for all this college tuition? We're already rather heavily in deficit. How much tuition do they get? Would it possibly be worth more for them to just get a job for the same length of time and save the money?

[snuffbox 0]

I believe it would be 4k per semester for 4 years.

[EricMM 0]

Where in gods name has anyone said the words "mandatory"!?

[SuperJerk 0]

Which is noble enough, but as Czech pointed out at length, if you force people to do it you're gonna get shitty results. Ask any old soldier how the enlistees felt about the drafted recruits back in the day for a good comparison.

 

I'm not sure "you donated to a public library" is a slam, but okay.

You sometimes really have no idea when someone is legitimately trying to pick a fight because they hate you and when they're just being chronically cranky because they're a person who enjoys complaining and bitching like myself, do you.

 

(Admittedly, I have not read any of Blume's books since they stopped forcing me to back in grade school. Was I missing some kind of overlooked genius in the prose stylings of Superfudge! and the like?)

 

(Hey, was she the one who wrote that I, Houdini book about the hamster? I did like that one.)

Screw you guys. This was a great book.

 

[Guest Czecherbear]

Remember the part where he and Joel get drunk and puke in the bushes, then he has a wet dream about the girl he doesn't even like as much as the girl he watches undress from his window?

[SuperJerk 0]

Good stuff.

 

I read the book in 1984 and had no idea what had happened to Tony's brother. A kid reading that book today would probably wouldn't think twice at a reference to an older brother "dying for his country."

 

(No comment from me on the Tony/Lisa storyline.)

[Guest Czecherbear]

Good point. I read it in 1994, if I'm not mistaken (which meant I was reading about masturbation and alcohol abuse at age seven. social conservatism fails again), and I remember having some trouble parsing the timeframe since there's not a great deal of material that noticably dates as '70s it other than Vinny dying in Vietnam. I figured it was just a really really older brother. I guess the fact that his dad invented battery-operated lamps or whatever should've tipped me off that it probably wasn't of the now.

 

This is at least the fourth time I've discussed Then Again, Maybe I Won't on this board, I swear.

 

Anyway, I think we're all crossing our wires on Obama's plan versus Emanuel's plan, which are similar but different. I'm loath to link to that video where the guy plays the tape of Rahm Emanuel saying "what, are you afraid you'll have to do jumping jacks? cuz ya will!" because it's full of editorializing and the youtube comments are just south of retarded, but I guess the interview is out there, as well as an outlining of his plan in a book entitled, well, The Plan.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Higher Education

 

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.

Oh, heavens no. I'll put stock in and vitriol towards the supposed Rahm Emanuel version when it actually happens, which it won't.

[bob_barron 0]

Jingus, stop being a moron.

 

Judy Blume is great- Superfudge is probably my second favourite book.

[Guest Czecherbear]

Higher Education

 

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.

Oh, heavens no. I'll put stock in and vitriol towards the supposed Rahm Emanuel version when it actually happens, which it won't.

That's still quite a bit of money we don't have. Rahm's version won't happen because it's ridiculous and implausible; completely worthy of your cavalier dismissal.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I'll be interested to see where it comes from as well, but I'd much rather we pour money into education subsidies than a lot of other places.

 

Any proposal gifting large sums of money for college does have to be fairly carefully considered, though. Florida pours a ton of lottery money into a college-funding program that also folds in ACT/SAT scores alongside community service; however, that program was more designed to keep high-quality students in-state than to fund people who might otherwise not afford college at all. It ultimately started to overextend its funding, and the program was eventually rolled back from 4 years of support to a max of 3. The standards for funding weren't exactly high; I think a 1300 SAT or so got you a full ride, and something like topping 1000 gave you 75%. The biggest problem with such a program is that it reduces the overall amount of per-student funding flowing into a college, so you can end up with lousy faculty to student ratios and declining university resources. As much as it helped out a bunch of my friends from high school, I think the state needs to get a cap of some sort on the benefit before the state's major public universities decline rapidly, and it appears that Gov. Crist is going to start looking that way. I doubt that'll be as much of an issue on a national program, since scholarship costs will be much more broadly distributed and mitigate that sort of concentrated crunch.

[snuffbox 0]

Whatever way it's dispersed will probably be better than sending all of our funds to Iraq by the billion dollar bill.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I agree. I'd like defense spending cut, much to the howls of Marney and the Pit who insist every dime is a dime well spent, but I doubt Congress would ever go for that.

 

Knowing that state lotteries fund programs really makes one feel dirty and white-guilty, though, doesn't it. Illinois Lottery commercials don't even pretend to market to non-blacks anymore.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

i'm getting paid 55k to sit on my ass and pretend to fix computers that i don't actually have the permissions to fix. i think the defense department could tighten up shop a little bit.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

And the keyboard they gave you doesn't even have a shift key!

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

dude, they stole my keyboard. it's a war zone in here.

[SuperJerk 0]

 

Pro-Palin 'thank you' ads hit the airwaves

 

Election Day was three weeks ago, but political ads praising former Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin are still hitting the airwaves.

 

The Our Country Deserves Better PAC has begun running spots in Alaska — two 60-second ads, and two 30-second versions — that pay tribute to Palin, with plans to expand the ad buy to the rest of the country sometime this week.

 

"Governor Palin inspired millions of Americans by fighting for common sense conservative principles in a positive and uplifting manner," chief strategist Sal Russo said in a statement. "I worked with President Ronald Reagan since his first days in the California Governor’s Office, and I can tell you that I see so many similarities between President Reagan and Governor Palin."

 

The 60-second Thanksgiving-themed spot — which comes days after footage of a Palin interview on a turkey farm hit the airwaves — also points to the Alaska governor's fondness for moose chili as a turkey alternative.

 

The PAC — which sponsored the "Stop Obama Now" bus tour during the campaign season — said it plans to spend at least $50,000 airing the ads in Alaska. It has not yet released details of the ad buy on national broadcast and cable networks.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/...t-the-airwaves/

 

 

 

[godthedog 0]

Higher Education

 

* Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit: Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.

Oh, heavens no. I'll put stock in and vitriol towards the supposed Rahm Emanuel version when it actually happens, which it won't.

 

i don't think i ever got around to saying this before, but this obama plan is a pretty piss poor idea anyway that isn't going to fix dick, because the whole problem is that private lenders are allowed to give unfair loans to college students who either don't know better or have no other options. that shit needs to be blown up from the inside, and this helps very little.

 

doesn't matter though, as i doubt this plan will pass anyway. higher education has a way of consistently moving down the list of national priorities.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Articulate advocacy of common sense conservative values?

 

Somebody actually paid for that commercial to air?

[BUTT 0]

[Dobbs 3K 0]

There's nothing "articulate" about Sarah Palin, that's for sure.

 

Maybe they meant to say "talk in an over-the-top folksy manner" about conservative values.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I wonder what the Denniverse is all about.

[ZGangsta 0]

I think the concept that "common sense" is a great way to deal with the insanely complex issues of the world is completely retarded.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Well, the phrase "common sense" is basically just code for "My way is right, your way is insane." It's all relative.

[SuperJerk 0]

I wonder what the Denniverse is all about.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

If you guys haven't checked it out, definately check out Newsweek's embedded reporters "Behind the Scenes" articles. I think Palin shows up at around "Chapter 5". There's also some videos by these reporters talking about this stuff.

 

Apparently, the McCain campaign were aware that the Ayers line of attack would be seen as negative and had a strategy to slowly roll it out so they didn't look overly negative... Palin blew that entire strategy up by jumping the gun and just bringing up Ayers herself in the (in)famous pallin' around with terrorists line.

 

Bless you sarah palin, I'll always remember you for scaring the sh-t out of America's center *bows*