The Goat Pen

Nice little coincidence here. This was just published last week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/books ... ndex.jsonp

Or perhaps this is the article (unlinked) that eCat was referring to when he said he'd just read something about Gore Vidal....

yea I guess part of what I hinted at was even though Vidal is considered a liberal, the views I've heard him personally state are hard core libertarian, with the exception that he is a strong supporter of the progressive tax. Given that he is a 3rd generation blue blood American, I can respect that he believes his own economic class has an obligation to pay their share - unlike a large % of wealthy who believe tax rates should be lowered while still demanding government programs including defense should be maintained.

The best part about the Randy Travis story is the news report where the interview the cashier about Travis walking into the convenience store naked.

C'mon. Like none of us here hasn't done that before at least once.

Since we did days on the Aurora shooting...

let me just say, that Wisconsin massacre in the Sikh temple was fucked up.

Carry on.

eCat wrote:The Sumatrans are considered to be the first modern civilization. They were the first to not only stop being a nomadic people and become stationary, but took it to the next level by creating a grid of a city designed to support living and trade. They also are credited with being the first civilization to create a system of record keeping and documentation - written on clay tablets. Thousands of these tablets were found many years ago and after being transcribed they essentially are some of the major stories we heard as kids in sunday school

They are also the first civilization to brew beer.

Coincidence?

No way.

hedge wrote:What about aluminum? Copper? Tin? Obviously silver. Or any other elemental metal? As far as industrial uses, that value has only been discovered relatively recently and is an altogether different form and concept of value than the borderline (and maybe not even borderline) quasi-mystical "value" that the Egyptians (etc) assigned to it. It is this latter "value", which some people still hold with, that I find mystifying. Yeah, it's shiny and "rare" (I guess) and women like jewelry made with it, but it that enough to base all human currency on? I can accept that back in the day (or the Egyptians, the Greeks, the middle ages and maybe even up to the old west) that it was prudent to have some kind of solid material that supposedly had intrinsic value on which to mint money, but in a day and age of instant worldwide communication and durable paper money, I don't understand the cryptical obsession with gold...

Abundance of elements in the Earth's crust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_ ... ite_note-1

eCat wrote:its really not that hard to merge the two. Christians readily accept that god is not of this earth, but if you say he is an alien they shit all over themselves.

Instead of using actual gold over a paper currency, we can use paper notes that say they are worth a certain amount of gold.

That will only work if their are regular audits of stores of gold.

Ed...GFY

Why does a dog lick his balls?

ESAD

Maybe we should start basing our currency on bismuth...

eCat wrote:its really not that hard to merge the two. Christians readily accept that god is not of this earth, but if you say he is an alien they shit all over themselves.

Well, don't the Mormons believe God is a white dude on some far away planet we go to when we die?

That's closing in on it.

Bklyn wrote:

eCat wrote:its really not that hard to merge the two. Christians readily accept that god is not of this earth, but if you say he is an alien they shit all over themselves.

Well, don't the Mormons believe God is a white dude on some far away planet we go to when we die?

That's closing in on it.

The Morons believe that god is too busy screwing his many wives in order to populate his planet. Good Morons get to become gods themselves, have many wives, and populate their own planet.

When I hear the name Paul Ryan, I keep thinking its the guy (Jack I think?) who Obama beat in his Illinois Senate race where (baecause?) they basically found out in his divorce papers that he had a little kink in his sex life.

Paul Ryan is an interesting choice.

Clearly Romney is reaching out to to reinforce the base and to reel in moderates who see the appeal of the tea party but aren't zealots about it.

Ryan has a 10 year plan that includes a voucher system for medicaid. Basically he fucks over everyone under 55 (knowing full well he can't implement anything if he screws over the baby boomers and existing seniors) in an effort to stave off an unsustainable system. But if Romney isn't introducing it, then what does Ryan bring to the table? Wisconsin? The Tea Party vote? I"m not sure if the positives outweigh the negatives.

I'm having trouble understanding who is going to be for Ryan's plan. Bush tried a privatization for people under 55 in Social Security and congress shit their pants. Boehner doesn't support Ryan's plan and I can't imagine that droopy faced motherfucker McConnel supporting it.

This is what I see happening - First , I think Romney shot his wad too early with his VP pick. He was moving steadily in the polls against Obama as the basic economic woes are eroding Obama's popularity without needing the "Sarah Palin bump". Secondly, by not picking Rubio he just said goodbye to any chance he had of a sizable Latino vote. Finally I don't think Romney has a snowballs chance in hell of actually implementing a drastic reform that results in entitlement cuts for people under 55 without reducing the amount they paid in. To tell me that I'm not eligible for the same level of benefits I've been paying into for more than 25 years AND I'm expected to keep paying for those that are getting them?

fuck that noise. I suspect Obama will be all over that.

Actually, Mitt was moving further away from Obama in the polls. National polls are cheaper, but misleading. So, while the natl polls had it in varying degrees of 47/47, 49/47 or 49/48 (all Obama), the delegate count (using state by state polls) has Obama winning most of the swing states (OH, NH, Wisky, Colorado), giving him a clear delegate advantage (like 290 delegates, with only 270 needed for victory). So, Mitt needed some non-Southern traction.

Paul Ryan is a good choice. It has energized Romney and they look good on film together. Ryan has his downside, but he's a better pick than ex-Mormon Marco Rubio or the boring, old white guy visage of Portman or Pawlenty. This was a good enough move to make it a real contest with Obama.

Ryan has a lot of soft spots, including his ridiculous original budget plan and the subsequent revised budget plan that was closely aligned with Obama's plan (which meant that it would never get passed...since it would have come from Obama). Plus, he has a history of backing every single wasteful legislation that came out of Bush's office. It's hard to reconcile your steadfastness to restraint when it looks like you only care about it when another party is in the Executive Office.

Either way, this was the best choice for Romney and it may give him a good chance to unseat the President. It's still unlikely (not even guaranteed Ryan will deliver Wisconsin for the GOP), but now it gets more interesting.