seerickson's Comments (90)

“Ferraro may have had an estimable past record, although as I remember I strongly disliked her back when she ran for VP herself, but she was pretty clearly delusional and really out there, probably from her chemo therapy she had recently undergone, in the last election in which she didnt "told the truth" at all about Obama. Speaking as a "strong woman" myself and an advocate thereof and a lifelong democrat/p­rogressive­.”

“There were audio recordings that got a lot of media play of her being taken in by Canadian pranksters from a talk station up there calling and pretending to be the French president. Not so clear if Schmidt "yelled at her" for being so gullible about it.”

“Good illustration of why the GOP answer of allowing cross border insurance buying is crap, customers in states that prohibit cap would no longer be protected from the lack of regulation in MI if their employer could get it cheaper there.”

“No, reports said his feelings were based on being secondarily traumatized by dealing with returning soldiers with permanent damages and PTSD. Doctors and psychiatrists have some of the highest rates of suicide and drug addiction of all professions. This could either be judged to be a "patriotic" protest or "suicide by cop", but it is ironic that he was willing to go to Afghanistan but not Iraq which evidently as a "patriotic" American he never believed in. If he was a "coward" why would he decide to go out guns blazing, that is such a cowboy/Texas thing to do? But if he felt compassion for his fellow soldiers why would he shoot them and possibly their families? He was pretty clearly out of his mind. There hasn't been any evidence to show it was religiously motivated.”

“You are obviously ignorant of the buying of the 2004 election, by the swift boating fraudulent smear campaign, the extensive voter fraud in Ohio well researched and documented by RFK jr, published in the Rolling Stone among other places with top officials in Ohio serving time for voter fraud from said election, and pretty much disregarded and ignored by mainstream media. Also, if the Kennedy clan had gotten behind him a little earlier it could have been pivotal. But obviously the lying Republican campaign shenanigans as others have point out stole another election.”

“Yeah, but they are aesthetically artsy, fits his "glam" image. Maybe its like in the kama sutra where you are advised to arouse your lover by affectionately caressing a child in front of him/her. Since it seems posters are agreed that homoerotically sugggestive photos are in still in exile, perhaps this is something of the same thinking.”

“It is like the weeks and months of relentless lies and charges on the floor by republicans that democrats want to kill grandma, and then Wilson countercharges and the crying from them is "he should apologize"? They can dish it out but they can't take it.”

“You can find accurate dissections of every side on mediamatters. But my question to you would be how can you use Fox input in your consideration of a rational decision if their information is inaccurate, slanted askew and you have to do hours of digging and research to find out what is a lie and what is a genuine concern or alternative attitude.

In my college education, we were taught that in any scholarship (and that should apply to journalism too) if biases and worldviews are unacknowledged the scholarship is inherently untrustworth. At the least it should be called a persuasive piece (propaganda). But even that doesn't quite go far enough with faux news as there is no clear delineation between their opinon shows and most of their so-called news for the average viewer.”

“and why are you just lurking here waiting to pounce by dissing Obama? For a frikkin' off the cuff remark that someone wouldn't even make on the record, reported by Harwood who is a always doing the right's dirty work for them.”

“I think it makes us look stupid, pitiful and weak that it takes so little to send us progressives off on a wild goose chase. Looking at your posts, (if you're not a troll) it seems like your fun in life is to be rude about others points and distract from any intelligent discourse. I wouldn't have probably taken as much exception to this except for the rude "get a clue" remark. I am sick with how all this kind of blathering did the repugs work for them during the summer melt down. Undermining any solidarity or hope and change morale and here we go again. Besides the fact that no one seems to be able to cultivate any sort of humor.”

“Come on people! We don't have time for this b*sh*t. Another example of media trying to distract progressives from keeping on task by throwing out a rotten herring. Harwood isn't a rep for the progressives that's for sure. If nothing else why can't we follow the panache of Rachel Maddow when there were jokes about the pajama parade (which is why those of us who can work at home anyway isn't it, casual dress and control of our own time--that's change we can believe in, although with the last 8 years some of us have almost despaired of a more humane working environment that was the promise of the .com boom) -- Rachel did her show in pajamas and slippers. Laugh at these bozos. Send us all off in a frenzy so we don't keep the media honest and the congressmen's nose to the grindstone.”

“Let's not forget that Mrs. Cheney had an important post in the Department of Education and tried to slip under the radar a requirement for curriculum to go back to all of the worst mishmash of historical mythology about American history, that was intended to shape students perceptions to the Right. And force schools to pay for the ridiculous garbage.”

“the medieval system of serfs were slaves. indentured servant meant you had owed a debt and you or your children could work it off whereas slaves are actual property. Many paid for their trip to the New World or Australia that way. European slave dealers took advantage of the well established by the Muslims Northern African slave trade. Muslims were disallowed from taking other Muslims into slavery, A college chum of mine from Ethiopia said their tradition said the majority of slaves were African Christians because of that fact.”

“Wasn't this what Kon-Tiki voyage/book/video all about? Proving that Egyptian papyrus boats were fully capable of crossing the ocean.”

“I'm not sure where you get your "alternative history". I thought like the Jews, Muslims do not eat pigs, so this would be your reverse point wouldn't it? Muslims and Jews in spain were the ones with the libraries and culture.

Furthermore your point about "Arabic Numerals"? The Hindi were the end result of the same "Indo-European" invasion that "enculturated" and provided a language to the middle east on their way to wiping out or dominating the well developed culture that already existed there in the peninsula. So they both got Sanskrit from an earlier people they developed from. Just saying. and yes, the Mughals (or ancient Persians) had their own well developed culture that gave the conquering tribes wealth and luxury, along with harems and treating women like property which originally wasn't part of the matriarchal tribal people that became the first Muslims. But even in those primal days had a rich cultural tradition from the Near East melting pot that had centuries of ebbs and flows but went back to Sumeria. The Muslims collected libraries and wisdom from every culture they encountered or conquered. While they had preferential treatment for in the law for those of their own religion they treated all people with respect, curiousity and tolerance. At least until the bigoted crusades triggered poste and riposte bigotry and violence. Even so it is incestuous feuding, as Judaism, Islam and Christianity all are branches of the same religion.”

“Until post enlightenment idealogues, in the 19th century particularly ,started trying to apply the scientific method to ridicule and eliminate faith and theology there wasn't this artificial division. In fact science arose out of a reverence for learning about and understanding the "book of creation" which was a way for our understanding of God. It was a huge misuse of the principles of science to promote justification for slavery by saying that only white people were really human and capable of freedom and adult responsibility creating the pseudoscience myth of social darwinism and concept of "race" which no matter how it has been proven to be not borne out by the genetic evidence still gets promoted. Pseudoscience was also used, just like theology often was, to promote that women were either a seperate species and incapable of public discourse. Narrowness and intolerance is obviously not a theologic monopoly”

“30% profit for insurance companies, and that doesn't even count how much their habitual first refusal and MAYBE cover when re submitted from the doctor/hospital office cost all of us in higher actual costs because the doctor/hospital has to have full time staff to process ever changing forms and keep track of each insurance company's codes and interpretations. On top of that if they are "in network" they have their "provider share" which I would have to guess they fluff up their fees to cover and pass it on to the consumer. Meanwhile the private insurance companies contracted to medicare, pay 18% on the dollar for the bills they process (when they aren't denying coverage) and there is no way for teh consumer to track how much they actually charge the government for providing that coverage. They get direct standardized rates, but hidden is all the charges they get to cover their beauracracy. The doctors/hospitals are squeezed as much as the consumer. That doesn't make it OK that they often have aggressive and perhaps even fraudulent collection procedures, but one has to feel some sympathy. They are squeezed on both ends, including mandates to provide services to everyone that walks in the door if they are going to contracted to provide medicare at all. No wonder most doctors are the first one to label the health care system broken.”

“It was a little unnerving that he thanked her for being on the show that it was a "pleasure". I think it further rattled Betsy from the look on her face, she had to be polite back but she looked baffled when he asked her back.”

“Didn't Ratigan keep questioning her asking if that was what she was saying. I'll concede the point, I must have misremembered.”

“I thought he hammered it home but Ratigan initially called her on it, it was flying pretty thick at the time. I loved the tag teaming!”

“FIRST standardized requirements for coverage and protocols for best practices need to be nationalized, electronic record keeping and standardization of forms need to be established. THEN rates could both go down from more efficiency across the board and competition between companies (which I still don't think it is real competition unless we include a strong public option available to anyone who wants to look at it) that would actually benefit customers and employers which could well include across state borders because you'd then be comparing apples to apples.”

“That isn't my understanding of his position at all. Yes, he wants to repeal their exemption from the antitrust act, and therefore the Wyman amendment. But it is the Republicans that are pushing the false competition of going across state lines. All that does is keep perpetuating what Betsy was pushing of competition by allowing insurance companies to lower premiums by covering less services, and what should be pretty obvious, is that insurance regulation varies greatly state to state, and if you got s*!@wed by your insurance company as a resident of a different state neither regulatory agency would take responsibility for your situation (#1), and #2 you would have no idea if what coverage you were getting would be reliable or just a piece of paper. PLUS if it is complicated enough already with poor doctor's offices trying to cope with conflicting forms and criteria of coverage with just the monopolies they are currently trying to work with how could they possibly cope or get up to date with what an insurance company in a less regulated state would provide or grounds for arguing with them about it. Even medical assistance coverage varies widely state by state in what it will cover in the present system.”

“Another great post from you, Jason, but I wouldn't short change it as not "ending well" but perhaps I didn't understand what you meant. It was priceless for its sputtering, but your right we got that from Jon Stewart. But its truely precious moment was when Ratigan got her to finally admit that the CBO idea and what she was really proposing was to pay for coverage for medicare by cutting everyone from 65 to 70! Hoist by her own petard.”

“amen”

“I meant underlies not undermines, silly me”