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February 11, 2011 04:33 PM UTC

Open Line Friday!

  • 87 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“I know how rent-a-mobs work. I know how mobs can be assembled, paid for, and put together. When I see a protest in Egypt with most of the signs printed and painted in English, my antenna go up. Why? They don’t speak English.”

–Rush Limbaugh, yesterday

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87 thoughts on “Open Line Friday!”

    1. f**king British monarchists . . . when will their lust for empire ever end?

      Spread the alarm: them sneaky redcoats ‘er tryin’ it agin’.  (Thanks Rush, the ever vigilant.)

  2. Chieftain among best in nation.

    http://www.chieftain.com/news/…

     “The Chieftain not only has to keep current with the latest advancements in technology, we have to adapt our daily operations to fit the technology,” Laut said. “All of this contributes to the quality of the newspaper.”

    We should all be so lucky in our neck of the woods!

  3. The Egyptians were under British control for many years.  English is a second language there, and somewhere between “many” to “most” Egyptians have some ability to speak it.

    I know, I’ve been there.  Obviously, you haven’t.

    1. I’ve also been there and found them almost as conversant in English as Europeans. And, like many Europeans, they also are likely to speak a 3rd or 4th language as well.

  5. Sonnenberg had an amendment to get rid of rules requiring cameras in dispensaries. The marijuana advocate who stuck a camera in his face and refused to remove it, caused him to walk over to the trash and throw the amdt away.  Pot folks can be their ownnworst enemy.  

    2. Not to excuse their bad behavior, but look at guys like Romer who have promised to shepherd the young industry and then basically given it the finger and wandered off the minute they didn’t yes-sir his every thought.  

      1. Imagine, people knowing that international media is watching writing signs in English!  Clearly it’s an Obama plot to establish the Caliphate.  Oh wait, ‘caliphate’ is based on an Arabic word.  And I just used it!  Oh my, I am so confused!  Am I a secret Muslim-loving accidental American, or a accidental Arabic-speaking American-lover?

  7. This is why:

    1) Easely is the representative for Montbello.  He did not advocate for a democratic process to recommend changes in the schools in those neighborhood.

    2) He supported the selection of the A1 committee to run a non-democratic process to recommend reconfiguring a whole group of schools. Who the hell is on the A-1 committee?  Why do they have the right to intervene in DPS?

    3) Parents in the schools to be changed did not have the opportunity to vote on a representative to sit on the committee “created” by the A-1 committee.

    4) When the so-called changes were announced, parents in the impacted schools did not have the right to be polled on their opinions of the proposed changes.

    5) Two of the models/processes  which are going into Montbello have failed elsewhere.  The BOE is going to replace a neighborhood school with a charter. That is fundamentally different from placing a charter in a neighborhood and letting parents choose between a charter and a neighborhood school.  The first time (only time?) DPS did this was with a middle school which they closed and opened with a KIPP.  The KIPP school failed.

    The BOE is going to duplicate at Montbello high what they

    let Gates do at Manual – put three separate high schools into one building.  The failure was so bad it went national.

    Easely ran on a platform of supporting neighborhood schools.  I don’t blame people for being pissed.

    I happen to like democratic processess and parents having some control over what happens to their kids.

    1. because I’m really asking, not being snarky…

      What do you think the difference is, or where’s the line, between buyer’s remorse and a legitimate recall?

      1. It doesn’t matter.  The state Constitution sets out the process for recalling an elected official.  It doesn’t stipulate that  the backers prove that the recall is “legitimate” or not.   If enough voters are dissatisfied with the elected officials and vote him out, that is just fine with me.  That is the law.  

        “buyers remorse” is a good reason for a recall.  Exercising one’s constitutional rights is never frivolous, in my opinion.

        thank you for being gentle.

          1. There is no provision for recalling the President in the US Constitution. You can not directly vote to amend the Constitution; you have to persuade 2/3s of the US House and Senate to pass the amendment and then 3/4s of the state legislatures have to vote to pass it.  

            So, LB, you better get cracking…:)

    2. If it’s in six years or something, I could understand the recall, but otherwise it seems like exactly the sort of thing that should be addressed at the next election. Easley sounds like a petty whiny ass just based on what I’ve read here, but after the whole California governor fiasco, I don’t think I could ever support another recall unless much much more serious crimes were involved. Why not just wait?

      1. If the recall is successful, the deadlock on the board might be broken.  Most importantly, I think that the horrible Montebello decision would be revisited.  And, the next time Boasberg, the Superintendent,  calls an elected Board member “disgruntled,” he would be reprimanded by the Board, I would hope.

        1. I think if I lived in Denver and therefore out in the time to learn about this, I would probably be against the recall. But stopping something you think will be very bad for the kids involved – very legit reason.

  9. It’s now Day 39 that the Republican’t Party seized control of the House of Representatives, and they have yet to do ONE DAMN THING about unemployment.

    Social issues got some inflammatory stone-age thinking attached to them, endless pointless Congressional hearings on a bill they’ve already passed (repeal of ACA) and even some stupid shit about how the budget has to be cut $100 Billion, whether they understand what that particular part of the budget affects their constituents back home, but not one damn thing about unemployment.

    To Wit:


    Poll: Unemployment is No. 1 concern

    Even as the unemployment rate tumbled to 9 percent last month, jobs are Americans’ biggest concern.

    In a Gallup poll released Friday, 35 percent of Americans surveyed said they consider unemployment to be the most important problem the country faces. That’s the highest level since the economic slowdown began and the highest at any point since October 1983, when 41 percent of Americans said unemployment was the country’s biggest problem.

    http://www.politico.com/news/s…

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/146…

    Keep it up – you’re going to be a one-term majority!

      1. They ALREADY voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act…so why are we wasting time doing shit like this instead of finding ways to tackle the unemployment rate.

        And again, you lifted out a quote completely out of context:


        CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee on Thursday that the health care law will reduce employment by 0.5 percent by 2021 because some people will no longer have to work just to afford health insurance.

        http://www.politico.com/news/s…

        So, as he tries to explain at the end of your Breitbart-style quote, those people may be quitting the 2nd or third job they have to pay for their current super-expensive healthcare.

        “That net effect reflects changes in incentives in the labor market that operate in both directions: Some provisions of the legislation will discourage people from working more hours or entering the workforce, and other provisions will encourage them to work more.”

        FAIL.

        2. their shit job just because it comes with health insurance. Instead they can start their own business doing something rewarding.

          Naah, can’t have any of that. It’s not like the American dream is for people like you and me.

        3. That fact would infer that the wages would go up for those in the labor market after some people leave their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd jobs that they kept for health care.

          One of the easiest and least costly ways of reducing joblessness is to remove people from the labor pool.  This was one of the major intents of Social Security, first in coming to pass, then in implementation.  

          We should be ENcouraging early retirement, not be talking about full SS benefits at 74 (George Will.)  Encourage parents to stay at home to take care of young kids.  Discourage long work weeks, overtime.  Part of the reason the joblessness rate hasn’t come down much despite an increasingly robust economy is that people are willing to work way over 40 hours; it’s expected.

          With fewer workers higher wages will follow.  Higher wages translates into more taxable income.  End result is that although what I propose sounds costly, it might even be less costly.  

  10. from Al Jazeera

    Reports indicate, however, that Mubarak has left Cairo for the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Shaikh, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.

    Egyptian state television announced on Friday evening that an “urgent” televised message from the presidential palace was due “shortly”.

          1. Anyone who’s played Risk knows it’s only a leap and a hop from Egypt to South America.

            The British are coming!  The British are coming! . . .

            Now everyone, apologize to Rush.

      2. It seemed to me that the protests would fizzle out without any long-term impact. As of right now I guess it’s technically a military coup with some level of popular support; such situations are always hard to predict.  

    3. Didn’t a bunch of people get eaten by sharks there last fall? I’m picturing the angry mobs chumming the waters to attract as many sharks as they can in hopes that Mubarak will get eaten.

        1. No chumming! Of course there’s always one person on the boat who’s better suited to be shark bait than a dive buddy.

          I’m going to North Sulawesi at the end of May. Totally psyched! My last dive trip was the Sardine Run in 2007. I lost my job shortly after that and haven’t had the budget for a dive trip since. It’s been killing me.

          1. It doesn’t hardly get any better than that.

            My buddy who owns a dive shop used to live and work all over Indonesia.  This last DEMA show in Las Vegas, he introduced me to a friend or his that is a resort owner in Borneo.  We’re looking to put something together there in 2012.

            1. I have a buddy who left yesterday for a two-week liveaboard in Fiji.  I’m so jealous.

              I seem to remember that it was one shark in particular that was munching some folks last summer in Sharm al-Shaikh.  The diving there is supposed to be absolutely incredible.

                1. I got certified in 2002 and I try to go a few times every year.  I just got my 12-year-old daughter certified and she did her open water in Jamaica this last fall.

            2. I spent a week on Bunaken Island (No Sulawesi) 10 years ago. Every dive was fantastic. I was doing a sort of backpacking thing so Kungkungan Bay Resort for critter diving was out of my price range, but it’s been at the top of my wish list ever since. I don’t have the budget for it now either, but a group of friends are going, so I couldn’t resist.

              If you go to Borneo, leave a couple of days to see orangutans too. There are several orangtan sanctuaries on Borneo and there is also one on Sumatra in Bukit Lawan, which is very easy to get to from Medan.

  11. According to the Mesa County Clerk’s Twitter feed earlier this week,

    The Colorado State motor vehicle title system is down. We can process renewals, not title transactions for today.

    The motor vehicle network is run by none other than the Department of Revenue. It went down Monday and won’t be back up until next Monday.

    If you try to bring up the License Plate Renewal page on the Department’s Online Services page, you get this message:

    The state Vehicle Registration system is experiencing an outage at this time. It is estimated that the system will be available on Monday, February 14th.  Although the Online Renewal system is down, you can go into your County DMV office or you can mail in your renewal card to receive your tags.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

    I spoke to County Clerk Sheila Reiner this morning.  She told me that employees are hand-entering renewals and title transactions as they did in the 1980s.

    She said the problem is apparently a server crash–a server that was purchased used seven years ago.  The outage is statewide.

    No contingency plan, DOR?  Harrumpf.

    Thanks, Roxy.

    According to the Sheila, you are unlikely to be forgiven by police if you have an expired temporary tag on your car.  So get down to the local Clerk’s motor vehicle office and get your real tags.

    Reiner told me that the lines haven’t been too bad this week, especially in the morning.  She thinks a lot of people are choosing to wait until the computer system is back up.

    She said that next week, though, you likely WILL wait in line, as people who waited will all descend on the motor vehicle offices at once.  And there are fewer offices and fewer staff to handle the crunch.  The Clerk was forced to close two offices last year due to budget and staff cuts, and has cut another office down to two days per week.

    Instead of five offices, we now have two and a half offices serving all of Mesa County, which is 1/3 larger (3341 square miles) than the entire State of Delaware (2489 square miles).

    1. That makes me wonder. I haven’t gotten my little booklet with the handy-dandy forms for remitting my monthly state sales tax yet. They want you to send the previous month (Jan) in by the 20th of the current month.

      So will it finally show up this next week some time? Who knows?

  12. of the sheer magnificence of the Egyptian people, their courage in the face of a regime that has held the power to arrest, torture and execute them at will. They refused to be intimidated, refused to back down, refused to give up, all the while refusing to become a violent mob, defending themselves only when attacked.

    Where else on earth, in any other time or place have such huge numbers of jubilant revolutionaries ever congregated in such pure joy and exuberance with no violence, no rioting?  Certainly not here, where winning a national team championship can set “celebrating” crowds to breaking windows and torching cars. Astounding.

    May this historic people’s revolution continue to confound the expectations of the talking heads, disappoint the dire predictions of the justifiably cynical and bring transformative change for the better to a great people who have proved every day since day one of the protests how richly they deserve it.

          1. The Obama celebration example wasn’t a crowd of hundreds of thousands squeezed into a single space, celebrating the overthrow of a dictatorship.

            I can’t account for the beginning of time but as far as I’m aware, the Egyptians now hold the all time world record for most civilized, least violent, victorious revolutionary crowd celebration ever.  And today they’re cleaning up after themselves.

            Also, there was no burning of Israeli flags, US flags, not much anti-anything except the Mubarak regime.  This was not fueled by extremists whipping up crowds via hate and fear directed toward some evil “other”.  

            This people’s revolution was utterly astounding on every level but especially on the civilized behavior scale on the part of the revolutionaries.  Agree this doesn’t mean a guarantee of a cakewalk from here on out.  Still, the most encouraging part is that, unlike in most other dictatorships, the Egyptian military, an extremely professional and powerful one, and the people aren’t enemies who hate and fear each other.  That’s got to be a big plus going forward.  

  13. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50…

    WASHINGTON — Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a potential 2012 Republican presidential contender, blasted President Obama for siding with Egyptian protesters as they press for democracy, instead of the American-friendly authoritarian Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak.

    “We’ve turned our backs on… almost all of our allies,” Santorum said with respect to the president’s foreign policy. As protesters voice their anger against Mubarak, “What does the president do? He sides with the protesters.”

    2. If Obama had supported Mubarak they would be criticizing him for not standing for freedom. Whatever he does has to be wrong just because he does it.  Unless it’s so obviously right and popular, like his speech after the Arizona tragedy, that they know they’ve reached the limit of that strategy. Then they’ll just find a few details to criticize and wait for the next opportunity to restart the Everything Obama Bad Campaign.  

  14. Nokia sided with another dictator…they’re dropping their own device OS in exchange for supporting Windows Mobile. Maybe a good strategic move, but it seems the folks doing the work are not happy:

    Intel ‘not blinking’ on MeeGo, Nokia workers in protest

    Nokia’s decision to switch to Windows Phone for its devices has triggered harsh reactions both from Intel and within Nokia itself. Intel in a statement said it was “disappointed” with Nokia but said it was “not blinking” on supporting MeeGo. The chip designer said to Laptop it already supported other operating systems and that there were other platforms besides phones to support.

    “We remain committed and welcome Nokia’s continued contribution to MeeGo open source,” it said. “MeeGo is not just a phone OS, it supports multiple devices. And we’re seeing momentum across multiple segments — automotive systems, netbooks, tablets, set-top boxes and our Intel silicon will be in a phone that ships this year.”

    The reference was likely to the Aava Core, an Atom-based phone developed by a startup.

    Intel’s loss of Nokia as a phone manufacturer is a major hit to its mobile plans in spite of its response. The company has been trying to reports from Finland have noted that hundreds of Nokia workers, possibly as many as 1,000, have walked out of Nokia’s Tampere office in protest at the decision. Most of them are believed by HI to work on Symbian and are objecting to upcoming job cuts that will almost certainly scale back the software team as Nokia exits Symbian on smartphones.

    http://www.electronista.com/ar…

    So we’re down to three – iPhone OS, Android, and now WinMobile. Interesting times….

  16. Josh loves him some Wadhams.

    http://www.gjsentinel.com/opin…

    If Frank Sinatra were alive, and if he paid attention to leadership elections in the Republican Party, he’d be giving two cheers for Dick Wadhams this week.

    Like Old Blue Eyes, the Republican warhorse named Wadhams has a knack for doing things his way.

    This week, Wadhams abruptly announced he wasn’t running for a third term as state GOP party chair, a reversal of course for Colorado’s Summa Cum Laude right-wing operative who earlier announced he wanted to keep the job.

    Wadhams’ decision to walk away from the party gig surprised some, but not me.

    Who am I to contrast where the CO GOP was in 2002, and where it is now after Wadhams reign?  

  17. Poll: Barack Obama bests GOP front-runners

    If the presidential election were to happen today, Barack Obama would win eight swing states and one electoral vote-giving congressional district that he won in 2008 but George W. Bush won in 2004, a new poll has found.

    Obama would win all his match-ups against four likely presidential candidates – Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney – according to surveys conducted by Public Policy Polling over the last three months.

    In Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Nebraska’s second congressional district, Obama would win by an average of seven points.

    Romney does the best in match-ups against Obama, trailing by an average of six points. Huckabee trails by eight points, Gingrich by 12 and Palin by 16 points.

    http://www.politico.com/news/s…

    1. ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Amy Bingham report:   For at least a few hours this morning at CPAC in Washington, throngs of conference goers were aflutter with word that Sarah Palin was in the building.

      “Oh my god! Sarah Palin is here!” one onlooker whispered to her friends. “Is that really her?” asked another, as a woman looking remarkably like Palin and her entourage floated through the lobby and into the exhibit halls.

      Dozens of curious fans frantically reached for their cameras and trailed in pursuit.  And even those who met and spoke with the woman of interest were convinced she was the real deal.

      “I cannot believe I just met Sarah Palin,” one college-age girl screamed into her cell phone to her mother. “Mom, I just met the governor!”

      But as some quickly learned, the Palin-Palooza was for naught, because it wasn’t really Palin at all.

  18. It’s been a long time since I encountered this level of discourse, like since I was 4 years old, and I’ve forgotten how this goes.

    –Someone who actually posts under “ssayeknodskcusruegayov”.

    1. and I guess neither do I, but the level of discourse on this site is IMO pretty low. I think people here can have a fairly civil conversation around the edges of the broad moderate liberal consensus, but anyone outside the fairly strict acceptable boundaries of opinion is treated really quite badly, with literally nothing off-limits.

      I’ve probably contributed more than most users to this atmosphere, although I tried to respect some boundaries and restrict the abuse to people who seemed able to take it. I doubt I did as good a job as I wanted to believe. God I’m fucking tired.  

      3. Anyone with a new baby gets a pass for virtually anything, in my eyes. I understand that, issues-wise, you might fall on the same side as donkey ass, but you’re leap years ahead of thad person in credibility.

      4. I think most people here get as good as they give. “Ass” isn’t being abused because of his views, but because of the abuse he dishes out, beginning with the very handle he chose to post with. He’s also dishonest, which IMO can’t be punished harshly enough. The same applies to the most vocal Romanoffskis during the primary, to David Sirota, and to a good deal of the righties who post here. You come in swaggering with attitude, you’re not going to get a warm welcome.

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