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October 15, 2011 03:02 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 97 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.”

–Tacitus

Comments

97 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread

  1. at the OccupyGrandJunction event scheduled for 9:00 this morning at the Mesa County courthouse.

    Please come down and support us if you are in GJ this morning.

    1. And welcomed news first thing on a Saturday.  You will be speaking for the many there and even more supporters of the cause that can’t be with you for one reason or another.  

  2. “The State as we’ve known it – and that includes its political parties and its redistributionary, military, regulatory, and money-creating bureaucracies – just can’t get it together. It’s as true now as it has been for some twenty years: the Nation State is in precipitous decline. Once imbued with grandeur and majesty, personified by its Superman powers to accomplish amazing global feats, it is now a wreck and out of ideas. ”

    http://lewrockwell.com/rockwel

  3. Steve’s Google Platform Rant

    The Golden Rule of Platforms, “Eat Your Own Dogfood”, can be rephrased as “Start with a Platform, and Then Use it for Everything.” You can’t just bolt it on later. Certainly not easily at any rate — ask anyone who worked on platformizing MS Office. Or anyone who worked on platformizing Amazon. If you delay it, it’ll be ten times as much work as just doing it correctly up front. You can’t cheat. You can’t have secret back doors for internal apps to get special priority access, not for ANY reason. You need to solve the hard problems up front.

    It’s an amazing read. And rare to see someone take such an honest look at their own company.

  4. Vivek Wadhwa

    We can do to schools what PayPal did to banks and do to college networks what Facebook did to friendships. We can now make education affordable and pervasive. All this requires is investment in the right technologies and the type of mentoring and support being provided to students, such as the Thiel fellows. You could impact the lives of billions. So rather than debating each other, let’s work together on these lofty goals. I’ll do all I can to help.

  5. It takes three years to build a business (very true).

    The bad news here is: If you plan on quitting your job, you want to start a consultancy business and you have less than 18 months worth of expenses in your savings account, then you shouldn’t do it unless you have a very large amount of work lined up. And even then you’ll need to be more frugal than Ebenhaezer Scrooge, in case any of it dries up or a customer doesn’t pay on time (or at all!).

    1. “We shall heal our wounds, collect our dead, and continue fighting”  Mao Zedong

      And quoting a Communist guerrilla leader responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths is just plain silly, IMHO.

        1. both ally and car31 have been here for a good while. We’ve all seen disagreements with each other, but we tend to treat those who contribute something of substance better than we treat blithering fools. You understand yet?

          1. To post, you have to have been here forever.

            But to have been here forever, you have to post.

            You’d have to be crazy to want to be a blogger, but if you recognize that blogging is crazy, you’re not crazy.

            I think I understand better than you realize, GIM.

          1. I guess if his motive was simply to bring up the Chinese standard of living, it’s all good.

            Seriously, even without the bloodshed and megalomania, that quote’s straight up hyperbole. It makes you wonder if some of these folks want a modern Haymarket Massacre and the resulting martyrdom.

      1. Republican President Richard Nixon going to Beijing toasting Mao Zedong at a state dinner given in his honor.  

        I’m sure the video is on the Net somewhere (yes they did have video cameras back then).  

    1. I dislike earmarking. Unfortunately, the majority of folk here in CO have been trained to like it. “Where, exactly, is my money going?” So, if we are to add any $ to education, even this relatively insignificant amount, it is going to have to be done with this partition. So, I’m voting for it and doing so with enthusiasm.  

    2. Cities and counties and other local governments that have been successful in passing revenue-raising issues have uniformly reported that those issues which are specifically spelled out for voters ahead of time are the ones that do best.

      1. Another concern I have is if 103 passes, it will be harder to ask voters for another tax increase for other essential services/needs for the state.

        If 103 fails, it will be too easy for voters to say, “See, it isn’t time for tax increases”.

        Double edged sword.

        Not sure how I’m voting – leaning yes.

            1. We must not ask because the people are not ready.

              If we ask and it fails, that means we cannot ask again.

              If we ask and it passes, we dare not ask again.

              If you’re representative of the Democrats we’ve elected, no wonder they’re all about why it’s never the right time to try.

              Not to be mean but we need leaders in the Democratic party who will fight for what we need. And who, when we lose some, and we will always lose some, will pick themselves back up and fight again.

    3. Because whenever the general fund needs money, lawmakers look to education. How did Hickenlooper put it when he proposed slicing something like $300 million last session? “Deeply sorry citizens, but that’s where the money is.” Oy.

      As everyone knows, education spending in Colorado is dropping every year– and we’re already at the bottom. Earmarking is the only way to stop the bleeding and Rollie Heath knows it.  

      I have kids in school. I’m voting for it, and I think I would even if I didn’t have kids in school.

    4. Education is such a huge part of our budget that any tax increase without an earmark is nearly half earmarked already. It’s just the budget.

      Someone correct me if I’m wrong, please, but I thought I read that once there is enough money to fill what would be a cut, the rest of the cash goes wherever. Not like a Ref C situation. I was glancing over the article though, so yeah. I don’t get to vote on it at all.

    5. Ti’s such an incremental increase that it just adds another revenue stream. That’s how the leg will look at it.

      Same thing happens with lottery money.  

  6. Wow, that sounds just like Hejduk and he and the new young Avs are getting off to a great start, fingers crossed.  Where was I? Oh, yeah…

    How did your appearance at occupy JG go?

    1. Unlike him, I am not a saboteur.

      The rally was small when I was there..I was the first speaker…so I tried to warm them up a little and it seemed to work. I had to leave then… to spend the rest of the day building soffits.

      One of the GJ bloggers will, no doubt, have more. Claudette Konola was there and Ralphie said he might show up late.

      1. You are talking about the hockey player. (Not a big hockey fan,…sorry.)

        I thought you were talking about George W. Hayduke, Edward Abbeys’ infamous Monkey Wrench Gang leader.   duh…

        Just the same…GO AVS!!

            1. Oh please God, let the Avs be good this season, especially since there apparently isn’t going to be any NBA action. I’m already at the end of my yearly off season NBA withdrawal rope as it is. If the Avs suck again, it’s going to be a very, very long winter. But so far, our newbies are smokin’ and good old Hejduk’s not looking bad either. Dare I hope?

  7. pressing paperwork deadline facing chores (one of these days I’ll learn not to procastinate though Borg Brat claims it’s a Dem failing.  I have voted already, though)  so can someone tell me and others who couldn’t make it how the noon Denver event went? Size of crowd, etc?

    1. I heard rumors of about 5000, but didn’t try to count. We started marching around 12:30, stopped in front of various banks on 17th Street, and arrived back at the park around 2:30. Police had blocked off most streets so we were able to march without stopping. They were pretty friendly.

      Unfortunately sxp152 slept through the whole thing; the chants were probably a bit overwhelming. At the end protesters stopped in the middle of the street next to the park, presumably to occupy it and do dome civil disobedience, and they seemed to be advising people with kids to leave. So we did.  

  8. Bought a new iPad 2 today. Brought it home, went to configure it, and it wouldn’t accept my credit card because it said the address didn’t exist. I called Verizon and they said that they have a new billing processor and it’s declining lots of addresses.

    Sort of hard to use it without the 3G so I returned it. (I have an original iPad on AT&T so I’ll just continue with it.)

    1. doesn’t want my business. The change dispenser was broken. Not to mention, after I got change from a nearby convenience store, the bay I pulled into had wax all over the walls. I suspect kids were using the wand without actually washing a car, and it’s got me upset!

      1. What are we paying our money for?  Those bureaucrats are so freakin incompetent!  Let’s shrink it so it can fit in a bathtub and drown it!

        Wait, I just realized you and David were dealing with corporations.

        Never mind.

  9. But plan to go tomorrow. If anyone else is going and wants to be able to recognize me let me know and maybe I’ll bring my hat 😉

    …Not pleased with the reports that some protesters attempted to provoke police today, by the way. I am 100% behind their right to free speech and this is the natural outgrowth of the Citizens United decision, since legislative and legal efforts to reduce corporate control of politics have been stymied, but the organizers need to make clear to protesters that a small minority can make a large majority look very bad. Civil disobedience is not the same thing as trying to get arrested just because.

      1. Because he may be an asshole, but sometimes he’s right, we respect him, and he generally has something to say when he’s being an asshole.

        As none of the above seem to apply to you, I hope that you will not honor me with any further replies during the term of your employment here.

          1. considering Ralphie has spent the past four months bashing PC almost daily in a huge variety of threads. Or hadn’t you noticed?

            He’s easier to love when he’s not constantly trashing you.

            1. I may sometimes love him less than the average of my love for all Polsters, but most of the time I think he’s lovely. He calls me on my bullshit (sometimes he’s right, sometimes not) and I strive to call him on his, which happens to include that he can be a real asshole sometimes. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but where I’m concerned, any ribbing of Ralphie that I post should be read with a fond tone in your head and perhaps a sidelong grin.

              Some of my favorite people are assholes. Oblivious is an asshole with no point, nothing interesting to say, and an overt agenda. That gets dull fast.

            2. Ralphie’s Cowgirl bashing gets pretty tiresome and Cowgirl is ridiculously nice about it.  He and I have gone at it on various occasions, too. Even so, I don’t merely “tolerate” Ralphie.  That’s all I’m sayin’.

      2. I suggest completely ignoring Ralphie. He won’t go away, but at least you’ll feel better. (Don’t take it personally either — he’s just got a mean streak.)

        I’m looking forward to your diaries, Oblivious.

        1. with abated breath to read our newcomers’ first diary.

          I have been going back over some recent diaries and I catch the fragrance of “web monkey”, isn’t that what you call it when a shill is paid by a candidate to spend his/her time at a computer messing with yokels like us?

          My memory isn’t what it used to be…must be the medicine…:)

          1. You have to write diaries now? There are dozens of posters on this site who have never written diaries, but are free to comment. Oh, but I guess they usually agree with the echo chamber. This blog is a joke.

                1. But there’s no bigger hypocrite than someone like you, calling a blog a “joke” but posting anyway. Either you were lying, or you’re so sad that you’ll troll joke blogs. You look bad, any way you spin it.

                  Like Ralphie says, post away. You will be judged accordingly, and that’s the way it is.

                    1. Because you were lying about yourself in one post, and you’re lying about me now.

                      Sad? You’re the very picture of sad.

                2. Not going to be that easy to shut me up.

                  want to shut you up?

                  So far you haven’t really said anything. I was so hoping you would say something interesting…still waiting.

                3. Not going to be that easy to shut me up.

                  want to shut you up?

                  So far you haven’t really said anything. I was so hoping you would say something interesting…still waiting.

      1. Yeah, because no one was paying any attention when Lehman collapsed and the economy tanked and Paulson’s hair was on fire so we had to bail out Wall Street but they got huge bonuses anyway. Etc.

        Who, exactly, hasn’t been talking about this for years?

        1. We’ve been talking about how the deficit is too high and the rich need tax cuts for years.

          There’s Matt Taibbi and then there’s Every Other Journalist in Washington.  

        2. The conversation has changed, at last. I think that’s undeniable, and all the more incredible when you recall that the mainstream media (that dreaded MSM! Liberal socialist commie hacks, everyoneofem!) ignored OWS for weeks.

          The tea party had its moments, but nothing like this. I kinda wish a few of our teabaggin’ polsters were still around so I could ask them how they like these apples.

        3. The conversation was first saving the economy (which was job one). Then it was healthcare reform, then the tea party, then deficits, and finally jobs (which should have been job two).

          But until OWS there was very little discussion about how the system has become incredibly lopsided in favor of the rich and the poor and middle class are being asked to give up even more to further increase the wealth of the very rich.

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