Wednesday, December 18, 2013

& then there's this

The lust is clearly off the apple. A notable quotable from Barbara Walters on the Piers Morgan show. Even our Earth Goddess Oprah has cooled towards Obama who's lately been reduced to becoming a running infomercial for the ACA and taking selfies at important occasions like Nelson Mandela's memorial service. Oh well he still has BB, Saty and Chris Matthews but as for me with every passing day he's going more and more into the Jimmy Carter category. Maybe he can pick up a hammer and bucket of nails with Bob Vila and do some Habitat for Humanity after his second term runs out.

84 comments:

  1. His liberal-progressive base is disappointed. I'm sure they will rush to Palin.

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    1. EVERYONE'S disappointed.

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    2. BB I really think you have a thing for Palin.

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    3. Well sure...who can resist a pistol-packing grizzly mom former guv turned
      entertainer?

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    4. It's a fantasy of yours but I'm guessing the GOP establishment doesn't want her nominated. Just a hunch.

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  2. Has there ever been a president that everyone loved one hundred percent all the time without any reservation while they were in office? Ever? No. Will there ever be? No. Has any president endured the nonstop obstructionism, sabotage, and organized vilification from the opposition that this president has? No. You use this as proof he's not all that. Let me tell you this: walking out of office, he's STILL accomplished great things no president has in the past 50 years, and in the face of unprecedented opposition. You can talk about apples all you want, but the recovery continues and we've moved one step closer to putting equality into practice instead of pretty words.

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    1. Regardless Obama got the ACA passed w/o the GOP, a "conservative" justice on the Supreme Court upheld it and it's now the Law of the Land. Part-timers getting their hours gutted, millions getting health insurance cancellation notices in the mail - that's not the GOP that's ObamaCare.

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    2. Part-timers getting their hours gutted:
      ...of course their employers bear no responsibility whatsoever.
      ...less hours per employee clearly means hiring more employees. The
      employers are generously lowering unemployment.
      ...40 million uninsured can get health insurance.
      (read on a libertarian blog, that the previous private system was even worse and we should copy the Swiss Model. *a libertarian blog*
      Is it not simply the natural tendency of folks who resist motorcycle helmet laws, game laws and seatbelt laws to decry such?

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    3. You already know my view, there's enough blame to go around. Simple cause & effect, the 30-hr. ObamaCare mandate means employers bringing almost everyone's hours under 30 per week. Of course if Obama were really serious about the importance of everyone having health insurance he wouldn't allow these companies to get away with this. He and the Democrats would have worked something into the law whereby companies can't just overnight decide to gut part-timers' hours just to avoid a mandate. Was this done? apparently not so employers can now cleverly dance around the mandate. Enough blame to go around BB, cause and effect.

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  3. When child labor laws were enacted industry had a meltdown screaming it would be the end of them because it would totally destroy their ability to make money. The institution of the eight hour day was, according to manufactures, a harbinger of the Apocalypse that would totally gut productivity and companies' survival. Occupational safety laws, unions and every piece of legislation ever put into place to protect workers were touted as 'industry killers'.

    Industry survived.

    Employees moved one step up from a feudal serfdom. There's still a whole staircase to go.

    Obama could shit gold bricks and distribute them to every single American and you would still find a way to discredit it.

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    1. That last statement of yours totally off the mark. You know me, I'm not your typical conservative and if he does something good I'll give him some marks. Trouble is as even BabaWawa has noted he's just stumbling around of late. To flip it around though I think what's really at the root of this fandom of yours and BBs is you can't accept the reality of the first black president possibly being a failure.

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    2. Not fandom so much as self-defense. I remember what the GOP has tried and would very much like to try again:
      The end of Medicare and Medicaid as we know it...
      Social Security privatized...
      Turning back the clock significantly on women's rights, workers' rights, LGBT equality and civil rights...
      More massive tax cuts and deregulation to benefit corporate special interests and the ultra-wealthy, at the expense of everyone else.
      ..so not so much fandom as rep(ublican)ulsion. Just so ya know.

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    3. You really think your average Republican is that conservative? Wasn't Reagan supposed to get rid of the Dept. of Education? At any rate screwing up health-care reform you don't think that ultimately benefits those dreaded Republicans?

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  4. And here's this for your perusal:

    --80 percent of Republicans -- yes, Republicans -- like the idea of health insurance marketplaces, also known as "exchanges." I think we can safely say that 80 percent approval constitutes "wildly popular."

    --Likewise, 57 percent of Republicans like the idea of the government helping to pay the cost of premiums via insurance subsidies.

    --54 percent of Republicans like the employer mandate -- the same mandate which the congressional Republicans almost universally oppose, including and partly because of Sean Hannity.

    --78 percent of Republicans support the ban on denying insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.

    --This one is an eye-opener. 29 percent of Republicans think Obamacare "doesn't go far enough."

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    1. As I've said and even Romney has said this if getting rid of ObamaCare to start over save the good points like the pre-existings. Have I ever said otherwise? please find where. OK so let's say 80% of Repubs like those exchanges ALOT of Americans who are being forced onto those exchanges ALREADY HAD HEALTH INSURANCE, policies and doctors that they liked. Actually the ACA is working according to design, right on schedule. Get Americans off of private insurance and dump them on the marketplaces. That ain't so cool.

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  5. And forty million people who had to do without healthcare or worry that the ensuing bills would put them into bankruptcy now have insurance.

    The cost of my recent surgical experience has been close to $10K counting pathology and preop visit. If we had no insurance, there would have been no surgical experience. I would still be crying and dreading every minute of my life, like I did when I broke my ankle and it took three months before my insurance kicked in. Maybe only people who have had this experience can fully appreciate what it means to have insurance coverage. For everyone else, it's easy to say it ain't so cool.

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    1. Gosh you really know how to gild a turd. What about those millions of Americans who already had health insurance and doctors that they liked??? Weren't the exchanges, the marketplaces for those who were already uninsured? Let me use an analogy maybe you can relate to. Let's say they passed some law and for some reason you got a cancellation notice in the mail from your provider of your smartphone/computer coverage so now you gotta go out and look for another provider/carrier and you're a busy person like most. You'd be pissed right?

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  6. The reason that their policies were cancelled was because they were substandard according to the new rules. And most of the insurance companies have taken this as a golden fleece opportunity to mislead people into buying more expensive policies from them.

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    1. Aren't most Americans big enough and intellectually mature enough to decide for themselves if they have substandard policies or not? OK so let's pass a law because I think you're too dumb to know if you have a good cell phone policy or not how'd you feel? Ah the paternalism of government!

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  7. Really, how many people do you think have the ability to make those decisions? Most employers decide what you get, how often you get it, and how much you pay for it. Just like most employers thought it was kickass great to hire five year olds, and fought tooth and nail when regulations came down to prevent it. Do you really think people have choices?

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    1. Folks can get to know their policies over time. I read my booklet every now and then but if that's true that people really don't have choices then it's best for Government to make those choices for us? In another context I thought you were Pro-Choice.

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  8. And barring that, have you read an insurance policy lately? It's the rare person who'd be able to make any sense of it at all. They're written that way. So no, the average person does NOT have either the ability or the opportunity to make those kinds of decisions.

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    1. But Nancy Pelosi does? Wasn't she the one who famously said we have to pass ObamaCare to find out what's in it?

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  9. A lot of things were pretty obvious. Caps, preexistings, paying more just because you're female. Recission. Deductibles so huge they make insurance almost worthless. These are just the tip of the iceberg. People have complained about these things for years, but they've had no recourse. As far as choosing doctors and hospitals go, you never REALLY had a free choice to begin with; if they're not in the network your employer and insurance company agrees on, you're SOL. This whole 'choice' business has been an illusion all along. Anyone who's ever had to fight an insurance company to get things covered, to not be denied, knows that there has never really been a choice. At least now there's some legal recourse and less opportunity for blatant, flagrant exploitation.

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  10. To switch gears for a minute I say why don't we just go with like Total Free Speech for a couple years and see how it goes. What's gonna happen, is the Duck gonna destroy the Republic?

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    1. "“Free speech is an endangered species. Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us" Sarah Palin, half time Alaska Guv. [note, old Duck was
      censored by his private employer, not the gov't, Sarah.]

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    2. I agree with Sarah and after every one of these episodes people always bring up the finer points you bring up. However I agree more with Nat Hentoff who talks about the spirit of free speech. He says and I quote "the way to fight offensive speech is with more speech not less". I'm as passionate about Free Speech as Saty is about Pro-Choice. She doesn't make many exceptions about her Pro-Choice and I don't make many exceptions about my Free Speech.

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    3. '"the way to fight offensive speech is with more speech not less.."
      Sounds familiar; oh yeah...replace 'speech' with 'guns'.

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    4. You should be a fan of Hentoff, he's a liberal. OK so we continue to punish offensive speech and drive it further underground where it can do the most harm. I'd rather know what's out there ya know?

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  11. Total Free Speech is fine. However, to think that it means you are free from the consequences of or responsibility for your speech is delusional.

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    1. I might make the point that if there are too many consequences to what is basically free speech it kinda ceases to be free, you can't really express yourself. I say this, by stifling or seeking to punish certain free speech you drive it more underground when it should be out in the open. Sunlight as they say is the best disinfectant. I would also add what do people accomplish when they successfully punish somebody like Duck or Don Imus or whoever else? What goal was reached exactly? If we didn't punish the offenders would the sky fall down? What's the great fear here? Why not let it ride?

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    2. Why are you not okay with people being responsible for the consequences of what they say?

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  12. I've certainly heard worse than the duck call guy. IMO, free speech shouldn't be a license for foul language, stupidity, gross lying, though it apparently is. Personally,
    as you know reading between the lines, I have strong feelings about the right and
    fundies, but I try to suppress it at least a little just to be polite, ya know? What's up
    with all these reality shows anyway: I find them awfully boring. You know, shoot one gater in the face, drive one truck on the ice, make one batch of moonshine,
    OK, but all day long, day after day..interminable tripe. Oh, gotta run watch Honey
    Boo Boo, maybe she will blurt out something offensive! :)

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    1. So free speech is only for safe nice speech? This means absolutely nothing as a constitutional value. Only the Emily Posts are protected.

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    2. There are exceptions; if seen more than one person fired for bad-mouthing a company, or wearing unacceptable shirts: 'This Place Sucks'
      may be free speech, but it has consequences. Local joke is to walk into a a Big Sky bar and observe, 'Ain't nuttin in Montana but cowboys and queers'. Of course serious threats
      can bring on the fuzz as well. I'm not saying nice safe speech, I'm saying
      let's have a little minimal intelligence with it. C'mon Z-Man, you'd probably
      cheer the guy that rushes in front of the altar and says 'If there was a God,
      He's strike me now" I suppose there are those that would wear their
      Che Gueverra t-shirt to a Tea Party gathering but IMO, such is a waste
      of free speech rights.

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    3. Basically the man said who would be attracted to a man's hairy ass. Again he said just my opinion, that's just me. Now maybe I'm boorish but I wasn't all that offended unless you prefer your speech more bland, more like Tesh.

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  13. No, free speech is for all speech. But you still take responsibility for what you say, and the consequences thereof. I'm not sure how that's a problem for Republicans, who are all about that 'personal responsibility' thing. If I went on the local news and was represented as being part of the agency I work for, and I talked a lot of shit about the governor, chances are I'd be losing my job. This man is employed by A&E, and he was doing an interview as a person who's on a show produced by A&E and therefore associated with them. So A&E doesn't like the way he's representing their brand and so they've decided that to be associated with him is a bad business decision.... and so they've decided to terminate that. Tough shit. Which part of his constitutional right was disrespected? He has every right to say it. A&E has every right to dissociate themselves with him for saying it. I can't understand why you don't get this.

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    1. The GQ interviewer asked him a direct question and he gave an honest response based on his faith and oh btw he's a redneck.

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  14. If I exercise my free speech by posting a sign in my front yard that says KEEP KRISHNA IN CHRISTMAS, does someone have the right to spraypaint over it or burn it down?

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    1. Well no because that's the physical act of a vandal.

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  15. And here's the difference with this 'punishing' free speech concept: your LEGAL right to free speech is protected. No one has arrested the man, put him in front of a US Military firing squad or thrown him into court for what he said. So there is no LEGAL repercussion to what he said, because he has every LEGAL right to say whatever he wants. Now, what he's experiencing is SOCIETAL. Society has every right to react however it wants to what he's said. People can refuse to watch A&E if they like; they can light all of their Duck Dynasty-labeled crap on fire if they like; or they can wave happy flags and say he's a modern day Rosa Parks (as delusional as that comparison is in reality). In the same way, the man's employer has every right to determine whether or not they feel that he's appropriately representing their brand, and if they find that he isn't, they have the right to terminate their relationship. None of this impinges on his Constitutionally protected right to say whatever he likes. I'm not sure how you can come to the conclusion it does.

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    1. SOCIETY has also made it the highest rated reality show on the air today.

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  16. In fairness I have to admit that slander is indeed speech that you can be hauled into court for. So there you go.

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  17. Modern liberals are some of the weakest supporters of free speech out there. It's almost shocking.

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  18. You know what's funny and I was thinking about this yesterday. I think we'd all agree SEX is a pretty open topic these days certainly more open than say in the 50's. There are subgenres that are freely discussed among the sexual academics and lately you have a kind of cult of the anus going on and this goes hetero and gay doesn't matter. There are even respectable instructional videos out there on this stuff, again everything these days seems on the table for a free and robust discussion. Along comes Papa Duck who says as a man another man's anus doesn't do it for him, he's far more into the vagina (I believe this is a pretty close paraphrase). OK so just from the POV of a discussable sexual topic what's the problem? It's something you might find in the pages of Playboy or Penthouse. I call it thinking out loud so I guess the next step would be punishing somebody for saying I'm not personally that much into fellatio but that's just me. I honestly this is just such a funny topic on so many levels.

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    1. It is sort of funny and as others have noted, it is sort of a fringe thing that
      distracts from more serious issues. Always thought rednecks were dirt poor, but golly, those duckies make almost as much as a Yonkers chef !

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    2. It's as if SEX is a wide open topic 'cept conservatives can't drop their two cents in on sexual matters and practices. Forums on rimming no problem.

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  19. I'm still not getting how you think I'm not for free speech. Why are you confusing this? All I'm saying is that the Constitution gives you the right to say what you want, and society retains the right to react however it wants to the dumbass shit you say.

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    1. He simply stated the oft-repeated Bible-based opposition to the gay lifestyle. That's not allowed?

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    2. Has anyone arrested him? Has the government taken steps to silence him? The First Amendment doesn't have anything to do with the relationship of private corporations with their employees. Why is this so hard for you?

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    3. You seem to be saying a private employer has the legal and constitutional right to suspend or fire one of their employees simply for expressing a Christian-based opposition to gay marriage or the gay lifestyle. Interesting.

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  20. Sign the petition! ..over at theFaith Driven Consumer website. (Now I know who watches the stuff)

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    1. If the boycott against Rush was ok it's all good.

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  21. Because societal repercussion for hating gay people is an attack on Christianity. Like people in that 78% majority understand what religious persecution really is. Like when was the last time someone got arrested in the US for being Christian? Or were charges with a crime for what they do in the privacy of their own homes? Christians thrive on the whole persecution complex. It gives them a common enemy.

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    1. Gays don't have a persecution complex? Ever hear of Coptic Christians?

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    2. I've never understood the dark side of Christianity.

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    3. There are places you can be fired for being gay, places sodomy laws are on the books, you cant visit in a hospital,get married,get domestic benefits, and run the risk of being beaten to DEATH just for being gay. Has anyone beaten a Christian to death in America lately for no other reason than being Christian? ?

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    4. BB you remind me of this Jamaican chef I used to work with, always saw and talked about the dark side of Christianity. Never saw the bright side like people falling on their faith to get them through times of crisis or Christian humanitarian efforts in Africa but if you prefer to dwell on the dark side. Saty more and more these days you can't be fired for just being gay and I'm not aware of any recent cases of gays being arrested for oral or anal sex. We've been over the hospital thing before (is there an anti-gay bouncer in the lobby?) and as for gay marriage seems it's the trend if given enough time as more and more states are going that way so all the bad stuff you cite is changing. You two are like eternally pessimistic.

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    5. Point remains that the Christians manufacture this persecution complex. I posit it's because having a common enemy allows them to overcome internal divisiveness. Also, even Cotton Mather was aware that people behaved more religiously when they thought they were being attacked; hence the preponderance of sermons you'll find from that era outlining the myriad ways in which Satan spent his time attacking the good Puritans literally every moment of every day.

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    6. Here's the thing, Z-Man; I agree, there is a bright side to Christianity..and
      from what I glean biblically and theologically that is understandable (indeed, laudable). I perhaps unfairly wonder about the 'dark underside'
      in some Christian belief, but it is a wider phenom; Aztecs/Canaanites with
      their human sacfifices, the Hebrews wiping out opponents, Islam and its
      holy war and fatwah, St. Boniface slaughtering Saxons that resisted conversion, both sides in the 30 year war eliminating harmless peasants,
      'Gott Ist Mit Uns' on the Wehrmacht buckles. It fascinates me because it
      is not what most religion teaches: it is what some wretches bring to it...and about those that stand by and permit it, whatever reason..

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    7. As well I sometimes wonder about the dark side of atheism like why a few of them feel compelled to go after Christmas.

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  22. I have to laugh though. Are we so traumatized by what the man said? BB's been around the block a few times.

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  23. I do want to continue this but thread the comments because I want to bring up something else - dispatchers. The other day there was this rather large dog on the loose roaming the neighborhood, not sure of the breed but he went in someone's backyard and killed a stray cat. We discussed this and one person felt it probably belonged to somebody in the neighborhood. Long story short there was about an hour's delay before I decided to call the cops and the dispatcher made much of this delay in reporting and decided to not call this an "incident" because it wasn't reported right away and then she expressed no further interest in the problem. Anyway someone called the police the next morning and had a more normal and fruitful conversation and they took the info down. It was a rather strange experience me arguing with the police dispatcher over the phone and you'll all remember the fire dept. dispatcher who told me to put a can of cat food at the bottom of the tree to get the stranded cat down which needless to say was totally useless advice. Any dispatcher tales?

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    1. IMO, the dispatch service perhaps responds to immediate emergency and considers an hour later sort of a post-crime report? I've never dealt with the 911 dispatcher, am unsure of their training, but once in awhile you hear of them coaxing some 4 year-old whose mother is on the floor bleeding, while
      trying to direct help to them. What sort of loose dog laws do you have there? (a mere BB-gun discourages them, but being an old softy, I usually
      go out and pet them...even called owners a few times when they had an
      ID tag on). Pit bulls are an exception. I will not deal with those SOBs!

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    2. Since pit bulls are a problem I would have expected at least a couple of cursory questions from the dispatcher. I probably got her at the end of her shift.

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  24. Around here a roaming dog gets itself shot.

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    1. Around these parts that doesn't happen of course - gun control. I believe it was the summer before last but we had these two roaming coyotes in Northern Yonkers that probably came off the old Aqueduct in Untermyers. This all happened around 2:30 in the morning and folks naturally called the cops who responded right away. One cop took out his gun and fired some shots at one of the coyotes so in retrospect that may have been a factor in my delay in calling the dispatcher. I mean yeah what happened was very sad the dog killing the cat, it might be a serious situation down the line but you also don't want an overzealous sergeant firing shots in the neighborhood. Life abounds in gray areas unfortunately.

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  25. Gun control.. I remember hearing a car commercial where if you buy a truck you get a free gun rack.

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    1. Out this way there is a bar that offers 10% off to any patron wearing a gun.

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  26. I was surprised to read in my field guide to mammals although the dog is the traditional enemy of the cat a cat can often hold his own against one but a large dog can kill a cat by shaking it. I remember one hot summer evening a neighbor's dog went after a raccoon and the 'coon bit his snout. Man did that dog bellow in pain!!

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  27. I was also rather surprised to see no Animal Control listing or # for Yonkers or at the Yonkers gov website. Greenburgh has an animal control van that goes around. Black folk and pit bulls, what's up with that? I'm not against the breed provided they were raised properly and were steered clear of the fighting arena but I notice they're a very popular breed with the African-Americans I see walking their dogs. Maybe Kanye West has some thoughts.

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  28. The pit bull also is a favorite of marijuana growers...and if we are to believe TV show
    popularity, 'Pitbulls and Parolees' would make them a favorite of ex-cons and 'Pitboss' has them frolicking with dwarfs. Retired guys would prefer a nice
    malamute, just sayin....

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    1. I'm wondering how a Sasquatch would fare against a pit bull or two.

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    2. Forest creature-wise, last week some guy that was trapping wolves in
      nearby Montana went out to check his trap and found an upset 650 lb
      grizzly with his paw in it.. Nice ending: Fish & Game tranquilized it and hauled it off to a ilderness area. Ain't trapping wolves a lot like trapping dogs?

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    3. Why was he trapping wolves BB? Sounds like the kind of guy who feels he has to trap everything instead of just going home and reading a book by the fireplace or having a bubblebath with the wife. More and more I think we can break the country down politically into two broad groups - hillbillies/rednecks/cowboy-types and the techno/yuppie/urbanite-types with the former going heavily conservative (e.g. gun rights) and that latter group going for flawed but hippish trends like ObamaCare.

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  29. couple of quick thoughts. Little dogs kill things by shaking them too, breaks the neck. Ever see a dog shake a toy? Same thing. A raccoon can take out a cat and even kill a dog or give it a good run for the money. Now black folks and pit bulls, well, I don't know, it maybe could be a reaction to all those dogs that got set on them back in the day, maybe trying some preemptive protection, I don't know. In Wilm an unclaimed pit or chow is put down, it's the law.

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    1. Yeah you might have a point. You don't see them owning German Shepherds.

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    2. Fatal Chihuahua attacks are rare.

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  30. Do psychologists ever get angry? Why do pairs of tv news anchors always have laptops in front of them? Shouldn't the thing on your bum be called an asteroid? Shouldn't straight people be called nongay?

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  31. are these rhetorical or do you want answers?

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    1. Like if you really really tried can you piss off someone who as a line of work runs anger management courses? TV news anchors I think the laptops in front of them is just to make them look techno-trendy and edgy but I don't really think they look at them. "Straight" implies the right or correct course of action or direction so I'd think it would be an offensive term. Heh, the medicine "anusol" did they have some conference call of execs who came up with this one?

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    2. Remember the movie 'What About Bob?) Obtuse Bill Murray drove psychiatrist Richard Dreyfus nuts...tried to blow him up, as I recall. As for the 'astroid' terminology, I refer you to the familiar Star Trek toilet paper joke . News anchors: our area is so small that we get new anchors; fresh communications graduates. If they can read, they quickly
      move up the market to bigger stations. Kind of frustrating, its like they try them out on us rubes first, ya know?

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    3. Looks like NY is moving to join the marijuana band wagon.
      1. Is the US going to be one big Haight-Ashbury?
      2. Does business have to take back the thousands terminated for
      failing the drug test?
      3. Does one have to inhale?
      4. What's the best job for a stoner?
      5. Will Prince Albert still cost more than pot?

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    4. Tobacco evil/pot good. A very paradoxical public health message imo. Pot also gives you the munchies, this is good?

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