Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

I'm betting the graph is bunk because it doesn't list very many independent breweries, which don't have the same huge penetration that the piss brands do. For fuck's sake, I don't even see Yuengling or Great Lakes and those are pretty huge in Ohio and Kentucky.
Fine, but I'll bet that if you look at amount of beer bought nationally, I'll bet that the graph represents a high percentage of all beer sold. So if the brands and types listed represent 80% of the beer sold, thus it's about that accurate for beer-drinkers in general.

I myself am a huge fan of a particular small brewery in my hometown (go Wild Rose!) but they don't represent much more than a drop in the bucket in Canada. They're just not big enough. So I don't project my preferences on others who follow the big brands, but I do recognize that they represent the majority.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
There is a hearing being convened in the House to look into the apparent denial or ignoring of repeated requests for increases in security measures for the Benghazi embassy leading up to the Sept 11 attack.

(Would you ever have thought 10 years ago that there would come a time when you might have to be clear about which sept 11 attack you're talking about?)[DOUBLEPOST=1349219883][/DOUBLEPOST]Warren Buffett, George Soros and John Paulson are all, very quietly, getting rid of all their shares of stock in US companies. Think the billionaires know something we don't?
 
Man, Drudge is going CRAZY over on his site about some super "racist" speech Obama has presumably given that is being released tonight.

This ought to be interesting.
 
Well, of course it will be overblown, but if the things he hints at him saying are true it's going to be used as an attack point like crazy. Nothing scares white people like a black guy anyone talking about how to help minorities.[DOUBLEPOST=1349229386][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, can I just say this?

In the last few years I have become so increasingly aware of how fucking racist Matt Drudge is. It's just disgusting.
 
Man, Drudge is going CRAZY over on his site about some super "racist" speech Obama has presumably given that is being released tonight.

This ought to be interesting.
Here is the AP story about it:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Conservatives on Tuesday used a speech President Barack Obama delivered as a candidate in 2007 to accuse him of using racially charged rhetoric.
"There's no way you can listen to this speech and not hear it as a deliberately divisive speech that pits Americans against each other and does so largely with racial innuendoes that are very, very clear when you hear the speech," former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said on Fox News, which aired segments of the videotaped speech.
At issue Tuesday, one day before the first presidential debate and as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney trails in polls, was a speech then-candidate Obama made to black clergy at Hampton University, a historically black institution in Virginia. Media outlets including The Associated Press and Fox News covered the remarks at the time.
Obama — now the nation's first black president — said in the speech that the Bush administration did nothing to defuse a "quiet riot" among blacks that threatened to erupt in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Then a U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama also said the Bush administration "was colorblind in its incompetence."
Fox News host Sean Hannity said the speech "contains some of the most divisive class warfare and racially charged rhetoric ever used by Barack Obama."
Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson of The Daily Caller, which posted video of the speech online, argued that the speech features "racial rhetoric designed to make people fearful." And The Drudge Report, a regular Obama critic, predicted the video would "ignite accusations of racism — in both directions!"
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt quickly dismissed the criticism, accusing "Mitt Romney's allies" of recirculating video of a widely covered speech in "a transparent attempt to change the subject" from Romney's comments about 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes.
Romney's campaign did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment. The Republican previously distanced himself from a conservative group considering an advertising campaign featuring Obama's former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons stirred controversy in Obama's first campaign.
I don't really see anything in there all that scary. Accusing the Bush administration of being color blind and not helping black people enough during Katrina is pretty basic. Is there more to it, or are the usual suspects trying to make a mountain out of a molehill? 'Cuz right now it looks like a whole lot of the latter to me.
 
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear: I'm not saying there IS anything scary in it or that whatever he says won't be totally blown out of proportion.
 
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear: I'm not saying there IS anything scary in it or that whatever he says won't be totally blown out of proportion.
Oh, I know. Sorry, I just quoted you because you mentioned the article would be coming out tonight. I just thought there might be more to it, and wondered if anyone could explain it, because it's possible the AP article left something out.
 
It had more to do with the way Drudge pulled quotes, things that sound exactly like what many far-right folks have been using to race-bait. Thats what I figured they would go nuts with.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah, this is nothing. Also, it's pretty true, but then again, EVERYONE dropped the ball with Katrina.
The federal government is not a first responder. One only need remember the image of all those school busses sitting in 3 feet of water to know who dropped the ball on Katrina - the state and local government, in particular Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin.

People can grouse about FEMA all they want, the fact of the matter is FEMA's only designed role was to show up later with a signed check.
 
The federal government is not a first responder. One only need remember the image of all those school busses sitting in 3 feet of water to know who dropped the ball on Katrina - the state and local government, in particular Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin.

People can grouse about FEMA all they want, the fact of the matter is FEMA's only designed role was to show up later with a signed check.
It's another one of those rare moments when I agree with GB. The state did a masterful job of shifting the blame (which they completely deserved) onto the federal government by convincing people that FEMA is supposed to be some sort of rescue team, which is ridiculous.
 
I think I've made my political stance clear over the course of this campaign but even I have to say Obama really dropped the ball in the debate tonight. I'm pretty damn disappointed.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Whichever flavor your political thought, you probably agree with this snippet I read somewhere else:

You know your government is too damn big when the fate of the free world is dependent upon the performance of one man on one night.
 
Whichever flavor your political thought, you probably agree with this snippet I read somewhere else:

You know your government is too damn big when the fate of the free world is dependent upon the performance of one man on one night.
I don't agree because the fate of the free world is most definitely not decided by that one night.
 
I say that our country is not as bad as the statement implies. I don't forsee much reaction in the long run of the campaign due to the results of this night.

HOWEVER, if Romney continues this into the next debates and Obama continues his strategy, then yes, it could have an effect on the results.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Hey, if you guys wanted it to be cool for a candidate to like games, you blew it when you made fun of Herman Cain's fixation with the Pokemon theme.
 
Hey, if you guys wanted it to be cool for a candidate to like games, you blew it when you made fun of Herman Cain's fixation with the Pokemon theme.
One was a humorous joke about how he didn't seem to realize where it came from. One was an outright attack on the character of a candidate, based on her class role in a virtual game. The two are not analogous, especially when the latter paints an entire subculture as people who would knife you on the street.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
One was a humorous joke about how he didn't seem to realize where it came from. One was an outright attack on the character of a candidate, based on her class role in a virtual game. The two are not analogous, especially when the latter paints an entire subculture as people who would knife you on the street.
Actually, I'm fairly sure there are some wow horde players who would knife you on the street if they found out you played alliance ;)

And I'm still convinced Cain was a closeted poke-addict.
 
I thought I would post some good news for once:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years[....]

The rate declined from 8.1 percent because the number of people who said they were employed soared by 873,000 — an encouraging sign for an economy that's been struggling to create enough jobs.

The number of unemployed Americans is now 12.1 million, the fewest since January 2009.
The Labor Department said employers added 114,000 jobs in September. It also said the economy created 86,000 more jobs in July and August than the department had initially estimated.

Wages rose in September. And more people started looking for work.

The revisions show employers added 146,000 jobs per month from July through September, up from 67,000 in the previous three months.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Uhh no, haven't you heard the GoP? It's worse now than when he took office, not better. Facts, Math and Science don't matter. Duh?
Actually, the unemployment rate when he took office was 7.8%. So it's now breaking even on that statistic, which is actually false anyway because it only takes into account those filing for unemployment benefits, and not those who have just given up and stopped looking. The actual rate is estimated somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-12%.

And hey, GDP growth just got adjusted down to 1.3%, so everything's coming up roses, right?
 
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