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For the second time this thread. I don't watch TV (see South Park caveat above)

I understand the concept of the NINJA generation you're referring to, at 34 I missed it, but no enough to be completely unaffected.

One of our biggest problems is we've come to value the college education so much we've almost made it mandatory, in doing so we've made them so prevalent they've lost their value. In the IT field I feel that degrees are all but a waste and certifications are where it's at. Sometimes I regret having gone for my associates, it slowed my entry into the field since I was messing with school instead of working the assembly line a few extra hours. Granted that doesn't work in every field and I'm not really sure if having that piece of paper was a make it / break it criteria or not when it came to getting hired.

This is what I'm seeing from the movement. You have to start at the bottom most of the time, many of these folks are too good for that. I would say this is almost universal through all the various rallies.

Personal background on me. Paper route at 12 off and on until 16, picked cantaloupes with migrant workers (the jobs Americans wont do) at 14, worked as a janitor at a cafeteria at 16, chopped weeds and washed cars at a car lot at 17, video store at 17-18, security guard 18-19, assembly line 19-20, project implementation tech at 20, deployed generalist at 20-21, running an internet support call center at 21 - 23, working at an advanced help desk for satellite communication 23 -26. Then I hit my down turn. 26-28 I was semi-employed with a temp agencies, sometimes doing great sometimes leaching off of family, worked lots of places and wore lots of hats during that time. Went to work at NASA at 28 here I am at 34, I also moonlight through a friends company for special projects and my own company for other special projects, but I don't have to. How many of these people do you think ever turned in a job application until after the age of 20?

I really think a lot of the Gen Y types want to go straight to running something, or at the least start above my assembly line equivalent. Also you have to be willing to move to where the work is. I left West Texas for Phoenix since there's not shit but oil field in West Texas and not even that all the time. I left Phoenix for Houston because Phoenix was great for assembly line and a little over, was great for engineers, sucked for in between (late 90's things may have changed).

BTW, at the age of 34 I've worked under Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. I saw that the bubble starting to burst under Clinton. Then 9/11 happened and Bush did accelerate cronyism to new heights and insured not only did the tech bubble burst but he pumped up the housing bubble to replace it. Obama is simply trying to swap one group of cronies for another and he supports the worst parts of the "shadow agenda" the OWSers are pushing.

I don't think we've had a really good president since the 19th century. I'm not sure when the last good congress was but I'm sure it was before that. The supreme court held up rather well with a few slips here and there until FDR threatened them with court packing and they haven't recovered since.

The worst thing about our free market economy is it's not free market. Pulling money out of the ether and the existence of so many government contracts prevents that from happening. The amount of government expansion that occurs simply to feed cronies is sickening. The fix? More regulation which requires more agencies and more cronies to run them.

Time magazine doesn't even know what "influential" means

That's what happens when you have a puppet master pulling the propaganda stings over and wikipedia and anything else he can buy.

George Soros, who is not a politician, is one of their favorite targets.

Maybe because he is a puppet master, trying to pull the political strings from the background through massive amounts of money? He is a master manipulator and narcissist.

Okay, I understand your points, and a couple could be worth engaging in the interest of expanding common ground, but... well I applaud the bigger intention of Sherrod's speech, taking that at face value. But that said, seriously dude... you're obviously judging Breitbart on received wisdom, preconceived notions, or a very cursory firsthand examination plus some combination of the other two. The 'racist tea partier' meme might have currency with the willfully ignorant, but it comes off as really lazy -- or disingenuous -- to anyone who knows Breitabart's work for themselves. You don't accurately articulate a single real position of his, yet you manage to ascribe false motives and positions to him nonetheless. I expected better from a 4-digit /.er, really.

When was the last time the Tea Party chastised anyone for racism?

Well, just about every shred of "evidence" I've seen of Tea Party Racism(tm) has consisted of infiltrators who were being denounced verbally (and sometimes with signage) -- as they were attempting to infiltrate and discredit the movement. The movement is about limited government, fiscal responsibility and lower taxation. Those in it have no use for anyone who would attempt to hijack that agenda towards racist ends. I've seen no evidence of them being tolerant of such things, nor that such things even happen more than extremely rarely. If you have evidence to the contrary, Breitbart is offering a $100k bounty for proof. As for the Sherrod video, again, the `you're-racist-if-you-criticize-the-actions-of-a-minorty-individual-or-group` meme is getting boring beyond belief.

In contrast to the knee-jerk accusations of racism against tea partiers, there actually is plenty of evidence for widespread, openly racist attitudes within liberal organizations. While the Black Panthers take the cake lately, the NAACP is no angel & has quite a double standard when it comes to racist statements by those in their own ranks. So tell me, if you expect chastisements in response to zero-evidence (and sometimes demonstrably false) accusations of racism by the tea party, where are the corresponding chastisements for demonstrably accurate accusations of blatant racism by those on the left? For that matter, how much time does the left spend chastising Rev Wright or Louis Farrakhan?

Breitbart takes a color-blind, no-gloves approach towards hypocrisy and towards government-expanding ideals. As certain of their racism as you are, you should collect the $100k bounty offered to anyone who can find video evidence of the alleged racial epithets at the March 20th tea party event.

[...] the racist liar Breitbart, who is pushing the poisonous myth that all minorities will seek revenge against whites if they achieve positions of power [...]

Dude, that's just insane. Breitbart is pushing no such idea, and the racist label is just not going to stick. Maybe you should read one of the 24 or so black authors on BigGovernment.com who have written about race-relations subjects & condemn the NAACP position towards the tea party. Really, in the long term, the "call them racists" strategy is going to erode the left's own credibility. Calling an action racist is one thing. Falsely smearing a person or movement as racist is what leftists seem to go to lately when they have nothing... it's the new Godwin's Law (or Feldman's Law, as some call it).

While not as obviously of public interest as a Presidnet's secret communications, I hope Andew Breitbart suceeds in publishing the JournoList archives.

They weren't always that ugly. They're old, mmmkay?

Couldn't readily find an old picture of Waxman (in all of three minutes trying), but here's one of Barney Frank, and one of Dick Cheney. Not nearly as homely, in either case.

Care to link to some actual proof for your assertion?

No, I'd prefer to link to some spurious claims and hearsay, but I'm having a hard time googling some. ;)

But if you insist: http://bigjournalism.com/jhudnall/2010/02/09/teachers-unions-the-child-molesters-best-friend/ which liinks to http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/head_of_the_crass_qWrc4xPXr5UxSo8Npym2vO#ixzz0eseQIbrX

The so-called Coffee Party is actually just another astroturf wing of the Obama campaign machine.

You mean the astroturf group run by a political operative that worked for Barack Obama and Sen James Webb (D-VA)? She also just happened to be a Strategy Analyst for the NY Times.

The one that is organizing a "grassroots" get together in Chicago that isn't actually being lead by anyone FROM Chicago?

They aren't an independent group... they're just another special interest group like Obama for America. If you want to be a tool, by all means, do so, just admit to yourself that you are someone else's pawn.

You mean the astroturf group run by a political operative that worked for Barack Obama and Sen James Webb (D-VA)? She also just happened to be a Strategy Analyst for the NY Times.

The one that is organizing a "grassroots" get together in Chicago that isn't actually being lead by anyone FROM Chicago?

They aren't an independent group... they're just another special interest group like Obama for America. If you want to be a tool, by all means, do so, just admit to yourself that you are someone else's pawn.