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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.

If you write "I hate Obama, I wish he was dead" that will be seen as a death threath and you definitely will attract the interest of the security services and are in for some unpleasant time.

Some recent examples of things written on the internet that resulted in a secret service visit:

http://straightfromthea.com/2010/03/22/blogger-under-investigagtion-after-twitter-threats-to-barack-obama/
http://www.breitbart.tv/secret-service-interrogates-7th-grader/

Just try it if you don't believe me....

Um.. The end of life counseling was only part of the death panels claim.

There is much more to it then that. I know the video in the link is cut, but it isn't out of context. They wanted to create a panel that basically rationed care based on fiscal criteria and not doctor patient criteria.

I know it fun to bash the parts you don't like, but please keep things in context so you don't end up creating a situation that never existed. Sure, those conservative media icons probably did cause the EOL counseling to get removed, but it was much more then that they were railing on as death panels.

As said, the free market works WONDERFULLY when it exists. But in this case it doesn't. IMHO, we should have a Federally owned universal ISP option. You can't tell me in this day and age that Internet access isn't as important as the postal system, which is federally owned.

The postal service is struggling. Just ask Obama. http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-its-the-post-office-thats-always-having-problems/

Why in the world is the answer to every question: more _federal_ involvement?! Why can't we just let local municipalities or companies lay a piece of fiber to your door, and then let you choose which providers you want to hook to the other end of your line for service? That's the answer I'm looking for.

I suppose it will be just like any other corporate field, though. One of the slightly larger companies will start buying a smaller, struggling one, and the rest will snowball until we get something like Ma Bell. Again.

Alright, maybe the feds should be involved in this. But then we get horrible market distortions that lead to other problems.

Well, I guess it's either Scylla or Charybdis.

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).

Well, since hippies hate nuclear (because of a very small chance of a meltdown), wind (because it kills birds), hydroelectric (because it interferes with fish), solar (because it's ugly/turtles/godknowswhy), coal (because it's dirty), oil (because it's dirty), gas (because it's dirty), geothermal (because it requires you to dig holes), and even wood (because you have to cut trees and make smoke), why don't we just cut the middle men and burn hippies for power?

Your ideas fascinate me. Where can I sign up for your newsletter?

Actually, I think the goal is not saving the earth, turtles or fishes. I believe that they hate the fact that someone, somewhere is using more than someone else. Actually, it's not even the fact that someone has more than someone else so much as it is the fact that someone has more than they do. If they can drive all of mankind back to caves and trees, we'll all be equal. It doesn't matter if we are all equally impoverished and equally miserable. All that matters is that no one is getting more than they are. I sincerely believe that is the goal.

Case in point.

http://www.breitbart.tv/shocking-audio-rep-dingell-says-obamacare-will-eventually-control-the-people

Enjoy your cage.

"I'm sceptical of anything which proposes to simply double the amount of energy extracted from that gasoline, because, well, physics is physics."

Agreed, but the real question is how are they testing? Downhill with a tailwind? Anyone can achieve 98mpg given the right conditions (downhill in neutral), and since they don't come out and say "we achieved 98mpg using the same technique as fueleconomy.gov" it sounds like BS.

Another reason this sounds like BS: billions of dollars are being invested to meet the 35mpg CAFE standard by 2020. When Congress was talking about requiring 32mpg by 2015 it was estimated it would cost $47 billion dollars to reach that goal: "For the auto industry, it will be costly; the Transportation Department last year estimated that requiring the industry to meet 31.6 mpg by 2015 would cost nearly $47 billion."

So a magic fuel injector that achieves 98 mpg would literally be worth billions of dollars, not to mention win the xprize and $10 million dollars. Any engineer that designed this could join any auto manufacture and write his own ticket. The idea that a startup in California just happened across this technology outdoing the greatest minds in GM, Toyota, Honda, and the academic community just sounds like snake oil, just like the car that runs on water, 130mpg car, 110mpg 0-60 in 3 seconds Mustang. If any of these technologies were real GM or Honda would be announcing it or at the very least they'd be xprize competitors.

Have we forgotten the Perpetual Motion DeLorean scammers already?

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent

Biden: "I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don't make the kind of naked power grab you are doing." Unfortunately, his prayers were not answered.

this comment attempts to tar environmental activists as supporters of a murderous socialist

Need more than this? How about this?

Pope Algore is testifying before Congress that he wants Cap and Trade AND a carbon tax foisted upon the American people. Of course, people who don't subscribe to the cult of global warming (and there are plenty of them) were forbidden from testifying. If there's one thing most religious zealots can't deal with, it's criticism.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/325633.html

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/301543.html

Dishonest doesn't even begin to adequately label the President and Congress. We know have a group in Washington who not only has no problem inciting mob rule, violence even (there are people stalking AIG employees who are not even executives.. let alone responsible), and getting away with it. All Americans should be very afraid of our own law makers, for if you become a political liability, you fall out of favor with the political class, they will use the power of law to take your property. They will use their power to get free exposure in the press and on tv and goad other's to harass you , shame you, and hate you.

We have a US President going on a comedy show and disingenuously declaring shock over an event he knew was coming. Geitner was quizzed in public (look it up on cspan) panel discussions in Congress by a Democrat!

Yeah, Bush was annoying, but these guys just went beyond the pale. They are inciting people. Worse the President is joining in. All against people who broke now law, people who were LAWFULLY owed the money. People who Congressmen who by signing the stimulus bill declared were legally owed the money!

WTF?

AIG is just the vehicle that these guys are using to trounce all our rights. We now have a political class who shows no fear of abusing the power vested in them to threaten, cajole, and steal, from those who they think they can get away with.

The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses...

And we've all seen how well THAT worked out.
To wit: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=194983 (Howard Stern Interviews Obama "Policy" Voters)
Sure, it happens on both sides, but that was the most striking example that comes to mind when I think of uneducated voters.

ACORN is a democrat vote-rigging scam and extortion racket.

Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac are Democrat-designed institutions, and Obama just "happened" to be their second biggest lobbying contributor since his 2004 election to the Senate (the Democrats also were responsible for blocking the inquest into Fannie/Freddie's accounting fraud repeatedly).

The last 8 years were a clusterfuck of enormous proportions, yes. Bush was a moron when it comes to the border, and a moron when it came to handing out entitlement programs like candy. Republicans spent 2002-2006 spending like they were Democrats. Meanwhile, Bush was handed a recession by Clinton as well, you just conveniently like to "forget" about that little tidbit and the financial crises of 1998-1999 because it doesn't fit your "waah I hate republicans because I'm a partisan wingnut" mentality.

...
  Where are the left-wing wingnuts?

Here are just a few:

Sandra Bernhardt

Charlie Rangel

Kathleen Sebelius

Randi Rhodes

Matt Damon

William Ayers

Geez. That's just in the past few days.

I didn't even bother going for Keith Olbermann videos.

Try telling Tom Cruise that Scientology is a crock. I'd imagine he'd scream incoherently at the top of his lungs, jump up and down then rip your face off.

Matt Damon or Lindsey Lohan would do the same to you, if you tell them, Obama is a crock... With Barbara Streisand singing a notch lauder to drown your screams...

Seriously, there is a good reason, Romans considered entertainers to be among the lowest class of citizens — above only prostitutes... They weren't even allowed to serve in the regular army units.

More like we're the 58th. See for yourself: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=93393

You mean like this woman? Bloodied 70-Year-Old Woman Cuffed, Arrested for Brown Lawn.

The Police bloodied that terrible criminal up too.

Why no outrage over the Juneteenth violence?
3 white kids get accused of rape and it's all over the press (granted it eventually got dismissed and the prosecutor disbarred) yet 3 seperate crowds of blacks act like savages over what is supposed to be a celebration of freedom and it gets back page material.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8PSKSDO0& show_article=1
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1962.html
http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/stories/index .ssf?/base/news-10/1182070664184630.xml&coll=1

If anything, knowledge that crowds of blacks are congregating is more relevant to my saftey than what happens on some college campus miles away.

And they wonder why no city wants to host Freaknik.

Democrat's Strategy

Phase 1: 1992: Berate Bush Sr. for not toppling Saddam even though he clearly posed a danger to the US.
Phase 2: 1998: Sign bill calling for regime change/democratization of Iraq.
Phase 3: Vote for war in Iraq based on worldwide support.
Phase 4: Report every single death, car bombing, and terrorist act 24/7/365 for 4 years straight and keep a running DEATH-O-METER count on US troop deaths.
Phase 5: Claim you never voted for the war and that the war was based on a lie.
Phase 6: ??
Phase 7: Profit!

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=450 a clip of the incident that's all ?

Fred! Pwns: http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=611