Slashdot Mirror
Hurricane Could Make a Mess of Republican Convention
Hugh Pickens writes "ABC News reports that Hurricane Isaac, currently a tropical storm brewing southeast of Puerto Rico, is on track to hit Florida the same day that Mitt Romney and 50,000 Republican delegates, journalists, protestors and guests descend on Tampa for the Republican National Convention but whether it will skim the east coast near Miami or crash head-on into Tampa, is still up in the air. The worst possible scenario is that Hurricane Isaac stays on the western track, skating over the Caribbean Sea south of Haiti, crossing the primarily flat landscape of western Cuba into the Gulf of Mexico then curving east and hitting Tampa dead-on. 'Tampa is just as vulnerable as New Orleans was in the sense that the water will funnel into the bay area and from the storm surge which will flood completely the whole entire city of Tampa,' says meteorologist Max Golembo. 'It would be a disaster in the Tampa area.' If a hurricane or tropical storm is bearing down on Tampa, the priority of law enforcement is to evacuate residents, leaving GOP officials to make the decision of when to evacuate delegates says Hillsborough County Emergency Management spokeswoman Holly Wade. 'We have to look at a lot of factors, like timing and landfall,' says Wade. 'We provide the weather information, then we take that to the host committee, which decides if the event goes on or if the event gets altered.' A Category 2 hurricane could disrupt convention activities because the Tampa Bay Times Forum, site of the festivities, is within a mandatory evacuation zone for storms of that magnitude."
Good.
I came here thinking the same thing, sadly enough. The best part would be the irony of it all, the self-righteous hypocritical lot.
If there is a disaster, just watch as the Florida Republicans all demand federal aid.
whereas this thread so far shows the obviously self-righteous and hypocritical left .. so pile on the hate.
You don't have to be a leftist to hate the GOP.
It's only a Republican convention so only half the rats, alas.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2005/09/13/religious-conservatives-claim-katrina-was-gods/133804
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/01/us-televangelist-pat-robertson-links-haiti-earthquake-to-pact-with-devil.html
""Did God have anything to do with Katrina?," people ask. My answer is, he allowed it and perhaps he allowed it to get our attention so that we don't delude ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is put things back the way they were and life will be normal again."
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Decided to give the "weather is not climate" thing a convenient rest, eh?
Oh, you mean like how that side decided to go to war in Iraq without raising taxes to pay for it? How that side cut taxes for the rich while raising spending within the government (particularly in defense spending) with no way to pay for it? And then complain when we have a deficit? Frankly, both sides of the political spectrum are unable to plan ahead in the slightest, but the GOP position is untenable -- they are the epitome of short-sighted.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
And the reason nothing passed was the Democrats were attempting to be bi-partisan. You can see how well that worked out for them.
GOP, the party of NO!
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
And Joe Biden said: "You don't have to be Jewish to be a Zionist."
It's actually Snark. The left doesn't genuinely believe these things.
The right? Does. That's why they The left is just responding to the initial comment.
Of course the Right pretends they can't recognize a sense of humor so they feign outrage at the Left, while putting themselves on a pedestal.
Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the senate for about 17 weeks, far less than the "2 years" you just made up. (The 17 weeks is from Al Franken's confirmation to Ted Kennedy's illness.)
During that time, there seemed to be a lot of internal discussion and compromise within the Democratic party - you know, the kind of give-and-take compromise that is supposed to make our government work. All of that is still alive and well within the Democratic party. It's just the big blog of "NO NO NO IT'S ALL MINE NO" coming from the extreme right that keeps the government from doing anything differently than the overall failed course it's on of late.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
What bunch of geniuses decided to hold a national convention in Florida in the middle of hurricane season? Oh, wait...
It's not hypocritical for any thinking person to wish the whole Republican party into the proverbial cornfield. And it'll qualify as legitimate irony if a hurricane wipes them out.
Mods, why was this allowed through the filters? It ain't tech, it isn't geeky in a technology sense (I will recognize there are hurricane geeks), and it is really just political trolling no matter how you look at it which I am willing to watch meaningful threads degenerate into but having it start off degenerate is a waste at every level.
Timothy, you suck for posting this.
> Might wanta rethink that anti global warming stance.
And I'm sure you will be ready to be take it back next time there is a big AGW related congressional hearing, media event, Goracle pronouncement, whatever that gets another freak snowstorm or whatnot. Probably not so much. Confirmation bias is a bitch for the subject to recognize ain't it.
Democrat delenda est
And here we have a perfect example of what's wrong with America's election system today. The article mentions something political and most commenters run for their extreme positions, bunker down and start insulting. We're supposed do to that. We're supposed to become extreme and polarized. We're supposed to hate the "enemy". Both parties do this. Both parties are to blame. And we are to blame because we fall for it.
For almost all of the operation of the Federal government, Republicrats and Demublicans are in FULL AGREEMENT. They don't argue about most of the operation. Both parties pretty much want everything to just go along as always -- and deeper and deeper into debt.
They are in a lot of agreement, so there is not much of a reason to choose one over the other. To solve that, they all emphasize, magnify and distort their relatively minor, alleged differences -- but once elected, it's business as usual.
And here we all are, spewing hate because that's what our masters have decided we will do so that they can control us.
A pox on both their houses. No politician will ever do what's good for us, the "little people".
And I hope Obama wins not because I like him but because I want 4 more years of his policies. When he starts a war with Iran and Libya it will destroy the perception that he is a "peace prize" winner. I want Obama to leave in 2016 with the same bad reputation as Bush had in 2008. He may be democrat but he is nowhere near as good as our last democrat president Clinton.
I guess crazy is out in force tonight. So what's the idea here? To create some sort of destructive feedback where increasingly worse candidates are elected?
There is no reason to tolerate intolerance. Absolutes are for fools.
Of course, not all conservatives are assholes, but the GOP panders to these assholes, along with the stupid and selfish to form their base of support. That is fine, but it is hardly cricket to simultaneously pretend that the GOP has any credibility, either effectively or morally.
They intentionally bent over for these loons, and earned the reputation themselves.
Interesting how propaganda works. It's not clear whether the original poster thought that filibuster proof is a "solid majority" or not. But three repliers did and they all characterize the first poster as either lying or making something up. That's an interesting though unhealthy uniformity of thought.
Cant agree here. I dont think its out of line for a republican to cry foul when someone on slashdot states to rousing cheers that all republicans are this or that. Broad generalizations tend to be bad, and when you mix in politics it just gets worse.
You may some day have to accept that there is a large number of reasonable, intelligent, and even likable people who completely disagree with your views on government and policy. Just because someone has a political view doesnt mean you know squat about them, their finances, their situation, or their personality.
Object to it as snark if you want, but trying to pretend they're equivalent is out of line.
You may some day have to accept that there is a substantial difference between the two parties/ideologies, that one has become the home of a rather fanatical group of people who govern on a platform of fear and self-deception while engaging in vitriolic and deceitful attacks while simultaneously asserting a hypocritical protest that they are the victims of hatred and oppression, that the other side is the liars, the meanies, and the real oppressors.
I'd even give you good odds that some conservative wanker will jump up and say "Yep, that's the Democrats/Liberals/Progressives" all right, as that's their method of operation. They project all of their faults onto you, and completely lack the integrity to examine their own actions.
Just see how Mitt Romney can flip-flop all day, how Mitt Romney can lie about Obama on Welfare Waivers, the size of the military, or Medicare Cuts while pretending it's Obama's nose that should be growing to Redwood proportions as quickly as bamboo.
Sorry, you may not like it, but things aren't equal, and if there's anybody reasonable, intelligent, or likable left in the GOP, they need to look around and see who else in is their party.
Good thing for Mitt that "Heck of a Job Brownie" doesn't still run FEMA.
RNC Host Committee CEO Ken Jones said, "I have full faith and confident with the state of Florida, with FEMA, the local emergency management that if there is a bad weather incident, we will get people out, we will make sure they're safe and get on their way and out of harms way."
So...wait a second? Is he saying that he's depending on the Federal Government to rescue them? I thought Republicans were all about self-sufficiency...
You may some day have to accept that there is a substantial difference between the two parties/ideologies, that one has become the home of a rather fanatical group of people who govern on a platform of fear and self-deception while engaging in vitriolic and deceitful attacks while simultaneously asserting a hypocritical protest that they are the victims of hatred and oppression, that the other side is the liars, the meanies, and the real oppressors.
So Im an oppressor, a liar, a meanie? Im engaging in vitriolic attacks here?
Stop and consider that Slashdot is majority left-leaning, by a huge majority. Then stop and consider the amount of vitriol and hate that comes out in anything to do witht he Right wing. THEN re-evaluate your statement.
You can criticize Romney or any other specific politician for specific things they do all day long; thats fine and part of political discourse. But making broad sweeping statements like you just did is part of the demise of meaningful political discussion in this country. No longer can I just be "a republican"; in your eyes, I have become "the enemy", and THAT makes it impossible to have any kind of rational debate.
But after reading your comment I guess I am free to think of you as a sub-human fascist?
The HUGE irony here is that another response just labeled MY ideology as centered on vitriol, and here I have just been labeled a sub-human fascist. Hypocrisy much?
I would ask that before any of you post on politics, you stop and ask yourself if the rhetoric you are using is really justified or contributes to a sane, civil discussion. I contend that what you just posted is hateful and does not.
GOP is the christian conservative party. Bush said that he was on a mission from god. When it comes to religion, there is no debate or compromise. Only way politics works is with compromise, so what do we get, a non working government.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Osama Bin Laden was killed.
Courtesy of US Military intelligence, lasting over eight years or more. Unless you can point to an image of Obama holding an M-16 in one hand and Bin Laden's severed head in the other, he (nor you) can't claim that one.
The recession is over.
Even the New York Times isn't letting that bit of propaganda slip by unchallenged: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html
General Motors and Chrysler, and the industrial heartland of the country, were saved from a catastrophe that would make the dust bowl look like nothing.
They were 'saved' by a loan that was given them when TARP was passed... in 2008. Signed into law by that guy you likely loathe to the core of your soul.
An end has come to the era of people being condemned to death by for-profit insurance companies using the excuse of "pre-existing conditions" to deny people their basic human right to health care coverage.
So Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist before 2009 then?
Colonel Gadaffi was ousted from power without a single American soldier being deployed on the ground, and without adding countless billions to the deficit.
...thanks to the "Arab Spring", certainly. Same with Egypt, Tunisia, and hopefully Syria. Contrary to popular belief, the rest of the world is perfectly capable of fixing itself on occasion without a US president or military helping out.
That god-awful war in Iraq, the biggest foreign policy blunder since Napoleon invaded Russia, has ended.
...on schedule, no less. A schedule that was set years before Obama took office.
Since Obama took office, oil imports have dropped by an average of 1.1 million barrels per day and in 2010 domestic crude oil production reached its highest level since 2003.
...recent massive spikes in fuel costs had a lot more to do with it than any US governmental policy. Unless of course you can point us to one. You can do that, right?
How you got an "insightful" mod I do not know.
...because he actually used a bit of logic in his post, instead of blindly praising some politician for things that he obviously had little-to-no (mostly "no") hand in shaping.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
what you consider reasonable is what any thinking person would consider batshit crazy. Remember, while you would like to consider yourself a rational person, the grownups here know better.
The poster may be referring to the repeated statements by GOP celebrity favorites (Fallwell, Graham, B-list megachurch pastors, etc) who claim that disasters like Katrina and 9/11 are the fault of America's fall from the grace of the Christian God.
You mean like Jeremiah Wright?
Sorry, but the right does not have monopoly on schmuck ministers. And for the record, I'm a Republican and I don't know a single person who likes Falwell. As for Graham, you won't find a better man. Of course, you wouldn't know that since you put him in the same category as Falwell.
But remember, Obama sat in Wright's church for 20 years or so. I don't know of a single Republican President who has ever sat in Falwell's church.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What's odd? For me, it's odd to expect mass arrests resulting from lawful, constitutionally protected activities.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Osama Bin Laden was killed.
Courtesy of US Military intelligence, lasting over eight years or more. Unless you can point to an image of Obama holding an M-16 in one hand and Bin Laden's severed head in the other, he (nor you) can't claim that one.
Going into the right country was kind of a prerequisite for getting the guy. There was plenty of US intelligence that was ignored by Dubya's administration because it didn't fit with their neo-con objective of stealing Iraq's oil. John McCain campaigned on the basis that he would not use force on Pakistani territory without the permission of the government. Obama was proved right on this one, because if he had gotten the government's permission it's a good bet that someone would have tipped Bin Laden's handlers off and he'd still be hiding somewhere. Fact is, the President made all the right calls and has as much right to take the credit for what goes right as he has to take the blame for what goes wrong.
And contrary to the lies spewing out of Fox News who were appalled by Bin Laden's death, Obama gave plenty of credit to the intelligence community and the personnel involved. If he wanted to take all the credit he could have done something really outlandish and obnoxious, like, say... I don't know ... dressing up in some sort of flight suit and getting a Navy pilot to land him on the deck of an aircraft carrier before making a triumphant speech about it? Nah, that'd be crazy.
The recession is over.
Even the New York Times isn't letting that bit of propaganda slip by unchallenged: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/us/recession-officially-over-us-incomes-kept-falling.html
Educate yourself. A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. We're no longer in negative growth. This is not "propaganda". This is fact. (I know that conservatives have a hard time with facts but I'll try my best to use them on you in the vain hope that they'll sink in eventually.)
General Motors and Chrysler, and the industrial heartland of the country, were saved from a catastrophe that would make the dust bowl look like nothing.
They were 'saved' by a loan that was given them when TARP was passed... in 2008. Signed into law by that guy you likely loathe to the core of your soul.
Maybe you missed the bit where Romney said he'd let Detroit go bust. He was opposed to saving the motor industry, Obama was for it. Fact.
An end has come to the era of people being condemned to death by for-profit insurance companies using the excuse of "pre-existing conditions" to deny people their basic human right to health care coverage.
So Medicare and Medicaid didn't exist before 2009 then?
Oh, so if you can't afford health insurance then you automatically qualify for Medicaid? So we do have universal health care after all?
Colonel Gadaffi was ousted from power without a single American soldier being deployed on the ground, and without adding countless billions to the deficit.
...thanks to the "Arab Spring", certainly. Same with Egypt, Tunisia, and hopefully Syria. Contrary to popular belief, the rest of the world is perfectly capable of fixing itself on occasion without a US president or military helping out.
The Libyan rebels were taking a pounding until NATO came in with air strikes to back them up. They could not have taken Gadaffi out by force without outside support. Fact.
That god-awful war in Iraq, the biggest foreign policy blunder since Napoleon invaded Russia, has ended.
...on schedule, no less. A schedule that was set years before Obama took of
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The founder of the Moral Majority had no support within the GOP?
There are better men.
No, they are required to prostrate themselves at Liberty University -- founded by Fallwell and his friends -- for a commencement speech. Romney and Bush Jr paid homage, and McCain was even forced to show up in 2008 after calling Falwell an "agent of intolerance" when he ran in 2000.
You dug up something from 1972? Wasn't Obama snorting coke in 1972? Wasn't Clinton NOT inhaling in 1972? Either way, HERE is another take on it.
And you are trying to hammer a minister on opposing gay marriage? Oh! The HORROR! What kind of prick does a minister have to be to believe and teach what the Bible says?!!?
Wait... Didn't Clinton sign the Defense of Marriage Act? Didn't Obama say that he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman? Why are you not wishing for them to die horribly in a storm?
Try again.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Theres no need for that; I acknowledge that for any particular group you could name, I could find a subgroup who is hateful, and a subgroup that is not (excepting cases where such behavior is mutually exclusive with being in that group, obviously). Democrats can be irrational, hateful, etc, and so can republicans.
See, that's the false equivalency I was talking about.
Sorry, but it's nowhere NEAR as comparable. Especially when Republicans accuse Democrats of being hateful because of a stand against bigotry and intolerance.
That's right, the real intolerance is the person who says no to the guy who wants to discriminate against others.
Because FREEDOM!
You can argue that there are more in one group or another, but as soon as you start enmasse judging people based on their affiliation you have crossed a line.
Now start applying that to your own side.
I'll wait. Yeah, I never ever see a single conservative speak up when that kind of thing happens. They just get all aggrieved and portray themselves as the victim.
Then they expect us to chase down Joe Biden because he used "chains" or "shackles" as a metaphor, which they happily used plenty of times beforehand.
And no, I won't count the situation with Akin as being anything close to it, since even Akin isn't apologizing for the truth of his error, but rather pretending it was just misspeaking. The same goes for the Republicans, they don't want him to resign because he was wrong, but because what he said makes them look bad.
The same goes for Jon Kyl's "not intended to be a factual statement" which is how he tried to pass it off.
Like hell. I want genuine repentance not some "I'm sorry if I might have hurt your feelings by telling you the truth" excuse.
My being a republican does not mean I endorse every action of every republican who has ever lived; it simply indicates what role I think Government has allotted to it and how I think a country is best led.
Actually, it does mean you're willing to stand with them, that's the point of any such label. If you want to take how you want the role of government to be, I suggest not using a word that's not even directly related to the method, but a rather broader term that's been co-opted.
Labels, names, they're like that sometimes.
My goal in life isnt to fix whatever you think is wrong with my party, but Im not going to just remain silent in the forum I DO frequent (slashdot) while everyone goes full-bore hypocritical in calling all right-wingers hateful in the same breath that they imply that the GOP convention's death-by-hurricane would be welcome. Theres something in me that just gets riled up when that low level of discussion is hit and then someone has the audacity to label me (as part of a larger group) as the one who is the problem.
That's the thing, you think we're being hypocritical. I think you're showing a decided lack of integrity in failing to notice who you've chosen to associate yourself with.
It's not the Party of LordLimeCat. There's a lot of people who you have hopped into bed with, and you're worried that other people are judging that group, while you feel aggrieved because you're an individual and you don't feel you should be judged.
Well, guess what? Your group does the same thing, on a far more epic scale. And they aren't being snarky, they genuinely mean it. It's 100% full-blooded belief.
To me? The responses here are a laugh. To them, it's utter seriousness. They do believe. Me? I'm just being what I think is funny. You may not agree, you may think it cruel, or insensitive. That happens with jokes. But it's still a joke.
That's why your attempts to portray things as the same, as equivalent, is misguided.
It's not.
> So Im an oppressor, a liar, a meanie? Im engaging in vitriolic attacks here?
Nope, that's not what he said at all. He said your party has become a home for such people. And that is undeniably true. He didn't even say they were the majority, or that there are no such people in the Democratic party. Just that there has been a settling of such people in the Republican party.
The fact that you didn't pick up the difference does imply that the "self-deception" and "hypocritical protest" bit may apply to you. Or maybe not; maybe it was an honest mistake.
Sorry, but it's nowhere NEAR as comparable. Especially when Republicans accuse Democrats of being hateful because of a stand against bigotry and intolerance.
IIRC it was repubs who had to try to get civil rights laws, and southern democrats resisted it bitterly. We can try to sling mud all day long, but things arent as onesided as you seem to think. And honestly, with all the hate I see on the mostly-dem slashdot, its a bit much for you to assert that the right (presumably the christian right) is the source of it all, especially given the comment that kicked off this thread coming from a leftie.
I'm a fairly long-time Slashdot member. My user number isn't anything to write home about, but I've been here enough years to make some observations. You know what my general, detached impression is? Slashdot doesn't lean left. It's actually full of misguided libertarians who haven't quite grown up yet.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
It's not just that there are subgroups that are hateful.
There's a guy who shot up a Unitarian church in Knoxville, TN, and he had a big selection of books by Ann Coulter with highlighted passages that seem to explain why he did it.
There's another guy who shot Representitive Giffords (and a six year old to get to her), and again, had a bunch of material by Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and others in his personal library.
There's another guy who shot a guard at a Holocaust memorial center, again with a bunch of right wing connections, and many of the same books.
(I'm not naming any of these scumbags. It's their victims that deserve to be remembered.)
The amount of hate mail and death threats sent to the current president in his first month in office was at least 10x as large as anyone before him recieved in the same time.
Just today in the news, there's a sitting judge in Texas who advocates raising taxes for one reason and one only - to fund training his local Sherrif's dept. into a force that can fight off the invading UN troops he expects momentarily.
So it's not a case of arguing that there are more in one group or another. There's no logical argument as to the actual facts.There are about 10 times as many in your group as the other, if you go by the hate letters, or an infinitely higher percentage if you go by the bodycounts. That's the point. ALL the murderers are on your side. Apologists for the right keep pointing to people such as reverend Wright, or some 'eco-group' that pours paint stripper on gas guzzlers, as though some jerk who never actually killed anyone cancels out at least one mass murderer, maybe all of them, however many you get. What's wrong with your party, the whole party, is that it is willing to equivocate so that when there is a nutbar fanatic actually killing in the name of your cause, they are willing to claim that is balanced by a person on the other side saying something mean spirited. You just stooped to that same tired argument, so I will label you, you personally and not you as part of any larger group, as the one who is the problem. Stop coddling killers! Stop helping a political party that coddles killers. Stop using this false equivalency, or stop being surprised when decent people start talking about you like you need tarred and feathered and run out of their town.
Who is John Cabal?
Then you're saying God hates the Religious Right... okay, I can live with that.
I would ask that before any of you post on politics, you stop and ask yourself if the rhetoric you are using is really justified or contributes to a sane, civil discussion.
Oh come on, your party has decided that they're the voice of god. Sane, civil discussion is no longer an option. If there's no room for compromise, and there isn't with you folks, there's no point in discussing anything.
You've picked your side, and you threw your lot in with the anti-intellectual fundamentalists. You chose to support this attitude. Have the balls to take the criticism that will come your way. God will protect you.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Why is it than when anyone mentions gravity, evolution or sanity they are suddenly left leaning. Personally I love what Barry Goldwater said;
.....
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.
The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
Have y'all ever considered that instead of liberal leaning maybe we just have a sane grasp of physical reality? Hhhmmmm?
Apparently the fact that the right wing doesnt think 90% of the things you mentioned is the government's role-- that makes us fair game for all the insults you want to throw our way.
Is it possible that we dont want all the social programs, not because we hate poor people or are racist, but because we think the Government has proven itself incredibly bad at doing those things, and that a great number of them are counterproductive?
No, of course not, its perfectly reasonable to call anyone with that attitude a mouthbreather, crazy, and worse.
"We do not agree with your political views. A Christian is suppose to protect, empower and promote the needs and interests of the poor, the weak, and the sick. Your actions are dedicated to serving the wealthy. Yours is not a Christian agenda."
Source? Not that I doubt you, but you quote yielded no results.
Either way, they are half right. It is the Christian's job to do such things. Not the government's. When government forces your property from you at gunpoint and decides how to dole it out, they strip the citizen the freedom of making that choice. Paying taxes is not charity. Charity is charity.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.