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Aug 21, 2012

fixo commented on Republican Steve King Has Never Heard of a Girl Getting Pregnant from Statutory Rape or Incest.

@4 I think you have it backwards. Akin was saying if the rape was "legitimate," as in "bona fide" or "true-blue," as opposed, presumably, to just a little friendly matter within the family, or to where the woman had it coming because of what she wore, or (to be fair) to consensual sex after which the woman falsely claimed it was nonconsensual--that is, "non-legitimate" rape--, God's design would cause the lady parts not to allow conception and pregnancy. In all other cases, ipso facto, the woman should accept any pregnancy as a gift from God, as Santorum would have it, and the Constitution should be amended to prohibit terminating that pregnancy. In other words, it doesn't count as rape if she DOES get pregnant. Steve King, on the other hand, seemed to be saying something quite different, which is that we don't need exceptions for statutory rape and incest, because he's never known any victim of statutory rape or incest who got pregnant. He is fine with requiring a pregnant victim of, say, a completely coerced stranger rape to carry that baby. I admit that it is possible these characters have completely confused me. However, I believe the important point is how relentlessly, blissfully ignorant these guys are on a topic about which they presume to legislate for all of us.

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Aug 14, 2012

fixo commented on Republicans Are Clearly Just Having Fun Now: Chris Christie to Deliver Keynote at Republican Convention.

@3 and @4 are right. Paul, what Republican could be trotted out as keynoter that wouldn't be a Teabagger in your view? (No fair saying "Alan Simpson," or "Jeb Bush," the latter of whom is also speaking, I believe.) I would think the Romney forces and convention planners (same thing, perhaps) consider Christie to be their play to the Center, not to the Right. Because he's so darn frank and refreshing! For example, I suspect he believes in Evolution. And I bet that, if and when pressed, he would say something about gun control that would piss off the NRA.

Jul 27, 2012

fixo commented on Introducing Rob McKenna.

@ 8 and 16. You are dating yourselves!

Jun 7, 2012

fixo commented on A New Yorker on Seattle.

Really? Lewis and Clark?

May 22, 2012

fixo commented on Watch Cory Booker Retreat Even Further on Maddow.

@13 Oh please. I am not a proponent of private equity. I think it's way too often abusive, visits harm and suffering on lots of people, and ruins perfectly fine companies. Fact is, though, that it ain't a simple topic and there are plenty of people engaging in analysis and debate about it, rather than name-calling. I am not referring to the Presidential campaign. I learned just yesterday (on the internet, of course, TPM, or Sullivan or some such place) about a study showing that private equity historically has led to a net gain of jobs. That doesn't mean ipso facto that it's a great thing, but it does indicate some complexity. No doubt, for example, there are plenty of people whose jobs have been saved by private equity. I think Booker has a lot of finance industry types in his bailiwick and decided to try to score some points objecting, like some sort of statesman, to broad-brush, across-the-board denunciations about a complicated topic. He botched it pretty good. But my point was that it is not the last we are going to hear from him, and that it is silly to pronounce him persona non grata because of this one boo-boo. In any event, I'll wager Cory Booker has done a lot more for the disadvantaged than everybody on this thread combined.

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May 22, 2012

fixo commented on Watch Cory Booker Retreat Even Further on Maddow.

@3 has it right. This won't hurt him, especially if he shuts up for a bit like @4 says. And it won't hurt the President--does Romney really want to spend time debating the merits of private equity--as practiced by him--even if he does have some retracted sound bites from Cory Booker to use? There comes a point where one can listen a little too carefully to every note uttered among gajillions in a marathon campaign like this and seize a little too quickly upon evidence that someone lacks the required ideological purity. It seems a little, well, fundamentalist, not to mention a little hysterical. Booker's a star, this little flub notwithstanding. Paul, just play back for your listeners Booker's statement to the press a little while ago about Chris Christie's spinelessness on gay marriage. Then all will be well.

May 18, 2012

fixo commented on Did You Make a Fortune on Facebook Today?.

The first stock-market-playa post I believe I have ever seen on Slog! If memory serves, as it often does not, that P/E ratio is significantly lower than that of MSFT in 1986 (1987?). Back then, not deigning to get dragged into that kind of tulipmania, I wisely stayed out. Damn. I don't know. I don't get Facebook's business model, but I used to imperiously criticize it. Now that I log on 5-6 times a day and "like" and comment enthusiastically on other people's posts, however stupid, and add Friends promiscuously, I think I might like to own a round lot of that shit.

May 16, 2012

fixo commented on Wednesday Morning News.

Not that I have a clue what goes through the psyche of opponents of gay marriage. But I can't help thinking that the likes of Valerie Trierweiler might terrify some of them. She might represent for tradition-bound types the sort of personal independence and self-determination that will be more prevalent in this country if, say, gay marriage becomes acceptable. If everybody can marry, then everybody can be single too, or, worse yet, flip back and forth with impunity, because the already threatened institution of marriage will have become so weakened. That's just not the way certain people imagine the world to be, and they find it frightening. Also: she's French.

May 11, 2012

fixo commented on I Hope Tony Perkins Doesn't Pray to Jesus With That Mouth.

The adoption part was the most grotesque to me, in many ways. The reason kids go un-adopted in this country is that it's so hard to adopt, Perkins said. This was after he was called out on his charming first position, which was that every kid needing adoption in the US gets adopted--except for special-needs kids (so what's the problem?). The idea that it's easy to adopt overseas and hard to adopt in the US, and that if we would just de-regulate the adoption market here, and make it as easy as overseas adoption, all the straight married people would adopt all the US kids needing to be adopted is breathtakingly shallow and nuts. So, the existence of foster children in our country, at least those whom Perkins doesn't classify as "special needs," is the product of adoption red tape? On a slightly different point, I am a tiny bit bothered by the suggestion in Frank's position (he didn't say it this way, and I doubt very much that he means it, but the impression may have been conveyed) that it is only gay people who step up to the challenge of difficult adoptions, and the corollary implication that it is somehow fitting for gay couples or singles to be consigned to that responsibility. But at least Frank appears to give a shit about kids. Perkins, by contrast, makes Mitt Romney look compassionate.

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