News Nov 18, 2013 at 8:49 am

Comments

1
Is Vevo the name of her album?
2
Look, if you're going to link to that song, at least make it an interesting cover rather than that tedious original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmCJEehY…
3
@2) That's awesome. Dude's voice is incredible.
4
If that was NSFW for a "shitty employer," I'd guess that nearly every corporation, and a hell of a lot of family owned businesses, are shitty. It's just a measure of where our culture is at (namely, a shitty place), not so much whether those employers are really shitty or not.
5
Sawant should record any of her conversations with anyone who might try to bribe her and blackmail her. The 1% want to nip her in the bud.
6
How does one retool an airplane factory to make mass transit?
7
Chris B @2) Yeay! Interesting covers are my favorite part of youtube. The sad clown might be trying a bit too hard, although I admit that the same cover minus the clown would be less interesting.

As usual, I continue to enjoy the original even while I enjoy the covers.
8
@6, the same way factories of all kinds retooled to make airplanes in WWII (not to take an opinion on whether it should be done, or whether Sawant should lead the charge).
9
@1

i spoke too soon. I googled 'vevo'. Vevo appears to be a corporate capitalist partner of YouTube.

Could you please post videos with a more collective Socialist bent? My reading of Slog ideologies are getting mixed up. Thanks.
10
I gotta call bullshit on the item headlined "Porn?" Are they really arguing that there's no difference between a naked male chest and a naked female chest?

In my junior high gym class, the coach had us play basketball shirts vs. skins (in which the teams are distinguished by having one play shirtless and the other with shirts on). No big deal, right? Same coach does the same thing to a girl's gym class, and we send him to jail.

At a security checkpoint, if my medallion sets off a reading of metal at chest level, it's not unreasonable of the agent to ask me to lift my shirt to show there's no weapon under it. Lifting my wife's shirt? Whole nother can of worms.

For almost everyone, women's breasts have a sexual component that men's breasts do not. Pretending otherwise is dumb.
11
Um... Royals has been in near constant airplay on 98.9 for months now...
12
@5
Recording might be a bit Nixonian. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the council members try to haze her or exclude her. I hope she'll manage to have someone else around whenever she's in an elevator or something.

What was it that someone said to Judy Nicastro way back when? It was inappropriate and Nicastro wrote a polite letter expressing her surprise or asking for an explanation that she CC'd to another official, like the city attorney, thereby forcing the offender to acknowledge publicly whatever he said. Anyone remember that?
13
Washington State Health Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler was on the Diane Rehm Show first hour this morning to explain why he will not go along with Obama's desire to extend below-ACA-standard insurance policies for another year for 290,000 Washingtonians who received cancellation notices.

That this would be a serious problem became apparent two months ago in Slog comments, and the Stranger has all but ignored it.

(In the second hour, Jill Lepore of The New Yorker discusses her new book on Jane Franklin, sister of Ben.)
15
@10 please just give up. so breasts used for scientific information is porn? YouTube has plenty of how to mammogram and breast cancer checks. I'll find you some links so you can get off if that's your thing.

I love how your metaphors are so far of a stretch it's difficult to even know if you are aware or not.

Apparantly a photo with biological information is akin to a gym coach having a bunch of girls play sports shirtless... You realize how ridiculous your comparison here was no?

And I love how you so authoritatively say men's chest don't have a sexual component, because you clearly have not been exposed to mine which I believe ONLY has a sexual component. My chest hair is really perfect. Serious.
16
Like Joe Biden (in an unfunny little way) Sawant needs nobody to attack her. Her big moronic mouth will do nicely for showing rational people what's wrong with her.
17
Is it porn? Try this: if the models were both 16 and posed in separate photographs, possession of which one would be a crime?
18
I meant @10 lol
19
I hope the Cheney sisters have a fight in a kitchen and there's an icepick around.
20
@13

Mike Crudler and Obama can both kiss my ass. It is NOT the purpose of my damn insurance policy to make other peoples policies work. It is NOT my damn problem if some lazy layabout bastard won't earn a skill that pays for his own damn family to get medical care.

As of the deadline I won't be buying a financial instrument I'm ordered to buy by a totalitarian state. Nor will I pay one single solitary cent in illegal fines for my defense of basic liberty.
21
@16
And yet, there you are attacking her. The lady commenting here doth protest too much.
22
"It is NOT the purpose of my damn insurance policy to make other peoples policies work."

That's actually kinda the only thing that makes insurance policies work.

Oh Seattleblues, don't ever change.
23
@20

Shut up, Dagny. Don't you know that Ayn was an atheist?
24
Hey, blues, another state legalized gay marriage. Society's view of what is morally acceptable keeps evolving. How's it feel to still be on the losing side?

P.s. you really don't understand insurance.
25
Ayn Rand would totally kiss Seattleblues' ass with a strap-on and make him buy the lube if he thinks it should be used.
26
Shorter @20:

"I've got mine, the rest of you can go fuck yourselves!"
27
@22

Actually, I do understand insurance principles. See, before Obamacares illegal order to engage in a specific form of commerce I could pick a policy for my healthy family that kept our premiums down but protected against catastrophic medical costs. Under der Fuhrer that policy no longer exists. It met OUR needs which is why we bought it. That the insurance company also offered more comprehensive policies gave us options so we could select what best suited us and change policies should our needs change, say as we get older.

Now my insurance policy is a one size fits all for over 300 million people, and it doesn't suit my needs, so I won't be buying it.

Just because liberals are reality challenged doesn't mean rational people are as well, kiddo.
28
@25

Nope. I earned mine and the rest of you can do likewise or go without.

29
@2, that sad clown cover is fucking awesome. Thanks. Made my morning.
30
@20: You know you actually have to sign up for Medicare when you reach eligible age, right? That if you don't, significant and escalating penalties ensue?

Will you go on the record here today that you will be refusing Medicare?
31
I love Post Modern Jukebox and I love Big Mike.

http://www.postmodernjukebox.com/2013/11…
32
The KIRO piece was spot-on, and the description of the urban wildlife at 3rd and James wholly accurate. That area is an urban abomination.
33
@24

I'm not losing. My real marriage isn't affected in the least by deviant perverts calling their sick relationships marriage.

Know who IS losing? Children growing up now with family and marriage being attacked by your sick lot. Marriage as an institution for helping build and transmit social systems to the next generation is being redefined so broadly that it will be meaningless in a couple generations.

So yes, the barbarians, the corrupt and vile, are successfully attacking our collective future. If you want congratulations or any acknowledgement of the sick coupling of sick people as marriage from me or other decent people though, I wouldn't hold my breath...never mind- please do hold your breath. Indefinitely.
34
@30

On the contrary. I'll be expecting both Medicare and Social Security. I've paid for all these years in taxes, so getting it seems right to me.
35
Though, obviously neither are legal exercises of federal authority, as anybody with basic English and a copy of the Constitution knows...
36
@20: Enjoy getting fined/imprisoned for tax evasion.
@27: Obamacare's "order" is "illegal"?
That's funny. It was actually passed by our legislature (and later approved by our judiciary) in accordance with our system of law. It may be illegal in the Democratic Whiny Arrogant People's Republic of Seattlebluesia, but this is the United States of America, dammit!
Allow me to put forth an analogous (arguably even homologous) situation:
"I used to be allowed to buy a car with features that met my needs. I only drive during the daytime, so my car doesn't have headlights. Now, thanks to the new automobile regulations, all cars have to come with headlights. Suddenly the kind of car I want isn't being made any more! I'm being forced to pay for headlights even though I don't want to!" Do you see the flaw in your logic?

You can keep banging on about how we liberals are disconnected from reality as much as you want; at the end of the day, you're still wrong. And as long as you keep saying patently ridiculous things (like calling the ACA unconstitutional, or insisting that you're going to break the law and not pay the fine and nothing bad will happen to you as a result, or claiming that gay marriage was legalized by a minority), nobody's going to believe for a moment that you're in touch with reality. It's hard to let go of delusions, I understand, but you need to do so at some point or things will only get worse. Admitting you're wrong is the first step to correcting yourself.
37
So SB, you'll try to go without medical insurance completely for your family? So when you or one of your children end up in the ER, the rest of us will be covering you?
Hmmm. That would make you a moocher.
But first I suppose the hospital would go after you for the cost of your care and that would bankrupt you, and leave you and your family with nothing.
Of course you'll blame the government or Obama or the gays from your cardboard box instead of your own stupid decision, because that's how you do.
Ooo! Ooo! When you lose your house maybe you can ask your lesbian ex tenants if they'll let you stay with them.
38
Seattleblues certainly has her dander up this morning. I just love her agonized tantrums. Keep it up my dear sweet girl it fills my heart with joy to read your desperate sobbing.
39
@16:

If there's anyone around here who should know a thing about having a big moronic mouth, I guess it would be you.

Or Bailo. Either one. Take your pick.

Also, per @20 - Just keep telling yourself that the ACA penalty: the one approved by both houses of Congress, signed by the President, and upheld by the Supreme Court is "illegal". Seriously, just keep on deluding yourself, since you're clearly so adept at self-deception. Just ignore the fact that you already pay higher premiums for those who are uninsured & get all their medical care at the local ER. Just keep telling yourself that the IRS will be completely flummoxed by your refusal to pay the ACA non-compliance penalty and have absolutely no recourse, like, oh say, simply deducting the penalty from any refund you might be due. Feel free to fill out your tax return so you don't get a refund, because then the IRS will have to throw up their collective hands in utter defeat, as opposed to charging you interest and penalties for non-payment, which eventually will result in garnishment of your wages. Bask in the absolute certainty that your employer will be so inspired by your rebellious stance that they too will refuse to comply with such an order, rather than cover your skanky, Libertarian ass.

Just. Keep. Living. The. Dream.
40
@33: I am pleased to see that you have at last admitted that gay marriage will not effect your marriage in the least. Good for you!
41
@28: I love this. This is probably the best typo ever. Seattleblues earned his lube, and the rest of us can do likewise or do without.

Brilliant.
42
@30 spewed:

Nope. I earned mine and the rest of you can do likewise or go without.

Huh? Seattleblues either miscounted or says he earned his lube. Good for him, I guess.

Ugh, that's an ugly can of worms.
43
@34/35: So your "principles" aren't really principles at all, but lizard-brain whims based on greed.

The average couple can expect to receive from 25% to 125% more in combined Social Security and Medicare benefits than they ever contributed, with much of the extra paid by single people who get no survivor or spousal benefits.
44
Sawant was elected LAST WEEK and she's already starting in on the conspiracy theories? Forfucksake. By next week she'll be purging her campaign team and accusing them of spying for other councilmembers, collaboration with the capitalists, and sabotage. Then the show trials!
45
@27: You have already proved over and over you have no idea how insurance works. You are on record here claiming that your car insurance and homeowner's insurance will cover your family's medical needs. This idea is mind-bendingly stupid.

Also, you clearly have no idea that insurance is a system in which you pay for other people's care. It is designed that way, because it is the only way it could work. Your premiums pay for other people's healthcare already, genius. But hey, keep telling us that you know how insurance works.

46
SB, the true Christian. No concern for anyone else, hating everyone who disagrees w/ them, hating the poor, yet will demand sympathy an accolades as they 'give to charity,' (which usually means their church.) A perfect example of why Christianity is a worthless religion. It doesn't create more love, acceptance, or harmony in the world. Just division, hate, and me-first attitudes.
47
@28,
Yeah, that's what makes America great... everyone only helps themselves. Oh, you need help? Did you earn it? No? Then go fuck yourself.

How Christian of you.

I'm assuming it must be difficult for you to confess your Christian faith whilst simultaneously behaving contrary to Jesus' teachings. Jesus preached about helping your brothers and sisters, not for profit, not if they've "earned" it, but giving freely.

You are not a Christian.
48
@43

My motives really have nothing to do with it. But yes, the welfare of me and my family will always matter most to me. If that's greed so be it.

Considered as an investment social security pays acceptable but hardly good returns. I could do much better in the private market, but since my money has been hijacked all these years anyway, yes I expect to collect.

As it happens for roughly half my working life I'll have been self employed at retirement. Which means while you pay 7.75% and your employer matches that, I pay the full amount.

But what you miss is that all successful investments pay more than contributed. If they didn't I'd just hold on to my money. (And 25% over 40 or 50 wage contributing years would be a terrible return by any standard, fyi.) The trade off is that whoever holds the money in the interim gets to use it. In the private market ideally they use it to make their own money. In the public sphere they waste it on idiotic, expensive and inefficient goose chases.
49

Alec Baldwin Spews Homophobic Slurs At Paparazzo—Again!

http://www.newnownext.com/alec-baldwin-c…

50
@46, 47

What, this tired old old refrain?

Christian charity, for your edification, is a personal responsibility. Forcing others, through taxation, to pay for charity doesn't meet that responsibility for you or for them.

My family gives to and volunteers at multiple worthwhile charities. The self perpetuating generational poverty created by federal welfare programs is neither helpful nor charity.
51
@45 "You are on record here claiming that your car insurance and homeowner's insurance will cover your family's medical needs." LOL, really she's made that claim, LOL. I must have missed that.

She has no idea how the insurance industry works. Though it would be funny to hear her try and explain actuarial tables.
53
Seattleblues and the things she doesn't understand, let's start a list.

Insurance
Social Security
Sex
Gender
Theology
Macro Economics
Constitutional Law
Legislative process
The Judiciary
etc....
54
Well, blues, you affirmed just last week that morals are determined collectively by society to promote the good.

Seeing as society is realizing that there is nothing wrong or immoral about both homosexuality and gay marriage, you are drifting farther to the side that's wrong.

And it has been pointed out to you many times that the 'studies' you claim support your views are not founded in reality. They have zero credibility. That is a fact you choose to ignore.

Which makes your sad and silly rants all the more hilarious.
55
@11 is correct.

She also showed up here for Decibel.

Great performance even if it was raining cats and dogs then.
56
@53: I'll help you out.
Formal logic
Biology with subheadings:
-Evolutionary biology
-Neurology
American history
Game theory
Sociology
Statistics

@33, 48, 50: [citation needed]
57
@54: Actually, usually the studies he points to ARE trustworthy, rigorous, and significant. There are just two problems:
1. He almost never cites anything.
2. His citations are almost never consistent with the point he's trying to make. He'll say something and as evidence link to a study saying the polar opposite.
58
@53 A complete list would be basically infinite. Said sad fool doesn't understand how much of ANYTHING works, and lives primarily in its own little foolish fantasy world.

About the only thing I'm pretty sure it can do is spew pointless spittle-frothed blather on this blog while flailing its arms. And not very convincingly.
60
Re the Bloomberg News layoffs:

I find the bloomberg.com website to be quite an asset for free business news and data. I'm quite sad to hear that the parent company is cutting their reporting staff.

I was kind of hoping that instead of firing people, they'd go out and hire a competent headline writer. Their headlines, especially for business stories, are among the most convoluted and befuddling, probably of any news organization publishing in any language.
61
@28:
So what make YOU entitled to insurance more than my friend who I'm sure has worked harder in her life than you ever will?
She's self employed but had cancer so she cannot afford health care (it's that pre-existing condition thang). Somehow having cancer means she couldn't possibly have earned insurance, right?

Now, with the ACA, she can get insurance and I'm so happy for her.

(If Seattleblues is that in love with her old policy, somebody should explain rescission to her.)
63
@53,

Christianity
64
@2:

I really love the original (hate the video, now that I've seen it), but that cover just about blew the doors off my speakers. Thanks for sharing.
65
@48, your motives have everything to do with it, because you're greedy and self-centered in the same way as the people you sneer at every day. But you own it, so credit where it's due.

Regarding Social Security and Medicare, the 125-225% benefits-to-contributions payouts I mentioned @43 are in constant dollars, so the results over time are actually damn good. And the risk is essentially zero, unless your teabagger buddies succeed in dynamiting the system entirely and shifting everyone's life savings to the Wall Street roulette wheel.

As far as who pays what Social Security tax, it's still essentially the employees. If they were to be saddled with the whole 15%, their wages would have to be higher. If the employer nominally paid the whole 15%, wages would be lower. Take the employees out of the picture, and nobody pays.
66
Shorter Seattleblues: uggabuggabugga. Gnarl, ruff, ruff, snarl. GrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrROWFROWFROWF! Uggabuggabugga!
67
@66 which I believe roughly translated to: I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about, but trolling is pretty much all I got in life.
I'm ok at translating ass-holenesse.
68
Seattleblues - Whether someone makes a wage/salary/return-on-investment comparable to yours has less to do with what they've "earned," as a measure of effort or aptitude, than what the market (arbitrarily or capriciously, one might argue) happens to value at any given time. I don't object to someone being rewarded because their efforts and aptitudes coincide with public interest or taste; such savvy and/or luck is best acknowledged with some sort of boost. That others should be punished because their efforts fall on harder luck seems like targeted, rather than random, capriciousness.

As a member of a society, we agree to compromise on certain interests of my own in order to aid the common interest. We are not actually very divergent from one another in this regard; the real difference, as near as I can tell, is that you believe that we should compromise on matters of subjective morality, while holding economic freedom absolute. I disagree; I have yet to meet a being even marginally qualified to act as moral philosopher on my behalf, while a baseline economic parity has at least some chance of being empirically measurable.

That the programs we have may be inefficient (which I'll grant arguendo, since I have too many jobs and too much to do at them to hear your arguments as to why that's the case) may speak to problems in their construction, but I don't see why they're arguments against government involvement per se any more than the slaughter of the Cathars, the atrocities committed by Cromwell in Ireland, or the Salem Witch Trials serve as arguments against religion in general or Christianity in particular. If you're going to argue on principle with results as your argument, you not only need to offer specific examples of undesirable results, but also offer a rational argument as to why the principles against which you argue lead inexorably to those results.

My wife and I have been paying for our own policies. The lowest premiums we could find in the open market cost us about a third of our income every month for a plan that doesn't cover all of her health problems; I generally skip going to the doctor entirely so we can take care of her (because the money for my copays simply isn't there after rent, food, and business expenses [we both run our own businesses]. The ACA will allow us to do better while still paying into the system (both as taxpayers and through premiums). It's not an ideal system, but it at least addresses the ludicrously high cost of health care.

Your rant on marriage is only as valid as your last response to the questions posed to you on the matter. In what way does recognition of same-sex marriage alter the familial definition of marriage that marriages between the elderly or infertile do not? Is the next generation not likely to be as influenced by peers, teachers, communities, and social memes as by the values of the nuclear families in which it is raised?
69
@17: That's false. I have a DVD of "American Beauty" in which a 16-year-old Thora Birch appears topless. Possession of that is not illegal.

And then there's the Blind Faith album...
70
@69

I think Brooke Shields had nude scenes when she was a minor, too.
71
@68 *clap, clap, clap*
72
@70: Pretty Baby. She was like 12 or something. Don't remember if there was full frontal though. No way that movie would get made today.
73
@68

Who's talking about punishing anyone? All I ask is that consequences of behavior, economic or otherwise, be borne by the person choosing the behavior.

All law expresses some idea of morality. Most is non controversial, like prohibiting murder or child abuse, or requiring drivers to obey reasonable safety regulations. Some, like socializing the results of poor personal choice by taking money from those who made better decisions, is more contentious. Either way, neither you or I are talking about absolute acceptance of any ideological position, moral or economic.

I don't know your states health care insurance laws, so won't comment on them. But at the state level is where the solution to health care belongs. At that level New York or Oregon or Kansas can meet the very different needs of their citizens with a degree of accountability federal bureaucrats can't and wouldn't if they could. This is apart from the entire lack of jurisdiction the federal government has in my local hospital or my doctors office anyway.
As to marriage, that's a can of worms we'll never agree on. But the welfare of children should always trump the selfish desire of a tiny self selected minority to redefine a fundamental social institution, at least in my mind.
74
Hey SB, did you know that Christian charity is, in fact, compulsory? And that there is no moral difference, from Jesus' standpoint, between whether it's taxed from you or not?

So much for your opinion to the contrary. Obey your Lord and Savior! Your very soul depends on it. (And also on your bearing of false witness. You're still doing that, I see.)
75
I'd like to know what charities SB supports. He's a builder, does he work with Habitat for Humanity? No, that would be housing people who haven't earned it.
Does he dish out food to the homeless? No, that would be encouraging them not to work for their daily bread by the sweat of their brow.
Does he give to the Marine Corps toy drive perhaps? No, that would be rewarding parents that were foolish enough to have children they couldn't afford to support.
Hmmm I'm stumped.
76
@73: So what are you going to do if you need a heart by pass or if your wife gets breast cancer, or one if your kids gets E. coli from petting goats at the fair, or meningitis from sharing a soda with a friend?
If you don't have insurance, what will you do?
77
Who's talking about punishing anyone?
In my view, you are. We are born into our obligation to society; we did not opt in, and we are given no real opportunity to opt out. We can only expect to receive its essential protections in return for exceptional obedience to its strictures. Where we clearly disagree is in the matter of what constitutes an "essential protection." I'm certainly not convinced that the foreign and domestic enemies from which we are protected via military (ostensibly, though the military has, for decades now, been used primarily to protect economic interests and ill-defined and, in some cases, ill-conceived political allegiances) are any closer in spirit to the natural predators and climatic pressures from which we first began to protect ourselves by forming tribes (probably long before homo sapiens as we know them actually existed) than are equally "reptilian" concerns like whether one is at risk from the next epidemic, the barriers between the hungry and the food that might feed them (whether a matter of agricultural failures, market fluctuations altering the costs of food, or the indigence of the hungry party), or participation in the familial contracts we offer to certain households.
All I ask is that consequences of behavior, economic or otherwise, be borne by the person choosing the behavior.
But as has been pointed out, you are sheltered from the "consequences" of your behavior in all sorts of ways, most notably via the benefits of the marital contract. How have you "earned" that? What is the empirical, objective benefit to any of the rest of us of your breeding?
All law expresses some idea of morality.
No. It all expresses some idea of utility. This dovetails with morality, of course, since according to what information we can glean on how morality evolved, it, too, had its basis in utility. As I've said before, to no cogent attempt at refutation on your part, there is no freedom of religion without freedom of moral self-determination.
Most is non controversial, like prohibiting murder or child abuse, or requiring drivers to obey reasonable safety regulations.
All utilitarian concerns. It's almost like you get it.
I don't know your states health care insurance laws, so won't comment on them.
I live in Seattle, so I'm under the same laws you are.
As to marriage, that's a can of worms we'll never agree on.
The difference is I have offered a coherent argument; you offer only vitriol and platitude.
But the welfare of children should always trump the selfish desire of a tiny self selected minority to redefine a fundamental social institution, at least in my mind.
And again--in what way does marriage between the elderly, the medically infertile, or those who choose not to have children aid the welfare of children that marriage between members of the same sex does not? In way is the welfare of children harmed, or left wanting, by same-sex marriage that would not also apply to any other childless marriages? And while responsible rearing of children once they exist obviously promotes an empirically demonstrable social benefit, what social benefit can you demonstrate empirically for the encouragement of having children in the first place?
78
#74 is absolutely correct about (Judeo-)Christian charity being mandatory. "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corner of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:9-10)

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