Open Thread for Friday, September 20, 2013

Silence, my taskmaster, is on me about not having one of these in awhile. Actually, he’s on my case about not blogging enough, period. No posts yesterday. Sorry. Working.

I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to post about later in the day. Something about the pope, and… I forget the other one. It was something fun, I think. Oh, we’ll — it will occur to me again later.

Here’s your chance to blog about what interests YOU — stuff like QE. Or football. Just wait for me on the stuff I like — you know, like the pope thing. Or “Breaking Bad.” Or Elvis Costello. Or going to war in exciting new foreign lands. Y’all know the stuff I like…

26 thoughts on “Open Thread for Friday, September 20, 2013”

  1. Dave Crockett

    I’ve not seen anyone comment on the brief note from the state Department of Revenue advising folks being solicited by Experian to renew their state-paid year of credit monitoring NOT be too fast to take up the offer. Apparently the Budget and Control Board is sifting through proposals from other credit monitors for a contract to extend state-paid monitoring for at least another year, and Experian is NOT among those bidding for the work.

    The first I heard of this situation was nearly a week AFTER I got the discounted offer from Experian and very nearly accepted it. The only reasons I didn’t were: 1.) that Experian didn’t say when my existing FREE coverage would end, 2.) that Experian was offering a suspiciously deep discount on their ‘regular’ price for their service and 3.) I remembered that there had been folks lobbying legislators to extend credit monitoring for LIFE to affected taxpayers.

    Does anyone have the full scoop?

    1. Kathryn Fenner

      We put a free freeze on our credit. It is significantly better protection than monitoring. It makes signing up for credit cards at the checkout more hassle, but then I don’t do that.

  2. Doug Ross

    Petition signatures for the strong mayor vote have been certified. Let the 12 week course in local government options begin. Since there is such a concern about getting out the extensive information voters will require to make an informed decision, maybe there should be some sort of pre-test before allowing anyone to vote.

    This will really be about which group of self-interested parties can develop the best marketing and misinformation campaigns.

    I think this will be a slam dunk for strong mayor. They have an easier tagline to promote: “Are you happy with the way the city is run now?”

  3. Bryan Caskey

    This day in history, in 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain looking for a Western route to Indonesia. He didn’t make it home, but the ship did make it back to Spain a few years later, being the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.

    In related news, I’m taking a similar trip: From Columbia to Charleston.

        2. FParker

          Is there any proof of how pirates talked? I’m guessing not much different than others during that time, and not the Hollywood version.

  4. bud

    Here we go again with yet another government shutdown threat. This time over a continuing budget resolution that in the house version includes defunding ACA. Probably won’t really happen but it certainly could. My only question is why does congress still get paid under that circumstance? The GOP has become quite boorish over this issue. Win elections if you want to get rid of ACA. Otherwise shut the f*** up.

    1. Doug Ross

      @bud

      They did win elections. Republicans control the House. They are doing what they are allowed to do.

      1. FParker

        Why didn’t Democrats take the House in the last election? In fact, didn’t they actually lose seats? I’m hearing that they may be losing seats in the Senate in 2014 as well.

        2. bud

          The Dems did gain a few seats in the House in 2012. Plus, more than a million more people voted for Democratic candidates in the House elections. Gerrymandering kept most districts safe for the incumbent thus to regain the House the Dems will have to essentially win a landslide popular vote. Clearly the people spoke with regard to who they wanted running the government.

          1. FParker

            How many of those new Democratic voters voted for House members already in strong Democratic districts? How many of them were suburban voters vs. urban voters? How many of them voted because they wanted to vote for a black presidential candidate? How many of them will bother turning out in 2014 or 2016 unless Obama declares an executive order and runs for a 3rd term?

            I’m ready for the US to split into two countries and see which one survives and which one turns into a 4th world country.

          2. Phillip

            FParker: It’s been tried before, the splitting into two countries. The United States of America won handily the first time, and I suspect it would not be the country turning into a “4th world” country this time either.

          3. FParker

            Phillip, “handily”? What were the casualties numbers for the North? Enough worth mentioning? My recollection was that this wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for either side.

  7. bud

    FParker brings up an interesting point. What exactly constitutes the liberal media? I would suggest that there is indeed a liberal media but it is very small and not particularly well organized. There is also a conservative media which is much more powerful and has a great deal more sway over political events. Where the conservative media is particularly powerful is it’s relentless ability to push a conservative narrative into the mainstream. Take Benghazi for instance. This is relatively minor story that if presented properly is actually more damning to conservative policy than administration incompetence. It was after all part of the conservative budget cutting agenda that reduced the amount of funding for consulate security. The administration did fail to remove our folks and they tragically paid the price. But the administration learned it’s lesson and closed embassies recently when intelligence indicated a security risk in the ME.

    What Benghazi absolutely was not was a scandal. Yet thanks to the conservative media that spin has made it’s way in the mainstream. I have to tip my hat to the effectiveness of the conservative media for continuing to spin events to appear as something they are not. Sadly many folks buy into this propaganda machine. And the plutocrats and neocons are the beneficiaries.

    1. FParker

      I think it’s a FOX vs. CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS sort of debate. Yeah, the liberal side is in the minority.

      Benghazi was a small story? Well I guess as long as the administration learned their lesson all is fine. Now to try to convince the families of those killed inside that embassy and it’s nothing to get all worked up over.

  8. bud

    FOX, Washington Times, NY Post, almost all of talk radio, the Wallstreet Journal vs MSNBC and perhaps PBS.

    FP, go read up on all the articles about the killing in our embassies during the Bush years. Oh that’s right there was no such reporting. But there were plenty of attacks. Go read about the utter failure of Bush in the urn-up to 9-11. Now THAT was a scandal. But not a great deal about it in the year after 9-11. There has been some since but nothing like the craziness over Benghazi during the year after that. All I ever heard was how we couldn’t get onto Bush or we’d somehow be “politicizing” the event. So if we’re keeping score the Bush real scandal that led to 9-11 claimed 3,000 lives and the Obama phony “scandal” claimed 4. Not too hard to see which side of the political divide is winning the propaganda war.

    1. Doug Ross

      You left out liberal media like the New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, to name a few.

  9. Silence

    So Columbia has apparently gotten 6 bids for the Palmetto Compress Warehouse. We’ll see how they look in a few weeks…

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