The Gaming Den

Also, the Post Office will deliver it to you no matter how remote your town is, and often how remote your house is. Yeah, their lines are stinky and they don't flex hours enough sometimes... But they go places their competition would never, ever touch. Which is the point.

And really, I wish I knew these not-conservatives who drive the party... 'Cause I only know who yells and who's been elected. And they don't seem all that far apart.

-Crissa

Kaelik wrote:Tzor, you are a motherfucking lunatic.

The Post office is not a travesty, it works. Medicare/caid are not travesties, they work.

Hmm, that's an interesting word there "travesty." (a literary or artistic work that because of various inadequacies is only an inferior or grotesque imitation of its prototype) I don't believe I ever used that word. (I did a quick search, I could be wrong.) I simply said they don't work.

The post office, as I mentioned before, doesn't wsork. It cannot turn a profit, even though in many cases it screws its own employees in order to minimize cost. (My postal carrier had to purchase her own car, when you consider that mail delivery cars have to be rebuilt so that the driver is on the part of the car that faces the outside of the street that's not a common and thus not a cheep modification.) The big wig fat cats are trying to constantly cut service to rural places but congress won't let them. (They are also trying to cut Saturday delivery, but congress won't let them either; think of those poor rural seniors who can't direct deposit their social secutiry / pensions having to wait two days to get and deposit their checks ... the horror!)

Medicaid/care doesn't work either. More and more doctors can't stand the pathetic return on their work and simply refuse to handle such patients. Others, the more evil ones, abuse the cheat the system so that fraud in medicare/caid is vastly higher than it is on the commercial sector. Let's face it, if it did work AARP would be out of business. But there is, like UPS/FedExpress only so much a supplemental can do to help a failing system (and it's not really help in the first place).

Here is an old post office story when I was in Key West. I think there was some stupid law that mandated the temperature of the inside be 68 degrees or something stupid. You know what it's like to walk from a 90 degree hot day into a 68 degree post office. Aside from the sudden condensation on your glasses, the sudden change in temperature is a physical shock to the system. But there they were, burning some of the most expensive electricity there is (imported lovingly from the mainland, it was about the same as my expensive land of Long Island) like it was ... free.

The post office is the best example of breucratic suck that there is.

P.S. Actually, Crissa, the number of places where they do not deliver mail to your house at all (and require you to go to the nearest post office) is significant. Combined with their attempts to reduce the number of post offices requiring you to drive further and further to get that mail and this becomes an increasingly major problem in real rural areas.

True fiscal conservatives believe in a small federal government. Republicans at the federal level in general believe in a much larger role for the federal government than the average fiscal conservative. The result is often not complaints, but it is often the lack of support.

I have to agree with Neek and Kaelik (but not with such harsh language as Kaelik) The Post Office works as it should. What is more, is that unlike the Post Office the government isn't building a monopoly. They are effectively doing nothing to private companies. They are just providing a competitor to them. This one run by the government. The wonderful thing about it is that those who don't think the government can run it have the option of not using it.

So in true forthing lunatic style...

Publically funding the post office is bad because they are cutting funding to the post office.

Ah I see, the old "The problem is it isn't privatized enough!" argument rears it's ugly head in a new variant incarnation.

Moron.

PS. Love the hilarious dig at those isolated seniors living hand to mouth reliant on a regular pittance from the government! In no way makes you look like an unsympathetic psycho fuck wit at all. In no way I say!

tzor wrote:The post office, as I mentioned before, doesn't wsork. It cannot turn a profit, even though in many cases it screws its own employees in order to minimize cost.

Really? So, when it turned a profit in 1999?, that was what? An illusion? How about the four preceding years, in which it turned larger profits than 1999?

Your words are lies, and not plausible ones.

Bwah, my government program that exists because it's a service that is deemed important enough everyone should have it doesn't turn a profit by shafting rural people!

It's almost like it doesn't exist to generate a profit and instead exists to mandate the existence of mail access to everyone in the US, at a minuscule cost to the people.

And also, Bwah, the Post office is mean to their employees because a this one guy had to buy his own car.

I counter, the post office is awesome because my brother didn't and instead just has an awesome job with great benefits.

Seriously Tzor, you are insane. See what I mean about being a lying fuckwit?

Maybe you are just too stupid to understand the concept of the government providing a service because it's good for people to have that service?

The post office isn't about generating a profit for rich people. I know this goes against everything you stand for, but some people care about the quality of life of other people who are not them, and that's why we have a postal service that exists to supply mail to people, not to make money for other people.

And that's why you lie about healthcare, because you think that poor people should just die, because you think that anything that doesn't redistribute wealth from the "bad" people who don't know how to be wealthy to the "good" people who are obviously superior based on their money is a bad thing.

FOX calls this a news program, so we can laugh at it.

I like the bit where the insert speaker goes on a rant at bureaucracies - because huge businesses have a class feature that makes them magically run without any sort of C&C.

Then they say "if you're a Muslim and move to America, you will stand out for your religious views" (paraphrased) like it's a good thing that most Americans are bigoted, ignorant and backwards. National systems are apparently bad because they have the side effect of bringing people into the country that proceed to diversify the culture of that country.

Then they proceed to say "well, if you're a Jihadist in the US then the other members of your practice will find out". Just like we can rely on good old enlightened self-interest to identify workplace shooters?

Parthenon: that horizontal rule is art

PL: you beat me to it, in commenting on the cheap shot at pensioners living in rural areas. I mean fuck, I get my money via direct magical transfer, and I still often end up having to starve towards the end of the fortnight. Now delay it for a senior citizen who likely has greater expenses?

Well done, tzor, you've cemented your position as the batshit insane conservative religious nutjob. I guess it's good because we can keep you around to laugh at.

Koumei wrote: the batshit insane conservative religious nutjob.

Something I've never understood is the religious part of that particular phrase.

Theoretically, Christians should back the vast majority of the left-wing platform. The saying "Jesus was a dirty hippie" is completely accurate. The guy was all about peace, love, acceptance of societal outcasts, caring for those in need, and treating everyone like a brother.

How is it the people who claim to follow him most stridently are the ones who are pro-war, engage in violence against their political opponents, treat outsiders with fear and contempt, fight against anything that will help those in need, and tend to be dickish in general.

It's like they missed the core of the teachings of the religion they claim to follow. Or at least the core of the teaching of the specific guy their religion claims to follow.

Yeah, Tzor's in New York. He's therefore culturally inclined and possibly conditioned to hold rural people (Read: Not-New York, or any place with less than a million people) in contempt.

And I find it amazing. I've been to New York City. I let the second-person plural pronoun y'all slip and the brains of an entire roomful of people just shut down. Apparently, having any sort of association with anything 'country' (nevermind the 400,000 people who live about fifteen minutes from me. I'm from the South, I must be from a farm and have amorous designs on multiple cousins) is permission for 'urban' people in general and New Yorkers in particular to lose their manners.

And, yes, that's how I define a Yankee. A person not from the South who takes being from the South as proof of moral, cultural, and intellectual degeneracy and, evidently, believes the Southerner is so sub-human the rules of civility do not apply.

Damn Yankees.

I don't think we should let this slip to generalizations on where people live. I myself come from what would be described as an "the ghetto" which is not to be mistaken with but is similar to an "inner city" type place. I have to deal with enough problems being looked at as "from Gary" and I would much prefer that we avoid anything that drifts to close to the subject of "you live(d) here so you must be like that" type statements. I'm not personally offended (seeing as though I don't live anywhere near New York) but I think that its best to nip things like this in the bud.

I've lived in towns where UPS and FedEx won't deliver. I've lived in towns without daily delivery of postal mail. You have to pay quite a bit to get a package delivery service to come out there. But the US Postal Service has an office in every one of those towns.

Also, if southern white people want to be taken seriously, more than one in two needs to be connected to reality.

-Crissa

It's been my experience that Southerners are a lot more cool about X being being a Northerner in the South than Northerners are about Y person being a Southerner up North. And the experience of just about everyone I know who's lived or been around New England.

But to give you and idea...

In my first Geology class, I sat next to a very nice woman who was from west Africa (I forget what country exactly). Her husband was a professor who'd been following the teaching job. They'd lived in Paris, London, and New Jersey before moving to Mobile, Alabama for him.

So I asked her if it was a big culture shock. She agreed...Then said, all the friends they'd made tried to talk them out of moving here because 'They don't like black people in Alabama!'

When she moved her, she found out that's just not true.

As a side note, I wouldn't have ever thought I'd meet so many different people going to college around here.

Crissa wrote:I've lived in towns where UPS and FedEx won't deliver. I've lived in towns without daily delivery of postal mail. You have to pay quite a bit to get a package delivery service to come out there. But the US Postal Service has an office in every one of those towns.

Also, if southern white people want to be taken seriously, more than one in two needs to be connected to reality.

-Crissa

To elaborate...Yes, we get a lot of nutcases around here, what with the Bible Belt and all. But it pisses me off that someone hears I'm from Alabama and takes that as proof that I'm an educated hick who keeps a a set of white sheets on a hanger in my closet, with accompanying pointy hood.

I'm not anything like that. Neither is anyone I know. In fact, the fucking loonies are a minority who get the most attention because they make the most noise and do the most news-worthy things (that is, be fucking loonies in public).

At college, there's a...preacher, of sorts, who comes on Thursday and stands in the amphitheater and exhorts people about everything. And says stuff like "Cancer is the droppings of demons which have found you by yours sins!"

But people ignore him or, on some cases, ask him to go away.

He's a loony.

But we've only had one fucking loony, a guy who came around and ranted incoherently and called women whores for things like having boobs or wearing pants. And you know what the rational part of the population did?

They baited him. One group stood next to him and preached the Gospel of the Church of Halo, and I heard that after I left people would point out hot women to him just to see what he'd say. Then the police came and took the guy away for disturbing the peace and told the people baiting him to knock it off.

There's people who haven't moved with the times. But 'more than one in two need to have a connection with reality?'

That the kind of statement that pisses me off, because I know how far off base it is, and I know exactly how and why it's popularized.

Look, I'm from the south too, but you are just being an idiot. It is totally okay to say "Most people in Texas are fucking retarded." Because most people in Texas are fucking retarded.

The fact that more than half of white southerners think Obama is not born in the US is evidence that more than half are retards.

Just like statistics that show 46% of Americans believe the Earth is 6-10 thousand years old or whatever demonstrate that 46% Americans are fucking retarded.

Those statements are totally justified, and you getting upset because Crissa calls out the retardation of retarded people makes no sense.

Kaelik wrote:Look, I'm from the south too, but you are just being an idiot. It is totally okay to say "Most people in Texas are fucking retarded." Because most people in Texas are fucking retarded.

The fact that more than half of white southerners think Obama is not born in the US is evidence that more than half are retards.

Just like statistics that show 46% of Americans believe the Earth is 6-10 thousand years old or whatever demonstrate that 46% Americans are fucking retarded.

Those statements are totally justified, and you getting upset because Crissa calls out the retardation of retarded people makes no sense.

Calling out retardation is totally cool. And I can believe some of those numbers, once I factor in that I'm living in a more populated area and grew up with the Internet. And most of the people I'm around are the same way. I can honestly only think of one contemporary who is a lunatic Republican who rants about the evils of socialism.

What gets me is people assuming I'm the same as the retards. Personally, I'm looking forward to them getting older and dying off to make room for the next generations who should be clearer-headed and produce more clear-headed people.

But, yeah, maybe I'm getting too worked up about this.

I just think we need to let go of preconceptions about where people come from. Its not fair to assume anything about anybody just because of where they came from. Its better if we keep these things about what people say not people's backgrounds.

Yeah, maybe it pisses you off, Maxus. Do something about it.

But I merely pointed out a truth. Without the rough edge of insult or loaded words everyone else used.

-Crissa

For the record, I'm totally cool with people assuming I ride a kangaroo to work (note: it can't be done, they don't move in a way that could be ridden, and they're not big enough for an adult to ride them. Oh also I don't have a job yet), and all that stuff.

As for the bit about Jesus: even he said he would turn brother against brother. People remember all his nice stuff, but he was a bit of a dick sometimes, too. And really, everything else in the Bible was all about killing people you don't like (or who God doesn't like) and stomping on women's rights and all that shit. It shouldn't be a surprise that Christians are fans of the conservative agenda, because they pay attention to the parts that involve being a massive dickhead.

Maxus wrote:
But we've only had one fucking loony, a guy who came around and ranted incoherently and called women whores for things like having boobs or wearing pants. And you know what the rational part of the population did?

They baited him. One group stood next to him and preached the Gospel of the Church of Halo, and I heard that after I left people would point out hot women to him just to see what he'd say. Then the police came and took the guy away for disturbing the peace and told the people baiting him to knock it off.

This was on a college campus? You can't take a college campus as anything like an indicator of the standard ideology of the region. They are always far more...inconventional... in their views.

Maxus wrote:Calling out retardation is totally cool. And I can believe some of those numbers, once I factor in that I'm living in a more populated area and grew up with the Internet. And most of the people I'm around are the same way. I can honestly only think of one contemporary who is a lunatic Republican who rants about the evils of socialism.

Consider yourself lucky. I live in Ohio, and, through the wonders of social networking sites, have discovered that half my old high-school classmates have turned into crazy fundamentalist conservative wingnuts. Apparently, you're in a sane part of Alabama while I grew up in a redneck part of a swing state.

Maxus wrote:Yeah, Tzor's in New York. He's therefore culturally inclined and possibly conditioned to hold rural people (Read: Not-New York, or any place with less than a million people) in contempt.

First of all, I'm from Long Island, and from the eastern end thereof, so I am on the border of suburban and semi rural. Sod farms, potato farms, vineyards, buffalo, and a duck farm over yonder.

Second of all, the complaint I made I parroted from NPR.

If I get the time I will do a good analysis of the post office, however, please don't give bullshit from thhe Clinton administration. Aside from the fact that he actually had intelligent fiscal policies, it was also at the end of the dot com bubble; a source of revenue for the post office.

(I wonder how many millions they made from all those useless AOL cd's I got mailed pratcially every other month.)

Is that the same NPR who recently had to censure one of its anchors for saying something wingnutty on Fox?

NPR is in the same boat as everyone else. Wingnuts have money, and believe the world is out to get them, hence, they have to hire wingnuts to appear neutral. They apparently don't have to hire liberals to appear neutral.

-Crissa

Prak Anima wrote:That is not art, that is someone exercising their skill in bullshit. He literally:
Step 1: Acquire Urinal
Step 2: Sign Urinal
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!

Considering how much of the piece isn't created by him, I'm genuinely surprised no one called him a plagiarist.

Kaelik wrote:The Post office is not a travesty, it works.

I noticed this when I tried to have something delivered to Norway. UPS Price: $125. USPS Price: $32. I couldn't send it via FedEx for some reason I don't fully understand.

tzor wrote:Medicaid/care doesn't work either.

The medical system in this country is just messed up. I keep trying to figure out where/how/why it gets all messed up, but it just doesn't make any sense to me.

The only problem I can actually identify is that health insurance isn't... The idea of insurance is that you get money if something happens to you. But the health of Americans has become such that it's no longer if, but when. And that's a totally different issue.

Crissa wrote:Yeah, maybe it pisses you off, Maxus. Do something about it.

That would end up with him getting killed. Ignorant people will kill to remain ignorant.