Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Stories my Blogging Tories never told me.


So, apparently the shabbily-treated troops at Walter Reed are now being punished for having the temerity to complain about being treated, well, shabbily.

Not surprisingly, you won't read about this anywhere over at the "troop-supporting" Blogging Tories, but they'll be happy to tell you all about Al Gore's house.

It's a priorities thing, you know.

YES, YES,
I'm going to deal with "goombah" in my own way shortly, but one thing at a time. First, there's a cat litter box to be emptied. Then goombah.

It's a priorities thing, you know.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's see: you don't comment on stories like "Al Gore's house", while they don't comment on, well, whatever your whine-of-the-day about the Blogging Tories happens to be. Seems like a wash.
You really don't get the pot-kettle metaphor, do you? And you should change the batteries in your irony detector.

Of course, it's a priorities thing, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

goober-bah,
you want cc to comment on the non-story that's Al Gore's power usage and not post on the massively hypocritical blogging when they ignore the issues facing the war vets??
I think you need a reading comprehension course specifically focusing on 'how to use proper metaphors' and the real meaning of irony.
Pot-kettle? This alludes to cc not responding on the 'Al Gore House' vs BT's not responding to the mistreatment of war vets??
Let's see which merits a response, shall we--
Al Gore pointing out the facts of climate change to anyone who wants to listen. Al Gore making a consious effort to reduce his negative impact on the planet where energy consumption is concerned, and leading as an example to those that may want to follow his lead.
Compared to
War vets living in filth and squalor (rats, roaches, shambles), with little to no hope of changing their situation (little aid or treatment/little money)--vets, mind you, who have sacrificed their bodies and blood for their supposed commander-in-chief (and I won't even start into the war they gave it up for--me thinks you're too thick headed to get that point, too)
Personally, I think I know which issue actually merits a response.
But if the BT's (and you) want to debate the 'Gore's House' issue, you go right ahead and generate more hot air that amounts to absolutely nothing to anyone.
If, on the other hand, the BT's (and you) want to actually walk the walk of all the talking of 'supporting the troops' that I'm hearing--how about speaking up about the vet situation? How about demanding an investigation into how they got into this situation? How about making a stand--speak up and say that these vets deserve better than what they got?
Go on--say it--say that these troops deserve better--that the government ignored them and that someone has to be accountable for this gross negligence to our brothers and sisters.
Just once I'd like to hear a BT (or any 'staunch conservative') actually speak the truth and focus on the important stuff. Al Gore's electric bill?? This is what you bring to the table??? Go visit a vet in his flea-infested room and tell him that this is what you want people to get upset about.
Jackass.

Anonymous said...

Gee, Sparky, you missed my point completely but I'll type s-l-o-w-l-y for you: CC bitches about BTs not commenting on things he feels are worthy to be commented upon, while at the same time ignoring stories the BTs do feel like commenting on? See? Too subtle? Understand the metaphor reference now? I won't ask about the irony reference because there's no chance in hell you'll get that one.

Saskboy said...

Republicans: They don't just complain about Clinton (Bill) anymore.

Lindsay Stewart said...

goombah you poor stupid toadie,

here is a pertinent question for you to try on for size. why do you hate the troops? why does the same right wing that wantonly throws youth into ill conceived, ill planned and ill equipped battle, hate the returning veterans? please enlighten us with your consideered priorities.

and since you asked, allow me to recommend a little video clip for you:

gore's electric bill

if the visit to yet another leftward site is too much for your delicate constitution, allow me to paraphrase for you. from countdown with keith olberman, after contacting the utility from which the gore's purchase electricity, they learned that:

gore used 221,000 kwh of power last year.

gore paid in excess of $16,000 for usage.

this powered a 20 room home, a guest house and a special security system.

gore works out of his home office.

given that the former vice-president is now a media entrepreneur with his fingers in broadcast media, film, television and web presence. one can imagine that his home office equipment is extensive and voracious. the politician turned film maker, who just won an oscar, likely has a permanent staff on hand. and all of those sneaky liberal bastards is using up some of those precious electrons.

gore's wife tipper also maintains her offices in the home.

let's not forget security and secret service details, they aren't working off batteries.

so one can easily imagine that the gore home uses a rather larger amount of power than you or i.

i promise, i'd be way more scandalized, if countdown hadn't confirmed with the gore's utility provider, that the home was powered by the "green switch" program. which means that the electricity they purchase is generated solely from renewable sources, wind and solar.

for this, gore pays a premium of $4 per 150 khw.

221,000kwh / 150 = 1,473

1,473 x $4 = $5,893

thus we see that gore pays a premium of more than 50% to consume power with a minimal carbon footprint. yes, gore uses a lot of power. but he isn't burning coal or oil or gas to get it. he isn't contributing to the creation of fissile waste. in short he isn't only walking the talk, he's paying a hefty surcharge to do so.

there.

i've responded to your latest breathless panic. now then, like cc and every other person of conscience, i want to know why you and cheerleadders of doom have so little to say about the filth and degradation heaped upon the wounded, returning from the war that your side demanded?

i keep hearing pretty bullshit smears launched by the right and backed up by nothing but repetition. the fact is that you don't seem to care that you're either lying directly or by omission, because it all comes down to getting the smear out. you won't check sources, because you're desperate for any convenient lie to counter an inconvenient truth.

it is difficult not to find you contemptible, performing these gymnastic feats of moral equivalence. how fucking dare you ride your tripe barrow into our space and declare that a big electric bill is in any way, even remotely as important as the heinous conditions wounded veterans are returned to. this isn't a case of the pot meeting the kettle and calling black, you supercilious twat. it amounts to you and your steaming piles of shit complaining that someone else farted.

Zorpheous said...

PSA,

What you said!

Now of course we all know, thanks to Ann Coulter, energy efficient appliances kill people.

Lindsay Stewart said...

oh, and goombah, while you are making poopie in your dockers about electric bills, please be sure to let the blogging toadies know about this Thursday, July 26, 2001

By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- An "innocuous" attempt by Rep. Jay Inslee to block the Navy from paying the full electric bill at Vice President Dick Cheney's official residence ignited a searing debate yesterday on the House floor.

Although Inslee's amendment was defeated by a lopsided margin -- 285-141 -- it highlighted the passion and raw politics accompanying energy issues at a time when supplies are short and costs are high. It also foreshadowed what is likely to be a bruising debate next week when the House is expected to consider a broad energy bill.

In dollar terms, Democrat Inslee's amendment was inconsequential, affecting $186,000 out of a spending bill totaling $33 billion.">whopping great bill
:

"Republicans shocked at idea to block Navy from paying Cheney's power bill
Thursday, July 26, 2001

By CHARLES POPE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- An "innocuous" attempt by Rep. Jay Inslee to block the Navy from paying the full electric bill at Vice President Dick Cheney's official residence ignited a searing debate yesterday on the House floor.

Although Inslee's amendment was defeated by a lopsided margin -- 285-141 -- it highlighted the passion and raw politics accompanying energy issues at a time when supplies are short and costs are high. It also foreshadowed what is likely to be a bruising debate next week when the House is expected to consider a broad energy bill.

In dollar terms, Democrat Inslee's amendment was inconsequential, affecting $186,000 out of a spending bill totaling $33 billion."

you were saying something about irony...

that would be an electric bill for $186,000, courtesy of vice president cheney. ol' shooter got the navy to pay his light bill! how many sets of body armour does $186,000 buy? how many long term care nursing hours would $186,000 provide? fucking outrageous, isn't it? you'll be sure to tell the blogging toadies about that great big electric bill. right? priorities and all, don't you know. you may now return to your regularly scheduled fucking off.

Lindsay Stewart said...

crap. forgot to close the tag. sorry cc.

Anonymous said...

What CC is doing is apparently too subtle for goombah.

CC is NOT running the "stop global warming" or "Yay! Al Gore Yay!" site.

It's a site dedicated to the overall witlessness of the far-right bottom-of-the-barrel, with an occasional focus on evolution vs. creationism.

So, it isn't exactly a "wash" that CC doesn't fulminate on Al Gore's energy consumption (which isn't exactly the scandal it's made out to be) and the BT's don't comment about the scandalous conditions at Walter Reed.

Unlike CC, the BT's are ignoring a topic about something (supposedly) near and dear to their hearts. Supposedly, they support the troops.

You'd think, therefore, that not only would they comment about this story (which is on a topic they're fixated upon), but that they'd be up-in-arms, furious about it.

Instead, they are ignoring the fact that their precious troops are suffering in squalor.

When this is combined with what turn out to be non-stories (Al Gore's home/business consumes a lot of expensive energy from renewable energy sources/David Suzuki and his crew are not touring Canada in a station-wagon), we see that the BT's are, once again, guilty of hypocrisy, stupidity, and the overall wankerosity that they've always been guilty of.

Ti-Guy said...

186,000.00$ for Cheney's hydro? Well, I guess that mass-gravity manipulator he uses to keep the portal to...Hell...open sucks down more juice than...than...Laura Bush at an open bar. (yes; I stole that from The Simpsons)

That's a story I'd like to see the Blogging Whories tackle, that's for sure.

Anonymous said...

Ape,
You are apparently as thick as Sparky: my comments pertain only to CC's penchant for calling others hypocritical for doing exactly what he does. I am offering no comment at all on either of the stories CC chose to illustrate his "point".

We won't deal with the whole irony-and-metaphor thing because you cannot even read the plain meaning of the words in front of you.

Anonymous said...

goombah,

You're apparently as thick as a Blogging Tory. It's already been explained to you, repeatedly.

Go sit in a corner and mull it over.

It might come to you.

Lindsay Stewart said...

goombah,
you do not get to dictate the tone and temper of the discussion here. you are a commenter, as in a guest, at this site. you have evaded the very issue you raised here and you continue to run around hauling your portable goalposts, crying foul and stabbing at the reset button.

your point has been invalidated. you wanted to know why nobody will address your precious al gore smear attempt. well i fucking addressed it and showed it for the pile of crap that it is. as one of the authors of this blog (albeit a recent addition), when you lay slams of hypocrisy and irony impairment at the door, you're talking to me too.

why don't cc or i concern ourselves with the blogging tories top stories? well if you read this blog, we do address those issues. as i have done in this thread. you didn't come out the best for the response and now you sit there and pretend you were saying something different. here are your words:

"Let's see: you don't comment on stories like "Al Gore's house", while they don't comment on, well, whatever your whine-of-the-day about the Blogging Tories happens to be."

the simple fact is that we comment on all kinds of stories and issues. when you turnip headed rubes trot out your smears, you get called on it. and we make fun of you because you really are short bus special.

you brought up al gore's electric bill. i did some rudimentary research and tossed it back in your face. your challenge made and met. you were bested. then you follow that up with a rank little ploy, "they don't comment on, well, whatever your whine-of-the-day...:" well listen up, the 'whine of the day' is the fate of seriously wounded soldiers returning to an over-stressed system that is not able to provide adequate care or sanitary conditions.

these are the heroes of the war that your ilk demanded. these are the brave volunteers who placed their lives at risk, to carry out their orders and serve their country. these are the men and women who experienced the hell of combat and came back with missing limbs and a myriad of physical and psychological injuries.

you want to play petty politics with those lives. fuck you. my old man did 16 years with the british royal corps of engineers. he crawled across the desert from egypt to libya and back again with montgomery. through sicily, italy and then mustered to hants in the south of england for d-day. he climbed into a liberty ship and got out in france and fought all the way into berlin. he was there through the occupation and reconstruction.

he was then stationed in khartoum until the sudanese uprising and my family and the rest of the briitish evacuated. he was reassigned to port said in the canal zone, where he was taken prisoner during the suez crisis and my mom and sisters were airlifted out. he left the services and resigned his commission, because he and thousands of other active and service veterans were neglected. he never suffered a serious physical injury during his time but our house was a text book example of post traumatic stress. he was terribly damaged, you just couldn't see it on the outside.

the 'whine of the day' is that we, in the democratic west, sent our best young lives into harms way for all of our sake. we sent them to perform their mission, whether that mission was right or, as has been amply shown in the case of iraq, deeply wrong. it doesn't matter who is in power, liberal or conservative, they sacrifice on all of our behalf. if we as a people are willing to risk their lives, we had better be fully fucking willing to face the consequences of our actions. we owe them the very best care we can manage. not barely sufficient care and certainly not filthy, infested, moldy neglect.

you have the gall to bleat about irony while you try and play pot and kettle with an electricity bill and with the broken bodies of veterans. you are a piece of work. the point here is that it should not and does not matter what side of the ideological fence you fertilize, this is a deplorable situation. why is it that the blogging fucking tories and their ilk are whistling and hoping the news cycle washes this away?

here's my theory, you ignorant bastards are so disconnected from the reality of your actions that the human price being paid never occurs to you. you can wish it away. not because you feel shame for the neglect witnessed upon veterans by those that you elected, but because you are more worried about taking a political hit. your priorities are poisoned by the blindness that you wrap yourselves in and call patriotism.

your comments exemplify the kind of callous disregard that allows a veteran's hospital to go to rot. because you don't give a shit about the people that will suffer there. you cry support the troops and brand criticism as collaboration. yet where is your voice in support of the actual troops and their urgent needs? you may say it but you don't really mean support the troops. you see the troops as an amorphous lump of flesh and ideological muscle. a tool of the big plan. you fuckers are devoid of empathy.

you want irony gombah, how's this, the left leaning, ideologically liberal, anti-iraq war guys are screaming at the conservative leaning governments of north america to take proper care of those that fight and die in our name. the right wing, war promoters are trying to play hide the embarrassing amputees and their shoddy care behind trumped up garbage and dirty white noise for political points. the irony is that you enter into this discussion and fancy yourself striding the moral high ground and calling others thick, when you can barely frame a coherent sentence. it would be funny if it weren't quite so sick and disappointing.

face it you taint licking cretin, you're overmatched and you are dead, fucking wrong. you wouldn't recognize a hypocrite if you looked him in the mirror. consider yourself dismissed, jackass.

Anonymous said...

Related:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/28/why-dont-conservatives-support-the-troops/

Anonymous said...

okay. i'm a feminist on the left so i'll do both for y'all: sooey says al gore's a wealthy political celebrity who owns a massive energy depleting property and made a movie about climate change AND blogging tories are the most pathetic disgusting cowardly hypocrites on the internet (which al gore invented, don't forget) and the worst scumsucking bottomfeeding slimelikkers on the planet.

Ti-Guy said...

There you go. Sooey has the last word.