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Open thread

June 10th, 2008 at 02:14pm Pat Cunningham

I’m going out to attend a very important meeting of very important people to which you are cordially not invited.

While I’m gone, you can chat among yourselves about your trivial, meaningless concerns.

(Actually, I’m going out to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. And I’m sure your concerns are tres important, as my French friends would say.)

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21 Comments Add your own

1. Kaus | June 10th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

Marxist Obama is at it again in North Carolina announcing his windfall profit tax on Oil companies. A warning to all 401k, Mutual Fund, IRA owners, this affects you.

Throughout the oil and natural gas industries only about 1.5% of the stock is owned by company executives. Now this statistic doesn’t come from the oil companies themselves, the numbers – and the numbers that follow – come from Bill Clinton’s undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs; one Robert J. Shapiro.
2. Mike Carroll | June 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

The really big news is that Pat is shopping at Wal-Mart, the Looney Left’s symbol of globalization run wild outsourcing American jobs to China where the goods are produced in sweatshops by indentured children. Where is the Outrage Patrick. Oh the shame.
3. Menlo Bob | June 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

In recent days the glum mug you see on the upper right whenever hit the link to this blog has attempted to pass off bogus news stories as fact. For instance; he’d have you believe that soldiers who have served in Iraq have a high rate of suicide, in fact, when compared to non-military people of the same age and sex the suicide rate is lower.

Next, he’d have you believe that the Senate Intelligence Committee found that President Bush lied to get the US into war. What he won’t tell you is that this report airbrushed out any mention of the many Democrats who came to the same conclusions the president did, both before Bush came to office and after he was in office, and they did so with direct access to the nation’s intelligence sources.

This is the pathetic state of news in America. It deserves to suffer in the marketplace. Have another look at the glum face that composes this blog and ask yourself if you can trust anything he says.
4. Kaus | June 10th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

I think that after Obama is elected President, I will have much more fun posting to this blog.

Mike, the Wal-Mart boondoggle is the post of the month! Pat should give you an award. He was out getting his low cost meds at Wal-Mart, the true answer to solving our health care problems through capitalist methods.
5. Pat Cunningham | June 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Menlo Bob: You must have a reading disorder. At no time did I write or link to anything that said “soldiers who have served in Iraq have a high rate of suicide.” No wonder you can’t recognize Bush’s lies. You can’t read.
6. Pat Cunningham | June 10th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Mike: Where’d you get the idea that I’m anti-Wal-Mart? If you tag me with every philosophy associated with what you call the Loony Left, I’ll tag you with all the stuff peddled by the extreme right. Deal?
7. Bookworm | June 10th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Well, Pat, I’ve decided to give you some good news. Per your recent recommendation, I’ve done an internet search for books by Garry Wills… wow, he’s written a lot of them and I hardly know where to begin!

I decided to start by checking out from my local library “A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government” and “Head and Heart: American Christianities.” After I’m done with those I may try “Papal Sin” and ‘Why I Am A Catholic”, which would sure make an interesting two-volume set

Nothing really hugely important, just thought you’d like to know.
8. Kaus | June 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Pat made a typo in his blog post! “tres important, as my French friends would say” is incorrect.

Pat, I know you want to impress us with your knowledge….but get it right…..it is “tres importante” Don’t forget the E at the end.
9. Pat Cunningham | June 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Glad to hear it, Worm. You’re living up to your nickname. I strongly recommend “Papal Sin” and “Why I Am A Catholic.” The guy knows his stuff about Catholicism. “A Necessary Evil” is also a good one. I’ve referred to it often over recent years, including in this previous post on Applesauce: http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2008/01/15/obama-wrong-on-co-equal-branches/
10. Pat Cunningham | June 10th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

Kaus: Sacrebleu! (By the way, sacrebleu is always one word when written in French, but it’s often two words in English). You’re wrong about “tres important.” You don’t know any more about the French language than you do about American politics. Check this:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:2Nl5eUj1CdkJ:forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D947652+%22tres+important%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
11. Mike Carroll | June 10th, 2008 at 5:40 pm

“You have no sense of irony, sarcasm or hyperbole, do you, “Pat.
12. Bookworm | June 10th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

By the way, regarding the headline on the tainted tomatoes story: wouldn’t a “tomato watch” be more appropriate than a “tomato warning” at this point?
13. Menlo Bob | June 10th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

It’s comforting to know that even you don’t read your own blog. Nevertheless, you did write about soldier suicides here:
http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2008/05/27/how-many-vets-will-kill-themselves-today/
14. Stephen T. | June 10th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

It is amazing that the right is able to so effectively turn the ignorant and uninformed into supporters of those very forces which seek to keep them down.
15. Pat Cunningham | June 10th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

Bob: I wrote about veterans’ suicides, veterans of all ages. So you’re wrong.
16. Menlo Bob | June 10th, 2008 at 9:37 pm

Stop being Clintonesque. The link you provided only mentioned the last 5 years and only mentioned wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan. You really don’t read your links do you?
17. Kaus | June 11th, 2008 at 7:14 am

Pat in response to #10….we are both wrong….”your concerns” is plural, not masculine or feminine)…where you had no clue that important can be spelled differently according to its use.

important m. (f. importante, m. plural importants, f. plural importantes)

vos soucis sont très importants.is the correct translation for “Your concerns are very important .
18. Pat Cunningham | June 11th, 2008 at 8:54 am

Menlo Bob: Let’s review the situation one step at a time:
1) In a comment in this thread yesterday, you said I had written that “soldiers who have served in Iraq have a high rate of suicide.”
2) I replied with a denial that I had written any such thing.
3) You replied with a link to the post in question (from May 27).
4) I replied that the article to which I linked in that post dealt with suicides among veterans of all ages, not just those from the recent Iraq era.
5) You replied that the article to which I linked “only mentioned the last 5 years and only mentioned wars in Iraq and Afgahnistan.”
6) And now I’m here to reply that the article to which I linked mentioned the Iraq and Afghanistan wars only in terms of PTSD cases and brain injuries –NOT in terms of suicide rates. As for the timeframe of the last 5 years, the article referred to suicide figures for veterans of ALL AGES during the past 5 years. It was not focused on the wars of the past 5 years — just the suicides among vets of all ages.

So, the fact remains that I never wrote or linked to anything that said that “soldiers who have served in Iraq have a high rate of suicide.”

So, there!
19. Menlo Bob | June 11th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

The title you used was ‘How many vets will kill themselves’. Now you\’re saying that you weren’t linking to an article about suicide rates which says that the rate was 18 per day. Tell me, where are these non-Iraq and Afghanistan vets getting PTSD?
20. Pat Cunningham | June 11th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Bob: You write: “Now you\’re saying that you weren’t linking to an article about suicide rates which says that the rate was 18 per day.” I didn’t say that at all. Yes, I linked to an article about suicide rates among veterans in general. I did not write about or link to anything about the suicide rate among vets of Iraq and Afghanistan (but you keep saying I did). You also write: “Tell me, where are these non-Iraq and Afghanistan vets getting PTSD?” Come on, Bob. There was plenty of PTSD in our earlier wars.

Bottom line, Bob: I DID NOT write about or link to anything about suicide rates among vets of Iraq and Afghanistan. Your efforts to prove that I did are fruitless and silly. Give it up, Bob.

One last thing: I don’t care to keep going around and around about this. I’m not going to address this matter again here unless and until you can cite the specific words I wrote or linked to concerning the suicide rates among veterans or Iraq and Afghanistan. SPECIFIC WORDS, Bob, specifically addressing the rate of suicides among Iraq and Afghan vets.
21. Craig Knauss | June 12th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Who gives a damn about the specific language that Pat used, or Bob used, or anyone used? The reality is that there have been far too many veterans who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq and killed themselves. And others have had considerable trouble re-adjusting to civilian life. And most disturbing is the fact that the VA has done very little about it and has even attempted to shut down some VA centers that were treating mentally ill vets, like the VA hospital in Walla Walla (where my father-in-law goes). We should be helping our vets, not using them and discarding them.