“how will LD 220 be effective in protecting individual property rights?”

It would strike out words from state and local laws that are not even in the dictionary, such as “viewscapes” or “sustainable”.

I will grant him that viewscapes is not in the dictionary (yet), but sustainable certainly is and has been for a long time.

::sad trombone sound::

Posting Conspiracy Theories

Don’t. There are many web sites for posts on conspiracy theories. AMG is NOT one of them.

2. This thread.

One little thing from me: I love when AMGers quote some wacky source as if we should all know who it is. Example:

Ryan McCabe says he has learned that being gay is not a choice. Bob S responds:

Ryan, born gay has long been disproven. Even Simon LeVay has backed away from that stance.

LOL, right? Whoever the fuck Simon LeVay is, Bob S thinks he is not only relevant but superior as a source. He expects you, the reader, to say, “Well if fucking Simon LeVay finally gave in, then I guess it’s game over for the fags. I’m allowed to call them fags again, right?”

The conservative alternate reality strikes again!

Also, lets give credit to Ryan McCabe, who proves to be the exceptional conservative that doesn’t just ignore AMG’s hate speech but actually puts himself on record opposing it.

In this latest horror, how much gun control will have any effect on the mentally ill that steal a gun ?
One child was shot eleven times with an automatic. Would one shot from a single shot gun had a different result?

This person undoubtedly thinks they are making the case for no gun regulations. What a maroon.

The answer is YES. YES, a child is many, many times more likely to survive a singlet gunshot rather than eleven. YES, I’d rather be shot once myself rather than eleven times. YES, I would rather the person aiming at my child have only one bullet available instead of eleven. YES, the school principle who rushed the shooter would have preferred the shooter have only one bullet to use between each reload.

YES, the other children running away from the gunman would have preferred a shooter with a single shot weapon.

Yes, yes, and yes again.

Thanks, Calvin, for putting the finger on the right question, even if you clearly didn’t mean it.

You see, Portland City Hall will be opening at midnight of the first day same-sex marriage will be legal, for three whole hours. This will let people get married right away, rather than having to wait through the weekend.

In AMG-land, this is a “special right.”

Yes, having to wait decades for the privilege of getting your ass out of bed at midnight is such a special, special right.

The arguments against this are absurdly petty, inane, and stupid.

Says Reaganite:

If my town’s office has special hours for these special, newly entitled people, I will be in line. I will be there to get a new transfer station permit. And if I don’t get it, there will be all kinds of hell to pay.

Somehow, I don’t expect anyone around Mr. Reaganite fears whether or not he intends to have “hell to pay.” It is hard to fear payment of hellishness from someone you think would have a truck scrotum on his vehicle if only he could understand the instructions on how to attach them.

Besides, Portland would marry straight couples if they showed up and paid, but they might not do any other permit work. Why is a “transfer permit” the measure of “equal” rather than just the possibility of marrying all types who walk in the door?

Melvin Udall thinks that same-sex marriage only won because Mainers didn’t realize that the phrase “same-sex couples” also means… EVIL HOMOSEXUALS!

By the way, I believe the victory won is that ‘same sex couples’ could get married. Is that the same as homosexuals?

I wonder what would have happened if the ballot issue had said homosexuals.

And Bruce Libby is, well, just dumb.

So, I have a message for the people of As Maine Goes. You are really getting ridiculous. I mean, you are getting so ridiculous that you are making last week’s ridiculous feel inferior and have a mid-life crisis. I mean, last week’s ridiculous is buying a convertible right now wondering, how do I get my mojo back? Because this weeks craziness is some of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Portland is opening for some extra hours to marry people. Marriage is the building block of our civilization, right? So shouldn’t you be happy?

Apollo, Bob Emrich, Reaganite, Bruce Libby, et al. are seen by many people as what they are: hateful persons who prefer discrimination to equality. Keep it up!

Marrying gays at midnight would only be a special right if they had been allowed to get married during regular office hours the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. They couldn’t.

Suck it up and move on. You have lost this war.

The paranoid miscreant who started this particular thread, “Watcher,” immediately abandoned his premise after being confronted. He resorted to the “gee, I don’t know if my crazy ideas are actually true but it couldn’t hurt to keep your mind open,” line of post hoc thinking, and then after being nailed down a second time has simply ceased to respond.

Take Thrasybulus, for instance. He says the GOP lost because it is talking about social issues like abortion.

Then he goes on to show just HOW CRAZY he is on the abortion issue.

Most modern abortions are sought in order to prolong the period available for recreational sex. And of course avoid buying a new wardrobe or to increase disposable income.

Please, please explain to me how in an age of birth control pills, people seek abortions to “prolong” the period “available for recreational sex.” Abortions make a poor method of birth control, as I’m sure anyone who ever had an abortion might tell you.

And implying that women don’t want to have kids so they can avoid the travesty of having to “buy a new wardrobe,” well, that isn’t condescending at all. Surely these idiotic women aren’t worried about feeding, housing, educating, and caring for children who will require an enormous commitment. No, they are just concerned about clothes. Because they are women. Women like clothes.

He goes on:

A current trend is to abort to get the “right” sexed designer baby. Islander is right on when he mentions that while men, even husbands, have no say, they certainly will pay.

An attack that might resonate with a secular, but increasingly weary society, is to say abortion is usually a sleazy creepy thing to resort to, but we’ll shut up about it if you will just publicly declare the reasons for your abortion, and the father will be required to sign off. If he won’t sign off and has the ability to raise the child, he gets the child. Won’t pass right away, but it will surely cause some consternation on the Left, and open some minds. Black men under the age of 25 are the most anti-abortion group in the USA…

This is one cockamamie bit of thinking. Let us go over it in detail.

1. It is trendy to abort children to get a “designer” baby. Despite being of an age where all the people around me are having babies, I have yet to hear anyone speak of even considering an abortion to control the sex of their child. I guess I’m not as in tune with the culture as a guy who goes by “Thrasybulus.”

2. Make women publically declare their reasons for any particular abortion. Need I discuss why this would probably not be so popular with the female voters?

3. Men have no say in the abortion decision but, due to some feminazi plot, might still pay child support on kids they don’t want. Wow.

Ok, reader, please remember that this thread at AMG is a discussion about how to win. As in, lets improve the Republican brand among women by, say, letting women’s angry ex-boyfriends have the option to force them to either carry a child or force an unwanted abortion. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Women will love that! And if the boyfriend says he doesn’t want the kid, but the woman still has it, well then that guy just has no responsibility for that child’s care. How could that possibly go wrong?

Thrasybulus is sure that if Republicans pushed this idea, it would “cause some consternation on the Left” and “open some minds.”

Uh, no. It would be like Todd Akin’s crazy statement, but times ten. Any politician not dependent on nursing assistants to feed him mushed carrots would run from such a plan, immediately. It is ludicrous. Full on crazy.

And then there is Bob Emrich, the leader of the losing campaign to continue marriage discrimination. He responds to someone saying that the social issues of abortion and gay marriage are losers in Maine with this:

I disagree, Ryan. You are generalizing according to bias. Marriage won more votes than Romney.
Look at the Maine legislature.
In 2009, marriage won. Did you and others proclaim it to be a winning issue then?
More than 50% of Americans are now pro-life and the highest gains were among young people.
The problem is not with the issues but in treating the issues as unimportant.

Apparently, no one has ever showed Bob the graph showing the change in public approval of gay marriage over time. Or he doesn’t understand it. Or, he is a religious bigot who is so blind to reality that he can’t see the plain truth in front of him. Pick one.

Lastly, the thread includes some general discussion of whether to pick Rich “Are you going to finish that barrel of lard?” Cebra or Beth O’Connor for the new chair position.

I saw elsewhere on AMG that Beth O’Connor, in her losing bid to retain her Maine statehouse seat, was outspent 20-1 by her opponent.

So Republicans are thinking of choosing for their party leader someone who could not win their own election, could not organize or raise funds, and frequently posts crazy shit on AMG. Yes, that will be a big improvement from Charlie Webster.

It all makes me smile.

I grew up in Warren and live in Waldoboro. Due to the small town demographics, I know all the residents of color. If I saw a bunch of them at the voting booth, they would also stand out to me and I would question their eligibility with the town, but past dems have made sure they cannot be questioned, and I have no “right” to question their residence. The ballots are anonymous so once it’s turned in, there is no way to tell how they voted, and there is no proof they SHOULD have voted.

Incidentally, there were 2 full pages, with two colums, of new voter registrations in Waldoboro. I was in a line of about 50 people and knew a scant handful. Where do these people live? You mean to tell me all these people, while moving into the area and registering their cars, paying taxes, and getting dump stickers, merely forgot to register to vote until voting day? Oh please.

I just love this. “I know all the residents of color.” Said point blank, as if it were a scientific fact.

Question for the genius: Why isn’t it possible that there are people in your town that you have never met?

You can’t know people you haven’t seen. If you are in a line with 50 people and you know a “scant handful,” then it seems to me that you aren’t as popular around town as you think you are.

And maybe the new voters didn’t forget to register, smarty pants. Maybe they knew they could register when they go to vote. It has only been that way for a few decades.

Republicans are now the party of crazy conspiracies. The dumb party. This isn’t a joke. They have really become this bad.

He says in a new interview that dozens of ‘black people’ voted in the Maine towns. Scandal! Voter fraud! You see, no one in the town recognized these people. Did they really live there?

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster has once again raised allegations of possible voter irregularities, even as he’s headed out the door.

“In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day,” he said. “Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in (these) towns knows anyone who’s black. How did that happen? I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

In an interview with the Press Herald on Wednesday, Webster said his point wasn’t that these new voters were black. It was that they weren’t recognized by town officials.

“I’m not talking about 15 or 20. I’m talking hundreds,” he said. “I’m not politically correct and maybe I shouldn’t have said these voters were black, but anyone who suggests I have a bias toward any race or group, frankly, that’s sleazy.”

Webster said he has identified five “pockets” of the state where he has concerns about voter irregularities. He would not identify those areas but said he plans to send thank you cards to all the new voters. If a large number of those are returned because the address is invalid, Webster said he’ll know he’s on to something.

I’m not saying Charlie Webster is a racist, but there are certainly pockets of potential racism in his brain that I am worried about. I can’t tell you which parts of his brain. Anyone who suggests I don’t really have evidence of the racism in Charlie’s brain must be pretty sleazy to impugn my character like that. Because I do. I just can’t tell you, for the aforementioned reasons. Get it?

Nuts.

Plain old nuts.

He thinks there is rampant voter fraud out there, but he can’t tell any news organization who or where. He is going to solve it himself by sending “thank you” letters. Uh huh. Yes, that would be conclusive.

Any newspaper would be willing to go knock on some doors to break a voter fraud story. They could settle this in 24 hours. Just give them some addresses. He won’t, because it is bogus. If it wasn’t bogus, Detective Webster would be doing something a little more proactive than sending out some cards.

This guy is stupid. Absolutely stupid.

This is a disgusting attack because it wrongly erodes trust. Voters need to trust that their vote counts. And of course, the attacks are completely bogus.

Well, they are doing it again with the 2012 election. The vector they have chosen is the idea that massive voter fraud turned the election in favor of Obama. To try and show this, they will link to any crackpot theory they can find on the Internet and scream for a recount.

AMG even devotes a “sticky” thread to this crazy idea at the top of the forum.

Naran started the thread. Yes, in a forum that says it bans conspiracy theories, the moderator is posting conspiracy theories and forcing them to the top of the page.

She says:

—-> Republican National Lawyers Association – Documented List of Voter Fraud, Election Fraud, and Machine Malfunctions in the November election, from across the USA.

—-> Massive Voter Fraud in St. Lucie County, FL Called into Question – 141% Turnout

—-> America Needs a Recount. Online Petition

————-

How does any state certify a county election result that shows a 141% percent turnout? How about 158%?

Florida has some explaining to do.

No Naran, Florida doesn’t have any explaining to do. It didn’t certify a result that shows 141% turnout. It simply didn’t happen.

It isn’t true.

The Florida county clearly explains its numbers on its webpage. What happened was that Florida ballots were on two cards. Each card had different elections. The Federal, state, and referendum question were divided amongst the two cards. So each voter can put two cards into the pile to be counted.

When they counted, they had 140% more cards than voters. But since each voter got two cards, that means that actual turnout was a minimum of half the number of cards. So, 140% “turnout” in cards is really about 70% turnout in people.

That’s it. No big conspiracy. Someone just couldn’t read a spreadsheet correctly.

She is a goddamn moderator.

Reason number one: she is still pushing a weird “43 trillion” lawsuit as some sort of impending victory for real America.

Please note that the entire stock market is worth $40 trillion. These people are suing for the value of every publicly traded company in America. That makes me a little bit suspicious that this lawsuit just might be, maybe, concocted by crazies. I’m just getting a small whiff of tinfoil in the vicinity. What can I say? I am sensitive to that tea-stained tinfoil smell.

But it doesn’t make Mackenzie suspicious at all. Also, Naran is encouraging her to keep AMG “updated” on what happens in this “case.” What a bunch of jokers. With intelligence like that, it is amazing they can figure out how to turn their computers on.

Hey, maybe that is why Naran posts and comments at all hours of the day and night. She might think that if her computer goes to sleep, it will never wake up. It is as good a working theory as any.

Reason number two: Mackenzie just doesn’t understand the world in general. Period. It is beyond her. The scope of her intelligence is limited to things like eating, breathing, and most likely tying tea bags to her hats. My evidence is this:

Why would the white house be in charge of petitions for recounts? Shouldn’t it be a neutral party.

She is referring to the White House website, which lets anyone start a petition. If you get 25,000 people to “sign” such a petition online by visiting the website, the White House promises to look at it. Some tea partiers started a petition for a national vote recount due to their wild imaginations of rampant voter fraud. I mean, why else could the black guy win? Right?

Mackenzie learns of this petition. Mackenzie wonders why the White House is in charge of petitions for recounts. Shouldn’t someone else be handling that, she asks.

She doesn’t understand what is going on. She doesn’t get it. She really doesn’t. Mackenzie, honey, the petition is just a PR stunt. I could start a petition to force you to get a tan. It doesn’t matter who is “in charge.” It is just a meaningless online petition.

Mackenzie Andersen. Enough idiot for a hundred villages.

But even though I know Apollo’s mindset well, it still gives me a twinge of surprise when he says stuff so obviously inappropriate as this:

Everyone knows gays have dozens of partners and their relationships are very short and often violent. Pretty soon they’ll be clogging up the Maine courts with divorces and assaults.

Then I get a twinge of sadness that Apollo is so goddamn hateful.

But then I feel a lot more happiness, because Maine rejected Apollo’s worldview at the polls last week.

So lets have an online toast to Apollo and people like him, who frankly did more to help our side than their own.

EDIT:

Apparently, this whole gay marriage legalization thing was a big screw up. It wasn’t illegal anyways! Whoops. Our bad. It is so embarrassing to seek, push, and win a referendum that doesn’t even do anything because gay marriage was already legal.

I sure am sheepish.

There are lots of reasons, but I have heard over and over that Reagan was great and Jimmy Carter was “the worst ever.” They use this framework to analyze current candidates even though Jimmy Carter last held office more than three decades ago.

The worry for Republicans should be this: George W. Bush is your Jimmy Carter. Among many voters, but younger voters especially, he is perceived as terrible on foreign policy. He is perceived as terrible on domestic policy. He is perceived as terrible on economic policy.

Obama is not yet Reagan. But if the economy substantially improves over the next four years, he could be. Many young voters who chose Obama 60/40 might just remember that choice as the one that led to a renewed America, just like my parents remember their choice of Reagan as one that paid dividends for decades. Just substitute Bush’s Great Recession for Carter’s Stagflation and you get the idea.

Voters under 40 today are the 50 and 60 year old voters of the next few decades. Will these people be basing their Presidential votes in 2032 on comparisons to George W. Bush and Obama? It is very possible.

Another one that no one bothers to shoot down, because on AMG crazy conspiracy theories are just an expected part of life.

In this one, someone is suing for 43 TRILLION dollars based on some evil plan that Obama is carrying out. I’m not even going to bother trying to explain it.

I will just note that 43 TRILLION is more than two thirds of the total wealth in the United States, so if this guy wins then everyone from Bill Gates to Mackenzie Andersen would have to turn over 2/3rds of their stuff to make the math work. Just saying.

Or maybe birth control has more to do with it than we thought. Is it a coincidence that as more women go on birth control pills (especially single women) our leaders have become wimpy, nanny-ish, and ineffective? And the Dem party constantly pushes for birth control coverage….

Fewer phrases lead to dumber ideas on AMG than the opening line, “Is it a coincidence that….”

Republicans lost the legislature. Both houses. I can’t think of anything they did to try and keep it. Every bill was a right-wing jack-off. Maybe if the Beth O’Connors of the world tried to moderate their inner monologue before speaking aloud, they could hold onto their seats and accomplish some of their goals rather than blowing it all in one wasted term.

Having a crazy Governor didn’t help either.

Good night.

And if you haven’t figured it out already, I am a numbers guy and I love this stuff. Political junkie and numbers junkie are a dangerous combination. Karl Rove is my idol!

They have a video of signs being placed in front of the Maine College of Art, then later being destroyed or removed by pedestrians.

Yes, sign defacement is wrong. But if you are moaning about it, you have lost. Signs get defaced. Fact of life. In 2008, my Obama sign in Portland disappeared twice. I got over it. I didn’t request the “MSM” broadcast an exposé. It isn’t really news that your No on 1 sign doesn’t last long in front of MECA.

So keep complaining about your “lost” right to have no signs kicked over, ever, and forget how the sign’s message is discriminatory and immoral. Yes, immoral. Wrong. Like racism. Like misogyny. The opposite of right. Ignore your immoral message and keep whining about the signs.

They are losing and know it.

….if it’s a plane full of mormons and a plane full of muslims, which do you feel safer boarding?

Answer:

Muslim. The plane is full of them. They don’t want to blow themselves up.

The Mormon plane, on the other hand, won’t be serving alcohol.