Dems Strategy for Midterms – Flee From Accomplishments | “The Onion”

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[From the satirical e-zine “The Onion”]

Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made' | The Onion

WASHINGTON—Conceding almost certain Republican gains in next month's crucial midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers vowed Tuesday not to give up without making one final push to ensure their party runs away from every major legislative victory of the past two years.

Party leaders told reporters that regardless of the ultimate outcome, they would do everything in their power from now until the polls closed to distance themselves from their hard-won passage of a historic health care overhaul, the toughest financial regulations since the 1930s, and a stimulus package most economists now credit with preventing a second Great Depression.

"There's a great deal on the line, and we know it isn't going to be easy for us," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), speaking from the steps of the Capitol. "But if we suffer defeat, we will do so knowing we cowered away from absolutely anything we produced that was even remotely progressive or valuable in any way."

"And we will keep cowering right up until Election Day," Reid continued. "From Maine to Hawaii, in big cities and small towns, we will collapse into a fetal position and refuse to take credit for our successes anywhere voters could conceivably be swayed by learning what we have achieved on their behalf."

Democrats are spending millions of dollars on a last-minute campaign to remind Americans how utterly spineless they are.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) acknowledged the task would be difficult, but said Democrats would remain steadfast in permitting their opponents to deride the accomplishments of the $787 billion Recovery Act, even as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that the 2009 measure has created millions of jobs.

"While the stimulus isn't a cure-all, we owe it to the voters to scatter like pigeons whenever the Republicans grossly mischaracterize it as a wasteful giveaway," Pelosi said. "Their sleazy, cynical distortions may win them votes in the end, but we will not let that happen without doing whatever it takes to sit idly by and let them get away with it."

According to party leaders, the Democrats are putting their sweeping new health care law at the top of the list of accomplishments to back away from, mainly by allowing its most popular provisions—federal subsidies to make health care more affordable; allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26; and rules that prevent sick people from being denied coverage—to be summarily dismissed as "Obamacare."

"Thanks to our efforts, a lot of people don't even realize they may already be benefiting from these reforms," Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) said. "They certainly don't realize they might be one of the 30 million currently uninsured people who will be provided coverage by the time the law is fully enacted."

"You can be certain we'll keep that information a deep, dark secret until we're thrown out of power," Bean added.

Political consultant James Carville praised the strategy, saying it was gratifying to see the party dissociate itself from what he described as some of the most useful and principled laws passed in nearly half a century.

"It's the ninth inning now, and Democrats are finally getting serious about hiding in the weeds at the slightest mention of last year's credit-card legislation, which put an end to predatory lending schemes that are universally considered repugnant," Carville said. "Now that's smart politics, right there. The chips may be down, but they're still finding a way to curl up like a bunch of pathetic little hedgehogs and piss all over themselves the moment any sort of challenge is mounted."

When reached for comment, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told reporters he wasn't surprised his opponents were disowning policies he described as "disastrous for the economy, disastrous for families, and disastrous for America's future."

"And, what the heck, put down that it's disastrous for our men and women in uniform," McConnell said. "Might as well."

Excerpted from Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

http://www.theonion.com/articles/democrats-if-were-gonna-lose-lets-go-down-running,18333/

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When did you choose to be straight?

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Do you believe sexuality is a choice? Do you know anyone who believes gay people choose their sexuality? Ask this question: When did you choose to be straight?

In this video the question is answered in a series of “on the street” interviews.

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On Bullying & Bashing Gay Teens [Must-See]

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Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns to GLBT teens:
“It gets better.”

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March of the Penguins, uh, Emperors

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A French TV ad for “March of the Penguins”. In France, the movie is called “March of the Emperors” and it goes from there.

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Gay Bullying, Gay Marriage & Dan Savage

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[Dan Savage’s Column Reprinted from The Slog]

SL Letter of the Day: Almost Sorry

Posted by Dan Savage on Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 6:42 PM

Letter from L.R.

I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and I heard your interview with Beth McDonald. I have been thinking about it a lot since then and I feel compelled to share my thoughts with you. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bulling. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man that took his own life after being humiliated by people who should have known better. I think you need to be aware of your own prejuduces [sic] and how they might play into your thinking. At best I think your comments were hypocritical.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preferance [sic], how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint. Please be aware that your words are powerful and people are listening to you.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are imperfect, fallible and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people. I have never in my life know someone who loved the Lord who wished ill will on other people and certainly not death "so that [we] can perpetuate [our own] agenda."

Please consider your viewpoint and please be more careful with your words in the future.

L. R.

Dan Savage’s Reply

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: fuck your feelings.

A question: do you support atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All legal, of course, and there's no Christian movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or to people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?

Being told that they're sinful and that their love offends God, and being told that their relationships are unworthy of the civil right that is marriage (not the religious rite that some people use to solemnize their civil marriages), can eat away at the souls of gay kids. It makes them feel like they're not valued, that their lives are not worth living. And if one of your children is unlucky enough to be gay, the anti-gay bigotry you espouse makes them doubt that their parents truly love them—to say nothing of the gentle "savior" they've heard so much about, a gentle and loving father who will condemn them to hell for the sin of falling in love with the wrong person.

The children of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or at your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. You may only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, but your children have the option of attacking actual real gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Real gay and lesbian children.

The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies that spew forth from the pulpit of the churches "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your straight children a license to verbally abuse, humiliate and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your straight children—having listened to mom and dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to the family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry himself to sleep—feel justified in physically attacking the gay and lesbian children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" gay kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we can see the fruits of it.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words.

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But hearing it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what the boys in the photo above had to listen to—day-in, day-out, for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the images of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call "mom and dad."

P.S.: The religious right points to the suicide rate among gay teenagers—which the religious right works so hard to drive up (see above)—as evidence that the gay lifestyle is destructive. It's like intentionally running someone down with your car and then claiming that it isn't safe to walk the streets.

Which is why I argued that every gay teen suicide is a victory for the religious right. Because, you see, your side does use those suicides to "perpetuate [your] agenda." Tony Perkins and all those other oddly effete defenders of "Chrisitian values" and "traditional marriage" will point to this recent spate of gay teen suicides to argue against gay marriage, anti-bullying programs, against allowing gay people to serve in the military—basically, they'll gleefully use these tragedies to justify what they like to call the "Christian, pro-family agenda."

But right now Tony Perkins is being strangely silent. Why is that? Could it be that even Tony Perkins has a conscience? Nah, couldn't be that. He must be away on vacation.

I wonder who's lifting his luggage. [Ed. Note: click on hyperlink for the current usage of that term]

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/10/01/sl-letter-of-the-day-sorry-nothing-fun

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Avoid These Office Buzzwords – Please!

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In Transition

A change from one state of being to another; recession variation: collecting unemployment compensation. Example: "Since the downsizing, I've been in transition." Synonym: doing some consulting.

Brand

Put a good face on. Example: "Okay, so we polluted the groundwater by failing to follow those finicky safety regulations. How should we brand it?"

Space

Industry or field. Example: "I'm in the manufacturing space," "I'm in the waste disposal space," "She's in the adult film space," or "He's in the space exploration space."

Go Offline

Pester me about this after the meeting — or preferably never. "Jones, could we go offline to discuss the $10 underpayment of your expense account reimbursement?"

End of the Day

Formerly 5 to 5:30 p.m., now defined as an uncertain point in the future when everything magically turns out okay. Example. "At the end of the day, the pollution in the groundwater may just drain into the earth's core and become unnoticeable."

Transparent

Open about the facts, but not to be confused with honest. Example: "We've been totally transparent about the 15% fee; we disclosed it on page 37."

Can't Wrap One's Head Around

Unwilling to get into the details or deal with the facts; intellectually lazy. Example: "I can't wrap my head around all this recycling business; Let's throw everything in the dumpster behind Home Depot and let them deal with it."

Bandwidth

Money, staff, computing capacity or other resources. Example: "She lacks the bandwidth to compute compound interest."

KPI (Key Performance Indicators)

Important measurements, usually of the immeasurable. Example: "The American Psychological Association recently established KPIs for marriage: the weekly incidence of sexual intercourse plus the number of hours spent watching the same TV shows, minus total minutes bickering over the proper loading of the dishwasher."

Low-Hanging Fruit

Easy to get, though in the end, often not worth the effort. Example: The Taliban might be low-hanging fruit for our production overrun of beard combs."

Human Capital

Human Resources, previously Personnel. Example: "Human Capital is on the fifth floor."

Skill Set or Fit

Qualifications, generally modified by the words "wrong" or "bad," and most often used by Human Capital staffers as an excuse for not hiring somebody. Example: "His inability to speak in tongues obviously makes his skill set wrong for the litigator position."

Knowledge Economy

An environment in which a person has run up $150,000 in student loans to pay for a law degree only to see jobs exported to India whose citizens are apparently very knowledgeable about the U.S. legal system. Example: "The best job in the knowledge economy is plumbing because nobody with an advanced degree knows how to use Drano."

Throughput

Not your conclusions, but the mind-numbing numbers and facts you chewed over to get there; information generally demanded by a micro-manager who won't believe that you did the work. Example: "Don't tell me what you've decided about the Taliban beard-comb project; I just want your throughput."

Footprint

Impact, formerly ecological, but now applicable to anything. Example: "Auntie Meg's rear end had a significant footprint on our sofa."

Impactful

Having a large footprint. Example: "Auntie Meg's rear end had a very impactful effect on our sofa."

Two of my favorite bits of jargon come from a reader in the U.K. who says he made them up. The first: is "failure cascade", which he defines as a "sequence of bad stuff happening." An example might be: "The knowledge economy seems to be in a failure cascade." "Bus factor," he says, is a measure of how much the company would suffer if person X got hit by a bus. Example: "Billy has a really high bus factor." He reports that both phrases seem to be catching on.

Such inventiveness should be an inspiration to us all. If you don't love the gobbledygook you're with, then create some gobbledygook you'd like.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/110905/avoid-these-office-buzzwords?mod=career-salary_negotiation

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