20 Things I learned on DU Today Feb 8, 2007

1. More soldiers dead in Iraq, 334 dead in only 4 months and counting. GOP Senators are still preventing devate.
2. Gunman killed 3 Immigrants in the Arizona border.
3. The White House is preparing for the worse about the I (Impeachment) word.
4. More people pushing for Gore to run in 2008.
5. Prick Cheney's son in law obstructing investigations on Homeland Security misconduct.
6. Waxman looking to enhance whistler blower protections.
7. US find no evidence of abuse in Guantanamo (shocker!!).
8. Pat Robertson threatened to kill bodybuilder.
9. GWB is still an moran. I'm series!!11!!
10. Tim Russert's testimony contradicts Libby's.
11. LT Ehren Watada wins his first battle. A MISTRIAL was declared!!!! WOOHOO!!
12. Senators complaints about Pelosi wanting a bigger plane, and of course, was told she is not getting the big plane.
13. Clark is still right after all these years.
14. Pig Hastert used military aircraft to fly another pig called Foley.
15. NPR and PBS getting slashed under Bush budget.
16. Murtha may use spending measure to close Guantanamo.
17. Katrina victims still need our help.
18. McCain calling ISP to monitor usage, also states Chelsea Clinton is ugly.
19. 10 activists (Code Pink) arrested at McCains office.
20. Global Warming Lawsuit against Bush.

You see? Contrary to what many believe, DU is still the best choice for important news no matter which celebrity died, who had a DUI or which Astronaut was smart enough to get "Depends" for a 950 mile road trip. To those complaining about "how intellectually ignorant" are those who feel saddened about celebrity deaths, quit your whining, Live and let Live. Tomorrow is another day and who knows, the day might bring you another source of annoyance.

about the arrests at McC*in's office, or the global warming lawsuit. Guess I need to catch up, lest I become as uniformed as the average Repug/F*x News watcher.

great job thanks

- that I keep coming back to DU - and why on the whole that I cherish this place. One day - a ton of stories. On the many days where I can only be here early or very late - I would love to read a synopsis such as this - as I would be able to figure out stories that I had missed - and could quickly seek (or search) those out.

Thank you for this post. Kicked and Recommended.

:blush: :)

thanks for this thread. A) I love the synposis (there are a few stories I missed and want to now find); and B) it encapsulates the main reason I am hooked on DU. It is the info that speeds by most folks - a little in one paper, and item in another - that are ALL brought to bear in LBN - so we can see broader patterns of the stories and how they fit together.

Great job - with this post. :thumbsup: !!!

the very heart of fundieville, DU is my island of sanity, clarity, reason, and great humour. This site, and all the wonderful people on it, are such a blessing, and I am so very glad to have found it.

If you can overlook our collective and episodic group psychoses (per frenzied flamewars on the topic of the day) ... this is a phenomenal place and source of information.

:shrug:

many here would describe as worthless. But see, those DUers learned something important from other DUers..... while the whiners wasted their time bitching about being too much work to hide those threads?
From what I can see, they don't believe that people here are actually intelligent enough to teach them anything.

a) I complained - not about the snickers threads - but about one of the recent other episodes and my first felt need to "hide" threads (and I only used a clunky slow way to do it - thanks to another DUer I now know the quick and easy method) when I wanted to be able to read all of the other things posted that kept getting pushed out by the plethora of "house" threads.

b) I found the discussion tying homophobia to misogyny very thought provoking - really eye-opening.

So guilty of both discussions - though I didn't discount the "Snickers" threads (or hide them) - I did add on to the discussion of the 'hide' threads that I only, within the last week or so, ever used. Point b) far outweighs point a) for me - a new insight/perspective is always valuable.

PLEASE SHARE!!! I was hiding ANS threads like mad tonight. Every time I hid one another two would pop up upon returning to the forum page!

I thought I had to open up the thread and at the OP click "hide thread". When "the house" threads were multiplying at a rate of two new threads for each one I closed, I gave up (after I hid something like 45 in two hours). Turns out on the front page of the forum (listing the topics) there is an x in a box after the thread title, and before the 'views' and 'recommends'. Click the x box and the forum resets without that particular thread listed. Seconds compared to a minute +. Even after this was pointed out to me I had to look real close (my eye just skipped over that little x in the box) before I found it. How long has that feature been available and I just figured out how to really use it? :blush:

Btw - :hi: hope all is well with you.

Wishes for ALL GOOD THINGS to you and yours from across the Big Pond. :loveya: I was aware of the box but was hoping I'd missed some new function of being able to select multiple threads. Like being able to scan the page, then click the turds and hide them all at once. I guess that's complicated vis-a-vis programming. But we all know Elad is a farkin' GENIUS! So I kept the compassionate, informative ANS posts and trashed the rest one-by-one.

had no idea what the box thingy was - and didn't even pay attention to it. I foolishly opened up thread after thread to 'ignore thread'. Maybe Elad could figure something out for us.

For what it is worth, while we periodically cross paths on the same threads - we don't often directly cross paths - so I don't know that I have said this directly - but I really appreciate your perspectives and posts.

Kind of funny that for how long we have both been around here - that something like "hide threads" brings about the conversation for me to say: Karenina - I am so glad you are at DU, I learn and think because of you. And for me - that is the absolute *best* part of DU (learning and thinking) :loveya:

:hug:

people who posted on the snickers theads making light of others concerns of bigotry- then admitting they had never even heard of the on line ads that were so offensive. Better to stay away, but those posters meant to just offend people even more.
Glad you found a hide thread shortcut. I saw that in the "shiney object" thread, I'm bookmarking that one for when I have insomnia..... LOL.

threads - which is what got my attention. I had an unexpected day off - and time to read - and time to read many of those threads. Really got my adrenline running. Glad they did - as I started reading all of the threads - and running across the misogyny info. May not seem like big shakes to much (esp those who already got it) - but that insight really explains a *lot* to me. Not just the language - but the visceral level at which some homophobic folks respond ... as if it is threatening to their sense of the world (wtf?!) until one thinks about folks whose worlds are so obscessively ordered by rigid gender roles including dominance (males) and subservience (females) and how psychologically threatening the idea of those who so overtly challenge those roles must seem. Those folks with visceral (and violent) reactions - probably reacting to a gut reaction of "if I have to deal (psychologically) with this then I have to rethink how I view the world (per these rigid gender roles) and I just *can't* do it (sign of the very, very insecure) - so I will strike out to prevent having to mentally reconcile my world view with this reality... Sorry to write what must be SO obvious to many - but a realization in the past 30 hours that just struck me as a "WOW. Duh, but Wow."

Also suggests (to me) that my urge to 'hide threads' just a week or so ago - in order to read other post topics rather than the dejour topic - might be best supressed (as it had been since the time the hide thread feature was introduced). Had I not started reading these threads - but instead got frustrated with the sheer number of threads (and my desire to read OTHER topics) - I wouldn't have come to that conversation. One that seems to me, to be a pretty significant insight.

Hope you don't mind that I used your post to verbalize (which is how I think through things) my recent thoughts.

get an education. You can tell by the way they disappeared when they were hog tied with reason. LOL....
That was good to see too. I'm glad you were part of making that an even better thread. Thomcat and Sniffa were great too.

the thread ya'll talking about!! :dilemma:

it was nice to see people open their minds after all the snickers hostility this week.

hope you enjoy!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x150280

Wow... ! I am absorbing. Thank you so much for that thread.

:hi:

per their insights, and others did just start being more sparse.

And I have a very special place in my heart for Thomcaat - who always speaks out on the ever-ugly rape threads. Sometimes (as a survivor) I can join in and speak out, and othertimes... just can't expend the energy. Yet always, there is Thomcat - giving a supportive male perspective. Means a lot to me.

I grew from those discussions - if they made a positive contribution to the thread - all the better.

Thanks.

did a great job. I grew up with gay friends and always saw the commonality there.
i just never got on with bossy macho guys, never wanted kids or a house, i've always been fiercely independent, so i've always seen how men can find it really distressing if you won't depend on them. it's like i won't let them fulfill the destiny society sets out for them. I can love them without needing them. :P
so yeah, i've been called every kind of misogynistic slur over the years- usually by men who insisted five minutes earlier that they adored me. that's how it works.

As a survivor too, I can't always jump into the fray, but I truly appreciate how he is always there, standing up for us. :hug:

Free State's thread was such an amazing opportunity for many to learn and ruminate. By the by salin, I really appreciate your insights and perspectives. Your thoughtful contributions provide intellectual vitamins to every conversation. :hi:

it is always a pleasure to read you, too. :D :hi:

The cool thing about conversations is that often we rise - or fall - based on the other contributions to that conversation. While there are some posts that drive me nuts - I often stumble upon conversations that take me to new insights. I just have the habit of talking or writing 'outloud' as i work out my thought process. Sometimes I confuse the heck out of folks (myself included) nice to know that sometimes those posts are as thought provoking (guessing that is what 'intellectual vitamins suggests') as the post before mine that led to my own posting per being 'thought provoked'. :D

I am finding out DUers are pretty damn ignorant on many issues, especially social issues.

i know this isn't the exact subject of your post but i felt the need to testify!! :hi:

:smoke:

If it isn't in our direct reality (as in having to daily deal with an issue) and someone doesn't point it out - sadly there is nothing to 'spark' the idea. This one I had never heard/read until yesterday - and once I heard it - it made so much sense on so many levels. Sometimes the trick is knowing that we are ignorant - and thus continue to seek info/insight so that we can grow past it. I would say that as bad as the 'ignorance' is - the ignorance of such ignorance is worse - as it keeps folks from seeking new info/insights/perspectives.

It is the ignornance of ignorance that shuts off conversations that can enlighten.

Conversely - perhaps seeing how much ignorance there is on something that is considered common knowledge is also useful - as it points to an area for needed more conversations to introduce the idea to those we presuposed already were familiar with the concept/idea/info.

Hope you don't hold my 'ignorance' against me. :hi:

I am a bit hyped up right now, sorry. :hi:

:hi:

My grad advisor once spoke of our knowledge as a circle - and that a small circle had a small circumference (that of which we might become aware that we did not know) - and that as our knowledge grew the circle grew and the circumference (the border of awareness of what it is we didn't know) grew as well. Hence my point of ignorance of ignorance (not being aware of that which we are ignorant) being important.

Just hoping that folks recognize that to some - the new awareness of what is common knowledge to others - is actually a great place for expanding awareness. Hopefully we all have an expanding circumference and thus an expanding range of what we are not yet aware of - but that is on the boundary of what we can understand/learn/no but of which we are currently ignorant.

Your hyped up- just caught me while I am still appreciating new insight/knowledge. As long as we can both appreciate those situational positions - than all is well :D :hi:

"Sometimes the trick is knowing that we are ignorant - and thus continue to seek info/insight so that we can grow past it. I would say that as bad as the 'ignorance' is - the ignorance of such ignorance is worse - as it keeps folks from seeking new info/insights/perspectives." Beautifully said. :hi:

lets join in a 'mutual appreciation society' moment. I very much appreciate this thread as it expresses so clearly why and how I value DU and the access to such a broad array of info/news. Glad that I could in turn write something that speaks to you and your approach to discussions. :hi:

:hi:

straight men find a hard time believing there's anything misogynistic about them if they want to fuck women. That's sort of their criteria, I think, for believing they love women, being desirous of blow jobs from them. :P And women who are on the marraige babies track are insulated from this as long as they don't get too competitive at work.

How are you baby? It's been waaay too long!

as i hope you are. :hi:

hope we can get together in the springtime!

i know so many people there even excluding the DUers. i could have a reason to be there every damn weekend if i were motivated and wealthy. it gets cold and i find excuses to stay in though plus i am getting ooooold.

and I know that tomorrow will bring another source of annoyance.

There are plenty of non-celebrity-death and non-diaper-astronaut stories for those who wish to find them.

Admittedly, I started a dinky poll about who's next to pass away so the MSM can further distract us from really counts... I like how you culled through and made some great assessments.

K&R!

I recommended, and I'd like to second Salin's earlier observation: posts like yours and the twenty others you quoted are one of the biggest reasons I keep coming back to DU year after year.

The Hide Feature is our friend.

I will be clicking on all of your post I pass. no fog in your eyes imho.

Usually I have little of importance to say since I am not that "intellectually smart". I am just one dumb Democrat. :shrug: I did noticed unfair assessments about DU and felt I had to speak out. DU has made me change the way I used to think and I strive to understand others (unless of course, they are nasty towards me) and learn from others. I don't watch news but the occasional KO. I get my news here.

Ahead of many, being intellectually smart and a dumb democrat can go hand and hand, but the ability of speaking honestly with such clarity is an achievement many of us recognize and appreciate.

i had gone thru most of the front page and that was the only thread i had come to on her at that point. had to giggle. even with five, six, seven threads on her... there is still a lot of threads that are not.

i know there have been stories i was interested in and others were board with them. i liked the number of different threads, hitting different angles of the same subject. this one i am not interested in. that is cool. there is still plenty of space for me to read other stuff on the board.

Excellent. Thank you.

;-) :P

good point

:rofl:

DU helps me see the sunshine to. Good post,Spot on LiF!

:toast:

:hi:

XOXOX

:hi:

:hi:

K&R

:hi:

Because I could care less that some "has been" who is rich and was famous suddenly died unexpectedly today while our soldiers are being systematically maimed and killed by this administration.

Can you help me find a link to your number 3???

I so want to read about that. :)

Oh and great post by the way! :hi:

But I did saw the news here. It was one of "the greatest page" news but that was several hours ago. I'm so sorry!!

If I search "impeach" I might find it.

I do like your synopsis. Thanks again for posting it.

:hi:

Live and let live.......great words of wisdom!

Making that list was a super thing to do!

:yourock:

:kick: Well put. :toast:

Love the reality check. Being related to a grip of neocons I say I would rather be in a room full of liberals who bicker rather than a hate filled room of neocons.

:thumbsup:

(just kidding!)

i check in here for news also, to see what's going on & what people are talking about.

"i'm going on du to see what's up" is a daily line of thinking

#11 was explained some way into the thread that it could actually be a bad thing that he got a mistrial since now they will probably charge him with more things and he lost a plea bargain they had worked out.

Just sayin'...

;)

those who sought to politicize the matter were roundly censured.

Shows you've got to read beyond the headlines and that cliff notes don't give you the whole story.

But I'm no longer surprised after that year old story made it to the very greatest post.

:eyes:

:party:

Last night I changed it past 4 24 hr news stations and all of them had Anna Nicole Smith.

Thanks DU for cutting past that bullshit, even if we do end up with a bunch of repeats sometimes, at least that's not all there is!