Ann Coulter Review of "Godless: The Church of Liberalism"

Well, I wasn't sitting down, but luckly I fell into my chair on the way to the ground.:laugh: :smilewinkgrin: :laugh:

 

He didn't pass the law as Barbarian pointed out, but he is required to administer it.

Sure, attack his wife. Betty Ford did a lot of good raising public awareness of the issue. Problems with alcohol and prescription drugs are not uncommon among politicians' wives - or among other wives for that matter. Even single women have been known to have those problems. And I've heard tell of more than a few husbands....

 

Allready took that statement back, Daisy.


But what I still don't get is what was wrong with the ads. Is there one that the website left out ?

 

Oops. Sorry.

A lot were left out. The Willie Horton ad was not produced or endorsed by Bush and it was paid to be shown only a limited number of times in local areas, according to that web-site. But it was picked up on by national news and recycled by commentators so its effect was disproportionate.

 

(reconsidered)

 

Let's see if we can get 10n pages without being shut down....wouldn't that be a hoot ?

"At private schools, 80 percent of the personnel are teachers. By contrast, at public schools only about 50 percent of the personnel are actual teachers -- most of the rest are cogs in the endless layers of machinery of the "education" bureaucracy. This would be like having 26 full-time coaches for a 26-man baseball team....Between 1982 and 2001, spending on New York City Public schools increased by more than 300 percent, clocking in at $11,474 per pupil annually. Only Washington, D.C., that hotbed of educational achievement, spends more per student. By contrast, the average tuition for private elementary schools is less than $4,000 and around $6,000 for private secondary schools."

Let's see you disagree with that one.

 

Last nite, I watched the repeat of Leno, Carlin was great, very funny. Coulter more than held her own, But Leno's comment that she go have sex with a liberal was quite vile. I can just imagine if Coulter had said something like that.

 

Curtis,

I also watched it. Carlin was better than I've seen him recently. I did think he was abiding by the adage that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything, since he had little to say to Ms. Coulter. Actually, despite her abhorrent rhetoric, she was as gracious as I have ever seen her. Dang, I was waiting on some fireworks. Now I do think that Leno was persistent, in a talk-show friendly sort of way, about confronting Coulter, but I agree about the sex with a liberal thing. That was off the wall, but I guess that's late night TV for you.

As an aside, the young lady from Scotland that sang was quite unique. I heard that song on American Idol when Catherine McPhee sang it, but had never heard it by the original musician. It looked like she had some sort of digital device on the floor to record and playback some of her riffs while she went on to other rhythms.

 

She was good, also.

Did you notice Ann had some fans in the crowd ?

 

Yeah she did. :laugh: Which is exactly why Leno said that he has friends on both ends of the spectrum. I actually think he must be in about the same position as me, since he used the exact way to describe his views as I do...fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He also has to appeal to a broad audience, so he can't be as tough as a hardnosed reporter. After all, first and foremost, The Tonight Show is all about entertainment.

Still, I miss Johnny.

 

Anybody got facts to dispute these claims ?

"In 1987, Oprah Winfrey said, "Research studies now project that one in five -- listen to me, hard to believe -- one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease. Believe me.....After a decade-long epidemic with more than a million infections, in November 1992 the Centers for Disease Control listed only 2,391 cases of AIDS transmission by white heterosexuals -- and that included hemophiliacs and blood transfusion patients.....A year later, Koop admitted under oath in congressional hearings that only about 4 percent of adult AIDS transmissions worldwide could be traced to heterosexual contact, and that in the United States only 2.3 percent of AIDS cases came from heterosexual contact, "and most of that is in sexual partners of IV drug abusers." In other words, the entire, years-long AIDS Threatens Straight People Too PR campaign was a total lie from start to finish."

 

Not to nitpick but it is hard to tell from that where Oprah's 1987 statement ends. There are also a few elipses which are always troublesome.

But in 1987, no AIDS drugs had been approved. In 1988, AZT was.
That statistic for 1992, for white heterosexuals leaves out all black heterosexuals. Do you remember the old non-PC joke: Q: What's the hardest thing about having AIDS? A: Convincing your mother that you're Haitian. While most Haitians are black, more or less, I haven't heard that intravenous drug use was particularly prevalent among them, but perhaps it is.

Does Coulter give a source for Koop's congressional hearing? The year later - is that 1988 or 1993?

In 1994, AIDS became the leading cause of death for all adults aged 25-44 in the US (a year earlier, it was the leading cause of death for men of that age bracket).

Throughout the 1990s, drug programs and education became more and more effective, but in 1999 one third of all new cases reported were for women.

Link to Source

I'll look up world AIDS distribution when I get the chance, but my impression has been that it is more prevalent in women in most of Africa.

 

Sorry Daisy. :type: Oprah's comments end at "believe me". I forgot the quotations. I was on my lunch hour, and don't have the book here, but I'll get home & try to clear up Koop's comments.

 

Coulter references....

Maureen Dowd's "Dr. Koop defends his crusade on AIDS, from the N.Y.T., 4/6/87,

Erica Goode's "Communicating the basic facts is hard enough, AIDS makes it tougher" U.S. News & World Report, 11/16/87

Koop Criticizes Cosmo, U.P.I. 2/19/88 (That's where the year comes in, perhaps ?)


Keep in mind I left out some of the hyperbole, you should read the whole chapter, but it would be like when I read "The Great Unraveling"

I wanna know......how do you feel about Leno's comment that she find a liberal to have sex with ? If she had said something like that about Huffington, or Boxer, do you think it would have been a bigger deal ? Your opinion on this is important, to me.

 

Ok, I'm game....

What is the source of this statistic?

Again, what is the source of this stat?
Supposing those numbers are accurate, do the private schools have caffeteria workers, nutritionists, full time accountants, nurses, teacher aides, janitors and maintenance staff, bus drivers, etc? Private schools may contract out their payroll process while public schools may have in-house staff doing it. Are contractors counted as personnel and if not, don't you think that would skew the numbers a bit?

How would it be like that? I would think that a 26-man baseball team has far more support staff (trainers, assistant coaches, travel agents, equipment wranglers, secretaries, public relations, scouts, etc.) than players. I think a more apt comparison would be the personnel from a Mom and Pop hardware store to that of Home Depot.

Since 1982, there have been a lot of federal mandates. Private schools can and do pick and choose their students whereas public schools must provide an education for all comers including the severely disabled. They also provide subsidized breakfasts and lunches, tutors and translators.

Again, no source for the number - I'm pretty sure that these numbers are national averages and not NYC averages, which seems dishonest. Note that she doesn't compare the per student spending of Mississippi public schools with the national average private school.

It would seem that Coulter is off by more that $10,000 on the national average and by more than $20,000 for the New York average. Catholic school tuition is far less expensive, but it is subidized by the Church and by the nun's lack of salaries.

When you post a paragragh for discussion, it would be very handy if you'd post the relevent footnotes along with it. I've heard stories about the footnotes.

 

Very good, Daisy. I will post the info you asked for, but you did a pretty fair job.

BTW, my daughter attends a Catholic school, that is not subsidized by anyone. No nuns, no RCC moneys, at all. With the $4200 we paid, last year, selling tickets to the spring musical, and the father-daughter dinner dance to raise extra funds. In fact, raising extra funds is a full time-job. They have to also pay the bishop for his annual appearance.

 

What is "The Great Unraveling"?

Thanks for the sources.

Oh, totally ticky-tacky!

But not something I think that she would object to (which makes all the difference). For one thing, they're friends and for all I know this is how they talk to each other. She's not prudish. At all.

For another, she has commented in public on her own sex life which sort of puts it out there for discussion.*

She or he? If she has said it, well, it's the sort of trash that's expected of her. If he had said it about Boxer - that would be inappropriate and, yes, a much bigger deal. About Huffington - I'm just not familiar enough with her personna to judge.


*A favorite line from Akhmatova's To The Muse:
"but I don't-don't-don't want to know
who's kissing whom"

 

Sounds like a bargain, except for the bishop part.

Is this in Montana? How are the schools up there?

 

No,, Massachusetts. I have a daughter, born before I was saved. She's 14. I've always supported her, given more than enough money to her mom, so we could keep everything out of the courts. I was against the catholic school, but have grown to appreciate it, a lot. I'm still very much anti-RCC, but this school, as you can see, has very little to do with it. The bishop's appearance is probably so they can keep the "St. Peter" in their name.

She's been to Montana three times, since I moved here two years ago, and I have flown to see her three times. She's coming in a couple weeks, and bringing her friend, who has a first-class jerk for a dad. I've had this kid on several campouts & weekends at my house. Her dad don't know what he's missing in this great kid.

I know, O/T, back to the debate.

 

BiR,

I'm sorry for the delayed response. I just didn't get back into this thread after entering my post, and wouldn't have seen your note but for searching for a thread that TH sent me a troll PM for not responding to on some unknown question on some unknown thread.

Yes, I thought she did an excellent job of presenting actual details from that period. I must be honest, that I didn't spend any time checking her sources but I've not seen a response that details any errors/misstatements she made in the book. I haven't read any of her other books, given, as you say, her tendency toward the juvenile I saw in the debate I mentioned. I was impressed with Treason but don't imagine I will be similarly impressed with her others.

BTW, an excellent conservative book with substance is Buckley and Bozell's McCarthy and His Enemies. :smilewinkgrin: And I do read lots of others.

Also,