Plus We Have a Motorcade [Thursday, April 10, 2014, 1st period]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"The President's health care deadline--the big effing deal, to paraphrase the Vice President--came up last week, and the numbers of enrollees are in: more than 7 million people have signed up, even with the website problems they had that first month. Now the right wing media is spinning like crazy, accusing the administration of bulking up the numbers, or deciding they might not be the right kinds of people--that is, young healthy people, not old sick ones-- who have signed up. Last month they were proclaiming that there was no way the President could even hit his goal because apparently they have never seen the lines at the post office the night that taxes are due and don't understand that Americans are procrastinators."

He took a sip from his coffee. "My question is this: if the President managed to spin straw into gold or discover life in outer space or the key to immortality, how would the right wing media spin those to be a horrible thing? Go."

Comments

Spin Zone! [4/10]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Obama can spin straw into gold! WHAT ABOUT THE POOR COWS WHO ATE THAT STRAW?! We've discovered life on other planets! GREAT NOW THEY ARE GOING TO KILL US. We can live forever! TOO BAD WE SCREWED UP THE ENVIRONMENT.

Or something like that. Your turn! Do your best Bill O'Reilly impression.

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[tigerundercover]

"Seems like step one is just to call the other party a bunch of liars," Raven said.

Someone had started making an effort to pay attention to the news. Now she was depressed about the future. Thanks, Loki.

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"I think this requires a touch more subtlety than that," she said. "If you simply call them all liars at the outset, you alienate anyone in the middle who hasn't chosen a side yet. If you can make your argument plausible, then you stand a chance of confusing people into thinking you may be right. If you muddy things properly you can convince people of nearly anything."

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[tigerundercover]

"It doesn't seem like anyone's too worried about alienating the middle, these days," Raven said. "As for plausibility, the name of the game seems to be 'it's so crazy I can't be making it up'."

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Okay, having grown up under both the Ryan regime and her mother's insane cult, Eleanor was pretty sure she could handle a little spin.

"How completely thoughtless of the President, to turn straw into gold," she announced. "The price of gold is going to tank, and now everyone who used that as a hedge for savings is going to be impoverished."

Of course Rapture had had goldbugs. Of course.

"Life in outer space seems rather outside his purview," she added haughtily. "He's President of our country, and ought to be working on our problems, not possibly inventing new ones by exposing us to the unwanted attention of possible hostile alien forces."

That one had been the hardest. The last was easy.

"Overpopulation will now soar," she said. "We simply don't have room for all of the people that will quickly fill the planet, unless the man intends to put restrictions on the birth rate, which would be draconian and unfair of him. So we'll be standing shoulder to shoulder within a few centuries, and what then?"

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well, look, frankly, if you've discovered a way to rearrange subatomic particles to the point that you can completely change matter from one thing into another, using it to turn straw into gold is a complete and utter waste! I mean, sure, gold is hugely important for manufacturing electronics, but why not go for rare earth elements, instead? Or difficult-to-manufacture medicines? And why are you using straw, when you could instead set your magic machine running on toxic waste, or the crap that's inside landfills? What we have here is someone unoriginal and lazy."

Re: Spin Zone! [4/10]

[walkswithcoyote]

"Straw into gold? Just another way to subsidize those lazy farmers! Sure, let 'em grow hay and dry it out and BOOM, there's gold." Mercy made a face. "And living forever? Social Security is already going bankrupt. What does he want to do? Ruin us completely? Our national debt will be in bazilions!"