Well, yes, but other than a method of birth control?
Gets a little funnier. He lost in on slot machines! The have a special VIP room for idiots who think they can beat the slots and want to play with very big coins. It would have been smarter just to send them a check.
Mmmmmm… close one. But it takes too long; Ms Media Whore would just die if her prolonged execution wasn’t covered start to finish by Fox News.
Yeah, but can you make the kind of bank she is making?
So, almost no one is actually interested in the veracity of the allegations in the book? It’s Sarah Palin, so it doesn’t matter.
I’m saddened to say I read every comment in this thread, and the absolute unbridled hate directed towards Palin is mind-boggling. Seriously. If Palin were on the opposite side of the isle, I can only imagine that some of the commentators in this thread would be deemed as misogynists. At any rate, Oscar Wilde once wrote (or said), the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. Haters gonna hate. This thread is proof, as if we needed any to begin with.
I won’t lie. I would 
(Yes, yes. I know it’s not sporting.)
Oscar Wilde would think you’re an asshole.
Yep, so tricky that the quote includes references to Bennett’s solemn urgings to the public on self-discipline and the Catholic Church’s teachings on moderation, plus other things that’ve “slipped” by you, such as feeding large sums of money to Vegas casino operators, money that (just like at church bingo nights) is devoted to supporting good works in the community. :dubious:
“Problem” gambling can be defined in numerous ways, despite what Mr. Parse-It-My-Way-Or-The-Highway wants us to believe. Bennett’s professed commitment to vastly scaling back his gambling habits would lead us to think that he perceived a problem - possibly including the belated realization that blowing huge sums of money on gambling is incompatible with being perceived as a Pillar of Virtue, hypocrisy-wise.
I don’t care what Bennett bets (or what Bricker spends on gambling, as he’s mentioned having a gambling “hobby” on the Dope before). What I was addressing was hypocrisy, and the convolutions some folks go through to avoid acknowledging it.
He’s got plenty of company.
He would still want to see Palin naked, though.
I don’t recall the details, but wasn’t that shoot part of a population-control project?
While I wouldn’t mind seeing Palin naked my ownself, I think Wilde wouldn’t be interested.
http://www.calicocat.com/2004/05/william-bill-bennett-client-of-las.html
Seems possible that gambling is just a part of Bennett’s nightlife. Rumors about his going for dominatrix care and loving abound.
But Palins problem is not her sex life . It is her hypocrisy in judging everyone else while believing her personal life is off limits.
And of course she quit. That was reprehensible.
I should have said more accurately he would at least relish the image of her youthful canoodling with a NBA player, drug use, debauchery, etc. although I don’t rule out at all just the naked part. He had very diverse tastes.
If by “Palin” you mean “Todd Palin” then you’re definitely correct.
The wolf-control effort was a thinly disguised sop to the state’s moose and caribou hunters, and those who sell things made from wolf fur, who felt that it took too much effort to find the animals, and convinced the state that the wolf population needed to be thinned out to increase the ungulate population. Shooting them from helicopters was an addition to being able to hunt them from the ground, and was illegal prior to the passing of the regulation. While it’s true that wolf packs will not always eat everything they kill, the ungulate population in Alaska is in no danger of being wiped out by them. I’m sure if hunters could figure out a way to convince the state to let them use dynamite for hunting. . .well.
Sure. Of course, I parsed it according to the link YOU provided.
And Bennet undoubtedly realizes that this makes him look bad.
But “bad” is not synonmous with “like a hypocrite.”
And I’ll go further: I suspect many people, if asked, would say these two things make him hypocritical, and that Bennett realized this fact as well.
But that still doesn’t make it true. The mere fact that many people besides you are confused about the word’s meaning does not (or should not, at any rate) change the word’s meaning.
I realize we begin to tread close to a descriptivist opposed to a prescriptivist viewpoint here.
Sure. And what you need to do is redefine the word hypocrisy to encompass any moral failing when performed by any moral scold, and then you’ll be in great shape.
Well, i’m interested in the truth of them. I’m not sure yet whether i have the time or the inclination to read McGinnis’s book, but if i do then i will attempt to read it with the critical eye that i try to bring to all of my reading on the subject of politics and history.
But i’m also inclined, in a situation like this, to give at least some credence to allegations that find their way into a book by a major publishing house (Crown is part of Random House), especially if those allegations are of the factual sort being discussed here. Publishing house lawyers are notoriously careful when it comes to stuff like this, particularly if the assertion in question is not a mere matter of opinion or a general observation, but is a specific and verifiable (or refutable) factual assertion.
Either Palin snorted coke or she didn’t; either she fucked an NBA player or she didn’t. These sorts of allegations are quite different from some sort of general political critique along the lines of, “Sarah Palin has consistently betrayed principles she claims to support in order to advance her political career.”
While i concede the possibility that McGinnis got bad information, and even that he has manipulated the information he got to make Palin look as bad as possible, i’d would honestly be quite surprised if some of those main allegations aren’t true, simply because he would have needed to convince the Random house lawyers before they ever made it into the published version of the book.
I don’t think those lawyers would be interested in the “truth”. They are not being paid by the Guardians of Truth, Inc.
They will only be interested in protecting their employer, the publisher.
For example, if the book is written with a lot of “it has been said”, “Some believe”, “rumors abound”, and other phrasology that gives them some wiggle room (legally), then the decision to print/not print comes down on whether or not a libel lawsuite could be proven in court, and whether the book would sell enough to cover these additional court costs.
You’re right that the lawyers are hired to defend the publisher’s interest, and not some abstract notion of truth. But, when it comes to defamation, those things do bear some considerable relationship to one another. After all, establishing the truth of a statement is, in America at least, an absolute defense to an accusation of libel or slander.
I’m not sure i find your economic analysis completely compelling. The more the book sells, the bigger the lawsuit payout could be if there are found to be libelous statements in it. It would, in theory, be possible for a court to award all profits from the book to the plaintiff. Or for the court to award a judgment that is considerably higher than the profits. And, given some of the allegations, a very high judgment wouldn’t be much of a shock if those allegations are found to be false.
As i said, i haven’t read the book yet, so it’s not clear to me whether McGinnis does, in fact, use the sort of “wiggle room” phraseology that you suggest here. Do you know whether he did this? The book is, after all, in print, so if you’re suggesting that this is what he did, then it’s something that we can find out rather than just speculate about.
[QUOTE=mhendo]
As i said, i haven’t read the book yet, so it’s not clear to me whether McGinnis does, in fact, use the sort of “wiggle room” phraseology that you suggest here. Do you know whether he did this? The book is, after all, in print, so if you’re suggesting that this is what he did, then it’s something that we can find out rather than just speculate about.
[/QUOTE]
No, I don’t have a copy of the book, nor have I read it.
I was merely trying to rebut the assumption (paraphrased) that if someone prints it, it must be true.
Sorry if my analysis sounded weak.