How about a little domestic terrorism by tea baggers pissed off about the health care bill.

From thrown bricks through windows, posting of home addresses (even if it was the address of the guys brother) and broken gas lines, things are getting out of hand.


On a seperate note, have you noticed at all that newscasters refer to the president as "Mr. Obama" instead of "President Obama"? My husband first pointed it out and I wondered if they referred to Bush that way or not.

Odds are they did. Some version of this is a pretty common house style that the first reference to the president they say "President Obama" or "President Barack Obama" and then after that say "Mr. Obama" or just "Obama."

NPR got slammed for this last year by people certain that it was a sign of disrespect, something they'd never have done to a previous president and they did a demonstration of them using the same style through many administrations.

So can't say it is true of everybody who is saying Mr. Obama that they did the same to Mr. Bush but it isn't at all unlikely.

As another example, it is the house style of the San Francisco Chronicle that on first reference they say "President X" but then on subsequent references they just say "X". Here they do it to Bill Clinton. Here they do it it George Bush. Here they do it to Obama.

The problem with it on TV is that over the course of a story you'll hear "President X" just once but "X" or "Mr. X" many times and forget you heard the first one.

(And also, of course, opinion shows probably don't have to meet house style to the same degree so it's probably laxer there with people talking in a more natural way; and opinion shows are more common than they used to be.)

Why is it, in the last 24 hours only, every time I click on any Parking LoT thread, I get a red warning screen that my computer may be harmed? I got this at work today, and just now at home. Admins? Any ideas?

Yeah. It's Wendy's fault.

Her the website that hosts her sigline ticker image has been flagged as having malware on it. So if your browser is sensitive to that, it sees the url in the image source and flags it.

The good news is, there's nothing to worry about. The image can't do anything to the LoT or your computer, so you can ignore that warning. Of course having to tell it to ignore the warning every time is annoying, so you can turn sig lines off. And then bombard Wendy with PMs until she removes her sig line.

The political climate is indeed horrid.

However abhorrent, though, it is certainly far from new.

In my opinion, it's quite a bit worse then it has been. I don't recall congresspeople getting death threats or being spit on after votes regularly happening in the past as one example.

The clips that I've been hearing on the radio that have been submitted aren't threats, they are calling the dems names. No one has played anything - again, that I've heard - that included threats of harm.

If someone spits on someone, arrest them by all means. But saying someone is worthless garbage (in whatever colorful language they choose to use) is not a threat.