happy halloween!
I'm heading to West Virginia, possibly one of the scariest states in the union, for Halloween weekend. We're making a trip of it because they're supposed to have one of the best haunted houses in the country down there, so if the monsters don't eat me and the hillbillys don't get me then I'll be back at the keyboard Sunday or Monday.
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and what part of the country is jersey in again?
via
Ace,
Michelle Malkin:
New Jersey split even in the polls.
While it would certainly be wonderful if Bush actually manages to somehow take NJ, the part of this poll that is interesting to me relates to my home battleground state of Pennsylvania. For those what live on the left coast and went to public school, NJ shares a long border with PA, right next to Philadelphia. In fact, having lived all over PA and NJ, I've often said that you could go about twenty miles west of Philadelphia and draw a line, making everything to the east of that line part of Jersey, because both geographically and culturally it bears more resemblance to that state than PA.
I'm going to have to google up an electoral map, but in Pennsylvania the vast majority of counties numerically went to Bush in '00. Pittsburgh, maybe Scranton or Erie, and of course Philadelphia and some territory surrounding Philly went to Gore, and he carried the state. What this means to me is that if the folks in Jersey are suddenly trending right, there's a good chance some of their cousins right across the border are doing the same thing. Which bodes extremely well for Bush, because he dosen't need to pick up much to carry this state, a few more R's in a D county could do the trick.
Kerry may still take NJ, but the Jersey devil could bite him in the ass none the less.
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so this is the guy that's supposed to strike fear into the heart of America?
The disturbing tape runs an hour -- the man simply identifies himself as 'Assam the American'...
This guy?
Are you freaking kidding me?
Transcript of new video:
(A high-pitched, nasally voice:) Hnnha Great Satan of Amerika! Hnnnear the voice of hnhAllah! Your cities will run with blood, like on that one episode of Star Trek: TNG, when the Federation like, totally flattened that Romulan city! hnnOH Yes! ((puffing from an inhaler)) And like, the Armies of Islam are totally setting our phasers on "Glorious Martyrdom", so you better be sklkfyurhr! [ed.--Arabic translated to Klingon, meaning God knows what] KLAATU BARATA NICTO!! Hnnha hnnha You will NOT live long and...hey! [to off camera] Mohammed! Adnan! C'mon, guys, stop screwing around with my Han and Leia figures! Those are collectibles--
-end Transcript.
Give me a break, allready.
Links found and partially inspired by the comments at
Knowledge is Power.
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forget red state, blue state
let's talk cowboy hats and aquanet.
While digging up the links for the post above this over at
KisP,
this was on the top of the page. I'm sure it will be all over the intarweb in about ten minutes, but i'm linkin it anyway.
Hilarious, and I would say an accurate representation of the contestants and their respective supporters.
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when there's no more room in hell...
<
You are a Romero Zombie.You walk the earth because
there is no more room in hell. You feed on
living flesh - anything you can get your
decaying hands on. You can be killed by damage
to your rotting brain.
What kind of Zombie are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Yes, I also fed it the answers I knew it wanted to get that particular result.
Stolen from
the second-biggest zombie movie fan in the blogosphere, who stole it from
here, who got it
here.
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throwing good money after bad
At lunch today, I was trying to relax to my right-wing hate-machine radio programs when what should come on at commercial?
Announcer: "During the third presidential debate, Charlie Whassisface [obviously, this is paraphrased] asked: 'The health care system today is a massive gagglefuck. President Bush, whose problem [or perhaps it was fault] is that?'"
Bush: "uuuuuhhh huh huh well, huh I sure hope it's not the administration's."
Well, I called that one.
I don't understand politicians or advocacy groups buying ad time during political talk radio. The whole program is essentially, at this time of year, an unpaid ad for one candidate or another, why spend your money with a thirty second platitudinal ad? Both sides do it, and I totally fail to understand why. Newsflash: buying ad time during Rush Limbaugh's program isn't exactly going to sway many people. If there is such an animal as an undecided voter, chances are good they aren't listening to talk radio; and if they are, they allready know more than what is in your stupid little ad, so why are you wasting your money?!?
Somebody get Rove on the phone, I need to talk to that boy.
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voter disenfranchisement at pitt university
There's alot of stories going around about voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement from both sides of the political spectrum, but I have a first-hand story that I haven't seen much of anywhere else. Supposedly, an article on this appeared in the dead-tree Post-Gazette, but I can't find an article online anywhere.
A friend of mine, a Pitt student and registered Dem, signed a petition a little while ago pushing for the legalization of pot. In case you haven't seen them, these guys just hang out around campuses, asking for signatures. I'm not sure exactly what information my friend gave them, but a few weeks later he got a registration card telling him he now was registered as a Republican, and his polling place was some storefront in Uniontown, forty-five minutes from where he lives and not even a real polling place.
Apparently, they have done this to alot of people that signed the petition, hundreds of Pitt students, as well as at another college campus in the midwest somewhere. Of course, the vast majority of those that signed that petition are Kerry supporters, who are now finding themselves unable to vote a week away from election day, too late to re-register, and in the key state of Pennslyvania.
Hopefully, they find out who the hell is behind this and throw their asses in jail. I want to see Bush win, and badly, but illegal tactics like this are absolutely inexcusable for either side to be playing.
UPDATE: I finally found the
Post-Gazette article, and now it's on their front page. Fortunatly, this apparently won't affect anyone's ability to vote until next year, so people simply have to re-register before the '05 Democratic Primary. It still has alot of people confused and unsure of whether they can vote and where.
The story says these people also registered some people that were underage and some that aren't even American citizens.
And our Democrat Governor and Republican Atty. General are having at it, as well. Alot of the people this happened to don't have their old registration cards, because they've voted in the same place for years. I guess if they show ID they should still be on the rolls, but now there's some sort of power struggle between those two over how strict the rules will be, with the Gov. saying he wants everyone to vote (unregulated?) and the AG saying the polls will be closely monitored.
Whatever, they can politik it out all day long for all I care. Just so they get it straightened out.
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moonoo backups
As a PSA for all missing their MooNoovia fixes, here's the backups for a few of my favorites:
Ace,
The Llamabutchers,
My Pet Jawa,
Texas Best Grok.
Actually, that probably wouldn't have been too tough to figure out, they're all blogspot addresses and the only weird one is Ace. Ah well.
I don't know if any of them will post anything substantive at their old blogsplat addy's, but hey, ya never know, so I check both.
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i know these "jibjab" ripoffs are probably getting old, but...
I can't help but link this one, I think it's from the same people who did the "Timewarp" one:
Political Bohemian Raphsody.
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bent reality
*
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puppetgate?!?
Just a quick
follow up to the post below this, Paul at Wizbang lays out the possiblity of a Kerry-VC connection in a coherent, spin-free, plain-english post.
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what a truly scary thought...
"With the same energy ... I put into going after the Viet Cong and trying to win for our country, I pledge to you I will hunt down and capture or kill the terrorists before they harm us,"
I am
absolutely,
totally freaking speechless.
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leia was a bitch
and i like her that way
I don't always participate in
Texas Best Grok's SF babes poll, half the time I don't even recognize some of the chicks in them. But this time around, my choice of "Warrior Leia" is
getting stomped by "Soft Leia". While I am glad that she's beating both Padme entries, I can't believe there aren't more geeks out there that aren't still turned on by phrases like "I'd rather kiss a Wookie" and "I am NOT a comittee!" (Among the many other classic Leia smackdowns) It wasn't some soft, demure lilting flower that kept Han coming back for more, it was the bitch that repeatedly told him to get lost because he was obviously inferior to her. Usually said right before blasting a stormtrooper.
You know which Leia I like?
That's right, not the slave girl, I want the chick strangling the giant green space slug with a chain then going on to kick the crap out of half of his henchmen while wearing a set of steel plated undies.
Now
that's hot.
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kerry/specter: nobody knows which side we're on
my question is, the Trib seems to present this story that someone was trying to help Specter get elected by putting his name on signs with Kerry. Somehow, I doubt
that's the case:
Those "Kerry & Specter for Working Families" signs that began popping up in eastern Pennsylvania last week were not disingenuous attempts by the senator to link himself with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democrat presidential nominee.
Actually, it was a disingenuous attempt by Republican political consultant Roger Stone to link Specter to Kerry. Stone's former business partner is a guy named Craig Snyder.
...
You'd think a four-term incumbent ahead in the polls wouldn't need to resort to such tactics.
Unless this article is written to be tongue-in-cheek, I'm pretty sure the trib got it wrong: Specter, the RINO we all love to hate, is facing a challenge from Constituion party candidate and certified right-wing nutjob
Jim Clymer, who is running
campagin ads pointing out that Specter has voted with Kerry on many occasions.
I'm guessing that, much like the rest of Clymer's campaign, this is a poorly orchestrated misfire from Specter's right. I want Specter out as bad as anybody, I was a Toomey supporter, but it's a shame that this Amish-country hillbilly is too busy making an ass of himself, and draggin his ideological cousins along with him, to make a point. I think Specter can be outed, but screaming about God on the airwaves like the loony on the streetcorner with the sandwichboard is not exactly the way to bring in the moderate votes.
Jim Clymer, doofus.
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but...i liked that movie...
James
Lileks on 28 days: “you know, in retrospect, having a lot of guns about would have been bludey useful when you’re overrun by facking zombies, raht? Facking raht, mite.”
Oh, the rest of the article is excellent, as well. But hey...zombies and gun rights. I think he wrote that line just for me.
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it's not all dick and fart jokes
Every once in a while, Ace gets his head out of the gutter and writes a pretty darn thoughtful post. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually right there in the gutter with him, but when I first started reading blogs,
a post of his on divisive politics made him an early favorite for me. It was one of the few times I've ever actually bothered to write an email to a blogger and tell him I really liked a post.
He has another one up, with the Whittle-esque title "
Willpower". It's actually been up a few days, but I was too lazy to bother logging in to blogger to link it this weekend. If you have a few minutes, it's worth the read, he pins down the political creature dubbed a "bird of paradise" and slaps them back to reality.
I think that the phenomenon described by Ace, the Sullivans of the world that initially supported the war and then backed out of it when things got a bit tough, is due in large part to the insulated life we lead here in America. Too many expect a war to be nothing more than a game of Risk or Age of Empires, and are shocked when they start seeing pictures and hearing stories of people killed. America is suppossed to be able to do absolutely anything, when it is discovered that we aren't omnipotent it comes down on them like a ton of bricks. Nevermind that this has been one of the singluarly most succesful military campaigns ever, the fact that people might die because of it is just too much to handle. We are suppossed to be able to control the war as a video game or a movie in which the director lets the good guy win; when we jump the script, it's the end of the world. Or at least, the loss of the war.
Ace equates Sullivan with Kerry. I don't really think that that is a fair comparison, in a sick sort of way Kerry gets a pass because everybody knows he's only doing what he does for political manipulation. He voted for the war when it was popular knowing better than most what the costs would be; after all, as he is so fond of reminding us, he fought in Vietnam. He knew the potential for death and carnage was much higher than it has turned out to be, but by acting the shocked dupe he is manipulating those who were against the war in the first place as well as the Sullivans that think the war has jumped the shark, and doing it in such a way that he is pulling in nearly half the electorate. It's dishonest, unprincipled, and to me it is downright disgusting, but that's politics, and he's doing a pretty solid job of it.
People are portraying this election as the end of the debate on the war on terror, but I don't think that's accurate. I think it is going to take another several years and perhaps another attack (or more) on the country before the majority breaks dovish or breaks hawkish. As much as I would like to claim a Bush victory means that everyone in America is coming around to my way of thinking, that is simply not true. It would be a good sign, but not a conclusion. Eventually, we will reach a do-or-die moment, as Spain did before their election, and we will find out what this country is really all about: victory, whatever the cost; or maintainence of the status quo.
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que se jodan
Val has a few words for the attitude of some of his fellow Cubans.
I won't even comment, he is more passionate, more accurate, and certainly speaks with more authority than I could.
Found at
Hog on Ice.
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wizbang interviews john o'neill
O'Neill, in case you have been living under a rock this election season, is the spokesman and leader of "Swift Boat and POW Vets for Truth", authors of "Unfit for Command."
I have long maintained that the Vietnam stuff in this debate is overwhelmingly irrelevant, except perhaps to other Vets (especially Vietnam-era, who remember the Lt. Kerry from Winter Soldier) and the hippie-types that worship folks like Kerry as anti-war heros.
What amazes me is how easily the MSM spin has affected the whole issue. Many people, from independants to supposedly informed Dems, immedately brush off anything coming from the SBVFT as lies. What evidence do they have that these men are all liars? None. They counter that these guys didn't serve with Kerry. What evidence? Again, None. The response when you point out that this is Kerry's direct chain of command, people that worked on the boats alongside him, even one guy out of the few surviving that was actually on the same boat as Kerry? Either a brush-off, or "Well, they're still liars". I would say that this is a case of "Facts don't matter", but if you are repeatedly presented only one side of the facts as the whole story, I guess it is pretty easy to brush off any dissenting voices.
Anyway, Wizbangblog (the authors of the excellent poll aggregate you can see at the top of the page),
has an interview up with John O'Neill. I don't know how much of a differance a thirty year old war makes to anyone, but I do think that to a certain extent it reveals Kerry's character under fire, in a literal sense. I'm not voting for Bush based on what Kerry did in Vietnam, but it's one more reason not to like him...or, more accurately, it reinforces my own perception of him.
Aylward - On a personal level, what has been the most surprising or shocking thing that you've learned through this whole experience.
O'Neill - The level of depravity in John Kerry's soul. I knew of his post-war activities, but I believed some of the stories in the Brinkley biography. I had no idea he fabricated the Sampan event. There was a point in our 1971 debate when I pinned him down and he was forced to admit he had never personally seen atrocities committed. In the writing of Unfit For Command and gathering the stories of other Swift Boat veterans we learned of the Sampan event, of Kerry burning villages with his Zippo lighter, slaughtering animals, etc. It turns out the Kerry lied about every single bit of his Vietnam story.
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a true horror show
via
Ace: Presidential Elections,
Rocky Horror style.
This is to Jib-Jab what Tim Curry is to John Carpenter. I think I'm going to have nightmares of Bush and Kerry doing the Time Warp.
Bonus points if you can name not only all five pols, but the names of the characters they play.
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behold the uber-geek!
via
The Llamabutchers and
Texas Best Grok, take the "
How much of a Geek are you" quiz.
Add ten points if you need a calculator to do it, as I did. Add 50 if it's a graphing calculator.
The test is a bit slanted toward the D&D/comic book/Trekkie set, so if you are some sort of other geek you may not do too well. Think of the comic book guy from the simpsons, with some Bill Gates mixed in, and you pretty much have what they're looking at.
I (of course) scored a 990. I would say that I'm glad I managed to keep it under a thousand, but that would almost certainly qualify as damning with faint praise, against myself no less.
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holy crap, nader's worse than even i thought
After that
last post, I was wondering if some Naderite was going to challenge me on what I had to say about the skeletons in Nader's closet.
Well, this isn't exactly what I was thinking of, but it turns out Nader could have been involved in
one of the more bizarre political scandals I could imagine:
Newman [a bugshit-crazy cult leader -ed] recruits and controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme baptized “social therapy,” designed to create blind allegiance to Newman. He has frequently dipped his rhetoric in the poisonous blood-libel of anti-Semitism, denouncing Jews as “storm troopers of decadent capitalism.” By French-kissing the cultists to get on the ballot, Nader has allowed himself to be used as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the Newmanite orbit, where they risk being sucked into the cult. That’s a betrayal of the many young people to whom Nader is still a hero. And an acid commentary on Nader’s judgment.
There is, of course, more at the link. This could mostly be tinfoil hat stuff, but it's pretty much undeniable that Nader was somehow involved with these wingnuts, which (whatever their activites) dosen't speak very well of him.
There's alot of other stuff at that site, some of it a bit too eggheaded and some a bit too far-left for me.
Sadie has
an article there on how the 1850's Dred Scott case is relevant to modern-day abortion cases, and why Bush mentioned that case during the debates. Whatever your stance on the issue, the historical legal perspective provided by comparing the two is something I hadn't seen before.
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nader screws himself for pa
I, of course, am no fan of Ralph Nader. Neverminding his politics, he's a corporate mogul that has made his name fighting "big corporations" for "the worker". Look into his history, the guy's a total fake. I would lay money that that so-called consumer advocate has done more to fuck over the little guy than either of the two serious candidates.
If he wasn't for the legalization of pot, he wouldn't have gotten any votes at all in 2000. At least this time he can run as the anti-war candidate.
However, whatever I think of the guy, he has a right to make a bid for the presidency. I'm not just saying that because it helps my guy; I recently signed a ballot to get the Libertarian party on the ballot in PA, which certainly hurts Bush.
But it looks like old Ralph stepped on his dick with
this one:
The [PA Supreme] court said it had reviewed 51,273 petition signatures submitted by Nader campaign workers in August and found that only 18,818 of them were valid -- far short of the minimum of 25,697 Nader needed.
...
He added, "In reviewing signatures, it became apparent that in addition to signing names such as 'Mickey Mouse,' 'Fred Flintstone,' 'John Kerry' and the ubiquitous 'Ralph Nader,' there were thousands of names that were created at random and then randomly assigned either existent or non-existent addresses by the circulators."
I wonder if he promised
crack to people if they'd fake some signatures. Nah, not even he'd sink that low.
The really fun part of this, of course is:
"This is a moment of jubilation for all progressive voices throughout the state," said state House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg.
Progressivism = Censorship? I, of course, would never suggest such a thing. But apparently Comrade DeWeese would.
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pretty, pretty
via
Neal Boortz, a video that seems to go on forever of the breck girl preening those election-winning locks.
Make sure you notice the makeup compact thingy.
Also, this clip is part of a larger art installation called "
non-talking heads" that actually sounds like it would be kindof interesting to see. It is essentially the pre- and post- interview video feeds of various punditry and politicians, on multiple screens, with no sound. Interesting, but would probably get creepy after a while, with everywhere you look seeing a silently grinning Dick Cheney, or Paul Begala staring at you from the corner, or Newt Gingrich nodding off beside him. Like crossing the worst nightmares of Glenn Beck and Harry Potter.
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ladies and gentlemen, Zell Miller, once again
via IMAO from a few days ago,
Zell Miller in the Washington Times:
Iwo Jima, if covered by media today
...
Cutie: "John, we have been told by the administration that this island has great strategic importance because if you're successful, it could become a fueling stop for our bombers on the way to Japan. But, as you know, we can't be sure this is the truth. What do you think?"
...
"That this president is going ahead with this war is just unbelievable. The witty New York Times columnist, Myscream Loud, wrote in her inimitable fashion that 'The president's policy is as crippled as his legs.' (giggle) Last week she said he had reached the point where no one will 'Fala' him. F-A-L-A, his dog, get it (more giggles)? Has that woman got a way with words! Go girl."
...
Historical note: In one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, when it was said "uncommon courage was a common virtue," 6,000 Marines were killed and 18,000 wounded. Some 21,000 Japanese were killed. The island itself is still barren and only a handful of people live on it. But after it was secured by the Marines, B-29s made over 2,200 emergency landings on it, saving the lives of more than 24,000 crewmen. AP photographer Joe Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize for the flag-raising photo. Of the six men in the photo, three were buried in that black volcanic ash, one came out on a stretcher. Only two walked off the island
Read the whole thing, as they say.
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feel the power of the dork side
via
Ace, I can't have a blog titled "geek empire" and fail to note this weekend's big dork news:
Dungeons and Dragons turned thirty yesterday.
Ace seems to think that if you played D&D at some point in your youth, you're forever doomed to living on the fringes of geek society. I say, that's a distinct possibility, so why fight it? I have actively persuaded frat-boy football stars to come to the dark side, grab a bag of dice, and embrace their inner geek. They won't let me tell anybody about it, you'd think they killed a hooker and buried her in the desert, but I still know.
Hell, I'm such a geek that, when I ran out of real-life friends, I gave up tabletop D&D and play Neverwinter Nights online. Faced with the option of consigning my dice and DM screen to history or engaging in the mastabatory equivalent of D&D, I chose self-gratification.
Somebody get me a pocket protector. I'll still be playing D&D when i'm forty, if I have anything to say about it, and embrassing my kids by trying to talk their friends into playing. "Johnny, grab some pencils and graph paper, I just got the new 'Fighter's Handbook!'" "But Daaaaaad...." With my copy of the original Gygax Player's Handbook framed, hanging on the wall.
Happy Birthday, Dungeons and Dragons. Get those old rulebooks out of the closet and onto a bookshelf in the light of day where they belong.
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has been
believe it or not, I just heard one of the new William Shatner songs (from the aptly titled "has been") on the radio.
I have a strange reaction to seeing Shatner these days...I know that he's not exactly up for an oscar any time soon, and the movies he's done recently are invariably striaght-to-video crap, but for some reason I really get a kick out seeing him on. If he pops up unexpectedly somewhere, I actually cheer. Even those travel website commercials. For some reason, it all amuses me, even though logically I know there is no good reason for it.
I have the same reaction to his new songs. I know it's crap, but I sit and giggle and bob my head like an idiot and like it none the less. Not enough to actually go spend money on it, mind you, but like it.
Go play one of the songs (I recommend "common people"), and tell me some part of you dosen't think it's cool, even if it is atrocious.
Actually, I think all I want is someone to tell me that I'm not the only one...
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aunt michele = uncle sam?
In case you haven't heard,
The Command Post is doing blogger-reporting on election day. Essentially, they want some folks from each state to sign up and report on state polls and races, on-the-street stuff, and (in true blogger fasion) whatever else seems relevant from your state on a national level.
I'm not sure how the technical end of things are going to work, but I just signed up to cover PA and Pittsburgh during the election. Hell, I probably would've done it anyway, this just gives me some motivation to do it better. And I'm not sure, but I haven't really seen too many other bloggers based in this oh-so important swing state, so it should be interesting.
If you're interested, click on the pic above and head over to CP.
Image, of course, stolen from
Michele.
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sacre merde!
I know, that's probably not right. What can I say, I'm not exactly a Francophile.
Nor am I a fan of their cars, which was the point of that title in the first place. I'm guessing
this guy had all sorts of choice "French" (as in, "pardon my...") words for Renault:
Runaway Car Races Along French Highways
PARIS-October 5, 2004 — A motorist in France went a little faster than he wanted when he claimed his cruise control got stuck, leaving him barreling down a busy highway at 120 mph and forcing police to help clear a route.
The Le Parisien newspaper quoted Hicham Dequiedt saying he was overtaking a truck when his Renault Vel Satis started to accelerate with a life of its own. He couldn't cut the ignition, he said, because his car has a magnetic card instead of a key.
"It was impossible to slow down! Stomping on the brakes proved pointless, nothing worked. I avoided one car after another by flashing my lights at them," the 29-year-old was quoted as saying.
Finally, as he was bearing down on a toll booth, Dequiedt said he finally managed to bring the car to a halt – having raced down some 125 miles of highway between Vierzon and Riom in central France.
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post-game report
allright, nevermind what other people thought, i'll get to them in a minute.
Both candidates have issues when it comes to public speechifying. The reason I called the first debate a Kerry win was because he seemed to get over his, whereas Bush was even worse than usual.
Tonight, Kerry was at his meandering, monotone, bloviating best. I tried very hard to pay attention to what he was saying, but often I couldn't even follow it. He'd start talking, and I'd spot a shiny object sitting on the floor, and all of a sudden he'd be done talking, and twenty minutes had gone by.
Bush also fell into many of his common errors. He was often paralyzed, confused, and doing all the stuff that we all love to make fun of him for.
On top of all this, I didn't feel that either one gave a particularly substantive arguement; however, I don't think that this was entirely their fault. The questions were phrased in such a way that a specific, mechanical point seemed over-done, and the viewer just got lost. Instead, a mushy feel-good answer was pretty consistently more apropriate, and that's what we got.
(Also on the moderator: I'm careful about calling lib-bias, And I thought the last few were pretty fair, but...Wow. I'm sure others will have alot more on this, but that guy couldn't have been much worse had he been on the Kerry payroll)
Finally, I do think that there were a few points where Bush shined. Kerry was pretty consistently boring, but when Bush talks about religion, education, borders, and of course defense, he's passionate. A few times tonight, he mixed that passion with some articulate sentances, and came out pretty good. Also, I think his closing statement was pretty strong, whereas Kerry's was just more of the same.
Final verdict: Bush didn't do great, but, on both style and substance, he did (by varying degrees) better than Kerry.
Not to put too fine a point on it: Bush sucks, Kerry sucks worse.
Which, oddly enough, is the same thing I'm going to be saying when I pull the lever this fall.
Okay, that's probably a bit harsher than I want to be, but it seems to get the point across.
Thanks, of course, to the llamas for the linkage. Head over and check out their
roundup of blogger reactions.
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the big game--two minute warning
closing statements:
kerry, once again, is boring me. "stronger at home, respected in the world." he's staying on theme, anyway.
bush. just spent thirty seconds saying the word "painting". oh, it's an optimistic painting. not bad, tying it all together. health care, jobs, economics, the war. not bad at all.
post-game tonight or tommorow, i'm going to go see what some other folks thought.
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the big game--kiss the girl
bush gets in a couple of good lines about his wife and daughter..."learned to stand up straight and not scowl". "she speaks english alot better than i do". i can't wait to hear kerry's opinion of his wife.
woah. kerry-"we all married up. maybe me more than others." i'm not sure if that's self-depreciating or...well, whatever. got some laughs, anyway.
good job on a retarded question by both.
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the big game--interception
both guys are naming names of opposing senators they've worked with. and now they're going on about how the country's divided. great. who cares. last time i checked, that isn't the president's problem.
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the big game--remember the titans
question for kerry: "should we, or should we not, begin re-segregating our schools?"
answer: why, no, no, as long as they don't live in my neighborhood, they should be allowed to do whatever they want.
bush, again, is stuttering over accusing kerry of lying. good job pointing out minority home ownership.
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the big game--beat your face
ohhhh christ not the draft question again....and the moderator just used the "backdoor draft" crap. somebody slap him.
hey, john. you know how many deployments i've done? and who am i voting for?
now he's talking about increasing the size of the military. christ, what a joke. and he's going to fund them with monopoly money. or maybe he'll just get tehreayzah to start a private military.
bush: "the best way to take the pressure off our troops is to succeed in iraq". bush didn't use the word, but the one he was looking for is "pride". service isnt' a "backdoor draft", and the soldiers don't see it that way.
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the big game--roughing the official
bush just cut off the moderator. didn't anybody tell him that that's a bad idea? hello? he couln't hear the question because rove was screaming into his headset.
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the big game--who paid off the ref?
"senator kerry, the min. wage has not been raised since 548 bc. should we stop starving the poor and increase it above .000005 stone chips an hour?"
then bush goes on to talk about no child left behind. george, alot of people are planning on making just above minimum wage forever. please just tell them that you'll consider giving them a raise.
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the big game--off sides
good idea bringing up the fact he was a border governor. and i don't particularly agree with his border policy, but he's defending it well. a very pretty picture, with specifics. ran long, though
kerry says, i totally disagree!!! we should do exactly what he just said!!!! i think he even used a line of bush's, about keeping immigrants "out of the shadows"
kerry's talking alot about how bush isn't doing enough for border security, but now giving a word on what the hell he'll do about it.
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the big game, a small drive
ok, from what i could hear kerry just talked for about twenty minutes.
bush starts with a good hit about kerry voting to tax ss benefits. then he goes on to defend his tax cuts. it's repetetive to me, but probably a good idea nonetheless. "fiscal sanity"?!? i don't know if bush should be using words like that...
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the big game--halftime show
does anybody in america know what a cvo is? ah, he just explained it to me. thank you john.
i have to go do some work (i can't believe i'm getting paid right now, i love my job). be back in a bit, go visit the folks linked below.
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the big game--gridlock
fortunatly, the most incoherent person on the stage this time is not bush, but the moderator. he just asked another healthcare question, but i couldn't even begin to guess what it was.
kerry on healthcare sounds like the teacher from charlie brown. actually, is it just me, or do they all sound like that tonight? steve green agrees with me, right now, he's calling it a "trainwreck".
ooh bush just pulled back from slamming the msm. probably wouldn't have played well, but i would have enjoyed it anyway.
and back to the blah blah.
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the big game-- injury on the field
who's responsibility is healthcare problems: bush: "i sure hope it's not the administration's".
dammit.
anyway, bush is talking, but he dosen't seem to be saying much. "healthcare...the problem is...information technology...horse...buggy........" I think he just tried to give an answer too complex for both this forum and his rhetorical skills.
otoh, kerry is sounding like the socalist he is: "healthcare belongs to you". lots of warm and fuzzy, not much of this "plan" we keep hearing about.
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the big game, hail mary pass
gay marriage should be an easy issue for kerry, he has the friendlier, i love everybody approach. bush always comes across to me as a fundamentalist nutjob when he talks about it, whether he's actually making sense or not.
what is kerry's reaction to catholic bishops saying he's going to hell? he disagrees, that's nice. he's still a catholic, he just disagrees with all catholic thinkers and rulemakers. never really understood this position, but i don't think many hardcore catholics are voting for him so it dosen't really matter anyway.
as i had thought, kerry owned him on the gay marriage question. but again, if gay marriage is the most important issue for you, you aren't voting for bush anyway.
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the big game, too many players on the field
on kerry's record, bush looks confused, kerry looks like he's in pain. bush looks like a kid that knows he's hearing a lie, but can't spit out that it is
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the big game, quarterback sneak
"i will work for the american worker as hard as i work for my own job!" -kerry
how many times did he show up in senate this year?
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the big game, first quarter
i wonder how the community college stuff goes over with the general public. i mean, I like it, but then again, I attend a community college.
Kerry can't tell a joke to save his life. that tony soprano line would have killed if told by bush, with Kerry it's like listening to your dad talk about brittany spears.
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the big game
I'll probably be putting up a few posts during the debates again this time around, just for laughts. I think I just got c-span working, so good for me.
I'm thinking, in the spirit of the sox/yanks game tonite, I'm going to do a football theme. Hey, I live in Pittsburgh, people! This is Steeler territory!
And again, the blogs I am primarily going to be keeping up with are
the Llamabutchers and
Vodkapundit.
Allah's sure to check in, and
The Commisar is always good for a hit as well.
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teh gummint is stealing the internat!!!1111
Via
Ars, here's something that should really get the "Crushing of dissent" folks
fired up:
News website Indymedia says FBI seized server
A website billed as a grassroots news source for the anti-globalization movement and other issues said one of its Web servers was shut down after the FBI (news - web sites) served a subpoena.
While I am certainly curious what IMC did that pissed some folks off bad enough to shut them down, I'm not quite ready to concede that this is a Rove-generated fascist plot just yet:
The FBI acknowledged that a subpoena had been issued but said it was at the request of Italian and Swiss authorities.
"It is not an FBI operation," FBI spokesman Joe Parris told AFP.
"Through a legal assistance treaty, the subpoena was on behalf of a third country."
The FBI spokesman said there was no US investigation but that the agency cooperated under the terms of an international treaty on law enforcement.
The way it looks right now, the FBI had little to do with it other than issuing the subpoena based on international treaty, and physically picking up the hardware. So somewhere along the line, in the pursuit of "radical, accurate and passionate tellings of the truth", Indymedia stepped on somebody's dick over in Europe, and they aren't too happy about it.
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super man.
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it's african news night at the geek empire
Maybe
this is the real problem with
the Nigerian oil industry:
Scientists believe they have discovered a new group of giant apes in the jungles of central Africa.
The animals, with characteristics of both gorillas and chimpanzees, have been sighted in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to local villagers, the apes are ferocious, and even capable of killing lions.
The UK magazine New Scientist is to publish its report about the mysterious creatures next week.
If they are a new species of primate, it could be one of the most important wildlife discoveries in decades.
They stand up to two metres tall, the size of gorillas, and like gorillas, they nest on the ground, not in trees.
...
"If this had been a bluff charge, they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet. And they were huge. They were coming in for the kill. I was directly in front of them, and as soon as they saw my face, they stopped and disappeared."
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new oil strike in nigeria
A friend of mine is predicting $60/barrel oil prices by the start of november.
At first, I told him he was full of crap. But between the problems in Russia, the fact that Vensuala isn't too happy with us right now, the obvious problems in the middle east,
and now another oil strike in Nigeria, I'm starting to wonder if he's right.
Can we drill in Alaska yet? Please? Actually,
this should be a great gig for the U.N.:
Nigeria is the largest producer of crude oil in Africa, but two-thirds of the population live in poverty.
The bulk of the population lives on less than $1 a day and many people feel the only benefit they ever see from the country's oil is cheap, subsidised fuel, our correspondent says.
Isn't this why we have the United Nations? To take care of crap like this? They aren't proving very useful in alot of other places, this would be a great chance to prove themselves still relevant. And of course, if the U.S. were to try to help, all we would hear would be how Bush is stealing oil from the "brown people" again.
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the sequel, 5
final question: "name three mistakes you've made" bush dodges, but it's a good dodge.
kerry just wants to hammer bush.
THANK YOU!!!! finally, kerry does the "troops didn't have enough funding", and bush nailed him on it, hard. kerry's trying to weasel on it, but i think maybe it will finally stick that time. finally. i've only yelled at my computer monitor trying to get him to say that about 36 times over the past two debates.
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the sequel, 4
"families of the world?" kerry just talked for two minutes about whether tax dollars will be spent on abortion, and i have NO idea what he just said. i'm going to have to get a transcript of that and see if he actually said anything at all.
bush, on the other hand, said "no".
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the sequel, 3
wow...mr kerry, could you please look right into the camera and say these words: "read my lips! no new taxes!" coult you please give him more of a softball of an answer, the asker even cued him how to do it. and there's that $200k figure again.
UPDATE: two great lines.
llamabutchers: "Senator Kerry, will you look into the camera and swear to the American people that if elected you'll make sure there's a fuzzy bunny in every hutch?"
the commisar (who's also liveblogging, btw): "Read my eyebags: No new taxes..." I can't see his other hand, show me the fingers, Senator!
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the sequel, 2
Really good answer from Bush on the deficit question. Finally, he's taking the trouble to explain why his plan will work, let's hope it sticks.
Kerry, of course, follows it with doom gloom, and a few white lies. He just stated the 200k bracket figure, I wish somebody would nail him on that.
stupid moderator interrupted, hasn't he learned better? he's gonna get a shoutin' at!
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sequel reviews
By the by, the
Llamas are, of course, on this one once again, as well as
Spoons, and
Instapundit has a bunch of stuff on it as usual.
And to round it out, the all-star blog at
protein wisdom is goofing around as usual, that place is even more of a crazyhouse than usual. It's like walking into a carnival funhouse that sits in Barnum and Bailey's center ring, with teams of political analysts typing furiously reflected in the warped mirrors and pushing away baloon animals and getting hit on by the bearded lady.
Or something. Those are the blogs I'm keepin' up with tonite, was the point.
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the sequel
Kerry, just said "backdoor draft" god, I hate that garbage. There's a post forthcoming on that. And I'm not sure if Bush was trying to look tough yelling at the moderator, but what he did look like was an ass.
But what a dorky lookin' dude that Charlie guy is. What's up with those glasses? I was waiting for Bush to get pissed off enough to steal his lunch money.
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are we on?
Debating on blogging the Debates...if something catches my ear, i'll probably slap it up here, but i'm not really liveblogging, too much other stuff goin on, friggin people won't leave me alone. I swear, just because they're paying me to be here they expect me to do work. The nerve of some people.
Besides, it's been pretty boring so far anyway.
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mathematically proven to be stupid
Here's something to think about:
We are pretty sure that there is intelligent life on at least one planet in the universe, Earth. If we assume that there is no limit to the universe, that there are an infinite number of planets, then we can determine the percentage of planets with life on them by dividing this number by the total number of planets.
We can be fairly certain that there are planets out there that have no intelligent life on them. That makes the number of inhabited planets finite.
For the mathematically inclined:
f = number of inhabited planets, a finite number
x = number of total planets, or infinity
p = percentage of planets with population
f / x = p
f / infinity = 0
Because any finite number divided by infinity is effectively zero, there is exactly zero planets with intelligent life on them. Through the use of a simple equation, we can effectively prove that there is no intelligent life anywhere in the universe.
Pretty neat, eh?
Well, some folks applied essentially the same theory to the Bush presidency,
here. Unless you're a math major, read the last three paragraphs, the rest is pretty much gobbeldygook.
They use essentially the same "logic" that I just used above, and arrive at the answer of "Bush is eeeeeevil", or:
Either of these interpretations of the mathematics fits the intuitions of moderately intelligent adults.
...
Nobody is going to die because of you and me. Many more will die and suffer because of George Bush and his gang of conservative thugs. He has all the character of a failed, awkward adolescent, filled with hate and violence. He should be voted out of office and then put on trial for war crimes for the horrible things he has done.
There's a saying, only a higher education could produce that kind of stupidity. I think that's what we have at work here.
On the other hand, given the latest trend, these people could be the winners for the next Nobel Prize in mathematics.
found at
wizbang
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seismic fed. court shift
via the Mirthful Ones, I can't believe this isn't making bigger news:
Now instead of the incredibly ineffective current Ninth Circuit (which is widely known in legal circles as the most reversed Federal Court of Appeals), there will exist three smaller circuits spread amonst the population and geography formerly served by one overburdened federal circuit. This revamps the "new Ninth Circuit, to include California, Guam, Hawaii, and the Northern Marianas Islands; a new Twelfth Circuit, to include Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana; and a new Thirteenth Circuit, to include Alaska, Oregon, and Washington."
Read that again. Then go read the analysis linked above, there is an excellent review of the effects of such a reorganization. I just want to highlight a few of the points here.
First, notice what the new ninth circuit court will contain. How many Federal court cases do you think come out of Hawaii, Guam, and the Marianas Islands? I'm guessing not many. As is pointed out at the Mirthful Ones, this essentially makes California it's own country, judicially speaking and on cases that don't go to the Supreme Court.
Second, this means that the current, sitting president gets to appoint-for-life several new judges to head up these new courts. The twelfth and thirteenth circuits, judging by the states contained therein, probably won't terribly mind a conservative court. But the People's Republic of California probably won't be too happy with whoever Bush puts on the court. Like, riots in the streets not happy (or at least parades in the streets), if anybody ever figures out what is going on. While it will be beneficial to have a ninth circuit more in line with the rest of the country, I don't think it will sit well with the "Progressives" on the left coast.
Which, tough shit to them, this thing has been way overdue for a while. And it will be funny as all hell to watch the moonbats freaking out, bitching and yelling about the crushing of their dissent or whatnot. I'll bring the popcorn, I want front-row seats for that.
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a Hero in need
Bill Faith, a Vietnam Vet and friend of the
Mudville Gazeete, is in truly bad straights right now. Anyone willing to take a minute to hit his site,
read this message, and give him a hand would be much appreciated by myself, Greyhawk and the Gazette, and a proud Soldier with his family having a very hard time.
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blatant theft
Free Will has been on a roll lately, and has up several things I wanted to link to:
First,
an object lesson on why we live in America, not Canada:
The auditor general has sounded the alarm about mechanical difficulties with Canadian military equipment, noting for example that Canadian mechanics had to borrow batteries from Spanish troops to keep CF-18 jets in the air during the conflict in Kosovo.
In 1996, thousands of soldiers were sent on dangerous peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Bosnia with 30-year-old armoured personnel carriers that the auditor general said were "deficient" and vulnerable to anti-tank mines.
And [in 2002], when Canadian soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan, they had to hitch a ride on American transport planes because no Canadian aircraft could carry their equipment.
And that's just part of it, read the whole thing, as well as several
later postings on the
same subject; Aaron's all over this story.
Second,
the best U2 remix I think i've ever heard. As I said during the debate, Bono and Bush get along, right?
And third,
a friendly reminder on why you don't screw with us MP's:
"I saw the guy take a pistol out of his pants about 10 feet away. I ducked and charged, and he shot me in the head,'' Bailey said.
Then Bailey, an Army MP just back from Afghanistan, proceeds to beat the living crap out of a few losers that tried to get the jump on him at a donut shop.
After being shot in the head, hit with the gun, etc, etc.
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a little more rope, please
via,
Beautiful Atrocities, in his collection of rathergate ripples:
Moveon.org, the influential Web-based group in support of John Kerry's presidential bid, Wednesday petitioned its members to contact CBS in an effort to get the network to air an investigative "60 Minutes II" piece that was shelved in the wake of the now-debunked story on President Bush's National Guard service.
...
The shelved story...reported how the Bush administration and intelligence agencies had used forged documents to prove Iraq had received a shipment of uranium from Niger; Bush had made reference to the shipment in his State of the Union address before the war.
The piece was originally scheduled to air Sept. 8 but was pre-empted at the last minute when the broadcast got documents that were alleged to have been written by Bush's former National Guard commander.
For once, i'm with moveon with this one. I say we get together and send as many emails to CBS to push this story onto the airwaves as we can. Because, see, the story relies on the report of one Joe Wilson, who is not only a
proven leftie hack but also
because:
The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.
So let's help CBS get back that image of unvarnished objectivism, get on them emails and encourage them to air yet another bush-bashing story that was debuked months ago. Go Move ON!
And I can't help but point out one other thing from this story:
A network spokeswoman said ...that "it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election."
Because they would never, ever want to, you know, influence a presidential election, right? I mean, they obviously don't have any issues with
airing a
false story, so it simply must be their puritanical dedication to unbiased reporting, right?
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presidental debates, sci-fi style.
It seems that every time I turn around today, somebody else is doing a "Which politician is which star wars character" comparison. Naturally, these two lend themselves to the comparison rather well, but it still shows what a true bunch of geeks we've got following politics in this country.
Not that that's a bad thing, mind you.
So, this post is a twofer: first, I'm going to start a round-up of comparisons here, and secondly am going to ask for further comparisons. Odd characters? Odd politicians? Everybody has an evil twin.
John Edwards, naturally, resembles good ole Luke Skywalker. I mean, just look at
this pic at Ace's and tell me there isn't a resemblance.
Dick Cheney, on the other hand, has been compared to nearly every character in the movie. The Llamabutchers have started reffering to him as "
Darth Cheney," visual aid included, being the notoriously eeeevil conservative he is (would this make Halliburton the Empire?). And Michele not only relates the veeps to characters with Cheney playing Solo, but
describes which one she thinks would make the better lover based on this comparison. but she does make a good point:
Luke : You know, between his howling and you blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here.
Han Solo : Bring 'em on, I'd prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.
Which one do you want as your vice-president?
Glenn Beck spent most of the program today talking about which character was which. He thinks Chaney should be Yoda, schooling the young dorky Luke. He also says Bush is either Obi-Wan or Solo, the Emperor should be either Kerry or Hillary Clinton (I like the Shrill Hill comparison myself), and don't forget the obvious Jabba the Hutt referance. The question there is, who does Moore have on the chain?
I'm sure this is a very partial list, but I'm on the lookout for more. There's also plenty of open characters and pols out there, still, so maybe if we fill in the characters a scene-script ought to be in order.
UPDATE:
e-Claire at Knowledge is Power is all over this one, with a helpful photo and a mostly full cast line-up.
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wretchard on the lack of troop strength
the
Llamabutchers point me toward a rebuttal to Andrew Sullivan from the Belmont Club, in which Wretchard launches into something Sully says that is a common harp from the anti-war types:
the lack of troops, and the looting after baghdad.
The US arrived in Baghdad in May, 2003 minus nearly half the mechanized force intended for the operation. The Fourth Infantry Division which was scheduled to attack downward from Turkey and sweep through the Sunni heartland never arrived in large part due to the opposition of countries like France in the Security Council. Instead, it was forced to re-embark and ship around to the Gulf where it marched north up the Tigris in the path of the 3rd Infantry Division. The 3rd ID, for its part had to continue its attack north to partially subdue the towns in the Sunni triangle. It was a double-whammy. Not only was the 4th ID missing from the order of battle, the 3rd ID had to send units out of Baghdad. to continue the fight further on.
There's lots more over at the club, but that was the most important section for me. Not many serious analysts argue that there isn't enough boots on the ground now (I happen to think there's alot being wasted), but there was a definate shortage, not in taking baghdad, but in maintaining it immedatly afterward. And why is this? Not due to the arrogance or miscalculation of Rumsfeld or Cheney or Bush, but rather the pressure on turkey to capitulate at the last minute that came from our "allies" in old europe.
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talking points, the after-party
i haven't gotten around to too many other blogs yet, i want to write my own synopsis before i disappear for another week.
dick cheney, as the man says, is mean. however, i think that (unlike alot of meanness in politics) this time around it will be more of a plus than a minus. sure, it was mean to smack edwards around, but edwards took it. kerry made bush his beyotch with the cutting remarks last time around, this time it was cheney weilding the pimp-slap. and the man is a past master at the pimp slap.
edwards still came across as intelligent, professional, eloquent; he made some substantive points and got in a few jabs of his own. however, cheney came across as all those things, if perhaps a bit rougher, with a healthy dose of casual superiority to his opponent that was displayed when he rough-handled him that made him seem the obvious best man for the best job.
there are a few points that i wish he had handled a bit more effectively; you would think he would know how to respond to halliburton comments by now, he could have more effectively explained what the repealing the tax cuts for those above 200k would do (small business, two-income couples, and maybe pointing out that that probably wouldn't be the end of raising taxes under kerry), he obviously has no desire to argue for the family marriage amendment (which, neither do i, so i don't really care),
i think cheney pretty much owned the foreign-policy section, and the domestic section didn't really reveal anything new for either side, it mostly just yeilded more talking points.
hopefully, this will go a ways toward repairing some of the damage done after the first presidential debate. it is, of course, up to bush to really fix that this friday, but this is a good lead in.
ultimately, while both men handled themselves very well, this was a debate to see who could do a better job standing in line for the presidency. edwards looked like he would make a pretty good senator. cheney looked like he would make an effective president. and more importantly, he looked like he knew it. perhaps more importantly, edwards seemed at times like he knew it as well. that set the dynamic for the debate: cheney treated edwards like an inferior in a company argument, and edwards, for all his courtroom skills, didn't know how to be the superior in such a situation.
UPDATE: For the folks coming over from Allah's, thanks for coming by. Just wanted to mention that I liveblogged the event down below; it's a bit messy but I like how it turned out, so I wanted to point it out. Comments and arguments are, of course, encouraged.
And thanks to
Allah for the linky.
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talking points: last call, 21
closing statements:
edwards is talking about his blue collar background, and about how much he cares about the middle class. and he somehow included kerry in that. (?)
cheney: brief review of what they've done over four years. accomplishments, and hope for the future
good stuff from cheney, contrasts well with the happy-happy etherial stuff that came from edwards. highlights the differences between the two men, and, for that matter, the two campaigns.
after party will be up later tonight or tommorow, thanx to anyone who stopped by.
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talking points: your final answer 20
question is on the partisan divide to cheney
cheney: the dems are ALL flipfloppers! goes on to talk about how different it was back in the good ole days. crap, i missed the
edwards: bush is a divider not a uniter. universal healthcare. tax cuts? prescription drugs. essentially, he's giving the talking points review, without anything specific
cheney: only has thirty seconds and is staring at the desk. kedwards voted against health care reform
edwards: cheney voted for insurance companies.
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talking points and beach shoes
edwards on flip flopping: "mr. kerry has been very consistent on iraq." since when? i wish i had that sound thing from hannity's show that has his contradictory positions back to back to back to back...
now he's talking about bushies' flip flops. this is definatly very rehearsed, but it's not bad. covers a broad range of things, not all of which are convincing or important, but pretty good taken as a whole.
cheney: hopefully he pulls out some facts instead of just saying it over and over again like bush did. "87 billion" quote. "yes i would still go to war today" "wrong war wrong place wrong time". then onto domestic issues. not to shabby either.
edwards: education, bush said he's for education then he started starving children.
cheney: edwards voted for no child left behind, then against it. closing the gap
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talking points and softballs 18
compare and contrast yourself from your opponent. now they have to be nice to each other while explaining why the other sucks. yeesh, how sad. can't somebody ask edwards how he keeps his skin so pretty, or how cheney got his face stuck into that position?
mrs. cheney: "dickie, don't make that face, it will get stuck like that!"
dickie: "aw, mom, but erg erg erg! my face!"
ha! edwards just broke the rules, he was suppossed to answer the question without saying the word "waffles" and he just did it.
twice! HA!
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talking points: where's my resume?, 17
i missed the question, but it seems that she asked them "why do you guys think you're so goshdarn great?" because all they're doing is passing out resumes.
now edwards is giving kerrys resume. and cheney responds with bush's. we know you're a bunch of shiny special people. what a lame ass question.
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talking point aids, 17
hey, bono likes bush on aids, right? well, he talked to him about it anyway, that should be worth a few points.
education + public awareness + druuuuugs = less aids. sounds good, and apparently they've done something to help with that, although i haven't heard much about it
yeah, africa's hurtin, everybody wants to do something about it. like throw words at it, apparently.
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talking points and catching up
heh slam on edwards from the moderator: "do you think sen. edwards is part of the problem with medical liability reform?"
ahhh johhny's proud of the work he did, channelling dead babies. good for him.
crap, i lost a bunch of stuff playing catchup with blogger.
hmmm...yeah, nobody likes tort laws, shit's expensive, eh? edwards should be a soft target on this one, but otoh he really knows what the hell he's talking about and it's showing.
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talking points and technical difficulties, 15
i think i blogger just lost a post for me. the moderator asked edwards, "on gay marriage, are you trying to have it both ways?" (get your mind out of the gutter) he said no...er, yes...er, no...er, we want marriage, but we don't want to call it that, which is a common stance, although a stupid one imo.
dick had a chance to respond, he just thanked edwards for respecting his daughter, and passed on the question. wonder how he feels about fma, eh?
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talking points: what the hell are we talking about again? -- 15
edwards is talking about gay marriage, he was just acussed of "having it both ways" by the moderator (get your mind out of the gutter). essentially, he thinks we should have gay marriage, but we shouldn't call it "gay marriage". i think it's a stupid stance, but it's a common one.
dick had a chance to respond, all he said was thanx to edwards for respecting his daughter, he stands by the president, and passed on the question. hmmm?
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talking points: same sex marriage 14
dick's talking about how ssm should be a state's rights issue...wouldn't the amendment ban that? essentially all he said was "blah blah blah filler filler filler i support the president"
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talking points 13
please please please dick please slam him over the "we're only raising taxes for those who make more than 200 grand a year" line. small businesses man! married couples!
woo i didn't think he was going to do it, but he just wandered a bit. he's there now. and he's using edwards' words from the primaries against him. he still could have done it a bit more forcefully and a bit more clearly, but at least he did it.
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talking points and politics of personal destruction, 13
edwards is coming back, and has a good point that cheney answered a question about jobs by talking about no child left behind.
edwards just tried an uppercut with "mr. vp, i don't think this country can handle another four years of your administration", but it seemed to this pundit like more of a frenchy boy slap than a punch.
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new post, 12
i think blogger may like me more if i do it this way. so yeah, neither one answered the israel - palestine question, and that ends foreign affairs. it closed on a good note though, edwards attacked cheney's record on several bills he's voted against, and in response cheney simply said "i think my opponent's record stands for itself" very cool, very
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talking points
1. technical problems already. looks like c-span is down, so i'll be listening on the radio again...allah's sitting this one out, but the
llamas are all over it.
2. "the senator has his facts wrong" edwards just brought out the old chestnut about no ties between iraq and al queda, and accused cheney of linking saddam to 9/11, and dick promply shot him down
3. cheney: "freedom is the best antidote for terror". then he went and started talking about a country no swing voters have ever heard of.
4. edwards just said he wants to have honesty when speaking to leaders of "other worlds".
good on 'em.
edwards keeps talking about all the great stuff kerry has said. not what he's actually done, mind you, what he's said.
oop dick agrees with me: "your rhetoric would be alot more impressive if there were facts to back it up
i think blogger's about to crash on me. great timing.
5. edwards is starting to fumble his words, and cheney has the look of the title character from "jaws"
he's having a hard time arguing with
ooh this is one of my pet peeves, edwards is bitching about not funding the troops, when he voted AGAINST it. bush let kerry slide on this one, and cheney didnt' say much to it either, although he did a bit earlier.
cheney's all over him: "how are you going to get europe to send troops to the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time?"
6. kerry's estimates of ninty percent of troop deaths american just bit edwards on the ass, hard: they weren't counting iraqi troops. cheney thinks its wrong to "demean" them like that. got 'em hard.
7.
vodkapundit is also on this one, and he is right: this is moving just too fast to do point-by-point. however, so far, while edwards is still pretty, cheney is actually debating. vp also has a roundup of livebloggers (i just may toss my name in the hat)
8. HALLIBURTON! i was praying edwards would bring halliburton up, cheney should rip him apart on this one.
9. unfortunately, he didn't answer too well. he seemed thrown off at first, then threw out a website address, then simply said it's not true. it's not true and there's alot there to back him up, but he's going to have to do better than simply saying so and letting it drop.
10. hm...i should start timestamping this. halliburton again, cheney needs to say something worthwhile or don't say anything about it at all. heheh he just called edwards "sen. gone", from his hometown paper. 2145
11. does getting rid of saddam help lessen palestinian suicide bombs? cheney seems to think so. hell, they aren't even answering questions, they're just attacking each other on past votes.
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bring on the veeps
Assuming nothing comes up, I'm going to make another attempt at live blogging tonite during the debates. I didnt' for the last one, and I regret it because by the time I finally sat down to say what I had to say, I couldn't remember what it was.
I've actually been looking forward to this one for a while. Personally, I don't think either of the presidential candidates are particularly good speakers; Kerry sounds like a babbling patrician prick and Bush sounds like an idiot. (Unfortunatly for use rightie, Kerry more or less got his stylistic shortcomings under control, whereas Bush seemed to actually get somehow worse.)
On the other hand, Edwards and Cheney cut their rhetorical teeth in courtrooms and boardrooms, some of the toughest forums out there. They both have talent, and neither one of them is going to get taken by the other. Also, they have totally different styles; the silver-tounged lawyer and the agressive, experienced CEO.
Assuming, of course, they both stay on point and on their game. Part of the fun of this is that either one could crap in their hat and start mumbling about bunnies or halliburton or start screaming obscenities at their opponent or something. Which would also be fun.
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somehow i missed this
I just heard about this for the first time on Neal Boortz's show today, but apparently cns news (I know, I know) has stuff from Iraq that will prove that Saddam was trying to buy various biochem weapons back and 2000, as well as possible ties to queda and other terrorist organizations (nevermind the ones that are allready there). (Here's a question: which would be more damning: finding a few tons of VX in Saddam's basement, or finding secret Saddam-Osama love notes? Terrorist ties or WMD?)
Anywho, the
Kerryspot has Rumsfeld's reaction when Hannity posed the question to him. But let me distill it for you anyway: "Unlike some, I actually know what the acronym CYA stands for, and I'm going to be sure it's done before I say a damn thing." Enter the pajamadeen on that one.
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