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The thing is still going, and you're already speaking in the past tense.

Did you write those conclusions yesterday?
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Crap. Cubs are down 5 to nothing after 3 to the Dodgers. Nothing against the Dodgers though. But Cubs loose this game and they're history.

Looks like Gwen Ifill had to change her cue cards before this one.

Oh the PBS pundits were shitting themselves that Governor Palin did so well.

I love how Hussein/Biden claim McCain/Palin are just Bush II. The only problem which I didn't see anyone mention all week after the McCain/Hussein debate was Hussein has adopted all the strategies of the Bush Administration in fighting the war on terror.

Go sister Palin. She had Biden on the ropes the entire night.

She looked fantastic. It was distracting. I was trying to listen to her, but kept fantasizing.

Meanwhile, Biden went awfully heavy on the man-tan didn't he? Except for his eyelids, which flashed like a baboon whenever he blinked. And he really needs to step away from the Botox.

I hate to admit it, because I really friggin' hate the guy, but he spoke well. He's relaxed and comes across as well-informed. He would have taken her if not for Palin's significant "It" factor, and the fact that she wasn't her own worst enemy here. If he was debating a not-hot chick, with an abrasive personality, like Hillary, he would have wiped the floor with her.

I think he's a sleazebag politician, but I give the guy props for once. He didn't toe-tickle his tonsils with a gaffe, and he was in it for real. A few politiciany rhetorical tricks, but they were pretty good ones.

Now on to the next political hurdle. I hope the house defeats the bailout bill. I really do. My senators wussed out, the pair of them. One house guy last time was da, the other nyet. Mine was the da, and I ripped him a new one on his answering machine.

I don't care if the private sector can correct this or not. Depression? Bring it on. Why have a crisis when a crisis can be inverted? Please. Bloating the government, and rewarding the abysmal behavior isn't averting squat. It's creating an even bigger dust bunny that's eventually going to grow up into Godzilla and eat everything anyway.

Fuck these con artists. I choose poverty. I'd literally rather pick through the garbage for deposit bottles to redeem. I'm not worried. Because I certainly know the value of a dollar and hard work more than some of these fools. We are not on the verge of economic collapse. And even if we are, it's not because there wasn't enough government, but too much.

That friggin' bill grew from two pages to war and peace almost overnight. And you just know it's because they had to pork it up to get the votes from some of these bastids. Trow out da bums. Fuck 'em all. I'll curse them with every forkful of rice and beans I eat until we get fiscally healthy the American way.

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Listen, to be honest, I'm not really interested in going another round with Markle-like argument clinic tactics. A few pages back you can find what I wrote. Thalo, me and some others were discussing this question. And I thought it was a rather good, if brief, discussion that strung along here and there for several pages. That discussion begins here. If you have an further thoughts or questions, let me know.

Read every word. Guess what. Nothing about trying to fix the problem of unwanted pregnancies and preventing or eliminating abortion. Pages and pages and posts of nuh-thing. Pretty amazing in fact. I would've thought there'd be a smidgen of something.

We don't have to have another go around, because it's clear you have no solutions, only rhetoric. I really combed over your "rather good discussion" hoping to find a mere fragment of a potential solution. I really did. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. You're a good guy, and I really hoped for just one thing. Not one, NOT ONE, whisper of a solution. All I can say is you offer up the same old argument. Rant against your opponent, but don't say a word in terms of possible solutions we can use. Bravo. Lots of words and not one thing to contribute towards a real world solution. You'd make Sarah proud.

Of course we can end the abortion talk. I'm fine with that. This was an excellent exercise demonstrating that conservatives have nothing, zero, to offer in terms of real world solutions to a prevalent problem in society.

Is there any other progressive or liberal topic you'd like to rail against where you have no solvable clue? I'm more than happy to take up thalo's challenge to argue for the liberal/progressive side if that's all you have.

I keep hearing this during the political season, and I heard it again in the debate from Governor Palin.

Quote: "John McCain knows how to win a war."

I hope someone can answer this for me. What war has John McCain ever won?

My quick take on tonight's debate.

I have to admit, Palin seemed more likable to me; I saw a certain charm that I hadn't noticed in her before. I'd like her as my neighbor, friend or better yet, between the sheets. But as VP? No way. That said, her hoaky "Joe Six Pack" Soccer Mom" act is getting tired. She's trying too hard to be accepted as one of "us" (well not me), meaning those in the heartland whose crucial votes she is trying to solicit. She knows the northeast is lost, so fuck those "elitist" New Yorkers/New Englanders like and she'll freely express her disdain for that region. For a woman whose net worth is over 1 million dollars, her exclaiming that she is the typical, middle class soccer mom doesn't quite ring true. Still, I admired how gracious she seemed for the most part.

I can't see how anyone can see this as a win for her, other than she didn't fuck up royally as she did during her interviews, especially this past week with Couric. She was blatantly rehearsed, and when she couldn't answer direct questions that threw her off from her rehearsed "speeches" she somehow brought it back to the more familiar; the speeches written for her that she studied and practiced hard on. Her debate in large consisted of many non-sequitors and her typical babble that we've heard before.

Worse yet, she hung McCain out to dry, not once rebutting Biden's charges against him. The only conclusion that I can draw from this is she didn't know how, or couldn't, because of her lack of knowledge. So what does she do? She goes back to her rehearsed speech - all she was prepared with - as irrelevant as it may have been. You could almost sense that when she was looking down at her script, that she was trying to pluck the parts written for her by McCain and his team, trying to figure out what she could use during the line of questioning and in response to Biden. I actually started to feel bad for her as she is clearly out of her league, and she is obviously trying hard.

Chris Matthews (no I'm not a fan) described it best. He said that it seemed as if she were in a spelling bee.

And thalo, I wouldn't consider myself a liberal. I'm truly an independent, but after 8 years of Bush/Chaney (the devil), I cannot vote for another four years of them, and that's exactly what you'll get with McCain, a man who has praised Cheney and admittedly sided with Bush 90% of the time. Maverick, my ass. He knows that he has no shot in hell if he publicly supported the Bush administration, and only started stressing "change" and "maverick" as he fell way behind in the polls. His new tactic has Karl Rove written all over it.

During this campaign, you can call me a liberal. Heck, I'd vote for Castro before I'd vote for another 4 years of McCain/Bush/Cheney.

Credit has to be given Joe Biden for not straying from his game plan, keeping his cool, and acting like a gentleman throughout, never condescending.

He could have easily ripped Palin apart, and you can almost sense that he was tempted, but any signs of bully tactics and/or chauvinism would have been suicide.

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Originally posted by mithradites:
I keep hearing this during the political season, and I heard it again in the debate from Governor Palin.

Quote: "John McCain knows how to win a war."

I hope someone can answer this for me. What war has John McCain ever won?

LOL Yeah. I said aloud to myself "Really? The U.S. won Vietnam?"

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This was no RNC. There is no IT factor. She did not "tear it up".

She is exposed for what she is: another GWB. I mean that not politically, I mean that in the sense that she is yet another rural, down-home governor that is being paraded about to generate folksy enthusiasm for the ticket, just like they did with GWB. Neither have any experience at the federal or international level. With GWB, as it is now with Palin, it was all "don't worry, you'll have a great team to support you in office".

There is no way she can be president whatsoever, vice or otherwise.

All she did when she couldn't answer a question was to read from the rehearsed script, often in a totally of-topic manner. These terrified (and terrifying) non sequiturs hilight how she cannot think on her feet or for herself.

Take that sarcastic, condescending, smirky, appeal-to-the-heartland, golly-gee-gosh-heck routine and shove it up your ass, lady.

She has about 5 tricks that she does, I'm on to her style. That's up from about 2 for Bush. She seems like a regular F. Scott Fitzgerald compared to him, but how hard is that?

The Couric interview was an utter embarrassment. The fact that in this debate she wasn't AS BAD is no victory or comfort, guys.

Hahahhahahhaaa you guys are shitting yourselves as much as the PBS pundits did last night over Governor Palin.

Biden was just as much scripted 100%. He is just been at it longer.

Come on Snobby you just quoted Chris Mathews leaving your post null and void.

McCain knows how to win a war especially a war like Vietnam. You don't pull out until the war is won.

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Biden was just as much scripted 100%. He is just been at it longer.

Come on Snobby you just quoted Chris Mathews leaving your post null and void.

Yeah, but at least within Biden's script he was able to answer all questions and rebuttals directly and not foolishly dance around them and randomly blurt any portion of the script as Palin did.

As for Chris Matthews, sometimes, between the hysterics he gets it right. His spelling bee analogy was spot on.

I don't think that this debate will influence anybody either way. No one will lose or gain any votes. Biden performed as expected and Palin didn't fuck up royally as anticipated. She is getting 100% of the conservative vote regardless and there probably are few "undecided" who were blown away by her performance. The more perceptive have seen through her folksy, repetitive act long ago.

quote:

All she did when she couldn't answer a question was to read from the rehearsed script, often in a totally of-topic manner. These terrified (and terrifying) non sequiturs hilight how she cannot think on her feet or for herself.

Take that sarcastic, condescending, smirky, appeal-to-the-heartland, golly-gee-gosh-heck routine and shove it up your ass, lady.

She has about 5 tricks that she does, I'm on to her style. That's up from about 2 for Bush. She seems like a regular F. Scott Fitzgerald compared to him, but how hard is that?

I doubt very much that you and I are the only two people who share this opinion.

A couple of important observations. What's with Biden's wrinkle-free forehead and one puffy eye to go along with those hair plugs? And Palin's sweet, smooth, rounded ass and smoking legs (especially those calves) were nicely enhanced with those red fuck-me pumps.

Looks like Gwen Ifill had to change her cue cards before this one.

Perhaps due to pre-debate criticism, or maybe she just knows how to turn on "impartial" when she wants to, Ifill did not inappropriately insert herself into the debate and actually resembled a professional journalist.

She looked fantastic. It was distracting. I was trying to listen to her, but kept fantasizing.

Me too. I kept seeing offshore oil rigs, shale oil, lower gas prices, moose burgers, and someone who loves her country deeply and sincerely.

He didn't toe-tickle his tonsils with a gaffe

Yeah, no gaffs unless you count the list of outright lies including his assertion that Obama didn't say that he would meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. Dems just hope nobody is listening. And I agree with those who say that the uncritical brown-nosing mainstream media has made it very easy for Dems to lie. They don't expect to be fact-checked.

I loved Biden's Cheney Deranged Syndrome. The worst vice president ever? He wouldn't be in the top 40. But that was, for liberals, like Biden stepping to one of the Stations of the Cross.

and I ripped him a new one on his answering machine.

I would pay good money to hear that tape. I don't doubt that you did.

Bloating the government, and rewarding the abysmal behavior isn't averting squat. It's creating an even bigger dust bunny that's eventually going to grow up into Godzilla and eat everything anyway.

That's my proclivity as well. What is probably more than okay is a compromise. Not a bailout, but a less-is-more bill that simply helps to soften out a few things such as increasing the level the FDIC will guarantee at, changing the market-to-market rules, etc. But the lesson of this scandal is that some things in this scandal really ought to fail, including the idea the government should use affirmative action principles in regard to banking. It's time to drop all this nonsense, although that will be difficult because so many people have been so heavily ingrained with envy and hatred of other races and classes. When we look at a Pastor Wright, for instance, he's merely a very distilled summing-up of what these policies represent. No wonder Obama saw nothing out of the ordinary in that church for almost 20 years. And he's right. A lot of this affirmative action, race envy, class hatred stuff has been mainstreamed by so many. Who's going to touch that third rail in the Senate or the House of Representatives? That would take true courage and true bipartisanship, if that word is to mean anything, because ALL people (all but the most deranged Democrats) believe in fairness. Equality is not a partisan issue, or shouldn't be.

Fuck these con artists. I choose poverty. I'd literally rather pick through the garbage for deposit bottles to redeem. I'm not worried. Because I certainly know the value of a dollar and hard work more than some of these fools. We are not on the verge of economic collapse. And even if we are, it's not because there wasn't enough government, but too much.

I think you're channeling Ronald Reagan. And maybe a little Sam Kinison as well, but sometimes this stuff gets smooshed together from the nether-regions.

Nothing about trying to fix the problem of unwanted pregnancies and preventing or eliminating abortion.

And why is it the government's job to do so? That is the question you have not answered. Your entire political philosophy is based on the idea of "Here's a problem...government can and ought to fix it." You haven't questioned that premise. You haven't acknowledged how often government solutions make things worse. You haven't faced the fact that Progressivism is utopian in nature and the implications of that. If something is wrong, the Progressive mindset thinks it can be fixed and, in their self-pointed and anointed arrogance, that not to even try is monstrous, such is their belief in their magical powers to solve any problem. A conservative understands that, yes, there are some things that government can and should do. But it also recognizes what you might think of as the scientific method. If something government tries to do doesn't actually work, it's stupid to just keep doing the same failed things. But that's routinely what Progressives do. According to Walter Williams, if you average out what we spend on social programs, a poor family of four receives $67,000 in aid. So why are they still poor?

Do you really want a "fix" from government on when, where, how, and why people can have sex? That's inevitably what you're asking when you want to fix the problem of unwanted pregnancies. No "fix" of unwanted pregnancies can come unless you somehow find a way of inserting a government law and bureaucrats into this process that ordinarily has always been handled by individuals themselves. And from long practice, whether we're talking poverty or housing for the poor, we see how often government simply makes matters worse.

Yeah, it sucks that there are hardships and problems. And this liberal arrogance that thinks it can, and should, overcome every hardship with government is exactly what Sowell calls "The Quest for Cosmic Justice." I do recommend this book to you. Not every problem should be fixed by government, particularly sexual issues. By all means, let contraceptives be legal. Let the morning-after pill be legal. And let first trimester abortions regrettably be legal. But that's it. What kind of mindset would want the government intruding more into such a personal area of people's lives?

Pages and pages and posts of nuh-thing. Pretty amazing in fact. I would've thought there'd be a smidgen of something.

This is what I talked about in regards to not getting into a pointless Markle-like Argument Clinic debate. You may not agree with anything I've said. Fine. But this liberal mindset to just dismiss as irrelevant anything it doesn't agree with is pointless in regards to bandying ideas back and forth. It's actually rather small-minded. So I just don't get much out of interchanges like this. I get more out of HH calling me an asshole, frankly, than somebody reading the Encyclopedia Britannica and saying "Oh, there's just nothing in there. Not a smidgen." At least when someone calls me an asshole they are being honest. I get the message "They don't like me." That's information. That's honest information. But the smarmy and disingenuous stuff that comes from you and Markle is like trying to have batting practice using marshmallows. There's just nothing substantive to bounce off of.

We don't have to have another go around, because it's clear you have no solutions, only rhetoric.

What the hell do you think we do here, pass laws? Of course all we have is rhetoric. And yet, as they say, all actions start with a thought. It matters that we get this stuff sorted out in our head so that when we interact with the world we do more good than do-gooder ignorant harm.

She is exposed for what she is: another GWB. I mean that not politically, I mean that in the sense that she is yet another rural, down-home governor that is being paraded about to generate folksy enthusiasm for the ticket, just like they did with GWB. Neither have any experience at the federal or international level. With GWB, as it is now with Palin, it was all "don't worry, you'll have a great team to support you in office".

It sounds more like you have a visceral dislike for her rather than you differ politically with her. Or maybe you don't agree that Israel is one of our best allies, that if we wish to be energy independent that part of that includes drilling for our own oil, that it would be stupid to pull out of Iraq when the terrorists agree it is the central front of the battle, that we should sit down with Iran and try to shmooze them out of not lobbing nukes around the Middle East instead of working against them acquiring nuclear weapons, whatever that takes. Maybe you're for nominating Supreme Court justices who, like children with chalk on the sidewalk, will draw anything onto the Constitution that suits them. Maybe, like Obama and Biden, you believe that the color of one's skin is more important than color-blindness under the law and that affirmative action, political correctness, hate speech, hate crimes, the Fairness Doctrine, and all that sort of nonsense should be central to the American way of life. Or maybe you just don't like Alaska and moose, although I seriously doubt that. But clearly you dislike for Palin is more than just about her good looks.

All she did when she couldn't answer a question was to read from the rehearsed script, often in a totally of-topic manner. These terrified (and terrifying) non sequiturs hilight how she cannot think on her feet or for herself.

That's what debates have been for some time now. Be honest. You know this. These debates aren't really debates. I've debated before. I know what debate is about and you, Presidential Debates, are no Jack Kennedy. But to just single out Palin for doing what everyone else has been doing for years just shows a blinkered bias. Okay, you don't like her. But you and others keep rationalizing all these crazy reasons for that instead of reaching deep down and just saying what it really is. Or maybe the problem is that you do like her, or at least part of what she's saying, and you're having some deep conflicts about all the stuff you've been indoctrinated with in the past.

The Couric interview was an utter embarrassment.

Maybe. But that interview pales in comparison to the many gaffs of Obama and Biden, as well as some of their outlandishly stupid and outright dangerous positions on things. TMO, you just sound like another person trying to gin up reasons in your own mind for why to not like her. And they just all wind up sounding ginned-up and phony. If you are against Palin, what are you for? I think that's central to the issue. I don't think an honest, self-aware person can honestly vote for Barack Obama knowing what he stands for. That's certainly not an argument for McCain. Certainly this election offers up one of those classic "least objectionable" scenarios where we might not be voting for anyone, but just trying to pick the least objectionable. And, at least for me, Obama simply screams "objectionable." He's not even close. Aside from rank partisans like Markle, and taking into account how relative weak McCain is as a candidate, I'm still in amazement that a large percentage of Americans are ready to vote into the office of the Presidency someone as radical as Barack Obama. It's a shame we don't have better candidates to choose from, but I think a large part of that reason is that we've gotten used to some very bad ideas and have allowed them to become mainstream.

One of those ideas is the idea that bipartisanship is a horrible thing. I'm still not sure where that came from, although I have some ideas. I think it's either the female demographic behind it (to put it nicely) or the wussified male, or a little of both. Men specifically like battles and contests. Who goes to a football game and hopes the quarterback and the captain of the defense will just get together and decide to stop battling over turf and instead have a tea party on the fifty yard line? But that's where we are now. Bipartisanship is promoted as a virtue onto itself. It's one of the most stupid and mindless policies in existence. It presupposes, for example, that the Jews would have been better off playing bipartisanship with Hitler and just half of them going off to the death camps. And while the differences between Democrats and Republicans are not quite that dramatic, there are real differences. And not all of them, or perhaps even most of them, should just be split down the middle. Some are very good ideas, and some are very bad ideas, and half of a very bad idea doesn't make it a half good idea, and certainly doesn't make it anywhere as good as simply adopting the good idea. So, for once, I'm in agreement with John Kerry: screw bipartisanship.

Nailing Palin...

LOL. I think it's about time that politicians be sexy for more things than just their economic or energy policies. I mean, *I* might get a woody when talking wonk-policy stuff, but nothing beats sex in its more, err, primary forms.

A sobering look at ACORN, the Community Reinvestment Act, affirmative-action lending, and Democratic earmarks: ACORN, Obama, and the mortgage mess, by Mona Charen

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Brad and Bozo remind me of what Reece told the young naive Sarah Connor about the Terminator in the original movie:

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity. Or remorse. Or fear. And it absolutely will not stop--EVER!"
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