Rex Kickass

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Sep 15, 2008 -> 09:55 AM) Don't fall for that. People who believe that are the same ones who think the mkt should be up because oil is down another 5 dollars. Oil going down is not positive, it reflects global deflation= not good. We should ping either the 1170 area or the 1155 area on the S&P, whether it bounces there is another story. Isn't oil still up 50% for the year?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 15, 2008 -> 10:51 AM) Obama and Zebari had a differing of opinions once before. Maybe something was lost in the translation. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/20...-and-iraqi.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8061702034.html So the links that you post are both kind of confirming my theory. If Iraq wants to have international peacekeeping forces in the country to protect its interests, Obama would have suggested asking for an extension of the UN mandate. This gives the US the flexibility to leave at its own pace while still maintaining a military presence that can help keep the peace in Iraq. I think there's a very honest argument that can be made that the US shouldn't have its military capability held hostage to how effective the Iraqi government is. Having an internationalization of the military presence can give the US that flexibility while aiding Iraq's stability.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 15, 2008 -> 10:46 AM) Isn't that the President in CIC? I know that Congress needs to approve treaties, but as for specific troop levels and movements, i think that is up to the President, not Congress. Actually, the War Powers resolution means that Congress must authorize the placement of troops in imminent harm for no more than 60 days without a state of war being in effect.

This seems like a stretch of an argument, which would explain why the NY Post put it in the Op/Ed section. An extension of the UN mandate is not the same as stalling a troop drawdown at all. Merely, it could be a plea to allow a new administration to internationalize the military presence in Iraq, allowing US combat troops to withdraw while leaving peacekeepers to come in and keep a weak state from failing. I don't think most people will understand the difference, however. There is some subtlety at play - and it could very well be used as a hit you over the head issue that could hurt Obama.

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 15, 2008 -> 12:55 AM) Still not doing homework: T.I., Kanye, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne - Swagger like us If that song leaked a month ago, it would have been the song of the summer. I hear it everywhere in New York. Isaac Hayes - Walk On By (Vastly superior to the Burt Bacharach arrangement) James Brown - I Got The Feelin' The Gossip - Keeping You Alive D.O.A. - Marijuana Motherf***er Jurassic 5 - Future Sound Brian Wilson - Good Kind of Love (Really surprised how well this album turned out. By and large Brian Wilson still has a sense of humor and it generally doesn't sound too derivative of the other stuff he used to do in the Pet Sounds/Smile era.) Bruce Springsteen - Buffalo Gals Sigur Ros - Hopipolla Tricky - Bad Things Bonde Do Role - Solta o Frango

List Ten Songs in your shuffle as they've come up in order. If there's something you particularly love, tell us why! Jamiroquai - If I Like It, I Do It James Brown - It's A Man's Man's Man's World - An amazing early soul slow jam by the hardest working man in show business. Although the studio version is great, check out the Live at the Apollo version - stretching 2 minutes into 15 and it doesn't get boring in the least. Parry Gripp - Got To Dip It Blur - Coffee and Tv - Really the last great pop single that Blur did before the crack-up that made Gorillaz Damon Albarn's main project and Blur something on the side. It's the left over britpop vibe you found from the first three albums, and vastly superior to anything that followed on their following releases. Hard-Fi - Unnecessary Trouble Peaches - Felix Partz Deee-Lite - Two Clouds Above Nine - The Deee-Lite album nobody bought still had Bootsy on bass and features the line "Damn, that's my jam! Damn, damn, that's my jam!" Frank Black - Break My Body (demo) Gorillaz - Feel Good, Inc. We Are Wolves - Magique

Rafting

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 14, 2008 -> 01:54 PM) I secretly hoped someone would go nutso. So how do we feel about voluntary broomstick sodemny and voluntary group sex with cheerleaders? I think that both activities are relatively dangerous and stupid for everyone involved.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 14, 2008 -> 09:53 AM) And Obama only dumped Ayers, Rev Wright and numerous other people because the media found out about it and it looked bad. What's your point? The organizers sell booth space. They don't check every tiny detail of the sellers, and when a problem was brought to their attention, they took care of it. You'd think when they saw the giant poster behind them, they'd have figured it out before the third day of the convention. Here's an interview with the Waffle folks at their booth at the convention. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/b...bctid1790977147 I don't want to make a broad generalization here and say that the Republicans support the Muslim rumor or the veiled racism here, but it seems pretty obvious that these people who ran the convention were more than willing to turn a blind eye to it. And if this doesn't represent the mainstream of Republican politics, why did the chair of GOPAC, Michael Steele speak there? Why did Mittens Romney make an appearance for the second straight year? And Tom DeLay, Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich? There's no outrage or anger here. But for all the talk I've heard about Obama's supporters alienating people on the fence by being annoying - how does this make the people behind McCain look?

East Lansing

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Sep 14, 2008 -> 01:12 PM) a$$ broom diallo?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 14, 2008 -> 10:08 AM) Gallup daily tracking poll has McCain now up 47-45% Obama has been gaining a point a day on Gallup for the last three days, so I think we're seeing the tightening of this race that we've always supposed to see. DailyKos has also commissioned a poll from Research 2000, and it shows the race tied 47-47. The cool stuff about the Daily Kos poll is that it posts all the data every day, so you can see everything. Rasmussen shows a 50-47 McCain lead. Now that the McCain/Palin bounce is fading, we are starting to see the reality that neither party wants to admit. The Democrats have spent the summer measuring the drapes at the White House and have been a little overconfident. In reality, they're in a good spot, but on the defensive. In a sense, this could be a hidden blessing for the Democrats. I'd rather be the party that isn't overconfident about a victory in a tight race on November 4. McCain has seen the race tighten and gotten a nicer, bigger bounce out of the two conventions, but seems to have taken an extremely negative, not straight talk express way to get there. With 50 days left, it means that there very well could be a big backfire happening there.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 13, 2008 -> 11:21 PM) Yup, pretty classless move there. The big difference though is the organizors stopped it when they found out about it. If this were a Democratric convention and 2 people had set up a booth selling Palin Pork Sausage that depicted cartoon images of her as a pig with snout and all, it would have never been pulled, Kos would have front page diaries about how good the sausage was, Randi Rhodes would pass out from complaingin that the sausage was too opiniated and wanted to push its religion on the rest of us and it would just get chuckled away as 2 vendors trying to make a buck, not something that the party or its organizers condoned. Not like the organizers could have ever gone to their website or anything, http://www.obamawaffles.com. This only got pulled because the media found out about it and it looked bad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080913/ap_on_...e3gICr8SmCs0NUE Nope, nobody's calling him a muslim. Nobody's playing the race card but him.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 13, 2008 -> 12:06 PM) You are of course assuming that SHE started the practice of charging for them. I suppose that when you call for an ambulance after an accident, that it comes out for free, right? Doesn't charge you for the trip, or services rendered? A rape kit is used to gather evidence if I recall correctly. So it would be more like charging the person whose house was robbed to dust for fingerprints. Beyond that, yes Mayor Palin's administration was the administration that started charging for the rape kits. Former Chief Stambaugh (the one Palin fired) did not charge for rape kits. As is evidenced by his budgets The policy started with Police Chief Fannon in 1998, and given that there was a contigency budgeted for rape kits until 1999, all points lead to the conclusion that the policy began in 1998 or 1999 and ended with the new law passed by the state in 2000. http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136 If you want to pour through Palin's budgets and verify for yourself - there's the link.

I have donated to the campaign and to the DNC. I also started doing the neighbor to neighbor outreach, and made my first 25 calls today.

So if you have a horse in this race, how are you supporting his candidacy?

People find things sometimes that make me laugh. -John McCain, Fox News Presidential Debate, Oct 21, 2007

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Sep 12, 2008 -> 12:35 PM) Have been for 4 months, and am for another 8. Well crap, welcome to the neighborhood.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2008 -> 12:06 PM) Do not underestimate the Republican ground game...aka the evangelical part of that party. In 2000 and 2004 that was, as far as I could tell, their ground game. That's how Bush outdid his polls. They were turned off until McCain picked one of them as his VP, now they're back in the game. Absolutely right on with that. But, here's what you have to consider. There are two fundamentally different demographic shifts with this election than there were last time that have the possibility of neutralizing this effect in swing states. 1. African-American Turnout. - It will be ginormous. I think the Obama turnout in the Detroit/Flint area will be so large that it will submerge any re-energized Republicans in Grand Rapids and points north that it makes a McCain victory in Michigan that much less likely. It really helps make a state like Missouri much closer as there will be massive turnout in St. Louis and Kansas City. And I think it helps put a state like New Jersey that flirts with Republicans every year but never commits out of reach. 2. The Hispanic Vote - Bush won, in no small part, because he was able to peel enough Hispanic vote from Kerry and Gore, getting around 40% in each round. In the last four years, the GOP has kind of forgotten to reach out to the Latino population - instead taking a game changer for the GOP like Bush/McCain's comprehensive reform for immigration and almost turns it into something opposite. Although McCain had a better standing with Hispanics then, to reach his base, he's had to backtrack significantly, and the addition of a woman from Alaska is not necessarily going to help him. If Obama can limit McCain to 35% or less of the Latino vote, which is reasonable. It makes New Mexico and Colorado so much harder to keep from losing, and helps through Florida into being more of a toss-up. I realize that the Hispanic vote is not homogenous. But it's not unreasonable to think that the GOP actions on border control costs them 5 to 10 points in an election. Plus Hoy the largest spanish language newspaper in the country strongly endorsed Obama in the primary, I think this community will stand stronger behind Obama than they have Democratic candidates past.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Sep 12, 2008 -> 11:31 AM) It is for me especially considering it's also my b-day, so even though I'm not American, it probably affects me more than most. I was able to go down to Ground Zero for about 5-10 mins yesterday at 6:30PM, and basically just reflect, and that was something I really wanted to do when I came here, so I was glad to do it. You're in NYC now?

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Sep 12, 2008 -> 11:48 AM) I do think McCain's going to peel a couple off of "old Kerry" states... so that really will throw it in the balance. Just curious? Which ones? I think he really only has a shot in Michigan and New Hampshire... And I just don't see those spots flipping.

I was working at a radio station as a tornado passed within a half mile of the station. I was working at a radio station as a funnel cloud passed over our studios without touching down. I have been stuck at work in New Jersey overnight on three separate occasions due to snow storms and Nor'Easters.

It's 50 state elections. Remember that. Obama looks to carry every Kerry state from 2004. 251 votes means 20 more electoral votes needed to be peeled off to take the Presidency. He looks like he'll pick up Iowa which is 7 votes. It leaves 13 votes needed to win. Any of the following battleground combinations will work: OH FL VA CO+NM Or NV Or IN IN+NM Or NV NM+NV+SD He's got a lot of outs, and I think he has the edge in Colorado and New Mexico.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 12, 2008 -> 10:11 AM) Tex, your migrant farm workers are not the ones people tend to worry about. How about those they keep arresting and deporting from meat packing plants? Yes, the work is dirty, but it does pay well, and there are plenty of Americans who want those jobs. And if I recall right, the last raid that was conducted had a bunch of workers cheering when INS showed up. You are correct, the border fence appears to be a boondoggle. .I will AGREE with you that we need a worker program of some kind. I will DISAGREE with you if you think that means amnesty for all those that broke the law and are here now. Especially for any that have used someone else's identity. Yet, employers keep employing illegals and do so, knowingly. If you don't punish the employers, you can't solve the problem. I don't disagree with deporting undocumented residents, however I do disagree with letting the people who provided them the work that brought them here get off scot-free. And, when you think about it, the fall of labor unions in the workforce have a lot to do with illegal employment in this country, especially in the meatpacking plants.