Rex Kickass

Although I'm no Hillary fan, as it stands right now, this year I vote for the person with the D attached - hands down. It has nothing to do with party loyalty, but rather with the choices that our country has to make right now in foreign policy (and by that I mean everywhere but Iraq.) I honestly find most GOP candidates foreign policy ideas to be really myopic and too quick to eschew diplomacy for the gunboat. The only exception to that is McCain, but the man is just as much a panderer as Hillary is, so why change horses midstream?

We'd need a much bigger military.

Has anyone heard the new Sigur Ros album?

I don't know that it was in a heavily populated area. The earthquake was in a desert. Calama is the largest city closest to the quake with a population of 140,000 people.

Who was the Channel 9 news anchor that lost part of his ear to a shark?

Several million people who don't control their own fate within Iran.

You're welcome!

I don't really think Bloomberg will run. I think he wants Spitzer's job first.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Nov 13, 2007 -> 09:52 AM) I guess my question to you would be why would any accept this? We should all be pissed off about this, not dismissing it. Jesus its bad enough the dollars that are put into these campaigns, and yet we can even get a real question asked at these events? Maybe if we actually did this right, we could get best candidate on the ballot, instead of the person with the staff most effective at throwing lob questions to their own people. I don't care if everyone does this, it doesn't make it right. True, but then again, if you hold a forum where you can ask the questions - people just don't show up. Our participatory democracy has become about as participatory as American Idol. They want to be entertained, then they vote on Election Day. If issues mattered as much as they should, people like Bill Richardson would be the front runner - despite the fact that they can't make a good appearance to save their lives.

The movie "The Karate Kid" was way better then the novelization I got in the Scholastic Book Club at age 8.

By the way, I'm all about this ridiculous Romanian/German MC named "Miss Platnum." Klezmer backing, big girl with a single called "GIVE ME THE FOOD." It's too good to be true, yet it is.

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Nov 10, 2007 -> 11:40 PM) Oh, I thought maybe you heard the new Britney. It pains me to say it. But that album is actually pretty good.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 12, 2007 -> 02:44 PM) Heh, I didn't notice that. On the one hand its too bad, he was kind of amusing. But its for the better overall, the field is too crowded, and the real contenders need more time. Exactly, when one third of your campaign appearances are debates, you aren't a real candidate.

Kerry did it in 04, as did Bush. I guarantee you that Romney, Guiliani, McCain, Obama, Richardson and Edwards all do it too. Maybe Thompson too, but I think his audience gets too sleepy to know for sure. There was even an episode of That '70s show focused around it. This is a time honored tradition. At rallies and town halls, everything is generally scripted. That's why when a candidate gets heckled - or someone asks an honest question, it makes news. I don't know why people are so shocked at this.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Nov 13, 2007 -> 12:52 AM) While we are taking some jumps, I had a funny thought. If this teacher was accused of murdering someone, we would have no problem accepting the assembly of eight citizens, taken at random, to decide if she/he would live or die. But questions their choice of a book!? Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!! Ordinary citizens could not possibly be entrusted with something that important. You know, just saying. Actually, I would have a huge problem with that. A large chunk of the population does, actually.

I love meat. I just don't have much faith in the current meatpacking industry. So I never buy meat for me to cook, because I can't afford to buy the good stuff... and I can tell the difference in my body if I eat meat from fast food or a cheaper restaurant too believe it or not. However, if I go to Iceland again in December, I'm totally gonna eat whale again. So delicious! Save the whales for me!

Give her a week :-)

So if you are so concerned about what school your High School senior will be attending the next year, and want to challenge them to be a successful student and learn to think critically, why on earth would you challenge a curriculum based on one scene in one book that the class is required to read? What changes between someone's senior year in high school and freshman year in college that makes "The Prince of Tides" so heinous? What happens when all of a sudden, the college professor requires your kid to read Tropic of Cancer?

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Nov 11, 2007 -> 02:06 PM) I wonder if the staffers for Hillary that planted her softball questions will get any percentage of the scrutiny as the FEMA folks? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310417,00.html Every preznitial campaign does this. Every single one. Most of them have better minders though who don't give 12 year olds questions that sound like they're coming from the mouth of a 40 year old college professor.

I think rather than giving up eating meat, it makes me want to eat free-range and organic meats instead. Much less cruelty involved, much better sanitation in the packing process - generally.

Predicitions: After flirtations with Ron Paul, making big inroads particularly in NH and SC, the Republicans will answer their nod the same way the Democrats will in 2004, voting Guiliani to the standard bearer spot. His VP? Up in the air, but I see it being someone who would never steal the spotlight away from him. Probably Mike Huckabee. Or maybe, Hailey Barbour. Like most Democratic Party Primary seasons, the frontrunner crumbles just before the first vote is cast. Richardson finishes a strong second to Obama in Iowa, with Clinton at third and Edwards in oblivion. After a narrow victory for Clinton in NH, but continued strong showings for the governor of NH and the junior senator from IL, Obama finally distances himself during Sooper Dooper Tuesday and nominates Richardson as his Vice Presidential partner... or perhaps a certain Senator Tester from Montana, hoping to capitalize on the Blue Trend in the Mountain West.

Planted questions are a common occurrence. The reason people were getting up in arms in 2004 may have had something to do with the Loyalty Oaths that attendees were often required to send, and the general lack of ability to attend an event if you even wore a button advertising your preference for another candidate.

Dirty tricks are coming from all sides. Dollars to Donuts says Hillary's behind the email rumors going around Iowa that Obama refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance at an Iowa campaign event recently.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:55 AM) From the very first reply in that post: I also read somewhere that the guy who had this done used some sort of a safeguard over his mouth so that he didn't get the 'true' experience. I will find the link for that one later for you, don't have it here at work. If you're saying that the CIA has banned its use, why would the Attorney General then have any qualms about calling it torture? That just makes the situation worse.

QUOTE(Alpha Dog @ Nov 9, 2007 -> 09:52 AM) Get over it. I'm sorry, but I won't. I won't get over this. I think it's awful that we had an Attorney General who thought torture was OK. I think it's worse that his replacement says that torture is illegal, but won't define what torture is - and further, won't call the act of simulating murder on a detainee as torture. Whether or not the process is widely used, it's beyond the point. Our country just decided that torture is OK. And that's not OK with me.