Rex Kickass

As Snow Is Falling... Gravy and Stuffing Ooze Out My Vast Gaping Maw.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 23, 2005 -> 04:15 PM) I know - but I do know about the charter flights to Cancun, which I guess is what my mom's going to be on. It's an ATA flight, I guess... ATA soon to equal Southwest, right?

*passes on traditional joke about kickstands*

I hear you can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. Anyone here can tell me the story of the pickle?

So what youre saying is that isn't red or blue, but purple?

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Nov 23, 2005 -> 01:18 PM) Whether a room full of Celts in Kilts qualifies as heaven, I'll leave you to be the judge of. Depends on what they're wearing underneath.

Midway doesn't have international flights outside of the occasional cancun and canadian flight because the runways are too short. The bigger jets need longer runways than the busiest square mile of aviation can handle. That's why they fly to O'Hare.

So how about that weather. Weathery enough for you?

QUOTE(Steve Bartman's my idol @ Nov 23, 2005 -> 02:15 PM) I agree...I'm still waiting for ANYONE to give me something positive that Bush has done. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Israeli/Palestinian border agreement this month was nice. John Roberts chief justice pick wasn't bad either.

Europe in general is becoming very gay-friendly, legislatively. As is Canada. I don't know a lot about other areas because I really haven't looked around. I do know that in the US, its a mixed bag. There are states like Maine, Vermont, Massachussets, Minnesota and Hawaii which are very gay friendly, but then you have 20+ states which are putting discriminatory language against the GLBTI community in their constitutions. And now states in the midwest are doing the new outrage. Giving unwanted kids up to stable gay couples for adoption is an affront to society and gay people shouldn't be allowed to have kids. In some places, we are moving to legal equality. In some places, we aren't.

With three years to go, its too soon to say what is legacy will be. It's 2005 and we still don't even really know what Clinton's is and we're just starting to realize the full legacy of Reagan and Bush 41. Now you can continue arguing about tax breaks and rates and stuff I don't even pretend to understand.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 06:14 PM) I agree with that 100%. And that's what I meant. As you can tell, I'm opinionated, and when it comes to equality under the law, I feel that there definitely is a right and wrong. I think the left is correct in this issue because if they aren't that means that I AM a second class citizen after all. And I tend to think I'm worth more than that.

It hurts the Dems because Gay Marriage initiatives fires up the Republican base. It doesn't hurt the left at all. Because the left is on the right side of this issue.

Probably for the same reasons I think the GOP is in trouble. Will gay marriage hurt the Dems? Absolutely. Will abortion? Probably not, because if that's as big of an issue as I think it will be this year, the bigger motivator is going to be on the pro-choice side. Ultimately, I think change will happen because we live in some sour times. Things don't feel like they're going well. Even if they are going well. And there's one way to change things in government, vote new people in.

People don't vote for Joe Congressman like they vote for the President. It's more about why are my taxes so high, and about personality than it is about foreign policy. You want my big prediction for social/non-economic big issues next year? 1. Honesty/Integrity 2. Abortion 3. Gay Marriage

The economy might be doing great! But that doesn't trickle down to people working harder for less. People making 100K a year might see an abstract statistic showing unemployment lowering, but they UNDERSTAND GM is cutting 30,000 jobs and Ford doing roughly the same thing. They don't necessarily see the direct economic effects of higher GDP right away. Times may be alright economics wise, but that doesn't mean that most people feel that way. Real wages aren't growing hugely, but the price of health care is still growing and growing. The price of heat and gas is going up. They might still be spending, but it doesn't mean they aren't scared. Coupled with a government that has been handing out tax breaks to mega corporations, and the very rich, the stage has been set for a populist election that would be the reverse of 1994. The Republicans in Congress are going to be the elites in Congress according to the Democratic base. And the more the Dems can rile their base up and get them out to vote, the better their chances of making big gains in 06. And things getting better in Iraq won't stop the allegations and questions about the war's motivation to begin with. A big part of the outrage - at least from the hardcore Dems - comes from questions regarding how the war started, not how the war's going. That's why Iraq really won't be a big negative for the Dems.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 02:10 PM) Here's the bottom line. In order for the Democrats to gain back power, we MUST "lose" in Iraq. Remember, they have painted this as George W. Bush's war, and his policy MUST fail for them to gain back power. If the job gets done over there, the war is a success, and the party in power wins. What a nice position to put yourself in. That's why the Dems have more trouble then they know what to do with on this issue. And, it's quite interesting that one Democrat is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay far away from all the others on this issue - Hillary Rodham Clinton. I wonder why? I'd disagree with you here. I think Iraq is only an issue in the campaign if Iraq is still an issue. Rarely do administrations and majorities win on foreign policy "victories." If that were the case, the Dems should have taken back Congress in 98. And Bush 1 should have won in 92. If Iraq stops being such an issue, then it gets to bread and butter, pocketbook politics. And that's why the GOP hurts right now. It's put itself in a bad position to market itself to all the people that make under 100K a year on economic issues. This is a situation where the GOP has to hope that the Dems can't get people to the polls - because if they do, they lose. 2006 will be entirely about base motivation, not about swing voters and not about Iraq. It will be "How pissed off, concerned, motivated can we get our core constituents so that they'll vote this year?"

He'd be placed on the sex offenders list. So does that mean, if convicted, every time he moves he has to notify department stores about his whereabouts?

Just so you know, Noamie Claus cried. Hope youre happy.

Mmmm. Veggie Sloppy Joes. I'll be thanksgiving alone this year, watching cartoons. Should be awesome.

It WAS a Santa Chomsky actually.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Nov 22, 2005 -> 08:04 AM) I don't want to draw this out, but John Kerry was only in the position he was in because he was a "war hero"... he had NO ideas. That's why he lost. Actually, he did have ideas. He put them in a book that he released when he announced his candidacy. They're good ideas. They're good plans and they make sense. He didn't really share them though beyond that book. And the world was more concerned with the Swift Boat vets and flip-flop sandals than actually looking at issues last year. I would just love an election where people don't just wrap themselves up in a flag or a war and actually talk about the damn things that matter. But that just doesn't seem to fit in the "missing teen in aruba, could someone poop in your food, was that tv switcher error on CNN deliberate, next on FOX/MSNBC?CNN/local newscast" atmosphere that we live in.

So that's why you ran into my apartment and threw my Christmas Tree out the window and broke my Santa Claus gnome?

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Nov 21, 2005 -> 05:12 PM) And to think, I was considering going to Rutgers @ Camden.... Camden will be nice when Rutgers finishes taking it over like it did with New Brunswick.