Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 02:49 PM) do you honestly think saying birtherism is racist is the same as saying anyone who doesn't like lbj is racist? Do you really, honestly believe that's a logical extension of the racial subtext alleged to be behind burthers? Yes, because I think your claim is ludicrous. One has nothing to do with the other. It's another stupid campaign created issue just like swiftboating, just like draft dodging, whatever. Stupid people will go to any length to come up with an argument as to why Obama shouldn't be President ("he's a closet Muslim!") I think that's separate and distinct from "hey he's black.......he's not American!"

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 01:45 PM) Nope! I don't know if it's intentional or not but your responses to this issue are always these bad straw men. Birtherism (and othering in general) is rooted in racial resentment. Making these weak posts doesn't support your claim to the contrary. Explain to me how that's any different than the birthing scenario. Fine, let's add the qualifier that I dislike Lebron and Wade because they're not on the Bulls. They're not "us." Same s***. You can separate the racial component from the citizenship issue. You linking to a study that simply proves that racist people are racist doesn't change that.

SS racism logic: 1. I dislike Lebron James and Dwayne Wade. 2. Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are black. 3. I'm racist!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 12:55 PM) Well first, there was a protest - that turned out to be a diversion. So there it was. Also, I have no problem with the US apologizing for certain things. The way I see it, its as if that crazy uncle in your family (all of us have one of those I think) did something incredibly dumb to one of your neighbors. So you say to the neighbors, hey listen, sorry about moron over there. We can't control everything he does, and I realize it was less than ideal for him to piss all over your Christmas decorations last night. Our apologies. Notice how, nowhere in there, is anyone apologizing for THE FAMILY? They are apologizing for the moron. Just like in this case. No one apologized for free speech, or American principles... they apologized for the embarrassing behavior of their crazy uncle. I have no issue with that at all. Unless there's MORE misinformation, as of a week ago no, there wasn't: http://abcnews.go.com/International/attack...80#.UIBHy5jA-b5

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 09:58 PM) Revolution "SPOILER" from tonight.... Well, that was terribly obvious that the Jason guy was Gus' son. As soon as they showed that Gus had a young boy, and the very next scene cut to Jason, it was quite obvious. They could have handled that better, though I still liked Gus' flashback. That's the best part of the show right now. The last episode was fine, but I think eventually i'll end up dropping this show. The leads were totally miscast and it's difficult to root for them.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:44 PM) yeah nothing at all racist about birthers! oh wait http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sc.../1#.UH9h7cXAeSo Oh god. If you disagree with Obama, it's because you're a subtle racist! If you don't vote for Obama, it's because you hate black people. That's the line of thinking in this "study."

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 18, 2012 -> 10:09 AM) 1. President Obama's leadership style is very different from W's - Obama actually prefers to get the facts and see the whole picture before shooting off about something important. I would say this is a good thing, not a bad thing. It isn't political hackery - if they had gone off the handle about their best guess right then and there, now that would be political hackery. 2. The idea that "all the details" were known by the next morning, only hours after the attacked, is ridiculous. That just isn't even possible. 3. No one is holding onto the belief that the "act of terror" line was "definitive". It was what it was - a general statement, which is exactly what was required in that situation. 4. Why do you keep touting this idea that the US foreign policy is bend over and apologize? It is completely unfounded in anything resembling fact. This would make sense if the administration didn't blame the video and falsely report a protest occurred before the attack. That's the problem - wouldn't you want to claim it's a terrorist attack before you contend it was just a reaction to a video? In either case you're reporting something before all the facts come in. That was my issue with it. They started off basically calling it a response attack when it reality it was a straight up terrorist attack. As to 4., the US embassy in Cairo basically made an apology for the video. The admn can deny there was ever approval to send it, but that's bulls***. That's a philosophy of this administration, starting from his first days in office when he went around the world apologizing for Bush. Yes, I agree with you, he has a different style than Bush, and in some ways I agree with the change. But any hint of apologizing for an American expressing his free speech rights is bulls***. So yes, condemn the attacks, but do that first. Don't qualify it with "yeah, we're sorry some Americans are douchebags. We understand."

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:42 PM) Who begged Hillary? You have some info here, or echo-chamber speculation? And Obama unequivocally owned up to it last night before Romney made a fool of himself. Step away from the RedState and Hot Air for a couple of days, it'll do you some good. Oh please, read between the lines. After this became a story she was suddenly out the next morning taking the blame. I'm sure she totally wanted to look like the idiot here. I don't know what RedState or Hot Air is, so I don't need to step away from them. I'm tired of reading your liberal spin in the filibuster where you pretend like certain issues are 100% clear or that there's no counter argument when that's not the case.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:34 PM) Then scrutinize those actions. Dont waste my time about whether it was called terrorism, terror or a monkey dance. I dont care about semantics. I completely agree with the fact that you catch more flies with honey and I think it does nobody any good to sabre rattle. Would you prefer that he threatened extremists? That doesnt work, look at Israel. Israeli's flat out kill terrorists and terrorists still shoot rockets at them. Words mean s***, I apologize all the time when I dont mean it. Its the path of least resistance. As for Care to find a quote to back up that nonsense? Im pretty sure what most people think is that Muslim Extremists are nothing but a fly and that once in awhile under the perfect circumstances a fly can kill an elephant. It doesnt mean the elephant changes its entire life out of fear, the elephant says f*** it, I cant kill every fly. Is this a joke response? Look around you. You don't think we've changed our drastic parts of our life out of fear of a "fly?"

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:35 PM) you realize how silly you look when you say this, right? Go read the transcript of that speech man. He says "act of terror" 5 minutes into his speech and it's only a general reference like "these acts of terror won't stand." The point isn't that he did or did not say it was an act of terrorism with all the details that very morning. I get that, and Romney was dumb for pushing it. What's been lost here, and ignored by you, is the administration total political hackery that occurred over the next weeks, when they decided it was better foreign policy to blame a youtube video for inciting an attack than to just call it what it was from the rose garden speech forward. It's incredibly sad that you're holding onto this belief that it was definitive when his own press secretary couldn't say that it was a terrorist act the following day. Instead they made it seem like it was just some spontaneous reaction.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 06:56 PM) I think this upcoming year with Abrams/Richardson/Paul and to a lesser extent Bertrand/Langford the Illini will be in decent shape with Groce offense in place. It is the season after next I expect struggles with Paul/Richardson gone and the only real ball handler on the team being Abrams. But, with how aggressive Groce seems to be on the recruiting trail, after being here a year and especially if he shows some instant succcess I expect some big recruits like we never came close too under Bruce Weber. I'm still hoping Weber does well at Kansas State or hopefully if that tanks he can go back to SIU and make them relevant again, I just think his system works better at mid major level unless given top players which he wasn't able to land himself. They have the transfer, Rice, from Drake coming in next year. He's high major talent that got stuck in a mid-major. That and he already got a decent recruiting class his first 6 months on the job (top 15 nationally...for now anyway) and he's set up with a lot of guys in 2014 and 2015. He's going to get the players, that's not the concern. The concern is how will he do against the Big Ten heavies. My heart says they can surprise some people this year and make the tournament. Having 2 senior guards and a third senior wing should be worth something. But yeah, at least 2 years before the grumbling begins.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 08:17 PM) How does it compare to WMD in Iraq? People make mistakes, maybe the administration wanted to divert attention from their real investigation so that they could catch the criminals. This isnt the US where you put out an apb, you have to be way more crafty. Maybe Obama cant talk about it because its a new security strategy and doesnt want to tip off terrorists. If you really think Obama wanted those people to get murdered than make an issue of it. Otherwise it was a mistake, he admitted to it. Its silly. I could explain this away all day if I cared. No one thinks that. Stop being dumb. The issue here is that the administration's foreign policy is to bend over and apologize for everthing Americans ever do. Muslim extremists don't exist, they just react to terrible videos made by Americans! They say it's a terrible thing while basically justifying the response. That, on top of the complete failure resulting in 4 Americans dead after weeks and weeks of intelligence saying pro-Al Queda extremists were forming in Libya. I love how we had 8 years of Bush f***ing up because 4 people in the entire intelligence communtiy predicted 9/11, but this was actually ignoring straight up requests from an ambassador and he gets zero blame for it. That's bulls***. And yes, mistakes happen, so Obama own the f*** up to it. You wanted to spin this and it blew up in your face. Period. Move on. But that's not the position they are taking. Do you not remember Biden just a week ago claiming that the WH never knew about those requests? And then they had to beg Hillary to come out and take the fall? You seriously don't think this deserves some scrutiny?

A good read about the WH press secretary refusing to call it a terrorist attack a week after the attack, which sort of goes against ya know, what his boss supposedly claimed the day after the attack: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-...e6a4b_blog.html

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 06:08 PM) man republicans sure are making it easy for me to press my desperate agenda lately That's not racist, that's just a stupid birther comment. But not at all surprised you'd take it that way.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 07:19 PM) Well, I think it exposed that the Romney campaign is relying too heavily on Fox News narratives for their information. Nobody outside of conservative political media is pushing that flatly untrue story, yet Romney believed it to be completely true and couldn't believe that Obama would clearly and succinctly deny it. It's the echo chamber coming full circle. God this is such liberal bulls***. It's not as cut and dry as Romney wanted to argue during the debate, but you're completely ignoring 2 weeks of the administration blaming a video for a premeditated terrorist attack on Sept. 11th. Yes, that's a significant problem given the complete FAILURE of the state department to react to the ambassador's request for more security IN f***ING LIBYA. This is not at all comparabale to "uh, hey guys, there's this guy Osama, I think he might do something soon....maybe."

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 03:17 PM) I don't figure a debate to be a good debate when neither candidate truly answers any questions -- or actually debates anything -- but merely regurgitates party line talking points over and over in response to the others talking points. That's not a debate. It's a political infomercial for two parties, at best. A debate is when two individuals discuss a subject, and "debate" the pros and cons of their ideas/policies. That's not what happened last night. The Bill O'Reilly/Jon Stewart debate was more or less what I consider a good debate, even if injected with comedy at times. At least there were times that both admitted they agreed with each other, and when they didn't they discussed why instead of just changing the subject which resorted in them restating some various talking point that was memorized off a cheat sheet of some sort. I agree to a certain extent, but I'm not sure what you were expecting. Debates have never been this ideal you're holding them to. And of all debates, this is one where the candidates literally went at each other. And they did agree with each other on certain topics, but just in a general sense (better education, more jobs, etc.) The first politician that says "You know what, I'm 100% in agreement with what the President did on X occasion and I would have done the exact same thing. Next question." would get MORE points for being like that. But instead it's all attack mode negativity.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 12:08 PM) The C-Max is a plug-in too, right? The Escape was a good car but really became an issue with 2 kids. I was sort of shocked how little leg room there was in the back, when we had to move the baby seat from the middle to the side, and have her face forward. We ended up getting a much bigger SUV, I am sort of embarrased to admit... Honda Pilot (Touring 4WD version). Great car and we love it, but boy does it suck down gas, especially after coming off the FEH. But tons of room and lots of other great stuff. Also looked at the Toyota Highlander and the Ford Explorer, but the Pilot was a clear winner for us in that group. Though like I said, since we wanted leg room but weren't sure we needed a giant SUV, we did also look at sedans like the Camry and Fusion, both of which had MORE LEG ROOM than the Escape, even though the Escape is an SUV. We just decided that, we end up using a lot of room for "stuff" trucking back and forth to the family in distant suburbs, we actually use it offroad occasionally (I am an outdoorsman), we live in Chicago where 4WD can be handy in winter, and with 2 kids we will now be driving instead of flying for most vacations. So we went big for the primary car, and I got a cheap 8 year old beater vehicle for our 2nd car (but big enough to get two kids into as necessary). Ford is planning to do the regular hybrid first and then a plug-in the year after. Something to consider.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 01:47 PM) Agree with NSS here. Seems pretty plausible. To me it's so plausible I don't understand why he's not explaining it that way to the public, so I'm assuming it's a BS response. Why continue this crap argument (lie) that they maintained it was an act of terrorism from day one if the real answer is that they knew it was an "act of terror" but couldn't yet determine if it was a legitimate, pre-planned attack by a terrorist group?

I also preferred his private answer, which is probably a bunch of BS but would have been better than his actual response to the question: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-w...e6a4b_blog.html

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 10:14 AM) 1. Obama won, almost as handily as Romney won the first one. 2. Candy Crowley was clearly in the bag for Obama and Romney did in fact get screwed by the moderator multiple times. Although really, Obama would have won anyway. 3. This town hall format is obviously much better for Obama than Romney. 4. For all the general perception that Romney is a results-oriented business guy and Obama is a big talker... Obama provided a heck of a lot more specifics for policy in the debate than Romney has. Mitt needs to add a lot more details to his plans if he plans to make a better case. 5. Neither candidate provided a real or useful answer to the questions about Benghazi. Obama got angry at the end, for good reason I suppose, but that didn't answer the original question whatsoever. Obama didn't answer to the failure in the agency's decision making, and Romney did nothing more than try to make it seem like Obama didn't care. Those are both loser arguments. Romney could have made the argument better. I do think it's important that instead of immediately calling this thing a planned terrorist attack by a terrorist group, the Obama Administration took the tactic of apologizing to the world for a stupid American's youtube video. That's a policy difference in the two campaigns. But Romney never got it out right during the debate.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 09:14 AM) Its kinda funny, you and I are on almost the same path, you are just a couple years behind me. We had a 2008 Ford Escape (Hybrid in our case), as our one car, eventually had the one kid... then moved to the suburbs, had a 2nd kid, and then caved in to get a 2nd car. If you are thinking hybrids, check out lists on this site to see what is out there (will show you traditional hybrids, electrics, plug-ins, etc. I personally am a fan of the plug-in hybrids, sort of a best of both worlds thing, but every has different needs of course (and there are only a few models availabel now: Prius PH, Chevy Volt). As for traditional hybrid sedans, you've got the hybrid versions of lots of sedans (Prius, Honda Civic, Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata, Kia Optima). For us, we almost bought the Camry Hybrid. Very reliable cars, great mileage, etc. We ended up getting an SUV instead (not a hybrid), for various reasons, but if we had gone sedan, the Camry Hybrid would definitely have won out. As for other sedans in that size range, the Ford Fusion is just a bit smaller and worth looking at... and Honda will have a hybrid Accord soon, I think for 2013 maybe. I reference you to my wife when we discussed future family plans and whether the Escape would be big enough for 2 car seats and our boston terrier. So what SUV did you buy? Maybe I need to follow your lead! Ford I guess has a European model (C-Max) they are bringing over soon that gets better gas mileage than the Pruis (47mpg), but again it's a hatcback thing. I'd get the Prius but I hate that Aztek look of the back of the car.

So the wifey and I are starting to look into buying a second car. We have a 2010 Ford Escape which is good for the baby and trips and whatnot, but we need a better commuter car for her to get to work. Probably 25-30 miles a day in mostly city or packed highway driving. And with enough space in the backseat to put a car seat. I'd like to get a hybrid, but looking at the options it seems like you're stuck with a crappy look (Prius) or a hatchback. I'm not really into either one. In terms of a sedan, it looks like one of the best options is the Toyota Camry. Anyone read up on cars as a hobby? Any suggestions?

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 01:45 AM) I would think now is the perfect time for an independent to step up and take on both of those fools. Too bad no one so far has shown they can take on either party. +100000 Too bad the system is rigged for these two parties. I thought the debate last night was pretty meh. Obama actually showed up, but he didn't really do anything to tell undecided's what he's going to do in the next 4 years. Given that his main hurdle to reelection is the American people's belief that Romney would be better for the economy, you'd think he would want to hit on that. Yeah, it's great he a good zinger about Romney being rich. I like how that's pointed out in the post-debate blog posts. But Romney had an equally good zinger about Obama needing to look at his own pension before calling people out for investing in China. The Libya issue needs to go away. Both sides are saying the other side made it political. While I agree with the Romney camp that Obama didn't outright call it a terrorist act for a long time afterwards, and Obama did spend way too much time placing blame on that stupid video, now BOTH sides are making it a political issue and we've completely forgotten that 4 Americans are dead because of a bunch of assholes that live half a world away. Lastly, that was quite possibly the worst moderating job in the history of political debates. She had zero control over both candidates, she was CLEARLY impartial, and she actually interjected her own opinions into the debate itself. That was ludicrous. At the end of the day, I think this was along the lines of the Biden/Ryan debate. Obama showed up and did what people thought he would do, and Romney wasn't bad and made some good arguments. I don't think either will get much of a bump from this because the focus will be on the moderator and the awful format of the debate.

Lol, what a loaded question from her

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 09:17 PM) i don't want to hear any whining from Romney about the moderator. who knows damn well this lady is a Democrat and he showed up anyways. Im not sure ive ever seen a moderator give an answer before