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I hope you arent referring to Cuba Missile Crisis, because that indeed was very long ago. Even if you arent and there has been something later than that, it is hardly a valid argument. Doesnt USA target numerous countries with nuclear missiles? And support more countries that have those?

I can tell that there are a lot of people who are more worried about Israel than Cuba, seeing Cuba isnt even very militaristic country. Why in hell would they fire a missile to a country they cant invade? Just because they are (nearly) communists and thus evil?

Che Guevara was very much in favour of nuclear attack on the US.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/this-endless-myth-making_b_151217.html

When Che and Fidel Castro's guerrilla army seized power in Cuba, he was immediately - and to his delight - put in charge of the firing squads. He instituted a system of 'trials' that lasted just a few hours, with himself as sole judge. They invariably ended with the low-level functionaries of the Batista regime being lined up and shot. Che's public declarations from that time are blunt. "All right, it is dictatorship," he shouted at one point. "It's criminal to think of the needs of the individual." He even banned Santa Claus, saying he was an "American imperialist import."

The friend who had traveled with Che on the famous motorcycle journeys, David Mitrani, was shocked when they met up in Havana after the revolution. He could not understand how Che's compassionate response to poverty all those years ago had led him to announce he now wanted to become an " effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machine".

Che's fanaticism reached its peak in October 1963, when he seriously advocated a course of action that would immediately end life on earth. Che had implored the Soviet Union to place nuclear missiles on Cuba. He knew the US would interpret this as an act of aggression and probably retaliate with nuclear weapons - but he said that "the people [of Cuba] you see today tell you that even if they should disappear from the face if the earth because an atomic war is unleashed in their names... they will feel completely happy and fulfilled" knowing the revolution had inspired people for a while. Che did not say how he knew the Cuban people would be delighted to die of radiation sickness, their hair burning on their heads and their skin slopping from their faces.

The Soviet Union followed Che's advice - and the world came closer to nuclear annihilation than at any point before or since. On the American side, maniacs like General Curtis LeMay implored Jack Kennedy to nuke Moscow immediately. On the Soviet side, Che Guevara played exactly the same role. He urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear strike, now, against US cities. For the rest of his life, he declared that if his finger had been on the button, he would have pushed it. When Khrushchev backed down and literally saved the world, Che was furious at the "betrayal". If Che's recommendations had been followed, you would not be reading this newspaper now.

None of these facts are seriously disputed by historians; they are simply skidded over by Che's Soderberg-style defenders, who stick to romantic generalities about how he stood for "honesty" and "revolution". But Che Guevara is not a free-floating icon of rebellion. He was an actual person who supported an actual system of tyranny, one that murdered millions more actual people.

If the small lingering band of communo-nostalgists who still revere Che were honest about continuing his life's work, they would have to form a group called "Left-Wingers for Creating a Universal North Korea, Prior to Universal Death in a Nuclear Winter." I don't think they would find many recruits.

Talk is cheap, actions haven't followed all the hype.

Lets see, Iran is now openly declaring we have to respect their nuclear right. North Korea is again launching test rockets towards Japan.

Yeah, looks like newly found world wide respect.

Throw in, the French laughing at our bail out ideas... I have seen the manure recently (read: two nominees toasted, two more that should have been, and the labor one is on her way out already) but I haven't seen the flowers or unicorns. Instead of substance we get interviews with him about his substance use (read: tobacco)

Science at the forefront? Looks like to me that building water slides in Louisiana is more important (read the stimulus bill he so solidly supports). What science? Must be the 50 plus million to the arts. Go read it http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/hr1_engrossed.pdf (warning it is like only page and half of the 600 page bill)

Don't know where you've been but nothing has changed except for how fast the back peddling has become or where it comes from. If this is change I am not sure it is what we really wanted.

I would have rated this as insightful, and so would William Easterly.

This article is part of a series on "creative capitalism," a term used by Bill Gates to describe how market incentives can be used to better aid the world's poor.

Dear Dick:

Are you with us or against us. From your statement, you appear to be against us.

Kindly Fuck Off.

Thanks For Nothing,
Philmore Studge

But we're not past the days when you need to reboot Windows for a lot of things you can do in Linux without rebooting.

I agree, but that doesn't make the joke funny again. I'd also point out that reboot prompts happen freqently in OS X, and in distros of linux for things like dbus upgrades, even though the tech savvy user usually knows which initscript to restart.

Some jokes are nearly immortal, because they're just funny. One of my favorites outdates automobiles.

The problem with that analogy is, while I've heard the joke before, I'm not forced to hear it 3 times a week.

A sterotypical example of a joke going bad is the RickRoll. You hated being a victim, but for a week or two it was kind of cool that everyone standardized on a universally accepted terrible video that they wanted to trick people into visiting. After that it got annoying and unoriginal, so other good netizens pointed out when you were getting rolled. Now you go down to your neighborhood bar and the DJ is playing it on the dance floor, and everyone laughs because they're in on the joke. Nevermind that you've been in on the joke for about 8 months now, and the joke was never that good to begin with, and just because you know what's happening doesn't mean we should be subjected to Rick Astley's musical stylings at the local hangout, the ball game, or the thanksgiving day parade

We've also reached that point with "In Soviet Russia..."

What about the order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility over the next year?

What about his executive order disallowing any interrogation techniques not defined in the Army Field Manual (i.e. no waterboarding, no torture)?

What about telling the EPA to look into letting California define their own, stricter auto emissions standards (instead of locking them to the federal standards like Bush did)?

What about signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act just yesterday?

What about striking down Bush's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information? You could make an argument about abortion here, depending on which side of the issue you stand, but this money is also used for other medical procedures performed by these organizations.

He's done more good in one week than GWB did in 8 long years.

You don't know me very well. ... Bush committed many illegal acts. I do hope that he and those in his administration that acted illegally, will be prosecuted.

Would "Deep Throat" have been caught if the actions taken in recent history were in place then? No. He was a very careful man. Not surprising, considering he was the Deputy Director of the FBI. ... I don't agree with the blatant disregard for the US Constitution and laws that have been broken by our administration, but I do recognize the fact that some rules are going to be bent for the greater good. On the scale that the laws have been bent and broken, I honestly don't believe a "greater good" has come of it.

If we are going to follow our Constitution and laws, there is no wiggle room. I know precisely how W. Mark Felt "covered his tracks" during the Watergate fracas. He initiated an investigation on who the leak may be and made lots of noise about that. But had the Nixon administration a record of his phone calls and the content of those phone calls to Bernstein and Woodward about when and where they would meet next, Felt would have been cashiered.

In other words, it was Felt's anonymity that allowed him to blow the whistle and Felt knew he had to protect that at all costs.

I lived through the Nixon era and I knew people who were being spied on by the administration. This was an administration that was bent on keeping its secrets and it kept them only slightly less well than did the Bush administration.

Bush went after reporters because of the Valerie Plame leak. And then, when Congress realized that a law was broken when Scooter Libby told the media about the identity of an active CIA agent, the coverup ensued.

But the whole issue was not national security (which was the rationale for Bush's claim of Executive Privilege) it was nasty "I'll-get-you" politics. You cannot rationalize any need for "bending rules" here, but you can clearly see how the Bush administration desperately wanted to monitor the press so that they could anticipate needs to cover things up.

The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal made things even worse. The Bush administration's policy of allowing (actually promoting) torture of persons in US custody became readily apparent to everyone. The Bush administration immediately classified everything about the prison and the US operation of it and proceeded to perform a very careful "witch hunt" for those low-level soldiers who were involved. The classification was essential to prevent anyone from knowing about Blackwater's involvement as well as military and CIA involvement in this horrid treatment of mostly "average joes" picked up off the streets of Iraqi cities in random sweeps.

The administration was overjoyed by Specialist Lynndie England's involvement as well as her affair with Charles Graner because it added sexual escapades to titillate the press corps while they covered up the "Copper Green" interrogation orders encouraging this kind of abuse by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

So you can see why the Bush administration didn't like the press. They were exposing specific, classified malfeasance of the administration. And this administration was dedicated to winning re-election at all costs.

Again, this is about politics, not national security.

No, I don't know you well. But I like your comments to the /. community and I have read some of what you have written. I have been in the news business for 25 years. As someone whose phone and e-mails may well have been regularly tapped, I feel personally assaulted by an administration bent on keeping the press from reporting the truth of their criminal malfeasance. I don't and won't "give them a pass" "for the greater good."

Can we at least be happy that the president even knows what YouTube is?

Unlike Bush Jr or Bush Sr?

Hmm, your first link doesn't really seem relevant because I never claimed that NBC News was the problem. In fact NBC Nightly News is the only network newscast that I still bother watching. Gibson should have been put out to pasture a long time ago (his "moderation" of the debate between Hillary and Obama comes to mind -- we are involved in two wars so let's talk about flag pins!) and Couric is hard to take seriously. I mostly watch Nightly News and the Newshour.

I can see the partisanship, I don't quite see the childish "haha your stupid!" attitude

Then I don't think you've watched enough of Countdown. I don't really see the difference between the "haha your stupid!" name calling of Fox News and the self-righteous indignation of Keith "he must resign!" Olbermann.

I think if you want something that compares to Fox's level of immaturity you need to visit comedy central.

Well, if we are linking to comedy shows then I would offer this up for consideration :)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/30/study-nbc-news-doesnt-fol_n_139162.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/vp/28286392#28699663

I can see the partisanship, I don't quite see the childish "haha your stupid!" attitude. I think if you want something that compares to Fox's level of immaturity you need to visit comedy central.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210922&title=msnbc-replaces-fox-news

When corporations get involved with government, it gets ugly. Same with church and state. So regardless of my feelings on Google's position, my thought is they should shut up.

Of course, as you indirectly mention, the Mormon Church should shut up too. From Utah, they launched a huge multi-million dollar campaign to support "Yes on 8" in California. Check out this Google Trends for some interesting insight.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=proposition+8

That's right. The largest group of people looking up information online on California's Proposition 8 were mormons from Salt Lake City, UT!

Religion needs to back the hell down.

That quotation was Tina Fey, in fact.
Surprised? That's what media with opinions does to you.

No, actually, I was aware of the difference. In any case the Fey quote it was a parody of something Palin and the McCain campaign actually said... that Palin had foreign policy experience by virtue of Alaska's being a neighbour to Russia.

References: here and here.

According to data supplied by the Israeli Consulate in NYC, rocket and mortar fire all but completely stopped during the ceasefire then jumped back after it ended.

Hamas stopped firing rockets but there are still other groups operating in Gaza that Hamas has been unable to control. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, exlpains "a variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so."

According to data supplied by the Israeli Consulate in NYC, rocket and mortar fire all but completely stopped during the ceasefire then jumped back after it ended.

Hamas stopped firing rockets but there are still other groups operating in Gaza that Hamas has been unable to control. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, exlpains "a variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so."

Full of shit, perhaps.

Gasoline taxes pay for road maintenance genius.

That type of tax is known as an Excise Tax also known as luxury tax. You don't have to pay that tax if you don't buy gasoline.

I will be driving anywhere I want on any chunk of road I choose, because I pay for gas and as a result I pay the excise tax used for roads. Thank you very much for illustrating your lack of knowledge of this subject.

These projects will be paid for with money collected from Direct Tax

Now, lets tackle your statement regarding why I should pay taxes.

Of course, I should pay taxes to pay for two wars that I'm opposed to. I should also pay taxes to fund bail-outs and bonuses for bankers and auto-makers. You would argue that I should pay taxes that are sent to foreign countries.

Do you realize that we (The USA) fought against British taxation and won independence as a result? Perhaps you should move to the jungle where you can build the socialist utopia of your dreams. I'll stay in the USA, the last known address of freedom.

Oh really? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/25/report-obamas-small-donor_n_146281.html No moreso than Bush.

Actually the reports on the crime rate during poor economic times seem to vary. Here's an article that indicates just the opposite. Although it points out that there is a rise in domestic violence.

Here's a more lengthy article on the subject.

There are many problems with the Free Press proposal -- not the least of which is that people wouldn't be able to afford the service they propose to roll out. They propose 7 Mbps, unthrottled, non-oversold pipes to everyone in rural areas, where backbone bandwidth costs as much as $300 per Mbps. Let's see; that's only $2100 per household! They also propose that so-called "network neutrality" regulations apply to the new pipes. ("Network neutrality" is a misnomer, because the policies that are proposed under that label are not neutral; they favor certain big Internet content providers such as Google, which funds Free Press.) These regulations would do several nasty things. They'd prevent bandwidth hogs from soaking up all of that expensive bandwidth; they'd strangle small, local, and independent ISPs with red tape; they'd make it completely infeasible to offer wireless broadband; and they'd destroy competition, so that the cable companies and telephone companies which would be subsidized under Free Press' plan would be the only providers left standing... total duopoly. Robert Atkinson of ITIF has much more sensible ideas; see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-d-atkinson-phd/the-right-broadband-stimu_b_152884.html for his proposal (which really deserves a Slashdot article of its own).

It's also a way to save our domestic space program from Nasa's ponderous bureaucracy while simultaneously breathing new life into it through many happy and willing contributors(probably an open source analogy in ere somewhere).

Most importantly, outsourcing our space program to $CHEAP_NATION is even more shameful than outsourcing our other jobs!

How can you disagree with torture if you can accept war and the inevitable human (civilian and military) losses that occur? Here's a good article about torture: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-torture_b_8993.html

And for all the grief McCain receives about not being IT-savvy, the reason is he is unable to type, due to the injuries he suffered while being tortured by the Vietnamese.

Oh, really? There are photos here that show him using what appear to be Blackberrys and cel phones (some while behind the wheel!) and he told the New York Times "I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need - including going to my daughter's blog first, before anything else."

He sounds sort of like my dad, really. He's a man in his mid 70s doing his best to make sense out of all of this technology that has become so important recently. Blackberrys, Blogs, Twitter etc. either weren't around or weren't all that relevant when he ran for president eight years ago and he's doing best to catch up. He'll still prefer to read a news paper, or talk on the phone with a friend. He'll dutifully visit his daughter's blog.

His war wounds no doubt cause him pain and discomfort in every thing he does in his day-to-day life, but he manages other things and it doesn't sound to me like they pose enough of a problem to prevent him from doing the best he can. Besides, he really doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would let his injuries prevent him from doing something if he really desired to do it.

Here are some more then.

We here at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) appreciate the widespread interest in Kara Spencer's case. I would encourage everyone to check out another article on this case over at The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-lukianoff/its-raining-spam-at-michi_b_149378.html There is also a podcast interview with Kara Spencer on our website that might be of interest to some of you who wanted more details of the case: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10008.html

Oh dear. Are you talking about the feeling of "too much excitement to contain"? Watched this digital short (top video, not safe for humorless workplaces) from last night's Saturday Night Live.

That would be Nicholas Sarkozy, the *French* premier, not Berlusconi
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/23/unrepentant-berlusconi-st_n_145821.html?show_comment_id=18253942
However, Silvio's quite capable of putting his foot in it, as well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3041288.stm
My favourite?
"On his equal opportunities minister and former model Mara Carfagna: "I'd go anywhere with you, even to a desert island. If I weren't already married, I would marry you straight away."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3398962/Silvio-Berlusconis-top-10-gaffes.html

Isn't the whole point of this device that you have to have it to log in? What extra security does asking some questions to confirm my identity do if I have a virus logging everything I type?

It's not a problem. Everyone knows that the question/ answering method is very secure.

This invention has already been invented and is marketed to the government, military and other clients. Perceptive Pixel also developed the interactive map John King would use to show election results; didn't you see the Daily Show? :)

He's tied to lots and lots of politicians of both parties, including Senator/President-Elect Obama.

And does the fact that Rezko knew a lot of politicians and therefore was already in Obama's social circle imply that their brief dealing made Obama more suspect, or less?

In Illinois the term "corrupt politician" is redundant. The last Democrat Governor to be defeated by a Republican went to prison, and the last Republican Governor to be defeated by a Democrat is still in prison.

And a vague implication of a conflict of interest in one deal with Rezko is all the dirt found even near Obama's work in such a criminal place. The facts do not support your analysis. No, being on a school board with Bill Ayers and attending some social function at his house does not count for anything. The only actual association that legitimately looked even slightly suspicious was Rezko, and significantly more than half of voters decided that was less suspicious than John McCain's association with Richard Bruce Cheney.

To be fair, she's a whackjob, and one who belongs to the fringe-end of evangelical churches.

Again, I'm not making a judgment on her (or anyone else in the race) on religious grounds, but that's a fair one to make, if you are.

Oddly, I followed the news pretty closely this past election and I've yet to see any single evidence that Palin was a "whackjob", religious or not. Ok, so, lets see what I can find...

Palin A "Whack Job". Ok, some some McCain adviser has a chip on their shoulder because she went off script? Because they think she's a diva? Because she talked about her record, instead of McCain's? Because she exploded on the scene in popularity, causing some excessive gimmicky crap to be produced? Because she said Africa was a country? Because the Republican party spent a recorded $150,000 on her cloths (with unsubstantiated rumors of having spent more)? That her daughter got pregnant, against her best advice?

I'm still looking for some decent evidence of her being this "crazy" person that everyone wants to try to make her out to be. Because none of the above passes the smell test, unless you think Barak Obama also believes America has 57 states. That Palin can control what her "fans" do. And that Hilary hasn't spent $150,000 or more on cloths, either, for a campaign. And that Mrs. Obama can't be criticized for campaigning for her husband but it's 'right' to attack and criticize the daughter of Palin's who's not even involved in the election.

I just can't see anything other than desperate attempts to try and sling mud at someone so new that there's little (real) dirt on her (yet). So, what's all this talk about Whack Job? What could people be so afraid of, except her being a powerful Republican ticket in the future? Have the Democrats no faith in their leaders and principles?

It seems as though technology can be used to kill two birds with one stone... I wrote an op-ed about this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/new-deal-20_b_142518.html

Bush hasn't followed the Presidential Records Act and "lost" more than 10 million emails. without getting into trouble. With this kind of precedent why should any future president give a damn?

McCain cannot stop 527s from doing anything, if he coordinated anything with them, even if attempting to make them stop negative campaigning, he has to count their efforts against his expenditures. I don't mean to call you a moron seeing how this was Obama's claim, but he knows full well that you can't control 527s and keep them as 527s. McCain has and did admonish them when they stepped out of line but he cannot exert any control over them as Obama knows.

Obama managed to get moveon.org's 527 shut down, got Progressive Media USA vastly scaled back, and he also asked people not to donate to 527s.

Saying 'I don't want to see any 527 ads on my behalf' is not illegal. Saying 'Do not donate to 527s' is not illegal.

That is probably what he was wanting McCain to do.

The amazing thing is that Republicans understood this '527' condition five months ago, and were mocking his concern about Republican 527s by saying they hadn't shown up and claiming his worries about them were an excuse to not accept public financing.

As it turns out, of course, Obama was right, and they did show up, and Obama spent his money countering them. Money he wouldn't have had if he'd opted into public financing.

A good example of this was Ayers coming out after the election and saying he was involved with the Obama campaign "until the maelstrom hit"

Would you please cite this? Because the quote I heard after election day was "I barely knew Obama".

Perhaps he's referring to this article from the New Yorker from November 4, 2008.

"It's all guilt by association," Ayers said. "They made me into a cartoon character--they threw me up onstage just to pummel me. I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the Obama campaign and I have to run my life." Ayers said that once his name became part of the campaign maelstrom he never had any contact with the Obama circle. "That's not my world," he said. (emphasis added)

Taking that statement out of context can make it sound as if he had some (or lots of) contact before the "maelstrom" happened. For example, check out this article doing just that.

But the New Yorker notes something the Post glossed over: Ayers says his contacts with "the Obama circle" continued until "his name became part of the campaign maelstrom."

But, that's not quite what New Yorker article actually says. It says there was no contact after the "maelstrom" and says nothing--zero, zip, zilch, nada--about what contact, if any, there was before the maelstrom. Certainly not that it "continued" up to that point and certainly not that he was "involved with the campaign" up to that point. But, still, that's the sort of thing the GP is probably thinking of.

Of course, that same New Yorker article had this to say about Ayers relationship with Obama:

In fact, Ayers said that he knew Obama only slightly: "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better."

Secondly, the press did cover Biden's "gaffes".

They did cover gaffes — socially awkward or tactless acts. But not the "gaffes" — stupidities and outright lunacies smoothed-over as mere gaffes. For example, if it were anyone from the opposing ticket, claiming:

When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it."

MSNBC would've had a "Lebanon History Special" at prime time to show the entire nation, just how pathetically wrong that statement was — and on how many levels!

But it was Biden and up until very recently even a well-meaning slashdotter (not some Joe Carpenter) didn't realize, just how far from this Universe the man, chosen by Obama for his "foreign policy credentials," really lives.

McCain chose Palin. That was part of his strategy to energize the Religious Right AND an attempt to get the female vote.

And Obama chose Biden. That was part of his strategy to alleviate the concerns of his own foreign policy inexperience and reduce the impact of racial prejudices. That one strategy worked and the other didn't is works of the press and their now-documented bias towards Obama. The media — dishonestly — claimed, that Palin's inexperience trumps Obama's (as if they ran for the same post!), while looking the other way as Joe Biden mounted one lunacy over another.

Now that Obama has won, we might see more penance from the reporters and editors. We may even get some buyer's remorse from the voters. But they'll be justified, claiming, the papers misled them. This will be studied in journalism courses as a great example, of how not to write...

Oh, it's been investigated. You may not have heard much beyond "it's baseless", because when someone throws a baseless attack that doesn't stick, there's not much more for the press to say.

A good example of this was Ayers coming out after the election and saying he was involved with the Obama campaign "until the maelstrom hit"

Would you please cite this? Because the quote I heard after election day was "I barely knew Obama".

Obama already called out black fathers for not being around to raise their families. In fact, the press called it Obama's Cosby speech.

I agree with you. The people who voted for and against Obama should be deported. The people who voted for McCain because they just don't trust Obama for some reason they can't explain should be deported as well.

Obama actually did give a speech that was similar to Cosby's speech.

That's a flat out lie, mod parent down.

The community reinvestment act was passed during the Carter Administration, and has nothing to with the FACT that lenders made unqualified loans KNOWING IN ADVANCE that those loans would be bundled and sold so that the originator was no longer directly on the hook for the potential (probable) loss.

Deregulation allowed these criminals to get away with this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/conservatives-seek-to-shi_n_131020.html

No hacking required.

And you didn't even mention FundRace! Let's go haxor teh public interwebs.

Neither Palin nor McCain has ever expressed a desire to force either you or your children to follow their religious choices.

Oh really?

Neither Palin nor McCain has ever expressed a desire to force either you or your children to follow their religious choices.

Are you sure about that?

I'll admit I'm a bleeding heart liberal political junkie.

on TV I'll be mostly MSNBC & PBS along with Daily Show/Colbert Report, CNN, and Current ( Al Gore's news channel )

on the net:

try DIGG's US Elections 2008 tabs both popular and upcoming.

pollster.com - http://www.pollster.com/ - is a good aggregater of polls it's what the TV guys use

Hufington post updates/changes frequently and has lots of videos http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

a news tab on igoogle with lots of feeds is good to have in another of your firefox tabs ( BBC, newspapers, TV channel websites, tec. )

I like Salon http://www.salon.com/?source=refresh ( I have a long time premium account ) - it updates a lot, but not as fast as huffington

This is a major, important election, I'll be watching on the HD big screen with friends. laptop atop my lap. I'll probably redo my "favotires" settings for the night.

Keep one window open to fivethirtyeight.com; one window for The Huffington Post, and one for Swampland.
For TV, I'd go with MSNBC (Chuck Todd ftw), CNN and Fox, just to watch and see if their heads asplode :)

You pick a well thought out, moderate view

There is only one moderate view: it's none of your damn business if gay couples decide to get married, anymore than it is your business that inter-racial couples get married, which also used to be illegal.

Every time someone professes to be an Obama supporter, ask them to name/describe three of his policies. Out of several dozen people I've asked, every one of them tells me he's the new hope, that he's a stable guy, that he's not old... and ONE has been able to actually name three policies. Obama has perfected saying absolutely nothing and all indicators imply he's going to win because of it.

Then you're an idiot that hasn't talked to very many people. Quick, name all of Woodrow Wilson's cabinet members. If you can't do it right now, off the top of your head, it means they didn't exist.

McCain pisses off the liberals by being a conservative, the conservatives by being a free thinker and made the mistake of picking a VP who keeps having opinions about everything, whether they fit the platform or not... and is on course to lose because of it.

More garbage. McCain pisses people off because he's an incompetent flip flopping hot head who can't make a single attack on Obama that doesn't blow back into his hypocritical face.

And Palin? She makes George W. Bush look like a knowledgeable, experienced polititican.

and auto safety
by voting against John "I was a P.O.W." McCain.

Moreover, McInsane wants to redistribute your wealth to the military-industrial-Congressional complex.

Cordially,
Kilgore Trout

P.S.: Slashdot, please allow Cyrillic font. Thanks.

The article you linked to suggests that McCain's war injuries are the reason he can not use the Internet. This contradicts his own observations on his lack of computer literacy. From The Huffington Post:

The Drudge Report and several conservative blogs are working themselves into a lather over the new Obama ad noting that John McCain doesn't know how to use a computer.

Their claim is that McCain is simply unable to use a computer because of his POW injuries, citing a March 2000 article in the Boston Globe that states, with no supporting evidence...

        McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes.

Of course, this directly contradicts what McCain and his campaign manager have said. McCain told the New York Times in July:

        I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.

Warren Buffett gave $28,500 in 2008 to democrats this year according to this site. Is that "huge scads of money"? He is "pouring even more money into their coffers"? Where do you get this stuff?

You are arguing that he is for the estate tax because he makes money on estate tax insurance. Sure. I'm sure it is has nothing to do with values about where the tax burden is least harmful. Taxes have to come from somewhere unless you want to just print money or borrow another $trillion from China.

I think the consensus on the bailout bill was that there would be catastrophic consequences for the US economy if the situation was not resolved. Do you have money in the bank (more than the then 100000 FDIC limit - btw the FDIC would go bankrupt pretty quick)? Do companies have money in banks? There was consensus among people who understood the situation that something needed to be done (except maybe Jim Rogers). The representatives risked their own re-election for the good of the public. Maybe it is a conspiracy that both candidates supported the bill and other countries are doing the same thing. Or maybe the average person does not understand our economic system. You decide. BTW I think they are getting ownership of the banks directly instead of buying debt instruments.

Buffett has been for raising the capital gains tax and I think Obama also. That is where he makes most of his money. The other way to get money out of stocks is dividends which is taxed as income. Of course you are not taxed until you sell a stock, but if you don't sell it you never get any money do you?

Business can deduct their expenses. So money used for growth is not included in "income" and is not taxed as your post would imply.

Smart people will profit from whatever the government does. I can understand disagreeing with their ideology, but suggesting that liberal multi-billionaires support raising taxes for their own FINANCIAL benefit seems a little far fetched.

Also, I dispute your statement that Obama supports a total ban on handguns. All you've got to support you on that is a questionnaire that he supposedly filled out in 1996. The Obama campaign says that a staffer filled that out incorrectly.

Even though it was apparently his own handwriting?

Well, I was somewhat making a joke. In case you don't know, McCain ran an ad against Obama regarding this exact issue.

In short, Obama supported a bill which provided "age appropriate sex education", which for young kids meant teaching them to avoid predators. McCain put out ads that tried to make it seem like Obama just wants to teach little kids about sex.