Slashdot Mirror
The Living Room Candidate
Karin Ponce writes "I represent the American Museum of the Moving Image , and I wanted to write to you about the Museum's latest online exhibition, The Living Room Candidate. The exhibition maintains a comprehensive and detailed collection of over 300 commercials from the past fourteen elections (1954-2000). As the presidential race heats up, I think this is a very timely exhibition that will equip your readers with insight on the development of the campaign messages crafted by our presidential candidates over the years and provide historical context for the 2004 campaign as the race unfolds. Its convenience (all commercials are available online in the Living Room Candidate website) make this exhibit a must-see for voters and non-voters."
A site with multiple streamed videos, this is sure to last.
In every presidential election covered by television, the candidate with the most campaign money has become President.
I picture a place with a big sign outside that reads: I Can't Believe It's A Museum!
same mud-slinging. nothing has changed...
Oh, they're historic campaign commercials ... oh, OK, nevermind ... no Slashdot Effect to worry about!
This looks like a good way to see if past presidents have fulfilled their election promises by looking at their agenda in commercials. One thing that sticks out in my mind is the "Rats" commercial in 2000, which was about Bush's prescription drug benefit plan. How did that work out, seeing how some have resorted to getting pharmaceuticals from Canada and elsewhere?
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Wow, I just went to the site and was perusing the 2004 election commercials. For once they gave a realistic view of our future.
Blank.
Remember to give serious thought to who you are voting for in November and make sure that those around you are at least somewhat educated on what they are voting for.
Too bad its already been slashdotted :)
Too bad its already been slashdotted :)
D'oh!
"I represent the American Museum of the Moving Image, and I wanted to write to you to ask you for your help in melting our Web server, bringing our entire site to a halt. I think this is something your audience would find particular interest in doing."
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Only a few minutes after the article was posted, any allready I can't access the site
Yup. same here. A few people have submitted this bug, it just gets tagged as a duplicate!
Been waiting a week for it to be fixed now, all the time getting American Politics rammed down my throat.
I really hope they enjoyed their time as a museum, as they will themselves be a historical artifact after their hosting bill comes.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Candidates with the more supporters are more likely to a) win and b) have more contributors.
I have an idea. Rather than watching campaign commercials, read each candidates Wikipedia page.
John Kerry
George Bush
That way you get unbiased info untainted by either party, with all the nitty gritty details. Try it with friends, see if they switch allegiances after seeing the truth.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
all the political ads have evolved in the same way as normal ads on telivision. Its just a way to sell dumb candidates to the unsuspecting people by making them look intelligent. How many political ads really give anything objective to think about or anything to think about at all. If people are making their choices based on ads in tv thats just really sad. you can keep bombarding the people with really useless stuff u call issues and completely sideline any real issues that people should be paying attention to which is what is happening in this election.
I'm surprised it's not on there weather channel yet!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
I took this for another reality makeover show which compared different living rooms and chose a winner. I have been looking to update my living room, I just misunderstood the "candidate" part.
I was just discussing policitians with my father a few minutes ago while we were lunching. In two weeks brazilians are going to vote to elect municipal mayors and during all the day there are candidates on the TV saying that he/she will do the best for the city and stuff like that. It is always the same bullshit.
These bla bla bla will never win an election, so in my opinion most of the campaign money is throw away with this kind of trash campaign. I don't know how about US, but here in Brazil the candidates usually spend millions and millions in order to get elected while there are hundreds of thousands starving, in such a poverty situation that most of us would not belive.
movingimage.us? For once a group could use the neglected bastard TLD ".museum," but instead they choose .us? Or is this not really a museum, but just a website they call a museum? (I can't tell because it's down for the count).
20 some comments & slashdotted!
Here's the google cache:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:http://livinCheck my journal for gmail invites!
The really sad thing is at first I thought this was a reality show to find someone to live in a living room.
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bush version 1.0/ Dukakis matchup in 1988, the Republicans made very good negative attack ad use of the case of Willie Horton, a first degree murderer on a weekend furlough program in Massachusetts endorsed by Dukakis. Horton, surprise and shock and awe, became a recidivist violent criminal on his furlough.
;-(
Since he's trailing Bush version 2.0 right now, what Kerry needs is a good Willie Horton type attack ad.
Bin Laden anyone?
The Democrats need the balls to launch a full force negative press assault on Bush. The popularity of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 prove that the public is receptive to serious Bush-bashing. Not wishy washy peripheral attacks and sniffing around the perimeter that Kerry seems married to right now, but a dead on hurricane force teeth gnashing polemic. Especially dismaying in Moore's movie is the revelation that Bush let the Bin Laden family fly out of the country in the days after 9/11/2001, when noone else was allowed to fly anywhere. Clearly a case of allegiance to big oil being more important than allegiance to the American public if there ever was one.
This revelation played well in theatres in Middle America, even in communities near military bases. Hello Kerry campaign: anyone listening? The Democrats need to grow a backbone and start pounding away at Bush where he is weakest.
So let us hope the Democrats find the cojones to attack Bush full force and head on in an attack ad blitz in October, Willie Horton style, or unfortunately for Americans (and the rest of the world for that matter), it's four more years of the drunken frat boy in big oil's pocket in the White House for us all.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Definitely one of the better political commercials out there. For those who haven't seen it its a black and white (duh! everything was B&W back then!!!) shot of an adorable little girl picking petals off a daisy with cuts to an atomic missle take off counting down.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I heard just last night at a Boy Scout meeting on the Communication merit badge, that in 1980 (?), Kenedy spent millions and millions (or .1 sagan) of dollars on advertising his campaign, only to find out afterward that it actually hurt him. He would have been better off if he had spent $0.
I thought the idea was the same as other subcategories. Articles that fit in a subcategory that are determined to be important make it to the front page anyway. The ones that aren't get listed on the sidebar as part of "x more" in the sections sidebar.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Oh, they're historic campaign commercials ... oh, OK, nevermind ... no Slashdot Effect to worry about!
That's right. We here at Slashdot only enjoy wholesome movies about people from exotic places installing Linux on refrigerators or car stereos or dead sheep.
must-see for voters and non-voters
What about for the rest of us!?
While this is cool, the streams will kill their bandwidth shortly. Still, this is a cool idea, and I for one would like to see how many ads by outside groups have had the affect that it has this year. Yes, I'm talking about the 527 groups like swiftboatveterans and moveon. While I appreciate more viewpoints, it seems that these just get too radical and whomever has the most money gets the most influence.
Oh wait, even with the campain finance reform, NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED! - am yelling b/c I'm mad.
Please vote this year, everyone!
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
"There have been 4 major hurricanes on my opponent's watch! That's not what I call PROGRESS!"
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
When political ads stopped being about the candidate, and his/her views and platforms, and when they started just being about bashing the other guy?
America has been successfully brainwashed into believing there are, and will only ever by, two choices. This makes politics simple, you only have to smear one guy, and it's just a contest to see who can smear the other guy better. Bushs platform is "Kerry sucks", Kerry's platform is "Bush sucks".
The last Bush commercial I saw said "John Kerry even voted against the Laci Perterson bill which would make it illegal to assault pregnant women." Well, it's obvious, of course, that Kerry is for assaults against pregnant women! What a bastard.
McCain was the rep. frontrunner, until a whisper campaign about his "mentally disabled black daughter" killed his hopes. The whispers of course didn't mention that she was adopted from Somalia or some country, the implied message was McCain knocked boots with a crack whore.
I haven't heard one real issue discussed during the entire pre-election smear fest. It's all about what Bush did or didn't do in the National Guard, and what Kerry did or didn't do in Vietnam. I haven't heard what either man plans to do or not do in Iraq, Syria or North Korea.
The ads are so shallow and transparent it amazes me. There's no subtlety or tact. I guess if Bush's commercials make him look like a petty asshole, it's irrelevant, as long as he's less petty and less of an asshole than Kerry.
The two party system we've imposed on ourselves have turned elections from "who will do the most good for our country?" into "who will do the least evil to our country?"
American politics are fucking sad. Two parties is not democracy, and not representative of the people. How could it be, when there are 50 states + D.C? How could the ideologies of 300 million people fit into either slot A or slot B?
Vote your conscience. Don't be satisfied with the lesser of two evils. Vote for someone you believe in. Whether or not they win, your vote sends a clear message.
I'd love to see the republicrats win, but with 50% or more of the votes going independant. That would send a real message, loud and clear, that people are sick of the way both parties have mangled the country.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
they should have a special section for the 'blockbuster' ads; ones that for good or bad reasons sealed the fate of a canidate. Ones that come to mind; the Willie Horton one and the Dukakis one when he's riding in the tank.
Funny, I can't remember who the WH one was for, but I remember his name and the story! Damn advertising! (irony anyone?)
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
"I represent the American Museum of the Moving Image, and I have the privilege to request your assistance to transfer the sum of $47,500,000.00 (forty seven million, five hundred thousand United States dollars) into your accounts. The above sum resulted from an over-invoiced contract, executed, commissioned and paid for about five years (5) ago by a museum curator. This action was however intentional and since then the fund has been in a suspense account at The Central Bank Of Nigeria Apex Bank."
I, for one, welcome our new politicial overlords
oh damn
especially since work on your buildings was used to shake down contractors (through the EDC) for donations to local city council office holders (to support "council members who support us").
> Articles that fit in a subcategory that
> are determined to be important make it
> to the front page anyway
Hm, maybe... seems like the preferences would be the way to override that, though. But perhaps that explains it.
The Army reading list
I think the mods have been getting their Atkins muffin recipe mixed up with their THC one this past week. Even one of my comments got modded offtopic, despite directly discussing one of Bush's campaign ads.
Or I could just say, "You must be new here."
Yes, the American people really haven't gotten enough Bush bashing. I mean, c'mon, we haven't even seen Al Franken's Bush Is The Love Child Of Hitler and Tokyo Rose or Jim Hightower's Bush Kidnapped The Linbergh Baby or MoveOn.org's Bush Enjoys Raping Kittens, Small Children ad yet.
Here's what's interesting - note how the successful political campaigns usually say something about their candidate rather than just smear the other guy. Like what has John Kerry been doing for the last 20 years. Where are his major legislative accomplishments. He's had two decades in the Senate, let's see what he's done? As long as we're on it, let's see what his position is on Iraq. What would he do now to end the violence there? How would he fight terrorism? What would he do in Darfur? How will he stop the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons? How will he contain North Korea?
Hell, the Democrats should be doing that sort of thing regardless. I know it's a shock to some, but not everyone in America hates Bush. Some of us (gasp!) actually think he's done rather well given the situation he's had to work with. And some of us do so because we've actually taken the time to do our homework.
Nope, instead just bash Bush. There's a real winning strategy.
Hint, when the server recovers from being Slashdotted, take a look at McGovern's "Morning in America" ads and compare them to the ads Kerry is running. Note McGovern's electoral successes. Look at Mondale's ads against Reagan. Note how well he did.
Then note why campaigns that are just referendums against a relatively popular incumbant but offer no information on the challenger end up failing miserably.
...you'll note that the submitter's name is "Ponce". Hehehe "PONCE"! HAHAHAHAHAH!!! *"Perfume PONCE"!!!!
* a nod to all you Withnail and I fans out there
[SARCASM]Especially since major hurricanes would be so controlable if we just had a 6 MW microwave laser in orbit to irradiate the ocean with. And it will only cost us another 26 billion in tax money![/SARCASM]
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
In every presidential election covered by television, the candidate with the most campaign money has become President.
How did Clinton beat Bush 1 and Perot then who both had more money than he did? I don't think you have your facts straight.
WAHHHHHHHHHHHH WAHHH WAHHH WAHHHHHHHHHH!
if you dont like it, go elsewhere.
Oh wait we FORCE you to come here.
WAHHHHHHHHHH
this is team sports speaking in your post, and you are apparently filling out the roster
most noticeably, you grimace in horror when i point out the negative attack potential of the democrats, but you are conveniently in alzheimer's mode about your own team's attack dogs hard at work right now (rah rah rah! go team!)
so rather than bang up against your blind spot, i am going to go with realpolitik: politics is not philosophical debate society, it's flesh and blood sports, as your one-sided shock and perplexed understanding of the relative sins and virtues of republicans and democrats attest to: you're a fully indoctrinated one-sided team player
i won't buy into the whole "can't we all just get along" road some seem to insist that will make negative ads go away in politics
politics is politics is politics. it's ugly stuff. you will never turn politics into something else unless you change human nature itself.
therefore, my observations about kerry needing to go full press attack mode still makes sense, from an objective, neutral, third-party pov, as if watching two football teams go at it midgame and commenting on what strategy one or the other should take to win the game... of course, if you are one of the teams and hear me commenting on the way the other team should win, your reaction fits in perfectly
i live in the real world of human nature in all of its good, bad, and ugly qualities and without your rah rah go home team one-sided blind spot attitude towards the virtuousness of the repulican party
want to argue virtue? you're in the wrong world buddy
when you're ready to talk about reality and realism and what plain works in american politics as it is, not as it wouldashouldacoulda be in science fiction, get back to me
until then, the attack ad proposition stands as sound
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, Kerry's does. His campaign says: "John Kerry is not George Bush". Which is enough to get my interest. Add in that he does indeed have a hope in hell of being elected, and that's about enough to save him from almost anything short of an indictment for Treason.
More seriously, an attack campaign on the Democrats part would be REALLY STUPID-- even if doing so might swing the 937 popular votes needed to be the difference between winning and losing this time. If Kerry looses, he goes back to the Senate-- a position much better than Edwards will be in if they win. The Republicans have been ruthless, partisan, uncompromising, and divisive. This has pissed off a LOT of moderates at them. Running a negative campaign for the presidency would cost the Democrats their higher moral ground.
The Republicans forget that strength without flexibility is brittle. Even if Kerry loses, the Republican party has the potential to shatter itself before the next election.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Haven't tried viewing the ads yet until the Slashdotting abates, but does anyone know the copyright/license status of the ads? Are they public domain? Just thinking about all the fun someone could have with a big ol' archive of ads like that. A parody would be within fair use anyway, but I'm just curious.
you are conveniently forgetting that the "intelligent thing to do" would be to have kept family members of the man who staged the bloodiest assault on us soil in easy reach
;-P
;-)
what kind of world do you live in where the safety of some rich bastards whose money was used to stage an attack which killed thousands of your fellow americans is a more pressing matter than getting to the bottom of what happened?
the "intelligent thing to do" in your world apparently comes form the same logic of the world where marie antoinette said "let them eat cake"
also, you seem to be out of touch with the concepts of leadership and accountability
as a leader, you don't defer blame on important matters, you take responsibilty for them. that's why higher ups get fired when their lowly henchmen fuck up royally. it's called accountability. if something really awful happens, heads high up roll, as proof of their leadership and acceptance of responsibility.
so are you saying that george bush isn't accountable for sensitive things the us govt does?
well, you are right in the sense that a man of gwb's dim intellectual faculties is clearly not accountable for much of anything, but i don't think that's the point you wanted to make
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dude, it was a joke. It parodies the way ads imply guilt or imply that the arch-enemy of freedom (the other candidate) had the complete ability to control x when that is rarely the case.
Hey, I'm younger than either of these guys and I have trouble controlling my bladder, much less the economy (or hurricanes).
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
So that would be 0.0000001 Sagans, not .1, which would be 100 million billion.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
politics is politics is politics. it's not dry debate society or philosophical musings, it's blood sport.
when you figure out how to change human nature itself, in all of its good, bad, and ugly qualities, you will have figured out how to change politics into something nice and neat and pat.
until then, your ivory tower reaction to negative attack ads simply means you are out of touch with what really works in the real world of the technology we have here and now instead of what shouldcouldawoulda works in some scifi world.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that the minor inconvenience and detention of some rich foreign bastards is more important than the right of the american people to get to the bottom of the worst slaughter of their fellow citizens in the history of this country?
maybe in the world of marie antoinette and "let them eat cake" does ferreting away the poor betrodden discomforted inconvenienced bin ladens make sense
but i have to beg to differ with you: they should have been detained, and questioned, period, end of story... no logic employing what we know now serving as judgment about what happened in retrospect need apply
the bin ladens should not have been coddled and serviced, they should have been detained and questioned
and any suggestion to the latter is of questionable elitism at work, not logic or judgment or the taking of the interests and well-being of the voting american public first and foremost
which is exactly the whole problem that bush and his ilk have: allegiance to the ultrarich and big oil instead of the average american, and why kerry should force that issue to the forefront with attack ads to help his campaign
ps: while kerry is a rich bastard himself, i scarcely see the american government ever invading italy so as to secure the safety of our precious precious tomatoes so the heinz kethcup industry not suffer
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Hint: Sarcasm tags mean mine was a joke too- an expansion on your joke based on an old short story I read once about a group of people on the moon and in orbit helping out a politician by using a microwave laser meant for power generation to divert a hurricane (thus proving that space travel is the goose that lays the golden eggs- and getting the politician re-elected in an anti-science political atmosphere).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Yah, we all know how good Bush has been towards the enviroment.
"Lets drill up everything we can, cut down any trees we can get our hands on, and you can all worry about alternative energy sources after I get out of office."
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
There are plenty of problems with Wikipedia articles, but generally they converge to a middle ground faster than any alternatives I've seen. On obscure subjects you can't count on this (because it's possible there aren't enough knowledgeable people to catch errors), but on well-known subjects falsehoods get challenged pretty quickly, and the articles converge to something reasonable.
Not perfect, mind you, but better than anything else I've seen. I'd like you to show me an in-depth George W Bush biography that is better, by which I mean not overly skewed to either the "he's great" or "he's horrible" sides.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If he does that, there are plenty of us who currently vaguely like him who will vote against him for being a sleazy bastard.
Some of us demand you stick to issues. Not all of us, I'll grant.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Non-voters (except those disqualified by some misc law) should get their asses to the polls.
Not voting is worse than draft dodging.
Start Running Better Polls
not polite philosophical debating society
when you change human nature, in all its good, bad, and ugly glory, you will change politics into the beast you imagine it should be
read: never
where i'm coming from is called realism, where you are coming from is called idealism
negative attacks are never going away as long as the word and the concept we now know as "politics" stays the same
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://www.lonseidman.com/voteinfo.html
-Lon
www.lonseidman.com
Ah, without the backstory it just looked like another humor impaired /. comment to me. By the way, the joke belonged to another (unless you're referring to my bladder control issues...).
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
If your commercial interrupts my enjoyment of the program I'm watching, I'm remembering your ad and voting against you. And yes, I'll hold 527 ads against whomever I can discern as benefitting from your ads. So far, I'm only voting against Bush and Kerry. I'll expand that list if I only see someone else's ad.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
the family of the man who made the bloodiest attack on us soil ever needed to be detained, not coddled
period
end of story
fanciful orwell embellishments need not apply
simple point
simple concept
stop grasping at imaginative literary straws
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i respectfully submit to you that those who would be lost by going negative, such as yourself, are vastly overwhelmed by those who would be swayed
see? that kind of arithmetic is the blood sport we call politics
and that kind of realism defeats your kind of idealism any day
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine"
Speech made by President George W. Bush at The Republican National Convention
Immediate?
Amount of people who've signed up for the President's Medicare "card": 4.1 Million or 10% of those who are eligible.
The 75% discount that was provided under that same bill doesn't start till 2006! Immediate my behind.
Just one day after the convention speech Medicare premiums increased 17%.
"Starting in January, the elderly will pay $78.20 per month for non-hospital services, up $11.60 from $66.60 this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said." (CNN Money 9/3/2004)
The 17% increase is the largest in Medicare's history, the second largest took place last year (2003) when premiums rose 13%. (From $58.70 to $66.60, CNN Money 9/3/2004)
Sources:
Get your Unix fortune now!
In every presidential election covered by television, the candidate with the most campaign money has become President.
Yes, and it is unfortante because 30 second commercial spots are absolutely the worst way to inform yourself about the issues. The best resource I have found so far is FactCheck.org, a non-partison voter advocacy site affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. They examine the various ads and claims made by candidates and do an excellent job separating fact from fiction. They debunk the Republican's swift boat ads. They also deconstruct the Democrat's spin on the economic numbers. All in all, a vary balanced and well researched web site.
The Bolachek Journals
i think we're talking rhetorical strategy here in politics, not vikings raping and pillaging!
i mean, you're 100,000 foot vantage point is interesting in a poetic way, but hardly instructive and revelatory
politics is politics is politics
it's a manifestation of human nature itself, not of its civilized veneer
and i'm not rationalizing political assassinations for crying out loud, i'm talking attack ads on television
i think you've got some problems with perspective, scale, and context when it comes to discussing some of the motivations and implications of my words
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And at the same time, the oversimplified grandparent, that's supposed to be "insightful". Absolutely ridiculous...
My retired parents were directly effected by this legislation and they say it is a horrible mess. They used to vote republican but are voting democrat this year with that as one of the main reasons.
I have my own reasons to vote against Bush, such as:
He left the job unfinished in Afganistan, didn't catch Bin Ladin, but instead enganged in an expensive and ill-planned war in Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction that were not there. All he really managed to accomplish was drive a wedge between America and its allies, weaken NATO, increase anti-American sentiment to unprecedented levels, and drive up terrorist recruiting.
He has made us even more dependent on foreign oil. His energy policy was crafted by Enron in secret meetings with Cheney. It gives billions of dollars to entrenched oil interests while nearly ignoring conservation and alternative fuels.
He rolled back environmental laws and increased the amount of mercury and cyanide being released into the environment. He is opening our wilderness preserves to development and logging.
He passed the Patriot Act and is pushing even worse legislation that seriously undermines our personal freedoms. He claimes the terrorists attack us because we stand for freedom, yet he is working to undermine those very values that make us great. you know, little things like judicial oversite of the police, protection from unwarranted search and seizure, right to a fair and open trial, the right to be secure in our own homes.
He ran up a record deficit, after inheriting a surplus from the previous administration. The dot com bust and additional necessary spending on defense can account for some of that, but the deficit could have been contained at a more reasonable 90 billion instead of the half a trillion it has now become. A tax cut paid for with borrowed money is not really a tax cut, any more than taking cash advances on your credit card is a 'pay raise'.
I've usually considered myself politically independent. There are things about both major parties that I like and dislike. There have been republicans politicians that I have admired and respected. It is George W. Bush that is the problem. He is hurting not only our nation, but the credibility of the republican party (at least with me). Kerry has been admittedly bad at getting his message out, but his record in the senate is still far better than Bush's four years as president. Unfortunately, Bush's talent at spin and self marketing could mean we will be stuck with his poor leadership for another four years.
Good thing the aliens will bail us out.
The Bolachek Journals
Instead of coming up with negative commercials and Bush slamming, why not just lay out the facts. It bewilders me that this president, has not been under any kind of investigation for his actions on 9/11 (well, excluding the 9/11 commission where he had to have his hand held by Cheney).
;-> )
The Facts are:
We had a record surplus, now we have a record deficit.
We invaded a country, after lieing to EVERYONE about why we were invading. Now that country is in hell because every other country that sponsors terrorism sends terrorists there to make sure that democracy will only succeed at great cost in lives, American and Iraqi.
He says he is a uniter, and yet the country has NEVER been more divided.
Whenever Kerry takes a lead in the (useless)polls there is an all too convenient TERROR update, even if the information is 3 years old. (yes, I have taken part in phone polls sponsored by the Republicans and the questions were a bit skewed.
"Do you support our troops in Iraq?" Of course I support our troops, what I don't support is the "war" or the reason they are there. How can I say no to this and not be an American?)
Anyway...
W and his cronies have an amizing knack of being able to take the flaw that they are guilty of, turn it around and say their opponent is guilty of it, then have Fox News confirm it, then the Right fanatics all embrace it like it was the gospel.
Are Americans really that stupid? (Canada, you stay out of this
I hate my sig.
i'm saying go on the attack in a major way
you say tell the truth
these are not mutually exclusive directives
in fact, they make a nice mix!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
do there seem to be more Bush campaign commercials about Kerry than Bush campaign commercials about Bush?
Only a couple of Kerry's commercials attack Bush whereas more than half of Bush's commercials feature Kerry in some fashion.
You see this reflected in the Bush campaign websites. Too busy attacking Kerry and not saying anything about what they've "accomplished" the past four years whereas Kerry's website is actually about Kerry.
It's strange to see Bush running a challenger's campaign... but they seem to be making the Onion's satire redundant.
yes, dorothy, as with corn
...but yet oh so dumb
and potatoes (which we associate with ireland)
and coffee (which we associate with columbia) is from yemen
breadfruits which we associate with jamaica is from tahiti
blah blah blah
are you supposed to be impressed with this useless trivia off the top of my head?
was i supposed to be impressed with yours?
your point? or are you just trying to appeal to esoterica to make yourself out to be ever so smart?
no really: your bin laden pov is just not good enough, period
remember, ted kyzinski the unabomer had a brother too, remember how he figured in his brother's capture?
i'm not impugning the bin ladens, i'm imploring them
but you go right ahead and worry about the inconveniences of the ultrarich
i'll be worrying about the rights of the american public
you're an elitist, in those whose rights you worry about in disregard of the rights of your fellow americans, and in your snobbish appeal to esoteric facts about tomatoes to make yourself out to be ever so smart
you're just an elitist snob with a chip on your shoulder to me
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, because ignoring uninteresting (in your opinion) stories that come along every so often is so hard to do. Cry me a river.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
He he, well, there went MY karma. What I get for forgetting the AC box, I guess.
Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
there is another?
Now, while the Wikipedia article can give some indication on most of these points, if you want to have a detailed look at their actual plans you'd be better off reading the policy positions on their websites.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
imagine Q is some negative quantity present in political sturggles
Q will not change
Q has not changed
Q will never change
Q just is, it's a function of human nature itself
it is a constant
stop trying to imagine it is a flexible arrangment
it won't go up, it won't go down, it just is
if you understand how some aspects of human nature are immutable and unchanging, both good and bad aspects, you will grok my point
so stop trying to fight that which cannot be fought
accept it, move on
see? that's my realism versus your idealism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
US politics is a blood sport. It is not necessarily so in other places.
In Europe, where campaign financing is better controlled (for example in the UK parties can't buy TV time) we don't have the sorry spectacle of political mud throwing that US campaigning is.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, that's not right. A Sagan is "billions and billions" so millions and millions would be a milliSagan. (Sagan was American so Million = 1e6 and Billion = 1e9)