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Kerry Blows Red Sox Stats, Again, and Again
This week John Kerry twice messed up the Red Sox playoff scores, in one game proclaiming them to be ahead 10-9, in another 7-1. The Sox never had 10 runs in the first game (they went from 9 to 11 on Mark Bellhorn's two-run homer off the right field foul pole), and scored six in the second (see footballfansfortruth.us for more info). For those of you who are not Boston-area natives, you might not understand that Red Sox loyalty is far greater than political loyalty, and while this might not cause anyone to vote for Bush, it might make Kerry voters stay home. Worse, many Red Sox fans have vowed to see the Sox win a World Series before they die, so tens of thousands of Kerry voters could die before November 2. Of course, this won't affect Massachusetts, Vermont, or Rhode Island, and probably not Maine, but New Hampshire is a possibility.
This... is lame. God I can't wait 'til the election is over, and the pro-kerry and pro-bush supporters stop taking drugs....
I'm glad /. is finally showing a non-bias towards the candidates. Especially over such an important issue as this during a time of war, crappy economy, etc.
Where is the free world headed if we elect a man who can't keep track of baseball scores while trying to win an election?
No sig for you!!
If Kerry is going to get faulty intelligence, I'd rather it be on baseball scores than on, say, whether a country should be invaded.
Personally I think it's disgusting that people would change their vote based on how much a candidate knows about a sporting event. Of course it does make Kerry look rather silly if he just pretended to be interested; but on the other hand the fact that candidates feel they must be seen to like baseball is pretty sad (and reflects very badly on the electorate).
"Madness is something rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule." -- Nietzsche
Perhaps next we will be discussing the brand of toilet paper the candidates use.
Or whether they use enough.
FredRated
Rate not lest you be rated
Linus Torvalds repeatedly misspelled the word 'kernel' in smp.c. Twice he wrote 'kernl' and three times he used 'kernal'. Not being a Slashdot regular, you might not know how important spelling is. This might not move any users to BSD, but it could keep a few nerds from recompiling their kernal until patches are submitted.
There are a good number of political issues that do matter to Slashdoters. Perhaps we could discuss those?
P.S.: Pudge - Just because michael posts Stupid Crap, doesn't mean you have counter by posting more of the opposite type.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
The difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that one of those countries was harboring and supporting folks who were directly responsible for 9-11 and other attacks on America, and one was run by a guy with a moustache.
Hell, I even give Bush a 20-20 hindsight pass on failing to get OBL at Tora Bora. What I won't forgive him for is diverting troops, resources and attention away from the area before the job was complete and for buddying up with the #1 global nuclear proliferator (Pakistan) in the process.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
In the third debate, Kerry was asked if homosexuality was a choice (the unspoken bit there was "and therefore okay to discriminate against"). Taking what Kerry said in response to this question as some sort of attack exposes a latent homophobia -- it assumes that being gay or having a gay family member is something to be ashamed of.
Mary Cheney wasn't in the closet. She isn't a private figure. Kerry didn't out her or expose her to sudden scrutiny. She's a prominant gay American who advises the Vice President and has worked as an advisor on GLB issues to, among others, Coors. The VP himself has talked about her as a reason for disagreeing with the anti-gay marriage amendment.
Kerry didn't insult her. He didn't, for instance, suggest she was just faking gay for attention (like Bush seemed to suggest all gay people might be doing). He didn't call for discrimination against her to be written into the Constitution of the United States. He didn't talk about her any differently than either Candidate talked about each others families in that debate. If Jenna Bush were happily married and Kerry mentioned that, would there be this outcry? Of course not.
Some people say Kerry cynically mentioned her being gay as a way to turn off the homophobes at the extreme right of the GOP. This is suggesting that Kerry should have somehow tempered his answer to a direct question in the debate in order not to piss off bigots in the other party. Yeah. Hey, if the right wants these small-minded assholes on their team, that's their deal and they can get back to work recuiting them. Me, I'm happy to be on the other side.
Now, I take this a little personally because I have friends and family members who are gay, and I love them. Seeing some dickless excuse for a politician suggest they don't deserve the sort of rights that my wife and I have and then try to pass if off as "defending marriage" makes me very, very angry. So if my tone seems a little harsh and uncharacteristically unfunny, you'll excuse me for this one post.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
The Washington Times? You have anything about this "booing" from a respected/non-insane paper?
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
I know you're joking here, but...
Where do most of those Canadian drugs come from? The United States.
The Canadian government meets with US pharmaceutical companies and negotiates price breaks for bulk purchases. The US pharmaceutical companies go along with this because if they don't, then they will sell almost zero quantities to Canada.
You really think that the US pharmaceutical companies are going to willingly double, triple or even quadruple the amount of pills shipped to Canada in order to meet the needs of US citizens who want to re-import the drugs back to the US?
If you're allowing the idea of re-imported drugs from Canada to influence your voting choice, you really need to re-think your decision.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
...but doesn't anyone else think that it looks bad when the only anti-Kerry submission on /. in the past week or so is a humor piece?
Rob
Wow. I have spent considerable time in the past putting together well-linked relevant stories, only to have them rejected. Not that I'm grousing about it, but what exactly is this?
Is it a 'most of our political posts bash bush, so let's try and keep it balanced' kind of a story? WTF? Is this a goddamn political blog? There are hundreds of those out there, why did we have to drag it in here, and worse still, couldn't we try to stick to relevant issues, or barring that, actual fucking news?
Are we all supposed to spin off of some technological analysis of this gaffe? (Kerry must have been getting his 'updates' from Windows XP. he he.)
I mean, can someone step up and tell me what possible reason someone would think that should be posted. And for that matter, why would an editor accept it?
I had this sinking feeling that having a politics section would somehow cloud the otherwise mostly worthwhile content on slashdot, but I never could have predicted the results would be this dismal.
We are talking about a political candidate (Nerd check: FAILED) and that candidate's sports knowledge (Nerd check: FAILED).
I'm hard pressed to think of anything that matters LESS to me than if Kerry correctly remembered baseball game scores.
"...for Pudge."
This is a really bizarre blanket statement with little basis in reality.
Yay blanket assertions!
Come on -- on one hand you have baseball, on the other you have the absolutely worst president in recent memory. What's worse -- a simple gaffe about sports statistics (big surprise: not everyone gives a damn about such minutae), vs another four years of this nightmare? Somehow I think Pudge is resoundingly incorrect on this one.
But still, it's nice to see that he feels comfortable enough in his position as one of the "official" voices of Slashdot to use the site as a soapbox for his cranky politics... :-)
Or not. You never can tell!
???
This article seems to be some new application of the phrase "news for nerds, stuff that matters" that flouts just about every term in the phrase. Impressive.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
But when you make a simple mistake -- one which, I note, remains uncorrected in the article text as I write this (I can't decide if that's integrity or not) -- it's okay, but when Kerry makes one, he's somehow hopelessly out of touch?
What's the difference? The fact that he's running for office and you're not?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Look, both Bush and Kerry misspeak ALL THE TIME; it's simply the nature of American politics. As a citizen, it's your civic duty to seek out the misstatements of both candidates and determine which has been speaking the more dangerous/egregious misstatements (and, yes, in some cases, outright lies). This means more than just reading the National Review's bashing points of one candidate.
As for Kerry's goose-hunting, it's a shallow photo-op. He has time for it because he think it'll get him votes, whereas he's probably calculated that following the world series won't give him as much benefit. Don't tell me Bush has never engaged in a shallow photo-op when he should've been running the country.
I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
When asked to name his major mistakes, and the only thing he could come up with are:
in an April press conference: (paraphrasing, not quoting) Can't think of anything off the top of my head. You should have given me that question written in advance.
In the NYT article: (paraphrasing) We miscalculated how fast and efficently that we would win.
during the second debate: (again, paraphrasing) Some appointments, but don't want to name them.
These are not lies or misrepresentations. You claim I misquote or misremember these instances, but it is not so. These are all well publisized events, and in each instance his exact words were chosen carefully. When I hear/read these words, I infer that he is claiming that he has not made mistakes in Iraq (other than miscalculating how fast we would win). Infering this does not take a leap of faith, and only reflects poorly on me to Bush supporters.
The problem is that what he said was non-specific and interruptible based on the listener's current beliefs. When he claims no mistakes, non-supporters hear "I'm perefect". When he says history will judge him, supporters hear "I've made mistakes". In reality, he has said nothing. Great politics, horrible leadership.
Doesn't change the fact that as a nation, we are now credibly bankrupt. We have no way to lead with current world situations or upcoming problems. Again, an incredible lack of leadership.
I am living proof of the Peter Principle