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McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate
Many readers have written to tell us about McCain's choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP choice. "Palin, 44, a self-described 'hockey mom,' is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views, a record of reform and fiscal conservatism and an outsider's perspective on Washington. [...] If elected, Palin would be the first woman US vice president, adding another historic element to a presidential race that has been filled with firsts. Obama, 47, is the first black nominee of a major US political party. The choice of a vice president rarely has a major impact on the presidential race. Palin will meet Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a debate in October."
Joe Biden: "Governor Palin, I served with Dan Quayle; Dan Quayle was a friend of mine. Governor, you're no Dan Quayle."
Bryan J. Casto
bryan.casto(a)gmail.com
I worked with her last year, doing some linux consulting work for the State of Alaska. I'd definitely tap her :)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Great choice. Already getting the "maverick" tag as well. Obama's fate is sealed.
For a guy who was only doing better than Paul at the beginning of the primaries, McCain's doing well these days. 4 more years!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
The Republican ticket is now complete, with John McCain picking Sarah Palin, the Republican Governor of Alaska as his running mate. And sure, she is hot (safe for work) but it would appear she is also a proponent of teaching creationism alongside Evolution in public schools. I don't mean to start a flame war here (ok maybe just a little) but seriously, how can anyone take a candidate seriously when they shamelessly pander to the stupid lobby?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
I think this is a great pick. The Democrats seem to want to attack Palin on experience but, in the minds of many, every attack/criticism they make against Palin will be silently re-asked by viewers about the Democrats' presidential pick.
Democrats are in a catch-22. Great political move by McCain. And Palin's speech in Dayton was excellent and motivating and inspirational, far more than what I heard from Obama last night at the DNC convention.
She's a VPILF. http://vpilf.com/
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Skin color and ethnicity should matter in an election, but Obama is half-"white American" half "Black African." While that technically makes him half African-American, he does not share the full cultural heritage that is commonly understood by the term "African-American."
His dad was from Africa, not the son or grandson of a sharecropper and not the descendant of slaves from pre-Civil-War America.
I will grant you that he grew up in the '60s and '70s in a time where his skin color gave him distinct disadvantages, but that's not the same as having parents and grandparents who faced the same obstacles.
Barak Obama has far more in common with lawyers from Harvard than your average African American.
Thankfully, for today's generation and the ones to follow, the cultural differences are becoming more about economic differences rather than differences in skin tone and whether your ancestors were property.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...but will it actually attract the Hillary supporters that the McCain camp seeks? At least now when confronted with attacks that liken a McCain presidency to a 3rd Bush term, he can point to his female running mate as progress.
She's also quite photogenic and a decent speaker. Who wants to bet that Palin's VP debate performance will outshine McCain's debate performance?
Well she just asked "What exactly does a vice president do?", on CNBC. Um, ok that is scary. This is just a female Dan Quayle that instead of golfing hunts, fishes and wrestles bears. Unfortunately she does none of these things naked.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Considering McCain is more likely to die in the next four (or eight) years than Obama, the choice of VP for McCain is more likely to determine who becomes the President after next. I know there's some Yoda joke here, but I just can't find it.
Let us not become the evil that we deplore.
Face it, though, neither Palin (a self-admitted creationist) nor Biden (a proponent of stronger police powers) is a 'nerd-friendly' pick.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I myself don't want to see McCain in the White House, but if they (McCain/Palin) actually do get elected, I wouldn't mind becoming an intern to Palin in the White House. You know what I am talking about! Yeah Baby!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
vpilf.com
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I've heard discussions that Gov. Palin has had some difficulties with mainstream conservatives. Considering that McCain has almost no chance of winning this election, could picking Palin have been more about taking her out of the picture?
After all, how many candidates from losing presidential tickets - presidential or veep - have been endorsed for office by their parties afterwards?
This could be the GOP's way of holding on for Pawlenty and Romney to run at later times when there is a chance of the republicans winning the white house.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
She tried to get a state trooper fired for divorcing her sister and after that failed, fired his boss for not firing him.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yeah, because /. sure does have a majority on creationists.
I'm amazed at your ability to so perfectly lump all US citizens into one super-accurate stereotype!! I didn't realize that we all think we can spread democracy via a gun barrel. Thank god that an expert-on-all-things-American such as you told me, so that I know how to think! /sarcasm off
Tell me what country you're from so I can make an ignorant ill-informed statement about how you all feel.
Just a little something I read about the government not being allowed to outlaw or advance any particular religion. And, yeah, any form of ID? Yup, that's a religious belief, not a scientific one.
And for strict biblical literalists, teaching a heliocentric model of the solar system is going against their religion. Are we supposed to teach geocentrism in public schools, as well?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Nah, it's a good political move ignoring completely Hillary supporters.
Which do you want? An experienced president who you hope doesn't die and leaves you with a relatively inexperienced vice-president? Or do you want an inexperienced president that you hope dies so you can get some experience in the presidency?
This was a great chess move by the Republicans. Checkmate, Obama is done.
she is also a proponent of teaching creationism alongside Evolution in public schools
I don't see anything wrong with teaching the history of humanity's understanding of the planet's origins. For a long time, consensus was that the planet was 6,000 years old. Without learning about creationism, it is harder for students to grasp the extent of the impact that Darwin's On the Origin of Species had on the development of biology.
What's sad is that when Democrats run women, it's looked at as somehow genuine but when Republicans run a woman it's looked at as pandering.
Because when people talk about presenting "both" sides of an issue, they usually don't mean the "informed" and "uninformed" sides.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
For the first time, we will have a vice-president that looks good naked!
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Because now we'll see a Hot for Vice President site spring up.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Just look at how much eight years running the country has aged the G.W. Bush. I remember how he looked young in 1999.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
The very title of such a "Origins and Development of Life" class would imply that students would be taught on the origins and development of life - and not "Varying Views on the Origins and Development of Life"; thus creationism would still have no place in such a class.
There are already classes for creationism: theology classes. They may not be required material, but they do exist - and if you want that well-rounded education, you'll take it.
Unfortunately there are various problems with mandatory theology classes as generally proposed - not the least of which is that they mean Christian Theology classes; if other religions are mentioned at all, then they are generally mentioned in the bylines and quickly dismissed in favor of the Christian views. If you think that atheism is covered in such classes at all, you're horribly mistaken (well, other than the whole "non-believers go to hell, THEY GO TO HELL AND THEN THEY BURN AND THEY DIE!!!"-part, though they try to tone that down a little these days.)
Personally I don't think that religion has any place in public schools (what private schools do is entirely up to them), not even as an alternative view on things such as the origin of life, the universe, etc. No more than Time Cube would have a place as an alternative view on physics.
Because she looks strikingly similar to Laura Roslin.
I'm sure many others think this, but I think his strategy is to gather the Hillary voters....It's a bad strategy if you ask me because he simply brought her on just to win the election...which is just stupid.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
That I wish she were the PRESIDENTIAL nominee. Sarah Palin has excellent credentials of taking on corruption (even in her own party). She said no thanks to Sen. Ted "Internet Tubes" Steven's 100 million dollar "bridge to nowhere", and called for his investigation in a corruption scandal. I hear crickets from the Dems with respect to Rep William Jefferson (of New Orleans) and the $100K found in his freezer, etc...
The best thing about this is that it sets her up to be the nominee next time out.
Corporatism != Free Market
Are you saying she should have? I thought it was all about the "woman's right to choose" with the abortion crowd.
Uh, I doubt many Hillary supporters are going to vote for someone so strongly pro-life. Just a guess, but I think it's safe. There will be some loss, but not much.
Frankly I don't see this pick as shoring up the McCain ticket much except in terms of solidifying his base.
The enemies of Democracy are
Actually this is still under investigation. Nothing has been proven.
She is also against contraception!! Not just abortion, but F*'n contraception!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
And there are no 'facts' to point out.
Creationists don't live in the actual real world of cause and effect and rational thought, by definition. Me, I don't want irrational fundies in charge of MY nuclear weapons stockpile...
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Or how sad how many Americans have fallen in love with Obama even though he hasn't done anything but blow smoke up everyone's ass? Maybe he'll be a great president.. I don't know because so far all he's done is talk about change.. changing what though?
I just sit back, let everyone rip on each other for a couple months, then decide in mid-October who'll I'll support. Until then I just try to convince my friends to keep an open mind.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Mod up Informative
... she looks strikingly similar to Laura Roslin.
Who, let it not be forgotten, is a non-democratic (small d) authoritarian with a militarism fetish.
That is all.
Either McCain is lying when he says Obama is not experienced enough, or he picked someone even less experience to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
He looks bad either way.
Palin's speech was campy and insulting to females, and Hillary and Biden are going to tear her a new one for being anti-abortion, anti-condom, pro-creationist, and for being under investigation for corruption in her own state.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
So you are a McCain fan. I'm leaning towards Obama, but I get the sense that I may be generally more moderate than you are.
Anyway, McCain's manufactured vitality is going to be a huge factor. Stuff like this:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1836909,00.html
where he gets a little crotchety is not going to help him with undecideds. If they missed anything in vetting Palin, he will get nothing out of picking her.
I don't think things are anywhere near settled, too many people are just starting to pay attention (last nights Democratic convention coverage drew huge numbers of viewers...).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Hahah, because I'm definitely all for a hard-core creationist who is quoted to have said "creationism is more supported by modern science than evolution".
Awesome.
Michael Palin will make an excellent vice presidential candidate. Awesome.
What makes you think that we're voting based on experience?
Let's name some names from the post-Eisenhower era. Clinton, Kennedy, Carter, W. Bush, even the GOP hero Reagan's experience all pale in comparison to H. W. Bush, McCain, Nixon and Johnson. We've got a motley bunch of heroes and goats in this "inexperienced" group, and a dictator and a socialist in the "experienced".
Heck, we elected W. Bush even though his only political experience was running a cracker-jack job as Texas governor. So we're pounding on Obama after a few years in state and US Senates for "lack of experience"? Seems he's done a much better job talking to foreign leaders than Bush ever did, and he most likely won't use the McCain "big guns"* foreign policy style.
Using "experience" as a qualification or requirement for the Presidency is an insult to history.
* An attempt at TR's "big stick" policy, only McCain and other GOP supporters doesn't know how to "speak softly".
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
The article you link to is over a month old. Here is a list of more recent stories from the Anchorage Daily News:
http://searchalaska.adn.com/sp?keywords=monegan&submit=find+%BB&aff=1100
Sorry, this story is already getting amazing traction.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
He's just handed the feminists who wanted Clinton a guarantee that they can have a female president within 4 years (with McCain's failing health, history of cancer and torture, his odds of surviving 4 years are quite small). Even if he managed to make it through 4 years of the presidency, getting rid of her in the 2nd term to prevent her becoming president would make it impossible to get reelected (and there is basically zero chance of McCain living another 8 years, even with the best medical care available).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Is there any reason that this story shouldn't be in the politics section which does not show up on my front page?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The article you link to is over a month old. Here is a list of more recent stories from the Anchorage Daily News:
Thank you, it was the first one I found with a reasonable summary. A better one is:
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/510080.html
It looks like it was published in the last hour or so. It also itemizes the results of the internal investigation against the state trooper.
Sorry, this story is already getting amazing traction.
I'm not surprised. Both sides are eager to dig up dirt on each other, and this is about the only thing that they have been able to find on Palin. She has made a lot of enemies (in Alaska) from both parties, so it was inevitable.
Because now we'll see a Hot for Vice President site spring up.
http://www.vpilf.com/
There are state mandated curricula. Teachers are employees, just like say software engineers. They have bosses, and the bosses tell them what to teach and how to teach it.
Back in the day teachers often had a good bit of leeway, they put together a course and taught it. Maybe they had to use whatever textbook was available but beyond that they did usually largely do their own thing, but even then it was far from beyond supervision or intervention.
Nowadays with state mandated textbooks, lesson plans, standardized tests, etc as well as being even more in the public eye than ever before it is actually pretty difficult for teachers to wander much from what they've been told to teach.
Sure, teachers can obviously present things in a way that tends to present certain views in a better or worse light, but they aren't free to ignore or disparage material. School administrators have plenty of problems already, and they are not usually too happy about teachers who's techniques land angry parents on their backs either, so the general attitude is 'stop making trouble and just teach what your told to.'
Plus there is the fact that some really large percentage of teachers are themselves either anti-evolution or can't tell the difference between ID and science (and are none too well grounded in the science itself for that matter).
I will agree with you that a few teachers will go to the wall, and be fired. A somewhat larger percentage of the good ones will roll their eyes and try to do the best they can. But they're only human and being fired is no fun.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The Democrats didn't pick a woman to run. A Democratic woman chose to run. Palin didn't choose to run -- she was picked by McCain to run. That is the difference. That is why it is seen as pandering. Obama was also pandering with his VP choice. When he selected Biden, he was pandering to people from northeast Pennsylvania.
The VP choice is almost always a way to get at some block of voters.
All that being said, I simply cannot understand what is going on inside the head of McCain supporters. The guy does nothing but support failed policies, and lie about Obama wanting to raise taxes on the middle class. Meanwhile Obama is inspiring millions of Americans to do their part to get us out of this crisis, and demonstrating the judgement required to lead in the complex world of the 21st century.
Ms Palin has been a pain in the arse to the oil Companies in Alaska.
What do you suppose the odds are that after donating a few million (documented) to the McCain Campaign they said 'And oh, By the way, we've got a honest, attractive woman that would make a great VP if you'd just *GET HER THE HELL OUT OF ALASKA!*'.
If they win, she's out of Alaska Politics. If they lose, she's out of the state for awhile, and it never helps anyone's political career to be on a losing presidential campaign.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
No, this is only ONE thing. Read the other articles. Far from being fiscally conservative, she raised the Alaska budget. She doesn't know what the duties of VP are. She is rabidly anti-evolution. She supports Ted Stevens. She has no experience. Please, she's a terrible, terrible pick for VP.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
adding another historic element to a presidential race that has been filled with firsts
Historical, perhaps. But not a first. Geraldine Ferraro anyone? This is "historical" in the sense that she is the second female vice presidential candidate of a major US party (third if you count Nader's VP Jan Pierce in 2004). Also remember, the rest of the world has been doing the "female vice president" thing for a long while.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
That's because it is? How concerned have you ever seen the Republican party over women's rights? Hell, they have a hard time caring about anything other than wealthy, property owner rights.
That is all.
Obama's pick of Washington-hack Joe Biden was featured on the slashdot front page, but this, you have to dig in the Politics section to find it.
Do I sense media bias?
My reason for closely examining the two VP candidates this time around has more to do with the original purpose of the office. For different reasons, I would not be surprised if either major party candidate didn't get to finish out their terms, as sad as that is...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This is like some sad attempt at political fanfic. Do you have little puppets of them at home that you play with like Lord Helmet?
Number 2 would alienate an extreme number of Hillary supporters. I hope he says it :-)
Not that this is the basis for my vote, but I'd like to point out that Palin was the Gov. of Alaska, one of the states that McCain is older than. Made me smile, at least ; - )
Self-appointed? As opposed to the non-self-appointed priests of religion?
Yes, the word you are unfamiliar with is ordained.
Nice typical, old-school cliches from the "Party of Change." Good response. Keep it up.
do you think 2 years as the governor of a state is less than 4 years as a back bench Senator who didn't chair a subcommittee meeting? Her greatest accomplishment so far is running a state. Obama's greatest accomplishment so far is running a successful campaign. Alaska has a population of approximately 670,000 people and this is how many people she has been in charge of for 2 years. How many people has Obama been in charge of? regardless of where you personally stand on issues at least you can know where she stands with no flip-flopping, especially regarding free-market capitalism(the reagan kind), abortion(pro-life, had her child at age 44 even though she knew he would have down syndrome), and pro-choice as far as education. We dont know what Obama stands for except that he for the most socialist policy that i have ever read...coming just shy to that of marxism. She is also a member of NRA and supports the use of guns as she is an avid hunter too.(that must scare the far-left). She is blue-collar and doesn't have to prove it because she has lived it and lives it. Of course all the "sophisticated" people in the northeast will try to strike her down because she isn't part of the "club"(shes a hunter, from a small town, has 5 kids, didnt go to brown, yale or harvard). America needs someone outside of CEO corporate washington to represent us. whatever else i have said in this post i think most of you will agree with this. When the state construed a budget reserve she took that money and put it into an Alaskan state savings account, instead of spending it just to spend it like wildfire and of course certain legislative bodies didn't like that. She also wants to drill USA oil, not get oil from places where people want to wipe us off the face of the earth. She has tried but our friendly government has said no way. Hmm wonder why??
I think he's senile now.
if you subscribe to the Bush doctrine on torture (as McCain now does), then McCain himself was never "tortured" at the Hanoi Hilton and the anti-American statements he made to his captors are, in fact, truthful and accurate intelligence.
from a comment on a story in the Wash Post.
Well, for starters she is a creationist (though it sounds like she is promising to keep out of the debate, even though her personal opinion is that both should be taught), which has a definite science angle to it.
So far the only bits of tech policy anyone has mentioned out of her has to do with oil drilling, which she in favor of (married to an oil industry peep and lives in a state that gets stipends from anyone drilling there)
I present the parent post as exhibit A. See what happens if you teach kids religion in science classes?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Someone else was bitching that this story did show up on the front page, and wasn't tucked away in the Politics section to make it easier to filter out...
I think it's just sloppy editing, really.
Bow-ties are cool.
and won't appeal to that crowd beyond her gender. She's pro-life and reportedly has fairly conservative political views (and has chosen to align herself with the Republican party).
Anyone who is willing to sell-out on their political beliefs just to vote for a gender lacks integrity, in my opinion. If you want to vote for McCain / Palin because they align with your political beliefs, fine. But don't vote for them just because one of them happens to be female.
Errr, no, she was already vetted during the primary...how much more is needed. The only thing they'd want to know would who contributed to Bill's presidential library. Only the bloviating media ever thought she was in the running for VP.
What's sad is that when Democrats run women, it's looked at as somehow genuine but when Republicans run a woman it's looked at as pandering.
Because, when Democrats run women, it's based on a long history of, y'know, actually having supported women's issues.
Since Republicans have a long history of voting *against* things like equal work for equal pay, then yeah - it's pandering.
Unfortunately (Well, unfortunately for the GOP - I'm fairly happy about it), I don't think it's going to be very effective - I have doubts most of the GOP is actually familiar with her record. So the xenophobes that are going to be really ticked at a 'tacking towards the center' approach, are going to be really ticked anyway, while the moderates that might be gained by *actually* tacking towards the center will be the ones that look up her record and decide 'No Thanks'.
On top of which, we have a McCain campaign screaming about Obama's lack of experience, but anointing someone younger and with *no* national or foreign policy experience.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Win, lose or draw in the election, Ms. Palin stands to gain the advantage for the next election or the one after that. I think she is being groomed for bigger and better things.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Cause I approve this pick.
Democrats run them for president, and republicans run them as vice president. Yes it's pandering, because "she" is "the side kick".
This is a palindrome:
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
The letters, not the words, are the same back-to-front.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Far from being fiscally conservative, she raised the Alaska budget.
Yes, to a record $6.6B. But, at the same time, vetoed $231M.
She is rabidly anti-evolution.
This has already been discussed elsewhere in this article's comments. Such a claim will require more corroboration than you have offered.
She supports Ted Stevens.
That would explain why she cancelled his infamous Bridge to Nowhere.
She has no experience.
Yes, she is thin on experience. But, she has more experience in an executive position than both of her opponents, combined.
See what happens if you teach kids religion in science classes?
If you don't teach them, then they will just learn about it on the streets. How's that plan, to not teach teenagers, about responsible sexual behavior working out?
When you fail to plan, then you plan to fail.
When did sex ed become religion?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
[i]"...a self-described "hockey mom," is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views, a record of reform and fiscal conservatism"[/i] All news outlets are carrying this same spoonfed McCain press release verbatim. Journalism at its finest.
Am I the only one hoping for naked pictures????
Of Sarah that is!
Obama camp chooses an "attack dog" in Biden, and he in fact comes out all guns blazing. Should McCain camp also chose a hard-boiled "attack dog"?
No.
Choose a target that Biden simply can't attack. 44 years old middle class (certainly no millionaire) woman mother of 5. Went against republican and won, went against democrat and won. Sports fan. She's pro-life but it's hard to dismember her there, too, because she "puts her money where her mouth is" - she knew she had a baby with a down syndrome long before birth, and had the baby nonetheless.
Inexperience: she's a vicepresident candidate and has MORE government experience than Obama, the PRESIDENTIAL candidate! I find it hilarious when Obama camp supporters attack her lack of experience - forgetting that Obama has LESS!
So what the heck is Biden the attack dog going to attack? Suddenly, his blazing guns don't seem to be very effective.
And McCain is probably going to pick up at least a few female voters from the democratic camp, and at least a few catholic votes, too. He doesn't need much, as the race is close, and even a bit in favour of McCain.
I think this was a game-changer move. Maybe it's curtains for Obama.
Disclaimer: I equally dislike Obama and McCain. I liked Hillary Clinton and I must admit, I kinda like Palin, too.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I am a Republican, always have been. However, I was seriously considering voting for Obama. On the Saturday afternoon of the Saddleback forum I was even writing a blog entry giving my reasons for voting for Obama.
Then I saw Obama as evasive and McCain with the right answers. Even if you buy into the accusations that McCain knew the questions ahead of time, that doesn't change Obama's evasiveness in any way. Then I saw McCain with the right answers and actually decided I'd be voting for McCain.
My first impression with Palin was, "WTF? Forget it, we're toast." But then I heard her speak and was inspired--and a far different type of inspiring than the type Obama tried to achieve last night. Obama's was based on what he perceived was wrong and unjust about the country while Palin's was just generally inspirational without--as far as I remember--any significant mention of the opponents, negative or otherwise. It was all positive and excited people with what's great about our country.
I was undecided going into August. Then I started leaning Obama. Then I decided to vote for McCain after Saddleback. And now I have just ordered a McCain/Palin bumper sticker.
We'll see how it goes, of course, but I think McCain's pick was brilliant. And that's coming from someone who hadn't even heard of Palin before today, was initially in the "WTF?" category, but now am excited.
Hopefully other Republicans (and some independents!) will react the same way.
Oh, and McCain should be the attack dog against McCain and Palin should be the friendly, positive person. Because she does it very well.
Clinton supporters didn't rally to her because she has ovaries, they rallied to her because they believe she's a great candidate with ovaries. If you ask a Clinton supporter why they think she should be president, they'll say she's smart, hard-working, knowledgeable, etc. The historic first of a female president definitely matters to them, but they'd be insulted if you suggested that was the only reason they were supporting her.
Against that, Palin is poor bait for PUMAs who still don't like Obama. Offering a governor of less than two years experience of a state with a smaller population than Austin, TX as an alternative to Hillary is checking the 'has ovaries' box while missing the 'great candidate' part. I would think that most Clinton supporters would be insulted by the comparison.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
I will treasure it for minutes. But then I need to go back to flaming the trolls.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Perhaps because Hillary Clinton has been active in politics for almost 20 years now and had a huge, huge following accross the nation whereas Palin is almost completely unheard of on the National Stage and has a grand total of 2 years of real political experience (Being mayor of a town of 5000 people just doesn't quite cut it).
Who, exactly, is the "stupid lobby?"
(Like most Slashdotters, I, too, think everyone who doesn't agree with me is stupid. I'm just trying to determine if I should flame you or clamor for you to be modded up.)
Hoorah for the reasoned debates of Slashdot!
How are you keeping an open mind when you haven't even bothered to check his legislative record? He's gotten major bills passed with his name on them in the U.S. Senate (e.g., the Coburn-Obama Transparency Bill). It's not the longest record in Washington but it's not the shortest either.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
And the "huge" story that did nothing but announce Obama's running mate is . . . where? Do you have a link?
This article about McCain, on the other hand, does qualify as a "huge front-page story." I can't tell if you're trying to be funny/sarcastic, or if you're just spouting the usual conservative 180-degrees-from-reality lies.
So, what, if he was confident he'd purposefully pick a running mate that would lose him votes?
Also comparing him to the ipod pre-huge-success kinda hints that he's going to come out on top, which isn't what I think you're trying to get across.
Seems to me it was a smart pick, irrelevant of his odds at taking the presidency this time around.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
congrats for totally smoking spud603. thanks for injecting some facts into this. he got told!!
8 years later, this fine woman will become President. A Republican one... 16 more years, thank you very much.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If the trick actually works, then Americans are more stupid than I thought. But they had elected Bush to the office twice, so maybe they are really that ...
To quote a blogger on National Review, if this person with all of her credentials and history had been a man, would she have gotten nominated? If you think that this pick didn't have anything to do with trying to pander to disgruntled Hillary Clinton voters, then I've got a bridge to nowhere in Alaska to sell you.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Better political methods have been established and proved by current sleazy TV producers.
At the end, number one is President, number two is Vice-President.
So we could end up with: Palin-Obama, McCain-Biden, etc. ... truly interesting!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Why do we consider Sen. Obama the first black nominee? He is half black. If he were living in Africa, he be considered white. Just something I have been wondering.
If a sizeable portion of the population holds to an "uninformed" side, then you had better teach that, too. Heck, I try to teach my kids what Democrats think and we have a great discussion about it.
Wait a minute. A conservative. A woman who is not a strong candidate - a woman who has been much more passive and has much less political experience. A woman who does not believe in abortion. The half-term governor of a red state.
Are you honestly implying that this is going to make the feminists happy?
I mean, seriously, not just the regular soccer mom public, many of whom were Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary at a chance at getting Clinton elected. You're seriously implying that FEMINISTS, that women who are interested in women's rights and choices are going to see this as a reason to vote for McCain?
If I were going to be making bets, I'd be laying odds that in the next few days, you're going to be seeing a lot of blog posts by some very pissed-off feminists who feel insulted that this is how McCain decided to try and win them over, that he thought he could bring in some of the women who were supporting one of the most powerful women in American political history by offering them an unexperienced, unnoticeable woman who disagrees with them on most "women's" issues. You keep using that word "feminist" - I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
It's probably the timing, like the Sixaxis which came across as me-too-man-ship. In this metaphor Clinton is the Wii and Palin is the Sixaxis. Although I don't recall there being a raging nerd lust for Clinton. And the Wii hasn't been discontinued in favour of the DS. And Palin's not going to be upgraded to rumble hold on, I'll come back in with a car metaphor.
Palin is like the SMART car, y'see, and Clinton is a Hybrid...
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
You do realize that McCain is going to be 72 and has now outlived his father and his grandfather, both of which died of sudden heart attacks.
So basically, the candidate you are voting for is his successor- which is a person who is a first term governor with a state having the population of the city of Memphis,TN. Not to mention that is an entirely republican state so she doesn't even have any cross-party experience.
Yea, this is a great move, but for the Democrats. Once people realize that you would have a token VP with absolutely no experience who is touring state funerals until our own president dies of old age, they're going to be really excited to back that party. Not to mention that many in the republican party are upset about the choice of a woman.
Quite honestly, the democrats couldn't have hoped for a better choice. An old man and a completely unknown inexperienced governor of one of the smallest populations for the VP spot. And yes, they are pandering to female voters. She is no Hillary Clinton, and women are smarter than that. They were voting for Hillary for her policies, not the fact that she was a woman. Democratic women abhor what Palin claims to stand for. Quite frankly, I'm overjoyed at this choice, they just assured the democrats a win in November.
If a Libertarian candidate gets elected, there won't be a state for anyone to worry about. Either the US would simply collapse under one of the most retarded political ideologies ever thought up, or the people will tear down the gates of the White House to get back what some crazy-ass ideologue has tossed out to satisfy the pathetic selfish urges of Libertarianism.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Obama didn't even have the courtesy to vet Hillary Clinton as a possible vice-president, ouch.
Why would he have?
Hillary would have chosen Barack for vice-president, or at least vetted him out of respect, and to avoid offending black voters.
Fine.
Great.
Now show us your tits.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
It IS pandering, because she's completely inexperienced and very typical of what chauvenists think women should be: mothers, supermodels, lightly involved with community, etc... but NOT the leaders of society. She's like McCain's wife, something pretty to stand next to him on stage. She's no better than a 2nd "First Lady."
There's evidence
that Kennedy's choice for VP, Lyndon Johnson, managed to bump him off
three years later allowing LBJ to become president. Maybe
McCain's just watching his back by choosing a VP that potential
assassination conspirators would like even less than
McCain.
I'm sorry, being a mayor of a town of 9000 doesn't qualify you to be Vice President, especially when the presidential candidate has age and a history of health problems going against him.
As for governor, Alaska has a population of 670,000, roughly twice the population of the CITY I live in.
Alaska also does not face the same challenges as other states. They basically don't have many taxes since they get all their wealth from oil, and so they don't have to deal with the budget issues other states have been stuck with. And she's only been governor for 2 years. At least George W. Bush had a lot more experience than that as governor of Texas. Also, they've been getting a huge windfall of revenue whereas most states are struggling to balance their budgets due to the high oil prices. There are no statewide income, sales, property or inheritance or state taxes (some localities have their own local taxes). Palin actually RAISED taxes on the oil companies and limited their exploration and development (which affects everyone else).
She has no international experience, or for that matter, any national experience.
Obama had millions of votes for him as a senator, several times the entire population of Alaska. Even as a state senator he represented far more people than she has as a mayor.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
As a Canadian, I have to mod McCain's choice "+1, Hockey". :)
Fifth child, defective, and she kept it anyway? Daaaaaaaamn.
Regardless of how any of us feel about abortion I know I can't help but respect someone who sticks to their principles versus other political candidates' "Do as I say, not as I do."
More Twoson than Cupertino
You mean the Coburn-Obama-Carper-McCain bill?
Obama didn't write the bill, he didn't introduce it, he was just a co-sponsor. So says Thomas
Name one person who isn't defective in some way, some how.
Fine, that's too generic and too broad. Let me toss out some names of "defectives" who have greatly influenced the world: Beethoven, Hawkings, Keller, Roosevelt...need I go on? This is just off the top of my head in something like 60 seconds.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Yeah.... I'm thinking Fail Epic.
This is just another one of their "it's the seriousness of the charges, not the substance of the evidence" red herrings. Welcome to democratic politics a la Bork, Thomas, etc.
Obama didn't even have the courtesy to vet Hillary Clinton as a possible vice-president, ouch.
Under the express direction of Hillary Clinton. The instructions were to not vet her if she wouldn't be chosen. Basically, she didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of vetting if she wasn't going to get the spot. It's her prerogative, if she didn't want to be vetted, it's not something to hold against Obama.
Just kidding, I don't believe in the 2cd Amendment.
Funny, I must have missed that part. I remember the part where he said 'we must find a way to protect your guns while we keep AK-47's off of the streets' and 'gun control means significantly different things from (some rural location) to (some metropolitan location)'. Both of those are approximate paraphrases, not exact quotes.
I'm not a gun nut, and I'm not an anti-gun nut. I grew up with riffles, a shot gun, and a pair of pistols in the house. I field qual'ed sharp shooter and expert (twice) in my military service, and if I still lived out in the country I would likely still have a number of weapons on my property.
That said, there is an excess of gun crime in the country. Making more guns illegal will not reduce the number of gun crimes in the US. But more strongly enforcing the existing gun laws will. Taking resources off of the "War on Drugs" and putting them into a "War on illegal guns" would not only likely have an impact on illegal gun distribution, but also on population issues in prisons. Look at the number of people we have to support in prison for drug charges compared to gun related charges. We're just pissing tax money down the drain because some idiot got busted selling off joints to consenting adults... bah.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Are you saying she should have? I thought it was all about the "woman's right to choose" with the abortion crowd.
Seriously. Choosing to have a child with Down's Syndrome is brave and not something any pro-choice advocate should have a problem with. They might suspect that she was pressured into it by her community/party/husband/church, but that'd be a concern, not a reason to condemn the decision.
No. The problem pro-choice women will have with Palin isn't that she chose not to abort a baby with Down's. The problem they will have is that she would like to deny them the opportunity to choose in the same situation.
The enemies of Democracy are
Shit, so much for self-appointed.
XML causes global warming.
...so IOW you're going to take a cigar into your, err... where?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Come on, it's not exactly hard to find Palin saying things that will alienate Hillary supporters (#2) other than about abortion. Calling Hillary a whiner probably won't win her any friends with her supporters. Of course, the fact that Palin's beliefs about abortion are inline with only 14% of Americans ("illegal in all circumstances") certainly isn't a good start for her, either.
Maybe, but I can barely make out what you're saying because your horse is too high.
So, err, when did Geraldine Ferraro run for President?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If anything speaks to the silliness of these labels and the criteria or them, it's that someone whose father was from Africa can genuinely be argued to not be "African-American".
He obviously is, but your point that "African-American" normally doesn't refer to people who are actually from Africa recently, is also true.
Which just shoes how silly these labels are.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
You're going to get grief on the "broodmare" comment, which is a shame, cause that was a great line. I'd mod you up if I had 'em.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"He just destroyed the "Obama doesn't have the experience to lead" meme. "
Oh? How? Who's going to say she's inexperienced? Barack Obama?
Just how does he attack her without the attack doing a boomerang right back on him? Her time has been spent as an executive. She's done budgets, personnel, and signed and vetoed legislation.
Obama has done, oh, none of that. This is why his campaign's statement about her being the mayor of a small rube town was so silly. It allows Palin to say "Well, by all means, lets hear of your impressive credentials as a community organizer".
The brilliance of this pick is that the Democrats can't harp on Palin's supposed Vice-Presidential inexperience without highlighting Barack Obama's Presidential inexpierience.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
If she was a man, she would be Dan Quayle
A lot of people will fall in to the trap of believing in "science" when a their "priesthood" endorses. A great example is the anti-nuclear group.
Another group is the pro nuclear power group.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Agreed, vetting Hillary would have been redundant. The media and the McCain team already did enough investigating. Vetting doesn't mean going to a bunch of luncheons together looking for personal chemistry; it means searching for skeletons in closets.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Or how sad how many Americans have fallen in love with Obama even though he hasn't done anything but blow smoke up everyone's ass? Maybe he'll be a great president.. I don't know because so far all he's done is talk about change.. changing what though?
He's been clear on what he plans to change and how he plans to do it. Check out The Blue-print for Change (Warning: PDF)
Dangerous, sexy, turing complete: Femme Bots
...it seems like this would be good news for Obama. I think the McCain campaign handed him a prize here. Biden looked like a bad choice because he didn't bring a big swing state (electoral votes, not geographic size) to the table. Palin doesn't do that either, so the "swing state" strategy is off the table. The experience card is off the table too, and that was a significant burden on Obama. I don't think most Hillary voters will cross party lines just because she's a woman. The typical Hillary voter is PRO CHOICE and she isn't! When I heard the announcement, I was like... wow! McCain shot himself in the foot.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
McCain attacks Obama about his lack of experience and then picks Palin as his running mate, who is inexperienced, but young and female to atract some of Hillary's crew.
Obama attack McCain about being too "Old Washington" with no relation to actual folks, then picks Biden who has been around longer than McCain and is one of the biggest partisan 'attack-dogs' in the democratic party, but he brings experience and credibility.
That's politics for ya. Goes to show what each camp thought about the effectiveness of the others attacks.
FUNK!
I'm sorry, but the "I was unaware of what my staff was doing" excuse has to be the dumbest excuse ever. Evidence is unimportant, because only two possibilities exist. Either she knew what her staff was doing and approved, or she didn't know what her staff was doing, in which case, she is incompetent. A staffer has come forward and admitted that undue pressure was placed on the state troopers to fire the man. That staffer was then fired. It's the seriousness of the charges, AND the substance of the evidence.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There's no clear win for McCain with her. She takes the experience argument off the table. She accentuates McCain's age. She won't deliver any more states in the election. She'll raise focus on the Ted Stevens indictment. She has her own ethics problems. She won't bring in the Hillary delusionals when they find out she's pro-life. The only thing she does is excite the shriveling GOP base for a couple weeks.
Biden will wipe the floor with her at the VP debate.
She angered Big Oil in Alaska, maybe she was forced on McCain to get rid of her. If McCain is elected and doesn't complete his term, she might be very malleable to the hidden hands in Washington, which are much stronger than those in Alaska.
We already approached this question in Victorian times (Women were campaigning for suffrage since 1845).
And we all knew the result: Emancipation for the black man in 1863, while women didn't have the right to vote until 1920.
History repeats itself, wait and see.
Pro-Creationist Republican thinks choosing Palin's "awesome", Obama is toast.
Film at 11.
Cool funny t-shirts for geeks, gamers and everyone else
Given that Bush had more executive experience than either of them prior to getting elected, I fail to see how the 'experience' issue is relevant.
Also, the idea that 'flip-flopping' matters may appeal to the bumper-sticker voters (which I'll grant you are a sizable majority), but given McCain's frequent changes of heart, I think we can rule it out as a contributor to the failure or success of either candidate.
what *is* wrong with creationism?
Nothing, so long as it's not taught in science. It is not science. Now if you want to teach it in a philosophy class then go ahead, however if you do be sure to also teach the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Apache Creation Story, and The Zuni Creation Cycle among others.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Very, very few of us "blacks" are 100% African anymore.
The genetics of african descended peoples in north america are as complicated as anywhere. There are many threads of native american / first nations people mixed in; there are the legacies of rape and other illicit liaisons due to slavery; there are many hidden love stories due to notions of miscegenation; there are adoptions and people who "pass."
My children bear all of these influences in their genes, plus my mongrel euro history. It is definitely easier for them to grow up this way in Canada than most places I've seen or heard of in the States.
I was involved in the documentation of a conference for Black youth with the theme of the African Diaspora. The canadian students who attended had a hugely diverse set of identities, that included being Black, Canadian, and ethnic (e.g. Somali, Jamaican, canadian descendants of the underground railroad, etc.). The American students didn't really grasp ethnicity separate from the idea of race: black, white, latino. Let's just say that while the african-american culture of the USA students was a defining point for everyone involved, the canadians tended to be more cosmopolitan and adaptable to difference, and seek out ways to get along. Obama's views on race seem... more 21st century than most Americans'.
I think that the USA's debate on race will take some further generations to clear up: the melting pot is a divisive strategy when combined with unresolved legacies of slavery. At least Obama's entry into the reek of presidential campaigning will crack the debate open somewhat.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Bullshit. If anything, attempting to stifle scientist's opinion on things outside their area of expertise is a greater threat to science than religion.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
And sure, she is hot [vpilf.com] (safe for work) but it would appear she is also a proponent of teaching creationism alongside Evolution in public schools [wired.com].
What's your problem with students receiving a more well-rounded education on the different views that are out there?
What's wrong with teaching creationism in science? It is not science, teach science not mythology in science.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Just because the parents of a Downs Syndrome child would attack someone who calls their child 'defective' doesn't mean it isn't defective. Downs Syndrome is a genetic error -- also known as a defect.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Well, that was definitively a shrewd move by McCain. If he croaks, she's next in line. Americans know this. And he's basically going after all those "Hillary-Clinton-didn't-win-or-get-VP" voters who don't want to vote for Obama. I'm not a fan of McCain, but give credit where its due, this was a bold move and a good one for him. The next 60 days are going to be very interesting.
She's under investigation as well for various ethical issues.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I don't see how you can deny that a person with Down syndrome is "defective" in the same way that any paraplegic or a person with AIDs is defective.
But just because they have a debilitating condition doesn't mean they can't make up for it in some other way. And even if they can't, that disability still does not give you the right to kill them.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Obama didn't even have the courtesy to vet Hillary Clinton as a possible vice-president, ouch.
My understanding is that she asked not to be vetted unless she was on the short list. And that she would have been, except nobody believed Bill Clinton could sit still and stay quiet for 8 years in the cheap seats.
There's no evidence that Obama's got an ounce of misogyny in him. So as far as I can tell, you're just trolling here.
Mod parent -1 troll. Didn't even read own links. "Introduced in the United States Senate as S. 2590 by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama on April 6, 2006"
Wait. I'm a conservative... I have a girlfriend... What the hell am I doing here?
I remember it well. The headline of the 'Village Vice' read; "Public Baffled As Fools Vie For Office". I just wish it was in their archives.
Sig this!
Such declarations get bandied about so much that one hardly bats an eye; in my opinion, though, you've just lowered yourself more than anyone else here could.
I like McCaain, but from what little I've learned so far, this VP selection pushes me away from him a little.
XML causes global warming.
Your hat fell off. You need to order a new one.
I don't want creationism taught in a science class
Then you're talking about something different than what other people are talking about. There are people out there, people in power, who want to teach creationism as science -- some using the paper-thin disguise of Intelligent Design, some not even bothering with that -- and that's who most of us are trying to keep at arms length.
No he's not. Actually you are backing he up, but you start by saying he's wrong. He says he doesn't want creationism taught in science then you say they are trying to use ID to teach creationism in science.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You know the one where he served along with Weather Underground Terrorist William Ayers?
Doing any sort of politics in Chicago requires dealing with a whole bunch of shady characters. It's just a messy, messy place.
its been Obama who has been arguing all along that his experience doesn't matter, but now he wants to change his mind
I haven't, as of this posting, heard a single word out of Obama or any of his direct campaign advisors on McCain's VP pick. So I don't know how you can (yet) claim a flip flop is involved. Random yokels, be they on the Internet or on a 24 news network, do not speak for the campaign.
That said . . .
The ONE flip flopped on a number of things he was for during the primary to get the nomination. Interesting wouldn't you say?
Not really. "Flip flopping" is something you can accuse every politician ever of doing. It's only something you'd bring up if you have absolutely nothing better to throw at them.
The tennent of democracy is that you don't trust people with power. If you could, you'd be better off giving them absolute dictitorial control--it'd be a whole lot more efficient, and because you trust them, you trust them not to abuse their power. That situation is obviously a pipe dream, so instead we let people have power who want power, but make the system inefficient and force them to fight each other. A "do nothing congress" is actually a design goal.
An important part of that is it's OK for politicians to switch positions on a whim to cater to different voters. They want power, and will say anything to get it. That's just fine, because the system is designed to handle it.
Not a typewriter
Children with Down's syndrome have a suite of physical defects, often including mental retardation and short lifespan, caused by an error in cellular combination at conception. Their parents know this.
Many mothers these days have amniocentisis during pregnancy, which can reliably indicate Down's syndrome and a number of worse problems if present, and at that point can make a decision to terminate the pregnancy. They must face the question: "is it more cruel to bring this child into the world than to refrain from doing so?".
If you believe that a soul is placed in that child by God at the moment of conception, you may make a very different decision from someone who does not believe in deities, spirits, or souls.
Whatever you believe, behave as your religion and philosophy demand. I do not believe that it's the right of the governor of Alaska, or you, or the pope, to impose your religious beliefs on me or any unborn child that I might have.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Ouch... Looks like we get to choose between a police-state and a nanny-state once again.
You do know this is from the bible, and he likely feels it necessary to remind/reaffirm to people he is not a muslim. Ask yourself these questions honestly and and answer them thoughtfully. What is the function of governement? What is the function of society? Should it be every man for himself? If so, what purpose does society serve? Ultimately how far to do you go? Why is it acceptable to provide an army to protect citizens while not protecting, in other ways, those very same citizens against other ills? Hunger? Disease?
Genesis 4:9
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
I hereby ordain myself a priest of science; now please bow down before me and respect my theories. Oh, wait, you say I have to go to school? And get a BS? And an MS? And do a thesis? Which is reviewed by my superiors? And get a PhD? And do original research? Which must be published? And where my results are peer reviewed? And I have to find a job? And keep the job? Continuing to publish and do research which is reviewed, checked, and evaluated against competing theories and new evidence. Shit, so much for self-appointed.
Was all that an attempt to create the worlds longest description of a strawman? LOL. In my experience, all my formal education teachers have been fair, but here on Slashdot I'm lucky if the single-minded even bother to log in to an account. Note the grand-parent poster.
There are not any special rights for anyone.
I'll start believing in the possibility "special rights" the day after I see every woman and non-white getting equal rights. Tell me when you want to become black or female in this country. Until then, you're just regurgitating Republican spin.
That is all.
... by McCain. Despite the more-or-less balanced polls, he must have been shitting bricks to have listened to his advisors long enough to have agreed to this. What a proud, principled ticket this now is - a bellicose warmonger, backed up by a happy-clappy who doesn't 'get' science. Whew.
i didnt understand zit from this choice of mccain.
he was shouting that obama was too inexperienced all around.
then he went, and chose someone who has just been elected into state governorship, fresh out of the mayorship of a WHOPPING 10.000 crowded town.
not only that, but alaska is a place that is totally different from all states in america, hell, forget that, it is a state and geography that is TOO different from almost ALL countries and regions in the world save a few.
scarcely populated, its almost a polar region.
then theres this - you are running for a conservative party, and you are choosing a woman for vp. a woman who looks like she's an upstart too, not someone who is in senate for 20 years, 10 years, etc. a woman in charge is a turn off for many conservative voters not only in u.s., but worldwide. you may be trying to play into the 'change' calls going on out there, but taking that much risk, how come ?
and someone who is actually under investigation, NOW. not before. and someone who admitted to doing stuff that may easily be interpreted as abuse of power, office too.
and gonna pit against whom ? biden. a looooooong time senator, chairman of foreign relations committee for years.
please someone explain me what the hell is going on.
Read radical news here
Women will vote for her just because she's a woman. Similarly, all African Americans are crazy about Clarence Thomas, just because he's black.
If D women vote for a pro-life, gonna-overturn-Roe V Wade R woman, then I guess they get what they deserve. Some will, no doubt. I can only hope that it isn't enough to swing the election. On the other hand, I'm wondering how many social conservatives will feel insulted and manipulated by the offer of Palin. Not all of course, but quite a few were offended at Harriet Miers's nomination to the SCOTUS.
Even embattled minority groups have the capacity to recognize someone's lack of qualifications, and realize that, purity aside, you can't just pin your vote to whoever happens to check the box.
She's had a lot more political exerience than that, serving in several other elected and appointed offices prior to being elected governor.
It's two years experience as chief executive of the largest state in the country, including being the CinC of its National Guard. How many years executive experience do Senators Obama and Biden have? McCain at least had some command experience in the Navy.
Oh, that's right. Obama ran the Chicago Annenburg Challenge, handing out millions of dollars to politically-correct educational initiatives, while turning down those that aimed to improve math and science performance.
Yes, let's talk about her lack of experience.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Salad fingers!
The most obvious pander since Ferraro.
Zero foreign-policy experience.
Already scandal-tainted.
This is who we want one heartbeat away from the presidency? With the relevant heartbeat being that of a 72-year-old, multiple cancer victim?
I knew McCain would do anything to get elected, but I didn't think he was completely unhinged. I guess that explains why he hired the same goons who ran the smears against him in South Carolina. In the immortal words of Penny Arcade: batshit fucking loco.
-Esme
Nice typical, old-school cliches from the "Party of Change."
Sometimes stereotypes are true. As far as "Party of Change" goes, I'm more in the "Party of Kicking Dumbshit Republican's / Libertarian's Asses" wing.
That is all.
Well, the current VP shot someone in the face. Seemed to make a difference, locally speaking.
XML causes global warming.
Actually, many parents of children with down syndrome actively admit that not aborting was a mistake.
Lower middle class people cannot withstand the burden of raising children with down syndrome without being drained and virtually destroyed (In the words of some parents).
What is wrong from a scientific standpoint?
Creationism is not science that's what's wrong with teaching creationism in science. And ID, Intelligent Design, is just an attempt to dress up creationism in scientific clothes.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Now we just need the ones about her being under investigation or showing that she's a complete liar when ask about the VP position and she stated she'd stay true to her Alaskian people
She's not that hot, she's got real issues and she produces broken babies.
I'll pass on that for sure.
I haven't, as of this posting, heard a single word out of Obama or any of his direct campaign advisors on McCain's VP pick.
Looks like that's changed now.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080829171140.5123i228&show_article=1
she's a vicepresident candidate and has MORE government experience than Obama
Uhm, not quite:
From Wikipedia:
Barack Obama:
Senator:
January 4, 2005 to now (3.5 years)
Illinois Senate:
January 8, 1997 - November 4, 2004 (8 years)
Sarah Palin:
Governor:
December 4, 2006 - now (not quite 2 years)
Mayor:
1996 - 2002 (6 years)
Welcome to Math 101.
That said, I like her stance on corruption, but she's only the VP candidate, so being VP under someone whose campaign is pretty much owned by the special interests she spurns is going to cripple any chance she has of doing anything unless McCain kicks the bucket.
She's also a creationist, anti-abortion, anti-contraception (!), all of which adds up to someone that Hillary supporters will have a hard time with.
I dunno whether this is a smart move by McCain or not, but you rarely go wrong counting on voters to be stupid, so it may help in the end. The GOP doesn't represent Republican voters, as they're clearly not for smaller government or less government spending (see also: Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 with a vengeance), or securing America (Bush 43, again with the vengeance), but the GOP always manages to sucker the Republican populace into *believing* they are for those things by *simply* saying they are. McCain doesn't have to win over any blue states, he just needs to tip enough states that are in contention.
Yeah, it looked like comic gold and I jumped on it. :)
XML causes global warming.
(3) Palin's 5th child, in the womb, was diagnosed with Downs Syndrome, but she kept him anyway.
and did she ask the child about this ? guess not. how could she, after all, s/he is in the womb yet.
let me tell you, if i was a child, i wouldnt like to be born with down syndrome, or any other kind of serious disability, and i would regret being the child of a mother who would make me live through such a tough life due to her out of touch conditioned ideas that come from some teaching from 3000 years ago from another goddamn corner of the world - middle east. yea, not 2000, 3000. it is a cultural trait of the region to repress women and use them as birthing machines not for 1000, 2000, but for over 4000 years in middle east. it only changes shape with time, adapts to modern times. they were outright despised and seen as satan at one point, and now they are repressed because 'they cant understand'. and ALL the religions out of middle east contain that characteristic.
imagine being the child of a mother who follows these ideals and puts you through a life of suffering, whereas she had the chance of NOT doing so.
why did she do that ? because GOD said it so.
where did god say it so ?
in some scripted text that is rewritten in council of nicea in 325 AD, according to byzantine emperor constantine's political wishes. (the 4 major versions of bible were compiled here, and others discredited).
great.
Read radical news here
I've been following Gov. Palin for more than half a year now, long before she was on the mainstream political radar. I figured that she was a stretch candidate with little chance of actually getting picked, and was quite surprised to wake up to today's news. Of course, I suspect I still might not be voting for her ticket and I disagree with her on a number of issues, but she was definitely my favorite of the potential GOP picks. She has a Cha stat rivaling Obama's, and is IMHO quite a better speaker than McCain.
Even before her pick as VP, I'd estimated that there was a good chance that the 2012 Presidential contest would be Hillary Clinton vs. Sarah Palin, which would undoubtedly result in a record number of spontaneous cranial detonations amongst the talking heads. I am worried that although she's a political rising star her pick this year might be premature, but I guess we'll see. I'm also pretty amused at the people citing her inexperience, considering that she has more experience with running a government than McCain, Obama, Biden, and Barr combined. I sympathize somewhat with those who wish that she were on the top of the GOP ticket instead of McCain.
Most pundits seem to be focused on Palin's being a woman, but I see her as a way for McCain to reach out to the libertarian crowd. One commentator described her as the "libertarian VP candidate," or at least the closest thing to a libertarian that we're likely to see on a major-party ticket: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2008/08/29/the-libertarian-vp-canidate/
Her being pro-life impacts that somewhat, but then again, so was Ron Paul. Palin's libertarian tendencies should help somewhat with voters who are worried about McCain's occasional populist streaks. Also, assuming that nothing comes out of the TrooperGate mini-scandal (which, since she survived the vetting process, I'm assuming nothing will), McCain and Palin should be able to use their histories to milk the anti-pork, anti-corruption angle quite a bit.
The next few months will be very interesting.
"Because, when Democrats run women, it's based on a long history of, y'know, actually having supported women's issues."
What "women's" issues? You mean liberal issues. You're assuming that most women are liberal and agree with those issues. In 2004 though, married women voted Republican by 2 to 1. A wedding ring on a woman's finger was a huge indicator that she was voting for Bush. The most staunch pro-life people I know are women. There's a reason why most women aren't members of feminist groups like NOW. They don't identify with "feminism". Go look at photos of the big abortions marches in Washington DC. You'll see just as many women on the pro-life side as you do on the pro-choice side.
Here's a shocking fact for you... women are just like men in that they have different ideas and different factions, different hopes and different fears. There are issues that are of interest to most women, but very few of them are owned by any one party.
Stupid assumptions like this are one reason why Republicans have won 9 out of 14 Presidential elections since 1952.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Oh, so you mean she was born in a less wealthy household but managed to prove herself in order to go to an established college to learn law, spent a great deal of time overseas and has a strong understanding of the foreign experience, and has spent years in a politically dangerous city honing her skills as a practical, strong rabble-rouser?
Go ahead, keep pushing that meme. Keep saying that she's just as experienced as Obama is. Keep saying that it's all right that the Candidate of Experience (TM) just decided that if he should become indisposed then the commander-in-chief will be a woman with no foreign policy experience and spent most of her life in a state with a total population less than the city of Chicago, but it doesn't matter because Obama has less experience than she does. I'm sure that those independent voters will totally buy that meme.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
btw, if you want to trash obama, at least think of more elaborate and intelligent ways to do it.
Read radical news here
"Considering that McCain has almost no chance of winning this election"
Obama, at the height of the buzz about him, could never muster more than 5 or 6 points over McCain. They've been statically tied for months for the most part. McCain was up by two in the big national polls prior to the DNC Convention. Obama will get a bounce from that, but I'll be shocked if this pick and the RNC convention doesn't erase that bounce with one for McCain, and they'll be right back, neck and neck in the race.
The GOP might have gloomy prospects in Congress, but in the Presidency? In a year when the Democratic nominee should be cruising, he's having trouble separating from a 72 year old man that's been treated for Melanoma twice. That tells me that your guy is in no way a shoo-in.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Yup. Fire them. Start with the cop and keep going up until you get to the one who'll say "This should not happen on my watch. We'll take steps to educate people about why this is a bad thing and hopefully prevent a recurrence." A Taser is not a toy.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
In short, her beliefs mirrors those of the Pope.
Your's mirror those of the Nazis.
So, the two of them should get on well then...
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Who here really sees what McCain's trying to do?
A 72 year old dirty man selecting an attractive, power hungry woman desperately seeking escape from Alaska as his #2.
I guess interns aren't good enough for the ole' McCainmizter.
greed@All_Evils:~#
I'm sure many others think this, but I think his strategy is to gather the Hillary voters....It's a bad strategy if you ask me because he simply brought her on just to win the election...which is just stupid.
I think McCain is looking at possible Hillary crossovers as a possible fringe benefit, but this was not just an attempt to attract women. This was about giving Obama the proverbial kick in the nuts by robbing him of press attention the morning after his nomination. On a day when everyone should be talking about Obama, the press is focused on McCain's Veep pick, especially since he so effectively kept the pic secret. As late as 8 or so this morning, the talking heads were still saying Romney or Pawlenty. As far as the press goes, McCain hit a home run here, and any Hillary voters picked up is just icing on the cake. The fact that he's apparently shored up the conservative base makes this pick even better.
Before this pick, you had people voting against Obama. Now you've got people voting for McCain.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Vetted, but never chosen. She had her choice of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to draw upon.
Leave it to the Democrats to piss in the wind and blow the easiest chance at the White House since the Great Depression.
The fact that she killed Ted "Tubes" Steven's $400 million of your and my money Bridge to Nowhere immediately raises her above 95% of the other politicians out there.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I haven't, as of this posting, heard a single word out of Obama or any of his direct campaign advisors on McCain's VP pick. So I don't know how you can (yet) claim a flip flop is involved. Random yokels, be they on the Internet or on a 24 news network, do not speak for the campaign.
Actually, just in the space of a half hour there was somewhat of a "flip flop."
Around 9:30am a campaign spokesman issued the following official statement: "Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin share's John McCain's commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush's failed economic policies -- that's not the change we need, it's just more of the same."
Around 10am Obama and Biden came out with the following statement "We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign."
The two statements don't necessarily contradict each other, but you have to admit they certainly have very different tones.
Get over your hurt feelings. Genetically, the child, however you slice it, is part of Life's process that happens to be on the defective side. Thanks to modern medicine and human constructs for reasoned humanity we classify what otherwise in Nature would be seen as a terminated pregnancy.
Nature wouldn't nurture that child and make sure it's protected. We do but we really should be focused on research to make as few of these painful realities a reality. It's especially unfair for the child to not have the basic faculties as the rest of us biomechanical machines.
I respect her conviction. I don't share it and I would have aborted the child, at the earliest stage and checked to see whether the odds are continually not in our favor, then go and adopt some children that need a home.
between this selection of a beloved Alaskan governor and the republican preoccupation with ANWAR drilling?
That doesn't make her "as pro-life as one gets". That's what pro-life advocates have to do. Can you imagine a pro-life governer having an abortion? Who would vote for her after that? I'm not saying she doesn't believe firmly that pro-life is the Right Thing, but we wouldn't be talking about her if she'd aborted that pregnancy. To me, "as pro-life as one gets" is a mother of 4 that adopts a down-syndrome fetus that would otherwise have been aborted.
Well said. As an Agnostic someone might find my use of meditation as a heretical practice of selfishness for wanting to find inner peace.
Oh dear, I just realized I made a terrible typo:
The first paragraph should read:
'Skin color and ethnicity should not matter in an election, but Obama is half-"white American" half "Black African." While that technically makes him half African-American, he does not share the full cultural heritage that is commonly understood by the term "African-American."'
Damn.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
She said no thanks to Sen. Ted "Internet Tubes" Steven's 100 million dollar "bridge to nowhere",
Anchorage Daily News, 10/5/06: Palin Said She Supported The So-Called "Bridge To Nowhere," But Was Concerned Money "Flow" Was "Going to Slow"
Might want to revisit your history....
Nowhere in the story you link to is she quoting as saying that. The author was her budget director, and if you actually RTFA, he states that earmarks aren't a "free lunch" because of the consequences in involved, and in the following CNN article, she used the Bridge as an example of that. Sure, she'd have liked a nice, fat, free bridge, but the project would have stuck Alaska with 80 percent of the bill. So she supported killing it.
Here'a a real quote from her on the subject:
Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday the project was $329 million short of full funding.
"We will continue to look for options for Ketchikan to allow better access to the island," the Republican governor said. "The concentration is not going to be on a $400 million bridge."
Palin directed state transportation officials to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport. She said the best option would be to upgrade the ferry system.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Barack Obama for all his talk about change couldn't pick a woman to run as his VP, but McCain could. So much for his bold new view of the future that encompasses all the previously marginalized social groups.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So little experience.
So much less of the same.
I left out the very important word not. Race and ethnicity absolutely should not matter in a presidential election.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa 2^10 times over.
What does matter is his background and whether the voters are likely to make assumptions about his background based on skin color that are not necessarily true, such as assuming "he looks like me, therefore he must share my experiences" or "he does not look like me, therefore he does not share my experiences."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I find it strange that you picked a part of the bible where cain was attempting to hide the fact he just killed his own brother. Is my brother's keeper a sign of wrong doing? Well, I don't know but there are the talks of Obama's connections to a known terrorist and an indicted (and eventually convicted) felon, I guess you might be on to something here.
Anyways, here are some answers to your questions.
What is the function of governement?
To govern. To provide a means to establish accountability and provide uniform rules.
What is the function of society?
There isn't a function of society. It is a relationship between people who are brought together either by necessity or free will that allows us to interact with one and another in order to exploit the strength in which we find ourselves deficient in.
Should it be every man for himself?
Yes, within respect to their abilities and enterprise. Thomas Jefferson said, "To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." In other words, freedom requires you to be free to keep the rewards of the efforts of a free man. Taking someone from one person just to give to someone less productive is the same as taking freedom from that person.
If so, what purpose does society serve?
Society doesn't serve a purpose. It is a meeting of mutual benefits. You find people of like mind or capable of providing a good or service and through interaction you are able to exploit this areas in exchange for whatever they need. The biggest advantage of a society is currency which allows you to exchange something your incapable of doing for something you want or need. Money allows the other person to take value and goto someone that fits their needs. When they don't need anything, they store the money and call it savings.
Ultimately how far to do you go?
I'm not sure what you mean by this. But if your going for the how much suffering does it take before someone turns around and becomes productive? We can answer that question because there are very few people who have to truly suffer anymore. There is always some program or aid availible. Ideally, it should be provided voluntarily in order to not breed contempt against the people who need the aid.
Why is it acceptable to provide an army to protect citizens while not protecting, in other ways, those very same citizens against other ills? Hunger? Disease? This is an easy one, because you need to collective might to protect against the collective might of another nation. That is the one threat against freedom that an individual cannot apply themselves and work around.
And if you think that we don't protect people from hunger or disease, you need to wake up. We have food panties running out of food because college students are shopping there instead of the store or eating in their scholarship provided meals or the cafeteria. There are government run as well as privately funded soup kitchens all over the country. 90% or more of the actual poor people get some sort of food aid from the government, the other 10 have less options availible but they are there. The CDC protects us from communicable disease outbreaks the best it can. Most diseases which aren't genetic dispositions can be limited or stopped from turning into epidemics meaning that a lot less people are effected then otherwise would be. As for health insurance, and I know this is more anecdotal then hard science but almost everyone who truely can't afford insurance is already covered by some other program. Everyone I know who wants government health, have brand new cars instead of driving their 5 year old paid off car. They have toys like quad runners or motorcycles or speed boats instead of insurance. They take expensive vacations to Disney l
"Alaska also does not face the same challenges as other states."
No, they face challenges all their own, most of which would make residents of the lower 48 run away crying.
Oh, and they're also the only state that basically borders Russia. I'd say that presents it's own unique challenges.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The republican party cares deeply about the rights of wealthy, property owning women.
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What makes you think that? She took the young one with her to be announced as VP. His older sister was holding him in the audience with the rest of the family while Governor Palin did her deal on stage.
Where is it that she seems to be dumping the kid?
Who better than an ex-beauty queen to deliver world peace? Now is her chance to prove that she wasn't just saying it at the pageant.
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. - Jean-Paul Sartre
The future goes through Alaska. The bridge/tunnel that will be built to connect Asia/Siberia will go through Alaska. The melting Alaskan glaciers will possibly help the lower 48 from drought. The oil and gas from Alaska will provide the materials for greenhouses to grow ample future foodstock. The oil/gas/plastic will also be used to create huge "medusa bags" that will transport Alaskan fresh water south to California (not to mention carry Greenlandic water south to Africa/Sahara). TransCanada recently stated they were thinnking of spending approx $30 billion to build a pipeliine from Alaska to the lower 48. Perhaps a "double wide" railway might be built instead that can transfer both fuel and passengers/product north-south. The Alaskan motto is "North to the futre."...perhaps some politicians recognize that...
Science belongs in a science class, creationism is not a science and does not belong in a science class.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You need to read more Dickens.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
"Actually, many parents (I've met) of children with down syndrome actively admit that not aborting was a mistake. Lower middle class people cannot withstand the burden of raising children with down syndrome without being drained and virtually destroyed (In the words of some parents)."
:)
---> There fixed it. Unless you have some actual facts that backup what you say. The parents I've met have said they would not change a thing. Funny how the love of a child can do that.
Aside from your grotesque choice to frame the VP issue in terms of "hoping the president dies"...
Here's a newsflash: the VP also does stuff when the President doesn't die. Stuff like advise the President.
McCain said that it's important for a President to surround him/herself with experienced people, especially in areas where the President is not very strong.
Obama is seen as weak on foreign policy, so he chose Biden, a person with a lot of foreign policy experience.
Despite the fact that McCain has a love-hate relationship with claims to economic experience, he has chosen a candidate who can't be seen to have significant experience in any field.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
all most people believing in creation wish to do is put both beliefs out there. But the evolutionists want the other side silenced and marginalized.
Creationism is not science, and the only way it belongs in a science class is as part of the history of science, such as Creationists tried to outlaw evolution.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The more Obama shouts that Palin is not qualified, the more it draws attention to his total lack of experience as an executive.
Bottom line is, Americans look for executive experience in Presidents. Presidents should be people who are leaders of something. So, technically, Palin is more qualified than anyone else.
This is my sig.
You see, you can argue about Creationism. You can make very good philosophical arguments for and against Creationism in all its forms -- Intelligent Design being one of them. And you can make very good philosophical and scientific arguments for and against Evolution.
What is clear, however, is that Evolution is a scientific theory. Creationism isn't.
In other words: Right or wrong, Evolution is science. Creationism isn't. That's not an opinion, it's a fact -- by definition, "I think the Earth is six thousand years old because an old book told me so" is not science.
The only place Creationism has in a science classroom is as an object lesson of something that is not science.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Personally, I think she is entitled to her beliefs. She, her husband and all her five children have to live with them, but it's still better that way than the government deciding which fetus lives or dies. All I am asking is that I am allowed the same right to make these decisions for my family. I - thanks God! - never had to consider raising a child with Down's syndrome, but as I understand, it does not cause acute suffering and painful death. However, I am afraid that Palin wants to force my wife to have a baby with cystic fibrosis, or even a brain dead one like Terry Shivo. I find that artificially keeping these babies alive with medical technology only to have die in teens, when they are fully aware of what is happening, to be no less barbaric than Nazi medical experiments.
But in any case, pro-life vs pro-choice debate is just a smokescreen to distract people from the fact that the candidates will not do anything to actually make a difference in our own lives. If evangelical voters really believed that Obama was going to lower their taxes by 30%, they would elect him in a heartbeat. Likewise for liberals and McCain. But realistically, Obama will raise our taxes to pay for other people's healthcare and McCain to stay in Iraq for 100 years. So instead we go for the big drama, however unlikely it is to affect us personally. I mean, is it that difficult to put on a condom?
This is the failing here. The experience argument is not Obama's argument - it's McCain's argument. What are you baiting Obama into here? Into talking about experience? Two weeks ago, McCain was talking about Obama's experience. He was talking about it constantly. McCain is experienced, and Obama is not. That was his constant line. That was a central point of his theme.
Now, after the Palin pick, what changes about the McCain strategy? He still calls Obama inexperienced. He still says that he represents the best leadership.
But... what about the other side of this? For the past two weeks, Democrats have constantly said, "We respect McCain's experience, but..." before saying anything attacking him. McCain had the experience angle so locked up that no one could speak against it except to try and discredit experience as a whole. But now, suddenly, there's a very inexperienced candidate sharing the ticket with McCain. From now on, whenever McCain shouts, "Experience!" the Dems will respond, "So why is there a two-year governor on your ticket? Why is your second-in-command even younger than Obama? If you claim experience matters, then what is Palin doing on your ticket?"
This is what I cannot understand about this pick. Falling "prey" to it? What do you mean? We already were prey to it! You were winning that one! You had the experience argument locked up! You could talk about Obama's experience all day long! It's probably the number one reason McCain is so close to Obama in the polls, even though so many people favor kicking the Republicans out now!
Why in the world would you hand this to the Democrats? Why would McCain give himself a weakness like this? McCain is now no longer the solemn voice of experience! We now have the spectre that if McCain should die naturally of old age, then this woman becomes president! McCain has just weakened his own number one argument! Why in the world would he DO something like this?!
"If Obama with all of his credentials had been white?" I dunno. If McCain, with all of his credentials, had never been a POW? If he'd just fought in the war and come home? Maybe. But this, one way or another, no matter how you slice it, this is an incredible pick for VP. This woman is going to have to debate Joe Biden in the VP debates. It's unimaginable that this woman was chosen to have a strong presence in the White House after the election (whereas Biden would almost certainly help to craft policy and twist arms in the Senate). What was this woman brought in for? Could it seriously have just been because she was a woman, with no other factors considered?
You're right - a lot of the attacks used against Obama will also be used against Palin. Those attacks would have continued to be used against Obama if McCain had chosen Kay Hutchinson, or Condoleeza Rice, or even Mitt Romney. But instead, McCain chose the option that allows those attacks to also come against himself. I truly, truly want to know - who in McCain's campaign made this decision?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
The purpose of the discussion on these topics is to promote bigotry against religious people -- especially Christians.
No, you miss the point, the point being that fundies, especially Christians, want to force their beliefs down nonbelievers throats.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I don't have any religious beliefs, but I have no problem with the state using force to prevent you (or anyone else) from murdering other human beings.
Suggesting that an unborn child has no human rights until the instant of birth is absurd.
Suggesting that an egg gains full legal rights at the instant of conception is equally absurd.
This isn't an either-or situation. The answer isn't "pro-choice" or "pro-life".
I think that most all of us can agree that a clump of cells too small to be seen with the naked eye doesn't deserve any particular legal recogintion.
On the other hand, a unborn child that has developed enough that it could expect to survive outside the womb probably should have the same rights inside the womb as it would have outside.
In between these two points we can have reasonable laws the balance the interests of the mother with the interests of the unborn child.
If we'd quit listening to the people who say there is no middle ground then we could actually solve this argument and move on with life.
And responses such as that are more a cause of divisiveness than Bush ever was or will be.
I'm a Republican because I believe in conservative values and will rationally defend them when required. I don't follow blindly but with thought and conviction. There's nothing lowly about that. There are many people that disagree with me but I don't consider them lowly or stupid as long as they can rationally defend their position.
I only look down on people that follow blindly and aren't able to defend their positions. There's nothing respectable about that.
I find that strange. It seems that just about anything you could find out about this person would push you further away from the Democratic candidate for president.
Palin's not running for the top job in the land -- Obama is. There's a huge difference.
if they're "pro choice" they're for legalizing drugs. Why is it a woman's right to remove a fetus, but not to add a drug?
I doubt many pro-choice people are pro legalized drugs as well, then again that maybe your point, they are pro-choice one place but aren't somewhere else. Personally I am pro-choice everywhere, so long as somebody does not harm another they should be able to whatever they want.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The truth is that the middle class does better under Republicans than Dems on taxes. Look at tax rates under Clinton. Then look at the last 8 years under Bush. Anti-Bushies will be shocked to see that the lower and middle classes got tax cut after tax cut (both through lower tax rates and higher limits to those brackets) since he got into power.
... you can't tell me that's not going to hit the little guy.
Obama is planning to spend a lot of money on social services
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
...it's too close to zero.
None of this means a bit to people who believe in immortal souls granted by God upon conception. I think that's where the real argument lies.
Bruce Perens.
Since McCain is running for the post of President for Life she would likely become the first female president of the USA.
(Personally I don't think one's sex or race makes you better or worse for the job, and making a decision, pro or con, based on one or the other is stupid).
WHY is it that when someone dislikes what someone posts, the moderator or some other person descends into "-1 Redundant" when there is no preceding time stamped posting?
I checked (in flat mode) 942 comments and NONE has even the word "palindrome" outside of the thread i caused. No one else seems to have overtly or in other ways mentioned it, either.
It would REALLY be thoughtful of the Slashdot coders to bust a cap in the ass of knee-jerk reactionaries who get discombobulated and try to bury someone under -1.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I only look down on people that follow blindly and aren't able to defend their positions. There's nothing respectable about that.
Be careful, not being able to defend one's position does not necessarily equate to following blindly. Some folks are just bad at arguing.
But, in general, I find looking down on people to be poor practice.
In the end, this is a semi-anonymous message board and no one really cares. I don't know what your other post was about, but this whining from you will make me much less receptive to whatever it was you had to say in it. That shouldn't matter to you, but I suspect it will anyway.
So you're saying that the number two spot doesn't matter? That she wasn't hired to actually do anything on the job. To say that it doesn't matter that Palin is less experienced is to say that the VP is a position with no meaning and no sway, so it doesn't matter if experience doesn't matter. It's an admission that Palin was put on the ticket for one reason - not because of her strengths, not because of what she brings to the White House, only because she's a woman. We don't expect her to actually do anything, so it's okay that she has no experience.
I repeat - if McCain, the older man with bouts with disease should fall ill to old age, then this woman becomes president. Not number two, but number one. McCain has come out and said that this woman with almost no experience is actually experienced enough to be understudy to the most powerful position in the land. McCain is either short-sighted of having delusion of immortality.
And that doesn't matter? That doesn't matter that the "Experience is Everything!" campaign just decided that experience doesn't mean squat for the NUMBER TWO POSITION in the country?! Can you imagine Palin inheriting the number one spot? Is that something that the experience-loving McCain fans would be able to handle?
Yes, we know. We know Obama is running for president. We know he's inexperienced. You keep saying that. You were saying it last month, last week, yesterday, you kept saying it. So why, why now, have you given us the least bit of ability to say it about McCain?! Why would you do that? We know what you think of Obama - why would you give us the chance to change what people think about McCain?!
This whole thing just absolutely boggles my mind! I do not for the slightest moment understand the least bit of logic behind it!
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Too bad these people can't see that they'd eliminate a lot more abortions by supporting sex education and contraception then by pushing for absolute prohibition.
It's on days like this where I realize I have no idea what to expect.
All I can speak for are my initial reactions, --first impressions lasting and all:
She seems high-pitched and dippy and utterly non-threatening to male egos. Reminds me of this awesome woman I met once in Texas who was a strident supporter of women's rights but who was still twenty pounds under weight and had to be home from her pseudo-activist life-style, (teaching ballet at a girl's youth club) to get supper on the table. The rage in her was simmering around the edges of her pleasant smile and perfect lip stick, but she was too underweight and exhausted to actually break the system. Palin doesn't have that kind of fire, but the lock on her mind appears to be the same; she just can't see it. (This is first impression stuff, so I might be entirely wrong.)
Palin looks like the Republican idea of 'granting' power to women. Compared to Hillary's robust and self-realized personal strength, Palin looks like she has been allowed a watered-down, "isn't that nice, honey" brand of power in the full knowledge that the balding white alpha males they hope to put into office will get the real work done while she takes care of organizing the Tupperware parties.
I have no idea how this is all going to play out, but if I were a woman, I'd be quietly infuriated for reasons I couldn't quite explain. --Or I'd be one of those fully mind-locked prairie roses who knows her place and is thankful to my dominant male for keeping me safe and adoring my femininity or some such old-world nonsense. . .
Either way. . , this might actually be an effective move, (regardless of whether or not it was done on purpose). The image of a Norman Rockwell Mom and Pop running the country on old family values is going to have a powerful effect in the minds of many. That's my current guess. But who knows? This time next month, some other utterly unexpected horsehockey may well change the rules once again.
-FL
If a politician is unwilling to say "Religious creation stories should not be taught in public schools", I'd say they're either pandering to the creationists or they are one themselves. Either way, not somebody I'd really like to see running the place.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Actually, most Republicans today simply want equality of rights under the law, which once upon a time was a cherished ideal.
Democrats, who depend heavily on identity politics to stay in power, must continuously reinforce their voting blocks with separatist rhetoric emphasizing each group's plight, and advocate policies which create new rights imbalances in the opposite direction to keep these groups focused on identity issues.
Planting the idea that nominating a female VP candidate is a Republican "trick" is a perfect example of identity politics in action.
Ironically, identity politics have been waning in success recently, even as many individuals in these classical identity groups have achieved their own socioeconomic success. Successful individuals tend to bristle when asked to vote based on gender or ethnic identity alone. Democrats have to be careful or this strategy can backfire easily.
McCain puts his money where his mouth (and record) is by choosing someone from way outside Washington and with a proven record of fighting the status quo.
Since when were Republicans libertarian?
... and then they built the supercollider.
In a science classroom, in a public school, there is no 'debate' to be had about creationism. The Supreme Court made that crystal clear years ago - creationism is religious in nature, and has no place in a public school.
(And Intelligent Design is just creationism in a lab coat.)
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Unfortunately the real argument lies with everybody that stands on this line. Everybody to the right of me is heartless. Everyone to the left is Godless. I kind of like to leave this one alone for this reason.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
i'm a frequent conservative lurker of slashdot, and i'm ticked at the terminology in this artical... "anti-abortion" is not what they call themselves, it's "pro-life"... we don't call "pro-choice" the "pro-abortion" or "pro-death" view... :-/ am I the only conservative on slashdot?
I find it strange that you picked a part of the bible where cain was attempting to hide the fact he just killed his own brother
I am no theologian, but the key point in his response is his antipathy toward his brother. The inference in Cain's response is basically "it isn't my job" and "he is big enough to take care of himself". It was a setup. So they say Cain was a murderer and a liar. Moving forward the new testament is littered with indirect references indicating that the core beliefs of Christianity is that we are our brothers keeper. Call it Obama's dog whistle call to evangelicals who have started to take up the cause to help the poor and see it as a responsibility of their faith.
Yes, within respect to their abilities and enterprise. Thomas Jefferson
That is a great quote, and quite idealistic. It assumes that all people are on equal ground and that those on hard times are their due to some flaw in their person or their forefathers. It completely ignores what happens when your job of 20 years gets shipped overseas, it completely ignores 200+ years of slavery and 400+years of institutional racism in the US. It completely ignores seniors who go bankrupt after a catastrophic medical condition.
Society doesn't serve a purpose.
Going all the way back to Hobbes many have concluded that society does indeed serve a purpose. Hobbes argued that the society was a group of selfish individuals that united into a single body in order to maximize their safety-- to protect themselves from one another. Locke proposed that education above everything else was responsible for forging the moral and intellectual character of individuals; he proposed in part an extension of education to every member of society and went on to conclude whenever that authority ceases to care for the welfare, independence, and equality of individual humans, the social contract is broken and it is the duty of the members of society to overthrow that ruler. Sound familiar? Which leads me to my next point, which should have read:
How far does society go?
Why provide public school? Why provide highway services? Why provide ? Simple. The reward to society outweighs the cost of the program. We education our citizens, ideally, to make them better citizens. Many countries provide healthcare for their citizens because it makes them more productive, they live longer, they are productive longer and hence are taxable for longer. Now, is their fraud? Sure, just like in business. But to me it is acceptable to help people in legitimate need, and run the risk of being defrauded.
And if you think that we don't protect people from hunger or disease, you need to wake up.
That is a typical idea throughout the US, and I urge you to challenge it. I challenge you to volunteer in the Emergency Room at your nearest academic medical institution. There you will see how well we protect people from hunger and disease. You will see women with lesions on their breast that look like they were stabbed, but it is really just advanced breast cancer because they have no primary care. You will see the elderly come in dehydrated, malnourished because there medications cost more than they have, so they just don't eat. You will see 40 year olds with limb amputations because of uncontrolled diabetes. 20 year olds dying from complications of sickle cell anemia, again from lack of primary care access. 8 and 10 year olds dying from asthma attacks. Yes you will see me too, because I actually work there.
With respect to food services, again, I would rather help 1 legitimate person and run the risk of being defrauded than not helping at all in fear of fraud.
food panties running out of food because college students....
That is just nonsense. The equivalent of the "Cadillac driving welfare queen"
90% or more of the actual poor people ge
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
The charity groups that are against war, the death penalty, abortion; and feed the hungry & provide shelter for the homeless... They get to use 'pro-life'.
Not just those who only want to protect the precious fetuses.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Hillary asked not to be vetted unless she was actually going to be picked, so he didn't vet her out of respect for her.
the Vice Presidency is nothing, but it may be everything.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Don't even try to compare this Alaska beauty queen mayor of a town of 6000 with Obama.
Don't EVEN go there.
Let's start talking about McCain's judgement. McCain thinks if he dies, Sarah Palin should be sitting across a negotiations table from Vladimir Putin discussing Georgia.
According to multiple sources, the average life expectancy in the USA is 77 years (different sources differ by less than a year).
According to the National Center for Health Statistics's data from 2002, you have roughly a 75% chance of surviving to age 70, 65% chance of surviving to 75 and 52% chance of surviving to 80. In other words, between 75 and 80, your odds of surviving drop by between 2 and 3% per year. Not to be ignored. On the other hand, McCain would still have a slightly better than average chance of making it through his presidency, which could not be described as "vanishingly small". However, if you like McCain, but you don't like the idea of Palin being President, and you vote for McCain you are kind of, well, tossing a coin...
Of course, what stands in his favour is that he's a wealthy white man who, if he became Commander-in-Chief of the world's most powerful nation, would have a lot of people interested in keeping him healthy. What stands against him is he's had Stage II Malignant Melanoma. This doesn't doom him, by any measure, but he stands something like a 14% chance of recurrence, and a 9% chance of death, just going by the numbers.
Rgasuya aata! : I have been coding Perl and cannot tell where my fingers are now!
Did you even watch his speech last night? He talked details. Read his website. Seriously.
Exactly so - just like homosexuals are "abnormal." I'm sure no one will take offense at the term.
Dark Reflection
First, if McCain had chosen Romney, he would have greatly pleased fiscal conservatives and proven that he could mend ties in the fractured Republican party. If he had chosen Kay Hutchinson, he would have just as well "energized his base" in proving that he could pick an interesting VP, but would have avoided the experience issue. Why he chose Palin when he had other choices that didn't carry such a negative connotation is mind-boggling.
Number two - there are two kinds of "disgruntled Clinton voters." The first kind are the ones who were Republican in the last election, who switched tickets to try and vote her into office, and who are going back to the Republican side now that she's lost. He already has these women, and they aren't all that much. The other group of Clinton voters are liberals, and if you're telling me that a woman with 2% of Clinton's experience and passion with completely opposing views on liberal issues is going to somehow steal back Clinton voters... Yeah, there may be a few, but if you wanted Clinton voters that badly, KAY HUTCHINSON.
This is the other incredible argument here - that just putting a woman on his ticket means that he appeals to Clinton voters. This is, quite brutally, a sexist argument. It is the belief that women will vote for another woman, no matter what their issues are. It is a belief that the women who voted for Clinton will turn around and vote for another woman with completely opposite beliefs, that they cared nothing about Clinton's policies and only about her gender. It is the belief that Clinton's voters were shallow and stupid. It is a thinly disguised sexist argument.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
You're dumb if you don't think this is pandering.
You seriously think she was picked because of her experience? (2 years of state-level office). You think she was picked because of her "morality"? Have you read ANYTHING about John McCain's history? This woman will be a tool, unless McCain drops dead, in which case she'd be a disaster.
Hillary Clinton made her own decision to run, managed the campaign, was the actual candidate. Palin is an accessory.
I was reminded of that mess with Harriet Miers. This also looks like it might be one of those gifts that keeps on giving.
35 women have served in the United States Senate. Care to take a guess as to how many black senators have preceded Obama? Only four.
Be careful about getting too dogmatic about the heliocentric view...
Scientifically, there is nothing inherently wrong with the geocentric view. It is an issue of where you want to establish your datum. (zero point.) The main advantage if the heliocentric view is simpler math.
From a larger perspective, the solar system also orbits the center of the Milky Way. (Stupid heliocentrists. ;-)
If you really want to split hairs, find the center of the universe and establish your datum there.
Datums are established by politics and convention.
In the end, the debate is not about science or even religion. It is about politics.
It's almost like I'm reading an argument between two Republican talking points.
When you say she "That would explain why she cancelled his infamous Bridge to Nowhere" - I take it you mean that she supported it until it was clear that Alaska would actually have to pay for some of it?
Oh yeah, and she still took the money.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20908207/
And if studies on equal pay didn't account for that when checking, then you would have a point.
As it happens, most large studies actually *do* account for that. Given X # years doing job Y for $Z - it turns out that women make less then men, fairly consistently.
Now, I'll grant that I think there are other factors - I figured out a long time back that I get paid more than anyone else at my job mostly because I asked for more when I signed up - which makes me wonder if I'm just 125% more arrogant than the other men in my office and 135% more arrogant than the other women here - but I'm sure they would've happily paid me less, and I *hope* they wouldn't have flinched a bit more had I been female and asked for the same salary.
So there are other factors. That said - the *studies* do account for some of the factors you're hanging your prejudices on.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Maybe your unwavering allegiance is thought-out and rational, the alignment of your views with party doctrine based on independent analysis and merely coincidental rather than guided, and your self-identifying with one of the two biggest groups of windbags on the planet merely a convenient communication device.
Or maybe you're just another partisan sock-puppet. Hard to say.
For small values of "just about anything".I found out that the Rep-VP candidate is possibly anti-contraception. I found out that the Rep-VP candidate is possibly in favor of teaching Creationism or "Intelligent Design" in the science classroom. I'll admit I don't know much about her yet, but I fail to see how either of these items would push me away from Obama.
XML causes global warming.
The real question is: Underneath all those clothes and that frumpy appearance and rumpled hair-- is she hot? How long will it take the dupe-squad to photoshop her into all sorts of compromising positions? (Assuming they haven't done it already) Who cares how well she can run the country if she looks good starkers holding a martini and a smile...! And did you see McCain? He just stood there totally still (or else he might have been asleep, I'm not really sure which) with a look on his face like "... and she can COOK too!"
Seriously though-- I don't care whether a candidate is male, female, pink or purple-- but I do care when they prop somebody up just because of their gender or race. This was a stupid move on the part of the republicans. Did you hear she's ALREADY got a scandal brewing??? How's that for a time-saver? Why wait until she's elected, just go ahead and get it out there now.
They're renaming the GOP Convention now to the "Palin-Drome".... get it? :)
They obviously have their own agenda, but the Defenders of Wildlife Fund was quick to point out some of Ms Palin's actions are quite friendly to the oil companies and their interests:
"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP, has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration."
Okay...used for a photo-op at a political event. Not proof she provides the day to day care for the child.
What about the day-to-day aspects? Does she or her husband care for the child directly or is there a nanny or other home-help involved in the raising of their children?
They did that in the last election putting Kerry up against Bush. Bush was a lot easier to beat in 2004 than McCain is in 2008. The democrats blew it then and they're blowing it now by picking the most liberal politician they could find once again. If they ever run a moderate democrat the republicans wouldn't stand a chance.
So I guess Elizabeth Dole said no. After all, she couldn't possibly have been behind Gov. Palin on the short list, could she?
I think he's lost his mind. This is like Harriet Miers all over again.
--
Toro
You're absolutely right, it was her decision. The only problem is that if she thinks that what was *her* decision should be *law*.
I don't know the details and I could be wrong but most "regular pro-lifers" what to make abortion illegal and the real hardcore ones - like Palin is described - what to extend the ban to non-life threatening malformation and rape (well, they are at least coherent).
However, I am afraid that Palin wants to force my wife to have a baby with cystic fibrosis, or even a brain dead one like Terry Shivo. I find that artificially keeping these babies alive with medical technology only to have die in teens, when they are fully aware of what is happening, to be no less barbaric than Nazi medical experiments.
I had a cousin who died of cystic fibrosis at the age of 15. When she died, it was tragic. The thing is, she did more living in those fifteen years than many people experience in six times that. She had a beautiful and meaningful life.
I consider myself pro-choice, but it gives me great pause when I hear people talk about aborting a fetus that has one condition or another, ostensibly to spare the child a life of suffering. It is not our place to decide what experiences or life circumstances will or will not lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life, albeit different from our own.
Abortion should absolutely remain legal, but it is not a decision to be made lightly.
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
Now see here...
There is no way to know if Hillary would choose Barak as VP. She played the scorched earth campaign against her own party, few would nominate her as VP after something like that. After the things she said about him, I doubt either considered it an option.
Indeed, it looks like it's going to come back to haunt the Dems. Here's a gem of an ad running at 3AM. Whoops. The Dems don't want to lose (naturally), and having a well known Dem personality such as Hillary saying these things FOR the Republicans is downright shameful.
After this, you really think he should nominate this woman? This is exactly why you don't go full throttle in the primaries. She doesn't even know which party she is supposed to support, it's like watching Lieberman talk out of both sides of his face.
Wait, how can someone who is supposedly a libertarian believe in the banning of abortion, unless they aren't actually a libertarian at all?
Unfortunately, and though I wish it weren't true, though the party platform is such that government should stay out of abortion there are some Libertarians who are pro-life.. Libertarians for Life for instance oppose abortions. Like they, whoever they is, used to say about the Republican Party the Libertarian Party is a big tent.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
. . . It was a pun.
I am not a crackpot.
but it looks like she beat out Romney in the swimsuit competition.
Check your facts, the current Alaska pipeline has been there since the 1970s and no huge disasters. There have been some spills but nothing major and no serious impact to wildlife. The enviro-radicals screamed the same tune then, but you are probably not old enough to know that. The Valdez disaster was due to a DRUNK captain. Plus the law requires DOUBLE Hulls now so the chance of a Valdez style disaster on water is small. As for the chance on land, if the pipeline pumping stations see a pressure drop they automatically shut down the line and close valves to the only oil that can leak out is in one segment. The pumping stations are miles apart but at the temperature outside the oil is so viscous it doesn't leak like you think.
good to know this election is going to be fought on the issue of human rights for unborn fetuses, instead of you know human rights for the rest of us.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Ah, reminders of post-Katrina with that welfare queen complaining about not getting enough help from the government, picture in the article of her sitting there in her nice apartment next to her huge big-screen TV.
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Taiwan.
Marc Rich's ex-wife (cash for pardons).
And apparently some charities forwarded their donors' money to the library.
And some people and companies trying to get out of legal trouble.
Rich guy Frank Giustra donated $31 million after Clinton cinched a big uranium deal for him in Kazakhstan.
I am no theologian, but the key point in his response is his antipathy toward his brother. The inference in Cain's response is basically "it isn't my job" and "he is big enough to take care of himself". It was a setup. So they say Cain was a murderer and a liar. Moving forward the new testament is littered with indirect references indicating that the core beliefs of Christianity is that we are our brothers keeper. Call it Obama's dog whistle call to evangelicals who have started to take up the cause to help the poor and see it as a responsibility of their faith.
That would be corect, your no theologian. The new testament does not say be you brothers keeper. It said to help your fellow man out when he is in need. There is a big difference there. Helping someone out helps them get back on their feet, being your brother's keeper mean providing when he feels it isn't necessary. No where in the bible does is suggest that you should reward laziness or contempt.
It's only as idealistic as you want to make it. It is the truth though. When you take from me to give to someone else who hasn't put as much effort as I have into life, you are in fact taking my freedom. And no, it doesn't ignore 400 years of racism or slavery or your job going overseas for whatever reason. First of all, I didn't do anything to cause that job to go overseas. If the person who lost is didn't demand such a high pay, or the very government that wants to steal your freedom didn't impose so many regulations, that job would likely be there. Second, slavery was over and done with in most of the states over 200 years ago. It has been gone in all of the other states for at least 160 years. That is 4 generations or more. If anyone is clinging onto slavery as some excuse for not being their own person, they are grasping for anything they can. I will posit that the slaves who were free had more resolve and determination then most poor people of today. And I'm not even going to limit that to a race. Finally, racism in America hasn't stopped minorities from succeeding. If it has done anything, it may have limited the avenues of success but there are plenty of well distinguished people throughout history that had no problem achieving great things. We even take an entire month to inform the less knowledgeable people about them.
In all, if you were to take Jefferson's quote to heart, you yourself would be the person responsable for your position in life. rewarding people for not providing the seeds of labor at the expense of others does nothing to further the greatness of this country. All it does in take our freedoms away under the guise of those that don't become productive are owed something by those that are productive. It penalizes those that succeed and rewards those that fail. In every other aspect of live, it is the exact opposite.
Lol.. You make it sound like society is some mythical embodiment of something. IT isn't, it is you and me interacting. When we educate the pub
What else matters more?
You can't say you'd fight for the human rights of the rest of us when you can't even protect the weakest group of humans out there: The unborn fetuses which cannot even fight for themselves.
The rest of us? We can mostly fend for ourselves. Even most of the poorest of the poor in this country are not facing death like the unborn fetuses being aborted.
So why is this group so important you may ask? Well.. why is the economy, or global warming, or energy, or foreign policies important? It's for securing our quality of life in the future generations. If the next generation are aborted, then all of those issues won't matter much.
S. 2590 was introduced on April 6, 2006 by Senator Coburn, along with Senators Obama, McCain and Carper as original co-sponsors. Nice omission there.
And what are IDers investigating, what experiments do they conduct? All ID is is an attempt to make creationism look like science.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The funny thing is, pro-choice isn't really the opposition of pro-life. I'd like to see what all those pro-lifers will think when somebody suggests that everyone should be forced to abort every pregnacy. Bet they'll value their ability to choose a little more then.
> It is not our place to decide what experiences or life circumstances will or will not lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life, albeit different from our own.
I agree with you 100% here, but somehow I come to a different conclusion and consider myself pro-life. I do like the idea that people have a choice, and dislike having the government think for you. Unfortunately, not everyone make these decisions lightly and even abort perfectly healthy fetuses because they had an 'accident'.
Therefore I believe that it is better to err on the side of life than death.
This is definitely not a black and white issue, I do believe that abortion should be a choice in special circumstances like when a mother's life is threatened. But most people do not face these special situations, and therefore the choice should not be readily available.
What do you think Obama means when he says am I my brothers keeper if not "help your fellow man out when he is in need". No where in anything I said or infer that we just stand on the corner and hand out fifty dollar bills.
You've never lived in the South have you? "Asked if they know someone they consider racist, 43 percent of whites and 48 percent of blacks said yes. But just 13 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks consider themselves racially biased." Opinion Research Corp 2006
BTW, you do understand that 99% or more of the truly poor people in america already have government health care right?
What does that even mean? 1x poverty 1.5x poverty? What is the source?
I haven't seen a doctor for an illness in the last 15 years.
Not a big fan of general medical exams, huh?
Hog wash. people are in that shape because of choices they made.
I think you missed the point. Those are *real* cases of *real* patients that I have seen in the hospital, and by seen I mean I was their *physician*. This isn't sensationalism, this is everyday reality. Come down and visit.
I think you got the just[sic] though
I got the gist, the gist was there is no food bank in the US "running out" of food because college students are taking it all. Were there stories of college student doing this? Yes.
When we educate the public, you and I benefit.
And somehow you don't see the benefit of a couple bucks a month and a yearly eye exam vs. the 50k above the knee (Trans-Femoral) amputation?
I have never understood this idea of giving people things without expecting them to work on becoming productive and slef sufficient
Nor does anyone. I certainly never said it, and no politician in their right mind would.
You quote actually backs my claim up though.
My data backed which said about 50% of eligible people receive food-stamps backed up your made up number that 90% of poor people get food stamps? Huh?
The poor (which are counted in those 44 million people) get the medical card.
Again, WTF are you talking about. What is the "medical card" Medicaid? I suggest you read. Among all poor adults, 45 percent are uninsured, and only 16 percent have employer based insurance. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of uninsured, poor adults are ineligible for Medicaid and similar public programs. Federal law prohibits state Medicaid programs from covering adultsâ"no matter how poorâ"unless they are pregnant, caring for dependent children, severely disabled, or elderly.
The median state denies Medicaid to working parents if their income is above 69 percent of the FPL, which is currently $901 a month for a family of three.
That last paragraph is just wonderful. Only $1500 AND $2000 deductible? Health savings account. Only $12,000? Remember if you make that much a YEAR with a family of 3 you aren't eligible for most state medicaid (. Do you have any idea how poor some people are? (see the wikipedia article later)
Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to get out a see the US. Some parts pretty much hate african-americans and don't care if it is 1808, 1908 or 2008. Some parts are pretty poor, destitute places, where HSAs and $12k makes you "fancy". These are working people. Not the handout p Please check out this for some perspective. I don't totally disagree with you, permanent handouts, people living beyond their means, etc..But you have not cited on hard piece of data to back yourself up. But it was good hearing your opinion.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
Now, that one would be interesting to try to enforce ;-)
Well, the teaching of evolution. That's what the Scopes Trial in 1925 was all about. Tennessee passed a law outlawing the teaching of evolution in state-funded educational establishments. A high school teacher, John Scopes, did precisely that, taught evolution in his class and he was charged and put on trial for that.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Creationism is a philosophy of ignorance. Ignorance has no place in a class dedicated to discovery.
Evolution:
Intelligent Design:
No recent discoveries, no predictions, no evidence, no tests that we can perform on it.
The roots of Intelligent Design mostly point to Michael Behe, a biochemist. What did he discover? Nothing. He looked at the discoveries of others, gave them a cursory analysis, and declared that God must have done it. Do discoveries, no predictions, and as far as he is concerned no falsifiability tests. God did it. That's final.
Then some folks actually took a look, discovered that the structures Behe asserted were irreducibly complex in fact were easily reducible. Any retraction from Behe? No. He had made up his mind, and no evidence to the contrary will sway him.
So I quote again, "Science is a philosophy of discovery. Creationism is a philosophy of ignorance." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
And this is what bigotry is like, right here. There's the slur. Then there's the false accusation of force and the invention of vaguely-defined victims.
No, what is bigotry is having a public school teacher forcibly apply a ruler to a student's hand or arm when they do not say "under god" when they recite the Pledge of Alliance.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Funny, I must have missed that part. I remember the part where he said 'we must find a way to protect your guns while we keep AK-47's off of the streets' and 'gun control means significantly different things from (some rural location) to (some metropolitan location)'. Both of those are approximate paraphrases, not exact quotes.
Well, the problem with Obama's stance is that AK-47's are not statistically significant with respect to violent crime. In fact, there are no "assault weapons" that are. So banning AK-47s will do nothing to functionally reduce crime, so Obama's assertion that he's doing it to reduce crime is a bald faced lie. He's doing it because he is, and always has been, a front and center believer in the gun control agenda.
Democrats were in charge of nothing. Did everything work out for the better? No. Increased government corruption, two failed wars, erosion of civil liberties, and the laundry list keeps going.
And McCain voted with Bush more than 90% of the time.
Yeah, I'd call their supporters The Stupid Lobby. Doing the same thing and expecting a difference result is stupid.
If Obama is elected, Congress remains Democratic, and things get worse, then you can say I told you so. As it stands right now, The Republicans have no leg to stand on when challenged for being inept.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
The self-appointed priests of science should do the same.
Please. Those scientists give prizes every year to the people who stir up the most trouble, break the most dogma. They're called Nobel prizes. Maybe you've heard of them?
For example, doctors thought for decades ulcers were caused by stress. It was obvious. Everybody knew it. At least until Dr. Barry Marshall proved otherwise, earning himself the Nobel Prize in 2005. Young medical researchers everywhere will look to him as an example to emulate. That's the exact opposite of what an actual priesthood would do.
For centuries, you Christians burned heretics. Scientists give their best heretics money and fame. Notice a difference?
According to the CDC, 90% of all abortions occur in the first trimester. The vast majority of abortions that occur after that are due to unusual circumstances where the health of the mother is threatened rather than a woman just changing her mind later on. In fact, some states enforce that with law and in other cases doctors/hospitals simply refuse to do such a procedure. So there's no real issue here at all. It's a made up bullshit argument used politicians to sway religious nuts who are single issue voters and history shows that it's extremely effective. These people are tools who are easily manipulated. It's that simple.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
This is an act of cunning and desperation. John McCain has been watching too much MSNBC and Fox.
His decision is more sexist than any of Obama's perceived slights against Hillary Clinton. McCain actually believes that just because Palin is a woman, all of Hillary's followers will jump on his bandwagon.
This confirms what a disaster a McCain presidency would be.
Gov. Palin's nomination is an outrageous insult to her, too. McCain is literally whoring Palin out for votes from misguided women and religious right-wingers.
That Palin accepted McCain as her pimp confirms her naivete and lack of qualification for the job.
It is also an insult to the office of the Presidency of the United States. It shows such a lack of respect for what the Presidency used to represent that I am rendered speechless.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, in this single act, McCain has truly exceeded the combined gall of every destructive act committed by the Bush Administration during the last eight years.
If McCain and Palin are elected in November, the United States of America will never recover.
I suppose we should not be surprised - this is the same guy who dumped his sick wife for a rich younger model.
The "fair and balanced" media will give us their version of "both sides" of this story. The dutiful red-state rednecks will fall in line like good little sheeple, all the way to the slaughter.
Hey, she looks good on a snowmobile. Maybe she can drive the pace car at the NASCAR finals.
God help us all...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Agreed. The Bible-Belters have been decidedly lukewarm about McCain. If Palin makes some strong pro-life speeches, they might get excited enough to vote, and that can make a big difference.
Worked for GW, twice.
The Coburn-Obama Transparency Bill is your idea of a major bill?
Granted, it's a nice bill, but it's hardly a major one.
And, if Obama's career in the Illinois Senate is any indication, he was probably gifted the bill after it had already cleared committee and everyone else had already done the heavy lifting. This was sort of his modus operandi in Illinous.
Frankly I don't see this pick as shoring up the McCain ticket much except in terms of solidifying his base.
Which McCain needed to do. And not all of the women supporting Hillary were pro-life. A lot just wanted to see a woman break through. And some of them will go to McCain now. Remember, it doesn't have to be a whole lot to potentially swing elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia.
Ok. I just picked your post at random to decide to respond to. I also got tired of scrolling.
Leave it to /. to turn a thread about a VP candidate into a full-blown debate on creationism vs. evolution. Seriously. I think you were all fucking hypnotised by the beauty queen pics I know you all googled the moment you heard about them.
Now can someone tell me how far to scroll down to get back on track?
Sheesh.
A black women holds one of the most powerful positions in this planet, in Bush's Cabinet. It seems the Republicans have done more to further women in this Administration than the last one.
*scrolls through another 30-40 totally off-track Creationist vs. Evolution debate posts*
What's sad is that when Democrats run women, it's looked at as somehow genuine but when Republicans run a woman it's looked at as pandering.
Sure, Republicans aren't pandering. Professional women love nothing more than to be well-qualified, experienced, hard working and then get passed over for a younger, hotter, and far less experienced woman selected by an old guy in charge.
She carried the child to term and put it up for adoption.
She wasn't willing to kill her own baby, regardless of whichever piece of shit the father was. But she refuses to force other women to make the same decision she finally reached.
Yes, she's pro-choice AND pro-life.
hanzie.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
You don't need to vet someone if they are going to be your pick, other than to make it a dog n' pony show to give the Mass Media something to chew on.
You're correct.
Anyone who thinks a human being has Human Rights at inception must believe they have those same rights After Death and thus are eternal souls who choose to occupy a biomechanical machine. Due to the eternal soul clause it's only the defective body that is terminated for it's undesired reality.
You don't like Abortion, then don't shutdown Safe Sex supplies for students and more. Leave your religion to yourselves and be thankful people who care about Population control consider these preventive measures as humane and make it possible for us to stop with these rat-hole conversations.
Even the Founding Fathers acknowledged the intelligent and right uses of Abortion amongst Native Americans, through herbal means.
Your entire diarhetic diatribe reads as a Thesis for a PhD in Sociology with the following subheading, ``White Man's Burden.''
This 200+ years of slavery introduced to the Colonies by Black Slaveowners who captured their fellow Blacks and sold them to the Dutch never seems to get much mention as to the source cause of this system. Indentured Servitude rarely also gets a mention that had nothing to do with the color of one's skin. Then this 400+ years of institutional racism makes me wanna vomit.
What's next? Decades of institutional ignorance is now classified as a Disease?
What I find insulting is his mocking of Thomas Jefferson's sound reason and then sarcastically asks about public schools when the same Jefferson found it paramount that a solid education be the right of every free person. This ensures that Jefferson's afformentioned statement on freedom regarding productivity is constantly addressed by having able and willing individuals of considerable education, not just within the merchant class, but across all classes.
But does it need to be viable to be worthy of protection?
Even 6-week old fetuses have the features of a human. They look like tiny humans and have heartbeats, brainwaves, etc.
That's a person to me. And I think it's important for society in general to always err on the side of life.
The last paragraph of your post appears almost verbatim in a forum post elsewhere.
I would like to know what's going on here - obviously somebody is copying statements around, possibly from some other, earlier source. The same thing happened in this Slashdot post and the same forum I linked to above.
I want to understand what's going on, because it clearly looks fishy.
A scientific theory can be tested for falsity. If it continually passes tests, it's 'useful' and eventually becomes 'law'. If it doesn't pass any test, it gets modified or scrapped.
Creationism has hypotheses that can be disproven.
Experimentally verify any of the following hypotheses as false, and you've falsified creationism.
Come on, I can't be the only one to have come up with this. The scientific method can be applied to the Bible. All of the above are directly derived from the old testament. All these hypotheses are experimentally testable for falsity.
A scientific theory is something that has the possibility of being tested false. That's science. Creationism is a scientific theory, just like the spontaneous generation of germs and rats.
I'd love to see this covered in schools.
Oh baby, YES, I want this debate in schools!
hanzie
P.S.
This doesn't test for the existence of God, just creation theory. Testing the theory of God's existence is outside the scope of this article.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
As a whole, Republicans want to over-turn Roe Vs Wade (under the pretense of not legislating from the bench) and make sure women cannot have abortions. Let me restate that: they believe abortions are wrong. They are not pro-choice, they are anti-abortion. Now, there is a sizable group of women who believe that to take away a woman's choice to not carry a fetus she does not want is to fundamentally be against women's rights.
Given the old boys network image, the image of chauvinism invoked by the love of guns, and the abortion issue, the republicans paint a picture that they do not view women equally.
So, when Democrats present a woman who is extremely educated, has a good deal of political and corporate experience, and also *happens to identifies with strong working women*, it is a logical choice, because she has the necessary qualifications.
When Republicans present a former beauty-queen and hockey mom who would take choices away from women, in a party that generally does not love women, when there were many male candidates and even some female candidates with more experience and education, then.. yes, something is wrong.
Even if there's not something wrong, you can see how someone might easily wonder if this is a gimmick, given Palin's spotty record. PTA, city council, mayor, governor, VP, president? Odd.
You know, I feel more and more hopeful every day that goes by and the McCain people can't come up with anything better than this tired shit. Is that really the best you can do? I especially like how you tried to cram gun issues AND abortion into the same straw man in number 3.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Mod parent -1 troll. Didn't even read own links. "Introduced in the United States Senate as S. 2590 by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama on April 6, 2006"
That's what the infobox says. The article proper says: "This bill was introduced by Senator Tom Coburn, for himself and Senators Barack Obama, Tom Carper and John McCain".
I guess nobody on Slashdot ever reads anything.
You're going to get grief on the "broodmare" comment, which is a shame, cause that was a great line. I'd mod you up if I had 'em.
:)
Heh, thanks for the thought.
Oddly enough, I seem to have taken more heat for stating the plain fact that Downs counts as a genetic defect, than in pointing out that no rational person would choose to have five kids in the modern overpopulated world. Go figure.
I think, though, I've figured out my mistake in posting that comment - The Nannies (D) take issue with suggesting anything against weak or unpopular groups (in this case, genetically defective babies), while the Zealots (R) can't stand the thought of some woman they've never met having a parasitic growth removed. So it really doesn't matter who modded, I managed to piss off both major groups.
So it goes, my karma can take the hit.
I would say that "protection" is not an either-or proposition. In the normal 9 month gestation period, a fetus starts from a single cell and ends up as an infant. This is an inherantly analog process. You can't apply a digital person/not person model to this situation.
Don't forget to save your semen stained shirt.
Chuckle.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It is not even funny that there are people out there still arguing about this.
Our knowledge about vaccination, antibiotics, genetically modified crops and pure dog breeds are firmly based in the fact that species evolve by natural selection.
This is something observable today, I will not even touch the fossil record since some people don't have the mental capacity to understand why this is fact as well.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... this debate would have been over long time ago.
A lot of religious people consider a human is such from the moment of conception, so your simplistic argument is far from reality (deplorably I have to add, religious nuts should not be influencing policy in a secular democracy).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No, she's pro-choice. To be "pro-life" in the context of American politics means she would force that decision on other women.
Exercising your right to choose not to have an abortion does not make you pro-life.
The ideological differences between both women will have the opposite effect: concentrate the minds of Mrs Clinton supporters, they will realize that a conservative, reactionary woman is not necessarily fighting the cause that Mrs Clinton was fighting for.
Or at least that is my hope.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not governing a minor US state, not being a legislator.
At the end a politician aiming for such a job will make his intents known and then will gather a team around him to deliver.
The advantage in the experience stakes between this lady and Obama is so minimal that is splitting hairs to even talk about it frankly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Indian civilization as well as the Mayan and Aztecs would have laughed at the idea of a world 6000 years old.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, we are all for loving relationships and self esteem,
When that fails a woman should be able to decide if she wants to stop a pregnancy in proper sanitary conditions without the obstruction of Christian Talibans.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When I show how corrupt Clinton is, liberals like to show corruption in the Republican party as if it were some kind of counter, some excuse, for Clinton's corruption.
The tactic might actually have some validity if I were a Republican, but I am not.
Liberals like to think Clinton was a saint, and it's fun to disabuse them of that idea. You already know the Bush clan isn't clean because your ideology led you to discover that, and the news sources that feed your your positions have told you, so I don't have to go over that side.
Great zingers there -- here's another one: "infantile infestation".
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
The last two elections were very close, and Mr. Bush came into office both times because of technical details in the way the system worked; which is not fraud.
In 2000, Mr. Clinton's personal antics and his success at actually passing NAFTA made him a weak asset, and a lot of people didn't care about the president in the final months before the dot-com crash, when everything looked cheery.
In 2004, the Democratic primary produced a candidate who actually looked a lot like the sitting president. Perhaps a some voters thought it was better to leave Mr. Bush in office for four more years and let him dig his hole deeper, and then vote for real change. The biggest sins of the Bush administration are the detainments at GuantÃnamo bay, the over-zealousness to perform military action in Iraq (I won't call it "going to war" because we already had the no-fly zone, the embargo, etc.), and the sudden selective enforcement of immigration laws instead of giving time and real effort to a logical reform and legalization effort.
I supported Mr. McCain in the republican primary in Michigan; but I've since decided that I supported him only because he was the candidate most like Mr. Obama. I'm still glad McCain is running, however, because it will make the debates more interesting. I hope a lot of people watch the debates.
"Now there's a wave of destruction that's easy on the eyes!"
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
Thank you! I'm so tired of this issue being drawn as clearly black-and-white. If that were true, there'd be little debate about it. The fact that the issue is so polarizing points to the fact that both sides have some merit to their argument. I wish we could stop the finger-pointing, name-calling, and sloganeering. It gets us nowhere. What we need is honesty, understanding, and consideration from both sides.
I dunno, Italy and many other countries with PR seem to manage OK, economically and socially speaking.
Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I notice that you're currently sitting at +5, Interesting.
Well, there's certainly a bias toward endless whining about bias. It seems oddly familiar--sort of like those wacky all-powerful liberals who are the secret masters of this world, despite spending the last eight years either out of power or chasing after the ruling party's coattails.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Someone didn't go to a Catholic high school.
--saint
('Cuz I loved it!)
Apparently WOW and Google have stricken the thread from the record.
Their they're doing there hair.
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
I'm just thrilled that we teach anything at all in our public schools.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And a religious fanatic to boot. I'd have voted for Baltar over her.
Of course Tom Zarek was always my first choice...
Right. They were the ones carrying signs "Kerry = Hitler" in the last campaign. Oh, wait, it was the others who were carrying signs saying "Bushitler" wasn't it?
Have you ever seen the rabid ferocity of women demanding the right to 3rd trimester abortions? They practically foam at the mouth because they're not willing to go through 2-3 months of discomfort to give a baby life.
And these same people claim they are in favour of human rights, but were perfectly willing to abandon Afghan women to a Taliban regime where a girl walking alone could be beaten with sticks, or Iraqi people to a murderous dictator whose sons repeatedly raped women and killed people.
But it's the fundamentalists who are cruel and evil. What an amazingly informed world view you have.
What was once true, is no longer so
The AC makes a point, albeit sloppily.
Hillary Clinton picked up quite a few voters because she is female, but you can't make the case that the only reason anyone voted for her is because she was a female.
Looking at Palin's record (and don't get me wrong, I think she's pretty good as Republicans go), no one can argue with a straight face that she'd be on the ticket if she wasn't a woman.
To realize how irresponsible, desperate, and cynical this pick was, all you have to do is imagine the reaction if the roles were reversed, and it was the Democrat ticket that did this. Their campaign would be over instantly, as it would be correctly viewed as absurdly bad judgment unworthy of a Presidential candidate.
And to put into perspective how outrageously irresponsible McCain is being with the welfare of our country and its citizens, these are the qualifications of the person he is putting a 72 year-old heartbeat from the presidency:
- Her "mayor" credentials were for a town of about 6000 people. That is smaller than the town where I went to high school (which had about 350 students), and we were viewed as the hicks-in-the-sticks school.
- Her only meaningful government experience is less than two years of being governor of a state of 650,000 people (about 1/5 of the *city* I live in), which has never had any real economic challenges.
She has zero foreign policy experience. Zero experience outside Alaska, which is a state that practically runs itself, since 80% of its revenue comes from a single industry. Her social views are at the extreme end of the right (she even opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest).
And perhaps nothing demonstrates how unqualified and inexperienced she is --and how cynical and desperate the pick was --than the fact that McCain had never bothered to meet this person he claims is ready to be president until a few hours before the announcement was made.
However, because conservatives are willfully blind to the Republicans party's glaring dishonesty, incompetence, and corruption, they almost universally view this horribly irresponsible Hail Mary as a wonderful development.
Until the Republican party is brutally punished at the polls, they will never change, and the country will continue to suffer.
Right. And if you read anything about the internal dissension on her campaign, she appears to have managed it quite badly. I can't recall where I read the article - I think it was this month's Atlantic Monthly (and it's available on-line at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200809/hillary-clinton-campaign) and the internal backbiting and bickering were documented in a number of emails. These were her own teammates, and they were telling tales on each other, leaking unflattering stuff about dissension to the media, and pulling the campaign into various different directions. She changed her manager mid-campaign, and sort of pulled her media adviser then got him back, which infuriated the other staff. As the article states, Clinton campaigned on competency and experience, and then proved she couldn't put together a cohesive team, or stick to a single strategy. One wonders what a shambles she would have made of her cabinet.
I just wonder where this reputation of competency comes from. She made a hash of her medical insurance plan, she claimed not to know her husband was cheating on her, etc. Her campaign was constantly in financial trouble. What exactly has she done?
What was once true, is no longer so
[i]Suggesting that an egg gains full legal rights at the instant of conception is equally absurd.[/i]
Why? When the RNA from the egg and sperm combine to form DNA, there is no other direction the "clump" can go. It is not going to be a liver cell, a pancrease, nor a giraffe. Conception is the only definable, scientific moment for determining what a life is. Being viewable by the naked eye is rather barbaric. It's no different than believing the sun revolves around the Earth because that what we see from down here. As technology advances, our perspective changes.
When you blur the definition, you require further blurring to justify various other side effects. If an abortion goes awry and the fetus is delivered breathing, what happens? Do you try to save it? Is the doctor committing assault?
Nevermind that your use of "assuming we throw away any other argument, mine wins" technique is so passe.
if (DNAHash(clumpocells) == DNA_HUMAN)
printf("Hello Human\n");
There, it can be done.
I don't recall.
When did this occur?
In the late '60s or early '70s.
Was there a police report filed?
Police report? Like someone who's in elementary school would know to file a police report.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It should be noted that one seldom has the opportunity to to wear comfortable formfitting cold weather clothes unless one is willing to spend a lot more money to do so. Given Palin's locale, it would make sense that she seldom wears form fitting clothes.
Forensics is about law courts and medical knowledge used in legal matters or police investigations. SETI is about searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. With evolution creating life on earth I'd say it's highly unlikely out of billions of billions of stars in the universe there isn't another planet orbiting another star where life didn't evolve as well. As Jodie Foster's character in "Contact" says "That's an awful waste of space."
Are you counter-claiming that these disciplines do not employ testable and falsifiable hypotheses to detect evidence of intelligent tampering?
No, they are testable and falsifiable. I'll also admit that a supreme being might just might be testable and falsifiable. But I have no idea how it can be done such that someone can't twist any results around to say whatever they want.
Again, I said all this in my original post, so please respond to this specific point.
Can you show me anywhere in this thread you said anything about forensics or SETI? This is the first tyme I recall reading either one. As for points 1 and 2 I did answer those. I even included them when I answered.
You might be able to argue that archaeology, at least to some degree, is not founded on falsificationism
Actually no, I wouldn't say archeology isn't falsifiable. For instance some archaeologists have argued the Clovis people in North America were the first humans in the Americas. However Monte Verde on the southern tip of Chile predates Clovis thus falsifying Clovis. Monte Verde even predates the land bridge between Russia and Alaska thus falsifying the notion the first people in the Americas crossed the land bridge.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I said person, not human
Every single cell in your body is human. Are they all persons?
Hint: "human" is a biological term, "person" is a legal term
No
No
Maybe
Maybe
On the other hand, you elected Bill Clinton, a governor of a state that had the lowest education scores in the nation and is not much bigger in population than Alaska. All he seemed to do in his time as governor was give nice speeches and have sex with women who were not his wife. I agreed with Ross Perot - EDS annual sales were bigger than Arkansas's GDP, and while Perot was a cantankerous old coot, I have no doubt he would have been a more effective chief executive than Clinton, who benefited from the peace dividend (which Reagan/Bush brought about), the technology boom (which he had nothing to do with, although Al Gore invented the Internet), NAFTA (which Reagan/Bush negotiated, and Clinton just signed) and the relentless cutting of interest rates by Alan Greenspan (which Clinton nominally had no control over). I guess this is why Clinton felt he had nothing better to do than have oral sex with young women.
What was once true, is no longer so
This is BRILLIANT nerd analogy... but we need to Karl Rove it up a bit to work for the Mainstream Media. My brother and I sat down and Tried to do some Rovin'(tm) and decided to attack her biggest strength. Sarah Palin'a strength isn't that she's a woman... it's that she's supposed to steal Hillary's supporters.
First we need to come up with a catchy mantra, like "Hillbot" or "Clintdrone" to describe that she's a Hillary wannabe... but she's a generic flavor and Hillary is the name brand. That's quirky enough to enter News lexicon and be repeated over and over again. Next we need to run TV ads of Hillary supporters saying "Paylin is a good mother and woman, but she 'aint no Hillary Clinton!" and get that run everywhere to remind people that she's the "generic" offbrand, a "Hillbot" if you will.
But that's only IF I were Karl Rove... I have a soul and would never stoop to that level. But, arguably, that's not a made up bullshit lie, like Rove would do. Everything I said was true, the ONLY reason she's there is to steal Clinton supporters... so I'm only pointing out the ridiculousness of the situation.
"Hillbot" "Palinton"? I'm sure there's a catchier name to be had that brands her as a flavorless clone...
WTF. Funny? insightful, informative, but funny? WTF mods.
She has more executive experience in her pinky finger then Obama does
So by wingnut logic, someone who's been a manager of a local Burger King for six years is fit to suddenly serve as a top executive at a Fortune 100 company, because she has "executive experience." You're spouting a phenomenally stupid Republican talking point, but then, I repeat myself.
You know the one where he served along with Weather Underground Terrorist William Ayers?
You really want to play the Associations Game? How about we start with Gordon Liddy, who advised people to shoot federal agents in the head because they might wear body armor? Good buddies with McCain. And how about all the Republicans Ayers has worked with, like the governor of South Carolina?
The sellers have no implication, aside from the lack of humanity, and as such largely irrevelant to this discussion. African slaves were classified as not-human. They looked different and to this day in portions of the US are treated different. Plus, there is a sociological component to this, people like to be with "their own kind" when choosing groups, by and large. It has been studied and validated. The body of work is quite large and works both ways. It isn't racism per se, it is just a preference in being with people who look like you.
Indentured servants largely were largely, in the US, caucasians. They also obtained their freedom, eventually, and as such the son or daughter of an indentured servant was free. By eventually I mean several years, not several generations. So your analogy is quite poor. But thanks for playing, and using that witty word "diarhetic".
What's next? Decades of institutional ignorance is now classified as a Disease?
I think thats called the DSM IV
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
irrelevant
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
Recorded history to me means what people write, not fossils.
Who's evading? I don't recall you saying once that recorded history was what people wrote. To me as far as history is concerned what's recorded is what's recorded no matter how it is recorded. Notice I didn't say "human history" I said history without qualifications, which "human" is.
Why should primates evolve into homo sapiens? Because that's what evolutionary theory said happened.
And history says primates can only evolve into humans? Or does history say thy can evolve into more than just humans?
So why would that process suddenly stop?
Who said it stopped? I don't recall but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Actually I believe humans are still evolving. Though I couldn't find it on /. I have said humans are still evolving. For instance I said because the SRI gene on the Y chromosome, which makes males male, is degenerating possibly the only hope for the survival of humans are intersexuals people who either have an ambiguous sex organs or have organs for both male and female.
You guys are all about testability and detecting false data - so answer the damn question. Why did the process stop?
See above.
And bodies don't last?
I guess you missed where I said a body would not last very long in the Everglades. Climate has a big impact on whether fossils will be preserved or not. I've got to say that if you didn't know that then your knowledge of science is poor, you don't know much about climatology, and I have no idea how you got a degree in engineering, if in fact you did.
Bye
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The Republican 'Experience' is that they got us into a war we didn't need to be in, funded with money we didn't have, fought with troops that were better off elsewhere, in order to dethrone a dictator that was no threat, and disarm him of weapons *he* didn't have,
Eventually, after three years of this, John McCain and others turned out to be right in that adding more troops could act as a stopgap in the increasing violence, rather like dealing with the fact that you stuck your hand in a blender by shoving it the rest of the way in and hoping it can't actually chew up your entire forearm.
But hey - the good news is he's right - for a time, we've managed to choke up the blender.
That still means . . .
A) Our hand is in a fucking blender up to our forearm.
B) The current plan is to *keep* it there.
C) The GOP strategy is still to dismiss anyone that thought sticking your hand in a blender looked like a stupid idea as 'inexperienced' - as if no-one could *really* realize that sticking your hand in a blender was a bad idea without doing it themselves.
and
D) The Democratic plan is still to turn off the damn blender.
So hey - if you're in favor of the 'experience' of sticking your hand into a blender, you go ahead and vote McCain. I don't vote for 'experienced' people whose experience is based on experiencing things simple good sense and situational awareness could've avoided.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
This is all fine and good, but what about their celebrity contraction? Like Branjelina, like Bennifer. What'll it be for America's hottest out-of-wedlock celeb twosome? Some ideas, and some conclusions on http://reallyoldman.livejournal.com/27910.html
The fact that she killed Ted "Tubes" Steven's $400 million of your and my money Bridge to Nowhere
Only when it became apparent that Alaska would have to spend money on the project as well.
Bush was a lot easier to beat in 2004 than McCain is in 2008.
No, he's not. He still hovered around 50%, was supported 100% by conservatives, and had the boost from we-hate-homosexuals voter initiatives in states across the country. McCain hasn't broken 45%, is wildly distrusted by his own party, and has no wave of bigotry to ride this year.
The democrats blew it then and they're blowing it now by picking the most liberal politician they could find once again.
Every Democratic nominee is "the most liberal politician" come election time. But if you think Obama is more liberal than Bernie Sanders, a socialist, then you're a fool and a tool.
Yeah you can. The moment of conception.
That's the only one though. If you don't like the idea that a human life begins at conception, the problem becomes difficult indeed.
He's rich enough for that. What matters he paid for his pardon which allowed him back in the US and kept him out of prison. I can do even worse for GW Bush. He released murderous anti-Castro terrorist Orlando Bosch to help Jeb get in good with the Cuban community in Miami. He pardoned Armand Hammer after some big contributions. He pardoned a high-volume Pakistani heroin trafficker.
Standard Democrat tactic. Revert to ad hominem when hit with the truth of your own corruption.
Again, I am not a Republican. Just like above I believe I can come up with more examples of their corruption than you. But unlike you I won't make excuses for their corruption or try to distract from it because I'm not so far up the DNC's ass I can see donkey teeth.
Catching and publicizing corruption is a good thing. Turning a blind eye to it because it's in your own party is pathetic.
Q: Which of the four candidates has the most experience as a government executive?
A: Palin, two years governor vs. absolutely none for Obama, Biden or McCain.
She only said the "not part of the curriculum" and "no litmus test" stuff after there was a backlash against her mentioning it in the debates. During the debate, her exact wording was: "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."
Do you honestly think that we should be teaching creationism in science class?
As long as they teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster at the same time, I'm okay with them teaching Creationism. Maybe then they'll realize how ridiculous their religious dogma is.
to mod down people. because many idiots are using legitimate looking excuses to mod down views they dont agree with.
Read radical news here
in action again.
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/492964.html
Read radical news here
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/492964.html
great attempt in being an ignorant fool.
Read radical news here
before voicing any opinions, first get some social manners and respect for others' views, so that you wont put forth contradictions by calling others 'piece of shit' while working for charity for people with down's syndrome.
see, now you wont be getting any response to your ramblings about how this is like that and that is like something else, and down syndrome and whatnot, because you lost the rights to be taken into account.
now go shove your bad manners and your half assed opinion in your butt.
Read radical news here
i said I. me, as in first person.
i said I wouldnt want to be born with down syndrome, and i still wouldnt.
and i assure you, there would be many people who would prefer not to be born with a disability rather than born with them.
Read radical news here
a law that legalizes abuse cant be an excuse to abuse.
as an example, 300 years ago slavery was legal, but that didnt make it any moral.
then again the people of those times have an excuse - they didnt know any better, the entire human civilization's understanding was just at that point.
but we are in 2008. we have much higher moral understanding as of now. and NOT firing anyone because of their views, beliefs or race, sex or gender is one of them.
if someone lack the morals to abuse something because law allows it, then same person lacks the morals to abuse anything that is allowed.
on the either hand, if she is as stupid or as mentally incapable or ignorant to the extent that she is not able to discern something is immoral, i cant find anything to say.
Read radical news here
directly. you people shouldnt need to wonder and do any research and find fucking things yourselves.
here, have another serving of readied, no effort information : http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/492964.html
Read radical news here
"Treated as genuine" by whom? Republicans have been shredding both Obama and Clinton as "tokens" since the race began. They even went after Geraldine Ferraro with the old "inexperienced" argument. Now the Republican candidate, a man who would be older than Reagan when he was first elected, a man who has already survived cancer once, has gone and selected a woman whose previous experience is twenty months running a state with a population smaller than sixteen American cities.
Now, it's JMC's right to select whomever he wants as his veep, but he seems to be deciding based solely on who will give him the best shot of winning the election, regardless of the actual implications for the country. Worse -- and this makes me wonder how useful McCain's vaunted "experience" actually is -- he seems to be proceeding based on a simpleminded assumption that there is a huge population out there that just wants to vote for a woman, any woman.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The VP has very few official duties; one of which is being next in line for the presidency, another is being president of the Senate.
From wikipedia: "The informal roles and functions of the Vice President depend on the specific relationship between the President and the Vice President."
So, if most of what she's going to be doing is unofficial work delegated by the president, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask what McCain will expect of her.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Wars are cheaper than socialism.
Last I checked (2004), Social Security alone was more than the entire DoD budget. Some very prominent people, like the comptroller general seem to think that federal medical care programs will soon eclipse social security.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
I presented a valid argument. The parent of the post to which I replied pointed out that social services expansion can be costly, and that those costs must fall upon someone.
The post to which I replied (which may have been you, or maybe not) then compared the expense of social services to the expense of war, while providing no numbers at all.
I injected a fact into the discussion by pointing out that Social Security alone is more costly than the entire DoD budget (which includes a lot of things not directly tied to an in-progress war).
At no point did I claim that Obama is a socialist. I grouped social services, some of which Obama intends to expand, into the category of socialism, which is a correct usage of the term (social security is a socialist policy).
And fascism comes totally out of nowhere. If we're talking about economics (which is presumably the discussion at hand) fascism and socialism have a lot in common -- after all, Nazi stands for National Socialist.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Interesting indeed...
Am i the only one who thinks Palin is "Stacy's Mom"??? I mean look at her! At 44 she's HOT!
McCain sure has an eye for the ladies... yessire...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
or Iraqi people to a murderous dictator whose sons repeatedly raped women and killed people.
So, is that why we invaded Iraq now? To save the women and people from Saddam's sons? I thought it was WMD? Oh, wait...no, it was 9/11! Oh, wait...no, it was AlQaeda! Oh, wait...no, it was...bah, I don't remember!