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Sound Bites of the 1908 Presidential Candidates
roncosmos writes "Science News has up a feature on the first use of sound recording in a presidential campaign. In 1908, for the first time, presidential candidates recorded their voices on wax cylinders. Their voices could be brought into the home for 35 cents, equivalent to about $8 now. In that pre-radio era, this was the only way, short of hearing a speech at a whistle stop, that you could hear the candidates. The story includes audio recordings from the 1908 candidates, William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft. Bryan's speech, on bank failures, seems sadly prescient now. Taft's, on the progress of the Negro, sounds condescending to modern ears but was progressive at the time. There are great images from the campaign; lots of fun."
sounds condescending to modern ears but was progressive at the time
As opposed to the non-condescending progressives of today.
Had they put up some mp3, FLAC, WMA or similar files, it would be easy to listen to. However, they chose to use that insecure, and wholly inappropriate, Flash to distribute an audio file.
It's a shame too, because I'm sure the recordings would be interesting to hear.
It just goes to show why Flash must die.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Four more years!
Why is every article tagged "story?" Defeats the purpose of having tags.
Isn't the whole reason you got the greenback dollar because Lincoln didn't want to get the US govt into hock with the banks?
I was under the impression that there was always a significant distrust of banks in the US, until recently that is. I am astonished that a country which refuses to pay for a national 'free at point of provision' health service, supported by taxes, yet they happily hand over the entire country's income tax to the banking system, and now 700 billion because they stayed greedy for a bit too long.
That also puzzles me. Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
Surely that would work just as well.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I'm surprised that the inflation rate is so low for what had to be cutting edge technology of the era. Considering that a modern music CD that costs literal pennies to press sells (or attempts to sell, considering recent sales figures) for up to twice that price I wonder what figure was used for the amount of inflation over the last century.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
He's the new 'third choice'!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
I just got done reading an article about the Economic Panic of 1873 and how that depression more closely resembles what's currently happening. This might explain why Bryan was talking about bank failures. It was still fresh in their minds.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18
McCain must be excited to hear his old wax cylinder recordings again.
There are great images from the campaign; lots of fun.
I'm sure there are, but these are audio recordings.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'm more interested in the sound bites from the future:
UTF-8: There and Back Again
The reason that a lot of the problems we're facing now happened is because of government regulation that coerced banks into giving loans to people who couldn't get them in a less regulated market. There's this asinine argument that goes like this: if the government doesn't make banks loan to minorities and the poor, then those racist bastards won't give anyone who isn't a good looking WASP male a mortgage.
Was Wall Street to blame on its own end? Absolutely. However, the usual suspects in political activism and Congress are getting away with this. People like Congressman Barney Frank, who helped force the lowered standards, are getting to stand in front of the media and blame Bush for something that started in the early 1990s! As much as I hate Bush, his economic policies are largely just a continuation of Clinton's.
And here's the irony about bank deposit insurance: by law the FDIC can never carry enough money to really bail out your bank account. It can only hold $50B in cash reserves at any one point in time. That means that they can prattle on and on about raising the limits from $100,000 to $250,000 but it's not even remotely economically feasible.
You can also find early recordings by people such as Theodore Roosevelet on Youtube, if you're bored...
Of course what they don't tell you is that most people just ripped the wax cylinders into an oral history form and passed it on that way via a peer to peer approach.
People complained that the problem with the P2P network was that you couldn't tell what was the original and what was either a bad copy or just some virus put in there by someone else to mislead people, but people in South Texas claimed it was the only way they could do it as the Wax cylinders were not available in their area due to them melting.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
but...
When i was waiting for my train, three people were coming down the escalator. I heard one kinda laughingly tell the other two, "Palin said, 'John McCain already *tapped me*'." There there was more laughter. I couldn't *help* but wonder what kind of "tapping" McCain did....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The problem is that the people who were supposed to oversee Fannie Mae are the same people that are now supporting a certain Democrat candidate for president, and it would not be beneficial for the media to expose those relationships to the public-at-large until after the election.
I don't understand how the Enron Trial is on the tip of everyone's tongue, but the media isn't calling to put these banking executive in jail for a fraud that is 10x worse!
a...
'Victrola'?
http://www.victor-victrola.com/
http://www.besmark.com/
If so, he goes waaaayyyy back.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
To a point that they now have collapsed all our banks with stupid demands for easy loans with the black nominee for president implicated in the scandal.
Wasn't McCain a delegate to the national convention that year? I think this technological feat may have helped inspire him to create the Blackberry.
Bryan was supposed to be the premier orator of his era -- his "Cross of Gold" speech brought the house down at the Democratic convention in 1896. But that recording is just a snoozefest -- admittedly, it's about banking, which is important but boring (which is no doubt one of the reasons we're in trouble today), but the rhythm is just stately and bland and blah. Maybe the experience of being in a studio rather than in front of a live, reacting crowd was so foreign that it didn't occur to him that he should be using the same oratorical techniques, and instead was just reading prepared remarks.
"Mister Taft, what is your position on young whippersnappers using Edison's sound capturing device to obtain songs of popular performers and listening to it later, not paying music admission prices? Is this the end of Music Hall?"
Really? Flash is pretty easy to use, too.
How easy? Can you use it with your eyes closed? For sake of argument, I'll allow you to have a braille display.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This is more like 60 second political ads on YouTube (which are free) than 40+ minute long CDs.
>>I heard one kinda laughingly tell the other two, "Palin said, 'John McCain already *tapped me*'."
That certainly says more about the mind of the person who insinuated such garbage than and it does about Palin.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The historical context of these two men is important. In 1908 the Democratic party wanted to teach christian principles in school (instead of evolution), and the Republican party wanted to work to ensure equal rights and opportunities for all.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
William Jenning Bryan... a Democrat. Strong supporter of prohibition, fought darwinism and was a racist.
Taft... a Republican. And the Republican Party of 1906 REMEMBERED ITS ROOTS! The party of the Abolitionists.
I wish the Republican's would acknowledge their heritage. The heritage of abolition and the abolishment of slavery. They should be proud of Lincoln!
It is completely misleading and dishonest of you to compare the purchase of $700B of yielding assets to the grating of $700B cash. They are just not the same thing.
Absolutely correct. So when you actually read the Bills before congress, and you realize they are authorizing a 11 Trillion dollar handout rather than a 700 Billion dollar purchase, you understand everything.
This is just last minute profit-taking by the Bush crony system. They presented a guaranteed-to-fail bill (which ironically almost passed due to our economically inept representation) to blow the stock market through the basement. If you check it out, you'll see that plenty of Texans and their buddies were well prepared for this crash.
If the Bush Bailout goes through, it's not quite as good for them economically because of the necessary devaluation of the dollar that will entail. That's even after the handout gets pushed into Switzerland and the Caymans. But it's great politically, because then either Obama or McCain gets to be the next Hoover, which either way is a win for the team.
Since I figured it out in advance, I get to make lots of money too. See ya in the poorhouse suckers!!
Before everybody starts talking about how wonderful William Jennings Bryan was, remember that he was a reactionary whose other positions included banning the teaching of evolution and opposition to civil rights.
Nor was he a great economist; he was the voice of the silver mining interests. To the extent that they succeeded in influencing policy, they made economic conditions worse rather than better.
Hell if I know. :)
Flash allows you to have text alternates to every element on the page, and screen readers can hook into them just like any other web plugin. As I am not blind, I do not have a screen reader, so I can't answer your question. I can tell you quite confidently that the OP did not have this as his argument.
- oZ
// i am here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/business/03sec.html
the issue is basically that there was too much regulation in 2004, and the banks were chomping at the bit to deregulate even more, to free them from rules about having enough assets on hand. by freeing them from this government regulation, this decision in 2004 paved the way for all the recent failures
i don't understand your thinking, where excesses obviously related to free market ebullience has led us into the debacle we're at today. in the 1800s, with far less government regulation, there were regular painful and crippling booms and busts related to little oversight and regulation
its kind of a weird, wishful desperate magical thinking on your part: that, in this moment that most disproves the stupidity of free market fundamentalism, free market fundamentalists blame the government and regulation for the failures of the free market
free market fundamentalists: the free market is best when it is in a sandbox. meaning, within certain parameters, the market should allowed to do their thing. however, when it ranges too far out of the sandbox, into regions of manic greed bubbles and crippling fearful busts, the government should step in and either slow things down, or keep things on life support
you can't have a healthy economy without regulation and governemtn invovlement. i'll repeat, as the howls of libertarian fools and blind market fundamentalists is too loud: you can't have a healthy economy without regulation and government invovlement
the mess we are in today is strictly and 100% explainable in terms of natural human failures in terms of greed and poor foresight. nothing the government or regulation rules are responsible for
the error in the thinking of free market fundamentalists is that everything is self-correcting. no, a free market can boom and bust itself right of existence if it is not regulated. just study the financial history of the 1800s if you don't believe me. regulation simply smooths out the hard corners, and it is absolutely necessary for a healthy economy: save us from the scarier regions of the nadir and pinnacle of natural boom and bust cycles due to simple human failures that cascade and build on each other were the market completely free
free market fundamentalism is just as stupid as communism, for equal although inverse reasons: sometimes, you need to save people from themselves, or their excesses destroy way more than their own set of mistakes. in other words, those who choose wrongly in a free market can make mistakes which hurt way more than just themselves. meaning, the free market must be protected, via government involvement, from extreme conditions that damage way more than just those who make the bad decisions
if people made decisions in free markets which alwas and exclusively hurt only themselves, free markets shouls proceed unfettered by government oversight. but they don't. so government oversight is necessary for a healthy economy
free market fundamentalists and libertarians: september 2008 is your comeuppance. the excesses we see crashing today is NOT the faul tof the government, in spite of the magical thinking of the post i am replying to. take a hard gulp, and revisit your ideology. it is flawed, your thinking and your assumptions are wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Doesn't that just go to show that both parties are essentially the same wolf in sheeps clothing?
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
We'll start off your workout with vigorous calisthenics executed in rhythmic time with acetate pressings of the new musical craze called "jazz"
Steak and eggs and eggs and steak...
from smooth wambats link."Flash is the new blink tag and must be treated as such" HA that made me laugh
MISSING - Sig file. 2 years old black and white and very funny. If found please email me.
When I diss progressives, I'm not lifting up neocons.
As a matter of fact, I see progressives and neocons as almost equally condesending, intrusive, hyprocritical, and full of bad ideas.
I see politics more like a feces covered merry-go-round. They all stink of the same shit and go in the same circles.
Palin does a fine job of making herself look stupid, she doesn't need our help. Though surprisingly she did manage to use complete English sentences in the debate.
I mean, those interviews were more than embarrassing, they were frightening. Doesn't read, or can't name specific publications. Can't name a single supreme court decision besides Roe v. Wade. Says McCain is for regulation, but can't name one specific instance. Thinks sharing a maritime border with the most desolate, uninhabited part of Russia gives her foreign affairs experience.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
My neighbor is blind. He is quite fluent with IT, but he frequently has to ask for help with flash as his screen reader only says something generic for flash elements. I don't know if this is oversight on the implementer's part or a problem with flash in general, but it can really hamstring blind people who are otherwise computer savvy.
Not nearly as ignorant as you would believe. Ever heard of the Community Reinvestment Act and its amendments? It played an important role in dropping the standards on accounting to make this problem possible. I admit that I came across as blaming only the poor and minorities in that first paragraph (such is the result of fast posting). The middle class certainly has its large share of the blame too for overspending on housing. However, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that this environment would have happened the way it did if banks didn't face the threat of legal action under the CRA if they denied someone a mortgage when that person could, *ahem*, theoretically make the payments on their current income.
What we really need is the wax cylinder that holds the speeches from John McCain's first congressional campaign. What? Oops, I guess that would be the scrolls that held the speeches. Huh? OK, the clay tablets... Really? Cave walls?
That is all.
Biden does a fine job of making himself look stupid, he doesn't need our help. Though surprisingly he did manage to cry in the debate.
I mean, those gaffs were more than embarrassing, they were frightening. Dosen't kown who the president was in the Great Depression, or know what decade TV was invented. Dosn't know what Article Two of the constitution - and he claims to be a lawyer. Says his ticket is for the Iraq war before he was against it. Thinks being wealthy and never donating to charity in the last ten years (well $300) makes him part of the common people.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
It's ignorance on the part of flash developers, just like HTML designers who don't use ALT tags on images. Adobe provides the technology, developers just don't care.
- oZ
// i am here.
Considering the limited longevity of the Edison wax cylinders, I'm surprised that they've lasted 100 years! This was a good find in deed!
The game.
. . .which to many Americans (who are, let's be honest, stupid, stupid people. . .
Wait - let me guess. Another Euro-weenie deeply bitter at the fact his people were too stupid or too scared to get on a boat.
Enjoy what's left of your dying utopia while you can, asshole.
Both of you please shut the fuck up.
Almost every poll shows Biden winning the debate, by a two to one margin. Especially among independents. Face it, all Biden needed to do was not screw up too badly. Palin needed to hit it out of the park, and she didn't. This election is in the bag for Democrats.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Besides the fact this was probably priced at cost, keep in mind that real income was much lower (around one-fourth what it is today**). People just didn't have disposable income like they do today, making this kind of purchase more costly than it appears.
(**I'm taking a stab at the one-fourth figure. You can see that real income roughly doubled in roughly 50 years here, so I guess I'm close.)
The CRA only applies to banks.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/barr021308.pdf
The CRA is only at worst 50% responsible (an additional 30% of the subprime loans were made by "affiliates" of banks, and therefore partially covered by CRA, the remaining 20% of all loans were made directly by banks... and the worst case scenario is that the regulators were there twisting the banks' arms for every single loan). The other 50% of the mortgages were irrefutably made of the originators' free will.
Secondly, the CRA doesn't call for Option ARMs or interest-only loans or giving people money with zero down or piggybacking another mortgage for the down payment or liar loans... those are entirely the invention of the banks and mortgage companies that offered them.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Hey! I see what you did there!
Being right won't earn you any karma.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Frontpage ENCOURAGES you to use alt-content for flash, even if you don't know enough to do so (in fact that's how I learned it could be done).
Dreamweaver REMOVES that alt-content, without even asking permission!!
Such was my experience when I had to work on a flash-based website. And guess which editor most flash-centric sites are built with.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
She's only really in the Democratic Party at all because she has liberal views on social issues (abortion, gay rights, etc.), but she's quite conservative on business/economic issues.
She also happens to be married to Richard C. Blum, chairman of Blum Capital Partners, who as you might suspect rather like the idea of a financial-industry bailout.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Like Phil Gramm, McCain's economic advisor, who calls people "whiners" if they think the economy is doing badly?
Heck, conservatives are most of the elite---Bush beat Kerry by huge margins among people making $200k+, even in states that Kerry otherwise won handily (he won 64-35% among that demographic in California). Rich liberals are a fairly small subset of overall rich people---even in California, conservative aerospace/defense industry, real-estate, and import/export businessmen far outnumber Hollywood actors and tech bosses.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
DO NOT let this guy hold the original recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPjTNE-lUow/
>Hmm, then how come countries with socialized medicine (ALL the rest of the first world, mind you) have longer life expectancies, lower infant death rates, and are simply better by any reasonable measure of health care bang for the buck?
You mistake population discrepancies for the effects of health care policy. Correlation is not causation. America has the worst dietary and exercise habits in the world. Lower class America also smokes like a chimney and boasts to its buddies how many cases of beer they drank over the weekend. If you separated out America by socioeconomic status, what you would see is a first world-leading country on top of a developing nation.
Anyways, I'm miffed anytime uses population averages to show how their health care system is doing. This assumes two things: 1) people give a shit what their doctor tells them (at least when they're healthy, when it is the most important) and 2) people are utilizing the health care benefits available to them. Example in point: infant mortality rates. Every researcher and their dog knows that this is linked to prenatal care of expectant mothers and good nutrition. Coincidentally, the United States gives free prenatal care, nutritional counseling and financial incentives for healthy eating to expectant mothers. The difference? Too many expectant mothers here in America don't give a shit. They'd rather keep smoking, eat their McDonald's and not go through the hassle of a doctor's appointment.
>The HMOs and insurance companies make the rules, and unless you are willing to spend a king's ransom on a decent plan, or and emperor's ransom to pay for it all yourself, you are at their mercy.
And see, this is the fallacy of health care in America. No one here seems to understand that the most important visit to a doctor is when you are healthy. My current life expectancy, based on race, gender, family history, diet, exercise, driving record and (lack of) substance abuse is 98 years old. Take charge and take care of your own body! If you need advice on how to do that, that's what a doctor is there for during your healthy checkups. It's when patients are running into the six or seven figure coverage caps on their insurance plans, the cutoffs on experimental or palliative treatments, because their body is trashed and they need a new one... that's when it's way too late. I know I'm overgeneralizing, but the point is valid. One out of fifty or a hundred might die of something other than old age, an unforeseeable accident, or something totally preventable. But that's not the vast majority of America.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Biden does a fine job of making himself look stupid, he doesn't need our help. Though surprisingly he did manage to cry in the debate...
He was speaking of his wife and daughter who were killed as I understand it.
What sort of heartless fuck are you? Will you laugh when your family is killed, or will you just not care?"
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
You are not the gadfly you think you are, and you are not the martyr you wish you were.
I am greater than that.
No, it's not what you say, it's how you say it.
Flamebait: "Hay, fatass, your fucking slip is showing, moron. Ain't you got a momma?"
Discourse: "Pardon me, miss, but your slip is showing."
Both say the same thing.
Free Martian Whores!
For those interested... Flash has had Accessibility features since version 6 and we are closing in on version 10:
http://www.usability.com.au/resources/flash.cfm
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
That she disagrees with (assuming that since the Dred Scott and Plessy v. Furgession no longer apply, she disqualified them). Quick, what decisions do you disagree with? I can think of a couple, but all the ones I know the names of are from the 70's or before, and all the ones I think of to disagree with are more contemporary (or already named).
Your ad here. Ask me how!
.
The 700 billion keeps the investment banking and credit markets from a total melt-down.
If that should happen, you, your employer, your local government, won't be able to borrow money at any price.
Those guys sound like they care about issues, and know how to give speeches, read and write. Doesn't that disqualify them from running for president?
They obviously put "flamebait" because there's no "-1, Racist" mod. Although I think "Troll" generally covers racist remarks.
You keep on thinking that, bluebie. Thinking like that is what prevented that whole "President Kerry" debacle!
Making fun of dumb people since 2009
This Taft recording is just further evidence that all the Republicans wanna do is keep the black man down.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Actually IMO both "troll" and "flamebait" are valid mods for racist remarks. According to wikipedia, it's flamebait if it's an on-topic racist remark and a troll if it's an offtopic racist remark.
There was no reason whatever to inject race into his remark. Had he said [subject] liberalism has progressed [body] "To a point that they now have collapsed all our banks with stupid demands for easy loans with the liberal nominee for president implicated in the scandal."
His stupid racist comment made it look like skin color was the reason behind the econoimic collapse, which is blatantly stupid.
I don't even know why I'm bothering responding, I guess IHBT. I'd better go back to those Biters Anonymous meetings!
Free Martian Whores!
Who was? Answer that and I'll reply to you.
I'm an educated man, and I don't know that. I do know that the Berlin Olympics was televised, so the 30's or earlier.
You mean when he accidentally refered to Article II as Article I? He understood what the article he was quoting said.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I'd bet Eclipse.
Right, because the poll numbers back then were ANYTHING like they are now. And the trend lines don't look good for Republicans. It's going to be a landslide. Republicans may have fooled the American people before, but we've woken up to your pathetic tricks now. See ya at the polls, loser!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Meanwhile, Biden says crazy shit like Americans were huddled around their TV sets in 1929 to hear the president talk about the Great Depression, or tells Chuck Graham to stand up and applaud, or claims his helicopter was "forced down" by terrorists when it was actually the weather.
Republicans are held to a higher level of scrutiny and mocking. You won't see late-night punchlines about Joe Bidens history of gaffes (remember when he said you couldn't go into a 7-11 without hearing an Indian accent? A Republican could never get away with saying that).
"Sufferin' succotash."
Almost every poll!
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(on DailyKos...)
It is not "in the bag" for Democrats. Kerry fans thought the same thing four years ago. Even the exit polls showed Kerry with the lead on election day. Americans don't elect liberal presidents, and Obama is one of the most liberal senators in America.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Back in the day more people had respect for a man showing the most raw emotions that we all feel at one point or another, and time does very little to deaden the loss of people near and dear to your heart (I cannot fathom just how great a loss a wife and daughter would be). It's a shame that Bidens heartfelt moment on stage is ridiculed by sad individuals such as yourself who thinks everyone should be stone-cold, and if they aren't they're some kind of sissy or just trying to get sympathy votes.
I'll tell you this right now, nobody is voting for the Obama/Biden ticket because of that emotional slip, if it did anything it harmed the ticket because of the emotionally-dead state most of this nation is living in. Why you insist on claiming this man is just letting out crocodile tears is bewildering, and I don't need to ask, I know what kind of heartless fuck you are. You probably think that Abraham Lincoln was a big baby, but that's OK, because it's not like anyone needs your validation anyways, prick.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
Could be; things do change rapidly in sitebuilding tools, and I haven't paid much attention in the past year or two. Whatever tools are presently being used don't usually ID-tag the page source.
I'd still like to hurt 'em, tho... increasingly, without flash you can't even get into a site. They want both latest and greatest, and don't even bother with a skip-to-navigation link. Bah, I just go elsewhere. Ain't nothing online I need that bad.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
You might want to check into the fanniemae problem before you open your mouth again.
Just keep telling yourself that. Your posts reek of right wing desperation.
Can you show me any poll that DOESN'T show Biden winning? I'm talking ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN... what polls are you seeing?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
While almost every poll shows Biden winning the debate, they also pretty much universally show that Palin exceeded expectations much more so than Biden. In that regard, it was a win for the Republicans.
If you consider that there were many Americans who went into that debate thinking that they'd like to Vote for McCain, but couldn't on the possible chance that a 72-76 year old would keel over and die and we'd be left with Palin who would make the Bush years seem like an enlightened era. But with her performance, she's upgraded her status from "can't construct sentences" to "wholly unqualified" in many people's eyes. And that frees them up to vote for McCain if they feel he'd make the better president.
I'd say that in this election, more than any other that I've been alive to see, the issue of the vice president's competency is important. Normally, the VP does very little, and that wouldn't much change for the two VP candidates. But with one candidate being 72 years old and the other candidate being an African-American (nothing against him personally, but there are a lot of racist nut-jobs out there that could resort to violence rather than live with having a black President), the importance of who would take over the office of President in the event of the elected President's death will factor into people's decision making.
And in that regard, Palin did well enough that she may be considered, if not yet an asset to McCain, at least not a large a liability as she seemed to be going into the debate.
1st guy: Interesting accent. Kind of a cross between british and dutch, might say something about the origins of certain parts of current american society. 2nd guy: Some say he's "condescending" about black people but what I find interesting is that he A) is a republican and B) sounds like he genuinely cares. When did this change?
We're all comparing this to the Great Depression.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Unfortunately, Troll covers them even if those racist remarks are absolutely true.
Yeah because republicans always get reamed by the media when they say stupid and offensive things. Why don't we stop pretending that Republicans get all the flak while Democrats get off without even a warning?
Do things slip through the cracks with regards to mainstream media reporting things? Of course, nobody is going to argue that. But to pretend one party has been issued a pass while the other is being heckled at every step is just ridiculous. Hell, it wasn't even too long ago that the media couldn't shut up about that Reverend everyone kept hearing so much of, and that supposed tape of Michelle Obama yelling about "whitey".
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
While we're at it, McCain authored a similar regulation in the Senate in 2005, yet he's somehow being blamed for the lack of regulations that caused the mortgage failures.
Chuck Hagel's the original sponsor of the bill, McCain wasn't on the list of 2005 cosponsors, so I don't think he can have a reasonable claim to authorship. He did become a cosponsor sometime after the bill got stuck in committee, for which he probably deserves some credit.
He's probably getting hammered for his support of Gramm-sponsored deregulation legislation. Not that he's by any means alone in this, so it's somewhat unfair, though he is more than casually connected with Gramm, so it's hard to say.
In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.
There's a distinction here that's important to understand. FM/FM played a role in the problems, but most of that appears to have been overleveraging based on implied guarantees from the government and investment in overrated CDOs like every other private institution that's in trouble -- *not* their involvement in CRA loans, which were fully-underwritten and whose recipients definitely had to show ability to repay. As far as I've seen, CRA loans actually have a higher repayment rate and lower default rate than general commercial lending over the last 10 years.
Tweet, tweet.
People think that conservatives are anti-intellectual, which isn't necessarily the case. It's that they're anti-elitism.
That's fine as far as it goes, but the question is -- where does a lack of respect for real elite achievements begin?
When you're going in for surgery, are you going to be anti-elite?
The school district where I grew up put in a math program that was utterly and completely worthless. Math scores tanked, parents complained, and it was hard to believe that even 30% of the parents supported the new math program. However, the district stuck to their guns because some college professors thought it was the best thing in the world.
Anybody who understand that practical results matter more than expert advice is exhibiting common sense. I don't think most people are going to argue otherwise. I get really, really nervous, however, when people start to question whether expertise is important at all -- or the idea that looking towards expertise is "elitism."
Fortunately, there's signs that this isn't actually so much a conservative philosophy as it is a convenient tool for discarding expert advice that you don't want to believe, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. And there's plenty of evidence that the accomplished and wealthy are happy to support conservative politics as well as liberal.
Tweet, tweet.
This is what you claim is a lie. It can be broken down to:
(1) There are people who claim the unrestricted right to abortion.
http://www.publicagenda.org/discussion-guides/supporting-abortion-rights
PERSPECTIVE IN DETAIL
compare with other perspectives
What Should be Done?
# Pass laws guaranteeing a woman's unrestricted right to abortion.
It would be trivially easy to find other links supporting this, but there is no need, that part of what I said is demonstrated to be true.
(2) pregnancy is a known consequence of sex.
Obviously true.
(3) It is possible by various methods to eliminate or reduce the possibility of pregnancy (have other than vaginal sex, contraceptives, etc. Some are more certain than others). Therefore a woman has the ability to not be pregnant without having access to abortion
Obviously true.
(4) Abortion is a way of terminating a pregnancy, that is it "negates the natural and preventable consequence of sex".
That's what abortion is, it is the whole point of it. Again, obviously true.
Well, that's the entirety of my statement, I don't see a lie there at all. Now I grant that pro-choicers don't phrase it the way I have, but that is what the "unrestricted right to abortion" amounts to and most pro-choicers wouldn't even really dispute it. What they would contend is that a fetus does not have human rights and therefore it is quite ok to terminate it. I admit there are intelligent arguments in favor of this view, even though I don't agree that we should approach the issue that way in the law. However, women who aren't raped or some similar circumstance outside their control have the ability to avoid pregnancy even without abortion. Every other method requires you to make the decision before sex, abortion enables you to make the decision after.
You made the accusation that I'm lying, you can't back it up, so shut up.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Uh, so there's a guaranteed 100% effective means of birth control? Besides not having sex at all?
Anal sex, oral sex, mutual masturbation, hysterectomy. Abstinence is an option. I don't like wasting my time though, so I won't be attempting to impose that on anyone, not being partial to it myself anyway. Some people do seem to take that path though, so let's not pretend it isn't an available choice. Certainly let's not pretend that abortion is the only way a woman can choose whether or not to be pregnant. It may be some women's preferred choice, but it's not the only one. The defining differences of abortion as a choice (in the case of women that become pregnant as a result of consensual sex) are that the decision to not be pregnant can be made after the pregnancy rather than before the sexual activity and that vaginal sex can be had without consequence of full-term pregnancy. So it provides choice in the case of people who lack forethought or want the activity of vaginal sex without any consequence of pregnancy. I've never seen anything that convinced me of that being a fundamental human rights issue. Now people could argue on the right or wrongness of that, fine, right to free speech and all, but the AC accused me of lying which was unjustified.
And what about grey area rape? He pushed the issue; she lacked the will to walk away because she's lonely and fucked up?
She had the ability to choose, that's all I said. If she truly didn't have the ability to choose then that is covered adequately by my statement that you quoted "However, women who aren't raped or some similar circumstance outside their control have the ability to avoid pregnancy even without abortion."
I could spout a hundred other scenarios that reflect on life.
None of which I was giving an opinion on, as I clearly stated.
So, black and white. Gotta love those minimalist reasoning skills.
Yes, I've just been so black and white. Like acknowledging circumstances not covered by the points I made [referenced above] and acknowledging there is something to the opposing view. I admit there are intelligent arguments in favor of this view, even though I don't agree that we should approach the issue that way in the law. Is it minimalist reasoning skills, to deal with one particular point of an issue without trying to apply that point to every circumstance? To oppose the labelling of each other? To reason that choice is available without abortion?
I'm tempted to be very rude.
Why? Doesn't that reflect more poorly on you than on me?
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
The talking point being thrown around is that she "exceeded expectations", which I don't disagree with. But this isn't the second grade, where everyone is a winner and Palin gets the "Most Improved Award". This was the VP debate, the future of the nation is at stake, and I'm rather tired of people giving Palin participation points just for showing up. The fact is that Biden soundly defeated her, which was obvious to anyone who watched the debate, and that's what the polls show (well, except perhaps at Free Republic or something).
I don't disagree with you about the Democrats. Their attitude helped them lose the 2004 election which should have been an easy win for them, and I don't put it past them to screw this one up too (voting irregularities in the swing states aside).
abortion, gay agenda, gun confiscation, etc.
She's terrifying to republicans.
Her support for bunsiness is totally centered
around the entertainment industry (movies, music).
That's generally a democrat thing.
The new new math really is a democrat/libral thing.
To hide the fact that certain unfairly favored
groups of people (darker skin or non-English)
frequently have trouble with math, we make math
into some kind of feel-good fuzzy mess with no
right answers.
We ask math questions that can be answered only
with guess-and-check methods, at least without
fancy PhD-level stuff. We ask kids to write
about their "favorite" number. We don't teach
how to really manipulate numbers. We have kids
using 1st-grade tools like counting sticks in
middle school or even high school. We pretend
to teach advanced stuff (statistics, fractals,
vector calculus) with a treatment that is
superficial, incomplete, and confusing.
Typically this is called "constructionism" or
"constructivism", but proponents of those ideas
often try to wiggle away when this is pointed out.
(claiming that the new-new-math people are
doing it wrongly or are otherwise not real)
Suppose we put aside a huge chunk of money for
a period of 40 to 80 years. We then decide to
use it. (as you're suggesting for social security)
That works if your definition of "huge" is on
a personal scale. You can invest over the years,
then make use of the money.
That doesn't work if your definition of "huge"
is on a national scale. The economy reacts when
you suddenly want to use the money. When a bunch
of unproductive (elderly) people suddenly spend
money, you have a problem. You might as well
just be running the printing presses to make
more money.
I like how they explained how things where going to work with the banking system. Seem very scientific, try idea on small scale then move idea to a larger scale or take successful small idea and expand it to a larger group. Now day you hear a lot of hand waving, and promises without sound reasoning or successful examples.
people will do it regardless of whether it's legal or not, but if it's legal it will be safer
I don't see what that has to do with whether anti-choice is an appropriate label for the pro-life movement. As I said regarding my own post: That is not an anti-abortion argument, it's a "anti-incorrect labelling of people who disagree" argument.
Since you bring it up though: If it was decided that abortion should be illegal, it could only really be on the basis that we had decided to extend legal protection of human rights to the unborn. In that case, it would be regarded as murder or some similar violation of the criminal code. If that was so "people do it anyway" ceases to be a justification for legalisation as we don't accept that reasoning for murder, robbery or any other crime. "It is safer" would be invalid as any successful abortion would be regarded to have resulted in a fatality, rather like a "safe" execution. So if we don't give legal protection of human rights to the unborn, your argument is unnecessary, if we do it is inadequate.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/