Though this doesn't conclusively show that Bush wins, since neither candidate would receive the minimum requirement of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
It comes close enough, since the House picks the winner from the top three candidates if none get 270, and the House is (and was) dominated by the GOP.
I lived most of my life, 20 years, in SE Mass. And most people there only vote Democratic because they historically do. Also, no one with a brain can honestly believe Bush doesn't know who is on the Supreme Court, while it is pretty clear Kerry has his head up his ass about the Sox. Besides, again, I was using hyperbole, obviously.
Moving glyphs on the same line up and down? Bull. Show me or retract.
Yes, and no, look it up yourself.
Well, I criticised you on what you had said
Yes, I realize now that you are severely lacking in the ability to determine when someone is being serious, even when it is patently obvious to most everyone else they are not.
Says you, but you're not running the Kerry campaign.
Yes, says me. Next.
It fails to address my point, which is that you seem to be getting all your info from anti-Kerry sources, and that makes you seem ignorant.
Which anti-Kerry source would that be? Meet the Press? CNN? PBS News Hour? That's where I get almost all of my information, when I am not getting it from primary sources. To say I get most, let alone all, of my information from anti-Kerry sources shows you to be profoundly stupid, not in that you would think it, but in that you would pretend you could know it.
But hey, the whole Bush Cheney campaign is based on exactly that approach
Yes, and so is the Kerry campaign. Whoop de do.
The debate comments you cited are consistent with Kerry's senate floor stand:
But INconsistent with what he says NOW. How are you not getting this? He said it was the right decision to invade. Now he says it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those two positions cannot be reconciled, they are polar opposites. You are completely missing the point by not comparing what he said in May 2003 to what he says now, which is what *I* have been talking about.
You said he did not call the invasion the right decision. He clearly did say that, directly. And now he says it was the wrong war.
Given your stand changing one's mind, how do you explain this giant Cheney flip-flop on the war in Iraq.
There isn't one. He did not favor invasion given the circumstances in 1992. The circumstances in 2002 were different. The Bush people tried the same thing with Kerry: he voted against authorization in 1991, and for it in 2002. But they were different circumstances, and it's unreasonable to call that a "flip-flop."
Look, listen, and understand: Cheney's two positions were about two different situations: whether Saddam was worth many American lives in 1992, vs. 2002. Kerry's were about the exact same situation: whether the March 2003 invasion was the right decision, or the wrong war. I don't see how you can't consider that a significant difference between the two.
When you're done excusing Cheney's flip-flop, why don't you address Bush's?
There's only one "flip flop" mentioned in that story (it's confusing because the headline mentions multiples), and yes, before 9/11, Bush was against nation building. I was too. Now he is for it when our national security is at stake, and I am too.
This is, again, having two different positions based on two different sets of circumstances. But Kerry's two positions are about the same circumstances.
If Kerry comes out and says, "I was wrong to say it was the right decision, it was not, it was the wrong one," then fine, he changed his mind. But he is not doing that. I would not call him a flip-flopper in regard to this if he did that. Of course, he can't do that, because then we have to question everything he said about the war at the time, and he has to explain why he said "my position has not changed" scores of times over the last few months.
Uh... huh? Is there some rule against using hyperbole?
Thats your opinion about his record, however, the fact is he *does* have a record, therefore he *has* done something, so whether its "said" or "done", the implication is still false.
Uh... huh? Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. There was no false implication. Do you speakee zee Eenglish?
Ok, maybe not you specifically, but I *have* heard people (here in politics.slashdot.org) say Kerry "has nothing to say", and "can only talk about Vietnam". Those are completely false
Well, I didn't say them, but those are clearly intended to be hyperbole as well. There is nothing wrong with hyperbole.
Kerry said the war was the right decision, when it was made.
I simply don't believe that is true
Sigh.
If these comments by Kerry on the Senate floor during the debate on war authorization are correct, then a lot people agreed with him.
I am not talking about the vote for war, but the decision to go to actually go to war, which Kerry specifically agreed with.
Kerry believed that war may be necessary, but he NEVER agreed with how Bush eventually prosecuted the war.
Except that he did, quite clearly and succinctly. He had one caveat -- he wished we took more time to allow inspections to work -- but he agreed with the invasion. He called it the right decision. Read the other comment I posted on the subject, where he is quoted, fully, in context, with the question that was asked.
I think a lot of people, like you, are forgetting that the rabidly anti-war candidates LOST to Kerry in the Democratic primaries.
You think wrong. I didn't forget that at all.
Democrats believed, AT THE TIME, that a harslhly anti-war candidate would not be able to defeat Bush, so they went with the "moderate", the one who agreed with the principle of the use of force in this circumstance, but not with the way Bush actually applied the use of force. Now you and I have the benefit of hindsight today, but neither Kerry nor the Democrats had it then.
But I am not complaining about what Kerry said during the primaries. I am complaining about how he changed after the primaries concluded. He changed from being the pro-war candidate who disagreed with how we went to war, to being the anti-war candidate who calls it the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time (the very line Dean used *to rebut Kerry* when Kerry called it the right decision!).
So what you see as a flip-flop, does not look like a flip-flop to me, given the sequence of events, and what we did and didn't know at the time.
No, you are talking about something completely different from what I am talking about.:-)
You are implying Kerry is weak because he didn't take the radical stance at the time
I implied no such thing, and do not agree with that statement at all.
Consider this: What if there HAD been WMDs there?
I never believed there were significant WMD. After Powell's speech, my liberal anti-war friends said Oh, maybe he does have WMD! My reaction at the time was similar to the President's, as recorded in Woodward's book: "this is the best we've got?" Leading up to the war in February and March, I was telling people even if there are not WMD, it doesn't matter, because the primary justification for war is that he is not cooperating with inspectors, so therefore we cannot be sure he has no WMD, and hence force is warranted; but I knew that Bush would pay a big political price regardless. I was exactly right about WMD.
What if Bush had changed his mind and sought UN support?
Which would you rather have, a President who didn't know his hometown baseball stars, or a President who didn't know who was on the Supreme Court?
You must not know very many Red Sox fans, because the answer is obvious, and it is not what you think.
I seriously think there's not enough information to draw a firm conclusion, and that's what I wrote.
And I seriously think this shows you have not been paying attention.
My point is that no reputable expert is going to swear beyond the shadow of a doubt based solely on 150 DPI faxes.
They will swear beyond *reasonable* doubt, as many of them have done. We've had what, nearly a month now, and no one has produced a machine that could have possibly produced these memos, and yet if you type them on Word with the default settings, it comes out perfect (modulo the crummy fax resolution). That's beyond reasonable doubt.
the standard in a criminal trial is beyond the shadow of a doubt
Whoops, no. Reasonable doubt, not shadow of a doubt.
It looks to me like some of the instances of the same glyph are higher or lower than others. Typewriters; especially worn ones, strike at varying heights.
And faxes can cause the same effect.
But on a 20:1 bet, I'd put up $10 to say they're valid against your $200 claiming they're false. Would you take that bet? How about 100:1?
If I were a betting man, absolutely.
Flat out false
I was using hyperbole. The point was that Kerry has not even run significantly on his own Senate record, so of course the criticisms of Kerry will be primarily about what he has *said*.
You've clearly been getting most of your information from anti- Kerry sources
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Read the other reply I just wrote for more information.
Most observers consider Iraq to be the most substantive issue of the campaign.
You have the same problem understanding conjunctions as the other respondent.
False
True. Kerry has completely reversed his opinion of whether Iraq was right or wrong.
Kerry didn't say 'the invasion was "the right decision,"' he said giving Bush the authorization was "the right decision."
That is absolutely false, and you should be embarrassed. From May 2003 debate:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Kerry, the first question goes to you. On March 19th, President Bush ordered General Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?
SENATOR JOHN KERRY (D-MA): George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
He was not talking about the vote he made, but the actual decision to "execute the invasion of Iraq."
As to why Kerry voted the way he did for the invasion, I know. I actually heard his speech on the floor at the time. He favored Biden-Lugar, but supported the authority because of what Blix himself said: that the threat of force was an important tool to force compliance. But this is not what Kerry was talking about here.
More of the Big Lie machine... Just because the Rabid Right says Kerry "hasn't said anything" doesn't make it true.
I never said he hasn't said anything. I said he hasn't *done* anything. And of course that's hyperbole, but the fact is that Kerry doesn't have much of a record in the Senate. If he did, he would run on his record in the Senate, but he mostly runs on what he says and thinks, and what he did in Vietnam, and not what he did in the Senate.
It is in your interest to keep the argument on something like Vietnam
I do not do that. I do not argue about Vietnam, and on my journal I have threatened to ban people (by Foe'ing them) for arguing about Vietnam. You don't know what you're talking about; your criticism is misplaced.
Its the *Right* who keeps screaming that Kerry "hasn't said anything" when in fact he has said all sorts of things about the economy, Iraq, our relations with the world and the UN, etc, in his stump speaches, which I'll bet $10 you haven't heard (yea, like Fox News is ever going to be really Fair and Balanced(TM)(BS)
I've never heard anyone say Kerry hasn't said anything. I have heard them say he doesn't have much of a plan to DO anything, which I largely agree with. For example, his plan in Iraq is the exact same as Bush's (he enumerated four points in his speech last Monday, all of them things Bush is already doing).
As to the economy, he has various plans, but none of them amount to a very big idea. It's more spending and no significant tax cuts (the majority of people will have taxes stay exactly the same), which will liklely drive us further into debt.
In regard to offshoring, it's similar. He says he will cut tax breaks for offshoring, but the tax breaks he has actually railed against -- the tax *credits* -- he has no plan to change. Instead, he would remove tax deferrals, which don't have much-if-any of an impact on offshoring to begin with.
He does have a more significant plan in regard to health care, granted, but it is a plan that I think moves us further in the wrong direction: it does nothing significant to curb costs, and instead just makes the taxpayers pay for people who can't. It does allow the government to negotiate prices, but that's no guarantee of any significantly reduced costs, and it won't bring costs down for the people and companies who aren't being paid for by the government (i.e., most of us).
As to not hearing his speeches: dude, again, you have no idea what you're talking about. I've heard more from both candidates than probably any three people you know combined. I'm a politics junkie. I watch PBS News Hour every night, and all the major Sunday shows on the weekend, and I watch all the debates and conventions, and I usually catch Inside Politics every day, in addition to all the news I read on a daily basis. And I almost never watch Fox News.
I got another $10 that says Kerry in the debates doesn't bring up Vietnam unless as a reference to the character assasinations launched against him over his service.
He probably won't; since the SBVT issue died down, Kerry has avoided talking about Vietnam. It was up to that point that he talked about Vietnam in pretty much every speech.
ROFL!!!!!
Hrm? Do you think I was saying what Bush has done in Iraq is not a substantive issue? Let me introduce you to a grammar concept called "conjunctions." I was saying I don't see how you can think A and *not* think B, at the same time. Taking one part of it is unreasonable and is out of context. Please learn to read, KTHX.
More of the Big Lie Machine [blogcritics.org].
You can say that, but you can't argue it, because you won't win. Kerry said the war was the right decision, when it was made. Now he says it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Kerry said we should spend more money in Iraq. Now he says we are spending too much.
I've met some of those, yes, and they overwhelmingly support Bush (though I know some do not, of course). Again, this is just my personal experience, as I said.
Remember, the parties don't have any special access to private information. I would expect that everything in this database was pulled from data in the public record.
Close. It is public information, plus whatever information you choose to provide, mostly having to do with your political preferences. It's really not that big a deal. It's not merely used for knowing where to concentrate efforts, but who to concentrate efforts on (which voters you should call before election day to remind them to come out and vote). And it's no big secret... I have access to it.
That's not to say the data in there is not valuable, but its value is in how it is collected together in one place and how it is able to be used, more than in the individual data for each person in the database.
The overwhelming majority of veterans, families, and soldiers (in and out of Iraq) that I've met are Bush supporters. I find this "what do you say to the families" question to be extraordinarily condescending, as if this moron knows better than the families who support Bush do.
Re:Questionable origins of the "Eddie Yost" story
on
Football Fans For Truth
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
First, jeez, lighten up. Anyone who would put this much thought into the actual truth of the story has some issues. It's a joke. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, but either way, it's funny.
Second, we know Kerry doesn't even the names of the two star hitters on the Red Sox, thinking they are one person. That's far worse than thinking Yost played for the Sox, even if it is not true.
Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that they are forgeries. Any criminal jury would have returned a quick verdict on this one. There is no open question remaining, except who did it. The only people saying they still believe they are authentic are Burkett and CBS: CBS' own experts, the secretary from the base, Killian's family and colleagues from the base, all say it is not real. If you put half the effort into investigating the memos as you have the Yost story, you would know they are forgeries.
Fourth, of course the criticisms about Kerry are about what he says, because he hasn't done anything. Kerry himself rarely talks about what he has done (except in Vietnam), because there's nothing there of interest. Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue, but the fact that Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq is not (e.g., the invasion was "the right decision" in May 2003, but now it is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"). How is this not substantive, when he might be taking over responsibility for the war, and we don't know where he stands on it?
Fifth, there's nothing unpatriotic about having some fun and making jokes. You're humourless, and that is your problem, not ours.
Who cares what Carter thinks or says? In our last two wars he has undermined our efforts, both before and during the war. In 1991, he even secretly wrote to the UN Security Council members to tell them to not support Bush's effort to liberate Kuwait. Carter thinks our State Department -- run by Colin Powell -- is racist.
While we are on the subject of elections in Florida, the OSCE -- the international group supposedly monitoring elections in the US this year -- is run by a left-win Democrat who was impeached as a judge in the 80s, on corruption charges. Yippee.
Right. They have monitored US elections before, and this is not a legislated act.
And what's more is they have absoultely no authority.
Elections are run by state governments. The State Dept. cannot order the states to cooperate with the OSCE. In fact, Florida officials already said the OSCE is free to monitor the elections... from outside the polling places, like anyone else. This is really a non-story.
But it's still there, and Bush, Ashcroft et al. are using it as the word of God.... If Jesus were president, would he ban homosexual marriage?
I don't understand any of this, really. I've never heard them invoke the Old Testament in regard to this issue, and I've never heard them say homosexual marriage should be banned because homosexuality is sinful. I really don't understand where this is coming from.
Yes, and? The apostle Paul -- who wrote most of the New Testament -- said much of the Mosaic Law no longer applied. Heck, he fought against many of the Jews in the early church who wanted to force the newly believing Gentiles to follow that Mosaic Law, eventually convincing Peter -- one of Jesus' closest friends, and the first Pope -- that Gentile believers didn't need to be circumcised, despite it being commaned in the Old Testament.
This was 2000 years ago, and yet there are still people like you who don't get it. Or you're just being a troll. I am not inclined to continue this pointless conversation with someone who is woefully uninformed or just picking a dumb fight.
As others noted, this has no bearing on anything, since Bush is not a Jew, but a Christian. You might as well ask Bush why he doesn't strictly adhere to the Articles of Confederation.
There's some question on Gulf War II- whether it was actual authorization or whether it was only authorization to allow the President to make his case.
No, there is no question of this. The bill, signed in October 2002, authorized the President to use military force, explicitly.
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
There was a question for whether this bill SHOULD authorize military force, but require the President to come back to Congress before using force. But that was decided against.
There is simply no question but that Congress authorized the President to use force against Iraq.
Yeah, this has to be the dumbest story I've seen in awhile. Especially since Congress did approve the war. Tod Landis wrote, "Before 1950, no President or member of Congress believed that the executive branch could wage war without debate in Congress, when such debate was possible." But we know the Congress did debate it, and most of Congress voted for it (including Kerry), and it was passed. This is just retarded.
IT salaries have more than kept pace with inflation. So have the rest of wages, overall, since Bush took office. However, real wages are the same now as they were in November 2001, but only because of the recent inflation in oil prices. This is normal: nominal wages don't keep pace with sudden shifts in inflation. If not for that shift, wages would be up just fine. And nominal wages do not, and should not, increase to compensate for that sudden shift.
Slashdot Mirror
Though this doesn't conclusively show that Bush wins, since neither candidate would receive the minimum requirement of 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
It comes close enough, since the House picks the winner from the top three candidates if none get 270, and the House is (and was) dominated by the GOP.
Evidence, please?
I lived most of my life, 20 years, in SE Mass. And most people there only vote Democratic because they historically do. Also, no one with a brain can honestly believe Bush doesn't know who is on the Supreme Court, while it is pretty clear Kerry has his head up his ass about the Sox. Besides, again, I was using hyperbole, obviously.
Moving glyphs on the same line up and down? Bull. Show me or retract.
Yes, and no, look it up yourself.
Well, I criticised you on what you had said
Yes, I realize now that you are severely lacking in the ability to determine when someone is being serious, even when it is patently obvious to most everyone else they are not.
Says you, but you're not running the Kerry campaign.
Yes, says me. Next.
It fails to address my point, which is that you seem to be getting all your info from anti-Kerry sources, and that makes you seem ignorant.
Which anti-Kerry source would that be? Meet the Press? CNN? PBS News Hour? That's where I get almost all of my information, when I am not getting it from primary sources. To say I get most, let alone all, of my information from anti-Kerry sources shows you to be profoundly stupid, not in that you would think it, but in that you would pretend you could know it.
But hey, the whole Bush Cheney campaign is based on exactly that approach
Yes, and so is the Kerry campaign. Whoop de do.
The debate comments you cited are consistent with Kerry's senate floor stand:
But INconsistent with what he says NOW. How are you not getting this? He said it was the right decision to invade. Now he says it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those two positions cannot be reconciled, they are polar opposites. You are completely missing the point by not comparing what he said in May 2003 to what he says now, which is what *I* have been talking about.
You said he did not call the invasion the right decision. He clearly did say that, directly. And now he says it was the wrong war.
Given your stand changing one's mind, how do you explain this giant Cheney flip-flop on the war in Iraq.
There isn't one. He did not favor invasion given the circumstances in 1992. The circumstances in 2002 were different. The Bush people tried the same thing with Kerry: he voted against authorization in 1991, and for it in 2002. But they were different circumstances, and it's unreasonable to call that a "flip-flop."
Look, listen, and understand: Cheney's two positions were about two different situations: whether Saddam was worth many American lives in 1992, vs. 2002. Kerry's were about the exact same situation: whether the March 2003 invasion was the right decision, or the wrong war. I don't see how you can't consider that a significant difference between the two.
When you're done excusing Cheney's flip-flop, why don't you address Bush's?
There's only one "flip flop" mentioned in that story (it's confusing because the headline mentions multiples), and yes, before 9/11, Bush was against nation building. I was too. Now he is for it when our national security is at stake, and I am too.
This is, again, having two different positions based on two different sets of circumstances. But Kerry's two positions are about the same circumstances.
If Kerry comes out and says, "I was wrong to say it was the right decision, it was not, it was the wrong one," then fine, he changed his mind. But he is not doing that. I would not call him a flip-flopper in regard to this if he did that. Of course, he can't do that, because then we have to question everything he said about the war at the time, and he has to explain why he said "my position has not changed" scores of times over the last few months.
If you know its hyperbole then why say it?
... huh? Is there some rule against using hyperbole?
... huh? Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration that is not meant to be taken literally. There was no false implication. Do you speakee zee Eenglish?
:-)
Uh
Thats your opinion about his record, however, the fact is he *does* have a record, therefore he *has* done something, so whether its "said" or "done", the implication is still false.
Uh
Ok, maybe not you specifically, but I *have* heard people (here in politics.slashdot.org) say Kerry "has nothing to say", and "can only talk about Vietnam". Those are completely false
Well, I didn't say them, but those are clearly intended to be hyperbole as well. There is nothing wrong with hyperbole.
Kerry said the war was the right decision, when it was made.
I simply don't believe that is true
Sigh.
If these comments by Kerry on the Senate floor during the debate on war authorization are correct, then a lot people agreed with him.
I am not talking about the vote for war, but the decision to go to actually go to war, which Kerry specifically agreed with.
Kerry believed that war may be necessary, but he NEVER agreed with how Bush eventually prosecuted the war.
Except that he did, quite clearly and succinctly. He had one caveat -- he wished we took more time to allow inspections to work -- but he agreed with the invasion. He called it the right decision. Read the other comment I posted on the subject, where he is quoted, fully, in context, with the question that was asked.
I think a lot of people, like you, are forgetting that the rabidly anti-war candidates LOST to Kerry in the Democratic primaries.
You think wrong. I didn't forget that at all.
Democrats believed, AT THE TIME, that a harslhly anti-war candidate would not be able to defeat Bush, so they went with the "moderate", the one who agreed with the principle of the use of force in this circumstance, but not with the way Bush actually applied the use of force. Now you and I have the benefit of hindsight today, but neither Kerry nor the Democrats had it then.
But I am not complaining about what Kerry said during the primaries. I am complaining about how he changed after the primaries concluded. He changed from being the pro-war candidate who disagreed with how we went to war, to being the anti-war candidate who calls it the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time (the very line Dean used *to rebut Kerry* when Kerry called it the right decision!).
So what you see as a flip-flop, does not look like a flip-flop to me, given the sequence of events, and what we did and didn't know at the time.
No, you are talking about something completely different from what I am talking about.
You are implying Kerry is weak because he didn't take the radical stance at the time
I implied no such thing, and do not agree with that statement at all.
Consider this: What if there HAD been WMDs there?
I never believed there were significant WMD. After Powell's speech, my liberal anti-war friends said Oh, maybe he does have WMD! My reaction at the time was similar to the President's, as recorded in Woodward's book: "this is the best we've got?" Leading up to the war in February and March, I was telling people even if there are not WMD, it doesn't matter, because the primary justification for war is that he is not cooperating with inspectors, so therefore we cannot be sure he has no WMD, and hence force is warranted; but I knew that Bush would pay a big political price regardless. I was exactly right about WMD.
What if Bush had changed his mind and sought UN support?
You must not know very many Red Sox fans, because the answer is obvious, and it is not what you think.
I seriously think there's not enough information to draw a firm conclusion, and that's what I wrote.
And I seriously think this shows you have not been paying attention.
My point is that no reputable expert is going to swear beyond the shadow of a doubt based solely on 150 DPI faxes.
They will swear beyond *reasonable* doubt, as many of them have done. We've had what, nearly a month now, and no one has produced a machine that could have possibly produced these memos, and yet if you type them on Word with the default settings, it comes out perfect (modulo the crummy fax resolution). That's beyond reasonable doubt.
the standard in a criminal trial is beyond the shadow of a doubt
Whoops, no. Reasonable doubt, not shadow of a doubt.
It looks to me like some of the instances of the same glyph are higher or lower than others. Typewriters; especially worn ones, strike at varying heights.
And faxes can cause the same effect.
But on a 20:1 bet, I'd put up $10 to say they're valid against your $200 claiming they're false. Would you take that bet? How about 100:1?
If I were a betting man, absolutely.
Flat out false
I was using hyperbole. The point was that Kerry has not even run significantly on his own Senate record, so of course the criticisms of Kerry will be primarily about what he has *said*.
You've clearly been getting most of your information from anti- Kerry sources
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Read the other reply I just wrote for more information.
Most observers consider Iraq to be the most substantive issue of the campaign.
You have the same problem understanding conjunctions as the other respondent.
False
True. Kerry has completely reversed his opinion of whether Iraq was right or wrong.
Kerry didn't say 'the invasion was "the right decision,"' he said giving Bush the authorization was "the right decision."
That is absolutely false, and you should be embarrassed. From May 2003 debate:He was not talking about the vote he made, but the actual decision to "execute the invasion of Iraq."
As to why Kerry voted the way he did for the invasion, I know. I actually heard his speech on the floor at the time. He favored Biden-Lugar, but supported the authority because of what Blix himself said: that the threat of force was an important tool to force compliance. But this is not what Kerry was talking about here.
More of the Big Lie machine... Just because the Rabid Right says Kerry "hasn't said anything" doesn't make it true.
I never said he hasn't said anything. I said he hasn't *done* anything. And of course that's hyperbole, but the fact is that Kerry doesn't have much of a record in the Senate. If he did, he would run on his record in the Senate, but he mostly runs on what he says and thinks, and what he did in Vietnam, and not what he did in the Senate.
It is in your interest to keep the argument on something like Vietnam
I do not do that. I do not argue about Vietnam, and on my journal I have threatened to ban people (by Foe'ing them) for arguing about Vietnam. You don't know what you're talking about; your criticism is misplaced.
Its the *Right* who keeps screaming that Kerry "hasn't said anything" when in fact he has said all sorts of things about the economy, Iraq, our relations with the world and the UN, etc, in his stump speaches, which I'll bet $10 you haven't heard (yea, like Fox News is ever going to be really Fair and Balanced(TM)(BS)
I've never heard anyone say Kerry hasn't said anything. I have heard them say he doesn't have much of a plan to DO anything, which I largely agree with. For example, his plan in Iraq is the exact same as Bush's (he enumerated four points in his speech last Monday, all of them things Bush is already doing).
As to the economy, he has various plans, but none of them amount to a very big idea. It's more spending and no significant tax cuts (the majority of people will have taxes stay exactly the same), which will liklely drive us further into debt.
In regard to offshoring, it's similar. He says he will cut tax breaks for offshoring, but the tax breaks he has actually railed against -- the tax *credits* -- he has no plan to change. Instead, he would remove tax deferrals, which don't have much-if-any of an impact on offshoring to begin with.
He does have a more significant plan in regard to health care, granted, but it is a plan that I think moves us further in the wrong direction: it does nothing significant to curb costs, and instead just makes the taxpayers pay for people who can't. It does allow the government to negotiate prices, but that's no guarantee of any significantly reduced costs, and it won't bring costs down for the people and companies who aren't being paid for by the government (i.e., most of us).
As to not hearing his speeches: dude, again, you have no idea what you're talking about. I've heard more from both candidates than probably any three people you know combined. I'm a politics junkie. I watch PBS News Hour every night, and all the major Sunday shows on the weekend, and I watch all the debates and conventions, and I usually catch Inside Politics every day, in addition to all the news I read on a daily basis. And I almost never watch Fox News.
I got another $10 that says Kerry in the debates doesn't bring up Vietnam unless as a reference to the character assasinations launched against him over his service.
He probably won't; since the SBVT issue died down, Kerry has avoided talking about Vietnam. It was up to that point that he talked about Vietnam in pretty much every speech.
ROFL!!!!!
Hrm? Do you think I was saying what Bush has done in Iraq is not a substantive issue? Let me introduce you to a grammar concept called "conjunctions." I was saying I don't see how you can think A and *not* think B, at the same time. Taking one part of it is unreasonable and is out of context. Please learn to read, KTHX.
More of the Big Lie Machine [blogcritics.org].
You can say that, but you can't argue it, because you won't win. Kerry said the war was the right decision, when it was made. Now he says it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Kerry said we should spend more money in Iraq. Now he says we are spending too much.
I've actually heard all th
I've met some of those, yes, and they overwhelmingly support Bush (though I know some do not, of course). Again, this is just my personal experience, as I said.
Alcee Hastings was impeached in 1988 and was later elected to Congress, and is now President of the OSCE.
Remember, the parties don't have any special access to private information. I would expect that everything in this database was pulled from data in the public record.
... I have access to it.
Close. It is public information, plus whatever information you choose to provide, mostly having to do with your political preferences. It's really not that big a deal. It's not merely used for knowing where to concentrate efforts, but who to concentrate efforts on (which voters you should call before election day to remind them to come out and vote). And it's no big secret
That's not to say the data in there is not valuable, but its value is in how it is collected together in one place and how it is able to be used, more than in the individual data for each person in the database.
Someday you may find a sense of humour. When you do, you'll kick yourself for being so ridiculous.
The overwhelming majority of veterans, families, and soldiers (in and out of Iraq) that I've met are Bush supporters. I find this "what do you say to the families" question to be extraordinarily condescending, as if this moron knows better than the families who support Bush do.
First, jeez, lighten up. Anyone who would put this much thought into the actual truth of the story has some issues. It's a joke. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, but either way, it's funny.
Second, we know Kerry doesn't even the names of the two star hitters on the Red Sox, thinking they are one person. That's far worse than thinking Yost played for the Sox, even if it is not true.
Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that they are forgeries. Any criminal jury would have returned a quick verdict on this one. There is no open question remaining, except who did it. The only people saying they still believe they are authentic are Burkett and CBS: CBS' own experts, the secretary from the base, Killian's family and colleagues from the base, all say it is not real. If you put half the effort into investigating the memos as you have the Yost story, you would know they are forgeries.
Fourth, of course the criticisms about Kerry are about what he says, because he hasn't done anything. Kerry himself rarely talks about what he has done (except in Vietnam), because there's nothing there of interest. Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue, but the fact that Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq is not (e.g., the invasion was "the right decision" in May 2003, but now it is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"). How is this not substantive, when he might be taking over responsibility for the war, and we don't know where he stands on it?
Fifth, there's nothing unpatriotic about having some fun and making jokes. You're humourless, and that is your problem, not ours.
He did not require medical assistance.
Right. Who needs the First Amendment?
Who cares what Carter thinks or says? In our last two wars he has undermined our efforts, both before and during the war. In 1991, he even secretly wrote to the UN Security Council members to tell them to not support Bush's effort to liberate Kuwait. Carter thinks our State Department -- run by Colin Powell -- is racist.
While we are on the subject of elections in Florida, the OSCE -- the international group supposedly monitoring elections in the US this year -- is run by a left-win Democrat who was impeached as a judge in the 80s, on corruption charges. Yippee.
Bush is basing some of his policies on the old Testiment (sic)
Which? Name them, and the basis he has given.
Right. They have monitored US elections before, and this is not a legislated act.
... from outside the polling places, like anyone else. This is really a non-story.
And what's more is they have absoultely no authority.
Elections are run by state governments. The State Dept. cannot order the states to cooperate with the OSCE. In fact, Florida officials already said the OSCE is free to monitor the elections
Extended edition running times of FotR: 208, tTT: 208, LotR: 250. Combined: 666.
But it's still there, and Bush, Ashcroft et al. are using it as the word of God. ... If Jesus were president, would he ban homosexual marriage?
I don't understand any of this, really. I've never heard them invoke the Old Testament in regard to this issue, and I've never heard them say homosexual marriage should be banned because homosexuality is sinful. I really don't understand where this is coming from.
WWJDD (What would Johnny Damon do?)
Hit a game-tying home run.
Yes, and? The apostle Paul -- who wrote most of the New Testament -- said much of the Mosaic Law no longer applied. Heck, he fought against many of the Jews in the early church who wanted to force the newly believing Gentiles to follow that Mosaic Law, eventually convincing Peter -- one of Jesus' closest friends, and the first Pope -- that Gentile believers didn't need to be circumcised, despite it being commaned in the Old Testament.
This was 2000 years ago, and yet there are still people like you who don't get it. Or you're just being a troll. I am not inclined to continue this pointless conversation with someone who is woefully uninformed or just picking a dumb fight.
Such as?
What you (and others) are forgetting is that Bush's "moral" policy is based almost entirely on the Old Testament.
No, it isn't. Nice try, though.
As others noted, this has no bearing on anything, since Bush is not a Jew, but a Christian. You might as well ask Bush why he doesn't strictly adhere to the Articles of Confederation.
No, there is no question of this. The bill, signed in October 2002, authorized the President to use military force, explicitly.There was a question for whether this bill SHOULD authorize military force, but require the President to come back to Congress before using force. But that was decided against.
There is simply no question but that Congress authorized the President to use force against Iraq.
Yeah, this has to be the dumbest story I've seen in awhile. Especially since Congress did approve the war. Tod Landis wrote, "Before 1950, no President or member of Congress believed that the executive branch could wage war without debate in Congress, when such debate was possible." But we know the Congress did debate it, and most of Congress voted for it (including Kerry), and it was passed. This is just retarded.
IT salaries have more than kept pace with inflation. So have the rest of wages, overall, since Bush took office. However, real wages are the same now as they were in November 2001, but only because of the recent inflation in oil prices. This is normal: nominal wages don't keep pace with sudden shifts in inflation. If not for that shift, wages would be up just fine. And nominal wages do not, and should not, increase to compensate for that sudden shift.