I didn't hear that one, and you're partially right that I haven't payed scrupulous attention to the media, school right now is like holding two full-time jobs and I don't have that kind of time. So all my opinions are purely my own, I'm not echoing even Limbaugh.

That statement of Palin's is not hypocrisy, it is an example. Of course her daughter had a choice, and I'm glad she made the right one, but I'd like to think that if her daughter had wanted an abortion Sarah Palin would not have allowed it. By letting her choose that way she made it much more meaningful.

I wish I could say I am pro-choice, but just like "environmentalist" that term has been hijacked by crazy people who stand for everything I'm against. Every abortion ends an infinite number of choices before they can be made. Pregnancy is not a choice, it is the consequence of a choice. If you could ask the unborn child for its opinion and get a meaningful response back, that would be different; but I truly believe abortion is very nearly murder, if not equal to murder.

And seriously, smittens, even not paying close attention to the media I was able to pick up on the mud being flung at Palin and Obama being defended by the same media as having simply been misunderstood.

http://www.change.gov
I haven't seen a more transparent president, and he's not even a president yet.

One could argue that the animals we murder every day for food have more of a say on whether they should live than a few cells.

On an unrelated note, Palin didn't know Africa is a continent. You seriously want someone without basic knowledge of countries and continents running half of North America?

I really don't think Palin didn't know Africa was a continent. Seriously.

But on Obama, I don't know about transparent, but now that he's been elected suddenly the media is a fan of McCain again (because he lost, of course), and they're admitting that we don't know anything about Obama's vision for the country.

You are exactly right that animals have more rights than unborn children. Meat is murder, but abortion is mercy. Whatever.

Obama's vision for the country is right there if you'd bother to read it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html

(yes, Huffington has a liberal bias but it's getting the story from Fox News).

The reason Obama is so inarticulate is because when asked a direct question to which he doesn't have a prepared answer, he is afraid of letting his socialist views slip. The man can say nothing better than anyone, and only rarely does his true opinion come out, such as when he stated that he wanted to disarm America. Now that it's safe, and he's elected, even the mainstream media is admitting we don't know anything about Obama.

As far as the link, that really pisses me off. First, this isn't even as good as second-hand information. McCain is showing his true colors again, and trashing Sarah Palin through his staff. He actively sought to undermine Bush in 2000 because McCain believed he should have won the nomination rather than Bush, and now he's making Palin the scapegoat for this loss.

McCain, like too many Republicans these days, felt that the winning strategy was to be a "centrist," to compromise (which just means capitulate) with Democrats (reaching across the aisle, he calls it; more like betraying your party) and win the moderate vote. He lost the moderate vote something like 60-40, according to exit polls!

Now he's allowing his staff to attack Palin, because she's a conservative, and they think that's why they lost. That's bullshit; Palin is the only reason more than a couple dozen conservatives even voted this week; trust me, I'm one of them! I voted 100% for Sarah Palin, considering McCain to be a hefty but worthwhile price for keeping Obama out. Now Palin's the scapegoat.

If she was sometimes frustrated I can totally understand that; when she was herself in interviews she was great, but any time she spouted McCain's talking points, she floundered because it wasn't natural. Mishandled? Damn right she was mishandled. I wouldn't have done half as well as these McCain thugs claim she did, I'd have probably punched McCain in the face and been fired early in the campaign.

The things Carl Cameron is claiming McCain staffers are saying may or may not be true, but I highly doubt it. I would be incredibly surprised if Palin really didn't know Africa was a continent. This sounds like character assassination to me, and it pisses me off. This is what is supposed to separate us Republicans from Democrats, that we don't do that sort of thing.

This is also a great example of media bias. Obama's statement that he had campaigned in 57 states was brushed off as nothing, but no Republican would ever get that free pass. If Obama had mistaken Africa for a country rather than a continent, only the conservative radio hosts would be saying anything. If you doubt me on the treatment they give Republicans, just remember what happened when Bush said "subliminable."

The fact that Carl Cameron is so insistently reporting on this is good evidence that Fox News isn't the conservative pulpit liberals complain it is; it's just a network that has a few real conservatives tossed in with the liberals. Fox News is true equal time, an example of what the "fairness doctrine" claims to be about, and that's why liberals hate it. To them fairness means only they get to inform the ignorant masses.

I would just like to thank each and every one of you assholes for ruining my perfectly funny thread.

You have done what your society has done with all of nature's gifts. Except for IRS, Ghost, PC 1st reply. Some day, you, may be ready.

You're quite welcome. But what did you expect? Hehe.

I have come to the conclusion that you're a troll, Chaos. Palin is the one who can't even talk about anything not directly written on her cue cards.

Any time, ananzi. ;)

Hah, if I had listened to Rush Limbaugh today I would have been prepared for your link to Fox News, slime. I just started listening to his show today online, something I haven't done in weeks, and he's just now aired the Carl Cameron bit. Now he's pointing out that the McCain campaign has now spent more time trashing Palin post election than Obama and all his associations throughout the entire campaign. I think they set up Palin to be a beacon to conservatives and a scapegoat in the case of a loss. What assholes. I'm ashamed to be in the same party. Come 2012 campaign time, I may have to reevaluate my association with the Republican party, unless we can once more become conservative.

EDIT: Haha, no not a troll, just someone who always takes the bait when it's a political discussion. I just can't help myself, I have to voice my opinion. Unless, of course, you're only calling me a troll because you've run out of ammo and are resorting to ad hominem attacks....

It's when Palin has to read the McCain cue cards that she falls apart, since they are so opposed to her true views, which are conservative.

I expected someone to point out that in VO, everyone gets a free bus, and how this is brainwashing our children into socialism.

I expected someone to point out that John Serco McCain had a bus too, the Straight Talk Express. And on that bus, there was true freedom... a free battery, a free ion blaster, a free bunch of cargo...

I expected that VO would adopt a new slogan. Yes We Can, Soon. I expected each new release to have a Changelog You Can Believe In.

I wanted to point out that Barack Otani used to sit and listen to the sermons of the order of Akan. Where was his indignation then? Also, his middle name is Prometheus. What are his real faction standings?

Haha, sorry ananzi, we're just not as clever as you are. Those are good, though.

Okay then, back to the original purpose of the thread:

By January my Warthog will run on Hope, and the only emission will be Rainbows.

Jebus I leave this thread for a day and we get a whole new page!

The points that stuck out...

1) Trust me, having seen first hand MANY people's beliefs in the issue, Palin likely did more to hurt the ticket than help. I know you're an exception, but that's it.

2) She needed the handling/help/not-allowed-to-interview cause she's a fucking idiot! This mostly summed up her debate strategy: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3084/2910698021_ab88590f4b.jpg?v=0 and was so totally true. For someone who so strongly dislikes the direction the Republican Party is taking, you sure let them pull one on you in making you think she was a respectable candidate/politician/not-moron. She's got her folksy attitude and that's just about it.

3) People harp on Bush not knowing words because...he's our fucking PRESIDENT. He's the face of America to the world at large, and he can't even speak. What the hell does that say about the rest of our country?

That's all for now. Oh and also, really? Fox news balanced? I doubt you could count on one hand the number of republicans or independents that agree with you on that.

===

But, overall, I think I gotta say... nothing personal Chaos. Yeah I think you're an idiot and hoodwinked and naive (word of the day!) etc, but in all honestly I wouldn't mind grabbing a beer with you and debating this in real life. Even if you're wrong.

Three things:

1) McCain's age was more of an issue with voters than Obama's race. This is so because Palin would become president should McCain have died in office.

2) McCain's choice of Palin affected 70+% of people who call themselves independent and voted. Most of that influence was negative to the Republican ticket.

3) And even if one were to discount McCain's age, or Palin's perceived inadequacies, the country's economy went to the toilet because of an aggressive policy of economic pressure and bullying on state governments led by El Presidente Senor Bush. Who just happens to be, Republican. This all but the staunchest of Republican contests in red territory.

Personally, I vote Obama for two reasons: Obama has a plan to help college students pay for it all, and as a working college student with no family support, this is important to me. And I do not share the views Palin has on social issues, nor do I believe that she (hell, I don't believe *anyone*) can bail the economy out.

As a final point, NBC did an analysis after the final debate. Our current deficit is around 500 billion dollars a year. Should McCain have won, it would have been 1 trillion dollars a year by the time he left office. By the time Obama leaves office, it will be around 750 billion dollars a year. I voted with the firm belief that we were screwed either way.

Okay, one more post before I call it a night and go home:

smittens: Your #1 point is awkwardly worded, but I think you mean many people you know believe Palin hurt the ticket. Are you sure they're not being influenced by leading questions in exit polls and media reports? I live in a very conservative state, and almost everyone I know was energized by Palin and had to hold their nose to vote McCain. That includes me, and I think I'm a pretty good example of a typical conservative. On the other hand, I believe that there were many conservatives who voted Obama because they were pissed at the Republican party and thought it was time we learned a lesson, and hoped that four years of Obama would force Republicans to go back to their conservative roots.

For your #2, man, get some good sources! Jokes are not sources. Her down-to-Earth folksy attitude was part of her appeal to conservatives! She's not an elitist! I think she was mishandled deliberately. There were anonymous leaks (all the leaks about her negative aspects are mysteriously anonymous) even before the election. I think the strategy was to hope that she would bring conservatives to the table, then ignore her and "govern from the center" if McCain won, and if he lost, to blame her. And that's exactly what they're doing, and it disgusts me. I hope she runs for president.

In the case of your #3 point, yeah, Bush said funny words, but the content and messages of his speeches (at least in his first term) was inspiring and intelligent. Guess who also was a poor public speaker? Abraham Lincoln (they made fun of his hillbillyness, too). Also Moses. Had Clinton or Obama made the exact mistakes Bush has in his speaking, it would have been ignored completely.

I never said Fox News was balanced, just that they at least have a few conservative voices tossed in. I really like Neil Cavuto.

And hehe, I think the same of you, and if I drank I'd totally grab a beer with you. I miss living in Missouri working at Barnes & Noble where I only had one conservative friend. I really had to stay on my toes. Idaho is way too much a comfort zone for conservatives.

moldyman, my responses:

1) McCain's age may have helped him with Palin supporters who hoped for a McCain win and a fatal (or at least debilitating) McCain heart attack on January 21. I'm only half joking.

2) I don't trust your statistic. If you give a source, I probably won't trust that either, it's probably leading. I say again that among the great many conservatives I know, Palin was the only thing that kept us going and got us to the polls. I voted for palin in spite of McCain.

3) I disagree with your interpretation of the economy. The stock markets predict the future, and there was serious worry over an Obama win considering his redistributive ideas. Since he's been elected, we've now had the biggest post-election sell-off ever. Last I heard the market had dropped ten percent since election day. Obama isn't facing a slow economy, he caused it with is socialist statements. Bush kept a strong economy despite Clinton economic stagnation killing the Reagan economic boom, and despite 9/11 and the subsequent wars.

Also, nothing, not even public school before college, is free. I'm in a similar situation, and I wish the government would help less. Tuition would be more competitive if that was the case, and there would be more private sources of loans and scholarships since the private sector would have more money and a vacuum to fill. Where do you think the money for your college comes from? The taxes you pay now and will the rest of your life. Nothing is free!

Finally, what in Hell is NBC basing those numbers off of? Hope that people who hear them will vote Obama? I agree we were going to be screwed on that either way, but between a Democrat (McCain) and a socialist (Obama), the socialist will be worse for the economy. What, just because it's worked so well other places suddenly socialism will be an amazing success in America? Even Bill Clinton admitted (after his presidency was over) that lower taxes = more tax revenue. Reagan proved that in the 80s.

Well, this was an unexpected turn of the thread. I feel that further discussion of the candidates would be unproductive, so I'll just segue into the two big issues:

The War in Sedina: The great armies of the UIT have shown themselves to be capable to smashing down any foe to our great country, and that is exactly the problem- they excel at smashing. Sedina has been smashed. There's very little left to smash that we would allow ourselves to smash, lest we become worse then the very evil we purported to be removing.

The population of the system simply does not want us to remain, but they do just tolerate the masses of lives and treasure we send them to make their plight better. Those that wish to be lazy and coddled line up to support us, while those that wish to make their own future, with their own hands, grab their Plasma Cannons are hunt us from behind ever roid. We must leave this system so it might make its own choices, even though they might be against our own. Should they build up into something wicked, that then strikes at us, we can send our might to smash the wicked constructs, and then withdraw again to let them build anew.

To further illustrate our folly in remaining, let me pull from our own history- when the Serco came to our lands in Sol II, were they able to crush our forefathers? No! For we did what the people of Sedina are now doing, and struck back at any exposed weakness when it was presented, ran and hid among the populace when pursued, and even kissed the hands of the oppressor when we had to, all the while never forgetting that one day we would be free for their power and terror, even if we must leave our beloved things and lands behind us for a new world. We beat the redcoats the only way we could- by making it impossible for them to continue, lest they be so drained by the effort that the Itani might return and be able to complete their gruesome work. Irony of ironies, letting us go proved to be the future salvation of the Serco, as our vast independent factories and mercantile fleets saved them from being crushed when the Akan rose (for a minor fee, of course). Our relations with the Serco are now better then they have been at any point in history, with time having healed the old wounds and hates over long centuries.

Let us leave this system of Sedina, and have our armies do what they have always done, and what they were always meant to do, with incredible success- defend our own systems from those that would send armies to strike at us. Every aggressor has found themselves broken upon our own roids, their Heavy Assault Cruisers ripped in half, and their fighters blown apart by clouds of Chaos missiles. Our people have no stomach for wars against vague shadows that might threaten at some unknown point in the vast future, so they balk at this war. If the Sedinians are a threat, let them come to us, and we will devour them. Their ruined hulks will join all the others of those that would attack us, floating lifelessly at our borders.

As for the "attack" that sparked this latest round of foreign entanglements, while seeing the twin stations at the heart of Dau collapse and tear apart as fires raged inside was sorrowful, dramatic, and a shock, it was a mistake to regard it as anything more than a crime of unparalleled scope. It should have been investigated, and the perpetrators pursued, by the law-enforcement agencies and the interstellar criminal courts. Sending our armies has been massive overkill, and given undeserved significance to the few individuals who were behind this crime to top all crimes.

The Economy: Capitalism will have natural periods of boom and bust, growth and decline. By unwisely sustaining the prior period of growth through absurdly low interest rates, this latest bust has been made inordinately painful. Furthermore, it was a critical mistake to regard paper wealth generation as a viable form of growth- it is not a service provided or an item manufactured. It is simply a good feeling assigned on top of something provided or made that inflates its value without cause. Those that invest in good feelings should not be surprised when those feelings evaporate and leave them creditless. Likewise, good feelings should not be the sole determinant of value- station-backed securities do have an intrinsic value, based upon the cash flow generated by their parts. The UIT Senate has effectively made a massive profit by acquiring these securities, because they now get all the cash flow from them.

Allow the corporations to be able to list the real value of these securities, and the situation isn't nearly as grim. The longer this fairly minor rule change is put off, the more perfectly viable companies will go under, and the worse the knock-on effects will become.

In the long-term, a systemwide reduction in debt loads is required. You cannot be spending credits you have not earned. Debt should go back to being the tool of choice for large, one-time expenditures, and cold hard c should be used for day-to-day and month-to-month expenditures. This is a market fundamental, and breaking it in the name of preventing a growth slowdown was the height of folly. This bust was a just and right result of such folly, so let the markets sort themselves out to their proper values, and let our memory of the coming hard times serve to prevent us from engaging in such folly again.

I agree with IRS about the economy, except one thing, "paper wealth" simply isn't, it's debt being passed around. The coming mess is of our own making, and idiots are going to try and save non viable companies by taxing viable ones out of existence, so instead of 1500 people drowning when the titanic sinks, they overload and sink all the lifeboats and all 2000 people drown instead.

As for the war in Sedina, immediately after the attack on the stations in Dau, a few Avalon (I'm sure they haven't disassembled them all) should have been used to stomp on the entire Sedina system (or Odia or Bractus, who cares really, still makes an example), with a warning that next time it's all of Grey space, and whatever the hell we happen to run across/over on our way there.

Some polls for you, moldyman (and slime and smittens):

According to Rasmussen, 69% of Republican voters think Sarah Palin helped McCain's campaign as opposed to only 20% who think she hurt it. Not only that, but 91% of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, and 64% name her as their top choice for Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

There is one reason only for this: Sarah Palin is a true conservative, and the vast majority of everyday Republicans are, too. The Republican leadership grossly miscalculated when they nominated McCain, thinking Republicans wanted a weak compromiser who gets along with Democrats by essentially being one. I would love to see a Palin/Romney ticket in 2012.

Another Rasmussen poll says that Congress has consistently scored lower approval ratings than Bush. 30% of Democrats don't even know who Harry Reid is, vs. 23% of Republicans who don't. More Democrats don't know who Nancy Pelosi is than Republicans.

And here's a source that smittens can appreciate, and is absolute undeniable proof that Obama is an idiot. (It's a joke, of course, and should be funny whether or not you support Obama).

I'd almost given up on this thread, but I'm glad I checked back in. That video is very actually really well done, and I was chuckling aloud a few times. Have you seen (er, heard?) the Palin prank call?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbEwKcs-7Hc

Heh, I'm impressed they got through.

My personal favorite is this German video making fun of George W. Bush (whom I voted for twice, and can still laugh at a joke directed at him if it's clever, and this one is the best).

Oh oops I only just now remembered Chaos...

"The things Carl Cameron is claiming McCain staffers are saying may or may not be true, but I highly doubt it. I would be incredibly surprised if Palin really didn't know Africa was a continent. This sounds like character assassination to me, and it pisses me off. This is what is supposed to separate us Republicans from Democrats, that we don't do that sort of thing."

You're doubting one of the few sources that would know what they're saying. She really is just that stupid, don't be blind, open your fucking eyes to something that may not align perfectly with your views. And, first of all, Republicans get about a thousand times deeper into the mud-slinging game, and everyone fucking knows it, and second, what separates Republicans from Democrats is that Republicans ACTUALLY will fucking assassinate someone. Bush had one of the lowest approval ratings, and no one came close to him. Obama gets elected, and he's got 500+ threats already. This would never have happened to McCain, but of course you'll never be able to see that.