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Post by strat-0 on Nov 9, 2008 23:07:03 GMT -5
I enjoyed that spirited discussion above and found it very stimulating. As I read through the posts, I found myself making mental notes on points to bring out, but I usually found the points were brought out by someone else in the following post. Good shit. Nevertheless, I think Nader was unfairly and opportunistically lambasted for his unfortunate choice of metaphors. Unsafe at any speed...
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Post by Thorngrub on Nov 10, 2008 12:08:10 GMT -5
Unsafe at any speed, no doubt. I learned my lesson from this discussion on both forums. What I've learned is that my overarching defense of Nader went too far, and it's because of the context by which most were siding with Shephard Smith. And that context, from what I've gathered, is this.
*Nader's comment was indefensible in the current arena of politics, period* i.e, a worthy candidate for the presidency of this country could not and would not use the term "Uncle Tom" for provocation or otherwise. A candidate for the presidency must have a level of diplomacy that is above that. That is the context in which Shephard Smith was pointing out that Nader is "irrelevant" - only as a candidate for the presidency.
In my zeal to overlook the necessity of such tact, I nimbly skipped over the issue of the vocal blunder to try and get people to hear what Nader was saying beyond the slur; but - -no one was having any of that, and understandably so.
In hindsight, I see now how mine was a futile endeavor. I'm just a politically incorrect motherfucker don't you know, so naturally I shrugged off Nader's faux-pas without a second thought, you know, damn the torpedoes and all that rot. And although I found what Nader was actually saying was valid -- by then it was totally besides the point.
I still think Shephard Smith is an ass hat.
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 10, 2008 16:16:05 GMT -5
... *Nader's comment was indefensible in the current arena of politics, period* i.e, a worthy candidate for the presidency of this country could not and would not use the term "Uncle Tom" for provocation or otherwise. A candidate for the presidency must have a level of diplomacy that is above that. That is the context in which Shephard Smith was pointing out that Nader is "irrelevant" - only as a candidate for the presidency. ... nader certainly understands that his 'viability' as true presidential hopeful has always been nil...or pretty fucking close to nil, doesn't he? nader himself has likewise said he's there as reminder that this 2-party system of ours needs his kick in the ass. he's a bit of a muckraker, a well-meaning...and not much else. especially not someone who's really dreaming to be in that white house. he's got an ego but not of that type. i do think what he's done is out of deep concern and love for this country. ... ... And although I found what Nader was actually saying was valid -- by then it was totally besides the point. no it wasn't beside the point, except for the fact that the point was hijacked away from you by the 'thought police' who wish to be aggrieved at a literary-based descriptor that wasn't simply SPAT out at someone who could be characterised as a 'house n****r'....nader is a highly educated and quite erudite guy and NO, obama's not in the shoes he finds himself in today because he been someone's 'boy', much as he's known when to 'play along' in rough and tumble chicago politics. hell yes nader's comment was valid. as an expression of concern of 'yeah, prez-elect obama, now DO it.' walk it. OWN it. ~ ... Jesus Christ. I know I write a lot of very detailed and specific things, and my posts are too long, but for crying out loud, go back and read what I said in my last 3 or 4 posts, and it should all be there perfectly in black and white. My case was rested before this post. ... ow. i feel your pain. how off-handed teeny-tiny observations can be forced completely off the rails over the space of a couple of misunderstood posts when no-one wishes to be generous enough to cut you the least bit slack as to understanding that you didn't at ALL mean what they're bound-and-determined to saddle you with. 'convicted of 'doofus' in the 3rd degree by a jury of your peers' 'bailiff, whack his pee-pee.' |
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Post by rocknroller on Nov 10, 2008 16:28:47 GMT -5
Michelle's gown was a little loud and formal I think. Reminds me of gowns vixens wear on television shows such as Dynasty or Desperate Housewives. ..  |
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Post by strat-0 on Nov 10, 2008 19:56:23 GMT -5
 Barack Obama, 2008  Barack Obama, 2012  Barack Obama, 2016 God help him... |
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Post by Thorngrub on Nov 11, 2008 10:56:28 GMT -5
 Barack Obama, 2020 |
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Post by strat-0 on Nov 11, 2008 11:52:42 GMT -5
Oops, I meant 2012, etc... 2120 looks good, though.
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Post by Proud on Nov 11, 2008 18:07:47 GMT -5
 Barack Obama, 1972 |
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Post by Thorngrub on Nov 11, 2008 18:20:52 GMT -5
haha, hells yeh
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 12, 2008 16:38:50 GMT -5
20 life lessons from Obama's win
Mary Schmich
November 9, 2008
Life is larger than politics, but politics can teach us about life at large. Here are 20 life lessons from the 2008 campaign.
1 Joy and grief sometimes collide.
On Monday of last week, Barack Obama's grandmother, who raised him like a second mother, died. On Tuesday, he was elected president. It's a deeply sad coincidence, but also a reminder that life gives and it takes away and none of us is exempt from its capricious timing.
2 Be yourself. Your best self.
Barack Obama was his best self in this campaign. John McCain was not. The public knew the difference. The best McCain—the maverick who doesn't talk so much about being one—re-emerged in his humble, blunt concession speech.
3 Loss can liberate.
See above. McCain has been liberated back into his better self, which is good for him and for the country.
4 Be wary of flattery.
Sarah Palin was cynically flattered into a job for which she wasn't prepared. But flattery is like ice cream: You can't blame anyone else if you gobble it up and wind up feeling bad.
5 Cynicism is at best a short-term gain.
6 Do the prep work.
Bluffing, as Palin learned, is like walking on stilts—you can't do it for long.
7 Don't hold others in contempt just because they disagree with you.
Barack Obama preached that message and abided by it. Unfortunately, not all of his supporters have learned to follow their leader.
8 Don't question the motives of people with political ideas different from your own.
Joe Biden expressed that point—a corollary to lesson 7—in his debate with Palin. Question your opponents' judgment perhaps, question their conclusions, but assume that their motives are as good as yours.
9 Tina Fey is smarter than you and I.
10 Failure isn't forever.
Do your work and your fortunes may change. Think Katie Couric.
11 Don't abandon the people you love for your own profit.
Until they make it impossible not to. Think Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
12 Stay on point.
The economy. Not Bill Ayers.
13 Success is a friend magnet.
Have your friends from around the country been e-mailing, texting and calling about Obama and the Grant Park rally, as if the fact that you live in Chicago gives you special insight? Have you been basking in the glow just a little? And isn't it amazing how many people who've never even been here suddenly know the words " Grant Park"?
14 Looks help.
Vigorous, youthful looks help more. What if Obama were 72 years old?
15 Luck helps.
Think about the sex scandal that knocked Republican Jack Ryan out of the U.S. Senate race that launched Obama's national career.
16 Connections help.
Think Richard Daley.
17 Everything runs its course.
Presidencies, generations, banks, interminable campaigns. And, we hope, wars.
18 Progress is patchwork.
On the day we elected a black president, voters in California and three other states proved how many Americans aren't yet willing to treat gay people as full citizens.
19 Radical change is possible.
But radical change tends to happen slowly. See lesson 18. The election of the first African-American president of the United States wasn't the result of one campaign. It was the consequence of centuries of struggle.
20 We should all listen to Sam Cooke.
Obama's a fan of Cooke, the soul singer who had 29 Top 40 hits in the 1950s and '60s. They're all worth singing along with, but the song guaranteed to give you chills—the theme that outlasts the political season—is "A Change is Gonna Come."
There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come.
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 12, 2008 16:39:26 GMT -5
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 12, 2008 16:45:33 GMT -5
btw, the above-mentioned jack ryan was a millionaire futures trader (or something) married to jeri ryan (the incredible '6-of-9' from one of the star trek incarnations), who had 'secrets' revealed during (i think) their developing divorce that while in a paris sex club, he had wanted to do degrading things to his beautiful wife....and she didn't wanna.
he stepped down/dropped out and obama won the seat uncontested.
and it had been a race favored to ryan.
serenfuckingdippity.
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Post by Ayinger on Nov 12, 2008 21:37:14 GMT -5
^ ^ this is why I praise the gods for Jeri Ryan   (and that's " 7-of-9" --- NOT being a geek or anything here....) |
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 13, 2008 19:51:52 GMT -5
'7'? ok-doke...whatever she wants. and on a serious note:
Gates rejects Russian pressure on missile plans
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 38 mins ago
TALLINN, Estonia – Russian threats to position missiles near Poland to counter a U.S. missile defense plan in Europe are misguided, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday, suggesting that Moscow's latest aggressive rhetoric harkens back to the old Cold War era.
Unleashing his own pointed criticism, Gates said that Russia's missile threat appears aimed at Europe. And he dismissed as not credible Russia's latest offer to forego its missile plan if the U.S. would agree not to deploy a defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Speaking at the close of a meeting of NATO defense ministers here, Gates and other officials also signaled that it is inevitable that Ukraine will join the international alliance, although there are hurdles and opposition both from within the new struggling democracy and other allied nations.
The meeting was set largely to deal with the Ukraine's membership effort — a move that Russia opposes and sees as part of an unsettling westward shift of former Soviet republics in the region. But overshadowing the meeting were the escalating tensions with Russia in the region as Moscow tries to reassert itself.
The latest missile threat from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev came under fire from NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who called the remarks unsolicited, unnecessary and unhelpful.
And Gates said the threat, made just after the U.S. election of President-elect Barack Obama, was "hardly the welcome a new American administration deserves. Such provocative remarks are unnecessary and misguided."
"Quite frankly I'm not clear what the missiles would be for in Kaliningrad, after all the only real emerging threat on Russia's periphery is in Iran and I don't think the Iskander missile has the range to get there from Kaliningrad," snapped Gates, adding. "Why they would threaten to point missiles at European nations seems quite puzzling to me."
He said a key reason for his attendance at the meeting was to show U.S. support for Eastern European countries that are looking to align themselves with the West. Those nations, he said, are understandably on edge in the wake of Russia's incursion into Georgia in August.
At the same time, however, Gates stressed that the U.S.-planned missile defense system is no threat to Russia and he said that Washington would prefer to seek a constructive relationship with Moscow, rather than having leaders there engage in "the kind of rhetoric associated with a bygone era."
Gates and others talked somewhat optimistically about Ukraine's eventual membership in NATO, despite divisions in that country over the prospect, and continued opposition from several alliance members.
Foreign ministers are expected to discuss the languishing issue at a meeting in Brussels later this year, but as expectations for approval of a membership plan in December have dimmed, NATO leaders have suggested there may be other avenues to follow.
Earlier in the day, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves suggested that the current membership plan process may be outdated. And while Gates and others said that Ukraine must address defense budget shortfalls, improve military planning and reconcile its political divide, they said failure to approve membership in December does not mean it won't ever be passed.
"There is inevitability about it," said Gates. "If the Russians see the failure to adopt (a membership plan) in December as a victory, that would be a mistake."
Medvedev has warned that Moscow will deploy short-range Iskander missiles to Russia's western enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, "to neutralize, if necessary, a missile defense system."
Medvedev also blamed Washington for the war in Georgia and the world financial crisis, and repeated claims that the U.S. missile defense facilities planned for Poland and the Czech Republic are meant to weaken Russia.
U.S. leaders have repeatedly disputed that charge, insisting that the system is designed to protect the region from an Iranian threat.
___
On the Net:
Defense Department: www.defenselink.mil
this will NOT be a simple solution. |
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Post by RocDoc on Nov 14, 2008 16:57:38 GMT -5
....and sarkozy disagrees ^...
~
Tolerance fails T-shirt test
John Kass
November 13, 2008
As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.
Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.
She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.
So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:
"McCain Girl."
"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."
Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.
"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.
Then it got worse.
"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.
But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.
"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.
If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.
"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.
One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.
"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.
Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."
Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.
"I couldn't show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing," she said.
Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, "I really like your shirt."
That's when you know America is truly supportive of diversity of opinion, when children must whisper for fear of being ostracized, heckled and crucifixed.
The next day, in part 2 of The Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment, she wore another T-shirt, this one with "Obama Girl" written in blue. And an amazing thing happened.
Catherine wasn't very stupid anymore. She grew brains.
"People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today," Catherine said.
That's when you know America is truly supportive of diversity of opinion, when children must whisper for fear of being ostracized, heckled and crucifixed.
The next day, in part 2 of The Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment, she wore another T-shirt, this one with "Obama Girl" written in blue. And an amazing thing happened.
Catherine wasn't very stupid anymore. She grew brains.
"People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today," Catherine said.
Some students accused her of playing both sides.
"A lot of people liked it. But some people told me I was a flip-flopper," she said. "They said, 'You can't make up your mind. You can't wear a McCain shirt one day and an Obama shirt the next day.' "
But she sure did, and she turned her journal into a report for her history teacher, earning Catherine extra credit. We asked the teacher, Norma Cassin-Pountney, whether it was ironic that Catherine would be subject to such intolerance from pro-Obama supporters in a community that prides itself on its liberal outlook.
"That's what we discussed," Cassin-Pountney said about the debate in the classroom when the experiment was revealed. "I said, here you are, promoting this person [Obama] that believes we are all equal and included, and look what you've done? The students were kind of like, 'Oh, yeah.' I think they got it."
Catherine never told us which candidate she would have voted for if she weren't an 8th grader. But she said she learned what it was like to be in the minority.
"Just being on the outside, how it felt, it was not fun at all," she said.
Don't ever feel as if you must conform, Catherine. Being on the outside isn't so bad. Trust me.
jskass@tribune.com
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