quarter23cd

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Yep. The > generally indicates a segue into the next song rather than a distinct break between them. Spend some time in the Grateful Dead thread for lots more info on this topic.

To be fair, he didn't do so well with the Redskins, either. I've become less convinced of his genius in recent years.

I'm gonna be honest, I didn't watch McCain last night. From what I hear, he told a room full of Republicans that he wants to distance himself from them and they thought it was a brilliant idea. True?

When the last company I worked for was bought by The Carlisle Group--which has ties to both the Bush and Bin Laden families--we used to joke that every time we discovered glitches in our software, it was okay because we were probably making the world a better place. Taking The Man down from the inside, y'know? Okay, so maybe you had to be there to find the humor in it. But it was a weird thing to remind yourself from time to time who you were ultimately working for.

Well, I just made my first Obama donation of the campaign. This is a weird election for me. Its no secret that I've been gritting my teeth and waiting out the last 8 years and, from the start, had no intention of voting for another Republican, pretty much regardless of the Dem nominee. As much as I like to think of myself as a political independent, I guess I've been backed firmly into the Democratic camp by, if nothing else, lack of options. Yeah, I went through the "there's no difference between the parties" phase in 2000 when I would have preferred Gore over Bush, and I don't exactly r

Right, but despite being so obviously the mainstream party representing "Real AmericansTM", don't forget that they are also somehow always the underdogs fighting the good fight against us marginal liberals who, evidently, are so astonishingly well organized that we control everything and it is a miracle that the GOP manages to get its message out to the people at all.

Yeah, that's it exactly. I tuned in just in time to hear Palin rattling on about needing to challenge the status quo and repeatedly referring to "our opponent" (shall not speak his name, apparently) as part of the Washington Elite as if he and his party were the incumbents in this race. McCain has run for president now, what, like 30 times during his centuries-long stint in the senate? I guess he figures the law of averages has to pan out sometime. But he's spent the last 8 years trashing the "maverick" image that made him an intriguing candidate in 2000, yet he is still trying to run on

I'm not surprised at all. I'm sure a lot of people out there thought it was fantastic. She was scrappy and tough and not the least bit intellectually challenging. Everything is just fine in this country, the "grownups" of the GOP are in charge, and we should all just calm down and go back to sleep. It would have been a great speech if any of that was actually true.

Arrogance, actually. More congenial than Bush, maybe, but the "how dare they?" tone got pretty irksome after a while. My initial thought was that she was pretty good--the longer she talks, the more she sounds like a tv anchorwoman. There's something to be said for a shot of sassiness to liven up the campaign, but the quips and one liners kept ringing increasingly hollow. At the same time, its the right speech for a shallow reporting corps. Sound-bites and stage presence...what more do you need?

Oh good, she just mentioned terrorism. Rudy needs to change his shorts. And made a joke about whether their rights ought to be read to them. Funny stuff.

Yeah, that one could come back to haunt her. I turned it on just in time to hear her talk about the need to challenge the status quo in Washington. Say wha?? Who's ticket does she think she's on? Gotta give her credit, though, the pasty white guys seem enthused to see somebody with a pulse.

Wow, I didn't realize I was scoring points with the conservative crowd with that post, but thanks, guys. I'm afraid to go and screw up the goodwill by posting what I was in the middle of writing just now, but ah, what the heck: Right. A coworker of mine nailed it when she said her biggest fear about Palin is that she was chosen explicitly for her religion and her genetalia rather than her actual qualifications. She opens the door to a segment of the base the McCain was having trouble winning over, she takes the edge off the "historic" aspect of Obama's campaign and gives the appearance

Its both, and that's why it gets messy. (no grossness intended in that comment) It is among the most private decisions a person can make. It also has social ramifications in terms of public health and what to do with the resulting children that the parents are unable or unwilling to care for. I've never really bought the argument that teaching kids about it is giving them the green light to do it. Kids always have, and will, do what they're going to do, one way or another. Truthfully, sex ed is basic biology, and that's why it should be taught. Here are some body parts that humans come

I'm thinking of submitting my name to the Obama campaign to see if I can get a shout-out during one of his speeches for my wife and I having 4 kids and choosing not to abort any of them. Culture of Death, my ass. You conservatives ain't gonna breed me out, biatches! We're building an army, people! Woooooo!!

Ah, Culture Wars, how I've missed ye. Whew, for a while there I thought this campaign was going to be about actual issues facing this country that are possible to make progress on (war, economy, energy, healthcare) rather than focus on intractable moral/political/theological stances that aren't going to be solved by the next presidency anyway.

The same media that has given St. John the Maverick a free ride for his last decade of presidential campaigns? The worst thing I've heard said about him in the media is that up until very recently he has run a fairly dull campaign.

I dunno, the worst thing I've heard them say about McCain is that up until very recently he hasn't run a very interesting campaign. The whole "preachergate" thing Obama put up with over the summer is more scrutiny than McCain's last 8 years of boot-licking has received.

Has Virginia ever gone blue in a presidential election? By no means is it impossible for Obama to win, particularly as the population of NoVa has swelled enough to counterbalance the traditionally-conservative rest of the state, but until shown otherwise I would continue to put that one in the red category.

I see what you mean.

Yep, the only allegiance the media really has is to ratings. They tend to align with the "winning team" if they can, but mostly if they smell blood in the water, they go for it. Its their job. Palin is facing a wave of scrutiny right now, but that is because 99.9% of Americans had never heard of her before a few days ago and she is rapidly going through the same tearing down that anybody else in the national spotlight would go through.

Me too. I'm also amused by words that have multiple meanings. The voting machines need to be fixed to protect against the vote being fixed. But they've already thrown up their hands and said, "Oh well, I guess we're going to the polls with faulty equipment," even though there's still 2 months to the election. WTF is that? I write bank software for a living and my company would be crucified if we discovered a potential security glitch that could be exploited to prevent money from being added to people's bank accounts and we told them we wouldn't be able to fix it for months.

I dunno, Ohio is far from a gimme for McCain. As of right now, McCain has , with the GOP convention going on right now. We'll see if he gets a post-convention bounce, but my guess is that this will stay pretty close as we go down the line. I do have a hunch that McCain will end up taking OH. Obama got hammered in rural areas in the primary, although he fared well in the largest cities. Hillary won the blue-collar vote in most of the the mid-sized cities and Obama's ability to win the state absolutely depends on his ability to carry the cities that Hillary dominated. The rural vote is in

Well, I just added "vote fixing" to my list of monster.com keywords. We'll see if that gets me any phone calls...

Hey, I'm a programmer who lives in Ohio. I'd be happy to spend some time helping to update the software. There's plenty of time before the election. I'll work for free. (or at least for coffee/pizza) Think they'd take me up on the offer?