MrRain422

Not even nearly as good?

Relative to what? Yes, McCain is moderate compared to Bush...that's really about it.

While McCain's embrace of the unitary executive theory and necon foreign policy principles is definately pathetic, I don't think it's really very moderate.

I'm actually kind of surprised that MLB didn't make a bigger deal of Griffey's chase for 600. Though of course we can never know if he was actually clean, Griffey never even really had any steroid rumors. If he did in fact not use steroids, that makes him only the 4th ever to hit 600 without juicing. I sort of figured MLB would try to push Griffey a little bit as a face of the game to try to wash out the taste of the last two guys to hit such major homerun milestones, which were Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.

The second half of his career was plagued by injury, and we can't judge him by what might have been, only what he actually did. However, it's pretty hard to argue with the first half of his career -- you could make a pretty strong case that he was the best player of the '90s. And he showed flashes of brilliance later on as well. I mean, I suppose it's possible that he's overrated, but even when rated properly he's a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Automatic for the People Document New Adventures in Hi-Fi

I don't know about the Chihuahua part, but I've had this Boston Terrier for 2 days now, and if he is representative of the breed, they're very gentle and sociable.

Oh wow, love that dog! And that's just a great picture.

I've been pretty critical of the way she's ran her campaign, but I thought it was a fine speech. I know that there's been some criticism that it was too much about herself and not enough about Obama, but it was a really close race in which she accomplished a lot and she was pretty unequivocal about her support of Obama so I don't have a problem with it at all.

Hey resident conservatives, Just curious what you all think of Bob Barr's candidacy.

I have never met a Hitler. I imagine that most Hitlers have changed their name by now. Can you imagine the sort of speculation about Obama that there would be if he had changed his name though? There would be a lot of accusations about why he changed it, that he was trying to hide something, etc.

His alternative to opposing the war? Well, he could have supported it. Or if you mean his alternative presented to going to war, well, the alternative was to not go to war. That was the whole point. There was no pressing need to go to war, no crisis that the war was an attempt to avert. It was completely unnecessary -- we didn't have to do anything at that time. That's the point. Also, he's laid out a million specificis about policy toward the middle east. Seriously, it's not a mystery. Look at his webpage.

Indeed. It was intelligent and reasoned, and recent history has shown it to be right.

Sure, there was a political angle to it, but he was still wise enough to know how the war was going to go. To me that shows a greater understanding of Iraq and foreign policy in general than those who were in favor of the invasion displayed, as well as a moral fortitude that was lacking. I really don't understand how you can think it wasn't a risky move considering the "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" political climate of the time.

Certainly, I feel no ill will, and I hope I didn't come across as though I did. I just thought it a little bit novel to make such a sweeping claim in light of your absence. Just meant it to be healthy debate -- sorry if I took it somewhere I shouldn't have.

He could have said nothing like almost everyone else. You don't think that, considering the political climate at the time, that he was taking a pretty big risk in making that speech? Okay. Also, no, it was an irrational decision under insane circumstances, but I guess that's nitpicking. Here's the thing though. I don't buy the doctrine of pre-emptive war. It's dangerous and insane, on top of being illegal and immoral. Saddam had not attacked us and he posed no threat to us. I guess the vote was rational if you buy into the idea that we should just invade anyone we don't like, but

Dude, you just came back from a prolonged absence and you're going to claim that no one here has presented a case for Obama? You should probably go back and read some posts a little older than yesterday. Seriously, there's been a ton of detail all over the place.

A non-issue? That he had the judgement that others didn't, and the nerve to speak out against it when it was unpopular? Sorry, but that's letting all of the warmongers responsible for this mess off the hook too easy. Yes, his situation was a little different because he was not in the U.S. Senate, but there were a whole lot of community leaders and elected officials throughout the country who did not speak out as the time. Clearly his courage and judgement on the matter was superior to them, and I think superior to those who were afraid to break from Bush on such a serious issue. I may

No, I don't expect the rich to pay 100% for those programs, but to cover their fair share, yes. And yes, I do expect some higher taxes for the rich. Not really sure about the middle class, but if they do rise, I expect it won't be by much, and personally I don't mind paying taxes if the money is being spent well, and considering the economy has been so mismanaged and I'm losing my job in a month, I'm actually expecting higher paychecks in the near future once the disastrous economic policies of the last 7 years start to get corrected.

John McCain is a neoplatonist. I have read the literature, and I know it to be true. No, I will not offer facts to back up my wild claim -- it is incumbant upon you to prove me wrong.

Seriously, his campaign really showed how intelligent and organized he is. People can certainly still disagree with him on policy, but any worries about competence, organization and judgement should be laid to rest by now. Okay, but given the fact that Obama was not in the Senate at the time, how else could he have expressed his opposition? Did you want him to sneak in there and vote against it in place of someone else?

Are you okay with government subsidies and tax breaks for businesses? As far as I can tell, these are just redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, and yet a lot of people oppose social programs because they are "redistribution of wealth", often forgetting that often times the wealth only got to where it was through exploitative means.

He's been pretty explicit about what he wants to change and how. Please explain. No one really believes that Obama will fix everything or that anything will be easy, other than the small group of crazy followers that every politician has -- most of his supporters understand that our problems are complicated and that there are no guarantees about anything. But his ideas make a whole lot of sense, and I'm happy to take the chance on him rather than continuing with policies that are proven failures, which is what McCain proposes.

And at the time he gave a very passionate speech opposing the war. Sure, his perspective may have been different if he were in the Senate at the time, but it's not as though he jumped on to the anti-war bandwagon only after deciding to run for President. He was very vocal and prescient about the war since well before the invasion.