SuperJerk

No doubt a whole hell of a lot of people are saying that, sure. But once again, refer to history. In 2004, twelve million more people voted for Bush than did four years prior. Despite all the shit he bungled in the first four years, despite his consistently declining approval ratings from 9/12 on forward, despite everything about the last four years they'd just lived through, twelve million new people decided "I want me some more of that!" and rushed to the poles. Never underestimate the (mad lib) of the American people. Apparently, then, the key to Republican electoral victory is time travel, because if the 2008 election were taking place in the year 2004 you might have a point. Since Bush's approval ratings are NOW below 30%, I would think that a lot more keen to the idea that Republican governance is a bad idea than were aware of it in 2004. Here in the year 2008, there's more evidence that Republican policies don't work than there was in 2004. Unless the Republican Party can import voters via time machine from 4 years ago, I'm pretty sure most voters are aware of how big of a failure those policies are, and are probably having second thoughts about voting Republican for a third straight time.

You could start by asking the 50 million people who voted for Bush in 2000, and the 62 million who did so in 2004. Lots of people agree with Republican policies, ya know. I'm sure if I asked most of the people who voted Republican in 2000 or 2004 why they did it, their answer would be along the lines of "I had no idea they were going to fuck up this badly." I'm mean, how much evidence do you need that Republican policies don't work before you are ready to stop voting for them?

Newsweek uses the number of kids enrolled in AP classes as its sole criteria for judged school quality, according to its annual "America's Best Schools" issue. I'm not kidding... http://www.newsweek.com/id/39380 On the other hand... Er, um, uh...okay...

Somebody really wanted to be part of this thread (why else bring it up, given that the average American isn't old enough to remember the Carter years and knows him only from his post-presidency humanitarian work)... http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/...ousy-president/ Say what you want about his economic policies, but how many American soldiers died in combat under President Carter? Zero.

Oh, there you had to go and drag common sense into this! Geez!

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet... http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/26/obama.rove/index.html There's nothing Americans hate more than someone who makes fun of the people at a country club...oh, wait.

Given the weapons technology and level of training the government gives not just the military, but also federal law enforcement agencies and the CIA, I'm going out on a limb and saying I think the Citizen Army would probably lose that fight.

Regulation of marriage has traditionally been an issue decided by states, until the conservatives began federalizing it in the 90s. Somehow it became a presidential issue. I'm still not sure how that happened when neither of the two major parties has endorsed gay marrige.

So long as we're talking about it...I'm super-annoyed that how many sports you can coach is a deciding factor when applying for high school jobs (especially social studies).

I'm not completely opposed to nuclear power. Over 80 ships in the U.S. Navy are equipped with nuclear reactors (carriers are equipped with 2 reactors) without a single incident, and there has only been one accident in the history of civilian plants and no member of the public was injured by the accident. Compare this to the hazards of coal-fire plants.

None of have a choice in teaching towards the standardized test, but that's not really an excuse. Most of the stuff on the test is stuff we were supposed to be teaching anyways. I'm not happy with the tests are graded, such as how writing tests are frequently used to measure reading ability, or the way data is collected using NCLB regulations, or how testing has made science and social studies education an after-thought, but if the tests are well designed they can be a useful measure to gage student learning.

Yes and no. That thread was started to talk about about one effect of global warming. In my search I was looking for a thread about global warming in general.

We have plenty of threads where discussions of global warming occurred, but I dug back several years trying to find one where that was the actual topic and couldn't find one.

I miss the days when I was proud of a president. I think I was 10 at the time.

Lots of stufff to talk about... I'm undecided as well, Bob. Different polls have been all over the place. Daily tracking is stupid anyways because the fluctuations from day to day always fall within the margin of error. I think P.G.O.A.T. probably gave the best answer on the press question. I think anyone who voted for the Iraq War Resoultion should be automatically disqualified from being offered the VP slot by Obama. Ralph Nader thinks Obama doesn't act black enough. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/25/nad...bama/index.html In America, if you're black but don't act like a stereotype, in this case a stereotype of a black politician, you're not authentic. It is bullshit opinions like that, whether they are held by whites or blacks, that help keep the racial divide going. For a white man to attack a black man on this basis makes my fucking blood boil. I can't believe I ever voted for that asshole.

I don't know. The stock liberal answer is accountability to their corporate masters, but I think its deeper than that. You could also say "Fox News," but their band of journalism isn't exclusive to them, and there is a market for it. Rather than just spouting out the first thing that pops into my head, I'm going to actually put some thought into this before answering. Meanwhile, here's a fun toy to play with. http://www.says-it.com/mccain/intro.php

So, if you think your neighborhood isn't racist, it mean's you're racist? . . . I'd hope they'd mean "community" in a way that is a little broader than that. Or maybe the "their" meant the African-Americans', not the horrible racist white devils. Or maybe polls and their interpretation are usually dumb, and most journalists are just parrots with typewriters who only repeat what they've been told without any critical thought or desire to inform beyond the most sensationalist, attention-grabbing way of stating things.

And I really don't see the likelihood of ethanol causing a corn-shortage that will chain reacting into an across the board food shortage. Just a hunch. Anyhow, it's time now to enjoy the most surprising poll ever conducted.... Racist White People Don't Like Obama You fucking honkies can go back to talking about corn now.

This chart isn't the easiest to understand...Usually timelines put older stuff on the left and newer stuff on the right, and this one has it reversed. The farther you go to the right, the farther into the past you get. But the chart shows a link between CO2 and temperature, but has no implication for cause and effect. However, saying that CO2 is an effect of heating and cooling doesn't explain what the source of the CO2 is, since matter has to come from somewhere. Obviously, since humans weren't producing shit tons of CO2 tens of thousands of years ago, we can only say that natural processes dictated the temperature. Nothing was putting more CO2 in the air, only the temperature was changing vis a vis the aforementioned variables that I've mentioned. As the temperature gets hotter, the ocean releases CO2, and CO2 levels go up. So just one of the places where CO2 is an effect, not a cause. Or maybe CO2 is part of a bigger cause/effect cycle that we are throwing off by introducing so much of it.

I guaran-damn-tee more people care about abortion than government ethanol subsidies. I know its used in a lot of food products, but somehow I think we'll manage if for some reason there's a corn shortage.

Jame Dobson is a huge hypocrite... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_on_...el_dobson_obama

One of a kind...he'll be missed.

This chart isn't the easiest to understand...Usually timelines put older stuff on the left and newer stuff on the right, and this one has it reversed. The farther you go to the right, the farther into the past you get. But the chart shows a link between CO2 and temperature, but has no implication for cause and effect. However, saying that CO2 is an effect of heating and cooling doesn't explain what the source of the CO2 is, since matter has to come from somewhere. Given the emphasis on the ice caps, I'd be interested in seeing more research on this. Do you have a link? The amount of greenhouse gases put out by cows is a direct result of livestock breeding by beef-eating humans, and is therefore not a naturally occuring phenomena.