Big Ol' Smitty

You've clearly established yourself in previous threads as an expert on our nation's entitlement crisis. Anyways, I thought McCain's closing was really good, but almost sounded like a concession speech. Otherwise, I thought he laid a big giant turd in the two hours leading up to it.

This conversation made me think of this map I like (I bet Czech will like it too, geography nerd). It shows US states labeled as countries with approximately equally sized economies.

Do you do DARPA stuff? You may know someone I know (not the person I already know that you know that I know). Anyway, I'm a graduate assistant and I work at the farmer's market once a week. The graduate assistantship gives me tuition waiver, stipend, and health insurance. The farmer's market work gives me some spending money plus free food. Otherwise it's just mooching off the wife for the 1.5-4 years it will take me to finish this stint in graduate school.

20-30 pairs of cargo shorts?

Is it acceptable to play these if you're a well-adjusted adult? Also, how do you go about asking other well-adjusted adults if they want to play?

Uh, isn't that what "Likely voter" polls are supposed to take into account? And depending on "New Voters" never works; if that were true, we'd have President Kerry today. While new voters might actually come out this year since Obama actually has appeal and charisma and isn't a "Shit, we really need a candidate this year!" like Kerry was, it seems like every year someone is talking about "new voters" pushing them to victory, and it doesn't happen. But didn't Obama already demonstrate the ability to bring new voters out in the primaries (where people vote in far lower percentages to begin with)? Not saying I necessarily agree with nocal, but yeah.

Silly Martin Luther King & Cesar Chavez!

There aren't many Black Republicans. That reminds me, the song "Black Republican" is awesome.

Personally I find the fact that her and McCain are both going around peddling an outright lie about her saying "No thanks" to that Bridge to Nowhere mess a lot more damning, but whatevs. I'm more concerned about the "supported Pat Buchanan in 2000 'cuz Bush wasn't conservative enough" and "seems to have supported Alaskan secession from the US".

This is about half true. About half of Ukrainians are pro-Russia & about half anti. The current government is anti. That's why potential Ukrainian entry into NATO is so dicey. If Yuschenko joins & then his government gets voted out, the new pro-Russian government could just take Ukraine right back out of NATO.

VPILF

Also, looks like there's a halt in the fighting now. This is kinda funny, McCain seems to have lifted portions of a speech on the Georgia crisis from Wikipedia: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/politicalinsid...-his-speec.html

Because Saakashvili thought he had a green light from the US & the West. The training, arms, & NATO-talk that Georgia had been receiving made it feel invincible, it seems. This is just from a soldier, but I get the sense that the Georgian leadership was thinking along these lines as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/eu...amp;oref=slogin Also, when Bush et al supported the secession of Kosovo from Serbia, Putin vowed to provide similar support for the irredentist, pro-Russian areas of Georgia.

Unfortunately, the governor of Alaska. Speaking of which, she has ALSO become embroiled in a scandal (using political powers to settle a personal vendetta against a policeman, I think). She was mentioned as a potential VP pick earlier.

Also, Charlie Crist is rumored to be gay. http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&amp...G=Google+Search

Marv, do you seriously think Romney would help McCain's chances? He's probably the most unlikeable major politician in the US today, plus he's a Mormon. I just don't get it.

Um

I went to KMart to buy Tha Carter III today. I realized that the only place to buy CDs in Frankfort are WalMart & KMart, & WalMart only sells edited rap albums. Anyway, they were sold out of the CD, but the guy in the music section ran out to his car and sold me a burnt copy for $5. Anyway, I really like Tha Carter III.

20/20 Good, considering I was a social studies teacher. I would have felt really stupid if I'd missed some.

This is the worst political ad I've ever seen (for Sen. John Cornyn, who's running for reelection in TX).

Obama sucks for voting for the FISA bill the other day.

Polls were pretty accurate in the primaries, with the exception of New Hampshire. Any stats student will tell you that there are outliers (like the Newsweek poll), but if you have multiple polls you can get a pretty good idea of the state of the race.