He's on the trail...



Best...

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

He's on the trail...



Best...

Not going to lie...I think I finally became an Obama bot after seeing this.

Originally Posted by JDFP

Personally, I'd have to rank Dubya as #1 on my list of presidents I'd like to most get shitfaced drunk with - because be honest, I bet that would be a wild night! (#2 would be JFK and #3 would be Reagan watching "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" in the White House theater just to pick his brain though he rarely ever touched alcohol).

I like this.

#1 JFK -- Booze and broads (sorry ladies), hanging with the Rat Pack
#2 Lincoln -- Great sense of humor, I bet he'd have endless jokes about Mary Todd
#3 TR -- At least until he broke out the guns

LBJ gets an honorable mention.

If Mitt wins, he automatically becomes the worst (Let's Drink Soda).

Originally Posted by JDFP

Personally, I'd have to rank Dubya as #1 on my list of presidents I'd like to most get shitfaced drunk with - because be honest, I bet that would be a wild night!
j.p.

Right after I saw the Obama Al Green video, some one posted a Bush blooper real.

He's a very funny dude. I actually think some of those goofs were on purpose and his sense of humor.

Originally Posted by JDFP

You know, public speaking really is an art form though.

No it isn't. Some may be more comfortable naturally, but with enough repetitions anyone can become proficient.

Originally Posted by TeddyR

No it isn't. Some may be more comfortable naturally, but with enough repetitions anyone can become proficient.

Proficient, yes. But some people have the true talent (and I do say talent) of public speaking above and beyond just giving a speech. Some speakers I've known had an uncanny ability to ENTHRALL people through speaking. Reagan had this gift - Obama has this gift as well (one thing the two very diverse men have in common). I'd say Jack and Bobby Kennedy also had this gift as well. I think it's a charism to be honest. A gift. I've witnessed this on a few occasions and it just totally blows me away.

I'd have to argue there's a huge difference between being a good and proficient speaker as opposed to someone who has the absolute charism of just lighting up and enthralling an audience through speaking.

j.p.

Originally Posted by TeddyR

I like this.

#1 JFK -- Booze and broads (sorry ladies), hanging with the Rat Pack
#2 Lincoln -- Great sense of humor, I bet he'd have endless jokes about Mary Todd
#3 TR -- At least until he broke out the guns

LBJ gets an honorable mention.

If Mitt wins, he automatically becomes the worst (Let's Drink Soda).

I'd have to rank Nixon as probably the worst president to get drunk with personally. He was known to get drunk and wonder the darkened White House corridors for hours on end talking to himself. While I think it would be absolutely fascinating to have walked along with him just to listen to his soliloquies it probably wouldn't make for very good conversation.

Ah, now Ted Kennedy or Tip O'Neill though - I bet that would be highly entertaining!

"Eh, no, Ted, you better give me the keys!" -- sorry, couldn't resist.

j.p.

Originally Posted by Deb C

I prefer fewer shenanigans. Why do we put up with half truths from corporations? Especially when they are given our money to work for our benefit. It's like giving someone money to build you a home but end up getting half of what you paid for.

I appreciate your information about GM.

I understand and appreciate your disgust in corporate lying, but I think most of those 1.5 million and their families are innocent bystanders to that lying. Also now that the lying is out in the open maybe both legal and market forces will deal with it and that would be preferable to devastating those millions, no?

Also, just to note, the auto bailout by the federal govt cost you, me and every other American absolutely nothing - no increase in taxes and no inflation.

Again, however, I understand your disgust.

Originally Posted by TeddyR

AZ wasn't a state until 1912. I was talking about the shifting demographics that are likely to make the "Land of Barry" a Dem state in the future.

The Anglos who took over Arizona in the 1840s and 1850s were basically Southerners -- and they brought Southern ways with them. The Confederacy claimed the Arizona and New Mexico Territories, even establishing a capital at Mesilla (now New Mexico).

Arizona was clearly a part of the Wild West...and need I tell you about Tombstone? It was a rough place with liquor-fueled grudge matches played out with .44s... with combatants in those matches ending up in Boot Hill Cemetery. That is very much the pattern of life from the early settlers of the Mountain areas of first the central and southern Appalachians and then the Ozarks -- and the wildest parts of the West. The West where settled by staid New Englanders, New Yorkers, and Michiganders -- like Iowa and Nebraska -- were dull by contrast. Jesse James was a prime example of that culture -- and he made the mistake of going to Minnesota where such just wasn't tolerated.

The Wild West died about 1900, and Arizona now attracts people for reasons other than to make quick bucks in mining silver. Like Michiganders who don't like to shovel snow.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

The Republican plot thickens. This article from Huffington, by an apostate investment banker, quotes the Wall Street Journal to the effect that Romney may have engaged in some very questionable tax avoidance practices, to put it mildly. There is evidence that he has managed to get over $100 million into his IRA despite an annual contribution limit of $30,000. I think this could turn into an issue of some consequence.

You know if Romney is truly representative of the top 0.1% there is going to be a ton of this just-short-of-legal tax avoidance practices. They must have a bank of accountants trying to bury it even more and therefore the delaying tactics of releasing the returns. They're very good at this and will likely succeed, however, just one in-the-know needs to grasp the possibility of 15-minutes-fame and a possible book deal, and have everything blow up in Romney's face. It may all be 'legal' but with what I expect to be a very very tumultuous summer of the 99% protest, this is not the cycle to be Richie-Rich tax dodger no matter how legal.

Depending when and if this breaks, there will be a near simultaneous, clear and undeniable, realization that there is no viable GOP candidate, and it will snowball with devastating impact on fund raising. At some point, there is going to be a drafting of an alternative - maybe Christie, Bloomberg or Virginia's McDonnell.

Originally Posted by Odin

Lying to the public about a embarassing personal issue that should have remained between him and his family. Yes, he was technically guilty of perjury, but the offense was committed at a Congress engaging in witch hunts

Besides, anyone who'd ever been to high school in the 50s and 60s would tell you there was a difference between "making out" and "going all the way". When Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman, I recognized the distinction he was making - he didn';t go all the way with her, so technically, they were just making out. I thought it was hairsplitting on a microhair scale, but I knew where he was coming from.

And so did the Republicans. They were just setting the dogs on him to see him run. Interesting that one of the head hound dogs was Newt Gingrich!

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Besides, anyone who'd ever been to high school in the 50s and 60s would tell you there was a difference between "making out" and "going all the way". When Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman, I recognized the distinction he was making - he didn';t go all the way with her, so technically, they were just making out. I thought it was hairsplitting on a microhair scale, but I knew where he was coming from.

And so did the Republicans. They were just setting the dogs on him to see him run. Interesting that one of the head hound dogs was Newt Gingrich!

Wow. How many wives would accept an explanation that their husbands didn't have sex with another woman because she "only" gave him a BJ? Maybe the judge will grant me a break on the divorce settlement because my cheating (hypothetical) was "only" a BJ?

And how many Democratic-leaning women would accept that response from a Republican caught in such an affair? I have a hard time believing that Democratic or otherwise left-leaning women who excuse Clinton would have excused Clinton's successor in the White House under similar circumstances. Pigs would sooner fly.

I'm not supporting the witch hunt as it occurred. But neither am I going to give someone a pass because of their politics.

Originally Posted by playwrite

You know if Romney is truly representative of the top 0.1% there is going to be a ton of this just-short-of-legal tax avoidance practices. They must have a bank of accountants trying to bury it even more and therefore the delaying tactics of releasing the returns. They're very good at this and will likely succeed, however, just one in-the-know needs to grasp the possibility of 15-minutes-fame and a possible book deal, and have everything blow up in Romney's face. It may all be 'legal' but with what I expect to be a very very tumultuous summer of the 99% protest, this is not the cycle to be Richie-Rich tax dodger no matter how legal.

Depending when and if this breaks, there will be a near simultaneous, clear and undeniable, realization that there is no viable GOP candidate, and it will snowball with devastating impact on fund raising. At some point, there is going to be a drafting of an alternative - maybe Christie, Bloomberg or Virginia's McDonnell.

Mitt Romney shows how corrupt the system has become. A few can get away with making fortunes by raiding assets and treating employees badly -- and it becomes capital gains instead of ordinary income.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Wow. How many wives would accept an explanation that their husbands didn't have sex with another woman because she "only" gave him a BJ? Maybe the judge will grant me a break on the divorce settlement because my cheating (hypothetical) was "only" a BJ?

And how many Democratic-leaning women would accept that response from a Republican caught in such an affair? I have a hard time believing that Democratic or otherwise left-leaning women who excuse Clinton would have excused Clinton's successor in the White House under similar circumstances. Pigs would sooner fly.

I'm not supporting the witch hunt as it occurred. But neither am I going to give someone a pass because of their politics.

I think it's a generational thing. To me, "sex" is intercourse. This may come from having started to come of age before Roe V Wade. Seriously, for "nice" girls, it was everything but "sex." How do you think we kept our"virtue"?

Once it was verified, Democrats were appalled by Anthony Weiner's and John Edwards' activities. Have you heard about them lately? Gary Hart disappeared, too.

Clinton lied in a deposition. Even the most politically liberal attorneys I know have trouble with that. That he had sex outside his marriage is another issue between himself and his wife.

To me the issue is not so much infidelity but hypocrisy. Gingrich was going after Clinton while he himself was having an extramarital affair.

Originally Posted by TeddyR

On what basis Eric? This is nonsense. I suspect you are saying this as it fits your Boomer dream of a two (or more) Americas.

No, I don't think so (and anyway of course it is not a "Boomer" dream; you call anything you disagree with "Boomer." You dislike sectional or ideological divides, but thrive on generational ones). You can look at this as you do, that the Dixie rebels were attacking government property and committing treason. But as Foote said on the Civil War series, before the civil war, the United States were looked upon as a group of states, not as a single entity. The southern states thought they had every right to leave a union they voluntarily joined, just as the 13 colonies thought they had every right to leave the UK. But it is true that, now that we have two irreconcilable factions in America again, it might be good to look at things that way again. If a blue state or a red state wants to seceed, I say let them go. We should not fight a war to keep them in a union they don't want to be in.

JFPD's contention that it was not about slavery, is what is the nonsense. The Dixie rebels were very up-front that this is what it was about. Abolitionists were not to be denied either, and extending slavery was an abomination to the North that they felt could not be allowed. So the question remains whether a war was the best way to deal with a section that had declared its independence in order to preserve its inhuman and racist institution.

Originally Posted by millennialX

Right after I saw the Obama Al Green video, some one posted a Bush blooper real.

He's a very funny dude. I actually think some of those goofs were on purpose and his sense of humor.

Dream on dude...

Originally Posted by playwrite

You know if Romney is truly representative of the top 0.1% there is going to be a ton of this just-short-of-legal tax avoidance practices. They must have a bank of accountants trying to bury it even more and therefore the delaying tactics of releasing the returns. They're very good at this and will likely succeed, however, just one in-the-know needs to grasp the possibility of 15-minutes-fame and a possible book deal, and have everything blow up in Romney's face. It may all be 'legal' but with what I expect to be a very very tumultuous summer of the 99% protest, this is not the cycle to be Richie-Rich tax dodger no matter how legal.

Depending when and if this breaks, there will be a near simultaneous, clear and undeniable, realization that there is no viable GOP candidate, and it will snowball with devastating impact on fund raising. At some point, there is going to be a drafting of an alternative - maybe Christie, Bloomberg or Virginia's McDonnell.

According to my rating system:
Bloomberg 10-9
Christie 11-12

Neither one is a better candidate than Romney, Paul OR Gingrich, according to the cosmic mirror.

They both have some good aspects in their charts to be elected, but both have debilitating factors too. I'm looking at Christie's chart, and I see a good administrator with the necessary joviality and affability to be elected, but his big mouth shows up very clearly (close Mercury square Mars) and his popularity is fitful. So the GOP can ditch its big-time capitalist gamer with no convictions, and its brash bomb thrower with big ideas and big baggage, and its bigoted homophobe too small to win, and its cult leader/ideologue isolationist, for an overweight mean-talker, or still-another capitalist billionaire gamer-- neither of whom want to run. Why bother? Just put someone up and hope he flies, would be my prediction of what the GOP decides. I think they think Obama is so bad they can just put anyone up.

McDonnell who?

Originally Posted by annla899

Clinton lied in a deposition.

Depending on what the definition of is, is.

Originally Posted by JDFP

The firebombing of Dresden and nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done against enemy combatants - not American citizens standing up for their states against an oppressive and bloated federal government who infringed on their homeland by waging warfare by occupation. I'd go even one further and say we should have opened up consideration for keeping on in a straight-march to Moscow after the Nazis were defeated, using low-yield tactical nuclear weapons in N. Korea and Vietnam as well, and doing what we necessarily must do as an American nation against those who would attempt to harm this nation.

What you've presented is a non-comparison as it's not Americans against enemy combatants but Americans against an oppressive force of other Americans on native soil. The only victor of the Civil War was bloodshed of brother against brother.

I see.

What did the Vietnamese people do to "harm our nation"? Were they coming over here in boats to invade?

Or were they not "defending their homeland" from invasion and occupation from a hostile force of outsiders trying to dictate what system they should live under? Indeed, involved in their own "Civil War" which the US decided to step into. So it's okay to be "Shermanesque" (burning villages and whatnot, or as you suggest, using nukes) if you're American? Oh wait, Sherman was also American, and the CSA insisted they were not part of the USA anymore. So, at least by their own reckoning, they weren't "American citizens". Not that I think there's anything exceptional about people who happened to be born or have citizenship here, although you seem to (in some cases anyway).

Oh, and Sherman's field orders for the March to the Sea were thus:

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, In the Field, Kingston, Georgia, November 9, 1864
I. For the purpose of military operations, this army is divided into two wings viz.: The right wing, Major-General O. O. Howard commanding, composed of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps; the left wing, Major-General H. W. Slocum commanding, composed of the Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.
II. The habitual order of march will be, wherever practicable, by four roads, as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points hereafter to be indicated in orders. The cavalry, Brigadier - General Kilpatrick commanding, will receive special orders from the commander-in-chief.
III. There will be no general train of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition-train and provision-train, distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition - wagons, provision-wagons, and ambulances. In case of danger, each corps commander should change this order of march, by having his advance and rear brigades unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at 7 a.m., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.
IV. The army will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather, near the route traveled, corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables, corn-meal, or whatever is needed by the command, aiming at all times to keep in the wagons at least ten day's provisions for the command and three days' forage. Soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass, but during a halt or a camp they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and to drive in stock of their camp. To regular foraging parties must be instructed the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road traveled.
V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usually neutral or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or bridges. In all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or threatening language, and may, where the officer in command thinks proper, give written certificates of the facts, but no receipts, and they will endeavor to leave with each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance.
VII. Negroes who are able-bodied and can be of service to the several columns may be taken along, but each army commander will bear in mind that the question of supplies is a very important one and that his first duty is to see to them who bear arms.

— William T. Sherman, Military Division of the Mississippi Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864

(Emphases mine.)

Harsh, but "fair" in terms of the practice of total war, especially in those times. And it was total war, of the type generally found in 4Ts.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Dream on dude...

8 years Eric. 8 years. Either laugh or dream, now.

I agree with Badger and Annla about Clinton. Indeed, at the time, I posed this question for people like Ziggy:

Suppose you were dating a woman (I assume you're a man, Ziggy), and you had made out, done phone sex, and had one blow job from her, and your best friend--some one to whom you would tell the truth--asked you, "Have you two had sex?" What would you say? I would have said, "no." And meant it.

And for the record, during Gingrich's second marriage he told another woman that he preferred oral sex so that he could say he hadn't slept with anyone else.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I was reading about the soon-to-be-announced program to deepen shipping channels to accommodate the new post Panamax ships.

Deepening the port in Savannah is very important for the health of Georgia and the region. Naturally, the state is trying to get federal funds to help out. Frankly, I think that whether the feds come through or not, it is so important for this port to be deepened, that the state will figure out a way to pay for it from its own pocket if it has to.

After the ridiculous billions spent on the "big dig" in Boston, no one has any reason to hold back on asking for federal money for infrastructure improvements.

James50

Originally Posted by TeddyR

This from the Captain of the Good News Express?

This was in response to the crowing about GM becoming the biggest automaker. One reason this happened is because Japanese auto companies were crippled for several months by the tsunami in spring 2011. This is unlikely to happen in 2012, and GM's perch atop the industry will be short lived.

James50

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Considering his political career, he's a son of the south now. The I-can't-vote-for-Romney comments I mentioned earlier were even echoed by two respondants when Rich Santorum was mentioned. I guess a true believer from Pennsylvania is not quite adequate. Admit it; the south is far and away the most region-centric part of the country. I've lived in Virginia for 40 years, but I'm still that guy from New York.

Nothing comes close to California in regional myopia and chauvinism.

James50

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I've lived in Virginia for 40 years, but I'm still that guy from New York.

New York is as New York does.

James50