References to Obama as “articulate.” Once by someone planning to vote for him, and once by a McCain supporter. Now THAT’S racist.

Until I get bored or the sushi rice is ready, whichever comes first.

We’re watching this bad boy in HD so we can see how long Barack’s nose grows during his answers, how much baggage Lehrer is carrying under his eyes, and how many times McCain grimaces at one of the many stupid things Obama will say.

Lehrer quotes Eisenhower. “We must achieve both security and solvency,” blah blah blah. Where do the candidates stand on the socialism plan? Obama can’t think of a better time to talk about the country. That’s all he does is talk, ever. “Present!” 1) We have to have oversight. “700 billion dollars potentially is a lot of money.” I guess it depends on inflation? 2) Taxpayers, when they’re putting their money at risk, need to have the possibility of getting that money back. Yeah, like the *possibility* we have of getting back what we’re putting into social security? Oh, plus we should get back gains if there are any. Let’s all just wish in one hand and wet in the other and see which one fills up first. 3) None of the money should pad CEO bank accounts or pay for golden parachutes. And 20% to ACORN for all! 4) Help homeowners, because the root problem is the foreclosures. Really? I thought the root problems were greedy people borrowing more than they could pay back and the government passing anti-capitalist laws that forced banks to make bad loans. Maybe it’s just me. I really don’t like this guy.

That was the longest 120 seconds EVER.

McCain gets to answer. Platitudes, best wishes to his dearly beloved friend Senator Kennedy, more platitudes to the host. He’s pleased about the bipartisan meeting yesterday and all the negotiations. The plan has to have transparency, has to have oversight, has to have the option for loans to failing businesses rather than the government taking them over (YES). Yes, I went back to Washington, and I’m not sorry. This isn’t the beginning of the end, this is the end of the beginning of the crisis, and we have to help America financially, partly by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. SarahK would also like to add that any Americans left jobless after this whole nightmare should get their pick of jobs currently held by illegal aliens.

Break for making sushi, brb.

Lehrer not happy with responses. Are you in favor of the plan or not? What plan, Lehrer? It’s defunct!

Obama wants to ask questions about how we got here in the first place. Holy crap, I should not be allowed to listen to him lie his way through debates. He’s saying that regulation would have helped. Regulation was a freaking HUGE PLAYER IN THIS! McCain doesn’t hit Barack nearly as hard as he should. Obama responds with more regulation and more and more. SarahK’s brain explodes. Lehrer tells Obama to speak directly to McCain, and Obama says his name but won’t look at him, because he’s scared he might pee his pants. McCain: we have to fix the system. Main Street paying penalty for excesses and greed on Wall Street. Stricter interpretation, consolidation of regulatory agencies (what?? Smaller government? You fascist!).

Ok, sorry, was rolling sushi. Highlights from when I was listening in the kitchen: Senator Obama, a good number of people making over $250,000 are small business owners who employ a lot of people and need to keep some of that money invested in the business so they can afford to keep those employees. Also, lots of LOL moments at Barack’s talky-talk. “I’m not doing earmarks right now.” But um, you’re running for president. McCain doesn’t do the earmarks even when he’s not running. And yeah, he opposes Bush and conservatives a *lot*, which is why we pretty much hate him. I don’t remember all of the LOLs I was guffawing over, but they were many. I will try to continue typing while I eat smoked salmon rolls. You wish you were me.

Ok, we’re behind, so McCain is just now pwning Barack on the war, in case you’re wondering where we are. And so Barack is going and talking about how wrong it is for us to be in the war in the first place. He, apparently, doesn’t understand that we’re not debating whether we should be in Iraq. That debate happened like almost six years ago. Yes, Obama, let’s go take the Iraqis’ “surplus” (fact check, please?) so they can flourish as a democracy with no money. McCain tells him the next president won’t have to worry about why we got in the war because, you know, we’re already there.
Continue reading ‘That debate thing’ »

Not sure I’ll live blog, but we’ll see what happens.

Over at CNN, which is in HD (the only reason to stay over there), they have a round table where the conservative standard bearer is . . . . David Gergen.  Then they say that their “average viewer” room, off at someone’s house, overwhelmingly thinks Obama will win the debate, and then later it slips out that the majority are probably Obama voters.  That’s fair and balanced for you.

Remember–the first 2004 debate–I wouldn’t say that pompous twit Kerry one, but Bush definitely lost.  He was horrendous, practically sleep-walking and incoherent, then was great the next two, so don’t read too much into any of this.

So what’s the best conservative solution to this financial crisis? Do nothing, but maybe pass some sort of placebo bill so the panicky segment of the American public think we’re doing something?

(AP — Biloxi, Mississippi) Senator Obama spent the day feverishly preparing for the presidential debate this evening.  Unidentified sources say Obama’s greatest concern is that the questions will veer away from foreign policy, the topic he memorized his lines for, to other areas such as the national and global economy.  Obama is a notoriously poor off-the-cuff public speaker.  In unrelated news, an Obama spokesperson indicated that the candidate has suddenly developed an acute astigmatism, and will be wearing glasses tonight.

By PATRICK HEALY
Published: September 26, 2008
Senator John McCain’s campaign said Friday morning that he will attend tonight’s debate with Senator Barack Obama at the University of Mississippi, reversing his earlier call to postpone the debate so he could participate in the Congressional negotiations over the $700 billion bailout plan for financial firms.

I really don’t understand any of this bank or mortgage stuff, but I feel I should offer you all some advice since that’s why you come here. My best financial suggestion is to make sure you at least have a shotgun and plenty of ammo. If things go to pot, there’s a lot of things you’ll need to survive, but you can always get them later if you at least have a shotgun. A shotgun should be the foundation of any stable portfolio.

Here’s yet another tiresome “scientific” study on what’s wrong with conservatives. Why do we keep getting these kind of things? Because social scientists tend to be liberals. Why is that? Has anyone ever thought to do a study of why, even though liberals are a fringe group in America at large, they tend to make up the majority of certain occupations? I guess I’m the only one who’s thought of it, but I can’t write up a long scientific study because I HAVE AN ACTUAL JOB.

And there’s the difference.

Look at the occupations that tend to be dominated by liberals: Social scientists, college professors, actors, musicians, artists. What’s similar between them all? They don’t produce anything essential. If you ran the country like a company and because of budget cutbacks you had to start laying people off, all the jobs liberals do would be the first to go. It’s nice to have actors and musicians, but we can live without them.

Liberals are an excess of civilization. You have to reach a certain level of society where useless people no longer starve to death before liberals can exist. But liberals can’t exist on their own. They need conservatives to do all the useful things needed for actual survival. Liberals need conservatives, but not the other way around.

Also, liberals have dumb monkey faces that I just want to punch.

Someone submit this to a scientific journal for me, please.

Last night I was kind of meandering through the comments, and noticed the language had gotten a little salty.  I e-mailed Frank, with this exchange:

Cadet Happy to Frank — 8:58 PM 
. . . i think you need a profanity filter of some type now — the lanugage appears to be getting WAY out of hand

Frank to Cadet Happy — 9:22 PM
It’s in the settings. I started writing a word blacklist, but it made me feel dirty. I guess I’ll add to it as stuff slips by.

So, I go in there and Frank has put THREE dirty words in the moderation filter.  I’m kind of fascinated by the three that were front and center in his mind.
 

SO, your mission — guess what the three dirty words were that Frank added to the moderation list.  The first person to get all three wins either an IMAO t-shirt, or Frank’s book — whichever you would like.

We will have a winner by Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. CST.  I’ll put some clues in as time goes on if no one is getting it. 

NOTE:  I’ve added about 60 dirty words to the list, so unless you modify the spelling, your guess will get kicked into moderation.  So, you must use & * # % or some other symbol for the vowel in the dirty word, or it won’t show up in the comments.  The winner must show up in the comments section to win.  You could also test the comment system, by guessing — if the dirty word shows up, then it obviously isn’t on the list — I won’t ban you or anything for guessing dirty words, and, actually I encourage you to do it. 

This is a no holds barred comment section — If you don’t like cursewords, stay the heck out.  I might even give a special prize for most creative curse word.  So have at it you st#p1d m0th3r f#ck3r5

UPDATE — You can make as many guesses as you like.

I had a post about what other things we could do with $700 billion than the bailout. This is a humor blog. CNN.com had a front page article of people suggesting things the government could do with $700 billion (mainly whines about how they should have it to pay off bills or it should be spent on handouts). CNN is supposed to be a serious news organization.

THERE’S NOT ACTUALLY SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS SITTING AROUND WAITING TO BE SPENT, PEOPLE!

You think CNN might take a second to explain that. Yes, this whole bailout seems like a big boondoggle, but at least — theoretically — it’s actually an investment where the government could get its money back plus some. That’s quite different from spending money we don’t have on free candy.

Really, this shouldn’t be my job to explain this sort of thing.

There’s a mass without roofs
There’s a prison to fill
There’s a country’s soul that reads post no bills
There’s a strike and a line of cops outside of the mill
There’s a right to obey
And there’s a right to kill

-Calm Like a Bomb

Here’s what the genius who has come up with the plan to save us said last March.  It would be interesting to know what happened in the last 6 months that so drastically changed the situation–in other words, have they all just been fiddling while Rome burned, or is this whole thing a crock.  Why does an emergency massive bailout come out of the blue all of a sudden?  I can’t wait to read a book on this in a couple years–hopefully we won’t be in a depression by the time it comes out.

Articles after the split . . .

Continue reading ‘Hand this group of bozos a trillion dollars, and expect they will come up with a solution to all our financial problems over a weekend? Hell to the no.’ »