prole

"See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!"

900% of the recommended daily allowance of sodium will do that.

Nope, he's been hanging out with fuck dumb.

McCain's insufficient vetting process strikes again.

Obama: "My greatest weakness? I might be a little too awesome."

Why in god's name wouldn't anybody count McCain out? Bradley Effect on a level bordering on the (anti)miraculous? Pulling Osama bin Laden out of deep-freeze? Assassination? Tainting the water suppy with "patriot-juice"? McCain getting a bionic...anything? Where's the hope Fairweather? The systemic effects of your own bankrupt ideology have doomed you. It's not Obama's good looks, McCain's ineptitude, or Fox's Nielsen's ratings. It's the last 30 years of your fucked program. That was the "game-changer". Get bent, dinosaur man.

Your point about the "great men of history" and dealing the hand we're dealt is well taken. However, as anyone living under a modern political structure in any advanced industrialized country (with any brains) would tell you, the political structure we've been saddled with for so long is hopelessly archaic. You've said as much yourself with regards to large expanses of physical territory. Add to this the stranglehold that the two-party system has over the process and we're looking at a situation where the very American structures of governance need to be changed: third fourth and fifth parties in a thoroughly more representative system. Of course, this means absolutely nothing for the next election or the one after that, but given the potential upheavals we're dealing with it wouldn't hurt to start thinking about "real, fundamental change" in the medium to long term. This nonsense has gone on too long. Utopian? Nope, purely pragmatic.

Fuckin' Canucks.

WIN? Yeah they're gonna win! They're gonna win with a fucking MANDATE!!!!

Give it a try.

What's the big deal? They've been doing that for years. [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlwW1aj9xak

One might start with the question is "investing" the best way to go about planning for one's retirement at all. Absent guaranteed pensions or Social Security, putting your money in the casino has been the only option and one that was promoted breathlessly from all corners. There is no such thing as a guaranteed pension. Companies holding pensions go bankrupt. Insurers holding annuities go bust. There is a huge unfunded pension liability in many cities. SS will be less in the future. Pensions invest in the same casino you are railing about. You're demanding that gov't/business provide you a guaranteed comfortable financial retirement after a few years of work. That's an illusion. There's always risk. Yeah well, I think we're seeing a lot of "illusions" and "impossibilities" going down the tubes. $1,000,000,000,000 to bailout banks, cover their asses? Yes, I'm demanding that people who work their entire lives for business and government are guaranteed a livable retirement. It can, has, and will be done. Anything less is barbarism.

For most of this century in Seattle, it's been cheaper to rent a home than to buy. The difference could have been saved for the kids' college, or saved for the parent's retirement. Well apparently more people responded to "financial freedom", "American Dream", "ownership society", "independence", "ever increasing value", etc, etc. Whodathunk?

One might start with the question is "investing" the best way to go about planning for one's retirement at all. Absent guaranteed pensions or Social Security, putting your money in the casino has been the only option and one that was promoted breathlessly from all corners. Do I think people's rights should be infringed as to where they invest their money? No. But the market should only be supplementing something not subject to the great flushing sound we're now hearing. That "something" has been being dismantled for the last 30 years of the conservative pro-business fog machine.

This is perfect example of the kind of unchallenged rubbish packaged in mewling cries of "competitiveness" that got us in this mess. Apparently what's been good for American business has not necessarily been good for America.

I've avoided trapping myself in these instruments for exactly the reasons that are now coming to pass and I didn't believe in the bullshit marketing or the lifestyles they promote. I've been branded something of a Luddite as a result. What I wouldn't do is blast ordinary Americans that have been spoonfed this shit from every corner of cultural life (government, business, media and academia) for the last 20 years. Who's going to rip into parents for wanting to own a home for their kids when everyone, most of all the banks who are financing the mortgage, are telling them they can?! Who's the asshole who's going to blame workers for investing their money in retirement funds when the companies they work for have cut them loose and dumbfuck politicians are telling them Social Security isn't going to be around when they retire? Who? You.

Which ones are lizard illuminati?

I don't have stocks (risky or otherwise), I don't live (too far) above my means, I don't live in a house I can't afford, I didn't vote for Bush or Clinton, but I'll still be in the breadline if I get fired when the economy tanks. Pulling up one's bootstraps and admitting that I'm at fault is a bit tough to swallow. So live in the postmodern la-la-land of relativity that the ideological masters have created for us. I'll keep placing the blame where it deservedly lies.

Ironically, this is the ultimate form of avoiding responsibility and is quite appealing to those who actually have real power and bear real responsibility. "We're all guilty, no one is guilty". Hopefully, this kind of ahistorical, decontextualized, structure-less worldview is on its way out with Thatcher's exhortations that "there is no society, only individuals" which this crisis has shown for the horseshit that it is..

Palin as president? Click around the Oval Office.

Hey Rip Van Winkle, your stimulus check from the former owner of the Texas Rangers is sitting in your mailbox.

Or the net worth of each?

He stepped into that arena days after he had MLK, Jr., killed. Fucking hilarious.

McCain sounded like the shrill, hotheaded psycho that he is. Porter's .gif says it all. Obama beat him like a drum. His response on Ayers and ACORN (supposedly McCain's silver bullet) was simply masterful. Despite my halfhearted sick fantasy of a McCain victory to bring on America's complete collapse, I'll be glad not to have to look at that twisted dwarf or listen to his what are sure to be apocalypse-inducing policy prescriptions anymore.

That's not good.