tvashtarkatena

All seriousness aside, Rossi is a bait-and-switch candidate. He's not upfront on much of anything, and he's very misleading. Take stem cell research. According to his ads, he's 'for stem cell research' (and Gregoire's a "liar" for saying he's not), just not EMBRYONIC stem cell research. Gregoire's ads clearly state that he's against embryonic stem cell research, which is absolutely accurate. Nevermind that embryonic stem cell research is virtually the only kind that exists today, because the ability to create stem cells without embryos was just announced a couple of months ago for the first time and is a process that will no doubt be in its infancy for years to come.

Rossi looks like the kind father you never had, and Gregoire looks like she's just pulled her canines from your jugular.

I think the Senator prefers to fly around the world backwards at the speed of light or something.

It's like Evolution and Global Warming. He just needs more information.

A witch has been discovered on McCain's campaign staff, so the Senator's announced that we're going to have to suspend The Economy until he sorts it out.

Then you need to polish up your street smarts, bucko. Skip church next Sunday and get out there.

And why should we even have to care? Why is the vice presidential candidate for the United States even remotely involved with such an obvious coo coo clock? I don't give a shit what his backstory is, 2 seconds of watching his antics and any reasonable observer would conclude that the man's a loon, a charlatan, or both.

Firstly this is just wrong. Investment banks (or those banks formerly known as investment banks), are defaulting because they can't borrow. They can't borrow because nobody knows the value of their balance sheet. Secondly, calling mortgage backed securities "practically worthless" is a strech. How many people that you know are currently in forclusure? Lets assume that 10% of people with mortgages are in or will be in forclosure (this number is ridiculously high). We'll also assume that a house in forclosure is absolutly worthless (not true). What is the value of the mortagage backed securities backing these houses? 90%. The problem is nobody knows who will be forclosed upon. It could be that in a given bond 90% of the houses in it are being forclosed upon. But you can't really know this. So nodoby will buy them. The number I heard, and I could be totally wrong, is that mortgage backed securities right now are selling for 22 cents on the dollar. Do you reall believe the value of the US housing market is down 78% in the last 2 years? And why is the value of these securities not known? Because of uncertainty due to a high default rate (and the uncertainty of real estate values in general). Badumpbump. Second, practically worthless is a relative term. Would your rather invest in risky securities that could lose 10, 20, or 30 % of their value, or invest in something else? Personally, I object to the Federal government forcing me to invest in the former. Foreclosures are money losers. Big money losers. Bankrupcy protects the original loanees from paying out. Legal processes eat up more money and manpower. And, many times, the properties themselves are not the most salable or desireable. Auctions, necessary to save time and effort, generally yield only firesale prices. Securities backs by such foreclosure prone loans, particularly in an era of long term decline of real estate values, are therefore losers. Finally, you speak as though a high foreclosure rate 'might' happen. Um...it has been happening. After all, it's the root of this mess. Aside from not successfully countering my original points, you also have not told us why such a bail out is a good idea at all, or why, in fact, it isn't the worst thing we could do with $700 billion we, cough, actually don't even have right now. What needs to happen is that real estate values need to fall to where they need to, and the economy needs to slow to where it needs to for things to level out.

That's nice. And yes, I know all about the African thing. Been there. But, you know what? This isn't Africa. And this is the vice presidential candidate for the most heavily armed country on earth we're talking about here, not some mugatu woman with a wandering eye and a goat who won't stop eating the laundry.

Of course, you could fuck a puppy in front of that congregation and they'd be all over it as long as it was in the name of Jesus.

Muthee. Now there's a guy who could use a little machete killin'.

Oh, and eerily, half of Americans are against a bail out plan...just like the invasion of Iraq. Can we get the Confederacy together again? I think Washington needs a little burnin' right about now.

But, but Nancy Pelosi is telling us that Congress won't fall for it this time....

Oh, I've got plenty of wrath for those individuals who overextended themselves. We all get multiple credit card offers in the mail every week, which is an annoyance, but no one puts a gun to our heads and forces us to actually get every credit card and max them out. An awful lot of expensive vehicles, vacations, adornments and over the top remodels were purchased with 'equity' money. I don't want to bail those people out, either. I'm still for the 'do nothing' option. I think, in the not very long run, it would cost us all less. The Bush administration is using is standard scare tactics to redefine this from 'rewarding avaricious and irresponsible behavior' to 'helping the middle and lower class'. Bullshit. If Bush really wanted to help that constituency, rather than his hyperweathly base, he'd push through health care for all, recind his tax cuts for the wealthy, end this expensive war, and invest in energy independence in a real way, rather than this 'trickle down' investment. The increase in gap between rich and poor and erosion of our middle class indicates that trickle down economics is a mythical veneer for concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. I want to see the Bush tax cuts rescinded before I help pony up any money for Wall Street. It would also be nice to see Wall Street put up some of their personal assets for collateral on this bailout, you know, like all the rest of us schmoes have to do when we borrow money to get ourselves out of a jam of our own making. This bail out, it seems to me, is Plan Z, not A.

My 'gut' tells me that looking for POWs from the Korean War is a bit of a lost cause at this point (and was back this bill was being discussed). It's hard to say without knowing both sides of the issue whether or not these guys have a legitimate cause or they're fanatics who can't let an issue go. As for McCain issuing statement for the North Vietnamese, that's been well documented, even in a dramatic bio about the Senator's life, and publicly admitted to by the Senator himself numerous times. Personally, I'm not going to question what someone does under torture. My understanding is that everyone caves under torture eventually, most sooner than later. I think folks should focus on McCain's more recent behavior and actions. His caving (not under torture) on the torture issue, for example.

That's why a guy like FW always tries to move the flashlight beam to non-issues "HAVE YOU HEARD OF ACORN? HMMM??????!!!!!!" rather than the gargantuan, glaring mega-issues of the day; the war, the economy, the environment, civil liberties, all of which highlight his party's utter failures both ideology and execution. He's like a chain smoker in need of a heart/lung transplant berate someone for putting too much half and half in their coffee. He's incapable or unwilling to consider the differences in the degree of incompetence, dishonesty, and avarice between the MOST INFLUENTIAL members of his party and people of COMPARABLE INFLUENCE among the democrats. He's basically a recreational troll without a message.

Alaska: America's human garbage disposal.

I think you've got your demographics wrong. A lot of 'those rednecks' are pissed off working stiffs who are, in fact, your natural political allies. They're for a square deal, and they're not getting one from these fuckheads, and they know it. FW's just a liberal hater. He's anti-stuff, not pro-stuff. If, in fact, America votes GOP given this grim situation and the past 8 grim years, it's probably time to start thinking a splitting the country up again. The West Coast really has no use for the more conservative parts of the country or the federal system in general, they've become more burden than benefit. The Southeast, especially; no benefit to us whatsoever, little cultural similarity, but a huge financial liability, given the way they insist on voting for fuckheads who just increase our national debt. Let them calve off and form BibleLand or whatever. Let them pay for their own Holy Wars if they want. Fuck 'em.

I have it on good authority that bright fuscia carpet makes the baby Jebus cry.

Don't park yer car near a steep hillside in November. It's landslide season, baby. Check it: Aside from McCain's flagging poll numbers: He's hated (now more than ever) by a huge fiscally conservative segment of his own party. Have you guys heard guys like Michael Savage lately? Oh boy. They want somebody who'll actually mind the store for Joe Sixpack, and that certainly isn't the current GOP. This fiscal conservatives don't give a shit about religion, so the choice of Palin makes McCain look even more cynical, irresponsible, and baffoonish. The evangelical kooks will still vote for McCain, but they never vote Dem anyway and so don't really figure into the equation. In addition, the McCain campaign is falling apart before the nation's eyes in the face of this appropriately embarrassing financial clusterfuck. His spinmeisters clearly have no idea how to handle this, judging from their junior varsity moves of late. In contrast, the nation watches Obama weathering the exact same crisis; organized, cool as a cucumber, and bipartisan in his tone. Basically, Obama need to nothing but be himself (which is, after all, what any candidate should do all the time, right?), and watch McCain fall on his own cutlass. Finally, the media seems to have turned against McCain. That can't be a good thing for what's left of his campaign. The GOP still has election fraud on their side, but that only works in a very close election.

Um...bullshit. The mortgage backed securities are practically worthless because they contain too many defaulted loans, which, after all, is why the investment banks are failing. We, the tax payers, without being asked, are being forced by this administration and our fucking limp dick congress to purchase securities that will not pay out. And it's all with borrowed money, which will double our already Jovian sized debt, which will devalue the dollar to just about nothing, which will result in hyperinflation, which will fuck the average American far more than no bail out at all. This is a transfer of wealth from all of us to the very rich, plain and simple, and it is utter bullshit.

The Lettermen piece was so right-on-the-money...and it's the gift that keeps on giving. The morning shows are repeating it over and over, and then there's the web. McCain's is looking like what he is; an impulsive, disorganized guy saddled with poor judgement with an incompetent joke for a running mate whom he doesn't trust to take over for a few days. 'Suspend his campaign?'. He's a PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE just over a month from the election. Who the fuck does he think he is? And how stupid does he think we are? Lettermen's shots of McCain being made up for the Couric interview and "Need a ride to the airport?" comment were pure gold. Face it; McCain's not prepared for the debate, so he's trying to weasel out of it. One should expect this from a guy who as 6th from the bottom of his class of 1,100. "Hey teach, how 'bout an extension?" McCain and Palin; the Ultimate Amateur Hour.

No, what private citizens joke about Palin isn't going to matter a bit in the election outcome. Never does. Not one bit.

My wife's house in Shoreline was built in the 50's. Very nice design, very good materials and workmanship. Some cool features, too, like a fireplace on one side and an indoor BBQ on the opposing kitchen side. Lot's of good stuff built in the 50s, and even into the 60s, for sure, as well as some good, open designs. Then the 70s came along.

Yeah, even 'poorly built' homes of WWII and before were built with much better materials, and generally better designs (real eaves, for example, you know, the keep the rain off and stuff). Generally where the older homes fall short (aside from wiring/plumbing) is the foundation; a lot of crappy old concrete work. The quality of wood that went into those homes just doesn't exist anymore.