Election '08 (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Politics on the Internet)

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Comments

  • edited October 2008
    I will have to stream it tonight (tomorrow your time) when I get off work!
  • edited October 2008
    It's not worth it. Especially if you've been following along already.

    Edit: Although it would make my last post make sense.
  • edited October 2008
    Nonsense. Eating babies has long been a part of the Democratic platform, and one that is frequently attacked by Republicans.
  • edited October 2008
    It has also been supported by great thinkers and writers of the past. It works, guys. Seriously.
  • edited October 2008
    I think that in the 3rd debate I will take a shot of vodka every time someone says "fundamental". It should be good fun.
  • edited October 2008
    There's a thin line between drinking game and ritual suicide.
  • edited October 2008
    It has also been supported by great thinkers and writers of the past. It works, guys. Seriously.

    But he's anti-abortion? 0_o
  • edited October 2008
    The U.S. election summed up with trains:

    jgWRGzmqQemerjb15iVRgAoRo1_500.jpg
  • edited October 2008
    But he's anti-abortion? 0_o

    Who, Swift?
  • edited October 2008
    Yup.
    There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas!
    -Johnathan Swift
  • edited October 2008
    I gol'd (guffaw out loud) at that picture iggy. Nicely done.
  • edited October 2008
    Are you being facetious and pretending not to get it, or do you not get it? I'm not sure...
  • edited October 2008
    Serephel wrote: »
    I gol'd (guffaw out loud) at that picture iggy. Nicely done.

    Yeah, that was pretty darn good.
  • edited October 2008
    Are you being facetious and pretending not to get it, or do you not get it? I'm not sure...

    I don't get it, I think. Does the "alas!" connote sarcasm? Thats my best guess.
    I don't see what I'm missing.
  • edited October 2008
    Iggy, why do I get the feeling we read all the same blogs?
  • edited October 2008
    I don't get it, I think. Does the "alas!" connote sarcasm? Thats my best guess.
    I don't see what I'm missing.

    The thing he linked was written hundreds of years ago. (note the year "1729" next to the name Jonathan Swift at the top of the article.) Furthermore, I'm pretty sure the whole thing wasn't serious.

    At the bottom is a little note:

    "Note: Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), author and satirist, famous for Gulliver's Travels (1726) and A Modest Proposal (1729). This proposal, where he suggests that the Irish eat their own children, is one of his most drastic pieces. He devoted much of his writing to the struggle for Ireland against the English hegemony."

    See that bold word there? That's the word of the day. Look it up if you don't know it. Andrew was just making a funny joke by pulling up a really, really old "eats babies" joke. Just go along with it and have a good laugh. Are we clear now?
  • edited October 2008
    Wow I am stoopid!
    I saw the date, and satirist. But I figured it was too dry to be parody. Plus stuff was almost like that in spots of history. Damn.

    I'm stupid. I can't even dig myself out of this one. Damn.
  • edited October 2008
    It's okay, Blob. I had my students read this for Tuesday's class, and there were many who didn't realize he wasn't being serious. It's just part of the learning process, and makes that epiphany even funnier to all involved.
  • edited October 2008
    What? There are people who've never heard of "a modest proposal"? Let alone that it's satire?

    I am shocked. Shocked!
  • edited October 2008
    To be fair, weren't they all Asian students for whom English isn't their first language?
  • edited October 2008
    Huh? No, I teach first year writing at Western Michigan University. Most of them are American freshmen.
  • edited October 2008
    Huh. I read it my junior year of high school... I do remember some people thinking it was gross and disgusting though, and I was like "I'm.... I'm pretty sure he's not serious guys. We're going over satire this 6 weeks, remember?"

    My friend Elie said he was the only one cracking up when he read it in his class (we all read at our own pace). He's a special one though :)
  • edited October 2008
    I also read it in junior year, and I thought it was freaking hilarious. The title alone gives me a chuckle when I think about it.
  • edited October 2008
    I want to see Obama or McCain suggest it as a way to cut costs in this recession.
  • edited October 2008
    Mish42 wrote: »
    Huh. I read it my junior year of high school... I do remember some people thinking it was gross and disgusting though, and I was like "I'm.... I'm pretty sure he's not serious guys. We're going over satire this 6 weeks, remember?"

    My friend Elie said he was the only one cracking up when he read it in his class (we all read at our own pace). He's a special one though :)

    Once we were watching a film version of Richard III in English (if you have not seen Ian Mckellen's marvellous rendition, do so. Now) and a joke comes up where buckingham tried to get people to pledge support for Richard without success. The teacher and I were the only ones who laughed, earning me some confused stares from my peers :(
  • edited October 2008
    Thousands of voter registration forms faked, officials say
    CROWN POINT, Indiana (CNN) -- More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.

    The group -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN -- already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states.

    And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony.

    "All the signatures looked exactly the same," Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. "Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same."

    The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead -- and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. Sally LaSota, a Democrat on the board, called the forms fraudulent and said whoever filed them broke the law. Watch how dead people are turning up on voter registration forms »

    "ACORN, with its intent, perhaps was good in the beginning, but went awry somewhere," LaSota said.

    Over the past four years, a dozen states have investigated complaints of fraudulent registrations filed by ACORN. On Tuesday, Nevada authorities raided an ACORN office in Las Vegas, Nevada, where workers are accused of registering members of the Dallas Cowboys football team. And the group has become the target of Republican attacks on voter fraud, a perennial GOP issue.

    A subsidiary of the group was paid $800,000 by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign to register voters for the 2008 primaries, and ACORN's political wing endorsed Obama back in February. But Obama's campaign told CNN that it "is committed to protecting the integrity of the voting process," and said it has not worked with ACORN during the general election.

    Brian Mellor, an ACORN attorney in Boston, said the group has its own quality-control process and has fired workers in the past -- including workers in Gary. But he said allegations that his organization committed fraud is a government attempt to keep people disenfranchised.

    "We believe their purpose is to attack ACORN and suppress votes," Mellor said. "We believe that by attacking ACORN, they are going to discourage people that have registered to vote with ACORN from voting."

    CNN was unable to reach ACORN officials in Gary and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the group's Indiana operation is based. Offices in both cities were empty when reporters visited.

    Lake County elections officials have set aside all 5,000 of the ACORN-submitted applications in what Hoagland called the "fake pile" for later review. But she said every one will be reviewed before the election to make sure no legitimate voters are skipped.

    There has been no evidence of voter fraud yet, because voters have yet to go to the polls. But elections officials say they will be sending their information to prosecutors, who will determine whether any investigation will begin.

    "We have no idea what the motive behind it is," she said. "It's just overwhelming to us."
  • edited October 2008
    1223696115048.jpg

    Heeheee....
  • edited October 2008
    As some of you may have heard, throughout the past week a lot of wackjobs have been shouting out at McCain rallies when Obama is attacked with saying things like "He's a terrorist" or "Cut off his head" or all sorts of ignorant violent shit.

    Well, McCain finally tried to address some of this ridiculousness, and it reminds me of the old McCain that I really admired. I only hope it is enough...

  • edited October 2008
    The more I watch, the more I feel like he's fighting his own campaign managers.

    EDIT: I listened to this earlier on the radio, too. I think I gained a little more respect for mcCain for this, too. I realize that anyone hard-core enough to hate McCain for saying "no" to that woman would still hate Obama enough to vote for McCain anyway, so he doesn't have to worry about being too harsh on his supporteres, but I still think it's a genuine act.
  • edited October 2008
    I honestly feel like both candidates would make decent Presidents, from what I've seen. Yeah, both would do some good and some bad... but doesn't that happen with every President?

    It's just Palin that scares me and is making me lean Obama.