Chilly

Unless Bush is worried that his legacy of fixing Iraq might be in trouble, but keeping our troops there would insure that people kept working on it.

Do you even get what you are saying? "Obama can't be a hypocrite because other people supported the bill too". Obama flat out said that passing the food bill was standing up to special interests. That is one of the biggest loads of bull sh-- I've ever heard from a politician, especially one who is campaigning AGAINST special interests. Yet he still supported it, urged it to be passed, with the same typical provisions for special interests. In fact, he even voted for it. Yeah, thats not hypocritical at all. Great, so he added in even more spending to an already extremely bloated bill, and wasn't successful in getting anything cut. Here's another quote Barack Obama likes to utter a lot: "Restore Fiscal Discipline to Washington" He voted for and supported the passage of a bill that goes against his campaign message. That makes him a hypocrite. Is that really so hard to understand?

Heh, which game?

I don't doubt that this is the case, but the plan is moronic. "Let's make these people love us by taking over their country for a long-ass time"

I've been sitting on this screen for 50 mins now, lol

Good God, I can't think of a better way to completely !@#$ the situation in Iraq.

Erm, for movies and CDs, you typically have the option to buy either version. The point is you have a choice whether you want to watch/listen to the censored stuff or uncensored stuff. And that makes it ok? The US laws on censorship for radio and television only cover free-to-air broadcasts. Cable channels are free to censor themselves, which most do, but some don't, and others don't after certain times of the day (like late at night, when the kids are asleep). The other thing that they cover is "obscene" pornography, but that hasn't actually been challenged or defined very well. Compare this to the UK, for example, where they strip down video games from the US for sale there, filter the internet, etc. The US isn't even close to the censorship levels in the UK.

Yeah, you're right, that was a pretty retarded post. I was a bit wasted last night and definitely was mixed up.

You do realize that the censorship you were referring to is just over network broadcasts and airwaves, right? I mean, uncensored stuff gets shown all the time on the cable channels and uncensored music gets played on satellite radio, and cds are uncensored...

So its not the world, its just France that you're comparing it to?

"Sen. Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC has convinced Hamas that he and Sen. John McCain are interchangeable." So, is Hamas lying here? And if so, what is their motivation for doing such a thing? If not, how is this resolved with your precondition argument?

Good God, your version of history is completely backwards from what reality is. Which were in the version of the bill that he was urging Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass (and were in every subsequent bill). By the way, the WH did NOT support such subsidies. In fact, Bush threatened a veto unless they lowered the cap, and they didn't so Bush vetoed it. This is one of the few areas that Bush was actually correct on. Obama's message is to change, to not be the typical politician. Your defense is: "It aint just Obama, all politicians are doing it." Right. Cept that the final bill wasn't very different. The food subsidies were still in place, just like they had been since the Nixon administrator !@#$ed them up in the first place. America's entire nutritional system is being driven by the cheap cost of corn, making everyone unhealthy, especially poor people. The food bill did *not* change substantively, and he starts out his speech saying: "I applaud the Senate's passage today of the Farm Bill, which will provide America's hard-working farmers and ranchers with more support and more predictability." Right. That quote indicates he was disappointed with the farm bill. As President, he will fight for it. As Senator, he will vote against it due to partisan politics. Finally, he will focus his campaign against partisan politics. Sounds coherent, doesn't it? First off, you have yet to prove that he went against special interests in the farm bill. Secondly, how do you think he would encourage a district-based system to vote against itself?

Ah, I thought you were complaining that Barack would have the base wrapped up if he didn't have to face a woman. My bad.

so?

Prove it. Compare our censors to the middle east or other such countries. Hell, I'll make it even easier for you, compare our censors to Australia and France.

There isn't one? Note your qualifying statement about McCain, which wasn't in Barack's original statement: What he said was "without pre-conditions". There was NOTHING about mcCain. Here is the definition of "pre-condition" from Marrian-Webster: That is *EXACTLY* what he just imposed. Please don't mistake me for a McCain supporter. I'm not. What I am is someone who dislikes candidates who attempt to appeal to candidates by claiming they aren't politicians. By claiming they aren't going to go of special interests. It doesn't work that way. Both McCain and Obama do it, but Obama is much more successful at it. Obama isn't for "change" in the political process, Obama is for the Democratic policies. For example, he promised AIPAC today 20 billion in aid. This is completely appealing to special interests. Even better though, let me show you the most hypocritical, bull sh-- Obama quote ever made, straight from Barack Obama's website itself "To help address this, we need to stand up to the special interests, bring Republicans and Democrats together, and pass the Farm Bill immediately." The farm bill is NOTHING but special interests winning over the American people. Anyone who says such a quote should be automatically disqualified from the race.

I was laughing at you trying to claim that there were two definitions to the word "precondition", and that somehow this was all "A OK" from the Obama camp. I'm sure Obama's seen the poll numbers that 43% believe he isn't tough enough on foreign policy issues. He also saw an opportunity to pander to AIPAC, just like McCain did earlier this week. So, he ramps up the tough-guy rhetoric and puts a precondition on meeting with them in such a way that he can try and stretch a claim that it isn't a precondition. Any politician would do it. Really, its okay to admit that he, like McCain, is a hypocrite, and their messages of change while pandering to special interests is a bunch of fluff.

lol @ above post

http://dcist.com/2008/06/04/mpd_to_seal_off.php

is apparently acting just like any other politician, and changing his tune in front of one of the most power lobbying groups in the US. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4999088&page=1 I love this quote:

I'll sign it, just to piss the Obamians off who hate her.

All of which is trumped by Party ID of someone who identifies with a party (you're looking at roughly a 95% voting rate for people who consider themselves part of one of the parties, and around an 89% voting rate for leaners). This heavily reduces the actual battleground and picture to smaller groups of people. Not that its all that easy to predict how those people will act, but you have a much clearer picture in American politics of what will make the difference.

In American politics, Party ID is largely the determining factor in individual voting behavior. In addition, because of using a Single Member Simple Plurality setup, only two parties are players. These two facts are the main basis of how you can narrow down large-scale questions to smaller factors: looking at the groups of people and areas that have a tendency to be sporadic, largely because they have a weak or no association with any party, or because they tend to not vote. From what I've read about French politics, the results are heavily mixed on trying to determine what the baseline determinant factor of individual political behavior is. Two studies by Budge, Crewe, and Farlie (1976) and Converse and Price (1986) found that Party Identification works the same way for French voters as it does American. However, studies by Fleury and Lewis-Beck (1993), Percheron (1977), and Inglehart and Klingemann (1976) found that it is Ideological Identification that is the baseline for the French determining votes. Complicating the matters is that the French system isn't a two-party system, so finding out what the Party Identification of the voters are is much more difficult and inexact than in American politics. Converse and Pierce, for example, had 21 different political parties coded in their survey. Since political science has yet to have a decent model of individual French voting behavior, its much harder to narrow down than American politics.

French media and politics are an entirely different beast than American, and not really comparable when talking about the study of American elections.