Taro T

That makes 11 provinces where the Iraqis are the primary security force. 7 more to go.

Where's the "envy" smiley when you need it? IA was an incredible author. His non-fiction work was equal (or superior) to his sci-fi.

Huh? No offense, but if someone is too lazy or too indifferent to vote, their opinion on who should run the country really doesn't matter. A person that cares can get an absentee ballot if they won't be able to vote on that 1st Tuesday. There is no excuse to not vote other than being ignorant. That is a VERY valid reason to not vote, and I would hope that if a person is ignorant of the issues and the candidates that they don't vote. The Dems appear to be certain that they have a "slam dunk" this time. We'll find out if they are correct in ~2 months. I'm not sure that they thought it was a lock in 2000, but they sure seemed confident in '04. The Republicans self destructed in '06 and Pelosi and Reid have done very little w/ that since then; it looks like Pelosi and Reid will have larger majorities this time but the top spot appears to be a toss up right now. This is setting up a very interesting season.

Perhaps by the Dems nominating darn near the only people that the American public wanted in that office LESS than Bush?

Apparently he votes "present" on a lot of bills. Is that for or against?

I have a 1st printing of all the "Bloom County" books. That, and $1 should get me a cup of coffee at Dunkin.

I have yet to see a poll where Obama is gaining 50+% in any poll, so your claim that "most Americans are cool with" him is a bit overstated currently. You are comfortable w/ him, and that is fine. He has a very thin resume (as does the Republican VP candidate as well) to date and it will be interesting watching the next 2 months as he makes his case that the thin resume (and very liberal policies) should not be a deal killer.

Good for Obama. The children should be off limits.

And if Obama wins, he will be 0 heart beats away from the Presidency. Your point being?

That works.

No, but just let me know what you're looking for, I'm sure I can get you a great deal on it. You are still drunk, right.

You've got 2 kids and you are surprised that Palin looked preggo in the "first pics after the birth". You wouldn't be interested in a "wife swap", by any chance, would you?

Interesting is a good word for it. The guy did a fantastic job at his past stops, I really had high hopes for what he could do here.

I'd be very surprised if she doesn't have a "nanny" helping w/ the care; but regardless, I don't see a problem w/ her taking time to get Trig to the Dr. As manufacturing continues to become a smaller %age of our economy, I would expect flexible hours to become more prevalent. (The downside to flex hours is that you are essentially expected to be available 24/7.) Provided the job doesn't require the employee to be available at particular hours, I don't see a problem w/ flex hours (or working from the home for that matter). Even in your job, (and I have no idea how much, if any, flexibility you have) I can see a lot of room for flexible hours. When you have to be operating the lock, there isn't much any room for flexibility, but if you are painting a room in a building does it matter if you do it at 1PM or 1AM? Or if you are mowing a lawn, does it matter if it's mowed at 10AM or 1PM?

I couldn't help but think that when I was there that Fred Sanford would show up at any minute. (Yeah, I know they lived in Watts, they wouldn't slum that bad.)

The line seems to be a lot better since Mouse left as well. Let's see how it looks next Sunday and (hopefully) in the near future when Jason is back.

If she worked a "normal" 9-5, then I could see taking issue w/ her taking an hour or 2 out of the day to get her child to the Dr's office. My guess is that she puts in far more than 40 hours / week. No idea how she works campaigning in w/ her "day" job, but there are at least 3 other people moonlighting this fall, so it'll probably work out.

No, I can honestly say I have never gone to the Daily Kos's website. Gee, I must really be missing some riveting commentary.

Piper, Willow, Bristol, Track, and Trig. That's 5 rather unfortunate names. I assume there are 5 kids that go w/ those names.

A large amount of criticism that Bush has gotten, some rightfully so (Meiers, Rumsfeld) has been that he surrounds himself w/ cronies and doesn't look for the best person for the job. Now McCain is getting criticized for not choosing a crony. People are regularly hired after an HR department and others have vetted a job candidate and the hiring manager has only limited 1st hand experience w/ the candidate. Hiring managers rarely "really know" their hiree. Even when they are hiring their buddy they don't necessarily "know" the person. McCain apparently trusts that his staff have vetted her. How good a job they did on that will come out over the next 2 months. McCain isn't the final hiring manager either, the electorate is. If she is as horrible a hire as you appear to believe, McCain most likely won't get hired himself. Was Palin the best choice? Time will tell. If McCain wants to make the focus of his campaign government reform, to counter Obama's "change" message; at 1st glance it does look like a good choice. Based on the info that has been mentioned about her, she appears to have far more experience at reforming government (read: challenging entrenched politicians) than the other VP options McCain had available to him.

CBB, I don't envy you being from Houma right now. Lived in Red Stick for a few years and was there when Andrew hit. Good luck w/ it. I hope you don't suffer a direct hit. Stay safe.

Agree that his best strategy will be to keep it focused on McCain (and hers on keeping it focused on Obama). If he politely engages with her on the issues of McCain and Obama, he'll probably be OK. If he "politely ignores" her, he's probably seen as dismissing her and all heck breaks loose for him. Kind of like when Gore kept sighing through his debate w/ Bush. As mentioned before, I am actually looking forward to the VP debate for once because it actually has promise to be interesting.

You are absolutely correct in that statement. However, in the real world, if Biden is seen as "picking on" Palin, then he is toast. Look back to the Clinton-Lazio debates. The race was close (far closer than it probably should have been) and then Lazio "attacked" and "intimidated" Clinton by walking a petition over to her podium. She never gave up the double digit lead after that. Granted Lazio was in WAAAAY over his head, but the defining moment of that election was Lazio walking across the stage. I'd be very surprised if part of the reason McCain chose Palin wasn't to neutralize some of Biden's "attack dog". The VP debate will be very interesting, for once.

Did they call him that during one of their news shows or one of their opinion shows? If it was during a news show, that is as bad as the MSNBC breaking news crawl. If it wasn't, do you deny that he "accidentally" walked out w/ documents stuffed in his pants?

IF they didn't vet her properly, then that would be one more similarity to the Souter nomination. They've had a few months to review this, how well McCain knows her isn't as critical as the staffers / hired investigators doing their job properly. I'd agree that McCain would have known what he was getting with Lieberman; the others, he'd be going off the work his staff did.