As far as I know I’ve never met Stefan Sharkansky. But he wrote a friendly email to me about a year ago pointing out, among other things, that we overlapped as undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin in the mid-1980s. So, who knows, I might have had a beer with him on the Memorial Union terrace, played a pick-up raquette ball game with him, or worked with him on a team programming project for a computer science course. If so, I am sure I enjoyed his company—if we had discussed politics at all, we would have shared the common ground that neither of us had ever voted for a Republican for President.
So why am I seemingly sucking up to Stefan? Well, first because I feel a little bad that I never responded to his email last August. I was on the road in NY state that month, and had lousy Internet access. But, more importantly, I am about to gobble-up some of his bandwidth by linking to an audio file on his site. Sorry Stefan…when Goldy left me the keys to the blog, he didn’t give me file upload capability. In any case, there would have been all that trouble of asking permission to use the file….
What the hell is this all about, you ask? This Monday afternoon, Goldy and Stefan held a debate at Microsoft for the Microsoft PAC lunch. Stefan recorded and posted an audio file of the event. You can read his post about it here, or go directly to the audio here (15MB .WMA file).
I’ve listened to the debate and I must say that I sensed surprisingly little animosity between them. They laughed at each others jokes, they were not rude to each other, were pretty good about not interrupting each other, and they actually agreed on occasion. They produced an interesting debate over some issues like Darcy Burner and the 2004 election contest. The whole thing seemed shockingly civil! The debate is definitely worth a listen, whatever brand of politics you subscribe to.
In the late 1990s, Jay Leno suggested a hilarious practical joke in which he and David Letterman would swap places for a night (unannounced, of course). I once suggested something similar to Goldy—have Stefan post on Horsesass for a day and have Goldy post on Sound Politics for a day. My puckish suggestion may never happen, but after listening to these two rivals being civil in—and maybe even enjoying—their face-to-face interactions, it reminds me that the medium of blogs (and particularly blog comment threads) can sometimes act as an artificial barrier. Perhaps people who seem to hate each other in Goldy’s comment threads might find that they have common ground in their day-to-day concerns, and actually enjoy discussing topics like sports, microbrews or their favorite recipes. Hell…we might like some of the enemy!
Okay….enough of that feel-good shit. Back to the verbal daggers!
Steffy is always polite in person when there is a possibility that someone in the room with him could kick his boney ass. It’s only when hiding behind his shitbag full of lies blog that he gets puffy.
Maria Cantwell has voted for every bomb bullet and rocket that the Israeli Gov’t. has used to attack murder and occupy the nation of Lebanon . Maria Cantwell has also voted for every bomb bullet and missle that has enabled the United States to kill over 100,000 innocent Iraqis . It sounds like a Rep/Dem war to me , no matter how Mr. Bill sees it . Cantwell is prowar . That’s progress?
Spitintheocean, could you tell us more about your “credentials”? Are you a Republican who is trying to split Cantwell’s base?
http://www.tpm.com/
“No more Mr. Nice Guy on Social Security phase out. Majority Leader Boehner pledges that if Republicans retain control of Congress ‘we’re going to get serious about’ phasing out Social Security.”
This is why Darcy is going to win — because most Americans do not want Social Security phase out. No matter how Reichert tries to avoid showing his cards on this issue, at the end of the day he is a company man. On the crucial votes, he will be with the Republican leadership.
A vote for Reichert is a vote to phase out Social Security. It’s really that simple. The trolls know this. That’s why they try to ignre or change the subject.
Spit….how would you rather Israel defend itself after years of being shelled by enemies destined to wipe it off the map?
Oh yeah…this is after giving up the land (“land for peace”, remember?) Every time they do that, they get bombed and hit by suicide attacks.
I am a card carrying liberal that thought I was gonna be a “progressive” until I discovered they were a party that supports and sustains war in Iraq and now Lebanon . If Maria Cantwell ias going to be our senator then I am out to change her mind on the policies that are sapping this nation of cash for social security , medicare , viaducts ? and even homeland security . The ship of state needs to change course and as long as our Senators sustain violence by preemptive war via there votes for funding and raising troop levels in Iraq then we’re rea;;y not making progress are we ?
sorry for the typos !!
so you’d rather have McGavick as our senator? Because that’s the option.
Get real. Cantwell has to be re-elected. Then work on changing her mind.
Darryl-
That’s Jay Leno, with one ‘n’.
The debate is very interesting and well worth a listen.
One questioner from the Microsoft audience wondered why the comment threads here degenerate into name-calling. Goldy answered that he doesn’t write for any audience. He writes stuff that HE wants to read and that attracts two kinds of people for the long haul: those who agree with him and those who hate him.
Another question: why do Goldy and the Minnow link to each other so often? LMAO! I don’t remember the answer but I personally regard it as a kind of deadly embrace – for the Minnow anyway.
The Minnow, like most wingers when confronted with something they can’t handle, resorted from time to time with cheap shots and lame sarcasm. However it was surprising how much focus there was on the issues at hand.
I didn’t listen to the whole thing. Did Goldy ask his Mexico question?
Goldy, I was “50 yard line” last year when Penn State kicked the shit out of UW [Madison/Hanoi]. What a great game!!! Let me know if your would like the highlight video. hehe, JCH
Goldy, I was “50 yard line” last year when Penn State kicked the shit out of UW [Madison/Hanoi]. What a great game!!! Let me know if you would like the highlight video. hehe, JCH [Sorry…Early in the islands!]
REP, read more carefully. The post was by Daryl, not Goldy.
John Craig Herman the hypocrite! Did you then do down and kiss Joe Paterno’s booty after that victory? You, know, you immoral, sick, slimeball, the man you were dissing so much?
rhp@13 Um, psst! That would be Darryl.
We “have too many Darrels”. . . .!!!!
JCH,
Normally, I don’t even read your crap, let alone respond to you. But some how I spotted the phrase “Penn State” and had to read:
Goldy [sic], I was [on the] “50 yard line†last year when Penn State kicked the shit out of UW [Madison/Hanoi]. What a great game!!!
Woe is me…how could I pass up that taunt? It makes me feel real bad, JCH.
No…wait…I have a Ph.D. from Penn State. In fact, I’m a Penn State football fan, too!
But, didn’t I read in the comment threads here that you hate Joe Paterno? That would make you a traitor, wouldn’t it?
Tree Frog at 15: Thanks for the correction.
I would feel bad about the typo, but since I just finished putting 27 Japanese names into a database, I’m consider myself lucky if I can spell my own name right now.
THere are rumors that Fidel is already dead. If so, will Candidate Cantwell lead the Moonbat Delegation to his state funeral? Or is that more of a Badhdad Jim gig?
Will they both speak of him as a great and courageous leader suffering under American imperialism while trying valiantly to build a model socialist utopia?
No matter what, it will make great theater.
Just got my new Corvette and returned to the dealer the next day complaining that I couldn’t figure out how the radio worked.
The salesman explained that the radio was voice activated “Watch this!” he said, “Nelson”! The Radio replied, “Ricky or Willie?”
“Willie!” He continued and “On The Road Again” came from the speakers.
I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I’d say, “Beethoven,” I’d get beautiful classical music, and if I said, “Beatles,” I’d get one of their awesome songs.
One day, a liberal couple smoking weed from Wiakoloa ran a red light in their Prius and nearly creamed my new car, but I swerved in time to avoid them. I yelled, “Ass Holes!”
The French National Anthem began to play, sung by Jane Fonda and Michael Moore, backed up by John Kerry on guitar, Al Gore on drums, Bill Clinton on sax and Ted Kennedy on booze.
Damn, I LOVE this car!
“Normally, I don’t even read your crap”
Commentby Darryl [……….Oh, But this time you did. Well, what a lucky day for you!!!]
“Okay….enough of that feel-good shit. Back to the verbal daggers!”
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Okay, back to the daggers. I posted this below, but its worth posting again, in case PBJ missed the first post.
PBJ at 46 in the “Open Thread – Darcy Burner Edition” said: “How do you feel about brownshirts following candidates at every stop with cameras and videotape and protest signs in Nazi-like fashion, as Democrats are doing with the Mike McGavick campaign? ”
Clearly, the Republicans have gone off the deep end. Some statements clearly deserve to be ridiculed.
Republicans don’t seem to understand, or don’t care, that displaying a sign in public, and videotaping a candidate in a public appearance, is a First Amendment right guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. Or perhaps they just want to intimidate others from exercising their Constitutional rights, in order to avoid anything which would (a) interfere with their carefully controlled public appearances, or (b) create a non-deniable record of their candidate making one comment to their “base”, and an entirely different one to a wider audience.
Instead, they are trying to call Democrats “brown-shirts” and “Nazis”. Clearly PBJ doesn’t know the history of the Nazis, or is betting that others don’t. The Brown Shirt tactics were quite brutal (including beatings and murder), and cannot be compared with holding a sign or a camera.
But to PBJ and other Republicans, displaying a sign, or recording a Republican candidate making a public speech, is the equivilent to murdering millions of jews and gypsies, etc., not to mention political prisoners such as Social Democrats, etc? Or the equivilant of launching a world-wide war of conquest aimed at subjugating hundreds of millions of people?
Once on this board I mentioned that people who form a pre-conceived opinion and then only look for facts supporting that opinion were similar to neo-Nazis who did the same thing when they questioned the existence of the Holocaust. I was called on the carpet by another poster for making that comparison, and rightly so. I apologized, as no one deserves to be equated with the Nazis except those that voluntarily espouse those beliefs. The enormity of the crimes of the Nazis puts them in a special catagory which defies comparison.
I apologized, PBJ. Will you?
http://www.mcgavicklawsuit.com/
BREAKING NEWS ABOUT MCGAVICK AND HIS ILLEGAL COMPENSATION FROM SAFECO –
pat, did you just post a joke presupposing knowledge of ricky nelson? you republicans are some hep cats!
had to turn to google: http://www.rickynelson.com/indexold.html
Question: Could “Dr. E” be Zacarias Moussaoui posting from prison?
Answer: No, but thanks for asking. Moussaoui would be known as “Not-Dr. M”.
Dark Tides, Ill Winds
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
LAUNCH MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION
http://www.latimes.com/
pbj @ 21
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Funny you should ask that, pbj. Just last week I had to fire off a letter to George asking, “Mr. President, do you kiss Joe Lieberman with that mouth?”
Zacarias Moussaoui and Dr. E have the same views as to the cause of 9/11. Gee, what a surprise! hehe, JCH
29
What would those be, Craig? Dazzle us with your piercing intellectual skills of analysis.
Hi, I am Richard Poop.
In the past, on HA.org, I have supported the use of Nazi Propaganda to support the racist theory that More Blacks and Indians owned slaves than White people did.
I stand by that, and promise more. All I ask for in return is your vote for Position No. 2 in King County District Court’s Northeast Electoral District.
I am Richard Poop, and I endorsed this message.
The trend in opinion that polling on the Bush administration policies has taken this year provides a glimmer of hope for liberals. There may be enough votes to dump a large number of Republicans this fall, and that should, at least, slow the excesses of the Bush power grab. Whether civil liberties are restored to pre-Patriot Act protections is unlikely any time soon, but we may be protected from facing a military tribunal at the whim of Donald Rumsfeld.
Only about 10% of respondents in August 2006 polling said that terrorism is a top issue, however about a third of respondents think that terrorism is a big reason to enact immigration reform. Looking at the terrorism and immigration results together, the reason the Democrats have, for the first time, come out ahead on the terrorism factor may be that people are finally realizing that the Bush administration has been a failure at protecting us from terrorism. 58% said security in the country is the same or worse than before 9/11. Democrats are looked upon as more effective in combating terrorism than Republicans, according to the August ABC/Washington Post poll. This breakthrough for the Democrats may explain why Republicans are wildly accusing Democrats of being “for the terrorists”, supporters of “Islamofascism,” weak on immigration reform, etc.
Their last trump card is slipping away, and they want it back.
So, here are a few things that should be in a real plan to protect America, and not the phony “War on Terror” the Republicans talk about.
Democrats should focus first on directing homeland security funds to protecting citizens from terrorist attack, and to emergency response in case attack does occur. Since March 2003, a large number of terrorists have been created who would love to level a few neighborhoods in one or more of our cities, as has been done to theirs in Iraq, the Palestinian apartheid areas, and Lebanon. The public is right, we are no more prepared today than five years ago, and it’s time to boot Michael Chertoff in the ass to get his department doing something productive. It will probably take subpoenas to Bush administration political appointees with threats of imprisonment, but what’s a majority for? Demand protection of the railroads, chemical plants, nuclear facilities, and out borders. Put through a realistic immigration bill that deals with the presence of the illegal immigrants that are here already.
Next, or at the same time, stop the Republican waste in their incompetent attempt to attack terrorism “over there” and get out of Iraq. Start treating Jihadists like the criminals they are with standard police procedures to separate them from the populations they seek to influence. Identify the trouble-makers, get evidence, round them up, prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, and throw them in jail. Use Special Forces to go after them “over there”, but bring them back here. Except for the fancier capture, the policy for local criminals would work as well for international terrorists. This has the additional advantage of discouraging their underlings from filling their shoes any too quickly if they know what the consequences might be. A “closer place to Allah” isn’t achieved in a prison cell.
A policy “over there” that should get serious re-invigoration is securing nuclear weapons and material in Russia. Using airplanes as bombs isn’t always going to be the terrorist’s tactic of choice; it may not be today, news reports notwithstanding. There should be a great deal more concern about an IED combined with nuclear material being set off at 3rd and Pine.
Then replenish our army so it can be used to attack real threats to the country, not made-up ones. Make it so that the National Guard can return to its role as a backup to the active duty military, and fulfill its role as a resource to the states, in case of emergency.
If that much can get accomplished by 2009, maybe we can elect a president who will forget about wars of choice, and get the military to prepare for targeted, covert attacks.
Let’s find a president who will put an end to the notion that people hate us because they hate democracy, one that will use diplomacy to get affected parties together to pay attention to grievances and address them. The seed of terrorism won’t grow among people who feel that they have a legitimate voice in how they are governed; it is nurtured only in an atmosphere of discontent and frustration. Eliminate the hard feelings and terror cannot find fertile ground; it will wither and die. This is not unproven ideological wishful thinking. It has actually worked in Belfast when the Irish Republican Army was blowing things up. The British government brought the bombers to justice and then went after–and solved–their very real grievances.
Bush on the US campaign against terrorism
——– Approve ——– ——- Disapprove —— No
NET Strongly Somewhat NET Somewhat Strongly opin.
8/6/06 47 NA NA 50 NA NA 2
6/25/06 51 NA NA 47 NA NA 2
5/15/06 53 NA NA 43 NA NA 4
4/9/06 50 32 18 49 15 34 1
3/5/06 52 NA NA 46 NA NA 2
1/26/06 52 45 2
1/8/06 53 45 2
which party in Congress is beter on the he U.S. campaign against terrorism
Both Neither No
Democrats Republicans (vol.) (vol.) op.
8/6/06 46 38 1 11 4
6/25/06 39 46 2 10 3
5/15/06 46 41 2 8 3
4/9/06 46 45 1 6 1
3/5/06 39 46 3 10 2
1/26/06 41 46 2 6 4
What will be the single most important issue in your vote for Congress this year:
(the U.S campaign against terrorism), (the war in Iraq), (the economy), (immigration),
(gas prices), (health care) or something else?
Health Immi- Gas Terror- No
Iraq Econ. care gration prices ism Educ. All Other op.
8/6/06 RV 21 21 14 10 15 11 * * 6 1
6/25/06 RV 23 24 15 13 8 9 1 1 4 2
All 24 23 14 13 9 8 1 1 4 2
http://www.mackinacbridge.org/.....l?catid=16
When the Weekly Standard visited Tracy and Charles Mayberry, tenants on Gore’s rental property at the Gore family farm in Carthage, Tenn. Writer Matt Labash described a grim picture: “The plaster was coming off the walls, the linoleum was peeling off the kitchen floor, the basin of the bathroom sink was a constipated sludge puddle, the guts of one toilet tank had to be held together with Sunbeam bread bag twisties, and both bathroom toilets overflowed — when they flushed at all.”
Labash tagged Gore a “sanctimonious slumlord.” Tracy Mayberry said Gore could “kiss my ass.” And a key bit of GOP spin of Gore as an out-of-touch elitist was fortified in his home state.
Those close to Gore insist that the vice president made a “good faith effort,” to rectify the problems. “All the repairs they requested were completed, plus a lot of additional work,” says Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway. “I don’t know what else could have been done.”
The kitchen floor was ultimately replaced says Hattaway. E-mails outline of all the repairs planned for or completed on the property: “350 feet of fill lines were installed for the septic system … interior painting was completed, insect extermination was completed … new gutters were installed … an electrician examined the water heater, fuse box and all electrical plugs and wiring, and new load of stone was applied to a washed out area of the driveway.”
But the Mayberrys still had issues with the property. According to media reports, one of the Mayberry daughters was bitten by a spider inside the property; Labash says Tracy told him that the daughter’s leg turned purple and she had to be rushed to the emergency room. Additionally, Tracy complained to Labash that one of the toilets still leaked, sparks shot out of one of the outlets and the painting that was “completed” was done so rather shabbily.
And, according to a report Tuesday in the Toledo Blade, “The last straw, [Tracy] said, came when they recently found their dog sick by the roadside after munching on a dead turkey laced with poison, and their cat stretched out in a field behind their house with its throat slit.”
At that point, the Mayberrys contacted the Tennessee Republican Party, who — out of the goodness of their hearts and a desire to further embarrass Gore — volunteered time and about $1,000 in expenses to load up a moving truck and drive the family 450 miles north to Lima, Ohio. “This is the Volunteer State, and we do help our own,” said Tennessee GOP chairman John “Chip” Saltsman Jr. to the media during the move.
Yeah, right.
“The vice president started it and we’re just here to finish it,” says Saltsman. “He’s the one who called and said, ‘I’m going to fix the things, and by the way I’m going to be in town, lets go to dinner.’ It’s just one of long line of things that serve as an example of the vice president not telling the truth.”
But Hattaway, who heard Gore’s end of that conversation, says that what Gore had actually said to Tracy Mayberry was that “he’d like the have her and her husband up to the house next time he was in Carthage.” But, Hattaway says, the first time he was back in the area was after the Mayberrys had left for Lima.
Now, Gore splits his time between a home in Virginia and his home in Carthage, and the new tenants, David and Amy McKissick, moved in the spring of 2001, and while they say the house needed work, they agreed to do it themselves, and Gore paid them to put in hardwood floors, a new heating and air-conditioning system, new plumbing and a new roof. Unaware of the previous scandal, they seem genuinely indifferent to their landlord’s politics. “We’re not involved politically with either party. We don’t vote,” Amy McKissick said. “Politically we’re not interested in anything.” But they say Gore’s been “just fine.”
Sources:
http://tinyurl.com/nboaf
http://tinyurl.com/orw5r