Look at this.......

David Brooks, paid good money by the NYT group said some stuff i have said before

very election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.

In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.

But unlike me, he has some hard "facts" to

Here are the facts. As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.

It's true that Bush did get a few more evangelicals to vote Republican, but Kohut, whose final poll nailed the election result dead-on, reminds us that public opinion on gay issues over all has been moving leftward over the years. Majorities oppose gay marriage, but in the exit polls Tuesday, 25 percent of the voters supported gay marriage and 35 percent of voters supported civil unions. There is a big middle on gay rights issues, as there is on most social issues.

now of course.. values wise what really mattered?

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

now wait wait, i know what your thinking.. what about how the evil white republicans hate gay people

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

read the rest of the article and know that there are some sane folks out there who get it and don't sheeple onto the "homophobe" card

Car shopping was a fiasco

First my Mother's accupuncture ran long

then she wanted me to drive the rental, and burn up my gas

then she drug out her israeli boyfriend

ug.. he wasn't helpful all he did was whine and moan and try to get us to just take him a few places on the way.

one of the very few times i ever desired to commit violence on a person many years my senior

Somethings i think I'll post tonight

Political Party Philosophy: A successful model for a third party ( or change for a major party)

and the race for 08-Return of the Clintons
(oh and some other democrats to)

Attempting to build a trackback/new comment feature

Lets see if it works

and i am so seriously wanting to do another feedsite i swear.. blogger is sooo slow

A little shake up here

Ok... the presidential election became all consuming, and it kinda burned me out on blogging

So... here are some FORMAT CHANGES

#1) Politics- I'll try to limit this to things of major impact
#2) Philisophical musings- Which may get political
#3) My consumption of entertainment... you know like games, movies and stuff
#4) my learning more about the fun that is blogging software
#5) Masonic topics- I should finish up York Rite ( well as much as i can)
#6) general stuff going on about me
#7) some news stuff

and err um yeah

formatty

Well car shoping time for me

I got my paper so i'll blog who the entry into the "Doom Wagon" sweepstakes are.

Who will be the next automobile of Moi?

Only time will tell

Open Letter to the President

Open Letter to President George W. Bush

President Bush, if what you have said lately is correct, you have a chance to go down as a President greater then Ronald Reagan.

You have political Capital, and your willing to use it.

Social Security/Medicare reform if not done soon holds the prospect of bankrupting every man woman and child in this country.

Your ideas are going to be hated, push them forward anyway because something needs to be done.

Moderate to Left Republicans and the conservative Democrats left will try to make your efforts "Bipartisan". So long as their ideas aren't counter productive to the long term pace of the reforms let them.

We saw successful Elections in Afghanistan, now lets see them done in Iraq.

you have a huge oil reserve which is scaring the Sheikh's, use it as a tool to pressure them into the great tent of freedom and democracy.

Help the student's fighting the Mullah's in Iran.


Harry Truman was hated in his own time, both of these policies will make you hated in yours without a doubt. But, it is the right thing to do.

Your willing to start your second term Boldly, your willing to do what must be done.

Thats why the American electorate put you back in the big chair

don't fail us.

John Kerry: You have failed to achieve Victory

John Kerry: You have failed to achieve Victory

There is some saying about how success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well Orphans aren’t bred from test tubes so let me explain how you fathered a failed campaign.

#1) you did not prepare;
Your wife paying a lower tax rate then most lower middle class people, your not showing up to important committee meetings, your not spending 4 years getting your face on “bipartisan” legislative action, your stonewalling on the parts of your 1970s which so many Americans despise.

These problems could have been solved if you started in 2000 working on them.

Mama T could have gotten out of the tax shelters, you could have apologized by saying “the war was wrong, but how I opposed it was also wrong.”, you could have gotten on things like “No Child left behind” in a big way, and you could have attended your committee meetings. These things wouldn’t sink you but when combined with your other faults they formed a bad image, and a bad message.

#2) Message problem
Your message never came out effectively. You used John Edwards’s only speech as an element of your campaign, thus muting its effectiveness. Your wife said crazy things which detracted from your message (remember Dan Quayle?), you had a “Issue of the Week” approach which worked great in Clinton’s second run for the office of the presidency by muting republican issues… sure as heck wouldn’t work when they were only used by you for a week. You identified obscene and divisive humor (which was funny) as the heart of America. You were for the 87 billion dollars, before you were against it….

Your message wasn’t clear, your message wasn’t easy to understand, and your message was framed wrong.

Going to aspen, being buddy buddy with the Film Actors Guild types (see Team America for the refrence) made your message seem preachy and snobby. A man married to a Billionaire Heiress can’t win elected office by seeming snobby.

#3) its about the war STUPID!

You got it right that people were upset about the war

You got it right a lot of people didn’t like how we went into Iraq

But Americans dislike cutting and running from a mess we make, especially when we can’t paw it off onto some one else to fix (Nato, EU, UN)

Americans wanted a candidate with a positive vision of “Peace with Honor” not “No war for oil”

#4) George W. Bush

When your speeches talked about him, what he did, and why he is so evil it sounded just like dole in 96. You can’t run a campaign about the other guy being a loser.

#5) Strategy

Responding to the Swift Vets was dead wrong, demanding Bush denounce just them ( and not the 90% of 527s which helped you) was stupid. Fighting a “House to house” war with Karl rove was stupid… and I could go on ad nausem

If politics is a war, you had no tactician

#6) lets have Consultants (and meetings)

Anyone who lives in Cubicle Land knows the only thing truckloads of consultants make is work that doesn’t produce anything.

Anyone who lives in cubicle land knows the more meetings you have, the less work gets done.

You trucked in Consultants by the bushel

And you advocated meetings as a foreign policy solution.

You became a pointy haired boss.

#7) Message part II-The Sequel

You had from March to your convention to sell your vision for America.

That is how Clinton won in 1992; didn’t Carville and Begala remember that?

You had your convention to sell who you were, it sold Vietnam

We knew you were in Vietnam already.

#8) “He’s good enough.. He’s Smart enough.. and Dog gonit people like him.”

And they didn’t like you. You became Mr. “Hey kids get off my Lawn.” you became this stern patrician icon that should have a wife named “lovey”

Michael Savage compared George Bush to Moses, how he told god he stutters and is to imperfect to be his vessel. And god told Moses that was exactly why he choose him.

People could relate to George, and not you.

Both of you are scions of elite and privilege and he comes off as the regular guy

#9) No Backbone

Gay marriage is unpopular, but nuance is worse. You opposed the court edicting it in your state, but you pressured the Legislature to not take the action which could have avoided the conflict.

If you’re for Gay rights, make the argument why.

Only Nixon can go to China

And you had a go to china moment.

You could have pitched Civil Unions to middle America and made it work.

This was not the only lack of courage you showed in the campaign, but with the christophobic punditry out there this is the one I wanted to bring up.

#10) 1994-Pres

You guys have been losing out from a strategic point for a decade now.

Your troops have been doing progressively worse.

If you didn’t fix that problem before you started, it was frankly over.

These are ten reasons you failed to achieve victory

Open letter to the main stream media

Ok guys, the Abiline Kinkos didn't do it. Reporting the Abu grahb abuses (months after DOD owned up to it) Didn't do it. Reporting missing explosives which PROBABLY weren't missing, and if they were went missing before we got there didn't do it.

not giving any negative coverage to John Kerry or his campaign didn't do it.

Do you think now, looking in the mirror that *MAYBE* the vastly Pro-Kerry media ( as many watch dogs reported it) with such idiotic things as Memogate and QaQagate where you came off as hacks helped bush?

Americans can be duped, but they want to be duped honestly. They don't want a bunch of guys in pajamas taking the duping to the mat in under ten seconds. We want to be fooled, but we want it to be harder to figure out.

in 4 years some one, quite possible not part of the bush administration, will be running against whomever the democrats toss up.

Maybe, if you want the donkey guy to win.. You can do so by not trying to rig the game for him.

When games are fixed, we as Americans hate that. We hate cheaters.

It was an election about Values

And no, I am not thumpin me a bible.

but, in retrospect, this election was to me a lot about the values I share with the president.

The President and I share the value of coming back after F****** up your life. I have not lead the best life I could lead, and I think the president shares that with me. I don't think the drugs and the booze were on his life list plans. Both of us got serious at a respective Damascus road ( in his case even more so).

When I look at John Kerry, he was a man who didn't learn from his mistakes. He made bogus war crimes charges ( the crimes were happening, just not the ones he mentioned), but then trying to come off by saying "well, I didn't mean you guys." He had some black mark on his military discharge. Now he could have blamed Nixon ( everyone would have believed it) he could have said a lot of things but he hid it. He hid it and he worked to discredit everyone who said it. Threatened them with lawsuits and threatened the people who broadcasted their stuff with lawsuits. In the world of John Kerry you couldn't screw up.. You couldn't go down the wrong road in life. And if you did you had to hide it and keep it secret.

The President believes that people outside this country deserve a chance at democracy, that they deserve a chance at freedom. He believes that any nation can be democratic. Is this blanket idealism oh h*** yeah.

John Kerry well, lets look at his record. He was Pro-sandiness as a Senator. He was Pro-Castro and Pro-Ho back when he was an activist. He brushed over claims of missing POE-maize so Vietnam could get a free trade bill in, and he and John McCain killed a bill to punish them for murdering Christians in the thousands.

I believe that taxes are to high..... I really don't think I need to cover this one any ;-)

I believe in civil liberties, while neither man is an A player ( or even a D player) when people came out opposing John Kerry and speaking in a free non criminal manner what did he do? Lawsuits, threats, intimidation, governmental action.

when Bush had an army of people attacking him... He let them.

I believe that natural economic systems ( or natural social systems) should only be restricted by the government when no other possible way to protect the population exists. John Kerry's health care scheme would restrict health care, and keep it in a box

George Bush's ideas are a bit better, but not a lot.

George Bush wanted states to make their own call on gay marriage, though he did have a side. He made an effort to stop the courts from forcing the situation on states ( which was a p*** poor move). John Kerry when the fight for Gay marriage came to his state, he moved to lobby and pressure his elected legislators to do nothing, so the courts would fiat the marriage right to homosexuals.

My values are a free economy, a free people, and an America where second.. Third.. Or even fourth chances are possible

John Kerry was an anathema to my values,

and I hold my values as part of my personal morality so... Does that mean the Jesus people were all the "values" polled?

Don't think so

To all weirdo's concerned about the poopsmith

Dear Friends,Neo-Pagans ,Atheists, agnostics, members of the queer nation,
transexual mammals, my mother, anyone gay I know, any weirdo's who are
concerned about the Poopsmith,and all other people who are scared about the
JEBUS people.

take a step back and breath in deep.

There will be no Xtian re-education centers. The Mormons who come to your
door are not official government agents. The Baptist Taliban will not be
setting up shop any time soon.

Watch the TV, listen to the pundits and republicans

sit back.. And think.

Blacks put Democrats in heavy from 1945- the civil rights era even though
Democrats oppressed them.

other minorities have a similar track record.

Now look at what's happened since the moral majority came into the GOP camp
in the 80s

We still have abortion legal
Gay people in many states ( and to some degree in federal law) have minority
protection
Divorce has become more socially acceptable
..... And etc

I could go on, but I won't. The Jesus people are out there but the Jesus
people don't get their agenda

Karl Marx and your communist types had a term for these people "Useful Idiots"

Now.. Lets go back to what the pundits said

Democrat and republican turn out machines had parity

37/37 registered republican and democratic votes

How did the democrats get the machine they had to do that?

Useful idiots, people who vote D no matter what.

Bill Clinton and other prominent democrats have referred to a base of 40% who always go for the democrats nationally no matter what.

The republicans have, if they can hold onto what they did, their useful idiot 40%.

the people with values were part of what swung this election to bush ( the missing 2-4 million voters from 2000) but bush got 7 million more votes

Gay people will have civil unions sooner rather then later, but if they do it the right way.

why the loss on all 11 Anti-Gay marriage amendments? Its the same reason operation Clark County failed for the Guardian UK. American's HATE it when people talk down to them. They HATE it when people tell them what to do. They HATE it when people lord themselves over them.

the gay rights movement has used the courts as a cudgel, and you see the effectiveness of a cudgel.

Were Jesus "god hates f***" people part of those 11 amendments? Certainly. But there are not enough of those fun in fundamentalist people in this country to pass it on their own.

Had the Massachusetts supreme court not pushed the issue, had the mayor of san Francisco not violated state law like a tyrant this issue would have never had the energy it did.

2004 was not the ascendancy of the religious right, it was their ultimate defeat

I'll explain that more on my "values" post and my post about the republican chase for 08

Open Letter to The GOP

The events of 2001, along with my disdane for Katherine "autoelected" Harris have made me a republican. But, let me say a few things now about this election.

You lucked out. John Kerry was perhaps the worst recrent presidential canidate (Since his former Governor ran). He ran perhaps the most addled and confused campaign ever.

The nation was ripe to oust George W. Bush, but not for John Kerry.

The nation however was ripe for the GOP message: even with the bush handicaps votes were increased in alot of states. The Congress and (especially) the people looking out for 08 need to take an ownership of the GOP vision for America for the sale to be made.

Bush needs to make a clear "Heir" and i expect him to do it in 06 sometime after the election

so the race for the veepstakes and the whole enchelada is on.

Freedom, Liberty, Smaller government, Individual empowerment.... these things are the values that are going to win.

Open Letter to the Democrats

2000-you lost ( but just barely)
1988-You lost (Willie Horton didn't make you lose, you lost)
1984-You lost
1980 You lost
1972 you lost
1992 and 1996 you won
1976 you won

Now, once you accept that you lost 2004 ( not dirty tricks, not intimidation, you just lost) you need to ask yourself:
What happened in 2004,2000,1988,1984,1980, and 1972?
What happened in 1976,1992, and 1996?

Also, what happened in 1994? and 2002?

When you answer these three questions you get a chance to try for the big prize again.

The republicans have complained for years (rightly or wrongly) the democrats have a better ground game then they do. If this year the republican ground game had *AT LEAST* parity with the Democratic ground game, then what does that mean? Does that mean that more people have always agreed with the republicans? does it mean the kids who grew up under reagan ( starting into middle age territory) have more reagenite values?

These are some big questions you need to ask yourselves if you want to do better in 2006 and 2008

These are the questions you *HAVE* to ask if you want to make it in the "flyover" areas you clearly lost.

The fact that most of the non urban areas went for bush, this is a problem. If the GOP starts cracking into the Urban areas we could see a one party state happen.

So if you guys can't fill the roll alot of third parties are nipping at your heels waiting.

What are we going to do tonight brain?

Lets get some kudos out there

Kudo's Florida for not screwing this one up
Kudo's Kerry Campaign For knowing when to toss it in

but we'll have an open presidency in 4 years... what then??

well the above site has a list of prospects that i'll hash over

Car broken argg....

Life has drug me away from blogging but

school is going good

Work is going tolerable

it looks like i totaled my car ( which is the suxxor)

more blog to come

Today i did my first trackback

Woot

More Things John Kerry Didn't get from Tony S

Some one i respect in the Blog world made a few errors here in Judgement so

Let me first show Why Johnny K should have listened to Tony S

#1 You Don't go after family Ever. thats an old rule of mafia honor. Now, i know what your saying Did John Kerry go after Dick Cheney's family? Did John Edwards? the answer is yes.

Have the Bush folks sold "Gay people are evil" in their campaign?
-no-
Have they said Gay people shouldn't have rights or privilleges
-no-
they are playing the "radical court" card for the FMA.

John Kerry bringing up Cheney's daught was an attack on the Ethos of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

George Bush and Dick Cheney believe in one rule for them, and one for you.

John was using Dick Cheney's daughter as a trout to slap the republicans with.

Dick Cheney and his wife have delt with their daughter and her lifestyle in a way they feel is appropriate. They don't pull an alan keyes and attack that which is within their own home.

That was why it was a low blow, Bush didn't make Gay stuff a big issue -Kerry did-.

the FMA isn't about gay people ( though it effects them) it's about the Stench from the bench.

Thats why it was out of line, Kerry could attack that it was really discriminatory, but to say their is a double standard for Bush is wrong.

Bush could make an Issue of Kerry's wife being a class A moonbat
Bush could make an Issue of how Kerry drove his first wife into a Mental Vacility

Bush, like Tony S knows that you don't go after familu

#2 Answer the question, In the mafia world when you end up infront of a judge and jury you have to answer questions correctly. If you give to much information you may screw some one else up on the stand. You may give the feds (or the state) more ammo to attack you with. Answer the question, or plead the 5th

This is the second reason the Cheney crack was wrong, it didn't answer the question. and it made him look like a Jerk.

he could have used another antecdote to crack on Bush about it, he didn't have to take that road.

Now, off the Tony S thing to the point of Gay stuff being in play

The genetics argument hasn't been proven scientifically, worse if it does then it asks all sorts of questions which make our sexuality, whom we love and are attracted to meaningless.

People have the wrong idea about choice, here are some examples

An addict does choose to feed that hunger, but he has chemical impulses driving him. He has feelings he is running away from, he has alot of other really complex social and mental forces at play in that choice.

an addict choosing his vice, is different then me choosing pepsi or Diet Pepsi. I like both, they are essentially the same, and i am not out any money.

Example #2- If I was taught that all black people are subhuman, but i still freely make these choices. But my very view of the world was shapped by a negative formative experience and thus how i think makes that the only possible outcome.

But it would still in this scenario be my choice.

Example #3- as a child the smell of honey becomes assosiated with honey, and thus has a positive correlation in my mind. Now, when i go out to buy products ( or choose people) in my mind the smell of honey will assosiate that item or person with positive endorphins

but, i still choose

Choice is not all "Do i wear the Blue shirt or the Light blue shirt" today.

Choice depends on how your head is wired.

now does that make Homosexuality an addiction or an Illness?

Not all the time, but that may be the case.

Does that make homosexuality something that was learned about in a way that restructured how i think?

Maybe, but not always

the answer is, the genetic answer is to pat and scientifically in error.

Perhaps the worst of the things John Kerry did in bringing this up was rehash that myth

Project rate the debate.............FAILED

John Kerry and George Bush are so bad as to be outside my ability to rate them

After seeing how the media based the debate ratings on bogus polling ( ahifting the demographics around) i no longer care about how people see the debates

I feel Ill

I am not a happy camper,

this election has depressed me a great deal. But i did not let it get to me emotionally.

I used emotional reasons to make descions in this election, but i did not let the election get
under my skin.

That has all changes, and i weep at this. I weep for my country that one political party has at
a national level done this dispicable thing.

In my lifetime i have voted for the canidate i felt best represented me, or the values i hold
dear.

While i believe that this other parties ideas were, while wrong, motivated out of a real sense
of whats best for this country.

I now feel, it is clear, that those in the driver's seat of this party are not at all motivated
by a real sense of the countries best intrest.

We have entered a political age, in both national and international politics are dominated by
self intrest. I can accept that, its normal and healthy. But now Self intrest is trumping
National intrest, and national reputation -this i cannot tolerate-.

The election observers in and of themselves bothered me at first, their trying to stir up the stolen
election canard. But after looking at the fact these people have observed elections in the past that
were controversial, to look at how they could make changes in their own systems, i was comfortable
with it.

"Remember Palm Beach county, remember florida 2000" i could tolerate, as it was normal
election hyperbole.

"Bush has a secret plan to disenfranchise black voters." I could tolerate because the democratic
party has made these baseless charges in the past.

But these things combined with the most recent act of irresponsible political actions has made me
sick in my stomach, it has made me weep in my heart for the future of our democracy.

John Kerry, a man who was formatively marked as an enemey of President Nixon, now stands as an even
more Nixonian figure then Al Gore.

Gore at least let the assumption the process would be fair happen, even though folks already had Florida
was stolen in the works.

John Kerry has through the DNC taken our electoral process and done what even Nixon would not do
said "John Kerry is more important then the process."

Dirty tricks happen, i accept that because i am a grown up. But in destroying the process as these
steps begin to do, John Kerry now has made things worse.

This, much as the florida lawsuits have now gone on everywhere, will become the norm. Not just for
Presidential elections but for all elections.

Politicians will have to raise greater sums of money, and spend less time doing the Public's buisness.

As these attrocities grow the divide between political parties will grow wider.

We will become more like europe in that regard, our politics will become corse and monolithic.
People will cross party lines less and less, and real ideas will no longer be discussed.

Thats the road these actions seek to take us on.

When taken in reflection with his past, a man who used false testimony to attack a war. a man who
collaberated with enemey agents in a foriegn country as a tool of their propeganda, we see now
why these tales are relevent. John Kerry has not been intrested in the good of anyone but himself.

The war in Vietnam was going to go down, John Kerry alone was not what killed it. But i fear in my
heart that John Kerry and the shortsightedness of his campaign may put the fatal wound on our republic

Well thinking on the drive home.....

No, i am going to make my own Scale for measuring the "Bush/Kerry" styled "Debates"

Because All Politics is Local

The Official Larry Bernard choices off the Sarasota County Sample Ballot

Seen here

President/Vice President
George W. Bush/Dick Cheney

United States Senator
Mel "I didn't Bring Terrorists to Tampa" Martinez

US House-District 13
Jan "Not Katherine Harris" Schneider

State Senate-23rd District
Charles Manhart-Because the democrats were to chicken to nominate some one and i am still a small l libertarian-

State House District 69
William "Bill" Van Allen Jr. -Libertarian, Guy i know personally, and the democrats were wusses here to-

County Commissioner District 5
Write In -Larry Bernard- I mean why not, no one else had the stones to run

Hospital Board at large seat district 3
Jim Toale: Because his family owns a funeral home, and i work for the Hospital Board ( indirectly) and i think they need an Undertaker

State Supreme Court Justice Bell
NO

State Supreme Court Justice Cantero III
NO

District Court Judge Canady
NO

District Court Judge Kelly
NO

District Court Judge Northcutt
NO

District Court Judge Villanti
NO

District Court Judge Wallace
No

12th Circuit Court
Susan Chapman, not related to our corrupt States Atty

State Constitutional Amendment 1-Parental Consent for Abortions
No-Right to privacy used to be sacrostant in florida law, lets keep it that way

Amendment 2-Setting a reasonable time to put forward these amendments
Yes


Amendment 3-Limiting contengiency Lawsuits
No-Because i might actually want to be able to sue some one some day in florida for a medical snafu

Amendment 4-Slot machines in Miami/Dade Paramutuals
Yes-More gambling

Amendment 5-Florida Minimum Wage
NO-Minimum Wage kills jobs

Amendment 6-"You really didn't want that high speed rail did you?"
No-Its a boondogle, but thats because the state screwed it up. That doesn't mean we should undo a good idea-

Amendment 7-Patients right to know about adverse medical incidents
Yes-we need more exposure of this crap-

Amendment 8-Malpractice three strikes, and your out of a job

ABSOLUTELy yes

About Me: Pulling a John Kerry on the Internet

I have joked about living on the Internet, but its time for me to relocate into the real world.

By living on the internet i mean i am going to curtail my favorite source of email on the net "Yahoogroups.com" and reduce its inflow substantially.

I am in alot of Yahoogroups based on a desire i once held to get a kajillion emails, these groups all held some relveancy for me but they are now things i make vauge motions at being in because i am still holding on to some element of my past i have put away.

Thats going to change.

Between now and my first day of classes at USF ( tenatively schedualed for August of 05) i will start a program of phasing out my Yahoo Groups usage.

More on this as it develops

About Me: Remember when i didn't poli-blog as much

Yeah, i burned out on actively Blogging because of the situation with this presidential election and events in my real life. It was all very draining on me.

So, I am going to try and blog some other stuff to in here

Ok Peeps out there in Blog Land

I am seeing alot of folks say Kerry Won the Debate on points,

Well, I have 4 years of High School Speech and debate experience that say different.

Tonight i will take the Official Transcript and show why Kerry didn't win on points

Caveat #1: It is truely impossible to translate the abortion of a shamockery into a classical debate that can be judged, this will be an approximation which chall include some of my Biases as a speaker

Caveat #2: Your going to be seeing Kerry and Bush judged on two different debating scales. Kerry flipped into and out of "Lincoln-Douglas" style debating and "Traditional" Style debating. As Kerry Flips, so flips the judging standard. Bush stayed in a more Lincoln-Douglasy Style

Caveat #3: I will be mocking both canidates for their bad choices as well

Answering a Challenge

First of all, i could link to a bunch of sites that provide evidence of my assertions on the state of Iraq but thats not really what the challenge asks for so................

roll that bean footage

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

I believe that people no longer suffering under a genocidal regime is a good thing. I believe the prospect of an Iraqi democracy is a very good thing ( which is why some evidence suggests governments in the region are trying to subvert it)

Now, should we go in willy-nilly toppling governments no.

Repressive regimes, who kill their citizens in brutal ways, who are in areas that are of strategic importance to the US, and whom a removal method is the most effective way to solve the problem fit the bill

Under that standard i would support action in; Syria, North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Venezuala to name a few places.

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

I look at Iraqi Blogs, I look at military blogs, i talk to people i know who have gone over there, i read the government's side and i percolate that information

Its not as bad as they say on CNN, but its not as good as the US is selling.

If we give Iraq a body count, or a financial cost that will make us cash in our chips the bad guys will make it happen.

I think the people who lost loved ones will feel a little better as the years pile on in this operation.

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

6 Months from Now:

Have we had elections?
Has violence decreased in the 6 months as it has in the previous 6 months ( thats right according to the stats we have had less attacks in September)?
Have we rebuilt at least 75% of the needed infrustructure for Iraq to function

1 Year:
Has the Iraqi government been able to function on its own?
Has violence decreased by at least 25% from a year ago, to hopefully 1/3rd?
Have we completed the infrustructure repairs needed?

5 years:
Has the Iraqi political system started evolving as political systems need to?
Has violence decreased to less then what the average israeli has to deal with?
Has an Iraqi private sector developed?
Is the Iraqi Millitary and Police in place doing some of the security work?

at this point i could see a partial withdrawl working

10 years:
Has the Iraqi political system had a good decade?
Do the democratic Iraqi's run the place?
Has Iraq been able to handle neighborhood issues by themselves?

at this point we can reduce to germany cold war levels in Iraq