[Zipperfish]

Good one, JJ--Erik the Pink!

[LionelHutz]

BartSimpson wrote:

Given that 97% of blacks voted for Obama he clearly won because people voted for him just because he was black. Therefore, if this is acceptable then it is also acceptable to vote against him just because he is black.

Hasn't every American presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket since LBJ received, at the very least, 80 percent of the black vote?

[Kjorteo]

Proculation wrote:

Well, when your logo is that , I call it a socialist party.

That looks more like the Hopeless Romantic Party to me. I worry that they may now be in a position to further their insidious Sappy Poetry Agenda.

[Sapio]

It would be interesting to see what some people from Manitoba think about this. Manitoba has the largest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland.

Are there any Manitobans in the house?

[CanadianJeff]

Psudo wrote:

CanadianJeff: Except for the gender of the pronouns, doesn't that equally describe Dan Quayle or Al Gore?

The thing she was expected to be but wasn't was invisible. That's what Quayle, Gore, and even Cheney (during the 2000 election cycle) had in common. The big failure wasn't the choice of Palin for Veep, but in the assumption that it was the most important thing in the candidacy and should be front-and-center, headline news. If the Republicans had been quiet about their nom, Joe Biden's foot-in-mouth mistakes would have garnered more coverage and the race would've been closer.

I'm no great fan of Palin, but in the company of Obama, Biden, and McCain she fits in just fine. What a lousy election.

I would say it does describe them well. I would have never voted for Gore if I was American. yes Bush was a bad choice but i"m being honest here. Hindsight is 20/20 but those were my honest feelings in 2000.

I'm surprised that you don't think that Palin deserved all the criticism she got. Frankly every single chance I'd ever given her during that election year including reading her own website and viewing her past statements in Alaska simply confirmed to me all the more that she was every bit an extremest right wing psycho. It was a total danger to the nation to put her int he VP seat with a president that old and I applaud the American people for not doing so.

However I also condemn the Republican party for not picking a better candidate for president. Out of all the Republican debates I watched the only candidate that stood out to me as a good one was Ron Paul and sometimes Mitt Romney. Either one of them would have been a far better choice to win over voters after 8 hard years of a very horrible Republican office.

[commanderkai]

CanadianJeff wrote:

I'm surprised that you don't think that Palin deserved all the criticism she got. Frankly every single chance I'd ever given her during that election year including reading her own website and viewing her past statements in Alaska simply confirmed to me all the more that she was every bit an extremest right wing psycho. It was a total danger to the nation to put her int he VP seat with a president that old and I applaud the American people for not doing so.

Yeah, she deserved the whole pounding about her Down Syndrome child and the whole "she's unfit to be President because she has kids" bullshit.

Palin might not have been the best choice for McCain (but then again, I'd argue Biden was a worse choice for Obama), but she isn't the demon that I've seen the atheist right and the left made her out to be. Many of the statements credited to her have been complete bullshit as well, but, sigh, the election is over, and people really should have moved on.

[CanadianJeff]

I will never move from my spot if that woman is in any position where she may gain some authority. I am not talking at all about any of the media idiots that talked about her kids or thought she was the one who mentioned seeing Russia from her house.

I'm talking about things like being unable to even withstand any form of intelligent debate with the likes of Biden or any single news spot that gave her an interview. I'm talking about the horrible policies on her website at the time of election and her total lack of any experience

It doesn't make her an idiot when compared to the general population but it certainly means she is unfit for any kind of political office that requires quick thinking and response in an intelligent manner.

[commanderkai]

CanadianJeff wrote:

I'm talking about things like being unable to even withstand any form of intelligent debate with the likes of Biden or any single news spot that gave her an interview. I'm talking about the horrible policies on her website at the time of election and her total lack of any experience

The Couric interview was horrible, no doubt, but I believed the Palin-Biden debate was rather good, and in favor for Palin over Biden (same reason why Obama was more favored in the debates than McCain, charisma). I believe after her interview with Katie, she did better in interviews. Now, what policies are you referring to?

[Jabrwock]

Sapio wrote:

It would be interesting to see what some people from Manitoba think about this. Manitoba has the largest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland.

Are there any Manitobans in the house?

Former Manitoban. Living next door in Sask.

It sounds like the Icelanders living in Manitoba are more concerned with real issues, like how much Iceland's economy stinks right now. There's a lot of "hey cousin, need a job? come to Manitoba!" type messages being sent out.

[Sapio]

Jabrwock wrote:

Sapio wrote:

It would be interesting to see what some people from Manitoba think about this. Manitoba has the largest population of Icelanders outside of Iceland.

Are there any Manitobans in the house?

Former Manitoban. Living next door in Sask.

It sounds like the Icelanders living in Manitoba are more concerned with real issues, like how much Iceland's economy stinks right now. There's a lot of "hey cousin, need a job? come to Manitoba!" type messages being sent out.

That's the impression that I got. I just wanted to hear if that was the case.

[Rugby]

Eisensapper wrote:

Call me when the first athiest is democraticly elected as a leader of a western nation....

Clement Attlee was PM of the UK after Churchill and was an atheist. Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems in the UK is also an atheist. Several UK politicians are atheists, Ken Livingston, former mayor of London being one of many.

As far as I am aware, the obsession with religion in politics is a primarily American concern... I could very well be wrong as far as mainland Europe goes as I really don't know much of anything concerning religion in politics in Europe.

[JJ]

I'd never heard of Attlee being an atheist before, which is not to say he necessarily wasn't, but if he was it was probably in a very introspective, private 19th Century sort of way, as opposed to a 21st Century Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens sort of way, openly declaring organized religion to be stupid lies, etc.

It's a bit like saying, well Mackenzie King was a gay prime minister. He possibly was a homosexual, but he wasn't open about it, so it's not really relevant. That's the thing about identities in politics, they only become relevant when they are out in the open.

When smug Europeans say that "religion is not an issue over here," what they really mean is "we don't want to talk about religion." There may very well be a stronger consensus over the "proper" level of religiosity to have, which effectively takes open political debate about the matter off the table, but that doesn't mean the entire issue of religiosity is somehow dead. Many Europeans would likely find the prospect of an American-style evangelical leader of their own country scary, so obviously there are still religious hang-ups at play. Only when someone threatens the status quo with an outsider identity can we test the tolerance of that society.

[Proculation]

Kjorteo wrote:

Proculation wrote:

Well, when your logo is that , I call it a socialist party.

That looks more like the Hopeless Romantic Party to me. I worry that they may now be in a position to further their insidious Sappy Poetry Agenda.

It is the logo of the socialist party of France.

[Voyager]

JJ wrote:

I'd never heard of Attlee being an atheist before, which is not to say he necessarily wasn't, but if he was it was probably in a very introspective, private 19th Century sort of way, as opposed to a 21st Century Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens sort of way, openly declaring organized religion to be stupid lies, etc.
[...]

I doubt we would ever elect a Richard Dawkins / Christopher Hitchens type atheist: If you take a look at most of the religious presidents, they've generally been "I believe in X" types, not "If you don't believe in X you're an f'ing primate." types, and the Dawkins/Hitchens types fall definitely into the latter catagory.

[roger-roger]

Hitchens yes, Dawkins no.

The two men have pretty seperate views on theism, Dawkins openly admits he is really an agnostic.