Empire of the Iguanadons

So it is done. The ticket for the Republican party has been decided at last: Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will be the team to lead us to victory in November.

There were a number of people up for contention for the spot, all of whom would have made a good choice: Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Tim Pawlenty, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Rob Portman, and even General David Petraeus. In the end, Romney has made a wise choice by picking someone with solid experience, the qualifications to fill the office should the need arise, and someone who has proven fiscal discipline and the ONLY worthwhile budget plan to have been floated in the Senate in decades. Combining this with Romney's executive experience as both a governor and a CEO, the ticket is as solid as it could get at this point. Now it's on to dealing with the menace that is Obama-Biden.

Ryan wasted no time in coming out fighting and slamming Obama for the mess he's made over the last 4 years. It would be damn near impossible for anyone to dispute that things have been bad, and that Obama has done nothing whatsoever to improve the situation. Instead, he's simply made it WORSE that it could have been. Unemployment figures published by the government are woefully understated, even at 8.3% currently. Look around you, I'm sure you know at least 3 people who are out of work right now and can't find any. One of those people has probably resorted to collecting welfare just to survive. One probably found a way to get on disability, and the 3rd one - if they were lucky - managed to collect unemployment. Guess who the only one actually being counted is? Double your statistic and you'll have a much clearer picture of the problem. It's far more likely the real numbers are around 15%. Not 8%.

Of course, the Obama campaign retaliated almost immediately against Ryan's accusations, but had nothing of substance to offer up for it other than calling Ryan's budget plan a sham and a return to the "Failures of Bush." Seriously guys. It's time to get a new line of rhetoric. Bush has been gone for 4 years now. Take some damn responsibility for the catastrophe you've helped cause. Plus, the notion that Ryan is attempting to end Medicare seems a bit disingenuous when it was Obamacare that signed Medicare's death warrant and Ryan has been against that all along.

Whatever you may think, it's time to get ready for full on campaign season to begin. Both sides are going to be at each other's throats between now and November. I for one am looking forward to seeing who shows up to speak at the Republican convention, and then to watch as Romney and Ryan wipe the floor with Obama and Biden during the upcoming debates. Though, as I'm sure everyone has noticed, the TV ads are going to get brutal. Very brutal.

Oh, and for those wondering, no, this isn't the 500th post yet. A number of posts were sacrificed as software tests in early days. This is actually only #477.
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RIP United States of America

July 1776 - November 2012.

Oh the typos. It has been one of those days for me.



Yeah, can you make it so i can select text in someones post, and hit quote and that is put into my message body with the name and what is quoted all in one. so i do not have to hit cut, paste then add someones name to the quote box.

If I knew how to offer that I would.

YOU CAN DO IT

Sorry, Fury, I'd been trying to overlook them, but that one was just too ...timely.. to pass up.


So how'd you do it for QSFP? Or were you just modifying the existing code on that one? Can you borrow what's in QSFP to do it? (I did mention that even a slightly broken but functional quote button would be better than what we lack presently.)


While that would be really slick, I wouldn't have a clue how to tell the code to quote from a block of selected text either, especially not short of implementing ajax or some such, but, if he just borrowed from the QSFP code, we'd have a button on each comment that you could click to have all the content of that comment placed, within quote tags - with name attribute, into the quick post field. You'd still have to edit down the content to what you wanted to have actually quoted, and probably delete a "</br>" here and there, but all your quotes would have names finally and it'd be much easier to quote from multiple comments.

Yeah i have to agree Conner, what i was asking for is more than likely something that is out of the bounds of reality, even all the main forum softwares do not do this, you can hit a quote button and quote the entire post, but anything more than that is likely to be impossible, because of limitations in the web and browsers.

Anyone see this clown making an arse of himself Todd Akin

Despicable remark, he knew what he was saying when he said it. Though I'm cynical enough to believe he was paid off by the Obama campaign to "misspeak" on purpose before the convention.

When he said 'legitimate' he really meant 'certified'.

I've actually seen what you were asking for done somewhere, Fury, though I can't recall where and I am almost certain that it utilized ajax or some such to accomplish it, and it would be way cool, but I can't see Samson managing anything quite that elaborate, but just having the same quote button functionality found on most forums, including QSFP, I could see Samson being able to add here.

Yup, Dragona actually found a picture of him with the inane quote being circulated on Facebook that same day. Amazingly, even with his public apology, both Obama and Romney have basically condemned him for it and yet he's still going to run anyway.. I guess his constituents will tell him how they feel about it soon enough. I certainly wouldn't vote for him.

With so much wrong in what he had to say, i cannot see that changing one word is going to make much of a difference in the overall meaning of his ill-informed views.

Ill-informed on this particular issue or not, given the alternative is a flaming lunatic left wing radical, I'd still vote for this guy if I lived there. Lesser of evils scenario. One grossly insensitive comment is not equal to years of purposefully aiding in screwing over the country.

As for the quote thing, even the usual whatever that's used by many forums (the mult-quote button thing) I'd have no idea how to go about that. It isn't that Sandbox can't use it, it's that I don't know how to write the code for it. Javascript documentation is seriously lacking for learning how to do things like this. It's almost like they let Python programmers loose with it.

Well the 2 choices we know of are a left wing radical and a right wing radical, surely there has to be someone on the ballot who is not an extremist of some sort. Surely you would give your vote to a moderate conservative over this wingnut Samson, if there was one to vote for.

I would, but since there's not, I have to go with what I see as the lesser issue here. Fuck over the whole country, or say something stupid. Hmmm......

Regarding Mr. Akin, if that's really the choice, I can only feel sorry for the people of Missouri, I fully agree with Romney's comments quoted in the article you'd linked us, Samson. I just don't get why our political system has to be so bipartisan, as Fury points out, there really ought to be someone available to the voters who's a bit more middle ground.

Regarding the quote button, it doesn't even have to be a multi-quote thing, just some way to auto capture a comment's content and enclose it in attributed quote tags would be an awesome improvement. Failing the feasibility of that, I suppose what we have works even if it is a bit cumbersome at times.

I am not sure why he would even want to be drawn into the topic, even through he is a pro life advocate, it is not like social issues need to be on the agenda when you have much more pressing issues to contemplate, like i don't know, the economy.

The election is going to be won and lost on jobs and the economy, not on abortion, gay rights or other social issues. My personal view is, he should loose his seat, but because he is wasting the electorates time on issues that are just not important right now.

Ryan does waffle on issues. Romney is one of the rich trying to keep the wealth in the hands of a small group of people at the expense of everyone else.

Talking about what the actual unemployment rate is... you include even a fraction of the people on SSDI and SSI, the rate goes up to over 50%. I can tell you, also from personal experience, that there are many people (not all, but many) who would rather be collecting a pay check and paying taxes than collecting disability.

The ability to quote people automagically would be nice, just to throw my hat into that ring.

As to Akin, my response to that comment remains something akin to "..." I mean, really?



We've spent the 30+ years of my lifetime culture warring the shit out of each other, so why stop now, really?

Too, as a supporter of the idea that governments can actually multitask, one finds a lot of the culture war stuff to be non-trivial. The abortion fight matters. Gay rights matter. I could go on. *shrug*

It's only going to matter if there's still an America left to have that debate though.

I'm also waiting for the miraculous understanding of javascript to happen before fiddling with the quote thing.

Pray harder, is all I can say about javascript. Also, goats. A couple of virgins if you have any to hand. I suppose you don't have any volcanoes handy, but I imagine earthquake faults will do in a pinch.

Amen to that! My wife is currently drawing SSI & SSDI and, while we're very grateful for those benefits helping us when we need it, either of us would be truly thrilled be able to draw a paycheck that put us above the limits for both benefits. Not only because we'd rather be able to feel proud that we were earning our own wage again, but also because it would mean that my wife would be suffering so significantly much less than she currently does that she could handle a regular job again. Nothing could be sweeter than having her gain enough relief to be able to handle full time work once again, especially if it also meant not needing to see 2-5 doctors each week anymore.


While Dwip and I have openly disagreed on certain facets of the latter of the two he cited, I will overall second what he said. I don't think the campaign should a one horse show, regardless of whether it turns out that way or not. Once upon a time that I can still remember, candidates set their platform based on their stance toward the issues and debated their positions publicly so their potential voters would know where they claimed to stand on all the issues, not just on one big one. I don't think that was the wrong way to do things.


I'm still not so sure that Romney's really the right man for the job, but he and Ryan would be enough of an improvement over Obama to be a very healthy start. Right now my wife has been really worrying about the fact that it's starting to look like if either of them win she may lose out on Medicare & Medicaid because it's sounding like both of them are leaning toward making eligibility for these medical insurance programs that you're also eligible for employment and actively seeking it if you're under 65. As you can imagine, at this point that would be devastating to our family unless the economy picks up enough that, before that goes into effect, I will be able to find employment again with someone who'd pay me well enough that I could afford to pay for the level of insurance she and my kids require.


While I can't argue with this suggested course all that strongly, I would go so far as to heartily recommend utilizing another creature type as your proverbial scapegoat for the ceremony as I would not want to see any goats sacrificed, especially in vain... we're rather fond of goats here.

EDIT: and I have to edit this post solely to correct a quote closing tag.. may the gods grant you that clearly much needed javascript clarity soon...

Its very unfortunate the situation that has developed in your country; the government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. If it doesn't reign in its spending, it will probably lead to another crisis and recession. If it does, a lot of people will suffer as a result and it may cause another recession anyway. Which would in turn affect the rest of the world. So yeah, no easy way out I suppose.

Another recession would also be the deathblow to the contracting business my entire extended family runs because they've got enormous debt and work is slowing down due to global uncertainty. Although on the plus, they'll actually start visiting us no because we're now the cheapest holiday destination for them and we actually still have a boat left (although its significantly smaller than theirs).

And also, I need to find out why I can't login on my new computer, its getting pretty frustrating.

Another perspective on Mitt Romney.

http://gawker.com/5937531/why-mitts-money-matters?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The comments, both pro and con are also interesting.

This is the real crux of the matter, prior to choosing Ryan, he was pretty well set just by riding the same campaign strategy that worked so well for Obama last time to beat Obama this time, but once he choose Ryan as a running mate, he sent a message that this was about economics not just getting rid of Obama. Given the current climate, that might still work, but it gives people pause to ask questions about whether Romney and Ryan are any better suited to fixing the problems than Obama was. Unfortunately, the answer to those questions isn't entirely clear. Ultimately, the two of them probably will do better than Obama and Biden have done, but how much of that has to do with their actual qualifications and what they will do once in office versus how much of it has to do with just being the successor now that things are beginning to turn around anyway.. well, that's where things get unclear.


Ever got this problem resolved?

That article smacked hard of a hit piece and I couldn't be bothered to finish reading after I got about 1/2 way down. It appears as though several of the commenters agree with me.

Ok, I'll admit that I am not up on all these political terms, despite growing up in Arlington, Virginia just a stone's throw away from Capital Hill, I never really hung out with the politicos and never learned their jargon. What is "a hit piece"?