1,359 comments on “North Carolina and Indiana minus four days”

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  1. Finns, as an Obama backer, I dont think the Wright thing is a good look. I dont think he expected round 2 from Wright, otherwise he would have repudiated him the first time. But you can chant “Wright, Wright Wright” until youre blue in the face, Obama is still the better candidate and has the most delegates

  2. #102 – [the better candidate]? – it’s not me that you have to convince with the Pastorgate, it’s working class whites, hispanics, asians, catholic, jewish voters Obama has to convinced. So far, he failed miserably. he is being carried only by blacks and the liberals. Boy, you gotta carry that weight for a long time.

  3. Even Americans will eventually get it that what someone you know says is not as potent as what you said yourself (like “I survived sniper fire in Bosnia” , when there was none).

  4. 103

    “he is being carried only by blacks and the liberals”

    Yeah Finns – it’s just a shame there’s so bloody many of ’em or Hillary would be winning!

  5. In a recent comment, Herr Spam Dokter Carr, quotes the following without providing a source. I hope none of his students view PB because the information that Adam provides is chronically factually challenged. What some would be so bold to call a lot of Tommy rot!

    From Adam’s assertion: “In 1932, public health researchers set out to study syphilis, particularly among African Americans, who had higher infection rates than whites. They recruited 399 black men who already had syphilis. The doctors infected no one. In fact, the patients were selected in the first place because they were tertiary-stage syphilitics who were no longer contagious. The researchers studied the progress of the disease, without treating it, for 40 years.”

    So why did President Bill Clinton apologise for it, Adam, if it were no more that a spot of misguided benevolence?

    The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

    “The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. . . . clearly racist.”

    —President Clinton’s apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the eight remaining survivors, May 16, 1997”
    http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762136.html

    “Using Human Beings as Laboratory Animals

    The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers’ grossly disadvantaged lot in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free medical care—almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before—these unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones, author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified as “the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.” ”
    In 1932, public health researchers set out to study syphilis, particularly among African Americans, who had higher infection rates than whites. They recruited 399 black men who already had syphilis. The doctors infected no one. In fact, the patients were selected in the first place because they were tertiary-stage syphilitics who were no longer contagious. The researchers studied the progress of the disease, without treating it, for 40 years.”

    Truly, Adam, your facility with History sometimes rivals that of Winston Smith.

  6. only blacks and liberals.
    He should be carried by Only Whites (do Blacks actually get to vote these days?), and neocons – who have done such a fab job to date.
    Finns…. I know you don’t mean it the way it sounds.

  7. #110 – jen [Finns…. I know you don’t mean it the way it sounds] – the only sound that i like is the sound of music or as the medicos would call it the sound mucus.

  8. McCain? A “credible candidate” Or a great white cadaver?

    Now, there’s a question!

    Until the dreary bunch of Republican candidates took to the podium and unzipped their shortcomings one by one, McCain was nobody’s man. I suppose being the last man standing is some sort of prize, but the lunar right and the Christian loops are with Rush and Ann Coulter on this one.

    OK, some of the lunch bucket brigade will never vote for the tinted guy (Wright or no Wright), but that all will flock to McCain after the 8 years of Republican bastardry and perversion of the fundamentals of the Republic is to credit these people with sub-moronic IQ’s.

    Sorry, I don’t buy it.

    When Obama wins the nomination, the full force of 8 years of bottled anger against this tyrany of the inbred Bush and his merry band of Neocons will be unleashed, and McCain will be raised like Frankenstein’s monster out of the formaldehyde and flayed without mercy.

    Obama the ‘black grievance candidate’? Nup, he’ll be Obama driving the stake through the heart of the white zombie McCain, and finally killing this Neocon monstrosity in its tracks.

    And the “ignorant loathing lefties” will be in “paroxysms of righteous sarcasm” no doubt! LOL

    Bring it on!

  9. Finnigans my friend,(and I do think we are by now, despite our differences) I would like to think that politics can be put aside for the greater good.
    I think that the values Obama represents are those that most of us aspire to, and it saddens me to think that we reduce this to a football game of hoping the team we barack for – pun intended – wins, rather than who is most likely to change the paradigm of invested money, racial bias, religious intolerence, etc etc that is what we are all familiar with.
    That’s why I disagree with you, but I appreciate the fact that we can do it with mutual respect.
    And so my friend, may the best leader win.

  10. Ferny
    #47 & #55

    Ferny , I understood your point, but totally disagreed with it ,thats why I suggested the examples. Your suggesting the ‘left’ and ‘right’ tags are blurred.

    If you are a believer in the ‘socialist left’ , or lefter , or in the Greens or a ‘socialist’, then you may as well stop reading now.

    I’m saying that there is some blur on foreign policy but not with domestic policy here or in the US. I’m saying the World of ‘socialism’ &’whitlamism’ is dead. Today , in foreign policy we have chemical & bio weapons able to carry in ‘suit cases’. We have unstable India, Pakistan & North Korea with nukes who’ll soon be able to hit us here (with 6 others playing with unranium enrichment). We’ve got terrorism witness Bali targeting Aussies. Countrys for their own safety need sound alliances with the US & via the CIA & other countries including Indonesia.That does NOT mean yu agree with all their policys
    So there is broad consensus on the US etc alliance. Only the looney left say No

    HOWEVER , Labor does have ‘humanitarian & human right’ in their policys (Rudd on Tibet) which the ‘right’ also detest & oppose.

    BUT Domestic policy is still ‘left’ and completely different to the ‘right’

    Hillary’s key domestic policys listed in #37) are the same as fundamental domestic Labor policys (although our Medicare is stronger). Obama disagrees with them. These Hillary policys are hated by the neocons , and for good reason they are the opposite of their conservative ‘right’ ideology. Labor’s are similarly hated by Howard & the Liberals. I do not agree the lines are blurred.

    The means to achieve these have changed due to globalisation & the power of the money markets etc. But Labors equity & social objects have not changed & are opposed by the ‘right’ Yes , financial management is similar , how can one disagree with commonsense economics (except when not practised) so that you have the money to implement social changes that cost money

    A political domestic change is ‘new’ Labor. Hawke/Keating ditched the least important & most unelectable damaging domestic policys (as has Rudd) so that 70% of the Labor equity Policys do actually get implemented, rather than sitting in opposition holding the 100% feeling principles pure, and still for example no ‘apology’ and no Kyoto and no equitable capital grants (computers etc) schools funding, no universal fast broadband for all , dental plan etc etc but with full workchoices operating.

    These ‘left’ policys are ALL different to the ‘right’ who oppose them all. The lines are not I think blurred between ‘left’ and ‘right’.

    Which of the 4 policys in #37 do you agree with & which don’t you disagree with ? (and still be an Obama supporter for other reasons)

  11. #113, jen, cant remember who said this: “there are more things that bind us together than those that keep us apart” – is this a hillary and obama love-in?

  12. I’m saying that there is some blur on foreign policy but not with domestic policy here or in the US. I’m saying the World of ’socialism’ &’whitlamism’ is dead. Today , in foreign policy we have chemical & bio weapons able to carry in ’suit cases’.

    Perhaps you’ve had a few too many pinots over dinner, but I’m a bit confused by the conflation of ‘socialism’ with ‘Whitlamism’. And I’m not sure what weapons have to do with either.

    Yes , financial management is similar , how can one disagree with commonsense economics (except when not practised) so that you have the money to implement social changes that cost money

    How ‘common’ this ‘sense’ is may well be in dispute, since we have massive surplus budgets, both State and Federal, and many Australians who would condemn the neglect of Australia’s health and education systems, public transport and infrastructure…

  13. Sat May 3: “The Merkan way of life will not be compromised” http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/robertariail;_ylt=Aiva4KJPcSckteMiptvLXtze.sgF

    Sat. May 3: Scalias of Justice http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/billday;_ylt=AugKdlXMDStVNgZt.xDS64DX.sgF

    Fri May 2: Workable regimes often employ a spiritual Ponzi scheme with an exclusive national frachise to effectively help finesse the rubes. Not appreciating this was one of the original Russian Man of Steel’s biggest strategic errors. Generalissimo Franco understood the uses of a long established religion, so does Vlad Putin whose m.o. could be quite easily be described as “Fascist” nowadays.
    http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/jeffdanziger;_ylt=AjeqF_E..ej4vw9T7EvrBK5X_b4F

  14. Fri May 2: Workable regimes often employ a spiritual Ponzi scheme with an exclusive national frachise to effectively help finesse the rubes. Not appreciating this was one of the original Russian Man of Steel’s biggest strategic errors. Generalissimo Franco understood the uses of a long established religion, so does Vlad Putin whose m.o. could be quite easily be described as “Fascist” nowadays.

    EC, the comparison between Putin and fascist regimes has been made quite extensively. Putin has cultivated a ‘youth movement’, called ???? (or Nashi, which means ‘ours’). Whilst this movement is filled with all kinds of drifters, opportunists and careerists, it also contains a certain number of brain-dead thugs who have been responsible for escalating violence and murder against blacks, Central Asians, gays, and perceived leftists. The movement, unlike the official line of the communist era, is explicitly nationalist and very supportive of the Orthodox church.

  15. Kirri #118 and THR #117

    I did say:

    “If you are a believer in the ’socialist left’ , or lefter , or in the Greens or a ’socialist’, then you may as well stop reading now”

    I could said “the ‘looney left’ includes those that believe some of Whitlam’s cabinet’s public distaste for the US would get sacked today by Rudd. I could have said you could thumb your nose at the US in 1972 cause others didn’t have nukes but not now, there was no terrorism worldwide then , no bio & chemical world wide then, no. The island country was pretty safe fom the World

    And I assumed people knew ‘socialism’ or its basic principles were the basis of Labor to Whitlam and you were ‘left’ if you believed that (in the context of referring tp Ferny’s taging of ‘left’ had you read Ferny’s post which you did not
    Socialism got ditched , it was a means , not an end

    but then I assumed people read the newspaper on these issues

  16. 117
    Enemy Combatant

    Pander and Putin, two goodies Ecky.

    Ya bring a moment or two of relief to this interminable dreariness which seems to have gone on forever. (Groundhog day has nothing on this primary season amigo!)

    When David Brooks backhands both McCain and Clinton in the same sentence you just know they are talking crappola!

    (Putin is a worry though. Do you think the Russian Orthodox church could be, ar, coerced, into making him a Saint? Saint Vlad the Impala? Saint Vlad the Impeller? Saint Vlad the Polonium? The slayer of Oligarchs and Crusher of Chechnya?)

  17. EC, the comparison between Putin and fascist regimes has been made quite extensively. Putin has cultivated a ‘youth movement’, called ???? (or Nashi, which means ‘ours’). Whilst this movement is filled with all kinds of drifters, opportunists and careerists, it also contains a certain number of brain-dead thugs who have been responsible for escalating violence and murder against blacks, Central Asians, gays, and perceived leftists. The movement, unlike the official line of the communist era, is explicitly nationalist and very supportive of the Orthodox church.

    This is an increasingly common phenomenon in russian culture and not unique to one man. for example, the national bolshevik party which are garry kasparov’s friends, aren’t only responsible for murdering minorities, they have ethnic cleansing as their party platform. it’s the same as how blair’s labour party tries to woo racists from the bnp. it is not unique to russia or unique to united russia. there are many, many russian parties linked to our supposed friends in the anti-putin opposition that stop at just the goal of racial purity.

  18. I don’t disagree, Gam. A number of economic stats have suggested a post-communist decline in living standards for Russians. Radicalism has persisted, but it appears to have done so in a rather ugly, radical rightist form.
    Whilst I agree that the situation has analogies elsewhere, I don’t think we could compare Blair’s Britain with Putin’s Russia. Sadly, the BNP got a seat or two (from the reports I’ve read) in the latest council elections. There’s even a party (the National Front) who, whilst they didn’t win anything, still got quite a few votes in some electorates. These guys reportedly consider the BNP to be ‘sell-outs’.

  19. 124
    gam

    The NBP are Garry Kasparov’s friends?

    Funny, but he was sure it was NBP thugs who beat him up?

    Maybe you could check(mate) your facts?

  20. The Finnigans Says:
    [He’s been unable to expand his base of support — African Americans, affluent Whites and young people — into a consistently winning majority. Obama hasn’t been able to get enough working-class whites, in particular, to vote for him.]

    hey look! a scary negro!!! obama knows that guy… he must be a scary negro too! i better vote for hillary. q.e.d.

    don’t take this to mean i’m a obama supporter, or a hillary supporter. i actually went for bush last election. i thought that the lesson of the first four bush years hadn’t been fully absorbed (voters tend to be slow learners). it would appear that some remedial lessons are still in order so i’m going for tax cuttin’ economy stagflatin’ war fightin’ mccain!

    hillary will get there in the end and be flogged by mccain as she sends obama’s new voters home and brings republicans out of the grave to vote against her. or she’ll damage obama so much that he’ll lose anyway. either way, i’m predicting another ten years in the wilderness for the dems. at the end of which ‘clinton’ will acquire the invective associated with ‘nader’. it should be awesome, it isn’t every day you see a global hegemony implode inside a decade.

  21. FINNS
    #56

    Just scrolled back & saw your good post on the Pastor and liked your last line ‘they are still joined by the hip”

    Obama did that completely in his Philly speech when he praised him as his mentor , friend & inspiratin for racial harmony.

    There are so many contradictions now , perhaps he should concede. How can you be POTUS making monumental security decisions on your judgement , when u cann’t even get correct your Pastor mentor is not what you thought for 20 yrs

    Further Obama’s chief selling point is that he is a healing force in American politics bring black & white into a more complete union. there is not even union between him & his Pastor (the guy supposedly his inspiration for harmony)

    Obama “I don’t think he the Pastor showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people and with the American people..” The Pastor hasn’t changed since Philly at all , Obama has changed & supposedly the Pastor now does not understand

  22. oh my god the pastor wright scandal has overtaken Guam, they have given Hilary their 8 delegates, and she is the nominee!!

    (sorry got bored waiting for Guam results…)

  23. 127
    Kirribilli Removals Says:

    The NBP are Garry Kasparov’s friends?

    Funny, but he was sure it was NBP thugs who beat him up?

    Maybe you could check(mate) your facts?

    Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov sees his campaign to change Russia as a mission to safeguard constitutional rights.

    “It’s a very important battle,” he told the BBC, at the end of a news conference which he and his political allies had called to outline their plans for a protest on Saturday.

    He has assembled a bewilderingly broad coalition. It includes former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and the extremist National Bolshevik Party.

    The NBP has become known for audacious stunts aimed at embarrassing the establishment. Nevertheless, their flag borrows heavily from Nazi imagery – a hammer and sickle replaces the swastika. They hardly seem likely partners for Western-style democrats.

    BBC
    looks like your last move was a fool’s mate, kr 😉

  24. GAM
    #128

    thank goodness you posted. I thought the Obamabots were closet neocons but you brought me back to reality “hey look! a scary negro!!! obama knows that guy… he must be a scary negro too! i better vote for hillary. q.e.d.”

    What a typical Repug moronic comment. Had you known anything about the working class (the closest to which you’ve only seen on a TV set) you’d know they want practicle solutions for necessities of life from centre right Democrats not ‘liberal Democrats’ and certainly not mugs from the Repugs. your type is why i find the Repugs repugnant

    Andrew , the Obamabots said 8 weeks ago , it was a dead issue

    so why don’t you question FINNS how he got CNN #123 to do a dud story so he could post it here

  25. Ron, I dont believe I ever said Wright was a dead issue- does this mean that I am not an Obamabot- yippee!! If you read my posts at the time, I commented that I found it hard to believe that Obama would not have discussed or raised the controversial comments with the pastor in the past. I can acknowledge thsi hasnt been good for Obama, can you acknowledge the sniper fire issue not being good for Hillary???

    Despite the Wright issue, I still think Obama is the better candidate.

  26. The Finns at 123 aided by CNN, Obama has gotten enough votes to be ahead in the delegate count. You can analyse and break down the numbers all you like. They dont add up to Hillary winning

  27. Ron @ 114 – some policy discussion, thank you 🙂 A welcome change from personality and process issues. And apologies to everyone else, I won’t stay long, just popped in coz most of USA is snoozing now, and won’t answer me for some hours yet, *hhmmpphh*.
    .
    I’ve just returned from a lovely dinner with the Canuck branch of the family in chilly autumnal ‘berra – *brrr*, not frosty yet, but not far off. We were chatting more about the possibility of a Unity ticket or pathways to election in the GE, given the Dem voter demographic bases are split. FWIW, the message I’m hearing, is that Obama doesn’t want or need, Hillary’s voter demographics in order to win. Hate Hillary all you like, but don’t hate her voters. If too many voters on either side, wont vote or campaign for the other – then neither can win the GE. So we were speculating about how the public spin-doctoring might sound, on the kiss-and-make-up speeches, or a surprise Edwards, Gore ( or *somebody*) “Come-Back” with a true ‘Unity Pony’
    .
    Anyway, being a statsy-style health economist, I found a reference to an interesting maths nerdy site, which did a kind of Monte Carlo algorithm (heuristic analysis) algorithm on the GE match-ups. For those who don’t know what such algorithms are, at its most simplistic, the travelling salesman analogy. Say, a salesman has to visit 5 cities in 4 days, but there are umpteen different pathways he can take to meet that objective, but which is the best? On a simple back-of-the-envelope it can be calculated easy enough in that example, but when you get on a large-scale like FedEx or train or airline scheduling scenarios, then computers usually have to calculate all the different pathways.
    .
    In this case below, it runs thousands of different possible scenarios for the GE, and looks at the probabilities of particular “pathways to winning” state-by-state on ECV votes, falling to one or other candidate/Party based on aggregate polls to date, past voting patterns, demographics etc, its kind of a way of getting a handle on which ones might be truly “safe”, which might be battlegrounds (“marginals”) or toss-ups etc. In this one, the author ran around 10,000 pathway scenarios:
    .
    But a warning, very much a site for the maths nerdy geek propeller-heads, and still just a ‘snapshot’ as at end of April with a long way to go, and some inputs are “old” data, and may be unreliable:
    .
    http://hominidviews.com/?p=1494
    .
    On the lighter side of political opinion, has anyone seen any of the “Flineo” authored vids on Youtube? I apologise if others have posted them earlier, he or she) has posted several artistic short film vids in recent weeks, but my personal favourite in the ‘Flineo’ album is: ‘Winners don’t Yap” – (but it looks like I can’t access Youtube at the moment to give a URL – just search on User name “Flineo”.
    .
    But one for Hillary supporters to enjoy:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdnlNZg2iM&feature=related
    .
    And, I’m off to download the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, and a mocha.
    Cheers – Rain

  28. 131
    gam

    I recalled Kasparov blaming the skin heads for his street beating but hadn’t realised he’d gone to the dark side and embraced the little darlings.

    My goodness, doesn’t politics make strange bedfellows?

    Beaten by a vicious state repressive regime, he seems to decided to try playing the same game. I don’t like his chances.

    Thanks for the update, and no, I’ll never expose a diagonal on the kingside gratuitously.

  29. having just realised that I was waiting for an 8 delegate result from the island of Guam on a saturday night, I have decided to go and get a life instead!!

  30. Yes, THR, Kirri and gam. History is fascinating stuff all right.
    Perhaps Robert Bollard will have something to say on Vlad’s embrace of Holy Mother (Orthodox) Church over the weekend before we get into NC and IA with the passion of true devotees.
    When we gather for that delicious moment after the last polls are in and the preliminary gabfestin’ is done; when the votes and dels get divvied up; when punters recalibrate the stakes; when deals are nodded upon in Executive Suites of generic hotels as briefcases and brown paper bags exchange hands.
    When the future confronts us; when the Banshee is done with wailin’.
    When Columbia and the planet lurches towards shared destinies.

  31. Russia/ KGB/ PastorsauceGate??
    The more they do it the better I would feel if I was Obama.
    The moment anyone finds anything of substance let me know.
    Why on earth would you (PB posters) want to sink this low?
    Surely no one in their right mind would suggest that Obama is more corruted/able than the Clintons.
    Get a grip, and start thinking about what should happen years from now, not whose flag you’re hanging from your parapet.

  32. RAIN

    #135

    Thanks for dropping by. Please keep doing so. Yes you are quite right , not too many wish to discuss policy what with just talking lofty aims and all that , but if you do not pick the candidate with the best equity policys to help people like Hillary policys do. What happens ? all you get is pollies earning a lot of money , going to lovely dinners & giving wordy speechs & of course making sure their Supa is OK.
    Then next election the fplks are not better off , some are poorer and the Pollie makes more empt promises. Looked at that ite thanks , will spend more time on it. Enjoy yourself

    Ron

  33. I’m still here Ron, tonight anyway – am in and out web-surfing all over the place, crusing while waiting for a download of the latest episode of BSG aired in the US, Firday night their time, and some answers to my e-mails from those sleepy-heads up northern hemisphere.
    .
    Just found an interesting US blog post, in response to our very own Aussie Loony Lefty Icon, Bob Ellis (who you may recall wrote a gross, crass piece on Hillary, at ABC’s ‘Unleashed’ last week)
    .
    Check it out for a laugh at:
    http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/hillary-sexism-watch-part-eighty-eight.html

  34. Jen

    there has been o many news legs in pastorgate , no one has had time to look at Obama’s oil relationships yet. He id support the Bush/cheney bill, good company there. Hillary voted no like a principled Democrat would.

    Guess Ferny I struck gold with one of the 4 categorys not to reply from , just cann’t beat good luck.

    Andrew , why you haven’t been watching the football concurrently

  35. So when is Cyrillic script going to be enabled on PB? And Greek? Even Hebrew and Arabic for occasional pieces? Come on, Will, nothing adds more gravitas to a post than scribbly stuff and a quote at the end…

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