Richie Waves

Yep, only problem for regressives is so has John McCain... and he's been exposed as a bitter horrible old man with a terrible temper and a shit memory... can hardly remember his talking points anymore..

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My lastfm

Oooh, Betty! the cat did a shit in the hat

Eboni Khan

Which is why people should Vote Bob Barr!

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Richie Waves

Yes, that be awesome... as long as he's not one of those cunt "9/11 libertarians"

Small government, military big enough to protect Mars...

Lily Joliat

Remember when George Bush Sr. said the wrong date for D Day in front of a group of veterans? And yea wasn't Nixon on tape making racial slurs or something?
And wasn't JFK screwing around way before Clinton? but i suppose it wasn't in the oval office. And I'm willing to bet that 1/3 of past presidents had "decorum" issues. Infidelity is not limited to democrats.
I think its stupid to think Clinton ruined it.

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Food Porn: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildoneilb/

Cindy Claveau

Presidential Experience

19 of 43 = 44%.

Chester Arthur, Zach Taylor, U.S. Grant, W.H. Taft, Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower each had absolutely no experience at all as a governor, senator, or state legislator before becoming President.

So I think the "Presidential experience" rip on Obama is specious. We've had 24 Presidents with less experience and we managed to do ok.

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Sometimes, "I hit it with my axe" is the best solution.

Trout Recreant

Yeah - I'm a little uncomfortable with us hating on bikers, because...well...just because. Not that I know anyone who would ever ride a motorcycle or anything, but if I did, I'm pretty sure he would be a reasonably harmless contributing member of society. But nope. Don't know any bikers at all.

:looks out the window at his beautiful chrome beauty sitting in the parking lot and daydreams about the rally this weekend.:

Nope. No bikers here.

Lucifer Baphomet

Communist

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Markubis

I've known and worked with a few bikers over the years and they were some of the nicest people I have ever known.

Cindy Claveau

Trout Recreant

I've lost weight since that photo was taken.

Seriously, he should wear a helmet. It would be a shame to have a beautiful mind like that go to waste because of a sharp contact with a curb.

Colette Meiji

Obama is being sold as such a thing by the media.

I am sure his campaign is not saying such - It would sound meglomaniacal in the extreme.

A lot of our current problems are substantially more than 8 years old. But the media does try to sell it as more recent happenings.

Its easier when you can point the finger at a single administration. The liberals point at Bush and his administration.

The Conservatives point at Clinton or the Democratic Congress.

Of course many of our current problems date actually back to the 1970's.

Mereille

Sorry, Trout. I am not hating on bikers. One of the biggest teddy bears I know is a scary-looking tattooed biker that runs a tattoo parlor in town. But even he knows not to make jokes like that about his wife...with reporters present...and with her standing right there...

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I don't know why I think I can manage Second Life....just look at my First Life! Gah!

Surreal

No... his stance on a number of issues has changed. He used to be much more centrist. I attribute it to his efforts to get the far religious-right on board, hence the term "whoring."

I'm going to take this as a general statement instead of one that is highly insulting to my intelligence... although it's going to be hard considering that it's in response to my post.

You're addressing the wrong audience if you want to accuse the voter of being shallow. SLU is full of people who rip into reality and pull out it's bleeding heart to nail up and analyze. Argumentative and cantankerous we are... shallow, not usually.

Surreal

I got my motorcycle learners permit last week and I'm signed up to take a safety course in September. I can't wait to have my license, although my first bike is going to be a small, light, not too powerful one... still.

Harley, next year.

Cindy Claveau

I'd love getting a bike! Road trips when the weather's nice would be such a great way to unwind.

But since I'm so skinny and not very strong, I'll probably have to settle for something like this - only in pink:

Cocoanut Koala

It is amazing to me to go to a state where helmets aren't required (which we just got done doing) and seeing the actual NUMBER of idiots who take advantage of the lack of law and don't wear one!

A person is already at a disadvantage in traffic full of vehicles larger than his own, including massive trucks.

The last one we saw was also driving his scooter (this one was a scooter, not a motorcycle) erratically and in my girlfriend's blind spot, which made her angry. I told her he would be eliminated from the gene pool soon enough, no point in getting mad.

But what kills me is how many people DON'T wear helmets when they don't have to!

coco

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Colette Meiji

I was making a general statement. Not referring to you or any of the posters here.

Although I do believe it is possible McCain WAS a sell-out back when he was a media darling, it just didn't matter when he was on the "right side".

Colette Meiji

I considered coming up with a list of why many of those unexperienced candidates probably shouldn't have been elected either.

An example being Wilson who was an extreme racist that screened a movie by the KKK in the white house. If he had a longer time in the public eye that might have come out before he was elected. Of course in that Era it might not have mattered.

But really my comment about Obama's lack of experience was less about whether he would make a good president and more about the fact that the Media seems to be pushing him as some sort of solution to all our problems.

They pushed McCain at one time. He was the "good republican" a few years ago.

Its obvious Obama is an Educated and intelligent man. And does have some relevant experience. It is less than McCain's experience but that would be expected due to their relative ages.

But the way it plays in the press seems something different than that.

Trout Recreant

Erk - sliding off topic here, but...

Surreal: PM me if you want to talk bikes. I've got some experience with smaller metric cruisers that make excellent first bikes and are still a lot of fun. Taking a MSF course or whatever safety course they offer in your area is the best thing you can do. It's worth every penny of the tuition and it will make you 100x more comfortable on the bike.

Cindy - consider a motorcycle. My GF is petite and she can handle a 650 just fine. It's not about size. If your feet can comfortably touch the ground, you can handle a smaller cruiser.

Coco: I won't get on my bike without at least a helmet, gloves and a padded jacket. One of the things I've noticed is that with the gas prices going up, people are buying scooters at an amazing rate. They think because they have a 49cc engine that they are perfectly safe, after all, it's not like they are on one of those dangerous motorcycles. But they also think that they have the same visibility as cars and should get the same deference. So they buzz along in flip flops, shorts and a tank top at the top speed of 25mph in a 35 zone and don't bother to set up their turns or pay attention to cross traffic or anything. Scooters are much less stable that motorcycles due to their size and the diameter of their wheels. They are also less visible, and there are so many idiots buying them that I'm afraid we're going to start seeing a lot of deaths.

Hitting a curb at 25 mph can easily be fatal, and when you're in the left lane going 25, even if oncoming traffic is going 25 also, a head on collision is like hitting a concrete wall at 50mph.

Finally - back on topic: Mereille. I agree that it was a poor statement to make, and I would have known better, too. Although I'm not in the public eye. I still think that even though he should have known better, this was just a gaffe, and you can expect both he and Obama to make those. I can cut both of them a little slack. They are on 24/7. The poor guys can't even take a leak in peace. They are going to say a few stupid things. It's the substantive things they say that we should be critical of. Their policies (or lack of policies) opinions on major issues, etc., not the little foul ups like Sioux City vs Sioux Falls or Ms. Buffalo Chip or whatever. That's just my opinion, though. I understand your point completely and respect it.

Eboni Khan

I have an issue with people that have never ran anything on a large scale and that includes being a Senator. I don't find serving time in the Senate a demonstration of leadership. I would prefer a business person (ex CEO), big City Mayor, Governor, or Military General (although that makes me a little uncomfortable) to a Senator.

Obama has no business experience (unless we are going to count shady land deals, and his other backroom Chicago deals), little Senate experience (he has been on the campaign trail most of the time), no military experience (and I say that for that management and leadership qualities, not for war mongering), no large government management experience.

If Obama would run for Gov of Illinois, and turn this state around. I would vote for him for anything for the rest of his life.

Eboni Khan

A friend of mine died at 31 with a wife and 3 kids. He didn't have a helmet on and he hit a pothole and his head smashed against the curb, he was going between 25-30 miles an hour on a residential street.

Fade Languish

The ratio of the wheel size to the scooter is a big problem on scooters. I grew up around a lot of mods and scooter boys, they were always getting mashed.

Cocoanut Koala

I think you are right about we're going to see more deaths.

This same girlfriend (the one mad at the scooter driver) just bought a scooter herself. In fact, her husband took me for a ride on it while we were up there! Plus my daughter, and this little boy of another friend who was there.

But you can better believe everyone had on helmets.

This same friend of mine is also an avid bicyclist. And he always wears a helmet.

Well, he was in Florida on his bike one day, helmet on and everything, and was hardly even MOVING, I think making a turn.

Well, this truck ran into him and knocked him clear across the pavement, into a pole. His helmet was cracked in two, and he was in the hospital for a couple of days, with a concussions, I guess, having x-rays taken, etc.

He got better and turned out all right, finally. But if he hadn't had the helmet on, he would definitely have been dead.

coco

Cocoanut Koala

P.S. The Miss Buffalo Chip thing - I thought it was funny. Out of all the things to get exercised about, a guy making a joke about his wife being First Lady AND Miss Buffalo Chip just isn't - well, I think it is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to get offended about.

And yes, we should give all these guys some slack. Hillary said something not long ago which a lot of people took offense at - something about mentioning assassination, meaning that anything could happen during a contest, as it did when Robert Kennedy was running.

You could either decide that she was inferring something about Barack being assassinated (which a lot of people jumped on), or you could decide she meant nothing of the kind (which seemed obvious to me).

I don't think this Miss Buffalo Chip thing rises to any level of anything, at all.

coco

Trout Recreant

There's also an issue with the rake and trail angles in the steering of scooters. I'm not an engineer, but basically, the rake of the front forks in scooters is much steeper than in most motorcycles, which contributes to wobbly steering at higher speeds. Motorcycles get more stable the faster they go (up to a point, obviously).

don't get me wrong; I think scooters are fun, but it seems like the people who buy them don't take them seriously, and the result is angry car drivers, accidents and death. Plus, it's a black eye for responsible bikers like me, because we all get lumped in together.