hehehe another nice example of the most two-faced community regarding sex: US americans. by far biggest sex industry and porn market, but prudery everywhere. funny in my eyes :-)

Grrrrrr. two-faced, nutjob, man I hope she loses.

Edit: someone also has to explain to me how if killing a fetus is not good, then killing a fetus AND a woman by bombing an abortion clinic (there are bound to be MANY in there at any given time) is acceptible?

^ Well, you're right about that. Terrorists and racists are two very different things. Truth is: I'm not as bothered by the McCain ads because they are not fooling anybody. I think that what is so offensive to me about the Obama ad is the fact that it was extremely deceptive and misleading and released in the Spanish language, therefore targeting a group of people who may not see these claims disputed on Fox and CNN. Again, this is what was released in the Spanish language about McCain:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from [Limbaugh]: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

McCain is not a racist and his immigration policies are different from Limbaugh's and similar to Obama's.

I'm offended by the McCain ads, too, but I don't worry as much about the media getting the truth out about Ayers because of the mainstream media's liberal bias. Don't worry so much about it. I'm not an Obama supporter, but I don't believe a word of the Ayer crap. Obama is no terrorist. Friends with one, maybe, but who really cares? The people ignorant enough to care have already made up their minds.

It's not a long article. I'll just post it and save you guys the click:

Obama is Stoking Racial Antagonism
by Rush Limbaugh

I understand the rough and tumble of politics. But Barack Obama -- the supposedly postpartisan, postracial candidate of hope and change -- has gone where few modern candidates have gone before.

Mr. Obama's campaign is now trafficking in prejudice of its own making. And in doing so, it is playing with political dynamite. What kind of potential president would let his campaign knowingly extract two incomplete, out-of-context lines from two radio parodies and build a framework of hate around them in order to exploit racial tensions? The segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s were famous for such vile fear-mongering.

Here's the relevant part of the Spanish-language television commercial Mr. Obama is running in Hispanic communities:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

Much of the media that is uninterested in Mr. Obama's connections to unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright have so far gone along with the attempt to tie me to Mr. McCain. But Mr. McCain and I have not agreed on how to address illegal immigration. While I am heartened by his willingness to start by securing the borders, it is no secret that we have fundamental differences on illegal immigration.

And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

My point, which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers. I was criticizing the mind-set of the protectionists who opposed the treaty. There was no racial connotation to it and no one thought there was at the time. I was demeaning the arguments of the opponents.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

At the time, I made abundantly clear that this was a parody on the Mexican government's hypocrisy and nobody took it otherwise.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

We've made much racial progress in this country. Any candidate who employs the tactics of the old segregationists is unworthy of the presidency.

>> ^thinker247:
Okay, I'll flip a coin.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y. Sometimes Y!




Wait, is this a Batman movie/TV show? Are you Two Face/Harvey Dent? If so, then can I be the Joker?

Obama is an idiot, what the fuck was he thinking?

Two face politician.

utter bullshit.

[I never understood why or how a troll wields so much power and fame within this community, he maybe an internet artist and an icon to some of you, but he's driven many away from the sift (myself included) with his two faced comments (loves you one minute, insults you the next) he is likely responsible for more people leaving the sift then staying. But I'm just another random user, I could be wrong.]

I am happy to hear that a heartier soul and spirit than my own*cough was driven to such a state through my stalwart efforts...Confrontations' a bitch to most folks who lack critical thinking skills-Hardly a random user fedro, you have helped shape this place-and a fucking troll???....Lives under a bridge and exacts tolls from unsuspecting passers by for no reason other than their own nastiness......Fuck your internet terminologies created to compartmentalize "types" of users. Choggie does not fit conveniently into limiting or defective categories created by folks with ass-flatening, adjustable chair-warming skills-

Once again, you are wrong, like others here, comfortable to wallow in similar illusory whims of lazy minds and perception-bound processeeees...Head-in-ass disease is something one must work years to cultivate-Passive-Aggression walks hand in hand with this sick bitch as well-All about the evolution of the site, and the dissolution, of deleterious aspects of this community, when a pattern begins to emerge......

Clever motherfuckers have clever going for them,(how's that working for ya??) but it takes more than smug and snappy and a trivial pursuit knowledge of the world witha thousand dollar vocabulary to make a lasting impression, and communicate or transmit knowledge.....

I am so glad to be back!! thank all of you who made my vacation possible, who supported me while dealing with assholes, idgits, and imbeciles from the bottom of a clouded ocean-I have learned a valuable lesson.....Perhaps next time I break the rules, they won't be written ones, and the next time I step on some fat fuck's toes, I'll make sure I do it heal-first with a stamping and twisting motion, with full weight and force directed at point of contact....

That's what a crazy person would do, innit?? A meeeean person??? A Haaaateful person???
Fuck yer labels people, fuck your symbol-addiction, and fuck marching lockstep to some idyllic, "nice" to everyone pipe-dream of a future based on worn-out, defective, and limiting models.....yer all meatbots to me!!!

In reply to this comment by Fedquip:
I never understood why or how a troll wields so much power and fame within this community, he maybe an internet artist and an icon to some of you, but he's driven many away from the sift (myself included) with his two faced comments (loves you one minute, insults you the next) he is likely responsible for more people leaving the sift then staying. But I'm just another random user, I could be wrong.


You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)


And to hell with the ignore button; this town needs an 'adversary' button!
Mr. Fisk (1976-)

I never understood why or how a troll wields so much power and fame within this community, he maybe an internet artist and an icon to some of you, but he's driven many away from the sift (myself included) with his two faced comments (loves you one minute, insults you the next) he is likely responsible for more people leaving the sift then staying. But I'm just another random user, I could be wrong.

Obama was born in the US. Is at least 35 years of age. Technically, he qualifies. The only thing remaining is the majority of electoral votes. He's lookin' pretty damn good on that right now.

McCain voted for Bush twice and helped him with almost everything he did. Look how that turned out. Two-face could flip his coin and do better, so I think just about anyone will improve our situation as long as it's not another Bush.

I suppose QM thinks we're doing swell right now, right? Delusions.

edit: Space funding? We need to pay down our debt before spending our money on future non-essentials. Unfortunately, we don't really need to explore Mars, so we really should fix our own problems before spending that money.

I think they both stand on their own merits. Nicholson's take goes perfectly with the baroque gothic style Burton was going for in 1989, and Ledger works great for Nolan's uber realism.

Nicholson's take is getting a bad rap. One criticism people level at Jack's performance is that his joker is "too much like Jack Nicholson", but that's why he was cast! Nobody in Hollywood's ever had a more famously threatening grin than Jack Nicholson.

As for the writing of the character, I prefer the Nolan version of the bat mythos, but he's still not making the Batman movies I'd make if a genie granted me the director's chair. I'd make it a lot more low key and make Batman far more self-reliant. Four people knew his identity by the end of Begins. Dumb. Parts of The Dark Knight belong in a Bond movie... the cellphone sonar and the airplane skyhook stunt come to mind.

I also really wish they'd just left Two-Face out of it. They totally wasted Batman's second-best enemy. Should have had the Joker scar him in this one and then maybe cap the movie with a hint that he is going to be the villain in the next one. You could still have the entire arc without making the last half-hour of the movie seem unfocused and sort of too much of a good thing.

About that baroque gothic style, I could never understand why to this day so many people in the media cite The Dark Knight Returns as the inspiration for the 1989 Batman film. Perhaps the sales numbers inspired it, but in tone and style they are as far apart as any other two interpretations of the mythos.

Just returned from a midnight showing and overall: I like it.

Joker is very cool and the "pencil-trick" is not nearly as gory as my mind's eye pictured it. I love the little touches, where he feels very human, like when his remote doesn't work right.

Batman's gravely voice annoys me, but I can accept that he wants to shield his identity somewhat. The gadgets weren't that many, which is a good thing, but that sonar idea was just retarded.

The film dared some things that you didn't expect and copped out on some other stuff. If you enjoyed the first one, this is better. If you hated the first one, you're probably not going to like this one either.

Two-Face was very well done, both the cg and acting. He wouldn't be able to speak properly with half his lip missing, but I'll suspend that disbelief.

I thought this movie was good, but I cared less for the other characters than two Face and Joker.

I don't associate the fact that Ledger is dead with the fact that I like his joker.

Ive always liked ledger's acting, and his Joker is brilliant. I think he carries the movie really.

I am inclined to think that any actor can play the batman because he is behind a mask. Its not hard to play a Bruce Wayne, because Bruce is like Bond, there have been many actors to portray him. But the batman is a single stone carved character to play, deep voice dark suit, mask. Pretty easy there. (No I'm not an actor and No I don't even pretend to be able to act. so )

Now back to the point, I wanted to see this version of the Joker. I can relate to this kind of joker, in fact I would invite him over for a cup of tea.

^ Second the David Brooks is an idiot. He's just whining because he doesn't like the thought of a tough Democrat.

Besides, Obama always said he'd consider public financing, he did not unequivocally commit to it, contrary to what that obviously objective John McCain guy says.

Let's look at McCain's flip-flops.

My favorites:

Against off-shore drilling, now advocates it.

Thought Iraq would be easy, now says he always knew it would be hard.

Has been both for and against overturning Roe v. Wade.

Against Bush tax cuts, now for them.

Against torture, now for it.

Oh, and how could I forget? John McCain is an election finance criminal.

Technically that last one isn't a flip-flop, but a long-held position, but it seems relevant to the conversation anyways.

David Brooks is a Republican cheerleader. If he wanted to slam Obama for a serious flip-flop, he'd have to talk FISA, but Brooks won't do that because in his very prestigious role as a Republican cheerleader, that's Obama seeing reason, not selling out the 4th amendment.

I think Brooks' article was entertaining read, but I think Republicans like Brooks seem to think all of Obama's appeal comes from being "a different kind of politician", and that any time he makes a smart tactical or strategic move, it's evidence that he's "just another politician." They think articles like this will "shatter the illusion", and make us all get luvey-dovey about McCain, who's a "straight-talker".

If you read through the article I linked and the videos I linked, you'll find that if Brooks is really concerned about us liking a "two-faced politician", he needs to write an expose about McCain.

I won't be holding my breath.

BansheeX: Anyway, I always hold that Democrats are just Libertarians who don't know it yet.

Weird how perspective changes things. Mid 40s now and I considered myself a conservative/libertarian at least through my 30s, these days I see two libertarian parties rather than one and no real conservatives left. Not the people I considered conservative at least. Repubs joined with dems to go after Nixon, if it wasn't for that he wouldn't have left. They don't do that now though. Eisenhower, not hippies, gave us the term "military/industrial complex. That type of conservative no longer exists. I don't follow any party or leader and haven't for ages.

Libertarian first of all has at least two faces, probably three or more. There's the business libertarian who isn't in the end much different from or better than the neocon. They helped to provide both the dems and the repubs with the moral "high ground" required to deregulate the hell out of everything and allow consolidation of power and influence in the hands of a very few. To restrict them in any way wasn't 'free markets' and that's what we were all about we thought. They have done SO much damage.

Second kind would be the social libertarian, those I like still if they have some common sense about extremes. To me there's little difference between a social libertarian with some common sense about extremes and a lot of progressives. Both against the drug war, against allowing the State into our bedrooms and private lives, and on the same side of lots of other issues. They often just don't know it yet, haven't looked honestly at each other rather than being told what the other stands for.

Then there's the "I just want to be left alone" type. They have no idea what any of it stands for and they are too often quick to impose their will on others but they don't want anyone telling them what to do and they can't see the problem with their position.

Dems and repub are both empty shells, fill them with whatever you want to fill them with. Repub at one time was the party of Lincoln, then it became the party of the rich. Dems at one time in the south at least was the party of racism and the status quo and that lasted at least through the start of the civil rights era, they did good for a few years then got their ass kicked in 68-72 and just gave up to let the DLC take over. Since then it's been in one measure or another a show. The dems and repubs put on a show fight or pretend to fight about social issues that never really change no matter who is in charge, in the meantime the business block does great no matter who is in charge. When it's the repubs in charge it's obvious, when it's the dems between the minority repubs and the dlc dems nothing really changes, and it hasn't for decades. The differences are both superficial and in places that really don't matter to the money flow. It's just bait to keep us dumb voters happy as if we did have choices.

It's all branding and marketing these days and no party actually means anything that will last. Ideals mean something if you stick to them but those ideals aren't tied to repub, dem, or libertarian, they just live in our minds. They are tied to rational thought and deep skepticism about all parties or other special interests. What do they have to gain, who is telling me things, and why? Past that screw the parties, once they get you to following the "brand" they can get you to follow them about anywhere and we'd see it for ourselves if we'd just look.