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Number Six

Published Letters: 256
Editor's Choice: 2

Saturday, June 13, 2009 05:45 PM

Nate's analysis seemed flawed

I think his basic premise is flawed because to get a similar graph from our last election, he has to selectively pick which states report the results in what order. If I remember from reading it he went alphabetically. Arbitrary, fine, but it's not how results in any other country are tallied, because nobody has an electoral college except antiquated us. Everywhere else, the votes are basically counted all as one.

Now for his argument to hold up, he would have to show the same chart is made with how the votes actually came in on election night. Not even state by state, the pure raw numbers. Otherwise, any graph could be made by switching around the states.

Just my take on what he said.

Saturday, June 13, 2009 05:34 PM

@susan sunflower

You can be sceptical all you want. Just cut it with hashing up what happened thirty plus years ago, sixty plus years ago, and twenty years ago in a different country entirely.

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that America is going to intervene or having anything to do with Iran whatsoever until this all plays out. You can forget about intervention of any kind. It would be total suicide for America to have anything to do with this situation. The only way America could do anything there and not have the entire middle east, if not the whole world, come after us, is if Ahmadenijad starts eating babies on live television while wiping his ass with the Koran.

Saturday, June 13, 2009 04:36 PM

@ susan sunflower & margaretleo

Can you two please get over your American self loathing long enough to not dismiss what might be the end of one of the few democratic nations in the middle east?

Did Iran ever meet our definition of democratic? Hell no. Clerics choosing who was allowed to run, religious police, the Ayatollah really running the show, etc. And they certainly haven't been a friend of ours for justifiable reasons. But they were a helluva lot closer to an actual democratic and open society than just about anyone else in the region. And they were slowly making strides closer.

And all that just might have ended today. So get over your navel gazing.

Saturday, June 13, 2009 04:04 PM

fraud is putting it lightly

Anyone who actually thinks that Ahmadenijad actually won 2/3 of the vote overall is naive. Anyone who thinks that his rivals lost their home turf by almost that much is delusional.

This election was stolen. Pure and simple. And it wasn't even stolen well- rigging a five point margin is plausible. But thirty points? Only the utterly brazen or the completely retarded would try to steal an election so foolishly.

Friday, June 12, 2009 01:50 PM

this issue is a great diving rod

As in, a great way to be able to tell a real feminist from the phony ones.

If, on the one hand, you think the joke might have been in poor taste, not something you would have laughed at, but otherwise not really that important, congratulations, you might be an actual feminist. There are of course other criteria, equal pay for equal work, etc., but you have at least not disqualified yourself.

However, if you actually think that Letterman treated Palin any different than he has treated Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, John McCain, John Kerry, Gary Hart, or any of the simply thousands of public male figures he has mocked or insulted over personal matters in the last thirty plus years, then I'm sorry, you cannot truly believe in equality when you think women should be treated any different than men. Unless of course you strenuously objected to Bill Clinton dick jokes or Limbaugh weight jokes. Then you could possibly still be a feminist. But otherwise, you do not really believe in equal treatment unless its to your advantage, or you simply have no spine. And you should get off the stage

Friday, June 12, 2009 08:21 AM

Get a spine

I don't see anyone ever getting in an uproar when some male figure's looks or personal life is mocked by a comedian or other public figure. Yet the same treatment gets everyone all in a bind whenever its a public female figure. And here goes Palin yet again exploiting the double standard that you all allow.

Pick on Palin's looks? Why not? Letterman picks on McCain's age, Obama's ears, Limbaugh's weight, O'Reilly's personal issues, Bill Clinton's personal life, etc. I didn't see any of you up in arms over that stuff. Make one joke about Palin's naughty librarian look or Hillary's shrill laugh and all of a sudden its out of bounds.

This is what is wrong with feminism: many feminists talk a good game about equality, but have such a idealized and romantic concept of it that actual equality seems mean and they reject it. How can anyone take you seriously?

P.S. -No, Sarah, Letterman was not talking about your 14 year old, he was talking about Bristol. That was clearly obvious to anyone not trying to exploit this for political gain. Most people don't even know you had a 14 year old. And won't until your bad parenting ruins her life too.

And as bad as some think the joke was, Palin's the one who put her in the public spotlight. Bristol is the one staying there on this abstinence tour of hers. Which is obscene coming from someone who abstinence only education utterly failed.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 06:14 PM

another way of looking at this

Anyone else get the machiavellian notion that perhaps Markus dismissed her because Meghan McCain is a rational Republican, and it benefits liberals to diminish rational conservatives, in favor of the radical, lunatic right wingers like Cheney, Limbaugh, et. al? If you have the opportunity to pick your adversaries, wouldn't you pick the twit with the aluminum hat?

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