The Political Thread

[Trout]

I want a hat like that! To eBay!

[TordelBack]

And if your 'doctor' tells you that 'the female body has ways of shutting down to avoid pregnancy if raped' you need to stop visiting Witch Doctors and find a science based alternative. They are all the rage these days I hear. Y'know; clever folks who really know about stuff.....

That man shouldn't just be automatically barred from office, he should be completely disenfranchised until he can pass a basic general science course.  At least he has the defence of gross stupidity and ignorance -   Galloway, on the other hand, should and does know better.

[judgefloyd]

Not too bad.  I like bands that remind me of TISM.thanks,

Heh, TISM are new to me. I feel I've been missing out by not owning a record called Australia The Lucky Cunt, and the convergence point between Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Devo isn't a bad place to be.

My favourite is 'I'm on the drug (that killed River Phoenix)' (think the title was 'he'll never be an old man river now')

As for Galloway - well, that was a stupid thing to say, indeed.  What's the bet that some nitwit will pretend that Assange said it, or endorsed it?

That Akins guy is so dumb, it's scary - cf the other politician who talked about 'coercive rape'

[Frank]

Since we all appear to agree that rape's wrong, what do we think of the merits of the Assange case itself, and the Swedish government's attempts to have him extradited?

I can't see how Assange can possibly hope to avoid eventually having to answer those charges, but the chances of any conviction seem hopelessly remote for the same reason so many rape prosecutions either collapse or never go ahead- the precise details of what happened are known only to the two parties involved, making it one person's word against the other.

[judgefloyd]

I'm with Seumas Milne on this:

"Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/21/why-us-is-out-to-get-assange?INTCMP=SRCH

....and top marks for using the word 'asinine', correctly, to describe the British government.

I don't see why Assange can't be questioned in the UK and why the Swedes can't guarantee not to extradite him to the US.  So far, all I've seen to the contrary is assertions that Sweden hardly ever extradites people to the States, which is not the same as undertaking not to extradite Assange there.  I understand that the Swedes have sent representatives to other countries to question people of interest to their legal system before.
  I'm not a one-eyed Asange follower, but do agree with Milne that the whole thing is a bit of a smokescreen from what Wikileaks turned up in the first place.  Assertions that there have to be some secrets or that Assange is a bit creepy are completely beside the point, as are any nasty things the Ecuardorean government may have done to its reporters. 

[Beaky Smoochies]

Where's Beaky Smoochies when you need him?

You rang m'lud?

I'd like to see what Beaky could do with Todd Akins's exculpatory plea "The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold". It's an unusually brave strategy for a politician to admit that the shit that pours from his mouth bears absolutley no relation to what he actually intends to do.

Todd Akin may not have actually meant what he said, but it looked simply atrocious, and he needed to think of the good of his party and just step aside post haste, the fact he hasn't thus far will not win him any friends in the Senate in the event he actually beats Clare McCaskill in November, which is now doubtful whereas before he was almost a dead cert to win (Missouri is as red a state as they come).  He's a knucklehead for not reading the writing on the wall and stepping aside by Monday morning, if the GOP lose that seat and (potentially) control of the Senate in November (with 51 votes needed to overturn Obamacare), he's gonna be burned in effigy for a long time to come, he'll be the 21st century Republican equivalent of Benedict Arnold, and no mistake...

[Spikes]

Are you feeling OK, Mr Eastwood ?

[Modern Panther]

Eastwood's monologue at Romney-Con surely heralds the end of a once great career. This guy was an icon, so watching him slowly die in stage was heartbreaking.

Blaming Obama for the afghan war, for not bringing troops home faster (which in fairly sure isn't Republican policy), claiming than the prison camp at Guantanamo shouldn't be closed because it "was expensive to set up".  The most support he could muster for Mit was that "maybe" "possibly" it was time for "someone else", since the current president hasn't insulated the US against a global economic collapse he inherited.

All of this was sad, the sort of illconsidered mud slinging which has become commonplace in American politics... addressing your complaints to an empty chair, which you pretend is insulting you? The only thing harder to watch than that was the sight of the baying crowd, cheering as Clint stumbled over his words, egging him on to insult Oprah and churn out tired movie lines.

[Frank]

If he'd stepped up to the mic, growled "Obama's been fuckin' useless", then exited the stage, I would have been cheering right along with those wizened WASP wanks. Seeing all those white faces light up when Eastwood dropped his "we own this country" line was still frightening, though- even knowing that by 2030 that won't be the case in either demographic or financial terms.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Sesame Street has always been educational

[NapalmKev]

I think a new system should be created based on mutual co-operation with our fellow Earthlets, greater respect for one another, and less reliance on corporations/banks and Religious zealots.

Perhaps we should start a 'Pipe-dream' thread or a 'This will certainly never happen' thread.

[JOE SOAP]

Those darn Republicans, at it again:



Anti-gay Republican Caught Cruising Craigslist For 18-Year-Old Male Prostitute




If the Republican party properly came-out en masse and went for the gay-vote the'd probably win every election.

[Stan]

Two more debates like that and Mittens Romney will be the next Puppet-in-chief of the USA.

And I can't say I'll miss the current guy any more than I'll look forward to seeing the new one in action.

[Frank]

Hugo Chavez re-elected in the Venezuelan presidential election; who woulda thunk it?! That's another fiver Ladbrokes have had off me, but I'm confident that the punts I take every year on the Ayatolla Khamenei and Alex Ferguson being unseated will pay out any day now.

http://tehrantimes.com/opinion/102199-a-socialist-victory-in-the-venezuelan-elections

[Richmond Clements]

I would not be at all upset if George Osborne died in a horrible car crash. Or from a painful form of cancer.