I didn't watch the debate, because last night was poker night and I could not risk being stultified into a coma or driven insane. (As it turns out, insanity may have been an advantage in last night's game) Besides, the entire debate is going to be discussed ad nauseum on blogs and boards that I frequent daily, so I really shouldn't be missing anything. Really- last week I finally tried to watch Farenheit 9/11. I made it about 20 minutes into the movie, and gave up. Everything I saw had been discussed, debunked, undebunked, counter-undebunked, and reverse counter-undebunked on the web. So I turned off the movie and played Xbox.

Back to the debate. The first clue I had as to how it went was that all of the righties on Forumosa and the PWOT forums were calling it 'even'. Uh oh. If the debate was even remotely 'even', then the Bush supporters would be calling victory. So I checked out Foxnews to see what their poll said about who won the debate. There was no poll. I read Foxnews every day for the last half year or so, and they ALWAYS have a poll, often for deep and insightful questions: "What best describes your view of airline service today?"
UPDATE: Fox DID put up a poll: "Did Thursday's presidential debate cause you to change your mind about your vote?" (21% say will now vote Kerry, 13% will now vote Bush. Are these the same respondents of whom 58% believe that Saddam had a part in 9/11?)

I smell a whuppin'. Better see what the True American Patriot Giblets says:

"Instead of the weak-kneed flip-flopping elitist being put in his place by the simple-talkin' cowpoke who squints ABMs in the face of terror, Giblets had to endure seeing the leader of the free world whine like an old woman with an expired aspirin coupon while Mr. Monument trounced him in rich, dulcet tones!"

And the America-Hating Communist Liberal Traitorous French Democrat Peaceniks on FARK say:

You know what I hate about the topic of Global Warming? Nobody knows what in the hell they are talking about. And by nobody, I mean nobody at the bar, or at poker. And don't even get me started on the chess guys: They are only vaguely aware that world is a globe.

Oh yeah, I used to try to follow the debate. This is from a thread on Debunkers:

We have done new simulations, applying the MBH98 PC methodology to trendless red noise modeled to exhibit the persistence of the North American tree ring network. Despite having no trend in the underlying proxies the MBH98 method regularly produces hockey stick-shaped PC1¡¦s which then fit neatly against the temperature data, despite having, in principle, zero explanatory power. The benchmark for RE significance is therefore much higher than reported in MBH98 and their reported RE statistic can be shown to lack significance under a more realistic test.

Bleah. Who wants to read stuff like that?

So finally, I found a scientist who can put the Global Warming Debate into terms I can understand.

There may or may not have been this guy James Robert "Cotton" Hildreth, and he may or may not have contributed to a book. But one quote from this book that may exist caught my eye:

It was difficult to show the bean-counters and political warriors in
Washington positive military results for all our casualties and materiel losses. So the American military leadership in South Vietnam determined that bodies destroyed was a good gauge. BODY-COUNT became the measure of a ground commander's success.

From "Salute to Veterans," Mary Lewis Deans, Editor


On November 23, 2003, Brigadier General Mark Kimmet probably said something like:

We're not worried in the least. In fact, what we have demonstrated time after time, after every engagement with the enemy we prevail. We have nothing at this point that causes us to be concerned. Militarily -- this is an enemy that cannot defeat us militarily and in engagement after engagement, we see the enemy breaking off, running away, and militarily their attacks are becoming more and more insignificant to us against coalition forces.

This almost made me throw up. This is the kind of optical illusion I can better handle.
(From Debunkers thread)

Proof that there is no hope for American Democracy:

Saddam to Declare Candidacy for Iraqi Elections

"Stefano remarked that a recent Gallup poll indicates that 42 percent of the Iraqi people want their former leader back."

How many bombs do we have to drop on these people before they realize that Saddam was a Brutal Dictator? What's the deal here? Is the word Islamofascist somehow not translating well into Arabic? Don't the Iraqi people know that 75% of Iraq is relatively safe? And that the elections we are going to let them hold will be wholly free and democratic, with proportional representation for radical Shi'ites, Baathists, and Iraqi patriots who are fighting the occupation?

Ohhh Dude. (.wmv file)

Well, serves 'em right for being numerous individuals.

Googlefights.

Thanks to Flybort.

From Foxnews: Gay Marriages Issue Motivates Christian Voters

Bill Thomson, national field coordinator for the Christian Coalition of America says:

"Never allow the enemy to block you," Thomson urged them. "Get around them, run over the top of them, destroy them ¡X whatever you need to do so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures."

Does this or does this not sound like some of that crazy Islamofascist talk? Do we need a new word like Christofascist? Oops, never mind. I just Googled Christofascist and it already seems to be in limited use. Hmm. How about Judeofascist? Yep, there it is. Nothing turns up for Buddhafascist though.