I wanna see the tape.

http://tinyurl.com/5cfzbp

From the article:

The tape, which was made available by C-SPAN in response to a reporter's request, showed a testy exchange in response to a question about his law school record from a man identified only as ''Frank.'' Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: ''I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do.''

He's a fine candidate for asshole-in-chief.

I'm reminded of a funny story about Chirac:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/sarkozy

Jacques Chirac, it was pointed out, had been similarly accosted once: “Asshole,” a man yelled at him. Chirac stretched out his hand in greeting: “And my name,” he said graciously, “is Chirac.”

I'm really surprised by this pick. The guy is a lightning rod and beltway insider slime. Amusing though since he was the one who uttered the "clean" statement about Obama over a year ago.

Of course him being a prime sponsor of the VAWA and IMBRA legislation and pushing for UN-international versions of those laws furthers my dislike of him.

Hope and Change eh?

As well as the theft, there's the issue about the quality of knowledge. Knowledge and education are all that keep us from living solitary, nasty, brutish, short lives. Without them, we'd be back to the stone age in a generation. The quality of knowledge - its reliability, source, demonstrability, confidence level, and so on is vitally important.

Without taking care of our knowledge - by publication in carefully edited learned journals, by peer review, by replicated experiments - we end up with "common knowledge" that is not factual knowledge at all but just widespread beliefs without foundation.

Obtaining new knowledge is hard work. Stealing it degrades that process for future discoveries, and degrades the quality of the current knowledge by destroying its provenance.

Just a guess here, but I'm speculating Obama thought he was bringing in a grownup.

That was my immediate reaction to seeing Biden named - "wait a minute, wasn't he the guy that plagiarized?"

Joe "I think I've got a higher I.Q. than you" Biden.

Obama's toast, and he knows it. He's either looking for someone to blame when he goes down in flames in November, or he's looking to give the superdelegates wiggle room to put Hillary at the top of the ticket.

Everyone knows the only grownup in government is Condoleeza.

I was shocked as well, because my first thought was "He's the plagiarizer."

And Biden just points up the holes in Obama's resume. Why didn't he make a better choice?

Key votes by Biden:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b000444/key-votes/

Hmm. Plagiarizing is one thing, but modern record-keeping is such that it is obvious there is nothing really new to say.

And frequently the answers to important questions are so long as to lose the audience to Britney's new hot body and diet tips.

So all-of-the-above Biden is to provide content for the content-free Obama? If you don't mind the link below, this is an extract from my other favourite US blogger, Iowahawk, called "A Clarification by Barack Obama", in which he swings from one standpoint to another (as he does): "...And that there is exactly the kind of transparent commie crap that left wing lunatics eat up. It's unfortunate that I had to participate in it during the primary season, but just look at all of the comsymps and pinkos I've thrown under the bus in the last 6 weeks - Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Samantha Power, Jim Johnson, the list goes on. And you know what? I enjoyed it. Ask yourself this: when was the last time John McCain stabbed a lefty asshole in the back? Then ask yourself: who's the real conservative in this race?..."
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/07/a-clarification.html

So I guess you absolutely won't be voting for McCain since he plagiarized wikipedia in a speech he gave just last month as opposed to, you know, something that happend 20 years ago.

Biden used the Kinnock story seven times in speeches and attributed it to Kinnock in each speech. Then, one time - ONE TIME OUT OF SEVEN - he told the story and did not attribute it to Kinnock.

Picking on this gaffe is so childish.

Lying about why you want to go to war - that's serious stuff.

Charlie,

Why are you trying to censor Amy?

Charlie,Why are you trying to censor Amy?

Posted by: Lawnguylander at August 23, 2008 4:38 PM

I realize you tiny little thugs from Sadly Pathetic don't understand the concept of a civilized discussion that involves intelligent debate, which involves actual thought.

Here, I've Googled some of Lawnguylander's great briliance over at Sadly Pathetic:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=lawnguylander+sadlyno&btnG=Search

This sort of stuff -- blog comments that are just name-calling:

#

Lawnguylander said,

March 25, 2008 at 22:02

Sir Anthony van Dyckweed
#

Lawnguylander said,

March 25, 2008 at 22:04

Pieter Bunghole the Elderberrysniffer

#

Lawnguylander said,

March 26, 2008 at 0:44

Camille Pissaroadkill

Lawnloser, we have a minimum intelligence standard here in the AdviceGoddess.com comments section, and sadly...no...you do not make the cut.

See my response to Charlie above.

Yes, we actually have intelligent debate about the issues. That is, you and your tiny little thug team aren't around to post vast spam and comments like yours that are only meant to disrupt intelligent debate -- surely because in the P.C. world you come from, there's no such thing as debate: there are only leftist marching orders, and you follow yours most impressively.

In metaphorical terms, you're cannon fodder. Your mother must be so proud.

And yes, you've been banned. And I have to tell you, I got a lot of satisfaction out of doing that. But not quite as much as I did knowing that you and the other Sadly Pathetics still care.

We've just had three trolls drop by. I think that's so cute. Bye-bye, trolls!

Fourth troll just left a little turd, whining about how I can't be for free speech if I ban people.

I realize you SadlyPathetics are challenged in the thinking department, but I'll explain:

I support your right to free speech. I'll even defend it, even if you're using your free speech to criticize me.

I am not, however, going to pay for bandwidth to provide a free platform for a bunch of idiots to ruin what would otherwise (without them here, that is) be an intelligent discussion forum.

Truth is also an important standard for speech.

Also, if you're going to accuse someone of being "racist" (and stick to that even after they show you, for example, that they use the term "litter" to describe women of all races and socioeconomic levels who have many children), it's best that you don't use calling that person a male-to-female transsexual as a way of attacking her...intimating that there's something wrong with transgendered people.

I mean, if anybody has it hard in the world, it's people who are born one sex and feel strongly that they are actually another.

You SadlyPathetics are real creeps, totally uninteresting, and will be deleted here...with alacrity!

Well...aren't you special? Here's an idea...take your "free spech" and shove it up your ass sideways.

Ooooweeeee! Alacrity even! Here's an even better idea. Take your false indignation and inflated sense of self and shove em up your ass sideways too!

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeewaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Clearly, I'm very, very, very important to you or you wouldn't be here.

Oh, and then there's the fact that you're a dateless loser.

> Fourth troll just left a
> little turd

Amy. One troll. Four IPs. It's a software thing.

Go through the last two (3?) weeks of shenanigans... Look at the timing of the messages, especially the ones from new people who seem to be responding to each other (in support or in criticism).

How can you doubt this is one person?

A few of this evening's troll IP's:

71.206.173.36

24.151.15.67

68.226.209.119

77.251.53.204

61.68.219.89

206.53.144.63

> Amy, posting IP addresses in an
> attempt to "out" people is
> really, really bad netiquette.

1. Even if you're right (and see below), it would be a trivial infraction from a blogger who's always been extremely accommodating both to commenters with sincerely differing opinions as well as to assholes. (I've been each.)

2. Says who? I'm an internet superfreak, and I've never heard of this principle, even as folk wisdom from gramdma.

2a. Besides, how naive is that? Listen, your Internet Service Provider knows what kind of sex you like. Google knows when you've been sniffing around at other companies for jobs. Your browser history is subject to review by quasi-adept geeks. And of course, the government knows when you're planning to betray your country.

2b. Besides, netiquette is as much about being a good guest as being a good host. When it's your disk space & bandwidth, you can make the rules, and good luck.

3. It's my understanding that Amy's primary interest in establishing this site was marketing her work. Why should she let anonymous people (or anyone, for that matter) tarnish that effort?

4. What you got hide, buttercup? Exactly how ashamed are you?

5. The biggest point: Amy doesn't understand how worthless IP addresses are.

Banning and posting IP addresses is like claiming to have met the 16th president yesterday because a guy at the conference had a red-and-white sticker on his lapel that said "Hello, my name is Abe Lincoln.

6. And finally, look at the intervals of posting, the length and wording of the comments, and all the rest: I think every comment between Amy's of 8:50pm and this one is from the some guy.

(Amy, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THE IP ADDRESSES ARE DIFFERENT.)

Meanwhile, I take great pleasure in the fact that Gregg and I just went out to the Woody Allen movie, Vicky Christina Barcelona, which I liked a lot, while these losers were here increasing my ad revenue.

These are the ones who were home wanking off, whose entire reason for living tonight was leaving tiny droppings on my site:

71.98.197.50 Aug 23, 2008
70.111.80.23 Aug 23, 2008
98.198.238.156 Aug 23, 2008
76.118.99.56 Aug 23, 2008
207.216.15.244 Aug 23, 2008

2b. Besides, netiquette is as much about being a good guest as being a good host. When it's your disk space & bandwidth, you can make the rules, and good luck.

Exactly right.

The pretense that they care about "netiquette" is about as solid as their pretense that I'm a racist because I dared think and speak critically about somebody who has black skin.

Watching the Sadly Pathetic crowd shrink from menacing bullies to whining crybabies is great theater.

Pass the popcorn!

I'm just amazed that, while there's a presidential election on, they're hyper-focused on me, and spending all this time searching out and Photoshopping pictures of me. Truth be told, I love the attention!

It's comical as hell. All they're succeeding in doing is advertising themselves as losers and you worthy of attention.

Charlie: Then, one time - ONE TIME OUT OF SEVEN - he told the story and did not attribute it to Kinnock.

According to Slate it was a few more times than one time out of seven.

http://www.slate.com/id/2198597/
http://www.slate.com/id/2198543/