Looks like the story from the other day about knowing Romney's VP from Wikipedia edits was wrong.
Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick [slashdot.org]

I always thought that Romney (or McCain the last time) had chosen Colin Powell it would have been a much better strategic decision to fight the Democrats. You'd also be showing people that you were planning a split from Bush in many ways.

Of course that'd be logical, and not something the crazies that have taken over the Republican party would listen to. I think the GOP needs to go full retard/crazy and get their electoral asses handed to them a few times for sense to come back to them—I'm just worried that the lesson they would learn is not that they've gone too far, but haven't gone far enough.

Thankfully I'm Canadian so I only have to worry about the secondary effects of all this madness.

Yeah, the far right will never vote for Obama. But if they think they're being ignored they might not vote at all.

There's also the matter of mending fences with the party leadership and other power brokers, who control money, volunteers, etc. All of them are solid far right these days. They were the ones that wouldn't let McCain have a moderate running mate.

I hope so. Reading some of the comments on The Washington Post is disturbing. There seems to be a vocal group that thinks president Obama can now just cruise to victory. That's the kind of complacency that loses elections.

I do believe that racism does play a part, but I do not think it is intentional racism. Some people are just uncomfortable with Obama because of his skin color, but I think most of them try very hard not to be racist. That is why the whole birther thing gained so much traction. It was a reason for them to feel uncomfortable with him that they did not think was morally wrong. Basically, I am saying that people do not want to be racist, but subconsciously they are. So, when the birther thing popped up they latched on to it as a way to explain their feeling of discomfort that was not racism. And, I believe this all happens subconsciously. Which I think is actually very significant progress. The racists (and I am not trying to use the term derogatorily but as a statement of fact) realize that racism is wrong and don't actually want to be racist. But, they can't help it because that is what they grew up with.

As an example, my fiance's grandmother is racist as hell. She just doesn't trust black people. But, if you call her out on it then she will realize that she is being racist and try not to be. But it is so ingrained in her that she will probably be a racist till the day she dies. It is one of those things that only time will fix (basically the old generations need to die and the new generations, who did not grow up to be racist, will take their place).

But, I do agree with you. There is no point in telling these people (closet racists) not to be racist because they are already doing their best. Really, the only way to fix this problem is to elect a few more black presidents. Because, over time, people will get used to it. Actually, the best thing would be for Republicans to elect a black president. Currently, any racists (against black people) in the Democratic party would have dealt with it (at least mostly) because they would have supported President Obama and had to come to terms with any discomfort. So, if the Republicans elect a black President, a lot of the racists will have to face their racism and will most likely get over it.

Actually they are not so rusty. The battleships are quite useful in one of their historic roles and some of these "museum" ships are required by law to be maintained at a level that would permit them to be recommissioned should the need arise.

The role is shore bombardment. There is nothing like those big 16-inch guns for bombardment. Battleships basically own anything within 25 miles of the coast. Ask any U.S. Marine contemplating an amphibious assault on a contested beach, or who needs artillery support. Or consider a Syrian General in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley that made the mistake of firing on U.S. aircraft. A U.S. battleship put 16-inch shells into his command post. The Syrian officers who replaced this general and his staff moved the command post farther inland.

Regarding vulnerability. Consider that these ships were designed to slug it out with other ships of their class. Modern weapons were designed for ships with much thinner armor. After an Exocet missile took out a British ship during the Falkland Islands war the commander of a U.S. battleship was asked about his ship's vulnerability to the Exocet, Silkworm and other similar anti-ship missiles. The commander pointed out that the ship has 12 inches of steel armor and would take about 30 minutes to repaint the dent from an Exocet hit.

In her niche of shore bombardment the battleship still rules.

Those are all good reasons, and I just want to add one more: Ryan looks like he has a plan.

I might think that Ryan's policies would be about as effective as literally setting fire to the entire United States, but the fact remains that he's worked hard at outlining his plan and putting it out there. Romney has been on the defence his entire campaign, ever since he came out as the "one to beat" in the Republican primary. Bringing Ryan into the fold might make it look like he has an actual vision for his presidency now, and puts something up that Obama will have to respond to.

Unlike the US, we actually got the whole continent in ruins during WWII, Had a whole generation wiped out WWI, had a pretty horrible ware in 1870, and Napoleon invented the whole concept of world war. And yes, we also did the whole colonisation and genocide thing.

Basically, historically, we are the worse bastards ever to grace this not-so-peaceful Earth. So we know, deep in our bones, all the horrible mistakes you can make. We've been there. You want an absolute yardstick of what not to do? Look at us. We are that absolute yardstick.

And if you are trying for worse, well, I sure hope you fail.

Plenty fo liberals feel the same way.

The problem is that any discussion of voting reform has to be somewhat academic, since there is math involved, and somewhat philosophical, since it's not about any issues per se but in how we decide what to do about the issues.

The American people are too uneducated, it seems, to have this discussion -- our political conversations basically come down to "How can I get more cookies from the government at someone else's expense?"

He has shown no evidence of dislike of atheist _people_. He criticized an atheist _philosophy_. Those are different things.

Second, it is possible to change one's mind. I have changed mine some times. About AGW for example.

Ah yes, the man who routinely wins a two thirds margin despite his district not having voted for a GOP president since 1984 [nationalreview.com] is disliked by his constituents.

How about by the standards of the right wing just a generation ago right here in the good ole USA.

Reagan's tax policies and Obama's are very close. Broad cuts (or in Obama's case extention in existing cuts) in rates and closing loopholes for the rich. Obama's signature bill was his medical insurance reform act, was a slight mod of the early '90's Republican health care alternative to Hilarycare. Obama has continued extra-judicial detentions of bush, the domestic surveillance of bush, the wars of bush, and has radically expanded the extra-judicial assasinations via drone strikes that bush started. A generation ago it was unthinkable for any politician left or right to attack social security or medicare. The democrats, while still getting some support from unions, have completely abandoned returning that support. Obama is pushing a trade deal with So. Korea that like NAFTA is based on looney right wing economic falderol. Obama and Clinton's supreme court nominations only appear liberal in comparison to the new conservative justices. Kagan and Sotomayor don't hold a candle to any of the great liberal justices of the mid-twentieth century. Recall that Nixon signed into law the EPA, OSHA, and the Endangered Species Act. Hell Nixon didn't just sign the EPA bill, he proposed it! Obama has been a big supporter of big oil and big military spending. Obama has also done nothing to restrict gun rights.

In fact with a few exceptions the Democrats of today look a lot like the Republicans of 20 or more years ago. Those exceptions obviously include social hot-button issues like abortion/women's right to choose, and gay marriage/protect marriage. The other big exception is that Obama after his continuation of big bailouts and stimulus started by bush to save the economy from the freefall we were in, has been that Obama has actually tried to reign in the deficit unlike his borrow and spend republican opponents.

The reason that the US seems so politically polarized today is that the Democrats have only strolled to the right during the last 30 years while the Republicans have been sprinting to the right, while the people who haven't been infected by fox etc have remained mostly in place.

” Like many conservatives, he claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” he told me, “I said, ‘Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.’ What I liked about her novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.” He dived into Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.
In a 2005 speech to a group of Rand devotees called the Atlas Society, Ryan said that Rand was required reading for his office staff and interns. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he told the group. “The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” To me he was careful to point out that he rejects Rand’s atheism.
Ayn Rand also nearly worshipped a sadistic child murderer and mutilator. She called this man "ideal".... Ayn Rand's Early Inspiration: A Child Killer

This certainly belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. As J. Brendan Ritchie, who flagged it for me, wrote: "Apparently Ayn Rand was heavily inspired by (and admired) a psychopath. Incidently, objectivism now makes a lot more sense to me."

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"