Last Call: PVTS Debate Special

Podcast vs. The Stupid, Episode 15:  Mitt Romney, Master Debater is up.   Check out our coverage of the first debate and our thoughts from tonight.  I thought President Obama did a fine job of playing defense here, but not everyone did, judging from my Twitter feed.

Listen to internet radio with Zandar Versus The Stupid on Blog Talk Radio

As always, you can download the episode here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.  Check out our archived episodes here too.

Pre-Debate Whitey Tape Warm-Up

Game changing video before the debate.  Take that, Drudge!

Since one of this blog’s missions is to Read Those Idiots So You Don’t Have To, I figured it would be worth putting the the Drudge/Daily Caller OMG WHITEY TAPE here where you could all listen without having to get Carlson-cooties on your hard drives. Turns out it took almost two hours to download the 37-minute speech (I don’t know whether the problem was my desktop or Drudge’s website, but you have been warned) and by the time I finally scored the embed code, Cole had already done a long post about the whole less-than-a-nothingburger scenario. So, here you are, and what he said.

Frankly, the obvious reason so little note was taken back in 2007 is that there is absolutely nothing in the words to distinguish this particular speech from any other Barack Obama pre-November-2008 campaign speech. Any mainstream journalist reviewing it would probably have rated it A for Anodyne. The worst complaint I can imagine is that a dedicated Rationalist might be disappointed that Obama gives, at the very least, a convincing impression of being a proud member of the Black American Christian religious tradition. He might even be accused of considering himself a Person of Faith. As one of those PoFs myself (I’m a proud animist), I don’t consider this disqualifying. As someone who pays attention to modern American politics, I know that an out and proud atheist was not going to be running as a presidential candidate for one of the two major parties in the year 2008, or 2012, or probably 2016 either.

They got nothing left at this point.  The debate is their last chance and they know it.  Please let President Obama come out tonight to the Theme From Shaft.  Please.

Last Call will be a bit late tonight as Bon and I will be covering said debate on Podcast Vs. The Stupid, too.  Be there.

Celebrity Chopped Sure Has Gone To Hell

(Via Mitt's lunch trip on Tuesday at a Denver Chipotle)

...I got nothin'.  But the guy on the right?  My new hero.

Idiot Brings Knife To Knife Fight

SPOKANE -- Spokane Police said a man accidentally stabbed himself during a fight outside a motel.

Officers said the men were arguing at the Belair Seven Motel in the 1300 block of E. Sprague Sunday afternoon.

Police said one of the men pulled out a “Rambo”-style knife and suggested the two go outside. According to officers, he man raised the knife and the other man pushed his arm in defense, causing the man with the knife to cut himself in the chest.

The man with the cut was taken to the hospital. His condition was not available Sunday.

His condition is available.  He's stupid.

Blind Woman Removed From Plane

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.-- A West Plains woman says she was wrongly and rudely de-planed from a flight departing from Springfield.  Laurie Reeves Goss is still shocked she was removed by Allegiant.  She thought it was a misunderstanding about her disability, but an Allegiant report gives a completely different reason.

She was California bound for her daughter's birthday. "And see my grandchildren, which I hadn't got to see in two years it took me to save up for this trip," Laurie says. 

But Laurie can't actually "see" her grandchildren.   "They said, when people are talking to you, look toward their voice," Laurie says.  It's how she was trained after going blind. 

After asking her to stop using her cane, and after she nicely offered the window seat to a sighted person, she was deemed a threat to the other passengers.  They asked her if she had her cane, she said yes, and they walked her off the plane.

Staff says she had alcohol on her breath, and Goss says she had two drinks before boarding her flight.  A lot of people do that, especially people who don't like to fly.

I know I've mentioned on here before that my father was blind, but I try not to dwell on how some people treated him.  The assumptions people make, the rudeness that came from the cruel and the unthinking alike, it all became almost as much of a burden as the disability itself.  My father couldn't go anywhere without suffering fools by the dozens, and I'm sure this woman's experience is no different.

There may be more to this, but I'll remain sad and skeptical.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Irony is dead.  Dead, dead, completely dead.

A plurality of Americans and more than seven in 10 Republicans say pollsters are intentionally skewing results to benefit President Obama, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

Some 42 percent of voters surveyed by Daily Kos and SEIU believe pollsters are manipulating their sample sizes to benefit the incumbent president, while 40 percent do not. An additional 18 percent said they were not sure. That's evidence that Republican claims that Democrats and minority voters are being oversampled in national polls could be resonating — and potentially undermining the momentum of the president's early lead.

Poll shows Americans think polls are wildly inaccurate.  Jesus be a lock on the gun cabinet.

But Republicans are particularly likely to believe that the polls are unfair, reporting by a 71-13 percent margin that polls are biased against their candidate. Members of the Tea Party suspect intentional skewing by a remarkable 84-5 percent margin.

Members of the Tea Party also believe by overwhelming margins that President Obama is a Muslim, a Socialist, and that he was born in Kenya.  They also believe the Earth is about 6,000 years old and that evolution is massive scientific fakery, and that climatology is even more massive scientific fakery.  Now it's polls that are wrong.

Wanna bet 84% of Tea Party faithful will think President Obama stole the election on November 7th and that he has to be stopped by any means necessary?

What are the odds of that?

Hey, wingnut assholes aren't smart enough to understand basic biology, climatology, geography, law, politics, comparative religion or the Constitution.  Why would they understand statistics?

Scott, Liz, And Nino

The second debate between GOP Sen. Scott Brown and former Obama administration economist Elizabeth Warren took an interesting turn Monday night.  First of all, Fluffers from Press The Meat moderated, and gosh he loved him some Scott Brown.  But the love train derailed when Dancin' David Gregory asked Scotty about his favorite Supreme Court Justice was.

During a contentious second Massachusetts Senate debate, Brown went through a wild swing of opinions when moderator David Gregory asked him his "model" justice.

"Let me see, here. That's a great question," Brown said. "I think Justice Scalia is a very good judge."

The crowd at the debate immediately booed, and Warren began to cover up her face, perhaps realizing her challenger's mistake.

That Brown's first answer was Scalia was shocking, because Scalia is widely considered among the top two most conservative justices on the bench. Brown, meanwhile, has become popular in Democratic-heavy Massachusetts by becoming a largely Independent member of Congress.

Brown fumbled for words and quickly threw out almost every single justice currently on the bench.

"Justice Kennedy is obviously very good, and Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, they're all very qualified people there," Brown said.

Warren shook her head, noting that Brown had just endorsed Sotomayor, who some see as the most liberal member of the bench.

In a follow-up, Gregory pointed out that Scalia and Sotomayor have very different viewpoints on the bench.

"That's the beauty of being an independent, David," Brown said. 

"If you had to pick one?" Gregory said. 

"I don't need to pick one," Brown said. "We have plenty of justices up there, and I'm proud of the ones we have."

Just so you know, Scott, as a Senator, you get to confirm or deny the President's selections to the Supreme Court.  So yes, you need to "pick one" at some point.  It got ugly from there, as Elizabeth Warren happily replied "Elena Kagan" which of course got big cheers.

But Scott Brown announcing his favorite justice was Nino Scalia?  Yeah, he just lost 5 points in Massachusetts.  Knob.

StupidiNews!

• The first Presidential Debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney gets underway tonight in Denver.
• A Tennessee Republican is scrambling to apologize after posting a photo of his gun to Facebook along with "Welcome to Tennessee, Mr. President." 
• A Pennsylvania judge has blocked full implementation of the state's GOP-sponsored voter ID law, saying it would disenfranchise poor, elderly, and minority voters.
• As the premier of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit nears, New Zealand's economy is far different from when the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was being shot there a decade ago.
• Samsung wants the recent verdict against it thrown out as one of the jurors may have lied about their past in order to get empaneled.

Also stick around tonight after the debate for a special Podcast Versus The Stupid!