Just stumbled across this graph comparing McCain and Obama's tax ideas:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/0 9/ST2008060900950.html

Yeah, I don't know about that. McCain should just give everyone a 3 or 4% cut, and Obama, sticking it to those rich guys in the top 1% is good. They already pay 40% of all income tax, so why not jump them up to 50+. It's not like they'll counter the increase by charging more for their goods and services in all the businesses and corporations they own, outsourcing their business and good jobs to other countries to save money, and withholding investments, or freezing spending on improvements, expansion, infrastructure, etc. so they can absorb the higher taxes they'll be paying. Great idea.

Of course, that top 0.1%, the super rich, they're just like, the really fat cats, actors, and athletes and talk show hosts, and stuff, so screw them. They should pay through the nose. I applaud the ones that support Obama, like Oprah, and the like. That's really putting their money where their mouth is, and I mean that sincerely. I just hope they're not able to find ways to make even more money, to counter the increase, because someone will have to pay them too.

Laying economic hardships at the feet of Presidents, or lifting them up on shoulders to cheer them during the windfalls never make sense to me. It's a ploy of detractors and supporters to promote their side, or bash the other side. Bush is no more responsible for the economy problems we're having right now than Herbert Hoover was for the Great Depression. I'll leave it to Michael Myers, or someone wiser in financial wizardy to explain the current wall street woes to you.

Joe wrote: The people who have lost jobs and houses, are they whiners to you?

Only if they whine and blame George Bush for it.

Some comic relief from The Onion:

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Oh for God's sake, doom, doom, doom. The sky is falling! That's a crock of shit. Hate Bush all you want, but he hasn't destroyed the economy, or America's international influence, or anything really, except the spirits of a bunch of democrats, and some whiners. We've gotten through a lot tougher times than this, and come out stronger for it. I really hope Obama wins so you guys can come up with some new material,

Please tell me you are joking Dave, because what you wrote is laughable. Dave you will only see what you want, no matter what anyone will counter back, even if I site 100 articles proving what you say is completely off base. From this point forward answering you would be a waste of time. I don't say this with malice, your mind is set and trying to debate with you would be a lesson in futility, and I am sure you feel that same way about me.

Gene funny article, I love The Onion, before I realized what they were I would be shocked at their headlines, because I thought they were a real paper.

Joe funny story about the Chuckie doll, I got for my oldest a "My Buddy" doll for his first birthday, each night I would put it in bed with Jonathan. When he was about two or three, thru the night I would check on him and I would find My Buddy on the floor, thinking Jonathan had been playing with him and he fell out of his crib. I would pick it up and tuck it back in bed with Jonathan. Thinking how sweet they looked side by side. This went on for about a year until I changed his room and put My Buddy on a shelf.

Well years later when Jonathan was 17 and going thru some of his old toys with me, we came across MY Buddy and I went "Awwwwww it's My Buddy!!"  Jonathan looked at me and goes, "Damn I hated that doll, it scared the shit out of me, because it would stare at me in the dark, I would throw it out of the bed and when I woke up it was back in bed with me."   We had a pretty good laugh.

My Buddy looked so much like Jonathan that's why I got it for him.

Sorry to go so far off topic, continue on......

A briefing paper for the ministers and officials at the meeting - this was in effect a British war cabinet - laid out two alternative US war plans. The first, a "generated start", involved a slow build-up of roughly 250,000 troops in Kuwait. Allied aircraft would then mount an air war, which would be followed by a full-scale invasion. The second option was a "running start", in which a continuous air campaign, "initiated by an Iraqi casus belli", would be mounted without any overt military build-up. Allied special forces giving support to Iraqi opposition groups on the ground would be joined by further troops as and when they arrived in theatre, until the regime collapsed. A few days after the meeting, the Americans opted for a hybrid of the two in which the air war would begin, as for a running start, as soon as the Iraqis provided the justification for war, while at the same time an invasion force would be built up, as for a generated start.

The record of the July meeting in London, however, contains a revealing passage in which Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, tells his colleagues in plain terms that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime". What is meant by "spikes of activity" becomes clear in the light of information elicited from the government by the Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell, who asked the Ministry of Defence about British and American air activity in 2002 in the southern no-fly zone of Iraq - the zone created to protect southern Shias after Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed their 1991 uprising against him.

The MoD response shows that in March 2002 no bombs were dropped, and in April only 0.3 tonnes of ordnance used. The figure rose to 7.3 tonnes in May, however, then to 10.4 in June, dipping to 9.5 in July before rising again to 14.1 in August. Suddenly, in other words, US and British air forces were in action over Iraq."

 the U.S. helped back the Taliban in their fight against Russia

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The Taliban didn't exist until after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance that fought with us against the Taliban were what was left of the Mujahideen who fought the Soviets.