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A Rear Admirals’ Vice is A Vice Admiral in his Rear!

Like Nelson said to Hardy “kiss me Hardy” and Hardy replied “kiss ya be fucked Horatio I’m next in line for Admiral”

The only things that Captain McCain and I have in common are that we both sailed through more water than the average shark, in the Grey Funnel Line, in roughly the same era except for the fact that he made more of a career out of it than me. We served in the same waters at the time of the Vietnam War. We both probably sailed past more lighthouses than the average Chucky Six Pack has seen shithouses and both probably saw more Action Stations than Barbie Six Pack has seen railway stations. He was a “Birdie” and I was an electrician. We were of course in different Navies, he in The USN and me in the RAN. Now days the life of a sailor is considered as the ships being made of steel, the men made of wood, and it is all Wine, Women and Song, but way back then the ships were made of wood, the men of steel, and it was Rum, Bum and Gramophone Records.

(disclaimer ; without the bum)

Macca had a lot to live up to as his Father and his Grandfather were Four Star Admirals. The only step above Admiral in the USN is Fleet Admiral (the big Boss). His boss of course is the C.I.C. (Commander in Chief).

Young Macca no doubt had burning ambitions to be the equal of or go one step better than his Pop or Pop Pop.

He joined the Naval Academy and in 1958 graduated as an Ensign at number 894 of 899 graduates. Not exactly top of the class! He subsequently went into training and became a Birdie. His ability to crash planes and play up left a lot to be desired and one wonders if the records of his Poppys had some influence on his not being severely disciplined which may have ultimately affected his chances of promotion. When one reads his records, he has had some bailouts over the years, but his most important bail out was on 26 October 1967 when he was shot down over North Vietnam and became a POW. He was released on March 14th 1973. He had the ranking of Lieutenant Commander at the time. There would have been little chance of him receiving any promotions as a POW and this would have severely stalled his desire to make Admiral. He was given different assignments in US Naval Bases and after having only reached the rank of Captain resigned from the Navy on April 1st 1981. (April fool)

At this point in his life he most probably would have been an honest and upstanding member of the community. He subsequently decided on a political career and was elected to the House in 1982 and the Senate in 1986.

Over the period of the next 26 years he developed an uncanny knack of becoming involved with lots of the more shady characters that have graced the US political stables and the only way he was going to surpass his Poppys’ Admiral Status was to become C.I.C. He ran against the Imbecile for POTUS in 2000 and failed after he was swift boated USS Enterprised by the Imbeciles Neo Cons.

Prodloužená a občas bolestivá erekce – k té dochází místě vzácně. Přístup k těmto datům mají pouze proškolení zaměstnanci.

The downward spiral of the now Ancient Mariner with a whole flock of Albatrosses hanging round his neck gathered pace even quicker over the next eight years. He now has the GOP nomination for POTUS election in a few days time and this ex Upstanding Naval Officer has morphed into the exact opposite of what he once was and no amount of lies, deception and self flagellation is going to get him over the line on Nov 4th (US time). His Political record of voting with the Imbecile, the Keating five and his record on Veterans Affairs votes leaves only one solution …

Having never made the rank of Admiral he would never stand triumphantly on a “Bridge” to anywhere whilst one of the stinking rotting albatrosses, hanging round his neck, is his running mate in charge of a partially built “bridge” to nowhere

He should be Courts Martialled, found guilty, keel hauled, demoted, shackled to an oar on a Galley, and sent in search of the “Santa Maria”. When he finds it he can duly tell Chris C the lie that he was a USN Rear Admiral and bend over for him.

From a jolly Jack Tar to Jack Tarred. What a miserable shell of a man!

A gentle reminder to Cindy McCain that if she wants to get involved in bashing BO then she also better be ready for return of serve. Even though she looks like a fresh faced lady she has not got exacty what you call clean skin!

Oct. 18, 1999 | PHOENIX — GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on “Dateline”) and Diane Sawyer (on “Good Morning America”) the tale of her one-time addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own non-profit medical relief organization.

Permission to step ashore please Sir?

770 replies on “A Rear Admirals’ Vice is A Vice Admiral in his Rear!”

Quite sure that none of us here were ever of the view that “Turdblossom” was never far away from McStupid and his campaign trail.
Rolling Stone has some nice words to say about him but not quite as nice as the Rude Pundit when he is being nice.

The Return of Rove
John McCain has surrendered his campaign to the same political fearmonger who smeared him out of the race in 2000

The hallmark of the Rove campaigning method is the political act so baldly below the belt that it literally staggers you. Even the most hardened cynics find themselves continually surprised by the ability of Rove and his minions to always hit that evasive new low, coming up with things that would shock a 60-year-old Greyhound-station hooker.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23482821/the_return_of_rove

Yep the Barry Bash is looking like the event of the year! Good to see that Poss will be liveblogging from the event – with due acknowledgement of Politic 101 of course!

Now, you will all realise that Nov 5 is also Guy Falks day. As a kid I loved the bonfire that was built by the neighbourhood which gathered in the evening to light the pyre and send poor Guy up in flames.

In this virtual age the politic 101 neighbourhood will nonetheless gather to light the bonfire and watch the neocon rule turn to ash. It’s going to be an emotional victory!

Good evening fellow Obamabots
Is there a tipping competition here? You know winner, margin, when the election is called.

I hope you have all noticed that I’m the only surviving Obamabot fighting the forces of evil at the other site. There’s a very new nice lady, juliem, who has been an Obama fan from the start but not a single other poster wanted Obama to win. They all wanted that horrible Hillary person.

Adam has now endorsed Obama, after Hitchens endorsed him. Finns has been on side esp since Palin and has a video production planned from the peak of Machu Picchu on election day, with a message to all Obama fans. GG has been extremely pleasant and quite charming in his own gruff way. Ron can still be a bit of a handful but he seems to have mellowed a bit.

Ferny, I’m thinking acknowledgment in proportion to classic election day one liners as a good working rule of thumb :mrgreen:

Obama passed 95% today in the State Intrade markets for anyone interested. Nice to see JV back – I finally got around to building your Jaundiced View Intrade/Polling conlfluence BTW. It didnt look as pretty as I was hoping – I blame McCain.

Diogenes at 705

Ron can still be a bit of a handful but he seems to have mellowed a bit.

ROTFLOL

Aside from that – good to see you again.
I had a question I wanted to asked you just the other day but damb I’ve forgot what it was!

🙂

jv, the debate is tomorrow 11AM Qld time. No deadline really, you have 2 options:

a) if you’d like to head the third debate thread, we’d need to have it up by brekky time tomorrow. email the article/essay to me (sending my addy to you after posting this), for immediate publishing.

b) if there’s a topic you feel needs discussion, especially if you feel passionate about it, then take a few days and we’ll publish early next week.

Over to you…..quo vadis?

Delighted you’ll be sharing some E-Day History with us.

Ferny went:
“it will be a pleasure to shake your furry hand”
Likewise – as it will be to meet a great many folks at the The Do.

538’s sims have been a little higher than the State Intrade markets lately, and were a little lower during the Republican bounce – but over the last few days they’ve been walking hand in hand to within about 1%.

Jaundiced View-
i honestly thought you had died from tinned cheeseburger poisoning.
So glad to see you back and that you are coming to Brissy: this is getting better by the day.
As for you Diogenes – you were absolutely ambivalent about Our Obi earlier , so i’m glad to see that you have finally called it. And for all that you are loyal to Bilbo (and I get that ) it is great to see you when you cross the fence.
Are you coming to the Coronation?

Jen

I am still very disappointed with some of Obama’s policies. His shift to the centre after winning the primary disturbed me greatly. It confirmed an awful lot of the things the three amigos said, which made a fool of me and I hate that. Still, it’s my own fault for following a devout Christian who supports capital punishment. I’m having a drink with socrates in Adelaide for the election.

And here is Adam’s endorsement. It’s not glowing but it does count.

[Adam in Canberra
Posted Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 8:41 am

The tipping point for Obama sceptics

My favourite political commentator Christopher Hitchens writes:

“It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them… Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the “experience” is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.”

I think this is a bit harsh on McCain personally, but broadly I have to concur, with considerable regret. McCain has proved to be a much worse candidate than I expected, and I think the Crash has tipped the policy balance firmly in favour of the Dems. The US and the world badly need to be rid of the Republican Party, and this must outweigh reservations about the qualifications of the candidate. My low opinion of Obama hasn’t changed, but at least he belongs to the right party. Given a choice between two inferior candidates, I have to support the one whose party will, with any luck, carry him in the right direction.]

Christopher Hitchens is an admirable man, but one that is often wrong. To his credit, he is willing to admit his mistakes.

i.e. “In May 2008, Hitchens voluntarily experienced waterboarding, a controversial torture that has been used on prisoners held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay.

After he rejected the notion that waterboarding constituted torture, he was asked by Vanity Fair to experience it for himself. After the experience he fully changed his opinion. He concluded “if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_hitchens

However, its hard to believe that someone has to experience being wrong so badly before repudiating his past positions.

I.e. Iraq and Gitmo, his neutral stance on the US Elections in 2004.

His stance against religion though is one that I support.

To all the Wall street bankers out there would there be any truth in this?

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
– Thomas Jefferson 1802

http://www.osm.net/images/08/10/constitution.jpg

Oh well Diogenes- so Adam damns with faint praise.
I am totally unimpressed for a number of reasons.
1) endorsing Obama based on the soak Christopher Hitchens is lame in the extreme.
This is a man who has trumpetted Bush and Preemptive warfare to the high heavens because he took on Saddam – bugger the cost in lives or political fallout. Hitchens is a drunken arrogant zealot IMHO, and for anyone to change their opinion based on his is simply deficient.
2) Dr Carr and a number of others were so condemning of anyone that supported Obama as idiotic, naive, celebrity-adoring, shallow morons, rather than people who wanted to see the entire Neoconservative ideology buried once and for all.
I am pissed off that we were so lampooned, when in fact we were reacting against a regime and culture that is as dangerous in its application as any of the other mad religious or idealogical regimes that they are so opposed to.
3)There aare other reasons, but they just get personal so I won’t go there.

723 – jen

I agree with the majority of your points.

However, ultimately the conversion against strong beliefs is a hard road. One has to bite one’s pride and some never even take the first step. The only question now is just how sincere that first step was and whether there will be any backsliding….

EC
That last sentence says it all IMHO.
That mean arsed Chris will not let me buy half his bets for $10

they could alternatively represent a canary in the coal mine for a coming Democratic turnout wave.

Damn! I forgot to give the pollies a hard time about the progress of our broadband network today. Better write myself a note.

TEC, these early voting figures are unbelievable. Very exciting indeed
===========================================
State Date %voted Early voters Likely voters
NM 10/13 10% Obama +23% Obama +6%
OH 10/13 12% Obama +18% Obama +4%
GA 10/12 18% Obama +6% McCain +11%
IA 10/9 14% Obama +34% Obama +10%
NC 10/6 5% Obama +34% McCain +5%

I suspect Democrats make up the majority of early voters, that might be skewing the figures somewhat!
But good signs nonetheless!

So, can McCain deliver the knockout blow in tomorrow’s debate?
Will he confront Obama about William Ayers?
That at least is the line being spun by the MSM!

Hi Chris B @ 701 – Thanks

Hi Jen @ 723 – You are still as deft as ever with your stiletto I see. I agree completely with your analysis of the reasonableness of our position in supporting change way back then, and the arrogance of the anti-Obama squad, now followed by their lame justifications. The squirming and contortions apparently going on back at PB is enough to justify a visit (without hubris of course).

As for buns – You can indulge in all you wish on 5 November – your burger-wish will be my burger-command. All with a splash of red, of course.

Keep up the good work over there Diogenes, against the forces of blatant revisionist self-justification. You are a most tolerant person – it must come from all that philosophical knowledge and insight you clearly carry with you 🙂

Garrison Keillor in Salon:

The American people are poised to do something that could not be imagined 10 years ago, or even five, which is to vote for the best man regardless of his skin color and elect him president. The campaign against him is not one that anybody will point to with pride in years to come. It is a long trail of honking and flapping and traces of green slime, as if a flock of geese had taken up residence in the front yard. But Barack’s cool poise in the face of blather is some sort of testament to American heart and humor. The man has walked tall and his wife has turned out to be the brightest figure in the whole political parade, an ebullient woman of quick wit and beautiful spirit. Bravo, Michelle.

Onward, America. We’ve all seen plenty of the worst — the sly cruelty, the arrogant ignorance, the fascination with trivia, the cheats, the weaselish and piggish and the buzzardly — but we can rise above it if we will only recognize a leader when one comes along and have the sense to let him lead.

Obama Continues to Lead in the National Polls

We have 10 national polls today. Obama leads them all, with the average lead of 7.7%. If he wins nationally by even 5-6%, he will probably take all the swing states and it will be a landslide in the electoral college.

Heaps of goodies for Obama on Votemaster.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

719
Diogenes Says:
October 15th, 2008 at 8:46 pm

“I am still very disappointed with some of Obama’s policies. His shift to the centre after winning the primary disturbed me greatly. It confirmed an awful lot of the things the three amigos said, which made a fool of me and I hate that…”

Cheer up Diogenes, Obama will make a truly great President at a time when America and the world is in need of one. Forget the amigos. They wouldn’t know greatness if it fell on them.

Hey Dio @ 705…
‘GG has been extremely pleasant and quite charming in his own gruff way’
This tuff gruff…
‘Finns,
It would be nice to have the chicken posters return to the roost because this time, no more Mr Nice Guy and I’ll tell em what I really think.
William has had it far too easy since he joined the corporate world and needs to earn his money. He needs some real angst in his life. I know where he can get some.’
Buk buk, rattles steroids & shuffles off to mow lawn. Guess you’re right. 🙂
PS 3 2 1 0…?

Hary H, way back you asked about the markets over the next few weeks, and I’d have to say it’s unpredictable over the next few hours! LOL

My hunch is that the huge drops are over, but there’s absolutely no reason for a major rally I can see: financial mess is only just begun, recession enveloping them as all the usual side-effects take hold.

Basically the financial meltdown was the last straw for the GOP, and it’s exposed a complete failure of governance, regulation, and beggaring deficits.

Obama’s time has come, that’s for sure.

As for Christopher Hitchens and Adam Carr, who gives a toss wot they think. They are no more entitled to their views and the rest of us, and equally likely to make mistakes. Intellectual conceit is never pretty, but often absurd, as I’m sure they are learning.

On Intrade, the markets for the Senate have DEM pick-ups in 8 states and the bid/ask numbers in Mississippi are about tied (and a bit out of balance, with the REP numbers reading 20/68 and the DEM numbers being 28/65), so the markets are currently lineball between 59 and 60.

Meanwhile the PRESIDENT.DEM2008 market is now at 82.9, with PRESIDENT.REP2008 at 19.8.

Possum may have a view on this. I’m surprised that some commentators say that any lead within the margin of error is to be seen as a draw. If someone is leading say 50/48 and the margin of error is 3 then clearly on the balance of probabilities and statistical analysis the candidate with 50 is ahead. There is a minority chance that the 50 candidate is behind. True enough its easier to make sense of polls where there is a clear margin but no need to muddy the water. In fact I would suppose that the margin of error is often understated in polls which is why major discrepancies occur and why commentators get cautious in saying anyhting about close results?

Chris: are you frigging serious?
Obama will win over 400 electoral votes?
Wow, this election is eerily reminiscent of 1980 – Reagan thrased Carter that year!

KR 745

thx for reply.

no rally in the market equals complete rout for the Repugs.

me thinks the crash was timed perfectly by the “haves”… raid the last of the public loot before a new era is ushered in to wash away Reagan deregulation.

Pirates…all of em

OK, Gang, It’s E-Day Choir practice time……
🙂

Gaffy, the song and the sentiments are absolutely prefect for the occasion. We tenk ya veddy much.
Kirri, hope you’ll be up to do the conducting, and we’ll need a couple of tonsilliers to do harmonies. The lyrics are at #481. Reckon if we all give it a daily yodel under the shower, by E-Day we’ll all have it down Pat!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EADUQWKoVek

as for Herr Dokter….he is our version of William Kristol when it comes to accuracy…….only way less dangerous than Kristol.

Hey there KR – hope you are keeping well.

EC – Have sent scribbled copy Mr Editor Sir via pneumatic tube to your office upstairs.

Greetings again.

Frivolity first. The premiere of Oliver Stone’s movie “W” was held next to our hotel last night. Papparazzi abounded. It was hard to see the celebrities through the people, but I managed to spot Ted Danson. OK, I know that’s pretty lame, but at least I saw someone moderately famous.

I thought about being a groupie outside tonight’s debate location, just to try to see Obama, but the debate’s being held on Long Island, rather than Manhattan.

Anyhoo, you need to read this article from today’s NY Times re the latest Times/CBS polling.

Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.

Voters who said their opinions of Mr. Obama had changed recently were twice as likely to say they had grown more favorable as to say they had worsened. And voters who said that their views of Mr. McCain had changed were three times more likely to say that they had worsened than to say they had improved.

The top reasons cited by those who said they thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.

There’s much more yummy goodness in that link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15poll.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

KR……something to think about, from RGE:

“……..there is something about the latest PBoC which should indeed cause worry. For me one of the bad-case scenarios that we have most to worry about is a sudden reversal of hot money inflows, large enough that it puts liquidity pressure on the formal and informal banking systems. This is clearly not a problem yet, but the shift in a matter of months from massive inflows to moderate outflows is not confidence building.

As a related aside, and I am now straying into areas about which I need a lot more information, by coincidence I had two meetings yesterday – one with a world famous Harvard economist and a group of PKU professors, and the other with a group of traders and bankers – in both of which South Korea suddenly became the topic of conversation. I am no expert on Korea but the kinds of things I was hearing raised all my Latin-American-bond-trading hackles. One of the academics said he thought that Korea would come under tremendous liquidity pressure in the next three months. If there are problems once again in Korea I would lay pretty serious odds that capital flight will become a serious problem all through East Asia.”

……..
The outlook for China and the East Asian economies is very troubling. In 1997, the developed economies helped lift the East Asian economies out of their collapse. This time, the lifeboats are already full of bankers and hedge funds. Keep your eyes on China….the real home of the boom of the last 20 years….

New thread up.
Sorry, jv, having trouble with the top bit. Will have a tweak to try and rectify.
Cat, help!

Wakefield back at 750:

If your 50/48 poll had a margin of error of +/- 3%, that doesnt mean that the true result is equally likely to fall anywhere between 47 and 53 – it’s more likely to fall nearer to 50 than it is nearer to either 47 or 53 because of the way results are normally distributed (within a bell curve shape)

Roughly it means that there’s a two in three chance that the true value is between 48.5 and 51.5, and a 95% probability that the true value lies between 47 and 53.

The margins of error that all pollsters use everywhere are mostly hogwash. It’s based on a theoretical minimum margin of error that would occur were

a) were the pollsters using only pure random sampling.
b) The entire population was equally likely to be polled by a pollster at any given time.

Pollsters dont use pure random sampling and we know that B is wrong (for instance, younger people are less likely to be at home in the afternoon than little old ladies watching Matlock reruns)

But here’s the tricky bit – in theory, any additional tweaking to that sampling that a pollster uses (such as engaging in quota sampling, then weighting the results for age, gender, income, partisan ID etc etc) theoretically causes the margin of error to blow out, and blow out substantially.

Yet in practice, with good pollsters, it doesnt actually blow out at all and remains around the theoretical minimum.

This doesnt mean that theory is wrong, it just means that certain polling data manipulations utilise known human behavioral patterns to improve polling accuracy in ways that make this basic type of probability theory redundant to solving the problem at hand.

The big problem here though is that not all pollsters are good pollsters, and even the good pollsters get it wrong sometimes. Good polling that delivers high accuracy is as much of an art as it is a science.

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