The YouTube debates are on CNN right now and I happened to turn them on during the subject of putting US troops in Darfur and withdrawal from Iraq. I gotta admit Clinton's idea of putting UN peacekeepers in Darfur was a good idea, but then the idea of a no-fly zone put me off.

So whatcha think?

All I have to say is the Gravel guy went friggin' OFF on Obama, Hillary, and Edwards. Woo! Not a big fan of any of the four, but man it was an interesting change of pace for the debate, I'll say that much. Generally the debate reminds me of the first Republican one this year -- lots dancing, lots of lines.

I kinda like Richardson the most of the cantidates, but I don't know if I'd totally get behind him. Biden seems okay, Kucinich seems okay. The rest are just sorta unimpressive to me. Myeh. Oh well.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

I don't have much of a problem with Gravel's politics but something's wrong with him I think.

Too bad the Republicans don't debate until September 17th.

The only problem with Gravel, outside of him looking and sounding like a slightly senile, cranky old coot, was that he was RIGHT!

These front runners have to be beholden to the money interests, otherwise they wouldn't HAVE so much money.

But the asinine You Tube format brought the level of the debate down. I mean, I love a talking snowman as much as the next guy, but this is a debate to see who becomes OUR next president.

But, if that's the way to play to the idiot sheep, I guess that's the way they're going to go. Next election, I understand the debates will be held on Adult Swim with all anime characters asking the questions while they fling swords around and make faces.

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Not a day goes by that I don't see something that reinforces my belief that people are idiots.

First off let me say that I liked the idea of regular people from anywhere in the country being able to ask questions to candidates. Now, the people that asked the questions, that is a whole different story. I swear, 1/2 of them were on drugs or just plain out stupid. I came across the word "vidiots." That is what I would describe them as. I feel sorry for the candidates who had to answer a few of those questions. Appalling.

Now, being a moderate, and not a big democratic supporter currently, here is my reaction's to tonight's debate. First off, out of all the candidates I believe that John Edwards was the strongest based on tonight's performance. Personally, I think the South Carolinian hypocrite is mostly a fraud, but tonight he answered the toughest questions and answered them right. He said that he does not support gay marriage, however does support constitutional rights. I am concurrent to that belief. He also attacked insiders head on, which is very important, and the best statement from him was when he said that he would not accept votes from people who would not vote for Obama because he is black or Hillary because she is a woman. I thought that was very classy. Now, of course we know that is bull shit, and he wants every damn vote he can get, but he did a great job. Does that mean I will be voting for the hoot anytime soon? Absolutely not.

The rest of the group, disappointing. Since there is very little that I find intriguing about any of these candidates and am more interested in that of the Republicans (as should we all be), I had fun just watching these 7 or 8 people say the same thing over and over.

First off, how can we really take any of them seriously? Alright, at the beginning of the debate, they discussed the need to conserve and stop climate change and then literally 10 seconds later they raise their hands when asked who had flown in on a private gas guzzling jet. If liberals want to honk away at the anti-environmentalists than everyone must know how rediculous the hypoenviros are. This seemed to end the discussion rather quickly. Very interesting and typical Democrats, talking out of their fat asses.

Moving along, overall, it was fun to see the new format, although pretty much they chose questions from the same target demo, the working to lower class who pretty much want government to be their big brother and want government to be the solution to their every problem. Isn't it scary that people want to fix health care by creating a federal policy. Once again, diet and exercise would save everyone the money to invest in health care.

This debate was revealing of how hypocritical the Democratic candidates are. Lots of whining, very little ideas. We can solve that issue by electing Rudy Giuliani as our next president.

Disagree.

I think that people want their government to ensure that everyone gets a fair shake, which is something that the GOP has shown time after time over the last 7 years that they couldn't care less about.

Not nearly as scary as letting the insurance, healthcare, and pharmaceutical companies create policy, which is what we have now. It clearly is not working. At least the government isn't trying to get rich off of poor and middle class illness. As much of a problem as the uninsured is the problem of the benefits gap. One of the leading causes in bankruptcy is medical debt. A large percentage of those people had benefits. It was their co-payments that ate them up.

I have a 10% in-network co-pay. That's all well and good when I only have to pay $25 to see my family Dr. for sinus infection. But what happens if I have a heart attack? I have to pay 10% of the ambulance ride, 10% of the hospital bill, 10% of the specialist's fees, 10% of the tests, 10% of the rehab. That's a lot of 10%'s. When I get to the ER, I get to pay 25%, because ER doctors are rarely employed by the hospital where they do their work, to shield the hospital from the higher malpractice rates that ER Dr's must pay. So while the hospital might be in my network, the Dr. isn't. Add in the drugs, most of which will not be generics. Co-pay will be 40%. Have you looked at your Walgreen's receipt to see what the actual cost of drugs is, before benefits? It'll blow you away. I've done the math on this. When you put all of those co-pays together, my out-of-pocket can easily reach $10,000. Do you have that kind of scratch laying around?

Diet and exercise won't stop a drunk driver from hitting you. Diet and exercise wont change your genetic predisposition towards certain serious diseases. Plenty of people who diet and exercise regularly get cancer and have heart attacks.

The problem is that we haven't seen anyone with enough creativity or vision to put forth a plan that will work without creating another mega-bureaucracy. We haven't seen anyone with enough sand to stand up to these influential lobbies and tell them that their days of profiteering Americans into the grave is over.

Tort reform is one area that can help by cutting malpractice insurance rates. My AD&D benefits tell me what my limbs are worth. I think a reasonable cap that esentially does the same thing in civil actions is not a ridiculous idea. If the corporations can tell me how much they'll pay for loss of one foot AND one hand, I think the laws should be able to set compensation limits as well.

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Tax & Spend > Borrow & Spend

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Every feeling you've ever felt can be found in the works of Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, and Wagner.

It's funny. I just read a poll that said Hillary 'performed the best' and that she also 'performed the worst' according to the percentages who voted. The two behind her for 'best' were obviously Barrack and Edwards. Meanwhile, the two trailing behind her in 'worst' were Gravel and Kucinich (the latter of which I thought was pretty strong, actually).

I seriously don't get the hype surrounding Hillary. It looks to me that it's not delivering that great if she's getting voted both best and worst in close margins. I say this creates quite a risk for the Democrats in choosing her, and honestly think they'll be better off with somebody like Obama or Edwards, possibly even Kucinich or Richardson.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Now that I'm watching a rerun I really did just see Gravel jump on Obama early on.

but then the idea of a no-fly zone put me off.


What's wrong with a no-fly zone? The janjaweed and Darfurian militias are on fairly equal footing. It's Sudanese air support of the janjaweed that turns the tide of battle.

The no-fly zones were fairly effective in keeping Saddam off the Kurds and Shiites backs. Why wouldn't it be good in Sudan?

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chicken butt

I was referring to the people that they chose that asked the questions in the YouTube monitor. Most were minorities or lower class who asked the most dense of questions. That is not to take away from the few that were very solid questions. I remember however one towards John Edwards that asked him about his stance on gay marriage. He answered it clearly, than the reverend who asked the question was in the crowd didn't get it, so asked the same stupid question again, and John Edwards was like, 'you are an idiot,' not in those words of course.

Nowhere do I say that reform does not need to take place with health care, however socializing it is not an option.