Crowdsourcing Analysis of the Palin Email Trove 284
itwbennett writes "Surely you've got better things to do this weekend than read 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin's email. But just in case you don't, the NY Times is looking for volunteers to help 'identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight.' And, for your easy reference, MSNBC has posted the complete collection online."
volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait, we're supposed to do analysis for free for the NYT, which will then hide said work behind their paywall? Yeah, suuuure.
Re:volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly.
Why would I want to do this, only to lose access to my own work.
If they made the articles generated by this work under some sort of copyleft I might be interested.
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If you find something really good you could try writing something yourself.
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Re:volunteers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Information wants to be free. Services do not.
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don't be dense.
the parent may have espressed himself badly, but the fact is, people making money out of opensource don't deny people who want it for free the access to it.
so the idea is, if the NYT wants free labor, the result should be left free too, they can then make money in an indirect way (ads perhaps), not by putting it behind a paywall.
now, if they want to block it with a paywall, the least they can do is give one year free access to everyone who contributes.
Re:volunteers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is /., not Digg. (Score:5, Funny)
You seem to be lost. This is Slashdot, not Digg. When we agree with somebody, we don't say that we "dug" their post.
Yes, unfortunately this results in a lot of confusion; including being alerted in Minecraft IRC channels every few seconds.
Dug happens to be my name, you insensitive clod.
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Well, at least AC isn't lost. He's on slashdot, and he can't be bothered to RTFA, RTFS, or even to RTFN of the poster he responds to.
not Dug :>)
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Dug happens to be my name, you insensitive clod.
Could be worse.
Sincerely,
Reply To This
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The NYT paywall doesn't work - as a page loads in Firefox, I just hit 'stop' after the page loads and before the popup 'You are over your 20 article limit' shows up, and I can read anything i want.
Works all the time, mildly annoying but trivial to defeat their idiotic 'paywall'.
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My hometown paper just implemented a paywall. It's a joke to get around. I just created a new AdBlock rule that blocked the dev id.
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Just delete the NT cookie and you're ok.
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The NYT paywall doesn't work - as a page loads in Firefox, I just hit 'stop' after the page loads and before the popup 'You are over your 20 article limit' shows up, and I can read anything i want.
Works all the time, mildly annoying but trivial to defeat their idiotic 'paywall'.
My hack: Use Firefox in Private Browsing mode, don't log in if you have an account, and restart FF whenever you start getting the popup. You can do this with Chrome in incognito mode as well, but Chrome incognito mode disables all browser plugins where FF private mode does not. The only inconvenience is having to restart the browser once in however long it takes you to hit the limit. (BTW, the poster below who who said "delete the cookie" is also correct, that is effectively all this is doing, I just fi
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Chrome incognito mode disables all browser plugins
This is actually not the case. Go to Tools, Extensions and then click "Allow in incognito".
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I'd love it if everyone contributed to OpenStreetMap instead of Google Map Maker, but the one who makes the easiest to use interface and has all the marketing $$ often snags the willing participants. Especially something as time critical as this, first mover advantage is pretty important.
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Right or wrong (Score:3)
Right or wrong, I've long ago made up my mind that Palin is a skanky ole ho, who is just getting by on her history as a beauty queen. I've not read anything to make me like her, and I've read plenty to make me dislike her.
I can't see that sifting through her emails is going to improve my opinion of the ole ho. Like most other people, I'll just interpret the crap I find to reinforce my current opinion.
'Course, most other people can't admit that they'll do that, LMAO!!
Re:analysis for free (Score:2)
Nope.
You publish it on your no-name blog first, then you get the delicious protections of the new copyright regime!
(That is, until they cheat again.)
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No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
So we have an illegal war in Libya (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are thousands of reporters and millions of readers, all interested in and doing different things. Further, some people are able to keep multiple thoughts in their head at the same time, so it's okay to focus on more than one thing.
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Actually, Wiener's wiener just amused me.
On the other hand, the lying and false accusations that he made the first week bothered me more than a little.
Re:So we have an illegal war in Libya (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Palin is a lot of people take her very seriously despite an absurd number of warning signs to the contrary. And if the media didn't keep jumping on her scandals and missteps in the past she very well could still be considered a contender for the Republican nomination. Sometimes these media scandals are just a distraction from important issues, but other times they're a chance to say "hey, that person you've been praising as the second coming? Well here's yet another piece of evidence that they're complete nutjob, now go back and think about why you were such an idiot before".
Sure, most of her followers won't get the message, but a few will, and the world will be that much wiser for it.
They will never focus on Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
Get over it.
This is why this whole Palin frenzy is so damn distressing. She isn't even declared as a candidate for the next election yet it seems as if the line to be part of the character assassination just continues to grow. This is like taking the worst aspects of Reality TV and having the press and politicians play the parts.
If they even tried this with Obama there would be lines of people screaming racism. That alone allows Libya to continue and Yemen to be next. I wonder how many years after Obama lea
Re:They will never focus on Obama (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that you hate Obama (and probably all Democrats,) but your point seems to be mostly irrational.
Maybe it's because there's a large, idiotic segment of the population that does want her as president. And people want to see exactly how (un)ethical of a person she is before they try to put her manipulative ass in the White House. That they've taken great pains to ensure that these e-mails are difficult to get and stripped of useful information, I suspect they've worked very hard to hide things.
Why? Official e-mails are part of the public record. The reason people are all over this is because of the deliberate actions taken to make these records hard to get.
I have no sympathy for Palin. She's manipulative, power hungry, and has show no evidence that she would be remotely capable of handling the role of the Presidency. She killed McCain's run, simply due to the fear that if anything happened to him, she'd end up in the hot seat.
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Why is the war in Libya illegal? I understand why the war in Iraq is illegal, but when did the UN stop sanctioning action in Libya? [No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested.]
Did a quick Google search: is this to what you are referring?
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/05/20/obama-misses-legal-deadline-for-us-forces-in-libya/ [antiwar.com]
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Why is the war in Libya illegal? I understand why the war in Iraq is illegal, but when did the UN stop sanctioning action in Libya? [No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested.]
The UN does not make War legal in America. The Congress does. Obama didn't even consult Congress before sending in troops. On the other hand, Iraq is 100% totally legal (even with the UN, since the war was actually started in the 1990's, and Saddam never stopped firing on our troops).
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But Obama is a Marxist, so anything he does is wonderful.
The funny part is that the left seem to believe that discrediting Palin would help them, whereas the right-wing Americans I know only like Pailn because she pisses off the left so much; they'd never actually vote for her, but she's a useful distraction.
In current US politics Marxist must mean something like `slightly less rightwing than the really extreme rightwingers', because Obama is certainly not anywhere near a real Marxist as we Europeans know the term.
And if Palin is a distraction, exactly what or whom is she distracting from?
Wikileaks? (Score:2)
Did the NYTimes put out the same crowdsourcing call for various Wikileaks docs?
Also, is there any particular reason Palin's emails have been released? Do all governors' emails get released? (Don't know.) And George W's?
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As the great Bart Scott once said... (Score:2)
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Those emails are also in the Great Tree-Killing data-dump.
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Those emails are also in the Great Tree-Killing data-dump.
We hope.
grep (Score:2)
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It's a pointless exercise (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason it took them 3 years to release the emails is it took that long to screen out all the damaging material. Palin switched to her private email accounts for all the juicy stuff and she was pretty disciplined about it on top of that. We've got some indications of conversations since emails to those accounts both from and to official aides have been released. I heard on the news last night from the Mother Jones reporter who initiated the email request that stuff like conversations with Cheney and "Same Sex" thread have been completely redacted.
You think they'd wait 3 years, dump the emails ONLY to printed paper, redact the hell out of the content, and charge people if they *really* wanted to give you access?
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From looking at just a few emails, it seems like absolutely everything of interest is redacted. One that comes to mind is an email detailing a set of campaign plans. The moment the writer gets to a bulleted list (I think), everything from then on out is redacted.
And so yes, this is a completely pointless exercise, and nothing will likely come out of it except putting Palin back in the spotlight.
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It sounds like we need a hacker to obtain the originals, and then do a diff comparison with the redacted list to automatically glean the parts of emails with any value.
Almost a day and no bombshell yet? (Score:2)
What surprises me is that it's been almost a day and we don't have a giant first page headlines "WE CONFIRMED SHE IS EVIL! Email details ... ". Nothing beyond regular (and sometimes understandable) stuff.
Which probably will result in more conspiracy theory to the tune of "Well we know She's Evil, it's just only those months of emails that weren't released must contain the Pure Evilness!", which is kinda silly.
I think every governor should have emails released, frankly, before he/she leaves office. The whole
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Strawman much? Please cite one example of a "lefty" calling for her death?
Who gives a damn about her emails? (Score:2)
Maybe I missed something somehow but is there a reason there's a desire to peruse through these records? If there's an investigation going on then it's not my job. If there isn't then it's none of my damned business and I have better shit to do with my time than be a voyeur to someone like Palin. Send this waste of time to the tabloids.
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Because she was an elected public official and these are official public records?
An unwillingness to examine the job that your government is doing will be the death of us. /frank
p.s. I completely agree with you if this had been a hacked personal email dump - that kind of thing is none of my business. Unless, of course, she we doing government business over her personal email, in which case I consider those to be official public records also.
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Except it's not my government, since I don't live in Alaska (or anywhere near it). Now why should I care?
Probably too late; but what the hell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Alaska is, perhaps uniquely among American states in the present day(with the possible exception of the poorer; but much more overtly corrupt Appalacian coal belt), a state with an immensely lucrative extraction-economy, and not too much else going on. This means that there is considerable money to be made in controlling pipeline contracts and routes, security assorted extraction licenses, controlling obscure planning offices, and other tedious activity in sparsely settled areas. Although much more scenic than most, and often less violent, this does leave it open to many of the same dysfunctional political dynamics enjoyed by the poor nations who have large mineral reserves and weak governance.
We shouldn't forget that. It doesn't matter what the contents of Palin's Office Yahoo Account tell us about who popped out out a baby when. Sordid trailer-park drama? probably, but who cares? However, it is generally the case that, behind every folksy politician who is bored by the details, lurks a small army of value-rational and detail-oriented hatchetmen quietly cleaning up the spoils. Sometimes, if the local cult of personality is strong enough, they are in thrall of that politician. In other cases, the politician is their frontman. In either case, though, their activities are the stuff that desperately needs as much sunlight(and cell space) as the public can devote to it. Don't let the personality drama get in the way.
At least someone is creating jobs (Score:3)
"Sarah Palin's emails have created more jobs than the last $2 trillion in federal stimulus." -- David Burge
Gimmick (Score:2)
This "crowdsourcing" is a joke (Score:2)
Don't expect anything to come from "Crowdsourcing", as they've made it nearly impossible to navigate.
For instance, you cannot go to a document at random, you have to page through the entire collection 10 links at a time. Sure, I'll be happy to hit "NEXT" 200 times and wait 5 seconds each to get somewhere in the middle because my time isn't valuable and I'm happy to give it to the NYT.
Some of us geeks have experience in getting redacted information out of documents, and there would be quite a bit of motivati
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone reads too much World Nut Daily.
Press needs to examine its life (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Press needs to examine its life (Score:5, Insightful)
In point as fact, as Bush was most certainly a felon, he has no more business being in the white house than Obama. Like Obama there was a conspiracy to make sure that none of the felony charges ever went to court or stick. As mentioned he is most certainly guilty of rape, felony drug charges, felony manslaughter due to recklessness. Beyond that the fact that his daddy bribed government official to get him into the national guard, and then bribed government officials agains so he did not have to serve, meant he never went to jail for draft dodges and never received the court martial he deserved for being AWOL.
But the worst error was not impeaching him for 9/11. Do you think Bush and to less extent Cheney were not owned by the Saudis? Do you not think that as soon as Bush was elected the Saudis knew they have carte blanche to murder US civilians without any fear of repercussions? We saw the photos when Bush got the news of the attacks? Did he look surprised? Why was he out of Washington for a very infrequent business trip instead of on vacation? Do you not think that Bush knew exactly where Osama Bin Laden was, but did not choose to kill him because that would be like killing family. So he created these conflict to increase oil prices so the Saudies would get richer. He passed policies guaranteed to raise the public debt so the US would be vunerable to future attacks and other hostile action. He probably had the CIA build the housing for bin laden, and probably talked about the caves knowing that the American people could never know the truth, that his brother Bin Laden was safe in a palace.set up with a new young wife to keep him company, while the average american were having their homes repossessed.
You see how easy it is to manipulate available facts into a narrative. No rational person could possible believe that Bush was not a murderer and Bush/Cheney did not welome the 9/11 attacks. That is no rational person who watches fox news. Everyone else knows the difference a good story and reality.
Re:Press needs to examine its life (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot was much more reasonable when Elementary school was in session.
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Except it's hard to distinguish between a leftist pretending to be hypocritical to make a point, and a leftist actually being hypocritical. There are plenty of people who believe such conspiracy theories about Bush in the first place, support Obama, and insist in digging up dirt on Bush, Palin, and anyone else not on Obama's side, and they're not doing it to make a point--they really believe it.
News organizations and "citizens" demanded Palin's email in the first place because nobody is going to have 24000
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Paranoid troll much? While I agree the scrutiny on Palin is eye-roll inducing, I think I'd rather have them devote their energy to exploring actual, serious presidential candidates, like Romney and Cain. Or exposing the extremist crazy of Michelle Bachman, who is still at least in office.
Even a broke clock is right twice a day. So, even if he is paranoid (which calling him so is trolling... The irony...) his point is totally valid.
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How often is a broke[sic] calendar right?
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> Paranoid troll much? ...extremist crazy of Michelle Bachman
>
Hmmm...
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you don't have to be smart to go through the motions, that's one of the jokes of an education
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
All I'm sayin' is if the media still have the energy and resources to root around in Mrs. Palin's old emails, air drop into Alaska back in the campaign to root around in her trash cans, etc. perhaps a little attention to the guy who actually IS president and appears to want to run for reelection might be worthy of the basic scrutiny the media would give a candidate for governor or senate. Or we might want to face the reality that the media already know Obama's story and are intent on the voters never learning it.
Well, go for it dude. Certainly there have to be a couple of more folks with your bent to get together and sort this out. Certainly the Fox News folks and persons of similar persuasion have the means and the motive to go look for dirt in his past. Perhaps they have done that and found he was a B+ student who wrote boring things, didn't do drugs and didn't get arrested -- basically a meh story. Who knows? Obama is your typical bog-standard Politician, no more no less. Not nearly as entertaining as an attractive batshit insane ex cheerleader with dubious command of history, geography and language.
What's not to like?
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I know Bill O'reilly gives short shrift to anyone bring up crap about President Obama's birth. He generally just cuts them off. I'm sure he's looked into it and realizes that it's a non-issue. I wish everyone else would give it up too as I'm about sick of hearing about it. If they can't find enough to criticize with the shithole the economy is in and the determination the administration seems to have to finish it off as soon as possible then they need to just quit and go home. At this point I don't giv
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Do something about jobs and housing already.
FTFY
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Oh come on. You know better. President Obama is their (NYTimes') guy. They worship him and they'd never do anything to smirch his reputation. Palin is their enemy. They hate her and her family and would do anything at all to smear her. I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. Sarah Palin is fake and about as real as President Obama. I really could care less about either of them but I find it amusing that people get upset about these professional hucksters getting ridiculed as they deserve.
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Or maybe there is a reason his records are sealed. Because they would make it plain he is a below average shlub who was admitted and honored more for his biography and 'diversity' than his ability.
... lol ... same reason his birth certificate couldn't be found. Brilliant PR ... let the loonies make the right wing look completely half-cocked, so no one wants to affiliate themselves with the right, gain votes, and get in.
But hey. You're free to believe whatever you want, and I'm free to believe you're an idiot.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example we know W's GPA was actually comparable to Gore or Kerry's. Yet somehow Gore and Kerry are considered so super smart while W is universally ridiculed as an idiot.
GPA wasn't why Bush was and is considered pretty stupid. The reason he's considered stupid is that he's not really accomplished all that much - his military record was mediocre at best, most of his business ventures (which wouldn't have started without money from his dad's friends) flopped, and his political campaigns were also basically inheriting his dad's political apparatus. That and a speaking style which provoked unfavorable comparisons to Dan Quayle gave him a reputation of being rather stupid, deservedly or no. Basically, there's good reason to think that if he had started out in the same environment as Ronald Reagan did, he would have been a nobody.
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Your screwing up an old joke.
"What did bush get on his SAT? BBQ sauce."
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So where does Obama fit in? Everyone in DC says he is the smartest guy who ever sat in the comfy chair. Is he? I haven't seen the slightest evidence of it in his (not his speechwriters) words or in his deeds.
He handled himself just fine on the live health care debate with the Republicans (who were busy screaming "It's a trap!" before the event). He takes questions and can speak on issues coherently off the cuff. The idea that's he's just some "below average shlub" is ridiculous.
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He was magna cum laude. Verified by Harvard. Not as high as summa, but the point remains that he was top 10% of his class at Harvard.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
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Sorry, but with modern US politics in the state it is in, I really can't tell if you're serious or not. If this is satire it is rather poor quality. If this is a representative opinion of part of the US electorate I think it is time to do a really thorough check of the drinking water. There seems to be a lot of lead in it.
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You know how it is. Anytime records are sealed people always wonder about it. The conjecture usually is worse than the truth though. That's why sealing records mostly seems to do more harm than good. The best bet is to just be open and deal with whatever the issue is. I put this forward as a guess at a possible reason for keeping things secret. It's based on the point that some members of the administration have in the past expressed admiration for Mao and his policies. I might be wrong, it is just a
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Yeah, what a circus. Not even sure which ones are the clowns anymore. I kinda read /. so I can avoid this kind of story. Now I'm ashamed for having posted in one.
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Yeah, what a circus. Not even sure which ones are the clowns anymore.
All of them. Still amazed that people think there is any difference between the parties.
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To be fair, this data dump is fulfilling a FOIA that was filed two YEARS ago, when she had just been nominated vice president (by a few thousand people that probably shouldn't have just taken everything on authority and should have known better, I might add.)
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We don't know how the hell a community organizer paid the freight to get a degree at Harvard, not exactly known for it's low low prices.
and you're not exactly know for your understanding of higher education pricing. If Harvard wants you, they'll find a way to make it affordable - with their endowment they can afford a few scholarships here and there. You only pay full freight if you can afford it and they really don't care if you attend.
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> and you're not exactly know for your understanding of higher education pricing. If Harvard
> wants you, they'll find a way to make it affordable
Which would be interesting in its own right if true. Why did they want this particular student? His grades were not good. Columbia won't release his transcript or grades but has confirmed the basics of his diploma. They will say they granted him a degree in Political Science and that he did not graduate with any honors. So why was Harvard Law so hot to h
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I guess he got in because he had been working for 5 years after college - 1 in a possibly CIA-connected business consulting group, 1 in a public interest group, and 3 years as a "community organizer". It looks fucking great to an admissions officer. He's obviously ambitious, community-focused, and comfortable working with people. And I bet he wrote a killer application. Plus he had diversity points. Overal, he had "future mayor, governor, or maybe even president" written all over him - that's the kind of gu
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Harvard Law has about 500 seats per year and thousands of applications, almost all of which are going to have better transcripts that Barry probably had. But Harvard not only wanted this guy they wanted him so bad they were willing to give a free ride?
because they found something compelling in his application that said "This guy has high potential."
again, unlike you, whose writings scream "internet kook" and are compelling only in your own mind.
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We also know he's a friggin' negro and just DOESN'T BELONG THERE, amirite? :)
I think you're looking for the word "mulatto".
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
He's Irish (or at least he was a few weeks back). Doesn't that make him a MacLatto?
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Michelle Bachmann is a passionate and good looking woman but she doesn't have anywhere near the same effect on people.
They both have the same effect on Rep. Anthony Weiner.
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She'll never run.
She'll never give up her cushy "job" at Fox. Never put herself in the position where she needs to answer questions from the press, or debate anyone. Never compromise her sanitized "public" existence.
She is a circus side show, and all she cares about is getting paid.
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I'm from Europe from a country with much lower salaries. I also went to Harvard..........
Lucky you. If you know the US has 50 not 57 states then you're probably better educated than O. But then my 7 year old knows this and she hasn't gone to Harvard.
Probably not (Score:5, Insightful)
since the National Archives will do it for them.
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We've sort of moved from a more unified main stream media model to something a little like the opposed advocacy sort of model used in legal proceedings. If it's not something MSNBC will take time to trawl through, Fox pobably will. And vice verse. etc, through the permutations.
And if neither of them get round to it, the opposition research people of the respective opposed parties or primary candidates will.
Plausible (Score:3)
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My wife came home and cleaned the kitchen. Women aren't always delicate little puffs.
I bet you got big brownie points for that one....
If she really wanted to clean (Score:3)
You're Actually Taking This Seriously?!? (Score:2)
I stumbled upon something interesting there
That you're a manipulated tool?
Remember the conspiracies around Trig's birth, April 18, 2008?
Uh, no. But now you're scaring us...
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I'm assuming neither you (if female) nor your wife (if you have one) have ever given birth?
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While I personally dislike Palin, can someone with mod points please moderate the parent as -1: Idiot! ? Thank you.