Rattlesnake

It's funny how people have gotten so used to politicians (on both sides) immediately answering questions, with the standard party lines, and they believe that means that the individual is somehow correct or more competent. Because someone pauses to think and process, this means that their answers are less credible. Obama's 100 times more intelligent than all of the dolts on this board combined.

Me. First-ballot.

We just got our taxes back today, and this is the most we've ever gotten back from federal and state........and we made more money than last year due to my wife working more last year.

That's one of the things I enjoyed about today. Dolts like that, and their followers, having to watch the rejection of their ideology come full-circle........and know that it happened in a landslide. Eat it.

It's fine to boo them, sure, but not make racist comments. Hasty generalizations are fun, though, aren't they?

It's so funny that some people refer to Obama as an "extreme left radical liberal".

I wish that hadn't happened. I was as thrilled as anyone to see Bush leave today, but I think that total silence would've been much more effective, and appropriate. That being said, this is obviously a very small sample of people who were there, caught up in the moment; it happens. I mean, it's not like they were chanting, "Kill him!!!!" Bush abused the Constitution as much as any POTUS in history, will be remembered as one of the worst, and was arguably the most unpopular of all-time. Granted, they shouldn't have chanted that, but it's not like they were chanting curse words or anything like that. I don't disagree with the sentiment at all............good riddance. I have no problem with Cheney getting booed. If that makes me a bad American in some people's minds, that's fine.

Bush will be remembered (by educated historians) as bottom five all-time, easily. There's an argument to be made for him being the worst. Good riddance.

Yeah, but they really do produce some fast and talented athletes, don't they?

So you're a criminal? No wonder she dumped you.

People who actually spend the time and energy to keep up with multiple aliases on an internet website desperately need to either get a real job or a life.........my guess is both.

Conan and Stewart......not even close.

Here's the rub...........even if she is a woman, ignorant skanks aren't sexy. You lose either way.

What a sad state of affairs this is................

Those that got something, anything, need to shut the fuck up. Allow the rest of us to wallow. Granted, our corporation is notoriously cheap and extremely conservative in every way possible, but we at least usually get a pen or something. Nothing this year. Meanwhile, our board is collecting $300 for every little special session they can figure out a way to schedule. I hope they choke on their food tomorrow.

So, if I have students that never do their homework and don't take school seriously at all, can I petition to have them either moved out of my classroom........or get them a new set of parents? Just following the logic.....

Two things that tell me all I need to know and remove any credibility that you may have had.......... 1 - a convention speech made up your mind about a candidate. Good God, man, they've only been campaigning for a year and a half. I've always wondered who these people are that can't make up their mind and then do so at the last minute, and how that's humanly possible. Nice to meet you. 2 - you may not like Obama, and that's fine. But to align him with Bush is possibly the most ignorant thing I've read here, which is saying a lot.

I didn't see this. Considering that I'm typically gone from 5:30-5:00 or 5:30 and that I'm also taking 2 graduate classes right now, one of them that puts me home at 11:00 on Wednesday nights, my schedule's a little bit crazy. Plus, I have three young children that I spend as much of my free time with as possible. If you'll notice, my time on here is almost always later in the evenings or early in the mornings, or very briefly on weekends. Checking in here isn't exactly first priority. Like I've said before, I have one of those jobs that requires me to, you know, work during the day. About your questions, I don't really understand what you are asking. If I'm reading it right, it seems like you're implying that 40% of the population pays no federal income tax. I'll check in again at some point this weekend to see what your response is. Just so you know, since apparently you felt like I was ducking you ( ).......we have my daughter's 1st birthday party tonight with my wife's family, then another one with mine tomorrow, and then Sunday I plan on working on stuff for grad school for pretty much the entire day. So if I don't come back right away, don't get your panties in a bunch.

Explain my disdain for the likes of Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Dennis Kucinich to me, then. Obama is the first person I've ever voted FOR in an election. In the past, I've either not voted, or voted against someone (like Bush). Just because I'm voting for a Democrat now doesn't mean I'm a card-carrier. The logic just doesn't fly, sorry.

Of course my politics stay out of the classroom. First of all, I teach Advanced Placement Psychology and Psychology. We talk about politics in the field, but not general politics. That would be pointless. Secondly, as far as questioning what I know about the subject, I majored in Psych (education) and am currently obtaining my Master's in Psych. I feel like I know the material. As far as the asshole comments..... My kids and I get along great. We do really challenging/abstract stuff, but we also have a lot of fun. I treat them with respect, like the juniors/seniors that they are, and they reciprocate that. Some of you are real winners. Just because I vent about politics on a message board.......that means that I go into my classroom and act like that towards my students?!?!? You people are frigging strangers. This is a message board. It's fun to vent about shit, and half of the fun is to see the reactions. Good grief.

Well, as a former teacher-of-the-year and the person who has grown the largest elective study program/courses in our corporation, I think I'll be fine. I appreciate your concern, however. If you think it bothers me to have some people on an internet chat forum make statements like this, you'd be wrong. I worry about my students and the people I work with everyday, and I'm pretty certain that I'm in good standing with them. It does bother me that this is the general attitude towards education, however. This is what happens when you have a society that doesn't always require education to succeed, so it's not very surprising. McCain's problem, obviously, is that he wants to use student achievement to determine the status of teachers. There are far too many extraneous variables for this kind of system to be accurate, but McCain doesn't get that. Most people outside of education don't. Those who do typically don't mention it because that would be the same as admitting that our society doesn't know how to parent and that its values are in the toilet. Most people aren't ready to do that. Sure, there are bad teachers, no question. Many of them are of the older variety and they were only taught in traditional (lecture) style methods. Most people have no idea what teachers nowadays have to do in order to get licensed and then maintain it. For the record, for the 100th time, I think that's a good thing. You should have to be really good to be a teacher. If it were all about the money, leeches like some of you here would get into the business strictly for the cash and if you think that our scores are bad now.........holy crap. Take the real teachers out of the room, then watch what happens. Respectable salary is necessary and lacking, but I'd never want it to get too insane. We've had the teacher/education talk here before, so it's pointless for me to lay out this entire case again. Some get it, some don't. Some of you have complete contempt for educaton and don't understand the system, or the problems we face, at all. Plus, it's awfully easy to point the finger at teachers and blame us for the fact that your kids grew up without any educational leadership at home, so I'm sure that's comforting for many.

Typical crap. Again, people may not like what he says and may disagree with his opinions/policies, but he's obviously an extremely intelligent person. In terms of him supposedly not being able to improvise...... Simply because he doesn't give immediate black or white answers doesn't mean that he can't improvise. He's analytical. He doesn't always give immediate "yes or no" answers. However, since the majority of our electorate is not very analytical, that doesn't play well. Again, Obama's been fighting a ridiculous amount of uphill battles since day 1, with race actually being on the back burner. It's unreal that he's gotten so far.

It's common knowledge. Read a newspaper, watch the news.......or simply be awake. Again, people may not like what he says, and that's FINE..........but all of these trivial attempts to discredit him are nothing but pure ignorance.

All of the traditional conservative talking points.......and they're effective because they appeal to tradition, particularly as it pertains to gender roles. That's why conservatives cling to these values and issues so much, and also why speeches like tonight's are so effective. It goes back to the frigging stone age. Is this really that hard to figure out? I guess it is. I mean, hell, the number of Americans with a Bachelor's is somewhere between 24-28%, depending on which research you look at.