Sorry, I'm a little late on this one but did anyone else catch round one of the castrated debate?

I'm quite happy because Kerry won on points and managed to start turning around his flipflopping image. I especially liked the point where he told Bush that Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and that it was Mr Bin Laden's merry men. Sure I would have liked a more decisive victory but this, coupled with the plain fact that there is no way that Iraq is gonna get better before november gives me a little hope.

The next couple of debates could be tougher though.

Erm, if someone could correct the title I'd be thankfull :sweatface:

I'm not american, so this is very off-topic.

I hate george bush. I hate john kerry.

I hate george bush because he started teh Iraq war. I'm not debating wether it was right or wrong, as i'm not sure, but he shouldn't have gone in with such a lack of support.

I just hate John Kerry because all I see of his campaigns are that he served in vietnam. I want to walk up to the mic and say "I served in a soup kitchen" and see if I get the same response. I don't care if you served, what do you plan to do, you ass :rant:.

I just think it's unimportant who actually runs U.S nowadays. The economy will either pick up, or it won't, and I just don't see if either president is elected, that the economy will be boosted.

The US mega-corporations are safe either way, and they will have the mega big loads of cash that will have trickle down effect on the rest of us (even those of us who live half-a world away but still depend on the US picking up the economic fortunes of the world). If the Mega corporations don't wanna spend (either on investments or hiring more workers), the economy is not going to kickstart.

The U.S government has little control over what they can do with the Mega-corp, except maybe give them more tax-breaks. With less taxes, corporations may spend more in creating job openings. But will less taxes be enough just to spur on economic recovery on the ground level?

ultimately, the war has to be stopped, because too much money is being put into it. ultimately, the rebuilding will have to be left to the Afghans and Iraqi's. ultimately, the money that can be spent in more fruitful regions should go to these regions, and promote growth in these now recessed countries.

And the US relocation of major electronic industries to China has hurt a lot of the rest of Asia.

All in all, I don't think it really matters who will become the president, because i think the US Governments agendas are in total chaos now. With Kerry, the mess may be sorted out sooner rather than later, coz with Bush, who knows, he may not even sort out his sh*t by the end of a fresh 4 year term.

Seeing these options, maybe Ralph Nader is the right man for the job.

Damit, no computer at home is really hampering my responce time but...

Nader isn't really a candidate but hopefully he can work as an issue change party. If enough people vote for him then maybe the goalposts will shift a bit.

Anyway, get ready to see Kerry go ahead in the opinion polls (in fact he's already ahead in the YouGov poll used by the ecomomist) Bush is taking a hell of a beating in the debates.

Yeah but he did well in his latest debate compared to the first one he had on the War on terrosrisme and Iraq.
Read somewhere in the papers today that some folks are accusing Bush using some micro-phone hearing aid thingy so that he can be aided during the debate.I dunno if its true or not.....but it could explained why he did well as of late.Bush can talk well.....but not that well :sweatface: .And I'm tired of people calling Kerry a flip-flopper....at least he didn't made the mistake of sending his country's troops to war based on some mumbo-jumbo information and lie to them time after time.

I have gained a significant amount of respect to Nader as of late due to one of his comments on Iraq and Israel.A shame he doesn't have a chance to be Pres this time......He has balls,that man. :cool:

Kerry won the debate only if one is counting speaking style as a measure to decide the winner. I was suprised that he didn't come out with his 20th unique position on the Iraq war during the debate. Heck even during the course of the second debate he changed his opinion on how much of a threat Iraq was. Whether it is his lack of leadership and participation in the Senate, having no respect for the military, insulting US allies like England, Australia, and Poland, consistently being on the wrong side of history, changing his views to whatever helps his poll numbers, saying he has a plan but ("but" actually being one of his favorite word to use in speaches) never elaborating on what it is, Kerry has got to be one of the worst presidential canidates ever. He has no substance and very little character.

Flip-flopping is an important issue because it shows indecisiveness. What message does it show others when a leader constantly changes his opinions on an important issue?

The Iraq war was important on many grounds. One reason was that it eliminated a regional threat. In the past Iraq had tried to invade Iran - a conflict where Iraq used chemical weapons - and took over Kuwait for brief amount of time. If UN sanctions were lifted, who knew what direction Iraq would have taken. It also took out a major financer of terrorists. Saddam was known to pay thousands of dollars to families of suicide bombers among other activities. It also took the war on terrorism out of the US, England, et al and has forced terrorist groups to divert resources away from launching attacks. It was also a show of force to other countries like Iran and North Korea to get them to think twice about being aggresive. Libya did give up on its nuclear program as a result of the Iraq war. As the old saying goes, "The best defense is a good offense."

Nader is good as a spoiler canidate, and at least he's respectable for being consistent on his views. However he's too anti-business to be a good president

I may be wrong with this.....but I think it just shows he just changed his mind after a period of time?People tend to do that after thinking about it after some time and getting newer information.If that's flip-flopping,then I'm assuming everyone else is one too......so why is it such a big deal?

As for the comment of him not being active in the Senate.......well,you may be right about that coz you're more informed of American politics since you're in the US and I'm a non-American being fed by news from BBC,Bloomberg and CNN......
BUT that bit on Kerry on having no respect for the military and his views on US allies which makes him a bad Presidential candidate is a bit hard for me to swallow.Its a known and confirmed fact that John Kerry served during Vietnam, so I am assuming he does have a certain degree of respect for the military (If he doesn't which i think is highly unlikely,then he at least have the right not to respect it as much as the next US servicemen due to the fact that he has actually been in the military,don'cha think?).And as far as his comments on US allies.....I do not see him as insulting them.Its more to me like he is voicing his displeasure on their choice of action and if the latest public polls constructed by news groups and information are correct, a great deal of number of people in England,Australia and Poland are agreeing with Kerry.


I think there should be a correction here.....it was a POSSIBLE regional threat, just as much as Cuba,Iran,Libya,N.Korea, is much of a possible regional/global threat.
And I agree with Iraq being so important on many grounds.......it shows just one President can go to war with a sovereign state on the other side of the world with really bad information and without full UN & international community backing which results in the death of thousands of lives(Iraqis,American servicemen/soldiers etc.) .

Its already been proven that Saddam/Iraq had no relationship with Al-Qaeda....and no weapons of mass destruction has been found, so whats to say that all that talk about Saddam being a financer of terrorisme is incorrect too?
And Saddam didnt pay thousands to families of suicide bombers.......he paid millions.Why he does it?Probably to win his people whose sympathetic to the Palestines.....or maybe he's just sympathetic to the Palestines himself?Regardless of that.....its still not good enough of a reason to attack Iraq,IMHO.Iraq's past history of attacking Kuwait and using chemical weapons is just that.....past history.And seeing the way how easily the latest Iraq war was won by the US-led Coalition forces....I think its no question that Iraq never ever recovered after the Gulf war and probably never truly have serius offensive capabilities.


O~kay....a show of force to deter Iran and N.Korea about being aggressive,eh?An act of agression to deter an act of aggression......wow,thats a pretty good idea from Bush.I suppose diplomacy can be used as toilet paper now......

And why is China's name not mentioned?Has everything become pretty pip-pink rosy between China and Taiwan right now?Last time i read in the papers....Taiwan's prez was close to wetting his pants and all sorts of military excercises are being done from both sides to PO each other.
Taiwan's independence is confirmedly on the rocks and I dun see Bush getting half intense about it as Iraq.Is it okay to let bigger nations intimidate other nations,just so as long as they are on Bush's side and a major economic trading partner?
Libya's nuclear plan was definitely scrapped because of fear being attacked by the US.But it must be mentioned that the Libyan govt said that it was for building nuclear reactors to provide electrical power to its people.If this is true......then Bush just caused millions of Libyans access to electricity and has denied Libya to develope itself economically.
And yes, "a good offence is a good defense"......but this only be applied if you're at war with someone already.Correct me if I'm wrong but unless no one's at war....and someone was being offensive on another,wouldn't that offence be called an act of sabotage or something?


Yeah....who knew,eh?I'd answer God would probably know and not Bush but hey....thats just me. :cheesy:

sorry... i find kerry's ideas toooooo weird. he's against outsourcing foreigners for american businesses? huwaat? even japan is so done with that kind of isolationist view waaaayyyy back when the bakufu was demolished.

plus, he changes his mind all the time, i dunno what his foreign policy is!

i find that dangerous being one of america's "allies." seriously.

but if God wants america to be spanked, and the world be spanked along with it... (hey, it still holds true that this one nation affects us here in southeast asia than any other)... then, God have mercy on you guys with kerry.

I think the signifigance of Kerry's change of opinions come from the fact that it does not seem to be as a result of new information but as a result of turning public opinion. I think if we magically found a stockpile of WMD in Iraq his talking points starting tomorrow would be on "of course I always thought Saddam was a threat and I would have gone in too." Which when public opinion was over 70% he was saying that.

The truth about Kerry's senate record is in all of his years as a senator he co-authored one bill that didnt pass. The bill he authored was an expansion on the assault weapons ban. The funny thing is it was so restrictive it would have outlawed several guns Kerry told an NRA club he owns including a shotgun without a plug that held 5 shells and an ak47 he owns.

I don't think he is anti-military or has ever spoken derogatorly of our troops but he called the coalition in Iraq the coalition of the cohearsed and the bribed. What that says to me is that he basically told the world leaders that commited their troops in good faith to free Iraq that they are corrupt and are not truly sacraficing anything anyway. Sure Poland has sent a lot less troops then we have but how many troops do they have available? How much expendable income do they have to devote. I bet in terms of percentages their commitment is a lot closer to ours than actual numbers would suggest.

Bush can yap all he wants on how he is big friends with the EU leaders, He isn't
If this election would have been international, Kerry wil win.
Seems everybody with half a mind and actually thinks about wethever the war is wrong or not is automatticaly an opinion changing Kerry, old fashioned Frenchman, hard headed German, or old world UN.
It's ok to start a war and spit the arab countries, the islam, the UN, the NATO, in the face when poeple who had nothing to do with 11 september "might" have weapons of mass destruction, well whoopsie nothing found.

C'mon Bush is covering up the truth, and i'm not talking about a "I did not have sex with that women" slip up. I'm talking about Dutch, English, American, Polish and a mass amount of Coallition troops risking their lives for a half-assed rushed uncoordinated offence gone horribly wrong, lead by a man who likes to reinact the crusades and doesn't think.

I'm not American so I shouldn't mingle in US affairs, but I hate Bush using his "don't go disrespecting the commitment of our European allies" one liner, to shut up anyone who questions the war. With so many dying, this isn't the time to say: everything's just fine.

Now this REALLY annoys me. Bush went to the pope personally to make sure the Catholic church's, cardinals, bishops, priests. Will now aid Bush's campaing and to wish fiery hell on all Kerry supporters.

WHAT THE HELL IS BUSH'S MAJOR MALFUNCTION????

I don't know what the bleeding is Bush's perception about Democracy is, but aren't State and religion supposed to be sepperated? This is a total lack of disrespect for faith, democracy, constitution (wathever the hell's left of that) and good clean honest politics. Another low blow by Bush.


:ass: moans possible CIA, FBI, TIA, internet scanners. I'm european what are you gonna do?

Suddenly red laser dots appear in room :laugh:

and yes I know I have an extreme political visions and not afraid to show it, but I really have to vend my fustration about what happens in the world somehow.

Bush won so that should tell you something. Kerry would have won if he took a stand on something. Bush took a stand on what he believed. Even though a lot of people disagreed with him he didn't swaid his views. That's good.

If your gonna campaign a NO TOLERANT OF WEAPONS campaign and a country that has had a history of using chemical and biological weapons, and not let in inspectors to every room then we assume that they are hiding something. If they refuse to let us do our job then we go to the U.N to help out and they said give Iraq more time. Ok. Nothing changed. Bush practically pleaded with the U.N. to help and they were being stupid and not realizing this was a threat and didn't want to get involved. So we went to war. If Saddam would have let us do our job we wouldn't have gone to war with him. You can't just let that go until Afghanistan was finished. What kind of thing is that? You can't have that, we are busy right now so we will give you more time to plan something while we finish this up. You can't just do that.

Now my opionions on the Debates.

1st Debate. Kerry won
2nd Debate. It was a tie.
3rd Debate. Bush won.

I thought the Vice Presidential Debate was impresivous. Personally