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Moderator elections 7-08
Vote for a maximum of three of the following choices for your new overlords. You can change your vote at any time until the deadline of 9 PM PDT (midnight EDT) on Monday, July 21st. I will post the results, edit the security settings and email the new mods at that point.
Remember that this is literally the most important vote you will cast this year.
tomsyl
46% (31 votes)
Jordan
40% (27 votes)
M Scott Eiland
40% (27 votes)
Wagster
37% (25 votes)
Bernard Guerrero
29% (20 votes)
Harley
21% (14 votes)
vinteuil
15% (10 votes)
BlaiseP
12% (8 votes)
Punditus Maximus
10% (7 votes)
stillnotking
10% (7 votes)
hobbesist
10% (7 votes)
Bird Dog
9% (6 votes)
Sulla
7% (5 votes)
elagabalus
3% (2 votes)
Mickey Love
3% (2 votes)
Steve Malynn
3% (2 votes)
soothsayer
1% (1 vote)
brendanm98
1% (1 vote)
Total voters: 68
hmm, I wonder if there's any back-room dealing goin' on. If so, I wonder what you guys could be offering one another. 2 years of automatic diary votes? Some quantity of beers at a local pub? I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface.
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)Is it too late for me to tack to the center?
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| parent ).
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| parent )...God, it's like a kiss of death so I don't want to endorse anyone...but this is a very decent line-up and I would be unhappy to see any of the 4(!) winners, each a winner in their own right, leave the field of play...
So there's a quadmopoly....(?)
Best Wishes, (leave everything alone)
Traveller
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| parent )I was hoping for a bigger tie so we could have had one of those Sexoinkas, but 4 is just fine by me. Congrats to our 4 new fearless leaders! I bow before you.
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| parent )Nobody likes to be suspended by a horse's ass.
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| parent )...Everyone is certain they have been.
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| parent )Hank--did we actually ever come up with a solution for dealing with a tie for one or more of the spots on the troika? Coin flips, d12s, pistols at dawn. . .what's the procedure?
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)you forget that I'm the last one to vote before I freeze it, so I'll make sure that there aren't any ties.
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| parent ).
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| parent )a nifty solution. We'll just rename the troika the 'Quoika' (if it accidentally has four members), the 'Quinka' (with five), then Sexoika, Septoika, and so on.
Thus we'll take an embarrassing flaw in our policy, and rather than fix the flaw, we'll simply change the label until it looks like something we planned all along. Who wouldn't want to be part of a Sexoika? :)
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| parent )Who wouldn't want to be part of a Sexoika?
Actually, based on some of the recent comments re: stuffed animals, I wouldn't be surprised if some of you would like to be part of a sexoinka.
I'm sure Ned Beatty won't go on any backwoods river rafting trips if you guys are hangin' out there (no pun intended).
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| parent )....ready for a career in politics!
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| parent )The standard Study-the-Problem rhetoric we've come to know and love from the politicos.
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| parent )Unless the Forvm suffers a major plane crash, I've got another six months of leisure coming.
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| parent )but I'm gonna have to change my vote if he looks like displacing Tomsyl or Jordan.
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| parent )...I foresee a flurry of vote changing tonight and tomorrow, as people counter this surge or that candidate's new found strength and balance this out against other interests.
Gonna be Fun!
Traveller
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| parent )that puts both Tomsyl and MScott on the steering commitee along with Jordan that's OK by me, any other combination of two conservatives I would be much less sanguine about.
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| parent )what matters is how interventionalist the mod is. Scott and I agreed on just about every action as mods, but I didn't agree with a lot of MA's actions, even though politically MA and I are far closer that Scott and I are. It's really not a political or ideological thing as those terms are generally understood.
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| parent )Just my impression that the others would be more interventionist than MScott.
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| parent )who said he would be explicitly interventionalist was Sulla, and I voted for him. I thought it would be interesting to see how that would shake out. My biggest worry is that things get too boring and predictable around here. After all, it's just an obscure web site. Where better to experiment without consequences?
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| parent )I just kinda like it the way it is.
Looking at the rest of the blogosphere this place is quite unique and while it's not everyone's cup of tea and it can get boring and predictable at times, there isn't anywhere else that I care to comment much at all. Just wait until there's a democrat in the WH and democratic majorities in both Senate and House. The conservatives will be back, once freed from the crippling responsibility of defending the performance of their own kind, and bearing the inevitable outrages aplenty.
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| parent )They've been quite sheepish and retired ever since the efforts of their brethren in power started stinking up the place. Hence the call for affirmative action to prod them into being more active, no?
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| parent )How could anyone possibly say that about me? Without my broad paint-by-numbers strokes there would be no detail to fill in by nitpickers.
Seriously, on the conservative side BD in particular puts tremendous efforts into his diaries here, all of which provoke tons of responses. As the Dems keep pointing so confidently to the election outcome like Babe Ruth pointing to the bleachers in center field, there's plenty of fun to be had asking them to defend their man.
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| parent )but he seems to be the exception proving the rule as far as constructive conservative commentary on the Messinpotamia goes. Updates on the disposition of Saddam's WMD via the New York Post excepted of course, heh.
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| parent )yellowcake is not a WMD fyi.
Why should I try to shoot something out in the time available when I know BD will do a far better job? I'd rather whip on Algore's latest numbnuttiness.
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| parent )MMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm yelllllooooowww caaaaake [drooling sound].
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| parent )is your niche market Tomsyl and you do it so well and with such vigor and enthusiasm I get the impression it fair drains your productive juices to the detriment of other fields of inquiry where your skills could be more productively employed. You live in the Islands, what's the skinny on Obama's birth certificate? is the kid an alien or not?
My advice for conservatives, stay away Yellowcake it burns the fingers.
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| parent )based on a BBC interview after Gore and IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri jointly won the Nobel Prize. The gem actually comes from Pachauri, who made this astounding statement in direct contradiction to everything the IPCC has done in teh last ten years: " - sorry, you'll have to wait till I finish the diary. %^>
Actually, goring the guy is just a small percentage of my output, but it does seem to bring out the best in his fans.
On the Obama birth certificate, if your question is serious I'll be happy to check into it. Obama's DOB is bracketed by mine and my son's, and I have a number of birth certificates lying around (in various names, of course). The link you posted looks like someone trying to pull another Rather, but there is quite a bit of tech info in there. hard to believe this would have escaped the media if there is any there there.
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| parent )From your lips to neo-con ears. More loudly, please!
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| parent )I do think that it's good to have at least one representative from each the two "sides" on the troika at all times, just for comfort reasons--but IMO we've had a good run with moderators, with political outlook not playing much of a role at all.
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| parent )... didn't vote for Scott, then he could be put into a tie for first just like that.
Whether (like me) you think he'd be a good mod, or you just want to smack that damned smirk off his face--change your vote now!
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| parent )But the beauty of it is that they can't be sure that I'm not pulling reverse psychology on them--so voting me on might be *exactly* what I want. Or I could be using double reverse psychology, and counting on the suspicion of the voters that I'm using reverse psychology on them to make sure I'm not voted in. Or--
[protons gradually decay as more convoluted double, triple, and quadruple cross scenarios are described in mind-numbing detail]
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| parent )Incidentally one of those "no Xbox time for Eiland" votes is from me. You're welcome. :)
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| parent )as in Hubert Horatio Humphrey's famous drug addiction that led to his New Hampshire downfall.
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| parent )That smirk don't lie.
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| parent )- Login or register to post comments
| parent )... to those poor, deluded souls who've cast a vote on my behalf that they vote instead, if they haven't already, for vinteuil, Scott and/or Sulla.
Thanks for your time.
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)If elected, I will totally neglect my duties.
In particular, I will ignore most, if not all, threads having anything whatsoever to do with the "war" in Iraq, or the approaching presidential election.
I mean, feh. Or bleah. Or some such thing.
And I will require K. to post semi-pornographic diaries with greater regularity.
Best to all, and rah! rah! rah!
V.
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)...who have taken my point.
For those others still voting for me, I would *strongly* suggest that you switch to M. Scott Eiland, Esq. - &/or, if you're feeling adventurous, Bernard Guerrerro.
'Cause I think Catchy is right in thinking that a majority conservative troika, for the next little while, would be good for the site.
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| parent )Though I believe I know where catchy's coming from, I don't think there should be any intentional effort to tilt the balance of the troika one-way or the other.
As usual, I can only speak for myself, but the behavior that annoys me the most simply isn't against the posting rules*. Therefore, changing the ideological tilt of the ruling committee isn't going to alleviate or alter much of anything.
To me, it's like suggesting that adding a teetotaler to AA meetings will make a difference. If the community, as expressed by a silent majority or a vocal minority, wants the site to remain as it is, then that's how it's going to be regardless of the makeup of the troika.
Further, an artifice of balance on the troika contrary to the actual balance of the commentariot will likely backfire, because it will only incite the sort of meta squabbles that go on whenever the rules are enforced.
Apologies, because I appreciate the thought behind the idea, but I can't recommend it.
*Well, strictly speaking, it is, but 'reasonably civil' is an eye in the beholder thing.
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| parent )...I love that phrase.
And nobody does "meta squabbles" like The Forvm!
It's all part of the magic, here.
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| parent )and promoting good manners, but there needs to be a price paid for the continued level of unabashed lying and if that means posting on the forvm gets a little shriller, then no biggie in the overall scheme of things when compared with the alternative.
Thanks by the way, for your principled rejection of affirmative action for conservatives in the matter of the forvm elections. I mean that.
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| parent )Which is what, exactly? What could go on here that would be so dag-gone important that it would justify the shrill, self-righteous 'truth-telling' to which Mac refers? (And which, I hasten to add, I'm not accusing anyone around these parts of indulging in!)
And "there needs to be a price paid"? ... Gimme a break, man.
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| parent )not talking about such things in the polite society Mac envisages.
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| parent )... I'm pretty sure that's not the society that Mac envisages.
But whatever.
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| parent )[sigh]
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| parent )...I would also add that I think it was Hank that said the real question was interventionist or not on the board...I believe that he was correct in this insightful analysis.
While we are speaking our last minute minds...I prefer V over Scott because I think Scott would be VERY interventionist...finding a pack and bushel of violations.
I could be wrong on this...just my sense of the the people involved....but what the hell, anyone can handle 30 days...lol
Traveller
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| parent )Scott and I served at the same time, usually just a "address the comment and not the commenter" was all that was required. We drew the line at personal insults, and in a non-paying part time position like moderator I think that's all one can really do.
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| parent )Whether elected or not.
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| parent )Chorus mysticus.
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| parent )It's been in near-constant use in regional elections since 1977, when a friend and I conducted a guerilla campaign (meaning the candidate himself didn't know he was running) for student council on behalf of a hapless classmate. He was indifferent to the outcome and terminally incompetent, and lost by a landslide. It's been a political rabbit's foot for me ever since.
EDIT: Strange, very strange - the sigs all are suddenly missing. Hmmm.
It takes a pig to root out a truffle.
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| parent )because I was just thinking that I don't remember seeing you take a position on the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or maybe I missed it.
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| parent )I may be the only guy left on the face of the earth who still thinks that whether or not to invade Iraq was a tough call, morally speaking.
And Afghanistan, too - for all the same reasons.
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| parent )I don't think there's much of a moral issue at all. A bad, grossly repressive regime was threatening the world and the world's well rid of it.
It's all the sticky matter of when and how and with whom and then what...that's the problem. Like for example, how do you ensure another grossly repressive regime doesn't pop into its place...at great cost to us?
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| parent )Get with the program, man.
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| parent )....That's My Vote For Him....and a damned fine fellow he is too. But let's face it, that's a wasted vote....time to shift a vote or two methinks.
Taking Bids....one nice thing about Forvm Votes, you can sell them....the striking question is, For How Much?
Just what is a Forvm Vote worth?
I'd list it on e-bay but I don't have an e-bay account and I haven't a clue to work e-bay....but that is an idea to take up if....
....I don't get a decent, (or at least interesting), bid from this closed set of interested parties, being the candidates and their more Fervent supporters.
So there you have it, One Vote is on the block...
And the opening Bid is?
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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| parent )OK...OK...OK, If elected, I promise at least one Thracian slave per household, how's that?! Psssst, I can also arrange, for my special Forvm™ Friends, a little soiree with the "Vestals" at my pleasure palace!
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| parent )Those were the days. My notes to myself confirm it.
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| parent )Ah, good tune. From the One-hit Wonders file.
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| parent ). . .a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fanfiction story with the two featured characters of your choice if you promise *not* to vote for me, Traveller. Of course, that might not be your favored coin of the realm, but I have won an award or two for the durned things, so there is some perceived value for them out there. Nevertheless, that is my offer and I'm sticking by it. :-)
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| parent )...on E-Bay for something like that.
Of course, Tom, "Mr. syl," will probably steal our proceeds...so what's the point? He's like that totally evil Joker floating around at the moment...fie on him!
But Buffy Fanfic sounds damned tasty to me.
We have a WINRAR.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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| parent )Promise. I'll give you your proceeds within ten days.
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| parent )Traveller
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| parent )Note to HankP: thought we agreed to let this thingy run through Mon. night since a lto of folk seem to take the weekend off.
Note to the rest of the community: suck it up and get 2 conservatives in there! It's time. Nuthin on wags or jordan who are currently in the top 3. Jordan I already know makes an excellent mod, and wags I have every reason to think would.
But w. vint. in 4th, BG in 6th + Sulla in 7th, surely people who feel similarly could get one of these guys into the top 3.
Wags + Jordan are both young, fresh, + spritely and could do a term later on.
It's just silly to have the mods permanently lopsided towards the left at a site like this.
That's my peace. Havin fun watchin this thing go down!
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)OK, I'll change it to Monday or I'm sure you'll find some way to prove to me that I don't actually exist.
As for the rest, I love to see affirmative action for conservatives.
In all seriousness, my experience as mod was that the big issues between mods was interventionalist vs. non-interventionlist, not liberal vs. conservative.
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| parent )I love to see affirmative action for conservatives
My personal favorites (from the standpoint of irony and hypocrisy) were Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor.
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| parent )that is to say, affirmative action for AND BY conservatives.
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| parent )you can edit comments until someone posts a reply to it.
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| parent )thanks for the tip
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| parent )the 'big issues between mods' was who technically lost their virginity first.
i'll just say, for the last time + in public to tomsyl, 'technically' losing your virginity to a stuffed animal makes no sense whatsoever.
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| parent )Well. Mad props.
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| parent )as to who's mad ...
well, look inside yourself
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| parent )what exactly is the whale doing to that star?!
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| parent )crossing celestial boundaries is the name of the game.
See those twinkles in her eyes?
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| parent )not enough to respectfully refer to me as a plushophile.
and FTR, I would never defile the stuffed animal kingdom.
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| parent )The activity or desire itself is no longer classified as a pathology under DSM-IV (TR) (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association)
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| parent )I could focus more fully on caressing stuffed animals.
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| parent )they just accumulate as you get older, you'll see. But then, so does the ability to build your collection of velveteen companions.
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| parent )for a thread about sex with stuffed animals.
maybe you should've held back for another time.
... something tells me you also didn't save yourself for the opposite sex ...
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| parent )that the threads played, you insert a little zinger.
I'm afraid something would be wrong. I'm about as boringly straight as they come.
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| parent )not just the animal kingdom.
And personally I only hang w. straight plushies -- queer plushy promiscuity + meth parties really turn me off.
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| parent )everything eventually devolves into a definitions game, doesn't it? I think someday someone will discover that English is a terrible language for discussing anything other than game shows and bureaucratic infighting.
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| parent )You guys have bigger problems. That stuffed animal is wearing a diaper.
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| parent )Those safety pins come right off.
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| parent )Oh man, that's bad. You are one sick (stuffed) puppy. I'm calling the ASPVUSA (American Society for the Prevention of Violation of Underaged Stuffed Animals).
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| parent )episodes. Grissom, by the way, is a massive perv.
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| parent )and all the issues we've explored together
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJIr_XVkRpE
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| parent )Bewitching.
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| parent )perchance you had one of these growing up?
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| parent ).
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| parent )...says the guy who gets a discount at his local brothel for self-service.
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| parent )How do I get this dohickey to give me all three of my votes?
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)and then click on the vote button. If you think it didn't register properly, or if you want to re-vote, just click the button that says "Cancel your vote" and vote again. I set it up to not display who voted for whom, because I didn't want any purges or retribution after the fact :)
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| parent )If I can figure it out, so can Bernard, so don't help him.
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| parent )I appreciate you guys identifying yourselves, it saves a lot of effort on my part.
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| parent )Note to self:
Cross "dohickey" off list of possible system password hacks.
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| parent )Hank (and anyone else who knows who's voting and who isn't),
FYI, I'm not voting in deference to others with sufficient tenure here, so to speak, not out of indifference.
So to recap, that's yes to deference, no to indifference.
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)don't worry, it won't make any deference at all.
Seriously, there's no standards here and you're just as entitled to vote as anyone else.
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| parent )I'm concerned about people claiming that their votes count.
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| parent )trying to hold on to power with your Maoist death grip. I can see you guys quietly drinking in a darkened room, bitterly reminiscing about when you held power.
Unless, of course, you get re-elected, in which case you're the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
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| parent )**runs around in face-paint screaming the lyrics to "I'm Free"**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lfFOa1OlcY
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| parent )on the cover of Who's Next. Yet another treasured moment turns out to be myth.
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| parent )...fun stuff when you look backwards like that.
Best Wishes,
Traveller
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| parent )gets a vote. No seniority. No minimum word count on posts & comments (else Timmy would be ineligible). :)
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| parent )ok guys, thanks. I'll vote, with apologies to all for being a relatively ignorant voter (not knowing the candidates well). I'm going to vote because at this point I think I'm irritating some of you by arguing why I shouldn't vote, and because Hank made a good, corny, quasi-pun* ("deference").
* Is there a word for a joke involving two words that sound similar?
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| parent )The Polish Fighter Pilot Joke
Polish Fighter Pilot: Well we were flying at 20,000 feet when we spotted five Fokkers flying along below us. So we dived down and I aimed at one of the Fokkers and fired a burst from my machine guns right into him and he exploded. Then I saw that one of the Fokkers was on my tail, so I pulled round in a loop and got behind him, and fired and he went down on fire. I looked around and saw two Fokkers attacking my squadron leader, so slipped in behind them, and fired, and that was another Fokker going down in flames. The other Fokker tried to get away from me, but I got right up behind him, and blasted him with my machine guns and turned over and exploded. There was only one of the Fokkers left now, and he was trying to get away, but I flew up behind him, shot - bang, bang, bang - and he blew up too!
Interviewer: I should point out for the benefit of the viewers at home, that the Fokker was a type of German aircraft used in the war.
Polish Fighter Pilot: No, no, no - these fokkers were Messerschmitts!
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| parent )Which puts me in mind of the character Ben Stiller plays in Meet The Parents. Not a great film, but it has its little sparks of genius. It doesn't help with the he-man crowd of his new in-laws that his profession is "male nurse." But his name. The poor guy never had a chance.
Gaylord "Greg" Focker.
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| parent )By the way, is erectile dysfunction a malapriapism?
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| parent )- Login or register to post comments
| parent )-
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| parent )thanks Thesaurvs.
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| parent )....new blood 'n all that stuff.
It's a shame you took yourself out of the race, you would have made a hell of a moderator, (modesty notwithstanding)
However, now get yourself out there and Vote!!!!
Early and Often, as the saying goes.
Do it.
Best Wishes, Traveller
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| parent )thanks. I appreciate the compliment.
But I'll leave the voting up to folks who I think have earned the privilege and who are better-informed on the candidates and on Forvm generally.
But based on your comment, I'm going to suggest to my girlfriend this weekend that she let me be moderator of our relationship, including, but not limited to, all our discussions, including arguments. Her reaction may be such that I'll become Forvm's first non-male participant.
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| parent )What, are you guys crazy?
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)Yeah that's right, it was my nomination. You've been spending a lot of time around here, I thought maybe,
**cue "wistful sunset" movie music**
maybe you could be persuaded to take up the badge once again. Guess I was wrong. Guess we were all wrong.
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| parent ).....that Harley passed him on a horse, in the middle of a snowstorm in Hollywood. He was carrying one of Hank's shirts, which from a distance looked like a bag of doo-doo lit on fire. He was going forward to prepare the way.
Then Mac woke up. Thank goodness!
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| parent )looked like a bag of doo-doo."
The obvious question being, what does distance have to do with it? :D
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| parent )I approve this dream.
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| parent )someday you'll dress for yourself and not others.
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| parent )I'm glad you said that, because I wanted to write earlier that I think it's great that you wear what you want to wear (i.e., not what is considered "normal", nor what is "fashionable", etc.), but I thought you might consider that a back-handed compliment, which it isn't.
Here's to you, Hank!
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| parent )-o-0-o-
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| parent )LOL, great corny script writing.
But then, we always knew you had it in ya'. We sure are prouda ya'. Best darn thing ta' ever come outa this lousy, god-forsaken place. You go on, now. Keep goin' and don't look back. But wherever ya' go, remember where ya' come from. Cuz part of us will always be parta you. And ah don