response 176 of 406:

Oct 4 17:09 UTC 2000

I had the impression that Bush had instructions for several "witty" 
retorts, which he was supposed to try to fit in somewhere. They didn't all
fit. 

I rather agree with jep's characterization of the debate in #167. 

One aspect of this debate (and I expect of the coming ones) is the
emphasis on "my plan". It seems to be a debate between plans, rather than
between leaders. But plans should be developed upon the circumstances
being addressed. Neither can promise their specific plans will be adopted,
and indeed they can't even promise that they will still want the specifics
of their current plans adopted, if they are elected. 

While I support Gore over Bush, primarily on matters of individual
freedoms (separation of church and state, "choice", rights of gays, etc)
and the environment (energy policies, protection of special places, etc),
I hated it that Gore was shaking his head and smirking while Bush was
speaking.

response 178 of 406:

Oct 4 18:46 UTC 2000

#176> I read the transcript rather than seeing the televised debate, and even
in the transcript, both of them come off as bratty kids trying to out-scream
the other about how wrong they are. At one point late on, Gore
non-sequitorially comments on not responding to Bush's character attacks, for
instance, having already so commented when it was relevant to do so. And
Lehrer kept having to shut them both up.

It boggled me, reading the transcript, that if they both came off THAT
juvenile in print, they must have come off that much more so in action.

I will continue to say it: Lehrer won the debate.

response 180 of 406:

Oct 4 22:24 UTC 2000

Lehrer did say this much:
LEHRER: One quick thing, gentlemen. These are your rules. I'm doing my best.
We're way over the three-and-a-half. I have no problems with it, but we
wanted--do you want to have a quick response, and we'll move on. We're already
almost five minutes on this, alright? 
  
Of course, that was in response to BUSH interrupting him, but apparently only
Gore was goind the interrupting.

And speaking of unintentionally lying by not doing one's research, Gore didn't
say that at all. He said that the Russians have not recognized Kostunica
(Milosevic's opponent, and the putative winner of the election):

Now, I understand what the governor has said about asking the Russians to be
involved. And under some circumstances, that might be a good idea. But being
as they have not yet been willing to recognize Kostunica as the lawful winner
of the election, I'm not sure that it's right for us to invite the president
of Russia to mediate this dispute there, because we might not like the result
that comes out of that. 

(both of these clips are from the same Washington Post transcript I posted
the link for earlier)

response 182 of 406:

Oct 5 02:04 UTC 2000

I still think W is too squinty eyed, and I hadn't noticed before how
much Al-the-pal looks like Gore Vidal.  Is Al gay?  (Distant father,
mother still singing lulabyes to him when he was 27...)

response 184 of 406:

Oct 5 12:44 UTC 2000

hey, c'mon, both of them had their lips moving and you know what that means.

my pal al is 10 points over the shrub in the latest nbc/zogby poll.  i guess
it's a matter of -i don't care what you say as long as you spell my name
correctly-

response 186 of 406:

Oct 5 19:41 UTC 2000

  How many people would actually be scandalized if Gore did, in fact, have
  an informant in the Bush camp?  After Nixon I think it'd take an actual
  felony burglary to scandalize voters when it came to spying on the
  competition..

response 188 of 406:

Oct 5 21:04 UTC 2000

  I don't think having a mole in your opponent's campaign would be grounds
  for impeachment.  If you obstructed justice in an attempt to conceal your
  "dirty tricks" that'd be another matter..

  Note that I'm not arguing that it's OK to win a political race by spying
  on your opponent.  What I'm saying is that at this point, much of the
  electorate are so cynical about the candidates (justifiably or not) that
  revelations that either campaign had infiltrated their opponent's campaign
  would not be sufficiently shocking to scandalize the public.

response 190 of 406:

Oct 6 20:46 UTC 2000

> Look at _Unsafe at any Speed_, its a auto design that is the same as the VW
> and had been used for 40 or so years after WW-II - the VW is in fact far
> more 'deadly'.

--> It's been a while since I read "Unsafe at Any Speed," but as I recall it
was about more than the Corvair.

It's also true that the basic suspension design was very similar to the
VW's, and the VW's has a somewhat similar tendancy to result in a smaller
contact patch under heavy cornering.  The VW wasn't pitched as a sports car
or driven hard, however.  It also had a less dramatically skewed weight
distribution, so it didn't have as serious a tendancy to swap ends.

The Corvair supposedly was pretty safe if you followed the recommended tire
pressures.  What a lot of people failed to notice was that GM had specified
*different* pressures in the rear tires than the front ones.  This was an
attempt to make the rear end "stick" better and mollify the oversteering
tendancy somewhat.  If you mistakenly put the same pressure in all four
tires it got much more treacherous.  Modern rear-engine sports cars (the
Porsche 911) generally accomplish this by putting wider, grippier tires on
the rear.  Early 911's also had a serious tendancy to try to swap ends if
you lifted suddenly off the throttle in a corner, incidentally.

The Corvair had other problems as well, such as a non-collapsable steering
column attached to a steering box that sat in an essentially unprotected
location, thus ensuring you'd get skewered in any major front-end collision. 
It's these kinds of design problems that Nader really attacked in his book
-- solid steering columns, sharp-edged metal dashes, and protruding knobs
that caused unnecessary deaths.  There was a big 'style over safety'
tendancy in the cars of the day.

response 192 of 406:

Oct 7 06:31 UTC 2000

The beetle was a great design in many ways, but definitely not for crash
protection.  'Course, when the beetle was designed, seat belts were
quite uncommon and bumpers were mainly there for decoration.  Also, dash
boards were still flat panels with knobs and dials on them - the whole
idea of a shelf above the dash, or producing knobs and sharp metal edges
for styling was still in the future.  More importantly in terms of
"Unsafe at any speed", the original beetle was *way* underpowered by
contemporary standards, so it wouldn't have been *possible* to drive it
anywhere near as hard as a sports car.  Later beetles got better
engines, but it was certainly never in the league of the corvair or 911.

response 194 of 406:

Oct 13 07:42 UTC 2000

http://www.examiner.com/001012/1012morse.html

response 196 of 406:

Oct 16 14:16 UTC 2000

It's not a weird election, it's a pathetic election.

Yeah, the 2nd debate was rather strange.  Bush certainly got the most laughts
from the crowd, which usually gets associated with "winning".  Gore needs to
get his act together for the 3rd, since he should be much better on the facts
than Bush.

response 198 of 406:

Oct 16 16:20 UTC 2000

It shouldn't be about who gets more laughs.

It seems like the Republicans have chosen to attack Gore on the issue of
truth: Because Gore is actually willing to answer questions, rather than
evading them (I'm not saying I *did* coke, and I'm not saying I *didn't,* all
I'm saying is that I would pass an FBI inquiry on drug use; I won't respond
to accusations that Texas is 49th in education and 50th in the environment,
I'll just call you a liar liar pants on fire.), and because he's been in
politics for some 25 years (rather than, oh, five or so), there are lots of
sound bites where he can be made to look like a liar and a hypocrite.

Hence we're in the situation we're in: Elect somebody who evades issues and
has an inadequate political record (that applies to Nader, too), or elect
somebody with so much history in politics that he's forgotten what truth is.

Pathetic choices. I'm still voting for Gore because I think that Bush will
be a heinous error, but as the days wither on, I'm not sure that Gore won't
be one, too.

And this is why the mudslinging that both candidates are doing is ultimately
bad for the entire system. Rather than treating each other with respect, and
playing up voter confidence should EITHER man win, they're creating a climate
in which both men look like total fuck-ups. I'm really not sure the choices
are any worse than they were 50 or 100 years ago, and I'm really not sure that
in the long run either one will really do that bad (or good) a job. But the
way they've painted each other is just abhominable (or, in Bush's case,
abbominabable).