Tuesday Open Thread

Filed in National by on April 20, 2010

It’s time again for our daily weekday ritual, the open thread. I hope you have plenty to talk about.

The perception of the U.S. in world has risen sharply again, for the second year in a row:

For the first time since the annual poll began in 2005, America’s influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative.

The improved scores for the US coincided with Barack Obama becoming president, a BBC correspondent notes.

“People around the world today view the United States more positively than at any time since the second Iraq war,” said Doug Miller, chairman of international polling firm GlobeScan, which carried out the poll with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (Pipa) at the University of Maryland.

“While still well below that of countries like Germany and the UK, the global standing of the US is clearly on the rise again.”

The increased standing in the world has already led to some foreign policy breakthroughs like the new START treaty with Russia and with agreements with Ukraine and Canada to transfer their highly-enriched uranium to the U.S. There’s also been progress with Russia on the issue of Iran sanctions.

This is just so hilarious, I don’t know why people would take this the wrong way:

Therefore, we must repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes, the one granting suffrage to women. Because? Well, women are biased.

Just look at the poll results in today’s newspaper.

Men favored the attractive former beauty queen Sue Lowden over the graying Harry Reid by 22 points, while women shunned their gender mate, choosing Reid by a 2-point margin. Which proves women favor Democrats.

Obviously, because what men think is automatically correct, logical and unbiased and if you disagree it’s because you’re illogical and driven by emotion.

Of course, when called on his column, Thomas Mitchell said he was just kidding can’t you women take a joke?

I baited the hook and dropped it in the water. It was swallowed hook, line and sinker, rod and reel, up to the elbow, in a piranha-like feeding frenzy.

All I did was pen a bit of light extemporanea for this blog on the statistically demonstrable differences between the sexes when it comes to matters political. OK, I might’ve thrown a little chum in the water by flippantly suggesting the repeal of the 19th Amendment, the one granting suffrage to women. It was just a bit of free hyperbole.

The reaction was painfully predictable, swift and voluble. With a boarding house reach, umbrage was taken.

They bit on the Larry Summers lure.

Mitchell just proves there’s at least three things conservative writers don’t do well: logic, humor or satire.

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (11)

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  1. Rebecca says:

    Never having had their right to vote in question, white males have absolutely no sensitivity on this issue. It isn’t funny, not even a little bit. The right to vote is the basic right of every citizen and women have only had that right for 89 years. For the first 143 years of the United States we weren’t considered citizens. Try waking up tomorrow morning and imagining that you are the chattel of your wife or mother and see how funny you think this is. What an anus!

  2. cassandra_m says:

    Today is 4/20 — a day pot legalization activists commemorate with a little civil disobedience lighting up their drug of choice in a public place. In Oakland, CA, though — 4/20 is starting to live pretty large:

    Several hundred revelers lined up outside the 15,000-square-foot shop — security guards kept them at bay until 4:20 p.m. — waiting for the chance to revel in their drug of choice’s rising commercial clout. Inside the gates, they perused booths stocked with pipe-shaped lollipops and specialty fertilizers, entered a medical marijuana delivery service’s raffle for an oversized joint and toured a 53-foot-long portable grow room with a starting price of $60,000.

    This was all at a new place in Oakland called IGrow — where you can get everything you need to get your smoke on.

  3. xstryker says:

    More Republican attempts to prevent us from keeping the foxes out of the henhouses:
    “Given their track record, giving these regulators more power will provide the markets with a false sense of security, while hampering the free market,” said Rep. Scott Garrett, R.-N.J.

    Imagine if they said that after 9/11? “Given their track record, giving the FBI more power will provide Americans with a false sense of security, while hampering free speech.” And, actually, they’d almost be correct – except that doing nothing still wouldn’t be the right answer. If Republicans treated national security the way they treat economic security, they’d be arguing that keeping terrorists off airplanes is too expensive and hurts the airline industry.

  4. Another Mike says:

    I flipped to the AM dial while driving around on my lunch break and heard Rick Jensen, broadcasting from Dover, tease something Nancy Cook said, suggested or did. Before he got to the story, which he is probably discussing now, I had to return to work. It had something to do with open government and the JFC. Can anyone fill me in on what I missed? Thanks.

  5. anonone says:

    “Nuke Their Ass Take Their Gas.”

    A true teabagger runs for Congress. Too funny.

    http://www.harleydbrownforcongress.org/index.html

  6. delacrat says:

    Harley kinda looks like Elmer Fudd.

  7. Another Mike says:

    The camouflage is a nice touch. Wonder which 10% of government spending he finds constitutional. Probably the percentage that would pay his salary and health benefits, fund the “Mighty War Department” and prosecute the “queens” in the Marines.

  8. ek says:

    Harley looks like he got his web design done by the Onion.

  9. Joanne Christian says:

    Well ain’t this karma–Obama boots Greg Craig, as WH counsel over the whole Guantanomo closure piece, for Craig to now sign on as counsel for Goldman Sachs–talk about the devil you know…..

    This should be real good.

  10. anon says:

    From the good-news-bad-news file: looks like we are stuck with Harry Reid.

  11. John Young says:

    it is School Board member election time….. 5/11/2010……