Rob, can we see your boobies? Please? Pretty-please?

John Kerry will be the better choice in the GQ men's swimsuit competition. He will bring back honor and respect to the foo-floo-flah-flum-Rob, please renew you Rolling Stone subscription so I can continue ripping it off from your mailbox downstairs. GOD, YOU LOOK LIKE A CIRCUS CLOWN!!

Seriously, if I want to laugh, I'd sneak into my dad's dental practice and turn on the gas.

Rob- its one thing to endorse John Kerry, but please do not call him a "devout Catholic". You cannot consider yourself Catholic if you give material cooperation to abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, or homosexual "marriage". Your comment is a slap in the face to those in the Church who sincerely and devoutly practice Catholicism.

Mark, because Catholics (and people of other religions) are too weak to follow their own rules they must shove these rules down everyone else's throats??? Wake up!

This is as bad as "Spin Alley." "He created a system of disproportionate taxation that transfers wealth out of the hands of working- and middle-class Americans and into the hands of the rich." How is this possible, the wealthy pay nearly 80% of taxes under Bush's plan??? Most of these people are small-business owners where more than 70% of the jobs are currently coming from each month. Also, Bush is not oppposed to stem cell research, get the facts.

Well said Rob...ignore the haters. The ignorant and retarded may still be supporting their Pretendident, but the rest of us know the answer. KERRY WILL WIN AND GODDAMN IT WILL FEEL GOOD!

To Mark Baumgartner:

Who made you the arbiter of what makes one a "devout Catholic"? What gives Catholics the right to force their religious convictions down the throats of all Americans?

Just because the Pope says something is right doesn't make it so. Despite the doctrine of papal infallibility, there are several popes who have been among the worst human rights abusers in world history, including most popes of the last millenium. Why should non-Catholics accept any kind of moral authority derived from the Catholic Church when the Church has been involved in genocide, pedophilia, and oppression of women?

In defense of Mark:

The arbiter of a good Catholic is God, of course. But He has given us one single source of dogma, which is the deposit of faith "delivered once and for all to the saints." The dogma has been preserved in its written form in the Scriptures (canonized with the authority of the Catholic Church in a series or ecumenical councils spanning the latter half of the fourth century) and in oral form by the Catholic Church. If Christ said that we are to judge a tree by its fruit, then I judge the fruit of John Kerry and all politicians of his ilk dead. If the level of our committment to the rights of the weakest in our society is the measure of out moral courage, then John Kerry lacks moral courage.

I shudder at a theological conversation in this forum with people confusing the dogma of papal infallibilty with the notion of impeccability (sinlessness). The truth is that the pro-life stance is not something peculiar to the Catholic Church as a matter of revealed doctrine, but the Church is in a special position to speak out on matters of common morality. Abortion and embryonic stem cell research do not, per se, violate Christian Revelation, but they do violate the NATURAL dignity of every human person, which can be apprehended APART from any religious tradition.

I will never accept the moral authority of a secularist. "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." The track record of secularism is abysmal. Over two-hundred million murdered. Now, religious folks have done wrong in the past, but historical estimates place it far below the evils done by the Socialist and Nationalist in places like France in the 1800s, the atheistic Communist regimes of Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, etc.; and the neo-pagan Nazis and Fascists, who by the way were Socialists as well and favored huge governments.

And the proportion of priests implicated in the homosexual scandal in the Church today is less than the proportion of men in society at large who are sexual predators. Priests are less likely then any other men in the world to commit sexual crimes. Oh, and women cannot be ordained so they must be oppressed by the Church. Then why is the summit of all creaturely perfection the Blessed Virgin Mary, venerated through all the history of Christianity as full of grace and perfectly holy. I can name some great Catholic reformers like Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Therese of Liseaux, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Blessed Mother Theresa, etc. The list goes on. What matters in the Church is not whether you have the power or authority to confect the Eucharist or give sacramental Absolution. What matters is whether or not you are abiding the universal call to holiness.

I hope no one is suggesting that Pope Pius XII was one of those great abusers of human rights last century because, Pope Pius XII, unlike the lies propogated as truth, was exceeded only by the Allied armies in saving Jewish lives in WWII. Pius XII was praised by Jews around the world for his heroics including Albert Einstein, Golda Meyer, and the Chief Rabbi of Rome (who actually converted to Catholicism after the war). When Pius XII died, Israel, in gratitude to his courage, seriously considered dedicating a forest in his name.

I don't know where the 80% number on taxes. Out of your ass? Documentation, please?

And you're right--Bush is simply opposed to effective stem cell research.

http://www.whatiam.net/

A True American.

"KERRY WILL WIN AND GODDAMN IT WILL FEEL GOOD!"

Kid, Kerry isn't gonna be any better than Bush, I'll tell you right now. We can only hope that, if he wins, he won't be any worse. As far as foreign policy goes, he's every bit the warmonger that Bush is. As for domestic economic policy, he honestly doesn't have a proven track record. You're only voting for him to get rid of Bush, which is the only reason I'm voting for him. Sorry to pop your bubble, but you appear to be dreaming.

The Kerry campaign asked the local Catholic priest to mention in his homily that John Kerry is a saint.

The priest, a devout Catholic, began his homily by saying, "John Kerry is a crook. John Kerry is a liar. John Kerry is a fraud. John Kerry is an adulterer. John Kerry is one of the worst Catholics I have ever met. But compared to Ted Kennedy, he's a saint!"

Which local priest and parish?
But that is a funny joke, who told it you? Because I doubt you had the creativity to think it up on your own.

These are numbers from the govt. in regards to percentages of taxes paid:
Top 1% pay 33.9%
Top 10% pay 53.3%
Top 25% pay 82.9%

Bush is NOT "tranfering wealth out of the hands of working- and middle-class Americans and into the hands of the rich!" This is TOTAL spin, worse than CNN's Crossfire "debates." Did you know that Kerry spent less than the average middle-class citizen in taxes!!! His own tax rate was 12.5%! What a crook.

Kerry is not Catholic - he merely panders to certain constituencies when it's convenient. If he's Catholic, he's a hollow Catholic.

I make sure never to let my personal beliefs impact policy or others? That's not a person who's strong in faith, that's called having no conviction. Kerry plays right into the GOP flip flop stereotype all to often.

Well it's good people still think they can judge a man's faith or religion. Why don't you leave that up to God?
I'm sure no one posting on this board can accurately judge whether he is a "real" or "hollow" catholic.
What about Bush if he is so Christian how can he think its OK to bomb and kill innocent Iraqis? I am pretty sure his role model Jesus would not do that.
Or hey who gives a rat's ass whether they are good christians or not. We aren't electing a fucking pope.

Kerry is Catholic and his wife is Jewish? Gosh, how did those two ever meet?!

"Well said Rob...ignore the haters. The ignorant and retarded may still be supporting their Pretendident"

"Hell" said Rob...implore the waiters. The impotent and departed may still be brushing with Pepsodent.

A vote for Kerry is a vote for Bin Laden .

I hate the, "Who would Jesus bomb?" argument. It betrays a deeply conflicted, if not totally wrong, understanding of the Scriptures. I will briefly attempt to educate. (You need not believe these stories, but understand that these stories provide a fundamental component of authentic Christian belief.)

Jesus, who is God the Son, "is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb 13:8).

Therefore, Jesus was acting when:

1. God flooded the world, preserving only Noah and his family.

2. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. "The Lord rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah. He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities" (Gen 19:24,25).

3. God also killed the firstborn of the Egyptians, who held the Hebrews (the Chosen of God) in bondage. "At midnight the Lord slew every first-born in the land of Egypt" (Ex 12:29).

Jesus' warning is stern to those who, having seen His miracles, reject His message. "He began to upbraid the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hell. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you" (Matthew 11:21-24).

Finally, reference Revelation. Jesus is depicted as a military conqueror:

Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was (called) "Faithful and True." He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were (like) a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God. The armies of heaven followed him, mounted on white horses and wearing clean white linen. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod, and he himself will tread out in the wine press the wine of the fury and wrath of God the almighty. He has a name written on his cloak and on his thigh, "King of kings and Lord of lords."

My question is this. According to the Bible, is Jesus (who is God, the same yesterday, today, and forever) a pacifist, or does He recognize that a use of military force may be justified? The bible answers pretty clearly who God did destroy.

So let us not try to say that Kerry is a great Catholic while George Bush is a horrible Christian because he supposedly is not following the example of Jesus.

I never said Kerry was a great catholic, I merely said no one should be judging another's faith, except god (if you believe in that). I doubt anyone here knows much about his faith and what he holds in his heart. I only used the Bush example to illustrate you could critize both, but that was not being done.
Further more being able to pull out bible passages to support your claim does not make it substantiated. The bible says many conflicting things, and leaves out a huge part of Jesus's history when he was doing Jesus knows what.
Finally when Bush talks about Jesus being his hero or role model I doubt he is talking about Jesus the military conqueror. He is talking about the same loving, caring deity that everyone else is when they say "What would Jesus Do?" or wear the bracelets.

A vote for Bush is a vote for armageddon.

"A vote for Bush is a vote for armageddon."

A boat more cush is a goat bore Mama's head in.

Who cares who wins this election? All I know is the next Verizon commercial I see, that nerdy motherfucker better be in Antarctica when he says "Can you hear me now?"

When you speak of "disenfranchisement" of voters perhaps you should read another perspective from George Will.

George F. Will: Let's talk about voters' responsibilities
By George F. Will
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, October 21, 2004
WASHINGTON -- The campaign is culminating with reckless charges about the possibility -- actually, the certainty; such is life -- that there will be imperfections in recording perhaps 110 million votes. The charges are couched in the language of liberalism: much talk about voters' rights, no talk about voters' responsibilities, and dark warnings of victimization -- "disenfranchisement" and "intimidation."
Consider punch-card voting systems, and "overvotes" and "undervotes." Overvoting occurs when voters mark their ballots for two candidates for a single office. Undervoting occurs when voters do not mark a choice among the candidates for an office.

Only 12.4 percent of America's registered voters live in jurisdictions that use punch-card systems of the sort that Florida made infamous in 2000. But 72 percent of Ohioans do. Last Sunday The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported, beneath the headline "Punch Cards May Hurt Blacks," that such ballots cast with no vote recorded for president were in 2000 a higher percentage in black communities (5 percent) than in other communities (under 2 percent).

The state is being sued about "racial disparities" resulting from punch-card voting in three counties. However, The Dispatch reports several scholars' assertions that race is not the salient variable. Higher levels of unrecorded presidential preferences supposedly correlate with low levels of income and education, appearing also in the predominantly white Appalachian counties of southeastern Ohio.

Punch cards, The Dispatch says, are "prone" to overvotes and undervotes "because so many things can go wrong." For example, if "voters do not correctly insert the card into the voting device, the wrong holes can be punched." But is it unreasonable to expect voters to perform those simple manipulations? Are they victims -- disenfranchised -- if they do not? Surely not in Ohio, where printed guides to punch-card voting are supplemented by instructional videos on the Internet, and where instructions and instructors will be available at polling places.

Granted, punch-card systems, like everything else in life, are not infallible. They can -- remember Florida's hanging and dimpled (aka pregnant) chads? -- inadequately record the intent of a voter, particularly one who is careless about the task of handling the simple punch-card mechanism. But how can punch cards be blamed for overvotes?

And how does invalidating such a vote constitute, as is now commonly said, "disenfranchisement"? When poll taxes, meretricious literacy tests, hostile sheriffs and mobs stood between blacks and ballots, blacks were disenfranchised. To be disenfranchised is to have something done to you, not to do something to yourself.

Regarding undervotes, voters can always check to make sure they have clearly punched holes. Furthermore, they have a right -- and are often right to exercise the right -- to undervote by skipping certain choices on the ballot.

In some Florida jurisdictions this year, electronic touch-screen voting machines will react irritably to undervotes. If a voter skips a choice on the ballot, a message -- e.g., "You have not made a choice on this race" -- appears on the screen three times. What more must be done to deal with the undervote problem -- which often is not a problem but a sensible preference?

Should there be more severe prompts? The first might be: "I'm just a machine, but shouldn't you be marking more boxes?" The second might be: "Hey, dolt -- yes, you: The right to vote is precious, so even though you neither know nor care about a particular contest on the ballot, vote for someone -- anyone -- even if your vote is random." Finally, the machine could threaten: "Cast more votes or you will wake up with a horse's head in your bed."

Would such growls from voting machines satisfy liberals that an undervote need not represent either a remediable flaw in the voter or in the technology? Can liberals accept that an undervote usually reflects either voter carelessness, for which the voter suffers the condign punishment of an unrecorded preference, or it reflects the voter's choice not to express a preference? No, otherwise they would not be liberals, obsessive about rights, blind to responsibilities.

On Monday a Colorado judge upheld a new requirement that voters are responsible for producing identification before being allowed to vote. And Florida's Supreme Court rejected the argument that voters are disenfranchised by not counting provisional ballots they cast in the wrong precincts.

Imagine that: Voters are responsible for proving who they are and knowing where they are supposed to vote. There will be charges that both rulings permit "intimidation," which in today's liberal lexicon is a synonym for linking rights to responsibilities.

I'm guessing that the vast majority of these religious rantings are from non-students. Go pander somewhere else or prove you're a UW student.

It doesn't matter who wins this election, because the world is gonna blow up anyway.

A vote for John Kerry is a vote for Osama bin Laden.

First of all, do you know what pander means because your use of it in that sentence does not make much sense in context? Second of all, I am a graduate student in electrical engineering. Not just liberal secularists go to school at UW-Madison, and contrary to the pervailing opinion on campus, conservatives are quite capable of reading and forming sound opinions, often while shooting handguns, smoking cigars, loving Jesus, investing in corporate America, driving big trucks, saluting the flag, and listening to country music.

I'm so sick of conservatives whining about how liberals are ruining America.

You want to know about liberal ideas? How about the idea that women deserve rights equal to those of men? Or that all people have the right to an education? Or health care? Or that we should vote for our leaders, rather than letting the wealthiest or most powerful rule by divine right? Or that people of all races and religions deserve equal rights? Or that people should have freedom of speech?

Those are all liberal ideas. In the history of the world, all of those ideas have been opposed by conservatives. If you oppose such ideas today, you are regarded as a bigot, a racist, an elitist, and a misogynist. And rightly so.

"You want to know about liberal ideas? How about the idea that women deserve rights equal to those of men..."

Well kid, it's like this: liberals want to deprive all white males of their rights, including white males who have always supported minorities. You don't care about us, we don't care about you. BUSH IN '04!!!!

"A vote for John Kerry is a vote for Osama bin Laden."

La goat pour mon cheri miss a note for yo momma's kindergarten.

Mark Baumgartner still goes to the UW? Jesus Christ, get a life.

Mark Baumgardner still goes to the UW? Jesus Christ, get a life.

A right to health care? Get a job and pay for it yourself, work until you BLEED to pay it off, because it is possible and millions of people DO do that. Excuses and reliance on the system only tear the rest of us down.

"Well kid, it's like this: liberals want to deprive all white males of their rights, including white males who have always supported minorities. You don't care about us, we don't care about you. BUSH IN '04!!!!"

As a white male, let me just say you're full of shit. Giving others, including women and minorities, the same rights that white males have always enjoyed is not the same thing as taking away the rights of white males. It just means you don't get special treatment you don't deserve anymore. You're not special. You give conservatives like me a bad name.