Palin gave a total pageant answer when asked about her specific skills in foreign policy. (WARNING: Not for the squeamish or those concerned McPain might actually win this thing.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvzim5rCeFw

Your friend,
Rusty
Check out my Obama / Biden 2008 Blog.
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“People deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard.” ~ H.L. Mencken

I miss the days when McDonald's was just a fun place to go - (back when parent's knew the meaning of 'moderation'). Back when McDonald's surroundings actually catered for visiting kids.

The worst thing McDonald's ever did was start all this stupid competitive advertising. All we have seen here in New Zealand for the past ten years are ads desperately defending it's food.

The food is what it is - and humans were not built to eat food like that on a daily basis.

They got rid of Ronald (here in NZ) as he was deamed 'outdated' and the kids playgrounds have been reduced to tiny, pathetic (barely any fun) corners. Kids are clearly just an after-thought now. Some people may think that's a good thing, but "where do the children play".

They need to get back to basics and stop trying to be chic. I'm afraid that has never been their market.

Ok first, as an avid coffee drinker I am offended because, let's face it, McDonalds coffee is terrible. Yeah, they tricked me into buying one of their highly marketed sweetened iced coffees this summer, and it was weak, bitter, and gritty (come on people, don't you know that sugar will not dissolve in a cold liquid??? talk about grit city.)
Second, intelligence is a good thing! Not that liking sports or wearing heels are qualifiers of being less-than-smart, but the way it is presented is ridiculous, especially considering everything that's going on in the world! We cannot afford to be less informed. We need to get smarter! Not knowing where Paraguay is (or what it is) is how we got the last eight years... do you really want another four years of people who are dumb?
On a lighter note, anybody out there looking for a great cup of coffee, try Intelligentsia. It is rich and full-flavored without being bitter. (Starbucks coffee is overroasted, that's why it tastes bitter). Caribou is great, too.
...and I happen to like jazz music. Especially in coffee bars. :)

And by that I mean both coffee and McDonald's food wreaks havoc on my stomach. :(

Honestly though, Starbucks IS the McDonalds of the coffee industry. To me they are just two different companies with a very similar agenda. You are not a patron, you are a customer. You are part of their bottom line. They both have the efficiency of a franchise and attempt to create an atmosphere of authenticity worthy of your nostalgia but neither succeed. They have both tried using carefully crafted advertisement campaigns to enhance their image as being "progressive" and trendy. I have never felt a fondness for any chain restaurant or business in the way that I have for a few of the independent shops I've been to over the years.

Things you can't get at McDonalds, despite their addition of shitty coffee: over a dozen different varieties of herbal teas, hand made smoothies with your choice of additivies, vegan cookies, little stations to the side where you can customize your drink however you want without feeling rushed by clamoring crowds behind you ordering 20 cheeseburgers, comfortable chairs and couches, quiet places to sit down and study or myspace or blog or do whatever it is that you do online, read a book, or talk with friends in an aesthetic, intimate surrounding-- about anything, be it football or Simone de Beauvoir. It doesn't matter. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be an "intellectual" to enjoy the unique coffee shop atmosphere. In fact, I strongly ENCOURAGE people who feel uncomfortable and insecure about patronizing certain places to get the fuck over it, open their minds, and get familiar with the concept of a "tip jar." And any snooty elitist who would judge an "outsider" for talking about football or shopping in their sacred hipster cove can get the fuck over it too.

I am sick of American society trying to sell us all these various cultural alter egos in every possible way they can, down to the very products necessary for our biological survival (and yes, for some that DOES include coffee).

What I heard: be a feminine girl or a masculine man because your gender must define you. It in not my intellect that is offended.
Taem?

I don't care if MacDonalds coffee is free everyday!! It's disgusting!!! I LOVE MY COFFEE and I love my Starbucks!!
House, Bold, skinny lattes...... mmmmmmmmm Coffee!
The cute gay staff doesn't hurt either.....

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY,GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.
~HUGS~

Basically, I would have no problem grabbing a latte from McDonalds to go, if it's any good. Especially if it is for free... But the idea of hanging out at McDonalds, simply awful. BTW, personally I've stopped eating anything from there for quite some time (love burger shops, but not this one) - come to think of it, in Greece McDonalds is actually not doing that well... :)
And those stereotypes...so lame. I mean, I like jazz, heels and coffee shops. What does that make me? As for anti-intellectual being the new smart, so true and so annoying. Thank god, we greeks are surreal enough to have intellectuals, anti-intellectuals and anti-anti-intellectuals ;)

Here is Eve Ensler's take on Sarah Palin ...

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Drill, Drill, Drill
by Eve Ensler, American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues"
September 5, 2008

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and health care or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

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Onward into the fray,
Melanie,
Register to Vote here http://rockthevote.org/

It is a bit confusing to me when folks suggest that being intellectual is a bad quality for a presidential candidate to possess. You don't really hear people make the decision to hire a doctor or car mechanic based on whether they'd like to have a beer with the potential employee. Probably wouldn't stay long at a garage where the mechanic took pride in announcing they didn't know where the spark plugs were, no matter how folksy it sounded when they said it.

Hey Peacekitty - Is my grammar "intellectual" enough in this post, having fought my aversion to the shift key?

I wonder something.
Ok, they critize intellectuals, but I am sure that the one who created Mac Donald is taken for a genious because he made a lot of money (by selling sh**)...