I loved it too.

Can we give a shout out to the good citizens who asked the questions.
Finally a debate that wasn't over rehearsed, stiff and too controlled.

Anything that sparks regular citizens to be interested in participating in our democracy is good, especially young people.

I enjoyed watching much more than I thought I would.

I will be curious to see the kind of questions the GOP Tubers ask.

The other question from left field, was the man worried about protecting his 'baby', the Russian inspired automatic weapon used by the Columbine killers. I thought Biden's answer was appropriate.

Any fun pics?

YouTube questions sounds cool, I didn't watch though. I still like the idea of head-to-head debates or debates focused exclusively on a particular topic to mix things up.

Air

Transcontinental Pollution.

From the WSJ

An outpouring of dust layered with man-made sulfates, smog, industrial fumes, carbon grit and nitrates is crossing the Pacific Ocean on prevailing winds from booming Asian economies in plumes so vast they alter the climate. These rivers of polluted air can be wider than the Amazon and deeper than the Grand Canyon.

[...team detected a new high-altitude plume every three or four days. Each one was up to 300 miles wide and six miles deep, a vaporous layer cake of pollutants. The higher the plumes, the longer they lasted, the faster they traveled and the more pronounced their effect, the researchers said.

Oddly the plume of particulate matter reflects the heat of the sun helping shield us from global warming, while at the same time some of the particles absorbs heat raising the temperature of the earth.

The influence of these plumes on climate is complex because they can have both a cooling and a warming effect, the scientists said. Scientists are convinced these plumes contain so many cooling sulfate particles that they may be masking half of the effect of global warming. The plumes may block more than 10% of the sunlight over the Pacific.

But while the sulfates they carry lower temperatures by reflecting sunlight, the soot they contain absorbs solar heat, thus warming the planet.

(hehe damn it's a bit harsh!) made me think of a feature to implement in the new version that would help perpetuate long standing exchanges and debate even in diaries that have long scrolled off the Recent Diaries list.

It will be a block that will show all the "Active" diaries/stories which meant anything that gets a new comment will immediately show up in that block, no matter how old. So stuff like that will not get lost in the mix :)

Sorry I missed you guys on SL yesterday. I went to a neighborhood debate party and ended up hanging out with strangers for the balance of the evening (knowing I had to work today). But I'll catch you guys on the nest time.

One thing I did catch in the debate was Hillary's "we won't talk with just anybody" swipe during the debate (regarding the use of diplomacy) and I wondered "didn't she say the opposite not long ago"?

Via Drudge we get:

Last Night's Hillary:

Mr Obama, who leads Democrats in fund raising and is looking to cut Ms Clinton's lead in polls, said it was important to search for areas "where we can potentially move forward" and added, "I think it's a disgrace that we have not spoken to them."

Ms Clinton, the New York senator, disagreed, saying such meetings could be used as propaganda purposes.

"Certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria, until we know better what the way forward would be," she said.

And April Hillary:

Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday criticized President Bush's foreign policy, and said if she were president she would do things differently, including beginning diplomatic talks with supposed enemies and sending envoys throughout the world.

"I would begin diplomatic discussions with those countries with whom we have differences, to try to figure out what is the depth of those differences," said Clinton, who spoke to about 1,000 people at Luther College in Decorah in northeastern Iowa.

"I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. You don't make peace with your friends -- you have to do the hard work of dealing with people you don't agree with," said Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

Am I being unfair in saying this just looks contradictory (or at best, a very calculated manufactured err..."measured") statement? Or is it a smart move since most people don't remember these type of things?

...assuming he can read.

An excerpt from "A World Tranformed", a book by George HW Bush, published in 1998:

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different and perhaps barren outcome.

Daddy got it. Too bad sonny-boy fell in with the wrong crowd.

I came across this quote again today.. and given everything that has happened... it kind of sends chills down your spine.

I went to look at his last comment. It was on a July 11 and was a heated comment at that. Has anyone had any contact with him since?

Top Ten Discoveries of the Mars Rovers

these things were supposed to last 3 months, but have been doing their work for almost 3 years now.

And I'm ashamed to admit that I only knew about 3 of the 10 discoveries.

My new favorite:

#7 - Mars Stinks