I bet some of the 9 people Biden beat in law school were Moe, Curley, Larry, Bozo, and GW Bush, although W may in fact be indistinguishable from Bozo and the Stooges.

wonderfully poetic

Fine writing here TT. Perhaps soon we'll be saying "Alas poor Sarah...we knew her well"

I kept expecting you to work 'her bare bodkin' in there... ;-D

Methinks thou art the bard of amiright.

An entertaining read

Beever Cleever: So *Biden* is actually "Bush's third term"... interesting observation. Wonder why the media haven't picked up on that? Thanks for v/c.
alvin, thanks.
Invisible Boy: My complaint is that I never got to "know" her, in the Biblical sense, that is :) Thanks for v/c.
Meriadoc: TT no like doing the expected or obvious :-) --' sides, think maybe he's praised her bodkin (dagger? no, that 's what she gives me) in his other parodies lol. Thanks for v/c, Merry.
John Barry: Mostly by default, methinks. Thanks, John.
Andy Primus, thanks.

Tom-my’s so-lil-o-quy, phatte its ex-pression! This is waaaay too good! In short, I'm with Sir John's take on this magnificent construct, for thou art truly creative (ay, there's the sub!)...

Ye Olde t-J-c, thanks for thy accession.
(OK, including John's and yours, that's three comments here matching WS's iambic pentameter.)

You always know how to Mac beth parody

Airfarthwon, thankth.

Poetic prose from TT! Good stuff and an interesting change!

To me, TT, that is the best one ... of the day.

Disturbing ... and brilliant.

Peregrin, thanks!
Stan Hall, thank you very much, and I don't believe we've met... pleased to meet ya!
Johnny D, thanks... wouldst thou care to elaborate on what exactly is "disturbing"? TT long aware he's "disturbed" lol. Disturbing that the choices are so poor... again? Hope to hear back from you -- always a treat to have JD stop by :)

Brilliant, TT. I'll take indigestion, though ;-)

Phil Alexander, thanks... I thought you were in the UK, but I guess ACORN is registering you guys to vote here, too... figures.. thanks for v/c.

I am in the UK.. but if McCain/Palin are elected, you can pretty much guarantee it's going to have an effect on us, too. {shudders}

Very creative stuff, TT. Good job of somewhat balancing your spoofs between the left and the right.

John Jenkins, thanks for the vote and for the complimentary analysis.

Phil Alexander: I have tremendous respect for you personally, and great respect for the UK in general. I have some qualms about McCain and serious doubts about Palin, except that there's no doubt I'd love to nail her :) However, in my own addled knowledge of history, IMHO going down the Socialist/Labour path and following the economics of John Maynard Keynes and his socialist cohorts played a substantial part in the fact that Great Britain is no longer the greatest power on earth, as it was for 150 years. The US bears that title now, but is going down the same path, with, I fear, the same eventual result. So electing someone who has never disavowed his attendance at Socialist meetings and has an avowed philosophy of "Share the wealth" (Whose wealth? Produced by whom? Shared with whom? Why?) is only going to speed up the process. Socialism killed the Soviet Union, an empire far richer than the US in gold, oil, diamonds, platinum, arable land, etc. that couldn't feed its own people. The world's up-and-comers, despite their political rhetoric, are those moving towards de facto capitalism (China, India, e. g.,). Bottom line: No good choices this year, as there haven't been for quite a while. As always, agree to disagree respectfully. xoxoxo - TT

I'd love to see any proof of where BO has avowed himself as a Socialist, or how he culls his economic plan from socialism.

Google it, and you'll get a zillion proofs. Start with this one: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/10/08/will-msm-report-obama-membership-socialist-new-party

If you don't like that source, there are a zillion-minus one others.

Basically, he said it in his philosophy: "Share the wealth" which is the absolute core value of Socialism. If I cannot keep what I earn, then I am a slave. If I earned wealth, or acquired it in any other *honest* way (including inheritance), but have to share it with you, who didn't earn it, for no other reason than the accident of your being born, then that is Socialism.

Jefferson originally wrote in the D of I "... among these rights are the rights to life, liberty, and property", but deleted "property" and changed it to the vague "pursuit of happiness" under pressure from the welfare-minded. (also well-sourced).

Before you raise the objections, I'll answer them: Yes, the bailout of banks and insurance companies was socialistic and anti-capitalistic, and I abhor it. But W and his cohorts long ago stole the GOP from its former supporters and standards, like support for the freedom of markets, including the freedom to fail. Every previous administration of either party also has done its share to destroy capitalism, then use the results as an excuse for further intervention, with the Grand Champion being FDR, whose wife was openly socialist. I don't see much hope anywhere, but it seems that electing someone who announces openly that the little bit I've managed to put away over my lifetime must be distributed among others, even if their failures are their own fault, is going to accelerate the process. He can pry my savings, like my gun, from my cold, dead flippers. I'd rather be governed by a name picked at random from the eligible US population.

Yes, every form of taxation, with the exception of direct user taxes (you want to drive on this road, you pay a toll to support it) fits this model as well. But if the government followed the Constitution and the model for it laid out by the Founding Fathers, the Federal budget, and hence the taxes, would be about 1/100th or less of what they are today.

Thanks for the love :-) TT

Any of these sources from a non-right wing leaning organization? Newsbusters should I suppose also contact the Chicago media and get them to hammer on Danny Davis, a long-time, somewhat respected alderman who gets mentioned along the way...not necessarily an angel, but then, who isn't an angel in Chicago politics? But I'm sure the allegedly socialist politics of BO will shake the foundations of the capitalist economic world and change the world as we know it, constitutional safeguards and common sense be damned. Eh well, we can agree that we are good parodists I suppose, and leave it at that.

History has shown that neither unbridled Capitalism nor complete Socialism is the answer. For proof of the dangers of unrestrained free market capitalism, I give you the United States from, lets say, 1880 to 1920, and the banking industry of today. For proof of the fallacies of complete Socialism, I give you the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The answer lies somewhere in the middle. Some services (power, water, sanitation, infrastructure, etc) have become so necessary for survival in our civilization that they should be government controlled and/or paid for, either federal, state, or local. Most everything else can fall into the free markets.

^ ^ ^ Ah, . . . . Marquis McLewd , somewhere over the Rainbow, eh Sir? Seriously, I do agree with your middle-ground stance, Sir, a Swing Voter, perhaps?

Blame the existence of a Federal budget deficit on the Civil War.

My sentiments are similar to those of TT. But, since it could be argued that any legislator who voted for the $700 billion taxpayer bail out has some socialistic tendencies, I would be critical of both McCain and Obama. But, at least McCain voted against the prescription drug bill and other legislation with socialistic implications. As TT pointed out, the United States has been on a path toward socialism since FDR. It can be argued that we slowed down our “progress” during Reagan’s presidency, but both Bush presidencies brought us closer to socialism. And I have to agree with TT that the trend under an Obama presidency will be much faster than under a McCain presidency.

The United States has a mixed economy with much private enterprise, but a substantial amount of government involvement. Whether government involvement is direct (post office, airports, trains) or indirect (regulating certain industries or bailing out certain companies or industries that are considered too important to fail), the economy works most efficiently when the law of supply and demand is observed. But, although government involvement in the economy is usually well-intentioned, almost all government involvement distorts supply or distorts demand and has unintended consequences that produce inefficiency. The more that government is involved, the closer we come to socialism. .

Have we ever had pure capitalism? McKludge alleges that we have, with negative results, on two occasions. I would argue that most of the problems from the current banking problem did not result from too little government regulation, but from too much government involvement. If the Community Reinvestment Act had not passed and if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were not so heavily involved as GSEs, today’s problems would be significantly less. I would also argue that the capitalism of 100 years ago gave consumers a lot more in the way of affordable products than the federal government’s trust-busting efforts. In particular, Standard Oil provided low-price oil and kerosene, and its market share and prices were declining substantially when it was broken up in 1911.

That time frame also gave us sweatshops, child labor, and a variety of unsafe working conditions in food processing, mines, and factories. Sure, that meant low prices, but at what human cost? That was my point.

McKludge: As opposed to working 16 hours a day on a farm, picking crops or slopping pigs, for a bare subsistence. We sit on our affluent asses and assume that everyone has the same choices we have. Clearly, everyone you refer to thought their situation was preferable to any other choices they had. What they also had was a chance of upward mobility, which *has* occurred, whereas "Socialist Workers' Paradises" like China are stuck forever at that level, there being no incentive nor any opportunity to improve one's lot. That's my point.

We didn't go from agrarianism to the richest country on earth in a day or a month, but we did in less than 200 years, speeding past decadent European and stifling Asian economies hundreds or thousands of years older. And it would have gone even *faster* without the interference of the Government. Just imagine if every penny of income tax you paid had been kept, how much richer you'd be today... and if every penny you paid into Social Security had been put into your *own* account, IRA or otherwise, you'd retire about 4x as well-off, and not have to sweat whether it would be there, or screw your grandchildren out of their salary to continue the Roosevelt-Madoff Ponzi Scheme that is Social Security.

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.". - (Act II, Scene II).
Ah, what a piece of work is Tommy Turtle-- and this parodic rhapsody! (rhapsodic parody? Poetic rarity?) Loved it.

Fiddlegirl, thy name is woman! A little less than kin, but more than kind! (1.2,, the latter begging a thousand Bard-ons). Rapacious parity? Papal rapacity? (lot of that going around)? Par-haps sodomy?

Something is rotten in the States of United, but to put an antic disposition on (1.5)....

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. (3.2.127) (ohhh, Sarah!....)

Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move; (Hey,Bill, go read Copernicus and Galileo!)
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love -- thy kind praise and vote and comment. (2.2.116)

FG, looking forward to your weekend's production: "Come, give us a taste of your quality." (2.2.460)

Sweets to the sweet: farewell! (5.1.265)