US Presidential Debate #1 | BBC NEWS

All things considered, it’s about a draw Matthew Yglesias, Think Progress

US presidential rivals Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have attacked each other over foreign policy and the economy, in their first debate.

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Fail: Palin and talking (out loud)

When it comes to making their running mates look bad, she makes it look easy…

No doubt a lot of attention has been on Sarah Palin, potentially the first-ever female vice president, but in recent weeks, the Alaskan Governor has had her share of goof ups that make the GOP look really bad. Read more

Ed McMahon turns gangsta rapper

The 85-year-old former “Tonight Show” sidekick will star in two viral rap videos for FreeCreditReport.com, a financial Web site owned by credit bureau Experian.

The videos feature McMahon wearing a tracksuit, being chauffeured around Los Angeles in a Cadillac Escalade golf cart and waxing lyrical about his very public financial troubles.

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Obama rejects McCain call to delay debate

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama rejected Republican Sen. John McCain’s dramatic call Wednesday to delay Friday’s presidential debate because of the economic crisis. The McCain campaign said McCain would not show up for the debate unless a deal to address the crisis was reached. Read more

Democrats seek bailout ’sweet spot’

WASHINGTON - After risk-taking on Wall Street brought the financial system to its knees, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are taking part in their own risk-taking exercise.

With Congress about to adjourn and with elections in less than six weeks, lawmakers are wrestling with what the Bush administration calls a must-pass bill — a $700 billion proposal to rescue the U.S. financial sector.

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Antimatter is mass-produced

Physicists say they have mass produced antimatter, a crucial first step towards precision studies of its properties that may help solve one of the greatest mysteries of the Universe.

Antihydrogen has been made before, but only a few atoms at a time. Read more

“Here he comes. Here comes OJ…”

OJ Simpson robbery trial begins…

Defense lawyer Gabriel Grasso and OJ Simpson in court (15 September 2008). OJ Simpson’s trial is expected to last around five weeks.

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Giving up on Musiq…

“Don’t front. You know you loooove it.” Not quite, homey.

As if soul wasn’t already an underground genre, now Musiq is trying “Radio”.  I expected this one day, but thought there would be a few more singles signaling the inevitable end between then and now.  Nope, Musiq dove head first into the mainstream.  Can he swim though? Read more

‘Africans to gain’ from web plan

Google is helping develop a system to bring high-speed internet connections to three billion people developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. The 03b Networks system aims to use satellites to provide broadband services at the same speeds as those on offer in rich countries.

The service, which is due to begin in 2010, is also backed by cable operator Liberty Global and the bank HSBC. It aims to tap into booming mobile phone usage in the developing world. It will target markets in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Read more

I Never Call Back…Like EVER

A few days ago, a friend of mine pointed out a bad habit I have. I never call girls back once they give me their number. Apparently, she and some of my other female friends consider this kind of behaviour enough to merit me the title “Worst person in the world”. I am fully aware that this pisses some people off, yet I keep doing it (unintentionally). Why would you work so hard to charm a lady, and then act as if you were uninterested after you’ve obtained her contact information?

The truth of the matter is that I personally want to continue to get to know these said individuals but for several reasons, I continue to put off calling them until, of course, too much time passes and I’m like “forget it”. I spoke to one of my male friends and he too had the same bad habit of not calling girls back. I conducted a mini-survey and apparently this is a problem that about 1 out of every 3 guys is guilty of at some point  (some more habitual than others). In my research, many of the guys could not pinpoint the exact reason why they don’t call back someone who they’re actually interested in, but here are the most common rationalizations:

• “I keep remembering to call too late” - This, I admit, is my main problem. My schedule with time usually peaks activity in the wee hours of the night, a time in which most sane individuals are asleep. By the time I “remember” to give pretty lady a phone call, she’s probably already in bed or getting ready to go. “I’ll call her tomorrow” is what I usually say. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Fail.
• “I don’t wanna like lead her on or something” - Cuz I’m not tryina be nobody’s boyfriend. This is a funny excuse. A lot of times guys think that the world revolves around them and that just because a girl seems interested in you, that means she wants to marry you. On the opposite side of my research, many of the girls I talked to said that sometimes when she gives her number to a guy, sometimes it just means that they think that guy is interesting, funny, or just cool. It doesn’t always mean that she wants to pursue a physical or emotional relationship. When we sometimes jump the gun, I think in a way we kinda trivialize the mental of the female gender, and that’s not exactly playing nice.
• “If I don’t try, I won’t get rejected” - The excuse guys are usually reluctant to admit. Among the men interviewed, a significant amount of them stated that they somehow felt that being able to charm the girl at the initial meeting was lucky or that they set such a high standard for themselves. When it’s time to call her back, he gets scared that he may not be able to live up to what she expects (or what he thinks she expects) either because he’s too much of a punkass, or because she intimidates him, or both.
• “I’m not a phone person, but I’ll text her to oblivion” - This is me too (kinda). I don’t like selling myself over the phone. And this is not just with dating, this is with everything. I can charm the hell outta an interviewer in person, but my phone presence during phone interviews is extra whack. I’m apparently not alone. Many guys don’t like talking on the phone. As men, when we call each other, it’s very procedural and with a clear and finite purpose. Ex) “Hey! What time are we gonna meet up?” “I dunno? Eight?”, “Ok, I’ll call when I’m downstairs”, “Make sure you come the back way”, “Aight”, “Yeh” End of Call. Calling someone we don’t really know to talk about nothing doesn’t seem to make sense when that person hasn’t given us much reason yet to talk to them. But texting! Procedural and straight to the point with a clear and finite purpose. Guys’ phone conversations with each other align perfectly with a typical text message convo. The downside is, when a guy usually only asks a girl straight forward questions about “where are you?” “do you wanna hang out/come over?”, this can be easily misinterpreted. More than half the females interviewed said that when a guy is only texting about meeting and not asking how there day is or questions like that, that can be seen as him just wanting to get laid when this very well may not be the case.

Let me make this 100% clear. All these excuses are bullshit and there probably is no good reason as to why a good third of us guys do this, only 1/2 ass rationalizations for irrational actions. What’s even worse is when we are talking to females and everything’s going good and then suddenly just….stop. But tha’s probably a whole new topic and question for another time. What is it about the male psyche that makes us act this way?

Males are supposedly the more logic-oriented sex, whereas women are more intuition-oriented in there decision making processes. After all the interviews, I’m still perplexed as to why we do this. Why do we sometimes not call her if we are actually interested? Is there an actual reason that we’ve missed?

Gotta figure this one out, until then…guess I’m still the worst person on the planet.

Speak….

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