I have to say, Rachel getting flustered over the "word that rhymes with congratulation" was rather adorable :)

Why do Democrats allow Republicans to define the new health care bill? When both are on programs like Meet the Press the Republicans say the American people don't like the new bill and the Democrats agree. Well, the Republicans don't speak for me or my friends. I like the bill and I think plenty of Americans like it, they just wish it would take effect sooner.

Thanks for the plug for 'Australian Voting', although here in Australia we just call it 'Preferential Voting'.  Is it really so rare that we get mentioned by name?  It's also good, apart from the frustrating number of Australians who don't understand how it works.  People worry about "back-room deals affecting my senate vote" (so number every box yourself) and "the major party needs my vote more" (if your first preference is eliminated, your second preference gets just as much weight).

It just gave us an epic Federal Election.  Neither major party gained a decisive majority, so they both had to court the one Green electee and five independents.  It ended with a 76-74 split, so one by-election could swing our government the other way.  I know many countries have this sort of horse-trading every election, but we've had majority Federal Governments for 50 years.

Other fun facts about the 2010 Australian Federal Election:

1. We have no fixed election cycle and no primaries.  The election was called on July 17, candidates campaigned for a month, and we voted on August 21.
2. We don't vote for our Prime Minister directly - we vote for candidates in our electorate to enter the House of Representatitves, and they determine the Prime Minister.  Sadly, in recent years many local candidate campaigns have amounted to 'vote for me so the PM will be X'.  Or, even worse, 'vote for me so the PM will not be Y'.
3. Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was born in Wales.  We have no legal requirement for native-born leaders, so you can keep Orly Taitz.
4. You may find our party names and colours confusing.  The right-wing party is the 'Liberal Party', coloured blue.  The left-wing party is the 'Labor Party', coloured red.  Note that for any other use of the word 'labour', we use the British spelling.
5. All negotiations were based off provisional counts.  The Australian Electoral Commission has only formally declared 49 of 150 electorates.  Technically, we might still find a crucial seat in that 76-74 split actually went the other way...
6. Voting is compulsory for all adults (there are rare exceptions, like people currently in prison).  If you don't vote, you pay a fine.  You can register in advance to submit a postal vote.  If you hate every candidate you can submit a blank ballot paper, or scribble obscenities all over it, but you must hand one in.  Around 10% of votes are informal.

Are there flaws in this?  A few, but I'll take it over most countries' voting systems.

I've been reading some other reports about the bad sportsmanship going on in the Republican/Tea Party, so I was glad to see it covered on tonight's show.

However, I have one question no one has addressed yet, that I've seen. What about among backers of the sore losers? Are they also being sore losers? Are they expected to sit out the election? Are any Democratic trackers being sent out to local campaign stops to ask questions designed to exacerbate the bad feelings? :-)

I just wanted to point out that if Christine O'Donnell is against masturbation, she can't possibly ask Palin for an endorsement...Palin is always telling folks to go f*ck themselves...

Even though I'm a good far right conservative like Christine. I'm gonna have to go against her on this masturbation is adultery thing. Let's be honest , we all know almost everyone's first sexual act is with themselves. So does that mean Christine thinks we all start off our sex lives, damned from the git-go, with an act of adultery?

Mitch