I'm The PartysOver... blogger, writer and leader of large projects. I am old school, mainly because I'm a salty old newspaper broad. I come from the days when newspapers were the only source for news apart from the nightly network news programs, those guys are all dead now. Before there was Cable and before there was internet, there were bulldogs, rags, scandal sheets also known as newspapers. Monday mornings the whole building smelled like press print ink. The rags ran off the belts like waves during a swell. Phones rang as loud as sirens and they were located on the desks, the office was a smoke filled room with the mix of cigarettes, pipes and stogies. The guys all dressed the same, black cuffed pants with white shirts and some plain jane tie, most of the time their sleeves were rolled up and their wrinkled jackets thrown over the back of their chair... And then there were Typewriters. Imagine Typewriters. No spell check, no error correct, there wasn't even white out. And there was me a cute kid in a black pencil skirt and spike heels. Fade out. 30 years later...

I am a conservative independent voter having voted in the last 7 elections. I've always loved to stay attuned to politics. I found this place called Newsvine, with writing and politics. Yeah granted it's a freaking liberal blog site, but I can hold my own. I've been ripped apart by a 40 year editor for injecting spin in my byline; certainly I can handle a 30 year old liberal. Sure no problem except that it's not just one 30 year old liberal it's 400 of them. Along comes Frog Prince, a little older than me; a little wiser to the crowd, but just as conservative and just as versed in politics. We found that alone we would get annihilated, but together we were like Clark Kent and Lois Lane… I’ll leave to you to figure which was which.

MSNBC owned this rag and sure didn't like the Cons getting the best of the page. Top Stories, Top Votes, Top Comments surely sent management to the roof; red faced and ready to blow off on some flunky pushing the buttons. So after a while they decided to play a little cheat tactic and accused us gaming the system. Fade out ... 6 months later.

I came across Sodahead by chance tracking down a link on a story to another link and after following the lead like the old bloodhound I am, I found Sodahead. I immediately signed up. I posted a blog and it was just as it should have been all along. Since I created a blogspot I still had my group connections that Frog and I assembled on Newsvine, so I sent off an email invitation and most of the old gang came over. We are happily together again.

Now we realize there are some liberals here, and we do like to engage in debate. We like to present facts and counter thoughts; help people learn something and along the way learn something back. But we have some rules, we always had them. The rules of engagement keep everyone honest and hopefully keep the lines open so we might have a better understanding of the twisted liberal thought process, as much as liberal may like to understand the workings of the old school straight up conservatives. Here they are...

No Ad Hominem: also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument
to the person" or "argument against the person") is an argument which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of a person advocating the premise.

No Straw Man: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

No Red Herring: Similar to ignoratio elenchi, a red herring is an argument, given in reply, that does not address the original issue. Critically, a red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument. This is known formally in the English vocabulary as a digression which is usually denoted as "red herring".

No Cheating. This is most important, no gang DR, no 404ing, no Top Comment padding, no calling out a specific user by name. If these rules are broken it will result in a block. End of Story, last time this cost us the ability to write and discuss and we aren't going there again. So straighten up and fly right or we won't be giving you the opportunity to participate. That's fair.

I'll usually give the offender a few strikes, so if you get a "That's 1" on a comment, it's a sign. Nothing against anyone having an opinion and both Frog and I would fight to the death for you to have your 1st amendment right of free speech even when we disagree, but what we don't tolerate is cheating. Happy to be here, love the format, it's the best we've seen on the internet, we all have a real chance to be a part of a great learning experience... hell college kids pay $40 grand a year for this type of action. So play fair, we will too and let's just try to get along.

regards,
PartysOver