Quinn, a full-fledged member of the cocktail weenie circuit, is a finger-wagging moron who is part of the problem with the media. I wouldn't read anything past her byline.

laura bush? is this the same laura bush who's eyes sometimes have pupils of different sizes from each other?

David

Blah! Blah! Blah!

I'm sure Capt will give you kudos for such a great topic!!

James Ha

I think you have Laura Bush and Nancy (Help, I can't move my face) Pelosi confused.

"Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston," believed Pro-Life's first monument to the "act of giving birth," is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

The monument also acknowledges the pop-diva's pin-up past by showing Spears seductively posed on all fours atop a bearskin rug with back arched, pelvis thrust upward, as she clutches the bear's ears with "water-retentive" hands.

NUDE britney spears SERVES AS PRO-LIFE MONUMENT
_______________

ya, save us laura bush!

Asking the Stepford Wife to help bail out the monkey in command is tooooooooo funny! This just gets more ridiculous as the day goes by.

By the way,big "hi" to all the Corn posters. Have a great day.

Later,
th

Pande

Thanks for the response back about helping the little guy. From reading your post, it sounds like you are the little guy and seem to be whining about your own problems.

Heres the difference between us; you want to blame the government for not giving you a handout to make life more comfortable. Free healthcare, increased wages, new minivan etc. I believe that you can make this happen on your own without a handout from anyone. This is what's great about the US. I started working at age 12 and moved my way up by improving myself and not waiting for the President to help me out with a freebe. I now give these same opportunities to people who want to do the same. If you came to one of my interviews, I'm afraid Pande, you would not get the job. I will only hire people who are self motivated, enthusiastic, optimistic and willing to take risks.

So go ahead and cry about how hard it is and how your for the little guy (as you make fun of them at the same time) and I will go on to say get off your ass and help yourself.

James Ha

James, second post of Britney? Does your wife know what your doing on the internet? You one handed typer, corndog, you!

3 Troll.

8 Troll.

TROLL APPRECIATION DAY

I have to admit, some days I feel like giving up. As I slug my way through my hopeless dead end job day after day, waiting for that "trickle down" of bloated corporate greed to come my way, I lose faith sometimes.As I see the most incompetent and dangerous government in our great nations history, recklessly trampling everything that makes America great, completely unopposed by spineless democrats and a profit driven corporate media, I wonder why I bother.

But then I read or hear something uttered by a delusional conservative. I am reminded of just how dangerous these people are. I become aware that these people would like nothing less than to set up a one party dictatorship right here in the good ole USA. I hear thier words that echo the same words used by facists in Nazi Germany and a fire is reignited in my belly. Each time I hear propaganda slogans like "terrorist helper", "cut and run", "anti American" and "commie liberal", I know there is no other choice but to fight.

So thank you trolls! Keep it up! Keep up the delusional hatespeak! I need it to sharpen my resolve!

Pande

The reason people are more in debt now is because the baby boomers from the sixties like Capt, Saladin, Don, Robert, Hajji etc. would rather spend three hundred dollars a month ($600 if you own two vehs. not counting the insurance) on driving a new SUV than buying a used car and putting that $300 bucks in a ROTH IRA. The average household has 4-5 TV sets and Cable TV to go with it, that's another $50-$100 a month that could be saved. Cell phones that average about $100 a month, How about the money they spend at StarBucks? Or, how about the money they spend to eat out?

If more people would eat less and exercise more, health cost would go down, productivity at work would go up, and more money would be left in the pockets for the average guy. It's all about self responsibility, which I know is difficult for you Cornnuts to grasp!!

Corky

"I'm still waiting for that trickle down bloated corporate greed to come my way"

Corky, this is exactly what my post was in reference too. "I'm still waiting" Get off your ass and go get it!!!! F**king handouts are not the American way!!!

Delusion:
I started working in a coal mine at age 6 and worked 27 hours a day while I was beaten and whipped. I saved up my 1 dollar an hour salary and loved every minute of it.

Reality:
I worked for my rich daddy and sat around the job bothering all the poor employees with GOP talking points. Then daddy sent me to an expensive college where I spent seven years getting wasted at frat parties and avoiding being drafted into the Vietnam war that I supported rom the safety of my fraternity house.

Quinns article is another wonderful example of how the rightwingers purport to criticise Bush, or show their "independence"

I call it "praising with faint damns"

Sure, Sally, that's all he needs is a little pillow talk from Laura!

#85 this was not me(previous post)
# 89 this was not me(previous post)

I will stay polite.

Jeanne that article "Cheney invites Helen Thomas on Hunting Trip" made me laugh. What an incredible standard Helen sets for other journalist. Simple, straight forward, honest questions. What a concept.

Got a friend to call in today on the Rehms show to ask Kevin Phillips about the influence of Israel on our foreign policy and the research paper "The Israel Lobby" by Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and its influence on the invasion (which most of us know about). This research paper is so complete and informative. ( I know I get obsessive on issues, especially ones that so many countries keep telling the U.S. really effect our ability or inability to negotiate and be diplomatic)

The lack of coverage, the silence in the american media on this paper and the influence of the Aipac lobby on foreign policy is deafening.

Thanks Micki..I saw Ledeen at a conference here at Ohio University a few years ago called the "Baker Peace Conference", ( I have no idea why he was invited to a peace conference) he was cold, calculated and an obvious right wing radical. I hope his lies and mis-deeds catch up with him

#14

Blah, Blah, Blah!!!

Same old lame bullshit comeback from liberals!!

My father is a welder by trade (also a registered Democrat) and taught me about hard work and sacrifice. I owe my success to my father for the lessons he taught me and to this day he will still not accept a handout without working for it.

Both my parents are registered Democrats and I first registered as a Democrat at age 19. I switched parties when I went to work for a small business owner that showed me how to start my own small business and that Democrats were not pro-small business. This is because they like unions and taxes so much. I also never belonged to a fraternity, so much for your lame ass comeback!!!

LBH, happy, child laborer or whoever you claim to be today:

You have no idea who you are talking to ASSHAT! I have forgotten more about hard work then you will ever know. I have worked my ass off since I was 14. I have worked 18 hour days in dangerous and inhuman conditions. I won the Maryland State Cycling Championships, while working and going to school. I beat the pants off rich little elitist punks like you every day. I overcame my financial and physical disadvantages by sheer determination and force of will. I did all of this while I fought against juvenile Diabetes. For my accomplishments I was featured on the front page of the State newspaper and interviewed by two Baltimore T.V. news stations. All of the interviews refered to me as a "tough kid". No they never said I was a "whiner". I know hard work very well. I ate rich kids like you for breakfast, usually after they made fun of my substandard bike and my ripped up clothes at the starting line of a race. I outperform everyone I work with and I have never been fired. You would not last five minutes my shoes you delusional idiot.

LBH

You should be aware that every lie you type here is on a permanent record. You have made many conflicting claims about your past. Your credibilty is non existent.

The one thing Laura can do to help is to poor all his liquor down the drain. But the last time she did that, Mean George came along and beat her. If she really wanted to save the country, her husband, and humanity at large, she would castrate her husband, rove (does he even have any?), Cheney (for sure!), and rummy. The loss of testosterone would allow them to use their brains - and not their penises - to think. Oh, and castrate rice, too.

No, I don't think Laura is even there to help him. Her nails look nice though. And...just one more thing, she has high morals. She's just refreshing. She has brought fresh air to the white house. Nice smile. She was a teacher or librarian or something you know. Well...hmmm..anyway....should I even be calling her Laura? Maybe I sould call her First Lady Bush. Or maybe First Lady Bush the second. Maybe just Laura. She's really behind education. That's why education funding in this country has been sliced and diced.

George Bush is not a conservative. George Bush is not a republican. George Bush is pro monopoly, which is anti small business.

Chimpy sez; I don't need to obey any laws, I am the King!The peckerhead scrolled a little addendum to the patriot act, it ain't pretty

Bush: Bye everybody. Take all the pens you want. They're not mine. Don't let the door hit your ass as you leave. Hmmm. Are they gone. I don't like this part of the bill. I just don't. It doesn't work for me. It's just not...what's the word? Oh yeah, how do I make it non binding....yeah binding. It's great when I don't like something...

Frist: The Congress isn't going to like this.

Bush: Who gives a sh#t. If I...

Scott: Sir, what do I tell the press?

Bush: You interrupted me. Why do you people keep interrupting me?

Scott: Yes sir.

Bush: Tell them to go f$$k themselves. Especially that Helen Thomas.

Scott: That never goes over well. Helen scares me.

Bush: She scares me too. That's why I have you do it.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

Yeah LBH, the greatest threat to small business is large business. And the greatest friend to large business is the republican party. The friend of my enemy is my friend? That's some twisted logic.

Den
Jinx

Corky

Good for you tough kid!!! What the hell happened to you?

#136 (previous post)Den...I firmly believe people need to stop being intimidated by the use of the anti-semitic card that is often played when you want to discuss/debate the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or the influence and power the Aipac lobby has over U.s. foreign policy.

Of course this issue and the Mossad's activities in our country need to be looked at. Go look at the four part series by Carl Camerons that was taken off of FOX NEWS IN THE FALL OF 2001 on the Mossad moving company, Amdoc communications ( an Israeli based communications system that has access to almost all phone calls and phone records made in the U.s.), at the INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE WEBSITE.

I also believe that this dialogue/debate about Israels influence on U.S. foreign policy and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict needs to take place respectfully.....BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY HONESTLY.

When honest and respectful debate continues to be shut down by using the constantly used anti-semitic card it only serves to twist the lid tighter. (go read the article at FORWARDonline about the efforts to control the U.s. media coverage about the research paper "The Israel Lobby", just recenly released)

This persistent effort to twist the lid tighter by the Aipac lobby and the american media, only serves to build more pressure and anger about the absence of real dialogue and debate. It is like a volcano ready to explode.

Goob

Are you speaking from experience? Do you own a small business? I do, and the greatest threat to my business right now is the local(city) Democratic party that has added a small business tax. Our county controlled by Democrats has added a property tax for business property. My state, that's run by Democrats wants to add another business tax. I pay very little Fed taxes with the deuctions Bush has put in place. So what exactly does big business have to do with anything effecting my business, other than your wishful thinking?

Clunky.
I recently received the honor of having my
" Letter To The Editor " published in the
U.S. A. Today newspaper . On Wednesday
March 22, 2006 . If someone would buy
me some chocolate bars I would gladly
type it up here, but .........

Anderson Petition

www.warisaracket.org

I don't know where ( most of )
you are, but I am at # 102 .

Have a NICE day.

Did anyone see Laura Bush's face at Coretta Scott King's funeral? She was stunned by people who were willing to tell the truth. Laura Bush would not be able to recognize the truth unless her own children were sent to serve in Iraq.

She has not been able to demonstrate real empathy or compassion. Maybe she would be able to if her own flesh and blood were put on the line for her husband's and his administrations ENDLESS LIES THAT HAVE RESULTED IN TENS OF THOUSANDS ....DEAD AND INJURED.

Monopolies like Walmart destroy small business!

Small business is directly affected by rising energy costs of monopolistic oil companies and thier greedy price gouging.

If you pay less taxes you will give more than what you saved to the oil companies.

Anyway who finances these tax cuts? China, a communist dictatorship, thats who!!!! Your children will have no choice but to work at Walmart 80 hours a week peddling commie Chinese products just to pay back the interest on all of Emperor Georges irresponsible borrowing!

George Bush hates small business!!!

Corky

Blah, Blah, Blah

Again, you don't know what the hell you're talking about! We have three Wal Marts here and also have one of the fastest growing sectors of small business start-ups with high success rates. I have customers who work at Wal-Mart and like working there and they also get health care coverage. Some of my customers with disabilities work at Wal-Mart because no one else would hire them, including liberal establishments like StarBucks. The only people who are against Wal-Mart here locally are union bosses-go figure!!!

Looks like someone needs to take some economy classes. Large businesses have a higher rate of profit, have more capital, have more workers, and more political sway than do small business. In a financial pinch, larger businesses weather the storm, whereas smaller ones sink. What the democratic party is doing in your state is not happening all over. I don't defend the democratic party, least of all the actions of your local group. I wouldn't doubt that large businesses are behind the taxes. People tend to think that one party does one thing whilst the other party does the opposite. It just isn't true. Political machinery can be bought for any price by anyone. Some republicans in TX encourage public education from taxes. Seems out of line with their usual rhetoric, but people like to hear good things happening for their children. That's why I refrain from picking sides, so I'm not stuck between my personal beliefs and the beliefs of the party. And yes, I am self-employed, so I do know.

Why is it the people who claim to be patriotic cry so much about paying some taxes? Waaaah waaah I want keep all my money! Waaaah waaah! I dont mind paying my taxes because I love this country and I want to keep it strong. Anything is better than paying interest to a bunch of commies in China!

Corky

You just went from tough kid to dumb kid!

High oil prices effect big business not so much small business. What effects small business more than anything is minimum wage and workers compensation and taxes-taxes-taxes.

Get a clue dumb kid!

In a recent memo Walmart instructed its managers NOT TO HIRE decent hardworking Americans (like myself) with chronic health conditions. I have a copy of the memo right here, and it is disgusting.

" countries other than Great Britain and the U.S. A. " with soldiers on the ground in Iraq

( y'all gonna help me out here,
or what ? )

Anderson Petition

I beg to differ LBH. High oil prices effect every business. I was talking to my employer, a small business owner and a conservative, just yesterday and he complained to me about the high cost of shipping the products he sells and also the cost of electricity!

George Bush likes giant corporations, not small business.

I always feel good when I pay my taxes. I feel like I am "investing" in the greatest nation on earth.

Corky

I don't mind paying my taxes that I owe and do so. What I mind is when a policical party (in my case democrats)that says I'm not paying enough. They want more money for pet projects to waste and I'm not able to keep an employee who needs a job to feed their family. If you knew anything about running a business you would understand this as goob has demonstrated.

No you were whining about "taxes taxes taxes".

You would rather borrow billions from the "commies" in China?

Kathleen, if anything needs sunlight it is the entire Israel issue, from the enormous amount of money they recieve from the US annually, to the actions of the groups responsible for disinformation peddled to the American people. They play a dangerous game, dangerous for anyone questioning their actions. We cannot forget they are the true terrorists. Many world events are a result of their activities. Like playing the race card or in this case the anti-semetic card, the intention is to shift blame from the guilty party. Anyone that does not understand the power they wield is not looking. My personal belief is the elements of Mossad are directly connected with what is know as the "Illuminati" the collectors of money and power. ruthless in their quest for complete control of the entire world monetary system, similar to the Federal Reserve. In fact the Fed. has very suspicious origins and will not allow any probes into its workings. Sound familliar? Secrecy is their "modus operendi". However as they broaden their power base, they open certain parts of their system to scrutiny. That I believe is what is happening now, bit by bit. We will never know exactly what is happening because if we dare to question their actions they play the anti-semetic card and trump the inquiry. The only choice we have is to disengage with them, stop all money going to Israel, ban Mossad agents entry into our country, eliminate the Federal Reserve system, return to the Gold standard, and refuse to fight wars for them. I'm not holding my breath though.

#31
Kathleen,
I agree. Laura Bush lives in neverland.

I would not try to run a small business nowadays with George "I hate small business" Bush in the White House. You cant compete with Walmart. Maybe after he is impeached I will.

More than half of federal taxes goes to military spending, which I would consider to be a very large pet project. These funds do go to feeding and sheltering our "fine" men and women in the armed forces, but they also go to nasty weapons like nukes and anthrax and white phosphorous. I think the US can find some better way of dealing with the world - it would save us billions of dollars every year if the defense budget were sliced in half. Who would suffer? The LARGE "defense" businesses, with which many of those in this administration have financial ties. I'm so glad I didn't vote for them.

Corky

There will always be obstacles that come up running a business, such as energy prices, taxes, WC, Min Wages, competition, death in the family, etc. To be successful you have to have a business plan in place to overcome these obstacles. Maybe you need to increase market share, reduce expenses, increase tech. etc. Again, it's not who you can blame, but how can I overcome the problem?

Uh, anyone looking at levels of foreign soldiers in Iraq ?
Bush " the Persuader " ? Where ?

A. P.

A few years ago I went to Canada to do some fishing. The first thing I noticed where all the small business's. They were everywhere! Little mom and pop stores and such. Not like here where little pizza places are pushed out by Dominos and little fishing stores are stomped out of existence by Walmart. Not at all what I had expected. From listening to conservatives cry about liberalism killing small business, I would have thought small business would be dead in Canada.

Having a rich daddy doesnt hurt either does it LBH?

Goob

I agree, too much is spent on silly military pet projects. I for one would rather see more of the money going to the troops and their families.

As far as the Bush admin. in bed with defense contractors, I believe Clinton was the one who sold military missle tech to China for some campaign contributions. So both parties do it and it will continue into the next administration, democrat or republican.

Anderson petition,

I think there is a large force of bomb sniffing goats from the island nation of Bola Bola, one of the members of the vast coalition of the willing.

Oh, and one other thing:
George Bush hates small business and loves communist China!

Corky

Yes, I would rather pay a person a living wage than pay more taxes-taxes-taxes. The dollar I give the government turns into about .05 when it gets to the person in need after the government gets there cut. I would rather give that person the full dollar for dollar amount.

BUSH BUDGET MAY HARM SMALL BUSINESS

Waaah waaaah!! Its MY money! I wanna keep all my money! Waaah waaaah! MINE MINE!!

"It is easier to thread a camel through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to pass into the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus Christ
The New Testament

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins.

Corky

My daddy makes about $40,000 a year on a good year. Compared to the tough kid, I guess this is a rich daddy.

Corky

Wal-Mart won't hire you because of your disability, they won't hire you because your a F**king retard!!!

More!

BUSH PLAN WILL HURT SMALL BUSINESS

More!

Bancruptcy plan could hurt small business

52 LBH, Yes, both parties do, which is why I refrain from dealing with them. Even with the best of intentions, political parties corrupt when weilding so much power. Best to limit power to prevent such abuses, and to promote liberty and equality. Money is a coercive power, and concentrated in the hands of a few (as economic or political entities), it becomes a powerful tool for subjugating others.

Yup. Typical thinking from the Booboisie. The conservative money machine has folks like LBH so brainwashed that he thinks that the Cheney administration is a boon to his business. Corporate Welfare is a boon to big business. The Cheney Administration has cut funding for the Small Business Administration. They only fund Big Business.

Happy cheers you on because he knows that you've swallowed the line, good hard working loser that you are.

They've got you right where they want you. Thinking that the constant loss of jobs, the loss of income, the inflation, the tightening of the bolts in health care and the thunderbluster in Iraq are the little guy's fault. And you wonder why I keep saying that you're getting pegged? You've been warned. Mencken was right, Democracy is the idea that the common man knows what he wants and deserves it good and hard. You are getting it good and hard, and enjoying every minute of it.

Corky 55

You post an article about Democrats whing that small business will be hurt from cuts in funding for IT programs. Only a friggin Democrat would offer another government handout to people who would rather do it on there own. My business is successful becaus of me not some dumbass Democrat who wants to take money from me, give it back in a grant or loan for less than I gave them. Your handle should be "What the Fuck"

More!

SBA Cuts could harm small business

No, LBH it was a newspaper article. You know that thing you never read, a newspaper.

LBH,

You are foaming again.

Corky 60

Again, only a liberal democrat would start a business with the intention to file bankruptcy down the road. Thta's gunna get ya real far in life. I want to try it but I'm not sure I'm good enough so give a guarentee that I can file bankruptcy and make everyone else pay for my failure.

Wow! After reading all that stuff it is scary how much W. hates small business!

Corky

You better hope your not ever pumping gas for Pande-he doesn't tip losers (his words, not mine).

You might not file for bancruptcy, but Georges best buddies, the giant corporations sure will! And they sure do!

George Bush hates small business.

LBH,

I gotta go. There are 641,000 hits for "BUSH polocies hurt small business" I have a lot of reading to do!

As always, thank you for stoking the fire in my belly and inspiring me to keep fighting for small business owners in America!

P.S. Bush hates small business!

Pande

Who gives a shit about the small business administration- do away with them for all I care-never used them.

If Big business wants some favors from Bush like the Unions and trial lawtyers get from the Dems, let them.

Who gives a hoot except guys like you that want to whine about not getting your fair share.

You said your parents came here from Mexico, do they feel that they've been cheated of a better life like you? In my State we spend alot of money (taxes) on legal and illegal immagrants from Mexico. Would love to discuss your thoughts on that!

Mr. David Corn,

"it's pretty hard to get the cowpie back into the cow"

Too funny! I had always heard "putting the toothpaste back in the tube" but yours sounds far more Texan!

Sadly, Laura only does what she is told and only thinks what she is told to think.

Maybe it would be more effective to share pretzel recipes?

Thanks for all of your work.

Kirk

Corky

I guess being employed by a small business gives you soooo much authority on the subject. Sort of like Capt giving us economic advice from his rented apartment.

Corky

Don't worry, you'll never own a samll business so you have nothing to fear but fear itself.

I have my own bicycle repair service. Doing for five years now. Has not been easy with Bush's anti small business polocies.

Had to come back to tell cornbloggers:

WASHINGTON POST FIRES PARTISAN HACK DOMENECHE FOR SERIAL PLGIARISM!!!! HE IS GONE!!!

And in other news:

George Bush loves giant corporate monopolies and hates small business!

New Poll for Senate

Russ Feingold 52% approve, 42% disapprove.

The liberals golden boy only has 52% of his own states support? This is your presidental hopeful?

Who the hell is (D)Herb Kohl has 55% from the same state.

#76
He lasted how many hours? What a hack. I don't know. I think the Washington Post is going to have be become a newspaper or something. People aren't letting them by with the partisan games anymore.

Corky

Drop me an email sometime and I will show you (for free)how to grow that little bicycle business of yours without any help from Bush.

PARTISAN HACK FIRED FOR PLAGIARISM

HA HA HA HA! Republicans, the party of moral values, gets caught lying and stealing again!

Ben Domenech probably hates small business too!

At least the Post fired the fool unlike the liberal rag NYT that gets caught about once a month now and only takes action until other papers expose them.

Small business advice tip #1

Borrow some money from your rich daddy!

If I want advice from a delusional idiot, I will call a scientologist.

STATE BANS ABSTINENCE PROGRAM

Rhode Island education officials have banned from public schools a federally funded abstinence program that civil rights advocates said embraced sexist stereotypes and included a voluntary student health survey that violated privacy laws.

Lawyers at the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union first complained last year that a now-abandoned textbook used by Heritage of Rhode Island taught students that girls should wear clothing that doesn't invite "lustful thoughts" from boys. The book described men as "strong" and "courageous" while women were called "caring."

A speaker on an accompanying videotape said abstinence helped him "honor my relationship with Jesus," although Heritage officials said the tape wasn't used in public schools.

"The curriculum had these incredible sexist viewpoints about men and women and boys and girls that seemed to come out of the nineteenth century," said Steven Brown, executive director of the state's ACLU.
-----------------
19th century. Yup, that's about right.

Corky

That must have been more nonsense posing as a conservative and stealing their lines or What the F**k that uses someone elses email address.

Maybe Ben has a job waiting for him at FOX NEWS!

Corky

Just because you call yourself rebublican or democrat doesn't mean there aren't bad apples just like Dem Sen Joesph Biden who got caught for plagiarism. I think he still represents your party also. The difference is that crime only pays if your a liberal Democrat.

#84

Huh?

Ummm...I am no democrat lover. I love to make fun of them and call them jellyfish.

George Bush still hates small business!

The GOP is a giant stinking pile of rotting worm ridden hatefruit.

Corky

You are the only one here that cares what Bush thinks about small business. I guess you need someone to blame for your failure of being a successful small business so go ahead and blame him. I'm sure he doesn't give a hoot.

Corky

You really need to work on your manners if you want to get that Wal-Mart job!!!

Programmer who alleged plot to steal Florida election runs for Congress

To Republicans, Clint Curtis is a traitor; a back-stabbing liar with an imagination that rivaled Jack Abramoff's influence over Congress.

To liberal Democrats, Curtis is a hero; a stand up guy who blew the whistle on computer voting fraud, testifying before a group of U.S. House Committee Judiciary Democrats after the 2004 presidential election.

And to the man himself, the Republican-turned-Democrat is nothing but a computer geek who purports to have found himself smack in the middle of a brazen political plot to tamper with elections in Florida, where fact can be stranger than fiction and politics as shady as swampy underbrush.

After all, since the software programmer accused Florida Congressman Tom Feeney of asking him to create a computer program to steal an election, the plot has unraveled quirkier than a Carl Hiaasen novel.

So far, a state investigator who had been looking into a contract held by Curtis' former employer was found dead in a cheap motel room and an illegal Chinese immigrant, a colleague of Curtis' who worked for a close friend of Feeney's, was allowed to remain in the United States and received a $100 fine for passing sophisticated missile technology to China.

It's no wonder why Curtis keeps a loaded AK-47 behind his door.

....In 2003, Ray Lemme, an investigator from the Florida Department of Transportation, looked into a contract between Curtis' former employer, Yang Enterprises, and the state. He was later found dead in a Georgia motel room, and it was ruled a suicide. Lemme was the first official from the state to investigate claims that Yang had been overbilling Florida.

"Two weeks before his death, he told me he had tracked the corruption all the way to the top and had just a few loose ends to tie up," Curtis said.
---------------------
I think Hiassen has plenty of material.

Well, now you can't fault the WaPoo for having trouble finding a Reichwinger to blog who's not steeped in some sort of intellectual dishonesty.

Anyone with more brain than brain-stem and at least of midge of scruples has seen through the mucky mire of the NeoConvict's talking points. Idiot Bush appologists are either so far gone that they're an embarrasment to the very people they promote (mAnn Coulter) or are scrambling to find some kinda toe-nail hold to brace against the whirling chasm sucking them down.

Pretty good for comedy value, though!

-T

Roberts Appoints Conservative Ex-Starr Deputy to Surveillance Court

According to a new report by the Federation of American Scientists, Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed Judge John Bates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Bates is replacing Judge James Robertson, who resigned last December to protest President Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping program.

Bates has a "distinctly conservative cast to his resume." From 1995 to 1997, he served as Ken Starr's deputy in the Whitewater investigation, a glorified political witch-hunt that never managed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons.

In 2001, Bates was appointed to district court by President Bush, where he was assigned the lawsuit seeking details about Vice President Cheney's secret energy taskforce. In a widely criticized ruling, Bates dismissed the case:

The third Starr retread currently wielding a gavel, District Judge John Bates, played a major role in stymieing a more substantive investigation than the one he pursued under Starr. The General Accounting Office (GAO) brought the first lawsuit in its 80-plus-year existence after Dick Cheney stonewalled its attempt to obtain information about the veep's 2001 energy task force. Bates, who provided the rationale for subpoenaing any woman to whom Clinton may have talked dirty about Whitewater, dismissed the GAO's effort to learn with whom Cheney's task force conferred.

Now, on the FISA court, one can only hope Bates will care as much about the privacy of ordinary Americans as he did for Dick Cheney, Ken Lay, and Big Oil executives.
--------------
Nothing partisan here.

Jeanne,

Hiassen's been heavily into Florida Politics for decades now. Many people don't know him past his wild (farsical?) fiction novels. Going to see Katie in the keys in 2 weeks with stops to paddle some in the 'Glades and visit some old haunts in Naples and Miami.

When Jill went out on her first DMAT trip, I sent along a copy of "Stormy Weather". She found a virtual doppleganger of just about every character in the book in only 2 weeks!

-T

Haijji,
He used to be a newspaper man. He and John Sandford are friends. Have you ever read any of the Sandford books? The stories take place in MN.

I've not, but I've got a signed copy of Hiassen's "Paradise Screwed", a collection of many essays and articles. I'll look up Sandford, but some of the attraction of Hiassen, Kingsolver, House and others I read is often my familiarity with the terrain and characters.

I've never been to MN...is that, like, in Canada or something?

-T

FCC Chief: AT&T Can Limit Net Bandwidth

FCC Chief Kevin Martin yesterday gave his support to AT&T and other telcos who want to be able to limit bandwidth to sites like Google, unless those sites pay extortion fees. Martin made it clear in a speech yesterday that he supports such a a "tiered" Internet.

Martin told attendees at the TelecomNext show that telcos should be allowed to charge web sites whatever they want if those sites want adequate bandwidth.

He threw in his lot with AT&T, Verizon, and the other telcos, who are no doubt salivating at the prospect at charging whatever the market can bear.

He did throw a bone to those who favor so-called "net neutrality" -- the idea that telcos and other ISPs should not be allowed to limit services or bandwidth, or charge sites extra fees. He said that the FCC "has the authority necessary" to enforce network neutrality violations. He added that it had done so already, when it stepped in to stop an ISP from blocking Vonage VoIP service.

But Martin's interpretation of "net neutrality" is far too narrow, and almost besides the point. By siding with telcos who want to be able to offer adequate bandwidth to sites that pay up, and to limit bandwidth to sites that don't, he'll help kill off new sites that can't afford to fork over the money.

That could help end Internet and network innovation, and we simply can't afford that.

#97
Kinda.

HARD SCIENCE IS BEING SHUNNED IN ARKANSAS

“I am instructed NOT to use hard numbers when telling kids how old rocks are. I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD ... but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.”
___________

pathetic. this is as pathetic as britney spears being the model for pro-life. is this the laura bush america?

Interestingly, I was going through some old stuff and found a letter that was published in my local paper in '03...nothing's changed but the numbers of dead, wounded and the severity of pain and anguish by those affected...
__________________

To the Greenville News...

To citizens of this country who continue to support the Bush
administration's horrific actions: You are just as guilty as Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Powell. You are guilty of manipulation of
intelligence, of lying to start a war that has claimed the lives of
over three hundred Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi men,
women, elderly and children (so far) for no purpose other than to
rape the treasury of U.S. taxpayers to pad the larders of defense
industry investors. You are guilty of littering Mesopotamia with
depleted uranium munitions, contributing to painful illness and
starvation and death of elderly and children.

You are also guilty of enacting legislation eroding the freedom of
privacy of Americans through the "Patriot Act", eliminating
protection of our environment and promoting devastating pollution
through rollbacks in the "Clean Air and Water Acts", dubious
re-writing of many environmental studies, destruction of tracts of
unspoiled forest and threatening the scourge of oil wells in the
Arctic National Wildlife Preserve.

In an effort to place the value of the corporate entity ABOVE that
of the individual, to make the voice of the millionaire louder than
that of the common man you may well soon be guilty of the elimination of overtime pay for more than eight million hardworking
American laborers, nurses and other hourly workers, reduction of
Federal matching funds to many state and local shelter programs for
poor, abused, raped and neglected women and children.

I am sickened and saddened. How is this "Christian"? How is this
"American"?
__________________

-T

Update 2: Today in History - March 23

In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.

Thank you for contacting me about H.Res 635. I appreciate hearing from you.

On December 18, 2005 Congressman John Conyers introduced H.Res 635 which was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary. The resolution would create a select committee to investigate the Bush Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.

Under article 1, section 5, clause 4 of the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives has the sole authority to begin the process of impeachment of a President for high crimes and misdemeanors.

This resolution is unjustified and I will not support it.

In addition to the Senate review of WMD intelligence, the independent Silbermann-Robb Commission conducted a comprehensive review of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, and the UK Butler commission did as well. What every review has found is that there was a globally held belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. All of these reviews were critical of the quality of the intelligence. None of them found any indication that there was pressure on analysts to slant their intelligence. Former President Bill Clinton, Former Vice-President Al Gore, Sandy Berger and Senators Biden, Byrd, Kennedy, Levin, and Rockefeller all stated they believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and those weapons constituted a major threat. Other countries, including those that did not support U.S. military action, held similar views.

These reviews, which run to several thousand pages, combined with the findings of the Joint House-Senate review of intelligence before and after September 11 th , 2001, and the 9/11 Commission report led to comprehensive legislation in the fall of 2004 to reform the intelligence community. That legislation, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, was the biggest change to our intelligence collection and analysis system since the creation of the CIA in 1948.

Last year, I supported the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations bill which included language introduced in the Senate by Senator John McCain that bans torture. This legislation passed both chambers of Congress and became law.

American soldiers and interrogators must comply with the Convention on Torture, the requirements of U.S. law, and the Geneva Conventions. When we find people who break these laws, we investigate, prosecute and punish them. The rules need to be clear for our soldiers and interrogators, and those rules must apply wherever they are in the world.

It is your right to disagree with the President and his policies. But your disagreements and dislike for him isn't grounds for impeachment.

Sincerely,
Heather Wilson
Member of Congress

*************

Pretty sad when my rep. tells me I dislike the president.

I replied (as I always do) that phase two has never happened. She has never replied to my reply.

capt

"Each time I hear propaganda slogans like "terrorist helper", "cut and run", "anti American" and "commie liberal", I know there is no other choice but to fight.

So thank you trolls! Keep it up! Keep up the delusional hatespeak! I need it to sharpen my resolve!"

= = =

I agree Corky.

The pariah of the progresive blog
The enemy of old-fashioned ingnorance
The anti-troll

more Nonsense

The new documents suggest that the 9/11 commission's final conclusion in 2004, that there were no "operational" ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, may need to be reexamined in light of the recently captured documents.
While the commission detailed some contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the 1990s, in Sudan and Afghanistan, the newly declassified Iraqi documents provide more detail than the commission disclosed in its final conclusions. For example, the fact that Saddam broadcast the sermons of al-Ouda at bin Laden's request was previously unknown, as was a conversation about possible collaboration on attacks against Saudi Arabia.

"This is a very significant set of facts," former 9/11 commissioner, Mr. Kerry said yesterday. "I personally and strongly believe you don't have to prove that Iraq was collaborating against [ACM note – I suspect he misspoke and meant “collaborating with”] Osama bin Laden on the September 11 attacks to prove he was an enemy and that he would collaborate with people who would do our country harm. This presents facts should not be used to tie Saddam to attacks on September 11. It does tie him into a circle that meant to damage the United States."

Mr. Kerry also answered affirmatively when asked whether or not the release of more of the documents captured in Iraq could possibly shed further light on Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda. The former senator was one of the staunchest supporters of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which made the policy of regime change U.S. law.

#101 Another good post Hajji. I sent that to my other friends because it needed sharin'. Glad you shared it with us maaaan!

Capt

As Pande would say; "Sounds like Heather Wilson has you pegged!"

103 Cap.

We are all easily dismissed if our messages appear motivated by personal dislike. Somehow the merit of an argument flies out the window when the messenger can be characterized as irrational or hate-filled. I?m not saying that?s what happened to you. I?m just saying that happens a lot.

Write her back. Make your case. Stay clear of revealing your feelings about King George to empire builder. Keep it respectful.

I wrote her to commend her efforts initiating the House investigation into NSA programs. Subsequently. I was extremely disappointed to see how Hoekstra so easily hijacked and derailed that effort.

Because I'm from out of state, I got the "we got your letter but you're from out of state so all you?ll get is this lousy email? email.

I may write her again. If I do and you like it, can it be sent from your pet, Fido Kirk, resident of New Mexico. Then we could both see the response.

I just watched the movie 'Good Night and Good Luck' yesterday. I was struck by the fact that Joe McCarthy and Feingold come from the same state.

Russ Never Sleeps

None of this fits any of the tried-and-true formulations in the red-and-blue American playbook. A mild- mannered Midwestern Senator-Russ Feingold- nnounces on a Sunday-morning chat show that he's going to introduce a resolution to censure the President. His grounds are straightforward: that the President's warrantless-wiretapping initiative violates the law and the constitutional separation of powers. His party's leaders, all universally understood as coastal-elite figures drunk on their hatred of the President and hell-bent on his undoing- well, they flee en masse, literally hiding behind each other as inquiring reporters try to suss out what they make of the proposal.

"Both Democratic politicians and pundits are afraid," Mr. Feingold said on March 21 by phone. He was between constituent tours during the week's Congressional recess. "Time and again, they allow themselves to be intimidated from taking a strong stand against the administration."
--------------------
If they are afraid then they shouldn't have the positions they have. Find courage or get out. This isn't about being afraid anymore. The president has shown the public that he not only thinks he's above the law but that he can change the law to suit himself. That is very dangerous. It gives any like minded person in this country the idea that they the same power because they have new laws at their disposal. It's bad enough that you have the corruption in states like Florida and Ohio but now the corrupt officials have judges and FBI and CIA to back them up.

When all is said and done, the elected officials have to explain their behavior too and the people of this country are going to be just as angry at those opposed to Bush who did nothing as those who sat in his lap. Look at Nazi Germany. Those that ignored the crimes were as deplored as those who were part of the system.

105 What is the link to the source? Thanks.

OOPS!

That couldn't possibly be true, Clinton was President in the 90's and there wasn't any such thing as terrorism. Saddam was under the control of the UN and they would have surely known about this. If this were true Clinton wouldn't have bombed a tent to hit a camel in the ass. If this were true Clinton would have taken Bin Laden when Sudan offered him to us! Hell no, I won't believe it, because Clinton was President and everything was good in the 90's even the blow jobs by fat chicks!

105,111 OOPS! = LBH

pathetic really.

Hajji,

I've always loved Naples myself. It's not as small and quiet as it used to be, though.

I always stay at the Cove Inn on the bay when I'm there. Nice, clean and affordable (off-season, anyway) rooms. Great grouper sandwiches at The Dock. I'll be there for a couple of days the second week of May. Looking forward to it!

EVIL OR STUPID: IT DOESN'T MATTER

I once saw a bumper sticker that read: "I’∂e never made a mistake. I thought I did once, but I was wrong."

Well I have made a mistake. And today I must apologize to loyal PRAVDA.Ru readers, and to the thirty percent of Americans still enamored with the Bush dictatorship.

George W. Bush is not evil. He’≥ just stupid.

On second thought, this stupidity does make him susceptible to the Machiavellian machinations of evil men, like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and the rest of the plutocratic oligarchs who control America so extensively they can even abandon the fa?ade of consulting with their puppet when developing policies detrimental to the nation and the world, but beneficial to their avariciousness and corruption.

If this reality was ever in doubt, one need only reflect upon the oligarchs’†now infamous attempt to transfer management of several American port terminals to a Middle-Eastern company. According to reports, Bush was not even privy to discussions about this plan until after they had been completed.

Of course this was not the first time the puppet masters ignored their puppet. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, reports also indicated that Bush was basically treated like an annoying child who is instructed to play in the corner while the "grown-ups" engage in conversation.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Now go play in the corner Georgie!

capt

Torture Watch

Eric Schmitt writes in the New York Times: "With the conviction on Tuesday of an Army dog handler, the military has now tried and found guilty another low-ranking soldier in connection with the pattern of abuses that first surfaced two years ago at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"But once again, an attempt by defense lawyers to point a finger of responsibility at higher-ranking officers failed in the latest case to convince a military jury that ultimate responsibility for the abuses lay farther up the chain of command."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world: President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration. . . .

"Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors. Indeed, he has promoted many of them. And this is not an isolated problem. It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not matter how egregious."

Jess Bravin writes in the Wall Street Journal: "The Bush administration will bar statements made under torture from its Guantanamo Bay military courts, reversing a White House decision in July that could have allowed such evidence to convict suspected terrorists held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. . . .

"Some policy makers . . . had been urging a ban on the use of evidence from torture. . . .

"Others, including David Addington, then counsel and now chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, and Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, successfully opposed such a rule, arguing that commission members themselves should be free to decide how to deal with evidence allegedly gained through torture, officials said."

(link)

Domestic Spying Watch

Katherine Shrader writes for the Associated Press: "A vocal Republican critic of the Bush administration's eavesdropping program will preside over Senate efforts to write the program into law, but he was pessimistic Wednesday that the White House wanted to listen.

" 'They want to do just as they please, for as long as they can get away with it,' Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'I think what is going on now without congressional intervention or judicial intervention is just plain wrong.' "

The Philadelphia Daily News editorial board writes: "In an attempt to rein in the Bush administration and its cowboy tactics with the illegal wiretapping of Americans making calls overseas, various Republicans are floating proposed legislation that would make the president's actions legal. . . .

"Rather than trying to fix a law that wasn't broken until Bush decided to break it, Congress should be considering censuring the president. Otherwise the message from Congress to future presidents will be break any law you want."

(link)

Corky + Nonsense = the best and brightest Cornnuts have to offer!!

LBH sniffles:
"Only a friggin Democrat would offer another government handout to people who would rather do it on there own."

With all three branches of government controlled by Conservatives, it's no wonder that the Federal purse has been raided and the deficits have blown sky high. Fiscal responisibility only counts when you're cutting the funds that would go to Katrina victims or the families of soldiers that have to survive cuts and shame that is inflicted on them by the lying Cheney Administration.

click here, scroll down and look at the graph of the big money that is handed out to big business; but the head cheerleader for the Booboisie, LBH thinks it's the Dems that are giving our hard earned tax dollars to Welfare queens. The Welfare queens are the CEOs of Dell and GM. Listen to the Head Cheerleader, and he'll tell you all about the unfair advantage that the unions give the workers. How much do CEOs make? They must have a better union. LOL.

"The difference is that crime only pays if your a liberal Democrat."
Posted by LBH at March 24, 2006 03:30 PM

* Duke Cunningham took millions of dollars in bribes
* Tim Noe ripped off the people of Ohio
* DeLay indicted
* Ney is next
* Doolittle to follow
* Harris took bribes

Crime pays for conservatives a lot better than your gas-n-sip gig.

117 Thank you for the compliment but I think the honor goes to Pandemoniac. Take post 118 for example.

Ah, C'mon! That Belgian Shepherd was just "one bad apple", "blowing off some steam" in some kind of "fraternity prank".

I think it is a frightening thing what the attrocities of war can do to a human mind. Sgt.Karl came home organized and focused and more than ever convinced that war is simply a grab for (more)money or (more)power for the rich and powerful. He's just passed his Paramedic certification with flying colors and remains a firefighter in a rural town in Indiana.

Spec. Spanky is already talking about following that path, too.

What do those who rape and de-humanize and torture and kill come home to, I wonder?

-t

Comment: The forgotten victims of the Iraq war

IRAQ's children have suffered more than just successive wars and economic sanctions. The loss of parents and family resources has boosted child labour, homelessness and inclinations towards violence and rebellion.

They live in homes where 25 people live in a space of 40 square metres. Even intact families may comprise parents and five children in a single room.

The increase in child labour reflects families' dire economic situation: Children are frequently a family's only breadwinners, and they work cheap. Contractors in municipal services, for example, prefer to use children in order to cut costs. Here, a child may be used for agricultural labour or for janitorial work.

Many work in piles of garbage, either removing them to another place or collecting empty bottles and cans to sell. Others load and transport items in the markets, where they must pull carts weighing 60-70kg and carry boxes weighing 15kg in temperatures of 50?C. Two children may unload a lorry carrying one tonne of food items.

Not surprisingly, Iraq's child workers suffer from a wide array of serious health problems. Children who work in the garbage dumps are prone to skin and respiratory problems, while those who work with paints eventually become addicted to the intoxicants that they inhale.

And all working children are vulnerable to malnutrition, as their diet typically lacks the items necessary to build body tissues.

....At the other end of the spectrum, rape, adultery, early child-bearing, and abortion have become ordinary matters. Increasingly, Iraqi girls interpret anything given to them as a means to have sex with them.

Orphans, whose number has increased sharply over the past quarter-century as a result of wars, economic sanctions, and terrorism, are especially vulnerable to the cruellest type of physical and psychological violence.

Having lost their homes and parents, they sleep in alleys, sell cigarettes or newspapers, and beg. Grandparents are often unable or unwilling to care for them, and the pathological education given to them by criminal gangs often puts them beyond the reach of any institution's ability to rehabilitate them.

Simply put, children in Iraq have been reduced from human beings worthy of care to tools of production and instruments of violence.
----------------
Yes, Laura and George are all about family values. Fresh air for the White House.

Pande

As I've said before, there are crooks on both sides and always will be.

You keep coming back with attacks but do not address the questions I put before you. I have responded to all your critisms. Do you not have a legit answer for a response?

I would rather Bush give money away to big business than sell military secrets to the Chinese for campaign contributions (er, Cliton).

I would do away with the IRS completely and support a flat tax which would eliminate Corp give aways.

I agree that the Republicans have become more like liberal progressives and spent us into a deficit problem. Putting even bigger spenders like the Democrats back in charge will not fix the problem.

How many people went to jail in the Clinton administration? Have you forgotten already?

Unfortunately, for you Pande, your going soft has left your arguements soft as well.

My current congressman wouldn't give me the time of day, but my old congressman still replies.
================================
Dear Mr. Dxxxxx:

Thank you for contacting my office. Please be assured, I strongly oppose preempting state food safety laws. Therefore, I voted against HR 4167 when it was considered by the House. You may be interested to know that I am the lead Republican cosponsor of legislation that would protect state consumer protection laws from federal preemption.

Again, thank you for contacting my office and for your support of our shared position.

Sincerely,

Ron Paul

Just let the shrub in office keep it up, we have two plus years more of this incompetent. Hey LBH that e mail deal really twisted your panties didn't it? Good for me, you really should not pay attention to the little things in your life so much. Your business is going great, guess the lemonade stand just sold some more huh? Going all gooey for these crooks and I mean any politician I won't take sides in this criminal fantasy. How exactly do you see this playing out? I mean crushing debt for the kids that probably will refuse to accept a 70% tax rate, and the mass of unemployed manufacturing workers. The outsourced IT engineers that paid lots of bucks for an education so some dot head in india can get enough money to marry some babe in bollywood? Just curious do you see a smooth transition to some fascist paradise or are you still smoking that old evil devil weed just to make things look rosy in your mind? It is curious that you continue to flog proven lies and won't accept any argument other than you are better than you think. I have it you are a legend in your own mind, again. Well try my new e mail address maybe you might like that one better, or not. Personally I don't give out any personal information on the internet if possible. And to just keep on taunting you into froth, you aren't worth it. If you ever show up in Phoenix maybe we can chat. YOu might even get a different viewpoint. But that remains to be seen. So before you go nuts and answer me with wild invective and ridiculous claims how about some insight into the future of the american economy and the demise of the republican fantasy? Please inquiring minds want to know your opinion.

WTF

The email thing is no big thing, I just like to rub it in what a pathetic coward you are when someone gives me such a freebe like you did. If I was worried, I would have posted a bogus email address like you do!!!

I'm pretty proud of most of you 'people of the corn' for ignoring LBH's bullshyt. Even though he keeps spouting lies like the Clinton/Chinese nuclear spin, when we all know it was set up by Reagan. Nancy said it was "in the stars". haha
So anyway, keep posting the good stuff and ignoring a certain troll.
peash

WTF

My brother inlaw was one of those IT guys you keep whing about that lost his job. It wasn't because of outsourcing, it was because business's don't need to upgrade computer systems like in the 90's and the year 2000 thing is over. He now owns his own business and makes more money than he did working for that big Corp. I guess you could say "He stuck it to the man."

Jackbooted thugs coming to a bar near you...be careful, Alan!

I think it is too cool that Heather has the "dislike the president" in her standard form letter. I assume she has a large number of emails from people that dislike the president. I have gotten that line in every response she has sent to me since I wrote her about impeachment. She is a pip.

capt

105,111 You don't have the self-respect to admit or deny posting the article as OOPS! and then commenting on it as as LBH? For lame for lame.

16 I'm sure you noticed Kathleen set the record straight. She did not post the troll-like posts 85 and 89 yesterday. It was an imposter. I wonder who that might have been.

Isn't it interesting the phrase "because you dislike the president" can be sited as a reason? for anything?

Who here is tired of hearing from certain cornbloggers about how good George Bush has been for the economy and the stock market... besides me?

= = = = = =

The Risks of Ownership

Brendan Murray writes for Bloomberg: "President George W. Bush has tried to sell Americans on an 'ownership society' that would create more wealth -- and more Republicans in the process. The stock market hasn't accommodated.

"The Standard & Poor's 500 Index -- the benchmark for American equities -- is down 2.8 percent since Bush took office five years and two months ago. That's the worst performance during the same stage of any two-term administration in the past half century except that of Richard M. Nixon.

"The market's performance is undermining a central goal of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser. Borrowing from Margaret Thatcher's privatization push in the U.K. in the 1980s, Rove's theory is that if more Americans make their own financial decisions and the last vestiges of a welfare state are dismantled, a culture of ownership will spring up. The ranks of Republican voters, the idea goes, will swell along with it.

" 'The ownership society looked very attractive on paper,' said Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. 'But once you flesh out the changes, people become very concerned because they are already fearful that their economic security is slipping away.' "

(link)

LBH goes for something different:
"I would rather Bush give money away to big business than sell military secrets ...."

Actually, you would rather let the CIA arm and train a terrorist to kill innocent Americans like Reagan and Bushdaddy did with Bin Laden. Why do you hate Americans, LBHeadcheerleader?

"I would do away with the IRS completely and support a flat tax which would eliminate Corp give aways."

Not as long as you're voting for the Grand Ol' Spending Party. You're actually voting to saddle my kids with the biggest debt ever run up by idiot humanoids. Goopers haven't balanced a budget without the guiding hand of a Democrat EVER.

"I agree that the Republicans have become more like liberal progressives and spent us into "

When did Liberals run up a 8 and a half million dollar deficit? The biggest chunks of the deficit are from the Reagan/BushI/BushJr years. What planet have you been living on?

"How many people went to jail in the Clinton administration? Have you forgotten already?

None got indicted and none went to jail. The Conservative movement failed again.

Posted by: LBH at March 24, 2006 05:09 PM

1956 Report on Classified Information (Coolidge Committee)

From an introduction to the report by Susan Maret, Ph.D.

…as government secrecy expands, more public officials become privy to classified information and are faced with the choice of whether or not to leak…growing secrecy likewise causes reporters to press harder from the outside to uncover what is hidden. And then in a vicious circle, the increased revelations give government leaders further reasons to press for still more secrecy.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

If you have not been to the Memory Hole, you might like the ride.

capt

Dislike the president? As far as I can tell there is NOT one single reason to like the jerk. Anybody think of one?........crickets chirping.........I figured as much.

RE: economy

Some people could not care less that the government is spending money their grandchildren will be paying.

Hey we could solve world hunger for less than we have spent to take Iraq to their civil war party.

But hey, who cares about the future because the Kkkristo-fasicsts will be raptured or die of old age before the bill comes due. That is unless there is a demand for payment.

*sigh*

capt

I agree with Ms. Quinn. Mrs. Bush could play a pivotal role in trying to salvage something out of her husband's legacy. I trust her a lot more than the axis of evil advisors around her husband (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.).

In retrospect, too bad someone didn't write an op-ed piece some 8-10 years ago, urging Hillary to have Bill neutered for the good of the country.

Bob

You've read about families that lost everything in Katrina. In addition to securing interim food and shelter, these people are starting their lives over. If you had resources and you wanted to contribute, what would you consider?

= = = = = = =
Cynthia Leonor Garza writes in the Houston Chronicle: "Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil."

= = = = =
All the benefits of being socially responsible while keeping it all $$$ in he family.

There is one way to get the hypocrits in DC to listen. Need to make sure the prez and congress is in town first. Then every able bodied citizen with a car drive to DC and clog each and every street in that town with cars and people. I'm talking gridlock, major civil disobedience. Surround all govt. buildings with your cars. Post signs, get some bullhorns and make these mealy minded bureaucrats listen. There is enough pissed off people out there it should be no trouble finding volunteers. Any other ideas?

$325 million in new detention centers. I think the government has been expecting some large scale civil disobedience. I bet they were surprised that we didn't riot in the streets when the supreme idiots assigned the presidency in 2000.

capt

#135
He's fun to have a beer with...I think. I've never had a beer with him and I have the wrong social security number so I'll probably never know. But I've heard....he's fun to have a beer with.
Ummmmm....strong family values. No wait. He lied about that.
Ummmmm....jeez....oh, he's all for helping me help myself. Ahhhh....not really.
I'm at a loss.

Bob,
My sister told me the state is making cabins on top of forest ranger towers in the Dakotas. I don't know if it's North or South or both. Have you ever been to one? She read about it and told me the thunderstorms are terrifying.

please. they could probably solve world hunger for less than the cost of one month of the iraq war -
on a positive note: the date of the proposed iranian bourse came and went without anything obvious happening....at least so far.

More culture of corruption in the Conservative movement. Aside from taking bribes left and right, hand over fist, they are getting taken advantage of by FAKE lobbyists. It's kinda like that gag where they tie a string to a dollar bill and pull it when a Republican stoops to pick it up. HUh-larry-us.

And the Cheney Administration has gotten caught again catapulting the propaganda by the MSM. TSK. Tsk. Pants on fire. I guess telling the truth is like helping the lower and middle class to these Conservatives. They just don't know how.

Me? I like the Preznit because he's a 2-Megaton load of dynamite around the neck of the Conservative movement. Throw 'em an anvil.

Too many sheeple then. Just pass out free beer, have bands, could be DCs Woodstock. Need 1-5 million volunteers, SHUT EM DOWN & MAKE EM LISTEN! Piss on them detention centers there is not enough manpower or jails to hold mass quanities of people. These jokers are running my country into the ground and nobody wants to get off their dead asses and bring back the 60's. Now there was some protests!

FEMA breaks promise on Katrina contracts
_______________
WASHINGTON - FEMA has broken its promise to reopen four multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work, including three that federal auditors say wasted significant amounts of money.

Officials said they awarded the four contracts last October to speed recovery efforts that might have been slowed by competitive bidding. Some critics, however, suggested they were rewards for politically connected firms.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison pledged last fall to rebid the contracts, which were awarded to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. Later, the agency acknowledged the rebidding wouldn’t happen until February.
______________

"No goddamn it, we don't HAVE to abide by our word, our promises OR our laws! We're IN CHARGE!!!"

-Some FOBushcheney

I've spent a night or two in Fire Towers above Red River Gorge, in Kentucky's Daniel Boon National Forest.

Storms up there are, indeed, Breathtaking!

-T

FEMA breaks promise on Katrina contracts

Agency will extend, not rebid, deals with politically connected firms

FEMA has broken its promise to reopen four multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work, including three that federal auditors say wasted significant amounts of money.

Officials said they awarded the four contracts last October to speed recovery efforts that might have been slowed by competitive bidding. Some critics, however, suggested they were rewards for politically connected firms.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison pledged last fall to rebid the contracts, which were awarded to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. Later, the agency acknowledged the rebidding wouldn’¥ happen until February.

This week, FEMA said the contracts wouldn’¥ be rebid after all. In fact, they have been extended, in part because of good performance, said Michael Widomski, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"They are continuing the work," Widomski said, and the agency is now focused on competitive bids for disaster relief contracts for the next hurricane season beginning June 1.

"We looked at the lessons learned from Katrina," Widomski said. "We're painstakingly looking at what best fits the needs of disaster victims and taking bids for future work."

Promised $1.5 billion yet to be given
An additional $1.5 billion in work promised to small businesses also has yet to be awarded.
---------------------
Widomski can painstakingly look all he wants. They were supposed to rebid and they didn't. This adminsitration has NO accountablity. None. Start throwing people in that great big detention center Capt posted about.

"Newshour" has 4 vets (including IVAW folks) talking on the 3-year since the illegal and immoral invasion, thing.

That's it Capt,
The Bush administration is doing us a favor. They are getting the detention center ready for all the cronies from the Bush administration. I hope Rove gets house arrest. I want him to have to stay in his Texas 'residence'.

Laura Bush is no more capable of taking the time to follow in the footsteps as Nancy Regan or the eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy, never mind influence her husband than the average two year old is. Her views on political issues are tunneled except when it comes to the educational requirements of the children of America. Perhaps this is only because she so proudly professes her career as a librarian of twelve years, which seems to be her only accomplishment, besides slimming down from a size 10 dress to a size 8 while occupying the White House.

Only once has she been on record as verbally stating her viewpoint on abortion, and when asked about her opinion on Roe v. Wade, offered the alternatives of "education and abstinence, along with the use of contraceptives." Further adding insult to injury, she proudly in that southern drawl of hers panders, that she agrees with ole Georgie Boy "that we should try to reduce the number of abortions in our country ..." Good gosh woman, is this your opinion? I would hope not! This statement is archaic in the thought process of the twenty first century and would further push back the rights of all woman of this country. To further this matter, I would be interested in Laura Bush's opinion on the recent lawsuit filed by Matt Dubay of Saginaw Michigan, Roe v. Wade for men. Roe v. Wade for Men

She absolutely, positively will not go on record about any constitutional amendments as they relate to gay rights and marriage, and will only state that she knows, "some people find it [gay rights] shocking." Though Laura herself will not state whether or not she finds gay rights shocking, or whether she could possibly persuade her husband to change the laws to recognize same sex marriages in the states. Perhaps someone should tell Laura that just one iota of firmness in one's opinion is all one can hope for in themselves, as this sheds light on individuality. Unfortunately, all she wants to do is consistently follow in the shadowy footsteps of the "little big man".

As to her eloquent speech processes, I draw your attention to an excerpt in an interview between O'Reilly and Laura before the 2004 election (as much as I dislike throwing out this interviewer):

The O'Reilly Factor, August 3, 2004

"O'REILLY: Do you talk policy with your husband?
BUSH: Sure.
O'REILLY: You do.
BUSH: Sure.
O'REILLY: Does he ask your opinion on issues?
BUSH: Sure.
O'REILLY: You know, so he says... and so you're like a consigliore.
BUSH: No, I don't think so.
O'REILLY: What do you think about gay marriage, or what do you think about this, or what do you think about that... does he ask you...
BUSH: More of a sounding board, is that what you mean?
O'REILLY: Yeah.
BUSH: Yeah, possibly, sure.
O'REILLY: But you can't ever say, can you?
BUSH: Say publicly if it's different from him?
O'REILLY: Right.
BUSH: You know, sure, I could. You know, I could say it if I wanted what I thought to be the debate, publicly. But that, you know, he's the one whose name is on the ballot. He's the one who's sitting in the Oval Office, and I'm not. So, you know, I don't really feel like I have to say what I think about every issue that is different from what he thinks."

End of excerpt

Laura Bush is a Stepford Wife and will forever remain one. Unfortunately, this is her Texas upbringing, conditioning and preparation and nothing is going to change that. Admittedly, she never thought she would become the First Lady of the United States, and perhaps had circumstances not brought George the Second to power, she would be home in Texas in that little back yard flower garden doing what she what she longs so much for, getting her hands dirty playing in manure fertile dirt. Much to her dismay, Laura and the rest of her family will have to watch her husband get his hands dirty as the shit starts to unfold and hits the fan for him. Oh, but wait, he's leaving all of that to the next president - typical LBJ move - what an ass wipe. This country is surely going to hell in a hand basket under the reign of King George II - how very sad, but maybe it was all suppose to be this way. Who is to say.

On a side note, what in the world is this woman up to?

Condi's Recent Excursions

Christian chat rooms with erotic sex toys. Sounds about right.

Wow...I was kinda missing the "Links for everything" guy...

What an asshole!

-T

If that particular troll would just answer the question what is his solution. If he has none then he has to be a democrat no bones about it. A weasel, and other terms that I am too polite to use here. See ya?

More funny stuff: There Is No Liberal Baby Bust
By Froma Harrop

The last graf sez it all:
"So the belief that demographics put Republicans on the road to long-term victory is clearly delusional. Still, you have to love the optimists' image of maternity-ward doctors stamping "Republican" on all those cute little bottoms. "

What a bunch of Conservative ultra-maroons. Even Head Chearleader fell for it. Surprise. Surprise. Gomer.

"I hope Rove gets house arrest. I want him to have to stay in his Texas 'residence'."
Posted by Jeanne at March 24, 2006 06:29 PM

Send him to Texas? Awww, thanks, Jeanne. They could set him up on a wildlife park of some sort where we could visit the idiot and throw him peanuts and pretzels. He would probably organize a scheme to outfox the keepers and wind up hanging upside down in a zoocage. Pendejo deluxe.

Oops. I meant Trillion with a big badass T @133. The Reds have us over 8 Trillion Dollars in the Red.

Home again, home again, Jiggedy Jig.

GK,

Nice post...do more!

-T

The Demon of Mankind has no new posts since 3/15: the editor must be too busy here battling ignorance.

Pande

I don't support Reagan , Bush or Clinton who have helped terrorist regimes in the past.
So strike one!

"As long as you vote for the Grand old spending party"
I only vote for true deficit reducing conservatives that are Reb, Dem, or Ind.
Strike two!

"When did the Democrats run up a 8 and a half million dollar deficit?" Well, if it's only 8 and a half million, whats the problem?

After you check your math then tell me which liberals didn't vote for the budget and military spending packages as well as the increases in Iraq? Most of them are on record saying were not spending enough money and want to raise taxes.
Strike three!

You got me on the Clinton indictments, it was only individuals and business associates connected to Clinton that were convicted or plead guilty, 47 total, I believe. Then you have the AR gov.,his brother, the drug dealer, that was pardoned by big brother Billy. Theres Sandy (the document)Burglar, Henry Cisneros who gives government money to his mistress. And last but not least, Hillary's former finace director David Rosen. I could go on but you get the point.
I'll give you that strike!

#158
Who's going to clean the cage?

God grant, that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface, and say, This is my country." : Benjamin Franklin to David Hartley, 4 December 1789

=
Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations: Andrew Jackson, farewell address, 04 March 1837

=
"What is the great Amercican sin? Extravagance? Vice? Graft? No; it is a kind of half-humorous, good-natured indifference, a lack of "concentrated indignation" as my English friend calls it, which allows extravagance and vice to flourish. Trace most of our ills to their source, and it is found that they exist by virtue of an easy-going, fatalistic indifference which dislikes to have its comfort disturbed....The most shameless greed, the most sickening industrial atrocities, the most appalling public scandals are exposed, but a half-cynical and wholly indifferent public passes them by with hardly a shrug of the shoulders; and they are lost in the medley of events. This is the great American sin.": Joseph Fort Newman, Atlantic Monthly, October 1922

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter~!

Pande gives economic advise with Cornnut math

This guy knows about wiretapping... well worth reading.

FindLaw | For Legal Professionals

An Update on President Bush's NSA Program: The Historical Context, Specter's Recent Bill, and Feingold's Censure Motion
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Mar. 24, 2006

President George Bush continues to openly and defiantly ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- the 1978 statute prohibiting electronic inspection of Americans' telephone and email communications with people outside the United States without a court-authorized warrant. (According to U.S. News & World Report, the President may also have authorized warrantless break-ins and other physical surveillance, such as opening regular mail, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.)

Bush's position is that he does not need Congressional approval for his measures. Even he does not claim that Congress gave him express power to undertake them, but he does claim that Congress indirectly approved such measures when it authorized the use of force to go after those involved in the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States. He also argues that, in any event, approval was not necessary - for he argues that he has such authority under Article II of the Constitution, as the chief executive, and Commander in Chief, charged with faithfully executing the laws of the land and protecting the Constitution.
These arguments are hauntingly familiar to this observer.

The Nixon Precedent
No one can question President Bush's goal: Protecting Americans from further terror attacks. But every American should question his means: Openly defying a longstanding statute that prohibits the very actions he insists on undertaking, when done in the very manner he insists upon doing them.

In some two hundred and seventeen years of the American presidency, there has been only one President who provides a precedent for Bush's stunning, in-your-face, conduct: Richard Nixon. Like Bush, Nixon claimed he was acting to protect the nation's security. Like Bush, Nixon broke the law - authorizing, among other things, illegal wiretaps.

Ironically, a stronger case might be made for Nixon's warrantless wiretaps, than for Bush's. Nixon's were installed to track leaks of national security information relating to the war in Vietnam. (He never found the leaker.) He pursued domestic intelligence by illegal means because he believed - based on information from President Lyndon Johnson - that communists had infiltrated the anti-war movement. (No such evidence was ever found.) In addition, he believed that extreme measures were necessary to deal with domestic terrorists, who were responsible for hundreds of deadly bombings. (This is the same argument Bush makes today.)

Nixon also claimed he was only doing what his predecessors had done. That was not untrue - but what had, in the past, been the exception to the rule became standard operating procedure under Nixon.

Bush, however, can only claim one predecessor for his actions: Nixon. And, of course, he has not made this claim - for Nixon was forced from office because of his defiance of the law.

Prior Presidents Have Always Gone To Congress
Bush has admitted he is ignoring FISA. His Attorney General has offered lame and loose legal justifications that he ought not to dare attempt in any court of law. Only blind partisan followers buy the president's bogus legal arguments. The U.S. Supreme Court's prescient discussion of presidential powers reveals how weak these arguments really are.

In May 1952, President Truman directed his Secretary of Commerce, Charles Sawyer, to take charge of the nation's steel mills, rather than permit a strike by steelworkers - and intransigent management - from hampering national security. The nation was at war in Korea, and without steel, the war effort would be in jeopardy. Truman informed Congress of his actions, but rather than asked for emergency legislation, he proceeded by executive order.

The owners of the steel mills immediately sought an injunction, which was granted by a federal district court judge, and the government appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-3 ruling, the Court, in Youngstown Co. v. Sawyer, held that Truman's attempted takeover of the steel mills was unconstitutional. Truman then asked Congress for emergency legislation, but Congress turned him down too.

As the strong dissent in Youngstown notes, the "diversity of views expressed in the six opinions of the majority, the lack of reference to authoritative precedent, the repeated reliance upon prior dissenting opinions, the complete disregard of the uncontroverted facts showing the gravity of the emergency and the temporary nature of the taking all serve to demonstrate how far afield one must go to" deny Truman this power. It seems Bush believes he can ride on that dissent. But in the end, the dissent not only is not the law; it is not persuasive.

Truman's actions were not unprecedented: President Lincoln had seized rail and telegraph lines during the Civil War; President Theodore Roosevelt was ready to seize Pennsylvania coal mines if a strike created shortages; President Wilson seized industrial plants and railroads during World War I; and six months before Peal Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt seized a California aviation plant when a strike occurred. These presidents, however, went to Congress - as Truman also eventually did. Only Bush (like Nixon) refuses to do so.

MORE AT FINDLAW/JOHN DEAN

Group seeks to Censure Jimmy Carter

"Russ Feingold wants to censure our President for protecting the American people fromTerrorists, which is absurd", said Move America Forward Chairman, Melanie Morgan.

"If the members of congress have an itchy finger to issue a resolution of censure, they should start with former President Jimmy Carter, who has repeatedly worked to undermine US foreign policy, while happily promoting the interests of known terrorists and terrorists orginizations," she added.

Now thats what I'm talkin about!!!!

Blogger Ben Domenech Strikes Back; Calls Post Editors 'Fools'

In his first public comments since resigning earlier today as a blogger for washingtonpost.com, Ben Domenech says his editors there were "fools" for not expecting an onslaught of attacks from the left.

"While I appreciated the opportunity to go and join the Washington Post," Domenech said, "If they didn't expect the leftists were going to come after me with their sharpened knives, then they were fools."

....Although Domenech says there is an explanation for nearly all the examples cited by the left-wing bloggers, he felt he was left no choice by washingtonpost.com but to resign.

...Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, wrote a note on "Red America" this afternoon explaining Domenech's resignation.

"In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday," Brady wrote.

------------------------
These guys can never admit a mistake. They do something illegal or wrong and think that they should be able to continue the behavior. If the opportunity is taken away it's the liberals' fault. I don't think so.

Cheney spaeking at a GOP fundraiser denounced Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and party chairman Howard Dean by name. And he asserted that "Leading Democrats have demanded a sudden withdrawl from the battle against terrorists in Iraq, the very kind of retreat that Osama Bin Laden has been predicting."

"And with that sorry record, the leaders of the Democratic party have decided to run on the theme of compentence. If they're compentent to fight this war then I ought to be singing on American Idol," Cheney said, refering to the FOX TV show.

The remark drew robust laughter, "I don't know why that's funny" said Cheney.

The Demwitcrats are no challege for the Bush machine.

James Ha

Charlie Sheen comments on 911 conspiracy.

Charlie was in a drug induced comma on 911 and his brother had to explain to him that the twin towers was a building and not the name of his hooker.

"drug induced comma"

Is that like a grammatical issue? No need to explain.

THE FIX IS IN FOR BUSH
SENATE RACES TO MAKE THE ILLEGAL LEGAL

ACROSS the U.S. capital, lawmakers are scurrying from pillar to post in a frantic effort to put lipstick on a pig.

In an attempt to rein in the Bush administration and its cowboy tactics with the illegal wiretapping of Americans making calls overseas, various Republicans are floating proposed legislation that would make the president's actions legal.

Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine is proposing exempting the warrantless surveillance program from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which determines who and under what circumstances the government can spy inside U.S. borders. In general the law has explicitly prohibited the government from sneaking a listen into the phone calls of American citizens without approval from the federal intelligence court.

To our mind, the surveillance act has been good law. It gives the government the go-ahead to spy, even without a warrant, on Americans suspected of helping terrorists, so long as the government gets one within 72 hours.

DeWine, however, wants to give the administration even more time - 45 days. Which makes us wonder why he didn't just give the Bush team an entire year.

Meanwhile, our own Sen. Arlen Specter has a few proposals of his own. Specter, who has been highly critical of the administration's excuses for violating the law and the Constitution, wants to give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the ability to review the government's surveillance activities every 45 days and rule on their constitutionality.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts is also mulling legislation and is reportedly annoyed that his committee is being ignored. He wants any bill that passes out of Specter's Judiciary Committee to be reviewed by the Intelligence Committee.

To us, this is mopping up after spilled milk, while the guy who spilled it, the president, gets off with a smirk.

Rather than trying to fix a law that wasn't broken until Bush decided to break it, Congress should be considering censuring the president. Otherwise the message from Congress to future presidents will be break any law you want.

We've got your back.
-------------------
Yeah fellas, he already broke the law. Making it legal now doesn't change the fact that Bush already broke the law. Not only that but it has gone beyond just wiretapping. There is a lawyer in Oregon who's had is office and home searched without a warrant.

Who wants to think that the FBI can search a house whenever they damn well please? Do you mind that your emails are not private? How about that telephone call that deals with very private issues?

This isn't about the war on terror. It's about control. The war on terror is a joke to Bush. Homeland security is a joke. They can't even protect their own building. Why are we so concerned about phone calls and searching lawyers offices and the ports security is still nonexistant?

It's a joke.

9/11 happenned under the Bush administrations watch.

Oh this is priceless.

TDS: Cheney Downtime Requirements

Jon Stewart takes a look at Dick Cheney's hotel requirements and adds a few to them..

Secret Source
Local anti-war activists see their FBI file --and confirm what they suspected

For local anti-war activists, seeing paper evidence that the FBI is tracking their actions, and that it has a "source" among them, was as unsurprising as it was disturbing.

Jeremy Shenk and Marie Skoczylas work for the Thomas Merton Center in Garfield, where they have been promoting and participating in many of the group’≥ very public actions together. They shook their heads at the FBI documents they received in late February.

"It looks to us," says Shenk, "that there's actually someone on the FBI's payroll that is around --"

"-- that is filing reports on us," says Skoczylas. "It's really fascinating --"

"-- and creepy," Shenk adds. "We really half-expected some surveillance was going on, but it's creepy to see it on paper."
-------------
Yes, creepy is the word for it. It's creepy. The whole thing is creepy. The FBI is using taxpayer money to spy on innocent citizens. Why? Because they don't agree with Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Good use of money. Don't use it on education. Don't use it on decaying cities. Don't use it on the elderly. Use to spy on innocent citizens who don't agree with Bush.

LBH continues in his vein of self expression:
"I don't support Reagan , Bush or Clinton who have helped terrorist regimes in the past. "

Not a typical democrat not a republican? Ah, I knew it. You're a fucking communtwit. Most cheerleaders just go along to get along. The eternal conformist. Communism suits you.

"I only vote for true deficit reducing conservatives that are Reb, Dem, or Ind."

Dems have tried to reinstate Pay as You Go provisions into the budget; but Conservatives won't play along. Either you are a bigger idiot than we think you are (which is hard to believe) or you secretly vote for Dems. Which is it?

"After you check your math then tell me which liberals didn't vote for the budget and military spending packages as well as the increases in Iraq? Most of them are on record saying were not spending enough money and want to raise taxes."

Yup. Dems voted to spend money on the troops. They voted to take care of their families. And they want to stop giving Paris Hilton the tax breaks that encourage her to make stupid sex tape after stupid sex tape. But LBHead Cheerleader wants the lower and middle classes (of today and tomorrow) to fund the war AND sacrifice their children to the incompetent fools who have started this war of choice and that emboldens the terrorists.

The Cheney administration, likewise, has sided with the terrorists in undermining the success of the troops EVERY step of the way.

Bush said: “We must keep our word, defeat our enemies, and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.”

* THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S FAILURE TO PROVIDE BODY ARMOR HAS COST LIVES
* PENTAGON WORKING ON PROPOSAL TO TRIPLE COSTS OF MILITARY HEALTH INSURANCE (TRICARE)
* BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOT PREPARED TO DEAL WITH TROOPS RETURNING FROM THE BATTLEFIELD

Yes, I forgot Henry C. Wasn't he a member of the Admin? HUD or someplace like that? I guess he was indicted for giving a bracelet and hiding the money. No conviction. Conservatives scrood the pooch on that one too. "Incompetence" seems to be the Conservative motto. And LBHead Cheerleader laps it up. Tragically comedic.

165 "In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday," Brady wrote.
====
He'll land on his feet. LBH has a job for him at the Gas-N-Sip.

166 Imagine Republicans running on competence. I'll list some accomplishments; Iraq war; Federal deficit; Katrina response; S&P 500 down 2.5% since Bush took office; Record profits at the Gas-n-sip. 1 out of 5 isn't competence.

More fun with the Bush-oisie:

Pop quiz: who was in charge of government during this pork explosion?

Number of Pork Projects in Federal Spending Bills
2005 - 13,997
2004 - 10,656
2003 - 9,362
2002 - 8,341
2001 - 6,333
2000 - 4,326
1999 - 2,838
1998 - 2100
1997 - 1,596
1996 - 958
1995 - 1439

LBH, if you are against the Dems, this is the agenda that you endorse. What the Conservatives have decided is "Necessary" and "Unneccesary."

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - new tax cuts for the wealthy.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - stopping $336 billion in new tax cuts for millionaires.

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - cutting programs that serve military families.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - stopping $200 billion in new tax cuts for millionaires.

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - increasing audits of the working poor.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - cracking down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - skewing tax relief for victims to the wealthy.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - independent commission to find out what went wrong.

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - more oil industry tax breaks.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - cracking down on oil industry profiteering.

"Necessary" for the callous conservatives - lowering workers' wages.

"Unnecessary" for the callous conservatives - taking FEMA director off the federal payroll.

I pity you, fool. You been punked.

For fun facts about Laura bush visit Betty Bowers!

Jackbooted thugs coming to a bar near you...be careful, Alan!

Heyyy, thanks for the thought Carol! That's nothing new though. We usually know when those guys are around. The staff know who they are and will pass the word around. I'm fissin' to go hear some live music right now. Well, in a few minutes.
Thanks, and I'll be thinking 'bout whatcha sent.

This should have been on the front page, instead of page one of the Business section.

Message on Iraqi oil: 'Invasion has backfired'

By GREGORY KATZ
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Europe Bureau

LONDON - The invasion of Iraq has weakened the United States' energy security and contributed to the recent surge in oil prices, energy experts said Thursday at a one-day conference of international oil executives and experts from think tanks.

"The invasion has backfired," Herman Franssen, president of International Energy Associates, a Maryland firm, told the conference. "Iraq is now a failed state and will be for a long time."

President Bush and his advisers had expected to revive Iraq's oil production, the conference was told. Instead, production has tumbled because of the worsening security situation in the country.

"The expectation just after the invasion," Franssen said, "was that Iraq would be close to 5 million barrels per day by now. But it is closer to 1.7 million barrels."

Alan, I want a full report on what you learn out there in the wild tonight.

ANYBODY SEEN LAURASBUSH?

Alan,

Just hooked up (verbally) with an old bean-town pal, a singer-songwriter I'm planning on imposing on in FL in a couple weeks. Made me miss the constant live music that was so much of my life before moving here.

Enjoy it, but remember to say...

"I WAS NOT PUBLICALLY intoxicated! I was PRIVATELY intoxicated until they threw my ass out HERE!"

-T

While I'm thinkin' bout it...check out Tommy Hambridge another old Beantown pal. He's been touring with George Thorogood, and Sal Baglio another guy I worked/partied with is playing guitar on this tour, according to Brian.

Tommy wrote a bunch of songs for the last Skynnard album...go figgur.

-T

Well this was amusing and...enlightening.

Friday night movies. Get your popcorn.

HA HA HA America

Drug Propaganda . . .

Yesterday the Bush criminal defense attorney, Alberto Gonzalez, who moonlights as the head of the "Department of Justice," announced the indictments of 50 leaders of the Columbian resistence movement FARC with smuggling $25 billion worth of cocaine internationally. The sad truth is that this indictment is more of a public relations ploy tied to sagging poll numbers and continued bad news from Iraq than any effort to fight narcotics trafficing. Like so very much of what the Bush cabal says and does, there lays a far more sinister reality justifying their actions.
------------------
Good blog site.

Long thread with lots of Nonsense on business taxation and Corp. Handouts! Didn't read most but got the gist of the arguments. I want to throw in my two cents worth.

Back in business school a long, long, time ago ago, a finance professor `lectured' on business taxation. What he said, not out of any text, has stayed with me and it is truer more today than ever. His point was Businesses are not flesh & blood living things (well, duh!). The whole notion of taxing business, we are talking about taxes on profit, not collection of sales tax by retail businesses, was set up as a ruse to make personal taxes appear lower. Another word, an insidious indirect tax (on people) ostensibly collected from bad, ole business.

Think about it, who pays the revenues into businesses, it's people or businesses owned by other people. Bottom line, it is peoples' economic activites and wealth creations that lead to income. Since all businesses look at after-tax profit as the true bottom line, whatever income taxes they paid are in reality a cost paid by their customers, that is, we the people!

There should be no income taxes on busines, period. Only Tax income at the living-breathing level (i.e. people). My business is a LLC and taxed only at the individual level. Without business income tax, we can wipe out a whole slew of paper-pushers who navigate our ridiculous tax code producing nothing but ways around the corporate tax rules. Would reduce lobbying by big business as well!

Imagine buying, especially for the poor, everything you are accustomed to at 20~30% less due to the reduction in Gen. & Admin. Selling Expenses and business income taxes.

I can lecture more on this but hopefully, some of you will get the gist of this. Good night!

"I can lecture more on this." please, don't make me beg.

"In the new Republican era, only fetuses , tax shelters, and "traditional" marriage deserve protection. According to the actions of the current Republican party, the rest of us need to be wiretapped, monitored, have our homes inspected for whatever reason without warrants, and are incapable of making decisions on our own. My 20 year affair with the Republican party is coming to an end.

(link)

"it is truer more today than ever."

true
truer
trueist

Now, back to the lecture.

Jeanne, *you* smell the stinky money tail. HA HA HA. Thanks, that was fun... depressing but fun.

KING GEORGE ASSERTS PRESIDENTS ARE ABOVE THE LAW

Bush shuns new Patriot Act requirement

In signing statement, he says oversight rules are not binding

3/24/06

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

(link)

Businesses are not flesh & blood living things (well, duh!).

Well, since you went to business school and all, I would think you would be familiar with the concept of the corporation. Basically, corporations are recognized under American law as persons. And what a very special class of people they are!

Go out and rent The Corporation. It is an excellent documentary suggesting that large corporations do indeed act like people...psychopathic people! Some things can't be taught by stodgy old business professors in tweed jackets.

NYU Journalism Prof Jay Rosen makes lemonade from lemons...

Now that Ben Domenech has resigned from the washingtonpost.com I hope Jim Brady will do the right thing, the creative thing, the thing that would turn this sorry episode around and allow the post.com to come out with a win for its readers and in the blogosphere.

An open competition on the Web to be the next political blogger at post.com, but instead of hiring one ?red state? person and leaving it at that (a strategic error in my opinion) Brady should say that three slots will be filled over the coming year. One from column right, one from column left, and a third voice that is definitely neither of those, which could mean libertarian? or not.

When I say open I mean open: anyone can apply. But experience as a political blogger counts. You have to be an original linker and be able to think for yourself. Finalists and semi-finalists get named. There?s a week?s try-out period for the final few and a big bake off at the end? all with comments enabled. The competition would generate high interest online, and give the winning bloggers a great introduction.

(link)

= = = = =

Who's in? Pande? geof? Alan? Hajji? Capt? Jeanne?

both Dan Rather and Peter Jenning's gut instincts were that the collapse of the buildings looked like controlled demolition
_____________

god bless america

I'm only in this for the money... And the chicks...

Oh! And the complimentary cheeses and sweet meats!

-T

Don,

It isn't a corporation being considered a "person" that is so bad, it is the "Superperson" status that a corporation assumes in the eyes of the law and the extra consideration it recieves in the calculation of taxes, not to mention the way it is excluded from treating another "person" and yadda yadda too much wine yadda yadda....

Train of thought derailed within sight of the station... goodnight!

-T

Sometimes it's hard to understand just how Michael Chertoff understands his title, secretary of homeland security. Take this week, when Mr. Chertoff appeared before executives of the chemical industry, whose plants remain one of the nation's greatest vulnerabilities more than four years after 9/11. Mr. Chertoff did not chastise the industry for failing to protect their plants adequately. He proposed weak federal safety standards. He did not even fully embrace a recently introduced bipartisan Senate bill that would create meaningful standards.
Instead, Mr. Chertoff seemed perfectly content to defer on key security matters to an industry that contributes heavily to Republican campaigns but has proved to be dangerously unwilling to take public safety seriously

More funny stuff: There Is No Liberal Baby Bust

Ahh, Pande... I think we're related or something (or we just feel and think alike sometimes).
I've been seeing her work in the MSM alot lately... well, in the h-town chronicle, I mean.
She might be one of the next generation's Walter Cronkite for all we know. I've seen some stuff lately that helps me not worry so much about our future. *y'alls future is more like it Us old fkrs will be gone, but my kids will look up to you guyz and their kids will look up to ppl like that 16 y/o gay kid that punked Sen. Allen. Jeanne, can I get an "amen"? *laughs and waves*
No, really, I think Americans will take our 'times' as a lesson and correct 'our' mistakes. I love this country, still!

Forgive me Corn posters, I have ignored a lot of this thread, but I felt I needed to adress LBH or J or whatever.

Here is the deal asshole...........you couldn't find your own butt with both hands and Onstar.

You have made this abundantly clear here, again and again.

You should probably shut the hell up and thank GOD Daddy left you the trust fund.

I deeply doubt your ability to find your way out of a paper bag unaided.

You can keep spewing crap here, but you will only embarass yourself.

Your call.

Alan, I want a full report on what you learn out there in the wild tonight.

That was from #180, so I'm behind. haha Carol...
I didn't learn much, but I had a good time. Chad from the c/w band showed up at our haunt after he finished the gig he told me about (email) at another local club. The real pool shooters that can play were somewhere else... must be a newsletter that we don't get. Bill, my bet for the baddest mo/fo in the bar was there... so us long-haired old fkrs were covered...hahaha ... cause he's one too. He don't schmoke or do drugs, and now he don't even drink! Whutz up wif that?!! *visual of Sandra pinching his ear*
K, I'ma shuddup now.
Nite Carol, and you 'Children of the Corn'

While I'm thinkin' bout it...check out Tommy Hambridge another old Beantown pal.

yeah yeah, thas TH and the Wreckage!
I picked it up from on here. From you obviously... but I thought he used to post too. I'm sure he did. *hiccup* I just know it.

Oh! And the complimentary cheeses and sweet meats!

LOL and grapes.

Every Green Room I've ever seen had a cheese tray with grapes... the wine was separate and chilled. But that was funneee Haj.
I like how you think, your way with words. If you've got a book in ya, I wanna know 'bout it too swift.

Wait... I just wanted to go on record as a born 'n raised Texan... I've never heard that cowpie thing David mentioned.

Battle for Baghdad 'has already started'

The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.

"The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area." He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.

Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. "The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control," said one senior official who did not want his name published. "The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government." He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Civil war, what civil war? The Iraqis are like the media they refuse to see the good that we are doing.

capt

Charlie Sheen: 'Challenge Me On the Facts'

Actor's first response since media firestorm over 9/11 comments

"Anyone that cannot view this as a controlled demolition, I would have to say that their chair was not facing the television. Anyone that can look at this and say 'yes, that is a random event caused by fire' really needs psychiatric evaluation," said Sheen.

Sheen challenged the mainstream media to run a poll on Building 7 asking if viewers believe from video evidence that the building was brought down by means of controlled implosion.

Sheen again underscored his challenge to his detractors to debate him on the evidence and not idle gossip about his private life and his family.

"I ask that they look at the evidence and they debate myself, yourself, people that support us on those specific issues. Not about me personally, not about what they think about me personally not about what they think they know about me personally, just about the facts. I issue that challenge."

Sheen expressed his excitement at the response that his stance received and hinted that this was only the beginning of the journey.

"It feels like you and I have started the revolution and God bless America," said Sheen in closing.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Sounds like Sheen might bring some much needed attention to the 911 cover-up.

capt

Cracks in the repug facade? Hope so, once the truth starts it will keep on coming and you can almost feel the pendulum start to swing away from the criminals in power and back to the people if only they have the brains to grab it and run with it. So far the dems in congress only know how to cover their collective butts. What is wrong with them. Instead of the jugular they go for the capillary? That is a quote I ripped off, so don't blame me.

Digby: The Elite Media Still Don't Know They're Being Played

But then, Kurtz didn't understand the difference between rightwing talk radio and mainstream media either, even more than a decade after it was clear to listeners all over the country:

"Sure, he aggressively pokes fun at Democrats and lionizes Republicans, but mainly about policy. He's so mainstream that those right-wingers Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert had him on their Election Night coverage."

Neither he nor those vapid NBC anchors apparently knew that Rush Limbaugh commonly fantasizes about "policies" like kicking half the Democratic party out of the country...

(link)

205 W**t the Fuck?

^ typo... and FCC joke

Pendulum yes! Drip... Drip... Drip... yes! Floodgates yes! Go for the jugular in criminal prosecutions. Go for the facts in government investigations. Go for decisive control in governance. Go for the goat with trolls. strike that. Just tell them they've been trolled.

If you are thinking it is unpatriotic to believe the bad news about the state of affairs in Iraq, read on...

Daou Report
by Peter Daou

Bush Launches Massive Shock & Awe Offensive... Against U.S. Media: As the Bush administration's Iraq fiasco spirals further out of control, a new phase of the war has begun: an all-out assault on the American media for simply reporting the news. The scope and audacity of this attack is breathtaking: on cue, a bevy of administration officials and rightwing talking heads has begun taking direct aim at the press, accusing reporters of fabricating the Iraq crisis.

Media Matters chronicles the assault:

+ On March 19, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on CBS' Face the Nation and answered a question about the sagging support for the Iraq war by noting that "there's a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."

+ During a March 20 press gaggle, White House press secretary Scott McClellan discussed the speech Bush would give later that day in Cleveland. McClellan said that the "dramatic images that people see on the TV screens ... are much easier to put into a news clip" and told reporters that the president would address the "real progress being made toward a democratic future."

(link)

"...the tone of a whole lot of this coverage (of the war) has been negative, has been downbeat, has been pessimistic." - Kurtz

Well, yeah. You've heard the expression "War is Hell" What would you like them to say? How about this? ...We re-built a post office today in Tal Afar and, on another note, we found the no-longer needed bodies of 50 people who now live joyously in the kingdom of god. We don't know who shot them execution style but thankfully they're in god's hands now and for all we know the executioners are doing god's work.

On the Today show, Laura Ingraham blamed the media for not getting out of their hotel rooms and reporting on some of the good things that are going on. Laura, they used to get out of their hotels rooms but the situation has changed quite a bit. Maybe Laura would like to show us how its done.

" if only the media wasn't so damn.... Angry, yes that's it, it's the ANGRY LIBERAL MEDIA that's risking our chance of success in this war in Iraq.

Media Responds to Bush Administration complaint about war coverage:

Headline:
16 Million people did not get killed in Iraq today!

= = = = = = = = = =

BLITZER: It's the same basically covering any story. Here in Washington, D.C., if there's a major incident, let's say a shooting incident, whatever. We don't report, you know what, 99.99 percent of the kids went to school today, businesses were open, things were flourishing. But if there's a horrible shooting incident, we're going to report that in local media as well.

KURTZ: There certainly is a bad news bias in that sense. We cover plane crashes. We don't cover safe plane landings.

The news is getting worse because the war is getting worse.

"Democrats can learn a lesson from this new rightwing anti-media salvo. Despite a half-decade of "Bush stands firm" and "Democrats muddled" narratives that have mangled public perceptions beyond repair, Dems tiptoe around media issues, afraid to alienate the media establishment. Meanwhile, Bush and his minions launch a full-scale offensive, no hesitation, no shame. This is a new and repugnant twist in the Iraq misadventure, a coordinated assault against the free press by a desperate administration, and it is a dangerous and shameful tactic. And for an administration that created this mess, it is the mother of all political cop-outs."

I notice that there are a lot of negative comments about the current administration's economic and military policies.

I also notice where posters like LBH and Happy agree that there are problems, but post alternatives.

I don't notice any alternatives of any nature coming from the other posters.

Alternatives that are different from LBH's and Happy's, please.

Much is being made of Chris Matthews and his statements about how the media isn't telling the entire story in Iraq, how "[The Bush administration doesn't] want the whole truth out and that's the fact." This is the same Chris Matthews that previously praised the President's attack on the media, saying a few months ago that "I was impressed again by the fact that he was taking a shot at the media." Matthews is the king of Presidential appeasers, and I think his recent statements are just an off-key deviation from the score. Sure, Matthews and others in the media will react defensively when the President launches such a brazen attack on them. But given them a few days, and they'll get back in tune.

(more)

"While Democrats would benefit from having the midterms be a referendum on Bush and his policies, Republicans are banking on this being an election of choice. They have already started. President Bush on the economy today: "If you want the government in your pocket vote Democrat...If you want to keep more of your hard earned money vote Republican." Ken Melhman in a GOP email: "The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate and impeach the president...With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?" The beauty of a choice election, from the GOP's perspective, is that it is the perfect platform for the type of fear-mongering and lies that worked for the GOP in 2002 and 2004. If you don't vote Republican, the terrorists win. If you don't vote Republican, the gays win. If you don't vote Republican, baby killers win."

(link)

The state of Texas is sending officers of the law INTO bars and arresting exceedingly drunk people for "public" intoxication. Does anyone know, is that a criminal office?

= = = = = =
Texas Cracks Down on Drunkeness in Bars

By JIM VERTUNO Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas ó Get falling-down drunk in a Texas bar and it may cost more than a bruised backside. Try $500 or a few hours in jail.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is sending undercover officers into bars to look for the exceedingly drunk, issuing citations or making arrests for public intoxication even if the patrons haven't left the building.

"Drinking is fine," said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck. "But when people drink too much, they become dangerous to themselves and other people."

The program is aimed at reducing drunken driving. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Texas had 1,264 alcohol-related traffic fatalities in 2004, the most in the nation.

The crackdown is aimed not only at those who are drunk, but at the bars and bartenders who continue to serve them. So far, it has resulted in about 2,200 arrests or citations around the state.

B.J. Hassell, manager of victims services with MADD Texas State, which serves central Texas, said her organization supports the crackdown.

Chief Justice John Roberts has replaced the FISA court judge who resigned in protest of the NSA spying program. Judge John Bates was appointed by Bush and was the judge who gave Cheney a pass in the energy taskforce lawsuit. He was also Ken Starr's deputy during Whitewater, and said that Hillary Clinton could be indicted. Want a hint how he will view the privacy of Americans? He said investigations into Clinton's affairs were "perfectly appropriate."

(link)

Is the Media Only Showing the Bad News in Iraq?

Recently there has been much debate on the talk shows about whether or not the media is slanting the news out of Iraq. The President and others have been blasting the media (except for Fox) for only showing the bad news.

I believe that press coverage in Iraq is definitely too narrow.

But too negative? I don’¥ think so. If you are looking for good news stories in a war zone, you are looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. It is like looking for virgins at the Playboy mansion –†you might find a few, but they’≤e certainly not the majority. If you want good news stories, go to Disneyland. Not Iraq.

NBC’≥ Richard Engel offered his take from Iraq, saying "The situation on the ground is worse than the images we project on television." Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham had a heated exchange with David Gregory on "The Today Show" about the topic. Later, MSNBC’≥ Keith Olbermann fired back at Ingraham on "Countdown" with this segment.

So who is right?

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Too bad the media can no longer police the truth.

capt

March 24, 2006 -- LATE EDITION -- According to various well-placed sources in Washington, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is preparing to indict "someone major" in his CIA leak investigation. The informed speculation is that it is Karl Rove who will be indicted. STORY DEVELOPING.(WMR)

****

Go Fitz!

Give it a few months, and you'll likely see what I'm about to describe in an episode of Law & Order, in one of their "ripped from the headlines" episodes. Based on these fascinating facts, the drama would write itself. I'm going to explain the case thoroughly, because this could very well be the case that breaks the NSA scandal wide open.

Earlier this month, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, attorneys in Washington, D.C., sued the federal government in what was the latest of a series of lawsuits based on illegal domestic spying.

(link)

219. Capt. I too am interested to see how this unfolds. This is where I think we stand... Libby obstructed and lied; he's the firewall to Cheney and other WHIG people. Hadley told Woodward before Libby told Miller. Libby is the bait.

Fitz won't spring the trap until the rats are in their snug and firm although the next indictment may be more bait for the trap.

Fitz's office has earned the reputation of being leak proof so its likely the leak is from the federal court house where the grand jury sits or defense counsel's office or the White House.

I think the media is challenging Charlie Sheen because of his resemblance to the real president, not the imposter played by Laura Bush's hand puppet.

Laura smoked pot once, but couldn't learn to inhale, you know, like she does when she smokes tobacco.

Check out this new war protest song that uses the administrations own words to make the point

www.knowhipaa.com/Bobs_Music.htm

213-
I don't notice any alternatives of any nature coming from the other posters.

hmmm...I wonder why that might be? could it be that any alternatives of any nature, regardless of merit, have no chance in hell of ever being implemented? - I know, let's hold a contest!

"COME UP WITH THE BEST ALTERNATIVE!" WIN A PRIZE!

how about if we divide up into alternative solution factions?

-"hey you dumb-ass liberals, Mr. P's alternative solution kicks your ass!"

-"no way you foolish lefties, the Lt.'s alternative solution is all the rage!"
_____________

alternative solutions? please. CLICK MY NAME.

Close-Up of WTC-7 Collapse Footage Shows Unmistakable Demolition Charges
__________________

hey, I have an alternative solution:
round up ALL of the politicos, mcmedia muckity-mux, defense contractors, evangelical leaders, lobbyists, oil big-wigs, and big pharma's, and pinch their heads.

From #192

...Basically, corporations are recognized under American law as persons...

...Go out and rent The Corporation. It is an excellent documentary suggesting that large corporations do indeed act like people...
Posted by: Don at March 25, 2006 01:23 AM
===================================================
OK, no arguments as to `dressing' up corp. as persons. This allows `them' to be taxed and lobby for their own `personal' interest....I don't believe this is a good thing in the macro sense.

BTW, the fact is the most efficient and lowest taxed businesses are in Hong Kong, and has been for a long, long time. In the US, our corp. business processes are burdened by numerous tax code issues. Last year, many Fortune 500 companies repatriated accumulated past (overseas) profits into the home country because of a one-time reduction in profit taxes. This `hiding' of profits in overseas subs. is just one mega example that comes to mind.

Because large US Corp. are capital-intensive, they have lots of money to devote to lobbying and buying influences. And, they can write off these `expenditures' as a cost of business. I think most of us agree that business lobbying shuold be curtailed, along with many other types of special interest lobbying. But, just remember the monetary firepower businesses can bring vs. grassroots `people' lobbies.

Lastly, like real people, corp. will look at thier after-tax bottom line just like you and I. We don't spend and invest based on gross pay.

Elite Eight Day: Good matchup today, `Tough' on `Tough' w/LSU. Go Horns!!

Our Little Nero

Young George has been bravely flaunting his incompetence and native ability to be confused in a series of unscripted press conferences. It's been mostly friendly audiences, but even friends ask hard questions.

Like "Why exactly did you launch the invasion of Iraq three years ago?" and, "Why are we still there?" and "Do you like living in the White House?"

Many of his critics believe young George can't answer a single question directly. But that's not true. When asked if he liked living in the White House, he said the food was good and "I've enjoyed every second of the presidency."

Like Nero fiddling while Rome burned in the summer of 64, the Bush story is often exaggerated. Nero wasn't fiddling; they didn't have fiddles. Nero was watching the fiery show from a rooftop, singing a war song.

That's our Nero, er, George, in a nutshell. Our great leader is indeed capable of giving a straight answer to a straight question, when he wants to. He is not fiddling while our country slogs and smolders through the "long war" on the shoulders of Japanese, Korean and Chinese savers. Instead, he is singing.

He is singing a song of endless, glorious war, because war is the health of the state George loves. And for him, his wife and daughters, and his nieces and nephews, the wars are safe, affordable and comfortable. Kind of like wars have always been for Bush and Cheney. Just like they are suppozed to be, I'm sure.

*****end of clip*****

Affordable? Comfortable, hell war is mad-crazy profitable.

capt

Hajji #196,

Of course, I agree with you. I was having a little fun at the expense of our resident "business genius." Both of my business partnerships are tightly-held corporations. I simply don't believe the large multinationals should get special treatment, nor should criminals be able to hide behind the shield of incorporation. There has to be accountability at some point.

Police officers respond to a domestic disturbance call at the home of a couple that's had a rocky marriage. In front of the officers, the husband and wife trade accusations. She claims her husband's drug use is causing money problems and says actual "items of drug evidence" are in their home.

Hearing the suggestion that evidence might be inside, the police ask the husband if they can search the house. No way, he says. But the wife gives her consent and leads the officers to an upstairs bedroom, where they find a drinking straw with what looks like cocaine on it.

That very scene played out in reality five years ago at the home of a Georgia lawyer who was arrested and charged with drug possession.

Today, by a vote of 5-3, the U.S. Supreme Court said the search was illegal and that police who don't have a warrant cannot come into a house (or apartment, or college dorm room, for that matter) when one of the "cohabitants" objects.

Justice David Souter wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Ginsburg and Breyer.

Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia and Thomas dissented.

(link)

In his first written dissent, Roberts says the ruling makes no sense and "protects a co-occupant who happens to be at the front door when the other occupant consents to the search." But he says the decision would not protect another occupant "napping or watching television in the next room" who doesn't happen to be at the front door to object. "If an individual shares information, papers, or places with another, he assumes the risk that the other person will in turn share access to that information or those papers or places with the government," Roberts writes. In this particular case, he says, the wife could just have easily walked upstairs, gotten the cocaine straw, and turned it over police. And, Roberts says, she could have consented "to police entry and search of what is, after all, her home, too."

===

I'm glad a spouse is not able to waive their beloved's 4th amendment rights. I am glad the court affirmed each person in the marriage has the right to assert their 4th amendment right, individually.

One of the lessons to take away from this case is: If the police come to your door, you want to be there too.

I wonder if Roberts dissent rests in part with 20/20 hindsight of a drug possession crime? What if crime had been illegal possession of a hand gun or evidence of corporate fraud?

His concern about issues not in fact (the hypothetical where the husband was asleep on the couch) is understandable but strained.

Robert's argument seems to rest on the premise that the husbands 4th amendments rights can be waived by his wife because it's possible the husband might not have been there to object.

God I hope Bush is not in office when the next SCJ retires.

#218
Capt,
I saw richard engle on the news tonight. NBC has a blogbagdad site now. It seemed like very honest reporting.

Perils of Covering News In Iraq

"BTW, the fact is..."

- Professor Emeritus Happy Bumblfuc

Senate Coverup Committee update: The Phase II report on the misuse of Iraq intelligence

will not examine how "political appointees at the Pentagon deliberately distorted intelligence and subverted analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency to gin up support for the invasion." Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) "didn’t offer a timetable" for an investigation into "activities before the war by the office of former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith."

The Bush administration is seeking $348 million for base construction as part of its 2006 emergency Iraq war funding bill, raising concerns over whether the bases are intended as permanent sites for U.S. forces.

*****end of clip*****

No surprise about phase two.

How many years before the concept of "emergency funding" means the same thing as "off books" accounting (ala Enron)?

capt

232 No surprise about $348 million for (permanent?) base construction in Iraq.

Since the freedom and democracy spreading all over the middle east thing isn't working out, maybe four permenant bases in Iraq for strategic strike capability is the new objective.

First Reviews of The Case for Impeachment

As timely as today's headlines, this vital book explains why impeachment should be deployed against the serial Constitution-shredder George W. Bush. The third article of impeachment against Richard Nixon was illegal spying on Americans--a crime indisputably committed also by Bush and his cronies. But this book also makes a compelling case that Bush has arrogantly flouted his oath of office and the laws of the land by committing other impeachable offenses--telling lies to Congress and the American people to take us into an illegal war, violating the War Powers act, abusing the power of his office, failing to protect the United States, and more. Dave Lindorff (a first-rate independent progressive journalist) and Barbara Olshansky (a dedicated civil liberties attorney), in The Case for Impeachment, have restored this vital tool to the arsenal of democracy. Any American who wants to preserve what's left of our precious Bill of Rights from further encroachments, and to repair the Constitutional separation of powers vitiated by George Bush, should read this essential book -- which should also be force-fed to every single member of Congress.

-- Doug Ireland, columnist for the LA Weekly

*****end of clip*****

I like the idea of "force feeding" this book to every single member of congress. I say use the tube up the nose ala Gitmo! It is not torture to make them read the truth.

capt

James, I like that solution! Here's another, round them all up, dump them on a desert island surrounded by sharks and armed with swords and let them duke it out! The last man standing can be hung from the highest tree!

REASSESSING GEORGE W. BUSH

Ever since George Bush came upon the political scene I have been trying to divine the source, or sources, of his certainty. I realize that he has been anointed by friends, cronies, parents, fundamentalists, corporate executives, neoconservatives, and by the Old Testament God of his faith, and wrapped in cotton batting so that no critic or heretic can harass him.

In his bubble of comfort and security, he can suck his thumb and contemplate the pleasant spectacle of dressing in purple robes with a golden crown atop his head and Karl and Dick patting him on the head.

There is not the slightest doubt but that Bush prefers to live in a world of fantasy, in which all his dreams of glory and grandeur come true, in preference to the cold reality of making a living on his own, serving his country like a trooper, and feeling some empathy for other creatures not in his circle of wealth and power.

He is know to possess little true curiosity, but seems to be amenable to indoctrination by several dozen advisors. Once he has fixated on an opinion it would take dynamite to move him from it. His staying the course is an artifact of his absolutist belief system.

Once he is assured that his God, or Karl Rove, or Dick Cheney, or some fundamentalist activist approves of his course, he will stick to it like glue. He was quite taken aback when, after appointing his private secretary to the Supreme Court, some True Believers objected strongly and forced him to revise his appointment.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Put the emPHASsis on the ass in reASSessing and you are half way there.

capt

As publishers try to crack the code of what makes a best seller, a new genre is emerging that some think may have the answer: the "blook" -- a book based on a blog.

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen," based on a popular blog chronicling one woman's attempt to cook every Julia Child recipe.

(link)
= = = =
The author is an Amherst College graduate who worked on the project in the evening after she got from work from her unfufilling job as a secretary.

This article made me wonder whether Mr Corn will be including some of us characters in his next blook (sic).

Senate Sets Hearing On Call To Censure Bush

The Republican-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee announced on Friday it would hold a hearing next week on a call by a Democratic lawmaker to censure President George W. Bush for his domestic spy program.

In a one-sentence notice, the panel said the hearing would be held next Friday by the order of its chairman, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has opposed censure.

(link)

David & All Corn Blog Visitors, what I have for you below is another Fresh Example of looking down Far Left Noses at the people....

From#205

...power and back to the people if only they have the brains to grab it and run with it....

Posted by: What the F**k at March 25, 2006 08:40 AM
=================================================
Picking you Lefties apart is just too easy while you post drivels against us Righties!

Brady, Wapo.COM executive editor, on the resignation of Ben Domenech

Domenech resigned from the Post site Friday after bloggers discovered that he'd copied entire passages from publications, including Salon and Rolling Stone, while he was working for his college newspaper. After he graduated, he wrote articles for the National Review Online and New York Press that also contained plagiarized passages.

Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, told Salon Friday that Post editors had thoroughly vetted young right-wing blogger Ben Domenech before they hired him to write for the site. He said editors saw no "red flags" that Domenech was a plagiarist.

= = = =
How can he say "thoroughly vetted" when all that was needed was a computer with Internet access and Google? Wait, there's more?

"We obviously did plenty of background checks" on Domenech, Brady said. He explained that Post editors read "basically everything he'd written" during the past few years and spoke to many people who had previously worked with Domenech -- "both people he referred us to and people we found on our own," Brady said. Plagiarism, though, is not an easy thing to spot, Brady suggested. "We did a lot of vetting but that's a difficult thing to catch someone on."

(link)

= = = =
Apparently infallability is contagious. This just in from the CDC. "We've investigated the ontology of the disease and have traced it back to the Presindet's visit with the Pope. The Pope, who is infallable, infected George Bush who in turn infected the WaPo Editors by way of Bob Woodward, who has acted infallable most of his life.

Dear Prof. Happy Bumblefuc,

What is a drivels?

Delta Force founder: Bush may have started World War III

A founding member of the elite counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force, suggested that President Bush's invasion of Iraq may have started World War III, according to the Los Angeles Daily News, RAW STORY has learned. The article, acquired by RAW STORY Friday night, is expected in Sunday editions of the paper.

....Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

We have fomented civil war in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies.

Q: What do you make of the torture debate? Cheney ...

A: (Interrupting) That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does.
------------------
An honest voice.

"The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. "

= = = =
Bone-chilling

More on WaPo's Disgraced 24 year old Right-Wing Hack Bigot

Jane Hamsher fires back at Jim Brady

I'm guessing this all started when the White House didn't like the magnifying glass being applied to it by Dan Froomkin at the WPNI, and since they have no ability to differentiate between valid criticism and partisan hackery their two-pronged approach was to a) silence Froomkin and b) try to get their own partisan hack in there. . .

I hope we've all learned a lesson here, Jim. One -- don't take advise from Hugh Hewitt. And Two -- never ever bow to the right wing. Which I realize is pretty hard if you are naturally inclined to swing that way, but take Matt Stoller's advice:

Do not appease the right-wing. When you do, and when you treat the conservative movement as if they are a legitimate source of information, you end up with WMDs in Iraq, 9/11 linked to Saddam, or on a small scale, an unethical racist trashing the brand of the Washington Post and the career of Jim Brady.

Stop appeasing the right-wing. It's bad for you.

(link)

Dear Harry,
In your last letter you wrote of Vice President dick Cheney eating roast beef and having a few drinks while you were being shuttled to a hospital (without your wife at your side I might add).

Well, I think that you have defined the man. He makes life altering decisions for others from the comfort of home. Some experts are saying that we are involved in WW111. I never thought in my lifetime that I would see that. I thought we were too smart for that stupidity. But then Bush got voted in.

And what does cheney have to say about the incompetence? How does he defend his stupidity?

Cheney: If Democrats can lead, then I can sing

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday rejected charges by Democrats that the Bush administration was mishandling Iraq and said: "If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol."

---------
Harry...the guy is a megalomaniac.

WE (1) HAV YOURE (2) DEMOCRASY (3)...IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT ALIVE (4) AND HAV A ELECSION IN 2008 (5), PUT $$SEVIN HUNDRID MILLON DOLLARS (6) IN SMALL NON-EXECUTIVE NUMBER BILLS IN A BROWN PAPER BAG AND PUT THIS BAG IN A LEDERER DE PARIS HANDMADE ENGLISH INVESTMENT BANKER BRIEFCASE (7) AND GIVE IT TO BENNY (8) AT SIGNITCHERS RESTARANT (9) BY 12 NOON, ON JAN. 3 2008 AND NO WON WILL GET HURT (10)...NO COPS (11) WE MEAN IT (12). TALK AND YOUR DEAD.(13)

"THE" SYSTEM

(link)

Getting antsy Waiting on B-Ball & gloating on the Corn blog will suffice to fill the time!

LBH & I are the only (recent) Right Regulars here and I am just so proud of our outsized effects on the weakest of the Corn Lefties. More than one have been so `pegged' and ashamed...into abandoning their original handles! That, is my definition of total capitulation!

I wonder if Blade has posted w/another handle in a sneaky cowardly `attack'? Just wondering, Blade, not accusing. It's just the company you keep here.

This is what the cheney administration has done for Iraq.

Iraq invasion: For better or worse?

The first thing that struck me about Baghdad when I saw it in April 2003, a few days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, was how poor it had become. I hadn't been allowed back there since 1991, after the first Gulf War.

The second thing I noticed was a real sense of foreboding, even among the people who greeted me effusively because they thought I was an American.

...."At least," said a man I had known in the past, and who offered me a cup of sharp-tasting citrus tea, "the Americans will put us on our feet again".

It was a comforting thought. Things had been bad in Iraq throughout the period of UN sanctions: water shortages, power-cuts, inadequate hospitals, a collapsing transport system.

But it hasn't happened like that. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran the country under Paul Bremer, was almost ludicrously incompetent, wasting or misusing tens of millions of dollars.

Unknown amounts were stolen. In 2004 the CPA could not account for $9bn in Iraqi oil revenue.

...About 200 university lecturers have been murdered since the invasion. After the murder of a television boss a week ago, the journalists' union formally asked the government to allow journalists to carry weapons.

Few Iraqis will even think about the anniversary of the invasion. Many are still glad that Saddam Hussein was taken off their backs.

But there is a real, abiding anger that the richest nation on Earth should have taken over their country and made them even worse off in so many ways than they were before.
----------------------
I used to ask why we would do this to another country. But now I know. Greed and power. The neocons and the bush administration used the power they believed they had to invade. They used people as instruments to create the destruction we have today so they could control the region, make some money, and give bush the chance to show his daddy what he could do. What hideously dark souls.

You'll have to excuse me. I'm way behind on my reading. Just too busy (my boy's in a school play I add proudly).

From yesterday's thread:

Capt. Thank-you and Saladin for the education on trolls. I will heed your advice.

morenonsense: I agree with you on keeping the censure issue before the public. Dems must learn to use the media more wisely to extend the boundaries of debate. Especially after the administration's return to it's attack on Dems for being soft on terrorism once they realized that their attempts to "re-educate the public" on the reasons for the Iraq war and blaming the media crap are an absolute failure. (Sorry for that run-on sentence.)

It's essential that we keep the upperhand in defining the word patriotic. That's how they controlled debate during the Cold War era, only now it is much more onimous. Most importantly, people need to understand that obeying the law goes hand in hand with being patriotic. So Bush, you sign the Patriot Act with flourish and then turn around and say, but not me? "I don't have to, neh-neh." That's unpatriotic. You don't have to break the law to be hard on terrorism.

And Corky, yes, rich people, it's unpatriotic to not pay taxes. But now us regular guys are expected to fund the most greedy administration in history in their quest for oil under the permanent military bases we're building in Iraq. That's our money being invested to enrich the few. Just as we've enriched Halliburton-Cheney.

ON O'REILLY AND DAVID CORN: I don't advise Mr. Corn to try to get on O'Reilly's show. What's the point? O'Reilly will just cut his mike and edit Mr. Corn's legitimate debate. I say: Don't even recognize such demagoguery. Anyway, as Keith Olbermann and others have pointed out, O'Reilly has lost his marbles, and his ratings.

Den and Jeanne: Is it true that Minnesota has banned the Easter Bunny?

Three Years Of Happyfun War!
1,100 days of brutal violence and death, grinding you down to a numb little nub. Thanks, Dubya!

....But through it all, through your life for the past 1,100 days like an undercurrent of cold black blood, like an unshakable stench deep in your nostrils, like a disturbing stain you simply cannot get off your shirt, our country has been at war. Endless, raw, insidious, interminable.

Body bags filling up every single day. Death tolls rising. Hundreds of billions of your tax dollars hurled into a gaping sewer of death and destruction. Thousands of dead American kids, many more on the way. Corruption and scandal and gross war profiteering, Halliburton and the Carlyle Group and Lockheed Martin and the insidious dumbing down of military recruitment standards (because we're running out of disposable soldiers) to go along with Donald Rumsfeld's black-eyed sneer. Endless.

Do you remember the sweet little halcyon moment way back when, when America was slightly more globally respected and Iraq seemed like a bad but temporary dream and even the most hawkish Bush-gropin' war proponents were saying, Hey America, don't you worry your confused fear-addled little head, we'll be in Iraq for absolutely positively mark-my-words no more than three months, maximum -- OK, maybe six. Remember when they said that there was simply no way this war could run us more than about $10 bil and maybe cost, at the very most, a couple of dozen U.S. casualties? Wasn't that cute?

....The threat of terrorism is higher than ever. Iraq's vicious fundamentalist factions are on the verge of civil war. The Middle East is more volatile because of our president's God-sucking warmongering than Saddam or Osama could have ever wet-dreamed. There is a song by Bright Eyes called "We Are Nowhere, and It's Now." Dead on.

...But it doesn't really matter. Bush is still immune, blind and dumb and still refusing to admit a single mistake, and yet he cannot be punished or impeached, if for no other reason than those who would do the impeaching are of his own party and they are simply loath to admit how very severely wrong they were about just about everything. Hey, that sort of thing is what costs you elections.

....All we are left with is the larger question: Can we possibly learn anything from this? Is it possible to mature and progress as a nation, as a humanitarian force, as a result of our horrible mistakes, of our ability to be so easily misled and beaten down by a cabal of sneering neocon leaders who would just as soon shoot you as give you a handshake and a cigar?
------------------
Happy,
Even the MSM are beginning to seethe with anger and you remain in the bubble writing about your moments before b-ball. You gloat. You are ignorant, so plainly ignorant.

#249
Carey,
I think a display was removed from the St. Paul courthouse. People thought the whole thing was stupid.

Finally addressing Mr. Corn's post:

It appears Ms. Quinn is harboring nostalgia for Nancy Reagan and her success in talking old hubby into listening to Gorbachov. It also conveniently distracted from Iran-Contra. But Reaganites, it was Gorby who brought down the Berlin Wall, not Reagan.

And yes Jeanne, Ms. Bush's nails do look nice. Wish I could afford those.

Corky, wow, what a bio!

TO ALL LOYAL CORNBLOGGERS IMPORTANT

I almost forgot. Do a Google search typing the word "failure" in, then click "I'm feeling lucky." Hurry, before Google corrects it.

Google failure as Bush has been there for a year now.

No reason to rush.

capt

Type in "worst president ever" and hit "I'm feeling lucky"

HA!

capt

Oglala Sioux Tribe on the South Dakota Abortion Ban

To me, it is now a question of sovereignty." President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, says "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

South Dakota's abortion law
Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 3/20/2006
? 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc.

When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother's life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of "simple rape," there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as "simple." He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by "simple rape."

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," she said to me last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women.

Tim Giago is the president of the Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc., and the publisher of Indian Education Today Magazine.

'Hee Haw' Co-Host Buck Owens, 76, Dies

LOS ANGELES - Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday. He was 76.

Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.

His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.

They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.

"I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."

*****end of clip*****

Another RIP.

capt

here's an alternative solution:
how about a regime change in america

From Deep Inside the Washington Beltway

The neo-con stranglehold on the Pentagon continues to permit this cabal of provocateurs and dual loyalists to pump out false charges in an attempt to damage relations with Russia and President Vladimir Putin as Russia continues to push for negotiations with Iran and lay the possible groundwork for Russian casualties at Iranian nuclear facilities in the event of war with Iran. Neo-cons would argue that such casualties were legitimate considering previous Russian support for Saddam against the United States.

In fact, the Pentagon neo-cons now have more power than ever considering the current presence of anti-Russian neo-con-influenced governments in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia. Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, an AEI alum and colleague of Richard Perle and Michael Ledeen, is married to the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum. All four are virulently anti-Putin, especially since Putin began cracking down on the Russian oligarchs who looted the USSR's treasury and resources and made themselves instant billionaires, at the expense of the peoples of the former Soviet Union.

Over 70 percent of Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs carry Israeli passports. Ukraine President Viktor Yuschenko's wife, Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko, is an American citizen and held positions in the Reagan White House that were directed against "the evil empire." She was, and remains, close to the leading neo-con war hawks of the Reagan years, including Perle, Ledeen, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Ken Adelman. Georgia's President, Mikhail Saakashvili, in an anti-Putin U.S.-trained lawyer who ousted his predecessor in a U.S.-financed and supported coup backed by oil companies like Halliburton and Exxon Mobil. In addition to the offices of AEI, AIPAC, Hudson, WINEP, and Heritage, in addition to the Pentagon, the embassies of Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia in Washington have become virtual neo-con nesting places, working overtime to formulate all sorts of anti-Russian propaganda aimed at destabilizing Russia and toppling Putin. They are assisted in these efforts by the US Mission to the United Nations, which under arch neo-con John Bolton, has become a favorite off-site meeting place for Washington-based neo-cons right in the middle of Manhattan.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Wayne Madsen is always good!

capt

I'm still so far behind. Sorry everyone.

Kathleen and Den,

Israel's powerful lobby is here is stay unfortunately. The Holocaust (thank's Hitler) saw to that. Israel was founded on terrorism and remains a state terrorist and a murderous one at that. Yes Mossad's tentacles reach much further than the CIA's. It's absolutely despicable what the world will let Israel get away with. We've got to remember who is responsible for drawing up those arbitrary boundary lines, virtually erasing the Palestinians. The Brits.

CORKY: The most important thing to remember is back through Benjamin Franklin but most powerfully promoted by Thomas Jefferson: This republic was founded upon small businesses, farmers, small merchants and craftsmen. They repeatedly warned of the danger of greed and it's relation to power, and strongly urged the early Americans to keep remembering: The most important backbone to keeping America on the course for which it was intended (to avoid monarchial power) is small business.

Capitalism, in it's early stages had some good ideas, but now has become completely corrupt. The same is true of Communism. Marx had some excellent ideas, but they were corrupted by lust for power.

JEANNE: Jeez, first it's Santa Claus and now the Easter Bunny. These people just don't believe in children having fun, true Puritans I say! Although in actuality, Puritans did believe in enjoying themselves now and then.

Joe Lieberman: Loves Our Leader; Hates Grandmothers

Senator Sets Hearing on Censure of Bush
The New York Times

Saturday 25 March 2006

Washington - The Senate Judiciary Committee has set a hearing for next Friday on the call by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure President Bush for his approval of a program to allow electronic eavesdropping without warrants.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the panel, said he had decided to schedule the session after Mr. Feingold, in a television interview, pressed for hearings on the censure proposal.

Some Republicans have seized on the issue to rally their supporters by arguing that the censure plan is evidence that Democrats would try to take some action against Mr. Bush should they gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections.

The issue has also energized some Democrats who contend their party has shied from confronting Mr. Bush. But Mr. Feingold's Democratic colleagues have been cautious about endorsing the plan.

Mr. Specter said his intent was not to use the session as a political forum but to explore issues surrounding the proposed censure. He said he believed the proposal was baseless.

"I am prepared to deal with it," Mr. Specter said. "I am sure not going to sit back and have Feingold spout off."

JEANNE AND I THINK KATHLEEN? (Not sure, sorry) Everytime I go back to check I lose the post I'm writing. I've got to take notes damnit.

Yes that incident with the Washington Post and the fired right-wing blogger (don't even care to name him) is full of irony.

But now the right-wing bloggers are responding with the prima-donna retort: Well plagiarism is wrong, pure and simple. As if they knew what wrong is. And now the guy is defending himself by claiming that it was the editor's fault, they edited out his attributions to the rightful writer. Bull-poopie.

#262
I hope it's on C-Span.

More than 100,000 rally in LA for immigrants' rights

Tens of thousands of immigrant rights advocates from across Southern California jammed downtown to march Saturday in protest of federal legislation that would build more walls along the U.S.-Mexico border and make helping illegal immigrants a crime.

Protesters, many with their families and wearing white shirts symbolizing peace, came from as far away as Riverside County for a mass rally. They thronged the steps of City Hall, perched in trees and sat atop bus kiosks, chanting "Mexico!""U.S.A.!" and "Si se puede," an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means "Yes, we can."

The crowd was estimated at 100,000 and growing at noon, police Sgt. Lee Sands said. There were no arrests or injuries.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

WOW!

It is enough to give a person some hope. If 100k can take to the streets over immigration, activism is not dead.

capt

Impeachment or Resignation: Pick Your Poison

Attention please, good people! Adjust your routines and come to the aid of your country, and your children with your thoughtful patriotism. Don't just hope for impeachment, demand the resignation now of the mad hatters in the White House--George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.

Already, a large majority of you do not consider this shifty duo trustworthy. By more than two to one you disapprove of Bush's war in Iraq. Similar majorities believe this is also a President whose administrative incompetence--note the post-Katrina debacles compared to his promises last September in that devastated New Orleans--nearly matches his penchant for daily fabrications.

The precipitous drop in Bush's polls (Cheney's are even lower) is not coming from liberals who long ago registered negative in these national surveys. The drop is coming from millions of erstwhile Bush supporters, Bush voters, Bush-loving conservatives.

Why? Just look at or read the news every day. There goes Bush and Cheney insisting that conditions in Iraq are getting better and better, when they are getting worse and worse. And Americans also know this because hundreds of thousands of soldiers and other personnel are rotating from Iraq back into every state and community and telling millions of people the truth.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I prefer impeachment.

New ice cream flavor at Baskin Robbins: Mmmmm peach-mint!

capt

#263 Sorry about that, not Kathleen, Corky.

CAPT.: I know, my sister just informed me that the Google thing has been on that long. Me think Google intends to. They're probobly not too fond of Bunnypants right now.

Regarding #265,living in Southern California, I can say that this stuggle is a century old. Power to the immigrants and their due rights.

Oops. That's struggle.

Just one more thing: (Gosh I have all the time in the world while my boy is at rehearsal).

I don't think any true republican (that's with a small "r") likes the Democratic Party right now. It is just more of the same thing. But in reality there is no other option. Never in the history of this nation has a third party made any real headway, so one is forced to make the choice between the lesser of two evils. Corrupt money politics rules until we get true campaign finance reform.

#197 Mr. Ha

Chertoff was intended to be a puppet acting for the selfish few like Halliburton. There is no such thing as Homeland Security per se, but we all know that. There are petitions out there calling for the Chertoff's oust, like that's going to happen. This administration, as I think cornbloggers like you and Saladin have made clear, this administration does not care a wit about homeland security.

#157

-T

Simply my opinion, but certainly extending my thanks for the compliment and your time reading the post.

GracefulKarma

Dear Prof. Happy Bumblefuc,

It is charming to witness your superior attitude. I genuflect when you gloat. It is an honor to be in the same blog room as you. Please, impart the insightful knowledge only you possess to the ignorant who call themselves progressives. Amen.

#163 KATHLEEN

You've got to try finding the book "The Education of Carey McWilliams" c1978. (Can't underline so I use quotes.) I've mentioned this book before on the blog. He was the editor of The Nation during the 1950's and 60's and the book offers an enlightening history of where alot of the stuff we're experiencing today comes from and where the tumultuous fifties and sixties came from. It's truly a great read. Can I indulge myself one more time?--he's my namesake.

Bush's Powers Again Under Review by Court

His wartime powers undercut once before by the Supreme Court, President Bush could take a second hit in a case in which Osama bin Laden's former driver is seeking to head off a trial before military officers.

At stake is more than whether Salim Ahmed Hamdan, after nearly four years at the Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, goes on trial for war crimes before a special military commission.

Analysts say if the high court rejects Bush's plan to hold such trials for the first time since the aftermath of World War II, it could rein in the president's expanded powers in pursuing and punishing suspected terrorists.

...Hamdan's appeal, set for arguments Tuesday, is one of the biggest cases of the court's current term, the first for Chief Justice John Roberts. He, however, will not participate in the Hamdan case. Last year, Roberts was on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that ruled unanimously against Hamdan.

It is that ruling that the Supreme Court now is reviewing.

With Roberts withdrawing from the case, the high court could split 4-4, leaving the appeals court ruling in place. A ruling is expected before July.

"The stakes are very high for this administration because it has predicated all of its policies in this war on terror on the principle that the president as commander in chief cannot be constrained by Congress or the courts," said Scott Silliman, a former military lawyer who teaches at Duke University.

"If the court in any way limits presidential authority with regard to military commissions, it will spill over into other areas of his authority in this new type of war," Silliman said.
---------------------
This is a World Series of a case. Both sides are going to be watching.

#121 Jeanne....This is the issue that disturbs me most about the illegal invasion. Innocent..many many innocent Iraqi people have been murdered by american soldiers who were lied to about why they were being sent to Iraq. Many of these soldiers will live with their
nightmares and post traumatic syndrome for the rest of their lives. ( Most of us have friends who served in Vietmam, and relatives who served in WWII).

I keep asking myself why so many americans have been willing to stay completely disconnected from the results of the invasion?

Many americans do not seem to care about the tens of thousands of Iraqi people who have been brutally murdered. They just fill their gas tanks and go to the malls with their heads in the polluted clouds. We are talking about real live Iraqi people, who have suffered from U.s. sanctions, Saddam and now from the invasion. These are flesh and blood...children... hundreds maybe thousands of Iraqi children.... Brutally Murdered.. caught in the cross fire..We are a sick.. really really sick nation.

No we have General Tommy Franks saying "we don't do body counts".

If "not caring" is not enough to drive one crazy, we have millions of pseudo christians hiding behind issues that they call "pro-life" instead of calling what they are for "pro- birth" to drive one insane with their hypocrisy.

These people are not Pro-life. They supported invading a sovereign nation and killing Iraqi people, many of these same people are repeating the idiotic "bomb Iran" mantra coming out of the filthy mouths of the very same FUCKING LIARS WHO HAVE MURDERED MOTHERS,FATHERS AND CHILDREN .. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF IRAQI PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THESE FUCKING LIARS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHO MIS-USED AND ABUSED THE U.S. MILITARY. And now Israel wants us to take action in Iran based on what? More LIes. Fuck them. Back off Israel, start playing by the same rules that you demand all of the other countries in your neighborhood abide by. The NPTreaty.

Let IAEA's Mr. El Baradei deal with Iran. (he was right about Iraq) He has said "that Iran poses no imminent threat" He went onto say that their is no "substantial evidence" that proves Iran is building nuclear weapons, just "suspicious behaviour"...Fuck these people trying to use our military to invade another country based on more LIES...FUCK THEM....THE FUCKING CHICKENHAWKS.
(sorry I just lost control,I hope there are no children reading this.)

I know this that if these liars sent my children off to a war based on fabrications...they had better be looking over their shoulders every second. Bless Cindy Sheehan she is staying focused and in control all the while they try to discredit a mother who lost her son based on their FILTHY FUCKING LIES.

This same group of pseudo christians will not pass health care reform, raise the minimum wage, or vote for equity in education. The contradictions and hypocrisy are enough to drive the whole world mad.

Our nation is imploding and the whole world is watching and many are celebrating.. .ENOUGH IS ENOUGH OF THESE PSYCHOPATHIC MURDERERS

#179 Alan ..Journalist Greg Palast said this before the invasion of Iraq. That we were going in not to access oil but to shut down Iraq's ability to export.

#260 Carey.. It is critical and long overdue for our nation to address "The Israel Lobby" issue and the Israeli/Palestinian issue. It is also critical to discuss it with respect and facts.
Many died and were murdered during WWII. Jews (which is all we here about in our media)were systematically murdered and this was an outrageous crime. Three million Polish were murdered and sent to work camps. ONe million Gypsies were murdered. Millions of Russians died, Germans died. Sixty million people died in that brutal and tragic war.

Our world obviously did not learn any lessons from WWII , because there have been many genocides since. East Timor, Tibet, Vietnam, Rwanda etc. etc. People on the continuent of Africa (Darfur) are being murdered as I type. This planet is clearly Hell for many.

OUr country has been the perpetrator of some of these genocides and we have stood by while others happenned and did absolutely NOTHING.
What happenned to the Jews in WWII was a very serious crime.

That does not give the Jews in Israel a license to confiscate land, oppress, humiliate, and sometimes murder Palestinians.
That does not give Israel via Aipac license to receive a disproportionate amount of U.s.
That does not give the Jews in this country or Israel the right to push our nation into wars in the middle east based on their territorial agenda.

That genocide does not give Israel the right to acquire massive amounts of nuclear,biological and chemical weapons that go unchecked by the IAEA, and to use that back door to sale military and weapons technology (often from the U.s. ) to China

The debate about the AIPAC Lobby must be addressed with hard facts.

274

Kathlene

There is nothing more sexy than a fiesty passioate girl.

LBH "girl" is a stretch. I am a 54 year old bad ass mother of three. Have you seen the T shirt that says "I am out of estrogen and I am carrying a gun". That about says it for where I am at.

Off to see the Tommy Lee Jones flick..he is a bad ass.

I truely wish you all well..you to LBH..I know those FUCKING LIARS in the White House ( and those neo-con analyst) that took our nation into this war are not your people.

Horns (#2 Seed) beaten by a superior team today! LSU, my hats off to you. Having taken out Duke, overall Tournament #1 Seed, and now #2 Regional Seed Texas, LSU is the Team. Go Tigers next Weekend at the Final Four!

Out, Not Happy tonight but not Sad either!

The dance is over. Back to Austin!

Do you agree with Charlie Sheen that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks?

Look at the poll numbers. The administration and the congress have to be sweating. This is a clear indication of the level of distrust by the American people .

help us laura bush! you're our only hope!

#274 Kathleen

When you read this Sunday or Monday, if you do, (I envy you seeing the Tommy Lee Jones flick) I just wanted to say we plainly agree on everything you've written in your compelling essay.

It sounds like we have a lot in common.

Bad Ass Mamas. Take that LBH/Happy.

"it feels like the worm is turning." - Sheen

"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and his fellow men.": Robert G. Ingersoll - (1833- 1899)

=
"Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.": William Godwin - (1756-1836)

=
Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution.": W. Lance Bennett - Author, professor at University of Washington Source: News: The Politics of Illusion, 1983

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!

I joined NetFlix. These days new releases come out on DVD within six months of the theatrical release.

It cost less than $20 per month to have 3 DVDs at a time. The mailman drops them and picks them up. Netflix pays postage.

I watched "Dreamer" and "Capote" this week. I saw "My Left Foot" and "Village", "Gothika", and "Born Into Brothels" recently.

Basically, you get to see three movies a week. They also have a one movie at a time deal for $9.99 per month.

Cuba finished second in the 16-nation [World Baseball Classic] competition and the runner-up was entitled to 7 percent of the tournament's profits. But under the 1962 U.S. trade embargo, Havana had to forfeit its cut to get U.S. approval to play.

Castro, welcoming Cuba's players home as champions despite their 10-6 loss to Japan in Monday's final in San Diego, said on Tuesday the Cuban prize money would be donated to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Bush administration, however, is not prepared to allow such altruism by the Cuban leader.

Psssst ... Mr. Castro. Earmark the contribution for Neil Bush's educational software company and see what happens.

(link)

Even better, make sure you invest in the company first so you not only benefit the Bush family, but you get it on the profits as well! According to Talking Points Memo, that's exactly what the former first lady's doing.

(link)

lbh is right at #7. No more government handouts and that includes all in the WH. No more tax-funded ambulance chasing Duck!!! Cheney everyplace he goes. He drops, he waits for some samaritan to happen by and call 911 just like the rest of us.

Yah, Duck Cheney, exercise more and eat
less and you'd be more productive and maybe a better shot and you wouldn't have to have that ambulance chasin your ass all the time. I can just hear the jokes those ambulance dudes make about you behind your back.

Royalty has their entourage, ya know. Wonder if he travels with a food taster.

Carol,
He has to have the lights on in his hotel room when he enters it. And the TV has to be on Fox News. Oh and a private bathroom.
Vice Presidential Downtime Requirements

It's a little different than the soldiers in Iraq and the vets living on the streets.

Brian Palmer: Facts, Fudge & FOIA (link)

You tax dollars at work in Iraq

290 And the TVs have to be turned on and tuned to FOX news. I'm not kidding.

A proposed ban on human-animal hybrids died Friday when the House cut the heart out of a bill and ended debate early on the issue.

The vote was 63-52 against the proposal from Rep. Mary Pilcher Cook, R-Shawnee, to make it a felony to create or attempt to create a hybrid embryo or "non-human life form" with human brain tissue. A first offense would be punished by up to five years and one month in prison and a fine of $1 million.

= = = =
I'm looking for a co-sponsor for a piece of legislation to ban human-animal hybrids (HAH) from www.DavidCorn.com. I don't want to be mistaken as a strident bigot so the law will have an amnesty program for existing HAH but new ones will be processed by the INS and returned to Dr Doolittle's game reserve. Who's game?

Ben Domenech: "The truth is, no conservative could write for the Post without being subject to the gauntlet of the liberal attack machine. There is no question in my mind that any RedState contributor writing for this blog would have found leftists delving through his high school yearbooks and grade school book reports in an effort to discredit and defame him. And if you too were a sloppy teenage writer, your errors or the errors of others would've been exploded."

I don't wish to harp on this because what's done is done. However, it needs to be said: The above statement is just plain wrong.

Before his brief stint last week at WaPo, Domenech served as both an intern and a movie reviewer at different times in the National Review world. Here's what just a cursory review of some of Ben Domenech's NRO work produced (link).

Judge refuses to give FBI custody of classified document

A federal judge in Oregon has refused to hand over for safekeeping to the FBI a classified document that may show that the NSA conducted warrantless electronic surveillance on an Ashland, Ore., charity that the government alleges had ties to Osama bin Laden. U.S. District Judge Garr King sided with charity attorney Steven Goldberg, who argued that the FBI is a defendant in the case and therefore not a neutral party that can be entrusted with the document. The judge instead has temporarily placed the document with federal prosecutors in Seattle until he can make a decision as to how the material should be handled.

....According to the Washington Post and other sources, Treasury Department officials--who were investigating the foundation for terrorist ties--inadvertently gave a copy of the classified document, marked "top secret" and dated May 24, 2004, to an al-Haramain attorney, as part of a routine disclosure of documents the government was citing to designate the charity as a terrorist organization. In May 2004, the attorney gave the document to Belew and Ghafoor, who also represented the charity. Belew in turn gave a copy of the document to a Post reporter. In November 2004, FBI agents took the document back from Belew and the Post reporter saying it contained highly sensitive national security information, according to the Post.

...Al-Haramain attorney Goldberg objected to the document "being left with the FBI," noting that the FBI "is a defendant in this lawsuit." And, Goldberg added, "we're dealing with a document that may involve criminal behavior by that defendant."

Justice Department lawyer Anthony Coppolino tried to convince the judge that handing the document to the FBI for safekeeping would in no way compromise it, but the judge was unmoved.

"What if I say I will not deliver it to the FBI, Mr. Coppolino?" asked King.

"Well, your honor," Coppolino responded, "we obviously don't want to have any kind of confrontation with you; we want to work this out, but it has to be secured in a proper fashion." After some more to-ing and fro-ing, King ruled that the document be placed in the U.S. attorney's SCIF in Seattle for a couple of weeks until he can decide how to deal with it.

The document in the al-Haramain case is significant because it's the only material so far that may provide details of the administration's secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program. The company that publishes the Oregonian newspaper last week filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Oregon to unseal the document.

Meat-Industrial Complex
How factory farms undercut public health

...Texas County is in Oklahoma's Panhandle region. In 1990 it had 11,000 hogs. Today, according to the Kerr Center, the number has swollen to more than one million. For a region that was in economic decline, the offer by Seaboard Farms to locate an industrial-style hog operation held out the promise of reinvigorating the flagging economy, creating desperately needed jobs and re-filling the empty school desks.

But it came with a price. Seaboard demanded and received $60 million in local and state government assistance. This worked out to $27,552 per new job, a tolerable sum if the jobs paid $20 per hour, but the average hourly Seaboard wage was less than $8. In spite of the low wages, the deal might have been justified if the community received a commensurate growth in tax revenues. But by the time the county completed the financing deal with Seaboard, they had agreed to taxes of $9,700 per year until 2017 on a business site valued at $100 million. Even after Seaboard agreed to pay $175,000 annually to the district's school board for the next 25 years, this still amounted to the county forgoing $120,000 per year.

Factory hog operations not only pay a meager return on a community's investment, they also extract a high price from the surrounding region. With Seaboard's influx of jobs came an increase in population, which in turn brought about a sharp rise in crime. From 1990 to 1997, crime in Texas County increased by 74 percent compared to a 12 percent decline in other rural Oklahoma counties. And factory farm workers in the West and Midwest are increasingly Mexican immigrants, only about half of whom are legally documented. They bring with them a host of needs that these rural communities are unequipped to handle.

But the worst problems are created by the ungodly amount of manure--an estimated 15 million pounds per day in Texas County. Because of water run-off from factory farms, both groundwater and surface water quality have declined. Even worse, the Ogallala Aquifer upon which the region depends for its water is being depleted at a rapid rate. The Oklahoma Water Resource Board reported that water levels in many Texas County wells have dropped 50 to 100 feet over the last 30 years, due in large part to the high water demand of factory hog operations and the irrigated farmland that supports them.

Across the nation, factory farms of all types are wreaking environmental havoc. A 1995 North Carolina manure spill killed 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal shellfish beds. In 2004 the Iowa Department of Natural Resources recorded ammonia levels near a hog factory that were six times the recommended health standard. In California's San Joaquin Valley, air pollution from factory dairy farms is a major reason that the region's children have asthma rates three times the national average. In eastern New Mexico--the state's factory dairy farm belt--recent research discovered antibiotic-resistant bacteria in dairy yards. For these reasons, the American Public Health Association has urged all levels of government to impose a moratorium on new CAFOs until a comprehensive environmental and health assessment can be conducted.
---------------------
The meat industry is an industry out of control. There are few safeguards protecting the cities near the plants from polution. The industry make demands and because they are big business in this country they get rewarded.
People do not realize how much polution the meat industry produces. It is becoming a worldwide problem. Not only that but it taxes the enviornment by using too much land. It's a real problem.

Read "My Year of Meats" by Ruth Ozeki. (sp?) Tofu looks very, very tasty.

Time will tell the tale, and it will show that Mad Cow Disease, BSE (bovine spongiform encepholapophy) (sp?) which has been implicated in the human form of the disease, Cretzfeld-Jacobs Disease, will also be implicated in Alzheimer's Disease.

We are what we eat.

My daughter made a soup with tofu. Oh man it was the best soup I've ever had. It was soooo good. Lots of curry though. I was choking on it just smelling it from the next room.
Good soup.

#298
I read that book. Isn't that what it's called? "We Are What We Eat" It was interesting.

I happened to catch a bit of ABC's coverage of the Dubai horseracing derby on ABC today, which was fascinating in itself (no on-site betting, the entire $23 million purse provided by the royal family). More importantly to me, though, the event seemed to shed light on why the Bush admin greaseballs were so eager to avoid pissing off the Dubaians over the ports deal.

In a sidebar feature, an ABC reporter said Dubai currently accounts for a huge proportion of the construction going on in the world right now. Something like 15% percent of all the world's heavy construction cranes are currently working in that little country. And no doubt Republican corporate paymasters like Bechtel and Halliburton are counting on grabbing a nice fat piece of that action. Having Dubai shut out of the U.S. ports certainly won't Bechtel, Halliburton et al. in bidding against their Japanese and European competitors.

As John Perkins documented in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, so much of our foreign policy is aimed at securing lucrative contracts for the companies that grease our political machinery. This old story line may explain the Bush mafia's otherwise mystifying stubbornness on the ports deal.

Incidentally, Japanese horses performed exceedingly well at Dubai, making this a very good year for Japanese sports so far. A Japanese woman figure skater won the marquee event at the winter Olympics, and just last week the Japanese baseball team won the world baseball championships. Bonzai!

The neocon corporate imperialism has done no end of damage to the US as well as the countries these parasites feed on. To make matters worse they don't even pay taxes. They have made boat loads of money on an illegal war, helping to raise the deficit and they don't pay taxes. They've destroyed Iraq. And now...and now...Bush and his little clique are trying to bash the media for doing the job it's supposed to do. Hello..it's a war. Report it for what it is.

"An ice cream shop opened on the newly renamed Mission Accomplished Street."

It's pathetic. They failed miserably and they don't want to have to take responsility. "Don't tell anybody. Ssshhh. Quiet."
The Bush admimistration is running around trying to put out the raging inferno with a dixie cup and they expect the press to call it a birthday candle.

#285 more Nonsense.

You nearly knocked me out of my chair laughing. Impeccable timing in your delivery. Keith Olbermann presented Ms. Bush senior with his "Worst" person of the day award saying "Jeez, you're turning 80 and you don't know a charitable contribution from a damn family solicitation?" (Paraphrased.)

#295 Hi Jeanne.

I was wondering...is that the same case that Olbermann covered last night in which he interviewed an Oregon defense lawyer who is defending a similar case? This lawyer insists, with excellent evidence, that he is the subject of NSA illegal wiretaping and illegal searches. He claims that his office and home have been surreptitiously searched with things being rearranged etc., and that his computer had been clearly tampered with. It certainly sounded on the up and up and not surprising. I'm pretty sure it's the same case.

Gosh you and Caroline have scared the bejeesus out of me with this info on meat. I eat red meat occasionally, darn it. And my father died of Alzheimers.

But I loved the sound of your daughter's tofu curry soup. I just love curry.

Jeanne, the administration's complaints about media coverage, I think, have fallen on collective dead ears. It's just not washing with the public. They're changing the argument now. Back to the "anybody who complains about anything we do is soft on terrorism and unpatriotic", a familiar argument during campaign season.

Yes it is pathetic and they must be stopped before we crash any further. We have our kid's and grandkid's future to think of.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | March 24, 2006

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

(link)

Administration tells Congress (again) - We won't abide by your "laws"

The Republicans and Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee submitted detailed questions to the Bush Administration regarding the NSA program, and the DoJ's responses to both the Democrats' questions and its responses to the Republicans' are now available.

There are numerous noteworthy items, but the most significant, by far, is that the DoJ made clear to Congress that even if Congress passes some sort of newly amended FISA of the type which Sen. DeWine introduced, and even if the President "agrees" to it and signs it into law, the President still has the power to violate that law if he wants to. Put another way, the Administration is telling the Congress -- again -- that they can go and pass all the laws they want which purport to liberalize or restrict the President's powers, and it does not matter, because the President has and intends to preserve the power to do whatever he wants regardless of what those laws provide.
====================
Didn't I read that it was just recently the anniversary of Hitler claiming these same powers?

Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Revenge in Baghdad
---
---
Mr. Azawi's body was found the next morning at a sewage treatment plant. A slight man who raised nightingales, he had been hogtied, drilled with power tools and shot.

In the last month, hundreds of men have been kidnapped, tortured and executed in Baghdad. As Iraqi and American leaders struggle to avert a civil war, the bodies keep piling up. The city's homicide rate has tripled from 11 to 33 a day, military officials said. The period from March 7 to March 21 was typically brutal: at least 191 bodies, many mutilated, surfaced in garbage bins, drainage ditches, minibuses and pickup trucks.

Once again I skipped to the end, because ol LBH has pissed me off again.

First of all butt munch, you are not in a position to judge my son.

Second, this son not only overcame his disease to excell in his sport, he was asked to speak at hostpitals and featured on two news shows.

Corky did two years at one of this Nation's top Art Schools. Food poisoning nearly killed him in his third year and took him out of school.

Since then Corky has not only been gainfully employed, but he has from his small savings, sent money to the Democratic Party. Corky pays rent, buys insulin and test strips, and alcohol swabs,and lancets, like the rest of us pick up toothpaste. The difference is.........we don't pay $50. for toothpaste, Corky pays this for test strips regularly. He has no choice, it is what he needs to do to stay alive.

My husband and I are not rich, but we can make sure Corky is o.k. Corky never once tried to take advantage of this. He has since he was diagnosed at 14 pulled his own weight in this family and then some.

I don't see Corky living here with us as a bad thing on any level. It comforts me that he is here and I believe that is why he stays.

Corky and I keep each other motivated. We always have.

I could not be more grateful to have a son like Corky.

I am better for this good man's presence in my life.

Lb whatever, you are a jerk.

I doubt you could find your own backside with both hands and Onstar.

Shut up, go away and leave my son alone. You are not fit to shine his shoes.

Towards a new test of general relativity?

Scientists funded by the European Space Agency have measured the gravitational equivalent of a magnetic field for the first time in a laboratory. Under certain special conditions the effect is much larger than expected from general relativity and could help physicists to make a significant step towards the long-sought-after quantum theory of gravity.

Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. However, Martin Tajmar, ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH, Austria; Clovis de Matos, ESA-HQ, Paris; and colleagues have measured the effect in a laboratory.

Their experiment involves a ring of superconducting material rotating up to 6 500 times a minute. Superconductors are special materials that lose all electrical resistance at a certain temperature. Spinning superconductors produce a weak magnetic field, the so-called London moment. The new experiment tests a conjecture by Tajmar and de Matos that explains the difference between high-precision mass measurements of Cooper-pairs (the current carriers in superconductors) and their prediction via quantum theory. They have discovered that this anomaly could be explained by the appearance of a gravitomagnetic field in the spinning superconductor (This effect has been named the Gravitomagnetic London Moment by analogy with its magnetic counterpart).

Small acceleration sensors placed at different locations close to the spinning superconductor, which has to be accelerated for the effect to be noticeable, recorded an acceleration field outside the superconductor that appears to be produced by gravitomagnetism. "This experiment is the gravitational analogue of Faraday's electromagnetic induction experiment in 1831.

It demonstrates that a superconductive gyroscope is capable of generating a powerful gravitomagnetic field, and is therefore the gravitational counterpart of the magnetic coil. Depending on further confirmation, this effect could form the basis for a new technological domain, which would have numerous applications in space and other high-tech sectors" says de Matos. Although just 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth’s gravitational field, the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein’s General Relativity predicts. Initially, the researchers were reluctant to believe their own results.

*****end of clip*****

WOW!

Imagine we learn how to use the power of gravity/anti-gravity? Forget the dinosaur juice (fossil fuel) there is way more gravity to use.

capt

Getting a Grip on Antimatter

Research into what separates matter from antimatter is accelerating in particle physics experiments around the world. Scientists are hoping the difference will help explain why you, me and all the things around us are made of matter instead of its opposite.

Shortly after the Big Bang theoretically kicked off everything, the universe was a hot soup of equal parts matter and antimatter, scientists say. Why the former came to dominate is a question that physicists have yet to answer fully.

Recent results from the BaBar experiment in California have confirmed one departure between the two substances, but to solve the puzzle more deviations will have to be found.

"This was a very important step on the road to understanding the matter-antimatter asymmetry," said David MacFarlane, a physicist with the BaBar group. "This asymmetry is one of the fundamental questions of cosmology."

With equal mass but opposite electric charge, there are anti-particles that correspond to the proton, the electron, and the whole zoo of fundamental particles that physicists have so far catalogued.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I do not think we can imagine what technology will be like 20 Years from now.

capt

Scientists find 'missing link' skull

Scientists in north-eastern Ethiopia said today that they have discovered a hominid skull that could be a missing link between Homo erectus and modern man.

The hominid cranium – found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old – "comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human," said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia.

Archaeologists found the cranium at Gawis, in Ethiopia’s north-eastern Afar region, five weeks ago, Sileshi said.

Sileshi, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist based at Indiana University in the US, said most fossil hominids are found in pieces but the near-complete skull - a rare find – provided a wealth of information.

The cranium dates to a time of transition from African Homo erectus to modern humans about which little is known. The fossil record from Africa for this period is sparse and most of the specimens poorly dated, project archaeologists said.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Not for the ID or "flat earthers" but interesting to the rest of us.

capt

"#298
I read that book. Isn't that what it's called? "We Are What We Eat" It was interesting."
-Jeanne
_______________

I think that a more accurate phrase along similar lines is:

"We are what we DON'T shit!"
(any chance to quote Wavy Gravy is to be taken!)

-T

Election Whistle-Blower Stymied by Vendors
After Official's Criticism About Security, Three Firms Reject Bid for Voting Machines
_____________
MIAMI -- Among those who worry that hackers might sabotage election tallies, Ion Sancho is something of a hero.

The maverick elections supervisor in Leon County, Fla., last year helped show that electronic voting machines from one of the major manufacturers are vulnerable, according to experts, and would allow election workers to alter vote counts without detection.

Now, however, Sancho may be paying an unexpected price for his whistle-blowing: None of the state-approved companies here will sell him the voting machines the county needs.

"I've essentially embarrassed the current companies for the way they do business, and now I believe I'm being singled out for punishment by the vendors," he said.

There are three vendors approved to sell voting equipment in Florida, and each has indicated it cannot or will not fill Sancho's order for 160 voting machines for the disabled. Already, he has had to return a $564,000 federal grant to buy the machines because he has been unable to acquire the machines yet.
_________________

"He who casts a vote decides nothing! He who COUNTS the votes decide EVERYTHING!"

-Teen Heartthrob Joey Stalin

HA!

more from above:

"A spokesman said Diebold will not sell to Sancho without assurances that he will not permit more such tests, which the company considers a reckless use of the machines.

"While we welcome authorized testing and examination of our products by qualified professionals," Diebold attorney Michael E. Lindroos wrote Sancho last year, "actions such as yours only serve to undermine the public's confidence in the security and accuracy that good systems can provide when used with the proper procedures and by authorized personnel."
________________

Showing that a product is unfit for public consumption is a "reckless use" of that product?

These criminals who are undermining the American People's ability to get a fair accounting of their votes should be locked up for a lifetime. Disenfranchisement of millions of voters is the most damaging crime that can be committed in a "demoCRAZY". I want the CEO's and the board of directors for these companies diplayed for all to see above a big sign that says,

"WE WON'T HELP THE HANDICAPPED VOTE BECAUSE SOMEBODY COULD FIND OUT WE'RE RIGGING ELECTIONS!"

I'm disgusted...and going to the hardware store...always cheers me up, at least until I get to the cashier...

-T

Oh, and don't bother with MTP this morning...

NeoCondi-LIES-ya obfuscates denies and refuses to accept any blame for the deteriorating conditions in the Civil War in Iraq that she helped create.

-go figgur.

-T

more nonsense 243, after returning from 3 solid days of driving on the LA freeways I've come to the conclusion that gitmo is not necessary. All they have to do is force the suspect to drive the 405 between 3 and 7 PM. They will talk, guaranteed! They will say anything you want and be happy to do it. It would be a lot cheaper and there would be no bloodshed.
James 258, a friend of mine has a bumper sticker on her fridge that says "Regime change begins at home." I thought that was absolutely true!
Carey 260, I read an excellent essay called Vulture Capitalism, if you are interested I will link it, I think you will like it.
Kathleen 274, They have yet to address the many complaints of the USS Liberty survivors. And that incident occurred over 35 years ago. When do you think they will get around to doing anything about the current Israeli issues? I doubt anytime soon unfortunately.
Jeanne 296, the factory meat farms are one of the most evil empires to have ever blighted this planet. I think a great idea would be to take all 6th graders on a tour of the local slaughter house, including the feedlots and veal pens. That would most likely cure most of the people of the disgusting habit of consuming any meat that comes from that source! BTW, I have an awesome vegan recipe for mocha chocolate muffins sweetened with maple syrup that is very simple to make. If you are interested shoot me an e-mail and I will give it to you.
Capt, I don't think evolution and ID are mutually exclusive ideas. If there is a creator then I don't see why he/she couldn't take all the time in the univere to create!

Close-Up of WTC-7 Collapse Footage Shows Unmistakable Demolition Charges

The construction of the WTC's can be argued until hell freezes over as long as the original blueprints remain missing. But this quick video of #7 leaves absolutely no doubt as to the fate of that building. And if they are lying about that, they are lying about all of it.

CNN quick vote.

Do you agree with Charlie Sheen that the govt. covered up the real events of 9/11?

Yes 84% 38,649 votes
No 16% 7314 votes

Total votes 45,963 as of 3-25-06
---------
The people are waking up. Charlie Sheen is a hero and a true patriot!

It's no big deal. I just like to rub it in what a pathetic coward you are when someone gives me such a freebe like you did.

This is the first link to the left at Raw Story. This is one of the more mainstream internet websites, so seeing this there is wonderful.
---------------

Four years have passed since 9/11 - the foundation of the Bush Administration.

66% of New Yorkers want a new investigation, Scholars are uniting against the official story, and the media refuses to discuss it at all.

It is time to revisit the events of 9/11.
----------
Links to Scholars for 9/11 truth full membership roster. Very impressive. I think it is safe to say this has left the "lunatic fringe" dept. far behind.

From WRH

Radioactive Tank No. 9 comes limping home

Across the plains of Kansas, destroyed, radioactive Abrams tanks, perched on railroad flatcars, rolled towards an uncertain future. Only one thing was certain. They would be radioactive forever. This would be their everlasting death mask. The Pentagon deceptively calls it "depleted uranium."
The enduring vigorous stupidity of the U.S. military pretends that radiation is one of those things that if you can't see it, it can't hurt you. They are thoroughly delusional, of course. A National Academy of Sciences report released June 30, 2005, finds that there is no safe level of radiation. Any radiation is bad.

Another explanation is that the U.S. Army and other branches of the military are far from stupid. They are, in fact, the most lethal and carefully planned military in the history of the world. The extensive use of weaponized uranium oxide gas, aerosols and dust is not an accident or an oversight. They did it on purpose.

If this is true, they purposely used a genocidal weapon over at least a 15-year period. No, this is not a callous mistake of empire; it is a calculated act of genocide to weaken the oil- and gas-rich countries of Central Asia, including Iraq. Take your choice: they are either stupid or genocidal monsters.

Two news stories this week should have resulted in 44 Senators signing on to censure the President of the United States for his abuse of power in ordering massive domestic spying on American citizens without a warrant. Two administration actions reinforce the fact that Congressional laws have been rendered meaningless: (1) the President's signing statement on the Patriot Act; and (2) the administration's answers to Judiciary Committee questions about the warrantless spying program.

When President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law, he issued a signing statement which in its application, is effectively a quasi-veto of its oversight provisions:

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers. (link MORE)

= = = =

It's hard to understand a motive for the President's actions other than seizing power that the presidency does not traditionally have - which is to say freedom to act in ways prohibited by laws passed by congress - even laws that expand the power of the executive which were recently debated and passed by Congress.

The President’s signing statement to the recently renewed Patriot Act says that he does not have to abide by the restrictions set forth therein. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

If you trust the president (and why wouldn't you?) then maybe this issue does not concern you. If you do not trust this President or if you're concerned future presidents could abuse unlimited powers, then you should be very concerned.

Read the article and share it with your friends. This is the real deal.

The President gave the Democrats a gift in stating that troops will remain in Iraq beyond his term. Democrats should join together and call for the gradual withdraw of U.S. troops, and a new strategy for stabilizing Iraq--politically and economically. As Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and so many other have noted, we cannot win the Iraq War militarily anymore. Republicans can yell "traitor" until they are blue in the face--the American public, and especially those all-important swing voters--are not on their side.

A new national poll shows that a near majority of voters either strongly or somewhat agree with a pledge not to vote for pro-war candidates. This makes the antiwar movement's potential impact on elections larger than pro-gun, anti-abortion, or anti-gay marriage voters.

The national poll found that 45.9% of US voters agree - 20.1% strongly agree and 25.8% somewhat agree. Among Democrats 67.1% agreed - 33.3% strongly, 59.2% of Independents - 25.3% strongly and even 25.7% of Republicans agreed - 5.5% strongly.

(link)

"The Democrats' dilemma is how to satisfy a restive and angry base without losing the rest of the country. "If someone proposed stringing up Bush like they did Mussolini, that would have a lot of support in the base of the party, too," says a Democratic strategist. "But it's not smart." Democrats want the November election to be a plebiscite on Bush's job performance, not a personal vendetta. "Republicans will rally round him if they think it's a personal attack just like we did with Clinton," warns the strategist. -Clift

(link)

= = =

Interesting advice. Democrats should campaign against Bush's job performance not against his illegal behavior which can be construed as a personal vendetta. Capt, does this feel familiar vis-a-vis your letter from Heather Wilson?

Totally hapless

Matthew John Wyman, told to recite the alphabet at a roadside DUI stop in West Roxbury, Mass., asked the officer if he would please substitute a math problem instead, Universal Press reports.

He wouldn't.

(link)

MoNon, @#294, Ben Domenech . . . when he was first hired, I had a really strong feeling that it would end badly. Aside from writing here, DKos, and a few places here and there, I used to comment at RedState. They are prone to the same bonehead mispronouncements and talking points that the Bush-oisie like to cut-and-paste on this blog. It's a relatively small community, and they have a couple of nerds moderating the flow. Liberals are tagged and the nerderators pop-up to let you know that you are being watched. Redstate has every bit of the fascistic tendencies that the Cheney Administration thrives on. They stamp out dissent because they know that Conservative ideas cannot withstand the searing heat of empirical analysis. Copy Boy Ben is just a small-scale Tucker Carlson, riding along on his daddy's coattails, like most in the Conservative movement. Having to stand on their own two feet is the death knell for all those whiny titty-babies.

Capt, @310, I'm sure scientist would be shocked to find that LBH sees living proof of the Missing Link every time he looks in the mirror. Kinda like that Coelacanth that they found years back.

Ms. Saladin, @318, if you look in the underground sites for downloading music and old internet protocols (like ftp and newsgroups) you'll see a lot of folks posting and hosting Charlie Sheen's mp3 podcasts regarding his views of 911. It is being pushed heavily in the counterculture.

Pan, I saw the interview on CNN, shocking to say the least. They actually gave it a fair broadcast. I know the alternative websites are ablaze with the news. He has certainly flung himself into the lions den, and I am so glad he did. Maybe now others of his stature will come forward. It's way past time to behead this beast.

Copy Boy Ben - I like that.

"now others of his stature will come forward"

Would that be his stature as a network sit-com actor or his Wilt Chamberlin like appetites with Heidi's girls? I am waiting for someone with a little more stature in structural engineering or something remotely related to 9-11. Guess you have different standards.

329, there are many with scientific degrees who have come forward, maybe you haven't seen the Scholars for 9/11 truth yet? My link above gives a full list of the members. I don't give a damn what Sheen has done or currently does in his private life. The stature I'm referring to is his immense popularity with millions and millions of people in this country and his ability to gain tons of media coverage, which will in turn encourage those who know nothing about this controversy to start looking into it. I don't know if you meant to sound like a smartass, but that is how you come off. I think I have more than proven my standards in this area in the past 14 months, where have YOU been?

Lara Logan smacked down the "negative Iraq War Coverage" charges

#330

I think a much more appropriate name for Scholars for 9/11 Truth would be Poets for the Truth. You must admit they are a bit light in the hard sciences. There is ONE member that is even on a mechanical faculty and ZERO in a structural or civil program. The engineering community as a whole thinks this is a joke. That would explain why 4+ years after the fact the professional literature is barren in reference to a plot of any kind.

It's in the bag, say stem cell scientists

HUMAN testes could be a source of embryonic-like stem cells, providing a way to grow tissue to repair the body without having to destroy or create embryos.

German researchers have discovered that cells from the testes of adult mice that normally turn into sperm can be transformed into different types of tissue, including liver, heart, muscle, skin, pancreas and nerve cells.

Dr Gerd Hasenfuss, of Georg-August University in Gottingen, said his team had begun studying the cells from testes in men and he was optimistic of getting similar results.

If the findings are repeated in people, the cells could produce tissue that was a perfect match for a patient "without the ethical and immunological problems associated with human embryonic stem cells", he said.

"This is a very exciting piece of work," Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, of the National Institute for Medical Research in Britain told London's The Daily Telegraph.

It was also welcomed by opponents of embryo research in Australia. "It is terrific news, although of course it needs to be verified," said Michael Cook, editor of the bioethics newsletter BioEdge.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

How cool to be carrying the stuff around. Anybody want to wager the "blastocysts are people too" jerks are too fond of the stuff to give any away? HA!

capt

332 Are you trying to imitate a troll? Since when are physics professors poets? Let me guess, you're an engineer.

"It's in the Bag"

The Australian's have much better headline writers than the US. I would love to see that in any American paper.

Pande,

"Kinda like that Coelacanth that they found years back."

Only the Coelacanth has a purttier mouth, if you know what I mean!

HA!

capt

332, that explains nothing beyond the fact that there is a huge effort to cover up the truth which is proven by the efforts made by bushco to stop any and all independant investigation, including gag orders placed on witnesses. Your claim that this is a joke among mechanical engineers is false. Continue in you fantasy land by all means. Maybe you could link the drawings put forth by FEMA which conveniently omit the 47 monstrous columns that made up the load bearing structure of those buildings as well as why #7 collapsed for no apparent reason, but they're still trying hard to come up with something even remotely plausible to explain it. Since this subject is not very welcome here by some I will not engage anymore. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

332 -
The engineering community as a whole thinks this is a joke.

ya? like who? the ASCE? back your words up with a reference please.

New animation at:

http://www.peacetakescourage.com/3years.html

Graphic so use caution.

capt

332/337

Actually I have a BS in Math, a Masters in Physics and a PhD in Physics. I am working now as a Medical Physicist. NONE of which qualifies me to hazard a guess at the collapse of the WTC or what hit the Pentagon. I guess I just get caught up in that old "science thing" and I have seen NO scientific study that says anything different than the official story. Not that there could not be a different story but no one has done the science to prove it. The easy one would be entitled “How to bring down the WTC towers with controlled demolitions with none of the office workers knowing about it.” Get it published in a respected Journal and I will be happy to read it and make up my own mind. Until that time this entire subject is in the realm of fantasy.

James take a gander at

http://mceer.buffalo.edu/infoservice/bibs/wtcresources.asp#engineering

340 You may need to be an expert to perform or evaluate an anylsis but you don't have to be an expert to look at the evidence and know there's a lot that doesn't add up.

According to your standard, you should probably refrain from talking about subjects you haven't read about in a scientific journal.

342

Are you familiar with the concept of peer review? It makes winnowing through the chaff much easier for a busy person.

US high court judge said to slam detainee rights

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed the idea that Guantanamo detainees have constitutional rights and called European concerns over the issue hypocritical, Newsweek magazine reported on Sunday.

The comments, which Newsweek said were recorded at a private appearance by Scalia in Switzerland on March 8, emerge before a Supreme Court hearing this week on a legal challenge by a Guantanamo prisoner against U.S. military tribunals.

"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Scalia said in the talk at the University of Freiburg, according to Newsweek. "Give me a break."

Court officials were not immediately available for comment.

Ethics experts said the impression that Scalia had already made up his mind before the hearing should mean that he will voluntarily drop out of the proceedings. However, Newsweek said he did not refer specifically to this week's case.

"He should remove himself when there is a reasonable doubt of his impartiality," said Father Robert Drinan, a professor of law at Georgetown University and long-standing human rights campaigner, who teaches judicial ethics.

"It should logically be a reason for his recusal but I don't think he'll do it ... he's so stubborn" said Drinan.

Scalia caused an outcry in 2004 for refusing to recuse himself from an energy policy case involving Vice President Dick Cheney, following the disclosure that they had been on a duck-hunting trip together the year before.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

It used to be the appearence of impropriety, these guys could not care less. They are in it for themselves and the cronies. The rest of us can go Cheney ourselves.

capt

343 Are you familiar with the concept arrogant jackass? That's an academic who is so full of herself she treats others, those she perceives as less educated, in a condescending manner.

354

It has nothing at all to do with education. The very well educated can fall prey to urban myths as well. I was not aware that asking for evidence of a hypothesis is considered arrogant. Perhaps the problem is not arrogance on my part but rather a lack of supporting documentation on yours.

BYU professor's group accuses U.S. officials of lying about 9/11

Last fall, Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of "pre-positioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 Truth," he's upping the ante.

"We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11," the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation. "We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad."

Headed by Jones and Jim Fetzer, University of Minnesota Duluth distinguished McKnight professor of philosophy, the group is made up of 50 academicians and others.

They include Robert M. Bowman, former director of the U.S. "Star Wars" space defense program, and Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist for the Department of Labor in President George W. Bush's first term. Most of the members are less well-known.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I am sure a BYU Physics prof is not good enough but here you go just the same.

If you are really interested you would be aware of this piece? Maybe just a little game playing?

capt

Time to Leave Iraq

Last week's anniversary of the start of the Iraq War prompted loads of discussions. For some reason, journalists love anniversaries, though of course they are highly selective in which anniversaries they take note of.

Out of these discussions always comes the administration's ploy, which is that if you don't have a solution, then don't criticize the problem. That's clever sophistry. The administration starts a war on false pretenses, completely botches the aftermath, gets bogged down in a guerrilla war, so now it says to the critics, "OK, you fix it."

Well, since I'm proud of my consistent opposition to this war, I will freely admit that I don't know how to fix Iraq. I do, however, know how to fix our involvement in Iraq. That is for the American people and their elected government to recognize the truth: We, the United States, cannot fix Iraq now or ever. We can pay bribes and cajole and threaten, but in the end, the fate of Iraq is now in the hands of the Iraqis, and there is nothing we can do about it.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Bring the troops home. They have done their job, Saddam is being held to account now it is time to hold Bunnypants to account.

capt

THE FIX IS IN FOR BUSH

SENATE RACES TO MAKE THE ILLEGAL LEGAL

ACROSS the U.S. capital, lawmakers are scurrying from pillar to post in a frantic effort to put lipstick on a pig.

In an attempt to rein in the Bush administration and its cowboy tactics with the illegal wiretapping of Americans making calls overseas, various Republicans are floating proposed legislation that would make the president's actions legal.

Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine is proposing exempting the warrantless surveillance program from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which determines who and under what circumstances the government can spy inside U.S. borders. In general the law has explicitly prohibited the government from sneaking a listen into the phone calls of American citizens without approval from the federal intelligence court.

To our mind, the surveillance act has been good law. It gives the government the go-ahead to spy, even without a warrant, on Americans suspected of helping terrorists, so long as the government gets one within 72 hours.

DeWine, however, wants to give the administration even more time - 45 days. Which makes us wonder why he didn't just give the Bush team an entire year.

Meanwhile, our own Sen. Arlen Specter has a few proposals of his own. Specter, who has been highly critical of the administration's excuses for violating the law and the Constitution, wants to give the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court the ability to review the government's surveillance activities every 45 days and rule on their constitutionality.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts is also mulling legislation and is reportedly annoyed that his committee is being ignored. He wants any bill that passes out of Specter's Judiciary Committee to be reviewed by the Intelligence Committee.

To us, this is mopping up after spilled milk, while the guy who spilled it, the president, gets off with a smirk.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

How anybody could let this happen is inexcusable. It is treasonous and criminal.

capt

347

Ahhh yes "Cold fusion" Jones. He should stick with his solar cooker, which is really a cool product for the 3rd world. You may be interested to know how his Dept. and his University responded to his paper.

Professor Jones's department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review." The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, "The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones."

you mention peer reviews; as far as I know jones' paper has been peer reviewed - "cold fusion jones"? so what? he brings up quite a few questions that have not been explained to any degree of satisfaction. I'm about to look at your link now....

I have to agree with nukemed, mostly, but I don't think name-calling helps at all. Jones is, I believe, a nuclear physicist and do has no particular qualifications in structural engineeering nor fire safety engineering. His so-called peer reviewed paper did not appear in a respected journal devoted to structural engineering nor fire safety engineering.

Furthermore, peer review in general just helps to eliminate the most seriously wrong papers. Sometimes peer reviewed work is later shown to be wrong.

I've actually been doing some more reading about WTC, mostly at the PhysOrgForum GeneralPhysics thread devoted to this topic. There remain, for a scientist, many unanswered questions. But the fact remains that no structural engineer, not one, anywhere in the world, has done anything but agree, generally, but often not in detail, with the FEMA and NIST reports.

I'll not post more about this here. I suppose I'll read from some of you at PhysOrgForum. For the rest of the corn posters, thank you for your putting up with this WTC stuff. Hopefully you won't have to anymore.

well, your link contains any other links - the first has this to say: and propelling a section of the fuselage, a wheel, and a portion of its landing gear through the north facade and into the streets below
this is in reference to the south tower which was struck by what the official story said was flight 175, a 767 -
what was left unsaid was that the remains of an engine was propelled onto the street below, and that the remains of said engine were from a 737 -
LINK
so, if we were lied to about the type of plane that was involved, then it's just a short leap of faith to realize that most if not all of the 911 fairytale was a lie -
and if any of these engineering links can explain why there was molten metal found in the basements of the towers no less than a month after the collapse I will be surprised. - not to mention wtc7. but I'm looking thru these links that you provided -

Floors locally supported by these exterior wall sections appeared to partially collapse, losing their support along the exterior wall.
sorry, all photos and videos of the towers including the impact points, reveal that there was no sagging or lack of support at all -
911 was an inside job. the towers including wtc7 were brought down by controlled demolition - FEMA and NIST and ASCE all left out aspects of the entire affair that are inconvenient at best for the official fairytale -
I would be happy to see a scientific debate regarding all of this made public - especially if it involved prof. Jones. - maybe your voices can make a difference in bringing such a debate to life. there's a petition here that you can sign for the reopening of the 911 investigation ::
Reopen911.org

James Ha --- You will find that many of the bloggers on the PhysOrgForum are in essential agreement with you. If the link you provided in #353 is in the PhysOrgForum thread, then it is in the first 550 pages which I have yet to read.

I suggest taking your link, questions and hypothesis to the PhysOrgForum thread. There are several bloggers there who are extremely knowledge about many aspects of WTC. I'm just a novice.

...and for the rest of the corn posters, my apologies. I'm just trying, in this post, to convince James Ha to use PhysOrgForum. Thank you again for your patience.

I don't know what happened to the WTC but I have always been the type who is willing to take something in every direction. The truth is what matters. And along the way you learn. I have learned a lot from James H's and Saladin's post as well as Nukemeds and David B Benson's.

Feingold's Censure Resolution May Pay Off

While only two Democrats in the Senate have embraced Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush, the idea is increasing his standing among many Democratic voters as he ponders a bid for the party's presidential nomination in 2008.

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, insists his proposal has nothing to do with his political ambitions. But he does challenge Democrats who argue it will help energize Republicans.

"Those Democrats said that within two minutes of my announcing my idea," Feingold said in a telephone interview last week. "I don't see any serious evidence of that."

A Newsweek poll taken March 16-17 found that 50 percent of those surveyed opposed censuring Bush while 42 percent supported it, but among Democrats, 60 percent favored the effort.

Feingold's resolution would censure the president for authorizing a warrantless surveillance program, which the senator contends is illegal. Co-sponsors are Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California.

The White House argues that Bush was authorized to order eavesdropping on American citizens under his wartime powers as commander in chief.

Feingold said his sole purpose was to hold Bush accountable, but he argued that it's also good politics.

"These Democratic pundits are all scared of the Republican base getting energized, but they're willing to pay the price of not energizing the Democratic base," he said. "It's an overly defensive and meek approach to politics."
----------------
You got it Senator Feingold.

#332 nukemed

Oh for God's sakes, stop preening. Your a scientist. Big Whoopie! Engineers and scientists are the only people who count? Don't answer.

I've been surrounded by positivist scientists. I find that some can be very close-minded which is a shame. You appear to suffer from some of it too. What Saladin answered for herself quite nicely is just plain common sense about getting the word out. It's a pretty shocking message; having well-known celebrities helps soften getting the horrible truth out. The science is pretty much in. This is not a scientific experiment that needs to be proven again and again. The cost has been human lives and our civil rights as we knew them. Remember, the perpetrators are hardcore, cuthroat criminals (wearing suits) who are holding the cards. There is no doubt that the complete truth will be very, very hard to prove.

YES SALADIN, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE LINK ON VULTURE CAPITALISM. I CAN'T RESPOND DIRECTLY BECAUSE MY COMPUTER WON'T ACCEPT OUTLOOK EXPRESS. YOU CAN E-MAIL ME THE LINK IF YOU LIKE. THANKS!

Oh God, this is heartless.

Form letters tell 9/11 families of 911 calls

The mayor's office is sending form letters this weekend to the families of 24 victims of the 9/11 attacks, informing them of unreleased recordings of 911 calls made by their loved ones.

At least one recipient called the letters "totally crass."

"I had one family member call me today, she was hysterical. She actually fainted," said Bill Doyle, whose son died after two planes crashed into the WTC towers. "She opened it up in an elevator and she couldn't believe it, because she never heard from her husband that morning, but apparently he called 911."

Doyle called the letters notifying families this week "totally crass" and shocking to families.

He sent an e-mail to victims' families Saturday.

"We are sending this e-mail to you because we do not want you to be blindsided by the information, and we want you to be able to choose where and when you read the information and with whom," Doyle's e-mail to families said.

Jonathan Greenspun, commissioner of the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit, in a written statement responding to Doyle's complaint, said his office had intended to send an e-mail to WTC support groups Friday to give them advance notice but a "miscommunication" delayed the warning until Saturday.
-----------------------
Oh really....why don't I believe that they were going to send an email out? How hard is it to send the email and then send the letters?

#352 Thank you DR. BENSON for your input on what "peer review" means. I think you should know! Being a college professor for many, many years does lend credibility to your posts, IMO.

I wish you would continue to post here. Most of the 9/11 "facts" that are posted here are repeated, repeated, repeated. It's sort of the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Again, thank you for your participation, Dr. Benson. After Benjamin asked you about NC1968, I looked you up and found that you are a professor at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. I've been to the Palouse and I love the rolling wheat fields.

Ask your colleagues to "peer review" this blog. ;>))

the Monty Python crew could write our reality right now and people would laugh hysterically.
But it's true, so it's not so funny.

Group sues to block budget law that never passed House

For anyone who took fifth-grade social studies, how legislation turns to law always seemed pretty simple: The House passes a bill, the Senate passes the same bill, and the president signs it.
But last month, Washington threw all that old-fashioned civics stuff into a tizzy when President Bush signed into law a bill that never passed the House. The bill -- in this case, a major budget-cutting measure that will affect millions of Americans -- became a law because it was ``certified'' by the leaders of the House and Senate.
After stewing for weeks, Public Citizen, a legislative watchdog group, sued Tuesday to block a law that aims to cut $40 billion over five years, charging that Bush and Republican leaders of Congress flagrantly violated the Constitution when the president signed it into law knowing that the version that cleared the House was $2 billion different from the Senate's version.
The issue is bizarre, with even constitutional scholars saying they could not think of any precedent for the journey the budget bill took to becoming a law. Republicans are evoking an obscure Supreme Court ruling from the 1890s to suggest that a bill does not actually have to pass both chambers of Congress to become law.
------------------
You can bet if this was tax hikes for the wealthy it would be stopped in it's tracks.

#358

I regret that you find rigorous debate and a request for information “preening” I like to call it looking for the truth. When you say "The science is pretty much in" are you able to quote ONE person with professional experience in the field, who has produced ONE peer reviewed paper, from any University or professional organization (I'll even take a company) anywhere in the world? As I have stated before there appear to be some holes in the official story (though I can’t for the life of me figure out what the ASCE stood to gain by “faking” a paper) however until someone shows me, with science or a solid hypothesis in their field of experience, I really don’t have much else to consider.

Re #360: Thank you, Caroline. However, many corn posters complained about the 9/11 and WTC posts here last weekend. As I explained above, the PhysOrgForum thread is much more knowledgable regarding WTC failures, although also filled with many posts from those who offer only opinion and no facts. But that blog site offers very many links and some who have studied WTC for a long time. So I'll restrict my reading about and posting about WTC to that site, until, if ever, I can obtain some more definite conclusions based on science and witness reports.

(I need to remind James Ha, Saladin, and others that it appears that they have found visuals not available on the PhysOrgForum site. If this is indeed so, I would appreciate their taking the time to post the visuals there.)

...And I'm now retired so I have some time to explore other interests.

Caroline, I heartily agree.

#246 more Nonsense

What are you trying to do? Knock me out of my chair laughing again? I somehow missed this the first go around. Excellent.

Supreme Court: Detainees' Rights--Scalia Speaks His Mind

...."Give me a break." Challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don't have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: "If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy." Scalia was apparently referring to his son Matthew, who served with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Scalia did say, though, that he was concerned "there may be no end to this war."

....This isn't the first time Scalia has commented on matters before the court: two years ago he recused himself from a Pledge of Allegiance case after making public comments about the matter. "This is clearly grounds for recusal," said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human-rights group that has filed a brief in behalf of the Gitmo detainees. "I can't recall an instance where I've heard a judge speak so openly about a case that's in front of him--without hearing the arguments."

..."As these things mount, a legitimate question could be asked about whether he is compromising the credibility of the court," said Stephen Gillers, a legal-ethics expert. A Scalia recusal (it's entirely up to him) would create problems; Chief Justice John Roberts has already done so in Hamdan because he ruled on it as an appellate judge. A Supreme Courtspokeswoman said Scalia has no comment.

Another Hiaasen book from the front pages of a Florida Newspaper. He must have given up on the idea drawer long ago. Too many newspaper clippings to save when you live in Florida.

Harris puts her faith in religion
As more campaign advisers prepare to jump ship, religion takes a bigger role in her Senate candidacy.

First they do not like the qualifications of Sheen, then they want a real scientist, then they want a peer reviewed paper, then it is just one? Moving the goal posts is a divisive way of non-debate and miscommunication.

I get a strong undertow of snottines or snootiness? Not sure which one.

To all that think they can condition what is posted here? No way - open blog. If you want to post about 911, religion, politics, illuminati, conspiracies, JFK or life on Mars - go for it.

If people do not find what you post interesting you might not get a reply but your posts will be recorded for posterity, never limit what you think and post whatever you think is interesting. That is what an open blog is all about, no?

If it is good and interesting repetition will not matter.

capt

Progress says Mr. Bush.

Iraqi authorities warn of exploding candy distributed by gunmen in Baghdad

SWEETS-EXPLOSIVES
Iraqi authorities warn of exploding candy distributed by gunmen in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, March 26 (KUNA) - Iraqi Ministry of State for National Security on Sunday warned of touching explosive-packed candy bars found on Baghdad streets.

The ministry said that unknown gunmen threw candy bars that contain explosive materials nearby schools and residential areas in Yarmouk Neighborhood.

It cautioned citizens against touching these candy bars, asserting that the first layer of which contained cocoa, while the second layer contained explosives.

Harris has also back-tracked on spending her $10 milllion inheritance.

She is circling the drain - stick a fork in her she is done. Ten million cannot buy her the seat she wants.

IMHO

capt

Progress says Mr. Cheney.

McCain, Feingold Air Views in Iraq
Visiting Legislators Debate U.S. Policy as Violence Rages

Their visit came as more violence was reported across Iraq, including a terrifying incident earlier in the week in the western city of Ramadi. On Wednesday, armed insurgents burst into the classroom of Khidhir al-Mihallawi, an English teacher at Sajariyah High School, accused him of being an agent for the CIA and Israeli intelligence and beheaded him in front of his students, according to students, fellow instructors and a physician at a local hospital.

One teacher, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared retaliation from insurgents, said that most students ran from the classroom but that some stayed to watch. Many stopped coming to school after the incident, he said. Another teacher, who said he moved his mathematics class to his home to accommodate frightened students, said Mihallawi had earlier been threatened because he worked as a translator for U.S. forces in Ramadi, a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

Mihallawi "looked at us just like he was telling us that we do not have to be scared. Even as we were running out of the door, his looks were still telling us that nothing will happen and we do not have to be scared," said a student, whose father asked that his name not be used. "I heard him screaming for a few seconds, then stop screaming."

The father said his son has had trouble sleeping since the incident. "He always has nightmares and he always wakes up screaming and shaking, talking in his dreams," he said.

Harris campaign says candidate won't use inherited money

Fla. - In an effort to jump-start her sputtering Senate campaign, Rep. Katherine Harris went on national television invoking the memory of her late father and saying the money he left her will form the financial foundation of her challenge to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Now the Harris campaign says that's not the case.

Campaign spokeswoman Morgan Dobbs said Thursday that Harris will sell off her existing assets, not rely on money from her father, a bank executive who died in January.

"It is my understanding from her statements that she does not plan to use inherited money on the campaign - rather, money from liquidating her personal assets, which she says total $10 million," Dobbs wrote in an e-mail to the Orlando Sentinel.

"I think I am being pretty clear."

However, Dobbs' explanation is at odds with the message Harris has been delivering for more than a week.

The Florida Republican appeared on national television saying she would use the money left to her by her father to infuse her campaign with a badly needed shot of financing. The announcement was the centerpiece of her appearance on FOX News, where Harris reaffirmed her commitment to the race.

More HERE

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"I think I am being pretty clear."

Clearly delusional! HA!

capt

#369

"Ten million cannot buy her the seat she wants."

Oh yes, Capt. With the right surgeon you can get anything.

I am not going to defend my position on 9/11 anymore. I have spent 14 long months researching. There is so much more than the physics of the collapse. The info is there for those who want ALL the facts. I found it because I want to know all I can. Making an informed decision requires a lot of effort. It's easy to write people off as conspiracy theorists, that is a ploy of the lazy and brainwashed, but I am convinced in my own mind, and it has nothing to do with partisan politics or hatred of bushco. As caroline says, it's a definition of insanity, god forbid we should ever have to actually think about this. The truth will come, it always does, and the doubters will look like fools, but then maybe things can change. Carey, I will e-mail you the link. It's sad what people choose to believe, even when the evidence, if looked at closely, says different. But then, that's why we are here in the first place.

'Flake factor' plagues Harris

To refloat her foundering Senate campaign, Rep. Katherine Harris says she's investing $10 million of her own dough.

The donation would be legal, unbundled and untainted -- a bold experiment for the Longboat Key, Fla., Republican.

Until recently, Harris wasn't particularly picky about where she got her money or how suspicious it looked. One major booster recently pleaded guilty to paying more than $1 million in bribes to another GOP congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California.

Defense contractor Mitchell Wade admitted buying off Cunningham and also funneling thousands of dollars illegally to Harris. Harris says she didn't have a clue that the donations were dirty.

She's either a dunce or she's lying.

More HERE

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Once again, a false argument: "She's either a dunce or she's lying. "

Dunce and liar are not mutually exclusive. I think there is case for Harris being both.

capt

362, certainly, you have the word of bushco, always dependably honest. What more do you need?

Harris disputes reports of defections

The Senate candidate, at a gun show in Orlando, says a key adviser is not leaving.

U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris slogged through another political morass Saturday when she suggested that one of her most senior advisers had fed embarrassing information to the press.

Appearing at a gun show in Orlando, Harris said that Adam Goodman, her longtime media consultant, had told the St. Petersburg Times that he and chief strategist Ed Rollins were leaving the campaign.

The story, Harris said, was wrong.

"Ed is not leaving my campaign," the Longboat Key Republican said. "Ed Rollins is very committed to my campaign."

The two-term congresswoman, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, then accused Goodman of spreading the story.

"That article basically came from Adam," Harris said, "and it was not accurate."

Asked whether Goodman was still with the campaign, she said: "He is, is, uh . . . heh . . . no comment."

Harris' remarks were surprising, because Goodman has worked with Harris for years and is considered one of her closest advisers. The candidate's words became puzzling when Harris phoned the Orlando Sentinel an hour later with a different story.

She said Goodman was still with the campaign and said "it was wrong" of her to say he leaked information.

"I shouldn't have said that," she said.

Harris could not explain the change or make clear why she had first refused to say whether Goodman was still working with her.

"I don't even know," she said. "That is so not like me."

More HERE

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If the "celestial waters" is not flaky enough, all you need to do is ask a direct question. HA!

capt

362 I think you are a fraud radonc@med.com

364. I enjoyed it too Caroline. I found it on Huffington Post.

Bush 'gaffe' on Iraq threatens party unity

PRESIDENT George W Bush sent a message to Congressional Republicans last week: get lost. When the President told reporters that the decision to bring the last American troops home from Iraq would "be decided by future Presidents and future governments of Iraq", he widened the already yawning gap between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The President, with an eye on his legacy and the history books, implicitly made it clear that this year's mid-term elections are trivial compared with the prize of winning final victory in Iraq.

A famous Washington aphorism holds that a politician commits a gaffe when he inadvertently blurts out the truth. By that standard, Bush gaffed last week. He suggested American troops would still be in Iraq in 2009 - a prospect that alarms Republicans already beleaguered by scandal and discontent among the grassroots.

Democrats, by contrast, could scarcely credit their good fortune. Senate majority leader Harry Reid quickly pounced on what he termed the President's declaration of an "open-ended commitment" in Iraq.

More HERE

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If Bush was worried about his legacy we would have known about it long ago.

capt

377

I really have no desire to have my email become a spam bucket. If you feel I am a fraud you are well within your rights. It would be interesting to have you point out what information in my posts was fraudulent. I have posed questions and asked for more information. I also mocked the “qualifications” of Chuck Sheen to comment on much beyond sexual addiction and sit- com acting but I don’t think that is fraudulent. He may have a large body of unpublished work on topics relevant to 9-11 and in that case I will hastily and sincerely apologize to Mr. Sheen and his supporters. I enjoy many of the posts here and at other sites but I see no reason to carry the debate beyond the pages of the blogs.

discussion is good, arguements are not - thanx for the heads up on the PhysOrgForum -

evidently the subject of 911 makes some people uncomfortable - to that I say HA -
maybe if we ignore it it will just go away! - or better yet we can pretend that the single most defining event in modern history never happened and just accept the results of said event -

hey, how 'bout those METS?

368 "unknown gunmen threw candy bars that contain explosive materials nearby schools and residential areas in Yarmouk Neighborhood."

I would advise the parents and children to bone up on peer-reviewed scientific journal articles which examine the contents of said candy bars before drawing any firm conclusions.

Ah...another blog Cop...

Move along...nothing to see here!

-T

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." ~ Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." ~ Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." ~ Jmes Thurber (1894 - 1961)

The applications are pouring into the Washington Post for the Red State blogging site.

Brady's choice

This guy seems more than qualified.

Beatles take rival Apple to court over core business

IT IS the ultimate battle of the generations over an image of a half-eaten piece of fruit.

In one corner Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the ultimate stars of vinyl who defined music in the 1960s. In the other, the creators of a small white box that has revolutionised the way we buy and listen to music.

This week the Apple Corps goes to the High Court seeking multimillion-pound damages against Apple Computer, the creators of the iPod, over their hugely successful iTunes Music Store.

Apple Corps, owned by the former Beatles and their heirs, still owns the licensing rights to Beatles’†products. It is claiming that the introduction of iTunes broke a $26 million settlement under which Apple Computer agreed to steer clear of the music business, for which the Beatles’†company retains the famous trademark. It is the latest clash in one of Britain’≥ longest-running corporate legal battles.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

The Beatles seem to be on the right side. I hope they get a fair trial.

capt

The WaPo thing is so fake. The claim to want a conservative blogger when they are really playing a pro-Bush anti-bush scenario.

There are plenty of conservative bloggers that do not support Bush, they do not qualify.

capt

Prior reasons aside, if you weren't a fraud you wouldn't ask me how I know: you'd leave me to my presumed misimpression. Regarding your email address. If you include it when you post, it becomes part of your post as a hypelink. You not I made it public.

Wow!
I really respect this journalist. She nailed Bush and Cheney's new smear campaign against the media in Iraq.

Lara Logan smacked down the "negative Iraq War Coverage" charges

She's outraged over these chargers...

President Pollick, the dean of Birmingham Southern, has told his students that careless blogging can scar you with the stain of the scarlet pimpernel. He warns that colleges will monitor your messages, that employers can find years worth of your evil thoughts in blog caches. Birmingham's police will monitor everything you type, so don't spread rumors about DeBusk, Moseley, and Cloyd. .

THERE ARE MONSTERS IN BLOG HOLLOW

Pat Roberts:
"You Don't Have Civil Liberties if You're Dead"

Sen. Roberts thinks we can't protect our civil liberties and defend ourselves from Al Qaida at the same time.

More to the point, Sen Roberts is defending a policy that needs to be defended with outrageous rhetoric that reminds each and every American citizen "Be afraid, be very afraid."

The tradeoff between liberty and life is a false question choice and Senator Roberts should be ashamed of himself.

happiness is 6 new lima bean plants 'asprouting!

More Nonsense your name is very appropriate. Have you added anything to the discussion? Pro or con? Or do you just enjoy throwing bombs? Nothing wrong with that but it does make you hard to take seriously.

Jeanne wrote:

>My sister told me the state is making cabins on top of forest ranger towers in the Dakotas. I don't know if it's North or South or both. Have you ever been to one? She read about it and told me the thunderstorms are terrifying.

Must be in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There were towers in Custer State Park back when I worked there in 1973-1974.

Yes, I've been up in one in Custer State Park, and also up in one in Minnesota. They would be prone to getting hit by lighting, for sure.

Bob

There's a forest ranger tower in a place called White Water state park. It's in south easter MN. The land there is hilly. A lot of cliff type formations. Farm fields that go right up to to deep gorges. Low valleys. White Water River is in the valley. Good fly fishing area I guess. Anyway there's a forest ranger tower on top of one of those hills. I have been wanting to climb that one for years and years.

393 Why are you so intersted in me? It is because I see through your act.

Have the media declared war on the war?
---
---
Consider the questions asked at Bush's news conference last week.

ABC's Jessica Yellin: "Are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?"

CNN's Kathleen Koch: "Do you believe [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld should resign?"

USA Today's David Jackson: "Are you concerned that the Iraq experience is going to embolden authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and make it tougher to get democracy there?"

Bob Deans of Cox News: "Is there a point at which having the American forces in Iraq becomes more a part of the problem than a part of the solution?"

NY Times obtains secret memo of Bush, Blair meeting before Iraq war

The New York Times reports that a secret memo from January 2003 reveals that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair agreed to invade Iraq even without U.N. backing, RAW STORY has learned.

The article, written by Don Van Natta Jr., addresses the Jan. 31, 2003 memorandum which was leaked to a British author and referenced in February of this year. The New York Times was able to obtain a copy of the secret memo, and confirms most of the reports.

...Bush expected Iraq's army to "fold very quickly," and also told the Prime Minister that he thought the Republican Guard would be "decimated by the bombing."

"As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator," Blair is quoted as saying.

According to an article on the memo published by the Guardian in February, "Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme."

"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", The Guardian reported that Bush told Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The memo is also said to reveal that President Bush suggested "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours," in order to provoke Saddam to shoot on them, therefore putting Iraq in breach of United Nations resolutions.

....The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a U.S. surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Saddam.
----------------------
And the Senate finds Feingold out of line for wanting to censure Bush. What a joke.

#297

"Is there a point at which having the American forces in Iraq becomes more a part of the problem than a part of the solution?"
-----------------
That was the case a couple of months ago. Now it's just all out insanity.

Lauded Conscientious Objector Desmond T. Doss Sr.

Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, an Army medic on Okinawa during World War II who saved more than 75 wounded soldiers at great personal peril and became the first conscientious objector to the receive the Medal of Honor, died March 23 at his home in Piedmont, Ala. He had a respiratory ailment.

Mr. Doss was one of only two conscientious objectors to receive the Medal of Honor. Thomas W. Bennett, who was an Army corporal and medical aidman during the Vietnam War, also received the medal, according to Carol Cepregi, administrative assistant with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Bennett died while serving in Vietnam.
(snip)
"Through his outstanding bravery and unflinching determination in the face of desperately dangerous conditions Pfc. Doss saved the lives of many soldiers," the citation continued. "His name became a symbol throughout the 77th Infantry Division for outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty."

FBI casts 'overly broad net' in war against terror

The FBI casts an "overly broad net" by including antiwar and environmental protesters in its investigations "while waging a highly publicized war against terror," according to a story slated for the front page of Monday's edition of the L.A. Times, RAW STORY has learned.

Excerpts from the article written by Nicholas Riccardi:

...."Any definition of terrorism that would include someone throwing a bottle or rock through a window during an antiwar demonstration is dangerously overbroad," said Ben Wizner, an attorney with the ACLU. "The FBI will have its hands full pursuing antiwar groups instead of truly dangerous organizations."

ACLU attorneys say that most violence during demonstrations is minor and is better handled by local police than federal counterterrorism agents. They contend that the FBI, which spied on antiwar and civil-rights leaders during the 1960s, appears to be investigating activists solely for opposing the government.
-----------------

Back to the campuses. Back to the classrooms. Back to having the professors toss them out. Back to having files on you for....whatever reason works.
What a stupid waste of money and resources. And talk about pissing people off.

Being a conscientious objector, he would've been against this war, and would have voted for Kerry, no doubt. So that means to Rovians, he was a traitor who doesn't support the troops. One of them soft libruls.
*back-azz-wards world

Don't Watch This, Watch This Instead

*for the broadbanders
It's like a Monty Python movie (23 minutes). From the U.K., about blair and bush, plus some condi thrown in, and even hillary at aipac.

Those that would willingly offer themselves up to a "higher power" have clearly lost faith in the power God gave them.

Im agnostic, not athiest. I ask myself, if a God created me, and gave me a brain, and free will, do I really think he is going to be standing guard over me, particularly, and influencing my thought process? Oh hell no.

If that were God's intention, I would have been born without a brain and free will.

So is it reasonable to assume, that having found ourselves with these attributes, that a certain amount of responsibility, that is OURS not God's, is implied?

I have read a lot on various faiths. I find I am most comfortable with Eastern Faiths that put more responsibility on the individual in regard to how he or she lives his life, than on those that would have us belive that God wants us to give some guy money.

And I will go to my grave flatly NOT believeing in a God that says I should kill another......for any reason.

If we removed faith from the current crisis, would there be a crisis?

What good is any ideology that would have us kill one another?

Or repress one another, or ignore the plight of one another?

We have become a Nation of Judge Judy's eagerly watching reality programming for the opportunity to feel superior to someone.

I watched one season of American Idol, and I was reminded of the Christians being thrown to the lions for the entertainment of the masses. And how ordinary, powerless Roman's took particular delight in their impact on the outcome.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I smell smoke.

"Most Bush supporters have no behavioral standards of any kind and will defend any behavior at all -- no matter how venal or corrupt -- as long as it's engaged in by a fellow Bush supporter. Allegiance to the Bush movement outweighs every other attribute, and renders acceptable, even justifiable, even the most dishonest and reprehensible conduct." Glenn Greenwald

(link)

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy....I was able to get a sense of his soul."

And now, the rest of the (story)