Saladin,

See the last thread for my comments on this (at the very end). It's going to be fun with the Republican ladies at my son's school, telling them of the juicy rumor from the WMR report.

Wry, David Corn, wry. Be sure to remember to take out the trash, now...

#465 last thread:

I think the SCOTUS made a terrible mistake in equating dollars with speech.

As well as equating corporations with persons.

Mr. Corn,

Very funny post. It seems Bush likes to create enemies lurking everywhere, both home and abroad. It's that "fear politics" strategy rearing it's ugly head, so often used by Bush and others before him.

CNN: Bush moves gay marriage press conference to less prominent location
RAW STORY
Published: Monday June 5, 2006

President Bush unexpectedly yanked a press event on the Federal Marriage Amendment from the White House Rose Garden and placed it inside the Old Executive Office Building without explanation, CNN reported Monday.

After giving a prepared statement, the President did not take any questions, and instead walked off the podium. RAW STORY will be posting a video of the conference shortly.

In other gay marriage news, MSNBC's conservative host Joe Scarborough said Monday that most conservatives "know" Bush is "pandering" on gay marriage (Video here). The amendment does not have enough votes to pass the Senate.

report from 469 last thread:

Besides the Chech Republic and Italy, what other teams are in the same round-robin as the USA and what players on the US team are the ones to watch?

I'm excited for World Cup Soccer too but I'm uninformed about personnel and play styles. Pande et al, anything you care to share and link too is greatly appreciated. Oh, Happy, I'm also interested in strategies for 'capture the flag' so feel free to share those here.

My home state team UMass made it to the finals in NCAA D1 Lax. I was in Ithaca NY when they started their run. It was against #5 ranked Cornell. Big Red came out fast but lagged in Q2 and Q3.

An alum from the class of '60 who played lax back in the day, commented on the sluggish play with an explananation,"Cornell just finished exam week." Then he asked me if UMass had also just finished exam week. I joked, "I don't know if UMass has exam week."

I watched the rest of the D1 Lax tournament on TV. Umass won it's second round game against #3 ranked Hofstra and it's semi-final game against #2 ranked Maryland. In the finals, the UMass Minutemen played #1 ranked Virgina Cavs even for almost three quarters before they fell behind and finally lost. The Cavs are the best.

Now on to World Cup soccer. Pande, give us the goods.

PS I'd comment on Bush's cynical and purely-political call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage but I'll leave that to others.

If you can, watch and listen to the panel on C SPAN about the amendment; and watch the replay of Katrina Vanden Heuvel, David Corn and others from The Nation talking about politics and journalism.

Notice how the SCOTUS (judicial) schedule seems to echo the intolerance of the Congrescritters?

It is all a game to pontificate and obfuscate. It all is designed by the lobbiest/advertisers to sway and motivate "voters".

It is all done to distract, to de-rail, to deamonize those who'd turn the focus on the game, itself.

-T

Today a member of Uncle Tom's Log Cabin Republicans sent out a press release, which stated in part:

"As gay Republicans, who are rich as hell and intend to stay that way, we believe that very conservative economic and social policy is the right policy for this country. As long as we keep getting tax breaks, we have nothing to say about the sanctity of marriage."

500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11 By ALAN FEUER
Published: June 5, 2006

CHICAGO, June 4 — In the ballroom foyer of the Embassy Suites Hotel, the two-day International Education and Strategy Conference for 9/11 Truth was off to a rollicking start.

[...]

"We feel at this point we've done a lot of solid research, but the American public still is not informed," said Michael Berger, press director for 911Truth.org, which sponsored the event. "We had to come up with a disciplined approach to get it out."

Mr. Berger, 40, is typical of 9/11 Truthers — a group that, in its rank and file, includes professors, chain-saw operators, mothers, engineers, activists, used-book sellers, pizza deliverymen, college students, a former fringe candidate for United States Senate and a long-haired fellow named hummux (pronounced who-mook) who, on and off, lived in a cave for 15 years.

The former owner of a recycling plant outside St. Louis, Mr. Berger joined the movement when he grew skeptical of why the 9/11 Commission had failed, to his sense of sufficiency, to answer how the building at 7 World Trade Center collapsed like a ton of bricks. It was his "9/11 trigger," the incident that drew him in, he said. For others, it might be the fact that the air-defense network did not prevent the attacks that day, or the appearance of thousands of "puts" — or short-sell bids — on the nation's airline stocks. The 9/11 Commission found the sales innocuous.)

More.

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

The NYTimes on 9/11...

Mr. David Corn,

Maybe the neocons over-stroking the subject will bring about a pre-release of some of the right thinking moderates?

The game is afoot. Time will tell. I hope to see a few new polls down in the mid to low twenties. Lately everything the WH has tried has backfired. No reason to think this will not work (again) but I hope it blows up in their faces.

Thanks for all of your work.

capt

Divide and Conquer the Voters
NYT Editorial | 6/5/6

President Bush devoted his Saturday radio speech to a cynical boost for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It was depressing in the extreme to hear the chief executive trying to pretend, at this moment in American history, that this was a critical priority.

Mr. Bush's central point was that the nation is under siege from "activist judges" who are striking down anti-gay-marriage laws that conflict with their own state constitutions. That's their job, just as it is the job of state legislators to either fix the laws or change their constitutions.

If there's anything the country should have learned over the past five years, it is that Mr. Bush and his supporters have no problem with judicial decisions, no matter how cutting edge, that endorse their political positions. They trot out the "activist judge" threat only when they're worried about getting out their base on Election Day.

All this effort to divert the nation's attention to issues that divide and distract would be bad enough if the country were not facing real, disastrous problems at home and abroad. But then, if that weren't the case, Mr. Bush probably wouldn't feel moved to stoop so low.

READ ON (link)

The game is afoot:

Soccer?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
Or the animation of Monty Python?

This is funny, out of the War Room in Salon.

From the "Earth to CNN" department....

You Mean We Didn't Find Any WMDs?

D - all of the above?

Stop the Beast
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 05 June 2006

To date, the Iraq War represents the fullest and most relentless application of the Bush Agenda. The "freer and safer world" envisioned by Bush and his administration is ultimately one of an ever-expanding American empire driven forward by the growing powers of the nation's largest multinational corporations and unrivaled military.
-Antonia Juhasz, The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

In an annual security conference on Saturday, Donald Rumsfeld assured the audience, "We don't intend to occupy [Iraq] for any period of time. Our troops would like to go home and they will go home."

Why, then, would the United States be building an enormous embassy in Baghdad and a base so large it eclipses Kosovo's Camp Bondsteel, which had been the largest foreign US military base built since Vietnam?

The new embassy, which occupies a space two-thirds the area of the national mall in Washington DC, comprises 21 buildings that will house over 8,000 government officials. It has a huge pool, gym, theater, beauty salon, school, and six apartment buildings.

The gargantuan military base, Camp Anaconda, occupies 15 square miles of Iraqi soil near Balad. The base is home to 20,000 soldiers and thousands of "contractors," or mercenaries. The aircraft runway at Anaconda is the second busiest in the world, behind only Chicago's O'Hare airport. And, depending on which report you read, between six and fourteen more US military bases are under construction in Iraq. It doesn't appear we'll be leaving anytime soon - or anytime, really.

Bush's trumped-up war on Iraq has claimed nearly 2,500 US military lives and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives. Thousands of US soldiers suffer in military hospitals, most with head injuries, many missing limbs. Thousands more have PTSD. Our economy is in shambles from the war and Bush's tax-cuts-for-the-rich. And America's moral standing in the world continues to plummet.

So, with all the construction activity in Iraq, and with an overextended military and an under funded budget, how could the Bush administration possibly consider expanding the fight and attacking Iran? Logic and reason say it couldn't happen and shouldn't happen. But this administration has rarely paid much heed to logic and reason.

The plan to attack Iran has long been in the works. Bush gave us a preview in January 2002 when he inaugurated it into his "axis of evil." His 2006 National Military Strategy says, "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran." On Saturday, Donald Rumsfeld called Iran the world's leading terrorist nation. Does any of this have a familiar ring to it?

To understand why the US may attack Iran, one must consider the underlying motive of US militarism. The recent US strategy is calculated to maintain economic, political and military hegemony over oil-rich areas of the world. A 1992 draft of the Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance on post Cold War Strategy that was leaked to the New York Times said, "Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in [the Middle East and Southwest Asia to] preserve US and Western access to the region's oil."

More.

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

Or just playin' footsie?

Carey, thank you for that.

We can always count on Blitz Wolfman.

"Western access to the region's oil"

I always assumed that meant access to oil at about $25 per barrel. See what happens when I assume? HA!

Is it really access if it costs three times as much?

capt

Oh this is just dandy.

The Pentagon's move to omit a ban on prisoner humiliation from the basic guide to soldier conduct faces strong State Dept. opposition.

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenant of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment", according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

"The overall thinking," said the participant familiar with the defense debate, "is that they need the flexibility to apply cruel techniques if military necessity requires it."

Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule

Gay Marriage:

Should be decided solely by the states, not by an amendment to the United States Constitution.

This is a ridiculous ploy to garner favor from people like me. But I, as a staunch proponent of the Tenth Amendment, am not impressed.

But in several instances, gay marriages have been foisted upon the states by the state courts (see Massachusetts).

According to constitutional scholars, gay marriage would carry the impramatur of the full faith and credit clause, meaning that all states would have to recognize any state's legalization of certain marriages.

Most Americans, in numerous polls, favor some kind of legal status for various unions, but without calling it marriage.

If a state legalizes gay marriage, what prevents it from legalizing bigamy? Polygamy? Consensual Incest? Homosexual Incest? Where do we stop?

So, how do we allow each state to exercise its sovereignty in this matter.

We can't hide behind the federal idea of full faith and credit without also embracing the notion of the right to amend the constitution. Both are wrong, so you can't cherry pick which one you want.

So, what is the answer? I certainly don't know.

Seems the chimpster is applying a HUGE double standard to the gay issue, wowzer!

June 4, 2006 -- More on George W. Bush's "Sanctity of Marriage" gay marriage constitutional ban.

George W. Bush's marital problems have just taken another turn for the worse. Apparently, Mr. Bush has not only engaged in an extra-marital affair with a member of the opposite sex who is also a senior member of his Cabinet, but also a member of the same sex. WMR received the following release this morning from Leola McConnell, Democratic candidate for Governor of Nevada (who has been endorsed by WMR). McConnell is a one-time professional dominatrix.

More juicy chimpster tidbits HERE.

Heterosexual marriage, he said today, is "critical to the health of society." - Bush

What a crock. Heterosexual marriage is what most engage in because most are heterosexual. The population isn't going to somehow become homosexual majority if we don't stop the marriages.

What's the real point of this legislation?

464)- Doesn't coke make you horny?

sort of, but dr. pepper is more effective.

And I'm not talking about the election component. What is underneath the need for this group to vote for this assinine legislation? You don't safe the institution of marriage by preventing gays from entering into marriage. That makes no sense.

I can only figure out one reason for the legislation.

Hatred for gays.

#10 here's the same article, but with a poll

500 Conspiracy Buffs Meet to Seek the Truth of 9/11

Do you think the U.S. government was complicit in 9/11?
No way 57%
I'm suspicious but not sure 27%
Yes 17%
Total Votes: 85,613

#24 Jeanne, read WMR, closet gays are in a constant state of denial.

from one of Jone's colleagues...

Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

Dear Editor,

After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).

I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.

The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.

Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.

D. Allan Firmage

Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU

Interesting poll Alan.

James, really, Dr. Pepper? I'll try that, although I don't seem to have a problem along those lines. Gotta a sexy husband.

Den, see the tale end of the last thread. Saladin posted the WMR article on Bush's possible homosexual trysts followed by comments from others.

Now, as my son would say, this is sweeet, the newest Molly Ivin column. This one gets a little nasty in its humor. I love it.

Things that Make me Cringe

Saladin, please keep us posted on the reinstatement of the military draft proposals and debates. Thank you! If you desire endless wars, then you will accept the military draft that will carry on endless wars and nuclear strikes against other defenseless countries like Iraq and Iran. Please never forget that Nazi America loves to piss away money on wars.

Another wedge issue comes out of the closet - gay marriages. What will destroy straight marriages is not gay marriages but our fascist and devilish government. Yes, our government that embraces hatred, murders, torture, war crimes, corruption, decadence, greed, and lies will destroy straight home and family life. With dead children fighting in endless wars how can we have a home and family life. Death in our families cuts short family life.

If you love misery, pain, and suffering inflicted upon God's children, you will love the the numbers below.

American Soldiers 2

2,771 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan for Bush and his lies.

18,500+ American soldiers have been maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan for Bush and his evil lies.

45,000+ American soldiers are suffering from PTSD.

Over 350,000+ Iraqis have been killed in Iraq since Bush declared shock and awe bombings on March 19, 2003.

Contamination from depleted uranium may have affected 125,000+ American soldiers and several million Iraqis.

Are you feeling more safe and secure with Bush in the WH and Cheney as his chief hatchet man overseeing Nazi America and her citizens?

Our military men and women are used as cannon fodder for a terrorist Nazi American government.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, AND NEITHER DO WE. George W. Bush, August 5, 2005

Rigged elections doom American democracy. American soldiers are being killed and maimed TO PROMOTE A NAZI AMERICAN STATE.

Henry Kissinger says that military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

Nazi America is a mirror image of Hitler Bush.

Nazi Americans continually justify sin.

Nazi Americans are accomplices with Bush for his murders and war crimes.

DEN @ #21,

Please be careful, my friend, when you spread such salacious, malicious and scurrilous rumors. As you consider this woman's credibility, remember the following.

1.She also claimed she was Bill Bennett's dominatrix for five years, an assertion that has been totally discredited.

2.What do you think are the chances that a liberal hooker would be intimately involved with both George Bush and Bill Bennett?

3.She states that she witnessed George Bush in his relationship with Victor Ashe in 1984, without ever mentioning where, when, how, under what circumstances, etc. Further, she provides no corroborating evidence whatsoever.

4.This rumor has been floating around the Internet since at least February of this year. In the original iterations, the date was not 1984, but during President Bush's time at Yale, because Ashe was his roommate there. She didn't even do her homework well enough to know that fact.

DEN, this woman is a total nutcase, which also makes Wayne Madsen a nutcase for repeating this defamation. You repeat this drivel because you want to believe it. This is not serious academic inquiry. It serves you poorly.

one more article, then I'll shuddup 'bout Jones...

But is Professor Jones qualified to create a paper which says the towers must have fell due to explosives? He is a physics professor but what experience does Jones have in building collapse forensics? He has none. His other peer reviewed papers consist of cold fusion technology. He conducts research in nuclear fusion and solar energy. Nothing in his background would suggest he is qualified to write a civil engineering paper on the infinitely complex building collapse of the towers.
(snip)
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."

Brigham Young University doesn't want anything to do with the paper.

I don't know if anyone else is having trouble posting. I just posted an item and it's not showing up. Furthermore, when I click my favorites list on David Corn, I do not come up with this latest thread. I have to go to the prevoius one and click next to get to this one. Weird.

Anyway, here's the Edward Luttwak article on the need for civil war that I promised to post this weekend. I do not entirely agree with it, although it's an interesting argument. I'm antiwar like many of you.

One reader responded to this article by writing:

"Based on Luttwak's model, the Soviet Union as well as its East European Empire would have been better off had civil war broken out. Likewise Czechoslovakia and, most recently, Montenegro.

These cases indicate that peaceful dissolution is possible. They are examples that Iraq--an artificial state without a national foundation--should emulate."

The Civil War Solution

Peace in Iraq will come only after the warring factions battle it out. It's a bloody but time-honored, and effective, strategy.

Civil wars can be especially atrocious as neighbors kill eaach other at close range, but they also have a purpose. They can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.

Factchecker

Regarding #2 in your list answering Den's and Saladin's postings--she's a hooker! They get paid! She wouldn't care if they didn't have their front teeth.

Leola McConnell's comments appear to have merit to me. She's a past hooker, and men (and women) do funny things in front of hookers because they aren't considered real people.

The fact that she claims to have done Bill Bennett only makes these allegations more truthworthy to me. I mean, have you listened to Bill Bennett? If there was ever a guy that might engage in sexual perversion, it's him!

Jeanne,

That hatred for gays you allude to falls in nicely with Capt's Herman Hesse quote he's posted a few times. Basically it's that one hates in others what one hates in himself.

#34
Are you saying Bill Frist hates being gay?

gay marriage? this calls for a ha report.
because people just want to say ha!
---------------
looking at the ha meter i see that bushco are way ahead of the world including john Q in both quantity and quality of ha's. what the devil am i talking about? hmmm. i mean ha.

y2k, ha al gore! ha democrats! yay, tax cuts! ha next generation! PNAC: "get ready for a big HA!" yay more tax cuts! double ha next generation!
911! PNAC: "it's merely a coincidence that we said get ready for a big HA, by the way, double big HA because we are destroying the real evidence so that any question of our guilt is ignored! HA and HA!" another tax cut? we deserve it since 911 was such a terrible blow to silverstein et al. ha grandchildren!
uh oh, ha to afghanistan. and ha to iraq. we hate you! ha to you both!
yay another tax cut! double ha to you grandchildren! lets import everything from china except illegal immigrants which we will import from somewhere else = ha manufacturing base!
everybody loves raymond (dweeb) gets paid 1.8 million/episode, thanx mcmedia and ha to fat ass american couch potatos! gasoline = $3.50/gal. ha ha ha and ha suv'ers! let the dancing israeli spies go home! ha justice! oh ya, katrina (heckuva job browny!) = GIANT HA for you new orlean black peeps, who needs ya! death to the inventors of cheap hydrogen conversion engine technology, ha ha who needs that either?
(heckuva job rummy: "we cannot account for some $2.6 TRILLION, but don't worry because no one will remember that after tomorrow!" {911}) HA!
HAcetera, HAcetera....
oh, ha cornnuts, you have been deflected once more by gay effin marriage. thanx mr. corn for all your ha's!
----------------

this ha report has been brought to you by 7ENGA
the incredible WTC building block game!
how tall is too tall?
find out when the tower falls!
(believable by ages 5 and under)

Pandemoniac,

You had wondered about the labor force participation rate. First, the range of motion within the index has been rather small. It went from a high of about 67.3% in 2000 to, I think, about 66.2% now. It actually rose several months ago to its current percentage, where it has been flat for the last several months. And, perhaps, those deltas can be explained within three standard deviations, which make them statistically immaterial.

Practically the entire cause of the decrease is the lack of 16 - 19 year olds either employed or looking for work, for both male and female. The Brookings Institution released a great 97-page study on the subject in March 2006.

we are once again reassured by alan-(#27) that 911 was in no way an inside job! thanx alan, good job! i luv ya man but you need to take that tin foil hat off!

Your best post I have read to date!!!! This whole bit smacks of violation of our private rights. Are we to have bedroom police to see who is who? Will we take DNA samples to figure out the sex changes? Will we monitor the people walking down the aisle? This is all just bullshit for the fall elections to get out the republican voters. I am one of them and I will vote democratic this time across the board and hope these hypocrital son's of bitches learn something. Funny didn't Laura just mention something about not using the same sex marriage issue in the up and coming election.

Comments regarding Prof. Jones’ "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?"

Rove must have got this new strategy from her

TERRORIST FOUND IN THE U.S. WITH WMD!!!

oh, never mind, he's not muslim.

If the Nazis are so concerned about marriages why are they doing everything to dismantle family life? Where are the tax breaks for the middle class to help family life and straight marriages? Hitler Bush and his goons and thugs are giving us another screw job.

Hell no my child will not go! Will mothers rally for the end of endless wars?

No time but for that Panty...

You love to spend considerable time to bait/rebut/ridicule me to enagage. Good, 4~5 to 1 ratio is what I've succeessfully aimed for. Keep it up! So, Who is getting under your skin? Oh, Yeh, Happy/Hapless/filltheblank me!

BTW: I, Happy, do on ocassions use inappropriate languages or call names and I don't deny them. But, almost always, "you/Cornuts did it first". School yard stuff, just like you.....

"Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right." : Joseph Sobran (1946- ) Columnist
=
"A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands -- even for beneficial purposes -- will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.": John Stuart Mill - (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist

=
"I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.": Richard Rumbold - (?-1626) British Colonel - Source: His final words on the scaffold before he was hanged in 1685.

===
Thanks ICH Newsletter!

Discussion of the reinstatement of the military draft is more important than a gay marriage amendment. Personally, a gay marriage amendment will not pass. Slick Dick Chainey's daughter needs to be heard more often on this discussion of gay marriages. Gay marriages are a personal, moral, and possibly a medical issue but it should never be a political issue.

James, here is Mike Rivero's comment regarding that so-called poll;

"Check out the online poll. It was showing most respondents thought the government was complicit, then "suddenly" a whole slew of "no" votes materialized out of the air. I didn't realize Diebold did online polling!" :)
-------------

I also read an article on Alternet called "Wild Conspiracy Theories and Rational Concerns" by Joshua Holland. There were a LOT of comments, and I would guess roughly 90% are certain the govt. is lying. The recent Zogby poll showed half the people polled thought we needed a new investigation and the CNN polls on Charlie Sheen were overwhelmingly in support of his stand.

Factchecker, I believe I referred to that report as "rumors" and said I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were true. Allowing a gay male prostitute into the WH at all hours without checking in or out doesn't help the case any either, and that is a confirmed fact. You may think these people are nutcases, but I think this administration and anyone that even remotely supports it is way worse than a nutcase!

The sons and daughters of the rich and famous will never be drafted for military service!!!!! If they are drafted, they will leave the country and receive amnesty for dissertion at a later date.

Nazis give us wedge issues because they do not want to take on the big issues, such as fairness, love for our fellow man, mercy, and Shalom.

I am tired of these endless screw jobs that the Nazis give us.

If there is anything certain in life, it is that Nazi Americans are a stupid, stupid people.

polls? it doesn't matter what x amount of respondents believe. bushco could blatantly say we blew it up and the media would ignore it and the sheople would merely be annoyed at the interruption to their herd activities anyway - why does the media ignore 911? click my name.

Hating people of color does not make one "white" and hating gays does not make one straight.

I have never known a single place where hate is justified.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

~ Hermann Hesse

There are many committed gay and lesbian couples. They will be together with or without a marriage or any other "legal" documentation.

The ban on gay marriage is legislating hate. It will never happen. The grandstanding is just too pathetic and an obvious ploy. I bet it backfires on the WH. I hope it does.

capt

No. No....No no.
Frist doesn't hate himself for being gay. He is using this marketing gimick (gay marriage) to divide congress and the nation as he did with Terri Schiavo. Very honorable of him. Who cares about the lives involved?

Just think of the advantages of this approach. No real legislation needs to be discussed. That's so great. Health care? Ewwwe...no national health care discussion on my watch says the very important doctor.
Iraq? No, no, no. That is a very sticky issue. We found something that impacts a small minority and that minority not very much. They can live without marriage. It's not like a transplant for God's sake.
And how many people really see through the the BS to the strategy? Even if they do they get caught up in the debate and then they forget. I don't see Frist as being gay...just greedy.

I am not a scientist. Is it the law of physics that for every action there is a reaction? The more Nazis act, the more people will react on certain issues.

Louis Tice of the Pacific Institute in Seattle, Washington talks about in order to gain power, you give up power. It is a paradox. Confident leaders are not the controlling leaders. Controlling leaders are insecure and unstable leaders and a grave jeopardy to our freedoms and rights.

The GOrPS or the War Party really hates to govern. They have been on a five year hiatus from governing.

If bush is so concerned about gayness, why was he allowing an overtly gay male prostitute to hang around under the guise of a "reporter" who was just plagerizing? This whole gay marriage thing has nothing to do with reality, most people couldn't care less, but it will serve as a distraction from the clusterfuck in Iraq as the Nov. elections draw near.

Happy,
Because I am a generous human being I don't put you in the loser category. But I will if you continue with that inane 'panty' label for pandemoniac.

The Cowardice of the Conservative

hey my copy/paste is not working! i think it might've thrown a rod?

Nazi America wants to nuke and not talk

Make no mistake, Nazi America wants to kill Iranians!!!!!!!!!!

"I, Happy, do on ocassions use inappropriate languages or call names and I don't deny them. But, almost always, "you/Cornuts did it first". School yard stuff, just like you....."

Is this what you teach your scouts?

Mr. Corn,
How much ribbing do you get about the posters on your blog when you are in the company of employed citizens? Honestly, they are just as far-fetched and out-of-touch as anyone in the Bush administration. Are you familiar with the "Ivan" syndrome in the former Soviet Union? You know when people, overcome with unsubstantiated paranoia, start disassembling appliances and parts of their home looking for KGB spy devices. The only fertilizer possessed by these people is the fertilizer between their ears.

People,

There is a huge difference between hating something or somebody and giving it legal status.

I love (filios) my sons. Should I have the option to marry them? No.

I love (filios) my mother. Should I have the option to marry her? No.

I love (filios) my young niece. Should I have the option to marry her? No.

Marriage has been defined for ten thousand years as between one man and one woman. If you don't stop there, how about between three women? How about between a woman and two men? How about two men and three sons? How about between two fathers and three daughters?

Where does it end?

Absolutely give these people legal partnership rights, but please don't call it a marriage.

And please tell me how any of these situtations I described above is any different than what is being proposed on a federal level?

My problem with the legislation, again, is that it emanates at the federal level and not the state level. That decision should be made, according to the Tenth Amendment, by the people of the state and not by a bunch of judges.

If you consider this a federal right, you give the Congress the right to intervene. That's what Constitutional amendments do; they change the existing laws.

Can we all agree that this should be settled at the state level without the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution being applicable, i.e., the marriage in one state being valid in all states?

If you can't agree with this, you must allow for the federal populace the right to attempt to redress and amend its laws.

#30 fchk, sez:

"DEN, this woman is a total nutcase, which also makes Wayne Madsen a nutcase for repeating this defamation. You repeat this drivel because you want to believe it. This is not serious academic inquiry. It serves you poorly."

Now who is spreading vicious rumors, hmmm.

Better put that in your "practice what you preach" fact book.

Perhaps you would know why Jeff Gannon a known male prostitute, would have access to the WH. This is not the first time chimpsters homo-erotic escapades have been called into question.

Where in the world are you going to find "witnesses" except prostitutes. He knows he is safe, after all who would believe a prostitute, lowlifes that they are.

fchk, Who the HELL are you to tell anyone what to do with their own person. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

Marriage has been defined for ten thousand years as between one man and one woman. If you don't stop there, how about between three women? How about between a woman and two men? How about two men and three sons? How about between two fathers and three daughters?

Where does it end? - factchecker?

Has it now? Seems to me I remember Biblical Kings having many wives, polygamy is still practiced in some places as is polyandry, then there is the story of Lot's daughters...

I hate busybodys who think it is up to them to decide what I should do or not do.

The only person you can control is yourself.

Quit this moral judgement crap. If I'm not commiting a crime so what?

Busybodies, minding your business so you wo'nt have to!

DEN out!

what if one hermaphrodite named jones marries another hermaphrodite named smith? would that be considered gay marriage? or could they in effect be married twice, once as mr. and mrs. jones and once as mr. and mrs. smith? if mr. jones was elected to be president would he then be the first woman president? hmmm. what if president jones and his wife were then divorced, would prez. jones then be considered his own first lady? "ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president (and first lady) jones!"
hmmm. what if herm jones was elected prez. and herm smith were elected vice prez? since they are already married to each other would they have to take turns escorting one another to state functions? "ladies and gentlemen, please rise for prez. jones and his lovely first lady, mrs. jones!" - they would then have to race to the dressing room and quickly change! - "ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the vice prez. and mrs. smith!" - hmmm.

what about lot's wife? she was a pillar of the community!

Salt of the earth...

Speaking of Earth, George has declared a War on Terra.

Unfortunately, we are all Terrans.

The Abominations of War From My Lai to Haditha
By Cindy Sheehan
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 05 June 2006

Yes indeed. BuzzFlash has a link to a commentary by the Mirror(Britian) weatherman about how many people global warming will kill. TomPaine has a link to the Guardian(Britian) article on a U.N. report regarding the problems being faced by people living in deserts.

But George XLIII says that he "doubts it" and relys on a fiction writer for his climate science. In addition, he diverts attention from the important issues with his blather about the meaning of 'marriage'...

DEN,

How do you define marriage?

How about between a man and a woman?

How about between two women?

How about between two men?

OK with all the above? Then, how about the following:

How about between three men?

How about between three women and two men?

How about between twenty men and fity women?

How about between a mother and her son?

How about between a father and his daughter?

How about between a father and his son?

How about between a mother and her daugher?

How about between a father and his two sons?

How about between a father, his son and his daughter?

Under your definition and reasoning, all of the above would be considered marriage. Under my definition, only the first applies.

Please tell me where marriage doesn't apply, if any, and, in your world, why some relationships should be considered marriages and others shouldn't.

CNN: Bush moves gay marriage press conference to less prominent location

President Bush unexpectedly yanked a press event on the Federal Marriage Amendment from the White House Rose Garden and placed it inside the Old Executive Office Building without explanation, CNN reported Monday.

After giving a prepared statement, the President did not take any questions, and instead walked off the podium. RAW STORY will be posting a video of the conference shortly.

In other gay marriage news, MSNBC's conservative host Joe Scarborough said Monday that most conservatives "know" Bush is "pandering" on gay marriage. The amendment does not have enough votes to pass the Senate.
----------------
Yup, that's exactly what he's doing.

George Bush's hand holding friend "[Saudi King]Abdullah has married more than 30 times and usually keeps four wives at a time, as allowed by Muslim law. His wives have included Syrian, Palestinian and Moroccan women. He is related by marriage to King Hussein of Jordan."

pan'der, n. [See Pandarus] 1. A go-between in love intrigues; a pimp. 2. A minister to the evil passions of others.

Robert Schwartz,

Of the scenarios listed in # 72, above, please tell me which ones, specifically, should be allowed in American law.

factchecker, why on earth would you care if 50 women and 50 men want to all marry each other, all 50 to all 50 at the same time, men to men, women to women, women to men? MYOfreakinB! You worry about your own marriage, leave everyone elses ALONE! WTF is WRONG with these people???? We're bombing and DU poisoning the shit out of the middle east and these assholes are worried about what defines MARRIAGE??? GIVE ME A F**KIN' BREAK!!! I thought these so-called conservative republicans were all about minimal govt. intrusion into PERSONAL lives, liberty and all that happy sounding BS? The article Gerald linked at 56 is a good one, and so true.

As long as all parties are consenting adults, I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT! (I would, however, urge that close relatives not procreate.)

How many mothers have married their daughters? How many fathers have married their sons? What a STUPID analogy! I just read that a woman from India married a Cobra, how's that for weird? Maybe factchecker should go down there and set those people straight!

I will add this thought, though. Many polygamous relationships are male dominated, with wife #1 having no say in whether husband takes wife #2. This is different than 3 people chosing to be in a relationship.

One of my favorite essayists is back from hiatus.

Smoking Mirrors

...In this world there are two distinct groups of people. You can subdivide if you like. You can use different words to describe the same condition but there are basically two groups. One of them is rational and one is not. One has its eyes open by varying degrees and one has its eyes closed. One is aware and one is deluded. The tragedy is that one group is so much smaller than the other and it is the wrong one; if that makes sense.

I'm going to speak to the first group. There isn't any point in speaking to the second group. It would be similar to giving a speech to blind people while nude; using charts and diagrams. Members of the elite club of those who are in the business of irrigating the shit out of their ears, lend me your ears. Certainly I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him- but here is no Caesar. Here is a drunken monkey of a ringmaster in a crypto-fascist theme park where once a country stood.

Arrogance is a funny thing. When you're riding at the helm of massive temporal force it's possible to reach levels of insanity that are astounding. You get presidents who aren't qualified to manage a McDonald's who can announce that the most satisfying achievement of their presidency was catching a fish. You get a whole boatload of retainers and hangers on who believe they can get away with anything and that no lie is too outrageous or transparent to be believed. I have never seen anything like these people. I've seen presidents and administrations come and go. I was ring side for Nixon and Reagan. These cats are way past that. It's the difference between bank robbery and felony murder. Whatever the result is going to be; whether they pull it off or whether they get caught, it's going to be the biggest spectacle of them all. In the fog of confusion and mis-direction and disinfo the edge of the precipice cannot be seen. I assure you it is very close in a global way.

The new PR and media game has switched to 'soothing with a taste of mea culpa'. They're piping Easy Listening in over the speaker system while the theater burns. You can see it if you look. But I am hopeful. What I don't know is whether it gets stopped at the edge or whether it gets better after everything hits the rocks below. But it will get better. You have to believe that and you have to work to that result. It may be a grim aftermath. Maybe the only way the masses can wake up is to be flame-broiled in their seats. I don't want to bring religion into the mix- I've got no use for religion but I'd like to leave you with a quote (I'll have to paraphrase) from Mikhail Aivanhov- it is fitting.

When a people have gone astray, God (or destiny- of whatever you may call that inexplicable hand of the unknown) reaches down and gently taps them of the shoulder. If they do not respond, then God shakes them by the shoulder. If they still do not respond, then God picks up a two-by-four.

Never has it been so important to keep your eyes and ears open. For those of you who are listening and watching, I advise turning up the intensity. It is my fervent hope that you will also do whatever is possible for you to do to disseminate the truth and expose the bullshit. If there ever was a time when the time is now then the time is now. But by all means be hopeful. With a little luck and a little grace I'll see you on the other side of this. Be well.

POLL: Only 3 Percent Say Homosexuality is America's 'Most Serious Moral Crisis'

President Bush and congressional conservatives "are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage," a move that's sure to renew debate over so-called 'values voters.' But as a poll released today by the Center for American Progress shows, the moral concerns of the American people are nothing like what the right wing claims.

Asked to name the most serious moral crisis in America today, 28% of Americans cite "kids not raised with the right values" followed by 22% saying "corruption in government/business" 17% saying "greed and materialism" or "people too focused on themselves" and only 3% citing "abortion and homosexuality."

On addressing poverty: 68% of voters strongly agree that "government should uphold the basic decency and dignity of all and take greater steps to help the poor and disadvantaged in America" (89% total agree).

On religious freedom: 67% of voters believe that religious freedom is a "critical" part of their image of America compared to less than three in 10 who believe Judeo-Christian faith specifically is critical to this image.

------------------
The politicians need to look at those numbers. People of this nation want realistic concerns addressed.

same link as above

Gallup has released a similar poll:

What issue do you think should be the top priority for the president and Congress to deal with?

The top five responses were:

Situation in Iraq/war: 42%
Fuel/oil prices/lack of energy sources/the energy crisis: 29%
Immigration/illegal aliens: 23%
Economy in general: 14%
Poor healthcare/ hospitals; high cost of healthcare: 12%

I suppose gay marriage could be classed with 'ethics/moral/religious/family decline' which was the 20th of the 28 issues listed by respondents, important to only 1% of those polled.

Ah, but Jeanne, this congress is less useful than a tapeworm, right?

Jeanne, MORAL CRISIS? The whole fucking country is in a moral crisis, and it has nothing to do with who you like to have sex with! This whole thing pisses me off no end. Why is it the minority always seem to sway the outcome? It's like a democracy from hell. Please excuse my ranting, but with the truckload of shit hitting the fan every damn day I just don't have any patience for this crap! UUUUGGGGHHHH!

#84
Bucket of warm spit.

Definitely less useful than a wave in a slop bucket! Pigs don't even appreciate that! At least tapeworms have appreciative offspring.

No, no! Its the vice-president who isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. Not congress! Certainly not CONGRESS?

#85
Laura Bush is coming to my state this week for a fundraiser for Mark Kennedy. I want to see how many people attend this little soiree.

outrageous! i am outraged at the very sight of the words: gay marriage! and i will vote for the first politico who promises to remove them from my sight!

So, Saladin and Robert Schwartz - you believe polygamy and incest should be legalized?

You Corn-nuts sure have a short attention span! Gay marriage is what gave the Republicans victory in 2004.

______________________________________________

The Brookings Institution, November 5, 2004

Political experts at the Brookings Institution today analyzed the election results and their implications for politics and policymaking over the next few years. They said the nation still remained closely divided, notwithstanding the solid Republican victory.

Democrats assumed was necessary to carry the State, and still lost. In Ohio, where Kerry was also defeated, he received 500,000 more votes than the targeted number. The problem, according to Corrado, was that Republican turnout efforts were a staggering successful development that few anticipated.

"We probably underestimated the motivation in this core Republican constituency," said Mann, who had predicted a Kerry win in this election. "We figured that most of the anger was on the Democratic side, and we really didn't appreciate the extent to which other Americans felt that the whole nature of their belief systems—¥heir faith, their lifestyles—∑ere being threatened, and this was an opportunity to act on that. I think Karl Rove understood that."

Brookings Visiting Fellow Michael McDonald, who worked with the exit-polling firm Edison-Mitofsky on Election Day, saw that Republican anger play out all over the country.
"Gay marriage was clearly pulling people to the polls," McDonald said, citing evidence that battleground states with a gay marriage saw a 6.6 percent increase in voter turnout. Voter turnout in non-battleground states with a similar initiative saw the voter turnout increase by 4.5. (By way of comparison, turnout in the battleground states generally increased by 6.9 percent, while it rose only 1.6 percent in non-battleground states without a gay marriage initiative.)

factchecker,
find a new talking point. America is not behind you. You sound like the freaky ministers who get caught taking little boys into the closet. Doth protest too much.

factchecker, I believe you should mind your own damn business! Any consenting adult should be allowed to marry any other consenting adult they please. Any potential consequences are on the participating parties. You can't legislate morality, haven't you "conservatives" learned that after all these centuries?

Jeanne, MORAL CRISIS? The whole fucking country is in a moral crisis, and it has nothing to do with who you like to have sex with!

By Saladin

Correct, the moral crisis is due to: "LIBERALISM"

Take away a child's innocence and liberal judges and lawyers want to understand what caused you to do it. Was it your mother's fault for not breast-feeding you?

Rape and kill dozens of innocent people like Ted Bundy did and the same folks want to file appeal after appeal on why your sorry life should be spared from the executioner.

Come across the borders illegally and we offer you a pathway to citizenship as well as educate, feed and clothe your children for free.

Yes, liberalism is the disease that infects our society.

#92
LBH,
Read my posts above. Mine are current not from 2 years ago. AMERICA DOESN'T CARE about your lame talking points.

Now whenever our friends, the right wing neocons get stuck on a subject I try to figure out what they want us to veer away from. I think it's the market...Happy it was down 199 points. The nasdaq was down too. The economy is slowing down. Good news!!! A buyers market.

Or it could be the problems in Iraq. What a freaking mess.
Victim's Brother Speaks: New Evidence Undermines U.S. Iraq Claims

New evidence may suggest cover-ups in two separate incidents at the center of a simmering scandal over Iraqi civilian deaths at the hands of American forces.

Iraqi anger is percolating over the incidents, and over an investigation that cleared U.S. forces in a third case.

A brother of a victim, Hashim Ibrahim Awad Abass, in Al Hamadania, Iraq, told ABC News today that Marines killed his brother needlessly.

...Al Hamdania is not the only incident the Pentagon is investigating.

New pictures offer the first independent evidence that suggests Marines may have covered up what really happened in Haditha, Iraq, where 24 Iraqi civilians were killed in November. The pictures show a house pockmarked with bullet holes, despite the initial claim that a roadside bomb was responsible.

And a new witness has come forward. Iman Waleed Abdul Hameed, a 9-year-old girl, said Marines killed her father, mother, brother, two uncles and grandmother.

Local doctors said the dead included eight women and five children.

Just gotta wonder about the brain dead people that think gay marriage is an issue. Seems that they have something to hide. Maybe a friendly uncle when they were young? Sounds like republicans support the priests that are abusing the kids, Yep great talking points. Dumbass americans once again. Going to get what they deserve good and hard. Ha!!

Jeanne

It's Mr Corns subject, not mine. The poll you sight is only in relation to current important issues and I agree with it.

However, in 2004 gay marriage is what won the election for many repubs because average families, even in blue states like mine, voted down gay marriage by huge majorities.

The reason it's not listed as an important issue is because it is not on any current ballots like in 2004 or it would be at the top of the list.

You and Den are wrong when sighting current polls as if no one cares anymore.

Now about Haditha, you corn-nuts just can't wait to convict our marines on the front lines before proven guilty just like doofus Murtha. Do you believe everything ABC news reports? Maybe you liberals should be more concerned with why this happened and finding some type of therapeudic solution. Who knows maybe they were forced to grow up in a progressive household and just needed to release some anger.

Hey LBH, do you think soldiers who kill civilians should be court-martialed - tried on the facts - and given suitable punishment if they are guilty or should we look the other way because the civilians were Iraqis and their lives are worth much?

The sexcapades is a distraction - the hooker/gay/bi-Bush story has all of the indications of Rovian BS.

First the claim (think Rather memo's) then absolute proof to debunk the claim, while giving the handful (bottom 30%) of supporters reason to get all uppity up!

The gay marriage ban is just the setting for this BS.

It may be true, but the fake claim will eclipse any real investigation and make the subject um, . . er, , radioactive for any Mainstream Media-ocrity employee to ever mention again.

They will be all in a huff about the SCLM jumping to erroneous conclusions and thereby cloud the issue (think TXNG-ALNG nobody ever collected the money by proving they saw Bush there).

Not to mention, Bush has PLENTY of crimes to answer for that are completely political, moral, and constitutionally based., fully impeachable and clearly prosecutable.

It is a game of lewd and vicious lascivious innuendo that makes the sick little puppies ears perk-up - nothing more fun than talking about others and what they THINK others are doing. It is juvenile and childish to the point of ridiculous.

And the "so you like polygamy and bestiality" is an pathetic an implied insult as I have ever heard.

Well, that is what I think, who knows? Frankly I really do not care just want to make my prediction that this is Rove cut loose from policy.

A kind of "push polling" with hookers, Las Vegas and a few disposable reputations - but what do I know?

(H/T to Pat for Media-ocrity!)

Thanks

capt

#73 This anti-gay marriage stunt is going to backfire on the busheviks and they already know it. After GWB gave his radio address on Saturday, the finger-in-the-wind types found people are sick of Rove's political hack games.

They made a big deal announcing that Bush was going to make a *major statement* on Monday (today), then found people aren't buying. So Bush, who some say is accustomed to playing switch-hitter, switched locations for his *press conference* to a less public location. A closet?

Wait and see. When it's REALLY apparent that this marriage amendment is a major fuckup, the fundie/cons will say the media hyped it.

The only people that should be charged and convicted is the politicians and military brass that started an illegal and unwarranted invasion of a country that had no WMD's and was never able to threaten us or even their neighbors.

We teach our troops to be killers - that is a must to win in life or death conflicts, then we tell them to become targets - so we can expose those that oppose our illegal invasion, we tell our well trained and very able troops to become PR front men for an unnecessary occupation. We tell them to make it all better, to fix the mistakes in policy and make up the difference for the lack of a plan.

If the killers become murderers they are wrong and should be held to account but not more or less than the reason they are put in such a situation.

Just one more reason we do not start wars, we Americans are not aggressors. We do not "do" that role very well.

IMHO

capt

#11 Capt

I missed this earlier, but I loved your wording, neocons "over stroked" the issue of the gay marriage amendment. Brilliant. Did you intend it?

My sister and I just got back from an outing with the Republican ladies I mentioned earlier, and there was a very mixed response to the WMR report on Bush's possible homosexual trysts. My sister, God she can be shrewd, reminds me that William Bennett had just recently come out with admitting that he had a severe gambling problem. Las Vegas, Leola McConnell, prositute, oh, Bennett's name just reeks of this stuff.

#36 James

Marvelously funny. Love your HA reports. Keep them coming.

By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Would you who judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule; whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short; whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you; however innocent it may be in itself.
Robert Southey (1774 - 1843)

If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind, misery follows, as the cart follows the horse... If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source.
the Dhammapada

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 - 1935)

****

Let all of us loony lefty liberal progressive keep shining tha light on the dark places in some people's hearts.

#103,

Whoop's was that a pun? I thought the pre-release of moderates was the pun! HA!

See, I do try to be funny, just no obvious skill or talent. OW~!

capr

Gay Marriage:
1.Should be decided solely by the states, not by an amendment to the United States Constitution.
2.This is a ridiculous ploy to garner favor from people like me. But I, as a staunch proponent of the Tenth Amendment, am not impressed.
3.But in several instances, gay marriages have been foisted upon the states by the state courts (see Massachusetts).

I'm with you until #3. Why do people think every voter in the Commonwealth has the right to affirm or deny another person's right to marriage? Do we have the right to affirm or deny another voter's right to vote - such as women or blacks? to own property? to speak freely? to pursue life, liberty and happiness? NO,of course not.

Gay people are people first and gay second. Traditionally they have been denied rights you and I take for granted including the right to have a family licensed by the State with all the rights and responsibilities assigned thereto.

The Mass State Supreme Court recognized it was unconstitutional in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to deny same-sex partners the right to obtain a marriage license. What's the big deal? The court has also subsequently limited the finding to clarify that same-sex marriages licensed in the Commonwealth are NOT recognized in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage.

Most people oppose same-sex marriage out of fear, ignorance or a moral judgement. (How could it be right if he sticks his thing in his thing?)

It seems evangilsts cannot be pious unless they point their stubby little fingers at heathen sinners and judge them. . . and deny them rights under the law.

Whether you agree that same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples or some leesor rights such as civil unions, you have to come to terms with the actual reasons why you think that's appropriate. What is tht reason?

#40 James

Impressively sincere.

Proof of the fix on the Bush Butt ranger story.

The gal (hooker whatever) did not EVER want to bring this up before now? Hmmm, She says she did not want to bring it up but the sheer hyprocrisy of the Gay Marriage ban makes her feel she MUST bring it up now? Hmmmm. (hint Gay marriage was brought up for the 2004 election too).

A hooker would be the type to run inside the Rovian circles and the gay thing is likely true but outrageous enough to both shock and spike an interest in those that hate.

Pure conjecture on my part.

capt

#35 Jeanne

At first I thought you were just being funny. Then I realized I hadn't made myself clear. I referred to the Hesse quote to give more sustenance to the WMR report first posted by Saladin on Bush's possible homosexual explorations. I think this a very plausible item. Bush, I mean. It makes some sense when you put all of your thoughts and knowledge together.

Jeanne & Saladin

You say people don't agree with me? Well, every state in which there has been a referendum on this matter has overwhelmingly voted in favor of the traditional definition of marriage. Even overwhelmingly liberal Oregon voted 57-43 in 2004 to ban same-sex marriage. That's to "ban" same-sex marriage, not just to "disapprove" of it.

Most polls today are in the 58-39 range (remaining percentge having no option).

And you say we can't legislate morality? How about I think it's moral to murder people. Are you going to try to legislate my morality in that area?

The idea that we can't legislate morality is just silly. All of our laws are manifestations of our ideas of what is "moral".

And please understand that this is not a fight started by the conservatives. This was thrust upon us by an unelectd Massachusetts Supreme Court.

And,I understand other people have different sexual proclivities. Go do it - just don't call it marriage.

Bunnypants is only pandering to the religous right to keep his popularity falling below 30%. You can also bet it will not get much better because Rove is a horses ass.

Rick, @ #60, keep asking; but don't hold your breath. Hapless is known for ignoring questions that might put him in a hypocritical bind. He won't admit to crapping in the minds of young folks because it opens him up to the "do as I say - not as I do" line of criticism. Another instance of his moral cowardice -- preaching about name-calling and using swear words, all the while doing both.

Jeanne, I rather like the "panty" moniker. It has a kinky intonation that cracks me up. I don't think he means it maliciously.

Hapless, you oughta take a page from Factchecker and thank him for coming to your rescue. Since you're too cowardly to address the lfpr question directly yourself, however, you remain utterly Hapless.

Why is it that when the market tanks, you play kick the cat? (boss kicks Hapless, Hapless goes home to kick the cat) Are the money Lords that you serve kicking you about as the market takes those freaky nosedives? It's mad money, baybee, mad money. Go back to last week when the big drops happened and your tone turned noticeably sour. Call yourself Happy all you want, your pissy tone tells a different story.

Factchecker. I read the Brookings institute study and got all the backup that I needed to prove my earlier contention (that the Bush economy is driving folks out of the workforce). Explanations for the precipitous drop in the lfpr come in two flavors, as a cyclical component of the economy and as a sign of deeper flaws in the labor force:
[after a sharp upturn in the 90s] "As the economy turned down in early 2001, the participation rate dropped back and remained low, reflecting the extended period of employment declines and persistent lack of job opportunities that followed the recession." [page 4 of the PDF file -- page 3 of the study]

As for your contention that a drop in the participation rates of teens being the primary cause of the drop. The study doesn't count that as a chief component of the sudden disappearance of Americans from the employment rolls:
"First, the aging of the baby boom cohort has been raising the share of the population in age groups for which participation rates have historically been much lower than for younger groups, and this compositional change has been putting downward pressure on the aggregate participation rate." [ibid]

A corollary of the weakness in the labor market is the inaccurate representation that the "drop" in the much-reported unemployment rate signifies:
"If, instead, a significant portion of the decline is the result of structural developments in the labor market, the unemployment rate may be giving the appropriate signal of current economic slack, and the implications for the potential growth of the economy would be less optimistic." [p. 2 of the PDF, p. 3 of the report]

(EmPHASis mine in each of the above cases)

Even by looking at the 2004 / 2005 Household data of folks not in the labor force, you can see that the largest drop in participation (400K or so) is in the 55-64 age cohort. That is easily double the drop in the teenage cohort (well, the 16 to 24 age group).

Looking at the Brookings study, what in particular made you think that the teenage subpop caused the drop in the lfpr? I figured that big percentage drop from 54% participation rate in 1995 to 40something% in 2005 might account for your conclusion. That's a huuuuge drop. Maybe I missed something. Help me out.

Gerald and Saladin,

I'm completely against Rangel's proposed bill for a military draft, especially the way's it's written. It's purpose is solely to make a point, and I think one that is easily lost in this atmosphere. It should not just be for a military service, it should be for a national service.

I'm for a national draft for both young men and women. One that would provide choices. One could choose national service in the mode of the original Peace Corps, where one year of college age is given to your country. Helping the poor in Africa, in America or elsewhere--solid good deeds under supervision under the aegis of this service would be applicable. I think devoting a year of national service is a very democratic thing to do, it would be truly fit for a democratic republic.

#111
Get off 2004. The people of the US are starting to understand they have been taken for a ride. Even the conservative Christians understand it was all a con. I'm telling you the people I've seen and talked to are royally pissed off that this waste of a time issue is still on the platform.

#51 Capt

That's it. It doesn't require alot of words or explanations. You put it beautifully, succinctly and astutely. That's it. Let nature be what it is. Let love flourish.

factchecker, first you fret over fathers and sons getting married, or mothers and daughters, now you compare gay marriage to murder? That's a stretch, even for you! Tell me, what gay marriage has ever once interfered with your innate right to pursue life, liberty and happiness? Or anyone's for that matter? Taking life by murder is not a moral issue, it is a rights issue. Interfering with an adults RIGHT to choose the partner they will feel happy with is also a rights issue. It is the psycho fundamentalist right wing that turns it into this morality fiasco. As I have said, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! It isn't murder, it's marriage for God's sake!

Imn slowly plowing through the blog while doing household stuff like cooking dinner but, Rick at #60 you stopped me. I almost choked from laughter. I think that's what David C. was kind of saying when he personally addressed Happy with the message, "happy scouting".

Many adults in the Hoosier State reject any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation, according to a poll by the Indiana University Center for Survey Research released by Indiana Equality. 79 per cent of respondents believe gay and lesbian residents should have the same civil protections as others.

Civil unions—currently available in the states of Vermont and Connecticut—give same-sex partners the same legal rights of married couples such as inheritance, insurance and hospital visiting privileges. A California law grants domestic partners the same legal rights of married couples, with the exception of filing joint income tax returns.

The survey did not include a question on same-sex marriage. In May 2004, the state of Massachusetts allowed gay and lesbian partners to apply for marriage licenses, the first state-sanctioned homosexual weddings in the United States.

Polling Data HERE

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

A few inconvienent facts?

Agree or disagree: Gay/lesbian Hoosiers should have the same civil rights protections as others? 79% to 21%

capt

#85 My dear Saladin

Hold on to yourself, it's just going to get worse. You made it through the stolen 2000 election, 2002 and then the stolen election of 2004. It's intended to get your goat. For some reason the spewing of hatred is par for the course with these people. I think this has gone on throughout history. The best thing we can do, and I'm no f**king model, is to take it one step at a time and not let the a^^holes get the best of us.

What is upsetting you and the rest of us is the length to which they go now, they've past all boundaries of decenthood. We must keep our blood pressure down if we're to do any good.

"And,I understand other people have different sexual proclivities. Go do it - just don't call it marriage."
Posted by: fatchecker at June 5, 2006 09:14 PM

THanks for boiling it down to its rotten core. It's a semantic argument. Call it a civil union or whatever, give them the rights that every spouse enjoys. It won't have the tiniest effect in divorce rates, unemployment, infant mortality rates, poverty rates, the federal deficit or the dead and maimed in Iraq. But it makes the self-righteous feel special. And in today's era of the rubber-stamp, do-nothing Republican Congress, why solve the nations pressing problems when you can make a tiny sliver of the population happy?

#70 Robert S.

Thank you for that article by Cindy Sheehan. I admire her so, she is so brave after losing her son.

James, you're killing me.

Factchecker,

For the life of me I cannot figure why you, Happy and LBH among others post here. What do you get out of this? Are you afraid to post in friendly surroundings? Are you a masochist?

#113 Pande

You are so good. I can't tell you how much I enjoy your posts. Very entertaining and informative.

Mixed race marriage has been legal since 1967. THhe people who think hate defines them as conservative managed to keep mixed marriage illegal and the Supreme Court had to order 36 states to change their laws banning mixed marriage.

This is the very same thing.

Frankly few people have an issue with the contractual part of a marriage. The so-called cons should be in favor of committment, contractual and binding, between peope that are living together comingling funds and sharing costs (very business like).

No, it is the sex. I do not want to know what people do (sexually), I only concern myself with what I do. As with Bill Clinton they say it is not the sex but that is all it is about.

Hate dressed up as concern for the institution of marriage and not well dressed at all. If that were true divorce would be illegal, eh? Living together with even the opposite sex would be an infraction of the institution? No, just gays and lesbians because they are a minority and too many people think hating them is normal. Or hating the gays and lezzies will get them over themselves. Either way it is hate and it sucks (not in the good way!)

Hate is never normal. It is instilled, ingested, projected, taught, lerarned but never normal. No reasonable excuse for hate or the hater.

"Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, somewhere inside, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it." ~ Margaret Cho, weblog, 03-11-04

Love those you want to hate? Sounds like a parable, eh?

capt

#95 LBH

What do your read? What you describe is not liberalism. You should not attack something you don't know anything about. You sound like a broken record. There are no facts in your posts. You don't back up anything, just rant alot.

This is what I'm talking about. This is a rather informed blog, people back up their ideas. You don't.

You don't belong here. There's not one ounce of scholarship in anything you post.

#124
Capt,
I can remember when it was unacceptable for a Lutheran to marry a Catholic.

LBH

Those who "theorize" that opposition to gay marriage won the 2004 election are just trying to slick up their resumes.

America really doesn't give a hoot about any of this. We're not as Christian as everyone claims. If we were, the churches would be overcrowded.

Besides, true Christians believe in Jesus, right? Jesus believed in acceptance, in love, in taking in those that might be different. Witness his entrance into the leprosy camp.

What it comes down to is the golden rule. You and your ilk pound sand to fight against the tenants of this sacred rule. You are the ultimate hypocrites.

Jesus, God, preaches love. I don't see one spit of love in any of your posts.

Once again, one doesn't have to be Christian or Jewish or anything to know the true meaning of life and the golden rule. You exhibit everyday in your posts, hatred. Hatred need not apply.

Here's a quote from 2004. It's a good one.

"The invasion of Iraq has gone fabulously well, exceeding everyone's expectations - certainly exceeding the doomsday scenarios of liberals."

Guess who said it.

Carey, LBH has one mission and one mission only, that is to perpetuate the nation dividing, bullshit, left-right paradigm. He has no clue what he is talking about. The only thing he is interested in is provoking juvenile back and forth arguments that have no substance and any 7 year old could emulate. I really hate to see Pan wasting his considerable intellect on the likes of him. It may be amusing to some, but I find it sad and a great waste of talent.

I'll be voting tomorrow for Francine Busby to takeover Duke Cunningham's seat.

In the meantime, Pande, on with the World Cup!

I'm partial to tennis too, and am keeping up with the French Open. My son's getting out of school soon and it's summer! I think I'm going to be happy despite everything. That does not mean, however, that the fight stops.

Jeanne has given us a jewel in tipping us off to the Kennedy article. I definitly intend on following this up in my activist work.

Same sex marriage isn't about sex, it is about legal rights, so any amendment is curtailing a persons right to legally inherit the estate of their partner, be allowed insurance, and others. What is so hard about that? Too bad the inbred ones are so fixated on the sexual innuendo and not the preservation of a persons rights, regardless of their sexual orientation. But in the current climate of divide and conquer until the sheeple wake up we are going to continue to have this debate. Wake up america time is running out.

Pande always RAWKS!

Although it is a knee slapper when some other poster declares VICTORY over Pan-D-man. Cracks me up every time.

Pande posts with ease and efficacy!

(running out of adjectives)

That is why he is the Mac-daddy and we (most of us) miss him when he does not grace the Corn-blog with his humor, elegance of eloquence, facts, figures, funnies and all the rest! The dressing down of trolls is just a bonus!

I believe he enjoys offering an education to the mindless and feckless.

I am eager to indulge him that much. I do read past some that I find too trollcentric but that is just the way I read stuff.

capt

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them.... In every country these two parties exist.... Call them, therefore, liberals and serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, republicans and federalists, aristocrats and democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same party still and pursue the same object."

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA)

Letter to Henry Lee, 1824

Courtesy: Eigen's Political & Historical Quotations

#128
If you don't guess I won't tell you.

But I will give you a clue.
Unusually large hands.

After years of ardent support for the Iraq war, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) could become that conflict's first big political casualty in a Democratic primary race fueled by rising anti-war anger.

Lieberman, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2000, faces a growing challenge from a political neophyte who has rallied Democrats angered by the senator's enthusiastic backing of the war and willingness to support Republican President George W. Bush on other issues.
----------------
a fervent HA to joe bush lieberman!

Here's a great blog.

Just Zip It - The Daily Absurdity Report

I am working on two new 'Video Blogs' for Newsnight and as usual it takes a bit of time until I find out what it is I am looking for in Baghdad these days. I started going around the city with a camera 6 days ago. and it took me all these 6 days to know where I was going with this.

I thought this was going to be about violent death and how it has become part of our lives but I guess it is turning out to be about more.

....Life seems to have lost its value and we are shutting up and shutting down because of fear. This is about how when everyone came to destroy what was wicked they killed what was good as well.

(OK so the last paragraph is lifted off a Pet Shop Boys song but you know I believe that the wisdom of centuries can be found weekly on Top Of The Pops. I am shallow).

I started off wanting to ask do life and death take on a different meaning when we live with them everyday? Or does fear of death stay the same, even when it is a constant presence?

But I quickly realized that fear of death isn’¥ what has been turning my stomach into a tight knot whenever I go near one of the so-called hot zones in Baghdad. It is the life we live that fills me with fear.
-----------
This guy grabs you. He's an Iraqi with a name people don't like. He lives in fear because of it. Good blog. I am putting it in my favorites.

If he has big hands, he's not an evangelist.

I'll guess. Cheney or Schwarzenegger.

#128 In addition to the large hands, the quote comes from a being with an unusual Adam's Apple for a woman. Initials "A.C." Also know as "Ann the Man."

Ann "the man" Coulter?

What an angry bitch.

That being said, most of the bitches I know are men.

Carey, Get out the vote. Call two friends. Ask them to vote and have them call two friends, etc., etc. Vote first, though.

Sal, I'm trying to cut down on my trollicious diet. They are small, tasty game; but I know it disgusts others who watch me feast.

O'Reilly, The US plays, Czechos, Italia, and Ghana. It's probably the 2nd toughest group in the whole tournament. 2 out of the 4 will move on to the final stage. Here's the round-robin stage. Here's the finals bracket.

The US team plays a 4-4-2 alignment. Here's the squad. The centerbacks are tall, fast and rough. Unfortunately, they're also brittle, prone to injury. Oguchi Onyewu is one tough MoFo, one of the top 10 defenders in the world. He could play safety for the Patriots. He's that fast and tough. The strength of the team is in the midfield. They have a couple of holding-defensive mids with mad distribution skillz and two of the fastest, most exciting attacking mids in the world, bar-none, Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley. Their Strikers play in pairs -- a speed freak and an aerialist (either Wolff & McBride or Johnson & Ching). The biggest weakness on the team is their keeper, Keller. He is frightenly streaky. He can be unbelievably awesome (as in the 1-0 win in the Gold Cup against Brazil) or painfully wretched (as in the recent 1-0 loss to Morocco).

Tactically, they play rough, first to attack, first to foul. They are fundamentally sound and respected world wide. Because of the political situation, everyone wants to beat us; but nobody overlooks us.

We snuck up on everyone in the last cup. We are now ranked #5 by FIFA, the world soccer federation. The Czechs are #2, Italy is #13 and Ghana is #48. The Czechs lost their best striker to injury and Italy lost its best midfielder. Chances look good; but as the Italians say, "La palla è rotonda." The ball is round, you never know how it'll bounce.

Before the last world cup, I used to read the soccer boards. There was a soccer troll named Peter from Canada (a Polish immigrant) who used to rant and rave about the punks on the US team. Poland flunked the first round (though they beat the US). The US made the quarters. Peter promptly disappeared from all soccer boards. You could wrap every Bushbot troll from WMDTimmie to MBATimmie to Dblpat and Chucky into one dork; but this guy Peter was 10 times worse than all of them put together.

Teams to watch: Spain, Portugal, the Czechs, England, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and the U.S.

Teams I want to see get their azzes kicked: England, Germany, and Italy. Germany has a long line of a$$holes on their team. Their new coach (who learned his trade in the U.S.) Klinsmann, Rudi Voeller, Beckenbauer are considered soccer royalty. I hold the Bush Administration in higher esteem than I do that bunch of arrogant clowns.

3 Days, 20 hrs, and 11 minutes. It's driving me buggy.

#139
Excellent Capt. You win.

Pande your political posts, as good as they are, don't compare to your scouting report on World Cup 2006. Many thanks.

I'll be watching the games and posting here. I hope you will too.

#128
Oh...you too observer. Ann the man is correct.

Pandemoniac,

You and I must be looking at different schedules. Table 3, page 94 of 97 shows, to me anyway, an increase in the participation for all ages 55-64 for both males and females from the years 2000 through 2004. There is a small drop in the late 30's age-group. The precipitous drop is in the 16 - 19 year old age group.

But, again, the move through all this has been fairly small. It is back at rates that have been historically the average for some time now.

I know my wife went to work to help finance three college educations. She is now back to having to spend all of her waking hours picking up after me, which is actually a full-time job for three people. A lot of the boomers are now in this position.

It would also seem from this blog that a lot of people posting here have opted out of the workforce.

And I wasn't trying to equate homosexuality with murder. I was only responding to the absoltely ridiculous assertion that we don't legislate morality. Hell, we even tell people to wear seatbelts.

Finally, words do have meaning, at least I think so. If you don't, then I suggest you don't call a civil union a marriage.

News > Politics -- Documents show issues with wives, child support" href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20060602-9999-7m2galley.html" target=_blank>More family values!

Republican Jim Galley, who is running for Congress as a “pro-traditional family” candidate, was married to two women at the same time, defaulted on his child support payments and has been accused of abuse by one of his ex-wives.

Oh, and, by the way, wasn't it great that the Canadian government used racial profiling and electronic eavesdropping to catch 17 Islamic terrorists over the weekend?

They had acquired enough explosives to detonate five Oklahoma City bombings. Two of them had previously been arrested in the United States in D.C., taking pictures of government buildings.

dumbass! (me) here's the link.
MORE FAMILY VALUES

Bush looks to question of gay marriage to boost his fortunes

ANALYSIS

HE IS faced with an escalating crisis over allegations that US marines have executed Iraqi civilians, and a more volatile insurgency in Iraq.

And there is deepening concern among the Republican Party's "fiscal hawks" that neither President George Bush nor the Republican controlled Congress is prepared to tackle record spending which, with Bush's tax cuts, has led to an out-of-control budget deficit.

With his approval rating down to about 30 per cent, what is an embattled president to do? For Bush, on the advice of his senior adviser Karl Rove, the answer is obvious: focus attention on what has to be the biggest problem facing the country.

More HERE

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

Well he did try the immigrant issue first. Bunnypants just cannot find any traction. Maybe if he went with a popular cause? One that is not racist or homophobic. . .

Okay, without the hate and illegal wars they have nothing.

Seems like they understand what is happening "down-under". They must be smarter than neocons, eh?

capt

oh and by the way, how cool is it when the three tonnes of ammonium nitrate found with the toronto terrorism suspects was planted by the police in an elaborate sting operation?

Police planted evidence: Terrorists’ arrest in Toronto was a sting operation
____________

and why no media reports of this?

TERRORIST FOUND IN THE U.S. WITH WMD!!!

oh, never mind, he's not muslim.

Carey, guess whose sons and daughters will go into the national service and whose sons and daughters will go into the military service?

The Future

Dear Cornposters:

Nazi America's future is etched in stone - bushianity as the national religion, a fascist government, an enslaved population, pre-emptive nuclear bombings, and endless wars.

Sincerely,

Gerald

Carey, we live a real world and in the real world the American poor and the middle class get screwed.

just say ha to partial facts

Who Killed the Electric Car trailer

My son found this for me. Looks like an interesting movie. Thank you General Motors.

The Canadian arrest were a sting operation. The arrests have yet to stand the scutiny of the Canadian Judicial system. The RCMP had better have the right paperwork.

I put about as much confidence in 17 convictions as I do is the Hooker's story about Bush the Butt Ranger.

capt

The Bushite Regime

A FRIEND OF MINE SAID THAT IF WE WANT TO PROTECT MARRIAGE OF ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN, WE SHOULD PASS A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT THAT BANS DIVORCE.

Factchecker, look at Table 2 (p. 93) of the report. It clearly shows each age cohort and their relative contributions to the decline in the lfpr. 19-24 is responsible for a .04% drop. The 25-44 age groups are responsible for the bulk of the drop.

And yes, words have meaning and we do limit the choices that Americans can make where safety is concerned (car safety, food and drug laws, gun laws, and the myriad of consumer safety laws). But to make a semantic argument about the choices that consenting adults make and equate the debate to safety considerations (like seat belt requirements) isn't a fair comparison. What greater good does the issue serve? What public policy problem does it solve?

And when the Canadian govt. spied on the muslim suspects, did they conduct a broad electronic sweep of the entire country or did they just spy on the targeted suspects? NO one is against spying on terrorists. Innocent Americans being spied on in violation of the 4th Amendment ... that's another matter.

panderrific!

9:00p - time to go water my ninja turtle soccer pitch - adio!

A dios mi!

Bankruptcy Law in Shambles

What happens when the credit card industry writes congressional legislation? According to the judges who have to enforce it, anarchy

In December, Alfonso Sosa, a house painter in Fredericksburg, Texas, fell behind on the payments for the mobile home he shared with his wife Melba. The mortgage holder moved to foreclose, and Sosa filed an emergency petition in federal court for bankruptcy protection. But the Sosa family quickly ran afoul of the country’≥ new bankruptcy law, which had gone into effect only six weeks before. One of the many new provisions requires all debtors to take a simple, one-hour credit counseling class before they file, but the Sosas had not known about the requirement.

Although Sosa had taken the class by the time they got back to court, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Frank R. Monroe quickly dismissed their case, leaving the Sosa trailer open to foreclosure.

Monroe was furious, not with the Sosas, but with Congress for tying his hands. "Can any rational human being make a cogent argument that this makes any sense at all?" he wrote in his opinion. He even accused Congress of colluding with the nation's credit industry "to make more money off the backs of consumers in this country."

..."Unquestionably, this is the most poorly written piece of legislation that I or anyone else has ever seen," says U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Keith M. Lundin, who has overseen cases in Tennessee since 1977. "No one has ever seen a piece of garbage like this," he adds. "There's going to be the most fantastic anarchy in bankruptcy courts for years."
------------
Thank you Mr. President. Thank you congress. I for one appreciate your concern for the American people.

Privacy. Remember what that was like?

You could make a phone call and no one had the right to listen in - without probable cause - or trace who you called, or record the length of your conversation.

Are there no rights, no principles Bushco won't stomp on and remake to suit its own agenda?

Remember when the president would put his hand on a bible and swear to uphold the constitution? Now the president puts his foot on the constitution and swears to uphold the bible.

Pandemoniac,

Please go back and look at the titles of Table 2 and Table 3. I think you're misreading the results. If not, please tell me what you think Table 2 is versus Table 3.

You may be right. I've been wrong before - the last time was October 1973, I believe.

No, wait; it was 1971.

55
Happy,.....if you continue with that inane 'panty' label for pandemoniac.
Posted by: Jeanne at June 5, 2006 05:55 PM
=============================================
Jeanne: I don't think Panty (capital P) is quite the same in being derogatory as some of Panty's name callings. He is the master name-caller, I'll give him that! Must be his upbringing or young age.......BTW, I'm not sure Panty wants you to `defend' him. However, your defense of Panty seems more genuine than Alan's lies.

60
"I, Happy, do on ocassions use inappropriate languages or call names and I don't deny them. But, almost always, "you/Cornuts did it first". School yard stuff, just like you....."

Is this what you teach your scouts?
Posted by: RicK at June 5, 2006 06:19 PM
===========================================
No, they are children under 18. Are the folks dominating this blog children....I actually did think so at first (my very, very early impressions) and still do on some, like Panty.

And Panty, I am nothing but consistent! I don't want to spend too much time here. You have a long post somewhere up there as I scrolled through over 100 posts in ~15 minutes. Unlike you who can burn employers' time to read and post, every minute I spend here, unless I'm having fun, is low-quality time.

Arguing economics w/you is by far, the biggest waste of my time. Got It, for the 28th time? Just like your (false) claim of inventing the internet, you are also (in your mind) a great economist! If these visions of glory make you HAPPY, great!

Factchecker, First off, I object to putting stuff like the gay marriage ammendment on a ballot. The people we put in government are supposed to legislate stuff that is for the good of our country. For ALL of us. You know, like roads and a standing military, and sane laws. Playing a bigotry card is unacceptable. In this day and age we're ALL supposed to be beyond that kind of crap.

And there 'they' are, legislating against a segmant of society. To me? Well, that's unthinkable and it makes me feel like we're back in the dark ages before computers and all our smart technology. Pathetic.

You said to not call it marriage? Who gives a shit what it's called!?! With the divorce rate among heterosexuals???? All gay people want is access to the same benefits. GIVE IT TO THEM! They're people, too, with kids and lives. The big corporations give benefits to gay couples.

In Michigan the asses here voted against gay marriage and what was the wording of the ammendment? One part of it was that gay's couldn't have any benefits. Companies in MI, including the State of Michigan, had to cut off all gay people's familes. How sane is that, eh? I think it sucks and is counterproductive. Why would ANYONE want to do that to their fellow man? I ask you. Everyone is struggling to make a life and have benefits from their jobs....(if they're so lucky to work for someone who actually GIVES benefits)

There have been other Factcheckers here. At least one of them was legit. You're just an asshole. Love the balls you have to call yourself something meaningful like Factchecker. I take that back, I don't love that, I just am amazed at your audacity.

Got any tips on capture the flag strategies?

Carol,

It is a play on words, like the 400 pound monster of a bouncer calling himself tiny.

That is how I read it anyway.

capt

168 survival skills? basket weaving? mile swim? favorite scout song? fun things to do at a jamboree? how to ostrasize the awkward kid?

169 factchucker

I think he is sincere in his beliefs. The monniker suffers from severe innacuracy.

LBH is not sincere. He posts to provoke. Happy is a sincere boob. He does not understand that his 'Dear David' posts, which are critical of other cornbloggers, are perceived as rude and cowardly. It is not his intent but it is the result consistently. He has yet to realize it.

ah 1971; the year of the boar - i was wrong then as well -

i made a mistake once. subsequently i realized i was mistaken about it. no other human was anywhere near me. was a mistake made?

do not take lunesta with alchohol.

Heterosexual marriage, he said today, is "critical to the health of society." (Tell Neil Bush that.)

what, is crookedy crook neil bush gay? i'm shocked! (not)

try ambien when you're on a diet. see if you wake up, cook a full meal, drive to the corner store to pick-up some supplies, eat the meal, go back to sleep, wake up exhausted, and have a mess in the kitchen.

is "W"'s mother transgendered? If she is, would the federal constitutional ban of gay marriage require they get divorced against their will? In a divorce, what's rights would she have to common property? Could they stay married if she promised to shave and wear pearls?

CA-50: Pre-Special Election Roundup: Busby

Stakeholder: The special election to replace deposed congressman Randy ìDukeî Cunningham in the California 50th is only hours away, and the latest polling data from SurveyUSA has Republican candidate Brian Bilbray and Democrat Francine Busby are in a statistical dead heat. Everyone seems to agree that this election is going to come down to getting out the vote for Francine Busby tomorrow.---Swing State has info on how you can get involved withvirtual phone banking tonight and tomorrow.

(link)

Judicial activism or protecting civil rights from unconstutional legislation?

In December of 1912, an amendment to the Constitution was introduced to abolish racial intermarriage: "Intermarriage between negros or persons of color and Caucasians . . . within the United States . . . is forever prohibited." These anti-micegenation laws were declared unconstitutional by The Supreme Court in 1967.

(link)

Except if you're gay. (pic)

capt, I do not believe the education Pan affords the trolls illuminates them whatsoever. At this point in time it is a waste. The lines have been drawn. But Pan, have at it. You could be furthering the great cause, spending time trying to educate those who have their thoughts set in stone is akin to attempting to move the earth from it's orbit. But to each their own.
factchecker, I never said we DON'T legislate morality, I said we CAN'T! Seatbelts are a great example. Trying to nanny the people to safety and security is bound to fail. We are a little suicidal by nature. Also 148, that whole bullshit terrorist thing is falling apart, just like they all do.
O'Reilly, they've been listening in for a long time now, way before bush. He's just more overt about it.

Oh, and, by the way, wasn't it great that the Canadian government used racial profiling and electronic eavesdropping to catch 17 Islamic terrorists over the weekend?

They had acquired enough explosives to detonate five Oklahoma City bombings.

Well, I heard the cops delivered them explosives to the 'terrorists'. And guess what, it wasn't eavesdropping that caught 'em. It was a chat room. hahahaha Yeah, that's right. Patrol the internet chat rooms and entrap terrorists.

In an annual security conference on Saturday, Donald Rumsfeld assured the audience, "We don't intend to occupy [Iraq] for any period of time. Our troops would like to go home and they will go home."

Why, then, would the United States be building an enormous embassy in Baghdad and a base so large it eclipses Kosovo's Camp Bondsteel, which had been the largest foreign US military base built since Vietnam?
------------
telling the truth! (heckuva job rummy!)

... if she promised to shave and wear pearls?

for some reason that cracked me up.

Pande offers an education. I did not say the trolls ever learn. I learn stuff from his posts so they are not a complete waste of time.

I hope I am proven wrong and one of the less-informed becomes enlighened. I will always hope but not hold my breath.

capt

"Whenever two or more of us are gathered in HIS name,.........there is Love.."

I have been married 27 yrs. this time 7 years the first time, so with a grand total of 34 years of marriage let me say from my heart, that gender could not be more unimportant.

The commitment is what matters..

And statistics seem to show that gay unions last longer than hetero..

Bottom line..........I don't give a rodents backside what gender, or faith or color anyone is.......

Commited relaltionships are hard..

Gay's seem to do this every bit as well if not better than us "conventional" married folk.

Who honestly cares???

I want my life partner (sex notwithstanding) to be the one at my bedside in a hospital. I want them to have all the powers a spouse would have.

Why should gender be an issue?

The heart wants what the heart wants, its not an intellectual choice.

It is brain chemestry.

Google homosexuality.

PLEASE INFORM YOURSELF.

And stop being led like really dumb sheep to get all het up about a seriously NO ISSUE.

Im a woman who loves a man. Do I condem women who love women? or men who love men? Oh hell no Im happy when Love is present.

Gender notwithstanding

Real love is rare.

Bush's gay-bashing is just the beginning.

Having failed at everything they have tried, having no accomplishments to tout, the Republicans have only two cards in their hands, hate and fear. The hate card is being played. But there are other shoes to drop.

Look for DHS to begin terror alerts, look for news reports of raids on terror cells on US soil (complete with fabricated pictures).

Then, look for an October surprise...a huge announcement that troops are coming home by the end of the year. Of course, that won't happen.

Will it be enough to keep Congress in Republican hands? Yeah, probably. The only thing more depressing than the evil of the Neocons is the incompetence of the Democrats.

Bob

I have the solution(s)!

1) No more marriage licenses. Civil unions for all. Religious groups maintain their right to marry anyone they want, but the government will recognize all unions.
2) marriage is a contract right? Then put an expiration date on the contract. 5 years initially, with a renewable contract every 3 years. After the first term of your contract you wont have to stay in the relationship. If you opt to not renew your contract, you can begin splitting your assets.
3) Civil union licenses cost $500 for the first one, and all subsequent ones are free. Make people really think about whether they want to spend the money or not. This clause probably wont have much effect... how many guys have I told "Dude, don't get married, you have no idea what you're in for and what you're giving up"?
Our "second brain" has a way of filtering out good advice.

Isn't it stupid that the government is this deep into our personal lives and we let them stay there?

Factchecker, Table two is the delta (between '80 and '95 and again between '95 and 2005) broken down by the age cohorts that the BLS divides their data into. Table 2 takes the aggregate change in the lfpr and shows that the lfpr rises from '85-'95 then it drops from '95 to '05. In the final column Brookings tries to predict what will happen from '05 to '10 using their statistical model. They are predicting a continued drop. If you look at the aggregate (total) drop in the lfpr (-0.59%), Table 2 says that the 19-24 cohort is responsible for 0.04 of the 0.59%. The 24-44 age group is responsible for the biggest drop in the total lfpr.

If you head on over to table 3, you'll see that the data on table 3 butressess those numbers (drops in the 19-24 and 24-44 age groups). This table however is simply showing the raw percentage of labor force participation as a percentage of their cohort not as a percentage of the total lfpr.

Going back to table 2, Each group is weighted differently because each group represents a different chunk of the population. As the older generation represents the biggest chunk in the population, it's smallish drop in lfpr (as shown in table 3) contributes more to the overall lfpr. That large drop in percentage points from the mid 50s to the mid 40s that the teens show is not as statistically significant as the older age group because they (teens) are a smallish chunk of the population.

Read my original post from the conclusions section of the paper (post #113). It states the same thing.

Hapless, burning the midnite oil again. But you made a funny (unintentionally, again):
"Arguing economics w/you is by far, the biggest waste of my time. Got It, for the 28th time? Just like your (false) claim of inventing the internet, you are also (in your mind) a great economist! If these visions of glory make you HAPPY, great!"
Posted by: Hapless tired of researching the lfpr at June 6, 2006 12:21 AM

You pointedly avoid discussing economics with me. Anytime I've posted data from the Fed, or the BLS, or the GAO showing that you're full of prunes, it wasn't because you were debating economics. YOu were just spouting nonsense and I was setting you straight.

And for the 28th time, you prove that Hapless is a fitting moniker. Which one of us brings giggles and joy to the Cornblog? Me. Even Factchecker was amused by my Thursday Night Funnies. Who's wit and insight is lauded here? Mine. You and Factchecker have both said so at one point. NOthing I write here makes me "Happy." My real joy is upstairs asleep ... as I saunter off to make the donuts. Later tater.

#102 Capt,

We teach our troops to be killers of other militaries. We also teach our troops to care for the sick and wounded on both sides, to always treat EPWs (enemy prisoners of war) with dignity, and we sure as hell teach our leadership to control their troops. You can say the government is responsible for the war, but the military leaders are responsible for the conduct of their troops. Haditha is nothing short of a total breakdown in discipline. Don't be afraid of LBH accusing you of not supporting the troops. When the troops stop acting like the mature, professional men and women that I KNOW they are, then they don't deserve that support.

Your story of the far reaching effect of gay marriages has led me to re-post, at www.altara.blogspot.com, the following: THE GAY MARRIAGE SOLUTION David Corn's entertaining re-post from 2 years ago of the story of how gay marriage was responible for marriage bickering and quarrels leads me to re-post my solution to the problem. So sorry to deprive George Bush and his right wing supporters of this "culture" issue, but, excerpted from February 2004 posting, here is the solution: ".... letting the states decide will create a legal mess and is sure to result in prohibition of gay marriage in many states. Couples will go forum shopping for states that will permit them to marry. All this sound and fury over an issue that we can easily avoid. The solution - take marriage off the table. Get the body politic out of the marriage business Let marriage be the private commitment that it really is. Those who wish can choose marriage, and label it as such, in accordance with their faith, spiritual values, ethics, or other personal beliefs. It may or may not be church or religion-related; that depends of the tenets of the religion and the wishes of the couple. On the other hand, the state should have nothing to do with the institution of marriage. Its concern should only be civil union and the regulation of the legalities of formation and dissolution, basic rights and obligations of the parties, and economic benefits attendant to the union. The state's role as protector of children remains unchanged. So change the words, get the state completely out of the institution of "marriage". With all of this marriage turmoil behind us, we can concentrate on real issues such as Liza Mannelli's left hook."

Cit X,

From #102

"If the killers become murderers they are wrong and should be held to account"

Why would I "be afraid of LBH accusing you of not supporting the troops."

What the heck on you on about?

I fear nothing any nobody. I would have to respect the person posting to begin to give a flying flip what they think.

Try reading for comprehension?

Thanks

capt

Comprehension takes too long, and I was still on my first cup of coffee.

Plant Diseases Threaten Chocolate Production Worldwide

Chocolate lovers, beware. Each year 20 percent of the cacao beans that are used to make chocolate are lost to plant diseases, but even greater losses would occur if important diseases spread.

"Plant diseases are the most important constraints to cacao production and the continued viability of the world's confectionary trades," said Randy Ploetz, plant pathology professor at the University of Florida, Homestead, FL. Currently, 4 million metric tons of beans worth more than $4 billion are produced each year. The global chocolate market is worth $75 billion annually.

According to Ploetz, the three most important and damaging cacao diseases are black pod, frosty pod, and witches' broom. Black pod occurs worldwide and has the largest impact, while frosty pod and witches' broom are restricted to tropical America.

"Frosty pod and witches' broom would devastate cacao production in West Africa, where almost 70 percent of all production occurs," said Ploetz. "In this region, either disease could reduce yields by an additional one million more metric tons per year," he said.

More HERE

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

Watch out chocolate lovers!

capt

#182
Saladin,
I look forward to Pandemoniac's charts and graphs. I don't want to take the time to look for them so I depend on him. I don't care how he delivers them. Kicking Happy's ass if fine with me.

"The U.S. government opposes prostitution," a State Department report on global human trafficking said. "These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanizing."

According to some estimates, thousands of foreign women, many from Eastern Europe, will engage in sex work in Germany during the four-week tournament that begins Friday.

The United States called Germany a "source, transit and destination country" for sex workers and other exploited people. The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report still gave Germany its highest overall rating for compliance with effort to stop trafficking and noted German efforts to combat exploitation during the World Cup.
------------
Unless the prostitute is a gay male hanging out at the WH.
Of course the USA does not exploit anyone, we are the nanny CEO to the world!

#188
Bob,
I agree. I heard on the news yesterday that there will be home grown terror plots and some will succeed. They will be smaller and maybe they will pass by without us realizing they are terror plots.

WHAT?

I heard that and couldn't figure out what the hell they were talking about. So a stink bomb at a mall is a terror plot? A McGyver mailbox bomb is a terror plot? I don't get it. That statement may have been accurate and true but my level of trust for the government and those at the highest level protecting me has been shaken. Now, everything I hear has an underlying meaning. Thank you Mr. President. Thank you Congress.

Jeanne, it's fine with me too. But the trolls won't benefit because they don't look. Everything the Supreme Leader Master of the Universe bush says is the God's own truth. If the bushbots are getting their ass kicked they must enjoy it, they keep coming back.

#195
OMG!!!!!!!!!

Saladin wrote:
If the bushbots are getting their ass kicked they must enjoy it, they keep coming back.
-----
It tells me a lot about their personalities.

They have a personality?

Jesus, God, preaches love. I don't see one spit of love in any of your posts.

Once again, one doesn't have to be Christian or Jewish or anything to know the true meaning of life and the golden rule. You exhibit everyday in your posts, hatred. Hatred need not apply

Carey at 127

Carey, your hatred of christians and jews isn't the issue and neither is religion. In my blue state we had a ballot measure in 2004 to legalize gay marriage and it went down in a huge defeat. The people who voted it down weren't christian and jews but families with children who want to be left alone about your sexual preference. End of story- get over it!!!!

Ohio Secretary of State accused of trying to disenfranchise voters

Ken Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, has been accused by representatives of voter registration and Democratic groups of attempting to adopt new rules which they say will limit their ability to register new voters, today's issue of The Cleveland Plan Dealer reports. Excerpts from the registration restricted article follow.

Democrats and representatives of voter-registration groups accused Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday of trying to rig this November's election by publishing draconian new rules governing the activities of people who register voters.

As a result, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drastically cut back its voter-registration efforts while its lawyers review the new rules, Katy Gall, Ohio ACORN's head organizer, said in an interview.

Samuel Gresham, an attorney for Common Cause, charged that the rules are "part of a consistent pattern, intentionally so," by Blackwell to disenfranchise black, low-income and Democratic voters.
-------------------
Hollywood couldn't create Blackwell as well as Blackwell has created himself.

#203
Yaaaaawwwwwnnnnn.

THanks for boiling it down to its rotten core. It's a semantic argument. Call it a civil union or whatever, give them the rights that every spouse enjoys.

By Jooeek

Jooeek, just curious but I know you can provide me the true figures since you never lie. Exactly what percentage of the hispanic population supports gay marriage?

I still haven't recovered from the ad on this site for Ann-the-man-Coulter's new book.

Hey LBH, do you think soldiers who kill civilians should be court-martialed - tried on the facts - and given suitable punishment if they are guilty or should we look the other way because the civilians were Iraqis and their lives are worth much?

Buy OReilly

Yes O Reilly, I do, and they will be punished more so than mass murders like Ted Bundy who has the ACLU (progressive whores) to appeal on his behalf for the rest of his life.

What I don't agree with is the way progressives like Jeanne have tried our troops by the way of the media (which by the way, you trolls are always complaining about how biased they are)instead of waiting for the facts to come out after a court of law. Why have a court of law if you all want to have a lynching before proven guilty? What happened to civil liberties? Do civil liberties only apply to progressives?

What say you, Mr O Reilly?

Panty man: Happy's 666 Day Career Advice....read (redacted) below, I think USAA/San Antonio has over 1,000 Employees!

Employees get canned for e-mailing
Sending e-mails that contain confidential information or are considered obscene and offensive can often get you disciplined or even fired, survey says.
June 5, 2006: 4:51 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN) - Nearly one in three U.S. companies has terminated an employee for violating e-mail policy in the past year, a survey released Monday said.

The survey of 294 U.S. companies with at least 1,000 employees found that, in many cases, employees ....were disciplined or terminated.

Although the survey suggests that 80 percent of U.S. companies have a written policy covering e-mails, violations remain common....

...many companies are hiring staff to read and analyze outbound e-mail. According to the study, 44 percent of major U.S. companies have hired employees to do so.

Blogs and Instant Messaging are also a concern to many employers. Seven percent reported that an employee was terminated for such a violation while 17 percent reported that an employee has been disciplined.

....The survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.76 points.

-- by CNN's Maria Gavrilovic
===========================================
Perhaps the thing to do for Panty is to stay a vampire! Also, since you seem to be the wolve `guarding' the henhouse, as some kind of a network watchdog, are you the one reading everybody's outbound emails?

The point which I think is somewhat overlooked, (and I wish we could just overlook the whole damn thing) is that one of the purposes of a Constitutional Republic is to protect the rights of a Minority from being trampled by the outrageous whims of a whipped up Majority.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

&

"And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter." - Both Thomas Jefferson

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

And this was written by David Crosby, but, before you dismiss it as simply a male fantasy, listen to Grace Slick cover it on Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation:

Triad

You want to know how it will be
Me and him OR you and me
You both stand there your long hair flowing
Your eyes alive your mind still growing
Saying to me--"What can we do now that we both love you",
I love you too-- I don't really see
Why can't we go on as three
You are afraid--embarrassed too
No one has ever said such a thing to you
Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder
Face like ice--a little bit colder
Saying to you--"you can not do that, it breaks
All the rules you learned in school"
I don't really see
Why can't we go on as three
We love each other--it's plain to see
There's just one answer comes to me
--Sister--lovers--water brothers
And in time--maybe others
So you see--what we can do--is to try something new--
If you're crazy too--
I don't really see
Why can't we go on as three.

'"I, Happy, do on ocassions use inappropriate languages or call names and I don't deny them. But, almost always, "you/Cornuts did it first". School yard stuff, just like you....."

Is this what you teach your scouts?
Posted by: RicK at June 5, 2006 06:19 PM
===========================================
No, they are children under 18. Are the folks dominating this blog children....I actually did think so at first (my very, very early impressions) and still do on some, like Panty.'

If there are participants under 18 here as you suspect, then, by your own standards, you should straighten out your act. Otherwise, you are not qualified to be a scoutmaster:

Mission Statement
The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

I hope your do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do charade works. If/when it is revealed to those kids that you do not follow the ideals you profess, the damage you will cause will be greater than if you had never volunteered in the first place. Think about that the next time you stand in front of those kids and lie.

The idea is to teach ethics to last a lifetime, not until they're 18. You should resign your leadership position.

Ooh, little darlin', if U're free 4 a couple o' hours (Free 4 a couple o'
hours)
If U ain't busy 4 the next 7 years (Next 7 years)
I said let's pretend we're married and go all night
There ain't nothin' wrong if it feels alright
I won't stop until the mornin' light
Let's pretend we're married and go all night 2night
Ooh wee sha sha coo coo yeah
All the hippies sing 2gether

"Let's Pretend We're Married," 1999 - Prince

Mixed race marriage has been legal since 1967. THhe people who think hate defines them as conservative managed to keep mixed marriage illegal and the Supreme Court had to order 36 states to change their laws banning mixed marriage.

Posted by Capt

At least you didn't try to lie like Pande ass and say it was the grand old lynching party of the republicans that made mixed marriages illegal. The fact is that it was a democrat by the name of Seaborn Roddenburg who introduced this law in 1912.

Just some important facts since you brought it up.

Jeanne @204,

In attempting to corroborate the veracity of certain proffers, one must consider the source. In case of your reference, the ones protesting are the ones most virulently opposed to Ken Blackwell's election.

I thought you were one of the ones who wanted fair elections in Ohio. Ken Blackwell is trying to prevent election fraud. If a voter has nothing to hide, he should have nothing to fear from Mr. Blackwell's rulings.

With which one of the rules do you have a problem?

OK, seems Scouting is of interest to a couple of posters here. Let's clear the air.....

O'Happy & Rick,. what are your ties to Scouting? If you are sincere about this subject, contact me privately on my legitimate Yahoo email address. Otherwise, I don't wish to use Mr. Corn's bandwidth on my personal passion! I do refer to it since it dominates my volunteerism and has been for ~10 years. My older son is an Eagle and my younger is Life.

If you are saying Scout Leaders nead to be like Saints, well, you are on the wrong planet and dealing with the wrong species. This is reality as lived by Conservatives who know human fallacies and accept ourselves as we are; imperfect!

Mission Statement
The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.

By Rick

Rick, this is a great mission statement, if only liberals could live up to it the world would be a better place.

Amendment XIV The United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Liberty is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority.

In effect law banning personal choices interfering with a persons "Liberty" would be unconstitutional as an arbitrary act to discourage the pursuit thereof.

O.K., now that that's out of the way.

This next piece is a labor of love, as I'm transcribing rather than cut/paste:

Excerpted from: In a Time of Torment 1961-1967 - I. F. Stone "What Few Know About the Tonkin Bay incidents" pgs. 195-196

The American government and the American press have kept the full truth about the Tonkin Bay incidents from the American public. Let us begin with the retaliatory raids on North Vietnam. When I went to New York to cover the U.N. Security Council debate on the affair, UN correspondentsa at lunch recalled that four months earlier Adlai Stevenson told the Security Council the U.S. had "repeatedly expressed" its emphatic disapproval of "retaliatory raids, wherever they occur, and by whomever they are committed." But none mentioned this in their dispatches.

[...]

Reprisals in peacetime were supposed to have been outlawed by the League of Nations Covenant, the Kellog Pact, and the United Nations Charter. All of them pledged peaceful settlements of disputes. Between nations, as between men, reprisals are lynch law. Some White House ghost writer deserves a literary booby prize for the mindless jingle he turned out to defend ours in Vietnam. "The world remembers, the world must never forget," were the words he supplied for Johnson's speech at Syracuse, "that aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed." This gem of prose is pretty babble. What the world (and particularly the White House) needs to remember is that aggression is unleashed and escalated when one party to a dispute decides for itself who is guilty and how he is to be punished. This is what is happening in Cyprus, where we have been begging the Greeks and Turks to desist from the murderous escalation of reprisal and counter-reprisal. Johnson practices in Southeast Asia what he deplores in the Mediterranean. - I.F.Stone, August 24, 1964

DEN, that amendment only applies to heterosexual republicans!

Congratulations to both your sons for their achievements. If you are like my father, you played a role and, begrudgingly, you are to be commended as well.

My ties to scouting are not the issue. Your conduct is. And it sets a very low ethical standard.

Scout law

A Scout is:
Trustworthy
Loyal
Helpful
Friendly
Courteous
Kind
Obedient
Cheerful
Thrifty
Brave
Clean
Reverent

How have you decided which of these principals no longer apply since you are over 18? Have you asked your sons to read your posts here?

DEN, that amendment only applies to heterosexual republicans!

By Saladin

You're just jealous because transgenders aren't included.

Transgenders?

I don't wish to use Mr. Corn's bandwidth on my personal passion!

Well, uh...then don't. Seems to me you were the one who brought it up.

WIKI

Transgender is an overarching term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth.

We do'nt like them there he-she's here in Merica, jus aint normal.

Saladin + Den = transgender

Kathleen,

WHERE are you????

What is your opinion of Ken Blackwell?

I was a Star scout, at which point I started camping with my girlfriend & kinda dropped out of the program, you might say.

But, I was camping down the road from Yasgur's farm in that rainy summer of '69, at Ten Mile River Scout Camp.

But, you know in that list of oaths, the one which really strikes me is "thrify." What part of this consumer culture even bothers professing to be "thrifty"? "Go shopping" was the Wush's response to 9/11!

We could discuss some other aspects of the Scout's Oath, I suppose. The value of "loyalty," for instance. Is it a "loyalty" amongst equals, or to a power/authority relationship? Then again, Lord Baden-Powell was concerned to some extent to have a group of military ready volunteers at the (England)nation's disposal, if needed.

"Reverence"? It is a fact that many Scout groups are sponsered by religious groups, churches, synagogues, temples and mosques. As such, many groups tend toward somewhat homogenaic religiousity. There are school sponsered troops, which can, of course, be less so, and I'm not suggesting that church/other groups exclude, so much as to say that emphasizing "Reverence" can lead to discomfiture, at best.

The facts about gay marriage:

ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO, two prominent demographers hailed the Dutch family as a model for Europe. Somehow the Dutch had managed to combine liberal family law and a robust welfare state with a surprisingly traditional attitude toward marriage. Even as a new pattern of highly unstable parental cohabitation was sweeping out of Scandinavia and across northern Europe, the Dutch were unswayed. To be sure, premarital cohabitation was widespread, but when Dutch couples decided to have children, they got married. At least they used to.

Today, marriage is in trouble in the Netherlands. In the mid-1990s, out-of-wedlock births, already rising, began a steeper increase, nearly doubling to 31 percent of births in 2003. These were the very years when the debate over the legal recognition of gay relationships came to the fore in the Netherlands, culminating in the legalization of full same-sex marriage in 2000. The conjunction is no coincidence.

A careful look at the decade-long campaign for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands shows that one of its principal themes was the effort to dislodge the conviction that parenthood and marriage are intrinsically linked. Even as proponents of gay marriage argued vigorously--and ultimately successfully--that marriage should be just one of many relationship options, fewer Dutch parents were choosing marriage over cohabitation. No longer a marked exception on the European scene, the Dutch are now traveling down the Scandinavian path.

Call it the end of the Dutch paradox, the distinctive combination of liberal social policies and traditional behavior. On euthanasia, prostitution, drug use, and
now gay marriage, Dutch law is the cutting edge of Western liberalism. Yet among Dutch people, drug use and sexual license are far from rampant. Many have asked whether this balance of tolerance and tradition, with its deep roots in Dutch culture and history, is sustainable over the long term. At least for marriage, the answer appears to be no.

The conjunction is no coincidence.

Prove it.

LBH,
Link...ok...link. If your are going to post articles link them. Otherwise it's plagerism because as this example shows I am forced to attributing the above post to you. Nothing tells me otherwise. (except the style)

A careful look at the decade-long campaign for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands shows that one of its principal themes was the effort to dislodge the conviction that parenthood and marriage are intrinsically linked. Even as proponents of gay marriage argued vigorously--and ultimately successfully--that marriage should be just one of many relationship options, fewer Dutch parents were choosing marriage over cohabitation. - LBH

Please, specifically link the two. Merely listing data points, even if they are true, is not an argument.

oh god why hast thou forsaken me?

A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in the Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.

"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists.' lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said. "A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

Hi Don...

Robert Schwartz @ 227

I know there is much wrong with BSA, but there is, in my opinion, more than enough good to counteract its flaws.

Your story of girl killing the Eagle (scout) is very common.

WIKI

Liberalism is an ideology, philosophy, and political tradition that holds liberty as the primary political value.[1] Broadly speaking, liberalism seeks a society characterized by freedom of thought for individuals, limitations on power, especially of government and religion, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market economy that supports relatively free private enterprise, and a transparent system of government in which the rights of minorities are guaranteed. In modern society, liberals favour a liberal democracy with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law and an equal opportunity to succeed[2]. Liberalism rejected many foundational assumptions which dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. Fundamental human rights that all liberals support include the right to life, liberty, and property. In many countries, "modern" liberalism differs from classical liberalism by asserting that government provision of some minimal level of material well-being takes priority over freedom from taxation. Liberalism has its roots in the Western Enlightenment, but the term now encompasses a diversity of political thought, with adherents spanning a large part of the political spectrum, from left to right. In the context of economics, the term "liberalism" refers to economic liberalism, which is associated with the political ideology of liberalism itself.

Now what is it exactly that disturbs people about liberals?

Alan, I'm glad you liked that. I was thinking about how does one fight back at an exploitive political stunt like the cynical attack on gays and their desire for equal treatment under the law.

The answer? Make fun of the president's mother. Does she have crones' disease or is she transgender. If it's the later, under the new amendment, would their marriage be a violation of constitutional law? If so, would the Justice Department charge the president's parents or would they look the other way if she promised to shave and wear pearls.

Happy, Don't be timid about a topic near and dear to your heart. Feel free to talk about scouting in public and out in the open. Scouting is a perfectly reasonable topic for this thread. Get over it. Rick is just tossing the same ordinance at your self-proclaimed conservative republicans that you like to toss at everyone here; the 'hypocrisy grenade.' Answer the question Happy: how can you treat people with disrespect here on the cornblog while telling kids to treat people with respect?

. . . . long disquieting silence

. . . . chirp, chirp

Why is LBH chiming in on the Boy Scout thread? I thought Happy was the Boy Scout guy. "It would be a great mission statement if only the liberals bla bla bla "Does he think before he posts or does that shit come out automatically?

Wednesday: Call for Congressional Debate on Iraq!
June 5th, 2006
National Call-In Day, Wednesday, June 7

Call your Congressional Representative

Call (888) 355-3588 (toll-free) or 202-224-3121

An open debate on Iraq is OVERDUE!

We have a unique opportunity to demand that Congress stop passing the buck. So far, 122 members of the House of Representatives have signed a 'discharge petition' calling for immediate debate and consideration of ALL alternatives to the policy of open-ended occupation of Iraq (including an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops). All we need is 96 more members of Congress to sign the petition for debate to begin. We need your help.

Call your U.S. Representative on Wednesday, June 7th. Ask your Representative to sign H.Res. 543 OR thank them if they have already signed and ask them to ask a colleague to sign H.Res. 543.

Here are lists of those who have and have not signed!

The conjunction is no coincidence.

Prove it.

Don

The statistics prove it.

source: Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics

228 The author draws the wrong conclusion. The article demonstrates that marriage is important to the well-being of family irrespective of sexual preference.

"Does he think before he posts or does that shit come out automatically?
By O Reilly

Yes it's a natural repsonse to kick a liberals ass on demand.

LBH,
Link...ok...link. If your are going to post articles link them. Otherwise it's plagerism because as this example shows I am forced to attributing the above post to you. Nothing tells me otherwise. (except the style)

Jeanne

Sorry Jeanne, forgot to add the source:

Going Dutch?
From the May 31, 2004 issue: Lessons of the same-sex marriage debate in the Netherlands.
by Stanley Kurtz
05/31/2004, Volume 009, Issue 36

228 The author draws the wrong conclusion. The article demonstrates that marriage is important to the well-being of family irrespective of sexual preference.

By Orielly

"Does he think before he posts or does that shit come out automatically?

By O Reilly

You've answered your own question - good job!

I'm leaving now to go to Gainesville (Fla) this p.m. for Glenn Greenwald's first stop on his book tour for "How Would a Patriot Act? Defending Amedican Values from a President Run Amok."

Check out his blog at http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/.

Greenwald's book is not left or right, Rep. or Dem. It is about the Constitution, your rights and how they are being systematically eradicated. Every American should read this. Every patriot will be angry when they do.

The statistics prove it.

Once again, merely listings data points does not an argument make. I stubbed my toe, a dog started barking does not mean that there isn't s fuckin' bird at the window that he is barking at.

Get it.

"Yes it's a natural repsonse to kick a liberals ass on demand." LBH #240 Still waiting for that to materialize. All talk, no action..thats the trademark of your kind.

227 RS, I was a Star scout too, two merit badges short of Life. My favorite merit badge was sailing. The scoutmaster had a 15' racing boat we took out on Otis Resevoir. I enjoyed accomplishing the mile swim too. Winter camping sucked however and there were times when mean-spirited teasing was going on between the cool kids and the geeks.

It could have happened in any organization and I was never victimized but I learned, years later, one of the scoutmasters we had had a sexual preference for young boys. I do know one of the boys he fancied but I never spoke to him about it. What's suprising is that this guy was a great scoutmaster. If only he could have honored the trust the parents and children put in him.

#232

Can you imagine what God was thinking while watching that little stunt?

Of course the guy probably had a chronic and pretty severe mental health problem so maybe God was saving him in His way.

243. Rick, I love reading Greenwald's blog. Have a good trip. Tell us about it when you get back.

Robert,

I don't pretend to convince you or any other butt monkey here that gay marriage is wrong and franlky don't give a damn what you or O Reilly do behind closed doors.

I also don't agree with Bush that we need a constitional amendment. Individual States should decide by way of the ballot box as we did in 2004.

My only point, since it is the topic of the host, is that the majority in 2004 voted down gay marriage. This was because liberal judges in MA were trying to force it upon us like Bush is doing now and the voters said wait a minute.

The Dutch study shows that ony 1-5% of gays even get married so why is this even an issue to begin with?

249 Robert, It's hard to respond with sincerity to a post that is chock full of provacative insult. Do you agree?

Hello, Robert. Always a pleasure to read your posts.

It could have happened in any organization and I was never victimized but I learned, years later, one of the scoutmasters we had had a sexual preference for young boys. I do know one of the boys he fancied but I never spoke to him about it. What's suprising is that this guy was a great scoutmaster. If only he could have honored the trust the parents and children put in him.

O Reilly

Who gives a shit, I thought this post was about hatred for Bush?

252 obviously not you.

LBH,

You haven't demonstrated cause and effect.

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics. - Mark Twain

It's been fun corn-nuts but now I must go make a living. Someone here has to keep the economy running to pay all those progressive benefits.

Hey Pande, do you know what the difference between an economist like you and a business owner like me?

You earn a living from someone else and we make a living for someone else.

Analyze that!

hypocrisy thy name is republican!
------------
The Real Threat to Marriage: Top 10 GOP Adulterers

1. President George H.W. Bush allegedly had an LTR with British-born Jennifer Fitzgerald that lasted at least two decades, all while married to Bar, who said, “He didn’t even notice when I stopped coloring my hair.”

2. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, famously married to Maria Shriver, is allegedly a serial groper, a purveyor of prostitutes and the father of at least one child out of wedlock.

3. Sen. John McCain, 2008 Republican presidential frontrunner, and admitted adulterer and alleged philanderer.

4. Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, betrayed his second wife, TV presenter Donna Hanover, with his “very good friend” Judith Nathan, whom he has since married. Hanover also publicly accused Rudy of having an affair with a staffer, Cristyne Lategano-Nicholas.
-----------

It's been fun corn-nuts but now I must go make a living.

The asshole has left the room.

256
4 boxes tosses hypocrisy ordinance.

The Real Threat to Marriage: Top 10 GOP Adulterers

The traditional media may be interested almost exclusively in the sex lives of Democratic politicians, but on the hypocrisy index, it is hard to score higher than Republicans pontificating about saving the institution of marriage while so many of their leaders are serial and long-time adulterers:
-------------
I won't list them but there now eleven. I don't even care that these people run around on their spouses. Just be honest. They demand certain behavior from the American public when they are running around. Not only is it hypocritical but it tells me they don't think they have to play by the rules.

How can a marriage be a good marriage if it is not tested severly by adultery? Pappi Bush, Bill Clinton. . . you get the picture. Only after Bar grew the beard did Pappi's romantic interests turn back to his bride.

260 - tongue in cheek.

but, but, but,

Butt Monkeys! lol

261,

tongue in whose cheek? lol

260) dude, ha ha! i nominate that comment for the comment of the thread award!

O'Reilly, 250, lbh always ends up flabbergasted, and insulting, its kind of expected...

I hope you took no offense at 263, none was intended...

new thread

Factchecker posts:

"I love (filios) my sons. Should I have the option to marry them? No."

"I love (filios) my mother. Should I have the option to marry her? No."

"I love (filios) my young niece. Should I have the option to marry her? No."

*** My, My. How people digress. What exactly do ANY of those scenarios have to do w/2 unrelated men or 2 unrelated women getting married?

"Marriage has been defined for ten thousand years as between one man and one woman."

***Actually, in the Christian tradition, the "one man one woman" model for the Christian marriage was FIRST advocated by Saint Augustine (354-439 AD) with his published letter The Good of Marriage. To discourage POLYGAMY, he wrote it "was lawful among the ancient fathers: whether it be lawful now also, I would not hastily pronounce. For there is not now necessity of begetting children, as there then was, when, even when wives bear children, it was allowed, in order to a more numerous posterity, to marry other wives in addition, which now is certainly not lawful." (chapter 15, paragraph 17).

***Furthermore, in 534 AD Roman Emperor Justinian criminalized all but monogamous man/woman sex within the confines of marriage. The Justinian Code was the basis of European law for 1,000 years. Drop a zero and you will be closer to the truth.

"If you don't stop there, how about between three women? How about between a woman and two men? How about two men and three sons? How about between two fathers and three daughters?"

*** Again, what exactly do ANY of those scenarios have to do w/2 unrelated men or 2 unrelated women getting married? My point is this, your arguments reek of the same rational (paranoia/fear) used by those who believe white folks should marry white folks and black folks should marry black folks and etc, etc. How exactly are you personally threatened by a same sex couple marrying? As if that was ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS ANYWAY!

Ok, I vented. I feel better now.

Peace

According to Genesis 18-19 in the King James version of the Bible (the story is the same in
other versions), Lot and family bailed out of Sodom and Gomorra because a couple angels told Lot that he and family the only "good" people left (That might have had somthing to do with the other men of the village wanting to have sex with the 2 male angels..Lot offered them his 2 virgin daughters, but the men of the village weren't down with that). The angels told Lot to jet out of there and to not look back. So, Lot did so...but the old lady decided to look back and got turned into a piller of salt. Lot and daughters made it to Zoab but didn't dig it, so they moved into a cave in the mountains. After a while, the girls realized they didn't have any men to hook up with and came up with a plan. The plan was to make some booze and get Pop drunk. (The fact that God was ok w/this boggles the mind, but I digress). So, one day, the daughters get Pop drunk and one of them does the nasty with him in the cave. Dad wakes up the following day and has no memory of what happened. So, the girls get him loaded again and he and the other daughter go up into the cave and commence doing the chicken funky with Pop too. Again, Pop has no memory of this event. Both girls get pregnant and give birth to a couple sons, Moab and Benammi, who go on to become great tribal leaders.

Personally, I think Lot would have put 2 and 2 together with 2 daughters pregnant and him being the only sperm donor available. BTW, this story is also referenced in the Holy Koran 10 times, the differences being a) Lot's old lady does not get turned into a pillar of salt, it refers to a "terrible fate befalling" her and b) it does not mention anything about Lot having sex with his daughters.

Thank you for allowing me to share.

Peace.

Oh...and yes, Mikey D and Say What? are one and the same....Just so you know.

Man o Man, Did OReilly, slam David Corn today of the factor. (I JUST ROARED!!!!

A little more fun, ENJOY!!THE OUTING OF VALKYRIE's NAME:

Old whats-her-name,
sought chimpie some shame,
and sent out her flame,
in a very sick game,
of just finding some blame,
so chimpie gets all the disdain,
...
but old Dick Hubbard,
went to cupboard,
to give his poor dog a bone,
but after Dick dared,
so Rover could share,
Rover got a bone of his own,
...
and so she did write,
about her cheap fight,
to shame and just blame,
the righteous far right,
to make them big bones,
while Rover gets boned,
as chimpie ends up so lame.
...
But Rover came back,
from the cornville slaps,
and Robert's Co-Hacks,
and was tossed a new bone,
by the cop of cold stone,
while wagging his back,
and howling in fame,
just claiming being frame
without any shame or disdain.

(Sorry James, you got me going!!)

Derrick Michael Reid
Laguna Beach CA

Mr. O, I guess the story will continue.

THE OUTING OF VALKYRIE's NAME:

Old whats-her-name,
sought chimpie some shame,
and sent out her flame,
in a very sick game,
of just finding some blame,
so chimpie gets all the disdain,
...
but old Dick Hubbard,
went to cupboard,
to give his poor dog a bone,
but after Dick dared,
so Rover could share,
Rover got a bone of his own,
...
and so she did write,
about her cheap fight,
to shame and just blame,
the righteous far right,
to make them big bones,
while Rover gets boned,
as chimpie ends up so lame.
...
But Rover came back,
from the cornville slaps,
and Robert's Co-Hacks,
and was tossed a new bone,
by the cop of cold stone,
while wagging his back,
and howling in fame,
just claiming being frame
without any shame or disdain,
...
But Rover's not done,
until dropping his dung,
by scooting his back,
on the cop's little snack,
to end this sick game,
of just blame and just frame
so Rover can now shine,
in rigtheous right shrines,
in light of the fame,
from dung burning up in the flames.


Derrick Michael Reid
Laguna Beach CA