CBGB's on BreakroomLive Today

Go man!

I really do not understand?

I'll do this!
Submitted by Zoot Mantis on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:05pm.
Go man!

______________

First?

Just for form's sake, you really oughtta bide yer time so's you could show up as a diminished seventh.

drive you mad.

Only you can save yourself from it.

And, good reading last night/this morning!

From where I'm standing Obama AND the Democratic leadership (wow, I'm giving them credit for the first time in ages!) are controlling the message well on the issue of prosecutions and how to proceed.

Obama is right that everyone needs to do everything within their power to not let the significance of this issue devolve into a petty political circus, which is what the Republicans want badly. What we are seeing on his end is calculated misdirection intended to cause confusion amongst all of the chattering classes. However, people in the rest of America who don't care to follow politics are trusting him to do the right thing, whatever that may be, and their collective approval is a very powerful weapon against both politician and pundit. It is the public at large with which Obama is the most concerned, because that is the well from which he draws his political capital and, so far, no one can argue that he hasn't aced that test.

Obama's apparent ambivalence, along with that of the Democratic Congressional leadership dupes the right wing a lot more easily than it will the left. Of course, it will anger the left that there appears to be no focus or consensus, but Obama can placate them with a simple gesture, ie. "release four memos" or, "I'm not ruling out prosecutions", (and where the hell did that huge SASC report come from!), whereas nothing he does will placate the right, so whatever he chooses to do, must be calculated to further alienate them. He has proven himself on both accounts and there is a pattern emerging here: one day he says, I want to "look forward", or, "I don't want to appear retaliatory or retributive", then on next he very deliberately releases jaw dropping damning evidence to the people who know what to do with facts. It's calculated to do three things:

1. To give real journalists and policy wonks something to investigate and discuss

2. To give the gasbags something to tussle with and the right wing noise machine something to frantically spin to somehow make a dent in the public perception of his character.

3. To give the rest of the public the clear impression that he is interested in considering all perspectives and in control of his message.

With each battle it is clear who is winning the war. AND, the debate is (finally) getting out there in the public realm now, so torture is no longer something mainstream Americans can really ignore...Obama is forcing them to take part by controlling how the message is disseminated, thereby controlling how and when the media fields the info, some of which, like a person being waterboarded 183 times, is incredibly difficult to defend.

I think it is a pretty admirable way of handling the issue because a lot of people are getting involved, one way, or another, and it is something that deserves the nation's attention rather than just being red meat for those who involve themselves in politics.

"this machine kills fascists"

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Two top Indian officials met with Sri Lanka's president Friday to demand an immediate cease-fire in the bloody civil war as the U.N. reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months of fighting.

Concern for the safety of the civilians trapped in the war zone has increased in recent weeks as the government pushed ahead with its offensive to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels and end the nation's quarter-century civil war.

On Monday, the military broke through rebel fortifications on the edge of a previously declared "no-fire" zone along the northeastern coast, sparking an exodus of more than 100,000 civilians. The rebels said at least 1,000 civilians were killed in that battle and the Red Cross said hundreds had been killed or wounded.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gVoaDFmbCYS-Usz9ACDRIe...

For all me, I see no reason why Obama's formulation of "looking forward" precludes investigations and prosecutions of law-breaking re: torture.

Holding government officials accountable for their crimes is very much "looking forward".

It "looks forward" to a day when government officials respect our laws and our liberties and don't arbitrarily ignore and/or violate them w/the worry-free non-chalance of one who knows he will not be punished.

US and Russian negotiators are meeting in Rome to begin work on a new treaty to curb nuclear weapons.

The talks are the first step towards replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start-1), signed in 1991, which runs out at the end of the year.

Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev agreed to the talks at their first meeting earlier this month.

>

In particular, Moscow has expressed concern at US plans to build an anti-missile system in central Europe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8015897.stm

Sure, dr, to us it's a no brainer. But, by saying he would rather "look forward", Obama instantly robs the right wing of precious statesmanlike rhetoric, not to mention, their stance, lest they stand up and agree with him. Instead, since their single-minded goal is to attack him, they have to descend to much more crude and ineffective rhetoric and going that route serves only to implicate them as character assassins.

The result: the public both sees him as having considered both sides and sees that the republicans are unreasonable and childish for not recognizing that and for continuing to attack him. That, too, is a pattern that has emerged. He's done it plenty.

"this machine kills fascists"

as soon as they can fix the phone.

If torture worked...
Submitted by Leah on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:35pm.

If Torture Worked, Would It Be Okay?

posted by: Jessica Pieklo

... In the meantime we must definitively answer neither the political nor the legal question billowing around the release of these memos-- we must answer the moral one. If we accept as a basic premise that the ends justify the means, that torture is okay because of some elusive net benefit, then we have more in common with our jihadist enemies than we've admitted before. If that is the moral position we stake, we cannot condemn suicide bombings, child soldiers, or human trafficking. Are these really the values we share?

_____________________

I respect and adhere to this argument onna human basis. To me, it is an insult not only to our intelligence but our humanity that we even have to rebut the counterproductive stupidities of the torture advocates.

However:

Onna political basis, (imo), this moral argument agaist torture is the absolutely flat-wrong way of going about winning this argument. It is a political loser.

Why?

How do you persuade a country that is at-odds over this issue (on the one hand, most feeling people are horrified at the idea that our government is torturing people in our name, but on the other hand you have a mass of easily frightened people who worry about the dangers of terrorism and are susceptible to the town-crier demagoguing of the torture advocates who promise only they can "keep the 'Murican peoples safe" -- by tortur-, er, "enhanced interrogation techniques").

Now, most people, and I don't like this any better'n you prolly do, WILL NOT choose their humanity over their "security", if that's the false binary choice they are presented with. (And it is. At least that's the torture advocates' gambit, i.e. establish that waterboarding is not torture, and establish that waterboarding is effective at "getting information".)

This is a false choice, however. As I've stated before, NOT ONLY is torture morally repugnant, it ALSO is counterproductive and ineffective. Using yer mind gets more, and better, information than torture, which gets unreliable, contradictory false leads and false confessions. People say whatever you want 'em to to get you to stop torturing them. The torturers, even when they DO get true information (that they could have gotten using standard interrogation methods, please note, making torture wholly unnecessary), they don't know what's true or what's false.

Which is why it's essential to win this argument from a pragmatic standpoint. Torture is both wrong b/c it's abhorrent morally AND b/c it is ultimately ineffective.

Starting w/the moral argument offers the torture advocates an undeserved point of entry and risks conceding the field about the supposed "effectiveness" of torture, which is extremely bad argumentation. What makes the practical argument against torture so powerful is that most feeling people want to be against torture, and so it's much easier for the easily frightened to make that leap toward their better angels if you stake yer ground on whether or not torture is effective and necessary.

No. And no.

The moral argument against torture is a final luxury, the coup de grace that, once the pragmatic argument has been established and won, is the final salvo that exposes these torture advocates for the uninformed brutish authoritarian pigs that they truly are.

for college loans. Cut out the middle man in providing loans to students. Talking just now on MSNBC

Which is why it's essential not to try to win this argument from a pragmatic standpoint. Torture is both wrong b/c it's abhorrent morally AND b/c it is ultimately ineffective.
===================
I think what Kuby was trying to say is "How can we be sure that our leaders will remain opposed to torture if it is proven that torture works?"

isn't it infuriating that the republicans would take something like student loans and turn it into a several billion dollar a year business. why do they hate america so much?

Nwet is not a TRUE Newt. Gingrich is a toxicTwit!

Reports: Banks Need $1 Trillion In Capital; Bad Assets In Largest Banks Have Tripled
Today, the nation’s 19 largest banks will start learning “how they fared in important federal examinations — and which among them will need another bailout from the government or private investors.” The government doesn’t plan to publicly disclose the results of these “stress tests” until May 4.

According to testimony delivered by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday, “the vast majority” of banks are well-capitalized. However, the stress tests are going to reveal the plight of the largest banks — which hold most of the assets in the U.S. — and thus are the ones to be concerned with. And if some preliminary analyses are any indication, things don’t look good.

According to analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) — which conducted its own stress test on 17 of the 19 banks that the government is examining — the U.S. banking system “might need as much as an additional $1 trillion in capital.” And as Bloomberg found, “bad assets at the biggest lenders almost tripled on average in the past year”:

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group Inc. saw nonperforming assets — those no longer accruing interest — jump more than fivefold in the first quarter from a year earlier. They more than quadrupled at U.S. Bancorp in Minneapolis. At 13 of the largest U.S. banks, bad assets increased 169 percent on average from a year ago.

As Kevin Drum wrote “if [the KBW] report is even roughly accurate, I really have no idea how Tim Geithner is going to tap dance his way around the N-word much longer”:

If KBW is right — and their estimate certainly seems to be in the right ballpark — and a substantial fraction of that capital turns out to be needed by half a dozen of the biggest banks, where is it going to come from? The Times report is very antiseptic, but it’s a fantasy to think that any bank “on the verge” will be able to raise private capital, and the Treasury’s TARP money is nearly exhausted. So then what?

Indeed, Bloomberg concluded that banks “may have a hard time persuading investors to give them cash” due to the number of bad assets they hold, while there is increasing concern that Geithner’s plan for removing the assets will unceremoniously flop.

House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank (D-MA) also announced yesterday that “he no longer plans to expedite a bill that would allow the government to place large financial companies into receivership.” So we’re essentially left in no man’s land, with a growing number of assets, limited tools with which to combat them, and no political will to nationalize and break apart the very worst firms.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/04/24/stress-test-reports/

After Appearing In Gore Ads Last Year, Gingrich Now Decries Green Economy Bill As ‘Path Of Destruction’
Last year, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared in a "We Campaign" advertisement for former Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking alongside Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Gingrich said, "We do agree, our country must take action to address climate change," adding, "if enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need." Watch it: At Link

Today, Gore testified before Congress in favor of clean energy economy bill Waxman-Markey, calling it "one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in the Congress."

Gingrich is following Gore, appearing as the Republican witness to encourage the defeat of Waxman-Markey. Gingrich's remarks reveal that he is taking a starkly different view than the proactive sentiment he displayed in the "We" ad:

GINGRICH: This bill is wrong for our national security. This bill is wrong for our economy. This bill is wrong for the government of, by and for the people. What this bill will do is continue to push us along that path of destruction.

Far from a "path of destruction," Waxman-Markey will cap carbon dioxide emissions while investing in the creation of a green economy with millions of quality clean energy jobs. Rather than addressing the dangers of global climate change or pursuing solutions for developing a clean energy economy, Gingrich will use his hearing time to rehash his tired calls for more offshore drilling. While Gingrich has gone to great lengths to try to greenwash his image, he has always supported a pro-polluter agenda -- from his Contract With America goals of slashing major environmental laws, to his successful work stopping the joint government-industry effort to develop a super-efficient car, to his mocking of simple steps to improve fuel efficiency.

Though Gingrich's sheer hypocrisy is apparent, it should come as no surprise given he is well-funded by oil and coal interests.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/24/gore-gingrich-global/

REPOST: by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:10pm.
I am at a times yelling at rethugs on TV at
C-SPAM.
"Wizard of Odd" {fix'd ex-stray} does not RUN from me, but runs TO me...to calm me by purring and butting his head against me, until I sit & pet his smooth short fur.
;)

yes we know it's your motherfucking opinion

you congenial weed

if it's your dog's opinion then that's news

The answer is so fundamental to what it means to be an American that even discussing it here adds credibility to the doubts only clueless morons ask.

That is the problem. That is why I'm not going to allow the question anymore dignity than a fowl joke, which is all it means to me. It's a vulgar question to the point of making me feel dirty.

Fundamentally un-American to consider it. No more valid than the question an animal might ponder. Good luck continuing to question it.

one step up the ladder

@ any cost...

check out newt

wtf is he doing testifying on green issues

(only in america is this "normal")

when i think of green issues, newt isn't the first name that pops into my head

I think it is time we DEMS & GRNS GO forth with STRENGTH. I do not talk here, much {4 me}, since I am taking care of tooo bloody much and also writing books 4 the Future ... with a wee bit pertaining to WHY DEMS ALLOW THIS TRAVESTY?!?
Thank the Goodness for Rep. Edward Markey. HE gives calm to my soul. Thank Heavens for his STRENGTH through TRUTHS!
TEA TIME & errands & and get Danu in &... sea-ya
;) V *Poof*

SLAVERY was legal in the US.

only the perception of what that is has changed.

I think Kuby is still a little paranoid. That "calculus" might have been plausible in the past environment where Republicans were controlling the message or, perhaps, in a vacuum, but it isn't anymore. This is why it is important for Obama to control it, as well, and it is evident that the weight has shifted to him. Cheney is on the ropes and desperately trying to out-Obama, Obama, which, to me, is laughable. Mr. 18% vs. Mr. 70%? And 18% is me being generous. Who knows where his popularity's at now.

Since Cheney obviously can't manipulate things secretively from behind the curtain anymore, he has now suddenly found his voice and is making a media blitzkrieg, which to anyone who wasn't living under a rock the past eight years, is duplicitous on its face. The public is all of a sudden supposed to trust Cheney as a paragon of transparency? Not likely. He has truly made the mistake of thinking that he has the same power in shaping the public message in person that he had when he pulling levers behind the scenes at the White House. He is trying to save his own ass because he clearly has no faith that anyone else is capable of doing it. In that respect, he's probably right, but if Meghan McCain is telling him "you had your eight years, now go away", then you can imagine what the rest of America thinks of him.

The "calculus" is much different now that Obama controls the message. Any "evidence" that supports torture having "worked", is about as credible as the "evidence" that supported WMD existing in Iraq and will easily be outweighed by how much it didn't work. And, guess what, Cheney was behind both, so his credibility is shot. It's further proven hilarious by him and Rove carting out the ol' "Library Tower" chestnut and by Sean Hannity volunteering to be waterboarded. Seriously!? If that's where they are with their argument, they are truly fucked.

"this machine kills fascists"

Slavery worked, it built much of the wealth of America.

Shouldn't we legalize it again?

See how vulgar that is? See how clueless that made me sound?

And yes, that is how idiotic Kuby sounded yesterday.

Can we be so sure?

Submitted by Leah on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:59pm.

Which is why it's essential not to try to win this argument from a pragmatic standpoint. Torture is both wrong b/c it's abhorrent morally AND b/c it is ultimately ineffective.
===================
I think what Kuby was trying to say is "How can we be sure that our leaders will remain opposed to torture if it is proven that torture works?"

_____________

Don't know "Kuby" from Adam. And my comments are not directed at you, Leah, as I realize you are just an intermediary. If you share "Kuby's" concern, then feel free to respond accordingly.

That said:

If that's "Kuby's" silly reflexively insecure worry, worrying about whether or not we're in deep-shit if torture is proven to work, haveta sez "Kuby's" either grossly ill-informed or he's vividly displaying that muling cringing prating serf-like forelock-tugging bitch-slapped useful-fool side of liberal argumentation ("What will the Republicans DO to us if we're wrong!") that we've seen for so many years.

It's really fucking irritating.

What if the Bush Doctrine is proven to work?

"Oh, noes! We can't express the confidence of our convictions about the wrongness of preventive (not preemptive, please note) war and point to the historical record which shows that regimes like the Nazis, Napolean and the Confederate South employed preventive war -- and how'd that turn out? No, let's not stand on principle, let's go along and see how it works out before we take a stand! Cuz what if the Republicans are right? I mean, what if?!"

And what if tax cuts to the wealthy are proven to increase revenue?

And what if handing over social security to Wall Street were proven to work?

"Boy! Won't we be in trouble w/the 'Murican peoples then?"

"Better let Republicans have their way, or there'll be hell to pay if we're wrong!"

Torture, imo, is non-negotiable. No bet-hedging. No fucking deals. No worrying about Republican demagoguing.

Torture advocates are gonna act like assholes about this no matter what. Mislead. Demagogue. Frighten people, or try.

Libs is got the morality AND the pragmatism on their side. Torture advocates have NEITHER the morality NOR the pragmatism on their side.

So it's really, really, really fucking irritating to hear some guy named "Kuby" is worried about whether or not someone (who? Dick Cheney? who? some pants-shitting turd from National Review? Bill fucking Kristol? who? who are the boogeymen who're gonna advance the torture argument?) persuade the 'Murican people about torture's effectiveness.

Torture has a very long history indeed, and its sole utility lies in (pun intended; sometimes you gotta point 'em out when you get this deep in the weeds): exacting revenge, practicing sadism and extracting false confessions.

The wrong fucking side a history.

Who tortures in history?

The Nazis torture.

The Stalinists torture.

The Maoists torture.

The Inquisitionists torture.

The slave-barons of the American South torture.

How'd that work out? What kind of societies were those? Ones we'd like to emulate? Do we really think we are so fucking exceptional that -- somehow -- we can sanction torture and somehow NOT become the same sort of authoritarian dysptopia?

Newsflash: Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

If "Kuby" can name me one society -- just fucking one -- that officially sanctioned government-endorsed torture and hadda good result, then maybe "Kuby" would have something to worry about.

Otherwise, maybe he oughtta stop shitting his fucking pants over phantom fears re: the "effectiveness" of torture.

"wat up" w/ Fern & Leah eek cuz...}

...continuing Air-O, re "knuut" {ick} I will not walk from this issue. I, at least, can call his numbers and ...etc...
See what happens when I get a wee bit of "sleep" {grrr}.
...but i have errands ;):(

and I get to pick the torture, now that is a different and more evolved question.

Ms_A, Leah and I aren't fighting. We are reacting.

Kuby may be a little paranoid, or a little cautious. I do think he wants people to not allow torture to be used, even if it works. Expose the pragmatism behind the torture ban. Base it on higher ideals. Civilized nations have been known to revert to barbarism during times of strife, even when so-called liberals, are in power. Think of Japanese internment during the "yellow peril" period. What was that all about?

Political talk making you hungry?

Remember the days of freebies all over the net? Some of us still occasionally find and take advantage of them.

I jumped through hoops to reach this url
so you wouldn't have to.

Enjoy (in a few weeks from now)

Quaker
Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond True Delights

-----

Reading this shit I wrote makes me think about a career in writing ad copy. Hell, why not? I need a job.

no bout a doubt it.

He sure is picking an ignorant way to make that discussion. Framing it in a plausible manner dehumanizes all of us and it was offensive. He should know better. I hope the ignorant ass reads this.

And the thought of Cheney having to make a FOIA request is delicious justice in itself!

Two documents!! 21 pages, total!!! Bahaha!

"this machine kills fascists"

I agree with you about slavery. I also agree that we should ensure that torture is morally condemned because it is a violation of human rights, not because it does not work.

He sure is picking an ignorant way to make that discussion. Framing it in a plausible manner dehumanizes all of us and it was offensive. He should know better. I hope the ignorant ass reads this.
======
Send him the link.

If "Kuby" can name me one society -- just fucking one -- that officially sanctioned government-endorsed torture and hadda good result, then maybe "Kuby" would have something to worry about.

Otherwise, maybe he oughtta stop shitting his fucking pants over phantom fears re: the "effectiveness" of torture.
==========
Kuby is not the only one who brought this up. Anyway, is he lying when he claims that "the moral calculus" on torture is based on the premise that torture does not work?

I'm with you. All I know is Kuby is a radio talker but I never listened to him therefore I never got into his program.

Ed Schultz says some dumb things too. Especially the way he poses questions.

I guess I'm used to Sam's analytical mind!

and I get to pick the torture, now that is a different and more evolved question.
====
You're learning.

I find it exceedingly difficult to suffer a fool once they show their ass like that. If he hasn't the sense after being 300 years old like he looks then my meager suggestion would be pissing in the wind.

Ron Kuby is, do you? His politics are good. Can't you see what he is driving at on the torture question?

psst...don't tell her I posted this.

New Liberal Jewish Lobby Quickly Makes Its Mark

J Street Is Leading Pro-Israel PAC, Filings Show, Though Year-Old Group Has Attracted Criticism

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 17, 2009

When a group of Jewish liberals formed a lobbying and fundraising group called J Street a year ago, they had modest hopes of raising $50,000 for a handful of congressional candidates.

Instead, the group's political arm ended up funneling nearly $600,000 to several dozen Democrats and a handful of Republicans in 2008, making it Washington's leading pro-Israel PAC, according to Federal Election Commission expenditure records. Organizers say 33 of the group's 41 favored House and Senate candidates won their races.

"It certainly exceeded our expectations," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's executive director. "We didn't know what level of success we would have. But we think this is a message whose moment has come."

Riding alongside the ascent of President Obama and other liberal Democrats, J Street blends old-style politicking with a media-savvy approach aimed at altering the U.S. political debate over Israel and other Middle East issues.

The group bills itself as the "political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement" and argues that the debate over Israel in the United States has tilted to the right despite the liberal sympathies of most Jewish Americans. J Street supports a "two-state solution" for Israel and the Palestinians and generally favors diplomacy over military force, according to its Web site and statements.

But the group's aggressive tactics have prompted criticism from many established Jewish advocacy groups, which say the project appears calibrated to grab attention and often goes too far in its critiques of Israeli policy. Critics also say J Street has drawn most of its financial contributions from a relatively narrow group of supporters, raising questions about the breadth of its appeal.

J Street's emergence comes as Obama prepares to grapple with a new, hard-line government in Israel led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has not endorsed a separate state for Palestinians, as the United States has done. Obama's Mideast envoy, George J. Mitchell, met with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders yesterday in Jerusalem.

In a break with common practice among U.S. Jewish groups, J Street has not been shy about aggressively criticizing Israeli leaders. This month, the group launched an unusual YouTube video accusing new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of running a "racist and incendiary" election campaign and alleging that many U.S. Jewish leaders are "whitewashing what Lieberman stands for."

Cont @ Washington Post

http://airamerica.com/doingtime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Kuby

it's the methods.

I think that should be "on Lesbos," not that doesn't make it worse.

The ghosts of both my dead dogs are of the opinion that it's weird you should want to outsource your fantasies to a remote Greek island when porn should tell you there are plenty of real and fake lesbians here that are willing to do the work.

your grammar is better than mine. The reference was to say that even a fantasy discussion about the frustrations American men have of lesbians on a remote Greek island was more evolved than what Kuby was asking.

I am thinking of all the times that people refer to islands, even islands that aren't groups of islands like Hawaii is , and say "in" (like, I don't think you say "on Sicily"). So I don't know...

I realize you don't care. I'm just trying to back-pedal a little before Crank shows up.

"On Lesbos" still seems right, though.

Hi Brett.

J Street soft pedals it. I was in groups in the 1990s that were far more aggressive in criticizing Israel's leaders and politics. I am glad they are out there, though.

<"In a break with common practice among U.S. Jewish groups, J Street has not been shy about aggressively criticizing Israeli leaders. This month, the group launched an unusual YouTube video accusing new Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of running a "racist and incendiary" election campaign and alleging that many U.S. Jewish leaders are "whitewashing what Lieberman stands for.">

http://www.peacelobby.org/JPLFoundingStatement1989.htm

I've heard there are Christian schools where you can get in lesbos even up to third year. (I've heard it from the fishes' own mouths, in some cases.)

for the link.

It's probably like 3 nuts, but free's free. :)

Clearly, I didn't know that to find a lesbian without conviction you had to attend a Christian based organization.

Hey Fernando and leah and gloryoski, glad I could be of service.

that Sam Seder will be on "Doing Time With Ron Kuby" in a few minutes.
http://airamerica.com/doingtime

[deleted double-post; inkernets warn't workin' for quite a stretch right after attempting original post and thought it hadn't took]

Pressure Drop!

about the torture stuff, Sam.

Do me a favor, if or when MMR steps into the room, slap him (softly) upside the head and tell him to check his damn 737 Yahoo inbox. He obviously hasn't checked his mail all week.

Thank you kindly

;)

I gotta go, later

A Glimpse of the Dark Side
Dick Cheney apparently kept a file in his office marked "Detainees" (.pdf).

The document in question, obtained by Greg Sargent, is Cheney's request to the National Archives to declassify and release certain documents that he says "proves" that U.S. torture produced actionable intelligence.

In particular he requests two CIA reports: a 12-page report dated July 13, 2004, and a 19-page report dated June 1, 2005.

But note especially that Cheney's request identifies a specific folder marked "Detainees" kept in "OVP Cheney Immediate Office Files."

Late Update: I'll leave it to others more expert than I am in the timeline of the evolution of our torture policy to figure out where those two CIA reports fit in, but I'm a little surprised at first glance by how late those reports are dated, coming well after the 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah and the 2003 capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Later Update: Ask and ye shall receive. Spencer Ackerman explains why those dates are significant. The point here is that by 2004-05, the Administration's self-justification for its torture policy was well underway. These reports are not contemporaneous accounts of what intelligence the torture yielded. Rather, the CIA and Cheney were papering the file well after the fact.

Now, I know some of you will say it doesn't matter whether torture worked or not. This is true, as far as it goes. But there's a large body of evidence not only that torture doesn't work generally, but that that it didn't work specifically when implemented by the U.S. (or didn't work any better than non-criminal methods would have worked). So while I've seen a lot of well-reasoned arguments about why the debate shouldn't be framed as did the torture work or not, I would say that is merely one part of a wide-ranging debate, and there's no reason to concede that point to Cheney's mendacity.

--David Kurtz

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/a_glimpse_of_the_dark_...

I'll try to find a pleasant way to put it.

...that was traumatic hearing Sam's intro music on Ron Kuby's show, knowing Sam would be sooooooo much better in that spot and getting only five minutes of him. But, of course, five minutes of Sam is worth more than three hours of someone else :(

Did you ever meet (or hear of) Don Manning? He was a jazz drummer from way back. I believe he started in Seattle in the 1940s. Played everywhere. Don had a radio show on a community station I used to listen to. He talked about hanging out with "Bird and Diz". He sometimes mentioned Shorty Roger, too. I think you said you played with Shorty Rogers. Anyway...

BREAKING: WE HAVE A WINNER
Republican Jim Tedisco concedes to Democrat Scott Murphy in the razor-thin election in the NY-20. The concession came in a phone call from Tedisco to Murphy, Eric Kleefeld reports.

Murphy should send Al Franken flowers. The special election in New York was March 31, nearly five months after Franken's win in November, yet Murphy will be seated first.

--David Kurtz

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/goper-tedisco-concedes-ny-20-...

Senate Report Accidentally Reveals SERE Instructors Trained CIA Officials In Torture
By Brian Beutler - April 24, 2009, 11:24AM
One of the big revelations to come out of the Senate Armed Services Committee report on so-called aggressive interrogation techniques is an early July 2002 training session where officials from the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA)--the agency that oversees the SERE training program--provided "assistance to another government agency." Much of this section of the report is blacked out, so I'll connote blacked out sections with asterisks [***], but the report says JPRA was assisting this agency "on topics such as '*** deprivation techniques,' 'exploitation and questioning techniques,' and 'developing countermeasures to resistance techniques.'" According to the report, "[t]he training was intended to "prepare *** officers for rotations in Afghanistan and elsewhere."

Spencer Ackerman reported on this section in detail when the report was first released, noting what has long been reported, but never officially acknowledged. Spencer writes, "a JPRA team assisted a squad from 'another government agency' during the first six months of 2002 that would be 'sent to interrogate a high level al Qaeda operative.'"

"'Another government agency'," Spencer writes, "is a widespread euphemism for the CIA."

Read more »

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/senate_report_accident...

I guess he's being allowed to make the rounds today because of the ballot thing. At least he gets to plug BRL.

Democrats Strike Blow For Health Care--Budget Will Contain Reconciliation Process
By Brian Beutler - April 24, 2009, 2:31PM
Congressional Quarterly and The New Republic are reporting that House and Senate negotiators, along with members of the Obama administration, have determined that the final budget will include reconciliation instructions for health care.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003102131

As I detailed in this post--already outdated--that's a huge deal. Keep the date October 15 in mind. If the House and Senate don't agree on a comprehensive health reform bill by that date, this tactic will be operative.

Now the conferees will smooth over other discrepancies between the House and Senate budgets and then both bodies will vote on a final resolution.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/democrats-strike-major-blow-f...

"We're here...We're talking like this...Get used to it

Sam was really funny on yesterday's show...

it's all part of marginalising anything with teeth & wit

unless something radical happens

sam will never land a job on mainstrean tv...

ed "i know nothing" schultz is m.o.r.

perfect for the palate of soft-skulled cretins

I get J-Street's newsletter...

Kuby wants debate...

Submitted by Leah on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 2:49pm.

Kuby may be a little paranoid, or a little cautious. I do think he wants people to not allow torture to be used, even if it works. Expose the pragmatism behind the torture ban. Base it on higher ideals. Civilized nations have been known to revert to barbarism during times of strife, even when so-called liberals, are in power. Think of Japanese internment during the "yellow peril" period. What was that all about?

________________

The Japanese internment was a national disgrace. One of the few things the Bush administration DIDN'T actively fuck-up was instituting some kinda internment program on Muslims, much to the chagrin of many in their base (Michelle "The Case for Internment" Malkin, I'ma lookin' at you). And yes, liberals are far from free of dirty hands (Johnson ramped up the Vietnam war w/the Gulf a Tonkin rez. etc.) Granted. But the point is about here and now, and it's primarily liberals who are against torture, and primarily conservatives who are for it. That's the field as it stands, so that's what we're dealin with.

That said:

Kuby sounds like one of those Alan Colmes meek apologizing "liberals" who secretly feels all the right ways but is forever losing his nerve in making a forceful public argument. The kinda "liberal" who worries about what Republicans think before he formulates what he's gonna say. The kinda "liberal" who Karl Rove can make so pathologically self-conscious as to be viewed as a spineless amoeba will split himself in two before making a stand on principle.

This "debate" over the efficacy of torture is, to me, the most insulting and infuriating part about this whole very necessary exercise in deconstructing and defusing and exposing willful violent reactionary counterproductive stupidity.

That we must actively marshall arguments and "debate" what should be self-evident to any thinking much less feeling person is an embarrassment. But "debate" we must.

Question is: Do we do it intelligently and confidently and incisively and effectively, or do we pule and maunder and wince and apologize and worry over Republican "what ifs"?

This insipid but necessary "debate" points to a signal failure of both imagination (failure to see where letting the torture genie outta the bottle will inevitably lead) and of courage.

Do we believe in our so-called American fucking ideals or don't we?

These torture advocates are the very worst kinds of sunshine patriot charlatans.

These are windy dead-letter "laws-for-thee-but-not-for-me" unitary-executive authoritarians who haven't even the faith in the very ideals they profess to uphold and purport to vouchsafe, and instead they seek to subvert and corrupt and despoil those ideals so that they may "save" them.

Only Orwell could do justice to that.

I doubt there will be such a thing as "mainstream tv."

The GOP: divorced from reality.

The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.

By Bill Maher

The Los Angeles Times

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,927819.sto...

Wrong group in which to say LOL@ this right?

(Oopsie, slipped out.) ;}

I'm off to work.

Later

you make me want to lock the door before I should, which could get me in trouble.

Just so's ya know. It's on y'all.

One down. One to go. Unfortunately, we have to wait 'til June on that one.

WTG, Murphy.

Up next: Steele's resignation.

about torture by Kuby
http://airamerica.com/doingtime

He heard Sammy was coming for him and shit himself....(that's my take anyway).

Maybe Franken should fly Sammy up to the Twin Cities to deal with Coleman....

Seder will punk slap his lilly white ass and send him packing....

Productive Procrastination

FreeRice

*YAWN* next...

Really, it is not worth the argument....

Submitted by Leah on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 2:58pm.
---------
If "Kuby" can name me one society -- just fucking one -- that officially sanctioned government-endorsed torture and hadda good result, then maybe "Kuby" would have something to worry about.

Otherwise, maybe he oughtta stop shitting his fucking pants over phantom fears re: the "effectiveness" of torture.
==========
Kuby is not the only one who brought this up. Anyway, is he lying when he claims that "the moral calculus" on torture is based on the premise that torture does not work?

________________

It's an opinion, not a matter of lying.

And no, if that's what Kuby thinks, I b'lieve he's got it exactly backwards.

The so-called "moral calculus" on torture is based on the premise that it's self-evidently repugnant and abhorrent to any thinking and feeling person. Beyond that, it barbarizes not only the tortured but the torturers AND the society that condones it.

It also, I might add, fucks up the legal and criminal justice system b/c alla sudden you can't use evidence gleaned under torture in court (or you gotta change the laws to allow said evidence to be admissable, which also leads to further abuse via the extraction of false confessions by authorities who KNOW something a priori and set out to prove it via torture; handy little system for authoritarian assholes).

So now, b/c you can't use the legal system nomores, you gotta abduct people offa the streets (who you KNOW are guilty) 'n take 'em to some fucking "black site" somewheres. And then torture them.

And then they rat out a buncha innocent peoples and maybe some guilty ones, too, but the torturers don't know which is which b/c the tortured schmuck (who may or may not be guilty, so may or may not be valuable, to a torturer who may or may not care) just said anything and everything to make the torturers fucking stop torturing him (or her).

And of course nobody would ever ABUSE the torture regime (as if, please), to, say, extract false confessions regarding, say, links to al Qaeda for Saddam Hussein's Iraq (b/c they KNOW this, so just need to prove it). That'd never happen, so thankfully we ain't gotta worry about anything like that ever happenin'.

What's really stupid about alla this, too, is when people say torture "works", you can, if you are speaking to someone who understands fine degrees of distinction, concede that, yes, torture "can" work. In the sense that, sometimes, leavened in w/alla the false confessions and wrongful information you glean from torture, you *can* glean correct information.

But here's the rub:

It is actually quicker, more effective and more humane to use *traditional* interrogation methods to glean this information AND professioinal interrogators drastically reduce the useless and/or bad leads and/or false confessions information by NOT torturing. That is the sense in which torture CAN, under very limited circumstances, be understood to "work" -- albeit inna counterproductive, inefficient, barbaric way.

E.g.:

If you wish to swat a fly inna crowded room, you *can* drop a 500-lb. bomb onnit. It, too, like torture, will "work".

It just tends to have a lotta undesirable blowback.

Why not just use the fucking flyswatter?

Fernando's point was prolly valid (I don't know "Kuby" so I can't say): The guy's heart is prolly in the right place, but if he's fretting over "what ifs" on torture, he ain't hunting in the right milo field.

My objection isn't to his heart, it's to tentative pearl-clutching reflexive cowering before people who have been repudiated in every way possible.

This ain't no time to be fretting over whether or not torture "works". It's the wrong question.

The point is: Professional interrogators can get the same information that torture will yield, quicker, plus they can derive more and better information (b/c usin' yer mind and not your barbarism more efficiently separates the wheat from the chaff, thereby reducing the HUGE downsides of torture -- apart from, you know, its barbarism -- that being false leads, false confessions, abuses of power, etc.).

Alla that upside w/o sacrificing our humanity or ideals.

Smells like win-win to me.

sorry, cent

i'll just remove your rose coloured glasses

[stomps on glasses]

sam ain't no jon stewart

Kuby is calling for special prosecutors to look into the torture. And prosecute if the findings warrarrant prosecution. Release the memos Cheney is chirping about. too.

Kuby....

Submitted by cent on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 5:11pm.

*YAWN* next...

Really, it is not worth the argument....

_____________

That's one way a lookin' at it.

Course, another way is if folks can persuade the feckless chickenshit Alan Colmes liberals of the world to stop making muling apologies for their beliefs and start making forceful arguments based upon principled conviction, perhaps the torture "debate" might have a better chance of having a more beneficial outcome.

But yer mileage will vary.

(Yawn.)

Why should I give a flying fuck what he says? Like I said, it is not worth the argument...Droll or not....I really don't care.

For me there is no argument on the torture "debate" either...They lied and broke the spirit and letter of the laws and conventions we hold others to...They should receive the same punishment we have requested the world issue to others who have committed similar crimes...

Anything less compromises our word and national integrity...

calls it "prosecutorial disgression:. If factual information was obtained through torture, a prosecutor could look the other way concerning the mistreatment of the accused.

("never taking responsibility for anything") somebody owes me two dollars ten cents for having been such as asshole after midnight last night. :P

(And it's not me. How would I pay myself?)

that's clear. It's just entertainment and something for him to spout about.

(but seeing kuby, kuby, kuby and cent's post to dr droll)

kuby said what!?

quick call the fire brigade

someone lit a match next to a swimming pool full of water!

she's gonna blow!

: )

I don't listen to Kuby dr...

Submitted by cent on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 5:28pm.

Why should I give a flying fuck what he says? Like I said, it is not worth the argument...Droll or not....I really don't care.

For me there is no argument on the torture "debate" either...They lied and broke the spirit and letter of the laws and conventions we hold others to...They should receive the same punishment we have requested the world issue to others who have committed similar crimes...

Anything less compromises our our word and national integrity...

________________

If you don't listen to Kuby, how would you know he's not worth the effort?

Did you try to understand what was at issue before you commented onnit, or do you not care but still wish to comment onnit anyway?

If your point is the torture "debate" is ridiculous, then I agree. I hate it. It should never be happening.

But if your point is the torture "debate" is unnecessary, then this is where you 'n me part ways.

Surely you don't think the torture issue will magically disappear w/a favorable outcome just b/c it ought to, do you?

My point is this: Even tho' this is a world-historical epic absurdity, the torture "debate" still must be waged and won.

Now, either you agree that that's true or you don't. If you don't, fair enough, we disagree.

If you do, then I maintain that it matters to have some 'sposedly liberal guy broadcasting to thousands 'n thousands of listeners who is either grossly ill-informed, a puling chickenshit, or both.

That. Matters.

B/c he's an embarrassment who instructs others in how to argue ineffectively and embarrassingly.

And to speak perfectly plainly, after having spent a fair amount of time scribbling my viewpoints on the topic, for you to breezily show up and summarily dismiss the Kuby discussion as not worth the (presumably your) time (and then thereafter admitting you don't listen to Kuby anyway, so how would you know?), strikes me as rather flip.

Were you trying to be provocative or did it just work out that way?

If you think reforming the media (who shape public opinion, which is the arena in which this idiotic-but-necessary "debate" will be won or lost) is a waste of time, then again, we disagree. Kuby is a part of that debate. He influences people, for good or ill, who in turn influence myriad others.

And while it's true as you say that they broke the law and they *should* be punished, you and I both know that don't mean jack-shit in the real world w/o molding public opinion to reflect that reality. It don't just happen b/c it *should* happen.

And my point being, it won't happen if the Bush officials manage to turn this into a "debate" about "enhanced interrogation techniques" that "reasonable people can disagree" "work". That process of equivocation is aided by chickenshit arguments like those advanced by Kuby.

Which is why I think it matters.

is hiring an Assistant Director of Admissions.

If I could make up the right kind of totally fake resume, the mind reels....

//And my point being, it won't happen if the Bush officials manage to turn this into a "debate" about "enhanced interrogation techniques" that "reasonable people can disagree" "work". That process of equivocation is aided by chickenshit arguments like those advanced by Kuby.//

your argument is valid

and of use as a template against the "kubys"

(having not listened to kuby)

Submitted by air-ono on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 5:36pm.

(but seeing kuby, kuby, kuby and cent's post to dr droll)

kuby said what!?

quick call the fire brigade

someone lit a match next to a swimming pool full of water!

she's gonna blow!

: )

-----------

true, doc

Submitted by air-ono on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 6:00pm.

//And my point being, it won't happen if the Bush officials manage to turn this into a "debate" about "enhanced interrogation techniques" that "reasonable people can disagree" "work". That process of equivocation is aided by chickenshit arguments like those advanced by Kuby.//

your argument is valid

and of use as a template against the "kubys"

_______________

That both of these notions coexist happily in yer mind at the same time is to you, no doubt, a sign of yer Fitzgeraldian genius, whereas to the rest of the world, it but provides ample evidence of schizophrenia.

Michele Happe interview on brr
Only here for a limited time.. ;-)

What up ? Torture ? No accountability ? Same old,same old ?

Sucks !

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

:)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

for me. I never hear anything.

you might take note of the chronological order of my 2 posts...

just a suggestion

(tarzan)

you're in for a shellacking

Hi Ho, Sederville!

We know about HR 875 "Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009." Did you know there are MORE?

From Global Research:

S 425: "Food Safety and Tracking Improving Act." Introduced on February 12 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. It purports: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for the establishment of a traceability system for food, to amend the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspections Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act. and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide for improved public health and food safety through enhanced enforcement, and for other purposes."

HR 814: "Trace Act of 2009." Introduced on February 3 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Inspection Act, and the Egg Products Inspection Act to improve the safety of food, meat, and poultry products through enhanced traceability, and for other purposes."

HR 759: "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009." Introduced on January 28 and referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It's: "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improved the safety of food, drugs, devices, and cosmetics in the global market, and for other purposes."

If its critics are right, HR 875 (and the others) are what Linn Cohen-Cole calls "Monsanto's dream bill" to proliferate the world with GMO contamination and control its entire food supply.
much more at link...

Go to www.LeaveMyFoodAlone.org to sign a petition to STOP HR 825!!!

Tell yer friends, too.

Good Evening!

:)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

the Jeff Farias show ;)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

It started this time.

Hope your doing well.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

um, doc

Submitted by air-ono on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 6:16pm.

you might take note of the chronological order of my 2 posts...

just a suggestion

(tarzan)

____________

And you might pause a moment in reflection once inna while before you post reflexively contrarian twaddle whose only redeeming value is to flex yer nihilistic narcissism.

Just a suggestion.

you're a cutey, mmr

and i'm going to miss you

ok, times up...

fuck you

(i'm a cutey, too)

Happy Birthday Eve (?)

Right? :)

from the ACLU
Fusion Center Declares Nation’s Oldest Universities Possible Terrorist Threat (4/6/2009)

Internal Document Warns Against Virginia Student Organizations And Associations

WASHINGTON -- A recently published “terrorism threat assessment” from a Virginia fusion center says the state’s universities and colleges are “nodes for radicalization” and encourages law enforcement to monitor First Amendment-protected activities of educational and religious foundations as terrorism threats. The document, which drew concern today from the American Civil Liberties Union over its constitutional implications, also characterizes the “diversity” surrounding a Virginia military base and the state’s “historically black” colleges as possible threats. The March 2009 document, which claims there are currently at least fifty active “terrorist and extremist” groups in Virginia, is posted on the website http://cryptome.sabotage.org/.

~snip~
“There is an appalling lack of oversight at these fusion centers and they are becoming – as the ACLU has repeatedly warned – a breeding ground for overzealous police intelligence activities,” said Michael German, ACLU Policy Counsel and former FBI Agent. “The Virginia threat assessment isn’t just disturbing for encouraging police to treat education and religious practices with suspicion, it’s bad law enforcement. Lawmakers from all levels of government need to enact legislation to protect against these spying activities that threaten our democracy while doing nothing to improve security.”

In 2007, the ACLU released a report entitled, “What’s Wrong With Fusion Centers?” which was updated last year. The report identifies specific concerns with fusion centers, including their ambiguous lines of authority, the troubling role of private corporations, the participation of the military, the use of data mining and the excessive secrecy surrounding the centers.

michele was having problems d/ling it with FoxFire but was able to do it with Safari np.

The file is12.8mb and I think that was what was chocking her FoxFire. Some of her addons must have had issues with the size mabye? I dunno.

the discussion about torture is out of control. what most strikes me is the degree to which anyone right of center is going to minimize, defend, or otherwise downplay torture always followed by we should continue to do it to keep our country safe, and we should just move on.

i just heard some woman screeching on the ed show at bill press about how can we call what we did torture when we know the iraqis were drilling holes in peoples head and shocking them to death.

the right has lost all sense of proportion. is this all about defending bush and cheney or is it more about not wanting to accept that perhaps they just spent the last eight years being good germans?

Hey mmr
new
Submitted by gloryoski on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 6:31pm.
Happy Birthday Eve (?)

Right? :)
*******

Just doing the getting old thang.. ;)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Submitted by dan on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 6:43pm.

the right has lost all sense of proportion. is this all about defending bush and cheney or is it more about not wanting to accept that perhaps they just spent the last eight years being good germans?

______________

Ding.-Ding.-Ding.

The former for the Washington elites and government officials and the "intellectual" true-believers, imo, (reputations 'n careers is at stake, after all!), and the latter accounts for a lot of it w/yer garden-variety rank-'n-defiled conservatives, I think.

It's all about them, at this point.

And as always spite, delusion and denial are the animating factors.

Ya gots yer "well, we ain't as bad as them Iraqis, anyways!" good Germans, 'n ya gots yer "we are 'Muricans, which makes us inherently exceptional, which makes us above reproach, so it's okay when we do it" good Germans, 'n ya gots yer "it warn't even torture, really" good Germans 'n prolly lots more stripes a good Germans I even ain't got near the energy to dredge up at the moment.

Brett wants you to check your 737 email on yahoo.

MMR
new
Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 6:56pm.
Brett wants you to check your 737 email on yahoo.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

I just sent Brett a email..
Been busy this week..Dr's etc..Got behind big time
on emails.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

President Obama needs to pardon Bush and Cheney and his cabinet.

How many hits of acid is he on?

Said the country would be ripped apart if investigated. Guess what Pat - you helped rip this country apart by carrying their water.

I have listened to them both enough to know that I really don't care a whole lot about what they have to say....consequently, I don't listen to them...see how that works? The only thing on this planet that gives their word ANY weight is the fact that people listen to them dr, and spend countless hours discussing their words. Do you see where I am going?

He is a bobblehead dr. I submit that in the end my method of dealing with kuby will be more effective than yours...

Not being evasive dr, and I didn't mean to push yer buttons on this. We both know his statement was invalid on its face. I don't have the time right now to address your points cause I am headed out. The "media reform" statement is something we will butt heads on though...

For now lets just say my comment may have been flip. But that does not mean it is invalid.

What's that Assclown still doing on TV anyways ? !

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

is that the definition of people who don't believe in the existence of the Constitution or what?

Happy Birthday.

say/hear _assclown_ or _asshat_?

Just wondering.

Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday Dear M M RULES!
Happy Birth- Day tooooo youuuu!

You know, like xmas eve?

But I forget who said so, so...I don't know.

tomorrow.. :)

But,thank you again.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

The same way I know Big Ed isn't worth the effort dr....

Submitted by cent on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 7:12pm.

I have listened to them both enough to know that I really don't care a whole lot about what they have to say....consequently, I don't listen to them...see how that works? The only thing on this planet that gives their word ANY weight is the fact that people listen to them dr, and spend countless hours discussing their words. Do you see where I am going?

He is a bobblehead dr. I submit that in the end my method of dealing with kuby will be more effective than yours...

___________

OK, let's try a little logic exercise:

Rush Limbaugh "is a bobblehead".

"I don't care a whole lot about what he has to say."

"The only thing that gives his word ANY weight is the fact that people listen to them."

Right?

(Now, gosh darnit, if we can just get people to stop talking about and acting upon and voting according to what Limbaugh has to say, we're home free.)

For the record: No. I don't see where you are going.

And no, I don't see how that works.

Kuby and Schultz ain't as influential as Limbaugh, granted.

But I fail to see how the logic as it's applied to Kuby fails to adhere to Limbaugh, just a smaller scale.

So I submit that you are mistaken. In two ways.

In the smaller sense, about the likes of Kuby and Schultz, I believe it's important to challenge the representatives of "your" side to do "your" side credit. To advance forceful, well-thought-out arguments that are persuasive to liberal-minded folks. Not to educate liberal-minded folks in how to cower like a beat dog in fear of an opposition party that has been thoroughly repudiated by history. That's the liberal side of media reform.

And from the conservative side, I believe that one of the most pernicious aspects of the last 30 years (Reagan forward) is that "liberals" ceded the field of argument to conservatives, who took advantage of that vacuum and moved the spectrum of acceptable political discourse waaaaaaaay to the right.

That didn't happen by accident. It happened b/c conservatives got jiggy w/their rhetoric and liberals let conservatives kick sand in their face.

So if yer point is these people is "bobbleheads", you'll get no objection from me. But if yer point is we can ignore these people merely b/c they're "bobbleheads", I'd sez we disagree purty strongly.

They may be bobbleheads, but they are ignored at our own risk.

And yes, yer comment was flip. And yes, that don't mean it was invalid.

Just happen to believe that it was.

re: Looking Forward
new
Submitted by dr on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 1:35pm.
For all me, I see no reason why Obama's formulation of "looking forward" precludes investigations and prosecutions of law-breaking re: torture.

Holding government officials accountable for their crimes is very much "looking forward".

It "looks forward" to a day when government officials respect our laws and our liberties and don't arbitrarily ignore and/or violate them w/the worry-free non-chalance of one who knows he will not be punished.
------------------------
I think that we already agree on a few stipulations but here they are just in case we don't agree.

Obama's Conundrum
1.) Obama wants his momentum to continue unabated by any off-topic sideshow. It's a valid wish because any distraction gives his detractors another opportunity to attempt to get something moving against Obama.
2.) Obama knows that he cannot defend a decree by himself to squash an investigation that gained momentum out of the surfacing of increasingly damning evidence. He is sworn to uphold the law. Instead, he counsels us to "look forward" because he has abolished the torture practices and has brought the records into the sunlight.
3.) Cheney won't shut up and go away which makes Obama's caution to "look forward" less possible to sell. Obama cannot possibly put the torture episode behind us by declaring it wrong and ended while Cheney is saying that it was not wrong, it was productive, and that it is a grievous mistake to end it now.
---------------
Okay. This is what I would advise Obama but I don't believe for one fucking minute that it would happen.

Obama should lay this out to the public (paraphrased short form): "I don't want to give the partisan Right anything that they can use to derail our progress. The partisan Right and Dick Cheney disagree that the torture practices should end. So long as they continue this hue and cry, our progress is in jeopardy of being derailed. If the investigations continue and, possibly, crimes are prosecuted, that too endangers our progress.

I no longer see a way out of this now untenable position that I find myself in, so I say this my fellow citizens: I will neither promote nor counsel against investigations and prosecutions. I will leave it to the legislative and judicial branches and the evidence to take them wherever they feel obligated by their oaths to go.

In the meantime, I ask that you stay with me in pressing forward toward our goals. My time will continue to be devoted to the economy, ending the war, etc.

//imo//~dr
Submitted by air-ono on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 2:20pm.
yes we know it's your motherfucking opinion
you congenial weed
if it's your dog's opinion then that's news
---------
File this under Man Bites Dog newsworthiness:

Ono Bites Tongue

Crank:

I left you a little chestnut warmin' over the hearth fire on the 'Murican Casino thread.

...what time Morn or Eve? Also, I play for my DOB, TWO Plus days & others play a week ... sooo Kewl 2 U

If waterboarding is torture and it works to help keep Americans safe, and that's okay...

...what if gang-raping a captured female Muslim (failed) suicide bomber elicits important information that helps to keep Americans safe?

Seems right to me. What could possibly be wrong with it? Where is the moral boundary? I mean, what's the fucking difference?

I think,Ms_Anthrope..

Maybe you can change my luck.. ;)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Colbert is so good with cows!!

The Obama Conundrum
Submitted by Crank Bait on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 7:43pm.

_______________

Well, Cheney has certainly (stupidly, for his interests, anyway, but tx. for being reckless loose-shotgun for once) opened the door for a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger moment, "forcing" Obama to "do something" and then Obama can step away and let it takes its course.

My point about "looking forward" wasn't strategical or tactical but simply semantical.

It is not, at all, inconceivable much less incompatible that "looking forward" (inna thoughtful conscientious way) means ensuring that this kinda shit doesn't happen again by conducting investigations and prosecutions as necessary.

Obama wisely doesn't wanna get his hands dirty and nor does he have to. That's Justice's job.

We'll see.

re: your specific point, tho', I'm not sure he even has to get that explicit. If he makes a high-minded show of not wanting to turn this into a partisan issue and ask both sides to do the same, he can lay it off on Justice.

(I guess the quibble I see in what you proposed is Obama would seem to be trying to get shed of a partisan issue so he can continue advancing a partisan agenda. All of which is true, but it don't seem like it pays for Obama to give the GOP bottom-feeders a wedge to try'n erode Obama's popularity.)

dr,

I don't have any excuses for the sulfur gaffe but I do have three reasons.

I have been taking a prescription drug in doses that cause cocaine-like aggression, impatience, restlessness and insomnia. The effects are mental and physical; a false sense of invincibility, get out of my way cuz I'm in a hurry, and all of that.

Usually I find a zillion fasteners to install or something so that I can use the mania for something productive.

Anyway, that's the first reason. The second reason is that the Google spell check bar has started randomly telling me that there are no fields to check, so I have to preview the comment (where the Google software genius, for some reason, recognizes the field needing review every fucking time).

I was in a hurry when I posted the Old Scratch quip. The Spell Check bar failed me. I was artificially pharmaceutically agitated. I said (growled), "Fuck it! I'm posting the sumbitch before I kill something." That's the third reason. I didn't spell-check a damn thing.

And so far I haven't killed anything. (I gnawed on gloryoski a little but she was too tough and I threw her back.)

i herd Sammy in the Thom Hartmann show today on the radio
while driving in traffic southbound I-355.

and:

Cheney IS STILL a dick! >:(

Evenin' my droogies! Still super bust at the moment, no time to chat, but i wanted to pass this along for anyone interested in hearing Randi Rhodes again. This just found my inbox:

Hello,

Peace,
John Scott
The Program Director of Green960 Online and Radio

So you'll be able to stream via Green960 and probably find a local broadcast announced soon. Still, i'd rather have Sam and Maron on the air for more than an hour... [/gripe]

Break over, back to work... cheers!
-Your friendly neighborhood Spunk-Monkey

dr,

The "coming clean" speech idea is only to do as much damage control as possible for a situation that Obama finds himself in which is sure to be damaging any way it goes. The question is (with regard ONLY to preserving Obama's political capital), which route is the least damaging?

I (and most observers) don't see this torture/crime issue going away any time soon. Obama can either be proactive and say, "I didn't want it to come to this but, dammit, if laws have been broken I am not going to stand in the way," or he can let it all wash over him (or steamroll over him) as he lets the chips fall where they may while tiptoeing around the torture investigation like it isn't there and trying to manage the press releases about the economy, war, etc.

I just have ALWAYS Luv'd your name & Poe is a FAV
since youth...
Your name reminds me TO GET TO WORK. {a whip sound is heard in background}
;)

watching Olberman?

“No more fine print; no more confusing terms and conditions.” This is what Barack Obama told a White House gathering of leading credit card issuers this week.

Right afterward, President Obama told the press that “there has to be strong and reliable protections for consumers, protections that ban unfair rate increases and forbid abusive fees and penalties.”

This soaring rhetoric places a heavy burden on Mr. Obama to stand up to the giant power of the credit card bosses and their monetized allies on Capitol Hill. Yet he has shown little interest in re-instating a Presidential consumer advisor as did Lyndon Johnson with the formidable Betty Furness and as did Jimmy Carter with the legendary Esther Peterson.

Deep recession times are tough for the nation’s over 200 million consumers. Still, no consumer voice in the White House, though consumer groups asked Mr. Obama to move promptly on this tiny advocacy office months ago.

The corporate chieftains have easy access to the White House and the new President, whether these bosses come on missions demanding power or missions of beggary for bailouts. When will he meet with the leading heads of consumer protection groups with millions of dues-paying members who could give him the base to hold accountable and regulate the democracy-denying, economy-wrecking corporate supremacists?

“Where’s the Backbone?” asked Ruth Marcus, the usually-restrained lawyer-columnist for The Washington Post. On April 15, 2009 she wrote: “When will President Obama fight, and when will he fold? That’s not entirely clear—and I’m beginning to worry that there may be a little too much presidential inclination to crumple.” Ms. Marcus asserts that “for all the chest-thumping about making hard choices and taking on entrenched interests, there has been disturbingly little evidence of the new president’s willingness to do that.” This is the case even with his allies in Congress, never mind his adversaries.

Just four days later, The New York Times weighed in with a page one news article that said President Obama “is well known for bold proposals that have raised expectations, but his administration has shown a tendency for compromise and caution, and even a willingness to capitulate on some early initiatives. …His early willingness to deal or fold has left commentators, and some loyal Democrats, wondering: ‘Where’s the fight?’” Like the Post, the Times gave examples.

It is not as if Mr. Obama is lacking in public opinion support. Overall he has a 65% approval rating. People know he inherited a terrible situation here and abroad from the Bush regime and they want action. Large majorities believe America is declining, that there is too much corporate control over their lives, and that the two parties have been failing the American people.

But the President’s personality is not one to challenge concentrated power. A Zogby poll reports that only six percent of the public supports the financial bailouts for Wall Street. The vast majority of people do not think the bailouts are fair.

The upcoming 100 day mark for the Obama administration is a customary time for evaluations by the politicos, the pundits, and the civic community. While his supporters can point to the pay-equity law for women, more health insurance for poor children, and a $787 billion economic stimulus enactment, the general appraisal by the liberal-progressive intelligentsia is decidedly mixed and gentle with undiluted hope.

Mr. Obama nourishes these mixed feelings. He showed some courage when he agreed, as part of an ongoing court case, to release the four torture memos written by Bush’s Justice Department. Graphic photos of prisoner treatment in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be released next week. Yet Obama came out against a Truth Commission regarding the alleged crimes of the Bush regime and said he would “look forward and not look back.” For Obama that means immunity for anyone from the Bush Administration who may have violated the criminal laws of the land.

It is remarkable to read those oft-repeated words by lawyer Obama. Law enforcement is about looking back into the past. Investigation and prosecution obviously deals with crimes that have already occurred. That’s the constitutional duty of the President.

After 100 days it is far too early to render many judgments about Obama. One can, however, evaluate his major appointments—heavily Clintonite and corporate. One can also look at what he hasn’t gotten underway at all—such as labor law reform, a living wage, and citizen empowerment.

Next Monday, the Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org) releases a detailed report card on Obama’s first 100 days titled “Thirsting for a Change.” While The Nation held a panel discussion on April 22 in Washington, D.C., the panelists largely gave Obama the benefit of the doubt so far, and declared that only grassroots mobilizing will move him forward on such matters as “single-payer” health care, corporate abuse, and the demilitarization of our foreign policy and our federal budget.

Panelist William Grieder coined the phrase “independent formulations” to describe the citizen action needed.

It is important to note that a transforming President has to ask for and encourage this pressure from the citizenry, much as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in the 1930s.

- END -

http://nader.org/

Submitted by Crank Bait on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 8:15pm
*******

Welcome to our world !

The highly And/or moderately medicated world.. :)

Now, "Watch Out For That Tree" !

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Slavery is the highest from of capitalism. Just as torture, is a corner stone of totalitarianism. Predictably, here, most people view their work as both slavery and torture. Both institutions have worked splendidly for thousands of years, and soon will once again be the norm, including here:

U.S. Cities Increasing Use of Armed Mercenaries to Replace Police
By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. Posted April 24, 2009.

Some estimate that private security inside the US actually outnumber police 5-to-1.

The United States is in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in its history. We see this in schools, health care, prisons, and certainly with the US military/national security/intelligence apparatus.

"The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States," according to the Washington Post. Some estimate that private security operate inside the U.S. at a 5-to-1 ratio with police.

In New Orleans at the time, I interviewed Israeli commandos from a company called Instinctive Shooting International as they operated an armed checkpoint on Charles Street after having been hired by a wealthy businessman. I also interviewed private guards who bragged of shooting "black gangbangers....."
http://www.alternet.org/story/138180/u.s._cities_increasing_use_of_armed...

Or discussion of public finance. And of course, apparently noticed by no one, Ron Kirk announces that there will be no re-negotiation of NAFTA.

Remember the guy Dennis, and his crazy Dept. of Peace.

om mani padme hum

You might have watched "Doomsday" Seed Vault Opens In Norway on 60 Minutes last year (video at link).

You might ask WHO was behind this monumental endeavor to store MILLIONS of seeds in a faraway arctic tomb. F. William Engdahl, author of Seeds of Destruction unravels this question in
"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic @ Global Research

~snip~
Anytime Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation, Monsanto and Syngenta get together on a common project, it’s worth digging a bit deeper behind the rocks on Spitsbergen. When we do we find some fascinating things.

The first notable point is who is sponsoring the doomsday seed vault. Here joining the Norwegians are, as noted, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the US agribusiness giant DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, one of the world’s largest owners of patented genetically-modified (GMO) plant seeds and related agrichemicals; Syngenta, the Swiss-based major GMO seed and agrichemicals company through its Syngenta Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation, the private group who created the “gene revolution with over $100 million of seed money since the 1970’s; CGIAR, the global network created by the Rockefeller Foundation to promote its ideal of genetic purity through agriculture change.

~snip~
Now the Svalbard Seed Bank begins to become interesting. But it gets better. ‘The Project’ I referred to is the project of the Rockefeller Foundation and powerful financial interests since the 1920’s to use eugenics, later renamed genetics, to justify creation of a genetically-engineered Master Race. Hitler and the Nazis called it the Ayran Master Race.

The eugenics of Hitler were financed to a major extent by the same Rockefeller Foundation which today is building a doomsday seed vault to preserve samples of every seed on our planet. Now this is getting really intriguing. The same Rockefeller Foundation created the pseudo-science discipline of molecular biology in their relentless pursuit of reducing human life down to the ‘defining gene sequence’ which, they hoped, could then be modified in order to change human traits at will. Hitler’s eugenics scientists, many of whom were quietly brought to the United States after the War to continue their biological eugenics research, laid much of the groundwork of genetic engineering of various life forms, much of it supported openly until well into the Third Reich by Rockefeller Foundation generous grants.2

The same Rockefeller Foundation created the so-called Green Revolution, out of a trip to Mexico in 1946 by Nelson Rockefeller and former New Deal Secretary of Agriculture and founder of the Pioneer Hi-Bred Seed Company, Henry Wallace.

The Green Revolution purported to solve the world hunger problem to a major degree in Mexico, India and other select countries where Rockefeller worked. Rockefeller Foundation agronomist, Norman Borlaug, won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work, hardly something to boast about with the likes of Henry Kissinger sharing the same.

In reality, as it years later emerged, the Green Revolution was a brilliant Rockefeller family scheme to develop a globalized agribusiness which they then could monopolize just as they had done in the world oil industry beginning a half century before. As Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.’

Agribusiness and the Rockefeller Green Revolution went hand-in-hand. They were part of a grand strategy which included Rockefeller Foundation financing of research for the development of genetic engineering of plants and animals a few years later.

Much more at link...

SIGN NOW! www.LeaveMyFoodAlone.org

Submitted by gloryoski on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 3:29pm.
I am thinking of all the times that people refer to islands, even islands that aren't groups of islands like Hawaii is , and say "in" (like, I don't think you say "on Sicily"). So I don't know...
----------
When I lived on an island in the islands I frequently saw transplanted islanders (like myself) do double-takes while they tried to decide whether in or on was the right choice.

It's pretty murky though there are a few constants. You are always ON Hispaniola but IN the Dominican Republic (or in Haiti or in Port-au-Prince or in Santo Domingo, etc.).

If someone could be travelling off-island, you ask, "Is he on-island?"

Here's a murky one. If you are on, say, St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and you wonder if your friend is on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands you might ask, "Is he in St. Croix or on St. Thomas?" (Don't ask. I don't understand it either.)

I rarely heard anyone say that someone was on Puerto Rico. People were always in Puerto Rico. (Again, don't ask.)

The non-Continentals, which is pretty much everybody born and raised in the Eastern Caribbean, didn't seem to have any quandary with how they said any of this, but they were also inconsistent, though probably consistent in certain cases (like "He be in Peeeer-tow Reeeee-ko to-maaah-row").

Happy Birthday

I just have ALWAYS Luv'd your name & Poe is a FAV
since youth...
Submitted by Ms_Anthrope on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 8:14pm.
-----

Ah shucks Ms Ann, I'm just going to mosey on over to my corner and blush.

{I didn't say Whore First- Randi Proclaimed The Word "Whore" FIRST!}
I have to find what I wrote to the Dread Scott at KKGN {much earlier},
AND THE TRUE #1, but showed #2 IS PETER B COLLINS,
and you being SO BIAS that u could NOT even SEA/SEE or TELL TRUTH... knowing MANY besides ME voted for him...!

I ONLY HAD TIME TO VOTE ONCE...I see/sea her minions VOTED...NOW I SEA/SEE HOW TO "PLAY..." this fuck'n GAME -- AND WHY
SAM & MARC aren't on "air" -- but that ToxicBitchWhoreRandi IS!

I HAVE NOT BEGUN TO FIGHT THAT fuck'n WHOREToxicBitchRandiWhore.
...
{...now I have to find another time to exercise, since I had to respond ASAP re herWhorenessRandi!...
I am CODE 3ing things so I can DEAL with randi-tripe.
******

e-r&for: (For the Randi Rhodes fans out there): Randi returns to radio
new
Submitted by Spunk-Monkey on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 8:10pm.

***
IMHO

I love that nic Ms_A.

MMRules,

I don't know how George of the Jungle plays into all of this but I'll take the word of a guy whose urine would test positive for several hundred controlled substances.

Crank not better than everyone else at anything but still loved and valuable.

Film at eleven.

Said person would be probably dead,let alone be lookin out for trees,Crank.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Thanks.

"Agribusiness and the Rockefeller Green Revolution went hand-in-hand."

And the mass suicides in India are their fruit.
The 20th century is remembered for genocide and organized killing.
The 21st will be remembered for voluntary death.

Submitted by Fernando on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 9:04pm.
---------
I guess you didn't buy the homicidal maniac stuff?

I've gotten too much of value from you already. And thanks btw.

did he really think a Democratic majority that has dominated politics for most of the last century would not come back and do something about him in his lifetime?

Is that man that stupid? How is he a Supreme?

Submitted by MMRules on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 9:07pm.
Said person would be probably dead...
-----
I've been spending a lot of money at the drug store in the past few months (though not nearly the absurd amounts that some people face).

It has occurred to me that, at any moment in 1970, I could have more dope in me for less money with better results and no prescription (except, possibly, for disaster).

a medal too ?

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Did the entire blog drop fucking ACID!!!

AND

Why didn't anyone tell MEEE!!!!!!

"this machine kills fascists"

Hope so..

And,I don't remember the 70's ! ;)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

instead of feigning indifference, I'll post a picture of a kitty.

Submitted by 60th Street on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 9:17pm
*******

You tall glass of water you.. ;-)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

okay, here's something for the birthday boys

time on their hands !

http://twilightofthegods.info/patriotpill.html

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

But,thank you.. :)

I'm not sure about,MB..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

me love acid kitteh!

time for a burger...let's see....hmmm...ground beef...ground pork...ground lamb...

micro brew....

YUMMMMMMMM!

"this machine kills fascists"

;) {I have dealt with same issues, since when I became fully awake at 13/14 years - on my own. {yes, some heard be4 e-r, but just answer'n...} Now to deal ALSO CODE3 currently WITH EXACT ISSUES drives me TO "Keep On, Keeping On..." {also MAD & a bit Grrr} - this from my younger side of 108years, YET with something different than before in my M.O. (modus operandi). (...from Grnpeace to E.F & to Sea Shepherd C.S., to now unknown...)
WicDru I use when mostly dealing with Spirit.
;

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

I think everyone has premonitions like Nostradamus.

I think we can see possibilities in time and looking for trends is natural in the brain.

When the Greedy Oil based Party needs a vote where do they go?

Fossils from a new species of birdlike dinosaur resembling a 2.1 metre brightly coloured turkey and which could run at up to 40 kph have been found in southern Utah. - theage.com.au

Utah is known for being one of the most religiously homogeneous states in the Union, with approximately 58 percent[6] of its adult inhabitants claiming membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church or the LDS Church), which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life. - Wiki

Did Mormons come from turkeys? I'm still understanding evolution and don't know.

Their own legends says they flew here.

just sayin'..

Sammy sinks Teh disco!

He really IS Somebody!

TexasTWarBlueDogPartOT97

Go. Fuck. Your. Mother!

(I did!)

"this machine kills fascists"

Amy Goodman to appear on Book TV from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. She will give an interview and take viewer calls about her just released New York Times Bestselling Paperback, Standing Up to the Madness.

Tune in and call in on Saturday, April 25th at 1:30pm ET.

Click here for more information about the Book TV broadcast:
http://bit.ly/QGsyg

Click here to get your own copy of Standing Up to the Madness:
http://www.democracynow.org/store

ya babe!

I like to sneak into the back of Catholic churches while mass is on and scream that at the top of my lungs.

It always brings down da house!

really? You do that? Is that comment an analogy or wtf?

Look, I've sung at church too. Not pretty. But I'm sure no one cared.

Have you ever been to a Pentecostal service?

Bait: "Why not 'You mother sucks cocks in hell'?"

Ducavurl: "It's been done."

It is my b-day. Thanks for the congrats. This one is kinda special for me. I've reached an age that my dad or his dad didn't make it to.

I was afraid to go outside all day for fear of being hit by a bus or somethin'. ;-)

That's beautiful maggiesboy. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

But only on his birthday! ;) ;)

Did you bring the K-Y? (I'm allergic to Astroglide)

Fernando's Lucky Pierre tonight!

(I'm feeling lazy)

"this machine kills fascists"

Back at ya ! :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

But,My Birthday is Tomorrow.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

Do I have a second?

;-)

Me [on the phone]: "I'm falling apart. My hair is falling out. I'm a mess."

My brother: "Yeah, well, you take after Mom's dad."

Me: "I do? He died when I was an infant."

My brother: "I know. Right after he lost his hair."

Me: "But I thought I took after Uncle John?"

My brother: "You do. And he took after his dad who is your grandfather."

Me: "Oh. Uncle John's dead too."

My brother: "Yeah. Right about your age, wasn't it?"

Me: "Three years older than I am now, I think."

My brother: "Same age as grandpa. After he lost his hair."

Me: "I've gotta run. Into a bridge abutment.

My brother: "Okay. Don't do a half-ass job of it."

Me: "Bye."

My brother: "Bye."

[click]

VotersForPeace

Please join us in urging the president and attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor.

Please Read & Take Action - Thank you

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

JUST PROSECUTE THE TORTURERS! It IS the POSITIVE thing to do.

Keeping torture alive is the negative, dark side thing to do.

And the IN-BETWEEN route? That's a MESS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lHtnJuw32E

Sing it, Bing!

This is something that you might be able to use to educate and mobilize people to form coalitions that are neither Democratic party nor Republican party based. Information is power.
-------------
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103461990

Technology
21st Century Crowbars Help Pry Open Government
by Andrea Seabrook

...Clay Johnson is the 21st century version of the government watchdog. He is not hunkered down in a stuffy office, crunching data and releasing reports. As the director of Sunlight Labs, part of the Sunlight Foundation, Johnson focuses on technology — Web sites and applications that put government information in the hands of everyone.

Sunlight's most recent project, called Apps for America, was a contest for the best new Web application.

"The winner for both the contest and best name in the universe is an app called Filibusted, which is awesome," Johnson says.

Go to Filibusted.us, and you'll find pictures of the senators who have voted the most often to stall debate. Click on a picture, and you'll get a list of those votes and what the senator was trying to throw roadblocks in front of.

Another winning application, at Legistalker.org, lets people keep track of any member of Congress with just a couple of clicks. You can see what's on Twitter, what's on YouTube and even what lawmakers are saying in old-school media such as newspapers and TV.

That's just the beginning, Johnson says. He says his favorite app is called Know Thy Congressman. Using the widget, you can highlight the name of a senator or congressman in anything you're reading online, click a button that says KTC, and up pops a window with a wealth of data on that politician...

.and stay off the road.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

The happy happy birthday song by The Arrogant Worms (YouTube)

I believe if he gets his engineers to widen his breathing tube, his "voice" won't sound like that.

Female suicide attackers kill 58 near Baghdad shrine
AFP - ‎1 hour ago‎
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Two female suicide bombers struck a major Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing at least 58 people amid a brutal spike of attacks nine weeks before US troops are to withdraw from Iraqi cities.
--------------------
I say capture of few of 'em and gang rape 'em until they cough up some information.

It's for the greater good.

For the b-day WooHoo!

left your turn signal on, too.

.. must mean they are running out of biogenics to even keep his scaredy-cat ass in some semblance of ...
sinus rhythm

Crank -- and you've
Submitted by nora on Fri, 04/24/2009 - 11:17pm.
left your turn signal on, too.
----------
Not to worry. I'm making a round trip. Do you know if the soup comes with the salad bar, or is it extra?

There are currently 0 users and 5 guests online.

http://samsedershow.com/node/4691

... this blog I mean.

I'm machine-gunning yawns which is telling me to take my decrepit raggedy old ass to bed.

G'nite
G'people
G'bloggin'

just keep making the argument be about Kuby or Rush or any of the other "chickenshit liberals" spewing crap and watch their ratings continue to climb.

Your logic doesn't work. Limbaugh made a fortune spewing outrageous crap, the same way so many other shock jocks have. Without ratings the are gone, without listeners they have no ratings. Opponent listeners spewing outrage about their crap gives them more advertising than their loyal listeners give them. In short they are part of the problem. Not the solution.

Rave on if you must, but if you keep the discussion to the absurd point instead of expanding it to the idiot who spewed it, you can address the logic without creating interest in the idiot.

Just a thought.

Submitted by cent on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 6:37pm.
--------
You are caught up in the ol' Ignore A Troll Or Feed Him debate writ large...or writ differently.

The truth is that you cannot eliminate Limbaugh by refusing to acknowledge him any more than you can change your congressman's vote by writing a nasty letter to him.

To be successful, both actions require many people doing the same thing in concert (either accidentally in concert or purposely in concert).

If you don't want to acknowledge Limbaugh, that's fine. I'm glad you don't. But I do not believe that analysis of his effect on the national discussion only serves to validate his existence or increase his listenership.

I often discuss Dr. James Dobson but I don't believe that Focus On The Family gains any influence or enduring strength from me.

They would rather have you talk negatively about them than not at all.

Yeay?

They don't care what they are spewing. Content is immaterial. They keep spewing until they get a reaction, and then they run that into the ground. When interest dries up they change subjects.

Not acknowledging them is difficult, but addressing their poisons without giving them undue attention, is in my opinion, the best way to go. It educates without advertising.

Submitted by cent on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 7:26pm.
They would rather have you talk negatively about them than not at all.
Yeay?
--------
True, but I didn't even mention negative talk. I spoke of analysis of the effect that they have on the national discussion.

They have an effect. What is it? What can be done to combat it?

Your answers are "I don't care" and "Ignore them."

I want to know their effect and I want to know how to combat it because the result of combating their effect is that their listenership drops, the revenue stream dries up and something else comes along that generates more advertisement money.

Apparently we don't share the goal of learning what effect they are having on the national discussion, but we certainly have the same pipe dream (no more Limbaugh types) and the same means to the end (dwindling listenership). We disagree on the best way to get there.

I don't believe they will ever go away, only shrink. There will always be a market for shock.

I understand the need to delve into the mechanisms, science is always admirable. Still, in the end, I believe you will find the best way to sap their power is to not give them yours.

We do disagree. The only way to understand them is to study them, which means listening to them and discussing them.

I have Neilsen and billions invested in the results of share percentage charts...what you got?

Submitted by cent on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 8:16pm.
...I have Neilson and billions invested in the results of share percentage charts...what you got?
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I have a belief that the mighty can be made to fall. I have a belief that the people who listen can be turned away.

For starters, I don't believe that Limbaugh is sincere. He might have been at one time but he has too much invested to stop playing the fictional character he created. (He COULD have officially LIKED Obama, in my opinion, and been even more successful than he is. That should indicate to you what a dumb fuck I think Limbaugh is.)

Alternately, I believe that it is possible to convince oneself that one's own lie is true. I believe that George Bush did this several times, but it does not make the fiction sincere. It simply makes it seem real after considerable effort has been devoted to covering up the truth.

Whichever is the case (that Limbaugh knowingly plays a character who would not share Limbaugh's beliefs if Limbaugh were not playing the character, or if Limbaugh has convinced himself that his bombast is real), the problem is that it is not legitimate political discourse. It's not a legitimate civics forum.

It reminds me of the women who hated Andy-Kaufman-the-misogynist and refused to believe that it was merely theater even after everyone else knew that it was merely theater.

This is the weak/missing link (I think?) in Limbaugh's chain mail. The dope scandal came damned close to exposing him for playing a Conservative character named Rush Limbaugh on the radio when he wasn't being Rush Limbaugh the junky who was making himself go deaf from drug abuse.

People don't like to be suckers and they are loathe to admit having been suckered...but when they come to terms with it, they never trust the guy again.

having been suckered...but when they come to terms with it, they never trust the guy again.

Very true Crank...but consider that as long as they are being called suckers in public, they will never relent....

Best to argue the points and not the person...once they figure out the person is wrong they will let him go. But once we make the person the argument, those suckered are invested in the persona and not his arguments.....

If we take the argument against "Rush the person" away, all that is left is his arguments...and they do not stand very long.

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