It's On

An hour away

and everyone :)

no action on the cam yet - don't you guys need to connect at least 15 mins prior to make sure you're ready this time without having to go through the opening labor pains every time

I'm not getting either sam or marc

Let the fun begin

morning all

Hello all

I overslept. Gotta make coffee!

Got the small cam up

just fired up

sam looking like he just fell out of bed (hope on the right side)

go for it!

nice blues intro!

I was skeptical at first, but you've shown me that Maron is actually smarter than he usually lets on.

and clear----groovy! morning

I've caught up with the blog...So I've a couple of things to respond to...

I do not ever post "anonymously", feeling that there should be some identity, some context with which to judge my statements.

I did not get in a fight with my neighbor (he was a very pleasant old hillbilly), I sold my house and no I didn't make as much as I thought I would on it. Chide me on this if you will.

I'm not likely to be arrested for anything at any time, although I'm sure that is one of the dearest wishes of those that have been undone by my efforts.

"Quantum Physics dictates that something does not exist in its physical form until it is actually observed by someone. It is only a possibility, or more specifically, an infinite number of possibilities. And once it is observed, all of those possibilities collapse into one physical manifestation, which is what we actually see."

Actually, Quantum physics states that something can not be "proven" to exist till it's observed...It's very much like the question "if a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear..."

This line of thinking is demonstratably false in its assumptions...The universe was here before humankind was.

However, there is a small truth in quanta not having an "identity" until it is effected by an outside influence...but this brings up another paradox...

"The bad news is that this means you are 100% responsible for every single thing, relationship, job, sad and happy event in your life. So the first step in understanding this science is taking full responsibility for having created your life as you know it."

This would be true if YOU were the only outside force...You are not...You say it is true...I say it is false...Null.

Please try and grasp this.

And also...You can not seperate the metaphysical from the physical...Your senses are what make intelligence possible in the first place...Always you try and rewrite reality...build a seperate place...Some nirvana, some heaven...when they are all but the same place...As if the physical reality were one glass...and the metaphysical another...each full and sitting in a room you fail to name.

You look out and do not see the face of god and so you deny your senses for failing to find what you seek...You seek to find something in yourselve that ends all questions when the universe itself is nothing but a question...God does not know.

And so anyways...that's what all bugged me over the last week...Let the games begin.

nice effin echo...

sheesh!

sam's empire ah!

It's Seth Romney-Levinson with Marc Maron!

ah!

about Maron being smarter than I thought...jury's out again.

Can't hear Sam that well.

did you cross your legs or cover your ears?

maron is eating out of the cat dish!

to the right thread :-)

easily worth a $20 subscription fee!

had two sammy cams up.

Please post if you are having problems getting both cams up or they freeze up etc.

Thanks,

Garet

and tell him to turn his sound up please?

Maron is shouting and Sam is whispering.

too bad we can't channel 1 to the left speaker and 1 to the right, and adjust the vol's accordingly.

Clean cut and cute - the three c's of radio rather than the three c's of bowling.....

at 11 am on tuesdays....he is making me mad!

maron froze up and then came back on.

don't know how synced they are yet.

maron crackling when he leans forward.

tell em to speak past the mike instead of into it and the crackling will go away.

House Panel Holds Hearing on Voting Rights Section
By Paul Kiel - October 30, 2007, 10:20AM
The hearing, broadcast on C-SPAN 3 and streaming on the House Judiciary Committee's website, just got under way. Voting rights section chief John "They Die First" Tanner is, of course, the star witness.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) kicked it off with, "We're in a crisis, and it's the duty of this committee to determine what went wrong."

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004595.php

I have adjusted Maron's sound slider lower and Sam's higher but I still cannot hear Sam that well.

From a recent John Edwards email: finally anti corporate is out in the open... will it kill Edwards?

We, you and I, are the guardians of what America is and what it will be.

The choice is ours.

Down one path, we trade corporate Democrats for corporate Republicans; our cronies for their cronies; one political dynasty for another dynasty; and all we are left with is a Democratic version of the Republican corruption machine.

It is the easier path. It is the path of the status quo. But, it is a path that perpetuates a corrupt system that has not only failed to deliver the change the American people demand, but has divided America into two -- one America for the very greedy, and one America for everybody else.

And it is that divided America -- the direct result of this corrupt system -- which may very well lead to the suicide Lincoln warned us of -- the poison that continues to seep into our system while none notice.

Or we can choose a different path. The path that generations of Americans command us to take. And be the guardians that kept the faith.

I run for president for my father who worked in a mill his entire life and never got to go to college the way I did.

I run for president for all those who worked in that mill with my father.

I run for president for all those who lost their jobs when that mil was shut down.

I run for president for all the women who have come up to Elizabeth and me and told us the like Elizabeth they had breast cancer -- but unlike Elizabeth they did not have health care.

I run for president for twenty generations of Americans who made sure that their children had a better life than they did.

As Americans we are blessed -- for our ancestors are not dead, they occupy the corridors of our conscience. And, as long we keep the faith -- they live. And so too the America of idealism and hope that was their gift to us.

I carry the promise of America in my heart, where my parents placed it. Like them, like you, I believe in people, hard work, and the sacred obligation of each generation to the next.

This is our time now. It falls to us to redeem our democracy, reclaim our government and relight the promise of America for our children.

Let us blaze a new path together, grounded in the values from which America was forged, still reaching toward the greatness of our ideals. We can do it. We can cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington and replace them with the timeless values of the American people. We can liberate our government from the shackles of corporate money that bind it to corporate will, and restore the voices of our people to its halls.

This is the cause of my life. This is the cause of our time. Join me. Together, we cannot fail.

We will keep faith with those who have gone before us, strong and proud in the knowledge that we too rose up to guard the promise of America in our day, and that, because we did, America's best days still lie ahead.

about his volume. (I think) We'll see...

i think i am falling in love

The sound works OK, at least on Maron's side as long as he is talking in long form but yours is breaking up and you sort of get that speakerphone cut out when you talk back and forth. Camera also stutters a lot, esp the non speaking side

It would be just peachy if there was an live audio only edition of this so maybe those who can't watch can enjoy and since I am missing about 10-20 % anyway and the video sputters even more than the sound, maybe I would rather just listen and hear the whole thing.

Sunday I tried to watch on two different PCs and an iMac and all were equally crappy.

Finally, Sam keeps promising an MP3 of the show but it never happens. Is he expecting someone out here to take care of that because 'taint happening.

OK it's time for vid... screw the boss (kidding)

Marc's mic is ca-ca. He REALLY needs a thick, dense foam wind bubble to mitigate his loud peaks (check-out Sammer's mic!).

Either that, or we put him in a fixed head brace to keep him from jumping the mic. : )

The feeds are near-perfect...very few drops...buffer stays high.

Today's show is so relevant, so far, to my life at this moment in time. Thanks for your perspectives guys. I'll be considering them in some current dilemmas.

Building a Global Southern Coalition: the competing approaches of Brazil’s Lula and Venezuela’s Chávez

The following article, “Building a Global Southern Coalition: the competing approaches of Brazil’s Lula and Venezuela’s Chávez,” by COHA Senior Research Fellow Sean W. Burges, originally appeared in the Third World Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 7, 2007, pp. 1343-1358. From time to time, COHA issues scholarly articles by members of its intellectual community. Their viewpoints and interpretations we feel are of importance and deserve to be presented to fellow Latin Americanists–even though they may on occasion be at variance on certain points with the viewpoint of COHA’s editorial board. We welcome submissions on regional issues, such as addressed here by Dr. Burges, or on other inter-American subjects of concern to other scholars and activists.

refresh the cam

Sammer's saying "pragmatic"...

...a lot.

*big goofy grin*

"Marc's mic is ca-ca. He REALLY needs a thick, dense foam wind bubble to mitigate his loud peaks"

we reccomended this last week...

simple cheap fix.

or he could just move his mike further away...

it is very uncomfortable to keep adjusting the volumn down for Maron and up for Sam.

Maron, for cry pete, back off! we can see you well and you sound like you are shouting. Move back, damn it!

and his "stalker paranoia"

he pretty much ignores his bloggers on his site.

(sam too, lately, in terms of having a dialog. though he popped in a little bit last week.)

Go Sam-Maron!

When you lower the slider under Marc, Sam's volume goes down as well. Maybe Sam could change his output to overmodulate also, then we can lower our volume for both.

by Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes:

Full disclosure: I'm 33, white, male, married, a dad and left-of-center supporter of Obama.

I think I've stumbled onto something that might explain why Obama doesn't have more support from traditional Democrats, and it is actually somewhat disturbing.

...cont at link...

Please IM Sammer to tell Marc to stop jumping the mic!

Had to turn off my woofer. When Marc spoke, my ears rattled.

his handlers have'nt got their act together.

Mic and it would sound better.

That tinny loudness is very annoying!

which means SOS DD.

is that you don't really listen to what he has to say because the sound is annoying.

is deff hard on the ears.

"is that you don't really listen to what he has to say because the sound is annoying"

noticed that myself.

by Stephen Lendman

...
The Banco del Sur will replace these repressive institutions with $7 billion in startup capital when it begins operating in 2008. It will be under "a new financial architecture" for regional investment with the finance ministers of each member nation sitting on the bank's administrative council with equal authority over its operations as things now stand. Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabeza stressed the banks Latin roots saying: "The idea is to rely on a development agency for us, led by us" to finance public and private development and regional integration projects. He added: "There will not be credit subjected to economic policies. There will not be credit that produces a calamity for our people and as a result, it will not be a tool of domination" like the international lending agencies.
...

but beggars sometimes can't be choosers. Sam is clearly trying.

"If Maron has to lean into the camera and distort the sound, perhaps he can set his mic further away"

He could also reduce the mic output. These adjustments would be nice to be done maybe 3o minutes before the show rather than at 6 after the hour.

On a sad note, it seems that all of this crap is reducing interest in this effort.

...a presidential candidate from senate has never won a presidency. If this holds true, Clinton or Obama could lose to Guiliani or more likely the candidate who is gaining momentum at the right time-- Huckabee.

i have a crush on you!
i wish i was your holloweentine

are not dedicated to the video above so when you tone down Marc, Seder whispers.

or something to that effect....in this country, i believe his fame (good or bad), especially combined with his involvement in 911 is enough to win him the election....

and for the record....protesting is still an action that agrees with the overall situation/ it is part of the circle/cycle, but best wishes and good luck to all who put themselves out there...hope you are having a fun and meaningful time...

Mii

heehee

Mii

Move the hell back!!!!!!!!

Sibel Edmonds agrees to tell all

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Will Now Tell All - and Face Charges if Necessary - to Any Major Television Network That Will Let Her.

Obama is the "Howard Dean" of this election. I am with Maron on this one, Clinton is gonna get the nomination, AND ALL THE DANCIN' the Dems have done not to ruffle anyone's feathers in the last two years will have been in vain. And we will have a Republican for another 4-8 years. We can kiss the US Constitution and America.

CeeCee

i fuckin love this show

Kennedy and Harding did.

I'm gonna send Sammy some manilla folders

son of a bitch---will enjoy tomorrow too...

I liked!

what horrible tease what does that mean??

Let's work on the volume control for next week. :)

Thanks to the Unshaven ones.

the dam show - caught the last 10 minutes of it.
Got home from work late & slept in a little.

Good morning & noon to all!!
Whats up in the world we live in??

Awesome show today!

WOW ! ! !
I like him either way.

;)
Boo ;

hard to get away with listening on the clock at that rate.

Sam, love the smooth look. Now, about that hair...

;-)

Boo to you, Ms_Anthrope :-)

I don't give a flying f--- about that ex-gay minister and Obama's campaign. Sorry. I just don't care. Maybe he wasn't gay to begin with. Who am I to say? I don't know the guy.

Obama's going down in the polls because Bill Clinton is on Hillary's campaign. Bill's still wildly popular and there's a feeling that if Hillary's elected, we get Bill again. And even if Bill and Hillary are "corporate Democrats", or too conservative for my own tastes - I still like them and think they'd do a better job in the White House than any of the Republican candidates.

Would I prefer John Edwards? Sure. But if he's not going to get the nomination, I'm ok with Hillary winning it. Obama actually has the most liberal/progressive voting record.... but Hillary's voting record is just as liberal/progressive as Dennis Kucinich's even if she presents herself as a centrist. If she wins, that's fine with me.

Now if we could just get Maron to get a new Mic and not lean into the camera all the time.

It's distracting!

No technical problems although Sam's mic could be a little louder and there seems to some delay in transmission when both are answering each other in rapid succession.

Marc, more prepared and confidant, was on his game.

Sam was terrific as usual.

Loved it and would prefer to have at least two hours with them.

Thought that metaphyics discussion would pique your interest.

I could see Edmonds being preemptively detained, eh?

Like when she was walking into a studio.

Then the DOJ playing habeous games till after next Nov.

State secrets are at stake, after all.

Can't remember where I read about the above hypothetical, but it's been put out there.

Tuesday is becoming my favorite work day. The only problem is I am missing some great chinook fishing.

From Times Online
October 30, 2007
Saudi King jeered as controversial visit begins

King Abdullah II of Saudi Arabia was greeted by jeers and placards as he began his state visit to Britain this afternoon as dozens of demonstrators turned out to protest at his country's human rights record.

About 50 human rights protestors and anti-arms trade activists mingled with the crowds lining The Mall as the monarch accompanied the Queen in a carriage on their way to Buckingham Palace.

King Abdullah’s visit has been shrouded in controversy over oppressive policies against women and gays in the Middle Eastern kingdom and the war on terror.

Protesters, including Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist, chanted "King Abdullah, torturer, murderer" and held banners marked “Put human rights before BAe profits” and “You can’t do this in Riyadh” as the procession went past.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2771570.ece

"presidential candidate from senate has never won a presidency"
new
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 10/30/2007 - 12:10pm.
Kennedy and Harding did.

Stand corrected. (Thanks!) In that case, my scary thought is diminished somewhat

Would it be too much to ask for Marc to get up to speed on mic-ing & such?

Really good. Getting more natural every time. and a sweet ending.

THANKS FOR GIVIVG A SHIT!!!!

Do it yourselferism.

Developing heights
The angry american VS. telecomunnicado.
Clearview.Protect your family

Nothing to do with the state really...more to do with the illegal activities of those that work for it...but the caveat is already out there..."to Any Major Television Network That Will Let Her."

Doing pretty good really...getting spoiled with hotel life...I get my coffee delivered...son of a bitch!

long time!!HELL-O!

that the cage door is open.

Flu Lab Set to Open for 1918 Pandemic Virus Reconstruction

America’s Armageddonites

Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States. Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They are the new “Armageddonites,” fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about.

American fundamentalists strongly supported the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. They consistently support Israel’s hard-line policies. And they are beating the drums for war against Iran. Thanks to these end-timers, American foreign policy has turned much of the world against us, including most Muslims, nearly a quarter of the human race.

with highlights!

"Edits" does not even come close to describing the grammatical massacre the White House undertook with CDC Director Julie Gerberding's Senate testimony on the public health effects of climate change.

These were not minor edits the White House PR spin machine would like us to believe. The word-count for the CDC Director's Senate testimony went from 3,107 to 1,500 after the White House got through with it.

Whole sections on health related effects to extreme weather, air pollution-related health effect, allergic diseases, water and food-borne infectious diseases, food and water scarcity and the long term impacts of chronic diseases and other health effects were completely wiped out of the testimony.

Here's the unedited testimony, with the "edits" in highlighted in red:

Climate Change and Public Health Statement of Julie L. Gerberding, M.D., M.P.H. Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Administrator, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS UNITED STATES SENATE

http://www.desmogblog.com/full-version-of-white-house-edited-cdc-climate...

but i cannot live with a hillary winning the nomination - I enjoyed the show. It was good and spot on on the issues but it depressed me - Sam is very perceptive in his analysis and I'm afraid hemight be right on obama and hillary and edwards. Marc had quite a lot to say that made sense and somewhat funny and tender touches like about his banana bread baking, plumbing problems and all. The sound problems were not too bad here. All I had to do is lower the volume swotch on the speaker - do not share the audio-based frustration others have expressed and to say that these technical glitches diminish the enthusiasm for the show is a little overblown

"I'm sorry you tazed me, bro!"-----LOL!

Univ. of Florida "Alligator"---

Andrew Meyer has addressed an apology letter to UF students, UF President Bernie Machen and Student Government for his "failure to act calmly" during a Sept. 17 forum with Sen. John Kerry.

In a letter released to the Alligator on Monday afternoon, Meyer wrote that he "stepped out of line" and felt he had tarnished UF's image.

"For that again, I am truly sorry," Meyer wrote.

Meyer, a UF telecommunication senior, was tackled, Tasered and arrested by University Police Department officers during a question-and-answer session following the speech from Kerry, a Democrat who represents Massachusetts.

Meyer was charged with a third-degree felony for resisting arrest with violence and a second-degree misdemeanor for disturbing the peace.

CREW doesn't want you to forget about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). That's why they've compiled a list of reasons why the Minority Leader made their recent list of the 22 most corrupt politicians. Check it out here. (CREW)

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/30344

Hey Lucille...

it did me too very much, though I did enjoy!

with all your K-nowledge I await---

Bush to nominate James Peake as VA Secretary. Three months after Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Jim Nicholson announced his resignation, President Bush plans to announce a replacement. In a press conference at 1:05 PM EST today, he will nominate Dr. James Peake, who previously served as the U.S. Army surgeon general for four years.

UPDATE: When Peake left the post of Surgeon General in 2004, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who oversaw the Walter Reed scandal.

UPDATE II: Yesterday, the Senate leadership, frustrated with Bush’s delay in naming a new secretary, “demanded” that he nominate a permanent head:

Much has been said over the last six years about honoring the service and the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. But what matters to those who are fighting these wars is not the talk, but the actions we take. The lack of a qualified VA nominee more than three months after the resignation of the previous Secretary signals to our troops fighting today, to the veterans of wars past, and to the entire nation, that the Department of Veterans Affairs is not a priority for your administration.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/30/bush-to-nominate-james-peake-as-va-s...

Because one must never display emotion...Emotion is too hard to fake...If everyone was to do it then the sociopaths would stand out like sore thumbs...

Good to see that Gare is still doing his part to dehumanize us one and all...

Which reminds me...Yeah, there will be a bifurcation of the species...Between the left and the right...

On our side we have creativity and all things progressive and on theirs blind obedience and soulless manipulators...

We must save them from themselves...Fuck a wingnut today!

Bend over Gare...Poppas home.

AEI: How did Jews get so smart? “For two hours yesterday,” the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank writes, “two AEI scholars and a visiting bioethicist kibbitzed about a pressing cause: Why Jews are so doggone smart.” In the panel, AEI’s John Entine and Charles Murray discussed Entine’s new book, Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People:

Murray suggested that the rigors of Talmudic study drove out the dull Jews centuries ago. “If you were dumb and a Jew,” said the philo-Semitic Murray, “it was a lot easier to be a Christian.” Murray, best known for his incendiary book about race and intelligence, “The Bell Curve,” explored Jewish smarts in an April article in Commentary titled “Jewish Genius.”

Brought in to rebut the two scholars, Laurie Zoloth of Northwestern University floated an alternative notion: that “Jews are smart because we value learning.” […]

Murray suggested that Jews got smarter by urbanization (”the elevated Jewish IQ was making people money”), flight from Babylon (”they took the smart ones into exile”) and what he called “the ultimate hypothesis” that Jews are really “God’s chosen people.”

Milbank adds, “Left unchallenged was the question of whether Jews are indeed smarter than others — even though it would have only required a walk down the hall to the office of new AEI visiting fellow Paul Wolfowitz, whose leadership on the Iraq war and conflicts of interest as head of the World Bank demonstrate that Jews are capable of questionable judgment.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/30/aei-how-did-jews-get-so-smart/

Hillary "Troubled" By Mukasey On Torture, But Won't Rule Out Supporting Him
By Greg Sargent - October 30, 2007, 10:55AM

Tonight the Dem Presidential candidates are set for another debate, and it seems likely that one question that will come up is whether the Dems support AG nominee Michael Mukasey in light of his refusal to condemn waterboarding and other techniques as torture.

As noted here yesterday, two of the Dem Senators running for President -- Chris Dodd and Barack Obama -- have ruled out voting to confirm him. And Hillary? Where does she stand on Mukasey? Well, it remains unclear:

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/_hillary_troubled_by_mukasey_on_to...

"Bend over Gare...Poppas home."

I don't need ta see *that* shit. Take it out back.

:-)

without vaseline---

What was this show about? I'm not a wonk, just a normal person. I couldn't follow this show at all, save for the water heater story...that! I liked very much. :-) Seems like this show in particular, was geered more for the politically nerdy who know what "net roots" are. So lost! Normally I enjoy the show and am still glad it's there even though I don't know what the heck this one was about. Oh well.

I disagree. I think the audience is dropping because of the frustration. Of course the hard core base is still around but face it, they need to expand beyond that.

I have my own name for the show now, "Son of a Glitch!"

BTW, Did you see the story on Salon and Brilliant at Breakfast about the brass band in NOLa that got touched up by the cops

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/29/treme/

Band on the run in New Orleans

Police have cracked down on funeral processions, a time-honored cultural tradition in the historic black neighborhood of Treme. But musicians vow to play on.

http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/10/in-case-you-thought-kat...

taking lunch!

That's why I put the bag on his head.

vegetable medley for me and I'm not afraid of butter either...

The mystery of the missing $2.9 trillion

Like most people, economists love a mystery – especially if it involves not a missing person but a missing $2.9 trillion in United States debt.

That's $2.9 with 11 zeros after it.

ome words of explanation: Every quarter the Department of Commerce comes up with the US "International Investment Position." At the end of 2006, for instance, the US had a net negative position – by this measurement of international assets and liabilities – of $2.6 trillion. In other words, the country is by far the world's biggest debtor nation.

that would be you and everyone on the net interested in politics...

Two VA hospitals forced to turn away patients

Two Tampa Bay veterans hospitals turn away critically ill patients for huge chunks of the year because of an overloaded veterans’ health care system.

James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa and Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg are the nation’s busiest and fourth-busiest Veterans Affairs hospitals, respectively.

Since 2000, Bay Pines has diverted patients far more frequently than any other hospital in Pinellas County. Last year, it diverted veterans during 1,150 hours about 48 days, or 13 percent of the time, Pinellas paramedic records show.

on your way into battle...and ignore you if you dare survive it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zisvf7Ci70Y

.. upon Light {aka Energy) ... ;)
Boo ;)
Have to "fly" C-Ya later, perhaps *poof*

You're not the sharpest tool in the shed are you...

Baiting people in is never a good idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zisvf7Ci70Y

And what is it that you're doing?

Here, I think Bait-ing means fixing one's grammatical errors.

We could all use a little more of that, myself included. :-)

Sho' 'nough.

I knew about it - just another sign of the times, of how the city is changing, not for the better i'm afraid; lot of non-natives have taken over native neighborhoods and not understanding the traditions that make the place great - the police corps especially, was fired en masse after katrina - not unlike the bremer disbanding of the army in Iraq - and the new guys I don't know where they got them from they don't seem to be from n'awlins

Sho' 'nuff...

Tuesday is becoming my favorite work day. The only problem is I am missing some great chinook fishing.

As our government shifts towards privatization (i.e. contractors) of everything from Customs, to the delivery of our US Mail, to our military, and states do the same thing, with for example the licensing bureaus and security, and cities do the same thing, with services provided municipally, suddenly companies become immune from prosecution.

Blackwater immune? Telecommunications companies immune? Is this fair? Hell no. Why should they be immune?

Just my 2 cents worth, (worth less today than they were yesterday).

Thanks, Nobody! "Sho' 'nuff."

The 'Orwellian' Bush administration

In its report, the Constitution Project gets to the dangerous core of the government's claim that it alone can and should decide how to define "state secrets." The answer from these constitutionalists is: "Unless claims about state secrets evidence are subjected to independent judicial scrutiny, the executive branch is at liberty to violate legal and constitutional rights with impunity. By accepting these claims as valid on their face, courts undermine the principle of judicial independence, the adversary process, fairness in the courtroom, and our constitutional system of checks and balances." Since this particular administration has violated so many legal and constitutional rights, its assurance that we must "trust" it to close courtrooms requires a suspension of disbelief that responsible American citizens should not provide.

I believe that there is something in the constitution about ex post facto laws...

That is you can't make something legal or illegal after the fact...if it was illegal or legal at the time the act was commited the law of that time stands.

Don't buy the idea that they can grant immunity...The only way that could be possible is for the president to grant them official pardons...and those things don't/can't come in the "blanket" form...

They just drafted legislation lifting Blackwater's immunity.

http://www.star-telegram.com/190/story/285443.html

Ex Post Facto

An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "from something done afterward") or retrospective law, is a law that retrospectively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law.

Ex post facto laws are prohibited in federal law by Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution and in state law by section 10. Over the years, when deciding ex post facto cases, the United States Supreme Court has referred repeatedly to its ruling in the Calder v. Bull case of 1798, in which Justice Chase established four categories of unconstitutional ex post facto laws.

Nobody, you're right on that point. However, I'm sure this administration would find a way.

Once an asshole always an asshole.

on theocracy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/theocracy-now_b_70314.html

enjoy - the next michael moore + (jewish) brains the dna thing :) and somewhat better looks :)

...To convince everyone that they had done so...After all it's all too easy thanks to the gutted educational system in this country to fool people...

30% of Americans Don't Know When 9/11 Attacks Occurred!!

and there you are in all your glorious anonymity proving the statement.

Could you aim a little lower or think any less of the intelligence of your peers?

U.S. Holds Britain’s First Muslim Minister at Dulles on Suspicion in Major Diplomatic Flap
Published October 29th, 2007 Bizarre , Justice , Society

It appears that even being a government minister is not enough to protect you from being pulled aside for ‘flying while Muslim.”

Britain’s International Development Minister Shahid Malik was visiting the United States to discuss counter terrorism efforts. However, he was detained for about 40 minutes at Washington Dulles airport on Sunday by the Department of Homeland Security and had his luggage pulled for inspection. Malik said the same thing happened to him last year at JFK airport in New York.

It is such incidents that have served to fulfill the stereotype of the United States as a prejudiced and clown-like government in the war on terror. For the full story, click here

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071029121104.dh6a9n7w&show_artic...

Every time you feed a troll, a kitten dies.

Save the kittens!!!

‘I Caution Some in Our Party’
Harold Ford Jr. on the struggle for the Democrats' soul
By Jeffrey Bartholet
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 4:12 PM ET Oct 29, 2007
Liberal activists tend to dominate the Democratic Party's nominating process, but it's the centrists who help the party win national elections. Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is a leading voice of the latter camp. He narrowly lost a race for a Senate seat in 2006. If he had won, Ford would have been the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction. After his loss, he signed on as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council—the policy group that is closely associated with Bill Clinton's presidency and that has counted Sen. Hillary Clinton amo