Tim Russert question of the day

frist?

Apophis ... 2029

Interesting story on Obama campaign strategy:

Is Obama playing the race card?

By Alex Koppelman
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008 17:14 EST

In a scathing article in "The New Republic," Sean Wilentz, a Princeton history professor, argues that everything you thought you knew about the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign and racial politics is wrong. Wilentz, a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, charges that it wasn't Clinton, but rather Sen. Barack Obama who deliberately made race an issue in the campaign. He also alleges that the media's blind love for Obama has led it to portray innocuous actions by the Clinton campaign, such as Bill Clinton's comments about Jesse Jackson in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton's statement about Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, as race-baiting behavior.

"The Obama campaign's most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads," writes Wilentz. "To a large degree, the campaign's strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters -- a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a 'post-racial' figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/?last_story=/politics/war_room/20...

It's lookin' all funky-like.

Another interesting story from Salon:

Are Barack Obama and John McCain hypocrites?

As underdogs, they embraced public financing. But now, as the likely nominees, they're looking longingly at millions in private contributions.

By Mike Madden

Feb. 28, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama raised $36 million in January. John McCain took in a paltry $12 million. So it's not hard to see why McCain's campaign has decided to hound Obama about a pledge he made last year to stick to public funding in the general election if he wins the Democratic nomination. Forcing Obama to honor the pledge might be the only way McCain could stop his opponent from burying him under a pile of cash. What's a little more complicated is how McCain, whose maverick reputation rests, in part, on campaign finance reform, whose name is on the nation's most famous campaign-finance law, managed to lose the political high ground on that very issue before the end of February.

Months ago, when neither man seemed likely to emerge as his party's nominee, both Obama and McCain made tactical moves that could haunt them now. Obama -- at a time when Hillary Clinton was the inevitable juggernaut rolling back to the White House -- said he would stay in the federal public financing system if he did win the primary fight, as long as his GOP opponent did the same. McCain agreed immediately. The system gives candidates $85 million, funded by the $3 check-off fewer and fewer taxpayers choose to pay on IRS forms. But that's the only money candidates who take the funding can spend after the nominating conventions. They can't use campaign contributions from private donors. Now, awash in private contributions, Obama and his strategists are beginning to back away from his pledge to rely solely on public money. Pressed on the issue by moderator Tim Russert at Tuesday's debate, Obama refused to restate his commitment.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/28/fundraising/

every other handmaiden to Israel?

Sam Seder?

ToniD is not able to get on the Blog..could you check that out please?

for Alice.

Wherever she is.

http://www.straymatter.com/index.cfm?id=1106

It might be the weather or shared major providers having temporary problems with their internet connection.

Everything seems ok from here.

Hydrazine is extracted from the blood plasma of the reptilians, passed through a Schauberger negative g energy vortice, and then smeared like peanut butter on the outer hull of all space going craft. Generally 32nd degree Masons are the only ones allowed to engage in this smearing activity. This is the real reason why 32nd degree Mason Obama has been given the go ahead to seek the presidency.

After he wins the election, an Enochian Kabbalistic ritual, only known to 12 men on the planet, will be secretly encoded onto every Hannah Montana CD using a Crowley-an backward masking technique perfected by Jimmy Page. Coincidentally, it uses Ravenscroft's Spear of Destiny as the etching tool.

At high noon on the day of Obama's inauguration, millions of mind controlled Mylie Cyrus fans will be compelled to simultaneously play their ritually etched cds which will cause the layers of Obama chocolate to peel away like the layers of an onion, revealing the Dark Lord, Darth Cheney, in all his resplendent glory, as he, once again, assumes the mantel of control of our once great nation.
At his side will be his pet chimp BoBo, otherwise known as George W. Bush.

Once great America, a bastion for freedom truth & justice, will be reduced to little more than a dumping ground for lead encrusted Chinese toys and an outhouse for Saudi Arabian potentates needing to take a quick pee.

such as POT97

http://www.kleptography.com/stockpile-airhead0356.htm

"Airhead - no amount of talking will convince a fool."

I liked that.

As an adjunct to this nefarious plot, millions of tons of "smart" fat will be released into the atmosphere, programmed to attach itself to otherwise svelte Americans in an effort to make them culinarily attractive to the aliens, thereby helping ween the ex-pat alien population off of their normal diet of cow udders, groins & eyeballs.

A marketing campaign, ostensibly from Madison Avenue, but really from deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, will seek to lay blame for this porking up of Americans at the doorstep of McDonald's. McD's founder Ray Kroc refused to take part in this deli-izing of Americans back in the 50s when he was approached by the Majestic crew.

After Kroc's death, and the clandestine inclusion of his rigored flesh in a series of "special order" Big Macs, it was assumed by "serious researchers" that the Majestic crew would be pacified. But, due to the rampant cross-breeding between US troops & reptilian invaders, the Majestic crew's vengeful bloodlust has been raised to unforeseen levels of necrotic psychosis.

Certain Ismaili sects of enlightened orgasmatrons stumbled on this plot at the end of January, thereby forcing the underwater ufo pilots to break protocol and sever the underwater communication cables. In the ensuing period of communication black out, every Ismaili was hunted down and neutralized using a particularly noxious stew of heavy metals that were chem-trailed onto their compound by US pilots still convinced that they were fighting a "War on Terror."

It is essential that you pass this on.

Knowledge is Power.
& with Power, we will be victorious.

(Originally posted by J_A_D at the RI blog)

Vandal spray-paints graffiti on local Obama headquarters

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday February 27, 2008

Supporters of Barack Obama in Longview, TX were proud when actor Samuel L. Jackson skipped the Oscars last Sunday to stump for Obama in their East Texas town. According to KETK News, some 400 people showed up at Eddie Towles Telephone Repair Service, the local Obama headquarters, to hear Jackson speak.

But on Monday morning, Longview police called Eddie Towles to alert him that his business had been vandalized. When Towles showed up, he found the misspelled word "racits" scrawled on the front of his building and "racist" spray-painted on both his vans.

"Now I cannot take my vans out with my technicians and service the good people of Longview with that 'racist' painted on the side of my vans," Towles told local tv news. "I am not a racist," said Towles, who is black. "I take this personally. They can destroy my vans but they'll never be able to destroy my spirit."

Continued here:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Vandals_paint_racist_words_on_Obama_0227.h...

Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs

By Noah Shachtman February 27, 2008

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

AFNOC has imposed bans on all sites with "blog" in their URLs, thus cutting off any sites hosted by Blogspot. Other blogs, and sites in general, are blocked based on content reviews performed at the base, command and AFNOC level ...

The idea isn't to keep airmen in the dark -- they can still access news sources that are "primary, official-use sources," said Maj. Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations. "Basically ... if it's a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it's fairly cut and dry that that's a good source, an authorized source," he said ...

AFNOC blocks sites by using Blue Coat software, which categorizes sites based on their content and allows users to block sub-categories as they choose.

"Often, we block first and then review exceptions," said Tech. Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, a Cyber Command spokesman.

As a result, airmen posting online have cited instances of seemingly innocuous sites -- such as educational databases and some work-related sites -- getting wrapped up in broad proxy filters.

"A couple of years back, I fought this issue concerning the Counterterrorism Blog," one Air Force officer tells Danger Room. "An AF [Air Force] professional education course website recommended it as a great source for daily worldwide CT [counterterrorism] news. However it had been banned, because it called itself a blog. And as we all know, all blogs are bad!"

Continued at:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/air-force-banni.html

The Senator will have to get back to you Sam.

She is occupied REJECTING him.

Without further ado, we begin this journey - for no particular reason - with the aforementioned Phil Hartman, who was a highschool friend of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who later became a disciple of Charlie Manson, a jailhouse correspondent of John Hinckley, and the attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford, who was once a roommate of modeling entrepreneur Harry Conover, whose wife was the infamous Candy Jones, who was 'treated' by CIA-linked hypnotist William Jennings Bryan, who also 'treated' the purported Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, whose name was written repetitively throughout the diaries of Sirhan Sirhan, who was also 'treated' by Bryan, who served as the technical director on The Manchurian Candidate, which was directed by John Frankenheimer, at whose beach house a dinner was held on June 5, 1968 whose attendees included "Mama" Cass Elliot, Roman Polanski, and Sharon Tate, who was killed just over a year later by followers of Charlie Manson, whose music was recorded by Doris Day's son, music producer Terry Melcher, who lived with girlfriend Candace Bergen at 10050 Cielo Drive the year before it became a slaughterhouse after being rented by Polanski, who initially was slated to pen the screenplay for Day of the Dolphin, which purported to tell the story of Dr. John Lilly, who was a friend of Timothy Leary, whose Mellon family-owned Millbrook estate was frequently visited by Dr. Max "Feelgood" Jacobson, who once 'treated' Judy Garland and who served as the personal physician of John Kennedy, whose assassination prompted the shelving of the film The Manchurian Candidate by its star, Frank Sinatra, who was a frequent companion of fellow 'Brat Packer' Sammy Davis, Jr., who was an acknowledged member of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, from where Manson recruited killers Bobby "Cupid" Beausoleil and Susan "Sexy Sadie" Atkins, who confessed to her cellmates that she had stabbed to death actress Sharon Tate, who was inducted into witchcraft on the set of the Polanski-directed film The Fearless Vampire Killers by Alexander "King of the Witches" Saunders, who received 'training' as a child from Aleister Crowley, whose followers included Anton LaVey and fellow Church of Satan member Kenneth Anger, who was the roommate (and probable lover) of Family member Bobby Beausoleil, who once appeared in an underground film titled Mondo Hollywood, which also featured hairdresser and Manson victim Jay Sebring, who was a former lover of Sharon Tate, who was a friend of a wealthy widow named Charlene Caffritz, who played host to - and filmed the exploits of - Charlie and some of his girls, who also lived for a time with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, who recorded a song penned by Charlie, who was an occasional member of the entourage of Mama Cass, who was listed as a defense witness for Charlie's trial (but never called), as was her Mamas and the Papas band-mate John Phillips, who was close to Polanski, Tate, Melcher, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Cass Elliot, and film producer Robert Evans... etc., etc...

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=16273

My kind of fun.

Behind the commercials:

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/biographies/biographies.htm

! (nice)

? (but, what?)

:)

Hello...

Whatcha up to this evening?

Do you get or read Cat Fancy magazine ever?

Submitted by Penny_Lane on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 10:34pm.
Sam Seder? ToniD is not able to get on the Blog..could you check that out please?
----------
Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs
Submitted by WisePolitics on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 10:50pm.
------------------------
Obviously toniD has enlisted. (Probably the weird side effect of some kind of drug interaction.)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/27/defense-of-democracies-fear-mon...

http://www.brazileassociates.com/viewBlog.cfm?id=82

maybe POT is from the Chicagoland area or around T's IP address and maybe they all got banned by accident?

But when I was sitting in the Animal Hospital ER the other night, I read a Cat Fancy that was in the rack...

My dog had an unmentionable problem. Poor girl. She could probably still use a sitz bath, but I'll be damned if I'll do that for a dog. I'll just keep feeding her the anti-biotics, and maybe take her in for a medicated bath in a few days.

i's a here!

no reports

Submitted by Penny_Lane on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 11:22pm.
maybe POT is from the Chicagoland area...
--------
If POTDog is not War Dog from the Kansas City metropolitan area, I'll eat your tin foil hat.

Cat Fancy is like a giant commercial like every other magazine except The Sun..

But this month was all about blue-eyed cats...the cover had a one that looked just like the two from where I work...just a lot of cute pics in this one...though I don't look at it often, I'm sure they're all cute...

He reads to me aloud...

Did you know:

Martin went to a segregated elementary school.
Martin went to Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta GA
Martin skipped the 9th and 12th grades and graduated from high school at age 15
Martin got his 'Reverand' title at Crozer Seminary
Martin received a scholarship to receive his doctorate at Boston University
Martin performed marriages, funerals, visited the sick, gave people advice, helped the poor, and gave sermons.

Now he's talking about the bus thing and the peaceful protests...

Did you hear about that school in Kansas where they had a 'demonstration' yesterday where all the people lighter than a paper bag in color had to use certain doorways - the darker children threw things at them and called them names, and they were otherwise made to feel inferior? Alot of children were upset and went home early...
MLK would have been pissed, I think.

...or maybe he's in Branson for the gala Boxcar Willie memorial extravaganza?

stationed...

Man, I hate that.

Not sure where she is, but traditionally they always send her to Tikrit.

She's on her 4th tour. Or maybe this is her 5th.

John McCain looks like that guy who picks up the remote when the phone rings, "Hello? Hello?"

ya he mentioned that was coming last year.

way of of calling me nuts..(including your direct way of calling me nuts on the other thread)...

:)

It sounds like him, yes..and I stil think it's a parody way of telling you all to be a 3%-er or die (i.e. continue to be fucked over my a D or R)...War Dog was the same way...

yesterday a lot of them were "non hostile" deaths..one was even an accidental weapon discharge...

Sunny J and Exhausted Blogger,

You can purchase official Boxcar Willie train whistles here:

http://www.boxcarwillie.com/giftshop/add2cart.php?ProductID=1902&Categor...

You know you're going to have to pay up for that round about
Submitted by Penny_Lane on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 11:43pm.
way of of calling me nuts..(including your direct way of calling me nuts on the other thread)...
--------
We'll see who's nuts when you flunk out after taking my advice.

But I have such little empathy for soldiers who are being killed in Iraq..

A. Death could be much nicer than Life

B. They enlisted knowing that military do not give ice-cream to people for a living.

C. My half brother who is Navy has been told his next assignment is Iraq...yes..Navy...(And was told Navy is not going to Iraq at enlistment.)

D. I also believe people choose when to die like they choose when to be born..

I have too many conflicting beliefs...

http://www.madcowprod.com/02272008.html

John McCain’s Sweet Ride: Lobbyist’s Plane Flew Saudi Royals after 9/11

February 27, 2008
by Daniel Hopsicker

The lavishly-furnished custom Boeing 727 airliner (727PX) which ferried Senator John McCain on four occasions during his Presidential run in 2000 also flew Saudi Royals out of the U.S. right after 9/11, carrying an entourage of Saudi Royals from Las Vegas to London six days after the 9/11 attack in a controversial operation later scrutinized by the 9/11 Commission.

The 727 figures in the current tempest over his relationship with female lobbyist Vicki Iseman, who provided and flew with McCain on the plane.

With hundreds of air charter companies and airliners to choose from, the Saudis chose a company that owns “Worship Ministries” and Christian Network, Inc., turning to Paxson Communications, a “Christian broadcaster” which owned the plane, to make its corporate jet available to spirit the Saudi princes and their entourage out of the U.S. six days after 9/11.

The Saudi Royal party made good their escape from Las Vegas on an airliner sporting a Christian symbol of peace, a dove, on it’s tail, an intriguing detail and compelling human interest story—Muslims flying Air Jesus—that has to date been reported nowhere but in the MadCowMorningNews.
...

the second one I did all alone and also got 10 out of 10

BUT

This one is worth 20..and after I got screwed on that test question...I really want 20 out of 20..

God..if I didn't know how much better you write my words I would be better off..but I keep thinking if I turn my own work in and don't get 20 I will regret not seeing what you do with the words...

Pro-Israel evangelical leader endorses McCain
Reuters - 2 hours ago
By Andy Sullivan SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain won the endorsement of Texas evangelical leader John Hagee on Wednesday...
--------
I hope the ACLU finds a way to sue this ordained excrement back to beyond the stone age (more than 6,000 years at the least) for violating his tax exempt status.

but nothing was ever said about Churches registering voters in 04...

So what's the deal with that?

Penny,

Some instructors aren't hung up on spiffy writing so much as they want you to communicate to them that you know the correct answers.

You should have your instructor a little bit figured out by now?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-02-26-marines_N.htm

The Marine Corps has ordered a civilian scientist to stop work on a report critical of its efforts to obtain new armored vehicles, saying he exceeded his authority, a Marine official said Tuesday. Franz Gayl, a retired Marine officer and civilian science adviser, alleged in a Jan. 22 report that "gross mismanagement" of the program to quickly field Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles had resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Marines in Iraq.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/26/MN29V8FHL.DT...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Bush administration officials Monday that he is tired of the Pentagon treating the California National Guard like a stepchild by using its equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan without returning or replacing it.

test question for her next class, but didn't change my grade..

I see what you're saying, and when I turned in the first paper, it was my ideas in your words...

But I would feel bad if I were graded on such a weighty paper without having it be all me..

So I agree..don't make it sounds smarter..

Can you see any grammar or spelling errors? Do you think it sounds ok to turn in as is? I mean could you give those sorts of opinions instead of making it sound better please? I will send you the questions that needed to be answered and you can tell me if it seems like I answered them all..that's all I'm concerned about...

k?

by U.S. military

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23283495-5005961,00.html

27 Feb 2008

The U.S. military has designated a journalist employed by CTV in Afghanistan as an unlawful enemy combatant. A military spokesman told the Associated Press that a review board has determined Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan national, is a danger to foreign troops and the Afghan government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/27/usa1

27 Feb 2008

The anonymous internet phenomenon Wikileaks.org today won two influential allies in its fight against a US court order shutting down the website. Wikileaks disclosed secret documents on Guantanamo Bay, Northern Rock and other controversial issues before a Swiss bank won a legal injunction that blocked its US server last week.

I'm going back to this one...

I can't not be me so it doesn't matter what name it says..I was just hoping this person was only smart enough to do Ctrl-F Alice and get foiled..

?

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1307254,00.html

Authorities sealed off a building in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Wednesday night after finding three packages inside that might contain radioactive material, an official said.

Mr. Hagee, who argues that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive, biblically prophesized military strike against Iran that will lead to the second coming of Christ, praised Mr. McCain for his pro-Israel views.

I need a copy of that Bible that has the USA in it.... has to be a collectible.

Free Democracy

there are a lot of parents I don't care for

what closet do they stash those assholes in?

I just found out I'm dyslexic.

hell no!

especially given a record of offensive action.

EB can't get on the Blog either...

In a way, it could be a sign that things might turn around.

thast fairly common, no biggie.

i'm cixelsyd... and yuo thought you dah problems!

let me know if I'm not able to get on the blog, OK?

just post if you have any probs.

she may have fallen into an internet tube!!!

I need a copy of that Bible that has the USA in it.... has to be a collectible.

Me too! I'll put it on my shelf right by my copy of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988

________________________________

Excellence is not an act, but a habit. -Aristotle

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iTeK01eu-OvzawrxG32KDfifcJyQD8V2QH8O0

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Is Obama playing the race card?
new
Submitted by WisePolitics on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 10:30pm.

He also alleges that the media's blind love for Obama has led it to portray innocuous actions by the Clinton campaign, such as Bill Clinton's comments about Jesse Jackson in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton's statement about Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, as race-baiting behavior.

_______________________

I believe that this is the guy who really put out the statement: "Chimp: worst president ever," so I will suppress my urge to call him "idiot."

However... well, let me translate Clinton's statement from that day in South Carolina:

"Obama won South Carolina? Big deal. Another doomed black presidential candidate, Jesse Jackson, won South Carolina back in '88. Another black man won a predominantly black state. Who cares?"

Many people believe that Billdabitch's comment caused the sea change in the nation to Obama, particularly among black people. I saw a poll that indicated that black people dumped Hilldabeast almost instantly after that comment. Tell them that it wasn't racist.

Wilentz has serious issues.

not predominantly black state.... predominantly black in terms of Democrats

Alice, *a-o I know you're 3rd party like but

"We’re finally at a moment when Bush needs the world more than the world needs Bush"
----
One election at a time...

Hi...hey have you seen this Pete Seeger special on PBS? You must get KQED I guess?

but I shall. I got some great t-shirts with Woody's and Pete's anti-fascist axes

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080227_taxi_to_the_dark_side

On the Sunday following Sept. 11, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney told the truth. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said regarding plans to pursue the perpetrators of that attack: “We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows.” The grim, deadly consequences of his promise have, in the intervening six years, become the shame of our nation and have outraged millions around the world. President George Bush and Cheney, many argue, have overseen a massive global campaign of kidnapping, illegal detentions, harsh interrogations, torture and kangaroo courts where the accused face the death penalty, confronted by secret evidence obtained by torture, without legal representation.
...

We are Shooting for 12-21-2012, that's the new plan.

http://www.december212012.com/experts.shtml

Buy your books now!!

Yay!

What's that? All I know about Pete is that my dad kept a song book of pete's in the living room side table drawer...and that they wanted Pete to sign a non-communist oath...

year... :)

That would be a great campaign song by Lee Dorsey or the Pointers or Allen.

http://maratcal.livejournal.com/146711.html

maratcal (maratcal) wrote,
@ 2008-02-27 22:16:00

i've been thinking about this a lot over the last few days and lo and behold, it actually came up today in the press. hillary clinton brought up an SNL skit in her debate with obama, which though i have not seen it, basically portrays the press as falling over obama.

and i think there is some truth to that. i think that clinton is getting attacked more. i think there is not as much that is attackable about obama-- he's a charismatic speaker, he's relatively new to national politics (so he doesn't have a lot of history to pick at), and he wasn't married to bill clinton.

and in a slight digression, the administrative assistant at my office has a sign posted by his computer that's hypothetically a picture of a diner sign that says "i ain't voting for monica lewinsky's ex-boyfriend's wife."

it's this shit that gets me. i honestly think she is being given a hard time because of her ex-husband (yes, some will argue that he got her into politics.) but i think that it's also because she's a woman. i think that there are some in the democratic party that hate her so much that they knew that the only way to beat her--the first woman running for president (unless geraldine ferraro ran-- and no all the loons running in peace and freedom party, etc don't count)--is to find another first--hence, barack obama. so it makes me mad. i feel like there's definite anti-woman sentiment going on. and i think the press is giving him a free pass.

that said, if he gets the nomination, i will support him, but it does remind me that gender (and hell, racial, sexuality, etc.) equality is not a reality in this country.

*

Hi PB! How's it goin'? You made me wonder about the rating system for this blog...like what makes an interesting, or not interesting or whatever sort of blog...I wonder..I save a lot of threads..and I used to repost them a lot...but then I thought I might not like seeing my old posts in front of me so I stopped..except for Billy Mumphrey's I repost those the most...

I might even give my first born to know who the person is who plays Billy here... :)

Is William F. Buckley really dead?

I smelled sulfur whenever that guy was on T.V.

and again..

Mel!

:)

Hullo..

you can color him dead...

I put his first one, and his last one - that we carry any way..

Yet (remembering what I said about seeming contradictions), your dreams are also social events of a kind, and the state of dreaming can almost be thought of as an inner public forum in which man and woman has his or her say, and in which each opinion, however unpopular, is taken into consideration. If you want to call any one dream event a private event, then I would have to tell you that that private event actually was your personal contribution to a larger multisided dream event, many-layered, so that one level might deal with the interests of a group to which you belong -- say your family, or your political or religious organization -- reaching outward to the realm of national government and world affairs. As your private conscious life is lived in a community setting of one kind or another as a rule, so do your dreams take place in the same context, so that as you dream for yourself, to some extent you also dream for your own family, for your community, and the world.

Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume 2, Jane Roberts and Seth

http://SurviveMartiaLlaw.com/

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

"... A LIGHT WILL SHINE THROUGH THAT WINDOW, A BEAM OF LIGHT WILL COME DOWN UPON YOU, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE AN EPIPHANY ... AND YOU WILL SUDDENLY REALIZE THAT YOU MUST GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE FOR OBAMA"

- BARACK OBAMA LEBANON, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
JANUARY 7, 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9P15YZrnv0

http://www.fakewar.org/

http://reflectingpoolfilm.com/reflectingpooltrailer.htm

http://www.checktheevidence.com/

Where the children are forbidden happiness

They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year.

But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work.

The finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused yesterday of withholding data on the drugs.

It also came as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to "talking treatments" for depression, instead of drugs, in a £170m scheme. The popularity of the new generation of antidepressants, which include the best known brands Prozac and Seroxat, soared after they were launched in the late 1980s, heavily promoted by drug companies as safer and leading to fewer side-effects than the older tricyclic antidepressants.

The publication in 1994 of Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer, in which he suggested anyone with too little "joy juice" might give themselves a dose of the "mood brightener" Prozac , lifted sales into the stratosphere.

In the UK, an estimated 3.5 million people take the drugs, collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in any one year and 29 million prescriptions were issued in 2004. Prozac, the best known of the SSRIs made by Eli Lilly, was the world's fastest-selling drug until it was overtaken by Viagra.
...

"How I Learned to Stop Suffering" by Byron Katie
http://tinyurl.com/2k8kl2

*

FUTURE BLESSINGS
http://tinyurl.com/3cloun
"We shall have the power of gods"

*

PRACTICAL PEACE-MAKING
*Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea*
by Mark Kurlansky
http://tinyurl.com/22ehrt

(freewillastrology.com - rob breszny)

http://granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/mier27/09evoraul-i.html

LA PAZ, February 26.—

Bolivian President Evo Morales congratulated Raúl Castro on his election as President of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba and expressed his unconditional solidarity with the country’s new head of state and its revolutionary people.

According to PL, in the message he declared his government’s willingness to “continue working together for the revolution and integration of our peoples, since only with unity can we secure the road to liberation.”

“I reiterate my fervent support and untiring solidarity with you and our beloved Cuba,” added the official statement.

At least it's a fucking obtainable measurable plan..

More than I can say for the other fucks who want to rule us and the world...

POCLAD invites you to work with us to change this.

Let's start with what you and we have learned. Hundreds of small, low-budget groups have stopped corporations from poisoning a river, clear-cutting a forest, breaking a law, busting a union, carrying propaganda into a school. This is extremely important. Valiant and persistent organizing has bettered the daily lives of millions, instilled confidence and self-respect, and transformed communities.

But when the joy of victory fades, imperial corporations remain. Slowed in one place, they pop up in another. They're in our schools, town halls, statehouses, and Congress. They block sane, logical transitions in food, energy, transportation, healthcare, finance, forestry, and manufacturing. They fund think tanks and universities to frame public debate. They buy obedience and define society's values.

*

Thanks KEVIN! :)

Be free!

You're cloggin' up the Blog!"

Will do, zeek...
I'm finally tired... :)

Nites... xo

Iraqi leaders veto law Bush administration hailed as political breakthrough

BAGHDAD — Iraq's three-man presidency council Wednesday announced that it's vetoed legislation that U.S. officials two weeks ago hailed as significant political progress.

Also Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he hoped that Turkey's incursion into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels would last a "week or two" but "not months."

Turkish news agencies reported that as many as 77 guerrillas were killed the night before in the most violent night of the week-old incursion on Iraq's northern border. A rebel spokesman said fighters for the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, had killed 18 Turkish soldiers.

The rejected bill, which sets out the political structure for Iraq's provincial governments and establishes a basis for elections in October, was only the second of 18 U.S.-set political benchmarks that the war-tore nation needs to reach.

Parliament considered it in a bundle with two other bills, a general amnesty and a budget, and approved it on Feb. 12 in what was welcomed in Washington as an example of good government, compromise and progress toward national unity.

Now the question is whether parliament is willing to revise the measure.

"It was a package deal. Now that package is broken," said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group in Amman, Jordan.

At the heart of the rejection of the provincial law is the question of whether Iraq will have strong provincial governors who answer only to their elected executive councils or if the federal prime minister will have a voice in their appointment and removal.

The presidency council vetoed the bill, challenging the role it gave both the prime minister and the governor.

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., said the law is needed to define the roles of Iraq's provinces and of the central government and to set ground rules for any future discussion of creating a federation of Sunni and Shiite Muslim and Kurdish regions.......

Just now back on blog.

I have ATT dsl connection, also.

I just now got back on the blog also. I had to change my sign in name and password.

What's with AT&T? I called and they said they never block sites, but it must have been their server

toniD

Supreme Court worried for Exxon
by Chris in Paris · 2/28/2008 06:17:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (24) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

Wouldn't it be nice if the Supreme Court cared a little more about corporate responsibility and average Americans instead of the stress of corporate execs who are making a few hundred million dollars? Sheesh. The best democracy money can buy.
Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR200802...

I wasn't the only one that could not get on the blog.

Cabinet post for volunteer management in California
by Chris in Paris · 2/28/2008 03:32:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (18) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

What a really great idea.
Mr. Schwarzenegger is creating a cabinet-level office for volunteer management, which his administration says is the first such state cabinet position in the country. He is scheduled to announce the move on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

Under the change, the governor’s commission for volunteerism, California Volunteers, will maintain its staffing and budget. But its executive director will gain expanded duties as a cabinet secretary, playing a role in disaster-related planning and response efforts and coordinating volunteers at disaster sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26calif.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

with an attitude like that, he is unfit to serve on the supreme court. how can he be so blind to the environmental damage being done?

Josh Marshall: McCain wants to define Obama as a Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab
by John Aravosis (DC) · 2/27/2008 11:31:00 PM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (252) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

An intense, and pointed, commentary from Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. Josh is a very good writer and thinker, but he's not prone to the amount of emotion that I and some others in the blogosphere sometimes like to show (cough, Matt Stoller :-) So when Josh writes something like this, the media takes notice. We take notice.
Hopefully, everyone can now see the McCain strategy for running against Barack Obama. Yes, we have some general points on taxes, culture wars and McCain as war hero who can protect us in ways that flash-in-the-pan pretty boy Barack Obama can't.

But that's not the core. The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American,BLACK, terrorist, Arab....

Now, a good deal has been made out of John McCain's repudiation of talk radio yakmeister Bill Cunningham, who led off for McCain at one of his rallies with the full run of Obama sludge. But don't be distracted or fooled....

Don't insult your intelligence or mine by pretending that John McCain's plan for this race doesn't rely on hundreds of Cunninghams -- large and small -- across the country, and the RNC and all the GOP third party groups, to be peddling this stuff nonstop for the next eight months because it's the only way John McCain have a real shot at contesting this race.

If McCain really wants to repudiate this stuff, he can start with the Tennessee Republican party which dished all the slurs and smears about Obama being a Nation of Islam-loving anti-Semite, just today. And once he's done talking to the people who will be running his Tennessee campaign, we'll have a number of others he can talk to, like the head of his Ohio campaign, former Sen. Mike DeWine, who gave that Cunningham guy his marching orders.

Let's just not fool ourselves, not lie to ourselves about what's happening here and who's in charge.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/180471.php

I was 2. :-)

Mornin' blog!

Bernanke ready to sacrifice average Americans to save Wall Street
by Chris in Paris · 2/27/2008 09:34:00 PM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: Comments (97) · reddit · FARK ·· Digg It!

Gosh, thanks. While I appreciate the public arguing between Federal Reserve governors on the subject of whether to focus on inflation or Wall Street, it's discouraging to hear Bernanke so willingly point towards another Wall Street gift. During the Bush years, the middle class has been shafted and has not enjoyed the economic benefits that mostly helped the wealthiest Americans. There was no trickle down and they didn't even try to hide behind such false stories as they did during the Reagan years. They simply didn't give a damn.

Now all of the excesses of the Wall Street wet dream, where they were given full authority by Republicans do to pretty much any damned thing they liked, are crashing down. Suddenly, we're all supposed to jump and give Wall Street more free money so we can help them bounce back. Money isn't falling from the sky, it's leaving your wallet to bail these bums out. The same middle class who has footed the bill for Iraq, footed the tax cuts for the rich, more expensive health care, fewer benefits and payed the price for lack of traditional regulation, is being asked to sacrifice - again - so that Bernanke can help Wall Street dig out of the hole they put us in. We're in for a bumpy ride one way or another so let Wall Street fend for themselves and think about the middle class. Inflation and sagging wages are taking their toll, but don't tell that to Bernanke. He doesn't give a damn unless you are Wall Street.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23367821/

Galactic 22 (8-1.7.7.7)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

blue spectral monkey ~ kin 11

DISSOLVE in order to PLAY,
RELEASING ILLUSION
seal the PROCESS of MAGIC
with the SPECTRAL tone of LIBERATION.
guided by the SAME power DOUBLED.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
◄ 12.19.15.2.2 ≈ hun ik ►

consider that with his repudiation statement mccain was able to use husseins middle name once more.

we ain't seen nothing yet. i wonder when the gay baiting will start.

talk about feeling old. i had just graduated from college and started working full time...

every sector and will not let go.

Air Force blocking access to more blogs. Danger Room reports that the Air Force is “tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word ‘blog’ in its web address.” One official called the move so “utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.” Sites like The New York Times, however, will be allowed because they are “established, reputable media outlet[s].”

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/air-force-banni.html

blocking based on a word like 'blog' cuts across the board so if you accept that they need to restrict access, that's not such a terrible policy.

what would be interesting is whether the blockage has a bias. are freeper sites allowed but progressive sites blocked? what about political sites? what the article doesn't say is whether the filtering is balanced. is fox news allowed but cnn blocked?

Stiglitz: war costs causing credit and housing crises. Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz told London’s Chatham House today that the Iraq war has so far cost the United States $3.3 trillion, and that those costs are the “hidden cause of the current credit crunch” and housing crisis. Stiglitz added that “[t]he money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world” and “[j]ust a few days’ funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html

McCain Rated As America’s Worst Senator For Children
Today, the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council released its 2007 Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard. CDF reports some positive news, particularly that average scores for members of Congress “improved from the previous three years with more Members scoring 100 percent than in 2004, 2005 or 2006.”

Many, however, did not fare so well. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) received a 10 percent rating — the worst in the U.S. Senate.

CDF ranked members on 10 votes affecting children:

1. Increase minimum wage (H.R. 2)
2. Increase funding for children with disabilities (S. Con. Res. 21)
3. Protect children from unsafe medications (S. 1082)
4. 2008 Budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 21)
5. SCHIP Reauthorization (H.R. 976)
6. College Cost Reduction and Access Act (H.R. 2669)
7. SCHIP (H.R. 976 - motion to concur)
8. DREAM Act (S. 2205)
9. Funding child health and education (H.R. 3043)
10. Improving Head Start programs (H.R. 1429)

McCain has missed 57 percent of Senate votes this session, being absent or voting “present” for 8 out of 10 children-related votes. McCain voted “yes” to increase the minimum wage; his only other vote was voting “no” on SCHIP reauthorization on Aug. 2, 2007:

Furthermore, the rankings weren’t divided by party. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Gordon Smith (R-OR) received strong 70 percent rankings.

McCain’s CDF score has steadily declined over the years. In 2004, he received a 38 percent; in 2005, 22 percent; in 2006, 10 percent.

Read the full report here.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/27/mccain-children/

House passes clean energy tax package. In a 236-182 vote, the House approved an extension and expansion of tax breaks and incentives for wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources, as well as the closing of $18 billion in tax loopholes and subsidies for Big Oil.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5575820.html

GOP Engages In ‘Political Extortion,’ Draws Up Hit List Of Democratic Lawmakers
In 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pushed forward on her pledge to run the most ethical Congress in history and established the House Ethics Enforcement Task Force. She charged the group with setting up an Office of Congressional Ethics, an “independent ethics panel” composed of six “nonpartisan professional staff” members who were jointly appointed by the Speaker and Minority Leader. Lawmakers and lobbyists would be barred from serving.

The House is expected to vote on the task force’s proposal on Thursday. Even though this committee will be independent and nonpartisan, the GOP is already resisting. In an attempt to dissuade Democrats from voting for the ethics office, senior House Republican aides are drawing up a hit list of 10 Democratic lawmakers who would be pursued with ethics investigations if the measure passes. National Journal reports (sub. req’d):

Senior House Republican aides are drawing up a list of Democrats to target if the House votes Thursday to create an independent panel to weigh ethics complaints against lawmakers.

In a move that one top Democratic lawmaker called “political extortion,” House GOP aides said Tuesday the names of more than 10 Democrats are likely to end up on the list and that investigations would be pursued against all of them.

It is not clear how much support House Republican leaders are giving to the staff effort, but several GOP leadership aides who were asked about the list said they were aware of it.

Democratic lawmakers on the GOP list include John Murtha (PA), Jim Moran (VA), and John Conyers (MI), among others.

Pursuing investigations against lawmakers is one thing. But holding off on the investigations to blackmail lawmakers is another. “If they have legitimate ethics concerns about any member, why wouldn’t they bring it forward now?” wondered Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), who chairs the ethics task force.

If Boehner is truly serious about his pledge “to enforce a tougher ethical standard in the 110th Congress,” he should disavow this hit list.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/27/house-ethics-extortion/

Coleman Campaign Caught Astro-Turfing
By: Nicole Belle @ 7:11 PM - PST

Minnesota Publius:

On January 25th the Minnesota Daily published a letter to the editor from Abul-Rahman Magba-Kamara, chairman of the UMN College Republicans. The letter’s a bit too long to post in the body here, but you can find the whole text below the fold or on the paper’s site here. [..]

A week later on February 7th, The Winona Daily News published a letter to the editor from Samantha Gronlund, a Winona State University student. Again, the letter’s a bit too long but the text is below the fold and can be found on the paper’s site here.[..]

I think the sum total difference between the two paragraphs amounts to three insignificant changes… The startling thing is that they are virtually identical the whole way through and the thing’s 10 paragraphs long! Seriously, I’ve included both below the fold, it’s startling, but let me restate where we’re at: Two papers published identical letters to the editor attacking Al Franken within a 2 week span but attributed to two entirely different individuals. The academic integrity of these two students is of serious question, but that’s not my concern right now.

It’s not surprising that someone else found this weird.

Apparently tipped off to this disturbing occurrence, The Winona Daily News published the following correction on Saturday the 9th[..]

According to Ms. Gronlund, the letter came from Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign and was a form letter.

Ooops! All the more reason to support Al Franken.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/27/coleman-campaign-caught-astro-t...

good morning yourll

Looks like Sean Wilentz is at it again! His analysis is so out of touch with reality it is incredible.

Noted in the last paragraph is this:

"This is not Wilentz's first critique of Obama's relationship with the press in the pages of "The New Republic." Back in December 2007, he wrote an article that caused fellow "Republic" writer Cass Sunstein to pen a stinging response dubbing Wilentz's piece "A Mere Smear." "

― Vincent Rossmeier

Here is Cass Sunsteins rebuttal to Wilentz' December 2007 article in The New Republic:

The New Republic

A Mere Smear
by Cass R. Sunstein
Sean Wilentz's unfair attack on Barack Obama and his supporters.
Post Date Thursday, December 27, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2d7854

is on Washington Journal.

She just said the Dems tools are limited as far as getting this border wall project in line because:

1. She can't cut off the funding because it will make her look bad

2. She can't issue contempt citations because the public will think they are playing quote "political games"

POLITICAL GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF is wrong with her.

Since when is doing yer job considered political games.

We need to get Pelosi the hell out of there.

I bet she is the one telling them this crap.

dare debate mccain on foreign policy becoz he will lose....what foreign policy does mccain have? caged in nam? where else in the world has he been besides iraq and ofcourse vietnam???

The Plaza de la Catedral—Havana, Cuba. In color and movement the scene is romantic as an opera setting. February 1923.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002501

There is a history of thought about Cuba along with the drawing.

did a great job of excoriating William F. Buckley, Jr. last night for his anti-semitism and racism.

It seems to me that a study of Buckley's writings especially in the 50's and 60's would expose what the conservative movement is all about.

Josh Marshall: McCain wants
Submitted by toniD on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 7:42am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sure hope the RNC goes this road.....

The "Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab" tactic

is great on offense, but it's a shitty defense....

and when Bunnypants used the fear card in '04, he was on offense, but as Brownie and countless others have shown us, their's is a house of cards....

But now, they're on Defense.... and this plane will not fly...... McCain's got threads coming out of every orifice just waiting to be unraveled....

and if they think the American public is not crying out for someone who can OVERCOME the divide, not DEFINE it, then please, go ahead and offer the public your message.....

McCain may be old, but his minders will bury him before he even gets a chance to smell November.....

Wouldn't it be wonderful to open trade and travel to Cuba again?

has been on fire the last few days.

I love it and hope he continues.

hearing about Cuba before Castro and under the control of the Batista Mob. Alot of American Mob influence there as well.

HA funny letterman

Feminists and the Election

A Letter from American Feminists | As women choose sides in a momentous presidential election, global feminism's core values risk being overtaken by issues of race and gender.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/feminists

Bloomberg: I'm Not Running For President

NEW YORK — After two years of playing coy about his presidential ambitions, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared in a newspaper editorial Wednesday that he will not run for president but might support the candidate who "takes an independent, nonpartisan approach."

The 66-year-old billionaire businessman, who aides had said was prepared to spend $1 billion to run as an independent, wrote in an editorial on The New York Times' Web site that he will work to "steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/27/bloomberg-im-not-runnin_n_88831...

McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out

WASHINGTON — The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html?_r=1&ex=1361...

Found this on Crooks and Liars where Gregory was speaking at The State of the Black Union. I saw Greogry when I was in college in the 60's. It is a treat to hear him again.
http://tinyurl.com/2d7fek

How long were you trying to log on to Sam's blog yesterday?

For those that don't know, we bloggers with AT&T dsl were unable to log in here for the greater part of the day and night yesterday.

mo lib, Exhausted Blogger and I were having problems. I even called AT&T about it and the guy I spoke to did not hesitate to say that they do not block web sites, but so far, the only people not able to get on were the people with AT&T dsl.

Wierd?

McCain May Be Old, but He's Still a Threat

Liberal smarties and sophisticates are having fun mocking John McCain , but assuming he gets the nomination, he will a formidable candidate. He may look like a grumpy old man -- specifically, as my friend Kathleen Geier joked, the grumpy old man who yells at kids to get off his lawn -- or the nutty old uncle who rags on everyone at Thanksgiving before passing out in front of the football game. But that's another way of saying McCain is a familiar, indeed family, character. It does not require an imaginative stretch to get John McCain. How many voters know someone like Barack Obama?

McCain is white, male, patriarchal, a war hero with decades in the Senate. So what if he's old? In politics old can be good ( for men), especially to the older voters -- older white voters -- who dominate the polls. Besides, McCain's not so old that he couldn't get himself a much younger trophy wife, and even if Cindy McCain looks brittle and unhappy and like she hasn't eaten in a decade, she is always there by his side, a visual reminder of his manly prowess. McCain is brash and sly and seemingly unguarded, unlike the famously self-protective Hillary Clinton, and he loves to schmooze with reporters, who adore him and like most of the rest of America, refuse to see how conservative he is. It's like they're saying, Oh go on, Uncle John! you're just saying you love Sam Alito to get me riled up!

Obama v. McCain could be change/youth/black/exciting/internationalist against experience/maturity/white/steady/superpatriot. Put that way, it could come down to how many white male Democrats, who might vote for Hillary, won't vote for a black man, let alone one whose middle name is Hussein. They won't care about McCain's favors for business --too complicated, and anyway everyone does it -- and they certainly won't care if he had an affair with lovely lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as the New York Times sorta-kinda suggested. They might like him even better for that.

We've been patting ourselves on the back a lot for having a black and a woman vying for top spot on the ticket of one of the two major parties. November will tell us whether or not we have really come all that far.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing?pid=289737

clearly explains Barak and Hillary's plans for Iraq...

A vote for either one of them, is NOT a vote to end the occupation there...

I hope everyone voting for either one of them doesn't do so under the illusion of ending the occupation of Iraq...

Mmmmmm k.

&

Good morning...glad you made it back Toni and Mo...it is very odd that it was just here you guys couldn't get to...

who are truly pro peace.. I'm sad for that...

*

Ralph Nader will be announcing his VP choice today...

My IP resolves to Chicago, but I use Verizon, and had no problems.
Altho, my DSL has run slower in the afternoons and evenings, I blame it on the increased traffic. (I pay for the slowest DSL they offer)

I believe the COG is in panic mode, and all hell is going to break out before we have an election. Big Brother censorship is alive and well.
COG = Continuity of Government
(Cheney's darkside shadowy place)

Meanwhile, the Israeli military has announced there will be no prosecutions over a November 2006 attack that killed twenty-one Palestinian civilians in a Gaza residential building. Sixteen of the dead were members of the same family. Seven of them were children, including an eighteen-month-old girl. Six other victims were women. Another nineteen family members were wounded, including four children who lost limbs.

*

oy...

have indicated that US troops are not going to be withdrawn in any significant manner in the first term of a presidency.

"We’re finally at a moment when Bush needs the world more than the world needs Bush"
----
One election at a time...

Will Tim Russert denounce longtime supporter Don Imus? Rejecting we can leave for another day.

--Josh Marshall

http://www.attytood.com/2008/02/questions_for_tim_russert_when_1.html

It is possible for Edwards to come back. Just like Romney, he suspended his campaign.

Probability is much less though:(

Jonathan Hacker

Attorney for Exxon

Interesting name.

Another Bush presser today. FISA reform again. Housing reform, Iraq, PEPFAR (AIDS relief in Africa.

Main topics. Scheduled for 10:05 ET today.

Thanks for your help last night!

MNP

Mere hours after we originally reported on the issue, Norm Coleman’s campaign is featured in a front page article on MPR’s website apologizing for the inappropriate seeding of two identical letters to the editor. MPR reports:

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s re-election campaign is apologizing to two Minnesota newspapers for two nearly identical letters to the editor that ended up published under two different names. The campaign acknowledges a staffer was behind the letters.

The letters, critical of DFL Senate candidate Al Franken, appeared in the Minnesota Daily and the Winona Daily News

**********

Original story:

COLEMAN SUPPORTERS DEFRAUD LOCAL PAPERS WITH CAMPAIGN DISTRIBUTED MATERIALS

On January 25th the Minnesota Daily published a letter to the editor from Abul-Rahman Magba-Kamara, chairman of the UMN College Republicans. The letter’s a bit too long to post in the body here, but you can find the whole text below the fold or on the paper’s site here. But, just to give you a taste, here’s the first paragraph: "Al Franken’s traveled around the state to college campuses trying to get the votes of young people. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials trying to portray himself as a nice guy. He even enlisted his fourth-grade teacher to give a testimonial about what a nice boy he was in elementary school."

A week later on February 7th, The Winona Daily News published a letter to the editor from Samantha Gronlund, a Winona State University student. Again, the letter’s a bit too long but the text is below the fold and can be found on the paper’s site here. And, again, here’s the first paragraph: "Al Franken’s travels around the state to college campuses trying to get the votes of young people are well documented. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials trying to portray himself as a nice guy. He has even enlisted his fourth grade teacher to give a testimonial about what a nice boy he was in elementary school."

Sound familiar? I think the sum total difference between the two paragraphs amounts to three insignificant changes… The startling thing is that they are virtually identical the whole way through and the thing’s 10 paragraphs long! Seriously, I’ve included both below the fold, it’s startling, but let me restate where we’re at: Two papers published identical letters to the editor attacking Al Franken within a 2 week span but attributed to two entirely different individuals.

immunity--thats what they are begging for not reform...they are losing it

Disturbing New Photos From Abu Ghraib

NSFW: VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. As an expert witness in the defense of an Abu Ghraib guard who was court-martialed, psychologist Philip Zimbardo had access to many of the images of abuse that were taken by the guards themselves. For a presentation at the TED conference in Monterey, California, Zimbardo assembled some of these pictures into a short video. Wired.com obtained the video from Zimbardo's talk, and is publishing some of the stills from that video here. Many of the images are explicit and gruesome, depicting nudity, degradation, simulated sex acts and guards posing with decaying corpses. Viewer discretion is advised.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/02/gallery_abu_...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gqb_jKJ-R4

I heard this is very funny...

Former Prosecutor to Testify for Detainee

Until four months ago, Col. Morris D. Davis was the chief prosecutor at Guantánamo Bay and the most colorful champion of the Bush administration’s military commission system. He once said sympathy for detainees was nauseating and compared putting them on trial to dragging “Dracula out into the sunlight.”

Then in October he had a dispute with his boss, a general. Ever since, he has been one of those critics who will not go away: a former top insider, with broad shoulders and a well-pressed uniform, willing to turn on the system he helped run.

Still in the military, he has irritated the administration, saying in articles and interviews that Pentagon officials interfered with prosecutors, exerted political pressure and approved the use of evidence obtained by torture.

Now, Colonel Davis has taken his most provocative step, completing his transformation from Guantánamo’s chief prosecutor to its new chief critic. He has agreed to testify at Guantánamo on behalf of one of the detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28gitmo.html?_r=2&ex=1361941200&en=...

Did you read my Commander Codpiece post?
It explains about Qwest, and just why the telecoms jumped to assist.
Qwest didn't jump and was taken down.
http://www.samsedershow.com/node/2032

There are several posts on that one thread, and most add new information. Definitely potty library reading material. lol

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080228/NEWS01/8022...

I wish I could have fixed it for ya tho...I'm so curious about why that happened to you guys..

Someone who might be able to answer a question about why I'm having so much trouble trying to listen to/watch the Sammie Cam with my new DSL?

Really wierd. I emailed Sam, who tried to help me last night, but couldn't, that it was an AT&T issue.

Cunningham!! He yells all the time. How can people even listen to him?

Talk about a wierd bird. What do people even see in him?

is on my local radio station on Sunday nights. As much as I love Coast to Coast AM, I'd rather miss C2C than listen to this vile bigot until C2C comes on.

Bush Steps Up Fearmongering With Press Conference
Bush is going to hold a news conference to press Congress to renew the expired surveillance bill. He'll probably ignore recent evidence that the bill's lapse hasn't affected U.S. intelligence.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/02/bush_to_hold_news_conference_a...

The Internet must die

and i get to this part...

Wikileaks is still months from going fully operational, but they've already put up quite a few leaked documents from all over the world. Here's one entitled "Fallujah, the information war and U.S. propaganda."

and it was linked

ok, let's go...

The page cannot be displayed

a lot of these problems are dns related. by using the ip address you sidestep some of that.

the other thing to check is the internet weather report

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm

lied....

Believe it or not, I even tried the IP address. Nothing worked.

I even restored to an earlier date on XP.

When I say I tried everything, I did. But it was only Sam;s blog I had problems with. AAR was no problem.

This was truly wierd.

"dns related" !!!!!!??????????

(what's a dns)

"by using the ip address"!!!!!!!!!????????

(what do you mean by that)

speak fucking english, you fucking...

GEEEEEKKKK!!!!!????????????

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18955.htm
Fallujah, the Information War, and U.S. Propaganda:

The U.S. Army's Intelligence Analysis of the April 2004 Fallujah Attack

By Stephen Soldz

12/27/07

oh yeah..good idea I forgot about that...

be skeered, be very skeered

YOU FUCKING GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!???

YOU FUCKING...

GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!???

: )

try this and earch the site for the article.

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

pbtrue1

but now i know i can get it...

i don't want it

: )

i want the address as shown on the article to work

otherwise, speak to the hand

: )

I've been told that before.
Most men don't like that in a woman.
(speaks from experience)

? maybe sbc-ers got a virus of some sort? A stretch..but...

and not that vanilla ice-cream

even though they were both made in the same factory

by the same hands, 2 seconds apart

i insist on the one that's 1 second apart

thank you,...

now send it back

and bring me the 1 second one

or i'll blow your fucking house up

tax bill?

there was a link yesterday to msn money that suggested that it was.

do you want nuts with that?

most men don't know what they're missing

do they, missy

: )

"real player enterprise" screen is not showing since yesterday

but if you want to lick my nuts

i'll turn a blind eye

: )

Yep. I tried to think of everything.

The IP addy started with a 70. as I can remember.

women like that in a women...switch switch?

do i, as in me< want nuts with that...

my bad

: )

you were being bugged period!! AT&T?? huh?

Clinton-Obama Plans Would Keep U.S. Mercenaries, Troops in Iraq for Years to Come

LISTEN

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation magazine that if elected Obama will not “rule out” using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq.

...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/scahill
Obama's Mercenary Position

putin and i! (please only ask me immunity questions) PLEASE!

can i have my nuts glazed and sugar-coated, please

should just suck it up.

bushtard: well, i wouldn't say it that way, but...

unfair---PURELY UNFAIR

all he cares about is how unfair it is to the corporations that they might be sued for breaking the law.

not in public anyway

*edited for your protection*

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=611#more-611

A Review of AS THE WORLD BURNS: 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Stay in Denial, a graphic novel by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan

Poor Bannanabelle. She wants so badly to save the environment – painlessly. But her best friends, the more politically savvy Kranti and Bunnista, the one-eyed lapin fugitive from a vivisection lab, keep shooting down her politically correct ideas. No, recycling and changing light bulbs won’t be enough, not like “that movie” suggested (whose producer won a Nobel Prize perhaps?). Solar energy requires copper mining, the burning of fossil fuel energy to create panels etc., and ethanol requires fossil fuels and poisonous fertilizer and pesticides for the growth and processing of corn. Planting a tree (for every thousand Big Lumber cuts down) won’t do it, nor will taking shorter showers, particularly since, according to Jensen and McMillan, 90 percent of all “fresh” water goes to industry, agriculture, and to water golf courses. Anyway, these are all “individual” solutions, as if only individuals, not a planet united against the corporate forces that caused these problems, could “solve” the immense complexity of the problem threatening all life on earth, Kranti points out. Certainly “new technology” – nano, nuclear, or otherwise – won’t “save us,” merely create, as all “new technologies” have, more filth, waste and misery for the benefit of whatever corporations control it.

So what are these two spirited, but politically powerless, young women to do?

Go down! Down the rabbit-hole — the empty socket where Bunnista’s pre-vivisection right eye had been? – for a non-human, all-too-non-human glimpse of “our” current reality.

Down to a world in which invading alien robots, machines from outer-space, whose diet consists of animals, vegetables and minerals, that is, the LIVING Earth, are able to bribe their way through the Corporocracy by offering the President of the United States unlimited supplies of the gold they expel from their mechanical anuses (they’re machines, after all; what would we expect them to shit?).

A world in which multi-national corporations become concerned that the alien robots are eating the planet – because that’s the corporations’ job. Those darn machines are eating into corporate profits. Big no-no. The Corporocracy demands that the President rescind the permits he granted the aliens, which allow them to eat the planet, or they’ll kill him, just as they would any other corporate slave who threatened the bottom-line. Nothing personal.
...

questions about him?

but immunity will keep us safer

air-ono. Oh & of course Sam to.

he said something about coming from across the river..glad he made it!

Economic Stimulus Checks

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

That’s what they always say, but honestly I don’t even know what that means. I hate sayings that I don’t know the meaning behind.

This isn’t meant to be a gift-horse-mouth-viewing post, but it is meant to encourage people to be wise with these economic stimulus checks the government is about to be sending out.

1. Don’t Spend The Checks. Crazy I know, but the fact that we spend so frivolously is what got us into this problem in the first place. The thought that they are only encouraging this behavior to “stimulate” the economy is just poor vision. So don’t go buy a new big screen TV with these checks. Don’t put a down payment on a new (or even used) car with these checks. Take this check and pay off debt. If you’re lucky enough to be without debt, take this money and invest it wisely. Let’s be smarter than our government with this money.

2. These Aren’t Free. Most people are unaware that these checks are actually an advance on our next years returns. I’ve found very little information available online about exactly how this will work. It’s possible the tax code will be altered to adjust for this check, making it indeed a wash. But the way I’m reading it, if we were meant to get a $2000 refund next year on our taxes, we’ll only receive $500. With so many people I know counting on their tax returns every year, I think this is something worth looking into. Ask your accountant for an explanation of exactly how this will effect you next year.

http://mudpuppy.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/economic-stimulus-checks/

The economic stimulus package that recently passed, the one where taxpayers will receive an additional check this year, looks to be a carryover to next year's taxes. I think this is the relevant section.
.." (g) Advance Refunds and Credits-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Each individual who was an eligible individual for such individual's first taxable year beginning in 2007 shall be treated as having made a payment against the tax imposed by chapter 1 for such first taxable year in an amount equal to the advance refund amount for such taxable year.

`(2) ADVANCE REFUND AMOUNT- For purposes of paragraph (1), the advance refund amount is the amount that would have been allowed as a credit under this section for such first taxable year if this section (other than subsection (f) and this subsection) had applied to such taxable year.

`(3) TIMING OF PAYMENTS- The Secretary shall, subject to the provisions of this title, refund or credit any overpayment attributable to this section as rapidly as possible. No refund or credit shall be made or allowed under this subsection after December 31, 2008."....anyone may parse that as they will, but it looks like the stimulus checks are an advance loan on any refund you might get next year. I welcome any corrections to my interpretation.

http://technocrat.net/d/2008/2/9/35958

it will undermine our relationship

"every now and then you have to flick the switch to vaudeville"

order! mr. speaker...

who is that bald guy interrupting the lead singer of midnight oil

Jesus !!!!.. I cant take Bush's voice!

i love ono...

everyone else is in the closet

fucking fidel and his damn brother oh and dont forget that axil of evil

meaning comedian

nor me...

not in one big helping

(i have far too much respect for myself)

so i'll wait for malloy to play snippets

can't do the heavy liftin' no more

it's me back, mate

it's fucked, mate

done it down the mines...

picking up a sandwich, mate

Bush's " JOKEY " attitude while having a press conference is psychotic.

Its inappropriate affect. His position and responsibility to Americans demands he be serious.

Its unseemly to threaten destruction by al quaeda if all our phones arent tapped one moment,

and act silly and like a retardate the next.

sickening.

about iraq until he is the democrat's chosen candidate.

as little boys...

I laughed so hard at this I cried.
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1582328/story.jhtml
Jimmy Kimmel's Revenge

"We’re finally at a moment when Bush needs the world more than the world needs Bush"
----
One election at a time...

boy that makes me feel good about the economy. how about the rest of you?

Just got back from the Vet and saw your question.

My last post was 3:50pm CT yesterday when the Israeli military man was on Sam's show. I found him so interesting and wanted to tell Sam to bring him back. It is so important to hear the realities of an occupation. I had trouble getting it to post. And, it was down. Was up in the middle of the night and it was still down and then when I tried at 5:34am it was up.

I have SBCglobal.net internet service.

can you believe that bush just said obama should be quiet
new
Submitted by dan on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 10:40am.

--

Uh...

Ya...

after 8 years off that fuckhead, is that hard to believe

and listen to him whine about ANWAR....

HOW ABOUT NEW TECHNOLOGIES

HIGHER MPG STANDARDS!!!

ugghhh!

cant take anymore.

Dobbs challenges Goldman Sachs chairman to a duel. » On his CNN show this week, host Lou Dobbs discussed the new Economy.com report that 8.8 million American homeowners are now “underwater” — meaning they owe more on their homes that the homes are worth. Dobbs then took issue with Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein, who had earlier suggested Dobbs’ prognosis of a worsening economy was false. Dobbs proceeded to challenge Blankfein to tell it to his face:

Perhaps Lloyd would like to come on here and show me the error of my ways and educate me perhaps from his lofty Wall Street perch on how millions of Americans are faring and what their prospects are. Lloyd, you certainly — I would love to have you do it. I would love to have you come on and talk to my face, not to my back, partner. I know it’s not the way you do it on Wall Street there, hot shot, but try it here. Come on down. Open invitation.

Watch it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/28/dobbs-challenges-goldman-sachs-chair...

ToniD
new
Submitted by mo lib on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 10:45am.

I have SBCglobal.net internet service.

--

Blog was down for me too , I have SBCglobal too... in CT.

i a very long time...ill probably take some foreign money yes---lets go terrorists

let us pray!!

is too pukey...

god almighty, he's playing the bush "JOKEY" to ward off
serious questions by party poopers spoiling the party

hence, the need for malloy to walk me through it

today. Sounds like Jorge needs a touch up on his labotomy patch.

checked with my accountant and he says that the article that says the stimulus check is an advance against next years refund is essentially correct.

doesn't sound like much of a stimulus. and here it was i thought i was getting free money from my grandkids who have yet to be born...

This SBC thing is interesting. Because, I could get on other sites. It was only Sam's blog that was down. I do remember that at one point the blog's type was different. On the right hand side the font was much larger. I first thought that it was somehow connected to the installation of a new site design for AAR that Sam talked about. Does Sam or AAR use SBC?

Tim Russert question of the day
Submitted by SEDER on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 10:11pm.

Hahahaha.

Russert is such a moron. He has far too many hypotheticals, and he uses an overly formal and grave tone constantly. I hate him.

Signature:

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Check it out

McCain and Theodore Roosevelt:

www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Sam uses Verizon.
AAR is on Voxel Dot Net, Inc. They used to use go-daddy.
EarthTimes
"We’re finally at a moment when Bush needs the world more than the world needs Bush"
----
One election at a time...

I, too, have SBC Global. That is now AT&T.

I lost the blog right about then as well. I was able to watch Sammy Cam but the blog was down. I even emailed Sam that the blog was down and he said on the Cam that it wasn't.

That was really wierd, but it was an AT&T problem. The guy I spoke to at AT&T said he didn't know what the problem was but that they didn't block web sites. I didn't even mention anything about blocking. Defensive wasn't it.

Iran 'number one world power': Ahmadinejad

Feb 28 05:54 AM US/Eastern
91 Comments

View larger image

Iran: Nuclear Weapons Charges Were Fabricated

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Thursday that Iran was the world's "number one" power, as he launched a bitter new assault on domestic critics he accused of siding with the enemy.
"Everybody has understood that Iran is the number one power in the world," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to families who lost loved ones in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

"Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful and it puts them in their place," he added in the address broadcast live on state television.

Ahmadinejad's comments come amid renewed Western efforts on the UN Security Council to agree a third package of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear activities.

They also came a day after former top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani launched an unprecedented attack on Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, accusing him of using "coarse slogans and grandstanding".

"You can see how some people here... try to materialise the plans of the enemies and by showing that Iran is small and the enemy is big," added Ahmadinejad.

slapping the crap out of georgie on fisa

As Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain twisted briefly in the wind kicked up by that New York Times story suggesting he had swapped political favors for the personal favors of an attractive lobbyist for the telecommunications industry, I kept waiting for the public policy punch line. Surely the Times would spell out just what it was that McCain had delivered to big media beyond what the paper originally reported: an all-too-typical congressional request that the FCC speed up its review of a broadcast licensing dispute.

Vicki Iseman, the lobbyist in question, is praised on her company’s Web site for her “extensive experience in telecommunications, representing corporations before the House and Senate Commerce Committees,” and for “her work on the landmark 1992 and 1996 communications bills.” Now that’s a biggie, because the 1996 legislation, although you would never have learned this from the mainstream media at the time, opened the floodgates for massive media consolidation, thus rewarding media moguls for their many millions in campaign contributions. McCain was a big player on that Commerce Committee at the time, and I expected a Times revelation as to just how Iseman got McCain to help gift the media barons with their dream legislation.

The revelation never came, because the annoying reality is that McCain was one of the rare Senate opponents of the telecom bill that Iseman was pushing-as opposed to The New York Times, which like every other major media outlet pushed for the legislation (in the case of the Times, without ever conceding its own corporation’s financial bias in the matter). McCain was one of five senators (and the sole Republican) who, along with Democrats Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy, Paul Simon and the great Paul Wellstone, voted against the atrocious legislation, which President Bill Clinton signed into law.

The Times, which now has the temerity to question McCain’s integrity on telecommunications policy, ran a shameful editorial back then, under the headline “A Victory for Viewers,” insisting after the passage of the legislation that “there was one clear winner-the consumer.” Seven years later, the paper’s “Editorial Observer,” Brent Staples, bemoaned one direct consequence of the passage of the Telecom Act, under the title “The Trouble with Corporate Radio: The Day the Protest Music Died.” Noting that “corporate ownership has changed what gets played-and who plays it,” Staples observed that the top two radio owners went from having a total of 115 stations before the act was passed to 1,400 between them afterward.

This concentration of ownership in all media was the inevitable result of the legislation that the media moguls sought. That far-reaching impact was obvious only one year after the act’s passage, as Neil Hickey noted at the time in the Columbia Journalism Review: ” … far and away the splashiest effect of the new law during the last year has been the historic, unprecedented torrent of mergers, consolidations, buyouts, partnerships, and joint ventures that has changed the face of Big Media in America.” He then offers a staggering list of massive multibillion-dollar mergers consummated during that first year.

One of the early winners was Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which quickly became the biggest owner of television stations, bolstering its lineup of media properties such as TV Guide, HarperCollins and Twentieth Century Fox; quite a gift from legislation signed by President Clinton, which perhaps explains the warm relationship that subsequently developed between Murdoch and Hillary Clinton. Murdoch sponsored a fundraiser for Clinton’s senatorial re-election campaign in 2006, but when asked during the Iowa primary about Murdoch’s vast media holdings, including Fox News, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, Clinton ducked the question. Avoiding any reference to Murdoch, she conceded that “… there have been a lot of media consolidations in the last several years, and it is quite troubling.”

It’s not easy to maintain an evenhanded appraisal of McCain as he appropriates the Bush mantle. Of course, I wouldn’t vote for him; he is willing to let the Iraq war go on for a hundred years, and at the rate of at least $200 billion a year, that makes a mockery of his efforts to defeat earmarks and other wasteful government spending-beginning with the massive waste in the Pentagon budget that he has done so much to expose. His capitulation on President Bush’s use of torture is even more appalling. But it is absurd to attempt to pigeonhole McCain as a patsy for corporate lobbyists when he has been in the forefront of key efforts to challenge their power.

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

FLASHBACK: Five Years Ago, Wolfowitz And Rumsfeld Were ‘Off The Mark’ On Troop Levels

In the run-up to war in Iraq in early 2003, General Eric Shinseki testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take “several hundred thousand soldiers” to secure Iraq:

I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We’re talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.

Just two days later — and exactly five years ago today — then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, swiftly and infamously dismissed Shinseki’s assessment:

Rumsfeld: What is, I think reasonably certain, is the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark. [2/27/03]

Wolfowitz: But some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. First, it’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine. [2/27/03]

Watch Shinseki’s testimony, followed by reactions from Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (via The Invasion of Iraq by PBS’s Frontline):

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/27/wolfowitz-shinseki/

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

nor did bush, you stupid fuck

he had to bring in the grown ups, remember

you stupid fucking dog

sorry, i misread it

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

you stupid fucking dog

you mean he wants to save america's arse from your disasterous foreign policies

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

you stupid fucking dog shit bastard

up is down, you...

97 percent clown

Today, the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council released its 2007 Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard. CDF reports some positive news, particularly that average scores for members of Congress “improved from the previous three years with more Members scoring 100 percent than in 2004, 2005 or 2006.”

Many, however, did not fare so well. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) received a 10 percent rating — the worst in the U.S. Senate.

CDF ranked members on 10 votes affecting children:

1. Increase minimum wage (H.R. 2)
2. Increase funding for children with disabilities (S. Con. Res. 21)
3. Protect children from unsafe medications (S. 1082)
4. 2008 Budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 21)
5. SCHIP Reauthorization (H.R. 976)
6. College Cost Reduction and Access Act (H.R. 2669)
7. SCHIP (H.R. 976 - motion to concur)
8. DREAM Act (S. 2205)
9. Funding child health and education (H.R. 3043)
10. Improving Head Start programs (H.R. 1429)

McCain has missed 57 percent of Senate votes this session, being absent or voting “present” for 8 out of 10 children-related votes. McCain voted “yes” to increase the minimum wage; his only other vote was voting “no” on SCHIP reauthorization on Aug. 2, 2007:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/27/mccain-children/

what's up with pooty poot

george said he some bullshit that he gazed into his eyes

and he got the ok...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaaa

you stupid fucking dog shit bastard

up is down, you...

97 percent clown

i'll spit on the motherfucker's grave

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

though when you don't spit...

just bitch slap that mother fucker all
the way to Iraq.

Marine regiment is heading to Iraq for its fifth tour. Yesterday, the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment based at Twentynine Palms, California, reportedly became the first Marine Corps unit to be deployed a record five times. Sixty percent of the unit will be going to Iraq for the first time.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/8277

That's my problem with Obama, he goes all wobbly when he talks about Iraq.

And he has a childlike view of Iran, just as Jimmy Carter did.

On Troops//

no, they were spot on perfect

how else were they expected to stay there

"gee, how about that sectarian violence"

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

no comment from the stupid motherfucker

why haven't you trained an iraqi army yet

(no comment from the stupid motherfucker)

haven't heard "we'll go, when...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha"

Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA’s Highest Ranks
CIA Executive Director “Buzzy” Krongard managed firm that handled “PUT” options on United Airline Stock
by Michael C. Ruppert
http://www.hereinreality.com/insidertrading.html
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million. Merrill Lynch & Co., with headquarters near the Twin Towers, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill’s shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by “insiders,” their profit would have been about $5.5 million.

- European regulators are examining trades in Germany’s Munich Re, Switzerland’s Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a “double whammy” for them.]
On September 29, 2001 – in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media – the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.

“The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors – whose identities and nationalities have not been made public – had advance knowledge of the strikes.” They don’t dare show up now.

you insincere motherfucker

or is that today's bogus talking point

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

do ya
do ya
do ya

you traitous swine

"libby's free"

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

what was valerie working on before she was outted, dog

tell us...

c'mon, man

c'mon, dog

tell us we're part of the 3 percent, dog

c'mon, asshole

thatta a boy

tell us the economy is booming, dickhead

then tell us we're the 3 percent

c'mon, corporate lackey

that's what you are...

now fetch, asshole

fetch...

you fucker

I hate to see a Jimmy Carter Defense used in the Global War on Terror.

Who ever comes after Bush is going to have a tough time living up to perfect record Bush has had on Defense.

But what really bothers me is Obama willingness to go to the Terrorist on Bended Knee!

Jimmy Carter would be proud!

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's presidential council rejected a plan for new provincial elections and sent the bill back to parliament Wednesday for reworking, a major setback to U.S.-backed efforts to promote national reconciliation.

The ruling came despite a reported last-minute telephone call by Vice President Dick Cheney to the main holdout on the three-member panel, which has to sign off on laws passed by the legislature. The White House tried to put its best face on the development, saying "this is democracy at work."

The Culpability of the Salon du Livre in the erasure of a nation

Susan Abulhawa

No matter how great the injustice done to us Palestinians or how deeply our grief curls into time and into the earth, it seems the world still refuses to hear our voice and insists that we shall not exist in history except as squatters, terrorists, or subhuman creatures unworthy of our own land and heritage or of the right to defend ourselves and resist oppression.

The latest institution to contribute to the erasure of millennia of our Palestinian culture and history is the Salon du Livre, with great influence from the French Ministry of Culture.
...

And so far we have been successful in moving the battlefield overseas.

I feel sure McCain is tough enough to continue that successful strategy.

But who know with Obama? His willingness to signal surrender before the fight might mean he's not the man to put up front in time of war.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996244,00.html
[...]
On Oct. 26, 1967, she and her husband were getting dressed for a party at the Iranian embassy when they learned their son had been shot down.
[...]
and speaking of her son John McCain....

And there's another way she's like him: she knows just how to manipulate the press. "If I don't like what you write, I'm gonna get you fired," she says and laughs. "And then I'm going to sue TIME."

Hillary has what it takes to lead an Army!

that's crazy talk

it was the same vase...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

*

it was the lesbians...

not reverend fucking pedophile

Buckley and Gore Vidal going at it, almost coming to blows, during the contested presidential campaign of 1968. It offers a good reminder that American political discourse hasn’t been agreeable for quite some time. Comparatively, things look downright civil today.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/

what army...

the iraqi army

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

6 years and no iraqi army

but nevermind...

you stick with your talking point, asshole

that's what you're paid for...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

We are lucky that we there is so much time before the election in November.

There will be plenty of time for the 97% to sort this out!

Obama has had an easy go with Hillary.

Hillary's campaign was run by a group of inexperienced women.

McCain will be the real deal.

Those debates will be worth watching.

And all played out with that madman Ahmadinejad ranting in the background.

Submitted by Meg on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 1:10am.
[Kevin:] I need a copy of that Bible that has the USA in it.... has to be a collectible.

[Meg:] Me too! I'll put it on my shelf right by my copy of 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988
-------
Bait: When did the sales drop off for 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988? Wait. Don't tell me. I can figure this out on my own.
-------------------------
heard tucker say this morning that obama shouldnt even
Submitted by Lucille on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 8:28am.
dare debate mccain on foreign policy becoz he will lose....
-------
That's interesting. I have read several opinions stating that Obama would smoke McCain in a foreign policy debate (or any debate) because he knows the facts, knows how to communicate them, can't be emotionally baited, and doesn't speak in a slow, sleep-inducing monotone. But then, idiots voted for George W. Bush despite his inability to speak and communicate ideas clearly...so there's that to consider.
--------------------------
Submitted by red on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 10:40am.
Bush's " JOKEY " attitude while having a press conference is psychotic. Its inappropriate affect. His position and responsibility to Americans demands he be serious...
----------
Backslapping and his last name is all that George W. Bush has ever had going for him. Students of his past know that he was a below average pupil, an incompetent and failed oil businessman who used his last name to sucker investors and to sell Arbusto to Harken, and to gain a baseball team partnership offer. He was known only for his "uniter not a divider" talent as Governor which translates to "backslapper." An unbiased review of his Governorship reveals that Texas lost more than it gained under his watch.

Backslapping ain't enough to lift an intellectual lightweight and persistent loser beyond the level of below average competence.

Today's Must Read
By Paul Kiel - February 28, 2008, 9:49AM
You can understand their exasperation. The administration and Congressional Republicans have done everything in their power to protect the telecoms. They used every legislative tactic at the ready, made every speech or public pronouncement possible, and even engaged in occasional theatrics to drive the point home: Congress will not be passing, and the President will not be signing, any surveillance bill into law that does not give the telecoms retroactive immunity for having helped the administration break the law.

And despite all that, the telecoms still seem not to understand which side their bread is buttered on. "GOP leadership aides are grumbling that their party isn’t getting more political money from the telecommunications industry," Roll Call reports (sub. req.):

“It’s quite discouraging,” said one GOP leadership aide, referring to the disparity in giving from the telecommunications industry in light of the FISA debate, but also the broader lack of support for Republicans from the business community in general.
“These companies just won’t do anything,” the aide said. “Even when you have the Democrats working against their bottom line.”...

[A Republican lobbyist said] “There’s no question that from time to time staff, and maybe some Members, say to fellow travelers: ‘Are you giving us some air cover? Are you helping us help you?’”

The news is not all bad. The telecoms still give more money to Republicans than to Democrats, Roll Call reports; "Of the four major phone companies, only Sprint is now favoring Democrats overall." The other three, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, still know their bread and butter, but are favoring Republicans "by slimmer margins than in years past." The reason is clear: with the Dems in power, of course, the telecoms need to spread the wealth.

But the House Republican campaign committee, Roll Call points out, is $29 million poorer than its Democratic counterpart. How are the Republicans supposed to return to power if they can't even convince companies whom they're working to protect from billions of dollars in lawsuits to pony up?

Perhaps, as one GOP leadership aide puts it, the telecoms will find religion again when they realize “these guys are not good for business.”

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/todays_must_read_285.p...

fuck them

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

they're white

see, us republicans aren't racists

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

when that money could have been invested in alternative energy

but fuck that...

we're republicans

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

THE DEATH CULT!!!

Do you think Iran would rather face McCain or Obama?

Hope? You can bet Iran hopes Obama find a way to win it all!

What could be better as Iran gets into the final assembly phase of the their Nuclear Weapon Program than to have a Leader of the Free World who fears pulling the trigger.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

until sam starts...

and you cut and run

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

This entry comes from my interest in the political primary and my obsessive media junkie nature. I listen to Air America, as well as C-Span and Democracy Now, oh and Kieth Olbermann too. Well, as I think about it the list goes on and on, hence "junkie".

I am very interested in the tone that the primary has taken in the last few weeks. Hillary and Barack are sparring much more, which is to be expected in the rundown to picking the presumptive candidate. What is more interesting to me is the tone that has emerged from supporters I listen to making calls, particularly on Sam Seders show. Sam and Marc Maron are calling these supporters Clintonista's. People will call in with vigilante zeal, trying to defame Barack by talking about his Muslim roots, or his involvement with less than ethical donors. They seem to be incapable of conversation, speaking over the host and not answering the hosts questions. It sound as if they are robots who have been turned on who have to get the message out. They accuse the host, Sam in this instance, of trashing Hillary, when I know that that has not happened (I am a junkie , remember and I listen every day he is on air). It seems they need to be right at any cost.

So this got me to thinking and it took me back to the time when I used to lead groups of men who had been arrested for domestic violence. My sense of them was that for the most part, they were unskilled in relationship and took the lazy mans approach and pushed and shoved rather than reasoned with their partner. Of course there were some men who came into the group that literally made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. These men were truly dangerous sociopaths who really did not belong in group, they belonged in jail.

As part of my training I attended seminars which focused on "the victim". The seminars were lead by women who very much reminded me of the "Clintonistas" I listen to on Air America. These women were scary. They had taken on a vigilante zeal with regard to the abuser. In fact, as I listened, I started to feel at least oppressed and at times abused. When I challenged one women with a question she responded with attack and character assasination. This did not feel so good to me. I did not like this woman and I did not feel that she was good for the woman's rights movement she was a part of.

Here is how I explain this to myself. It requires understanding the dynamic as a paradigm. The paradigm is "Victim/Perpetrator". In this paradigm you can only be one or the other. A woman is victimized and in order for her to take charge in her life within the paradigm she must then take on the role of the perpetrator. This is a false kind of empowerment which only perpetuates the problem. Both roles in the paradigm lack autonomy and compassion. Both lack true "power". The power in the paradigm is power over, rather than power to be.

Back to the political scene. Now that Clinton is the underdog in the race, some supporters feel that it is their mission to save her and make her the top dog in any way possible. This really is like a fight where spit and feathers fly. Attacks can be unfair and specious. It does not matter because now Barack has become the bad guy who has power over Hillary and that is just wrong. This is a very authoritarian paradigm as you might well imagine.

Now a little bit about Buddhism and the above drama. My reaction to the "spit and feathers" is sorrow. If I was inside the paradigm, my reaction would be anger and outrage. But I choose not to be inside that paradigm. I choose compassion over power over. The only way one can become enlightened is to change the paradigm of victim/perpetrator. We must always consider the 10 Virtues as we communicate. If we are not virtuous in our communication, then we generate bad karma which will have a consequence to us in the very long run of life after life. All beings deserve to be treated with respect and kindness even when they are inside the victim/perpetrator paradigm. We do not enable them to offend, but most importantly we do not offend in kind. We practice loving kindness in a skilled way. I actually see Barack doing this in response to Hillary's attacks. He seems to hold himself above the fray. He defends his positions with dignity when he disagrees. He does not waver in his positions and when he is in agreement, he is very concilliatory, which some perceive as weakness. I see Barack as being strong like Ghandi was strong or like Martin Luther King was strong.

Could it be that those who perceive weakness are inside the victim/perpetrator paradigm?

A wonderful example of strength, skill and compassion comes from the Dalai Lama. When asked how a well publicized meeting with George W. Bush went, the Dalai Lama's reply was, "he had wonderful cookies"...........

AMY: So, what did you find out, Jeremy?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I started looking at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s Iraq plans, and one of the things that I discovered is that both of them intend to keep the Green Zone intact.

Both of them intend to keep the current US embassy project, which is slated to be the largest embassy in the history of the world.

I mean, I think it’s 500 CIA operatives alone, a thousand personnel.

And they’re also going to keep open the Baghdad airport indefinitely.

And what that means is that even though the rhetoric of withdrawal is everywhere in the Democratic campaign, we’re talking about a pretty substantial level of US forces and personnel remaining in Iraq indefinitely.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

hit a brick wall

called ono...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

you stupid fucking dog

Obama won't have to face 2 madmen bent on building the worlds most dangerous weapons systems.

But we have only finished half the job.

And that is why we need a born leader like John McCain!

no place to go

no place to run, dog

just you and me, bro

amigos

ariba, motherfucker

daddy's home

every innocents blood spilled

you're gonna drown in, motherfucker

What we have is Capitalism Vs Radical Islam!

It's all been our job to promote Capitalism around the World!

Is Obama the man to carry the Flag for our Great Corporations?

where's the missing billions, dog

where's the money...

it was the same dollar bill multiplied by billions

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

what is it now, dog

how much profit has exxon made, dog

how much!?

Did someone see a little coal vendor over the corner of blog trying to get noticed?

Reception here In The States has been kinda poor...

Not getting much a signal from such a remote outpost...!!

Hahahahahahahaha..

Is selling coal from a push-cart Capitalism?

Why yes it is! How lovely! A new Baby Capitalist!

I have looked forward to this year for so long. It's the year of the 97%! It's the year the 97% looks up from it's hard work and takes charge of the Political World!

FBI documents contradict 9/11 Commission report

Larisa Alexandrovna

Hijacker had post-9/11 flights scheduled, files say

Newly-released records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request contradict the 9/11 Commission’s report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and raise fresh questions about the role of Saudi government officials in connection to the hijackers.

The nearly 300 pages of a Federal Bureau of Investigation timeline used by the 9/11 Commission as the basis for many of its findings were acquired through a FOIA request filed by Kevin Fenton, a 26 year old translator from the Czech Republic. The FBI released the 298-page “hijacker timeline” Feb. 4.

The FBI timeline reveals that alleged hijacker Hamza Al-Ghamdi, who was aboard the United Airlines flight which crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, had booked a future flight to San Francisco. He also had a ticket for a trip from Casablanca to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Though referenced repeatedly in the footnotes of the final 9/11 Commission report, the timeline has not previously been made available to the public.

The FBI timeline is dated Nov. 14, 2003 but appears to have been put together earlier (since the last date mentioned in the document is Oct. 22, 2001) and was provided to the 9/11 Commission during its 2003 investigation. The final Commission report cites the FBI timeline 52 times.

Post Sept. 11, 2001 flights
The FBI timeline reveals that Al-Ghamdi, the alleged United hijacker, was booked onto several flights scheduled for after the 9/11 attacks, a piece of information not documented in the Commission’s final report. According to the FBI timeline, Al-Ghamdi was booked on another United Airlines flight on the very day of the attack.

On page 288 under an entry pertaining to “H AlGhamdi,” the FBI timeline reads: "Future flight. Scheduled to depart Los Angeles International Airport for San Francisco International Airport on UA 7950."

More here:

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/FBI_documents_contradict_Sept._11_Commissi...

what's the production level of heroin now, dog

what is it!?

your talking points don't factor in reality...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

he was selected

scrap that hicks did vote

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

explain that, dog

or do you prefer the comfort that your bullshit talking points provide

the 97 percent believe it

you're on the wrong blog

we're the 3 percent

It might be kinda fun to watch Obama as President, don't you think? Now I like his "Up with America" talk! But at the same time he doesn't seem to have any idea what he is going to be asked to do after he gets elected.

Obama Gives McCain a History Lesson on Al Qaeda in Iraq

If McCain wants to mock Obama, perhaps he should pick a topic in which a) Obama is mistaken; and b) McCain knows what he's talking about.

McCain in A Glass House

Washington Post columnist George F. Will bitch slaps John McCain

“Well, you know who’s thrilled that Nader is back in the race? John McCain. He’s not the oldest guy anymore.” –Jay Leno

“But seriously how about that John McCain? John McCain looks like a guy whose head you can barely see over the steering wheel. … John McCain looks like the guy who thinks the nurses are stealing his stuff. ‘Dad, why would they take your socks? It doesn’t make sense.’” –David Letterman

“The New York Times printed a story that said … in John McCain’s last campaign in 2000, he was apparently acting so sprung on a lobbyist lady that his staff had to cockblock the senior citizen from Arizona from sweeping this chick right off her feet and onto his motorized shopping cart. … John McCain’s pick-up line is, ‘Did you know that 150 is the new 130?’” –Bill Maher

“I like that John McCain. He looks like a guy who gets tickets for mowing under the influence. He looks like a guy with a collection of movies he bought at the car wash. He looks like a guy on the beach with a metal detector. He looks like the guy who is still confused by the phone answering machine: ‘Hello, is that - hello, is that you? Larry, Larry, hello?’ He looks like the guy who calls his grandson when he screws up the remote: ‘Well, now all the shows are in Spanish. What am I going to do, hello?’” –David Letterman

$101.39

The highest it's been.

Do you remember the Crazy Talk when they took over Congress!

Investigations? Impeachment? Indictments?

Surrender in Iraq?

Hahahahahahahahahaha..

Reality is a bitch!

Please, just let it go. Let me ask you this. How long would you hang around here if no one replied to your posts?

We both know the answer.

Just let it go. You can't talk sense to a fool. You're not only wasting your time but the time of every other blogger who has to scroll past the messages.

Thanks

___
bluerootsradio

Just like with Big Willie, it's been a great run!

After so many good years those of us who have been good little worker ants are all set for a long Obama Winter!

You can see the Stock Market pulling back..

All the Baby boomers are ready to retire and live the good life!

They say hard work is it's own reward, but I say it's have plenty of cash to be worry free!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afzcayAax4U&eurl=http://www.newsmediatube...

Carter chides Bush on secrecy in govt.

Carter Criticizes Bush Admin. Over Secrecy, Says More Information Can Change 'Entire Society'

DORIE TURNER
AP News

Feb 27, 2008 17:01 EST

The Bush administration has violated Americans' basic human rights by blocking access to information and creating more government secrets than at any other time in U.S. history, former President Carter said Wednesday.

Carter made the remarks at the start of a three-day conference aimed at helping other countries develop "access to information" laws, drawing participants from nearly 40 nations.

To applause, Carter said he looks forward to more freedom after a new U.S. administration takes office in January.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center has been working to help other countries with right-to-information laws since 1999, when it piloted a program in Jamaica. At that time only a handful of countries had such laws.

Today, nearly 70 nations have laws granting the public access to government information.

"Powerful leaders in order to stay in office deprive their citizens of a right to know," Carter said. "Access to information can change the landscape of an entire society."

It's believed to be the first conference on helping countries develop the right to information laws, the center said.

Any government that denies its citizens the right to information will ultimately fail because a lack of trust fosters hard feelings, uprisings and coups, he said.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Carter_chides_Bush_on_secrecy_in_go...

A retired Argentinian military officer suspected of abducting babies during the country's 1976-1983 "dirty war" has been found shot dead, days before he was due to testify in court, authorities said.

The body of Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Navone was found with a gunshot wound to the head at a hotel 700km northwest of Buenos Aires, police said.

Police said a handgun was found at Navone's side, and an autopsy had been ordered to determine if the officer had been murdered.

Navone was due to testify next week as part of an investigation into the abduction of babies of political prisoners during the country's 1976-1983 military rule.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/89490DBD-789F-4229-974A-7C358D5B6...

NEW YORK (AP) - For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.
The report said the United States is the world's incarceration leader, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which make up the rest of the Top 10.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7344758

Economy slows to near crawl
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy skidded to a near halt in the final quarter of last year, clobbered by dual slumps in housing and credit that caused people and businesses to spend and invest more sparingly.

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the gross domestic product increased at a scant 0.6 percent pace in the October-to-December quarter. The reading - unchanged from an initial estimate a month ago - underscored just how much momentum the economy has lost. In the prior quarter, the economy clocked in at a brisk 4.9 percent pace.

Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced in the United States and is the best barometer of the country's economic health.

Economists had thought the newly released fourth-quarter GDP would have been bumped up to a 0.8 percent growth rate.

The housing picture looked even more bleak in the new report.

Builders slashed spending on housing projects by a whopping 25.2 percent on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter, the biggest cut in 26 years.

And, even though economic growth slowed, inflation picked up - an ominous mix that could spell further trouble for the economy.

As if the newly confirmed fourth-quarter GDP figure of 0.6 percent wasn't chilling enough, the Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications for unemployment insurance benefits rose by 19,000 to 373,000 last week, more evidence that the general economic sluggishness is spilling over into the job market.

Fears have grown that the country is heading for a recession or is already in one.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Economy_slows_to_crawl_as_housing_0228.htm...

Good Lord, I will have to fly down there and check that out some day...

Well we are all going swimming today..

Hope it is nice and warm where you are too!

Let's have a big party while we can..

You never know what Obama will bring us!

But as for today.....Nothin but fun!

PS...maggiesboy you have no history of this blog!

I love the open field, Ono is has nothin...he is the Court Jester!

research calls

something that you're woefully unfamilar about

you're given your vile fables every morning on a plate

like a good corporate doggie

actually, i'll have to read larisa's article tomorrow

and it cite's paul thompson

TWO GREAT AMERICAS

In Las Vegas, Dubai World’s New Investment Sets Sales Record

Recent penthouse sales at the massive MGM CityCenter, which is now half-owned by Dubai World, set new records for price-per-square-foot in Las Vegas, according to the agent who made the sales.

Aaron Auxier of Luxury Realty Group sold three penthouses in the Harmon Hotel, Spa & Residences, one of four high-rise developments within the complex, at prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,400 a square foot. Property records indicate the previous record for Vegas was about $1,300 a square foot, he says.

Last August, Dubai World invested $2.7 billion for a 50 percent stake in the CityCenter project, and committed another $2.4 billion to buy MGM Mirage common stock. CityCenter covers 76 acres and is oft-referred to as the most expensive privately financed development in U.S. Described as “a city within a city,” the $8 billion development will eventually include more than 4,800 hotel rooms and 2,700 luxury apartments in towers designed by such notable architects as Daniel Liebeskind, Lord Norman Foster and Rafael Vinoly.

Prices for condos range from anywhere from $500,000 to $12 million (€333,000-€8 million). About half of the units have been sold, according to a recent report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“With an ever increasing appeal to a global audience and $1.5 billion in condo sales at CityCenter in 2007, I feel the press often misunderstands what’s happening on the Las Vegas Strip,” Auxier said in a press release.

A New York Times story notes CityCenter is “amply hyped and outsize even by Vegas standards.” A Las Vegas Sun article describes the sales office—not the project, the sales office—as “Disneyland for the competitively acquisitive. The Cirque du Soleil of open houses. Architects Gone Wild.”

http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/properties/roof/?p=331

How absolutely disastrous does your diplomacy have to get so that you need to be able to fight off every other country of the world, all at once?!

Since World War II, the United States has messed around, in ways big and small, in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Lebanon, Grenada, Iraq, Panama, Colombia, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Afghanistan again, and Iraq again. No country in the world can begin to match this record in the last half-century. And I'm not even listing here the covert operations (almost everywhere), including the ones that toppled democratically elected governments (Iran, Guatemala, Chile, etc.), the long-term occupations of Latin American countries by the U.S. military, the gunboat diplomacy of the American Navy around the world, the aiding and abetting of other killers (Saddam invading Iran, for example, apartheid South Africa or the Israeli occupation of Palestine), the militarization of the oceans and of space, or the myriad other ways in which the United States leads the planet in aggressive tendencies.

But scratch that measure if you must (perhaps it cuts too close to the bone). Maybe we can detect America's dislike for war in another metric, say military spending. Oops. Turns out that's going to be a bit problematic, too. I guess it won't be a huge surprise to anybody that the United States spends more on "defense" than any other country in the world. But here's the truly scary part: The United States not only outspends every other country in the world on military goodies, it outspends ALL other countries of the world. Combined. That's right. Take all 190-plus countries out there and add together their defense budgets and you still won't equal America's alone. What's more, that doesn't even include the $100 billion or so that we're dropping each year in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the additional costs in veterans' (so-called) care, munitions replacement and economic losses we have been hemorrhaging for those wars, which will continue, for decades to come, estimated to run up toward 2 trillion bucks total.

coal is hot right now. if you were a real patriot instead of a chinese flag pin patriot you'd be screaming at your congressman to stop exporting our coal to china.

mcgee, listen...

he's a professional political zombie

he'll post irregardless

Sunni Forces Losing Patience With U.S.
Citing Lack of Support, Frustrated Iraqi Volunteers Are Abandoning Posts

By Sudarsan Raghavan and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 28, 2008; A01

BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 -- U.S.-backed Sunni volunteer forces, which have played a vital role in reducing violence in Iraq, are increasingly frustrated with the American military and the Iraqi government over what they see as a lack of recognition of their growing political clout and insufficient U.S. support.

Since Feb. 8, thousands of fighters in restive Diyala province have left their posts in order to pressure the government and its American backers to replace the province's Shiite police chief. On Wednesday, their leaders warned that they would disband completely if their demands were not met. In Babil province, south of Baghdad, fighters have refused to man their checkpoints after U.S. soldiers killed several comrades in mid-February in circumstances that remain in dispute.

Some force leaders and ground commanders also reject a U.S.-initiated plan that they say offers too few Sunni fighters the opportunity to join Iraq's army and police, and warn that low salaries and late payments are pushing experienced members to quit.

The predominantly Sunni Awakening forces, referred to by the U.S. military as the Sons of Iraq or Concerned Local Citizens, are made up mostly of former insurgents who have turned against extremists because of their harsh tactics and interpretation of Islam. The U.S. military pays many fighters roughly $10 a day to guard and patrol their areas. Thousands more unpaid volunteers have joined out of tribal and regional fealties.

U.S. efforts to manage this fast-growing movement of about 80,000 armed men are still largely effective, but in some key areas the control is fraying. The tensions are the most serious since the Awakening was launched in Anbar province in late 2006, according to Iraqi officials, U.S. commanders and 20 Awakening leaders across Iraq. Some U.S. military officials say they are growing concerned that the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has infiltrated Awakening forces in some areas.

"Now, there is no cooperation with the Americans," said Haider Mustafa al-Kaisy, an Awakening commander in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, an insurgent stronghold that U.S. and Iraqi forces are still struggling to control. "We have stopped fighting al-Qaeda."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/27/AR200802...

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan_rm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

U.S. Policy Toward Pakistan
Foreign Relations
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
ID: 204216 - 02/28/2008 - 2:30 - No Sale

Biden, Joseph R. Jr. U.S. Senator, D-DE
Negroponte, John D. Deputy Secretary, Department of State

A hearing was held on the situation in Pakistan since the parliamentary elections on February 18, 2008. Topics included aid to Pakistan, the transition of power after the defeat of President Musharraf's party, and the role of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism.

how much idiots like that stupid mutt hate America. They delight in destroying our country. There lives must be truly pathetic. Sucks for them.

buh-bye

___
bluerootsradio