Weekend Watchdog

Phoenix Business Journal

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (the presumptive Republican presidential nominee), is facing questions about his ties to Arizona real estate developers and home builders.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bittner pointed Friday to recent stories by 'The New York Times' and the 'Washington Post' on McCain backing land deals involving SunCor Development Co., Del Webb Corp., and developers Donald Diamond and Fred Ruskin. The deals involved parcels and projects in the Phoenix area, Northern Arizona and Nevada.

Republicans dismissed the stories and Democrats' criticism, saying the deals had bipartisan support and were done to benefit the state's growth and economy, not the developers. They also said McCain acted properly in the deals involving Arizona developers. Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said there was no credibility to the criticism.

McCain has enjoyed support from members of Arizona's real estate and development sector since he was initially elected to Congress, including Charles Keating of savings and loan crisis fame. McCain's current boosters and campaign donors include SunCor CEO Steve Betts, Diamond and a number of other developers and home builders.

Free Democracy

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

Video

CBS

California voters would change their February primary vote for Hillary Clinton to a vote for Barack Obama if the vote were held again, according to an exclusive poll commissioned by CBS 5.

While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%.

The poll was conducted on May 7 and 8 and has a margin of error of 4%.

*

http://www.lightparty.com/Artainment/VisionaryArtists.shtml

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

McCain talks into a upside down microphone....
Submitted by Kevin © on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 1:10am.

McCain daily reminds me of the old woman .. Tony George's Mom .. who's name is escaping me .. who used to do the "Gentlemen, Start your engines!" deal at the Indy 500. The last year she did that she literally was totally out of it and drooled on the microphone. It was horrifying and pathetic .. all at the same time.

Mark my words .. it won't be long before McCain is drooling on that upside down mic! : / Sad...

The Rolling Stones-19th Nervous Breakdown

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

Is it in the urban dictionary yet?

See how they just stick shit in our brain?

I HAVE NEVER BEEN POLLED! It was exclusive to begin with to me!

GAWD!

US to Make Changed in Cremation Policy .. Will No LOnger USe facility also used for Animals
"The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.

"Our heroes deserve to be better treated than that," Morrell said, adding that a sign at one of the crematoriums noted that it also does pet cremations. He said Gates offered an apology to military families for the insensitivity. ..."

And the hits just keep on coming to the families and loved ones of our military ... : (

why do we want universal healthcare...?

Maybe we just want no healthcare for the government?

(that is a joke).. :)

Why do you wanna confuse the poor ol' guy with all that stuff? He's a War Hero? Right!? Let' em eat cake.

I love Sam's "Gramps" moniker. He's old; even if he does sleep nightly on a nest of dollars, we should feel sorry for him. Let's do something Really Special for him this year - elect him US president!

Really! Good night!

JB...

Heard any good jokes lately?

Without universal healthcare Cheney might have died..
new
Submitted by Alice on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 1:49am.

...it is rationed healthcare that has kept him alive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sl...

(...)Discussions of how and why Mr. Obama’s support narrowed over time have a Rashomon-like quality: different observers see very different truths. But at this point it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. What does matter is that Mr. Obama appears to have won the nomination with a deep but narrow base consisting of African-Americans and highly educated whites. And now he needs to bring Democrats who opposed him back into the fold.

It’s possible that this will happen automatically — that bad feelings from the nomination fight will fade away of their own accord. In recent decades, Democrats have had little trouble unifying after hard-fought primary campaigns.

But this time the division seems to go deeper than ordinary political rivalry. The closest parallel I can think of is the bitter intraparty struggles of the 1920s, which pitted urban, often Catholic Democrats against Protestant farmers.

So what can be done to heal the party’s current divisions?

More tirades from Obama supporters against Mrs. Clinton are not the answer — they will only further alienate her grass-roots supporters, many of whom feel that she received a raw deal.

Nor is it helpful to insult the groups that supported Mrs. Clinton, either by suggesting that racism was their only motivation or by minimizing their importance.

After the Pennsylvania primary, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, airily dismissed concerns about working-class whites, saying that they have “gone to the Republican nominee for many elections.” On Tuesday night, Donna Brazile, the Democratic strategist, declared that “we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics.” That sort of thing has to stop.(...)

What does that mean? I'm not sure.

Chamomille. Valerian.

ZZZ

Jeez Alice. What - are you in Hawai'i or something?

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Blind Iowa Bowler Rolls Perfect Game
Friday, 09 May 2008
A 79-year-old blind Iowa man bowled a perfect 300 game over the weekend, The Storm Lake Times reported. "He could hear the crack of each of the 12 strikes."

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

I can't afford the $1000 deductible and $300 a month that is costing me to have insurance. But I will die without it. So .. I charge my credit cards up using credit card checks to have money in my checking account to have the money to have the ACH come out every year. I shudder to think what the $300 a month is really costing me. I just thank god the card I use is at 8.99% APR. : /

some popcorn with butter and Lemon Herb Seasoning .. Yummy! BBIAW ..

http://www.greatnewsnetwork.org/

I have noticed that sometimes they grasp at good news..but in the scheme of life I overlook it for the high...

-rationed healthcare -
new
Submitted by Alice on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 1:56am.
What does that mean? I'm not sure.

...45 million people don't. People die as result of no universal healthcare. He lives because he has it.

how lucky we are to be employed and have such 'great' benefits..regardless that some cannot afford the deductibles...

where "the air is so sweet you don't even have to lick the stamp?" -Newman

No...

I'm in Northern California..where I have mostly always been..

The best I could find right now..

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

...the constant is that he lives whether there is universal healthcare coverage or not.

...yeah..rationed...

Willow - yes. But - "popcorn with butter and Lemon Herb Seasoning" Really? Now? My stomach is going oof! oof! We should have single-payer professional health access, but in any case we can start with putting down the shovel. And the pipe. And the tooter.
And this snifter.

we get the "exclusive poll"

and from the local news we get CVS "Computer Vision Syndrome"

Where's the guy making this crap up..I wanna slap him..and give him facial pain syndrome.. :)

...cause I ain't live forever, I just want to live while I'm alive..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g50vzZzAja0

Alice just keep doin' it your way.

Submitted by ellwort on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 2:14am.
Willow - yes. But - "popcorn with butter and Lemon Herb Seasoning" Really?

Til ya try it Ellwort! It's actually pretty yummy. ; )
But .. I am a lemon freak ... my Grandparents had a house in La Jolla that had a Lemon tree in the courtyard .. I used to climb up into it when I was there and eat the lemons like they were oranges or something. I just love love love lemon!

I wuz a bartender in a NY saloon. Wanna get silly? I'll give yez some jokes:

1) Q: What's the difference between pussy and parsley?

(Answer tomorrow, if you don't already know)

- A

But .. it's time this ended ...

difference between a federal judge and the Ku Klux Klan?

The KKK wears white robes and scares the sh*t out of black people.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

That I want Minnie's "Baby-Daddy" to be Eddie Izzard??

Willow -
OK, I'm down with the lemon thing. When I scrabble my way into consciousness in the morning, I go for a pint of water with a squished wedge of lemon in it. Sorts the system out without Hyperfiber Colonblow cereal.
But I admit I then submit the temple of my body to such abuse during the day that it seems like a fragile thing at this crazy hour, crazy if you're an eastcoast college teacher giddy with semester's end.
We had an apple tree that was my daughter's jungle-gym. A lemon a day keeps the liver happy.
- A

Psychiatrist shows up at the pearly gates,
all pissed off because he was young, in perfect health
and he shouldn't have died so soon.
Saint Peter says he's sorry, but for no real reason
they had to take him earlier than they had originally planned.
The shrink can't believe it, "You mean you ended my wonderful life on Earth for no particular reason? Why would you do that? Just because you could?"
Saint Peter looks both ways, leans over whispers,
'It's God. He thinks he's a federal judge."

[thanks for both to John Lescroart - The Hunt Club]

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Submitted by MMRules on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 2:12am.

huh?

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Alice -
I wasn't told it was an "Exclusive Poll," but when I lived in Vermont in the months before the 2004 election cycle I was confronted with a telephone poll (get it?) brimming with loaded questions contrived to elicit ordained answers. I started to recognize this when the pollster got onto the issue of nuclear energy. When I expressed my concern about nuclear waste, the pollster went to a question list concerning Yucca Mountain NV. The questioner (really) got to a yes-or-no choice something like this: "Would you still be against nuclear waste storage under Yucca Mountain if it meant all the children would die?"
We ask; you decide.
- A

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

?

my alma mater had grad. yesterday.

I sent the asu band these pics I took at the superbowl.
http://picasaweb.google.com/monsieurbenet/AsuBand

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

Who did that?

Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

When you discover the jagged edges of science, you start to think, wait a minute—maybe scientists' views aren't quite as immaculate as we thought they were. Maybe ordinary people's views can weigh a little more. And I think there's some truth to this, but not as much as some of my colleagues think. Having studied esoteric sciences from the outside, I know that ordinary people have no chance of grasping the details of them.

What's wrong with ordinary people weighing in on scientific subjects?
It is easy to imagine all sorts of horror stories if we abandon the idea that there are some people who know what they are talking about and some who don't. Most scientific disputes that concern the public are at the cutting edge—the place where things are not completely certain. Examples are the safety of vaccines, the true importance of global warming, the effects of farming genetically modified food crops, and so forth.

Even now, in the U.K., the relatively dangerous disease of measles is becoming endemic as a result of a widespread consumer revolt against the MMR vaccine about 10 years ago. Parents believe that even though doctors assure them that vaccines are safe, those doctors may be wrong. Therefore, the parents think they are entitled to throw their own judgment into the mix. Quite a few social scientists are pushing this trend hard.

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

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

Twas I.....MMRules.. :)

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

"What's wrong with ordinary people weighing in on scientific subjects?"

The Commitee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal (CSICON) would like to suggest that there are no ordinary people.

The science of Patapsychology begins from Murphy's Law, as Finnegan called the First Axiom, adopted from Sean Murphy. This says,and I quote,"The normal does not exist. The average does not exist. We know only a very large but probably finite phalanx of discrete space-time events encountered and endured." In less technical language, the Board of the College of Patapsychology offers one million Irish punds [around $700,000 American] to any "normalist" who can exhibit "a normal sunset, an average Beethoven sonata, an ordinary Playmate of the Month, or any thing or event in space-time that qualifies as normal, average or ordinary."

http://www.rawilson.com/csicon.shtml

Your Scientific American article reminded me of this.

Good job!

I haven' caught up yet.

I was just watching tonight's Bill Moyers
he's interviewing Phillipe Sands
and Sands AGAIN mentions how he recently heard
a tape of McCain admitting on 60 minutes he admitted to war crimes becasue of torture.
It was the recording Sam played him when he was on Sams show
Sands also mentioned it when he testified to congress.
Excellent Sam Excellent.

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

How's Jim?
Submitted by dada on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 4:07am.
I haven' caught up yet.
*******
Haven't heard much,Dada..
I think he cracked a rib..
Or,stretched the heck out of his chest..Bummer.. :(

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

McCain slaughtered Women and Children in Nam?

and if so

Does he fear going to hell for that?

or do those guys feel they get a pass cause of this and that?

Spacey..
new
Submitted by MMRules on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 5:02am
----------------------------------
it took me a second before i realized it was changing
pretty trippy

The IRS decides to audit Roger, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Roger shows up with his attorney.
The auditor says, "Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable."
"I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it," says Roger. "How about a demonstration?"
The auditor thinks for a moment and said, "Okay. Go ahead."
Roger says, "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye."
The auditor thinks a moment and says, "It's a bet."
Roger removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor's jaw drops.
Roger says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye."
Now the auditor can tell Roger isn't blind, so he takes the bet.
Roger removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Roger's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
"Want to go double or nothing?" Roger asks. "I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between."
The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.
Roger stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Roger's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands.
"Are you okay?" the auditor asks.
"Not really," says the attorney. "This morning, when Roger told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it.

Free Democracy

In the fall of 2004, when Ernie Colón was employed as a security guard on Long Island and feeling perturbed because, at seventy-two, he had too much idle time, he got an idea. That summer, the 9/11 Commission Report had been published and become a best-seller. Colón bought a copy and, as he read it, told himself that only a fraction of the book’s buyers would do the same. Unless, that is, it could be rendered more user-friendly, which, conveniently, he was equipped to do. He called a friend in Los Angeles, Sid Jacobson, and told him what he had in mind: the 9/11 Commission Report was in the public domain; why not adapt it as a graphic nonfiction novel? “Holy shit!” Jacobson shouted into the phone.

More here: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/05/05/080505ta_talk_singer

This is Hell broadcasts live this Saturday beginning at 9 AM (US central). You can also hear us live online via WNUR's web site (http://www.wnur.org) under the heading, "Listen Online."

This weekend, our guests include:

* David Rothkopf, author of "Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making" (MacMillan). David is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment and directed the efforts of the Carnegie Economic Strategy Roundtable. He is also the author of "Running the World: The Inside Story of the NSC and the Architects of American Power."
* Janet Redman is a researcher in the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies. Janet's attending this weekend's World Bank meetings in Washington DC. Her recent writing includes "World Bank: Climate Profiteer" and "The World Bank’s Carbon Deals."
* John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," returns to This is Hell! to discuss the new paperback edition of his book, "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption."
John is making a couple Chicago area appearances. Next Thursday, May 15th, he'll be at the Borders in Oak Park, 1144 Lake Street, for a talk and booksigning.
And Friday through Sunday, May 16th to 18th, it's the 2008 Green Festival at Navy Pier. John will be giving a talk on Saturday at 2 PM called, “Geo-Politics, the Future, and You: A Call to Action”
* Dahr Jamail, author of "Beyond The Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket). He posted the article, "US presidents-to-be in denial," at Le Monde Diplomatique this week. And last Friday, he posted the story, "Corruption Eats Into Food Rations," for the Inter Press Service News Agency. Dahr was profiled at the Guardian Thursday in an article entitled, "'I wanted to report on where the silence was'."

http://thisishell.com/

Running on AAR stream and some stations right now

Written by Steddyeddy

Two Armenian sociologists, unable to get a job in their local kebab store in Luton, have published a report on the effect of country music on suicide. This is the the first time that something we all know and fear, namely a Dolly Parton, John Denver or Tammy Wynette record, has been academically linked to suicide.

The report also concluded that wherever country music is played the suicide rate is higher than average, completely "independent of divorce, poverty, gun or TNT backpack availability".

The obvious conclusion here for wiping out criminal tendencies amongst the hoodie community, is for banks, jewellery stores, post offices (assuming you can find one open) and other stores prone to acts of robbery and violence to play "Annie" or "9 to 5" at extremely high volumes.

Thus, any part-time car -booter or social security claimant who decides to turn their hand to crime as an easier alternative to filling out laborious forms involving writing and spelling in order to claim their tax-payers hand-out, will, upon entering one of these establishments, immediately run out and commit hari-kiri (or its Yorkshire/Lancashire equivalent "chippie buttie").

However, the burial ceremonies for these recently deceased, the report continues, mustn't be taken any less seriously, especially in relation to their musical content.

Songs such as Nirvana's "I hate myself and I want to die", Morrissey's "First of the gang to die", and "Happy days are here again" should not be played, and certainly, Rod Stewart's "Do ya think I'm sexy", for those of a necrophiliac disposition, should most definitely not be played, as it contains the line "if you want my body".

On the pop music front, way back in the 4th Century, Plato pre-dated the Taliban, Plymouth Brethren, Pol Pot and Chairman Mao by calling for a ban on certain types of contemporary Greek music. He believed that pop music led to low morals, and discovered this himself while participating in an under-age orgy at his local scout and guide troop.

Airball. :)

I had missed the first half..

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

WASHINGTON (FMLiveWire) - Senator John McCain has stated that he is "not losing his bearings at all" since Israeli scientists "are keeping my brain alive" with daily injections of chicken soup and gefilte fish.

Flanked by two Mossad agents here on Friday, the elderly senator lashed out at Barack Obama for implying he was losing his marbles.

"Mossad looks after me and they even wrote this speech for me," revealed the healthy-looking McCain as he squinted at some pages with spectacles.

He also praised the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, saying "it was a landmark in land theft and real estate development."

"The ethnic cleansing and land clearances of the racist supremacist Israeli state have set new standards not seen since World War II," McCain said proudly.

"I am happy to serve Israel first and foremost as one of their many American agents, and to fight Israel's wars for them."

McCain also received the endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for US President via a live video broadcast.

Olmert was then led off in handcuffs by Jerusalem police shouting that the bribes he took "were not really bribes." Olmert is the latest in a large number of leaders to fall to corruption charges.

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i34612

Thanks for the link Kevin..

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

Was just trying to locate when Marc interviewed Morris Berman, went to the American Afternoon archives and noticed that ALL of the archives, since the beginning with Belzer, have the banner that reads, "American Afternoon with Marc Maron" Hmmmm... do you suppose AA has promised that spot to Marc?

american utter these words

"i'll fight for my country"..i've heard "i'll fight for my mother, sister or brother" but never that

again just saying what i have heard and i have been around

good morning yourll

and that would be when i cannot tune in any longer---not mad at marc but just mad

no wonder my stomach is growling this morning....let me go look for left overs

AAR screws up all the time..

And,since Sam does their website if it's true he would propably know..

Marc's going on tour..So who knows..

I wouldn't read too much into it..
But,I've been wrong before..

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

WWI & WWII had alot to do with that..

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

This May 12, a new show is coming -- on the web and satellite TV. With generous funding from the nation's oldest progressive channel, FREESPEECHTV and support from Jane Hamsher's blog FIREDOGLAKE.com, I'll be hosting a fresh, debate and discussion show complete with interactivity, viewer-generated content, the best documentary films in-progress and lots of music and fun. Stay tuned for more information next week. And prepare to spread the word to your friends. Updates to come at www.lauraflanders.com

:)

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

a new radio station called blog radio and have all our favorite bloggers have their own shows.

hahaha can you imagine? ***fuck off, fuck you, fuck that***
basically what the poor listener would hear

..all you need to do is lay it down in a .mp3 file and send to me.

That offer has been made before but so far no takers!

Actually if you don't have the resources to make an audio file you could call my vonage # and leave a message which I can convert.

___
bluerootsradio

jack nicholson...i just love him..am watching a movie

oh and ofcourse al pacino

thank you maggiesboy..i would love to take it

but have a fucked up accent

In a new blow to the Bush administration’s troubled military commission system, a military judge has disqualified a Pentagon general who has been centrally involved in overseeing Guantánamo war crimes tribunals from any role in the first case headed for trial.

The judge said the general was too closely aligned with the prosecution, raising questions about whether he could carry out his role with the required neutrality and objectivity.

Military defense lawyers said that although the ruling was limited to one case, they expected the issue to be raised in other cases, potentially delaying prosecutions, including the death-penalty prosecution of six detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Critics of the military commission system said Friday that the judge’s decision would provide new grounds to attack the system that they say was set up to win convictions.

The judge, Capt. Keith J. Allred of the Navy, directed that Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann of the Air Force Reserve, a senior Pentagon official of the Office of Military Commissions, which runs the war crimes system, have no further role in the first prosecution, scheduled for trial this month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/us/10gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Iraq Contractor in Shooting Case Makes Comeback

Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the F.B.I., a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings.

But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10blackwater.html?ref...

Israel Readying for a Post-Olmert Era

JERUSALEM — The overwhelming view in Israel on Friday, just hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared his innocence in a bribery investigation involving a Long Island businessman, was that the post-Olmert political era had already begun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10mideast.html?ref=wo...

In a new blow to the Bush administration's troubled military commission system, a military judge has disqualified a Pentagon general who has been centrally involved in overseeing Guantánamo war crimes tribunals from any role in the first case headed for trial.

The judge said the general was too closely aligned with the prosecution, raising questions about whether he could carry out his role with the required neutrality and objectivity.

Military defense lawyers said that although the ruling was limited to one case, they expected the issue to be raised in other cases, potentially delaying prosecutions, including the death-penalty prosecution of six detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in connection with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Critics of the military commission system said Friday that the judge's decision would provide new grounds to attack the system, which they say was set up to win convictions.

The judge, Captain Keith Allred of the U.S. Navy, directed that Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, a senior Pentagon official of the Office of Military Commissions, which runs the war crimes system, have no further role in the first prosecution, scheduled for trial this month.

Hartmann, whose title is legal adviser, has been at the center of a bitter dispute involving the former chief Guantánamo military prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis of the U.S. Air Force. Davis has said the general interfered in the work of the military prosecution office, pushed for secret proceedings and pressed to rely on evidence obtained through waterboarding.

"National attention focused on this dispute has seriously called into question the legal adviser's ability to continue to perform his duties in a neutral and objective manner," the judge wrote in a decision not yet released publicly but obtained by a reporter. Decisions by Guantánamo judges are not typically released publicly until days after being handed down.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon of the U.S. Navy, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the ruling, saying senior Defense Department officials were reviewing it.

Reached at his office Friday shortly after the decision was distributed inside the Pentagon, Hartmann said he could not talk. His spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

Hartmann, who has been a controversial figure since his appointment last summer, is the legal adviser to the Pentagon official with broad powers over the war crimes system, Susan Crawford. She has the military title of convening authority of the Guantánamo war crimes cases.

Crawford has never made a public statement in her role.

Hartmann has been the military official most publicly identified with prosecutions in recent months. It was he, for example, who announced the Sept. 11 charges and has publicly pressed prosecutors to move faster.

Ruling on a defense lawyers' request that said Hartmann had exerted unlawful influence over the prosecution, Allred said that public concern about the fairness of the cases was "deeply disturbing" and that he could not find that the general "retains the required independence from the prosecution."

Pentagon officials could ask the judge to reconsider, could appeal to a special military appeals court created to hear Guantánamo cases or could replace Hartmann.

Hartmann has denied Davis's assertions and said the commission system would "follow the rule of law." He has also said he has pressed prosecutors and others involved in the tribunals to move the cases more quickly.

As convening authority, Crawford has powers over the entire war crimes system, including the power to approve or reject charges, to reach plea deals and to provide financial resources to the prosecution and the defense.

Among officials in the war crimes system, Hartmann was assumed to have been acting on her behalf. But the judge did not find there was evidence suggesting she should be removed even from the single case.

Allred's ruling followed a hearing in Guantánamo on April 28 at which Davis said Hartmann pressured him in deciding what cases to prosecute and what evidence to use. The judge called the hearing after lawyers for a detainee, Salim Hamdan, said his charges were unlawfully influenced.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/10/america/gitmo.php

PressTV

Al-Qaeda has reportedly called on its operatives to go to Lebanon and defend what it called the Sunni community of the country.

The report came while some Arab media outlets described the current clashes in Lebanon as a fight between Sunni and Shia communities.

In an interviews with Sunni clerics with links to Saad Hariri's pro-government bloc, Al-Arabiya TV network described the ongoing clashes as a sectarian strife.

You can tell it's spring!! Those little mothers were really loud last night! And all dressed up. These were 6th, 7th and 8th graders and you should see how they dress now!

Shouting and screaming! Ugh!

I met my friend for dinner and some quiet. A family came in with a baby 12-14 mo. That baby made all kinds of screechy sounds the whole time we were there. I was about to scream myself!

When I got home, I just wanted quiet! I turned on the TV and the computer. Muted the TV. Even the fan from the computer was bothering me last night.

My tolerance level is changing. I guess I have to admit it could be my age. Or it could be I can't drink any more because of the meds. Someone tell me why they call it the golden years?

Hezbollah Seizes Swath of Beirut From U.S.-Backed Lebanon Government

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Heavily armed Hezbollah fighters seized control of much of western Beirut on Friday, patrolling the deserted streets in a raw show of force that underscored the militia’s refusal to back down in its escalating confrontation with the American-backed government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world/middleeast/10lebanon.html?ref=wo...

we are about to listen to Malloy from yesterday with coffee in bed...went to a party last night....a RARE event at out house...it was very fun, small birthday party all ages, all democrats....

shit happens life goes on

Laffin' with Lucille
Totally toniD
Freakin' out with Fernando
Crackin' up with Crank Bait
..oh the list is endless.

Accents welcomed! Geez, we all can't sound like Rachel Maddow! I'm living proof of that.

....and "The Weather" with Sunshine Jim

___
bluerootsradio

great idea though maggiesboy...i'll think about it

I dunno, but I'm becoming jaundiced. ;)

Revvin' with Kevin! Heh!

The wars of the 20th century destroyed many millions of people who once lived in the hillsides and valleys of remote rural worlds. Few were hit as hard as the Hmong, an ancient tribe whose members hewed out rough lives upcountry in Laos, west of Vietnam.

Half a century ago, Laos became a cockpit of the Cold War. The Hmong, led by a charismatic soldier named Vang Pao, sided with the United States in the fight against communism in Southeast Asia. They lost everything - their land, their way of life, their country.

Now the war on terror has engulfed Vang Pao in his land of exile, California. Last year, the United States indicted the 78-year-old general as a terrorist, accusing him of plotting to overthrow the Communist government of Laos.

The government presents the case as a clear-cut gunrunning conspiracy in violation of the Neutrality Act, which outlaws military expeditions against nations with which the United States is at peace. But the old general's defenders contend that the case against him is the consequence of a misguided post-Sept. 11, 2001, zeal. If convicted in a trial, the former American ally could face the rest of his life in prison.

The United States forged a bond with Vang Pao and his people decades ago. The pact was created after North Vietnam began carving the Ho Chi Minh Trail through the jungles of Laos in 1959 to send its soldiers and spies southward.

The Central Intelligence Agency set to work installing a pro-American government in Laos and building guerrilla forces to attack the trail; the North Vietnamese, in turn, infiltrated Laos and backed the local Communists, the Pathet Lao. In 1960, Bill Lair of the CIA recruited Vang Pao, an officer in the Royal Lao Army, to lead the agency's paramilitary fight upcountry.

In the final days of the Eisenhower administration, the CIA began shipping weapons and military materiel to the Hmong, a mountain tribe whose members were an isolated minority in Laos. (The country's dominant Lao are largely lowland dwellers.) Over the next eight years, Vang Pao's force grew to some 39,000 Hmong guerrillas.

Recently I met Vang Pao in his lawyer's office in San Francisco. The ex-general, who is out on bail, talks in formal and rehearsed sentences; he seems weighed down by the burden of speaking for an entire people.

"There were three missions that were very important that were given to us and to me," he recalled. "One was stopping the flow of the North Vietnamese troops through the Ho Chi Minh Trail to go to the south through Laos. Second was to rescue any American pilots during the Vietnam War. Third, to protect the Americans that navigated the B-52s and the jets to bomb North Vietnam."

Many thousands of Hmong died on these missions, which were an official U.S. government secret throughout the 1960s and remain one of the least-known chapters in the annals of the American experience in Vietnam.

The CIA and Vang Pao had an understanding about what would happen if the war went badly. Larry Devlin, a former CIA station chief who worked with Vang Pao in Laos, told me, "I had been told when I went out there to tell the Hmong we'll back them to the end, and if we have to pull out, we'll pull them out, too."

The end came in May 1975. It was a disaster. Saigon had fallen; the final rout of American military and intelligence officers from the war zones of Southeast Asia was nearly complete.

The CIA's last outpost in Laos was its mountain air base at Long Tieng, the hub of the paramilitary operation. Tens of thousands of Hmong gathered at the primitive airstrip, looking for planes. Very few came. As Dan Arnold, the last CIA station chief in Laos, later recounted, authorization for an airlift had to come from Washington. In his words, the request met "delays at the highest political levels."

At least 50,000 Hmong, including many fighters and their families, were left behind. Thousands were killed by the victorious Communists, according to survivors.

The luckiest of the refugees made their way to the United States. Today more than 200,000 Hmong live in the United States, mostly in California, Wisconsin and Minnesota. More than half are under 18.

Thousands of Hmong survive today as refugees in dismal camps in Thailand. Perhaps 1,000 are still on the run in the jungles of Laos itself. Though the jungle Hmong are believed to have staged occasional hit-and-run attacks in the past, Amnesty International reported last year that "the jungle-dwellers' military capacity is all but depleted decades after some Hmong fought in the CIA-funded 'secret army' in Laos during the Vietnam War."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/09/america/hmong.php

Jaundiced? Heh!

maybe you should get your liver checked!.....

Glenn sez,
I was just alerted that the House of Reps has passed HR 4279, with the lovely name, PRO-IP (Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008). Like the doublespeak PATRIOT Act and Peacekeeper missiles, PRO-IP puts local law enforcement in a position to demand the forfeiture in criminal proceedings of stuff used to violate copyright. Which means that instead of the RIAA simply trying to collect fines, they can also incite local authorities to collect all the computers and related gear that was used to pirate.

This isn't a judgment on my part as to whether piracy is good or bad (I think copyright deserves to be protected through reasonable methods), but I am always horrified when civil enforcement morphs into criminal enforcement. Conservatives and liberals should be up in arms alike that local prosecutors and/or police could intervene as they desire in essentially a private affair arranged by the RIAA, and permanently seize thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in private property in addition to any civil penalties.

More here: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/09/house-passes-bill-th.html

near the Island of Guam says CNN.

Lots of earthquakes lately. Could it be the bombs that are rattling the Earth?

Rep. Fossella to resign within next 72 hours.
WNBC reports that Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY) is expected to announce his resignation “within the next 72 hours — if not late Friday then certainly by Monday.” On May 1, Fossella was arrested in Alexandria, VA, and charged with driving while intoxicated. Yesterday, he issued a statement admitting that he had an “extramarital affair with Laura Fay, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, and that the two of them have a 3-year-old daughter together.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/09/rep-fossella-to-resign-within-next-7...

New CBO Report Proves McCain Is ‘Full Of It’ In His Opposition To Webb-Hagel GI Bill
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and the Pentagon have voiced their opposition to the bipartisan Webb-Hagel GI Bill by spouting fears that “too many will use it,” and it will therefore “harm” the military.

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report analyzing the impact of the GI Bill shows that McCain is indeed “full of it.” While the report explains that troop retention will decline because some troops will take advantage of their new education benefits, the loss in retention will be entirely made up for by increased military recruits:

Literature on the effects of educational benefits on retention suggest that every $10,000 increase in educational benefits yields a reduction in retention of slightly more than 1 percentage point. CBO estimates that S. 22 (as modified) would more than double the present value of educational benefits for servicemembers at the first reenlistment point — from about $40,000 to over $90,000 — implying a 16 percent decline in the reenlistment rate, from about 42 percent to about 36 percent. […]

Educational benefits have been shown to raise the number of military recruits. Based on an analysis of the existing literature, CBO estimates that a 10 percent increase in educational benefits would result in an increase of about 1 percent in high-quality recruits. On that basis, CBO calculates that raising the educational benefits as proposed in S. 22 would result in a 16 percent increase in recruits.

Ignoring the conclusion of the CBO report, the Army Times prints this deceptive headline suggesting that the GI Bill will only harm the military: “CBO: Better GI Bill would cut retention 16%.”

As Sen. John Warner (R-VA) has said, the flip side of the impact on retention is that “putting a big piece of cheese out there will induce more qualified people to join just to get this. It should be a tremendous incentive for recruitment.” If McCain and the Bush administration truly wanted to repair retention problems, they shouldn’t take benefits away from troops but rather — as Jon Soltz has said — “focus on the role of contractors, who continually snatch up troops, offering them up to 10 times their military pay to do a similar job in Iraq.”

UpdateA ThinkProgress reader notes that in fact the CBO report is saying that the drop in retention is less than 16 percent. The CBO reports a 16% drop in the reenlistment rate (from 42 to 36%) – which translates into a 6% drop in reenlistment. Meanwhile, the CBO predicts a 16 percent gain in new enlistments.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/09/cbo-webb-hagel/

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

No tsunami threat.

I see Tokyo was shook on the 8th.

By Chris Cooper

May 9 (Bloomberg) -- An earthquake of magnitude 4.5 rattled buildings in Tokyo, the world's most populous city. There was no tsunami warning.

The tremblor struck at 7:43 a.m. local time, at a depth of 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the east of Tokyo, the country's Meteorological Agency said on its Web site.

It follows two earthquakes yesterday stronger than magnitude 6 that hit the coast of Honshu about 160 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

movie are you watching....

Drugmakers need to rein in ads, hearing told

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical companies need to be more responsible in touting products to consumers or else face tighter controls from Congress, a top U.S. Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday.

Rep. Bart Stupak, at a hearing to discuss specific ads by Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co Inc and Schering-Plough Corp, said television commercials in particular use deceptive techniques to push products to potential patients and increase sales.

"It appears that we need to enforce significant restrictions on DTC (direct-to-consumer) ads to protect American consumers from manipulative commercials designed to mislead and deceive for the profit of pharmaceutical companies," said Stupak, head of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce investigative panel.

The Michigan Democrat said Congress should consider whether ads promoting medicines should be allowed to continue to target consumers in the United States, the only country that allows such marketing except for New Zealand.

"Pharmaceutical companies should consider it a privilege to be allowed to air DTC ads in this country," he said. "We should make sure that pharmaceuticals companies conduct themselves responsibly."

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN0837948820080508?feedTy...

Listening to This is Hell.

My oldest beat (I should say brow-beat, she could argue someone to death) a confession out of her ex.
My stuff was sold outright to a local jeweler, who took his ID.
I'm waiting for return call from PD.
*crosses fingers*

..will you press charges??

Hopefully a happy ending to a bad situation!!

Whew!

___
bluerootsradio

said to stay away from the jeweler, that PD has to pick up my items. I asked the dispatcher about being there to identify items. She said the jeweler would have a list of the things they bought. I hope it's all there. When oldest arrives home, we have to go to PD for more paperwork.

Hurry up and wait.......

Anyone with XM - Sam's guest co-hosting on Left Jab this morning, Ch. 167. :)

(Apologies if this has already been mentioned - I just scanned through the above posts and didn't notice that it was.)

http://www.notmuch.com/Show/

May 10, 2008 - A live broadcast from Monona Terrace in Madison. Michael interviews Judy Davids, musician and author of Rock Star Mommy...
----------------
Okay, that's the background. Here is the award-winning pun part. Judy Davids' band is comprised of moms who play punk music. The name of the band:

Midols.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama.

The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

A footnote: Support is growing in Democratic ranks for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as vice president. He would bring to the ticket maturity (66 years old), experience (six terms in Congress) and moderation (rated "A" by the National Rifle Association). He is very popular in Ohio, a state Republicans must carry to elect a president.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/michelle_vetoes_hillar...

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I wanted to play basketball. In those days, the rules said girls could dribble only three steps and then had to pass the ball. To make sure we didn't overexert ourselves, we weren't allowed to cross the half-court line. It's a wonder our fans (our mothers) could stay awake when a typical game's final score was 14-10.

It's remarkable that my generation of women entered the workforce and began to compete in business, politics and the hurly-burly of life outside the home. How did we ever learn to locate, much less channel, our competitive instincts in a world that made us play half-court and assumed that we would be content staying home to iron the shirts? It's a tremendous tribute to women of my generation that we sucked it up and learned to compete in the toughest environments.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton running for president. This brilliant woman believes that she can compete for the most powerful office in the world. She believes that she can do a better job than any of the men running to lead our country through these challenging times. And millions of Americans, women and men, believe that she is correct.

Yet over and over again the media and her opponents have claimed that she is defeated -- it's over, she can't win, she's a loser. And over and over again -- in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday, in Texas and Ohio, in Pennsylvania last month, and in Indiana this week -- female voters poured out of their homes to cast their ballots for her. They know that women can compete, and they want to make sure that women, especially this woman, can win.

It's not surprising that low-income working women are the cornerstone of Hillary's success. Many of these women live on the edge of disaster. A pink slip, a family member's illness, a parent who can no longer live alone, a car that won't start or a mortgage rate that goes up -- all are threats that could devastate the family. And yet these women do what women have done for ages. They put on a confident face, feed their children breakfast and get them off to school. They don't quit. They suck it up and fight back against whatever life throws their way.

They see in Hillary Clinton a candidate who understands the pressures they face. As they watch her tough it out against all odds, refusing to quit and continuing to compete against whatever the media and her opponents throw her way, they see a woman as tough and resilient as they are. They clearly want her to win. Her victory, I believe, is their victory.

So here we are in the fourth quarter of the nominating process and the game is too close to call. Once again, the opponents and the media are calling for Hillary to quit. The first woman ever to win a presidential primary is supposed to stop competing, to curtsy and exit stage right.

...

Hillary Clinton certainly has the right to compete till the end. But I believe Hillary also has a responsibility to play the game to its conclusion. For the women of my generation who learned to find and channel their competitiveness, for the working women who never falter in the face of pressure, for the younger women who still believe women can do anything, Hillary is a champion. She's shown us over and over that winners never quit and that quitters never win. We'll cheer her on until the game is over. And we hope that when the final whistle blows, we will have elected the first female president and the best president our country has ever had.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR200805...

Ha la ha. Not bad.

Bet they cover more than a few tunes by The Cramps.

The Cramps - Live at Napa State Mental Hospital

The empirical evidence is well known. More than 80 percent of Americans believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction. Democrats have steadily maintained the 10 percentage point lead in voter preference they gained two years ago. And President Bush's job performance rating is stuck in the low 30s, a level of unpopularity that weakens the Republican case for holding the White House in 2008.

There's another piece of polling data that is both intriguing and indicative. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey last month, John McCain fared better with Republican voters (84 percent to 8 percent) than Barack Obama did with Democrats (78 percent to 12 percent). McCain was also stronger than Obama among independent voters (46 percent to 35 percent).

These are terrific numbers for McCain. But they aren't enough. In the overall match-up, McCain trailed Obama (43 percent to 46 percent). The explanation for this seeming paradox is quite simple: The Republican base has shrunk. In 2008, there are fewer Republicans.

...

The worst news for Republicans in recent weeks has been the capture by Democrats of two Republican House seats in special elections in Illinois and Louisiana. Poorly chosen candidates were responsible for the defeats, Republicans insist. Maybe, but success in special elections usually foreshadows success in the next general election. This was precisely what happened in the months before the 1994 Republican landslide when Republicans won Democratic seats in special elections.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/096pst...

The Midols....
Submitted by cent on Sat, 05/10/2008 - 11:52am.
-----
Not "The Midols." Just "Midols." It's a twist on My Dol---oh, never mind.

(Some people don't know how to tell a joke.)

Two guys walk into a bar....

Here's a good one I saw today...

new thread

Mydols

Thanks for the tip Crank. Know them from around.
Now I have to find a stream.
Dang. Missed Mamapazooza, too :(

New information from the National Climatic Data Center might cool some global warming theories. According to the center, April 2008 was the coldest April in 11 years. The average temperature last month here in the U.S. was 51-degrees Fahrenheit. That figure is 1 degree cooler than the average April temperature for the entire twentieth century.

President of the National Center for Policy Research Amy Ridenour tells FOX News, "this is further proof that global warming is not happening. Somebody has to be the grownup in this debate and the fact is, climate change is variable. If it wasn't, then we wouldn't have weathermen."

April 2008 ranks as the 29th coldest since record keeping began 114 years ago.

Gov study sez: Climate change readily explainable by human activity
Submitted by pbtrue1 on Fri, 11/23/2007 - 4:39pm.

Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program was published in 2003. It focuses on five overall CCSP goals and a set of interdisciplinary and interagency research elements focusing on crucial components and interactions within the Earth system. In addition, the plan details plans for cross-cutting issues of modeling, observations and data management, communications, international cooperation, and program management.A similar structure is mirrored in
each..

Our Changing Planet produced under the plan. Editions of
Our Changing Planet since FY 2007 include a section entitled “Analysis of Progress towards Goals”.

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2008/ocp2008-analysis.htm

because thats when the world conspires to take away all the gold you've accumulated to live on the rest of your life.

bitter?

~`~`~`~`~`~
Jamesbennett

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