Threadbare? Try this.

BAM!

Happe Talk

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Blog was hinky for awhile, were you working on it?

Happe Talk

A breathe of fresh air !

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

He's Baaaack: Civil Rights Commission Hires Spakovsky to Work on Voting Rights
By Kate Klonick - August 21, 2008, 12:14PM
It looks like Hans von Spakovsky, an old TPM favorite, is back in business. The former Justice Department official, whose nomination to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was thwarted when Democrats objected to his long record of support for restrictions on voting rights, has been hired as a "consultant and temporary full-time employee" at the ostensibly bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights(USCCR) the agency confirmed to TPMmuckraker.
If Spakovsky's history of backing efforts to make voting more difficult strikes you as a poor fit with the Commission's mission of defending voter rights, consider that of the eight current commissioners at the agency, only two are registered Democrats, a politicization that the New York Times' Charlie Savage brought to light last year.
Among Spakovsky's duties will be overseeing the USCCR's report on the Justice Department's monitoring of the 2008 presidential elections, a source inside the USCCR told TPMmuckraker.
Spakovsky's hiring is at the request of Commissioner Todd Gaziano, who works for the conservative Heritage Foundation on FEC issues and has defended Spakovsky in the press before. According to a federal government source, Gaziano has recommended Spakovsky at the government's highest payscale -- which would work out to about $124,010 annually if Spakovsky was to stay for an entire year.

-snip
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/civil_rights_commissio...

Happe Talk

A well rested Maron,me hopes.. ;)

Sam and I have some big news! We'll tell you tomorrow.

Hey Folks-

We'll be doing a Maron vs Seder Show tomorrow, Aug 21, at 3PM ET. Tune in to samsedershow.com to hear what's up. We will be doing shows at that time all next week. Sam will be at the convention, I will be on the deck of my house or in the kitchen (Yes, I kept the house).

Also, I will be performing at the Bumbershoot Festival, Aug 30-Sept 1, www.bumbershoot.org/

I am on the Satiristas Show with Janeane G. If you are in the neighborhood come by.

Sam Seder finally finished his last film, A BAD SITUATIONIST .

It's a sad comedy about Joe Lieberman's loser son, radical religous, extremist postal workers, Charlie Rose obsessions, oral copulation and terror attacks. Sam wrote and directed it in May of 2001 and lost all his finishing funds after 9-11 for reasons that are obvious when you see the movie. (Sam sends his apologies to Rudy Guiliani for using the numerals 9-11 without paying him a royalty).

The movie stars Sam Seder, Sarah Silverman, Jon Benjamin, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, Ross Brockley, and Robert Schimmell. It's a strange low- budget comedy, but if you think any of the above are funny I think you'll like it.

You can see clips, get more info and buy it here http://www.abadsituationist.com/video/
Its a two disk DVD that includes two hours of extras including Stephen Colbert and David Waterman!

See you on Friday at 3pm EST or all next week from the convention and my kitchen! Check out Samsedershow.com for updates!

Maron

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

http://www.oculture.com/2008/08/1190.html

Watch Quality Films on Hulu for Free

http://www.realitysandwich.com/atomic_euphoria

Justine Kenzer

iTom Lab's new album Atomic Consciousness interacts with your chakras to widen the bandwidth of your reality. This musical experience attempts to bring in consciousness that’s not of this world. The CD includes individuals who have made a name for themselves in the metaphyscal realm like, Terrence McKenna, Rick Strassman, JZ Knight/Ramtha, Gregg Braden, Bashar, Alberto Villoldo, and Wish For Love’s Cory Herter, making what iTom calls an atomic entourage that will bring galactic information into a euphoric musical experience. Check out this beautifully designed website where you can download a free MP3 called “Galatic Mantra” or play on the media fun page with super cool spinning, healing mandalas, and check out daily Mayan calendar translations. For more info, visit www.atomicconsciousness.com.

Apparently, Muslim + pilot's license = Terrorist (even if you're a Gulf War veteran)

"Gulf War veteran and his wife say they've been unfairly placed on a federal list that limits their commercial flight access and threatens his job as a commercial pilot. To fight back, the couple, who are Muslim, filed a lawsuit today against a host of U.S. government agencies.

""My livelihood depends on getting off this list," Scherfen said. What list he is on and which government entity maintains it is unclear, Walczak said. The federal government has declined to acknowledge flight restrictions placed on the pilot."

♫ Of theeee I siiiing ♫

I'll believe it when I see it !

When are they going to start taking away their tax-free status ?

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer

Social conservatives are growing more wary of church involvement in politics, joining moderates and liberals in their unease about blurring the lines between pulpit and ballot box, a new study found.

Fifty percent of conservatives think churches and other places of worship should stay out of social and political matters, up from 30 percent four years ago, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

That significant shift in conservative thought has brought the country to a tipping point on the question: a slim majority of Americans — 52 percent — now think churches should keep out of politics.

Con't-YahooNews

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

THIS JUST IN: McCain actually owns 8 homes
John Aravosis (DC) · 8/21/2008 05:18:00 PM ET

McCain couldn't remember how many he owned. His staff claimed 4. Newsweek says 7. Politico now says 8. And five of the eight were purchased in the past four years. Including multiple condos in the same town, which is kind of weird. Now McCain is trying to invoke "ethics" to change the topic. Yeah, let's talk ethics, Mr. Keating Five. Or is that Keating Six? I can never remember.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/08/this-just-in-mccain-actually-owns-8.h...

Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

Washington Post

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold.

The flawed software is on both touch screen and optical scan voting machines made by Premier and the problem with vote counts is most likely to affect larger jurisdictions that feed many memory cards to a central counting database rapidly.

Riggall said he was "confident" that elections officials through the years would have realized votes had been dropped when they crosschecked their tallies to certify final elections results and would have reloaded cards so as not to lose votes. Brunner has said no Ohio votes were lost because the nine Ohio counties that found the problem caught it before primary results were finalized.

Free Democracy

40 year anniversary:

How many of those are made of glass, I wonder?

Issues Warning to Voters Prior to November Elections...

Those conspiracy theorists over at Scientific American just refuse to move on and get over it.

Here's the latest headline from those whackos: "Planning to E-Vote? Read This First", subtitled "With less than three months before the presidential election, the hotly contested state, Ohio, along with others, continue to have problems with E-voting technology."

The tin-foil hatters over there (so-called scientists) have the temerity to report stuff like this:

"None of the systems out there are even remotely adequate given the importance of the data they handle," says Patrick McDaniel, a Penn State professor of information security who led the EVEREST testing [on behalf of the state of Ohio]. A lot of the attacks that McDaniel and his team tested could be carried out at a polling place or county elections office in a matter of seconds.

An example: when researchers placed a piece of white tape over part of an e-voting system's scanner, they were able to effectively block it from reading the entire ballot. ... The team also found that the keys to unlock Hart's ballot box could also be used to open the ballot boxes on the Premier [Diebold] systems.

What next? Aliens sending anthrax letters?

Addendum: To those who didn't get it, yes, my comments above about "conspiracy theorists" were, in fact, satirical. The SA article is right on target, a must-read, and concurs with virtually everything we've been trying to get across here on The BRAD BLOG for about 4 years straight. Even as we, ironically, were tarred by the democracy-haters as "conspiracy theorists". Hope that clarifies.

(Somebody ought to send this over to what's his name a KOS !)

Link - BradBlog

Link - Scientific American

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

McCain has 9 homes but lives in none of them because he's too good for any of them.

:)

with a high pitched girls voice was on CNN today saying McCain did say it didn't know how many homes he owned because he had investment homes.

He's supposely a repub pundit, but I've never seen him before or heard him. I had to look twoce to make sure it was a man.

Did anyone else see him?

Another GOP Congressional Incumbent Links Himself To Obama In New Ad

"Okay, we now have another GOP Congressional incumbent linking himself positively to Barack Obama: Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut, who has a new ad that declares flatly that he possesses 'the hopefulness of Obama.'..."

I meant McCain did not say how many homes he had because of investment homes!

McCain is bringing up Tony Rezco in a hit back ad now.

McCain Office Is Sent White Powder, Threat
Denver Campaign Office Receives Threatening Letter; Staff Being Examined By Medical Personnel

CBS) John McCain's campaign office in Denver, Colorado, has received a letter containing a threat and "an amount of white powder in it," a McCain campaign spokesman told CBS News' Michelle Levi.

"We immediately notified local and federal law enforcement agencies and are looking to cooperate with them," McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky said.

The city of Denver is at a heightened security level, as the Secret Service and other officials prepare for the Democratic National Convention, which is set to begin on Monday.

The Arapaho County Police Station was abuzz with activity when they were called to confirm receiving word of the threat, Levi reports. They have started a call line as officials return media calls one by one.

"As a precautionary measure, we have closed the office and staff are being examined by medical personnel," a campaign spokesperson told CBS News.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/21/politics/main4372096.shtml

Did you mean to say Obama has 9 homes or did you mean McCain?

9
Submitted by Fernando on Thu, 08/21/2008 - 7:31pm.
Obama has 9 homes but lives in none of them because he's too good for any of them.

it's the tequila. I'll go fix it.

http://www.ktvo.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=178493

Reid shares Senate ideas

Democrat values Lieberman's votes

By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., defended Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on Wednesday after the former Democratic vice presidential nominee accepted a speaking slot at next month's Republican convention in Minnesota.

"He has a close personal relationship with John McCain. I don't fully understand why he does," said Reid, who said Lieberman called Tuesday from the Republic of Georgia to alert him to the move.

"I told him last night, 'You know, Joe, I can't stand John McCain.' He said, 'I know you feel that way,' " Reid said.

But Reid said he would continue to resist calls from the Democratic Party's base to strip Lieberman, now an independent, of his Senate positions for his disloyalty.

"All my close votes, he's always with me, whether it's the budget or energy issues," Reid said. "No matter what it is, he's always with us. He just does not vote right on Iraq. ... Why would I want to throw away a good vote?"

Reid repeated his familiar criticisms of McCain in a discussion with Review-Journal staffers Wednesday, calling the Arizona senator wrong on the issues and saying the Republican, who arrived in Congress the same year Reid did, "does not have the right temperament" to be president.

Lieberman, who was Al Gore's running mate in 2000, has been mentioned as a possible running mate for McCain.

Reid said he hoped that wouldn't happen, because "there's a Republican governor in Connecticut," apparently meaning that's who would appoint a replacement if Lieberman resigned from the Senate to campaign.

Talking about Democratic vice presidential candidates, Reid momentarily had trouble keeping them straight.

Reid had just been talking up the credentials of Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., whom he called the "odds-on favorite" to be this year's running mate, when he pivoted to take a question about Lieberman.

"I have a good relationship with Joe Biden. I have great respect for Joe," Reid said. "He was driven into some of the positions he's in because the far left took him on in the primary. ... I've done a lot to protect Joe Biden."

Asked whether he meant Lieberman, Reid, whose stream-of-consciousness speaking style often leads to such flubs, corrected himself.

During the hourlong colloquy, Reid also forgot the name of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democratic Senate candidate, and the Title IX legislation giving women access to school sports programs.

Although Reid cautioned that he was not privy to the vice-presidential selection process, he was effusive in his praise of Biden, who took a shot at the Democratic nomination and won praise for his long resume and debate performances even as he attracted few votes.

Reid said he admired Biden for his devotion to his family. Biden's wife and infant child were killed in a car accident just weeks after he was elected to the Senate in 1972, leaving him to care for two sons. He commuted from Washington, D.C., every day to raise the boys, one of whom is now Delaware's attorney general.

Reid also praised the international-affairs savvy of Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"You could take all 100 senators, Democrats and Republicans, and I think they would all agree that the most knowledgeable person on foreign affairs is Joe Biden."

Reid was less enthusiastic about two others he named as top contenders, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, whom he called "an interesting choice," and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. Reid noted that Bayh's father, Birch Bayh, was a senator and saved Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy's life in a plane crash.

But Reid cautioned, "I know the press thinks they've narrowed it down to Kaine, Bayh and Biden, but I think there are other people in the running, and I think we could be surprised."

Reid said others who might be under consideration are New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, both former presidential competitors of presumptive nominee Barack Obama's.

"I really don't know who's going to be the vice president," Reid said. "I have talked to Obama on quite a few occasions, mostly telling him who I didn't want."

Reid wouldn't specify who might have merited that list of undesirable running mates.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/27217924.html

POW!

Exotic Hawaii man!

Arugula!

POW!

Rezko!

Wife own home!

POW!

CBS) John McCain's campaign office in Denver, Colorado, has received a letter containing a threat and "an amount of white powder in it," a McCain campaign spokesman told CBS News' Michelle Levi.

Remember he(Rove) had his own office burglarized to get MSM coverage!

The Reagan Era

June 11, 2004 By Noam Chomsky

With regard to the political system, the Reagan era represents a significant advance in capitalist democracy. For eight years, the U.S. government functioned virtually without a chief executive. That is an important fact. It is quite unfair to assign to Ronald Reagan, the person, much responsibility for the policies enacted in his name. Despite the efforts of the educated classes to invest the proceedings with the required dignity, it was hardly a secret that Reagan had only the vaguest conception of the policies of his administration, and if not properly programmed by his staff, regularly produced statements that would have been an embarrassment, were anyone to have taken them seriously. The question that dominated the Iran-contra hearings -- did Reagan know, or remember, what the policy of his administration had been? -- was hardly a serious one. The pretense to the contrary was simply part of the cover-up operation; and the lack of public interest over revelations that Reagan was engaged in illegal aid to the contras during a period when, he later informed Congress, he knew nothing about it, betrays a certain realism.

Reagan's duty was to smile, to read from the teleprompter in a pleasant voice, tell a few jokes, and keep the audience properly bemused. His only qualification for the presidency was that he knew how to read the lines written for him by the rich folk, who pay well for the service. Reagan had been doing that for years.

He seemed to perform to the satisfaction of the paymasters, and to enjoy the experience. By all accounts, he spent many pleasant days enjoying the pomp and trappings of power and should have a fine time in the retirement quarters that his grateful benefactors have prepared for him. It is not really his business if the bosses left mounds of mutilated corpses in death squad dumping grounds in El Salvador or hundreds of thousands of homeless in the streets. One does not blame an actor for the content of the words that come from his mouth. When we speak of the policies of the Reagan administration, then, we are not referring to the figure set up to front for them by an administration whose major strength was in public relations. The construction of a symbolic figure by the PR industry is a contribution to solving one of the critical problems that must be faced in any society that combines concentrated power with formal mechanisms that in theory allow the general public to take part in running their own affairs, thus posing a threat to privilege.

Not only in the subject domains but at home as well, there are unimportant people who must be taught to submit with due humility, and the crafting of a figure larger than life is a classic device to achieve this end. As far back as Herodotus we can read how people who had struggled to gain their freedom "became once more subject to autocratic government" through the acts of able and ambitious leaders who "introduced for the first time the ceremonial of royalty," distancing the leader from the public while creating a legend that "he was a being of a different order from mere men" who must be shrouded in mystery, and leaving the secrets of government, which are not the affair of the vulgar, to those entitled to manage them. In the early years of the Republic, an absurd George Washington cult was contrived as part of the effort "to cultivate the ideological loyalties of the citizenry" and thus create a sense of "viable nationhood," historian Lawrence Friedman comments. Washington was a "perfect man" of "unparalleled perfection," who was raised "above the level of mankind," and so on. To this day, the Founding Fathers remain "those pure geniuses of detached contemplation," far surpassing ordinary mortals (see p. 00). Such reverence persists, notably in elite intellectual circles, the comedy of Camelot being an example. Sometimes a foreign leader ascends to the same semi-divinity among loyal worshippers, and may be described as "a Promethean figure" with "colossal external strength" and "colossal powers," as in the more ludicrous moments of the Stalin era, or in the accolade to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir by New Republic owner-editor Martin Peretz, from which these quotes are taken...
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/8381

It was linking Obama to Bill Ayers. In a bold title that included the buzz word TERROR, Wolf Blitzer, Israeli Citizen, did the deed. McCain is accusing the University of Illinois of concealing papers. What papers? Well, papers that prove that Ayers and Obama really worked together. Now this is journalism!

Please email CNN
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/cnntv/

Two of the sponsors were AARP and Kashi Foods.

FCC: High Cable Prices Consumers' Biggest Problem
Some Want a La Carte Rates for Cable Channels
By ELISABETH LEAMY and VANESSA WEBER
Aug. 21, 2008 —

The single biggest problem facing consumers in the world of technology is the high cost of cable television, according to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Cable TV pricing has risen a staggering 77 percent since 1996, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's double the rate of inflation, and it comes at a time when other technology prices are decreasing.

"The average family has very little choice as to what channels are included, yet they're having to pay more and more for those same channels," said FCC chairman Kevin Martin.

Martin said subscribers should have more choice for the amount of money they spend. Currently, American cable customers pay an average of about $60 a month, but people watch only about 15 channels, according to Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst with Consumers Union.

If you want to watch a specific channel, you have to buy other channels you may never use because of the way the cable industry bundles channels together.

"Most cable companies enjoy kind of regional fiefdoms where there's not really much there in terms of other providers," said Kelsey.

But Martin and and some members of Congress want to see a la carte pricing, giving consumers the option of paying for only the channels they want.

"There's no question that they have the technology to do it, and I think that consumers would dramatically benefit by having the additional choice," Martin said.

In Canada, customers currently pay about $13 for the cable basics and then they can pick and choose another 15 channels for $17 or another 30 for less than $1 a piece.

But the American cable industry said such pricing would raise, not lower, customers' prices. The industry said less popular channels would be forced to lower their advertising rates, which would force consumers to make up the difference with higher subscription fees.

"It's the comparison between having a buffet or ordering lots of sides. Sides always cost you more," said Lillian Rodriguez-Lopez, at Minority Media and Telecommunications Group. "We know right now you that can get good value & for a huge variety of channels."

Still, there is serious talk in Congress about forcing cable companies to give a la carte pricing a try

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5625166

KO

A noun, a verb, and POW! Hah!

new thread, new thread from seder

the hulu movie site, great, watching a movie now

they're still peddling hillary, saying she's polling better than obama against mcain in a HYPOTHETICAL match

well at least they're making a big deal out of the houses issues

jeezus what we've been reduced to...november not coming soon enough

http://samsedershow.com/node/3615#comments

regularly.

There. Is that a good penance?

??????????

and ty incubus

It's cool. Pretend you're living your last day of life here and this isn't so big...
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