Clark After Dark (Tuesday Night Open Thread)
I had checked in earlier!! Thank you CathyLeeB!!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
I'm old or has there ever been greater music than when I was young? LOL!! When Like A Rolling Stone was in the top 10, look at the other songs:
1965
1. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
2. In The Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett
3. Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
4. Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown
5. My Generation - The Who
6. Mr. Tambourine Man - Byrds
7. Yesterday - Beatles
8. The Sounds Of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
9. Ticket To Ride - Beatles
10. The Tracks Of My Tears - Miracles
How can ya beat that? This program is awesome!!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
That was great and I'm sorry I missed part 1!! At the end they advertised the DVD for $29.99 or something. If I wasn't saving my pennies for the coming winter energy bills I'd get it! It was great!!
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
How does 'Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid' sound?
Posted 12:59 pm | Printer Friendly
National Journal's Charlie Cook, probably the best non-partisan election analyst in the country, had an interesting subscriber-only column today about the Dems' chances of taking back the Senate next year. It's surprisingly encouraging.
The House, for a variety of reasons, may be just out of reach. But Cook said the notion that it would take "a political tidal wave" for the GOP to lose the Senate is just wrong.
In fact, tidal waves are rarely necessary. In 1998, when the political environment tilted slightly in favor of Democrats, Dems won five of the seven competitive races that year. Two years later, Dems won seven of nine toss ups and gained a 50-50 split in the chamber. In 2002, with the playing field tilted slightly in the Republicans' direction, the GOP won six out of nine of the most competitive races. Two years later, they won eight out of nine "toss up" races.
Next year, with conditions apparently tilting back towards the Dems, there are seven Republican-held seats are now in play, which would grow to eight if Trent Lott retires.
They are the seats held by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
In every one of those races, assuming Paul Hackett runs in Ohio, Dems have recruited a very credible challenger. And if Lott retires, there are several top-tier Dems who'd make the race interesting.
How many seats to Dems need to pick up to win the chamber outright? Six. Looking ahead, is that doable? You bet.
Consider this your morale-boost for the day.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5367.html
"George Bush has had his day and he's bollixed it up."
Little glimpses of hope are very important right now!! Would like to hear what alexm thinks of this.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
DeLay Probe Winds Down; Charges May Loom
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer 36 minutes ago
A Texas grand jury's recent interest in conspiracy charges could lead to last-minute criminal indictments — possibly against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — as it wraps up its investigation Wednesday into DeLay's state political organization, according to lawyers with knowledge of the case.
Conspiracy counts against two DeLay associates this month raised concerns with DeLay's lawyers, who fear the chances are greater that the majority leader could be charged with being part of the conspiracy. Before these counts, the investigation was more narrowly focused on the state election code.
By expanding the charges to include conspiracy, prosecutors made it possible for the Travis County grand jury to bring charges against DeLay. Otherwise, the grand jury would have lacked jurisdiction under state laws.
The Associated Press spoke to several lawyers familiar with the case, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. DeLay, R-Texas, said Tuesday that prosecutors have interviewed him. He has insisted he committed no crimes and says Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, is pursuing the case for political reasons.
The disclosure came as congressional officials said top House Republicans were quietly considering how to respond if an indictment were issued.
House GOP rules require any member of the elected leadership to step down temporarily if indicted, and it would be up to the rank and file to select an interim replacement. Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., could make a recommendation, whether choosing to elevate another member of the leadership or tapping an alternative to reduce the possibility of a struggle if DeLay were cleared and then sought to reclaim his post.
Asked what he had heard of any late developments, DeLay said Tuesday, "Not a word."
He also said he earlier "had an interview" with prosecutors, adding, "everybody knows that.".....more
when I see it. The snake will slither out of it somehow.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
I am curious as to how many farmers and ranchers would like to buy seed or breed livestock based on the biblical version of genetics? Anti science nuts seem to be a wee bit selective about the literal acceptance of biblical mandates when it involves cash outlay from their pockets.
Panda Poop
William J. Bennetta
It seems to be time for another warning about Of Pandas and People, a book that the Haughton Publishing Company (in Dallas) issued in 1989 as a "supplemental biology text." Haughton is now peddling "a new, even more helpful edition" of Pandas, alleging that the new edition has "greater definition and accuracy of detail."
Pandas is a fake. It is not a biology book but a religious tract. It was developed by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (a fundamentalist outfit in Richardson, Texas), and it is just a repackaging of "creation-science" -- the religious doctrine by which fundamentalists pretend to show that the Holy Bible is a literal account of history, that the Bible's creation myths provide a "scientific" explanation for the origin of living things, and that there is no evolutionary connection between humans and other organisms. As we have noted in earlier warnings about Pandas, the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that the teaching of "creation-science" in public schools is unconstitutional.
The new version of Pandas, dated in 1993, differs little from the 1989 version. I see some trivial alterations here and there, but I find major changes only on the acknowledgments page and in the "Biochemical Similarities" chapter that starts on page 135. The acknowledgments page of the 1989 version listed a lot of people but didn't identify any of them; in the 1993 version, we learn the affiliations of some of the "critical reviewers," though Haughton still refuses to identify any of the people who are shown as "editors and contributors." The "Biochemical Similarities" chapter has been extensively revised, though its essential features are unchanged: The writers continue to deal in untestable, supernatural fancies instead of biology, continue to use false and misleading analogies, and continue to show that they have not studied the science that they pretend to criticize. Here and throughout the book, they demonstrate that their grasp of evolutionary biology is close to nil.
I have seen the same fatuity and ignorance in scores of publications issued by devotees of "creation-science," and I am moved to make a suggestion. If these folks are unwilling or unable to learn about evolution, maybe they should turn to a different subject. Instead of continuing their silly attacks on evolutionary biology, and instead of trying to induce public schools to put biblical creation myths into science curricula, maybe they should start campaigning to have the schools teach biblical genetics.
The central doctrine of biblical genetics is that the colors and patterns shown by animals are determined by what the animals' parents happen to see while they are mating. This notion is set forth in chapter 30 of the Book of Genesis, in a tale about the patriarch Jacob. First, Jacob makes a deal by which he will get, as his wages, all the brown sheep and all the spotted or speckled goats that may be born into flocks owned by Laban. Then he undertakes to ensure that Laban's strongest animals will produce an abundance of brown, spotted or speckled offspring:
And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled and spotted.
And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.
And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.
But when the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.
In promoting biblical genetics as a substitute for scientific genetics, fundamentalists could note that biblical genetics offers big advantages. First, it is cozy: Even if it doesn't agree with what we see in nature, it agrees with a sort of ignorant intuition. Next, biblical genetics is simple: It involves no mathematics, and it require us to master only three unfamiliar terms -- pilled, strakes and ringstraked. Best of all, it is easy to apply. Individuals schooled in biblical genetics would not have to analyze pedigrees, conduct tedious selective-breeding projects, search for the mechanisms of inherited diseases, or learn delicate genetic-engineering techniques. They would just have to set up some properly pilled rods.
To persons who imagine that they can learn about nature by rejecting evidence and reason in favor of ancient tribal tales, biblical genetics will certainly look like great stuff. I commend it to the fundamentalists' attention.
-----------------------------
William J. Bennetta is a professional editor, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, the president of The Textbook League, and the editor of The Textbook Letter. He writes often about the propagation of quackery, false "science" and false "history" in schoolbooks.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
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these people need their own country. And they CAN'T have this one.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
"Camp al Qaim, Iraq -- A senior U.S. Marine commander said Monday that insurgents loyal to militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had taken over at least five key western Iraqi towns on the border with Syria and were forcing local residents to flee.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Lt. Col. Julian Alford, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment stationed outside the western Iraqi town of al Qaim, said insurgents in the area had been distributing flyers they called "death letters," in which they ordered residents of this western corner of volatile Anbar province to leave -- or face death.
"Basically, the insurgents say if they don't leave they will ... behead them," said Alford, who took command this month of about 1,000 Marines stationed in the dusty desert area populated by roughly 100,000 Sunni Arabs."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/27/MNG99EUI391.DTL
f'ed... We leave and this is what will happen all over the country? We stay and it only happens in certain towns? WTF have the neocon a**holes gotten us into and what good can possibly come for the Iraqi people? Ugh.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
I've been reading about tribal justice throughout most of the Sunni rural area. I hadn't realized the old tribes were still so very powerful there. One man's son had collaborated with the Americans, giving them some information. The tribal leaders demanded he execute his son - or they would execute his entire family. So the man took his son out of the home at night and shot him in back of the house, crying all the while. These people hate the "occupiers" and "infidels." Unless the U.S. (or NATO) can begin to work with Syria and Saudi Arabia, they are never going to end their insurgency. The Sunnis in this entire area have been radicalized since the current war began. They have nothing to lose. They are becoming increasingly Wahhabist. Which they weren't before the invasion, even though many of the rural people were quite religious.
It's it is so pathetic (and criminal) that the Bush administration did not listen to the expert advise they were given.
Leadership means lifting people up. --Wes Clark
More Patter of Little Pandas
by John Cole(1995)
Reports readers will by now by familiar with the "intelligent design" book, Of Pandas and People. We have reported ongoing efforts to introduce the book into public schools as an alternative to naturalistic evolution. Sometimes the significance of this book probably gets lost (it is, after all, just one book, so why should we care about it?).
Michael Woodruff, a lawyer writing for the creationist "Center for Law and Religious Freedom" in Falls Church,Va., makes clear in a cover letter and annotations of the 1987 Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard that Pandas is a carefully constructed ruse to get around legal objections to antievolutionism. "[The book] is not creation science as the court defined that term. It does not support evolutionary theory grounded in naturalism...[and] that that there are phenomenon [sic] that don't fit the evolutionary theory but do fit a theory of intelligent design. ... Members of school boards and local authorities that consider the enrichment of curriculum should not be concerned that this particular book violates standards set forth by the Supreme Court in any way because it is a careful and scientific presentation of facts that might not otherwise be considered."
There follows an eleven-page "legal scrutiny" of Of Pandas and People which goes through 37 major statements in the Court decision and explains how Pandas handles each clause. Woodruff outlines how the book is tailored to meet specific objections while introducing the "intelligent design" alternative to evolution. He also quotes Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion, when useful to his case.
Woodruff adds that "Intelligent Design is a more modest and general position than Creation Science, one that rests on inferences from empirical observations of nature...not on revelation or holy books." He probably offends creationists by arguing simultaneously that "Intelligent Design" (which he capitalizes) is fairly trivial and that it can be usefully substituted for creationism in the science classroom. In other words, he argues that it is a valid place-holder for creationism in the curriculum despite its being supposedly innocuous. For example, Intelligent Design "makes no attempt to identify the intelligent agent," he writes. "While it is a fact that many people identify the intelligent agent with the traditional God of the Bible in their own minds, Pandas in no way teaches or encourages the teaching that this private mental conclusion is scientific knowledge." Some creationists as well find most evolutionists surely find this a rather sophistic (as opposed to sophisticated) argument.
---------------------------------
Note: Transcribed for the web by Nick Matzke. This article was originally published as:
Cole, John (Jan-Feb 1995). "More Patter of Little Pandas." NCSE Reports, 15(1), p. 21
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
"And while my heart goes out to people on fixed incomes, it is primarily a state and local responsibility. And in my opinion, it's the responsibility of faith-based organizations, of churches and charities and others to help those people."
-- Michael Brown, former FEMA director.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/right_south.htm
The Old South and The New Religious Right
"Southern culture has traditionally favored state's rights over Yankee intervention. When Jerry Falwell demands the federal government get out of the people-helping-business and allow local churches to handle it, he is striking a familiar note in the South. The Falwell-Dole connection in a bill that would transfer welfare money to local churches for distribution is a fallback to Old South attitudes. Falwell has spoken at segregationists rallies and, as recently as the past decade, supported South African regimes. In the Old South, the Anglican Church was the dominant version of Christianity. This state supported English church passed on its roots to many religious thinkers."
Personally, I don't think it has so much to do with the Anglican pattern or even with "states' rights" from a theoretical standpoint. I think it goes back to the attitude that was prevalent in the South that whites did not want anyone to bring any kind of help down here that would lift the status of black people, i.e., that would in any way threaten white supremacy, even if that was also disadvantageous to poor whites. So, they said "Let the churches handle that. Charity is the proper function of the churches; not the goverment." It was a cover for social injustice, for "keeping the n________s down." It has also become a convenient excuse for incompetence in the recent instance.
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
I've saved it for future reference.
I watched a show on television a couple of years ago, one whose title I can't remember, that I just happened upon as I was perusing channels. It covered the "bounty hunting" of individuals that had been involved in the drug trade. What struck me was that almost all of those being hunted were black. What I saw on the program was so similar to the old slave hunting that I became a bit queasy watching it. And it was basically filmed in southern states.
Leadership means lifting people up. --Wes Clark
And what I mean by that is that as Bush continues to spend us into deficit oblivion and continues to federally power-grab services from the states, many Southerners are beginning to see the light, which could end up HURTING Republicans.
Yes, there is still a fair amount of people (and I can be obstinate this way, too) that don't want a bunch of "Yankees" coming down here as the carpetbaggers did to tell us what to do. I'm also quite sure that many moons ago, the federal government was seen as a challenge to the white supremacy that was so prevailent.
There is racism everywhere - it's NOT confined to the South and, I would dare say, is dealt with in a much more effective way in the South since it's out in the open when it does occur. Therefore, the author's point that Southerners hate the federal government for helping poor black people is old, trite and tired.
The reason Southerners don't like the feds is distrust because of the way the carpetbaggers treated the natives those many years ago (rapes, pillaging, etc).
However, much of that distrust has been thwarted in recent years by the New Deal, which helped poor white and black folks, alike, and the creation of TVA, a mostly federal-funded utlities company that brought the South, finally, out of the agrarian lifestyle it COULD not give up since the days prior to the Civil War. Suddenly, rural communites had power and indoor toilets and the ability to get "city" jobs. People may complain about TVA and they may complain about New Deal initiatives until they actually sit and think about them and realize how much they've helped move the South out of the dark ages.
Certainly a fair amount of paleo-conservatives in this area, along with Democrats of all walks (conservative, moderate and liberal), have known that George W. Bush was no traditional conservative since the first day of his annointing.
What's kept the neo-theo-cons at the foot of the Bush trough isn't so much Calvinist or even racism as it's been "God, gays and guns." Many of these people are such one- or two-issue voters that they don't CARE that Bush is mucking up states rights as long as abortion is made illegal or that gays can't marry or that they get to keep their guns (not knowing, of course, that abortion probably will never be illegal in all 50 states and that many Dems support gun rights, too).
Once it becomes clear that Bush cannot deliver a 50-state abortion ban (overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't do that. It would be up to individual states, but many don't realize that) and that there are real, live military guys running as Democrats and that Bush has spent us into the Chinese poor house, you'll see a good deal of allegedly "moral" people running away from what has become the Republican Party.
"Today we look back at the presidents who preceded the Civil War, and we can't understand how they could have sat on their hands in the face of a threat that proved so devastating to this country. Someday, I fear, Americans are going to look back at today's leaders and wonder the same thing.
Wait one second! You're trying to frightify Americans. ...
Mr. President! How did you get into my keyboard?
It was intelligently designed. But you're evadering - you know hurricanes aren't about global warming.
No, Mr. President - you're the one dodging the issue. Sure, there's no way to link any particular hurricane to global warming. But there's loads of evidence that global warming is already making hurricanes more intense. I don't suppose you saw the report this month in the journal Science that the proportion of hurricanes that are Category 4 or 5 has almost doubled since the 1970's?
No, er, I missed that one. Laura might've read it. ... "
"Debate, Dialogue, Discussion, Disagreement - that's not wrong -that's not unpatriotic, that's one of the highest forms of patriotism and love of country, and we need to say it!" - Gen. Wesley Clark (US Ret.)
Does anyone have that article that was written a while back about how Clark has been proven right on various things? Sorry I can't be more specific...I only remember it vaguely.
As I have over 1000 different articles saved, can you say whether it was a magazine article or .........
Came across this whilst skimming through, which I thought rather nice:
Snip....
............"That leaves one candidate who has made restoring America's position in the world a major theme of his campaign. It's unsurprising that it's also the man who led an awkward, 19-nation NATO coalition against Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo. Clark is alone among the Democratic candidates in having had to negotiate with foreign leaders, both friends and enemies. He has spent much of his life abroad as a soldier (and Rhodes scholar), as compared with Bush, who had barely left the country before taking office. Clark understands that it matters what the world thinks of America, and has promised to act accordingly.
. . .
Clark's opposition to the Iraq war is easily caricatured as putting him in the "antiwar" camp. But, unlike Howard Dean, Clark openly expressed jubilation at the liberation of Iraq. And, as J. Peter Scoblic's endorsement of Clark shows, his positions on the war are both far more consistent and more sophisticated than he has been given credit for: Simply put, Clark's instinct is that some elective wars--which few can now doubt Iraq was--should be fought, but only with as much forethought, and as much international support, as possible. Going into Iraq may have been justifiable, but the Iraq war that George Bush fought did not meet those tests, particularly not at a time when the war on terror loomed as a higher priority.
. . .
But more than any specific policy proposals, Clark's decision to make restoring America's image and alliances a major theme of his campaign shows that he is acutely aware of one of the most important foreign policy problems facing the country, and that he has the right approach to fixing it. That's not the only thing Americans should look for in a president. But, after the damage this administration has done, it'd be a great start."
From "Commanding Presence", The Economist, Jan 04
I did some searching and I think I'm mis-remembering. I stumbled upon a quote by Donna Brazile stating that Clark looked like a sage. I thought there was more to it than that, though. I've been having some fun hunting down the right-wing posts about how nutty Clark was. He said crazy things like "A quick victory in Iraq “was not going to happen,” he told [CNN] viewers on March 25[,2003]"
Green rules seen on "chopping block" post-Rita
Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:55 PM ET
By Chris Baltimore
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Republicans on Wednesday will launch a rapid-fire assault against environmental protections on the pretext of helping the U.S. oil and gas industry recover from hurricane damage, environmental groups charge.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Resources Committee are holding separate meetings to finalize legislation on Wednesday, with the aim of combining them into a single energy bill for the full House to debate next week.
The resources panel, led by Richard Pombo of California, wants to lift a ban on Florida offshore drilling, promote oil shale and sell a dozen national parks for energy development.
"This really has very little to do with the hurricanes or relief efforts or even refiners. This is deregulation pure and simple," said John Walke of Natural Resources Defense Council.
Texan Joe Barton's energy committee wants to expand U.S. gasoline production by loosening federal rules that limit pollution when refineries or coal-fired power plants are expanded. U.S. gasoline supplies have tightened since hurricanes Katrina and Rita roared across the U.S. Gulf Coast, closing up to one-fourth of the nation's refining capacity.
House Republicans received a thumbs up from President George W. Bush on Monday when he said environmental rules and paperwork are obstacles holding up U.S. refinery expansions...........more
I can't stand it anymore. Watching the Bush Administration and the GOP congress, all lapdogs of Satan, is making me ill. They repeatedly take a bad situation and make it even worse.
"Debate, Dialogue, Discussion, Disagreement - that's not wrong -that's not unpatriotic, that's one of the highest forms of patriotism and love of country, and we need to say it!" - Gen. Wesley Clark (US Ret.)
With nearly 1,900 U.S. troops dead and thousands wounded after two years of war, Americans want to know how the war can be brought to an end. The President started this war on grounds that we now know were untrue: Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11.
Last Saturday, upwards of 300,000 people marched in front of the White House to demand that our troops be brought home. The day before the protest, I hosted a forum on the Iraq War as part of the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference. This
special event featured Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq and whose demand for an explanation from President Bush gained national attention. Rounding out the panel were: former presidential aspirant, General Wesley Clark; former Congressman and NAACP president, Kweisi Mfume; and commentators, E.J. Dionne and Mark Shields.
The panelists presented strong evidence of the failure of current U.S. policy in Iraq, and the urgent need for a viable plan for withdrawal. We've posted video highlights of the forum on www.charlierangel.org and invite you to take a look and comment on our blog.
Thanks very much for your support and please keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Charles B. Rangel
There's a video of Wes on his website.
(September 27, 2005 -- 09:04 PM EDT)
AP: "A Texas grand jury's recent interest in conspiracy charges could lead to last-minute criminal indictments _ possibly against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay _ as it wraps up its investigation Wednesday into DeLay's state political organization, according to lawyers with knowledge of the case. Conspiracy counts against two DeLay associates this month raised concerns with DeLay's lawyers, who fear the chances are greater that the majority leader could be charged with being part of the conspiracy. Before these counts, the investigation was more narrowly focused on the state election code."
-- Josh Marshall
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has contributed $1.25 million of his own money to a committee pushing a bill that would change how legislative districts are redrawn.
The measure, which Schwarzenegger helped qualify for the November 8 special election ballot, would strip redistricting authority from the Legislature and turn it over to a panel of retired judges.
Steve Poizner, a Silicon Valley billionaire, said Tuesday he donated another $1.25 million to the effort after Schwarzenegger asked him to serve as chairman of the Yes on Proposition 77 committee.
Poizner, who also is running for the Republican nomination for insurance commissioner next year, said he thinks lawmakers have too much of a vested interest to continue to be allowed to draw the boundaries of their own districts.
Opponents charge that the measure is an effort by Schwarzenegger and the Republican Party to simply pick up more seats.
"The huge dollar amounts being put in by both the governor and Poizner demonstrate what we've been saying all along," said Paul Hefner, spokesman for the No on 77 committee. "This is a political power grab by one set of politicians wanting to rewrite the constitution to get an advantage over another."
Schwarzenegger's aides have said that he intends to donate as much as $4.5 million from his personal fortune to support his ballot measures.
OK I apologize. But this is funnier than heck.
http://www.filmstripinternational.com/index.php?asshole
Go to the File drop down and choose "Save Page As"
On the download choose a folder you want it in (or it will go to the default downlaod page).
Go to that place and click
index.php
Or something like that. Note the file name when you download it. It will be an htm file and will play back on your browser.
Noel
save an option or preference that says download full page or scomething like that if it doesn't work. But if it works, forget this note.
considering the part of the anatomy it refers to.
reminds me of that old joke about what's the last thing that goes through a grasshopper's head when he hits your windscreen.
answer? refer back to your song.
You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq. Wes Clark, CNN Aug 17 2003
haha instead of people telling me to get my head out of my ass now its get my ass out of my head?! Oh that's right things are upside down in Australia :p
Is it 2008 yet?
so I can think like an American :-)
You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq. Wes Clark, CNN Aug 17 2003
haha! Oh boy. You done did it now Aussie!
Paul Hogan called. He wants all of Australia's international reputation back. :p
Is it 2008 yet?
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/endofworld.html
maybe it's just because the aussies get a starring role. Before we get killed off, anyway :-)
wtf, mate?
You'd be taking them to the Better Business Bureau if you bought a washing machine the way we went into the war in Iraq. Wes Clark, CNN Aug 17 2003
to:
reggiesmom, jen, NapervilleClarkie, SusanOH (and hubby and doggie), clarkdemocrat, barb, and the nice young man from turkey (i'm sorry, i can't remember your name) -- and if i missed anyone, i'm sorry
thank you for making one of the most spectacular days even more wonderful!! you all are awesome!! it was a great day and i'm so glad i could share it with all of you!!
the event on monday, the 26th, was sooooooo ---- i can't find the words to describe how i felt. being around so many people of God has filled my heart with love and joy. it's no wonder that cindy sheehan had a smile on her face that day -- even when they arrested her.
many professionals came out to join the crowd during their lunch breaks... many tourists stood with us. i did not see/hear any "pro-war" people...maybe because there was so many people praying and -- SHOUTING-- to the occupants in the white house.
i was interviewed by a german radio station...it was great..the reporter wanted to know why i was there... i said it was b/c i was against this war...and if this administration had listened to GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, this war would have never happened!! (i wonder if it will ever get aired!???!!!)
a BIG "thank you" goes out to ALL of you from this cnn blog...you all are so inspiring...you all give me hope for a better country, a better world!!
Happy you made it home safe and sound! I didn't realize you were staying in DC for the duration of the event!! Until hearing from you here, we could only imagine what it was like! Thanks for reporting in! The difference between the media coverage (and non-coverage) of Saturday's Rally and what we saw/heard was night and day - the coverage of Sunday and Monday pretty non-existent... are you sure something really happened there??? ;)
I'm so happy I got to finally meet you! Like meeting old friends it was! I'm also loving we have photos of it all!! Reggiesmom and Knight both posted blogs. In fact, Reggiesmom's is still in the BoB list over on the left, called "For the Sake of Peace" it's here:
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/1142
Knight's has dropped away from view, but it's here:
http://securingamerica.com/ccn/node/1127
he's got tons of great photos!
My comment on reggiesmom's blog also has a link to the photos I took.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest places if you look at it right.
--Hunter/Garcia
I didn't realize that you were going to be present for the remainder of the Peace events in D.C. You really got to experience the total package. Way to go!
It was so great meeting up with you and of course the rest of the Clark faithful. I found out yesterday that a few other local Clarkies were there, as well. They didn't decide to head down until the last minute.
Anyway, it was a great little group and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! Our numbers had to have made an impact.....even if the media didn't give it much play. Just knowing that there were soooooo many like-minded people (who dwell in the general vicinity & made an effort to show up) helped to validate my position on this unnecessary war.
Make Levees, Not War!
I don't approve of political jokes.....I've seen too many of them get elected.
Wednesday morning humor.....
Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."
"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!" His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"
when asked his opinion regarding Row vs. Wade, Bush replied, "I don't care how they get out of New Orleans!" ;-)
I didn't get it at first either. (Boy did I feel stupid!) I think it's because I read it and when I read Roe vs. Wade, I don't "hear" it in my head; it's "chunked." Or.. maybe I'm just dumb. Could be that too.
There this:
How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to have a secret
stockpile of light bulbs;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner: Light Bulb Change Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and write a book documenting in detail how Bush was literally in the dark;
8. One to viciously smear #7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush as had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country.
AP version of "Oops"
I am also pretty sure the "folklorist" had more to say that was not printed since his area of study would include the reconstruction era south that everyone wants desperatly to believe is in the past...
Some Reports of N.O. Violence Exaggerated
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press Writer
September 27,2005 | NEW ORLEANS -- On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."
Five days later, he told Oprah Winfrey that babies were being raped. On the same show, Mayor Ray Nagin warned: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."
The ugliest reports -- children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement -- soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.
The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.
But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.
They have no official reports of rape and no eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department of Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the Superdome and four at the convention center. Only two of those are believed to have been murdered.
One of those victims -- found at the Superdome -- appears to have been killed elsewhere before being brought to the stadium, said Bob Johannessen, the agency spokesman.
"It was a chaotic time for the city. Now that we've had a chance to reflect back on that situation, we're able to say right now that things were not the way they appeared," said police Capt. Marlon Defillo.
Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the mayor was relying on others for his information about conditions at the evacuation sites. "He was listening to officials, trusting that information they were providing was accurate," she said.
To be sure, conditions at both sites were chaotic. Water was rising around the Superdome, home to 20,000 evacuees. Toilets were backing up, garbage was rotting, fights were breaking out. Food was in short supply at the convention center, where about 19,000 people took shelter from the rising waters. The temperature was climbing. The elderly and very young were desperate for food, water and medicine.
Police said they saw muzzle flashes at the convention center, and a National Guard member was shot in the leg when an evacuee tried to take his gun.
A week after the floodwaters poured into the city, an Arkansas National Guardsman told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that soldiers had discovered 30 to 40 bodies inside a freezer in the convention center's food area. Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the newspaper that some of the dead appeared to have met violent ends, including "a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
When the convention center was swept, however, no such pile of bodies was found.
Lt. Col. Jacques Thibodeaux of the Louisiana National Guard said reports of violence at the Superdome and the convention center were overblown. He was head of security at the Superdome and led the 1,000 military police and infantrymen who went in to secure the center on Sept. 2.
"The incidents were highly exaggerated" -- the result of fear and hopelessness, he said. "For the amount of the people in the situation, it was a very stable environment."
Thibodeaux said his guard unit received no reports of rape.
Bill Waldron, a homicide detective from Florida in New Orleans for a murder trial, was stuck in the convention center until Sept. 1. He said he saw a couple of fights between young men, but "no murders, no rapes." He said that he did see people dying, but that those deaths were most likely a result of the heat and lack of water.
"People were wanting just some type of authority to come in and say, `Hey, this is what's going to happen,'" Waldron said. "People were scared."
New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan said officials at the morgue in St. Gabriel have identified four apparent homicide victims from the city. All were shot and all were adults. Police arrested one person on suspicion of attempted sexual assault but received no official reports of rape.
Judy Benitez, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, cautioned that it might be too soon to say whether there really were rapes at the evacuation sites. Because the evacuees and any perpetrators have been scattered across the country by Katrina, and now Hurricane Rita, victims may come forward later, she said.
"It is extremely difficult to get good statistics about rape under normal circumstances, and these are certainly not normal circumstances," she said.
Bill Ellis, a folklorist at Pennsylvania State University, said rumors in an environment like that at the evacuation centers are to be expected, given the frightening circumstances and paucity of authoritative information.
"Rumors become improvised news. You become your own anchorman," he said.
The chaos also seemed to affect some reporters and editors, said Kelly McBride, who teaches ethics to journalists at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research and education center in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"You get so hung up as a reporter on what the big picture is that you use generalizations that become untrue," McBride said.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
Tom Toles today is hysterical.
In my view, the coverage of the horror stories in NOLA tells us more about the majority society and it's irrational fears, than it informs us about the plight of minorities or the poor.
America's myopic view of blacks and the poor
Dear Ms. Varner:
I just read your op-ed piece. You refer to the broken promises to the poor, yet you gloss over the fact that the bulk of the poor we've seen in those horrific images are black people. Why do you suppose that is?
This reader and many others who e-mailed me in recent days suspect — no, actually they're convinced — that the answer is racism. Racism, directed toward blacks, created the large impoverished class uncovered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Alas, the reason many of the horrific images and the stories about looters and rapists featured African Americans was because of unbalanced, inaccurate media portrayals.
Stories of a drowning city, largely poor and two-thirds black, sinking into a chaos described like something out of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" were too believable and juicy for some journalists, politicians and pundits to pass up. So they donned their old eyeglasses, the ones with the myopic lenses that supersized old stereotypes, and reported to the rest of the country what they saw in the Gulf Coast states.
The images had foreign leaders shaking their heads in disgust and Americans soaking themselves in race-based guilt.
Problem is, some of the images were untrue and others unbalanced and lacking in context. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Monday that body counts were inflated and reports of rapes and sniper attacks were published in many media outlets without being verified.
The Los Angeles Times reported that The Ottawa Sun reported unverified accounts of a man seeking help gunned down by a National Guard soldier. And London's Evening Standard ran a story about New Orleans that evoked images from the violent, futuristic film, "Mad Max," and the classic novel of humankind gone wild, "Lord of the Flies."
People suffered mightily from the twin hurricanes. Some lost their lives, many lost their homes. But why did accuracy have to take such a hit as well?
If the hurricanes are going to affect the national dialogue on race and class as well as impact the next election, we ought to turn fiction into fact. The first falsehood that needs to be scrapped is this: Most African Americans are poor.
Indeed, they're not, but if you've been watching the news lately you'd think the opposite.
The reality is the number of blacks living below the poverty level dropped from 31.9 percent to 24.1 percent between 1990 and 2002.
Overall, the poverty rate is up for the third straight year. But 41 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, three-quarters of black families have incomes rising enough to keep them firmly above the poverty line. There are some 26,000 black chief executives in corporate America, according to the Census Bureau, including at blue-chip firms such as American Express and AOL-Time Warner.
Out-of-wedlock pregnancies, smoking and other risky lifestyle choices are down for young blacks. Many of them continue to struggle in poorly staffed and poorly funded schools. Yet, the academic achievement gap between black and white students is narrowing. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the gap in reading scores between black and white nine-year-olds shrank from 44 points in 1971 to 26 points in 2004.
This doesn't sound like a black America in need of a Marshall Plan. America needs to be concerned about its poor, but first it needs to learn who they are.
Images of the poor may elicit sympathy but they can also backfire. Congress is being urged to overrule President Bush and reinstate wage guarantees for workers hired to clean up and rebuild communities. While we're filling the pockets of Halliburton and other corporations snapping up billions of dollars in no-bid contracts, it makes sense to ensure some of the money gets to the local population.
But who will want to hire people portrayed on television as looters, rapists and thieves?
The worse effect of America's myopic view when it comes to blacks and the poor, is how it leaves out other groups that ought to be part of the debate. Scattered amid the flood of stories about poor blacks were too few on the heartbreaking conditions of illegal immigrants too afraid to come out of hiding and seek aid. I think I saw one story on the impact on Asian Americans in that region.
The hurricanes taught us something about poverty in America, all right. They taught us how little we know about it.
Lynne K. Varner's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
Let's not pat ourselves on the back too soon. My comments bracketed and bolded below.
[snip] The reality is the number of blacks living below the poverty level dropped from 31.9 percent to 24.1 percent between 1990 and 2002[Clinton years!].
Overall, the poverty rate is up for the third straight year. But 41 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, three-quarters of black families have incomes rising enough to keep them firmly above the poverty line[meaning that one-quarter or 25% or MORE THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE QUOTED ABOVE have incomes NOT rising enough to keep them above the poverty line]. There are some 26,000 black chief executives in corporate America[How many white or hispanic CEOs?], according to the Census Bureau, including at blue-chip firms such as American Express and AOL-Time Warner.
Just when you think NC republicans could not get any loonier...
For the GOP, not all mayoral elections bring good news
Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, focused on a high-profile effort to woo African-American voters back to the GOP, must have been heartened by the headline in the New York Times yesterday: "Black Voters, No Longer a Bloc, Are Up for Grabs in Mayor's Race." The story was about the New York mayoral election on Nov. 8, and it did indeed carry promising news for Republicans: Polls show that black voters may vote in significant numbers to reelect Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
But 500 miles to the south, there's evidence to suggest that Republicans hoping to win over African-American voters still have a long road ahead of them: Although Mehlman is working to recruit more African-American candidates around the country, a Republican running in the mayor's race in Durham, N.C., probably isn't exactly the sort of guy he has in mind.
As the News & Observer reported over the weekend, mayoral candidate Vincent Brown "has a long criminal history that includes felony convictions for forgery and a stretch in state prison." According to the paper, "A criminal records search turned up more than 100 charges over the past 15 years that matched Brown's name, current and prior addresses, and the two birth dates he has used. Most of the charges he has faced are misdemeanors: writing worthless checks, simple assault, fraud, trespassing, providing fictitious information to a police officer, possessing a weapon on school grounds, violating probation, failing to pay income tax, and driving while impaired." Over the years, the paper says, Brown has pleaded guilty to 46 misdemeanor charges.
When the paper interviewed Brown last week, he showed up driving a late-model pickup, "though criminal records indicate his driver's license was permanently revoked in 1992 after he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired." When a reporter showed Brown documents that seemed to indicate he had been charged with a felony count of promoting the prostitution of a minor, Brown said, "That's not me. I don't know who that is. This is wrong ... There are so many Vincent Browns." According to the paper, Brown "then said the charges shouldn't matter anyway, because they were dismissed -- information not included on the documents he was shown. Asked how he knew the charges had been dismissed if he was not the Vincent Brown who had been arrested, Brown paused; then he laid out a scenario in which he was a victim of mistaken identity and had to hire a lawyer to help set the record straight. He reiterated that he had never been arrested."
The assistant Durham district attorney who handled the prostitution case -- which was, in fact, dropped after the victim's family decided not to pursue it -- confirmed for the paper that it had the right Vincent Brown.
Brown is running for office on a strong anticrime platform and has stressed the importance of "sound discipline, good father, church family." His message has had some appeal in Durham, but as more revelations surface, some of his supporters are jumping ship. The head of the local GOP says that he's reserving judgment. "We didn't ask him to run. He came to us," Steve Monks, the local Republican Party chairman, told the News & Observer. "Politics can play a role in the prosecution of individuals [by the Durham D.A.] ... and a story in the newspaper, even a reasonably well-researched one, does not constitute proof."
-- Tim Grieve
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
this is the party of moral values, folks!
If those are examples of republican moral values, I want nothing to do with them.
Here's an interesting unscientific poll From the Washington Whispers section of U.S.News.com. The Deaniacs won't be happy with these results, I'm sure.
Who is the most overrated newsmaker in Washington?
• Karl Rove 15%
• Sen. Harry Reid 30%
• House Majority Leader Tom DeLay 14%
• Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean 41%
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you'd like to participate, the page can be found here:
Scroll down......
I don't approve of political jokes.....I've seen too many of them get elected.
Friedman is myopic himself on many issues but he makes some good points here.
Times select required
The Endgame in Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 28, 2005
Umm Qasr, Iraq
Even a brief visit to this southern Iraq port leaves me convinced that we are entering the endgame here. The coming Iraqi votes, in October over the new constitution and in December over a new Parliament, are going to tell America whether it is worth staying here or not for much longer.
Despite all the shameful blunders of Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, at the end of the day, was always going to be what the Iraqis decided to make of it. And those in the Iraqi majority - the Shiites and Kurds who make up roughly 80 percent of this country - have spoken. They want an Iraq that will be decentralized and will allow each of their communities to run its own affairs and culture - without fear of ever again being dominated and brutalized by an oil-backed Sunni minority regime in Baghdad.
Equally important, both the Kurds and the Shiites have made it clear that they have no interest in telling the Sunnis how to live, and will cut them a slice of Iraq's oil revenue and maintain Iraq's basic Arab identity.
So now we know what kind of majority the Kurds and Shiites want to be, the question is what kind of minority the Iraqi Sunnis want to be. Do they want to be the Palestinians and spend the next 100 years trying to mobilize the Arab-Muslim world to reverse history and restore their "right" to rule Iraq as a minority - a move that would destroy them and Iraq?
Or do they want to embrace the future? I know the Sunnis are terrified by Iran's influence in this southern region, but, as the Brits who run the Basra area, which includes Umm Qasr, will tell you, the Iraqi Arab Shiites here are obsessed with not being dominated by Iran. Despite growing cultural and commercial ties with Iran, they are Iraqis first. That attitude would only be enhanced if Iraqi Sunnis, rather than allowing or abetting the murders of Shiites, would instead embrace the new constitution and let the U.S. cut the Sunnis an even fairer slice of the pie.
"We have a lot of overlapping interests with the Sunnis of Iraq," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said. Indeed, in the latter stages of the constitutional negotiations in Iraq, the talented U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, was basically acting as the Sunnis' lawyer in dealings with the Kurds and Shiites. The problem was that the Sunnis never knew when to say yes, "that's enough," and the U.S. got fed up with their demanding much more than their due.
Do the Iraqi Sunnis understand their own interests, and does the Sunni world have any moral center? Up to now the Sunni Arab world has stood mute while the Sunni Baathists and jihadists in Iraq have engaged in what can only be called "ethnic cleansing": murdering Shiite civilians in large numbers purely because they are Shiites in hopes of restoring a Sunni-dominated order in Iraq that is un-restorable. A fatwa has just been issued against a female Indian tennis player who is Muslim, condemning her for her short skirts, but no fatwa has been issued by Sunni clerics condemning Zarqawi's butchering of Iraqi Shiite children and teachers.
Some courageous Sunnis have begun to speak out. "One of the most bizarre phenomena of recent times has been the refusal of Arab governments to condemn terrorist acts in Iraq or to commiserate with the victims," Abdul Rahman al-Rashed wrote in the Saudi daily Asharq Al Awsat. He added, "Take the most recent atrocities in which more than 200 Iraqis lost their lives in two days of carnage: no Arab government raised its voice in condemnation, although most of them shrilly objected when the new Iraqi constitution failed to mention that the country was part of the Arab nation. The official Arab position vis-à-vis Iraq has always been spineless."
So, folks, we are faltering in Iraq today in part because of the Bush team's incompetence, but also because of the moral vacuum in the Sunni Arab world, where the worst are engaged in murderous ethnic cleansing - and trying to stifle any prospect of democracy here - and the rest are too afraid, too weak, too lost or too anti-Shiite to do anything about it.
Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind. We must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
Times select required
Dancing in the Dark
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 28, 2005
WASHINGTON
I can't wait to see what's next.
Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy Rollerblading down the bike path to the Pentagon? Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace in a gray cardigan?
Maybe now that our hydrocarbon president is the conservation president, he'll downgrade from Air Force One to a solar-powered Piper Cub as he continues to stalk the Gulf Coast towns and oil rigs like Banquo's ghost.
The once disciplined and swaggering Bush administration has descended into slapstick, more comical even than having Clarence Thomas et al. sit in judgment as Anna Nicole Smith attempts to get more of the moolah of her late oil tycoon husband.
We've got the clownish Brownie still on FEMA's payroll, giving advice on cleaning up the mess he made. ( Let's hope the White House is paying him only long enough to buy his good will, not to take any of his bad advice.)
We've got two oilmen in the White House whose administration was built on urging us to consume and buy as much oil and energy as possible. Now they're suddenly urging us to conserve. (Since Mr. Cheney considers conservation a "personal virtue," at least he'll get some virtue.)
The president called on Americans to drive less, and told his staff members to turn off their computers at night, turn down the air-conditioning, form carpools and take the bus.
At the same time, he set a fine example by wasting gazillions of gallons of fuel with all the planes and Secret Service vans and press motorcades and police escorts that follow him around every time he goes on one of his inane photo-ops from the Colorado bunker to what's left of the Mississippi Delta and the Bayou. He did his part by knocking off a few cars from his motorcade on his seventh trip to the gulf yesterday - but if residents had hoped he'd bring them some water, they went thirsty.
"Even so," as The Times's Elisabeth Bumiller wrote, "security dictated that Mr. Bush's still-impressive caravan pick him up at the base of Air Force One in Lake Charles, La. - and drop him off just yards away for a meeting with local officials at an airport terminal."
Noting that the Bush administration has proposed new fuel economy standards that critics say could make huge S.U.V.'s and pickups even more popular, Reuters published some arithmetic about the president's notorious fuel inefficiency.
Air Force One costs $83,200 to fill up and more than $6,000 per hour to fly. Then there's the cost of helicopters and a 2006 Cadillac DTS limo that gets less than 22 miles per gallon.
Karen Hughes, the Bush nanny who knows nothing about the Muslim world and yet is charged with selling the U.S. to it, wasted even more fuel this week flying to Saudi Arabia to tell women covered from head to toe in black how much she likes driving even though they can't.
She knows so little about the Middle East that she looked taken aback when some Saudi women told her that just because they could not vote or drive did not mean that they felt they were treated unfairly.
One thing Saudi women like even less than not having certain rights is to have hypocritical Americans patronize them.
The moment when America should have used its influence to help Saudi women came on Nov. 6, 1990, as U.S. forces gathered in the kingdom to go to war in Iraq the first time. Inspired by the U.S. troops, including female soldiers, 47 women from the Saudi intelligentsia took the wheels from their brothers and husbands and drove until the police stopped them.
They were branded "whores" and "harlots" by Saudi clerics, had their passports revoked, and were ostracized from society for a dozen years. Even their husbands suffered.
The experience made them more angry at the U.S. than at their own rulers. They feel that the Bushes play up the repression of women in the Middle East when it suits their desire to bang the war drums, but do not care what happens to women once the ideological agenda has been achieved.
They feel the administration and the American media have emphasized the repression of Saudi women post-9/11 as a way to demonize Saudi Arabia and paint Saudi men as bullies and terrorists.
When Ms. Hughes goes to Saudi Arabia to introduce herself as "a mom" and to talk about Americans as people of faith, guzzling fuel all the way in a country getting flush selling us oil, I think we can consider it taxpayer money well spent.
W. doesn't really need to worry about turning down the lights in the White House. The place is already totally in the dark.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
just because you coughed up the dough doesn't mean you have to hog all the good stuff! I was just about to post this myself.....LOL!
I don't approve of political jokes.....I've seen too many of them get elected.
Time to flee from the copyright police... Grab these before they're deleted...
laters.
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***************"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"
***************
What happens when Bush takes viagra?
He gets taller!
a Bob Dole retort in there somewhere. Paging Defoliated Bush, paging Defoliated......
I don't approve of political jokes.....I've seen too many of them get elected.
The Atlantic Monthly | November 2005
Things Left Undone
Why has an administration that talks so much about homeland security been so unable to secure the homeland?
by Richard A. Clarke
I magine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another. Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force that not only directed the government response but also helped coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.
Actually, this requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. Of course the circumstances then were very special: it was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of "the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country." The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.
this just in from the Borowitz Report:
BUSH PRAISES SWIFTNESS OF HURRICANE RITA PHOTO-OPS
But Says Government Must Create Impression of Concern Even Faster in Future
In a televised speech to the nation last night, President George W. Bush praised the Federal government for responding swiftly to Hurricane Rita with well-crafted, high-quality photo opportunities showing him looking concerned, but said that the government needs to create the impression of concern even faster in the future.
Mr. Bush said the fact that the government provided the first images of him looking grave and engaged in the crisis even before Hurricane Rita slammed into the Texas and Louisiana coastline showed that it had learned the lessons of Hurricane Katrina.
"After Hurricane Katrina, it was hours before the American people saw the first photos of me furrowing my brow and looking serious," Mr. Bush said. "But with Rita, we had high-quality images of me looking worried right from the get-go."
While praising the swiftness of the government's photo-op response to Rita, the president said that "much work still needs to be done" to ensure that the government will produce high-quality post-disaster photo-ops even faster in the future.
To that end, he said he was creating a new government bureaucracy, the Federal Emergency Image Management Agency, which would provide the president with lighting, cameras, and dramatic backdrops within minutes of any national emergency.
"In times of crisis, the president needs to send the American people the following message," the president concluded. "Message: I look like I care."
Elsewhere, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher wed in a private ceremony over the weekend, vowing to love, honor and obey each other longer than Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney.
I don't approve of political jokes.....I've seen too many of them get elected.
......George Bush is failing miserably, his approval ratings are in the tank, the liberal base is seething with anger, and yet it's all translating into....nothing. E.J. Dionne explains why today:
[The Democratic] party's problems are structural and can be explained by three numbers: 21, 34 and 45. According to the network exit polls, 21 percent of the voters who cast ballots in 2004 called themselves liberal, 34 percent said they were conservative and 45 percent called themselves moderate.Those numbers mean that liberal-leaning Democrats are far more dependent than conservatively inclined Republicans on alliances with the political center.
These numbers have been rock steady for decades, and their meaning is simple: energizing the base just isn't enough for Democrats. Even if every hardcore liberal in the country votes Democratic, we have to win about three-quarters of the moderates to gain a majority. That means we have to win support pretty far into the conservative end of that moderate center, and people like that simply aren't going to respond to anti-war rallies and screaming campaigns against John Roberts..........
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
"George Bush has had his day and he's bollixed it up."
That's why we need Wes. He defies labels. Nearly all those people who label themselves moderates really are liberals at heart. They just don't know it because they hear "liberal" and they think "John Kerry." Let them hear "liberal" and think "Wes Clark" and things will be a lot different.
LA Times Poll
Reader's Online Question of the Week
Should Intelligent Design be taught in classrooms?
- 8.7% Yes, it should be taught (40 responses)
- 89.4% No, it should not be taught (412 responses)
- 2.0% I don't know if it should be taught (9 responses)
461 total responses
1. Show up * 2. Pay attention * 3. Speak your truth, and * 4. Don\'t be attached to outcome -- Angeles Arrien
Part 2 of the Scorcese "American Masters" film