Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time... to BUILD UP.
And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country.
Gosh, does she need to spend more time with her family!? Is she spending her time on her campaign to be president and ignoring her vows ... to be governor? Has she been hiking that 'Appalachian Trail.' Read the whole thing and decide for yourselves.
In the mean time, stay tuned for the next (psychotic) episode of Moose & Squirrel: Dahling, What Big Antlers You Have ... or ... Republican Hopes Are Riding On My Back!
posted by The Sailor @ 5:03 PM Permalink
Submitted (almost) without comment:
Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community. Editorially independent of interference from outside its own editorial chain-of-command, it provides commercially available U.S. and world news and objective staff-produced stories relevant to the military community in a balanced, fair, and accurate manner. By keeping its audience informed, Stars and Stripes enhances military readiness and better enables U.S. military personnel and their families stationed overseas to exercise their responsibilities of citizenship. - Revised DoD Directive 5122.11
Stars and Stripes is a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military, DoD civilians, contractors, and their families. Unique among the many military publications, Stars and Stripes operates as a First Amendment newspaper, free of control and censorship. We have published continuously in Europe since 1942, and since 1945 in the Pacific. Today, our readers number well over 350,000.
That was then, this is now. From the Stars and Stripes:
Asserting that Stars and Stripes “refused to highlight” good news in Iraq that the U.S. military wanted to emphasize, Army officials have barred a Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division that is attempting to secure the violent city of Mosul. [...] “Under the embed rules and the congressional mandate of editorial independence for this newspaper, it does not fall under the authority or competence of the command to decide if we do a story, what story we do, or what angle we take in writing the story,” Leonard wrote in his appeal.
posted by The Vidiot @ 2:48 PM Permalink This is a diagram of what TV shows the various star systems should now be receiving. (Full size can be found here.)
Wow, I'm sort of jealous of Capella and Beta Aquilae. They'll be seeing Star Trek the original series soon. Oh, and Procyon is lucky too. They get to see all the Family Guy episodes for the first time. I've seen both shows so many times I can practically say the dialogue.
Wait. Maybe I shouldn't post this. It makes me seem kinda' sad.
Russia spent what, 25-30 years trying to do the impossible: the task of conquering Afghanistan.
America did everything possible to keep that from happening (Makes me wonder why when their only natural resources are opium and top-grade marijuana) (Iran Contra-The Sequel?) including arming Osama bin Laden and his band of merry murderers and providing training from the Green Beret operatives there surreptitiously.
Afghanistan is one of the major factors causing the Russians to spend money endlessly until the entire empire collapsed under the weight of all spending. I'm more than certain there are Russian strategists supplying the Taliban/bin Laden with arms and intel and simultaneously stirring anti-American propaganda through the Middle East and laughing their collective arses off as they watch America follow the same disastrous path which they traveled before with results nothing short of a catastrophe.
Face it, bush borrowed-and-spent more money than anyone in history, oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich ever seen, (with the exception of churches) recklessly took America into an unnecessary war of choice (a war crime by itself as we were not provoked by Iraq), broke the banks 'til they began collapsing, damaged the reputation of the world's finest soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines by allowing waivers for know criminals, drug dealers, felons of all stripes, and did this while reducing America's fighting forces to little more than conscription with the stop-loss plan that renders thousands of military men and women to nothing more that chattel forced to fight with broke down, semi-destroyed or damaged equipment America cannot afford to repair so these conscripts can at least perform the duties for which they were conscripted.
I would also be sure that the Russians, through diplomatic channels, keep seeding anti-American sentiments, especially with Iran, and seeking to tie our hands to the point where if we do attack yet another Muslim country we will clearly be at fault, despised, ridiculed, disrespected, and the laughing stock of the world once again.
I strongly suspect that there are mutual defense pacts already signed between Russia, China, and Iran, bearing in mind the billions and possibly trillions of dollars in cold hard cash, reactor parts, uranium, yellowcake, oil, and other resources that could be shared mutually.
And anyone dumb enough to believe America still has the most formidable fighting forces on earth are fooling neither themselves nor anyone with normal powers of observation.
No, ultimately some country/ies will someday will have its or their way with America, won't even have to resort to date-rape drugs either, and will then leave Lady Liberty soiled, used and abused and begging for a 'morning after pill' that the traitorous gop will deny her.
Well, at least I won't have to watch the news for a few weeks…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 9:41 AM Permalink
…now that a guy who sold a boatload of records has passed away. Yes, I'm speaking of Michael Jackson (and for the first, only, and last time) who's claim to fame is the millions made selling records, popularizing the 'moonwalk', and who once showcased the talents of Elmer Berstein in a song called Thriller.
I have nothing against the worlds most well-known androgynous performer, but in my opinion he suffered mental maladies so severe as to, allegedly, deliberately infect himself with a disease in an attempt to make himself whiter. A sad, sad man and, IMHO, NOT an example we should hold forth to children as some type of demigod to be worshipped and feted for day after day after day, with every self-appointed friend and expert (think Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.) propounding they were the closer and better friend and all the others are frauds and cannot speak for the family.
What a shame the family didn't get a period of mourning before providing the funeral for their lost family member and instead are barraged daily and non-stop by every talking head, commenters, supposed friends, people with their own agenda, and people desiring and aspiring to be able to claim friendship, however tangential and tenuous may be the connection they claim, seeking to accrue fame by an appearance on TV or a radio talk show where Jackson's name is mentioned.
Yes he was talented, but I believe a blind fool could see that he possessed more than a sufficient number of problems to keep teams of psychiatrists busy for a lifetime, and parents failing to explain this to all the little children are being derelict in their parental duties unless, as many will, they simply ignore all the brouhaha.
Which brings me 'round full circle to the fact that it will be unnecessary to tune in any cable news networks which will be broadcasting all Michael, all the time, until something really important or catastrophic occurs.
A real time saver, as I need not watch all the hoopla; just change the station or watch any of my over 2,000+ DVD's (My son got this really cool movie database where you just scan in the barcode using the Macs built-in camera, revealing a wealth of information from the barcode, and making it easy to alphabetize them to shelve them in order. I thought I only had 1,000-1,200 DVDs so you can imagine my surprise at the final count!). (I have entirely too much time on my hands!)
May he R.I.P. finally rid of all the hangers-on, sycophants, hustlers, and others seeking to use or attach themselves to his fame and ride his coattails for self- aggrandizement. The dogs will be fighting for every scrap of Jackson's fortune for years to come instead of paying tribute, offering their respects to their 'hero', and letting him rest in peace.
And the loser of the, "I'll never give up; never surrender…"
posted by Bill Arnett @ 10:23 AM Permalink
…contest of willpower is (drum roll in the background) (wait for it!) STORMIN' NORMAN COLEMAN!!
Yes, Stormin' Norman Coleman has finally succumbed to the tenacious kryptonite-hurling attacks of Al Franken, an unearthly patient candidate who just kept wading through ever deeper excrement increasingly being hurled at himself and the Democratic Party since the '08 elections.
Ah, the people of Minnesota owe a great debt of gratitude to the republican party and Stormin' Norman, both of whom deprived the state of their lawfully elected Senator for the last seven months or so, ignoring the requirement that the state be represented by two Senators lawfully elected by a majority of Minnesotans, and damaging, perhaps permanently, democracy, by now forcing a candidate to not only win with a majority of votes, but whom must now be prepared with a phalanx of attorneys to continue the fight for victory and the assumption of office by the winning candidate if there remains time to be seated for that term.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but other than the Bush/Gore illegal fiasco that gave us our first court-appointed president, I have never seen such a prime example of arrogance, whining, and overall general cowardice than that exhibited by Stormin' Norman. I expect to hear on the news any day now that Stormin' Norman, and his band of merry employees that know they may not be able to find any other jobs after this, have seized the in-state offices of Senator Franken, chained themselves to any desk, chair, or radiator they can find while threatening to conduct a coup against Minnesota leadership, from the governor down and to include the Senator himself.
It will be a difficult, arduous battle for them as they will be armed only with staplers, pencils and pens, paper airplanes, rubber bands shooting paperclips, and a promise to stay until the last mutineer has died of starvation or old age.
After nearly eight months of waiting, almost 20,000 pages of legal briefs, and millions of dollars in election costs, Al Franken emerged Tuesday as the next United States senator from Minnesota, ending one of the most protracted election recount battles in recent memory.
Mr. Franken, 58, a former comedian and author, could be seated in the Senate as early as Monday, leaders there said, providing Democrats with something they had long hoped for: 60 votes, and thus at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters.
Norm Coleman, a Republican who had held the seat for a term, conceded on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court issued a ruling in Mr. Franken’s favor, the latest in a series of findings that had left Mr. Franken ahead in the count. In weeks past, some Republican leaders had urged Mr. Coleman to press on to the federal courts if need be, but those calls faded Tuesday.
Wanna bet that 'those calls [that] faded Tuesday' were from what's left of the anemic leadership of that shipwrecked-on-a-desert-isle party, the gop, who begged and pleaded with Stormin' Norman to just give it up and stop embarrassing himself, the party, the state of Minnesota, the Senate in general, democratic elections, and the judges who continued to deny Stormin' Norman his fiefdom.
And congratulations to Senator Al Franken, now ready to accept the title, duties, and seat in the Senate he duly won.
What specious, pompous, asinine cowards with no sense of decency…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 10:40 AM Permalink…or dignity or, seemingly, holding little value the lives of American soldiers, Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone other than the power structure of America. Those whom care naught for anything but hegemony, control of the world's resources, and the means, fair or foul, by which we seek to dominate and enslave the other countries which have the misfortune of sharing this planet with the most war-mongering country on earth, America.
I sit day by day semi-absorbing the news (if I actually did absorb the news I would be certifiably insane) listening to our collective talking heads stirring up ill feelings between nations that in many cases they have never been to, insulting world leaders (including our own) in order to puff up their alleged credibility just as a peacock spreads its glorious tail with the dozens of 'false eyes' to intimate that it is a much larger and threatening beast than it actually is.
America has become that peacock and should several countries, very few really, decide to form an alliance they could easily defeat America to, "… bring democracy to the American people…" as democracy is to be understood by current world citizens.
Democracy: elections fixed or stolen or the results ignored or tied up in a court to prevent an elected representative from assuming office after a lawful vote was taken. (Think Franken/Coleman)
Democracy: no national health care, millions uninsured, millions making that awful choice between taking their medicine or splurging by opening a fresh can of dog food.
Democracy: where anyone can be imprisoned indefinitely for any reason (as long as the words national security are uttered as a witch utters incantations while stirring her acidic, poisonous brew) with no hope of being charged, given an attorney to represent them, unable to see, feel, touch, and examine any evidence presented against them and no right to confront their accuser and have their case decided by a jury of their peers. You know, the things that formerly made America great.
Democracy: where evidence that was formerly considered, "…the fruit of the poisonous tree…" evidence and any other evidence to which it lead that was obtained by illegal means such as torture, coercion, and similar means was forbidden. It was not allowed and had no legitimacy in American Courts.
Democracy: where the leaders of America are desperately seeking any provocation, however slight or even imagined, to attack other countries with whom we disagree and to further American dominance.
Democracy: a government that ignores lawful votes in other countries if our leaders just happen to dislike the person/s elected in foreign countries, or, worst yet, places sanctions on the entire civilization of another country because we dislike their leaders or the policies they espouse. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right of other people to assemble in support their leaders is utterly ignored by America.
Democracy: brought to you by the leading producer of nuclear weapons, cluster bombs, heat ray cannons to disperse crowds by burning their skin, sound cannons so painful as to drive away a threat. (When Nikoli Tesla died he was working on a weapon so terrible that he believed it would end all war by necessity. The weapon was a death ray that killed people and animals but did no damage to infrastructure: they simply fell dead where they stood. Upon his death the American government immediately seized his laboratories, classified all his research TOP SECRET, it remains so classified, and our government has never allowed anyone but very carefully vetted people access to his work. Hmm, death rays, rays to burn you from a safe [for our soldiers] distance away, sound cannons, but…nah…there couldn't possibly be any connection between these events, eh?)
Democracy: led by America, which is the only country to order the use of nuclear weapons and which demands that other countries be prohibited nuclear weapons or by golly, we'll nuke them out of existence!
Democracy: where a government has become so inured to the suffering of its own people that wishes to impose even greater suffering, starvation, genocide, murder by presidential fiat, the killing of dozens or more to possibly, just possibly kill a single terrorist with a 2,000 pound bomb, and the destruction of any other type of government showing the audacity to not immediately follow any and all orders given to them – even when its clearly against the other countries self-interest, religion, or desire to live in the same manner in which they have lived for THOUSANDS of years and ignore the orders and interest of a country such as America, which is not much more than two HUNDRED years of age and a mere infant compared to the more ancient countries of the world.
Democracy: in the minds of a few billion people, the leading exporter of terror and death.
Democracy – it's a gas! Or some other noxious emission.
Aw, enough. When carefully examined democracy has not stood the test of time and fails the tests of fairness, neutrality, leadership by example, and the decency to treat Americans, much less others, with dignity and a kind regard for the unalienable rights of man.
"...catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."
posted by The Vidiot @ 3:22 PM Permalink
Sound familiar? It was from the PNAC document that said that in order for US foreign policy objectives to be met in the Middle East, a new Pearl Harbor type of event had to happen. And they got it with 9/11.
Well, now it seems there's a new 'think tank' paper out there, this time it's the Brookings Institute. And this one says:
‘With provocation, the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these challenges would be diminished. In the absence of a sufficiently horrific provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.’
The authors of the report sound like a who's who in the run up to the Iraq war:
posted by The Sailor @ 2:15 PM Permalink
I know how to fix the economy! All we have to do is charge $80,000 for every MP3 downloaded from the internet.
[...] Thomas-Rasset was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for pirating music. But unlike most of the more than 30,000 other targets of RIAA pirating lawsuits, Thomas-Rasset fought back. Her case was the first of its kind to go to trial. In 2007 she lost. A jury awarded $222,000 to the RIAA, but the judge threw out the verdict because he believed he gave incorrect instructions to the jury.
That led to a second trial. Thomas-Rasset lost again. This time the jury ordered her to pay a whopping $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.
1.) The RIAA doesn't represent musicians, it represents the music industry that takes advantage of musicians. The music industry blew it years ago when they didn't understand the digital age and now they're desperate for a business model to make money, not art. 2.) An MP3 is a low-bandwidth representation of a song, not a 1:1 digital copy of the music. 3.) The 24 MP3s that were proven to have been in her share folder and then downloaded by a company that was legally authorized to download them. Where's the crime? 4.) Ms. Thomas-Rasset is probably a liar and perjurer, but that's not what she's charged with.
So if the RIAA actually collects 1.92 MILLION DOLLARS for 24 songs that were uploaded by a Mom and then downloaded by an arm of the RIAA, where does the money go?
I've emailed the RIAA, I've called the RIAA, and I still can't get an answer. And I have a Gold Record certified by the RIAA.
It's been awhile since I worked in the biz in LA, but I still know a few artists, producers and engineers that had points on records and the ones I still have contact with have never received a dime or been informed that there was an RIAA settlement with $$ that they should be entitled to.
It seems the artists get screwed again. Welcome to the music industry.
I recommend if you want to buy music go out to your local clubs. If you like the band then buy their CD. It's cheaper than big labels, the band makes more than if they'd released on a major label, and actual music is performed. And there are lots of other ways to find music you like that don't involve the music industry and make the artist more money.
Corporations don't make art, artists do, and the artists deserved to get paid.
The Air Force successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile Monday from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.
posted by The Vidiot @ 9:38 AM Permalink
What prompted the writing of this post is a recent spate of Bloomberg for mayor ads touting his record with the New York City school system. In one of them, he says that since he's been mayor, test scores have gone up. I'm here to tell you that the reality is, they have not.
The state of education today is one of those hot-button issues that's sure to get all sorts of opinions and ideas stirred up into a cauldron of uselessness. "Throw money at the problem!" "Punish the bad schools by withdrawing funds!" "Longer school year!" "Privatize!" Yada, yada, yada. Additionally, Bloomberg is basing a whole lot of his reelection campaign on how much the schools have improved under his tutelage.
But let me tell you, most folks have absolutely no idea what really goes on in the schools. So, I'm going to give you a little peek into a sliver of it. What follows is long, but if you are really interested in how a school system like New York creates their propaganda, read on.
Here in New York, the students are required to pass what is called a Regents exam in four subjects: English, Math, Government and History. They're supposed to make sure that all students graduate with the at least a minimum of competency in those subjects. But do they really? No, of course not.
I hold in my hands a copy of this year's United States History and Government test along with a copy of the chart that converts the raw test scores into final exam scores. Before I get to the chart, let me describe the test.
There are three parts.
Part one is 50 multiple choice questions (one point each)
Part two is two essays (five points each)
Part three is the interpretation of 14 brief history and government related excerpted paragraphs as well as, and I kid you not, political cartoons (one point each)
Now, the multiple choice questions are framed in two ways. One way is to make three of the four choices a little silly so that the answer is more obvious. For instance: "Which of these trials established the principal that leaders of a nation may be tried for crimes against humanity? 1) Scopes 2) Rosenberg 3) Sacco and Vanzetti 4) Nuremberg. The other way the questions are framed are the answers are actually a part of the question, like in a graph or a cartoon.
For the part two essays, the first was on individual rights. They tell you what to do and how to do it:
"Select two different groups in American society who have faced discrimination and for each, describe one specific example of discrimination faced by the group, describe one action taken by the federal or state governments related to this example of discrimination and discuss how the action taken by the federal or stat governments either protected or limited the rights of the group. You may use any example from your study of United States history. Some groups you might wish to consider included Native American Indians, African American, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, the elderly, and the disabled."
Additionally, the instructions tell you how to write and essay and what the words "describe" and "discuss" mean. For the most part, this essay is the most difficult part of the test. Though, if they just wrote "African Americans are discriminated against. I'm African American and I've been discriminated against." That would garner at least a point. If they added "My friend is Hispanic. He's always discriminated against." They would definitely get two points.
The second essay is based on the "documents" used in the questions for part three. Basically, if they just rewrite the initial essay question as a statement, and then copy a bunch of stuff from the "documents", they'll get it right.
Part three has paragraphs, charts and cartoons with a corresponding question and for the most part, the graders looking for them to write, nay copy, a line, or even just a key word, from the selection as an answer to the question. So they don't even have to come up with anything on their own. Just find any line in the paragraph that sounds like it answers the question and write it out, word for word.
Keep in mind, the teachers are supposed to explain all of this to the students before the test.
OK, so that's the test. Now here comes the fun part: The grading
Obviously, part one is easy to grade. They either get it right or not. For part two, they get one point out of possible five for just writing a sentence, nonsensical or not. Two sentences gets two points and three points goes to the student who has two sentences that actually pertain to the essay topic. Of course, if the student actually writes a real essay, that's four points right there. And if that essay makes any sense, that's a five. The same lenient standards apply for part three.
Here's a conversation that actually occurred during the grading of the papers:
Asst. Principal: Let me see XXXX's scores for the third section. Teacher: Here it is. Asst. Principal: [After looking it over] Why did you mark that one wrong? Teacher: Because "Health of the machines" is a completely nonsensical sentence. Asst. Principal: But he used the word "machines" in the sentence. That's one of the key words. He gets that one right. Teacher: {sigh} OK, I'll change the answer if you want, but it's the wrong answer. I'll mark all of them right if you want me to. Asst. Principal: (Turning to the other teachers in the room) We have to be more careful when we grade these exams.
I'm not kidding. That actually happened.
OK, so now to the final tallying of scores:
First, they're in the process of raising the baseline pass score from 55 to 65, but they're doing it incrementally. This year's seniors need only one 65 and three 55s to pass. Next year, they'll need two 65s and two 55s and so on.
So you take the amount of answers answered correctly in parts one and three and add them together. Then, you look down the column of essay scores to see what the final exam score is. So, for instance, if the total correct answers for parts one and three is 40 (out of 64), then the student doesn't have to do better than a 4 out of 10 on the essays to pass the exam. Keep in mind, that could just mean writing two-sentence essays for each.
Here are some weird things that can happen with this grading system.
A student can just get 100% of the multiple questions, not even bother dealing with the third part altogether and just write a single sentence in the essay portion and pass the exam.
A student can get 52 answers out of 64 right and not even bother with the essay and pass the exam.
If a student writes just the essay questions and does a bangup job of it, he only has to get 22 out of 64 answers right on the rest of the exam to pass.
There are other weird things but basically, any combined score on parts one and three has added to it some amount for the essay, whether or not an essay is actually written. And the more points you get on parts one and two, the more points you get for NOT writing the essay. Combined 20 points will get you 2 extra points if you did not write the essay. Combined 40 points will get you 9 points if you did not write the essay. So, even though there are only 64 possible combined points for parts one and two, and that's one point below the 65 needed to pass for the higher pass score, the student will pass because even if they don't write the essay because they get an extra 17 points, pushing them to 81.
Also, NOBODY scores a 54 or a 64. If any student scores a 54 or 64, the teachers are 'encouraged' to go back and find that extra point so that student can pass.
Additionally, if you just look at how the essay points are weighted, each point on the essay exam is worth, on average, four points, making the total number of points for the exam approximately 104, not 100. (Actually, the average is higher than four points, because the initial bump can range from 1 point to 17 points depending on the combined score. I just don't fee like doing a lot of math right now. My gut tells me the average is about 8. Mathematically, the essays are weighted to account for the fact that the test only has 74 raw points. But the essay, which is the most flexible in scoring, is too heavily weighted.)
And this gets revamped every year and softened up. I have a scoring chart from 2007 and then, the passing grade for all was just 55 and there were 65 questions instead of 64. I also noticed that there were fewer points awarded for the essay section on the chart by an average of 2-3 points, especially in the lower ranges. Even when taking into consideration the extra multiple question (when compared to this year), it's still fewer points awarded, but since passing was 55, that's OK. Which means that when you hear anybody say "Oh, we're raising the passing grade level. Our requirements are getting more stringent." You know they're lying. Standards aren't being raised, scores are being artificially raised by adding more weight to the essay section.
Conclusion: So, bottom line, the test is fluffed, the grading is fluffed, the scoring is fluffed and so, in the end, the pass rate is fluffed. Bloomberg's claim that "pass rates have increased since he took control of the school system" is a bunch of hooey.
[There's another aspect of the school system that's been getting some coverage in the press of late and that's the issue of the so-called "Rubber Room" which is where they send teachers who have been accused of wrong doing to await their hearings. Sometimes, they can languish there for years. Now, someone is making a documentary about it. Watch the trailer.]
posted by The Sailor @ 11:38 AM Permalink
The Washington Post fired Dan Froomkin, one of the few journalist/columnist writers that wasn't a stenographer for the government. Here are portions of his last column, but I urge you to follow the link and read all of it:
Today's column is my last for The Washington Post. [...] I started my column in January 2004, and one dominant theme quickly emerged: That George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes. In the days and weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the nation, including the media, vested him with abilities he didn't have and credibility he didn't deserve. As it happens, it was on the day of my very first column that we also got the first insider look at the Bush White House, via Ron Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty. In it, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described a disengaged president "like a blind man in a room full of deaf people", encircled by "a Praetorian guard,” intently looking for a way to overthrow Saddam Hussein long before 9/11. The ensuing five years and 1,088 columns really just fleshed out that portrait, describing a president who was oblivious, embubbled and untrustworthy.
When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.
I don't understand why the WaPo would fire one of their few employees who got it right. But wherever Dan ends up writing next, I'll be reading.
Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.
Think about it. A believer says "I know that there is a God. No doubt about it. It is knowledge, I possess it and I've internalized it. And I can prove it with my doctrine."
An atheist says "I know that there isn't a god. No doubt about it. It is knowledge, I possess it and I've internalized it. And I can prove it with my doctrine."
The only difference is the word "isn't" and that's not much of a difference, is it. Atheists are claiming to have knowledge of the unknowable, just as much as anybody who strongly believes there is a God.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem if someone says they are an atheist, just like I have no problem with some who says they're a believer. It just seems to me that atheism is just as much of a dogma as believing is.
I, personally, am an agnostic. I have no idea if there is a god or not. How can one claim to have any knowledge of god, either of his existence or lack thereof, if it's unprovable either way?
*The reason I use the term "believer" instead of religio-nut or religious believer--or anything using the word pertaining to religion for that matter--is because there are believers in God who don't consider what they do as practicing a religion. Pentacostals, if you ask them, for the most part, won't say they're practicing a religion. They tend to prefer to describe it as having a personal relationship with God. They converse with him, they worship him and give him praise. To them, it's not a dogma or a religion, but rather it's having and maintaining an actual relationship with the Almighty.
The Obama administration...has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
posted by The Vidiot @ 2:53 PM Permalink
This time, he went after Goldman Sachs. If you read nothing else, read this.
Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach.
The whole thing examines the Goldman-enabled bubbles from the Great Depression to tomorrow's Carbon tax.
We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance of being a force for good.
Suuure ya' are, buddy.
It'll make you want to bash your cable box to pieces... mostly because now, when you hear any economic news, you'll understand just how it's rigged against we the people.
As an aside, remember, in "1984", those reports they would issue every day? How many shoes they made, how much chocolate was available and all of the numbers were completely made up and meaningless? Well, lately, when I hear things like "durable goods are up" and "new housing starts are down" I get an immediate and all-encompassing feeling that I'm listening to a Big Brother report of meaningless and propagandizing data.
UPDATED THOUGHT: I don't think Taibbi is right when he lays all the blame at Goldman's doorstep. It wasn't just Goldman that did it. They all did it. The institution did it, or rather, it's the logic of the institution that created the right environment for it. The people are a part of the institution and merely play their roles. They're true believers, to be sure, which is why they performed so well. But they were driven by the logic of the institution: profit at all costs.
1.(sometimes capital letters 'V' and 'S' with no space) a style of writing or saying something using emotion and/or logic and snark, esp. in order to elucidate the obvious while pretending to be objective.
2. anything written by The Vidiot, The Sailor, Mr. Vidiot and anyone else they allow to post on the blog “vidiotspeak”
[Origin: loosely based on new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984 (1949)]
And for godsakes, stay away from FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
Watch the BBC news or ITN news instead.
"POSSE COMITATUS ACT" (18 USC 1385)
A Reconstruction Era criminal law proscribing use of Army (later, Air Force) to "execute the laws" except where expressly authorized by Constitution or Congress. Limit on use of military for civilian law enforcement also applies to Navy by regulation. Dec '81 additional laws were enacted (codified 10 USC 371-78) clarifying permissible military assistance to civilian law enforcement agencies--including the Coast Guard--especially in combating drug smuggling into the United States. Posse Comitatus clarifications emphasize supportive and technical assistance (e.g., use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance, etc.) while generally prohibiting direct participation of DoD personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). For example, Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETS) serve aboard Navy vessels and perform the actual boardings of interdicted suspect drug smuggling vessels and, if needed, arrest their crews). Positive results have been realized especially from Navy ship/aircraft involvement.
