Wow! I got a great idea that will mean the end of all wars…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 3:26 PM Permalink
…let's just send Justice Sotomayor to strike as much terror into the hearts of our enemies as she has into the hearts and teeny-weeny minds of the GOP, now so apparently terrified of a Latina judge that they are reduced to monosyllabic, nonsensical, ridiculously inane babel, drooling and blank-eyed at the thought of a single woman assuming a seat on the SCOTUS.
What a bunch of hypocritical cowards the GOP has always been, now aggravated and amplified by the obvious universe-destroying capabilities of a single Latina.
Warning: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:51 PM Permalink
…should be paraphrased as, "Warning: Dangers of military service are much closer and far worse than they appear…" for it matters not if you serve in a war zone, loading toxic ammunition, work with the nastiest solvents and cleansers in the world, work in, nearby, or transport nuclear weapons or leaky canisters of dangerous chemicals, drive trucks used to transport these type items, or simply innocently live downwind of one of the many hundreds of "super-toxic" sites left behind by the military, U.S. military service is dangerous to the life and safety of the individual.
The military has no regard for the safety of the individual soldier, merely hope that they can train a troop to stay alive through all the mud, blood, guts, gore, and exposure to the innumerable dangerous and often debilitating or deadly substances with which soldiers must work until their real aims may be achieved.
I believe that this is what will eventually lead to the collapse of the American form of government: caring so little for our fighting forces that little or no effort is made or being made to safeguard them from the innumerable poisons to which they are exposed practically daily (go out to any firing range and drink deep of the lead-filled air) and that bothers those in charge of our forces not at all.
Soldiers today are worse than fodder - they are distractions meant to draw attentions away from the many atrocities and genocides being conducted from the skies.
I have begun to believe there will be no peace among men until men no longer exist.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:36 AM Permalink
And the hits just keep on coming.
Honestly, why does this idiot have access to the most prized piece of printed real estate on the planet? Behold this little gem.
One of the main divides between left and right is the dependence on different moral values. For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty — and revulsion at disgust.
Wholly crap. The whole thing is the most nonsensical piece of claptrap I've ever read. He seems to be merely trying to sustain the illusion that there ARE liberals and conservatives. Divide and conquer. Keep us bickering among ourselves so we don't pay so much attention to the men behind the curtain. Sure, he offers some lame advice on how we can 'come together', but it's still reinforcing the differences.
The fact is, there ARE no differences. We're ALL people.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:29 AM Permalink
Remember Sibel Edmonds? The whistleblower translator that got the short shaft? Well, she's started a new blog that is specifically for calling out the media on its piss-poor reporting.
At my new blog, 123 Real Change, I'm happy to present an experimental project, Project Expose MSM, created to provide readers with specific mainstream media blackout and/or misinformation cases based on the documented and credible first-hand experiences of legitimate sources and whistleblowers.123 Real Change is inviting all members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), other active (covert or overt) government whistleblowers, and even reporters themselves, to publish their experiences in regard to their own first-hand dealings with the media, where their legit disclosures were either intentionally censored, blacked out or tainted.
posted by The Vidiot @ 10:02 PM PermalinkThe Korean thing is whatever it is. Our media portrays it as it's all "Kim JongIl is a nutjob" which, fine, being a westerner and all, I can understand. But let us not forget, the N. Koreans have a diffferentPOV.
The Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army issued a statement Wednesday in connection with the fact that the unstable situation created in Korea due to the Lee MyungBak group of traitors' reckless moves to "fully participate" in the U.S.-led PSI is now inching close an extreme phase where a war may break out any moment.
See, this whole thing started when South Korea joined PSI after 9/11. This pissed Mr. Il off. That, and the fact that GW wasn't too keen on throwing lagniappe at Kim Jong like Clinton was.
So, here we sit, on the brink of a nuclear war with Kim Jong Il, and the question has to be why?
If you look at it from his perspective; the South is run by a bunch of freakin' idiots who sided with the evil empire, the US has nukes, so why shouldn't Korea, and all of our economies are heading for the crapper, so we've got to do something. That's probably it in a nutshell.
That, and I've been drinking soju for the last hour and half so all of this seems perfectly logical to me.
This is a classic. Let's pathologise conspiracy theorists.
posted by The Vidiot @ 9:46 PM Permalink
Honestly, when I read it, I LOL. It's got to part of the LOL meme. I mean, they can't be serious.
Goertzel says the new study provides an intriguing but partial look at the inner workings of conspiracy thinking. Such convictions critically depend on what he calls “selective skepticism.” Conspiracy believers are highly doubtful about information from the government or other sources they consider suspect. But, without criticism, believers accept any source that supports their preconceived views, he says.
So, let me get this straight; doubting information from the government is a problem.
Then I hereby announce that I am officially a problem.
posted by The Sailor @ 3:15 PM Permalink
On a personal note: I have a habit of emptying my pockets every night and tossing all my change into a brass bowl. When that gets full, (and it takes a while because I use my credit/debit card for most purchases), I transfer the change to a coffee can. Today the coffee can was full and the brass bowl was full.
Which is the long way around of saying: I got a new iPod!
I lost the last one when I put it in my laptop bag, (only Dell would design a laptop bag with outside 'pockets' that had no bottom.) I had so many fond memories of that iPod. [/sigh] But this one is much better and cheaper.
The justices uphold the same-sex marriage ban but also rule that the 18,000 gay couples who wed before the November vote will stay married.
It seems to me, while I disagree vehemently with the Californians who voted for bigotry and the Utah Mormons who financed the campaign for bigotry, that the CA constitution was upheld.
I'm certain that citizens of California will strike down this egregious assault on equal rights next time around.
Why am I certain, you ask? Because I have Blind Faith.
BTW, there's a term for people who lack empathy, they're called psychopaths.
Should judges use their empathy, (assuming they have it), when deciding cases?
Of course. Not to ignore the law but to apply the law as "Justice tempered with mercy."
INAL, but I think 'intent' is one of the code words they use for such rulings. If the intent of a person flooded out for days with no rescue in sight, (e.g NOLA/Katrina), was to feed their family by breaking into an abandoned store one would hope that the JustUs system would have some empathy. If the said person's intent was to break into a bank for money, the empathy is still there, but probably not in the defendant's favor.
The law should not be black and white because people aren't and the real world isn't. And this is recognized in our adversarial system.
Jury/judge decide not just guilt but what measure of guilt. The prosecution generally levy the most charges possible and paint the defendant in the worst light. The defense generally try to show mitigation of the offenses, and occasionally actual innocence. That includes death row.
Obviously empathy occurs in the real world of American JustUs, because rich old white men judges go easier on rich old white men, out of empathy. (e.g. Enron execs, Maddow & Co., while white collar crimes ruin more lives than the mugger down the street. Yet who gets max time in prison and who gets a slap on the wrist in Club Fed?)
Judge Sotomayor was originally appointed by George Bush I.
The system sucks but I don't know a better one. It sure as heck won't be the end of the world if the US's first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court is also a woman and gets 1 out of nine votes, and an opinion to help decide law in the final chance we have in the JustUs system.
Yet one of the great Western misconceptions is that severe malnutrition is simply about not getting enough to eat. Often it’s about not getting the right micronutrients — iron, zinc, vitamin A, iodine — and one of the most cost-effective ways outsiders can combat poverty is to fight this “hidden hunger.”
Read the whole thing if you feel like boiling your blood today.
Not one word in the piece mentions that perhaps the MASSIVE inequalities in our economic system has led to a situation where people in one part of the world starve and people in another part of the world have to get gastric bypass to stop eating themselves to death.
Yeah, just help them get the micronutrients they need, and then they'll be all better.
God, how did we get cursed with such people as Kristoff?
posted by The Vidiot @ 11:53 AM PermalinkBump and Update: Oh, this just get's better. (I'm too lazy to read it all and comment, I'll just let Josh Marshal do it)
Girlfriends of two of the 'Newburgh Four' have come forward now -- in articles in the Daily News and New York Post. And while, as you'd expect, they're putting their men in the best light, suggesting they were tricked into the plot, it does seem clear that cash gifts, free rent and bags and bags and bags of weed may have been a stronger enticement for these goofballs than Islam.
David Williams is the one of the four who'd recently moved to Newburgh to help his mom care for his brother, who reportedly has terminal cancer. His mom says that "Maqsood", the name the informant was using, promised to pay for the brother's hospital bills.
Original Post The guys who were arrested yesterday when they attempted to bomb a couple of New York synagogues weren't terrorists. They were idiots. If you read the various and sundry reports on the web, you'll see quotes like the one from his sister, "Right now, to me he’s, like, the dumbest person I ever came in contact with in my life." They were upset that somebody else had already thought of taking down the WTC and did it! I mean, these guys were not a 'brain trust'. So, let's look at it another way: You need to justify your existence by making arrests, otherwise, your department loses its standing and its funding. So, you find a couple of patsies who may indeed be disgruntled about certain things, say, the US government's behavior in Afghanistan and Iraq (but really, what thinking person isn't disgruntled about that?) and who, on their own, could barely figure out where to set off a firecracker, but with a little easy help, and let me stress the easy here because the more I read, the more it looks like the FBI was a facilitator, they were able to go as far as their wildest dreams.
Which is perfect if you're needing to make some arrests. And to make it more perfect, it can be shown over and over again on the evening news because you set it all up like it's an episode of Survivor, with multiple camera angles and everything (did they consult a movie DP at some point??) and viola! You have a made-for-TV terrorist-cell bust! Couldnt' be better!
Remarkably, vast passages of the conspiracy the federal authorities described — the talk of killing Jews, the testing of the men’s would-be weaponry — played out on a veritable soundstage of hidden cameras and secret microphones, and involved material provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A house in Newburgh, a storage facility in Stamford, the planting of the would-be bombs in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale — everything was recorded, according to the complaint.
Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit.
This one is about as easy to swallow as that 19 hijackers crap they fed to us 8 years ago.
posted by The Vidiot @ 5:49 PM Permalink
What does it take to win them? I haven't a clue. Apparently, since I've entered the same one twice now and not even gotten a door prize. Last year, maybe I could understand, I did something simple, a blueberry risotto. It wasn't too fancy, but it was well made. But the ones that won had all sorts of weird ingredients so I thought, "OK, if I do it again, I'll make something weird." So this time, I did New Orleans CrawfishÉtoufee´ Risotto (Obviously, it's a risotto competition.) And the one that won was, well, I THINK, a little bland. I mean BLAND. I guess you could say the flavor was subtle, but if it's so subtle you have to guess? It's too subtle. Another one that won had rhubarb in it. I mean, RHUBARB? Whateverrr.
Mine was delicious. Mr. Vidiot went around and tried everyone else's and was like, "Your's is so much better. Oh my god, so much better." But when it came time for voting, I think one of the judges was anti-meat or something. And even the people's choice one was all for the bland. It's like the 20-somethings taste buds are all in their ass or something. Either Mr. Vidiot and I have way too exotic taste buds or everyone else is dead in the mouth.
Anyway, I'm going to share the recipe here for you so you can be the judge.
New Orleans CrawfishÉtoufeé Risotto
1 stick of butter 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper (some jalapeno peppers if you so desire) 2 cups chopped onion 1 cup chopped celery 1 link of andouille sausage, chopped 2 tablespoons chopped garlic 3 bay leaves 2 cups aborio rice 2 cups of chicken stock mixed with 3 cups of water 1/2 cup white wine 1 pound of crawfish or shrimp, (if you can't get crawfish.) 1/2 cup chopped green onions 2 tablespoons fresh parsley Salt and pepper to taste, (Tony's Cajun spices if you have it.) Serve with Tabasco sauce.
Heat stock and water to a boil Melt butter and saute peppers, onions, andouille and celery until onion is soft. Add garlic and bay leaves and cook for one minute. Add rice with 2 cups of stock and water mix. Stir and let absorb. Put shrimp or crawfish into remaining stock. When rice is thick and pulling away from bottom, add white wine. Let absorb. Add stock with shrimp or crawfish in increments until all absorbed. Stir constantly. Ideal consistency is a little aldente, not mushy. Should be a little soupy. If you need to add more water, do so. Right before serving, mix in green onions and parsley.
I'm telling you, it's like cocaine. A little won't sell you, but a lot will addict you.
Update: Ooops, nearly forgot, you should add about a tablespoon of tomato paste or a few tablespoons of tomato sauce to give a pinkish color. Not important for flavor however.
You know, I just read the entire post over and it sounds a little like I'm all sour grapes over it. I'm not. It's just that I can't quite figure out what the criteria was and it's exasperating. I believe I know what good food is. I was raised by fabulous cooks. Mr. Vidiot grew up in New Orleans of all places and that's like food mecca. We can't be totally wrong, can we?
Then again, maybe we just have no idea what good food is and everyone else does. But it doesn't matter. I slapped 20 much needed pounds on that boy after I met him. I must be doing something right.
I don't know if you've been paying attention to the MP's expense scandal in England
posted by The Vidiot @ 2:42 PM Permalink
I really haven't been following the minutia of it, because well, we have enough crap going on here on this side of the pond. But I had some time today to read a bit of it, and well, I have to say, it's pretty amusing. For instance, Ian Gibson, a senior Labor MP, is stepping down because he got caught expensing a Fiat for his daughter and her boyfriend, among other things. There are others: Two Conservative MPs will be stepping down because they got busted for expensing their gardens, which I THINK included a moat. A third Conservative MP may not survive politically when it was revealed he claimed a tax break for a mortgage he didn't have. Three more Labor MPs are under investigation and I believe, the list goes on. The whole thing has a whiff of pre-french revolution to it, including a 'Let them eat cake' like comment from one of the MPs.
Anthony Steen, the Tory MP forced to stand down over his expenses, has suggested people were "jealous" because he lived in a house that resembled Royal residence Balmoral.
It is not, therefore, the expenses scandal that has stirred up public anger. It is a general feeling that there are people who are using our money to fund lifestyles far beyond the average voter’s – and using their position to exempt themselves from the rules. Ordinary citizens are fined for sorting their rubbish incorrectly, or making an error on their tax return; MPs reconfigure the tax system to their own advantage, or even (in LembitOpik’s case) claim £40 for a summons for non-payment of council tax. We pay more in fuel duty; they claim for their weekly shop. We are hemmed in by laws and regulations they are free to ignore.
Yes, indeed, those in power play the system to enrich themselves. The story is practically older then dino poo, and definitely more ubiquitous.
Yet, while the British people are contemplating revolution, we here in the states stand to the side and think "Wow, aren't those Brit politicians mendacious?" But what makes us think that similar things don't happen with our Congressmen and Senators and Judges and Presidents and whomever else is in a position of power? How many of them have paid for a car or an apartment or taken a deduction that benefited them at the taxpayer expense? But will we ever know? Will they be investigated and if investigated, prosecuted? Remember, every player on the power team, up and down the line, benefits from the system as it stands. Changing that system is not on their agenda. What's happening in Britain could also happen here if maybe our infrastructure was a little different. Our politicians are no less greedy or mendacious. You know it, I know it.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:52 AM Permalink
The people who make laws making them illegal are.
Arizona Chuck over at Geronimo Manifesto has a great post up on how the drug war goes back to Nixon. Some of the Nixon quotes he includes are amazing in their level of mendacity.
Nixon was recorded telling his chief of staff:
"You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."
Fifty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say they have an unfavorable opinion of the former vice president. Thirty-seven percent say they have a favorable opinion of Cheney, up eight points from January when he left office.
Now, accepting that the polls are believable (I know, it's a stretch) why on earth would Cheney's tour of gloom and doom be boosting his approval ratings? Well, I can tell you one thing that might be affecting it. Last night, I was watching the news (NBC) which I only do for a laugh because it's so wholly unbelievable. Anyway, I was LMAO when they were framing the whole mano a mano thing with Obama and Cheney as, well, a mano a mano thing. It was pure comedy. The contortions and manipulations, the word play and outright lies, it was like watching a Monty Python skit. They were trying to give Cheney's illegitimate arguments legitimacy. I don't know how since he's still mercilessly thrashing the 9/11 horse for chirssakes. BUT, to folks who gobble up the nightly news like a bag of chips, well, I can see how they might think that what Cheney was saying was strong and legitimate and forceful and responsible. Because that's how the news was making them feel about it.
Really, it was astounding. When you're aware of being manipulated, it's just astounding to watch it.
I love what the blogs are calling the NY governor.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:33 AM Permalink
Gov. Paterson, poor guy, I don't know why he's so bad, but a lot, and I mean A LOT of people don't like him. So the blogs have taken to calling him New York's State Piñata.
[...] "It is done. The time for trying to fix or focus on the past has ended. The era of Republican navel-gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future."
Wow, I must have missed the whole part about republicants' apologizing. Maybe I missed it when I LOL when he said the future was teabagging and Reagan. ************************* In the "Look ever there, something shiny!" department. Nancy Pelosi must really be in trouble because both Democrats and republicants agree with her! The CIA lies. Gosh, who knew!?
A Weston woman, accused of praying instead of seeking medical attention for her dying daughter, suffered a medical emergency as her homicide trial got under way but appeared OK about 30 minutes later. [...] Moments later her attorneys expressed concern, asking for a recess so they could get her some air. She appeared visibly weak as her husband and others escorted her from the courtroom to a downstairs office.
Judge Vincent Howard ordered court security to call 911 and have Neumann medically evaluated.
Gosh, wasn't she praying hard enough!? If only her daughter had been medically evaluated.
There are those who believe in the Rapture prophesied in the Bible. And there is Joshua Witter, avowed atheist. [...] As sure as the True Believers are they will escape this earth when the Rapture arrives, Witter is just as certain he will be left behind to deliver their mail. He has committed blasphemy to make sure.
ABC News' Jennifer Parker reports: Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepared top-secret military intelligence briefs for former President George W. Bush with cover sheets featuring triumphant images from the Iraq war with "Crusades-like" Bible messages, according to an exclusive report in the latest June issue of GQ magazine.
Two things really bother me about the above article.
The first, of course, is that Rummy had to make biblical comic books to get Li'l Bush to read the briefings. We didn't know quite the extent of the delusional state of the WH, but we knew they thought it was a Crusade, they said so, and we knew Bush wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but jumpin' Jehoshaphat!
The second is that ABC News did nothing but comment & quote on others' reporting! I'm pretty sure that's what I do. Of course I don't have a Washington Bureau and I work a different job to make a living.
The 'link' to GQ by ABC was in the form of a PDF of GQ's article. Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe GQ and ABC are owned by the same corp. Maybe they paid GQ a lot of money to source GQ's article. It doesn't matter, ABC has the ability and resources to have done their own work.
How odd in this time of newspaper's complaining about why they need to be more consolidated and get an anti-trust exemption that they, and TV, get scooped by a magazine. ********************* Speaking of the unspeakable Rummy:
MarSOC was set up by former defence secretary despite opposition from within the Marine Corps
[...] Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week - believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children - as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.
Obama, you're doing it wrong! WTF is it that happens to people when they get inside the twilight zone DC Beltway? (please notice another distinction between the Dems and Repubs, even when our folks win, we still castigate them for breaking their promises. It's called not marching in lockstep and living in a reality based world.) ****************** Wow, either Rummy's tentacles were everywhere or the Bush apologists are really polishing that turd! From the above GQ article, now quoted by the Times-Picayune we bring you Katrina and the Waves!
A report on the GQ magazine Web site is quoting unnamed former Bush administration official as blaming former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for many failures, including a delay in military assistance in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The report says "in speaking with the former Bush officials, it becomes evident that Rumsfeld impaired administration performance on a host of matters extending well beyond Iraq to impact America's relations with other nations, the safety of our troops, and the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Yeees, of course Bush had nothing to do with it! He didn't know! He even complained he didn't know. It's not like he was in charge or anything.
Once again, maybe I'm being unfair. After all, the TV News and the newspapers are just reporting what a magazine said. (Notice how all the news outlets are distancing themselves from GQ by saying "A report on the GQ magazine", like they can't, umm, you know, like call their own sources or develop sources?)
At least GQ had some facts and document photos for their article.
I guess what I'm saying, after meandering around the point, is that TV and print news have the resources to find out whether the 'anonymous officials' are telling the truth. And get those folks on record. Don't just quote another source that you haven't confirmed and that they gave anonymity to, don't do the Drudge work.
I don't usually do journalism, I just do commentary on news articles. But sheesh, even I double check the stories I comment on!
According to their standards I could say 'GoatF**ker Today just reported you swallow anything! Headlines at 11.'
Headline: Republicans in Senate Lower Expectations of a Court Fight…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 11:32 AM Permalink
…I guess they finally figured out that Ruth Bader Ginsberg could take on Scalia AND Clarence Thomas at the same time while writing her opinion on a case. She's b-a-a-a-a-d!
Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.
Morgan DeBoer, a property owner, opened a nine-hole golf course at the mouth of Glacier Bay in 1998, on land that was underwater when his family first settled here 50 years ago.
“The highest tides of the year would come into what is now my driving range area,” Mr. DeBoer said. [Free life-preservers for all the kids! Bill]
Now, with the high-tide line receding even farther, he is contemplating adding another nine holes.…
The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch. The land is ascending so fast that the rising seas — a ubiquitous byproduct of global warming — cannot keep pace. As a result, the relative sea level is falling, at a rate “among the highest ever recorded,” according to a 2007 report by a panel of experts convened by Mayor Bruce Botelho of Juneau.
Noted scientists have posited a theory that eventually Alaska will leave the surface of the planet entirely, finally ridding us of Sarah Palin once and for all.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:25 AM Permalink
I know, you get tired of me going on and on about how the dems and the repubs are really just two sides of the same coin. But when they do something that so obviously illustrates this point, well, how can anyone say I'm wrong?
Despite complaints that banks and credit card companies are gouging customers by charging outrageous interest rates, the Senate on Wednesday easily turned back an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent.
Ask any person on the street NOT tied to the credit card banking industry, and you'll get 100% agreement that the credit card companies are little more than loan sharks and should be reigned in. 100%. I'm sure of it. But who do your 'selected' representatives listen to? The people who pour millions of dollars into their coffers, that's who.
What does that tell you? That tells you the same thing that I've been telling you -- there's no difference between the two parties, that neither one of the parties represents actual people, and that the entire government and all its participants are the enablers of the corporate mandate to maximize profit at the expense of all else.
posted by Global Patriot Worker @ 4:41 PM Permalink
After several introductory missives here at this blog I am now steadying my hand and preparing to dig.
I chose today's subject out of a necessity to travel the whole road from beginning to end and not to simply be dropped off at some middle point. The scenery and nuances of the journey of truth cannot be fully processed without a clear understanding of the scope of the entire route.
For today's subject we must walk bravely and forthrightly into the truth of the attacks of 9/11/01. We must walk up the blind hill, toward the sound of cannon and gunfire and prepare to take our consciousness and community back from those intent on our confusion and blind faith. For without full understanding of the intents and purposes of those events and the mechanics involved we will cease being the United States of America...land of the free and home of the brave. Everything now hinges on that event and it's interpretation.
Here's one thing I know to be true. The true enablers of the attacks and resultant chaos are busted. They know it. Although we cannot officially name names yet we know by the fierce defense of the official narrative and the almost hysterical mindless pushback regarding discussion on the issue, they know they are busted. By and large the people who secretly and coldly planned these attacks screwed it up big time. They left too many loose ends. They made many incredibly stupid mistakes. They underestimated the true intelligence of the people. They were too bold. They counted on a lockstep media and corrupt justice system. They also could not act very well.
So today, even though the custom now is to imbed a million links and give you too much to do to get my point across, I am simply going to tell you what I know and ask you to get involved and take up the mantle of truth, justice freedom and peace.
Believe it or not, against the advice of some of my more astute friends, I believed the official fairytale about nineteen hijackers, a bearded man in a cave, and a completely non-testicled trillion dollar military for a year and a half after 9/11/01. Then a very simple thing happened. I saw a film about the Pentagon attack that revealed nothing that resembled a crash or impact of a huge Boeing 757 at the site. Being a fan of old sayings...mostly because they are true.....it struck me that a picture indeed is worth a thousand words. There appeared to be no fuselage, no giant wing sections, no body parts, no luggage, no seats, no wiring and no crater. The only thing visible was a nice tidy lawn at the impact site and a roughly twenty-foot hole in the building. Ask yourself one simple question. Did anyone anywhere see a completely unambiguous photo or film of a large jetliner about to hit or hitting the Pentagon? If so, I, and about 300 million Americans as well as the rest of humanity, would like to see it. Show it to me and I will chill out! Despite the positioning of over eighty security cameras on that building not one piece of unambiguous footage has been shown to the public indicating a huge jet aircraft impacted that building at roughly 9:30 am on 9/11/01. One would think that on a beautiful day in Washington D.C., a city full of tourists with cameras, that somebody would surface with something that indicated the event occurred as it was narrated. In addition the government wants us to believe that this entire forty-ton machine "evaporated" in the inferno yet the DNA remains of the victims were identified. This is the height of chutzpah to ask us to believe that! Of course the entire body of forensic materials is not available for examination due to national security classifications. [Note by The Vidiot: The issue of the Pentagon Plane is a point of contention in the blogosphere. If you disagree with GPW, state so with facts. Do not lambast what he says based on this one point. That’s how the issue is used by 9/11 truth debunkers.]
My questions about the Pentagon are many-fold:
Where is the film and photo documentation of the impact as there surely must be some available?
What was Donald Rumsfeld doing carrying stretchers when he should have been busy trying to figure out what in hell was going on?
Why did the Pentagon missile batteries not fire in an attempt to defend the structure?
Why is the forensic material classified?
Why does the account of the approach of a large jetliner by scores of witnesses differ from the official approach scenario?
Who were the identically dressed men in business suits that were tampering with the evidence and what were they picking up on the Pentagon lawn?
Who was the young man, that was present with Dick Cheney and Norm Mineta in the bunker under the White House during the attack, that described the approach of a plane before the "impact" and why was this testimony not present in The 9/11 Commission Report?
Why does the mainstream media ignore such inconsistencies and only trumpet the official narrative?
That is a very short synopsis about the Pentagon on 9/11/01 and my initial steps in questioning the veracity of the official narrative. Of course one should do their own independent research.
Let's look at our national defense mechanisms that day.
Facts:
There were at least five war games going on that day in that area of the country and some of them even included hijackings and building impacts.
Our military did not defend the country that day.
Our military came up with at least three different stories as to why they did not defend the country that day when answering questions by the 9/11 Commission.
Our military was almost referred to the Justice Department for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
An FAA supervisor destroyed tapes documenting the air-traffic controllers’ experiences that day only a short time after the attacks occurred.
The rules regarding intercepts of errant aircraft were changed by executive order in July of 2001 to route approval for intercepts through the Secretary of Defense instead of allowing local commanders to issue those orders.
An executive order, also in 2001, placed Dick Cheney in the command seat in the instance of a terrorist attack.
Most military folks involved with our defense that day were promoted and to this date I know of no military personnel held to account for the abysmal failures of 9/11/01.
Several of the supposed hijackers trained at U.S. military bases and even had their mailing addresses there. (What the hell is going on with that?)
Why does the mainstream media ignore such pertinent truth?
Folks let me put this as succinctly as possible. The attacks of 9/11, be they whatever they were, could not have possibly been accomplished without the complicity of the military. The hijacked aircraft flew over many well-established air bases, including Wright-Patterson in Dayton and Andrews across the river from the Pentagon, all of which have many levels of radar and were aware of the situation. Without a full accounting of the military's activities that day, there is no reason to ever give them another dime of taxpayer money...period, end of discussion. There is however plenty of reason to inquire, protect whistleblowers, prosecute and, hopefully, fully reform. I see no way around this because if they were in any way complicit in the killing of Americans on American soil and are allowed to go free they will kill again if it suits their needs. This is not to mention the fact that our Republic is in the shitter big time. We must capture the high ground of truth here. We are the rag tag bunch of renegades in a revolution of information. We have the tools and the info. The hard research is done. It is time to be brave and take action.
Let's talk about the Twin Towers, building 7 and the NYC attacks. I am no stranger to big cities and skyscrapers. I grew up in Chicago and delivered parcels to The John Hancock building, The Sears Tower and The Standard Oil Building as well as others. I know how big they are and can only imagine how devastatingly hard they must fall. I want all New Yorkers to take a pause here.....pause.....thank you. I don't know the intimate post-traumatic stress that you must feel in regards to the attacks and the aftermath of destruction. I weep in solidarity with you and to this day cry when I see the images of people looking for their loved ones. This is why I will never quit in the fight for truth. We can be true allies here. I fully understand the way some New Yorkers may never want to revisit the trauma but please don't recoil form what may very well be some horrible ugly truths about that day. Let others work through this but don't close your mind. The perpetrators of this mega-crime are counting on you to be cowed forever. To those of us in the truth movement we will ride in your honor and bear as best we can your burden. Our solidarity is critical. Just as George Washington fought for New York City against the British so must we persevere and defend Manhattan again from the pronouncements of these new kings that reign death and destruction from afar. These enemies are not across an ocean of water. They reside behind a sea of TV screens, editorial departments, computers and the government media apparatus.
Am I the only one who wonders…
why the testimony of scores of firefighters, police and other government officials witnessing and hearing explosions at WTC 1,2 an 7 after the plane impacts on 9/11/01 is not presented en masse to the American people?
why the recent, fully peer reviewed, forensic examination of the dust at ground zero revealed highly explosive chips of nano-thermite and this startling revelation did not see the light of day in the American press?
why all of the construction steel evidence at ground zero was carted off poste haste, not forensically examined in detail, and why the site was not properly cleaned up to give a proper picture of what happened?
why the remains of the fallen were not fully accounted for?
how three steel structures that cumulatively took over 15 years to make by welding and bolting steel together could meet their complete demise in cumulatively under a minute? Does that not trouble anyone but me?
how molten steel can still be in existence in the footprints of the towers for months after their destruction despite having an ocean of water poured on them?
how a half million tons of construction grade concrete, asbestos and gypsum can attain a status of micro-particulate in under one minute?
how air infested with the aforementioned micro-particulates can be declared safe to breath by the EPA secretary only days after the destruction?
how the media knew "who did it" almost immediately?
why the people in the South Tower were told it was safe to return to their desks after the North Tower was hit?
who issued that pronouncement?
If such questions are not asked by good Americans and the citizens of this planet at large, who do we assume is going to step to the plate and do it? I think you might know the answer to that question. You must now understand that I am only scratching the surface of the Big Lie but it is up to you now. When the Revolutionary army marched against the greatest odds and the most powerful forces on the planet in the name of truth, justice and freedom they did not do it in a vacuum. They did not do it alone. Folks with great worry and consternation about their efforts fed them, clothed them and offered words of support along the way. This is the job of ordinary Americans now. You must simply do your homework, become aware and be supportive of those willing to go the distance for your future and the future of your offspring. If you can join the fight for truth you will be welcomed but please, above all, inform yourself. New Yorkers are the great ally in this battle, for we must never allow another city to be taken in this manner again. Please support the fall ballot initiative called NYCCAN to establish a new investigation. Sign your name and be proud. When we attain a fully independent investigation those on the side of truth will feel the intensity. When we get prosecutions we will drink heartily. When we get convictions we will surely be up all night. When we incarcerate and conceivably execute for treason we will weep for humanity.
There are other truths people must know about the attacks of 9/11/01.
The involvement of at least four intelligence agencies are implicated in this matter. The Saudi intelligence apparatus (redacted in the Congressional 9/11inquiry), the Pakistani ISI (funding Mohammed Atta), The Israeli Mossad (caught red-handed celebrating and documenting the attacks in New Jersey as well as being busted for a huge spy ring prior to 9/11), and the CIA/FBI crowd (who scuttled investigations into the so-called hijackers and were following them around as they set up shop). This 9/11 thing was one gigantic intelligence/military/industrial secret operation. The victims were Americans.
The media is being tightly controlled, withholding any semblance of truth about 9/11 from escaping and in fact they are on the offensive to classify the truth movement, which now contains professionals of all types, as goofy.
The 9/11 Commission, far from being a truth provider, is a self-admitted farce controlled by government insiders that had no mandate to accuse anyone of anything.
Folks, I am running out of time here but lets leave it at this. The research has been done. I cannot possibly condense the information that you need to know into a short article. My message is something much more spiritual. You, if you are American and reading this, have a deep commitment to retrace the footsteps of the founding geniuses that codified freedom some two hundred years ago. If you are not American it matters not...your duty to humanity requires that this crime be fully accounted for. We must persevere together in a worldwide solidarity movement that must eventually alleviate the fear of each other and bolster the safety and security of future generations on this planet. The American story is one of courage and brash adherence to principle. In that sense all that is American is still right before us if we choose to grasp it. To not do so is to acquiesce to tyranny. We've tried that before and it is not pretty.
I advise you all to hitch your wagon to 9/11 truth and do so with due diligence. The time to be brave is now.
Next time.........our so-called representatives...
posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:08 PM Permalink
…but could someone at least stuff a rag in big dick cheney's mouth so we can finally make him shut up? You know, kinda like waterboarding without the water.
Update by The Sailor: Even the republicants agree:
Put up, shut up, lead, or get the hell out of the way…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:00 PM Permalink
…is about all I have to say cheney and his fellow liars, doubters, and propagandists in the Gop.
Quoted from an article in the NYT bearing the asinine title, "G.O.P. Worries About Sounding a Negative Tone," which strikes me as one of the most politically silly headlines ever - for the GOP that negative tone left the station for its World Tour 2001-2009. The only words, ideas, and ideals the GOP has ever expressed are ALL negative, from taking the country into illegal genocidal wars in the Middle East to the financial debacle into which they lured the unsuspecting public to believe "deficits don't matter" School of Professionally Raping and Pillaging of Taxpayer Dollars," which came very near destroying this country by wildly insane borrowing and spending by the GOP. Our military is broken, military equipment so damaged from long-term use for which it was never designed, to carrying out torture and the killing hundreds of thousands of innocents by the indiscriminate use of presidential and vice presidential fiat.
Quote:
Richard N. Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, offered that observation in the wake of another rough patch for the party. The latest round of intramural debate came on Sunday when Dick Cheney, the former vice president, assailed not only President Obama, but also Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, a Republican who endorsed Mr. Obama.
Mr. Cheney said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that he would prefer Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio commentator, to Mr. Powell, a member of the shrinking class of moderate Republicans, as spokesman for his party. Within hours, the Democratic National Committee had used video from that interview — along with other Sunday morning appearances by Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and Senator John McCain of Arizona, last year’s Republican presidential nominee — to produce a mocking Web advertisement that sought to portray Republicans as negative, out-of-touch and mired in the past.
Democrats did not need to produce a "mocking Web advertisement to portray the GOP as out of step with the American public that has finally become so weary of GOP negativity, fear, and warmongering as to roundly defeat their candidates in the election last.
Yet recent days have underlined the extent to which Republicans have another challenge: How to say it.
A party that has over the years been the home of a series of optimistic figures in American politics — from Ronald Reagan to Jack Kemp, who died last week, to (at times) George W. Bush — is increasingly coming across as downbeat or angry. And it is something that has Republicans increasingly worried.
How important is this? Certainly, the Republican party’s first task obstacle is finding compelling leaders to make the case against the Democrats, as it builds itself back up for the elections of 2010 and 2012. And of course it has to hone an agenda that offers specific alternatives to Mr. Obama’s far-reaching shifts in economic, social and national security policy.
So it is more important to republicans to find leaders to make the case against the Democratic Party than it is to try and assist the Democratic Party in improving and fixing all the ills with which the GOP has saddled all Americans with the same hatred the rest of the world viewed bush-cheney and their constant lying and the bringing of so much disrepute to Americans and America from the rest of the civilized world that it might be near suicidal for this nation if the GOP does regain control and continues its flat out evil plans for hegemony at the cost of all else, including our collective souls.
The Republicans’ task would not be an easy one even in the best of times. In Mr. Obama, they face a very popular president who, benefitting from big legislative majorities, has generally not needed to spend much time attacking Republicans himself, leaving that job to aides and surrogates. It is certainly not lost on Republicans that there has been a sharp uptick in the number of Americans who think the country is headed in the right direction — the best measure of optimism — since Mr. Obama has taken office.
By contrast, the Republican Party in general — and leaders like Mr. Cheney in particular — are viewed unfavorably by a significant majority of Americans. That makes for a tough environment to break through and get a hearing. And it can become a spiral: going on the attack typically has the effect of making Americans sour on the attacker as well.
Mr. [Richard N., former RNC chairman] Bond said that to return to power, Republicans have “to play error-free ball” and hope for what he described as the inevitable overreach by a party now so firmly in control of government. The real complication, he said, is coming up with “strong public alternatives” to make the case against Democratic policies, without appearing to be obstreperous or angry, or feeding the Democrats’ attempt to paint Republicans as “the party of ‘no.’ ”
“They have to avoid being stigmatized as a bad bunch of people,” he said of the Republicans.
I wouldn't even intimate that all republicans are a bad bunch of people, but their leaders, like Gingrich, Jeb Bush, cheney, et. al., are not people who have the best interest of America at heart and are, IMO, a downright bunch of lying, crooked bastards whom collectively have proven that the GOP is thoroughly inept at governing, do not care to help the average American, and have no interest in running the government - just being charge with what they believe is an American credit card with no limits is sufficient.
For anybody else, even the poor, sick, infirm, and unemployed decent people of their on party get told "yoyo," or, your on your own. I have never heard of any other administration as wasteful, dangerous, and disliked by the world in general and America specifically.
They disgust me and, based on the last elections, a majority of our nations people as well. If ever a party deserved to die an ugly death and be driven into the wilderness to allow the corpse of the GOP rot in the sun, well, I guess you can tell how I feel, and I know I am not alone.
Former vice president Dick Cheney insisted that intelligence extracted from tough interrogations of suspected Al-Qaeda militants had saved "perhaps hundreds of thousands" of US lives.
"No regrets. I think it was absolutely the right thing to do," he said on CBS television, arguing that techniques decried by critics as torture were essential to break the resistance of captured extremists.
[...] The U.S. said the findings came from a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation. But the country's Interior Ministry and Farah's police chief both said that their delegations were continuing to investigate and that they did not endorse the U.S. report. [...] American officials have indicated they may never put out a number because those killed in the battle had been buried by the time investigators arrived.
Villagers brought truckloads of bodies to the capital of a province in Western Afghanistan on Tuesday to prove that scores of civilians had been killed by U.S. air strikes in a battle with the Taliban.
Yeees, it's all the Taliban's fault that the US invaders used air strikes on an Afghan village.
Don't misunderstand me, the Taliban are religious extremists who have regained control of most of Afghanistan, not thru their military prowess, (after all, it's not like they have planes or SAMs), but by the fact that the US kills more civilians than they do. Indiscriminate bombing will have that affect.
Even the elected President of Afghanistan agrees with me:
In response to recent suggestions by U.S. military officials that the civilian deaths in Farah province might have been staged by the Taliban, Karzai said that an Afghan government team was investigating the incident and that "there was no doubt that the casualties were caused by bombings... and the use of air power." [...] "We demand an end to these operations... an end to air strikes," Mr Karzai told CNN.
President vows to convert the USS Enterprise for space exploration…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 2:27 PM Permalink
…and swears he can do so before the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars are over and the current financial crisis has been fully dealt with.
This change of policy was based solely on the review of the new "Star Trek" by my fellow writer, the Vidiot, immediately below this post. I am not at liberty to reveal my source of this information relayed to me by the Official White House Projector Operator, who has been on the government payroll for years, but was unused by the bush-cheney maladministration that was well known for their lack of humor and imagination (and intelligence).
After reading the review of the Vidiot President Obama was heard to exclaim, "Damn! We have GOT to get a starship before the Russians or Chinese do! And thanks to American filmmakers we now have a template to follow!"
Conversion of the USS Enterprise for use in space, daring to go where no man has gone before, exploring unknown planets, learning of hitherto unknown civilizations, and civilizations to be known hitherto will begin as soon as President Obama can find someone named James Tiberius Kirk to appoint as the Commander of Space Exploration.
This has been a public information announcement and is not necessarily the truth or any pretense thereof.
Morning-After Update: (Absolutely NO spoilers) It's beyond good, really. I was worried because I'm such a huuuuuggggge Trekkie (Trekker?) and I thought this TV guy was going to make it a short-attention span theater. Well, he didn't. It was excellently cast. (And I thought the guy who was going to play Spock was going to suck because he couldn't do the Vulcan salute and he ended up being the best of the lot of them.) It was well-written. The music wasn't hokey. The special effects, the ship, when they'd go to warp speed, it gave me goosebumps. And even Mr. Vidiot, who has maybe seen three Star Trek shows out of the entire franchise, really liked it. (Sadly, he didn't even know Klingon was a 'real' language or that Vulcans have green blood. Imagine!)
Oh, and Majel Roddenberry is the voice of the computer. Cool.
One last thing: There's no extra scene at the end of the credits like in "Iron Man" so you don't have to stick around for the credits... unless you're one of those 'credits people' in which case, feel free.
It isn’t yet clear how the two bollards on two corners of Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street became blue.
The two 1,400-pound concrete balls were installed in May 2008. One was painted green and the other was purple.
[...] The bollards were due to be repainted, said city public Works director Susie Johnson. She said city staff had been asked to order new green and purple paint for a pre-graduation weekend touch up.
So let me get this straight, (not to be hard on the scum that coated these balls blue, they did show some spunk), but why didn't the staff of the city realize their balls were flaking until the parents came?
[...] Civilian deaths have become a bitter source of friction between Afghan authorities and U.S. forces. Washington says it is working harder this year to limit civilian deaths and investigate reports of such incidents more rapidly after the number of civilians killed by U.S. forces soared last year.
In the worst incident last year, the Afghan government and the United Nations said a U.S. strike killed 90 civilians. Washington initially denied it, but after three months said it had killed 33 civilians as well as 22 people it called militants.
Even if the US assessment is correct, killing 3 civilians for every 2 militants doesn't seem conducive to anything but creating more militants. *************
UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations inquiry Tuesday blamed Israel for six serious attacks on UN buildings during its Gaza offensive, drawing fury from Israeli officials who accused the UN body of bias.
The report was drawn up by an independent commission of inquiry set up to investigate nine cases in which UN buildings in the impoverished Gaza Strip were damaged by bombardments or arms fire during the three-week war.
The findings present the latest criticism of Israel over the war it launched against the Hamas-run territory on December 27 in response to ongoing rocket fire from Gaza militants. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis [soldiers] died.
And that's just the UN buildings attacked in the report. Not to mention the illegal arms Israel used on Palestinian civilians:
Israeli troops stopped using white phosphorus shells in Gaza this year after The Times published evidence that they were injuring civilians. [...] On January 7 a military spokeman said that the shells in question had “no explosives and no white phosphorus”.
Wow, a government investigates itself, finds itself innocent and then proof is shown that they lied and then they backtrack to another excuse.
I think I've seen that movie before.
But I digress, my main point is that you cannot use bombs or missiles or 'air strikes' within a area known to contain civilians in order to kill combatants. Even if the bombs are 'smart.' Even if the combatants are hiding behind civilians.
This is not a reason to call in air, this is a hostage situation. Generally it's handled by negotiators and an overwhelming, but individually targeted, threat of force. Both of which the armies involved have.
Having to indiscriminately kill civilians to obtain an objective shows weakness, not strength. Lying about it proves the weakness.
Washington "deeply, deeply" regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Red Cross officials believe dozens of civilians including women and children died in the strike which targeted Taleban fighters in Farah Province.
The civilians are said to have been sheltering from fighting at the time.
Mrs Clinton was speaking alongside the Afghan and Pakistani presidents who are in Washington to meet Barack Obama.
She said there would be a joint investigation into the deaths.…
A Red Cross spokeswoman said they were investigating the deaths.
Hey! I've got a great idea! Why don't we just stop the indiscriminate bombing that kills dozens of innocent people while we're trying to get one man or a small group of men?
Is our military so depleted from the bush-cheney years that our troops no longer have the ability to fight eyeball-to-eyeball with positively identified enemies (usually the ones that are actually firing at you) and now HAVE to resort to killing by 500-2,000 pound bombs unable to discriminate between men with guns and innocent women, children, and sleeping babies?
America will never be able to wash away the bloodstains of the hundreds of thousands of innocents we have slain.
So there goes the fiction of Green Berets, Navy Seals, Marine Recons, etc. quietly sneaking into a country, killing their target, and then beating a hasty retreat. Was that ever reality or just a darn good movie plot?
A noted scientist has just produced proof that the lunar surface was inhabited by intelligent life: a 10-inch angel sculpture embedded in a moon rock. Geologist Dr. Morris Charles revealed last week that NASA lab workers chipped the angel from one of the rocks brought to Earth by Apollo 11 astronauts 40 years ago, in 1969. Dr. Charles was a NASA scientist himself for 23 years but left the agency in 1987. He still maintains close ties to many of his former colleagues.
If it is, it's a helluva thing to have kept quiet for so long. SO, I think it's a scam. Though, I hope I'm wrong.
UPDATE: Alas, 'tis not true since it was originally posted in the Bat Boy mag, World News Daily. Too bad. Though, I knew it.
posted by The Vidiot @ 11:17 AM PermalinkThis is what I would write... if could actually write.
Here's a tasty morsel:
As corporations gain ever more control over our economy, government, and culture, it is only natural for us to blame them for the helplessness we now feel over the direction of our personal and collective destinies. But it is both too easy and utterly futile to point the finger of blame at corporations or the robber barons at their helms--not even those handcuffed CEOs gracing the cover of the business section. Not even mortgage brokers, credit- card executives, or the Fed. This state of affairs isn't being entirely orchestrated from the top of a glass building by an élite group of bankers and businessmen, however much everyone would like to think so--themselves included. And while the growth of corporations and a preponderance of corporate activity have allowed them to permeate most every aspect of our awareness and activity, these entities are not solely responsible for the predicament in which we have found ourselves.
Rather, it is corporatism itself: a logic we have internalized into our very being, a lens through which we view the world around us, and an ethos with which we justify our behaviors. Making matters worse, we accept its dominance over us as preexisting--as a given circumstance of the human condition. It just is.
But it isn't.
Corporatism didn't evolve naturally. The landscape on which we are living--the operating system on which we are now running our social software--was invented by people, sold to us as a better way of life, supported by myths, and ultimately allowed to develop into a self- sustaining reality. It is a map that has replaced the territory.
Its basic laws were set in motion as far back as the Renaissance; it was accelerated by the Industrial Age; and it was sold to us as a better way of life by a determined generation of corporate leaders who believed they had our best interests at heart and who ultimately succeeded in their dream of controlling the masses from above.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:39 AM Permalink
My dad died six years ago today from complications related to a smoking-related cancer. Your assignment: Have a Margarita in his honor and tell someone you love who smokes to cut it the hell out already.
posted by The Vidiot @ 7:32 AM Permalink
This morning on NPR, they were discussing the closing of the Boston Globe. They were nearly frantic. Why aren't people buying it?! They can get it for free online. There has to be a business model that will work. When working class people say "I don't read it because you don't cover anything that pertains to me" these NPR people had the audacity to say "You want to be uninformed, that's your fault" and "maybe they're too poor." Basically pathologizing anybody who didn't read the physical paper. Then, some obviously white woman called and said in a very supercilious tone, "I get three papers delivered to my home every day and I like to read the papers and share it with my children" and they treated her with some reverence. Frankly, I think her daily newspapers is an irresponsible load on landfill.
I say F-ck them. If they had done their jobs. If they had challenged authority they way there were supposed to, if they had done ANYTHING different than what they actually did, then I'd say they were were worth keeping alive. But the way they the corporate media handled things? They all deserve to go the way of the dodo.
I'd say RIP corporate media, but I'd rather like to think they'll be writhing in the bowels of hell.
Amid intense public debate over the use of torture against suspected terrorists, an analysis by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life of a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press illustrates differences in the views of four major religious traditions in the U.S. about whether torture of suspected terrorists can be justified. Differences in opinion on this issue also are apparent based on frequency of attendance at religious services.
Please note that the question posed was about torture of suspected terrorists, not 'harsh interrogation tactics' of 'known terrorists.'
The 'Christians' supported torture. Evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, all think some torture is OK even if the subject of that torture is just suspected of being a 'terrorist.'
I'm not an atheist, I believe in god, but this is yet another reason I'll never believe in religions. The more you go to church the more you believe that torture is justified!
WTF is wrong with this picture!? Religionists are always saying how their belief keeps them on a moral path. I've always thought that knowing right from wrong had nothing to do with religion, but I never would have suspected it would be so flipped from right to wrong in the faiths I grew up in.
It seems to me that the way you treat others will be how you will be treated.
posted by The Vidiot @ 11:01 AM Permalink
I realize now that I was never afraid of catching the flu, or even if I caught it, I was sure I would survive it. What really scares me about the whole thing is the possibility of a draconian government reaction to it. Will they do forced vaccinations? Will they force resisters into camps? Will they quarantine and indiscriminately put cities under martial law? All of these possibilities seem extreme but they are all well within the realm of possibility. The government has the ability to do whatever they "deem necessary" and it has absolutely no compunction about doing it and using whatever force they can muster. That's what scares me about the pandemic.
Obviously, we have a pandemic every year that comes in the form of the everyday, run of the mill, boring but detestable flu. But the way they've positioned this one, well, anything is possible. We also know that the system is in such a predicament that only drastic action by the members of the participating institutions will prolong their existence. Put two and two together -- desperation and a manufactured, death-inducing event -- and we have a problem
I'm not sure if ironic is the right word, but I'm sure it's no accident that our institutions have the same drive to maintain their existence as we humans do. Remember, humans created those institutions from parts of our human image. So, what would YOU or any human do if you were about to be found out as a fraud and burned at the stake? You'd probably do something really crazy to try and save yourself, wouldn't you?
Something about which I have opined for years now…
posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:17 PM Permalink
…is actually happening, meaning I won't have to opine about it anymore, which is good 'cause it makes my head hurt.
What I have opined about since 2004 was this: if John Kerry had won the election that year we would have seen at least one, maybe two, SCOTUS Justices retiring shortly thereafter. As Kerry didn't win I strongly felt there would be no retirements for fear that bush would appoint more radical right people, upsetting the liberal and conservative balance of the court. One or two more appointments by bush could have set back jurisprudence as we used to know it for who knows how long, but probably for a minimum of ten to fifteen years.
Obviously President Obama won the 2008 election, is himself a Harvard Law School graduate (4th in his class), and instructed at Harvard as a professor of law. I don't think anyone but the right-wing mouth-breathers can deny that Obama is a very brainy guy, one that will, I'm sure, appoint some very fine liberals to the court.
And why does this subject come up? Justice David Souter has announced his retirement from SCOTUS, and I would bet even money that he will be followed shortly by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, 76 years old, and fighting yet another bout with cancer.
Justice David H. Souter plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, four people informed about the decision said Thursday night.
Justice Souter, who was appointed in 1990 by a Republican president, the first George Bush, but became one of the most reliable members of the court’s liberal wing, has grown increasingly sour on Washington and intends to return to his home state, New Hampshire, according to the people briefed on his plans. One official said the decision might be announced as early as Friday.
The departure will open the first seat for a Democratic president to fill in 15 years and could prove a test of Mr. Obama’s plans for reshaping the nation’s judiciary. Confirmation battles for the Supreme Court in recent years have proved to be intensely partisan and divisive moments in Washington, but Mr. Obama has more leeway than his predecessors because his party holds such a strong majority in the Senate.[…]
“The President has not received a formal communication from Justice Souter,” Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, said Friday morning, “and he deserves the right to make his own announcement.”
But Mr. Obama and his team have been thinking for a long time about whom he might put on the court. Among the people whose names have been floated in recent months are Elena Kagan, whom Mr. Obama named as his solicitor general, and two federal appeals court judges, Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Pamela Wood.
Mr. Obama might feel a need to name a woman, given that the only female justice is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 76.
I must say that my opining appears to be correct so, to all those who thought I was crazy for opining this very scenario I say, "I was right, you were wrong, and now I have to find something else on which to opine as soon as my head stops hurting."
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.
