George W Bush’s Greatest failure.

President Bush has failed as a President. He failed when he left NYC after the convention almost a year ago. He failed because he did not prepare the way to keep the machines of our two party oligarchy going. He let the heads of the snake lose focus and drift off each other… and thus even if he won he would fail in his next 4 years.

This failure is why the gang of 12 (or was it 14) middle benchers on both parties in the senate were able to thwart some of his judges and thwart his position on executive Primacy. This failure is why his social security proposal is dying a death of a thousand little paper cuts. This failure is why Chuck Hagel is railing about his war policy; this failure is why the President has finally had to threaten to veto 3 bills. This failure has not been seen by an American president since 1948, and unlike the situation in 1948 George W Bush could have stopped the failure in its tracks.

I am not sure why Dick Cheney is vice president today. Let me also say I am not attacking the job he has done, though there are elements of his work I’ve not been a fan of. I really questioned the Wisdom of Cheney in 2000 but in 2004 the nomination of Dick Cheney for the number 2 spot was nothing but utter folly, and it is why we will see all the important work the President has fought for and campaigned for enter into a malaise and melancholy.

Clinton had Gore, Ronnie had Bush the Elder, LBJ had Humphrey-but he did lose-, Ike had Nixon-but he only won on the spare-. All successful two term Presidents in the Modern Era had their vice president enter into the flocks of the party faithful. Why because this makes the agenda of the President in his second term part of preparing for the first part of a new Presidency for their party.

The Vice President is the heir, the crown prince if you will. He isn’t unseated because the wheels of the party establishment chug along and continue with what they have done for 8 years. Because for the establishment another 4 years for their team in office means four more years of their power and power for their protégés. No back bencher will jump the reservation because he will risk turning the establishment on its ear.

In 52 the Republican Party grappled for its soul. And in 68 they did so as well. In 1952 Ike was an outsider to the establishment and began to pave the way for the first republican administration since FDR. In 1968 Dick Nixon used the ascending conservative wing to help him rise through a unity and moderation ticket. Both of these men came to power because of a lack of party consensus. While you may say what about during an open primary year what then Larry? That is my point exactly. During an open primary year people edge for the top spot at the heap and cut deals and form new alliances to make their election possible.

Do you think John McCain brought up steroids in baseball, and tried to Sheppard the nominees of the President that Bill Frist (another pre-candidate candidate) was unable to do or that a relatively conservative senator from South Carolina joined the “Maverick” John McCain on his quest to help the President’s nominees? Or that Chuck Hagel is trying to sell his own version of Social Security reform? These back benchers are jumping the reservation because they are gaming for 2008, not to help President Bush or a Vice President in 2008.

Because the keys to the kingdom are up for grabs, far more so then at any time in modern history republicans are just as democrats will be soon fighting to see who can become king of the mountain. This “Me first” attitude is why George Bush’s domestic agenda will be more lame duck then most President’s.

George Bush laid out an agenda for an Ownership Society, but he took an action that refused to take ownership-and the responsibility- to see this transition through. To go from a country of blue collar 20th century workers to a nation build on the system of the 21st century. Social Security Reform, Pension Insurance Reform, Medicare Reform…. These things all are needed to save our future. But President Bush made it happen so politicians all over this nation will be more interested in saving themselves.

This and this alone, is the failure of George W. Bush’s presidency. He failed to build a bridge to see his grand vision to fruition. We might get lucky, and in the scuffle for the Standard of the GOP that some one will hold it high to those ideals the President laid out for his second term. But we are just as likely to get some one who will run away from them. And for that the President is to blame.

Chronicles of the Hildabeast

I was on my way home from work listening to Michael Medved, as I am often want to do… his guess was the hack and slime book author Ed Klein, whom Michael was taking to task on things about Bill and Hillary he (Medved) knew for a fact to be absolutely false. And the over whelming theme was we need to “Stop Hillary” and how Hillary would be a formal general election opponent…. Ok I want to just ask a question here… Who the heck thinks she can win?

Now let’s take a back seat for a moment here and look at the reality of the 2004 democratic primary. The Hollyweird money primary wasn’t a major factor… the major factor was the grassroots-moveon.org-Democratic Underground-borderline Marxist elements of the Democratic Party. These people pushed Howard the Dean, and these people also flocked to John Kerry after the fall of Howard the Dean. And these people to a person hate Bill and Hillary, and what they did to the party. “I’m from the Democratic wing of the Democratic party” they’d say. And as Howard the Dean proved these people can finance a major campaign… it’s a shame he just spent money like a crack head with a winning lottery ticket.

Another major factor is Charisma. Love him or hate him Bill Clinton had his share of charisma, and 10 or 12 other peoples (which explains bob dole). Hillary doesn’t have that. Now, If you think she’ll get elected president by Bill going out to audiences and sayin “My wife is so great… elect her president” then you are really high. Furthermore when Hillary talks on the stump she is shrill, she is irritating and quite frankly sounds like every bad stereotype of a wife you can imagine. While she might get better on the stump by 2008.... Don’t count on it folks.

Another factor… very few candidates who don’t have a certain amount of gregariousness in their personality can win nationally. John Kerry even had the kind of personality that made him love to mingle with people ( he just sounded like your physics teacher) time after time Hillary has shown herself more like Dick Nixon ( a comparison that Dick Morris has made a few times) and while Nixon won a national race, and a primary he did so with a great deal of strategy. For Hillary to do that she would have to embrace the left hard and hope and pray for a republican schism ala Chicago in 68. Now this could happen, but I wouldn’t risk the rent on it.

Scandals… go read ‘Because he could’ and ‘rewriting History’ (I think that’s the title). I think Dick Morris in his love/hate relationships with both of the Clintons paints an honest picture. And when it comes to every scandal bill had that wasn’t a bedroom dalliance Hillary was at the heart of it. And the slime machine really dug for dirt mostly on bill. Add that in and factor some questionable finances from her 2000 campaign and you can see Hilary running with a serious amount of baggage.

And really the Metaphysical issues of her campaign. We’ve elected Cousins, and we’ve elected sons in this country. But electing a wife or a husband is a different matter all together. A son and a cousin can be their own man, but a wife can seem held over by the specter of their husband in the shadows. It was like the old days when Earl K Long and Huey long used to trade the governors mansion with their cronies. The crony was governor just long enough to satisfy the laws of the state of Louisiana till the long boys could get it back. I just don’t think at a psychological level Americans are willing to be that banana republic about their nation as a whole.

Even more Metaphysic issues to her campaign; as a woman Hillary will be viewed differently. While we have all that hippie peace and love and equality stuff going on Women are still instinctively viewed by a lot of the folks in a certain avatar. And Hillary is going to have to run tough on war issues…. And can she be tough and still fit in that Jungian view of what a woman should be? I don’t see that happening with her personality. Some other woman it might be possible but I don’t see it with her.

So why do so many GOP talking heads speak of the fear of the Hildabeast? The reason is very simple… much like the GOP primary in 08 and for the first time in a real long time there is a legitimate sense of the unknown. Hillary has a great deal of fame, a good ability to raise money so many of the talking heads needing a “leader of the opposition” to rail against picked her. But in 08 both the Kingdom of Blue and Kingdom of Red shall be in turmoil over whom will hold the miter of authority… People need to believe in a Kaiser Souize, even if she isn’t real.

the nature of the American system

We had a 37 year long employee at my place of work retire today. And it really gave me cause to reflect on what the **** is wrong with us in this country today. Now don’t think the lefties have kidnapped me but this country never meets my high standards for her, and in this moment today at work I saw it all in a microcosm.

I didn’t hear some of the things that were passed to my ear from the mouths of others. Many of the jobs that needed no more qualification then experience and a minimum of a high school diploma are going by the wayside in my department. No, the jobs are not being replaced with jobs requiring a higher degree of knowledge but are instead being given to people with degrees and a seeming inability to display any knowledge.

I could go into allot more detail about this fact and I will at a later date. But taking jobs from people who work their tails off to make them happen, and give them to others with a degree is wrong. Giving respect to some one with a degree who can’t do the job, and giving no respect to the person without the degree who does the job every day is horrendous and inhumane.

But this is what I think is happening more and more in this country.

Speechy thoughts

I almost never watch presidential addresses or presidential press conferences. It’s not that I don’t care about what the president is saying but it is more a fact that my watching it is a frivolous gesture. Thanks to the 24 hour news cycle every single angle, every iota, every moment of minutiae is played out over and over and over again until I get the urge to remove my eardrums with my tooth brush.

And, if I wasn’t there to watch the dead horse get beaten on CNN, MSNBC ,Headline News, Fox News, ABC,NBC, and CBS.. talk radio comes next with an even bigger stick to whack that cadaverous horse even further until a pulpy goop is all that remains.

What I find more interesting, indeed, far more informative then the President is what the shills all come out and say. When Shill brand blue speaks and when shill brand red speaks it helps me see how I should interpret the data. It gives me a great context to filter the fluff of a presidential speech.

Shill brand blue was vexed, vexed, by the president’s use of 9-11. They all said over and over again to the point of sounding like parrots “no connection between Saddam and 9-11”… But since I am told by the folks in the magic box that brand blue is the brand of nuance this very answer seems to run against what the people in the magic box want me to believe. Do the blue branders want me to think that Saddam and Osama were sitting around the legion of doom with Lex Luthor, Skeletor, and Professor Chaos and decided “Hey lets fly some planes into buildings.” That hardly seems a very nuanced thought line for the brand of blue.

Lets face it, the Hitler-Mussolini-Tojo thing… it really didn’t work out all that well for them. And the central powers let us not forget how obvious their actions were. So for the blue branders to say there is no connection they can hardly mean in a Hitler-Mussolini kind of way. Because we can have other forms of conspiracies then open or even covert ones like Hitler-Stalin. So I figured I would explore some of them today.

Saddam could have provided money and just money to Al-Qaeda. Saddam could have provided them some training. Both of these things are suggested by his use of Al-Qaeda operatives against the Kurds in the north, so he was free of any dirt on his hand. He could have provided them with either supplies or information; we have rumors and un finished investigations of the latter, but nothing of the like in the former. With all of these things Al-Qaeda became more capable and had more resources to allocate elsewhere. In a world of Nuance this could mean that he does have a connection to 9-11. But that is not what the blue branders; the supposed party of nuance seems to believe.

Saddam could have provided manpower; in a fashion that was knowing or unknowing, in a planed or unplanned fashion. We know several personal from Saddam’s Intelligence service have joined Al-Qaeda. We know one such person was a planner of the very first attack on the world trade center, and pioneered the first attempted use of commercial aircraft as weapons by the organization. So what did Saddam Know and when did he know it? Did elements of his regime act with Al-Qaeda without his knowledge? Here to the Blue Branders do not seem to see the nuance.
No it seems that the blue branders, who decry the red branders seeing things only in black and white and Manichean landscapes here, are very black and white in their vision. For them, those blue branders, the only connection that is justifiable is if Saddam himself sat with Osama drinking a few beverages and smoking things waiting for their great triumph to occur. The reason is simple, extremely so, that the blue branders do not want the people to view the two events as part of a single moral continuum. So they place a standard which is unrealistic, because their position requires moral separation.

But, in the way the president was speaking, he was not talking about the events on that September morning but on the larger war on terror. The Blue Branders here bark that these things are not connected. But then we must ask what the war on terror is? Is it just the US vs Al-Qaeda or is it something more? The president has pressed for the people of Lebanon to have a free and non manipulated election….Is this part of the war on terror? The president has pressed for a final settlement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue…. Is this part of the war on terror? The president has counseled the Saudi’s and Egyptians on the need to liberalize and they have done so…. Is this part of the war on terror? Is the war on terror just a war in the sense of soldiers in the field? Is the war on terror like the war on drugs? Or is it all these things and more?

If one were to take a nuanced worldview, one would see that all these actions fit into eliminating the environment where terror breeds. It is about Free states, free from corruption that become havens for business and growth. It is about states where people can live in freedom and as fully actualized humans. But this to the blue branders is not the war on terror. For they want it limited, selective, in moral purview to just those men who struck at us. Their war on terror is a war of revenge and defense. Hardly a nuanced view as it is for the Red Branders.

Maybe the men in the box are lying to me? Maybe the blue branders aren’t really nuanced? Or maybe the nuance is the sign of a mature policy that is well thought out? Or is nuance a way to excuse lack of planning? Or is nuance good some times and bad others. I don’t think the men of blue nuance will answer this question nor will the men in the magic box.

As the President’s chief made comments about the bluest of the blue and how they reacted to war, the blue shills on my TV had to strike out at the language that resembled that implication in the President’s address. Doesn’t that prove the point? That they seem interested in discussing these things in a political language that benefits them?

And now you see why I avoid the presidential address. It is in that moment where the greatest hypocrisy of our system is so utterly transparent to my eye. It is in that moment where the mediocrity not just of my government, but of those who watch and police the government, is so utterly naked and so totally sickening.

It makes me question that is this government really a product of the people, or is this like Jury duty where only those foolish enough to not avoid the system are those who serve.

It came from the email box

Jesse Ventura: Moonbat

9/11: Gov. Jesse Ventura Has Doubts In Official 9/11 Story

Gov. Ventura wants 9/11 truth on air defense

Total 411 Info/Black OP Radio -Friday, August 20, 2004


Jesse Ventura is discussing a rather large problem with the official 9/11 chronology. This audio clip is from Black Op Radio (July 22nd)

BLACK OP RADIO HOST ANITA LANGLEY: On the current situation, do you see any parallels [to the JFK assassination] with the way the 9/11 has been treated?

FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR JESSE VENTURA: Well, you know... At first, again, I wanted to believe 9/11, you know. But the problem I have with 9/11 is just a real simple one. I'm trying to figure out -- and of course they're now attempting to answer it somewhat -- how we could have failed so miserably in not having air defense.

Because if you look back particulalrly -- I don't know if you're familiar -- remember Payne Stewart, the golfer?

LANGLEY: Yeah, that's been brought up a few times on this program...

GOV. VENTURA: He was flying in a private jet. And when they had that mechanical malfunction that apparently killed everyone on board, and the jet was up there flying on automatic pilot; well it only took them a matter of minutes to scramble a fighter jet and have it up there on the wing. And had Mr. Stewart's plane, if it looked like it was going to go down and hit a metropolitan area, of course they would blow it out of the air. But when they saw it was just going to land in a field in Nebraska [sic. - actually South Dakota], why they just let it go down and crash on its own.

And the problem I have with 9/11 is that. Where the heck was our defense? Who was sleeping at the wheel? While all of these planes... I mean, I've been to air traffic control when I was Governor, and you've got a dozen people there looking at these dials, watching every plane in their sector. They know where it's going and they know what direction it's supposed to be going.

Now, how is it that these planes were able to be hijacked at half hour intervals, turned directly opposite the way they're supposed to be going and no bells went off, no emergency sirens went off, no fighter jets were scrambled? Just what the hell happened in that area of time?! And that's the part that troubles me about 9/11.

HOST LEN OSANIC: Yeah, I find it troubling that the Pentagon got hit at all.

GOV. VENTURA: Yeah, I mean, here's the Pentagon, the head of our military. How was this plane able to circle the city of Baltimore [sic. - actually Arlington] at least once, picking out a target, and then drive into it, and we didn't have -- nothing up in the air? There wasn't one scrambled fighter jet up there to defend in any way, shape, or form? Wow.

OSANIC: Or a missle battery to defend the Pentagon...

GOV VENTURA: Yeah. Anything, anything! And the thing that troubles me about the Bush Administration, nobody ever gets fired... (1 image)

First think i found on Google Earth i don't like

In the "occupied territories" cities have both a jewish, and an arab name.

I think one or the other based on political lines would have made a tad more sense

More court Irritation

I know the ruling was consistant with the law... but here to i feel the law is wrong.

City governments had feared that if the court ruled the other way, it would unleash a potentially devastating flood of cases that could bankrupt municipal governments.

I don't find the cities position utterly unreasonable here. This is why the law is as it is.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said, "The creation of a personal entitlement to something as vague and novel as enforcement of restraining orders cannot 'simply go without saying.' We conclude that Colorado has not created such an entitlement."

and here is my problem.

The Us Constitution says i have the right to bare arms. But my government limits it.

It tells me what I can and can't own. How I can and can't use it.. or even if I can use it to defend my home.

The government runs programs to discourage citizens from using firearms to defend themselves,

They have worked very hard to disarm me.... doesn't that mean they should be required to defend me?

I think they should... or... should encourage the populace to defend itself

Hey Thank god it wasn't india

Looking over at CNN a Headline struck my fancy.

Internet crashes in Pakistan

I look at it two or three times but its true... but if it was India who would they call for tech support

Officials at Pakistan Telecommunication Ltd, which operates the link, said the fault was in an undersea cable and had been caused by a power supply problem.

Fixing it would entail an interruption for other countries using the link, including India, Dubai and Oman, one company official said.

"To reconfigure the power supply system and set the fault right there needs to be an interruption of up to two hours," said PTCL official Mashkoor Hussain.

But the impact on neighboring countries would be limited and the repairs would begin at 4 a.m. on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday) to minimize any disruption, he said.

So they will have service interuptions in an hour or so

PTCL provided satellite back-up for the link, which meant some people were able to get access to a very slow Internet connection, Hussain said, but users complained it was too slow to be of any use.

And here we find internet users are all the same. they whine that their extra special back up is to slow.

This is a scary scenario and another reason I am glad to live in the US

Red Vs Blue

I covered a long time ago the stupid (very stupid) political correctness of the re-enactment of the battle of Trafalgar. Glad to see I wasn't alone in my thoughts

“I am anti-political correctness. Very much against it. It makes fools of us,” said 75-year-old Anna Tribe.

“I think the idea of the blue team fighting the red team is pretty stupid. I am sure the French and Spanish are adult enough to appreciate we did win that battle,” she added.

The historian playing Nelson in the mock battle is equally annoyed.

“If you obliterate history for the sake of political correctness, you can’t learn from the past. Nelson thought politicians were cowards. I tend to agree,” Alex Naylor said.

Effort to avoid show of triumphalism
Organizers of the bicentennial celebrations were anxious to avoid accusations of triumphalism, especially at a time when London and Paris are locked in a bitter dispute over the future of the European Union.

Britain’s navy chief Admiral Alan West admitted: “The French had to think quite hard about if they wanted to be involved (in the review). But in the final analysis, this is a celebration of maritime nations.”

He rejected criticism of the bicentennial, insisting Nelson would have backed the plans.

“Nelson would have approved of that, to get the maritime back in the public eye,” The First Sea Lord said.

Ummm no Lord Nelson was a british patriot he'd probably spit in your face over it.

So instead of honoring the great naval history, and the influence of you know Democracy over tyranny they instead decided to fight against triumphalism....

does anyone else see this as mentally ill?

Shocking statements from a crack head

Ok Whitney says "crack is whack" but thats what most people call whitney and bobby so CNN interviewed mr. "bumpin around" about his new show

Brown: Scared of 'myself, sometimes'

Glad to see you are with the rest of us bobby

On Dec. 7, 2003, Houston called police, alleging that Brown had struck her in the face at their home near Alpharetta, a suburb north of Atlanta.

"Me and my wife play a lot. It was just a misunderstanding," he told Matt Lauer in the NBC interview that aired Sunday. "I mean, we slap box, and she hits hard, hard."

When asked if he hit hard back, Brown responded: "No, I don't. No, come on man, you see how big my hands are? I could hurt her. Huh-uh, no. Me and her are like this. She hits me more than I hit her."

Cause nothing says love like sissy slap fighting

"Heh, it's a daily struggle, and it's just as hard as it is for anybody else, just like somebody that wants to stop smoking, you know, cigarettes. It's hard. It's going to be hard for us also, you know?"

CIGARETTES Bobby what a joke hahaha

A problem in the VRWC

Ok so Fox News is the offical republican party organ so why do they here only discuss Atrios and Kos.

I mean... come on now I know they weren't the only folks out there for bloggers taking dc

**drooooooooool**

So awesome It isn't covering where i live right now but i don't care... so awesome

thanks to Andrew Cory over at Dean's world

Whenever I hear

That the war is a Quagmire i keep thinking of the charecter from family guy.

Digity Digity~!

( feeling bogged down due to weather related allergies and laundry.. more blogging will be coming later)

Huh its that time again....

Brandon Florida's own Rhonda Storms has once again decided to create a situation which wastes the Taxpayers time and money. When the city of Tampa decided that they were tired of trying to force out Nuddy bars.. Rhonda Storms was there, passing legislation that would allow the county to bust up nekkid women in the city of tampa -but not in the rest of the county-

and dear old Rhonda Storms tried to shut down booze on Sundays in Tampa. When she had it pointed out to her that it would cut off drinking at sporting events, a rather profitable revenue stream. she talked about how if it was up to her she would ban booze from the county all togther.

and Now Rhonda storms has by her idiocy got people all uppity and out in a fuss

Last week Commissioner Ronda Storms called on the county to ``abstain from acknowledging, promoting and participating'' in gay pride recognition or events. She suggested the policy after a Gay Pride Month display at the West Gate Regional Library angered some parents.

Commissioner Kathy Castor was the only member to vote against the policy. Commissioner Ken Hagan missed the vote because he was outside the chamber but has said since then that he supports the policy.

On Monday, several members of the audience targeted Storms with signs and T-shirts, a few misspelling her first name: ``Don't Let Rhonda Storm on Anyone's Parade,'' and ``Stop Redneck Rhonda Storms.''

and how is this going to cause a rukus....?

Others said they will organize events in the arts and business communities.

For now, gay activists are toning down threats about filing a lawsuit.

``We are looking at our options,'' said Karen Doering, regional counsel for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. ``There are a lot of unknowns, and that's why it makes sense to see what happens.

If not removed by the courts, eliminating the policy could be difficult. Storms bolstered her proposal last week by requiring a public meeting and supermajority vote of the commission to overturn the policy.

thanks SBC Storms for causing a fight which will surely pay the county attorneys very well

SBemail

Strong Bad as a Fashion model..... Just be careful Strong Bad or Tom Cruise will try to stop you from using mind altering drugs

Score one for Osama Obama

"I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator," Obama said. "As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African-American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice."

Obama isn't some one who is willing to buy into the PC history of Lincoln and the civil war.. good for him. And i'll even excuse him the following....

"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat - in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life - the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams," Obama wrote in a package dubbed 'Uncovering the Real Abe Lincoln,' on newsstands Monday.

Abe rose from poverty by helping prominent Whigs get land at bargain basement prices.... to much Mythology exists around the man... and Obama just took a big whack at it

Ok now this is dumb

I am against baseball/professional sports team of your choice raiding various government coffers... but that is because i think it is a waste of taxpayer money. but i think these comments on Al-Drudge If true are simply intolerable.

ROLL CALL reports: Soros pumped more than $20 million in the last cycle into groups seeking to unseat President Bush and elect Democrats and relates that the very prospect that Soros could have a stake in the team is enough to irritate Congressional Republicans.

"I think Major League Baseball understands the stakes," said Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (R), who recently convened high-profile steroid hearings.

Davis said that if a Soros sale went through, "I don't think it's the Nats that get hurt. I think it's Major League Baseball that gets hurt.

They enjoy all sorts of exemptions' from anti-trust laws. Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), vice chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that covers the District of Columbia budget, said if Soros buys the team and seeks public funding for a new stadium or anything else, the GOP attitude would be, "Let him pay for it."

It is extremely uncool to play partisan favorites when it comes to who gets what government money. In fact this is something the Soros funded moonbats would do, and accuse you of.

be better then the moonbats

Neat Idea not sure how i like it

It's called Dynamic Pricing. Here is a nice CNN page on the subject. The Idea is a great one if say the system is designed to shoot you a better price on product x,y,or z then another site does. However the system could think you are a chump and make you pay a higher price.

In early June, the Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania released a new study, "Open to Exploitation," which addressed online price discrimination among other subjects.

The study revealed that nearly two-thirds of adult Internet users surveyed believed incorrectly that it was illegal for online retailers to charge different people different prices. It also noted that two-thirds of people surveyed said they believed online travel sites are required by law to offer the lowest airline prices possible to all customers.

Not only did the survey participants think price customization was illegal, they also strongly believed it ought to be. According to the study, 87 percent of people surveyed strongly objected to the practice of online stores charging people different prices for the same products based on information collected about their shopping habits.

The report was based on results from a telephone poll, conducted in February and early March, of 1,500 adults who said they had used the Internet within the past 30 days. The margin of sampling error was described as plus or minus 2.51 percentage points.

I am sure their may be some law here about this. Heck this probably violates some civil rights code.

I think this needs to get regulated, and you don't often hear me say something needs it... well this does. this system is just to open for abuse of the customers at the expense of the buisness and that doesn't do anyone any good.

a new product on the link side

here is a cool new blog about when our republic will finaly kill its soul.

go see

Nancy Pelosi: More intelligence in government

Pat Hynes went on to show the intellect of the Minority leader.

Minority Leader Pelosi today defended the practice of the Social Security system lending money to the federal government, saying the interest paid by the government on the loan helps keep the system solvent. “There’s nothing wrong with Social Security lending money with the prospect of returning it,” Pelosi said. “There is a surplus in Social Security, and under the law Social Security can lend that money to the government for other purposes with the idea and the requirement that that money be paid back to the Social Security Trust Fund with interest,” she said. “And the ‘with interest’ is part of the income to the Social Security Trust Fund which makes it solvent until 2052.”

I have worked on perhaps three dozen Congressional campaigns over the years. And I can tell you without exaggeration that the push question in every poll that reads more or less like this: “So-and-so voted in favor of spending Social Security money on other government programs,” damages a politician severely regardless of their political party and history of distinguished service in their district.

What really surprises me here Isn't that Pelosi is all into OPM.. what surprises me is that Pat didn't go and say "Nancy where does that With intrest" come from. because while the money doesn't burn out all togther till 2052 come 2018 the government will have to make more in payments. You see Social Security is like a credit card and our uncle sam kept making the minimum monthly payment.. now old sam is in a place where he may soon have such a low free balance that he has to pay PAINFUL levels of minimum payments... and then sam can't afford other things he needs and then we have problems.

This is the real big problem with what nancy said.. the fact that her spending policy will mean massive cuts in federal programs and/or massive tax hikes which will strangle the economy.. making the problem worse.

factor in the collapse of medicare, the federal pension guarentee program, the federal pension program.... and Nancy wants us to go out and get another credit card.

More reasons not to vote for her party

The Draft.... NOT

When senior leaders for our Military have come out and said the Selective service is a huge waste of money... they had THIS method in mind

WASHINGTON -- With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan making it increasingly hard for the U.S. military to fill its ranks with recruits, the Pentagon has hired an outside marketing firm to help compile an extensive database about teenagers and college students that the military services could use to target potential enlistees.

The initiative, which privacy groups call an unwarranted government intrusion into private life, will compile detailed information about high school students ages 16 to 18, all college students, and Selective Service System registrants. The collected information will include Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages and ethnicities.

The program, run by the Pentagon's Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies office, is the latest effort to jump-start a recruiting mission hampered by violent images broadcast daily from Iraq.

and just so no one thinks i'm kidding

"to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service."

So if some how a collective moment of psychosis occurs their won't be any draft card... just cookies and databases sold by your credit card company and your school

what will the hippies burn then?

Blogging the Supremes

The Supremes Court tossed out some more hits, but none of them were a single.
The File Sharing call was the right call legally, but that’s only because the law is very much wrong. Our government shouldn’t have passed a law that benefited an industry that refused to work with the nascent file sharing industry to make things work and have everyone make money. Napster when Metallica came after them should have been the industries bridge to settle these problems. Instead it caused a rebellion in their consumer base.

This is similar to the ruling on the Cable Internet industry ( thank you comcrash) the cable companies have far to little realistic competition but the law was pretty clear here to and the court played to the law, although the law was dumb.

But the Ten Commandments were the big issue. While largely apathetic to the whole thing I found it very right calls in both rulings but I wished their was some way to make a cohesive philosophy our of it.

Kentucky tried to pull a fast one. Had Kentucky put up the display they have now in the beginning, the ruling would probably be different. But they tried to back door it in and use it to pat themselves on the back and work the voters. I hate it when politicians try to grease the voters, but I hate it even more when politicians whore out god to grease the voters.

Judge Roy Moore may end up governor of his state because he has whored out religion to grease the masses into voting for him. He hasn’t went out and gotten things that made their life better he played into religious fear mongering. We as a society need to think “what would Jesus do” and remember how Jesus turned out the money changers and all the people cutting a profit in god’s house.

That is why we needed to boot down Kentucky. The Texas case it was a monument had stayed around until the ACLU went all militant on it. It is the same wingnutism but in a qlipotthic nature as the actions of Roy Moore. And the court was right to shoot down their zealotry.

Now we just wait to see who resigns from the court, and how many.

Folks I advise you to check out the following Here and Here

It sickens me that the Anglican and Presbyterian churches have endorsed such hateful and libelous rhetoric comparing Israel to South Africa. It also goes to support my personal theory that to much tolerance only leads to hating those who disagree with you.

and no good comes of that. I do hope the Archbishop of canterbury comes out and endorses this so i can get into a long and fun post on his track record of lunacy and his leadership of the church into the rubbish bin.

And should Prince chuck come to be the King during his reign, it will be a fitting statement on the current state of the soul of the anglican communion in the western world.

I am a Jelly filled donut

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

thanks to Gay Orbit for the fun quiz

More brilliant DNC strategy

When they are being accused of being dominated by those "soft on terrorism" whom would you send to rebut the president's weekend speech?

Some one like Wes Clark?
How about a Clinton Administration defense or state offical?

these would be things INTELLIGENT people would do

who did get the gig instead?

Zbigniew Brzezinski Because I don't know about you I just think of the Carter administration when i think of strong national security models

(yes i do know Jimmy did some OK stuff...... but by and large it sucked.)

"Two years later, America finds itself more isolated than ever before, the object of unprecedented international mistrust," Brzezinski said. "As a result, we are not as safe as we should be here at home."

He said the war has turned Iraq into a training ground for terrorists and noted that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, has not been captured. "The violence in Iraq continues at increasing rates and American casualties continue to mount," Brzezinski said.

yes what a great rebuttal to Karl Rove "George Bush lied so everyone hates us"

"Patriotism and love of country does not demand endless sacrifice on the part of our troops in a war justified by slogans," Brzezinski said.

and Slogans are great for attacking a president during a time of war to

More buisness intellect

Al-Press

More important, Mo believes his consulting gig is more lucrative, rewarding and imaginative than a traditional tech job. He characterized his summer programming internships as "too focused or localized, even meaningless."

"A consulting job injects you into companies at a higher level," he said. "You don't feel like you're doing basic stuff.

So in other words "I am to important to code"

Just like all the consultants i run into at work. They feel they are superior to you, distance themselves in the "higher level" and produce a product that is utter garbage.

read the rest and know how good the future of american capitalism is

Hooray for Media bias

this caught my eye as i was strolling about MSNBC

War of Nerves
The politicians say we're winning. The generals aren't so sure. How Bush hopes to persuade a wary nation to stay the course.

Ted Kennedy says we're winning? Charlie Rangel says we're winning?

Oh... You mean the administration, well why didn't you say so.

n Memorial Day, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes." Yet last week, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Abizaid said that, actually, the insurgency has not grown weaker over the last six months and that the number of foreign terrorists infiltrating Iraq has increased.

He said the "insurgency" was about the same.

but why quibble with facts.

Newsweek: more factacular journalism

And you thought Dick Durbin was bad....

Al-Reuters

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) -- A Chilean senator convicted of pedophilia received a suspended five-year prison sentence that drew criticism on Sunday for being too weak.

Sen. Jorge Lavandero, 75, pleaded guilty in a plea bargain last week but fired his lawyers just before sentencing and said he was innocent of sexually abusing four children between ages 8 and 12, at his country house between 2000 and 2003.

And sadly, this Sentance is an improvement for the "justice" system in Chile.

but i think lifting his immunity for a suspended sentance is truely a joke.

three cheers for the UK

This is CNN

LONDON, England -- UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke and Prime Minister Tony Blair have refused to back down and grant a general moratorium on returning failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe.

In a statement to MPs, Clarke said nobody who the government genuinely believed would face persecution would be sent back to President Robert Mugabe's regime.

He confirmed in the Commons that there were 57 asylum seekers claiming to be from Zimbabwe on hunger strike in detention centers.

But he said there were not "sufficient grounds" to return to a situation where nobody was returned to Zimbabwe, regardless of their status.

A blanket ban could only encourage "those seeking to get round controls," he said.

this was a good call and a fair call. keeping people out of genocide, and that is what Mugabe is doing, but trying to keep their borders from being abused.

Something Canada and the US could learn from

Stars and Bars: Uggg

Ok some idiocy regarding the confederacy. Now let me put up a disclaimer

Slavery was bad children, M'Kay. Segregation was bad to M'Kay

"I don't think we should name a school after Adolf Hitler (search)," said school board member Debra Robinson, who is black. "It's really at that level with Jeff Davis. I don't think we should name schools for anybody that represents intolerance or straight-up hatred."

Ok.. While Ole Jeff Davis was the man for the system of slavery he was negotiating an end to the system for the same reason it ended quicker up north -need of man power-. Yep in the south they realized more soldiers, and more production of products needed for the war effort would happen if more slaves got freed.

I also don't want to go into how rare slavery was amongst southerners as a whole, and how rare it was for a man to own more then two slaves. Because some people have lost perspective. if the N-Word can now be said openly, this is just silly.

Now.. in other related stupidity

"They gave us the treatment for the movie and talked about a marketing deal, but we said we can't participate if you keep the Confederate flag," Jason Vines, Chrysler Group vice president of communications, told Inside Line. "It's offensive to a lot of people. But they [Warner Bros.] said 'no.' We still get a mention of the Charger in the movie, but we couldn't do anything beyond that."

Chysler wanted to remove the confederate battle flag -not the national confederate flag- from the General Lee a car that was named... after a confederate general who was an Abolitionist ... yes and we all know how well Chrysler is doing in the sales and buisness aspect.

So remember leftists making inaccurate comparisons to adolph hitler is fine, leftists busting out the N-bomb no problem.. but show a confederate flag and you're in trouble.... until radical leftists decide to use it

Uncle~!

Say Uncle has launched the first RINO sightings a round up of all the best of our posting

I volunteered myself to do the one on the 11th so prepair to feel my wra.. I mean I am really looking forward to it ;-)

Update: I'd trackback this to say uncle but his trackback never seems to work

A big Labor Split up

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America broke away from the labor federation in 2001, saying it was shifting more of its resources to organizing and was impatient for the AFL-CIO to do the same.

"The Carpenters' Union is proud to join with the most dynamic unions in the country," President Doug McCarron said in a release obtained by The Associated Press. A formal announcement was planned for Monday.

The carpenters will join with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers, Unite Here and Laborers' International Union in the alliance called the Change to Win Coalition. The movement was created in mid-June to challenge the AFL-CIO's leadership.

The Teamsters and SEIU have both had a more flexible relationship when it comes to the GOP and the SEIU leadership has been critical of cartle blanche endorsement of the democratic party ticket.

If these new group splits off of the AFL-CIO and decides to play wild card in American politics.. consider this

The addition of the carpenters' union with its approximately 520,000 members brings the number of workers represented by unions in the coalition to nearly 6 million. The AFL-CIO is a federation of almost 60 unions with a total of roughly 13 million members, including those in the dissident unions.

That is a serious cash pool, and that is a serious problem for the Democrats if big labor goes out and decides to hire politicians, and not just be an agent of their party

this is something to keep an eye on in the future folks. Because as we have seen with President Bush it may be possible for a more Union-Friendly platform to emerge in the GOP

45 views and an adorable little rodent

Awwwww I am glad i seem to be picking up more and more readers every day. Joining team raging rino was a good plan for me

To anyone out there who says their is a conservative media bias

rathergate Pwns that line of thinking

ABC’s World News Tonight: Rove: Reported on Rove the day he made the comments. Reporter Jake Tapper solemnly intoned, “President Bush came to office promising to change the tone in Washington. Political observers say it has changed. It’s nastier.” Durbin: World News never mentioned Durbin’s comments until squeezing them into the Rove report. The show had briefly touched on the apology Tuesday, eight days after Durbin made the remarks.

NBC Nightly News: Rove: Covered Rove’s comments the day they were spoken. Durbin: Ran a brief anchor-read item two days after his comment, and a similar brief when he apologized.

CBS Evening “News” (now with 50 percent fewer faked memos!): Rove: Did not mention his comments Thursday afternoon, but The Early Show on CBS gave it significant coverage. Durbin: This is going to surprise you all, I know, but as of Friday night CBS has not mentioned Durbin’s remarks.

and, that was some of the better coverage the guys at Rathergate found.

And i think we need to go to Bernie Goldberg's book.. the bias isn't political it's cultural. and the folks who have the cultural bias Bernie talked about... they are the same folks out there putting backing to Moron.org and the like.

so.. strange they didn't like Dick Durbin's comments

TLB on Tom Cruise

I strolled over there and I am very surprised. Everyone says "why is he so against this... no medical training..etc."

and yet no one seems to really be going into the numerous anti scientology sites, and their beliefs regarding the use of drugs in the control of the space gods so they were duped into becoming our souls.

No one really seems willing to call Scientology utterly crazy...

I gotta wonder why that is. Or maybe I am just so jaded i thought everyone already knew. So any one out in the peanut gallery am I wrong about that and should I go and make some time to dredge that up to edify folks out there in blogland?

More on Deep throat

While he may be covering his end... we have a nice retort here

In the ABC interview, Gray denied he had blocked any investigations of Watergate. He said he had merely delayed one probe when the White House claimed the CIA was already investigating - and then continued when the CIA reported it actually was not pursuing that lead.

A White House discussion on how to use the CIA to stem the FBI's investigation - caught on Nixon's own tapes - is often referred to as "the smoking gun" that proved the president's involvement in the Watergate cover-up.

"We continued on, and we penetrated it," Gray said. "I didn't need Mark Felt to tell me that I had to press on. I knew what was at stake here."

Gray said that the White House asked several times that Felt be fired and that Nixon himself demanded that Felt undergo a lie-detector test. "I felt that was degrading to the second-highest official of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I would not stoop to that," Gray told ABC.

Besides, Felt had assured him on several occasions that he was not secretly passing along information to the press, Gray said.

Gray said he trusted Felt completely, even to the point of putting Felt in charge of investigating FBI leaks. But they continued.

"I couldn't stop it because my No. 2 man was the guy that was doing it," he said.

I am not sure i buy into gray being part of the evilllllllllll nixon plot, but given some of Mark Felt's bad olde hoover days activities this isn't out of charecter.

again it will take a while for history to adequately judge mark felt

I think we should do a fund raiser

for this .. It has to be cheaper then what the government is doing

A Funny thing happened on the IM

Talked to an aquintance who just got seperated from the NAVY. He had some past history that was of a .... well lets just say I am surprised he was able to make it a month before the Navy booted him. He said while his past issue was in his file, it wasn't in his behavior and i believe him. but he told me they were also booting people out of the service who ever had an ADD diagnosis

so... keep that in mind next time you see a media scare story about the recruiting "crisis"

John Cole in the Strata-Sphere

Taking a flight here and reading the referenced Viking pundit here and of course picking a good John Cole post here I think a very important point got missed.

#1) was the analogy accurate? Do repressive regime's do this kind of behavior. No they do worse, and they do much worse and Dick Durbin when confronted said as much. So Dick made an analogy for the express purpose of getting a rise out of people. Dick was building on the assault on Alberto Gonzales and the administrations policies on interrogation. He was retreading the "gulag of our time" crack of Amnesty International. He was doing this to appeal to the far left wing base to get them primed for dumping more money. So he used the troops as a prop to say "that bush is turning our troops into the SS and only you can stop him." it was political calculus pure and simple.
#2) Was it torture: This statement, while not directly put out there by Durbin was implied. Now the memo itself according to sources on Fox news only covered the incident of shackling the prisoner for 24 hours ( which was a clear violation of protocol) the email included raw data based on what the prisoner said. So Dick was using raw data because it was the most inflammatory, and as such many things were presented as "torture" that simply are not so. The Hottest day at gitmo is still cooler then the hottest day in their home counties. The AC on max is still warmer then the coldest day in their home countries. I don't think that passes a reasonable standard for torture. And frankly much of the stuff Durbin mentioned doesn't. Durbin purposefully choose the most inflamatory source possible, with things that no reasonable person would consider torture. Thus he purposefully attacked the techniques used by our troops from a source that was not the end product of the investigation to get a direct moment of shock. He did so refrencing very few behaviors that reasonably fit the definition of torture.
#3) He has -to date- refused to acknowledge his analogy was wrong. He has apologised if you took it wrong, and now if you were offended by it. But an analogy that was inaccurate, and purposefully offensive he considers acceptable. He even reworded his comments once saying the same words in a slightly different way that still remains the same basic commentary thus he was trying to shift his words around to confuse the audience. He was saying "I'm a senator D*** it and i Know better then you"
#4) The only time he made anything close to a real apology was when the 800 pound gorilla of the Illinois Democratic party (the Mayor of Chicago) told him he was out of line. So based on #3 and #4 he sincerely believes his choice was acceptable (which is bad) or worse he see's his analogy as accurate ( which is abject and total ignorance)

So either Dick Durbin is a man so ignorant that he believes the interrogation methods at Gitmo really are like a repressive regime, and made a fake apology because he feared for his job. Or he made a politically calculated Jab to the MoveOn.org/DU/Daily Kos crowd to get them out with their check books only he for some reason felt no one would mind his invoking Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot which also shows an ignorance that may be tolerable in the most deranged members of the House Caucus (like the lunatic from georgia who says "the jews" conspired to get her out of congress) or a random blogger but not from the #2 democrat in the senate.. and i question if it is even justifiable in a US Senator.

But Like John Ashcroft who once said the trial by jury system was "wrongheaded" the Senate is willing to tolerate abject stupidity and blind ignorance in members of their country club. People like Joe Biden who couldn't make it as a proffessor in a community college because of his plagerism is a senior member of the democratic leadership in the senate.Robert Byrd a member of the KKK for many years, and who worked on their advertising and promotions campaign after that is given a pass. Tom Coburn who once said "if two women go to the bathroom togther, they'll come back lesbians." Much as the Nobel Peace prize has been falling into the hands of people who are terrorists or who actively promote lunatic conspiracy theories in the senior body of our legislature Dick Durbin is proof of the lowered expectations we hold our elected leaders in.

And just as the media allowed in more and more tolerant attitudes towards sex, language and violence in until we saw Janet Jacksons nipple so to will our government continue to be a product of GigO ( Garbage in/Garbage out) until we finally hit bottom. Until our government shows itself to be so metaphysically ignorant and worthless that we finally stop electing utter moonbats (of the right or the left persuasion) into places of power.

Because if Dick Durbin's comments aren't bottom then not on;y can't I imagine what the bottom will be like... I am not sure i want to

I hear about running McCain

As the Anti-Religous right canidate... if you support that here is some food for thought.

Tucked in a New Yorker article last month on McCain was the revelation that he assured conservative activist Gary Bauer that if elected president he would nominate pro-life judges. Bush refused to make such an explicit promise, which is why Bauer endorsed McCain in the 2000 primaries.

John Boy would sell his soul to Bauer in the 00 election to get ahead. in 08.. who knows, he may find a new deal using his soul as barter

but he is pro-life and has a 100 percent voting record in Congress to prove it.

so Is John McCain anti religous right... or is he just Pro-John McCain getting elected

Sideways days

You ever have one of those days where everything you planned just went sideways

I did.

Big Sexy Kev my soon to be future roomate and i went to a place that said the rent was A, and moved it just after we talked to them to A+150. They had many apartments, then they had one. They had a flexible holding period to you have to move now now now~!

But we think we found a better place that will work out to be more affordable ( thanks to our other friend Phil)

and i'll be living with 3 people who all play hold'em

so this sideways trip may have been ok

Go NY Attorney General

Screw Adware
(al-press)

So far, law enforcement has mostly targeted the transmitters. Intermix Media Inc. has agreed to pay $7.5 million in a tentative settlement of a lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

But Spitzer isn't stopping there. He is threatening to hold accountable household-name advertisers that use adware networks. No longer, says Spitzer, can companies play dumb.

good

shut adware down

Wow~!

I went over to get some warm "Michelle Malkin" Fuzzies when i saw something that really put it all togther for me. The folks at the Huffington post were wishing dick cheney ill

Hasn't he had his "last throes" of chest pains yet?

Posted by: Anonymous at June 24, 2005 10:28 PM

***
.....
His heart is listening to all the lies coming out of his mouth. It can't take much more of this drivel.

Posted by: Fred Colton at June 24, 2005 10:33 PM

***

I wish the evil zombie would stop leaving his underground bunker. Surely, there's a medical ward where he lurks below the surface, near Washington, D.C.

Posted by: Citizen Milenko at June 24, 2005 10:37 PM

***

You bet we losers want him dead. And I'm glad to be a loser. If I were a winner, I'd have to be around the kind of assholes who like Bush and Cheney.

Posted by: Medina at June 24, 2005 10:37 PM

***

"Last throes," does one suppose? Here's hoping.

Posted by: HopingAgainst"Hoffman" at June 24, 2005 10:37 PM

***

You're all assuming he actually still has a heart. I don't think so.

I think it was replaced by a teflon pump a long time ago. Therefore he can no longer feel any pain.

Posted by: Don P at June 24, 2005 10:42 PM

***
"I wonder how many regular readers to this pathetic, self-important blog are hoping that Cheney comes out with a sheet over his head...?"

Actually, Eric, I was thinking more along the lines of a stake through his heart.

Posted by: Chuck Feney at June 24, 2005 11:08 PM

Now if you all go with me in the Way Back machine Michelle posted about an unhinged Obituary a few days back

yes the Kossaks had a different view then

Eliminating liberalism entirely is the task at hand. The death of a liberal is a cause for celebration. Upsetting and shameful.

Upsetting and Shameful.. if we were celebrating as opposed to being in shock about the nuttery the Kos heads might have had a point. But what did they say then?

She'll get what's coming to her someday, and I'll laugh at her pain.

This is how the Dick Durbin Vs Karl Rove Maneuver worked

Expose them for the unhinged lunatics they are

On the RINO Horn

Chickenhawks: I hate that term. I hate that term because i know the US Armed forces would not take me. I have dental problems that friends who have the same problem to a far smaller degree have gotten booted out on medical screenings. So I know they wouldn't take me period point blank. But i also have quite a few friends who have experienced some of the following

1. In medical screening be told they have disorder x,y,or,z but no other doctor before or since seems to be able to find it.
2. Be told they are to heavy to go when their bodyweight meets the standard for recruitment, which is bellow a normal body weight

I've also had some recruiters tell me that their CO told them they had a quota of people to turn away.

Here is how it works

They have a "recruiting shortage"
they then can break into "emergancy recruiting funds"

and everyone makes a big pay day.

I've had friends who are recruiters say they slacked off on recruiting people till it was time for their performance review then they hustled in tons.

So I am from this fact leary of the stories of the recruiting "crisis" by our armed services. Also things like recruiting crunches in the Reserve units and in the Guard units happened because those people are still in their active duty units do to the time of war.

But that is not the most insulting part of the whole "chicken hawk" thesis. no the most insulting part is impuning the honor of people who don't go into service. and imply that people who saw combat wouldn't be so caviler

Lets review shall we?

Only real wars will be included (things like Gulf War I and grenada are out)

Worst War in American History Death toll wise; The Civil War
Was the president a Vet -yep Abe Lincoln fought in the black hawk war, though he'd argue how much fighting he did-
Two worst wars from the W/L perspective: Korea and Vietnam
Presidents who served in combat as soldiers, and even as officers during that time
Harry S. Truman-Gerald R Ford
Best War in popular American history: WWII
Did the president do time as a soldier? that would be no
Mexican-American War: where we gained the entire western states
Polk -not a soldier as near as any bio i can find

So guys who never served in a trench or fired a firearm in anger did pretty good as War leaders. Guys who know the horrors of War... less so.

But lets also take another look here

We have a place where you make far less with skills then you would anywhere else that uses those jobs.

You have a proffession that is smaller then 1% of the population.. and is smaller then .01% of the nation... Not everyone can volunteer to serve, we just don't have the support for it nor is it good for people.

so with the implied "you wouldn't support war if you went" attitude of this argument we are saying "Only 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population should be allowed to lead us."

the argument is frankly unamerican and very dictatorial in nature. If FDR was good enough man to lead us into war, and if the all volunteer service performs better ( which is why even israel is doing away with conscription) that means that everyone has a right to his opinion... and has the right not to be called a coward if he chooses not to vote with his feet.

Even if you agree with Dean

That the constitution empowers theft (note i never said all eminent domain was bad.. i was saying this one was. And after talking to a few folks who said while this fit precident it was still wrong) there has been some good come out of the raw flaming outrage this has started

By STACEY STOWE
Published: June 25, 2005

HARTFORD, June 24 - A day after a ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the city of New London to replace a residential neighborhood with a private development, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said on Friday that the Connecticut legislature "ought to consider" the state's eminent domain laws.

The outrage is turning some heads. And the Governor's isn't the only one.

"It's one that's been controversial not just in Connecticut but around the country." He added that Mrs. Rell is mindful of "the need to strike a proper balance between economic development concerns and the rights of property owners."

On Thursday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, first praised the court's decision as "vindicating long established eminent domain principles." He tempered his remarks on Friday, saying Connecticut's eminent domain law "deserves serious, critical scrutinizing" to ensure that it protects private property rights.

The Democratic party member and Attorney General said "yippie we won" but even he was falling in line that maybe we went to far.

Robert M. Ward, a Republican who is the House minority leader, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the court's ruling. Mr. Ward said he will introduce legislation in the next session of the General Assembly in February to protect property owners from losing their homes or businesses in the name of economic development.

Mr. Ward tried to get a similar bill adopted in the last legislative session. It would have removed the economic development provision from the state's eminent domain laws, allowing the government to seize only blighted property. He said Utah adopted a similar bill in March. The Connecticut bill died in committee.

I am betting that Mr. Ward's bill may end up doing better in committee. And hopefully other states take note of the discontent this started. If the various branches of government realize that the sleeping beast of "the electorate" can be stirred... it is a very good thing.

Mr. Ward said the federal ruling meant that modest homes and businesses can be uprooted for property that would add more money to city tax roles or that would be less of a burden on city services.

"It's just lower-middle-class folks losing property for some shiny new project," he said. "That's just plain wrong."

and that really is the bottom line

More good ideas from EU politicians

Al-Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski suggested on Saturday a pan-European referendum on the aims and goals of the
European Union as a way out of the bloc's current crisis.
ADVERTISEMENT

Kwasniewski made his proposal in a column for the top-selling German daily Bild following this month's EU summit failure to agree a budget and after rejections by France and the Netherlands of the EU constitution in referendums.

Instead of being able to blame the problems on "The French" ( i mean hey, who doesn't like to blame things on the French *I* do it all the time), the Dutch, the english, or next country to reject the EU powergrab

lets instead make it so voters all over europe can reject the EU and we can blame "the voters"

Dean: thanks for commenting

glad to see some one whose blog i read allot came over to my comment section.

I'll respond in kind to your comment area once the registration kicks in.

Examples of Bipartisanship

I know the MSM tells me that Bipartisanship is good... but except for the last thing on this list, i have my doubts

THE WALK:

-Bankruptcy legislation: sweeping changes that make it harder for people to file for bankruptcy protection. Senate vote: 74-25. House vote: 302-126.

-Class-action lawsuits: overhaul of litigation law, making it harder to file broad-based lawsuits against corporations. Senate vote: 72-26. House vote: 279-149.

-Judges deal: Seven Democrats and seven Republicans in the Senate reach agreement to let judicial nominees be confirmed, except in "extraordinary circumstances," and to deny support for efforts to bulldoze treasured Senate rules on open debate.

-Energy legislation: comprehensive Senate bill that offers incentives to coal and oil industries as well as cleaner renewable fuels. Bipartisan passage expected Tuesday.

and except that last part i disagree with all of them.....

Remember....

The folks behind live 8 tell you the problem is all the evil western governments

it is..really

The scale of the task facing Tony Blair in his drive to help Africa was laid bare yesterday when it emerged that Nigeria's past rulers stole or misused £220 billion.

That is as much as all the western aid given to Africa in almost four decades. The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the continent.

and here.... lets put it in more context

The stolen fortune tallies almost exactly with the £220 billion of western aid given to Africa between 1960 and 1997. That amounted to six times the American help given to post-war Europe under the Marshall Plan.

and still more context

Gen Sani Abacha, the late military dictator, stole between £1 billion and £3 billion during his five-year rule.

"We are only now beginning to come to grips with some of what he did," Mr Nwajah said.

Nigeria has scoured the world for Abacha's assets but has recovered only about £500 millio

maybe more money isn't the answer?

I would LOVE to agree with Ann Althouse but....

Ann is very wrong on Kelo

That's what Justice Thomas wrote in dissent in Kelo v. City of New London, yesterday's Supreme Court Takings Clause case. Much of the criticism of the case that I've seen taps the stimulating rhetoric served up by Justice Thomas. Is the outcry justified?

Admitedly as my head has cooled and reading some of the opinions out there in TV land i have seen the court's call here wasn't utterly radical. However the court was still absolutely wrong.

Some people would like to say that the city should have had to run the development project itself for it to count as "public use." Should that be an absolute rule? No private developers? The public benefit is still there:

"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government," Justice Stevens said, adding, "Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose."...

Justice Stevens ... said the plan "unquestionably serves a public purpose," even though it was intended to increase jobs and tax revenue rather than remove blight.

as Tucker Carlson and the Lawyer for New London pointed out on his show ( I can't find the link... grrrrr) that property when taken in a E.D case isn't always used for the express intent of the E.D...

so this goes against

He described the plan as "carefully formulated" and comprehensive.

so the state can, quite abitrarially take Land in a carefully planned manner and not use it.The power was gross and unchecked.

and Ann missed something *I* see as a primal part of Federalism ( which both Justices Thomas and O'Connor sited)

It's interesting -- isn't it -- that the Court's liberals stressed "federalism," which the conservatives often praise, and the Court's conservatives stress the oppression of the poor by the rich, usually the plaint of the liberal.

Federalism isn't just about empowering the states. Feaderalism is about limiting the power of government all togther. About laying out a line which says "you can do this, the states can do this, but you absolutely can't do this"

It is in that third vein of federalism that Justice Thomas and O'Conner were working. And Souter ( i used to like Souter) along with Breyer are all about finding ways to empower the government. I am not sure how to justify the mindsets of the other three jurists but it wasn't federalism... not in any traditional sense.

There is a message here for local government: if you go further than the City of New London did in Kelo, you will get tied up in litigation. Thus, the case doesn't unleash local government to condemn property willy-nilly and shift ownership around lightly. Merrill describes the kind of case that might turn that amber light red: "a case in which it looked like some politically unaccountable development authority had sold out to a private developer or big box store."

that assumes that you can find a Lawyer willing to go to bat for a case like this again...
and it assumes that you can afford to after the local government decides what is "fair value" of your property.

In short this has just enhanced the power of the localities and the states to stifle the common folks.

In Georgia i've heard Boortz talk about how they ramped up the power of local school districts to bully property owners out for more profitable revune property owners.

Kelo was about more then just New London it was about does the state have primacy or do the people.

The constitution is clear power comes from the people, Kelo is clear power belongs to the state

thanks to Dean for the hook up

KELO: bringing me back to my roots

Freshman/Sophmore year in High School i was a borderline Randian... and stuff like this was why. and i think as the 5th amendment and 900 years of anglo saxon common law died i have the right to turn on the way back machine here


Dear Editor:

In another heavy blow to property rights, the Supreme Court has ruled against the homeowners in the New London, Connecticut, eminent domain case, and further entrenched the legal principle that government can seize an individual's property for "public use" whenever it deems appropriate.

The justification the Court offered for violating the property rights of New London homeowners was that the taking of their property and its transfer to others would bring "benefits to the community," including "new jobs and increased tax revenue."

But it should not matter that the government's seizure of legally owned property might increase tax revenue or supposedly benefit the local economy. If a person does not want to sell his property, he should not be forced to do so.

Even though the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution makes it legal for the government to use eminent domain, there is, in fact, no moral justification for the violation of property rights. Individual rights should never be sacrificed, and certainly not to promote some alleged and indefinable "public" good.

As this case demonstrates, "public use" is a term so vague as to have given government virtually unlimited power in using eminent domain to take property away from its legitimate owners.

And as Ayn Rand has pointed out, the "public" as such does not exist. Only individuals exist. Whenever governments act to promote the "public" good, or to advance a "public" purpose, or to satisfy a "public" need--beware. For what invariably happens in such cases is that some individuals are forced by the state to sacrifice for other individuals.

It is no coincidence that appeals to the "public" good have been used by dictatorships throughout history to justify tyranny over the individual. Thanks to the deplorable decision by five justices of the Supreme Court, America is a big step closer to tyranny and away from the freedom America's founders intended to establish.

David Holcberg
Ayn Rand Institute



Copyright © 2005 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Op-eds, press releases and letters to the editor produced by the Ayn Rand Institute are submitted to hundreds of newspapers, radio stations and Web sites across the United States and abroad, and are made possible thanks to voluntary contributions.

If you would like to help support ARI's efforts, please make an online contribution at http://www.aynrand.org/support.

This release is copyrighted by the Ayn Rand Institute, and cannot be reprinted without permission except for non-commercial, self-study or educational purposes. We encourage you to forward this release to friends, family, associates or interested parties who would want to receive it for these purposes only. Any reproduction of this release must contain the above copyright notice. Those interested in reprinting or redistributing this release for any other purposes should contact media@aynrand.org. This release may not be forwarded to media for publication.

ARI's media releases are solicitations sent to addresses obtained from individual subscription requests. You are subscribed as eguttman@sbcglobal.net. If you prefer not to receive future releases, visit our Web site to change your email preferences.

The Ayn Rand Institute, 2121 Alton Pkwy, Ste 250, Irvine, CA 926

Gathas: Song 7 - stanza 9

Wise One, he forsakes progressive serenity,

esteemed by your wise one,

with his evil deeds solely

because of his lack of good mind.

He avoids them much on account of their righteousness,

just as the disheveled barbarians keep far from us.

(Gathas: Song 7 - stanza 9)

Even Loud Howard can learn folks

Admittedly an Al-Press production, but Howard seems to have learned here

Although a recent survey shows most Hispanics are opposed to the war in
Iraq, Dean did not dwell on the Bush administration's foreign policy.

"It is a moral value to have a strong national defense," he said. "All Americans are incredibly proud of the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives daily."

Two out of three Hispanics in the United States are of Mexican descent, and one in 10 is Puerto Rican. Nearly 4 percent are of Cuban origin and 15 percent are of South and Central American origin.

good howard, lets not insult the folks of latin origin who are in the millitary

but here loud howard made a snafu

To win Latinos back, "We need a 50-state strategy," Dean told several hundred elected and appointed Hispanic officials belonging to the National Association of Latino Officials.

"We want you to come to us and tell us what we need to do to win in your communities," Dean said.

About 93 percent of the 5,000-member Latino association belongs to the Democratic Party, said Dean, who was governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and ended his 2004 bid for the Democratic Party nomination after finishing third behind Kerry and
John Edwards in the Wisconsin primary. He was elected chairman of the
Democratic National Committee in February. His tenure, until 2009, precludes him from running for president.

Howard going to a group where 93% of the people voted for you guys, and you lost their votes... maybe that's the wrong group to ask

Iran: Oh Snap

Not good news coming from persia not at all

(al-Press)

The outcome capped a stunning upset by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who many reformers fear will take Iran back to the restrictions imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Interior Ministry gave Ahmadinejad 62.1 percent of the vote over his relatively more moderate rival, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had nearly 35.5 percent. The ministry posted a notice in its headquarters declaring Ahmadinejad the winner of Friday's runoff. The rest of the ballots were deemed invalid.

i like declaring ballots invalid, because nothing says legitimacy like invalid ballots

The figures were based on about 66 percent of the estimated 23 million votes cast, or nearly 49 percent of Iran's 47 million eligible voters. In last week's first round of the presidential election, the turnout was close to 63 percent.

though sources on the ground not affiliated with the Mullah's disagree

"The real nuclear bomb that Iran has is its unemployed young people," said Ali Pourassad, after casting his vote for Ahmadinejad at a polling station set up in the courtyard of a mosque in the middle-class south of Tehran. "If nothing is done to create jobs for our young people, we will have an explosion on the streets."

But Ahmadinejad also vowed to return Iran to the principles of the Islamic Revolution more than a quarter-century ago. Such comments and reports about his inner circle of supporters — members of the Revolutionary Guard, the vigilantes who enforce public dress codes and some of the most hard-line clerics in Iran's theocracy — frightened Iran's reformers.

and since most of the unemployed are young people who hate the mullahorcracy... this will be a great plan.... really

During Friday's voting, the reformist-led Interior Ministry reported "interference" at some Tehran polling stations. A ministry worker who was at a polling station reminding officials to watch for violations was arrested after he got in an argument with representatives of one of the two candidates, ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani said.

An Interior Ministry observers' group reported 300 complaints of violations in Tehran, said group leader Ibrahim Razini.

again a perfectly legitimate election....

Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, presented himself as the humble alternative to Rafsanjani, whose family runs a large business empire. He has promised Iran's underclass higher wages, more development funds for rural areas, expanded health insurance and more social benefits for women.

"Every vote you cast is a bullet in the hearts" of the United States, said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council and considered a leading supporter of Ahmadinejad.

"What they (Western countries) have is not democracy, but rule of trickery. It's parties and capitalists who get the vote of the people in their own favor to fill their pockets," he told worshippers at Friday prayers.

the Irony here is awesome

so how soon till we go on to "liberate" Iran? any bets?

Here are some things Tom cruise's religion says he can do

cause.. well, it's the internet.

all the deep uber secrets of scientology got out long ago

so for all you folks blogging about how crazy tom was on the Today show remember he did all of this bellow (pay attention vixen)

OT VI
Each of the following processes are run to a

1. Floating needle
2. Major cognition
3. Regained ability.

(Preferably all three together as the ideal end. End Phenomena.)

Be Three feet in back of your head. Whatever you are looking at, copy it a dozen times, put it into you. Find the two back corners of the room and hold onto them without thinking for two minutes.

Find two corners of the planet Earth, hold onto them for two minutes.

Find a place where you are not.
Spot three spots in your body.
Spot three spots in the room.

Be in the following places:
The room, the sky, the moon, the sun.

Locate an animal ... postulate him moving from one spot to another. Observe him doing this.

Find a walking man ... postulate his walking faster. Do this with 20 people.

Find a walking person .... postulate that he will stop, then continue walking. Do this 20 times.

Find a person in a distant land. Notice the time of day. Notice the terrain. Notice the general environment. Smell the air. Locate a thought that is his. Locate a thought that is yours. Continue until flat.
Notice differences between you and your body.

Create in your body a feeling of calmness;
create in your body sexual desire and turn it off.
Continue that step until you feel you have control over the sexual drives.

Create in the body a feeling of pain.
Create in the body a feeling of serenity.
Do the above until flat.

Create in the body a feeling of hunger and turn it off.
Continue this step until you are in control of hunger drives.

The end result of these particular drills is the regained ability to control the body and its sensations.

Now: Postulate anger, boredom, grief, cheerfulness and serenity --- in that order.
This is continued until you are sure that you can create any emotion.

Finally, exteriorized visit a friend who lives in another state.

Greet him and flow affinity to him. Ask him to communicate to you by letter.

Just imagine Tom going over this check list

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

Wow

more fun with quiz time

You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life. �Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.� �It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.� --Jean-Paul Sartre �It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.� --Blaise Pascal More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... Existentialism 85% Strong Egoism 75% Hedonism 70% Justice (Fairness) 65% Kantianism 55% Utilitarianism 45% Apathy 40% Divine Command 40% Nihilism 25% What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com

Satan~!

Your Deadly Sins

Sloth: 80%

Gluttony: 40%

Wrath: 40%

Envy: 20%

Greed: 20%

Lust: 20%

Pride: 20%

Chance You'll Go to Hell: 34%

You will die with your hand down your underwear, watching Star Trek.

How Sinful Are You?

Nuff Said Part II

Krauthammer:

This is true across the board. On Social Security, which is facing an impending demographic and fiscal crisis, they have put absolutely nothing on the table. On presidential appointments -- first, judges and now ambassador to the United Nations -- they resort to the classic weapon of southern obstructionism: the filibuster. And on foreign policy, they have nothing to say on the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq or the burgeoning Arab Spring (except the refrain: "Guantanamo").


A quarter-century ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted how it was the Republicans who had become a party of ideas, while the Democrats' philosophical foundation was "deeply eroded." But even Moynihan would be surprised by the bankruptcy in the Democrats' current intellectual account.

The republicans aint much better atm either. I say we as a nation take them out into the barn and apply some old yeller styled healing

thank you IRS

makes *ME* feel good i did my first direct deposit tax return...*mumbles*

Al-Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service is investigating whether unauthorized people gained access to sensitive taxpayer and bank account information but has not yet exposed any privacy breaches, an official said on Friday.

The U.S. tax agency -- whose databases include suspicious activity reports from banks about possible terrorist or criminal transactions -- launched the probe after the Government Accountability Office said in April that the IRS "routinely permitted excessive access" to the computer files.

The GAO team was able to tap into the data without authorization, and gleaned information such as bank account holders' names, social security numbers, transaction values, and any suspected terrorist activity. It said the data was at serious risk of disclosure, modification or destruction.

"There is no evidence that anyone who was not authorized accessed the data outside the GAO," said Sheri James, a spokeswoman for the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which is working with the IRS to address the concerns of the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

yeah cause we would know if some one else illegally accessed our system

*sigh*

Whelp.......

We have a "situationy"

I am going to have to find a part time job, or maybe slow up my schoolin. and work a full time gig. I still have the possibility of massaging my taxes, or massaging my fafsa some more ( as i did have an error out standing) but the one off campus place i was thinking of working Brighthouse, doesn't seem to have allot of part time jobs.

a tad bit frustraiting but i'll keep you posted

Michelle Malkin + Kinky

Michelle Malkin + Kinky two words that *IMHO* go great togther

I agree with the G R on that

Dan Bartlett Pwns the MSM and senate dems

an Bartlett, counselor to the president

Dan Bartlett: Well Norah I must say I'm at a loss why some of these top Democrats in the Senate have made these accusations, in fact, if you look at Senators Clinton and Schumer and others, who responded after 9/11, did so in support of President Bush's pursuit of the war on terror.

What Karl Rove was pointing out -- and he was quite specific I might add -- in his speech, was that MoveOn.org, a liberal organization, that put out a petition and a statement right after 9/11 saying don't respond militarily, show restraint, that's exactly what he was talking about. For the life of me, I don't understand why these Democrats feel they have to rally behind this liberal organization that was clearly in opposite views of even them and their votes at the time. So I think this a much to do about nothing, a little bit of maybe trying to get the distraction off of Sen. Durbin's apology, but what Karl was saying is a public record, and like I said, I think it's obvious that its odd that they feel they have to defend this liberal organization.

as Jawa theorized this was a gambit by the evil overlord and master of the VRWC but his evil plan was far more sinister. Have the democrats claim that they are indeed owned by Moron.org

while i still think the lord high illuminatus of the VRWC was over the line.. it seems his plan was to trick the democrats... more Pwning

O'Donnell: But Dan, Karl said liberal, not liberal extremist, was he referring to Sen. Clinton and others when he said that they demanded indictments and to offer therapy to the terrorists?

Bartlett: Well Norah, in the next sentence, I believe, right after that, his citation as an example of liberals was he cited MoveOn.org. He didn't cite certain Democrats he didn't cite Sen. Clinton or others, he said MoveOn.org specifically because that is where the citation was issued from, this organization, so like I said, I think there might be some attempts by the Democrats to kind of get the glare off of Sen. Durbin, I just don't understand why they'd want to defend this organization, when in fact they voted to support President Bush and the war on terror.

Again unlike the Dems who are running on Bush=Hitler it seems the white house has decided on a much more effective campaign strategy Democrats=MoveOn.org and Democrats=Michael Moore. And the Senate leadership seems to have walked right into it.