The capitulation came just hours after several leading Senate Republicans sharply criticized Gonzales for his handling of the issue. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, seemed to suggest that Gonzales's tenure may not last through the remainder of President Bush's term.
"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said sharply. In an interview with Reuters after the meeting with Gonzales, Specter said his comments did not imply he thought the attorney general should be replaced.
hey, waiting. i've been wanting to ask that for ages, but no way would i call. i was going to reply that "the aid would be nice, but they'd still be dead"...
hey, alice. i have to confess that i've stolen from you. i use the angel cloud picture you have up here on my cellphone. is that okay? i think about you every time i get a text message...if that makes any difference :)
WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.
Much love to Sam and Marc for helping brighten the day's news with humor, wit, and satire. Thank you guys and all those at air america for lending their brilliance, love of detail and ethics to analysis of the CheneyCo Quagmire.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would award "the gold medal for hypocrisy" to U.S. President George W. Bush, who is in Latin America trying to repair his reputation in the face of anti-U.S. sentiment.
Chavez mocked Bush for expressing concern about poverty in Latin America — economic hardships the leftist Venezuelan leader largely blames on the United States.
"You've got to give the U.S. president the gold medal for hypocrisy, because he's said now he's worried about poverty in Latin America," Chavez told reporters during a one-day visit to Buenos Aires, where he will lead a leftist rally on Friday.
"Now he's discovering … after so many years that there's poverty in Latin America, precisely when the U.S. empire is the principal culprit," Chavez said.
O'Reilley should be hanged by the toes until dead for his latest heinous remark about the children that died in the fire in the Bronx yesterday. This bastard should look back at his own ancestry, and see that his ancestors were probably here illegally. I swear, if I ever saw him on the streets of NYC, I would just deck him, and ask questions later.
For those who support this badly needed course correction and stand united, yes, the neocon media apparatus will throw everything they have at you. You are going to be called every possible synonym of traitor or chicken-shit you can imagine and then some. Expect Bush & Company shills to bluster and threaten, while confederates wring their hands in fake concern over progressive political acumen. Joe Klein and his ilk will desperately try to appear relevant, even if it means throwing dems under the bus.
Yes, if the democrats remain steadfast, if they pour the heat on, a loud thrashing noise may soon be heard across the nation. The deafening sound of full blown conservative panic. Neo-clowns have surely known for sometime that their track record can’t survive in the harsh light of day. I imagine they've had occasion to chuckle to themselves at the tragic, almost comical ineptitude of their opponents. With the perfect storm of GOP arrogance, negligence, and law breaking, they're truly in the fight of their lives, downright terrified, and well they should be:
The Politico -- The survey, released Thursday, showed that a majority of Americans in competitive, conservative-leaning House districts approve of setting a date for troops to withdraw from Iraq. ... The poll found 67 percent of respondents favor a plan that would allow American troops to "be out of Iraq by early 2008."
The vast majority of the American people, i.e. voters, are on board with this. And if Bush veto's it, or Republicans interfere with the express wishes of a significant majority, they will only again assert complete ownership of this misguided, deeply unpopular war. We might be witnessing the final curtain call for today's addled version of the Grand Old Party. Good fucking riddance.
do you have AIM or some other IM software? if you do just add "samsedershow" to your friend's list, then you can IM him. (i don't really know how to get the AIM software - a friend walked me through it, me fighting it all the way)
ANDERSON, Ind. - A collie named Lassie roused her owners and enabled them to escape their burning home but died in the fire, relatives said.
"The dog saved their life," said Judi Thompson after her parents' home burned Wednesday morning. "Even the firemen said that. Isn't that amazing? It gives me goose bumps."
Thompson said her parents, Robert and Elsie Whitson, were asleep in their bedroom at the rear of their home in the city about 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis when the fire broke out. The dog, which slept at the foot of the couple's bed, licked and nibbled at their hands until 81-year-old Robert awoke and the couple went outside, she said.
Anderson Fire Department Battalion Chief Larry Towne said firefighters found the dog's remains underneath some collapsed roofing.
"They thought Lassie was out, but she wasn't," said Naomia L. Gooding, another daughter of the couple. "They loved this dog, and she was a wonderful dog."
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/footageerasedq.html * Israel is the largest recipient of US. aid in the entire world. It receives more aid than that given to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, put together.
Israel receives over $10 million dollars per day from the United States, and there is evidence that the total figure is closer to $15 million a day. Yet this information is almost never printed in American newspapers. Coverage of the Middle East in general, and of Israel in particular, virtually never reports this enormous American connection with this region. * ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN CHILDREN KILLED SINCE SEPTEMBER 29, 2000 122 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 869 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
So, with this Air America 2.0 deal, can we hope that Marc Maron might get his old show back? And how about bringing Mike Malloy back? Too much to hope for....
Fema was originally designed by Carter... The Reaganites got ahold of it and rehearsed at a management level... Rounding up descentors incase the US invaded Nicaragua.
"Coverup- The Iran Contra affair" A 'doc'from 1988
Hey. Hey heres the problem Bush has with martial law, posse commatadous(spell however) But being the fear is that Bush might cause, initiae or allow another terrorist attack just so as he could do that....Take away rights, tanks in the street...The problem with that, and maybe that was thir plan, but the problem comes when unlike Hitler, your approval rating is in the toilet, and if an attack were to happen, despite what legal prep for martial law Bush may have made, but if an attack were to happen now, that would mean everything Bush has said about protection and securing the homeland by tapping the phones and secret prisons, didnt protect us from shit. And by default, making him a failure even more. If something happens, hes getting blamed.
mrd_in_nyc said... So, with this Air America 2.0 deal, can we hope that Marc Maron might get his old show back? And how about bringing Mike Malloy back? Too much to hope for....
March 9, 2007 8:27 AM
Don't think Malloy will come back, but saying that, anything is possible. Nova M and Talk Left Radio getting together.
some report about the guy cutting like one day of school,"Obama, can we trust him, he skipped out on a really really boring speech on the mating habits of the Walabi. What else might he skip out on? Maybe YOU?!?!?!!" and what theyre left with. "Obama stuck gum under his desk in 2nd grade.....
Ms. Pearl — a New Orleans native — converts her backyard into a tent city where 14 displaced people live for 6 months. She provides construction jobs and basic resources to help them assist in rebuilding the city. The situation gradually goes violently awry and she is confronted with an array of abuses amidst a broken city.
A special note to Air America Radio stream listeners
No doubt many people who listen to Air America Radio via their various webstreams are frustrated, as they often seem to be non-functioning as of late.
Is it due to the new ownership? Too many listeners maxing out the bandwidth? Did they forget to pay the bill? Is it Karl Rove's fault? I highly doubt any of those are the reason, but what it all comes down to is, the streams just ain't working sometimes.
Keep in mind that it is still possible to listen to Air America on the web, even with all the streaming issues. Looking at the top of the left-hand side of the page, you may notice a rather large list of shows and streaming links. Looks something like this:
Sam Seder 9A-12P
So, what is all this mumbojumbo? Well, the name (in this case the one belonging to Mr. Seder) is a link to his site, the times he's live on the air (in eastern time, to minimize confusion for all) and a whole bunch of cute little icons. These are not just icons, however. They are clickable links. And by clicking these, you will pull up either a real live stream or a page with stream links. The Air America shows listed all have the official feed links, for Windows Media Player, Real Player and Winamp/iTunes. But what if they're down? Well, I just added an outside link to the Air America shows. The second is a direct link to an embedded RealPlayer webstream from WWRL/New York, which is certainly better than pulling up that dreaded RealPlayer, right? The second icon denotes a direct link to the Windows Media stream for WWRL (though it may open up in another media player, such as Winamp, depending on your own computer's settings). These streams operate independently of Air America. And you can hear all of the network's shows live on that station, excluding The Young Turks. For their show, I'll add a link for WURP/Pittsburgh's mp3 stream. You can also listen to TYT live on other stations, including WXXM/Madison.
I plan on adding a few more links for other station streams. In the meantime, you can also check the various affiliates further down the page. Many of them stream live.
UPDATE: Sunshine informed me in comments that WWRL is also having streaming issues. Gee, must suck to be so popular, huh? Anyways, I added a few more live links (including some of the more stable CBS and Clear Channel webstreams), which you can check out to your left. Here are a few:
Sam Seder: KEUN Lafayette, LA Randi Rhodes: WCPT Chicago, KTLK Los Angeles, KPHX Phoenix, Nova M Radio Rachel Maddow: KPTK Seattle Jon Elliot: KLSD San Diego
You'll also notice a new addition - weekend streaming links of various live shows. Enjoy!
OOpsie: I forgot to add, since the cell pone helped to reduce crime, the crime never occurred so to get that real data U need to look for Sociologists and Social Workers to verify what I know to be true cuss I'm a retired Social Worker and I know, from anecdotal data that the Cell Phone IS an incredible innovation.
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
Yesterday, just two months after taking power, House and Senate leadership released binding plans to redeploy U.S. forces out of Iraq as soon as March 2008, refocusing America's security posture on international terrorist networks and the war in Afghanistan. Within hours, White House officials issued a rare veto pledge aboard Air Force One, demonstrating President Bush's deep ideological commitment to his open-ended Iraq policy. But as the Los Angeles Times notes, "in one stroke" progressive leaders in Congress "have transformed a many-sided debate about the conflict into a sharp-edged argument about the endgame." The new legislation offers Americans a clear choice: "Follow the president's plan to use U.S. combat troops indefinitely, or shift American soldiers to a secondary role and begin withdrawing them." The country's preference has long been clear. A USA Today/Gallup poll released this week again shows that most Americans (60 percent) favor setting a deadline for U.S. troops to leave by the end of next year. Another poll released yesterday shows that "a majority of Americans in competitive, conservative-leaning House districts" -- 70 percent of which were won by Bush in 2004 -- "approve of setting a date for troops to withdraw from Iraq." Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was dismissive of Bush's veto threat. "Never confine your best work, your hopes, your dreams, the aspirations of the American people to what will be signed by George W. Bush, because that is too limiting a factor."
HOLDING THE PRESIDENT TO HIS WORD: Under the House plan, Congress would "institute the same tough benchmarks for the Iraqi government that Bush detailed in a national address in January." It works like this: in July and then again in October, Bush "will be asked to certify that the Iraqi government is showing progress and has met political and military benchmarks. If at either point Mr. Bush can't meet the certification requirements, the bill calls for withdrawal within 180 days. If the requirements are met, more time is allowed, but in any case, withdrawal would begin next spring with the goal of having most forces out of Iraq by the end of August." Under all scenarios, U.S. troops will be redeployed out of Iraq by August 2008.
The most important part of FBI Director Mueller's press conference about the domestic spying scandal by John Aravosis (DC) · 3/09/2007 12:11:00 PM ET
FBI Director Mueller is giving a press conference on just how and why the FBI, again, spied on Americans illegally. Buried in his speech, at the very end of his speech, is this little nugget, which I think is the most egregious and important part of his entire admission: Exigent letters
MUELLER: By statute, communications carriers can provide us information in emergency situations, and they're entitled to trust our representation that it is indeed an emergency situation. After September 11, the practice grew up whereby we would provide to these carriers a letter saying that indeed we needed particular information because of the exigent nature of the investigation and that a grand jury subpoena would follow. In a substantial number of these cases the inspector general found that there were not necessarily exigent circumstances and that grand jury subpoenas had not followed. And while we were entitled to that information, we were utilizing the wrong vehicle to obtain that information. I should make it clear that communications companies were absolutely entitled to rely on our representation in providing those materials. 1. We're talking about the phone companies and the Internet companies providing copies of your phone records, possibly copies of your phone conversations, your email traffic, the Web sites you've visited, your online chat conversations, and more to the FBI. Let's just make that clear right away.
2. What Mueller just said is that the law says that the FBI can go to phone and Internet companies and get your private information, without first getting a court order, under very particular circumstances:
a. There must be exigent circumstances, i.e., it has to be an emergency, Osama could slip away before the FBI has time to get the court order.
b. The FBI has to go to the court shortly after it solicits your records from the phone company so that the court can issue a subpoena ex post facto, in other words the court can validate the FBI's actions after the fact in order to ensure that they're not violating your rights under the 4th Amendment.
But what did Mueller tell us? He told us that in a substantial number of the cases where these FBI demand letters were issued to the phone and Internet companies, the circumstances were NOT exigent, there was NO emergency, the FBI could have easily gone to a court and had a judge look at the evidence - the FBI was LEGALLY REQUIRED to go to a judge to get a subpoena in order to spy on innocent Americans - but they didn't.
Thanks to you and your producer for having me on this AM.
Here is the link to the OpEdNews.com essay suggesting that knocking out Brewster-Jennings was Cheney's real trophy all along:
"Plame's Brewster-Jennings, not Wilson, True Target by Crede Calhoun": http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_crede_ca_070306_plame_s_brewster_jen.htm
Another good link from former 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern:
"Why Cheney Lost It": http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ray_mcgo_070309_why_cheney_lost_it_w.htm
Double Surge! The great leader Petraeus says the surge is so successful it may need to get surgier, with even more troops thrown into the mix. This is, I think, the trouble with trying to solve Iraq's problems through sheer force of numbers at this point; if there are signs of improving conditions does that mean you need more troops (in which case what are you achieving) or fewer troops (in which case the problems will just come back)? The American strategy for Iraq can't be that we need an endlessly escalating military presence forever.
Through no fault of anyone's in the military, meanwhile, the administration has managed to become totally confused about our objectives in the region, where we're no longer sure if we're fighting Iran or al-Qaeda, if we're encouraging or discouraging sectarian conflict, if we favor Sunnis or Shiites. Under the circumstances, we can't possibly be brokering a viable political settlement; we don't even know what our goals are.
Progressives, liberals, however you wish to label yourself, we need to be loud and clear about the facts. There is power in numbers. The number of people who support the Constitution of the United States, who support freedom, who support the troops because we don't want to get them all killed for financial gain of the few who are in control, we are the majority in this United States. We need to continue to speak together with one voice, we need to speak loudly, we need to be clear ... as the rock band The Who put it so well ... "We're not going to take it!"
House Conservatives Appoint Chief Climate Skeptic To New Global Warming Panel The House of Representatives voted yesterday to create a new congressional committee devoted solely to addressing the global climate crisis.
Unable to block the creation of the committee, House conservative leaders are now doing everything they can to neuter it. Conservative leadership aides reportedly told Republican members that a vote in favor of the bill creating the global warming panel “would put them out of running for a seat” on the panel.
Worse, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has named Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to be the committee’s top ranking Republican member. A look at Sensenbrenner’s record:
Sensenbrenner praised as ‘Inhofe of the House’: “If there is an Inhofe on the House side, it has to be Wisconsin’s James Sensenbrenner Jr.,” says the American Conservative Union’s David Keene, referring to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who calls global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” [Link]
Sensenbrenner led climate skeptic delegation to Kyoto conference: “As chairman of the Science Committee back in 1998, Sensenbrenner led a delegation of skeptics to the Kyoto conference and fought then-President Clinton’s attempt to go along with the Kyoto protocols.” [Link]
Sensenbrenner asked scientist about placing catalytic converters on cows to combat warming: “Does (it) mean to stop this increase in methane we’ve got to put catalytic converters on the backs of cows?” Sensenbrenner asked a climate scientist at a hearing last month. If cows are partly responsible for methane gases, Sensenbrenner said, that “could hit Wisconsin’s economy right between the horns.” [Link]
Ex-Navy official protests Swift Boat funder’s nomination. Today in the Washington Times, Wade Sanders — former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, decorated former swift boat skipper, and combat veteran — has an op-ed attacking President Bush’s nomination of Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium: “And as a military man, it doesn’t matter much who is being attacked — John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, or Jack Murtha — I just don’t believe that assaults on the military records of veterans belong in our politics.”
Ya gotta be careful about surrender in Iraq. It can really set back a candidate for President. John Kerry would be President now if he had not called for surrender in Vietnam. You can't swiftboat after a victory, only a surrender.
For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media. The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.
Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.
In fact, it’s becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power. Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.
This raises a key point we've hinted at several times as the US Attorney story has risen to a boil over the last three weeks. We've now heard enough to know that using federal prosecutions to score political points was an accepted way of doing business in the Gonzales Justice Department. The two cases we know about are ones in which the US Attorney refused to play along and paid the price. So what about the ones who did play along?
Given what we know now, does anyone think the Iglesias and McKay cases are the only ones?
As Krugman says, perhaps the Christie subpoenas were aboveboard. But they did they play directly into the campaign narrative Tom Kean, Jr. was trying to run on against Bob Menendez, they came at a very convenient time in a bitterly contested race and, as we reported at the time, the alleged infraction was patently silly.
Of course, to the best of my knowledge, Kean's defeat seems to have sapped all the interest out of the investigation. So go figure.
We're focused now on what happened to the US Attorneys who didn't play ball. It's time to focus on just what kinds of games Alberto Gonzales has been playing.
near as i can figger, when it gets busy, a lot of of that "voice posting in the wilderness" is caused by normal reading speeds.
peeps were trying to talk to each other and just could'nt connect. i don't think that's 'on purpose'. i think most peeps lose track of where they were when they refresh and get automatically tossed up to the top of the thread. as soon as they 'page down' they zip by their comments and any responses.
SueN on Thoms blog is a master of keeping track of 'how do we do this or that' requests.
a lot of them fell thru the cracks today. on the other hand, quite a few got responses.
toniD said... The hits just keep on coming. A sixth newspaper has now dropped Ann Coulter's syndicated column in the wake of her "faggot" comment.
-- Greg Sargent
Funny comment from Greg's post:
I think we should have a prize for the person who finds the first instance of Coulter complaining that she's being attacked. Ideally she would be questioned as to whether this makes her feel like she's being lynched by a gay raghead.
Did Brownback Sexual Harass Colleague? By: Nicole Belle @ 11:02 AM - PST The Right's Field:
Senator Sam Brownback sexually harassed his colleague, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, earlier today.
It started off innocently enough as he made small-talk with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, mentioning, in passing, that senators often take off their ties when negotiating bills behind closed doors. Klobuchar needled him about it.
Klobuchar: "Ties off?… But I don't wear a tie." Brownback: "I could say ‘dresses off' but I won't." Klobuchar (laughing, blushing): "Not while you're running for president."
First, eww. Second, I'm sure the Gannon-Coulter defense, "He didn't actually say she should take her dress off" will be brought up by Brownback's supporters who will refuse to see this as anything for which he should be condemned.
A mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps. But I sure wouldn't be happy about a colleague making a crack like that in front of me.
Progressive Pushback Against Fox News And Nevada Democratic Presidential Debate By: Nicole Belle @ 9:05 AM - PST Don't look now, but there may be a little bit of spine showing. As John noted in this post, MoveOn.org has been organizing against giving Fox any legitimization for sponsoring the Nevada Democratic Party Presidential Debate. It's coming together really well.
First, PoliticsTV.com has declined Fox's offer to webcast the debate. PTV's CEO, Dan Manatt explains: Video at link!
Additionally, new Air America President Mark Green declined Fox's offer for a token AAR representative on the panel. Even Harry Reid is distancing himself from the event. Matt Stoller at MyDD has more…
The Nevada Democratic Party is still under great pressure to drop Fox News. You can sign MoveOn's petition to the NDP here .
Turley: Prosecutor Firings Politically Motivated By: SilentPatriot @ 7:05 AM - PST Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley discusses the political pressures brought on recently fired US attorneys and it's potential implications on the US justice system.
Download (1518) | Play (1239) Download (749) | Play (733)
In my opinion, the most important (and alarming) part of the story is where the authority to do this derives from: The USA Patriot Act. How exactly does giving Bush the power to replace inconvenient prosecutors protect us from terror? Oh, wait, it doesn't. It just protects him and his cronies from prosecution. Talk about politicizing terror.
Christian Science Monitor:
The Bush administration's controversial firing of eight US attorneys sets up a major clash between the White House and the new Congress, as Democrats step up efforts to rein in new presidential powers.
News media falling short in watchdog role, critics say There's another Washington institution that many say needs an accountability moment: the news media.
Firefighters Slam Giuliani: "The Disrespect That He Exhibited...Has Not Been Forgiven Or Forgotten" NY DAILY NEWS | DAVID SALTONSTALL | March 9, 2007 12:11 PM
Rudy Giuliani never fails to cast firefighters as his heroes, but the nation's largest firefighters union all but declared war on him yesterday after he backed out of a forum for presidential hopefuls.
His withdrawal from the International Association of Fire Fighters forum exposed simmering tensions between the former mayor and city fire unions over his decision in November 2001 to limit FDNY personnel at Ground Zero.
Thursday, March 08, 2007 Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity Committee Will Hold Hearing on Disclosure of CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson's Identity
Chairman Henry A. Waxman announced a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. At the hearing, the Committee will receive testimony from Ms. Wilson and other experts regarding the disclosure and internal White House security procedures for protecting her identity from disclosure and responding to the leak after it occurred. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16.
In addition, the Committee today sent a letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald commending him for his investigation and requesting a meeting to discuss testimony by Mr. Fitzgerald before the Committee.
The Oversight Committee will webcast the hearing live at www.oversight.house.gov.
Documents and Links Letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald Topic: Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity Rep. Waxman Calls for Public Accounting of Rove’s Actions in CIA Leak Case Questions and Answers about White House Security Clearances Former Intelligence Officials Testify About Damage Caused by Outing of Covert CIA Agent
Tom DeLay says he’ll be CNN commentator. “Tom DeLay is becoming a commentator for CNN, according to John Fund. In today’s WSJ Political Diary, he writes: ‘Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with CNN as a commentator. “I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”‘”
This weekend, March 10-11, at UC Berkeley -- 10am-5pm in Wheeler room 213 -- The World Can't Wait will host an exciting conference of workshops and brainstorming sessions to give young people the tools they need to Stop the War and Drive Out the Bush Regime! Time to stop looking up, and start looking around.
Come to see what activism has been taking place on other campuses, share your own ideas, and learn from experts Peter Phillips of Project Censored about impeachment, Author Larry Everest on Empire, and Iraq War vet Pablo Paredes on the growing military resistance.
Specifically, help to plan and organize for March 18th Anti-War Rally in San Francisco, as well as National Day of Campus Walk-outs/strikes on March 20th.
Will we be remembered as the generation who sat back and allowed illegal wars to spread throughout the Middle East, torture legalized, the rights of women and gays eviscerated, and a fascistic police-state constructed? Or will we refuse to go along with this? Will we lead millions to erupt in political protest and defiant truth-telling? Will we make it our mission to bring the crimes of the Bush regime to a halt!?
Mission of this Generation: Stop the War NOW-Drive Out the Bush Regime!!!
To register or find out more email, wake_the_folk_up@yahoo.com
Flyer with workshop details: http://www.sfbaycantwait.org/Flyers/youthconference.pdf
"...Things are getting hot in autonomous regions, in the countryside in Chiapas, between zapatistas, the Army and two paramilitary groupings... Bellinhausen has been reporting on it since the escalation of confrontations (and that is why people were worried that he was the one who was kidnapped since he is writing about them). It seems the paramilitary groups have amassed a few hundred followers, are armed and are meeting regularly, and there are reports of Mx Army training and joint patrols with these groups. There has been attacks on zapatista autonomous areas.
The escalation looks ominous, and we are hoping nothing more serious develops. But the enticement is to confinscate the autonomous areas, privatise them so to speak, and dispense the land between the goons and whomever is pulling the strings..."
Bank of America Launches $20 Billion Environmental Initiative
Bank of America Corp., the nation's largest retail bank, will spend $18 billion on commercial lending and investment banking for "green" projects over the next decade, company officials announced Tuesday.
The Charlotte-based bank said it will spend another $2 billion for consumer programs and on efforts to reduce its own impact on the environment. ...
Conyers: FBI's Patriot abuses 'potentially without limit' Michael Roston Published: Friday March 9, 2007
Democratic leaders in Congress speedily announced this morning that they would conduct thorough oversight on reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation overstepped the boundaries of its authority under the Patriot Act. The head of the House Judiciary Committee warned that the potential for misconduct by the FBI "is almost without limit."
In a statement sent to RAW STORY, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, warned that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation had severely abused their already expansive powers under the Patriot Act by misusing National Security Letters to gain warrants for surveillance, as reported in multiple news sources today.
"Many of us have been saying that the potential for abuse of the Patriot Act's National Security Letter authority is almost without limit. This report demonstrates how that potential has now become a reality," the Judiciary chairman said. "The Justice Department's total lack of internal control and cavalier attitude toward the few legal restrictions that exist in the Act have possibly resulted in the illegal seizure of American citizens' private information."
Southern Baptist Leader Calls For Genetic Cleansing Of Original Sin Posted Mar 9th 2007 9:00AM by Richard Rothstein Filed under: Gay Rights, Religion, Homophobia
One of the nation's leading Southern Baptists has called for a policy that would support medical treatment, if it were to become available, to change the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother's womb from homosexual to heterosexual. This latest assault on our dignity and existence comes from no less a personage than Rev. R. Albert Mohler, the president of the prominent and influential Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.
Acknowleding the strides that genetic science is making in identifying and isolating genetic abnormalities, defects and diseases, Mohler embraces this advance in medical science as yet another tool in the war to root out and cleanse sin. The good reverend explains that "Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment."
Simply put, Mohler believes that homosexuality is one of God's ways of punishing us for original sin. And now science promises to provide a new means to root out sin and temptation even before birth.
Beyond Quagmire A panel of experts convened by Rolling Stone agree that the war in Iraq is lost. The only question now is: How bad will the coming explosion be? TIM DICKINSON
How bad will it be? Tell us what you think here.
The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."
Those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire." The surge won't bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror.
"Our invasion and occupation has created a cauldron that will continue to draw in the players in the Middle East for the foreseeable future," says Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden. "By taking out Saddam, we have allowed the jihad to move 1,000 kilometers west, where it can project its power, its organizers, its theology into Turkey -- and from Turkey into Europe."
How bad will things get in Iraq -- and what price will the world ultimately pay for the president's decision to prolong the war? To answer those questions, we asked our panel to sketch out three distinct scenarios for Iraq: the best we can hope for, the most likely outcome and the worst that could happen.
News media falling short in watchdog role, critics say There's another Washington institution that many say needs an accountability moment: the news media.
"He can't claims she's "secretly a liberal and will move Left once elected"...without painting her as a panderer before."
"Right now though, he's PRAYING it's Obama or Edwards...so he is off the hook."
++++++++
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters. I'm curious about this nonsense.
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters. I'm curious about this nonsense.
March 9, 2007 1:21 PM
That's why I asked him/her the question of what did he/she think.
Zbigniew Brzezinski National security adviser to President Carter
Richard Clarke Counterterrorism czar from 1992 to 2003
Nir Rosen Author of In the Belly of the Green Bird, about Iraq?s spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been interviewing Iraqi refugees
Gen. Tony McPeak (retired) Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War
Bob Graham Former chair, Senate Intelligence Committee
Chas Freeman Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; president of the Middle East Policy Council
Paul Pillar Former lead counterterrorism analyst for the CIA
Michael Scheuer Former chief of the CIA?s Osama bin Laden unit; author of Imperial Hubris
Juan Cole Professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan
There's 4 pages to this article from Tolling Stone but well worth the read. Here's the Link again:
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters. I'm curious about this nonsense.
March 9, 2007 1:21 PM
That's why I asked him/her the question of what did he/she think.
March 9, 2007 1:25 PM
The question was posed the way the questioner wanted it answered with no other options.
Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.
Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.
The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom.
It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.
Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously – always intent on their own advantage.
This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.
However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning and causes death and chaos abroad.
Desolation row: The betrayal of New Orleans, Published: 09 March 2007
In the 18 months since the storm, efforts at reconstruction have been hampered by multiple layers of bureaucracy and questionable decisions taken by politicians at both state and local level. Unprecedented numbers of residents are suffering from stress; experts report a widespread mental-health crisis. But there is another prism through which to view the problems of New Orleans.
Though President George W Bush may feel able to travel to the city - as he did last week - and claim that his government is "committed to the people of this part of the world and the Gulf Coast" - many people here, particularly the poor and the city's large African American population, say they have been abandoned by the Bush administration. They cannot believe that that the glacial-paced reconstruction efforts would have been permitted elsewhere; they cannot believe that the outside world would have ignored their plight had so many of Katrina's victims not been society's most marginalised. They cannot believe America has allowed New Orleans - or at least a part of it - to go to Hell...
...At the centre of Waiters' criticism is the so-called Road Home Programme, a $7.5bn scheme established by Louisiana's Governor, Kathleen Blanco, and other officials. The scheme - funded by the federal government's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - was designed to help ease the return of residents who had been forced to leave the state. At its core was a plan to provide up to $150,000 to help people rebuild.
But the scheme is the focus of persistent and valid criticism for its seemingly vast inefficiency. To date, of the 109,000 families that have applied for help, only 1,300 have received any cash....
...Many of the decisions by the authorities regarding the provision of affordable housing appear strange at best. Bill Quigley, a professor of law at Loyola University and a veteran public-interest attorney, has highlighted how New Orleans' public housing units are being torn down - by HUD - even though studies show 80 per cent of them to be structurally sound - and replaced with a smaller number of homes aimed at a mixture of renters. In January, when activists occupied some of the public housing units to try and keep the bulldozers away, they were arrested.
Quigley is convinced the city is involved in a fight for its "spirit and soul" - and that the poor are being kept out. The decisions, he believes, are being made in Washington. He wrote recently: "It is impossible to begin to understand the continued impact of Katrina without viewing it through the lenses of race, gender and poverty. Katrina exposed the region's deep-rooted inequalities of gender, race, and class...
I read this piece in Time, painting Cheney as the devil. Basically he was controlling the flow of information ad dexision process so that the president's decisions would be a foregone conclusion. This rhymes well with my own perception, but I had expectred the president to b ea little more implicated that that.
I would pose a few questions to the president in that regard:
1)Is this so? If yes, why is Cheney stiull serving at your pleaseure?
2)By rigging the information, your role as president has been undermined. Basically, you have been Dick Cheney's sock puppet. Doesn't that make you mad?
3)Both of us know that you will repeat your full support for the VP. You will reiterate that all decisions you made were correct, except certain personell decisions. (the only people you fired afdter first term, were your good hires, you tard. The first good decision i nyour term is firing Rumsfeld)
4)We all know that the humiliation of being exposed as sock puppet hurts more than being the dumbest creature ever to cross White House threshold. (That includes Clintons' and your dogs)
5)So when is Cheney going to decclare "medical" or "personal" causesd and step down"?
"while it is clear that the faithful are being bamboozled into acceptance of the 'War on Terror' through the the idea of a religious struggle between Jesus and Mohammed, I don't think that liberals have entirely appreciated how the idea of a confrontation between the enlightened West and benighted Islam also serves to make the 'thoughtful media' safe for American foreign policy aims.
In this respect, as in so many others, it seems that Enlightenment resides in putting an end to a certain kind of comfort and in recognising that we can also become caught up in a system of unstated resentments and inadmissible satisfactions. Though the language differs according to taste and cultural background, the temptations are not so very different - to live in a world of simple binary divisions."
WASHINGTON Mar 9, 2007 (AP)— A California woman who once operated an escort service in the Washington area will have to resolve a pending criminal case before she proceeds with a civil lawsuit against federal authorities.
Deborah Jean Palfrey was indicted last week on racketeering and other charges. She has been trying to force the return of about $500,000 of her property that was seized.
A federal judge ruled today that the criminal case against Palfrey must be resolved before the civil matter can be heard.
Palfrey has threatened to sell the phone records of her client list to raise money for her court defense.
Prosecutors say the call-girl service hired college-educated women to cater to men in hotels and homes in Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
Federal prosecutors contend the escort service promoted prostitution.
Just in case you didn't hear Chris Matthews promoting Rudy Giuliani on Hardball again yesterday ... and like always with this nitwit all paths lead to Hillary Clinton. Thanks to the dailyhowler.com I am not the only one who heard this appalling nonsense:
via the Daily Howler (who is just about the only one on the net who gets it these days):
"MATTHEWS (3/8/07): Here`s my theory. My theory is that men are rooting around for a reason to be against Hillary, and they’re going to spend the next year trying to find out why they want to be against her because they want to be against her. And they’re looking for reasons to be for Rudy. I think people always try to figure out how they can sell the guy they want to sell. They want Rudy to be a hero because they want a hero like Rudy. And they have this problem with Hillary, and I can’t quite figure it out. But it seems to be emerging and I can’t explain it."
Oh My, he can't figure it out, can he? He can't explain it? Except he is doing it in front of everyone's eyes, projecting self with a Kongsize hammer daily. And he has been doing it for the last decade in the company of his fawning fellow pundits or rather the pundit club who gladly sent GB to the White House in 2000 cause there were all these things wrong with Al Gore ...
So why is this going on and nobody among the Dems and liberal pundits puts a stop to it?
Its as easy to figure out as apple pie if you paid a fraction of attention to the national discourse past and present. If not ... the DH will tell everything you everything you need to know ... if you care to know. You wont get the truth from HuffPost, dkos et. al. where the agenda is as ferocious as the Dino stampede in KingKong.
"An open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
I had the great fortune of attending the 79th Academy Awards following my nomination as producer for a film in the Best Documentary Feature category.
At the Awards ceremony, most categories featured an introduction that glorified the filmmakers’ craft and the role it plays for the film audience and industry. But when comedian Jerry Seinfeld introduced the award for Best Documentary Feature, he began by referring to a documentary that features himself as a subject, then proceeded to poke fun at it by saying it won no awards and made no money. He then revealed his love of documentaries, as they have a very "real" quality, while making a comically sour face. This less-than-flattering beginning was followed by a lengthy digression that had nothing whatsoever to do with documentary films. The clincher, however, came when he wrapped up his introduction by calling all five nominated films "incredibly depressing!"
While I appreciate the role of humor in our lives, Jerry Seinfeld’s remarks were made at the expense of thousands of documentary filmmakers and the entire documentary genre. Obviously we make films not for awards or money, although we are glad if we are fortunate enough to receive them. The important thing is to tell stories, whether of people who have been damaged by war, of humankind’s reckless attitude toward nature and the environment, or even of the lives and habits of penguins. With his lengthy, dismissive and digressive introduction, Jerry Seinfeld had no time left for any individual description of the five nominated films. And by labeling the documentaries “incredibly depressing,” he indirectly told millions of viewers not to bother seeing them because they’re nothing but downers. He wasted a wonderful opportunity to excite viewers about the nominated films and about the documentary genre in general.
To have a presenter introduce a category with such disrespect for the nominees and their work is counter to the principles the Academy was founded upon. To be nominated for an Academy Award is one of the highest honors our peers can give us, and to have the films dismissed in such an offhand fashion was deeply insulting. The Academy owes all documentary filmmakers an apology.
Seinfeld’s introduction arrived on the heels of an announcement by the Academy that the number of cities where documentary films must screen to qualify for an Academy Award is being increased by 75%. This will make it much more difficult for independent filmmakers’ work to qualify for the Best Documentary Feature Award, while giving an advantage to films distributed by large studios. Fewer controversial films will qualify for Academy consideration, and my film Iraq in Fragments would have been disqualified this year. This announcement came as a great disappointment to me and to other documentary filmmakers. I hope the Academy will reconsider its decision.
On a final note, I would like to point out that there was no mention of the Iraq War during the Oscar telecast, though it was on the minds of many in the theatre and of millions of viewers. It is wonderful to see the Academy support the protection of the environment. Unfortunately there is more than just one inconvenient truth in this world. Having mention of the Iraq War avoided altogether was a painful reminder for many of us that our country is living in a state of denial. As filmmakers, it is the greatest professional crime we can commit not to speak out with the truth. We owe it to the public. I hope what I have said is taken to heart. It comes from my concern for the cinematic art and its crucial role in the times we’re living in.
John Sinno Academy Award Nominee, Iraq In Fragments" (John was seated next to Al Gore during the ceremony but I will not tell you about their conversation.)
* Tacoma Peace Activists Stage Blockade of Stryker Vehicles Headed for Iraq *
Peace activists in Tacoma, Washington have launched a campaign to prevent the military from shipping 300 Stryker armored vehicles to Iraq. The protests are expected to intensify this weekend as activists are planning to engage in acts of civil disobedience to prevent the Stryker vehicles from leaving the port.
This park is adjacent to the Lowes Pitkin theater in Brownsville Brooklyn. It was dedicated to Jewish WWI Vets. killed during the war. The neighborhood has been black for 50 years.
Victory! Breaking: Nevada Fox News debate killed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Nevada Democratic Party announced today that they are backing out of a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate in August following Fox President Roger Ailes’s recent remarks comparing Democratic Senator Barack Obama to al Qaeda terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
How About a Giuliani-Gingrich GOP "Family Values" Ticket? Between the Adulterers, They Have Been Married 6 Times: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group."
Falwell invites Gingrich to give address 1 hour, 34 minutes ago
LYNCHBURG, Va. - Newt Gingrich's admission of an extramarital affair as he pursued President Clinton's impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal has won praise from another conservative Christian leader: the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
It's also helped to gain Gingrich an invitation to deliver the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. Gingrich is considered a possible Republican presidential contender, although he has not announced any intention to run.
In an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson that aired Friday, Gingrich admitted to the affair in 1998. In 2000, he divorced his second wife, Marianne, after his attorneys acknowledged his relationship with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide now his wife.
"He has admitted his moral shortcomings to me, as well, in private conversations," Falwell wrote in a weekly newsletter sent Friday to members of the Moral Majority Coalition and The Liberty Alliance. "And he has also told me that he has, in recent years, come to grips with his personal failures and sought God's forgiveness."
429 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 429 Newer› Newest»mornin gang,
just re cue several times to get on the sammy cam.
hee! sam getting an 'age' IM deluge!
Good morning, jenise... :)
Way to go, j-sama!
You don't make amends by killing folks, Sam.
Gonzales Yields On Hiring Interim U.S. Attorneys
The capitulation came just hours after several leading Senate Republicans sharply criticized Gonzales for his handling of the issue. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, seemed to suggest that Gonzales's tenure may not last through the remainder of President Bush's term.
"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said sharply. In an interview with Reuters after the meeting with Gonzales, Specter said his comments did not imply he thought the attorney general should be replaced.
LINK
"I'm sorry, Mr.Kettle, Mr. Pot isn't here right now. You can call him black later."
Poland Spring!
:lol:
No Gilman on Sammy cam, Seder.
Way to go, j-sama!
You don't make amends by killing folks, Sam.
March 9, 2007 8:04 AM
hey, waiting. i've been wanting to ask that for ages, but no way would i call. i was going to reply that "the aid would be nice, but they'd still be dead"...
hey, alice. i have to confess that i've stolen from you. i use the angel cloud picture you have up here on my cellphone. is that okay? i think about you every time i get a text message...if that makes any difference :)
Hypocirtes, Liars and Bigots, oh my!
Gingrich Had Affair During Clinton Probe
WASHINGTON — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.
"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."
Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.
LINK
Yo Wayne, we can't hear ya on the SammyCam, bud.
can't hear Gilman. :(
NO MIKE on Wayne Gillman!!!
"the pro-fill-in-the blank crowd"
demeaning.
context: dead = good?
Rudolph W. Giuliani amounts to nothing more than a flag waving brown shirt.
Nobody talks about the crime rate when it refers to COPS.
~and the crime rate naturally went down because the economy was great. "under Clinton"
fr:bobxl
Can not believe you did the entire interview with Wayne Gillam without giving him a mike!
Hiya, j!
It's one of those few places I disagree with Sam. The whole thing could've been averted. I think history will show that.
parking tickets in cambridge
My Stream cut out right after Gilman called O'reily a Punk...crap. Perhaps someone who heard what he said can share with the rest of us?
is the sammy cam working for others?
let me get this straight: Tom Brady has knocked up Bridget Moynihan AND Gisele Bundchen?
Whadda YARD DOG!
Much love to Sam and Marc for helping brighten the day's news with humor, wit, and satire. Thank you guys and all those at air america for lending their brilliance, love of detail and ethics to analysis of the CheneyCo Quagmire.
Ningun Ser Humano Es Ilegal
Jenise said...
Oh that's totally great! :)
speaking of angels...
*
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would award "the gold medal for hypocrisy" to U.S. President George W. Bush, who is in Latin America trying to repair his reputation in the face of anti-U.S. sentiment.
Chavez mocked Bush for expressing concern about poverty in Latin America — economic hardships the leftist Venezuelan leader largely blames on the United States.
"You've got to give the U.S. president the gold medal for hypocrisy, because he's said now he's worried about poverty in Latin America," Chavez told reporters during a one-day visit to Buenos Aires, where he will lead a leftist rally on Friday.
"Now he's discovering … after so many years that there's poverty in Latin America, precisely when the U.S. empire is the principal culprit," Chavez said.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/03/09/chavez-bush-070809.html
O'Reilley should be hanged by the toes until dead for his latest heinous remark about the children that died in the fire in the Bronx yesterday.
This bastard should look back at his own ancestry, and see that his ancestors were probably here illegally.
I swear, if I ever saw him on the streets of NYC, I would just deck him, and ask questions later.
t's one of those few places I disagree with Sam. The whole thing could've been averted. I think history will show that.
March 9, 2007 8:13 AM
me, too. invading anywhere after 9/11 wouldn't have been justified in my opinion. it was a criminal matter - period, i think.
Panic in Neoconia
For those who support this badly needed course correction and stand united, yes, the neocon media apparatus will throw everything they have at you. You are going to be called every possible synonym of traitor or chicken-shit you can imagine and then some. Expect Bush & Company shills to bluster and threaten, while confederates wring their hands in fake concern over progressive political acumen. Joe Klein and his ilk will desperately try to appear relevant, even if it means throwing dems under the bus.
Yes, if the democrats remain steadfast, if they pour the heat on, a loud thrashing noise may soon be heard across the nation. The deafening sound of full blown conservative panic. Neo-clowns have surely known for sometime that their track record can’t survive in the harsh light of day. I imagine they've had occasion to chuckle to themselves at the tragic, almost comical ineptitude of their opponents. With the perfect storm of GOP arrogance, negligence, and law breaking, they're truly in the fight of their lives, downright terrified, and well they should be:
The Politico -- The survey, released Thursday, showed that a majority of Americans in competitive, conservative-leaning House districts approve of setting a date for troops to withdraw from Iraq. ... The poll found 67 percent of respondents favor a plan that would allow American troops to "be out of Iraq by early 2008."
The vast majority of the American people, i.e. voters, are on board with this. And if Bush veto's it, or Republicans interfere with the express wishes of a significant majority, they will only again assert complete ownership of this misguided, deeply unpopular war. We might be witnessing the final curtain call for today's addled version of the Grand Old Party. Good fucking riddance.
LINK
feed mic #2 into the stream..
please
we cant hear your guest turn on his mike!!!!!
Alice さんは書きました...
Jenise said...
Oh that's totally great! :)
i thought you'd be cool with it, but i usually fess up when i take things...usually ;)
Yep. And using your military as a police force does not work out. See: Roman Empire for more details.
eya j!
how do you find sam on IM?
a Neti pot treatment combined with a hot todi after...
I think at brigham drug 6av & 8st
hey, sunshine.
do you have AIM or some other IM software? if you do just add "samsedershow" to your friend's list, then you can IM him. (i don't really know how to get the AIM software - a friend walked me through it, me fighting it all the way)
How sad. :(
Dog dies saving family from burning home
ANDERSON, Ind. - A collie named Lassie roused her owners and enabled them to escape their burning home but died in the fire, relatives said.
"The dog saved their life," said Judi Thompson after her parents' home burned Wednesday morning. "Even the firemen said that. Isn't that amazing? It gives me goose bumps."
Thompson said her parents, Robert and Elsie Whitson, were asleep in their bedroom at the rear of their home in the city about 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis when the fire broke out. The dog, which slept at the foot of the couple's bed, licked and nibbled at their hands until 81-year-old Robert awoke and the couple went outside, she said.
Anderson Fire Department Battalion Chief Larry Towne said firefighters found the dog's remains underneath some collapsed roofing.
"They thought Lassie was out, but she wasn't," said Naomia L. Gooding, another daughter of the couple. "They loved this dog, and she was a wonderful dog."
Link
tanks J!
Sam - tell your sister to try Throat Coat tea by Traditional Medicinals.
I'm a singer and swear by this stuff.
It's made from Slippery Elm bark. Add some honey to it for added benefits.
Get it from any health food store.
it was a criminal matter - period, i think.
March 9, 2007 8:17 AM
i had some dopey ass pants piss rah-rah types who said if we didn't invade SOMEWHERE we were 'punking out'. right there ya KNOW its ALL WRONG1
Palestinian Loss of Land 1946 to 2005
*
2004 - media coverup: AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/footageerasedq.html
*
Israel is the largest recipient of US. aid in the entire world. It receives more aid than that given to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, put together.
Israel receives over $10 million dollars per day from the United States, and there is evidence that the total figure is closer to $15 million a day. Yet this information is almost never printed in American newspapers. Coverage of the Middle East in general, and of Israel in particular, virtually never reports this enormous American connection with this region.
*
ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN CHILDREN KILLED SINCE SEPTEMBER 29, 2000
122 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 869 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
So, with this Air America 2.0 deal, can we hope that Marc Maron might get his old show back? And how about bringing Mike Malloy back? Too much to hope for....
unfortunately this guy is REALLY apt.
Well,
The stream is gone. The blog is a mess. I'm going to fall on the floor and have a good old fashion tantrum.
Here I go.
CRASH!
right there ya KNOW its ALL WRONG1
March 9, 2007 8:25 AM
amen, bibi!
sunshine, no problem. it's so rare that i know how to do anything technical...the world feels kind of upside down at the moment ;)
Sam, why don't you get Kirsten Gillibrand on one of these days -
Sore Throat:
Probable Cause: Holding in angry words, Feeling unable to express herself.
Her new thought Pattern should be:
I release all restrictions. I am free to be me.
Hey Sammie: U gotta look at the "Uniform Crime Report" for each year Ghouliani was in power.
You will find that the CELL PHONE was responsible for significantly reducing crime.
:)
how do i get to contact sammy thru sammy cam?
Fema was originally designed by Carter...
The Reaganites got ahold of it and rehearsed at a management level...
Rounding up descentors incase the US invaded Nicaragua.
"Coverup- The Iran Contra affair"
A 'doc'from 1988
not a crazyy idea
Hey Alice,
I really like your...um....guitar.
Belkis Galainena said...
Louise Hay? :)
The best part of Marc's old show was Jim Earl. His stuff was fantastic!
i love the Pixies
Hey. Hey heres the problem Bush has with martial law, posse commatadous(spell however) But being the fear is that Bush might cause, initiae or allow another terrorist attack just so as he could do that....Take away rights, tanks in the street...The problem with that, and maybe that was thir plan, but the problem comes when unlike Hitler, your approval rating is in the toilet, and if an attack were to happen, despite what legal prep for martial law Bush may have made, but if an attack were to happen now, that would mean everything Bush has said about protection and securing the homeland by tapping the phones and secret prisons, didnt protect us from shit. And by default, making him a failure even more. If something happens, hes getting blamed.
Sam Seder may have been a listener of art bell, but I doubt he believes in 'Louise Hay type stuff'....
I just got bumbed from Real Player. What is up with that?
mrd_in_nyc said...
So, with this Air America 2.0 deal, can we hope that Marc Maron might get his old show back? And how about bringing Mike Malloy back? Too much to hope for....
March 9, 2007 8:27 AM
Don't think Malloy will come back, but saying that, anything is possible. Nova M and Talk Left Radio getting together.
Check out Liberal Talk Radio site for news:
LINK
Marc, do decaf buddy.
husky!
'Louise Hay type stuff'....
March 9, 2007 8:35 AM
my girlfriend used to call her 'jeez louise'. she said people with MS were essentially lazy. that bummed me out.
you can heal your blog!
he actually left his car somewhere with nobody in it? judgement issues!
Sears used to sell "chubbies" for the girls - it was humiliating!!!
myla 'petridish' seder?
some report about the guy cutting like one day of school,"Obama, can we trust him, he skipped out on a really really boring speech on the mating habits of the Walabi. What else might he skip out on? Maybe YOU?!?!?!!" and what theyre left with. "Obama stuck gum under his desk in 2nd grade.....
mrd_in_nyc said...
Hey Alice,
I really like your...um....guitar.
March 9, 2007 8:34 AM
:)
Mueller, head of the FBI, is on now saying he should have provided more training and oversight.
Sears used to sell "chubbies" for the girls - it was humiliating!!!
March 9, 2007 8:44 AM
to this day Sears represents a dark place for me.
AAR must have lost the support of RealPlayer. I'm thinkin they want cash up front now. No bandwidth. Sad to see really.
bibimimi troll'p said...
March 9, 2007 8:41 AM
*
I can see why that would bum you out, bib...
I can't believe things have gone to crap so fast around here.
The good news is that this blog is easy to read. There is nothing on it.
AIM.com for the IM application.
Gas prices are up again.
$2.49 a gal. here in No. Illinois.
I here it is over $3 in California already.
HOw - Dee!
Happy Friday!
I am glad you see you are so easy to please. Steam and Cam don't work. The old blog don't work. This is a joke for a blog. Fall on your sword much?
Kamp Katrina
Ms. Pearl — a New Orleans native — converts her backyard into a tent city where 14 displaced people live for 6 months. She provides construction jobs and basic resources to help them assist in rebuilding the city. The situation gradually goes violently awry and she is confronted with an array of abuses amidst a broken city.
alternate link (already posted 12 times)
http://www.wwrl1600.com/live_stream.asp
and for the other guy, i'm watching the sammy cam right now. don't know why it doesn't work for you
please try using another video player than real.
it never seems to have the bandwidth necessary.
A special note to Air America Radio stream listeners
No doubt many people who listen to Air America Radio via their various webstreams are frustrated, as they often seem to be non-functioning as of late.
Is it due to the new ownership? Too many listeners maxing out the bandwidth? Did they forget to pay the bill? Is it Karl Rove's fault? I highly doubt any of those are the reason, but what it all comes down to is, the streams just ain't working sometimes.
Keep in mind that it is still possible to listen to Air America on the web, even with all the streaming issues. Looking at the top of the left-hand side of the page, you may notice a rather large list of shows and streaming links. Looks something like this:
Sam Seder 9A-12P
So, what is all this mumbojumbo? Well, the name (in this case the one belonging to Mr. Seder) is a link to his site, the times he's live on the air (in eastern time, to minimize confusion for all) and a whole bunch of cute little icons. These are not just icons, however. They are clickable links. And by clicking these, you will pull up either a real live stream or a page with stream links. The Air America shows listed all have the official feed links, for Windows Media Player, Real Player and Winamp/iTunes. But what if they're down? Well, I just added an outside link to the Air America shows. The second is a direct link to an embedded RealPlayer webstream from WWRL/New York, which is certainly better than pulling up that dreaded RealPlayer, right? The second icon denotes a direct link to the Windows Media stream for WWRL (though it may open up in another media player, such as Winamp, depending on your own computer's settings). These streams operate independently of Air America. And you can hear all of the network's shows live on that station, excluding The Young Turks. For their show, I'll add a link for WURP/Pittsburgh's mp3 stream. You can also listen to TYT live on other stations, including WXXM/Madison.
I plan on adding a few more links for other station streams. In the meantime, you can also check the various affiliates further down the page. Many of them stream live.
UPDATE: Sunshine informed me in comments that WWRL is also having streaming issues. Gee, must suck to be so popular, huh? Anyways, I added a few more live links (including some of the more stable CBS and Clear Channel webstreams), which you can check out to your left. Here are a few:
Sam Seder: KEUN Lafayette, LA
Randi Rhodes: WCPT Chicago, KTLK Los Angeles, KPHX Phoenix, Nova M Radio
Rachel Maddow: KPTK Seattle
Jon Elliot: KLSD San Diego
You'll also notice a new addition - weekend streaming links of various live shows. Enjoy!
LINK
Great show Sam!!!!
Have a great weekend!!!
OOpsie: I forgot to add, since the cell pone helped to reduce crime, the crime never occurred so to get that real data U need to look for Sociologists and Social Workers to verify what I know to be true cuss I'm a retired Social Worker and I know, from anecdotal data that the Cell Phone IS an incredible innovation.
:)
Peaches, folks.
Many blessings
CNN showing Brazillian protests of Bush!
Manufactured Landscapes
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.
Later, WFC! Excellent tunes the other night too!! xoxo! :)
Every time someone asks, "Can this place get more fucked-up/" It does!!
IRAQ
Beginning Of The End
Yesterday, just two months after taking power, House and Senate leadership released binding plans to redeploy U.S. forces out of Iraq as soon as March 2008, refocusing America's security posture on international terrorist networks and the war in Afghanistan. Within hours, White House officials issued a rare veto pledge aboard Air Force One, demonstrating President Bush's deep ideological commitment to his open-ended Iraq policy. But as the Los Angeles Times notes, "in one stroke" progressive leaders in Congress "have transformed a many-sided debate about the conflict into a sharp-edged argument about the endgame." The new legislation offers Americans a clear choice: "Follow the president's plan to use U.S. combat troops indefinitely, or shift American soldiers to a secondary role and begin withdrawing them." The country's preference has long been clear. A USA Today/Gallup poll released this week again shows that most Americans (60 percent) favor setting a deadline for U.S. troops to leave by the end of next year. Another poll released yesterday shows that "a majority of Americans in competitive, conservative-leaning House districts" -- 70 percent of which were won by Bush in 2004 -- "approve of setting a date for troops to withdraw from Iraq." Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was dismissive of Bush's veto threat. "Never confine your best work, your hopes, your dreams, the aspirations of the American people to what will be signed by George W. Bush, because that is too limiting a factor."
Bush Threatens to Veto Democrats' Iraq Plan
LINK
Democrats shift debate to Iraq endgame
Their argument offers the public a choice: Stay indefinitely as Bush urges or shift U.S. soldiers into a secondary role.
LINK
Democrats’ Iraq Plan Draws Broad Support, Poll Shows
By: Josh Kraushaar
March 9, 2007 11:02 AM EST
LINK
HOLDING THE PRESIDENT TO HIS WORD: Under the House plan, Congress would "institute the same tough benchmarks for the Iraqi government that Bush detailed in a national address in January." It works like this: in July and then again in October, Bush "will be asked to certify that the Iraqi government is showing progress and has met political and military benchmarks. If at either point Mr. Bush can't meet the certification requirements, the bill calls for withdrawal within 180 days. If the requirements are met, more time is allowed, but in any case, withdrawal would begin next spring with the goal of having most forces out of Iraq by the end of August." Under all scenarios, U.S. troops will be redeployed out of Iraq by August 2008.
Hi Catharine!
Just took a break to make some lunch.
The most important part of FBI Director Mueller's press conference about the domestic spying scandal
by John Aravosis (DC) · 3/09/2007 12:11:00 PM ET
FBI Director Mueller is giving a press conference on just how and why the FBI, again, spied on Americans illegally. Buried in his speech, at the very end of his speech, is this little nugget, which I think is the most egregious and important part of his entire admission:
Exigent letters
MUELLER: By statute, communications carriers can provide us information in emergency situations, and they're entitled to trust our representation that it is indeed an emergency situation. After September 11, the practice grew up whereby we would provide to these carriers a letter saying that indeed we needed particular information because of the exigent nature of the investigation and that a grand jury subpoena would follow. In a substantial number of these cases the inspector general found that there were not necessarily exigent circumstances and that grand jury subpoenas had not followed. And while we were entitled to that information, we were utilizing the wrong vehicle to obtain that information. I should make it clear that communications companies were absolutely entitled to rely on our representation in providing those materials.
1. We're talking about the phone companies and the Internet companies providing copies of your phone records, possibly copies of your phone conversations, your email traffic, the Web sites you've visited, your online chat conversations, and more to the FBI. Let's just make that clear right away.
2. What Mueller just said is that the law says that the FBI can go to phone and Internet companies and get your private information, without first getting a court order, under very particular circumstances:
a. There must be exigent circumstances, i.e., it has to be an emergency, Osama could slip away before the FBI has time to get the court order.
b. The FBI has to go to the court shortly after it solicits your records from the phone company so that the court can issue a subpoena ex post facto, in other words the court can validate the FBI's actions after the fact in order to ensure that they're not violating your rights under the 4th Amendment.
But what did Mueller tell us? He told us that in a substantial number of the cases where these FBI demand letters were issued to the phone and Internet companies, the circumstances were NOT exigent, there was NO emergency, the FBI could have easily gone to a court and had a judge look at the evidence - the FBI was LEGALLY REQUIRED to go to a judge to get a subpoena in order to spy on innocent Americans - but they didn't.
More here
Hi Toni!
Yeah... me too... lunchtime ...
Sam,
Thanks to you and your producer for having me on this AM.
Here is the link to the OpEdNews.com essay suggesting that knocking out Brewster-Jennings was Cheney's real trophy all along:
"Plame's Brewster-Jennings, not Wilson, True Target
by Crede Calhoun":
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_crede_ca_070306_plame_s_brewster_jen.htm
Another good link from former 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern:
"Why Cheney Lost It":
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ray_mcgo_070309_why_cheney_lost_it_w.htm
Double Surge!
The great leader Petraeus says the surge is so successful it may need to get surgier, with even more troops thrown into the mix. This is, I think, the trouble with trying to solve Iraq's problems through sheer force of numbers at this point; if there are signs of improving conditions does that mean you need more troops (in which case what are you achieving) or fewer troops (in which case the problems will just come back)? The American strategy for Iraq can't be that we need an endlessly escalating military presence forever.
Through no fault of anyone's in the military, meanwhile, the administration has managed to become totally confused about our objectives in the region, where we're no longer sure if we're fighting Iran or al-Qaeda, if we're encouraging or discouraging sectarian conflict, if we favor Sunnis or Shiites. Under the circumstances, we can't possibly be brokering a viable political settlement; we don't even know what our goals are.
LINK
Progressives, liberals, however you wish to label yourself, we need to be loud and clear about the facts. There is power in numbers. The number of people who support the Constitution of the United States, who support freedom, who support the troops because we don't want to get them all killed for financial gain of the few who are in control, we are the majority in this United States. We need to continue to speak together with one voice, we need to speak loudly, we need to be clear ... as the rock band The Who put it so well ... "We're not going to take it!"
House Conservatives Appoint Chief Climate Skeptic To New Global Warming Panel
The House of Representatives voted yesterday to create a new congressional committee devoted solely to addressing the global climate crisis.
Unable to block the creation of the committee, House conservative leaders are now doing everything they can to neuter it. Conservative leadership aides reportedly told Republican members that a vote in favor of the bill creating the global warming panel “would put them out of running for a seat” on the panel.
Worse, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has named Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to be the committee’s top ranking Republican member. A look at Sensenbrenner’s record:
Sensenbrenner praised as ‘Inhofe of the House’: “If there is an Inhofe on the House side, it has to be Wisconsin’s James Sensenbrenner Jr.,” says the American Conservative Union’s David Keene, referring to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who calls global warming the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” [Link]
Sensenbrenner led climate skeptic delegation to Kyoto conference: “As chairman of the Science Committee back in 1998, Sensenbrenner led a delegation of skeptics to the Kyoto conference and fought then-President Clinton’s attempt to go along with the Kyoto protocols.” [Link]
Sensenbrenner asked scientist about placing catalytic converters on cows to combat warming: “Does (it) mean to stop this increase in methane we’ve got to put catalytic converters on the backs of cows?” Sensenbrenner asked a climate scientist at a hearing last month. If cows are partly responsible for methane gases, Sensenbrenner said, that “could hit Wisconsin’s economy right between the horns.” [Link]
Main Link - More Here
Ex-Navy official protests Swift Boat funder’s nomination. Today in the Washington Times, Wade Sanders — former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, decorated former swift boat skipper, and combat veteran — has an op-ed attacking President Bush’s nomination of Sam Fox to be ambassador to Belgium: “And as a military man, it doesn’t matter much who is being attacked — John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, or Jack Murtha — I just don’t believe that assaults on the military records of veterans belong in our politics.”
LINK
The hits just keep on coming. A sixth newspaper has now dropped Ann Coulter's syndicated column in the wake of her "faggot" comment.
-- Greg Sargent
LINK
just got thru reading the whole thread.
Lotsa new peeps, real player complaints high, excellent links and news chunks.
not bad for a two tin cans and string bloggie.
trolls and negative comments ignored for the most part...
(think we're toughening up)
Ya gotta be careful about surrender in Iraq. It can really set back a candidate for President. John Kerry would be President now if he had not called for surrender in Vietnam. You can't swiftboat after a victory, only a surrender.
Krugman ...
For those of us living in the Garden State, the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors immediately brought to mind the subpoenas that Chris Christie, the former Bush “Pioneer” who is now the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, issued two months before the 2006 election — and the way news of the subpoenas was quickly leaked to local news media.
The subpoenas were issued in connection with allegations of corruption on the part of Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who seemed to be facing a close race at the time. Those allegations appeared, on their face, to be convoluted and unconvincing, and Mr. Menendez claimed that both the investigation and the leaks were politically motivated.
Mr. Christie’s actions might have been all aboveboard. But given what we’ve learned about the pressure placed on federal prosecutors to pursue dubious investigations of Democrats, Mr. Menendez’s claims of persecution now seem quite plausible.
In fact, it’s becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power. Bear in mind that if Mr. Menendez had lost, the G.O.P. would still control the Senate.
This raises a key point we've hinted at several times as the US Attorney story has risen to a boil over the last three weeks. We've now heard enough to know that using federal prosecutions to score political points was an accepted way of doing business in the Gonzales Justice Department. The two cases we know about are ones in which the US Attorney refused to play along and paid the price. So what about the ones who did play along?
Given what we know now, does anyone think the Iglesias and McKay cases are the only ones?
As Krugman says, perhaps the Christie subpoenas were aboveboard. But they did they play directly into the campaign narrative Tom Kean, Jr. was trying to run on against Bob Menendez, they came at a very convenient time in a bitterly contested race and, as we reported at the time, the alleged infraction was patently silly.
Of course, to the best of my knowledge, Kean's defeat seems to have sapped all the interest out of the investigation. So go figure.
We're focused now on what happened to the US Attorneys who didn't play ball. It's time to focus on just what kinds of games Alberto Gonzales has been playing.
LINK
notice we're going thru one of those
"talking at instead of with" periods
it's cyclic here.
no biggie.
and, as usual, there are plenty of exceptions.
near as i can figger, when it gets busy, a lot of of that "voice posting in the wilderness" is caused by normal reading speeds.
peeps were trying to talk to each other and just could'nt connect. i don't think that's 'on purpose'. i think most peeps lose track of where they were when they refresh and get automatically tossed up to the top of the thread. as soon as they 'page down' they zip by their comments and any responses.
SueN on Thoms blog is a master of keeping track of 'how do we do this or that' requests.
a lot of them fell thru the cracks today. on the other hand, quite a few got responses.
another detail in a sea of details...
just thought i'd mention it.
well
seeing as i'm currently talking to myself i'm tempted to do something else.
Cya L8r gang!
love ya all!
toniD said...
The hits just keep on coming. A sixth newspaper has now dropped Ann Coulter's syndicated column in the wake of her "faggot" comment.
-- Greg Sargent
Funny comment from Greg's post:
I think we should have a prize for the person who finds the first instance of Coulter complaining that she's being attacked. Ideally she would be questioned as to whether this makes her feel like she's being lynched by a gay raghead.
Posted by: EH
Date: March 9, 2007 11:59 AM
got distracted baking tonid's italian bread...and now it's time for bed. but first...
Guantanamo to hold key hearings
Khartoum protest for a Sudanese national held at Guantanamo Bay.
The alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks on the US and 13 other terror suspects are set to face hearings at the US Guantanamo Bay camp.
The closed-door sessions will decide whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others can be deemed enemy combatants and therefore face military trials.
They were transferred to Guantanamo after years in secret CIA jails.
Did Brownback Sexual Harass Colleague?
By: Nicole Belle @ 11:02 AM - PST
The Right's Field:
Senator Sam Brownback sexually harassed his colleague, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, earlier today.
It started off innocently enough as he made small-talk with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, mentioning, in passing, that senators often take off their ties when negotiating bills behind closed doors. Klobuchar needled him about it.
Klobuchar: "Ties off?… But I don't wear a tie."
Brownback: "I could say ‘dresses off' but I won't."
Klobuchar (laughing, blushing): "Not while you're running for president."
First, eww. Second, I'm sure the Gannon-Coulter defense, "He didn't actually say she should take her dress off" will be brought up by Brownback's supporters who will refuse to see this as anything for which he should be condemned.
A mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps. But I sure wouldn't be happy about a colleague making a crack like that in front of me.
In an office that would be sexual harassment
Progressive Pushback Against Fox News And Nevada Democratic Presidential Debate
By: Nicole Belle @ 9:05 AM - PST
Don't look now, but there may be a little bit of spine showing. As John noted in this post, MoveOn.org has been organizing against giving Fox any legitimization for sponsoring the Nevada Democratic Party Presidential Debate. It's coming together really well.
First, PoliticsTV.com has declined Fox's offer to webcast the debate. PTV's CEO, Dan Manatt explains:
Video at link!
Additionally, new Air America President Mark Green declined Fox's offer for a token AAR representative on the panel. Even Harry Reid is distancing himself from the event. Matt Stoller at MyDD has more…
The Nevada Democratic Party is still under great pressure to drop Fox News. You can sign MoveOn's petition to the NDP here .
LINK
If Hillary gets the nomination (or maybe should just say "when" she gets it)....
Does Seder ENDORSE her and show he's a hypocrite?
Or JUST keep talking about the Rey-publicans and show he's gutless?
Or HONESTLY say "She's the lesser of two evils and there's no choice, and I'll hope we can push her out of the center"?
Turley: Prosecutor Firings Politically Motivated
By: SilentPatriot @ 7:05 AM - PST
Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley discusses the political pressures brought on recently fired US attorneys and it's potential implications on the US justice system.
Download (1518) | Play (1239) Download (749) | Play (733)
In my opinion, the most important (and alarming) part of the story is where the authority to do this derives from: The USA Patriot Act. How exactly does giving Bush the power to replace inconvenient prosecutors protect us from terror? Oh, wait, it doesn't. It just protects him and his cronies from prosecution. Talk about politicizing terror.
Christian Science Monitor:
The Bush administration's controversial firing of eight US attorneys sets up a major clash between the White House and the new Congress, as Democrats step up efforts to rein in new presidential powers.
(Read the rest of this story…)
HARTMANN'S BELLOWING wears thin.
Democrites said...
If Hillary gets the nomination (or maybe should just say "when" she gets it)....
Does Seder ENDORSE her and show he's a hypocrite?
Or JUST keep talking about the Rey-publicans and show he's gutless?
Or HONESTLY say "She's the lesser of two evils and there's no choice, and I'll hope we can push her out of the center"?
--------What do you think he'll say?
Dow 12244.84 -15.86 (-0.13%)
Nasdaq 2378.12 -9.61 (-0.40%)
S&P 500 1398.88 -3.01 (-0.21%)
10-Yr Bond 0.459% +0.09
Doesn't look like the enemployment numbers helped the stock market today. Jitters are still there.
Ya think?
News media falling short
in watchdog role, critics say
There's another Washington institution that many say needs an accountability moment: the news media.
LINK
Get ready GBC!!
{{(.)(.) }}
Firefighters Slam Giuliani: "The Disrespect That He Exhibited...Has Not Been Forgiven Or Forgotten"
NY DAILY NEWS | DAVID SALTONSTALL | March 9, 2007 12:11 PM
Rudy Giuliani never fails to cast firefighters as his heroes, but the nation's largest firefighters union all but declared war on him yesterday after he backed out of a forum for presidential hopefuls.
His withdrawal from the International Association of Fire Fighters forum exposed simmering tensions between the former mayor and city fire unions over his decision in November 2001 to limit FDNY personnel at Ground Zero.
LINK
bring them boobies on!
toniD said...
--------What do you think he'll say?
March 9, 2007 11:28 AM
Nothing. He'll toe the party line, keep talking "Rey-publicans" all the time, skirt around HRC's skirt on the issues.
He can't claims she's "secretly a liberal and will move Left once elected"...without painting her as a panderer before.
He can't claim he supports her "DLC status" or he's a hypocrite.
He will get the old Naderites and his "real" progressives mad if he endorse her, even with the "lesser of two evils" caveat.
So...he'll talk about the Rey-publican nominee exclusively and barely acknowledge there's a Dem running.
Right now though, he's PRAYING it's Obama or Edwards...so he is off the hook.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity
Committee Will Hold Hearing on Disclosure of CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson's Identity
Chairman Henry A. Waxman announced a hearing on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. At the hearing, the Committee will receive testimony from Ms. Wilson and other experts regarding the disclosure and internal White House security procedures for protecting her identity from disclosure and responding to the leak after it occurred. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 16.
In addition, the Committee today sent a letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald commending him for his investigation and requesting a meeting to discuss testimony by Mr. Fitzgerald before the Committee.
The Oversight Committee will webcast the hearing live at www.oversight.house.gov.
Documents and Links
Letter to Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald
Topic: Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity
Rep. Waxman Calls for Public Accounting of Rove’s Actions in CIA Leak Case
Questions and Answers about White House Security Clearances
Former Intelligence Officials Testify About Damage Caused by Outing of Covert CIA Agent
LINK
I think Sam said he wouldn't support Hillary...
1,020 Israelis and at least 4,057 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000.
Jenise, maybe you could go see this in Tokyo? There's a Tokyo webcam on here too..
http://www.ashesandsnow.org/
I think you click on Film Gallery, then click the webcam link...
7,633 Israelis and 31,267 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000.
0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 4,170 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since September 29, 2000.
bring them boobies on!
~-~-~
F*** Friday meetings! Me missin' the Friday boobie bouncing is gettin' totally outta hand.
But, it's Casual Friday anyway, ya Bastards!
Cleanse yer Temples too!
Tom DeLay says he’ll be CNN commentator. “Tom DeLay is becoming a commentator for CNN, according to John Fund. In today’s WSJ Political Diary, he writes: ‘Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with CNN as a commentator. “I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”‘”
LINK
Randi would probably be fined by the FCC for saying breasts instead of boobies...
Don't miss this conference!
This weekend, March 10-11, at UC Berkeley -- 10am-5pm in Wheeler room 213 -- The World Can't Wait will host an exciting conference of workshops and brainstorming sessions to give young people the tools they need to Stop the War and Drive Out the Bush Regime! Time to stop looking up, and start looking around.
Come to see what activism has been taking place on other campuses, share your own ideas, and learn from experts Peter Phillips of Project Censored about impeachment, Author Larry Everest on Empire, and Iraq War vet Pablo Paredes on the growing military resistance.
Specifically, help to plan and organize for March 18th Anti-War Rally in San Francisco, as well as National Day of Campus Walk-outs/strikes on March 20th.
Will we be remembered as the generation who sat back and allowed illegal wars to spread throughout the Middle East, torture legalized, the rights of women and gays eviscerated, and a fascistic police-state constructed? Or will we refuse to go along with this? Will we lead millions to erupt in political protest and defiant truth-telling? Will we make it our mission to bring the crimes of the Bush regime to a halt!?
Mission of this Generation: Stop the War NOW-Drive Out the Bush Regime!!!
To register or find out more email, wake_the_folk_up@yahoo.com
Flyer with workshop details: http://www.sfbaycantwait.org/Flyers/youthconference.pdf
http://www.sfbaycantwait.org
http://www.indymedia.be/files/otro-comercio2.jpg
"...Things are getting hot in autonomous regions, in the countryside in Chiapas, between zapatistas, the Army and two paramilitary groupings... Bellinhausen has been reporting on it since the escalation of confrontations (and that is why people were worried that he was the one who was kidnapped since he is writing about them). It seems the paramilitary groups have amassed a few hundred followers, are armed and are meeting regularly, and there are reports of Mx Army training and joint patrols with these groups. There has been attacks on zapatista autonomous areas.
The escalation looks ominous, and we are hoping nothing more serious develops. But the enticement is to confinscate the autonomous areas, privatise them so to speak, and dispense the land between the goons and whomever is pulling the strings..."
“I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”
He's effin' kidding... right?
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12344
Bank of America Launches $20 Billion Environmental Initiative
Bank of America Corp., the nation's largest retail bank, will spend $18 billion on commercial lending and investment banking for "green" projects over the next decade, company officials announced Tuesday.
The Charlotte-based bank said it will spend another $2 billion for consumer programs and on efforts to reduce its own impact on the environment.
...
Robert Mueller:
"Mistakes were made"
sure.
Conyers: FBI's Patriot abuses 'potentially without limit' Michael Roston
Published: Friday March 9, 2007
Democratic leaders in Congress speedily announced this morning that they would conduct thorough oversight on reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation overstepped the boundaries of its authority under the Patriot Act. The head of the House Judiciary Committee warned that the potential for misconduct by the FBI "is almost without limit."
In a statement sent to RAW STORY, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, warned that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation had severely abused their already expansive powers under the Patriot Act by misusing National Security Letters to gain warrants for surveillance, as reported in multiple news sources today.
"Many of us have been saying that the potential for abuse of the Patriot Act's National Security Letter authority is almost without limit. This report demonstrates how that potential has now become a reality," the Judiciary chairman said. "The Justice Department's total lack of internal control and cavalier attitude toward the few legal restrictions that exist in the Act have possibly resulted in the illegal seizure of American citizens' private information."
LINK
GBC said...
it's Casual Friday anyway, ya Bastards!
Cleanse yer Temples too!
get yer TUBES blown out!
put a SPITSHINE on yer hoo-hah!
Southern Baptist Leader Calls For Genetic Cleansing Of Original Sin
Posted Mar 9th 2007 9:00AM by Richard Rothstein
Filed under: Gay Rights, Religion, Homophobia
One of the nation's leading Southern Baptists has called for a policy that would support medical treatment, if it were to become available, to change the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother's womb from homosexual to heterosexual. This latest assault on our dignity and existence comes from no less a personage than Rev. R. Albert Mohler, the president of the prominent and influential Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.
Acknowleding the strides that genetic science is making in identifying and isolating genetic abnormalities, defects and diseases, Mohler embraces this advance in medical science as yet another tool in the war to root out and cleanse sin. The good reverend explains that "Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment."
Simply put, Mohler believes that homosexuality is one of God's ways of punishing us for original sin. And now science promises to provide a new means to root out sin and temptation even before birth.
If they want to change the fetus in the womb, do they now believe that homosexuality is genetic?
Beyond Quagmire
A panel of experts convened by Rolling Stone agree that the war in Iraq is lost. The only question now is: How bad will the coming explosion be?
TIM DICKINSON
How bad will it be? Tell us what you think here.
The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."
Those on the panel -- including diplomats, counterterror analysts and a former top military commander -- agree that President Bush's attempt to secure Baghdad will only succeed in dragging out the conflict, creating something far beyond any Vietnam-style "quagmire." The surge won't bring an end to the sectarian cleansing that has ravaged Iraq, as the newly empowered Shiite majority seeks to settle scores built up during centuries of oppressive rule by the Sunni minority. It will do nothing to defuse the powder keg that an independence-minded Kurdistan, in Iraq's northern provinces, poses to the governments of Turkey, Syria and Iran, which have long brutalized their own Kurdish separatists. And it will only worsen the global war on terror.
"Our invasion and occupation has created a cauldron that will continue to draw in the players in the Middle East for the foreseeable future," says Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden. "By taking out Saddam, we have allowed the jihad to move 1,000 kilometers west, where it can project its power, its organizers, its theology into Turkey -- and from Turkey into Europe."
How bad will things get in Iraq -- and what price will the world ultimately pay for the president's decision to prolong the war? To answer those questions, we asked our panel to sketch out three distinct scenarios for Iraq: the best we can hope for, the most likely outcome and the worst that could happen.
LINK
News media falling short
in watchdog role, critics say
There's another Washington institution that many say needs an accountability moment: the news media.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16863000.htm
little richie wolffe say heese nut heese jub
"He can't claims she's "secretly a liberal and will move Left once elected"...without painting her as a panderer before."
"Right now though, he's PRAYING it's Obama or Edwards...so he is off the hook."
++++++++
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters.
I'm curious about this nonsense.
And why don't you just say you're War Dog and get it over with. It's obviously you.
No, you're going to keep pretending. Because "he can't prove it, he doesn't really know for sure."
Dopey dog.
dada said....
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters.
I'm curious about this nonsense.
March 9, 2007 1:21 PM
That's why I asked him/her the question of what did he/she think.
The Rolling Stone Panel
Zbigniew Brzezinski
National security adviser to President Carter
Richard Clarke
Counterterrorism czar from 1992 to 2003
Nir Rosen
Author of In the Belly of the Green Bird, about Iraq?s spiral into civil war, speaking from Cairo, where he has been interviewing Iraqi refugees
Gen. Tony McPeak (retired)
Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War
Bob Graham
Former chair, Senate Intelligence Committee
Chas Freeman
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; president of the Middle East Policy Council
Paul Pillar
Former lead counterterrorism analyst for the CIA
Michael Scheuer
Former chief of the CIA?s Osama bin Laden unit; author of Imperial Hubris
Juan Cole
Professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan
There's 4 pages to this article from Tolling Stone but well worth the read. Here's the Link again:
LINK2Fleaving_iraq_the_grim_truth
toniD said...
dada said....
I wonder if this person really views the world as a caricature of itself, or if they are consciously trying to frame a debate in such two dimensional and unrealistic parameters.
I'm curious about this nonsense.
March 9, 2007 1:21 PM
That's why I asked him/her the question of what did he/she think.
March 9, 2007 1:25 PM
The question was posed the way the questioner wanted it answered with no other options.
Have to get ready for work.
Pre-teen dance again.
2 more after this until Fall.
If they want to change the fetus in the womb, do they now believe that homosexuality is genetic?
~-~-~
Touchee, toniDeeee!
"The question was posed the way the questioner wanted it answered with no other options."
++++++
Exactly. And the questioner probably thinks they're being clever.
See you later, t
The Trap –
What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom?
Day and time to be confirmed BBC TWO
Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.
Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.
The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom.
It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.
Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously – always intent on their own advantage.
This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.
However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning and causes death and chaos abroad.
When Discordians clash...
chaos results!
Full story at 11.
Later Guys. Have a great evening.
Desolation row: The betrayal of New Orleans, Published: 09 March 2007
In the 18 months since the storm, efforts at reconstruction have been hampered by multiple layers of bureaucracy and questionable decisions taken by politicians at both state and local level. Unprecedented numbers of residents are suffering from stress; experts report a widespread mental-health crisis. But there is another prism through which to view the problems of New Orleans.
Though President George W Bush may feel able to travel to the city - as he did last week - and claim that his government is "committed to the people of this part of the world and the Gulf Coast" - many people here, particularly the poor and the city's large African American population, say they have been abandoned by the Bush administration. They cannot believe that that the glacial-paced reconstruction efforts would have been permitted elsewhere; they cannot believe that the outside world would have ignored their plight had so many of Katrina's victims not been society's most marginalised. They cannot believe America has allowed New Orleans - or at least a part of it - to go to Hell...
...At the centre of Waiters' criticism is the so-called Road Home Programme, a $7.5bn scheme established by Louisiana's Governor, Kathleen Blanco, and other officials. The scheme - funded by the federal government's Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - was designed to help ease the return of residents who had been forced to leave the state. At its core was a plan to provide up to $150,000 to help people rebuild.
But the scheme is the focus of persistent and valid criticism for its seemingly vast inefficiency. To date, of the 109,000 families that have applied for help, only 1,300 have received any cash....
...Many of the decisions by the authorities regarding the provision of affordable housing appear strange at best. Bill Quigley, a professor of law at Loyola University and a veteran public-interest attorney, has highlighted how New Orleans' public housing units are being torn down - by HUD - even though studies show 80 per cent of them to be structurally sound - and replaced with a smaller number of homes aimed at a mixture of renters. In January, when activists occupied some of the public housing units to try and keep the bulldozers away, they were arrested.
Quigley is convinced the city is involved in a fight for its "spirit and soul" - and that the poor are being kept out. The decisions, he believes, are being made in Washington. He wrote recently: "It is impossible to begin to understand the continued impact of Katrina without viewing it through the lenses of race, gender and poverty. Katrina exposed the region's deep-rooted inequalities of gender, race, and class...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2342309.ece
"When Discordians clash...chaos results!"
Two wrongs might not make a right, but three rights make a left.
I read this piece in Time, painting Cheney as the devil. Basically he was controlling the flow of information ad dexision process so that the president's decisions would be a foregone conclusion. This rhymes well with my own perception, but I had expectred the president to b ea little more implicated that that.
I would pose a few questions to the president in that regard:
1)Is this so? If yes, why is Cheney stiull serving at your pleaseure?
2)By rigging the information, your role as president has been undermined. Basically, you have been Dick Cheney's sock puppet. Doesn't that make you mad?
3)Both of us know that you will repeat your full support for the VP. You will reiterate that all decisions you made were correct, except certain personell decisions. (the only people you fired afdter first term, were your good hires, you tard. The first good decision i nyour term is firing Rumsfeld)
4)We all know that the humiliation of being exposed as sock puppet hurts more than being the dumbest creature ever to cross White House threshold. (That includes Clintons' and your dogs)
5)So when is Cheney going to decclare "medical" or "personal" causesd and step down"?
--
bjorn
Next:
Get someone in the docile white house press corps to ask these questions.
Time for them to earn their stripes.
Time to forget about politeness.
When someone is lying to your face, you owe them no respect. Remember that next time the president arrogantly lies to your face.
--
bjorn
"while it is clear that the faithful are being bamboozled into acceptance of the 'War on Terror' through the the idea of a religious struggle between Jesus and Mohammed, I don't think that liberals have entirely appreciated how the idea of a confrontation between the enlightened West and benighted Islam also serves to make the 'thoughtful media' safe for American foreign policy aims.
In this respect, as in so many others, it seems that Enlightenment resides in putting an end to a certain kind of comfort and in recognising that we can also become caught up in a system of unstated resentments and inadmissible satisfactions. Though the language differs according to taste and cultural background, the temptations are not so very different - to live in a world of simple binary divisions."
http://thethreattoreason.blogspot.com/
WASHINGTON Mar 9, 2007 (AP)— A California woman who once operated an escort service in the Washington area will have to resolve a pending criminal case before she proceeds with a civil lawsuit against federal authorities.
Deborah Jean Palfrey was indicted last week on racketeering and other charges. She has been trying to force the return of about $500,000 of her property that was seized.
A federal judge ruled today that the criminal case against Palfrey must be resolved before the civil matter can be heard.
Palfrey has threatened to sell the phone records of her client list to raise money for her court defense.
Prosecutors say the call-girl service hired college-educated women to cater to men in hotels and homes in Washington and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
Federal prosecutors contend the escort service promoted prostitution.
High Time for another rant I say:
Just in case you didn't hear Chris Matthews promoting Rudy Giuliani on Hardball again yesterday ... and like always with this nitwit all paths lead to Hillary Clinton. Thanks to the dailyhowler.com I am not the only one who heard this appalling nonsense:
via the Daily Howler (who is just about the only one on the net who gets it these days):
"MATTHEWS (3/8/07): Here`s my theory. My theory is that men are rooting around for a reason to be against Hillary, and they’re going to spend the next year trying to find out why they want to be against her because they want to be against her. And they’re looking for reasons to be for Rudy. I think people always try to figure out how they can sell the guy they want to sell. They want Rudy to be a hero because they want a hero like Rudy. And they have this problem with Hillary, and I can’t quite figure it out. But it seems to be emerging and I can’t explain it."
Oh My, he can't figure it out, can he? He can't explain it? Except he is doing it in front of everyone's eyes, projecting self with a Kongsize hammer daily. And he has been doing it for the last decade in the company of his fawning fellow pundits or rather the pundit club who gladly sent GB to the White House in 2000 cause there were all these things wrong with Al Gore ...
So why is this going on and nobody among the Dems and liberal pundits puts a stop to it?
Its as easy to figure out as apple pie if you paid a fraction of attention to the national discourse past and present. If not ... the DH will tell everything you everything you need to know ... if you care to know. You wont get the truth from HuffPost, dkos et. al. where the agenda is as ferocious as the Dino stampede in KingKong.
Go here www.dailyhowler.com
Mississippi Twins, Robert Johnson
read of the day:
Noam Chomsky connects the Dots
http://counterpunch.org/dossani03092007.html
(don't know if this has been posted already ... don't miss)
bye everyone
Don't forget to call your mom over the weekend and tell her how much she means to you!
Don't forget!
"An open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
I had the great fortune of attending the 79th Academy Awards following my nomination as producer for a film in the Best Documentary Feature category.
At the Awards ceremony, most categories featured an introduction that glorified the filmmakers’ craft and the role it plays for the film audience and industry. But when comedian Jerry Seinfeld introduced the award for Best Documentary Feature, he began by referring to a documentary that features himself as a subject, then proceeded to poke fun at it by saying it won no awards and made no money. He then revealed his love of documentaries, as they have a very "real" quality, while making a comically sour face. This less-than-flattering beginning was followed by a lengthy digression that had nothing whatsoever to do with documentary films. The clincher, however, came when he wrapped up his introduction by calling all five nominated films "incredibly depressing!"
While I appreciate the role of humor in our lives, Jerry Seinfeld’s remarks were made at the expense of thousands of documentary filmmakers and the entire documentary genre. Obviously we make films not for awards or money, although we are glad if we are fortunate enough to receive them. The important thing is to tell stories, whether of people who have been damaged by war, of humankind’s reckless attitude toward nature and the environment, or even of the lives and habits of penguins. With his lengthy, dismissive and digressive introduction, Jerry Seinfeld had no time left for any individual description of the five nominated films. And by labeling the documentaries “incredibly depressing,” he indirectly told millions of viewers not to bother seeing them because they’re nothing but downers. He wasted a wonderful opportunity to excite viewers about the nominated films and about the documentary genre in general.
To have a presenter introduce a category with such disrespect for the nominees and their work is counter to the principles the Academy was founded upon. To be nominated for an Academy Award is one of the highest honors our peers can give us, and to have the films dismissed in such an offhand fashion was deeply insulting. The Academy owes all documentary filmmakers an apology.
Seinfeld’s introduction arrived on the heels of an announcement by the Academy that the number of cities where documentary films must screen to qualify for an Academy Award is being increased by 75%. This will make it much more difficult for independent filmmakers’ work to qualify for the Best Documentary Feature Award, while giving an advantage to films distributed by large studios. Fewer controversial films will qualify for Academy consideration, and my film Iraq in Fragments would have been disqualified this year. This announcement came as a great disappointment to me and to other documentary filmmakers. I hope the Academy will reconsider its decision.
On a final note, I would like to point out that there was no mention of the Iraq War during the Oscar telecast, though it was on the minds of many in the theatre and of millions of viewers. It is wonderful to see the Academy support the protection of the environment. Unfortunately there is more than just one inconvenient truth in this world. Having mention of the Iraq War avoided altogether was a painful reminder for many of us that our country is living in a state of denial. As filmmakers, it is the greatest professional crime we can commit not to speak out with the truth. We owe it to the public.
I hope what I have said is taken to heart. It comes from my concern for the cinematic art and its crucial role in the times we’re living in.
John Sinno
Academy Award Nominee, Iraq In Fragments"
(John was seated next to Al Gore during the ceremony but I will not tell you about their conversation.)
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
Sorry about th long posts. Well, not really... hee
Great post at the top of the angry arab's blog, too.
Gotta run...
* Tacoma Peace Activists Stage Blockade of Stryker Vehicles Headed for Iraq
*
Peace activists in Tacoma, Washington have launched a campaign to prevent the military from shipping 300 Stryker armored vehicles to Iraq. The protests are expected to intensify this weekend as activists are planning to engage in acts of civil disobedience to prevent the Stryker vehicles from leaving the port.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/09/1444200
!
Hey!
How's your rabbits?
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
Rescue effort widens for cat stuck in sewer
Cat Rescued After Getting Stuck In Engine Of Running Car
Cat found in ice is recovering
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
Man Wanted In Drive-By Shooting In Brooklyn
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
Hey Jim,
You might want to take a look at this.
The Kings Is Dead! Long Live the Kings!
Junk Buddha - 05 - Whirling Dervish.mp3
eya NC,
thats a grand ol slab.
badly detreriorated from what i read.
i'd salvage the unique interior and exterior architecture and incorporate it in a new building.
what do ya think the market would welcome in that area? another theatre?
ya, ya, ya.
higher values... check!
nobility personofied... check!
self affacement... check!
aside from all that
i want to know how
one pronounces
"troll'p" ?
Hey Crank! Did you see the grammar girl link?
I wish there was some way I could set you two up... :)
I'm not wearing any
underwear.
Ew Fat Tony... no one wants to know that... :)
Your old pope joke reminds me of a Georges Bataille story called The Story of Eye...
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
You can scratch that idea.
Cable, video, etc.
The hoods been mostly black west - indian for 35 years. Barbara Streisand attended Erasmus HS right down the street. That was a long time ago...
There were several theaters like that across the city.
The 77 black out killed what what left of those areas.
Loew's Pitkin theater, Brownsville Brooklyn
Zion Triangle
This park is adjacent to the Lowes Pitkin theater in Brownsville Brooklyn.
It was dedicated to Jewish WWI Vets. killed during the war.
The neighborhood has been black for 50 years.
http://www.pscelebrities.com/mrr/jesuslovesporn.jpg
back when they post another thread,
this one is glitching out to the max.
For anyone curious about anarchy..VERY good doc
If I were to loosen up anymore, I think my atoms would float away and I would just be part of the atmosphere :)
hello Nobel blog!
Happy Friday
look, look, look!: Fox News debate is officially dead
hahahaha!
Now Fox can go back to doing what they do best-playing Simpson re-runs and
making sensational local news stories.
[Is your neighbor a rapist?
we thinks so. We will tell you after the comercial break. try not to go outside until then.]
-conbo
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
It would be nice but..
You'd be hard pressed to find
a place to sit down and have
a cup of coffee in those neighborhoods.
There was another theater a block away that also closed
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/1749/
There would be too many problems.
Fights, shootings, etc.
Empire Roller Rink Closing Its Doors
THE EMPIRE SKATES BACK: FANS RALLY TO SAVE RINK
Meat me in St. Louis!!!
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
Kameo Theater
Theaters
Just watched the "David Obey-Ambush" video on YouTube....
nice work "nut-roots" idiots. He's no "blue dog"; you're pissing off your ALLIES on the Hill!
//(You gots to get up perty early in the decade to get the jump on an intrepid network news magazine team.)//
hahaha
was that story followed by:
a young entrepreneur by the name of Bill Gates is chaning information as we know it...
-conbo
//nice work "nut-roots" idiots. He's no "blue dog"; you're pissing off your ALLIES on the Hill! //
does the everday person with access to the internet actually have allies on the hill?
do the washingtonians on the hill even realize they are governing a country
located between canada and
mexico?
or is all of that fuzzy details they run into every once in awhile in their puruit of oil and money?
-conbo
"NEWS CONSUMER" said...
http://cinematreasures.org/theater.php/6729/
Carroll Theater marquee
http://eyeshot.net/grayson1.html
Rugby Theater
lordy!
just got off the phone with
my Mom, who I love.
She thinks God put his hand on Guillianni and he will be the president
the sooner FOX dies the better
holy crap
I respect her so I couldn't be like, uh, thats crazy Mom
She is getting disinfo
-conbo
Evening all
hi ToniD
:)
-conbo
Connie...here's more on your news story!
Victory! Breaking: Nevada Fox News debate killed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Nevada Democratic Party announced today that they are backing out of a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate in August following Fox President Roger Ailes’s recent remarks comparing Democratic Senator Barack Obama to al Qaeda terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
LINK
Justin King - Knock on Wood Live (Dual Neck)
the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia
Watch the David Obey ambush by "Occupation Project" or whatever....
he's talking sense and these hippie throwbacks don't want to hear it.
Again, nice work, Sheehanites...nothing a Congressman wants to do more than identify themselves with the Wacko Fringe. Obey will move "center" now!
Zell Miller says -- get this -- abortion has shrunk the American military
LINK
Crank, do you have a thing for Nosferatu?
its not my story!!!!
its everyone's
:)
FOX is not being validated by the DLC anymore!!!
that is so big!!!
Soon, FOX will either have to change their ways or be out of the program.
-conbo
What Is Love?
How About a Giuliani-Gingrich GOP "Family Values" Ticket? Between the Adulterers, They Have Been Married 6 Times: "Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group."
LINK
wow
//Zell Miller says -- get this -- abortion has shrunk the American military//
That is incredible...Zell Miller is going to blame people who have had abortions on why we have failed in the middle east
uhm
wow. so many things wrong with that...
holy shiite
-conbo
CongressMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN....
...GAK...
I respect her so I couldn't be like, uh, thats crazy Mom
She is getting disinfo
-conbo
March 9, 2007 7:05 PM
---
Half the world thinks there is an invisible man in the sky. So why is this strange?
Gingrich is trying to say he didn't lie about his affair. But Clinton did...purgery. Clinton was punished because he commited purgery.
By saying that, he just countered the wingers new talking points about Libby.
These people are amazing.
i just posted that on the kos
wow
that is just crazy, crazy, crazy...
-conbo
how much longer can the country live with insanity
as truth?
something is going to break
//Half the world thinks there is an invisible man in the sky. So why is this strange? //
touche
-conbo
Falwell invites Gingrich to give address 1 hour, 34 minutes ago
LYNCHBURG, Va. - Newt Gingrich's admission of an extramarital affair as he pursued President Clinton's impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal has won praise from another conservative Christian leader: the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
It's also helped to gain Gingrich an invitation to deliver the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. Gingrich is considered a possible Republican presidential contender, although he has not announced any intention to run.
In an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson that aired Friday, Gingrich admitted to the affair in 1998. In 2000, he divorced his second wife, Marianne, after his attorneys acknowledged his relationship with Callista Bisek, a former congressional aide now his wife.
"He has admitted his moral shortcomings to me, as well, in private conversations," Falwell wrote in a weekly newsletter sent Friday to members of the Moral Majority Coalition and The Liberty Alliance. "And he has also told me that he has, in recent years, come to grips with his personal failures and sought God's forgiveness."
LINK
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