Oh, boy, it’s Wednesday.
And what a Wednesday it is, too, as…:paranoid:
:omg:
Goddamnit! 😡
I’ve had it with these motherf*cking snakes on this motherf*cking blog!
Posted by pjsauter on August 23, 2006
Posted in Uncategorized | 312 Comments
Oh, boy, it’s Wednesday.
And what a Wednesday it is, too, as…:paranoid:
:omg:
Goddamnit! 😡
I’ve had it with these motherf*cking snakes on this motherf*cking blog!
This better work!:mad:
:cool:COOL :cool::cool::cool:
:cool:I am amazed, mystified, bedazzled 😎
PJ,:banana: what weird fun :rofl2:
I give up 🙁
:?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?::?:
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::yuck::yuck::yuck::yuck::crap::crap::crap::crap:
Cute PJ cute…..:yawn::yawn::yawn::joe::joe::joe::joe:
Good morning/afternoon/evening/tomorrow/whatever
Now where is the Chicago piano, AC130 and the SS27 applet ??
There is still a guy from the Cato Institute on C-span talking about welfare reform.. He talks as if jobs grew on trees. :barf: :barf:
I am still searching for those plastic RPG’s search… search.. search… search…
I wonder how many conservative and libertarian liars or perhaps better put dunderheads/fools/idiots/stupid fools/F*ing assholes there are out there .. Would it be possible to round them up and put all of them in one of those camps they are building in the southwest or would you have to reserve the entire state of TexASS ???:barf::barf::barf::barf::barf:
Using the entire state of TexASS would probably be a good idea… you wouldn’t have to relocate so many..:eek::eek::eek::barf::barf::crap::yuck::rant1:
I am still :rofl2::lol::rofl2:.
It makes this f#$%’d stupid bushshit livable another day.
I was planning on remaining in “the shadows” and not being first, for many a moon then this :rofl2: 😎 :rofl2:
good morning sheeple
The Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation must be where they gather together all the intellectual fools in the SBR.. No one with eyes in their head or a brain would ever come up with these STUPID ideas :jason::jason::jason::jason:
WOW PJ you must be so brilliant to get them snakes going in the minute time Raging Granny and Siggy let you play :40: [with/by yourself]
Bad Wenxia :spank::spank::spank: SO sorry :bow::bow::bow:
:tinfoil: On the other hand maybe the DARPA people built some with neither a brain or an optical processor.. They are strictly state machines intended to just babble the party line.:eek::eek::jason::jason::jason:.
Technical people normally play by themselves but seldom with them selves unless they are aslo :omg::tinfoil: DARPA thugbots.:eek::eek::omg:
Fred re 4 :banana: now that makes me happy, but try tex-toxic-ass (i.e. toxic ass) since we are asses and besides real asses are 😎
hmmm you know Delta Elites are :cool:cool, but I can do the same with a .22. Mwah AhAh
😳 oops I forgot the first period.
Susan Joy and Wanwenxia :banana::rofl2::omg::rofl2::banana: and me makes the power of 3 ,
And As We Will (It) So Shall (Mt) It Be … TeeHee (aka MMMwah AhAh or Bwah AhAh)
…and with that I shall Brew a Steaming Cup of
Tea:joe: for me.
If you relocated them all to TexASS and denied them air conditioning they would all go nuts during their first summer and kill each other off… it would be so fun to watch on the traffic cams..:eek::eek::eek:
I’m brewing tea also :joe:
From the WSJ
12:45 a.m.: Declaring that the Middle East peace process has reached “a sorry juncture,” the U.N. political chief called for a new international effort to settle decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahim Gambari told the U.N. Security Council that the crises in the region must be addressed together in a comprehensive approach championed by the council “to bring peace and stability to the region as a whole.”
=============================
As soon as the “plan” includes neutering Israel it will cause Mr. Mustache to have a third order tizzy fit and will go no where.:yuck::yuck::yuck::yuck::barf:
Sheehan hospitalized after surgery in Waco
WACO, Texas — War protester Cindy Sheehan was recovering in the hospital after having a hysterectomy Tuesday, her spokeswoman said.
Sheehan had surgery at Providence Health Center in Waco, about 20 miles from land she recently bought in President Bush’s adopted hometown of Crawford, where her war protest has been going on the past 2 1/2 weeks, said her spokeswoman Tiffany Burns.
Sheehan, 49, of Berkeley, Calif., is expected to be hospitalized several days and then rejoin the peace vigil. It will continue until Sept. 3, although Bush’s August vacation ended earlier this month after only 10 days.
http://tinyurl.com/gzvku
=============================
:omg:I heard she wasn’t doing well.. This may explain a lot..:omg:
SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a Bush administration plan to allow commercial logging in Giant Sequoia National Monument, home to two-thirds of the world’s largest trees.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer sided with state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and environmental groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service over plans to log about 3,200 acres of the 328,000-acre preserve, home to 38 Sequoia groves in Central California.
“The Forest Service’s interest in harvesting timber has trampled the applicable environmental laws,” Breyer wrote, calling the agency’s forest management plan “incomprehensible.”
The plan would have allowed up to 7.5 million board feet of timber – enough to fill 1,500 logging trucks – to be removed each year from the monument in Sierra Nevada, the plaintiffs said.
http://tinyurl.com/fw7uv
============================
Were these the trees DRUID was helping to hug.. ???
that’s pretty major surgery and takes awhile to bounce back from what what I’ve heard…I actually hope she doesn’t push herself forward too fast. Knowing her she will, though. I hope she feels better quickly
Yeah Rhodes was out of service for like three weeks and then she could hardly move as I remember.:paranoid:
If she had the traditional (big incision, big scar) recovery will be slow–about 6 weeks. If she had the three-small-bandAid laparoscopic version, she should recover in half the time or less.
:gate:In any event a speedy and full recovery to her:gate::fist:
yeah, laparoscopic surgery is a great thing and it’s done more and more often these days.
.. so Bush wants to log the Great Sequoia forest? The man is so fucking evil I don’t even have words….
:billcat:There are no words for such a raging putz:billcat:
No letdown in Mexico protests
Wednesday, August 23, 2006 (Oaxaca):
Masked men shot a protester dead in the Mexican city of Oaxaca on Tuesday.
The incident escalated the wave of political violence and increasing pressure on President Vicente Fox to intervene.
A group of about 15 men in three cars, one with a logo of the city police department, drove up to a private radio station that has been occupied by protesters and sprayed gunfire at the building.
Protester Lorenzo Pablo, a 52-year-old architect, was hit several times and died in a hospital.
(snip/…)
http://tinyurl.com/ftgmy
==============================
Negroponte must be involved now..:eek::eek::eek::gate::omg::jason::jason::jason::fist:
U.N. draft rules of engagement detailed
The draft rules of engagement would allow “use of force, up to and including deadly force, while assisting the government of Lebanon, at its request to secure its borders and other points of entry to prevent the entry into Lebanon, without its consent, of foreign forces, arms or related material.”
The rules would also authorize lethal force to “protect civilians under imminent threat of violence, when competent local authorities are unavailable or unable to render immediate assistance.” Force could also be used “to ensure the security and freedom of movement of U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers.”
http://tinyurl.com/fz3hu
===============================
Just wait until the UN troops start shooting at Israeli commandos. Mr. Mustache will have another third order tizzy fit.:eek::eek::eek:
Dixie Chicks documentary could be election issue
By Gregg Goldstein Tue Aug 22, 9:29 AM ET
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – The politically charged documentary “Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing” has been picked up for worldwide distribution by the Weinstein Co.
A release is tentatively scheduled for the fall, possibly right before the November elections.
The film revolves around the aftermath of singer
Natalie Maines’ statement at a 2003 London concert, where she said, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”
It chronicles death threats, political attacks and radio boycotts against the country trio, and that could make the film a political hot potato as well as potential ammo should longtime Democratic party supporter Harvey Weinstein become involved in the fall political campaigns..
http://tinyurl.com/phhox
================================
I hope it comes out before the election.:fustrate::fustrate::paranoid:
fred re 14 :banana::cool::banana: 😉
I think it would be a great experiment to put a lot of the “survival of the fittest ( translated wealthiest)” crowd in a position where they could either fend for themselves under very adverse conditions or ask the Federal government to save them and see what route they take.. ( you have three guesses the first two don’t count).. You of course have to make a video documentary and publish all their names over and over again. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::yuck::yuck:
Fred, Bloody Hell to all which you wrote … :growl:
but Yea to the Great Sequoia Forest win but I am sad for Cindy — I wish she would have come back here. I do not trust over there (I even have a sis over there :eek:)
PJ, I love:love: the snakes and always pause when passing :banana:
:rofl2::banana: You got a slick one RAGING Granny :banana::rofl2::wink:
The snake is crawling but the banana is still not dancing …:growl::growl::growl:
The snake is crawling but the banana is still not dancing …
Comment by fred — August 23, 2006 @ 6:55 am
Sounds like a medical problem.
:rofl2:
I am there for important support re Tree sitters and positive protesters re our Redwoods and re the death of a treesitter…
… and I have to find out WHY the WORLD are not saving these Ancient Trees … that is THE main reason why I/we moved up here and of course or the Wolves. :growl:
Then there are ALL Code 3 (Red Lights and Sirens) Issues 😮
At least BITCH to COSTCO why in the hell they do not have RECYCLED PAPER MOSTLY:!:
Dutch F-16s escort flight to Amsterdam airport
U.S. plane bound for India returns to Schiphol; several passengers detained
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14477489/from/RS.1/
================================
terra terra terra :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::crap::crap::crap::crap::crap:
fred , re 31 ahhhhhhhh 😮 😳 mine is dancing 😉
Kevin M re 32 :rofl2::lol::rofl2:
So the FL Repig gubernatorial debate was last night. 60 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
The official score in the Name-Dropping The Holy Name Of King Jeb contest:
Charlie Crist 7
Tom Gallagher 5
No big surprises. Both Repigs were fairly adept at not answering questions they didn’t want to answer. Gallagher thumped his Bible and accused Crist of being a LIBERAL :omg: , while Crist attempted to paint himself as pro-life (who the fuck is ANTI-life, other than W, Cheney and Rumsfeld?) and more conservative than YOU are, nyah nyah nyah.
Honestly, I would not elect either of these sanctimonious assholes to clean my toilet, much less govern the state.
To be fair, almost all of the Repigs are sucking up to Jeb in their campaign ads, since according to polls he is such a beloved figure. This is very puzzling to those of us who CAN’T FUCKING STAND JEB BUSH, but I’ve given up on finding anyone who can explain it to me coherently in such a way that doesn’t make me want to :barf:
The Dem debate is tonight. Jim Davis and Rod Smith. Like most Floridian Dems, I’m still on the fence. Davis is ahead by a few points, but Undecided is seriously kicking both their asses.
I’m in the mood to be wooed. Pitch to me, fellas.
Perhaps recycled toilet paper is to rough for the rethugs delicate bottoms. It leaves fragments on the back of their necks:eek::eek::eek::yuck::yuck::crap::crap::crap:
Well the rethugs approval ratings are going up since the London plane bombing situation, even though all these terra threats seem to be concocted. Despite what one might think most people seem to still be either in denial, watching FAUX news or just not paying attention.. it will the undoing of all of us if the thugs are allowed to remain in control of anything.. :jason::jason::jason::jason:
So, fred, if everything blows up, 😯 the rethugs will have infinite approval! :smack:
Kevin M :banana:
Fred :rofl2::banana::rofl2:
King Kong , :banana: :nod: :fustrate::smack: :growl::fist::jason:
My frozen bananas are now dancing. :banana:
I wonder if the pollsters are also being employed by the rethugs.. :jason::jason::jason::gate::omg::jason::jason::jason:
😎 way cool, pj!
Had a dream I met and talked with Nancy Pelosi. What the heck is THAT about? :billcat:
Morning! :joe:
HA!
How’s the future looking, KK?
Oh yeah …
:banana::banana::banana: Its King Kong :banana::banana::banana:
How are things in east Asia this day or is it tomorrow already..???
:banana::banana::banana: Its FamerKat :banana::banana:
Whats happeing in Hotlanta country..??
Fred, :eek::omg::eek: ( I just wanted to be in DeNile :doh::doh::doh:)
but I can no longer except the denial of many IN AMERICA :no: :fu:
:nod::omg::fustrate::billcat::growl::fist::jason:
:joe: and…morning to you Fred & Druid & Kevin & any lurkers, too!
had an email war with my nra neighbor. he’s a doctor and supposedly a scientist but questions the cause of global warming. :rofl2: :omg: my bro-in-law said most fanatical nra guys were nerds and wimps growing up and in high school. :nod:
Farmerkat re 45 How’s the future looking, KK?
:rofl2::lol::rofl2:
My bananas dance when FireFox is first opened but quit after I reload..:eek: They work ok under IE6..but the big text in the comment box doesn’t
decisions, decisions decisions :eek::eek::eek:
FK- The future looks better this week. I’ve been taking my morning swims again and my Taiwan tax refund arrived in the mail today.
fred- weirdness in Taiwan. Some people are upset about nonscandles and the pres who says he won’t go. and they complain that unemployment is WAY up to 4.05%.
Druid, I have a crystal ball that is fairly accurate when it does disclose something. :tinfoil: Usually it’s just cloudy. :yinyang:
:omg:We should always consult KK on how our day is going to be.. he’s been there and done that already.:shock::tongue:
wonderful that you’re feeling better and swimming, KK. :gate:
Do you pay US tax, too? I read that dumbya increased the tax for expats.
wow, interesting.
:yawn::shock:
The US IRS wants a cut (tax) of foreign made money over US$70,000. I don’t make enough to pay. Whether I should file or not is another question.
:banana::banana::banana: its sblueheron :banana::banana::banana:
Whats happening in Seattle this morning..
if you ever come back, won’t they question the lack of returns….the irs is :jason: => they’ll cut us worker bees to shreds.
Morning sblue!
ok, better get the show on the road ’round here.
King Kong “I see, I see that it is Cloudy” :rofl2:
Fred, re 54 :rofl2:
Hi SBlueHeron … tea:joe: Cheers.
Farmerkat 😉 (Cheers to The Farm :wink:) Maybe it’s time for a “swarm” :fist: 😎
Reading the future is not a commercial option for me. 🙂 Though Dad asks for sports scores that I can never deliver on. :tongue:
King Kong, “The Predictor” :rofl2: 😉
commercial or career option? 😀
this is an unusual ad for a criminal defense lawyer.
:bong:
OK, the banana was set to loop 998 times, so I changed it to loop forever; hopefully that will help those of you with BD (banana dysfunction).
:nod:
ok, NOW i really must go.
Ciao!
:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:
thanks, pj. The banana and apple are on one infinite loop.
The banana was produced w/o the aid of sweatshop labor.
yeah :banana::banana::banana::banana:
:yawn:
re: 66— very srtange ad. :bong:
SeanMS :rofl2: re 69
PJSauter :rofl2: re 71
I have to get “pretty” for Kangaroo Court. :omg:
:knit::gate:Travel Well ALL in all Journeys
And Great Snakes PJ :banana:
Sean, tired from all that banana dancing?
881 druid! I’m gone for now, too.
881, all.
Good Morning :joe: HA ha! Tom Cruise got fired.
:spank:take that buchanan!
Svetlana was Bin Ladens kinda girlfriend Rachel.
:rofl2::rofl2: Bin Laden likes Rock Lobster and Kent Jones does a great impression of Fred Sneider! :rofl2:
Thanks Sean. Hopefully that’ll learn ‘im!
Damn, they seem to have changed one of my classes to an online class, which means I now have two online classes (and they waited until 5 days before the start of classes to tell me). That kinda sucks, since I took this class for the instructor, and then they changed that to somebody I’ve never heard of. Now they change it to online, after I go and pay for parking, just so I can park in the lot across from where the class was supposed to be.
On the bright side, it means I only have to go to campus once a week, on Tuesday afternoon. Still pisses me off, though, since online classes tend to be a real pain in the ass, and one was plenty.
:paranoid:james buchanan!
He’s considered one of the worst preznits of all time (before the current one, of course).
Report: Charter school pupils score lower
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press | August 23, 2006
WASHINGTON — Fourth-graders in traditional public schools are doing better in both reading and math than students in charter schools, the government said in a report fueling fresh debate over school choice.
http://tinyurl.com/qxzdq
I think that Bush will far surpass Buchanon in that regard. 🙄
The early history of Mount St. Helens is poorly known, and a long timespan is covered by the Ape Canyon Stage. During this stage, lava domes erupted west of the present edifice of the volcano in two distinct periods–one from 300 to 250 thousand years ago (ka) and a second from 125 to 35 ka. A number of ash layers, called the “C” set, are clearly related to volcanism during the younger phase of the Ape Canyon Stage, and a few ashes found in central Washington older than the C set are also from Mount St. Helens. Although some Ape Canyon-age lava domes are exposed in the area of Goat Mountain and Butte Camp, the best record of early Mount St. Helens volcanism is preserved in the Cougar-age debris avalanche (see below) and in glacial deposits and lahars in the Lewis River Valley.
Many Ape Canyon-age rocks were altered hydrothermally (by volcanically heated ground water), indicating that an extensive hydrothermal system existed during the latter part of the stage. Volcanism during the Ape Canyon Stage produced a small cluster of lava domes with maximum elevations of about 4,000 feet.
:omg:
I’m pretty certain dubya will be known as the worst of all time. For one thing, at least Buchanan kept his promise – in his inaugural address, he promised not to run for a second term, and he didn’t. Unfortunately, there was that whole Civil War thingie.
Sammy article in the Boston Globe (Seder, not StemCell):
Much more, and worth a read, IMHO.
WTNT34 KNHC 230843
TCPAT4
BULLETIN
TROPICAL STORM DEBBY ADVISORY NUMBER 7
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042006
500 AM AST WED AUG 23 2006
…DEBBY BECOMES A LITTLE STRONGER OVER THE FAR EASTERN ATLANTIC…
AT 500 AM AST…0900Z…THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM DEBBY WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 15.9 NORTH…LONGITUDE 30.1 WEST OR ABOUT 385
MILES…625 KM…WEST-NORTHWEST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE
ISLANDS.
DEBBY IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 16 MPH…26 KM/HR…
AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24
HOURS.
SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT THE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE
INCREASED TO NEAR 45 MPH…75 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME SLOW
STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 50 MILES…85 KM
FROM THE CENTER.
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1002 MB…29.59 INCHES.
REPEATING THE 500 AM AST POSITION…15.9 N…30.1 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD…WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 16 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…45
MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…1002 MB.
THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
1100 AM AST.
http://tinyurl.com/m6ye8
================================
Looks like its headed for Greenland. or.. New York City:eek::eek::eek::eek:.
Oh, this is in the article. Did I miss an announcement?
:barf:ugh i turned on my radio to hear some fucking jon benet beatles rip off song thanks for making me think i might hear sam!:mad:
Oregon Portland Elephant’s Delicatessen
13 NW 23rd Avenue Has Real Soda’s Moxie original Elixir and Cherry flavored in 12 oz bottles
Oregon Portland Real Soda of Oregon
3627 NE MLK Blvd.
503-781-1844 Real Soda Sells Wholesale and Retail
Primary distributor in southwest Washington and all of Oregon
:doh:so has sam said hes replacing springer?
A quick post to say the article PJ posted about Sam is great. We must both have Marc Maron on Google alert! It’s a pain to register for the article but worth it.
thats weird i read the article when the link first went up and no registering crap came up but it does when i go back strange!
PJ-where did you get the sanke?? I want to put it on my blog!
And…good morning everyone….what a tiring morning it is too….Will couldnt sleeplast night after our trip into the wilds of western CT and now Im in some sorta stupor of…what did we have to do today?
We spent most of the time in the car listening to FUBAR…very funny but it does go a little bit deeply into the abstinence only programs etc…and I kept askign Will if he thought it was too much information, but ultimately he was interested and its pretty important for any preteen guy to know about this stuff….plus, with Sam himself reading it, its pretty funny as he formats the book sorta like Jon’s America book….
As all of you know, no plane has hit the Pentagon. Thanks to courageous work of some good people (Lollah blaise them) this subject is now solved with no possible denial. The thing that hit the Pentagon was no other than a Boeing 757 made of ice. That explains the fact no plane wreckage was found. The Boeing-look-alike was piloted by Elvis who is the true founder of al-Qaeda. He was picked in mid-air by JFK in an alien ship (see the great movie 4th of July with Willie Smith) and they live now a comfort life in London. They are guests of the Queen. It was all a British plot to regain the North-American colonies.
By the way, Her Majesty, Elvis and JFK are all of course Jews.
JACKEE O
Great article PJ. It’s gonna make me have to rush to get to work on time. :omg:
um…snakes on this blog….mutha fuckin snakes on this blog!!
Seder said he was going to be on vacation this week .. so maybe he will bump Springer next Monday..
Maybe KKZN will have him instead of Marvin… Jay is actually a poorer liberal than Shultz is..
I think everyone has quit listening..:eek::eek::eek:
naked chicks and bubblegum!
The Fertility Gap
Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply.
BY ARTHUR C. BROOKS
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The midterm election looms, and once again efforts begin afresh to increase voter participation. It has become standard wisdom in American politics that voter turnout is synonymous with good citizenship, justifying just about any scheme to get people to the polls. Arizona is even considering a voter lottery, in which all voters are automatically registered for a $1 million giveaway. Polling places and liquor stores in Arizona will now have something in common.
On the political left, raising the youth vote is one of the most common goals. This implicitly plays to the tired old axiom that a person under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart (whereas one who is still a liberal after 30 has no head). The trouble is, while most “get out the vote” campaigns targeting young people are proxies for the Democratic Party, these efforts haven’t apparently done much to win elections for the Democrats. The explanation we often hear from the left is that the new young Democrats are more than counterbalanced by voters scared up by the Republicans on “cultural issues” like abortion, gun rights and gay marriage.
But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a “fertility gap” of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.
Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today’s problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020–and all for no other reason than babies.
The fertility gap doesn’t budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race–or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative. Some believe the gap reflects an authentic cultural difference between left and right in America today. As one liberal columnist in a major paper graphically put it, “Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation.” It would appear liberals have been quite successful controlling overpopulation–in the Democratic Party.
Of course, politics depends on a lot more than underlying ideology. People vote for politicians, not parties. Lots of people are neither liberal nor conservative, but rather vote on the basis of personalities and specific issues. But all things considered, if the Democrats continue to appeal to liberals and the Republicans to conservatives, getting out the youth vote may be increasingly an exercise in futility for the American left.
Democratic politicians may have no more babies left to kiss.
Mr. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs, is the author of “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism,” forthcoming from Basic Books.
:banana: Morning all those snakes and bananas woke me up so early…Fred I am in Spokane and woke up with a sore throat and a very sore back:omg::hot:
That’s how it is here I hope I am not
:barf:
anyway…Intel is a huge contributor to the rethugs:mad:
Kat…if youre aorund check out HuffPo for the Zogby poll that shows that americans are finally seeing global warming…and believe that its caused or been a part of much of what we see now. I would hope to see higher numbers but that would mean that we were actually educating people in this country….nope…but at least some of em…most of em…see it.
George W. Bush: Chuckle Nuts, the Giggling Killer, President Bunny Pants, Man-or-Monkey, Dim Son, Weak-and-Stupid, Raisin Brain(s), Too-Stupid-to-Be-President, Too-Stupid-to-Chew-a-Pretzel, Too-stupid-to-ride-a-bicycle, Dipthong, MENSA Man, the Bush Bastard, the Toy President, Guaca-Moron, Cinco de Moron, Prince Valium
Im not hopeful about the lineup and Im sick of Rachel’s goofy girl thing….Im trying sirius but they have this horrible woman in the afternoon who is so much worse than Randi…if thats possible….
Is there a word: garrulous?….scratchy voice and ranting about …I dont even know what…and 3 hours later she is still there….ranting about something. I think that she is the funny for sirius left
malloy!
I hope it’s true that Seder is taking Springer’s place. If it is I’ll be listening to AAR in the AM again,.
Hey, Melina, you’re not talking about Lynn Samuels, are you? She has got to be the most horribly annoying radio person of all time (except I’ve heard her call Ann Coulter a c*nt, so I’ll give her an extra point – maybe the one that Scott Norwood missed – for that). I tried to listen to Sirius Left after the XM thing went down, but between her and Alex Bennett and, yes, the Young Turds (sorry, but when I heard Yank or Crank or whichever one it was railing on and on and on about how horrible it was when a caller referred to the bushies as fascists, they lost me right there), I finally decided to just pull the plug on Sirius (now I’m stuck with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment for both, waiting to see which will be the first to add Marc Maron, so I can re-activate).
So, whattya think? Riley from 6 – 9 again? Or will AAR move to an all-vanilla lineup on weekdays?
Hey Melina
I ordered tickets for the taping on Sunday but now I can’t find the confirmation email..I want to cancel and free up the tickets..(.you ave to have picture ID to use them)
Do you have the number to call?
:nod:riley from 6 to 9 makes sense and he can take more calls
blue- Ive got on my confirmation: 1-818-771-8227
Oh how I wish you were coming!!…..
Oh well…we’ll get together some time soon…..
EEEKKK…no riley at all. What I heard is that riley stays with WLIB, which is where he has been long employed before AAR came to town.
Thank god….we dont have to worry that he is OK…nor do we have to hear him, or choose not to….Id prefer Army Williams at this point…honestly!
So, I wonder who we get at AAR in the morning (not that I actually listen anymore)? Woulda been great if they coulda met Marc’s terms.
who is army williams?:doh:
Hmm. The MR blog seems to be down. Probably too many people trying to find out what the scoop is.
Armstrong Williams, paid propagandist, and co-host of the morning show on 1600-AM in NYC (where AAR will be broadcasting from come Sept. 1st).
Um…I wasn’t seeing my posts yesterday as I was posting them, Am I going insane or was I really stuck in the spam filter?:yawn:
No matter. I’ll just read the news now, and forget that little incident ever happened:doh:
Hey Travis you were first:banana:
Thanks for the number Melina!
well, i didn’t even know i first until this morning. i thought i was losing every post into a blogger abyss , never to be seen again.
BOB: TIMES A CHANGIN’ FOR WORSE
Reuters
August 23, 2006 — LOS ANGELES – Bob Dylan says the quality of modern recordings is “atrocious,” and even the songs on his new album sounded much better in the studio than on disc.
“I don’t know anybody who’s made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really,” the 65-year-old rocker said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
Dylan returns with his first recording in five years, “Modern Times,” next Tuesday.
Noting the industry’s complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free, he said, “Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing, anyway.”
Are we waiting for a signal or something? Like an alarm clock. Wake up, peeps!
At least Sue is sorta throwin’ it down!
After yesterday’s Marine reserves call up by the Defense Department, an Iraq veterans group says a draft will be the next step, according to a report at ABC News.
Reports yesterday indicated that 2,500 inactive reserve members of the Marines were called up for duty in Iraq. The Marines are members of the individual Ready Reserve and have already given four years of service, allowing them to return to civilian life. However, they are contractually obligated to return to service when needed.
But Jon Soltz, of the group VoteVets.org, warned that the call up showed the lack of plans for victory in Iraq, and the problems faced by an overburdened American military. Furthermore, he warned ABC News’s The Blotter that the move is “one of the last steps before resorting to a draft.”
http://tinyurl.com/rhets
===========================
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Actually a draft is a good way to be sure we don’t get involved in any more illegal wars.. It was what got the 18-26 year olds into the street in the 1970’s
Douglas Hennican, in NY Newsday, has written a review of the new Rudy Giuliani book, “Grand Illusion.” It sounds like fun. I hope it truly depicts the ridiculous, counterproductive, mean spirited rule of Rudy.
http://tinyurl.com/ghbgn
I don’t have much to throw down anyway. Some guy- Jeff, I think-was getting all drunk and philosophical about life last night, there at the Moon. He said that life was like a blanket and that we’re just threads weaved in.:knit2:
I have to go finish my indentured servant semi-contractual obligations of painting the back deck. Later:peace:
:mad:i dont wanna get drafted!
:doh:oh yeah i already served:tongue:
How in the world could you forget that Sean.. was it traumatic or something.:mrgreen:
:neutral:well i didnt serve my whole contract but as of september no more irr
Well, since you’re out there in Seattle, Travis, perhaps you could repeat the words of Chief Seattle to Jeff:
Individual Ready Reserve
(DOD) A manpower pool consisting of individuals who have had some training, who have served previously in the Active Component or in the Selected Reserve, and have some period of their military service obligation remaining. Members may voluntarily participate in training for retirement points and promotion with or without pay. Also called IRR. See also Selected Reserve.
thanks, pj. i’ll remember that one.
super troopers kicks ass!
OK, send me your list of candidates for the upcoming elections, and I’ll add them to the “act blue” list on the right (and to http://www.actblue.com/page/ms). Unfortunately, they need to be Democrats, or people running for the Democratic nomination, so I can’t add, say, Gus Hall (is he still alive?). Also, if you could include the race (House, Senate, State Senate, Governor, etc), the state, and the district (since that’s how I have to look them up), that would be great.
Update: Alas, Gus died in 2000. 🙁
ugh my congressman is a scumbag if you add him i’m not blogging anymore on principle!
Hey, bloggerin, I had a busy morning but I’m here now. Any news on the raccoon front? (It’s apparently going to be on Countdown with Keith Olberman tonight….)
PJ, are you channeling Samantha Bee? I really think Samuel L. Jackson took the part strictly on the strength of that one line. It’s not like he needed the work or the money and it’s not like it was a real acting job…
that “one” line wasnt even in the movie to begin with! it was gonna be pg-13:barf:
sblue, sorry you’re not going to the taping! “DH” (no, not the insulting term, he’s a dear) & I are going. Took some arm twisting and subtle wifey tactics.
I want to bring Marc something. What’s the best way of getting it to him Sunday?
I’m at boooooring work right now but I’ll check back later tonight.
Oh, and is there a new AAR lineup listed anywhere?? Maybe AAR will ultimately go for the “soft and jewy” Seder/Marin mix in the late morning!
marc is too expensive!
:fu:then again i am sure marc is much cheaper than al!
How the $%$%@#$$:tinfoil:$%^%$^ did they plan to make the motherf*****g movie PG-13 even without that line? Violence, grossness, ick!
My Congressman is a gem. Earl Blumenauer is so pro-environment, he rides his bike in DC. But it’s Carol Voisin in District 2 who really needs the help. She’s running against our only incumbent Repig Rep (Walden) plus there’s a third candidate from the (get this) Militia Movement running as an independent.
:tongue::pent::omg::sdavid:
:banana:
😯
re: 147: thus a better value!
Who listed this blog on Wikipedia’s site as being anti-AAR? (I think they said we were critical of AAR.) I mean, in a lot of ways we are but I don’t think we’re in the same category as some of the bozo Repig groups they have us in company with. Yeesh!
Has anyone heard any Jim Earl news lately? I’m worried about the boy.
“The founding fathers didn’t get everything right,”[Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach] said, calling the Electoral College “a dinosaur.”
Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, called the proposal “brazenly unconstitutional.”
He and Republican state Senators Dennis Hollingsworth of La Mesa and Jeff Denham of Merced said the founding fathers settled on compromise that does not include a direct popular vote for president. They said the effort to tie electoral votes to the popular vote violates that portion of the Constitution.
“We don’t have a democracy; we have a constitutional republic,” Hollingsworth said.
If it eventually becomes law, the legislation would take effect only if states with a combined 270 electoral votes – the number now required to win the presidency – also agreed to decide the election by popular vote. Similar legislation is pending in Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri.
:omg:
“We don’t have a democracy; we have a constitutional republic,” Hollingsworth said.
Dominated by business interests, one must add. :fu:
“and to the republic for which it stands” Every American should know that. It’s in the pledge of allegience. Of course it should read “and to the republic for which it stands, run by corporations, a faulty constitution by and for rich elite white men, and only the wealthy can run for office, not necessarily liberty or justice for all
OR
I Pledge Allegiance to the Authoritarian Leader of the United States of America and to the Neocon Agenda for which he stands, one Nation under Fear, divided, with liberty and justice for Ashcroft.
(obviously not a current parody)
maybe not current, gypsy, but relevent 🙂
Transform the CONSTITution. Ban those private tyrannies called…
:omg:
Mystery in Iraq as $300 Million is Taken Abroad
By DEXTER FILKINS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 21 – Earlier this month, according to Iraqi officials, $300 million in American bills was taken out of Iraq’s Central Bank, put into boxes and quietly put on a charter jet bound for Lebanon.
The money was to be used to buy tanks and other weapons from international arms dealers, the officials say, as part of an accelerated effort to assemble an armored division for the fledgling Iraqi Army. But exactly where the money went, and to whom, and for precisely what, remains a mystery, at least to Iraqis who say they have been trying to find out.
The $300 million deal appears to have been arranged outside the American-designed financial controls intended to help Iraq – which defaulted on its external debt in the 1990’s – legally import goods. By most accounts here, there was no public bidding for the arms contracts, nor was the deal approved by the entire 33-member Iraqi cabinet.
On Friday, the mysterious flight became an issue in this country’s American-backed election campaign, when Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan, faced with corruption allegations, threatened to arrest a political rival.
In an interview on Al Jazeera television, Mr. Shalaan said he would order the arrest of Ahmed Chalabi, one of the country’s most prominent politicians, who has publicly accused Mr. Shalaan of sending the cash out of the country. Mr. Shalaan said he would extradite Mr. Chalabi to face corruption charges of his own.
“We will arrest him and hand him over to Interpol,” Mr. Shalaan thundered on Al Jazeera. The charge against Mr. Chalabi, he said, would be “maligning” him and his ministry. He suggested that Mr. Chalabi had made the charges to further his political ambitions.
Mr. Chalabi first made the allegation against Mr. Shalaan last week, on another Arabic-language television network. He said there was no legitimate reason why the Iraqi government should have used cash to pay for goods from abroad. He implied that at least some of the money was being used for other things.
“Why was $300 million in cash put on an airplane?” Mr. Chalabi asked in an interview this week. “Where did the money go? What was it used for? Who was it given to? We don’t know.”
The $300 million flight has been the talk of Iraq’s political class, and fueled the impression among many Iraqis and Western officials that the interim Iraqi government, set up after the American occupation formally ended in June, is awash in corruption. It is not clear whether the money came from Iraqi or American sources, or both.
http://tinyurl.com/orkrh
Mexico City.
The Congress of the country is ringed by two-meter tall grilled metal barriers soldered together apparently to thwart a suicide car bomb attack. Behind this metal wall, 3000 vizored, kevlar-wearing robocops — the Federal Preventative Police (PFP, a police force drawn from the army) — and members of the elite Estado Mayor or Presidential military command, form a second line of defense. Armed with tear gas launchers, water cannons, and reportedly light tanks, this Praetorian Guard has been assigned to protect law and order and the institutions of the republic against left-wing mobs that threaten to storm the Legislative Palace — or so the President informs his fellow citizens in repeated messages transmitted on national television.
No, the President’s name is not Pinochet and this military tableau is not being mounted in the usual banana republic or some African satrap. This is Mexico, a paragon of democracy (dixit George Bush), Washington’ third trading partner, and the eighth leading petroleum producer on the planet, seven weeks after the fraud-marred July 2 presidential election of which, at this writing, no winner has been officially declared. One of the elite military units assigned to seal off congress is indeed titled the July 2 brigade.
MEXICO ON A KNIFEBLADE headlines the British Guardian, but the typically short-term-memory-loss U.S. print media seems to have forgotten about the imbroglio just south of its borders. Nonetheless, the phone rings and it’s New York telling me they just got a call from their man on the border and Homeland Security is beefing up its forces around Laredo in anticipation of upheaval further south. The phone rings again and it’s California telling me they just heard on Air America that U.S. Navy patrols were being dispatched to safeguard Mexican oil platforms in the Gulf. The left-wing daily here, La Jornada, runs a citizen-snapped photo of army convoys arriving carrying soldiers disguised as farmers and young toughs. Rumors race through the seven mile-long encampment installed by supporters of leftist presidential challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) three weeks ago who have tied up big city traffic and enraged the motorist class here, that PFP robocops will attack before dawn. The campers stay up all night huddled around bum fires prepared to defend their tent cities.
The moment reminds many Mexicans of the tense weeks in September and October 1968 when 12 days before the Olympic Games were to be inaugurated here, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz ordered the military to massacre striking students in a downtown plaza not far from where AMLO’s people are now camped out. 300 were killed in the Plaza of Three Cultures, their bodies incinerated at Military Camp #1 in western Mexico City. The Tlatelolco massacre was a watershed in social conflict here and the similarities are sinister. In fact, Lopez Obrador has taken to comparing outgoing President Vicente Fox with Diaz Ordaz…
http://www.counterpunch.org
Yes, we have a republic, and you can also say “representative democracy” (though I use the term “representative” loosely, of course), as opposed to a “direct” democracy. Really, the way in which we “elect” a President (popular vote or otherwise) really has little to do with the form of government. It is, afterall, the only office (along with the VP of course) that is elected that way. The problem was, people like Adams were terrified that “the people” would actually elect a president.
There is a movement (though a tiny one, sad to say) to move this country to a direct democracy, now that it’s technologically feasible. Of course, we’d still need to come up with some sort of a council to write proposed legislation, and put it on the agenda, but then every eligible citizen would be able to vote on it, up or down (as opposed electing legislators, the way we do now).
A good start would be to reduce the dominance that big money has over the election process. Only millionaires need apply.
What Might Tom Paine Have Said About George Bush?
by Sherwood Ross; August 23, 2006
Peculiarly, a lot of what American patriot Tom Paine wrote in 1775 about the British Crown seems to apply to President Bush today.
For example, Paine believed, “any excuse can be made to serve the purpose of malignity when it is in power.” And when ever was there a more deceitful example of this than Bush’s lie that Iraq had WMD?
As historian John Keane wrote in his excellent “Tom Paine: A Political Life” (Little, Brown and Co.) despots — as Paine saw them- plunder “the pockets and lives of their subjects, since that is the most effective way of raising and feeding armies and making their subjects afraid, obedient, and willing to pay taxes. Wars between despotic states thereby tend to increase rulers’ lust for power over their own populations. War, wrote Paine, is ‘the art of conquering at home.'” (Original italics.)
And so we are, indeed, conquered at home. We live under a regime that can arrest and imprison any of us for as long as it likes, one that denies our privacy, scraps our international treaties, and shreds our Bill of Rights.
Having been given no honest reason for launching the war on Iraq, the real reason most probably is oil, just as Paine wrote the reason King George III made war on America was because “her crime is property.”
As President Bush confiscates our taxes for Iraq, and squanders the lives of our troops, let’s recall Paine’s words about the crimes of the Crown: “Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor?”
These words ring true in thousands of American homes tonight, where loved ones have been killed or maimed in Iraq; where millions of people are sliding into poverty as a result of Bush’s anti-compassionate policies; and where 40-million people have no health coverage. The bell tolls even louder for millions of Iraqi families whose nation Bush has turned into a veritable charnel house.
And what would Tom Paine have made of the wanton cruelty that George Washington forbid his soldiers to engage in but can now be described as “routine” under Commander-in-Chief George Bush’s military?
“It is time to have done with tarring, feathering, carting and taking securities for their future good behaviour,” Paine wrote charitably of British sympathizers. “Every sensible man must feel conscious shame at seeing a poor fellow hawked for a show about the streets.” What Paine might have said of men stacked in human pyramids or hung from chains until dead!
Paine inveighed against the death penalty. Condemning the excesses of the French Revolution, he said, “as France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find out a milder and more effective substitute.” What would he have said about the ever-sizzling Texas electric chair under Governor Bush?
As for all citizens bearing government’s burden equally, Pain’s view was very different from President Bush’s call to ditch the “death tax.” According to Keane: Believing as Paine did the earth is “the common property of the human race,” it followed “the propertied have an obligation to help the poor, not by charity alone, but by accepting a government-administered inheritance tax system designed to redistribute and equalize income.”
As for Bush’s boasting about “freedom,” let us recall these words by Paine: “When it shall be said in any country in the world, ‘My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive’— when these things can be said then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.”
With two million men in jail, and the poor growing by the millions, Bush has precious little to boast about. Speaking of jails, when do you suppose Bush might pardon the hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on flimsy marijuana convictions while he, who tramples the law of nations, whose tongue spills lies, and whose hands drip with the blood of hundreds of thousands, enjoys the run of the White House?
“but we want to be rich so we’ll support the system” :omg: (how a lot of Americans think) or
The American voter would have to get one h* of a lot more education under his belt if we turned the decision making process entirely over to them. The accepted thought is that some 80% of American adults comprehend at about the 7th grade level. The Tabor amendment that Colorado now has suspended for five years required the voters to approve any measure that would increase any state or local tax. Most people voted against everything and everything fell apart. Each special election also cost some 7 million dollars to put on. What we need are publicly financed representatives that are trained in subjects like economics, pubic policy and contract management as apposed to a bunch of forth generation spoiled rich people who don’t know shit from shinola about what they are doing. :growl::growl::growl::growl: :gate::omg::jason::jason::jason::jason::fist:
Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913).
:omg:
The affluent make better citizens. We love it that 1% dominate the whole process. Bushco makes it worse.
Yep, that’d be nice. Unfortunately, people who get elected to a position where they can actually change things tend to want to keep the system that got them there. And then there’s the loopholes. You can write a law that you think is nice and tight, and before the ink is dry, there are thousand lawyers looking for ways around it.
And then there’s the whole “direct” democracy thing, too. Do we really want the “majority” to have absolute power? I mean, a relatively small group of constiuents (unfortunatley, that can mean everything from unions to lobbyists to civil rights groups, to corporate interests to…) can influence politicians, but if the “majority” can impose their will on the “minority,” is that a good thing? I believe it was Madison who was afraid of the “tryanny” of the majority, and I could envision a proposition to, say, expel/imprison all Muslims (or Mexicans, or Gay people, or whatever) passing – especially with our for-profit news and anything for a buck media.
Ah, if only humans weren’t involved, this could be a perfect world.
I’d still rather have the common people have more voting power than the elite, educated or not. The elite are not doing anything for the common people.
Personally, I’d like to see a Parliamentary system in this country. Not that it would be perfect (nothing that invloves people ever will be), but I think it’s a better system than what we have.
The political rights and freedoms that common citizens received from the [Bill of Rights and Constitution] were merely incidental to the real purpose of these documents. If the truth be told, many of the Founding Fathers didn’t give a fig about the rights of the common citizen; they were as fearful of Shay’s Rebellion, an insurgency in 1786 of poor farmers and debtors in Massachusetts, as they were of kingly despotism.
Typical of this viewpoint was John Jay, wealthy Founding Father, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and President of the First Continental Congress. He believed that the upper classes “were the better kind of people, by which I mean the people who are orderly and industrious.” His theory of government was simple: “The people who own the country ought to govern it.” (see Toward an American Revolution by Jerry Fresia).
Two hundred years of frequent practice has only exacerbated such contradictions and inequities, not diminished them. Today, thanks to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, economic power is the primary means of acquiring political power; and political power has become the primary means of protecting economic power. Wealthy corporations and individuals wield a disproportionate amount of political power on national, state and local levels. And just like in 1792, the government is still dominated by white men of property who make sure the government stays out of their business. It is no coincidence that U.S. Senators, Presidents and many U.S. Representatives are members of the Millionaires Club; in this Two Party State, voters normally have a choice between one millionaire or another. Practically speaking, common people have little access to political power.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 33.6 million United States citizens — 13.5% of our population — now live in poverty. Many of these are children. What about the right to have a home? The right to eat? The right to decent medical care? The right of women to walk safely down the street at night or to feel safe in their homes? Why aren’t these basic needs considered as rights, just like the right to a free press, or to bear arms?
Meanwhile, women still only comprise 11% of our elected bodies, even after the so-called “Year of the Woman.” Racial minorities are similarly underrepresented, and both groups earn comparably lower wages than their white male counterparts. Surely if the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution were such great documents, we would have achieved more equality in 200 years time!
These inequalities are a direct result of — not in spite of, but because of — the priority given by the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution to protect the private property of rich individuals and wealthy corporations over basic human rights. As the ne w kings and aristocracy accumulate their treasure chests and gain control over the political process, the disparity in power between rich and poor continues to widen. In the post-World War II era, what has kept this disparity from exploding all over our society is the fact that the United States emerged victorious from World War II, allowing Uncle Sam to exploit other countries and enrich itself. Some of this booty then was permitted by the corporate aristocracy to “trickle down” to the lower classes, creating a relatively large, materialist middle class that, ironically, has become the envy of the world.
Steven Hill
Surely if the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution were such great documents, we would have achieved more equality in 200 years time!
The constitution is “the Bible” you know, sacred text…be careful, that’s how it’s treated, even by many people who don’t subscribe to a strict constitutional interpretation…
I would like to see corporation (private tyrannies) abolished. These are the mechanisms that project power for the wealthy elite. Their interests must have priority over all else. This needs to change…
The only way any kind of major change in election financing and/or public policy can come about is if the politician knows he can have his chain pulled and be flushed any time during his term if he does something that his constituents think goes against there interests. Senators and reps must be able to be recalled.:jason::jason::jason::jason::jason:
Corporations can pull the chain on the economy any time they choose. What can you do about it, citizen?
I’m pretty certain dubya will be known as the worst of all time. For one thing, at least Buchanan kept his promise – in his inaugural address, he promised not to run for a second term, and he didn’t. Unfortunately, there was that whole Civil War thingie.
Comment by pjsauter — August 23, 2006 @ 9:16 am
Which ties him with dubya at one civil war apiece. At least Buchanan’s war ended eventually.
Parecon: Life After Capitalism is about an economic system called Participatory Economics that seeks to accomplish production, consumption, and allocation to efficiently meet needs consistent with the guiding values: equity, diversity, solidarity, and self-management. When people ask what do you want for the economy, I answer: parecon.
Parecon features workplace and consumer councils, self-managing decision-making norms and methods, remuneration for effort and sacrifice, balanced job complexes, and participatory planning. This is a set of institutions very different from those of capitalism as well as from what has been called market socialism.
The book, Parecon: Life After Capitalism, first briefly examines existing systems, revealing their incompatibility with guiding values we hold dear. Then the book presents defining institutions for the new economy. It describes new institutions for workplaces, consumption, and allocation. Next the book details the daily life implications of the proposed new institutions. Finally, the book deals with a host of broad concerns people have registered on first hearing about this new vision: Would it really further our aspirations and values? Would it be productive? Would it violate privacy or subvert individuality? Is it efficient, flexible, creative, meritorious? And so on.
Submit questions for Noam Chomsky.
Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China: 1. Do you believe that the type of statement made last week by Ford Motor Company regarding corporate social responsibility represents a step toward voluntary self-policing that is a realistic solution under global competition? If not, should efforts be made toward developing global regulations or toward localization efforts?
Tom Burgess,
Social Studies Teacher, Taipei American School
Noam Chomsky: A corporation is a form of private tyranny. Its directors have a responsibility to increase profit and market share, not to do good works. If they fail that responsibility, they will be removed. They have some latitude for public relations purposes, and the talk about corporate responsibility falls within that territory. But it makes no sense to regard them as benevolent institutions, freed from their institutional role. It is a public responsibility to enforce decent behavior.
I assume that the “corporation” as an entity would not exist under this system …which I’m sure is a blessed relief…
“profit above all else” – a valueless entity whose only goal is greed…
If you had a system where the government as a whole could also be voted out in a vote of no confidence and the elected officials knew something about what they were doing we could go back to corporate charters and limiting the scope of corporate influence.. Get rid of corporate financing being a form of free speech.. The Federal Reserve is one institution that needs to be abolished. There a lots of ways to make corporations subservient to their employees and the people who life around them rather than have them control so much in every day life.:jason::jason::jason::jason::jason:
All forms of tyranny would be fought and ended. Corporations would be no different.
Think Economic Bill of Rights, too. Guarantees so that the “employees” do not become the new tyrants.
Markets. Are markets necessary?
Q: The first thing I wanted to talk to you about was that you call yourself a “market abolitionist”, and compare that to people who were Abolitionists against slavery just before the Civil War. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit.
Michael Albert: I do that if only by way of responding to folks who can’t comprehend the idea of being so critical of markets. It’s not by way of comparison of what it entails or risks or behavior or anything like that. It’s merely to make the point that myself and the person I write with quite often, Robin Hahnel, have a view of markets that is so critical of their fundamental attributes that we don’t think the issue is improving markets or correcting markets or ameliorating markets or any such thing. It’s, rather, abolishing markets, replacing markets with a better institution, the same way one wouldn’t try to ameliorate or improve slavery, but replace it.
So that’s the purpose of the analogy. The reason for the position is a view that markets as a system of allocation, intrinsically, by their very nature — not as some kind of aberration or just because of the particular context they’re in, say, capitalism, but by their very nature no matter what context they’re in — have very harmful attributes for people, so harmful that markets shouldn’t be used. These include that markets inexorably, by their very nature, produce anti-social personality development. They cause people to be competitive in the most pejorative sense of individualism — that is, out for oneself with no regard whatsoever for the conditions or effects on others. That’s one reason. Another reason would be that markets intrinsically, inexorably, misprice or misvalue things. They don’t take into account the effects of goods and services that are being exchanged on anybody but those involved in the transaction. So if you and I are exchanging some item — it’s called a commodity — your will and your desires go into the calculation, and mine do, but those of people who are effected by a byproduct — say, pollution spewing from it — don’t. And as a result the true social costs and benefits of the things that are transacted aren’t measured properly. As a result markets yield outcomes that aren’t ideal, contrary to popular mythology.
So it isn’t just, for example, that you have monopolies, which is horrible, but you can imagine having markets and not having monopolies. It’s that even in their most benign, positive, pure form, markets have attributes that are horrible for humans.
that’s a good question… what about markets? And yeah, there is nothing to protect people from the unlimited power of corporations, corporations are treated as “individuals with rights,” lobbyists are a scourge of our legislative bodies…there has to be something that changes all of that
I know: Vote for Hillary.
No, vote for Gus Hall.
These include that markets inexorably, by their very nature, produce anti-social personality development. They cause people to be competitive in the most pejorative sense of individualism — that is, out for oneself with no regard whatsoever for the conditions or effects on others.
Another reason would be that markets intrinsically, inexorably, misprice or misvalue things. They don’t take into account the effects of goods and services that are being exchanged on anybody but those involved in the transaction. So if you and I are exchanging some item — it’s called a commodity — your will and your desires go into the calculation, and mine do, but those of people who are effected by a byproduct — say, pollution spewing from it — don’t.
excellent points
Michael Albert is from New Rochelle.
I guess not everybody from the cushy NYC burbs are yuppies 🙂
I think the two biggest problems are that the industrial revolution took the means of production away from the individual, and put it into the hands of those with the capital to buy machines and build factories, and that those same people conspire (with the politicians they buy) to take away the free and open markets which they profess to love, and instead institute a rigged system that keep them dominant.
good point – I think the “power for the elites” was in place before the industrial revolution, the huge corporations really came into being at this time
Review of Transformation of Capitalist Society (by Zellig Harris)
Six to ten centuries ago, probably no one saw the seeds of revolution in the transactions of burghers, merchants, and moneylenders. Their niche roles within feudal society were construed as supports for the status quo: useful, even necessary, but ancillary. It could scarcely then be imagined, however self-evident it may seem to us in hindsight, that maximization of profit would supplant inherited privilege and obligation as the center pole in the tent of social relations. The transformation of society from feudalism to capitalism was mostly invisible to its participants.
The ability to step aside from the way things “naturally” are, to perceive that their basis is in conventional expectations, and to recognize the seeds of a successor “social reality,” is a rare gift indeed. This is the gift that Zellig Harris presents to us in this posthumous book, due out in mid-March 1997.
Harris is best known as one of the great figures of American linguistics. The originator of transformational grammar, he was instrumental in fostering the work and early career of his most famous student, Noam Chomsky. Some, perhaps recalling Chomsky’s comment that he was first attracted to Harris because of his political views, may be curious to learn what those views were.
Harris had a profound understanding of history, economics, sociology, and anthropology. In this, he had much in common with Edward Sapir, who it is said regarded him as his intellectual heir; in particular in his sensitivity to the inadequacies of established social arrangements (inadequacies made especially obvious in the Great Depression) and in his interest in the possible shapes of alternatives. He was always an originative thinker. Before undertaking this book, he read and re-read widely, because he did not want to re-do what someone else had already adequately done. Harris does not decry the worth of capitalism, as far as it goes, nor deny the great benefits that it has brought. It is obvious that there have been great advances in culture and in the material standard of living of most people, even in the last 100 or 50 years. Rather, he asks “whether, in spite of its success, the capitalist system will end or change substantially in the foreseeable future. If so, what are the possibilities that the change will foster more equitable socio-economic conditions?” (p. 2).
…The ascendancy of capitalism over communism and socialism is commonly seen as a rising tide, but Harris shows us how it is rather more “an advancing wave-front which leaves increasing areas of non-capitalist decision-making behind it” (p. 41). Capitalist endeavors must maximize profit. Yet some of the requirements for its practitioners and their social institutions to survive cannot be met without conflict with (short-term) profit–among them the education, health, and economic viability of the labor force, and indeed of the ecosystems in which enterprises are carried out. And an inherent contradiction (seen most blatently in pyramid schemes, and somewhat less so in socalled multi-level marketing) is the requirement for an ever expanding domain of operation, which clearly cannot be maintained forever. (This is the reason markets increasingly must be manufactured in late capitalism.) Because of these conflicts, certain decisions and decision-making mechanisms, increasingly over time, are either delegated to governments or relinquished to employees.
The most important presently visible precursors to a successor to capitalism are seen in increased employee control and even outright ownership, as in employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). For example, the Reagan-era restructuring of the United States Post Office has not succeeded in making it a viable for-profit enterprise, and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R. California) has now proposed an ESOP for postal workers (Wall Street Journal, “Make Every Mailman a Shareholder,” March 3 1997). As areas of the economy become less viable for profit maximization, they become more likely candidates for this relinquishment of control. With employee ownership comes a shift of the central motivation of the enterprise from profit maximization to the long-term sustenance of the enterprise itself, and of those who make their livelihoods with it. Interestingly, “it is more likely that the humdrum essentials of life are what will become the less profitable” (p. 4), the staples of existence rather than the “hot” products for which markets must first be created.
“Thus we arrive at a possible basis for non-capitalist production growing inside capitalist society, the more easily because (at least in its early stages) it is not in confrontation with the pure capitalist production, but rather a special-case complement to it. Although employee-owned companies fit into the capitalist economy in that they buy and sell in the market, and have to make a profit, they may not share the capitalist fate in several respects: they do not have to maximize profit; they do not have to accumulate wealth beyond the needs of reinvestment; they have no necessary conflict of interest between owners and workers (so long as they do not employ non-owning workers); their business decisions remain close to their production decisions; and they may be less susceptible to the vagaries of the stock market, depressions, and other features of capitalist conditions” (p. 5).
For a more egalitarian system to emerge, rather than the superimposition of a new elite as in various revolutionary movements, systems of cooperative production governed from below must already be established, in these niches neglected by capitalism, in sufficient measure that they may be extended to the point of becoming the main form of making production decisions. It is in just this way, and not by revolutionary overthrow, that capitalism succeeded feudalism. Some capitalist institutions will survive, just as vestiges of feudalism remain today (hardly startling news to people involved with academic institutions).
Another essential characteristic of capitalism is the indirect relation between decisions based on profit and their implementation in actual production. This is one source of its tremendous flexibility, but also a weakness. In particular, one might say that fixation on the bottom line is a kind of tunnel vision or selective blindness under which alternative social arrangements may flourish as supports for the status quo: useful, even necessary, but ancillary.
The foreseen transformation is sociological and economic more than political, amenable to piecemeal and scattered advances, not all of them permanent at first. “[W]hat is most important is to develop social structures — organizations or ways of interacting — enabling people to initiate and control activities relevant to their own life and work. Such structures would have to avoid leaving room for some individuals or groups to control the life and work of others, even via a back door” (p. 229). Conspiratorial methods are not effective, nor are confrontational tactics practicable for those who would build the infrastructure of control-from-below, however useful they may seem for those who effect top-down controlling social structures. “Every cooperative attempt or method needs to be initiated by its participants, upon whom the risk of failure would fall” (p. 232).
The book is well reasoned and its generalizations, methods, and conclusions are supported throughout by evidence, much of it familiar but perhaps cast in a somewhat new light by Harris’s treatment. Pervading it is what Wolf Heydebrand in the Foreword calls a “cautious optimism.” “[T]he door for change is not closed. Only inaction — apathy, indecision, unreadiness to act — can keep the door shut” (p. 233).
Rob and Laura Petrie live New Rochelle, too.
wow, I’m saving all this to files. Good stuff.
The Dick Van Dyke Show. Oy! I was wondering someone would bring them up!
Here is where Corrupted System is going to practice:
GREEN FABRIC
2734 NE Alberta Street, Portland Oregon 97211
Green Fabric is a brand – new rehearsal space & performance venue in Portland Oregon, intended to be great for bands, musical theatre groups, or anything similar. Also a good public meeting spot to hold auditions.
New! Online calendar showing available time slots
Basic Info
* Brand new ‘PDP by DW’ drum kit.
* 1000 Watt PA, 6 channel Mackie mixer, brand new 15? JBL PA cabinets. Shure SM58 mic with stand. Engineer on hand to help hook things up.
* The space is on the street level, with an extra-wide front door: no stairs to climb or tiny elevator to schlep your gear up.
* Space is directly on Alberta Street in an excellent location. Open the door and the curtains, and make your rehearsal a public gig.
* Great opportunities for promotion and exposure: high amount of foot traffic if desired, free participation in ‘Last Thursday’ showcase events, website promo support.
* We’re very flexible as far as accomodations and needs.
I have a copy of Harris’s book. Damn! Amazon wants too much for it. Get your local library to buy a copy.
you found a space! I’m so glad
I’ll find a copy
Look at Parecon, too.
http://www.zmag.org/parecon/pelac.htm
yay, ok
I first heard of Zellig Harris in the introductory interview in The Chomsky Reader.
Since Harris was Noam Chomsky’s teacher, some linguists have questioned whether Chomsky’s transformational grammar is as revolutionary as it has been usually considered. The two scholars developed their concepts of transformation on different premisses. Adapting Post production systems as a formalism for generating language-like symbol systems, Chomsky had developed phrase structure grammar for presentation of immediate-constituent analysis, and extended it for presentation of Harris’s transformations as operations mapping one phrase-structure tree to another. This led to his redefinition of a transformation as an operation mapping a deep structure into a surface structure.
Harris’s transformational analysis enabled the refinement of the word classes found in a grammar of expansions (subsequently, in a grammar of substring combinability), recursively defining semantically more and more specific subclasses according to the combinatorial privileges of words, and progressively approximating a grammar of individual word combinations.
wikipedia
:banana: yay I feel like dancing
more good stuff…
Why is the IRS turning over debt collection to private firms. (I still owe the bastards $175 from last year.)
private firms have more efficient goons? 🙁
Zellig does have his linguistic disciples. I have no interest in plowing through that stuff, although I have heard Chomsky himself say that there are those who read some of the literature–and perhaps take a class or two–and then contribute to the field. This is unlike a field like physics, where one, according to Chomsky, has to have a Ph.D. before one can even get into the debate.
Not really. The IRS can levy your wages, and so forth. Collection agencies do little more than send nasty letters and ring you up at all ungodly hours.
That’s good. That probably keeps the debate floor fresh with ideas. Ph.D’s aren’t the only ones who can contribute.
I guess they’re just spreading the “love” far and wide by letting other people do some harrassing also 🙁 :blech:
did you guys plan a rehearsal? :
We are talking about theoretical physics. That sort of thing. The hard sciences. Very specific fields of study. One needs years of education to be in on the debates–unlike economics and political science. Chomsky was trying to illustrate the notion that linguistics was sort of an intermediary discipline betweem Hard Sciences–like physics–and soft stuff like literary criticism, political science and history.
Nothing definite, yet. We want to be ready for an experimental music fest in September.
I have to go now.
that sounds like a live performance 😛
check your e mail, I sent you a few today
Of course. it will be live. What would be the sense, otherwise.
:omg:
well….yeah :nod: sounds like some people are finally realizing that
The Beast Within!
:omg::sdavid::pent:
:jesus:
LATER…………..
:nixon:
I miss talking to you
I think markets are necessary if for no other reason than to define the need for something..
The US controlled airline and railroad markets up until RayGun and everybody made some money but not necessarily enough money.
The airlines had their ticket prices defined in terms of cents per passenger mile and the railroads had their freight rates defined in terms of cents per ton mile and there were rules that governed interchange of passengers and freight and the costs for doing so..
If you hauled freight or passengers a short distance you obviously made less money on them than if you hauled them clear across the country. When the costs of providing service became more than the allowed reimbursement you lost money and hopefully made it up on some other route.
Having holding companies owning railroads caused them to go bankrupt because they took money away from the railroad and put it in real estate or some other interest. The Penn Central fiasco being the best example.
The airline companies on the other hand were extremely profitable when they were regulated.
The Staggers Act in the mid 80’s deregulated all forms of commerce. The railroads then made money and the airlines went down the tubes. To many planes flying to many competing routes with not enough passengers.
The railroads obviously didn’t take off and build another 200,000 miles of track at 3 million a mile so they only competed in terms of time to deliver freight and the cost to transport it. Interchange delays became a big problem so the railroads began to consolidate. In 1985 there were something like sixteen major carriers today there are four.
The airlines suffer from a lack of market definition and control so they continue to fly to many competing routes, invest to much in new aircraft, pay unknown prices for fuel and blame all their problems on labor costs.
The railroads on the other hand know where they are going, have a well defined customer base , have more customers each year due to the containerization of freight and invest maybe 50 percent of their earnings back into the physical plant so they can haul even more freight faster in the years to come.
Unprofitable routes are usually leased to short line ( translated non union) operators who find they too can often run them at a profit (profit means that the owners also get paid)
Conrail which came about because of the bankruptcy of the Penn Central existed from the early 1970’s up until 1996 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Rail Road Administration. Clintdork privatized it because it looked to much like socialism and to cut the FRA budget. The purchase by CTX and The Norfolk Southern just about destroyed the railroad..because they layed off all the operational people and the private industry types they put in charge don’t seem to know what they are doing..:eek::eek::yuck::crap::crap:
The Northeast corridor between DC and Boston is wholly owned and operated by AMTRAK as is Cal Trains in the LA basin.. Bushco wants to privatize those too but the employees are unionized by the national rairoad unions and such an attempt may cause almost everyone to be living in the cold and the dark this winter.:eek::eek::eek::yuck::yuck::crap::crap:
Wall street does not consider railroads as a good investment because there earnings vs investment ratio is like .00002%..but hey its all a crap shoot anyhow..Railroad employees feel very secure.. they are not likely to be outsourced..:eek::eek:
I say we put everybody back to work in this country – FDR style – by creating a WPA to build the best high-speed rail system in the world. Beats the shit out of flying. If you can get from NY to LA in under 10 hours (and sleep, even, along the way) it would be a better alternative the ordeal of flying these days, and better for everybody (especially the places where the train stops) all the way around. Imagine if they had been putting $10 Billion a month into mass transportation and electric cars all this time instead of Iraq? Everybody would be working, nobody’d be rotting in the desert (not in Iraq anyway), and when the RR’s in place, we’ll have much less need to stick our noses into the middle east in the first place.
How ’bout just try to maintain and upgrade our dilapidated infrastructure? Oh, and make education free:mad:
Speaking of rotting…did anyone see the Spike Lee documentary on Katrina? I caught only the end of pt 1 so far but it was really horrifying and I cried….he showed pictures of the dead bodies and people talking about finding their loved ones….
Did you guys hear that relief workers from thailand were disgusted at how badly we did…worse than a 3rd world country….
Oh the things we could do with that money that our crazy ass president is pissing away…
I hope the Spokane air quality hasn’t made you sick, heron.:peace:
Tis bad here…:yuck:
Is this any good? http://tiny.bz/0nq/
Good evening. Long fuckin’ day, man. :40:
I’ll leave that up to you
You can probably buy that in Seattle…:40:
Guess we are drinking together Kristapea:40:
How goes the deck travis?:knit:
Oh, OK. I just thought I’d ask before I throw down 3.75 a bottle !:mad:
I think I’m more than halfway done:nod:
So, what’s up with Seder? Is he stayin’ or what? After reading that article PJ posted I realized why I like Sam so much. Because he’s a FAILURE and he keeps on! And it feels good to not be the only one making bad decisions. Although Sam and Marc have seemed to make that work for them, I’m still trying to figure that out. I guess I like all the misfits, losers, and wierdo’s
Maybe Old Zeb or gypsy knows…
I paid $3.50 for a pint of Stone Smoked Porter. :40:
don’t you get more for your money with a porter?:40:
I think so. It’s my dinner tonight. :peace:
Oh, it’s open mic at the moon. Uh, maybe I’ll catch the bus at nine and go try the Blue Heron. I dunno, I’m pretty tired…and broke
Ok…the blog needs some drugs! Maybe Mr. Joe can help this situation out.:joe:
we need to rev this baby up!:jason:
Yeah!:fist:But,uh… how exactly are we going to do this?
I gotta take a bath, man. :nod:
Um, don’t fall asleep in there, ok? :40:Seriously
I don’t think I’ll pass out on one beer. But thanks Travis! So, what kind of job are you looking for?
Did you all take the poll at snotgreensea?
I know, it’s hard to get drunk off of beer.:barf:
Job? I’m having trouble with the looking part. I just haven’t. I think I can do any unskilled task that’s out there. I know how to shovel, that’s for sure.
What have you shoveled?:crap:
Yeah, a bunch of white:crap::rofl2:
:spank:
:billcat:
I don’t know what to think:doh:
So …is it the moon? Or blue heron at the PCC…or do they have that at the moon? Have you heard G sing yet?
well, I saw a sign at the moon for the blue heron, but I think i’ll do that on friday. Then maybe I’ll hear g sing.
That’s cool.
So what is the size of your crainium?
Is it planetary, average or pinhead?
I think I don’t really wan to admit it here. OK!
What would the group at Ivar’s guess?
Then I will just have to find something else to :knit:
Hey..you are a man of mystery to them…
If I had to lie, I’d say average.
🙄
Right now. Man, that’s gonna take a while. Just hang out for while, I’ll be back
Has everyone checked their mail lately?
Have you taken the snotgreensea poll?:lol:
😡
Now I can commence to cipherin’
:knit:
You can’t be mad at me can you?:shock::tinfoil:
I wonder if Druid is awake yet.
The blog woke me up at 2am…:shock:
How did that happen? Bananas and what?
Travis was there a midnight show of An Inconvenient Truth?
:banana: and motherfucking snakes:omg:
I don’t remember. I don’t think so. I was at the moon and walked over to the theater right next door at 9:20.
Hey you want to take a break and meet up later at 11:00 or so?
I need to get something done here…
This hard drive is getting :hot:
that’s cool.:peace:
:peace:
:yawn:Working :tongue: and Lurking here:hubba::yawn:
Greetings All, I just saw you take my name someway,
and decided to “creep” out of “the Shadows” (as Travis said)
I hope SBlueHeron you get better, cuz you must be better, shame on you :no: = Better Air for the “chic” please :nod: 😆 = LBH, (I hope). This day I have gotten 3 hrs of sleep to go until about 1:30pm :eek::omg:
Forgive me if I made zero sense :cool:tea:joe: 😎
PJ for King:banana:
(sorry Kong you were close 😉 😎 weak humour :eek:)
And STILL LOVE :love: the Snakes :banana: 😎 :banana:
I went to the weirdest bookstore that I’ve ever been to today, up
on capitol hill. Crazy cat that lived there gave me eye irritation.:billcat: hmmm.
Druid!:banana:
Saying Hey:santacool::knit:
Must have been Horizon on 15th?
Travis:knit:
Did you find any ..uh.. books?
I didn’t really look after the cat attacked me with its dander. I was thinking about gettin’ a Kesey book, but I guess the cosmos was tilted a little today- not in my way, I must say.
white devils!
no, white:crap:
Where are you now Sean?
What else did you do on Capitol Hill Travis?
Oh, uh, B’s mom had a check-up with some doctor or something. So, I had to escort her with my left arm as a support. Old people are like drunks, I think.
I’m horrible:smack:
Hey nice of you to take her up there…:nod:
OK…:knit:..there’s a start:knit: but I’m:yawn:
so mmaybe sleep sleep:gate::peace:
Well, I was sort of afraid of her falling over with no witnesses around. I figured if that happened and she died, everyone would think I did it. Have you ever seen Throw Momma From The Train?
Oh, well, ok then. If you think so.
G’Night SBlueHeron 😉
Travis, BE GALLANT, dear sir, please .
When I was 16+ , I saw how most young treated those who were elderly ‘cool” … and most laughed. I just said I hope I am that 😎 cool when I am their age. Be gallant:!:
I hope I didn’t offend anyone with my stupid jokes.
Just that poor ol’ lady, but you offered her your arm … that’s gallant.:banana:
my little blogger brain needs a blogger vacation. Later
mine too but I still have to stay up too long tea :joe: later
Sure, laugh it up.:tongue:
:omg: Oh :omg: Catherine the Great in America is :omg:
Long Live King PJSauter :banana:
I would love to be in the Seditionists Clrcle or Party or Ring or Advisor or Whatrever
What? I don’t get it. Throw it down fast ’cause I’m crashin’.
Are you dear Travis still there or here or whatever?
Sure, I’m one of those.
I’ll read ya’ this weekend, Druid. :peace:
Late One Night, I made some reference to Catherine the Great in America (against bush:jerk: acting like he was king) and Susan Joy supported me and the idea so I made her part of The Inner Circle.
But just seeing what PJ wrote this day and his mindset, I just want to support him.
Plus, he makes Bitch’n Snakes :banana:
was gone, now back, and WILL NOT BE NUMBER 1 (most likely asleep at computer awwwww)
I am workinging :tongue::yawn: and lurking:hubba::yawn: and :yawn: yawning
TNA: The first question is very simple yet has never been answered: Why does Israel have the right of self-defense while the Arab countries don’t? The U.S. has the same right, while Iraq doesn’t!
Chomsky: The answer was given a long time ago by Thucydides (the Melian dialogue, in The Peloponnesian War, Book 5): The strong do as they can, and the weak suffer as they must. One of the leading principles of international affairs. Many Arab States declared that they will not boycott relations with Israel; in the same time (breath) they declared the war is Hezbollah’s war and fault.
TNA: Do you think there was and still is an American pressure behind this, or are the Arab regimes afraid of “regime change” and doing their best to satisfy the White House?
Chomsky: At an emergency Arab League meeting, most of the Arab states (apart from Algeria, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen) condemned Hezbollah. In doing so, they were willing to “openly defy public opinion,” as the New York Times reported. They later had to back down, including Washington’s oldest and most important ally in the region, Saudi Arabia: King Abdullah said that “if the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”
Most analysts assume — plausibly I think — that their primary concern is the growing influence of Iran, and the embarrassment caused by the fact that alone in the Arab world, Hezbollah has offered support for Palestinians under brutal attack in the occupied territories.
How can we explain the role of the Security Council in destroying Lebanon and Gaza now, and Iraq before?
The Security Council acts within constraints set by the great powers, primarily the United States. In turn, the United States can generally rely on Britain, particularly Blair’s Britain, which is described sardonically in Britain’s leading journal of international affairs as “the spear-carrier of the pax Americana.”
In the early post-war years, for obvious reasons, the UN was generally under US domination, and was very popular among US elites. By the mid- 1960s, that was becoming less true, with decolonization and the recovery of industrial societies from wartime devastation. Since that time, the US has been far in the lead in vetoing Security Council resolutions on a wide range of issues, with Britain second, and none of the others even close.
Correspondingly, elite support for the UN sharply declined in the US, though, interestingly, popular support for the UN remains remarkably high, one of the many illustrations of an enormous gap between public opinion and public policy in the US.
Over and above that crucial constraint, US power allows it to shape those resolutions and actions that it is willing to accept. Other powers have their own cynical reasons for what they do, but their influence is naturally less — again, the maxim of Thucydides. Popular forces could make a substantial difference, and sometimes do, but until the prevailing “democratic deficit” is reduced, that effect will be limited.
CHOMSKY
The liberal warmongers are at it again. In Sunday’s (August 20, 2006) Washington Post, Neal Pollack and Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution and Georgetown’s Center for Peace and Security Studies offer an analysis and prescription for an Iraq that they believe is already in a state of civil war. Ignoring the fundamental reason that this situation exists–the US occupation of the country–these two men tell the reader that the growing sectarian violence in Iraq will be even more dangerous should it spill over Iraq’s borders. Furthermore, they argue, the latter will eventually occur. This fact alone means that US responsibilities in the region will increase, not lessen.
Prior to this prognostication, the two men write that it would take close to a half-million soldiers to “quash an all-out civil war there.” There is no other alternative offered by these imperial apologists, and this statement is qualified by stating that this is more than the US has already committed. It’s not that Pollack and Byman actually call for US troops to be mobilized for these increasing “responsibilities.” It’s that they write as if there were no alternatives, since in their minds the so-called responsibilities are not ones that Washington chooses to undertake because it sees its empire as being essential to the peace of the world. Unsaid in this do-gooder approach is that the only peace Washington and its apologists (neocon to neoliberal and beyond) want is one that benefits Washington and its corporate masters. If that peace takes a world war, then by god, that’s what will have to happen, but only because its for the world’s good…
RON JACOBS