It’s Friday, and I’m home. It don’t get any better than that. Nothing makes you appreciate what you’ve got more than being away from it. OK, OK, OK. I’ve only been away less than two weeks, and I’m not exactly living at the El Rashid, waiting to get bombed (mostly I’m trying to get bombed so I can get some sleep), but what can I say? I guess I’m just a wimp. Now if I can manage to leave on Sunday without crying like a little baby, I’ll be all set.
#1! The weekend starts in an hour and a half, when work finishes.
Morning / Evening :yinyang: to all un the ride.
Taiwan’s President Chen has had his approval ratings down to about 16%. There is now talk of a recall.
Why are Bush’s numbers as high as they are?
WTF is Rumsfeld doing talking about Zarqawi’s “bloody hands” being responsible for thousands of deaths? Hey, assmunch, take a look at the man in the mirror. Not to mention your partners in crime: the Boy Chimp, and the Heart Attack Man who shoots his friends in the face.
:fu::fu::fu:
In other nasty news, I will be sending Bill Nelson a very bitter letter this afternoon concerning his vote to abolish the estate tax. He’s ahead of Cruella by THIRTY FUCKING POINTS. He can afford to STOP PANDERING TO RICH ASSHOLES and stand up for the 99.5% of us that will never pay this tax.
Other than that…
Good morning :sheep:le!
It’s Friday, ya bastards!
:banana::banana::banana:
Morning!
seanie has such a way with words:
LOL!
Glad pj made it home safe and sound. a few visits home in between the work will help the time go much faster. :nod:
it was opined to me yesterday that it is very odd that zarqawi’s face was not injured or puffy as what normally happens if one is in a bomb blast. :paranoid:
melina, thanks for the report from imus yesterday; i passed it on as i missed it. how is will doing today?
so why doesn’t anyone talk about the “birth tax” ? Al Franken is about the only one I’ve heard talk about it.
kev, can you run in Florida-land and be against the estate tax?
hmmmm 16% popularity….so our prez COULD go even lower. good. KK, are those chen’s family members left to support him?
FK- It’s his family that has got him in the heat. And the fact that all the other branches of goverrnment are held by the Nationalist party, who have held power since 1912. Anything he’s tried to do (good or bad) has been blocked.
How’d he become President, KK? sounds surprising given what’s he’s up against.
Good Morning all :joe:
The wireless connection is iffy here in my room but I’m going home in a couple of hours
have a safe trip back, KP.
off to walk the dogs (i don’t feel like it today, but i’ll have a mutiny on my hands if i don’t get them out.)
Marcs hometown is kinda funky. I like Albuquerque. Weather’s a lot cooler too.:nod:
Thanks FK. I love how you call your dogs dorks. It’s a real visual I can relate too!
From BuzzFlash
Pro-Democracy Internet in Imminent Peril: House rejects Net neutrality rules. Telecom Companies Poised to Turn Internet Into Toll Road for Corporate Profit. Tom Paine is Weeping Somewhere. Friday, June 9, 2006
Matt Lauer is the BuzzFlash “GOP Hypocrite of the Week” for Interviewing Right Wing Neo-Nazi Shock Propagandist, Ann Coulter. Coulter did everything to degrade television standards of decency except stand up on her chair, lift her skirt, and sing “Springtime for Hitler and Germany.”
====================
Good morning .. I should have known that facilities problems yesterday would effect me somehow.. The Metrology/QC lab is 120 in the shade and they though all our stuff suddenly malfunctioned.. Sheeeeez
When you measure things to a nats eyebrow tolerances and the eye brow suddenly gets three times as wide every where you would think they might think it was their problem… Nooooooo.. :eek::-( :doh:
good morning sheeple :joe:
Democrats call Zarqawi killing a stunt
Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.
“This is just to cover Bush’s so he doesn’t have to answer” for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. “Iraq is still a mess — get out.”
President Bush said that yesterday’s killing of the 39-year-old Jordanian-born terrorist offers an opportunity to “turn the tide” in the war and that Tuesday he will discuss with Iraqi leaders “how to best deploy America’s resources in Iraq.”
http://tinyurl.com/fxo9e
========================
You can’t blow someone up with a 500 lb bomb and have then come out looking so good..
I can’t believe that Rachel Maddow is such a mainstream democratic hack. It’s good news that Zarkawi was blown to bits. Yay for our side. We are fighting terrorism. What did she say when those Black Rock Security thugs were killed? A tragedy, I’ll bet. Counter Rachel’s remarks with those of Malloy’s.
Was that de javu, fred?:omg:
I’d probably take Springer’s politics over those of Rachel’s.
Has anyone tried 7/11’s gourmet coffee? I just bought a 10 oz. packet of their Black Mountain Roast coffee. $3.99. I hope that it’s good.
I don’t believe this administration re: Zarqawi…big surprise, I don’t believe them about anything 😮
The problem is that Zarkawi was not blown to bits.. He looked pretty good actually too good, considering what they said happened, in those pictures
Rachel’s emulation of CNN yesterday morning got her turned off. ( actually the Thursday morning meeting got her turned off but don’t tell her that).. I thought she was farther to the left than she appears to be now.. I still think there is a guy in a ski mask holding an An M16 sitting across the room from her
Rachel changed…when her show first started she was much more cutting edge in expressing herself. She’s really gotten tame.
Harry Mitchell, the hugely popular former mayor of Tempe, Arizona, is taking on Republican J.D. Hayworth, one of the most divisive leaders of the “Republican revolution.” You name the issue and, chances are, J.D. Hayworth has been — loudly — on the wrong side of it. That includes supporting reckless GOP spending and leading the effort to cut education and veterans’ benefits.
But now, J.D. has a problem. He has to face Harry Mitchell, a highly-revered local political figure, in this year’s elections. And Hayworth is apparently the leading congressional recipient of campaign donations associated with the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
A Democratic win in this critical race would be a double victory. We’d bring a powerful new voice to Congress and we’d send packing one of the more wrong-headed GOP politicians of our time.
:omg:
All of AAR except the night time shows and Laura Flanders have gotten lame.. I wonder if its the advertisers pressuring the network or the democrats pressuring the network. I still think Chavez needs to set up a ten megawatt transmitter and saturate the southern part of the country with liberal talk radio.
Please don’t miss my point by assailing the image I used. Zarkawi was killed by a US bomb. A little boss was killed by the Big Boss. Rachel found that news to be good news.
:fu:
Blasting AAR to the masses! I’d like to circulate it throughout the Northeast too, actually. yes, I do believe advertiser pressure has changed the way these shows are presented.
the whole thing is like is like a Mafia racket on an international scale…
Sam Seder and Stephen Sherrill
Monday the 12th, 6:00PM Bagdad Theater
From the creators of Air America’s The Majority Report comes F.U.B.A.R.: America’s Right-Wing Nightmare — and How You Can Wake Up from It, a hilarious and tough-minded satire of the American right’s bad behavior. Please note: This free event takes place at the Bagdad Theatre, 3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Prior to the reading and booksigning, there will be a special live broadcast of The Majority Report with Sam Seder. The broadcast will begin at 6pm and is open to the public.
Preorder a signed edition of F.U.B.A.R.: America’s Right-Wing Nightmare
Chavez bought ES&S the other electronic voting machine company. That has to be making the thugs nervous if indeed they have been using them to fix these last two elections. You would think they would already be demanding comprehensive testing of these systems or something.. hummm… maybe they have something else in mind this year.:eek::omg::rant1:
I think that Rachel is pandering to the Hillary faction of the Democratic Party.
that sounds pretty cool….I haven’t seen anything political in a real theater since Michael Moore..
Hey Nicki, Thanks for that news, I hadn’t heard it yet. I do not know much about Mitchell, I think he’s gay. I think I heard that anyways. I could be wrong.
the Hillary faction ::shudder:: Then it’s a sign of the times. That’s the direction a lot of these dems etc. are going to be moving in. Those that haven’t already moved there or past that point, anyway.
I have a strange desire for pink bubblegum :omg:
These conservative corporatist dominated governments have been slowly trying to take over governments in Europe too. I think they though they had South America pretty well wrapped up but the people discovered what was happening and …..:gate::omg::jason: I hope more Americans discover this and :gate::omg::jason: too.
CORRUPTED SYSTEM is better than you might think.
This has been a blatant attempt to get the phrase ‘Corrupted System’ to the top of a Google search, but the band is real.
This is not a put on. We rock.
Thank you for your time.
-Scotchy
:omg:
I dunno Fred, I can’t see Americans take on this government in any significcant way. People are still too comfortable. I think it will be way too late when they do get angry enough.
:crap: I have to go to a meeting with QC , the suits and facilities.. It will probably be a finger pointing exercise deluxe .. blog with you all later.:40::eek:
John Kerry sent me that information about the Tempe mayor.
I agree with Krista. Outside of this community, most people, even the dems, think life is fine and dandy, at least fine and dandy enough to do anything other than say “Oh, Bush, doesn’t he suck” I guess I just want a revolution 😮
If the Thugs manage to destroy the army in foreign lands at least we won’t have them to contend with if it comes to that. The thugs in general are so paranoid that they will panic deluxe and hopefully flee if things get messy.
there are ways to get any website to the top of a google search. I’ve helped people get their webpages close to the top by creative use of meta language in the codes…that’s where it’s at
The day Americans stop worrying about illegal immigrants and gay marriage as their #1 topics is the day maybe we have a chance to wake people up…
I haven’t checked my email yet. I probably got that too.
yeah, I’m on John Kerry’s mailing list too…
I know a lot of dems and thugs alike who don’t think things are fine and dandy but are more willing to be living under a bridge than do anything about it.. ( I don’t think they have any idea what it is like to live under a bridge)
It matters to me not if Corrupted System gets to the top of google. No need for manipulation.
Well I have to begin the migration over to the other building.. Six layers of security and metal detectors coming and going.. We have paranoid suits in charge if that is not apparent.
Most people I know who want change still have faith in the system. I don’t even think voting booths count our votes properly, (and it’s getting worse, my mom’s NJ district just got brand new DIEBOLD machines!) so how is that going to happen?
ok, have a good day Fred…try to stay cool
The power of Satan, and his connection with non-Jews, is illustrated by a widespread custom, established under cabbalistic influence in many Jewish communities from the 17th century. A Jewish woman returning from her monthly ritual bath of purification…
:omg::sheep::joe:
666 alien abductions!:omg:
yeah, you were going to explain that :omg:
:paranoid: now I’m thinking I could be taken by these aliens at any moment :tinfoil:
The power of Satan, with his connection to goyim…
listen, I’m so NON Jewish, except via actual heritage, that I’m clueless about that :tongue:
Bye bye everyone, I’ll see ya in Phoenix. Oh shit, I just thought of something horrible. I left my swamp cooler on while I was gone because its cheaper to run but Az and N.M. have been having rainy weather so I’ll be going home to a stcky hot house. UGH! It’ll be too late to switch over to ac. Crap.
toodles, Krista 🙂
ES&S’s originator, Data Mark (later became AIS) was founded by Todd and Bob Urosevich in 1980. Bob oversaw development of the original software used by both (they are both still with their respective companies – Bob with Diebold and Todd with ES&S – or maybe it’s the other way around). Between the two, they “count” something like 90% of the vote in this country. The both use pretty much the same software – and, more importantly, the same firmware. They use MS Access databases.
ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group, which is part-owned by the Omaha World-Herald Co, which publishes Nebraska’s largest newspaper.
Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) was CEO of ES&S until he was elected to the Senate – an election conducted almost exclusively on ES&S equipment.
ES&S or Diebold? It’s all good.
the protocols of the elders of zion are true
and I am a member of standing
our goal is to milk all the money from you
it’s world domination we’re planning!
Oh no, there I go, I let the cat right out of the bag
will you please keep my secret I pray?
Cus I’m undercover as an artist and writer
right here at the sidwalk cafe!
Hagel…well that sounds like a major conflict of interest…hmmm
Al-Zarqawi alive and mumbling after bombing
Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi survived the bombing of his safe house, but died a short time later, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said today. “Zarqawi did in fact survive the airstrike,” Caldwell said. He added that al-Zarqawi “mumbled a little something” and “attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher.”
heard he was alive for hours afterwards.
oh, that’s gooood!! LOL!
====
PS after seeing the clips of Coulter, i’ve decided she is a he; no doubt in my mind.
Well I made it over here….( yeah it actually took thirty three minutes to walk two blocks inside the building(s)). For some reason I can’t get into this building with my key card from the outside or I would have walked across outside and avoided two security check points. The wireless networking even still works over here. I figured it would be a different network. We have hurry up and wait since the suits haven’t showed yet so I will continue blogging as apposed to just sitting here picking my nose.
Does Venezuela own ES&S ??
Business Week thinks the vote fraud “conspiracy theory” is worth pursuing — as long as it’s the right theory. Or rather, the right-wing theory, which holds that Venezuela controls ES&S. This theory is, so far as I can tell, groundless; Antonio Mugica, the largest shareholder, happens to hold Venezuelan citizenship, but that doesn’t make him a partner of Chavez. (Would that he were: I trust Chavez a hell of a lot more than I trust Bush.)
That said, tracing the ownership of the various voting machine manufacturers over the years is a nearly impossible task for any outsider. Mugica gained control of ES&S in March of 2005. Before that, in 2002, an earlier incarnation of the firm was known as Business Records Corporation, which counted Tom Eschenberger among its top execs. Eschenberger was involved in a conspiracy to bribe Arkansas Secretary of State Bill McCuen. (The bribe-taker did time; the bribe-maker got immunity.) Did Business Week see fit to complain about that?
:knit::knit::knit::knit::knit::knit::nixon::jesus::omg::-(:roll::tongue:
Yawnnn. I hope the suits get here soon the QC manager is a real jerk. :crap::paranoid:I wonder what I should do if I get a nasty gram from the fab building while I’m over here.:eek:
Blogging by your self will become the high tech way of talking to yourself :tongue::roll::yuck:
so fred, do any of the buidings have AC that’s wroking?
Not yet.. facilities says after lunch. They left the fans on manual last night so its not to bad yet.. This conference room is on the first floor of a four story building too. The Met lab/QC is in the middle of a building in an embedded airstream type of environ controlled area. It gets all its HVAC from the building but it was hotter than it was in my office space over there this am. They can’t even throw a chair through a window in an emergency.
Well the facilities people showed up ( only an hour and ten minutes late not bad for them) The facilities guy says the QC manager didn’t manual his HVAC unit.. he probably doesn’t know what an HVAC unit is. I hope I don’t get poked by one of the pointing fingers:eek::yawn::tongue:
Hey you guys, I’m at the airport! I really love wireless.:love:
And yes, Mayor Harry Mitchell is gay.
So, where do you work Fred? Or is that top secret.
My battery is running low already. Hmm.
people blogging from trucks, airports, offices, little farms….. :fist:
FRED, TAKE THE ADVICE I GIVE THE HUBBY – DUCK AND STAY LOW!
Its not top secret but the suits put out a memo about not divulging any company info if we blogged or chatted during our “free” time,..try and Google Longmont and disk drives.
Hey KP, safe trip back. Fred, you have a Meth Lab?
If you need somebody to straighten these guys out, let me know. I was an HVAC guy for ten years, and I can show them my Refrigeration Mechanic Journeyman’s card (assuming I can find it).
I can’t tell you guys how nice it is to walk into bathroom that only has one sink, one shower, and one toilet, and doesn’t have the faint aroma of sewer gas.
Hey everyone….Its been a hard week mainly b/c Will cant sleep…or feels like hes not sleeping. I thnk that his medication is making him have that sorta twighlight sleep where youre never in a deep enough REM to feel rested…so hes a mess and finally he stayed home today…
Im a mess in turn and running round trying to get stuff done.
I hope for a long restful weekend for us all.
I watched Sam sit in a room at Yearly Kos last night…pretty good show actually. I cant get the stream this morning though so I missed the joe wilson panel…the technical aspect of this seems a little screwed up. Though it seemed like everyone on the MR blog was getting it OK last night. That is one convention that I would be so happy to be at…..
it has all of my favorite things in one place…blogging, liberals, gambling (its vegas, right?) …
anyway I guess Ill try to figure it out when I get back.
Metrology PJ Metrology the science of measurement. We have a chemistry lab and they have been accused of making Meth though, They said they were just fooling around..
:rofl2:
AAH a modern dorm with a central bathroom.. one for each floor. I haven’t seen one of those since the 1970’s They made a girls dorm by using one floor in the boys dorm..The girls were a bit confused about the fixtures in the bathroom.
hey melina, sorry to hear about Will. Do they check his blood level for the right therapeutic amounts?
My Organic Chemistry TA at UB told me they made synthetic cocaine for a project (I was trying to get him to help me make d-lysergic acid diethyamide 25, but he wouldn’t go for it).
What, they don’t have drinking fountains in women’s bathrooms?
Sorry Will is having such a hard time, Melina. It’s about time he (and you) caught a break.
The head suit office manager ( secretary in other places) just wondered in and said the suits were waiting in the other conference room .. Thats suits for Ya.. :omg::-(:barf:
Yeah, I’ve never been too fond of the whole public bathroom thing. Certain things I can do pretty much anywhere, but for other things, I prefer a little privacy.
You know, I left my camera in DC, and here it is, the weekend of the Balloon Festval. Not to mention the Greek Festival.
Oh, one of our elephants lost her unborn calf. I hope she does OK.
This just in: overnight Gallop poll results. The Zarkawi killing proves that Bush is the very bestest president ever: 73%.
I hate America and don’t want to answer: 22%
Don’t know/Firetruck: 5%
Well, there you have it Sports Fans.
Go Ecuador!
bummer about the calf. Elephants are not “easy keepers” I hear tell.
At UC Santa Cruz, Kresge College had alternative dorm living spaces. One group had no doors/window/rooms, just platforms (co-ed), another had the bathroom as the largest living area since some bozo researched & found that most co-mingling happened in dorm bathrooms (that’s where I lived)…itty bitty rooms, itty bitty kitchen GIANT bathroom. Then there was a bit-more conventional condo living and then…… WILD PLACE!
Well that’s over with.. The facilities guy got put on the rack for poor maintainence on a 50 horse motor on a 20 year old peace of equipment. Suits always have to blame someone, c* never just happens. At least we talked him out of throwing away the last 36 hours of production. Now if QC can just figure out what an HVAC unit is …
They brought in a crane. I guess they have to lift the fan assembly out of the tower and then take the blade off ( its like 20 feet across) and replace the motor.. its going to be a long time after lunch before they get this fixed.
Park Service Charging for Photos
Welcome, once again, to Bushworld!
WASHINGTON (AP) –
Wedding parties and other groups hoping to commemorate their special event with a photograph at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument or other popular landmarks on National Park Service land now have to pay for a permit.
Under a new policy that began May 15, the Park Service is requiring a payment of $50 to $250 from groups that hire commercial photographers to snap pictures at some of the 390 monuments, parks and historic sites it oversees. The cost depends on the size of the group.
The fees are being charged at some of the busiest Park Service sites in the Washington, D.C., area and at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Other heavily used sites include the Statue of Liberty, Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve, Big Bend National Park in Texas, and Yellowstone National Park.
more…
http://tinyurl.com/ppwvd
—————–
As the owner of said property I demand my share..
Will they require a camera fee for individuals taking pictures at the national parks next ??
Farmerkat … Now you have to tell us all about the WILD PLACE,, sounds like the duplex we rented in college except it was more of a DRUNK PLACE
I wish there was a thermometer along with the thermostat in our office area.. its not very nice up here right under the roof.. I think I will go back down to the clean room monitoring center, hopefully I don’t have to sit in someones lap it was popular yesterday pant pant pant.:40::-(:omg:
Gee, barely back home and I get put to work. I mean, when she e-mailed me that her gutters needed cleaning, I thought it was a euphemism.
Hey everyone, back in hot, stinky ole Phoenix. But it looks like we got lots of rain, the ground is still wet. And the crappy particle board shelf unit I left out in the yard is lookin’ kinda wavy. And lucky me, the swamp is working great! It’s pretty cool in here.
Okay, back to corruption fighting and looking for work. I’m not gonna think about it til Monday, fuggit!
I’m so sorry to hear Will is still having problems, Melina. Kids just shouldn’t have to endure that.And neither should mothers. I hope he gets better soon.
:crap: I forgot to drop by sales on my way back..to “talk” to whats her name about the district 50 election in Calif. Oh well.. the hot weather is supposed to last into next week ..
Speaking of gutters PJ…….:hubba:
I was in Phoenix off and on for six months in the 80’s and boy was it hot.. We had a dust storm one day followed by a dry lightening storm with fireballs coming out of the sky. The locals said that was because the dust made the air conduct extra well. does it still do that there ??
Sorry, can’t fit you in ’til next weekend. Unless you’re willing to bring your gutters to DC, of course. 😉
Damn. Time to start writing your Senators.
I guess it got pretty wild while I was gone. But Albuquerque got some good weather too. The storms don’t come into Phoenix as much, since we’ve created a huge concrete heat island. The storms used to come into town more and now they just swirl around the city and maybe will come in at 3 or 4 in the morning. They used to come in the afternoon. Dust storm, lightning thunder and torrents of rain for a short period of time. I have also noticed that the monsoons start earlier in the summer. They used to come in July, maybe end of June but now they kind of start in early June, as if to try and beat the heat.
I called my senators on that and I think I will call them everyday til they vote. I won’t let them throw another fucking obstacle in my path to success. I am getting so sick of this shit! :fu:
The thunder storms in the Denver area also tend to come in in the middle of the night these days. Yesterdays storm was a bit unusual in that it came in the late afternoon. The weather radio is bit of a nuisance when it goes off at 2 am but we also have tornadoes where we didn’t have them this close to the mountains in previous times. 😮
One needs to make up list of bills that the thugs have passed and a mention of what one has to do to reverse what was done. If we only take one house back in Nov we will be hard pressed to do anything other than investigate, investigate and investigate some more.. meanwhile the country will continue to go down the tubes.. in which case we should consider :gate::omg::jason::fist: right now.
She sat on the board of Wal-Mart for six years.
She is Rupert Murdoch’s new political buddy and beneficiary of his
fund-raising draw.
She voted for Bush’s illegal, immoral, and fabricated war in Iraq.
And she supports NAFTA and GATT-WTO.
She does not challenge the bloated, corruption-ridden, redundant
military budget.
She does not challenge hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate
welfare – subsidies, giveaways, bailouts…
She does next to nothing against the corporate crime wave sweeping
through the inner cities of New York state and around the country – the
poor pay more and are defrauded more…
And if the vote were held today, Senator Hillary Clinton would be the
Democratic nominee for President in 2008.
And even the most progressive of Democrats would support Clinton in her
campaign for the White House.
The philosophers have a word for this — it’s called self-deception.
These Democrats are deceiving themselves into believing that they can
support Clinton for President and live with themselves as conscientious
human beings.
They cannot.
Randi said that she would have liked to see Zarkawi stand trial…Bushco has had his whereabouts since 2002. He was protected, used as a hedge against Saddam before the war. He killed 700 people. He was a boogie man used to keep Americans on their toes. Useful prop. He was not taken out until Al Quaeda decided he was too much to handle. So they dropped a dime on him.
:omg::omg: Who is complicit in Zarkawi’s crimes? You need to have a discussion with Rachel, Randi.
kev, can you run in Florida-land and be against the estate tax?
Comment by Farmerkat — June 9, 2006 @ 7:34 am
If anyone can do it, Nelson would be the guy. He has a large war chest (large for a Dem, that is) and a 30-point lead. I really don’t think it would cut into his contributions that much – the rich Dems in Boca and Broward will stick with him, and the rich Repigs in Orlando and Sarasota aren’t with him now anyway.
The Dems need to pitch this as a tax on the working class and retirees, since if the estate tax goes away, more of the burden will shift away from the rich and onto everyone else. I don’t understand why Nelson isn’t pushing this point across already, especially during an election cycle when the governor’s mansion is up for grabs. (Other than the Dem party in FL can’t organize for shit.)
Hey, this is pretty good stuff. I’ll be sure to use it when I send him the e-mail. It’s certainly more positive than what I was going to write.
Thanks, FK! 😀
The Short, Strange Career of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi
By PATRICK COCKBURN
It was the end of a strange career. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a little known Jordanian petty criminal turned Islamic fundamentalist fanatic until he was denounced by the US in 2003 as an insurgent leader of great importance. This enabled him to recruit men and raise money to fight a cruel war, waged mostly against Iraqi civilians. His death is important in Iraq because he was the most openly sectarian of the Sunni resistance leaders, butchering Shia as heretics deemed as worthy of death as any foreign invader. His chosen instrument was the suicide bomber, usually recruited from outside the country. Their targets were almost invariably Shia young men desperate for work, lining up for jobs as policemen or soldiers. Few of the 20,000 US soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq in the last three years have died at the hands of al-Zarqawi’s men according to the US military.
President Bush and Tony Blair cautiously welcomed the news of the death of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. But paradoxically, among those most pleased by his elimination may be the other insurgent leaders. ‘He was an embarrassment to the resistance itself,” said Ghassan al-Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator. “They never liked him taking all the limelight and the Americans exaggerated his role.”
Al-Zarqawi owed his rise to the US in two different ways: his name was unknown when he was suddenly denounced on February 5, 2003 by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, before the UN Security Council as the link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. There turned out to be no evidence for this connection and al-Zarqawi did not at this time belong to al Qaeda. But across the Muslim world Powell’s denunciation made him a symbol of resistance to the US. It also fitted in with Washington’s political agenda that attacking Iraq was part of the war on terror.
The invasion gave al-Zarqawi a further boost. Within months of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the whole five-million strong Sunni Arab community in Iraq opposed the occupation. Cheering crowds gathered every time a US soldier was shot or an American vehicle blown up. Armed resistance was popular and for the first time Sunni militants known as the Salafi, religious fundamentalists demonstrating their faith by religious war or Jihad, had a bed rock of support in Iraq. Osama bin Laden and the original al Qaeda had never had this degree of acceptance in Afghanistan and were forced to hire local tribesmen to take part in their propaganda videos.
The next critical moment in al-Zarqawi’s career was the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 15, 2003. Previously US military and civilian Spokesmen had blamed everything on the former Iraqi leader. The mounting insurgency was blamed on remnants of his regime. His brutal rule of Iraq made him easy to demonize at home and abroad. No sooner had Saddam Hussein been captured than the US spokesmen began to mention al-Zarqawi’s name in every sentence. “If the weather is bad they will blame it on Zarqawi,” an Iraqi journalist once said to me as we sat through one American briefing. It emerged earlier this year that the US emphasis on al-Zarqawi as the prime leader of the Iraqi resistance was part of a carefully calculated propaganda program. A letter supposedly from al-Zarqawi was conveniently discovered. One internal briefing document quoted by the Washington Post records Brigadier General Kimmitt, the chief US military spokesman at the time, as saying: “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.”
The US Zarqawi campaign was largely aimed at the American public and above all the American voter. It was intent on hammering in the message that the invasion of Iraq was a reasonable response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. This meant it was necessary to show that al Qaeda was strong in Iraq and play down the fact that this had only happened after the invasion…
http://www.counterpunch.org
In a Month al-Zarqawi’s Name will be Forgotten and the War will Rage On
Make-Up for a Corpse!
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
In the old days they’d brandish the head of the captured chieftain from the battlements. These days, given the effects on human bone and tissue of artillery and 500 pound bombs, there’s a cull from an old Most Wanted list and then, when the morticians have done their work, a photo of the cadaver’s visage, decently cleaned up.
When Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, were located and killed in July of 2003 connoisseurs of the mortician’s arts were particularly impressed at the efforts taken to make them presentable for post mortem prime time.
At the White House press conference Thursday morning there was gloating of course, just as there was when Saddam’s sons were killed. It takes an effort now to recall that, like the late Zarqawi, Uday and Qusay too were credited with inspiring a large part of the resistance, and then, as now, guarded hopes were expressed in Washington that maybe some sort of a corner had been turned.
By the very location of his final address, a lonely house in the back country east of Baghdad, we can surmise that Zarqawi’s glory days as a guerilla commander were behind him. Leaders of largely urban insurgencies don’t bunker in easily surrounded rural retreats, in areas where locals are liable to turn them in, as happened with Zarqawi. On the other hand, terrorists on the run, with a dwindling band of followers, opt for whatever bolthole is available, however suicidal it may be.
In many ways Zarqawi was an American asset, discrediting the local nationalist resistance by dint of being a foreigner, from Jordan, a proclaimed follower of Osama bin Laden, a religious fanatic, given to sawing people’s heads off in front of a tv camera. It will be hard to find a symbol of the foe as nasty as he was…
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06092006.html
The numbers I have seen say that only about 10% of the insurgents are from outside IRAQ.. These people are trying to tell us something and like any rethug we aren’t listening.
Was the Ohio Vote Rigged?
By EVELYN PRINGLE
By late afternoon on November 2, 2004, nationally, all the exit polls showed John Kerry winning with 50.8% of the votes and showed George W Bush with 48.2%, meaning Kerry had a 2.6% lead over Bush.
But when the vote counts came in at the end of election day, Bush had 50.9% of the votes, and Kerry had 48.1%, meaning Bush received 2.8% more votes than Kerry.
According to Dr Ron Baiman, PhD, from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in Chicago, who has 16 years of experience teaching statistics to both graduate and undergraduate college students, there would be about 1 chance in 900,000 of that kind of statistical error occurring.
Ohio was the most important state to Bush. He could not win without it. He spent so much time in the state that people began to wonder whether he had left a forwarding address to Ohio.
At his last campaign rally in the state, a mere 4 days before the election, Bush bestowed special praise on a husband and wife team who in hindsight, were more helpful to Bush than any other politicians in Ohio, as far as rigging the election…
:rofl2: The Iraqis had Zarqawi we have Bill Fist, Thom Delay, Arlan Specter, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Chaney.. and and and.. A lady just pointed that out on Shultz… she wanted her country back. :fist: How many people did Bushes inaction kill in LA, How many old people are dying because of the medicare drug fiasco, How many people die each day from inadequate health care..Who is it that’s the real enemy here ?? :fist::gate::omg::jason::jason:
Moulitsas, known to his disciples as “Kos”, spoke briefly to the troops at the end of the day, after we were all talked out — well, not all; there were some brazen-lunged enthusiasts still going strong — and mellowed out with a beer or two.
“Kos” is a small, trim, birdlike guy, given to quick, fluttery gestures. He has a distinctive, shoulder- and hip-swinging walk — what you might call a sashay, actually. The play of expression on his face reminded me strangely of Louis Farrakhan, though I suppose this is the only point of resemblance between the two. He has that same slow, deliberate smile, held a little too long for comfort. There is something in his look that says he is confident of adulation, and pleased with his own success.
He read his text a little woodenly, and there wasn’t much to it. His two great points of self-congratulation were 1) Howard Dean is now DNC chair and 2) Paul Hackett almost got somewhere in Ohio. (You haven’t heard of Paul Hackett? Don’t worry about it.) Kos confidently predicted that Joe Lieberman would lose to his anti-war primary challenger, Ned Lamont — but then, last week Kos was saying that Francine Busby would pull an upset in San Diego. (You haven’t heard of Francine Busby, either? See Paul Hackett, above.)
Neither Kos nor anybody else today talked much about what you might call the content of politics. The word “progressive” was frequently invoked, but either everybody agrees on just what that means or nobody wanted to get into it. The Iraq war was mentioned, in my hearing, twice, in the context of alluding to the death of Zarqawi. Both times the crowd applauded this victory in the war on terror — applauded solidly but not thunderously; I couldn’t help thinking, wishfully perhaps, that although the Kosniks are loyal adherents of the understudy War Party, at least some of these progressives are starting to have doubts about this particular war. . .
Twenty Nine states had some or a lot of precincts that exhibited the “red shift” problem in the 2004 election. Most of those counties in which red shift occurred had rethugs heading their election departments hence they had access to the central tabulator which in all cases was a Diebolt GEMS system.
Nobody mentioned Israel, or Palestine, or the Israel lobby, or anything remotely connected with these topics, even once.
Speaking of war, the Maximum Leader put in another appearance a little later, at a reception for ex-general and presidential candidate Wesley Clark. (What the hell, there was free booze, which is more than I’ve ever gotten out of any other general, or presidential candidate either.)
At this event, my benign impression of the Kosniks started to fray a little. There he was, General Clark, pigeon-chested, lizard-faced, the former butcher of the Balkans, his chalky cheeks ghastly under the camera flashes — as scary as anything I’ve ever seen outside an autopsy suite. And the Kosniks were loving him.
Kos made his slow ceremonious way over to Clark and the two of them exchanged courtly greetings, like the Doge of Venice unexpectedly meeting the Duke of Muscovy but remembering his manners — the least you could expect of Doges and Dukes, surely. The Kosniks were in raptures: witnesses to history. A burly six-foot chap standing next to me — a guy who could have tied the General in knots — gushed girlishly, “Now this is People Power! I mean, who are WE?” I wanted to ask, “Who is HE?” but remembered my disguise before I spoke. The General’s free booze had slowed me down a bit, fortunately.
Clark stood up, with a little help, on a table, and gave a smooth little speech. The burden of his song was, “send money.”
And so to bed, as Mr. Pepys says. Tomorrow we get to meet senate minority leader Harry Reid and Virginia governor and presidential aspirant Mark Warner — if they show. Nancy Pelosi has already stood us up. A bitter disappointment, but the General’s free booze has softened the pain.
http://www.smithbowen.net/linfame/
Susan pointed out yesterday that KOS stays in the middle of the road to attract as many people to the left of center as possible. They are there to make noise and give the impression of action. They will be a bunch of surrender monkeys when push comes to shove.
Marcos makes me turn him off when he is on the Majority Report he is to much of what I call a realist. All realists do is turn people who like to get something done off.
Absolutely!:omg: True. Despicably true. I like SEDER; he has given kos a forum since day one.
Ron Reagan is a good guy. His father was such a scary crypto-fascist.
Death of Zarqawi is announced. The liberal crowd erupts in loud, sustained applause!
:omg::omg::fu:people who give the term liberal such bad connotations.
Add sugar to shit!
Kos: Realist or a pragmatist? (Or is there any difference?) We need to be realistic about the situation. Auschwitz exists. There is nothing we can do to change that fact. What we can do is ensure that the inmates have clean bathrooms, a gymnasium, and a coffee shop.
kos
I don’t know why there is not more discussion of Israel and its land thieving policy and repression when it comes to the palestinians. No one mentions that problem as being in reality THE PROBLEM that drives much of the Muslim hate of the US not only in the middle east but world wide. If the rapture and Armageddon is the real driving force behind the US support of Israel ( they have to exist for that to happen) then one could probably create a localized form of that right away.
The Rapture and Armageddon is not the driving force behind the US support of Israel. Think Neo-Con realpolitik.
Watch out…Jorge Posada is hit by a pitch. This provokes a far more dramatic response than polar bears having to swim up to 60 miles for food and subsequently drowning…due to climate change melting the Arctic ice shelf.
A-Rod steals a base…and not a soul seems worried about 100,000 Americans losing their health insurance each month.
Every two seconds, somewhere on this planet, a child starves to death. (How many have did we lose while Jason Giambi rounded the bases after his three-run homer?)
As Arundhati Roy explains: “People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America.” Ward Churchill takes it further…warning us that the same people Roy refers to “have no obligation-moral, ethical, legal or otherwise-to sit on their thumbs while the opposition here dithers about doing anything to change the system.”
Noam Chomsky sez: “You are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions.” By “actions,” I believe he is also implying “inaction.”
Mickey Z. is the author of several books, most recently 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know (Disinformation Books). He can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.
The Rapture and Armageddon are factors that drive fools like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fartwell and some of the cristo fascists that form a significant percentage of the thug base. A world in conflict will generally only stay that way as long as there is a tormentor present. Localized conflicts will probably always occur. Getting 1.6 billion Muslims kicked off was quite some feat.
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Yes. The Book of Revelation stuff is used by religious fanatics to whip up the masses and blind their eyes to what is really going on. But, as someone who has been active in Middle east peace, the Armageddonists are a minority. When you talk to people, many get it. Fot the past 20 years, polls have consistently shown that the Americans support the 2-state solution.
Abu Musab Saddam Osama al-Zarqawi, the extremely elusive if not entirely mythical terrorist mastermind responsible for every single insurgent action in Iraq except for the ones caused by the red-tailed devils in Iran or the stripey-tailed devils in Syria, has reportedly been killed in an airstrike in Hibhib, an area north of Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced today.
Zarqawi, the notorious shape-shifter who, according to grainy video evidence, was able to regenerate lost limbs, speak in completely different accents, alter the contours of his bone structure and also suffered an unfortunate binge-and-purge weight problem which caused him to change sizes with almost every appearance, was head of an organization that quite fortuitously dubbed itself “Al Qaeda in Iraq” just around the time that the Bush Administration began changing its pretext for the conquest from “eliminating Iraq’s [non-existent] weapons of mass destruction” to “fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.”
The name change of the Zarqawi gang from its cumbersome original – “The Monotheism and Holy War Group” – to the more media-sexy “Qaeda” brand was thus a PR godsend for the Bush Administration, which was then able to associate the widespread native uprising against the Coalition occupation with the cave-dwelling dastards of the bin Laden organization. This proved an invaluable tool for the Pentagon’s massive “psy-op” campaign against the American people, which was successful in sufficiently obscuring reality and defusing rising public concerns about what many experts have termed “the full-blown FUBAR” in Iraq until after the 2004 elections.
Ewww This advetisement brought to you by NickiRose:eek::doh:
Straight as an arrow
Defect, defect
Not straight, not so straight
Reject, reject
Twards anti-social
Dull dull, so dull
Standing on the stairs
Cold cold morning
Ghostly image of fear
May day may day
Gonna leave this region
They’ll take me with them
Dimension 7 Past astro borders
Zeno lies waiting
Past gascous remains
Intrigue such intrigue
Gonna leave this region
There taking me with them
Bring out the Hellman’s
and bring out the best.
Re: Cooking Out
« Reply #5 on: May 30, 2006, 11:49:39 AM »
————————————————————————
Did you know that east of the Mississippi it’s Hellman’s mayonaise and west of the Mississippi it’s Best Foods.
Bring out the Hellman’s and bring out the best.
Bring out the Best Foods and bring out the best.
(I stole this from a random blog.)
some funny definitions from verity stob’s column on the reg developer website:
Bloggerel: Narcissistic, poor quality poetry that is self-published on a personal website.
Skype-equette: That part of a Skype conversation taken up with a discussion about how much money we would be s ng if only we could g IT to op orts in th irewall, and I reckon e ISP rottling the traffic delib going to end up with ernet just like Ro ringely sai and, oh sod this hang up and
I all you on ur mobile.
Spodcast: Spodcast is the emotion felt upon discovering that one’s hard disk has filled up with 27 unplayed, automatically-downloaded mp3s of Lord (formerly Melvyn) Bragg of Wigton’s fantastically educational (but just a bit earnest) Radio 4 series “In Our Time”.
To be honest: A phrase I am assured imported to software development from the world of football. It is mostly used in speech rather than written communication, and rewards those who take care to note it when it appears in the mouths of others.
1. As used by salespersons, speaking to a customer, it signals a lie. Example: “To be honest, in a setup like yours, I wouldn’t bother with client licences. False economy. I’d just put in servers. It really makes sense going forward.”
2. As used by engineers, speaking to a customer, it signals that the engineer is about to undo all the work of the sales team. Example: “You could put in server licences throughout. Although, to be honest, you could easily get away with one server and all the rest clients. And it would probably run a lot faster too.”
Two things I don’t understand:
* Why does anybody ever say the phrase? It’s a sort of verbal monkey’s paw, calling down evil upon the head of whoever speaks it.
* What is it supposed to mean? If the words as spoken are true then it is redundant; if it is untrue then, as we have seen, it draws attention to the lie.
When you need to gain thinking time, I say you should ‘errm’ and be done with it. To be honest.
link
The two state solution is a fine idea as long as you don’t keep blowing the palestinians away with air strikes and bulldozing their houses. The economic disparagement between the palestinians and the Israeli’s is probably similar to that between the people in El Elpaso and the people in Warez. These two cities are interdependent on each other for their economic well being. That’s why the fenced off border idea is going over like a lead balloon there. Those two places were built up long after the Texas Mexican war where the TexASS Yankees grabbed the Mexicans land. It’s also out in the middle of now where so there is not a lot of outside pressure and plenty of space on the US side of the border to expand.
600 Club.:omg:
did anyone hear al franken’s interview this morning with lori wallach with the public citizen’s global trade watch? she had some amazing facts. one of the scariest was that last year’s trade deficit for the u.s.a. was over 6% of gnp. she said that the world bank forces developing countries into extreme measures if their trade deficit ever gets as high as 3% of gnp. here’s her website: link
Look into the ideology of Israel’s nationalism. If the Palestinians want to stay, it will be as lower class subjects. The ideology is strikingly similar to that of Apartheid south Africa. The US has Israel’s back. Since negotiations have only brought more settlements and more restrictions, the Palestinians see violence as the only language that Israel understands.
The US by most definitions( imports finished goods instead of manufacturing them, exports raw materials, has a services based economy, consumes more than it produces ) has turned into a Banana republic.. The issue with the World Bank is just another indication.
Most repressed peoples only resort is to suffer and eventually the pot boils over.. Israel is just keeping the lid on the pot by its actions and policies and making the situation more likely to explode. What happens if Pakistan which is not a Arab country but is predominately Muslim overthrows their dictator ?? They have both nuclear weapons and intermediate range guided missiles. They could turn Israel into a cinder in seconds and China and Russia would probably keep the US terrorized so we would not respond.
1927 New Orleans
The waters receded, the anger did not, and, in 1928, Huey “Kingfish” Long was elected Governor of Louisiana. At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. The elite liked it that way, but Long didn’t. To pay for the books, the Kingfish levied a special tax on Big Oil. But the oil companies refused to pay for the textbooks. Governor Long then ordered the National Guard to seize the oil fields in the Delta.
It was Huey Long who established the principle that a government of the people must protect the people, school them, build the infrastructure, regulate industry and share the nation’s wealth-and that meant facing down “the concentrations of monopoly power” of the corporate aristocracy-“the thieves of Wall Street,” as he called them.
In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. FDR and the party establishment, scared witless of Long’s ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, albeit diluted, called it the New Deal and later the New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered. What happened to the Kingfish? As with Chávez, the oil industry and local oligarchs had few options for responding to Governor Long’s populist appeal and the success of his egalitarian economic program. On September 8, 1935, Huey Long, by then a U.S. Senator, was shot dead. He was 42. And now is the moment, as it was in ’27.
podcast: Spodcast is the emotion felt upon discovering that one’s hard disk has filled up with 27 unplayed, automatically-downloaded mp3s of Lord (formerly Melvyn) Bragg of Wigton’s fantastically educational (but just a bit earnest) Radio 4 series “In Our Time”.
I understand the emotion…I just spent almost two days cleaning out my hard drive…not of that radio series, but there was stuff I honestly don’t remember downloading myself…
I like Ron Reagan Jr. He always looked like he was clinging to the undertow just staying afloat on MSNBC (is he even still on that network?)
Susan pointed out yesterday that KOS stays in the middle of the road to attract as many people to the left of center as possible. They are there to make noise and give the impression of action. They will be a bunch of surrender monkeys when push comes to shove.
Marcos makes me turn him off when he is on the Majority Report he is to much of what I call a realist. All realists do is turn people who like to get something done off.
I don’t think he’s “realist.” He’s got a good blog because it brings a lot of people together and he has a handle on what the internet can be politically speaking, but he tends to say a lot of centrist things “protest is a remnant of the 60’s” He’s also a bit too rah rah military for my taste, though I know he’s against the current conflict that kind of sensibility makes me uneasy. He also is always bashing people to the left of himself.
Palast said IRAN was a diversion while we went after Chavez. 30 something percent on DU said they would support a Chavez style government. A not so benevolent peoples dictator.
Speaking of the banana republic
Dow’s 1-week loss: 355 points.. not quite as bad as 87… just wait until next week..
I am not sure what I mean by realist..
A realist is not someone who thinks about moving very rapidly politically at any given time. ( it happened slowly for the last 50 years it will continue to happen that way)
A realist is one who does not believe the elections in 2000 and 2004 were stolen.
A realist is one who does not consider whats going on politically as being a real problem ( they believe the unemployment numbers for example, and that the pendulum swings back and forth)
A realist is one who believes in a world economy. ( The WTO and GAFT are good for the US)
A realist believes that the DOW reflects the economic well being of the US citizen and the the US industrial production,
A realist thinks the all volunteer army is a good idea and that a draft would be bad.
Hey there foggyblue. It’s nice to see you – it’s been a while.
1 Vijay Singh -8 F -7
T2 Fredrik Jacobson -7 F -3
Yeah!:omg:
OK Nicki please translate
Interestingly I’ve often heard conservatives refer to themselves as “realists.” It just seems to be a word they like to use for themselves. I think you’re right about Kos, though, Fred….most of those seem to fit him… does that make him conservative? 😮
you mean you don’t know who Vijay Singh is???? 🙁
Daily Kos has some good stuff, but Kos himself, eh, I dunno. He reminds me of the guy in the X-Files that could squeeze through a soil pipe.
He said he thinks military experience should be a requirement for being prez. It’s certainly a factor for consideration, but I don’t know that being a US Army artillery specialist from 1989 – 1992 in Oklahoma and Germany gives you any special skills for being president.
Do we limit it only to vets that have served in a command position? Or only those who’ve served in time of war? Is somebody who spent a lifetime in public service doing some good for the people less deserving of the office than somebody who was a stateside supply sargeant (or who made training films, like Ronny Reagan)?
Certainly, military experience is one facet of a person’s life that can be weighed in determining fitness to be president, but it would be asinine to exclude otherwise qualified people from the office.
Excluding qualified people is what the campaigns are for.
Watch out. Lou Dobbs will be after Vijay next. Especially if he does well in the Open.
Conservative as compared to the guys in power … I would say Noooooo Way but to a conservative of maybe 10 years ago he probably fits pretty well. A democrat of 10 years ago was probably best described as a communist who believed in private ownership.. No wonder I am confused.. We seem to be listing to the right .. eventually the ship will capsize and sink.. maybe that’s why the Titanic comparison doesn’t work all the time since it went down nose first.
you mean you don’t know who Vijay Singh is????
Comment by Susan Joy — June 9, 2006 @ 6:50 pm
WHO ????:shock::eek:
Professional golfer. Either that, or somebody who plays videos on MTV. Didja hear that Vijay Singh?
Professional golfer. Either that, or somebody who plays videos on MTV. Didja hear that Vijay Singh?
:rofl2::rofl2::rofl2::rofl2::rofl2:
The universal translator equated the Open = golf thing
The second thought was better though,
He said he thinks military experience should be a requirement for being prez. It’s certainly a factor for consideration, but I don’t know that being a US Army artillery specialist from 1989 – 1992 in Oklahoma and Germany gives you any special skills for being president.
You hear that a lot, though…people saying that the prez should have a military background. I frequently challenge people who say that. In my opinion a military person would be more likely to think of war as a solution…unless it’s the kind of military person who has thought it over and come to the conclusion that “war sucks.” You know what…those types don’t usually get far in politics, it’s always the gung-ho gun-toters who get political seats.
Maybe Military experience should be experience in a shooting war.. and in battle. They would be highly unlikely to want to do that again. You may find a person like that harder to find than a politician with experience in economics and political science. If one can achieve public funding of elections and some how keep attack slime out of the system one can probably find lots of people who would run and get elected.
The majority of the rethugs are paranoid about lossing their stuff and secondary their lives.. To attract those kinds of people and the thug want to bes you have to present a face that projects power.. That’s also why we spend billions on imprisoning people and trying to wage a war on drugs.. Most of the time a good job would solve both problems.
ohhh thunderstorm threw me off line for 15 minutes… :omg:
It clouded up but nothing has happened so far.. it will probably wait until after I go to bed tonight. it only got up to 86 today. The cooling tower is all torn apart out in the parking lot.. Doesn’t look well for tomorrow either.
I left the AC at home on low cool all day. That worked really well.. until I get the utility bill that is.
Hey Kat-
Didyou know that I went to UCSC back in 1980-ish for one year? I lived in College 5….I left after a year and was considering UCLA or NYU but I was immediately offered work when I got back to NYC so I chose work instead.
Will isfeelinga little better this evening. There really is no blood test for antianxiety meds…they just go on how he feels….and hes been going steadily downhill. As soon as the Dr raised the meds he felt better, so it may be a matter of keeping adjusting for a while. I just hope thathe sleeps tonight.
There is a carnival (the first of the carnival season) and we wont go unless he has slept…we also wont have Ben over…so Im hoping that he sleeps.
Meantime, I seem to be an AAR premium member for the weekend because I subscribed to the weekend Kos.
I missed every panel today except the last half of the last one in room 1, which was fantastic.
Howard Dean us speaking at 8AM (that is pacific time) in room 1 tomorrow morning…I could be perfectly happy to lay around with this thing streaming all weekend…
Or even clean the house and try to do some stuff with it streaming. Now Sam is broadcasting form there again….its great!
Im wondering if they are going to rerun these panels….has anyone heard?
Seems like they should at least keep them in the premium vault!
Hey Suz- hav eyou ever met a Jardine’s Amazon Parrot?
I have been researching them because I came across a litle thing about how great they are in an Amazon book that I have…and now they suddenly have these 2 little no feather babies in the nursery at Parrots & co.
Im looking for people who have met them or had them just to see what they think. They are like Greys but playful and cuddly.
Is the conference being broadcast by anyone else.. Nooooo of course not sorry I asked.. Maybe AAR will put the video’s on their web site after the fact.
I spoke too soon C-span is carrying the forums live so they may be on their web site after it is over.
Blog convention: YUCK! Hey DoLittles. Are you happy about Zarqawi?
Hey Melina – I think I saw one of those at Bird Jungle! I was in love…of course I’m in love with many many birds in that store. 🙂
I will see if one can listen to Sam with Windoz media player and watch the forum on C-span with real Player..and blog at the same time That should test my wireless network.
Kos Convention! Why is that creep the headliner?
Do Nothing Dems. :fu:
I missed the whole Kos thing…have not had time to even listen much to the radio today. I guess this is event is going on past today? I hope I don’t have to listen much to Markos, though
If the convention is “TheLeft” then we are in serious trouble.:smack:
Well. He’s FAMous now. :omg:
Your Markos is the flagship!:omg:
You’re still a conservative, dude.
Democratic process, or Democratic Party?
Yes, actually Kos is “today’s left.”
Well it made the fan on the laptop run all the time.. now we will post something and see what happens.. :knit::knit::knit::knit::omg:
The only thing I’ll say for Daily Kos is it introduced me to the concept of “political blogs.” It was the first one I’d ever seen, and before that ( a few years ago) I had no idea there was a viable online political community. But from there of course, there are much better places to explore. I still like going there to see links to different news stories, though.
:omg::omg::omg::fu::fu::joe::40::omg::rofl2::nixon::jesus::jason::peace::rofl2:
I am troubled!
Ok Nothing is happening on C-span just a table with a bunch of chairs. YAwnnnnn.. Whats on the AAR video.. Sam I would presume. ??
regarding the realist issue, Fred, I disagree with many of your examples of what a realist is. I believe that a realist is someone who looks at the evidence and makes a reasonable decision based not on what they want immediately, but on what is REAL.
A realist will vote Democratic because, even though they WANT a strong 3rd party, they know that if they dont support the Dems, the Republicans WILL WIN. That is just fact…So, though I wish I was still a dreamer, and though I want to work in the future to really change things, I know that we have to make the step first of getting back to a Democratic majority before we can even consider anything else…otherwise we will be waiting for 4 more years at least for anything to happen.
So, being radical progressive at this point to the point where you convince youself that people are really gonna take to the streets and vote in a Nader, will DEFINITELY give more power to the Republicans…power that we cant afford to lose.
But then it is incumbent on us in a very REAL way that we all continue on once the Dems are in place to switch them around and to hold up their records for all to see…..
Regarding Kos…well, in the panel I just saw he was the first to say that they all have their specialties and they all have their areas of interest, so you can’t expect any one of them to be for everyone or everything….
I dont know if he is promilitary or a “realist”..I dont have enough time to read alot of this and I prefer some of the other blogs…
But this convention is fantastic, and its great that he let them use the name and has put so much of his time into it.
Kos is not left.
oh boy…if that parade of emos indicates Nicki’s current mood 😮
Sui-cider :40: out!:omg::rofl2:
The panels are over for today…but begins tomorrow AM at 8AM PST w/ Dean doing the keynote….
I have found only good ideas and lots of back and forth with te audience….I wonder why you all hate Kos so much? Is there something that is horrible in it?
The Raw Story guy is on with Sam right now.
I don’t know if blogs make a “viable” community. There are three of us here.. Two more there, six someplace else.. Twenty people maybe doesn’t make a viable community What it does do is indicate other people are thinking the same way you do and that’s important.
The thing is, like Fred said earlier (more or less), that “left” keeps moving further to the right all the time…so Kos “Is” left now…but of course some of us who are the true left aren’t going with them… 😡
NIcki, as opposed to what? Left is what?….and what difference dos it make to you if people find a path through links from that site or are mid left instead of ultra left…we are all different, but we all want the repubs out of power…dont cut off your nose to spite your face.
I do agree that the convention is a good thing…if only to get so many people who are on this wild political ride together, and draw guests and get media attention…
C-span indicated there will something on at 9:00 eastern.. Maybe its not live.
I wasn’t quite sure what I meant by realist..I agree that you can’t get any where with a third party but lots of things are possible they don’t have to be just the way they always have been with some slow migration to the right . and moving ever so slowly no matter what you want to get done. Marco’s acts like the typical well I still have mine whats the matter with you slacker kind of mentality.
Hey Fred, I was just saying what you said in comment #184 to a friend of mine here with me right now.Actually, I think it was about the same time that you said it. Weird. I had a similar thing happen this morning when I was listening to Dr. Mike Newcomb and just as he said Bye Bye, I typed it.
A blogger convention is a great idea since like the guy from RawStory said you get to meet the other people. Hartman’s chat room for instance is mostly a bunch of retired people .. they would not be warriors if you had to do something. You can actually get the feet on the ground aspects of doing something without the problem with parade permits, the cops, the national guard, and whatever else comes to your demonstrations.
I would wonder if you assembled a group of 500,000 people in some soccer field some where the night before a demonstration and had some fiery speakers if the establishment ( translated the thugs in charge) would even let you do that You might decide to take your country back and…
Everyone in our UJP group is to the left but many are not activists except on the first Sunday of the month and many are terribly under informed. Most of them are younger people , and everyone leaves energized to some extent but most of them would never go for anything that made loud noises other than chanting.
God is angry but missed :crap:
Record meteorite hits Norway compared to atomic bomb
http://www.freedomcrowsnest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=495359#495359
There is an picture of the impact crater at the link
Bed time again blog with ya all later
Hey all- here is Media Matters on Laura Devil Doll Ingram on Fox about here statement about the press in Iraq….does tha makes sense??
Nite all—
Its 9AM tomorrow moring for the Kos Konvention again…Pacific time….BUT its 8AM pacific time for Howard Dean’s Keynote speech!
I hope that CSPAN will rebroadcast this thing because its so good.
God missed?…yeah, he should have hit Cheney’s house….but IM sure many are thinking that it should have been the muslim neighborhoods over there in Denmark/Norway etc…
The world is changing so quickly.
one more thing….here is Rolling Stone on Zar-cowie…a good article.
Uh, I was kinda drafted into doing maintenance work at a motel/ RV place today. My trip plan has sorta changed now. Oh, if anyone was wondering about what I was doing and whatnot. Anyway.
No more spam from me.:jason:
:joe:What is going on now?:omg:
Hey, I just saw Noam Chom on the Rose. Damn interviewer guy was a dick and wouldn’t let Chom finish anything he was saying!:mad:
Nicki turned me on to Chomsky through all those posts. Thanks, man.
Well, I have to get up early and work tomorrow:fustrate: Read ya later.
NIKKI MILLER from the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, and Navy vet turned anti-war protester WALLY CUDDEFORD, arrested this week in anti-war protests.
I helped start OMJP. :omg:
Where is everybody?:omg:
Wonderful… :crap: Murtha wants to be house majority leader but he’s not Ploser either,, Would Murtha make a good president if we were to remove Bush and Cheney ??
For some reason my bio scheduler is still in Mon – Fri mode.. anyone still up ??
A Just War? Hardly
By Noam Chomsky
Spurred by these times of invasions and evasions, discussion of “just war” has had a renaissance among scholars and even among policy-makers.
Concepts aside, actions in the real world all too often reinforce the maxim of Thucydides that “The strong do as they can, while the weak suffer what they must” — which is not only indisputably unjust, but at the present stage of human civilisation, a literal threat to the survival of the species.
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as “a triumph of just war theory,” standing alongside Kosovo as a “just war.” Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like “seems to me entirely justified,” or “I believe” or “no doubt.”
Facts are ignored, even the most obvious ones. Consider Afghanistan. As the bombing began in October 2001, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism.
The word “suspected” is important. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after what must have been the most intense manhunt in history, “We think the masterminds of (the Sept. 11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others — the principals — came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere.”
What was still unclear in June 2002 could not have been known definitively the preceding October, though few doubted at once that it was true. Nor did I, for what it’s worth, but surmise and evidence are two different things. At least it seems fair to say that the circumstances raise a question about whether bombing Afghans was a transparent example of “just war.”
Walzer’s arguments are directed to unnamed targets — for example, campus opponents who are “pacifists.” He adds that their “pacifism” is a “bad argument,” because he thinks violence is sometimes legitimate. We may well agree that violence is sometimes legitimate (I do), but “I think” is hardly an overwhelming argument in the real-world cases that he discusses.
By “just war,” counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.
After World War II, a new regime of international law was instituted. Its provisions on laws of war are codified in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principles, adopted by the General Assembly. The Charter bars the threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council or, under Article 51, in self-defense against armed attack until the Security Council acts.
:joe:
Rep. DeGette awaiting Bush response to her stem-cell bill.
Washington – With the Senate poised to vote on her bill allowing federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, Rep. Diana DeGette asked Thursday to meet with President Bush to persuade him not to veto the legislation.
“This would be his first veto, and he would be vetoing a bill that could potentially help millions of Americans,” DeGette said. “I think I’d like to look him in the eye and say that to him.” ….
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_3916430
====================
In a civil war the North Denver Burbs would attack and burn the South Denver Burbs.
yay, Chomsky
Which burb in Denver do the rich bastards live?
Why is my body’s wake alarm set for 4:15 now? :omg:
Both Tancredo and Allturd are thinking about running for presidork.. both should be sent to the state hospital. Allturd is getting senile he should be taken out of service.
Oh, he will veto that bill. I’m just surprised that this will be his first veto…means he’s not getting enough resistance as far as I’m concerned
Is it time for your purification bath?
Shabbat goy!:omg:
Anybody get mail yesterday?
Tancredo represents a lot of Waterton, Littleton, Centennial, Castle pines, Littleton is or was where a lot of Lockheed Martin people live, Waterton is both rich people living in the foothills but also where Lockheed Martin’s R&D facility and the Titan IIIC assembly plant is. The other two places are where all the recent 9 – 12 thousand sq foot houses are.
::takes bath:::
no, nobody got mail :omg:
I get mail all the time. I got my AAR and Radio Nation propaganda, plus all the other :crap: I’m sure we all get.
you get AAR mail through the regular mail? Not bad. My advertising mail isn’t that interesting.
my dad worked for the post office for like 30 years and always told us really bad U.S. mail jokes…don’t know why I’m mentioning that. Ok, radio on…
OOPs I interpreted mail as being email.. I get adds and bills in the US mail
In a large Florida City, the rabbi developed quite a reputation for his sermons; so much so that everyone who was Jewish in the community came every Shabbat.
Unfortunately, one weekend a member had to visit Long Island for his nephew’s bar mitzvah. But he didn’t want to miss the rabbi’s sermon. So he decided to hire a Shabbat goy to sit in the congregation and tape the sermon so he could listen to it when he returned.
Other congregants saw what was going on, and they also decided to hire Shabbat goys to tape the sermon so they could play golf instead of going to shul.
Within a few weeks time there were 500 gentiles sitting in shul taping the rabbi. The rabbi got wise to this. The following Shabbat he, too, hired a Shabbat goy who brought a tape recorder to play his prerecorded sermon to the 500 gentiles in the congregation who dutifully recorded his words on their machines.
Witnesses said this marked the first incidence in history of artificial insermonation!
I think Nicki meant regular mail. I could be wrong…
Did you like the bad Shabbat Goy joke?:nod:
Do you get unmarked packages through e-mail?
some customs are not for me…
Synagogues don’t post their services on their web sites ??
No bath? You have exposed my subterfuge.:omg:
If I get an unmarked package I take over to the police substation or take it to Dr. Chen and have her look at it with her micro probe, So far nothing has exploded.
I’m quite impressed, yes :doh:
oh, I like baths…
I get unmarked packages sometimes. But I always know who sends them to me :nod:
I googled “shabbat goy” and found that joke at one of the sites. I was looking for fun with horses, goys and other beasts.
Dr. Chen likes to look at unmarked packages .. she keeps hoping they will explode so corporate will buy her a new micro probe .. hers has 6AJ8’s in its electronics.
Do you take baths on the sabbath?:nod:
Do I take showers every day ?? :nod:
you know the Jewish sex-via-a-hole-in-the-sheet thing is just an urban myth…
I don’t acknowledge any kind of Sabbath…
Darn. I wanted to try it.
although on occasion I’ve been invited to Witch’s sabbaths…totally different customs there, I assure you :pent:
Everyday goy, then.:omg:
you wanted to….hmmmm :nod:
Every day is Sabbath Day!:omg:
Did the witches indicate that they wanted you to be “it” when you attend their sabbath ??:omg::eek:
Why are they tripping on the fact that Zaarqawi lived for a few moments after the 500 pound bomb was dropped on him?
How long did Kennedy live after that second shot?
Same sick snuff film fascination shit.
Witches Sabbats are not every week (that’s Esbats), but something like 6 times a year…the seasonal holidays (solstices, equinoxes) and cross-quarter days. Beltane (fertility sex holiday) and Samhain (Halloween) being the most fun, of course
Shall we talk about Mormons now. How do they do it?
I don’t know why they care about how much “extra” time he lived either…another distraction, as far as I’m concerned
They are trying to explain why Zaarqawi wasn’t blown to bits by the bomb instead of telling us that they tortured him in a black hole for ten days before he died.
Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. :omg:
Mormons are impotent after the age of 30 if they have the proper number of wives.. You might say its a draining experience.
Sadism. How much harder would it have been to capture him? No. We had to drop a big bomb on him. At least Rachel is happy.
Nothing this admin or the military does is portrayed in the correct light its all a lie.. We will have to wait until Aljazeera reports the truth. :roll::shock::eek:
People have their bloodlust…I guess Rachel is one of them
You know years from now more and more stuff from this administration will still be coming out. It mean it won’t be over, they’re death dealers and that will continued to be shown for a long, long time.
The thugs are portraying the left as a bunch of terrorist loving pansies ( the pansy part I will go for) .. Maddow is is just trying to look like a strong liberal.
When you listen to Maddow her voice gets really high pitched at times.. I think that is when the guy in the chair with the M16 points it at her.