Question of the Day

"What do you say to a woman who had lost four sons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson to AIDS?"

find out here

Letter Of The Day

Anybody ever wanted to be able to drive their vehicle because they lost their license due to an alcohol law? Well if you haven’t, it’s a real pain in the butt, always looking for rides and walking everywhere.

Another problem people are facing is being put in jail for doing drugs and experiencing the high life. Sometimes, druggies are put in prison for more than 25 years, completely changing their family’s lives, their friends’ lives and also community.

I don’t think anybody should look at stoners as criminals because a stoner’s not guilty of anything but having a good time and a good appetite for getting messed up.

Some politicians and citizens are just darn right turned around about the bad things they say about drinking and driving laws, alcohol laws and plain drugs in general. Anybody against this stuff should wake up from their ingenious lives and learn how to respect these kinds of people and work on these laws so these people aren’t burned anymore.

Look at me, for instance. I’m 23 years old already put in jail for smoking marijuana and put on probation for three years and now considered a felon, banning me from the right to join the military and own a gun. I’m pretty much screwed from a lot of things in this world and still feel just as good as anybody else.

--TODD MARTIN, Rockwell

attribution

i won 2nd prize

at the local paper's super bowl contest

what the hell am i going to do with stadium seats?

FARPOINT.FACTOID

Twenty-one percent of the 1,000 adults who replied to the survey conducted Thursday through Sunday said it was very likely or somewhat likely their conversations had been wiretapped, while 52 percent said it was not at all likely.

--source

the whitehouse kiss of death?

President Bush has full confidence in Michael Chertoff and has not considered asking the homeland security secretary to step down after criticism of his performance on Hurricane Katrina, the White House said Tuesday.

"Secretary Chertoff is doing a great job," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, answering a reporter's question about Chertoff. "The president appreciates his strong leadership. He is someone who is committed to doing everything he can to protect the American people and to continuing to take steps to make sure we are better prepared to respond to the threats that we face."

--source

should move-on take on right-wing democrats?

vote here

is there ANYthing about this whitehouse

that isn't a "lessons learned" event?

it's a shame what the US and israel are doing to hamas

even tho there have been no suicide bombers or any action hamas has done to deserve what they're getting. it's the US and israel who are not abiding by democracy in action. hamas won the election but since the US and israel aren't satisfied, they're going to starve the palestinians until they elect what the US and israel wants.

The idea, which the Times says is being "discussed at the highest level of the State Department" is to "starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections" so that President Abbas would call for new elections.

this is not democracy. it's dictators in action.

Letter(s) Of The Day

today there are two, on the same theme, from the same paper.

In his Feb. 1 letter, David Pulliam argues that if President Bush has committed impeachable offenses, one must also recognize that Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln also committed impeachable offenses (“If Bush Impeachable, So Was FDR”).

Pulliam claims that “grievous harm” was “inflicted by their wartime measures.” As a teacher of American history and government, I feel compelled to correct this simple error of analysis.

Impeachment is a legislative tool that can be used to remove presidents from power who subvert the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln did not subvert the Constitution. To the contrary, he exercised power outlined in Article 1, Section 9. Habeas corpus can be suspended (it is a privilege, not a right) under invasion or rebellion.

The Civil War certainly qualifies as armed rebellion. Therefore, Lincoln did no “grievous harm” to our country, and he certainly did not suspend the Constitution or subvert it in any way.

As for FDR’s internment of Japanese during World War II, this action (though I disagree with it) was upheld by the Supreme Court.

The only presidents to have been impeached were Andrew Johnson (for violating the Tenure of Office Act) and President Clinton. As we saw with the latter case, the House of Representatives may impeach a president for nearly anything. The bar has been lowered, not raised, regarding impeachable offenses.

The war-time wiretapping power Bush claims to have is a power hinged on a war that by its very definition has no end. That is also something to take into consideration.

— Brian Cleveland, Altoona.

and

. . . and war hasn’t been declared

The key difference between President Bush and FDR is that America actually was at war when FDR detained Japanese citizens. Unless David Pulliam can point to a declaration of war from Congress, this country is not technically at war. Hence “war powers” are not granted to Bush.

He must still follow the rule of law: “Those who make the law must be accountable to the law.” And as a side note, if President Clinton was impeached for an affair in the White House, why can’t Bush be impeached for clearly breaking the law of the Constitution (namely the Fourth Amendment and its protection of privacy)?

— J.J. Roepke, Altoona.

--source

FARPOINT.FACTOID

According to a report by DiamondCluster International, a management-consulting firm, Americans will have saved $75 billion in HSAs by 2010. The report estimates financial institutions can capture $3.5 billion in account and management fees over the next five years, and payment processors can capture $2.3 billion in transaction fees.
Wow. Billions of health-care dollars landing in the pockets of financial institutions.

The DiamondCluster International report is titled “Seizing the HSA Opportunity: Developing a Winning Strategy to Grow Profits & Market Share in a Time of Transition.” It reminds financial institutions that the last time they were “presented with an opportunity like this was the introduction of the IRA in 1974.”

--SOURCE

unbelievable? not for this (p)resident.

something i want you to see

i belong to this newshounds mailing list. it publishes synapses of fox news (sic). today's edition:

News Hounds Media Digest # 69
2/5/06 to 2/12/06

1.Janie: Far-right Kansas Attorney General, Phil Kline appeared on Dayside this week, to give his opinion on the current lawsuit that is underway involving his interpretation of a Kansas law, in which he feels all health professionals need to report any child under the age of 16 that is sexually active. He claimed that he would not prosecute these teens, as long as their partner were of a similar age, despite the fact his recent testimony proved otherwise.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/08/farright_kansas_attorney_general_phill_kline_dodges_and_spins.php

2. Marie Therese: Last week Bill O'Reilly lashed out at former President Jimmy Carter for remarks he made during the Coretta Scott King funeral. His guest, Rev. Al Sharpton, defended Carter vigorously, forcefully pushing back against O'Reilly's partisan whining. This made for an exciting, if somewhat loud,exchange. http://tinyurl.com/aech2

3. Melanie: Evangelical Christians are consistently welcomed with open arms on Fox News; their causes celebrated and even promoted. So it was striking when two representatives from an evangelical group promoting action to combat global warming appeared on Your World last Thursday and were given the cold shoulder. Even they weren't able to shake Fox's loyalty to the Bush administration on that topic.
http://tinyurl.com/a8lmq

4. Chrish: FOX is interjecting the defense of Bush's warrantless domestic spying into even the most trivial and unrelated segments, as if the outcome of hearings and investigations will be a matter of public opinion rather than law and Constitutionality.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/09/preemptive_damage_control_covers_for_another_defense_of_american_secret_police.php#more

5. Deborah: Did Libby bring Dick Cheney into his testimony because he's shopping for a pardon?
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/10/is_libby_shopping_for_a_pardon.php#more

6. Donna: This week the war drums were beating on Fox, including Studio B. John Bolton made the following statement in speaking about Iran, "It's entirely consistent with what the IAEA did on Libya and North Korea, other cases of nuclear weapons programs." John Bolton insinuarted that Iran did, indeed, have nuclear weapons without a shred of evidence.
http://www.newshounds.us/2006/02/07/bolton_insinuates_that_iran_has_nuclear_weapons_program.php

7. Ellen: Where's the outrage from progressives? In a revolting display of racism and tastelessness, Sean Hannity and guests smeared the NAACP, civil rights leaders and Coretta Scott King's memorial while paying lip service to her memory - all because Hannity, et al. decided the mourners were not polite enough to President Bush. News Hound Ellen urges everyone to complain to FOX News about their self-appointed funeral thought-police.
http://tinyurl.com/b5fog
http://tinyurl.com/7ko8s

and the game has only started

i wonder who's gonna be the 'fall guy' this time? ohio was last year's, and before that of course, was florida. will florida again get the courage to take on the bushites and run a rigg'ed election again?

Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. holds a 51 – 36 percent lead over incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in the Pennsylvania Senate race, with 10 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

--source

wow

yes baby!!!

Quote of the WeeQ

"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

God help us, one and all

A major American attack on Iran's nuclear sites would kill up to 10,000 people and lead to war in the Middle East, a report says today.

--source

what the fuck is the problem with ecto??

Quote of the Day

today's edition is a treat. 2 for the price of 1.

"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Rep. Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."

"No amount of money will successfully sell the Bush Administration's failed policies, from the war in Iraq, to its disastrous energy policy, to its confusing Medicare prescription drug benefits," said Democratic Leader Pelosi. "The American people know the Bush Administration is on the wrong track and the White House PR machine won't change that fact."

--source

they're still blaming clinton for everything

The top US diplomat also took an implicit jab at the previous administration of Bill Clinton for failing to deal with Bin Laden before he launched the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
--source

9/11 happened on who's watch?

blaming clinton for osama still being on the loose, is a sign of weakness. if they were strong, they wouldn't need to blame clinton for everything.

ahhhhh now i understand what george bush meant

when he said he looked into putin's eyes and saw his soul. from a piece about the saga of a railway worker who was involved in an accident and sentenced to 4 years in a labor camp.

Nowhere is the privilege -- and abuse -- of power more visible to ordinary Russians than on the roads, where politicians and bureaucrats, who have special license plates and blue lights for their luxury vehicles, speed recklessly, force other drivers aside and generally flout the rules. At the same time, ordinary citizens are subject to constant harassment from traffic police, who routinely demand small bribes. These irritants have become the source of open anger because many motorists can easily imagine themselves suffering Shcherbinsky's fate.

i didn't know this

from slate:

Thus Moussaoui, once touted as the "20th hijacker," starts the penalty phase of his trial, having already pleaded guilty to six felony counts of conspiracy in connection with the 9/11 attacks. He pleaded guilty, you'll recall, over the objections of his lawyers, and even as he admitted to lying to government investigators, he denied involvement in the attacks on the Twin Towers

well, of COURSE he denied involvement in 9/11. we all know who was behind 9/11.

and then this:

Yet, the Bush administration first claimed in public statements by Dick Cheney that Moussaoui was probably the 20th hijacker, then claimed he was intimately tied to the 9/11 plot, and now claims that he merely failed to disclose the 9/11 plot to the FBI. Why is it that Moussaoui's story hasn't changed much in four years, while the government has downgraded him from hijacker to secret-keeper?

and on and on it goes about how this incompetent government of george bush junior's is incapable of getting any kind of conviction from prosecuting terrorists. a good read

Letter Of The Day

Republican lawmakers trotted out their education agenda for the new session with great fanfare. At the center of their plan was another call for increased "accountability." Apparently this accountability is to apply only to Iowa's overworked and underpaid teachers.

In 2001 the Republican-controlled Legislature approved a Teacher Quality pay plan that promised increased salaries for teachers in exchange for a new rigorous system of licensure and teaching standards. While teachers have uniformly met these new, time-consuming requirements, our pay has actually gone down to 41in the nation - an all-time low. Why? Because the Legislature broke its pledge to teachers to the tune of a $120 million shortfall in funding.

Republican legislators demand accountability from public schoolteachers but refuse to be accountable themselves. They refuse to face the reality that Iowa teachers are leaving the state and the profession in droves (5,000 did not purchase or renew their licenses last year according to the Iowa Department of Education).

Republican Rod Roberts best exemplified the credibility gap on the floor of the Iowa House in when he said: "If you don't have something that is reasonably adequate in compensating people, it is a deterrent to recruiting folks." (April 28, 2005.) In typical Republican fashion, he was advocating not for an increase in teacher pay but for a raise in his own salary. Not surprisingly, he got it.

- Dave O'Connor, Des Moines.

attribution

back in 1980

who else do you know that can tell you that halloween 1980 was the first night spent in bootcamp? anybody? heh, i know. it's difficult. but they're out there.

ya, i went into the navy in denver. i went to denver out of being in cherokee's drug rehab wing. for the 2nd time i think. wasn't that when cdu was on the north side? i believe the 3rd time was when it was over at the hospital, and that was in 1986. i went in on mother's day in 1980. landed there from new orleans via des moines, chicago a coupla times.

but getting back to denver. i was playing dj at a club, one of the best in denver, and had quite the following. so the night i left, there was huge party - i jacked myself full of cat tranquilizer with my new friend, jerry. he was from new york. he wrote me all during boot in orlando. even came to meet me in new york on new years 1981. graduation day.

but getting back to denver. i got sick and tired of the new owners at this other club thatl i went and got high, then signd up for the USN across the street. they told me that i HAD to go, with my score i would become quite well known or something like that, played on my need for attention. came and woke me up at the side of jerry on halloween morning @ 0630, to take me to the airport for the flight to orlando.

ayup. don't ask, don't tell wasn't on paper yet. but reagan sure had to get tough, just like bush had to this time. the navy lost a lot of good, very much in demand sailors over that. anyway, ayup, i was in the navy, in bootcamp, stuck on a friday without any authorized issue which meant, i had to stay in my street clothes - which were at the time, full camouflage with bars. so they knew me right away in boot. i became the company yeoman - the one who kept all the records. i was a born natural at it.

anybody who wants to understand

just how silly george bush junior's argument against stem-cell research is, all they would need to do is watch tonite's 60 minutes.

ms stahl did a bang up job. KUDOS MS THING.

is there any , ANY way of tying custer battles

and richard cheney?

i'll bet there is like six degrees of separation, if that many.

i wonder how many people know

the feeling you get when you go and interview for a job

in a bar as a piano player.

gunsmoke is on, and mcgraw is the title of this episode.
i bet i was like jake mcgraw in more ways than just piano player?

from the STUPID CRIMINALS file

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.

--source

didn't know they let vampires have guns didja.

Video of the Day

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7193470719293309352

i'm finding out that watching yourselve

you are you best critic.

Quote of the Day

"Dropping bombs from a safe height on an already hard-pressed people, whose infrastructure is in chaos from years of sanctions and who live under an oppressive regime, isn't a 'war'. It's a turkey shoot. "
-- Terry Jones
attribution

(in the signature of ixion's post but worthy of QOTD status just the same)

and speaking of supporting the troops

lookie here:

A device called the Joint IED Neutralizer (JIN) boasts a 90 percent success rate in destroying roadside bombs, but the Pentagon won't let it be used in Iraq, the LAT reports. Although Pentagon officials insist that further testing is needed, others are frustrated by what they consider stalling from an agency out of touch with the immediate needs of ground soldiers. Over fifty percent of total American casualties have been attributed to roadside bombs.

--source

so the report on katrina made it out into the sunlight

DHS secretary Michael Chertoff bears the brunt of its criticism for being slow to make bad decisions which were implemented poorly. But the White House is faulted for lethargic leadership, former FEMA head Michael Brown is blamed for incompetence, and even New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin is chided for general hysteria-mongering. '"All the little pigs built houses of straw,'" the report notes in an apt though somewhat unfortunate metaphor. Left unanswered is the question of whether Congress will be satisfied with finger-pointing, or whether accountability will be brought to bear.

i can answer that. of course not. not one person will be held accountable. chertoff will still have his job, brownie already is making millions consulting the very organization he misled.

watching MTP

senator roberts, you need to take a memory pill. you're so lame brained and unable to speak coherently, it's amazing that you're still in office.

why are you so concerned about whether or not you can tap someone's commuinications? why shouldn't that situation have been known for days?

from the "well DUH" desk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Saturday acknowledged problems in the start of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit for the elderly but said the government was working to fix them. In his weekly radio address, he also insisted the program was a "good deal" for seniors and encouraged more to sign up.

--source

Quote of the Day

"Its not illegal to be lobbied, and hell, we couldn't do our jobs if we didn't interact with them. Legislation/regulation/oversight can't be done solely by Google research. What is illegal is to go out of your way, and use your position, as quid pro quo for gifts, jobs, and campaign contributions. The vast majority of Democratic staffers work on the Hill, despite the miserable pay and long hours, to try to achieve some measure of good. Many, many Republican staffers- convinced that government is an evil- work here in order to make money off that necessary evil. That breeds corruption. When you have a majority of members and staffers that could care less about policy ad governing and more about power/influence/money/profit Abramoff is inevitable. When the hard, tedious work of legislating and oversight is done by people motivated by careerism rather than professionalism not only do you have Abramoff, but you have Michael Brown, Halliburton, and illegal NSA wiretapping."
--a senior democratic hill staffer

attribution

what did i tell ya?

me and a host of other lefties said this was how it was, and sure enough, libby's giving us proof.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

--national journal

corporate greed visualized

watch the video in the 2nd story down

http://www.wxyz.com/wxyz/ys_investigations/0,2132,WXYZ_15949,00.html

how faux and cnn are in bed with each other

they have the same mentality. edit out what you don't want people to hear & see, then they're lying eyes will have no chance at decieving what they are about to be told.

frankly, they disgust me.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200602090006

so mehlyman doesn't believe democrats can keep us safe

maybe he forgot that it was on a REPUBLICAN WATCH when 9/11 happened.

oh, and wanted to copy these talking points to counter any reich-wing sassing i encounter:

• bin Laden still free
• Iraq now a terrorist breeding ground
• every year since 9-11 the # of terrorist attacks has gone up
• Red China now owns the note on the USA
• Our military has been wasted for nothing
• 55 returning vets from Iraq are running as Dems.
• bush is losing the war on terror

JACK WATCH

i think i'm gonna start a new thread, called JACK WATCH. it will be of all things jack abramoff.

today's first up:

Two of the elected officials referred to in Friday's filings have been identified in published reports as Reps. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, and Don Young, R-Alaska. According to Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, the two representatives wrote to the GSA in September 2002, urging the agency to give preferential treatment to groups such as Indian tribes when evaluating development proposals for the Old Post Office.

Friday's filings by prosecutors refer to a third member of Congress, Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Her name appears in e-mails that suggest she was trying to help Abramoff secure a GSA lease for land in Silver Spring for a religious school.

the headline that isn't a story

Dad Slams Attack On Bush At King Rite

and the thread that is making me proud to be an American

in other words.... HE LIED

Ex-C.I.A. Official Says Iraq Data Was Distorted

today's MUST READ

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-charities11feb11,0,5568579.story?coll=la-home-headlines

it's nothing but a bunch of BULL SHIT

"As the West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror, we face a relentless and determined enemy," said Bushwhat a crock. if they were that relentless and determined, they would have crossed into our country through mexico mingled with millions of mexicans.

thank God for computers

boy, oh boy. i had made a number of posts (a whole lot of 'em), to the wrong blog. so for the last 2 hours, i've been sitting here on the laptop (for reasons to be explained below) trying to set things right. iow, get the right posts to the right blog, at the right time/date, and be left about it all.

for reaons unknown, there does not exist in the confines of etco's programming a way of transferring posts already made to another blog. that should be as easy as drag and drop, especially when the software deals with the web.

so i had to fire up zoundry, the old windows program that i used in the beginnings of poop, to do my posting. it was fast, easy, and within reach of being capable of capturing those fleeting thoughts of fancy. it does a good job, there's just not a mac equivalent. so on the mac i have to use etco, and it's fine. about the same caliber as zoundry. there's probably a lot more pros and cons about these programs, i just use them for those times when i really want to preserve whatever space i was occupying at the time. and blogging allows that.

today's MUST READ

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2006/1294

and a point that shouldn't go unnoticed\

In a NYT op-ed, CIA Director Porter Goss inveighs against leaks. "The terrorists gain an edge when they keep their secrets and we don't keep ours." He might want to e-mail the piece to his bosses ...

... because as the LAT fronts, and everybody else reports, former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby has testified he was "authorized by his superiors" to leak a classified intel report about Iraq.

is cherry-picking intel to go to war....

the same as lying to the American people about the necessity for war?

you decide

Summary: During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.

PAUL R. PILLAR is on the faculty of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Concluding a long career in the Central Intelligence Agency, he served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005..

and then there was katrina

i've always maintained that bush will suffer the effects of katrina.

and sure enough, kudos to the nytimes who posted lots of emails and documents

it's nothing but a bunch of BULL SHIT

"As the West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror, we face a relentless and determined enemy," said Bushwhat a crock. if they were that relentless and determined, they would have crossed into our country through mexico mingled with millions of mexicans.

oh and more from today's papers:

The NYTdoesn't give the impression that the claims are questionable. But the WP says there's "deep disagreement within the intelligence community" over whether the plot was "ever much more than talk." The LAT takes an even dimmer view of the picture the president drew. Speaking about the purported plot, a U.S. counterterrorism "official" told the paper, "It didn't go. It didn't happen."

That would jibe with what some insiders said after Bush alluded last fall to the plot. A counterterrorism official told the Post back then, "It's safe to say that most of the [intel] community doesn't think it's worth very much." And the LAT cited "senior law enforcement officials" who "said authorities have not disrupted any operational terrorist plot within the United States" since 9/11." so there ya have it. BUSH IS BUSHIT.

could this be really true?

Researchers, including a BYU scientist, believe they have found a new compound that could finally kill the HIV/AIDS virus, not just slow it down as current treatments do.

And, unlike the expensive, drug cocktails 25 years of research have produced for those with the deadly virus, the compound invented by Paul D. Savage of Brigham Young University appears to hunt down and kill HIV.

Although so far limited to early test tube studies, CSA-54, one of a family of compounds called Ceragenins (or CSAs), mimics the disease-fighting characteristics of anti-microbial and anti-viral agents produced naturally by a healthy human immune system.

Under a study sponsored by Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals, Savage and his colleagues developed and synthesized the compound for Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. In his Nashville, Tenn., laboratories, Derya Unutmaz, an associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology, tested several CSAs for their ability to kill HIV.

While issuing a cautious caveat about his early results, Unutmaz acknowledged Monday that CSAs could be the breakthrough HIV/AIDS researchers have sought for so long.

--source

and lastly, iran follows the bush lead

... then there is Iran's Commerce Ministry, which has learned a thing or two from Congress. The ministry, as the NYT notes, "called for changing the name of Danish pastry to that of a flower named after Muhammad."

--from today's papers

this is how you fight terrorism

WITH THE LAW. from the new york times:

a jury in Britain convicted the country's best-known radical cleric on charges of incitement and promoting racial hatred. Abu Hamza al-Masri was not accused of being connected to specific acts of violence. Rather, as the judge put it, he's getting seven years hard time for having "created an atmosphere" in which murder was taken to be "not only a legitimate course but a moral and religious duty in pursuit of perceived justice." Al-Qaida men Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui both hung out at Masri's mosque.