Politics, Religion & Global Warming

Bestus Tramp Stamp EvAH

2011-09-08T19:31:00.001-07:00

This one is for the Greguar

2011-08-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

"our shitty too worried about their own campaigns to do anything Congress"

I would like to point out that all but 5 Republicans in the House voted for a budget that include 3rd rail changes to Medicare & Medicaid, knowing full well that the Democrats would demagogue the ever living fuck out of the issue. Which they did.
And then ... POOF... nothing came of it cause it died in the Senate. Which hasn't passed a budget in 800+ days.
So yes, I do agree that 53% of 1/2 of Congress is shitty & too worried about their own campaigns.

Been a while.. .

2011-03-01T06:25:00.001-08:00

OVERALL FEDERAL TAX BURDEN:

. The bottom quintile paid 4.3 percent of income in taxes,
. The top quintile paid 25.8 percent of income in taxes,
. The top decile paid 27.5 percent of income in taxes,
. The top 5 percent paid 29.0 percent of income in taxes, and
. The top 1 percent paid 31.2 percent of income in taxes.

Just went absolutely ape shit on Richard Burr

2010-09-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Inside baseball, but the Republicans kept Lisa Murkowski on a Senate committee even after she left the party to run as an Independent.

LIVID.
The hair on the back of my head is standing up.

SO pissed off -- completely business as usual, inside the Beltway crap of back scratching.

Good lord.

2010-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

Over the last 35 years, the period during which college became a necessary expense for middle-class life, the price of college increased—in real dollars—by 1,000 percent.

One child policy

recent parents check this out:

2010-09-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

10 Americans presentation coming to UNC next week. I may go.

It's not off the Gore chart, even if the group certainly leans that way. I think one of the lessons is that these things have been in our system for some time and we don't know that they cause harm in a significant daily level. Much like does keeping your keys on you in a 10K affect your overall time (simply as an additional mass).

But that the chemicals are there is fairly alarming.

Awesome.

2010-09-14T13:44:00.001-07:00

Hidden Real Estate Sales tax in Health care bill – Surprise!There are already at least 20 hidden taxes in the Obama Health care plan coming down upon us the next few years. (snip) Starting in 2013, not only will you pay the closing costs and real estate fee when you sell your house but now you will pay a 3.8% Sales Tax. So, if you sell your home for $400,000, perhaps wanting to down size if you are a senior you will pay $15,200 in Tax.

Good lord.

2010-09-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

Not that polls guarantee the future , but HFS -- Dems are in for an ass-whooping of truly monumental proportions

The only stat that isnt worse than all others ever is his popularity is 10% higher than Clinton's was in '94.

Fuck me royally

2010-06-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

The 10% income bracket will be eliminated, so the first ~$16K any married couple makes, regardless of income, will be taxed at 15% rather than 10%. Say goodbye to $800

While we're at it, let's say goodbye to the 25% tax bracket that was taxed on dollars up to $141K in 2010. Let's make that 28%, so you'll pay roughly $2K more on those dollars.

Conversation Starter of the Day

2010-03-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

Just watched Sinead O'Connors pope song circa 1992. Maybe it's aging from 14 to 32 or maybe it's current events, but she seems a lot less sacrilege and crazy today. What think y'all?

Brad Miller moving out?

2010-02-23T13:57:00.000-08:00

A particular storage company on Durant has "want Brad Miller out" or something to that effect on their electric scrolling sign.

Is Brad Miller the crazy one or is he the one attacked by the crazy guy? Can't remember.

Been a while, but this is worth posting

2009-11-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

Anorld Schwarzenner at his best

2009-10-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Veto to his House/Senate.

So fucking over our allies...

2009-09-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

just to placate the fucking Russians is Obama's view of being a good global citizen???

Is there ANY ally at this point he hasn't thumbed in the eye and any dictator or thug who's cock he hasnt blown yet???

Should someone be held accountable for using the Minotaur to torture prisoners in it's maze?

2009-08-29T08:57:00.003-07:00

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Tango down!!!

2009-08-28T10:56:00.001-07:00

Snipers in the sandbox!!!

Woo Hoo!!!

2009-08-26T05:03:00.000-07:00

Ted Kennedy is finally dead!
Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Worst impact he had on America was helping get the immigration laws changed in the 60s.
Second worst was helping get the financial support of South Vietnam cut off.

Then, we have his majestic slander of Judge Bork:

Burn in hell you fucking piece of shit.

How in the fuck...

2009-08-14T16:25:00.001-07:00

does "Squeaky" Fromme get let out of prison? She tried to kill the president! Admittedly, it was Ford, but still!

More taxing shenanigans

2009-08-06T13:46:00.001-07:00

LINK

The Congressional Budget Office projects a total additional deficit of approximately $4.9 trillion dollars during President Obama's first term (2009-2012). Currently, the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of the tax, or $450 billion a year, or approximately $1.8 trillion dollars during the next four years, leaving a $3.1 trillion hole. Increasing the tax rate on those high earners to 100 percent might yield an additional $1.5 trillion the first year, but this will only work for the first year. Most people, after being taxed 100 percent on their income, will quit work and/or put their investments in nontaxable entities, such as tax-free local government bonds.

It is also not mathematically possible to take care of all the new spending by increasing taxes on the top 5 percent of taxpayers (those making $160,000 or more annually) who already pay 61 percent of the federal tax (or $676 billion per year). Most of these people are now paying close to the revenue maximizing rate, which means that any increase in their tax rate is unlikely over the long run to bring in much more tax revenue.

Quite simply, upper-income people have options. History shows that when tax rates are raised, many will choose to work less (leisure is nontaxable), retire earlier than they had planned and save and invest less in taxable, productive activities. Those making more than $160,000 per year would need to have their taxes roughly tripled to take care of just this year's deficit. (One merely has to look at the tax evasion practiced by the chairman of the congressional tax writing committee, the secretary of the Treasury and the former majority leader, et al. at today's tax rates to know that they and their colleagues, as well as most everyone else, will find either legal or illegal ways to avoid paying the tax.)

Damn dirty hippies

2009-08-06T12:13:00.001-07:00

Weather stations give flawed temperature data, meteorologist claims
By: Kevin Mooney
Commentary Staff Writer
08/06/09 12:34 AM EDT

Researchers who have inspected climate monitoring stations across the U.S. have found that almost 90 percent of the weather monitoring stations have failed to meet National Weather Service requirements.
Anthony Watts, a retired meteorologist, and a team of over 650 volunteers, photographically documented 1003 out of 1,221 of the climate monitoring stations managed by the U.S. Weather Service. The results of this survey show that the temperature cited as proof of man-made global warming is laced with false biases in favor of alarmism.

“We found stations located next to exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat,” Watts said. “We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.”

The research team also determined that 89 percent did not measure up to the National Weather Service’s requirement that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating source. This means almost 9 out of every 10 stations are reporting higher temperatures because they are badly sited.

“The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperatures of 0.7 degrees C (about 1.2 degrees F) during the twentieth century,” Watts said.

An analysis of 948 stations rated as of May 31, 2009, Watts estimates that 22 percent of stations have an expected error of 1 degree C, 61 percent have an expected error of 2 degrees C, and 8 percent have an expected error of 5 degrees C.

“This record should not be cited as evidence of any trend in temperature that may have occurred across the U.S. during the past century,” he said. “Since the U.S. record is thought to be `the best in the world,’ it follows that the global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.”

Ca$h for Clunker$

2009-08-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

I guess that I was out of the country when this thing started but I did see a Dodge commercial that was talking about the program. I guess the program is almost over which sucks because I would like to get a truck and I always buy American. I have heard a little about this program and aside from the fact that you are paying people to buy American cars with what I am guessing is bailout or bailout v2.0 money it seems fairly straight forward. Do you guys think that it was a great success that it only lasted a week or a mismanagement of funds.

Taxing shenanigans.

2009-07-31T08:44:00.001-07:00

IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

Sign #253 That I'm Getting Old

2009-07-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

I think Sarah Palin is HOTTTTTTTTTT! I blame MSNBC and the images they've been running all day.

Tea Baggers

2009-04-30T06:36:00.001-07:00

You stay classy, BHO.

2009-04-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

He's really becoming Jimmy Carter redux, but while still in office.

To: Jon Favreau [speechwriterman@aol.com]
Subject: Re: some suggestions

Thanks, Jon. I don't think "Consolidation of Challenges" has quite the same ring as "Axis of Evil", do you? I like "Triumvirate of Malfeasance" though - imagine Bush trying to say that one - but that means we have to have three. I was thinking bankers, Afghanistan/Pakistan and pirates. Hillary wanted to stick North Korea in there, but I managed to convince her they'd only be flattered. Barack

Damn dirty hippies!!! Bring back DDT!!

2009-04-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

From DDT to Dursban [Henry Payne]

Detroit, Mich. — Greens can take a bow: Bedbugs are back with a vengeance.

Responding to the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II, the Environmental Protection Agency hosted its first-ever “bedbug summit” Tuesday outside Washington to address a widening public outcry. Some of the most vulnerable communities are inner cities like Detroit, and the major culprit, as it turns out, was the summit host.

Nine years ago, the zealots at Bill Clinton’s EPA banned the pesticide chlorpyrifos (to widespread media and environmentalist hosannas), the most commonly available household product in the world to address bedbugs, cockroaches, and other nuisances. Better known by its trade name, Dursban, chlorpyrifos had been available for 30 years in some 800 products in 88 countries around the world.

But despite widespread protest in the scientific community, EPA Chief Carol Browner erased Dursban from the shelves. “EPA has gone to great lengths to present a highly conservative, worst case, hypothetical risk based in large part on dubious extrapolations . . . and exaggerated risk estimates,” said Michigan State University toxicologist J. I. Goodman in a typical response.

Even Dr. Alan Hoberman, the principal researcher whose data Browner cited, told the Detroit News he disputed the agency's interpretation of his findings.

Such critics were also ignored by the press — as was evidence that the nation’s urban poor would be most vulnerable to a ban. Children insect-bite allergies and cockroach-induced allergens outnumber pesticide poisoning by 100:1. “Hardest hit will be lower-income families in cities like Detroit, who can ill afford a weekly house call from the Orkin man,” warned News writer Diane Katz, now with the Fraser Institute. “Yet that is precisely what the EPA is recommending as a substitute for a couple squirts from a can of bug spray.”

Nine years on, Greg Baumann — Senior Scientist at the National Test Management Association — confirms that the Dursban void has been largely unfilled, leaving millions to fight pests with less convenient preventative measures. Extermination, for example, costs between $400 and $900 — out of reach for low-income Detroit families.

And those accountable for this predictable disaster? The very media outlets who were cheerleading the EPA ban now feign ignorance. “Out of concern for the environment and the effects on public health, the EPA has banned many of the chemicals that were most effective in eradicating the bugs in the U.S.,” shrugs the AP in graph ten of its story.

And the EPA Administrator who approved the ban? Browner has been promoted to “climate czar” in the Obama administration.

He's a goddamn commie!

2009-04-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

I'll let you figure out which one I'm talking about.

Dear Listener,

2009-04-17T06:29:00.001-07:00

This is an automated response from NPR's Morning Edition. The production staff has received your message and it will be processed shortly.

Thank you,
NPR Services
Message Information:
Message #: 5607-8543705
Date Created: 4/17/2009 8:34 AM EDT
Subject: Please quit referring to them as "torture" memos.
Body: Dear Morning Edition,

If slapping someone or putting them in a box of caterpillars is torture, then every big brother ever is guilty. You do a disservice to victims of actual, real torture by equating harsh and distasteful acts with vivisection, dismemberment, electrocution and other truly heinous acts.

Thanks,
Kevin Hudson
Raleigh NC

Geebus.

2009-04-16T08:16:00.001-07:00

Now let me just preface this by saying that I'm a convincable believer in deficit spending IF interest rates are less than GDP -- its basically free money. Running a 2-3% deficit when GDP was 4-6% never really bugged me. Granted, thats really all I've known in my life BUT... this is shocking.

A trillion here, a trillion there and soon we're talking about some real money.

I know I don't normally post here, but...

2009-04-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

is it safe to say that Bev Perdue has already established herself as one of the worst governor's in the history of our fair state?

Just reading the article about our Superintendent of Public Schools, and wow. That's a very Nixonian play by Mrs. Perdue there; the old "I know you're the elected official, but I've created this appointed position with the exact same powers as yours, so you can just go along now" play.

I'm not even sure I understand all of the financial stuff she's doing right now (the taking of cash from various coffers to pay for different governmental programs), but she sure seems to have pissed a lot of people off really early in her tenure.

Muhahahahah part 1/0

2009-04-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Biofools.

Hmmm.... not sure how to feel about this

2009-04-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies

From MY limited experience, the reason I doubt the veracity of this is that most of the SCADA networks are not physically connected to even the private networks.
Maybe I'm wrong.

Expiration date politics

2009-04-07T11:41:00.001-07:00

Last week:

"Today, we've learned the lessons of history," President Obama said yesterday in London, sounding like the staunchest free-marketer denouncing the government's protectionist response in 1930, which deeply worsened the Great Depression.

"We have rejected the protectionism that could deepen this crisis," he said. "History tells us that turning inward can help turn a downturn into a depression."

Today:

United States Imposes Tariffs on Softwood Lumber from Four Canadian Provinces Due to Canada’s Failure to Comply with the Softwood Lumber Agreement

Oldie but a goodie

2009-04-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

and I cannot agree more than 100%

I cannot fathom what kind of idiots we have in charge of our lives.

2009-04-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

The idea that we can get 100% of our energy from wind is such lunacy I dont even know where to start.
How would the power get transmitted efficiently from tens of thousands of windmills to individual homes?
How would the power get generated when its needed? There is currently NO way to efficiently store electricity, thats why its so expensive to produce "peak" energy.
How would damn dirty hippies react to the idea of tens of thousands of windmills out in the ocean or solar panels in the desert killing wildlife???

We are so fucked.

Everything he says should come with an expiration date

2009-04-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama goes ahead with missile defence shield despite disarmament pledge
Telegraph [UK], by Toby Harnden & Bruno Waterfield

The United States would continue to develop a missile defence shield until Iran abandoned its nuclear ambitions, President Barack Obama said in the Czech Republic. "As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defence system that is cost-effective and proven," he told a crowd of about 20,000 gathered in Hradcany Square, next to Prague Castle.

Just days before the expected launch of a North Korean missile in violation of the spirit if not the letter of every agreement Pyongyang has ever signed with the international community, Barack Obama's Pentagon will release a budget that guts the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

What the fuck ???????????????

2009-04-02T12:00:00.002-07:00

Hundreds mourn man who killed police officers
San Francisco Chronicle, by Leslie Fulbright

Nearly 500 people gathered at an East Oakland church Tuesday to say goodbye to Lovelle Mixon, the 26-year-old parolee who was killed by police after he went on a shooting rampage that left four Oakland officers dead. The open-casket service, held at Fuller Funerals on International Boulevard, was about an hour long and had such a large turnout that a number of guests were forced to stand.

Burn Langley to the ground and salt the earth!!!

2009-04-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports:

A withering internal report made public on Wednesday criticized the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for bureaucratic bloat, financial mismanagement and a failure to end the turf battles among America’s spy agencies that led to disastrous intelligence failures in recent years.

The report, by the inspector general, was the most detailed account to date of problems that bedevil America’s intelligence agencies more than four years after Congress and President George W. Bush created the director’s office to overcome weaknesses exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks.

It criticized as excessive the amount of time that successive intelligence chiefs have spent briefing the White House and Congress compared with the relatively little time they have devoted to managing a byzantine intelligence apparatus.... [T]he report made clear that many of the goals of the intelligence overhaul in 2005 are far from being realized. While the national intelligence office was created to help streamline intelligence analysis and force collaboration among the Central Intelligence Agency and its 15 counterparts, the report concluded that there has been insufficient progress on either of those fronts.

“This report reads like back to the future,” said Amy Zegart, a U.C.L.A. professor who has written extensively on intelligence matters. “These are the same kind of management and information sharing problems that plagued the C.I.A. before 9/11.”

FEWER!

2009-03-31T11:05:00.001-07:00

"for a continent of “family friendly” policies, Europe is remarkably short of families. While America’s fertility rate is more or less at replacement level – 2.1 – seventeen European nations are at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility - 1.3 or less - a rate from which no society in human history has ever recovered. Germans, Spaniards, Italians and Greek have upside-down family trees: four grandparents have two children and one grandchild. The numbers are grim, and getting grimmer."

Another needle in the overinflated balloon

2009-03-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Global warming is a sham!!!

If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.
Although the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth went much further, talking of 20 feet, and showing computer graphics of cities such as Shanghai and San Francisco half under water. We all know the graphic showing central London in similar plight. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, as Prince Charles likes to tell us and the Archbishop of Canterbury was again parroting last week, they are due to vanish.

But if there is one scientist who knows more about sea levels than anyone else in the world it is the Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner, formerly chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. And the uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner, who for 35 years has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe, is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story.

Despite fluctuations down as well as up, "the sea is not rising," he says. "It hasn't risen in 50 years." If there is any rise this century it will "not be more than 10cm (four inches), with an uncertainty of plus or minus 10cm". And quite apart from examining the hard evidence, he says, the elementary laws of physics (latent heat needed to melt ice) tell us that the apocalypse conjured up by Al Gore and Co could not possibly come about . . .

Damn dirty hippies

2009-03-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

and their stupid CFLs

All I do is take out the ones that have burned out, put them back in the box, and take the box back to Lowes for a refund.
So far I've returned about 2 dozen in under 3 years.

PLEASE dont let Geitner swindle us out of MORE money

2009-03-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Sen. Hagan,

The latest plan by Treasury to clean out toxic assets is nothing more than 3 card monte on a grand scale.
Look at the application -- only companies with $500 million in cash and $10 billion under management are able to take part. We call those institutions "banks".
So these "banks" are going to sell their toxic assets to each other, which means they basically make a guaranteed 70 - 80 cents on the dollar thanks to our tax dollars.
THEN they'll go ahead and sell them on the open market at some cut rate price, maybe 25 - 35 cents on the dollar to some hedge fund.
That means they are going to end up making profits above and beyond the ORIGINAL, inflated value of the "toxic" assets.

Since you didnt read the Spend-ulus package or didnt understand what the big words meant, I'll go slow -- taxpayers are being RAPED by bills like this. Please please please dont vote 'Aye' on anything that anyone associated with Goldman Sachs tries to pawn off on Congress.

Best of luck!

Sometimes you roll, sometimes you get rolled.

2009-03-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

One thing everyone has to admit -- except for Social Security reform, Bush got damn near EVERYTHING he wanted, every time, including funding for the war even while the Dems controlled BOTH houses of Congress. There was actually a time where one Dem Congressman said they should be the "carpet party", because Bush rolled them over so many times.

Obama... not so much.

The Sanford Revolution? Looks good to me !!!

2009-03-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

Posted by Philip Klein on 3.23.09 @ 11:07AM
Dave Weigel has a piece about how wealthy Republican donors, especially those in the Club for Growth crowd, are starting to look at Mark Sanford as their potential 2012 candidate in reaction to his consistent defense of limited government and principled stands against the bailouts, the stimulus package, and other aspects of Washington's economic agenda. Especially interesting is that Sanford has the potential to tap into the grassroots Ron Paul fundraising network, which amassed a $35 million war chest in 2008.

Weigel reports:

Paul and Sanford had been friendly when both men served in the House, said Paul’s spokesman Jesse Benton, the congressman’s grandson-in-law. “If Dr. Paul voted no on a bill and Sanford voted yes,” said Benton, “Sanford would come up to Dr. Paul afterward and talk it over. He would give a thoughtful consideration to why he’d voted the other way.”

According to Benton, Sanford is one of the only Republicans Paul might outright endorse if he ran for president—and if Paul doesn’t mount his own bid. “He’s the type of candidate that Dr. Paul could get excited about,” said Benton. “A lot of the people from our movement could find a lot to like in Mark Sanford.”

One of the biggest questions affecting Sanford's chances in 2012 is how he'll navigate foreign policy issues. In a recent American Conservative profile, Sanford said he was against preemtive war. In 1998, he didn't vote for the resoltion making regime change in Iraq official U.S. policy. Should he run, GOP rivals won't be able to attack him on economic or social issues, so they'll try to pin him as weak on national security. How he responds to those charges will determine whether he can cobble together a coalition of Paul supporters and mainstream Republicans. Should Sanford respond to attacks on his foreign policy views by explaining away his past stands and offering hawkish rhetoric, he'll alienate the Paul crowd, whereas if he takes his views on non-intervention as far as Paul did, he risks losing support among the rest of the party.

Of course, much of this will depend on what issues are important two to three years from now. Right now, foreign policy issues are taking a back seat to size of government issues among conservatives. If this continues to be the case, it will be easier for Sanford to skate by similarly to the way Bush did in 2000 -- present himself as somebody who wants a strong military but opposes nation building. However, by the time the primaries roll around, the world may look a lot different, and a terrorist attack or another international crisis will make foreign policy and national security issues much more important in the GOP primaries. Under those circumstances, it would be difficult for Sanford to unite the Paulites with the rest of the party, because the ideological divisions are simply too great between non-interventionist conservatives and those who support an agressive military response to security threats. If Sanford sides with the Paulites, he risks being seen as a softie by the rest of the party, and yet if he sides with the rest of the party, Paulites will see him as another bellicose neocon. But if he does find a way to navigate national security issues and manages to build a broad coalition of limited government voters, then he'll be a very formidable candidate, especially in New Hampshire.

We are so completely fooked

2009-03-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

EPA says that global warming is a threat to humanity.

The staggering cost of that jackassery, coming on the tail of reading THIS bad news from Sweet Dee about how the Goldman crew are quietly raping us and taking control of basically the entire economy without even a whimper, has me in a very sour mood.

Muhahahaha

2009-03-20T09:59:00.001-07:00

And to think, he's only been in office 2 months!!!

Good to see the honeymoon is over

2009-03-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Banality of Obama
I saw another post similar to this earlier this week -- we live in the Information Age, and people should be making choices based on easily available info, and yet, we cant even buy health insurance like Blue Cross from another state.
Instead of a "big idea", we get big goobermint, big business & big labor.
De-centralize NOW!!!

Neither a Hedgehog Nor a Fox
I tend to go in cycles on how I feel about Peggy Noonan, especially wrt how she hammered Sarah-cuda, but I think she hits the nail on the head here -- we do live in serious times, and worrying about NCAA brackets, going on the Tonight Show, instigating a fight w. Rush -- NOT things we need.

And my boy Charles K brings the stiletto for the coup de grace.

Quit fucking around and fix the banks, jackass.

Dear Sen. Hagan,

2009-03-18T11:31:00.000-07:00

As someone who voted AYE not even 2 weeks ago for a pork laden bill that spent 9 BILLION dollars of our tax dollars ( and yes, I am one of the 50% of citizens that actually PAYS taxes), I can only hope you don't think that tax payers will believe any crocodile tears you might shed about this whole AIG mess. The bonuses were part of legal contracts signed months ago, and if Congress tries to write bills of attainder to claw back legally earned money, then you (plural) will be no better than King George III.

I hope you are aware of the righteous wrath building here against big government, big business and big unions. All of them are feeding at the trough, and all that matters is that every dollar spent for handouts, corporate welfare and pork is just another dollar stolen from someone who earned it.

Regards,
Rear Admir0l
Raleigh NC

Nail on the head

2009-03-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Big government, big business and big labor.

What is so wrong about keeping the social safety net to provide a MINIMUM of education, unemployment, retirement & emergency health care, but letting folks sink or swim?
Why the drive to provide "universal" anything?

Anyway -- we're all fucked.

How much do I F-ing hate politicians???

2009-03-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

VERY MUCH

First, we shouldnt own 80% of any company.
Second, all of them should resign or commit sepuku -- politicians included.
Third, as soon as they start aborgating contracts, the markets are going to ZERO.
On and on...

To hell with all of them.

Much mad hatred directed @ the CIA.

2009-03-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Bungling idiots.

More of more

2009-03-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Michael Goodwin of the Daily News:

Which brings us to the heart of the matter: the doubts about Obama himself. His famous eloquence is wearing thin through daily exposure and because his actions are often disconnected from his words. His lack of administrative experience is showing.

His promises and policies contradict each other often enough that evidence of hypocrisy is ceasing to be news. Remember the pledges about bipartisanship and high ethics? They're so last year.

The beat goes on. Last week, Obama brazenly gave a speech about earmark reform just after he quietly signed a $410 billion spending bill that had about 9,000 earmarks in it. He denounced Bush's habit of disregarding pieces of laws he didn't like, so-called signing statements, then issued one himself.

And in an absolute jaw-dropper, he told business leaders, "I don't like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government's role."

No wonder Americans are confused. Our President is, too.

Damn. Dirty. Hippies.

2009-03-16T12:18:00.001-07:00

Grrr....

Nothing has more acutely demonstrated this than the reliance of the IPCC on computer models to predict what is going to happen to global temperatures over the next 100 years. On these predictions, that temperatures are likely to rise by up to 5.3C, all their other predictions and recommendations depend, yet nearly 10 years into the 21st century it is already painfully clear that the computer forecasts are going hopelessly astray. Far from rising with CO2, as the models are programmed to predict they should, the satellite-measured temperature curve has flattened out and then dropped. If the present trend were to continue, the world in 2100 would not in fact be hotter but 1.1C cooler than the 1979-1998 average….Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years.

More muhahahahahaha-ing

2009-03-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson

Guantanamo is still open, but there are no longer "enemy combatants" there (Perhaps the name of the camp can be changed next?). The old campaign snicker that a naïve McCain really believed that a then-stronger economy is "fundamentally sound" is now the new Obama gospel about a far weaker one. There are to be no more earmarks in spite of 8,000-plus new ones. A $3.6 trillion-dollar budget is proof of commitment to financial responsibility; the remedy of Bush’s borrowing profligacy is to increase the deficit from $500 billion to $1.7 trillion. Bush’s signing statements bad; Obama’s signing statements good. An end to lobbyists in an administration ensure there are over ten; the highest ethical standards mean the nominations of Daschle, Richardson, etc. The changing meaning of words really does trump memory and reality itself.

We. Are. Fooked Part 1/0

2009-03-11T20:43:00.001-07:00

Mr. Obama is adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, eclipsing the $2.9 trillion added during the Bush presidency's entire eight years.

Steyn at his best

2009-03-10T13:15:00.001-07:00

"if you mix half a pint of vanilla ice cream with half a pint of horse manure, it’s not hard to figure which taste will predominate."

Muhahahahahahahahaha

2009-03-10T06:08:00.000-07:00

House fails to zero out carbon

We. Are. Fooked.

2009-03-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

"A tax policy that confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue," according to a February 27 editorial in The Wall Street Journal. "That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable 'dime' of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion."

Deficits

2009-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

I dont think there's really much left to say about BHO.

2009-02-27T13:37:00.000-08:00

So he presented his "Obama Doctrine for the use of force" today @ Ft. Bragg.

Namely:

1. The U.S. must go to war with clearly defined goals;

2. The U.S. must weigh the costs of action and communicate them candidly with American people;

3. The U.S. must use all elements of national power; and

4. The U.S. must work closely with friends and allies.

Everything he says is just EMPTY WORDS. There is no substance at all. Either he REALLY believes that Arbusto did none of the above, and that the (#1) Iraq policy of the U.S. since '98 (removal of Saddam) wasnt (#2) weighed & debated for 5 years, tha.... fuck it.

Je suis fini.

So this just drives me nuts.

2009-02-27T12:51:00.001-08:00

Ok, so you'd have to read up on the evidence to know whats going on, but now it appears that Obama wants THIS GUY tried in U.S. Courts.

Here's my problem:
Even if found guilty, he only faces 15 years. So he gets out in 2024, only 58, still (in my mind) a threat. And lord help us if the Feds fuck up the case as they did w. Moussaui. Then the dude is out on the streets -- even if we deport him, much like 10% of everyone released from Gitmo, theres a high probability we'll have to fight him AGAIN.

Instead, if we just kept him in Gitmo, OR even better, beat him with baseball bats and threw his ass in a hole in a corn field, I'd feel much safer.

Twice in one week -- why I hate "liberals"

2009-02-27T08:58:00.001-08:00

Throwing money at a problem rather than actually coming up with a response that MIGHT work.

The big problem with the COPS program is that the money can be spent on computers, and that counts as hiring an officer. Huh ??? WTF ?

Putting crooks in jail or in the ground reduces crime.

Excellent! Obama pulling troops out by fall 2010

2009-02-26T19:49:00.001-08:00

Hopefully we can "redeploy" to Iran.

Again -- campaign rhetoric meets the iron wall of reality. Its a shame that people actually believe politicians.

This is why I friggin hate "liberals"

2009-02-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Regardless of the amount of evidence presented that feel good laws do NOTHING, they persist.

One can only assume that they really do want to incrementally elide the 2nd (of 27!)Amendment.

Did This Make Your Head Asplode?

2009-02-25T18:07:00.001-08:00

The Big O=Reagan?

THIS is how to deal with your enemies!!!

2009-02-25T06:07:00.000-08:00

Divide the prisoners into groups of 100 men, blind 99 men in each group and leave one man in each with one eye so that he can lead the others home.

No shit !

2009-02-24T19:16:00.001-08:00

I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.

We really are being governed by idiots.

2009-02-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

"Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who spoke in favor of the bill earlier this month, said the question of constitutionality should be resolved by the courts, not Congress."

Ummm.... good lord, I dont even know where to begin. This is the same crap Arbusto pulled when he signed "Campaign Finance Reform".

I might start crying.

Thanks again, Sen. Hagan!

2009-02-24T10:12:00.000-08:00

Per the Washington Post:

Processing the rush of money is complicated by requirements unique to the stimulus act. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is getting $1.5 billion for "homelessness prevention," a task in which it has never explicitly engaged.

The National Endowment for the Arts is receiving $50 million in stimulus money but must use a criterion it does not prioritize in giving out its $122 million in annual funding: whether a particular grant is likely to preserve jobs. That means assessing the financial health of arts organizations to determine which might really cut back without a grant.

"We've got a complex job to do, and we're working against the clock," said the endowment's interim chief, Patrice Walker Powell.

Complicating matters further is the leadership vacuum at many agencies, where many top political appointees have yet to be confirmed. Agencies must rely on career officials who are experienced but may not have gotten much training or support over the years . . .

For state and local workers, the challenge may be less related to morale than to the risk of being overwhelmed. The Maryland Energy Administration gets $1 million a year from the federal government to improve energy efficiency. The stimulus act is providing 57 times that amount — on top of the $65 million the state is getting to weatherize individual homes. The state energy director, Malcolm Woolf, said the agency will put part of the money into an interest-free revolving loan program for energy-efficiency projects at state buildings, retrofit big apartment buildings, and expand grants for home-based solar or geothermal systems.

The plan is for federal, state, and local governments to spend the money quickly and wisely. I strongly suspect that they can pick one or the other.

Keep up the good work.
Regards,
Rear Admir0l
Raleigh NC

I'm looking at you, Kay Hagan!!!

2009-02-24T05:05:00.001-08:00

Dear Sen. Hagan,

Please remember today that you represent the voters of NC, not the Democratic party. Giving the citizens of D.C. a vote in the House is completely unconstitutional, and there are numerous court cases that prove that point.
If you vote "YES", you are effectively neutering and diluting the power of NC's Representatives.
Giving D.C. a vote will guarantee the Democratic party a +1 forever, but remember - NC's interests are NOT the interests of the Democratic Party, nor of D.C.
Please keep that in mind and vote "NO".

Thanks,
Rear Admir0l

I do believe I mentioned they're crazy.

2009-02-23T10:23:00.001-08:00

Crazy

“Music, chess and cricket are just three things banned in some Muslim schools in the UK. Others are drama, dance, sport, Shakespeare, and, in some cases, any aspect of Western culture whatever. According to the management committee of London's Madani Secondary Girls' School, this is because "our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition with almost everything Islam stands for". The response to this sense of danger is often to forbid outright any kind of relationship with non-Muslims: "Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffaar. The Jews and Christians will never be content with you until you follow their way," says Riyadhul Haq, a teacher in Kidderminster.

“Attitudes such as these run counter to everything education stands for. We want children to grow up to be successful, well-integrated members of society. Most British people want to see Muslims play a part at every level. To be lawyers, doctors, teachers, and scientists. And to be musicians and composers, painters, and writers. Not to lose their Muslim identity, but to reshape it as part of being British.

“Some Muslim schools teach social cohesion, others regard it as a deadly sin. Some schools impart the skills necessary for a fulfilling life alongside non-Muslim friends and co-workers, others try to recreate a Pakistani or Bangladeshi lifestyle and to make it exclusive.

“Several recent surveys have noted an unusual phenomenon among young Muslims here and in Europe: that 16-to-24-year-olds are more hardline in their opinions than their parents or even their grandparents. The youngest generation is moving away from mainstream society, not towards it. The reasons for this are complex, but there can be little doubt that Islamic schools play a role in encouraging children and teenagers to isolate themselves. More than 50 per cent of the establishments I examined for my report on Muslim schools showed indications of strong fundamentalist influence and control. Some were set up by organisations that have been banned in some countries.

“Not infrequently, Ofsted inspectors give glowing reports to schools that require much closer examination. Al-Mu'min Primary School in Bradford is linked to the al-Mu'min journal, which carries material from schoolchildren. Its website teaches that Western culture is "evil", photographs are "an evil practice of the unbelievers", and that "the person who plays chess is like one who dips his hand in the blood of a swine".

Too funny. The reality continues.

2009-02-20T19:46:00.000-08:00

Obama backs Bush policy on detainees' rights

WHAT??? What happened to hell on earth???

2009-02-20T11:05:00.000-08:00

Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds

As for "claims that a large number of the prisoners are suffering from psychosis as a result of conditions in the detention center" -- ummm.... I'm guessing most if not all of them very suffering from psychosis LONG before we didnt kill them on the battlefield (which we SHOULD have done).

And what's up with THIS crap: "According to one official, the report notes that some detainees have great difficulty communicating from cell to cell". I still dont know how to create a shock faced emoticon. I would think we DONT WANT THEM COMMUNICATING CELL TO CELL!!!! We aren't talking about fucking John McCain in Hanoi -- its KSM and his band of INSANE MURDERERS WHO ARE BENT ON KILLING US AND BRINGING DOWN SOCIETY!!!

Grrr... so much anger at dirty hippies.

25 best "conservative" movies

2009-02-20T08:17:00.001-08:00

Interesting list. Enjoy

Google Earth = kind of awesome.

2009-02-20T07:37:00.000-08:00

US flying Predator drones from bases INSIDE Pakistan.
Thanks, Diane Feinstein (D), Senator from California, for telling folks where to look.

How exactly does one spell schadenfreude ?

2009-02-20T06:01:00.000-08:00

Keep up the good work, President Obama!

That sound you hear is me laughing

2009-02-19T18:23:00.001-08:00

Again, the Obama administration runs into the iron law of reality and decides that it will employ some of the same harsh tactics George W. Bush used to fight terrorism.

Oh Tony Blankley....

2009-02-18T08:26:00.000-08:00

dont you know better than to doubt the Oba-messiah ???

Favorite 'graf:

Thus, it was breathtaking that at the signing ceremony, President Obama didn't know how -- or even whether -- his executive order was dealing with this central quandary.

President Obama: "And we then provide, uh, the process whereby Guantanamo will be closed, uh, no later than one year from now. We will be, uh. ... Is there a separate, uh, executive order, Greg, with respect to how we're going to dispose of the detainees? Is that, uh, written?"

White House counsel Greg Craig: "We'll set up a process."

Again -- I'm counting down the days and holding my breath until Gitmo is closed !!!

I dont always get irony right.

2009-02-17T06:42:00.000-08:00

However... this time... spot on!!!

Muslim man accused of 'honor killing' after beheading his wife.

Money graf:
She and her husband both worked at Bridges TV, a satellite- distributed news and opinion channel. They launched the station in 2004 in an effort to counter images of Muslim violence and extremism.

So Truman said "The buck stops here!"

2009-02-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

while Clinton says "None of this is my fault!"
Look, I understand the need to cover your ass, and I have heartily blamed Arbusto for many failings and faults. But this man still makes the veins in my head pop out with his ability to shirk any and all responsibility AND to get away with it.

Time's 25 people responsible

I think the lesson is -- we did it to ourselves by allowing 536 people to control our economy. They are NOT geniuses or magicians -- they are people, which means they are just as greedy & stupid as the rest of u.

I dont know how to type a boggle eyed emoticon

2009-02-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

Since the first time C-SPAN ranked presidents, in 2000, Bill Clinton jumped six spots from No. 21 to 15. Among other recent presidents, Ronald Reagan advanced from 11 to 10 and George H.W. Bush from 20 to 18. Jimmy Carter fell from 22 to 25.
George W. Bush, who left office last month, was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive when the survey was conducted by the cable channel C-SPAN.

So... a man who was impeached and lost his law license, did NOTHING of consequence while in office for 8 years except welfare reform (which was just gutted by the Spenulus package) is in the top 20.

Dont even get me started on Carter.

Now.. I'll admit that post Katrina, Arbusto was effectively a lame duck, but they have him ranked with James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding. Bitch please.

Ummm.... all those things we said? Nevermind.

2009-02-10T05:44:00.001-08:00

New administration takes Bush team's view in "rendition" trial:

"The Obama Administration (on Monday) announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition. ... They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured. A year ago the case was thrown out on the basis of national security, but (on Monday) the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the appeal, brought by the ACLU. A source inside of the Ninth U.S. District Court tells ABC News that a representative of the Justice Department stood up to say that its position hasn't changed, that new administration stands behind arguments that previous administration made, with no ambiguity at all. The DOJ lawyer said the entire subject matter remains a state secret."

If nations could shoot the breeze

2009-02-03T10:17:00.001-08:00

I love the smell of irony in the morning.

2009-02-03T07:40:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON – Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.

Muhahahahahahaha

2009-02-01T08:15:00.001-08:00

Obama continues Bush's policy of rendition

Fucking AMT

2009-01-31T09:19:00.000-08:00

I hate the AMT. Obama better re-index this BS for inflation since Arbusto with all of his tax cut wisdom, didn't do jack squat about this either. Shit this is now political, Deuce here I come!

This is kind of cool

2009-01-27T11:10:00.000-08:00

Hi-res panoramic of the inaguration.

I found P Diddy!!!

So

2009-01-26T11:19:00.002-08:00

BO & W have been dropping trillions into the system for awhile now. But guess what? It's really a drop in the bucket.

Somehow, Arbusto let a market larger than the entire world's GDP develope unregulated. Imagine a nightmare scenario where the insurance companies didn't pay out their claims and unscurpilous investors could slander a company with the potential profit that is equal to infinity and face no consequences. There, now you understand America in 2008.

Please, sweet Jeebus, let BO do something about this now. And yes, folks, this is entirely the fault of the 2000-08 administration (Pres + CONgress). Say what you will Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton causing this but in 2000 this market was flirting with one trillion.

You ready?

2009-01-26T11:19:00.001-08:00

Another Bailout

2009-01-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

Freddie Mac gets another $35 billion...printing presses achurning. Thanks Hank.

Muhahahahahaha

2009-01-23T13:51:00.001-08:00

Obama Sides With Bush in Spy Case

By David Kravets January 22, 2009 | 4:32:47 PMCategories: Surveillance
The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.

In a filing in San Francisco federal court, President Barack Obama adopted the same position as his predecessor. With just hours left in office, President George W. Bush late Monday asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to stay enforcement of an important Jan. 5 ruling admitting key evidence into the case.

Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program. The former president approved the wiretaps in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"The Government's position remains that this case should be stayed," the Obama administration wrote (.pdf) in a filing that for the first time made clear the new president was on board with the Bush administration's reasoning in this case.

The government wants to appeal Walker's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal maneuver requiring Judge Walker's approval. A hearing in Walker's courtroom is set for Friday.

The legal brouhaha concerns Walker's decision to admit as evidence a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004.

The lawyers — Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoo — sued the Bush administration after the U.S. Treasury Department accidentally released the Top Secret memo to them. At one point, the courts had ordered the document, which has never been made public, returned and removed from the case.

The document's admission to the case is central for the two former lawyers of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity to acquire legal standing so they may challenge the constitutionality of the warrantless-eavesdropping program Bush publicly acknowledged in 2005.

The Friday hearing is needed, because disputes with pretrial decisions generally require the trial judge to permit an appeal.

The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder.

That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications.

A decision on the constitutionality of the immunity legislation is pending before Judge Walker in a separate case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Re: Sweet Deee Says We're Fooked. I Agree.

2009-01-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

Are we fooked?

Indeed, the last year/next year are an equilibrium-shifting period of change (note the lack of calling it a negative change). The US economy will enter in the worst and longest recession since WW II while unemployment is flirting with Great Depression levels.

But really, truely, the US is the world's strongest economy and its relative strength is only increasing with time. The Wall St Master's of the University teamed up with the Legislative Brach, and to a lesser extent George W Bush, to get rich. The risk of their gain was transferred to US Debt holders and really no one else, not even the tax payer.

The Get Out of Jail Free card is devaluing the US Dollar and we can play it whenever we feel like it. No one else can. Arbusto took control of the world. This is much like an economic MAD we hold over the debt holder's head. China, Japan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia play by our rules now.

'If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe your bank a million pounds, it has.' - John Maynard Keynes in 1982. Chang Pounds to Dollars and multiply by 100,000 and the statement summarizes where we are.

Obama: "All those things I said about Gitmo... ummm... "

2009-01-23T07:32:00.001-08:00

There may be less than meets the eye to the executive orders President Obama issued yesterday to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and prohibit the torture of prisoners in American custody. Those pronouncements may sound dramatic and unequivocal, but experts predict that American policy towards detainees could remain for months or even years pretty close to what it was as President Bush left office.

“I think the administration’s commitment to close Guantanamo is heartening; the fact they want to give themselves a year to do it, not so much,”, said Ramzi Kassem, a Yale Law School lecturer who represents prisoners like inmate Ahmed Zuhair, who was captured in Pakistan in 2001. “That would bring men like my client to eight years imprisonment for no apparent reason.”

Here are a few of the delays, caveats and loopholes that could limit the impact of Obama’s orders:

1. Everyone has to follow the Army Field Manual—for now…

Obama’s executive order on interrogations says all agencies of the government have to follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating detainees, meaning the CIA can no longer used so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which have included waterboarding, the use of dogs in questioning, and stripping prisoners.

However, the order also created an interagency commission which will have six months to examine whether to create “additional or different guidance” for non-military agencies such as the CIA. One group that represents detainees, the Center for Constitutional Rights, deemed that an “escape hatch” to potentially allow enhanced interrogations in the future.

White House counsel Greg Craig told reporters such fears are misplaced. “This is not an invitation to bring back different techniques than those that are approved inside the Army Field Manual, but an invitation to this task force to make recommendations as to whether or not there should be a separate protocol that's more appropriate to the intelligence community,” he said.

The distinction Craig made between “protocols” and “techniques,” though, seems less than clear.

“For now, they’re punting, saying they’ll comply with what’s in the Army manual…but at some point in the future this commission may revert to the executive” to recommend harsher techniques, said Kassem, adding that he was concerned about how transparent the commission’s recommendations would be.

“I’m happy to postpone that discussion [on “enhanced interrogation”]… on the condition that [it] happens transparently,” he said.

A Columbia law professor who worked on detention issues at the State Department under President Bush, Matthew Waxman, said Obama is wise to leave open the possibility of different guidance for the CIA’s experienced interrogators. “I’ve worked on drafts of the Army Field Manual,” Waxman said. “It’s designed to be in the hands of tens of thousands of people who may not have a lot of training or supervision.”

2. Obama ordered a 30-day review of Guantanamo conditions—by the man currently responsible for Guantanamo.

A section of Obama’s order on Guantanamo entitled “Humane Standards of Confinement” orders Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to spend the next thirty days reviewing the current conditions at the Caribbean prison to make sure they’re legal and follow the Geneva Convention. It seems doubtful that Gates, who has been atop the chain of command for Guantanamo for more than two years, will suddenly find conditions that were just fine on Monday of this week are now flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention.

“He’s not exactly impartial,” Kassem said.

Waxman pointed out that adhering to the Geneva Condition is “already the law,” and deemed that section of the order “bizarre.”

3. Obama vowed no torture on his watch, but force-feeding and solitary confinement apparently continue at Guantanamo for now.

It’s possible that the 30-day referral to Gates is simply an effort to buy the Obama team time to deal with two Guantanamo practices that some consider torture, or at least inhumane: force feeding and isolation of prisoners. According to detainee lawyers, about two dozen inmates who refuse to eat as a form of protest are currently being force fed, and about 140 are in some form of solitary confinement.

The Bush administration has argued that the feeding is humane and that the solitary, at least as practiced now, is not the kind of total isolation that amounts to torture. “There’s an important distinction to be made between isolation and separation” from other prisoners,” Waxman said.

As far as we know, the force feeding and solitary practices continued onto Obama’s watch. Craig dodged a question about the new president’s views on those issues. “I'm not going to get into the details,” Craig said.

4. The vast majority of detainees in American custody may see no benefit from Obama’s orders

While Obama ordered a case-by-case review of the 245 prisoners held at Guantanamo, the 600 prisoners held in indefinite American custody in Afghanistan and roughly 20,000 in Iraq won’t get such attention. The general policy review might aid them, eventually, but unless someone was about to torture them it’s unclear how they are better off.

“I think there’s a fairly good chance that on the whole from the perspective of my clients at Guantanamo and Bagram [the site of an American air base and prison in Afghanistan], their lives will be the same until those facilities are shut down, unfortunately,” Kassem said.

Asked why the reviews are limited to prisoners at Guantanamo, and those at Bagram or Abu Ghraib, Craig said, “The president asked us to look at Guantanamo. That's the answer.”

5. The orders downplay the possibility that some prisoners might be set free in America.

Obama ordered that when Guantanamo closes, any remaining inmates “be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” But Obama’s wordsmiths seem to have deliberately trimmed out any explicit mention of the explosive possibility of freeing prisoners on American soil.

While Obama’s aides seem to prefer trying prisoners in civil courts or freeing them abroad, there are no obvious charges to be filed against some of the detainees. Once Guantanamo closes, letting them loose in the U.S. may be the only option if other countries won’t take them.

Craig said he was “hopeful” that other governments will take many of the detainees, but some nations may not step up until the U.S. does. “One question a lot of countries keep asking is, ‘How many are you going to take?” Waxman said. “There may be some countries that want to earn some credit [with the] new administration…but I don’t expect this problem to go away.”

6. Military commissions are shut down…. for now

One of the attention grabbing provisions of Obama’s orders calls for military tribunals at Guantanamo to be “halted.” But the Obama administration is not ruling out returning to some sort of military forum to deal with some of the prisoners.

“This order does not eliminate or extinguish the military commissions, it just stays all proceedings in connection with the ongoing proceedings in Guantanamo,” Craig said, making clear that “improved military commissions” were still on the table.

That suggestion exasperates detainee lawyers like Kassem. “That would be a huge mistake, “ he said. “That system [is] set up to launder statements obtained through torture… What’s the point of getting rid of our offshore, improvised, sham, military tribunals in Cuba, only to recreate it here in the United States?”

Signs of the Great Deflationary Spiral v 2.0

2009-01-23T06:01:00.001-08:00

Deflation is a pretty rough road to ho (if you need an explanation, I will provide it). Today's sign of deflation is discounts on Chrysler products which begs the question: is $6,000 off enough for you to buy a Chyrsler? Technical deflation is here but is applied deflation upon us? Or is a Chrysler just a crappy car that can't sell in good times?

Torture

2009-01-23T05:30:00.001-08:00

So while I was thinking about the remains of the hijackers quagmire I recalled this argument that I had with a gf about 5-6 years ago. NPR had just released more info on the enhanced interrogation techniques that were being used in either or both Abu Ghirab and Gitmo.

My then gf, was really upset by the fact that they were using their religion against them. Here is how they did that:
-They changed clocks and kept them indoors so they had no concept of time and they prayed their 5 times but at the wrong times of day

-They destroyed their copies of the Koran. Which to me meant that they gave them copies of the Koran to begin with.

-They had a female interrogator act as if she were removing a female sanitary napkin from here pants and then smear what appeared to be blood on the detainee. I believe that it may have been on his face.

Apparently the last two things will send you straight to hell. The first one is just rude. Now I was not upset by any of this because it did not physically hurt any of the detainees. My gf was livid -she was also a religion major.

Any thoughts?

I figure since we never talk about enhanced interrogation techniques we could go ahead and get this thing started.

My man Spengler...

2009-01-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

not so much impressed with the inaugurated.

HFS I never even thought of this

2009-01-22T13:56:00.001-08:00

We have remains of 13 of the 19 hijackers from 9/11 in refrigerators in NY and VA.

Fun Factoid - The total weight for all hijackers that have been identified through DNA is less than 24 lbs or basically the weight of 1 meat sack. (for you trivia buffs)

The question is what do we do with them? No one has came forward and asked for them. We obviously can't hold on them forever that is just gross and why would you bother? Is there anything in Islam that dictates how to get rid of evil fuckheads remains? Obviously burning didn't work. Any suggestions?

Well, its nearly 5 PM on Day 1 of Heaven on Earth

2009-01-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

Troops are still in Iraq.
Guantanomo is still open.
Its still official government policy to wiretap without warrants.
Bush & Cheney have not been indicted.
Global warming hasnt stopped.
Dont ask, Dont tell -- still official government policy.

Holding on with baited breath.

What did we get ?
"Ethics rules" -- White House staffers must wait 2 years before lobbying.
Salary freeze for Executive staff making over $100,000.

Shivering with excitement.

Best news of the day ??? Too soon ???

2009-01-20T18:24:00.001-08:00

Both Senators Kennedy and Byrd had medical trouble at the post-inaugural luncheon, cable nets reporting. No concrete details for now, but according to some reports Kennedy convulsed and collapsed.

I daresay you will never find...

2009-01-20T18:20:00.001-08:00

video footage of the crowd in 2000 booing Clinton & Gore, and their wives, at the inaugural.

Democrats always say they want a classless society.
Today, we got to see it in action.

Fuck all of you boo-ers.
I hope you children have seizures and fall in a tub.