Excerpt: We probably tried to interview twenty-five, thirty people going in, and every last person refused to even give their name, identify themselves, say what they're here for, what the event is for. It's more secretive than like a Dick Cheney energy council meeting. I mean, it's amazing.
Excerpt: Court authorities will be able to track students with a history of skipping school under a new program requiring them to wear ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring.
Comment: Maybe it's the beatings and tauntings school officials effectively condone, or maybe it's just the boredom, but there's a certain subset of kids who just hate school. I was one of them -- the difference between prison and school eluded me when I was a child, and I skipped school a lot. If they'd had the technology to shackle my ankle with something like this, if they'd tracked me down and forced me to attend school five days a week, I can't imagine the fury I would have felt. I wasn't psychotic, just a weird but basically harmless kid, but even years later I know that this kind of enforcement would've made me violent. As such GPS shackles become commonplace, and kids who want nothing but to not be in school are forced to be in school anyway, what do you think those kids are going to do? Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dug in his heels Monday on the future of the US military in Iraq, insisting that all foreign soldiers leave the country by a specific date in 2011 and rejecting legal immunity for American troops.
Comment: Sweet jeebers, 2011 is three years from now -- how many Americans and Iraqis will be dead by then? This dang fool attack and occupation of Iraq hasn't accomplished diddlysquat except to make America weaker and more despised world-wide. The American military and mercenaries in Iraq should be brought home as quickly as they can pack their dufflebags and queue up at the airport. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Comment: There are better, easier, and infinitely safer ways to boil water. Nuclear power is unsafe, and shouldn't be allowed within 25,000 miles of civilization, and coincidentally that's the approximate circumference of the Earth. Cindy B.PERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: On deflecting criticism about him not being able to remember how many houses he owns: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," And later on explaining he hasn't always had 7 kitchen tables: "I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair..." ... Explaining why he couldn't have possibly cheated by hearing the questions at the Saddleback forum beforehand: "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous"; ... explaining away cheating on his first wife with a woman 18 years younger than him: "John McCain's faith and character were tested and forged in ways few can fathom"; on opposing universal healthcare: [Edwards] noted that he'd always enjoyed government health benefits, McCain responded that he knows what it's like to get inadequate care -- "from another government"...
Excerpt: "I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. ... In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time." --John McCain
Comment: A story about how bad healthcare in America is ... it can't help Obama if he has no intentions to significantly change the status quo of said industry. And so far as I know, he doesn't. JR MooneyhamPERMANENT LINK
Comment: Too bad she's British. Margaret would make the perfect running mate for John McCain. Since they both now have the same grip on reality and minds like a (rusty, old) steel trap. Chris M.PERMANENT LINK
The US / Israeli plans to gain control the Caspian Sea oil reserves and the pipelines which deliver the oil to the various marketplaces has failed big time. The planners in Washington and Tel Aviv obviously underestimated the Russian response to the Georgian attempt to seize S. Osettia, the gateway to the Caspian motherload of oil. The US is bankrupt and the only way out is to try and gain control of the world's resources, particularly the existing oil reserves. They have so far failed to do so, thus the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq are both doomed to failure. As for the Military Industrial Complex, it will wither on the vine along with the rest of what remains of Americas economy.
It seems that the hit men among other things bribed and also threatened leaders in order to get them to cooperate with "Uncle Sam and our oil companies." Of course, those who didn't cooperate had to be removed. Then, the CIA turned up to cause coups, rig elections, or assassinate some. The leaders that they "got to" did as they were told and accepted large "development" loans from the World Bank, for example. This money could then be used for the "projects" they were pushed into doing so that the money flowed into US companies. Once the countries were indebted, they had to pay off the loans. This led to such actions as austerity programs, fuel price hikes, and public sector wage freezes. Alternatively, they could raise the money by accepting US military bases or by selling off their oil and other natural resources. ... Read the rest ...
And those who criticized King George were labeled traitors to the Crown.
History tells us basically that this country came to be because of dissent against a government which abused its' powers by abusing its' citizens. The dissidents of that time are heroes now.
We once again find ourselves under the tyrannical rule of a King George. What you read here are those exercising their rights and responsibilities to speak out against injustice. I suggest you read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mills. He describes the idea of personal liberty within a democratic society and the responsibility of its' citizens to hold the government to high ideals and codes of conduct.
You are very wrong. We are unhappy because we love the United States so much.
I am sure that during the time those we now call American heroes were making a new country there were people just like you, afraid to call the leaders to task. Afraid to hope and work for a better country. Afraid to speak out against lies and corruption, injustice. Afraid to fight for freedom. Be afraid. There are other pages for people like you. Go there and be comfortable. Leave the future to people who aren't afraid.
MonkeyMan
Absolutely excellent, and dang... makes me feel like we're doing something worthwhile ... Large hug.
I know I shouldn't respond to those guys, they aren't likely to listen. But it really rubs me the wrong way. You guys are the modern day Boston Tea Partyers and I am glad to know you! :) What is left of Fay is dumping much needed rain on us. Foggy mornings and rainy afternoons, I'm loving it!
The suit filed by Philip Berg cites the Nationality Act of 1940 as the standard to go by in judging how Obama may have lost his citizenship. See paragraph 27 of the complaint [pdf].
Wikipedia describes a Supreme Court case which clarified the conditions under which a citizen might lose citizenship. Essentially the ruling is you must do something to indicate you intended to relinquish your citizenship. Having done something which would automatically revoke your citizenship without you realizing it wouldn't be sufficient. According to the Vance v. Terrazas case, this argument of Berg's case would be nullified.
SirJ
This guy's claim is bonkers, but of course, you know that.
Excerpt: The civil suit filed by Berg will be reviewed by the US Federal Election Commission, according to Patty Hartman, a spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
I have a strong feeling that the way things are going now, it will be impossible to use anything but dollars as legal currency in the US, regardless of their value at the time.
To be able to use a preferred or strong currency, one would have to be able to move to the nation that uses it. That would be more expensive as time goes on. If US citizens were even permitted to leave at that time... except for the greedy bastards who caused this mess; I am sure they already have plans in hand to leave the country.
A lot of us will be living in Bartersville ere long.
Siskiyousis
Obama's serious black problem
by Janice Lester
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 PERMANENT LINK
SirJ says Obama's ad is "tame and limp" and of course he's right. It's frustrating as hell, but Obama's got a serious black problem nobody's willing to talk about out loud: He pretty much has to play it cool, cuz if he responds in any way but "tame and limp" they'll make him out to be Shaft, or the "angry black man". If he says anything that sounds (or can be made to sound) even slightly rude in response to McCain's mountains of lies and smears, Obama's comments will be played in an endless loop on all the newschat shows like Dukakis in a tank. Witness how strongly the bastards are already tagging him with every possibly synonym for uppity -- and it's working, nobody's calling McCain or the media on what they're doing.
Obama's blackness is a disadvantage that's almost as severe as the media's strong tilt in McCain's favor. Even disregarding for the moment the way Republicans suppress the vote and manipulate the count to win elections, if Obama can even come close to winning it'll be a miracle.
Drum roll, please: Beginning tomorrow, the Unknown News website will start looking a little different. The gigantic once-weekly news round-ups on our home page will end, and instead we'll have smaller but more frequent updates, with the newest material at the top of the page and older news and comments sliding downward. Of course, that's the format used by most other amateur weblogs, including probably all your favorites and virtually all my favorites. Most weblogs use that format because (duh) it's much easier for readers to navigate, and less time-intensive to create. Picture me slapping my forehead.
Our goal is a site that makes more sense for visitors, and not coincidentally requires less webwork for your humble editors. And we're also going to give the joint a fresh coat of paint, so say goodbye to the rather garish mustard color scheme.
Give us a few days to shake out the bugs, and we're hoping you'll agree that these changes are for the better. Please let us know what you think, and holler if you find any glitches or can't find what you're looking for.
Excerpt: Poland and the United States on Wednesday signed a deal to deploy part of a US missile shield on Polish territory in the face of deep Russian anger.
"This will help us to deal with the new threats of the 21st century, of long-range missile threats from countries like Iran or from North Korea," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said before she signed the accord with Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.
The signing comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and NATO, and Russia over the conflict with pro-Western Georgia."
Comment: I can't see what Russia has to be angry about. Surely the US would be ecstatic if Russia planted ten missiles in Ontario, to defend against the threat of incoming long-range missiles from Zimbawe. And make no mistake, Zimbabwe's long-range missiles are only slightly less imaginary than Iran's or North Korea's. Seriously, the danger of a missile attack from Iran, North Korea, or Zimbabwe cannot be underestimated, and the only purpose this serves is infuriating Russia and keeping the cash flowing to America's military-industrial complex. Belching BarneyPERMANENT LINK
Comment: A new cold war is only half what loonies like Rice want. She wants a hot war on Russia, to go with America's war on terror, war on drugs, war on Afghanistan and Iraq and soon Iran. Intellectual NudistPERMANENT LINK
Comment: Yes, and isn't it interesting that Rice, a former Soviet expert who is about five months from the unemployment line, seems to be doing everything she can to re-ignite the Cold War in the time she has left? Madeline ZanePERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: In campaign news, the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has taken his first lead over Democratic Senator Barack Obama in the Reuters/Zogby national poll. 44 percent of voters polled backed McCain; 39 percent backed Obama. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr polled at three percent, and independent candidate Ralph Nader was at two percent. Pollster John Zogby said Obama's support among Democrats fell by nine percent over the past month.
John Zogby: "What's happened, number one, young people, liberals, a solid core of Obama's base just raising some questions about him. For liberals, maybe the perception that he's flip-flopped on some key issues like FISA and a sense that for young people, I think, especially, that maybe he's not the unique different sort of political persona that they expected.
Comment: I heard that Obama was losing in the polls a dozen times ... and that was it. None of the usual ultra-specific parsing about how he was doing against left-handed albinos in the Pacific Northwest. That should have set off my B.S. detector right there. But it didn't, until DEMOCRACY NOW happened to mention that the reason Obama fell in the polls is that the Democratic base is not pleased with Obama selling us out on the FISA bill, and offshore drilling, and hiring Wal-Mart flacks as economic advisors.
Exactly how many more damn elections do we have to lose because of the ridiculous common wisdom that Democrats can only win general elections by turning into Republicans? News flash to Democrats: Everyone HATES Republicans right now. Stop imitating them. Madeline ZanePERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: "Road Home" [reconstruction] grants were based on pre-Katrina property values, so houses in poorer areas of town, like the lower 9th Ward, had greater disparities between Road Home grants and the cost of replacement. That's a nice touch. But there's more...
The program to help rebuild rental housing -- essential to the return of working-class families to the city -- is stuck in the preliminary stage, after almost three years. One key reason:
Because of federal requirements, it is a reimbursement program, so most landlords have to get private financing and then recoup their investment, a substantial hardship for those who are paying mortgages on their property without any rental income
Doesn't look like corruption, or Democratic state officials, or any of the other bogeymen usually cited by outsiders have much role in this slow-motion disaster. Looks like President Bush, who claimed victory yesterday at Jackson Barracks then skedaddled out of town, really didn't mean his promise three years ago at Jackson Square to do whatever was needed to help the city return, revive, and rebuild. Imagine that.
Excerpt: Asked whether she classified herself as a "Washington insider" at a briefing sponsored by the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Pelosi answered, "Oh, absolutely not. No."
Who could possibly imagine that a mere 22 years in Congress made the daughter of a "prominent Maryland political family" part of the system? Just because she's spent her time as Speaker of the House making sure Bush and Cheney get everything they want?
Comment: I'm not sure calling Nancy Pelosi "dishonest" is fair. It's much too specific. I think "unprincipled" might be a better word. That covers not only the lying, but also her betrayal of every Democratic position, from funding the war in Iraq to (this week) supporting pointless, destructive offshore drilling. Madeline ZanePERMANENT LINK
Comment: For those unfamiliar with Rachel Maddow, take my word for it -- this is terrific news. She's smart, funny, and spends about as much time on actual news as the rest of the mainstream media combined. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: [Anti-Obama smear author Jerome] Corsi is not just a right wing ideologue. He's a full fledged nutcase, and yet he was hired by a major publisher, "edited" by a star GOP villager, to write
an incendiary book of lies about the Democratic presidential candidate. They aren't even trying to keep their fingerprints off this thing.
In fact, the default position among Democrats, Republicans and the media is that the only kooks in the country with whom it is unacceptable to be professionally or financially involved are on the left. And "the left" is defined so broadly that it includes groups like MoveOn and Vote Vets. The right, in contrast, has fully integrated even their extremist fringe into the mainstream and everyone accepts it.
Excerpt: As they paraded cheerfully into the Bird's Nest stadium in their brightly colored cultural costumes, the 56 smiling children were described as coming from China's 56 ethnic groups.
Their different hats, dresses and robes may indeed have represented the diversity of the world's most populous nation. But an official from the children's dance troupe revealed yesterday that the youngsters did not.
There were no Uighurs, no Zhuangs, no Huis, no Tujias, no Mongols and definitely no Tibetans. Indeed, in the latest in a series of manipulations that have soured memories of the spectacular opening ceremony, all 56 were revealed to be Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 per cent of the country's 1.3 billion people.
Excerpt: Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday.
The women were still at home three days after being officially notified that they would have to serve a yearlong term of re-education through labor, but were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.
Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.
"Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of re-education through labor can she serve?" Li said. "But they can also be taken away at any time."
yesterday's flap over the senator's untold number of homes by emphasizing his background as a former prisoner of war, I started wondering just how often Team McCain plays this card.
Perusing the last couple of weeks, I found four examples: 1) in response to questions about McCain's marital infidelities; 2) in response to criticism of McCain's healthcare plan; 3) in response to a question about the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh; and 4) in response to allegations he may have heard the questions in advance of Rick Warren's recent candidate forum.
Comment: Yeah, and wasn't new VP candidate Biden the one who took Giuliani down a few pegs by pointing out that every one of his sentences consisted of a noun, a verb, and 9/11? I smell an opportunity for a sequel. Madeline ZanePERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama holds a 2 to 1 edge over Republican Sen. John McCain among the nation's low-wage workers, but many are unconvinced that either presidential candidate would be better than the other at fixing the ailing economy or improving the health-care system, according to a new national poll.
But even among white workers -- a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November -- Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.
Comment: You know, when Barack Obama was behind in the Democratic primaries among working-class whites, you couldn't get the pundits to shut up about it. Working-class whites this, working-class whites that. We better figure out a way to coronate Clinton despite the fact that she's getting her butt handed to her in all the primaries, because she's leading with the magical, mystical working-class whites.
All of a sudden, now that McCain's the one losing among working-class whites, they have magically, mystically become much less newsworthy. I could barely find a decent quote to pull from the WASHINGTON POST article because they couldn't just report that Barack's winning among the WCWs without adding lots of qualifiers and backpedaling. However, I am absolutely positive that this is a giant coincidence which is completely unrelated to all the media ass-kissing that McCain's been doing for the last gajillion years. Madeline ZanePERMANENT LINK
Comment: Are you as sick of this crap as I am? McCain has to lie about Obama and about virtually every campaign issue, because if it's a choice on the issues Americans would choose Obama in a landslide. Gertrude Q.PERMANENT LINK
Comment: There are perhaps 10-12 member of Congress who, in my opinion, aren't scum. Joe Biden isn't one of the non-scum, but he is among the best of the scumbags. He tends to give strong, impassioned speeches that resound with principle, before folding like a wallet and voting for the unprincipled position. He's been a key engineer of the horrendous "war on drugs", and he's long been pretty much owned by the insurance industry. But he's got a sharp wit and he won't be namby-pamby in attacking McCain and whatever bottom-ranked scumbag the Republicans choose for VP. So it's impossible to be enthused about Biden, but Obama certainly could have made a far worse choice. Picture me shrugging. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Comment: This is the Secret Police, the Gestapo, a big fat AOK for using unlimited power to destroy political enemies. This is another idea that has no place in a constitutional democracy, but it's indispensable if you're building a totalitarian state. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The uninformed consensus among the detainees was that some people would be fingerprinted, have their irises scanned and be sent back to the countries from which they had disembarked, regardless of citizenship status; others would be fingerprinted and allowed to stay; and the unlucky ones would be detained indefinitely and moved to a more permanent facility.
Excerpt: Like nearly all of the nation's modern voting equipment, Premier's products were declared "qualified" under a voluntary testing process overseen from the mid 1990s until 2005 by the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED). ...
NASED watched over the issuance of "qualified" reports from Independent Testing Laboratories, but with little control over the testing. The vendors secretly negotiated payments with the labs, helped design the tests, got to see the results first and only shared the codes driving their software with three NASED technical experts who signed non-disclosure agreements.
NASED officials posted only "qualified" ratings on the group's Web site.
Excerpt: The US Treasury is growing increasingly likely to recapitalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the months ahead on the taxpayer's dime, BARRON'S reported in its August 18 edition.
Comment: Also, this just in -- rainwater is wet, sunshine warm. Heidi PapademetriouPERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: Malicious hackers are using booby-trapped Flash banner ads to hijack clipboards for use in rogue security software attacks. In the Web attacks, which target Mac, Windows and Linux users running Firefox, IE and Safari, hackers are seizing control of the machine's clipboard and using a hard-to-delete URL that points to a fake anti-virus program.
According to victims on several Web forums, the attack is coming from Adobe Flash-based advertising on legitimate sites -- including Newsweek, Digg and MSNBC.com.
Comment: This hasn't happened to me yet (thanks again, NoScript) but it looks worrisome. I always have Flash disabled when surfing, but previously it's been for sanity reasons only -- if you're not playing games or watching video, the only thing Flash is good for is letting annoying hop-and-bop ads clutter your screen. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Excerpt: According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing's for sure: Mr. Obama isn't planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition -- even that of the Bush administration.
Comment: When you receive those Republican-backed emails loaded with lies, smears, and distortions about Barack Obama, just hit "reply all" and send people some truth. Helen & HarryPERMANENT LINK
Comment: This report is about as tough to understand as such things get. But it seems to say something about human physiology related to the high we get from pot might help protect our brains from stuff like Alzheimer's. I don't know if they're saying smoking pot might help directly. Maybe a smart graduate student could decipher this for us. JR MooneyhamPERMANENT LINK
Comment: This is so childish. Instead of taunting the failures of Iran's space program, NASA ought to have scientists over there providing expert coaching. Angry AnniePERMANENT LINK
Comment: This is pathetic, which is par for the course in Congress. Why are these Senators "asking" instead of telling, why are they seeking "delay" instead of dumping these new spying powers, and why are they acquiescing to the oddly unAmerican notion that the wildly corrupt Justice Department -- not Congress -- will decide how unlimited its power to spy on Americans is? Obese BallerinaPERMANENT LINK
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