Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Why is this discussion thread listed here and under the Politics & Philosophy heading?

Dazed and confused in Montana

AIIZ

[joel the ornery]

Senator Kennedy to Kick off National Hunger Awareness Day By Eating The Poor


BOSTON, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jun 6, 2005 --
WHEN: Monday, June 6, 2005
TIME: 11:15-11:45 a.m.

LOCATION: The Greater Boston Food Bank, 99 Atkinson Street

Senator Edward M. Kennedy will kick off The Greater Boston Food Bank's annual National Hunger Awareness Day by eating one of the food bank workers.

Well, not really, but I know you can visualize it.

[unjonharley]

Senator Kennedy to Kick off National Hunger Awareness Day By Eating The Poor


BOSTON, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jun 6, 2005 --
WHEN: Monday, June 6, 2005
TIME: 11:15-11:45 a.m.

LOCATION: The Greater Boston Food Bank, 99 Atkinson Street

Senator Edward M. Kennedy will kick off The Greater Boston Food Bank's annual National Hunger Awareness Day by eating one of the food bank workers.

Well, not really, but I know you can visualize it.

~
Soilunt(hommer oouhh)Green.....

[joel the ornery]

Kerry's Yale Grades Similar to Bush's Tue Jun 7, 5:09 AM ET

BOSTON - Sen. John F. Kerry's grade average at Yale University was virtually identical to President Bush's record there, despite repeated portrayals of Kerry as the more intellectual candidate during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Kerry had a cumulative average of 76 and got four Ds his freshman year — in geology, two history courses and political science, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

His grades improved with time, and he averaged an 81 his senior year and earned an 89 — his highest grade — in political science as a senior.

"I always told my dad that D stood for distinction," Kerry said in a written response to reporters' questions. He said he has previously acknowledged focusing more on learning to fly than studying.

Under Yale's grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade.

In 1999, The New Yorker magazine published a transcript showing Bush had a cumulative grade average of 77 his first three years at Yale, and a similar average under a non-numerical rating system his senior year.

Bush's highest grade at Yale was an 88 in anthropology, history and philosophy. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy, and improved his grades after his freshman year, the transcript showed.

Kerry, a Democrat, previously declined to release the transcript, which was included in his Navy records. He gave the Navy permission to release the documents last month, the Globe reported.

Kerry graduated from Yale in 1966, Bush in 1968.

[cowboyangel]

shit, I was going to avoid this thread...well...here goes....first, I love you Joel. You are a true American. Now my comment....both belonged to skull & bones....a diabolical underground creepazoid organization.......

[DVD Burner]

shit, I was going to avoid this thread...well...here goes....first, I love you Joel. You are a true American. Now my comment....both belonged to skull & bones....a diabolical underground creepazoid organization.......

Careful. A comment like that could get deleted.

[joel the ornery]

i want to point out for the record... i did not revive this tired old thread.

may it rest in peace.

[spectabillis]

Why is this discussion thread listed here and under the Politics & Philosophy heading?

Dazed and confused in Montana

AIIZ

Definately in the wrong place.

[Last Real Burner]

[Driveway]

Who cares 'bout American politics? You been followin' the shit goin' down up here in Canada? Gawd damn! It been hittin' the fizzan up in here!

To kick off, the guv'ment be in a precarious state, we gots the Liberals runnin' the show, but the Red Necks, French, and God Damned Commies outnumber 'em. The Libs make a deal with the GDCs but then it's split right down the middle, 'cept for, like, three "Independant" muthafuckas.

So the Pussy Liberal Pinko Commie Alliance faces down with the Ignant Ass Red Neck And Uppity Frog "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend" Coalition.

There's a vote tomorrow, if the PLPINA looses to the IARNAUFC there'll be an election where the Lib's could lose power.

Oh, AND at this time the police are in'vestigatin' The mutha fuckin' Liberals
[who have been running the show as mighty dictators for the past decade -ed.] for stealing a couple million bucks and funnelling it back into themselves.

On the eve of the vote, my honky, Prime Minister Paul "Big Pimpin" Martin
gets the hottest, blondest, schwing-worthiest pig in the Conservative pen, to cross the floor and join his side.

That's right, Boss Hog stole Daisy from the fuckin' Dukes.

The IARNAUFC loose by one vote, then crumble. The wheels fall off the General Lee. the French Seperatists switch sides, suckerpunching the Conservatives on another vote which results in 4.6 billion dollars in corporate tax cuts being removed from the budget and the resulting surplus is spent on education, the environment, and social programs; as demanded by the Socialists in exchange for their co-operation on the old PLPINA.

Oh, and the french and socialists finally got the Liberals to stop dragging their feet and legalize same sex marriage.


The leader of the Conservatives described this behaviour as "Undemocratic".

[Driveway]

Canada's Daisy Duke


[img]http://www.championship_606.ursatech.com/images/DaisyDuke.jpg[/img]

Hazzard County's.




Paul "Big Pimpin" Martin



The Hogster



Canada's Duke Brothers



The Dukes themselves....


Anyone else scared yet?

[cowboyangel]

dusting off the numerous cobwebs.....puff, poof, swipe, swack....wow...this place has gone to seed.....well, will attempt to ruffle some feathers, perhaps? perhaps not.
http://www.hackettforcongress.com/

now, this Marine I could feel good about. Anybody who calls Rush "a fat ass country club republican" has my vote...

[FireFox]

http://vgcats.com/jack.php

I would like to take this moment out of your busy schedules (time, might I add, that has just been wasted reading this, which you will never get back) to say the following:

*ahem*

Jack Thompson is a douchebag.

That is all.

[Driveway]

What I like is that he CC'd his protestations to Senator Santorum...

If you haven't heard of Santorum before, allow me to educate you. Rick Santorum is a Republican Senator who once stated publicly that he hoped the Supreme court would uphold laws that make sodomy illegal and compared consensual gay sex to bigamy, incest, adultery, and "man on dog" sex.

As a result, more openminded members of the population have added a new word to the sexual lexicon:

Santorum [san-TOR-um]
NOUN
1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.


check out the fun: www.spreadingsantorum.com

[MrGAJ5001]

This is the worst thing I've ever heard...but...at least there's a good slice of Irony!

[cowboyangel]

Ya got my buttons pushed big time today wiith this piece of news

WASHINGTON - Greenpeace complained Thursday to the
Federal Communications Commission about MSNBC talk show host Tucker Carlson's praise for a fatal attack 20 years ago on the environmental group's flagship.

"Terrorists do not need any further encouragement to commit their horrific acts," John Passacantando, Greenpeace USA's executive director, wrote to the FCC. "This violent act against the Rainbow Warrior did not just destroy property. It took the life of Fernando Pereira, the ship's photographer, who drowned below deck, leaving behind two young children."

Greenpeace asked the commission to investigate and "take appropriate steps so that Mr. Carlson and MSNBC do not continue to violate appropriate broadcast standards."

It's not clear what, if anything, the FCC could do. FCC indecency standards apply only to broadcast television, not cable and satellite networks such as MSNBC. Those standards also are intended to apply mainly to obscenities and profane speech.

In his June 22 and July 15 shows of "The Situation with Tucker Carlson," the bow-tied conservative praised French agents' July 10, 1985 attack on Greenpeace's "Rainbow Warrior," in New Zealand's Auckland Harbor, according to transcripts on MSNBC's Web site.

Carlson said he was "objectively pro-France. You know, France blew up the Rainbow Warrior, that Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbor in the '80s. ... It won me over." At another point, Carlson called the mining of the ship "a bold and good thing to do."

MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Carlson's opinions are not those of the cable channel. Carlson could not be reached to comment directly.

French secret service frogmen planted two mines that tore apart the ship's hull as it was preparing to sail to France's South Pacific nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll and campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific Ocean.

Two French agents were arrested by New Zealand authorities in the bombing and convicted of manslaughter. They were released after less than two years in prison.



I was on the Rainbow Warrior and left a month before it was sunk. Fernando was a fellow cameraman friend with whom I shared a cabin in the ship. He had 2 little daughters at that time. I personally carried letters to them from their dad the day I left. Fernando was a joyous, peaceful soul, with a smile on his face most of the time. We used to fight over the tiny fan in our cabin because the ship's airconditioner was dead and we were 5 degrees above the equator in a steel north sea trawler ( the RW was rebuilt for GreenPeace)
For the idiot Carlson to say this about Greenpeace is heartlesss, stupid and shameful. France broke many international laws in it's sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.That sinking was an act of state sponsored terrorism. Poisoning the Muruora Atoll with decades of nuclear testing was also an act of terrorism by the French government. Carlson needs to go back to school to learn the meaning of words. He needs to be fired for saying hateful things about a generally fine organization and slandering the memory of a good dad and friendly peace activist.

[alexamonkey]

I submit a challenge to your claim, LRB. You are quite an ornery fellow, aren't you? Is it a defense mechanism, or are simply compelled towards sarcasm?

[geekster]

In an effort to take this thread on a slightly different plane ...

Check this article out. Remember this guy's name. You will be hearing it a lot two years from now as he is most likely to be the next president of France after Chirac.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms. ... ry_id=3112

[geekster]

And another article to read that actually references the first one, it is important because in order to understand what is happening with US foreign policy, one must be able to begin to somehow put that in context with what is going on in the world in general. Europe is very important politically not only because of traditional ties and history but also because of social networking and friendships between movers and shakers in Europe and the US. I would venture to say that more influential people in the US might vacation or send their kids to schools in Europe than in, say, China or South America or Africa. Because of this, it isn't unusual for people in business, politics, the media, etc. to have close friends in Europe.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalizat ... e_2894.jsp

What happens in Europe matters a lot here. Europen politics is undergoing a significant change. With the exeption of Spain, we are seeing a significant shift to the right and a waning of influence of the left. Poland kicked out the former communists last week. Germany is slowly forcing out the center left from power but that process will probably take a few more years. The French center right is goign to become more Anglo/US centric as they face the reality that their hopes of a French centered European Union have been dashed. The economies of France and Germany have stagnated under those policies while Ireland, the UK, and Holland, Switzerland, and the Scandanavian countries have been growing. The most significant loss of power has been the Greens. This group exploded on the scene in Germany and was able to cause a complete shutdown of Germany's nuclear power program, at least in theory. In practice, many of the shutdowns have now been pushed back as the political influence of the Green Party has diminshed and the world prices of both oil and coal have skyrocketed due to skyrocketing demand from Asia.

By 2008 we are going to see a significantly altered political landscape in both the US and Europe. We are likely to see a Europe more closely aligned with Blair/Bush and less antagonistic of it. We are going to see a US with must less political influence as a bloc by organized labor as individual unions bolt from the AFL/CIO and begin to spend their money as they see fit and as more states adopt laws that prevent unions from political spending without member permission.

The shrill whining of the US news media notwithstanding, the rest of the world is slowly changing and will likely more more supportive of US/UK policy.

US 2008 elections? I see Rudy Giuliani winning with maybe Rice or McCain as VP. Imagine that ... pro-choice Republicans! I also see the Republican party not being so beholding to the religious far right as it will soon be apparent that the religious right needs the Republicans more than the Republicans need the religious right. In other words, the Republicans will go from a party of the religious right to a party that is less evil than the Democrats, which is kind of how I see it anyway, but then again, I am not a Republican or a Democrat and certainly not a member of the religious right. Wait and see! I expect most of what I have written will come to pass. Extreme possibility: Democratic National Committee goes bankrupt due to a massive loss of organized labor funds.

[geekster]

Another good article:


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9709958/site/newsweek/

[geekster]

[joel the ornery]

where are all the nattering nabobs of negativity?

[Zulegoona]

In my crystal ball, I see the religious far right breaking with the republican party also, initially over not getting there social agenda passed and then the realization that the economic branch’s policies are attempting to concentrate wealth even more and bring back the more or less two class society of the gilded age.
The religious right it’s self will schism, as more of the members turn towards quality of life issues rather than the right life. Low wages, deteriorating working conditions, and the internet will fuel a new unionization movement that will be more globally based . This will also be helped with an infusion of former religious right members.

The Democratic party or it’s descendant , will reinvent it’s self having core principals of ( radical Inclusion ) ( radical self-reliance ) ( communal effort ) ( Civic responsibility ) ( personal expression ) and common sense environmentalism. This will put them more in line with the reinvented union movement and the quality of life religious people. This will be a world wide movement.

Through in a couple of world wide pandemics a depression, some unconceivable innovations, and an increase of natural disasters and you about have it.

Unless Apokiliptika is successful at ending the world so you don’t have to,......................




Does that make me a nattering nabobs of negativity, it seems kind of positive to me I didn’t say anything about the asteroid.

[joel the ornery]

Does that make me a nattering nabobs of negativity, it seems kind of positive to me I didn’t say anything about the asteroid.

nope, not to me...

[can't sit still]

You guys have got a great little thread going here.
Can I be a nabob?? please, please, I'm a quick learner?

Seriously, one thing that affects western politics is the forklift.
We continue to invent labor-saving devices. We have a percentage of people who aren't qualified for tech jobs. Stevedore jobs are gone. We have to employ them in make-work jobs.
Many countries have an aging population. If you look at the percentage of warm breathing bodies who are actually productive, it's not enough to pay for the rest.
France's short work-week combined with a generous social program has left the country broke. 9.9% unemployment doesn't help.

Automation and mechanization have eliminated millions of jobs. That money generally moves to "big capital". Big capital isn't going to subsidise the people that it's displaced.
Los Angeles spent $710,000 on a study of employment problems. The overwhelming problem was that industry couldn't find qualified employees.
They're either too stupid or too ignorant. One you can cure, the other you can't. There really is no productive niche for stupid people. Same goes for many old people, deseased people, etc. Anyone who isn't productive has to be subsidised by the gov or their family.
The gov is getting quite tired of this. The Governor of Virginia colony issued a proclamation "if they won't work, they won't eat"
It's true that defence siphons off a lot of money, but gov just doesn't want to pay for health, welfare, and old-age care.
"Big Capital" allied with "Big Gov" says screw those social programs,, there's no Fucking return on them.
Dan

[joel the ornery]

JOKE NIGHT By William F. Buckley Jr.
Mon Oct 17,10:47 AM ET

The rhetorical blur decalcifies straight thought. William Bennett thought he was being asked about crime rates. Well, he was being asked about crime rates, but the blur took over and the world found itself deliberating whether he wished to abort all children of black mothers.

So he had to begin not with the point he had set out to make, but by affirming that not only was he against aborting black babies, he was against aborting any babies. Ah, but that statement bumps squarely into Roe v. Wade, which, invoking the right to privacy, entitles mothers to abort their children without any reference to their ethnicity.

But how did we get into all this? By egging on foggy thought -- especially if it can be said to defend against ethnic slurring or challenges to the new constitutional postulate on abortion.

Poor Mr. Bennett was driven to saying: Look, if you want to end all crime you can do that by aborting all babies. That sounded ridiculous enough to slow down, if only for a minute, the posse determined to find him guilty of racist thought.

But the argument had many tentacles. A few nights later, Bill Maher, who chops logic on HBO, worked up a frenzy of scorn for his guest Andrew Sullivan for refusing to ascribe to poverty full responsibility for crime. Maher does not advance his thought methodically, but here is the rough sequence intended:

If there is more crime committed by black Americans than by non-blacks, it is on account of poverty.

Poverty is what happens when Republicans control Congress and the White House.

The latest poll reveals that endorsement of White House policies by black Americans is 2 percent. Endorsement of Bush by whites is 45 percent.

The difference suggests the victimization of black Americans by White House policies.

These policies result in poverty, which results in crime.

Therefore it is correct to say that poverty equals crime, and correct to say that blacks suffer more than whites from poverty, but not correct to say that blacks engage in more crime than whites do.

Abortion is a constitutional right and the exercise of abortion must not be disdained or criticized, but abortion must not be recommended as a step toward diminishing either poverty or crime. Even if it does.

On the program in question, Mr. Sullivan suddenly turned to Mr. Maher and said, "You just called me stupid."

What made Sullivan stupid in the eyes of Maher wasn't that he questioned that poverty was the whole of the explanation for crime. It was that belief in religion is, according to Maher, "stupid." Since Mr. Sullivan believes in religion, that makes him, by deduction, stupid. Maher did not pull away from Sullivan's deduction, at least not directly. He settled for saying that religion was stupid but people are perfectly free to do stupid things.

This calmed Mr. Sullivan down, and he settled for saying, Is it stupid when Christians feed the hungry? When they shelter the exposed? When they preach love of fellow men? Everybody laughed.

It doesn't matter what Maher says, they laugh. It would have been good to hear from Mr. Sullivan the words of Belloc, but they might have ruined the fun. Belloc once observed that "We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh, we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile."

Hillaire Belloc

[can't sit still]

[quote="joel the ornery"]

"The rhetorical blur decalcifies straight thought. "
If you can't dazzle em with your brilliance,,,,baffle em with your bullshit.

"These policies result in poverty, which results in crime."
Mumbai [Bombay] and Cairo have more poverty and far less crime than comparable US cities.18 million and 10 million respectively.

It's VERY hard to generalize about crime.
Australia is # 1 worldwide for serious assaults. 6 times as bad as Rwanda.
Denmark is # 1 worldwide as far as theft. 4 times as bad as Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
Obviously the results are for reported crimes.
World Fact Book 2003

[geekster]

Something quite interesting to toss onto the pile of what Al Qaeda is really fighting for (and it doesn't *really* have anything to do with US policy, etc.)

From http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?c ... 3018&par=0

Baghdad, 18 Oct. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the terror group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has released a new statement in which it explains the reasons for its terror campaign and states that they are not fighting the US occupation of Iraq, but to create "an Islamic state which is part of the caliphate and the Muslim territory."

They are quite prepared for and feel completely justified in killing anyone that gets in their way, too. Basically, since they see themselves fighting for the rule if Islam in a global context, if you are against them, you are automatically an infidel or are apostate, or whatever language they are using this week. Also, if you are Shiite you are apostate because the Shiia believe in a different caliphate lineage. So basically, anyone that opposed their campaign to impose sharia and the caliphate may be killed. The very act of opposition is justification for the killing in their minds. They are also prepared for this struggle to take thousands of years if needed over hundreds of generations. If they see sharia established in only one country per century, then so be it. They really don't give a rat's ass about any US policies now or at any point in the future, they simply use that to agitate. They see the US and UK as main enemies because we are champions of secular government (more proof that we deserve to die ... imagine, thinking man's law should trump over God's ... heresy!) and they will use whatever they can to rally people to fight but in the end they just want to kill us. If we don't engage them, they will engage us as Clinton learned when Osama attacked us five (yes 5) times before 9/11 finally, after the forst World Trade center bombing failed, flying his own version of "cruise missiles" directly into the towers. If we disengage, they will simple re-engage. We don't get to choose. In fact, the only choice we get to make is do we engage them at times and places of our choosing or do we wait for them to engage us at times and places of theirs? We can't decide to stop fighting, they made that decision. We can pull every single American globally back inside the borders of the US and they will still attack. Why? Because we are evil infidels who believe in separation of chuch and state.

[can't sit still]

Geekster, That's a pretty inflamatory statement. I see you edited 66%.
Did we miss anything cotroversial?

The truth of the matter is that there's no way to overstate the dangers of radical Islam. We may not like war, but if we don't bring it to them,,,they'll bring it to us. They bombed two US embassies in Africa. Clinton tossed a few cruise firecrackers into Afghanistan and said " there, that'll teach you". Osama said "shit, that wern't nothing". So he took out 2 more buildings in New York.
Europe is hoping for us to save them. Continentel Europe hasn't the will to stand up to the jihad. Spain folded immediatly. France is beyond saving. NATO isn't prepared to fight a battle of attrition. The part of the world that is host to radical islam is being left farther and farther behind. They see themselves being marginalized until they're eliminated. They feel that they have NOTHING to lose. That makes them very dangerous.
This is the economic and political reasoning. The religious motivation only adds to the negative side of the equation.

They see the west as being completely incompatible with Islam. They're willing to use whatever they have to to survive.
They're counting on us not having the will to fight.
Ho Chi Minh said the same. " for every 100 of us that you kill, we will kill 1 of you. It is you who will tire of this first"
I've travelled in the middle east. I had no problem with the Sunnis. The Shias are brainless turds that can be programmed for anything.
Dan

[joel the ornery]

css... nope you aren't a nabob.