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

[Simply Joel]

who knows for sure? Kennedy was pumped up on all kinds of drugs and functioned rather well as a president. Bush doesn't need drugs to act like an idiot.

very much like most e-playans.

awww Joel come onnnnnnn........ I'd rather think that we are a bunch of fools much in the vein of Lear's fool who was wiser than the king.........

anybody else hear a high-pitched whine?

[cowboyangel]

very much like most e-playans.

awww Joel come onnnnnnn........ I'd rather think that we are a bunch of fools much in the vein of Lear's fool who was wiser than the king.........

anybody else hear a high-pitched whine?

anybody else need to, perhaps, lighten-up a little?????

[Simply Joel]

lighten up, or just be an airhead?

[cowboyangel]

aw I had a ggod line but I'm nice. Joel I have some peppered vodka for you if you make it to the playa this year......

[Simply Joel]

aw I had a ggod line but I'm nice. Joel I have some peppered vodka for you if you make it to the playa this year......

unfortunately, i won't be there this year, once again.... family requirements...

sheesh, and to think i am the default leader of my family... oh, the humanity.

[DVD Burner]

unfortunately, i won't be there this year, once again.... family requirements...

Now that is a real bummer. I was hoping you would be on the playa this year so we could hang.






Hey,
has anyone seen Castro's Monday speech about Bush? Really very funny and well written.

[DVD Burner]

Any views on this?


Bush Leagues
Prominent DC Shrink Diagnoses Bush to be a Paranoid, Sadistic,Meglomaniac
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 14, 2004, 00:22



A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.

Dr. Justin Frank, writing in Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, also says the President has a ""lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad."

Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking ""may have affected his brain function - and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."

Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's Capitol Hill Blue exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability.

Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.


Bush shows an inability to grieve - dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction - no funeral and no mourning - set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Other findings by Dr. Frank:

His mother, Barbara Bush - tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" - had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.

"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."

Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? ""Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by Capitol Hill Blue.

"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing.

© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue




This is what Castros speach was about. This Dr. Frank is getting around in the media these days. Wonder what his opinion would be about Sharone?

[Simply Joel]

[quote="DVD Burner"]Any views on this?


yes...

and I was taught if I couldn't say anything nice, I shouldn't say anything at all.

[cowboyangel]

I'm voting for the one person who loves unconditionally, is always there with a happy attitude, would defend me against all attacks, and doesn't require buckets of money to get along.....it's

[Rian Jackson]

aw I had a ggod line but I'm nice. Joel I have some peppered vodka for you if you make it to the playa this year......

unfortunately, i won't be there this year, once again.... family requirements...

sheesh, and to think i am the default leader of my family... oh, the humanity.

damn it, Joel. You're spoiling all my fun. And i was looking forward to kicking it on playa....

[Last Real Burner]

I'm sorry to say the news on Bush is out.




graphically,
mr smith

[Rian Jackson]

what, bush is a burner?

[cowboyangel]

3 glasses of my peppered vodka and you could compete with the flame organ

[Simply Joel]

Points made by the author that I agree with are in bold.


August 3, 2004

Snapping to Attention
By DAVID BROOKS

A few years ago, while covering John McCain's presidential campaign, I noticed this weird phenomenon. When he spoke to veterans in South Carolina, they would greet him warmly but not effusively.

Then he'd go before a college audience in New Hampshire and everybody would be in rapture. For students, McCain was someone who had endured things they couldn't even imagine enduring. For them - and for us media types who had also never served-McCain's experience was practically supernatural.

In that campaign, as in this one, there was something hypercharged in the way we civilians regarded the military. Our attitudes seem bipolar: we're either at the military's throat or we're at its feet.

Sometimes the military is regarded as a bizarre, primeval institution dangerously at odds with enlightened American culture. We can't let ROTC programs corrupt our Ivy League campuses because the military is not nice to gays. We can't trust the Pentagon brass with their budget requests because they are part of a greedy military-industrial complex. We can't let our kids enlist because that's no way to get ahead. We can't let generals run our foreign policy because they are bloodthirsty warmongers or overly cautious pacifists (take your pick).

Then, at the flick of a cultural switch, the same people who were watching "Dr. Strangelove," "M*A*S*H" and "Platoon" are lining up to see "Top Gun," "Saving Private Ryan" and "We Were Soldiers." Suddenly the military is a bastion of the higher virtues - selflessness, duty and honor. Suddenly military service is practically a requirement for political office. If you haven't served in combat, you shouldn't be making policy in wartime.

We've just finished a Democratic convention, of all things, that was little more than a long military worship session. John Kerry's military heroism was celebrated while the rest of his career was nearly forgotten. Bill Clinton said it was more honorable to have served in Vietnam than to have evaded service, and the multitudes, many of whom had evaded, cheered madly. Middle-aged peace activists who had despised the military in the Westmoreland era now paid lavish homage to it in the Shalikashvili era.

I get the feeling these bipolar attitudes arise from a cocktail of ignorance, guilt and envy. First, there are large demographic chunks of the nation in which almost nobody serves. People there may not know what's bigger, a brigade or a battalion.

At the same time, they know there's something unjust in the fact that they get to enjoy America while others sacrifice for it, and sense deep down that there's something ennobling in military service. It involves some set of character tests they didn't get in summer internships. As Samuel Johnson piercingly observed, "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier."

So we go through these cycles of contempt and romance. When the military is in ill repute, we ask too little of it. When it is admired, we ask too much. Now, for example, many people seem to think that military experience is the key to foreign policy judgment and national leadership.

But I can't help noticing that John F. Kennedy, who knew something about heroism, didn't look to military heroes when he was contemplating the crisis of his times. In his book "Profiles in Courage," he celebrated senators. The courage he investigated wasn't military courage at all. It was political courage, which requires a different set of traits.

Kennedy's exemplars were statesmen like John Quincy Adams and Robert Taft, who knew how to make up their minds and stand on principle, who knew when to serve constituents and when to serve conscience, who withstood furious public attacks for something they felt was right.

In other words, while Kennedy obviously admired military valor, he saw it as subservient to political leadership. We, on the other hand, are deeply cynical about political leadership and political life, and displace our hopes onto anything else.

My own instinct is that we need an ambitious national service program to demystify the military for the next generation of Americans. It also seems clear, looking at our history, that combat heroism is not an essential qualification for a wartime leader. It's much more important to have the political courage that Lincoln had and Kennedy celebrated. But don't listen to me. I never served.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[DVD Burner]

so like, now....uuhmmmm,

is Joel gonna vote for Allan Keys?

[Simply Joel]

Alan Keyes?

Alan Keyes in Illinois Wednesday

August 3, 2004

Republican activists will be holding a rally Wednesday to welcome Alan Keyes to Illinois. All supporters of Dr. Keyes are invited to attend.

WHEN: Wednesday, Aug. 4, at 1:30 p.m. Central Time.

WHERE: Union League Club (outside), 65 W. Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois (see map).

At 2:00 p.m. Central Time, Dr. Keyes will meet with the Illinois Republican State Central Committee. The committee is expected soon afterward to announce its nominee for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL).

[Simply Joel]

so like, now....uuhmmmm,

is Joel gonna vote for Allan Keys?

Possibly. Yet, that is between me and the voting machine.

[DVD Burner]

so like, now....uuhmmmm,

is Joel gonna vote for Allan Keys?

Possibly. Yet, that is between me and the voting machine.

Yeah I guess you got a point there.......I would'nt tell anyone if I were voting for Keys either.



(Hey what is it anyway with these guys, do they all have to sing?)

[cowboyangel]

burning of the almighty fuckin dollar 2003...yeah!

[Simply Joel]

burning of the almighty fuckin dollar 2003...yeah!

that must be one large wallet

[Simply Joel]

Items in bold are prose I find especially funny.

Underlined items are significantly poignant...


I bend rules like most of us, but I don't shit and eat in the same place... unlike Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

WHAT WAR ON TERRORISM?

Sat Aug 7, 8:00 PM ET

By John Leo

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken yet another embarrassing position, this one involving an anti-terrorism agreement it made with the federal government and then decided to ignore. As a condition of receiving donations through the deduction program for federal employees, the ACLU signed a statement in January agreeing not to hire people whose names appear on "watch lists" of those suspected of having terrorist ties.

The lists are promulgated by the U.S. government, the United Nations and the European Union. Some 2,000 groups have signed this certification since it became a requirement last October. Not hiring people who might want to blow up our cities would seem to be a modest step if you want the government to help in your fund-raising, but inside the ACLU this was a wildly controversial idea. But the organization wanted the money, so it made a decision: Make the agreement, but don't live up to it.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, made this argument: The agreement said the organization could not "knowingly" hire anyone on the terrorism watch lists, but if he didn't look at the lists, how could he know who was on them? "I've printed them out (but) but I've never consulted them," Romero said. Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU board, declared that the "knowingly" gambit was "a very reasonable, certainly clever interpretation."

The Romero excuse will now take its place alongside "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" and "He was never alone in a hotel with her." Surely, the lawyers at the ACLU could have figured out that the word "knowingly" was inserted not as a handy linguistic sinkhole but as a way of protecting groups that may have unwittingly hired a terrorism suspect.

But Romero managed to sound both shocked and aggrieved that anyone would expect him to keep his word. Sharing his amazement on National Public Radio, he said, "We wake up this morning, and we open up the newspapers, and we read from the head of that Combined Federal Campaign that they want us to check those lists." That's the danger of waking up in the morning. You are often stunned to learn what you agreed to in January.

ACLU lawyers signed off on the charade of using the word "knowingly" for evasive purposes, thus calling a good deal of surprised attention to the quality of the legal advice the organization seems to be getting. As board member Wendy Kaminer said, "Any lawyer who tells you that you can sign an agreement with the federal government and then make no effort to comply with it is giving you very bad advice indeed."

Romero sounded as if he thought his group's duplicity was highly honorable. "No amount of money is worth violating our principles," he said. "We would never terminate or kick off board members or staff members because of their associational rights." Associational rights? Consider the unreality of that term as applied to terrorism. You would think the government is trying to weed out people wearing Ralph Nader buttons.

Oddly, the ACLU board decided by voice vote on July 9 to observe the agreement, but three weeks later, the day the story of this ACLU adventure hit the newspapers, Romero terminated the arrangement with the government (apparently without another vote by the board).

With the word "hypocrisy" still hovering over the ACLU, Romero decided to go on the offensive, which, as usual, meant railing against John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act. A press release, threatening to sue, announced that the ACLU would not be intimidated by Ashcroft and his "black list." Romero said the list threatens many Americans, particularly those in children's services, religious groups, and organizations concerned with health and the environment. He predicted "uproar" among postal workers and other government employees when they learn about the "knowingly" issue.

This presumes that federal workers and social service groups generally share the ACLU's reflexive hostility to almost every program dealing with the threat of terrorism. The ACLU usually puts "war on terrorism" in quotation marks, apparently to show disdain for anti-terrorism efforts. According to testimony in the Senate, the ACLU is likely to sue any airline that deviates from "random screening" and questions more than two passengers from any ethnic or geographic group. (Will terrorists agree to fly only in groups of two?) The ACLU has raised a hullabaloo about CAPPS II, the Transportation Security Administration's new customer screening system.

Most Americans understand that there will have to be trade-offs between individual liberties and the need to prevent a major catastrophe. But some people do not believe in trade-offs. For the ACLU it is still 1955, and the mission is to oppose the government, no matter what.

[Stormy]

Most Americans understand that there will have to be trade-offs between individual liberties and the need to prevent a major catastrophe.

Don't agree on this one. This is just another cold war tactic, to keep us living in fear, so that we'll do anything including giving up the liberties that this country was founded on. Instead of making a case here, I'll just say that Bowling For Columbine made a pretty good case for the, Let's Keep Them Living In Fear Tactic.

But hey, guess I'm a bit of a political retard, because I still don't understand how keeping people imprisoned in isolation for months and months without due process is legal or justified.

[Simply Joel]

so the flip side is...

if we don't limit some liberities and we don't prevent a major catastrophe like another terrorist' event... where does that leave us?

I'd say...
imagine all male prison (the rest of the world), and your pants (USA) around your ankles...

I'll take the cautious conservative approach for $1000, Alex

[CoworkerLurker]

A few points on the ACLU article:

To make the agreement in order to get donations by voluntary payroll deductions from federal employees, and not honor it by actually checking the watch lists, invoking the word "knowingly" as an attempt to ignore the agreement, makes the ACLU look like weasels. It is not the principled stance I would want from the ACLU- better to turn down the money and challenge the legality/contitutionality/basis of the agreement. Perhaps even invoking the principle of "innocent until proven guilty"? At the very least, publicize what the government is trying to do, rather than quietly accepting the money.

Maybe government workers would object to this condition placed on their donations through payroll deductions. Perhaps the uproar should be about the agreement in the first place, not the demand that organizations stick to it once they've agreed to it.

Finally, I really object to equating "people whose names appear on 'watch lists' of those suspected of having terrorist ties" with "people who might want to blow up our cities". If you want government help, don't hire "suspects"? People suspected of "ties"? Let's face it, people who give money to charities without realizing the weapons aspect of those charities do have "terrorist ties" (tenuous and meaningless, mind you, but that's enough for a paranoid government) but that hardly means they want to "blow up our cities", or that organizations should refrain from hiring them. And plenty of people without even that kind of (highly legal) "tie" are sure to be found on those "watch lists". The ACLU may or may not have a knee-jerk reaction to terrorism programs, but it's amazing how using the word "terrorism" makes people ignore all the "ifs" and "mights". Suspects are not "guilty" until they are proven guilty. "Innocent suspect" is not a contradiction in terms- it happens all the time. To blacklist people based on suspicions is highly unamerican, in my view.

That's what this should be about. Stand up for American values in the first place. Don't be weasels.

[cowboyangel]

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/


this guy has great stuff on the economy......

[Apollonaris Zeus]

So it looks like we're going to war with Iran.

Why didn't we support Saddam in his war with Iran?

Did the Saudi/Bush relationship have something to do with that as well as our decision to go to war on the behave of Kuwait in the Golf war?

What was Cheney's Haliburton role in the Iran/Iraq war?

If we supported Saddam and Iraq would there have been a 9/11?

A II Z

PS- And where were all the professionals playing during the Golf war. Especially Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods? Shouldn't we have the best involved if it's a Golf War?

[Stormy]

so the flip side is...

if we don't limit some liberities and we don't prevent a major catastrophe like another terrorist' event... where does that leave us?

I'd say...
imagine all male prison (the rest of the world), and your pants (USA) around your ankles...

I'll take the cautious conservative approach for $1000, Alex

[Please tell me you're just baiting me for fun. ]

If we do limit our civil liberties, haven't they already won? The terrorists have us living in a state of terror. I am not forgetting 9/11, trust me, a good friend at work lost her father there. They never recovered any of his remains. I also had a friend who did escape the 2nd tower, alive. That said, when they have us running scared, the win. They wanted a jihad and they got it.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a much tighter security plan at our airports. Searching my bags at the airport is reasonable. Searching my medical and library loan records is not. It also leaves us with a 9/11 Commission Report that has been made public, despite the current administrations attempts to delay this release, most likely for reasons of political timing.

As for your rape scenerio here, I am part of the 1 in 4 women statistic (though I think it's undercounting), those who have been sexually assaulted and survived. Now I could hide in my house because there are good odds that I could be assaulted or robbed or harrassed. In doing so, I would give up a great deal of liberty and possible enjoyment in my life. Instead I took the opportunity to learn some amazing anti-assault techiniques, supposedly the most effective program in the world. So instead of hiding, I will walk out that door. Not recklessly though, I know some situations to avoid. I know how to talk my way or yell my way out of situations without resorting to violence. As a last resort I will fight to defend my body. I had learned how to crack a skull with my feet. I hope I never have to use those "heavy guns" when yelling "no" usually is a very effective deterrant that most woman don't realize in a state of panic or due to social conditioning. So, using this analogy you chose in regards to self-defense, I think our government could try to use a similar approach.

I'll take personal liberties at any price Alex. Otherwise I'd rather be actually dead rather than playing dead.

[Stormy]

That's what this should be about. Stand up for American values in the first place. Don't be weasels.

Here, here! If that's truly how things went down then I am really disappointed with the ACLU, as they are supposed to be the idealists. The thing is when you give up your moral superiorty, you give up your moral superiority.

So it looks like we're going to war with Iran.
Why didn't we support Saddam in his war with Iran?

The annoying thing about this is, if we had just starting making the switch to hybrid solar powered cars when the technology first became available, we might have avoided the myriad of mistakes we made in the Middle East that are coming back to haunt us.

[DVD Burner]

so the flip side is...

if we don't limit some liberities and we don't prevent a major catastrophe like another terrorist' event... where does that leave us?

I'd say...
imagine all male prison (the rest of the world), and your pants (USA) around your ankles...

I'll take the cautious conservative approach for $1000, Alex

Here's the trick which most so called "Americans" dont get:

If ya stop going to places and fucking them up you wont have people getting mad at you and you wont have to constantly "defend yourself".


(it's why Americans are hated all over the world.)

What is told to Americans on American TV and other news media is either mostly not true or stretched truth. As long as "Americans" go dicking around in other countries fucking up people they will always have mad people at them.

That's right, "Americans go over to these other lands and fuck shit up then they come back to America and lie and say "they hate us because we are better than they are and they are jealous of what we stand for" when they know good and well they done gone over to these peoples place and FUCKED THIER SHIT UP.


Bullshit artists are born in america.

[Stormy]

Bullshit artists are born in america.

Actually they are born everywhere. Superior bullshit artists are born in America. (Gotta have some national pride.)