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Some of you may remember when we introduced you to Do More Than Vote back in August. They're the outfit of grassroots folks like you who help connect volunteers with GOTV ("get out the vote") organizations that fit people's interests and time schedules as election time comes. Back in August, we told you:
Cosmopolity members created DMTV in order to connect ready volunteers with groups that had the capacity to use them effectively. The project consisted of a "hotline" that people could call and a simple website listing opportunities to volunteer. The project was a success- in only eight weeks DMTV helped thousands of New Yorkers get active.
Many of you hooked up with DMTV after we posted about it, and that resulted in a bunch of new cities being added to DMTV's outreach efforts. If I recall correctly, they had three cities last August. Now they have thirty! The following note comes from George, their lead coordinator:
Do More Than Vote Now Has 30 Chapters Nationwide
With less than eight weeks to go until the Midterm Elections, and dozens of races across the country coming down to the wire, it's crucial that every progressive gets active. All of us can afford some time and money, but none of us can afford another 2 years of a Republican controlled Congress. To win it back, Democrats need to pick up 15 House seats and 6 Senate seats. We can do it, and we can win back state houses as well, but only if we Do More Than Vote.
Do More Than Vote (DMTV) now has chapters in thirty different cities and regions across the country. From California to New York to Michigan to Texas, DMTV makes it as simple as possible for progressive volunteers to get active. We gather all the available volunteer opportunities for a city, organize them by time commitment, and present them along with direct links that allow volunteers to learn more or to RSVP.
For the next seven and a half weeks we’ll continue to add more local volunteer options to the thirty cities we already have, and to start new chapters where there’s interest.
Click here to get involved in your city today.
Click here to help us start a DMTV in your city.
Click here to learn more about DMTV.
Remember, Democrats can win, but only if we Do More Than Vote.
If we want to change our country, we have to take Ned's example, as in the picture above, and Do More Than Vote. You may not be running for office, but you can do the next best thing: help get people to the polls. Don't know how to get started in your area? Check out Do More Than Vote.
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Spotlight
Pach!
Friday!
Tommy,
pls send a round over to Darkblack on my tab
Thanks dahlin’
will try and catch up with y’all later
It must be a landslide and we all must do more than we think we should.
Think LANDSLIDE….there will be no Diebold Defeat
FITZ!!
Dark, repost will ya? You got EPU’d. I’ll get you another Guinness.
We have slid by an amazing comment from Norske where he gives 5 ways that he is becoming more involved. More money, more time, more energy, is he running for office or something. Need to do more research, after landing.
Raw Story has the most amazing billboard of Boosh transposed on top of some text on this page (but the billboard would overwhelm any text anyhow). Take a look:
Video: FOX, CNN reports focus on Cuban billboards painting Bush as ‘bloodsucking’ vampire or Hitler
OT Lou Dobbs covering the hackability of Diebold.
good.
Thanks Pach.
FWIW “….Back in Agust, we told you…”
John Casper @
9
Thanks; got it!
Nice catch Twisted Martini, I had missed this terrific comment, until I read your 3:08.
Original had links, which you can find on prior thread.
egregious @
7
seein’ how ms. egregious is otherwise occupied, I have taken the liberty of locating Norske’s great post:
Wow! Last time I was at the site, I think they had 9 cities up, and that was just a week or so ago. George has been really busy!
As someone who has been through the “process” with the DMTV folk, I can assure you that it’s well worth it, and made as painless as possible. The initial setup only requires 2-3 hours of web surfing and phone calling on your part. So if your city’s not up there yet, go for it!
OT What a load of shit from Victoria. They never stop…
Jack
What a Load of Armitage!
By VICTORIA TOENSING
September 15, 2006; Page A12
Richard Armitage has finally emerged from the cover-my-backside closet, “apologizing” on CBS for keeping quiet for almost three years about being the original source for Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column stating that Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA and had suggested him for a mission to Niger. He disingenuously blames his silence on Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s non-legally based request — any witness is free to talk about his or her testimony — not to discuss the matter.
Put aside hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds squandered on the investigation, New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s 85 days in jail, the angst and legal fees of scores of witnesses, the White House held siege to a criminal investigation while fighting the war on terror, Karl Rove’s reputation maligned, and “Scooter” Libby’s resignation and indictment. By his silence, Mr. Armitage is responsible for one of the most factually distorted investigations in history.
There is a reason the old Watergate question — What did he know and when did he know it? — has become part of our investigative culture. It provides a paradigm for parsing a complicated factual scenario.
• Joseph Wilson: In July 2003, when he demanded an investigation of a White House cabal for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by “outing” his wife, Mr. Wilson knew Ms. Plame did not meet the factual requirements for covert status under the Act. She was neither covert at the time of publication nor had a covert foreign assignment within five years. He acknowledged so in his book: “My move back to Washington [in June 1997] coincided with the return to D.C. of a woman named Valerie Plame.” As the Senate negotiator for this 1982 Act, I know a trip or two by Ms. Plame to a foreign country while assigned to Langley, where she worked in July 2003, is not considered a foreign assignment. I also know covert officers are not assigned to Langley.
• Richard Armitage: Mr. Armitage now claims he only knew on Oct. 1, 2003 that he was Mr. Novak’s source. We should question that claim in light of Mr. Novak’s account this week that Mr. Armitage “made clear he considered [the information about Ms. Plame] especially suited for my column.”
Mr. Armitage also knew he had met with Bob Woodward on June 13, 2003, telling him about Mr. Wilson’s wife’s CIA employment and her role in her husband’s trip to Niger. But when the FBI interviewed Mr. Armitage on Oct. 2, he admitted to the Novak conversation only, notably forgetting meeting with one of our country’s premier investigative reporters. By attributing his longtime silence to Mr. Fitzgerald’s request, Mr. Armitage must have forgotten Mr. Fitzgerald was not appointed until Dec. 30, 2003. If Mr. Armitage had come forward during those three months, there might never have been a special counsel.
• Patrick Fitzgerald: What Mr. Fitzgerald knew, and chose to ignore, is troublesome. Despite what some CIA good ol’ boys might have told Mr. Fitzgerald, he knew from the day he took office that the facts did not support a violation of the Act; therefore, there was no crime to investigate. Although he claimed in Mr. Libby’s indictment that Ms. Plame’s employment status was “classified,” Mr. Fitzgerald refuses to provide the basis for that fact and, even if true, can point to no law that would be violated by revealing a “classified” (not covert) employment. It was this gap in the law that created the need to pass the Act in the first place.
Mr. Armitage intimated on CBS that, although his “chitchat” was careless, there was perhaps “a conspiracy” in the White House to retaliate against Mr. Wilson. However, Mr. Fitzgerald knew (prior to indicting Mr. Libby) that Mr. Armitage was Mr. Novak’s original source, Mr. Libby never spoke to Mr. Novak, and Messrs. Rove and Libby had merely responded to reporters’ questions. Hardly acts of initiating a criminal conspiracy. Mr. Fitzgerald knows it is not criminal to discredit a mendacious attack on the president. There was a crime only if Ms. Plame were covert and the person revealed that fact with knowledge of her status. Mr. Fitzgerald learned during the investigation that not one person had any basis to think she was covert. Just ask Mr. Armitage, who asserted in his apologia, “I had never seen a covered agent’s name in any memo . . . in 28 years of government.”
During the investigation Mr. Fitzgerald learned that a former New York Times reporter, Cliff May, twice told the FBI that, prior to Mr. Novak’s column, he had heard in an offhand way from a nongovernment employee that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, a clear indication that her employment was known on the street. Ditto columnist Hugh Sidey, who wrote that Ms. Plame’s name was “knocking around in the sub rosa world. . . for a long time.”
Mr. Armitage, who came forward after Mr. Libby was indicted, was told in February 2006, after two grand jury appearances, he would not be indicted. Mr. Rove, however, after five grand jury appearances, was not informed until July 2006 he would not be charged. Mr. Fitzgerald made the Rove decision appear strained, a close call. Yet of the two men’s conduct, Mr. Armitage’s deserved more scrutiny. And Mr. Fitzgerald knew it. Each had testified before the grand jury about a conversation with Mr. Novak. Each had forgotten about a conversation with an additional reporter: Mr. Armitage with Mr. Woodward, Mr. Rove with Time’s Matt Cooper. However, Mr. Rove came forward pre-indictment, immediately, when reminded of the second conversation. When Mr. Woodward attempted to ask Mr. Armitage about the matter, on two separate occasions pre-indictment, Mr. Armitage refused to discuss it and abruptly cut him off. To be charitable, assume he did not independently recall his conversation with Mr. Woodward. Would not two phone calls requesting to talk about the matter refresh his recollection? Now we also know Messrs. Armitage and Novak have vastly different recollections of their conversation. Isn’t that what Mr. Libby was indicted for?
What Mr. Fitzgerald chose not to know is even more troublesome than what he chose to ignore. When Mr. Armitage came forth in October 2003, why did Mr. Fitzgerald not request his appointment calendar from early May, the time the first story appeared in the national press about an unnamed former ambassador’s trip to Niger? Mr. Fitzgerald demanded this type of information from White House personnel. Just think, if he had done so of Mr. Armitage, he would have learned prior to indictment about Mr. Woodward’s appointment.
By the time he indicted Mr. Libby on Oct. 28, 2005, Mr. Fitzgerald knew two conflicting facts about the classified nature of the Niger trip: since at least early May 2003, Mr. Wilson was discussing his Niger trip with the press (Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times) and claimed in his July 2003 NYT op-ed that his mission was “discreet, but by no means secret.” Yet, the indictment states that around June 9, 2003, the CIA sent “classified” documents to the vice president’s office discussing “Wilson and his trip to Niger.” If the trip was classified for the vice president, why was it declassified for Mr. Wilson? Did Mr. Wilson violate any law by revealing his trip or did Mr. Fitzgerald choose not to know?
Did Mr. Fitzgerald subpoena Ms. Plame? He could have asked her why, if she were truly covert, was she attending an Eastern Shore meeting in May 2003 with Democratic senators. The first journalist to reveal Ms. Plame was “covert” was David Corn on July 16, 2003, two days after Mr. Novak’s column. The latter never wrote, because he did not know and it was not so, that Ms. Plame was covert. However, Mr. Corn claimed Mr. Novak “outed” her as an “undercover CIA officer,” querying whether Bush officials blew “the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in . . . national security.” Was Mr. Corn subpoenaed? Did Mr. Fitzgerald subpoena Mr. Wilson to attest he had never revealed his wife’s employment to anyone? If he had done so, he might have learned Mr. Corn’s source.
It is not just Mr. Armitage who should apologize. So should Joe Wilson and Pat Fitzgerald.
Ms. Toensing was chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee and deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration.
Apologies for all the exclamation points in my #13. Can you tell DMTV gets me excited?
The Nefarious Leslie @ 13
Thanks for that testimonial, Leslie. I’m sure George will enjoy that; he’s worked hard.
More to the point, I really hope our work publicizing these efforts will inspire people to get involved in DMTV.
Perhaps enough people in this country have had enough of being ruled, and I do mean “ruled”, by religious nuts. We shall see. Soon.
Thanks, Leslie! Hopefully others will heed your advice, because we’re always looking to start more chapters!
And we owe our success in expanding to Pach’s promotional efforts.
Norske - you are right. I’ll try. Thanks buddy.
**********
“Enemy Combatant” My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram & Kandahar
From an NPR interview and via Rising Hegemon.
Time: looking as if the next Ney is …
wait now …
wait …
Burns.
Good [Fire]dog!
Seems to me that perhaps one of the most effective ways to get folks to cast their ballots for Democrats is to volunteer for ‘get-out-the-vote’ actions. Like voter registration and transporting those to and from the polls. And providing child care if needed for would be voters who otherwise could not make it to the voting booths.
The Nefarious Leslie @ 15
Oh, you Nefarious Leslie, you! [Hear this with the intonation of Tony Curtis in The Great Race saying “You Great Leslie, you!”]
George @ 18
Hey, George! Good to see you.
Yes, it was Pach’s original post on DMTV that brought me to you, so many thanks to him for making me aware. And George, I can’t imagine how many hours you must have been putting in - I hope you’re getting some sleep, at least every now and then. *g*
LindaR @ 21
Hey, LindaR! There’s a thing going on downtown tonight - you should check it out. ;)
lotus @ 21
Ahh, interesting (from your link)
Ney, 52, is the first member of Congress to admit wrongdoing in the federal probe. Prosecutors are likely to insist that he spend as much as 27 months in prison, although a judge could impose up to 10 years, though that stiff a sentence is considered unlikely. His plea agreement lacks language that would require him to testify or to cooperate in other federal prosecutions — in contrast to earlier plea agreements of Ney’s longtime chief of staff, Neil Volz, as well as Abramoff himself. The absence of such language suggests that Ney was able to provide little information beyond the scope of his own activity.
George, glad to see the Angelides campaign gave you some contact info - they never got back to me when I called them.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 18
It feels that way doesen’t it.I never imagined that in my lifetime I would see our President
using the bully pulpit to tell the congress
that they must accept his version of the Geneva Convention.I really can’t believe it!
Off topic, but important:
MSNBC breaking news: FDA traces E. coli outbreak to Calif. firm
The Nefarious Leslie @
27
Yea, they contacted us out of the blue. As soon as campaigns seen that other groups and campaigns are getting attention, they want to be a part of it. A perfect reason why people should start new chapters…they grow on their own! But the campaign might not have been interested if you hadn’t done all the legwork for the other groups. So, again, thanks!
A little quiet around these parts this evening…who wants to say something controversial to get the party started?
OT but this is a real hoot (via the General)!
OT– Tweety just said that the last election was between the windsurfer and the waterboarder.
LOL thru the tears.
Your daily gas and oil prices
Average price for regular gasoline 9/15/06 in 50 states and DC
$3.00 plus 1 state
$2.90 plus 5 states
$2.80 plus 6 states
$2.70 plus 5 states
$2.60 plus 5 states
$2.50 plus 9 states
$2.40 plus 10 states
$2.30 plus 7 states
$2.20 plus 3 states
Average national price: $2.554, down $.021
Highest recorded national average price: $3.057 9/5/2005
Highest average price: Hawaii $3.280
Lowest average price: Ohio $2.256
Nymex Crude Future $63.33, down $.02
Dated Brent Spot $61.76, down $.71
WTI Cushing Spot $63.33, up $.11
Gas prices continue their slide. It’s about, errrm inventories, apparently big oil is completely incompetent about managing and forecasting them, and this has nothing, nothing to do with the upcoming elections. It’s all just a coincidence and besides no one can prove it. Just like no one has been able to prove any of big oil’s other price manipulations. I’m not trying to be overly conspiratorial here. Gas prices are often volatile and irrational. It’s just hard to believe that they are quite this volatile and irrational, now.
Crude oil: Not much going on: US market holding; world market some downward drift.
Twisted Martini @ 30
how about… bobby knight should be the next pope?
(see my comments in the rock thread earlier if you missed them, twisted)
Per the discussion about doing more than voting…
DFA is sponsoring DFA Night School which is an online training program. In the first session on Tuesday, September 19th at 8:30 EST, Professor George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, will help participants develop a message that can sway voters at the deepest levels and motivate them to vote.
Additional sessions before the November election include:
Winning with Social Networks
Voting Early, Voting Easily, Voting Safely
Getting Out The Vote
http://www.dfalink.com/event.php?id=12886
Twisted Martini @ 29
Um, lessee … “George Felix Allen, Jr. is not such a bad guy; he’s just misunderstood.”
Okay, I just threw up in my mouth a little. Try again.
Okay, um, “Mel Gibson’s films have artistic merit.”
Geez, Teddy, I dunno. Being controversial is harder than I thought.
John Casper @12
But that’s why I like it. Or was that too snarky?
how about… joe lieberman isn’t handicapped, he’s handicapable!
Yesterday afternoon, while waiting for a cousin at her doctors office, I became desperate. For something to read that is. I came across an old Time Magazine (2005). It had a long, actually too long, thing on Karl Rove. This guy says he carried a brief case and wore a tie every day during his junior high school years. And he also claims to have written his fifth grade term paper on “Dialectical Materialism”. The article on Mr. smarty-pants also said Rove attended five colleges. Never graduating. I don’t know what this says about Karl.
Everytime I read what Bush has said (can’t stand to look at or listen to him, so I read it here.)
I wonder, does he not know that everything he says is being recorded for
evidenceposterity?He really should just STFU!
They’re replaying Novakula’s Washington journal appearance from earlier today on C-SPAN 1.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 38
Well, if he did, it shows he got an early start on using words for effect rather than meaning.
OT - looky here what I found. Disney is looking to fill the following position. I wonder what happened to the person who HAD this job. Ya think they were PROMOTED after the success (ha) of PT911?
Editor, Broadcast Standards & Practices
Reply to: see below
Date: 2006-09-15, 1:12PM PDT
Job Summary: Position reports to Director, BS&P. Primary job is to: Reviewing Scripts; Reviewing Rough Cuts; Interacting with Producers, network and production company executives, and network and production personnel staff. Additionally, this position will require the candidate to be able to operate a broadcast delay mechanism.
Job Responsibilities: -Administrative Duties: Preparing; reviewing; organizing; filing various cast binders and risk management materials. Project Work: Set visits on various reality shows; game shows; specials and late night programs. Operating the Five-Second Delay button and overseeing production. -Internal Relationships: Interacting with Creative Executives, Sales Executives, ABC Attorneys and BS&P Support Staff. -External Relationships: Interacting with Executive Producers; Producers; Directors; Stage Managers; Development Executives; Production Attorneys; and various Production and Casting staff.
Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college a must. Masters degree and/or Law degree is helpful but not required. 1-3 years Broadcast Standards, and/or production experience desired. The candidate must be a detail-oriented self-starter with critical thinking skills and able to work a flexible schedule in accordance with production needs. Fluency in Spanish is a plus.
Apply at Disneycareers.com by typing Editor, Broadcast Standards & Practices into the keyword search or by using the link below: https://disney.recruitmax.com//main/careerportal/Job_Profile.cfm?szOrderID=35584&szReturnToSearch=1&szWordsToHighlight=Editor
joysness @ 41
He doesn’t think there will be a posterity. At the rate he’s going, he may be right.
Oops, sorry, Twisted, that was you I quoted at 35, not Teddy.
sorry, the bobby knight and pope comments weren’t in the rock thread, they were in the moral bankruptcy thread. duh.
Morris Sheppard @ 44
fundamentalists don’t want posterity.
they want revelations.
Did the Pope throw a chair?
George @ 28
You’re most welcome. I’m also pleased to see that “mine” is one of the most localized cities on the site. *g*
Oklahoma kiddo @ 40
I think it says that he got stuffed into his locker a lot in junior high school
p-rex @ 46
Bush isn’t a fundamentalist; he just plays one on TV.
Karl suffers from PTSD from too many atomic wedgies. And if Karl suffers, we all suffer.
Twisted Martini @ 48
nah, but knight was to hoosier basketball fans what the pope is to catholics — the absolute authority on earth.
both, imo, are guilty of uber-hubris, especially herr ratzinger.
OT & big bummer. . i ate a spinach salad for lunch. Just called the restaurant and they said, yeah, it was bagged spinach, but they washed it (which apparently doesn’t matter). Any advice? Besides have a big ole glass of wine?
As a practicing Catholic, I feel about the Pope like Fredo thinks about Osama Bin Forgotten-I just don’t think about him that much.
C-SPAN has just begun replaying Buish’s press conference.
Another OT, but election-related: Donna Edwards, one of our Blue America candidates, is challenging the results of the MD-04 election.
p-rex @ 48
Well perhaps we can give them some revelations once we wrest control from their boney little fingers.
That’s a dKos diary, btw - head on over and recommend it if you can.
The Nefarious Leslie @ 51
yes, i agree he’s just a player in a straussian episode. but the net effect is still the same — his fundamentalist followers await the rapture.
global warming? endless war? nothing compared to eternal damnation, say those that believe bush is god’s own choice for president.
if bush is god’s choice, then god is an asshole.
is that controversial?
dab from CT @ 51
Ain’t dat da truth! We would have beat the crap out of this guy everyday. Perhaps that’s what’s wrong with him. We would have nailed Bush too.
p-rex @ 59
Well, your logic is inescapable, but it’s only controversial to the Bush True Believers, who I doubt spend much time here.
(If I were trying to explain Bush in theological terms to a fundamentalist, btw, I would say that he’s a sign of God’s judgment, displeasure, and wrath against the church.)
Fercryinoutloud, where is everybody? I guess it’s Friday night and they’re all out somewhere.
The Nefarious Leslie @ 63
Seriously, it’s easy to understand why some people think he’s the anti-christ. Time to see The Omen again.
Twisted Martini on another thread pointd out that Common Article 3 has been around for nearly 60 years and no one has found it unacceptably “vague” until Bush. Ted Koppel observed that treating our enemies as we would have them treat us is actually pretty straightforward.
What causes problems for Bush is that he wants to torture but he doesn’t have the guts or the cojones to admit it. Waterboarding is torture as is the list of “aggressive” interrogation techniques Bush wants legitimized. Only by clinging to the sick, bizarre definition that it is only torture if it results in organ failure or death can he maintain the fiction that “we don’t torture.” This is where Common Article 3 comes in not because it is vague but because it is very clear in that it prohibits the very conduct Bush seeks to use.
That torture does not produce the “good intel” that Bush claims it does is just one more instance of his fact-proof Presidency.
It’s bad. It doesn’t work. It sends our reputation into the toilet, and none of this has any influence on the Torturer-in-Chief.
I think Mel Gibson is a huge twit, but I was kind of wondering about his new film Apocalypto. Haven’t heard a lot about it, but it does look intriguing. Can’t imagine what he has to say that would merit praise at this point.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 61
and yet that’s the problem with the perception of democrats by many on the right — despite the fact that far more dems have served in the military, etc, too many reich-wingers think dems are the ones who are lashing out at bush because hard memories of school hazings (it’s the response to the accusations that bush is the fratboy, bully, etc.).
i don’t think it washes at all, but that’s one of the perceptional dissonances i pick up when i talk to the more, er, assholish republicans i know. i just don’t think whether or not you were beaten up in school solely translates into a later choice to be a dem or rep.
The Nefarious Leslie @
63
If their God is the God and Heaven is full of their kind, think I’ll take my chances going to the other place. :)
KO is on a roll… Picks out these four words form Bush today.
“It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....wh/bush_21
It’s unacceptable to think LOL
Turley on Keith Olbermann.
“despite the fact that far more dems have served in the military” should read “despite the fact that far more dems in congress have served in the military”
Hugh @ 66
I agree wholeheartedly. Bush is asking us to treat him as a deity or god that we do not question. He cannot reveal his mysteries and we are not allowed to question. It’s really pukey.
if bush is god’s choice, then god is an asshole.
is that controversial?
it’s not God’s fault. Bush came out of the primordial ooze. God made the universe and put into place the laws of nature. Bush is a product of nature. He evolved into his own psychopathology.
Twisted Martini @
31
‘Anybody who don’t like Mickey Mouse is un-American…And enables terra-ism!‘
…O.K. Jeb, where’s my 50 clams?
;>)
dark, I’m starting to think you need a full action feature length film to get your point across. Wouldn’t that be fun? A kind of Wallace and Grommit meets Fantasia and Teletubbies?
My Republican right-wing, Bush-worshipping, Faux-following brother-in-law, who never served in any military, despite being of age during Vietnam, has never asked his younger brother (3 years in the subs, 3 years in Vietnam) one question about his time in Vietnam, nor has he ever thanked him for his service.
Yet he goes ballistic that his brother (my husband) dares to question the Bush regime. My husband must be unpatriotic, huh?
Democrats are ‘tuffer’ then Republicans. And smarter. By a long shot.
To pick up your point Hugh, the framers of the Constitution knew that evidence gathered under duress wasn’t worth a shit. Go watch “In the Name of the Father” with Daniel Day Lewis, you’ll see what I mean.
Bush wants to change the rules in the middle of the game because he is lazy. He doesn’t want to go about it like everybody else does, he wants a shortcut. He’s been given ones his whole life.
Let’s say they did finally get their hands on Bin Laden, and stuck him in some secret prison in Bulgaria. What are the chances of the case being thrown out cuz lazy George didn’t want to take the time to build a case, just beat the shit out of him until he confesses?
meta @ 67
Well, the thing about Mel is that while he drinks a lot of Kool-aid, he does not drink the “fundamentalism=faith in conservative politicians” flavor. He is fairly cynical about politics and politicians (which is one reason he said what he did about Michael Moore and F911). So he might, in fact, have some interesting things to say about political manipulation.
I hope that before a deal of some kind is done wrt the Geneva Conventions, that we innundate our reps with phone calls and emails and faxes. They need to know that YES, it does affect us, because we send our loved ones off to war.
Bush needs to step down. He’s dangerously out of control. That press conference was scary.
Big ole suprise on the new thread y’all!
More like Bugs and Yosemite meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with scoring by Stravinsky and choreography by Merce Cunningham, meta.
;>)
Cardinal Ratzinger was described as as conservative as John Paul II but without the charisma. As Pope Benedict, nothing has changed. He believes in the primacy of the Catholic Church and takes a dim view of other Christian denominations. Is it any surprise that he would have an even more prejudiced view of Islam or that he would have the social maladroitness to express it?
Twisted Martini @ 78
every authority since ancient Babyon knows this.
darkblack @
83
Ohhhh, I love that idea.
joysness @ 69
Reminds me of the joke, told about a variety of religions/denominations, where St. Peter is leading a newcomer through the various “neighborhoods” of Heaven, one for each religion/sect. When he gets to a certain area, he tells the newcomer to be very quiet. In response to the inevitable “Why?”, he says, “Oh, that’s where the [fill in the blank] are. They think they’re the only ones up here.”
Point being, I rather doubt Heaven, if it exists, will be quite what anyone expects, perhaps least of all the fundamentalists.
lina @ 73
it’s not God’s fault. Bush came out of the primordial ooze. God made the universe and put into place the laws of nature. Bush is a product of nature. He evolved into his own psychopathology.
actually, this is a point i like to make to christians i know, having studied theology and biblical history in college — when i read the old testament i come away with the impression that god is an absolute, intolerant jerk. there is way too much in the o.t. that just doesn’t square with the teachings of jesus in the n.t.
and it stands to reason. jesus is misinterpreted in history as having created a new religion. in fact, jesus was a jew, and his aim was to reform judaism, not create christianity, which he never mentions or even goes so far to envision. he wasn’t asking his followers to be christians — he was asking them to be better jews.
but this is wading into religion perhaps further than we should at this time?
(sorry if that’s the consensus anyway!)
Oklahoma kiddo @ 76
If we’re so smart, how’d we get into this mess?
Don’t know if this is OT or not, but it’s worth a snark:
LindyH @ 89
The answer to your question, I believe is very involved. The query is an extremely good one! But… I would have to think (in short) we Democrats became too enamored of winning. Rather than standing on principles. Principles such as a “fair deal” for everyone here at home. And applying the “Golden Rule” to those abroad. We have many Democratic politicians whom I do not feel represent these, admittedly high ideals. My Grandma used to tell me, kiddo: “anything worth having, is worth fighting for”. And this woman was the finest Democrat and progressive I have ever met. We need Democrats who are willing to fight for what they believe in. And we have some. But not enough. Yet. I realize that this is perhaps not a very satisfactory answer. I could write pages in response to your very, very, what I feel is perhaps a most, and maybe THE most essential question for us Democrats to answer.
This picture looks as well as feels very Kennedyesque. Lamont is part of something very big. Obama is part of something very big. Things are changing.