I liked the part
“even the jailer must answer to a higher authority”

But Bush believes he has his own “higher authority.” He is a reptilian monarchist from 1776. One thing these religious righties don’t get is that American Democracy was a rebuttal of the duopoly of the European church/state cabal. America broke both sides of that equation. The mono-secular splintered into political parties and the ecclesiastical crumbled into a babel of belief. And the winners were the people who were free to choose and live their choices.

Elements of our commercial system and the evangelical network are working to rebuild the power arrangements that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) rejected and died fighting. A duopoly is almost as bad as a monopoly from a social benefit perspective, but it is great for those in control.

I believe BushCo is fulfilling his Skull & Bones (can anyone say ‘group of pirates’) anointing to take their duopoly-dream organization global. This is the future.

“What a brilliant slave holder Thomas Jefferson was!” This is the major and disturbing contradiction in Jefferson’s life!
…
I do know that some of Jeffersons children with Sally Hemmings ended up owning land in near Xenia Ohio.

Watch the movie Bullworth! Warren Beatty and Halle Berry star. It’s a hoot.

It’s rather like the koan, If you meet the Buddha along the road, kill him.

I kinda like the koan about the monk who carries a woman across a river, but that’s just me. Different koans for different kinds.

PS, I’ve never seen the buddha on the road.

Doesn’t anybody look past the symbols to the substance anymore?

In some cases the symbol is more substance than anything else. Still, for someone to come to a left-leaning blog and argue there isn’t a reverence for substance is strange. You new around here?

I just got into the media room; it just opened. Pretty quiet around here so far. Latest word is court convenes at 11:30 AM EST.

The pain of this is my keyboard is sticking on some letters today, especially “a.” Get reaaaaady for some fasy and funky typos today!

we’re aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall set, mighty leaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaader ;->

katymine @ 105

The biggest issue about the loss of habeas corpus is that history and civics is no longer being taught. This cultural amnesia or lack of history is why so many of our rights are so disposable.

After living in Greece for three years, my determination is that every American should have the experience of living in another country. I learned an appreciation of a lot of what we take for granted. Tap water without sand, itemized phone bill, a fire department that actually fights fires…. and the rights defined in our Constitution.

And we’ve only got 200 some-odd years of history to study. The Brits? Almost 1000 years. And the Greeks? We’re talking millenia!

Amen to the living abroad comment!!

Full Disclosure: I’m a former exchange student in (West) Germany. I never thought so much and said so little as during my first week there.

And just how many millenia did we utterly distroy in Iraq? 8 – 10 maybe? or maybe more?

Part of a big market lobby group.

Strange he should start the meeting with the same language robber barons of oil like to use.

He notes fractional changes in supply drastically change pricing. Mission accomplished.

He likes the fuel efficiency standards(CAFE) to mileage improvements.

Let’s guess how many MPG the CAFE will end up reflecting.

30,35 or 40 MPG.
He mentions offshoring on South Carolina.
Alternative fuels(people who follow very closely understand that is not an energy saver and hurts watershed).
He highlights difference of fleet standards as well.

4% per annum improvement? We’ve had the ability to enable carburetor gas mileage for 60 mpg since the mid 60s, market applied, and have ignored that.

Let celebrate arriving at 45MPG within 20 years,folks!The target which is roughly 2/3 maximum efficiency based on 60s-70s level technology is where we strive under the most progressive Congressmen.

(Not actually off topic. Oil wars are part of this day’s events regarding Libby. He has is citing CEO of Dow, Southwest, etc.)

http://dan_owens.mydd.com/stor…..31211/6621

My summary of their comprehensive summary probably wouldn’t have done it justice – it’s important to understand the nuances of the argument, which I don’t think Richardson himself has actually been doing a very good job of explaining in general (but which this lengthy summary remedies, by differentiating Richardson’s proposal from the majority of the ‘AUMF de-authorization’ legislative proposals in circulation, which would involve a presidential signature or veto override). But I’ll link to an original source for it in future, if I can track one down, and simply excerpt pertinent portions.