Almost zed.

it’s an awesome relationship !

The weirdest part of the Milbank piece was where Bush was apparently congratulating Brown on his ability to eat a hamburger or something. Sometimes, you have to ask yourself how many oars shy of the full boat the man really is…

There is no war on terror to fight.

There are disgruntled people around the world who are pissed at the power structure for any number of “reasons” and will make mischief if they can.

Some of their positions are completely justified and many are not. But the same applies to the USA doesn’t it?

The relationship is special for without an Enabler whether its England, his Mom, Wife,Condi or Congress Bush would not have been able to accomplish er mess everything up like he has.

Winston would have pissed on Little Boots….winnnny was on the front lines in the Boer War

Hi Christy; great post. Be very ashamed indeed – these days Iran is looking down at us because of our record on human rights.

Yes, well the real war on terror ought to be an assault on the basis for poverty and despair, which would considerably undercut the anger and desperation factors that lead people to get involved in extremist groups. But that would have made too much sense in the wake of 9/11, when we had an opportunity to really capitalize ona united world sentiment for really getting something done.

Instead, we’ve got the Bush version of foreign policy which can be summed up thusly: “Yee haw, and screw the facts.” I’m not certain what you are asking there…

Maybe Eating a Hamburger is special for Bush :)

Good Morning Christy,

that was quite a study in contrasts yesterday

which one,or all of the above?…”g”

Your voice is no longer crying in the wilderness, but don’t lower the volume.

Compared to the quality of pub food in the Britain Mr. Brown grew up in, or the even higher fat, higher cholesterol comfort food Shrub normally eats, Brown should be happy it was a hamburger.

My favorite recent snark was about Cheney staying away from the pope during his visit because it hurt his religious sensibilities to see the cross hanging right side up; the holy water burning his skin, not so much.

Yep – a less self-examining human being can not be found. Anywhere.

the white haired oligarchs got smart in their old age…they bribed the 4th estate with meager(compared to themselves) salaries some 20,000,000.00$per year….Beck 10 mill, Tweety 5 mill….to beat the drums for their wars,and proclaim,gold plated FLAG PIN patriotism…..no more pesky investigative reporting……sad that

It was really painful to watch, wasn’t it? The difference between substantive, on-point, detailed answers and real engagement with the questions from Brown and bumbling, disinterested oaf-itude from Bush. SIGH

Did you see the picture on the Huff Post of the Pope and Bush up on a stage with what looked like the Confederate Flag in the background?
Maybe it was just a mistake on my part cause nobody else seemed to notice?

and to think the elections(2000,2004) were even close….shudder

Yes, well the real war on terror ought to be an assault on the basis for poverty and despair, which would considerably undercut the anger and desperation factors that lead people to get involved in extremist groups.

i’d love to see a focus on systemic poverty and despair – but i don’t think there is any evidence that poverty has anything to do with terrorism. on the contrary, non-state terrorism is most closely associated with occupations by nations perceived to be democracies (and where their is a difference in primary religion). (see robert pape for the research on this).

:-) Yes, I would agree: our power structure in the US is seriously flawed.

To Christy or anyone who has working in the Criminal Justice system, Florida is talking about laying off Prosecutors and Prison guards. Bush is transfering Medicare costs to the states, to compound the fiscal problems of our state.
Do you know of any other state that has laidoff Prosecutors?

Oaf-itude – great word, Christy. Perfect for the Kiddy Prez.

“I appreciate our special relationship with Britain,” Bush said upon taking the podium.

This Special Relationship is the one where the British bend over, right? I thought that was called something else.

Well, it might have something to do with the fact that Brown was a brilliant student who was chosen for a special program at Edinburgh University at the age of 16 and had an academic career before he got into politics. I’m pretty sure our little George has not cracked a book since his Dick, Jane and Sally days and probably got his tests taken for him, paid by Poppy.

Dont forget “My Pet Goat”!

That kung fu monkey bit makes me laugh til I cry. Too true.

I love it — every time I get disgusted with the ways of the world, I read it and then feel much, much better. *g*

“Yes, well the real war on terror ought to be an assault on the basis for poverty and despair, which would considerably undercut the anger and desperation factors that lead people to get involved in extremist groups.”

And isn’t this becoming an ever more pressing issue as spiking food and energy prices lead to riots in the streets of other countries?

Molly, how I miss you. You always did have W’s number-

“Everyone knows the man has no clue, but no one there has the courage to say it. I mean, good gawd, the man is as he always has been: barely adequate.” [on George W. Bush]
“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.”
-Molly Ivins

isn’t that special?

( gawd .. puke … can’t be down w/ bush soon enough …)

I disagree — after reading Three Cups of Tea, I have to say that I was compelled to do quite a bit of reading about the economic implications for the roots of terror. And I don’t think you can divorce poverty from the list of root causes. It’s not the one central cause — because there isn’t one, generally — but there are a number of factors which have long been explored on this, including poverty. See this op-ed from the CSM from folks from the Humphrey Institute on this as a starting point. It would take me a while to pull up a lot of the other reading links I did, because they were bookmarked on my laptop that crashed (I lost so much research shit, although that’s what I get for not doing a regular back-up that month, eh?)

Sometimes, you have to ask yourself how many oars shy of the full boat the man really is…

Christy, the guy has no real, authentic couth. For pity sake, after the Pope’s speech, he took the same stance that he took with Arlen Specter when he shook hands with him (reminiscent of someone who knows he has to shake hands, but doesn’t want to catch someone’s cancer) and said, “Awesome speech.” He might as well have added “Dude!”

Yes — the increasing pressures just based on food shortages alone are going to lead to a whole host of problems, not the least of which are going to be some nasty increasing border disputes in fights over resources and access to trade routes and such. This isn’t a small problem, and not one easily solved the way things stand at the moment…and the increasing tensions in a whole host of areas where we can least afford them is only going to get worse if we keep trying to ignore it and hope it goes away. (Thank you, Bush Administration.)

The only thing left “special” about our relationship with the UK at this point is that there still is a relationship.

Tony Blair might have thought early on in W’s first administration, that he could have more influence on American policy than he did. Well, he rode that faulty assumption right out the door, didn’t he.

Brown’s attitude to the relationship often seems to be that he sticks with the US as much as he does, so that there can at least be one adult in the room.

“False!” Bush argued before the questioner finished. “We’ve got a great relationship. . . . Our special relationship has been forged in common values . . . And so our relationship is very special . . . There’s just such a uniqueness in the relationship.”

Translation: The specialcality of our relationship is its uniquefullness forged in common values that everyone one holds. It is, in other words, one of a kind, just like so many others.

Christy, did anyone tell you that the hard drive can be taken out and the data recovered? Assuming it was someother part of the laptop that failed. Any computer store could do it for you.

mornin’ christy–cruisin’ the lake catching up on posts i missed while digging plants for our upcoming master gardener plant sale………just read your post, and remembered this from the fdl newsboard.

gordon meets with candidates, then bush……this quote from the following article just floors me..

””If it wasn’t a personal relationship, I wouldn’t be inviting the man to a nice hamburger or something,” Bush said at a joint news conference, referring to the private dinner the leaders and their wives will share on Thursday.”

so, he only eats sandwiches with close friends? for dinner? huh? let’s forget we’re world leaders and have a ’sammich’??????

well, my close friends we do, but it’s cuz we had a little bonfire. just had one night before last, and we don’t call it a private ’dinner’. we call it a weenie roast.

anybody ever heard anyone say ”a nice hamburger or something” ????????? ’nice’ hamburger? ROFL

this definitely is a ’all hat no cattle’ kinda thing to say….. : )

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters…..itain.html

well, seriously, we do have a special relationship w/ the UK. I do a lot of work w/ UK folks, both here in the US and there. We’re planning on going on holiday together this fall w/ some good friends who are british. There is a way we fit together that isn’t the same w/ the rest of the world.

Now, how that translates into blair as bush’s poodle, cover for war crimes and unwarranted invasions, etc. is a different matter …

George Bush is 6 brewskis short of a six-pack. (He drank them.)

I remember you got a (hopefully small) shock from the laptop, that could have damaged the hard drive also, but it might be worth having a shop take out the hard drive and see if it surived.

moving on from the snark, Chrisy, I appreciate you trying to shed some light on the whole roots-of-terror discussion. Have you seen any serious discussion of this in the political sphere? Is anyone honestly talking about this?

We do have a special relationship with them — and it was a great quote from Churchill at the time it was first given. But the Brown/Bush fumbling around with it as a verbal football was too tempting a comparison to the Love, Actually scene. I couldn’t help myself. *g* Really, could you have come up with a better parody of idiocy if you’d tried?

i think Pooodle boy,just wanted a piece of the action,sad that….if he said NO,it might have made a difference,like, Colon Powell,well we will never Know,and

300,000 vets have mental problem, 320,000 had brain injuries

Study: 300,000 US troops from Iraq, Afghanistan have mental problems, 320,000 brain injuries

PAULINE JELINEK
AP News

Apr 17, 2008 09:47 EST

Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates.

Only about half have sought treatment, said the study released Thursday by the RAND Corporation.

“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-leader and a researcher at the nonprofit RAND.

“Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

i should have said suicide terrorism (since that is what pape’s data is on and that is, i think, is where the big dangers lie).

christy – i’ve looked for contradictory data and just couldn’t find any… because pape’s research surprised me too. but the data is the data, and his analysis looks solid. if you have any studies (looking for primary literature, empirical studies) to point me to, i’ll read them.

also, since you now have a mac… may i suggest superduper for your weekly boot drive back up and mozy for your daily working file back up?

i do love that quote from preznit prissy pants … burst out laughing when i read millbank yesterday and saw it …

Behind the lines, actually, and then in prison. Churchill’s escape through several hundred miles of enemy-controlled territory was front-page news and ensured the success of his second attempt at winning a seat in Parliament. Good of you to bring up WSC, a prominent historical figure Bush’s speech writers like to compare with Bush.

WSC, like his older Victorian contemporaries Teddy Roosevelt and Cecil Rhodes, courted small-scale, intensely personal danger for its excitement, its political value and to prove his manhood. Cheney’s only wars have been bureaucratic ones, including the five deferment-battle he fought to keep himself from going to Vietnam. Bush just had daddy get him out of doing his dooty so that he could carouse for another twenty years before sobering up. Unlike Cheney and Bush, Churchill could construct a full English sentence without mangling it beyond recognition. He wrote his own speeches and earned a Nobel Prize for his historical-cum-biographical writings (and probably in gratitude for his wartime leadership). Bush can’t go to the bathroom without his ear piece, even if Cheney would let him.

Churchill was a complex man whose flaws sometimes exceeded his strengths. But he understood full well the cost his men might bear when he sent them into battle. He avoided it when he thought it possible. Among his aphorisms is one Cheney and Bush disdain with all their fraudulent hearts: “To jaw-jaw [negotiate] is always better than to war-war.”

I haven’t seen a lot of discussion on that issue for quite a while, actually — and would love to see more of it. There has been some work done on it, batted back and forth, among the Foreign Affairs set, but not a lot of public discussion otherwise that I have seen, anyway. I’d love to see more of it — and if anyone knows of good sources on that, do let me know, because I’m interested.

I think what selise was trying to get at is that many suicide bombers as well as those who took part in the 9/11 attacks came from middle class backgrounds. al Qaeda footsoldiers on the other hand probably do come from more disadvantaged parts of society. Another important breeding ground for terrorism is repressive societies where there is little room for or tolerance of political expression and protest. This does not hold for Western countries where a lack of acceptance and opportunity coupled with a deep sense of alienation and loss of identity play a major formative role.

That picture was under discussion on FDL yesterday! Yes, we noticed.

a future full of resource wars.

not arguing with you on the need to address global poverty, inequality and injustice. just that the reasons for doing so are not suicide terrorism – at least according to all the data i’ve seen.

OT, but I’m only going to be here briefly:

I’m trying to find more information on Our Common Values, Rahm Emanuel’s PAC. Howie Klein e-mailed me overnight that he’s seen a recent article out there on this PAC, but can’t find the link. Anyone know more?

EoH, loved this line

Bush can’t go to the bathroom without his ear piece, even if Cheney would let him

i can just see his handlers saying “ok, time to pee, no remmeber to shake off. no no, zip up! …”

Whenever I hear “comfort food” I think of Paul Newman in “Hombre”

Audra Favor: I can’t imagine eating a dog and not thinking anything of it.
John Russell: You even been hungry, lady? Not just ready for supper. Hungry enough so that your belly swells?
Audra Favor: I wouldn’t care how hungry I got. I know I wouldn’t eat one of those camp dogs.
John Russell: You’d eat it. You’d fight for the bones, too.
Audra Favor: Have you ever eaten a dog, Mr. Russell?
John Russell: Eaten one and lived like one.
Audra Favor: Dear me

Bush just had daddy get him out of doing his dooty so that he could carouse for another twenty years before sobering up.

You know I can’t help thinking the country would have been much better off if Bush had never sobered up.

Florida is talking about laying off Prosecutors and Prison guards. Bush is transfering Medicare costs to the states, to compound the fiscal problems of our state.

Sounds like a typical Bush plan: let the inmates take over the asylum!

and not just for the individuals involved… i’ve forgotten the numbers now, but greater than 90% of suicide terrorist acts are part of a campaign that is supported by a significant portion of the society.

and there just isn’t a correlation with poverty. but there are very strong correlations with occupation (by a democratic nation) and differences of primary religions.

Brits often love Americans, some of them; it America they lately can’t stand. For better reason than the old war ditty about Americans being “over-dressed, over-paid, over-sexed and over here”.

I betcha making orphans, widows and killing peoples’ children would rank right up there at the top of root causes of creating terrorists. It would turn me into one.

Any comparison between Bush and Churchill is strictly in the mind of Bush. However, I have often wanted to mention Gallipoli when explaining to the never-sound-retreat group that sometimes it’s the only intelligent thing to do. Even great men have committed humongous deadly blunders, much less this group of pea-brained draft dodgers.

i loved his mum…Jenny….he was a very interesting guy….

I’ve been reading a travel book about a Brit who took a train trip across a route taken earlier in the 1920s by Agatha Christie. It’s a fascinating travel book — “The 8:55 to Baghdad” is the title, in case anyone is interested — but something I read in it yesterday struck me about the “resource war” potential. He was talking about the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, and how access to water equals power in so much of the Middle East. And then went on to talk about various dam projects that Turkey has slated for completion by, I think, 2015, which would cut off a great deal of the flow of both rivers to Syria and Iraq. That Syria and Iraq had reached resource agreements in terms of water issues, but that neither had been able to come to terms, as yet, with Turkey.

And I started thinking about that same issue here in the US, between all of the Western states with the Colorado River, and further south into Mexico, and the problems that causes for all of us from time to time. And magnified that against some old tribal wounds that are already festering with the added pressure of our presence in the region as it is…and I’ve been stewing on what a powderkeg that is ever since.

So many issues, and so little being done to really address them as we sit in this holding pattern, waiting for Bush to leave office, aren’t there?

I betcha making orphans, widows and killing peoples’ children would rank right up there at the top of root causes of creating terrorists. It would turn me into one.

my bold.

sadly, these are the tools of occupation.

unfortunately he never did

Don’t forget the Ia Drang.

of course!

This Special Relationship is the one where the British bend over, right? I thought that was called something else.

Maybe, but the word ain’t rape, that’s for sure, ‘cuz ya can’t rape the willing!

BTW, Hugh, have you been watching KOs “Bushed” segments? They seem tailor made for your list. The one the other day about hiring outside contractors to collect back taxes for the IRS made me think of you. When I thought about it, most, if not all, of them would be appropriate to your list.

I was thinking about that movie the other day. Without wanting to start another argument, I was thinking about HRC’s pulling all stops in going for a win, and it reminded me of Paul Newman’s line to Richard Boone: “Hey,one question. How you gonna get down from here.”

Entirely possible it’s the reverse. They could have gotten the idea of a list of Bush scandals from Hugh’s List.

Yes, well that certainly doesn’t help, now does it? “Winning hearts and minds” is a little tough under those circumstances, eh?

One of my all time favorites. “Now hold on there. . . ” Right up there with the ” HEY HOMBRE, GOOD SHOOTING”!

Gee, where did we make that mistake before???

it would be interesting to compare and contrast Jenny Churchill to Bar Bush,and their 2 sons

Imagine the typical SS over-reaction to physical threats when something gets caught in the zipper, then the energy sapping argument, “You do it. Not me, I did it last time.”

Mine too.

Oh heavens, do you want the whole list? Because that could take a while…

OK. ot but still. . .

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of northern California at 5:12 A.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 190

6

O yes, Brown could puts lots of sentences together. Then the coverage of W interrupting his guest. How gracious, of course.

And isn’t this becoming an ever more pressing issue as spiking food and energy prices lead to riots in the streets of other countries?

Give it some time; I fear it’ll be happening here. I’m very much afraid convinced that people are not taking climate change seriously enough. It’s already starting, but nobody can for sure say, “This is due to the effects of climate change!” So things are observed and talked about, but they are not attributed, so it must not be so. By the time we figure it out, it may be too late. (The largest beasts on the planet have been dying off for years, decades! It’s been observed for decades. I’ve been noticing that all the worlds largest animals seem to be on the endangered species list since the early nineties, at least. But I’ve just started realizing why within the last few years.)

San Andreas fault quiet this morning so far. Thanks for the reminder. :)

Yea, like the snail darter.

But Central Illinois isn’t

- People nearly 900 miles away felt a magnitude-5.2 earthquake that shook southern Illinois early Friday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Rubble lies in the street Friday in Louisville, Kentucky, after part of a cornice fell off a building.

There were no immediate reports of major damage after the predawn quake, which struck at 4:36 a.m. (5:36 a.m. ET).

However, some minor damage was seen in the region.

In Mount Carmel, Illinois, a porch collapsed, briefly trapping a woman in her home, The Associated Press reported. She wasn’t hurt and was freed

Hadn’t seen that news. I know it must have really scared people because they aren’t used to them back there. Hope everyone is okay.

how access to water equals power in so much of the Middle East.

i think so too. and just from a little traveling in the west bank, it’s obvious that the israeli settlements are designed to control the water.

israeli settlement homes (subsidized, i supposed with usa tax dollars) with lawn sprinklers and swimming pools while palestinians only water came from a truck that filled up from a source now controlled by israelis… while the israelis put in place a law stating that palestinians were not allowed to dig any more agricultural wells… while the israelis began building a wall that now separates that palestinian village from most of it’s agricultural land and all of the agricultural wells… and while f16s flew practice drills overhead….

resource wars indeed.

That situation is so dangerous. No people will tolerate something like that forever. The ME could explode in so many ways.

Resource Wars – he’s updated it

and that was 2002.

sadly, these are the tools of occupation.

they are the tools of despots, you cannot occupy a country that does not want you, they will always insurge the crap out of you

there are always negotiations that end the occupation, there is either a truce, treaty and the occupiers leave or their is inhalation

if a country doesn’t want you there you have two choices, leave or annihilate

since we want their oil to be viable annihilation is not an option

OT ..UH OHHHHH
from kos

Pentagon Institute: War in Iraq is a ‘Major Debacle’
by SusanG
Fri Apr 18, 2008 at 06:45:03 AM PDT
The National Defense Institute, identified by McClatchy as the Pentagon’s “premier educational institute,” came out with a sobering assessment (PDF) of the Iraq war yesterday:

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

It pretty much goes downhill from there:

The report said that the United States has suffered serious political costs, with its standing in the world seriously diminished. Moreover, operations in Iraq have diverted “manpower, materiel and the attention of decision-makers” from “all other efforts in the war on terror” and severely strained the U.S. armed forces.

“Compounding all of these problems, our efforts there (in Iraq) were designed to enhance U.S. national security, but they have become, at least temporarily, an incubator for terrorism and have emboldened Iran to expand its influence throughout the Middle East,” the report continued.

btw, gang — Sen. Kerry will be here live at 11:30 am ET/8:30 am PT to discuss some upcoming work on Net Neutrality in the Senate Commerce Committee. Just a heads up in case you missed the note at the top of this post…

Damn, Cheney’s going to have to get out his red pen and annotate another article…

CSPAN 1 has teh Pope’s UN address now

The war has been a major debacle as has everything connected to BushCo.

christy – robert pape’s “dying to win: the strategic logic of suicide terrorism” would, i think, make for an interesting book salon. i despise the guy’s politics, but i don’t know of anyone else who’s done the research.

smacks head…..its Friday News dump day…will anyone notice?

Christy,

Is OK to tell Sen. Kerry that I still have one of his yard signs? *g*

speaking of THE NET didja see this ..some good news

Curious of what the bitterness and anger could look like if Obama is somehow denied the Democratic nomination? Check out the reaction from the ObamaNation over Wednesday’s debate. To put it simply, ABC was under siege yesterday. This may only be a taste of how the ObamaNation would react to a Clinton nomination. If MoveOn is motivated to do a petition campaign against the media over a debate, imagine what Clinton delegates and undecided superdelegates would face this summer if there is doubt. And as the Politico’s Ben Smith pointed out yesterday, it’s also what the GOP would face in the general election, especially if Obama is nominee. The level of devotion among Obama’s supporters rivals what Bush had with his flock in 2004.

The left-wing blogosphere is MUCH more powerful than what you see on the right this cycle and it reminds us of the advantage Bush had in ‘04. While we all know about that so-called right-wing voice machine, don’t forget that there is now a left-wing noise machine (on the internet) as well. And it has found its voice.

Our special relationship consists of the fact that we always fight on the same side- except for when we don’t.

McClatchy write up on the P.I. report:

Pentagon Institute Calls Iraq War ‘a Major Debacle’ with Outcome ‘in Doubt’

The report apparently ends w/a Churchill quote- “”Let us learn our lessons. Never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. … Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance.”

Good point. Some ideas, no matter how enthusiastically pursued, are just bad. I think timidity and incompetence contributed mightily, as did inexperienced with the resources required for sustained combined ops, a problem that also plagued early Second World War campaigns. Gallipoli was fatally flawed, but it was made worse coming so early in the war, when generals – despite having their hats shot off by the Boers fifteen years earlier – thought and fought as if they were in some slow-moving, small-scale campaign in Africa or the Northwest Frontier. Like the poor sods mown down like rows of corn on the Western front, the Anzac soldiers paid the price for it.

I don’t fully subscribe to the catchy phrase that in WWI common soldiers were lions led by donkeys, but many in the British and French high commands were incompetent. Their prolonged inability to devise tactics to deal with the mechanized slaughter wrought by new technologies resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I disagree with Keegan’s charitable view toward the high command and especially disagree with revisionist historians, whom I accuse of battling for a place in the firmament more than they do to understand the past, who plead for viewing Hague in a deferential light.

Yeah, that’s quite believable. I’m just suggesting that adding all of the “Bushed” segments would put the list over 400 in no time!

[…]

False!” Bush argued before the questioner finished. “We’ve got a great relationship. . . . Our special relationship has been forged in common values . . . And so our relationship is very special . . . There’s just such a uniqueness in the relationship.”

Ugh, someone grab my hip waders, would you? If we are going to hearken back to the good ole’ days, could we at least be honest with ourselves on how far we have come from them in terms of leadership? I’ll let Kung Fu Money do the honors:

Reminds of the anonymous poem entitled “Love”:

There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid-
All have existed since time began.

But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.

Please don’t anyone give either dem candidate any money- it will only lead to ad proliferation. Neither has anything to say worth sayin at this point.

your terif…thanks and closing with the sage….bravo

I wonder who Scooter Addington is having breakfast with next week.

More like the bees.

The left-wing blogosphere is MUCH more powerful than what you see on the right this cycle and it reminds us of the advantage Bush had in ‘04. While we all know about that so-called right-wing voice machine, don’t forget that there is now a left-wing noise machine (on the internet) as well. And it has found its voice.

YEA FDL !!!!! go get em Christy

Scootie is still there ,by phone and fax……………imo
a crimminal mind is a TERRIBLE THING to waste

Big confession. I have never watched Olbermann. I know about the IRS story but I haven’t decide yet to put in my list. Some of the stuff there I think goes back to Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. But I will try to look into it more. I am currently trying to decide what I should do about the GAO study on Pakistan that I read last night.

Vibrant, captivating, with flaws as monumental as her son’s, but more sexual than political. But then, perhaps she was fighting on social battlefields more familiar to upper class, near royal Victorian and Edwardian women.

Probably a fairer fight to compare the sexual exploits of Jenny and Bill.

hahahahhahaahahaahahahahahaha

Sen. Kerry is chatting live in the current thread — please drop in and ask your questions on net neutrality or just thank him for coming by to chat today. Thanks, all!

Yes, but there are a thousand other examples where bad leadership led to disaster. Raven mentioned the Ia Drang Valley. I often thought of Fredericksburg during the Civil War, when Burnside could only think to to assault repeatedly uphill, over open ground, where every square yard was covered by twelve Confederate rifles. He did it three times.

Gallipoli seemed particularly useful,however, because the Republicans kept wanting to talk about Churchill and compare Democrats to Chamberlain.

Burnside is a really, really good example, and one that had slipped my memory. Thanks much for the reminder…

Occupiers routinely occupy countries that do not want them. That’s the nature of imperial conquest from the Babylonians to the Romans, the French and English to the Americans.

Resistance is not futile, but it takes a sustained campaign and many lives to oust the occupier. Success usually comes when the occupiers home front accepts that occupation is no longer worth the candle. Make it hurt on the home front, start taxing the number of windows in 18th century London, stop buying Manchester cloth in 1920, start sending 1950’s kids from Lyon and Poitier home in a box, exhaust Elysee’s or Downing Street’s or the Fed’s coffers at any time, and politicians soon discover the merits in compromise and withdrawal. The metaphor with sexual deflation is apt.

That’s why Bush’s Reaganesque Hollywood fiction of ”fighting ’em there so we won’t haf to fight ’em here” is so uninformed and dangerous. It’s a tool to control domestic political opponents, not an effective method of lowering threats from insurgents.

Agreed. Incompetent stubbornness in military leaders has needlessly cost many lives. Bush/Cheney are classic examples of it.

edteller-i didn’t find the article you were looking for, and looked for a while, but found a way cool site…

has all kinds of fec info, and articles and political contributions stuff, on the right side a menu had complete list of pacronyms for federal pac’s, which i ’ve been looking for for a while….

i went there because of the rahm/don young description from the google description for the article link…..

so, maybe this site can help you in the future if you didn’t already have it.

http://moneyline.cq.com/pml/ho…..6SD0005108

google description
Rahm Emanuel , D-Ill.: Our Common Values PAC • Rep. Don Young , R-Alaska: Midnight Sun Political Action Committee Pre-Runoff …
tray.com/cgi-win/x_byst.exe?DoFn=WYS6SD0005108 – 46k – Cached – Similar pages

Whoa…it is a known fact that George Bush and Karl Rove had a book reading contest that would have both of them read more than 100 books a year…

Incompetent stubbornness in military leaders has needlessly cost many lives. Bush/Cheney are classic examples of it.

For example, the battle of Stalingrad, which was the beginning of the ending of the starting of the finish for Hitler.

Christy, there is also a battle between TN, GA and AL over water right now. The Chattahoochee water flows and potential land grab into what is now TN by GA for Nickajack Lake water. There fighting in court about it.

Thanks for that Kung Fu Monkey link, Christy. It really is depressing sometimes to watch what’s happening to us. It’s nice to know there are at least a few of us who can put things in perspective.