G’morning, Jane.

G’morning, Barbara.

Morning Jane,
This Olympics thing’s been a rip roaring success /s

China and the U.S. represent two sides of the same coin – capitalism wedded to totalitarianism.

China is embracing capitalism.

We are embracing totalitarianism.

The two countries will end up looking the a lot alike down the road.

I wouldn’t like to face the future as a young person nowadays. I am afraid that we have sorely failed them. Perhaps it makes me shallow, but I find a certain comfort in the fact that I am old and unwell and will not have to face that reality.

One degree of separation. I went to high school and college with Todd Bachman’s sister. Looked out my childhood bedroom window at Bachman Floral. Feeling very sad about his death. Illustrates that a**holes can prevail anywhere. Even in totally buttoned-down China.

Thanks for the Naomi Klein link. She is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers, even if what she writes scares me to death.

Yay Matt Browner-Hamlin!

NBA Players and Management? Eh, not so much. I have no evidence of this but why would I be willing to wager that Jerry Colangelo is a maxed out contributor to the Wrinkled White Haired Guy?

and LeBron and Kobe as Tommy Smith and John Carlos ???, uh yeah

hey cinnamon ape – if you are still about, left you something downstairs :D

Does Browner-Hamlin still work for the Begich campaign?

Pretty ‘right-on’ comment by Charles J. Brown at Undiplomatic blog regarding Bob Costas’s interview with our distinguished President last night:
From Bob Costas’s interview with President Bush during NBC’s Olympics coverage tonight:
COSTAS: This past week, you restated America’s fundamental differences with China. But given China’s growing strength, and America’s own problems, realistically, how much leverage does the U.S. have here?
DUBYA: First of all, I don’t see America having problems. I see America as a nation that is a world leader that has got great values.
I’m speechless (wordless? what is the blogging version of speechless?). I thought he stopped drinking. Maybe he’s high on vollyball babes. I mean, Dude, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST SEVEN FREAKING YEARS????? Just off the top of my head:
1. We’ve lost our lead in manufacturing to China.
2. We’ve mortgaged our economy to the Chinese and others.
3. We now torture, contrary to everything we supposedly stand for.
4. We now detain people indefinitely.
5. We haven’t captured Osama bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders.
6. We’re mired in two wars, one of which is going badly and while the other is going better, we are spending billions of dollars a month to try to find a way out.
7. Our two largest mortgage lenders are in deep trouble, and the USG probably is going to have to bail them out. And thousands upon thousands of Americans are losing their homes.
8. As many as a dozen of our elected and appointed officials (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Cambone, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice, Tenet just off the top of my head) may be indicted for war crimes after the Administration ends.
9. The Katrina crisis demonstrated just how incompetent our government can be in the face of a massive human disaster.
10. Guantanamo; Abu Ghraib; Bagram; secret sites in Eastern Europe.
Nope. No problems there. I apologize Mr. President, you’re absolutely, completely, and irrevocably right insane.

a real hard hitting interview that was.

Boo Radley McCain is demanding that Kruschev stop his aggression.

-G

Another deportation, this one of Christian anti-abortion protesters for unfurling a “Jesus Christ is King” banner in Tienanman Square, reported by The Idaho Statesman newspaper (also note the Obama ad on the sidebar).

Christy’s upstairs

Thing is, I don’t think he sees any of these as problems. They are desired results (with the exception of #8, which will not happen in this country).

Reported in Spiegel Online today: Military in Iraq exiles more and more press / photographers from the country, as punishment for taking unwanted pictures. Including this following guy:

http://www.zoriah.net/blog/sui…..nbar-.html

I’m not sure it SHOULD happen. We look at the executions of Charles II, the beheading of Louis XVI and the shooting of the Romanovs as pretty horrific incidents. Somehow revenge “justice” is not what America is all about. After they leave office, whoever the new Administration is should start with a clean slate.

So you call the act of holding someone accountable for actual high crimes and misdemeanors revenge justice? You don’t think to not hold them accountable, to have crimes committed with no consequences, especially when it’s widespread throughout an administration, gives the perpetrators a green light or sets a bad precedent or sends the wrong signal? You don’t think they must be prosecuted (notice I didn’t say persecuted) if for no other reason than as a deterrent to future similar overreaches? If not, Dems may abide by unwritten rules because they believe these actions are morally wrong, but that won’t stop the Rethugs from doing these things whenever they get the chance!

P.S. I don’t want these people dead; I don’t even necessarily demand prison time. I just think they should be told on no uncertain terms that what they did was wrong, was unlawful, and they should absolutely be barred from ever being able to be put in a position of power again because of it, and they should also be denied pensions due to their illegal acts. I don’t consider that revenge.

I’m surprised that it took the Chinese plain-clothes security people all of two minutes to deal with the protest, though. Of course, Tienanman is immense. From the video they got at least some curious bystanders- both Westerners and Chinese kids.

Nowhere have I heard anything about the Tiananmen protests of 15 years ago from any of the commentary from the Olympics…especially from Costas who has been in the Square? It’s pathetic.

I am just worried that doing this would leave it open for further retributions to a Dem administration…and then the country would be destroyed by back and forth prosecutions leading to what end?

BTW Thanks cbl2 for the Gorilla information. I’m sceptical about the reported numbers but will keep an eye out for more information on this population of apes. Any new population of any size is welcome information, though.

My problem is that when Bill Clinton was President, the Rethugs persecuted him for…nothing, and they continued for years. Dems said nothing. They didn’t demand any real accountability for Iran/Contra offenses, nothing. Guess they felt they couldn’t prosecute every Rethug admin. (Think how that would look.) Looking back, I think it was a smoke screen, so that when they took the Presidency back, if the Rethug administration carried further than the either Reagan or Bush I administrations in regard to overreaching their authority, abuse of power, if the Dems said a word about it, they would accuse them of trying to retaliate for Clinton. If you ask me, that’s a piss poor reason to suspend the rule of law and allow the kind of abuses of power that we’ve seen for lo these many years.

I don’t think it’s suspending the rule of law so much as getting what you want done. If you spend time on retribution in the name of accountability then you don’t get the goals you want to accomplish like the real security Obama keeps talking about done. It is sad but true that with the limited attention Congress can spend you can only accomplish a few things during a President’s term…if you spend all your time on accountability you wind up with a Ford and a Carter administration, which for all the admiration they got, didn’t get a lot done and may have made things worse…

Have you no memory of the Iran Contra? We have tried the so called “Clean Slate” approach and the next Democratic administration was relentlessly persecuted anyway!

This Administration has been so criminal it must be prosecuted, failure to do so blatantly demonstrates the two tiered Justice System in this Country. We have one out of a Hundred Citizens jailed, often for relatively minor offenses, but you suggest we forgive some of the most heinous crimes imaginable! Bear in mind, that these are crimes in the eyes of the World, as well. The entire International Community shall be watching us to see what action we will take addressing these abuses of the law, both foreign and domestic, committed by this Administration. To do otherwise is to dismiss the deaths of over a Million Iraqis and thousands of Own. America’s future credibility lies upon our doing so. Otherwise, our system of justice is exposed as a fraud, nothing more than an instrument for the oppression of the populace. It must be demonstrated to all that there are no “untouchables” in our society, not even these members of the elite.

There must be no amnesty for war criminals and enemies of the Constitution! The can be absolutely zero tolerance for crimes against the interests of the people! Jus Cogens!

I don’t know if you can say it’s growing worse or better. Sometimes I think a little bit of both. I heard a story about a very respected and respectable classical Chinese scholar who wrote some critical things about China. He tried to get into the Mainland via HK. He had to be dragged away by HK airport authorities because he was literally screaming and shouting in protest at Mainland personnel. That was years ago. Worse things have happened to other people, but there’s something heartbreaking about a sinologist who has dedicated his life to study for love of Chinese literature language and history, to be so summarily treated by Mainland authorities.

@28 I think he tried to get a VISA at the HK airport, since he was denied at the consulate.

I just think we have to either fight for the positive things we want to accomplish or spend our time flailing–perhaps with little success–against those with whom we disagree. I don’t think you can succeed in accomplish our objectives and at the same time devote a lot of resources to establish an accountability that will always be questioned by the other side. (see Mensheviks; Napolean; Bismarck, et. al)…

Ending the precedents set by the Bush administration is a positive direction and letting these abuses roll into the administration will be destructive.

What is your objective?