(O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON ON CNN (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON ON MSNBC (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) ABC HAS MICHAEL JACKSON (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) CBS HAS MICHAEL JACKSON (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) BOUGHT A NEWSPAPER (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) JACKSON HERE (O) (O) (O) (O) JACKSON THERE (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON EVERYWHERE (O) (O) (O) PLEASE! (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) ENOUGH ALREADY! (O) (O) (O) (O) NO MORE MICHAEL JACKSON NEWS !!!
Get ready for it: another surge in the Anti-Obama Wars will be arriving in about a week with a new and more specious attack from the Derangement Rangers, or as these vampires call themselves the Our Country Deserves Better PAC. Twisting facts and flinging fallacy, they intend to pump up the rage junkies for some purpose we can only imagine and we can be sure that if someone stupid enough to buy their product acts on that rage, they will wash their hands of it and blame the liberals. In fact they're already doing it.
I can say that because the ad will apparently reference the recent intelligence report warning of increased right wing terrorist activity -- which of course proved true: blood, bullets, bodies and all -- as an example amongst many, of how Barak Obama is just like Adolph Hitler.
"As the regime spun out of control, they labeled political opponents domestic terrorists, and warned of confrontations between such groups and government authorities."
Is their view of an all too correct observation. Too damned bad more attention wasn't payed over the howls of offended wingnuts and too damned amazing that they're still howling after the warning was proved accurate.
Of course it takes a special person to see this alleged spin-out of the administration, but the accusation is quite predictable. Indeed every accusation made against Bush, no matter how true, is going to be re-labelled and returned in the same fashion as Watergate was reprised in every word and action and relaunched against Bill Clinton.
"They proposed a civilian security force, and a Congressman warned it was exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany. Opposition heightened after voter fraud by the president's allies, including thousands of bogus voter registration [sic]"
Since I'm personally involved with civilian security (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) I would have to laugh at a bunch of retired engineers volunteering to do emergency communications in a disaster being compared to Storm Troopers, but it's hard to understand why a thousand or two bad registrations, which don't seem to have produced any actual votes could account for the 9 million vote Obama victory. Hard, unless you're up to no good yourself and of course the OCDB PAC isn't. It's the illegitimate child of Howard Kaloogian, the fellow who during his losing campaign to replace disgraced Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham told us that Iraq was safe and almost free of violence and that the fact was being hidden by -- you guessed it -- the Liberal Press who of course support terrorism. Is there any doubt?
"And now the Obama Administration is warning law enforcement to focus their attention on the dangers of conservatives."
says their website. They're not, unless you describe murderers as Conservatives, but I am and I can't help but mention that this kind of rhetoric and this kind of campaign was pioneered by Adolph Hitler himself.
These people are deranged, malignant well financed and well armed. Oh yes and dishonest, did I mention dishonest?
Nine months since the election, almost 3 million votes cast, after weeks of recounts and months of court appeals involving 10 judges, 142 witnesses, over $13 million in legal fees, and 56,217 comments, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided in favor of Al Franken and declared him winner of the election. Within moments after the decision, Norm Coleman offered a concession.
Minnesota finally gets a full complement of Congressional representatives; and the Democrats, with Arlen Specter’s recent defection, have a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
One would think the way is clear for a run of progressive legislation without Republican obstruction. But the Democrats are a fractious bunch, and Octopus is a pessimist.
Will the Democrats mess up a golden opportunity? Or will we finally get a decent alternative energy bill, universal healthcare reform, and more?
Saaed Mortazavi is sometimes called the “Torturer of Tehran” but probably not to his face. The man also known as “Butcher of the press” has been given authority by the Iranian government to "interrogate" people involved, or said to be involved, in the demonstrations in Tehran. Mortazavi earned his nicknames for his role in the death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer who was tortured, beaten and raped during her detention in 2003 says the Times Online. The TOT was behind the detention of more than 20 bloggers and journalists in 2004, held for long periods of solitary confinement in secret prisons, where they were allegedly coerced into signing false confessions.
I expect to be hearing a great deal about how Iranian concern over the strange results of the recent election are the products of American propaganda and the protest sponsored, choreographed and financed from Washington, DC.
Of course such things are more effective in terrorizing the locals than in convincing them that these confessions don'e have more to do with cattle prods and genitals than with American interference, but isn't it too bad that the US has lost any ability to deplore enhanced interrogation? Isn't it too bad that the US must remain silent about starting wars and killing people based information extracted by torture?
Thank you George W. Bush and all the other cowards who dragged our proud country down to the level of these savages!
I met Farah Fawcett on several occasions during the late 1970s after she achieved fame for her role in the popular TV show, Charlie’s Angels. She and the other co-stars … Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd, and Jaclyn Smith … were retained by the Wella Corporation to act as testimonial spokespersons for a line of consumer and professional hair care products. I started my film production company at about this time, and Wella was one of my very first clients. Yes, those TV and print ads were my handiwork. I wish I had better photos of her to share, but all outtakes became the property of Wella subject to strictly limited usage rights per contract terms. Nevertheless, I used to bring home Farah posters, hot off the press, for my young daughters to hang in their bedroom. Today, those Farah posters are selling on Ebay for a sum.
She was as lovely in person as she appeared in film and was an icon of an era. Born February 2, 1947, she was exactly one day younger than me. Life is fragile and fleeting; my generation is aging. Rest in peace.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Fear of terrorists, fear of drugs -- fear itself shall be the law.
Does the hullabaloo about legal "loopholes" allowing gun sales to people secretly on an FBI terrorist list but not charged with anything, have anything to do with allowing school officials to strip a young girl half naked and rummage around in her underwear? Should people working for a local high school have police powers yet not be restrained by the responsibility a policeman has to explain the accused's rights? I think both cases illustrate the struggle between expediency and respect for civil rights and in neither case do I feel that the foundation of our legal system was to make it very, very easy for any authority to treat suspects as convicts.
Clarence Thomas was the only Supreme Court member to think such things as a summary strip search of an 8th grade girl are legal, although he may or may not think it's wrong. True to his Republican principles, he differentiates between law and justice as though one was not to serve the other. Of course I might often agree with that, but not this time. Thomas clearly stated that the "scourge of drugs" trumps the right to due process and elevates a school principal above the powers and responsibilities a police officer has. In his dissenting opinion, he claimed the court was making a “deep intrusion” into the administration of public schools and their efforts, constitutional or otherwise, to fight the scourge of drug abuse. Fear trumps the law, fear trumps justice, fear trumps freedom, due process and in some cases, common decency. Fear is turning some of our schools into little versions of Stalinist Russia where any accusation is as good as guilt.
I haven't read the transcripts and I have never walked through the door of a law school, but the sense of outrage can't be exclusive to me or any other parent and the legitimacy of allowing school personnel, who would otherwise go to prison for doing what they did, to have such authority simply because of the grave danger that SavanaRedding might have had an Advil hidden on her person. I can say with near certainty, that had it been my 13 year old daughter, there would be some folks at Safford Middle School in need of their own pain pills.
While most of us would disagree with Thomas and would side with the majority decision that the danger was so minimal that such a false accusation could not justify personal violation of that sort by people who are, after all, not policemen, some appear to be quite happy with using innuendo, suspicion and prejudice to deprive anyone of his civil rights. After all, we passed a Patriot Act designed to do just that and suggested that those who opposed it weren't true Americans.
In other countries; in countries that value freedom more than we do, there would be demonstrations in the streets against the things we ignore while giggling about the sex lives of Senators. It's sad.
(The whole article is damned good and well worth reading, but I'm only reposting the "here's what you can do" paragraphs (the meat) below. I'm also leaving my twitter avatar green because, while it's usefulness pales in comparison to the suggestions in the post, I do think that little green tag makes a psychological difference. YMMV...)
So instead of empty gestures and hashtags, why don't we actually engage in some activism and help, instead of whispering about this like some kind of neighborhood scandal that will never catch up to us because it's an ocean away?
There's always the option of an online donation to a relief agency like Red Crescent, for something immediate and helpful. The world runs on money and blood (as the events in Iran over the last week and a half have so morosely reminded us), and America is too far away to donate the blood that the wounded in Iran so desperately need.
You can also make donations to those covering the ongoing protests and violence, like Tehran Bureau, which is run by an Iranian-emigre out of a house in Newton, Massachusetts and is in need of financial support to keep the site live and bandwidth plentiful. Reliable information is harder and harder to come by, already 24 journalists have been arrested in Iran, and the majority of the rest have been forced out of the country by expired visas and government intimidation.
Above all, the thing you must do before any difference can be made is to inform yourself. The term "knowledge is power" wouldn't be repeated so much if it wasn't true. So spend some time reading the news, know what the hell you're talking about, and go out and tell someone else about it, and how they can help.
If anyone has any further suggestions or links to sites & or other things worth doing, please add them in the comments. I'd prefer that this post stay as non-partisan as possible. We all know that "that" side sucks, but wingnuts, moonbats, partisans of all other stripes... ...this isn't about us here in the US.
He disappeared from plain sight. When asked of his whereabouts, his cohorts refused to answer. Security, they said. His wife knew nothing. Reporters spotted his car at the airport. Rumors swirled. Something about taking a hike in the Appalachians. Finally, an admission, a clandestine trip … Yeee Haah … to Argentina!
Can’t you hear me, baby, rappin’ on your door?
Can’t you hear me, baby, rappin’ on your door?
Now you hear me tappin’, tappin’ across your floor.
For seven days and seven nights days, Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina was missing. This is the same Governor Mark Sanford who refused to accept federal economic stimulus funds ... for the State of South Carolina that has among the worst unemployment stats in the nation … and failing grades in education.
Feel like a broke-down engine, ain’t got no drive at all,
Feel like a broke-down engine, ain’t got no drive at all.
This is the same Governor Sanford whose own legislature voted to accept the stimulus money and override his veto, whose own State Supreme Court upheld the state legislature that demanded the governor take the stimulus money; the same Governor Sanford from the same great state of South Carolina, rumors say, who wants to run for president of these even greater United States of Aye!
Lordy, Lord, Lordy, Lord, Lordy, Lord.
After seven days and seven nights, we discover Governor Mark Sanford had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he had been having … an affair! "I've let down a lot of people," said the governor at a news conference where he choked up as he ruminated on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. His family did not attend.
Feel like a broke-down engine,
ain’t got no whistle or bell,
If you’re a real hot momma,
drive away Daddy’s weeping spell.
At The Swash Zone today, the temperature is 87 degrees and sunny. Visibility is 10 miles, and the surf is calm. All resident clownfish have left our shores … bound for South Carolina.
"Whether you golf or not, go to a driving range and hit a bucket of golf balls. Begin by hitting everything as hard as you can; gradually decrease your power until near the end, you're barely swinging. Notice that as you decrease the power of your swing, your accuracy improves. There's a lesson about life, here." - The Check Book - Nicholaus & Lowrie
Some Republicans have been speaking up and saying they wish Barak Obama would be more like French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Considering the Republican obsession with French cowardice and perfidy, it's remarkable in itself, but Sarko made a rather more blustery statement about Iran and tyranny than did Obama and bluster is what Republican foreign policy has come to be.
I have no doubt that some Republicans, including those who fill my mail box with serial hoaxes about foreign leaders railing and howling about throwing out the Muslims, would be quite happy with such a president and his support of a ban on religious attire in France - at least as it pertains to Islamic attire.
Because we are a secular government, not a Christian one, our US constitution protects the freedom to practice our various religions as we choose and it's hard to see any such legislation being proposed here, but it must be of comfort to our resident bigots to know their favorite "surrender monkeys" are considering the surrender of another increment of freedom in service of bigotry and xenophobia.
