Monday, June 04, 2007

ARMED MADHOUSE Take 2 * BOOB GATE

ARMED MADHOUSE Take Two ... NOW WE KNOW WHAT "CAGING VOTERS" MEANS... Greg Palast's bestseller is now out in paperback. It has vital new information and updates on the corruption in the administration.



SATURDAY MORNING TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.
On Saturday June 9th, award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 9 am PST on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse” (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, “The most important investigative reporter of our time” [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.

Author of another New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George.

His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq’s oil fields have won him a record six “Project Censored” awards for reporting the news American media doesn’t want you to hear. “The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country’s media.” He returned to America to report for Harper’s Magazine.

Palast’s Sam Spade style television and print exposes about elections manipulations, War on Terror and globalization, have been seen on BBC ’s Newsnight.

Of Greg Palast, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said “Greg Palast is one of my heroes. The last investigative reporter in America. In Armed Madhouse he has the best inside story of the war inside the White House over the war in Iraq, the battle between the neo-cons and Big Oil.” The Baltimore Chronicle said “Greg Palast is investigative journalism at its best. No one has exposed more truth about the Bush Cartel and lived to tell the story.”


U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin, right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday after BBC Television reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Griffin, a former protege of Karl Rove, was formerly research director of the Republican National Committee. In 2004, BBC News published a report showing that Griffin led a “caging” scheme to suppress the votes of African-American service members in Florida. Over 70,000 black soldiers were on the list.

Read the full story in Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse: Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales from a White House Gone Wild. check out www.gregpalast.com

We hope to have Palast on the Basham and Cornell Progressive Talk Show this Saturday at 9:00 AM PST. Just click on to the show page at Basham & Cornell Progressive Talk

*********

BOOB GATE

Pink's new video is seductive but scary. I feel so sorry for young girls these days. I just watched the top 20 music videos on VH-1 where the message is, "It’s important to always look like a thin slut with big tits." No wonder ten-year-old girls are increasingly suffering from depression, eating disorders and suicide! Valued for nothing more than how "hot" they look, and how many pornographic poses they can strike, women today can't win.

Let me just get this out of the way: I’m in withdrawal from cleavage; it’s hard to quit cold turkey. I’m not spiritually evolved enough to stop dressing like a hooker, but at least I tried on a turtleneck the other day. Somehow wearing death-defying cleavage is supposed to make women more employable or marriageable. It’s hard to keep calm when you know there’s a government plot to keep us thin and insecure. Since the only valuable women in our society are teenage, wombless, buttless, mutants, you can’t get a job in Hollywood without “lap-dancer” on your resume. And I’m talking about the writers, nevermind the actors. So when the religious conservative movement wiped Howard Stern off the public airwaves, I was cheering.

I want to be a woman of substance — a deep intellectual like Ann Coulter — but I don't want to wear that black cocktail dress she always wears. But I might keep the cleavage awhile longer since the bigger the boobs look, the smaller the butt looks in proportion. Unless you’re completely buttless like Terry Hatcher.

Anyway, sex is sort of losing its appeal, don’t you think? I mean death is becoming sexier than sex lately. Not to be perverse, but there are a lot of things worse than death: — like performing standup comedy and forgetting all your jokes.


This is the hardest time for women. We’re supposed to casually accept multitudes of unfathomably gorgeous women everywhere, making out with each other, half-naked on TV and Yahoo and in magazines —and not feel inadequate. Women in a bikini lineup on a reality show smile as if nothing bothers them. If you leave them alone without the cameras on them, catfights would break out, men hope. What boggles the mind is the way women are letting themselves be depicted as money-grubbing gold diggers and shallow, slutty bitches. If I were one of preteen sons today, I’d run for the hills. I believe it’s a plot to distract us and dumb us down. Without trash-TV and porn, whom would religious right-wingers have to fight against? Nothing except liberal values like education, equal rights and health care. By the way, corporations are the ones who profit from all this soft-core mainstream porn. Not liberal intellectuals and environmentalists.

From the Christian Science Monitor: The religious right has long promoted criticism of "secular, liberal elites," whom they hold responsible for unbridled individualism and moral decline in schools and society. But there are critics who insist those positions hold dangerous contradictions. For example, while religious conservatives enthusiastically champion free-market capitalism and corporate tax cuts, such critics say, who is it that promotes the Hollywood values and pornography they so vehemently oppose? Not the liberal political leaders, but corporate interests most benefiting from those policies.

I shouldn’t complain; being a woman is wonderful if you’re lucky enough to thrive on humiliation. But it’s pretty hard to win a fight with your husband while he’s reading a Victoria’s Secret catalogue that pretends not to be soft porn! I was hoping we’d go back to covering up our ankles like Victorian piano legs.

Have you noticed more boobs in America lately? And I’m not just talking about our political leaders. But it does seem that the larger the boobs, the more narrow-minded the politicians. The two seem to go hand-in-hand. As the fixation with cartoon-blondes such as Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela Anderson proliferated — so did the number of conservatives in Washington. Could it be a plot to distract us?

I don’t mean to go on and on about this but the economics of the breast rules women today. Okay, so I may be able to give up under-wire bras, but the hardest thing to let go of is high-heels because they make you look taller and thinner. Do you know the historical purpose of high heels? To raise women up for easier insertion! It’s true. It started in the Middle Ages with Catherine de Medici. She was standing on a footstool on her wedding night, and as her husband was approaching her from behind, and she probably looked down and had an epiphany, "Hmm... this footstool would make a nice pair of shoes."

The world seems upside down, doesn’t it? I started dating this guy. We were on the couch kissing and suddenly he gropes my breast. He asks me: “Are your breasts real?”
I said proudly, “Yes.”
He gets this disappointed look on his face and says, “Oh. I like fake ones better, they feel more real.”

The other day I picked up a typical woman’s magazine with the headline: “How to get a smaller butt.” Another one had the title “Six Inspired Moves to a Better Butt.”

Would somebody tell me, whatever happened to the Feminist movement? You don’t see men’s magazines talking about their butts. My friend said to me, No, they’re talking about women’s butts.
No, actually they’re talking about little girl’s butts. Why can’t they fantasize about the butts we were born with?
Oh; those would be babies’ butts. Nevermind.

By the way, very intelligent people run this industry. If you give producers or casting directors an actor’s photograph, a “headshot”¬— and you are smiling in the photo, they usually think you can’t play a serious, dramatic role. If you give them a serious headshot, they think you can’t play comedy! That’s why whenever I go out in public, I wear the expression they are casting for. This makes for a very “other-centered” life.

I was on the set of Baywatch a few years ago. There was a beautiful girl in a bikini standing on the beach, looking out to sea, her back to the camera. She was built like a pencil. I could hear the producer screaming at the girl’s manager: “We can’t hire her unless she has a boob job!”

Then the manager screamed back: “But she’s only nine years old!”

***************

From the Christian Science Monitor: "There are profoundly important and precious values that liberals stand for that are central to the founding of this country - liberty, human rights, and human dignity."

Any values debate, he says, must involve Americans considering more deeply how values are reflected in the country's actions. "Abu Ghraib is a deep moral crisis. Some 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq - that's a profound moral crisis involving religious values," Wolfe adds. "That this doesn't register with so many Americans is disturbing and difficult to understand."

While Americans greatly differ over which values deserve priority, it's also true that societal values are continually shifting. Despite the overwhelming approval of marriage amendments in the states, 63 percent of Americans now support either civil unions or legalized gay marriage. In a Gallup poll this summer, 58 percent of conservatives said divorce is "morally acceptable." Divorce is as common among Evangelical Christians as among other faith groups.
*************
In my view, without often knowing it, Liberals actually advocate for all the things Christ cared about: peace, diplomacy, caring for the poor, tolerance for others, creating equitable solutions, caring for the environment. The religious right often talks non-stop about Christian values, but do not act on the values of Christ. - Lydia

Note: In her videos, Pink borrows heavily from the work of well-known New Zealand artist Martin Emond.

The single “U + Ur Hand”, to be released in Europe at the end of August, features Pink wearing clothing and posing as several of Emond’s characters, including BabyRedKnuckles, RockerBikergirl and HardCandy.

734 comments:

  1. Excellent post Lydia! ;)

    I'm telling ya, it's a boob world! hehe

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  2. I mean thanks!

    (But it is a boob world.)

    Check out Pink's new video. I just posted some photos from it on the blog page.

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  3. Hi Lydia:

    That is pink? It doesn't look much like her! I haven't seen her new video yet but I will look for it.

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  4. You said in your post, a date asked you if your boobs were real. I get asked that a lot too.. even women ask me. They seem shocked when I say yes. Well, not every woman has to get fake boobs. LOL

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  5. Okay, I'll go look for that video now and let you know what I think. :)

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  6. Lydia;

    I think Pink has a beautiful voice and she is cute but she looks really trashy in that video.

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  7. Suzie, I know, Pink has a very cool sound, very seductive.

    There are so many videos out showing girls looking like sluts. It's overwhelming and depressing for young girls growing up. If looking hot is all that matters, why bother learning to read or go to school?

    Even my sons think all women have to look a certain way, or they are worthless.

    This is actually a tragedy. I heard of a 9-year old girl who went into a deep depression, verging on suicide because she was overweight.

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  8. OMG! Did I miss blog "sweeps week"???

    LOL

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  9. Lydia:

    I have a very good friend in Seattle whose daughter was going through a lot of depression. She was 12-13 yrs old at the time and was "cutting" herself all over. She cut a couple of times too deep and almost died.. My friend started taking her to counseling and her daughter finally came through it.. with a lot of scars on her body.

    Her daughter is now in college and doing fantastic! :)

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  10. Women (and girls) take this stuff WAY too seriously.

    I've never liked the "heroin chic" look. I like women with curves...

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  11. Hell, I'm not even particularly fond of make-up, Women should look natural not "made up".

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  12. I think I read once how "lipstick" got started. We probably don't want to go there....LOL

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  13. Voltron said...
    Women (and girls) take this stuff WAY too seriously.

    I've never liked the "heroin chic" look. I like women with curves..."

    I agree with Volt on this one...........I like women with curves but I have always liked the natural look...............I have never liked the fake boobs that look like they were inflated with 60 pounds of air look.

    I have never liked the MSM or our government telling us how to think and thats EXACTLY what they have done the last 10 years telling us how women are supposed to look...........I dont like their definition of what sexy or desirable any more than I like the Bush administration telling me whats best for me, who to hate or fear, who we need to kill or what freedoms we need to sacrifice!

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  14. Oh and BTW Volt how did i KNOW you would be here tonight..........in fact I would have bet a weeks pay that you would pop in tonight!

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  15. Just passing through Mike...

    I always read even if I don't post.

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  16. Sorry to digress from the discussion, but I was watching CNN earlier and on Larry King Dr Jack Kevorkian was on and CNN conducted a poll that said that over 92% of Americans WANT doctor assisted suicide yet the repuggies once AGAIN oppose and defy the will of the American people..............its really astounding that a pack of fools that is COMPLETELY WRONG on what the American public wants and has been dead wrong on basically EVERYTHING, thinks they know what is best for the American public.................BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHJAHAHA!!!!!

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  17. Ive always been a leg-man myself ... boobs come a close second though.

    Now, I will admit that I'm a 38 year old male and being too thin has never been one of my problems but ... Im not too sure that it's harder for women today than it has been before. I seem to remember some tv shows in the past that had scantily clad gorgeous women and similar arguments being made.

    Gilligans Island for instance had Mary Ann in her short shorts (I have 2 seasons on DVD -- never noticed before that she wore high heels with her night-shirt when they did night scenes). Three's Company certainly fell into that category and Charlie's Angels did also. Of course, who could forget that one sitcom ... the name escapes me but the dad drew a Cosmic Cow comic book ;)

    For that matter, how many guys keel over every year from steroid abuse -- expectation for us is to be muscular and strong and we're considered wimps if we're not.

    Never fear about me though -- my 36-inch pythons are all natural ... well, maybe 28, ok 22, would you believe 16, ah heck, I have no clue.

    I had another comment to make about the bottom portion of your blog but I forgot what it said.

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  18. MCH said " Im not too sure that it's harder for women today than it has been before. I seem to remember some tv shows in the past that had scantily clad gorgeous women and similar arguments being made."

    Sorry MCH, but i have to strongly disagree on this one..........The big fake boob look/fad is from the last 10 years and although they say it is the liberal media the media has been bought up by a few powerful conglomerates and media moguls that are most definately repug and seem to think they can force us to think the way they want and tell us how to look or whats attractive...........dont believe me look at the WWE or Hollywood they are not even subtle nowadays, they tell woman flatout, they need a boob job if they want to work and I think thats a bunch of BS!

    BTW Volt, where did you go.......

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  19. It's actually gotten worse. The obsession with sex appeal is over the top. We have become hyper- sexualized because of the constant media, 24 hours a day showing the latest hot blonde, dead or alive. We have gone backwards; there is no nuance only flash and style over substance.

    I love women in suits, with something left to discover.

    And I know I wore these skimpy things and still do; I'm a hypocrite as explained in the blog! But in withdrawal...

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  20. Lydia Cornell said...
    It's actually gotten worse. The obsession with sex appeal is over the top. We have become hyper- sexualized because of the constant media, 24 hours a day showing the latest hot blonde, dead or alive. We have gone backwards; there is no nuance only flash and style over substance.

    I love women in suits, with something left to discover.

    And I know I wore these skimpy things and still do; I'm a hypocrite as explained in the blog! But in withdrawal..."

    Well Lydia i'm gonna be a hippocrite and take both sides on this issue as well...............as a normal red blooded guy although i dont like the fake boob look, I cant complain about seeing a little flesh from attractive women............but at the same time I agree with you completely that something left to the imagination can be just as sexy and sometimes more..........I always liked girls that make me wonder about things, and arent always an open book, mystery and challenge has all but disapeared and i know women find this qualities attractive in men as well.

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  21. Lydia said "The other day I picked up a typical woman’s magazine with the headline: “How to get a smaller butt.” Another one had the title “Six Inspired Moves to a Better Butt.” "

    Yeah I agree, I think the women's magazines should say 5 sure ways to please your man, or 6 sure fire ways to amazing sex..............LOL just kidding.........sorta!

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  22. On a more serious note anyone see the debate yesterday..........I think Edwards clearly won, Mike Gravel got screwed and wasnt given anything remotely close to equal time, Obama did pretty good, so did Kucinich and Biden, Richardson did ok, Hillary did terrible I REALLY hope Hillary doesnt win.

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  23. Oh, ok, now I remember ... divorce. Now I know that 50 some-odd percent of marriages end in divorce and I certainly dont want to look like I'm passing judgement on any of you who are in that percentile ... sometimes divorce can be good and necessary. It was the best thing that could have happened to my parents.

    But ...

    I also dont proclaim myself to be a champion of 'family values'. So let's just take a quick gander at some of the leading Republican candidates and/or public figures and the leading Democratic candidates and/or public figures.

    Barak Obama -- first marriage.
    Hillary Clinton -- first marriage, and she saved her marriage despite having it's problems splattered over the front pages for years on end ad-nauseum.
    Al Franken -- first marriage
    John Edwards - first marriage, and when his wife discovered her cancer came back, he rushed immediately to be at her side ...

    ...as opposed to Newt Gingrich who told his first (of three) wife he wanted a divorce while she was recovering from cancer. He also admitted to having an affair while criticizing Bill Clinton for his affair.
    Rudy Giuliani -- third marriage.
    John McCain -- second marriage.
    Rush Limbaugh -- three marriages ... AND after his third divorce, he got busted for taking Viagra with him to the Dominican Rebublic. Hmmm ... an unmarried man who should be abstaining from sex because he's unmarried takes a sexual-assistance drug to a country that is infamous for its young sex rings.

    Fascinating, no?

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  24. Ok, you are correct in the fake boob thing -- that is relatively new. I will have to defend the WWE for just a second -- boob jobs are totally optional. Stacy Keibler, for instance, refused to have one.

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  25. Your absolutely right about the marriage/divorce issue MCH, Clif posted something very similar about a month ago.............thats why i havent gotten married, I feel marriage is sacred, the divorce rate is so high because people are not comfortable being alone and feel it is the thing to do or what is expected of them...........I feel people need to do what is right for them not whats convienient for the moment or expected by society.

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  26. The only fake boob in here is Voltron.

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  27. OBI WAN WORFEUS said...
    The only fake boob in here is Voltron."

    once again we are on the same page......

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  28. What did you think of the debate Worf?

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  29. Didn't bother to watch it Mike.

    None of them have anything to say that I'm interested in hearing.

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  30. Mike, I didn't have a chance to watch the debate either.

    But I'm glad you said John Edwards won.

    Hilary looked great!

    John Stewart is making fun of the "raise your hand" part of the debate.

    I'm confused. So what's this English should be the main language of the United States question? Did everyone raise their hand "yes?"

    Did anyone hear O'Reilly say that "secular progressives" are to blame for the TB guy being so selfish (because he must be a secular progressive...

    This must be the new term they use instead of liberal.

    Meanwhile the TB guy is a Naval Academy grad and his father is a minister.

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  31. This country has gone so backward in stereotyping people. Name calling, backstabbing, and endless assigning suspicious motives to each other.

    We need an etiquette class.

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  32. Cartoon Nation: Larry Flynt takes a full-page ad out offering 1 million dollars to anyone who has had illict sexual relations with anyone in Congress or the White House.

    John Stewart asked: "Why not pay a million bucks to someone who can tell us how we got into Iraq (I'd like to know who has dirt on Rove...)

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  33. Republican Sen. Craig Thomas dies at 74

    Republican Sen. Craig Thomas of Wyoming, who had been battling leukemia, died on Monday evening at the National Naval Medical Center at age 74, his family said in a statement.

    Thomas was in his third six-year Senate term. He had been battling cancer since his reelection in November 2006, and had been receiving chemotherapy treatment, the senator's family said in a statement issued by his office.

    "The family wants to thank everyone for their prayers during this time," the statement said.

    Thomas's death would not alter the balance of power in the Democrat-led U.S. Senate. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal is a Democrat and would likely appoint a Democrat to fill the remainder of Thomas's term.

    Another U.S. senator, Democrat Tim Johnson of South Dakota, has been recuperating since undergoing emergency brain surgery last December.

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  34. From Raw story

    According to Congressional Quarterly, the Wyoming Republican Party will put forward one of three options for Thomas's successor.

    "If Thomas should die or resign, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, would name a replacement who would serve until a successor can be chosen in a November 2008 special election," the news service noted in an afternoon report. "But under Wyoming law, he would have to choose from a list of three candidates put forward by the Republican State Central Committee, because Thomas is a Republican."

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  35. Hey guys did you hear the news that scooter libby received 2 1/2 years in prison

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  36. Thirty Months behind bars for Lewis Scooter Libby.

    But he's not going to the type of jail you or I would go to. He's going to camp cupcake, where he'll be warm, snuggly and safe.

    Of course, if Bush isn't impeached, he'll try to pardon him, but the fact that Libby was found guilty demonstrates that the Bush administration IS guilty of corruption.

    Hopefully it will open the door to going after his boss now, who leaked a CIA agents identity to discredit her husbands report that Iraq had now WMD so Cheney and Bush could invade Iraq.

    I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't think of a "higher crime" to commit.

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  37. Cheney committed and is STILL committing treason against this country............the idiot still hasnt learned..........he's trying to start another unneccessary illegal war with Iran!

    Cheney NEEDS to be impeached and tried for treason!

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  38. Oh look the little troll is trying to impersonate me.............you will be deleted and made irrelevant you pathetic loser.......so why not just crawl back under your rock and stop wasting minutes and hours of your pathetic life you will never get back!

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  39. Lydia,

    I'm sorry, but I'll need photographic evidence of your claims re: your boobs before I can intelligently comment on this thread.

    I can say that my daughter, who will never be mistaken for Pamela Anderson, is quite comfortable being tall and athletically built, without the anorexia (another condition you might want to talk about ) or oversize balcony that a boy could do Shakespeare from.

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  40. MCH1968 said...
    Ok, you are correct in the fake boob thing -- that is relatively new. I will have to defend the WWE for just a second -- boob jobs are totally optional. Stacy Keibler, for instance, refused to have one.


    She's not with the WWE any longer, precisely because she refused.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Voltron said...
    Women (and girls) take this stuff WAY too seriously.

    I've never liked the "heroin chic" look. I like women with curves...


    The missus is a lard bucket. You had to justify that to yourself.

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  42. Just ignore the chump folks. Don't repost his comments. He doesn't get to post here so reposting his comments just helps him.

    He's just another limpdicked right wing prick upset because one of their scum got his ass sent to jail.

    You'd think they'd be used to it by now.

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  43. Scooter Libby got 2 and a half YEARS IN JAIL Rusty.

    How do you like them apples?

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  44. Looks like Goo Goo went from wishing he was Mike to wishing he was Carl;

    Goo Goo not Carl;

    http://www.blogger.com/profile/08956882396669105125

    Carl with an avatar;

    http://www.blogger.com/profile/03664920037425489644

    So in a way Goo goo is still playing with himself as usual, cause he still aion't fooling nobody but himself, but then again;

    Stupid is as stupid does and goo goo is exhibit number 1.

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  45. carl said...
    War is hell on the homefront too, God only knows awhat a woman goes through!


    With you?

    Not much.

    That's your fault.

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  46. By the way, Lydia?

    Blame the conservatives for the public raping of women in the marketplace.

    For all their bluff and blusted about nudity and obscenity, it still comes down to a simple fact that has been true since the first hooker hung out her red torch: young men will pay through the nose for a naked chick.

    And we all know who the pornographers kneel to: conservatives.

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  47. Poor Rusty....


    Big mouth and no one can hear it.

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  48. I have always enjoyed cleaning clocks in here

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  49. I don't know if anybody is following it but a major hurricane is striking the Gulf of Oman and on it's current track it is headed to the Straights of Hormuz.

    Tanker traffic could be interrupted for about 10 days which means quite a bit of crude oil ain't gonna get delivered.

    Along with that damage to Oman and the NG it delivers to Korea is going to have an impact on that economy.

    KAC/UCF and Chuck Watson are forecasting, based on their damage models, that the Qalhat (Sur) LNG terminal will be out for 25-30 days and the Mina al Fahal oil terminal will be down for 15-20 days--all of this assuming they are built to US standards.

    Which they are not.

    If the hurricane sends a 6 to 10 foot surge into the Bandar E Abbas region of Iran they will lose a refinery and export terminal along with the delays in shipping their crude product out of the northern Gulf region.

    Crude prices are up but not a lot, Yet....

    But like Katrina the effects will take a little while to come down the oil pipelines to the US.

    And this is before we get our own hurricane season off yet, not a really good sign.

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  50. Worf...see ya later

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  51. I don't know if anybody is following it but a major hurricane is striking the Gulf of Oman and on it's current track it is headed to the Straights of Hormuz.

    Tanker traffic could be interrupted for about 10 days which means quite a bit of crude oil ain't gonna get delivered.

    Along with that damage to Oman and the NG it delivers to Korea is going to have an impact on that economy.

    KAC/UCF and Chuck Watson are forecasting, based on their damage models, that the Qalhat (Sur) LNG terminal will be out for 25-30 days and the Mina al Fahal oil terminal will be down for 15-20 days--all of this assuming they are built to US standards.

    Which they are not.

    If the hurricane sends a 6 to 10 foot surge into the Bandar E Abbas region of Iran they will lose a refinery and export terminal along with the delays in shipping their crude product out of the northern Gulf region.

    Crude prices are up but not a lot, Yet....

    But like Katrina the effects will take a little while to come down the oil pipelines to the US.

    And this is before we get our own hurricane season off yet, not a really good sign.

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  52. BTW the "price" of oil that is quoted by the MSM is the WTI which stands for West Texas intermediate price established by the amount of crude product at Cushing Oklohoma available.

    But since our gasoline supplies depend on booth imports from Europe (around 1,000,000 barrels a day)which sells it's refined products based on the Brent Blend price, and for those on the west coast the Tapis price, (500,000 up to 1,000,000 barrels a day)the price of gas in the US no longer is fixed by the WTI price since we import so much crude and refined gasoline to fuel our over sized SUVs.....

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  53. Ok, so if a hurricane does hit a refinery again, is that when that Presidential directive is going to come into play?

    As for Libby, we should set up a pool as for when the pardon comes -- pre-appeal, post-appeal, pre-incarceration, at the end of Bush's reign -- er, I mean term.

    Suppose one of those traditional last-moment pardons will have Cheney's name on it?

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  54. Whether or not Bush pardons Libby depends on whether or not Bush is impeached.

    If he is impeached, he'll be the one who needs the pardon.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Off Topic -- Ok, it occurs to me that perhaps I need an avatar. Let's see what options I have ...

    Ive been suspected of being a troll so perhaps a picture of a guy under a bridge ...

    or I have been suspected of being the Moo Moo guy so perhaps a cow ...

    or I could go with a picture of ... nah, let's not go there ;)

    Of course, the really important thing is I would need to figure out how to do an avatar.

    Oh well, I'll figure it out. Ok, where were we ... oh yeah, the pardon. I officially predict it to be post-appeal and pre-incarceration assuming Libby doesnt get incarcerated before the appeal.

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  56. The Judge has already indicated he doesn't feel inclined to permit bail, so if he sticks by that, Libby's in jail in 30 days.

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  57. Fascinating thing is the lack of comments from Bush and Cheney. Now dont get me wrong, I too would be pissed if the pardon were to happen, but it also seems bad that neither Tweedle Dumb nor Lucifer have spoken up to defend their guy -- after all, he figuratively threw himself on the grenade for them. Typical Republican outlook -- the guy is no longer of use so to hell with him.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Where are all the regular guys that are usually on here I hardly recognize any of the names

    ReplyDelete
  59. OBI WAN WORFEUS said...
    The Judge has already indicated he doesn't feel inclined to permit bail, so if he sticks by that, Libby's in jail in 30 days."

    I saw that as well........the little prick is going to jail until the arrogant Decider pardons him at least which shouldnt be too long..........most presidents would wait till the end of their term to pardon people.......this arrogant frat boy thinks he rules the world and does as he pleases............unfortunately I think Libby doesnt see a day of jail time.

    ReplyDelete
  60. MCH1968 said...
    Ok, so if a hurricane does hit a refinery again, is that when that Presidential directive is going to come into play?

    As for Libby, we should set up a pool as for when the pardon comes -- pre-appeal, post-appeal, pre-incarceration, at the end of Bush's reign -- er, I mean term.

    Suppose one of those traditional last-moment pardons will have Cheney's name on it?"

    Well like I said before, I think it would take A war with Iran to cause an oil spike severe enough to allow the DECIDER to implement that Presidential Directive, basically gasoline would have to be over $8 a gallon to provide the chaos to allow Bush to seize power.............a storm would at worst only get gas to $6 a gallon and while that would be extremely painful I think our country could weather it without economic collapse, riots and chaos, $8-$15 a gallon gas, I dont think our economy or society could withstand.

    ReplyDelete
  61. MCH1968 said...
    Off Topic -- Ok, it occurs to me that perhaps I need an avatar. Let's see what options I have ...

    Ive been suspected of being a troll so perhaps a picture of a guy under a bridge ...

    or I have been suspected of being the Moo Moo guy so perhaps a cow ...

    or I could go with a picture of ... nah, let's not go there ;)

    Of course, the really important thing is I would need to figure out how to do an avatar.

    Oh well, I'll figure it out. Ok, where were we ... oh yeah, the pardon. I officially predict it to be post-appeal and pre-incarceration assuming Libby doesnt get incarcerated before the appeal."

    Well I agree with you that the pardon will likely be post appeal, pre incarceration.................as for your post about people thinking you are Moo Moo or a troll..........they are one in the same MCH. in fact Moo Moo is among the foulest troll there is.

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  62. Holly said...
    Where are all the regular guys that are usually on here I hardly recognize any of the names"

    Most of the regulars popped in...........maybe they were watching the repug debate if they could stomach it or wabted a god laugh!

    ReplyDelete
  63. How was the republican debate?

    Did anyone watch?

    Apparently Fred Thompson came on after the debate on Fox News. Does anyone think Fred Thompson will win?

    ReplyDelete
  64. I heard it was a joke, almost ALL supported the war and GWB, in fact I heard one person said GWB is such an honest brave and courageous man with so much integrity and he should be a role model to our youth...............BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyone that could say that about that criminal either belongs in a mential institution or found the wrong calling in life and should have been a comedian!

    ReplyDelete
  65. No Confidence?

    by James Kunstler

    CNN is frantically advertising a set of "live" debates between the presidential candidates this week -- Democrats Sunday and Republicans Tuesday, with loads of "color commentary" before and after. This big media show is being staged in New Hampshire, whose once-significant early primary election has been reduced -- like so much else in our national life -- to merely symbolic status now that fifteen other states have crammed theirs into the super-duper primary day of February 5, 2008. Since I believe that a collective unconscious operates among groups at all levels of the social hierarchy, including the national level, this extraordinarily early staged contest says a lot about how insecure we must be about our leadership, about our place in the world, and about where we are headed.

    US election campaign periods have never been regulated in terms of a set number of weeks or months, the way some other nations do. But the 2008 US election is the first in my lifetime that ramped up to such an intense and formal level of activity so far in advance. If nothing else, the amount of money that the candidates need to raise -- and burn through in airplane charters, staff salaries, and staged events -- puts them all in jeopardy of corrupting themselves to the various donors desperate to preserve their prerogatives under the status quo.

    What everybody seems to sense semi-consciously is that the status quo is dragging the US into an abyss. But so far, no one among the declared candidates has been able or willing to express a coherent view of what it is in the status quo, exactly, that is doing the dragging. One undeclared figure, Al Gore, has presented the climate change part of the story and pretty much stopped there -- perhaps sensing that if he ventured to offer views on anything else, he'd start sounding like an actual candidate. But my guess is that the really important issues will never be articulated in the course of this campaign because they are too painful for the public to hear. And so all the premature debating and posturing will amount to a smokescreen of words meant to conceal the fact that we are a nation without confidence that any leadership can guide us into a plausible future.

    In the background of all this sits the pathetic figure of President George W. Bush. He's pathetic because he has been in a position -- not facing reelection -- to tell the American people the truth, but he's shown no capacity for apprehending it. If he represents anything, it's the idea that the truth is optional, that if reality is disappointing, just create your own reality.

    Here are the some of truths that we seem unable to face:

    Very soon we won't have the fossil fuel energy supplies to run the USA as it is currently set up, and no combination of wished-for alternative energy schemes based on so-called "renewables" will allow us to keep running it, either. Meaning, that we'd better start making other arrangements immediately for how we occupy the landscape, how we grow our food, how we move people and things from place to place, and how we reconstruct an economy consistent with these new arrangements.

    The longer we put off making these new arrangements, the harder we're going to slam into a wall of reality, and when it occurs a lot of things will shake loose in this country. It will become self-evident that the things we've invested all our wealth in will not retain value -- especially suburban real estate and all the activities related to car dependency, from the interstate highway system to national chain retail. It will also become obvious that we can't base our economy on building more of this stuff.

    Our current military adventures in the Middle East, are predicated largely on keeping the old arrangements going. We're in Iraq because we built Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Long Island the way we did, and the only way we can hope to keep these organisms going even a little while longer is to keep open our oil supply line to the Persian Gulf. The truth is, these organisms will not survive the oil-scarcer future in the form they're in. The American people need to come to grips with this. No amount of chest-thumping around the globe will change it. In any case, sooner or later we'll exhaust our military and bankrupt ourselves trying to project our influence into these places overseas -- meaning, sooner or later we will withdraw back into our own hemisphere. I wonder if Wolf Blitzer of CNN will ask any of the candidates, what happens then?

    A basic rule of reality is that you can't get something for nothing. Sooner or later the financial sector will have to come to grips with this rule, meaning that that debt is not wealth and the revolving reallocation of debt in the form of credit does not amount to wealth creation. The US will arrive at a magic moment when the full force of this reality reasserts itself, and it is likely to make itself manifest in the collapse of the entity most closely associated the idea of wealth: the dollar. Assets vested in the dollar's legitimacy will follow its fate. The implication is that an awful lot of the presumed wealth held by Americans could vanish into thin air. Do any of the candidates for president recognize how this works, or have any idea how much disorder this phase change will send thundering through our sociopolitical infrastructure?

    With the election campaign revving up so prematurely, it is very possible that all the candidates now in the arena will exhaust, bankrupt, and even disgrace their campaigns as they desperately pirouette around these painful truths, and that none of them will survive the process with their political legitimacy intact. In the meantime, unsettling events on the outside will intrude on the protective bubble in which the public has taken shelter -- more bloody disturbances around the Middle East, dangerous shenanigans in the financial markets, untoward weather events in vulnerable places.

    The premature election campaign, with all its reassuring televised ceremonies of pre-cooked debate and formal posturing, may end up having the opposite of its intended effect. It may expose the more frightening reality that our political system is not up to the challenges before us. And then what will we do?

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  66. Well I didn't watch the debate, because I really am not interested in what they have to say either.

    But I did read on TP this morning how when Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) said he would not let "Bush darken the door of his White House" if her were president, the audience applauded and cheered.

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  67. Looks like the republicans are starting to turn on Bush too.

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  68. Of course, don't mistake that for thinking they have grown any brains, which is demonstrated by the fact that every republican candidate indicated last night that they support a ban on gays in the military.

    Never mind that the we lost hundreds of arabic speaking intelligence analysts just because they were gay. Never mind our ranks which are depleted, could be replenished with an estimated forty thousand gay and lesbian recuits, many with higher educations and foriegn language skills (Gays tend to be smart, which is likely why the republicans don't like them).

    Never mind most of Europe and other industrialized nations all allow gays to serve openly in uniform.

    Never mind all that.

    The braindead, inbred, right wing Jesus freaks know better.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Republican = STUPID.


    And like they themselves are always saying, you can't fix stupid.

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  70. No, you sure cant fix stupid, and for just a few examples of stupidity most of the repuggies praised GWB, some even saying he has the most honesty and integrity of any man they know (truly sad) and should be a role model to America youth.......................for another example go check out Carls blog not only did the Idiot Bush back out of the G8 carcon reduction plan but he came up with a laughably ridiculous plan where he adds Greenhouse gas reduction to GDP for this year but apparently does not do the same for previous years to come up with a magical but ephemeral and essentially nonexistant reduction in Greenhouse gas.............it would be nice to have a president who STILL doesnt ride around in the little bus!

    ReplyDelete
  71. OBI WAN WORFEUS said...
    Republican = STUPID.


    And like they themselves are always saying, you can't fix stupid."

    Repugs are MORE than stupid Worf they dont have a functioning brain, and courage or integrity.............in fact they ought to use the music from the Wizard of Oz as their campaign theme since they lack, courage, a brain, and a heart!!!!!!!!!

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  72. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  73. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  74. OMG! I think I had a dumb Dubya moment there... I had is instead of are.. LMAO

    How are the scandalous "Boob Gate" bloggers doing today? LOL

    ReplyDelete
  75. blyth said...
    Mike, you are a foul-mouthed son of a bitch.... who needs some straighting out!


    Mike, it sounds like he's volunteering to be your fluffer...

    ReplyDelete
  76. Suzie-Q said...
    OMG! I think I had a dumb Dubya moment there... I had is instead of are.. LMAO


    Bush is blonde???

    ReplyDelete
  77. BLYTH or Moo Moo, whoever you are:

    YOU ARE BANNED.

    DO NOT COME BACK.

    ReplyDelete
  78. I wish this Button actually worked.

    ReplyDelete
  79. The trolls come and go like garbage barges passing in the night...

    As far as the boobs.... I always wondered about the fascination of some guys with unshapen waifs like Lara Flynn Boyle, Callista Flockhart, Kate Moss, etc. It seems to me (and if you're the sensitive type, stop reading right now) that guys who dig chicks who look like that must have some kind of latent thing for young boys. Because with their clothing off, what else could they possibly look like?

    ReplyDelete
  80. The Jack Abramoff Scandal the criminal empire which keep on giving;

    Former Norton aide to plead guilty in Abramoff case

    By Mike Soraghan
    June 06, 2007

    The Hill has learned that Italia Federici, a one-time political aide to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton, has agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of Congress as part of the investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff.

    The Republican activist will be the second person with ties to Norton to plead guilty in the Abramoff investigation. Former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about his relationship to Abramoff and Federici. He is to be sentenced later this month.


    And there are still SIX republican congress people under investigation, but all ther MSM can report is the criminal exploits of Con Jefferson.

    Looks like about 12 re-pubie congressmen have been indicted, convicted or under investigation for their illegal ties to Abramoff,

    Which is not to mention the Dukster and Wilkes crimes.....which arer still productive for the FBI and DOJ. (Reps Jerry Lewis and Doolittle anybody?)

    Considering Jefferson,

    He was the lone criminal in congress in his "empire", but if he is convicted he could have up to 12 republican congressmen to serve his time with.

    ReplyDelete
  81. JR - interesting point. I've often thought the same thing.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Clif - I wish that button worked too! We would have averted years of strife.

    There is still hope. There is still time to change things. We can still avert all the evil Bush & Co. have created. It has no real power.

    They have no real power, for fear is "false evidence appearing real." We should stop treating them as if they have any power at all.

    ReplyDelete
  83. That button is hilarious Clif!

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  84. Ok, First things first ...

    For a variety of reasons, MCH1968 is changing his name to MCH

    Secondly, there is nothing wrong with the little bus ... both of my kids have ridden it due to being special needs kids

    Third, to some extent, Lydia's comment "They have no real power, for fear is 'false evidence appearing real.' We should stop treating them as if they have any power at all" echoes what I said earlier about the Presidential Directive ... it's a bunch of words that mean nothing because the American people won't roll over and play dead while he tries to take over -- certainly not with his approval rating as low as it is.

    Oh, and Calista Flockhart, et al do nothing for me either.

    ReplyDelete
  85. That button was funny Clif.

    I notice that you "pro choice" people seem to only give one choice...

    ReplyDelete
  86. Voltron said...
    That button was funny Clif.

    I notice that you "pro choice" people seem to only give one choice...

    lying AGAIN as USUAL Volt..........BTW dont you and Moo Moo get tired of playing sockpuppets?

    ReplyDelete
  87. Hey guys I see Obama has beaten all others in fundraising this quarter

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  88. I notice that you "pro choice" people seem to only give one choice...


    Really? Such a fascinating thing to notice from a member of the "pro-death" party, the party in fact that advocates ONLY ONE CHOICE.

    The mere fact that you your moronic statement was read by members of this board that are, in fact, alive suggests that their parents made a choice other than abortion. The mere fact that many, if not all, of the members of this board are, in fact, parents suggest that we made a choice other than abortion.

    Honestly, if you are going to start debates, try not to look like such an imbecile, ok?

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  89. mch said,

    Honestly, if you are going to start debates, try not to look like such an imbecile, ok?


    We've all tried to get him to come up with something not fed to him by Hannity. He never has, and he never will have. The "twenty percenters" are "special" adults.

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  90. MCH said...


    The mere fact that you your moronic statement was read by members of this board that are, in fact, alive suggests that their parents made a choice other than abortion. The mere fact that many, if not all, of the members of this board are, in fact, parents suggest that we made a choice other than abortion.



    Ouch.

    Thats gonna leave a mark.

    ReplyDelete
  91. This may upset a lot of you, but I am rethinking our approach to the constant criticism of Bush.

    I believe in the law of attraction. No matter how angry we are at Bush, Cheney and Rove, we need to be more constructive in our words about them - or we are creating the worst scenario.

    Got this from an article about an athlete with the Chicago Bears who was going to be benched:

    "When someone is struggling—particularly a professional athlete or a politician—it’s easy to join in the cacophony of voices that drag a person down.

    And I’ve learned that in any situation my mental voice does count; it does make a difference because it contributes to the overall mental climate.

    So I decided to take some positive action. My direction was: Apply the Golden Rule, which says, “Treat other people exactly as you would like to be treated by them ...” (J.B. Phillips). I knew that if I were struggling, I’d want support and help, not destructive criticism.

    So with that direction, I dropped my criticism.

    Supporting others doesn’t necessarily condone whatever they are doing. Criticism and condemnation may seem insignificant, almost harmless. But they’re not."

    Destructive criticism (even of George Bush) is the opposite of the right, loving practice of Christianity, which blesses everyone.

    I’ve learned a little bit more about consistently supporting those who make mistakes as well as those I disagree with."

    Sounds utopian, doesn't it?

    Anyway, I wish I could stop being so angry in my heart at the war criminals.

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  92. He doesn't do well with logic mch.

    Its like green kryptonite to him.

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  93. Come to think of it, Volt, my family is the perfect example of why Democrats truly are the Pro-Life party and Republicans are the "pro-death" party.

    See, my oldest son was born 4 months premature, 2 days after I lost my job and any hope of having insurance. Because of the availability of medicaid, my wife was able to be admitted into the hospital and my son was born. A month later, he had to have a life-saving operation.

    If all of that were today, I would have been too concerned and confused about finances to check my wife into the hospital because the Republicans have eliminated Medicaid in Missouri. As a result, I would have become a widower and my son would have died. My second son would never have been born.

    You Republicans need to learn that while life MAY begin at conception, it sure as hell doesnt end at birth.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Lydia said...



    Anyway, I wish I could stop being so angry in my heart at the war criminals.


    Really?

    So if Hitler was putting a 6 year old in the oven you'd want to "not be angry" with him?

    That logic is fine for Basketball games and Family gatherings, but when you confront real evil, when you confront murder, you should be angry. You should feel rage.

    Bush and the neocons in power are responsible for an estimated 1 MILLION deaths.

    You do not have the power to forgive that.

    I do not have the power to forgive that.

    Jesus showed no love to Herod, and no courtesy to the pharisees.

    What gospel did you read that told you to be "better than Jesus"?

    ReplyDelete
  95. MCH said...
    Ok, First things first ...

    For a variety of reasons, MCH1968 is changing his name to MCH

    Secondly, there is nothing wrong with the little bus ... both of my kids have ridden it due to being special needs kids

    Third, to some extent, Lydia's comment "They have no real power, for fear is 'false evidence appearing real.' We should stop treating them as if they have any power at all" echoes what I said earlier about the Presidential Directive ... it's a bunch of words that mean nothing because the American people won't roll over and play dead while he tries to take over -- certainly not with his approval rating as low as it is."

    Hey MCH, i'm not sure what if anything you are trying to imply here........but since you are new, please allow me to provide you some background.

    FYI.........I was refering to GWB with my little bus comment not YOUR kids, because thats exactly what him and his inbred retarded cronnies act like......they are a pack of blindly loyal partisan fools who loathe and despise science and logic and prefer the masses to be a bunch of gullible bloodthirsty inbred rednecks that lap up the BS that they are spoon fed by the Neo Cons.............I was in no way refereing to your kids.........i'm sure your kids are wonderful and i was not insulting them in any way.....................but for a little background Moo Moo used to insert his kids into discussion as well.......and to be blunt they dont belong in the discussion particularly if you are trying to limit what I can or cant say about GWB or attempt to portray me as somehow insulting the handicapped or insulting YOUR kids when that could not be farther from the truth.

    As for your statement about the Presidential Directive it is precisely that type of thinking .........the thinking it could NEVER happen HERE that makes it possible...................do you think the German citizens EVER though Hitler would be murdering and committing genocide on millions early in the game when he started changing laws and demonizing his opponents just like Rove and Bush are doing today.

    Do you think the people that supporterd Hitler were ALL Evil men in the beginning ..........ALL dictators start out with what they claim is fair motives and the desire to help the common man or protect their country till they seize ultimate power then the fair mask comes off and their true colors are visible for all to see...........IF Bush were to seize power he would do so in a time of chaos with the appearance of restoring order,,,,,,,,,only thing is things would NEVER go back to the way they were before and he would buy the loyalty of his cronnies and the military with massive tranfers of wealth and power............you need to read up on how Hitler came to power in the 20's and 30's.

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  96. Bush is a man to be hated and despised. He is of the order of Cain, bringing death and the sword to everything he touches.

    The neocons have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in the name of Christian democracy, and in our names.

    We mere mortals do not have the power to forgive that, and even if we did, we would not do it while he is still actively doing it.

    Even God can't forgive a man until he first repents and forsakes the sin. At least thats what the bible tells us.

    ReplyDelete
  97. Carl said...

    Bush is blonde???
    ----------------
    Carl:

    I left myself wide open for that one, didn't I?

    LOLMAO

    ReplyDelete
  98. I respect Lydia's right to approach the moronic monkey as she sees fit.

    Obviously, it isn't a position I'll be signing on to ;)

    ReplyDelete
  99. Mike, mch just tore Voltron a new butthole.

    Did you miss that?

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  100. I respect her right too JR.

    But I also respect my right to tell her she's wrong, lol.

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  101. I think i'm with Worf on this Lydia.........The MSM is silent or complicit regarding Bush they are bought and owned by the Reich Wing......Its our Job to condemn them and get the truth out there they can not be allowed to opperate unchallenged by truth, or criticism or they win.

    Ever since I was a little kid I always asked myself will greater evil be done by doing nothing and not fighting evil or will greater evil happen by opposing the evil and/or bullies..........in this case I think it is clear that greater evil will occur by not criricizing and challenging the Neo Con war crimminals with te truth...........they have tried to destroy our Constitution, our Freedoms and liberties and have murdered close to a million in our name and our torturing in our name, they are stealing money from us and our children and bankrupting our country and making it MUCH less safe.

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  102. Yes, MCH has had some very good posts, I was just commenting on an area we don see eye to eye on.............BTW MCH I liked this sentence "You Republicans need to learn that while life MAY begin at conception, it sure as hell doesnt end at birth.

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  103. OBI WAN WORFEUS said...
    I respect her right too JR.

    But I also respect my right to tell her she's wrong, lol."

    As do I, people are entitled to disagree..........thats the difference between us and the repugs!

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  104. Mike said...
    I think i'm with Worf on this Lydia.........


    She's with us on this one too Mike, she just doesn't know it yet, lol.

    Trust me Lydia. Read the 4 gospels again. Find me where Jesus was polite or forgiving the the man who slaughtered John the Baptist.

    Show me where Jesus showed encouragement or support for the Pharisees and the Saducees.

    You can't, because he didn't.

    Its one thing to encourage and support a leader who is maybe struggling or off base a little.

    But to support or encourage a leader who has committed mass murder in our names? And who still to this day is committed to the letting of blood?

    That to me makes that person partially culpable with him in his crimes.

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  105. Many of the German people saw Hitler for what he was, and "turned the other cheek".

    And we all know how that turned out.

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  106. Mike, I dont want to start a flame war with people who are my side. Obviously, you dont know me or my kids and I know you were not referring to them personally .. but "short bus" jokes are a slam against the people who ride them, plain and simple. It's always been and always will be a sore subject for me.

    As for kids not belonging in the discussion -- why not? Arent they the ones who are going to be paying for the war? Arent they the ones who are growing up in a scarier world than we did -- with Bush being one of the reasons? Arent they the ones who suffer the most from idiotic decisions being made?

    Tell you what, I wont try to limit what you say about GWB and you wont try to limit what I say about my kids.

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  107. If you givre up attacking the moronic monkey, then you're giving up on one of life's greatest pleasures.

    You can say anything you want to say about any sitting dem politician, and I'm not going to blink an eye. In many cases, I'll probably agree with you.

    Chimpletons, however, see any questioning of the decisions of their moronic monkey Messiah as a blasphemy. They take it personally, and they get hopping mad about it. The madder they get, the higher the entertainment value (for me anyway-YMMV.)

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  108. mch is right about the shortbus thing.

    Inbred's are still open season though.

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  109. I did a post but I done think it posted right ... darn.

    Thanks for the comment about the life ending at birth, Mike, and please feel free to use it at any time.

    ReplyDelete
  110. MCH said...
    Mike, I dont want to start a flame war with people who are my side. Obviously, you dont know me or my kids and I know you were not referring to them personally .. but "short bus" jokes are a slam against the people who ride them, plain and simple. It's always been and always will be a sore subject for me.

    As for kids not belonging in the discussion -- why not? Arent they the ones who are going to be paying for the war? Arent they the ones who are growing up in a scarier world than we did -- with Bush being one of the reasons? Arent they the ones who suffer the most from idiotic decisions being made?

    Tell you what, I wont try to limit what you say about GWB and you wont try to limit what I say about my kids."


    Agreed, and good points............maybe i was being a little sensitive.......but your not aware of what went on in this blog the last year or two............Moo moo used his kids to hijack the thread or as a weapon to justify attacking people.......him and his troll buddies have also hacked the blog and hacked our personal computers..........so if some of us are a little sensitive or cynical or seem a little untrusting I assure you there is good reason.

    BTW I like and agree with most of your posts,,,,,,,,but there is nothing wrong with disagreeing........thats what discussion and debate is all about.

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  111. I will debate anyone that Jesus would NOT be forgiving George W Bush here, or that he would worry about being nice to him or his followers.

    He'd call them the same thing he called the pharisees.

    Hypocrites.

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  112. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

    Matthew 23:33

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  113. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

    Matt 23:28

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  114. And of course, lets not forget my favorite;


    Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones

    Matt 23:27

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  115. Outside they're wearing Armani.

    But inside?


    Inside, they're full of dead mens bones.

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  116. Bah, I keep posting these really awesome well-thought about comments and then I get a blog error when I try to post them.

    Ok, your post about Moo Moo does shed some light on certain matters and it has been brought up to me one of the reasons I was suspected -- took care of that, not a problem any longer.

    As for the presidential directive -- perhaps part of my skepticism is the strong desire for you to be wrong about this ... no offense. Your being right about it is bad news for everybody. I will confess that I have been worried he would try to suspend the 2008 elections due to "national emergency"

    Then we come to Bush and Republican bashing -- I think it's kidn of necessary. I have learned a number of things from this board hidden inside the slams and Im sure others have too. That will all prove useful in the upcoming election season ... and it never hurts to learn a few new one-liners.

    ReplyDelete
  117. Worf said...
    The neocons have slaughtered hundreds of thousands in the name of Christian democracy, and in our names.
    ---------------
    Hi Worfi:

    Is he the Anti-Christ? I think so...

    ReplyDelete
  118. The Neocon candidates in the last debate all spoke of their "faith in God".

    Well, I am sure you all know God.

    Some of you claim you do.

    Some of you claim you don't.

    Some of you claim you just don't care.

    But the truth?

    The truth is you all know him in your own way. He's been there in your darkest hours, he's been there when you were afraid or in need, and he's been there when you've known personal loss.

    You all know him, and you know, that no matter what they say, the Christian Conservatives are not doing his work.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Worfi:

    Yes, they are hypocrites!

    ReplyDelete
  120. Suzie-Q said...



    Is he the Anti-Christ? I think so...


    Well gee, I don't know Suzy, but he plays one on TV.

    ReplyDelete
  121. "Honestly, if you are going to start debates, try not to look like such an imbecile, ok?"

    I wasn't trying to start a debate.
    I simply made a statement.

    AND did you even click on the link and look at the button picture?
    It doesn't even mention abortion.
    (my comment was based on the fact that both buttons read "yes"...)

    Since that seemed to capture your imagination so well though, what choices do you think are better than life?

    ReplyDelete
  122. I'll put it this way Suzy.


    With Christians like George Bush, who needs Anti-Christs?

    ReplyDelete
  123. MCH said "As for the presidential directive -- perhaps part of my skepticism is the strong desire for you to be wrong about this ... no offense. Your being right about it is bad news for everybody. I will confess that I have been worried he would try to suspend the 2008 elections due to "national emergency"


    Well I certainly hope i'm wrong, my greatest fear is Bush will use the chaos from an attack on Iran to do the very thing you outline, then it wil be game over, there will be no going back.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Once again Volt your simple 2 dimensional Repug brain fails to comprehend that you most certainly do have free choice, you HAVE the choice to not push ANY button!

    ReplyDelete
  125. I tend to agree with MCH Mike in spirit anyway.

    You and Clif tend to be our two naysayer prophets, while others tend to be more positive and hopeful. I just refuse to believe America is going to let this go much further. Of course I could be wrong and you could be right, but I prefer to have some faith left in the humanity of my American brethern. The alternative is consignment to despair.

    We can't just put a sign on the border to the country that says "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".

    At least not quite yet.

    ReplyDelete
  126. Worf from what i heard about the last debate,,,,,,,it looks like the lines between Neo Cons and repugs is blurring.............the vast majority supported both Bush and the war..........which Clearly shows they are none too smart..........maybe they will learn after they get thumped again in 2008 but i doubt it.

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  127. Now don't get me wrong Mike. I am not saying you are defeatist. Just more pessemistic than others.

    Thats not necessarily a negative thing either.

    Remember.

    We need optimists to make airplanes but we need pessimists to make parachutes.

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  128. Obi sayeth,

    You and Clif tend to be our two naysayer prophets, while others tend to be more positive and hopeful. I just refuse to believe America is going to let this go much further. Of course I could be wrong and you could be right, but I prefer to have some faith left in the humanity of my American brethern. The alternative is consignment to despair.


    I agree with you, and I also disagree with you, to an extent.

    I just don't see our spineless CONgress putting the brakes on the moronic monkey. I believe it to be far more likely that a fed-up military has been pushed about as far as it is going to be pushed.

    Chimpy can make up all the new directives he wants to, and dream up attacks on any country he feels like attacking-but I honestly believe that in either scenario, the military is going to tell him what Shooter told Leahy. The Troops! the conservotards Support! so much haven't fared very well in the Chimperial era.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Actually, Voltron, I happen to think that there is no better choice than life ...

    which is why I oppose the war
    and I support medicaid
    and medicare
    and social security
    and food stamps
    and gun control
    and sex education that does more than talk about abstinance
    and breathable air
    and clean water
    and, yes, legalized abortion because all too frequently the mother's life is in jeopardy, and all too often that mother has other family who relies on her being there.

    You see, Republicans need to learn that there is a lot more to being Pro-Life besides wanting to prosecute unwed poor teenage girls who have been brutally raped by their own fathers and chose to end to pregnancy that came as a result.

    Want to play some more, Voltron? I promise you, you have come to the wrong playground.

    ReplyDelete
  130. I am not sure what will happen, other than I believe Bush will be impeached, and impeached this year JollyRoger.

    I think he will be impeached, and I think we'll be paying Iraq reparations for the next 20 years.

    But I think we can still pull out of this nose dive we're in. I have to believe that. Otherwise why bother getting out of bed in the morning?

    ReplyDelete
  131. "Want to play some more, Voltron? I promise you, you have come to the wrong playground. "


    Ok, I LIKE that line! Got to remember that one.

    ReplyDelete
  132. I wouldnt say we are naysayers although it certainly could seem that way.........I would say we are realists that have a slightly better understanding of how the economic system functions and how it could be used to seize power..............I am hopeful as well..........if some one tried sounding the alarm in Germany in the 20's and 30's about how they thought Hitler was going to seize power I wouldnt exactly see them as I naysayer I would see them as Paul Revere trying to warn people, sound the alarm and wake people up.

    By no means am I saying this is inevitable, all i'm saying is I'm sure this is the Neo Cons last ditch back to the wall plan and it could work, and the more people who close their eyes and deem it impossible the easier it will be to make it work..........You know the signs of a power grab Worf, you are familar with Hitlers rise by changing the laws in Germany, I fear an attack on Iran could be all Bush and his cronnies need to do the same.........i remain hopeful but we need to stop the wars, and get an energy policy to end our dependency on oil or it WILL be too late before 98% of the country has a clue that it is too late.

    Thats why it frustrates me when Congress backs down to Bush like a bunch of cowards or we hear NOTHING or merely lipservice about an energy plan.

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  133. Obi Contemplated,

    But I think we can still pull out of this nose dive we're in. I have to believe that. Otherwise why bother getting out of bed in the morning?


    I believe we can reconstitute ourselves as well (as one might have guessed,) but the America yet to be is going to be a far different America out of necessity. I am not at all certain that the coming America will be one contiguous nation, even.

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  134. Well naysayer was probably a bad choice of word Mike, but you know what I mean.

    Like I said, you may be right. The signs sure support it.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Here guys, sorry this is backtracking, but this ones for Lydia.


    Lydia!

    Who was Jesus talking to here?

    The Pharisee's, or Bush and the neocons?

    Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

    Matthew 23:28

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  136. Worf I thought Bush and Cheney would be impeach probably late this year as well..............but after what Congress did I am starting to have second thougts.

    Now I havent given up........I think that the ONLY way people like Webb and Murtha would agree to fund the war for a year is if they had some kind of plan to take a stand and force the repugs to jump ship and turn on Bush and the war in September.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Jolly Roger said...


    but the America yet to be is going to be a far different America out of necessity. I am not at all certain that the coming America will be one contiguous nation, even.



    Thank you Snake Plissken

    ReplyDelete
  138. Snake's story is bogus. Detroit will be the prison....

    ReplyDelete
  139. Sorry to nose in guys I am not on here very often and don't want to be one of those commenters who shows up and tries to take over the blog but I think Mike is right, things look too bleak to reverse.

    ReplyDelete
  140. Jolly Roger said...
    Snake's story is bogus. Detroit will be the prison....



    I was thinking New Jersey, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  141. Holly said...
    Sorry to nose in guys I am not on here very often and don't want to be one of those commenters who shows up and tries to take over the blog


    Lol.

    Say what you want Holly. Its always open mic night here.

    ReplyDelete
  142. Holly said...
    but I think Mike is right, things look too bleak to reverse.



    But I might start calling you "Debbie the Downer" lol.

    ReplyDelete
  143. Thank you obi wan worfeus I don't want to look like I just show up out of nowhere and try and take over

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  144. Please do.

    We're just chewing the fat.

    ReplyDelete
  145. Mike said...

    I think that the ONLY way people like Webb and Murtha would agree to fund the war for a year is if they had some kind of plan


    Thats what I am banking on Mike.

    I think their plan is to impeach the little brute.

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  146. Besides, Holly, somebody needs to keep me from taking over ;)

    I mentioned at the start that I am far too long-winded for my own good.

    All kidding aside, the blog is only richer when you do post your comments and opinions.

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  147. When did I ever say things were too bleak to reverse?????????????

    If we dont wake up and start acting soon maybe.............but there is STILL plenty of reason to be hopeful if we get the right leaders in 2008.................I think Gore and Richardson would come up with a brilliant energy plan to get us moving in the right direction.

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  148. BREAKING NEWS:

    Goodling In Private Email: ‘Send Directly Up To Me, Outside The System


    New Justice Department communications released tonight include an email from Monica Goodling, former counsel to Alberto Gonzales, directing another official to draw up a directive giving her unprecedented authority to hire and fire political staffers.

    Goodling tells the official, assistant attorney general Paul Corts, to “send [it] directly up to me, outside the system.”

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  149. oops....


    :|


    was that wrong?

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  150. MCH - That was a very profound and moving post about the birth of your kids, and how the neocons are pro-death, not pro-life.

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  151. Goodling sought to keep the firings and hirings of US attorneys and other federal appointees, "OUT OF THE SYSTEM".

    oops

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  152. And they have the email to prove it.

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  153. They all need to be impeached............here i'll borrow a quote from one of their own so maybe the repug dunces can comprehend..........like Andrew Mellon said at the start of the Great Depression "we need to purge the rottenness from the system"

    ReplyDelete
  154. Voltron said...
    That button was funny Clif.

    I notice that you "pro choice" people seem to only give one choice...


    It's one more than your cracker ass wants us to have, shitstain.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Worf, I'm not saying we aren't supposed to call them on their crimes. I'm just saying that we should pray for them (hold constructive thoughts - see the reverse) so the picture changes.

    Don't we want Bush to change his behavior? Picture him acting out of his highest good.

    "The Secret" is actually the correct way to pray, but they left religious terminology out of it. What you think about GROWS. What you think about all day long is what you become.

    What you think about you attract into your life. If I am constantly thinking my son is a failure, he will live up to my expectations - because what I'm seeing is a failure. When I see him as a successful student, he starts to thrive.

    Our thoughts create our reality. Remember Viktor Frankl who survived concentration camp torture though the power of his loving thoughts.

    This really works. I was thinking the worst of someone, thinking they were a thief (for 5 years I couldn't stop hating them) and the minute I changed my thought about them (prayer) the WHOLE PICTURE CHANGED. They came to me and apologized, and from then on we rebuilt our relationship on trust.

    We can change the picture and pray for Bush to make the RIGHT decisions as long as he's in power. Along the way, his mistakes and crimes will be more obvious, and he will begin to see them and admit them.

    I know this for a fact: prayer actually changes things in the physical universe. But prayer is not what religion teaches it is: it's not begging some anthropomorphic God for favors. It's acknowledging the good already there. Underlying everything are the laws of the universe and you cannot really break these laws: truth, honesty, goodness, right action, principle, order, harmony, love, liberty, equal rights, etc

    At the root all is good and all things work toward good, toward the light.

    Prayer is holding to the GOOD so solidly, holding good in your thoughts so powerfully, that evil cannot thrive there. When you think constructive thoughts about someone, and direct the highest good toward your fellow man, his behavior can change.

    Don't we want Bush to change his behavior? Picture him acting out of his highest good.

    The mental picture you hold of someone is the picture you create. We are all according to the law of the universe -- that what you picture in your mind, that what you hold in your thoughts becomes your reality.

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  156. Another reason for the dirty little trollscum to despair.

    The Senate Judiciary committe passed a bill today to restore Habeus Corpus.

    Now Americans have a chance at enjoying the cornerstone right of being an American, garunteed by our Constitution for over 200 years, until that peice of shit they forced into office took it away in his ignorance and cowardice.

    Poor trollscum.

    Must be hard for them.

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  157. Lydia Cornell said...
    Worf, I'm not saying we aren't supposed to call them on their crimes. I'm just saying that we should pray for them


    I am praying for them.


    I am praying that the Lord God rains down judgement on their heads in this lifetime, for all the world to see, so the peoples of the world will know that America is not an evil country where tyrants can find a home.

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  158. Lydia said...

    Don't we want Bush to change his behavior?


    Its a little too late for that Lydia.

    Bush has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of souls.

    His role in this world is sealed.

    You can't repent of such an act. You can't just say you're sorry after a million people lie dead.

    Judgement is coming for mr Bush, whether in this lifetime or the next, but I can assure you it is too late for that man to repent.

    The damage has already been done.

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  159. Worf, that Monica Goodling item is ASTOUNDING!!

    yes, I am relishing this.

    It does feel good when people's bad deeds get their comeuppance.

    Because it restores order in the universe and makes us feel like we're not crazy, and not shouting in the dark.

    I also would like to see Gore run. Gore would win.

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  160. Lydia said...

    Picture him acting out of his highest good.

    Ok.

    Let me picture his "highest good".

    It goes something like this.


    Bush wakes up one morning, realizes he has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. He also realizes he has butchered the constitution and turned America into a cowardly, paranoid police state.

    He wakes up, fires everyone in his cabinet, walks into the briefing room and confesses all the crimes and skullduggery he has overseen over the last 7 years.

    Then he resigns the presidency, hands the keys to the Oval office over to Nancy Pelosi, and turns himself into the authorities to be tried and sentenced for high treason.......


    :|


    You know what?

    You're right.

    That picturing his highest good stuff really works.

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  161. Lydia Cornell said...


    It does feel good when people's bad deeds get their comeuppance.


    Thats a good word, comeuppance. I like that.

    But heres where I think your confusion on this comes in.

    On the one hand, your Christian idealogy tells you to forgive all men and love your enemies thing.

    On the other hand, you know that permitting evil men to do evil to innocent people, when you have some power to at least help in stopping this evil, is itself a type of evil. (reference the German citizens who lived outside of Buchenwald).

    So you are torn, and understandably so.

    What to do?

    Fight evil, but don't "relish" in the defeat of it. Be humble in victory and do not gloat when we see one of them go down. Feel bad for them, because another soul is lost. If Monica Goodling gets her "comeuppance", then so be it. We should be happy that justice is restored, but in the words of Leo McGarry, (John Spencer) "we never strut".

    Feel sorry for them.

    Feel "pathos" for them.

    Once they've been defeated.

    But while you're trying to defeat them, fight them with all your heart, might mind and strength.

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  162. Its not easy being in the right, is it?

    Its not easy being a loving, compassionate caring person either.

    But you are. And you have to balance that with your commitment to restoring good in our country.

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  163. Right now we're in the thick of the frey, and to be honest? We're still losing.

    Oh sure we've won some specific victories, but these victories still leave us below our standard.

    7 years ago America was a beacon on a hill. A shining light. An example to all the world. People wanted to be like us. People loved us.

    Today we're the most hated nation in the world. We are scorned, mocked, hated and feared. And our recent victories barely scratch the surface on restoring us to our once great state.

    So in here, and in the press our passion comes out. And it should.

    When Jesus confronted wicked and corrupt men, he never let political correctness or fears of hurting their feelings keep him from telling them what he really thought. And since none of us are better than Jesus, how can we expect to do any more?

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  164. The only thing that will put America back on course, is to impeach the President, his entire cabinet, and charge them with high crimes for their tryanny over the last 7 years, and the bloody slaughter they have propogated.

    But even IF we accomplish that, we will still not undo all the damage that has been done. Can we restore a dead Iraqi family to life? Can we replace priceless biblical relics, forever lost to our bombs and bullets? Can we put the limbs back on the 10,000 amputee's, or remove the horror haunting a young girl as she relives night after night, the rape and murder of her mother and sisters?

    Serious damage has been done here. In our sheltered lives we go on, and "feel better" some days. But the horror of the right wing, and the tyranny they have wrought on the innocent people of this world, will not go away. It will haunt us, and our children for the rest of our lives.

    ReplyDelete
  165. Yes, but he always came in the spirit of love.
    Because love actually changes things.

    That's why he said the way is narrow. Very few can see their enemies with compassion, even someone as corrupt as Bush, Cheney or Rove.

    And by the way, this tragedy that happened to America was not done without the collusion of the people. We let ourselves be seduced by the materialism, fear and uber patriotism. The red states are still part of our national consciousness. While we think of ourselves as enlightened, we still have to accept that half of our country doesn't want to be progressive. It's easier to stay stuck in primitive thought, archaic policies, and hatred of "the other" than to extend oneself outward and toward a new view of the rest of the world.

    That's why they are so afraid of public education and "intellectualism." They don't want to know how others think or feel.

    There is a great book I read in college called "SUBLIMINAL SEDUCTION" -- about advertising and media manipulation.

    It was written right after the Nixon era.

    We didn't become a bunch of sheep by accident.

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  166. Lydia Cornell said...
    Yes, but he always came in the spirit of love.



    Like I said.

    Go back and read the 4 Gospels again.

    He did not always come in the spirit of "love".

    Jesus hated Herod. He hates evil and corruption, and he condemned it with as strong a voice as was heard in those days.

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  167. That which you love, you become.

    If you love evil men, then you will beoome evil.

    ReplyDelete
  168. "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

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  169. Yea. That was Jesus, asking God to forgive the men who were killing "HIM".

    He had a little bit different tone when referring to the man who slaughter his friend and cousin, John the Baptist.

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  170. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox,

    Luke 13:32

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  171. The term Fox in 30 CE Jerusalem was less than complimentary.

    In fact, it was considered one of the worst insults in the Jewish community.

    In other words, "Fox" = "Rat Bastard".

    ReplyDelete
  172. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus gave us instructions on how to live our "personal" lives.

    Turn the other cheek, offer your cloak, walk two miles instead of one, these were all instructions for people to live their day to day lives more harmoniously.

    They were not edicts to ignore murder, or corruption, or to permit those things to happen to others.

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  173. The German people turned the other cheek as Adolf Hitler took power, and introduced the "Jewish Problem".

    If they had not, millions of souls would have not died in the ovens.

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  174. The truth behind those $#@*!# gas prices

    With gas prices at record highs, I'm sure you've got a few choice words to say about the greedy you-know-whats who run the big oil companies.

    But I've got an alternative solution, and I don't mean ethanol: Don't get mad. Get even.

    There's no point in getting mad at the oil companies, despite their record profits. They aren't gouging you, and the higher prices aren't their fault.

    The blames lies a lot farther upstream. It lies with Congress. It lies with corn farmers. It lies with the Chinese. It lies in Europe. And, I'm sorry to say, it mostly lies with you.

    Unless you are a vegetarian city dweller who walks to work, has never let a plastic fork touch your lips and has never bought a cheap Asian-made cell phone, then you need to shoulder some of the responsibility for our consumerist culture's absolutely extraordinary demand for crude oil and its refined byproducts.

    The crude truth
    Impossible? Well, hear me out before you click away from this column. Because despite what you may have heard, there really is a shortage of refined oil products in the world marketplace today, and we are never, ever going back to the good old days of absolute abundance when we didn't need to share. Nor should we.

    Higher prices at the pump today are a matter of simple economics. U.S. refiners have the ability to churn out 17 million barrels of gasoline per day. Demand is around 22 million barrels per day. To make up the difference, we bring in gasoline from foreign refiners, which means that, at the margins, pump prices are set by import prices.

    Total U.S. demand for oil products is up 2.7% year to date, boosted in part by the surge in cold weather in February. But since we are far from the only country importing gasoline and other key refined products, we don't have a lot of say in what those prices are.

    Gasoline, like crude oil, is auctioned worldwide to the highest bidder, and with the dollar weak and overseas economic growth strong because of our fantastic appetite for iPods made in China and T-shirts made in Costa Rica, we have to pay up to keep our supply coming in. And that's all there is to it.

    With U.S. refinery capacity now at ridiculously low levels due in part to lack of investment in new plants amid harsh environmental rules, any little change in the supply chain has an amazingly powerful effect.

    If there's a blip in supply from Nigeria, where violence is raging, or there's a refinery accident that causes a kink in capacity, the amount of gasoline and diesel available for American consumers shrinks dramatically. Price then becomes the great allocator of this scarce resource. Right now, U.S. gasoline inventory is at a record low, with just 20 days' supply available.

    If there's one thing you can pin on the oil companies, it's that during their long trek in the wilderness in the 1980s and 1990s, when prices fell dramatically, they failed to maintain their refineries adequately. This shortfall in investment led in part to the tragic 2005 explosion at the Texas City refinery of BP PLC , which killed 15 people, as well as the recent fire at the McKee refinery operated by Valero Energy . Combine the poor maintenance with a stunning lack of qualified refinery engineers and some bad luck, and you've got the current mess, in which several of the nation's biggest refineries are running at half-speed. As much as 500,000 barrels per day of gasoline capacity is unavailable.


    'Methadone' in the tank

    The government, meanwhile, has not exactly covered itself in glory. For a variety of good reasons, for example, new federal rules have made a type of fuel used by farmers called ultralow sulfur diesel difficult to transport nationwide in conventional pipelines. So farmers have had to turn to more expensive grades of diesel refined and sold locally, while the cheaper diesel has been sent overseas where transportation rules are less stringent.

    What about ethanol, the supposed miracle fuel made from corn that President Bush has pushed as an alternative? It's kind of a bad joke. As a Deutsche Bank analyst pointed out recently, ethanol is the energy equivalent of "methadone" -- a palliative, not a cure. At present, ethanol requires huge tax subsidies to generate and transport, and the net savings of foreign energy dependence are negligible since corn, its feedstock, is farmed with oil-powered tractors and nourished with gas-based fertilizers and oil-based pesticides. Moreover, Deutsche notes that ethanol is 30% less fuel efficient than gasoline, which means that a car will travel only about two-thirds the distance on a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline.

    In a situation when solutions are scant, it is easy to just fall back on the easy ploy and accuse service-station operators of price gouging. But that really misses the point. The independent station owner is almost as much of a victim as the consumer, as he faces escalating wholesale costs, rising credit card fees and the enmity of his customers.

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  175. My recommendation is before you worry about showing love or compassion to Kings, Presidents and Popes, make sure you have it down in your personal relationships.

    Do you ever say harsh words to your spouse, your kids, your family or friends? My guess is yes. After all we all do. We all have a struggle showing compassion and love to those closest to us.

    When we can get that down, then maybe we can talk about showing it to men like Bush and Hitler.

    But before we show Bush all that love and compassion, we need to show a little love and compassion to the 20 million people who are suffering in bloody horror under his awful rule.

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  176. The most compassionaite thing we could do for those people is to remove the plague of the tyrant we made, who is ravaging their land and their lives.

    They need our love more than Mr Bush does.

    ReplyDelete
  177. And in truth, the most compassionate thing we could do for Bush, is to proclaim his evil from the rooftops until he is removed from office.

    Bush cannot begin to repent of his sin until he is removed from it.

    ReplyDelete


  178. The LORD trieth the righteous, but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.


    Psalm 11:5

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  179. Ye that love the LORD, hate evil


    Psalm 97:10

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  180. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

    Hebrews 1:9

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  181. But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

    For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

    Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

    For ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

    Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

    For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

    Woe unto you, ye blind guides ......Ye fools......


    Matthew 23:13-17

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  182. Are we feeling the 'love' yet?

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  183. Christianity it seems suffers from bi-polar disorder.

    On the one hand, we have Christians who slaughter tens of thousands under the banner of Christ, and think themselves better for it.

    On the other hand, we have Christians who believe that evil should be appeased, and shown love and encouragement to turn it from its ways.

    What we need now, are some Christians who know the meaning of balance. Christians who see in Christs life, that he was not some deluded esoteric flower child spreading endless love and harmony, and he was not some warmongering conquering General.

    We need Christians, who are as wise as wolves but who are harmless as doves.

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  184. Right now Bush is safe and comfortable in his palace. His cabinet members are safe a comfortable in their own palaces.

    They enjoy abundent food, drink and all manner of luxury.

    They do not need our compassion. They do not need our love.

    The 20 million people living in the hell on earth they created in Iraq, do.

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  185. Right now there are roughly 100,000 miserable souls trapped in their prisons and torture chambers, who as we blog, eat and sleep, are crying out in agony under the hand of our military.

    They need our love and compassion.

    ReplyDelete
  186. I was a stranger, and ye took me not in.... naked, and ye clothed me not: I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.


    Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

    Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me


    Matthew 25:43-45

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  187. Hey stop agreeing with me.


    :|

    I'll run out of things to say.

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  188. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  189. angel said...


    If we all have the willingness, we can live in a World beyond borders and enjoy being in a human family while respecting all our races.


    The key word there being "ALL".

    In this life, as much as I hate to admit it, moo moo is right about one thing. There will always be people who want violence and war.

    But MOST of us I think, if given the choice, would choose your world over the current one.

    That means we need to make sure that our leaders embrace these values. We can think all the good thoughts we want, but unless our leaders share these values, then it will never be.

    But if our leaders want a world of peace, then we shall have it.

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  190. Love is patient, love is kind.
    It does not envy, it does not boast,
    it is not proud.
    It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
    It is not easily angered,
    it keeps no record of wrongs.
    Love does not delight in evil,
    but rejoices with the truth.
    It always protects, always trusts,
    always hopes, always perseveres.
    Love never fails.

    ~I Corinthians 13:4-8~

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  191. angel said...

    And where we are so filled with the joy of life and in fulfilling who we really are, that there is no energy or desire to make others wrong

    It's not a matter of having an energy or desire to "make others wrong".

    When others ARE wrong, there are those who do something about it, and those who "turn the other cheek", and run off chanting peace mantras.

    It would seem its not enough to be able to turn the other cheek.

    We need to know WHEN to turn the other cheek, and when to kick some ass.

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