Sharon Stone

And the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that bad things happen to you?
She might just as well have said god did it. After all, god does do that kind of stuff all the time. And then she could be right up there with Falwell.
Yep, all these children were crushed because China fucked over the Tibetans. Go god.

He is a perfect example of what a worthless quality loyalty is in high government officials.

Kerik. A man for all Bush's.

Administration Moves to Avert a Rules Rush - NYTimes.com

This guy is too smart. As reported by the NT Times, it seems like a bad thing, but I don't know that that is the case at all.

Like? Admire? Unconsciously?

'I still like and admire George W. Bush,' writes Scott McClellan, who served Bush for two years and nine months as White House press secretary.

'I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people.'

McClellan is a fool. This is buttressed by his public appearances being interviewed about his book: he is weak, unassertive, retreating and making frequent references to "you'll have to read the book"...

Fooey. The man is screwed. So why not just drop the bomb on the man and say publicly, Bush is delusional? Duplicitous. Making personal loyalty to himself by others the measure of their morality and patriotism.

As Oil Prices Soar, Restaurant Grease Thefts Rise - NYTimes.com

Observe how money and prices create crime. Anyone can be a thief: depends on the money to be made.

Bush is now THE most....

< "George W. Bush, as the direct consequence of his own character and actions, is the most unpopular president in American history"
Bush is comforted, I'm sure, by his knowing Jesus was also unpopular in his time, as was Lincoln et al.

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq - washingtonpost.com

He won't say that he out and out lied. And he says the war was not necessary, but that he cannot say. Not unless there were lies. And if Bush could manipulate public opinion, then where was the press, where were the democrats...
nah. something stinks. the people do not care.

Rival to Iran’s President Elected as Parliament Speaker - NYTimes.com

This is not the first time the moderates have moved up in Iran. Bush knocks them down. Ditto in Korea: heavy handed, unwilling to talk. Wishing to intervene. Saying "regime change" like the implied violent overthrow was nothing to worry about, nothing to hide.
It would seem the other nations have strong reason to press for regime change in the US.

Brooks agrees with me

a “price floor” for gasoline"
but he got there at least a year late.

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq - washingtonpost.com

A man is precisely what he does, no more, no less. It should not be suggested otherwise.
No man is any better than who he is. Bush was obiously not "plenty smart enough to be a good president," because he simply was not. You are what you do. If you do no better it is because you cannot.

a wage slave is still a slave

It is still true that an man who works for wages can be treated more poorly than a man who works for another who owns him: he can be injured to no effect or hard to the employer, no matter the fault.
Shouldn't an employer be at least as responsible as a slave owner? shouldn't he face the same consequences when his worker suffers from the job?
Hasn't quite been fixed yet.

Winning in Iraq

yuck...

[Hillary's] hanging around, and ...she and Bill want to force Barack Obama to take her as his vice president"
(In case, god forbid, he should die or get killed...)
Please, keep Bill away from the white house. Please.

Everybody’s Business - Running Out of Fuel, but Not Out of Ideas - NYTimes.com

Ah, Ben Stein and his true colors: quite the schmuck.
He has no ideas except to disregard all the warning signs and find more oil, dig more coal, and destroy much of the planet in looking for it, rewarding the oil companies and finding no role for elected government to be the collective wisdom of the people.
Nothing about alternative energy, conservation. Nothing about overpopulation: population is a response to threat, and the more we put ourselves under threat, the more we breed, and the less we have.
Ben Stein: talk talk talk but little think.
Does one find him noble because he will give up his own bucolic sea side dwelling? Nope, he's giving up our lovely seaside: be very very certain he will find another place with his oil profits.
We. Need. Government. Action.

Jews defend Hagee's words

If you're religious, tying the holocaust to god's purpose would make sense, no? he's omnipotent, no?
We're still having trouble with the message vis-a-vis the towers though.
It be easier if we all just totally believed that there was a purpose and a plan to all this. That god loved us and nothing happened but that he saw and let it happen.
Alas, it's not true, but where's the harm. Oh yeah, there's pride and rationality and science and all, but if it's all god's plan, every bit of it, and everybody gets comfort, where's the harm.
Well, everybody is NOT going to get comforted and a lot of those who are don't take they turn as sentry very seriously.
Well, we can all see I don't know shit...:-)

And now for something completely different...

Ron Paul...

nothing wrong with this kind of religion

InsideCatholic.com - The Death of the Bobby Kennedy Coalition: "Kennedy slid to the gray concrete floor, mortally wounded and bleeding horribly. Amid the screams and chaos, a young kitchen aide named Juan Romero knelt at Kennedy's side. He took a set of rosary beads from his shirt pocket, placed it in the dying man's hand, and prayed."

Violence In Iraq Falls to Lowest Level In 4 Years - NYTimes.com

Watch out: next week there will be an article in the New Yorker(!) that al Qaeda is splintering, that the architect of al Qaeda attacks has renounced violence because, among other things, it has not gained them what they wanted, and by and large, they have had to kill a whole lot of Muslims and that has not been good.
One could say they have not gotten what they wanted because Bush would not withdraw. One could say that Bush brought them to the Iraq battlefield, and all the battle got fought right there, and al Qaeda lost and radical Islam has lost and peace in the middle east will follow and soon: the US did not leave: it is actually winning.
A person could certainly read it that way.
Was it done badly? yep. Did it cost too much? yep. Was money wasted? yep. Were too many killed? yep.
But the promise to pull out could be exactly the thing that people will not want.
Let's see what the New Yorker article says.

Watch out: here comes the GOP

The GOP will publish pictures more and more like this: showing the Obama supporters, who do not look like the "heartland" folks. Not the farmers, not the freckle face country folks. And this picture is a good one. Wait till the "Willy Horton" pictures make the papers.

There are other STRONG views

"Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New "Greatest Generation" of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope."
That's the name of a new book. Somebody thinks we should absolutely stay and finish, and if we don't, whoever pulls out is the one that "loses a war we were winning"

Clinton Signals She May Carry Fight to Convention - New York Times

Hillary is going to win. She is not going to lay down, no matter what. She can argue she is quite close enough, and counting Florida, or playig the blue states, or just the popular vote, she can say she is in fact ahead.
It is a close race, and that means it really can go either way. Win by and inch, win by a mile, this is winner take all.
She'll worry about how to govern later, if she wins.
She certainly wouldn't let McCain win if it's close. She won't back down, and she has proven that. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's tired to democrats dropping out, falling down.
She'll say, "You don't want a floor fight? takes two to fight: you lay down."

Skyrocketing Oil Prices Stump Experts - washingtonpost.com

Oil prices rise on momentum. And they rise and stay on inelastic demand, where the demand remains high despite price because there is no alternative, no leadership in the nation: Bush is oil, period.
Finally, prices go up because they can, because the traders are strong enough to push the market, like they did with mortgage money, and like they do with the stock market, which is used to politically punish the fed, et al, when they do not do what they want.
If they want the fed to lower rates, and the fed hesitates, the market goes south in a big way and the fed follows. The churning market makes a LOT of money for lots of people, for the traders.

The press chafes because photos of flag-draped coffins are forbidden.

NOT a free press. Absolutely not. Since when can the press be forbidden to take pictures? And why does the press just lay down?

Blame Bush

Bush is a national and international catastrophe. The bigger catastrophe is 1) that he was elected, democratically, twice and 2) the electorate has, ie, the Amreican people, are just still stupid.
If this were a dictatorship, we might have some hope that the government could be overthrown and some better heads prevail. As it is, improvement will be slow, if it occurs at all, because it must wait for the American people to wise up, that that just isn't happening.
Democracy gives people the opportunity to govern themselves. But democracy does in no way insure good government. That depends on the people and in this country, as in many others, the people have not chosen wisely. We elect poor leaders, follow them, the country and all within are reduced, and we repeat the process, from Regan to Bush to Bush and might we not actually put McCain in office?
Remember these times. Remember, that in these 8 years of Bush, American failed. We will not recover.

gas price series.png (image)

Gurgaon techie held for posting derogatory messages against Sonia Gandhi on Orkut - ExpressIndia.Com

Google found the guy.
This is a problem. The law was broken. When is it OK to break the law, when is it not.
When a company does business it also confers support.
So, where does "First, do no evil" fit in here? Seems the "first" thing was not to do business in India in the first place if it is going to lead to evil, or perhaps only to the redefinition of evil, so it help the company make more money.

and won't that be nice

"Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives."

What to do about Africa?

What is with that place. The whole continent?

shit

It's about time. somebody notices that people shit. even in disasters when they are hungry and cold and thirsty, the shit and piss don't stop.

China to mourn quake victims as toll mounts - CNN.com

The other side of the world, away from New Orleans and black Americans: we ARE racist.
Beware.
Could that one thing, after all, be our curse and why we are stuck in middle of the last century.

Bush is the appeaser

Pacts with the devil over oil, over his so called war on terror: he's made deals with everyone. Pakistan. Saudi Arabia. Can't do Darfur, can't even get food into Burma.
He no leader at all. And he's worse than a fool.
But nobody has the guys to call him out.

Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions - New York Times

"Living the good life" redux.

Diesel Engines Clean Up for an Encore - Automobiles - Cars - New York Times

"That has all changed, in part because of cleaner-burning fuel — its 2006 rollout had been mandated in 2000 by the Clinton administration — that has 97 percent less of the sulfur responsible for diesel engines’ sooty particulates."

Bush Assails ‘Appeasement,’ Touching Off Storm - New York Times

Some people may speak for several minutes before they have to play the Hitler card. But not our president: he pulls it right out of the deck.
And of course he gets it wrong.
The Germans suffered for years and years after WW I and complained bitterly at their punishment. And for years and years, the governments made alliances of convenience, a business deal here, some trade pact there: business was booming. But there was no talking, not working for some relief for the Germans and Hitler rose from that disfunctional society. The so called appeasement started long long before WW II.
And it has been Mr. Bush himself who has been the great appeaser. Making alliances of convenience with Paskistan, supporting the India's nuclear program, cozying with the Saudis who teach hate and funded the Taliban, and those who would not appease with Bush we cast aside, whole countries that once were allies were sidelined.
Mr. Bush appeasing all for oil, for corporations, committing American blood and toil to a war handled in fact with no more competence than the destruction of New Orleans, albeit with a great deal more money. but the New Orleans money was small potatoes compares to Iraq and the war money isn't at risk of falling into the hands of a non Republican, a non white.
Mr. Bush is a war criminal. But the more serious part is that's not the end of it.
Mr. Bush has been democratically elected, twice. America has selected a war criminal to lead them.

God the schmoo

If there is no defition of "god", no, I have no problem saying "he" exists. But what does he do, does he care, does he matter? That's where the argument is.
"God" is the way I feel? Fine.
Common moral unpinnings? of course: all animals have that.
We sense great things. So does every animal. We have words and we can talk about. But the details...
That's like saying "everything here is absolutely free! but before you take anything, we'll have to agree on a price."
So, God exists. Now we'll all ponder just what it is the guy does.

"And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible."
"Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking."
"Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real. [what a concept!]"
God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.(!!!!)

Be Happy, be gay...

California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage
Yeah, it is a big thing. And good for California. There is nobody home at the federal (aka Bush) level.

Silly

Macain. Iraq. 2013

U.S. delivers aid of 500,000 dollars to China's quake-hit areas_English_Xinhua

weird. 500K.

Hilary loses... but the real point...

The race is too close. It will end up close and there will be no winner. It'll really be a tie, and that can leave people very unsettled.
Bush won that way. Well, plus the supreme court...

McCain Differs With Bush on Climate Change - New York Times

The democrats are so stupid, fighting with themselves, giving Bush a free ride, and letting the country to spin wildly out of orbit while they busy themselves with each other. They abandoned their posts. For shame.
Meantime, McCain gains credibility, distancing himself from Bush, and cutting off the legs of the democrats: if McCain can give people all the things they want, why not McC ain, people will say.
Bush simply lied. No one has called him on it. I do see a line that Jimmy Carter says a president should never lie.

The Pundit Analyzing Obama? Some TV Upstart Named Rove - New York Times

Karl Rove of Fox.
Oh, shit. This isn't a newsman. Fox.
Rove is a political operative, a strategist.

Change We Can Stomach - New York Times

Change We Can Stomach - New York Times: "Organic fruits and vegetables contain 40 percent more nutrients than their chemical-fed counterparts."
wow!!! can this be???
nope. it's complete bullshit. what nonsense. 40% more nutrients. brilliant.

Seeds of Destruction - New York Times

See Hillary hit.
what emerges is the problems with Bill, and Hillary.
It's not that they were attacked... everybody gets attacked. It's how they respond and react.
It's what they view as an attack: not doing it their way.
Clinton's wounds were self inflicted. It was quite his own faults.

Black Community Is Increasingly Protective of Obama - washingtonpost.com

As it should be

E-Mails Show Derogatory Banter at Secret Service - New York Times

here's another group that's not going for Obama. But I wonder, how many parents wish their kids would act more Black? "Be more like that black kid."

But maybe that's misleading: one could certainly point to a particular black kid by name and say "boy, he surely does well. wouldn't hurt for more kids to be like him."
cause I don't think a lot of people are going to say "be more like those white kids." which ones? not those!

Lawmakers Introduce New Net Neutrality Bill - New York Times

You can own your country, or you can give it away. No, it's not being sold, it's being given away.
this is a good bill. Yeah, Conyers!

CNN - Bin Laden reportedly leaves Afghanistan, whereabouts unknown - February 13, 1999

"Despite repeated demands from Washington, the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden after the August 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, demanding proof of his involvement in terrorist activities."

This was on Clinton's watch, and Afghanistan got way worse...
Was this all Clinton's fault, or was he hampered by impeachment and the constant attack by the GOP? Certainly the nation was distracted. Certainly the media played the sex and misconduct... but the GOP would have found something, or made it up (like the sad death of Vince Foster)
But here's a thought: Foster was supposedly a dear friend of the Clintons, he had died by suicide, and the Clinton's were accused. You'd have thought the president would be furious with such irresponsible and offensive reporting and let the pressmen know they were going to seriously fall out of favor for such bullshit.
But not Clinton. When did he ever express emotion, save "I did not have sex with that woman." And Hilary was part of that. While it looks like she's going to lose, she'll get to do her damage just the same.
The Clinton's want to win at any cost. That's like being too certain you are right.

Quiet Va. Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban - washingtonpost.com

When this was hapening, I was an adult, done with college, working for IBM. This was the United States. In many many ways, it still is: we have not apologized, we have not repudiated our past.

Burma Says Storm Killed More Than 22,000 - washingtonpost.com

population control in the 21st century: period wipe outs. It is going to be quite the regular thing. And there are so many of us, it really doesn't matter. Nature knows this, and so must all of her creatures.
That's why trees shit out the seeds and frogs shoot clouds of sperm onto a sea of eggs. And why we don't mind it if we step on an anthill.

Who Will Tell the People? - New York Times

not 3 decades, it's 8 years, and it is bush.
friedman just cannot speak simply and truthfully.

the US is the wild west. and ridiculously Christian: what the hell does a Christian care about airports and train stations? preventing abortions, saving marriage, and going to jesus for everlasting life. and jews saving israel. and quality comes well behind price.

this:
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
No: the reactions of the US would be "screw the Germans, and the Chinese whatever: we have our freedoms!!! and we don't want that fru fru stuff! and we don't want socialism!