Resistance 28 September 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.trackback
Tear gas hovered above the steps of the Shwedagon Pagoda on Wednesday in Yangon as the riot police broke up demonstrations. [REUTERS]
Witnesses and diplomats reached by telephone inside Myanmar, a sealed country, said troops were now confronting and attacking smaller groups of civilians around the city, sometimes running after them through narrow streets, sometimes firing at protesting groups.
“Today has been quieter than previous days, meaning far fewer protesters came out, but the military is being very quick to use violence, tear gas, guns and clubs to break it up,” said the chief diplomat at the United States Embassy, Shari Villarosa.
Diplomats said there was no way to estimate the numbers of dead and wounded in Yangon or other cities, but they said it was certainly far higher than what the junta has reported.
Bob Davis, Australia’s ambassador to Myanmar, said that based on unconfirmed reports, he was certain that the death toll was “several multiples of the 10 acknowledged by the authorities.”
The police tried to block access to the Shwedagon Pagoda, arresting as many as 200 monks who tried to enter. [Photo: Reuters]
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Couple snips of this and that from anti-war.com:
An AFP report on planned expansion of military, quotes and commentary from Gates. His number is 74,000. He should stop worrying. The Democrats all call for 100,000 in expanded numbers.
From the anti-war blog:
Vineyardsaker has a provocative post on Ahmadinejad’s description of America as a “big prison.” He posts this chilling data (emphasis added):
Incarcerations per 100,000 population (sample):
1014____Texas (in 1999) (governor George W. Bush)
1013____Louisiana (2001)
715_____United States of America (2001)
584_____Russian Federation
554_____Belarus
487_____Cuba
416_____Ukraine
402_____South Africa
388_____Singapore
267_____Namibia
253_____Tunisia
248_____Taiwan
210_____Poland
204_____Chile
194_____Iran
189_____Hong Kong (China)
178_____Czech Republic
177_____Greenland (Denmark)
176_____Jamaica
174_____Israel
173_____Libya
169_____Brazil
169_____Mexico
161_____New Zealand
158_____El Salvador
146_____Lebanon
142_____United Kingdom: England & Wales
129_____Portugal
126_____Colombia
125_____Republic of (South) Korea
121_____Egypt
119_____China
116_____Canada
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TimesOnline takes a close look at the events surrounding the shooting of Mr Nagai, the Japanese photojournalist…
[S]ources in the opposition National League for Democracy said they believed that he was shot by an army sniper who may have mistaken him for a Burmese citizen.
There has clearly been gunfire because the demonstrators – some of them women – are fleeing in terror. Just one man, wearing a black shirt, is looking back. Two other demonstrators appear to be trying to lift a fallen colleague.
Chasing them are three members of the security forces. The officer in blue, who is about to beat a protester with a rubber baton, is a member of the riot police. The soldier in green is wielding a German G3 automatic rifle and is thought to be a member of the 77th Light Division. The third officer, dressed in grey, is a policeman. Just in front of his bamboo shield a teargas cylinder is flying through the air.
Seconds later Mr Nagai is lying prostrate, a look of agony on his face. The bloodstain on his shirt is now clearly visible. His right arm, bearing the camera, has fallen to his side. [snip]
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Raimondo’s latest anti Dem screed….
It was Gravel who raised the real issue coming to the fore in this campaign, and that is the looming confrontation with Iran:
“There was a vote in the Senate today – Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has offered another resolution, and it’s essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against, and I’m ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at this, because what’s happened if this war ensues – we invade and they’re looking for an excuse to do it.
“And Obama was not even there to vote.”
How that last barb must have stung the self-righteous Obama, whose self-backslapping – “I was against this war [in Iraq] from the beginning” – was an embarrassment. Hillary’s sinister laugh, when given the opportunity by Russert to answer Gravel, ought to have curdled the blood of even the hardest of the antiwar movement’s hardcore Democratic partisans. What followed was a pretty faithful recitation of the War Party’s talking points regarding Iran and the resolution passed by the Senate:
“My understanding of the revolutionary guard in Iran is that it is promoting terrorism. It is manufacturing weapons that are used against our troops in Iraq. It is certainly the main agent of support for Hezbollah, Hamas and others, and in what we voted for today, we will have an opportunity to designate it as a terrorist organization, which gives us the options to be able to impose sanctions on the primary leaders to try to begin to put some teeth into all this talk about dealing with Iran.”
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Asia Times has a post up on blogging from inside Burma (I added http:// to the non hyper links in the article but have not checkd each link):
One poignant blog, by a young, “sensitive” Myanma woman who identifies herself as Dawn, appears at http://www.xanga.com/dawn_1o9.
“Around 1:20 or 1:30pm, I heard someone saying that the police/army started shooting in the air,” Dawn wrote, describing Yangon on Wednesday.
“At 2:00pm, I heard that buses have stopped running on Sule Pagoda Road. Someone from the office went out to there, and came running back when there were shots being fired. I heard the gunshots too, but it sounded a lot like clapping. So I went out to look,” Dawn said.
…
International media said at least one person died when security forces attacked protesters on Wednesday, though some news reports said up to five people may have been killed.In gallows humor, Dawn wrote: “I’ll let you know when I’ve been shot. I’ll ask someone before I die to blog about it. If it was an instant death, I’ll come to my sister in my dream and tell her to blog about it, or I won’t rest in peace.”
Another popular blogger created a “prosaic collection” of vivid text and photos at http://ko-htike.blogspot.com and said, “now regime open fire into these group, and used fire engine to sweep the blood on the street”.
Foreigners blogging in Myanmar include http://burmesedayze.blogspot.com, written by someone who moved to Yangon in March 2006. [snip]
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I will probably add more to this post today… 😉
Marisacat 
Hersh interview in spiegel. Just up. Don’t miss the last question where he says reporters have been doing better.
I’d love it if Hersh and Moyers and a fw others stopped being presenters of truths who also undercut the truth.
Godammit.
NYSUN …
Bill says he WILL NOT reveal past donors to library if Hill wins.
“A lot of people gave me money with the understanding that they could give anonymously and if they gave publicly then they would be the target of every other politician in America to hit on them for the rest of their lives. And some of them are Republicans; they may not want anybody to know. It might ruin their reputation in their own party,” Mr. Clinton said
Yes Bill. It would also reveal people funneling money to you and open up questins on appointments and donations.
I dont think there has been ENOUGH talk on either debate. Lost of interesting hsit at the repub but he Dem one was chockful of moments. Hillary was seething and fuming by the end and her Golden Rule comment.
Maybe most people are just dense but Hillary was getting waylayed. Biden was the best. He is a good at rhetoric. Stuck a knife in her about clinton money scandals. Maybe people missed the barbs because they were so slick. Hillary didnt. You can see her reacting. Or acting.
She dodged nearly every question asked of her from SS (which she nodded yes to as she said NO at the geezer debate.) to the Gay book.
rumors of mutinies and a coup in burma here.
saw this at the link wu ming posted:
Rev
LOL I thought Hillary got her concrete face on for some of the barbs sent her way at the “debate”….
I enjoyed it.. 😉
Marisa #1 – He said “better” not good. Since the demise of Ms. Miller and the re-election of GWB, the NYT has done better in reporting on the wireless wiretapping and the occupation. But if the past two weeks are any guide, they’re all back to post 9/11 and pimping another war.
Honestly Marie, I don’t think “better” applies.
Michael Gordon is there (co author of many of Judy Millers articles) and the arch propagandist for Iraq, John Burns is there. Aside from the political cesspool. I read the NYT (and leaf thru their slide shows), but it is an exhausting game.
And Moyers great sin, and it is one, is to present Isaacson formerly of CNN now of the Aspen Institute as having been some hard working bulwark agaisnt the great propaganda machine.
He was not. he is absolutely at the core of it, then and now. And No. 2 man at the Louisiana “Recovery” business.
he’s been selling this “they blew it” for a few years now.
It is old AND it is wrong. Michael Gordon for one, still there… was so clearly in the pocket of whathisname who got bounced from the World Bank. Constantly flying over Iraq in helicopters with him in the run-up to war. Taking dictation.
it’ like calling bush incompetent instead of malevolent, or calling dems cowards instead of complicit.
i think a lot of hersh, but i agree with you here, this lets them off the hook for complicity in these war crimes.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 “baby bond” from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home.Clinton, her party’s front-runner in the 2008 race, made the suggestion during a forum hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus.”I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home,” she said.
The New York senator did not offer any estimate of the total cost of such a program or how she would pay for it.
WHAT FUCKING PLANET DOES HILLARY FUCKING LIVE ON???????
$5000 will not make a down payment on a home unless you live in hooterville. It would barely cover 1 semester at any decent college.
but i guess since Terry A held fundraisers to pay for her mansion she is a bit out of touch when it comes to housing down payments.
or people could get a predatory no money down loan
it’s so telling, the kneejerk recourse to some financial solutuion, rather than, i dunno, funding public schools, public health, public transportation, jobs programs and the general welfare.
i’d be willing to bet that you’d get far more $ value in the benefits of a well-funded public sphere than any lousy 5 grand bond.
I ahve posted before from an article that Michael Wolff wrote when he was still at NY magazine… the print media had ownership caps hanging fire. Bottom line realities that directly affect the cash flow of the print media. They ALL (but McClatchy, then Knight Ridder with a readership NOT in DC or NYC) supported the war run up, roll out etc., big time.
In a few months congress ruled favorably on expanded media ownership caps. Anyway, they AGREED with the war(s). imo….
If I can find the old Wolff link will post it… I had posted it at LSF and again later, here.
I think the 5k bond is like the 20K re-up bonus.
Cheap at a “git ’em” level… and this government knows it won’t be carrying the real costs of either a democratic, redistributive sort of nation where you lift people up — nor will it/the government b carrying the repair and maintenance c osts of war casualties.
The 400K death benefit for the war dead is cheap too. The bail out of the airlines and the settlements on the survivors of the 9/11 dead was cheap too. And hell, we got some of the most fucked “sacred ground” around.
Cheap.
Revisionist,
I don’t even think $5,000 is enough for a down payment on a decent car these days. As for college, at the moment it will, as you note, perhaps pay for one semester’s tuition at a state college (forget about private ones, even the very cheapest of those are all well over $20 grand for a full year). By the time these children yet to be born are old enough to go to college (roughly 20 years from now) it might be enough to cover the computer they’ll need and the books they’ll have to buy for the first term’s courses.
Marisa #8
wu ming #9
Agree. But not sure that Hersh doesn’t also agree. Gordon at the NYT is as despicable as Miller. What I took Hersh’s comment to mean is that there isn’t as much “rah, rah USA” chanting out there today as there was from 2001-2004. Through those years, there was absolutely nothing questioning the Bu$hCo. The only real cracks in the armor came in the spring of 2004 with Hersh and CBS reporting Abu Ghraib and then Rather on TANG. Both along with Rather quickly disappeared. The public began to sour on GWB within days of the 2004 election. But it was another year before the MSM began any reporting how screwed up this country has become. Guess what I’m saying is that even though there has been only a small shift in MSM coverage, it seems to have had a multiplier effect in the public sphere. And that’s about all we’re going to see from the corporate owned MSM. However, as GWB’s approval ratings are below 35%, it’s getting more and more difficult for them to sell their crap. Might be enough to get Hillary in the WH (although, I suspect that the real propelling force for her will be women who naively have concluded that it’s men who have screwed up the country), but after that they may be done.
You need $2500 for a car without IMPECCABLE credit or great trade in.
I like the idea, if people were able to get interest or invest it somehow. but just a bond. pfffffft. sounds like a clinton accounting scheme to cook some books somehow
The $5,000 is crumbs for the starving. It’s worse than an insult.
And the $5,000 isn’t coming from taxes levied on the rich. Every year, their tax burden goes down while their piles of gold stack up to the heavens.
As for police brutality, I refer you to this conversation from “Pulp Fiction”:
Jules: So, tell me again about the hashbars?
Vincent: Okay, what you wanna know?
Jules: Hash is legal there right?
Vincent: Yeah, it’s legal, but it ain’t a hundred percent legal. I mean, you can’t walk into a restaurant, roll a joint and start puffin’ away. You’re only supposed to smoke in your home or certain designated places.
Jules: And those are hash bars?
Vincent: It breaks down like this: it’s legal to buy it, it’s legal to own it, and, if you’re the proprietor of a hash bar, it’s legal to sell it. It’s legal to carry it, but that doesn’t really matter ’cause – get a load of this – if you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it’s illegal for them to search you. I mean, that’s a right the cops in Amsterdam DON’T have.
Jules: [Laughing] I’m going, that’s all there is to it, I’m fucking going
Vincent: Yeah baby, you’d dig it the most.
I want to live in a country–any country–where the police are presumed to be wrong in any situation unless they can PROVE that they’re in the right. Any citizen wrongly arrested would get the local equivalent of $50,000 for each wrongful detention.
Oh, and any police officer who unnecessarily tasers, clubs, or shoots an innocent citizen gets a minimum of five years in prison.
Gee, a police force that’s expected to obey the goddamned laws. Anybody know a place like that? Amsterdam’s sounding pretty good long about now. Think Plutonium Page would rent me the spare bedroom? 😉
Is that the latest form of torture approved by the APA?
It could be an hilarious situation comedy, me, Radioactive Girl, and Radioactive Girl’s (presumably) better half, all living together. There’d be so many delightful misunderstandings and misadventures, a cross between “Three’s Company”, “The Odd Couple”, and “Mr. Belvedere”. I’m an excellent cook, neat as a pin, and I don’t know the difference between right and wrong…the ideal houseguest or tenant, really.
you know who creeps me out…… Rumour Willis. Maybe its just that she makes me feel old but all I can do when I look at her is think of Demi’s belly on the cover of Vanity Fair.
I’m a mediocre cook, somewhat undtidy [though clean] & enjoy getting drunk and arguing boisterously about my leftier than thou politics until the wee hours of the morning while playing DJ… and then I crank up the amps and write music. 😉
My friends can barely deal with me, much less folks like PP.
Who is Rumour Willis? Little tid bit – I’ve never read tabloids, but 2 months ago US Weekly started appearing my mailbox under a name I’ve never seen. So it resides in the bathroom for requisite reading. She seems to appear in every issue, yet I have no idea who she is[along with half of the other people in that rag].
I’ve also realized through this that celebrities are actually fairly unattractive people generally speaking.
As always thanks for the links and the amazing pictures.
Some comments on the Hersh piece:
“We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people.”
This is the rhetorical bludgeon in american political discourse. It’s Munich all over again, always. Iran is the fearful new Reich seeking world domination (not just domination in the middle east) Incredibly that argument (which totally ignores the economic reality of Iran) vis-a-vis Iran is made, by Podhoretz, for example. This kind of inference is explicitly listed as a logical fallacy by David Hackett Fischer in his book Historian’s Fallacies.
“There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. “
Not quite: I don’t see how the US can pull out of Iraq without paying reparations. Of course, even mentioning this opens one to the charge of sedition.
“Again, there’s no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We’ll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.”
Unquestionably this administration is full of stupid people (Doug FEith at one point), advised by a lot of stupid people and has done a lot of criminally stupid things. But it’s a mistake to believe that if the warmongers thought carefully and thoroughly about what they wanted to accomplish strategically, they wouldn’t do these things.
The inevitable war in Iran isn’t the result of a stupid mistake (oops I plugged the values in the formula incorrectly). It’s somebody’s strategic calculation.
So disgusted that I know this. Rumer (I don’t know how she spells it but she was named for the writer Rumer Godden) is the kidlet of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis.
Dear Hillary: “My understanding of the revolutionary guard in Iran is that it is promoting terrorism. … Still getting your information from NIE Cliff Notes? Or did you READ the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment? And you call Obama naive?
Did you get that $5,000 birth bond idea from Gerber? Here’s a suggestion, you could let Gerber manage the program. That’ll go over big time with the soccer moms.
Marisa, your posts on the crisis in Myanmar have been excellent.
Two photo journalists have been killed. I was thinking of all the journalists who have been in Iraq since this war started. And of Bush suggesting the bombing of Al Jazeera headquarters. A war crime, but like all the others, it barely raised an eyebrow.
According to this site, Iraq: Journalists in Danger 112 journalists have died in Iraq since 2003. By comparison:
More have been killed in these last four years in Iraq than in any of the other wars over longer periods of time.
Marisa #25 – don’t be too disgusted with yourself — well, maybe just a little bit because I knew who Rumer Willis is but not who she’d been named for.
re: #2 – presidential libraries:
WAXMAN is on this one. The Senate is dragging its feet (wonder why?). Should we expect this one to be passed on signed shortly before the election if Hill is the nominee?
Messed up the link LINK
The notion that this administration just ‘made mistakes’ is just plain ludicrous. You have only to read their own writings to know that they intended to cause chaos in the ME. Saying otherwise is a lie, meant to get them off the hook. I remember being furious the first time I heard a Democrat referring to the whole mess that way. Now, I expect it.
As for the latest bill that Hillary signed and Obama dodged, I wonder what she’ll have to say in a few years when she’s running again about that vote? ‘If I had known then what I know now, I would not have have voted ‘yes’!
They are disgusting, all of them.
[fixed the link — Mcat]
For some reason, I’m having a problem with that link. One more try:
IRAQ: Journalists in Danger
Jake Tapper:
sheesh. Apparently he “never forgot her work on his campaign in 72”.
Sell me the bridge and cry me the river:
If you go back to her absolutely horrible bushite speeches around the Iraq War Resolution, she trades on “what I know from my WH years”. I called it the sickest pillow talk ever.
ew.
For shame McGovern.
I”s almost positive that the LAUGH is focus group tested to death. The conclusion was that it made her appear to be warmer and more engaging and accessible. What they failed to consider is what it would sound like when used inappropriately and frequently. Her closest friends have said that she has a wonderful and off beat sense of humor. They should probably have looked closer at the “off beat” part. Might have had a clue when she cackled as Albright said that a half a million dead Iraqi children was a price she was willing to pay enforce Clinton’s Iraq policy.
That will only play with the boomers. Even Obama is too young to know who the fuck McGovern is/was.
Marie — its been dubbed the “Cackle” She wore it out in a week
Marisa #32 – didn’t he endorse Clark last time? Old men would be wise to keep their mouths shut when evaluating candidates from a younger generation. He truly can’t see through the Clinton style of lying and manipulation because it’s more sophisticated than what existed when he was in his prime.
I feel pretty sure the cackle is thought to be a neutrally observed event.
I happened to catch her intro-ing Bill in Chicago in 92… it was an exhortatory politico on the stage. I thought then, “we have trouble”.
And a few weeks ago I managed to see Michelle O barking (and I do mean barking) from the hustings at the crowd.
fortunately not my problem anymore.
LOL FUCK THEM ALL.
******
Marie, yeah he did endorse Clark. As did Moore and Samantha forgetherlastname of the “Genocide” book.
The News Hour reported that exiled groups are reporting that the military opened fire with fatalities at a HS yesterday, in Burma.
Also monks are absent from the streets so reports they are “sealed” inside their temples sounds correct.
Thanks for fixing the link, Marisacat.
McGovern is probably just being nostalgic.
Myanmar cuts Internet, troops fire at crowds
Military also occupies monasteries in bid to crush mass protests
Looks the reports were true, Marisacat ….
Marisa #37 – I try to cut the candidate’s spouse some slack. In today’s political climate, Eleanor Roosevelt would have fared poorly and I do think she was an asset to FDR, not politically or policywise, but for her common sense and abilities to see and hear ordinary people and tell FDR what she thought. Can you imagine what a modern press would have done to Mary Todd Lincoln who wasn’t an asset back then eihter. Lady Bird and Betty Ford were also assets that would fare even less well today. And we saw how Dean was trashed for having a wife that preferred to continue living her life out of the spotlight — and honorably so as a physician, not like Bess Truman.
well I don’t think Mary Todd Lincoln got an easy press, nor did Eleanor. Nor did Dolly Madison.
In fact when Hillary pulled that stunt on The Today Show about the Vast RW etc (all the while, we learn the last few years thanks to the Atlantic, NYer and harper’s, she ws trolling RW Christians on the Hill) she effing BORED me. I thought about MTL and DMadison.
And I guess Jefferson got it in roudabout way, with references to the “red haired house slaves” that served at meals.
I never ignored what Barbara Bush and Laura are up to/used for, I see no reason to be kind about the so-called other side.
Dean/DrMrs Dean’s problem was that they did not think that whole aspect thru. And they acted as tho no one would ask them about it. Geesh, get real…
Wow, that second photo of the monk vs the army is stunning.
It is stunning, keir. The article says there are rumors of maybe as many 200 deaths. The Australian Ambassador also saying he has heard such numbers talked about.
Vineyardsaker has a provocative post on Ahmadinejad’s description of America as a “big prison.” He posts this chilling data (emphasis added):
Iran just lends itself to a lot of tabloid sensationalism. They publish photos of executions in order to scare their own people in line. They very publically beat women down.
But compared to China and its criminal justice system, executions and exploitations of women the Iranians are pikers.
Then again, Iran isn’t lending us money and they didn’t make my laptop and they don’t have Henry Kissinger as their PR agent.
Wow, that second photo of the monk vs the army is stunning.
The flowing robes in contrast to the geometric quality of the riot police and their riot gear work in so many ways.
Of course when 200 people are dead it’s not really ethnical to think of the aesthetics of a photo.
Something tells me the NY tabloids aren’t going to go apeshit over this the way they did about Iran.
“Cut some slack” is not the same as giving them a pass. Hill’s “Today Show” appearance (not sure why I saw that since I almost never watch it) was gag worthy. “Poor me – my husband is being attacked by the R/W conspiracy.” Has any woman ever so effectively managed to play alternately the victim and tough, smart, savvy roles as well as Hill has? But I’m sure many doormat wives related to the former and fantasize about being the latter. Wlomen in America have a long way to go.
Barbara and Laura made their bargains long ago. They’re political stage props in exhange for being taken care of, better than they’d get on their own. Barbara gets to rule to roost at home and Laura probably just stays stoned. As for the Dr. Dean “problem,” Laura was fairly invisible in the 2000 election; so, it does seem to be a bit of a double standard. Plus Dr.Dean has a job which Laura hasn’t had since she married George. After Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Bird, nobody minded that Pat Nixon was mostly invisible. (And there was “The West Wing” with the physician wife who wasn’t around when I watched a few episodes the first season).
Yes, recognize that the press was tough on Dolly, Mary and Eleanor – but TV brings us a unique sort of viciousness. It’s as if our political families are expected to be stuck in the 1950s.
The $5K for each kid is a gift to Wall Street fund managers … I can just imagine what fees they’ll allow them to charge.
You know they would tax you on the Bond too. The dems cant let a tax slip by. The kids might get $3K after the dems redistribute the wealth. Might even force some kids past the income threshold and they would owe on their salary as well.
Of course when 200 people are dead it’s not really ethnical to think of the aesthetics of a photo.
It is imagery like that photo which rallies resistance. Politics is to a large extent theater, telling a story, and that photo says so much about the two value systems clashing in Burma, and in a larger context much of the world. Which way should we go … cold steel or safron cloth, cowardly bullying violence or vulnerable human bravery?
Man great social resistances crystalize around a powerful image.
At a farily agressive 7% return per annum on an initial investment of $5,000 over 18 years you’re left with roughly $18,000. Factoring in inflation in both the education and housing markets that $18,000 will probably be the equivalent of the $5,000 you got when you were born.
Is she trying to be intentionally insulting? Or are her handlers just stupid?
Marijuana Arrests Set New Record for 4th Year in a Row, Exceed All Violent Crimes Combined
Luciid and Mcat
Sure, Sure – the old tabloid subscription in another name trick LOL : : {p]
I feel like I’ve ditched class for 2 weeks and it’s dawning on me I will never catch up….
just out of a 24 hour struggle to keep myself off the street–I found a place thru the city’s low-income housing–a rather small complex-with a pool, too. And even a little balcony, so I can keep all my plants. I will have to have a Dr’s letter saying the chihuahua is medically necessary, as the place only allows cats. (I learned about the medical necessity bizness quite by accident when I talked to another person who lives in lower income housing.) I have a doctor who is a chihuahua owner, and he’s always for fucking the system. So I’m nearly certain he will come thru. Plus the place is available at more of less the same time my 30 day notice is up. I am so relieved!
Glad your not homeless Miss D. Any luck with fucking your current landlord on city or state regs?
Springsteen went on a rant on the Today Show this morning about what a mess this country is.
Lyrics:
MitM —
Arkansas is pot central. Thats where a good deal of my supply comes from. This is harvest season too. next month. Should be some great shit hitting the streets soon.
Rumor is they smuggle it all across the country around november in xmas trees.
Its the biggest cash cow for arksas.
i would find it difficult if bill wasnt on the take when he was gov.
Olbermann is doing some serious kissing of the Clinton (Bill) the and Edwards (Elizabeth) ass.
Why do you think it’s illegal – the black market markup props up rural economies everywhere…
Congrats, Miss D, I’m relieved for you. Few stresses compare to that of being homeless. My dog is definitely medically necessary, and I’m sure any discerning physician will agree that yours is, too. 🙂
lucid #50 – what makes you think they’ll fund the $5,000 at birth? The best that they’d do is make a bookeeping entry of 1/18th of $5,000 each year into a government trust fund. As it wouldn’t actually be funded, they could probably skip paying any interest. So, that $5,000 in eighteen years wouldn’t be worth anything close to $5,000 today. It’s like GWB tax rebate crap. But, hey, I knew someone with a six figure income that voted for GWB to get that little check; so, it will probably sell.
Ray McGovern:
Bush, Oil — and Moral Bankruptcy
Pot is the biggest cash crop in CA – and this is a huge agricultural state.
Olbermann is doing some serious kissing of the Clinton (Bill) the and Edwards (Elizabeth) ass.
they will all cave. For a few months, the Dems will be the only game in town.
Such smoldering bullshit.
Or better yet. You could give there parents a big tax break and they could save $5000 a year for 18 years and then put the kid thru college or buy it a house.
54-lucid–I talked to a lawyer yesterday and was told, though they used to require 60 days notice, they changed it back to 30 in 2006. So I had no recourse there. Also didn’t have a deposit on my current place, and the new place doesn’t require an entire month’s rent for deposit. The new place was built especially for teachers in the area, so the population is primarily low-paid academics. Soooo fine with me.
The republicans were all talking decriminiaztion last night. even the bat shot crazy ones.
How about taxing the fucking rich and using the collected tax revenues to do something really insane, like make a decent K-12 school system and give every high school graduate a 100% college education? Be nice for 22-year-olds to start out life debt-free instead of $40,000 in the hole, wouldn’t it?
But that makes too much sense. This promise of $5,000 is just a slightly more sophisticated version of three-card monte played on some second-hand card table set up in an alleyway.
Miss D not much happening ….
The Democratic Party came out in favor of Cannibalism, .
Analysts see this as a Progressive opener to an expanded School Lunch Program. Disadvantaged youth as young as Head Sarters now qualify for delayed entry into the meat grinder….
What’s the good word with you, D?….Any news?.
Should have read “100% FREE college education”, sorry.
My typing skills decline when I’m righteously enraged.
if you havent seen it else go check the sewer at PFF and check out the article of the girl assaulted at school. got her wrist broken because she didnt clean something up well enough and walked away
I fast-forwarded thru Keith kneeling before the throne of Bubba. Depressing.
BooHooHooMan, you’ve got it all wrong:
It’s the Republicans who’ve legalised cannibalism, to be practised on anybody who has an annual income of less than $30,000 per year and is not gristly.
The Democrats have protested the cannibalism with a non-binding resolution, and will vote tomorrow to authorise funds to purchase human-sized meat grinders for school cafeterias.
See, now that/s an opposition party. Because nothing scares Republican cannibals like non-binding resolutions.
Shadow, I thought it was because you weren’t used to our keyboards being on the right in this country.
Oh more Brit-bashing. That’s it, we’re taking back the collected works of Shakespeare, all the music of the Beatles, and the James Bond films.
I work my mouse on the left-hand side, I’ll have you know.
I fast-forwarded thru Keith kneeling before the throne of Bubba. Depressing.
To his credit he did play the part about Horowitz and the fake stoning photo.
Dkosser and a bunch of people on DK have been using that photo for awhile now and no mea culpas.
You can have the Beatles, but we get to keep the Stones, since they’re basically American in their shameless greed in their old age and relentless hedonism.
I’ll take “Sympathy for the Devil” over any of that twee “Hey Jude” shit any day.
Oh, and don’t forget to take all of those fucking boy bands back with you, and that soccer guy and his cyborg wife!
😉
The Velvets, live at The Factory (via boing boing).
and that soccer guy and his cyborg wife!
well she is tons more interesting than he is, he barely emotes. And I am unsure he has scored yet. For the team i mean… LOL
************
Congrats Miss D… 😉 pool and balcony and the chihuahua is now a medical necessity! Love it…
Hey, Miss D, just be careful not to get too close to the pool wearing a fancy dress!
😀
One Lawmaker, many votes.
Good news, then, my SS friend! nudge nudge… 😀
Democrats remove Parts from GOP Cannibalism Initiative!
Now I’m seriously bummed out about Myanmar and this country. They have a horrible, brutal military dictatorship that most of the people hate, a massive number of monks and nun from their revered religion staging a protest march and a national, living protest icon in Aung San Suu Kyi and how long did they last before the military put them down?
What have we got to work with in this country? 35% approve of GWB! And a lot of them have guns and would be more than happy to back up the police. 60% would look the other way after they got their fat butts out of the way. A handful of Quakers, Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan leading the remaining five% would only get us all locked up in some KBR constructed and Wackenhut managed concentration camp.
Guess the world will have to wait for us to financially implode.
MitM – #80 – Well, Molly Ivins told us that the TX Leg was one corrupt place. Probably not a big enough deal for her to bothered reporting on.
Madman @ 80
This is nothing new, but a well known and well attested practice frequently commented upon by Texas bloggers during this year’s legislative session, which ended in May. Now, with the Lege safely in recess until early 2009, the ‘real’ investigative reporters on the tee-vee have made a big discovery.
BTW, the legislator interviewed, Rep. Debbie Riddle, is best known for her views on public education:
“Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever?” she demanded in a legislative hearing. “It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it’s cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It’s not a tender heart. It’s ripping the heart out of this country.”
78–I had to overcome the cat-centric policy (I do love them, but am allergic) Although I may have to overcome the stigma: “She has a dog, she must be mental.”
And the tenants I saw coming out of there today–immense diversity! I envision tons of cooking and music exchanges.
wow, she sounds like a sweetheart, moiv.
What the fuck is he waiting for?
Lost in the Roar: War Alarms Drowned by Beltway Bloodlust
Yeah, Madman, Little Debbie’s a real cupcake. Fortunately, we still have Article 7, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution:
“A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”
Jerusalem Post now has a whole section on the Iranian Threat!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/Page/IndexParMult&cid=1145961369337
MitM #88 – yes. And a yes to Ritter’s piece that I read earlier.
In no particular order my brain keeps flashing on Faust, The Emperor’s New Clothes where everyone is deaf, The Pied Piper, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original movie), The Handmaid’s Tale, Alice in Wonderland and of course, 1984. Then the Moonies and Scientologists who are very effective at mind control games, and wonder if the mega-churches and military have learned those from them. All of them wearing their masks of sanity as the evil seeps through the nooks and crannies of this country. Hah, weren’t they all told that the “anti-christs” would be seductive and attractive? Just as the trillions of investment in the MIC over fifty years was useless on 9/11, their religions are useless when the “anti-christs” began arriving. That stupidity, gullibility and arrogant self-rightousness is the devils playground. The echoes of history, all that seemed crazy to our modern eyes and ears, creeps in on a wing of normality that only a helpless minority can detect.
What Are You Paying for the War? – State-by-State Cost Breakdowns
It’s scary Marie, isn’t it?
I think of Philip K Dick’s hallucinatory tails of paranoia, surveillance and thought experiments about identity, with a dollop of Heinlein’s fascism and a heaping mound of Gibson’s cybernetic dystopias myself, but yes, those tales do sum it up, don’t they?
1997 –
Continental US deaths by Muslim terrorists = zero
US deaths from brain-eating amoeba in lakes = six.
When will our DEM Congress make the time to declare war on the amoeba?
MitM #92 – I say we send the bill to the red states. Enough of this shit with them making war and forcing the rest of us to pay for it.
When will our DEM Congress make the time to declare war on the amoeba?
I think they were courting evangelicals, so I doubt they’ll declare war on them.
Unrelated, but:
Eyes in the Skies Document Human Rights Violations in Burma
Rahm is on Maher, and he fucking sucks, god he disgusts me. The audience is having none of his bullshit, his whining that “we don’t have the votes” … pathetic.
I say we send the bill to the red states.
CA (defense industry), IL (big agra) and NY (financial services) are all “blue” states. Plenty of money pouring out of them into continuing the empire, the war, the killing.
It’s all of us.
CA (defense industry)
oh pish tish. There has to be a war version of carbon credits for CA. If there isn’t two guys in a garage south of me will invent it!
WE have lost the most to the war… fatality count wise.
Which I am sure few of us even know.
There has to be a war version of carbon credits for CA
LOL … well, being an ‘Merican, I oversimplified for a rhetorical point. Time for me to reference Jeebus to defend myself!
John Carlos Speaks Out on the Jena 6
Sorry to lift the whole piece, but … well, it’s so damned good, and blunt honesty is so rare these days.
LOL Well San franciscans, the sort with 5 bedroom 7 bath (two “powder rooms”) homes are very hot for carbon credits.
I am sure we will just talk about our “losses” and say nothing of all the $$$ we are making off the war.
catching up on the news. my resistance to Kucinich has been broken down due to the proposed impeachment proposal for Cheney. He’s right. A war with Iran will destroy this country.
HCFM @ 45- you are correct. It’s a hard reflex to suppress, though.
I always listen to Bush.. invariably he tells something. It never fails.
Did anybody read Juan Cole’s translation of the Bush-Aznar-Rice meeting?
It’s creepy to see how much of it he has since repeated again and again in public appearances. It’s like he has this recording in his brain that’s on a perpetual loop and telling him what to say.
oops 105 was reply to Marie at 106… but it did not align in order..
😉
We Brits would also like to repossess our language, since so many Americans mangle it. We’ll let you have it back in a hundred years or so if you can prove you can use it responsibly.
Until then, you’ll have to learn another language. May I suggest French?
test
This is interesting:
http://www.myleftwing.com/viewRating.do?rateCommentId=245603
you know, i’m done with this
you don’t respond substantively, and if you cannot even concede the difference in depth between a beautiful essay that you might see in Vanity Fair, and a slogging piece of argumentation that you might read in Foreign Policy Journal, I really don’t know what to say, but advise a little introspection to see where all your bitterness comes from.
That says nothing about efficacy or reach or anything else. It’s just comparing apples and oranges.
by: thereisnospoon @ Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 14:00:18 PM PDT
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It seems as if thereisnospoon has a few followers. He must be proud.
I see the Dems are “hard at work” again. This time they’re going to waste their time condemning Rush Limbaugh. I have an idea: why don’t they vote on a resolution condemning Bush for his war crimes?
we don’t mangle, we re-invent!
OMFG, when are we going to declare war on the braineatingoamebafacists?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070929/ap_on_he_me/killer_amoeba
May I suggest French?
Oh please – non! A thousand times non.
I think the yanks should be forced to learn the metric system. That’s a whole new language and should keep them busy for a while (although the druggies already have the edge on that learning curve).
new thread
LINK
I suggested French because forcing Americans to learn French and mangle IT in their everyday discourse will bedevil both the Yanks and the French.
That’s what we Brits call a “twofer”.
marie –
it is worth noting that the recent cycle of protests in burma come after a huge hike in the price of gasoline.
i wouldn’t be surprised if a similar sort of event got americans fired up enough to get the cycle of protest->police retaliation->protest->massacre started up here. without fuel, people can’t get to work, and the food doesn’t show up in supermarkets.
bread riots’ll do it.
500% hike in fuel I read in Burma…
I think it will take food riots, as in starvation for America.
They are not happy but they have accepted so much. Loss of private healthcare as part of retirement, then loss of private funded retirement under this guise or another, several wipe out crashes of the market or of a major US business. Rolling boom and bust FOR DECADES, hell we might AS WELL BE Chile… ws it Argentina at one point was printing money so fast they only printed ONE SIDE. Endless rolling white collar “exposure” of criminal practices (and what else are exotic “financial instruments” like the whole sub prime scam?)
The nation is a ponzi schema.
Lunatic nation. No mandated vacation (even), it can all go in a heart beat, no guarantees, nothing. No leverage… At will work nation.
its spilling out into the street. the blogmaids cant keep it in the ailes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-goff