Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Good article

If at First You Don't Succeed, You're in Excellent Company

Self-efficacy and persistence do pay off!

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120940892966150319-lMyQjAxMDI4MDI5OTQyMDk4Wj.html
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This letter asks some important questions


Please be sure to read the Carbonaro letter at the end of this article.  It does not matter what your politics are. This letter  is important.  It appears, from her statement on Larry King's show last week, Jenna Bush is not supporting the Republican candidate in this year's (s)election. Perhaps this letter made an impression on her.
 
 
Inside American Royalty's Security Bubble
by Mike Ferner | April 29, 2008 - 9:26am

Washington, D.C. -- The First Family Security Bubble was nearly pried open for a moment last Friday; but in the end Disneyland remained blessedly undisturbed.

On a particularly warm spring evening, Laura and Jenna Bush alighted from a squadron of black SUVs at the Borders book store in downtown Washington, D.C., right on schedule at 7:00 pm. Flanked by Secret Service agents, they went inside to an area set up for authors to sign books -- yes, sign books. The two Bush women have co-authored a 32-page children's book, "Read All About It," the story of Tyrone, a youngster who is good at everything in school but reading.

In line to have her copy signed, and more importantly, to get a moment to deliver a letter to the authors, waited Gilda Carbonaro, the mother of a U.S. Marine Sergeant who died a quite terrible death in Iraq.

After nearly an hour wait, Gilda approached the table to proffer her book for a signature. "So that they wouldn't see me as threatening, I made sure to introduce myself as a grade school teacher, like Jenna," she said.

The moment she got her signed book back, she took her letter out from within the pages of the book and extended it to Laura and Jenna. Not 500 words long, it was laminated so it would clearly not be in something as suspicious-looking as an envelope.

"At that moment, swooping down out of absolutely nowhere, a Secret Service agent grabbed it out of my hand," Gilda explained. But before she was hustled away, she extracted a promise from the younger Bush to read it.

After her brief encounter with American royalty, the member of Gold Star Families Speak Out said, "If I had the chance, I would've liked to ask Laura Bush, ŒWhat would you consider enough of a real emergency to urge your kids to enlist? If New Jersey was invaded? Your husband constantly tells us that all hangs in the balance in this war. Just what would it take for your family to really risk something?"

You may be interested to read what Gilda Carbonaro wrote to Laura and Jenna Bush. Heaven knows they're not likely to, inside the bubble.

* * *

Laura and Jenna Bush
c/o Borders Books
14th and F Streets NW
Washington, D.C.

April 25, 2008

Dear Laura and Jenna Bush,

As you promote your new children's book, "Read All About It," and advocate for literacy tonight I hope you will take but a few moments to read these heartfelt lines.

I write to you as one of thousands of parents and family members whose loved ones have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan; whose child, parent or spouse has returned blinded or deaf, armless or legless, or unable to ever move their limbs again; or perhaps have returned apparently unharmed, but with nightmares and a ticking timebomb in their minds.

You may think this a grim postscript to an evening's chat about a book for children, but when someone you love has been taken from you forever, or returned so terribly damaged you barely know them, it becomes foremost in your thoughts every waking moment. You then begin to understand what is truly grim. And, I must add, there are those among us who still carry such unspeakable pain and anger they've become all but exhausted.

But many of us have felt exhaustion be replaced by an energy and a clarity of purpose we have never experienced before. One thing that has become clear to us is an answer to the question, "How could anyone send the youth of its nation to invade Iraq?" We see now how differently someone would answer that question if they suffered the anguish of a family member being killed as the result.

Your children, Mrs. Bush, are safe and I am glad for you. But I wonder, have you ever urged them to enlist in this heroic adventure? Your husband has told us many times how important this cause is. Your children appear well qualified, and as part of the First Family you've no doubt taught them the value of demonstrating leadership for the nation.

Why, then, has the price for this war been paid only by people like my son, Marine Corps Sgt. Alessandro Carbonaro, who died May 10, 2006, eight days after being horrifically burned in an IED blast in Al Anbar Province, Iraq?

Can you not see the simple, basic unfairness of asking others to do what you yourself are unwilling to do? Have you drifted so far from an understanding of fundamental justice that you cannot see the contradictions apparent to so many of us?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are as real as the knot in our stomachs and the ache in our hearts. It is time -- and past time -- that you face these questions without blinking or dodging and give us a satisfactory answer.

Most Sincerely,
Gilda Carbonaro
Bethesda, Maryland

_______

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Booming Mystery in Maryland

Whatever can it be? This is one for the books! What in h--- is our government cooking up for us now? Or is it some kind of a warning from aliens? Take a look at this article and see what you think:

http://wjz.com/local/baltimore.county.mystery.2.710503.html

So many mysteries--so little time!
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Sunday, April 27, 2008

Sympathy for Dick Cheney

by David Swanson


See entire essay at: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14277


EXCERPT: ...imagine if we were to hold impeachment hearings that
meticulously laid before the public the lead role Cheney played in
fabricating a false case for attacking Iraq. Americans admire a strong
work ethic, and Cheney worked very long hours for many months without a
break, relentlessly badgering the CIA, the Pentagon, Congress, and the
media. And we put him to all that trouble because of our predictable
failure to understand the need to attack Iraq for the reasons Cheney and
his friends had so straightforwardly presented in the papers of the
Project for a New American Century. If we had supported the real
reasons, Cheney would never have had to go to all that trouble to invent
fake ones. Now guilt may begin to set in, which will only add to the
sympathy we feel for Dick Cheney.

And, remember that when certain busybodies exposed some of Cheney's
laboriously constructed lies, he was forced to go to even more trouble
to destroy their careers or expose their wives as secret agents. Do you
think that was pleasant? Do you think Cheney enjoyed exposing a CIA
agent? This is the same man who is presently constructing a
multi-million dollar house in Virginia just a few minutes' walk from CIA
headquarters. Don't you think he'd prefer to get along with the
neighbors and not have been caused all that grief? Imagine the
sympathetic figure Dick Cheney might become if impeachment hearings
examined where he obtained his millions of dollars, profiting from a
company to which he directed no-bid contracts for the work of pretending
to reconstruct a country he had just destroyed.

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Powerful Boston Legal argument to Supreme Court

See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GG7sj2APpc

Boston Legal takes apart the Supreme Court

from C & L, John Amato

I’ve posted a few of Alan Shore’s rants on C&L before, (Boston Legal’s Alan Shore on Gitmo, Boston Legal to the rescue) but this one about the Supreme Court just rocked.

ABC and David Kelley should be commended for keeping this show running. Kelley writes some of the best politically informative–holds no punches back—opinions on TV today. He really exposes every conflict of interest that the members of the Roberts Court have. I hope to get the transcript eventually. You are getting so far off point.

Shore: My point is, who are you people? You’ve transformed this court from being a governmental branch devoted to civil rights and liberties into a protector of discrimination, a guardian of government, a slave to monied interests and big business and today, Hallelujah, you seek to kill a mentally disabled man…

Crooks and Liars

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Saturday, April 26, 2008

GREAT ESSAY! GET OUT, HILLARY!!!

GET OUT, HILLARY!!
by David Green

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14249

This excellent essay tells the truth about the Clintons. We are seeing them in full hypocritical regalia these days. Everything Professor Green says about them in his essay is being proven by their own actions. Their masks have dropped and what we see is not a pretty sight. WHAT will it take to make her quit????

Now the Dems are saying what also is no doubt the truth--the Clintons are trying to ruin it for Obama this time around--making sure McCain is (s)elected, so the way will be clear for Hillary to run again in 2012. It's like a Shakespearean drama -- most like Macbeth, methinks, with the same kind of dark intrigue. :-(
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Friday, April 25, 2008

Bush is now hated even in Texas: Peggy Noonan

Too bad Peggy and the Texans waited so long to recognize that the emperor has no clothes. Millions of us saw this (and warned about it!) in 1999 when the idiot was running for president the first time--trailing a mile-wide stench of Texas pollution and arrogant elitism and entitlement behind him. All of us have had to suffer because of the blinders the Republican conservatives wore then (some still wear them and will no doubt die defending Bush, Cheney, and the neocons).

However, now that most of them have taken off the Bush blinders, they are putting on, instead, McCain blinders--which are not in the least bit different--and they're calling it new seeing. God help us all if they once again succeed in sticking the rest of us with their choice. That might just happen, with the help of the "liberal" (HAH!) media that helped bring about 8 years of Bush/Cheney and seems determined to deify McCain.

But all is not lost--yet. It appears even Bush's daughter Jenna is thinking of abandoning the Republican party's nominee. This gives me hope that some intelligence actually exists in the Bush bloodline--and perhaps in the majority of Republican voters, too. As for the mainstream media, except for MSNBC, I have given up all hope of the corporate-controlled U.S. journalists (so-called) bringing us anything but ditto-head propaganda, cherry-picked and chosen by Rupert Murdock and his elitist cohorts--and disseminated by the Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter type zombies under their command.


http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

EXCERPT:

In Lubbock, Texas – ...the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president's poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one. He has left on-the-ground conservatives...feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone. This will have impact down the road.

The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma's hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don't like it. I'm certain Gate 14 doesn't.

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Thursday, April 24, 2008

James Zogby: End It Now, Hillary!

...and, boy, does he EVER have it RIGHT! The Dems will not come together to support Clinton--and may not come together to support Obama if she keeps this farce up. She cannot win, no way--no how. She needs to quit. She and Bill Clinton have lost so much more than they know by their narcissicistic insistence that they are owed the presidency again. If they persist in their folly, they will never be looked on again as leaders in the Democratic party. I believe Hillary has already lost her chance to revive herself for another run in the future. I, for one, would never vote for her after this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/end-it-now_b_98265.html

There is a bizarre, and even tragic, unreality to the continuing drama playing out in the Democratic primary. Partly due to the seven-week gap between the first 42 contests and this week's match-up in Pennsylvania, and partly due to the tenacity and temerity of the Clintons, this election is being presented as close and not yet over.

But it is over.

See the rest at:

James Zogby: End It Now - Politics on The Huffington Post

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GIVE IT UP, HILLARY!!! You're Killing Us!

The Daily Show: The Long, Flat, Seemingly Endless Bataan Death March To The White House

C & L

video_wmv Download Play video_mov Download Play (h/t Heather)

Jon Stewart looks at the absurdity of the media coverage of the Pennsylvania primary and the punditocracy’s need to use life and death analogies to heighten the drama as well as the ever-shifting goal posts employed by the Clinton campaign and their supporters to not count Hillary out of the race yet.

So what it comes down to is that you would win the nomination if Democrats were Republicans? That sounds like one tremendous “if” you to the process.

Crooks and Liars

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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Pope's Visit: Shame or Disgrace?

As a former Catholic, I agree completely with this essay by Stephen Pizzo. The Pope's Visit: Shame or Disgrace? http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14188
The cable news networks devoted far too much coverage to the visit of this man who tried to keep pedophilia in the church a secret...and who allowed buggering priests to switch parishes and continue their molestation of children. I turned off the TV whenever they showed anything about him, just as I do whenever the lying Bush comes on the screen. UGH! to both of them. I am sorry to see so many Catholics are fooled by his "Faux Holiness." Just my own opinion, of course.

EXCERPT:
The very week Texas officials were rescuing 400 kids from a Mormon cult that allows grown men to have their way with underage girls, the Pope got a total pass on his Church's own sins against the rights of humans.

But, clearly, if you're the Pope you get a pass for discriminating against women and running a well-oiled pedophile protection racket for decades. You can come to America and get royal treatment from politicians and the press.

Hell, no one less than the President of the United States himself picked him up at the airport!

Then again, why should that surprise me? After all, George W. Bush and Benedict have a lot in common. They both prefer to keep the wings of the human spirit well trimmed. (You can say that again!)

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Elizabeth Edwards Responds to McCain's "cheap shot" accusation

Elizabeth Edwards Responds To McCain’s “Cheap Shot”

C & L

Think Progress:

John McCain accused me of taking a “cheap shot” on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” yesterday for noting that people with preexisting conditions, such as he and I have, would not be able to get health care under his plan –- and that he perhaps was not as sensitive to this problem as he should be since he has been in government health care his whole life.

Sen. McCain noted that he was not receiving government health care for the six years he was in captivity. That is true. But it has nothing to do with my point — which is that the problem with Sen. McCain’s health care plan is not how it affects us –- but how it affects the tens of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions who, unlike Sen. McCain and myself, do not have the resources to pay for quality health care.

That is not a cheap shot, it is a potentially life and death question for tens of million of Americans. And it is a question Sen. McCain must address.

McCain’s health care plan is centered around the idea that we’d be better off if more Americans bought health coverage on their own, rather than receiving it through a job or government program. But maybe since he has never purchased insurance in the individual market, he does not know the challenge it presents for Americans with preexisting conditions. Read on…

Crooks and Liars

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It's EARTH DAY -- ENJOY HER BEAUTY

For a beautiful poem about our Earth, go to: http://www.wowzone.com/e-text.htm

I hope Pennsylvania voters who care about the planet are out there voting today for Obama. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an intelligent president who realizes (as said by Chief Seattle in 1854) that "Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.”
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Bill Hicks -- a man who told the TRUTH (~.~)

...and I mean the REAL truth. I LOVE it! Check out the short videos at:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/306.html

If you haven't yet seen the "Brain" video by the neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, you can see it at: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/304.html
You'll never forget it, once you've seen it!
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Monday, April 21, 2008

Interesting article -- homeopathy vs. allopathic medicine

http://www.newswithviews.com/Dean/carolyn29.htm

Because our medical industry was taken over early in the 20th century by the AMA and their partnered pharmaceutical companies, which immediately ushered out effective treatments like homeopathy, present-day doctors have been trained only on pharmaceuticals. That's all most doctors know about. Pills. And the docs are wined, dined, and otherwise bribed by Big Pharma company lobbyists to prescribe their particular pills. The competition between Big Pharma companies is ferocious. Doctors prescribe pills that cause side effects and then other pills to stem those side effects, but which then cause their own side effects -- and on and on and on.....

To read more about the AMA's attack on homeopathy and resultant deleterious effects on the human race, read "The Worst Crime of the Century" at: http://www.newswithviews.com/Dean/carolyn29.htm

On a somewhat lighter note, an essay by Steve Martin entitled Side Effects can be read at: http://www.compleatsteve.com/essays/side_effects.htm
It is one of my favorite humorous essays! It starts out: DOSAGE: take two tablets every six hours for joint pain. SIDE EFFECTS: This drug may cause joint pain
And it goes on from there. Many of you will recognize the truth of it from your own prescriptions...
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Iron Mountain, PA -- storage facility for history and govt. SECRETS

Informative video re underground storage facility that could give info.
about us to aliens or whatever kind of life comes after us once we have
managed to annihilate humans out of existence, which we seem well on our
way to doing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aou6c2MOmg

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McCain: A Question of Temperament

Please read this article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902224.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
and decide for yourself if this is the man whose finger you want on the nuclear button. The article neglected to tell how McCain once verbally abused his wife, calling her the nasty "c" word, in front of aides and reporters. Her offense? She had lovingly ruffled her fingers in his hair and casually mentioned his hair was getting a little thinner... See: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_temper_boiled_over_in_92_0407.html

EXCERPT:

"I've witnessed a lot of his temper and outbursts," [Senator] Smith said. "For me, some of this stuff is relevant. It raises questions about stability. . . . It's more than just temper. It's this need of his to show you that he's above you -- a sneering, condescending attitude. It's hurt his relationships in Congress. . . . I've seen it up-close."

Smith, whose service in the Navy included a tour on the waters in and around Vietnam, said he stood stunned one day when McCain declared around several of their colleagues that Smith wasn't a real Vietnam War veteran. "I was in the combat zone, off the Mekong River, for 10 months," Smith said. "He went on to insult me several times. I wasn't on the land; I guess that was his reasoning. . . . He suggested I was masquerading about my Vietnam service. It was very hurtful. He's gotten to a lot of people [that way]."...

"I don't think that [McCain] forgets anyone who ever opposed him, that he can ever really respect or trust them again," said Karen Johnson, the targeted secretary-turned-state senator (another woman who was once verbally abused by McCain--years later, still carrying his anger against her, he tried to keep her from getting a job). "That goes for people here and overseas."


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An Army of Thugs?

Desperate for recruits, Army, Marines dramatically increase the waivers
for convicted felons. See:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Army_doubled_felony_waivers_for_recruits_0421.html
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Sunday, April 20, 2008

EXPOSE' on Manipulative DoD Propaganda Racket

Typical Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld chicanery!

The New York Times exposes manipulative DoD propaganda racket

Through newly obtained internal documents, The New York Times has uncovered an elaborate PR campaign run by the Pentagon that coached former military officials — or as they’re known on television, Serious Independent Military Experts — on how best to shill for Donald Rumsfeld during the fallout from the “General’s Revolt,” when numerous high-ranking retired Generals broke long standing tradition and began speaking out harshly against the former Secretary and his prosecution of the War in Iraq.

video_wmv Download Play video_mov Download Play YouTube

The full article is lengthy at 11 pages, but it’s a stellar exposé of how politicized, coordinated and deceitful the media campaign is under Bush. With the assistance of Peter Pace, Rumsfeld would literally convene meetings with former military brass — who, according to the article, consisted of “more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants” — and conspire on how best to manage the press. Worse still, these compromised soldiers would then manipulatively go on television as Serious Independent Experts to parrot administration talking points and secure lucrative defense contracts. The Military-Industrial Complex is not alive and well, but thriving under the auspices of the Bush administration.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said. […] It was, he said, “psyops on steroids”

And it wasn’t limited to the mainstream media alone. Bloggers were also hired and paid to shape opinions at home. But don’t be surprised Sunday when this story is neglected in favor of endless discussions about bowling scores and various other “distractions.”


(Read the rest of this story…)

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Saturday, April 19, 2008

Pollution stifling flowers' fragrance -- upsetting nature cycle


Why flowers have lost their scent

Pollution is stifling the fragrance of plants and preventing bees from pollinating them – endangering one of the most essential cycles of nature


http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/why-flowers-have-lost-their-scent-812168.html
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If ABC's Gibson/Stephanopoulos questioned Lincoln/Douglas in 1858

This is how the debate would have gone--oh how low we have sunk in the last 150 years!:

April 17, 2008

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 (Slight Return)

by publius

Presidential candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held this debate on April 16, 1858 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

MODERATORS:
CHARLIE GIBSON, ABC NEWS
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS


MR. GIBSON: So we're going to begin with opening statements, and we had a flip of the coin, and the brief opening statement first from Mr. Lincoln.

LINCOLN: Thank you very much, Charlie and George, and thanks to all in the audience and who are out there. I appear before you today for the purpose of discussing the leading political topics which now agitate the public mind.

We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think Mr. Douglas loves America as much you do?

LINCOLN: Sure I do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But who loves America more?

LINCOLN: I’d prefer to get on with my opening statement George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: If your love for America were eight apples, how many apples would Senator Douglas’s love be?

LINCOLN: Eight.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Proceed.

LINCOLN: In my opinion, slavery will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me, did an Elijah H. Johnson attend your church?

LINCOLN: When I was a boy in Illinois forty years ago, yes. I think he was a deacon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you aware that he regularly called Kentucky “a land of swine and whores”?

LINCOLN: Sounds right -- his ex-wife was from Kentucky.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why did you remain in the church after hearing those statements?

LINCOLN: I was eight.

DOUGLAS: This is an important question George -- it's an issue that certainly will be raised in the fall.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce him?

LINCOLN: I’d like to get back to the divided house if I may.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce and reject him?

LINCOLN: If it will make you shut up, yes, I denounce and reject him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce and reject him with sugar on top?

LINCOLN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No takesies-backsies?

LINCOLN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whoa, so you would consider a takesie-backsie?

LINCOLN: That’s not what I meant…

DOUGLAS: When I was 11, my grandpappy and I chopped wood and shot bears.

LINCOLN: Ahem, I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect slavery will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you love America this much (extending fingers), this much (extending hands slightly), or thiiiiiis much (extending hands broadly)?

LINCOLN: I think we covered this…

GIBSON: If I may interrupt…

LINCOLN: Please.

GIBSON: I noticed, Mr. Lincoln, that your American flag pin was upside down…

LINCOLN: Yes, the wind caught it. Now, as I was saying...

GIBSON: We get questions about this all the time over at Powerline and on Hannity’s talk show. Mr. Douglas has said this is a major vulnerability for you in the fall. So I’ll ask again – do you love America?

LINCOLN: (scowling with a forced smile). Yes.

GIBSON: If your love for America were ice cream, what flavor would it be?

LINCOLN: (pausing with disgust and turning back to camera) Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.

DOUGLAS: He didn’t answer the question Charlie. This fall, that question is going to be on the minds of the American public. I’ve proudly stated that my love for America is Very Berry Strawberry.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask it another way. If Elijah Johnson were chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, would you eat it? Or would you decline to eat it?

DOUGLAS: Personally, as for me, I would decline to eat it.

LINCOLN (shaking his head): Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination -- piece of machinery, so to speak -- compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ll get to Dred Scott in the second hour, time willing, but I want to get back to the ice cream question. And that's what we'll do, after the break.

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Letter from a small-town Pennsylvanian

Interviews with small-town Pennsylvanians are revealing something important and unexpected--these people are not angry at Barack Obama for telling the truth about their feelings--they intend to vote for him! Whites and blacks alike--from farmers to motorcycle enthusiasts to gun-toting hunters to housewives (all who voted for Bush & Cheney and have always voted Republican)--are saying they are sick of Bushit and want someone intelligent in the White House. It will be interesting to see the voting results on Tuesday.

Letter from a small-town Pennsylvanian

by Marylee Smithwick

I am one of the "bitter" people living in a small steel town in Pennsylvania. My father passed away from the silt that he swallowed for forty years. My husband is withering away from the same cancer-causing dust he swallowed for nearly forty years too. The bills are mounting and our income decreasing. The blood, sweat and tears were not counted when they sent our small town livelihood over seas.

No one stepped in to give affordable health care to my disappearing husband. No one took the time to look at the dying towns that surround us. Hillary Clinton went to her middle class supporters and glanced, as all before her did, at the For Sale signs from foreclosures, and the growing homeless population in Pennsylvania.

I watched her do an Irish dance as she pressed the flesh of what is left of our so-called middle class, who are soon to become the new poor. Where is our Governor, who I am very disappointed in? Somewhere dancing with Hillary and looking at the subtle segregation that has quietly existed in this state -- and no one tries to bring about change.

Barack Obama sees us, he sees the poverty dressed up in lamb's clothing. All around, people have downsized their lives because they don't earn a decent living wage after having made three, four or more times as much in the factories and mills that are nearly gone -- but not forgotten.

Looking out from most windows in every small town, they can see the skeletal remains of their once flourishing hometown. There are many that have stood by graves, and in unemployment lines, and watched their schools close, and fought to keep their homes -- and lost.

"Bitter" is a good word, to describe some of what I feel -- but "mad as hell" are a few better words.

On another note, I have a son that is on his way to Iraq for his third or forth tour. I am not only mad but scared. Why am I frustrated with Washington politics? That is a question that everyone that voted for Bush twice should be ashamed to answer. They have only to look into the mirror and see the cause of our frustration.

I am also saddened to watch the campaign tactics, the bashing and bruising of one another -- and the media putting their own twist on everything. Each candidate has to be dead tired and frustrated with the millions of opinions they face -- favorable and unfavorable -- everyday on this trying trail to the White House.

If you want to twist someone's words, try twisting Bush's and run a clean campaign.

I'm a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and soon to be a great grandmother who wants a positive change for America. Within the past forty-odd years I have told my children and grandchildren they can be anything they want to be. They were raised in a generation where black people were told education would help you become anything you desire. Those words were just hope with limits. The day I cast my vote for Barack Obama, that hope will be a reality with absolutely no limits. Thank God that I am alive to see Dr. King's dream come to fruition, and still young enough to appreciate and share it.

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Oprah's show today -- beautifully inspiring!

Oprah talked with people from all over the world about how her online classes with Eckhart Tolle on Mondays are affecting them and changing their lives. There were some exceptional stories. One woman who is dying of cancer says it changed her whole perspective of life and death--and she no longer fears death. She was radiant with happiness--and life! An Army captain serving in Iraq told how he carries a small card with reminders he has copied from Tolle's book, "A New Earth." He is under siege daily--is near Sadr City--and says it has helped him greatly to realize he is the Awareness behind his thoughts and emotions. As Tolle points out, we say "my thoughts" and "my emotions" -- who is this "me/my" that claims ownership? A good question to ask oneself.

Thank you, Oprah, for all the good you are doing on this planet (her Monday classes are reaching millions!). As Tolle's book says, "Humanity is faced with a stark choice: evolve or die." Oprah is doing her part in helping Earth's citizens to evolve.

If you have not tuned into the Monday classes online and wish to do so, just go to Here's your special link to access the webcast
All of the classes are available to be viewed there (there have been 6 so far, each one covering a chapter in Tolle's book. You may be surprised at how interesting these classes are--and at the great questions from people around the planet.
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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

McCain's Character --Incidents in his life give insight

There is a basic meanness to McCain's character that cannot be overlooked or dismissed. He has an ugly temper that strikes out without considering the feelings of others or the ramifications of his actions. It's bad enough when he is hitting on members of his own family--or even members of Congress--but, as President, this kind of man could be extremely dangerous for our country. For how he treats his wife, see: incident between John and Cindy McCain

His reputation in the media as a "maverick" does not stand up to scrutiny, either. He is willing to sell out his "principles" and turn on a dime for political advantage. He will bring us more of the same that we have had with Bush and Cheney. Oh Please, God, not That!

Cliff Schecter's new book The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t will be an important one to read for anyone interested in John McCain's true character. The book, which will come out next month, is full of exhaustively researched tidbits on John McCain that his buddies in the media are loathe to bring up and which point out the lie in his carefully crafted reputation as a maverick. Another incident shows McCain’s character as it truly is. This one exemplifies how McCain’s rhetoric doesn’t often match up with his voting record, and moreover, how he frames the discussion in combat terms, as if to remind anyone who disagrees that he has “war hero” status:

McCain made a big speech when Republicans were voting for Bush’s bill to get rid of the Estate Tax. He called those who supported it “whiners” while those fighting were “sacrificing for their country” and that it should not be “eliminated during a time of war.” He has now flip-flopped and wants to make it permanent (and even took the lead in May of ‘06 to do it!). There has been more out there on his flip-flop on Bush’s taxes overall, but not much if anything on this specific statement and position. And it is important, as the Estate Tax is specifically for the rich. Voting for that bill back then, however, was “a far cry from sacrifice.”

Cliff has been working on The Real McCain for quite some time and he promises there are many more incidents that show John McCain as he really is, such as his fisticuffs with Sen. Rick Renzi after McCain repeatedly tried to humiliate him by calling him "Boy."

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Monday, April 07, 2008

Crooks and Liars

60 Minutes: Doug Feith once again earns his nickname

(click image to see full 12:00 report)

As John noted the other day, Douglas Feith is one of the most deceitful war architects, a difficult distinction to attain considering the company. On “60 Minutes” this Sunday, Feith was confronted by Steve Kroft with all the “miscalculations” he made as one of the primary enablers of the administration’s disastrous march to war.

** For those of you who may have forgotten, General Tommy Franks is on record calling Feith “the stupidest f*cking guy on the planet.” **

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It’s quite remarkable that Donald Rumsfeld of all people — in a memo Feith calls “the Parade of Horribles” — predicted exactly what the “downsides” to war would be. Even more remarkable is that it seems he took every step necessary to fulfill his own doomsday prophesies. Literally every single one of these has come to fruition.

Kroft summarizes some of them:

* the possibility that the U.S. could become so absorbed with its Iraq effort that it would pay inadequate attention to other serious problems;

* that war could cause more harm and entail greater costs than expected;

* that it would not go on for two to four years, but eight to 10 years;

* that terrorist networks could improve their recruiting and fundraising as a result of the U.S. being depicted as anti-Muslim;

* that Iraq could experience ethnic strife among Kurds, Sunnis and Shia;

* the war could damage America’s relationship with allies and its reputation in the world community.

Feith’s response?:


(Read the rest of this story…)

Crooks and Liars

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

Good question--Where did myth of GOP fiscal responsibility come from?

See article below:

Bush Military Spending Recalls Stalin and Hitler


The relentless increases in Pentagon spending President Bush has pushed through since taking office recall the actions of Hitler and Stalin prior to the outbreak of World War Two.

Both European dictators escalated their war machines and both dictators showed little concern when their domestic economies and workers' incomes suffered as a result. In 1933, his first year in power, Hitler pushed up German arms spending from less than a billion to four billion Reichsmarks. He jumped that figure to 10 billion in 1936; 17 billion in 1938 and 38 billion in 1939, the year he invaded Poland. Similarly, Stalin steadily boosted military spending in the Thirties from two billion rubles to 41 billion rubles.

As historian Richard Overy put it in "The Dictators" (W.W. Norton & Co.): "The share of defence spending in the state budget in Germany reached 54% in 1938/39; in the Soviet Union it reached one-third of the budget by 1940." The commitment to military spending, he says, "was historically exceptional" and created by the late 1930s "something approaching a war economy in peacetime."

Today, President Bush is right up there with the European dictators. His military spending has soared from $291 billion to a lavish $515 billion and he's proposed a stunning $651 billion next year. The Friends Committee on National Legislation, of Washington, D.C. says that 44 cents out of every dollar in his proposed record 2009 budget will go for war, compared with 2.2 cents for social programs. Typically, he calls for cutting 47 education programs while handing the generals 8% more.

Under Bush, U.S. military spending is now roughly equal to the combined total of all other nations. What's more, Uncle Sam is the world's Number One arms peddler, selling about half of all weapons bought by the developing nations, and showing few scruples about sales to dictators. The Center for Defense Information reported last year that U.S. arms sales to 25 countries it studied increased 400 percent over 9/11.

Of course, the two criminal 20th Century dictators didn't build their war machines for sport, and neither has Mr. Bush. By mutual agreement in 1939, the "CommuNazis," as they were known, carved up Poland, Hitler invading from the West and Stalin from the East. In the summer of 1941, Overy writes, Hitler remarked "what one needs and does not have, one must conquer." That's not much different from Bush's view of Middle East oil. Having made war on Iraq based on lies and having subjugated that small country by force, Bush is pushing its cabinet to put through a giveaway law to profit the oil companies. And he's threatening oil-rich Iran with an attack.

As for the quality of life on their home fronts, Stalin and Hitler didn't mind sacrificing their people one bit to a war economy. Neither of them tolerated labor unions. In the Kremlin-controlled economy, real hourly wage rates in 1937 were 40% lower than in 1928 and by 1940 they were down another five to ten percent, Overy writes. There was food on the table for Hitler's workers but few consumer goods to buy. In 1932, consumer industries accounted for 40 percent of Germany's investment. By 1938, this had shrunk to only 17 percent, a trend similar to that in Russia under Stalin. Under Bush, the real wages of Americans have stagnated as well. Despite their fantastic productivity, U.S. workers are earning less today in real dollars than five years ago. And restrictive laws make union organizing tougher than ever.

As ever more Americans lose their jobs and homes, favored Pentagon contractors reap record profits, not necessarily from operating on free market principles. As the Center for Public Integrity noted, only one of the top 10 defense contractors "won a majority of its contracts through full and open competition. All the rest collected most of their contract dollars through sole source contracts or other no-bid procedures." CPI identified Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, General Electric, Carlyle Group, and Newport News.

One might think in these hard times -- when the price of a gallon of gas has doubled in good part because of the Iraq war -- the White House might ask this supine Congress for a windfall profits tax on the oil majors. With two former oil executives holding the two top jobs, though, that's not likely to happen, any more than the Iraqi people will ever see the profits from their oil resource as long as George Bush is president.

The bottom line is that the people both of Iraq and America are suffering from a needless war to profit USA's military-industrial complex. Recall that Thomas Jefferson opposed a standing navy because he had observed the way the Royal Navy pushed Great Britain to wage wars. If you don't remember that bit of history, it's safe to say President Bush doesn't, either.
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Friday, April 04, 2008

Air-powered cars

Cars that drive on compressed air -- autos of the future? Fill up at the
air pump? Will the oil magnates allow it? Remember what happened to
Nikola Tesla when he announced to J.P. Morgan that he had discovered
"free energy" from the electromagnetic energy of the earth. His
research $$ was taken away, Morgan made the plans disappear, and Tesla
stayed a poor man for the rest of his life. So, given that corporate
greed like that is still rampant in today's world, unless the oil
magnates and our governments can find ways to make this pay off for
them, air-powered cars may not make it onto the world stage in any great
numbers--until all the oil runs out, or until they figure out a way to
charge lots of $$ for air.

Stay tuned..... but first see the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Crooks and Liars

Jon Stewart Exposes Bush’s “Surge” Doublespeak

From Crooks and Liars

When casualties go up, we’re winning. When casualties go down, we’re winning. Don’t worry…It’s all good.

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From the C&L Vault: Jon Stewart gets hypnotized by GOP Propaganda.

Crooks and Liars

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