They Never Learn Dept.: Last August, our dailies spent two weeks hyperventilating about lane closures resulting in huge I-5 backups that never materialized. No matter. Top headline in the P-I‘s web site (and on tee-vee) today: lane closures coming for two weeks resulting in huge I-405 backups! Even worse: the traffic mess will interfere with your Christmas shopping!! (Seriously. This was the focus of the P-I’s article.) Smelling salts, please: the article made no mention of August’s I-5 experience, in which people changed their travel habits accordingly. But we can’t have a daily paper stuffed full of ads from the malls suggest that you avoid I-405 and patronize your local neighborhood stores instead, now, can we?
Same Theme, Take Two: Three days ago, we were breathlessly told that the Port Townsend-Whidbey Island car ferry run was going to be out of service “for a year or more.” Today, we learn that it’ll be back next month. Moral: Don’t believe the hype.
In another Much Ado About Nothing story, everyone is milking another day of coverage out of the SLUT by reporting — gasp! — that someone left five ball bearings in the tracks Wednesday. (Great. Now every teen delinquent in the region knows a simple way to get yourself on tee-vee and the front page.) The P-I’s story in particular was notable for a closing quote by King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson John Urquhart:
“We have no idea what their motive was, no idea who put that there and we’re not going to speculate.”
This just after P-I reporter Scott Gutierrez had run a paragraph of exactly that sort of speculation-by-innuendo:
Despite civic leaders hailing the $52 million streetcar line, it has been controversial among area residents. During the opening run, a bicyclist group organized a protest to call attention to the dangers of streetcars for bicyclists.
What, exactly, does that have to do with the ball bearing incident? Shall we spell it out?
And, to round out our local bad media day, a tale of two headlines.
The Seattle Times: “McDermott votes against Christmas resolution to protest Bush veto.”
The P-I: “McDermott: Christmas vote was jab at bill’s GOP sponsor.” Which in turn conflicted with the story’s lede, a third, particularly treacly non-explanation from Mickey D: “Christmas is really about children…A children’s holiday, if you will.”
Barf. On so many levels.
Hard to tell whether it’s sloppy reporting, or Sunny Jim saying stupid things while trying to make a non-story go away. Or both.
Nationally: War on Terror Watch #1: The House yesterday passed a controversial and sadly redundant bill to ban waterboarding and “other harsh interrogation tactics.” Controversial: nearly 200 reps, most Republicans, voted for torture, something unthinkable even ten years ago. Redundant: didn’t we already pass a bill banning torture two years ago? Aren’t we already signatories, quaint or not, to the Geneva Conventions? Naturally, George Bush issued an immediate veto threat against a measure he already basically signed into law in early 2006 (with a signing statement saying, correctly, that he’d ignore the law).
War on Terror Watch #2: Remember the uproar last year when a bunch of jihadist wannabes were arrested in Miami, with the Bush administration, as usual, using the busts to play Fear Factor with the American public? Never mind.
Officials had acknowledged that the defendants, known as the Liberty City Seven for the depressed section of Miami where they frequently gathered in a rundown warehouse, had never acquired weapons or equipment and had posed no immediate threat. But, the officials said, the case underscored a need for pre-emptive terrorism prosecutions.
The prosecution’s case against the seven, accused of, well, let’s call it hazy plotting to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and other landmarks, fell apart Thursday. A Miami jury acquitted one defendant and a mistrial was declared in the cases of the other six when the jury deadlocked. Naturally, the feds immediately announced that the remaining six would be retried. And naturally, the outcome of the trial is getting a lot less attention than the original arrests.
Instead, the most talked about news story of the day is a sports non-story, given that we knew the general outline of it two years ago. Former Sen. George Mitchell released his long-awaited report on steroids in baseball yesterday, and it was sweeping, but far from complete, offering 91 names of current or former players alleged (at times on very thin evidence) to have taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The Mitchell investigation was essentially a preemptive move by baseball owners to (lightly) investigate themselves, sacrificing the reputations of a relative handful of players so as to hopefully forestall any federal or criminal investigation, which would turn up far more names in what was by most accounts a drug culture pervasive in the sport for over a decade. Roger Clemens (based on one person’s uncorroborated account) was the biggest of yesterday’s sacrificed reputations. Barry Bonds has been a lightning rod for steroids criticism and headlines because he has been black, surly, and very, very good for a long time, and now you can add Clemens, who has been white, surly, and also very, very good for a long time.
Twelve former Seattle Mariners were among the 91 named in the Mitchell report (but, after Jose Guillen was dumped this fall, no current ones). Note that Bret Boone, frequently suspected of steroid use in his Mariner heyday, was not named. (Neither, thank God, was Edgar Martinez or Jay Buhner.) But that itself means nothing. Mitchell had no subpoena power, and only two current players would talk with him. Most of those accused has ties with at least one of two people who did talk, former trainers for the Mets and Yankees. Seattle Times reporter Geoff Baker, in his Mariners blog, had the most succinct take of the day on the report:
Tip of the iceberg stuff. We’ve got all these names pouring out based mainly on the sworn declarations of two people — Radomski and Brian McNamee. Just imagine how many we’d uncover if Mitchell had the power to force everyone to talk to him under oath.
Or imagine if we had a news media that didn’t often spend its time covering trivia and even screwing that up.
“In another Much Ado About Nothing story, everyone is milking another day of coverage out of the SLUT by reporting — gasp! — that someone left five ball bearings in the tracks Wednesday.”
So let me see if I got this right. Because the project was controversial with some area residents, it shouldn’t be a surprise that someone tried to sabotage the street car.
I suppose if some white people hung a noose in a school after blacks started being bused there, Geov would write “….everyone is milking another day of coverage out the busing by reporting – gasp! – that someone hung a noose in the school!”
BS: Different take: Geov, was shocked that the paper would tell the great liberal malleable minds how to create mayhem on the street car tracks. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (even Killatroll(ATJ), YLB – The Clueless One, and Pelletizer (TM) can figger this out) that one of the finest of the blue city of Seattle placed the ball bearings on the tracks.
Speaking of waterboarding and torture, did anyone know that the guy who invented Kwanzaa also did time for torture and waterboarding?
Like most criminals, he has several names. Maulana Karenga, Ron Karenga, Ron Everett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Karenga
“She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Ms. Davis’s mouth and placed against Ms. Davis’s face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said.”
Merry Kwanzaa. Now open wide, mother fucker.
Geov: Are you afraid to lay the blame where it should be?
Thank goodness for Jose Canseco, who wrote Juiced. Remember how his baseball brethren tried to knock him down? Those Congressional hearings in 2005 were a joke. Rafael Palmiero and Mark McGwire are still fresh in my mind for their comments. Or was it lack of comments…?…
Google Donald Fehr MLB Player Union President and his no steroids test policy in MLB contract negotiations. He needs to have the proverbial noose placed on his neck. If there was real drug testing in baseball, baseball would be berry berry good for me!
Maybe there should be an baseball idiots hall of fame section in Cooperstown. Don Fehr would be the first entry.
So now I wonder if the NHL will look into this? How about MLS? What about Golf? Will some idiot of Pelletizer’s (TM) ilk blame Tiger Woods success on steroids. Mark my words, some liberal asshole will say that in the future.
Puddy remembers!
Was Ron Everett a liberal? YES he is! But in the Pefersser’s world – just a single nut case!
Liberals: Does waterboarding:
Leave torture marks like John McCain had?
Is it like placing leeches (ATJ cousins) on the skin?
Is it caning like they perform in Singapore?
Or how about flogging or whipping in Saudi Arabia for being a woman in a car with a non-relative male?
OR how about getting your right hand severed off for stealing in all Muslim countries?
Or getting your penis cut off for rape as in several African countries? Or how about a clitorectomy like they do in African Arab countries?
Or how about a clitorectomy and penis severing when you abuse your children like in several African countries?
I wonder…
Doesn’t McDimWitt go against the American grain in just about everything he does? Isn’t that why he’s a great Seattle liberal hero; voted in with humongous landslides?
So why would the Seattle liberal who votes for McDimWitt complain when their taxes are increased by their liberal leaders? Isn’t that why they voted against I-960? I asked three days ago when Goldy placed his FF park complaint, you rubber stamp and vote these characters in every election cycle so how can you complain when they perform their really stupid acts year-in, year-out?
So libbies, when tax cuts are passed, please continue to be true to your causes; pay the higher taxes like the sheeple you are in other liberal causes! Otherwise you are living a lie when you accept a tax refund or pay lower taxes on your income tax April 15th? Otherwise how can you spend other people’s money when you know your liberal friends are not paying “their fair share” for your “sacred” causes?
And… when a Seattle liberal gets fed up with their increased tax load and moves to Bellevue and sees his tax load reduced or gets a bigger hovel for the same tax load, why does he continue to vote for those who raised his King County tax share in the first place?
Geov, why aren’t you calling for Ferry system heads to roll over these steel hulled electric ferries and the corrosion they have? Can you imagine a smaller scale ferry disaster like the big ones they had in the mid 90s in Europe? Why do liberals in government seem to waste money in the ferry system? Since the 1950s, not one of the four steel electric ferries has met approved federal safety regulations designed for vessel stability and flotation even in the event of a mishap causing serious flooding. Yet, your Ferry officials kept them going and going and going…
Did you know state lawmakers want those ferries retired and approved their retirement in 2001, but ferry officials instead pursued plans to build new ferries too large to work as replacements. Why can’t liberals listen? Can’t blame Republicans here. We don’t run the system.
Geov, who suspected Bret Boone of ‘Roid use? Please name names!
Don’t worry ATJ, I expect your post as soon as you read this. Why? Because you can’t stand the truth. You are still stuck on stupid! Brain as dense as spent uranium!
I thought waterboarding was a cathartic? You want to make amends for your past misdeeds!
PStupid’s love for torture is on full display.
Reach into your DVD case and pull out the “24” torture porn, PStupid!
Waterboarding leaves no marks? Guess that makes it ok.. What a maroon!
Barf, indeed. SCHIP is for children, Geov misses the connection.
#1: Please lokk up the word ‘conflation’ and let me know what you find. Preface your findings with the phrase: “Let me see if I got this right….” Then proceed to say something completely stupid.
Now that you’ve admitted your addiction, the next step is to acknowledge that you are powerless over it.
Help is available to those who seek it.
http://www.horsesass.org/?p=3593#comment-701589
People are reacting like a bull in a candy shop over this SLUT thing.
re 7: Wax™, Liberals want tax cuts that make a real difference in middle class households, and a return to the income tax rate the rich enjoyed under fiscally responsible Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Capital gains should be taxed as income — even if the money is made in out-of-country investments. People who don’t like to pay their fair share of taxes can pack it up and leave.
On the waterboarding if it is not torture cannot the Americans use it on any suspect for any small crime?
If it is not torture then can the jihadists use it when they capture the American soldiers?
If it is not torture then can all the dictators of the world use it, without legal culpability?
I had thought that George Washington was the one who protested torture and refused to torture British spies even though he imminently needed to learn where the British army was and its intentions and plans. This was an army on the American homeland trying to snuff creation of the nation, which was more of a threat than the terrorists today.
The British said “no, you people are not a regular army so you are not protected by the laws of war.”
Out of this came the prohibition against torture of anybody, regular army or not. Waterboarding and any form of torture (including holding a gun to a prisoner’s head and threatening to kill them — isn’t that the easiest way to get information?) has been illegal for a long time.
I believe internationl law is the supreme law of the land under the US constitution. And under international law.
Marcel:
Good points – the founding fathers (George Washington and others, the US military, the Geneva convention (which we signed onto and have adhered to for years) and our own government have tried Japanese soldiers in WWII and our own soldiers for using waterboading as torture.
But – the Bush adminstration refuses to admit that waterboarding is torture because they OK’d it and would be in serious trouble for doing it IF it is illegal.
Well – torture is illegal and waterboarding is torture. I know this is tough logic for republicans and trolls to follow but: If A = B and and B is illegal – then A is also illegal.
McDermott: Good for him, it is hypocrisy to vote for christmas and not take care of poor kids health.
Why is congress wasting time on a christmas resolution when they can’t fund health care for poor kids? Seems to me there was a little something in the Christmas holiday about taking care of the the poor and the children.
Because of the Bush veto, McDermott is saying he doesn’t want to be a hypocrit and vote for christmas while not living up to the real ideals of the holiday. I don’t buy for a second bush’s excuses on this one: it will break the budget (this from the guy who has wasted trillions on Iraq – the war he said would pay for itself) or (ewwww) socialized medicine. What the hell does he think Medicare is? either we take care of poor sick kids or we don’t.
Seems we have enough money to give tax breaks to the worlds richest oil companies who have had record profits. But Bush and the republicans have always been clear about where their bread is buttered – suck up to rich corporations and screw poor kids.
@17
“I believe internationl [sic] law is the supreme law of the land under the US constitution. And under international law.”
Where do you start with something like that, the utter nonsense or the circular logic?
The US Constitution lays out the rights of the people and the limitations of the Federal & State Governments.
Delbert 19 – The Tenth amendement ended in 1865 when the Union won the Civil War. That established that there is no limit to the power of fed gummint.
@18
McDimwit is such an embarrassment.
BTW, SCHIP would be fine if the legislation included a solid funding mechanism (not tobacco taxes) and restricted access by those people with incomes over, say 150-200% of the poverty level. People at 300% of the poverty level aren’t “poor” by definition and by practice.
We shouldn’t torture captured enemy combatants. Irregulars, caught out of uniform – using the locals as human shields, should be treated just as they’ve been treated for hundreds of years by every army on earth, shot by firing squads…
Decade of Sleaze Headline Update: “At a campaign event in Iowa, one of Ken Starr’s aides plopped down next to me. He wanted to know when reporters would begin to look into Bill Clinton’s postpresidential sex life.” (This comes from The Atlantic article that the other Rabbit, the impostor, told me to read. When he yells ‘Hop!’ I whimper ‘How high?’ Excerpt quoted via fair use, fair trade, free trade, fair tax, etc.: Atlantic, December 2007, page 66.)
Oh wait. Sex fiend Ken Starr doesn’t have aides or AIDS in Iowa. A closer look shows that Senator Obama’s aides want us to take a closer look at Bill Clinton’s sex life. We have, and black activist Andrew Young knows where Willy’s willy has been: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=breSVtVYSmo .
Everybody knows that the former Second Black President is a busy man, but the other Rabbit threw a curve yesterday. Something about President Clinton lying. About a blow job. Rang no bells, so I did some research. Here’s the rest of the story: http://z.about.com/d/political....._buddy.jpg .
Let us pray that America’s busy Second Black President doesn’t have a thing for rabbits.
Pudwhacker at 4:
You might want to print this out and fame it:
With the exception of your last sentence (baseball is not political in the liberal/conservative sense, anyway).
I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU!
MLF has not forgotten!
PS. Bret Boone should have been on that list.
Mark: David Irons writes that the pivotal point of Constitutional devolution happened in the 1920s. In a mostly forgotten decision, the Supreme Court abrogated 130+ years of precedent and voided resideual rights held by the states. Before that time, the ten Bill of Rights amendments were applicable only in cases that were clearly federal. After the mid-20s, the leviathan State imposed its will and caprices on each individual state.
That’s why the Establishment Clause was not a matter of dispute until FDR’s post-packed Court federalized it. Before the 1920s, the Supreme Court would not have presumed to dictate to a town or school about its religious observances.
Jefferson made up the Wall of Separation in 1802, but not until the 1940s (when Hugo Black, a KKK alumnus appointed to the Court by FDR) did Separation become an imposed and enforced caprice of a few old men in long black dresses.
http://www.asil.org/dalton.pdf
Since the Constitutional Convention, treaties that are ratified by Congress become the law of the land.
Waterboarding is clearly illegal.
Delbert:
Ad hominem attacks on McDermott and name calling are used by people who don’t have a real argument.
SCHIP would help out people who have trouble paying for helath insurance. Have you priced health insurance lately? Even the lousy health care for kids with a high deductable cuts into food and rent. So don’t give me your crap about how they aren’t “poor” enough. We have millions of uninsured people and many are kids (close to 50 million uninsured in the country, with “great” health care (ranked just south of Slovenia).
– and by the way the second veto of SCHIP was on a bill that changed the 300% (it was never 300% for a family income) – you are out of date and wrong on the facts.
There is NO excuse for the veto of S-CHIP. The bill was changed to accomodate some republican concerns. The only viable reason offered for the second veto of this bill by Bush (and the support of republicans in congress against the overide) is that it “costs” too much. Of course, if we don’t take care of kids health now it will end up costing us even more in the future…so even that is a fallacious argument.
So – the republicans arguments against this bill are wrong and unsupportable. Republicans just don’t CARE about the health of poor kids – they prefer to give tax breaks to the richest 2% and to oil companies. It is a question of priorities and republicans are in the pocket of the rich and the corporations (K street lives).
Waterbored reprise: “Torture” works: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thebl otter/2007/11/exclusive-only-. html
That’s from the always reliable left-wing ABC News, so it must be true. The Democrat/McCain canard that torture or “torture” never yields useful information is disproved. When KSM got damp, he sang. (Reminder: Seattle’s Columbia Tower was on KSM’s shortlist for a 9-11 hit.)
Congress has never conceded that waterboarding is torture. In fact, prominent members of Congress were fully briefed in 2002 about the limited and controlled use of this enhanced technique. Those members of Congress were Bob Graham, Democrat; Jane Harmon, Democrat; John Rockefeller, Democrat; Granny Nancy Pelosi, Democrat. Their concern at the time was that waterboarding wasn’t enhanced enough. They wanted more emphatic techniques, such as those used by Edward Kennedy, Democrat, in an Oldsmobile.
Here’s the story from the always reliably leftist Washington Post, so it must be true: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12 /08/AR2007120801664.html?hpid =topnews
People at 300% of the poverty level aren’t “poor” by definition and by practice.
Well what’s the “poverty” level? Let’s say it’s 5 thousand bucks. Wow who would sniff at 5k, asks the wingnuts. What a payday!
Now find good health insurance for a family of four at 3 times 5k. 15k is “300 percent”, right?
I challenge you to find good health insurance for a family of four even at 60k. The SCHIP subsidy is more than justified.
What you still sniff? Go argue with conservative John Cole about it then.
re 27: That’s not the issue. Congress has sigened on to the Geneva Convention, and waterboarding is torture under the Geneva Conventions.
Any action that causes the subjuct to think he may die as a result of the action is ipso fatso , torture.
So. Republicans just don’t CARE about the health of poor kids.
Riddle me this (insert name-calling bad name here): Why did the uncaring Republican Congress of 1997 push it to fruition? S-Chip is a Republican program. Want facts? Here they are: http://www.voices.org/Content/.....PBrief.pdf
Note the word “targeted.” The program was meant for poor children. Children who are poor. Today’s useless Democrats, who can’t stop themselves from earmarking pork for porky Patty Murray, who can’t work a full week, who can’t follow Soros’s orders to kill a war that seems to be working, try instead to bloat a worthy program into another Democrat pig.
Put lipstick on it ’til the hogs come home, but you liberal loons intend to inflate a worthwhile program into a monster like Medicare and Social Security, programs that are not, to use a lib buzz word, sustainable.
@27 Pudless:
The update is that congress was never fully informed of the torture techniques (see Gates, General – quoted from yesterday in the Seattle times today). So the argument that democrats in congress knew all about torture is false.
by the way – the Washington post is not “liberal” these days – read their editorials.
Waterboarding is torture – period. John McCain knows it, all the democrats running for congress know it, the US military knows it and the US government knows it.
Congress doesn’t have to “concede” that waterboarding is torture – it is on the books as torture.
We signed on the Geneva convention and the last I heard we still are supposed to adhere to it – even the Nazis claimed that they adhered to the Geneva convention – are you claiming we don’t?
This non-combatant crap is an excuse, the Gitmo is not on US soil is excuse and the black sites are an excuse. If we practice torture, that is an embarassment for our country.
I am tired of whiny, weak knee republican “excuses”. Real men don’t support torture – republicans do. We are supposed to be better than the terrorists – instead we have an embarassment for a President and the republicans in congress that support his illegal activities are complicit in this.
I haven’t read the Conventions, and bet you haven’t either. But some damn defrocked HA lawyer with too much time on his paws can tell us if my understanding is correct: The Geneva Conventions are for uniformed combatants, not stateless un-uniformed terrorists. Terrorists, by definition, are unConventional. Waterboarding for them is what sissies do. Real men saw off the heads of Jews. With dull knives. (Watched the DVD ‘Suicide Killers’ last night, so I’m in no mood to pander.)
Article VI, 2: of the Constitution states that:
“…all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Waterboarding is illegal, and Bush is breaking the law.
I heard it differently, 31. Congress was not, after all, fully informed that the tapes would be or had been destroyed to keep them from becoming front-page spew at the New York Times. That’s different from the CYA canard that your fat-cat ‘Crats were not told about boarding in 2002. And what’s to tell? The concept of waterboarding is easily understood. Even a Democrat can understand it.
Pudless:
After I sift through the miscellaneous junk in your writing, here are the jist of your arguments:
Republicans care about kids because:
10 years ago they supported Schip but don’t support it now.
the children are not “poor” enough for you – so even if they aren’t below the proverty line and can’t afford food, rent and health care – according to you – they should not get health care and should give up on food and rent.
Hmm, and this is “caring” republican style….
Bottom line – you can only resort to name calling again when you are called on the facts. Your arguments are that liberals are loons – so whatever that propose must be loony. Gee – that is soooo convincing. Sorry – but you are giving far right wingers a bad name – now I expect far right wingers to argue like a third grader.
re 32: Japanese and American soldiers have been convicted and punished by the U.S. for waterboarding under the rules explicated in the Geneva Convention.
That is proof that it is illegal, no matter how much pettifogging bullshit you can come up with.
I’ve proved that the Geneva Conventions are constitutionally the law of the land and in addition I have proved that they are illegal under U.S. and international law.
Bush is a war criminal — and so are you. You are a ‘good German’.
re 36: Waterboarding is illegal. That’s what I was referring to.
YLB @ 28 makes, perhaps for the first time, a useful point. ‘Poverty level’ is an unexamined construct from the late 1950s that needs to be examined. It was based on a mythical market basket of goods that didn’t include DVDs, i-Phones, income trasfers, Great Society entitlements.
That’s why a “poor” American lives like manored royalty from the not-distant past. It’s also why recent stats of ‘poverty’ and income disparity are doubtful, because I doubt that anybody knows how many recently arrived illegal workers or “workers” are skewing the data.
re34: Just because you can prove that some Democrat had knowledge of something illegal and di nothing about it does not transform the nature of the illegal action.
Simply put: You are full of shit, go fuck yourself.
Out of time here, NotRight, so parting shot: We support a targeted program now as we did then. We support a program for poor children. End of story. End of my SPL hour.
**** off
re 38: Only an idiot would suppose that poession of a DVD player or a $300 i-phone would prove that one is able to afford treatment for leukemia.
You need to examine the meaning of the word ‘conflation’.
re 40: You just noted previously that: “Poverty level’ is an unexamined construct from the late 1950s that needs to be examined. It was based on a mythical market basket of goods that didn’t include DVDs, i-Phones, income trasfers, Great Society entitlements.
That’s why a “poor” American lives like manored royalty from the not-distant past. It’s also why recent stats of ‘poverty’ and income disparity are doubtful, because I doubt that anybody knows how many recently arrived illegal workers or “workers” are skewing the data.”
Now you say that the undefined thing called the “poverty level” is the only benchmark we can use:
“We support a program for poor children. End of story.”
You talk out of both sides of your mouth. If you don’t watch out , you’ll have a crooked, twisted mouth like Dick Cheney.
@32:
My mistake – I was actually trying to engage a troll in an intellectual debate. When the troll can’t defend a position she resorts to fascist, agressive statements as above.
I should know better – the only thing a troll understands is physical force. In my experience, many of these big mouth fascists are physical and intellectual midgets. Too bad I can’t just beat the crap out of them….oh, well.
The reason most of them are so scared of “terrorists” is that they/she is/are busy hiding under the bed from the bogeyman. They/she haven’t grown up enough to realize that they/she are in more danger from being run over by a car than by being blownup by a terrorist (actually, there is more danger from the Tim McVeighs of the world than from foreign terrorists).
Not to say bin laden is not a real threat – but it is Bush who didn’t have the cajones to go after bin laden when he was trapped in Afghanistan.
My Left Foot: Carl how are you? How is your health these days?
I actually had heart arrhythmia for a couple of seconds when I read your post. Glad you agree. I hated what Don Fehr has done to the game I played and still love. There should be a baseball idiots section just for him.
His crap yesterday after the announcements was worthless; kind of like what many lefties post here. “It’s not our fault. The public wants more home runs. The public wants more strikeouts” I taught my kids baseball before basketball to break stereotypes.
Thanks. You realize idiots like YLB – The Clueless One (TM) are scratching their crotch right now in utter shock over your comments above! He writes I only get my thoughts from right wing whack-job sites. Unbeknownst to him, I can think for myself thank you very much. I actually skip much of what I read as irrelevant to me. But he swallows all the white sticky kool-aid he can get from MMatters and DKos.
Take Care Carl. You are a good egg at times.
@44:
Puddy – I agree with you on Don Fehr. Not all union bosses are right and Fehr is just plain wrong. Baseball is tainted – test the crap out of every player and level the playing field. Cheaters need to be kicked out of the sport.
I don’t know whether Boonie should or should not be on the the list – but I shouldn’t need to ask the question.
ATJ: Still stuck…
on stupid!
Correctnotright: I just had a synaptic shudder. You agree too?
Yes Don Fehr needs to be fired.
Regarding union bosses… why do they continue to support liberals…?
I am still waiting for Geov to name the names on Boonie. He has used the standard Pelletizer (TM) trick. I said it so it has to be correct.
NOT!
Don’t worry I won’t hold my breath!
Correctnotright: Actually #32 does have a point. Geneva Conventions are for uniformed combatants.
Since you seem to be the Geneva Convention expert here, how does the Fourth Geneva Convention cover non-civilian combatants who hide behind human shields (women and children), put their armaments of war in civilian neighborhoods, and run to take off their military-like garb and walk around like innocent civilians when the danger approaches?
Correctnotright: BTW my comment above is not from any right-wing whack-job site either. BTW my comment below is not from any right-wing whack-job site either.
Continuing on: How long do we hold them at Guantanamo? If we follow the Geneva Convention per your argument, then we can detain them until we exit Afghanistan and Iraq right?
Back from a change of venue and a strychnine carrot run. Where were we?
Someone naive said ‘The Constitution is not a suicide pact.’ But that’s what today’s Donk-Cong Democrats and Kos-tards want it to be. Grant full constitutional rights to stateless terrorists at Gitmo by throwing ACLU lawyers at them. Release violent illegal-alien felons (who can’t be returned to their countries of origin) onto our streets, granting them full access to extra-constitutional rights and ACLU lawyers.
Then Donk-Cong Democrats want to enfold stateless out-of-uniform terrorists in the warm embrace of Geneva Conventions by turning Geneva into a suicide pact.
Waterboarding was used three times against stateless terrorists in the United States. Pelosi et al. knew it. Waterboarding worked.
The excellent Piper, on several occasions, directed your attention to precedent: ex parte Quirin. Check it out. That’s how a real Democrat dealt with terrorists, at least two of whom were U.S. citizens.
Re poverty and market baskets of goods, I was unclear. The 1950s market-basket construct has changed to reflect inflated prices, but the contents of the basket are about the same. In 1959 the basket construct was a pretty good proxy of pockets of real poverty.
But when the Johnson-Nixon Great Society effected a multi-trillion-dollar trickle-down transfer from “rich” to poor, the poverty formula was not changed to reflect these vast infusions of off-the-books income. Nor does the formula show that many of America’s modern poor generously fill their market baskets with the best and latest hi tech.
The cost of medical care does not obviate my assertion about the modern market basket. That’s because many or most of our poor get health care through the same trickle-down transfers that don’t show up as income when computing their poverty.
Bring it, 43. Throw down. And after you’re rebuilt, probably by Medicare, then watch the DVD I mentioned. ‘Suicide Killers’ will prove even to you that we have more to fear than Bush itself or Gore’s fanatic fantasies.
Rather good catch, 42. You’re usually old and slow, a few beats behind the curve and a few fries short.
Yep,”poor” needs to be examined, for reasons given. But the 1997 enabling legislation of S-Chip set standards and targets (no pun) with the data and definitions we commonly but inemptly employ to almost everything else.
Correctnotright: Being somewhat new here you probably don’t remember the picture I posted from Australia Herald Sun web site. The article is there but the pictures are gone. I wonder why they are now gone.
http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html
Meant ‘ineptly.’ Like you and you.
Headless Lucy: When you actually make some sense in #42 I call you by your moniker. When you are an ASSHOLE… (like most of the time) that’s another story.
So you say we should support a program for poor children.
SCHIP – where adults and people who make $82K qualify?
What about illegal aliens? Did you read Schwartzenegger want to raise California taxes because they have a deficit?
Why is that? Free health care for non-citizens maybe, estimated at ~$10 MMM a year? Or how about all the money that leaves California from the underground economy untaxed?
YLB – The Clueless One (TM) I thought of this while looking at USA today last August 2007. At the time Goldy didn’t post anything for me to use this for. Now I can http://www.usatoday.com/money/.....ninc_N.htm
But to you anything which disagrees with your pointy headed position is right wing propaganda, right?
In the words of Glenn Beck – You are a sick twisted freak.
Your admission of addiction was a great step forward. Now, admit that you are powerless to overcome it on your own.
You’ll thank me someday.
http://www.horsesass.org/?p=3593#comment-701589
Better back it down, Puddy; they’re already starting to whimper and snivel. Since it’s only a matter of time until they start to grovel, only you and I will be left to clean up the mess.
Re Establishment Clause: Was under SPL deadline, so was unclear about Hugo Black. He wrote the late 1940s decision that invented a nation-wide separation of church and state, as defined by the New Deal liberals that FDR and Truman appointed to the Court.
“Too bad I can’t just beat the crap out of them… ” Particularly since you’re running the other way. Come out and play, prick.
@58:
You don’t want to find me – you would start to run. I don’t play with midgets – physical or intellectual. Grow up and go troll on redstate.
Think of newspapers are a format of pulp literature, not to be confused with information.
notright is cross, and my good friend Rabbit is incoherent. I have nothing to say about left-winger Lee Harvey Oswald, another lost violent soul, rather like notright.
@44-48 Believe it or not, lack o a prompt response is usually an indication that I have things to do during the business day other than reading HA comment threads. That said:
Brace yourself for shock – PB, you’re absolutely right about Fehr. I should have said as much in the post, and spelled out the comment that no (well, only two) players would talk with Mitchell’s people. The union ordered that, and has stonewalled consistently. Problem is, everyone knew what was going on and was complicit, from clubhouse attendants to owners, and rather than take on the union they spent years in ass-covering mode. Which continues.
Boone: It’s been six years, so I don’t have names. But especially when he had a career year in 2001 the speculation was pretty thick on KJR, for starters. Wasn’t Boone’s fault – every previously mediocre player that had a breakout year came under suspicion. And still does. So long as players keep cheating, others keep winking, and the union prevents blood tests that can detect HGH, baseball still has a big problem. Mitchell’s exercise notwithstanding.
re 55: Wax™, I accidentally cut my finger while slicing a butternut squash in half several weeks ago. It was a Sunday, so I was forced to use the emergency room. The bill for six stitches was about $1,500.
Fortunately, I have insurance, so it only cost me something over $300. A person making $82K a year who comes down with a serious illness will not be employed for long.
I’m surprised that you can be so easily demagogued into believing this Bushian Swill.
I’ll bet that bastard doesn’t pay squat for his own health issues.
Why is it that everyone complains about not having health insurance when what the really need is money to pay for medical treatment? What’s the goddam insuance principal got to do with it? Why do we need to use insurance to pay for health care? What we need is money, not insurance paperwork and red tape!
Reply to #8
Keystone harbor was supposed to be enlarged, allowing the larger new ferries (or any other ferries in the fleet) to be put on the port Townsend, Keystone run. The harbor improvements never happened, mainly due to NIMBYism on Whidbey Island. Tim Eyman’s I-695 dealt a major setback to state ferry system funding in 1999, otherwise the new ferries may well have been built by now.
55 – PStupid, if you’re breaking your sabbath to feed your ugly addiction to right wing bullshit then in the immortal words of the sick twisted freak from the “Clinton” News Network – you’re a sick, twisted freak yourself.
I’m proud I vote for Jim McDermott. His principled stand today should remind everyone what real leadership is about.
And if his stands continue to make wingnuts tear their hair out and scream hysterical crap, then I KNOW he’s doing something right!
A pox on the ugly house of Bush for taking health care away from kids.
YLB – The Clueless One (TM) I am glad you are worrying about me. Unfortunately McDimWitt doesn’t to make me pull out my hair. Actually he’s a pathetic little man! I am glad he represents you. It explains much in life.
Bush offered health care for kids. Pelosi offered health care for adults in the same bill. What can’t you understand?
YLB – The Clueless One (TM) in the Bible Jesus said “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” – look it up Clueless One!
Headless Lucy: Back when I made $55K I purchased long term disability insurance for $30 a month. I paid me the differential between what my company paid and when it kicked in and full until then.
If you don’t rely on guvmint for everything and search, you can find good deals. You on the other hand a always looking with your hand out into other people’s pockets.
Stupid keyboard:
You on the other hand are always looking with your hand out into other people’s pockets.
@64 Considering that insurance companies collect 25% of our health dollars for doing essentially nothing, eliminating the middleman might not be a bad idea.