Black Dog

May I direct you, sir, to the discussion on the subject of WMD over here where silimlar claims have been made and thouroughly debunked. Oh yeah? I you name written on it. Jesus H. Jumping Christ on a pogo stick. This is the funniest thing I've read in a long-ass time. Can you tell me who these "socialists" running Time Warner (CNN), General Electric (NBC), Walt Disney Co. (ABC), Viacom (CBS) and News Corporation (Fox), are? Translation: "Bush totally lied about Iraq, but please don't show any proof he did, because it would make me look dumb." Sorry: Actually it wasn't Bush, but Rummy who said: Hmm. D'ya think that calling people "pinko" is a sign of a good debater? It is not. So basically, we should give Harper a chance to f**k up the country in his own way? Naw. Harper won't be any better than the Liberals. The corruption and ethical bankruptcy of the political system won't change, but simply change hands.

I'm not really sure what the issue is here. Argus is only saying that people are free to criticize places like the U.S. if their own system of government is absolutely perfect and run to the complete satisfaction of all its citizens. Is that so hard? If that's not what your say, Arg, what are you saying? Looking back, I think describing Bush as a tyrant is counterproductive because its so easily debunked. Sure, his leadership is the product of two very dodgy election processes in which only a small percentage of the citizenry bothered to participate at all and of which only a tiny majority apparently voted to endose Bush's policies. And yeah, his administration has been characterized by bumbling, obvious corruption and cronyism, LCD pandering, and rank stupidity. But that doesn't make him a tyrant. It makes him a lousy president, which is the argument people who oppose him should be using. Otherwise you're just playing into the other side's hands.

I cited an example to prove a point and you went off on a tangent. Not my problem.

How about the fundamental hypocrisy of saying you value life, but then advocating death? How about the fact that the people being executed in America today are disproportionately poor, black or Hispanic (People of color comprise 43% of total executions since 1976, while comprising only around 25% of the population)? How about the enormous capacity for error (more than 114 people have been exonerated from death row since 1972)? How about the fact that capital punishment does not deter crime? I could go on, but someone who's willing to line up next to some of the worst regimes in the world probably isn't reasonable enough to debate.

I never said he was on Fox news. I said he was a right-winger. As for the Schiavo thing, I'm not interested in debating each side's merits here (there's a thread for that already). The point was to show that right-wingers don't know how to act when their orthodoxy is challenged. hey are so used to bullying and pushing people around that they are paralyzed when someopne pushes back.

Are you talking about capital punishment? Interesting then, that the U.S. is the only industrialized western country to retain capital punishment. It's retention of that policy puts it in the same category as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China and other human rights standouts. But we're the one's that are dysfunctional? We have a military. Granted, it's small and run down. But then, we really have little need of a military since we don't face any threats. Iraq's only connection to 9-11 is that it gave the U.S. leadership the excuse they needeed to carry out their long-held dream of invading and occupying Iraq. You clearly don't understand anything about the media or propaganda techniques. For starters, you assume a audience endowed with critical thinking skills, an audience given to cynicism and second guessing "official" sources. An audience conditioned not to belive what they see on TV. An auidience that does not accept, or is at least aware of, the unspoken assumptions and conventional wisdom that frame all media discourse. That is not the audience we're dealing with. That doesn't mean the reporting is accurate. That's like saying many people find American Idol to be a good show, therefore it is a good show. Yeah: Foxnews. They come packaged as news, so I'm not surprised you didn't catch them. Yeah you're right: just because we were 100 per cent correct on WMD is no reason to rub your noses in it.After all it was only the primary rationale behind the war in the first place.

The splintering of the American right along religious fault lines seems to be getting worse. I've been documenting this in the thread "Bush: Conservative?" for a while (to lazy to link right now). However, I wonder if those right-wingers who traditionally identify with the G.O.P, yet who are uncomfortable with the direction the party has been taking, will ever get up the nerve to leave or start their own party. (Bring back the Whigs!) Such an exodus would be a disaster for a Republican party facing a divided elctorate.

The biggest problem with the free market model described here is that it assumes people will act in their own long-term best interests. Corporations aren't people, but they are run by people and responsible to people (shareholders). Shareholders want quick returns on their investment. Consequently they will act in their own short-term interests, which usually calls for making a quick buck by whatever means necessary, enviornment, or people be damned. Take the enduring popularity of SUVs as an example of the kind of human behaviour that the free market doesn't account for. If people acted in their own best interests, they'd avoid tehse dangerous, gas-guzzling, environmentally unsound maschines. Yet, despite pollution, despite high gas prices, people still snap them up. Why? Because the short-term gains in status and (precieved) safety outweigh long-term economic or ecological considerations. We can't expect people who run companie sto behave differently in that role than they would in their role as onsumer. The problem is that people will only change their behaviours when forced to do so, by which time it's usually too late.

Sick rich bastards. I like video games, even the ultraviolent ones. But then, I'm old enough to know the difference between reality and fantasy.

Barbara Streisand is the left's Anne Coulter!?!? Say it ain't so, Babs! I guess if someone has to keep the flames of ignorance and stupidity running hot, Ann's the man for that job for sure. Which makes you a "regurjitated talking-points" type, I suppose. What makes you think the two concepts are mutually exclusive? They are not. In fact, being a Bush/G.O.P mouthpiece has been immensley profitable for FoxNews. In other words; start with the lowest common demoninator. Then subtract. Fox is the cheif cog in the machine that is dragging down North American political discourse. I don't watch FauxNews. I've seen quite enough of it. However millions do, and I expect many of them are tuning in in hopes of "fair and balanced" coverage. What they get is propaganda, but most people simply aren't media-savvy enough to know the difference. But Fox is a side issue. We're talking about Ann Coulter and her ilk. As I said, the fact that shrieking harridan gets face-time on television, despite her track record of lies and her utter lack of qualifications to comment on anything other than Prada handbags and fine cut Columbian blow, speaks volumes about the state of the media in the U.S.A. Take the recent CBC Fifth Estate documentary that ruffled so many feathers on the right. The problem? Right wingers are used to existing in a media echo chamber where their views are allowed to go unchallenged. This is exemplafied by the Vietnam conversation between Coulter and the CBC reporter: Coulter was caught talking shit and was called on it. You could see how flummoxed she got when faced with something other than a bunch of talking heads bobbing in agreement. Another example comes from the Terri Schiavo case when Dr. Ronald Cranford of the University of Minnesota Medical School a neurologist who examined Schiavo was grilled on right-winger Joe Scarbourough's show. Transcript The only way many of the right's cherished beliefs can survive is in a hermeticaly-sealed environment, free of opposition or facts.

It wasn't up to Michael. The original court battle was over what Terri wanted. In that case, and all other subsequent cases the court determined the evidence was clear and convincing that Terri would choose not to continue to be kept alive. To me, that nullifies any discussion over what each side wanted: it's what she would have wanted that matters.

Why not? I think it's fair to judge a country's committment to freedom by how they act towards those outside their borders. If anything, the Afghan gulags Gitmo, Abu Ghrirab typifiy the current administration's attitude towards individual freedoms. In any case, sure, let's look at the U.S. at home. Let's start with the bloated prison system, a system full to bursting with vitcims of an archaic and ineffective drug war, which has evolved into a network of for-profit labour camps. Then let's move on to the war on dissent, which began with the expanded powers of the Patriot Act and is typified in the use of "free speech ziones" that push public expression to the margins. Let's talk about the widespread disenfranchisement of minority voters, and the use of easily corrupted electronic voting machines built by partisan companies. Let's talk about the vehement denial by this adminsitration to release information about th epeople it holds captive in its world-wide prison network, let alone actually charge them. The list goes on.

It was the Schindler's turned the whole affair into a spectacle. They were the one's appearing on TV, they were the ones aligning themselves with extremists, they were the ones allowing people to launch vicious attacks on Michael's motives. Above all, they were the one's who were trying to keep Taerri alive in spite of what her wishes were determined to be. Fact is, I have precious little sympathy for these people anymore. And I don't blame Michael for sharing such sentiment.

Speaking of clowns... ACLU bigger threat than Al Q'aeda: O'Reilly

Well, maybe she couldn't feel anything, but I don't think existing in a vegetative state is a fun thing to do for 15 years, do you?

In all seriousness, the latest report blames the intelligence community's "inability to collect good information about Iraq's WMD programs, serious errors in analyzing what information it could gather and a failure to make clear just how much of its analysis was based on assumptions rather than good evidence". In other words: the flaws were systematic, but not deliberate. I don't buy it. I believe that the WMD meme was carefully manufactured and massaged by elements within the inteligence community, notably the Office of Special Plans, to create a publicly acceptable rationale for the preordained outcome: the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There's no way the public would have bought a large-scale intervention on the grounds of "spreading democracy", so the warmongers in the administration had to cook up something more palatable. Thus a "grave and gathering threat" was created and just as quickly discarded once the invasion was fait accompli. Still, the power of the big lie is such that many continue to believe Iraq had WMD (like B.Max and the krazy kats at "News"Max), but also that such weapons were found. Meanwhile, Joesph Goebbels is squatting on hell's coals, laughing his ass off.

Coulter is just another act in the three-ring circus that is the U.S. conservative media (with Richard Schaife as ringmaster). As such, her opinions matter as much as O'Reilly's , Horowitz's, Hannity's, or any of the othe rclowns that tumble out of that tiny car. Which is not at all. That her cadarevous visage is allowed on TV at all exposes the idea of "liberal media bias" as the lie it is.

About time. That poor woman suffered enough without being used as a political prop. In the meantime... Thousands die in quake Darfur toll at least 300,000 This whole thing just goes to show that Stalin was bang on when he said "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

Iraq intel "all wrong"

Some more "culture of life" for you. Who is Randall Terry? Christian right jumps into Terri Schiavo fray Oh, and speaking of hatred:

'One huge US jail'

Here's some things for you to chew on. -I've said before, but I suppose it must be said again, that my personal belief is that religious devotion is based on ignorance and misinformation. That being said, I don't really care what people believe so long as they don't try to impose their beliefs on others. For example, if someone believes that the earth is 6,000 years old and was created by God in seven days, I'll roll my eyes and think them fools, but that's about the end of it. But if they want to enshrine such nonsense in a high school science textbook, then the knives will come out. -The religious right in the United States, as personified by folks like Schindler supporter and anti-choice provocateur Randall Terry or Jerry Falwell, wants to use the coercive power of the state to impose their views on society, even though those views are antithetical to both conservative and Christian worldviews. The former promotes small government and individual freedom, the latter peace and tolerance. So all your whinging and crying about hatred of religion completely misses the point. The religous right is a political entity. My opposition to it and the contempt in which I hold its adherents is a political position. Hell, even some religious Republicans are uneasy with the influence of this constituency on public policy. EDIT How is it "hatred" to state the blindingly obvious? So what if a majority of Americans, even religious ones, oppose the efforts to keep Terri alive? The fact is, the majority of the "let Terri live" crowd are religious. As for the jabs at the culture of life, when I see an example of rank hypocrisy (like a former torturer shedding crocodile tears over the passion of the Terri), I'm gonna hold it up to the light. Don't blame me if you don't like what you see.

Link.

Innneresting.... Schiavo Protesters Have Hearts on Sleeves and Anger on Signs Spy World Atrios has more. It's a Phil Parlock redux! "Culture of life" indeed.

How far will they go to kill conservatism?