This whole rant was actually a Facebook status update that grew too large. I now have to link to this page. Now, to preface this I'd like to state that politically, I consider myself a centrist who leans to the left, particularly on social issues. So it stands to reason that most of my friends fall to the left, if not far left. When I woke up today I saw a few posts about some offensive comments Rush Limbaugh made. Big surprise, the man is a professional buffoon for a living. Round about lunch time the fire over Rushgate had reached a fevered pitch.

"Man, I gotta read what he said! He must have done something like eat a live minority baby while peeing on the Quran!!!"

So I looked it up, and he made some rather harsh and misogynistic comments about the young lady who testified in that reproductive rights hearing the other day. Disgusting and crude? Absolutely. Worth a Facebook campaign and clogging up my newsfeed? Absolutely not. This isn't even in the top twenty of vile, bullshit comments that has issued for from this man's mouth over the years. As a sufferer of numerous neurological disorders, I was highly offended by his comments about Michael J. Fox. Did I go all Spartacus, proclaim that we should rise as a nation and demand this jackal be placed into a pillory? No. I realized that kind of attention would only serve his goal of kicking up controversy.

Then I started noticing the petitions and half-assed boycotts. Giving lists of companies that were BELIEVED to be sponsors of Limbaugh's show. Think about that for a second. Such was the ferver whipped up by an insult hurled at a now public figure, that boycotts were being called against companies were THOUGHT to have ANY tie to the Rush Limbaugh Show. That's shittier fact checking than Fox News. There were companies issuing public statements that they were not now or ever associated with Limbaugh's show. And some of the ACTUAL sponsors did actually pull their sponsorship.

Seriously, this guy is a circus clown. We should not get this upset over someone purposely saying outrageous shit to get ratings. If anything we should kick back, secure in the knowledge this jester is THE dominant voice of the republican party

So to all of you out there behind the clogging of my news feed, congratulations on your hard fought victory. Not the morally just and righteous victory for reproductive rights you won yesterday. No... the morally reprehensible and self-righteous victory against free and unpopular speech you won today. McCarthy and the PMRC would be proud.

Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty

That's a 17 page article. If you don't want to read the whole thing let me summarize what happened.

Dude's house burned and his three kids died. He got convicted on the testimony of his town's fire inspectors, who cited certain stuff as evidence of arson. He declined a plea bargain for life in prison if he pleaded guilty. Years later, close to his initial execution date, this lady took up his cause because certain things didn't sit right. While he was probably abusive to his wife there were no records to indicate he was ever abusive to the children (in fact, there was evidence to the contrary, that those children were everything to him), indicating no motive. He was a troubled youth but his parole officer had testified he was turning his life around significantly. Most importantly, he continually maintained his innocence. Somehow, she was able to get some arson experts to review the evidence and it was confirmed that the fire was accidentally started by a faulty heater - in a nut shell, the town's inspectors were using incorrect methods and wrongly concluded arson. This was agreed upon independently by three different arson experts.

So, in other words, the dude was in prison because he was a dick who listened to heavy metal (during trial, they portrayed him as a heartless sociopath because he listened to Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden). Also, an inmate who was incarcerated with him claimed he'd confessed secretly. Obviously, you can throw the first one out without thinking twice. Jailhouse confessions are also useless. Said inmate later changed his mind twice about the supposed confession.

So with no motive, confirmation from three experts that it was an accidental fire, and him holding strong that he hadn't done it, he put in a final appeal to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. They ignored it. Rick Perry then declined clemency, saying that the facts of the case still held up. Note that every "fact" in the case is dismantled in the link above, which means he probably didn't even read it.

He was killed on February 17th, 2004 via lethal injection.

The Innocent Project found out about this case and brought it to attention. A committee was formed to investigate forensic evidence in Texas. They began finding tons of problems with arson cases. Shortly before they were to decide on Willingham's case, Rick Perry replaced three members of the board. They then ruled that any evidence presented before 2005 was useless.

My hope is that, with Rick Perry running for President in 2012, this stuff will be brought back into the forefront. It is of dire necessity, not just because Rick Perry is yet another ass-faced Republican but because - unlike Casey Anthony - it is 100% proven Willingham was innocent. Texas put an innocent man to death and because Perry could have stopped it and then subsequently tried to cover it up (he's denied this, lol) his path is the best way to achieve justice for Cameron Todd Willingham. Also, the final argument that people for the death penalty can be brought to by someone who knows how to debate (every other argument for it can be debunked or rendered null) is that it has never been proven we put an innocent to death.

Justice for Willingham means we put an innocent to death.

Today, the American public vented its collective frustration across the various social media sites and news outlets when the jury in the Casey Anthony trial acquitted her of murdering her daughter (along with some other serious charges). They did find her guilty of some lesser charges, but those were not enough to sate the tremendous thirst for justice that the people had. This is with good reason, because, if for nothing else, the case concerned the death of a two year-old girl. A two year-old girl is not capable of running a Fortune 500 company so she can't be a suit-wearing asshole smoking a cigar and fucking the public and her employees over at the same time. She isn't capable of robbing a bank. She isn't capable of breaking into someone's house and stealing their valuables. In all, a two year-old girl isn't capable of much that could be held against her aside from probably being annoying at times or not behaving or some other trivial nonsense. So it's understandable that people would be quite interested in the outcome of the trial.

What really got them going is that the two year-old girl was the daughter of a very young mother who appeared to have offed the kid because it interfered with her lifestyle, which is a reprehensible enough thought to have about your child sans the killing part.

The general consensus of the people is that Casey Anthony felt her daughter to be enough of a burden to "require" murder. This is because Casey Anthony told a lot of amazingly intricate lies during a month of behavior that is typical for a single girl in her early twenties when the reality of the situation was that month included her daughter being "missing." Also, it's because the remains of the child had duct tape over the mouth and nose, and that internet search history indicated someone was looking up how to make chloroform. It didn't help, as well, that several people were pretty certain they smelled that nasty decomposition odor from Casey's impounded car which would point to the body having been there for enough of a time. Needless to say, Americans were out for someone's head and it really, really seemed to be Casey who was at fault here.

During the course of the trial, all manner of things were presented as evidence and people found out the extent of Casey's lies. Experts were brought in to comment on the smell from the trunk of the car. Casey's father and brother were accused of molesting her. Casey's mother claimed she had been doing the searching for the chloroform. It was a general mishmash of opposing viewpoints and, apparently, a lot of conjecture from the side of the prosecution (which is not to say the defense has clean hands). What it really came down to was this: the cause of death could not, for certain, be determined.

A lot of courtroom dramas and movies make a big point out of reasonable doubt, burden of proof, etc. If someone is found dead with a knife wound in their chest and a murder weapon with DNA on it is found close to the scene you can safely determine that the person was stabbed to death and move on to the task of locating the responsible party. Casey Anthony's defense played upon the uncertainty about the cause of death by claiming the kid had drowned in the pool and that a panicked grandfather/mother combo covered it up. A lot of people are really angry at the jury and with the justice system but those groups actually did their jobs with what they were given. They observed the evidence presented and made their decision because they possessed a reasonable doubt about it.

The prosecution in this case did a masterful job of bringing to light how much of a douchebag Casey Anthony is/was. As stated earlier, it may be typical behavior for a girl of her age but it doesn't change the fact that she lied grossly. It doesn't change the fact that she pranced around like a girl who didn't have a kid, free of any concern for a month while her daughter was missing. It's so easy to believe she murdered her daughter because she's a bad person. So the idea of her feeling maladjusted as a result of her daughter, knocking the kid out with chloroform, then placing the unconscious body into the trunk of her car with duct tape over her mouth and nose is completely acceptable due to this perception. You can't convict someone on emotional suppositions, however.

Personally, I feel that she killed her daughter. I realize, though, that I am going off of my emotional response and my public perception of her. I don't know she's guilty and nor does anyone else. The circumstances presented make it highly likely, though not certain. What's truly sad here is what I mentioned in the beginning: a two year-old girl is effectively an innocent and she's dead. She was probably defenseless to what happened, be it a murder, a drowning or whatever else. We'll never truly know what happened nor how it happened and we'll never know that whomever is responsible for the girl's death gets punished.

Three thoughts upon hearing the news of bin Laden's death.

• Not that big of a deal in the long run. All this means with regard to our safety is that the person gunning for his position now has it.
• Now that we got the Grand Moff Tarkin of evil shit, can we get Darth Cheney?
• Looks like Obama's got 2012 locked down now.

This message is important: Stop filling out customer satisfaction surveys!

You know how you go to a store and they give you the receipt with the number to call or the web site to visit, then they ask you to rate your "experience" at whatever business it was? Or you call your wireless provider and they ask you to stay on the line for a brief survey? They ask you to rate from 1-5 or something on things like, "I felt like the employee cared about me," and other topics under the specious claim of improving their customer service.

Don't fill them out. A lot of places capture your e-mail address specifically to send you these surveys - they don't even care so much about selling your info to spammers any more. Feel free to give them your e-mail address or whatever (more on this later) but don't ever fill the surveys out. Why, you ask?

Customer satisfaction surveys harm the employees, regardless of the type of response, more than they improve anything.

The big companies these days keep a tally of "good" responses, "mediocre" responses and "bad" responses. The "bad" responses, when about an accurately poor experience, will help to some extent (though, if you don't want to be a passive-aggressive ninny you should talk to the manager immediately after the incident). The other responses, though, only serve as fuel to overwork the employees. This is exhibited by the comment, "Other locations in our business get great responses to their customer surveys, so that new policy works," when the employees question why they have to do even more work for the same amount of money in the name of customer service. Have you ever walked into a store and like five employees, who are in the middle of assisting other people, yell out greetings to you? That's a result of the surveys. It's really stupid because they could just hire someone to greet people yet they decided, instead, to stretch the job description of the existing employees. They back that decision up by pointing to their results, even though there is no aggregate link between the two!

There are probably places where the employees are genuinely slacking off but the overwhelming majority of places that I go to or deal with have decent employees who are doing their job. As an example, I had to deal with Charter a while back over the phone and then it directed me to a survey. The questions it asked were things like, "As a result of your call, do you feel like Charter cares about you as a person?" This is a useless question to base staffing or policy decisions upon. I don't give a damn if they care about me as a person, nor should anyone else and nor should they! (This, of course, is indicative of a bigger problem since there are people who care about this kind of asinine rigmarole.)

So all that filling out those surveys does is give corporations ammunition to use against their (mostly) overworked employees. Even worse, some companies give bonuses to managers who get higher scores while the people who earned them get pats on the back. Also disturbing, there are places who get graded on those aforementioned e-mail captures: the employees bear the brunt of people who don't give out their e-mail address so that's why I said it's okay to do that, at least. Again, just don't fill out the surveys.

And yes, I understand this is class warfare. At least I don't mask my dissidence with ostensible claims of a greater good or something - you know, like how the corporations try to say they want to improve your experience when it's really just about some executive being able to buy another Maserati? Actually, I'm honestly pretty tired of being bothered so much by employees at retail stores who are concerned about punishment, too.

Why can't these businesses take a gander at Best Buy? Best Buy clearly couldn't care less about customer surveys because I can walk in there and browse around, unhindered, and make a purchase. If I can't find something, I never have trouble locating an employee to assist me. All of this runs contrary to what I experience elsewhere - whether a physical location I go to or some agent I speak with over the phone. Of course, I hear it's hell to work there, as well. Hmm.

I'm really getting tired of all these anti-smoking laws and shit, along with how ridiculous we are with regard to second-hand smoke. You all know that I don't smoke, and nor have I ever, but I think smokers shouldn't have to curl up into a ball somewhere secluded from society. Think about the benefits in relation to the complaints about smoke.

Second-hand smoke is bad for children! Great! I agree. So don't let your mongrel spawn out into the world. Chances are that if you care enough about the subject, your children are just as much of douche-bags as you are. This means that I can go to a restaurant I like and enjoy a dinner devoid of babies crying and sociopathic toddlers refusing to behave. The same goes for movie theaters, malls, my apartment's courtyard, and a wide gamut of other areas.

Second-hand smoke is bad for me! I agree, again. Also, once again, I must point to the mewling fatuousness inherent in subjecting yourself to it and then objecting to it. Don't leave the house would be my recommendation. Smokers shouldn't have to modify the behavior necessary to facilitate their addiction for your pansy ass. The upshot of this is that I don't have to listen to whine about how there isn't enough room for soy milk in your faggoty latte, overhear your paltry opinions on Yeats nor have to see you in your asinine Crocs.

Cigarette smoke smells bad! Well this one, I just disagree with, actually. I quite like the smell of most brands. Granted, there are a few out there that make me wonder about the sanity of the person smoking them but I would say the vast majority of cigarettes are fine. Anyway, I digress: The point is that the smell brings me back to a time when the only cares we had were whether to get two boxes of cinnamon dough dabs from George's Pizza or three boxes.

That's all I have to say for now. Perhaps I shall revisit this topic, bitches.

I am going to be up in Branford on the weekend before New Year's. Anyone up for going out as a group to dinner on the 29th (that Saturday)?

Some interesting law news.

I hate mandatory minimum sentencing. Nah, but Congress does a terrible job of determining how long people should stay in jail for crimes - when they get involved with determining sentencing guidelines, they have a tendency to grandstand, opting to put excessive penalties on the books in order to seem like they're tough on crime. The Supreme Court made a couple of judgments recently that should weaken the control of mandatory minimum-type laws to dictate the lengths of sentences judges give to criminals, which is a good thing.

Also - for a long time, crack cocaine related crimes have been punished much, much more harshly than powdered cocaine crimes (a gram of crack = 20 grams of coke). Not surprisingly, the effect of that disparity was additional years in jail for blacks, since blacks are much more likely to be involved in crack cocaine crimes than whites. In the last week, Congress lowered the penalties for crack so that they were in line with powdered cocaine. That should cut a few years off the sentences of thousands of people in jail right now, and it'll make our legal system slightly more fair. Good stuff.

Stone

What the hell? Why are people getting upset that BEER COMPANIES are marketing their product to the most profitable demographic? At least they aren't pumping out ads for people UNDER 21. Sweet motherfucking pirate Jesus, what a bunch of crybabies.

Note that I also find it funny that nobody so far has gotten the last question right. I can understand mistaking or forgetting on the other ones, but I mean, honestly:

Calliander, keepin' it fresh since '21, you suckas.

I wish I could have gotten on here days ago to post this, but whatever. My fucking weeks have been so goddamned annoying and busy that I still get some smidgeon of enjoyment from it. Fuck you all.

Fuck Ronald Reagan. Good fucking riddance. What a worthless waste of space; they should have euthanised him ten years ago and saved us the trouble today. Worst wishes to his family and friends. He was a terrible president. Fuck the idiots waiting 12 hours to see a stupid goddamned casket. Morons. I spit upon his grave. Fuckers.

Go to hell and die, all of you.

I think that stone will be the only one to awnser this which is fine cus i pretty much just wanted to ask him but anyone who has an awnser is welcome to reply. i would like some kind of explanation as to what the difference between a caucuse and a primary is. ive been reading alot about the elections and what not to try and stay informed but i find myself at a disadvantage because i dont know whats these terms mean really. so if you can help awesome thanks. a link to a page explaining them would be awesome too. i just want to be more informed. thank you

link=http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20030909%2F182063086.htm&sc=1110

Can't put that as a link. But that's RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD from where I work. Ventura Boulevard. Damn.

Knaa'mean?

Well, I've graduated, and I'm in a good mood. The weather's good, the Red Sox are ahead, this job search stuff is going well, feeling healthy. Being happy can be kind of boring, though - at times I feel like I need a new problem, something to focus on. I just got an interview with a fucking investment bank, which is the shit.

I went to Rudy's last night with Lio and Calliander, and I got a girl's number, which I then promptly lost. I still have her e-mail address, though. Anyways, that's new to me - I didn't know how I'd meet people outside of the college environment, so, renewed hope.

So, I've been thinking about taxes and deflation recently - it's pretty interesting stuff.

Right now, the economy is threatened by deflation - a fall in the prices of goods. People aren't buying, so stuff becomes less expensive. Goods produced in America will begin to become cheaper relative to foreign goods, too, I think. The reason deflation is bad is because the job market stagnates (I think). However, I guess it's not entirely bad, right - if prices are lower, I can consume more. Some economists don't think there's anything wrong with deflation. However, I think deflation deters investment because it forces people to wait before buying long-lasting goods.

Say you're planning on buying a$300,000 house - however, you know that deflation is going on, and that the house will be worth $290k next month. Why buy now? You're always going to be waiting for the deflationary period to end, always waiting to see how low prices are going to go before you commit to the house purchase.

What produces deflation? From what I can understand, deflation happens when there isn't enough cash in the economy to buy the stuff people want (I think). If there isn't enough cashbeing shifted around, then the value of a dollar drops (not enough money to buy the stuff we want, so the stuff we want becomes less expensive). I'm not entirely sure howcash enters the economy, but I think it involves the government buying bonds from banks and giving them cash in return.

Anyways, how does our government deal with deflation, try to correct it?It usually tries to end deflation by having the fed lowering interest rates. Interest rates basically tell you the value of holding on to money - not spending it. The Fed Interest rate is therisk-free rate, the rate you can get by investing money in a source that offers absolutely no risk of loss. If interest rates are really low, like they are now, then there's no reason to hold on to money, and no reason not to borrow. The goal, I think, is to force people to shift money around - which will even out prices again.

However, what if we're at an interest rate of virtually zero, and people still aren't spending? That's what people seem to think is happening right now.

There's the idea of something called a "liquidity trap". What I think this is is a situation where the economy is so bad that people aren't willing to spend or borrow money - even if the interest rate is zero, and there's no benefit to keeping money or penalty for taking it. John Maynard Keynes, the big liberal economist, is the one who came up with this idea. I don't know what people who believe in the idea of a "liquidity trap" think the solution is to deflation.

I think one solution would be to create artificial jobs - for the government to put tons of money into the economy by hiring people, basically forcing money into the hands of the people. I don't understand why the government couldn't just spend itself into debt (Deficits), and in doing so act as the investor. The treasury presses start printing bills. The government cuts taxes, starts to lose money, invests in itself, and the economy starts again.

I dunno. I wish I knew more about economics. I think of myself as a pretty educated guy, but I don't really understand much about this inflation/deflation issue, even though it seems to be completely crucial to the way our economy works. The economy is sucha huge part of our lives, and the way it works is a mystery to most people, which is strange. It'd be like living in a world where most people didn't understand gravity, and where there was constant debate over how exactly gravity worked.

Stone

That's a funny picture. It'd be funny if they had a series of them showing something like Saddam stealing Dubya's woman and that being the fuel for Bush's intense want to remove him from power. That would be cool. Heh.

What the hell?

Why do they let this woman keep writing editorials? Unlike William Safire, Thomas Friedman, or Nicholas Kristof, everything the damned woman writes is short and (at best) juvenile. I mean, I agree that we shouldn't get war-crazy, but at least write something meaningful instead of some quotes from a movie and smartass remarks! Sheesh.

Knaa'mean?

http://nytimes.com/2003/03/10/international/africa/10BANT.html

Check that out it s an article talking about how a tribe of 1200 Somali Bantus are being let into the US, wholesale, as refugees. The article talks about how they ve been enslaved by Arabs in Somalia and denied access to education and jobs in Somalia. The article also mentions how the lighter-skinned majority rejected the Somali Bantus because of their slave origins and dark skin and wide features .

So, good for the US, we re helping these people, right, yay for America? Not so much.

The writer, describing their transition to American life, here then contrasts the benefits of our society with its negative aspects:

The refugees watch snippets of American life on videos in class, and they marvel at the images of supermarkets filled with peppers and tomatoes and of tall buildings that reach for the clouds. But they know little about racism, poverty, the bone-chilling cold or the cities that will be chosen for them by refugee resettlement agencies.

They know little about racism or poverty? What the fuck? The writer s just been detailing the slavery and oppression they ve been put through in Somalia, many of them hardly had homes, they couldn t own land and he s saying that they re going to be learning about racism and poverty when they come to the US?

This is why people say that left-wingers hate America - you understand?

This chick is suggesting that their lot in America is going to be racism and poverty so much, in fact, that their horrific experiences in Somalia have still only taught them little by comparison.

Lets just assume the existence of all the difficulties that will probably come from their being black and uneducated: they have little savings, will be living on welfare, may have their welfare cut off if they don't find jobs, may not have complete medical care, they won't have enough Affirmative Action to benefit them, won't be receive the same cash-equivalent benefit from a tax cut that someone paying $20 million a year in taxes will, they'll recite a Pledge of Allegiance that may impinge on their right to be atheists, blah blah blah, so on.

Even taking all of that bullshit into consideration, the idea that whatever sort of poverty and racism these people will know in the US could be even comparable to the life they had in Somalia is fucking insane. How could anyone not ridden with anti-patriotic self-hatred be so blind as to think that?

The structure of those two sentences above necessarily sets up a negative comparison between aspects of American life: (good) "supermarkets" and "tall buildings" and (bad) "racism", "poverty", and "bone-chilling cold". If we're to assume that these 1200 Bantus "know little" about the American levels of "racism" and "poverty", then American racism and poverty has to be really, really, really fucking bad - the lot of someone undergoing racism/poverty in the US will necessarily (according to this woman's statements) be worse on average than the lot of an ENSLAVED BANTU IN FUCKING SOMALIA.

This is the dream world that many of these upper-middle-class-fuck-ups live in - one where they assume the faceless masses of the American poor live a life so torturous that America is no better than, say, Somalia, or Iraq. Given that our poor know far more about racism and poverty than the average Bantu in Somalia, who are we to criticize Saddam Hussein? Shame on us, right? Fuck them.

I want to retch.

Stone

The "legally recognized, official" pledge does have "under God" in it, Calliander - Congress putthose words in there, notstupid religious people (not necessarily). I don't think "under God"should necessarily be in there, but removing it might set a bad precedent - are there other words that will then be removed or altered? The words "to the flag of the United States of America" used to be "to my flag", which I like, maybe "to our Flag".

Someone told me that donating eggs can be painful- it always seemed like a great deal to me.

Stone

Heya folks! I'm in a great mood today, thinking about the prospect of moving and all, and just being able to breathe still. It occurred to me that it's been quite a while since I've pissed anyone off with a left-field comment or been berated so I wanted to let you all know that I'm still thinking of you. Today I opened up the New York Times and two wonderful sites revealed themselves to my eyes: The federal appeals court is standing firm on keeping those asshole Christians out of MY Pledge of Allegiance and Iraq destroyed four of their Al Samoud 2 missiles (for those of you not in the know, those are the ones that exceed the range limit). Now, I'm all for the war in spirit, but we all know that a war has a 99% chance of helping the economy, which will raise our Commander in Chief's approval from the middle back up to where it was before the Frogs and the Krauts started giving us trouble. So I felt like pissing off some Christians and some Republicans today. Here are two fantastic images for ya:

Have you ever eaten a six pound lobster...

... off the chest of a seven pound lobster?

No matter what your views on President Bush's statement of upcoming war, this, from an English journalist, is very interesting. Just a word of background for those of you who aren't familiar with the UK's Daily Mirror. This is a notoriously left-wing daily that is normally not supportive of the Colonials across the Atlantic.

Tony Parsons ... Daily Mirror ... September 11, 2002

If i stand alone, ill fight for you!

948 out

"Whose penis is that?" Is that a question you really want answered, Levres? About Kevin's girls, I don't think they're all that attractive, they just happen to have their clothes off, and a palette of makeup on. And no, I'm not a girl-hater, as some close-minded people would immediately like to label me as. I appreciate other girls, especially if they're beautiful in the natural sense. I'm the girl who turns to whoever she's with and says (be it watching TV or in public),"I think she's pretty," or, "Wow she looks great in "whatever whatever."" Not to say that I've never viewed or previously appreciated porn. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't. Kevin, I know you're advertising your product and you believe these girls are hot (as many other guys might also think) and want to share them w/ us, especially of Ciera with a guy's dick in her mouth. But there was a reason I turned the autoposter off. I didn't want to catch a tit or a clit in the eye, or cock even, when I sign on to see what everyone's currently posted or just to post.

Anyway, "because the President appeared increasingly close to making a final decision about taking military action", to quote from the NYT: "The administration has suggested that it will put off a decision at least until Feb. 14, when United Nations weapons inspectors are to submit their next report to the Security Council, but not much beyond that." So...Valentines Day can NOW "also" be remembered for being the day that we announced WWIII, AND the Valentines Day Massacre? Great...*And do they really believe that Saddam, even if he "voluntarily" goes into exile...won't make anymore trouble, because he was yelled at by the big ol' U.S. of A. and sent to sit with his face in the corner, like a bad little boy?* Bullshit, I agree w/ Caniprokis...and further say, the millisecond we get him in our sights: "Shoot tha bastid and shoot'em good."

"It ain't easy being green." ~Kermit the Frog

"Aziz said Monday that the only remaining issues between weapons inspectors and Iraq are overflights by U-2 spy planes and the private interviewing of Iraq scientists by inspectors.

But in a letter released Thursday from science adviser Gen. Amer al-Saadi inviting the monitoring chiefs to return, Iraq said it wants to "jointly study means of verification in disarmament issues" and to re-establish a "consolidated monitoring system." (yeah sure you lying cum gargling cunt)

Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri delivered the letter to Blix personally Thursday evening, and spent about an hour inside Blix's office. Afterward, Aldouri said he hoped Blix and ElBaradei would return to Iraq.

"It's a question of war," Aldouri said. "We want them to come to Iraq to resolve differences."(Eat my ass you lying sack of donkey piss)

But Blix said Thursday there had been no movement on the issues of the scientist interviews or U-2 flights." - from cnn.com see full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/30/sprj.irq.wrap/index.html

What the fuck? we need more time? there fucking stalling now man, something bad is in the works something very bad, and its going to really suck. oh were going to be at war alright, and were going to have the smoking gun, sooner than all you liberal democrat fuckjobs think. and ill bet its some kind of crazy shit too, death like we havent seen since WWII, and Vietnam. Why? because we waited thats fucking why. jesus man how plain do saddam need to make this. ill bet hes sitting in some bunkerd palace somewhere in iraq "laughing his sick fucking ass off" to quote al pachino from the devils advocate. i hope that when im dead because saddam blows up Los Angeles with a nuke that your all very fucking happy you waited for the smoking gun. assholes!

P.S. when you read this after im dead and im right i hope you fucking cry!

if i stand alone, ill fight for you

948 out

"conservatism is dead," - are you sure you aren't quoting George Will? Buckley has written things to the effect of saying that paleoconservatism (conservatism minus most but not all government, very old-school John Birch Pat Buchanan style conservatism) is dead... but as far as I know, he hasn't pronounced a death sentence on the whole thing. Why would he, considering that Junior is acting like Reagan's true successor. You do know that Buckley is against the war on drugs, right? Rightly so, I don't know - over the past 20 years illegal drug use has decreased by about 60 percent, violent crime by 30 percent, welfare by 50 percent. The 'war' has a lot of problems, but the last 22 years have seen a remarkable period of American success, so I wouldn't toss out any major policy element of the last few presidents, Clinton included, without looking at it carefully.

Like I said before, being against abortion is a completely defendable stance, and of course the Republican party is appointing anti-abortion judges, for the same reasons that the Democrats would appoint pro-abortion judges. Given 2000's results, it was wise for Bush not to push through any major anti-abortion appointments (honestly no mandate for sweeping change like that, even if the judges had no business making that decision in the first place). However, the colossal Republican victories in 2002 seem to me to justify more proactive appointments on Bush's part.

Admittedly, I don't know all that much about anti-pornography efforts on the behalf of the Republican party. So, maybe you're right about most of what you said - suggesting that ALL Republicans are against even the most mild forms of pornography is absurd, though. It's an element inside the party, fine. Anti-pornography freak feminists are part of the Democratic party, so on.

"I don't want any Christian group in bed with any party." - we live in a country where over half of our population defines themselves as Christian. This is how party politics work - Christians are going to find representation somewhere.

"Also there is no oil in Korea. Iraq is far more important, because of that wonderful black liquid." - well, Calliander, I guess we know one person gullible enough to fall for that war-for-oil bullshit. Would you take a look at my 1/27/03 https://insult.org/?action=view&id=3711 post, where I've already given a bunch of good reasons why the theory that we're attacking Iraq because of primarily oil-related reasons is absurd.

We aren't going to ignore, Korea, damn, man - we'll be containing them diplomatically. We can't engage North Korea without seriously endangering South Korea and Japan. Israel is willing to be at risk when we engage Iraq, considering that Iraq's probably just waiting to attack Israel, anyways. We're dealing with the options in front of us in the most effective way.

And, as far as the porn goes - I'm a huge fan of naked women, preferably real ones physically near me. And, sure, those women aren't bad looking - but they're nothing special, and I wouldn't be interested in them in reality. There are more than enough genuinely attractive women out there, and I've got a healthy enough imagination that I can usually fill in the blanks on my own. Most Republicans (and most Democrats) don't really care whether you want to look at pictures of naked women having sex, or not.

Man, I just turned on the television, and the first thing that I heard was Alec Baldwin's voice over a GE/General Electric commercial. Do you understand how absurdly hypocritical of Baldwin this is? Alec Baldwin's one of the most outspoken liberal Democrats in Hollywood - he bitches about the Republicans all the time, and he even said that he was going to leave the country if Bush got elected. GE, on the other hand, is a massive corporation that for years has represented everything mighty about American capitalism and the politics and philosophies that support it. This is the left wing equivalent of Charlton Heston doing a print ad for the Nation, or, I dunno, CNN.

Stun