Soxy

Guess who my parents ran into at Portillo's in Oswego last night? Yep, that's right J. Dennis Hastert (come on Denny! Shouldn't you be supporting the family biz and posing for photos at White Fence Farm?).

Book: Handbook of Speech Perception by David Pisoni (probably the only way I'll actually read the damn thing) Album: A collection of Aaron Copland Movie: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (or maybe Persuasion) Series (does this mean one season or the entire series?): If entire series: British the Office; If only 1 season; Arrested Development Season 1. Person: My sister.

Drama! I was a little miffed that there was no resolution to the Jeffrey possibly cheating thing last night. Lame. If he's out, I don't know whose collection I like best. Probably Uli.

It's a little science fiction-y. Orgy porgy food and fun, kiss the girls and make them one. Boys at one with girls at peace, orgy porgy gives release.

I think the new South Park tonight is supposed to be about the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Should be funny.

From the front page of the NYT: Small Aircraft Hits Building in Manhattan Article Tools Sponsored By By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: October 11, 2006 NEW YORK (AP) -- A small plane crashed into a high-rise on Manhattan's Upper East Side, police said Wednesday. There was no immediate word on any deaths or injuries. A column of gray smoke rose over the city, and raging flames could be seen in four windows on two upper floors.

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 11:58 AM) Iraq is absolute mayhem now. 2222 Civilians killed in August and in September 2660 were killed. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...epath=News/News They're totally screwed. So, every month almost as many Iraqi's are dying as did American's in 9/11. That's sad.

Everything I need to know I learned from Iron Maiden

QUOTE(bmags @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 11:31 AM) Because i'm literally asking God to damn this press conference so the PIR can be televised. it didn't bother you last month i see... Last month eye wasn't around. And I didn't want to change it if I was the only one it bothered, also, swearing isn't supposed to be in thread titles. Jason posted that announcement a few months ago. But thanks for reminding me about that.

QUOTE(mreye @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 11:27 AM) How come I can't say the F bomb, but it's perfectly OK to say G-- D-----? It's equally, if not more, offensive to me. Yes, I'm 100% serious. Thread title changed, it bothered me also.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 10:23 AM) Poor thing. I got a few ideas this year, we'll see what happens. She'll like it. Plus Halloween is a Tuesday, so she'll be too tired from Doggy Day Care to fight me on it. It'll be adorable.

I probably wont' get dressed up (since I'll get trick-or-treaters at my house), but I am making the dog wear angel wings and probably a halo.

When I was going through the mortgage process this spring, I relied a lot on advice from my dad. But I also did a lot of research on my own. I didn't expect my broker to hold my hand and explain everything--I came in with specific questions about what I needed to know. Ultimately, I don't think it's just about parents giving their kids lessons, but I think people need to take their own initiative to figure this stuff out. And as a result I have my own lovely fixed rate 30 year mortgage, with matching escrows for taxes. Awwwwww.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 09:56 AM) Now I want to know the truth... because people were saying they were there when the "standing O" thing happened. I don't know, but wiki said only 3 people DIDN'T vote for censure. So, I can't quite imagine who would have given it. And all the references I can find on the web are from right wing blogs (blogsforbush, gopusa, etc). So, I don't know if it happened either way. I sent a request to snopes about it though. QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Oct 11, 2006 -> 10:04 AM) Crane was in his own scandal, with a female, not an 17 year old boy like Studds. So, it's okay for him to sleep with a 17 year old female page? I don't see that situation any different from Studds'.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 07:33 PM) If I recall correctly, the only thing the Democrats could do, they did. They can't kick him out of the body because he didn't commit a crime. They DID censure him. They DID even go so far as hire an independent prosecutor to investigate the charges against him and found nothing. The Democrats made serious changes to the page program to protect the pages and give them more serious supervision. From wiki: In addition to the censure, the Democratic leadership stripped Studds of his chairmanship of the House Merchant Marine subcommittee. Studds was later appointed chair of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Studds received standing ovations, not in Congress as has been reported, but in his home district at his first town meeting following his congressional censure. The other member of congress implicated in the scandal, Dan Crane (R, IL), was also censured and defeated at election time.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 05:13 PM) Soxy, I read through this really fast... and haven't digested it all, but there's some good points in here. I'd like to cut this out and start its own topic, because this would be a really good debate, IMO, if people took it seriously. Would that be ok? Do whatever you want with it. I'm sure it will be taken *seriously* and treated with *respect.* :rolly

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 12:14 PM) That is so freaking mind-blowing that I literally don't have anything left to say. ^^^^^ Additionally, LCR TEACHES children and ISN'T even a democrat. And, yeah, just yeah.

What is a Liberal? (From Today's trib) chicagotribune.com >> Editorials What it means to be a liberal By Geoffrey R. Stone. Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime." Published October 10, 2006 For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling. In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them. Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate. 1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate. 2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.) 3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." 4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.) 5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people. 6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare." 7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women. 8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.) 9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens. 10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty." Consider this an invitation. Are these propositions meaningful? Are they helpful? Are they simply wrong? As a liberal, how would you change them or modify the list? As a conservative, how would you draft a similar list for conservatives?

Congratulations! And what a beautiful name!

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Oct 10, 2006 -> 08:59 AM) They knew about "it"? They DIDN'T know about the IM's. They knew of some emails that apparently noone thought were bad enough to do anything about. Even CREW and a rabid lefty blogger did nothing except turn them over to the FBI. Your post makes it sound like Hastert and the FBI knew he was telling 17 year olds to take off their boxers. While that may yet be proven to be true, so far, it has not. If it does turn out that Hastert knew about the IM's as well, i will join you in your condemnation. As for the Dems doing wrong, please reread that section of my post. Please note the word IF. Imagine, if you will, if someone on the dems made this statement about a dem leader in the same situation as Foley. EM would be the first to rip them from here to kingdom come.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 03:37 PM) funny Santorum story.... I used to live in a posh garage apartment of a 20k square foot mansion and the owners just had a fund raiser for Rick the other week. The funny part may only make the christians in the room laugh, but one of the guests was none other than Michael W. Smith. *gag* I love when rich republicans hang out together in the name of morals and family values. anyway...so maybe that only made me laugh, but that much I'm used to around here. *Cancels dedication of "Friends" to PA on the Delilah show*

I'm always so shocked that To Kill a Mockingbird is on those lists. I think that's just one of the best American novels I've read.

From Today's Trib. . . When Harry met Satan Published October 9, 2006 All this time we thought the Harry Potter books were about coming of age, triumphing over adversity and eating jelly beans that taste like earwax and vomit. It turns out we have not been paying close attention. There are people out there, lots of people, who think Harry, Hermione and Ron are recruiters for Satan's army. Last week, a suburban Atlanta mother of four made news by asking the board of education to banish Harry and the Hogwarts gang from school libraries. She says the books are an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate kids into the Wicca religion, and foster the kind of culture that leads to atrocities like the Columbine school shootings. Plenty of other parents, clergy and teachers worry that the J.K. Rowling series promotes an unhealthy interest in witchcraft. The books have been removed, restricted, banned and burned so many times that they rank first on the American Library Association's list of "challenged" books from 2000-2005. The Harry-and-Satan theory picked up steam several years ago when the satirical tabloid The Onion ran a story headlined "Harry Potter Books Spark Rise In Satanism Among Children." (The article reported that since 1995, applicants to Satan worship had increased from 100,000 to 14 million children and young adults.) The story was excerpted in e-mail chain letters forwarded by folks who didn't get the joke--and the next thing you knew the Internet was loaded with rebuttals by angry Wiccans, Harry Potter fans and truth-squad Web sites like snopes.com. Naturally, this has not hurt Harry's popularity. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Banned Books Week, the ALA asked readers to vote for their favorite banned titles. The Harry Potter series finished first in all three age categories--preteen, teen and adult. Other frequently "challenged" books include literary standards such as "Huckleberry Finn" and "To Kill a Mockingbird"; provocative titles such as "Heather Has Two Mommies" and "What's Happening to My Body?"; the entire Captain Underpants series; just about anything by Judy Blume and, astonishingly, "Where's Waldo?" (Forget Waldo. Can you find the dog sniffing a child's behind?) The list proves once again that one reader's classic is another's ticket to the dark side. We're not here to say what anyone's children should read. Parents who worry that Harry will deliver their kids to the devil or encourage them to experiment with earwax and other gateway drugs are free to ban the books from their homes. Just leave them in the library for the rest of us.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Oct 9, 2006 -> 10:30 AM) So how long until this technology and/or weaponry ends up in the wrong hands? Isn't North Korea wrong enough hands?

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Oct 8, 2006 -> 01:57 AM) The Crusades?! How is something that happened hundreds of years ago relevant to what is going on today? The answer? Its VERY relevant. It proves that Christians have become civilized over time wheras Muslims have not. Wow.