bmags

for congressman/senators, I will never have a problem upping their salaries. It's a miniscule part of the budget, microscopic, and considering the hit they will take to privacy and such, at least pay them enough so you don't need situations like that frat house Dick Durbin lives in Washington. Also, if people watched PBS more for election coverage, a lot of the unsubstantial garbage we are talking about would need not apply.

I don't mean to be shallow, but I'm sure if you put a microphone in front of McCain's wife she'd say something dumb.

I do think the democratic party can reconcile, however, historically, long fought out primary battles haven't bode too well.

yeah, I think the reason this 32 delegate milestone is in place is to take the eyes off of WV and KY as states to see who wins, but if Obama can reach that delegate count to claim the majority of the delegates.

I don't think Dean, Gore or Pelosi should publicly urge her to end. Her voters are heated and sad right now and I think it's best that she appears to do it on her own.

I'm getting kind of sick of this coverage still giving credence to Clinton staying in the race. Seeing stuff like "Obama Clinton split Tuesday Primaries" is accurate, but continues to give the impression that she is a viable candidate. As soon as NC was called Obama, and then he won by 14 pt. in a big state, that is the story. That is a death nell. And then in a state where she was up big two weeks ago to only win by 2 pts, and 16,000 votes? I wish they'd stop feeding this narrative that doesn't exist. It reinforces her delusions.

Good Lord.

A bunch of states might be in play now, who knows what's gonna happen.

we're talking like the inauguration is like a King getting crowned, it happens every four years, why wouldn't you wait to go see someone that excites you. Especially when you have to spend your vacation on it.

She canceled all her media appearances tomorrow. Thing is over.

remember that early exit polls have been heavily Obama since the beginning.

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ May 6, 2008 -> 09:47 PM) Nothing to do with Carrier but I watched the first part of the 4 hour special on George H.W. Bush last night. Speaking of liberal bias the documentary not only paints H.W. as a good President but a great one. I believe the second part is on tonight. Very thorough look at Dubya's daddy. PBS rocks my socks. Well, he has a legacy in NAFTA and has major props from historians for his huge coalition in Iraq. He got crucified because he made a bargain with Congress (that was a good bargain, btw), but raised taxes when he said he wouldn't. He was a responsible president, I don't look down upon him. But then again, GREAT, I don't think he dealt with enough to be considered Great, especially for one term, he'd need a Polk like term to be considered great.

real experience I suppose.

I don't know where I stand on this. I had a good mom, and she bought me GTA for playstation 2 when it came out. I don't think she really knew what was all in that game. Nowadays, I don't really play video games and have no desire to get this game. I completely agree that this is disgustingly sexist, grossly violent, all that. Grew out of it I suppose, had parents that gave me first hand experience how to treat people. However, I worry about bringing back that the rule of censorship that the work will be based on how it would affect young or unstable minds.

QUOTE (jackie hayes @ May 5, 2008 -> 12:48 AM) the Medicare drug benefit. thassa big one.

You know, I thought people would be gullible for this gas tax holiday but talking to numerous people, it turns out many understand why gas isn't going down and know this tax holiday is garbage town.

I'd rather just enjoy the players while they are here instead of constantly looking ahead to see when they won't.

our pitching has been great this year but last year we were somehow winning games without scoring more than 3 runs.

on saturday when I was watching him I was so impressed. When he came up to the plate with two men on, i felt so confident, and he hits a double to deep left center. Man, he has some power. .435 OBP, gosh darn.

per the uber-awesome magazine mother jones in their torture issue in march: Editors' Note By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery February 22, 2008 what is america? It is a chunk of land; it is a racial and cultural kaleidoscope; it is a market. But more important and essential than any of these definitions, and the basis for them all, America is a legal and moral framework. It is the expression of those self-evident rights of man that Jefferson wrote about in 1776, and the fitful strides toward real equality we've been making ever since. And central to our rather arrogant notion of American exceptionalism has always been that our journey toward justice for all is not just America's journey, but a path for the rest of the world to follow. So what example are we setting for the world, and for Americans coming of age in this time of terror and torture? In many respects we have devolved to a pre-Enlightenment state. Take waterboarding, a practice recognized as torture since the time of Torquemada and, as such, banned in most European countries by the early 1800s. An American officer, Major Edwin Glenn, was court-martialed and punished for using the method on a Filipino "insurgent" during the SpanishAmerican War. The practice was officially banned by the U.S. Army after World War II, because of pow protections spelled out in the Geneva Conventions, but also because Allied soldiers had been subjected to waterboarding by German and Japanese soldiers—several of whom were sentenced to decades of hard labor, and even life, by war-crimes tribunals. This prohibition did not mean that Americans never used waterboarding: In 1968, the Washington Post published a front-page photo showing a GI holding down a North Vietnamese prisoner as South Vietnamese soldiers waterboarded him. But the soldier was immediately drummed out of the Army. And when Texas sheriff James "Humpy" Parker and three of his deputies repeatedly used the technique on accused thieves—some of whom gave false confessions to escape further abuse—the federal government investigated, a jury of a dozen Texans voted to convict, and in 1983 the men were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. The point is that while torture still happened, when incidents became public, they were condemned, not condoned. But not only has the Bush administration stridently defended the use of "harsh interrogation techniques," the American public has signed off on such euphemisms. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, pundits predicted it might mean an end to the war, or, at the very least, a national conversation on just how far America was willing to depart from its core values to fight terrorism. Yet, four years after the photos of naked, debased detainees first emerged, the debate over torture has dissipated. The highest-ranking officer charged in the scandal got off with a slap on the wrist in August, but you could be forgiven for not knowing—we were the only publication to send a reporter to cover the full court-martial ("The Final Act of Abu Ghraib"). There are three federal investigations into the cia's destruction of videotapes of agents waterboarding Al Qaeda travel agent Abu Zubaydah—but none into waterboarding itself. When it was revealed that administration officials and congressional leaders of both parties knew all along that waterboarding was being used on prisoners, the nation let out a collective yawn. The only criminal investigation into the cia's extraordinary rendition program has come courtesy of an Italian prosecutor ("The Body Snatchers"). Each week, Fox's 24 codifies the ticking-time-bomb justification for torture, while its reality TV show Solitary ("Voluntary Confinement") pits isolated contestants against each other to see who can withstand the most torment. And then there are the other assaults being perpetrated against the Constitution. These days American citizens are being entrapped into participating in fake plots and locked up for simply thinking anti-American thoughts ("Department of Pre-Crime"). What does our ambivalence toward our founding legal values mean in the long term? Social scientists note that most people—not just "a few bad apples"—are capable of committing torture. That they do so when encouraged by authority figures and joined by their peers, when the victims are dehumanized and the group's inhibitions fall away. Once such cruelty is deemed acceptable under exceptional circumstances, its use often becomes institutionalized: The exception becomes the norm. The only remedy is true accountability, a real reckoning with what was allowed to happen and how we can get our moral compass back. We owe that much to soldiers like Ben Allbright, who's caught between a community that hails him like a hero and the torment he feels over the abuse he doled out in Iraq ("Am I a Torturer?" ). If we allow fear itself to rule, if we justify methods used by Spanish Inquisitors and roll back legal protections enshrined as far back as the 13th century, we lose everything we claim to be fighting so hard to protect. That's why we must be vigilant against the creep of torture. Not just because it produces questionable results. Not just because condoning its use might increase the odds that it will be used on our own soldiers and citizens. But simply because it is un-American.

I have a hard time believing the federal gov't couldn't convict someone of plotting terrorism unless their claims we're pretty weak. And when they are paintballing ninjas.

yeah it's a hilarious strategy that works so well.

They might've won round one and two, but keep on fightin' the good fight! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/us/24mia...6YSlwC+e2sIDpHw Six Suspects Will Be Tried a Third Time in Sears Plot By CARMEN GENTILE Published: April 24, 2008 MIAMI — Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they would try for a third time to convict six men accused of conspiring to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and join the ranks of Al Qaeda. Judge Joan A. Lenard said the next trial would proceed in “the late fall or early winter.” In the previous trials, government lawyers contended that the men — Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Burson Augustine, Rotschild Augustine, Naudimar Herrera and Stanley G. Phanor — wanted to wage a “ground war” against American citizens and had pledged their loyalty for Islamic extremism to F.B.I. informants posing as members of Al Qaeda. Defense lawyers asserted that their clients had been goaded into making radical remarks and vows of allegiance by the informants. Testimony in the trials revealed that an F.B.I. search of the group’s headquarters in the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami yielded no weapons or evidence of preparation for a large-scale attack. In his appeal for a third trial, the prosecutor Richard Gregorie recalled how Mr. Batiste had been heard in taped conversations saying he “wanted to kill all the devils,” a reference to Americans, prosecutors say. “The United States has decided it is necessary to proceed one more time,” Mr. Gregorie said. At the first trial, which ended in December 2007, a seventh defendant, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted, and the jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision about the remaining six. A second trial ended last week with jurors again unable to decide. On Tuesday, Mr. Herrera was released on $50,000 bond. Rotschild Augustine, an illegal immigrant, was denied bond. The other four had not filed applications for bond. Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington Law School, a critic of the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism-related cases, said that by seeking a new trial the government was hoping to justify “previous headlines” about evidence — including wiretaps and informant reports — presented by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales after the suspects’ arrest in June 2006. “These are the types of prosecutors Las Vegas is built on,” Mr. Turley said. “They keep returning to the table with the same losing hand.”

still, i think 8 points will stick. I'm so sick of this dem. race.

white sox in lead "WERE GREAT" White sox lose lead "pathetic team right now" i wonder if anyone has watched baseball before in game threads.