FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 01:55 PM) By comparing Bush to Hitler, you certainly earned it. The points, which you understand perfectly well, are that: a ) an evil thing full blown is easy enough to see, but an evil thing in its incipient stages may not be. b ) the "it can't happen here" mentality exhibited by yourself and like-minded individuals is naive, frightening, and dangerous. No, I'm not suggesting this administration or a NeoCon successor to it is going to conduct a literal pogrom. But figuratively they are doing just that. Conducting an organized massacre of our civil liberties and of any meaningful checks on executive power, threatening members of the media with prosecution if they go to print with whistleblower stories damaging to the administration, reclassifying documents that have previously been unclassified, scuttling the careers of qualified career government workers who dare to offer dissenting viewpoints. . . Wingnut rhetoric would opine that it is unpatriotic not to support the President and his administration. But anybody paying attention would conclude that the truly unpatriotic act is to watch silently as they defile the very things that make America great.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 01:44 PM) I can't believe that you people are still crying about the 2000 election. Are you Michael Moore in disguise? Yes. Yes I am.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 01:43 PM) Now you see? Here I was actually agreeing with you on a point and then you go and take a s***ty liberal shot like that. Yeah, I know. But I was just pushing back against WCSox s***tty wingnut shot.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 01:31 PM) Comparing the Bush administration to Nazi Germany? Oh, that's rich. No wonder nobody listens to liberals anymore. I agree, of course there is a difference between Hitler and GWB. And that is that Hitler was actually elected. :rolly

QUOTE(zach61 @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 01:25 PM) There is a problem here above which I would choose to save. If I was in an empty clinic, there would be a specific reason I was there. I don't just wander around empty buildings. I would know why the 2 yr old was in that room and if it was alive or not. If it was alive, I would already have either removed the 2 yr old, or would be calling somebody about an abandoned child. The 2 yr old would already be in my arms before the fire started. I would then only have 1 choice to make and that would be to grab the petri dish. The real problem here is not which I would save, but why the 2 yr old is alone in a room in an empty clinic. It's incongruous, sure, but it's a hypothetical, so deal with it! I mean, why the hell is there a petri dish of blastulas just sitting around?? And what procedure were you having done at this clinic that specializes in leaving blastulas and unattended toddlers lying around?!?

Two year old. My 2 cents: First off, I don't like abortions and I'm very thankful for the many people in the sutuation that "choose life", but I think they should be legally accessible at least through the first trimester. There is no reality basis to a "life begins at conception" assertion, because in fact the two haploid gametes that fuse at fertilization are also very much alive. Conception is one event in reproductive biology. There are still major bottlenecks to get past after fertilization, and in fact more than 50% of fertilzation events end in spontaneous termination rather than implantation and embryonic development. For the "life begins at conception" crowd that does indeed meen that God/Nature/Providence (depending on your viewpoint) is the biggest baby killer of all and has the abortion clinics of the world beat hands-down. People that harp about it being "God's will" that no abortions take place and you can't interfere with God's will, but then go to a fertility clinic and take extraordinary measures to have a baby (implanting 10 embryos etc.) are in point of fact ignoring God's apparent will that they not have kids since they couldn't do it naturally. That is not to say a couple desparetely wanting a baby should not use the fertility clinic, they just need to stfu about God's will since they are actively subverting it for their own self interest.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 12:27 PM) I'd say it's more "paranoia" and "political slant" than "backbone." I'm glad that she retired. I'm sure you are. Pre Kristallnacht, the citizenry of Germany and Austria didn't realize what they had on their hands either.

Well, hands down my favorite ex-SCOTUS is Sandra Day O'Connor, particularly after the speech she gave on Wednesday. It was brave enough of her to say that Republican leaders' attacks on the courts threaten our constitutional freedoms. But to tag the likes of the current administration as a dictatorship in the making takes a lot of backbone. Paraphrasing, she said that it takes time to become a full dictatorship but it's better to stop the slide at the beginning than the end. Audio is here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5255712

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 07:59 AM) And I see Flaxx posting, but I also want to add a shout out to our President on this one. This illustrates when the people get ahold of a s*** bomb, don't try to cram it down our throats. "Oh YEA, wha wha wha wha,.... I'll just VETO you if you kill this deal..." That was probably WORSE then what Congress did. At least they represented the people on this issue. But I don't like the political s*** that went with it. Well it certainly did give Congress a winning strategy - let's see you veto it when we slip it into your war spending bill Mr. President.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 04:28 AM) Someone stole their thunder ... and they want it back. Honestly though, what does it actually mean to say that the "deal is dead"? There are no details yet as to how it's all going to resolve, so as much as any of this was ever "thunder," it still will be for a while.

I forgot what a creepy magazine cover that was. Ah, Anita, alive and well in the annals of SCOTUS confirmation trivia.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 11:17 PM) When we were being told about how this war would be run, we weren't told that there would be 130K plus troops in Iraq three years later. In fact we were promised significant troop reductions within a year. So that would be unexpected. We were told that we would be greeted with flowers and candy. So an insurrection would be unexpected. So I guess that would be unexpected too. So I guess that makes it news then. Why do you hate America? Posts like that just give comfort to the terrorists you know. (And they do lurk these boards. . . )

The one thing I've discovered about sex on the phone: It requires an extraordinary amount of balance.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:49 PM) So, right now Alaska is cleaning up the 6th largest oil spill in the state's history, after a pipeline just west of the border of ANWR began to leak. Just figured I'd point that out. I thought about posting a few days ago when the story broke, but figured you and maybe two others would cere. Yessirree, we have that footprintless petroleum extraction thing down cold. I feel downright silly abjecting to opening up ANWR all this time. . .

QUOTE(WCSox @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 02:16 PM) After all that's happened, it's mind-boggling that some people still can't distinguish between soldiers and terrorists. Not so mind-boggling, since we get to torture 'em if we call 'em terrorists. :rolly

Sounds like a job for. . . Haliburton!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 01:06 PM) I see no reason to celebrate. This is PR plain and simple. The prison itself was never the problem. This is like buying a new car for someone after they totalled one during a DUI accident, and hoping they will be more careful. There's no celebratory aspect to the post, and yes the detainees are getting transferred to other installations (at least it seems like the don't need to be extraordinarily renedered any palce). But using a place that was already burned in the Iraqi psyche as a site of attrocities under Saddam as a prison was not the smartest idea, even if we hadn't gone and commited our own attrocities there. It was an ignorant insult to the Iraqi people, IMO.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_abughraib_dc

I'd have to say I'm most impressed at the way Clarence Thomas measures up . . . at least to hear him tell it.

QUOTE(kevin57 @ Mar 9, 2006 -> 12:07 PM) I don't think CH went through any metamorphis post 9/11. As an ardent atheist, he has always been virulently opposed to religion, or at least religious influence in the public square. Who else would have written a book against Mother Teresa? I have no opinion on Hitchens. But from my own secular viewpoint I know you don't have to be virulently opposed to religion in order to be steadfast in opposition to the influence of particular religious strains on matters of the public square. Don't go nailing lifts onto the feet of the natives, as George carlin says.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 06:24 PM) Actually it was the chorus of "Please Don't Go" Which goes "please don't go, don't goooooooooooo, please don't go." Ah, see us cool old farts would have pegged an old Violent Femmes tune there. . . Please please please do not go-oh-oh. . . Please please please do not go-oh-oh. . . Please please please do not go-oh-oh. . . You young whippersnappers with your Rick Astley and your Kajagoogoo . . .

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 12:56 PM) Is it right or wrong that my date and I were watching Citizen Kane tonight and both started thinking and singing the same Rick Astley song at the same time? What the hell is wrong with us? If it was "Never Gonna Give You Up" at the part near the end where Susan is leaving Kane in Xanadu and he says something about 'You can't leave, I won't let you do this to me. . . ', then I can see the song fitting. If it is any Rick Astley song other than that then SHAME ON YOU BOTH for knowing another Rick Astley song.

The Abramoff interview in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair is going to be a hoot. The guy is going down smiling and singing away. One of my favorite excerpts on one of the many members of what Abramoff is calling the "chorus of amnesiacs":

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 12:38 PM) Its kind of sad to see cryptozoology proved wrong time and time again by the advancement of modern day science. Its like they are lifting any sort of "magic" from reality. Separating "magic" from reality is sad? Sounds like you could use som Theodoric of York.

QUOTE(Balance @ Mar 8, 2006 -> 11:46 AM) True. That's not what I meant, but that's how it reads. Crap. I jest. I should have used green but I ran out.