LowerCaseRepublican

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Dec 17, 2005 -> 03:04 PM) God forbid if right after 9/11 a few phones were tapped with calls going outside the us. Now the liberals want him investigated. Good grief. Now on the other hand I guess you can sell out your countries security for the next 20 years and get a few campaign donations and you are hailed as a hero by the left. Chips for the Chinese Or you can just stop being a political hack and realize that Bush gave the 4th Amendment a Cleveland Steamer. And we don't know exactly who is being spied on because whomever IS getting spied on can't tell anybody including a defense attorney (thanks Patriot Act!) And let's not forget the case ex parte Milligan Time has proven the discernment of our ancestors, for even these provisions, expressed in such plain English words that it would seem the ingenuity of man could not evade them, are now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends deemed just and proper, and that the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril unless established by irrepealable law. The history of the world had taught them that what was done in the past might be attempted in the future. The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false, for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence, as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 16, 2005 -> 02:15 PM) So you are saying the tax cuts did not increase revenues?????? We should not be allowed to keep more of our money. No let the government keep it and spend it on farm subsidies and entitlement programs. They work so well. Let's not forget unnecessary multibillion dollar wars.

QUOTE(Cknolls @ Dec 16, 2005 -> 02:17 PM) Nothing to hide= nothing to worry about. And government has never abused its power before...except for the Palmer Raids, Red Scare (McCarthyism), COINTELPRO and using the PATRIOT Act to sue adult film producers that have no ties to terrorism. Let's not forget that the Federal Intelligence Court of Appeals stated that the Patriot Act's seizure policies may not meet Fourth Amendment guidelines but they "almost certainly come close". We must be willing to distinguish between the necessary powers to catch terrorists and overkill that poses a threat to innocent citizens.

Almost done with my last final of the year -- just throwing the last 2 pages on a paper.

I don't post a whole lot in PHT mainly because of threads like "The Evil Kenny Williams" and the numerous ones in the past. Every move KW made was lambasted & if he didn't make a move he was lambasted. It was like him walking on water and then getting yelled at for not swimming. From our future HOF catcher Miguel Olivo being traded to get our mediocre starter Freddy Garcia...to whining that all KW got was Blum during the midseason trade deadline...to the recent doom and gloom about El Duque getting traded for Vazquez... I am getting so sick of it, I could puke geysers of blood out of my eyes. For f***'s sake, they just won the goddamn World Series. Methinks KW has some idea about what he is doing. He's made excellent moves. While it angers me a little bit that Duque left, I just remembered his forays as a starter earlier last season. If I wanted to see four balls that often, I'd be out renting XXX gay porn. Rowand leaving was bad but you can't make an omlete without breaking a few eggs. With a hurt Frank Thomas being a liability & Kong being a FA, KW had to shore up some much needed power in the lineup. The fact that Thome then went and assisted us in getting Kong (and much needed protection in the lineup) only makes our lineup that much more devastating -- plus how funny is it that we screwed the Angels out of two major power bats? Not to mention the fact that the minors are stocked with outfielders coming out the yin yang so Rowand is replaceable. I think Vazquez will find his form. Look at the job that Cooper has done with players that have the raw, untapped potential & getting them to perform well (Garland, The Count, etc.) So please people...think before posting because I (and I'm sure tons of others) don't appreciate the doom and gloom. Crack open a beer, realize the Sox won the Series, drink and then realize that -- despite the whining, we've got another season ahead of us in a few months because with some of the bile being thrown around here, I almost thought I missed all 162 games of the '06 season. /end.rant.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 14, 2005 -> 01:46 PM) http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/14/bush.iraq/index.html I guess the buck really does stop with him after all. Just 2 years after the fact and trying to throw every excuse under the sun out there, it is good to see him finally owning up to that mantra of personal responsibility.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Dec 14, 2005 -> 09:53 AM) Don't forget the Diebold machines owned by Bush's GREAT, BEST friend. We really need to get that conspiracy theory right! Let's not forget the same guy said he'd "deliver" Ohio to Bush.

These two journalists/writers have written 2 books on the topic. They're pretty interesting reads. They went out and interviewed parents, friends, lawyers and pretty much everybody under the sun that was involved with the case. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074348483...glance&n=283155 The book starts off with him dying and then they just go about looking at all the evidence. A lot of it is plausible that he couldn't have pulled the trigger & that CL was probably involved (it has been a while since I read the most recent book but IIRC, a few weeks before Kurt's death, Courtney was caught with papers in her bag where she was trying to forge Kurt's handwriting -- important because most handwriting analysts who have seen the "suicide note" believe that the ending was written by a 2nd person) Add in the fact that he was about to leave CL and there's a motive of greed/revenge there.

Okay gang, last one I promise, haha. I'm looking for some more information about the reception of "Fist of Fury" (known in the US as "Chinese Connection") and also "Enter the Dragon" in Hong Kong/China when the films initially came out in the box office. I know that Chinese Connection was one of the hugest grossing films but I need something about the expectations of the films from audiences (especially the sense of trans-national Chinese sense of identity) because I am contrasting them to what the West (US) was expecting from the two films. Any assists would kick ass.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Dec 13, 2005 -> 01:34 PM) Is this s*** head is presupposing that both "victims" were are equally qualified for their deaths? or what is his point then? That we should spring out of the bushes and ass rape the convicted murderer and watch him die as a suitable punishment because it's "equal"? LCR, where do you find these moronic quotes? It is more of a commentary that if taking a life is deemed wrong by the state then how can the state supercede its supposed creed & take a life? I take it that you haven't read much Camus... Would this one be better? "A punishment that destroys the condemned, degrades the executioner, arouses public manifestations of sadism and excites a hideous vainglory in certain criminals, while forestalling nothing, is in truth only a form of revenge: A punishment that penalises without forestalling is indeed called revenge. It is a quasi-arithmetical reply made by society to whoever breaks its primordial law."

In honor of Soxy, I gotta go with some Camus: "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life." It is difficult to hear a politician talk about the sanctity of life but then in the same breath talk about how war and capital punishment are noble means of keeping a "civilized" society. As to the "We need to do this fast" argument: Complex pre-trial motions, lengthy jury selections, and expenses for expert witnesses are all likely to add to the costs in death penalty cases. The irreversibility of the death sentence requires courts to follow heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial. The separate sentencing phase of the trial can take even longer than the guilt or innocence phase of the trial. And defendants are much more likely to insist on a trial when they are facing a possible death sentence. After conviction, there are constitutionally mandated appeals which involve both prosecution and defense costs.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticl...K-CHINA-BRA.XML The man confessed to breaking into the woman's home five times, including once while she was sleeping, though he had fled as soon as she woke up, Xinhua said. Police caught him red-handed in November walking out of the neighbour's apartment with a key to her door, a bra, two photographs and her MP3 player, the report on Xinhua's English Web site, www.chinaview.cn, said. But the court in Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province, dismissed harassment charges against the burglar. It heard that on the times he entered the woman's apartment while she was out, he had washed her dishes, done her laundry, left her snacks and even fixed her computer. My mind is so boggled right now...This is so Chungking Express it is making my brain hurt.

Speaking on the internet poll, I can't be the only one who knows that internet polls can be spiked by different sites (i.e. FreeRepublic or Dem Underground puts up a poll -- and then skews the answers that way by flooding it with people and/or creating macros to flood it with responses one way or the other)

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 04:06 PM) There are plenty of Jewish individuals willing to take the blindly pro-Israel/pro-Zionist extremists to task when the need arises. Exactly -- Finkelstein's parents survived the Holocaust & he to say that he is pissed about the bastardization of the plight of the Holocaust (using it as a hammer to pound at any critic of Israeli policy) is quite an understatement. Not to mention that he is a well respected academic scholar with backed up research. But who needs to refute that when you can just say "Nazi!" It is hilarious that SBMI proclaims that a race of people are inferior, subhuman and all evil -- yet has the balls and cognitive dissonance to call "me" a racist.

Happy birthday!

I'm surprised nobody used his old slogan of "I'm not dead yet, motherf***er!" in some sort of joke.

QUOTE(mr_genius @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 12:24 PM) first off, who is your brother? secondly, I doubt that someone who 'hates' Jews would support a team (Chicago White Sox) that is owned by someone who is Jewish. His brother was a poster around here. IIRC he got banned for something completely unrelated to our debate. It was a while ago though.

QUOTE(juddling @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 12:10 PM) occasionally....that is correct.....but in this particular case...i think they got it right. even after all the appeals he's still headed towards death. I for one have faith that our justice system got this one right. Just curious, since i knew someone would bring up this argument...how many people have been excuted in the US in the last 50 years and how many times has facts turned up afterwards to prove innocence??? you make it sound like they are excuting innocent people all the time. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but i doubt the CSI teams across the country are getting innocent people out of jail on a weekly basis. No justice system is perfect..(well...one is but you have to believe in god to believe that) but i feel ours is about as perfect as one can be and we have to believe it works. (unless you're named O.J.) 122 since 1973 -- which is really 122 too many. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=110 Their main page has exonerations by state, year and race. I can no longer believe it works after McKlesky v. Kemp -- A study of death sentences in Philadelphia found that African American defendents were almost FOUR times more likely to receive the death penalty than were people of other ethnic origins who committed similar crimes. Over 80% of people executed since 1976 were convicted of killing white victims, although people of color make up more than half of all homicide victims in the US. A defendant who can afford his or her own attorney is much less likely to be sentenced to die. 95% of all people sentenced to death in the US could not afford their own attorney. In 1987, McCleskey v. Kemp, a Supreme Court case brought forth the famous Baldus study that revealed facts that proved the following: "(1) defendants charged with killing white victims in GA are 4.3 times as likely to be sentenced to death as defendants charged with killing blacks; (2) 6 of every 11 defendants convicted of killing a white person would not have received the death penalty if their victim had been black; and (3) cases involving black defendants and white victims are more likely to result in a death sentence than cases featuring any other racial combination of defendant and victim. This case was defeated by a 5-4 vote given the reason by Justice Powell: "McCleskey's claim, taken to its logical conclusion, throws into serious question the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system." Just google the Baldus study and you'll get the details about how he came to his conclusions. As long as we have a system that is highly arbitrary in who receives it along with a blatant race/class based bias, there should be no faith in a system that can take a life, especially under these dubious circumstances. I'd sit here and type more but just look around http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1328 for info. And I forgot: "The idea that murder victims' families are best served by continuing the cycle of violence is something that I consider to be not only a lie, but criminally negligent. You lie to victims' families when you tell them they're going to receive closure if they participate in the process and witness the execution of a human being. I've witnessed the execution of a human being. This is not an abstract for me. I promise you, it isn't going to heal anybody. I'll never recover from it. It's incredibly irresponsible to allow victims' family members to witness executions." --Steve Earle

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 11:33 AM) So let me get this straight. The US House of Representatives, US Senate, CIA and the Navy itself, all of which conducted investigations concluding that the attack was not deliberate, are just "some Jewish hacks". LOL! Thats a new low, even for you. Nuke, you should read the point by point refutations of these reports -- the eyewitnesses to the events were not allowed to testify etc. Then get back to me. Plus, you know as well as I that Congressmen can be bought and sold.

QUOTE(sec159row2 @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 10:14 AM) Obviously the most liberal court of appeals in the country (9th Circuit), found no constitutional problems with his conviction. Hence, fry the bastard. You do not grant clemency to someone because they have supposedly been reformed. He is a heartless bastard who has never shown any remorse for his actions. And these hollywood libs are a joke. If we remember the original idea for why prisons were made it was...and say it with me...::drum roll:: REHABILITATION. Clemency is just for the purpose of a person who, if left alive, would not be a clear and present danger to the public. If he is locked up for life in prison, he is not a clear and present danger. There is no need to execute him, except for primal and banal bloodlust. Killing him doesn't bring back those who have died & all it leaves is one more corpse. And why not respond to my other longer post (not just you but anybody here).

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 10:13 AM) I would hope that if the excutions start coming a bit more quickly...than maybe...just maybe a few people in the next generation would think twice before hooking up with a gang. Besides....as you say...they already face a death penalty standing on the corners but there is one difference......the goverment kills you it doesn't miss and take out the 7 year old playing in his living room!!!!! Occassionally the state just misses and executes an innocent person.

Turned in my Curriculum/Instruction final -- a unit plan on the American Revolution. Turned in my Special Education final -- a unit plan about 1960s activism & answered a few questions of class material Turned in my Japanese cinema 8-10 page paper on the Japanese influences of Kill Bill Just gotta finish up my Educational Psychology unit project & write another paper about the differences/similarities between "The Chinese Connection" and "Enter the Dragon"

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 12, 2005 -> 09:39 AM) String the son of a b**** up on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. That'll get their attention. YAS, don't mean to call you out -- I'm just making a general discussion and happened to quote your post when I wrote. YAS, I think you'll agree that capital punishment is only treating the symptom rather than the root cause of the disease. We're only decades from the Supreme Court case of Brown vs Board (actually had the opportunity to meet one of the kids from that decision...pretty cool experience) So we've got a generation of minorities who have first hand experience in legal segregation. Add on to that that we've got a generation who lived through Jim Crow and the animosity to integration -- getting low quality education because of that...And now -- I don't know if you've heard of Jonathan Kozol's new book (he's an education advocate that wrote "Savage Inequalities") "Shame of the Nation", we've got the return of quasi-apartheid in the nations' schoolrooms. The playing field is by no means level (and let's not even get into a discussion of the extralegal methods used by the FBI via COINTELPRO to murder/destabilize progressive movements that looked to begin to fix these social problems -- and please, don't demonize the BPP because it is quite a well known fact that Panties Wearin' Hoover was quite the racist & reading the FBI memos, that is the purpose for the COINTELPROS against those organizations) As Dr. King said (and I'm paraphrasing here): It is an insult to tell people with no boots to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And from Bulworth (1998) Sen. Bulworth: Why do you think there are no more black leaders? Nina: (after a pause) Some people think it's because they all got killed. But I think it's got more to do with the decimation of the manufacturing base in the urban centers. Senator, an optimistic population throws up optimistic, energized leaders. And when you shift manufacturing to the Sun Belt in the Third World, you destroy the blue-collar core of the black activist population. Some people would say that problem is purely cultural. The power of the media that is continually controlled by fewer and fewer people, add to that the monopoly of the media, a consumer culture based on self-gratification, and you're not likely to have a population that wants leadership that calls for self-sacrifice. But the fact is, I'm just a materialist at heart. But if I look at the economic base, higher domestic employment means jobs for African Americans. World War II meant lots of jobs for black folks. That is what energized the community for the civil rights movement of the 50's and the 60's. An energized, hopeful community will not only produce leaders but more importantly it'll produce leaders they'll respond to. Now what do you think, Senator? -- People have already written off inner city youth and the disproportionately minority class as potential criminals. Add into that, the white flight and redlining which have decimated property taxes in schools (I'm doing my student teaching in a school in January that used to be part of a big manufacturing town. The plants went to Mexico and now the town has been pretty much obliterated with unemployment etc. They don't even have the funds to get every kid in the class a textbook) and you've got a class of people still not receiving quality educations in desegregated classrooms decades after Brown v. Board. Add in the fact that almost every black leader gets demonized (Sharpton, Jackson, etc. -- and that's not to say that there isn't stuff worth criticizing them about...but at least they're trying to get off their ass and do something) or murdered (Fred Hampton, MLK, Malcolm X, et al.) and a justice system that is disproportionately condemning minorities to death (see McKlesky v. Kemp et al. for more information), it is no wonder why there is no hope & people are more willing to join street gangs. If they're believing that they're going to die and get treated like s***, they might as well try to make some fast cash while doing so. Stopping violence is a lot more complex and a lot more difficult than putting a needle in peoples' arms.

Nuke, I'll take the word of the soldiers that were actually there and the members of the IDF who testified that they got the orders to attack the ship they knew was American (read the damn article) over some Jewish hacks trying to justify the attack on a US ship because they didn't want us to see the mass graves of soldiers that they were illegally killing during the war.

By the state legally murdering people, it will sure show that killing is wrong. /green.to.the.core. I just wonder if the politicians who greenlit all the executions of people who have now been exonerated will go to prison -- I mean, they did knowingly commit murder 2 (depraved indifference) Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall stated: "The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment...It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant, and the underprivileged members of society." Hell, we're one of the few industrialized nations that still executes people. And Nuke, the "racist" justice system was actually explicitly mention in McKleskey v. Kemp.