O/T: It won't go away by itself. (Verrry scary political)

On May 19, 10:23=A0am, Doug Winterburn <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

Why do people keep putting legs on a dead issue?
Basically what you're saying is that no vetting was done.
Right, I forgot, there's only one party and there's no one to do any
dirt digging.
Sheesh.

R

On May 22, 8:16=A0am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Han wrote:
>
> > Why as there any need for declarations of war, the Tonkin resolution,
> > the Iraq equivalent of that resolution?
>
> > I thought that Congress had the power to declare war, or the modern
> > equivalent of that declaration.
>
> Congress has the sole power to declare war. The president has the sole po=
wer
> to wage war. The Congress can declare all it wants, but the president cou=
ld
> refuse to do anything about it. The president can wage war all HE wants a=
nd
> the Congress can do little to prevent his actions (aside from cutting off
> funds).
>
> Remember, Bill Clinton waged war on more countries than any president sin=
ce
> FDR (Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Albania, and Serbi=
a).

Any of Clinton's war started by him under false pretences...scratch
that.. LIES???

HeyBub wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>>> If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
>>> about God lying to Abraham?
>> If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
>> standing in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.
>>
>
> Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
> tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
> He should have asked me..."
>
> You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
> imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes fucks up. Here's an example:
>
> Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
> Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
> to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
> permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
> God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.
>
> So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
> if everybody was a vegetarian!
>
> To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
> mark when attempting to follow ideals.
>
> The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
> immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
> makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
> Miss button!"
>
>

Gall bladder? What gall bladder? I ain't got no stinkin' gall bladder...

On May 22, 11:01=A0am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > On May 22, 8:16 am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Han wrote:
>
> >>> Why as there any need for declarations of war, the Tonkin resolution,
> >>> the Iraq equivalent of that resolution?
> >>> I thought that Congress had the power to declare war, or the modern
> >>> equivalent of that declaration.
> >> Congress has the sole power to declare war. The president has the sole=
power
> >> to wage war. The Congress can declare all it wants, but the president =
could
> >> refuse to do anything about it. The president can wage war all HE want=
s and
> >> the Congress can do little to prevent his actions (aside from cutting =
off
> >> funds).
>
> >> Remember, Bill Clinton waged war on more countries than any president =
since
> >> FDR (Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Albania, and Se=
rbia).
>
> > Any of Clinton's war started by him under false pretences...scratch
> > that.. LIES???
>
> Instead of whining and repeating yourself, why don't you produce proof
> that there was a "lie"? =A0You'd be a hero of the Sheeple's Revolution
> and Comrade Obama would likely give you a little trinket for doing
> something *no one* has thus far managed to do: Demonstrate conscious
> malfeasance on the part of the Bush administration. =A0Oh, I forgot,
> sanity and reason left the building a long time ago...
>

Damn.. I keep forgetting about all those WMD's and yellow cake they
found... my bad... oh.. and that Al Qaida/Iraq connection.
.
.
.
wait... you're pulling my leg, aintcha....

On May 23, 2:43=C2=A0pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Morris Dovey wrote:

>> Nice strawman attempt. :)


>It's not a strawman. The West failing to interdict in the regio..yadda, y=
adda...........

> Nice strawman attempt. :)


Let me clear something up here..
" a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a
proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the
"straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted
the original position.

So, by definition, when Timbo drags Nixon, LBJ, Mother Theresa into an
argument about GWBush, it is in fact a straw man.

Why does he do that all the time?

Simple. Timbo figures he can 'win' arguments by clouding the issues to
such an extent that many try to follow his pretzel logic, then they
realize that Timbo is full of shit and they throw their hands up in
the air muttering: 'what is the point of all this?"...and then Timbo
proclaims a victory.

It is the oldest trick in the book, and I must give him points for
playing that 'game' very well. Unfortunately, it is devoid of any
'real' victory.

Timbo's trick # 2? Is yelling AD HOMINEM ATTACK!!!

Trick # 3? A mishmash of repeat words, in the attempt that if he
repeats them often enough, they may stick to something/somebody. They
include the same old:

-Utterly untrue and ad hominem.

-It is factual that:

-It is informed speculation that:

-Bush Haters

-the foaming vitriol that characterizes your camp

-the spittle spewing Bush haters

-Pelosio, Obama, Frank, Durbin, and the rest of =E2=80=A8the sewage in the
Left..

-our current phony
political hack Messiah

-the fulminating Left that has percolated all this Bush hatred
is 100x worse than Bush could ever dream to be. =C2=A0It is they who
are the lying scoundrels in all this, not Bush.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Yup, we are dealing with a Bush apologist, and a guy who resorts to
bullshit in order to try to win an argument that nobody is really
having.....

On May 20, 3:40=A0am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On May 19, 1:57 pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Sorry to hear about your folks. Spent Mother's Day with Mom half
> > remembering that she had kids, then struggling with which ones of those
> > present were hers.
>
> > The lucid moments were worth it, but they are getting farther and
> > farther apart. All the best to both your mother and father, and you two=
,
> > to boot.
>
> Thanks to everyone, up and down in this thread for the good wishes.
> It was Friday, Saturday, and 1/2 Sunday in the hosptal. =A0Got Dad home
> late Sunday, he fell flat on his back, tangled up in his walker, and
> was back in the hospital less than 12 hours later.
>
> Now we are finding he may have fractured vertebrae. =A0He is pushing 83,
> so no operations. =A0He has cancer, heart disease, and about 1/8 of his
> lung capacity. =A0He is too fragile to even run some of the tests on him
> now.
>
> Oddly, the best suggestion the combined brain trust can come up with
> is to (literally....) "super" glue his fractures together with some
> kind of epoxy. =A0Other than that, nothing.
>
> So now we wait and see. =A0I have a few more full days at the hospital
> as they have no advocate or anyone to speak coherently on their
> behalf. =A0Mom is slowly losing it, and she is at the point where she
> wandered off in the emergency room a couple of times while we were
> there waiting for the docs.
>
> Gonna be a long week.
>
> Once again, thanks to all for the good wishes. =A0I will pass them on to
> him telling it came from "the internet". =A0He will get a charge out of
> it. =A0He isn't sure what the internet is, but he knows "all the kids
> are nuts about it" these days and everyone is "on it" but him.
>
> Robert

Dude, all kibbutzing aside, Ang's and my prayers are with you and your
family.
Ang and I are dealing with this stuff all the time, although we're
very fortunate that my parents' physical problems are minimal at the
moment, they are both 88 but can things happen very quickly at that
stage in their lives.

Grab a bourbon and a cigar and hang on tight.

(small) r

President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish someone
would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this guy
be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and hopefully will stay
there. If the average person wants to do something, boycotting fox
"news" and its advertisers is a good place to start. They are dangerous
to the health of this country, spreading lies, fear and hatred in
support of far right extremists and corporate greed.

In article <[email protected]>, Tom Watson
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm thinking that a thread about how gay shellac is might have some
> legs.

Just the blonde shellac, Tom. Just the blonde.

--
Kiva - Loans that change lives.
http://www.kiva.org/lender/david87375440

Douglas Johnson wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Douglas Johnson wrote:
>
>>> Part I, Article 1, Item 1 "...torture means any act by which severe pain or
>>> suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a
>>> person..."
>> Examples include having to listen to Madonna, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Bill
>> Maher, Nancy Pelosio-O, her father, Geppetobama, and Alec Baldwin.
>
> And ditto heads and rap music and nails on a chalkboard.
>
>>> "Give me a water board, Dick Chaney, and one hour. I'll have him confessing to
>>> the Sharon Tate murders."
>> Right he did say that. Now, do you suppose he speaks for all SEALs, past and
>> present, and/or the rest of the SOGCOM community?
>
> I have no reason to believe he was speaking for anyone other than himself.
>
>> ... but there is no *legal*
>> reason not to when the subject is: a) Not a U.S. citizen, and b)
>> Operating as a non-uniformed combatant making war upon civilians.
>
> This seems to be a common misunderstanding. The 3rd Geneva Convention defines
> prisoner of war and the required treatment of them. A uniform is not required
> to be a prisoner of war. The term "unlawful enemy combatant" is never used.
>
> The 4th Geneva Convention specifies the treatment of ALL persons in occupied
> territory. The UN Convention Against Torture prohibits torture on all persons.
> (So do the 3rd and 4th Geneva Conventions.)
>
> The UN Convention Against Torture does permit pain to be inflicted incidental to
> legal processes. So you can shoot them, you can't torture them.
>
> Disclaimer: I am not an international lawyer. I'm not any kind of lawyer. What
> I am saying comes from a plain English reading of the original documents.
>
> -- Doug

I shall go back and reread them ... this is not quite my recollection of
their usual meaning ...



--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

HeyBub wrote:
>
> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of
> the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and
> that for testimony about a crime that never happened.
>
> As a matter of contrast:
> Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton
> machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
> these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were
> in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
> imprisoned.

===============
Jury Convicts Fund-Raiser Hsu

"[May 19 - NEW YORK] Norman Hsu, a former top fund-raiser for the Democratic
Party and convicted Ponzi scheme operator, was found guilty Tuesday of
illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to candidates for federal
office by pressuring investors to donate to his favored candidates."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124274534722334937.html

>> Analogy: You have a 10-year old son who got into some trouble with some
>> of his friends; and some vandalism was perpatrated and the guity were
>> delivered home by the local constable. Would you appreciate an otherwise
>> uninvolved neighbor who interjected himself into the situation to dictate
>> exactly what punishment should be meated out for your boy?
>>
>> A neighbor is entitled to his opinion but he would be well served to
>> tread lightly on internal family issues if he hopes to be invited to the
>> next BBQ,.
>
> What you missed by not asking the questions is that this neighbor was
> directly affected by the "vandalism".

I think it's fair to assume that Rob was not directly affected by:

"Alberto Gonzales sitting in front of congressional
investigators whining, "I don't remember, I don't know"

and

"domestic eavesdropping in violation of the FISA Court"

and

"[Bush Admin]looking the other way while the
City of New Orleans drowned and its people were left to fend for
themselves"

and

"no-bid contracts to firms like Halliburton and Blackwater "

and

"Iraq that cost American taxpayers untold billions"

These are legitimate issues for the US to work though (via courts,
legislation and periodic elections). We voted in a new administration and
they are working to solve many of those issues... like reworking the
pentagon procurement process, extracting our troops from Iraq ... Oh and
Alberto did not make it onto the supreme court. The system actually works
most of the time albeit slowly.

Most, but admittedly not all of what was cited in the OP were internal
issues.

When Jack cafferty (the author) writes those words, he is using a bit of
hyperbole for effect. When non-citizens use that inflammatory tone its
offensive.

The messenger matters.

-Steve

RicodJour wrote:
> On May 19, 10:23 am, Doug Winterburn <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.
>
> Why do people keep putting legs on a dead issue?
> Basically what you're saying is that no vetting was done.
> Right, I forgot, there's only one party and there's no one to do any
> dirt digging.
> Sheesh.
>
> R
Speaking of dead issues, since Robo was slinging shit, game on...

On May 23, 7:38=A0pm, "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Robatoy" wrote:
> >I just had an an epiphany...i.e. a sudden, intuitive perception of or
>
> insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually
> initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or
> experience.
>
> Ah yes, baffle them with bull shit.
>
> Lew

I think bullshit, as a word, is in use long enough now that it neither
needs to be written as two words or hyphenated. Bull shit is what
comes out of a bull's ass, bullshit is what comes out of somebody's
mouth.
Of course, this could all be bullshit. If so, you've been bullshat.

Any B.J.s in the White House during the Bushwhacker's time there that
we should also look into ?

On May 24, 9:29=A0am, Jack Stein <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
>
> God, or god, are you boring!

> Jack
> Go Penis!
http://jbstein.com

On May 23, 4:37=A0pm, "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote:
> RE: Tim Daneliuk's posts
>
> IMHO, it's got to be a slow day around the water cooler when you
> respond to them.
>
> Lew

I just had an epiphany...i.e. a sudden, intuitive perception of or
insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually
initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or
experience.

Morris Dovey wrote:
>
> I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how
> beneficial it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how
> important it may be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) -
> George W. Bush's administration will be remembered for its
> intentional polarization of American society, its falsehoods, and its
> distain for the ideals and principles of American democracy.

The ideals and principles of American democracy, to coin a phrase, is not a
suicide pact. Here's an example from another realm.

Orthodox Judaism holds that there are 613 Commandments - plus thousands more
regulations based upon these commandments. These rules were handed down
directly from God and God is not fond, to say the least, of anyone violating
them. Still, breaking these rules and commandments is not only permitted but
required and meritorious when a life would be at risk if the rules were
followed.*

Would you say a Jewish surgeon called to save a life on the Sabbath was
showing a "disdain" for his religious teachings? Would you complain that a
Jewish soldier firing back at an enemy was not adhering to his "principles?"
If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what about God
lying to Abraham?

If you assert that "polarization" is a bad thing, how do you explain the
truth: "If you've got two Jews, you automatically have three opinions"?

---------
* For the purist, there ARE three exceptions.

Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Larry Jaques wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
>>> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>>>
>>>> Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.
>>> ...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
>>> One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...
>>>
>
> You mean instead of taking 250 days of vacation in his first three years like
> GWB did (most americans would have had about 39 days of paid vacation in the
> same timeframe, Carter only took 79 days in his entire term, while BC took 152 days
> in two terms). Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

The country would be far better off if Carter had taken many more days off -
around 1200 or so would have been optimal.

Ditto the Obamanation.

>
> "Ignoring Afghanistan" is flat out wrong, by the way.

It is the wrong verb, I agree. The correct verb is "dithering". I saw
this movie once before. It was called "Vietnam" where another political
pig - LBJ - put *his* political fortunes above making a hard decision.
The Obamanation isn't making a choice right now, because his three most likely
course of action will harm him politically:

1) Ante up enough troops to finally end this think. -> The Revolting Left hates him.

2) Do nothing further, and keep he status quo. -> More militay die, with no end in sight.

3) Get out entirely. -> The Right hates him and the general population sees him as a limp
coward.

Like LBJ, the Obamanation is far to self absorbed to care about the consequences to our
troops, our nation, or geopolitical stability. He's just constantly runnning for office.
He'll be forced to make some decision eventually, but he'll manage to package in a way
that any upside is his and the downside will belong to the legislature and/or his
political enemies.

>
> "Allah-knows-where" is pure inflamatory nonsense, designed to elicit hatred and
> you should be ashamed of yourself.

You are entirely correct. The Obamanation and his minions worship only him...


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On May 19, 1:57 pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:

> Sorry to hear about your folks. Spent Mother's Day with Mom half
> remembering that she had kids, then struggling with which ones of those
> present were hers.
>
> The lucid moments were worth it, but they are getting farther and
> farther apart. All the best to both your mother and father, and you two,
> to boot.

Thanks to everyone, up and down in this thread for the good wishes.
It was Friday, Saturday, and 1/2 Sunday in the hosptal. Got Dad home
late Sunday, he fell flat on his back, tangled up in his walker, and
was back in the hospital less than 12 hours later.

Now we are finding he may have fractured vertebrae. He is pushing 83,
so no operations. He has cancer, heart disease, and about 1/8 of his
lung capacity. He is too fragile to even run some of the tests on him
now.

Oddly, the best suggestion the combined brain trust can come up with
is to (literally....) "super" glue his fractures together with some
kind of epoxy. Other than that, nothing.

So now we wait and see. I have a few more full days at the hospital
as they have no advocate or anyone to speak coherently on their
behalf. Mom is slowly losing it, and she is at the point where she
wandered off in the emergency room a couple of times while we were
there waiting for the docs.

Gonna be a long week.

Once again, thanks to all for the good wishes. I will pass them on to
him telling it came from "the internet". He will get a charge out of
it. He isn't sure what the internet is, but he knows "all the kids
are nuts about it" these days and everyone is "on it" but him.

Robert

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>My mistake. The 3rd Geneva Convention is correct. "Lawful enemy combatant"
>is defined in the Military Commissions Act and tracks exactly the
>definitions given in the 3rd Convention. By extension, those not qualifying
>under the 3rd Convention or the Military Commissions Act as "lawful" enemy
>combatants must, perforce, be "unlawful" enemy combatants.

Aside from the fact that the Military Commissions Act has been overturned by the
Supreme Court, it only tracks the first two definitions of prisoner of war in
the 3rd Geneva Convention and ignores the remaining four. I suspect this was
deliberate because, especially the sixth definition would protect many of the
"unlawful" enemy combatants.

It is also defines any member of Al Queda or the Taliban as unlawful in spite of
the fact that they are likely to be covered under the second definition.

> But (6) doesn't really apply to al Queda operatives
>from Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and other places scooped up while fighting in
>Iraq and Afghanistan.

Indeed, unless they have "inhabited" the area for some time before the invasion.
The sixth definition is clearly set up to protect locals who say "This is MY
home and you're not taking it." I agree.

-- Doug

Lew Hodgett wrote:
> RE: Tim Daneliuk's posts
>
> IMHO, it's got to be a slow day around the water cooler when you
> respond to them.
>
> Lew
>
>

Yet you can't help yourself providing sidebar commentary.
I bet I know why:

It must be a very, very slow day when your only counterpoint is
personal rather than some form of ideas (pro- or con). I love
personal assaults - they demonstrate that the speaker can no longer
rationally defend their ground and have to resort to playground
name calling or the equivalent.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

StephenM wrote:

> Aren't you lucky that it's not your problem?

Do you even imagine that the consequences of US political decisions,
military actions, and commercial irresponsibility extend no further than
our borders?

> Some might consider it breach of etiquette to critique one's neighbors.

And some seem to believe that freedom of expression applies only to
themselves.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

StephenM wrote:
>>> Some might consider it breach of etiquette to critique one's neighbors.
>> And some seem to believe that freedom of expression applies only to
>> themselves.
>>
> I did not mean to imply that. (sigh.... I was trying to gentle)
>
> I would rather see that expression take the form of constructive dialogue.
>
> IMO, Rob's statement was not constructive.

Rob is a shit stirrer, no question about it - but it's worth noticing
that he seems to expect us to live up to our own highest standards, and
he's inclined to wax impatient when he perceives that we've forgotten
what those are, or when he thinks we've become too lazy or too "busy" to
do more than pay lip service to our principles.

I've found that even when I don't agree with what he says, it's worth at
least asking: "What would lead him to say /that/?"

I suspect that "constructive" is a fairly subjective catagorization, and
that a gentle general discussion is an iffy proposition in a large forum
with a multitude of (sometimes very strong) opinions and very different
life experiences. If I had to choose one over the other, I think I'd go
with constructive.

FWIW, I think robatoy /was/ trying to be constructive, but if you see it
differently why not ask him (directly) where he's coming from? You might
also find it interesting to ask to what extent he considers himself a
stakeholder in the conduct of US politics...

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

StephenM wrote:
>> I've found that even when I don't agree with what he says, it's worth at
>> least asking: "What would lead him to say /that/?"
>
> Sometimes, it's not just the message that matters, but the messenger too. I
> am proud to be a citizen of the US of A. We are not a perfect people, but we
> do have a system which provides for self-correction.
>
> Analogy: You have a 10-year old son who got into some trouble with some of
> his friends; and some vandalism was perpatrated and the guity were delivered
> home by the local constable. Would you appreciate an otherwise uninvolved
> neighbor who interjected himself into the situation to dictate exactly what
> punishment should be meated out for your boy?
>
> A neighbor is entitled to his opinion but he would be well served to tread
> lightly on internal family issues if he hopes to be invited to the next
> BBQ,.

What you missed by not asking the questions is that this neighbor was
directly affected by the "vandalism".

I agree that it's a good think to love your kid, but I also believe that
it's wise to do that with your eyes wide open and your discretion fully
informed.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

StephenM wrote:

> I think it's fair to assume that Rob was not directly affected by:

I think it's foolish to make unnecessary, uninformed assumptions.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Chuck <[email protected]> writes:
>HeyBub wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
>>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of
>>> the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and
>>> that for testimony about a crime that never happened.
>>>
>>> As a matter of contrast:
>>> Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton
>>> machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
>>> these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were
>>> in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
>>> imprisoned.
>>
>> ===============
>> Jury Convicts Fund-Raiser Hsu
>>
>> "[May 19 - NEW YORK] Norman Hsu, a former top fund-raiser for the Democratic
>> Party and convicted Ponzi scheme operator, was found guilty Tuesday of
>> illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to candidates for federal
>> office by pressuring investors to donate to his favored candidates."
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124274534722334937.html
>>
>>
>
>
>Thank you for bringing some sense into this discussion. Now we need to
>list the people that are being investigated today and those that Bama
>brought into his staff that should be investigated. Chuck

Sense? What the fuck does some fundraiser have to do with anything? He's
not an elected politician. He broke the law and will pay for it and good
riddance.

The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the reputation of
the United States in the rest of the world and squandered fifty years of
global good-will (and even envy) towards the United States of America, which
once was the greatest country on the planet. In this category, Bush, Cheney,
Gonzales, Rove and others.

The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the financial
system of the United States. The repeal of Glass-Steigel. Insufficient
oversight of wall street investment products (CDO's and other leveraged
transactions). Insufficient anti-trust oversight. Allowing too much
consolidation (this has been a problem since the Reagan Administration).
Greenspan, Bernenke, and the Bush Treasury and SEC appointees and a
handful of democrats.

The Bush Doctrine must be repudiated now, and for all time.

scott

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> writes:
>Robatoy wrote:

>> And you'd do all that to protect your war criminals?
>
>Absolutely.
>
>In fact, I would not wait for the threat to become imminent. Think of it as
>preemptive defense.

Thank god (if you are so inclined) that you're just an annoying anonymous
internet twit, then.

scott

David G. Nagel wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:

>> Damn.. I keep forgetting about all those WMD's and yellow cake they
>> found... my bad... oh.. and that Al Qaida/Iraq connection.
>> .
>> .
>> .
>> wait... you're pulling my leg, aintcha....

No, he's pulling on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who was pulling
all our legs when he said "...and we know where they are."

Can't you take a joke?

And besides, when was it ever carved in stone that "Thou shalt not bear
false witness"?

> In a vain attempt to prevent invasion as well as a massive sense of self
> impotrance, Sadame Hussain (SP) presented the world with the
> thought/fear that he had various WMD in hiding just waiting to use on
> any invasion force.

Saddam was indeed a bad actor, but he was /really/ over the top with
that whole nuclear deterrence concept. Unforgivably bad.

> He refused to permit inspection of facilities to
> prove or disprove such material. That there were no WMD found is
> irrelivant.

Yup. There must be something in the water over there to make those guys
actually believe in national sovereignty.

Hmm - now that we've disposed of that fiction, I suppose there's nothing
to stop, say Spain (or Canada), from arresting a US citizen and
executing him for uncooperative and threatening behaviors...

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>> David G. Nagel wrote:
>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>> Damn.. I keep forgetting about all those WMD's and yellow cake they
>>>> found... my bad... oh.. and that Al Qaida/Iraq connection.
>>>> .
>>>> .
>>>> .
>>>> wait... you're pulling my leg, aintcha....
>> No, he's pulling on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who was pulling
>> all our legs when he said "...and we know where they are."
>>
>> Can't you take a joke?
>>
>> And besides, when was it ever carved in stone that "Thou shalt not bear
>> false witness"?
>
> Proof by repeated assertion is no proof.

I agree, and also recognize that this is the basis for /all/ of the
arguments that you've presented. Did you really suppose this would go
unnoticed?

> I continue to await demonstration
> of your respective claims that the Bush administration materially mislead
> the congress, public, and international community and acted in bad faith.

You can wait as long as you like. I watched and listened to what those
folks had to say and, at the time, took what they had to say at face
value. It became clear to me that a significant number of statements
made to justify political and military decisions had no basis in fact.

To claim knowledge of motivation is to claim to know the unknowable. I
have not claimed to know whether untruth was spoken intentionally - only
that it was spoken. You can spin it however you choose, but you cannot
convert falsehood to truth after the fact.

> So far even the fringenut left hasn't managed to come up with anything and
> who better would have motive to do so?

You're using the wrong vocabulary with me. I have no interest in either
extreme of the political spectrum, other than to note that neither seems
to have much constructive to offer.

>>> In a vain attempt to prevent invasion as well as a massive sense of
>>> self impotrance, Sadame Hussain (SP) presented the world with the
>>> thought/fear that he had various WMD in hiding just waiting to use on
>>> any invasion force.
>>
>> Saddam was indeed a bad actor, but he was /really/ over the top with
>> that whole nuclear deterrence concept. Unforgivably bad.
>
> Do you seriously propose that a nuked up Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
> etc. would make the world a more stable place? I'm not saying what's
> there today is great, merely that more nuke proliferation is not an
> improvement.

Nice strawman attempt. :)

I hear you, and will suggest that you consider how you might protect
your homeland if you were an Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, etc and perceived
that a large and powerful country was likely to take an interest in your
natural resources, strategic location, etc.

>>> He refused to permit inspection of facilities to prove or disprove
>>> such material. That there were no WMD found is irrelivant.
>>
>> Yup. There must be something in the water over there to make those guys
>> actually believe in national sovereignty.
>>
>> Hmm - now that we've disposed of that fiction, I suppose there's nothing
>> to stop, say Spain (or Canada), from arresting a US citizen and
>> executing him for uncooperative and threatening behaviors...
>
> If a U.S. Citizen had murdered 10s of thousands and had the means, motive,
> and opportunity to get access to weapons that could kills 100s of thousands
> (or more), I rather think the international "community" might want to
> step in at some point.

One would think so. I was paying attention and found the response of the
international community of considerable interest.

> Your analogy is absurd. Saddam could have stopped
> this whole thing at any point - up to and including the night of the
> invasion - by simply providing unfettered access to an international
> inspection team.

If there is such a thing as national sovereignty, then the exercise of
that sovereignty includes the right to say "No" to foreigners who desire
entry for any purpose.

Any claim to the contrary denies the concept of national sovereignty.
I'm of the (very strong) opinion that this is an area where one should
be /very/ careful what one wishes for.

> You folks with Bush Derangement Syndrome are inventing
> this silly fiction that W simply had no probable cause to even be worried,
> let alone interdict in a situation where there was already ample examples
> of murder, human rights abuses, funding of terrorists in other countries,
> and threats to do more and bigger of all the above. Using your logic, every
> police officer that acts with probable cause and finds nothing should be
> arrested on "war crimes" charges.

Poorly constructed strawman argument - disregarded.

> The WMD thing turned out to be false, overstated, and/or finally
> unprovable, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Thank you for noticing that the statements used for justifying invasion
of a sovereign state were false, overstated, and/or unprovable.

This was my original assertion, to which you objected. :)

> I am no fan of W's on many other fronts, but on this one issue:
> His willingness to confront the disease of militant terror and its
> funding source - wherever they are found - he was not only right, history
> will regard him warmly, much like the deeply hated Truman has been
> properly rehabilitated by history...

I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how beneficial
it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how important it may
be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) - George W. Bush's
administration will be remembered for its intentional polarization of
American society, its falsehoods, and its distain for the ideals and
principles of American democracy.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>> Morris Dovey wrote:
>>>> David G. Nagel wrote:
>>>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>>>> Damn.. I keep forgetting about all those WMD's and yellow cake they
>>>>>> found... my bad... oh.. and that Al Qaida/Iraq connection.
>>>>>> .
>>>>>> .
>>>>>> .
>>>>>> wait... you're pulling my leg, aintcha....
>>>> No, he's pulling on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who was pulling
>>>> all our legs when he said "...and we know where they are."
>>>>
>>>> Can't you take a joke?
>>>>
>>>> And besides, when was it ever carved in stone that "Thou shalt not bear
>>>> false witness"?
>>> Proof by repeated assertion is no proof.
>> I agree, and also recognize that this is the basis for /all/ of the
>> arguments that you've presented. Did you really suppose this would go
>> unnoticed?
>
> Utterly untrue and ad hominem. I have been pretty clear to distinguish
> what is opinion and what is provable fact in this thread.

> It is factual that:
>
> - Saddam refused to allow full and open inspections
> - He was a savage butcher
> - He funded suicide bombers
> - He had used some form of WMDs on previous occasions
> - He repeatedly stated his intentions to build more WMDs

I agree with the first two points, invite you to provide verifiable,
detailed specifics of the third point (excluding after the fact
compensation to families), and to present a clear definition of "WMD" as
you use it in terms of killing range, number of expected casualties, etc.

> It is informed speculation that:
>
> - Some of the possible WMD type materiale' was moved to the Bekka

Speculation is neither evidence nor intellgence.

> It is possible, perhaps even likely that:
>
> - Worldwide intel services may have not done full due diligence in their
> haste to confirm that the Iraqi monster needed to go.

You reveal lack of a basic understanding of what intelligence is about.
Intelligence without "full due diligence" is not intelligence at all -
it is merely speculation and assumption (anathema to all intelligence
folks).

> These are all reasonable, and fact-based positions with varying
> degrees of credibility. Yet, when I've challenged you Bush Haters to
> come up with any shred of evidence rooted in a similar simple
> statement of fact demonstrating that he "lied" and the silence has
> been deafening. Given the foaming vitriol that characterizes your
> camp, it speaks volumes that no such proof is forthcoming. I am
> reasonably certain that if such proof existed it would long ago have
> be trotted out by the spittle spewing Bush haters. And - as I've
> said repeatedly - if any such proof evidenced itself that Bush
> knowingly lied to get us into a war unnecessarily, unjustly, and
> under false pretenses, I'd be right in line with those of you
> demanding an accounting and possibly a war crimes trial.

When someone in the intelligence chain says they're in possession of
some piece of /knowledge/, they're certifying that it is "hard" and
"real" - that "full due diligence" has been done. Relabeling anything
else as knowledge is an act of absolute dishonesty - and there is /no/
slack to be cut.

FYI I don't hate Bush, or Cheney, or Rumsfeld. I don't have any
particular fondness (or respect) for any of that crowd - but I don't
hate any of them.

What I /do/ hate is dishonesty in any form, and I hate it most when I
see it in a person who occupies a position of public trust - and I
assure you that it have anything to do with political affiliations.

>>> I continue to await demonstration
>>> of your respective claims that the Bush administration materially mislead
>>> the congress, public, and international community and acted in bad
>>> faith.
>>
>> You can wait as long as you like. I watched and listened to what those
>> folks had to say and, at the time, took what they had to say at face
>> value. It became clear to me that a significant number of statements
>> made to justify political and military decisions had no basis in fact.
>
> Fine, so you (and your fellow travelers) would have us make policy
> decisions, pursue international war crimes actions, and such solely
> based on what is "clear" to you. Swell.
>> To claim knowledge of motivation is to claim to know the unknowable. I
>> have not claimed to know whether untruth was spoken intentionally - only
>> that it was spoken. You can spin it however you choose, but you cannot
>> convert falsehood to truth after the fact.
>
> Allow me to acquaint you with some elementary distinctions:
>
> - Consciously purveying something not true is called "lying".
> - Saying something untrue unwittingly, because you were mislead, or
> because you didn't/couldn't know better is called a "mistake".

I, on the other hand, consider lying to be a mistake...

...and I consider that presenting something as factual, when you don't
know that it is, to be a lie if/when it turns out not to be factual.

There is a lot of daylight between "We have reason to suspect" or "I
think" and "We know" or "I know".

> There is an enormous moral and qualitative difference between the two.
> (Unless you are in sputtering "I Hate George Bush" fan club in which
> the two are morally equivalent. Oddly many of the charter members of
> that club seem to have no similar moral outrage with the overt and
> demonstrable lies of Pelosio, Obama, Frank, Durbin, and the rest of
> the sewage in the Left...)
>
> The level of moral culpability is thus also different for the two.

Hmm - side rant noted and disregarded. :)

>>> So far even the fringenut left hasn't managed to come up with anything
>>> and
>>> who better would have motive to do so?
>> You're using the wrong vocabulary with me. I have no interest in either
>> extreme of the political spectrum, other than to note that neither seems
>> to have much constructive to offer.
>
> On this we agree, but that's not the discussion here. There are plenty
> of politicians whose ideas I have and do despise - our current phony
> political hack Messiah leaps to mind. But I don't confuse my difference
> of opinion with their views as constituting their having lied about
> things. For instance, Obama flatly lied about his intentions to
> stop earmarking. But he certainly did not lie in his commitment to
> socializing the economy and its largest businesses. That has been
> implicit in his rhetoric for years. Similarly, it's fine with me
> if people dislike Bush's policies - and and/or all - but all of the
> gurgling that goes on about what a liar he was is just hot air.
> In actual fact Bush too did pretty much what he promised to. Complaining
> about that is fair game. Inventing duplicity that did not exist - or
> at least has never been shown to exist - is dishonest.

Smoke screen noted and disregarded. :)
>
>>>>> In a vain attempt to prevent invasion as well as a massive sense of
>>>>> self impotrance, Sadame Hussain (SP) presented the world with the
>>>>> thought/fear that he had various WMD in hiding just waiting to use on
>>>>> any invasion force.
>>>> Saddam was indeed a bad actor, but he was /really/ over the top with
>>>> that whole nuclear deterrence concept. Unforgivably bad.
>>>
>>> Do you seriously propose that a nuked up Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
>>> etc. would make the world a more stable place? I'm not saying what's
>>> there today is great, merely that more nuke proliferation is not an
>>> improvement.
>>
>> Nice strawman attempt. :)
>
> It's not a strawman. The West failing to interdict in the region
> would have effectively been a blank check to all the madmen that
> occupy it - you lived there IIRC and this should be clearer to
> you than most people. You don't let lunatics have guns let alone
> nukes.

Well, if it's not a strawman, it's more scope creep than I'm willing to
accept.

>> I hear you, and will suggest that you consider how you might protect
>> your homeland if you were an Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, etc and perceived
>> that a large and powerful country was likely to take an interest in your
>> natural resources, strategic location, etc.
>
> I would do everything in my power to acquire the weapons necessary to
> defend my own interest. Listen, I get why *they* want these weapons.
> What I don't get is why any sane Westerner would be happy to sit by
> and let it happen. The idea of some Caliphate-Wannabe with even
> a tactical nuke is - to me - utterly unacceptable.

I'm somewhat reassured that you get it. :)

I'm not an anti-nuke freak, but if wishing so could make it happen I'd
wish /all/ nukes gone, so that 6B people could all breathe a bit easier.

It's difficult sometimes to realize that not all things can be
controlled to produce outcomes that we'd like.

We have nukes, the Russians have nukes, and everyone who feels
threatened by either of us wants nukes to keep us from running roughshod
over them.

I don't think it's a matter of "allowing". That notion presupposes that
control can be imposed from without (by some "sane Westerner"?) - and
it's the prospect of being under some other country's control that
drives the desire to do whatever is needed to defend. It sounds like a
classic Catch-22 scenario.

There was a short-lived window of opportunity when, if both the former
Soviet Union and the US had de-commissioned all nukes, the rest of the
world /might/ have decided to do without. Doesn't matter now - we didn't
and so that window closed firmly.

We're not without options, but imposition of control is not one of them.

>>>>> He refused to permit inspection of facilities to prove or disprove
>>>>> such material. That there were no WMD found is irrelivant.
>>>> Yup. There must be something in the water over there to make those guys
>>>> actually believe in national sovereignty.
>>>>
>>>> Hmm - now that we've disposed of that fiction, I suppose there's nothing
>>>> to stop, say Spain (or Canada), from arresting a US citizen and
>>>> executing him for uncooperative and threatening behaviors...
>>>
>>> If a U.S. Citizen had murdered 10s of thousands and had the means,
>>> motive,
>>> and opportunity to get access to weapons that could kills 100s of
>>> thousands
>>> (or more), I rather think the international "community" might want to
>>> step in at some point.
>>
>> One would think so. I was paying attention and found the response of the
>> international community of considerable interest.
>>
>>> Your analogy is absurd. Saddam could have stopped
>>> this whole thing at any point - up to and including the night of the
>>> invasion - by simply providing unfettered access to an international
>>> inspection team.
>>
>> If there is such a thing as national sovereignty, then the exercise of
>> that sovereignty includes the right to say "No" to foreigners who desire
>> entry for any purpose.
>
> That is correct, "national sovereignty" indeed gives you this.
> Reality, OTOH, is what happens when behave murderously and then
> try to hide behind sovereignty. Again, I get why Saddam did what
> he did. I don't get why Westerners think that he was mistreated.
> He got what he had coming to him in spades.

I believe he did - but I also believe that bringing him to justice could
hardly have been done more ineptly.

>>> You folks with Bush Derangement Syndrome are inventing
>>> this silly fiction that W simply had no probable cause to even be
>>> worried,
>>> let alone interdict in a situation where there was already ample examples
>>> of murder, human rights abuses, funding of terrorists in other countries,
>>> and threats to do more and bigger of all the above. Using your logic,
>>> every
>>> police officer that acts with probable cause and finds nothing should be
>>> arrested on "war crimes" charges.
>>
>> Poorly constructed strawman argument - disregarded.
>
> Because it's true and thus no rebuttal is possible????

No, because I'm not "You folks" and because I'm not interested in
participating in debate where you project a position onto me for you to
knock down. It's that dislike for dishonesty thing I was talking about.

>>> The WMD thing turned out to be false, overstated, and/or finally
>>> unprovable, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
>>
>> Thank you for noticing that the statements used for justifying invasion
>> of a sovereign state were false, overstated, and/or unprovable.
>>
>> This was my original assertion, to which you objected. :)
>
> No - I objected to characterizing this as "lying" on the part of
> the Bush administration. Intelligence is an inexact activity.
> War has friction. International conflict never goes as planned.
> But somehow Bush was the one President that we're supposed to hold
> to a standard of perfection. Again, I say this as someone who
> largely disagreed with a good part of his policies and direction, but
> the the fulminating Left that has percolated all this Bush hatred
> is 100x worse than Bush could ever dream to be. It is they who
> are the lying scoundrels in all this, not Bush.

Go back and re-read carefully. I was fairly careful to avoid the word
that comes so easily to you.

>>> I am no fan of W's on many other fronts, but on this one issue:
>>> His willingness to confront the disease of militant terror and its
>>> funding source - wherever they are found - he was not only right, history
>>> will regard him warmly, much like the deeply hated Truman has been
>>> properly rehabilitated by history...
>>
>> I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how beneficial
>> it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how important it may
>> be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) - George W. Bush's
>> administration will be remembered for its intentional polarization of
>> American society, its falsehoods, and its distain for the ideals and
>> principles of American democracy.
>
> If you think he polarized this country, I'd encourage you to review
> the administrations of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush '41, and
> Clinton.

Surprise! I was actually there - watching first-hand. I even voted in
all their elections, but only for one of those (and probably not one
you're likely to guess). :)

> Laying this all at W's feet is absurd. Whether he
> underminded the principles of American democracy is a matter of
> opinion - I remain conflicted on the matter but lean in the direction
> that his foes are worse in their condemnation than that actual
> facts of the matter ever merited.

I will continue to hold ex-President Bush responsible for the actions
(and the consequences of the actions) of his administration - without
much regard for who might agree or disagree...

...and I'm not much troubled that your opinions differ from mine.

( Which, by the way, is why I keep encouraging you to involve yourself
in bringing forward /better/ candidates for office! )

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

HeyBub wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>> I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how
>> beneficial it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how
>> important it may be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) -
>> George W. Bush's administration will be remembered for its
>> intentional polarization of American society, its falsehoods, and its
>> distain for the ideals and principles of American democracy.
>
> The ideals and principles of American democracy, to coin a phrase, is not a
> suicide pact.

Ok - did I suggest that it was?

> Here's an example from another realm.
>
> Orthodox Judaism holds that there are 613 Commandments - plus thousands more
> regulations based upon these commandments. These rules were handed down
> directly from God and God is not fond, to say the least, of anyone violating
> them. Still, breaking these rules and commandments is not only permitted but
> required and meritorious when a life would be at risk if the rules were
> followed.*

From politics to religion? Hmm...

It's occurred to me that God must be a pragmatist /and/ have a sense of
humor.

> Would you say a Jewish surgeon called to save a life on the Sabbath was
> showing a "disdain" for his religious teachings? Would you complain that a
> Jewish soldier firing back at an enemy was not adhering to his "principles?"

I'm generally not much inclined to stand in judgement of another
person's religious beliefs nor their exercise of same.

> If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what about God
> lying to Abraham?

If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that standing
in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.

I will not make that same suggestion when it comes to politicians.

> If you assert that "polarization" is a bad thing, how do you explain the
> truth: "If you've got two Jews, you automatically have three opinions"?

My explanation: Everybody is opinionated. It's not a big deal - there
are times when I have three opinions all by myself. :)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
>> ( Which, by the way, is why I keep encouraging you to involve yourself
>> in bringing forward /better/ candidates for office! )
>
> I do .. by supporting their candidacy in both spirit and cash. While
> I differed with his views on the Iraq war, I thought Ron Paul was the first
> terrific choice we've had in decades. I went to his local rally and was
> astonished - every demographic was represented (or so it seemed). Yet,
> since he was outside the mainstream of the DemoRepublic mafia he got
> no play. I too voted in the elections mentioned previously (well, almost
> all of them). After a while it gets discouraging to realize: A) You
> almost never get a good choice and B) The major political parties sponsor
> candidates that vary between terrible and evil.

Something we share: I haven't ever managed to find a candidate with whom
I was in agreement on every issue and I probably never will - but I
refuse to let that discourage me from encouraging good people to run for
office or from working to elect whomever I think will do the best job.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

HeyBub wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>>> If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
>>> about God lying to Abraham?
>> If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
>> standing in judgment of Him might not be your best choice.
>
> Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
> tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
> He should have asked me..."

Who's to say He hasn't? It may have been left as a challenging puzzle
for some bright pathologist to redesign so that some geneticist could
develop the required DNA modification for implementation. :)

> You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
> imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes fucks up. Here's an example:
>
> Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
> Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
> to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
> permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
> God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.

And perhaps he's outsourcing the job...

> So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
> if everybody was a vegetarian!

Only if you subtract one from "everybody" !

> To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
> mark when attempting to follow ideals.

I suspect that most folks miss their mark more often then they like even
without deliberate efforts.

> The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
> immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
> makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
> Miss button!"

:)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On Tue, 19 May 2009 19:46:32 -0500, "HeyBub" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Looking at the Bush years realistically, aside from no terrorist attacks
>against the U.S. or U.S. interests abroad in seven years, 23 consecutive
>quarters of economic growth (a record), low unemployment, low inflation, and
>liberating 20-odd million people from tyranny, exactly what has the "Bush
>Doctrine" done for anybody?


HeyBub, you'd best be careful with comments like that. You're not
properly playing to the Bush Derangement Syndrome that seems to be
fairly prevalent around here and just might get slapped down.

Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS
USA

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:

>The 4th Geneva Convention defines a "lawful enemy combatant" as one who a)
>Wears a distinctive uniform, b) Carries arms openly, c) Reports to a defined
>chain-of-command, AND d) Conforms his conduct to the customary rules of
>warfare. By extension, anyone not meeting all four of these conditions is an
>"unlawful" enemy combatant.

Eh? No. From the 3rd Geneva Convention that specifically addresses prisoners
of war:

"Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons
belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of
the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members
of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including
those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict
and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is
occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such
organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs
of war.

[...]

(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy
spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had
time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms
openly and respect the laws and customs of war. "

Many of the Gitmo residents probably fall under (2) or (6). Notice no uniform
is required under (2), just a "fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a
distance". Perhaps "Taliban Local Chapter 135"?

No identification of any kind is required under (6).

I can find nothing in the 4th Geneva convention that addresses legal or illegal
combatants at all.

By the way, all four Geneva Conventions were passed on 12 August 1949. They
address different related topics.

See http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/genevaconventions

-- Doug

On May 19, 6:05=A0pm, [email protected] (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
> Chuck <[email protected]> writes:
> >HeyBub wrote:
> >> HeyBub wrote:
> >>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
> >>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of
> >>> the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and
> >>> that for testimony about a crime that never happened.
>
> >>> As a matter of contrast:
> >>> Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton
> >>> machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
> >>> these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were
> >>> in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
> >>> imprisoned.
>
> >> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> >> Jury Convicts Fund-Raiser Hsu
>
> >> "[May 19 - NEW YORK] Norman Hsu, a former top fund-raiser for the Demo=
cratic
> >> Party and convicted Ponzi scheme operator, was found guilty Tuesday of
> >> illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to candidates for fed=
eral
> >> office by pressuring investors to donate to his favored candidates."
>
> >>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124274534722334937.html
>
> >Thank you for bringing some sense into this discussion. Now we need to
> >list the people that are being investigated today and those that Bama
> >brought into his staff that should be investigated. =A0 Chuck
>
> Sense? =A0What the fuck does some fundraiser have to do with anything? =
=A0He's
> not an elected politician. =A0 He broke the law and will pay for it and g=
ood
> riddance.
>
> The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the reputation o=
f
> the United States in the rest of the world and squandered fifty years of
> global good-will (and even envy) towards the United States of America, wh=
ich
> once was the greatest country on the planet. =A0In this category, Bush, C=
heney,
> Gonzales, Rove and others.
>
> The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the financial
> system of the United States. =A0 The repeal of Glass-Steigel. =A0 Insuffi=
cient
> oversight of wall street investment products (CDO's and other leveraged
> transactions). =A0 =A0Insufficient anti-trust oversight. =A0Allowing too =
much
> consolidation (this has been a problem since the Reagan Administration).
> Greenspan, Bernenke, and the Bush Treasury and SEC appointees and a
> handful of democrats.
>
> The Bush Doctrine must be repudiated now, and for all time.
>
> scott

THIS!

tom tom wrote:
> President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
> someone would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick
> can this guy be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and
> hopefully will stay there. If the average person wants to do
> something, boycotting fox "news" and its advertisers is a good place
> to start. They are dangerous to the health of this country, spreading
> lies, fear and hatred in support of far right extremists and
> corporate greed.

Say what you will, Bush is and was a class act. I do not recall him ever
saying once that any of the then-current problems stemmed from failings of
the Clinton administration. Obama, in his speech Thursday, made reference to
the problems he inherited, by one count, twenty-eight times.

As time goes on, Obama will continue to experience "reality-checks" and
concede that, in many cases, the Bush policies were actually as good as
could be expected. We've already seen reversals from Obama's campaign
rhetoric when faced with some intractable problems.

* Military tribunals
* Closing Gitmo
* Gays in the military
* Detainee pictures
* Retain large troop presence in Iraq

He HAS kept his campaign promises on:

* Stem cell research

On Tue, 19 May 2009 19:04:23 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
<[email protected]> wrote:

>As is the general population at-large...


I wonder if a graduate thesis could be made out of research project to
determine whether the political process concentrates the incidence of
"greedy selfish fuckers" in that portion of the population know as
"politicians". IOW, is the percentage of "greedy selfish fuckers"
greater in the subset of the population who seek public office than it
is in the population as a whole.

I have my own ideas about that, but it's not based on any scientific
research.

Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS
USA

On May 19, 8:10=A0am, "StephenM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Aren't you lucky that it's not your problem?
>
> Some might consider it breach of etiquette to critique one's neighbors.
>
> -S

That's why I always wince a little bit when someone bashes the
Canadian health care system. Especially when there aren't any Canadian
politicians running on the "We gotta fix our health care system"
platform. :-)

"[email protected]" wrote:

> Thanks to everyone, up and down in this thread for the good wishes.
> It was Friday, Saturday, and 1/2 Sunday in the hosptal. Got Dad home
> late Sunday, he fell flat on his back, tangled up in his walker, and
> was back in the hospital less than 12 hours later.
>
> Now we are finding he may have fractured vertebrae. He is pushing
> 83,
> so no operations. He has cancer, heart disease, and about 1/8 of his
> lung capacity. He is too fragile to even run some of the tests on
> him
> now.
>
> Oddly, the best suggestion the combined brain trust can come up with
> is to (literally....) "super" glue his fractures together with some
> kind of epoxy. Other than that, nothing.
>
> So now we wait and see. I have a few more full days at the hospital
> as they have no advocate or anyone to speak coherently on their
> behalf. Mom is slowly losing it, and she is at the point where she
> wandered off in the emergency room a couple of times while we were
> there waiting for the docs.
>
> Gonna be a long week.
>
> Once again, thanks to all for the good wishes. I will pass them on
> to
> him telling it came from "the internet". He will get a charge out of
> it. He isn't sure what the internet is, but he knows "all the kids
> are nuts about it" these days and everyone is "on it" but him.

Robert,

My thoughts are with you.

Sounds like my movie was a better version than yours is, but trust me,
you will get threw it.

Take care.

Lew

cm wrote:
> Scott,
>
>
> You make it sound like the Dems had nothing to do with our current financial
> situation. There is a long list of Dems that had a part in the
> destruction...... Carter, Clinton, Barney, Dodd and many more.
>
> Both parties are full of greedy selfish fuckers.
>


As is the general population at-large...

> cm
>
>
>> The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the financial
>> system of the United States. The repeal of Glass-Steigel. Insufficient
>> oversight of wall street investment products (CDO's and other leveraged
>> transactions). Insufficient anti-trust oversight. Allowing too much
>> consolidation (this has been a problem since the Reagan Administration).
>> Greenspan, Bernenke, and the Bush Treasury and SEC appointees and a
>> handful of democrats.
>>
>> The Bush Doctrine must be repudiated now, and for all time.
>>
>> scott
>
>


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On May 19, 11:53=A0am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> A quick drive by here on my part as I am off to the hospital once more
> to be the advocate for my aged father against Medicare/Medicaid and
> the hospital system. =A0My mom can't do it because she is starting to
> have signs of Alzheimer's.
>
> I am sure this topic and the usual self righteous politicos here will
> beat this thread to death while swinging the sword of their version of
> the truth.
>
> Probably a little name calling along the way.
>
> Accusations of fealty will be made.
>
> Questions of intelligence concerning other posters that don't agree
> with ones that KNOW they are "the light..." they are "the way" will
> arise.
>
> Credentials of posters will be questioned.
>
> Sources of information will be questioned and then approved by some,
> then dismissed out of hand by others.
>
> All the normal guys that post little concerning woodworking will be
> here in force, since it is likely this may be the only venue they can
> express their political =A0views with such gusto without someone telling
> them to shut up.
>
> In the end, if the goal is achieved, There will be a large foamy pile
> of pointless blather describing how screwed up the USA is, and who the
> fault lies with.... at least in this thread.

Thanks for spoiling the surprise ending, Robert! ;)

Hope everything goes (relatively) smoothly with your folks.

R

A quick drive by here on my part as I am off to the hospital once more
to be the advocate for my aged father against Medicare/Medicaid and
the hospital system. My mom can't do it because she is starting to
have signs of Alzheimer's.

I am sure this topic and the usual self righteous politicos here will
beat this thread to death while swinging the sword of their version of
the truth.

Probably a little name calling along the way.

Accusations of fealty will be made.

Questions of intelligence concerning other posters that don't agree
with ones that KNOW they are "the light..." they are "the way" will
arise.

Credentials of posters will be questioned.

Sources of information will be questioned and then approved by some,
then dismissed out of hand by others.

All the normal guys that post little concerning woodworking will be
here in force, since it is likely this may be the only venue they can
express their political views with such gusto without someone telling
them to shut up.

In the end, if the goal is achieved, There will be a large foamy pile
of pointless blather describing how screwed up the USA is, and who the
fault lies with.... at least in this thread.

Can't you guys just copy and paste your old responses? Wouldn't it
save time? Isn't this horse (and its variants) dead enough for a
woodworking venue?

Exercising my right to free speech as a tax paying American citizen,
this just makes me tired.

I don't know what the point is to it.

Robert

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:7a4798f3-790c-45be-96dc-73aac9b34a83@s16g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
>A quick drive by here on my part as I am off to the hospital once more
> to be the advocate for my aged father against Medicare/Medicaid and
> the hospital system. My mom can't do it because she is starting to
> have signs of Alzheimer's.


You are doing the work of a Saint Robert, while probably not immediately
rewarded, you are recognized.

Scott,


You make it sound like the Dems had nothing to do with our current financial
situation. There is a long list of Dems that had a part in the
destruction...... Carter, Clinton, Barney, Dodd and many more.

Both parties are full of greedy selfish fuckers.


cm


> The folks who need investigating are those who destroyed the financial
> system of the United States. The repeal of Glass-Steigel. Insufficient
> oversight of wall street investment products (CDO's and other leveraged
> transactions). Insufficient anti-trust oversight. Allowing too much
> consolidation (this has been a problem since the Reagan Administration).
> Greenspan, Bernenke, and the Bush Treasury and SEC appointees and a
> handful of democrats.
>
> The Bush Doctrine must be repudiated now, and for all time.
>
> scott

J. Clarke wrote:

> LD wrote:
... snip
>>
>>
>> Power is its own Currency.
>
> Bingo. We need to figure out how to tweak the system so that people who
> aren't about power get elected.

No need to tweak the system, we need to go back to the founders' original
intent. They set up the system for that express purpose. However, during
the 20'th century, we became much more "enlightened" and did multiple
things to go around that original intent. Creative interpretation of the
Constitution such that a person raising wheat on his own land to feed his
chickens was engaged in "interstate commerce" so that the federal
government could prohibit that activity, popular election of Senators
rather than the original state government selection of Senators and popular
election of Representatives provided the opportunity for statists to appeal
to the base instincts of voters, and the interpretation of "promote the
general welfare" to now mean "to provide general welfare" are all examples
of how the Constitution's original intent to curb the power of government
and thus curb the power-hungry have been usurped to allow the power hungry
to manipulate popular opinion by getting the people to vote themselves the
treasury while the statists wield the power to get those funds.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

Douglas Johnson wrote:
> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> First, there's a difference as to whether the acts undertaken by the U.S.
>> constitute "torture" as defined by the treaty.
>
> Part I, Article 1, Item 1 "...torture means any act by which severe pain or
> suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a
> person..."

Examples include having to listen to Madonna, Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Bill
Maher, Nancy Pelosio-O, her father, Geppetobama, and Alec Baldwin.


>
> I guess the case hangs on the meaning of "severe". The DOJ lawyers chose a very
> severe meaning of "severe". I think most courts might choose a lower level of
> pain. Especially since the US Attorney General has said water boarding is
> torture, the US is going to have trouble mounting a defense.
>
> I heard a quote from Jessie Ventura, former Navy SEAL, former professional
> wrestler, former governor of Minnesota, and all round Wild Guy, who was water
> boarded as part of his SEAL training:
>
> "Give me a water board, Dick Chaney, and one hour. I'll have him confessing to
> the Sharon Tate murders."

Right he did say that. Now, do you suppose he speaks for all SEALs, past and
present, and/or the rest of the SOGCOM community?

<SNIP More Treaty Quotes>

The underlying problem with this entire argument - the hingepoint if
you like - is whether the U.S. has any treaty obligations to people
who make war in plain clothes, make war intentionally upon
non-involved non-combatants, and purposely hide among civilian
populations when being pursued. My understanding is that we have one
important obligation to such people upon capturing them: Formally
finding out whether or not they are in one of the classes of people
specifically protected by treaty obligations (POWs, civilians caught
up in wartime, etc.), or whether we can treat them as spies with
essentially no redress under any treaty to which we are signatories.

Then there's the smelly leftwing elephant in the room. The left - for
entirely political reasons - insists on trying to regard these
combatants as subject to and having standing before our domestic
*civilian* law. But these people have no such standing unless they
happen to be U.S. citizens (in which case they are entitled to our
full legal protections since their citizenship trumps any
international treaty). Foreign non-citizen invaders - in- or out of
uniform - are covered at most by international treaty. They have no
legal redress before a domestic legal system to which they are not
parties.

By this definition, the Bush administration was dead wrong in
the Hamdi case - Hamdi was a U.S. citizen - and SCOTUS properly found
this way. But you don't go onto the field of battle - even if it is on
your own domestic soil - and start handing out the full rights of
legal residence to people who are essentially an invading army. This
is sheer insanity possible only by people who think Noam Chomsky is a
genius, Ward Churchill is right, and Barack Obama is a statesman.

There may be practical, political, and PR reasons arguing for- or
against waterboarding or having to listen to Keith Olberman's regular
squealings - both arguably forms of torture - but there is no *legal*
reason not to when the subject is: a) Not a U.S. citizen, and b)
Operating as a non-uniformed combatant making war upon civilians.




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On 26 Oct 2009 15:38:47 GMT, the infamous [email protected] (Scott
Lurndal) scrawled the following:

>>Larry Jaques wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
>>> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>>>
>>>>Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.
>>>
>>> ...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
>>> One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...
>>>
>
>You mean instead of taking 250 days of vacation in his first three years like
>GWB did (most americans would have had about 39 days of paid vacation in the
>same timeframe, Carter only took 79 days in his entire term, while BC took 152 days
>in two terms). Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

I never said I liked Shrub. Hell, I haven't been happy with any
President since _Reagan_.


>"Ignoring Afghanistan" is flat out wrong, by the way.

Tell that to McChrystal and the troops.


>"Allah-knows-where" is pure inflamatory nonsense, designed to elicit hatred and
>you should be ashamed of yourself.

He tried to shake the Queen of England's hand. He kissed the Saudi
King Abdullah's hand. What are we to think? If Obama had spent (in
Afghanistan) the gas money he's blown in Air Force One this year, the
war might be won and the boys heading home by now.

---
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight
very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.
It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
--John Wayne (1907 - 1979)

On Thu, 21 May 2009 13:59:06 -0700 (PDT), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>So what is the value of that torture? A sadistic outlet?
>Or worse. And by that I mean torturing somebody so they will spit out
>the support for a war which was started under false pretences. IOW, if
>you don't have the reasons to wage war, torture somebody to say
>something that will justify your phoney reason?
>Where is the legal, moral justification for THAT reason to torture?



"Don't make me get medieval on your ass."

'Deadeye' Dick Cheney




Regards,

Tom Watson
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

"Han" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> Robatoy wrote:
>>> On May 21, 5:21 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On the one hand, I stand
>>>> with you insofar as I believe Bush was well within his legal right
>>>> to do what he did. I also believe that doing so saved lives,
>>>
>>> How?
>>
>> Article II of the Constitution nominates the president as Commander in
>> Chief. As such, he is solely in charge of war-making and his decisions
>> cannot be gainsaid by anyone.
>>
>>>
>>>> notwithstanding the constant drone of "You can make anyone confess
>>>> anything under "torture."
>>>
>>> If you torture people to get them to give you the excuse for the
>>> illegal war you wage, torture becomes useful.
>>
>> Well, there's that. You may be overlooking, too, the shear fun of it
>> (which makes about as much sense).
>>
>>>
>>>> If, in fact, there had been no benefit to
>>>> doing so, why on earth would Bush have continued to tolerate
>>>> something that cost him so much political capital, and arguably cost
>>>> his party reelection?
>>>
>>> Because he was arrogant enough to think it would not harm him and his
>>> cronies.
>>> He also didn't just 'tolerate' it, he bloody well initiated it. He
>>> instructed his henchmen to torture a confession out of his detainees
>>> so he could justify his war(s).
>>> Either he initiated it, or he didn't have the balls to stand up to
>>> Cheney and his death squad.
>>
>> I've already agreed with you that the Bush administration was arrogant
>> - all administrations are arrogant. But you're wrong in one
>> observation. To my knowledge, no confessions were obtained by coercive
>> techniques. We, like the early church, didn't need confessions to
>> prove anything - guilt was already established. We wanted, like the
>> church, something completely different: The church wanted a
>> soul-cleansing on the part of the condemned; we wanted information to
>> prevent more attacks.
>
> Why as there any need for declarations of war, the Tonkin resolution, the
> Iraq equivalent of that resolution?
>
> I thought that Congress had the power to declare war, or the modern
> equivalent of that declaration.

They do and they did. Repeatedly. They just did it again to the tune of $98
billion or so.

HeyBub wrote:
> HeyBub wrote:
>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of
>> the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and
>> that for testimony about a crime that never happened.
>>
>> As a matter of contrast:
>> Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton
>> machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
>> these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were
>> in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
>> imprisoned.
>
> ===============
> Jury Convicts Fund-Raiser Hsu
>
> "[May 19 - NEW YORK] Norman Hsu, a former top fund-raiser for the Democratic
> Party and convicted Ponzi scheme operator, was found guilty Tuesday of
> illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to candidates for federal
> office by pressuring investors to donate to his favored candidates."
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124274534722334937.html
>
>


Thank you for bringing some sense into this discussion. Now we need to
list the people that are being investigated today and those that Bama
brought into his staff that should be investigated. Chuck

"Tom Veatch" wrote:

> HeyBub, you'd best be careful with comments like that.

NBD when you consider the source.

Lew

Chuck wrote:

> HeyBub wrote:
>> HeyBub wrote:
>>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
>>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of
>>> the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and
>>> that for testimony about a crime that never happened.
>>>
>>> As a matter of contrast:
>>> Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton
>>> machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of
>>> these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were
>>> in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were
>>> imprisoned.
>>
>> ===============
>> Jury Convicts Fund-Raiser Hsu
>>
>> "[May 19 - NEW YORK] Norman Hsu, a former top fund-raiser for the
>> Democratic Party and convicted Ponzi scheme operator, was found guilty
>> Tuesday of illegally funneling tens of thousands of dollars to candidates
>> for federal office by pressuring investors to donate to his favored
>> candidates."
>>
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124274534722334937.html
>>
>>
>
>
> Thank you for bringing some sense into this discussion. Now we need to
> list the people that are being investigated today and those that Bama
> brought into his staff that should be investigated. Chuck

Would really like to see a very detailed investigation of the credit card
donations to the campaigns. Seems that the President's campaign had
verification turned off deliberately. This allowed people to make
unlimited numbers of donations below the reportable limits.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

[email protected] wrote:

> A quick drive by here on my part as I am off to the hospital once more
> to be the advocate for my aged father against Medicare/Medicaid and
> the hospital system. My mom can't do it because she is starting to
> have signs of Alzheimer's.
>

Best of luck to you and best wishes that this turns out well.

> I am sure this topic and the usual self righteous politicos here will
> beat this thread to death while swinging the sword of their version of
> the truth.
>

Nope, just going to point out that everybody is going to get to do that if
Obamacare is implemented. We'll have to prove that our value to society,
adjusted for our age justifies the expense for whatever treatment is being
planned. Not even speculation -- it's already in the plans and the
stimulus bill -- that little bit about "evaluating cost effective care"


... snip
--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:45201763-460d-4364-8569-c291e86dfddc@o14g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...
> On May 19, 1:57 pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Sorry to hear about your folks. Spent Mother's Day with Mom half
>> remembering that she had kids, then struggling with which ones of those
>> present were hers.
>>
>> The lucid moments were worth it, but they are getting farther and
>> farther apart. All the best to both your mother and father, and you two,
>> to boot.
>
> Thanks to everyone, up and down in this thread for the good wishes.
> It was Friday, Saturday, and 1/2 Sunday in the hosptal. Got Dad home
> late Sunday, he fell flat on his back, tangled up in his walker, and
> was back in the hospital less than 12 hours later.
>
> Now we are finding he may have fractured vertebrae. He is pushing 83,
> so no operations. He has cancer, heart disease, and about 1/8 of his
> lung capacity. He is too fragile to even run some of the tests on him
> now.
>
> Oddly, the best suggestion the combined brain trust can come up with
> is to (literally....) "super" glue his fractures together with some
> kind of epoxy. Other than that, nothing.

IIRC, super glue got its start in medicine so it's not too odd.

>
> So now we wait and see. I have a few more full days at the hospital
> as they have no advocate or anyone to speak coherently on their
> behalf. Mom is slowly losing it, and she is at the point where she
> wandered off in the emergency room a couple of times while we were
> there waiting for the docs.
>
> Gonna be a long week.
>
> Once again, thanks to all for the good wishes. I will pass them on to
> him telling it came from "the internet". He will get a charge out of
> it. He isn't sure what the internet is, but he knows "all the kids
> are nuts about it" these days and everyone is "on it" but him.

He's On It NOW!

Best wishes to all. Including You! It's a tough row to hoe.

>
> Robert
>

"Robatoy" wrote:

==================================
I think bullshit, as a word, is in use long enough now that it neither
needs to be written as two words or hyphenated. Bull shit is what
comes out of a bull's ass, bullshit is what comes out of somebody's
mouth.
Of course, this could all be bullshit. If so, you've been bullshat.
====================================

You do have a talent for IBS, AKA: Intellectual Bull Shit

(I prefer two words)

Lew

"Robatoy" wrote:
>I just had an an epiphany...i.e. a sudden, intuitive perception of or
insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually
initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or
experience.

Ah yes, baffle them with bull shit.

Lew

Larry Jaques wrote:

> On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>
>>Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.
>
> ...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
> One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...
>

Gach! That last one there was a visual I could have done without. Thanks
Larry, now I've gotta go find the brain bleach.


--

There is never a situation where having more rounds is a disadvantage

Rob Leatham

Robatoy wrote:
> It doesn't go away by itself.
> Watergate "went away" when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in
> disgrace and left town never to be heard from in an official capacity
> again.
> The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick
> Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like
> an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably
> the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our
> history are addressed, the pain won't go away.
> From Nancy ("Impeachment is off the table") Pelosi to President Barack
> ("I want to look forward, not backward") Obama, the country is being
> poorly served by their Democratic government. And on this subject
> President Obama is dead wrong.
> George W. Bush and his accomplices damaged this country like it's
> never been damaged before. And it's not just the phony war in Iraq or
> the torture memos that justified waterboarding. It's millions of
> missing emails and the constant use of executive privilege and signing
> statements.
> It's the secretive meetings with Enron and other energy executives and
> the wholesale firing of federal prosecutors. It's trying to get the
> president's personal attorney seated on the Supreme Court and that
> despicable Alberto Gonzales sitting in front of congressional
> investigators whining, "I don't remember, I don't know, I...etc."
> It's the domestic eavesdropping in violation of the FISA Court, the
> rendition prisons, and the lying. It's looking the other way while the
> City of New Orleans drowned and its people were left to fend for
> themselves.
> It's the violations of the Geneva Conventions, the soiling of our
> international reputation and the shredding of the U.S. Constitution.
> It's the handing over of $700 billion to the Wall Street fat cats last
> fall, no questions asked. Where is that money? What was it used for?
> It's the no-bid contracts to firms like Halliburton and Blackwater and
> the shoddy construction and lack of oversight of reconstruction in
> Iraq that cost American taxpayers untold billions.
> If the Republicans were serious about restoring their reputation, they
> would join the call for a special prosecutor to be appointed so that
> at long last justice can be done.
> It's too late for George W. Bush to resign the presidency. But it's
> not too late to put the people responsible for this national disgrace
> in prison.
>
> ========
> I happen to agree with Jack Cafferty on this. A cleansing would be
> nice. Get that much admired integrity back, and as it seems too scary
> for Obama to do it, it will be left up to the people. Then kick his
> ass out if he keeps criminally sheltering the evil-doers from the
> previous administration.
>
> r

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

Robatoy wrote:
> It doesn't go away by itself.
> Watergate "went away" when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in
> disgrace and left town never to be heard from in an official capacity
> again.
> The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick
> Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like
> an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably
> the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our
> history are addressed, the pain won't go away.
> From Nancy ("Impeachment is off the table") Pelosi to President Barack
> ("I want to look forward, not backward") Obama, the country is being
> poorly served by their Democratic government. And on this subject
> President Obama is dead wrong.

I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are (see
"Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of the Bush
administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and that for
testimony about a crime that never happened.

As a matter of contrast:
Forty-seven individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine
were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring
during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61
indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned.

In a way, I feel sorry for the BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome)* folks; to
paraphrase Nixon, they don't have Bush to kick around any more.



[...]

>
> ========
> I happen to agree with Jack Cafferty on this. A cleansing would be
> nice. Get that much admired integrity back, and as it seems too scary
> for Obama to do it, it will be left up to the people. Then kick his
> ass out if he keeps criminally sheltering the evil-doers from the
> previous administration.
>

Ah, you were quoting an opinion piece from CNN. I was about to fuss about
you being a Canadian while using words like "this country" et al.

Here's the original article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/19/cafferty.bush.administration/

-------
* Bush Derangement Syndrome as "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise
normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - the very
existence of George W. Bush"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Derangement_Syndrome

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> In truth though, the problem lies not with the candidates but with the
> voting public. The politicians are merely canaries in the coal mine
> signaling just how morally degenerate the population at large has
> become in its incessant demands upon government to keep it safe,
> educated, prosperous, healthy, and happy - almost all of which
> are things that government manifestly cannot do, or at least not
> do well. <Shrug> IMHO, the republic is doomed. The Sheeple are
> electing candidates that are merely rearranging the deck chairs
> on the Titanic, not trying to patch the leak and keep the boat
> afloat ...

I blame the campaign finance laws.

Special interests, lobbyists, and the like were a foil for the great
unwashed masses. Sometimes the monied interests won, sometimes the mob won.
It was a balancing act.

When the special interests won, the mob would get all exercised and vote out
the crooks. When the mob won, those financially affected would pour money
into the next election.

It evened out.

Now, with the special interest mostly emasculated, the rabble wins more
often.

RE: Tim Daneliuk's posts

IMHO, it's got to be a slow day around the water cooler when you
respond to them.

Lew

tom tom wrote:
> President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish someone
> would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this guy
> be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and hopefully will stay
> there. If the average person wants to do something, boycotting fox
> "news" and its advertisers is a good place to start. They are dangerous
> to the health of this country, spreading lies, fear and hatred in
> support of far right extremists and corporate greed.
>

Good point. We can all watch MSNBC. We all know that they are never
opinionated. They would never be one sided.

Also, good point about Cheney. We can't have private citizens speaking
their minds. It's that damned 1st Amendment thing. Can't permit that.
We can't disagree with the leaders in power. That, of course, would
be treason.

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
On May 23, 2:43 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Morris Dovey wrote:

>> Nice strawman attempt. :)


>It's not a strawman. The West failing to interdict in the regio..yadda,
>yadda...........

> Nice strawman attempt. :)


>Let me clear something up here..
>" a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a
>proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the
>"straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted
>the original position.

>So, by definition, when Timbo drags Nixon, LBJ, Mother Theresa into an
>argument about GWBush, it is in fact a straw man.

>Why does he do that all the time?

>Simple. Timbo figures he can 'win' arguments by clouding the issues to
>such an extent that many try to follow his pretzel logic, then they
>realize that Timbo is full of shit and they throw their hands up in
>the air muttering: 'what is the point of all this?"...and then Timbo
>proclaims a victory.

>It is the oldest trick in the book, and I must give him points for
>playing that 'game' very well. Unfortunately, it is devoid of any
>'real' victory.

>Timbo's trick # 2? Is yelling AD HOMINEM ATTACK!!!

>Trick # 3? A mishmash of repeat words, in the attempt that if he
>repeats them often enough, they may stick to something/somebody. They
>include the same old:

-Utterly untrue and ad hominem.

-It is factual that:

-It is informed speculation that:

-Bush Haters

-the foaming vitriol that characterizes your camp

-the spittle spewing Bush haters

-Pelosio, Obama, Frank, Durbin, and the rest of 
the sewage in the
Left..

-our current phony
>political hack Messiah

>-the fulminating Left that has percolated all this Bush hatred
>is 100x worse than Bush could ever dream to be. It is they who
>are the lying scoundrels in all this, not Bush.
======
>Yup, we are dealing with a Bush apologist, and a guy who resorts to
>bullshit in order to try to win an argument that nobody is really
>having.....


You've described Rush Limbaugh, the Brash Lamebrain.

Max

Morris Dovey wrote:
>
>> If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
>> about God lying to Abraham?
>
> If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
> standing in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.
>

Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
He should have asked me..."

You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes fucks up. Here's an example:

Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.

So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
if everybody was a vegetarian!

To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
mark when attempting to follow ideals.

The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
Miss button!"

Morris Dovey wrote:
>
> I agree with the first two points, invite you to provide verifiable,
> detailed specifics of the third point (excluding after the fact
> compensation to families), and to present a clear definition of "WMD"
> as you use it in terms of killing range, number of expected
> casualties, etc.

Here's an example of a "WMD" with which everyone can agree:

Sadaam Hussein.

Decommissioning this particular WMD turned out okay.

Robert:

I want to also add my best wishes for you to have strength and endurance in
this trying time. It isn't easy to know that there is really little you
can do to ease the suffering. My parents were 3000 miles away and were
failing one by one. Not sure whether it was easier that it was mostly
mental, but it wasn't easy on Dad, and on their kids. I told Dad I was
going to be back in 3 weeks, but he passed away 5 days later. I will be
always grateful for the fantastic neighbors, who acted as family during my
parents' trying times.

Best wishes for Dad and you.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Robatoy wrote:
>> On May 21, 5:21 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On the one hand, I stand
>>> with you insofar as I believe Bush was well within his legal right
>>> to do what he did. I also believe that doing so saved lives,
>>
>> How?
>
> Article II of the Constitution nominates the president as Commander in
> Chief. As such, he is solely in charge of war-making and his decisions
> cannot be gainsaid by anyone.
>
>>
>>> notwithstanding the constant drone of "You can make anyone confess
>>> anything under "torture."
>>
>> If you torture people to get them to give you the excuse for the
>> illegal war you wage, torture becomes useful.
>
> Well, there's that. You may be overlooking, too, the shear fun of it
> (which makes about as much sense).
>
>>
>>> If, in fact, there had been no benefit to
>>> doing so, why on earth would Bush have continued to tolerate
>>> something that cost him so much political capital, and arguably cost
>>> his party reelection?
>>
>> Because he was arrogant enough to think it would not harm him and his
>> cronies.
>> He also didn't just 'tolerate' it, he bloody well initiated it. He
>> instructed his henchmen to torture a confession out of his detainees
>> so he could justify his war(s).
>> Either he initiated it, or he didn't have the balls to stand up to
>> Cheney and his death squad.
>
> I've already agreed with you that the Bush administration was arrogant
> - all administrations are arrogant. But you're wrong in one
> observation. To my knowledge, no confessions were obtained by coercive
> techniques. We, like the early church, didn't need confessions to
> prove anything - guilt was already established. We wanted, like the
> church, something completely different: The church wanted a
> soul-cleansing on the part of the condemned; we wanted information to
> prevent more attacks.

Why as there any need for declarations of war, the Tonkin resolution, the
Iraq equivalent of that resolution?

I thought that Congress had the power to declare war, or the modern
equivalent of that declaration.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in news:bzeSl.316$Cc1.251
@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:

> "tom tom" wrote:
>
>> President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
>> someone
>> would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this
>> guy
>> be?
>
> I must take exception, using "prick" to describe Cheney does a
> disservice to the word.
>
> Lew
>
LOL, but I agree.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Aren't you lucky that it's not your problem?

Some might consider it breach of etiquette to critique one's neighbors.

-S

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:4f46f74f-b0f8-4b2c-b20f-bb82f6ea3e08@q14g2000vbn.googlegroups.com...
> It doesn't go away by itself.
> Watergate "went away" when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in
> disgrace and left town never to be heard from in an official capacity
> again.
> The Bush presidency is thankfully over...but the damage he and Dick
> Cheney did continues to press on the nerve of the American people like
> an impacted wisdom tooth. And until the questions surrounding arguably
> the most arrogant and perhaps most corrupt administration in our
> history are addressed, the pain won't go away.
> From Nancy ("Impeachment is off the table") Pelosi to President Barack
> ("I want to look forward, not backward") Obama, the country is being
> poorly served by their Democratic government. And on this subject
> President Obama is dead wrong.
> George W. Bush and his accomplices damaged this country like it's
> never been damaged before. And it's not just the phony war in Iraq or
> the torture memos that justified waterboarding. It's millions of
> missing emails and the constant use of executive privilege and signing
> statements.
> It's the secretive meetings with Enron and other energy executives and
> the wholesale firing of federal prosecutors. It's trying to get the
> president's personal attorney seated on the Supreme Court and that
> despicable Alberto Gonzales sitting in front of congressional
> investigators whining, "I don't remember, I don't know, I...etc."
> It's the domestic eavesdropping in violation of the FISA Court, the
> rendition prisons, and the lying. It's looking the other way while the
> City of New Orleans drowned and its people were left to fend for
> themselves.
> It's the violations of the Geneva Conventions, the soiling of our
> international reputation and the shredding of the U.S. Constitution.
> It's the handing over of $700 billion to the Wall Street fat cats last
> fall, no questions asked. Where is that money? What was it used for?
> It's the no-bid contracts to firms like Halliburton and Blackwater and
> the shoddy construction and lack of oversight of reconstruction in
> Iraq that cost American taxpayers untold billions.
> If the Republicans were serious about restoring their reputation, they
> would join the call for a special prosecutor to be appointed so that
> at long last justice can be done.
> It's too late for George W. Bush to resign the presidency. But it's
> not too late to put the people responsible for this national disgrace
> in prison.
>
> ========
> I happen to agree with Jack Cafferty on this. A cleansing would be
> nice. Get that much admired integrity back, and as it seems too scary
> for Obama to do it, it will be left up to the people. Then kick his
> ass out if he keeps criminally sheltering the evil-doers from the
> previous administration.
>
> r

"Robatoy" wrote:

==================================
Because he was arrogant enough to think it would not harm him and his
cronies.
He also didn't just 'tolerate' it, he bloody well initiated it. He
instructed his henchmen to torture a confession out of his detainees
so he could justify his war(s).
Either he initiated it, or he didn't have the balls to stand up to
Cheney and his death squad.
==============================

Listened to Cheney's speech given today.

He continues to throw a lot of crap on the wall in hopes of getting
something to stick, but it hasn't happened yet.

What is driving him?

Does he think the gov't will come after him?

Is he trying to build a defense?

Obama has been spraying "Bush BeGone" all over the Whitehouse, and it
seems to be working.

Too bad there isn't an equivalent spray for Cheney.

Lew

LD wrote:
>
>
> Power is its own Currency.

Yep. A good example is a chap who's short, looks like a stepped-on toad,
speaks with a heavy accent, and, while comfortable, is not by any means
rich. In spite of these disadvantages, he was the most sought-after bachelor
in town. During his years, he dated spectacular women: Jill St. John,
Barbara Walters, and others.

His most memorable line: "Power is the only true aphrodisiac."

Of course being awarded the Nobel Prize added a certain cachet to Henry
Kissinger's pickup lines.

Robatoy wrote:
> On May 20, 9:41 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Douglas Johnson wrote:
>>> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
>>>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years
>>>> of the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of
>>>> impropriety, and that for testimony about a crime that never
>>>> happened.
>>
>>> So far. The Spanish are considering war crimes charges against six
>>> senior Bush administration officials:
>>
>>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/guantanamo-bay-torture-in...
>>
>>> This is being done under the 1984 UN Convention against Torture,
>>> signed and ratified by the US. This has the same legal basis as the
>>> arrest of Chili's General Pinochet in Britain in 1998. He died
>>> before going to trial.
>>
>>> I believe the US has tried and convicted nationals of other
>>> countries under this treaty, so the precedent is solid. -- Doug
>>
>> First, there's a difference as to whether the acts undertaken by the
>> U.S. constitute "torture" as defined by the treaty.
>>
>> Secondly, there's a jurisdictional problem:
>>
>> "The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent
>> torture within their borders, and forbids states to return people to
>> their home country if there is reason to believe they will be
>> tortured."
>>
>> Any acts taken by the U.S. did not take place within the U.S.
>> border, so this part of the treaty doesn't apply.
>>
>> Thirdly, Spain hasn't done anything yet. If they do, they'll regret
>> it.
>
> ...by doing what? Try to keep in mind that Spain is a member of the
> European Union.... a whole different ball game than it was 70 years
> ago.

Good question.

1. The U.S. could close its naval base at Rota, eliminating some 8,000 jobs
that finance the local community. That's about $200 million a year in
salaries alone. Other U.S. military bases in Spain include:

Moron Air Base, Seville, and
Torrejon Air Base

2. We could dig up all the roads connecting Spain and the U.S.

3. Spain exports about $10 billion to the U.S. annually. Some of that could
be at risk.

4. Spain lost one war against the U.S. I don't think they'd risk another.

On May 19, 3:11=A0pm, Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 19 May 2009 13:57:06 -0500, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> >[email protected] wrote:
>
> >> I don't know what the point is to it.
>
> >Just to stir some shit, per usual.
>
> He's just trying to beat LRod's record but he don't have a shot.
>
> Being Canuckistani, he don't know how to fish for bottom feeders.
>
> His stinkbait recipe ain't nearly stinky enough.
>
> He'll snag some suckers but the real stuck-way-down-in-the-mud
> shovelmouths will just wait for a real meal.
>

HA! You just wait and see..... there is NO way Daneliuk can resist
this shit...oh wait... SNAGGGGGG..bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz(drag
being tightened...)

On May 21, 4:25=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> > The underlying problem with this entire argument - the hingepoint if
> > you like - is whether the U.S. has any treaty obligations to people
> > who make war in plain clothes, make war intentionally upon
> > non-involved non-combatants, and purposely hide among civilian
> > populations when being pursued. My understanding is that we have one
> > important obligation to such people upon capturing them: Formally
> > finding out whether or not they are in one of the classes of people
> > specifically protected by treaty obligations (POWs, civilians caught
> > up in wartime, etc.), or whether we can treat them as spies with
> > essentially no redress under any treaty to which we are signatories.
>
> > Then there's the smelly leftwing elephant in the room. The left - for
> > entirely political reasons - insists on trying to regard these
> > combatants as subject to and having standing before our domestic
> > *civilian* law. But these people have no such standing unless they
> > happen to be U.S. citizens (in which case they are entitled to our
> > full legal protections since their citizenship trumps any
> > international treaty). Foreign non-citizen invaders - in- or out of
> > uniform - are covered at most by international treaty. They have no
> > legal redress before a domestic legal system to which they are not
> > parties.
>
> I think you're wrong there - citizenship is not a test for whether someon=
e
> is subject to our laws. During WW2, hundreds of thousands of German and
> Italian POWs were held in U.S. territory, many of whom were U.S. citizens
> (think dual citizenship). Not one got access to our courts. See below for
> why. The issue of citizenship was raised by a couple of the German sabote=
urs
> captured in New Jersey. The Supreme Court said citizenship didn't matter.
>
> Even Moses told the Israelites: "You shall have but one law for your
> brethren and the sojourner in your midst."
>
>
>
> > By this definition, the Bush administration was dead wrong in
> > the Hamdi case - Hamdi was a U.S. citizen - and SCOTUS properly found
> > this way. But you don't go onto the field of battle - even if it is on
> > your own domestic soil - and start handing out the full rights of
> > legal residence to people who are essentially an invading army. This
> > is sheer insanity possible only by people who think Noam Chomsky is a
> > genius, Ward Churchill is right, and Barack Obama is a statesman.
>
> > There may be practical, political, and PR reasons arguing for- or
> > against waterboarding or having to listen to Keith Olberman's regular
> > squealings - both arguably forms of torture - but there is no *legal*
> > reason not to when the subject is: a) Not a U.S. citizen, and b)
> > Operating as a non-uniformed combatant making war upon civilians.
>
> The 4th Geneva Convention defines a "lawful enemy combatant" as one who a=
)
> Wears a distinctive uniform, b) Carries arms openly, c) Reports to a defi=
ned
> chain-of-command, AND d) Conforms his conduct to the customary rules of
> warfare. By extension, anyone not meeting all four of these conditions is=
an
> "unlawful" enemy combatant.
>
> The folks at Gitmo - and Hamdi - are unlawful enemy combatants. They are =
not
> criminals and are not entitled to the protections our Constitution gives =
to
> criminal defendants (trial by jury, lawyer, indictment, etc.). Neither ar=
e
> they POWs subject to the restrictions of various treaties, conventions, a=
nd
> the rules of war. As unlawful enemy combatants they are subject to the wh=
im
> of the president under his Article II powers.
>
> In wars past, most UECs were summarily executed. These included spies,
> saboteurs, guerrillas, fifth-columnists, and the like. As distasteful as =
it
> is, belligerent entities are will within their rights according to the
> customary rules of war to dispose of UECs forthwith in any manner they se=
e
> fit.
>
> Until 1951, the rules governing the conduct of the U.S. Navy ("Rocks and
> Shoals") permitted the hanging of captured pirates by any captain of a na=
val
> vessel.

I read your dissertation and a lot of it works for me. That is when it
comes to dealing with UEC's.
However, where does torture come in? You well know, that you can get
ANYBODY to confess to ANYTHING.
So what is the value of that torture? A sadistic outlet?
Or worse. And by that I mean torturing somebody so they will spit out
the support for a war which was started under false pretences. IOW, if
you don't have the reasons to wage war, torture somebody to say
something that will justify your phoney reason?
Where is the legal, moral justification for THAT reason to torture?

" Look honey, I nuked that country because they were going to nuke
us!"
"oops, I better get somebody to say that they WERE, in fact, going to
nuke us."

The thing that pisses me off and many others, world-wide, is that
slimy, dirty apologists' revisionist history which is used to cloak
the real reasons for killing 4000+ of your finest soldiers: greed.
There is NO justification to kill and torture for greed.

<[email protected]> wrote:

>A quick drive by here on my part as I am off to the hospital once
>more
> to be the advocate for my aged father against Medicare/Medicaid and
> the hospital system. My mom can't do it because she is starting to
> have signs of Alzheimer's.

My heart goes out to all of you whose parents are being beset by the
ravages of old age.

I was very fortunate, my mother made it to 103, physically shot, but
mentally very sharp, when she just gave up and accepted the
inevitable.

She simply decided it was no longer worth the fight.

She would often comment about how the "younger generation", including
nieces and nephews, was falling apart.

Lew

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are (see
>"Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years of the Bush
>administration, ONE person was convicted of impropriety, and that for
>testimony about a crime that never happened.

So far. The Spanish are considering war crimes charges against six senior Bush
administration officials:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/guantanamo-bay-torture-inquiry

This is being done under the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, signed and
ratified by the US. This has the same legal basis as the arrest of Chili's
General Pinochet in Britain in 1998. He died before going to trial.

I believe the US has tried and convicted nationals of other countries under this
treaty, so the precedent is solid. -- Doug

Morris Dovey wrote:
> Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>> Morris Dovey wrote:
>>> David G. Nagel wrote:
>>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>>> Damn.. I keep forgetting about all those WMD's and yellow cake they
>>>>> found... my bad... oh.. and that Al Qaida/Iraq connection.
>>>>> .
>>>>> .
>>>>> .
>>>>> wait... you're pulling my leg, aintcha....
>>> No, he's pulling on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who was pulling
>>> all our legs when he said "...and we know where they are."
>>>
>>> Can't you take a joke?
>>>
>>> And besides, when was it ever carved in stone that "Thou shalt not bear
>>> false witness"?
>>
>> Proof by repeated assertion is no proof.
>
> I agree, and also recognize that this is the basis for /all/ of the
> arguments that you've presented. Did you really suppose this would go
> unnoticed?

Utterly untrue and ad hominem. I have been pretty clear to distinguish
what is opinion and what is provable fact in this thread.

It is factual that:

- Saddam refused to allow full and open inspections
- He was a savage butcher
- He funded suicide bombers
- He had used some form of WMDs on previous occasions
- He repeatedly stated his intentions to build more WMDs

It is informed speculation that:

- Some of the possible WMD type materiale' was moved to the Bekka

It is possible, perhaps even likely that:

- Worldwide intel services may have not done full due diligence in their
haste to confirm that the Iraqi monster needed to go.


These are all reasonable, and fact-based positions with varying
degrees of credibility. Yet, when I've challenged you Bush Haters to
come up with any shred of evidence rooted in a similar simple
statement of fact demonstrating that he "lied" and the silence has
been deafening. Given the foaming vitriol that characterizes your
camp, it speaks volumes that no such proof is forthcoming. I am
reasonably certain that if such proof existed it would long ago have
be trotted out by the spittle spewing Bush haters. And - as I've
said repeatedly - if any such proof evidenced itself that Bush
knowingly lied to get us into a war unnecessarily, unjustly, and
under false pretenses, I'd be right in line with those of you
demanding an accounting and possibly a war crimes trial.

>
>> I continue to await demonstration
>> of your respective claims that the Bush administration materially mislead
>> the congress, public, and international community and acted in bad
>> faith.
>
> You can wait as long as you like. I watched and listened to what those
> folks had to say and, at the time, took what they had to say at face
> value. It became clear to me that a significant number of statements
> made to justify political and military decisions had no basis in fact.

Fine, so you (and your fellow travelers) would have us make policy
decisions, pursue international war crimes actions, and such solely
based on what is "clear" to you. Swell.
>
> To claim knowledge of motivation is to claim to know the unknowable. I
> have not claimed to know whether untruth was spoken intentionally - only
> that it was spoken. You can spin it however you choose, but you cannot
> convert falsehood to truth after the fact.

Allow me to acquaint you with some elementary distinctions:

- Consciously purveying something not true is called "lying".
- Saying something untrue unwittingly, because you were mislead, or
because you didn't/couldn't know better is called a "mistake".

There is an enormous moral and qualitative difference between the two.
(Unless you are in sputtering "I Hate George Bush" fan club in which
the two are morally equivalent. Oddly many of the charter members of
that club seem to have no similar moral outrage with the overt and
demonstrable lies of Pelosio, Obama, Frank, Durbin, and the rest of
the sewage in the Left...)

The level of moral culpability is thus also different for the two.

>
>> So far even the fringenut left hasn't managed to come up with anything
>> and
>> who better would have motive to do so?
>
> You're using the wrong vocabulary with me. I have no interest in either
> extreme of the political spectrum, other than to note that neither seems
> to have much constructive to offer.
>

On this we agree, but that's not the discussion here. There are plenty
of politicians whose ideas I have and do despise - our current phony
political hack Messiah leaps to mind. But I don't confuse my difference
of opinion with their views as constituting their having lied about
things. For instance, Obama flatly lied about his intentions to
stop earmarking. But he certainly did not lie in his commitment to
socializing the economy and its largest businesses. That has been
implicit in his rhetoric for years. Similarly, it's fine with me
if people dislike Bush's policies - and and/or all - but all of the
gurgling that goes on about what a liar he was is just hot air.
In actual fact Bush too did pretty much what he promised to. Complaining
about that is fair game. Inventing duplicity that did not exist - or
at least has never been shown to exist - is dishonest.

>>>> In a vain attempt to prevent invasion as well as a massive sense of
>>>> self impotrance, Sadame Hussain (SP) presented the world with the
>>>> thought/fear that he had various WMD in hiding just waiting to use on
>>>> any invasion force.
>>>
>>> Saddam was indeed a bad actor, but he was /really/ over the top with
>>> that whole nuclear deterrence concept. Unforgivably bad.
>>
>> Do you seriously propose that a nuked up Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
>> etc. would make the world a more stable place? I'm not saying what's
>> there today is great, merely that more nuke proliferation is not an
>> improvement.
>
> Nice strawman attempt. :)

It's not a strawman. The West failing to interdict in the region
would have effectively been a blank check to all the madmen that
occupy it - you lived there IIRC and this should be clearer to
you than most people. You don't let lunatics have guns let alone
nukes.

>
> I hear you, and will suggest that you consider how you might protect
> your homeland if you were an Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, etc and perceived
> that a large and powerful country was likely to take an interest in your
> natural resources, strategic location, etc.

I would do everything in my power to acquire the weapons necessary to
defend my own interest. Listen, I get why *they* want these weapons.
What I don't get is why any sane Westerner would be happy to sit by
and let it happen. The idea of some Caliphate-Wannabe with even
a tactical nuke is - to me - utterly unacceptable.


>
>>>> He refused to permit inspection of facilities to prove or disprove
>>>> such material. That there were no WMD found is irrelivant.
>>>
>>> Yup. There must be something in the water over there to make those guys
>>> actually believe in national sovereignty.
>>>
>>> Hmm - now that we've disposed of that fiction, I suppose there's nothing
>>> to stop, say Spain (or Canada), from arresting a US citizen and
>>> executing him for uncooperative and threatening behaviors...
>>
>> If a U.S. Citizen had murdered 10s of thousands and had the means,
>> motive,
>> and opportunity to get access to weapons that could kills 100s of
>> thousands
>> (or more), I rather think the international "community" might want to
>> step in at some point.
>
> One would think so. I was paying attention and found the response of the
> international community of considerable interest.
>
>> Your analogy is absurd. Saddam could have stopped
>> this whole thing at any point - up to and including the night of the
>> invasion - by simply providing unfettered access to an international
>> inspection team.
>
> If there is such a thing as national sovereignty, then the exercise of
> that sovereignty includes the right to say "No" to foreigners who desire
> entry for any purpose.

That is correct, "national sovereignty" indeed gives you this.
Reality, OTOH, is what happens when behave murderously and then
try to hide behind sovereignty. Again, I get why Saddam did what
he did. I don't get why Westerners think that he was mistreated.
He got what he had coming to him in spades.

>
> Any claim to the contrary denies the concept of national sovereignty.
> I'm of the (very strong) opinion that this is an area where one should
> be /very/ careful what one wishes for.
>
>> You folks with Bush Derangement Syndrome are inventing
>> this silly fiction that W simply had no probable cause to even be
>> worried,
>> let alone interdict in a situation where there was already ample examples
>> of murder, human rights abuses, funding of terrorists in other countries,
>> and threats to do more and bigger of all the above. Using your logic,
>> every
>> police officer that acts with probable cause and finds nothing should be
>> arrested on "war crimes" charges.
>
> Poorly constructed strawman argument - disregarded.

Because it's true and thus no rebuttal is possible????
>
>> The WMD thing turned out to be false, overstated, and/or finally
>> unprovable, but the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
>
> Thank you for noticing that the statements used for justifying invasion
> of a sovereign state were false, overstated, and/or unprovable.
>
> This was my original assertion, to which you objected. :)

No - I objected to characterizing this as "lying" on the part of
the Bush administration. Intelligence is an inexact activity.
War has friction. International conflict never goes as planned.
But somehow Bush was the one President that we're supposed to hold
to a standard of perfection. Again, I say this as someone who
largely disagreed with a good part of his policies and direction, but
the the fulminating Left that has percolated all this Bush hatred
is 100x worse than Bush could ever dream to be. It is they who
are the lying scoundrels in all this, not Bush.

>
>> I am no fan of W's on many other fronts, but on this one issue:
>> His willingness to confront the disease of militant terror and its
>> funding source - wherever they are found - he was not only right, history
>> will regard him warmly, much like the deeply hated Truman has been
>> properly rehabilitated by history...
>
> I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how beneficial
> it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how important it may
> be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) - George W. Bush's
> administration will be remembered for its intentional polarization of
> American society, its falsehoods, and its distain for the ideals and
> principles of American democracy.

If you think he polarized this country, I'd encourage you to review
the administrations of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush '41, and
Clinton. Laying this all at W's feet is absurd. Whether he
underminded the principles of American democracy is a matter of
opinion - I remain conflicted on the matter but lean in the direction
that his foes are worse in their condemnation than that actual
facts of the matter ever merited.
>


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

>Larry Jaques wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
>> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>>
>>>Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.
>>
>> ...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
>> One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...
>>

You mean instead of taking 250 days of vacation in his first three years like
GWB did (most americans would have had about 39 days of paid vacation in the
same timeframe, Carter only took 79 days in his entire term, while BC took 152 days
in two terms). Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

"Ignoring Afghanistan" is flat out wrong, by the way.

"Allah-knows-where" is pure inflamatory nonsense, designed to elicit hatred and
you should be ashamed of yourself.

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>
> The underlying problem with this entire argument - the hingepoint if
> you like - is whether the U.S. has any treaty obligations to people
> who make war in plain clothes, make war intentionally upon
> non-involved non-combatants, and purposely hide among civilian
> populations when being pursued. My understanding is that we have one
> important obligation to such people upon capturing them: Formally
> finding out whether or not they are in one of the classes of people
> specifically protected by treaty obligations (POWs, civilians caught
> up in wartime, etc.), or whether we can treat them as spies with
> essentially no redress under any treaty to which we are signatories.
>
> Then there's the smelly leftwing elephant in the room. The left - for
> entirely political reasons - insists on trying to regard these
> combatants as subject to and having standing before our domestic
> *civilian* law. But these people have no such standing unless they
> happen to be U.S. citizens (in which case they are entitled to our
> full legal protections since their citizenship trumps any
> international treaty). Foreign non-citizen invaders - in- or out of
> uniform - are covered at most by international treaty. They have no
> legal redress before a domestic legal system to which they are not
> parties.

I think you're wrong there - citizenship is not a test for whether someone
is subject to our laws. During WW2, hundreds of thousands of German and
Italian POWs were held in U.S. territory, many of whom were U.S. citizens
(think dual citizenship). Not one got access to our courts. See below for
why. The issue of citizenship was raised by a couple of the German saboteurs
captured in New Jersey. The Supreme Court said citizenship didn't matter.

Even Moses told the Israelites: "You shall have but one law for your
brethren and the sojourner in your midst."

>
> By this definition, the Bush administration was dead wrong in
> the Hamdi case - Hamdi was a U.S. citizen - and SCOTUS properly found
> this way. But you don't go onto the field of battle - even if it is on
> your own domestic soil - and start handing out the full rights of
> legal residence to people who are essentially an invading army. This
> is sheer insanity possible only by people who think Noam Chomsky is a
> genius, Ward Churchill is right, and Barack Obama is a statesman.
>
> There may be practical, political, and PR reasons arguing for- or
> against waterboarding or having to listen to Keith Olberman's regular
> squealings - both arguably forms of torture - but there is no *legal*
> reason not to when the subject is: a) Not a U.S. citizen, and b)
> Operating as a non-uniformed combatant making war upon civilians.

The 4th Geneva Convention defines a "lawful enemy combatant" as one who a)
Wears a distinctive uniform, b) Carries arms openly, c) Reports to a defined
chain-of-command, AND d) Conforms his conduct to the customary rules of
warfare. By extension, anyone not meeting all four of these conditions is an
"unlawful" enemy combatant.

The folks at Gitmo - and Hamdi - are unlawful enemy combatants. They are not
criminals and are not entitled to the protections our Constitution gives to
criminal defendants (trial by jury, lawyer, indictment, etc.). Neither are
they POWs subject to the restrictions of various treaties, conventions, and
the rules of war. As unlawful enemy combatants they are subject to the whim
of the president under his Article II powers.

In wars past, most UECs were summarily executed. These included spies,
saboteurs, guerrillas, fifth-columnists, and the like. As distasteful as it
is, belligerent entities are will within their rights according to the
customary rules of war to dispose of UECs forthwith in any manner they see
fit.

Until 1951, the rules governing the conduct of the U.S. Navy ("Rocks and
Shoals") permitted the hanging of captured pirates by any captain of a naval
vessel.

"tom tom" wrote:

> President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
> someone
> would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this
> guy
> be?

I must take exception, using "prick" to describe Cheney does a
disservice to the word.

Lew

On May 19, 9:10=A0am, "StephenM" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Aren't you lucky that it's not your problem?
>
> Some might consider it breach of etiquette to critique one's neighbors.
>
> -S

Some might consider it breach of etiquette to invade other nations.

On May 21, 8:16=A0am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > On May 20, 9:41 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Douglas Johnson wrote:
> >>> "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >>>> I'll grant you the Bush administration was arrogant - they all are
> >>>> (see "Jane's Law"). But corrupt? Hardly. In the entire eight years
> >>>> of the Bush administration, ONE person was convicted of
> >>>> impropriety, and that for testimony about a crime that never
> >>>> happened.
>
> >>> So far. The Spanish are considering war crimes charges against six
> >>> senior Bush administration officials:
>
> >>>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/guantanamo-bay-torture-in.=
..
>
> >>> This is being done under the 1984 UN Convention against Torture,
> >>> signed and ratified by the US. This has the same legal basis as the
> >>> arrest of Chili's General Pinochet in Britain in 1998. He died
> >>> before going to trial.
>
> >>> I believe the US has tried and convicted nationals of other
> >>> countries under this treaty, so the precedent is solid. -- Doug
>
> >> First, there's a difference as to whether the acts undertaken by the
> >> U.S. constitute "torture" as defined by the treaty.
>
> >> Secondly, there's a jurisdictional problem:
>
> >> "The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent
> >> torture within their borders, and forbids states to return people to
> >> their home country if there is reason to believe they will be
> >> tortured."
>
> >> Any acts taken by the U.S. did not take place within the U.S.
> >> border, so this part of the treaty doesn't apply.
>
> >> Thirdly, Spain hasn't done anything yet. If they do, they'll regret
> >> it.
>
> > ...by doing what? Try to keep in mind that Spain is a member of the
> > European Union.... a whole different ball game than it was 70 years
> > ago.
>
> Good question.
>
> 1. The U.S. could close its naval base at Rota, eliminating some 8,000 jo=
bs
> that finance the local community. That's about $200 million a year in
> salaries alone. =A0Other U.S. military bases in Spain include:
>
> Moron Air Base, Seville, and
> Torrejon Air Base
>
> 2. We could dig up all the roads connecting Spain and the U.S.
>
> 3. Spain exports about $10 billion to the U.S. annually. Some of that cou=
ld
> be at risk.
>
> 4. Spain lost one war against the U.S. I don't think they'd risk another.

And you'd do all that to protect your war criminals?

On May 21, 5:21=A0pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:


> On the one hand, I stand
> with you insofar as I believe Bush was well within his legal right to
> do what he did. I also believe that doing so saved lives,

How?

> notwithstanding the constant drone of "You can make anyone confess
> anything under "torture."

If you torture people to get them to give you the excuse for the
illegal war you wage, torture becomes useful.

> If, in fact, there had been no benefit to
> doing so, why on earth would Bush have continued to tolerate something
> that cost him so much political capital, and arguably cost his party
> reelection?

Because he was arrogant enough to think it would not harm him and his
cronies.
He also didn't just 'tolerate' it, he bloody well initiated it. He
instructed his henchmen to torture a confession out of his detainees
so he could justify his war(s).
Either he initiated it, or he didn't have the balls to stand up to
Cheney and his death squad.