Is the Supreme Court going to say the creepy science teacher can force your teenage daughter to take of her clothes?

This is most disturbing. Who exactly could support this? Obviously the Left would not support such behavior, Libertarians wouldn't want it.

ON the Right? Well, the right wing is constantly going on and on about how incompetent the public education system is, how lazy teachers are, what a bunch of losers they are. They just had all these tea parties. YET, are they going to claim that these same people who are incapable of teaching Johnny to read are capable of stripping their daughters down and inspecting them for Advil? What exactly is so time urgent that law enforcement couldn't be called in. Honestly, if you think some kid has a weapon or weed in his ass or in her cooch, a call to the local PD while the alleged culprit sits there in full view of the staff is unreasonable? They can't wait 10 minutes? A call home to Mom and Dad?

What happens when the new 24 year old assistant principle decides that Suzy looks like she's hiding something, so he takes her into his office and makes her disrobe? Really? Is this Saudi Arabia? Can he do a cavity search too?

I see no defensible position to school adminstrators ever forcing children to take their clothes off. No reason that is so urgent, parents and law enforcement can't be called.

I can't wait for the next 8th grade teacher caught with her student to claim that she is just conducting a strip search for Tylenol. Fuckin A.

If Texas secedes can they take some other states with them?

here's a classic:

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get Bill Gates. You get Ken Lay.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.You get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red statespay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro choice and anti war and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.
We wish you success in Iraq and hope that the WMDs turn up but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and SevenSister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, RushLimbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
We're taking the good pot too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

How is hating America so much being a Patriot?

Can you imagine the outrage if Michael Moore or anyone for that matter suggested seceeding from the Union? Seriously Chuck (and the Governor of Texas), you lost the election, a democratic election. obama didn't invade America and impose tyranny...in fact he has returned America to a place where the President believes laws and the Constitution apply to him, not like his predecessor. The Constitution is safe, safer than it has been in 8 years since Bush determined he was not bound by it's "quaint" provisions.

What a bunch of whiny hypocrites. Their silence while Bush arrested people and held them without access to the judicial system (IN THIS COUNTRY), tortured people overseas and held secret meetings that would have made any despot proud. Now all the sudden they've got religion again and remembered what "Conservativism" used to stand for, but as usual they make up shit and get all hysterical in their overreaction to actions that they accepted up until Jan 21st.

Shameless, igornant and hypocritical. Pathetic.

GOP grandstanding

I absolutely love how the GOP is turning a report on Domestic Terrorism into political hay. After years of anyone left of Sean Hannity being called a terrorist and someone who "Hates" America all while they did everything they could to fire up the right wing masses with their anti gay, anti-immigrant, shit, anti-everything not "American Enough" and xenophobia. Creating the very groups this report talks about. While doing NOTHING to support America's veterans, not providing adequate health care for Injured vets and extending tours 2 and 3 times while guys lost their minds..NOW these hypocritical assholes are going to wrap themselves up in "the Military" b/c some of them might come home and join the right wing groups. HOLY SHIT what an absolute bunch of hypocrites. Since when is calling out possibilities of threats to America UnAmerican? Since when are neo-nazi's and their ilk people we defend? Even on the "Right".

Especially ironic is a quote from an AZ state Rep who said the memo was like the worst propaganda put forth by Germany in the 1930s. Besides the blatant stupidity of such a hysterical statement, but I bet the irony is lost on our good man in his quest to further fire up the very groups mentioned. To criticize a document that says Neo Nazi's are a possible threat by comparing that very document to that created by the Nazi's is not only ironic and absurd, but proves how much ignorance pervades today's GOP.

They have called it a "threat to the Constitution" and "free speech"... Are you shitting me? The same group that wouldn't allow a dissenting opinion anywhere for 8 years, who shouted down anyone who dared say that wiretapping without a warrant is Unconstitutional are now wrapping themselves in the very document they despise to this day and pissed on for 8 years under Bush? really? Hypocrites, which they have often been, but now they are making up shit to fire up the masses. (Like the Fox Sponsored "Tea Parties")

Shameful, misleading and making political points with a serious memo on domestic threats. I didn't think it were possible to have any less respect for the GOP, today i have less.

My absence

it's been too long since I last posted. Too much goings on with work and too much spending my blogging capital on Facebook. I hope to get back to it and after watching Fox News for about 45 min this AM at the gym, I must put fingers to keyboard.

Republican's still fear-mongering

And a very interesting point that I'm sure these "highly principled" Republicans would never admit:

UPDATE: The crime for which Omar Abdel Rahman was convicted and
for which he's currently serving a life sentence in Colorado is the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, of which
Rahman was the alleged "mastermind." That terrorist attack took place just
seven weeks after Bill Clinton was inaugurated, but after that attack -- to use
the Beltway parlance -- Clinton kept us safe, for the rest of his
presidency. No more foreign Terrorist attacks on the Homeland.
It wasn't until Clinton left the Oval Office and George Bush became
President were Islamic Terrorists able to strike the Homeland
again.

Therefore, using the reasoning of Bush followers everywhere, this means that
Clinton's counter-terrorism policies -- i.e.: trying accused Terrorists in
civilian courts and incarcerating them in U.S. prisons -- have been proven to be
extremely effective in keeping us safe (since, as any beginning student of Logic
will tell you: if A precedes B, then it means that A caused B -- as in: A = "waterboarding, torture and GITMO," and B =
"no Terrorist attack on U.S. soil from 2002-2008"). Using that same
"logic": A = "trying Terrorists in civilian courts and imprisoning
them in the U.S.," and B = "no foreign Terrorist attacks in the U.S.
from February, 1993 through the end of the Clinton presidency."

late-comer to facebook; impacting my blogging

I don't seem to blog anymore. I tend to spend some time on FB instead. not obsessively, but the spare time I do have seems to end up being spent there instead of here. Damn Facebook.

Kennedy withdraws

At first her throwing her hat in the ring didn't bother me beyond the usual dynastic sense of entitlement, but it's not something the Kennedy's invented. Think of names like Adams, Taft, Udall, Bush and Clinton all have used their name to political advantage, some deservedly and some undeservedly (George W. Bush being the 3rd most qualified son of G. H.W. Bush comes to mind). But as I thought about it more, it did piss me off a bit. Clearly, she wasn't the most qualified New Yorker to be a Senator, there are others. And a last name isn't a qualification by itself...so i was glad when she withdrew.

But the cynic in me thought that maybe she was thinking that Uncle Teddy was not long for this world and that the political failout from trying to become the Senator from Mass would be less trying. This article appears to contradict that, but nonetheless I'm glad she's come to her senses.

Articles I had to send to a guy who I considered well-versed in politics.

This Reagan one is a bonus...
Myth of Reaganomics
http://mises.org/story/1544

Torture isn’t cool just b/c WE do it:
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side ... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them
George Orwell

It’s probably better surmised here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/08/nuremberg/index.html

and here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/24/torture/



These are about torture and abuse. And “we’re America so we can do it” isn’t a defense. No one every commits war crimes without saying they were just defending the homeland.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/16/terror/main680658.shtml

http://www.newser.com/story/45080/senate-report-pins-torture-on-rumsfeld.html

Waterboarding:, a war crime we executed Japanese for:
http://www.newser.com/story/39975/secret-white-house-memos-okd-waterboarding.html

http://www.newser.com/story/28074/ex-detainee-describes-gitmo-tortures.html

Extraordinary rendition:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6

Panetta is bad choice for CIA

I understand Obama's point, the need to clean out the partisans in the agency, but those appointees should be gone anyway. The professionals should remain and even a professional Intellegence person can make that happen and is probably better suited to do so. Just my thoughts.

GOP has lots of work to do.

Looks like Republicans have a lot of work to do and wresting control away from the Bushie/NeoCon/RightWing Theocrats can’t happen soon enough:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Republican Party has hit a new low.
Just 34 percent of Americans in a Gallup Poll released Thursday say they have a favorable view of the party, down 40 percent from a month ago, before the election.
What’s worse: 61 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party.
According to Gallup , that unfavorable rating is the highest the polling organization has recorded for the GOP since the measure was established in 1992.
The poll of national adults was conducted on November 13-16 with a three percent margin of error.
The numbers are slightly up from a CNN poll released last week that indicated a 54 percent unfavorable rating for Republicans. Only 38 percent of those polled had a favorable rating for the party.
Meanwhile, Democrats continue to bask in the glow of President-elect Barack Obama’s historic victory on November 4. The Gallup poll suggests that 55 percent of Americans hold a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, with 39 percent saying they have an unfavorable view. Those numbers are mostly unchanged from a mid-October survey

What Barack will do...

My Bushie friend asked me what Obama will do as President. I responded:

Well, he’ll stop torturing people. He’ll stop arresting people without warrants and locking them away in secret. He’ll stop wire-tapping every phone in America without a warrant. He’ll stop using the justice department as his own political tool. He’ll stop the assault on science and not use his twisted notion of religion to explain the world and how it works. (Hint: Dinosaurs and humans did not co-exist 3000 years ago). He’ll replace name-calling with maturity.

You know this. I know education and intelligence are frowned upon within the GOP these days, but you don’t have to act stupid for us. We know you’re smarter than that, you can stop the act now. You can be smart and educated and STILL be a “REAL” American, despite what the former mayor of the meth capital of Alaska tells you.

Speaking of little Miss Unethical behavior, she went on and on about socialism while she’s the governor of a state that takes money from the oil companies and gives it directly to the citizens of her state…talk about redistribution of wealth (SOCIALIST IDEAS). Thanks to Jon Stewart for making me realize the irony of the governor of a state funded by socialism calling Obama a Socialist…pure comedy. Too bad the Honorable Governor isn’t bright enough to see the irony…after all she doesn’t even know what the Vice President does or the rights afforded by the First Amendment.

Hopeful

Like most Americans, apparently, I'm pretty happy with the election results. The long national nightmare is over. Kudos to Obama on a fantastic campaign.

The only sad part is what McCain did to himself in his seemingly endless desire to be President. We all remember the John McCain that we liked back in 2000, then he ate the shit that Karl Rove made for him in South Carolina b/c he wanted it so bad. Then during this campaign the independent minded guy we liked turned into the right wing attack dog that the Bushies won with, but America was tired of that shit.

The McCain that we loved was back in last night's concession speech, but it was too late. He changed, he got bad advice and of course his disasterous selection of the unqualified former mayor were his doom. I seriously doubt that he would have lost EVEN with the shackles of the Bush Presidency if he had ran as the guy he once was.

I hope he goes back to being true to himself.

Are McCain supporters really this stupid or are they just ignorant of what is going on in the world?

it's Clear Palin is not qualified, she doesn't even know what the Vice President's job is, nor does she understand the first amendment. But McCain supporters new cry of "Socialism" is laughable considering McCain's support of the recent bailouts pushed by our Republican president. The fact that in the past few months the Party of McCain and Bush has federalized banks and insurance companies. Talk about socialism, it's already here.

It's hard to have respect for people so woefully ill-informed, people who just through out buzz words and buy into the GOP fear machine. The fact that they blindly accept this bullshit is exactly how you end up in a fascist state. The dictators always talk about how the state will protect you from enemies seen and unseen, and the first thing they dictators do is attack the intellectuals and the liberals...just like the GOP has done for the past 8 years. They've attempted to make knowledge and learning BAD THINGS. (Ignorance is Knowledge).

I'm sick of being told I'm not a real American because I put myself throught grad school and happen to think for myself instead of listening the non-sensical rantings of the lunatic minds of the GOP.

WAKE UP AMERICA (I'm talking to you McCain supporters).

btw- I won't be surprised if the GOP steals the election with their classic voter suppression efforts in cities and outright fraud by the Diebold Republican Vote Generating machines. After the GOP stole one election, they can do it again.

Palin is the perfect Bushie

The Palin's, like the Bushies, feel they are above the law and don't feel they are accountable for their actions. No wonder the Bushies love her, I'm just surprised the Bush WH didn't find her before and make her secratary of the Navy or something (she's been on a boat). Being unqualifed, having contempt for the law and loving guns and hating abortion are all you need for a Bush appointment and sadly McCain continues that practice with this HORRIBLE choice

Fiscal Reformer???

Read it quick before the Conservatives who control the media kill the story.



Maybe she should have kept the plane…


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26616212/

ANCHORAGE - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

Palin charged the state a per diem for working on Nov. 22, 2007 -- Thanksgiving Day. The reason given, according to the expense report, was the Great Alaska Shootout, an annual NCAA college basketball tournament held in Anchorage (WISH I COULD GET PAID TO GO TO SPORTING Events)

One event was in New York City in October 2007, when Bristol accompanied the governor to Newsweek's third annual Women and Leadership Conference, toured the New York Stock Exchange, and met local officials and business executives. The state paid for three nights in a $707-a-day hotel room.


Meanwhile, Todd Palin spent $725 to fly to Edmonton , Alberta , for "information gathering and planning meeting with Northern Alberta Institute of Technology," according to an expense report. During the three-day trip, he charged the state $291 for his per diem. A notation said "costs paid by Dept. of Labor." He also billed the state $1,371 for flight to Washington to attend a National Governors Association meeting with his wife. (I wish my company paid to fly my partner to for my business trips)

The family also charged for flights around the state, including trips to Alaska events such as the start of the Iditarod dog-sled race and the Iron Dog snowmobile race, a contest that Todd Palin won. (Did the state pay his entry fees too?)

In the past, per diem claims by Alaska state officials have carried political risks. In 1988, the head of the state Commerce Department was pilloried for collecting a per diem charge of $50 while staying in his Anchorage home, according to local news accounts. The commissioner, the late Tony Smith, resigned amid a series of controversies.

"It was quite the little scandal," said Tony Knowles, the Democratic governor from 1994 to 2000. "I gave a direction to all my commissioners if they were ever in their house, whether it was Juneau or elsewhere, they were not to get a per diem because, clearly, it is and it looks like a scam -- you pay yourself to live at home," he said.

I asked for 20 qualifications that Palin has to be VP or Prez...I got one

The one thing I got was she was Governor of a state with 600,000 people for 20 months. And a bunch of crap that Obama has no executive experience (neither does McCain and Newt Gingrich is the only Republican I've heard admit that fact)

So, I thought clarify Obama's experience:

While I wait for the 19 other qualifications she brings to the table.

I just wanted to clear up some fallacies you appear to be operating
under.

Obama has EXECUTIVE Experience.

• He was the PRESIDENT of the Harvard Law Review ( I can’t wait to hear how that’s not executive experience)
  
• He was also the DIRECTOR of Chicago ’s
  Developing Communities Project and I know you hate poor people and like to mock
  those who actually help out in their communities unless it’s bombing abortion
  clinics, but this too is EXECUTIVE Experience.
  
• He was CHAIRMAN of the Health and Human Services Committee in the Illinois Senate (damn, more leadership experience)
  
• He is CHAIRMAN of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on European Affairs (Even more leadership and with International Experience).
  

Now, again I know it’s not raising taxes to build a new hockey rink, but it IS Executive Experience.


I’m glad we can put that to rest now.


But again, we should be comparing McCain’s resume with Obama’s and Biden’s with Palin’s. I know you don’t want to do that b/c Obama’s and McCain’s experience is in the same damn job and Biden’s knowledge of Economics and International Relations is some of the best in America . I can understand why you’d resort to name calling (like when you pretend to care
about experience and your only response to Bill Richardson’s resume is to call
him a buffoon. Funny how you changed the subject from Experience to name-calling
when presented with the most qualified candidate in America…you must be a
racist)

A "maverick" selection...not so much

While the GOP has been breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for putting a woman on the ticket and calling it some radical new idea, I got to thinking that it’s really not all that radical. (Especially when you consider the vitriol they have spewed toward Hilary Clinton for the past two decades)

The Democrats did it 24 years ago. 24 years!

The Libertarians did it in 1972 and Toni Nathan was the first women to ever receive an electoral vote.

Then I did some research

The 2008 Green Party has an ALL FEMALE ticket and have had at least one woman on the ticket since 96. The Libertarians did it again in 1992 and 96. Lyndon LaRouche did it, as did Pat Buchanan. All before the Republicans…seems like they are pretty late to the party. Here is a list:


Wikipedia has a list of over 100 women who have been a various parties Tickets going back to 1870

Soliciting sex acts in bathrooms is "free speech"?

I hear Larry Craig, the disgraced Senator from Idaho who hates gay people, except when he's having sex with them, is going to claim that tapping his foot to initiate sex in a public rest room is protected by FREE SPEECH.

How awesome is that? Again the hypocrisy. The Republicans who HATE free speech now are using it to defend the solicitation of bathroom sex...WOW. The next time you get busted for solicitation of prostitution, you should claim it's Free Speech.

You've got to admit that the Republicans do have balls. They can stand in Congress and rail against gays while they still smell of manlove. they try to force their version of "family values" while they hire prostitutes and have affairs.

But the free speech thing is AWESOME. Balls the size of Idaho

Why does the media not report on Sarah Palin's anti-semetic pastor?

Yes, Sarah Palin sat in a church where this message was given. Two weeks ago. The karma in all this is just amazing:

Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of
unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity. "Judgment is very real and
we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's
very real. When [Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some
of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem
took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of
people. Judgment — you can't miss it."

Palin was in church that day, Kroon said, though he cautioned against
attributing Brickner’s views to her.

How does Hannity deal with this? After what he said about Jeremiah
Wright

?