HOLY SOMETHING, HOWARD'S GO TO BE 1ST!!!!

Pretty Bird Woman House: Let's Unbury some Hearts http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1...

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy....

Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest

US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years............. greeted Rumsfeld shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, US embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons.     ....International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.

http://wor.ldne.ws/node/8596

Rep. Markey on Wildfire-Climate Connection

Last week, Markey sent this dear colleague letter (forwarded to Hill Heat) on the connection between wildfires and global warming, the subject of a Global Warming Committee hearing next week: http://www.hillheat.com/articles/2007/10...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!   Countdown:   ONLY 446 DAYS UNTIL HE’S GONE!

Halleeee luuuuuuuuuuuu  jahhhhhhhhhhhh

Pelosi:  “We are not going to leave our troops high and dry in Iraq. just because the president's judgment is poor"    Pelosi:  "The president's policy in Iraq is a failure"  Pelosi:  "The Days of the Fiscally Irresponsible Rubber Stamp Congress Are Over!’ 

About the head of the Product Safety Agency " Pelosi on Tuesday called for President Bush to fire the head of the nation's product safety agency-- "I call on the president of the United States to ask for the resignation".

Way to go Seattle!   Seattle is one of the first major U.S. cities to claim it has cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to meet the targets of the international Kyoto treaty aimed at combating global warming.  "Hug a tree"

Our party wants us to be careful when we speak,  and say things properly. 

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1595

Good morning, everybody

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/22762 

Good morning, Monica.

I was jut reading Mad Floridian's diary,and how correct it is. IMO, explains clearly why Howard's quest to change the party from within was doomed from the start.

-- volney

Hit "recommend" for you, too.

Line of the night--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPOAKXBi9Pw 

Volney,

Having lived in Florida for 17 years and been active in their version of the Democratic party, I can't be too concerned about them not being representative of democracy.   

However, decorum, modesty and contrition are virtues I'd like to see displayed by our politicians.  In fact, I'm looking for a whole lot of mea culpas because the mess we're in was not created by Republicans alone.  In fact, a lot of stuff happened because Democrats, proud of their ability to get things done, were talked into doing some really stupid stuff.

bbl 

Good Morning and Happy Halloween.

A friend of mine just phoned,  said Joe Scarborough stated he has talked with Reagan democrats in Ohio and other states, and that they would never vote for an African American for president.  Why do they have to bring up race?  Scarborough also said the republicans are afraid of Hillary - yeah right.

I'm reminded why I don't watch the MSM.

Good morning, BFA, not sure how long I'll be connected. One DSL provider leaves me sometime today (I'm hoping not earlier than midnight) and the other won't begin until I receive the blasted CD so that I can get hooked up.

This wasn't supposed to happen ... but it did and I have no one to blame but myself.

Here's something that I believe that Annilow might appreciate, although it is a sad item. I find it doubly sad because it brings back memories of the early sixties and the Kennedy (JFK) era, when *Camelot* was a favorite musical and, rightly or wrongly, was considered to be a symbol of the era.

====================
Robert Goulet, "Camelot" star, dies while awaiting lung transplant
By Martin Weil
The Washington Post

Robert Goulet, the big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 73.

Mr. Goulet, who had a rare type of pulmonary fibrosis, had been waiting for a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The singer, who had fallen ill while flying home to Las Vegas after performing at a Sept. 20 concert in Syracuse, N.Y., was admitted to a Las Vegas hospital Sept. 30. He was transferred to Cedars-Sinai as a transplant patient Oct. 14.

Mr. Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

"Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

Mr. Goulet's longtime friend Wayne Newton said his sense of humor "kept my spirits up in some of the lowest valleys in my life."

Honored, applauded and admired for almost 50 years, Mr. Goulet held the esteem of generations of television and theater audiences and record buyers. He also held the top awards in those categories: the Emmy, the Tony and the Grammy.

Through the years, he remained identified in the mind of many with his performance as Sir Lancelot in "Camelot," in which he sang the song for which he was to be remembered through the decades: "If Ever I Would Leave You." The Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere.

[...]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin...

Here's the WaPo's recap of last night's Dem debate. Those here who saw it can decide whether they agree or not.

=================
Clinton's Foes Go on the Attack
Democratic Front-Runner Criticized Over Iran, Iraq and Secrecy
By Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; A01

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 30 -- With just over two months until the first primary contest, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic rivals aggressively challenged their party's front-runner here Tuesday night, accusing her of being dishonest and of emboldening President Bush to declare war against Iran.

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.), lingering in third place in most polls, took the lead in attacking Clinton as Democrats gathered for the fourth of their six official debates. He mocked Clinton for voting to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, and he all but accused her of being corrupt.

Voters, Edwards said, "deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won't say one thing one time and something different at a different time."

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) -- under pressure to take sharp aim at Clinton -- criticized her directly for not releasing her correspondence as first lady. But he kept his cool demeanor, describing her tendency toward secrecy as simply "a problem."

The most telling exchange came minutes before the debate ended, when Clinton declined to answer repeated questions about whether she supports New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's proposal to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, after earlier suggesting that she does. Edwards pounced, arguing that Clinton had offered evasiveness when Americans want honesty and consistency from their leaders. "What we've had seven years is double talk from Bush and Cheney, and I think America deserves us to be straight," he said.

Under fire, Clinton defended her positions on Social Security and Iran and denied assertions -- made most forcefully during the debate by Edwards -- that she is mirroring the Republican Party in her actions and rhetoric.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Dan Froomkin's recap of events swirling about Mukasey. Can it be that Dems are actually growing spines?

If torture won't grow them, then nothing will, I'm afraid.

================
The Stench of Torture
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, October 30, 2007; 12:56 PM

The stench of torture that permeates the White House has spread to Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey, putting what had been seen as a surefire nomination at risk and reigniting a momentous ethical debate.

By refusing to acknowledge at his confirmation hearing that waterboarding is torture, Mukasey appeared to throw his lot in with those who embrace an authoritarian strain of moral relativism, one that excuses abhorrent and illegal policies as long as the president declares they're in the national interest.

When longtime Bush loyalist Alberto Gonzales was nominated to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, critics expressed what turned out to be eminently justified concern that he would never buck the White House. By all accounts, Mukasey, a federal judge, is much more independent than Gonzales. As I wrote in my Sept. 18 column, Bush evidently realized that the Democratic Congress wouldn't let him install another complete lickspittle into the nation's top law-enforcement post.

Nevertheless, Bush and Vice President Cheney desperately need someone in that job who won't undermine the most radical of their legal positions: Those regarding executive power and the treatment of terrorism suspects. And they seem to have found such a person in Mukasey.

Scott Shane writes in the New York Times: "Six years after the Bush administration embraced harsh physical tactics for interrogating terrorism suspects, and two years after it reportedly dropped the most extreme of those techniques, the taint of torture clings to American counterterrorism efforts.

"The administration has a standard answer to queries about its interrogation practices: 1) We do not torture, and 2) we will not say what we do, for fear of tipping off future prisoners. In effect, officials want Al Qaeda to believe that the United States does torture, while convincing the rest of the world that it does not.

"But that contradictory catechism is not holding up well under the battering that American interrogation policies have received from human rights organizations, European allies and increasingly skeptical members of Congress....

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Robert Samuelson with comments and good questions about the global poverty trap.

If the USD goes belly-up ... and it is certainly getting close right now ... the US may become a living laboratory to test some of these economic theories.

All things considered, I'd rather not. But so long as Pelosi & crew will not get impeachment ON the table so that the world sees that we really have had it with everything putzCo, then handbaskets and hell could be something that we'll know firsthand.

==================
The Global Poverty Trap
By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; A19

It's nature vs. nurture. One of the big debates of our time involves the causes of economic growth. Why is North America richer than South America? Why is Africa poor and Europe wealthy? Is it possible to eliminate global poverty? The World Bank estimates that 2.5 billion people still live on $2 a day or less. On one side are economists who argue that societies can nurture economic growth by adopting sound policies. Not so, say other scholars such as Lawrence Harrison of Tufts University. Culture (a.k.a. "nature") predisposes some societies to rapid growth and others to poverty or meager growth.

Comes now Gregory Clark, an economist who interestingly takes the side of culture. In an important new book, " A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Clark suggests that much of the world's remaining poverty is semi-permanent. Modern technology and management are widely available, but many societies can't take advantage because their values and social organization are antagonistic. Prescribing economically sensible policies (open markets, secure property rights, sound money) can't overcome this bedrock resistance.

"There is no simple economic medicine that will guarantee growth, and even complicated economic surgery offers no clear prospect of relief for societies afflicted with poverty," he writes. Various forms of foreign assistance "may disappear into the pockets of Western consultants and the corrupt rulers of these societies." Because some societies encourage growth and some don't, the gap between the richest nations and the poorest is actually greater today (50 to 1) than in 1800 (4 to 1), Clark estimates.

All this disputes the notion that relentless globalization will inevitably defeat global poverty. To Clark, who teaches at the University of California at Davis, history's most important event was the Industrial Revolution -- more important than the emergence of monotheism, which produced Judaism, Christianity and Islam; or the invention of the printing press around 1450, which spread knowledge; or the American Revolution, which promoted democracy.

Before 1800, says Clark, most societies were stagnant. With some exceptions, people lived no better than their ancestors in the Stone Age. Economic growth was virtually nonexistent. Then England broke the pattern, as textile, iron and food production increased dramatically. Since 1800, English income per person has risen by a factor of 10. Much of Europe and the United States followed.

Almost everything that differentiates the modern era from the preceding millennia dates from this point: the virtual end of hunger in advanced societies; the expectation that living standards will constantly rise; the creation of the welfare state to redistribute income; the destructiveness of contemporary warfare; industry's environmental spoilage. But why did the Industrial Revolution start in England?

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

This wasn't supposed to happen ... but it did and I have no one to blame but myself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If Bush uses Kyl-Lieberman to attack Iran that will have to be Hillary's line, Judy.

13.

First of all, how many "Reagan Democrats" are there anyway (I don't know any), and second, this whole bunch o' claptrap reminds me of Tiger Woods' declaration that he considers himself Asian. By that logic, Obama's white. Seems to me anyone could vote for Obama and be happy, racist or not.

I was thinking of this while watching the Seinfeld episode last night in which Elaine and her new boyfriend both thought they were dating interracially when they weren't.

We should be much better than this.

-- volney

I'm not sure whether this news makes me feel any better, but the silver lining is that oversight has been removed from Clueless Condi.

And she is that.
===================
October 31, 2007
U.S. Military Will Supervise Security Firms in Iraq
By JOHN M. BRODER and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — All State Department security convoys in Iraq will now fall under military control, the latest step taken by government officials to bring Blackwater Worldwide and other armed contractors under tighter supervision.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agreed to the measure at a lunch on Tuesday after weeks of tension between their departments over coordination of thousands of gun-carrying contractors operating in the chaos of Iraq.

Mr. Gates appears to have won the bureaucratic tug-of-war, which accelerated after a Sept. 16 shooting in central Baghdad involving guards in a Blackwater convoy who Iraqi investigators say killed 17 Iraqis. Military coordination of contractor convoys will include operations of not only Blackwater, formerly known as Blackwater USA, but also those of dozens of other private firms that guard American diplomats, aid workers and reconstruction crews.

In Iraq, the government approved a draft law to overturn an order imposed by the American occupation authority in 2004 granting the employees of foreign contractors immunity from Iraqi law. Also on Tuesday, the State Department confirmed that some Blackwater employees questioned in connection with the Sept. 16 shooting had been granted a form of immunity in exchange for their statements. However, officials insisted that the immunity was limited and that it did not foreclose the possibility of prosecutions.

Democrats in Congress complained that the State Department appeared to have bungled the Blackwater investigation and said they feared that no one would be held accountable for the Iraqi deaths. “It feels like they’re protecting Blackwater,” said Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat.

At the Pentagon, Geoff Morrell, the chief spokesman, said the military would assert greater control over contractor training, rules for the use of force, employment standards and movements around Iraq.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/washin...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/31/8553/3963

15.

The driver's license issue in New York has been acrimonious right from the start, but I believe the governor is now on the right track.

For the record, we have always had two license types (independent of other factors like commercial driver status etc.), the license that's for drivers and the license that's an ID for non-drivers.

Initially, Spitzer was just gong to let illegals go get drivers' licenses. Then someone pointed out they could be eligible to vote under motor voter. I'm not sure this is true -- I think they would have to circumvent the law and allege citizenship they don't have, but the bottom line is some would fall through the cracks and become illegal voters.

So now there will be three license types: a passport substitute for people like me who live near the border, the good ol' regular license, and then a third one for illegals that would allow them to drive legally but not vote. I think this is OK, but it's by no means settled yet because neither the left nor the right likes it a whole lot.

-- volney

21.  Yes, well, if some are going to be singled out, everyone has to have an ID.  Sort of like sorting beans.  You have to go through them all.

New thread.

18. As you know already, Phil, the BIG difference between Hillary's very stupid decision to back Kyl-Lieberman and my failure to act in a more timely manner ... which was the proximate cause of my potential DSL loss ... will not have life or death consequences for anyone. At most, it will be a nuisance for me ... some might actually see that as a silver lining, LOL!

But Hillary made absolutely the wrong choice in 2002 ... and did it again with Kyl-Lieberman just weeks back. If she is trying to convince us that she has learned a lesson from her much-vaunted *experience,* she's doing a piss-poor job of it. While I am extremely disappointed with other candidates who voted putz's way in 2002, or supported his actions, if they have shown by their subsequent actions that they learned a lesson and the lesson is not to trust a thing that putzCo, or his RW supporters like the Traitor Lieberputz, propose, then I am willing to vote for them.

Hillary has taken good stands on several issues ... and interestingly enough, has a slight edge over Dodd & Edwards in having much the same political philosophy as I do, if the little exercise that has recently been floating about has any merit. Kucinich was the closest by far in mirroring my philosophy, but I do not trust him (that is an instinctive reaction and while it may not be terribly well-articulated or reasoned, I have often found my *gut* to be a fairly good guide of character). In any event, I don't find him to be effective ... I could change my mind if he is actually able to get his impeachment measure to a vote. Even more, if he gets it to pass!

One can always dream!

Yes Monica, who'da thought we would be relying on Joe Biden for comic relief at the debates.

new thread