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Batman is, as usual, a completely biased right-wing idiot. FISA had almost nothing to do with the walkout yesterday. That there is such confusion about it on this site is just another demonstration of how really wonderful and effective the right wing are at obfuscating reality.

Ringdev, your reasons 1 and 3 are just plain wrong. Republicans didn't prevent the contempt issue from being "settled". Democrats had a quorum and passed the contempt of congress resolution yesterday.

Which leaves your reason 2, which is closer to the truth. The real reason these idiots walked out are:
1. To make a stink about not passing the telecom immunity act the way the President wanted.
2. To spare themselves the popular heat of voting against the contempt of congress resolution. Had they done so, they're going to look awfully phony once Miers and Bolton testify and the Justice Department scandal blows up again.

When the Clintons left office, their staff broke equipment before leaving and violated the rest. For example, they would leave pornographic images in the photocopier. Think of it as the previous management of SlashDot leaving Goatse as the new logo when they left. Of course, let's not forget about all the silverware and furniture that Hillary stole like it was cheap hotel towels.

Not even remotely true. I have work tomorrow and it's late. You're a blatant troll and I don't have time to discredit all of the obvious Clinton lies you've spouted. It should be enough to just throw out your first argument... but I'll even add a bonus link... Clinton Did not fire attorneys in the middle of their terms. Yes, all presidents fire attorneys when they begin... but only the current president hid conversations using RNC accounts and fired attorneys in the middle of their term for purely political reasons (The only attorneys fired in the middle of their terms from 1981 to 2006 were for misconduct... which was never cited as a reason for the current firings).

Like I said, it's late and I have work. Quit trolling and read some real information.

"... not the word of an infallible being either."

You are going down a slippery slope. Next you will be saying the U.S. president wasn't right when he said "When Saudis attack, invade Iraq", and "The answer to violence is more violence", and "We'll show them! They killed 3,000 Americans, we'll kill more", and "The way to make Muslims more gentle is to attack and kill them".

John Edwards also sheltered money from taxes. If it is allowed and ethical, each taxpayer has a duty to minimize their taxes.

Warren Buffet is putting a huge chunk o' money into a foundation to avoid paying Nebraska their share of his estate tax when he dies as well.

And as Ron Paul also said, "I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in [Los Angeles] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

Just so you know--Ron Paul is a racist whack-job. He doesn't have the endorsement of the American Nazi Party, Stormfront, and other white supremacists for nothing.

Anti-war != good and sane person. HTH, HAND.

Citing habitual liar George Will somewhat diminishes your otherwise compellingly counterfactual argument.

Bill O'Reilly is a
fart.

P.S.: as well as sufficiently illiterate and innumerate to disable his participation in debate.

Um. I run a fairly small online community. Here's why I'd have banned you. Regardless of if I were to fight or comply when the FBI asks for logs of everything from a specific user, it's a huge pain in the ass. There are a lot of cases where I'd be willing to go the ground to protect the privacy of a user, but anyone stupid enough to publicly self-identify as a pedo or terrorist in the current authoritarian legal climate is not worth the legal hassle they would cause me.

Sooner or later some bullshit like this is going pass:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on-blogs/

The Daily Show is a parody news program shown on Comedy Central here in the US. Ironically enough, studies have shown that viewers of The Daily Show are more informed about world events than viewers of Fox News.

And, contrary to popular beliefs, we are making MORE of them!

The problem is that it is not at all obvious that ANY of the activity was "illegal" or unconstitutional.

It's just that people like to think of it as being that clear-cut, when it isn't.

Collecting foreign signals intelligence on foreign targets (i.e., non-US persons) outside of the United States DOES NOT (and should not) require a warrant, or any court oversight. That includes:

1.) When the other end of the conversation is also foreign; and

2.) When the other end of the conversation is within the United States

Yes, you read that right. Just because a target of foreign intelligence collection makes a call to even a US citizen within the United States doesn't mean it suddenly requires a warrant. That's how it's always been. A warrant is only required when it is a US citizen and/or the target is on US soil. That has always the case, and is the case with all iterations of the various legislation (Protect America Act, RESTORE, this agreement, etc.).

The "new" issue is that the United States should also be able to do 1.) and 2.) above without a warrant when the traffic travels through the United States, either incidentally or by design. The warrant requirements for domestic surveillance are designed to protect the target of the surveillance, not the mechanisms, processes, techniques, or companies that enable the surveillance. If the target of the surveillance does not fall under warrant requirements, no warrant should be required.

The legal questions arose because the interception of the communication happening on US soil put it in an understandably gray area. But it was NOT clear that it was illegal or unconstitutional, as some seem to think it so clearly was!

The whole process of court oversight and warrants is designed to protect people who are afforded the protections of the laws and constitution of the United States. Foreign persons outside of the United States DO NOT get these protections. You may think they do (you'd be wrong), or think they should (laudable, but laughable, idealism), but the fact of the matter is, they do not.

The Protect America Act was overly broad and prone to abuse because one person, the Attorney General, was the entity to "sign off" on the declaration that a target was reasonably believed to be a non-US person outside of the United States. The new legislation will use FISA processes for that signoff, but still without warrants.

The funny thing everyone is missing here is that the only point of contention was whether or not telecoms should be granted retroactive immunity for the assistance they already provided. The House Democrats are the ones who introduced the RESTORE Act. Here, look and see what it does. It allows warrantless surveillance of communications where a foreign target outside of the United States is a party, regardless of where the other endpoint is, and regardless of whether the intercept is done on US soil. The primary difference between it and the Protect America Act is that FISC (the FISA court) oversees the process, targeting procedures, and signs off on targets being reasonably believed to be outside of the United States.

How is it illegal to provide assistance for the monitoring of things that have have already been found to not require a warrant (in the case of the logging of start and endpoints of phone numbers, but NOT content, which constitutes a "pen register", or of targets that have no warrant requirements whatsoever (non-US persons outside of the US)?

Warrants are there to protect US citizens and other persons afforded the rights of the Constitution and US law. Warrants, in this context, affirm that the target of surveillance is protected by applicable laws and has certain rights. Warrants provide a judicial oversight process.

Foreign targets outside of the United States have NEVER had any of those rights or protection

I'm nice. I don't know about the changing accusations but this story looks like more evidence of high crimes to me. Are we following a felony here? This story really blew open in the media over the weekend. (Google news:Nacchio)

"What occurred before 9/11." You ask.

Well, as court documents (heavily redacted but showing enough to prove the time line) in the Nacchio trial state the whitehouse demanded wiretap information without court orders in violation of the FISA act. Nacchio refused and Qwest was passed over for big dollar contracts issued by the Feds. The rub is all this happened six months before 9/11. Why is that a story? Read on.

Perhaps this is a better article then the one linked in this story. From the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101202485.html?hpid=topnews
or this one. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p.html

It says the NSA was demanding wiretaps without court oversight six months before 911.

But on this whitehouse.gov page. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060511-1.html it says
"President Bush: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they're saying." [White House, 5/11/06]

Not convinced? Watch this video
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/10/bush-pushes-for-telco-immunity/
"must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."

FOLLOWING? How about six months before!

Oh yea, Impeachment. "Bush administration was either incompetent or is guilty of malfeasance" http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_frank_j__071015_bush_administration_.htm OK he's a known Bush basher.

"On December 17th, 2005, President Bush confirmed the existence of a National Security Agency eavesdropping program. That confirmation came one day after a report in the New York Times. The President said at the news conference, "in the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations." Critics argued that Bush became the first sitting president to admit committing a felony, when he circumvented the courts by not getting a subpoena from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court, as required by law." http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=7112345&nav=0RY5

This would be Bush bashing; "Bush is a fake cowboy" http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/vicente_fox_cowboy_bush_is_scared_of_horses.php or "Bush is lazy" http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html but I won't resort to that kind of low stuff.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to go about my life... maybe go shopping.

Richard B. Cheney's laptop with his oil futures trades the best.

PatRIOTically,
K. Trout

I had heard that as well that Stevens is the senator who put the "secret hold" (some sort of Senatorial maneuver) on the legislation for a public database on earmarks. Here's a brief mention with links: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/30/stevens-confir ms-he-placed-secret-hold-on-bill/

I know, this would never happen in the Empire! Oh, but it will.

As usual it will be happening under the guise of protecting our children. IT'S FOR THE KIDS! Senator John "Globalist Shill" McCain introduced a bill in 2006 called "Stop the Online Exploitation of our Children Act of 2006". That bill allows for what is happening in Sweden, only ours is all juiced up on roids.

It would, from the thinkprogress article linked below,
-"Commercial websites and personal blogs "would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000."

and my favorite,
-"Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain's legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face "even stiffer penalties" than ISPs."

Of course it is all in the definitions. How do YOU define obscene or offensive? Maybe as "something that is lascivious" and appealing to prurient interests. Maybe something that is abnormal, unhealthy, degrading or shameful? They have all been used to define illegal obscenity. Pick your word, the more broad, vague and all-encompassing the better. Of course these word games have been played time and time again to do nothing more than rip away the first amendment from the citizens.

The excuse of protecting the children to relieve the citizen of his/her rights is one of the oldest in the politicians bag of liberty stealing, tyranny inducing tricks.

Don't ever say it can't happen here.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/13/mccain-war-on- blogs/

You've got the kind of argument that only Rush Limbo can make effectively.

So let me help you out: you could say "why didn't Congress just override the veto?" if you want to talk meaningfully (without strawmen like whether presidents have a veto right) about the political mechanics.

The answer is that Bush has Congress stymied with his nominal minority of one chamber, Senate Republicans. It takes 60 senators, therefore 11 Republicans (counting fake independent Lieberman), which is 22% of them, to undo Bush's vetoes. Which are the obstructionist remainder of his 6 years of lockstep Republican party monopoly, including the previous stemcell veto.

"Middle of the road" is what Republicans operating the Overton Window system game like to call the extremes gained by bargaining from insanely hyperextreme positions with an opposition that starts out in the middle of the road. It's more like a "gutter" deal, in terms of where in the road it falls.

Just to tag you with what you are, a Bush apologist, those signing statements didn't just "push the envelope a bit". They have been directives to Federal agencies to break the laws he signed, which is not in our Constitution at all. Thereby violating it, as only Constitutional powers may be used by the government.

You've had the kind of government you're defending for most of a decade now. Are you satisfied with its progress? You sure seem so. Which makes you an essential part of it. You should reconsider posing as an authority on Constitutional democratic/republican political practice.

Neither the article nor the PDF contain the work "backup". Please cite the relevant text.

It isn't in the story or the PDF because all of this derives from the fact that they found the emails they originally said had been lost. That is, moot.

Tim Griffin, Michael Elston, Paul McNulty, Monica Goodling
Sara Taylor, Bradley Schlozman, Steve Biskupic, Alberto Gonzalez, David Safavian, Lurita Doan, Ken Tomlinson
Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Conrad Burns, Ted Stevens, Kyle Foggo, Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, Curt Weldon, Donald Rumsfeld, Jim Tobin
Scooter Libby, Manuel Miranda, Darleen Dryun, Thomas Scully, Chuck Mcgee, Pete Domenici
Porter Goss, Brant Bassett, Virgil Goode, Katherine Harris, Jerry Lewis, Ed Buckham, Steven Griles, Mark Foley, Paul Wolfowitz, Ken Lay, Conrad Black, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Roger Stilwell, Tony Rudy, Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, William Heaton, Adam Kidan, Neil Volz,

Tim Griffin, Michael Elston, Paul McNulty, Monica Goodling
Sara Taylor, Bradley Schlozman, Steve Biskupic, Alberto Gonzalez, David Safavian, Lurita Doan, Ken Tomlinson
Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Conrad Burns, Ted Stevens, Kyle Foggo, Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, Curt Weldon, Donald Rumsfeld, Jim Tobin
Scooter Libby, Manuel Miranda, Darleen Dryun, Thomas Scully, Chuck Mcgee, Pete Domenici
Porter Goss, Brant Bassett, Virgil Goode, Katherine Harris, Jerry Lewis, Ed Buckham, Steven Griles, Mark Foley, Paul Wolfowitz, Ken Lay, Conrad Black, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Roger Stilwell, Tony Rudy, Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, William Heaton, Adam Kidan, Neil Volz,

It's ironic that he want to resist the politicization of science as meanwhile his good buddy George W. is doing everything he can to suppress debate on the issue. The Us 'invests' in the Czech Republic, moves missiles in and now Vaclav Klaus is rubbishing Global Warming. Nothing to see here, move along. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070604/ap_on_go_pr_wh /global_warming_satellites http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/20/cheney%E2%80%9 9s-office-involved-in-global-warming-manipulation/

If you know it, yes that would be illegal as it would be withholding evidence. However, as The Attorney General of the United States has shown, it's soooo hard to remember things these days.

I don't see any other candidate vowing to get rid of the illegal IRS and Income tax, do you? No matter what your political agenta, I`m sure everybody in the U.S. would benefit from that.

I used to like Ron Paul because I have never heard him say anything stupid. I haven't been paying enough attention apparently!

The income tax is not illegal; there is a constitutional amendment for it and everything. The 16th Amendment was attacked as unconstitutional because President Taft introduced it in 1911 and he was born in Ohio in 1857. In 1953, before its sesquicentennial statehood anniversary, someone searched the records and found that Ohio had not been formally admitted to the Union in 1803. Things were more half-assed back then and nobody in 1803 actually filled out the paperwork. Ohio officially became a state in 1953 in a jovial celebration. They delivered a petition for statehood on horseback to Washington D.C., Eisenhower cracked a few Buckeye jokes, and then he signed a bill making Ohio retroactively a state back to 1803. BUT- the dominoes start falling here: on ex post facto grounds Ohio still wasn't a state when Taft was born in it in 1857- meaning he was not a natural-born citizen of the U.S.- rendering his entire presidency illegitimate- and his 16th Amendment illegal- so we can keep our taxes. It's my favorite anti-tax argument of all time, and if Ohio hadn't actually been a U.S. Territory in 1857 (rats!) I could have filed a 1040X for my refund.

Only a very elite few would benefit from abolishing the income tax. It wouldn't mean "no taxes let's party". It would be replaced with more taxes you won't like, such as higher sales taxes or higher consumption taxes. On an average per capita basis your tax burden would probably go up. Also everyone would be running around flush with dollars. Think gas would stay at $3 if that happened? We'd experience the sort of inflation that remains suppressed by the income tax, and those dollars would mostly flow into the hands of people who would no longer be paying income taxes. It sounds like a good strategy for creating a Latin American country.

There are only two types of people who want to replace the income tax with a sales tax or a consumption tax:
- Haves who know they pay more income tax now than they would pay if sales taxes replaced them.
- Have nots with the complete opposite situation, but who fall for disingenuous arguments about taxes involving too much paperwork. "They're too complicated!"

We saw the same thing with the inheritance tax. They really sold that one hard- a tax break for hardly anybody that would cost a lot of money- so you heard all about these mythical "family farms" being lost to the inheritance tax. Like WMDs, the fact that they did not exist didn't seem to matter. Right after Katrina, they were looking for dead millionaires floating around in the water whose estate would be subject to the tax. "Whether a millionaire gets to pass his wealth on to his heirs ... doesn't play well in the face of black people floating face down dead in the water," said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political science professor. (The floating dead millionaires turned out not to exist either.) The inheritance tax has also been attacked as racist by Robert L. Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television) since only 59 African Americans are expected to pay it in 2008 and he is one of them.

Taxes are complicated because the government uses them to direct people's behavior, so the tax code is full of carrots and sticks. Not only do you have to avoid the sticks, you must grab every carrot, because generally you are expected to, and the money is reflected in the prices of things you pay. This is what happened with the first-home-buyer mortgage deduction. It started out as a nice thing meant to help people. In response, the price of a

.He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

Read about your LACK of civil rights in the United Gulags of America.

Patiotically as usual,
Kilgore Trout, M.D.

Your thinking on the matter concerns me:

The reason this _should_ be an issue is the principal of separation of powers has been sodomized by the current administration.

During the Clinton administration, there were just four people in the White House -- the President, the Vice President, the White House Counsel, and the Deputy White House Counsel -- who could participate in discussions with the Justice Department "regarding pending criminal investigations and criminal cases." There were just three Justice Department officials authorized to talk with the White House. This arrangement was intended restrict political interference in the administration of justice.

Yesterday in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that it was important that the Justice Department "be independent from" the White House. But as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) pointed out, the firewalls that had existed during the Clinton administration have been ripped down. In the Bush administration, the rules have been rewritten so that 417 White House officials and 30 Justice Department officials are eligible to have discussions about criminal cases.

I copied this whole-cloth from http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/20/whitehouse-gon zales/ I don't know anything about the site, but it's a nice summary and should have been the story the media told following the hearing that day. It gets to why this matters in a hurry, because it's not about hiring/firing.

Nice troll. Too bad it's not correct.

You are correct when you say the US Attorneys serve at the will of the President. Bill Clinton, when he came into office, fired all 83 US Attorneys and replaced them. So did Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Bush, however, not only did not do that, he waited until two years into his second term to fire eight attorneys which he had previously appointed!

Further, as is now becoming clear, the firings were not for performance reasons, but political reasons. In one case, the attorney was told he was being fired to make way for a former aide to Karl Rove. In another case, Iglesias, he was specificaly told his firing was not for performance reasons but political yet the White House and Gonzales kept saying, and still say to this day, that the firing was for performance issues.

As Iglesias said on Fox Noise, and as the transcript above shows, he asked for and was given permission to use the DOJ as a reference. If he was fired for performance reasons, why bother to give him a recommendation?

So what we have is an Attorney General who has been lying under oath about an incident which he apparently knew nothing about even though he heads the department. Let's see, lying under oath, can't recall information, doesn't know what's going on. Why does that sound familiar?

Keep up the trolling. We need the laughs.

"I'm just surprised Gonzales choose copyright to try to change the subject"

Im sure they are getting big money from the struggling recording/software companies to pass this kind of legislation...

Maybe just like they sandbagged the Duke Cunningham scandal in order to protect the White Houses "friends" in the Defense Industry.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam was fired while investigating the case, when all those attorneys were let go a few months ago. A California Republican responded in the news by saying something along the lines of "she should have been focused more on border control issues and less on white collar crime".

We are pwned by the $$$ and the IMC...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-whit e-house/
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2007/01/cia-and-white- house-block-cunningham.html

For criticizing world's most dangerous person.

I hope this helps the criminal investigation of the world's largest crime syndicate.

Sincerely,
K. Trout, C.T.O.

Indeed, lets all ignore the facts. Yourself included. If TDS/CR have little to do with news, I'd hate to see what's on Fox News. Oh yeah, Anna Nichole Smith for 6 weeks straight, nevermind.

John McCain? The same man who doesn't know condoms prevent STDs? Who wanted to send even more troops than Bush in his surge? The John McCain that walked around in a Iraqi market with a huge security force to "prove" that it's safer? The same guy whose plan for a solution to Iraq is to send 100,000 more troops there? Are we talking about the same person?

On a more serious note, Ron Paul seems to be a good match if one really cares for liberty.

John McCain? The same man who doesn't know condoms prevent STDs? Who wanted to send even more troops than Bush in his surge? The John McCain that walked around in a Iraqi market with a huge security force to "prove" that it's safer? The same guy whose plan for a solution to Iraq is to send 100,000 more troops there? Are we talking about the same person?

On a more serious note, Ron Paul seems to be a good match if one really cares for liberty.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/gore-responds- to-drudge/

Don't let facts get in the way of Gore bashing, even if it turns out that the amount of energy consumed comes from solar panneling.

Conservapedia is self-parody, but it is produced and maintained by "Conservatives" as a repository of official "Conservative" dogma. Because they think Wikipedia is "liberal", as they clearly state in their About page. Typically Conservative, they're using the Wikipedia software for free, but don't even mutter a minimal thanks to Wikipedia - they just bash it.

Anonymous Conservative Coward is a typical Conservative: trying to have it both ways, all ways, whenever it's convenient. There is no "truth" for today's "Conservatives" (What are they "conserving"? They're wasters, reckless consumers and rampant destroyers.) So whenever they dart out from behind their favorite weasel words to make a clear statement, they're usually a joke, at least because they contradict whatever other statement they made before that was once convenient then.

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert

You must be a 30%er.

But even though you won't listen to me, perhaps you'll listen to Bob Barr.

The Bushies are undermining trust in the DOJ. Everything the DOJ does is now highly suspect, thanks to this gang of fucking idiots.

Stop mindlessly defending these corrupt fuckups and form an opinion yourself.

and now...
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/08/stevens-north- pole/
Now the trick, of course, is that the amount allocated is too small for the amount of track being built.
Multiplying that figure by a factor of 10 probably approaches what the final cost will be.

Habeas corpus has long been determined not to apply to foreigners

That's funny, the federal Attorney General representing the federal government told Congress that habeas corpus doesn't apply to anyone. It's not in the Constitution, he insists: "the Constitution doesn't say, 'Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.'"

You cannot have a right that precludes me from having a right.

All rights are restrictions on the behavior of others. As such, society determines that some rights are more important than others. I can carry a gun, but I had better have a good reason if I shoot you with it, and "because he hurt my feelings" isn't.

then it is fair game for anyone to speek out against too. Even if that means resolving you animynity.

Just because someone is incapable of coping with an anonymous critic doesn't mean that their right to not have their feelings hurt trumps a person's right to criticize anonymously. Speaking out against a critic doesn't "mean resolving their anonymity" unless the only thing you've got are ad hominem attacks.

I'd sure love to see you cite a source for your laughable interpretation of the 9th Amendment. The 9th has been routinely ignored by many, but no sane person has ever claimed it meant other than what it says.

It can't be hamster farts... because it's dinosaur farts!

During the hearing, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) -- one of the 87 percent of congressional Republicans who do not believe in man-made global warming -- questioned the authors of the [IPCC] report about a period of dramatic climate change that occured 55 million years ago. "We don't know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?'

Or are you thinking more about the days in advance of that hurricane that the mayor of that town and the governor of that state wasted in not actually evacuating the city's residents (you know, the ones not complying with the evacuation order) with their sitting-idle fleet of buses?

That's the right wing bullshit, anyway. Here's the facts. And Blanco had 500 buses ready to go, but FEMA rejected their use because they lacked air conditioning. In hindsight, was there more the governor and mayor could have done? Sure, but nothing remotly approaching George "no one could have predicted the levees would breah even though I was personally warned about it before Katrina struck" Bush.

Leading to the eventual clash between us and whatever planet our HUGE ball of quantum-mechanically perfect evil lands on.

Sounds like you have more of a 'the world is half evil' kind of personality. Myself, I believe 'the world is half good'. Bush? He's more of a 'half world good' kind of guy.

According to Representative Jim Cooper, the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/30/negroponte-glo bal-warming/ was banned from mentioning the words "global" and warming" together in the same sentence. So in a recent speech he gave when he was given an environmental award, he played a game to try and get the words as close together in his sentences without actually saying them in the same sentence. Funny on one level, but how sad. We're approaching environmental crush depth and the administration is still pulling this pathetic little game about "climate change not global warming".

Frankly, I'm starting to agree with those who are talking about an environmental Nuremberg.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bush-says-he-u ses-the-google/

I'm pretty sure YOU are the one who missed the joke.

My thoughts exactly, maybe if any of the myriad and ever-shifting reasons given as justification for the Iraq war were true then people wouldn't be giving this administration "so much shit for the last war."

Although unfortunately with the situation in N. Korea there is the added problem that S. Korea is basically a hostage (well within missle range), and Seoul with its ten million or so citizens will likely face annihilation should hostilities begin in the region. :/ Still, the hypocracy is deep with this one.

Also of note, the National Defense Authorization Act passed in October 2006 required Bush to appoint a Policy Coordinator to deal directly with N.K. issues within 60 days, that date has come and gone and the post remains unfilled.

In addition to Pinata, the Rare released Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero at the Xbox 360's launch and shipped Conker: Live & Reloaded and Grabbed By the Ghoulies on the original Xbox.

I wonder if they've partnered with the Google.

Dude, your mistake was in quoting Foxnews as a reliable source for global warming news. This is the same station who claimed that Happy Feat was a propoganada attempt set forth by liberals to undermine American children http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/21/happy-feet-inc onvenient-truth/

As it turned out there WERE WMD's.

Um, no. There weren't.

A few desparate neocons have tried to make something out of hazardous trash left over from pre-1991 weapons programs.

But now that we're there I am against just pulling out. Because a failure in Iraq would be (will be) devistating to the US.

We've already failed in Iraq. The question is whether or not we go on failing, magnifying our losses, or cut them short.

In the game of Go, there is a situation known as a "ladder", or "shi cho", where in trying to protect one stone, a player lays down stone after stone trying to outflank the opponent, only to lose them all when he runs out of room. A wise player knows to let the doomed stone go.

US beaten by little old Iraq. Think of it.

Great Britian beaten by it's little old colonies, and then again by the new United States. Rome beaten by a bunch of barbarians. U.S. beaten by little old Vietnam. U.S.S.R. beaten by little of Afghanistan. There's nothing unique in a world power being beaten by a "weaker" but more motivated force.

Empires fall. The sooner the American Empire falls, the sooner the U.S. can get back to being a great nation, rather than a lousy empire.

How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that there is a political motive behind "Big Oil" giving to science education? I don't think Welsely Mouch from Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged would be that moronic.

Maybe because the NSTA themselves admitted it? As a previous poster pointed out: "Accepting the DVDs, they wrote, would place 'unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters.'"

How in the hell can anyone be stupid enough to think that's NOT a political motive? ;)