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Anonymous

For our friend, Tyree...

"some yrs back thier was a song out by some country singer,i forget his name , but it was long after my momma died , the name of it was my mommas hungry eyes, and it brought back memmories of walking on main street here in evansville i was maby 8 yrs old my hand held by my mother wed stop and look at the pretty dresses and bonnets on the maniqins in the store windows and i looked at mom and noticed the sadness on her face , momma i asked her why are you so sad? she looked at me and squeezed my hand gentely and said because im hungry , and later in life i knew what she ment ,it wasnt a hunger you felt when you needed food shed ment hungry for the nicer things in life like the pretty dresses the pretty hats that she knew she could never have, then she said son poor people have poor ways, guess thats why i loved the grapes of wrath the old gal in it tom joads mother reminded me of mom , allways only thinking of the kids first!"
tyree | 09.02.06 - 1:19 pm

Merle Haggard - Hungry Eyes


From all of us.

Anonymous

LITTLE MISS CAN'T BE WRONG.....HEY I KINDA LIKE THAT HANDLE!!!

Rockin out to the yard to do some gardening. Enjoy the day!!!!!!!!!

Spin Doctors-Little Miss Can't be wrong

Question Girl

FBI ROLE IN TERROR PROBE QUESTIONED

The Miami Five........ these guys are so not terrorists. They were so broke they couldn't pay attention!

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 2, 2006; Page A01

Standing in an empty Miami warehouse on May 24 with a man he believed had ties to Osama bin Laden, a dejected Narseal Batiste talked of the setbacks to their terrorist plot and then uttered the words that helped put him in a federal prison cell.

"I want to fight some jihad," he allegedly said. "That's all I live for."

Full story here

Question Girl

GOP HOPEFUL CAN'T KEEP HIS DYSTOPIAS STRAIGHT

Guest post by the gifted Vagabond Scholar, Batocchio

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has just called stem cell research "Orwellian." (His specific language seems to apply to in-vitro fertility treatment as well.) Reuters reports:

"I believe it crosses a very bright moral line to take sperm and eggs in the laboratory and start creating human life," Romney told reporters. "It is Orwellian in its scope. In laboratories you could have trays of new embryos being created."

It's of course ironic for any Republican to invoke Orwell, since were Orwell alive today, he would be absolutely skewering them. Many a smug conservative over the years has tried to characterize Animal Farm and 1984 as solely critiques of the Soviet Union, but these are shallow readings that allow conservatives to pat themselves on the back while ignoring any reflection about themselves or about our own systems of governance and the media. Orwell, of course, was anti-bullshit above and beyond anything else, and the abuse of power has never been limited to only one nation or ideology. And while 1984 was intended as a cautionary tale, Karl Rove saw it as a how-to manual.

But it's unfair to lump Romney entirely in with all the Bush crew, since his views have never exactly coincided with theirs. However, for about a year now, he has attempted the interesting balancing act of trying to maintain his moderate credentials in liberal Massachusetts while simultaneously pandering increasingly to social conservatives in the national audience.

But I shall not oppose Romney's presidency due to his latest pandering. No, I shall oppose him because of his ignorance of classic science fiction. We must draw the line somewhere!

Romney talks about stem cells as "Orwellian," a term that most often refers to the future society depicted in 1984. However, 1984 deals primarily with the use and abuse of language, media and social structures, all to better control the perception and thought of the populace in a future totalitarian society. Romney really should have said "Huxleyian," referencing another famous dystopian novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In Brave New World, society is stratified into a caste system according to genetic make-up, with "Alphas" ruling the roost over "Betas" and others of "inferior" genetic stock. The government, of course, regulates all human birth and grows everyone in labs, with quotas for how many Alphas versus Betas they make, and with normal sexual intercourse and reproduction an oddity.

How could Romney possibly have missed this? Did he really think that "Huxleyian" doesn't send the same dire chill down the spines of reactionary social conservatives, who Fox News tells us is one of the most literate and well-informed demographics in our large, diverse nation? Can such a man really be trusted with the future of our nation?

While I fully expect that the majority of Americans will be ignorant of science fiction, if Romney wishes to make it as a national candidate, it would behoove him to bone up on the subject. Nor should he regulate himself only to the classics. Pulpy science fiction, and flat out bad science fiction, both provide a wealth of ideas undreamt of by the comparatively unimaginative Orwell and Huxley. Reagan seemed to believe his missile defense project, "Star Wars," would create something akin to a science fiction force field. These days, it's instead a "bullet hitting a bullet," but missile defense continues to be the pointless mammoth pork project that will not die, regardless of how many failed tests and rigged demos the manufactures provide. That is a legacy, and true national leadership. Similarly, clearly someone in the White House is not afraid to read really bad science fiction. Who can forget Bush's call to send a man to Mars? Who can forget his dire warnings about the encroaching terror of human-animal hybrids? Who can forget how the nation rallied to him over both these initiatives, giving him a sizable boost in the polls, and cowing the Democrats? Democrats must only read Danielle Steel, or something equally useless, like Dickens, evidenced by their continual, tiresome whines about the plight of the poor and the need for a decent living wage. Who can be bothered with such matters when there are foreign lands to invade? What's the point of having the coolest military toys on the planet if we can't show them off? Why should we bother talking about universal health care, when we should outfitting sharks with laser beams on their frickin' foreheads?

Are you listening, Governor Romney? We must keep attentive to the crucial science fiction gap. When we stop reading science fiction, the terrorists win.

Reuters also reports that Romney has followed in the ranks of other Republicans by offering "an amendment that would have banned the creation of embryos for research purpose." This is, of course, a political pander offering a solution for a non-existent problem. No embryos need to be created for research, and no one has proposed this, not only because it would be unethical, but because there's a vast supply of embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise be discarded (most reports put the number at about 400,000). Romney's move, consequently, is actually much more "Orwellian" than what he decries, since what he's really offering is the same old politician's bullshit.

Laser beams, Mitt. I'm tellin' ya.

(Literary and cultural ignorance seems to be a recurrent theme for conservative political pundits and politicians. When then-candidate for Chief Justice John Roberts said his favorite film was Doctor Zhivago (based on the celebrated novel by Boris Pasternak), Fox pundits expressed concern that "it was a little Commie." Of course, Zhivago, like Pasternak himself, was a victim of the Communists! But all things Russian must be bad, and all Soviet-era novels must praise the Soviet state, goes the thinking – why bother reading the book, watching the movie, or even reading a summary? Bush claims to have read Camus' The Stranger and "three Shakespeares" this summer, but he's not the only Republican who needs to brush up on his reading. However, in the meantime, terrorists can vie with Martians for who hates "our freedoms" the most, or who most direly needs our women.)

Question Girl

Judge throws out voter registration rules

M.R. KROPKO
Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Volunteers and paid canvassers in voter registration drives across Ohio can go ahead with their efforts over the Labor Day weekend without concern about new state rules, a judge said.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen O'Malley issued an order from the bench Friday, saying she recognized how important voter registration efforts tend to be over the holiday weekend, and immediately set aside several provisions of a recent Ohio election reform law. A detailed written order is expected next week.

The rules seem to set up barriers against registering voters and appear to violate the First Amendment, the judge said.

A coalition of voter advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers had sued the state, arguing the regulations should be thrown out. The plaintiffs claimed the rules were intimidating and impaired their registration drives, particularly in low-income and minority areas, because the rules carry potential criminal penalties.

"Anybody who even reasonably helps someone else register to vote could face criminal prosecution," O'Malley said. "Anybody would be chilled in these circumstances."

Voters should ignore references to criminal penalties on the registration forms effective immediately, the judge said Friday. She gave the secretary of state's office five days to remove references to the rules and penalties on its Web site.

"Voting rights in Ohio have just been emancipated and now, our goal is to replace fear with enthusiasm," said the Rev. Tony Minor, one of the plaintiffs who has led voter registration efforts in the city's black community.

The rules required those who register people to vote to submit the forms in person or by mail to the local board of elections. They also mandated online training for those who are paid to register voters.

The state said the rules were needed to guard against voter fraud and did not stop anyone from registering to vote.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor, plans to comply with the order and not appeal, said Larry James, an attorney for Blackwell's office. Blackwell had said previously he had to abide by the intent of Ohio law.

"We are glad this matter is cleared up and we are prepared to move forward with the voting registration process," James said.

Blackwell told The Associated Press that he didn't expect political fallout from the decision. "Our campaign efforts were indifferent to the judge's decision. We were ready to get our job done regardless of what the rules of play were," he said.

O'Malley discounted Ohio's claim that the rules are designed to guard against fraud. She also said the Ohio registration rules seem to go against the spirit of the National Voting Rights Act of 1965 that government should "assist in reducing barriers to registration wherever possible."

She said the training requirements would seem to add to administrative burdens and that the registration process generally is not complicated and is self-explanatory.

The ruling applies only to the parts of the election law dealing with voter registration. The rest of the law was not affected.

O'Malley's order comes just days after a federal judge in Miami declared a Florida voter registration law unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said penalties for violations threatened free speech rights and said political parties were unfairly exempted.

link

Strike up another one for the good guys!

"We were ready to get our job done regardless of what the rules of play were" - Ken Blackwell, Republican candidate for governor

Call me flip but I don't think one should refer to voting law as 'rules of play'. I suppose people with little or no respect of such things have no qualm doing so.

Anonymous

Rumsfeld targeted in midterm election fight

· Democrats seek vote of no confidence in politician
· Strategy comes as Bush defends Iraq policy

Oliver Burkeman in New York
Saturday September 2, 2006
The Guardian

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who has so far survived mounting calls for his resignation over Iraq, is to be pitched into the centre of the American midterm election fight by Democrats who are convinced that he is the Bush administration's achilles heel.

Senior Democratic members of Congress say they will seek a no-confidence vote in Mr Rumsfeld, who is under fire for a speech this week in which he compared opponents of the Iraq war to those who supported the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before the second world war.

Rahm Emanuel, a high-profile member of the House of Representatives, plans to introduce the motion in the presence of 12 retired generals and other officers, who have lent the weight of their military experience to the campaign to force the defence secretary's resignation.

Democratic senators are discussing a similar move. Such a vote could not compel Mr Rumsfeld to quit, but it would be highly embarrassing to the governing party.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's stewardship of this effort is a failure, and he has let down our armed forces," Mr Emanuel told the Washington Post.

The Democrats are mounting an attempt to seize control of Congress in November's midterm elections by engaging the Republicans on their turf - national security and defence issues.

The strategy comes in response to a new effort by George Bush and Mr Rumsfeld to defend the administration's foreign policy record. In a string of speeches this week the president has sought to bundle Iraq and Afghanistan with crises over Iran and Lebanon, describing current events as "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century".

story here

Dems "engaging the Republicans on their turf"... IS ABOUT TIME!

Anonymous

N Korea accuses US over missiles

North Korea has accused the US of threatening war by conducting a missile defence test and vowed to strengthen its self-defence in response.

The US was increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula with its test and by holding military drills with South Korea, a North Korean statement said.

Hours earlier, the US military said it had successfully intercepted a dummy long-range warhead over the Pacific.

In July, Pyongyang test-fired several missiles, raising regional tensions.

The US Missile Defence Agency (MDA) said a target missile launched from Alaska was successfully shot down by an interceptor sent up from California on Friday.

"What we did today is a huge step in terms of our systematic approach to continuing to field, continuing to deploy and continuing to develop a missile defence system for the US, for our allies, our friends, our deployed forces around the world," Lt Gen Henry Obering, the MDA's director, said.

full article

Great! Just what we need, more stress, more tension. And when that bubble goes to pop, look out! Is what we get for being stuck between a N Korean madman and Bush... madman, American version.

Anonymous