:)

The Brits are finally allowed to discuss
"An Inconvenient Truth". Bush is against
legislation which would hold Blackwater accountable. No one is really interested
in low interest rates for housing-probably because they're still overpriced...

millie wink @ 1:

Does C & L feel at all bothered by the Jena 6? Maybe not, since this video hasn't been a Late Night Music pick yet:

http://relative-way.com/jenastream/

You know you can post ANY MUSIC in the music thread. Go ahead. You could post it there...and you could send them a suggestion to their email address. I've done that and they posted mine (Amy Winehouse).

It's kind of rude of you to imply that C&L isn't bothered by the Jena 6, just because a piece of music hasn't been posted. Lighten up, dude. We're all fighting the same fight.

Thanks miss kitty and if she's posted it to her blog I'll post it to an open thread even if she hasn't bought her own bandwidth. --BG

Sweet. The last time Iceland appeared in the news (or at least the last time I paid attention) was in 1972, during the Fischer-Spassky chess championship. OK, now I officially feel like an Old Fart.

McCain: Bush Should've Urged Enlistment
JIM DAVENPORT | October 3, 2007 04:18 PM EST | AP

CAMDEN, S.C. — Republican White House hopeful John McCain said Wednesday that President Bush made a mistake after the Sept. 11 terror attacks by encouraging people to shop rather than urging citizens to join the military or volunteer.

"I believe that the big mistake that our leadership of our nation made after 9-11 is we told people to go shopping and we told them to take a trip," McCain told students at a military prep school in this early voting state.

A month after the attacks, Bush said, "We cannot let the terrorists achieve the objective of frightening our nation to the point where we don't conduct business or people don't shop."

People would have joined the military or volunteer groups had the president urged them to do so, McCain said. "I think Americans would have responded overwhelmingly and I believe they still will," he said.

Loved the video.....I have a special place in my heart for Iceland. During WWII my dad was doing Reconassaince missions for the Canadian RAF. He was an American but they wouldn't take him due to a knee injury. He went to Canada and he was flying over Iceland with his wingman when the plane had problems. He bailed out. He thought the wingman had to. But he hadn't. He landed in the snow and a couple of hours later a couple with a sled were wandering by and found him. Hence I am here.
Love those Icelanders.

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN.
Published: October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Bill O'Reilly calls Brock the biggest villian in the country:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710030004?f=h_latest

Eureeka! We should talk to Chavez! Let him know we're not too concerned about him, just give them word of our non-interference. Then, we can use him as a go-between with Iran to settle our disputes. Also, listen to Alex Bennet on Sirius 146. He's truly a voice of reason. If you don't have Sirius, you should get it, it'll change your life.

GonzoD @ 16:

Bill O'Reilly calls Brock the biggest villian in the country:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710030004?f=h_latest

Take this quote out of context:

[A]t this point, this guy has emerged as the biggest villain, in my opinion, in the country. He'll do anything. He'll say anything -- doesn't matter if it's true -- for money."

You'd think its about OldOrally.

gene214 @ 9:

There are some days I get soooo fed up with living in this country - even Iceland is looking good. Bet it's cold as a motherfuck though (uh, which is why they named it ICEland).

Hmmm...if I remember my 5th grade geography, Iceland is mostly Green and Greenland is mostly ice...

Matt in Texas @ 13:

From what I've been told, Iceland is a beautiful country with lots of geothermal activity and a fairly progressive government. Sounds like a nice place to put down roots.

Shhh! They don't want anybody to know! That's why they named it Iceland. Paradise would have made them have to build a wall or somethin'.

OK, make that NINE seats we will gain in the Senate next year (Domenici is joining the Rapepubilcan crowd and leaving DC under suspicion).

Senator Bill Richardson in 2008.

He didn't want to be VP, anyhow. That's a nothing job.

moniker @ 23:

So what does an Icelandic neocon say, "support the troop"?

And does Iceland have a bloviating right wing radio host that calls him a phony troop? Inquiring minds want to know.

Anyone have a video of Darryl Issa (R- CA 49) going ballistic during the Blackwater hearings?

GonzoD @ 16:

Bill O'Reilly calls Brock the biggest villian in the country:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200710030004?f=h_latest

billo is just a sack of slimy lukewarm partially sundried hypocrital shit. never shake hands with billo, you never know which of his orifaces he has had his fingers.

McCain said. "I think Americans would have responded overwhelmingly and I believe they still will," he said."

• McCain doesn't understand defeat. He thinks he can simply snap his fingers and get a do-over.

Bush has been defeated as a President. No unelectable McCain or Thompson or Giuliani is going to have the chance to try again.

America is going to make sure that Republicans figure out how bad they have damaged themselves while they were raping the country, next year -- and for many years to come.

That's the problem with getting caught ripping people off.

Instead of going shopping, John, go fish, you has-been.

I love the video :). Quite funny :)

xoites: "Vote Kucinich!"

You want to vote for Kucinich in the primaries, go ahead.

I'm an Edwards supporter, because he won in 2004 and the election was stolen from him.

Rep. Kucinich talks tough, but he doesn't accomplish much, and he was a definite no-show in 2004 Ohio, when they stole the votes from his own town.

The next President is going to have to follow Congress. We are heading for a period of WEAK Presidents, though hopefully strong enough to bring the Pentagon back into line. Senator Edwards has enough strength to serve that purpose well, were he to get the chance. I'm not so sure that DK has what it takes to REALLY confront power.

While I appreciated the sentiment of the vid, frankly i just didn't think it was that funny.

I live in Iceland.

Iceland is ideal for people who like to complain about the weather.

Perhaps that is the reason why Icelanders are very good at complaining about things. And enjoy it.

The decison of parttaking in the coalition in Iraq was taken secretly by the right wing clique, that has governed Iceland most of the time since the US arrival 1949.

They did it while attending Bush's birthday in the White House.

The day after, the Icelandic parliament got a message that the party had rocked and we were BTW at war, for the first time in history.

We never had any military, so we sent a uniformed blonde babe to pass out coctails at green zone parties.

We finally got rid of the US military early last year. They left without cleaning up or paying their energy bills, but no one really cares, they are gone!

And now our gallant "hero" is back from Iraq.

My dad couldn't get into the Army because he has a bad eye. So he worked for a contractor in the Allution Islands building the airstrip out there. Actually, his job was even less than that. He was a grease monkey lubing the equipment used to build the airstrip out there. He didn't get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that, he was doing his part in the war effort.

South Africa is better at rescuing miners than us. California's water supply is down 40%!

Issa... Didn't he make his money with "the viper" car alarm? The most useless annoying bleating sound I've ever heard?

Thing Fish, he's out of car alarms now, and some say he makes his money in murder-for-hire kickbacks.

[...] (via Crooks And Liars) [...]

Paul in LA @ 50:

Thing Fish, he's out of car alarms now, and some say he makes his money in murder-for-hire kickbacks.

Almost forgot that Issa's name came up early on in the USAG dismissal issue.

Has he done any good?

that was a great video! It is also very telling in another way. The U.S. armed forces has pretty much committed all ground forces to Iraq and Afghanistan for the foreseeable future and has very few to spare for any other areas without pulling them from some place else. Heck, the military probably doesn't even have the right equipment or training on hand right now to do the job if they had to. All are geared towards a desert environment. That in itself, is a window of opportunity for other nations to take advantage of and they will.

The most Bush might be able to muster is a token force or maybe even "one dude" as the video mentions to send to another hot spot. Emperor Bush has royally screwed the United States with his wars.

I don't wanna sound like one of these snotty-little Canadians ( ;) ), but I'm so glad we didn't go to Iraq!! I don't agree with our mission in Afghanistan: it's because of NATO. Back then, the USA had friends, and we joined in, along with Britain.

1 guy from Iceland a coalition?......well......................it is the preznit

Lenghty article in the NYT but well worth reading:

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
Published: October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.

Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.
...

Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney’s counsel, to endorse policies that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even though the practices brought the condemnation of other governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the Bush White House, undermining the department’s independence.
...

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

(article continues)

read on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp&...

Oooops, sorry, BaScOmBe already posted the link at # 14

14BaScOmBe Says:
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN.
Published: October 4, 2007
----
it's worth repeating

Daily Reading pt 1...

California group launches campaign to put Gore's name on primary ballots - http://rawstory.com/news/2007/California_group_launches_campaign_to_put_...
Same in Michigan...

With North Pole melting, administration warms to UN Law of the Sea Treaty - http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20071003-1332-lawofthesea.html
US con-servatives have long blocked our membership in the Law of the Sea Treaty, claiming it would be one more erosion of our sovereignty and that it would harm or restrict Navy and Coast Guard activities and subject us to Kyoto Protocol environmental standards.
But Congress and the White House have come around on the issue as global warming opens up the possibilities of exploiting resources frozen under polar ice. The US thus may, finally, become the 156th member to the Treaty.

The normal summertime high in the Canadian High Arctic is about 5 degrees Centigrade (41 F). This summer, the thermometer there reached 22 C (72 F). Yes, global warming does exist. - http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3021309.ece
WE NEED LEADERS that take this seriously and aren't in back pocket of Old Energy/Big Oil/Big Coal...

Jon Stewart Dismantles Chris Matthews; A nice commentary on the blow-by-blow account. - http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.j...
EXCELLENT VIDEO, MUST SEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkPGZQzFZxk (or if it gets yanked) http://gillmoreboy.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-jon-stewart-vs-chris-matth...
THIS IS WHY THE DAILY SHOW & COLBERT REPORT ARE DAILY VIEWING MUSTS....

The Alarming Parallels Between 1929 and 2007 - http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_alarming_parallels_betwe...
Has deregulation left the economy at risk of another 1929-scale crash? Should the Fed keep bailing out speculators? Robert Kuttner testified yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee.
Con-servative 'economic' policies since Reagan...have left this country in shambles....drickle down/supply side Nixonian/Laffer BS...always leads to a weakened republic...every single time...and now...finally
'economic con-servatives' are leaving the party...because they're finally waking up from this propaganda pipe dream

The economy is doin great: Weak dollar prompts record foreign buyouts of U.S. companies - http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7720834
"We could be looking at the world's largest tag sale if we continue to see declines in the dollar," said Donald Klepper-Smith, chief economist at DataCore Partners.Klepper-Smith said"It raises some red flags and some real questions about our independence"
See they hate the UN and International Laws...unless they protect corporations, profits, & enforce their evil driven megalomaniacal domination schemes...
Every con-servative corporatist, free marketist is Anti-american....simple as that....they'll never let 'their love' of this country get in the way of money & global economy...no matter what...

still trying to get the image of bill clinton crapping out of a tree from my mind!

Jane Hamsher on Rush Limbaugh and the Phony Outrage non-scanadal.

"It’s time to take him out."

As Winston Churchill once said "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results".

Kald @ 42:

I live in Iceland.

Iceland is ideal for people who like to complain about the weather.

Perhaps that is the reason why Icelanders are very good at complaining about things. And enjoy it.

The decison of parttaking in the coalition in Iraq was taken secretly by the right wing clique, that has governed Iceland most of the time since the US arrival 1949.

They did it while attending Bush's birthday in the White House.

The day after, the Icelandic parliament got a message that the party had rocked and we were BTW at war, for the first time in history.

We never had any military, so we sent a uniformed blonde babe to pass out coctails at green zone parties.

We finally got rid of the US military early last year. They left without cleaning up or paying their energy bills, but no one really cares, they are gone!

And now our gallant "hero" is back from Iraq.

say was the parade rout crowed with admireing people ? ill bet the cleanup crew had one hell of a job cleaning up all that confetti

Lambs lie down with lions! Dogs sleeping with cats! Republicans agreeing with Democrats about taxes?!?!?!?

Andy Cobb rocks

Bush Vetoes Child Health Bill Privately
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and CARL HULSE After he vetoed a bill that would have expanded government health insurance for children, President Bush said he was open to compromising with Congress by spending more money on the program than his budget has proposed.

I think that means that he wants to institute the immediate slaughter of children so they don't suffer long for lack of medical care.

It's not surprising alternative voices don't get heard in this country , and the so so called main stream media or infotainers IGNORE any voice that deviates from the echo chamber propaganda . What's really disgusting about CNN, is not only the amount of time devoted to nonsense , i.e. princess di , local issues like the weather , POlls, polls, polls, who's first , who's first in fund raising , blah, blah, blah and blitzer's non stop speculating in his speculation room .
Now that RON PAUL hit five million in recent fund raising , NOW CNN can interview R.P. , albeit , short and filled w/ silly questions , like who he would "vote for" , when IRAQ is the most pressing issue . Now that money enters the equation , he qualifies for a little of over due attention . WHY, and where the fuck was the "news media" when he had important issues to bring up , something you won't hear from anybody else . THE OCCUPATION .
It sends an obvious message . The ONLY people we let on in the media , is the usual well connected insiders and rich politicians , all basically with the same propaganda . But if you raise a lot of money , we'll put you on briefly .