OT: Derailing the Republicans
maff
James Crabtree
October 10, 2006 06:09 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_crabtree/2006/10/the_republicans_crash_at_last.html
It isn't easy to derail the most effective political machine ever
built. But that is exactly what Mark Foley just did. And it's difficult
to see how Karl Rove can get his jack-knifed party back on track in
time to avoid losing control of the House of Representatives next
month.
This morning's slew of polls tell of a landslide coming. The Washington
Post shows that two thirds of Americans think, quite correctly, that
the Republicans hushed up Foleygate. The Gallup poll, which two weeks
ago seemed to suggest a Republican recovery, reports that Democrats
have "a 23-point lead over Republicans among every type of person
questioned." Voters now give the Democrats the biggest congressional
poll lead in 20 years, much larger than that enjoyed by the Republicans
before their 1994 landslide.
Misplaced pride and prejudice
Gillian Evans
October 11, 2006 08:59 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gillian_evans/2006/10/misplace_pride_and_prejudice.html
Whilst it is fashionable, in popular television programmes, like Little
Britain, to satirise and caricature the white working classes in
Britain, my attempt to make a sensitive and serious anthropological
study of a particular white working class community has met with little
but condemnation. (I expect my efforts to understand the educational
poor performance of white working class boys will provoke a similar
response.)
Why is this? Is it because I am a "posh-cow" (which is how I was seen
in Bermondsey) and only working class people are allowed to write about
working class or "common" life? Is it because I am an anthropologist
and the misguided assumption is that anthropologists study "primitive"
people, which makes it seem that the white working classes are our
British primitives?
Google Nichecasting Networks
Jeff Jarvis
October 10, 2006 05:36 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jeff_jarvis/2006/10/google_nichecasting_networks.html
Just to demonstrate the point, I recorded this post as video - quickly
and clumsily - and uploaded it to YouTube. (If it's not there, YouTube
promises it will be momentarily.)
Your country needs YouTube
John Harris
October 10, 2006 04:15 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_harris/2006/10/your_country_needs_youtube.html
To protest about Google's buy-out of YouTube, there's one obvious
option: pour your ire into a video camera and post up a clip. Thus far,
there seem to about sixty, most full of fear that their beloved virtual
community is about to be turned into a drab corporate hell-hole, and as
the US wakes up, the volume of anti-Google agit-prop will surely
skyrocket. Looking once again at Google's own video site, you can only
sympathise: its front page offers the obligatory home-made clips, but
its "featured" section rather tediously flags up The Cartoon Network, a
new Oasis DVD and Sky Sports' coverage of the Ryder Cup. There is also
the dull sound of cynical commerce: charges for video "downloads", when
- doh! - the whole point of streaming technology is that no download is
required.
So, while other people pick over the kind of details examined elsewhere
on CiF, some of YouTube's more hard-bitten users are already going
bananas. "Google has a habit of charging for things," says one user.
"Google complied with the Chinese government to censor websites
critical of it," rages another. "So much for free speech and privacy.
Goodbye, YouTube. It was fun while it lasted." For one user, a visit to
Google Video had provided a worrying portent of the future to come: "I
wanted to watch an interview, but I was only able to stream three
minutes of it ... if I wanted to watch the whole interview I would have
to 'download' it for 99 cents. That is ridiculous! Video should be
free!"
Faking the physics
Daniel Davies
October 10, 2006 03:11 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_davies/2006/10/faking_the_physics.html
Via Slate and Openscience, a report of an extraordinarily interesting
experiment carried out by Professor Harry Collins, a sociologist
working at Cardiff University. Prof Collins is a sociologist who has
spent the last 30 years studying the community of scientists who work
on the detection of gravity waves. The idea was originally to study the
dissemination of a major discovery through the scientific community,
but unfortunately the discovery of gravity waves was imminent in 1976
and has been imminent ever since, but there you go.
A consequence of this long-term involvement, however, is that Prof
Collins has been hanging around the gravity waves community for longer
than a lot of physicists and has picked up a lot of the language. He's
attended their conferences and interviewed all the major figures in the
field countless times (the physicists look forward to his arrival,
apparently, because he gets around a lot more than they do and puts
more effort into networking, so he can often tell them new things that
other people are doing in their subject).
The land of eternal happiness
Mark Seddon
October 10, 2006 01:20 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_seddon/2006/10/inside_the_land_of_eternal_hap_1.html
I think I may have been the first western journalist to secure an
interview, or rather capture a monologue, with a senior member of North
Korea's military. I accompanied a group of European parliamentarians to
the de-militarised zone (DMZ) - actually the most militarised zone on
the planet. Remarkably, we were ushered into the spartan headquarters
of Liutenant General Ri Cham Bok, a highly decorated veteran of the
Korean War.
The next hour spent listening to Ri Cham Bok helped explain the
paranoid nature of the North Korean regime and the military's
tightening grip on power and resources. He had seen the north's cities
levelled by American B52 bombers during the Korean War. He had lost
family and friends, and recounted tales of scavenging for scraps of
food amidst the ruins. His own trauma formed just part of a national
trauma that was later to give way to the cult of personality and the
totalitarian rule of the two Kims. South Korea collectively managed to
escape that trauma, but the insulated north simply retreated further
and further into itself.
Sorry, but we can't just pick and choose what to tolerate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1892543,00.html
The furore over the right to wear the veil has exposed the double
standards of the liberal anti-Islam agenda
David Edgar
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
Well, who would have thought a bit of black cloth could have provoked
such anger and such anguish. The anger is part of a growing and
alarming trend. The general consensus among the anguished (such as this
newspaper) is that, in Jack Straw's words, "there is an issue here".
Certainly there is. The veil question has exposed a staggering level of
thoughtless illiberalism, and not just where you'd expect to find it.
Hot off the mark, the Express consults its readers about a ban on the
veil: "An astounding 97% of Daily Express readers agreed a ban would
help to safeguard racial harmony." It's not quite clear how this ban
would be implemented. (Policemen ripping veils from women's faces?
Asbos? Flinging wearers in jail?)
Accept North Korea into the nuclear club or bomb it now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1892453,00.html
Economic sanctions are a coward's response that would only punish the
people while propping up Kim Jong-il's dictatorship
Simon Jenkins
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
So what now? North Korea is the fourth, possibly fifth, state to have
rejected the 1970 non-proliferation treaty and proceeded towards a
nuclear arsenal. The others are India, Pakistan, Israel and perhaps
Iran. That makes five states in the old nuclear club (America, Russia,
Britain, France and China) and five in the new one. The appropriate
relationship, diplomatic, military and moral, between the two clubs is
now a consuming world obsession.
There is no easy answer. If strategically secure countries such as
Britain and France want nuclear missiles as an ultimate line of
defence, why not Iran and North Korea? Pakistan is an unstable
dictatorship that has sold nuclear technology and harbours terrorists.
Yet it is embraced by the west. So is India, which is about to enjoy
American nuclear cooperation. Given a nuclear Israel, not just Iran but
conceivably Turkey and Egypt are pondering a bomb. Japan may similarly
react to the North Korean test. Where is the moral compass to guide us
through this?
West's muted response speaks volumes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldbriefing/story/0,,1892462,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
The weekend assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, the celebrated
investigative journalist who frequently criticised Russia's ruling
elite, was condemned by western media and professional and human rights
groups. But it provoked a relatively muted official reaction from most
western governments.
An exception was Erkki Tuomioja, left-leaning foreign minister of
Finland which currently holds the EU presidency. "The fact that this
kind of murder is possible challenges the credibility of the country's
government," he said. "Let's see how willing and able Russian officials
are to solve it ... wherever the track leads."
Liberté! Egalité! Champignons!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1892481,00.html
Gwladys Fouché
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
War is raging in the usually sleepy French countryside. And all because
of the humble mushroom. Violent battles have erupted across south-west
France since the beginning of the mushroom season in August. In the
blue corner, there are hundreds of pickers who leave the cities every
day to collect chanterelles, ceps and other delicacies in the forest.
In the red corner, there are farmers who defend what belongs to them by
right, as it is illegal to pick mushrooms in the woods they own.
America's dirty secret: India becomes the gasoline gusher
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1892328,00.html
Subcontinent to fill the petrol production gap in the United States and
Europe
Randeep Ramesh in Jamnagar, Gujarat
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
Sitting on the edge of the water in the Gulf of Kutch on India's
western shore is one of America's dirty secrets. A mass of steel pipes
and concrete boxes stretches across 13 square miles (33sq km) - a third
of the area of Manhattan - which will eventually become the world's
largest petrochemical refinery.
The products from the Jamnagar complex are for foreign consumption.
When complete, the facility will be able to refine 1.24m barrels of
crude a day. Two-fifths of this gasoline will be sent 9,000 miles
(15,000km) by sea to America.
Democrats seize on crisis as election issue
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,,1892548,00.html
Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
Democrats have seized on the North Korean nuclear test as another stick
with which to beat the Bush administration in advance of midterm
elections less than a month away. The nuclear test is being used as an
argument in several closely fought Senate and Congressional races, with
Democratic candidates arguing that it marks another foreign policy
failure on the part of the White House.
Harold Ford, a Democratic congressman in Tennessee standing for one of
the state's two Senate seats in the November 7 elections, said: "Five
years ago President Bush said North Korea was part of the axis of evil.
Now, North Korea has the bomb. The administration has done nothing in
six years to keep this from happening. Instead President Bush handed
over the lead to Russia and China, who did nothing."
US free speech row grows as author says Jewish complaints stopped
launch party
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1892431,00.html
· Row over postscript on Palestinians' plight
· British-born academic claims lectures cancelled
Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
The British-based author and former publisher Carmen Callil has become
embroiled in a growing dispute over the limits of freedom of speech in
America after a party celebrating her new book on Vichy France was
cancelled because of the opinion she expresses about the modern state
of Israel.
A party in honour of Bad Faith, Callil's account of Louis Darquier, the
Vichy official who arranged the deportation of thousands of Jews, was
to have taken place at the French embassy in New York last night but
was cancelled after the embassy became aware of a paragraph in the
postscript of the book. In the postscript Callil says she grew anxious
while researching the "helpless terror of the Jews of France" to see
"what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people.
Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the
Palestinians. Everyone forgets."
Israel warned: Lebanon war could start again
http://www.guardian.co.uk/syria/story/0,,1892566,00.html
· Hizbullah may fight over territory, says speaker
· Shia leader speaks of fear UN troops will not leave
Clancy Chassay in Beirut
Wednesday October 11, 2006
The Guardian
Hizbullah will resume its military campaign unless Israel withdraws
from the disputed Shebaa farms area and other pockets of territory
occupied during this summer's 34-day war, Nabih Berri, the speaker of
the Lebanese parliament, has warned. "If Israel does not pull out we
will have to drive them out," Mr Berri, who acted as a link to the
militant organisation during this summer's war with Israel, said in an
interview with the Guardian.
US population hits 300 million, but is it sustainable?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1834360.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 11 October 2006
The population of the United States will pass 300 million today, or
tomorrow. No one knows exactly where, no one know precisely when. It is
a milestone for sure but is this a cause for celebration or anxiety?
Some American commentators are already saying the landmark is a chance
to note the US is perhaps the only country in the developed world where
the economy is being bolstered by a population that is growing at a
discernable rate. But many experts say passing the 300 million
milestone should be a wake-up call that demands a reappraisal of the
extraordinary, unparalleled rate of consumption by the world's largest
economy and its third largest by population.
Shanghai surprise: Face of the new China
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1834358.ece
Clifford Coonan reports from Beijing on the supermodel who has managed
to bridge the fashion gap between East and West
Published: 11 October 2006
There is a world of difference between what is bewitching to Western
eyes and what Chinese people consider beautiful. As Chinese spending
power grows, the task of appealing to consumers in both Beijing and
Birmingham has become something that fashion houses and magazine
editors are being forced to address. But Chinese supermodel Du Juan's
pouting features and willowy figure have managed to bridge that chasm.
Sitting in the lobby of Beijing's Grand Hyatt hotel, Du Juan is every
centimetre a supermodel, but she is most definitely a supermodel from
Shanghai. She is extremely polite in the traditional Chinese style with
a playful sense of humour and a great line in casual understatement.
Across Europe, Worries on Islam Spread to Center
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/europe/11muslims.html?ref=world&pagewanted=all
By DAN BILEFSKY and IAN FISHER
More people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot
be reconciled with European values.
Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/middleeast/11casualties.html?ref=world
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
The figure, compiled by a team of American and Iraqi public health
researchers, is the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war.
U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/world/africa/11laptop.html?ref=world
By JOHN MARKOFF
The project, which is intended to supply computers broadly to children
in developing nations, was conceived by a computer researcher at M.I.T.
A Life of Exile, Identity and Arab-Israeli Politics
http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/movies/11said.html?ref=middleeast
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Two documentaries about the Palestinian writer and thinker Edward Said
explore his life, his chronic alienation and his sympathy for the
Palestinian cause.
U.S. Says Blacks in Mississippi Suppress White Vote
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11voting.html?ref=us
By ADAM NOSSITER
The Justice Department is pursuing the first federal lawsuit under the
Voting Rights Act accusing blacks of suppressing the rights of whites.
In the Congressional Hopper: A Long Wish List of Special Benefits and
Exemptions
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religside.html?ref=washington&pagewanted=all
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
For all their gains, some advocates for religious freedom say
government must do more to protect religious institutions from the
hostile environment of modern America.
Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11religious.html?pagewanted=all
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Churches and ordained clergy of all faiths get a series of tax
exemptions that secular organizations and workers do not.
Philanthropy From the Heart of America
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/business/11leonhardt.html?ref=business
By DAVID LEONHARDT
The middle of the country has developed a culture of philanthropy that
the coasts and the Southwest, for all their wealth, do not yet have.
Mark K. Bilbo
> Derailing the Republicans
> James Crabtree
> October 10, 2006 06:09 PM
>
> http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_crabtree/2006/10/the_republicans_crash_at_last.html
>
> It isn't easy to derail the most effective political machine ever
> built. But that is exactly what Mark Foley just did. And it's difficult
> to see how Karl Rove can get his jack-knifed party back on track in
> time to avoid losing control of the House of Representatives next
> month.
>
> This morning's slew of polls tell of a landslide coming. The Washington
> Post shows that two thirds of Americans think, quite correctly, that
> the Republicans hushed up Foleygate. The Gallup poll, which two weeks
> ago seemed to suggest a Republican recovery, reports that Democrats
> have "a 23-point lead over Republicans among every type of person
> questioned." Voters now give the Democrats the biggest congressional
> poll lead in 20 years, much larger than that enjoyed by the Republicans
> before their 1994 landslide.
Huh. Ooops!
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"As hip as it is for outsiders to blame New Orleans
for everything bad that happened during and after
Hurricane Katrina, the truth is that the people
who lived here were much more prepared for a big
storm than the federal government that promised
us flood protection." [Jarvis DeBerry]
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V180525DC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
Christopher A. Lee
<gm...@com.mkbilbo> wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 04:02:55 -0700, maff wrote:
>
>> Derailing the Republicans
>> James Crabtree
>> October 10, 2006 06:09 PM
>>
>> http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_crabtree/2006/10/the_republicans_crash_at_last.html
>>
>> It isn't easy to derail the most effective political machine ever
>> built. But that is exactly what Mark Foley just did. And it's difficult
>> to see how Karl Rove can get his jack-knifed party back on track in
>> time to avoid losing control of the House of Representatives next
>> month.
>>
>> This morning's slew of polls tell of a landslide coming. The Washington
>> Post shows that two thirds of Americans think, quite correctly, that
>> the Republicans hushed up Foleygate. The Gallup poll, which two weeks
>> ago seemed to suggest a Republican recovery, reports that Democrats
>> have "a 23-point lead over Republicans among every type of person
>> questioned." Voters now give the Democrats the biggest congressional
>> poll lead in 20 years, much larger than that enjoyed by the Republicans
>> before their 1994 landslide.
>
>
>Huh. Ooops!
I find it pathetic, that it takes something like this. It's vile, yes,
but they've ignored the real issues to focus on the "family values"
the hypocrites have been using to get into and stay in power.
Mark K. Bilbo
On the other hand, it is an easy, basic way of understanding the abuses of
the Republithugs. That is, nothing matters but power. That is, further,
they don't mean a *damn thing with "family values." They never did. It was
just another pose meant to help them gain power.
Hastert's quite the poster child, stomping his feet and yelling "MINE!
MINE! MINE!" as he refuses to go...
stoney
wrote in alt.atheism
Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
Al Klein
>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"For aught we know a priori, matter may contain the source, or spring, of order
originating within itself, as well as the mind does."
- David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)
This signature was made by SigChanger.
You can find SigChanger at: http://www.phranc.nl/
stoney
in alt.atheism
>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:03 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>
>>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
>
>Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
[sad sigh] So much potential wasted.
Al Klein
>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:29:43 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>in alt.atheism
>
>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:03 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
>>
>>Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
>
>[sad sigh] So much potential wasted.
Lincoln threw a party - it was all downhill from there.
Putsch is no Lincoln. He isn't even a Nixon.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of
themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell
stoney
in alt.atheism
>On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:49:27 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:29:43 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>>in alt.atheism
>>
>>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:03 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
>>>
>>>Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
>>
>>[sad sigh] So much potential wasted.
>
>Lincoln threw a party - it was all downhill from there.
>
>Putsch is no Lincoln. He isn't even a Nixon.
It's the dunce in the corner.
Al Klein
>On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 22:48:27 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>in alt.atheism
>
>>On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:49:27 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:29:43 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>>>in alt.atheism
>>>
>>>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:03 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
>>>>
>>>>Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
>>>
>>>[sad sigh] So much potential wasted.
>>
>>Lincoln threw a party - it was all downhill from there.
>>
>>Putsch is no Lincoln. He isn't even a Nixon.
>
>It's the dunce in the corner.
It's the dunce in the corner who's shaking his head over the fact that
someone with so little intelligence got to run the most powerful
nation on the planet. Even the dunce in the corner realizes how far
below him Putsch is.
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"Atheism is the world of reality, it is reason, it is freedom. Atheism is human
concern, and intellectual honesty to a degree that the religious mind cannot
begin to understand. And yet it is more than this. Atheism is not an old
religion, it is not a new and coming religion, in fact it is not, and never has
been, a religion at all. The definition of Atheism is magnificent in its
simplicity: Atheism is merely the bed-rock of sanity in a world of madness."
[Atheism: An Affirmative View, by Emmett F. Fields]
stoney
in alt.atheism
>On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 14:09:36 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 22:48:27 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>>in alt.atheism
>>
>>>On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:49:27 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:29:43 -0400, Al Klein <ruk...@pern.invalid> wrote
>>>>in alt.atheism
>>>>
>>>>>On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:03 -0700, stoney <sto...@the.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Rethugnicans have pushed the self-destruct button.
>>>>>
>>>>>Let's hope. 150 years is enough for any group.
>>>>
>>>>[sad sigh] So much potential wasted.
>>>
>>>Lincoln threw a party - it was all downhill from there.
>>>
>>>Putsch is no Lincoln. He isn't even a Nixon.
>>
>>It's the dunce in the corner.
>
>It's the dunce in the corner who's shaking his head over the fact that
>someone with so little intelligence got to run the most powerful
>nation on the planet. Even the dunce in the corner realizes how far
>below him Putsch is.
I sit corrected.