The results are in:  Dean is first.

Jo - DVD players - thanx for your answer - I believe most are code specific - in other words Brits can't play ours and vice versa. But I was thinking maybe I could watch a Brit DVD on my MacBook computer since Mac's always seem to be a step ahead of the times. There is a movie available in UK that's never been released here. I may just have to wait and watch it there in May 09 when I plan to go.

Monica says "Al Qaeda in Iraq is a figment of the imagination" 

 Bin Laden himself mourned the death of its leader and called on ALL Muslims to support it.  You sense of right and wrong appear to me to be a "a figment of the imagination"

From the last thread...
Phil,
How do you know that your target is bin Laden?
Ok, so maybe 6'7" guys in white robes are few and far between in Northern Pakistan but you get my drift.
So a vehicle, hut or group of people walking is targeted. How do we know it is only the one we seek?
I hate the words collateral damage. That excuses a host of misdeeds under a phrase that sounds like an error making change for a dollar.

Thanks for asking chuck,

i'd like to see the headlines and graphics, of the news, read when D!ck's ticker stops

... SO!!

"It's our land. Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state...Israel is a foreign body. Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here."

"We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land...Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which can not be given up."

-- Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahar

I love when their own words prove a point that their supporters here try so hard to prove otherwise.  if they would just listen to their willing accomplises here in liberal land they would be so much better off.  then they tell what they really believe and guys like Fred and mike go  "Doooh"!!!

On the tape, bin Laden speaks of al-Zarqawi with reverence, although some analysts have said the two did not see eye to eye. Bin Laden even calls al-Zarqawi by his real name, Hamed Khalayeh -- a sign of respect.

Al-Zarqawi was "one of our greatest knights and one of our best emirs," bin Laden says. "We were very happy to find in him a symbol and role model for our future generations."

Quite the figment of our imagination!!!

Tom's firsties are first:))

Al Qaeda is in Iraq but it is nothing the locals can't handle once we are gone.
We need to set a date, get the neighbors involved and go. We leave no US serviceperson behind; no bases, no trainers, no embassy; nothing. Both BO and HC hedge about leaving folks in an open-ended way.
We give every Iraqi a Master Card with no limit. If Bush says the solution to problems is go shopping then let the Iraqis buy anything they want from anywhere and we pay for it.

No Carville apology for Judas remark

12 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_o...

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton adviser James Carville is refusing to apologize for comparing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas.

...Richardson told "Fox News Sunday" over the weekend that he wouldn't respond by getting "in the gutter like that."

"That's typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton," Richardson said on Fox. "They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency."

Carville told CNN on Monday that Richardson had committed an "egregious act" and he intended to make a sharp response to it.

"I wanted to use a very strong metaphor to make my point," Carville told CNN. "I doubt if Governor Richardson and I will be particularly close in the future."

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson told reporters Monday that he didn't agree with Carville's comment.

... so, mr faux, i suppose if your grandparents'/parents' lands were taken over by someone else, and let's say many relatives were killed in the meanwhile, you would:

1) welcome them with flowers

2) trimble like a pasta noodle, bend over and smooch your buttocks

3) swear not to let that stand

????????

stupid poser

There are only two solutions to the Israel/Palistine problem.
1 - Form one country with everyone having the same rights. The Jews won't go for it as they would be the minority. This is the same question South Africa faced. They allowed full citisenship to the black population and the world didn't end. They are still having problems but the country is moving ahead.
The Jews are afraid the Palistinians would treat the Jews as badly as the Jews are treating the Palistijians.
The second solution is let the Palestine people form their own soverign country with their existance guaranteed by the US and Israel.
If Israel violates Palestine then they face a full embargo from the rest of the world - including the US.

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/24424...

back

9.Fox Mulder

You sense of right and wrong appear to me to be a "a figment of the imagination"
========================

Fox with that kind of trollish bull, you are a figment of our imagination.

... well dog soldier, before we do the Master Card idea, hows about rounding up the ablebodied Bush voters for a little vacation.

Let's make a cruise starting in New Orleans, rebuilding there, then on to sunny Iraqi cities to replace all the things bombed by their buddies.
Hey, they can feed and house themselves with the faithbased checks they were sent by the boyking. Surely, they haven't spent all the dough thinking the fiasco would last 100 years

... did they?

I have no reason to believe or disbelieve anything that purports to come from someone who's reported to be an enemy when before he was reported to be a friend.  I do not know why people believe what they like to hear and disbelieve what they don't like.

As far as I can tell, five million people are either displaced or dead because Saddam Hussein claimed to have something he didn't.  Now, some people want to claim that somebody else either knew better or should have known better.  Regardless, five million people are either displaced or dead and it doesn't much matter whether the people who did that meant to or not.

Nobody knows the future, but after the fact when the consequences are known, the effort to either deny what happened or shift the responsibility strikes me as immoral.  That's an opinion--my opinion.  Period.   

BTW, the 4000 were not lost.  The people who were killed did not misplace their lives.  The people who sent them to be killed knew what they were doing and know where their bodies lie.

"lost" implies a moment of inattention or an accidental displacement.  There is nothing accidental about sending people to kill and be killed. 

Cryptogon
March 22, 2008

Imagine my shock.

Via: CNN:

KING: A couple of quick things, Senator. Would you, in your administration, make use of Bill Clinton?

OBAMA: Absolutely. I think that, you know, Bill Clinton is a brilliant statesman and politician, and I think that any president would want to use his skills and his relationships around the world.

By the way, I would reach out to the first George Bush. You know, one of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn’t get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us 20 billion dollars. That’s all it cost. It was extremely successful. I think there were a lot of very wise people. So I want a bipartisan team that can help to provide me good advice and counsel when I’m president of the United States.

Court Denies Appeal on Anti-Hillary Film Ads

By Alex Knott, CQ Staff
2 hours, 41 minutes ago

The Supreme Court denied an appeal today from a conservative group that wants to run ads promoting an unflattering documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Citizens United's appeal was rejected for jurisdictional reasons...

Citizens United plans on making a similar film about Barack Obama.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20080324/pl_c...

obama you are stupid. i have not heard you, mccain, or hillary say what most americans want:

1. cut military spending by 75%. we have troops and bases in 130 countries. close the bases and bring all the troops home.

2. abolish the federal reserve and bring back the gold standard

3. apologize to the world for mobilizing our military for imperialistic reasons

Ask yourself this question... Who here quotes Osama bin Laden, and apparently puts his trust in the accuracy of his words.

It's not like bin Laden would try to further terroristic goals by aligning himself with any form of bloodshed, gaining stature with locals far removed from himself.

... no, nor would our govment play right into the hands of corrupt ex-patriots wanting the U.S. to fund their aims inside Iraq.

Can anyone say, stupid as half a sack of rocks?

Clinton 'misspoke' on Bosnia trip

By ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 33 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_o...

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when she said she had landed under sniper fire during a trip she took as first lady to Bosnia in March 1996. The Obama campaign suggested it was a deliberate exaggeration on Clinton's part...

Clinton: Protect reputable home lenders

Mon Mar 24, 2:59 PM ET
PHILADELPHIA - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed several remedies to the nation's home mortgage problems Monday, including one tool more often associated with Republicans than Democrats.

The New York senator proposed greater protections for lenders from possible lawsuits by investors, a variation of so-called tort reform. For years, GOP leaders have called for restrictions on what they consider unwarranted lawsuits against businesses. Democrats have often resisted them on grounds they limit injured parties' legitimate rights to redress.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_o...

Thanks, Daniel, for the quotes from LKL. 

So I guess it's time to stop trashing Hill and Bill since BO likes Bill and Bushie One and will reach out to them. 

Everybody OK with this?  Sounds like MOTS to me.  And only 20 billion dollars!! 

NOBODY FOR PRESIDENT! 

Are we quite sure En.Blue's posts have been deleted?  If so, whoever removed them should leave DFA at once.

Jo, you have not appeared to like my posts.  Why would I want you to have my email addy?  Didn't you say you scroll me or have I confused you with several others who have said they scroll me?  If most people are scrolling me, what am I doing here?  :-)

Actually, it's time to begin a new painting.

*****************

But I will say this:

"All I'm saying is that when Israel overreacts, this is why."

I forgot who said this, but IMO, that's an excuse.  The inability to control one's temper is a big problem, here or on the world stage, and a very handy excuse to lash out and feel *justified.*  To have nukes and superior weapons AND a trigger temper, possibly at times based on hate and revenge, is truly alarming. 

One Israeli killed vs 10 Palestinians killed - hardly even-handed.

The guy on Palestinian TV is a blow-hard...a word smith.... trying to provoke with words....a fear mongerer, not unlike repugs.

Actions speak louder than words.  All girls learn this about boys at a very early age.  :-) 

"We lived our lives in fear."

Movie, "Strictly Ballroom." 

now gone.  

Dog Soldier:

I salute your reasoned and cerebral posts.

I would add that there's no evidence that "El qaeda in Iraq" has any ties to OBL, and in fact it's size and impact is regularly exaggerated by the US Military (and of course, Bush) for political reasons.

Knowledgeable Insiders rate it as a very minor player.

Cheney says Hamas sabotages peace talks

ANKARA, Turkey - Vice President Dick Cheney, concluding two days of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said Monday that Hamas militants and their backers in Iran and Syria are playing the role of spoiler in Mideast peace talks.

"It is clearly a difficult situation, in part, because I think it's true, there's evidence, that Hamas is supported by Iran and Syria and that they're doing everything they can to torpedo the peace process," Cheney told reporters before heading to Turkey, the final stop on his 10-day trip to the Mideast...

In the U.S. view, Iran and Syria in particular are operating to deny the Lebanese the opportunity to govern themselves.

Iran figured prominently in all of Cheney's discussions with foreign leaders in Iraq, Oman, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey...

Cheney did not make public new evidence to document the U.S. claims...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_o...

Clinton "misspoke", I'm not one to pussyfoot around, she lied and got caught.

8.

dog soldier
Mon, 03/24/08

Reply to this

There are only two solutions to the Israel/Palistine problem.
1 - Form one country with everyone having the same rights.

The second solution is let the Palestine people form their own soverign country with their existance guaranteed by the US and Israel.

==================

There is a third option...The West Bank and Gaza are dependent economically with Israel. There could be a federation, like Biden-Gelb, where you would have the United States of Palestine/Israel, with three States, united with central government.

On top of that there might be a ethnic/religious district (like the Vatican, maybe larger) within present day Israel that would be the home of the those who want to live in a ethnically and religiously pure environment, where only strictly orthodox/and geneologically pure Jews could live.

Almost one year ago to the day, Barack Obama sent a letter (below) to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging them to convene a homeownership preservation summit.  Today, Clinton is proposing essentially the same thing.

One key difference, however, is the diversity and representation that Obama called for – not just some of the same people who helped to create these problems or have a direct financial industry stake in the outcome: “I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge.”

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog

Monica "misspoke", I'm not one to pussyfoot around, she lied and got caught.

Fred,
I don't think a soft partition or Vatican enclave go far enough.
People want their own country. It is part of your identity. To sacrifice it for political expediency is wrong.

Speaking about south africa apartheid.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2...

We are becoming south africa by letting BushWorld trample our freedoms.

97% of 4,000 - US Casualties In Iraq Came - AFTER - 'Mission Accomplished

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3052514

"It's our land. Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state...Israel is a foreign body. Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here."

"We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land...Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which can not be given up."

-- Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahar

Just because this guy says so doesn't make it written in stone for the future. But Israeli/US policy has certainly helped make it a fact of the present.

More on the Myth of "Al qaeda in Iraq"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/24/al-qaeda-in-iraq-part-_n_93151.html

Actual intelligence estimates tend to downplay the threat that AQI supposedly poses - at best, AQI gets credit for being up to fifteen percent of the total insurgency, and just as often, they are relegated to being between 2-5%. In fact, the triumph of AQI has got less to do with their achievements in the field of terrorism, and more to do with the ironclad tautology that the administration has erected to pin the tail of our misfortune on a convenient, scary sounding donkey, something a June 8 AP article, titled "In motley array of Iraqi foes, why does U.S. spotlight al-Qaida?", makes rivetingly clear:

6:45pm

AS for envblue's posts being disappeared -- when I first came to this blog, it was nicely patrolled by sensible peeps. After that came the regime of "once it's here it's here forever" when *nothing* qualified too despicable to represent us all. Glad to see sanity's returned. . . .

♡

puddle said Glad to see sanity's returned. . . .

I agree

35.

last thread.

I only hope the thing about langley is true.

but at an army base near me. a few years ago we went to do a  photo shoot and they took apart our van. I told them, "If I knew  you were going to do this, I would have vacumed".

Well while they were doing this I look over and outside the base they are building new housing. Well, there was no fence or anything. People were just walking in. I mean , they are going over my van while any person can walk on base. I asked "what is that about?" The guy searching MY van said "we can't talk about that, it is secret". I said. "well between you and me, this is so amazing" "so sorry for you".

So the next day I called the base commander and told him while I don't mind being searched. why would you have no fence around the base?? He said he would investigate it.

Ya think.

Printable version

The median home price fell 8.2% from a year ago to $195,900, the biggest fall since records began in 1968.

36.Fox Mulder

Monica "misspoke",
===================
Can you even define Al Qaeda beyond "the people that caused 9/11 ?

Stocks Back off the Ledge as the Fed Crosses the Rubicon - Mike Swanson (03/24/08)
By Mike Swanson
Created 03/23/2008 - 15:54

...The Fed's actions may technically be illegal. Bear Stearns is a brokerage house investment bank and not a commercial bank. There is no basis in law for the Federal Reserve to step in and bail out a brokerage house, which isn't a bank and therefore isn't covered in the Fed's charter. The Emergency Banking Act, passed in the Depression to allow for government assistance to banks, is restricted to only commercial banks. Brokerages and investment banks aren't included....

http://www.wallstreetwindow.com/content/...

MIke Swanson is an historian turned investment guru

"Citizens United plans on making a similar film about Barack Obama."====

and the high court will rule as they did in Hillary's case....as they should.

..."As this credit crisis unfolds we will witness the Fed take even more extreme actions to try to bailout banks and stop the credit crunch. Interest rates are now 2 1/4 percent. What will the Fed do when they run out of rate cuts? Eventually people are going to wonder and flock into gold, but we aren't at that point yet. The Fed has crossed the Rubicon and gone beyond their charter to direct bailouts of individual banks."...

http://www.wallstreetwindow.com/content/...

"Can you even define Al Qaeda beyond "the people that caused 9/11 ?"=====

The terrorist group responsible for the carnage on 9/11 that caused the deaths of 3000 innocent Americans.

Obama’s Race Speech and the Middle East
Posted by Shawn Brimley

A shout-out to fellow Democracy blogger Shadi for an excellent piece in today's Washington Post on Senator Obama's speech on race and what it could mean for the Middle East. Two of many great passages:

"We can call these people enemies and say they are lost to us. It would be easy, because these views are indeed reprehensible. Or we can articulate a new strategy, one which, without condoning violence, acknowledges their grievances and their very real sense of being wronged by history. We can seek to better understand why the Middle East has become a graveyard of shattered hopes and an open wound that threatens world security. And we can work to address the unacceptable fact that, while much of the rest of the world moves forward, many Arab and Muslim populations live in economic misery under brutal autocratic regimes -- many of which the U.S. supports with foreign aid."

"On Tuesday, watching his speech from Jordan, I felt for the first time in a while that we could begin coming to terms with the past and accounting for the injustices committed against those at home, and those abroad, who are waiting to see what America will do next."

Millions of Americans regardless of political affiliation were very impressed by the speech, and congrats to Shadi on explaining how and why what we say to each other here at home can help us abroad.

http://www.democracyarsenal.org/

dog, re. Al Qaeda in Iraq:

Buried in a Buried Report
Posted by Adam Blickstein

The Institute for Defense Analyses Report (now presumably discreetly stashed away in some undisclosed location away from the meddling gaze of the media) Moira discussed Wedneday has quite a few provocative nuggets. Besides providing an interesting and over-arching examination of how pan-Islamism supplanted pan-Arabism as the regional ideology du jour during the past decade, thus diminishing Saddam Hussein's stature and magnifying bin Laden's regional influence, it also supplies insights into the extent of the non-connection between bin Laden and Saddam's Iraq. A somewhat major point being that the report concludes there was no direct connection between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. Major refutations of Republican talking points notwithstanding, NSN did an analysis of the report, extracting a few choice nuggets. One interesting was that Saddam himself feared the internal threat from radical Islamic groups in Iraq. From the report:

"Whether attempting to overthow the Egyptian government or the Kuwait royal family, the vision was always about the centrality of Saddam and his pan-Arab vision - and never about the glory of Islam or some modern-day caliphate. To the fundamentalist leadership of al Qaeda, Saddam represented the worst kind o f "apostate" regime - a secular police state well practiced in suppressing internal challenges...The Saddam regime was very concerned about the internal threat posed by various Islamist movements. Crackdowns, arrests, and monitoring of Islamic radical movements were common in Iraq."

http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/wee...

47.

*** cChalfonte***
Mon, 03/24/08

Reply to this

"Can you even define Al Qaeda beyond "the people that caused 9/11 ?"=====

The terrorist group responsible for the carnage on 9/11 that caused the deaths of 3000 innocent Americans.
=================

Too funny - I see you're in a joking mood today.

The Fed has crossed the Rubicon and gone beyond their charter to direct bailouts of individual banks."...=====

and they're doing it with taxpayers' money!

If the gvmt wants to step in this is certainly an appropriate time to cap exec pay. They caused the crisis in the first place.

The Obama Doctrine

Barack Obama is offering the most sweeping liberal foreign-policy critique we've heard from a serious presidential contender in decades.

WOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It cuts to the heart of traditional Democratic timidity. "It's time to reject the counsel that says the American people would rather have someone who is strong and wrong than someone who is weak and right," Obama said in a January speech. "It's time to say that we are the party that is going to be strong and right." (The Democrat who counseled that Americans wanted someone strong and wrong, not weak and right? That was Bill Clinton in 2002.)

But to understand what Obama is proposing, it's important to ask: What, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place?

To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust, the advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election. They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.

***

When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises, it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of advisers. (If the press had paid better attention, the country would have seen through Bush's pitch about a humble foreign policy and realized that many of his advisers, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, were conspiracy-minded warmongers.) Obama's foreign-policy advisers come from diverse backgrounds. They are former aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton administration's left flank (Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps' much-lauded counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy (Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent, and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an intemperate remark to a reporter.)

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?arti...

No, Fox, i neither misspoke nor lied.  A figment of the imagination is a designation that the human brain invents.  Whether it applies to a tangible reality or not is another matter.  In the case of a human organization or association, it's not likely to be tangible.  In the case of alQaeda, there's no evidence that there's even documentary evidence like articles of incorporation that you'd find for a homeowners' association or even a bridge club with a bank account.  And alQaeda in Iraq is even more amorphous.  Whether it's a figment of the Arab imagination or of the CIA's is not certain.  Is Bush Two's base (the haves and the have mores) more or less a figment of the imagination?  Did he refer to his base because he's jealous?

today is otherwise a glorious southern california day, but the weight of 4,000 dead and 29,000 injured is heavy.  my thoughts are in music. 

if you can find it [or if HQ will put it up] it's vernon reid and his band, masque, playing 'known unknown.'  an instrumental piece, 'known unknown' is not the conventional anti-war tune, but you'll note the allusion to former sec of defense rummy's infamous words, 'we don't know what we don't know.' 

we know when we count.

Dems Consider Mini-Convention to Pick Nominee
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032408R.shtml
Dave Helling of McClatchy Newspapers reports: "Democrats, looking for a way out, are pondering a new idea: an unprecedented 'mini-convention' to bring their punishing presidential season to an early close."

Yikes~ 

38.Sitka

Just because this guy says so doesn't make it written in stone for the future. But Israeli/US policy has certainly helped make it a fact of the present

==================
Yea, like revisionist Zionist in Israel and right-wing neo-fascists here think that holding a gun to their heads is the best way to change their hearts and minds.

27.

DANIEL ROONEY
Mon, 03/24/08

2. abolish the federal reserve and bring back the gold standard
===================

bring back the bow and arrow

New thread

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/24451...