Lots of links but first things first. If you think there is any chance whatsoever that’ll you’ll head down to the Xcel Center to “wave” at the RNC delegates next month, you owe it to yourself to watch these vintage Google videos on why you should NEVER talk to the cops. The second video, btw, is a police detective explaining why everything the law professor in the first video said is exactly right.
It’s not a don’t snitch thing, it’s a how to keep your innocent ass out of jail thing.
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The buck stops with Monica Goodling? Really?
Well, maybe. But given the history of this situation, I think they should dig a little deeper into Don Fredo’s A.G. Gonzales’ role in this scumthuggery.
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Worst excuse ever: Delta says passengers were grounded 5 hours, not 7.
This shit of keeping people on planes for hours has got to stop. The private sector has failed so magnificently at aviation that you have to wonder what could possibly go worse if the US nationalized a few bankrupt airlines.
Because if the government owns a failed business, that means you and I own a piece. Beats the hell out of giving away billions to failed corporations who overpaid their senior executives.
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The Jerusalem Post seems to think Obama’s more on the ball than McCain.
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More corruption, and more to come:
Bush Pioneer sold UN passports — but it’s OK with Norm Coleman because Kofi Annan didn’t get a cut
Fatal tasering case in Lousiana goes to grand jury
Michigan cops taser groom and bride, and arrest groom’s father
Michele Bachmann couldn’t find anyone wingnutty enough to run her re-election campaign, so she hired Iowa Rep. Steve King’s press secretary, a Pat Robertson crony
MN bankruptcy filings up 30% despite restrictive new laws
More MPAA idiocy about Dark Knight not being pirated (want a copy? I can download one for you, no problemo)
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Ten of the WaPost’s 100 Top-paid Execs worked for Fannie or Freddie
Major media repeats wingnuts lies about Obama’s trip (more from Dave Neiwert)
Debunking Friedrich Hayek’s nonsense
Spotty has video of Fox News being Fox News
Shortage of dermatologists thanks to the insatiable vanity of the rich
Government concedes $40MM Iraq prison unfit for use
Today’s suicides were yesterday’s angry mobs
WaPost’s Jackson Diehl rips Russkis for acting like Republicans
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Back in the late ’80s several Apple folks put together a joke video predicting what their business would be like in 1997. Interesting video that optimistically thought Apple would be on top of the world instead of just getting ready to kick Windows ass.
The most interesting part was visually they saw the computer as still looking, for the most part, like a Mac Plus, even a Mac Plus style flat screen computer!
Or maybe the fact that all the computers looked like a Mac Plus was just a budget issue. One thing they very clearly got right was the Internet, which they nailed perfectly right down to RSS.
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David Neiwert weighs in on Postville (and I prompt some defensive remarks from other readers in the comments).
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I’m seeing more and more stories like this one, where reporters try to find out how someone got to be so rich only to find that no one really knows.
If you earned your riches, it should be obvious to everyone around you what you did to deserve your wealth. If it’s not obvious, I’d say the odds are you didn’t earn it, you just used money to make money: the one sin that the Bible and Koran agree on.
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Bob “Hit & Run” Novak has a brain tumor. Nonetheless police are still investigating to see if Novak was driving a semitrailer truck through the South Side of Chicago this morning.
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A Democratic NJ lawmaker has resigned due to a child porn investigation. I’ll say this again, and I would say it even if it had been a Republican under investigation:
I DON’T CARE IF YOU HAVE 3-D PANORAMIC MOVIES OF DONKEYS FUCKING FETUSES ON YOUR COMPUTER — THAT’S YOUR BUSINESS, NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S! A PICTURE IS JUST A PICTURE. IF IT DEPICTS A CRIME, THEN IT IS EVIDENCE, BUT IT IS NOT A CRIME TO OWN A PICTURE OF A CRIME. IT IS NOT A CRIME TO MASTURBATE TO PICTURES OF A CRIME. IT IS ONLY A CRIME IF YOU COMMIT A CRIME. JERKING OFF TO PICTURES IS NOT A CRIME!!!
I’ve had my fill of this asinine virtual crime shit the Republican thought police dreamed up while high on 9/11.
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Despite no end of speculation, the business day is over and Tim Pawlenty is still the obscure governor of a Midwest state. Rachel Stassen-Berger says his new schedule suggests that won’t be changing any time soon.
And a new study shows that despite Republicans weeping large crocodile tears while bawling on the talk shows about how the media loves Obama best, a new study shows quite the opposite is true.
When I was a kid, I don’t remember Republicans being of the mindset that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes true.
UPDATE!!! Jeez, I don’t think I can take much more of this excitement, not with my arrhythmia and bipolarity and all.
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Details on the Tennessee Unitarian church shooting here, and Unitarian Sara Robinson reacts here.
I keep waiting for the gasbag right to lionize Greg McKendry, the hero who stood up to a madman and took a shotgun blast to the chest. I suspect I’ll have to keep waiting as the lunatic right views Unitarianism as nothing more than atheists with churches.
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Having used all their seed money to pay their executives, banks are hard-pressed to find money for loans to businesses.
If this doesn’t remind people why banks shouldn’t be allowed to do business like Loan Sharks Incorporated, nothing ever will.
A Depression is coming, and I do mean capital D Depression, and not some faggy little recession. If you have debt, think about starting the bankruptcy process now, before the courts jam up and it takes five years to get a court date.
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Just when you think Dick Cheney couldn’t go any lower, he does.
But as a reward for clicking on that bad tasting link, here’s a sneak preview of Oliver Stone’s W.
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Do check out Tild’s latest blog crate label art.
Very kewl.
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I responded at Dave’s place re: Agriprocessors.
As far as child porn goes, I’m against it, whether it’s sexually explicit or ‘merely’ sexually suggestive. It may not be a crime to jerk off to pics of child porn but, imo, it’s certainly not ‘right’ to traffic in the stuff (whether you’re paying for it or not). I have nothing against porn that involves consenting adults, and I’m sure we could spit hairs on whether possessing kiddy pics is a crime or just… disgusting(?), but it’s not the kind of thing I’d expect from a civic leader.
It doesn’t have to be actual child porn. It can be digitally created, and it’s still illegal. It’s the first step in controlling what we can see, hear and think.
Creating child porn is a crime and should be deterred and punished. Creating digital child porn is just sick art.
Yeah, I meant to reference that odd bit of law, in my comment, but I forgot.
Actual child porn = jail time, imo
Photoshopped to make it look like child porn = that’s some weird, sick stuff, boy-o, and maybe someone needs some therapy. (Or am I misreading your distinction between photographing v. possessing?)
Still, I think if you’re picking up actual, underage child porn and keeping it on your computer, you need to do some explaining. And, I understand there’s a certain, kissing cousin analogy between this and, say, the criminality of drugs – as regards producing versus holding – that could be used to make the distinction between production (bad) and purchase/use (enh?).
I think the digital age is going to bring up some very big issues between Art, the 1st Amendment, mala in prohibita offenses, and, as we’ve noted, the distinction between possession, production, performance and sharing (be it music, porn, etc.).
I should say – I wasn’t referring to you with the ‘weird, sick stuff… therapy’ part of the comment. But you knew that.
And I hope you know that I don’t collect child pornography.
The laws against digitally created child porn remind me of the drug laws that prohibit “simulated drugs.” Not only is it illegal to sell pot, it’s illegal to sell parsley if you say it’s marijuana.
Any effort to criminalize free speech and thought is an attack on all speech and thought.
It’s definitely in the MindCrime arena. Odd that none of these “wars” the Republicans keep coming up with ever solve any of the problems they’re supposed to address.