Surprise
 

Ummm, 49 votes if you count Craig, right?

If the Dems just split down the middle, say, 20-20 with the rest going out and doing something more productive with their lives, like drinking Ouzo, the Rs get to make the choice. I'd leave it with them. Then, whatever they decide, I'd suggest that Vitter should get identical treatment. Or do the Rs only have these holier than thou sentiments toward their Senator's in safe Republican seats?

This is a pointless debate. If Bush goes too far, one group hates him (as represented here, by the many liberals and moderates in this forum who dislike his 'power grabs'). If he doesn't go far enough, another group (see: red staters, and when a 9/11 happens, everyone else, including the same liberals and moderates here who loath him, at that juncture criticizing him for not doing enough).

A classic damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. And its not created by Bush or Republicans. It's created by people like us who criticize from all angles and are never satisfied. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that. I'm just saying "Hey, you liberal motherfuckers whining about Bush's torture policies... Yeh, well, you're culpable as well, for being two-faced like the rest of us."

He's got to do something, and he's erring on the side of vigilance. You can say it's the lesser of two evils or you can say its reprehensible, but you can't say its all his fault. It's OUR fault. We want security but we don;t want any of the ugliness that goes along with it.

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

What flag is blue and white with stars? Cuba? Honduras? Why is the Republican Elephant wearning a Cuban flag?

It's a kill or be killed situation and this whole torture fixation is, well, IMO, a goofy sideshow.

I respect Ty and Gatti's moral positions on the issue, but the govt is already amoral, immoral, (insert other description of soulless, heartless behemoth) already, so this attention to one minor facet of all the dastardly shit we do strikes me as disingenuous and opportunistic.

Ty and Gattis care about the issue, but the people using it for political ends couldn't care less. And have been involved in and supported far worse.

I'm not in policy.

i did just get done watching "the War." i promise you, at least a few Japanese prisioners got sticks up their anuses to make them talk. we just didn't have cell cameras and the NYT was sort of on our side back then so it didn't hit the papers.

all I'm questioning are Ty's statements that "not torturing" is "being american" and what has happened since 9/11 is "moving away from what it means to be american."

Surprise
 

do you get to vote when the vote is about you? did McCarthy vote at his censure?

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

Well, that is GOP SOP for MSP.

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

Did you ever think maybe Craig was just trying to bust some fags? you know, citizen's arrest!

Surprise
 

This is my point. You see, Burger noted 49 Republican votes to censure/remove/defenestrate/de-pant Craig.

I pointed out that there are only 49 votes if you count Craig. Now, can you count Craig in a vote to defenestrate Craig? If you either think he would not vote or that if he did vote he would not vote to get paddled by the Frat boys, then you are down to 48 votes.

See, 48 is 49 minus 1. That's how many you get if Craig isn't voting for his own removal. The 1 is Craig.

Surprise
 

I'd hire someone from dupont circle to keep him occupied in the johns during the vote- why have the procedural struggle?


oh. al gore thinks we needed to take sadaam out http://littlegreenfootballs.com/webl..._Revealed&only

Non-responsive.

You know, you can get away with a little of this stuff if you keep it quiet. But when you go too far, you can't do that anymore. Previously, maybe we could have our cake and eat it too. But not anymore.

Surprise
 

This is a fascinating point, because just as 51 beats 49, 52 beats 48.

Surprise
 

I'm sorry, why is he being expelled? For being gay? For stupidity?

what stuff? you mean when the dems try to handcuff the CIA? i agree. we can't get away with that anymore.

Surprise
 

he violated a Minnesota law. he needs to be held accountable for comedy, I mean comity.

Surprise
 

That's a good question. It will take hours of hearings by the ethics committee, no doubt complete with reenactments of the wide stance and hand flashes, to determine whether he is deserving of expulsion for committing a misdemeanor offense.

So, I go back to my original question:
If you're a D, are you better off avoiding the question altogether (not voting one way or the other) or are you better off sticking the R's with hearings and then keeping him in office for another 1.5 years, while voting for the "principal" that committing a misdemeanor is not worthy of expulsion.

Surprise
 

I would wager that the only people who really care are Republicans who want Craig out of their party for principled or instrumental reasons, and if I were a Democrat I might decline to think about the matter altogether.

Surprise
 

OTOH, the Dems won't even kick you from a committee if the feds find cold cash in your freezer.

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

And he could slap the cuffs on once he had them immobilized with their dicks in his mouth! Perfect!

S_A_M

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

The recent discovery that both parties are capable of having sex calls into question whether assertions that one's party is a "big tent" was a double entendre all along.

One angry, drunken, or perhaps insane elephant.
 

Can you imagine the vivid word-image that Carville could have come up with to refer to Craig. I miss his mumbly-mouthed slanders. I still think Paula Jones' lawyers missed a target there.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2603966.ece

Just wow.

Can I profile which doctor i go to in the ER?

• Muslim medical students get picky
  
  Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs.
  
  Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity.
  
  A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

Pssh. They just don't want to be urologists. I'd say it's a blunt instrument.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

See the word "some"? The same phenomenon has been going on with Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians for decades. Eventually they concede all science to the godless moderates, and then all is well once again.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

think. between. the. lines. if the Jihadis won't exam a female at all, even when they have a decent excuse, how is sebastian's "blanket the mideast in Porn" cure going to gain any traction?

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

You go to the ER for STD treatment? You should really attend to that sort of thing before it gets to the emergency stage.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

God bless the godless moderates, in 'sh'Allah.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

the last time a girl let me, you know, I was so happy i decided i would never wash my, you know, again. anyways, when green started oozing I just thought that was to be expected and I didn't put 2 and 2 together for awhile. then, even when i knew i had to go to the ER, 3 islamic cabbies turned me down to go to the hospital because i had a flask with me to calm my nerves.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

I'm sorry. a Jewish kid in Medical school intentionally fucked it up? Cite please.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

This is a story? Fail them or don't hire them. Next.

Islam, a religion of specialists
 

STP. your plan may be in trouble.

Uh-oh.

Uh-Oh
 

Pressure on Turkish PM to order Iraq invasion

09 October 2007 09:22

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came under intense pressure on Monday night to order an invasion of northern Iraq following the deadliest attacks for over a decade on the Turkish military and civilians by separatist Kurdish guerrillas.

Erdogan, who has resisted demands from the Turkish armed forces for the past six months for a green light to cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan, where the guerrillas are based, called an emergency meeting of national security chiefs to ponder their options in the crisis, a session that some said was tantamount to a war council.

A Turkish incursion is fiercely opposed by Washington since it would immensely complicate the United States campaign in Iraq and destabilise the only part of Iraq that functions, the Kurdish-controlled north.

Two Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday in booby trap explosions laid by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) -- fighters classified as terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union. Those casualties followed the killing of 13 Turkish soldiers in the south-east on Sunday when PKK forces outgunned a Turkish unit of 18 men without sustaining any casualties, according to the Kurds.

Last week, in an ambush also ascribed to the PKK, gunmen sprayed a bus with automatic fire in the same region, killing 13 civilians, including a boy of seven.

The Turkish media described the toll from the attacks as the worst in 12 years in a conflict spanning several decades that has taken almost 40 000 lives.

Erdogan is known to think little of the invasion option, making the pragmatic calculation that it would probably fail. Western diplomats in Ankara agree that an invasion could be counter-productive. The Turkish military raided Iraqi Kurdistan dozens of times in the 1990s but were unable to suppress the insurgency.

After a Cabinet meeting dominated by the Kurdish conflict, Cemil Cicek, the Turkish government spokesperson, said on Monday: "What is at issue here is how much any action we decide to take would bring us closer to a result." He did not rule out an invasion but queried its "usefulness".

The prime minister, however, is being challenged by the army command, which earlier this year demanded his authority to invade. He is also vulnerable to a mounting public clamour to act because of the upsurge in guerrilla activity and the heavy casualties being suffered. Hardline Turkish nationalists entered Parliament in Ankara following elections in July and they are also baying for Kurdish blood.

Following the soldiers' deaths on Sunday, Erdogan signalled a shift in policy without specifying how. "Our campaign against terrorism will continue in a different manner," he said. The Turkish military has just declared 27 "security zones" on the Iraqi and Iranian borders off-limits to civilians, suggesting to some that it might be gearing up for an invasion.

But despite the rising violence, Erdogan has opted for politics in his attempts to defuse the conflict with the Kurds. His Justice and Development party (AKP) enjoyed a stunning success among the Kurdish minority, concentrated in the south-east, in the July elections and he has also focused on political pacts with Baghdad to get the better of the guerrillas.

Last week Iraqi and Turkish interior ministers signed an accord aimed at combating the PKK by trying to cut the rebels' funding and logistics, and agreeing to extradite captured "terrorists". The accord, however, took three days to thrash out; Turkish insistence on a "hot pursuit" formula, allowing cross-border raids, was denied, and scepticism is high as to whether Baghdad can deliver.

Officially, Ankara refuses to recognise or deal with the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, although there have been back-channel attempts over the past year to engage with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdish region.

Erdogan's options are also constrained by strong US hostility to an invasion. While Turkish public opinion has been strongly anti-American since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, much of the logistical support for the US troops goes to Iraq via Turkey. Relations are also under severe strain because of US congressional moves to brand the 1915 massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as "genocide".

Erdogan sent aides to Washington on Monday to lobby Congress on the "genocide" resolution. Ankara is also warning that it could block the logistical support to the US in Iraq if the resolution is passed.

The Kurdish separatist guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' party, or PKK, have been at war with the Turkish state since the early 1980s. Although it is now said to favour home rule within Turkey over secession, the PKK has historically pursued the breakaway of Kurdish-dominated south-east Turkey as a prelude to unifying Kurdish lands in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Turkey pursued a scorched earth policy in the 1980s and 1990s, destroying thousands of villages, sending millions of Kurds west and leaving about 37 000 dead. Turkey's biggest coup came in 1999 with the capture of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was jailed for life. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

Stay classy, wingnuts.
 

The conservative blogosphere goes after the family of a 12-year-old boy who had the audacity to speak out for SCHIP.

Stay classy, wingnuts.
 

Eh. I was all annoyed when I read the brief version of the story in the Swampland blog. Then I read the underlying article.

My problem is more with the fact that they apparently got their facts wrong when they started slamming the kid's family. I've got no problem with the fact that they tried to see if the kid's "equal time" speech in response to the veto -- which was a political speech, after all, drafted by the congressional Democratic political staff -- was based upon something fishy.

We are now leaving Iraq...
 

So, half the British troops are about to leave and the Iraqi government is sidelining our Blackwater merceneries .... so, what's this I hear about a surge?

We are now leaving Iraq...
 

Isn't your energy better spent coming up with a solution for 2009?

Caption Please!