Still Hating America.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by LessinSF
So we should all be saying Munchen and Firenze and Paree?

During the World Cup, I heard some moronic DJ go on and on about how weird it was that the commentator on the Spanish-language TV station kept calling "Germany" something different that "Germany."

I turned it off before I heard anyone point out that they call it something different in, well, Germany.

[SlaveNoMore]

Originally posted by LessinSF
So we should all be saying Munchen and Firenze and Paree?

Why did Peking become Beijing sometime around high school?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why did Peking become Beijing sometime around high school?

I'm still confused over the Mumbai / Bombay thing.

(And somewhat intrigued by the murder at the Cricket World Cup. Do ya'll think the Pakistanis turned on their own coach?)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why did Peking become Beijing sometime around high school?

We changed all the transliterations of Chinese after the premier came to visit and people couldn't stop giggling over seeing the name "Dung" on TV.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Does Gonzales' lying to Congress count?


In any event, I thank the Bush Administration for so blantantly demonstrating that the powers they secured in the name of fighting terrorism were really just designed to increase the power of the Executive Branch.

I don't really like Gonzales, so go ahead and hang him. I was asking about the President.

This whole firing pseudo scandal is curious to me. On the one hand, the AGs serve at the pleasure of the President. On the other, a firing that was done to obstruct justice is clearly a crime. However, what does Congress think they are going to get out of these hearings? No one is going to admit that was the reason for the firing, so it really seems like grandstanding to me. I think the proper process should be a DOJ investigation or Special Prosecutor (although I hate those).

[LessinSF]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why did Peking become Beijing sometime around high school?

Because someone like Adder became Chief Assistant Deputy Language Timmy.

What do the Tibetans call Tibet? Bo (with an umlaut over the o) or Bod or po (in the Lhasa dialect); and, like Adder, I think we should too. "Tibet" is, um, boshit?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
yet you attack anyone who thinks a little different from you with blind fury, claiming they're stupid?

I call bullshit. Nobody does that here.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I don't really like Gonzales, so go ahead and hang him. I was asking about the President.

This whole firing pseudo scandal is curious to me. On the one hand, the AGs serve at the pleasure of the President. On the other, a firing that was done to obstruct justice is clearly a crime. However, what does Congress think they are going to get out of these hearings? No one is going to admit that was the reason for the firing, so it really seems like grandstanding to me. I think the proper process should be a DOJ investigation or Special Prosecutor (although I hate those).

When your defense starts with a pack of lies, there is a reasonable suspicion that what follows is going to be damaging.

Or, put another way, What is Bush afraid of?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Adder
And you wouldn't expect a person to maybe somewhere over the course of five years of continued debate learn that they are saying it wrong and attempt to correct it?

No more than we would expect that somewhere along the line in elementary school, high school, college, and law school you might have learned the difference between "no" and "know."

But here we are.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by LessinSF
Because someone like Adder became Chief Assistant Deputy Language Timmy.

What do the Tibetans call Tibet? Bo (with an umlaut over the o) or Bod or po (in the Lhasa dialect); and, like Adder, I think we should too. "Tibet" is, um, boshit?

Actually, he was just Assistant to the Chief Deputy Language Timmy. The Chief Assistant Deputy Language Timmy needed the advice and consent of the Senate, which Adder couldn't get.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Why did Peking become Beijing sometime around high school?

They needed to throw off the yoke of oppressive imperialist anglicisations.

ETA see, also, Mumbai, Kolkatta, and Kamupchea.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I was asking about the President.

I didn't mean to suggest that the President had broken the law, but I hardly think what he said yesterday smacks of upholding the rule of law.

However, what does Congress think they are going to get out of these hearings?

Possibly Congress is most exercised about the possibility that administration officials were lying to them, and wants to pursue that, in order to ensure that it can exercise oversight going forward.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I don't really like Gonzales, so go ahead and hang him. I was asking about the President.

This whole firing pseudo scandal is curious to me. On the one hand, the AGs serve at the pleasure of the President. On the other, a firing that was done to obstruct justice is clearly a crime. However, what does Congress think they are going to get out of these hearings? No one is going to admit that was the reason for the firing, so it really seems like grandstanding to me. I think the proper process should be a DOJ investigation or Special Prosecutor (although I hate those).

I don't know what crimes were committed yet, or by who. I've heard that the purpose of an investigation is sometimes to figure that stuff out.

And sometimes, of course, it's just grandstanding. Here, I think it's more about watching the Bush Admin twist itself up some more, and the Rs more generally.

That being said, I wouldn't assume that there won't be some damaging admissions or documents. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have predicted that so many senators would vote to strip a provision -- any provision -- from the Patriot Act.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Atrios says someone CNN posed this good question:

• I think also, another thing to look at, I followed up a question about executive privilege. You heard Tony Snow at the end there saying the president has no recollection of being involved in this decision to fire the US attorneys. So we asked the question then, well why are you citing executive privilege - or at least suggesting you will, and yesterday the president said the principle at stake here is candid advice from his advisers to the president - if the president was not involved in the decision, then how can you cite executive privilege on something he was really not involved in? And Tony Snow basically said, it's a good question and I don't know the answer.

[SlaveNoMore]

LessinSF
Because someone like Adder became Chief Assistant Deputy Language Timmy.

What do the Tibetans call Tibet? Bo (with an umlaut over the o) or Bod or po (in the Lhasa dialect); and, like Adder, I think we should too. "Tibet" is, um, boshit?

I can already see the "Free Bod" signs in all the Berkeley sorority windows right now.