Politics: J'accuse!

[Gattigap]

Handy safety tip for common thieves at loose ends in Palestine: Don't try to rob shifty-eyed men headed to the Israeli border.

Beyond getting blown up for their rather obvious strategic error, these numbnuts then get condemned by Hamas as collaborators of the Zionist scourge.

A Hamas official said that whatever their intention, the two should be considered agents of Israel. “Anyone who tries to stop a fighter from doing his work is a collaborator,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Ol' Mom in Ramallah must be so proud.

Gattigap

[Not Me]

http://washingtontimes.com/commentar...0539-8172r.htm

• If the commission studying the September 11 attacks is to have any hope of regaining its credibility — of rising above the "partisan mudslinging" that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay rightly notes is tainting its work — Commissioner Jaime Gorelick must step down.
  
  To see why, take a closer look at the defense she recently wrote for The Washington Post about her role on the September 11 commission and its conflict with her former role as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration.
  
  Ms. Gorelick appropriately points out the original rules about the "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence agencies (a series of procedures designed to restrict the flow of information between the two) were put in place under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. No bombshell there. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — the law requiring the rules — wasn't adopted until 1978. Only as Mr. Reagan's presidency began did the Act, and court opinions interpreting it, begin having real impact.
  
  But the "wall" passed along to the Clinton administration underwent dramatic remodeling three years later.
  
  Remarkably, Ms. Gorelick's defense ignores her own role in raising the "wall" higher than it had been in the prior administrations. One can read her spirited defense without learning that the 1995 memo she authored forbade CIA and FBI agents from freely exchanging information.
  
  The rules she instituted (later made department policy) separated criminal investigations from intelligence gathering. As the memo itself said, these rules went "beyond what is legally required." In particular, the new rules prohibited any "'proactive' investigative efforts or technical coverages" of terrorist suspects on U.S. soil.
  
  In other words, under the Gorelick memo, our law enforcement and intelligence agencies were prohibited from any undercover work related to terrorist suspects.
  
  We can debate the significance of Ms. Gorelick's rules. Where critics may see an important change, her defenders — like the commissioner herself — will see merely another, unremarkable link in a chain of events. There can be little doubt however, Ms. Gorelick's actions are part of that chain.
  
  Thus, even more problematic is Ms. Gorelick's response to critics who believe she has a conflict of interest in examining the Justice Department's response to September 11 — her bland vow to recuse herself from questioning any of the friends she worked with in the Clinton administration.
  
  But conflicts of interest are not based upon personal relations or temporal factors. As Ms. Gorelick surely knows, conflicts of interest in the legal world are subject-specific: They relate to a particular topic or issue, and they last forever. Someone who witnesses an event or who, as an attorney, provides advice for a particular transaction is forever barred from serving as a juror in the same case. It doesn't matter if that person has a spotless reputation for probity and fair play; the bar against sitting in judgment on that issue is absolute.
  
  The passage of time doesn't change the fact Ms. Gorelick helped raise the "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence; and that the higher wall was wrong. The September 11 commission is trying to determine the effects of that wall. And we now know Ms. Gorelick is at least as "responsible" (if we are assigning responsibility) for the wall as Attorney General John Ashcroft. We would find it unacceptable for Mr. Ashcroft to sit on the September 11 commission, wouldn't we? So why should Ms. Gorelick?
  
  Commissioner Gorelick's dismissive response to these concerns is disturbing. In time-honored Washington fashion, she and her fellow commissioners have circled the wagons, rejecting public scrutiny. Chairman Thomas Kean has gone so far as to tell the American public to butt out. "People," he said, "ought to stay out of our business."
  
  For a commission interested in maintaining credibility or at least the appearance of impartiality, that's the wrong answer. And so is the incessant politicization of its work.
  
  There is still time for the September 11 commissioners to restore their credibility and make a strong, positive contribution to America's long-term strategy against terrorists. But to do so, they must take immediate steps to cure the image of partisanship that has begun to coalesce in people's minds. It must cease treating terrorism as political football.
  
  And to assure the American people that the commission will leave no stone unturned, Ms. Gorelick must resign and be called to testify publicly about her own conduct. That conduct is now at issue — and she must not be allowed to serve as a judge in her own case.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Me
http://washingtontimes.com/commentar...0539-8172r.htm

Not for nothing, but this is the same paper that in a recent editorial trumpeted Bush's recent triumphant press conference, and in extolling its virtues was reduced to giggling at the press with their "Snidely Whiplash" questions.

In any event, I think you've still got about a week to flog this horse. Keep riding her, and we'll see if they buckle to the pressure.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Gattigap
In any event, I think you've still got about a week to flog this horse. Keep riding her, and we'll see if they buckle to the pressure.

By my count, I have 3 days. You will miss me when I am gone. Even more so perhaps now that Ty has been deleted.

[Not Me]

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/articl...TICLE_ID=38227
http://www.pressconnects.com/today/o...04s84755.shtml

Articles on the lack of armoured Humvees in Iraq and who is responsible for this.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0417/mondo1.php

I was wondering why you were reading VV and then I noticed the story was linked on Drudge. nttawwt. I also thought you might enjoy today's MF.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Not Me
Anyone object to the doll in the thong in my siggy? If she is not work appropriate I can replace her with the red doll. Vote now or forever hold your peace.

I vote annoying. The objects are large, semi-nude, flashing, and are positioned in the middle of one's computer screen. There's no reason for a second or third avatar.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
I vote annoying. The objects are large, semi-nude, flashing, and are positioned in the middle of one's computer screen. There's no reason for a second or third avatar.

Annoying is irrelevant. I will take out the semi-nude dollz and replace them with fully clothed ones. You cannot make your avatar animated and I like the animation.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Not Me
Annoying is irrelevant. I will take out the semi-nude dollz and replace them with fully clothed ones. You cannot make your avatar animated and I like the animation.

Annoying is not irrelevant because the term includes that feeling you get when you are always worried about someone looking at what you're up to on the computer at work. Having to worry about that is....annoying.

Pictures/cartoons/photos in a post are great when they convey something funny, ironic, powerful or, at the very least, vaguely political. The doll pictures aren't ironic, powerful, funny or political. Another difference from posts that sometimes have a photo/picture is this: you post constantly, so basically our computer screens are going to have a constant stream of dollz running down the center of our computer as we scroll. I don't get that.

If I were you, though I'm not (and in fact you are not me)...if you want one of those dollz as your avatar but can't because they are too big (over 120 by 120) then save them to your computer, and decrease the size, and then upload them in the Edit Profile section. That's what I did with my avatar. I had to cut off her bellbottoms. And see? Nobody here even missed them. If you grow bored with your one avatar doll, you could dress her up, ala Hank Chinaski, like those cuniforms or whatever they were called.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton

Fine.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Annoying is not irrelevant because the term includes that feeling you get when you are always worried about someone looking at what you're up to on the computer at work. Having to worry about that is....annoying.

Pictures/cartoons/photos in a post are great when they convey something funny, ironic, powerful or, at the very least, vaguely political. The doll pictures aren't ironic, powerful, funny or political. Another difference from posts that sometimes have a photo/picture is this: you post constantly, so basically our computer screens are going to have a constant stream of dollz running down the center of our computer as we scroll. I don't get that.

If I were you, though I'm not (and in fact you are not me)...if you want one of those dollz as your avatar but can't because they are too big (over 120 by 120) then save them to your computer, and decrease the size, and then upload them in the Edit Profile section. That's what I did with my avatar. I had to cut off her bellbottoms. And see? Nobody here even missed them.

Re: the animation, TM's avatar moves, and Ty's did. Really, though, I think you need a pair of figures in which it is implied, but not shown in detail, that one scantily clad woman is rimming another scantily clad woman. One could go "oooh" as the other one leans in.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Re: the animation, TM's avatar moves, and Ty's did.

Yeah, but the avatars are at the edges of the computer. It just seems the eye is now used to expecting "stuff" to be at the right and left margins of the computer screen through no fault of the computer user (ads, and such). Same goes for pop-ups. Aint my fault. Unless of course you keep getting lewd pop-ups because you spent the day downloading gay male porn (NTTAWWT). Most people when looking from a distance will not think much of stuff in the margins. (This reminds me of my hopelessly out-of-date friend who called one night freaking because he thought his son was corresponding with a lot of "whores". Had to explain spam to someone who's never used email or a computer.)

Really, though, I think we need a pair of figures in which it is implied, but not shown in detail, that one scantily clad woman is rimming another scantily clad woman.

If THAT change can be made, I withdraw my earlier objection to said avatars. Make `em rim (or even have em butt nibblin') and I'm totally okay with that.

(PS - per my prior post: now I'm upset because I can't remember the name of those flat dolls made of thin gummy plastic that you could put little flat plastic shoes, clothes, etc. on. Cuniforms? Chloroforms? Oh heavens!! Someone help!!)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Re: the animation, TM's avatar moves, and Ty's did. Really, though, I think you need a pair of figures in which it is implied, but not shown in detail, that one scantily clad woman is rimming another scantily clad woman. One could go "oooh" as the other one leans in.

Hank's first avatar was an animation of photos and was the bestest animated avatar ever.....and to thread tie to FB (the old one), I had an animation of how to tie a bow tie, but it made people sick

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Yeah, but the avatars are at the edges of the computer.
(

I was at a public community place where I have an obligation to spend time, anyway reading all the fascinating and important stuff that people had saved up all day, I have to admit I felt a little sheepish because I knew this one prudish neighbor was not-looking/looking as I read the notme posts with the little dolls, or maybe I'm just feeling guilty because I'm starting to feel attracted to cartoons... what next..regular BM's?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
If THAT change can be made, I withdraw my earlier objection to said avatars. Make `em rim (or even have em butt nibblin') and I'm totally okay with that.

Are you male or female?