Offering constructive criticism to the social cripples in our midst since early 2005.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Newsflash: "My party" is doing nothing of the sort. The people in your party a bitching because environmental protections and labour stuff were not added to the treat.

Newsflash: "Labor" does not have a "u". You in America now, boy.


Carry on.

[Replaced_Texan]

19 year old finds out she's pregnant. She decides she's going to have an abortion, scheduled for the 30th of this month.

So she creates a LiveJournal to write about and document the situation and her feelings over the next few days, and presumably after the procedure.

It's been vetted by a friend, and I think it's real.

[sgtclub]

• Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis (link in PDF):
  
  "When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
  
  On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
  
  If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub [list]Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis (link in PDF):


. . .
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

Is it too soon to start talking about the Senate and House in 2006? I haven't seen any numbers or calculations about safe seats, but isn't the GOP looking worse and worse?

Social security is going nowhere, and may divide the party between those who want to do something and those who insist that something includes private accounts

We'll still be Iraq come primary time, and there are only meager rumblings from the Hill about getting an exit strategy.

Bush's approval ratings are way low, with only the Hill's lower (thanks Tom Delay, and Bill "video diagnosis" Frist)


Maybe there are enough safe seats, but if the Dems can play things right (and they've shown they can't), it seems like the GOP is ripe for picking.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub [list]Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis (link in PDF):

The Nazi analogy was stupid and overblown.

Though I'm not sure if "hey, we treat prisoners a lot better than the Nazis did!" is really the argument we want to make.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
and Bill "video diagnosis" Frist

Frist now says that the Schiavo autopsy reports show that the case is closed. No thanks to him, of course (and no admission that he was wrong, wrong, wrong.... but hey. Humility wouldn't be Jesus-like, would it?)

Something I don't understand: Wouldn't a CAT scan or X-ray have shown that Schiavo's brain had shrunk in half?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Newsflash: "My party" is doing nothing of the sort. The people in your party a bitching because environmental protections and labour stuff were not added to the treat. The appropriate word is added. They are trying to use this free trade agreement to pursue another agenda. Again - like I said this is a free trade agreement.

Do you know anything about what that treaty says? If so, can I see your source?

While that may be true, it still reduced the protection of American textiles. So what is there is not the best, but it is a lot better than the restriction we have now - is it not?

Why do you think that?

My understanding is that this has nothing to do with the treaty. With or without the treaty the administration is tightening the eligibility requirements. Why they are doing this I don't know. I am not going to make assumptions. But this is a separate issue from free trade and CAFTA.

That blog seems to think it's part of the treaty.

Yes letting congressman who are not really for free trade anyway, try and attach "labor protection amendments" is really going to help. Thats like having having Henry Hyde get his say on a contraceptive bill. Not really productive.

And then there are Democrats who are pro-free trade. Like me. You never want to talk about us.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis (link in PDF):
  
  "When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
  
  On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
  
  If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

Why are you more outraged by the analogy than the treatment of the prisoners?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis (link in PDF):
  
  "When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay]--I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
  
  On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
  
  If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

If you read that, and your first thought is, how dare a Democratic Senator compare us to Nazis, Soviets, and the Khmer Rouge?, then there's something wrong with you.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Why are you more outraged by the analogy than the treatment of the prisoners?

Are you surprised? Would you be surprised if dtb were outraged by a grammatical error in the speech?



Seriously, I don't think club is outraged by the treatment of the prisoners at all. But he doesn't want to say that, so he criticizes the author's sloppy analogy. This is one reason why I think the analogy was stupid -- it gives people an excuse to express mock horror ("you're comparing American soldiers to Nazis!") rather than address the real issue.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Is it too soon to start talking about the Senate and House in 2006? I haven't seen any numbers or calculations about safe seats, but isn't the GOP looking worse and worse?

Social security is going nowhere, and may divide the party between those who want to do something and those who insist that something includes private accounts

We'll still be Iraq come primary time, and there are only meager rumblings from the Hill about getting an exit strategy.

Bush's approval ratings are way low, with only the Hill's lower (thanks Tom Delay, and Bill "video diagnosis" Frist)


Maybe there are enough safe seats, but if the Dems can play things right (and they've shown they can't), it seems like the GOP is ripe for picking.

What are you, a Bilmore sock? Things could be better for the Rs, but its waaay too early to discount the '06 possibilities. You have Dean in charge of the DNC, making silly statements and trying to raise money one piggy bank at a time. Durbin is up, I think, in '08, but if the Illinois Rs get their act together, he is certainly vulnerable. There are others.

That said, I recently got a fundraising letter from Thune's new PAC. They asked for input on a lot of topics, inlcuding who we would like to see run on the R ticket in '08 (for prez), who we should target in '06 (listing 10 or so Senators from various states), and what issues we should focus on/are important to us.

A pretty good litmus test for me has been the asbestos wars. Feinstein = good. Durbin = Bad. Kennedy = Really, really Bad.

And so on, and so on.

If the Ds can wrangle somebody like Warner in VA to run in '08, I'd give them their strongest odds (and perhaps even greater than 50/50 at the moment). But I can't figure out how they would get a moderate or conservative Dem through to the general election.

Anyway, I'm just sayin. The Rs are making a LOT of fundraising noise about how they've lost seats in the midterm elections during every 2-term R president's second term since 1495 or something. They are mobilizing their base discretely. They are selecting their targets. Meantime, the Ds are stuck with Dean and his mouth til.....

Hello

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Social security is going nowhere...

Interesting annecdote on SS from the DebtSlave files:

My mother is turning 65 shortly. She went to talk to the accountant to determine if she should start drawing now or at 67 or at 70.

They crunched numbers and determined:

(i) that, if Mum waited until she was 70 to draw down (thus getting larger payments), she would need to live to 86 before she would see a net gain (ignoring present value discounts).

(ii) If she put her payments from age 65-70 into a money market fund, by age 70 the account would generate more revenue than the additional payments she would receive from SS if she waited until 70.

Obviously, she's expecting her first check in a few months.

BR(My mother, who is virulently anti-Bush, was deeply unamused when I responded to (ii) with "ah, so you're going the private account route")C

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Are you surprised? Would you be surprised if dtb were outraged by a grammatical error in the speech?



Seriously, I don't think club is outraged by the treatment of the prisoners at all. But he doesn't want to say that, so he criticizes the author's sloppy analogy. This is one reason why I think the analogy was stupid -- it gives people an excuse to express mock horror ("you're comparing American soldiers to Nazis!") rather than address the real issue.

Besides, Nazis wouldn't listen to rap.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
If the Ds can wrangle somebody like Warner in VA to run in '08, I'd give them their strongest odds (and perhaps even greater than 50/50 at the moment). But I can't figure out how they would get a moderate or conservative Dem through to the general election.

My guess is Bayh.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Interesting annecdote on SS from the DebtSlave files:

My mother is turning 65 shortly. She went to talk to the accountant to determine if she should start drawing now or at 67 or at 70.

They crunched numbers and determined:

(i) that, if Mum waited until she was 70 to draw down (thus getting larger payments), she would need to live to 86 before she would see a net gain (ignoring present value discounts).

(ii) If she put her payments from age 65-70 into a money market fund, by age 70 the account would generate more revenue than the additional payments she would receive from SS if she waited until 70.

Obviously, she's expecting her first check in a few months.

BR(My mother, who is virulently anti-Bush, was deeply unamused when I responded to (ii) with "ah, so you're going the private account route")C

Did their number-crunching not include the income she would earn if she continued working from 65-70?