Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A Speculative Future that is all too real....
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But the biggest casualty of the Great Recession and the generation of slow growth and political turmoil that followed was representative democracy. In the face of persistent high unemployment and slow growth, Congress consistently did too little, too late. The American people voted in first one party and then the other. Gradually they realized that their national legislature was no longer responding to popular needs or values, no matter which party was nominally in charge.
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The thoroughly corrupt House of Representatives was populated by career politicians who responded to out-of-district corporate and financial industry contributions more than to the citizens of their districts. Thanks to the success of partisan majorities in state legislatures in drawing the lines of congressional districts to benefit members of their parties, an ever-growing majority of U.S. representatives enjoyed safe seats. The number of competitive elections in swing districts declined with each census.
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Meanwhile, the malapportionment of the Senate grew ever more extreme, because of the predominance of low-population states. The percentage of the American people who could elect a majority in the U.S. Senate declined from 15 to 10 percent. Senators from the low-population states of the American West and New England competed to be lobbyists within the Senate for American and multinational corporate interests, who took care of them generously upon their retirement from public office.
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To make matters worse, the filibuster -- an extra-constitutional custom that had no place in the scheme of American government -- gave the minority party in the Senate a veto over any activity at all and added a de facto supermajority requirement for Senate votes unknown to the Founders.
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Frustrated by the unresponsiveness of the corrupt U.S. Congress in one crisis after another, the American people looked elsewhere for leadership. Anti-system demagogues emerged, only to fade away as soon as the novelty wore off. But the passion tapped by the populist outsiders made it clear that the American people wanted action.
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And if Congress would not act, the executive branch would. Presidents of both major parties, frustrated with the paralysis of Congress, began to circumvent the process of legislation altogether and to achieve their goals by executive orders. Critics claimed that the presidency was usurping Congress's powers. Defenders replied that the paralyzed Congress had effectively thrown its powers away. The presidency was simply picking them up.
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By the fourth decade of the 21st century, the new system was in place. Caesarism had come to America. Congress, with its own consent, had been relegated to the status of a marginal debating society. Most laws were mere enabling acts, delegating the executive branch the power to fill in the details. In practice the American Constitution of checks and balances among separate branches of government had been replaced by a new system of plebiscitary presidentialism -- a system of elective dictatorship, with free elections for the dictator every four years. Real power lay with the executive branch, not with the speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader.
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And within the executive branch, real power lay with operatives of the White House staff appointed by the president and answerable only to him or her, not with Cabinet officials and agency heads confirmed by the Senate and supervised by both houses of Congress. The degradation of the Cabinet secretaries had begun during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and continued until, in the Nixon years, Nixon’s personal staff had more influence than most Cabinet secretaries. In the late 20th century, presidents created a new layer of policy "czars," above the Cabinet departments and independent agencies and below the White House court. The original constitutional scheme of Cabinet departments answerable to Cabinet secretaries was now choked and hidden beneath layers of czars and other presidential flunkies. The lack of clear responsibility meant that intrigue and factionalism flourished in an executive branch that increasingly resembled the Borgia court superimposed on the Byzantine empire.
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.(more in article).
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By the middle of the 21st century the American republic had gradually been replaced by an American Principate. Few mourned the old system in which urgently needed policies died in Congress or were diluted beyond recognition. Things needed to be done, and now they were done, by fiat rather than by law.
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The Americans who were most pleased by post-congressional government were members of Congress themselves. Governing was hard and divisive, while posturing and pontificating were easy. Now if anything went wrong, it was the president’s fault. And nobody would bother to try to assassinate the Senate majority leader or the speaker of the House. Hardly anybody knew who they were.
(full story here)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
A Day At the Cloisters
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It houses his medieval European Art - primarily church art.
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It is a beautiful setting. He purchased a lot of architecture that had been repurposed into farm houses after the French Revolution.
This is the Fuentiduena Chapel - a mid-12th century apse from the church of San Martin at Fuentiduena (Segovia).
The hanging cross is from the same period, but from Austria. It was amazingly pretty inside.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
It's Kenny and It's Football What Else Is There....
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For my Brit friends - well, it's hard to explain.....
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ARGGGHHH!!!! Republicans want Congress to start investigations again!
Republican staffers say there won’t be any self-destructive witch hunts, but they clearly are relishing the prospect of extracting information from an administration that touts transparency.
And a handful of aggressive would-be committee chairmen — led by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Lamar Smith (R-Texas) — are quietly gearing up for a possible season of subpoenas not seen since the Clinton wars of the late 1990s.
Issa would like Obama’s cooperation, says Kurt Bardella, spokesman for the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But it’s not essential.
“How acrimonious things get really depend on how willing the administration is in accepting our findings [and] responding to our questions,” adds Bardella, who refers to his boss as “questioner-in-chief.’ Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41506.html#ixzz0xp3N4AME
Finally: Acknowledgment of the Role Ronald Reagan played in Gay Rights
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BUT - on the other hand - probably no President would have addressed AIDs right away. Such was the stigma of AIDs (and gays in general) in 1980.
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AND - Ronnie, as Governor, did a great service to the gay community. One glossed over by history but dreadfully important on the ground. I quote for a Daily Beast article (from a story about Melhman - so no need to read the whole thing).
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A few decades ago, anti-gay sentiment was pervasive in both major parties. In 1978, California was fiercely divided by Proposition 6, a ballot initiative launched by John Briggs, a Republican legislator from Orange County, that sought to bar lesbians and gays from teaching in the state’s public schools. The fight against the so-called Briggs Initiative helped galvanize the national gay rights movement, and brought San Francisco civil rights activist Harvey Milk to national prominence.
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And Milk had an unlikely ally in Ronald Reagan, the popular former governor and conservative icon who had very nearly defeated a sitting president in the Republican primaries of 1976. Though Milk had long since embraced the political left by then, there was a certain logic in the de facto alliance between the two men. Years earlier, Milk had volunteered for Barry Goldwater, not least because of Goldwater’s zealous individualism and commitment to personal freedom. Ronald Reagan was very much Goldwater’s heir. Born in 1911, Reagan, like many of his generation, saw homosexuality as a tragic affliction. Yet as a veteran of Hollywood, he also knew a number of gay men, some of whom he counted as friends. Lou Cannon, author of the definitive Reagan biographies, has written that he was “repelled by the aggressive public crusades against homosexual life styles which became a staple of right wing politics in the late 1970s.” Suffice it to say, opposing Proposition 6 was a political risk for Reagan, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
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and that is what I thank Reagan for. Just as a side note, the "Suffice it to say..." last line is a HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT. Laws like proposition 6 had passed in Florida (thank you Anita Bryant), Kansas and many major cities. The California backers were going to take this nationwide - and Ronald Reagan - a voice of conscious, stopped them. I don't think we have such respected voices of political conscious now on the left or the right. Well respected politicans willing to stand up for what is right - even if it is politically unpopular. It is a tragic loss for the country.
I hate to dwell: But why a Civet?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Apparently Not April's Fool
Mother Teresa's 100 Birthday Anniversary
About the Architect of the most Virulent Anti-Gay Campaign in History
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I know, I know. I know he is backing the efforts to turning over Prop 8 now. But in 2004, as the chair of George Bush’s re-election campaign (and working with the RNC) he got Gay Marriage put on the ballots –knowing it would lose but would whip up bad information and increase turnout positive to George Bush – in:
Oklahoma
Utah
Michigan
Ohio
Mississippi
Georgia
Kentucky
Montana
North Dakota
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And in Ohio, it was money well spent. Ohio turned on a total of 7,000 votes and pushed Bush to a decisive win.
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But lost in that political win is the hate that was engendered against gay people – thrown at the youth of America. I know that not everyone who votes against gay marriage hates or even disapproves of gay people. I totally realize that people may vote against gay marriage for any number of reasons.
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But a lot of the advertising speaks of deviant lifestyles and encourages half truths about it. This gets to teens and teen’s parents. It is designed to engender fear and anger and get people to the polls. That is the whole purpose of the advertising!
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Since 2005 (and the anger whipped up at gay people) Ed and I have been driven to support the Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is a Gay Suicide Hotline. Set up and working to young people who have been attacked, threatened or kicked out of their house for being gay. I have seen and witnessed what mis-information does to these kids and their families.
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So for me, the Ken Melhman question is not abstract about forgiveness. It is very real, very practical and formed around youngsters that have been stopped from killing themselves, and the ones that succeeded. For me it boils down to a simple question.
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Question: How much of hate, anger and misinformation was whipped up by Ken Melhmen to reelect George Bush and how did it effect gay youth at risk? What was the political calculation that lead Mr. Mehlmen to find this acceptable?
Long Answer from a Study:
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey. A 2009 study, "Family Rejection as a Predictor of Negative Health Outcomes" led by Dr. Caitlin Ryan and conducted as part of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, shows that adolescence who were rejected by their families for being LGBT were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide. And for every completed suicide by a young person, it is estimated that 100 to 200 attempts are made (2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey).
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Short Answer More than I can forget.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The World Conspires to Annoy Me!!!
iTunes Luddite
Attacks in Yeman, Somalia, Etheopia, Djouboti, Kenya - But Hey Why Authorize It?
In which Scott Scratches His Head and Wonders…
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What to do with life? Does one just bury one’s head in the sand and let the pushy asses win?
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Does one push back against the anti-Mosque people and ask them How far away is acceptable for a Mosque (there is already a mosque 4 blocks away)?
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How is it a titty-bar, strip club that is closer does NOT desecrate “hallowed ground”?
How do you tell Muslims they are the only religion that cannot pray for peace and understanding at the new World Trade Center complex (of which the memorial is a small part)?
Do you tell them we only hate Muslims or that it is only Muslims that we don’t accept their religion?
Sciencetologists are on the “Hallowed Ground” all the time, are we more accepting of a religion of extraterrestrial soul suckers than a Religion with 1.3 billion adherents of which 21 people attacked us?
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Finally, for me, what other mob rule restrictions on Religion are Americans willing to tolerate and encourage? If we willingly throw out constitutional guarantees of the Bill of Rights on this, can we do it on where any church is? How about the people that don’t want Mosques in California or Texas – is that Hallowed Ground?
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Or do I ignore this sham issue. Do I ignore the people of the country happily trampling on the rule of law because of hate? They have already voted to take away my right to marriage – why should I care about a religion that totally hates fags?
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Back to the Bigger Question.
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Should I just move on and let the mob win?
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Okay then, should I also ignore the plight of millions of Pakistanis drowning. By the way, as the world ignores this country we should remember it has hundreds of millions of people AND already has nuclear weapons.
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Question: So why the hell do we care that Iran might be making a weapon when we don’t give a shit about Pakistan that already has nuclear weapons and areprotecting the Taliban?
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Okay, let’s ignore that.
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Should I ignore the Republicans (and conservative Democrats) asinine attempts to both make the federal deficit an issue in the elections (a deficit the last Republican Administration created – duh!!!! Clinton left a surplus) while at the same time they insist on extending huge tax cuts for people making more than $1,000,000 a year? Tax cuts that weren’t made permanent when they were in charge because it made the deficit look too big then!
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Okay, let’s ignore that.
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Should I also ignore the Generals that insist that we stay in Afghanistan past 2011, even though they all agreed to that before the policy was put in place? Do I ignore that these tin-pot old boy’s network is expressly ignoring the Constitutional imperative of Civilian rule of the military?
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Okay – let’s ignore that.
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Wow, it’s raining a lot in New York today.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Kind of a Quiet Day
Monday, August 23, 2010
Chickens Meet Roost; Roost Meet Chickens.
No details were provided on the craft's capabilities.
In a speech at the unveiling ceremony, Ahmadinejad said Iran should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat, although he said it would never strike first.
"We should reach a point when Iran would serve as a defense umbrella for all freedom-loving nations in the face of world aggressors. We don't want to attack anywhere — Iran will never decide to attack anywhere — but our revolution cannot sit idle in the face of tyranny. We can't remain indifferent."
Hyperbole
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You're call sixty lousy miles of gridlock the worst traffic jam ever.
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Hell I spent 7 1/2 hours once getting from the west side to San Diego (approx 120 miles).
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EVERY WEEK-END in the spring the traffic from LA to Vegas backs up over 150 miles!
And this, dear ones, is the traffic coming INTO Los Angeles from the Colorado River during spring break Sundays. It is like this eastward over 200 miles - and you haven't even hit Banning yet - so you have another 50 + miles of traffic going west.
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Eddie and I know. We have been stuck in it.
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Then I think. How screwed up am I to be proud of LA traffic?
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Latest Morphosis Project: Cooper Union in New York
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It is a beautiful building. It was designed by Thomas Maine of Morphosis Architects.
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Why is that name recognizable???
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Is it because his first big commission was Kate Mantalli, the restaurant in Beverly Hills? (ps - I saw the Pointer Sisters there one day and we discussed UCLA Basketball.)
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But, no, that is not why.
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Is it because he designed the LA CalTrans building - an eco friendly outpost in Los Angeles.
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It is really cool - but no, that's not why.
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Very cool building thou - right.
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But that is not why.
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why.. why .. why.. It's on the tip of my mind. What was it.
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Oh yeah - he taught at SCIArc where I put someone through Architecture school - and was offered a job at Mr. Mayne's office. A job he did not take.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
How to Make a Bad Idea Worse
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Light the Bull's Horns on fire!
Tunku Varadajan's Great Reporting on Pakistan
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But with regards to the terrible devastation in Pakistan, and the Untied States' anemic response to it, he is exactly correct (he is .. "right on" - to pun).
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He explains excellently why they aren't getting as much aid as other disasters - for example it is partly because Christian Relief organizations are the best organized on the ground and Pakistan doesn't let them in, and also due to the Pakistan's own silly decisions like turning down Aid from India for Propaganda reasons.
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But one real problem is that America looks like death mongers here. And We Aren't!
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We send $100,000,000,000.00 (that is $100 BILLION) dollars to kill their neighbors and relatives, but less than 1% of that to save the people. As for the Terrorists (and they ARE terrorists). Let me quote, " As many have written, we ignore Pakistan’s floods at our peril. Given the ramshackle, and venal, condition of the Pakistani state, the earliest aid to reach most flood victims came not from the government but from Islamic relief organizations. These, as Marisa Porges wrote on The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed page, include Falah-e-Insaniyat, the “charitable arm” of the group (Lashkar-e-Taiba) that carried out the murderous assault on Mumbai in 2008. The disastrous floods, one can be certain, will reap for the Islamist terrorists a fresh crop of recruits, men who are grateful to the radical groups for help in their time of need (a time at which the Pakistani state was missing in action), and who will also emerge from the floods with nothing material or temporal to live for: perfect material for suicide-jihadis. "
32 Million People and I have never heard of it...
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From Justin to Kelly to The Lincoln Center?
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Hummmm..... (Although I must admit "From Justin to Kelly" is a total guilty pleasure for me.)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Eddie Calls It Right in Chicago Trial
A single juror refused to convict former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of trying to sell Barack Obama’s old senate seat after the 2008 election. The other jurors grew increasingly frustrated as it appeared she could not be swayed during the two weeks of deliberations, and one juror even considered telling the judge the woman was deliberating in bad faith. That juror is also refusing to talk to the press. Her influence led to deadlock on several other counts. Experts said it was unlikely that in the retrial the defense would be so “lucky,” as one juror put it, to get an “outlier juror.” Other watchers say that this time, prosecutors should call to the stand fundraiser Tony Rezko and consultant Stuart Levine to the stand, as they “know where the bodies are buried,” one expert said.
Read it at Los Angeles Times
One Last (Promise) Thing about the Mosque at Ground Zero
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I not only understand why this makes people uneasy, I felt that same "are you f*ing kidding me?!" reaction when I first heard about the idea.
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To be honest, I still am not comfortable with the idea.
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But I had to look at my reaction and temper it with my belief in the best America has to offer. I came, grudgingly, to believe it was their American right to put it there. It is a church and community center open to all, not some symbol of the terrorists' winning. In fact, it is a symbol of Muslim's integration within the American dream.
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So I get the actual unease and anger of people. Totally! I understand and would shut up about it. But I object to the usual players (Fox, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh) turning this into a political club to beat up those of us that have thought about it and come to the belief it is okay. Just because I think a place of religious worship is acceptable there doesn't make me some commie, or pinko. It just means I disagree.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Friends from England out for a Birthday
This is Barbara, Me, David (back to us), Rebecca and Gareth. Gareth and Barbara are the parents. I have know Gareth now since (ahem... ) Xerox!
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Not just Xerox, but old Xerox when I was in customer support. He was in an analegous group in Rank Xerox. And David and Rebecca weren't born. Hell, he and Barbara weren't married yet!
This is Eddie and Rebecca. When Eddie worked for a month in England, he was actually based right near Barbara and Gareth (in Tyler's Green - close to Penn - North of High Wycomb - 50 miles Northwest of London).
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Two other establishments on the "Hallowed Ground"
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This is Century 21. A Pic-N-Sav type business across the street from Hallowed Ground of Ground Zero.
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And this establishment is not only closer than the proposed Islamic Center, but was built and opened AFTER 9/11.
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No one objected then, which kind of points to this as a political club. A cheap and easy shot because the Muslim religion is tarred as zealots. They aren't all zealots, just like all Catholic Priests aren't child molesters, all Southern Baptist Priests aren't defenders of segregation and Episcopal Priests don't support same sex unions.
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I still say singling out a religion and telling them they are less worthy than a strip club is a horrible precedent for the United States.
Nice: But Unclear on the Concept
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However, the whole "I want to regain my First Amendment Rights" thing that she talked about with Larry King (and some commentators have said after their NYC Muslim Community Center rants) is a little misguided.
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One's "First Amendment Rights" prohibit the government from inhibiting free speech (or allowing others too inhibit it). But other people have the "first amendment" rights to disagree with you. Your "First Amendment Rights" don't negate other people first amendment rights. If you don't believe it, watch Fred Phelps who uses his rights to claim that fags are going to hell, and driving America to hell at every gay event he gets wind of.
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Listen to the (first amendment protected) ratings of NOM - who spuriously claim gay marriage will somehow break into a storm of evil that will collapse straight marriages. The Free Speech rights even allow obvious lies to be told (calling an entire section of the city bull of Falafel Carts, 99cent stores and a Pic-N-Save "hallowed ground"). What it doesn't do is protect your speech from criticism.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Ross Watson Came By to Say Hello with Stephen (BF)
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For Those of Us in Siena in 2006...
Ground Zero Mosque Inputs from George W Bush's Assistant
No president, of any party or ideology, could tell millions of Americans that their sacred building desecrates American holy ground. This would understandably be taken as a presidential assault on the deepest beliefs of his fellow citizens. It would be an unprecedented act of sectarianism, alienating an entire faith tradition from the American experiment. If a church or synagogue can be built on a commercial street in Lower Manhattan, declaring a mosque off-limits would officially equate Islam with violence and terrorism. No president would consider making such a statement. And those commentators who urge the president to do so fundamentally misunderstand the presidency itself.
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That is the essential constitutional issue, but Gerson goes on to make another salient point that Bush could emphasize with far greater effect. The mosque-baiting conservatives are advancing the interests of our enemies.
The militants hope, above all else, to provoke conflict between the West and Islam -- to graft their totalitarian political manias onto a broader movement of Muslim solidarity. America hopes to draw a line that isolates the politically violent and those who tolerate political violence -- creating solidarity with Muslim opponents and victims of radicalism.
How precisely is our cause served by treating the construction of a non-radical mosque in Lower Manhattan as the functional equivalent of defiling a grave? It assumes a civilizational conflict instead of defusing it. Symbolism is indeed important in the war against terrorism. But a mosque that rejects radicalism is not a symbol of the enemy's victory; it is a prerequisite for our own….
A president not only serves Muslim citizens, not only commands Muslims in the American military, but also leads a coalition that includes Iraqi and Afghan Muslims who risk death each day fighting Islamic radicalism at our side. How could he possibly tell them that their place of worship inherently symbolizes the triumph of terror?
Monday, August 16, 2010
"The Postal Service" is surprisingly fun
He's been in charge since Oct 31, 2008 and JUST NOW HAS A PLAN!
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To which one must say, What The Hell? On Oct 31, 2008 General Petraeus took over the command of CENTCOM (United States Central Command : headquartered in Tampa, Florida). Petraeus was responsible for U.S. operations in 20 countries spreading from Egypt to Pakistan—including Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
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When taking over for General McChrystal he stated he agreed with the President on the draw down date in Afganistan.
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Now he going to the Press to do what exactely? Publicably raise questions about the President's Leadership? Get us to stay in Afghanistan for another 9 years? Blame someone else for the military command's failure (not the boots on the ground - the incorhent ideas from the brass on this.)
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He has been in charge of Afghanistan plans since October 2008. That is almost 2 years. If the war plan is only "just now" getting completed, what the hell has he been doing? Why on EARTH would one believe that it is in place now - and this goal line won't be moved again! I could list the "final push in Afghanistan" quotes for over 5 years. I could push the "last chance" quotes for years!
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Get out. Get out now. No more chances, no more "final pushes" that never never never end. No more dead people in Afganistan for nothing.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
I saw 2 Great Shows at the New York Fringe Festival this weekend.
Julius Caesar.
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My Dad's Crazier Than Your Dad.