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I am okay with guests position, however, the reality is Women make the decision whether it is safe to bring another being into the world. when she doesn't feel it is safe to do so, natural law gives her that role.
By the way, Jerry Brown gets back into race for Governor of California. We need your help to make him win!
http://www.jerrybrown.org/node/605
re: when life begins: I understand there's a passage in the Bible that refers to a priest "breathing the soul into the child after birth." (paraphrase).
According to that, a fetus doesnt become a human being until after birth.
How do we not know that we have starved to death another John F Kennedy, one child dies every 5 -6 seconds
I transcribed the following tract many years ago on a Macintosh Classic when I was in college. Since Thom brought-up the subject of Thomas Paine the other day, I decided to dig it up. The Word program it was written on was so old that Word 2007 would not allow it to be opened unless I made some registry modifications. After the Revolution, Paine was regarded by many of his former comrades-in-arms as a pain in the posterior, and wanted little to do with him. His end was ill-fated, but I will let him tell the sad tale:
“I, Thomas Paine, here do solemnly submit to the american People--who owe a great Debt to my person for their very Freedom--a humble request to remember their dear Brother and embark on a Mission to recover his poor Bones and return them to their proper resting Place.
'Tis' a sad Tale of public Forgetfulness, whilst the People drool over sporting Heroes and thieving Merchants whilst memories of defenders of Liberty fly from the avaricious Mind.
'Whilst the perpetrators of Tyranny display their deceased Despots in open Forum for the oppressed masses to cast fearful Glances upon, this poor Foghorn for the public Welfare hast his poor Remains interred in some Moldering Box in an english Attic in a part Unknown.
'Reviled and scorned I was by the american People when I advanced to carry my Ax and rent a Path through the Jungle of religious Superstition, for declaiming the odious enslavement of the black Race and the plain Murder of the Native Race, damnably Perjured by the beneficiaries of my Labors, abandoned by my Friends, and at last departing from the living Penniless and Forgotten. Refused proper burial in a Cemetery, my unhappy Body was interred on a weed-run Farm--and my gravestone Profaned by the rabble of Liberty.
'For ten years Common Sense wept bitter Tears until an englishman perceived the errors of the ignorant Thoughts of my countrymen, and endeavored to restore my Repute to good Standing throughout the Known World.
'Unhappily, William Cobbett, as he was known, animated by a great oversupply of Idolatry, stole away my troubled Bones and sailed forth to england.
'Greatly distressed by my Removal from my beloved Land of Liberty, further indignities awaited me as my poor Bones were deposited in a wooden Box and ogled upon by the Gross eyes of Freakish nature.
'Mister Cobbett, who displayed such great Devotion for my life work, soon tired of my Bones. But yet desirous of constructing a Monument in my Honor, he removed locks of Hair from my poor Skull to sell to souvenir Leaches and thus raise funds for this Project. This Enterprise was for naught, however--asking for too low a Price for my Locks.
'For well nigh sixteen Years my bones languished in London Town, until Mister Cobbett received his just Desserts and expired. His son sought to auction away my Bones, but the auctioneer Refused, since not all englishmen are lacking in Humanity. Consequently my remains were left to idle Forgotten within this attic, its precise location obscured by the passage of the many Years.
'In light of all of these various and sundry Outrages, I call upon you--the ungrateful Heirs of Liberty--to remove yourselves from your tired Fundaments and refrain from empty Exalting and endeavor to conduct a Search for the Humble T. Paine's Bones and bring them hither to the land he Created.
'But in the event that my Bones are now but Dust, let it be remembered that my curse upon the Conscience of Malfeasants will not be so easily cast aside. Let the Woe of my present Disposition, my Friends, serve as a warning to you as to the fate of misemployed Liberty--that it too may crumble beneath the weight of countless lies and misdeeds that pass without heed beneath the fog of Apathy.
'If this be in truth the ultimate disposition of both my remains and my legacy at the hands of daylight Heroes who twitter upon the sound of 'worn' Honor and 'jaded' Principles, then indeed these are Times that try a dead man's Soul."
@ Thom
2:25 AM CST
Quote (from Nancy Weaver
11:48 AM 2/10/10) :
..."There is a severe infiltration of right wing monitors not posting comments by progressives on HuffPost."...
...I can definitely vouch for Nancy by virtue of my own experiences at Huff (I sign in there as "James Ballard"); most especially on what I call the "gun nut" posts. ANYONE who criticizes the NRA or who does not agree with their take on the 2nd amendment, either gets tanked immediately, or, by dint of a "war of attrition", is allowed to "hang around" for awhile, then you wake up the next morning and most, if not ALL of your post entries are scrubbed...Whole threads of discussion are censored, especially the treads that contain strong arguments against a wall of juvenile noise from the NRA propaganda lobby.
There's a cabal of NRA thugs and their "non-member" associates, perhaps a dozen or so, that work in concert and somehow have carried over and won influence over the Huff monitors. E-mails of protest to the Huff post "info@huffpost.com" falls on deaf ears; there is never a response : No "we'll look into it" or "get lost"...noth'in...
I've also noted that if a particular author disagrees with anyone, on any issue, be it "Polanski", "Religion" or "Science", censorship has become the rule of thumb.
Sadly, Huff post is getting out of control; or that is, clearly becoming controlled and dominated by the pathological right wing hard cases within our dysfunctional culture. The superstitious, regressive religious right is also finding it's way in and sabotaging at will bloggers who expose their pseudo-science babble for what it is.
The concerted restriction of an open, democratic discussion forum on the Huff blogosphere is antithetical to everything it's founder, Arianna Huffington, stands for.
We need a direct contact to THE administrator, preferably Arianna herself, as we strongly contend she should be informed of this outrageous breach of her basic philosophy of civil discourse. This is not just Nancy and myself; there are several of us, even bloggers we are not familiar with, who have expressed the same experiences. We have "copied & pasted" records of same.
Can anyone out there help ?
James Ballard
2/11/10
The President frustrates me to no end.
In Baltimore, he hands the Republicans their asses. The next thing you hear is that he is threatening (?) “recess appointments”!
WTF don’t you understand Mr. President? In all of your years spent educating yourself, did you miss the class on “common sense”?
A few lessons from a course on common sense might be:
1) Don’t try pissing up a rope, 2)Don’t piss into the wind,
3) If you are trying to pound in a nail and keep hitting your thumb with the hammer, either quit hammering or move your hand!
What should you do, Mr. President?
1) Quit the bi-partisan B.S. and throw the Republicans, the Blue Dogs, and Joe Lieberman under the bus!
2) Do, do the recess appointments. The “Shrub” did it without a second thought, (or a first thought for that matter)!
3) Move the peoples agenda (you know, the ones who worked to get you elected) forward, through reconciliation.
4) Work to end the Senate filibuster. Start, if you MUST, with a speech, but move quickly to ass kicking and arm breaking (oh, I meant arm twisting), to get it done!
5) Shake up YOUR Cabinet. Get rid of the DLC-Rubanites, and the racketeering enabler, Ben Bernanky.
If you do this, the Republicans will come crawling back, begging for another chance. DON’T be fooled, stomp on their fingers and kick them in the nuts, make sure they know who is in charge!
As the slogan goes, “Just Do It”!
PS. Take some lessons from the dog trainer Cesar Millan! You, Mr. President, must become the alpha dog, to control the pack of fools on the hill!
So at the tender age of 57, you finally realize you might need to understand something more than the surface of politics? You, sir, are a prime example of why we are in such a mess. You think sitting out the next election will punish anyone but yourself? Your vote is not a "reward" for any politician doing what you want, it is a cudgel against those who will do even worse.
I am also peeved to the extreme at the gutlessness of the Democrats in the face of outright insanity, but I do realize that it it still far better than the outright insanity that is the alternative.
the ruling class has it's agenda, it is a cold reality we serve, what are you going to do about it. we OWN everything including GOD! vapor in in time and they know it we need a new utopia???
we need to organize very smart!
Thom,
I am a sci-fi junkie, and your mentions of Jack Vance and Carl Sagan, I'm assuming you are at least a fan. I happened upon a podcast you might be intereted in giving a quick listen to:
http://www.courtneybrown.com/classes/podcasts.html
Specifically, the Science Fiction and Politics class. I was listening to the classes on "The Forever War," (my favorite book of all time) where the professor was comparing the war in the novel to the Vietnam War to the Iraq war (the podcast was taped in 2006). I found a lot of the points he was making quite fascinating and still quite pertinant.
I know you are always looking for different perspectives and ways of presenting things, and this is just one more. The professor might make an interesting guest one day, and at the very least, he presents one more way to look at our recent history and politics, and one more set of parallels to draw upon, this time fictional.
@Making Progress - Could be the basis of a civics test. That poll implies maybe Tancredo is onto something. What he fails to see is those answering 5 or less correct is his base.
@KMH - Thanks. Yes, we have copied examples. The only address so far is one of A Huffington's publishers. That's not very direct and may not gain attention. The problem is so serious that I intend to take action however possible, whenver possible.
I like your list of priorities very much. I would like to modify the "Medicare" coverage to "Universal Health Care" to include vision and dental. Medicare is good but it also needs more than tweaking. Peter DeFazio has spoken about the differences in reimbursements depending on where you live. His constituents are in a low-reimbursement area and they are struggling with that unfairness.
Thom, here is my belief. IF YOU CANNOT HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE FOR A PRE-EXISTING HEALTH PROBLEM, YOU SHOULD BE DEFERRED FROM MILITARY SERVICE FOR THE SAME HEALTH PROBLEM.
@Nancy Seems like you could make print screens and use them to document exactly specific situations. Alt + print Scrn I don't hang out there myself. Thx for talking about this.
I hope Sue includes a link to the Saudi Suicide Bomber Financier becoming the 2nd largest investor in FOX NEWS story. (Still in the denial stage.)
@DDay: re: Where's Papa? yeah! Loved it. Years later, however, i was talking to an older guy who had read the book. Different story, inc. incest, that was only hinted-at in the movie.
http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php
This is a fun little 12 question poll but it's worth it just to see the results. I too answered 12-12 and was sadly part of only 2% of the population. More than 50% of those polled got 5 or less out of 12 correct. It's very grim news.
I spoke with Thom earlier today about right wing infiltration in all media (9:35 a.m. ish) -- Wiki, Google, HuffPost, etc. Does anyone know how to directly contact Arianna or other top administrators at HuffingtonPost? There is a severe infiltration of right wing monitors not posting comments by progressives on HuffPost. ParticularIy friendly to NRA fringe groups instead. I cannot get a response when I email "contact us" on that site. Thanks for any information you may have. This is a Big Problem, as Thom stated. And he will do other programs to help counter that toxic influence.
If fascism is properly defined as the merger of government and corporate interests allied with belligerent nationalism, what do we call the merger of government and corporate interests allied with belligerent multi-nationalism?
America's least trusted banks!
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/108801/the-least-trus...
This article is a little lengthy but a good read.
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2010/02/09/americas-shadowy-base-...
Thom, here is the answer to your question as to where we are.
http://original.antiwar.com/roberts/2010/02/09/us-is-a-police-state/
Thom, if I were you I would just fire these 2 women you always talk about that "make" you read these awful Full Monty updates.
KMH, I like your list, but I'd like to suggest I modification to #9. How about making the minimum wage for any given company to be x% of the highest paid employee in the company, including bonuses and stock options.
Of course you'll have to make sure other loop holes don't crop up, but that's what I'd like to see.
Looking for balance in issues discussion I went to Farah's site after your short discussion yesterday. I was surprised to find that a reasonable sounding fellow promotes a clearly reactionary propaganda site at wnd. I guess if you had more time with him I would have saved 3 hours research. Maybe others here were also curious about Farah and wnd. I say don't waste your time on them.