CD,

"our Founding Fathers mistakenly fought for freedom"

Actually my Founding Fathers had their property confiscated and were forced to leave Newtown, Connecticut after the Revolutionary War because of their allegiance to the Crown..
These United Empire Loyalits started a new life to the north in a land we now know as Canada. We have freedom here. And this land was not born of bloodshed. No heritage of violence. Well, except for the war of 1812 when we were forced to defend against American invaders. And who won that two year tussle. Davey Crocket? Daniel Boone? Swamp Fox?
Actually, we did.
So,---my forfathers didn't fight for freedom way back then
But we have freedom anyway.
How's that fighting thing work again?

Sherman,

Oh, that's nothing!

We are still paying, on every phone bill, a Federal tax that was added to pay for the Spanish-American war of 1899.

You have it good, you probably have paid off whatever was owed after that 1812 war...

:O)

P.S. Who was Swamp Fox?

On harsh nights I sleep under a 4-stripe (cost the indians 4 pelts, right?) original Hudson Bay felt blanket. Ain't nothing like it anywhere else, about as warm as one of my down comforters, but breathes better.

I think we should become more friendly with Canada now that we know the Alberta oil fields contain "trillions" of barrels of oil dwarfing the Middle East. Average wages working up there are 120K per year. If I was younger I would be there. They are looking for more than 150 thousand new people right now. I better learn the lyrics to "OH Canada".

JJK

Here's a fun mental game:

1) Think of a person very dear to you.

2) Imagine catching that person looking through your private correspondence, or listening in on your phone calls, or investigating your patterns of cell phone / land line / email usage.

3) Ask yourself: Does my [spouse, parent, sibling, child, best friend, sweetheart, or whoever] have ANY business snooping on me? Would it BOTHER ME if I caught them doing it---no matter how "reasonable" their explanation? Would they have LOTS OF 'SPLAININ' TO DO, LUCY? (I can tell you, my loved one would have to do a lot of talking, real fast and real convincingly, to keep my metaphorical boot out of their metaphorical ass.)

4) Ask yourself: If it would upset you to catch the person you love most on this planet in the act of snooping on you, why is it OK for strangers to do it? Under ANY circumstances for ANY reason?

NOTE TO the "Justice" Department, Department of Homeland Peculiarity, El Presidente (of whatever political party), NSA, and other snoops: If you suspect us of involvement in wrongdoing, or of associating with possible evildoers, would it kill you to GET A WARRANT? Answer: No, it won't. In the future, look into it.

I think Google deserves applause for standing up to this BS.

See you guys in Guantanamo---
John

Perhaps more to the point, there's this:

"But the big news for most Americans shouldn't be that the administration wants yet more confidential records. It should be the revelation that every single search you've ever conducted—ever—is stored on a database, somewhere. Forget e-mail and wiretaps—for many of us, there's probably nothing more embarrassing than the searches we've made over the last decade. Google's campus LCD sounds like it's just fun and games, but when a search can be linked to you (through the IP address recorded by Google), that's a lot less fun. And when, as we're seeing, it can all be demanded by the government, that's no fun at all."

Full article here: http://www.slate.com/id/2134670/

So while applauding Google for standing up to the gov'ment, they and the other search engine folk ought to be answering some questions about their own practices, as well.

---John

Jay,

Of course they had a agenda, so did the people who were distorted Gore's words in this and other instances. The question is not whether they had an agenda. The question is are they telling the truth? Their agenda could be called "damage control." It could be called "setting the record straight."

Have Kahn and Cerf been discredited in what they said in their statement on Gore? Have they been shown to not have the first-hand knowledge of the events or to have gotten their facts wrong?

Gore was/is a buffoon, every bit as much as George Bush. The point is neither party has had (or hopes to have) a candidate worth the People's endoresement for a long, long time. Why? Because they are not interested in anything but themselves--business as usual. The People be damned.

Jay,

You're evading the question and changing the issue. Whether Gore is as much a buffoon as George Bush is not the point. It doesn't matter whether I think Bush is a ne'er do well son who couldn't run a business who never would have gotten anywhere in life except that his wealthy family has been part of The Establishment for at least 90 years and his Daddy was the president, that he failed his way through life and never achieved anything until Karl Rove took him under his wing and who looked like a dear in the headlights on 9/11. None of that matters. It doesn't mean I get to make up "facts" against him. If I want to engage in honest political debate, I still need to credibility, my argument still needs to rest on the facts. If I say something that proves to be wrong, I need to retract it to to keep my credibility.

Gore was not my favorite candidate and kept shooting himself in the foot. I don't think the choice of Lieberman got him a single vote. He couldn't articulate enough of a difference between him and Bush to stave off a third-party challenge on his left. I was not a fan of Tipper's PMRC in 80's either. However, it would hard to be as big a failure as our current president.

We will never know how Gore would have been as president, but there a couple of places where he probably would not have reversed policy.
1 He probably would have kept Clinton's economic policies going and retained an economic staff that has credibility on Wall Street. The deficit would not have ballooned to such proportions if Clinton's policies continued.
2 Since the outgoing Clinton administration identified Al Qaeda as the #1 threat, Gore probably would not have dimished the role of counterterrorism like Bush did. The Attorney General would have counterterrorism as a priority in his budget, the counterterrrorims czar would have remained in Cabinet meetings. The national security council would not have have put Iraq as a bigger priority than Al Qaeda.
3 Since FEMA under Clinton was recognized as one of the best agencies in the government and it was run by emergency professionals, Gore probably would not have appointed one his political people to take it over. He probably would not have appointed that politico's college roomate to replace him. If Gore lasted until 2005, perhaps the government's response to Katrina would have been so sickening.
4 We probably would not be three years into a war of choice in Iraq, stuck without any good options.

You're evading the question and changing the issue.

Sorry. No, Kahn's and Cerf's statement did not make any difference. Gore was no more "responsible" for the Internet than any other legislator that was in office during that same period that voted in support of Internet technology related bills. It was just so much "spin-doctoring", nothing more, nothing less.

They tried to make it sound like were it not for Al Gore we wouldn't have an Internet. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And the correct answer is: pmasters.

Campaign finance reform is the hidden big issue. Having an electoral system where ordinary citizens can run for office with, say, 5000 contributors of $5 apiece to qualify for a primary, giving matching funds when the opponent or incumbent gets an infusion of special-interest money (the actual system in several areas) can lead to a rapid period of commonsense reform, and has in several states. And it robs the lobbyists of their near-monopoly. When the influence of lobbying wanes, so does the inherent corruption of secretly-financed legislation and secret deals in the White House.

Another poster put it well, there is a fourth "branch" of government and that is the states. There is already strong evidence that the people are in a mood to sweep out the statehouses and legislatures and start over in many cases. The current trend is toward Democrats since lately their biggest vice is merely inaction--or perhaps picking their battles more carefully.

My $.02 worth: Historically, remember that the Republican party was founded by, essentially, bankers. The Democratic party is more, well, democratic. The accusations about Democrats being "in favor of big government" is a throwback to the Roosevelt entitlement programs which have provided the safety net of Social Security, Medicaid and welfare payments to the poverty-stricken, and the complaints about "wanting to increase taxes" are actually from a resentment of being required to pay for those programs by contributing to the common good. Remember that the Roosevelt programs were born out of the 1929 crash of an unregulated stock market, which did far more damage to America than any terrorist attack.

What's bizarre in the current political picture is that the current Republicans are only cutting taxes on rich campaign contributors, then after creating a shortage of revenue (deficit), cutting money to the Roosevelt programs and even education. A quite literal display of "rich get richer and poor get poorer." Apparently thinking no one notices or cares, or that invoking terrorism will put anyone into an obedient stupor, like Poison Ivy in that Batman movie.

The irony is that the current crop of Republicans took the most successful economic program in American history, which yielded "the Clinton surplus" of 1/3 trillion dollars (after repairing the Reagan/Bush deficit), dismantled it, and threw the nation so far into debt that the next incumbents will have no choice but to rebuild the losses in part through taxes. Revenue is the lifeblood of government, like it or not. But the Repubs will scream bloody murder, "See? I told you so!" Well--hypocrisy is still not a disqualification for office.

Like that excellent book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?," I believe all the hype about liberal morals and Democratic "minorities" and the great social issues of the day, are merely a divide and conquer strategy by the lobbyists for Big Business who want government as weak and dissent-ridden as possible so no one gets in the way of "productivity." Before something like a civil war starts up, let's drive the moneychangers from the temple: Get the lobbyists under control with campaign-finance laws.

And personally, I really wish Vegas had a color-correction plugin that could color-match two shots the way the "Natural Match" function of Avid does....
.

Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet--Newt Gingrinch.


Did these Internet-related bills just come out of thin air? Did Congressmen just show up at work one day and *POOF* there was a bill about something called the "internet?"
Gore did not just vote on these bills, he sponsored them and fought to make this an issue of national importance. He saw the significance of this earlier than virtually any other member of Congress. Before the technology was fully fleshed out, he was pushing for funding it. He was pushing legislation on this back in the DOS days.

When Gore made his statement, it was in the context of what he did in Congress. Gore was never, ever claiming to be scientist or an inventor. Nobody watching the interview thought he was. The interviewer didn't think it was odd. That statement didn't even make the news the next day. It was only when the Republican National Committee misquoted Gore that this became an idea. Because the idea wasn't that "Gore used the wrong words" or "Gore exaggerated his influence in Congress." It was "Gore is a pathological liar, he's claiming to be an inventor and a computer scientist." That meme only works if you distort what Gore said. If you actual look into Gore's leadership on the Internet in Congress and later the White House, it's pretty impressive.

The internet did require government intervention to develop. The internet as it currently is was not inevitable. Al Gore helped us get to "The Internet" as we know earlier than we would have without his sponsorship within the government. Kahn and Cerf are not the only Internet folks who say so. Somebody else may have filled that vacuum, but it probably would have delayed things because there were few folks saw the importance of this and were willing to fight for this as early as Gore did. Gore also argued for quickly privatizing the internet, once it was proven to work. Think of the mess we are in with the digital television switchover, to see why having a forceful advocate in the government can move things along.

[Removed levels post in wrong thread, very strange.]

This is sooooo OT.

Forgive us Mr Sony!

Frances Marion alias "Swamp Fox

http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/1786/swampfox.html?200624#books

Course, dont mix Vegas stuff with politics. LOL. Im sure you replied on the wrong thread. I am assuming you meant for it to be on the Auto Levels/Mike Crash thread. LOL.

LOL, I had to look twice to make sure it wasnt an Onion article only realize that it was really on MSNBC. Again, POLITICS suck.

That was pricless, Travis. Thanks for sharing!

It's not that amazing really. I don't know that much about internal US politics but it's certainly the case down here that both sides of the political fence will shaft their own supporters to appeal to the swinging voter.
Bob.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11009379/
============
What a bunch of hypocrites.

Before and after that same debate MSNBC had a panel consisting of two Republicans (Pat Buchanan and GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg who provided legal counsel to the Swift Boat Veterans group that smeared Kerry). Both predicted a victory for Bush before and after the debate.

Before the debate:

Buchanan: "I'm picking the president of the United States" and that Kerry "realized everything he's built his life on could go down the tubes if I don't do well."

Ginsberg: "I do think Bush will win." "He's going to do much, much better tonight than he did last time."


After the debate:

Buchanan: "....he wiped up the floor with John Kerry. ...The president came out like a boxing match where he dropped him in the first round. I never saw Kerry regain his footing. ... I think all these little points about was this fact right, that fact right, that doesn't make any difference to 50 million people. Looking at that debate, it is impossible for me to say anything other than that the president of the United States defeated John Kerry handily. "

Ginsberg: "He (Bush) made John Kerry confront the record in the Senate against the statements he's made in the presidential campaign and showed that the presidential campaign is by and large a series of statements that are in contradiction to John Kerry's Senate record. And so that's going to play out. ... John Kerry will be characterized, I think, in this debate, as haughty, and that sort of going into the president's face, glowering at him, all fits into that impression. ... Kerry must have said a half-dozen times, "I'm fighting for you," I'm fighting for you as a way, I think, to try and connect with the people out there. And it just didn't work. It seemed wooden and sort of aristocratic."

Andrea Mitchell: " think it's too early to call this because they were both so tough. It was, I thought, a great debate because the questioners were good. The questions were tough. ... I'm not ready to award either of them the victor here."



Matthews: " We know the key to victory is get your topic talked about. If we are thinking about taxes, we all can agree as the amen chorus of the world, Republicans win. Was anyone as surprised as I was at the amount of time Kerry allowed to talk about taxes, over and over again? ... Everyone has been very cheerful here in anointing the president the victor here. ... I think he (Kerry) was pulling all the ammo he could into his pile, but not sure if he shot it with enough command."

Obviously Matthews wasn't counting what Andrea Mitchell said when he stated "EVERYONE has been very cheerful here in anointing the president the victor here. "


Ron Reagan Jr: "Here are two guys in a room with citizens who are going to vote, and they couldn't connect with them ever. They were talking at them. ... They wanted to go after each other. Let them, for God's sake! "

Typical MSNBC skewed to the right panel. Happened after every debate.

Then there are the so-called "Fact Checks" the networks do after these debates.

NBC (MSNBC) equated Kerry's accurate but incomplete figures on job and education spending and a technically inaccurate statement about Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki's retirement with President George W. Bush's falsehoods about Kerry's health care and tax plans and about unproven inroads the United States has made in dismantling Al Qaeda.


I wonder how the psychologists who did that study interpreted the media's obsession with getting George Bush re-elected in 2004 and their success in that quest.

John

John Kerry was a gentleman without the street smarts to fight in the dirty back alley fight that was the run-up to the most recent presidential election.

I don't see him as a serious candidate ever again. He is just too nice a guy.

Even his wife said so, although discreetly.

JK should get some Krav Maga training (Israeli self-defense system where there are no Queensbury rules...).

I too thought John Kerry was playing by the wrong set of rules. His campaign advisor Bob Shrum was terrible.

He made a giant mistake not taking the Swift Boat Liars on more directly. He wanted to, but Shrum persuaded him not too. He ended up looking weak. He should have the man whose life he saved (who incidentally was a Republican) front and center in the studio of the major new networks. He should have forced Bush's to denounce the Swift Boat Liars more directly and continually. If I was his advisor, I would created an informercial. Also the co-writer of the anti-Kerry book has a history of bigoted and anti-Catholic writing on the internet. I would have put that front and center.

Bush's second counterterrorism czar quit because he felt the Adminstration was ignoring the problem and focusing on Iraq. He didn't see any evidence that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda. He started working with Kerry well before Kerry won any primaries. Few people know this. I would have made this guy a household name.

He made a giant mistake when he agreed to all the rules in the debates that were designed to protect Bush. (No addressing the other candidate, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions.) He agreed to them, because the Bush team really didn't want any debates. By agreeing Kerry got three debates. He should have just called Bush a coward every day and night for chickening out on the debates. It would have worked. (John Edwards turned out to be pretty big liability in his debate with Cheney in my opinion.)

His stance on the Iraq vote was terrible. His explanations were worse. Of course the whole debate about Iraq and the wording of the resolution was mendacious. The resolution talked about working with United Nations on Iraq, (enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq) but of course, when the time came Bush did not go back to the UN Security Council to authorise the invasion. The resolution also linked Saddam and Al Qaeda. Bush also was claiming he didn't want war. We now know the decision to wage war was already decided by at least by June 2002. Politicizing this vote (right before the 2002 elections) and failing to have an honest debate on Iraq should go down as one Bush's greatest sins.

It seems like Kerry wants to run again. I hope he doesn't. I don't like the idea of Hilliary either, because it's just going to motivate Repbulicans who probably won't turn out as much as they did in 2004. Also the idea of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton is kind of depressing. (Watch it will turn out to be Jeb vs Hilliary.) I hope General Clark runs again. He seems incredibly smart and on the ball.

Bush's team and Rove particularly were excellent about getting votes in the new "exurban communities" and getting those folks out to vote.

As for MSNBC, the website is not the same as the cable channel. The website is the main news site for NBC news not just MSNBC. They also publish Alterman on the left and Glenn Reynolds on the right.

If I had been a Kerry adviser (God forbid), I would have ensured that any wireless transmissions were either approved or disabled, forcefully if needed.

I am thinking of course of Bush's "wardrobe malfunction" where his personal tailor testified that the receiver sized box bulge between his shoulder blades was just a few random wrinkles (like seeing an image of Virgin Mary in the famous [now $25,000] grilled cheese sandwich).

His back was shown by a TV camera that had perhaps inadvertently been placed behind the stage in violation of Rove's Rules.

And it was known from earlier presidential interviews that ENG crews had heard a different voice say something on UHF seconds before the poor robot spoke.

I actually have a lot of sympathy for the poor guy. I think he will be very relieved when this is over.

There is a possibility of impeachment from the domestic spying without a warrant, but this is likely tempered by the prospect of seeing Dick Cheney as the replacement.

This may be a case where even Bush's detractors will support him to the hilt to avoid an even worse alternative.