“Moderated” by the Forgery Broadcast System

I absolutely could not believe Bob Shiefer tonight. Easily 3/4 of the questions he asked were taken almost word-for-word from GWT y PP’s campaign talking points! It’s as though Dan Rather’s shadow anchor at CBS “News” (Schiefer) dropped by the Kedwards campaign and asked for a list of questions to ask.

And yet… on roughly sixteen of twenty questions asked, I score President Bush a winner. Why (apart from the fact that by now I know sKerry is a liar and a poltroon)? Because skerry avoided actually addressing a majority of the questions directly and because the answers he gave (even the portions of answers that did address the questions) were

1.) Simply his pre-rehearsed stump speeches (“Thank you, Bob, for asking for that particular speech.”)
2.) Often “wrong on facts” (scare quotes used because “wrong on facts” is code for “lying”)
3.) Weird and creepy, or simply in exteremely poor taste (another reference to Cheney’s lesbian daughter, for example)

But, gee, folks, somebody needs to call a modern day Hercules to clean out the Augean stables at
555 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 ( CBS “News”).

Character is THE Issue

William J. Dyer charatibly cites the character issue, speaking about sKerry:

“I will certainly concede that the man talks a good game. But it’s almost all beautiful soap bubbles, and I’m not confident that I know what’s at his core. To the extent I think I know what’s at his core, I dislike and distrust it. He’s a conflicted, blurry man — the only consistent bright gleam I see in his eyes is one of personal ambition, and around the edges of even that brightness is condescension and arrogance. “

The whole thing is worth reading.

(Of course, I think Dyer is far too kind.)

Character is THE Issue

William J. Dyer charatibly cites the character issue, speaking about sKerry:

“I will certainly concede that the man talks a good game. But it’s almost all beautiful soap bubbles, and I’m not confident that I know what’s at his core. To the extent I think I know what’s at his core, I dislike and distrust it. He’s a conflicted, blurry man — the only consistent bright gleam I see in his eyes is one of personal ambition, and around the edges of even that brightness is condescension and arrogance. “

The whole thing is worth reading.

(Of course, I think Dyer is far too kind.)

Voting Guide

I recieved the following in a forwarded email. There was no author attributed, and the neither the sender nor the person who sent it to him had an author to ID for me. (That’s just the way email forwards often seem to work. 🙂 The only changes I made were corrections of spelling and simple typo errors. Oh, and I changed the inappropriate use of the word “gay” to “homosexual” in one instance. (I’ve met very, very, very few homosexuals who were happy, carefree people… hence, “gay” is scarcely a term that applies to them outside George Orwell’s 1984 doublethink model… )

The author is pretty clear about his political views, given the issues chosen and their presentation, but I have no problem with that. Were it my voter guide, I’d probably add a few… And, of course, while instructive, this doesn’t provide a clear guide to other races.

2004 Election Voter Guide

Depending on the way you lean, the following information
could have bearing on decisions you make November 2004.
Issues of Importance?

Homosexual Marriage
President Bush is opposed
John Kerry favors

Partial-Birth Abortion
President Bush is opposed
John Kerry favors

Allowing voluntary prayer in the public schools
President Bush Favors
John Kerry is Opposed

Assault on Mel Gibson for making film about Christ
President Bush supports Gibson
John Kerry participated in Left’s assault on Gibson suggesting possible
anti-Semitism, even though Kerry had not seen the film.

Assault on Boy Scouts for belief in God and not allowing Homosexual Scout
Leaders

President Bush supports Boy Scouts’ stand
John Kerry opposes boy Scouts’ stand

Asking for God’s blessing on America
President Bush often asks God to bless America in his speeches
John Kerry attacks Bush for mentioning God so often

Judges
President Bush says “We need common-sense judges who believe our rights are
derived from God.”
John Kerry insists on judges who support the ACLU’s radical anti-Christian,
anti-God, anti-family agenda. John Kerry is insistent on blocking President
Bush’s federal judge appointments.

Overall Record
President Bush does not vote on issues before Congress but, based on his
publicly stated positions, would receive an 85% conservative rating from
the American Conservative Union if he did.
John Kerry, according to the highly respected, politically-neutral
National Journal rates Kerry the most liberal U. S. Senator in 2003 — more
liberal than Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

Voting Guide

I recieved the following in a forwarded email. There was no author attributed, and the neither the sender nor the person who sent it to him had an author to ID for me. (That’s just the way email forwards often seem to work. 🙂 The only changes I made were corrections of spelling and simple typo errors. Oh, and I changed the inappropriate use of the word “gay” to “homosexual” in one instance. (I’ve met very, very, very few homosexuals who were happy, carefree people… hence, “gay” is scarcely a term that applies to them outside George Orwell’s 1984 doublethink model… )

The author is pretty clear about his political views, given the issues chosen and their presentation, but I have no problem with that. Were it my voter guide, I’d probably add a few… And, of course, while instructive, this doesn’t provide a clear guide to other races.

2004 Election Voter Guide

Depending on the way you lean, the following information
could have bearing on decisions you make November 2004.
Issues of Importance?

Homosexual Marriage
President Bush is opposed
John Kerry favors

Partial-Birth Abortion
President Bush is opposed
John Kerry favors

Allowing voluntary prayer in the public schools
President Bush Favors
John Kerry is Opposed

Assault on Mel Gibson for making film about Christ
President Bush supports Gibson
John Kerry participated in Left’s assault on Gibson suggesting possible
anti-Semitism, even though Kerry had not seen the film.

Assault on Boy Scouts for belief in God and not allowing Homosexual Scout
Leaders

President Bush supports Boy Scouts’ stand
John Kerry opposes boy Scouts’ stand

Asking for God’s blessing on America
President Bush often asks God to bless America in his speeches
John Kerry attacks Bush for mentioning God so often

Judges
President Bush says “We need common-sense judges who believe our rights are
derived from God.”
John Kerry insists on judges who support the ACLU’s radical anti-Christian,
anti-God, anti-family agenda. John Kerry is insistent on blocking President
Bush’s federal judge appointments.

Overall Record
President Bush does not vote on issues before Congress but, based on his
publicly stated positions, would receive an 85% conservative rating from
the American Conservative Union if he did.
John Kerry, according to the highly respected, politically-neutral
National Journal rates Kerry the most liberal U. S. Senator in 2003 — more
liberal than Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

Back to our regular programming…

The U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV

Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof…

The title of this post is linked to a site featuring excerpts of a real documentary (as opposed to the Micheal Moore mockumentaries “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11”), “Stolen Honor.”

Just a few clips from the movie and two things become clear:

1.) John F. Kerry is a disgustng bastard, and he ought to be tarred, feathered and run out of the country. At least. (I hope the petition with 150,000+ signatures newly delivered to Dick Cheney (in his capacity as President of the Senate) and Attorney General Ashcroft calling for Kerry’s removal from office at least gets a little email and blogosphere buzz. )
2.) A RCOB moment is in the offing…

Back to our regular programming…

The U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV

Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof…

The title of this post is linked to a site featuring excerpts of a real documentary (as opposed to the Micheal Moore mockumentaries “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11”), “Stolen Honor.”

Just a few clips from the movie and two things become clear:

1.) John F. Kerry is a disgustng bastard, and he ought to be tarred, feathered and run out of the country. At least. (I hope the petition with 150,000+ signatures newly delivered to Dick Cheney (in his capacity as President of the Senate) and Attorney General Ashcroft calling for Kerry’s removal from office at least gets a little email and blogosphere buzz. )
2.) A RCOB moment is in the offing…

The Wrong Question

A friend of mine sent me an email forward. I have no idea who composed it. It details a laundry list of “positions” taken and actions performed by Jean Fraud sKerry and asks the question, “Can Christians vote for Kerry?”

My answer…

Sure Christians can vote for Jean Fraud sKerry.
Christians can also get drunk, beat their wives, shoot random passers-by, and commit all other kinds of atrocities.

But that they can certainly does not make any of those things right or or even remotely Christian.

But then, some folks feel it’s better to live with a philosophy Paul rebuked in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? [to which some sing, “I was sinking deep in sin/Wheeeeee!”] Certainly not!”

Of course, there’s this article in the NYT (obnoxious, but relatively harmless registration required) where Mark Roche, a dean at Notre Dame, argues Catholics should vote for Jean Fraud sKerry. That pro life Catholics should vote for sKerry. Huh?!? Yeh, his reasoning is tortured past reason. Figures. he’s taking after his father, sKerry…

Seems like some really are still arguing with Paul about the “benefits” of abounding in sin…

The Wrong Question

A friend of mine sent me an email forward. I have no idea who composed it. It details a laundry list of “positions” taken and actions performed by Jean Fraud sKerry and asks the question, “Can Christians vote for Kerry?”

My answer…

Sure Christians can vote for Jean Fraud sKerry.
Christians can also get drunk, beat their wives, shoot random passers-by, and commit all other kinds of atrocities.

But that they can certainly does not make any of those things right or or even remotely Christian.

But then, some folks feel it’s better to live with a philosophy Paul rebuked in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? [to which some sing, “I was sinking deep in sin/Wheeeeee!”] Certainly not!”

Of course, there’s this article in the NYT (obnoxious, but relatively harmless registration required) where Mark Roche, a dean at Notre Dame, argues Catholics should vote for Jean Fraud sKerry. That pro life Catholics should vote for sKerry. Huh?!? Yeh, his reasoning is tortured past reason. Figures. he’s taking after his father, sKerry…

Seems like some really are still arguing with Paul about the “benefits” of abounding in sin…

Break Out the Tinfoil hats

Eugene Volokh has a pretty comprehensive deveolpment of what’s gone on so far with the Indymedia “server “seizure”:

“First, it is important to recognize that this is an Italian and Swiss investigation, not a U.S. investigation. U.S. officials are involved only because the U.S. is obligated to help the Italians and Swiss under international treaties known as Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties…

…U.S. officials still must comply with the First and Fourth Amendment, as well as other laws; they can only obtain the needed court order if doing so would be allowable under United States law for an equivalent domestic investigation. Given that teams of DOJ career lawyers screen and review MLAT requests before they are processed, the chances are quite high that this was all done correctly under United States law.”(1)

and

“Second, it remains unclear whether the FBI ordered the server owner to hand over its hardware, and it seems quite unlikely that the FBI ordered any websites shut down. This story suggests that the FBI obtained a subpoena requesting information on behalf of the Italian and Siwss authorities from Rackspace, a U.S.-based web-hosting service with a branch in the UK that has Indymedias as one of its clients…”(1)

Further develpments suggest nothing beyond a subpoena for relevant evidence in an investigation, and, anyway, one correspondent’s e-—noted at Volokh’s site—suggests that the the easiest way to provide information required by a subpoena would likely be to “…just shut down the boxes, pull them, and give them to the Feds… non-production servers could be re-assigned and automated restores queued.” Pull the hard drives, send ’em off, done with the Feds, back to business.

Law enforcement can and does subpoena information all the time. Heck, private parties do so in civil law suits. If the information is on a company’s servers and its integrity is best assured by surrendering the “documents” themselves, I see no First Amendment isssue. Happens all tyhe time, routinely, in a myriad of cases. So, this was apparently a first under the MLAT.

I’ve seen it said by an email correspondent, “…there are no first amendment implications in server seizures in Britain” where the seizures too place, but that is irrelevant. There would have been no First Amendment issues here, either, and in fact there were not: the company the information was subpoenaed from, Rackspace, a U.S.-based web-hosting service, did have the information on servers in the U.K. Again, so? If it had been a stack of hardcopy accounting records that was subpoenaed, that were stored in the U.K. they still would have had to produce them.

Where’s the beef? The Rackmount servers involved were surrendered in an investigation of Indymedia? Even real press (although there’s darned little of that left, it seems) must comply with duly issued subpoenas (or face consequences), and Indymedia skates the edge of legitimate jounalism anyway, never quite making it onto the legitimate side (well, perhaps a little closer to legit than Al-Jazeerah or the old Pravda… about on a par with CBS, i.e., no credibility with anyone who has two active brain cells. Hmmm… that about sums up moveon.org wackos, the DNC and those who plan on spending Christmas in Cambodia with sKerry… ).

[yawn]

So, Indymedia temporarily lost a little functionality and some tinfoil hats were exercised.

Another [yawn] …

Let’s see what shakes out before crying wolf. So far, it seems everything’s been done by the book, and if the book’s not to someone’s taste, there’s always the ballot box.

Or a tinfoil hat