Hold me closer tiny wanker

post from Firedoglake on 07 June 2010 04:30:22 AM. © Firedoglake

Let's say we're winning again, like we do every Summer.[...]

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Following Limbaugh's Lead, Fox News Watch Panel
Questions Whether David Brooks is Actually a Conservative.

post from The Osterley Times on 07 June 2010 04:01:24 AM. © The Osterley Times

There is a bizarre notion circulating in conservative circles which claims that David Brooks is not really a conservative.

This is how narrow the conservative base is becoming in the light of the Tea Party movement. If you do not share their narrowly defined ideals, then you cease to be a conservative.

Consider the narrow point that conservative criticism of President Obama is unusually and often bafflingly, even embarrassingly facile. There are plenty of conservatives who recognize this. I can name six: Ross Douthat. Matt Lewis. David Frum. David Brooks. Conor Friedersdorf. Liz Mair. There are many more. But they have no incentive to police their own side. The moment they speak out, they're branded as apostates, and the conservative movement narrows even further. An impoverished opposition is bad for democracy. I subscribe to the Brendan Nyhan/Robert Frank notion that social shaming may well be a valid way for fact-checkers to convince more than a handful of people that the other side is simply wrong. Frum has done a serviceable job in calling out his fellow conservatives, but he does not possess the power or the infrastructure to shame people who cross a line. As Nyhan proposes, when someone like Frank Gaffney, who still gets invited to major events by reputable people, implies that President Obama a Muslim, he should be shamed into hiding by his fellow conservatives. (Shaming by liberals, or mere corrections, won't work, and will often promote the myth).

We saw all of this during the Bush years, where failure to back Bush no matter what he did meant that one became suspect.

What it takes to make someone a "conservative" in Bozell's eyes is the same as what is required in the eyes of all Bush followers -- a willingness to support Bush's actions because they are the actions of George Bush.

We see the same thing happening to hard-core conservative Bob Barr due to his criticism of Bush's violations of FISA . Similarly, the minute a Senator with years of conservatism behind them deviates from a Bush decree on a single issue, they are no longer "conservative." George Voinovich became a "liberal" the minute he refused to support John Bolton?s nomination; John Sununu is now "liberal" because he did not favor immediate renewal of every single provision of the Patriot Act which Bush demanded, and Senators like Chuck Hagel and John McCain long ago gave up any "conservative" status because of their insistence on forming opinions that occasionally deviate from the decrees from the White House.

People who self-identify as "conservatives" and have always been considered to be conservatives become liberal heathens the moment they dissent, even on the most non-ideological grounds, from a Bush decree. That?s because "conservatism" is now a term used to describe personal loyalty to the leader (just as "liberal" is used to describe disloyalty to that leader), and no longer refers to a set of beliefs about government.

This is where the right and the left differ. Anyone who reads here will know that I support Obama, but I find many areas where we disagree on policy or where I find him going far short of where I would like him to go.

On the right conservatism during the Bush years became a cult, tied to the notion that the leader was always right and that "real" conservatives must always back him.

The party now appears to be applying that same litmus test to the Tea Party movement and decrying anyone who doesn't agree with that movement's philosophy as no longer being a "real" conservative.

It's a further example of how bonkers these people are becoming.

Tags: Tea Party movement, David Brooks, Republicans

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Union Carbide Bhopal verdict due this week

post from AMERICAblog News on 07 June 2010 04:00:42 AM. © AMERICAblog News

This case has some similarities to the Exxon Valdez case. Exxon has paid some but not all of the money ordered by courts as they are apparently above the law. In the case of Union Carbide, they previously paid fines that were ordered by the government though they the criminal case has taken longer. Justice appears to work at a different pace for corporations compared to individuals.

A court in the Indian city of Bhopal is due to rule on whether a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people more than 25 years ago was a criminal act.

The leak at the Union Carbide plant was worst industrial disaster in history.

Forty tonnes of a toxin called methyl isocyanate leaked from the factory and settled over slums on 3 December 1984.

Campaigners say at least 15,000 people were killed within days, and say the horrific effects of the gas continue to this day.

The site of the former pesticide plant is now abandoned.

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Israel rejects multinational inquiry into
flotilla attack.

post from The Osterley Times on 07 June 2010 03:01:13 AM. © The Osterley Times

One would think that, after the worldwide condemnation brought about by their attack on the Gaza flotilla, that the Israelis would be very keen to clear their name.

But we now find that the Israelis - whilst releasing highly edited footage of what transpired on-board the Mavi Marmara and sticking closely to their script which makes their soldiers out to be the victims, despite the fact that all the dead are on the other side - are now refusing to take part in an international inquiry into what exactly took place.

Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, today dismissed a UN proposal for an international commission to investigate last week's assault on a flotilla of aid ships.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was more explicit: "We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place," he said.

I find it hard to accept that Israel can have nothing to hide whilst simultaneously refusing to take part in any international inquiry. If these "Turkish terrorists" behaved as badly as the Israelis claimed, surely Israel would be keen to exonerate herself publicly at a time when she is facing great international criticism? Why this sudden reticence?

And, after the attack on the flotilla, there is now growing pressure from the international community, including the US, for Israel to ease the blockade of Gaza, with David Miliband going as far as to call it "a stain on policy right across the Middle East".

"I think there have been a series of deadly and self-defeating actions by successive Israeli governments in respect of Gaza," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

The UK today announced a £19m donation of aid to Gaza.

But we all know that the current Israeli administration is made up of dangerous right wing loons, so there's hardly surprise when people like Lieberman come out with this kind of nonsense.

Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, today insisted that "it is inconceivable that we should apologise to the Turkish government". He hinted that Turkey was heading in the same direction as Iran, saying Iran had been a "good friend" to Israel in the 1970s.

This was echoed by his deputy, Danny Ayalon, who said: "If they sever relations, it is clear they are switching sides in the direction of extremist Islam."

If Turkey objects to the Israelis shooting some of their citizens through the head at point blank range, then it is is obvious that Turkey favours "extremist Islam".

I suspect that I am not alone in finding this logic tiresome.

Dockworker unions in Sweden and South Africa have refused to handle Israeli ships, while the UK's Unite union passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies.

This right wing Likud administration are doing irreparable harm to Israel's reputation, and are now causing unions throughout the world to refuse to handle Israeli goods.

Ha'aretz today sums the situation up in an editorial:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his usual manner, rushed to raise the specter of the Iranian threat along with the adage that "the whole world is against us." Instead of locating the source of the fire scorching the diplomatic relations we built up with such effort, Netanyahu is following in the footsteps of his ostracized foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, accusing the world of hypocritical treatment of Israel.
In an effort to evade responsibility for the crisis and escape his obligation to fundamentally change his policy, the prime minister is distorting the nature of the criticism against his government and has plied it as hatred of the Jews.

Netanyahu and Lieberman are imposing a siege on a Jewish and democratic state that has professed to be a light unto the nations, but is becoming anathema among nations.

Netanyahu and Lieberman are leading Israel off of a cliff. Their "never apologise" philosophy, and their crude attempt to portray anyone who disagrees with them as either "terrorist sympathisers" or anti-Semites is simply objectionable.

No-one, other than their most fervent supporters, is taking anything they say seriously any more.

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David Cameron: cuts 'will change British life'.

post from The Osterley Times on 07 June 2010 03:01:13 AM. © The Osterley Times

David Cameron will promise to make cuts so savage that they will affect Britain's entire way of life.

In his most gloomy remarks since taking office, the prime minister will declare that Britain's public finances are worse than expected and are forcing him to take "momentous decisions".

Cameron will say: "How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society ? indeed our whole way of life. The decisions we make will effect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades to come."

This is why, as a Labour party supporter, I was not devastated or even unhappy when we lost the last election.

The Tories, as we learned throughout the Thatcher years, simply love slashing public spending, which they don't really believe in anyway.

The deficit was caused by the bankers greed, and the Tories are on the side of the bankers, so let the Tories suffer the public anger which will, rightly, come as they try to sort out this horrible mess.

Let them knock themselves out with it.

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Tags: David Cameron, Tories, economy, UK politics

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Confederate-Style Christianity

post from Jesus' General on 07 June 2010 03:00:06 AM. © Jesus' General

Sen. Jake Knotts
Grand Dragon, South Carolina Senate

Dear Sen. Knotts,

Your apology to gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley left me very disappointed. Although your excuse was good--you were in a pub (and presumably drunk) when you called her a "fucking raghead"--you shouldn't have used such filthy language to begin with.

I mean, hey, you're a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. That's not how the SCV handles that kind of thing. You know what I mean. Haley's parents are Sikhs. They're originally from India, a swarthy nation. She's just not as white as she could be. At best, she's an honorary American, not a real American like you or me or Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

That's what you were really getting at, wasn't it?

Instead of calling her a "fucking raghead," you should have responded in the traditional manner of a true son of the confederacy. You should have shown her the beauty of confederate-style Christianity by erecting The Flaming Cross of Our Lord Jesus in her front yard.

That'd get the same point across without the nasty profanity.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

p.s. I did not know you were the guy who coined "If you do the crime, be prepared to do the time!" but it says so on your Senate web site. What I don't understand is how you got people to use it years before you said it.

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Late Night Karaoke

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 07 June 2010 03:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

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The Euro Sees 9-Year Low Vs. The Yen

The Euro Sees 9-Year Low Vs. The YenFollowing the U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls publication on Friday, the Dollar and the Yen resumed their bullish trend. As a result, the Euro saw a 9-year low against the Yen, as the EUR/JPY pair dropped to the 108.06 level. This week's trading will continue to be influenced by the European debt crisis that doesn't provide signals of recovery. Can the Euro drop further?Economic NewsUSD – Positive Employment Data Strengthens the DollarThe Dollar rallied vs. most of the major currencies during last week's trading session. The Dollar continues to soar vs. the Euro, and the EUR/USD pair has dropped below the 1.900 level. The Dollar strengthened against the Yen and the Pound as well.The most significant data that was…

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US Payrolls data continue to lead market decline

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USDJPY 0.50 CHF -0.08 GBP -0.15 EUR -0.28The USDJPY weakened for a second day to 91.15 as JPY gained versus all 16 of its most-traded counterparts as Asian stocks extended a global slump today and US equities fell to a four-month low after payrolls rose less than forecast by 431,000 (exp. 536,000) on Friday. The US government hired 411,000 temporary workers for the 2010 census, accounting for the bulk of the gain in employment and…Read More …

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