Politics
Politics.
Harry Reid accepted boxing tickets! OH NO!
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36913/
While he was advocating legislation to undermine the authority of those who gave them to him.
Six months after accepting some free tickets in September of 2004, Reid voted to pass the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2005. Reid also cosponsored the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2003 which also was intended to foster greater federal control over the sport. Both measures went strongly against what the people who had allegedly influenced Reid wanted.
Leave it to a rube from tiny Searchlight, Nevada to not understand that when you take a bribe, you're not suppose to work against what your patron wants.
Meanwhile, look for the RNC to try to make this the same as the acts committed by their Rogues Gallery, which includes imprisoned GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was convicted after admitting to taking $2.4 million in bribes, a luxury yacht and a Rolls-Royce in return for political favors.
And let's not forget that the man they're trying to smear is the same Harry Reid who faced death threats while Nevada state gaming commissioner -- Reid's wife once found a bomb attached to one of their cars -- in an effort to rid his state's gaming industry of organized-crime influence.
The AP leaves out a crucial line, on edit.
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/36916/
http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300007
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/05/29/ap2779139.html
The original AP story's second paragraph read:Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada's agency feared might usurp its authority.
While the edited one excluded the last bit:The Nevada senator took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission.
See the difference?
Heh. It's obvious that he wasn't influenced by much, at least on that issue.
Extremism shredding the Constitution, & true patriotism.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/36875/
A constitutional lawyer who lived and worked in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Greenwald speaks for many in the preface of his new book "How Would A Patriot Act?" Like many Americans, Greenwald felt like the Constitution prevented any serious abuses of power from either party and that since both parties had their share of extremists, "I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process."
Over the past five years, "all that has changed." Greenwald sees extremism shredding the Constitution, which once served to keep him from becoming politically engaged.
"This extremism is neither conservative or liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of presidential power wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding," Greenwald writes.
How would a patriot act?
A true patriot believes that the Constitution should govern this country's behavior and laws. A true patriot believes in his country, not necessarily his government.
A nation of clowns.
http://www.alternet.org/story/36887/
There, in 120-point bold headline type, above the fold, the lead story of the day, was the "news" that: In less than 24 hours, singer Taylor Hicks would battle singer Katharine McPhee for the title of American Idol!
Clowns. We have indeed become a nation of frivolous, self-indulgent, overweight, undereducated, unserious, clowns. When an event of such monumental unimportance wins precious front-page status, what other conclusion can be reached?
...
...unless the losing singer on "American Idol" pulls a gun and opens fire after hearing the verdict, everything else about that show belongs in the entertainment section and NOT on my front page. The same rules apply to everyone and anyone whose only claim to fame is that they sing, dance, submerge themselves in a Plexiglas globe, eat the most hot dogs in the shortest time or own a cute dog that fetches beer on command.
None of that is news. Not one word, factoid or photo-op of it is news.
It's not as if there was not real news the day "American Idol" found its way onto my front page. During that same news cycle almost anything that happened in Iraq was more important, as were the doings that day on Capitol Hill, at the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department or in Iran. On the day my paper put "American Idol" above the fold on the front page, the editors could have thrown a dart at that list of the above newsmakers and found a story more worthy of the front page.
...
Media companies feel they have to lure us in by blending news and entertainment into a single tasty, calorie-filled but nutrition-free product. Once hell-raisers, they are becomng clownmakers.
Aren't you embarrassed? Well damn it, you oughta be.
Clowns. Bread and circuses.
The debt-for-diploma game, or why Johnny can't go to college.
http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/36344/
Soaring tuition costs combined with cuts to financial aid have forced students into massive debt and priced many smart kids out of four-year colleges altogether. Every year, 410,000 college-qualified students -- just like Renee -- from households with incomes less than $50,000 enroll in community college instead of going to a four-year college. Another 168,000 college-qualified students don't enroll in college at all. These students took the SATs, had good grades, and were college-ready. They just didn't have the money. And they weren't willing to play the debt-for-diploma game.
...
To illustrate how nonexistent student loan debt was for previous generations, I conducted a simple Nexis search. When I typed in the words "student loan debt" for the years 1971 to 1980, the search yielded no articles; not a single article on this subject appeared in any newspaper or magazine in the entire country. The next decade brought…only sixty-seven [articles] about student loan debt….
Continuing the Nexis query, I searched "student loan debt" for the decade 1991 to 2000. The search was interrupted because it would yield more than 1,000 articles. The debt-for-diploma system had arrived.
The debt-for-diploma system is a pernicious beast. It stunts young adults' economic progress as they try to start their lives, draining precious dollars out of their paychecks for more than a decade. The evils of the debt-for-diploma system aren't restricted to those who take out student loans. Anytime a bright but lower-income student settles for a two-year institution or forgoes college altogether, the debt-for-diploma system has claimed another victim.
What happened? I guess I'll have to find the book (http://alternet.bookswelike.net/isbn/0385515057) and read it. (read the reviews on that books site, though...)
Forget gas prices and the war.
GAY MARRIAGE AND FLAG BURNING are REAL IMPORTANT, DAMMIT!
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36856/
War? Gas prices? Inflation? Millions of Americans without healthcare? Pshaw. What we really need to be worrying about is banning gay marriage and flag burning. Now, I know what you're thinking--this is just more disingenuous, cynical rhetoric from the GOP, but Senator Bill Frist assures us, it's not. Oh--and...activist judges!!!
When you look at that flag and you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it's okay to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it, is that important to our values as a people when we've got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important. It may not be important here in Washington where people say, well, it's political posturing and all, but it's important to the heart and soul of the American people. Marriage -- marriage, you asked about. Right now. Why marriage today? Marriage is for our society that union between a man and a woman, is the cornerstone of our society. It is under attack today. Right now there are 13 states who passed constitutional amendments in the last year and a half to protect marriage. Why? Because in nine states today, activist judges, unelected activist judges are tearing down state laws in nine states today.
I don't know about you, but he's certainly convinced me. Here I've been thinking with my brain all this time, when, really, I should have been listening to my heart and my soul, both of which are screaming out, "I want to join Cuba, China, and Iran--models of democracy one and all!--as the only other country to ban flag desecration!" And when they're not busy lamenting our damnable freedom, my heart and soul are definitely puking at the thought of boys kissing. I mean, at the feeling of boys kissing. My heart and soul don't think, of course! Silly.
An interesting comparison - to Cuba, China, and Iran. Case closed, as far as I'm concerned.
NSA denies FOIA request
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/36825/
http://www.shaftek.org/blog/archives/000391.html
We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter in accordance with Executive Order 12958, as amended. Thus, your request is denied pursuant to the first exemption of the FOIA, which provides that the FOIA does not apply to matters that are specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign relations and are properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order.
Moreover, the third exemption of the FOIA provides for the withholding of information specifically protected from disclosure by statute. Thus, your request is also denied because the fact of the existence or non-existence of the information is exempted from disclosure pursuant to the third exemption. The specific statutes applicable in this case are Title 18 U.S. Code 798; Title 50 U.S. Code 403-1(i); and Section 6, Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S. Code 402 note).
Hmm. Doesn't sound promising. Sounds a lot like Cuba. China. USSR. And so forth.
Harry Reid accepted boxing tickets! OH NO!
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36913/
While he was advocating legislation to undermine the authority of those who gave them to him.
Six months after accepting some free tickets in September of 2004, Reid voted to pass the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2005. Reid also cosponsored the Professional Boxing Amendments Act of 2003 which also was intended to foster greater federal control over the sport. Both measures went strongly against what the people who had allegedly influenced Reid wanted.
Leave it to a rube from tiny Searchlight, Nevada to not understand that when you take a bribe, you're not suppose to work against what your patron wants.
Meanwhile, look for the RNC to try to make this the same as the acts committed by their Rogues Gallery, which includes imprisoned GOP Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who was convicted after admitting to taking $2.4 million in bribes, a luxury yacht and a Rolls-Royce in return for political favors.
And let's not forget that the man they're trying to smear is the same Harry Reid who faced death threats while Nevada state gaming commissioner -- Reid's wife once found a bomb attached to one of their cars -- in an effort to rid his state's gaming industry of organized-crime influence.
The AP leaves out a crucial line, on edit.
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/36916/
http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300007
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/05/29/ap2779139.html
The original AP story's second paragraph read:Reid, D-Nev., took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 as he was pressing legislation to increase government oversight of the sport, including the creation of a federal boxing commission that Nevada's agency feared might usurp its authority.
While the edited one excluded the last bit:The Nevada senator took the free seats for Las Vegas fights between 2003 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission as he pressed legislation to increase federal oversight of boxing, including the creation of a government commission.
See the difference?
Heh. It's obvious that he wasn't influenced by much, at least on that issue.
Extremism shredding the Constitution, & true patriotism.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/36875/
A constitutional lawyer who lived and worked in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Greenwald speaks for many in the preface of his new book "How Would A Patriot Act?" Like many Americans, Greenwald felt like the Constitution prevented any serious abuses of power from either party and that since both parties had their share of extremists, "I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process."
Over the past five years, "all that has changed." Greenwald sees extremism shredding the Constitution, which once served to keep him from becoming politically engaged.
"This extremism is neither conservative or liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of presidential power wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding," Greenwald writes.
How would a patriot act?
A true patriot believes that the Constitution should govern this country's behavior and laws. A true patriot believes in his country, not necessarily his government.
A nation of clowns.
http://www.alternet.org/story/36887/
There, in 120-point bold headline type, above the fold, the lead story of the day, was the "news" that: In less than 24 hours, singer Taylor Hicks would battle singer Katharine McPhee for the title of American Idol!
Clowns. We have indeed become a nation of frivolous, self-indulgent, overweight, undereducated, unserious, clowns. When an event of such monumental unimportance wins precious front-page status, what other conclusion can be reached?
...
...unless the losing singer on "American Idol" pulls a gun and opens fire after hearing the verdict, everything else about that show belongs in the entertainment section and NOT on my front page. The same rules apply to everyone and anyone whose only claim to fame is that they sing, dance, submerge themselves in a Plexiglas globe, eat the most hot dogs in the shortest time or own a cute dog that fetches beer on command.
None of that is news. Not one word, factoid or photo-op of it is news.
It's not as if there was not real news the day "American Idol" found its way onto my front page. During that same news cycle almost anything that happened in Iraq was more important, as were the doings that day on Capitol Hill, at the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department or in Iran. On the day my paper put "American Idol" above the fold on the front page, the editors could have thrown a dart at that list of the above newsmakers and found a story more worthy of the front page.
...
Media companies feel they have to lure us in by blending news and entertainment into a single tasty, calorie-filled but nutrition-free product. Once hell-raisers, they are becomng clownmakers.
Aren't you embarrassed? Well damn it, you oughta be.
Clowns. Bread and circuses.
The debt-for-diploma game, or why Johnny can't go to college.
http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/36344/
Soaring tuition costs combined with cuts to financial aid have forced students into massive debt and priced many smart kids out of four-year colleges altogether. Every year, 410,000 college-qualified students -- just like Renee -- from households with incomes less than $50,000 enroll in community college instead of going to a four-year college. Another 168,000 college-qualified students don't enroll in college at all. These students took the SATs, had good grades, and were college-ready. They just didn't have the money. And they weren't willing to play the debt-for-diploma game.
...
To illustrate how nonexistent student loan debt was for previous generations, I conducted a simple Nexis search. When I typed in the words "student loan debt" for the years 1971 to 1980, the search yielded no articles; not a single article on this subject appeared in any newspaper or magazine in the entire country. The next decade brought…only sixty-seven [articles] about student loan debt….
Continuing the Nexis query, I searched "student loan debt" for the decade 1991 to 2000. The search was interrupted because it would yield more than 1,000 articles. The debt-for-diploma system had arrived.
The debt-for-diploma system is a pernicious beast. It stunts young adults' economic progress as they try to start their lives, draining precious dollars out of their paychecks for more than a decade. The evils of the debt-for-diploma system aren't restricted to those who take out student loans. Anytime a bright but lower-income student settles for a two-year institution or forgoes college altogether, the debt-for-diploma system has claimed another victim.
What happened? I guess I'll have to find the book (http://alternet.bookswelike.net/isbn/0385515057) and read it. (read the reviews on that books site, though...)
Forget gas prices and the war.
GAY MARRIAGE AND FLAG BURNING are REAL IMPORTANT, DAMMIT!
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36856/
War? Gas prices? Inflation? Millions of Americans without healthcare? Pshaw. What we really need to be worrying about is banning gay marriage and flag burning. Now, I know what you're thinking--this is just more disingenuous, cynical rhetoric from the GOP, but Senator Bill Frist assures us, it's not. Oh--and...activist judges!!!
When you look at that flag and you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it's okay to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it, is that important to our values as a people when we've got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important. It may not be important here in Washington where people say, well, it's political posturing and all, but it's important to the heart and soul of the American people. Marriage -- marriage, you asked about. Right now. Why marriage today? Marriage is for our society that union between a man and a woman, is the cornerstone of our society. It is under attack today. Right now there are 13 states who passed constitutional amendments in the last year and a half to protect marriage. Why? Because in nine states today, activist judges, unelected activist judges are tearing down state laws in nine states today.
I don't know about you, but he's certainly convinced me. Here I've been thinking with my brain all this time, when, really, I should have been listening to my heart and my soul, both of which are screaming out, "I want to join Cuba, China, and Iran--models of democracy one and all!--as the only other country to ban flag desecration!" And when they're not busy lamenting our damnable freedom, my heart and soul are definitely puking at the thought of boys kissing. I mean, at the feeling of boys kissing. My heart and soul don't think, of course! Silly.
An interesting comparison - to Cuba, China, and Iran. Case closed, as far as I'm concerned.
NSA denies FOIA request
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/36825/
http://www.shaftek.org/blog/archives/000391.html
We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter in accordance with Executive Order 12958, as amended. Thus, your request is denied pursuant to the first exemption of the FOIA, which provides that the FOIA does not apply to matters that are specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive Order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign relations and are properly classified pursuant to such Executive Order.
Moreover, the third exemption of the FOIA provides for the withholding of information specifically protected from disclosure by statute. Thus, your request is also denied because the fact of the existence or non-existence of the information is exempted from disclosure pursuant to the third exemption. The specific statutes applicable in this case are Title 18 U.S. Code 798; Title 50 U.S. Code 403-1(i); and Section 6, Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S. Code 402 note).
Hmm. Doesn't sound promising. Sounds a lot like Cuba. China. USSR. And so forth.