Ok, I saw it yesterday (Friday) at a noon showing. I thought 1) No kids, theater will not be as loud and 2) Fewer people attending. WRONG! Still lots of people (it was ALMOST sold out) and I STILL had to put up with people talking. This "Star Wars" Geek sat beside me and made critical comments about the movie the whole time (as if anyone cared). "Anticlimatic", "The armor doesn't look right", etc...Shut the hell up, greek boy!
He fit the sterotype, too. Overweight, T-Shirt, needed a bath....the works. Really, I play boardgames, I like Sci-Fi....but I have common sense. Grow up, take a bath, get some "real" clothes (no sandles are NOT year round foot wear, not even here in the south) and get a girlfriend.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Star Wars Mania
I had two friends ask if I wanted to go see Star Wars today. I also more than 6 total strangers ask me if I was going. Give me a frickin break already! Yeah, I'll go see it...when I am good and ready! Life will not end if I do not see it tonight at midnight.
I hate crowded theaters, anyway. I'll go in a couple weeks, when the fanboys and nutballs have all seen it a dozen times. Hey! You in the Stormtrooper costume! Grow up, already! A Stormtrooper with a beerbelly is NOT high fashion....
I hate crowded theaters, anyway. I'll go in a couple weeks, when the fanboys and nutballs have all seen it a dozen times. Hey! You in the Stormtrooper costume! Grow up, already! A Stormtrooper with a beerbelly is NOT high fashion....
From Bill Maher...
New Rule: The people in America who are most in favor of the Iraq war must now go there and fight it. The Army missed its recruiting goal by 42% last month. More people joined the Michael Jackson Fan Club. "We've done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit." And now we need warm bodies. We need warm bodies like Paula Abdul needs...warm bodies.
... Now, I know you're thinking, `But Bill, I already do my part with the "Support Our Troops" magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give?' Well, here's an intriguing economic indicator. It's been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don't they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?
And that goes for everybody who helped sell this war. You've got to go first. ... Ann Coulter, darling, trust me, you will love the Army. You think you make up shit... But mostly, we have to send Mr. And Mrs. Britney Spears. Because Britney once said, "We should trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that and be faithful in what happens." Okay, somebody has to die for that. Or at least go. ... And think of the spiritual lift it will provide to troops and civilians alike when actual combat smacks the smirk off of Kevin Federline's face and fills his low-hanging trousers with dootie.
... Now, I know you're thinking, `But Bill, I already do my part with the "Support Our Troops" magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give?' Well, here's an intriguing economic indicator. It's been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don't they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?
And that goes for everybody who helped sell this war. You've got to go first. ... Ann Coulter, darling, trust me, you will love the Army. You think you make up shit... But mostly, we have to send Mr. And Mrs. Britney Spears. Because Britney once said, "We should trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that and be faithful in what happens." Okay, somebody has to die for that. Or at least go. ... And think of the spiritual lift it will provide to troops and civilians alike when actual combat smacks the smirk off of Kevin Federline's face and fills his low-hanging trousers with dootie.
Going Nuke in the Senate
From Think Progress:
This morning on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Majority Leader Bill Frist a simple question:
SEN. SCHUMER: Isn't it correct that on March 8, 2000, my colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez?
Here was Frist's response:
The president, the um, in response, uh, the Paez nomination - we'll come back and discuss this further. Actually I'd like to, and it really brings to what I believe - a point - and it really brings to, oddly, a point, what is the issue. The issue is we have leadership-led partisan filibusters that have, um, obstructed, not one nominee, but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, in a routine way.
So, Frist is arguing that one filibuster is OK. His problem is that several Bush nominees have been filibustered. This position completely undercuts Frist's argument that judicial filibusters are unconstitutional. (Which is, in turn, the justification for the nuclear option.) If judicial filibusters are unconstitutional there is no freebee. But Frist digs his hole even deeper:
The issue is not cloture votes per se, it's the partisan, leadership-led use of cloture votes to kill - to defeat - to assassinate these nominees. That's the difference. Cloture has been used in the past on this floor to postpone, to get more info, to ask further questions.
Based on Frist's own statements, the entire premise of the nuclear option falls apart. "The issue is not cloture votes per se..." is a pretty definitive acknowledgment by Frist that these cloture votes aren't "unconstitutional". The fact that Frist himself engaged in a previous filibuster attempt of a judicial nomination is also a pretty good indication that this situation is entirely within precedent -- hell, Frist's filibuster of Judge Richard Paez was a precedent.
Frist is now trying to split hairs by claiming that filibusters are constitutional or not based on the perceived intentions inside the heads of the senators involved. Well, this new "only when I disagree with the motive" argument is certainly a novel one. He's lying there too, though.
As Think Progress points out, the Paez nomination had been delayed four years when Frist voted to uphold his further filibuster. There weren't any outstanding questions on the table, it was purely to defeat the nomination, and Republicans openly stated that at the time.
Just in case you were wondering whether they actually believe their own talking points: Nope. They know full well they're lying. Everybody involved knows Frist is lying.
This morning on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Majority Leader Bill Frist a simple question:
SEN. SCHUMER: Isn't it correct that on March 8, 2000, my colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez?
Here was Frist's response:
The president, the um, in response, uh, the Paez nomination - we'll come back and discuss this further. Actually I'd like to, and it really brings to what I believe - a point - and it really brings to, oddly, a point, what is the issue. The issue is we have leadership-led partisan filibusters that have, um, obstructed, not one nominee, but two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, in a routine way.
So, Frist is arguing that one filibuster is OK. His problem is that several Bush nominees have been filibustered. This position completely undercuts Frist's argument that judicial filibusters are unconstitutional. (Which is, in turn, the justification for the nuclear option.) If judicial filibusters are unconstitutional there is no freebee. But Frist digs his hole even deeper:
The issue is not cloture votes per se, it's the partisan, leadership-led use of cloture votes to kill - to defeat - to assassinate these nominees. That's the difference. Cloture has been used in the past on this floor to postpone, to get more info, to ask further questions.
Based on Frist's own statements, the entire premise of the nuclear option falls apart. "The issue is not cloture votes per se..." is a pretty definitive acknowledgment by Frist that these cloture votes aren't "unconstitutional". The fact that Frist himself engaged in a previous filibuster attempt of a judicial nomination is also a pretty good indication that this situation is entirely within precedent -- hell, Frist's filibuster of Judge Richard Paez was a precedent.
Frist is now trying to split hairs by claiming that filibusters are constitutional or not based on the perceived intentions inside the heads of the senators involved. Well, this new "only when I disagree with the motive" argument is certainly a novel one. He's lying there too, though.
As Think Progress points out, the Paez nomination had been delayed four years when Frist voted to uphold his further filibuster. There weren't any outstanding questions on the table, it was purely to defeat the nomination, and Republicans openly stated that at the time.
Just in case you were wondering whether they actually believe their own talking points: Nope. They know full well they're lying. Everybody involved knows Frist is lying.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Face it, Bush LIED to us!
Bush asked to explain UK war memo
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002 -- well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.
The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.
British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been "irresponsible" not to prepare for the possibility.
The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6.
The letter, initiated by Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the memo "raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration. ...
"While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your administration," the letter said.
But, the letter said, when the document was leaked Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman called it "nothing new."
In addition to Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and others attended the meeting.
A British official identified as "C" said that he had returned from a meeting in Washington and that "military action was now seen as inevitable" by U.S. officials.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The memo further discussed the military options under consideration by the United States, along with Britain's possible role.
It quoted Hoon as saying the United States had not finalized a timeline, but that it would likely begin "30 days before the U.S. congressional elections," culminating with the actual attack in January 2003.
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the memo said.
"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The British officials determined to push for an ultimatum for Saddam to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq to "help with the legal justification for the use of force ... despite U.S. resistance."
Britain's attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, advised the group that "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action" and two of three possible legal bases -- self-defense and humanitarian intervention -- could not be used.
The third was a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Goldsmith said "would be difficult."
Blair thought that "it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."
"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," the memo said.
Later, the memo said, Blair would work to convince Bush that they should pursue the ultimatum with Saddam even though "many in the U.S. did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002 -- well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.
The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.
British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been "irresponsible" not to prepare for the possibility.
The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6.
The letter, initiated by Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the memo "raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration. ...
"While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your administration," the letter said.
But, the letter said, when the document was leaked Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman called it "nothing new."
In addition to Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and others attended the meeting.
A British official identified as "C" said that he had returned from a meeting in Washington and that "military action was now seen as inevitable" by U.S. officials.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
The memo further discussed the military options under consideration by the United States, along with Britain's possible role.
It quoted Hoon as saying the United States had not finalized a timeline, but that it would likely begin "30 days before the U.S. congressional elections," culminating with the actual attack in January 2003.
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the memo said.
"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
The British officials determined to push for an ultimatum for Saddam to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq to "help with the legal justification for the use of force ... despite U.S. resistance."
Britain's attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, advised the group that "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action" and two of three possible legal bases -- self-defense and humanitarian intervention -- could not be used.
The third was a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Goldsmith said "would be difficult."
Blair thought that "it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."
"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," the memo said.
Later, the memo said, Blair would work to convince Bush that they should pursue the ultimatum with Saddam even though "many in the U.S. did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route."
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Do Liberals like the cold?
Ya know, is it me or does it seem like all the Liberal cities are in areas of the country that you wouldn't want to live? Boston- too damn cold in the winter. Seattle- Too damn much rain. Chicago- Wind & Cold. We need a nice WARM liberal city with just enough rain and NO earthquakes. Alright folks, get to work on that. Will you?
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