Later in the Day...

I was driving down Stratford Road and caught eye of this rainbow. It was a wild afternoon, weather wise, but it was worth it to see this.

Hanging out in Winston

I was hanging out around downtown Winston the other day and took this photo of Trade street. Just a quiet, pretty day and I was doing alot of nothing.

Hey! It's Nina Hagen!

Yeah, I'm silly. So sue me.

Trying this out

Ok, so i went and bought a laptop and I've got 7 days to decided weither or not I am going to keep it or get my money back. It's an older used Compaq, but it's doing the job. It took me an hour to figure out how to turn on the damn WiFi on it because it is so old.
For those into tech- it's a Compaq Presario 3000. 512 ram, Pentium4-m, running Windows XP Pro. I didn't want to blow alot of money on a laptop, so I thought I'd look around for a used one. It did come with Office 2000, but it doesn't have any discs with it (either for Office or Windows XP).
Still, how much do I really need a laptop?

Newsweek Covers

This is just sad. So far, no reason for this has been given by Newsweek. Are Americans just too lazy or uninterested in reading about what is going on around them? Are they more interested in a fluff piece, so sticking that on the cover will sell more?

Clinton on Fox Sunday Pt.1

Clinton on Fox Sunday PT. 2

Video of Bill Clinton on Fox "News"

Here is the link for video from his appearance this morning. He laid the verbal Smackdown on Fox, Chris Wallace and Right Wing NeoCons. Check it out!

http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Media

Clinton on Fox "News"

Today, President Bill Clinton taped an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, which is scheduled to be aired Sunday. He was told the interview would focus on his nonpartisan efforts to raise over $7 billion to combat the world’s biggest problems.

Early in the interview, Wallace attempted to smear Clinton with the same kind of misinformation contained in ABC’s Path to 9/11. Clinton was having none of it.

ThinkProgress has obtained a transcript of the interview. Here are some highlights –

Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said “I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops.” Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.

CLINTON: OK..

WALLACE: …may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20/20.

CLINTON: No let’s talk about…

WALLACE: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

Clinton takes on Fox News bias:

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right…

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t…I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…

WALLACE: We asked…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth.

WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…

WALLACE: [laughs]

CLINTON: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

Clinton on his priorities and the Bush administration priorities:

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever…

WALLACE: [Laughs]

CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

Thanks to ThinkProgress for the trans script. They have the whole thing here- http://thinkprogress.org/clinton-interview

Bill Clinton on the Daily Show

Plus! Clinton endures "The Seat of Heat"!

The Word

Yep, Polls show that people are as dissatisfied with Congress now as when Republicans took the House. Only 25% believe that Congress is doing a good job. I can't wait for November!

Green Screen Challenge

Whoever did this, did a great job. They are VERY talented.

Gore's 2008 Plans

Although saying he has no plans to run for president in 2008, former vice president Al Gore has nonetheless left the door ever so slightly ajar. It's a good bet that door will swing open a good bit wider come next May.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600877.html

The full article is at the Washington Post .com and I have linked to it above. Let's hope Gore does run. He won once, he can do it again

Countdown w/ Olbermann

Unacceptable?

The Geneva Convention

Many thanks to Olberman and the guys & gals at Countdown.

New Rules for 9/16/2006

Best War Ever!

Just a quick post as I am off to work!

One for my Friend Dave.....

Just funnin' ya...

Ask a Ninja #27

They are on a roll.....

Bush Assassination Movie

Bush assassination movie gets U.S. deal

TORONTO, Ontario (Reuters) -- After you kill off President George W. Bush in a fictional film, what do you do? How about make a deal.

Gabriel Range, the British producer/director/creator of "Death of a President," the fictional documentary that sight unseen became one of the most talked-about movies of the Toronto Film Festival, has sold U.S. distribution rights to Newmarket Films, which handled Mel Gibson's equally provocative movie "The Passion of the Christ."

Newmarket, which reportedly paid $1 million for the film, is expected to give "President" a wide release within the next few months. It will air on Britain's Channel 4 next month.

Range's film opened on Sunday night to a sell-out festival crowd, which sat respectfully through it and applauded briefly at the end. Those who remained after the screening peppered the filmmaker with questions on how he achieved his special effects.

The film is shot as if it were a conventional television documentary, even though the events are fictional.

Range, who also co-wrote the film, uses footage taken of Bush during three visits to Chicago to create the scenes that lead up to the president being shot.

He also uses special digital effects to superimpose the head of the president on that of an actor pretending to be shot, and he creates a flowery eulogy delivered by President Dick Cheney at the funeral of his predecessor.

The movie opens with demonstrations against Bush as he visits Chicago in 2007. As he leaves a hotel after delivering a speech, he is shot by a sniper in a nearby building.

A police hunt leads to the arrest of a Palestinian man on flimsy evidence. Later the man is convicted of the assassination and kept in prison even as evidence points to another person as having committed the crime.

"The reaction of the general public was very good," Range said in an interview with Reuters about the opening night response.

"People didn't know what to expect. Our film has a very striking premise but it is not sensational or gratuitous. I hope people will see it as a balanced film and compelling drama. It is an oblique look at the ways the United States has changed since 9/11. We use the lens of the future to explain the past."

The 93-minute film's subject matter has led to protests in the United States, especially from conservatives. Range said he has received five or six death threats.

But he said that was because there was a rush to judgment about his film, without people knowing what was in it. "We portrayed the horror of assassination. I don't think anyone would get the idea of assassinating Bush from this film," Range said.

Wish I had said this....

Mocking Bush is my patriotic duty

A comedian explains how cruel jokes about the president can stop terrorism.

By Bill Maher

Sept. 8, 2006 | New rule: Bad presidents happen to good people. Amid all the 9/11 anniversary talk about what will keep us safe, let me suggest that in a world turned hostile to America, the smartest message we can send to those beyond our shores is, "We're not with stupid." Therefore, I contend -- with all seriousness -- that ridiculing this president is now the most patriotic thing you can do. Let our allies and our enemies alike know that there's a whole swath of Americans desperate to distance themselves from Bush's foreign policies. And that's just Republicans running for reelection.

Now, of course, you're gonna say, "But Bill, ridiculing Bush is like shooting fish in a barrel," or, as Dick Cheney calls it, "hunting." Maybe, but right now it's important, because America is an easily misunderstood country these days -- a lot of the time it's hard to make out what we're saying over the bombs we're dropping.

But we are not all people who think putting a boot in your ass is the way to solve problems, because even allowing that my foot lodged in your ass would feel good, which I don't -- what then? OK, my boot is in your ass, but I can't get it out, so I'm not happy, and it's in you, so you're not happy -- there's no exit strategy.

Anyone who opposes the indefinite occupation of Iraq shouldn't be labeled an al-Qaida supporter. That's like saying that if I tell my exterminator that there are more efficient ways to rid the house of vermin than hitting them with a hammer, I'm "for the rats."

Questioning whether it still makes sense to keep troops under fire is supporting the troops. Asking for a plan supports the troops; asking when they'll be leaving supports the troops. Sitting around parsing the definition of "civil war" doesn't support the troops, it supports the president, and he's not a soldier, he just plays one on TV.

So yes, for the sake of homeland security, I ridicule the president -- but it gives me no pleasure to paint him as a dolt, a rube, a yokel on the world stage, a submental, three bricks shy of a load, a Gilligan unable to find his own ass with two hands. Or, as Sean Hannity calls it, "Reaganesque."

No, it pains me to say these things, because I know deep down George Bush has something extra -- a chromosome. Cruel? Perhaps, but it may just have saved lives. By doing the extra chromosome joke, I sent a message to a young Muslim man somewhere in the world who's on a slow burn about this country, and perhaps got him to think, "Maybe the people of America aren't so bad. Maybe it's just the rodeo clown who leads them. Maybe the people 'get it.'" We do, Achmed, we do!

And that's why making fun of the president keeps this country safe. The proof? I've been doing it nonstop for years, and there hasn't been another attack. Maybe the reason they haven't attacked us again is they figured we're already suffering enough.

If I could explain one thing about George W. Bush to the rest of the world it's this: We don't know what the hell he's saying either! Trust me, foreigners, there's nothing lost in translation, it's just as incoherent in the original English. Yes, we voted for him -- twice -- but that's because we're stupid, not because we're bad. Bush is just one of those things that are really popular for a few years and then almost overnight become completely embarrassing. You know, like leg warmers, or Hootie and the Blowfish, or white people going, "Oh no you di-int."

So while honoring the anniversary of September 2001, we must also never forget September 2000. That's the month when Gov. George W. Bush said, "I know that human beings and fish can coexist peacefully." If you don't believe me, you can look it up on both internets. The world changed on 9/11. He didn't. That's why we owe it to ourselves, and our children, to never stop pointing out that George W. Bush is a gruesome boob.

Katherine Harris

How she can continue to run is beyond me. She's completely out of control and even the GOP has disowned her....

Downtown Friday

Well, I'm headed out for a while. Just going downtown to read and hang out at a coffee shop for a bit. Looks to be a nice day out, so I'm trying to stay outside. Maybe more later.

Ask a Ninja #26

Wow, two in two weeks. These guys are goofy.

Going to Asheville

Going to Asheville for a company meeting this weekend. Going to head out early to enjoy the town a bit. I do like Asheville. Pretty cool downtown area. I'm looking at moving downtown here in Winston, myself. Guess I'm just a metro kind of guy.

Real Time Discusses Iraq

Ask a Ninja!

Brand new and I love it....