Over there, Eric Clapton, ukulele.... Hi Eric!
On my left Sir Kenneth Clark, bass sax.... A great honour, sir.
And specially flown in for us, a session's gorilla on vox humana.
Nice to see Incredible Shrinking Man on euphonium,
Drop out with Peter Scott on duck call,
Hearing from you later Casanova, on horn,
Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion....
Really wild, General! Thank you, sir.
Roy Rogers on Trigger.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1572678&cid=31373804
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1202461&cid=27611089
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1732618&cid=33032912
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1753446&cid=33238424
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1669644&cid=32398828
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1653504&cid=32221932
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1653504&cid=32222264
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1669644&cid=32400300
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=286207&cid=20442175
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1617578&cid=31842686
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1275927&cid=28401389
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1685718&cid=32567534
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=142920&cid=11975285
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1592308&cid=31585612
tired of repeating the same things....
When you are REALLY on to something, you have an accident.
Sybil Edmonds distracts from the REAL capture of US by Israel. She will have a long and uneventful life.
As I mentioned yesterday, Rick Larsen criticized John Koster for saying good things about the Tea Party, even though Larsen himself has recently gone to a Tea Party candidate forum to try to get their votes.
And Larsen has twice criticized Koster over oil -- once saying Sarah Palin's endorsement of Koster would bring in money from oil companies, and then attacking Koster for wanting to drill more -- even though Larsen's the only candidate in the race to receive money from an oil company: BP.
And this morning I noticed that, despite attacking a display of flags from our nation's history that included the Confederate flag (which, last I checked, is part of our nation's history), Rick Larsen was at a presentation of those exact flags last summer. He's sitting next to the presenter, 38th LD candidate Hugh Fleet, in the fourth image in the slideshow.
Did Larsen tell the veterans in attendance of his disdain for showing the Confederate flag in a historical context? Probably not, just like he didn't tell the Tea Party members of his disdain for them, nor tell BP how much he hated oil companies when he took their money.
OK, actually, I am being too hard on Rick: he certainly, as a smart and rational person, does not hate Tea Party members or oil companies, nor does he have any problem with showing the Confederate flag in a historical context. He just dishonestly implies otherwise when it comes time to attacking his opponent.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
This video from WA-2 Democratic incumbent Rick Larsen is hilariously sad in its level of desperation and deception.
Larsen first implies, incredibly, that just because -- like hundreds of millions of Americans -- Republican challenger John Koster thinks favorably of the Tea Party movement, that therefore he is a racist whackjob.
I wonder if Rick Larsen told the people of the Tea Party events he attended that he thought they were all racist whackjobs. (Larsen right now has a link on his own web page to an article about the event he attended, where, apparently, Larsen didn't have the cajones to tell the attendees how he really felt about them. This reminds me of the time Larsen attacked Sarah Palin for using the word "target" in a political context, while linking to a Seattle Times article on his web site using the same language. You'd think he would be more careful about that sort of rookie mistake.)
Then Larsen -- who is the only candidate in the race who has received a campaign contribution from BP -- actually attacks Koster for doing what Obama did: saying we need more domestic oil drilling, shortly before the BP accident happened. It's a fair comment on Koster's views, but it's also something the head of his own party agreed with at the time, just a few months ago.
And then Larsen turns back to attacking the Tea Party as racist as a means to attack Koster, even going so far as to show a Confederate flag juxtaposed against "Koster's" parade entries: but that flag was one of many different flags that was part of a larger historical flags presentation, and in no way advocates that flag in particular. And despite what the video claimed, it wasn't even Koster's parade entry, it was the county GOP's.
The sad thing is that Larsen is ruining his own good name with his blatantly dishonest attacks. So many people have told me, "Rick Larsen's a good guy, I just disagree with his politics." Implying that Koster is racist just because a tiny minority of people in a nationwide movement are racist is the exact opposite of being a "good guy." It's being a damned liar.
But I guess Larsen has nothing else to say. He can't run on his own record of record debt and deficit; he can't attack Koster for things he has actually done or said in his long career; he can only attack Koster by dishonestly taking pictures out of context and implying he is guilty of crimes committed by people he's never met and has nothing to do with.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
John Koster's first TV ad is up. It's mostly to introduce him to the voters who don't yet know him, especially up in the northern part of the Congressional District 2.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
I have a new idea for restructuring our federal government.
Ministers with the power to restrict government activity.
The Minister of Shut Up, for example, has the power to force anyone in government, including the President, to shut up. So when the President says, "My predecessor's failed policies are to blame for the recession," the Minister tells him to shut up. This will greatly increase the quality of our public discourse.
There's also a Minister of Liberty who has the power to overturn or restrict any government action that violates civil liberties, and a Minister of Financial Responsibility that can veto any spending that isn't covered by revenues.
Now, here's the important part: obviously, these positions are only as useful as the people who hold those positions. So if you appoint them, or elect them popularly, you have a big problem. Politicians would appoint people who would not restrict their actions, and the people would elect people who would allow the government to do what they want government to do. It gets us nowhere.
So we will have a popular vote, but the only people who get to vote are people who have a real interest in upholding the restrictions involved. So only people intolerant of bull get to vote on the Minister of Shut Up. Only civil libertarians could vote for Minister of Liberty. And only fiscal conservatives get to vote for Minister of Financial Responsibility.
You might wonder then, what about the liberals? What do they get to vote for? It's only fair that everyone should get to vote for some position, but it seems like at least two of those positions are tilted heavily to the right, and we don't want liberals to feel left out. So, we need a position for them to vote for that is involved in very actively pursuing large government, in taking care of everyone's needs, in fighting against liberty, and so on.
We already have one: President.
So liberals get to decide what government will do, independents get to tell people to shut up, libertarians get to restrict government from hurting our liberty, and conservatives get to say what we won't spend money on because it's too expensive. Everyone gets to vote for only one thing.
I have not decided yet how best to determine whether someone really is a civil libertarian or liberal or what-have-you. Maybe some sort of lie detector test, or maybe just force everyone to pick one position to vote for: they will vote for the position they care most about, which will be the one that is actuated to push their interests, whether it is making government do things, securing liberty, keeping fiscal sanity, or just telling everyone else to shut up.
I think it could work.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Sam Taylor over at The Bellingham Herald quotes a John Koster press release titled "Larsen Votes to Create Permanent Bailout Culture."
Taylor says, "I've already blogged on here that the truth is far different, that the verbatim language of the measure sets up mechanisms for the institutions themselves to pay for any restructuring (not taxpayers). The New York Times also has a good, in-depth piece on how that restructuring works, too, over here."
But the problem is that -- as that very New York Times piece clearly points out -- "The bill will still allow the government to fashion ad hoc remedies in the case of a failing financial institution.
Taylor ignores those facts and instead hyperfocuses on two things: the phrase in Koster's press release headline (which does not even appear in the text of the press release) that Rick Larsen voted "to create permanent bailout culture," and that the bill sets up a system so that the taxpayers won't foot the bill. As to the latter, the NYT piece addresses it sufficiently to make the point: "there are provisions that would still encourage government deal-making," and "while the bill forbids the use of taxpayer money to 'prevent the liquidation of any financial company,' there is always latitude in times of crisis to stretch the law as was done during the financial crisis." To argue that there won't be bailouts still happening just doesn't pass the smell, laugh, or fact test, and even his own link to the NYT says Taylor is wrong. Yes, going through restructuring in the bill might not result in taxpayer funding, but there's many other ways to provide "assistance."
As to the former, what Koster's press release actually said was the bill "will likely open the door for permanent taxpayer-funded bailouts for Wall Street." Far from being not "the truth" -- given the fact that even the NYT says that deal-making, wiggle room, ad hoc remedies, latitude, and backdoor assistance will still encouraged, allowed, and arguably still provided -- it's a perfectly reasonable belief to have. We know from history that "give an inch, take a mile" is the rule of the day in DC, as in most political circles. Believing that if they can bail out, they will bail out, is not remotely unreasonable.
If you believe bailouts are good, fine. But let's not pretend that -- like Obama said -- this bill prevents them from happening, or that it is somehow not "the truth" to believe that, under this bill, bailouts will be encouraged.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
My candidate for Congress in WA-2, Republican John Koster, pointed out today that the infamously crooked Charlie Rangel has, according to OpenSecrets, contributed $24,000 to incumbent Democrat Rick Larsen. Larsen is tied for receiving the 15th most money, out of the entire Congress, from Rangel.
That can't be good for Larsen.
According to FEC reports, over the last decade Rangel's National Leadership PAC gave Larsen $17,000, and Rangel's candidate committee gave Larsen another $7,000.
Could be worse, though; he could've received $24,000 from Nancy Pelosi, too. Oh wait: he did (from her candidate committee and her "PAC to the Future").
I kid. I think tying Larsen to Pelosi is a. accurate, and b. will justifiably hurt him, but honestly, I don't care that she gave him money. That's how politics works. Same thing with Rangel: Larsen may not have known Rangel was corrupt. But he should do the right thing and, now knowing the money was in part the fruit of corruption, he should do something good with it.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Shileen Flynn, 29, had already missed one flight and lost her luggage when she says she found herself in a room at the Vancouver airport, naked and squatting, while two crude border agents strip-searched her. Flynn -- a frequent traveller who has been strip-searched twice before -- said this time was different. She said the women made her bend over a table, open her legs, and squat and cough. They asked her personal questions, like when she last had sex, Flynn said."As soon as they finished the strip search, I started bawling." One guard told her if she didn't stop crying, she'd be detained, Flynn said. When she explained why she was crying, Flynn said a guard piped up: "How do you think I feel? I just had lunch. You make me feel sick." "It was sickening to watch and see what they were doing. They then went into full cover-up in the investigation and simply lied when convenient to cover up any wrongdoing,"
From the EFF press release (that would be Evergreen Freedom Foundation):
"We believe Gov. Gregoire's climate change executive order is an unconstitutional order," said Michael Reitz, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's Constitutional Law Center, who represents the taxpayers in this case. "Gov. Gregoire violated the doctrine of separation of powers by snatching a failed bill out of the legislative process and issuing it in the form of an executive order. If the governor wants to pass laws, she's in the wrong branch of government."
I can't yet speak to the claims in detail, but the complaint claims that the executive order "directs state agencies, local governments, planning councils, business representatives, and other entities to take specific actions and to implement new responsibilities and processes."
If that's true, the EFF has a strong case. My guess is that the case will rest on how true that is, because, certainly, while the governor has some authority, without specific statutory or constitutional grant, to tell state agencies what to do, it's limited; and more certainly, she has no such authority to tell anyone else what to do.
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Rep. Rick Larsen said last week that getting less money from individual contributions than challenger John Koster "shows that folks across Northwest Washington support my efforts."
According to FEC filings, in the first quarter of 2010, Larsen raised $97,244 from individuals, compared to Koster's $163,188. In the second quarter, just ended in June, Koster still outpaced Larsen in individual contributions, $203,493 to $197,573.
The bulk of Larsen's money during this campaign -- 57% of it, almost $600K -- has come from political action committees (PACs), and most of that has come from out of state, despite Larsen's decrying of the mere possibility of significant out-of-state funds going into Koster's campaign. This quarter, for the first time this cycle, Larsen's individual contributions outpaced his PAC contributions, but it still was less than Koster's.
Koster pulled in only $9500 from PACs (which includes the $5000 from Sarah Palin's PAC), which accounts for only 2.5% of his total. Certainly, it would be nice to have the political connections and high profile Larsen has to rake in that kind of PAC money, but clearly, "folks across Northwest Washington" are so far -- like me -- picking John Koster over party-line Democrat Rick Larsen.
Coming on the heels of a couple of polls that put Koster well ahead of Larsen -- an internal and an external -- it's not looking great for the five-term Democrat. Koster is breathing down his neck, and it's hard to see how Larsen isn't very worried right now.
(P.S. I was on Orcas Island over the weekend, and so was Rick Larsen. I didn't see him -- or his signs -- but I did see many Koster signs between the Ferry and Moran State Park.)
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Just after they announced two terror-bombings at mosques, with credit claimed by the US-funded Jundallah.
Has the war begun today?
I cannot get a DNS referral for either site from 7 different networks - this looks to be a block at DNS root servers. Very usefull.
Spill:
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100713/ids_photos_ts/r984569284.jpg/?.src=news
I'd still roll with her...
Real Users never use the Help key.
