Some people just can't admit reality; Cheney and Rove at the top of the list:[quote]President Bush's senior political adviser Karl Rove said in an interv..."/>

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Turd Blossom proud of Waterboarding

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Sunday, March 14, 2010 16:15
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 2616
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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:32 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Some people just can't admit reality; Cheney and Rove at the top of the list:
Quote:

President Bush's senior political adviser Karl Rove said in an interview this week he is proud that the United States used waterboarding in its efforts to prevent terrorist attacks and that the extreme interrogation method is not torture. Speaking to the BBC, Rove also said, however, that reasonable people may disagree about whether it is torture.

"I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots such as flying airplanes into Heathrow and into London, bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an airplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and other plots," Rove said. "Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques. They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with U.S. law."

When pressed on whether waterboarding is torture, Rove said unequivocally, "No, it's not." He added that "reasonable people can disagree... This isn't something about which we can argue. It is not a situation of black and white."

The BBC asked Rove about an assertion from the former head of MI5, the Britain intelligence service, who said that former President Bush and his advisers were inspired by the Fox television show "24" to pursue a "war on terror."

"That's laughable," Rove said. "I know President Bush, he doesn't watch television much except for sporting events; same with Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld. While Vice President Cheney was a fan of '24,' he is fully capable of distinguishing between fact and fiction."

Rove has made media appearances recently to promote his new book.




"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:44 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


We should just let attacks happen, and clean up the mess afterwards

No way can we expect to connect the dots anyways.

Coach Knight was right.... we should just lay back and enjoy it.


If some would show 1/4 the anger and vitriol for the terrorists who are trying to murder as many as they can, as they show our own countrymen , who are only trying to do their job....

I know. It's pointless to even try.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:53 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Oh, crap, it's back to the wind...tho' no, there's no personal nastiness, just self-delusion, so I'll answer:

"We should just let attacks happen, and clean up the mess afterwards". That's got nothing to do with waterboarding; if you haven't figured out yet that Cheney, Rove and Dumbya WANTED waterboarding, had seen too much TV and too many movies about torture working when it DOES NOT, then you've been asleep.

"If some would show 1/4 the anger and vitriol for the terrorists who are trying to murder as many as they can, as they show our own countrymen , who are only trying to do their job.... " Trying to do their job??? That, too, has nothing to do with waterboarding, and being PROUD of it to boot!

As to the question itself; So you think Americans shouldn't mind that their government behaves EXACTLY LIKE the terrorists (if not, in some cases, worse), and you don't believe in the rule of law which is the basis of our country? Okay; I still say you've been asleep.

You're probably right, tho', it's pointless to even try debating the issue with you; you're so convinced the Dumbya administration was right in everything they do, you apparently can't come up for air...


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:02 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


When Japanese soldiers... just doing their jobs waterboard Americans... it is torture, warcrimes, etc and they are executed

when Americans waterboard other folk... it is OK ?


Either the US owes Japan a public apology, and the US sets a precedent that waterboarding Americans is A OK

or some Americans need to face some charges


that fucking simple




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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:10 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
When Japanese soldiers... just doing their jobs waterboard Americans... it is torture, warcrimes, etc and they are executed

when Americans waterboard other folk... it is OK ?


Either the US owes Japan a public apology, and the US sets a precedent that waterboarding Americans is A OK

or some Americans need to face some charges


that fucking simple




al Qaeda terrorists aren't uniformed soldiers.

It's that fucking simple


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:11 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Don't forget the Geneva Convention, which prosecuted torturers too...

"Just doing our job" was the infamous excuse for the Nazis who tortured, we wanna be like them??

Being out of uniform has nothing to do with it. You think the people Bush & Co. hired to do the torturing were IN UNIFORM??? They were private contractors, remember? He took the interrogation of prisoners AWAY from those in uniform, remember?


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:13 AM

MINCINGBEAST


here i go, being black and white again: torture is either never acceptable, or always acceptable.

if we're going to torture people, at least we ought to really torture them. i mean, wateboarding is so sissy. just a little bit of controlled drowning is all. if you support waterboarding, you should also be able to support hot-lead-enemas, etc...

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:18 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:

As to the question itself; So you think Americans shouldn't mind that their government behaves EXACTLY LIKE the terrorists (if not, in some cases, worse), and you don't believe in the rule of law which is the basis of our country? Okay; I still say you've been asleep.

You're probably right, tho', it's pointless to even try debating the issue with you; you're so convinced the Dumbya administration was right in everything they do, you apparently can't come up for air...




How, by any stretch of human imagination, are we " just like or even worse "than them ?

When we use bamboo shoots under fingernails, clip off whole fingers at the joint, or cut heads off of captives, disembowel their bodies, burn and then hang up the remains from bridges, then we'll be on par with them.

Long before we get to that point, however, I'll stand w/ you.

But waterboarding?... to capture the MF's whose SOLE PURPOSE is to seek out ways of murdering civilians? If that's what is needed, then I'm cool with that. Always will be.

Always.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:20 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:Don't forget the Geneva Convention, which prosecuted torturers too...

"Just doing our job" was the infamous excuse for the Nazis who tortured, we wanna be like them??

Being out of uniform has nothing to do with it.



The Geneva Convention does not agree w/ you on this matter.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:51 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

al Qaeda terrorists aren't uniformed soldiers.

It's that fucking simple




Then why the push to try them in military tribunals rather than in criminal court?




"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions


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Friday, March 12, 2010 9:58 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

torture is either never acceptable, or always acceptable
is the short answer. If you're going to go down the slippery slope of "what is torture", you're in big trouble, because what one person considers torture, another might not.

Their "sole purpose" is not "to seek out ways of murdering civilians? If that's what is needed, then I'm cool with that. Always will be." It's a tactic being used by people without military might to fight against richer peoples. They believe "god" is on their side every bit as much as ideologs in America.

If we are a people who do not believe in torture, then it doesn't matter WHO our prisoners are, we don't torture them. Yes, we stand behind the "official" concept that only prisoners of war deserve decent treatment, but that's bullshit. We are or we are not torturers; there's always an excuse to act like animals if you want to defend your actions.

Aside from which: Are you absolutely sure everything we did has come to light (yet)? Do you really trust your government, especially under the last administration, to have OFFICIALLY done nothing but what happened at Abu Grabe and waterboarding? If so, I'd say that's a bit naive. Given their mentality, I'd bet they aren't the only things--and we may never know the full story.


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:02 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:02 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


My gawd, Raptor, in several threads we are actually DEBATING! Almost civilly, even! I never thought I'd see the day, but I gotta say: "KUDOS"! Hope you can keep it up, I'll try as long as you do. (Hee, hee, hee; tell you how shocked I am: I had to go to your profile to make sure I wasn't talking to that recent fake Raptor! You're being entirely too reasonable for me, this takes getting used to...)



"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Friday, March 12, 2010 10:17 AM

MINCINGBEAST


if the justification is our safety, why stop at waterboarding? i have long maintained that the hot-lead enema would be good for national security.

“Doesn’t matter what you do I’ll never...Hey, what are they doing to that guy over there, the guy strapped to the table on his belly? Why are they putting a funnel in his ass? What’s that in that ladle? Hot lead? Hot lead? They’re pouring hot lead in his ass? They’re giving him a hot lead enema? Ask me anything. I’ll tell you anything. I’ll tell you about my mother. I’ll make up secrets.”
----Lenny Bruce

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Friday, March 12, 2010 11:09 AM

BYTEMITE


Well, Gino, and Japan probably needs to do the shame to China and Korea, because the "cultural shame" thing Japan does is to not talk about it, which is pissing them both off. Korea in particular.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 11:14 AM

BYTEMITE


I've had some good conversations with AURaptor. He's got some views that may not be common around here, but we really are all just folk.

The key is to just try to be respectful. I know it's not always possible, because sometimes things get said in the heat of the moment, things nothing to do with the discussion at hand or real world events. But escalating the issue only creates a back and forth of insults, not dialogue, which threadjacks EVERYTHING when it gets really bad. And then no one wins.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:01 PM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Then why the push to try them in military tribunals rather than in criminal court?



zzzz...

Mike - Hope you're feeling better dood - nothing going on here, same old wankerage. Warm weather is here... I'm thinking a lot more time outside and a break from computers is a great idea. Maybe this is the year we get a dog...

... zzzz

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:08 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Then why the push to try them in military tribunals rather than in criminal court?



zzzz...

Mike - Hope you're feeling better dood - nothing going on here, same old wankerage. Warm weather is here... I'm thinking a lot more time outside and a break from computers is a great idea. Maybe this is the year we get a dog...

... zzzz

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com


\

Labrador Retrievers are great dogs

just a suggestion



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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:17 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Thanks, gang. Doing better. Not great, but *better*. My head took me to a weird place - weird even by my standards.



And yes, Labs are WONDERFUL dogs. Big, goofy, galloopie. The best - and worst - thing about a Lab is, it will be a puppy right up until its dying day. Makes that day all the harder, because you never notice the dog getting older. My Lab, Daisy, was happy and playful, then one day she was just gone. Hit me like a metric tonne of bricks.

If you have kids, Dobermann Pinschers and Rottweilers are fantastic - for one, they're great around children: very playful, very patient. And they're fiercely loyal and protective. Nobody - NOBODY - will mess with your kids when they've got their bodyguard. :)




"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions


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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:18 PM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Oh, crap, it's back to the wind...tho' no, there's no personal nastiness, just self-delusion,


You're playin his game. He just says more inflammatory things when he's not getting enough attention.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:23 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Storymark:
Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:Oh, crap, it's back to the wind...tho' no, there's no personal nastiness, just self-delusion,



You're playin his game. He just says more inflammatory things when he's not getting enough attention.

"



So, not agreeing with the Left is being " inflammatory " ?

Wow.


I'll make a note of it.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:34 PM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


See what I mean?

Thanks for the dog tips guys, I seriously might make the jump.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:36 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Bytemite:
Well, Gino, and Japan probably needs to do the shame to China and Korea, because the "cultural shame" thing Japan does is to not talk about it, which is pissing them both off. Korea in particular.



Not really the subject at hand...

The US executed people for doing what some are saying is fine and dandy now... was the point

but here

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-04-22-japan-china_x.htm

China dismisses Japanese apology for war aggression



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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:38 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
See what I mean?

Thanks for the dog tips guys, I seriously might make the jump.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com





Np

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Friday, March 12, 2010 12:44 PM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:

Originally posted by Storymark:
Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:Oh, crap, it's back to the wind...tho' no, there's no personal nastiness, just self-delusion,



You're playin his game. He just says more inflammatory things when he's not getting enough attention.

"



So, not agreeing with the Left is being " inflammatory " ?

Wow.


I'll make a note of it.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."



Hardly. And no one but you is dumb enough to believe that's all you did.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 1:00 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by Storymark:
Hardly. And no one but you is dumb enough to believe that's all you did.



Oh, I'm that dumb, because that's EXACTLY what happened. You want to cast insults, which is fine, but what you WON'T do is address the issue in a mature and sincere manner.

But, what ever works, I suppose.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 1:08 PM

STORYMARK


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Quote:

Originally posted by Storymark:
Hardly. And no one but you is dumb enough to believe that's all you did.



Oh, I'm that dumb, because that's EXACTLY what happened. You want to cast insults, which is fine, but what you WON'T do is address the issue in a mature and sincere manner.

But, what ever works, I suppose.


Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."



Blah blah blah. More rappy bullshit.

Only a dishonest douche like you would claim that over-the-top hyperbole like

Quote:

We should just let attacks happen, and clean up the mess afterwards...


Coach Knight was right.... we should just lay back and enjoy it.



Is JUST disagreeing with the Prez.

But that's okay, it's been literally years since I've expected anything resembling honesty from you. I honestly don't think you even understand the concept.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, March 12, 2010 2:16 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
See what I mean?

Thanks for the dog tips guys, I seriously might make the jump.




I highly recommend it. It's a commitment, though. Lots of time and attention, lots of walks, etc. I'm spoiled, because my li'l darlin' gets to go to work with me every day. And we've got woods across the street, so we get to go and play and go for walks on a regular basis.

Gotta tell ya, no matter how shitty your day is, going and playing with your dog will put it in perspective and make you realize it's not that bad...




"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions


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Friday, March 12, 2010 2:42 PM

TRAVELER


How many more terrorists are recruited after hearing about these torture tactics? How much more hate for us has been created in the Islamic world because of these actions? We are not helping our cause by these actions. How do we answer to these actions to any nation prominently Islamic?

It is not a matter of who is tortured; it is a matter of us doing the torturing. What gives us the right to do this. It may be said these people are the lowest form of life. Where was that proven? What act gave the final judgement that these individuals were terrorists? I never heard of them given any trial or any of these people given representation to plead their case. Show me any records that these people were found guilty in any court of terrorist actions prior to their being tortured.

If any government agency is allowed to incarcerate an individual without legal representation and then torture them without a court verdict saying they are guilty, what stops them from going beyond these so called terrorists we are discussing? Where do you stop once you allow such actions to become legal? The CIA or any agency can hold a person simply by using the term terrorist and commit these acts. That is the only premise that they used. What does that make us? We presume it is legal to commit acts of torture simply by saying this person is a terrorist.

It is easy to say it works if you did not go through this. It may happen to any person if this becomes general practice. The simple word, terrorist, has now taken away all your rights.


http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler

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Friday, March 12, 2010 4:54 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


The US was heading towards a dark place under the influence of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove et al. Really dark.

Pre -emptive strikes
Condoning torture, not just waterboarding, but torture by proxy ie rendition
The treatment of enemy combatants at G'mo and that prison in Iraq

Not to mention the idiocy of the black and white thinking - let's declare war on terrorism - what a great idea that was, declaring war on a 'tactic'. That's a winnable one.

Thankfully those days seem to be gone. Obama might not be the saviour, but he doesn't seem to be a foreign policy moron, either.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 6:10 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The US was heading towards a dark place under the influence of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove et al. Really dark.

Pre -emptive strikes
Condoning torture, not just waterboarding, but torture by proxy ie rendition
The treatment of enemy combatants at G'mo and that prison in Iraq

Not to mention the idiocy of the black and white thinking - let's declare war on terrorism - what a great idea that was, declaring war on a 'tactic'. That's a winnable one.

Thankfully those days seem to be gone. Obama might not be the saviour, but he doesn't seem to be a foreign policy moron, either.




Glad your happier with Obama... but what has he changed over the past year ? The path the US is on hasn't changed one bit.

Obama talks alot of talk... but lacks substance


He came out with alot of hope, and turned out so far to be Bush-lite...

Still tastes rather bitter you know








Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Friday, March 12, 2010 6:19 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


The view from outside is certainly better. He's got to juggle to many competing interests to be radically better, but I think fundamentally he is.

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Friday, March 12, 2010 8:15 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The view from outside is certainly better. He's got to juggle to many competing interests to be radically better, but I think fundamentally he is.




The Egypt speech made me think that... but

but his cabinet is full of establishment types...
doesn't speak well for change...

I am not impressed with Hillary Clinton at all...
same old nonsense


And now the countrys that applauded that Egypt speech, nearly a year ago are looking at Biden, and Clinton touring around and are saying " same old noise "

Europe for the most part is becoming very critical on US foreign policy

look for more NATO countrys to pull out of Afghanistan next year


I think he is borderline on selling his soul to those competing interests,,,

and if he doesn't turn it around soon, he may well be a one term duck,


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Saturday, March 13, 2010 6:51 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Catching up: Byte, I’m respectful of most people, until they start being otherwise. There are just a few from whom I EXPECT it, and I don’t think I’ve ever respected Raptor’s style ever before this thread. Of course, it went back to being static soon enough, not surprisingly. Such is the life of FFF. No matter. Doesn’t do any harm to recognize civility even if it only shows up once in a blue moon...

I’ve never though of “winning” in our discussions/debates, only responding with my opinions/facts/etc. I don’t like it either when it devolves into nothing BUT nastiness, which is why I choose static and wind and such. You and Story already know that, and we’ve discussed it all before, so...
Quote:

You're playin his game. He just says more inflammatory things when he's not getting enough attention.
I’m not a recalcitrant child, you two, and I’ve explained my reasons, why the continued castigation and “education”? Respectfully, I get your point, you know mine, okay? Pizmo feels the same way I do, from what I see...go pick on him, ‘kay?

Story, what happened to your advice about playing his game, hee, hee, hee? I see you buying right into it further down...physiciah, heal thyself!

When listing the “worst” of labs, Mike, you forgot THAT TAIL!!! That everything-destroying, right-at-coffee-table-height TAIL!!! But yes, they are great dogs; it has always been my sincere contention that labs and golden retrievers were born without the “unhappy gene”—they just don’t know how to do it. You can force it on them, of course, but it takes work; otherwise, they don’t know any way to be but happy! Not my kinda dog, mind you, but I recognize how great they are.

And you forgot, for kids: pit bulls. They make FANTASTIC family dogs, despite their rap, you just have to get one from a reputable place as a puppy. Dobies and Rotties are not on whit more prone to biting, etc., than pit bulls, but they’ve been abused so badly and gotten such a bad rap, which is a damned shame.

I will not, however, suggest huskies, much as I adore them. They’re a breed unto themselves! And stay away from Aussies and Borders if you have kids...if they don’t get enough mental/physical stimulation, they can start herding the kids and nipping at their heels!

Yes, Piz, I had to fight my way through the static, too. Oh, DO get a dog...they’re good for the soul, the head, and the blood pressure! I can’t be without a dog. Once again my moto: Cats are a luxury, but DOGS are a necessity! I can’t imagine life without a dog, I really can’t.

Mike, absolutely about dogs making it “not so bad”. Much tho’ I might not want to for one reason or another, the huskies HAVE to get out almost every day—they’ll play with one another and tire each other out if I don’t get them out for exercise, but the result is WE get driven insane, danger of things in the house getting broken, and in bad weather, the GUARANTEE that floors, beds and couches will be covered in mud! Once I DO get them out, it’s always worth it and I adore being outside, whatever the weather.

I envy you where you are; I can’t walk them except on leash around home (which I WILL NOT do!), so have to drive to this or that place first. Right now it’s a pisser; we have a lot of blocks of land set off for Marin County Open Space District, where the dogs are legal off leash on fire roads. They’re not “legal” on any trail or any other place, state park, watershed, etc. So we do a lot of “ranger danger” avoiding, and there are places rangers never go. Lately, tho’, they’ve been showing up in places they NEVER used to go—I think MCOSD needs funding, and since people are used to letting their dogs run loose, there’s lots of tickets to give out. It sucks, ‘cuz now we’re limited to fire roads only if we want them off leash. So can me and the huskies come visit, please, please, purty please? I’m tired of ducking rangers and bored with the fire roads!!!

Magons and Traveler: Yes, yes and YES! Everything both of you said; our rights are already null and void to a degree because of the goddamned Patriot Act (talk about visceral labeling!!!) and so much more. Rove is an idiot and an asshole to try to even SAY they got “actionable intelligence” by waterboarding, or that they got any intelligence that stopped ANYTHING. Pure, blatant lies which have already been disproven. I guess a case of “if you keep saying it, eventually they’ll believe it”. Prick.

I disagree that Obama is BushLite...most people just aren’t aware of a lot of the things he’s done to reverse the damage of Dumbya. Not the big stuff (yet), definitely, but he has.

Goodness Gino:
Quote:

Europe for the most part is becoming very critical on US foreign policy
BECOMING?! It’s BEEN much more than critical for a long time now—if anything, Obama has done a lot in many ways to make it LESS SO, but again, not nearly enough. To say they’re “becoming” critical is to laugh...they’ve hated us ever since Dumbya started his pre-emptive shit and strutted around like he was the Toughest Guy on the Block...and even before.


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 8:01 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Niki: *Technically*, I'm supposed to have Jeepie on a leash when I take her across the road - but it's private property, and I've got the owner's permission to use it. :) And I *DO* keep her on the leash until we get away from the road a bit, because I haven't been able to get her very savvy about cars and traffic, despite her sister being hit and killed...

Austin is making progress, though, with several off-the-leash areas and dog parks, and even dog-friendly businesses. We've done our little part in helping that movement along; since we take our dogs to work, more and more people in the business park we're in have started doing the same! And it's really nice when they bring new dogs to visit.

And yes, you DO have it right in your suspicions about them being more strict in an effort to bring in revenue. Be careful, because to them, you're little more than a revenue source, and they don't care about your dogs or what they want or need. Sad but true.




"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions


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Saturday, March 13, 2010 9:52 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
When listing the “worst” of labs, Mike, you forgot THAT TAIL!!! That everything-destroying, right-at-coffee-table-height TAIL!!! But yes, they are great dogs; it has always been my sincere contention that labs and golden retrievers were born without the “unhappy gene”—they just don’t know how to do it. You can force it on them, of course, but it takes work; otherwise, they don’t know any way to be but happy! Not my kinda dog, mind you, but I recognize how great they are.


*laughs*

Oh yes, the tail of a happy Lab is a very dangerous thing - one of the residents has some kinda dog I cannot readily identify who is spoiled rotten and adores me to the point of trying to knock me down and slobber on me, not that this bothers me despite that it amuses and appalls her by degrees, as there's very few people that doggie likes enough to act-out so blatantly, and apparently knocking the guard down and drooling on him while he's on duty is some kinda faux-pas (as if I'd mind, overmuch) which the idea of horries her a lil bit.

I'm not really a dog person, I like em and all, and have used the calm-by-touch trick to help someone catch one that got out and went running about in a panic, and I do understand em, I am just far more partial to cats, as they're more compatible by nature.

Technically, the residents are supposed to have em on a leash when they walk em, but I refuse to even try enforcing that - most of the time I am on the job, they're the only ones OUT there besides me, and there's no traffic, so where's the harm in it, is how I feel - and cooped up all day like some of em are, them doggies need a good runabout to work it outta their system and be healthy.

That this gets me plowed into and slobbered on by em doesn't bug me in the slightest, since not a single pooch here DOESN'T adore me, not even some of the older ladies usually-not-friendly lapdogs.

My main concern is that they might go chasing some of the raccoons around here, folks have a habit of putting the bagged trash on the front step at night, takin to the dumpster en route to work in the morning, and the local possums and raccoons use it as a buffet line...

I don't think there'd be so much malice in it for the dog as someone/something to play with, but the raccoon or possum might not see it that way any more than the mouse thinks being played with by a cat does - possums I ain't too worried about, they'll just flee or play dead, but the raccoons may bite, which is a health and safety concern, so imma start mentioning that to folks now that the weather has turned spring, not that imma enforce the leash thing whatever, just that I want em to be aware and cognizant of the risk present.

There's also the bunnies they may chase, normally I doubt they'd catch one, but since my presence has run off all the predators, the latest batch of bunnies is phenomenally STUPID from a survival aspect, without that predator pressure they're overconfident lazy little gits, and in some cases crazy enough to chase the damn raccoons, cause the central park is bunny turf and they get snippy about it sometimes.

At least the Skunk south of building fifteen is way the hell back in the underbrush, I hope she doesn't start to wander, cause that kinda close encounter I could do without, not that *I* am stupid enough to run into her unawares, but some resident tired/distracted/drunk enough, or someone's off-leash dog being walked... hoo boy.

And the bats have come back, one of em was cussin me for scaring it out of it's tree roost and I was like "Dude, do I look like Bruce Wayne to YOU?!" - at least they'll help keep the skeeter population down if they hang around, so I am not greatly concerned save for the chance of one of em being rabid, which I already have an action plan for anyhows, should me or anyone else find a grounded bat that may be so afflicted.

All in all though, I prefer the cats, just on compatibility of nature - who mostly operate on the principle that if you can't fight it, eat it or fuck it, pee on it and claim it as territory!


Then again, one of our cats DOES act like a Dog (Puppy, aptly named) and another plays fetch so fervently she'll drive you nuts with it (Squirmy) so it's not like they don't have their own foibles...

I daresay that if Dogs had opposable thumbs the world wouldn't change so much, but if Cats did, we humans would be in deep shit.


-Frem

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:23 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:



I disagree that Obama is BushLite...most people just aren’t aware of a lot of the things he’s done to reverse the damage of Dumbya. Not the big stuff (yet), definitely, but he has.

Goodness Gino:
Quote:

Europe for the most part is becoming very critical on US foreign policy
BECOMING?! It’s BEEN much more than critical for a long time now—if anything, Obama has done a lot in many ways to make it LESS SO, but again, not nearly enough. To say they’re “becoming” critical is to laugh...they’ve hated us ever since Dumbya started his pre-emptive shit and strutted around like he was the Toughest Guy on the Block...and even before.




OK then, they are becoming critical of Obama policy then... hence the lack of change and Bushlite remark

Did the climate change conference go much different result wise than if Bush had of went ?


" most people just aren’t aware of a lot of the things he’s done to reverse the damage of Dumbya. Not the big stuff (yet), definitely, but he has. "

show me where it isn't smoke and mirrors


has he redirected any defense spending to anything else ?

has he shut any overseas bases down ? or have the number of bases increased ?

drone terrorism... on the rise ?









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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:11 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Another Margolis Article... this one on Obama foreign policy


http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/obamas-report-card-
-c-minus.aspx


OBAMA’S REPORT CARD: C MINUS

Here in normally arid southern California, we’ve just endured a week of torrential rains, tornados, flash floods, and mud slides. Some roads have even turned to rivers in the great western monsoon.
But these tempests are nothing compared to last week’s electoral storm that greeted President Barack Obama’s first anniversary in office.

Conservative Republican Scott Brown’s dramatic upset victory in the Massachusetts race for the late Senator Teddy Kennedy’s seat has left Democrats shaken and frightened. Massachusetts is the most Democratic of all states; if Republicans won there, no place is safe for the Democrats.

The loss of Kennedy’s feudal seat was as stunning as if a Protestant had become pope.

Republicans are cock-a-hoop, crowing that an anti-Obama revolution has begun. They hope American voters will forget the nation’s economic melt-down and wars overseas occurred when Republicans held in power. Voters do have notoriously short memories.

The upset was due to voter’s fear and anger over America persistent high unemployment, the Wall Street rescue, gargantuan deficits, and Obama’s unpopular health plan.

Instead of focusing on the economy, the president wasted a year trying to implement his awkward health plan. Many Americans just don’t want to pay health costs for the poor.

Obama’s disappointing, lackluster first year record is also mirrored in his foreign policies.

The new leader who promised to bring change has largely failed to do so, and has continued or expanded many of the most pernicious policies of the Bush years. Liberals who had hoped for glasnost and perestroika instead got Bush’s third term with a kinder, smiling, intelligent face.

The Mideast continues to be America’s most trying foreign problem. What the west calls terrorism stems from the Muslim world’s fury over the endless agony of Palestine, the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and mounting raids against Somalia and Yemen. It has next to nothing to do with Islam or cultural hatred, as George W. Bush so dishonestly claimed.

Osama bin Laden warned, `there will be no peace in America until there is peace in Palestine.’

Unfortunately, he may be right. The Christmas airline hysteria caused by a young Nigerian with incendiary underpants was a graphic example.

Barack Obama’s vow to halt Israeli annexation of the West Bank and engineer a fair Arab-Israeli peace has turned into a humiliating fiasco for the president.

The White House’s demand that Israel cease building settlements – and particularly so in illegally occupied East Jerusalem - was rejected with contempt by Israel’s hardline Prime Mininster, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hillary Clinton even stabbed boss Obama in the back by lauding Israel’s “restrained” settlement policies, a clear sign of her future political ambitions if Obama falters.

Dismaying his liberal supporters, Europeans and the entire Muslim world, which had high hopes for the new “peace president,” Obama is expanding the pointless war in Afghanistan, entrenching a permanent US presence in Iraq, and intensifying US military operations in Somalia, and Yemen, as well as North and West Africa.

Obama is under mounting pressure to launch an air war against Iran. So far, Obama has sensibly resisted. But as Obama’s presidency weakens, and mid-term elections grow closer, he may be forced into a major military confrontation with Iran, which shows no signs of giving into to American threats over its nuclear program.

The president just asked Congress for an additional $33 billion this year to fund the trillion-dollar Afghan and Iraq wars. The costs of these inherited conflicts - that now belong to Obama - are being financed by emergency loans, not taxes, as they should be.

Future generations will pay for these colonial misadventures that have so far cost $1 trillion.
If American’s taxes were to go up to properly finance these colonial wars, popular outrage would swiftly end them.

By contrast, Obama has improved frayed US relations with Europe, in large part due to his personal popularity on the continent. Relations with Russia, however, remain jagged. On the plus side, Obama has apparently dropped Bush’s dangerously provocative plan to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and to build a major anti-ballistic radar near Russia’s border in favor of a smaller, less capable system.

The US-India entente, begun by Bush, is moving ahead apace. America’s arms industry is drooling at the thought of huge contracts with India.

But every American step closer to India increases tensions with India’s rival, China, which sees the new US-Indian axis as a blatant attempt to surround it.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is getting sucked ever deeper into the growing, increasingly dangerous mess in volatile Pakistan where anti-American hatred has reached alarming intensity.

The president disappointingly failed to normalize relations with Cuba while cozying up to other Communist regimes. Nor has he managed to yet close America’s gulags at Guantanamo, Cuba, and Bagram, Afghanistan, or end many of the Bush administration’s anti-democratic security measures.

Obama backed away from pursuing government officials who conducted torture, kidnapping and illegal surveillance of American citizens.

In sum, a very disappointing year from a man who inspired so many.

Thanks to Washington’s financial `rescue,’ America’s big five banks now control 40% of all deposits nationally. In spite of a proposed new bank tax and some tepid restrictions of gambling with depositor money, big finance seem too often to be giving the Obama administration its marching orders.

Goldman Sachs rules while Washington floods the world with depreciating US dollars.

Obama failed to grasp the levers of power and wasted time. He took on four of Washington’s most powerful lobbies – Wall Street, the Israel lobby, the military-industrial complex, and medical insurance – and lost all these battles. Many Americans are left with the unhappy conviction that Obama has become a prisoner of these special interests.

Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to be rising from the dead, revivified by Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts. Watch for Brown to be shortly hailed as the party’s next standard bearer.



I think his C minus, is like his nobel prize.... only because he followed Bush.

Judged from his inaction on several issues alone... lame duck F


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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:18 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

al Qaeda terrorists aren't uniformed soldiers.

It's that fucking simple


No,
YOU'RE that fucking simple.

But I digress.



The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:22 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

In sum, a very disappointing year from a man who inspired so many.



I think the technical term *wuss* applies.


The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:25 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


So would Chris Agree ?




Bush Lite ?





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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:28 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
So would Chris Agree ?

Bush Lite ?

Bush Lite?
I'd say Bush-Less-Poisonous, but that might just be splitting heirs.


The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 3:45 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
So would Chris Agree ?




Bush Lite ?







Don't know if Chris agrees, but that's pretty much the view from where I'm sitting. Wish I could say otherwise.




"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero, Real World Event Discussions


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Saturday, March 13, 2010 4:19 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Anyone else find the picture disturbing ?

waiting for it to say

" I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family "

or words to that effect



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Saturday, March 13, 2010 4:24 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Wish I could say otherwise.



So far...
*hopes*



The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

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Sunday, March 14, 2010 3:13 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


Quote:

Originally posted by chrisisall:
Quote:

Originally posted by AURaptor:

al Qaeda terrorists aren't uniformed soldiers.

It's that fucking simple


No,
YOU'RE that fucking simple.

But I digress.

The very old Chrisisall







Summer Glau can simply walk into Mordor


Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."

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Sunday, March 14, 2010 8:13 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Technically, I guess that would be “BushDark”, wouldn’t it?

As to his accomplishments, I DID say not the biggies that make the news:
Quote:

The Quiet Revolution

There is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office.

The regulatory agencies, most of which date from one of the three great reform periods (1901–1914, 1932–1938, and 1961–1972) of the last century, were intended to smooth out the rough edges (the “externalities,” in economic jargon) of modern capitalism--from dirty air to dangerous workplaces to defective merchandise to financial corruption. With wide latitude in writing and enforcing regulations, they have been described as a “fourth branch of government.”

That wide latitude could invite abuses of power, but the old-time progressives who fashioned the regulatory state rested their hopes on what could be called “scientific administration.” the agencies, staffed by experts schooled in social and natural science and employing the scientific method in their decision-making, could rise above partisanship and interest-group pressure. Brandeis’s famous concept of states as “laboratories of democracy” comes out of his defense of state regulation of industry and was meant to conjure an image of states basing their regulatory activities on the scientific method. For his part, Croly often made the progressive case for disinterested expertise. The success of the regulatory agencies, he wrote, depended upon “a sufficient popular confidence in the ability of enlightened and trained individuals … and the actual existence for their use of a body of sufficiently authentic social knowledge.”

Many of the last century’s presidents--from Theodore Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton--subscribed to this progressive ideal of regulation based on expertise. But, beginning in the 1980s and culminating in the presidency of George W. Bush, the notion of scientific administration came under attack from Republicans and their allies. They began to subvert the agencies by bringing in business executives, corporate lawyers, and lobbyists--the very opposite of the impartial experts envisioned by Brandeis and Croly.

Reagan chose Thorne Auchter, the vice president of a construction firm, to head OSHA. Bush appointed a mining company executive to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration and a trucking company executive to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. To lead OSHA, he named Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a longtime foe of the agency who had advised companies on how to block union organization.

Some of the Republican appointees weren’t business types, but ideologues or hacks who were utterly unqualified for their positions. Anne Gorsuch, whom Reagan nominated to head the EPA, was a rising member of the Colorado House of Representatives, where she was part of a conservative group known as the “House crazies.” Michael Brown, whom Bush appointed to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had previously been commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.

Obama’s regulatory appointments could not be more different--no surprise given that he is the son of two social scientists (one of whom attempted to introduce scientific administration to Kenya) and that he once worked in academia himself. Indeed, the flow of expertise into the federal bureaucracy over the past year has been reminiscent of what took place at the start of the New Deal.

For instance, as a replacement for Foulke at OSHA, Obama chose David Michaels, a professor of occupational and environmental health at George Washington University. In 2008, Michaels published a book, Doubt is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, detailing how businesses had delayed regulations by “manufacturing uncertainty” about scientific findings.
To manage the EPA, Obama appointed a slew of highly experienced state environmental officials. (As Bill Becker of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies explains, state officials are ideally suited for the EPA because they have firsthand experience in how regulations are enforced and how they work.) Obama’s choice to run the agency was Lisa Jackson, a chemical engineer who led the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Her deputies include the former secretary of the environment in Maryland, as well as the former heads of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, the Massachusetts Bureau of Resource Protection, and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

Meanwhile, Obama chose as his Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Margaret Hamburg, who achieved renown during the 1990s as health commissioner of New York City, where she developed a program for controlling tuberculosis that led to a sharp decline in the disease. Her number two is a former Baltimore health commissioner who, in 2008, was named a public official of the year by Governing magazine. Obama’s director of the National Park Service is a 30-year veteran of the agency--and the first biologist to lead it. And his new director of FEMA is W. Craig Fugate, who performed outstandingly as Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist’s head of emergency management in Florida. Fugate may not know anything about Arabian stallions--but he does know a thing or two about hurricanes.

Republican presidents didn’t just undermine scientific administration by making poor appointments; they also slashed or held down the regulatory agencies’ budgets, forcing them to cut personnel. This was a particular problem in the all-important area of enforcement: If regulatory agencies can’t conduct inspections and enforce rules, it doesn’t matter how tough those rules are. OSHA’s budget fell 13.1 percent in constant dollars during the Reagan years and 6.8 percent during the administration of George W. Bush. As a result, an agency that had employed 2,950 people in 1980 employed just 2,089 in 2008--and the number of compliance officers had declined 35 percent. According to Michael Silverstein of the University of Washington School of Public Health, this meant that a workplace could expect an inspection only once every 88 years.

The story was similar elsewhere. Under George W. Bush, the EPA’s funding dropped 27 percent, while personnel fell 4.2 percent from 2000 to 2008. Personnel at the National Labor Relations Board, which is responsible for enforcing labor laws, has fallen 41.8 percent over the last 30 years. At the Mine Safety and Health Administration, funding had fallen 5.3 percent and personnel 43.8 percent from 1980 to 2006--when the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia suddenly awakened Congress to the way the Bush administration had crippled the agency.

Now Obama is reversing these trends. Even in the face of the recession, he proposed and got funding increases for numerous regulatory agencies--some of them dramatic. He asked for $10.5 billion for the EPA for 2010--a 34 percent jump over 2009, and the first time in eight years that the budget had increased. He also requested a 19 percent increase in the FDA’s budget, the largest in its history; a 10 percent increase for OSHA, which will allow it to hire 130 new inspectors; and increases of 5 percent, 7 percent, and 9 percent for the Federal Trade Commission, the SEC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

As Richard L. Revesz and Michael A. Livermore argue in a recent book, Retaking Rationality, there is nothing intrinsically illiberal about cost-benefit analysis. Indeed, it can be quite consistent with a progressive faith in social science. In 1973, for instance, a Ralph Nader Study Group used cost-benefit analysis to oppose dam-building in the West. But, in the late ’70s, conservative intellectuals, working through business-funded think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), promoted cost-benefit analysis as an instrument of deregulation. (The co-editor of the AEI journal Regulation was a law professor named Antonin Scalia.) Nader made a brief attempt to fight back--a Nader Study Group argued in 1979 that the benefits of regulation outweighed the costs--but most defenders of regulation simply condemned cost-benefit analysis outright, leaving the field of battle to the conservatives.

The conservative version of cost-benefit analysis stressed costs rather than benefits and subjected only regulation--not deregulation--to cost-benefit scrutiny. Conservatives also sometimes adopted bizarre formulas for assessing costs and benefits. They assigned less monetary value to improvements or protections in poor communities because the residents were willing (that is, able) to pay less for them, and they used a spurious correlation between a society’s wealth and the health of its citizens to argue that the costs of regulation outweighed the benefits. Under George H.W. Bush, for example, OIRA argued that OSHA regulations on chemical contaminants would end up harming workers more than exposure to chemicals. Wrote James McRae, the acting head of OIRA, “If government regulations force firms out of business or into overseas production, employment of American workers will be reduced, making workers less healthy by reducing their income.”

The upshot of all this--appointing the right people, giving them enough funding, and signaling that the conservative version of cost-benefit analysis will not stand in their way--is that the regulatory agencies are once again able to serve their intended purpose. Already, it is possible to discern signs of progress. In her first year at the EPA, Jackson granted California a waiver to impose tougher greenhouse-gas standards for new automobiles, which the Bush administration had denied. She declared that the EPA would set standards for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. (This means that, if Congress fails to pass cap-and-trade legislation, the EPA could act on its own to regulate carbon emissions.) And she accepted the EPA staff’s recommendations for tougher smog standards--recommendations that had been rebuffed by the previous EPA head. Science, it seems clear, is back in command at the EPA.

At OSHA, the Bush administration, with the support of Republicans in Congress, had repealed the rules governing ergonomic injuries (which account for 30 percent of compensation claims filed by workers). OSHA even eliminated the column in the reports that companies file where such injuries were supposed to be listed. Obama’s OSHA immediately restored the column and is working on a new national regulatory standard for these injuries.

During the Bush years, there was growing evidence that diacetyl, an artificial flavoring used in making popcorn and other food, was causing severe lung illness among workers exposed to it. Foulke refused to take action, declaring the extensive science documenting the link to be “murky.” Moreover, Foulke failed to develop standards governing silica dust--which has also been linked to lung ailments. Obama’s OSHA is moving ahead on both fronts. In October, OSHA also levied its largest fine ever, requiring BP to pay $87 million for a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers in Texas.

The Bush administration steered clear of antitrust prosecution for eight years. Already, the new chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz, has sued Intel for restraining trade by attempting to prevent computer makers from using non-Intel chips. At the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Obama-appointed chair, Inez Tenenbaum, has sent a signal that a new day is at hand by fining Mattel $2.3 million for selling toys containing lead and Mega Brands America $1.1 million for improperly reporting a fatality caused by one of its children’s building sets.

Of course, there have been shortcomings in Obama’s approach. Some of his appointments have been less than stellar. Mary Schapiro, selected to head the SEC, was formerly CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which was set up and funded by the investment industry--and she appears at least initially reluctant to challenge the Wall Street culture. After boldly proposing last May to conduct 10,000 unannounced inspections of money managers, she eventually settled in December for only 1,600 inspections.

Yet history rarely moves in leaps and bounds, and, by just about any reasonable standard, Obama’s approach to regulation has been extremely impressive. More worrisome than the criticisms of activists is the possibility that politics may soon intrude. In 1993, Clinton, too, attempted to revive the regulatory agencies by appointing well-qualified personnel and increasing funding. But, after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they managed to cut Clinton’s budget proposals and delay or block the implementation of regulations. If Democrats lose Congress this November, the same thing could happen again. In that case, what has been Obama’s most significant achievement to date would come to naught--and liberals would have yet another reason to despair.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/the-quiet-revolution

There is also the famous chart:

http://www.facebook.com/ObamaAccomplishments?ref=mf#!/photo.php?pid=36
17924&id=306981203847


and, less well known:

http://www.facebook.com/ObamaAccomplishments?ref=mf#!/photo.php?pid=36
52722&id=306981203847


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147471&id=306981203847&ref=mf#!/
photo.php?pid=3652720&id=306981203847


Then there’s the Lilly Ledbetter Act:
Quote:

President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.” He affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men. After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.

“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” the president said.

He said was signing the bill not only in honor of Ms. Ledbetter — who stood behind him, shaking her head and clasping her hands in seeming disbelief — but in honor of his own grandmother, “who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up again” and for his daughters, “because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/us/politics/30ledbetter-web.html
Quote:

Obama signs bill extending kids' health insurance "President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a bill extending health coverage to 4 million uninsured children, a move he called a first step toward fulfilling a campaign pledge to provide insurance for all Americans."

"'...I refuse to accept that millions of our children fail to reach their full potential because we fail to meet their basic needs. In a decent society, there are certain obligations that are not subject to trade-offs or negotiations, and health care for our children is one of those obligations,' Obama said, signaling he was readying for a fight."

http://kotorimagazine.com/feature-the-times-they-are-a-changin/obamas_
accomplishments.html
Quote:

Obama to Rescind Bush Abortion Rule

"...In the final days of the prior administration, President Bush pushed through a rule designed to give health care workers the freedom to refuse to provide services deemed morally repugnant -- possibly including abortion counseling, birth control and sterilization.

"Today, the new management at the Department of Health and Human Services sent the Office of Management and Budget a proposal that would rescind that Bush rule..."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/WomensHealth/story?id=6977348&page=1&pa
ge=1
Quote:

White House Plan Would End Subsidies to Student Lenders

"...The proposal...would end a program that pays government subsidies to private student loan companies. The administration said the shift, which would mean that all federal loans would come directly through the government, would save $4 billion annually and $47.5 billion over the next decade…"

"'...Rather than continuing to subsidize banks, we want to help dramatically more students get more access to more aid,' [Education Secretary] Duncan said in a conference call with reporters. 'Big picture . . . We're going to save about $24 billion dollars over the next five years, and we want to actively invest that money in our students.'"

http://kotorimagazine.com/feature-the-times-they-are-a-changin/obamas_
accomplishments.html
Quote:

Obama Takes Aim at Costly Defense Contracts- President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the U.S. government was paying too much for things it did not need and ordered a crackdown on spending "plagued by massive cost overruns and outright fraud."

The Democrat, under fire from Republicans for the $3.5 trillion price tag for his 2010 budget plan, also took aim at predecessor George W. Bush and noted the cost of government contracts had doubled to more than half a trillion dollars over the past eight years.

Obama, who inherited a $1.3 trillion budget deficit when he took office on January 20, said wasteful spending was a problem across the government, but he zeroed in on the defense industry and costly weapons projects hit by "delay after delay."

"The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama told reporters in a briefing on his reforms.

He has singled out the ballooning costs of a Lockheed Martin Corp project to build a new presidential helicopter fleet as an example of the procurement process "gone amok."

http://www.truthout.org/030509B

That’s a taste...there’s a lot more, but these took a while to look up, so will suffice for now. As I said, on the “big” issues, he’s failed (so far), but there are still many things—some of them very important—which he HAS accomplished.


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Sunday, March 14, 2010 8:25 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Yeah, Mike, we have a whole bunch of off-leash dog parks--most of them fairly small but a couple of biggies--where they can run of leash, and dog-friendly businesses. It's just not the same as letting a dog run all-out, like you can. We sneak around on trails and use multi-use pathways that are officially "on leash" but where nobody DOES. We're just careful to do so early in the morning or on weekdays, or in places rangers don't patrol.

You're a good man, Frem; not too many would do what you do, or be as tolerant. I wish there were more. My dogs have always been "voice trained", because I hate leashes, and I've yet to get a ticket (tho' I've come close!). It's the people who let their run loose who are aggressive, harass other people/dogs, chase the wildlife, etc., who give the rest of us a bad name.

SF has had a LONG-standing battle with the GGNRA (Golden Gate National Recreatio Area) which stretches from SF itself to Pt. Reyes. There have traditionally been two BIG areas dogs are allowed off leash--Crissy Field and an old Army Nike Missle Base, Fort Funston. Funston in particular is HUGE, and much beloved by dog owners and walkers--you usually see people with between 3 and 10 dogs each...huge melees at the water trough! GGNRA has been trying to make both leash areas, and the battle has raged for years. There are so few places in the City people can let their dogs run, they're gonna fight to the death!

I actually have little argument with them chasing bunnies--given the lack of predators, you know how they can multiply! I would assume they don't chase skunks more than once (at least the smart ones don't!).

We have bats, and "bandits" ('coons) which carry rabies, too, but neither has caused a BIG problem...bandits can usually hold their own (tho' I don't know about the huskies now!) or get to a tree. Got a lot of them come through the "redwood highway" in our back yard at night.

Well, I agree with you to an extent, but if dogs had opposable fingers, the refrigerator would always be empty, that's for sure!


"I'm just right. Kinda like the sun rising in the east and the world being round...its not a need its just the way it is." The Delusional "Hero", 3/1/10

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Sunday, March 14, 2010 8:44 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
As I said, on the “big” issues, he’s failed (so far), but there are still many things—some of them very important—which he HAS accomplished.


THANK you Niki for restoring a small amount of the faith I had in the man. Every little bit helps!


The laughing Chrisisall

"I only do it to to remind you that I'm right and that deep down, you know I'm right, you want me to be right, you need me to be right." - The Imperial Hero Strikes Back, 2010

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Sunday, March 14, 2010 9:18 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


It is those big issues that need to be dealt with...

Hell, I could probably look and find minor things Bush accomplished too if I looked hard enough.

But the big ticket issues ARE first and foremost

and there, hell he has Cheneys back as the video I posted said. No repercussions or justice for criminal acts committed. So now, he owns the same acts. Obama is tainted by the same, because he covered it up for the previous thugs...


On that alone, fail. next guy please

At least Palin, talks nuts and you get nuts

Obama talked what you wanted to hear, and gave everyone the same old crap






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