RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- A man who let his dog starve to death in a basement closet while he took his 7-year-old daughter to Disney World was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail...The dog, a labrador-pit bull mix, had been left without food and water for more than a week at Griffin's Northport home.
Labels: politics
I should also mention that, at least in my case, it's an excellent date movie. Thanks, Wachowski Brothers!
Well, I hope you come and see me in the movie
Then I'll know that you will plainly see
The biggest fool that ever hit the big time
And all I have to do is act naturally
Labels: politics
Labels: politics
Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.
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Respect? I dunno, what happened to democracy? You tell me, I'll tell you."I couldn‘t believe it, but it's true -- forty-eight percent of the people responding to this poll used such words as 'incompetent,' 'idiot,' and 'liar' to describe our president. Kate O'Beirne, what happened to respect?"
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Modernism's attempt to build a better world with the aid of science and technology now seems almost heroic. Bertolt Brecht, no fan of modernism, remarked that the mud, blood and carnage of the first world war trenches left its survivors longing for a future that resembled a white-tiled bathroom.
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''A 37 percent approval rating in Indiana for a Republican president is unheard of," said Brian Howey, who runs a newsletter for Indiana state political insiders. ''Those are Bill Clinton or John Kerry numbers in Indiana. So there is something seriously awry going on right now."
In scattered rural diners and small-town restaurants adorned with 9/11-vintage American flag posters, support for the troops remains high. But many in Indiana also say the war has not turned out the way they thought it would three years ago, and they question whether Bush has what it takes to lead the troops into a happy ending.
Standing behind the counter where she sells bird houses and seed at the farmers' market, Beverly Beisel said she is increasingly fearful that Iraq will inevitably fall apart as soon as US soldiers leave -- making a mockery of the deaths sustained until then.
''It's not going well, that's for sure," Beisel said. ''I don't like that fact that we started it. I thought Bush was actually going after the terrorists, wherever they were. We thought they had weapons that they were hiding."
Beisel said she doesn't blame Bush because ''he can only deal with the intelligence he was given" and still supports him because she opposes abortion. But she added that plenty of her friends think ''we should get out of there and they're probably sorry they voted for him."
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...make sure you don't go see Paramount's "Mission Impossible: 3," Cruise's upcoming movie. I know you weren't going to see it anyway. But now any money you spend on this movie is a blow against freedom of speech. Boycott it. Tell your friends to boycott it.Excellent idea. It's an easy boycott too, like Coors was at one time--it sucks anyway, so why would you spend money on it?
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Labels: politics
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According to Ginsburg, someone in a Web site chat room wrote: "Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."
Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., a sponsor of one of the congressional proposals, wrote about the legislation on his Web site and in bold letters featured a quote from O'Connor predicting the Supreme Court would probably increasingly rely on foreign courts.
...
Justices, in some of their most hotly contested rulings, have looked overseas. Last year, for example, justices barred the executions of juvenile killers on a 5-4 vote. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said then that "it is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty."
In an angry dissent to that decision, Justice Antonin Scalia said capital punishment policy should be set by states, not "the subjective views of five members of this court and like-minded foreigners."
Ginsburg said, "Critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions." She said those decisions are used for guidance only.
O'Connor said last week during a speech at Georgetown Law School that the justices have received threats. But the Ginsburg remarks at the Constitutional Court of South Africa provide unusual detail.
Ginsburg, who turned 73 Wednesday, told the audience O'Connor "remains alive and well - as for me, you can judge for yourself."
Labels: politics
Labels: politics
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"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," - Jamin Raskin, getting to the point, in a debate over a proposed constitutional amendment to the Maryland state constitution to prevent gay couples from having legal marriage rights.
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Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 87 men killed by execution style shootings in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian killing, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. They include at least 29 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an eastern Shiite neighborhood.We caused this and we'll probably abandon them to it. Why exactly did we go there and waste so many lives? Does anyone remember or did anyone ever really know? Is this meant as some kind of mass human sacrifice or something?
Labels: politics
"May God damn you. You said in the past that civil war would break out if you were to withdraw, and now you say that in case of civil war you won't interfere."God, if he's there, will indeed damn us all for a very long time for allowing our leaders to destroy that country, and so many Iraqi and American lives, for, in fact, less than nothing. If that nation isn't a muslim version of Rwanda or Bosnia within six months I'll be (pleasantly) surprised.
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Labels: alan moore
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...then she took aim at former GOP house leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only status of Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.
...It doesn’t help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that a senator disagrees with. She didn’t name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge’s home. O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions
lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive
impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets for punishing offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.
I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experience of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a long of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.
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"Get me as much of that juice as you can."
--Jeffrey Skilling of Enron, as related in former CFO Andrew Fastow's testimony today, regarding Enron's web of illegal partnerships.
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Last Friday night some military friend(s) of mine got some news. For them its either good or bad news, depending on their point of view. A very few of them will see it as a chance to get closer to the "action". But for most, and unfortunately, its a bit shocking. As for me it's a little earth-shattering - especially since one of them was my replacement when I left the Navy. Quick background... when I was in the military, I was an E-2C Hawkeye Naval Flight Officer. That means I flew around in a radar equipped plane and directed the air-war. That's a VERY watered down description, but it covers the basics. My friends and others that got 'the news' are of varying but similar backgrounds. As with several occupations in the military, they have some extensive EW training (Electronic Warfare). Which sets the stage...
It seems that they all fall into a particular category at the moment - they're all on shore duty (after being on sea-duty for several years... it's called 'payback'), and they all have at least one year left at their current duty-station. Life right now is supposed to be focused on family, training others to do what you've done already, and supporting those in the Navy that are currently at sea. But on Friday night, some of them got a phone call - with a twist.
By and large, they're being ordered to supplement the Army and Marines on the ground in Iraq. That in itself isn't that strange, since the current trend has been to try and give the forces that have been on multiple deployments a break by rotating Air Force and Navy personnel into positions that could be easily 'substituted'. But... here's the twist. They're manning up a new unit - made up of a mix of personnel, to become field combat teams in charge of detecting IED's. Improvised Explosive Devices. WTF???
... to take a Naval Aviator, teach him in a couple of months how to fire a rifle and command Army or Marine troops on the ground, and much less put him in some experimental platform to detect and disarm IED's because the Army and Marine experts are tired and out of people?? That's like asking a surgeon to become the coach of an NFL Football team!!
In my book, that's called a "Desperate Administration in a Desperate Situation".
Labels: politics
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President Bush's sagging poll numbers, the administration's handling of the Dubai port deal and lingering bad memories of Harriet Miers' failed Supreme Court nomination have left a broad spectrum of Republicans on Capitol Hill with little good will toward the White House.
"I was offended," Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said of Mr. Bush's threat last week to veto legislation aimed at stopping the transfer of port operations to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. He said Mr. Bush "threatened me before I even knew the details of what was involved or whether I was going to vote for the bill or not."
Mr. Lott said his immediate reaction was: "OK, big boy, I'll just vote to override your veto."
He called the White House, he said, to advise administration officials that they'd run afoul of some of their strongest allies in Congress.
"Don't threaten me like that again," said the former majority leader, recounting the conversation with an official he declined to name. "It doesn't make a difference if you're a Republican or a Democrat. Don't put your fist in my face. Where I'm from, we're willing to fight back."
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"I crawled under a lot of your houses and through a lot of your attics," DeLay said.
[image from All Hat No Cattle]
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Labels: politics
VLADRUSHKA Issue 2 (2021)
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VLADRUSHKA
Issue 1 (2010)
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Book 2 (2020)
with an introduction by Donna Barr
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Book 1 (2013)
with an introduction by Martin Pasko
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SUZY SPREADWELL Issue 1(2018)
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