Skank

 Kagro X:

So here’s the key. The domestic spying has always been justified by saying it was a necessary response to 9/11. But clearly there’s damned good reason to believe these programs were conceived and initiated well before the September 11th attacks.

That would mean — gasp! — that your “government” is full of it.

But it’s not just that. If Qwest’s competitors were already abetting this bloodless(?) coup before 9/11, then the “administration’s” domestic spying not only has little if anything to do with response to terrorism, but it also objectively failed to prevent 9/11.

Hmmm, I’m going with both lying and imncompetent.

Jon Rauch: “Some optimists say that in Army Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has finally found his Gen. Grant. That may or may not be true, but it is beside the point. The problem is that Petraeus has not yet found his President Lincoln.”

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, the president called for renewed efforts to enforce the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a striking point of emphasis for a leader who’s widely accused of violating human rights in waging war against terrorism.

Bush didn’t mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA’s “rendition” kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.

“At first read, it’s little more than an exercise in hypocrisy. His words about human rights ring hollow because his credibility is nonexistent,” said Curt Goering, the deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. “The gap between the rhetoric and the actual record is stunning. I can’t help but believe many people in the audience were thinking, ‘What was this man thinking?’ ”

…

The president also had sharp words for Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Zimbabwe and Sudan for having “brutal regimes” that “deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration” of Human Rights. He omitted any reference to repressive regimes allied with his war on terrorism, including Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China.

The whole article is here.

790. My name is not uncommon. I’ve had brushes with several others sharing my name: a man who shared the same doctor with me in southern Wisconsin, the head of the school of dermatology at a major university in California, the photography editor of Playboy ( I not only used to get his phone calls but last year I met his next door neighbor), another employee where I worked in Portland, Oregon (our spouses also had the same first name), a famous actor, a deadbeat who was being chased by bill collectors, and most recently I saw the names of Mrs. Skank and me  on a headstone when I was picking out a grave site for my father (I chose another part of the cemetery).

How many of you are there? Check it out at:

http://howmanyofme.com/search/

From the Onion:

Iraqis may be human.

It must be someone else’s fault.

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I went and saw it last night. It’s a full speed ahead action movie with a style of direction that makes the action scenes much more immediate. Rather than long shots from a distance showing the action, the director chose to film with a shoulder carried camera, apparently with the steady-cam feature disabled. The result is that you feel like you’re right there. Read the rest of this entry »

Mrs. Skank is out of town for a month visiting family in Spokane. I love Mexican food and Mrs. Skank does not much like it. I really miss her when she’s gone and in her absence I console myself with trying new Mexican food.

I had this tonight and it is wonderful. I couldn’t find any kalamata olives at the grocery store so I had to omit them. It was still great.
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I’m so bummed out by recent events in Congress that I can’t write about anything political at this time. So here is something that reminds me of trying to help my mom solve a computer problem when we are separated by 1700 miles and connected only by a phone line.

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Female customer: A white one…

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An Indian girl rollerskates under a line of 40 cars.

Pretty amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9htVkOc88