" it is their responsibility (under the GCs as well as morally) for unarmed civilian deaths, particularly such as this, where people were shot in the head at close range."

from Generation Kill on HBO, paraphrased:

commanding officer to troops, early on in GWII:

"now some of you rightfully wish to extend proper care to the residents. however, we are not required to extend to them the same standard of care that we are used to in the US; we are required to extend to them the same standard of care which they are used to in this country. and as far as I am concerned, the standard of care in this country is, none."

I know, it's just fiction, but it's truthy!!

article in the paper over the weekend about erroneous drug raids killing American citizens within America in their American homes, and the shrug of the authorities.

people really need to realign their idea of Us vs Them in terms of who does you harm or is likely to do you harm in the future, and who is just another victim of the predatory elite.

should be required reading for every american, with a quiz on it later which you need to pass if you want to vote.

and the bushies need to have it tattooed on their faces to ensure people don't forget their role in the downfall of the middle class, America, and the European Enlightenment.

same deal as we went through with long distance not all that long ago. once upon a time, the phone companies invested a lot of money in establishing the infrastructure for long distance telephoning, and so they charged everybody a lot of money to do so even though the marginal cost of each call was minimal. after a while, somebody realized you could get a lot of customers by making the added cost of long distance minimal or nil.

"After all, a recent survey showed that 82 percent of American cellphone users have never texted. "

and at these prices, no wonder.

calling a pit-bull a pig. how rude.

"Lipstick on your pi-ig

Told a tale on you"

loved it the first season, theme song(s) and all, it was appointment TV for me; but by this season I watch it if I can, but frankly I'm never sure if I've missed a week or not. That can't be good.

served them fried fertilized chicken eggs. they didn't approve.

McCain claims "Alaska supplies 20 percent of America's energy." http://www.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?chid=3&schid=160&secid=20208&cid=1669256#p

Maybe he got the idea from Palin. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5782924&page=1

Now that's a funny lie!

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html

getting the public to vote on a rational analysis of the issues and the positions of each candidate is like expecting fans to root for the Yankees or Red Sox based on their analyses of the relative competence of the strategies used by the two coaches, based on the information provided them by the always logical and explanatory media in its detailed thoughtful reporting.

the saddest part is that in fact, the media does a lot better job reporting the factual realities underlying sports in addition to the scoreboard than it does with politics.

Nobody expects the Alaskan politician!

i happened to come across a miami herald article online regarding obama-phobia among jews; it was quite amazing the number of anti-obama Jewish-affiliated commenters. i posted a dissenting view, which elicited a comment of "thank god, i thought everybody had gone crazy" (approximately)

next day, pretty much the same thing, but with the anchorage daily news.

my theory is that there is an active astroturf campaign by the republicans to make it appear that jews are flocking to mccain/palin for fear of that crazy secret muslim guy, possibly to offset any negative reaction to the evangelism stuff.

as i posted in both comments of the newspapers sites, it won't happen because:

1) jews come from a culture that has venerated intellect, analysis, intelligence, education, learning, wisdom, etc. for thousands of years; even the most assimilated jews still carry a large dose of this. thus their rejection of bush in both 2000 and 2004, despite the canard that he was making war on iraq for the israelis. "hmm... editor of the harvard law review, or former beauty contestant... hard to choose....". No.

2) the gun-totin huntin and fishin hard drinkin good old yahoo with a deeply unquestioning faith in his/her church, which the republicans want us to think their candidates are? that's the guy the jews came to this country to escape, after he killed their grandmother in a pogrom. explicit or implicit, that's what most jews still feel to some degree when they see the republicans appeal to this segment.

3) and it's only made worse by the republicans scapegoating the urban, upwardly mobile, cosmpolitan, international, highly educated, bicoastal, latte-drinking, gun-fearing "elite", and rattling sabers at them. who the hell does that represent, if not Jews?

palin ain't gonna be palatable to the jews, even the ones who don't keep kosher.

obama's really a secret jew, not muslim. obviously his real name is Baruch. who ever heard of Barack as a name? if the picture of him in a yarmulke in front of the wailing wall didn't tip his hand, the news that his wife's cousin is a rabbi should have.

1) lots of alaskan men have big shaggy beards; lots of orthodox jewish men have big shaggy beards.

ummmm.... that's all i got.

i believe they meant that as a youth, the senator was among the first hominids to eat the fruit of the blackberry bush, thus assuring his tribe of a plentiful food supply.

"she's not just not qualified to be vice president of the US; she's not even qualified to be mayor of Wasilla".