Ahhhhhhhh, yes.

The old "Sodomy Broom". Works every time! What manly men these are.

Sometimes the freedom of the press is just too much for a propaganda machine.-- FMHilton

All of the letters absolutely demolish the prosecutor's claim of a clean, happy prison. One letter states that his client attempted suicide because death would be preferable to being held at the prison.

They also listed as heinous torture having a beard shaved and being forced to pray in their underwear. Oh, the inhumanity...

None of them have any good words to say about the editorial, and all of them rebut soundly the arguments that the prosecutor states.

Right, because I say so.

We would not have been so quickly validated on our own opinions.

Translation: Because I'm liberal and therefore morally superior.
All this reminds me of the sage wisdom of years gone by... don't do the crime, if you can't do the time. But as always... IOKIYAD. They don't go to prison, or even resign for that matter.

Instead of cross the earth without the dead Albatross about our neck be hung. I hope bamage barnicle in never offended at me. And those Preposterous beneficial insects would bite Abraham Lincoln and William T. as he eats grits, sulfides bacon strips, and basil omelettes with Karen M. and Dessert Son. huh.

I'm not sure how the Mind withstands the barrage and does not grow weary, heavy, and bored from seagull and barnacles. No. Never a dull moment. My mind drift to this: I share.

ARGUMENT: The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner in 7-parts. 1798. How strange things befell the Ancyent (correct spelling back then) Marinere before he came back to his own Country.

In the mountains on a breezy night, if you close your eyes tight, a sensation can consume you as if you are lost at sea. Part 1-thoughts from Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

"By the long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

...feast is set: May'st hear the merry din."

...And he hold hands...listens like a three years' child:

He cannot choose but hear; And thus spoke on that ancient man,

I shot the Albatross!

Part 2- The fair breezes blew, and white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into the silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down

'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break the silence of the sea! All in hot copper sky. the bloody sun, at noon. Right above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be!

Yea slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout the death fires danced at night;

The water, like like a witch's (properly spelled) oils,

Burnt green, and blue, and white. And some dreams assured were Of the Spirit that plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had followed us from the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought, was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. Ah! well-a-day! What evil looks had I from the young!

Last line from Part 2- Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

_______

Often I imagine we are all shipmates in sore distress and would throw the whole guilt for our troubles on the ancient Mariner; in a sign of hanging the dead sea bird 'round his neck. I remember Dessert Son going off for rest and bless him for not lugging the Albatross computer round his neck as he walked the seashore. I hope Igirl is okay. Today is a one of those dodge-dance Tao-Tap-shooting..."Dance!"....as the doj's gunslingers make dust. They such bad shots and shoot ya's in the left calf? I hope not. My contraption acts half-broken. Who?

____

apologies to Coleridge. It is a loaded gun to me. I sat with my three year old grandaughter at a pond when a breeze and ripples sparkled in the sun. She ask, "Who put those lights there?" and "It feels like we are moving." Who put the sun up there? Who taught the bird to tweet? Who put the bright colored ring around that duck? Hope this banter is a okay ramble.

Eat multi-colored Swiss chard!

Today in the NY Times there are 6 letters, 4 of which are from detainee lawyers who have personally traveled to Guantanamo recently.

All of the letters absolutely demolish the prosecutor's claim of a clean, happy prison. One letter states that his client attempted suicide because death would be preferable to being held at the prison.

None of them have any good words to say about the editorial, and all of them rebut soundly the arguments that the prosecutor states.

If we take these letters at face value, the NY Times has just been held starkly and harshly accountable for it's extremely biased op-ed piece.

All I can say is "thank god for the Internet", because they would never have been published so quickly had it not been for the e-mail option for publication, if ever.

We would not have been so quickly validated on our own opinions.

Sometimes the freedom of the press is just too much for a propaganda machine.

bucky1:

-- Paul Rosenberg attacks antiwar.com

[me]... I went shopping a couple of hours ago, just after voting in the special election for Congress (CA-37). There, in front of the Trader Joes, was a bustling little table of anti-Bush organizing... by the LaRouchies. Possibly the only outfight in America more psychologically unfit to run the country than the gang that's actually in charge. ...

It is interesting that Paul R. uses the LaRouchies to make some obscure point that antiwar.com is not worthy of his big tent. Fine, if you are so partisan that the fellows over at antiwar.com are not good enough for you that is your business.

I wasn't attacking antiwar.com at all. I was attacking your logic (or lack thereof) in touting them.

My point is simply that being a big tent for all comers to a good cause does not necessarily make one good--or evil. Nor does it make those who come good or evil. (The war is evil, but some who oppose it are evil, too.) If there are literally no limits then some scamming and duplicity will certainly occur, perhaps even fatal doses. One has to deal with what actually occurs, and not rely on high-fallutin rhetoric.

[me]... Bourne was 14 in 1900, but was never remotely a libertarian. ...

If you read what I wrote, I said that he would be a liberal in the classic sense; which today is called libertarian because of the socialists that came to dominate the group we moderns call 'liberal'.

I read what you wrote and responded by cutting to the quick. The libertarian laissez-faire ideology was in full sway in 1900, it was supported by McKinnley/Hannah Republicans. And Bourne was not one of them.

It was opposed in various different ways by the Populists, Socialists, Anarchists, Social Gospel folks and Progressives (in both the Democratic and Republican parties). Bourne was a progressive who broke with the leading progressives who bought into Wilson's illusion of a war to make the world "safe for democracy." But that break came in the last couple of years of his tragically short life. And he did not suddenly become a laissez-faire Republican when he broke with the progressive hawks.

As for your malarky about "socialists," it's strictly Rush-speak. Which is to say, lies.

British liberals began having serious doubts about laissez-faire by the mid-19th Century, aided in part by the novels of Dickens. By the 1870s, the New Liberals (Green and Hobhouse, most notably) began making the case for a positive role for the state in fostering conditions for the realization of positive liberty.

See, for example, wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism

American progressives were influenced by social liberals, as well as by social democratic ideas, neither of which are socialist--although it was also influened by the Social Gospel movement, and there certainly were some Christian socialists in their midst. The Pledge of Allegience was written by one, for example. And we all know what a powerful socialist influence that turned out to be!

Socialism is public control of the basic means of production. Outside of public services, American liberals have almost never shown any affinity for this, except on rare occassions where private ownership has seemed particularly inimical to the common good. Single payer health care, for example, is not a plan for public or government ownership of the health care sector, but for government payment--just like Medicare.

While a number of self-identified socialists became involved in the New Deal, for the most part their influence was either minor, or their concept of socialism was dilute. Nothing in the New Deal was remotely socialistic, except, arguably, for the Tennessee Valley Authority. But the beneficiaries were--for once--simply too grateful for the benefits it brought to quibble about it. The market was never going to meet their basic development needs, so they took it whichever way they could.

In short, bucky1, stop playing Humpty Dumpty. Words don't mean whatever you choose to make them mean.

There's glory for you.