If I were him, I'd be making that offer to lay a wreath once or twice a year. Play Bush like the cast-bronze fool that he is.

-- casual_observer

I would too. Nothing quite like letting the Emperor-who-has-no-clothes show his a$$ to the world - over and over again - to cultivate a few (gag) reflexes for the other side.

Who should we bet on figuring out this strategy first, Mr. A. or our fawning Dems in Congress?

Yes. Welcome home bebop-o. Thank the Nova Scotia librarian for us again, please, and also the lares et penates for keeping the hearth in your absence. It's good to have you back under your domestic handle again.

Senate vote three fourths said yes

Although all Dem presidential candidates voted no, of those who were present, MSNBC said 75 senators voted yes for the sense of the senate condemnation attached to the defense bill. A lot of Dem cowards who don't trust the American people to recognize the hypocrisy involved in this bill should be ashamed of themselves.

-- Retired Military Patriot

Well now, this just twists my knickers into a knotty bundle! I'm sorry, but "sense of the senate" my back passage. They have no sense at all!

As if they don't have a big enough load of work to do, now they have made themselves the arbiters of "polite discourse" too. Heaven help us all, because the devil's LHAO down below.

I wonder if, while they're considering retroactive immunity for the telecoms, we could ask them to also consider retroactive condemnation of the Swift Boat Bassturds.

"The symbols seem to me to be used to control authoritarian followers by invoking carefully cultivated reflex reactions. "

As an example of what you're saying, look at the two protests in DC, this past weekend, on the war. Look at a frontal shot of the anti-war protest front stage. Then, look at the same for the pro-war "gathering of eagles". US Flag ratio will be what? 5:1? 10:1?

For Ahmadinejad, this is the gift that keeps on giving. He wins either way. If US says yes, then he can justifiably claim credit for the gesture because he initiated it. If US rejects, then he goes back to the ME and shrugs, saying: "See--I told you. I tried, but they are completely nuts over there. They are angry, unreasonable, and dangerous." If I were him, I'd be making that offer to lay a wreath once or twice a year. Play Bush like the cast-bronze fool that he is.

Ahmadinejad's jesture was symbolic, but it opened a huge portal for real diplomacy and real communication. Bush's refusal is equally symbolic, in slamming that portal shut. In Bush's view, an american president cannot, must not, be seen to engage/interact with evil (Ahmadinejad)--aside from conflict with it.--Casual Observer

The symbols seem to me to be used to control authoritarian followers by invoking carefully cultivated reflex reactions. And it doesn't take much to make the reflex part of the dogma. My own experiences with these reactions are, once they become engaged, further discourse is pretty much aborted for any topic. This tactic is a consistent theme across the board for them, used to control everything from individual conversations to elections (gay marriage anyone?).

This is particularly dangerous when it becomes the method for applying foreign policy as it completely rules out diplomatic nuances and accepts nothing short of abject capitulation from those who are trying (however honestly or dishonestly) to open a dialogue with us. This isn't the first time we have slammed a door in Iran's face.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001320.php

I wonder how many more opportunities we will squander before they just decide we are no longer worth the effort.

The cloning software says it can't clone the source drive if it is connected via SATA, and the manual advises getting a SATA-IDE converter to get around this. I confirmed this with their tech support, but I have no IDE connector plug on the motherboard, and therefore no IDE tape to connect an IDE drive to, and the final destination of the clone, if it is successful enough to boot, would have to be a SATA drive. Currently, I have a drive big enough to accept the clone on the system through a USB. I would have to clean it off first, but that won't be a problem. But it can't be the final internal drive, because it isn't SATA, and internally only a SATA drive can be plugged in.

The cloning program is actually a recovery suite, so one of the options is to look at what's on the drive (a different one from the cloner), this one gives only errors, which the manual says is because of accessing via SATA. What this option does, if it can, is access the boot records on the drive and bring up the file system enough to see it (the program knows about NTFS).

I really appreciate your taking this time, I do hope you are on antibiotics for the sinus infection. Make sure the doctor keeps you on them until it's completely gone (usually double the time for other illnesses), otherwise it can do permanent damage (cause asthma, allergies).

Although all Dem presidential candidates voted no, of those who were present, MSNBC said 75 senators voted yes for the sense of the senate condemnation attached to the defense bill. A lot of Dem cowards who don't trust the American people to recognize the hypocrisy involved in this bill should be ashamed of themselves.

On further thought, it is ineptness, but this is a symptom, rather than cause. It is actually completely consistent behavior on the President's part, as laid out in GG's latest book.

Which makes Hillary's identical response all the more cause for concern.

One thing that occurs to me that is not touched on in GG's book, or in the definitions of facism I've read, is the greater importance, reliance on, and rigidity of SYMBOLS in the growh of despotic, totalitarian systems.

But I believe such is the case. The amendments to make flag-burning illegal, for example or the sillyness regarding english as official national language are attempts to enshrine and elevate certain symbols equating to ever greater authority and insitence on conformity and compliance. In short--the more ideological a regieme, the greater the reliance on and elevation of symbols.

Ahmadinejad's jesture was symbolic, but it opened a huge portal for real diplomacy and real communication. Bush's refusal is equally symbolic, in slamming that portal shut. In Bush's view, an american president cannot, must not, be seen to engage/interact with evil (Ahmadinejad)--aside from conflict with it.

The neocons around Bush have their own reasons. They may not have identical evangelical motivations, but they clearly must know that any semblance of raproachment, even symbolic, harms their goal of armed conflict with Iran.