he also thinks he is on some kind of "political" blog!

Is responding to bernbart obstructing this?

I would have to say it does. I was watching for today's post by Glen but still got to it late. I read his column, checked his references then started in on the comments. I try to catch up with what has already been said before ever considering making a comment. I did not count but would estimate seventy-five percent of the comments were replies to bernbart and the thread quickly went off topic. I really found little about accurate journalism, the accurate accounting of those released, comparing journalistic style or accuracy or governmental accountability. Just the same "gotcha" of the fake debates the media presents as news.

As for spreading the word, yes I do try. It is my own lack of knowledge about these forums that frustrates the most. I am for the most part house-bound and still learning to get around on the net. But I have had 62 years of watching things get better and worse but have seen nothing that equals the threat that exists today to this country and it is coming entirely from within.

I think she was a good choice - sometimes she is overdoing the 'idiot savant' shtick a bit - but that's cool too - Don't forget it's still the protagonists character which 'drives' the play.

I do understand the need for an antagonist since I too often take on that role myself when group think seems to rule. But I know enough to throw my comments in and watch the others go at it, not make myself the center of the debate at the expense of the brainstorming and interchange.

I also wish this were only a political debate but I have been on the receiving end of the result of too many such debates not to understand the consequences of being a passive spectator.

- you should have seen some of the threats from last week - especially the one where LL and Jebbie got into this discussion if Obama was African or American - pure Bruno material!!

(hey - as there is a similar discussion in Bruno - they perhaps stole his lines?)

Is responding to bernbart obstructing this? ... I would have to say it does.

Hmm. Well, I'm in a bit of an intellectual quandary here, I really am. For my part, I enjoy the give and take--even if it is juvenile by some standards--with other participants, whomever they might be.

By the same token, I appreciate the concerns of others, such as you, who're perturbed by a derailment of the thread.

I really don't know where I come down on this. I suppose I think that--like life--this internet stuff, and Glenn's blog, afford us an opportunity to come together and engage in discussion. But that discussion includes humor, frivolity, and just plain nonsense, as well as serious-minded commentary.

Maybe I'm completely wrong about all of this. If I am, well, as I mentioned earlier, Glenn will let me know and I'll cease and desist.

I'm completely serious, by the way, when I say that this stuff (basically, human activity) is a mystery to me.

due process = knowledge collection

What's lost in a lot of the hysteria about "giving rights to terrorists" is that due process is required for the state to have any confidence whatsoever in whatever legal findings it is making. When due process is tossed out the window, in favor of executive branch fiat, decisions no longer are made based on an established factual basis, but rather on the basis of the political necessities of the executive branch

That is not an unfortunate by product but the express intention all along of the neocon. Torture undermines the rules governing evidence gathering. Indefinite detention challenges Habeas. With the militarism, the secracy and the surveillance, they want to bring around the rule by men rather than the rule by law society. They are fascists, and the project still continues with no real roll backs by Obama likely.

When I use the word Fascist, I assure you I am not using it as Kevin the Teenager might to describe his parents for not letting him borrow the car at the weekend.

Without fun you are without life. The info was there as well as the fun. It just struck me, like omooex said, a lot of piling on. It wasn't so much that any one was off trying to show up bernbart, more that six such comment were all being typed at the same time often with a different way of saying the same thing. It also seemed to quickly degenerate to little more than name calling.

thanks for the link and the comments ...

What does the fact that the agents of the US government who performed all these kidnappings (because under the laws of the countries where most of them occurred, that is what they are) have not only never faced a single charge, even in absentia, but have been given the very obliging cooperation of the "security & intelligence" communities in those countries, often with their local police forces as well, tell you?

What does this tell you about what your country is really a part of?

Anything?

The US government has openly stated that it reserves the right to kidnap anyone, anywhere, any time. Matters of legal jurisdiction and quaint ideas about national sovereignty are immaterial.

Does this tell you anything?

What about the abject submission of other governments to these acts and pronouncements?

Does that tell you anything?

I'm just an appliance driver myself

I meant to ask you earlier (but forgot) what that means.

you're a good person and you're intelligent but if you believe for one minute that anything that makes sense will happen in Afghanistan you are being incredibly optimistic. The heroin is run out of Afghanistan through the Turkish mafia families who are very good friends of the CIA and then on to America. I read it was over 90% of the heroin in America comes from Afghanistan. It's more than likely that if the Taliban HADN'T burned those poppy fields we would not even be talking about how to (a) win in Afghanistan or (b) get out of Afghanistan. Selling Afghanistan's poppy as medical poppy would make everyone happy -EXCEPT the CIA and their mafia friends. Not going to happen -which is a shame because there is apparently a worldwide shortage of medical poppy. The one thing you need to understand about the CIA is that they are depraved, rotten to the core and a law unto themselves. Once you understand that, nothing they do surprises you. Though I have to say the sheer flashiness and creativity of their bastardry makes you admire their craftsmanship if not the resulting disaster and its human toll.