As Astro on the Jetsons would say:

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=A1C2FA5C-0004-46BB-A5FA-B08869C091A7

She was one of the sane ones who "voted" against the emminent domain ruling. Or as i'm sure history will regard it "the great resort land grab of 2006"

Well, begin the Supreme Court shaping battles has. O'Connor was a conservative, but a moderate one and she shared the "swing vote" honors with Kennedy. It'll be interesting to see who will be nominated to succeed her, whether Bush will go for another moderate or a tried-and-true conservative.

Or, I suppose if Bush will nominate Alberto "Geneva Conventions? We don't need no stinkin' Geneva Conventions" Gonzales...

José

Bush has made it abundantly clear time and time again that he will go for another nutbar like Scalia who believes that his God is over the laws of the United States which he is sworn to uphold, and who will rubberstamp whatever mad adventure he plans next

Whedon, I agree. O'Connor was not the one I wanted to see retire from the Court...

The "terrorists" are winning every day - only in a way they never imagined. 9/11 awarded Bush absolute carte blanche to have anything he wants. It's the gift that keeps on giving. And the majority of the American public is still asleep in a field of poppies.

I'll be interested to see George's next move. I hope the recent poll that found 25% of Republicans approved of impeachment if he knowingly lied about why went to war with Iraq a little sobering, and will keep him and his buddies from being too overt. But based on past behavior I seriously doubt it.

Boy, for armchair historians, the parallel's to Vietnam are getting spookily familiar though. My jaw dropped a few times during Bush's speech the other night, shades of LBJ! I don't think it's going to take 12 years for people to get sick of it this time in our short attention-span society, despite Donald Rumsfield's estimate!(another jaw dropper)

I wonder how the "Fahrenheit 9/11" thread would play now? The movie premiered exactly one year ago. If people were being honest - would they now give the movie credit for being more accurate than they did a year ago? Or less?

Karl Rove made it clear that he intends to make "liberals" the new century version of the 1950s Communists. That to me signals that the Administration is not going to play fair or adopt a moderate tone. Besides, what's the use of a poll about people's opinions if it doesn't toe the Party line?

Still, one could only hope that maybe (slight chance here... I've always been a sucker for hopeless causes) he'll replace O'Connor with another moderate given the Dems' threat of a fillibuster.

José

I've never thought of myself as a terrorist sympathizer or that I hate America. According to Karl Rove, I do*. This bunch seek the middle ground? Uh, let's just say, that fillibuster thing isn't over with yet.

*Notice Karl Rove doesn't say that to anyone within bitch slappin' distance

*Notice Karl Rove doesn't say that to anyone within bitch slappin' distance

Yeah, I experienced a quite visceral reaction to that particular statement and wished that I had been within physical proximity of Mr. Rove when he made it.

I wonder how the "Fahrenheit 9/11" thread would play now? The movie premiered exactly one year ago. If people were being honest - would they now give the movie credit for being more accurate than they did a year ago? Or less?

You'd probably still get the same ol'

1) Michael Moore says the President is dishonest and privileged.
2) The President is Commander in Chief of the Troops.

3) QED: Michael Moore says that US Soldiers are Lazy and Liars!!! You don't want to be a fat "red" athiest like Michael Moore do you?!! You know they're showing lesbians on PBS to kids, don't you??!!!

Circular alarmist misleading logic they apply to everything from Al Franken to Zambawe'.

Or they could just do some creative editing. Anybody catch the news story about the Bono quote about aid to Africa?Talk about busted!

Yeah, I experienced a quite visceral reaction to that particular statement and wished that I had been within physical proximity of Mr. Rove when he made it.

Yes, those prominent conservatives showed so much bravery on 9/11... bravery like going to hide in a secret bunker, or like freezing up for seven minutes to find out how 'My Pet Goat' ends.

I also find it ironic that that fat dough boy and others who were so busy 'planning' the war have never gone to war.

Planning! Good one!

I hope the recent poll that found 25% of Republicans approved of impeachment if he knowingly lied about why we went to war with Iraq a little sobering, and will keep him and his buddies from being too overt.IF he knowingly lied about it? Are there any intelligent people on this planet to whom this is still in question? :confused: :confused: :confused:

Well, begin the Supreme Court shaping battles has.
Or, I suppose if Bush will nominate Alberto "Geneva Conventions? We don't need no stinkin' Geneva Conventions" Gonzales...

José

Actually, several conservative groups have already said tonight they won't support Bush in that choice because Gonzales is not conservative enough!!

well gang the really scary thing is that this will give bush 2 appointees.... thats enough for a dramatic shift in the court very suddenly.

YES! I sure hope so. I so hope there is a dramatic swing. I hope they vote that they end all religion, the real cause of the Earth's wars.

well gang the really scary thing is that this will give bush 2 appointees.... thats enough for a dramatic shift in the court very suddenly.

My gun collection is hopeful. ;)

uh yeah a bush appointee vote to end religion..... um uh ok welcome back. so tell me howve things been on your planet over the past 6 years?

Oh, I could see them voting to end all other religions. It's a Judeo-Christian thing. Some of these neos believe that we're in the Biblical "end times" and that they're just the ones to move things right along. Welcome to Armageddon, and be careful driving - there's gonna' be some major traffic problems when all those good people get "raptured".

Shouldn't this topic title have been Ruh Rove? :p

Anyway, I'm not so sure I see Rehnquist retiring anytime soon. Dying, maybe. Retiring, I'm not so sure. Now I just gotta wait for for my ABA e-newsletter to find out about potential nominees...they'll send one soon. I've never seen an organization generate so much legitimate email...

Ruh-Roe as in RoeV. Wade as I see it. Scott, Seen my bumper stciker?
" In case of rapture, can I have your car?"

Ruh-Roe as in RoeV. Wade as I see it. Scott, Seen my bumper stciker?
" In case of rapture, can I have your car?"

HEH!!

My gun collection is hopeful. ;)

Yep, your guns are definately safe.

Of course, thanks to those same guys protecting your guns, you might loose your house to a credit card company if you have some bad financial luck. Or you might loose it if a corporation just says they can make more money with your property.

And from the writing on the wall, I sure hope you single guys don't make any "romantic" mistakes, at least not with anybody you don't intend to marry, or pay child support to for 18 years.

But yes, your guns are definately safe.

Yep, your guns are definately safe.



Not in NJ, they're not!

I had actually hoped to retire at some point. Looks like that's out. Maybe by the time my 6 year old is 18 the inducement to sign up and go to Iraq will be up to $200,000. Then she can loan her old pappy and mammy a few bucks to get by. The wife and I will sit around watching Bollywood movies on tv and remember the good old days when a heterosexual blow job was still a legal act and also an impeachable offense.

well gang the really scary thing is that this will give bush 2 appointees.... thats enough for a dramatic shift in the court very suddenly.

With O'Connor retiring, Bush doesn't need 2 appointees to swing it. There were already three solid conservatives (Renquist, Scalia and Thomas), three moderates-to-liberals (Breyer, Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg) with Kennedy and O'Connor, although both conservatives, sharing the honor of being a swing vote because they could go either way. If Rehnquist retired, the Court's ideology doesn't shift: a solid conservative replaces another. With O'Connor gone, and assuming that Bush won't nominate a liberal, then you can really tilt the balance to a solid conservative one.

Actually, several conservative groups have already said tonight they won't support Bush in that choice because Gonzales is not conservative enough!!

Yeah, but Bush may go for the "history" quotient and make a move as a gesture to Latinos (in the hope that they'll tilt and start to vote Republican). It would be a classic Karl Rove move.

José

I had actually hoped to retire at some point. .

I was lucky. I retired early courtesy of Jimmy Carter.

He came to the White House just after I started working.

In no time, Interest rates were 20%. Nobody could afford a house or get a loan but I was still living at home. I took every nickel I earned and bought certificates of deposits...as many as I could get. I even put off many basic necessities...just bought one pair of blue jeans per year! But literally EVERYTHING I made for four years went to certificates of deposits. I was making 20%+ percent annual interest.

When Carter lost the next election, the interest rate gravy train came to an end. I knew interest rates would come down and people would be able to get loans and afford houses (damn it). So I cashed out my "Carter Money" and put it all in the stock market. Sure enough...I cashed out at the peak of the Carter interest rate boom and got in at the ground floor of the Reagan stock market boom.

Pure serendipity. And not a hard trick if you understand math.

Ah...there's nothing* in the world as entertaining as watching a bunch of liberals patting each other on back, convinced that they speak the truth all America sees....and then seeing them get their asses handed to them on a silver platter come election day!


*Actually, there is ONE thing more entertaining: Watching Teddy Kennedy lecture President Bush about his choice for a new justice. Considering that Teddy should have gone to jail for manslaughter when he killed Mary Jo Kopechne, you have to snicker at the irony!

*Actually, there is ONE thing more entertaining: Watching Teddy Kennedy lecture President Bush about his choice for a new justice. Considering that Teddy should have gone to jail for manslaughter when he killed Mary Jo Kopechne, you have to snicker at the irony!

Man, it just kill's you guys that Kennedy didn't serve on a swiftboat, huh? 'Cause then you wouldn't have to go back to 1969.

'Sides, even if Kennedy did get away with manslaughter (And Brent, I give you serious credibility points& respect for not stretching it to murder), it's hardly an excuse for Repubicans to get away with murder ever since. :freak:

Actually, there is ONE thing more entertaining: Watching Teddy Kennedy lecture President Bush about his choice for a new justice. Considering that Teddy should have gone to jail for manslaughter when he killed Mary Jo Kopechne, you have to snicker at the irony!

Kind of like listening to DeLay lecture other people about morals, going out and doing unethical things in the name of getting other party stalwarts elected and then insisting that everything he's done is technically legal? Or how about DeLay got on people's cases about Terri Schiavo when he made the decision to unplug his father?

And let's not forget about Bill Frist, a medical doctor, going on TV and refusing to refute the White House's contention that AIDS can be spread through tears?

Yeah, there's nothing more entertaining.

José

If you want amusing, check out the new Daily Show Indecision '04 3 DVD Boxset. I chuckled during a 5 minute montage of all the things George and Dick promised us we'd find when we invaded Iraq: weapons grade plutonium, sarin nerve gas, nuclear triggers,sophisticated traveling biological weapons labs,concealed state-of-the-art nuclear labs, and a turkey farm! I howled as Geore and Dick assured the voters we'd be attacked again by terrorist, and soon. I almost wet myself as George promised the average Iraqi just couldn't hardly wait to fight the insurgency, and that joker Dick stated the insurgency wouldn't even last six months. And the only thing funnier than that whole "Mission Accomplished""All Major Military Operations are Concluded" stunt was watching the Dick C. and Dick R. testily debating exactly what "throes" and "concluded" really meant afterwards.

I laughed so hard I almost cried.

Oh yeah, Jose, don't forget when he was just a lil' ol' simple Texas Governor, good ol' boy George signed a act taking a 12 year old boy off life support against his parents wishes. But it was totally different, because a whole bunch of doctors testified the the boy had no chance of recovery and would remain in a permenant vegative state and it was cruel to prolong his life. And it was different because his parents and family weren't total loons.

Yeah, it's a riot all right.

Brent has said he doesn't check responses to his posts on political threads because he doesn't like to get into "arguments". Must be real nice sitting up there in Winnipeg - swooping in every now and then to hurl a few insults at a bunch of liberals patting each other on the back. He always seems smugly convinced that he speaks the truth all America sees - and then he swoops right back up to Winnipeg - where the air is clean and everything is crystal clear. You really gotta' respect a guy like that.

I probably shouldn't post the day after watching over 4 hours of Daily Show election coverage. Great DVD set, btw, and it's really interesting to see in one big 5.1 anamorphic gulp.

Well, I'm seeing War of the Worlds tonight, maybe that will cheer me up.

Well, I'm seeing War of the Worlds tonight, maybe that will cheer me up.

It's got a real 9/11 vibe to it. A co-worker of mine was livid after seeing it - saying that he didn't appreciate Spielberg exploiting the horror of 9/11 in order to manipulate the fears and emotions of the movie-going public. I found my co-worker's reaction "entertaining".

It's immoral to exploit 9/11 fears and emotions to further your career, goals and ambitions. Only libs would stoop so low.

José

It's got a real 9/11 vibe to it. A co-worker of mine was livid after seeing it - saying that he didn't appreciate Spielberg exploiting the horror of 9/11 in order to manipulate the fears and emotions of the movie-going public. I found my co-worker's reaction "entertaining".

I actually think the whole "911 Analogy" every critic keeps harping about is way more about perception. Other than the scenes of the posted "missing" pictures and the plane wreckage scene, I didn't think it evoked 911 any more than it did any major hurricane or earthquake. In fact the scenes of the people ooohing and ahhing at the clouds and lightning (and suddenly realizing it might be smart to seek cover instead) reminded me more of 'Charlie than 911. 'Course if I lived in NY instead of Florida......

Great movie though!

I amazed that Brent can be so razor sharp about American politics. He probably doesn't have family members who have already done 2 tours in Iraq, can't sleep at night, are paranoid as hell and will never be the same because of the hell hole that is Iraq.
Must be nice to let Americans ********* political beliefs?
Hey Brent , instead of me patting myself on the back, why don't you shove **********************************?
Happy 4th of July ***************************.

Don't let 'em bait into being nasty, dude! It'll just close the thread, as usually happens when we discuss anything more controversial than which particular incarnation of Star Trek sucked or didn't suck.

'Sides, how serious can you take a guy that brings up Chappiquiddick in a political argument? What's next: "Yeah, that Harry Truman was a damn fool liberal too,bad decisions all over the place"

Oh, I think Rich is just showing some good ol' American patriotism. The real kind.

Well, Rich is expressing my sentiments in this matter real well. :)

José

Guys, I'm furious with him. See, I actually do have family members who have done 2 tours. 2 Combat tours. Don't believe what you see on TV, I can forward some letters if you want. It's a bad situation over there and getting worse. Politics are about crop subsidies and gamesmanship. War is supposed to be that line where politics stops.
We Americans, the real ones, aren't so callous enough that we don't care about every single solitary soldier that is killed or injured because of this BS.
It's going downhill because I'm liberal?
How about, it's the way it is because the people running the show care more about interest rates, t-bills and money market returns than our own god damned flesh and blood.
Hope we meet some day Brent.

Rah! Rah! Go team! BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!

I laugh at all of you. There's not a dime's worth of difference between the 'conservatives' and the 'liberals'.

The liberals believe that the government is the answer to everything but don't want to give up capitalism. The conservatives believe that big business is the answer to everything but don't want to give up socialism. Technically, both parties are fascist. Hitler and Mussolini lost WWII but their philosophy won.

As for our two major political parties, it all comes down to what brand of fascism/socialism you want: Brand 'A' or Brand 'B'. We're so lucky to be able to vote in this country! The way things are set up, we have one more party to choose from than the former USSR did. Some choice! I can't see, from my vantage point, why you get so testy about everything. You all need to just calm down.

The eminent domain ruling is a perfect example. I find it ironic. The libs are screaming 'foul play' when it was their activist judges on the Supreme Court that ruled the day. The cons are going ballistic even though the conservative judges ruled against the Constitution which leaves such matters to the states. (They can't say that, in regards to the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment doesn't apply to the states--which it does not--in regards to school prayer and then turn around and state that the fifth amendment does apply, not only to states, but to the local levels. Why are they envisioning the Fed as the protector of individuals from state and local governments when it's been generally held that it should be the other way around?)

It'd be nice to see more people concerned about restoring the republic, turning us back into a country based on written law rather than the whims of our oligarchial leaders.

Congratulations, American Empire! You are a total perversion of what the Founding Fathers intended. We bear no relation to that country they founded except in name.

Guys, I'm furious with him. See, I actually do have family members who have done 2 tours. 2 Combat tours. Don't believe what you see on TV, I can forward some letters if you want. It's a bad situation over there and getting worse. Politics are about crop subsidies and gamesmanship. War is supposed to be that line where politics stops.
We Americans, the real ones, aren't so callous enough that we don't care about every single solitary soldier that is killed or injured because of this BS.
It's going downhill because I'm liberal?
How about, it's the way it is because the people running the show care more about interest rates, t-bills and money market returns than our own god damned flesh and blood.
Hope we meet some day Brent.

Sadly, more and more familys will probably be echoing your sentiments. When the fathers, mothers,sons, daughters, wives and husbands of rich familys start coming home in body bags or maimed, it won't be such a "liberal" thing anymore. Remember Vietnam? It was back around the time of Chappiquiddick?

And lets review some other lessons learned from the Chappiquiddick time frame that might be more relevant than what a buffoon Teddy K is. Oh, like knowing being occupied is a powerful motivator. Or it might not be a good idea to mouth off about those liberal's against the war lest the guy next to you just lost a loved one. Maybe the president shouldn't try to sell us that the average Iraqi just loves to be occupied and it's only a few troublemakers from someplace else keeping things from running smooth. And maybe the President shouldn't be selling the insurgents are just fighting because they're evil commies (or terrorist), rather than people not crazy about being occupied. Even Robert McNamara learned (sadly too late) that the average Vietnamese couldn't care less about communism or democracy, but being occupied really pissed them off and made them willing to fight till the occupiers left with righteous indignation on their side. And rather that focusing on what a fat obnoxious idiot Ted Kennedy is, maybe we ought to remember exactly how crappy it was to send young men and women off to fight in a war in another country that both they and the public had rising concerns about.

Or we can cross our fingers and hope history don't repeat itself like the conservatives.

I wouldn't sweat it too much,Rich, those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. I'm pretty confident predicting a year from now there are going to be a lot more "liberal" familys against the war. However, there probably won't be much back patting going on. Not in amusement anyway.

It's kinda like the "moderate republicans" about health care. You know what a moderate republican is? One whose either been real sick, or had a friend or loved one real sick.

(Jesus Brent, Chappaquiddick? Do guys like you really think guys like Zorro, Jose, F91, and myself get together and say, "Boy that Ted Kennedy is a great guy! What a swell politician he is!!!! And is Jane Fonda cool or what? Hey, let's smoke pot and watch Woodstock and send money to the Black Panthers! Lava lamps are sooo groovy!!!".
How odd and quaint.

^^ Wars of aggression are typical of empires. The power of the Fed to ignore the Constitution and create entitlements to corporations and individuals is the same power they have to wage war. In both cases, the Constitution is ignored.

What amazes me is you guys are even more vicious here on the hobby board than most discussions I see on actual political discussion boards!

I can basically sum up all political discussions this way:

"The party you're in is evil, and rilly sucks. The party I'm in is godlike in its perfection."

"Oh yeah? Well the leader of YOUR party is Satan and wishes world domination and mass death. The leader of MY party is a sweet old guy who raises kittens and cures lepers."

"Oh yeah? well, you suck!"

"No, YOU suck!"

"Eat me!"

"You're an idiot!"

"No YOU'RE an idiot!!"

"YO MOMMA!!!"

And on and on and nobody listens and nobody changes their mind and frankly BOTH sides have their good and bad points and BOTH sides suck.

Anybody building a model?

^^ :lol:

What amazes me is you guys are even more vicious here on the hobby board than most discussions I see on actual political discussion boards!?

Yes, lets take our cue from the Star Trek modellers. You guys never disagree about anything, or have a difference of opinion. No deleting post or locking threads there. No name calling either!
No Sir!

Anybody building a model?
Always!

Does Cult still have it on line? I thought I'd pissed him off enough to delete it by now .

Yeah, we're the viscious ones. And anticipating a "it was only a joke" response,are you alone allowed to make comments with a sarcastic or humorous slant? I'm genuinely curious, because it sure looks like the ol' double standard....

Star Trek V sucked!

No, Star Trek: Nemesis sucked even worse!

And it's less filling.

José