Apology? Why? Our troops are great but there are some who are extreme and that report was true. You can't hide the truth because it might piss off some people. Some of our troops are extreme, especially since we relaxed our requirements for people to join. We have gang members that are soldiers. Hiding the truth helps nothing, even if it is about our troops.
Napolitano apologizes to veterans over 'extremist' flap
Saturday, April 25, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/290835;jsessionid=1CF61427832BFD102A7B0ECD12A898C9.live23i
Ex-CIA chief: Obama risks national security
Sunday, April 19, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/287446;jsessionid=351A907E3CCC76640E1FA9F34A8FF280.live4i
What a small, delusion al and pathetic man. If Obama does not prosecute, he opens the door wide open for this to happen again in the future. Just like this happened because Ford would not prosecute Nixon; Cheney and Rumsfeld saw they could get away with it. Well if Obama let's this go, crackpots like hayden will see they can just do it again in the future. If Obama does not at least investigate he will lose all my respect... This is not a time to be political. This needs to be done for Justice, for our Country's self respect and to Reverse the dark course Bush put us on...
Texas governor says secession possible
Thursday, April 16, 2009
"Pig Book" calls out top congressional porkers
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/284383
How funny is it that Republicans are the top earmarkers, with Alaska at number one. The people yelling the loudest about Pork request the most Pork....
GOP lawmakers blast Cuba visit by Black Caucus members
Thursday, April 9, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/281483;jsessionid=BC204B5AF5A385628467CC411D4E81CC.live4i
Funny how Republicans ignore the Human Rights Abuses in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia etc. Oh wait that's because they major donations from those countries due to oil... If it benefits them no worries... If it doesn't, they are all in an uproar. How transparent can you get?
Grandson of Zimbabwe's prime minister drowns
Sunday, April 5, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/world/detail/278640
Another fishy death... I don't think this is an accident, like his wifes death was no accident.
Judge will hear feds' request to drop Stevens charges
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/275588;jsessionid=2C9B2D3F991828AC9E4355195DCF1F26.live5ib
I'm beginning not to like this Justice Dept. Protecting Cheney and Bush and now this? What is the difference from the last Justice Dept? Crooks, the whole lot...
The Fish Poop Clothes Line Of Death
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Joe the Plumber tells conservatives he's 'horny'
Friday, March 20, 2009
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/20/joe-the-plumber-tells-conservatives-hes-horny/
Really? This was in the Political NEWS section. It should be in the crap section...
Special Olympics asks Obama to consider hiring athlete
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/20/special-olympics-asks-obama-to-consider-hiring-athlete/
Hey at least he isn't torturing people. How soon America forget's...
Cheney belongs in jail, says Dreyfus
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/19/cheney-belongs-in-jail-says-dreyfus/
That's an understatement...
Is This True?
I found this somewhere on the web, I am lazy so I am just posting all of it.. some great stuff though...Very Funny! Worth Reading....
Among the hundreds of "Is this true?" queries we receive from readers every day, we usually find at least a few items that are obviously jokes or satirical articles. Rather than viewing this phenomenon, as some do, as yet another indicator of the imminent demise of critical thinking, we see it as part and parcel of what we do. Good satire, after all, has an air of believability to it — the satirist starts with reality and stretches it just a bit to spin a tale that will strike the reader as a ridiculous yet conceivable extension of current conditions. And jokes often have attributes in common with urban legends: they're narratives, they serve as expressions of social beliefs and customs, and they describe general, vaguely plausible events. So, if a joke is transformed into an urban legend by prefacing it with a "This is a true story" tag, it's not surprising that someone might venture to ask us if it really is a true story. (Indeed, our Jokes page includes articles we've written about dozens of the more prevalent jokes-cum-urban legends.)
Nonetheless, some queries leave us scratching our heads over just what readers are asking of us. They send us jokes, they seem to recognize that what they're sending us are jokes, yet they still ask us to validate something about what they're passing along. Under the conviction that perhaps greater minds than ours can fathom the secrets of some questions that have stumped us, we present below another collection of items that have been submitted to us for verification over the years:
Is this true?
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names with small American flags mounted on either side of it.
The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the Pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good morning, Alex."
"Good morning, Pastor," the boy replied, still focused on the plaque. Then he asked, "Pastor, what is this?"
The pastor said, "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service."
Soberly they stood together, staring at the large plaque. Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling with fear, asked:
"Which service: the 9:45 or the 11:15?"
I received an e-mail detailing a story about a man named Hans Grapje who had aspired to be a preist and bishop in the catholic church. I relayed the joke to a friend of mind and he wanted to know if it was true. I was curious as well so I thought that I would contact you seeing that you have had some sucess in de-bunking some stories. I will add the joke on to the end of this queary and am confident that you will find out the truth.
Hans Grapje was raised in a Catholic school in The Hague and, as a young man, aspired to become a priest, but was drafted into the Army during WWII and spent two years co-piloting B17s until his aircraft was shot down in 1943 and he lost his left arm. Captain Grapje spent the rest of the war as a chaplain, giving spiritual aid to soldiers, both Allied and enemy.
After the war, he became a priest, serving as a missionary in Africa, piloting his own plane (in spite of his handicap) to villages across the continent. In 1997, Father Grapje was serving in Zimbabwe when an explosion in a silver mine caused a cave-in. Archbishop Grapje went down into the mine to administer last rights to those too severely injured to move. Another shaft collapsed, and he was buried for three days, suffering multiple injuries, including the loss of his right eye. The high silver content in the mine's air gave him purpura, a life-long condition characterized by purplish skin blotches.
Although Cardinal Grapje devoted his life to the service of God as a scholar, mentor, and holy man, church leaders agree: he will never ascend to the Papacy. No one wants a one-eyed, one-armed, flying purple Papal leader.
This has been around forever, but I can't find it on your site. Do you have a page for this?
A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer.
She says she is going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan; so, the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is parked on the street in front of the bank. She has the title and everything checks out. The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then proceeds to drive the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parks it there.
Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41.
The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely; but, we're a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?"
The blonde replies, "The airport wanted to charge me two hundred dollars to store my car. Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"
Not all blondes are dumb.
Received in an email. Searched your site and could not find reference. Did Bill Clinton do this? Does the Muslim religion really believe that?
Dear Continental, American Airlines, Southwest, Delta, United, et al:
I have the solution to prevent hijackings and get our airline industry back on its feet at the same time.
Replace all female flight attendants with good lookin' strippers. What the hell? The attendants have gotten old and haggard looking. They don't even serve food anymore, so what's the loss? The strippers would double, triple, perhaps quadruple the alcohol consumption and get a "party atmosphere" going in the cabin.
Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing naked women. And, of course, every heterosexual businessman in this country would start flying again hoping to see naked women. Hijackings would come to a screeching halt and the airline industry would see record revenue.
Why the hell didn't Bush think of this? Why do I still have to do everything myself?
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
This is an e-mail I received that I believe to be false. I was wondering if you had it in your archives and I was just missing it. Let me know if you have this one somewhere, please.
A little girl was talking to President Bush about whales. Mr. Bush told her that it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human being because even though it was a very large mammal, its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the President reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah."
Mr. Bush asked, "What if Jonah went to the other place?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."
I was wondering about this email I was just sent. I searched and didn't see anything about it:
The US Navy welcomed the latest member of its fleet today.
The USS William Jefferson Clinton CVS1 set sail today from its home port of Vancouver, BC.
The ship is the first of its kind in the Navy and is a standing legacy to President Clinton and his foresight in military budget cuts. The ship is constructed nearly entirely from recycled aluminum and is completely solar powered with a top speed of 5 knots. It boasts an arsenal comprised of one F14 Tomcat or F18 Hornet aircraft, which although they cannot be launched or captured on the 100 foot flight deck, form a very menacing presence.
As a standing order there are no firearms allowed on board. The 20 person crew is completely diversified and includes members of all races, creeds, sex, and sexual orientation.
The ship's purpose is not defined so much as a unit of national defense — in fact in times of conflict its orders are to remain in hiding in Canada, but will be used extensively for social experimentation and whatever worthless jobs the ex-commander in chief and his wife can think of.
It is largely rumored that the ship will also be the set for the upcoming season of MTV's "The Real World."
I received an e-mail about a Philadelphia Eagles player that noticed a white powdery substance after a practice. The FBI was called in, and determined that it was the goal line. Any truth to the rumor?
I received the following email and found nothing about the situation on your web site. True or False? To me, it sounds like a joke.
Lawyers should never ask a witness a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.
In a trial, a Southern small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand-motherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper-pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why yes, I do. I've know Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."
The defense attorney almost died.
The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice said, "Neither of you bastards better ask her if she knows me."
Is this a hoax?
Microsoft Windows 98's secret:
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned having recently installed Windows 98 on my PC and that I am very happy with this operating system. I also showed him the Windows 98 CD, and to my surprise he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned on the oven. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.'
After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but then on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription; an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C204F6E65204F5320746
F2066696E64207468656D2CDA4F6E65204F5320746F206272696E67207468656D20
616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062696E64207468656D
'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said.
'No,' he said 'but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
Is this true?
A woman was walking down the street when she was approached by a man. The man said, "I must have you right now! I'll drop 500 dollars on the ground at your feet and in the time it takes for you to pick it up I can have my way with you from behind!"
The woman thought it over and told the man to wait a minute. She called her girlfriend on her cell phone and told her about the man's proposition.
Her girlfriend said, "When he drops the $500 on the ground I'm sure you can pick it up and run before he gets his pants down. Call me back and tell me what happened."
An hour and a half later the lady called her girlfriend back. "What happened?" the girlfriend asked.
The lady said, "That son-of-a-bitch had $500 in quarters!"
I heard this story from two different people. Both people say the story was told to them by others who were themselves at least one degree of separation from the original teller. A coincidence, or an urban legend? Have others reported this? Here's the story:
A woman is on a date with a big, strong guy (I believe at least one person I heard this from said the guy was a wrestler, but I may be making that up).
At the end of the date they start making out. Things start to get hot and heavy, and in the middle of it, the girl decides she's not into it. "Stop," she says, but the guy seems not to hear her. "Get off me!" she finally shouts. "Get off me!"
The guy stops, jumps up, rips off his shirt, and starts flexing his muscles.
"What the hell are you doing?" asks the girl.
The guy stops and says, "I thought you just told me to 'Get Awesome!'"
Is this true?
A very unattractive, mean actin' woman walks into Wal-Mart with her two kids.
The Wal-Mart Greeter asks, "Are they twins?"
The ugly woman says, "No, the oldest one, he's 9 and the younger one, she's 7. Why? ... Do you think they really look alike?"
"No", replies the greeter, "I just couldn't believe you got laid twice!"
SIRS, ANY TRUTH TO THE BELOW ARTICLE?
Two US Marines are listening to the radio in Iraq.
"American soldiers," coos a soft female voice, "Your so-called national Leaders have lied to you. You are needlessly risking your lives to wage A useless, unjust, illegal, and unwinnable war. Now is the time to return home to your loved ones, while you are still alive. If you foolishly insist on remaining where you are not wanted, the brave resistance fighters will have no choice but to kill you and add your name to the long ever-increasing casualty list of this insane war. So why risk never seeing your loved ones again for a so-called president who has repeatedly lied and deceived you at every opportunity? Why should you be sacrificed so that US corporations can enjoy fatter profits? The only wise thing to do is return home now, while you are still drawing breath, before you return zippered into a bodybag."
"What's this?" sneers one Marine. "An Islamo-terrorist version of Tokyo Rose?"
"No," answers the other. "It's just CNN!"
I had a friend who told me this story and I'm still laughing. I don't think it's true, but I'll take a shot.
There was this hotel in NYC that was under construction.
Three different men came at separate times. One man at the third floor didn't have a mirror. The guy on the second floor didn't have a crapper. The guy on the first floor didn't have a TV.
The next morning the man on the top floor was shaving and looking at his reflection in the mirror when he dropped the razor out of the window. The man below him was urinating out the window when the razor cut off his penis. The man below stuck his hand out the window to see what the weather was like when the penis fell in his hand.
This "current news article" has been circulating and I was wondering if it had any truth to it. I have seen on your website how many quotes and news events had been taken out of context. I was a little suspicious when there was no date, or newspaper reference.
WASHINGTON DC — During the National Spelling Bee this week in the nation's capital, Islamic spectators became outraged upon discovering that the USA was embedded in the middle of Jerusalem, Israel's holiest city.
The revelation was made by Douglas Levin, an eighth grader at the Joseph Lieberman Day School in Rockville Center, Md. When young Levin was asked to spell the word Jerusalem, he replied:
'J...E...R.....USA.....L...E...M.'
An audible gasp sounded from Muslim onlookers, who realized for the first time a USA presence in the holy city.
Muslim parents immediately protested the spelling contest, citing American bias toward Israel.
'It's a clear violation of church and state,' said Muhammed Ahlee, lobbyist for the Arab group Holy Shiite.
Bee officials quickly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the Muslims were merely disgruntled because Rajeed Raheed, a seventh grader from Al Kaydah Junior High, had been eliminated earlier for misspelling Afghanistan as Afghanustan.
'There is no 'A-N-U-S' in the middle of Afghanistan,' said one bee official, 'unless you believe bin Laden is still hiding there.'
Have you ever heard of this? It smacks of urban legend, but it could be real:
The meaning of "secure a building" in different branches of the military:
If you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors.
Army personnel would occupy the building so no one could enter.
Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat.
Air Force personnel would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.
I read this on the net, searched your site for "Grape Nuts" and came up with nothing ... so, is this true?
Many people think that the same man who " ... put the bomp in the bomp-shoo-bomp-de-bomp ..." is the fella who gave "Grape Nuts" their odd little name. That would be an incorrect assumption. Contrary to popular belief, Grape Nuts are not named after their ingredients but after their creator, Darnell "Grape Nuts" Johnson.
Johnson, 57, received his most amusing nickname after a high school football injury discolored a certain part of his anatomy. Originally nicknamed "Black Balls", Johnson, assuming his injury wasn't permanent, was convinced by his team mates three weeks after his injury to show them his ... uh ... private region. His "Black Balls" nickname was then changed to "Grape Nuts" which he answers to to this very day. Johnson started working for Post (The maker of Grape Nuts) in 1963 and was also the inspiration for several other breakfast cereals, several of which aren't even manufactured by Post. These would include (but are not limited to) "Cap'n Crunch", "Crunch Berries" and the old "Freakies" cereal from the 70s.
Is this rumor true or fake?
The real danger to us from the Middle East
This morning, from a cave somewhere in Pakistan, Taliban Minister of Migration, Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that if military action against Iraq continues, Taliban authorities will cut off America's supply of convenience store managers. And if this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be next, followed by Dell customer service reps.
Any info on the truth of this?
Hillary Clinton goes to a primary school in Ithaca, New York, to talk about the world.
After her talk she offers question time. One little boy puts up his hand, and the Senator asks him what his name is.
"Richard", replied the little boy.
"And what is your question, Richard?"
"I have three questions:
1. Whatever happened to your medical health care plan?
2. Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
3. Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?"
Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kiddies that they will continue after recess.
When they resume Hillary says, "OK, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"
A different little boy puts his hand up.
Hillary points him out and asks him what his name is.
"My name is George."
"And what is your question, George?"
"I have 5 questions:
1. Whatever happened to your medical health care plan?
2. Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
3. Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?
4. Why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
5. What happened to Richard?"
I got this chain today, and it just can't be true! Is it?
Dear Friends,
This chain letter was started in hopes of bringing relief to other tired and discouraged women. Unlike most chain letters, this one does not cost anything.
Just send a copy of this letter to five of your female friends who are equally tired and discontented. Then bundle up the man in your life, send him to the woman whose name appears at the top of the following list, and then add your name to the bottom of the list.
When your turn comes, you will receive 15,625 men. One of them is bound to be better than the one you already have. At the writing of this letter, a friend of mine had already received 184 men, of whom one may be well worth keeping. An unmarried woman living with her widowed mother was able to choose between a Chippendale dancer and an Olympic swimmer.
You can be lucky, too, but DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN! One woman broke the chain and got her own husband back!
So let's keep it going, ladies! Just add your name and address to the list below:
Laura Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C
[Note: This is an updating of an item of contemporary lore that has been with us for at least fifty years.]
True or false?
There is a factory in Northern Minnesota that makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys. The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arm. Here is a true story:
Lena was hired at the factory and she reported for her 1st day promptly at 8:00 a.m. The following day, at 8:45, there was a knock at the personnel manager's door. The foreman from the assembly line threw open the door and began to rant about his new employee, Lena. He complained that she was incredibly slow and that the entire production line was behind schedule and backing up!
The personnel manager decided he should see this for himself, so the two men marched down to the factory floor. When they got there, the line was so backed up, there were Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they were really beginning to pile up at the end of the line stood Lena, surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos.
She had a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The two men watched in amazement as she cut a little piece of fabric, wrapped it around two marbles and began carefully to sew the little package between Elmo's legs.
The personnel manager stared for a few seconds, saw what was happening, and burst into laughter. After several minutes of hysterics, he pulled himself together and approached Lena. "I'm sorry," he said to her. Barely able to keep a straight face, he said, "I think you misunderstood the instructions given you yesterday. Your job is to give each Elmo two test tickles ..."
This EMail has circulated recently — it does not appear to be in the "Snopes.Com" library as yet — I would like to know if this statement actually proceeded from an Israeli Ambassador, and if it can be traced as to the date of the occurence; Identifications of the parties involved; etc. The text follows below:
The Israeli Ambassador at the U.N. began, "Ladies and gentlemen before I commence with my speech, I want to relay an old Passover story to all of you ...
"When Moses was leading the Jews out of Egypt toward the Promised Land, he had to go through the nearly endless Sinai desert. The people became thirsty and needed water. So Moses struck the side of a mountain with his staff and a pond appeared with crystal clean, cool water. The people rejoiced and drank to their hearts' content.
"Moses wished to cleanse his whole body, so he went over to the other side of the pond, took all of his clothes off and dove into the cool waters. Only when Moses came out of the water, he discovered that all his clothes had been stolen. 'And,' he said, 'I have reasons to believe that the Palestinians stole my clothes.'"
The Palestinian delegate, hearing this accusation, jumps from his seat and screams out, "This is a travesty. It is widely known that there were no Palestinians there at that time!"
"And with that in mind," said the Israeli Ambassador, "let me now begin my speech."
DID GEORGE BUSH BOMB THE CANARY ISLANDS TO PREVENT SPREAD OF BIRD FLU?
I think this is a FOAF story.
A guy goes to Ireland and upon his return tries to smuggle "Irish moonshine" into the country in a mouthwash bottle. When the customs officer searches his suitcase, he opens the bottle because the liquid is clear and smells it. He asks the guy what it is — the guy says "water." The customs guy says no, this is "Irish moonshine." The guy gets down on his knees and says, "Praise god, it's another miracle." The customs official lets him go.
A friend just sent me the following joke. I know there is no check on the veracity of what people put up on their websites. But you're very well informed — do you think this is completely bogus?
It was the first day of school and a new student named Pedro Martinez, the son of a Mexican restaurateur, entered the fourth grade.
The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said 'Give me Liberty, or give me Death?'"
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Pedro, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775."
"Very good!" apprised the teacher. "Now, who said, 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'?"
Again, no response except from Pedro: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863."
The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed! Pedro, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do!"
She heard a loud whisper from the back of the classroom: "Screw the Mexicans!"
"Who said that?" she demanded.
Pedro put his hand up. "Jim Bowie, 1836."
At that point, another student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke."
The teacher glared and asked, "All right! Now, who said that?"
Again, Pedro answered, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991."
Another student yelled, "You're INCREDIBLE!"
Pedro jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouting to the teacher, "Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"
Now, with almost mob hysteria, the teacher said, "You little punk ... if you say anything else, I'll kill you!"
Pedro frantically yelled at the top of his voice, "Gary Condit to Chandra Levy, 2001."
The teacher fainted, and as the class gathered around her on the floor, someone said, "Oh crap, we're in BIG trouble now!"
Pedro whispered, "Saddam Hussein, 2003."
Finally someone throws an eraser at Pedro and another student shouts "Duck"!
Teacher, just waking, asked "Who said that?"
Pedro answered: "Dick Cheney, 2006!"
I received the below msg which is circulating the web. I cannot verify its authenticity. Looks bogus to me.
The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had covertly funded a project with the US auto makers for the past five years, whereby the auto makers were installing black box voice recorders in four-wheel drive pickup trucks in an effort to determine, in fatal accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.
They were surprised to find in 44 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, "Oh, SHIT!" Only the states of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas were different. There, 89.3 percent of the final words were: "Hold my beer and watch this."
Last updated: 8 July 2006
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/humor/question/requests2.asp
Among the hundreds of "Is this true?" queries we receive from readers every day, we usually find at least a few items that are obviously jokes or satirical articles. Rather than viewing this phenomenon, as some do, as yet another indicator of the imminent demise of critical thinking, we see it as part and parcel of what we do. Good satire, after all, has an air of believability to it — the satirist starts with reality and stretches it just a bit to spin a tale that will strike the reader as a ridiculous yet conceivable extension of current conditions. And jokes often have attributes in common with urban legends: they're narratives, they serve as expressions of social beliefs and customs, and they describe general, vaguely plausible events. So, if a joke is transformed into an urban legend by prefacing it with a "This is a true story" tag, it's not surprising that someone might venture to ask us if it really is a true story. (Indeed, our Jokes page includes articles we've written about dozens of the more prevalent jokes-cum-urban legends.)
Nonetheless, some queries leave us scratching our heads over just what readers are asking of us. They send us jokes, they seem to recognize that what they're sending us are jokes, yet they still ask us to validate something about what they're passing along. Under the conviction that perhaps greater minds than ours can fathom the secrets of some questions that have stumped us, we present below another collection of items that have been submitted to us for verification over the years:
Is this true?
One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names with small American flags mounted on either side of it.
The seven year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the Pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, "Good morning, Alex."
"Good morning, Pastor," the boy replied, still focused on the plaque. Then he asked, "Pastor, what is this?"
The pastor said, "Well, son, it's a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service."
Soberly they stood together, staring at the large plaque. Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling with fear, asked:
"Which service: the 9:45 or the 11:15?"
I received an e-mail detailing a story about a man named Hans Grapje who had aspired to be a preist and bishop in the catholic church. I relayed the joke to a friend of mind and he wanted to know if it was true. I was curious as well so I thought that I would contact you seeing that you have had some sucess in de-bunking some stories. I will add the joke on to the end of this queary and am confident that you will find out the truth.
Hans Grapje was raised in a Catholic school in The Hague and, as a young man, aspired to become a priest, but was drafted into the Army during WWII and spent two years co-piloting B17s until his aircraft was shot down in 1943 and he lost his left arm. Captain Grapje spent the rest of the war as a chaplain, giving spiritual aid to soldiers, both Allied and enemy.
After the war, he became a priest, serving as a missionary in Africa, piloting his own plane (in spite of his handicap) to villages across the continent. In 1997, Father Grapje was serving in Zimbabwe when an explosion in a silver mine caused a cave-in. Archbishop Grapje went down into the mine to administer last rights to those too severely injured to move. Another shaft collapsed, and he was buried for three days, suffering multiple injuries, including the loss of his right eye. The high silver content in the mine's air gave him purpura, a life-long condition characterized by purplish skin blotches.
Although Cardinal Grapje devoted his life to the service of God as a scholar, mentor, and holy man, church leaders agree: he will never ascend to the Papacy. No one wants a one-eyed, one-armed, flying purple Papal leader.
This has been around forever, but I can't find it on your site. Do you have a page for this?
A blonde walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer.
She says she is going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan; so, the blonde hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce. The car is parked on the street in front of the bank. She has the title and everything checks out. The bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.
The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the blonde for using a $250,000 Rolls as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then proceeds to drive the Rolls into the bank's underground garage and parks it there.
Two weeks later, the blonde returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41.
The loan officer says, "Miss, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely; but, we're a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?"
The blonde replies, "The airport wanted to charge me two hundred dollars to store my car. Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks for only $15.41 and expect it to be there when I return?"
Not all blondes are dumb.
Received in an email. Searched your site and could not find reference. Did Bill Clinton do this? Does the Muslim religion really believe that?
Dear Continental, American Airlines, Southwest, Delta, United, et al:
I have the solution to prevent hijackings and get our airline industry back on its feet at the same time.
Replace all female flight attendants with good lookin' strippers. What the hell? The attendants have gotten old and haggard looking. They don't even serve food anymore, so what's the loss? The strippers would double, triple, perhaps quadruple the alcohol consumption and get a "party atmosphere" going in the cabin.
Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing naked women. And, of course, every heterosexual businessman in this country would start flying again hoping to see naked women. Hijackings would come to a screeching halt and the airline industry would see record revenue.
Why the hell didn't Bush think of this? Why do I still have to do everything myself?
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
This is an e-mail I received that I believe to be false. I was wondering if you had it in your archives and I was just missing it. Let me know if you have this one somewhere, please.
A little girl was talking to President Bush about whales. Mr. Bush told her that it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human being because even though it was a very large mammal, its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the President reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.
The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah."
Mr. Bush asked, "What if Jonah went to the other place?"
The little girl replied, "Then you ask him."
I was wondering about this email I was just sent. I searched and didn't see anything about it:
The US Navy welcomed the latest member of its fleet today.
The USS William Jefferson Clinton CVS1 set sail today from its home port of Vancouver, BC.
The ship is the first of its kind in the Navy and is a standing legacy to President Clinton and his foresight in military budget cuts. The ship is constructed nearly entirely from recycled aluminum and is completely solar powered with a top speed of 5 knots. It boasts an arsenal comprised of one F14 Tomcat or F18 Hornet aircraft, which although they cannot be launched or captured on the 100 foot flight deck, form a very menacing presence.
As a standing order there are no firearms allowed on board. The 20 person crew is completely diversified and includes members of all races, creeds, sex, and sexual orientation.
The ship's purpose is not defined so much as a unit of national defense — in fact in times of conflict its orders are to remain in hiding in Canada, but will be used extensively for social experimentation and whatever worthless jobs the ex-commander in chief and his wife can think of.
It is largely rumored that the ship will also be the set for the upcoming season of MTV's "The Real World."
I received an e-mail about a Philadelphia Eagles player that noticed a white powdery substance after a practice. The FBI was called in, and determined that it was the goal line. Any truth to the rumor?
I received the following email and found nothing about the situation on your web site. True or False? To me, it sounds like a joke.
Lawyers should never ask a witness a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.
In a trial, a Southern small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grand-motherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?"
She responded, "Why, yes I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper-pusher. Yes, I know you."
The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?"
She again replied, "Why yes, I do. I've know Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him."
The defense attorney almost died.
The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench, and in a very quiet voice said, "Neither of you bastards better ask her if she knows me."
Is this a hoax?
Microsoft Windows 98's secret:
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned having recently installed Windows 98 on my PC and that I am very happy with this operating system. I also showed him the Windows 98 CD, and to my surprise he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned on the oven. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.'
After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but then on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription; an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C204F6E65204F5320746
F2066696E64207468656D2CDA4F6E65204F5320746F206272696E67207468656D20
616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062696E64207468656D
'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said.
'No,' he said 'but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
Is this true?
A woman was walking down the street when she was approached by a man. The man said, "I must have you right now! I'll drop 500 dollars on the ground at your feet and in the time it takes for you to pick it up I can have my way with you from behind!"
The woman thought it over and told the man to wait a minute. She called her girlfriend on her cell phone and told her about the man's proposition.
Her girlfriend said, "When he drops the $500 on the ground I'm sure you can pick it up and run before he gets his pants down. Call me back and tell me what happened."
An hour and a half later the lady called her girlfriend back. "What happened?" the girlfriend asked.
The lady said, "That son-of-a-bitch had $500 in quarters!"
I heard this story from two different people. Both people say the story was told to them by others who were themselves at least one degree of separation from the original teller. A coincidence, or an urban legend? Have others reported this? Here's the story:
A woman is on a date with a big, strong guy (I believe at least one person I heard this from said the guy was a wrestler, but I may be making that up).
At the end of the date they start making out. Things start to get hot and heavy, and in the middle of it, the girl decides she's not into it. "Stop," she says, but the guy seems not to hear her. "Get off me!" she finally shouts. "Get off me!"
The guy stops, jumps up, rips off his shirt, and starts flexing his muscles.
"What the hell are you doing?" asks the girl.
The guy stops and says, "I thought you just told me to 'Get Awesome!'"
Is this true?
A very unattractive, mean actin' woman walks into Wal-Mart with her two kids.
The Wal-Mart Greeter asks, "Are they twins?"
The ugly woman says, "No, the oldest one, he's 9 and the younger one, she's 7. Why? ... Do you think they really look alike?"
"No", replies the greeter, "I just couldn't believe you got laid twice!"
SIRS, ANY TRUTH TO THE BELOW ARTICLE?
Two US Marines are listening to the radio in Iraq.
"American soldiers," coos a soft female voice, "Your so-called national Leaders have lied to you. You are needlessly risking your lives to wage A useless, unjust, illegal, and unwinnable war. Now is the time to return home to your loved ones, while you are still alive. If you foolishly insist on remaining where you are not wanted, the brave resistance fighters will have no choice but to kill you and add your name to the long ever-increasing casualty list of this insane war. So why risk never seeing your loved ones again for a so-called president who has repeatedly lied and deceived you at every opportunity? Why should you be sacrificed so that US corporations can enjoy fatter profits? The only wise thing to do is return home now, while you are still drawing breath, before you return zippered into a bodybag."
"What's this?" sneers one Marine. "An Islamo-terrorist version of Tokyo Rose?"
"No," answers the other. "It's just CNN!"
I had a friend who told me this story and I'm still laughing. I don't think it's true, but I'll take a shot.
There was this hotel in NYC that was under construction.
Three different men came at separate times. One man at the third floor didn't have a mirror. The guy on the second floor didn't have a crapper. The guy on the first floor didn't have a TV.
The next morning the man on the top floor was shaving and looking at his reflection in the mirror when he dropped the razor out of the window. The man below him was urinating out the window when the razor cut off his penis. The man below stuck his hand out the window to see what the weather was like when the penis fell in his hand.
This "current news article" has been circulating and I was wondering if it had any truth to it. I have seen on your website how many quotes and news events had been taken out of context. I was a little suspicious when there was no date, or newspaper reference.
WASHINGTON DC — During the National Spelling Bee this week in the nation's capital, Islamic spectators became outraged upon discovering that the USA was embedded in the middle of Jerusalem, Israel's holiest city.
The revelation was made by Douglas Levin, an eighth grader at the Joseph Lieberman Day School in Rockville Center, Md. When young Levin was asked to spell the word Jerusalem, he replied:
'J...E...R.....USA.....L...E...M.'
An audible gasp sounded from Muslim onlookers, who realized for the first time a USA presence in the holy city.
Muslim parents immediately protested the spelling contest, citing American bias toward Israel.
'It's a clear violation of church and state,' said Muhammed Ahlee, lobbyist for the Arab group Holy Shiite.
Bee officials quickly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that the Muslims were merely disgruntled because Rajeed Raheed, a seventh grader from Al Kaydah Junior High, had been eliminated earlier for misspelling Afghanistan as Afghanustan.
'There is no 'A-N-U-S' in the middle of Afghanistan,' said one bee official, 'unless you believe bin Laden is still hiding there.'
Have you ever heard of this? It smacks of urban legend, but it could be real:
The meaning of "secure a building" in different branches of the military:
If you told Navy personnel to "secure a building," they would turn off the lights and lock the doors.
Army personnel would occupy the building so no one could enter.
Marines would assault the building, capture it, and defend it with suppressive fire and close combat.
Air Force personnel would take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.
I read this on the net, searched your site for "Grape Nuts" and came up with nothing ... so, is this true?
Many people think that the same man who " ... put the bomp in the bomp-shoo-bomp-de-bomp ..." is the fella who gave "Grape Nuts" their odd little name. That would be an incorrect assumption. Contrary to popular belief, Grape Nuts are not named after their ingredients but after their creator, Darnell "Grape Nuts" Johnson.
Johnson, 57, received his most amusing nickname after a high school football injury discolored a certain part of his anatomy. Originally nicknamed "Black Balls", Johnson, assuming his injury wasn't permanent, was convinced by his team mates three weeks after his injury to show them his ... uh ... private region. His "Black Balls" nickname was then changed to "Grape Nuts" which he answers to to this very day. Johnson started working for Post (The maker of Grape Nuts) in 1963 and was also the inspiration for several other breakfast cereals, several of which aren't even manufactured by Post. These would include (but are not limited to) "Cap'n Crunch", "Crunch Berries" and the old "Freakies" cereal from the 70s.
Is this rumor true or fake?
The real danger to us from the Middle East
This morning, from a cave somewhere in Pakistan, Taliban Minister of Migration, Mohammed Omar, warned the United States that if military action against Iraq continues, Taliban authorities will cut off America's supply of convenience store managers. And if this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be next, followed by Dell customer service reps.
Any info on the truth of this?
Hillary Clinton goes to a primary school in Ithaca, New York, to talk about the world.
After her talk she offers question time. One little boy puts up his hand, and the Senator asks him what his name is.
"Richard", replied the little boy.
"And what is your question, Richard?"
"I have three questions:
1. Whatever happened to your medical health care plan?
2. Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
3. Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?"
Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kiddies that they will continue after recess.
When they resume Hillary says, "OK, where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"
A different little boy puts his hand up.
Hillary points him out and asks him what his name is.
"My name is George."
"And what is your question, George?"
"I have 5 questions:
1. Whatever happened to your medical health care plan?
2. Why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
3. Whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?
4. Why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
5. What happened to Richard?"
I got this chain today, and it just can't be true! Is it?
Dear Friends,
This chain letter was started in hopes of bringing relief to other tired and discouraged women. Unlike most chain letters, this one does not cost anything.
Just send a copy of this letter to five of your female friends who are equally tired and discontented. Then bundle up the man in your life, send him to the woman whose name appears at the top of the following list, and then add your name to the bottom of the list.
When your turn comes, you will receive 15,625 men. One of them is bound to be better than the one you already have. At the writing of this letter, a friend of mine had already received 184 men, of whom one may be well worth keeping. An unmarried woman living with her widowed mother was able to choose between a Chippendale dancer and an Olympic swimmer.
You can be lucky, too, but DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN! One woman broke the chain and got her own husband back!
So let's keep it going, ladies! Just add your name and address to the list below:
Laura Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C
[Note: This is an updating of an item of contemporary lore that has been with us for at least fifty years.]
True or false?
There is a factory in Northern Minnesota that makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys. The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arm. Here is a true story:
Lena was hired at the factory and she reported for her 1st day promptly at 8:00 a.m. The following day, at 8:45, there was a knock at the personnel manager's door. The foreman from the assembly line threw open the door and began to rant about his new employee, Lena. He complained that she was incredibly slow and that the entire production line was behind schedule and backing up!
The personnel manager decided he should see this for himself, so the two men marched down to the factory floor. When they got there, the line was so backed up, there were Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they were really beginning to pile up at the end of the line stood Lena, surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos.
She had a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The two men watched in amazement as she cut a little piece of fabric, wrapped it around two marbles and began carefully to sew the little package between Elmo's legs.
The personnel manager stared for a few seconds, saw what was happening, and burst into laughter. After several minutes of hysterics, he pulled himself together and approached Lena. "I'm sorry," he said to her. Barely able to keep a straight face, he said, "I think you misunderstood the instructions given you yesterday. Your job is to give each Elmo two test tickles ..."
This EMail has circulated recently — it does not appear to be in the "Snopes.Com" library as yet — I would like to know if this statement actually proceeded from an Israeli Ambassador, and if it can be traced as to the date of the occurence; Identifications of the parties involved; etc. The text follows below:
The Israeli Ambassador at the U.N. began, "Ladies and gentlemen before I commence with my speech, I want to relay an old Passover story to all of you ...
"When Moses was leading the Jews out of Egypt toward the Promised Land, he had to go through the nearly endless Sinai desert. The people became thirsty and needed water. So Moses struck the side of a mountain with his staff and a pond appeared with crystal clean, cool water. The people rejoiced and drank to their hearts' content.
"Moses wished to cleanse his whole body, so he went over to the other side of the pond, took all of his clothes off and dove into the cool waters. Only when Moses came out of the water, he discovered that all his clothes had been stolen. 'And,' he said, 'I have reasons to believe that the Palestinians stole my clothes.'"
The Palestinian delegate, hearing this accusation, jumps from his seat and screams out, "This is a travesty. It is widely known that there were no Palestinians there at that time!"
"And with that in mind," said the Israeli Ambassador, "let me now begin my speech."
DID GEORGE BUSH BOMB THE CANARY ISLANDS TO PREVENT SPREAD OF BIRD FLU?
I think this is a FOAF story.
A guy goes to Ireland and upon his return tries to smuggle "Irish moonshine" into the country in a mouthwash bottle. When the customs officer searches his suitcase, he opens the bottle because the liquid is clear and smells it. He asks the guy what it is — the guy says "water." The customs guy says no, this is "Irish moonshine." The guy gets down on his knees and says, "Praise god, it's another miracle." The customs official lets him go.
A friend just sent me the following joke. I know there is no check on the veracity of what people put up on their websites. But you're very well informed — do you think this is completely bogus?
It was the first day of school and a new student named Pedro Martinez, the son of a Mexican restaurateur, entered the fourth grade.
The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said 'Give me Liberty, or give me Death?'"
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Pedro, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775."
"Very good!" apprised the teacher. "Now, who said, 'Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'?"
Again, no response except from Pedro: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863."
The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed! Pedro, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do!"
She heard a loud whisper from the back of the classroom: "Screw the Mexicans!"
"Who said that?" she demanded.
Pedro put his hand up. "Jim Bowie, 1836."
At that point, another student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke."
The teacher glared and asked, "All right! Now, who said that?"
Again, Pedro answered, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991."
Another student yelled, "You're INCREDIBLE!"
Pedro jumped out of his chair waving his hand and shouting to the teacher, "Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"
Now, with almost mob hysteria, the teacher said, "You little punk ... if you say anything else, I'll kill you!"
Pedro frantically yelled at the top of his voice, "Gary Condit to Chandra Levy, 2001."
The teacher fainted, and as the class gathered around her on the floor, someone said, "Oh crap, we're in BIG trouble now!"
Pedro whispered, "Saddam Hussein, 2003."
Finally someone throws an eraser at Pedro and another student shouts "Duck"!
Teacher, just waking, asked "Who said that?"
Pedro answered: "Dick Cheney, 2006!"
I received the below msg which is circulating the web. I cannot verify its authenticity. Looks bogus to me.
The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had covertly funded a project with the US auto makers for the past five years, whereby the auto makers were installing black box voice recorders in four-wheel drive pickup trucks in an effort to determine, in fatal accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.
They were surprised to find in 44 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, "Oh, SHIT!" Only the states of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas were different. There, 89.3 percent of the final words were: "Hold my beer and watch this."
Last updated: 8 July 2006
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/humor/question/requests2.asp
When Drinking Rum Goes bad
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine website reported.
According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out.
The website said that the body of the man had been shipped back from Jamaica 20 years ago by his wife in the barrel of rum in order to avoid the cost and paperwork of an official return.
According to the website, workers said the rum in the 300-liter barrel had a "special taste" so they even decanted a few bottles of the liquor to take home.
The wife has since died and the man was buried in a proper grave.
According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out.
The website said that the body of the man had been shipped back from Jamaica 20 years ago by his wife in the barrel of rum in order to avoid the cost and paperwork of an official return.
According to the website, workers said the rum in the 300-liter barrel had a "special taste" so they even decanted a few bottles of the liquor to take home.
The wife has since died and the man was buried in a proper grave.
Screaming On The Streets
Found this post on the web, very interesting....
Screaming in the streets, corpses piled upon corpses, burning buildings, wide hateful eyes staring down at bloodied and twisted bodies in the gutters. Before striking we make sure the "other" is less numerous than "us", then blow after blow is landed on the "other" who screams incomprehensibly as with each individual act of violence the humanity is drained from it. Guns are fired, punches fall upon the alien human, and the body politic twists and flexes in hatred. The violence then spreads like a dark stain across countries and continents.
All the while the fear grows in Sigmund Freud. He sees us all, he sees our movements, thousands of us, in thousands of places, running across public parks and streets, clubs, knives, guns in our hands. We chase those that we view as different, hunting them. We hunt them with the animal habits that we once thought only applied to our Primate ancestors. Hates consumes us and then, we land the death blow and take the new territory, their territory for our own.
Sigmund Freud did not believe in the benevolence of humanity.
After the first world war Freud retreated to Berchtesgaden (ironically the town was then also the Summer home of Adolf Hitler and later the home of his "eagles nest" where much of his war was planned from), and wrote volumes about how man was an evil, violent animal with animalistic passions that had not been completely restrained by civilisation. He believed that the first world war was, in effect a validation of his most pessimistic nightmares about the true underlying nature of humanity. He believed that governments had released the unconsious animalistic tendencies of our primate species and then found that they could not be controlled. Europe was laid waste, and, Freud believed that the 9,906,000 dead of the first world war (military deaths only) was the direct result of the failure of civilisation and it's leaders to control and manage the dark side of humanity, which psychoanalysis had been preaching about for several years. From Berchtesgaden Freud penned what was to be, for the twentieth century and beyond, his defining work "Civilisation and it's Discontents" which stated that Humanity was, in effect, a rampaging violent emotional beast that had to be controlled through the mechanism of civilisation in order to avoid a repeat of the first world war. This control he argued, was necessary and as a result of the suppression of the individual desire, would cause a perpetual discontent within the individuals that composed society. Thus it would be a necessary sacrifice to suppress the evil beast that he said, resided within all of us. In Freuds view, unhappieness was key to humanities survival, it was either that or extinction.
Across space and earlier in time, a man named Edward Bernays's parents had emigraged from Austria and traversed the Atlantic to settle in America. Bernays himself, though born in Vienna, was brought up in the American capitalistic environment. Bernays was Sigmud Freuds nephew. During the First World War, the war that stripped his uncle of the last vestiges of his faith in humanity, Bernays worked with the US government within the propaganda division of the US forces. It was at the Paris Peace Conference where Bernays first noticed the hysterical reaction of the crowds to President Wilsons visit. Wilson had been portrayed as an emissary of the individual in addition to that of freedom. The French viewed him as an almost messianic character after the regimented march of death that was the First World War. Bernays watched this adulation from afar, with the Presidents entourage and wondered, he wondered if the crowds in peacetime could be controlled as effectively as those that were controlled by Propagandistic manipulation during wartime. Bernays considered the word "Propaganda" to be tainted by it's use by the Germans, and so on returning to the United States, after some thought, he adopted the phrase "Public Relations" in its place. Bernays set up an office in New York and set to work. During this time, Bernays, still on friendly terms with his Uncle Siggy, sent him a box of Havana Cigars, Freud in response sent him a copies of some of his works. This gift was a revelation to Bernays, who then decided to use his Uncle's theories in furthering first his personal fortunes and secondly his thirst for power. Bernays himself would always maintain that he was at heart a democrat and that the use of his Uncle's theories were for the benefit of humanity at large.
Bernays first made an imprint on the fragile membrane of society’s collective unconscious by removing a taboo that was preventing America's tobacco corporations from making, to be frank, double what their collective earnings were at the time.
In the 1920's men, had effectively imposed a unspoken ban on women smoking, it was a male province and as far as the populace were concerned would stay that way. The corporations wanted women to smoke, and Bernays wanted to help them. So, in conference with the American Tobacco companies, Bernays asked permission to consult a psychiatrist in order to find out what cigarettes represented to women, so he could provide them with a reason for smoking. What cigarettes represented to women, according to the psychiatrist he consulted (for a very large fee) he was told, was the male penis. That year, at a parade in New York, Bernays, in what must be considered one of the first, and indeed most effective, public relations stunts hired a group of women. These women, at a given time, were to light up cigarettes. Meanwhile, Bernays had alerted the press that a group of suffragettes had, in a gesture of "freedom" lit up these cigarettes in protest of women being treated differently. The press went mad, the next day the women made headlines and Bernays was there to supply the phrase "Torches of Freedom" to the pictures in the press. What Bernays had done, was to take the fight against women’s oppression, and used the iconic image of the cigarette as a symbol that was only the province of men (the penis) and appear to wrest it from the hands of the patriarchy. Women smoking, were women that were individuals, that were free of the constraints that male dominated society put on them. The message said, you are free, you are equal, and you demonstrate this by acquiring your own symbolic penis, the cigarette. Soon enough women equalled men in their smoking habits, and Bernays was viewed somewhat as a miracle worker.
Bernays continued to exploit the buying public by associating the previously functional products with unrelated emotions. You do not buy this because you “need it” you buy it because it makes you feel good. Thus in a second, America’s fears of over production vanished as emotion took over utility and the practicality of products was replaced by the need to be happy which was reinforced by Freudian advertising. The products of course did not provide happiness but did provide the chase, which never ended, as product after products was consumed in an unconscious race for happiness. He had in fact invented the era of “consuptionism” which was later re-branded as they say today as “consumerism”.
Bernays, always the tireless self publicist began to write books promoting his ideas. He did this as many prominent political thinkers in America, had been terrified at the implications of the first world war. And as the popularity of Freud soared these political thinkers began to look at the masses much as he did. The masses were animalistic and the ruling elite needed a method to control them in order to prevent a second suicide attempt by humanity at large. Bernays wrote books like “propaganda” in order to argue that he had developed the techniques that would prevent such a thing from ever happening again. His theory was to actively encourage the association of products that constantly changed and updated themselves with emotions like love and happiness, comfort and contentment so that the worker, would in effect become the consumer, and the newly created “consumer” would be so busy pursuing products that they thought would sate them and grant their emotional desires that they would, in effect, avoid their bestial nature in the illusionary chase of happiness through products. The populous would also be so distracted that they would let the elite, who knew what was best for them, get on with the business of ruling. His policies were adopted, at home and abroad. Bernays was a self described democrat who was in fact, entirely undemocratic.
Joseph Goebels rated Bernays’s “Propaganda” as one of the most important and influential books he had ever read. So, in effect, whilst trying to avoid another “War to end all Wars” Bernay’s, the Jew, inadvertently contributed to, and facilitated it. Goebels gained much of his insight into the manipulation of populaces from Bernays, and in turn Freud. Freud meanwhile had been pessimistically watching the rise of the Nazi’s and shortly after the anschlaus or annexation of Austria had fled this new nightmare of the 20th century and moved along with his daughter Anna to England, where on the outbreak of the Second world war in 1939, he died of cancer of the Jaw an old, broken and despairing man.
And so, after the Horrors of the mechanistic death machine of the second world war. The “consumer machine” went into overdrive for beneath the smiling faces on the billboards of fifties America were drooling, violent beasts that could only be controlled by the endless pursuit of products as a symbolic replacement for happiness. Which may have been the greatest subversion of the American Experiments Constitution which guaranteed it’s citizens the right of the “pursuit of happiness”.
Many years later, Sayyid Qutb, a young intellectual Muslim gained a position as a teacher in the Ciaro Ministry of Public Information, from 1948 to 1950 Qutb was sent on a scholarship to the United States to examine the United States educational system. What he found, almost caused him to despair, and was to have grave ramifications all the way into the 21st century.
Qutb saw in the fabric of United States society something which he thought was a grave threat. That threat was the almost universal manifestation of the individual over the group. People, as a result of the consumerist society that was effectively invented by Bernays, focused solely on themselves and their own desires, and not as Qutb thought was healthy, the group, the city, the state, the nation. He saw a country of selfish people endlessly pursuing, as Bernays had ordained, personal happiness through everything from automobiles to haircuts. This he viewed as the beginnings of a failing society, as the cult of individualism was the origin of societal discontent as people were no longer concerned for the group as a whole, but only for themselves. Qutb viewed the race riots, increasing sexual freedom, triviality, the lessening of restrictions on divorce all as symptoms of a diseased and dying society that viewed through the precepts of Islam, would eventually cause its downfall. Qutb when he returned home saw elements of this corrupt and diseased Western Capitalist society infecting his own people of Egypt (which at that point was on a governmental level embracing Western values, and American money). In this germ of cultural infection, Qutb saw the end of Islam, and the destruction of Egypt. He vowed to fight this to the last. This fanatical (from the latin Fanum, Temple, or Chapel in latin, denoting a specifically religious fervour) Weltanschauung or world view culminated in Qutbs attempted assassination of Gamal Abdul Nasser an assassination that was intended to bring about the introduction of Sharia law and the triumph of the group over the individual. The attempt failed and Qutb was executed for his part in the plot.
Qutb was succeeded in his position in what was now viewed as the Islamist movement by his disciple, Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri who then joined and eventually became head of the Muslim Brotherhood. He fought in Afghanistan with Osama Bin Laden, who was also increasingly influenced by al-Zawahiri’s thinking, and thus in turn by Qutb’s. The rest, as they say, is the history of Islams reactionary fight against the western cult of the individual, pioneered by Edward Bernays.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahari however were not the only ones who found that Bernays’s cult of the individual could end up being the death of society. Leo Strauss a German born political philosopher also saw the apparent gradual disintegration of society. He as a Jew had watched the terror of the Second World War from America and later watched in the 1960’s a society which was rife with civil conflict. White middle class terrorist groups had been founded, like the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Weathermen. Black people, had formed groups like the Black panthers to fight against other white groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Violence and riots on the streets were everywhere, and Strauss saw this as a result of the erosion of the group concept of the nation and the accentuation of the individual (whether or not he connected this with Bernays is debateable). And thus Strauss began to formulate the system of thought that would eventually mutate into Neo-conservatism as we know it today.
For Strauss Politics and Philosophy were one, and he began to advocate the thought that liberalism led to relativism which in turn he insisted, eventually became one of two types of nihilism. The first of these types was “brutal nihilism” which he associated with the rise and acts of Nazi Germany. The second type was “gentle nihilism” of the types associated now with most western democracies. He thought this “gentle nihilism” involved the accentuation of the self and a kind of mindless hedonistic random individual wandering. This in turn eroded and would eventually lead to the destruction of society as the individual lost any association he or she may have had with the larger body politic of the nation. Then Strauss began to advocate what is termed the “Noble lie”. The Noble Lie involved uniting the population, and distracting them from their individual concerns with the mythic presentation of the nation in order to create and maintain a cogent, united civil society and give people meaning in their lives, meaning externalized to the other citizens of the nation, and not just restricted to the satisfaction of individual desires. The nation in this case Strauss insisted, should be America. America presented as the only great force for good in the world, a nation that should be presented to its citizens as one that eternally fought against injustice and oppression the world over, gradually transforming the world into its own mirror image, perfect and contented. This advocation of the myth that America as in effect, the worlds global policeman for good, was not for the benefits of the citizens of the world at large, but to unite the citizens of the united states itself. Paul Wolfowitz and William Crystol, two of Strauss’s students went on to become prominent Republican Neo-Conservatives and co-authors (among others) of the “Project for the New American Century” which, among other things manufactured this uniting vision of America as a force for good by advocating the toppling of Dictator du Jour Saddam Hussein.
Bernays has allot to answer for.
And so, as we dance through the threads of countries histories and individual personal lives I am led to the seemingly unavoidable conclusion that those who seek to save society through the controlling of it, eventually cause what they despise. A macrocosmic example of the principle that the more driven the effort to impose order, the faster the birth and exponential growth of chaos that is born within that ordered structure.
The only protection I see from it is arming yourself with the information that underlies the strategies of these people, you yourselves can choose to mutate into that seed of chaos. My own avoidance techniques have involved everything from Magickal practice, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Linguistic study, drugs, the techniques of Wilhelm Reich, Aleister Crowley and Robert Anton Wilson, plus many others. Once you realize the methods of control, and notice their uses on you, you become free to use precisely those methods, and many others (some mentioned above) to avoid being manipulated, maneuvered and controlled.
Good Luck.
All the above Key names and phrases can be researched, so please, don’t take my word for it, do your own research, and form your own conclusions.
Research references:
Wikipedia:
Various biographies
Victor Klemperer:
The Language of the Third Reich
Adam Curtis: Documentaries:
The century of Self
The Power of Nightmares
Edward Bernays:
Propaganda
Sigmund Freud:
Civilisation and its Discontents
Richard Wrangham
and Dale Peterson:
Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
and various other web pages
Peace and Hope
Administration to Support U.N. Declaration Decriminalizing Homosexuality
http://twp.com/news.jsp?key=364014&rc=trail
Of course Bush wouldn't sign it, he is for going backwards. Good to see we are back on the right path...
Obama Defends Budget Proposal
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=347644&f=21
Yeah! Tell em!
Obama a leader who actually leads
Israel's Right-Wing Government Takes Shape
Monday, March 16, 2009
Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a step closer to the prime minister's office by inking a deal with ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, who will become Israel's next foreign minister if Netanyahu is able to put the finishing touches on a governing coalition. The ascendancy of both men is a major body blow to the peace process.
BBC:
Under the agreement, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman would become foreign minister, said officials from Mr Netanyahu's Likud party.
He is a strong supporter of the Israeli settler movement and opposes exchanging land for peace with the Palestinians.
Likud still needs support from other parties to form majority in parliament.
Read more
The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism
The Ten Commandments were for the ancients, and are for us, the core rules that, when honored, hold us together, and when dishonored lead to alienation, discord and violence. The worship of the free market has turned out to be an idol, and like all idols it has now demanded its human sacrifice.
READ THE WHOLE ITEM
Red Cross Described "Torture" at CIA Jails
Secret report implies that US violated international law.
The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of al-Qaeda captives "constituted torture," a finding that strongly implied that CIA interrogation methods violated international law, according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document.
read more
Parks That Can Move When the Animals Do
When scientist Dee Boersma first arrived to Punta Tombo, Argentina, in the early 1980s, the colony of Magellanic penguins there was 300,000 breeding pairs strong. Since then, they've declined by more than 20 percent. Dr. Boersma faults competition from fishermen, pollution in the form of oil dumped at sea, and climate change for the decline.
But while the Punta Tombo colony is shrinking, others farther north are growing. The penguins' shifting range underscores how climate change isn't always a drop-dead-from-the-heat affair. And it raises questions about how to protect threatened - and mobile - marine species as they adjust.
read more
Southern Oligarchy and the Labor Unions
Cheap labor. Even more than race, it's the thread that connects all of Southern history - from the antebellum South of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis to Tennessee's Bob Corker, Alabama's Richard Shelby and the other anti-union Southerners in today's U.S. Senate.
It's at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation.
The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry - with 11 other Southern senators marching dutifully behind made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests.
read more
Tide Turns Against Schools as Foreclosures Rise
Fort Pierce, Florida - Way back when times were good - last April - builders showed up one day at Forest Grove Middle School and gutted a little-used classroom off the gym.
Four months and a half-million dollars later, they had transformed the space into a gleaming, bubbling mini marine biology laboratory, with five huge, blue plastic tanks for local marine life and a refrigerated tank that replicates the cold-water ecosystem off Maine.
For the first time, teacher Kevin Stinnette thought, his students could do hands-on lessons with cold-water species such as frilled anemones and Acadia hermit crabs.
Then the mortgage meltdown hit central Florida, and the crabs and anemones weren't the only ones hit with cold water. Here as elsewhere across the USA, hard times have forced schools to trim budgets, freeze hiring and, in a few cases, make substantial job cuts, raising doubts about the future of a range of programs, including the new marine lab.
read more
How Not to End Another President's War (L.B.J. Edition)
On Nov. 24, 1963, two days after John F. Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson met with his principal national security advisers to consider the most volatile issue he had inherited: Vietnam. A coup at the beginning of November - approved by the Kennedy administration - had toppled Ngo Dinh Diem's government and taken his life.
read more
Obama team anger simmers over AIG bonuses
Sunday, March 15, 2009
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CPOL/npoliticsNews_uUSTRE52E1O820090315?p=1
They aren't the only ones angry...
Cheney says Obama's policies 'raise the risk' of U.S. terror attack
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/265531;jsessionid=8F55F3DE3B3D488CE27ADEFC43345140.live5i
Ahh the last throes of a War Criminal...
Browns' Stallworth hits, kills Florida pedestrian
The USS Supply UFO Sighting
Weird...
The USS Supply UFO Sighting
Debunking the Drones
Gravity Anomalies
How many aliens do we have?
Life on Mars? A brief overview
The USS Supply UFO Sighting
By J.M.Sinclair
On February 28, 1904 the US navy steam and sail schooner USS Supply was about 400 miles southwest of San Francisco. Several members of the crew sighted what they described as "Meteors", for lack of a better term in 1904, that would form the basis for one of the most remarkable early sightings in UFO history. Collecting the accounts was Lt. Frank Schofield, who would later become an admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the US pacific Battle Fleet.
Schofield didn't quite know what to make of the accounts, which described the red meteor-like craft flying in what's known as the echelon formation. This formation involves aircraft flying in a diagonal arrangement side by side, a grouping that would be very unlikely for meteors. The red meteors initially appeared below the clouds, something that natural meteorites never do, and moved directly toward the ship. As they came closer, they moved above the clouds, until they seemed to stop moving north, and began moving directly away from the earth. Color alterations were noted in that the objects' dull red color faded as they changed direction. The size of the largest object was described as being "an apparent area of about six suns", and was egg shaped, traveling with the sharp end forward. The other's were smaller, one being about twice the apparent size of the sun, and one about the same size as the sun. The clouds themselves were estimated to be about a mile high, so the craft would have been closer than that as they passed under and through the clouds.
The whole thing lasted a total of two minutes before the clouds obscured the objects, suggesting that the craft were moving very quickly. Schofield noted that all the accounts agreed during this early morning 6 am sighting. Schofield reported the incident in the March, 1904 issue of the Month Weather Review and the incident lay forgotten until later interest in the UFO phenomena developed.
Whatever these objects were, they were not meteors, as evidenced by their seeming ability to fly under, and then through the clouds, finally gaining altitude. The pointed end forward attitude of the egg shaped object is precisely the opposite of what would be expected from a meteor, and the red coloring is not normally one associated with meteors, which usually give off a blue-green or white light. Because of this, the case of the USS Supply remains one of the most interesting early UFO sightings, from a time when no aircraft existed that was capable of the maneuver seen by the ship's crew. Happening just a year after the Wright Brother's flight, no aircraft would have been flying in echelon, which at the time was still a ground troop or ship formation, and the distance from any land eliminates the possibility of manmade aircraft. The sighting has a strangely modern feel to it, with egg-shaped craft being reported throughout the 20th century and to this day.
Whatever they were, the USS Supply UFOs are so early, and so strange that very little other than extra-terrestrial craft can explain just what they were. Further, the crew were from a time when there was no public interest in UFOs, and they would have had little motive to fake or misrepresent the incident. They simply saw what they saw, and described them as meteors, which would have been the closest thing in 1904 to the appearance of the objects. But they couldn't have been meteors, and they couldn't have been aircraft. Whatever they were, they' weren't from here.
Related Items:
BREAKING NEWS: Large meteoriteDebunking the Drones
Gravity Anomalies
How many aliens do we have?
Life on Mars? A brief overview
Pakistan 'blocks' critical TV station
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/world/detail/265103;jsessionid=534193D86ADF645FCD3C2C2510B0CCD2.live23ib
So much for Pakistan's Democracy. That's what happens when a corrupt Polo Player becomes President. I wonder if he had a role in Bhutto's death so he could be President.... Hmmm
Another twist for the unemployed: Debit card fees
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/265221;jsessionid=534193D86ADF645FCD3C2C2510B0CCD2.live23ib
Banks milking everyone they can...
Greedy Mother Fuckers
Stanford: Governor Against The People
Friday, March 13, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/264894;jsessionid=63DBA4A5636FA2692593608B1D7285C4.live5ib
Does he think turning down the money will get him elected President like the other Republican Governors?
Cafferty: Message sent when S.C. governor rejects stimulus $?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/12/cafferty-message-sent-when-sc-governor-rejects-stimulus/
What a Jackass!! Good luck getting Re-Elected...
Ex-president of Israel blasts legal 'lynching' after rape indictment
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/world/detail/264402;jsessionid=32B82A83ED570E41E9409E64C07AD330.live7i
Does he feel like he's been raped?
Police: 81 cars missing from dealership; 3 execs in custody
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/264263;jsessionid=32B82A83ED570E41E9409E64C07AD330.live7i
That didn't work out too well for them...
House Conservatives Seek Patriot Act Extension
I really hope this does not pass. The Patriot Act was Big Government at its worst....
House Conservatives Seek Patriot Act Extension
Thursday 12 March 2009
by: Jared Allen | Visit article original @ The Hill
More than a dozen of the GOP's most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial Patriot Act provisions set to expire later this year.
The group of House Republicans - who include Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Judiciary Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) - want to extend for an additional 10 years the ability of national security agencies to conduct "roving" wiretaps, have access to library patron information and greatly expand the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Those provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire this year.
"If there's one thing we can predict about terrorism it's that it's unpredictable," said Smith, the lead sponsor of the Safe and Secure America Act of 2009. "That's why law enforcement and intelligence officials must remain vigilant."
"The national security provisions we're seeking to reauthorize are proven and effective," Smith continued. "They have helped investigators track down terrorists and prevent attacks."
Those provisions in particular drew the ire of liberals and privacy groups who said they trampled on Americans' civil liberties.
But the GOP members who introduced the reauthorization bill shot back that the threat of domestic terrorism is still as real as it was eight years ago.
"Critics of these provisions claim that the terrorist threat has diminished since 2001," Smith said. "But such claims ignore the deadly attacks in London, Madrid, Mumbai and Yemen. If we want to keep Americans - both here and abroad - safe and secure from future terrorist attacks, we need to extend these provisions."
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not sign on as an original cosponsor.
"I've not seen the proposal," Boehner told reporters Thursday. "But the Patriot Act is a part of helping to keep America safe and we've got to do everything we can in this time of economic crisis to protect our citizens from those who'd want to harm us."
Those House Republicans who joined some GOP leaders to introduce the bill include: Judiciary Committee Members: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.); Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.); Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.); Rep. Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.); Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa); Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.); Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.); and Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.); and GOP Reps. John Sullivan (R-Okla.); Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.); Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.); Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.); and Rep. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.).
House Conservatives Seek Patriot Act Extension
Thursday 12 March 2009
by: Jared Allen | Visit article original @ The Hill
More than a dozen of the GOP's most conservative members on Thursday introduced a bill to reauthorize controversial Patriot Act provisions set to expire later this year.
The group of House Republicans - who include Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Judiciary Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) - want to extend for an additional 10 years the ability of national security agencies to conduct "roving" wiretaps, have access to library patron information and greatly expand the reach of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Those provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire this year.
"If there's one thing we can predict about terrorism it's that it's unpredictable," said Smith, the lead sponsor of the Safe and Secure America Act of 2009. "That's why law enforcement and intelligence officials must remain vigilant."
"The national security provisions we're seeking to reauthorize are proven and effective," Smith continued. "They have helped investigators track down terrorists and prevent attacks."
Those provisions in particular drew the ire of liberals and privacy groups who said they trampled on Americans' civil liberties.
But the GOP members who introduced the reauthorization bill shot back that the threat of domestic terrorism is still as real as it was eight years ago.
"Critics of these provisions claim that the terrorist threat has diminished since 2001," Smith said. "But such claims ignore the deadly attacks in London, Madrid, Mumbai and Yemen. If we want to keep Americans - both here and abroad - safe and secure from future terrorist attacks, we need to extend these provisions."
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not sign on as an original cosponsor.
"I've not seen the proposal," Boehner told reporters Thursday. "But the Patriot Act is a part of helping to keep America safe and we've got to do everything we can in this time of economic crisis to protect our citizens from those who'd want to harm us."
Those House Republicans who joined some GOP leaders to introduce the bill include: Judiciary Committee Members: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.); Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.); Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.); Rep. Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.); Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa); Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.); Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.); and Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.); and GOP Reps. John Sullivan (R-Okla.); Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.); Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.); Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.); and Rep. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.).
Freeman, Nominee for Key Intel
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=344495&f=20
He is totally right about Israel, we support them blindly. Schumer needs to go fly a kite...
America becoming less Christian, survey finds
Monday, March 9, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/261814;jsessionid=6EAB9315EE0CC64038131FD1B12596EF.live4i
I'm really sick right now, but this almost makes me feel a little better...
Boehner hits Democrats after latest jobs report
Friday, March 6, 2009
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/06/boehner-hits-democrats-after-latest-jobs-report/
Too bad Boehner doesn't have Any Good Ideas....
Madoff plea may be in play
http://cnnmoney.mobi/money/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/130638;jsessionid=710B551A0836ECE7234BAE7ED6A826C9
This guy should be put in Jail for Life with no chance of parole. For Murdering thousands of peoples life savings. He murdered dreams...
Bulldozer rams cars in Jerusalem
Thursday, March 5, 2009
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CWOR/nworldNews_uUSTRE52426520090305
Terrorist... Right. I don't believe anything Israel says. The guy probably accidentally stepped on the gas instead of the brake...
OctoMom Threatened To Kill Herself To 911 Operator
http://foxnews.proteus.com/content.html?contentId=27620
As the Dumpster fire blazes on...
Clinton Wants to Include Iran
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=336519&f=19
Good, the only the success we have had there was with their help in the beginning. Bush thanked them for their help by including them in axis of evil speech...
Toilet Paper Drama
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Had to re-post this
five approaches to t.p. maintenance
March 3rd, 2009
you could start with a basic visual aid…
or perhaps appeal to their sense of patriotism…
…or go with a not-so-veiled threat.
of course, you could just let your ass do the talking.
but remember to cite your sources.
(thanks to ryan in west palm beach, heather in delaware, julie in marysville, brian in british columbia and bluepaintred in canada for their advice on this matter.)
Defendant shot dead after attacking trial judge
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/259197;jsessionid=41076B1386D083CCDE15F049994CB288.live23i
I guess that bailiff wasn't using rubber bullets...
Two Democrats urge Obama to veto spending bill
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/259159;jsessionid=E876D684A96756128698BB6BFDDFDD0B.live23ib
Feingold is right actually...
Earmark Bill Gives Too Much Power To President
http://m.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/GPG0101/90304109/1978/WAP&template=wapart
This might be great for a responsible President. But what would happen if someone like Palin was President. She would have authority to veto whatever she found wasteful regardless of what congress voted. That is too much power....
GOP leaders accuse Dems of using Limbaugh as a distraction
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/04/gop-leaders-accuse-dems-of-using-limbaugh-as-a-distraction/
They should tell Rush to shut up then. Rush is making himself a distraction. Although I wish the media and the Dems would ignore him. Having his comments on the news every night just gives him validation...
Crashed train's engineer planned to let amateur drive
http://m.usatoday.com/166500/news/;.wap1
Pot was NOT what caused this crash. But I'm sure this is great news for the people against the legalizing pot measure that many are trying to get passed in California. They, I'm sure will use this as 'evidence' that Pot is bad...
Supreme Court Divided Over Judicial Bias Case
http://twp.com/news.jsp?key=357330&rc=na
Leave it to the ultra conservative Judges to back Judges not recusing themselves when the defendant donated to their campaign. How can they even defend that????
Obama Reverses Bush Rule on Protection of Endangered Species
http://twp.com/news.jsp?key=357432&rc=to
Its so nice to finally have a President that cares and sees the link between animal species, environment and our own survival. We never know how the extinction of a species could affect all of us. Everything is connected and the health of animals and our Earth will keep life better for us in the long run...
People just don't seem to get Eco Systems...
Coast Guard set to end search for boaters
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/257912;jsessionid=8B6E81D6ED756D7F5ADE71937B281BE5.live5i
That's terrible, My heart goes out to their families...
Prosecutor: Levy 'random victim' of Salvadoran laborer??
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/258314;jsessionid=8B6E81D6ED756D7F5ADE71937B281BE5.live5i
That's what Gary Condit is hoping people believe. Looks like he got some buddies in the Prison system to clear him. Or they dumped her body there knowing that guy had attacked women there before. This case is a sham...
Clinton still sees Palestinian state; many don't
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CWOR/nworldNews_uUSTRE5224FT20090303?p=1
I don't think Israel has a choice. They have kept that land for too long and it is time they give it back....
Memos Show Bush TipToed Around Laws
http://mobile.canadaeast.com/article.php?articleID=590489
Big Government in action...
In defense of Obama's budget
http://cnnmoney.mlogic.mobi/money/magazine/fortune/detail/129514
It has to be done...
Steele talks to Limbaugh: 'We are all good'
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/258205;jsessionid=67136F5C8E72F4D14613620D0FC0F46F.live4ib
Steele gets Grounded and a Spanking...
Kaine Statement: Steele Apology to Rush Limbaugh Proves the Point: Limbaugh is Leading Force Behind Republican Party
Monday, March 2, 2009
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3084267
And hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
G.O.P. Apologizes to Limbaugh
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=334788&f=19
Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!
Steele Does As Predicted, Apologizes To Rush Limbaugh
http://thinkprogress.org/
I knew it!!!
I knew he was going to back down like all the rest and he did....
Obama govt vows not to use 'waterboarding'
http://in.mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/eIN/CWORIN/nworldNews_uINIndia-38292820090302?p=1
And Small Government is on its way back....
Released : Bush Put Out Order To Spy On Americans
http://foxnews.proteus.com/content.html?contentId=27222
Big Government at its finest. The true Big Government...
Fans stunned by Rihanna-Chris Brown reconciliation
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CUSN/ndomesticNews_uUSTRE51R05N20090228?p=1
I don't like to delve into these topics, But wow what a great role model for young girls this Rhianna is...
LOSER....
Finally : Blackwater founder, CEO resigns
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/257660;jsessionid=E63F260514DD3BA0D40639D7719C94EA.live23ib
He made his money and now that his buddies are no longer in control of the Government he gets no more sweet deals, so its quitting time. He made his Billions off tax payers already anyway....
Dow below 7,000
RNC chief Steele: Limbaugh is more a performer than GOP leader
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/257628;jsessionid=20CECC1E010C722238ECBAE0FB18991B.live23ib
I wonder how long before Steele is on Limbaugh's show apologizing for these comments...
Abortion, not resume, could dominate Sebelius confirmation
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/257602;jsessionid=20CECC1E010C722238ECBAE0FB18991B.live23ib
These anti-abortion whack jobs need to give it a rest. You can't force other people to live by your religious beliefs. If they don't like abortion then they should not get one, otherwise they need to stay out of other peoples business. A woman getting an abortion does not affect these people and only affects the woman and her family.
Person found clinging to boat off Florida, Coast Guard says
‘Era of big government’ back, Republican says
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/01/era-of-big-government-back-republican-says/
I like how Republicans think Big Government is spending the Americans Tax money On Americans. When they are truly the Holders of Big Government, their big Government is taking away peoples rights, forcing a single religion on its people, spying on its people "for the greater good", spending insane amounts on defense etc. That is Big Government and that is the Republican Government. The Patriot Act? Warrantless Spying? Rendition? That's the Big Government you should be scared of and that's exactly the type of Government Republicans want. Where they tell you who to pray to, what to watch and listen to, what you can do with your body, the medical care you can get, what you can say, who you get your news from, what news you do get and I could go on. Republican Government is about controlling people. Just look at what they say do and who supports them. They try and say Democrats want Big Government because they prefer spending tax money on services that help people. I don't consider that Big Government, I consider doing what that peoples money is for, running Government and giving back to the people. So Republicans are trying to pull one over on everyone because their version of Government is true Big Government just look at what Bush did. Did that seem like small Government to you? We invaded 2 countries to bring our way of life to them and squandered many of our civil rights at the same time. Truth is we are coming out of the era of Big Government.
I like how Republicans think Big Government is spending the Americans Tax money On Americans. When they are truly the Holders of Big Government, their big Government is taking away peoples rights, forcing a single religion on its people, spying on its people "for the greater good", spending insane amounts on defense etc. That is Big Government and that is the Republican Government. The Patriot Act? Warrantless Spying? Rendition? That's the Big Government you should be scared of and that's exactly the type of Government Republicans want. Where they tell you who to pray to, what to watch and listen to, what you can do with your body, the medical care you can get, what you can say, who you get your news from, what news you do get and I could go on. Republican Government is about controlling people. Just look at what they say do and who supports them. They try and say Democrats want Big Government because they prefer spending tax money on services that help people. I don't consider that Big Government, I consider doing what that peoples money is for, running Government and giving back to the people. So Republicans are trying to pull one over on everyone because their version of Government is true Big Government just look at what Bush did. Did that seem like small Government to you? We invaded 2 countries to bring our way of life to them and squandered many of our civil rights at the same time. Truth is we are coming out of the era of Big Government.
Spurned Cutler wants to be traded
http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogentry?blogname=afcwest&inputString=0-3-1666
I can't believe McDaniels wanted Castle over Cutler. Cutler is one of the most talented QB's in the league. How stupid! And Castle... Chiefs are going to be bummed when they see he probly ain't any better than Thigpen...
Olmert: Gaza will face 'painful' hit if attacks don't stop
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/world/detail/257104;jsessionid=F9ABB9B46E4FF2F33BF3FA84B57D6C04.live4i
How can Israel hurt them anymore than they already have. Is Olmert just going to round everyone up in Gaza and gas them. That would bring Israel full circle then. Why don't you give them back their land so the Palestinian people can have some of their self respect back. Maybe then you'll stop them from firing rockets. Bring them more pain will only keep the problem going and kill thousands more Palestinians. Which it seems is exactly what Israel wants. Make things so bad for Gaza that all they can do is fight back and then go in and kill thousands under the cover of them firing rockets. Seems to be working good for Israel so far. America should be ashamed for its support of Israel, period.
Legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey dies
CPAC crowd welcomes Coulter
Saturday, February 28, 2009
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/28/cpac-crowd-welcomes-coulter/
That title should tell you all you need to know about the people attending CPAC...
U.S. Soldiers in Iraq React
Friday, February 27, 2009
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=334003&f=20
Coming home... Well most of them...
U.S. May Boycott Racism Conference - Again
http://wap.nbc11.com/detail.jsp?key=648384&rc=nn_ne
I think the UN is right. What Israel wants is not different than what Hitler wanted for the White race. They won't live with Arabs and are willing to kill them to get them off their land to maintain a pure jewish state. How is that not like Hitler and how is that not Racism? We need to stop destroying our credibility protecting Israel. They need to suffer the Punishment for their actions. And I'm not saying annihilation or anything like that. But as far as war crimes and not declaring their nuclear arsenal and not giving back the land they stole they most definitely should be made accountable in a diplomatic and legal way. Anything less would be uncivilized...
The Bottom Line: Jindal leads GOP on a 'march to folly'
Thursday, February 26, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/politics/detail/255861;jsessionid=8FCD4B1B8868DC0766D392DC3BB987BD.live5ib
A lot of truth in this commentary...
NYT: In Shift, Imprisoned Al Qaeda
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=333668&f=19
The case against this guy is a total sham. They picked him up the day or after he moved here with his family...
Senate agrees to give D.C. residents a vote
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/CPOL/npoliticsNews_uUSTRE51P7R720090226
Finally! Of course Republicans are against it because they say it will just add more Democrats. Which I'm sure you'll agree is a great idea, take away a peoples right to vote because it might help the other party....
Republicans Attack Obama Budget, Call It Loaded With Spending
http://twp.com/news.jsp?key=355561&rc=bu
Isn't that what a budget is? Spending money to make Government work? Did they want their budget to not spend on anything? They should be thanking him for cleaning up their mess seeing as how following their ideas has caused this mess? How many recessions and depressions do we have to go through before they realize that conservative ideas are what cause them?
Ohio Man Guilty In Terror Plot
http://foxnews.proteus.com/content.html?contentId=26799
See how easy it is to let Real Justice take its court. He was given his rights and was sentenced. Same could be done with Guantanamo inmates...
Conservatives begin voting on their 2012 favorite
Sources: Weapons, subsidies, loopholes among budget cuts
Gov. Bobby Jindal's volcano remark has some fuming
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/255259;jsessionid=CA9A83933303EC0F545A1155EE4160DD.live4i
It just shows how Ignorant and Out of Touch he is.... This is how Republicans think. If it does not affect them, they don't really care about it. Fine for a loner, not a National Party that makes Decisions that effects a great deal of people....
Is Stimulus Just A Bloated Spending Bill?
http://m.lancastereaglegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090224/OPINION/902240323/1014&template=wapart
No wonder Americans are confused with stupid headlines like this. STIMULUS IS SPENDING!!!! I don't how much more clear it can me said... And why people and News organizations continue to spread this crap is beyond me. It is to Obstruct and bring doubt ...
Members of Congress twitter through Obama’s big speech
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Pakistan sees 'hope' in Obama approach
http://m.cnn.com/cnn/lt_ne/lt_ne/detail/254563;jsessionid=8C97BF8516A1845D93AD7736754C544D.live5ib
Let's hope this leads to some results...
AP falsely reported Obama called Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far"
In a February 23 Associated Press article, Liz Sidoti falsely reported that at his fiscal responsibility summit, President Obama "called the long-term solvency of Social Security 'the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far.' " In fact, as blogger Kovie at OpenLeft.com has noted, Obama did not call the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far"; rather, in delivering the summit's opening remarks, Obama made that comment in reference to "the rising cost of health care":
OBAMA: Now, I want to be very clear: While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter [Orszag, Office of Management and Budget director] described, which is the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.
As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, the 2008 Social Security trustees' report forecasts that, in the absence of a change in the law, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2041, after which it will be able to cover 78 percent of currently scheduled benefits, going down to 75 percent through the end of the 75-year period the report's long-range projection covered.
From Sidoti's February 23 AP article:
Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.
"If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road," the president warned, promising to cut the yearly deficit in half by the end of his four-year term. "We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences."
He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years' "casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks." He called the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far" and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.
OBAMA: Now, I want to be very clear: While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we'll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter [Orszag, Office of Management and Budget director] described, which is the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.
As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, the 2008 Social Security trustees' report forecasts that, in the absence of a change in the law, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2041, after which it will be able to cover 78 percent of currently scheduled benefits, going down to 75 percent through the end of the 75-year period the report's long-range projection covered.
From Sidoti's February 23 AP article:
Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.
"If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road," the president warned, promising to cut the yearly deficit in half by the end of his four-year term. "We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences."
He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years' "casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks." He called the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far" and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.
Ignoring FDIC, ABC's Stark says bank nationalization happens "in socialist countries" and is "not supposed to happen" in the U.S.
On the February 23 broadcast of ABC's World News, anchor Charles Gibson asked business correspondent Betsy Stark "why nationalization is considered such a dirty word," and Stark replied, in part: "Wall Street is the bastion of free-market capitalism, and nationalization, even if it's meant to save the banks, is something that happens in socialist countries; it's not supposed to happen in the United States." In fact, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), an "independent agency of the federal government" that describes its mission as "insuring deposits, examining and supervising financial institutions, and managing receiverships," has acted as receiver assuming all deposits for 66 failed banks since October 1, 2000. Indeed, economists including Cato Institute senior fellow Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., a former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Citigroup, and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman have stated, in Driscoll's words, that "[t]he federal government, under the auspices of the FDIC, can be said to routinely nationalize failed banks."
In a February 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Driscoll wrote:
There is a great deal of imprecision in all the talk of nationalizing banks. The government, through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), temporarily takes over insolvent banks when it closes them. When it can, the FDIC sells a failed bank to another institution. Sometimes the purchaser does not want some or any of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC must either then pay the buyer to take the assets (subsidize expected losses) or take over those assets. In a limited number of cases, there is no buyer for a failed bank. IndyMac Bank is a notable recent example. It has been operated since last year as an FDIC-owned institution (IndyMac Federal Bank) with the goal of finding a private buyer.
Certainly, in the latter case, a government agency has taken ownership of a bank. The federal government, under the auspices of the FDIC, can be said to routinely nationalize failed banks. There is nothing new about that policy and it certainly occurs more than once every 100 years.
Similarly, in a February 23 New York Times column, Krugman wrote:
Still, isn't nationalization un-American? No, it's as American as apple pie.
Lately the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been seizing banks it deems insolvent at the rate of about two a week. When the F.D.I.C. seizes a bank, it takes over the bank's bad assets, pays off some of its debt, and resells the cleaned-up institution to private investors. And that's exactly what advocates of temporary nationalization want to see happen, not just to the small banks the F.D.I.C. has been seizing, but to major banks that are similarly insolvent.
From the February 23 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
GIBSON: And I'm curious why nationalization is considered such a dirty word. The Obama administration has been at pains to say, "We're not going to nationalize the banks," but a lot of economists, and you heard some there, say this could actually be a positive step if the banks were to -- a couple of banks were taken over for a couple of years.
STARK: A couple of things, Charlie. I mean, one of them -- one of them is just about money. If banks are taken over by the government, then private investors could see the value of their shares either severely diluted or wiped out altogether. But the other thing is philosophical. Wall Street is the bastion of free-market capitalism, and nationalization, even if it's meant to save the banks, is something that happens in socialist countries; it's not supposed to happen in the United States.
In a February 23 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Driscoll wrote:
There is a great deal of imprecision in all the talk of nationalizing banks. The government, through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), temporarily takes over insolvent banks when it closes them. When it can, the FDIC sells a failed bank to another institution. Sometimes the purchaser does not want some or any of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC must either then pay the buyer to take the assets (subsidize expected losses) or take over those assets. In a limited number of cases, there is no buyer for a failed bank. IndyMac Bank is a notable recent example. It has been operated since last year as an FDIC-owned institution (IndyMac Federal Bank) with the goal of finding a private buyer.
Certainly, in the latter case, a government agency has taken ownership of a bank. The federal government, under the auspices of the FDIC, can be said to routinely nationalize failed banks. There is nothing new about that policy and it certainly occurs more than once every 100 years.
Similarly, in a February 23 New York Times column, Krugman wrote:
Still, isn't nationalization un-American? No, it's as American as apple pie.
Lately the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been seizing banks it deems insolvent at the rate of about two a week. When the F.D.I.C. seizes a bank, it takes over the bank's bad assets, pays off some of its debt, and resells the cleaned-up institution to private investors. And that's exactly what advocates of temporary nationalization want to see happen, not just to the small banks the F.D.I.C. has been seizing, but to major banks that are similarly insolvent.
From the February 23 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
GIBSON: And I'm curious why nationalization is considered such a dirty word. The Obama administration has been at pains to say, "We're not going to nationalize the banks," but a lot of economists, and you heard some there, say this could actually be a positive step if the banks were to -- a couple of banks were taken over for a couple of years.
STARK: A couple of things, Charlie. I mean, one of them -- one of them is just about money. If banks are taken over by the government, then private investors could see the value of their shares either severely diluted or wiped out altogether. But the other thing is philosophical. Wall Street is the bastion of free-market capitalism, and nationalization, even if it's meant to save the banks, is something that happens in socialist countries; it's not supposed to happen in the United States.
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