COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, April 20, 2009

Obama gathers cabinet to save 14 minutes of federal spending per year.

Thanks Dad.

The headlines read: "Obama to gather Cabinet, seeking $100 million in cuts"

Here is the good news: Two top administration officials say president wants $100 million in expenses cut. Agencies would have to report how they saved on expenses after 90 days.

Here is the fine print: House and Senate returns from recess this week to work on $3.67 trillion Obama budget request.


Here is the context: $3.67 Trillion is $3,670 Billion. The Obama team proposes to spend $10 Billion a day. That amounts to $7 million per minute.

Listen up, Obama is going to be spending $7 million per minute, each and every minute, 24/7 for 365. He is gathering his cabinet to see how they can cut 14 minutes of government spending per year.

We now learn that The Department of Homeland Security plans to save $52 million over five years by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

Just so you know that I shit you not, here is how CNN reports the 14 minutes of savings:

Obama to gather Cabinet, seeking $100 million in cuts

CNN, By Suzanne Malveaux

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama returned to Washington on Sunday night with his eye back on his domestic agenda and a plan to save government money.


President Obama arrives by Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Sunday.

On Monday, Obama will gather his full Cabinet together for the first time as president and challenge it to cut a total of $100 million in the next 90 days, two senior administration officials said.

The officials spoke anonymously because the announcement had yet to come from the president, who returned Sunday from the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The agencies would have to report how they saved on expenses after 90 days, the officials said.

A senior administration official described the edict as part of Obama's "commitment to go line by line through the budget to cut spending" and "reform the government."

As House and Senate lawmakers return from recess this week, they are expected to start reconciling their versions of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution. The president's budget request is $3.67 trillion.


In context of the federal budget, $100 million in savings is a small amount, but the White House wants to demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

On Monday, Obama will offer examples of how various agencies have started cost-cutting measures, including:

• The Department of Homeland Security's plan to save an estimated $52 million over five years by purchasing office supplies in bulk.

• The Department of Agriculture's effort to consolidate 1,500 employees from seven locations into a single facility in 2011. It's estimated to save $62 million over a 15-year lease.

• The Veterans Affairs Department's move to cancel or delay 26 conferences, saving nearly $17.8 million. Veterans Affairs also will use video-conferencing to cut costs.






98 comments:

  1. It sure does feel good to have the crack US press on the story. Deep digging, hard core analysis sort of thing. The facts behind the facts. Illuminate and educate the masses of broad dumb fat asses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That be the fifth pillar of prosperity they be workin' on, duece.

    Rome wasn't built in a day, you know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My man's been a closet fiscal conservative all these years.
    I just knew.
    Bravo, Obam0!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Poor Hugo, there is a fella that just did't get no respect from GW Bush, he exports, on average, 1,072,000 barrels of oil to the United States each and every day, year to date in 2009.

    Now that is only about 3% of our imports, so it'd be alright for the President to shun, rather than shake him.

    I mean if Hugo is so bad, why not impose trade sanctions?
    Stop the trade that allows his peskiness and he'll soon be on the ash heap of history.

    But that would not only punish Hugo, it'd be detrimental to the fortnes of many in the United States. We are not ready for a million barrels of Venezuelan crude to stop flowing into the Gulf Coast refineries, each and every day.

    So we will not go there.

    Better that Obama shake his hand that not, as long as he used sani-wipes to clean his hands, immediately after the physical contact.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 22. Rob:

    There were psychological studies published in various journals of profiles of jihadists some years back that claimed they were basically sexually frustrated males stuck in an adolescent mindset, and this was the true source of their rage.
    And since masturbation was a no-no in their culture, they were sublimating their sexual rage into jihad. These studies were, of course, ignored.

    24. Doug:

    Rob:
    Great find!
    Now we’ve got the solution:
    Jocelyn EldersTerror Doctor Supreme.
    Jihadi Sex Czarina.

    "In 1994, she was invited to speak at a United Nations conference on AIDS. She was asked whether it would be appropriate to promote masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity, and she replied, "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught." This remark caused great controversy and resulted in Elders losing the support of the White House. White House chief of staff Leon Panetta remarked,
    "There have been too many areas where the President does not agree with her views. This is just one too many."[
    1] Elders was fired by President Clinton as a result of the controversy in December of 1994
    "
    ---
    Jocelyn had the answer to terror all along, but Bubba, with unlimited access to that which
    "I did not have"
    Was too blind to see.
    ...and they say masturbation will leave you blind!

    ReplyDelete
  6. 27. Sam Hall:

    Chiral:

    Then there must be some excuse, whiskey, for Mormon polygamy not driving them to terrorism? We’re all dying to hear that one if you can invent it for us.

    IIRC, Mormon polygamy was a result of an imbalance in the numbers of men and women. Their men were dying in large numbers (Indian wars and such) and they wanted to keep the women from leaving to find husbands.

    29. Doug:

    and they wanted to keep the women from leaving to find husbands.

    uh, huh.
    …and I got a Bridge in Brooklyn.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Did I say 3%, faulty math early in the AM, the US imports 10,031,000 barrels/day of crude, so Hugo's share is closer to 10%.

    After that first cup morning joe, I see the error in my figurin'

    Mea Culpa.

    ReplyDelete
  8. EB Bar Challenge:
    Members explain who taught them to masterbate, and how.

    ReplyDelete
  9. But during the polygamy days, the Saints WERE terrorists.

    Why in earth do you continue with those fellsa, doug.

    They so often do not provide thoughtful nor even knowledgable commentary.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Doug, this is for you. Type your name in the box to see a Russian Translation

    ReplyDelete
  11. "Elders wrote a book in an attempt to present her side of the controversies that surrounded her during her 18-month tenure as surgeon general.
    Already reviled by conservatives for advocating abortion rights and condom distribution in schools, Elders drew fire — and censure from the Clinton administration — when she suggested that legalizing drugs might help reduce crime and that the idea should be studied.
    Almost immediately afterward, her son Kevin was arrested for cocaine possession, in what she still believes was a frame-up designed to embarrass her and the president.[4]
    "

    ReplyDelete
  12. 'Rat,
    On the contrary,
    They provide grist for my exceptional humor.

    ReplyDelete
  13. ...and why not give it a try?
    Beating off beats being waterboarded 266 times.
    Haveaheart...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Some pervert art teacher offered me a tour of the girl's bathrooms 'cause of my SHEnanigans w/the opposite sex.
    Scarred me for life.
    ...even tho I did not go.

    ReplyDelete
  15. How the F... did you find that,
    Deuce?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Exxon Mobil ousts Wal-Mart from top spot in Fortune list Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart had held the top spot for six of the last seven years but fell to No. 2 this year. Still, the retail giant’s 2008 revenue climbed 7 percent to $405.6 billion, as the battered economy sent more consumers searching for bargains. The world’s largest retailer took in $13.4 billion in annual profit, an increase of about 5 percent.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Mat thinks Wal Mart evil.
    I forget why.

    ReplyDelete
  18. He did not approve of their corporate, big box villages.

    That is just wrong, duece.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I feel a major clusterf*ck coming...

    the business is going to hit the fan...

    how much damage to America can bho do?

    a trillion a week?

    embracing enemies, giving weegies to allies.....

    it's alice in wonderland...

    by brain cant fathom it all...

    i just see clouds on the horizon...

    I see happy mullahs & dictators...

    I see crying simple folks across the globe as America goes from Ideals and Promise to backstabbing & untrustworthy...

    ReplyDelete
  20. BHO Coins a new word,
    ...and repeats it:
    "expouse"

    ReplyDelete
  21. Limbaugh reveals NY Times source for 266 Waterboardings of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:
    A left wing blogger.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I agree with WiO.

    It's topsy-turvy time.

    I've been called a 'right wing extemist' when what I really am is an old farmer that likes to fish.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Killers like Castro are celebrated, thugs like Chavez honored, the survivors of abortion sent to the comfort room, Israel sold down the river, our national history twisted.....

    ReplyDelete
  24. The Department of Agriculture's effort to consolidate 1,500 employees from seven locations into a single facility in 2011. It's estimated to save $62 million over a 15-year lease.It is true the Dept. of Ag has been trying to streamline things, but this has been going on for years.

    Most--practically all--of the 'paperwork' is done over the computer now, no making an appointment and going to the office these days.

    I miss it, cause I liked visiting with all the bright bouncy gals.

    They were real nice, most of them having some farm connection themselves, so we'd be able to talk crops, and stuff.

    Very bouncy, lively, the best.

    It's a sexist institution, the Dept. of Ag, in my experience.

    They never seem to hire any males.

    But, that's ok....

    ReplyDelete
  25. But during the polygamy days, the Saints WERE terrorists.My history book tells me they were drummed out of the east, but I'm willing to be enlightened.

    Mormons, like Jews, are good folk.

    I've known many of each group, and I testify to that.

    Like blacks, and....Libertarians...you get to know them, nice folk, not half bad, as they say...like Swedes maybe...

    ReplyDelete
  26. If we were to switch the situation around, and -- just for a thought experiment -- to think of a woman having many husbands, rather than a man having many wives, we might have a clearer understanding of this situation.

    We would come square up with the problem of Jealousy, for instance, among other problems, and tiresomeness, and a growing hatred of those others that contend for the matrimonial bed.

    We might soon come to the realization that all this Stymy isn't worth the price, and we'd go back to one girl, one guy, and make do, which is the way I think nature really intended.

    What would I do without my wife?

    ReplyDelete
  27. wiki can bring you up to spead on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, bob.

    Which was the incident that made it above the fold, at the time.

    As we all are aware, one man's saintly religion is easily cast as anothers' terror from hell.

    Mountain Meadows the Mormons took on outsiders, but, prior to that they had a wave of terror that swept through their Zion.

    ReplyDelete
  28. wiki will also tell one about the "Utah War"

    The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition or Buchanan's Blunder, was an armed dispute between Latter-day Saint ("Mormon") settlers in Utah Territory and the United States federal government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858. While not without casualty, the war consisted of no pitched battles and was ultimately resolved through negotiation. Nevertheless, according to historian William P. MacKinnon, the Utah War was America's "most extensive and expensive military undertaking during the period between the Mexican and Civil Wars, one that ultimately pitted nearly one-third of the US Army against what was arguably the nation's largest, most experienced militia."[1]

    ReplyDelete
  29. Utah War.

    Date March 1857-July 1858

    Location Mostly Utah, but parts of Wyoming

    Result Brigham Young replaced as governor of the territory. A full pardon for seditions and treason issued to the citizens of Utah Territory by President James Buchanan on the condition that they accept U.S. Federal authority.

    Belligerents
    United States vs State of Deseret / Utah Mormons (Nauvoo Legion).

    ReplyDelete
  30. Right, but how did they get kicked out of the east?

    I don't really have a dog in this fight, by the way, being a lapsed Lutheran, by way of Joe Campbell.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Oh, the Mormons were persecuted in the East, IL, and Missouri, fer sur.

    But that does not change the Saints status as terrorists in the West. Victimhood does not justify terror, nor make it something else, or the Palistinians would be fully justified.

    ReplyDelete
  32. But it does, bob, illustrate how the American Empire was formed, despite the consent of the people living on the ground, at the time.

    Not all of whom were Indians.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Utah being a Mexican State that the people there of did not want to become citizens of the United States or governed by its' Constitution.

    In fact they had already expatriated to Mexico, to escape the United States.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I've been called a 'right wing extemist' when what I really am is an old farmer that likes to fish.---

    Who, by some accounts, enjoys a foot fetish.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Fjordman: A History of Mechanical Clocks---
    Sharia Creep in Harvard YardTaha Abdul-Basser is a Harvard Islamic chaplain who believes there is “great wisdom” in the death penalty for converting from Islam. This fact was publicly reported in the university newspaper, but it has received virtually no attention in the national media.

    To make this little news tidbit even more piquant, a Muslim student who objected to having Mr. Abdul-Basser as his chaplain felt it necessary to request anonymity when voicing his opinion to the newspaper.

    With her kind permission, I reproduce Diana West’s post from last Wednesday on this topic:

    ---
    re CJ @ BC discussion:
    Spencer and Gates of Vienna were also targets of CJ's Holy Jihads.
    Could masterbation be the answer for Charles?

    ReplyDelete
  36. Utah being a Mexican StateOh nonsense.

    Utah being a Mexican State.

    There were a few native Americans wandering about in some really tough terrain, not a 'Mexican' in sight.

    ReplyDelete
  37. In fact they had already expatriated to Mexico, to escape the United States.That must be why there were no 'Mexicans' there, they'd all high tailed it to Mexico.

    ReplyDelete
  38. All the 'Mexicans' that inhabited Idaho for time out of mind expatriated themselves too, to Mexico, before we showed up.

    I know because of all the 'Mexican' petrogylphs up the Snake River Canyon.

    All in Spanish.

    ReplyDelete
  39. "Hasta lumbego" it says on the canyon walls.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Fetishes are made to be enjoyed, Linear.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Rat comes up with some really absurd gbberish, but he does come up with a good sign, once in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Googling 'Mexicans in Utah' all I come up with is the usual stories about illegal Mexican immigrants in Utah.

    You'd think they wouldn't have left, just to come back, illegally.

    ReplyDelete
  43. They woke up at Reuters

    WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama challenged U.S. government departments on Monday to find $100 million in savings, but the move was mocked by critics who said the government spent that amount in just 13 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  44. the Desert Archaic Culture--

    not a 'Mexican' to be seen

    ReplyDelete
  45. All great journeys begin with one small step, Deuce:
    Have faith in the Messiah!
    PBUH

    ReplyDelete
  46. "Gates is trying to get the Armed Services to teach soldiers to surrender to UAV’s a la Gulf War I."
    ---
    Anybody have any idea what Habu is talking about?

    ReplyDelete
  47. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  48. The Mormoms became Mexicans, bob, it's a citizenship, not breeding.

    In that era Mexico was admitting immigrants who were fleeing from the United States, as they had in Texas.

    Granted it did not serve the Mormons in the State of Deseret nor the Mexican Government, well.
    But the Mormons moved to Deseret, Mexico to escape from the Federals and the residents of the United States. To escape religous persecution.

    Much worse than the Pilgrams had encountered in England.

    It was only after Mr Polk's War on Mexico that Deseret became the US territories of Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and Arizona.

    The Mormons had become Mexican citizens when they moved to Mexico. They had assimulated into the culture, just like the native Hawaiians have, doug.

    It was part of a strategic plan of Brigham's that didn't workout.

    ReplyDelete
  49. The Mormoms became MexicansAh, now it all becomes clear.

    ReplyDelete
  50. When they moved to Mexico they became Mexicans

    As when an Iraqi moves to Detroit, he becomes an American, and a US resident, as well.

    Just as when Swedes moved to Moscow, in the US, they were no longer Swedes, but Idahoians, of Swedish birth or ancestry.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Language is not a National trait, either.

    Look to Canada, which is bi-lingual by regu;ation or the US which is bi-lingual in practice and regulation.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Look at the map on that Utah Wars link, you'll see that in those areas of the United States, it is a bi-;ingual country, on over through New Mexico and into Texas, as well.

    By Law and Custom.

    ReplyDelete
  53. This thread is dangerously close to be deleted. There's a toe-tapping kind of vibe...

    ReplyDelete
  54. A secret of anthropology that few people know is that the Mormons settled in Alaska, converted to Mexicanism, were pushed out by the Eskimos, and ended up in Boise.

    Have you been drinking Rat?

    ReplyDelete
  55. And remember, bob, that the Republican Party was founded in oppossition to the War on Mexico.

    Mr Lincoln was an anti-war candidate long before George McGovern lost the White House with 37.6 percent pf the popular vote.

    While Mr Lincoln won the White House with 39.82 percent pf the electorate voting for him.
    McGovern was only 2 points of the pace.

    Lincoln being more strongly against the War on Mexico than Obama protested Iraq. Lincoln built his early career in the anti-war movement.

    ReplyDelete
  56. It would indeed make good sense if most of this entire thread were deleted.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Sorry, bob, your knowledge of the Western Expansion of the United States is as limited as mat's was.
    A product of the public schools in Idaho, no doubt.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Though it may seem strange for Franken to begin filling out his staff before he has been certified as the election winner, University political science professor Kathryn Pearson said the decision “makes sense” given the extended nature of the recount.

    Franken won’t have the normal two-month grace period between the November elections and starting work in Washington in January to fill his staff, Pearson said, so Franken’s camp is doing what it can to prepare to take office.

    “It will remind people of the recent ruling and that he’s ready to go and Minnesota doesn’t have a senator yet,” she said.
    U Morris Alum

    ReplyDelete
  59. What's wrong with the thread? I haven't gone through it all.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Santa Fe was a bustling community, in Northern Mexico when the Pilgrams were beggin' the Indians for food and the Virginia Colony became "Lost".

    ReplyDelete
  61. A NATO communications satellite was launched into orbit Monday aboard a Russian-Ukrainian rocket from a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean, space officials said.

    ...

    It "is designed to provide communications services for the Italian Ministry of Defence, NATO and allied nations," Sea Launch said in a statement.

    The satellite was built for the Italian defence ministry by the French-Italian firm Thales Aleni
    Russian/Ukrainian Rocket

    ReplyDelete
  62. Rat always goes personal when he's lost an argument.

    Delete the whole thread, Whit.

    It's best.

    ReplyDelete
  63. You've got the power, don't you, Bob?

    ReplyDelete
  64. We shouldn't be deleting anything around here. Free speech.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Pwesonal, where did I get personal, bob?

    Are you delusional?

    Cite the personal attack, please.
    I might even apologize, for it was unintentional, but cite it.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Sorry, bob, your knowledge of the Western Expansion of the United States is as limited as mat's was.
    A product of the public schools in Idaho, no doubt.
    A product of the public schools in Idaho.

    I call that personal.

    Rat's a good guy, just has a wayward idea now and then.

    But if you want to think the Mormons are Mexicans, and the Mexican Mormons, it's all right by me.

    The destiny of the universe doesn't hinge on the question.

    So I drop the issue.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Sam's right, without free speech what do we have?

    ReplyDelete
  68. Well, no bob, ot goes to the one of the 5 pillars.

    The quality of the education is all important. The Mormons moved to Mexico, with no intent of returning to the United States.

    That is a historical fact.

    After 1848 the Mexicans had lost soverignty over Deseret and the Mormons held on to their independence for another year.

    That the Mexican War and the Mormon migration were contemporaneous gave Brighams' strategic plan for a Utopia on Earth a chance.

    The continent was in flux.

    The most devastating event in the Mexican history was the war with the USA. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Montana were taken by military force from Mexico. This area is larger than Spain, Italy and France combined. Even Abraham Lincoln, then a young Congressman, and Ulysses S. Grant, the future Civil War victorious commander and US President, believed that the invasion of Mexico was not justified.

    ...

    Mexico had just rejected a $15 million cash-for-land deal offered by the US. The area included what now covers the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Utah. This territory was Mexican, but only nominally; control over the area was slight, and open to intrusion.

    Irritated at the rebuff, the US struck back in 1845 by annexing Texas, a territory long disputed and fought over by both countries. Mexico responded by severing diplomatic relations. US President Polk, a no-nonsense backwoods lawyer from Tennessee, further provoked Mexico by moving troops south to the Rio Grande, a river that historically was considered well within Mexico. US and Mexican troops skirmished across the river, leading Polk to declare to Congress on May 11, 1846, that “…the cup of forebearance (has) been exhausted,” and that “American blood (has) been spilled on American soil.”

    The US-Mexican War is the pivotal chapter in the history of North America. It is the war that sealed the fates of it's two participants. For the United States, the War garnered huge amounts of territory and wealth, bootstrapping the fledgling democracy onto the world stage. For Mexico, the War sent the emerging nation into a tailspin that it is still reckoning with today, one hundred fifty years later
    .

    To be a Repiblican and not have a compelte view of Mr Lincoln, makes comprehending the fixation Obama has on the Lincoln mystique impossible to understand.

    Mr Lincoln, by going to such great lengths to stop the seccession played exactly against his anti-War image.

    The War with Mexico is the most important lesson never taught in US public schools.

    The quality of which is deporable.
    With barely 65% graduating from the System. Meaning the System has failed for a third of the students.
    Most of whom are long term residents, who are not leaving, even if their citizenship is foreign.

    ReplyDelete
  69. I couldn't get it to launch, Elijah:

    Unable to complete issue loading. Error code: 8

    We're sorry, but it seems there's an error in the configuration of this issue, and we will be unable to complete loading it at this time. Please try again later.If you require additional assistance, please contact Zinio Customer Support via email at support@zinio.com and reference the above error number.

    Version: x.x.8676

    ReplyDelete
  70. Salt Lake City was the original Anbar Province.

    The Mormon settlements, in Arizona, avoiding those towns that had a US military presence in them.

    But a third of the US military was tied up in the Utah War, putting down the insurection of the local residents and their militia.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Rat, my friend, you seemed to have been saying that there were Mexicans in Utah.

    This is not the case.

    Rather, as my link above states, and I could find a dozen other links very easily, there were something like 20,000 Native Americans struggling around in the area, at a lower level of civilization than that of the newcomers.

    Digging sticks, a little farming and so on. Not much fishing, as the area is dry as a dust bowl.

    Newcomers with a strange religion, an offshoot of a religion from the middle east, coming from the east of the US, forced from the east of the US by other folk, but with a little higher level of capability on the material level than the natives, came on in, and so they the 'won out'.

    I'm glad they did, as I like riding in a car rather than walking.

    And most of those people that are left from the native population aren't really complaining either, many having married into the invaders, except as a political ploy, as they like riding in cars too, rather than walking.

    And being able to make a contract, enforced by a court, rather than by my brute strenght, which is certainly waning with the passing of time in my case.

    You will have noticed how the natives use the courts to their own best advantage whenever they can, and, they often win, too.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Which goes back to the connection between their polygamy and terrorism.

    ReplyDelete
  73. A really great example of intermarriage is that of my dad's partner, a Jew, who married a Sioux, a lady from the plains of middle Canada, one generation or two away from buffalo huntng, ripping the guts out of buffalo, and making artifacts for human use out of the skins, who would go into a war whoop when she was pissed at Roscoe, and so they got the handle of "the Jew and the Sioux" and the Jew was Mayor of our town, and a great guy, taken all in all, and his wife was as well.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Rational people adapt to realiy, bob.

    No doubting that. But what there is to see today today is only a poor reflection of what life was about in 1846, in Deseret.

    Insurrection, treason and terrorism. They stood accused on all counts. Treason may have been a reach to far since they had left the Country, but the Republican view was that citizenship could not be renounced enmass.
    Insurrection and terrorism, the deeds of the Saints leadership fit the indictment.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Then you would make argument that Alaska could not have been sold to US, by the Russians, when there were no Russians there.

    Our title to that land ivalid, due to a faulty chain of Title?

    That the Russians couldn't own where they did not stand?

    ReplyDelete
  76. And are US claims of soverignty, in the Artic, are they null and void, because we have no residents near by?

    Only squatters and campers in the National Forest have legal rights to claim tenancy?

    Absentee owners have no rights?

    Then I'd lose my campgrounds and you, your wife's Ohio residence.
    To squatters.

    ReplyDelete
  77. The Obama administration published a series of memoranda on torture issued under the Bush administration. The memoranda, most of which dated from the period after 9/11, authorized measures including depriving prisoners of solid food, having them stand shackled and in uncomfortable positions, leaving them in cold cells with inadequate clothing, slapping their heads and/or abdomens, and telling them that their families might be harmed if they didn’t cooperate with their interrogators.

    ...

    But torture is meant to be terrible, and we must judge the torturer in the context of his own desperation. In the wake of 9/11, anyone who wasn’t terrified was not in touch with reality.

    ...

    And this raises the moral question. The United States is a moral project: its Declaration of Independence and Constitution state that.
    Intelligence Failure

    ReplyDelete
  78. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Blogger whit said...

    This thread is dangerously close to be deleted. There's a toe-tapping kind of vibe...


    WTF??




    Bobal, really, read up on the History of the US expansion in the Southwest. It may have been promoted with cries of "freedom" but the reality is much different. Read up on the events surrounding "The Alamo" and you might be surprised at the mercantile and violent nature of US expansion. Then again, I think you'll sleep happier believing that the US was all good all the time learnin' the natives of the time to be better people, even if they had to be killed to absorb the lesson

    ReplyDelete
  80. What does "The Alamo" have to do with Utah?

    They are hundreds of miles apart, for Christ's sakes.

    Explain that to me.

    What does Davey have to do with Salt Lake City?

    ReplyDelete
  81. And all this talk about the 'violent nature' of US expansion is bullshit, pure and simple.

    It was the coming of the law that put the never ending, never ending and never ending violence down, moron.

    The coming of the law, which had never been seen in that territory before.

    Where there was no law at all moron, only muscle.

    Only the survival of the strongest.

    You are an idiot.

    A man with the brains of a potato, as he announces to the world.

    ReplyDelete
  82. good thing the u.s. makes the tools to get the job done

    evolution

    ReplyDelete