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."

Friday, August 13, 2010

Friday Night at the Elephant Bar





75 comments:

  1. I Can't Help Myself, Sarah Keeps Rollin' Along

    Loved some of the comments.

    (The 'teacher' was a drag queen in some band)

    Since it's Friday the 13th, I think I'll go to the Casino, haven't been for a while.

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  2. I am now officially departing for the casino. Any further posts by 'bob' ain't by me.

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  3. Dr. Laura on the "N Word": "Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger nigger nigger. I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it's affectionate."

    She's got a good point, but it made me think I was watching Blazing Saddles or reading Huck Finn for a minute.

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  4. but a voter in OhioFri Aug 13, 07:52:00 PM EDT

    At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

    Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row.

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  5. gambling man from las vegasFri Aug 13, 08:01:00 PM EDT

    Elias Abuelazam told a judge in Atlanta he wanted to stay in Georgia, but was told he should go to Michigan to fight the attempted murder charge there.

    He is expected to face more charges in other states, officials said.

    Mr Abuelazam, an Israeli citizen, was arrested in Atlanta on Thursday.

    Mr Abuelazam's lawyer, who was not present at the morning hearing, requested a second one for later on Friday.
    Continue reading the main story
    Related stories

    * Man held over US serial stabbings

    Mr Abuelazam agreed to waive an extradition hearing, a proceeding in which the state of Michigan could have argued why he should be returned.

    On Thursday, a judge in Flint, Michigan, where 16 attacks took place, signed a warrant charging Mr Abuelazam with assault with intent to commit murder in connection with a stabbing on 27 July.

    Mr Abuelazam is being linked by police to stabbings in Ohio, Virginia, and Michigan.

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  6. Dr Hiss of Body Parts R UsFri Aug 13, 08:04:00 PM EDT

    The suspect was arrested at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport as he tried to board a Delta Air Lines flight to Tel Aviv in Israel.

    The stabbings have occurred on average about once every four days since the end of May.

    Because the victims have mostly been black in the US, police suspect the attacks in the three US states may have been racially motivated.

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  7. Drill, Baby, Drill!Fri Aug 13, 08:24:00 PM EDT

    BP and the government say the spill is fast disappearing—but dramatic new science reveals that its worst effects may be yet to come.

    — By Julia Whitty

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  8. Alas! Mordor draws all wicked things, and the Dark Power is bending all its will to gather them there.

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  9. Elias Abuelazam

    Number of Stabbing Victims Linked to Elias Abuelazam Grows to 20


    He is a suspect in the stabbing of 18 men in Michigan, Virginia and Ohio. Five of those victims died.

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  10. Not a lwayer, but plays one on TVFri Aug 13, 08:33:00 PM EDT

    The Judge is correct, if the State of California does not appeal, the "little people" cannot.

    They are out in the cold, just like Alice.

    US District Judge Vaughn Walker, who invalidated Proposition 8, doubts the proponents of California's gay marriage ban have any standing to appeal his ruling.

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  11. Using the "Gay Scare" to whip up voters in an election year won't work this time. It's over. There's nothing to see here folks, please drive through.

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  12. Whit, nice picture except mine has a nice "Carrie" red light and jets that are oh so relaxing. And it has way more water than that.

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  13. Simian Semite of the SaharaFri Aug 13, 08:55:00 PM EDT

    Robert Keppel, a retired Washington state homicide detective who profiles serial killers, said it's rare for someone to attack males exclusively.

    Whoever is responsible for the 18 attacks, "he's just getting off on stabbing people. He's not guaranteeing that they die," said Keppel, who investigated the Ted Bundy homicides in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s.

    "For some reason, the satisfaction is just in the action of the stabbings," Keppel said. "He's only turned on by the act of the approach and the initial stabbing. He's got some hang-ups. ... He's a rare killer among rare killers."

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  14. They're all gonna laugh at you!
    They're all gonna laugh at you!

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  15. T, they already do. Do I care...no.

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  16. Ah, the Cowgirl. I have missed the Cowgirl.

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  17. Where do you see a cowgirl? We are all city slickers here.

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  18. Chambers's Concise Gazetteer of the World:
    Edited by David Patrick:
    Published in 1907 in both the United States and England clearly describes the Semites of the World, before anti-Judaic German propagandists attempted to debase the English language, with the help of their victims.

    Page 13 of the file has the description Semites.

    Page 43 places Israel squarely in the northern quadrant of Arabia. Arabia which was described as having a northern frontier in the "highlands of Syria" and extending west to the Suez Canal and Red Sea, bounded on the east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

    Jerusalem, described in 1907 as the long time "Capital of Palestine". That on page 374.

    28,000 residents, half Jewish the others Christians and Muslims, about 25% each.

    With a climate compared to the South of France. Little wonder it has attracted so many migrants from Eastern Europe

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  19. FDA approves the week-after pill.

    What's next, the nine-month after pill?

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  20. Genetics and linguistics

    page 14

    One of the issues is that there is a mismatch between the categories geneticists use and the claims they make. ‘Semitic’ is a language grouping thrown around freely in the discussions over the affiliation of the Lemba. But Semitic is a large, complex linguistic grouping, many members of which have never been sampled for DNA and there is as yet no evidence for any polymorphism that characterises Semitic as a whole.

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  21. Um...Anonymous, which I really don't like people hiding behind a mask, just to let you know, Hon, it's Friday night and I'm making it a rule that we don't talk about things like what you just posted. Pull up a chair and relax and have a drink on me.

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  22. My mini me just got her, Dear senior letter from her university. How fucking exciting is that? She just has to make through three religion classes.

    Hm.....

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  23. Party like you had a heart!Fri Aug 13, 09:50:00 PM EDT

    Far side of the world, darling

    On the far side of the world, it's already Saturday,

    Even at that, not much for convention.

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  24. How many commas in cammo?

    Are there as many in ammo?

    Amazing that after two years of Obama at the helm, with US reported to be on the brink of social collapse and other myriad disasters day after day, the boys of the Bar think the US is in better shape today than it was in 2003.

    That's made my head spin.

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  25. Friday...Saturday...it's the weekend give it a rest.

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  26. I did, back in 1999

    Now you want to go
    Back to the Future?

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  27. I did, back in 1999

    Now you want to go
    Back to the Future?

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  28. So, what makes it so different now? It's ten years later. You're ten years older. The world is more fucked up than ever. No, I don't want you to go back to the future I want you to enjoy today. I want you to take a break from the endurance we go through on a daily basis. I want you to enjoy life for what it is because if not the bad will just suck you up into nothing.

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  29. Since tbe nitty gritty dirt band was playing at the Casino I offer up This

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  30. Only Habu can write like that and change on the fly. No one better at it than him.

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  31. The Nitty Gritty band they are either from the south or the west. And it's always gotta be about fishing.

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  32. Why would Obastard want to downsize or eliminate the Marine Corps? Cause they are mostly white male and like the constitution? Just askin'.

    Course Obama supports the building of the Victory Mosque. Who couldd have quessed.

    But it is Friday nite so I quit.

    gnite

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  33. Then Habu needs to get a grip and relax before he has a heart attack.

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  34. Yep, thass our boy.

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  35. Fishing in that tune seemed secondary to something else, to me, kinda an excuse, maybe.

    Place was packed, I didn't know anything was going on. I don't know where they're from.

    How are things in Montana, Habu. Do you know where Wisdom, Montana is, if it exists? My son sent me a bunch of pics of early Americana, and there was Wisdom.

    http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.html

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  36. "But it is Friday nite so I quit."


    For the love of God at least someone gets it.

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  37. I answer my own question: Wisdom in the Beaverhead, where the eagles eat well, population little over a hundred city slickers.

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  38. 114 city slicker spirits, to be exact, in 2000, my kind of place.

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  39. Wisdom was named for the Wisdom River, which is now named the Big Hole River, that passes through the town.[1]

    That sounds delightful, doesn't it?

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  40. I'm gonna go dream about that.

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  41. The Big Lost Wisdom River would be a good mystical name for a river.

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  42. "The Milwaukee Teachers' Education Assn. has gone to court asking a judge to order the financially strapped school board to reinstate coverage for Viagra, Levitra, Cialis and other erectile dysfunction drugs in union members' healthcare plans. The union claims that excluding such coverage discriminates against the male gender...

    "The school board claims the famous little starter pills are recreational, not medically necessary, and would cost the city $787,000 a year. Offhand, that seems like a lot of educators' erections, but it's also enough money to employ 12 full-time teachers of either gender...


    We Want the Wood And We Want It Now


    .

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  43. MeLoDy said...

    ...and who is Habu?

    He's a guy who thinks knowing how to use Google means he was once in the CIA, and he tries to impress people with water-cooler tales he picked up when he was in the "Company". Apparently his "product" consisted largely of recommendations to nuke large swaths of civilian populations in the Middle-east for the crime of being born in a Muslim society.

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  44. Sorry for stepping into the Liberty brouhaha, Quirk.

    Didn't improve things any, that's for sure.

    In a detached way, I feel sorry for him.



    It obviously doesn't take much to upset the occasional, precarious balance of things at the Bar. Not with so few of us here.

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  45. It'll be twice the fun, T. Twice the motherfucking fun.

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  46. the anti-bob counters bob's bigotrySat Aug 14, 05:19:00 AM EDT

    Obviously bob has not been to San Diego. Obviously he has not visited with Marines anywhere else in or around the US's global empire. He has not taken the time or energy to investigate his preconceptions on Goggle.

    Dumb shit.
    Moron
    The modern US Marine Corps is not "White".

    It is full of little brown guys, for the most part. Lots and lots of Spanish speakers, in the Corps.

    Over 5% of the Marines on active duty were BORN in MEXCIO

    Remember the Marine that killed his pregnant girl friend, then ran home, to Mexico?

    That is about par for the course, in the 21st century

    Moron from Idaho!
    Over 5% of the Corps, was BORN in MEXICO.

    Those jarheads, they ain't "White". That 5% does not take in the vast percentages of US born Mexicans, full fledged citizens of the United States that are not white boys, Mexicans born in the US that are United States Marines.

    Stupid racist moron!

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  47. DMDC data on the Marine Corps show that there were 12,600 blacks serving first-term enlistments in 2002, which represented 11.8 percent of all Marines on their first hitch. By 2006, the number of first-term black Marines had fallen below 8000, or to 7.2 percent, a drop of more than a third.

    However, the number of first-term Marines who declined to identify their race on Marine Corps forms rose from 819 in fiscal 2000 to 4600 in 2006. That limits the Corps’ ability to track enlistment and reenlistment decisions based on racial data.

    All services saw declines in the proportion of blacks in their enlisted forces from 2002 through 2006. The overall proportion fell in the Army from 27.5 percent to 22.2, in the Air Force from 18.1 percent to 16.6; in the Marine Corps from 15.2 to 10.8 and in the Navy from 21 percent to 18.6.

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  48. No problem Trish.

    I've been more or less avoiding him for the past month or more but he keeps dropping his little posts referencing the Liberty and implying that I am anti-Semitic. You saw his posts or lack of them when I asked him to prove the latter.

    It was time. I suspect it will happen again.


    .

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  49. "...and who is Habu?..."

    Don't know who Habu is.

    But Allen recently compared me to him.

    It appears the braying of the ass has awoken the original.

    Karma?


    .

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  50. Why, Quirk, I am surprised: I thought you were paying me no attention, in agreement with the "motherfucker" lady.

    I made no comparison to habu in reference to intelligence, he has you beaten hands down, and he doesn't need the "fucking" lady as backup.

    No, Quirk, the comparison was one of being rendered virtually dead on this blog.

    O, and I have been crunching the numbers on the material supplied by me to this site from NSA and CSS.

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  51. Unlike most patrons at the bar, I don't spend every waking hour here. And if I stop in at the end of the day most of the time I only read the last ten comments.

    So, Quirk, I must have missed that one.

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  52. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSbeN5iN-Ew

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  53. My comments were in response to the lady's post.

    As I mentioned yesterday talking to you is a waste of my time.

    Decided to actually read the material in one of the links you posted?

    Priceless.

    .

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  54. Re: priceless

    ...then, by all means, share your ground breaking discoveries of fact.

    Did Israel knowingly attack an American ship? Now that you have the documents, you need only link. Indeed, if you will simply name the title of the NSA & CSS document, I will find it myself and do the linkage to the EB...cause here's the thing, if I find that Israel did in fact know, from the evidence supplied by NSA & CSS, that it was attacking an American vessel and persisted, my outrage will be boundless...that's the difference

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  57. "Q ,pls provide the link and I will make a substitution."

    Duke, in the little tussle that was going on yesterday, I missed this post.

    Because of the length of the documentary, there is no one link I could provide. It is split up into about 7 or 8 separate links of about 10 minutes each under the BBC documentary "Dead in the Water".

    I can provide the links if you want but it appears most of the bar has moved on.

    Let me know.

    .

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  62. "...then, by all means, share your ground breaking discoveries of fact."

    I have presented my evidence Allen. The fact that you choose to ignore it, denigrate it, or skip past it without comment means little to me. You keep asking me to present the same stuff I presented months ago. (A campaign of attrition?) I provided eight or ten posts on this subject the last time we discussed this. If you are interested at all you go dig them out of the archives.

    Half the latest evidence I have posted was supplied by you anyway in your own links (Haartz article).

    The following reference is I believe from Rutgers University:

    Summary of Views on the USS Liberty Incident

    It's appears to be an unbiased summary of all the issues we have discussed regarding the Liberty. I believe you will agree it lays out fairly your side of the argument. It also includes reference to mine including the quality of the hearings you are so proud of. It lists all the issues involved. On any particular issue, if the reader has problems all he has to do is go to Google for more info. There is plenty of information out there. Each person should decide for themselves.

    With regard to the release of the NSA documents you are also so proud of let me make two points.

    1. I am happy to see that you have actually decided to start reading the links that you post.

    Enjoy. Let's see you gave Ash five minutes as I recall. You are now a day into it and counting. Hopefully, this will keep you satisfied for a couple more weekends.

    2. As in the case of the hearings, quantity does not equate to quality.

    Jay Cristol wrote a book espousing you version of the Liberty incident. The following is an excerpt from the response he got from his FOIA request back in 2003:

    "Some of the information has been deleted from the enclosures because it was found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 12958, as amended. This information meets the criteria for classification as set forth in Subparagraphs (c) and (g) of Section 1.4 and remains classified TOP SECRET and SECRET as provided in Section 1.2 of the Executive Order. The information is classified because its disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. The information is exempt from automatic declassification in accordance with Section 3.3(b)(1) and (b)(3) of Executive Order 12958, as amended. Because the information is currently and properly classified, it is exempt from disclosure pursuant to the first exemption of the FOIA (5 U.S.C. Section 552(b)(1)).

    "In addition, this Agency is authorized by various statutes to protect certain information concerning its activities. We have determined that such information exists in the enclosures. Accordingly, those portions are also exempt from disclosure pursuant to the third exemption of the FOIA which provides for the withholding of information specifically protected from disclosure by statute. The specific statutes applicable in this case are Title 18 U.S. Code 798; Title 50 U.S. Code 403-3(c)(6); and Section 6, Public Law 86-36 (50 U.S. Code 402 note)..."


    As I said Allen, enjoy your reading.

    (con't below)


    .

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  63. (cont'd from above)

    As I said yesterday, you're a bit of a dufus and a waste of my time.

    People can go to the link I provided above and review not a one-sided book or report, but a summary of all the items in dispute. They are then free to investigate any aspect of what happened and go to Google to get more info. After that they can make up their own mind.

    I would also observe that in reviewing any future posts they should keep in mind the integrity of the person whose posts they are responding to.

    I make that point because you have insinuated (when you haven't had the guts to come out and say it) that I am anti-Semitic, bigoted, a David Dukoid. I asked you to document instances where I have displayed such behavior if for no other reasons than to help my self-awareness and to identify the boundaries of your definition of anti-Semitism. If the latter was unclear, let me provide an example. I don't like gefilte fish. Does that qualify as anti-Semitic?

    When you get back to me on this maybe we will have some basis for discussion.

    Until then, I will merely re-post this post.

    To do otherwise would be a further waste of my time.

    .

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    ReplyDelete