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, February 21, 2011

Revolt in Libya

45 comments:

  1. Where the Hell is everybody?

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  2. Frigging RINO Cheesehead is trying to undermine Gov Walker.

    "Temporarily take away collective bargaining rights, then restore them!"

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  3.  
     

     
     

     

     

     

     

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    There was a knock on the door this morning, I opened it and there was a

    I heard a knock at the door, and when I opened it, a
    young man was standing there who said:  "I'm a Jehovah's Witness".

    I said "Come in and sit down, what do you want to talk about"?

    He said, " fuck if I know, I've never got this far before"

     

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  4. Cutting and pasting on an iPad can be challenging.

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  5. I must say, with everything going on like this for over a month now, with no sign if the turmoil abating, perhaps it is timely to ask the question

    WTF IS GOING ON?!

    Is this the start of some sort of revolution?? Are we to expect China following? What is this? It seems no one has an answer, and the events are in charge. The world is clueless, gobsmacked, caught off guard.... This is ACTUAL change, not planned Obama bullshit change!

    I hope that Libya can join Iraq and potentially Egypt as newly minted democracies. The people in these countries have suffered enough repression, but let's hope the Libyans don't go down the Islamist route like the Tunisians and Egyptians have started to.

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  6. I, Dougo, am mourning the loss of a laptop. It done, "laid down, and died."

    Wholesale Unleaded jumped about $0.09, today. That's with all that bottlenecked Cushing Crude holding it back.

    Momentous times a'coming, I'm afraid.

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  7. How old is it, who made it, and what organ gave up the ghost first?

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  8. ...sincere condolences, of course.

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  9. Brian Williams:
    "From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are rising up."


    Williams set up his Friday newscast by equating the left-wing protests with those against Arab dictatorships:

    “From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are rising up. Citizens uprisings are changing the world,”
    he championed, citing what “we’ve witnessed from Tunisia to Egypt” and now Wisconsin where “the state capitol has been taken over by the people.”

    Without ever mentioning the involvement of President Obama’s Organizing for America, reporter John Yang trumpeted from Madison how “tens of thousands of public workers have come here to make their voices heard.”

    Scolding incivility certainly didn’t interest Yang, who cued up a protester to trash Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker without making any note of the sign he was holding which showed a hammer and sickle below “Scott Stalin.”

    ABC and CBS on Friday night, as they did on Thursday night, ignored the instigation by Organizing for America as CBS’s Cynthia Bowers, who never identified anyone as liberal, concluded:

    “More protests are planned for tomorrow and for the first time conservative activists are calling upon their supporters -- including Tea Party groups -- to hold rallies of their own.”

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  10. "He said,
    "fuck if I know, I've never got this far before"

    That's what I said when she unhooked her bra and ran her hand down my Levis.

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  11. I hope they keep it up in Wisconsin for at least another week.

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  12. Urine Trouble Now, Ethanol Man:

    67. eaglesdontflock

    "Not meaning disrespect to anyone here, but derek asked about where to get hydrogen. And Xennedy mentioned urine, so I turned to Wikipedia to seek a correlation:

    “Hydrogen can also be made from urine. Using urine, hydrogen production is 332% more energy efficient than using water.[12][13]

    The research was conducted by Geraldine Botte from the Ohio University.

    Recently, Dr. Shanwen Tao of the Heriot-Watt University has invented a Carbamide Power System Fuel Cell that can immediately convert urine into electricity"

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  13. Piss on it.
    For the children.

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  14. 68. Morton Doodslag
    Trrasita: It takes one helluva twisted lesbian to trot out such a smug, ignorant Nazi defamation, and in defense of a religion which mandates her annihilation, no less. You have a genuinely perverted mind, and I don’t mean because of your sexuality.

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  15. About 7(?) years. HP. Hard Drive, I guess.

    I push the "on" button, and it just sleeps. Not a breath, not a sound, not a flicker.

    Damned quitter.

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  16. .

    I push the "on" button, and it just sleeps. Not a breath, not a sound, not a flicker.

    Take it to the ER. (Everyone else does.)

    Maybe they can use the paddles on it an jolt it back to life.

    .

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  17. 7 Years is 69 in Laptop Time.

    Give Hp a hand!

    Then run down to Costco and buy a better one for less.

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  18. That's the easy way out for them, Doug, don't defend fascism, call the questioner a lesbian.

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  19. Yeah, it could be 8.

    I figure I'll take a look at Walmart, tomorrow.

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  20. Unrest and the Libyan Military

    Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has ordered the Libyan air force to fire on military installations in Libya, according to what the BBC has characterized as a reliable source. Al Jazeera has suggested that air force fighters have opened fire on crowds of protesters.


    Though the latter would be particularly draconian, the more important question is whether these signs reflect a split within the regime and Gadhafi using military force to crush opposition to his regime emerging from the military or other security forces. Similar reports of the Libyan navy firing on targets onshore also are emerging, as well as reports that Gadhafi has given execution orders to soldiers who have refused to fire on Libyan protesters.

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  21. Doug: ...reports that Gadhafi has given execution orders to soldiers who have refused to fire on Libyan protesters.

    Gosh Doug, I think you're getting your news from Right Wing Propaganda Outlets or something, after all, Libya is a member of the UN Human Rights Council. Ghaddafi would never do something like that!

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  22. The Jew hating, lesbian Nazi loving Frau is Back?

    I thought she stormtrooped off not just a few days ago for the 9th time...

    she must have pissed of the Belmont Club again...

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  23. But let's remember she aint a she, she's a transvestite..

    So SHE's actually a HE who pretends to be a She, who pretends to be a Frau....

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  24. Welp, Wretchard kicked me off the BC, looks like you got me back.

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  25. Also I apologized to Habu for complaining about moderation, I told him it must have been a software issue. Nope, Wretchard flags the IP. I'll get back in there when I get back to the base and post as another'un.

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  26. Republican Congressmen, Flake, and Sullivan managed to get their anti-ethanol amendments into the house's Continuing Resolution bill.

    I've got a hunch I'll be voting Democratic next election.

    It'll be the first time in my life.

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  27. I suppose it's okay Rufus. Won't hurt anything, after four years of Nobama, any monkey with an R after his or her name will win.

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  28. Energy is my number one issue, now; and the Republicans are solidly on the wrong side.

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  29. Probably so, T. I guess "some day" I'll vote for the winner.

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  30. I'm coming around to the doomsday view, not so long on supply anymore.

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  31. Two residents said planes had been landing for 10 days ferrying mercenaries from African countries to an air base in Tripoli. The mercenaries had done much of the shooting, which began Sunday night, they said. Some forces were using particularly lethal, hollow-point bullets, they said.

    “The shooting is not designed to disperse the protesters,” said one resident, who wanted to be identified only as Waleed, fearing for his security. “It is meant to kill them.”


    This is the second account of "Africans mercenary's" being used to quell the protests.

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  32. These are dictator's dictators:

    As rioters overwhelmed the streets around 1 a.m. on Monday, Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, delivered a rambling but bellicose speech threatening Libyans with the prospect of civil war and “rivers of blood” if they turned away from his father.

    But it backfired...

    Apparently enraged by the speech, protesters converged on Green Square soon after and clashed with heavily armed riot police officers for several hours, witnesses in Tripoli said by telephone.

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  33. That Muammar, he's no sympathetic character.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish.

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  34. Libyans are calling for the whirled to come to their aid. This is one place that I wouldn't mind dispatching fighters to knock out Quaddafi's air force.

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  35. Reuters reported that two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots defected on Monday and flew their jets to Malta where they told authorities they had been ordered to bomb protesters.

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  36. Deep cracks opened in Moammar Gadhafi's regime Monday, with Libyan government officials at home and abroad resigning, air force pilots defecting and a bloody crackdown on protesters in the capital of Tripoli, where cars and buildings were burned.

    ...

    State TV said the military had “stormed the hideouts of saboteurs.”

    Protesters called for a demonstration in Green Square and in front of Gadhafi's residence, but witnesses in various neighborhoods described a scene of intimidation: helicopters hovering above the main seaside boulevard and pro-Gadhafi gunmen firing from moving cars and even shooting at the facades of homes to terrify the population.

    ...

    Gadhafi appeared to have lost the support of at least one major tribe, several military units and his own diplomats, including the delegation to the United Nations. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi accused the longest-serving Arab leader of committing genocide against his own people in the current crisis.


    Fissures Grow

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  37. Wretchard does not accept my posts. FWIW.

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  38. With news of indiscriminate firing on protesters and even fighter jets being used on areas of Tripoli - denied by the regime on state TV - Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations joined growing international calls for Gaddafi to go now, accusing him of genocide and saying he should stand trial for war crimes.

    ...

    Reports also emerged of Libyan troops and African 'mercenaries' firing live rounds on protesters, as well as fighter jets being used to attack areas of Tripoli. Gaddafi's son appeared on State TV to discredit these reports, saying only out-of-town arms depots had been attacked.

    ...

    Protesters overran several Libyan cities and Tripoli was being rocked by violence some residents said was a "massacre", as the pillars of Muammar Gaddafi's, hardline four-decade rule begins to crumble. Reports said around 150 people had been killed on Monday alone.


    Regime Crumbles

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  39. 00:30 Bizarre 22-second appearance by Gaddafi on state television. Seated in the passenger seat of a van, holding an umbrella, he denied he had gone to Venezuela and said he was still in Tripoli. He urged Libyans not to believe "stray dogs" and their reports to the contrary.

    Quote It's just to prove that I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Do not believe the channels belonging to stray dogs." Col Gaddafi

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  40. Perhaps I offend his imperious delusions.

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