Thursday, February 08, 2007

THE SNEAKY BUSH DYNASTY or CABAL




CLICK HERE TO WATCH O'Donnell give 'em hell ON YOUTUBE


A friend of mine, sent me the below article and a response to a Lawrence O'Donnell post in the Huffington Blog.


I found it so astonishing, especially the respondent's vision of the Powerful Bush Dynasty. Please read both the article and the retort and judge for yourself as to the power that still may remain within THE BUSH CABAL. thinkingblue

My friend, Judy emails me,

Carolyn, I know you read the H. Post, but in case you missed this...I thought it was a WOWER! Judy

How Giuliani Will Help Elect the Democrat

Rudy Giuliani's presidential candidacy is the best thing that will happen for the Democratic candidates this year. He's going to lose. Yes, I know he's the Republican frontrunner in some polls, but Howard Dean was the frontrunner for a while in the last contested presidential primary season.

On his way to losing, Giuliani is going to divert a lot of money away from the inevitable Republican nominee, John McCain.

Giuliani's losing campaign is also going to pull a lot of pro-choice, independent voters away from McCain in the general election. McCain has had very strong appeal among those voters for years because, among other things, they don't quite realize how hard-core his anti-abortion position actually is. When Republican primary voters discover how liberal Giuliani has been on social issues--along with how many wives he's had and how many gay men he has lived with while waiting for a divorce to come through--they are going to abandon him faster than Democratic voters fled from Howard Dean. But the only way they are going to "discover" Giuliani's record on social issues is for John McCain to tell them about it. McCain's campaign has the most vicious attackers in politics today, including Bush campaign graduates and the Swift Boat attack team. They are going to make Giuliani look very bad to conservative voters, but, in the process, they are going to make McCain look bad to moderates he will need in the general election.

The attacks on Giuliani are also going to make the Democratic nominee look better. Only the New York press (which includes the national press) thinks being The Mayor is adequate preparation for being president. McCain's attacks on Giuliani will include double underlining Giuliani's lack of experience in federal government. Giuliani's experience with the biggest items in the federal budget--Social Security, Medicare, and Defense--is nonexistent. The McCain
campaign will do the Democrats the favor of showing that the current Republican frontrunner has less relevant governing experience than Senators Obama and Clinton, who will owe McCain a thank-you note.

No mayor of New York has been promoted by voters to higher office in my lifetime. Big city mayors don't play well with voters outside their city anymore. Just ask John Lindsay, Ed Koch, Kevin White, Tom Bradley, Dick Riordon. Rudy Giuliani is no exception.

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GET A LOAD OF THIS RESPOND FROM...TJTelecaster,

Lawrence; I respect you greatly, but Jeb Bush will be The Republican Candidate for President, when Cheney steps down and Bush appoints him Vice President..

Then Jeb runs as incumbent VP..

The Bush Mafia as you know screws everyone who has ever been taken in by them, even Colin Powell even Karl Rove is expendable in the end as well..!

Cheney's days are numbered..

He'll step down due to "health reasons" of course, but The Libby Trial will be
the last straw, and he'll have to go..

This Unitary Dictator is also putting much of his Iraq debacle off on Cheney and
Rumsfeld, as if they mislead him or he was ill-advised by them, you'll see..

Also The President Swore Cheney and Rumsfeld be there until Bush leaves office..! So just like Rumsfeld that very day I knew they were both out..Cheney and Rummy..!

It's not about The Republican party or what's best for America by any means,
it's about The Bush Family Mafia and nothing else..

Maybe it's my Roman heritage that makes me see the obvious when others do not!

The Democrats have to go with Edwards because only he, can maybe beat Jeb Bush..

You'll see:

"It's in the contract
Yossarian..!"

By: TJTelecaster on February 06, 2007 at 01:34pm

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Wouldn't that be something... I could see it happen... a way to give ole cry-baby Papa a little gift from his Prodigal Son to dry up DEAR OLD DAD'S crocodile tears. Good Grief... LET'S ALL CRY "UNCLE" already with the Bushies... thinkingblue

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A LITTLE TRIVIA ON "YOSSARIAN":

Dear Straight Dope:

Why do they call a no-win situation a "Catch-22"? --Nick Gabaly

SDSTAFF Dex replies:

You know you're old when people ask about the origin of phrases that were introduced in your lifetime.

The phrase "Catch-22" comes from the book of that name by Joseph Heller (1923-1999), published in 1961. Catch-22 is a wonderful book, full of dark humor and absurdity, satirizing war, military bureaucracy, and by extension modern life and the ways in which they destroy the human spirit.

The word "catch" of course is used in the sense of snare, snag or entanglement.

The story is set in Italy in World War II. The main character, Captain Yossarian, is a bombardier (as Heller had been) who wants to get out of flying potentially deadly combat missions. So does his tent-mate, Orr. The easiest way to get out of flying more missions is to plead insanity. Heller writes:

There was only one catch, and that was Catch-22, which specified that a
concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate
was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All
he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and
he would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions
and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them
he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had
to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause
of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

In short, Catch-22 is "heads I win, tails you lose." If you can, you can't, and if you can't, you can. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Whenever you try to behave sensibly in a crazy world, there's a catch.

Heller writes:

Yossarian strode away, cursing Catch-22 vehemently even though he knew
there was no such thing. Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but
it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed,
and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or
refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to
shreds, trample upon, or burn up.

In fact, Heller originally wanted to name his dilemma Catch-18, but a book by Leon Uris called Mila 18, historical fiction about the Warsaw ghetto uprising during WWII, had just been published, and the publishers were afraid there would be confusion. (Mila 18 was a street address.)

So, there really isn't a Catch-22, despite its pervasiveness--and that's an example of the catch, of course. Circular dilemmas of this sort appear over and over in the book. Sometimes the Catch is mentioned explicitly, more often not. Some other examples of Catch-22 in action, from the book:

  • Major Major is a commander who doesn't command. He hates dealing with
    people, and is somewhat frightened of them. He therefore instructs his
    receptionist/orderly that, whenever he is in his office, any visitors should
    be told he is out. When he leaves his office (sneaking out the back window),
    the receptionist can send visitors in to see him. In short, the only time you
    can see Major Major in his office is when he's out. If he's in, you can't see
    him. It's an example of Catch-22, although the catch is not explicitly
    mentioned in this connection.

  • Doctor Daneeka is a doctor who responds to patients' complaints by telling
    them his own troubles.

  • The military police chase the girls away from Yossarian's favorite haunt.
    When asked what right they have to do this, they reply, "Catch-22." Catch-22
    says they have a right to do anything that you can't stop them from doing. And
    if you ask to see Catch-22, the law says they don't have to show it to you.
    What law? Catch-22, of course.

  • In the hospital, the Soldier in White (in a plaster cast from head to toe)
    has a bottle of plasma going in and a bottle of urine coming out. The nurses
    routinely switch the bottles around, in an endless cycle.

  • The Chaplain, when cornered, lies. He knows that telling lies and
    defecting from duty are sins. He also knows that sin is evil and that no good
    can come from evil. "But he did feel good; he felt positively marvelous.
    Consequently, it followed logically that telling lies and defecting from duty
    could not be sins."

Heller goes on, "The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery."

So, that's the essence of the Catch. The book was ahead of its time, according to the CNN obituary of Joseph Heller from December 13, 1999, "seemingly written for the generations that followed in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s."

During the Vietnam era, the phrase "Catch-22" became a buzz-word for being caught in a no-win, circular dilemma and has now become common usage. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Catch-22 as "a set of circumstances in which one requirement, etc., is dependent upon another, which is in turn dependent upon the first."

You've probably encountered similar experiences yourself. I had a colleague who was transferred to the U.S. from Australia. His final exasperation was car insurance: in order to get car insurance in the U.S., based on his age, he needed to have evidence that he was insurable, which means he needed to have prior insurance with a U.S. insurer. He couldn't get insurance because he didn't have insurance. I said to him, "It's a Catch-22," and he knew exactly what I
meant.

Evan Morris, THE WORD DETECTIVE, at www.word-detective.com, comments that his "personal favorite" example of Catch-22 is "needing to be rich to avoid paying income tax." I leave it to you to find other examples in your daily life.

The book Catch-22 is both hilarious and profound. In his walk through the streets of Rome, Yossarian sees suffering and poverty and murder, and has a lengthy soliloquy:

What a lousy earth! How many winners were losers, successes failures, rich
men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were
unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to blackguards for petty cash, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with an Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.

Heller once said, "Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy. Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts, and the question is: What does a sane man do in an insane society?"

Robert M. Young, writing about Catch-22, answers, "For the most part, what they try to do is survive in any way they can." --SDSTAFF Dex
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board SOUNDS LIKE THE IRAQ WAR TO ME! thinkingblue


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IN MEMORY OF MOLLY IVINS

thinkingblue blogspot

BRING THEM HOME NOW

DEFINITION OF AN ***HOLE

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CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!
thinkingBlue blogspot

YOU CAN BEAM ME UP NOW, SCOTTIE. Thinkingblue

Monday, February 05, 2007

IN MEMORY OF MOLLY IVINS

Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins dies at 62


There was a delightful interview with Molly Ivins on Booknotes on C-Span this
Saturday and Sunday. It was a vintage film from 1998, to honor Ms Ivins memory.

Molly was such a brilliant writer and a wonderful human being. She pulled no
punches and wrote and spoke from the bottom of her heart. Whenever or where ever she appeared, there was always a presence of smiles and laughter because of her powerful wit. She will be so missed especially in these humorless days of
pessimism. Molly, the world will never be the same without you. Thinkingblue


IN MEMORY OF MOLLY IVINS. A BRIAN LAMB INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY IVINS.
April 26, 1998

From C-Span BookTV

WATCH THIS WONDERFUL INTERVIEW WITH MOLLY IVINS BACK IN 1998


A Brian Lamb interview with Molly Ivins

Also on booknotes with transcript

MOLLY'S LAST ARTICLE

On Molly Ivins Mona Gable

READ MORE: Molly Ivins, Iraq
I was going to write about the spineless resolution on the troop surge in Iraq that Carl Levin forged with John Warner today. But then Molly Ivins died after her own weary battle with breast cancer and, well, all hell broke loose. With her fierce and unrelenting criticism of Bush and his misadventures in Iraq, her death seemed too ironic and significant to let pass without comment.

I never met Molly Ivins, but she was an inspiration to me and a generation of other women reporters. I'd read one of Ivins' smart-mouthed political columns and think wickedly, Can you actually say that? And the answer was an astonishing yes. She was the only person besides my friend Sue, who once lived in Austin, who made me seriously consider taking a job in Texas.
Ivins was the first female political columnist to ascend from the trenches to become a star. In a profession dominated by self-important and uptight males, she was like a shot of Irish whiskey. Bracing and smart. But best of all she was tough and unafraid. She said what she thought and didn't apologize for it. She spoke for people who didn't have a voice. She was proud of being a liberal. Who else would have thought to call the Commander in Chief, the ersatz cowboy in Crawford, the self-described "Decider" "Shrub"? Ouch.

Even as she lay dying she continued to attack Bush's policies in Iraq.
Here is what Ivins wrote on January 11:
"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'" We also need a courageous bunch of Senators, ones who are willing to stop thinking about 2008 for a half second and take a stand. That's something Molly Ivins understood.
Now if only she were here to see it through.


Remembering Molly
by Bill Moyers

What a foot-stompin’ reunion there must be at this very moment in that great Purgatory of Journalists in the Sky. I can see them now—Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, Upton Sinclair, Henry Demarest Lloyd, Ida B. Wells, David Graham Phillips, George Seldes, I. F. Stone, Walter Karp, Willie Morris—welcoming our darlin’ to their bosoms.

Oh, my, how she comes trailing clouds of truth-telling glory! Look at her—big-hearted as ever, leaning over the balustrade and reaching down to the tormented of Hades, moistening Tom DeLay’s lips, patting down Bob Perry's hair, erasing George W's sandstone scribblings. In the celestial light she glows as irrepressibly and vividly as she did here on Earth, where she made the mighty humble, the wicked ashamed, and the good ol' boys reach for the barrel to hide their forlorn nakedness. And, oh, the stories she must be telling as we speak.

At a PBS meeting a few years ago, she ended her talk with a joke that would have gotten anyone else arrested or excommunicated. But she was carried out on the crowd's shoulders, as right now she is being ushered into the Council of Ink-Stained Immortals, where the only religion is truth. Save some room up there, Molly: You have inspired us earthbound wretches to keep trying to live up to your legacy in the hope of joining you there one day.

REST IN PEACE DEAR MOLLY

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