Friday morning open thread
Bookworm on May 01 2009 at 9:10 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
So little time and so much to write. I’ve got some interesting ideas percolating, but no time to do anything with them this morning. Until then, you all go and be wonderful . . . here . . . now. Suggestions: Souter, Swine flu, $540 tennis shoes, news reports exposing the guys who purportedly came up with the idea of waterboarding, Chrysler’s bankruptcy, Zac Ephron (and I’ll explain why I find him interesting in a later post).
Go for it, dudes and dudettes.
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Souter2, a black lesbian social justice advocate, goes before Congress to be grilled by Senator Harry Reid before being confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court:
Reid (slapping a pink triangle on his forehead): “Ms. Shabazz, how would you describe your judicial philosophy?”
Souter2: “My colleagues have always considered me an emanator, Senator.”
Reid (toying with a small-scale model of a Harley Davidson Sportster): “Emanator? What’s that?”
Souter2: “It’s terminology created by Justice Douglas, who although he was a white heterosexist, had his moments of lucidity. He once remarked that all you had to do to find justification for ground-breaking rulings in the Constitution was to understand that the document has ‘emanations and penumbras’ from which issue implied consents for all sorts of novelties.”
Reid (accidentally squeezes, then palms the nipple of the blonde page who has just brought him a copy of the Constitution): “I see. But I’m still not clear what the distinction is.”
Souter2: “Well. . .Say, is that a Sportster? My life partner and I both ride Sportsters. In fact, in 2006 we had the privilege of being the lead bikes in the San Francsico Pride Parade’s Dykes on Bikes continge. . .”
Reid (idly inserts finger into right ear, probes): “Uh, Ms. Shabazz, you were explaining?”
Souter2: “Oh, yes. Sorry. An emanator is a jurist who gives off daring new interpretations of the Constitution several times in the course of a day. She ‘emanates.’ As you can see, I am a ‘big girl’ [audience laughs politely at her indirect reference to her occupancy of two chairs], and emanating is just something that comes natural to me.”
Reid (sniffs his finger): “And a penumbrator?”
Souter2: “Penumbrators are far more subtle. In physics, I’m told, a penumbra is far harder to detect than an emanation. The personalities of penumbrators are similarly quieter and more subtle than emanators’. David Souter himself is a master penumbrator—look at the way he fooled the Bushies with his conservative pose! [slaps herself with glee on the thigh then becomes temporarily fascinated as it wobbles for several seconds before coming to rest]
Reid (gazes up at the ceiling trying to look thoughtful, realizes his eyeballs are stuck in a rollback position and begins frantically pssssting to the blonde page, “Two tickets to We’re The Osmonds if you can help me.”): “Well, thank you Ms. Shabazz. I think all of us here can rest assured that the Constitumaton, uh, Constellation, will be in good hands.”
Blind Sheik prosecutor Andrew Mccarthy declines to participate in the charade.
Another strange nomination by Obama. The guy has been quoted as saying:
“A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government”
Charles, that is the most astonishing and wonderful creation that I think I’ve ever read! I think it’s the very first dizzyingly crazed creation on the conservative side that gives William Burrough’s “Naked Lunch” a run for its money! Of course, he was heavily drugged on he-doesn’t-even-know-what when he wrote that.
You’ve got no talking cockroach though. No, I take that back: you’ve got Harry Reid.
Brilliant!
On second read, I think this is my favorite:
> “I see. But I’m still not clear what the distinction is.”
So he sees but he doesn’t see at all. A perfect analogy of the entire mindset.
One more comment, and apologies for being so jazzed by Charles’ creation.
The leftists succeeded in the 60s due to their unrelenting subversion of the status quo. They used harshly biting humor and it worked. The PC mantra has taken the place of the conservative status quo, and I see, in what Charles has done, the kind of thing we can seize upon. It’s uncomfortable as hell, but it works because PC is the new status quo, and it’s ready and present for its own unrelenting satirical assault. This would certainly make those who are upright and proper very uncomfortable, but I do believe the time is ripe and right.
Has “palming the nipple” and the Constitution ever before been present in the same sentence?
Maybe. If so, it was probably by this guy.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hastings-wants-protection-for-sex-perverts
Your point is excellent, Mike, about sardonic, subversive humor. In light of the fact (and we knew it was inevitable) that Obama will put young, liberal blood on the court, I was just writing to my email group saying that we have to start (a) picking our battles and (b) doing precisely what the left started doing in the 50s — taking over institutions at the grass roots by being hip, interesting, funny, edgy and committed. It can be done, as long as we’re not entirely shut down first. Charles’ writing is the perfect example. So good, I think, that I’m going to put it in a post and send it to friends!
Back at you, Devx. Yours is wonderful and very deeply appreciated praise from a man who so far has ruined three of my keyboards because of his wit and forced me to abandon a pleasant years-long custom of drinking coffee at my computer.
suek:
I want protection from the use of uh, uh, uh, and oh uh…Hastings.
Good grief…the man cannot string together enough words to complete a coherent sentence.
I would have killed for subtitles on this video.
Break out the coffee straws and sippy cups for those that dare to read Mike and Charles and think the laughter isn’t going to literally spill out over their keyboards.
Thought I’d add one more comment on something else I really enjoyed…
Emanators and penumbrators have rarely seemed so… filthy. My impressions:
From CharlesM:
Souter2: “My colleagues have always considered me an emanator, Senator.”
In my mind, the Judge says: “Ick. OK, someone get a maintenance man in here. She’s just gone and made a mess on the floor.”
Souter2: “Oh, yes. Sorry. An emanator is a jurist who gives off daring new interpretations of the Constitution several times in the course of a day. She ‘emanates.’ [...] and emanating is just something that comes natural to me.”
The Judge: “Oh, for crying out loud. Maintenance man! She’s gone and done it again. Would someone please get her a Depends?”
Souter2: “[...] The personalities of penumbrators are similarly quieter and more subtle than emanators’. David Souter himself is a master penumbrator [...]“
The Judge: “Let’s get that man put under lock and key! He must not be allowed to prey on small children and do disgusting sexual things to them!”
These are unfair impressions, but the way Charles managed the use of emanators and penumbrators, I couldn’t help but have these things pop up in the back of my mind while reading.
Hey, emanators and penumbrators, you’ve just been undermined! This is as good for us on our side, as it was for our opponents when that vicious artist covered Mother Mary with elephant dung and claimed that because it was proper in one other culture in some obscure corner of the world, that we should honor the idea here of Mother Mary covered in dung.
Right there with that, is Harry Reid getting totally sexually inappropriate immediately after Ms. Souter2 says, “the [Constitution] has ‘emanations and penumbras’ from which issue implied consents for all sorts of novelties.”
A judge’s statements giving “implied consent” to the “novelties” of nasty public sexual behavior, which Harry Reid then engages in; has he been suddenly sexually excited by the judge’s consent? How deviant! Just like our urinating freakazoids at the “Up Your Alley” fair. “Implied consent for all sorts of novelties” indeed! Great stuff.
Emanators and penumbrators need to be protected from hate crimes. They should be included in Hastings list…! The fact that they’re not is a clear indication that they are considered even worse than every other form of sexual perversion, and therefore should be at the very top of any list of those needing protection from hate crimes…
This seems like the time to punch in my two bits and wonder if anyone else here has heard any additional details.
Note the date on this Washington Times editorial and today’s announcement from the ‘elected’ President Obama asking for an additional 90 days to close Gitmo.
The back-pedaling bike race has begun and I believe for the very same (200+) reasons outlined below- the case of Sheik Rahman. Obama was ‘clueless in Chicago’ and remained ‘clueless’ until suddenly this week.
He may want to borrow Michele’s $540 sneakers and start jogging, while reality runs circles around him.
In the meantime, I find nothing innocuous, when dealing with jihadists.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama plans to close the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay as soon as he is sworn in as president Jan. 20. While specific details of the shutdown still have to be ironed out, aides to Mr. Obama say he plans to transfer some of the 255 alien terror suspects at Gitmo to U.S. jails and prisons to await trial on criminal charges.
During the campaign, Mr. Obama said the United States would be well served by returning to the anti-terror tactics of the Clinton years – trying suspects in court. Mr. Obama suggested that Gitmo was damaging international respect for the United States. By contrast, “in previous terror attacks, for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center [in 1993], we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.”
If anything, the experience of the 1990s proves just the opposite – that trying terrorists in open court is laden with pratfalls that jeopardize national security.
On Feb. 26, 1993, an al Qaeda terrorist cell bombed the World Trade Center, killing six persons and injuring 1,000. From the beginning, the investigation of the bombing was hampered by the insistence of the Clinton administration on treating it as a law-enforcement problem rather than one of state sponsorship. Senior administration officials rebuffed CIA Director James Woolsey’s efforts to investigate evidence that foreign governments may have been behind the attack. The U.S. government won convictions of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the “blind sheik”) and members of his terror cell in the bombing of the World Trade Center, conspiracy to bomb the United nations, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and the FBI’s Manhattan headquarters.
Mr. Obama suggests that trying the terrorists in open court did not damage U.S. security. He neglects to mention what took place during the prosecution of the sheik.
During the trial, prosecutors turned over a list of 200 unindicted conspirators to the defense – as the civilian criminal justice system required them to do. Within 10 days, the list made its way to downtown Khartoum, and Osama bin Laden knew that the U.S. government was on his trail. By giving this information to the defense in that terrorism case, the U.S. courts gave al Qaeda valuable information about which of its agents had been uncovered.
In another case, according to then-U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, there was seemingly innocuous testimony about delivery of a cell phone. That alerted terrorists to government surveillance. They shut down their communication network and intelligence was lost to the government forever.
Giving terrorists access to the U.S. legal system is hardly a cost-free exercise, as a seemingly naive Mr. Obama appears to believe.
Apologies, this is the link to the initial story and the professor’s comments at the end of the article are so damn typical post election. Now you hear it – now you don’t. 20-20 hindsight, I said it, but I didn’t mean to say it, I can lie and smile, Big Picture, little picture, real picture…. and because you can’t see me right now, that’s well and good because I think I am frothing at the mouth.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_guantanamo_trials
Ah, Sadie, hold onto your hat, I’m going to remind you of something that’s really going to make you froth at the mouth.
It’s bad enough when prosecutors turn over that information to defense attorneys and the information leaks out accidentally. It’s regrettable, but mistakes happen. However, what if it is not a mistake? What if you’re dealing with a defense attorney that actively seeks to harm America itself?
Let us take a moment to remember Lynne Stewart.
As the Wikipedia page on her says:
Lynne F. Stewart is an American radical activist. As an attorney she represented controversial, radical and often unpopular defendants. In 2005, Stewart was convicted on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists and sentenced to 28 months in prison. Her felony conviction led to her being automatically disbarred. She was convicted of helping pass messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric convicted of planning terror attacks, to his followers in al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, an organization designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States Secretary of State.
A defense attorney, radical activist, and totally committed idealogue… the kind of attorney who will be allowed access to extraordinarily sensitive national security information. This lady was disbarred… but she was only the first. Who will be the next Lynne Stewart?
Lynne Stewart was one of the practicing defense attorneys in the case you cited above, I think. Perhaps the information above, that ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda, was not passed on by her; I’m not sure. But certainly, once he was convicted, she actively aided and abetted him and his organization.
Thanks Mike…
If my hat was red with fur trim, my frothing could be disguised as a bad Santa Claus imitation.
Stewart the Slime only got 28 months!!!
Ugh, choke, gag, yehhh, I am frothing, again.
Lynne F. – must be a typo, I am sure it’s M.F. Then again, this disgusting chunk of human despot flesh, was sentenced during the Clinton years…gasp, choking, more frothing…feeling weak, woozy with an incredible urge to retire Lynne and her cohorts to the deep sea.
Damn, where’s a pirate when you want one.
p.s. Mike, I went to her web site and…….
Lynne Stewart received a 28-month sentence in October 2006, but is free on bail pending appeal.
A society and nation that cannot bring justice to those without the power to defend themselves from the likes of Lynne, will soon lose the mandate of Heaven and will eventually go down into the same fate as all Empires and Republics that have lost the truth behind their words of founding.
Lynne Stewart should have been shot for treason.
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-am-diverse.html
CDR has up a pretty good post about genetic color differentiations. For those interested in anthropology or indirect elements of human nature that can be exploited for weapons grade psych warfare.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are executed for passing information.
Jonathan Pollard get life for passing information to Israel.
Harold and Nathaniel Nicholson get life for passing info to Russia.
BUT…Lynne gets a 28 months! (yet to be served)
Napoleon
Cleopatra
Churchill
Lenin
King David
Although no mention of redheads in the very interesting article, the short list above I think qualifies as ‘weapons grade psych warfare’.
Quisp:
Quite a letter of pointedly saying NO.
“I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade”.
And what of the rest of us, who have no platform to decline participation in the charade post election. We cannot remain silent. Is there one voice of reason among the politicians that we can lend support to and if we find him/her will anybody listen.
Hmmm, I just submitted a post that failed (moderation?). It contains only one hyperlink, so I don’t know why that would have occurred. Thank God I always “cut and paste” just in case! Apologies if this repost ends up being a duplicate!
Quisp’s link in #2 might have gotten lost in the shuffle above. It contains what really is quite an excellent letter to our Attorney General, Eric Holder.
If you haven’t read that wonderful letter, I urge you to do so! It will make your morning!
I’ll repeat Quisp’s link here:
http://nrinstitute.org/mustread.php
I’d like to repeat one paragraph from that letter here. It illustrates the Pandora’s Box that the Obama Administration is opening by investigating those who make recommendations for government policy. We are all at risk – and therefore our political system itself is at risk – when simply offering a detailed recommendation for a policy, and outlining a potential implementation of such a policy, is cause for future criminal prosecution. Especially by political opponents… meaning that those with valuable contributions to offer will correctly decline to offer them. Which leaves us all the poorer for that.
The paragraph:
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.
Hmmm, I just submitted a post that has twice failed (moderation?). It contains only one hyperlink, so I don’t know why that would have occurred. Apologies if this repost ends up being a duplicate! I’ll try one last time, without the link.
Quisp’s comment above might have gotten lost in the shuffle above. It contains what really is quite an excellent letter to our Attorney General, Eric Holder.
If you haven’t read that wonderful letter, I urge you to do so! It will make your morning. See Quisp’s comment at #2 above for the link. (I’d put the link here, but I’m trying to avoid moderation hell…)
I’d like to repeat one paragraph from that letter here. It illustrates the Pandora’s Box that the Obama Administration is opening by investigating those who make recommendations for government policy. We are all at risk – and therefore our political system itself is at risk – when simply offering a detailed recommendation for a policy, and outlining a potential implementation of such a policy, is cause for future criminal prosecution. Especially by political opponents… meaning that those with valuable contributions to offer will correctly decline to offer them. Which leaves us all the poorer for that.
The paragraph: Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.
It would be a supreme act of irony if Obama, the lawyer, ends the reign of the trial lawyers through nothing so apparent as personal convenience and the necessities of power: to be exercised without restraint from anyone.
Bush allowed himself to be weighed down by certain considerations because he cared about America’s laws. Obama does not care, even at the same time he plays upon the foolish hopes and delusions of America in touting his supremely confident stance on the “rule of law”. America is not ruled by law. America is ruled by the Obama now.