Wexler Wants Hearings - we can help ....

...look at http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/


The charges are too serious to ignore.

If you are a patriotic American who loves our Constitution, go there and DEMAND hearings.

If you are a cowardly, yellow-bellied Bush supporter, too afraid to stand up for the rights our forefathers died to protect ... who cares about you?

Torture Tapes vs. Fraud On The Court

If you say "We have no secret prisons" and

...the judge therefore orders you preserve recordings of torture undertaken at the prison the judge knows about....

...and then you go "Well, we do have secret prisons and we destroyed THOSE tapes."

You cannot argue that the order didn't cover the secret prison tapes.

Because, you see, you got the limitation on the order by lying. That's a "Fraud On The Court".

Telco Immunity: Tell Your Senator

URGENT: Telecom Immunity Showdown in the Senate!

For more than five years, AT&T and other telephone companies broke the law and violated their customers' privacy rights by sending billions of private domestic internet and telephone communications and records to the National Security Agency.

Now, after months of pressure from the Bush Administration, the full Senate is poised to grant retroactive immunity to these companies, which would effectively ensure that the full extent of their complicity will never be known.

The critical make-or-break vote is being held Monday-- contact your Senator immediately and urge them to oppose telecom immunity!

Senate lawmakers must support Senator Chris Dodd and other heroes in allowing a full debate to proceed on Monday, and they must vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill.

The Senate should not let the telecoms off the hook. Granting immunity sets a dangerous precedent, sending the message that lawbreaking is acceptable and that the rights of Americans can be freely infringed by private companies in defiance of the law. And though the debate about the proper process of collecting foreign intelligence is complex, the issue of telecom immunity is not. The facts are simple enough: the telecoms broke the law, so the Senate should let Americans have their day in court.

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3. Click the Send Your Message button to send your letter to these decision makers:

* Your Senators

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=337

Tapes Destroyed? What Tapes Destroyed?

LARISA ALEXADROVNA asks:

"We are told that the CIA tapes were destroyed in 2005.

Now, what tapes are these DOJ lawyers examining in September and October of 2007?

Please take a look at this memo, HERE http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/20071207_intel_letter.pdf

"...do you see anything that says that the tapes were a) destroyed and b) in 2005?

I am sure someone has a logical answer to this. I am, unfortunately, not that person. Anyone?...."

A tip o' the hat to Larry Johnson at No Quarter:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/12/10/what-destroyed-torture-tapes/

A "Made In America" Christmas

Would you have any idea how to do it?

Conventions That Matter?

What if no candidate has 50% of the delegates by the end of primary/caucus season?

It's entirely possible that the top 3 in both the Democrats and the Republicans will split most of the delegates, with a few delegates going to the 2nd-tier candidates.

Instead of a head-to-head Presidential candidate starting March 2008, we may have to wait until the fall. The convention may actually matter, as the candidates and delegates negotiate.

Would this be such a bad thing?

"My purpose is this ... "

"... that should these United States endure for a thousand years, no man of good will and common sense shall trust the word of the President ever again."

-- George W Bush
(Actions Speak Louder Than Words!)

"And Iran" by Flock of Chickenhawks

"And Iran" by Flock of Chickenhawks


I walked Pennsylvania avenue.
I never thought I'd meet a man like you;
Meet a man like you.
With auburn beard and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Lots of oil too!

And I ran, I ran to invade.
I just ran, I ran a war charade.
An Oil War crusade.

A crowd is speaking in my head;
I hear the voices tell me what to do,
Wolfowitz and Cheney too.
A barrel's price is higher still.
A Saudi Royal comes in view;
Saudi comes in view.

And I ran, I ran an oil crusade.
Next is Iran, Iran all night and day.
Our troops will pay and pay.


Reached for a war on Iran too;
It's slowly disappearing from my view;
The NIE says, "Foo!"
Still got a year to try again;
I'm floating in a dream of oil with you;
A scheme to oil with you.

And I ran, I ran my oil crusade.
And my fans, fell for my mad charade.
Sure I've got it made!

===========

With apologies to "A Flock Of Seagulls"

The Golden Compass: There's Gold in That There Dust!

I just got out of a sneak preview for "The Golden Compass" and am happy to report it is not just a solid adaptation, but a fine movie in its own right.

The soul of the book is in the movie: its sense of fun seriousness, on a scale that ranges effortlessly from a gob of mud in a child's hand to the entire multiverse.

Visually, it is delightful, as if Maxfield Parrish had discovered steampunk.The quick and efficient script omits what it must (as is usual in adapting a book to the big screen) yet adds much by the fact of acting (who could be a better Mrs. Coulter than Nicole Kidman? Her first smile tells us all we think we need to know.)

I find it very respectful of the audience for the film not to explain too much. For example, book has to have Iorek explain to Lyra how his duel with Ragnar ends, since there are no images except that created in the mind. The movie just has it happen; viewers must figure it out by comparing his state just before the climactic blow and to that immediately afterwards.

The daemons, by literally exposing a person's soul, take the place of soliloquies or comic sidekicks. The story also goes faster because it keeps its secrets. It is a tale of discovery, and not all the discoveries have been made by its end. Besides, the protagonist is a young teen from whom The Adults Are Keeping Secrets; it's delightful that the audience shares the protagonist's mystification. Who should Lyra be trusting anyway?

I see that some critics complain that it's anti-Christian. I suspect that if the movie had dressed its Authority in desert robes and had it issue fatwas, they would be applauding it, or at least feeling smug. Surely institutional churches should have by now realized the error of assuming unto themselves the supremacy of God; history shows that never goes well, and that is basically the theology of the work.

But, anyway, it's only a movie (and the book is only a book). Surely "The True God" cannot be harmed by such, and in fact would be amused to have so serious a discussion of the nature of the soul, of Good and Evil, of Authority and Free Will.

I hope the trilogy is completed. But should it fail through an irrational Boxoffice or by the intercession of a justly enraged Authority, the sheer coolness of the film should turn viewers to the books, which further exposes them to the perils of Dust.

P.S. You could view this as the start of a triology about the ultimate dysfunctional family.

* The Golden Compass (movie)
* The Golden Compass (book) Random House site
* Critics say ‘The Golden Compass’ is an atheist agenda disguised in fantasy Kansas City Star
* My Golden Compass Sets a True Course