Tucker Carlson: Michael Vick 'Should Have Been Executed' (VIDEO)

Tucker Carlson: Michael Vick 'Should Have Been Executed' (VIDEO)


Michael Vick paid the price and he's still paying it. He's ultimately responsibl­e for the cruel deaths of a number of dogs. We love dogs I understand­. And dogs raise good emotions in us and it's horrible that their lives should have ended so cruelly. But did you ever see how chickens, pigs and cattle are slaughtere­d "humanely?­" Should all those meat packers be executed? Are those of us who eat meat partly culpable? Vick paid the price. Further retributio­n makes no sense in a nation that is supposed to be Christian and forgiving. Move on. And yes Tucker Carlson is a complete mind numbing fool and we should ignore him.

Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming - NYTimes.com

Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming - NYTimes.com

NYT editorial on Wikileaks and the Banks

Banks and WikiLeaks

The whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks has not been convicted of a crime. The Justice Department has not even pressed charges over its disclosure of confidential State Department communications. Nonetheless, the financial industry is trying to shut it down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26sun3.html?_r=2

Merry Fucking Christmas

“Just a lot of sentimental­ hogwash where you live in some pathetic fantasy world. I'm glad it's over and we have ten months of rest from this endless commercial prattle.”

``Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.
``Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
``And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. ``Are they still in operation?''
``They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, `` I wish I could say they were not.''
``The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.
``Both very busy, sir.''
``Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. ``I'm very glad to hear it.''
``Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'' returned the gentleman, ``a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?''
``Nothing!'' Scrooge replied.
``You wish to be anonymous?''
``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''
``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''
``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.''
``But you might know it,'' observed the gentleman.
``It's not my business,'' Scrooge returned. ``It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!''
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

The Great Gatsby--The Great American Novel

http://books.google.com/books?id=FV5R6_FgLUAC&lpg=PP1&ots=kHULUsdocc&dq=the%20great%20gatsby&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

According to Legal Experts we may be commiting a crime reading the cables passed on by Wikileaks: Bullshit I say

The U.S. has no case and people who because they are lawyers and think they know should keep their unasked for opinions to themselves and stop doing the dirty work of the misinformation/disinformation experts. We have first amendment rights and whether or not they can be limited in regards to what we say or write in public, it doesn't prevent us from reading what is already published by a "free" press. What insanity! Otherwise roll up the streets and just lock us in our houses. It is not a crime to read even the most incendiary and flagrant treatises written in history much less what transpires for news. The less than a thousand cables published in the Times, the Guardian etc. are already published.

What are we looking at here, the novel "1984" come true?

Why do the rich want tax cuts

We haven't really heard from the top .5% of the wealthy who will be getting these gigantic tax cuts, perhaps permanently one day if the Republicans have their way. I fear they might. But we hear from their slavish protectors endlessly how this economy will improve once they have their money.

I see how it will improve the economy. On a drive one morning to the northernmost part of the island I'm staying on here on the Palm Coast of Florida, I saw the convoy of gardener trucks, pool cleaning trucks, sewer cleaning trucks, house cleaning trucks, delivery trucks, catering trucks etc.  making their way slowly up the A1A and turning into gated driveways that lead to the villas surrounded by perfectly manicured 15 foot hedges. In some cases I could see past through openings in the hedges to the lawns that looked as though they were putting greens, the mansions that looked like smaller versions of the Pierpont Morgan Library, their polished Mercedes, Bentleys & Bugattis all lined up in the driveways. Meanwhile an army of sweating men bare chested and wearing bandannas were already engaged in trimming, edging, mowing, clearing, sweeping, digging and delivering the services and goods necessary for the day.

It came to me that the ultra rich only want the tax cuts though they haven't said anything one way or the other (or at least I haven't heard) is because they can get them.  It's an expression of power, a reminder to us who they are, who they control and how much above us they really are. That they are powerful, that they own everything and that they can get whatever they want and take whatever they want without so much as raising themselves from their breakfast tables seems also to be the dream that their slavish protectors aspire to.



      

Daniel Ellsberg weighs in on Julian Assange

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/12/07-13

I read the news today, oh boy. John Lennon died and I was asleep

I missed the news that night as I fell asleep early. At five o'clock the following morning, a friend called and woke me up. She thought I'd be up anyway since I had an early class to teach. The combination of the news and my state of being barely awake threw me into an alternative, hypnotic state of reality.  I made it to class, I don't remember getting on the subway, don't recall going to the classroom, nodded to my students as they came in and asked them to just be quiet. Normally they were anyway.  It was a writing class so I told them to write for the next fifty minutes anything that they wanted and I sat there at the head of the class, containing my tears and wrote a long sappy, rambling encomium, one that I have read every anniversary.  

Jets lose the game of the Decade 45 -3

My Jets made a 32 ranked defense look like a champion. Hang your heads in shame. The problems with the game started in the first qtr with Ryan's bonehead challenge. From that point on everything went downhill. You give the best coach of the NFL in this decade (Belichek) along with an arguably best Qback of the decade (Brady) going up against "the better football team" (Ryan's words not mine) and you give them 11 days to plan and you see the result. Sanchez was the least of the problems. The offense sputtered everywhere else. The defense is lost without Jim Leonard. The Jets look like an 8 & 8 team though they'll end up 9&7. I want to burn all my Jet parapherna­lia. Patriots, I tip my hat.

Asange arrested

But Assange is only one person. There are more where he came from. The information is out of the box and will spill all over. It can't be put back. It can't be "walked" back. The outrage as a result only indicates how much it hurts and will continue to hurt. The empire seeks revenge, but it will be fruitless. They can chop heads. They can wound bodies. They can halt electronic transmissions. They can do whatever they like. But it's all over now Baby Blue.   

The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange

From the Atlantic

by  David Samuels - David Samuels is a regular contributor to The Atlantic.

Julian Assange and Pfc Bradley Manning have done a huge public service by making hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents available on Wikileaks -- and, predictably, no one is grateful. Manning, a former army intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces up to 52 years in prison. He is currently being held in solitary confinement at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, where he is not allowed to see his parents or other outside visitors.

Assange, the organizing brain of Wikileaks, enjoys a higher degree of freedom living as a hunted man in England under the close surveillance of domestic and foreign intelligence agencies -- but probably not for long. Not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Times reporter Neil Sheehan - "a vicious antiwar type," an enraged Nixon called him on the Watergate tapes -- has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama Administration.

 

 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440/

Students being warned about WikiLeaks

University students are being warned about WikiLeaks.

An email from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, that we read in headlines, reads—I want to do it again—quote,

"Hi students,

"We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

"The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

"Regards, Office of Career Services."

Read entire interview including this e-mail @

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/3/is_wikileaks_julian_assange_a_hero

On WikiLeaks

If anything the cables show several things: 1. That American government actually does go to work   2. That the Obama Administration is a bit more responsible and uses less arm twisting than the Bush administration. 3. That U.S. diplomats can write complete sentences and have good perceptive powers not to mention are skilled at diplomacy. 4. That those of us who do follow world events are not surprised by any of the conclusions drawn. Who among us didn't think Berlusconi was a jerk or that the Mexicans can't get a handle on dealing with the drug cartels or that the Arabs are just as worried about Iran's nuclear track and above all that as of now, no one has been arrested for releasing these documents and that we do have a fairly democratic government? Unless of course secretly people are being taken out . . . but if WL survives we'll find that out eventually too. On the whole WL is important to a "free" and open society and will push journalism.

There are references to UFOs in the WikiLeaks recent published documents

Julian Assange:
Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the anti-christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant. However, as yet they have not satisfied two of our publishing rules.
1) that the documents not be self-authored;
2) that they be original.
However, it is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs

Julian Assange "terrorist"? That's what some people say

In order to be a "terrorist" don't you have to commit some kind of act of violence or have the intention of promoting violence? WikiLeaks doesn't do that. Everyone talks about "speaking truth to power" but when someone does it everyone goes bonkers. In defense of WikiLeaks and it's stance vis a vis releasing "classified" information. (3 million people had access BTW).read the following:

In 1971 Justice Potter Stewart wrote in the Pentagon Papers trial (NY Times, WaPo etc. )

Mr. Stewart argued that a free press was the only effective check on the power of American presidents to fight foreign wars, writing:

In the governmental structure created by our Constitution, the Executive is endowed with enormous power in the two related areas of national defense and international relations. This power, largely unchecked by the Legislative and Judicial branches, has been pressed to the very hilt since the advent of the nuclear missile age. For better or for worse, the simple fact is that a President of the United States possesses vastly greater constitutional independence in these two vital areas of power than does, say, a prime minister of a country with a parliamentary form of government.

In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry – in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For, without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people.