49 responses to
“Early meeting bugout.”

1. Dutch said on November 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am

   Well, at least Sarah Palin under­stood the lessons of Ani­mal Farm and applied them.

   Unlike…

2. Deborah said on November 13th, 2009 at 11:17 am

   Enjoyed both flight videos, the birds and the plane. Great way to start a Friday!

3. MichaelG said on November 13th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

   So who counted all those birds? Not Sean Han­nity I hope.

4. Jolene said on November 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm

   When the star­ling video, which is, indeed, very cool, ended, You Tube sug­gested this one. More Fri­day fun.

5. Julie Robinson said on November 13th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

   That was an amaz­ing recre­ation of the flight. The photo at the bot­tom says it all – a pas­sen­ger who wrote “we are very lucky”.

   Now, who can rec­om­mend some Ramones tracks for a beginner?

6. moe99 said on November 13th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

   Julie:

   http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​w​M​D​7​E​zp3gWc

   Great song for a Friday!

7. Jenine said on November 13th, 2009 at 3:57 pm

   Watched the Hud­son recre­ation last night with my hus­band. Sully’s voice speeds up a lit­tle bit right after the bird hit. But he never sounds ner­vous. Amazing.

8. Jeff Borden said on November 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

   Julie,

   Sheena is a Punk Rocker
   Blitzkrieg Bop
   Rock­away Beach
   The KKK Took My Baby Away
   Beat on the Brat
   I Just Want to Have Some­thing to Do
   …and the pleas­antly sweet
   Baby, I Love You

9. Jeff Borden said on November 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

   WITH APOLOGIES TO JEFF TMMO AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO IS SICK OF CARRIE PREJEAN…

   Princess Jesus Boo­bies is not only a flam­ing hyp­ocrite. She appar­ently is a real jerk, too.

   Pre­jean threat­ened walk­out before she stepped on set of ‘Larry King Live’
   By: Nikki Schwab and Tara Palmeri
   Wash­ing­ton Exam­iner
   11/13/09 12:23 PM EST

   A huge “nay” for Car­rie Prejean.

   Upon enter­ing CNN’s Wash­ing­ton Bureau Wednes­day night, the first words out of For­mer Miss Cal­i­for­nia Car­rie Prejean’s mouth to CNN news assis­tant Christina McAus­land were, “You tell Larry if he’s not nice to me, I will get up and leave.”

   McAus­land, who said she admired Pre­jean for her can­dor, was shocked by the beauty queen’s tone and warned “Larry King Live” pro­ducer John Gilmore of her threat.

   Beyond her on-air hissy fit, the beauty queen’s behav­ior at the stu­dio was classless.

   She arrived with an entourage of five, (for cable news Green Room con­text, Sen. Dianne Fein­stein, D-Calif., never arrives with a group that large) and barked at a stu­dio oper­a­tor for touch­ing her hair while set­ting up her microphone.

   After her appear­ance in which she dubbed King “inap­pro­pri­ate” and attempted to exit the set, Pre­jean accused the staffer of lying to her, say­ing King’s pro­duc­ers promised no phone calls. She belit­tled McAus­land say­ing, “Is the intern talk­ing to me? Oh look at the lit­tle intern, look at the lit­tle intern try­ing to explain!”

   “I’ve never been treated so poorly in my whole life,” McAus­land, who recently accepted an exec­u­tive pro­ducer posi­tion at Newsie​.com of Media Con­ver­gence Group, said.

10. Dexter said on November 13th, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    I emailed the Sully link to Cap­tain Steve, my daughter’s man, who flies in and out of Teter­boro fre­quently. This link made me shiver…wow, those folks really came close to dying. The whole series of events is amazing.

11. Sue said on November 13th, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    Jeff Bor­den:
    Where is the money com­ing from for a five-person entourage, I won­der. Who’s fund­ing this girl and when is the money going to get pulled?
    Bitch, yes, but she’s a kid, for heaven’s sake, with very appar­ent 22-year-old social skills. She must be absolutely terrified.

12. Jeff Borden said on November 13th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    Sue,

    She received an advance from the book she wrote. There is a pos­si­bil­ity the pub­lish­ing com­pany has engaged body­guards, han­dlers and makeup peo­ple to accom­pany her on her pub­lic­ity rounds.

    I will respect­fully dis­agree that she is a child­ish 22-year-old with poor social skills. As noted yes­ter­day, she is a pageant girl and has been for years includ­ing a stint in her late teens as Miss San Diego. Nancy, who cov­ered a Miss Amer­ica pageant many years ago, can vouch for the paces these young women are put through includ­ing how to han­dle their fame and the media. This is why her poor behav­ior on Larry King was so striking.

    I cov­ered the TV and radio indus­try for more than 20 years and reviewed a lot of rock shows early in my career. Fame twists peo­ple pretty quickly.

    Case in point: When “Miami Vice” was ready to debut in 1984, actor Don John­son was about the nicest and most acces­si­ble actor you could ask for. He had blown one go-around in Hol­ly­wood and seemed gen­uinely grate­ful for another crack at suc­cess in a show that was being seen as a break-out hit. One year later, the guy was sur­rounded by a cadre of body­guards and no one was allowed to talk to him.

    Appar­ently, St. Car­rie of Sil­i­con has fallen vic­tim to the same mal­ady. Enough peo­ple have deferred to her that she now believes it is her due.

13. Jolene said on November 13th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    “wow, those folks really came close to dying. The whole series of events is amazing.”

    And not only them. A lot of peo­ple on the ground could have been killed too. They were lucky to have a river to land on. Amaz­ing how fast it all happened.

14. Sue said on November 13th, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Jeff Bor­den:
    I get what you’re say­ing. Maybe I’m look­ing at this from the view­point of a mom with a 24-year-old daugh­ter. My daugh­ter has 8 gazil­lion friends, and one thing I’ve learned from watch­ing poised young women is that they hide their fear well. I’ll give you the spoiled pro­tected brat part if you give me the ter­ri­fied part.

15. brian stouder said on November 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    Kudos to crinoid­girl for find­ing, and to the Pro­pri­etress for shar­ing that link about US Air­ways and Sul­len­berger (et al); maybe I’m just tired, but I found that com­pletely enthralling (had to keep right over the pause but­ton, so I could read the cross-talk between Sully and his co-pilot). Of course we all know how it ends, yet still it choked me up.

    Sue and Jeff — wouldn’t it be mar­velous if our national pun­ditry (not to men­tion our polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions them­selves) would trade points like that? Reach­ing for the agreed-upon, and past the contested?*

    I got a pretty good laugh from this arti­cle, about Levi Johnston’s deci­sion to drop his Levis and show off his johnson -

    http://​www​.msnbc​.msn​.com/​i​d​/​3​3​8​9​8​0​8​6​/​n​s​/​e​n​t​e​r​t​a​i​n​m​e​n​t​-​g​ossip/

    an excerpt:

    …accord­ing to a source at the photo shoot, John­ston is wear­ing noth­ing but a hockey stick. “We have con­fir­ma­tion from the set of Levi’s Play­girl shoot that he has just posed naked with a hockey stick,” Gawker reported. (They also included an addi­tional per­sonal detail, but it’s not some­thing I want to be respon­si­ble for sear­ing into your brain.)

    I had heard that Play­girl is actu­ally only a web­site now, and mostly aimed at gay males; upon click­ing into their site, I can con­firm that appar­ently lots of fel­lows appear there with woody hockey sticks in their hands

    *I was pon­der­ing what the Pro­pri­etress said about Gov­er­nor Palin’s multi-million dol­lar book advance, and it made me won­der: why can’t some pro­moter offer a multi-million dol­lar prize, and with a trav­el­ling road-show of OPPOSING big-time pun­dits and pub­lic fig­ures mix­ing it up with each other in a struc­tured series of debates?

    I would spend $30/ticket (or, the price of a hard­back book) to take in the spec­ta­cle of Keith Olber­mann and/or Jon Stew­art and/or Rachel Mad­dow, plus a few cre­den­tialed schol­ars from the left — ver­sus Sean Han­nity and/or Glen Beck and/or Anne Coul­ter, plus a few cre­den­tialed schol­ars from the right.

    For spice, they would have to be con­test­ing for the lion’s share of the prize fund

    edit: I went to gawker, and the ‘sear­ing into your brain’ detail might have been this nugget: Gawker’s source says, “His ass is smooth as a Sade song.”

16. Jeff Borden said on November 13th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Brian,

    There was a time when peo­ple did pay good money to hear ora­tors take dif­fer­ent points of view and debate them. There have been some efforts to revive this idea, but I like yours a lot better.

    There’s noth­ing I’d enjoy more than get­ting some of our favorite dem­a­gogues out of their radio and TV stu­dios and into an open forum, where they would not be able to con­trol the rules of engage­ment or cut off the micro­phones of their oppo­nents. Oh, to see Sean Han­nity shriv­el­ing in the bright light of rea­son, to see Boss Hogg Rush’s chins quiv­er­ing under real questioning…

    It will never hap­pen. These guys pre­fer speak­ing to the choir. You’ll see them at CPAC,but that’s about it.

    Sue,

    I cer­tainly mean no dis­re­spect. I’m child­less and lack­ing in the kind of expe­ri­ences you’ve had with your daugh­ter. Per­haps Car­rie Pre­jean really is a rel­a­tive inno­cent, some­one who truly believes she is doing the Lord’s work. Per­haps I’m too cynical…35 years in the news­pa­per busi­ness will do that to you…but I see dol­lar signs in those eyes when­ever I see her.

17. coozledad said on November 13th, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    It’s begin­ning to look like the mas­tur­ba­tion tapes are a bit of a hobby for Car­rie. Seven more tapes, thirty or so nude pho­tos. Talk about prod­uct dump­ing.
    The video of Speedo-clad Pat Robert­son cavort­ing in a tub of rasp­berry jello with Gary Bauer is even doing slightly bet­ter in futures trading.

18. Sue said on November 13th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    Jeff Bor­den:
    No no no, I wasn’t tak­ing your com­ments as dis­re­spect­ful. Nor was I assum­ing Car­rie isn’t seri­ously mis­guided and a lit­tle bitch. I was just say­ing that, based on my expe­ri­ence with the age group, she’s still a kid, doing stu­pid things and get­ting busted big time. Sort of a drunken myspace or face­book photo writ very very large.

19. brian stouder said on November 13th, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    she’s still a kid, doing stu­pid things and get­ting busted big time.

    I have the exact same reac­tion. If you close your eyes and skip her exag­ger­ated sex­u­al­ity, and only lis­ten to the words she says (and her tone of voice) — honestly, she sounds like my 11 year old daughter!

    “You’re being inap­pro­pri­ate, Larry”, repeated four times sounds like a para­phrase of how our 11 year old argues with her older brother (every damned morning! — but we digress)

    Regard­ing her fouled up present sit­u­a­tion, I heard her plain­tively offer (in another interview)that “I’m only 22″ — which took me aback! Most 22 year olds would not put that min­imz­ing “only” before their age.

    My main impres­sion of her is that she’s not very emo­tion­ally or intel­lec­tu­ally devel­oped, espe­cially with regard to her sin­gu­lar empha­sis on her sexuality

20. Dexter said on November 14th, 2009 at 12:13 am

    http://​tinyurl​.com/​y​a9ga6o

    Uhggghh. Why try?

21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 14th, 2009 at 9:27 am

    Thread­jack — Has any­one read “Let the Great World Spin”? Hola, what a ride. Buy it thru Nancy’s link below, or grab the library copy if your state is still fund­ing libraries … but read it.

    It’s almost as good as “David Cop­per­field”! (I am not capa­ble of higher praise.)

22. moe99 said on November 14th, 2009 at 11:05 am

    http://​won​kette​.com/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​0​9​/​1​1​/​r​o​g​u​e​2​25.jpg

    Won­kette cap­tures a page from Going Rogue that seems to encap­su­late laPalin’s pov. She was for change waaay before Barack Obama was.…

23. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 11:28 am

    Moe — you’ve given me my laugh of the morning!

    “We were change when change wasn’t cool”

    hmmmm, let’s think about that. When was change “not cool”? When Pres­i­dent Bush-the-decider decided to

    [insert long list of well-worn Bush deci­sions and defaults, includ­ing going to war with Iraq, cut­ting taxes with­out cut­ting spend­ing, sign­ing into law the pre­scrip­tion drug ben­e­fit with­out figu­ing how to pay for it, dither­ing while New Orleans was suf­fer­ing, del­e­gat­ing his JOB to the VP and oth­er­wise shirk­ing his duty to BE the Commander-in-Chief with rea­grd to the two wars that he was respon­si­ble for…etc!] -

    when all THAT was hap­pen­ing, MILLIONS OF AMERICANS were for change! And at the crest of that mighty wave of pub­lic sen­ti­ment, was the hockey-mom with lip­stick surf­ing? Was she boldly “going rogue” and lam­bast­ing the direc­tion our ship of state was then sail­ing? Did she advo­cate for chang­ing course? Did she make any con­se­quen­tial state­ments (let alone deci­sions) to affect any change? — indeed — who is included in her use of the word “we”? Because every­time she says any­thing, Rush Lim­baugh (et al) imme­di­ately begin gen­u­flect­ing; in fact Uncle Rush says that her book is one of the most sub­stan­tive pol­icy books he’s ever read! (which in his case may well be true).…and I don’t recall THAT part of “we” being for any change AT ALL!! in the vot­ing booth

    Back in those days — when “change wasn’t cool” — then-Senator Obama was for change. Even Sen­a­tor Clin­ton — who was more for “change” than Gov­er­nor Palin ever was, mis­tak­enly empha­sized “expe­ri­ence” over change.…but then again, “expe­ri­ence” isn’t a long suit for Gov­er­nor Palin, either, eh?

24. Jolene said on November 14th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

    You folks are think­ing way too much about what the book says. It has ital­ics and excla­ma­tion points, doesn’t it? Isn’t that enough?

    John McCain could single-handedly reduce unem­ploy­ment to 3%, turn Iraq and Afghanistan into the regional equiv­a­lents of Swe­den and Switzer­land, and con­vert car­bon emis­sions into per­fume, and all that wouldn’t be enough to com­pen­sate for hav­ing inflicted Sarah Palin on us.

25. beb said on November 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm

    There was a time when peo­ple did pay good money to hear ora­tors take dif­fer­ent points of view and debate them. There have been some efforts to revive this idea, but I like yours a lot better.

    I would enjoy see­ing Rachael Mad­dow debate — well, any­one. But who among the anti-progressive sphere would be will­ing to debate with her? Glenn Beck’s cry­ing won’t score points with her. Bill O’Rielly won’t be able to cut off her mike when she’s win­ning a point. Rush Lim­baugh won’t be able to out shout her. Is there one top-tier con­ser­v­a­tive who have actu­ally debates issues? I don;t think so. It’s all blus­ter and hyper­bole from the right.

    addi­tion­ally: I’m amazed that peo­ple are going nuts over the idea of bring­ing the 9/11 ter­ror­ists to New York for trial. Sheesh. We’ve tried ter­ror­ists before and besides we should try these law-breakers. We are, after all, a nation of law.

26. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    I’m amazed that peo­ple are going nuts over the idea of bring­ing the 9/11 ter­ror­ists to New York for trial. Sheesh. We’ve tried ter­ror­ists before and besides we should try these law-breakers. We are, after all, a nation of law.

    Here, here!!

    Some folks say “but it will be a show trial” — as in — the ter­ror­ists will get to put on a show! — and denounce us, and so on.

    But the prob­lem with that argu­ment is, the sons of bitches have already put on that show for the world, with real blood.

    And, if any­one thinks it would be viewed as a gov­ern­m­net show-trial, then they’d think that no mat­ter what we do. A mil­i­tary tri­bunal could be made to look like a kan­ga­roo court.

    As beb says, we’re a nation of laws, and it is refresh­ing to see us act in accor­dance with that truth

27. Jolene said on November 14th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    I was sur­prised, too, to hear some of the reac­tions to the idea of try­ing KSM et al. in in NY. Of course, I dis­count the reac­tions of most Repubs, but my sen­a­tor, Jim Webb, who is at least a nom­i­nal Demo­c­rat and not given to histri­on­ics, also issued a strong state­ment oppos­ing Holder’s deci­sion.
    The state­ment was light on rea­sons, except to say that they are “enemy com­bat­ants” and should be tried by the mil­i­tary. Wish I could talk to him to find out more about his reasoning.

    I actu­ally think John Kerry was right in say­ing that ter­ror­ism should, to the extent pos­si­ble, be treated as crim­i­nal activ­ity. Our anti-terrorism activ­i­ties should focus on intel­li­gence, pre­ven­tion, and propaganda.

28. coozledad said on November 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    The Brits have treated ter­ror as a legal mat­ter for years, and it’s prob­a­bly one of the key rea­sons the dis­pute at the heart of the vio­lence has grad­u­ally become a tractable issue. A mat­ter of talk as opposed to blood.
    Bin Laden picked the right admin­is­tra­tion dur­ing which to launch his strike; one that revered per­son­al­i­ties and myths about per­son­al­i­ties above laws; one whose inter­nal arrange­ments he would have found famil­iar and com­fort­able, that he could have nav­i­gated effort­lessly with­out the slight­est cul­tural point of ref­er­ence. You’ve got to give him that. He knew pre­cisely where and when to push the but­tons to shiver the whole thing to bits.

29. mark said on November 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm

    I would think that the due process crowd here at the end of this thread must be hor­ri­fied that we are lob­bing mis­siles into Pak­istani din­ing rooms because the cam­era end of a preda­tor drone indi­cates that it might con­tain peo­ple that we think might be the peo­ple that we think are law­break­ers. Never con­victed of any­thing by a jury of their New York peers, however.

    We should send the police, not sol­diers. Arrest them, being care­ful to avoid any unnec­es­sary force, and read them Miranda warn­ings. Then bring them all to New York for four year tri­als. If we do oth­er­wise, we are not a nation of laws.

    Just curi­ous, since some here think KSM is enti­tled to US con­sti­tu­tional rights, how does NYC con­sti­tute a jury of his peers? Should he be released since we didn’t extra­dict him as we do with sus­pected crim­i­nals? Let him go for no Miranda warnings?

30. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    I would think that the due process crowd here at the end of this thread must be hor­ri­fied that we are lob­bing mis­siles into Pak­istani din­ing rooms because the cam­era end of a preda­tor drone indi­cates that it might con­tain peo­ple that we think might be the peo­ple that we think are lawbreakers.

    Well, Mark, mod­ern war­fare is indeed pretty hor­ri­fy­ing, don’t you agree?

    And fur­ther to your point, the Pak­ista­nis are becom­ing quite tired of our lit­er­ally inhu­man UAVs con­stantly whizzing around — ready to deal push-button death and destruc­tion within their bor­ders. We are sup­posed to be allied with them, but this cam­paign of ours (which I am inclined, at the end of the day, to defend) can­not be win­ning over the ‘hearts and minds’ of any­body — whether we’re killing bad guys or not.

31. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    Just curi­ous, since some here think KSM is enti­tled to US con­sti­tu­tional rights, how does NYC con­sti­tute a jury of his peers? Should he be released since we didn’t extra­dict him as we do with sus­pected crim­i­nals? Let him go for no Miranda warnings?

    Well you know, the high-ground argu­ment that I would expect from an “Amer­i­can excep­tion­al­ism” right wing flag-waving ‘First Prin­ci­ples’ per­son would be an appeal to our most basic and orginal ideals; our stated belief that “All men are cre­ated equal”.

    We have these peo­ple in our hands. It is our (America’s) choice what to do with them. We can run them before a mil­i­tary tri­bunal, and try them, and — if con­victed — exe­cute them. Or — we can put them into civil court and try them, and — if con­victed — exe­cute them.

    I think that more peo­ple in the world will appre­ci­ate the valid­ity of any such pro­ceed­ing if it is at least a few steps removed from raw Amer­i­can mil­i­tary power.

    Or — look­ing at it the other way, are we bet­ter off to say that NO non-American per­son can avail them­selves of due process if they get arrested or tried here? How will that work?

32. mark said on November 14th, 2009 at 6:44 pm

    I do agree, brian. Which is why I think it is silly to pre­tend it’s a crim­i­nal mat­ter involv­ing sus­pected law break­ers. Worse yet is to change horses mid-stream, vol­un­tar­ily bestow­ing “rights” upon peo­ple like KSM in the mid­dle of the process.

    And all per­sons arrested here DO get the pro­tec­tions of due process already. That’s not an issue. This is why Zachar???, the 20th hijacker, was tried in a US Court, given Miranda warn­ings, etc. We are talk­ing about peo­ple picked up on for­eign soil, often in the after­math of bat­tles, by sol­diers who had no rea­son to antic­i­pate that they had to treat the enemy with the same restric­tions that are in play when the cops make a traf­fic stop. Square peg, round hole.

33. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

    Worse yet is to change horses mid-stream, vol­un­tar­ily bestow­ing “rights” upon peo­ple like KSM in the mid­dle of the process.

    Mark — I do see your point. I hon­estly think — for entirely self­ish, pro-American reasons! — that giv­ing KSM more than he deserves (ie — his day in civil court) serves America’s inter­ests more than a mil­i­tary tri­bunal will.

    Indeed, Pres­i­dent Obama, it seems to me, is all but say­ing that. The sons of bitches who attacked the USS Cole aren’t get­ting a civil trial; they got shunted over to a mil­i­tary tri­bunal. Too bad for them.

    But the world will, I believe, turn its gaze pretty intensely upon the KSM (et al) trial in New York City — espe­cially with the (quite inten­tional) added drama of hav­ing that trial 1000 yards away from the site where the unmit­i­gated hor­rors of these defen­dants unfolded.

    I don’t think KSM will gar­ner much sym­pa­thy for the fact that he was tor­tured, as the pros­e­cu­tors lay out evi­dence such as phone records and money trans­fers and e-mails and so on, unre­lated to water-boarding. And if KSM really has the tow­er­ing (so to speak) ego that he’s reputed to have, he’ll thump his chest and take credit for what he did.

    Pro­ceed with alacrity, I say

34. mark said on November 14th, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    I hope you are cor­rect in how things turn out with KSM.

35. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    Mark, agreed.

    And in a semi-related mat­ter, there’s this:

    http://​www​.pharostri​bune​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​c​o​l​u​m​n​i​s​t​s​/​l​o​c​a​l​_​s​t​o​r​y​_​3​1​7​2​1​0​0​0​6​.​h​t​m​l​?​k​e​y​w​o​r​d​=​t​o​pstory

    One could sim­ply dis­miss this small-town news­pa­per arti­cle in a con­de­scend­ing way, or ignore it.…or — if we take it seri­ously, scratch our head in won­der­ment. The photo of the colum­nist shows an old white guy. For all I know, he doesn’t get paid for this stuff (for the sake of that news­pa­per, one can hope anyway!) — but still.

    Here’s an excerpt:

    The news media won’t come out and say who and what Nidal Malik Hasan is, but all good Amer­i­cans know what he is. The news media won’t call it an act of ter­ror­ism, but what is it when unarmed peo­ple are mur­dered in cold blood? I think Uncle Sam has enough holes in his feet by now, so I sug­gest we put the polit­i­cally cor­rect gun away. If some­thing wad­dles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, we had bet­ter start call­ing it a duck and treat­ing it like a duck. When men and women liv­ing in this coun­try start talk­ing and work­ing against the well being of the United States, we had bet­ter con­sider them enemies.

    See — this is what’s so per­ni­cious about say­ing “This is WAR” and then want­ing to change the rules. “If some­thing wad­dles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, we had bet­ter start call­ing it a duck and treat­ing it like a duck” —  I bet Fred Kore­matsu would dis­agree with this.

    Or else, think of all the “ducks” who drive pick­ups with gun racks and plas­tic tes­ti­cles and Obama-as-Joker bumperstickers…those ducks look a lot like the moron who blew up the Fed­eral build­ing on Okla­homa City

36. Deborah said on November 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    Not to bring up a sore sub­ject from an ear­lier com­ment thread… I stand by my state­ment that we are a vio­lent nation. I finally had a chance to read last week’s New Yorker and there’s a good arti­cle about mur­der­ous America.

    http://​www​.newyorker​.com/​a​r​t​s​/​c​r​i​t​i​c​s​/​a​t​l​a​r​g​e​/​2​0​0​9​/​1​1​/​0​9​/​0​9​1​1​0​9​c​r​a​t​_​a​t​l​a​r​g​e​_​lepore

37. beb said on November 14th, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    jOLENE @27. Some­one needs to remind Sen Webb that “enemy Com­bat­ant” was an inven­tion of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion to jus­tify the impris­on­ment of cibil­ians for what­ever rea­son the pres­i­dent cared to make. It’s not a legal statute, cat­e­gory of law or any­thing rec­og­nized by the Geneva Con­ven­tions. That Obama has not renounced and denounced the con­cept is one of the things I hold against him. When I voted for him I thought I was vot­ing for a lib­eral, not Bush III!

    Mark #29. I would think that the due process crowd here at the end of this thread must be hor­ri­fied that we are lob­bing mis­siles into Pak­istani din­ing rooms because the cam­era end of a preda­tor drone indi­cates that it might con­tain peo­ple that we think might be the peo­ple that we think are lawbreakers

    I am. I think the use of drone forces is a bad idea but because it’s indis­crim­i­nate and because war should never be anti­sep­tic. Wars where peo­ple never die only makes the idea of war too cheap, com­mon and easy.

    Mark, KSM is being tried in New York because that’s where his crimes, the mur­der of nearly 3000 Amer­i­cans took place. Let’s not for­get that the ter­ror­ists who tried to blow up the Word Trade Cen­ter in 1993 were arrested by the FBI, tried in New York courts and sen­tenced to prison, in the USA, which is where they are now.

38. crinoidgirl said on November 14th, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    Noooooooooooooooooooooo!

    Buck­eyes are going to the Rose Bowl!

39. mark said on November 14th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

    beb,

    You are a lit­tle off on KSM. Read AG Holder’s com­ments and you will see that he claims to have done a search of var­i­ous juris­dic­tions to deter­mine the one best equpped to safely con­duct the trial, decid­ing upon NY. So far as I am aware, KSM is not charged with any crim­i­nal activ­ity occur­ring in NY. His activ­ity took place out­side the coun­try. The ’93 bombers were tried in NY in court because the crimes took place there and they were arrested in the US, enti­tling them to all con­sti­tu­tional protections.

40. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    Mark — I dunno about your state­ment that

    So far as I am aware, KSM is not charged with any crim­i­nal activ­ity occur­ring in NY. His activ­ity took place out­side the country.

    Pos­si­bly he isn’t for­mally charged yet (which may have been your point) — but despite con­spir­ing else­where, clearly the mur­ders he will be charged with occurred in New York and Wash­ing­ton and Shanksville, PA.

    There’s this from Alan Dershowitz

    http://​www​.the​globe​and​mail​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​o​p​i​n​i​o​n​s​/​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​i​s​-​o​n​-​t​r​i​a​l​-​a​s​-​m​u​c​h​-​a​s​-​k​h​a​l​i​d​-​s​h​e​i​k​h​-​m​o​h​a​m​m​e​d​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​1​3​63102/

    an excerpt (empha­sis added)

    The Obama admin­is­tra­tion has announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mas­ter­mind of 9/11, will be sub­jected to an ordi­nary crim­i­nal trial in the fed­eral court of New York. He will almost cer­tainly be charged with the mass mur­der of nearly 3,000 indi­vid­u­als, and could pos­si­bly face trial for the death of Wall Street Jour­nal reporter Daniel Pearl, whom he claims to have beheaded in Pak­istan.The form of the indict­ment isn’t yet clear – whether it will be a con­spir­acy or RICO charge, or whether it will include spe­cial ter­ror­ist counts as well. What­ever the form, the sub­stance of the charge will be that Mr. Mohammed and his co-defendants mur­dered more peo­ple than any­one who has ever faced jus­tice in a U.S. court. Despite the fact that Mr. Mohammed has con­fessed to vir­tu­ally every­thing, his trial will face daunt­ing chal­lenges, unless he decides to plead guilty, as he tried to do last year when he sent a note to a mil­i­tary judge at Guan­tanamo. If he changes his mind and decides to fight the charges, he will have pow­er­ful legal weapons at his disposal.

41. Jolene said on November 14th, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    Read AG Holder’s com ments and you will see that he claims to have done a search of var i ous juris dic tions to deter mine the one best equpped to safely con duct the trial, decid ing upon NY.

    Right. He said that he con­sulted w/ both Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Chief of Police Ray Kelly before decid­ing where to hold the trial. Since these detainees will be charged w/ fed­eral crimes, they could be tried in any fed­eral court. Recall that Mous­saoui was tried in Alexan­dria, VA.

    Accord­ing to AG Holder, NY is best able to pro­vide the secu­rity needed for these tri­als; in addi­tion to per­son­nel who have han­dled secu­rity for many com­plex events, they have tun­nels con­nect­ing the cells where they’ll be held to court­rooms so that they can be moved w/o hav­ing to take them outside.

42. coozledad said on November 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am

    Unprece­dented admin­is­tra­tive incom­pe­tence. And the press put the kneepads on.
    http://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2​0​0​9​/​1​1​/​1​5​/​b​o​o​k​s​/​r​e​v​i​e​w​/​H​e​i​l​b​r​u​n​n​-​t.html

43. brian stouder said on November 15th, 2009 at 5:41 pm

    Say “yes” to Michi­gan, the Rod­ney Dan­ger­field of the United States (even amongst folks “BOOOOORN in the USAya!”)

    http://​www​.msnbc​.msn​.com/​i​d​/​3​3​9​4​5​2​1​8​/​n​s​/​e​n​t​e​r​t​a​i​n​m​e​n​t​-​music/

    an excerpt:

    The Boss bel­lowed “Hello, Ohio!” to his fans at the Auburn Hills Palace in Michi­gan. Spring­steen referred to the neigh­bor­ing state sev­eral times in the fol­low­ing 30 min­utes until E Street Band gui­tarist Steve Van Zandt whis­pered in his ear.

44. Dexter said on November 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    Oh no, Brian…I am a long time devo­tee of Bruce, but this crowd surf­ing photo pose looks more like an old rocker in a cof­fin than the rock and roll king that is Bruce Spring­steen.
    http://​www​.mlive​.com/​e​n​t​e​r​t​a​i​n​m​e​n​t​/​d​e​t​r​o​i​t​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​s​s​f​/​2​0​0​9​/​1​1​/​m​i​c​h​i​g​a​n​_​f​a​n​s​_​f​o​r​g​i​v​e​_​b​r​u​c​e​_​s​p.html

45. Jeff Borden said on November 15th, 2009 at 7:57 pm

    Crinoid­girl,

    Yes, the Buck­eyes are going to the Rose Bowl, where they again will play the patsy and make foot­ball fans across the nation laugh at the very idea of the Big Ten as a foot­ball powerhouse.

    I sup­pose there is no per­fect place to try KSM, but I have no prob­lem with his trial being in New York, just as I have zero wor­ries about turn­ing an under­uti­lized state prison 150 miles of Chicago as a pen for those still held in Guan­tanomo. The polit­i­cal pos­tur­ing has been nau­se­at­ing. I expect Rudy Ghou­liani to scream about it, though if you look at pre­vi­ous com­ments about ter­ror tri­als in NYC, he was for them. Joe Biden is cor­rect about Rudy: Noun, verb, 9/11. Repeat.

    Here in Illi­nois, all the lit­tle GOP­ers who want to be a U.S. Sen­a­tor pid­dled in their pan­taloons over the idea of hous­ing sus­pected ter­ror­ists in Thom­son, Ill. The peo­ple in Thom­son, a poor com­mu­nity along the Mis­sis­sippi, are in favor of the move because they believe it will cre­ate jobs.

    Isn’t the whole goal of ter­ror­ism to take away our sense of pro­pri­ety, our adher­ence to the rule of law, and reduce us to cow­er­ing pud­dles of fear? Isn’t the best way to flip the bird at the cra­zies in the caves to con­tinue act­ing civilized?

    At the height of The Blitz, the­aters were still show­ing movies and plays, restau­rants and pubs were still serv­ing food and suds. The nation embrace the slo­gan: Remain calm. Carry on. And they did.

    If the trial of KSM or the trans­fers of sus­pected ter­ror­ists to Illi­nois reduce our polit­i­cal class to ter­ri­fied infants, what might they have felt if they’d been in Lon­don in 1940?

46. Jolene said on November 15th, 2009 at 9:19 pm

    Bruce turned 60 this past Sep­tem­ber, Dex­ter. For­ever Young is a good name for a song; unfor­tu­nately, real life is a lit­tle different.

    Am lis­ten­ing to Giu­liani try to jus­tify his present opin­ions given his past remarks right now. It’s not going well.

47. moe99 said on November 16th, 2009 at 1:39 am

    Cool caves:

    http://​www​.uniquescoop​.com/​2​0​0​9​/​1​0​/​c​a​v​e​s​-​w​o​r​l​d​-​b​e​n​e​a​t​h​-​w​o​r​l​d.html

48. Dexter said on November 16th, 2009 at 2:02 am

    Yeah, Jolene, I always make a big deal outta Bruce’s birth­day since we are just five days apart, same year. This year I called a satel­lite radio show who had for­got­ten it. Some peo­ple can remem­ber exactly how many times they have attended Bruce shows. It’s easy for me: 4. Detroit, Pon­tiac, St. John’s Arena Colum­bus and Schot­ten­stein Cen­ter Colum­bus. Another one in Indy was can­celled when The Big Man Clarence had to have eye surgery. Big Man’s got a new book out, too.
    http://​www​.rolling​stone​.com/​r​o​c​k​d​a​i​l​y​/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​/​2​0​0​9​/​0​9​/​1​8​/​e​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​b​a​n​d​s​-​c​l​a​r​e​n​c​e​-​c​l​e​m​o​n​s​-​a​n​s​w​e​r​s​-​b​u​r​n​i​n​g​-​q​u​e​s​t​i​o​n​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​t​h​e​-​r​o​l​l​i​n​g​-​s​t​o​n​e​-​t​w​itter/

49. moe99 said on November 16th, 2009 at 2:35 am

    Al Gore is pretty funny:
    http://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​q​W​C​-​n​8​g​t​L​p​Y​&​a​m​p​;​f​e​a​t​u​r​e​=​p​l​a​y​e​r​_​e​m​bedded