a repost from 2003 by Fred Clark @ Slacktivist:
"There comes a time in the late afternoon, when the children tire of their games," G.K. Chesterton wrote. "It is then that they turn to torturing the cat." It is late afternoon in America...
photo ©2006 glassfrequency
See also:
My Own Private Mid-20th Cent. Totalitarianism
by Josh Marshall
Dear Roger Cohen
by tristero
I Just listened to a podcast of Real Time with Bill Maher, [Episode 110, which originally aired 9/28/07 on HBO].
Rahm Emanuel was a guest.
Rahm explained why he supported the censure of MoveOn.org, argued (unpersuasively) for hate crimes legislation, and explained (incorrectly) how Saudis are different from Iranians.
Thanks to Crooks & Liars for this transcription:
The Iranians are a Persian culture and the House of Saud is a Shiite government, a total different culture and a different people and etc. The question about Saudi Arabia is there is a clear, they have been funding radical schools throughout the Mideast and it is a big problem for us.
Listen to the whole show for the rest (don't miss the "overtime" portion!) including Rahm's views on the black vote, why we should fear Iran, supporting the troops, voting for more war funding- much more war funding... and, as Rahm would say, "etc."
Fun!
I found the Crooks & Liars post after googling- in frustration-
Rahm Emanuel is an idiot.
Oh- and for Rahm-if he's listening,
Let's review
from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English
Democrat (adj., n.), Democratic (adj.)
The proper noun is the name of a member of a major American political party; the adjective Democratic is used in its official name, the Democratic party. Democrat as an adjective is still sometimes used by some twentieth-century Republicans as a campaign tool but was used with particular virulence by the late senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican who sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic.
Listen carefully as Rahm slips- and says "Democrat Party"
(thanks to C&L commenter, Carakav for pointing this out.)
While Rahm may be a wonderful dancer and a brilliant fundraiser (political and family connections are excellent), he should never be allowed to speak for the Democratic Party on anything substantive.
According to Google:
Rahm Emanuel is an idiot yields 72,900 results.
Rahm Emmanuel is an idiot yields 79,800 results.
Rahm Emmanual is an idiot yields 11,600 results.
Rahm Emanual is an idiot yields 73,500 results.
So, let's get the spelling right ( E -M- A- N- U- E- L ) so that google results will accurately reflect the degree to which Rahm Emanuel is really an idiot.
(By the way, I am aware that much of what Bill Maher spews is jaw-droppingly offensive, but he is a COMEDIAN- not a member of Congress.)
see also:
Rahm Emanuel's War
from Spiegel International
Junta Takes Back Control in Burma
By Marc Hujer, Jürgen Kremb and Andreas Loren
[Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan]
excerpt from Part III:
"We hope that all parties in the Myanmar issue will maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have currently arisen," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu breathed into the microphone, as if Burma had just experienced a minor marital quarrel.
But Beijing's actions in New York were not nearly as soft-spoken. Last week the Chinese ambassador to the UN voted against a proposed Security Council resolution condemning Burma. "We are not supporting the Burmese military, but rather stability," said a foreign policy advisor to the Communist Party and Burma expert in Beijing, seeking to downplay the embarrassing vote.
China has benefited for many years from the leaden calm that has prevailed in Burma. When the West slapped economic sanctions on Yangon after the 1988 massacre, the Chinese jumped in to fill the void. Relations have blossomed ever since. More than a million immigrants from throughout the People's Republic have already settled, more or less legally, in Burma.
For the Chinese, Burma is a land of rich prizes, including oil and natural gas, natural resources and timber. China mines nickel, copper and coal in Burma. According to the nonprofit organization Earthrights International, at least 14 Chinese companies are building hydroelectric power plants in the country. Trade between the two nations approached $1.5 billion last year. Beijing's state-owned energy groups plan to exploit oil and gas fields off the Burmese coast and have already signed agreements with the junta. Another project in the works calls for the construction of 2,380 kilometers (1,480 miles) of oil and gas pipelines from Burma's western Rakhine State all the way to Kunming, the capital of China's southern Yunnan Province.
Economic ties are already so close that the Chinese yuan is treated as legal tender, in addition to the Burmese currency, the kyat, in the northern border regions. Sections of the old royal capital Mandalay, with their Chinese shops, apartment buildings and shopping centers, could already be mistaken for neighborhoods in a Chinese city. Close to one third of Mandalay's residents are believed to be Chinese.
China is also providing Burma's generals with weapons and materials. The Burmese have already purchased about $2 billion worth of helicopters, aircraft, artillery guns, warships and tanks from their northern neighbor.
But by generously supporting the Burmese junta, the Chinese risk provoking the anger of the international community. With the Olympics less than a year away, it is not in Beijing's interest to appear as the protector of an inhumane regime, one whose atrocities are all too reminiscent of the brutal suppression of its own student uprising on Tiananmen Square in 1989. "It's a problem for us," officials in Beijing quietly admit.
To head off a potential conflict, the Chinese government facilitated a secret meeting in June between US diplomats and representatives of the junta in Beijing, where the Americans hoped to convince the Burmese to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Chinese officials also invited opposition groups to take part in informal talks.
But by the end of last week, Chinese diplomats were not convinced that the monks' uprising could cause the junta to fall from power. If it does, Beijing said it "hopes for a smooth transition." If the generals are driven out after all, said the Communist Party's foreign policy advisor in Beijing, "we will have no trouble in coming to terms with the Lady."
Of course, this would come at a cost to the Chinese. "If the Lady comes to power, the international economic sanctions will be lifted," the advisor said. "And then we will no longer be without competition in Burma."
Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.
The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."
Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.
- - - - - -
Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.
Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.
There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.
Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.
There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.
In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.
From the Guardian:
