[poochee]

Originally Posted by bassetman

Another nut case?

Twyman, who prompted the first national campaign aimed at getting African Americans to become bone marrow donors, has moved on to more active participation to lower gas prices than eliciting the help of God through prayer.

"I think we have just entered a new phase. We were in the prayerful phase, but now we're going into a more activist phase, because we feel that whole faith without works is dead," Twyman told reporters.

Sounds like a one-man effort to me, more power to him. He is a Seventh Day Adventist and it is unusual for them to be activists. My Grandfather was a SDA.

[ekim68]

Business groups push back on immigration

WASHINGTON, July 6 (UPI) -- U.S. business groups are pushing back against pressure on employers that has become a feature of a crackdown on illegal immigration, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reports.

Business groups have gone to court and lobbied state legislatures, the newspaper said. They have even adopted the tactic of ballot initiatives.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/...3281215318979/

[xico]

Originally Posted by bassetman

'Pregnant man' gives birth baby girl: Report


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/3195393.cms

In The Cantos Ezra Pound has a story about a sailor who had an apendectomy, but the surgeons who had just delivered a little boy from a prostitute decided to play a joke on the sailor, so they told him the little boy was what had caused the pain, So he raised the kid, and finally sent him off to college. The kid says, "Fader, I want to thank you . . "
And the sailor says, "I ain't your fader. Your fader was a merchant from Smyrna."

The story's within the first 50 pages of Pound's epic Cantos, an epic on Money. I didn't finish it. I suppose I should, but for the moment I'm being mesmerized by Martha Stout, a Harvard psychotherapist who wrote an incredibly beautiful and touching The Myth of Sanity and a book I'm getting read to read, The Sociopath Next Door.
The illusion that we're communicating with other "normal" human beings is really open to question. One of the tale-tell indicators of the "almost human" is the curious lack of empathy for other people in a world where half the children have never slept on a matress, a world of extreme human misery.

Hope you're doing well, B'man! How's the ankle?

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by xico

In The Cantos Ezra Pound has a story about a sailor who had an apendectomy, but the surgeons who had just delivered a little boy from a prostitute decided to play a joke on the sailor, so they told him the little boy was what had caused the pain, So he raised the kid, and finally sent him off to college. The kid says, "Fader, I want to thank you . . "
And the sailor says, "I ain't your fader. Your fader was a merchant from Smyrna."

The story's within the first 50 pages of Pound's epic Cantos, an epic on Money. I didn't finish it. I suppose I should, but for the moment I'm being mesmerized by Martha Stout, a Harvard psychotherapist who wrote an incredibly beautiful and touching The Myth of Sanity and a book I'm getting read to read, The Sociopath Next Door.
The illusion that we're communicating with other "normal" human beings is really open to question. One of the tale-tell indicators of the "almost human" is the curious lack of empathy for other people in a world where half the children have never slept on a matress, a world of extreme human misery.

Hope you're doing well, B'man! How's the ankle?

Doing great there thanks!

[poochee]

Originally Posted by xico

In The Cantos Ezra Pound has a story about a sailor who had an apendectomy, but the surgeons who had just delivered a little boy from a prostitute decided to play a joke on the sailor, so they told him the little boy was what had caused the pain, So he raised the kid, and finally sent him off to college. The kid says, "Fader, I want to thank you . . "
And the sailor says, "I ain't your fader. Your fader was a merchant from Smyrna."

The story's within the first 50 pages of Pound's epic Cantos, an epic on Money. I didn't finish it. I suppose I should, but for the moment I'm being mesmerized by Martha Stout, a Harvard psychotherapist who wrote an incredibly beautiful and touching The Myth of Sanity and a book I'm getting read to read, The Sociopath Next Door.
The illusion that we're communicating with other "normal" human beings is really open to question. One of the tale-tell indicators of the "almost human" is the curious lack of empathy for other people in a world where half the children have never slept on a matress, a world of extreme human misery.
Hope you're doing well, B'man! How's the ankle?

Sad.

[bassetman]

Originally Posted by xico

In The Cantos Ezra Pound has a story about a sailor who had an apendectomy, but the surgeons who had just delivered a little boy from a prostitute decided to play a joke on the sailor, so they told him the little boy was what had caused the pain, So he raised the kid, and finally sent him off to college. The kid says, "Fader, I want to thank you . . "
And the sailor says, "I ain't your fader. Your fader was a merchant from Smyrna."

The story's within the first 50 pages of Pound's epic Cantos, an epic on Money. I didn't finish it. I suppose I should, but for the moment I'm being mesmerized by Martha Stout, a Harvard psychotherapist who wrote an incredibly beautiful and touching The Myth of Sanity and a book I'm getting read to read, The Sociopath Next Door.
The illusion that we're communicating with other "normal" human beings is really open to question. One of the tale-tell indicators of the "almost human" is the curious lack of empathy for other people in a world where half the children have never slept on a matress, a world of extreme human misery.

Hope you're doing well, B'man! How's the ankle?

Didn't read your post close enough. Sounds like an interesting book and the description fits most Right Wingers!

[xico]

Originally Posted by poochee

Sad.

Yes, and that's why I think it's not a matter of just greed but rather a kind of maliciousness involved in it. Read The Sociopath Next Door. I like Martha. She's a real human, lots of empathy.

[xico]

Originally Posted by bassetman

Didn't read your post close enough. Sounds like an interesting book and the description fits most Right Wingers!

Ya know, that's what I thought! (not counting Lan)

[poochee]

Originally Posted by xico

Yes, and that's why I think it's not a matter of just greed but rather a kind of maliciousness involved in it. Read The Sociopath Next Door. I like Martha. She's a real human, lots of empathy.

I suspect many people think that sociopaths are only criminals. Like the Mafia. Wrong................. I recall reading once that a lot of actors are sociopaths. Some of them have behaviour patterns point in that direction.

That book sounds interesting I plan on reading it.

[ekim68]

Saudi man, woman face flogging for research work

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi appeals court is due this week to review the case of a biochemist and his female student sentenced to jail and flogging after a lower court ruled their research contact was a front for a telephone affair.

The man was sentenced to 8 months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to 4 months in prison and 350 lashes last November for establishing a phone relationship that led her to divorce her husband.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifes...52994820080706

(Talk about your lifestyles...)

[poochee]

Originally Posted by ekim68

Saudi man, woman face flogging for research work

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi appeals court is due this week to review the case of a biochemist and his female student sentenced to jail and flogging after a lower court ruled their research contact was a front for a telephone affair.

The man was sentenced to 8 months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to 4 months in prison and 350 lashes last November for establishing a phone relationship that led her to divorce her husband.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifes...52994820080706

(Talk about your lifestyles...)

Some of the Christian bashers need to move there.

[ekim68]

Analysis: NSA Spying Judge Defends Rule of Law, Congress Set to Strip His Power

Just days before the Senate will convene to give a final blessing to President Bush's secret, warrantless wiretapping program, a federal court judge ruled that his legal justification for the surveillance has no legal merit.

He's the same judge Congress is trying to save the nation's telecoms, such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, from having to face in court.

Late Wednesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling (.pdf) in a case against the government alleging illegal spying, finding that in 1978 Congress had clearly set out the rules for wiretapping inside the United States and that Bush's claims to have inherent authority outside of those rules did not pass Constitutional muster.

"Congress appears clearly to have intended to -- and did -- establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence surveillance activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities."

Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, affirmed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive legal method for conducting surveillance inside the United States against suspected spies and terrorist. The Bush Administration argues that Congress's vote to authorize military force against Al Qaeda and the president's inherent war time powers were exceptions to the exclusivity provision.

Not so, according to Walker:

"This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future. "

As Threat Level pointed out last night, the ruling is likely to have little real consequence other than embarrassing Congress for failing to have the courage to stand up to defend the laws it itself passed. Instead of holding hearings and sending subpoenas, Congress is set to largely legalize dragnet surveillance being set up inside American telecom infrastructure and to make it very clear that they are serious about stopping warrantless wiretapping, they are adding exclamation points to the exclusivity provision.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...is-nsa-sp.html

[xico]

Originally Posted by poochee

I suspect many people think that sociopaths are only criminals. Like the Mafia. Wrong................. I recall reading once that a lot of actors are sociopaths. Some of them have behaviour patterns point in that direction.

That book sounds interesting I plan on reading it.

Great! I think you'll like it. The sociopaths in prison are the dumb ones. There's a lot of very brilliant sociopaths out there, like the people who murdered the 3500 leftists in Korea during the Korean War.

US Knew of Mass Korean Killings
http://www.truthout.org/article/us-k...orean-killings
The Associated Press reports: "The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it 'would be permitted' to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces. In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950."

Is the colonel a candidate? And all those right wingers pulling the triggers? All, no, some may have been duped.

[xico]

Lies, Kidnapping and a Mysterious Laptop

You have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs
By Johann Hari

As Ingrid Betancourt emerged after six-and-a-half years - sunken and shrivelled but radiant with courage - one of the first people she thanked was Hugo Chavez. What? If you follow the news coverage, you have been told that the Venezuelan President supports the Farc thugs who have been holding her hostage. He paid them $300m to keep killing and to buy uranium for a dirty bomb, in a rare break from dismantling democracy at home and dealing drugs. So how can this moment of dissonance be explained?
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle20242.htm

[ekim68]

(Ah,the business way...)

Telecoms Sue Over High-Speed Links

Telecommunications companies are suing cities around the nation to stop the construction of publicly owned fiber optic systems to bring high-speed Internet, telephone and cable television to communities far from metropolitan centers.

Attorneys for cities say the telecommunications suits, whether brought under state law, the Federal Telecommunications Act or other laws, are veiled attempts to stop construction of competing public systems providing an essential utility in the digital age.

"It's a national playbook. The longer they [telecom companies] delay things, the better for them," said Patrick Ottinger, general counsel for Lafayette, La.

Telecommunications companies are suing cities around the nation to stop the construction of publicly owned fiber optic systems to bring high-speed Internet, telephone and cable television to communities far from metropolitan centers.

Attorneys for cities say the telecommunications suits, whether brought under state law, the Federal Telecommunications Act or other laws, are veiled attempts to stop construction of competing public systems providing an essential utility in the digital age.

"It's a national playbook. The longer they [telecom companies] delay things, the better for them," said Patrick Ottinger, general counsel for Lafayette, La.

http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnolo...769174&rss=ltn