The New Bell Curve...Whites Only?

Since most African Americans thought Dubya dumb from nearly the beginning, does that make them smarter than white people?

Dearest Readers, Prissy has been too busy to blog as of late. As far as the race for president, can't we just put race and gender aside?

Clearly the only democrat left who is worth voting for is Barack Obama... DUMB white guys...the smart ones baled out years ago.

Beautiful words of wisdom, please watch and pass along-to friends and enemies!

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Nieman Watchdog The next president should open up the Bush Administration's record February 07, 2008 By Steven Aftergood

By now no one expects the Bush Administration to make itself accountable for its controversial and possibly illegal practices. But the next President will have a unique opportunity to reveal what has been kept hidden for the last seven years. Secrecy watchdog Steven Aftergood suggests a few questions for the presidential candidates about their willingness to disclose just what the current Administration has done.

In 2005, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would be “ashamed” when a legal memorandum on forceful interrogation of prisoners eventually became public. In fact, however, disclosure of such secret Bush Administration documents may be the only way to begin to overcome the palpable shame that is already felt by many Americans at the thought that their government has engaged in abusive interrogations, secret renditions or unchecked surveillance.

The next President will have the authority to declassify and disclose any and all records that reflect the activities of executive branch agencies. Although internal White House records that document the activities of the outgoing President and his personal advisers will be exempt from disclosure for a dozen years or so, every Bush Administration decision that was actually translated into policy will have left a documentary trail in one or more of the agencies, and all such records could be disclosed at the discretion of the next President.

“Excessive administration secrecy... feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government,” Sen. John McCain has said. “I'll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information,” said Sen. Barack Obama. “We'll protect sources and methods, but we won't use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth.”

Media Matters Print press repeats media mantra of McCain as "maverick"

Summary: Numerous print publications -- including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times -- continued a longstanding practice of referring to Sen. John McCain as a "maverick" in their coverage of the February 5 presidential primaries and caucuses.

Der Spiegel 'Bush Is Too Horrendous to Be Forgotten'

Talking about Obama:

SPIEGEL: For whites to consider him black, yes. But the question is whether the blacks consider him black.

Roth: They will once the election goes on. If he gets the nomination.

SPIEGEL: Do you actually believe that Obama could change Washington or could change politics?

Roth: I'm interested in what merely his presence would be. You know, who he is, where he comes from, that is the change. That is the same thing with Hillary Clinton, just who she is would create a gigantic change. As for all that other rhetoric about change, change, change -- it's pure semantics, it doesn't mean a thing. They'll respond to particular situations as they arise.

SPIEGEL: Are you interested in the Clintons as a couple? Are they literary figures?

Roth: Oh, this is the soap opera side. They're tremendously aggressive, I think they'll say or do anything actually that they can get away with, but no, they don't interest me as a couple. Bill Clinton was interesting as the president -- I don't know what he is now. I think they can overplay that hand, being aggressive, and people will be irritated by it.

WaPo -Dubya Gives McCain the Kiss of Death...Bush Rallies Republican Base Around McCain

Bush's endorsement of McCain's conservative credentials could carry some weight, since the two battled fiercely for the Republican nomination in 2000 and have quarreled in the seven years since over issues such as taxes, torture and the execution of the Iraq war.

In the waning days of his campaign, Romney sharply questioned McCain's conservative record by pointing out that the Arizona senator voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. McCain now says he supports making those tax cuts permanent.

While Bush may be able to help close conservative ranks behind McCain, the Arizona senator may keep a certain distance once he shifts fully into general-election mode. Bush remains popular with the Republican base, but his overall public approval rating is mired at 33 percent in Washington Post-ABC News polls, making him one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times. Embracing him too tightly could be problematic in the fall, yet alienating him could cause problems within the party fold.

John McCain has an unhealthy love for his Dubya

New Yorker...ally Israel again...by way of deception, thou shalt do war Sy Hersh: Israel pressed me to agree Syrian site was nuclear What did Israel bomb in Syria?

Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.

Within hours of the attack, Syria denounced Israel for invading its airspace, but its public statements were incomplete and contradictory—thus adding to the mystery. A Syrian military spokesman said only that Israeli planes had dropped some munitions in an unpopulated area after being challenged by Syrian air defenses, “which forced them to flee.” Four days later, Walid Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, said during a state visit to Turkey that the Israeli aircraft had used live ammunition in the attack, but insisted that there were no casualties or property damage. It was not until October 1st that Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an interview with the BBC, acknowledged that the Israeli warplanes had hit their target, which he described as an “unused military building.” Assad added that Syria reserved the right to retaliate, but his comments were muted.

Despite official silence in Tel Aviv (and in Washington), in the days after the bombing the American and European media were flooded with reports, primarily based on information from anonymous government sources, claiming that Israel had destroyed a nascent nuclear reactor that was secretly being assembled in Syria, with the help of North Korea. Beginning construction of a nuclear reactor in secret would be a violation of Syria’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and could potentially yield material for a nuclear weapon.

How quickly they forget. From Wiki, Fourth Geneva Convention:

Section I. Provisions common to the territories of the parties to the conflict and to occupied territories

Article 32. A protected person/s shall not have anything done to them of such a character as to cause physical suffering or extermination ... the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment' While popular debate remains on what constitutes a legal definition of torture (see discussion on the Torture page), the ban on corporal punishment simplifies the matter; even the most mundane physical abuse is thereby forbidden by Article 32, as a precaution against alternate definitions of torture.

The prohibition on scientific experiments was added, in part, in response to experiments by German and Japanese doctors during World War II, of whom Josef Mengele was the most infamous.

Collective punishments-Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited. Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions collective punishments are a war crime. Article 33 states: "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed," and "collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."

Statesman Church court finds priest guilty of molesting boys again...

A church court has returned a summary judgment against the Rev. James L. Tucker for misconduct after hearing testimony from three men who testified that Tucker had repeatedly molested them in the 1960s while they were students at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in West Austin, according to one of the victims.

The nine-member ecclesiastical trial court convened in Houston on Thursday to hear testimony against the Episcopal priest, who worked as chaplain of St. Stephen's from 1958 to 1968. Tucker, who retired from active ministry in 1994, did not attend the ecclesiastical trial.

Diocesan officials did not return phone calls Thursday.

BBC tells us Putie is looking for a new arms race...Pravda tells us Putin points the finger back at Dubya aka "the West" USA to deploy thousands of its interceptor missiles globally

Sergei Lavrov said that the U.S. administration did not even intend to guarantee at least minimum restrictions for the deployment of its global air defense. The Russian minister said that it did not go about a dozen interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic alone. “The problem is a lot more serious. Does anyone really think that Russia will calmly watch the USA increasing its strategic potential near Russia’s borders?” the minister said.

President Putin touched upon the subject of NATO’s close presence to Russia at the latest session of the Council of State. “The new arms race that one can witness growing in the world today and the absence of any attempts on NATO’s part to find compromises on the problem push Russia towards making adequate decisions to defend its national security,” Putin said.

Vladimir Putin lambasted the West for its military expansion toward Russia's borders and laid out an ambitious agenda for his successor to restore the country's economic and military clout in a farewell address Friday as he prepared to step aside as president.

With less than a month remaining before the election, Putin's speech before dozens of top government officials, cultural figures, religious leaders and military officers served as a report card on his own achievements and a reminder of his wide popularity among Russians, the AP reports.

Quotes of the Day

Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well.--W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

All Governments, including the worst on earth and the most tyrannical on earth, are free Governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.--Lysander Spooner (19 January 1808 - 14 May 1887) was an American individualist anarchist, entrepreneur, political philosopher, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, and legal theorist of the 19th century.

All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying--a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.--Edward Abbey (January 29, 1927 - March 14, 1989) was an American author

An old woman is riding a crowded bus and has to stand with her heavy packages. Finally, someone in front of her gives up a seat and so she grabs it. "Thank God," she says.

A man in the seat behind her says "Excuse me comrade, but this is an athiest society. You should say 'Thank Stalin,' not 'Thank God.'" "Of course you are right," the old woman says. "Thank Stalin." She is silent for a moment, then says: "Comrade, I have just had a terrible thought: What shall we say when Stalin dies?"

The man behind her replies "In that case I think we can say 'Thank God.'"