Why do I hear the music from Psycho?

Or Leon Trotsky before his Mexican ice axe incident? Left/Right...who cares?

Did Ernst Röhm say something similar before the Night of the Long Knives?

And what Churchill said about both the Conservative and Liberal parties, now that you mention it.

That is the same thing Ronald Reagan said about the Democratic Party.

Andrew Sullivan wrote a good piece on "Leaving the Right".
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/th...

He winds up by saying, he didn't leave the right, it left him.

Happy Holidays, all. I've been eating and drinking too much--my holiday tradition.

We whine about how tough things are, but we have more than most. On this holiday of giving thanks, I am thankful that our tough times are not so tough. For some, I now it is really tough. I wish them well.

Moderates? there are moderates?

Well, they already purged it of moderates like Arlen Spector.

Manuel wrote: "Supposedly the Republicans are working on a "Purity Test" a so-called list of 10 commandments that must be met to qualify as a "Conservative" and be eligible for campaign funds from the party...."

Thank you! I needed a good holiday belly laugh.

Supposedly the Republicans are working on a "Purity Test" a so-called list of 10 commandments that must be met to qualify as a "Conservative" and be eligible for campaign funds from the party.

Makes me wonder what the hell are these people thinking? Supposedly to be a true Republican, at least 8 out of the 10 commandments on their list must be met. CNN has said that these new regulations would mean that already 10-12 Republican Congressmen are ineligable. In fact not even Ronald Reagan would qualify under this list.


If anything it looks like they want to purge the party of any moderates such as Olympia Snowe.

Speaking of Mark Sanford - looks like we're gearing up for a proper 3-ring circus to start 2010 down here.

Embarrassment - the gift that keeps on giving, if Gov. Sanford has anything to say about it.

Jim wrote: "I read a blurb about an amendment in the Senate that would make the oligarchy use the same public health plan as everyone else. It's pretty sad they even have to make such an amendment..."

Agreed. I'd think it goes without saying that if you make such a health care then it should be for everybody, incl. those in power. Otherwise, why would anyone trust the plan to be any good?

Sigh, apparently it doesn't go without saying.

Looks like the sex scandal with Senator Ensign of Nevada is getting more interesting.
I remember when he announced his adultery, I cheered him for not dragging his wife next to him and for handling the situation with more class than Gov Sanford of S Carolina. Last night's Night Line broadcast had my jaw open in disgust.
Talk about Republicans and hypocrisy!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree completely, Mary JL.

I read a funny joke today about the new senior citizen health care plan. It's a gun with 4 bullets so you can shoot 2 senators, & 2 representatives, then retire to jail where they'll take care of all your health care needs!

JIm: If the ogliarchy had to use the same public health plan as we did, I'd feel better about the health plan.

Or anything, for that matter. I have always had a problem where the government sets up rules for other people and then exempts themselves.

Detroit is the buckle on the Rust Belt, and been having a hard time for decades.

Even sadder that they exempted themselves.

Detroit's been a mess since the 70's or early 80's for the reason Manuel mentioned, hasn't it?

I read a blurb about an amendment in the Senate that would make the oligarchy use the same public health plan as everyone else. It's pretty sad they even have to make such an amendment.

I think its worse in Detroit because its in the heart of the old industrial heartland "the rust bucket". They have traditionally been a one industry town and consequently they started to feel the shrinking economy first. Even before the recession hit, it (the auto industry) was regarded as a sector of the American economy in decline, their share of the market was shrinking due to foreign imports.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/wo...
Times article about Detroit and it's deterioration.
Is this indicative of many other cities in the US?

Manuel wrote: "I'm amazed these silly rumors about the government taking over our civil rights are still floating around. It seems the crazier the rumor, the more attention it gets from the quacks.

I remember wh..."

I think Geo. W. did that, Manuel.

I'm amazed these silly rumors about the government taking over our civil rights are still floating around. It seems the crazier the rumor, the more attention it gets from the quacks.

I remember when I worked for television in the early 90's. There were people who actually believed Pres Bush would suspend the constitution and place the government under martial law derived from emergency powers under FEMA. We in the newsroom broke out laughing when we realized that would mean Marilyn Quayle would be running the country.

Somehow I doubt a revolt in the US qualifies as WW III. As for confiscating guns, I doubt Obama would try to pull that. He's caused plenty of waves & that one would just give the far right too much ammo - if you'll pardon the pun.

I can see him making a lot more restrictive gun laws, though. He's already screwed up ammo by his 'green' initiative where they now grind up all spent brass instead of selling it to the civilian market. How that is supposed to be 'green' is beyond me.

Manuel wrote: "I just saw something disturbing on CNN.
Apparently there is a movement going on called the 'Oath Takers'...."

No more lunatic (though arguably quite a lot more seditious, given the military members are subject to UCMJ) than the Birthers, these guys don't take any new or different oath than every other officer who has served since 1775.

And no, it doesn't involve any personal loyalty oath to the President; that was the point. The oath is to uphold and defend the Constitution, commissioning them to serve the Republic, not the President, the Congress, or any body of nutballs who wander along thinking World War 3 isn't going to be against China, but against D.C.

I just saw something disturbing on CNN.
Apparently there is a movement going on called the "Oath Takers".
They are a group of former and current military and police officers who are convinced Obama will soon declare martial law and confiscate guns from citizens.

Apparently they take an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, BUT not follow the orders of the president. Their purpose is to recruit serving police and military officers who will promise not to disarm fellow citizens and ignore the orders of President Obama.

It should be interesting to watch, that's for sure.

It's easy to understand: for them, ideological purity was more important than winning. So, they separated themselves from the "impure" and they lost.

The question now is whether the purists or the moderates will win control of the Republican Party. I'm not betting either way.

I would have thought the Republicans would have moderated their views to win back skeptical Democrats and independents; instead they shot themselves in the foot and lost a safe Republican congressional seat that hasnt changed parties since Lincoln was in office.

I find that incredible.

Susanna wrote: "The Republicans these days remind me of the Democrats in 1972 - I think they are determined to wage a knock-down drag-out fight over the soul of their party."

It's a fight that has been coming for a while, and I honestly expected it would be the Dems whose party fractured first, back in 2000, with the radical wing fragmenting off to protest the "stolen" election, but now it seems one of the radical wings (the religiously radical one, that is determined to remove science, logic, or modernity from the universe) wants to break off from the Republican party.

So while I understand their motives, I fail to understand their logic, on a great many fronts. How exactly does one take back power in a republic, without getting more votes than one's opponents? And does one get more votes by excluding people who might otherwise vote with one?

That's to say nothing of the 6,000-year-old universe joke. Which is not a joke to some.

The Republicans these days remind me of the Democrats in 1972 - I think they are determined to wage a knock-down drag-out fight over the soul of their party.

Republicans think they need to move further right? <sigh> I'm going to vote for Bugs Bunny next time. He probably has more sense & is certainly more fun.

The question now is, what lesson will the conservative purist insurgents learn from NY23? Because I can tell you the two Republicans I've spoken to about it, say that the message is clear the party should be moving to the right to keep ahead of the insurgents.

Which is exactly what Gov. Christie did not do, in order to win his (well-deserved) seat in a solidly blue state. The fact that his incumbent opponent was probably corrupt, and was inarguably a poor choice as candidate other than his incumbency, helped, but didn't win Christie the election.

This zero-sum game of politics is a lot less zero-sum once you're elected, and a significant number of politicians, both in and out of office, simply don't get that. It happened to President Bush, and it'll happen again and again to Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and hoi polloi politicians from City Assemblymen on up. You don't move to the wing as an incumbent; you move to the center. If you are already a centrist politician (like Sen. Specter) you stand firmly for something, and stick with it (which won him a solid majority in his district even though his former party ran someone else against him.)

Clearly some mixed results across the board.
Two Republican victories in the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey,
yet in New York the Democrats won a 140 year old Republican congressional seat.

Looks like Palin/Beck/Limbaugh all got their fingers burned by trying to get rid of Republican candidates they considered not Conservative enough.

Probably a desire to not "waste" votes.

That 23rd New York is one of the daffiest political races I can remember.

Despite concerns of voter fraud, it looks like Christie won in NJ. The WSJ was saying the election would likely wind up in the courts just the day before citing absentee voter ballots as the likely culprit. They said the Obama Justice Department was slack upholding voters rights, citing how they dropped the New Black Panther intimidation case earlier this year.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

The NY Daily News doesn't seem to think there will be a problem according to their article this morning.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election...

This is probably the worst thing that could happen for the GOP. Now they're going to think they still have it together, despite all their idiocy. The independents didn't seem to score any better, which is a real shame.

They really do try to copy everything from Apple, don't they? Snort.

Microsoft now has a store! Yeah, a physical one & you'll never guess what it looks like.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=669&ta...

Will, I have not noticed ISP's & their search engines. What ISP's have search engines? I don't use Time-Warner, Verizon or AT&T to search. They're ISP's. I use Google, Yahoo & MSN to search, but not for connectivity. What you're saying doesn't make sense to me.

My ISP is a third tier ISP. They buy bandwidth & main loop connectivity from another company (call them T2) that then connects to the main loops through at least two of the tier one providers. When my signal hits T2, they shape my traffic out the fastest route to its destination, using either main loop. Generally, that is always just one, but some days there is congestion & I'll go out another. (You can tell this by running a trace route to various sites.)

I have not heard of any ISP's slowing up traffic for other traffic for any length of time. I have heard of some filtering at different times, but they've been singular cases & quickly stopped. For instance blocking torrent sites, Skype traffic or capping bandwidth. Can you give me some examples of slowing traffic abuses?

NN is a good way for the big ISP's to gain the ability to block torrents, Skype (as an example) or cap bandwidth - something they have NOT been able to do in a free market. They've tried, but since their competitors won't work with them, the business moves to the freer resource. Under NN, they'll all be able to get together to lobby for such actions to be 'legal'. So that's why NN is definitely about filtering.

The Internet is free, unfettered communications, a very precious resource. NN is a way of fettering it, turning control over to governments & lobbyists.

The 4th amendment gives us the right to be free from unreasonable search & seizure. While I have nothing to hide, I still don't want the government listening in or keeping copies of every damn fool thing I write or download. Taken out of context, some of the stuff could be harmful, but more than that, it's a philosophical point. It's a freedom promised by the Constitution & one I think we should keep. Look at what happened in Iran recently.

Will, I wish you great luck in your efforts with health care.

Somehow I keep thinking we will end up with something resembling the French Third Republic.
The left despised it for not going far enough and the right looked at it with contempt for giving away their rights, consequently it was as popular as the bastard at the family reunion.

I'm not defending filtering, and NN is not about filtering...it is about keeping all access to all (legal) info equal...not allowing ISP's to make their search engines and access more accessible, Jim.

You haven't noticed the search engine wars? The publishing house wars? The access wars? Without NN the bigger providers can slow down the competitions' speed or block it completely.

Totally different--if you want to watch NFL now, you must have cable (dish,net, etc), or miss some games. If we don't pass NN then the ISP's can make us not have access to those things we want from the net unless we use them as our provider. All this crap about filtering it for illegal content is propoganda you've swallowed from some server who wants you to be scared, be very scared. It is how they have learned to play the game. Everything now is, "Be afraid, the liberal bogey man is just around the corner." It works.

Now, to answer your question: I really don't care how much they read my mail, honestly. Listen to my phone calls? Fine. Republicans were all for that when W was in office. I opposed it on philisophical reasons, but personally, I don't care. I grew up with party line telephones, where everyone evesdropped on the other parties. I don't care if they read my e-mails. I don't download porn. I don't surf adult sites. I don't plan attacks on U.S facilities. But Net Neutrality isn't about any of that, and it is a fundemental right of ours to not have the govt. evesdropping on us w/o a court order.

I just used your company as an example because you said they would just pay the fine rather than provide health care if it passes. I think that is poor judgement and disregard for employees. I have worked for some pretty crappy companies. I own a few companies now and taking care of my employees is very high on my priorities list. My personal wealth is very low on my list of companies' priorities' lists. Well paid, stable jobs with top employees provides innovation, productivity, and ultimately profits. Maximizing profits at the expense of people is now the norm; admit it, accept it, or not...it is how business is done in America, now. I hate that we embraced Reagan's ideology of "Greed is a good thing," and haven't shaken it off, quite ... yet, but we are getting there. We must.

We tried leting business rule and look what it got us. Government is not inherently evil. It is a necessary "evil" if you want to think of it that way, but it is NECESSARY. It should then function well. It should contain excesses. It should stimulate healthy growth of real wealth, and curb abominable profits at the expense of consumers. Conservatives always say that government is bad, and when given the chance they prove they are right. Conservatives suck at governing because their ideology sucks. You can't leave everything up to the markets and business and socity prosper--only the most corrupt and wealthy prosper. The rest "get by" or perish.

----------------------

The top tune on the radio in '79 was "Bomb, bomb, bomb....Iran." I would have been blown to Smithereens, wherever that is. I was offshore Iran during the hostage crisis, working for the Irani govt. I was in Angola when the U.S. was paying the Angolan rebels (Joseph Savimbi) to bomb oil establishments, owned, operated and manned by U.S. employees. Is the world crazy or what?

I am putting a lot of work into this health care issue, right now. It takes a lot of calls, petitions, polls, and such to keep the Democrats moving into some semblance of unity on it. Everyone thinks they know how to do it but won't support someone else's plan. Sheesh! We are beginning to bring it into some kind of focus, I think. I'm not crazy about how weak it will be when it is done, but it should be a lot better than what we currently have. (crosses heart and looks heavenward)

1979 was a sad time.
We were living in an affluent school district and suddenly we were inundated with non English speaking upper middle class refugees from Iran. Most of them spoke French, consequently all our French programs were flooded with Persians trying to communicate with their American peers. After the hostage crisis started in November, many refugee Iranians were victims of petty harassment and open undisguised American racism.

One of my best friends was accepted to West Point at this time.
He remembers one of his teachers asking out loud.
"What are we going to do about Iran!!??!!??!!??!!??"
the class would shout out in unison....
"Nukem till they glow, Sir!!!"

I was 13 in '79. Still remember the "Bomb bomb bomb, Bomb bomb Iran" scrawled on a desk in the school library.

Will, when have you not been able to get to Altvista or any site? How exactly does Google block Jeeves? You've listed 3 search providers, not ISP's. How does Net Neutrality actually help in this case? I am not familiar with anything that it would do to help nor any need.

There are 3 main fiber loops in the US & every ISP ties into them. The primary tiers tie together at a bunch of major hubs. These are so highly regulated for traffic flow that any additional laws are redundant. Now, if AT&T tried to block packets from Verizon on their loop, then Net Neutrality would help. I'm not familiar with any cases where this has happened, though. Are some ISP's blocking another ISP from accessing this? If so, how? When?

It's bad when you make a law that carries with it such a heavy payload of government intervention. Especially when that intervention is ill defined with vague ideas of what is legal. I've seen arguments that all torrent traffic should be illegal since most torrent traffic is illegal file sharing. It's also the way the Open Source community shares software, though. That's some of the biggest competition to the corporate giants & they'd love to see it strangled.

Net Neutrality doesn't support making AT&T or my cable company put service in, but it does strangle the small ISP that serves me by making them pony up to the same standards that a large ISP in a metropolitan area can easily meet. Your friend better be careful because pretty soon Qwest is going to be able to buy out his infrastructure for pennies on the dollar once he's required to make sure content is 'legal'.

NN supports filtering email traffic which is a huge breach of our freedom. You never answered my question about the government opening all your mail & recording all phone conversations. You don't mind? That's what content filtering is - every packet is opened & inspected or else they can't be sure it's legal.

You never answered my question about encryption, either. Should the government be able to open EVERYTHING, including encrypted traffic? If so, what's to stop competitors or bad guys from cracking it?

The small company I work for is a good employer. They're struggling with health care costs & the economy, same as the rest, but the doors are open & they are providing it. I don't work for a company that wants to screw me - I don't know anyone who does. I didn't like the last company I worked for & left for one I did like. I don't think your argument for government intervention makes sense.

You say that I can have 'my porn'. I didn't know I wanted it. I used it as an example of how poorly physical world law fits the Internet. Porn has always been a leader on the Internet. Porn sites set the standards for online billing, search engines, streaming media & a lot more. As an industry, it's informative to watch. They're usually several years ahead of the rest in innovation, services & problems.

Have you seen any case where the invasive border search of any electronic device has actually stopped child porn, though? What good has it done? Do you really think that being able to take someone's laptop or other electronic equipment for an undetermined amount of time & read every file on it is fair? That is the worst abortion of the 4th amendment I've ever heard of.

That's true, Manuel. I was then and am still shocked at how wrong I was, how little I understood the reaction of Iranis to what the Shah was doing and how he was doing it, compared to my understanding then, and even now. I will never understand the Persian people. I never have.

I trust you Will.
Im much younger than you, and you have the advantage of having been to Iran under the Shah, you lived through the revolution, while I studied it.

What Im saying is the Ayatollah was still consolidating his power in late 1979. There were still many moderate elements, bureaucrats, former Royal Iran Air Force and business people who had supported the Shah's dethronement and were still in the government or positions of power. Full radicalization and purges came after Khomeini wiped away the last vestiges of secular rule in early 1980. What Im saying is, the revolutionary government in 1979 was A LOT more moderate than the government that followed in 1980.

The Shah being allowed in the US was the perfect excuse to purge any remaining moderates. Afterwards anyone who dared utter a word against the Islamic regime was imprisoned or exiled or worse.

And you support the corporations' right to screw the people, Jim. You don't want government to control businesses. I do. I don't trust businesses any more. They quit making stuff and started making profit by screwing people, with the help of supporters like you. You asked, " Does anyone know why we need Net Neutrality?" We need it so microsoft can't stop other servers' stuff from reaching me. So Google can't block Jeeves. So alta vista is still avaialable for me to use, even though no one knows who they are any more. All Net Neutrality is is that all carriers and carriers' info is NEUTRAL! That is so bad?

I do like unions to help the little people have a bigger voice. I do like for large government to protect little guys from evil and treacherous business owners' manipulation of prices, deciding that sick people don't qualify for health coverage, and if AT&T is screwing you, why are you on their side of anything, Jim?

You think you are remote? A friend of mine is making a nice living providing service to the Gallup, NM, area, where Quest wasn't interested. Now, Quest sees that there is profit so they are trying to force him out with lower prices. As soon as he gives up and quits they will raise their prices. He is for Net Neutrality and it has nothing to do with what he does, or his situation; he's just for it because it is the right thing for all, in his opinion.

You say everything I support hurts small businesses, but you support greed in business and not workers. You can't say that everything I support hurts workers; I haven't gotten anything --yet-- to prove or disprove if it will hurt anyone; but yes, I think it has been to0 easy for businesses to screw workers for too long. Your boss, the self-made millionaire, could make a little less and furnish better healthcare for his employees, but you say he will just pay the fine and let his workers suffer; yet you want the rules to go in his favor and yet condemn my support for the workers, not the millionaires. (shrug) You're not alone; there are a lot of people like you who support greed and corporate corruption and some hope to get a chance to do it to others some day. I want a government, which tries to keep it as equally fair as is humanly possible. I will not apologize for my intentions, my views, my support, or my reasoning.

How old were you in 1979, Manuel? I was young then (29) so you must have been really young. Americans did not perceive the Iranian Revolutionary Movement, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, as moderate...trust me.

Will, do you think the government should monitor your regular mail & phone conversations, too? Do you want them opening every piece of mail & recording every conversation? That's exactly what Net Neutrality is about when they talk about providing access to legal content.

Any yet 'legal' isn't defined in far too many cases.

Does anyone know why we need Net Neutrality? What exactly are the big reasons for it? Why are the big ISP's for it, the smaller ones against it & some, like Verizon, changing their stance depending on their current business?

Think about the small ISP's. Can they meet the requirements that Net Neutrality will require? According to mine, probably not, but they're the only ones that will service my area. Last I heard, NN only means IF a provider is in your area, they have to meet a standard. It means people in marginal areas like mine may lose the service they have.

AT&T techs have already told us there are no plans to give us high speed access & the local cable company has turned down even a signed petition to do so. That leaves the big satellite providers & all my neighbors have tried it for a year, then given it up & gone back to dialup, it's so bad. They're using the small, local wireless provider I use.

No, again you're supporting the big picture & not paying attention to the details. That's where the devil is though. You like big unions & big government - to hell with individuality & the individual, even though that's what built this nation. Small business is still the largest employer, I believe, yet everything you seem to support hurts them.

This was late 1979, and the radical fundamentalist regime had yet to take hold, Bazargan was still in power. Even the Iranian Communist Party was still not illegal at this time and many in the middle class were not sorry the Shah was deposed. The moderate elements were eventually purged/exiled/executed when the Ayatollah was formerly entrenched for life in Dec 1979. Ironically many of the same students who took over the embassy are now middle aged and pushing for reforms.

The very act of taking over the US embassy and defying international law was a great unifying element to cement Iranian society. "Its us vs the world". The mullahs used it as a tool to consolidating not just religious law but political power as well, thus purging all their opponents; this all became very very useful when the war with Iraq required huge numbers of recruits.

You can have your porn, Jim. I give up. Net Neutrality is about making all LAWFUL content equally accessible and forbids blocking or slowing of competitiors' content. Unlawful content doesn't change. You get your freedom by allowing the ISP's to deal with any information any way they choose and I will push to require them to treat it all equally...except illegal, unlawful porn and I realize there are those who think porn is an inallienable right. That's not what Net Neutrality is about.

I won't argue that allowing the Shah to enter the U.S., even on the pretext of his illness (which turned out to be true) but I watched it at the time and knew it was going to cause problems and could find no way to justify saying, "No, sorry, we can't help you." The Iranis would have found another reason to be upset. It wasn't like we hadn't made it obvious we supported the Shah, previously.

I find it interesting you referred to the Ayatollah's Revolutionary regime as 'moderate', Manuel. I don't think anyone in our government thought there were any more radical movements than the Ayatollah's at the time. I'm not surfe there were.

Verizon's opinion on Net Neutrality changed has done a complete about face. It would seem that they would be forced to make concessions they've been unwilling to make, so their stance against it was understandable. Now that they're part of Google voice, suddenly their position changed & they're all for it.