No one asked Bush (or any other president for that matter) to get involved. This is a humanitarian issue and an internal issue. This is a call for solidarity with people of Iran which have their human rights violated at unprecedented scale.

The sad part is that US can’t even tell Iran not to torture, because they lost the high ground with Bush/Chaney torturing detainees against Geneva Conventions.

We can’t do anything when China suppresses Tibetans or Uighurs. We can’t do anything when US violates human rights in Iraq with an illegal war. We can only appeal to the human condition and spread our disgust with this type of government actions. Otherwise everybody’s rights starts to evaporate globally.

For those of you who think civil disobedience is either ineffective in America, or a thing of the past, you should hear about the case of Tim Dechristopher.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Posing-As-A-Bidder-Utah-Student-Disrupts-Government-Auction

Here's a summery by the Salt Lake Tribune:
"Tim DeChristopher disrupted a U.S. Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction Dec. 19 in Salt Lake City. After he bid $1.8 million to win bids on 14 parcels near Arches and Canyonlands national parks and drove up bidding on several others, BLM agents removed him from the auction room for questioning.

The University of Utah economics major, who has become a folk hero to many since the lease sale, freely admitted to his false bidding, saying it was an act of civil disobedience in protest of Bush administration oil and gas policies that have worsened the threat of global climate disruption and the health of everyone on the planet.

On April 1, a federal jury handed up a two-count felony indictment against DeChristopher for violating the terms of the auction he promised to observe when he signed up to bid. He pleaded not guilty at his April 28 arraignment. A trial was set for July."

What's not mentioned in that excerpt is that the auction was a last minute move by the Bush administration to give one last gift to oil and gas companies before they left office. Dechristopher knew that simply delaying the sale could be enough. Since Obama administration appointees, once they were in place, would not allow it to continue. Indeed secretary of the interior Salazar has since deemed the oil and gas leases illegal. However it's not Bush or Chaney facing 10 years in prison, it's the student that stood up to them.

Here's another good fairly short video explaining the situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njQjVuL1zzg

Yup. Made it to 1:50 and had to stop watching.

Brain exploded...

my spine is writing this...

my spine likes the use of ellipsis...

my spine doesn't know who Liz Chaney is, but thinks her brain may have also exploded...

my spine wonders if her spine is single...

So, when's Dick Chaney's turn?

You know, Palin and Joe the Plumber definitely top the list in my book. While others on the list (like Bush, Rove, and Chaney) are definitely good to see on the out and out, what really just bugged me about Palin and Joe was how undeserved the attention they got was. Brought in the limelight in the right circumstances, their 15 minutes lasted way too long and god I'm happy it is now over.

WOW! something appears to have touched the heart of Dr Rice, and here I thought eight short years under Chaney's expert tutelage, had transformed her into a heartless beast. I'm sure she is still ideologically psychotic, but it's nice to see such a moving event cause her to drop her game face, if only for a little while.

heh, Wardrobe.......Dick Chaney.

<sigh> stupid region-locked video and my laziness prevents me from pulling a US VPN to reach it.

>> ^Xaielao:
The main reason I'm didn't vote for Obama in NY is he has so little experience. Not just on running things, but foreign experience. In todays world, having zero foreign experience is just not a good thing. If he got in office he'd be heavily relying on those that do have it, and who's to know what kind of people they are.
I mean look at Bush, he also had zero, and quickly came to heavily rely on his rather unscrupulous vice-president, Chaney. Now Chaney is dramatically more presidential power then any previous vice president and the hubris and uncaring nature to wield it with impunity. Thats not a good thing.


Um, seriously?

You're equating Obama with Bush?

That's like comparing Steven Hawking with a box of rotten onions.

Seriously.

The main reason I'm didn't vote for Obama in NY is he has so little experience. Not just on running things, but foreign experience. In todays world, having zero foreign experience is just not a good thing. If he got in office he'd be heavily relying on those that do have it, and who's to know what kind of people they are.

I mean look at Bush, he also had zero, and quickly came to heavily rely on his rather unscrupulous vice-president, Chaney. Now Chaney is dramatically more presidential power then any previous vice president and the hubris and uncaring nature to wield it with impunity. Thats not a good thing.

I like Obama, he is a very good speaker, and he has good ideas. But I just don't think he has the experience and knowledge to be president. I'd like to see him in a high office, perhaps even vice-president where he can do a lot of good work. But I just don't think he's got what it takes, as of yet, to be president. If he did some work around the world, spent a few years as a diplomat, etc, he'd likely get my vote.

Maybe we'll see that in 2016, but I don't believe he'll be in the white house next year.



Good clip, when John Stewart is on his game, nobody comes close, not even Colbert.

"Lon Chaney" should get a mention in your tags at the least.

Exactly Aidos, did they talk to 20 people or 200,000 people to get this? I'm sure I could ask people these questions here in Ireland and find some similarly stupid replies.

John Howard is easy to recognise anyway:
Dick Chaney - (creepiness / 5) + dullness² = John Howard.

Freaks is in the public domain and the full movie is presented here.



Wikipedia sez:

Freaks is a Pre-Code 1932 horror film about sideshow performers, directed by Tod Browning.

The movie was adapted by Al Boasberg, Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, and Edgar Allan Woolf from the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins. Browning, famed at the time for his collaborations with Lon Chaney and for directing Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), took the exceptional step of casting real people with deformities as the eponymous sideshow "freaks," rather than using costumes and makeup. Director Browning had been a member of a traveling circus in his early years, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. He intended to portray the classic moral of how outer beauty does not necessarily equate to inner beauty. In the film, the physically deformed "freaks" are inherently trusting and honorable people, while the real monsters are two of the "normal" members of the circus who conspire to murder one of the performers to obtain his large inheritance.