Oh, the best quote's at the bottom:

"No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don't want it. I don't want them here," Evy Summers said to WTVF. "Go start their own country overseas somewhere. This is a Christian country. It was based on Christianity."

At least she actually said what they're all thinking.

i'll bet her grandchild is friends with one of them there muslims

Fox News deserves all the credit for inciting this crap.

they just report what the public demands

This is where I wish jh still lived in DC, just so he could explain this one to me. Guy's doing a good job, but we want to ditch him anyway?

Then again, these good folks repeatedly elected Marion Barry. So maybe it's not such a shocker.

The real question is whether Gray would ditch Michelle Rhee.

To a large extent, Fenty has staked his reelection on education reform, and he has repeatedly promised to retain Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. He has faulted Gray for declining to say whether he would keep Rhee in her post should he unseat Fenty.

Education is the top voting issue in the poll and one that works toward Fenty's advantage, particularly among whites. White voters overwhelmingly see the District's schools as better than they were four years ago. But black voters are as apt to say schools have deteriorated as improved.

Talk of Rhee's performance and future is a constant on the campaign trail, but the deep polarization over the chancellor does not give either candidate a clear advantage. In the latest poll, 41 percent of Democrats say her record is a reason to vote for Fenty; 40 percent say it is a factor against Fenty. Among white voters polled, 68 percent say Rhee is a reason to support Fenty, but 54 percent of African Americans consider Rhee a strike against him.

And in the "why democracy might not be such a good idea" category, we've got:

Catherine Magruder, 59, a poll respondent from Anacostia, in Ward 8, summed up her choice: "There is a lot of things [Fenty] did do good, but I prefer, what's his name? Gray."

I like that when I went to view a clip of Beck's speech in DC yesterday, it was prefaced with a cute commercial for Charmin Ultra-Soft

the clip I saw of his speech was about as coherent as his conventional daily tv diatribes

his religious emphasis seems kinda curious to me. religious adherents that imagine & insist there are natural, appropriate, & primary direct-line connections to governmental architectures have a, well, let's call it a checkered track record, particularly with regard to the evolution of democratic institutions. It's a view that almost invariably entails a jumble of conceptual gymnastics that end in failure, if not outright humiliation, for the issuer.

I love when guys in his position "dress down" by taking their tie off and unbuttoning the top button of their "appropriate only for buttoned-up occasions" dress shirt by way of solidarity with their t-shirt and cargo shorts wearing audiences. It's not really an authentic vibe, Glenn

Tony LaRussa and Pooholes attended, larussa spoke in presenting an award to Albert, fairly restrained

dajafi wrote:This is where I wish jh still lived in DC, just so he could explain this one to me. Guy's doing a good job, but we want to ditch him anyway?

Then again, these good folks repeatedly elected Marion Barry. So maybe it's not such a shocker.

The real question is whether Gray would ditch Michelle Rhee.

To a large extent, Fenty has staked his reelection on education reform, and he has repeatedly promised to retain Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. He has faulted Gray for declining to say whether he would keep Rhee in her post should he unseat Fenty.

Education is the top voting issue in the poll and one that works toward Fenty's advantage, particularly among whites. White voters overwhelmingly see the District's schools as better than they were four years ago. But black voters are as apt to say schools have deteriorated as improved.

Talk of Rhee's performance and future is a constant on the campaign trail, but the deep polarization over the chancellor does not give either candidate a clear advantage. In the latest poll, 41 percent of Democrats say her record is a reason to vote for Fenty; 40 percent say it is a factor against Fenty. Among white voters polled, 68 percent say Rhee is a reason to support Fenty, but 54 percent of African Americans consider Rhee a strike against him.

And in the "why democracy might not be such a good idea" category, we've got:

Catherine Magruder, 59, a poll respondent from Anacostia, in Ward 8, summed up her choice: "There is a lot of things [Fenty] did do good, but I prefer, what's his name? Gray."

I don't think Fenty is authentically black enough

Sadly--hell, let's go all the way to "tragically"--I suspect you're right. Again, see Marion Barry.

The sooner everyone abandons identity politics the better.

drsmooth wrote:
I love when guys in his position "dress down" by taking their tie off and unbuttoning the top button of their "appropriate only for buttoned-up occasions" dress shirt by way of solidarity with their t-shirt and cargo shorts wearing audiences. It's not really an authentic vibe, Glenn

do you only prefer that when sitting presidents or those trying to run for the office do that?

<embed src='http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf' FlashVars='linkUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5242934n&releaseURL=http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf&videoId=50075711,50075709,50075697,50075646,50075630,50075583,50075576&partner=news&vert=News&si=254&autoPlayVid=false&name=cbsPlayer&allowScriptAccess=always&wmode=transparent&embedded=y&scale=noscale&rv=n&salign=tl' allowFullScreen='true' width='425' height='324' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'></embed><br><a>Watch CBS News Videos Online</a>

something to think about....

who would have thought the decision to appoint janet napolitano as secretary of homeland security may very well become one of the biggest "political" blunders of the past 30 years?

azrider wrote:

drsmooth wrote:
I love when guys in his position "dress down" by taking their tie off and unbuttoning the top button of their "appropriate only for buttoned-up occasions" dress shirt by way of solidarity with their t-shirt and cargo shorts wearing audiences. It's not really an authentic vibe, Glenn

do you only prefer that when sitting presidents or those trying to run for the office do that?

<embed src='http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf' FlashVars='linkUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5242934n&releaseURL=http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/player-dest.swf&videoId=50075711,50075709,50075697,50075646,50075630,50075583,50075576&partner=news&vert=News&si=254&autoPlayVid=false&name=cbsPlayer&allowScriptAccess=always&wmode=transparent&embedded=y&scale=noscale&rv=n&salign=tl' allowFullScreen='true' width='425' height='324' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'></embed><br><a>Watch CBS News Videos Online</a>

it's a bad look for anyone, bro

azrider wrote:something to think about....

who would have thought the decision to appoint janet napolitano as secretary of homeland security may very well become one of the biggest "political" blunders of the past 30 years?

do tell

because as of right now, who else but you thinks so?

'It's too soon to tell' how the Iraq war went

I think this is a good read with well reasoned criticisms of what was wrong about Iraq

zOMG! and O NOES!

jerseyhoya wrote:'It's too soon to tell' how the Iraq war went

I think this is a good read with well reasoned criticisms of what was wrong about Iraq

Unfortunately titled, but not bad. Adroitly employed, this topic: "America's ability to think like a global power" ("& act" should be in there - just being big & rich enough to throw your weight around is not performing "like a global power" but like an accident of nature) - might be a tool for checking the repugnant behavior of our elected officials, if not the bloviatocracy

TenuredVulture wrote:

drsmooth wrote:More thought-provoking than the blah title suggests, and not all that long: Why Conservatives Should Read Marx

a snip:

This [Burkean] strand of conservatism, which would deny citizens the freedom to make their own decisions regarding pornography (or drugs or prostitution), obviously runs counter to libertarianism, the doctrine that the government should keep out of as much as it possibly can. In theory it is possible to be an economic libertarian and a social conservative; in practice the two are irreconcilable. To take a simple example, imagine a social conservative who thinks women should dress modestly in order to encourage men to treat them with dignity, endorsing the ancient adage that “with the laying-aside of her clothes, a woman lays aside the respect that is hers.” Can he really believe that the way we dress is unaffected by marketing?....Companies like the bikini manufacturer Sinful Clothing, whose ads recently graced New York taxis, are only taking matters to their logical conclusion: sin is good. Just as an industry based on the creation of desires is essentially hostile to restraint, so economic libertarianism is naturally opposed to social conservatism....So why are there libertarian conservatives? This is a fairly recent phenomenon....

The thing is, most people calling for smaller government are not libertarians--they don't want porn shops everywhere, or legalized prostitution and gambling everywhere. Most of most definitely don't want to open the borders to all comers, and most I suspect aren't wildly enthusiastic about free trade. They probably don't even want things like less spending on education or other programs that benefit lots of people.

They want lower taxes. They may say they want fewer regulations on business, and some of the more sophisticated might be troubled by the growth of unaccountable power of the government bureaucracy (and it's important to note here that often, that power serves the special interests it's supposed to regulation not the people--otherwise, why is food safety often under the purview of the Department of Agriculture rather than the FDA--part of the Department of Health and Human Services?).

If you want a pretty solid historical answer regarding the formation of the conservative coalition in the US, you could do a lot worse than read The Conservative Ascendancy by Donald T. Critchlow a book I'm sure I've recommended here before. The other book to read that offers a possible explanation of the roots of all this is Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America.

This is my essential problem with the libertarian philosophy: it's a fine idea, until you think about its real ramifications when taken to its logical ends. Then it's a horrible, horrible idea.

Nobody really wants to live in a society where everyone is left to fend for themselves as much as possible. The ones born to privilege might think that they do, and the ones who are the most self-activated go-getters definitely think that they do. But they are wrong, and it wouldn't take very long of living in a system where libertarianism is allowed to function to its natural ends before they would discover how wrong they are.

The simplest examples I can think of: should the government really just let every person who gets a home foreclosed on them go homeless if they can afford nothing else, or let every person who gets laid off a job go incomeless if they can find no other work? Pure libertarianism says yes.

Even a smidgeon of common sense should tell you why either of those are disastrous ideas, from a purely "preservation of society" standpoint, certainly if your standpoint is "well-to-do person," but even more particularly if you are person who is just working hard to preserve a modest lifestyle. If you are of the latter group, and of course, in a libertarian society, the great majority of people would indeed be in that group, you have enough resources to make a living, perhaps a comfortable living, for you and yours, but you almost certainly don't have the resources to protect what you do have the way a truly rich person can hire a private security team, and, to further complicate matters, your margin for loss is much smaller than the extremely rich person's.

In short, if you are someone with a lot to lose, but not so much that you can afford the finest in protection for it, and not so much that you can lose a bunch and still be OK, you really, really, really don't want the streets flooded with desperate people with nothing to lose.

hey guys didja hear they want to build a mosque near the WTC site? Whaddaya think??

Phan In Phlorida wrote:zOMG! and O NOES!

Holy Crap! Demi Moore is a lesbian?

On libertarianism, Mozart is right. Like him or not, you are your brother's keeper. We are all connected to each other. And to think that society could function without any form of government is pure idiocy.