Still enamoured of Hillary?

WASHINGTON — This has always been a place where people say the opposite of what they mean. But last week, the capital soared to ominous new Orwellian heights.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton voted to let the president use force in Iraq because she didn’t want the president to use force in Iraq.

Giving Mr. Bush bipartisan support, she said, would make his success at the U.N. “more likely, and, therefore, war less likely.”

Maureen Dowd, New York Times

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This just in

Duct tape useful for wart removal

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Rumsfeld ignores Pentagon, gets military advice from Newt Gingrich

I am not making this up!

What most bothers the generals, however, is Rumsfeld’s preference for outside advice. For example, sources say a frequent consultant with the secretary is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an amateur military expert and member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.

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Tremor in the force: iMac is PC Mag’s Editors’ Choice

It’s true. The iMac is superior in design and usability. And I say that as a PC user who sometimes uses an iMac at a client’s office.  The Mac operating system is substantially more intuitive to use, and the hardware - well, it’s not even close.

One example:  In Windows, when you download a software update, the operating system puts it in My Docuements, or on the desktop, or maybe someplace odd requiring you to play hide and seek. Then you click the program to install it.  

With the iMac, you simply download the program and it installs itself.  Simple, no?  

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NarcoNews
The always amazing NarcoNews now (finally!) features a completely redesigned website. It’s searchable, with vastly improved layout and readability.
They routinely scoop major media news on breaking news from South America. Not only do they scoop, they often report what’s really happening while mainstream media re-prints White House press releases. Then, two days later, the mainstream media ends up reporting what NarcoNews said.
This happened during the attempted coup against the populist President Chavez of Venezuela. NarcoNews said that Chavez had not resigned when all other media was saying he had. The other media ate their words.
It happened again last week after the Brazil election. NarcoNews said the winner Lula, a hardcore Leftist, had gotten the endorsement of another party, thus guaranteeing him victory in the runoff. At virtually at the same time, the L.A. Times pompously announced Lula didn’t have the endorsement. Guess who was right?

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In Minnesota, Wellstone Now Leads Coleman.

In the Minnesota Senate race, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) has staged a dramatic turnaround with Norm Coleman (R), and now leads 46 to 37 percent, a new MSNBC/Zogby Poll shows.

Yes, I’m a hardcore Green. Yes, the Minnesota Greens have an absolute right to run a candidate for Senate  - something progressive Democrats have been apoplectic about, much to the bemusement of Greens.

The Green candidate is mediocre at best, whereas Paul Wellstone just took a courageous stand by voting No on an Iraq War, something many thought would cost him the election.  Well, judging from these new poll numbers, maybe not!
 
If I lived in Minnesota, I’d vote for Wellstone. I hope Minnesota Greens do just that.

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They did the impossible

Go see Sobibor , a documentary about how European Jews sucessfully escaped from the Sobibor extermination camp after killing the guards.

They did it by exploiting the rigorous punctuality of their Germans captors! Their group of prisoners was allowed to live, at least for a while, because they had useful trades - carpentry, jewelry making, tailoring. Carefully, they set it up so the German guards had appointments in their various huts at specific times. In the tailoring hut, the first appointment was at 4:00, the next at 4:05.  Being German, the guards arrived precisely on time - and were killed by the inmates who then escaped.

The story told by Yehuda Lerner, who escaped after splitting a guard’s skull with an axe. Put in the camps at age 16, he escaped from eight other camps before this final successful escape. He just flat refused to be a captive. What else can you say.

There were other attempted breakouts from concentration camps, however Sobibor was the only sucessful one.

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Great moments in personal ads

WASHINGTON CITY PAPER - JAIL BUS 15, from Freedom Plaza protest. You: Georgetown Law student. Me: blonde, red shirt. It was tough getting to know you in cuffs, so the 17 hours in the bus weren’t enough. Let’s talk about our case against DC government over drinks sometime? No bologna sandwiches, promised! <Via ProRev> 

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Yet another reason to become vegan

Wampler Foods recalled all cooked deli products made since May at a suburban plant and halted production because the meat is possibly contaminated with listeria, authorities said Sunday.

The recall of about 27.4 million pounds of meat is the largest in USDA history. It follows an Oct. 9 recall of 295,000 pounds of turkey and chicken products at the plant in Franconia.

And just how does one dispose of 27 million pounds of tainted meat?

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Reuters, your bias is showing
There were two huge demonstrations in Venezuela this week. The Thursday demonstration called on President Chavez to resign, the Sunday demonstation suppported him. Both had hundreds of thousands of people.
Look at how Reuters “reported” these events.
The Anti-Chavez demonstration

CARACAS, Venezuela, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans clamored Thursday for President Hugo Chavez to resign or call elections, and a top military chief denounced discontent in the leftist leader’s armed forces.

The Pro-Chavez demonstration

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, buoyed by a huge show of support from hundreds of thousands of fanatical followers, mocked opposition demands for him to quit on Sunday and vowed to press ahead unswervingly with his self-proclaimed “revolution.”

Why is one side “fanatical” and the other side isn’t? Why does one side have a “self-proclaimed” goal and the other doesn’t? Why does Reuters call this “reporting” and not an “editorial”?

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Thanks, pal

A restaurant manager <in the area where the sniper has struck> was arrested Sunday for allegedly calling in a fake report of a sniper on a shopping center roof because, police say, he “wanted a day off.”

The sheriff said Jones admitted to making the false claim because he had been working long hours and has been living in his car.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this one. Why is a restaurant manager who is working long hours having to live in his car?  And what of the already unnerved community that gets even more rattled because of his stupidity.

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