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Say Hello and Open Thread

By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 10:49:35 AM EST
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Say hello to Centcomm, the official U.S. Central Command website. Central Command is the major combat command that covers U.S. military operations in most of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. It provides news/press releases, images and casualty reports from the CENTCOM area of responsibility, including anti-terrorism activities.

When reporting on government activities, it's helpful to get their side of the story, especially since I tend to opine so much on why they are wrong or where they are being less than candid.

Also, say hello to Up Against the Law, it's much more my style.

I'll be gone the rest of the afternoon, so here's an open thread.

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    Say Hello and Open Thread | 22 comments (22 topical)
    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#1)
    by aw on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 11:06:58 AM EST
    This is most disturbing. Making a larger than usual credit-card payment triggers a Homeland Security alert.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#2)
    by profmarcus on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 11:25:21 AM EST
    Bushcoland - the theater of the absurd, the bizarre and the downright unbelievable yep, robert parry and consortium news are no longer behind the power curve...
    George W. Bush's latest mind-bending rationalizations about torturing detainees from the Iraq War and the War on Terror might have left Kafka and Orwell scratching their heads. Bush's lawyers are now arguing that while a new law may bar cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the detainees have no legal standing in U.S. courts to contest the abuse -- and thus there is no way they can stop it. Under these legal theories, the only person who can enforce this law is President Bush -- and he's one of the key people responsible for the illegal treatment in the first place.
    Visit my blog: And, yes, I DO take it personally

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#3)
    by kdog on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 11:56:27 AM EST
    The UAE ports takeover, the Keyspan cash buyout....Good or bad, foreign conglomerates providing absolutely essential services like port ops and energy is the future. Is this globalization coming home to roost? What are the consequences? Any thoughts?

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#4)
    by desertswine on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 12:43:22 PM EST
    CENTCOM Team Engages 'Bloggers'
    McNorton said the team contacts bloggers to inform the writers about any given topic that may have been posted on their site. This outreach effort enables the team to offer complete information to bloggers by inviting them to visit CENTCOM's Web site for news releases, data or imagery
    .
    The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information. They extend a friendly invitation to all bloggers to visit the command's Web site.
    This sounds like trolling for pay to me. I think we're familiar with that. Nice.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#5)
    by Slado on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:35:26 PM EST
    Ginsberg sleeps during oral arguments... Sleepy Liberal Comments? How long till she's replaces with a 50year old conservative who sleeps at nightime?

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#6)
    by Slado on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:39:32 PM EST
    Also how about David Gregory calling in drunk to Imus (if you don't watch Imus int he morning you don't know what you're missing).

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 01:58:15 PM EST
    Yeah, it's like Andrea Mitchell sober. She couldn't keep her story straight on the scooter/plame/nokak business and Imus busted her, called her on it, and she pulled the ol' "What's that, Dear? Gotta Go. Bye!" Next week she pulled the ol' "I don't know what I was thinking of." Imus said, "I wish you people would just pick a lie and go with it." You can look it up.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#8)
    by Slado on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 02:02:00 PM EST
    Although I don't agree with Imus much of the time he is one thing, honest. He is not afraid to call people out. good times.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#9)
    by Lora on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 02:11:44 PM EST
    Here's one of my recent pet peeves (so many peeves, so little time...): What's up with calling Americans unconcerned, apathetic, immune to outrage, and whatever other buzzwords and phrases bloggers come up with these days? Sez who?! I believe that Americans of conscience everywhere ARE outraged at imprisonment without due process, torture, killing of innocents, erosion of civil liberties, erosion of the environment, spiraling costs, lack of opportunities, repression of freedom in the name of security, etc. etc. But how would we ever know? Hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C. and other cities demonstrated against the war in Iraq - multiple times -- and who bothered to report it? Peace vigils are still regularly held in many communities. A huge protest in NYC was reported on mainly for the police-engendered confrontation with peaceful marchers. The huge amount of recent activity to fight Alito's confirmation and in 2005 to support Boxer in challenging the Ohio electoral votes went virtually unnoticed in Media-land. Was this apathy? I think not. The Mouthpiece Media would like us all to believe that we are a bunch of self-satisfied apathetic yes-people who prefer security over anything. They do their best to get that message out, and if the "progressive" bloggers are buying into this, then we are in greater trouble than we think. Where's the evidence to back up these pronouncements? Where are the studies that show that apathy is taking over the country? Why is everybody simply repeating it like parrots? We aren't apathetic, we are being labeled so until we believe it and feel like giving up. There are more of us than we think, and they know it.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#10)
    by desertswine on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 03:56:11 PM EST
    Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who collected $2.4 million in homes, yachts, antique furnishings and other bribes on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress, was sentenced Friday to eight years and four months in prison, the longest term meted out to a congressman in decades
    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 04:20:53 PM EST
    Re: Centcom's "casualties" reports: One will find Centcom fairly prominently linked on Anti-war.com and Iraq Body Count. NB: At Centcom's "Current Casualty Reports" webpages (linked via the section called "News"), one has to click on "all items" to get years from now back to 2003. [I've been working on integrating some of this information about U.S.-Coalition deaths and casualties of war into the notes for a paper that I'm presenting next weekend in Turin (Torino), Italy, at the Europe Theatre Prize symposium on Harold Pinter (who is getting this award) (part of the "cultural programme" for the Olympic Winter Games. Since I just happened already to be citing these links and related figures in it, I thought I'd pop in to mention these other links to Centcom. Back to work for me. . . .]

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#12)
    by Lww on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 04:28:23 PM EST
    I saw Juan Williams getting on Imus for some remarks made on his show. Isn't Juan a liberal? Typical First Amendment advocate on the left.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#13)
    by BigTex on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 06:44:33 PM EST
    Is this globalization coming home to roost? What are the consequences? Any thoughts?
    Kdog this is some of globalism coming home to roost, but more of it is a sign that the GOP is no longer willing to take hard steps for national security. Don't misunderstand this as thinking the UAE workers will blow up a port. UAE wouldn't want that. Rather this is the risk of the Muslim Tim McVeygh acting on his own or with one person on a ship to do damage. The energy is even more worrisome. Rather than letting outsiders have control of anything in our energy picture, we should be rushing away from oil. This means things like nuclear, renewables, recapture processes and the like. Maybe there is more truth when the lefties here say that the admin is corrupt than I like to believe. More likely, this is more of a post 9-11 guard relaxing. Something like this wouldn't have happened in the aftermath. Now it looks like it will go through. The outcry shows that concern is still there, the fact that this was approved initially shows that the fear level has dropped.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#14)
    by jimcee on Fri Mar 03, 2006 at 07:45:35 PM EST
    We just had a funeral today in New Hartford NY for a 30yr old police officer who was gunned down by a suspect in a jewelry store robbery. The turn out was amazing. And heart breaking. He leaves behind a young wife and one-year old daughter. One suspect was apprehended, another was killed on the lamb and one or two others are still at large. The one who was killed and the one apprehended had extensive criminal records including violent crimes and assault on a police officer. My question to the legal defence types here abouts: When you free a person who has violent intents and they kill or maim in the future with the same MO do you have any remorse? And if not, why not?

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#16)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 07:30:26 AM EST
    Does that mean PPJ is history?

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#17)
    by Edger on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 07:38:33 AM EST
    Che, I used to occassionally catch a dogfish (small shark) while fishing for salmon. They are such primitive animals that when you fillet them the fillets will ripple for an hour or so and try to swim away. It's a reflexive action that persists even after their small brains have been removed.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#18)
    by kdog on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 11:00:11 AM EST
    I'm not a lawyer jimcee (that's obvious!), but what is the alternative? Police state tyranny? If no one will defend violent criminals, we have no justice system. Direct your justified anger at the murderer, not his previous defense attorneys. They were defending the consitution and our innocent until proven guilty way of life, as much if not more than they were defending a single criminal. I can't imagine it's easy on the soul, and for that I am grateful.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 11:09:48 AM EST
    No Che, I'm still here, just waiting to point out the errors of your ways. And an easy job it is.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 12:14:37 PM EST
    I saw Juan Williams getting on Imus for some remarks made on his show. Isn't Juan a liberal? Typical First Amendment advocate on the left.
    Meaning?

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 12:33:50 PM EST
    My question to the legal defence types here abouts: When you free a person who has violent intents and they kill or maim in the future with the same MO do you have any remorse?
    Gee, ya might wanna ask the cops and the DA's office who failed to make the case against the defendant, pal. It just might have somethin' to do with them, seein' how the defendant in question probably wasn't OJ or defended by the Dream Team. Then there's the possibility that he may have gotten off because he wasn't guilty. And since when can you put someone away for "intent"? You could close down a gun show and the nra would go nuts. You really gotta stop getting your understanding of the Constitution from the turner diaries, Bryan nations literature and louis l'amour novels, pal. Now you tell me, if innocent people go to jail because of bogus evidence, false testimony police, prosecutor or Judicial misconduct and they may serve long sentences or even be executed, does it bother you hang 'em high types? And if not, why not? That's what I thought.

    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#22)
    by Edger on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 08:24:23 AM EST
    There is a small bottle containing a red fluid on a shelf in Sheffield University's microbiology laboratory. The liquid looks cloudy and uninteresting. Yet, if one group of scientists is correct, the phial contains the first samples of extraterrestrial life isolated by researchers. Inside the bottle are samples left over from one of the strangest incidents in recent meteorological history. On 25 July, 2001, blood-red rain fell over the Kerala district of western India. And these rain bursts continued for the next two months. All along the coast it rained crimson, turning local people's clothes pink, burning leaves on trees and falling as scarlet sheets at some points. Investigations suggested the rain was red because winds had swept up dust from Arabia and dumped it on Kerala. But Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, after gathering samples left over from the rains, concluded this was nonsense. 'If you look at these particles under a microscope, you can see they are not dust, they have a clear biological appearance.' Instead Louis decided that the rain was made up of bacteria-like material that had been swept to Earth from a passing comet. In short, it rained aliens over India during the summer of 2001.
    Re: Say Hello and Open Thread (none / 0) (#23)
    by jondee on Sun Mar 05, 2006 at 01:49:46 PM EST
    Since when did "free trade" become the absolute pinnacle of the achievments of human reason and wisdom? Please explain this to me libertarians.Jimcee,justpaul, Roy?

    Say Hello and Open Thread | 22 comments (22 topical)