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2 years 32 weeks

Blog Posts

Sound Out to the Mideast: EU or Bust

by Decader 2/12/2011 - 2:05 pm

From the growing Muslim revolution, how or whether Muslim nations integrate with the European Union may be key. The EU absorbed the post-Wall '89-ers, and they can somehow do it again. It's tempting to think a Muslim satellite of the EU would work but no one wants to be on the 2nd team (take Turkey as an example). And for all the EU's hesitancy about the Muslim world, it's time for the EU to step up - as it did when it fast-tracked East Europe.  [Read more]

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American Exceptionalism

by Decader 1/14/2011 - 9:06 am

With the daily violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, an attack that killed 6 people would be rather unremarkable, unless possibly one of the few names we know in the West.

Wasn't that long ago that the head of Pakistan was offed, as was the head of Lebanon.

Often it's the opposition leaders, such as in Yemen and Ingushetia a few months back. Or Ethiopia 2 years before. Or the Tajik leader killed 9/10/2000 in Afghanistan. Sometimes it's family of opposition, such as Mirhossein Mousavi in Iran. Sometimes it's journalists, like the one in Rwanda recently shot as they imprisoned the opposition leader.

Then there are dissidents, protesters, whistle-blowers, and all the other vulnerable fabric of society. Yeah, innocent victims as well. [Read more]

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Chickens Coming Home to Roost?

by Decader 1/9/2011 - 7:17 pm

When JFK was killed, the papers came to Malcolm X to hear how sorry he was. "Chickens coming home to roost", was his famous reply. [Read more]

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Blogging Convergence: the Untouchable (G-Man) or Leave it to Bieber

by Decader 1/2/2011 - 8:35 am

[Sorry about formatting, but really, I can't be bothered... All is one, all is everything]

[And originally there was some link between space aliens and Republican politics more than the usual and obvious, but seems to have disappeared from my arghives, only a few crop circles left. Maybe the Mayans hold the secret afterall - 2012 resolution...] [Read more]

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Death of a Clown?

by Decader 12/19/2010 - 6:05 pm

As John McCain comes unraveled, it struck me as kind of important to think what the GOP gave the American public to vote for in 2008 - and what it chose by what, 46,47%?

Yeah, a guy on his last legs, having trouble holding it together, and a woman completely unprepared for governorship of most states (including Alaska, as her resignation implies) - much less to assume the presidency of the US. [Read more]

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(Sigh) It's Over When It's Over

by Decader 12/19/2010 - 11:59 am

So the White House is saying they don't really know when exactly they or the military will stop enforcing Don't Ask Don't Tell...

since there are a few congressional reviews and what not to go through before it ends.

Way to get ahead of the curve - they've only been on this study since what, February, and couldn't foresee that if there were a vote, they might need to implement it?

http://my.firedoglake.com/teddysanfran/2010/12/18/white-house-wont-commit-to-ending-dadt-discharges-now

Good going, lads, even when you do something positive, you have to do a negative to make up for it.

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Repealing DADT - Obama bets on the home stretch

by Decader 12/17/2010 - 4:39 pm

Yeah, Barry - we get it. You count votes. You know repeal's going to pass, so you get your army of eunuchs (former campaign munchkins now denatured) to start hitting the telephones.

Nothing like having the bill barely get to vote, having all of the President's hopes relying on the Log Cabin Republicans, of all the absurdities (will Republicans carrying Obama's colostomy bag be our image for the rest of his presidency, all 22 remaining months of it?) [Read more]

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The Rich Already Had Tax Cuts: Who Knew?

by Decader 12/9/2010 - 8:48 am

In all the debates over keeping the top run of Bush tax cuts, one pertinent fact kept getting dropped:

The rich received the same tax cuts up to $250K or $1 million.

The proposal was simply to rescind the tax breaks for income over that amount.

But that wasn't enough, apparently - we can freeze federal employee pay because as fearless leader says:

"The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifice, and that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government," Obama said.

"After all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts," added the president. "Their government should, too." [Read more]

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The Left Has No Foreign Policy

by Decader 11/6/2010 - 3:45 am

I guess that's not a surprise.

But after several years of blogging, with Dems in control for quite a bit of it, it's frustrating to see that we don't have an alternative to up-and-down in the Middle East.

My biggest issue is NAFTA and China. Are they related? Kinda sorta. Mostly they're the swamp of our attention. (I saw House of Spirits last night, but won't bore you with where *THAT* takes me).

Principally, NAFTA is the left's spiders & snakes. China is its bug-bear. You'd be hard-pressed to get acknowledgment that manufacturing would have shifted away from industrialized countries no matter who was in charge or what was done. [Read more]

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