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Ramarley Graham, 18, shot dead in the Bronx, at the hands of an occupying army.

The rules of engagement for the  New York City Police Department have changed.

I'm not quite sure when, but it was, I think, shortly after David Dinkins was replaced as Mayor by Rudy G.

It used to be that every cop carried what was called a "throwdown".  An untraceable gun, the purpose of which was to be thrown down (hence, the name) if the cop discovered that he or she had shot and killed an unarmed civilian.

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Palestine-The One State Solution

This is what ethnic cleansing looks like:

 

An as-yet confidential report submitted by the European consuls in Jerusalem and Ramallah raises urgent concerns over the “forced expulsion” of Palestinians ...from Area C of the West Bank... the report mentions the fertile and strategic Jordan Valley (where the Palestinian population has declined from 250,000 to 50,000 since the start of the Occupation)...

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Security? Security? Yes, we need some people up here right away. Three shifts of 18 please.

The recent encounter of a vacationing civil servant and a mugger offering deadly force has caused me to revisit a question that had piqued me obliquely when one of his shiftmates, while on his way to work, rear-ended another c

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In praise of smoke filled rooms. Why can't we have a meritocracy like China?

If you paid any attention to Xi Jinping, the president-designate (interesting that they even have such a position, rather like scholarly associations) of China, you might have been struck by the efficiency with which the Chinese political system finds and promotes individuals of talent.

Consider, after all, that Xi Jinping was not the product of a democratically premised electoral politics.  He was selected by cadres who themselves were selected from ever wider pools of aspirants.

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Medicare funds no abortions. Did the "Public Option" die to avoid a Hyde Amendment donnybrook?

Watching in stark amaze as the issue of contraception coverage (contraception!) proves fraught enough with controversy that it troubles, still in the 21st century, the councils of the great and mighty, I am moved to reconsider some of my prior analysis of the great health care reform fiasco.

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Giuliani&Kerik, Bloomberg&Kelly. NY Mayors, unlucky in their top cops.

We are being priveleged to witness, once again, the down-in-flames destruction of a creepy New York Police Commissioner. (ed note: the last non-creepy one wasTeddy Roosevelt...)

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Mitt's tithe tax fax-Many Millions to the Mormons

We are left with only a few hours within which to exercise unrestrained speculation as to "the (tax) horror which dare not speak its name".

 

Level of income, of course, has been bruited as cause for embarassment.

 

Obvious high roller lifestyle deductions will cause the odd blush.

 

But, quaere:

Might the annual act of self-denial represented by parting with many millions of dollars be regarded as so extreme as to make you potentially seen to be a cult-addled and superstition-ridden nutjob?

 

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Gingrich:New, improved.More nimble (Ten years to flip on mandate, less than a week on Ryan)

Newt Gingrich, like Tide and Coke is new and  improved.

We learn, inter alia, from this evening's debate that he has raised his performance as a health care policy analyst.

Viz:

When jacked up by Santorum over his decade of support for an individual mandate to buy insurance, Newt credited (and tacitly solicited credit for) the onset of new wisdom.

jollyroger's picture

Would you park your assets in the Cayman Islands if you had nothing to hide?

By now you will have heard that included in the tumble of new disclosures (I pay close to (how close? Are you missing above or below?) 15%) from Romney's cabinet of plutocrat horrors, is the tidbit that his tax planning relies heavily on Cayman Island accounts.

(I fear being tarred forensically with those enemies of freedom who hector those who complain about warrantless surveillance, but, here goes).  I ask Romney (as will we all with one voice),

What have you got to hide?

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