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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Feb. 22, 2007 at 1:05 a.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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67 Comments
If mainstream Democratic candidates are worried by the far-left fringes in their Party – will they grow enough backbone to extricate themselves from these fanatics?
IF they don’t – they don’t have a prayer of securing the White House in ‘08.
[quote]“But what Edwards’ hesitancy does demonstrate, says Bauer, is that Democratic presidential candidates are “scared to death” of left-wing activists operating websites like MoveOn.org and the Democratic Underground.
“On these sites you’ll find an unbelievable hatred of Christians, of Evangelicals, of Jews, of conservatives in general, of the president,” he explains. “And the people who go to these websites are often the volunteers, the doorbell-ringers, the envelope-stuffers, and the donors that unfortunately the National Democratic Party has come to rely on.”
Bauer says anytime there is a controversy, people like Senator Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and others on the left do whatever they can to avoid offending the “radical left fringe that controls their party.” (end quote)
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2007/february/0220_dem_activists.shtml
Kind of like the moderate republicans fearing the far right fringes / christian conservatives in the gop.
gs,How do you sleep at night? How have you been able to avoid capture? Bodily harm? All these groups are out to get you. Far left extremists, armed gangs of illegal aliens, radical Islamic jihadist fascists terrorists, activist judges, public education, liberals, godless liberals, people with no backbone.
I sleep very well, morg. I know that the typical American citizen rejects the nonsense of the leftist-fanatic, for the most part.
More news on the dwindling water supply in Kansas. It seems legislators are worried that the feds may treat reservoirs in eastern Kansas the way the STATE treats reservoirs in western kansas.
Drain ‘em and screw the recreational users, the domestic users, etc.
Pot meet kettle. How does it feel to be treated the same way YOU treat western Kansas water?
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/feb/22/lawmakers_protest_releases_reservoirs/?city_local
There’s your true glub glub crowson. We will shortly be very short of water in Kansas. Payday loan sharks are swirling, the minimum wage raise was killed in the REPUBLICAN house, the univerity repair problem is not fixed…
but BY GOD we have TAX CUTS to show for the work of this legislature.
Jesus wept. Send those tears out here. We need all the water we can get.
And the shortage is creeping eastward. Check out the story about the Salina city council candidates.
http://www.saljournal.com/
But of course, the reich wing worries about the bogey men in the war on terra.
Never mind that the water supply is shrinking fast, we have LEFTISTS to worry about.
“But some might argue, “Isn’t education too important to be left to the whims of the private market and wouldn’t poor children be left without schools to attend?”
Because of its ability to respond to changing consumer preferences, to innovate and to offer the best prices, the private sector does better at providing critical goods and services. Although it may be hard for us to imagine a world in which schools were mostly private, a private, market-based system could provide education services.
Some might wonder why we give government a near monopoly over education when the courts have viewed monopolies in other aspects of our economy as anathema to the American free enterprise system. Over recent decades, similar monopolies have been dismantled by government, including the monopoly over package delivery by the U.S. Postal Service and the monopoly over telephone service by Bell Telephone. Today, consumers have the choice of UPS, FedEx, and other couriers and enjoy cheap long-distance telephone service thanks to competition among providers.”
Of all people, Gary Bauer pointing the finger at the Democrats and talking about the danger of being associated with fanatical left wing activists is hilarious.
Or do people not remember the wing Bauer represented in the Republican Party as a presidential candidate?
Truly a pot meet kettle moment.
Salina is in a special predicament when it comes to water. They take most of theirs from the Smoky Hill River effluvium. Ground water around Salina is polluted from the Air Force dumping.
I hear the candidates all spouting doom and gloom, but none present a workable solution. Typical.
Salina needs to go South, toward Assaria and buy up some of the irrigation wells and supplement the water usage.
But it wont help to try and stop Holcomb’s plant since the Smoky Hill and the plant are on different branch tributaries.
When a right wing goon starts inputting about left wing candidates? You KNOW they are starting to realize that right wing candidates are no longer electable.
JR – you may not realize this – but you’ve been pretty good about trashing the few GOP candidates yourself.
By your own admission that would mean you KNOW there are no electable Dems.
Correct?
No big deal then on the water. The Holcomb plant is NOT in the Smoky Basin.
Sucks to be Wichita, ’cause the plant is in the ARK RIVER basin. And arent the Equus Beds in that basin? So while Wichita may not get their water directly out of the Ark, what drains the basin, drains Wichita.
And allowing RUSSELL and HAYS to profit by one million dollars over the appraised value of the Circle K ranch is NOT going to fix the problem.
Hell, Hays and Russell are MOST of the problem out here. And where is Sunflower electric based? You guessed it. Hays, America.
And… still no word from governor leadership about what she plans to do concerning the looming water crisis?
Oh yea, she thinks the feds are bullies and advocates for Perry the exact OPPOSITE of what she recommended for Cedar Bluff.
Governor leadership indeed. She and the republican legislature are too busy patting themselves on the back for cutting taxes around the edges to worry about a little thing like water.
Fiddling again I see.
Anonymous,
I’ll be all for privitizing education and vouchers when they are willing to play by all the rules that public schools play by. There is no competition if one group gets to play by much easier rules then the other group gets to play by. When they open the door to all kids and have to educate all of them with only the money given to them.
Its not competition that public schools object to, its unequal competition
Farmie – go after the Feds to clean up their mess. Go after the new water sources from the South.
Forget about punishing other communities along the Smoky for the lack of long-term insight by Salina fathers.
Sheesh.
The solution is out there, and it doesn’t involve unduly restricting others for your town’s mistakes.
Salina better get off their ass and address this situation in a realistic manner before they drive industry away.
Oh wait -that’s already happening.
…shrug…
hawkeye.
I’m not in favor of vouchers – but home schools and private schools turn out a MUCH higher level of educated kids.
The ‘rules’ you speak of – are the ones that brought about the downfall of the government indoctrination camps (public schools) to begin with.
In todays opnion line:
“The only Wichitans who have any room to whine about the way our city is run are those who vote. Feb. 27 is right around the corner; do something about it.”
I agree… This goes for the bloggers as well!
(I plan on voting either today or tomorrow afternoon)
” but home schools and private schools turn out a MUCH higher level of educated kids.”
Thats true cuz you don’t have to pollute their minds with more than one point of view.
Actually KSfarm. Wichita has been recharging the equuas beds for a decade now. We are one step ahead of the game and many decades ahead of any crisis. We DID take action and we are doing something about it.
http://ks.water.usgs.gov/Kansas/studies/equus/
Joe – absolutely correct. The City’s ongoing project is a good one and should be a model for others. I would add that we should be capturing surface runoff during high-water events for recharge instead of trying to channelize in the name of “flood control”. I have frequently commented to Council of the silliness that we spend millions getting rid of water and then millions more trying to find water. We need to use a geology approach rather than an engineering approach.
GS
I agree the rules from the federal level, although well intentioned, are part of the problem.
As for indoctrination thats just a bunch of nonsense
Joe and Ben, good for Wichita. Really.
But you have to have the water initially to recharge the beds. And if the entire basin is being drained, you will have to recharge harder and faster in the future.
I do understand that you dont have the same water issues that we do. However, all our water issues are connected. The natural water systems work together, and since water runs downhill, our problems will eventually become your problems. Even if you DONT over pump your water supply.
Hell, even Rex Buchannan of the KSGS says “what goes on in Trego county affects the rest of the state.”
I wouldnt sit in that self satisfied Wichita bubble for too long. You may have done well, and good on your community for being proactive.
Just dont forget that Hays and Russell are on the march, and they are lining up the irrigators and ethanol plant folks to bolster their positons as water rapists.
And when they come for you? Will anyone west of you be left to speak of the tragedies?
GSheridan, the ‘Concern troll’ on multiple threads!
Thanks for the ‘advice’ about how Democrats ought to run, although I don’t know that claiming that Democrats have no ‘electable’ candidates really counts as advice.
But thanks, all the same, for your concern. All your comments regarding Democratic Presidential candidates, GSheridan, should be submitted in written form–so they can be thrown away more easily.
I mean, seriously, you’re including a Gary Bauer quote from GOPUSA as a link to support your ‘case’?!?
Heeeeeee-larious. The only fringe people attacking the Edwards campaign are Bill Donohue and his rabid band of anti-Semitic bigots. But obviously, Bauer–and you, GSheridan?–don’t have a problem with that.
Regarding the whole school voucher deal…
After watching John Stossel’s “Stupid in America” (i know, stick with me here) it caused me to start thinking.
It makes some valid points about our education system. Our education system has gotten lax. You can see it here in town, look at the graduates of the Catholic high Schools, they are usually “a bit farther” in their education than the public schools. Same applies for the private schools out east.
I than thought back to my history in school, it was always a teach to the test attitude. It was a “this is what you need to know to pass the next set of tests”. I was so board in high school, maybe that’s why i got so much sleep.
My question is why is it there is such resentment toward anyone who even brings up the idea of “privatizing the education system” or changing it in anyway?
I have talked to a few teachers from back in my old high school days and they all seem to agree with the underlying concept of “privatizing schools”. If the government gave out X dollars to the school in which the child goes “per semester” that would grow accountability with the schools. They are at the whim of what the parents think of the educations their children are receiving.
I moved to Goddard just to put my kids in that school system because I believe it to be one of the best in the state. Why can schools not compete like businesses for the kids? This would solve the whole “test score” issue too because schools would than have to perform better to get kids to than pay for the schools… We could even get pay raises for teachers who perform better…
John Stossel’s Web Page: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338
Not necessarily does homeschooling fork out better students. I know one who can hardly spell, and there have been some teachers who have said they’ve had students come in from homeschooling and they were grade levels behind.
Thank you GS, but we Dems don’t need you or absolutely do not need Gary Bauer telling us how to run our party.Stick to your own knitting, plez. We can do (and did) quite well without you. Ain’t none of the folks Gary is writing for gonna vote for us anyway. So who needs him?
SEATTLE — A multibillion deal for the Russian state carrier Aeroflot to buy 22 Boeing 787s has collapsed because of worsening relations between Russia and the United States, The Seattle Times reported Thursday.
The Times quoting an unidentified Boeing source familiar with the negotiations as saying that the company wrote off the deal “a month or so ago.”
The planes would be worth $3.2 billion at list prices, and the deal was estimated by the aircraft valuation firm Avitas as worth about $2.2 billion with standard discounts after it was announced in June.
Sergei Koltovich, Aeroflot’s head of fleet planning, said in August that U.S. criticism of Russia was stalling the deal but maintained that “both Boeing and Aeroflot are trying to make this order happen.”
Aeroflot officials released a statement in September that management was proposing to the government the purchase of 22 Boeing 787s and an equal number of Airbus A350s.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Feb. 10 in Munich, Germany, that in pursuing President Bush’s foreign policy the United States has “overstepped its national borders in every way.” On Wednesday the Russian news agency Interfax quoted an Aeroflot source as saying the deal for the A350s would likely be completed later this year.
Airbus has yet to commit to production of the A350 XWB, and the issue of whether to assemble the
Quoting GS (Tippy):
“Evil is good, unrecognized.”
Nuff said?
Trace: Was she describing Bill or Hillary? :)
One can always tell when the Cons are running scared. All one has to do is read something like the crap GS posted, and you know they’re shaking in their boots.
RD,
Exactly. It’s that whole studied, nonchalant ‘nothing to see here’ posture. One sees it in Hank Price as well.
However, as you accurately observe, the ‘game face’ becomes the ‘tell’ as to what’s really afoot in the whirling Wingnut brain.
Speaking of Hank Price…
Several days ago he mentioned a lock-down in communications with regard to Nathan, and since that mention I haven’t seen him around here very much.
How is Nathan? Have you been busy Hank? With the weather so improved I’m hoping you’re just out and about, working hard, too busy to mess with the WEBlog. But please post a thumbs up on Nathan. Thanks in advance.
The leftists in the Democratic Party are viewed as the weak link in the underlying foundation of America. Foreigners learn how to exploit this weakness and use it to their advantage. Centrist Democratic candidates are of course worried because the vocal radicals eat their own kind. The enemies of America love the Democratic Party.
Macau,
It take it that it is your contacts with the enemies of America that enable you to know what they are thinking?
This is an argument so stupid that one sees President Cheney making it all the time.
OMG Mac, you are reading right out of the book written by the nutcase (whose name I cant remember) that said on TDS that you could go back to FDR for blame on 9/11 and that liberals are the root of all evil in American. Damn, wish I could think of his name. He is of Indian or Pakistani or Arab heritage, but he is a true blue amerikan wingnut at heart!
ksfarmgrrl,
It’s Dinesh D’Souza. Paid fascist who works for the Hoover Institution.
NPR had him commenting a month ago on why Iraq isn’t like Vietnam. I call KMUW, yelled at someone for a while, and haven’t listened since.
I haven’t been in the States in a long time but we talk much about you. America is not the force it used to be the weak are gaining in influence. My brother in law lives in Wichita and has become soft like many there. Where is your strength anymore? No longer are you powerful as you value weakeness the most.
Linda,When I talked to Hank at the meetup in January he said that Nathan was very busy but ok. Hank’s been at a lot of dog shows and dog agility shows lately. I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later.
Macauinc,
So, is your source of ‘power’ those things that are given in the PDF-file pages on your website? Namely, the pseudo-science claiming that because DNA is the biological internet, we can now explain clarivoyance, action at a distance, auras, and self-healing?
http://www.macauinc.com/1.jpg
Macauinc, you’ll understand why the opinions you have voiced here don’t exactly carry a whole bunch of credibility.
Cf – you mistake me for another. That is not my site. I only visit here on invitation from my brother in law. I am currently living in Macau and we often speak of world issues and America. It is true you are become soft not the strong leader of the free world you were one time. When I travel to the Mediteraen same thing. Weak America. The world waits to see you fall. Understand that they look forward to this. In your America the leftist sect leads the destruction. true
well, Macau, don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen
America becoming weak.
But it is Republican policies, monetary, military, and social, that are turning us into a debtor nation and a pariah. The sign of our weakness is that the only options we are interested in exercising are military. And this is George Bush’s decision–not that of any liberal Democrats.
Huh. The first sentence should read ‘America is becoming weak.’ Weird.
The Bush Allies in Iraq are shrinking.
Country Troops
United States 140,000Britain 5,500South Korea* 2,300Georgia 900Poland 900Romania 600Australia 550El Salvador 380Mongolia 160Bulgaria 155Azerbaijan 150Latvia 125Albania 120Czech Republic 99Lithuania 53Armenia 46Macedonia 40Bosnia 36Estonia 35Kazakhstan 27Netherlands 15Slovenia 4
I wonder what the four troops from Slovenia do to aid the cause…
WSC: Each other??
Macau,
Just out of curiosity, can you share with us what you think the U.S. should do to become less weak?
Maybe we should do more nuclear threatening of other countries? Maybe we should just invade all other countries we disagree with? Should we make all countries of the world be in lock-step with OUR beliefs and our way of life? With democracy?
Macau – what is the time frame of your observations?
I use more water in the winter to make my summer water bills lower. The water dept encourages waste with their billing methods.
From here:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17276693/
“The 25 million Americans who rely on the Colorado River for water should expect continued — and even worsening — drought spells and water shortages as rising temperatures and growing populations create a double whammy, experts warned in a new report.
The experts, convened by the National Research Council, based their concerns on climate models and recent studies that found a cycle of droughts in the region over time. The studies used tree-ring histories to reconstruct local climate patterns over the last 500 years.
“These reconstructions, along with temperature trends and projections for the region, suggest that future droughts will recur and that they may exceed the severity of droughts of historical experience, such as the drought of the late 1990s and early 2000s,” the experts wrote in the report released Wednesday.”
JM – not just the Colorado. Rio Grande, Arkansas, Misssouri. But don’t worry – none of this is happening! Like the moon landing it is all fabricated by evil lying scientists.
Macau – you’re dead wrong. You’re choosing to look SELECTIVELY at only one segment of the United States.
But we are MORE than the sum of our parts – we have a history your people will never be able to relate to.
Sure – the liberals would like to weaken us – but they are not the only citizens here.
I understand what you mean when you say we have lost respect due to the weakness portrayed by some Americans, but they don’t have the power, nor the stranglehold on the United States that you may think they do.
We’re not beaten yet. We allow these liberals to talk and shout, but that is the extent of their tenure.
You can sit around in your coffee shops and chat on your street corners about the beaten Americans, but you are wrong, my friend.
The strength is still there.
Tracy – if this is all a dream – does that make you the board’s resident nightmare?
Macau – Let me get this straight, the liberals, not the ineffectual President and his bumbling idiots, are making the U.S. look weak?
Tippy….YES
Great in-depth look at Darth Cheney in this week’s Economist.
Highly recommended.
Dennis, I imagine that the inside of his head looks sumpin’ like that eeeevil eye-thingy from The Lord Of The Rings.
History repeating?
White House brings in Nixon-era lawyer
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/breaking_news/16759430.htm
This is an Austrailian editorial about Cheney. It is interesting.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21259681-5006029,00.html
Isn’t Macau in communist China where they limit free speech on the internet?
Do we really believe this guy is in China allowed to post what he thinks?
Go figure, hardline commies side with republicons!
Actually PM that nut was a LONG way from siding with the GOP.
We stand for strength.
It’s the Dems that are the pussies here.
I don’t know that you could call it “siding with” but both groups have the same outlook, that Democrats with their troop cuts, lack of support for the military, and in the case of Clintons, disdain for military…yes, the communists and the Republicans both say the same thing, that the liberals are weakening America.
Not siding together..just coming to the same conclusion by seeing the facts. The weakening of individual rights, the “nannyism” of the government, wanting to care for everyone and throwing out the need for personal responsibility. Yep…a lot to be said about it…
The torture, the lack of respect for human rights, the Nazi style lockstep…
Yeah it’s fabulous being a republicon!
Let’s beat the children!
“It’s the Dems that are the pussies here.”
At least the Dem women have attractive ones. Not ones who have to try to intimidate illegal alien employees to service them like GS!
admire Carter for having the guts to publicly stand up and tell it like it is. But, I imagine it is because his political career is over, and at his age feels he has nothing to lose for telling it straight. Like he said “it would be political suicide for any politician to take the position he has”. Sad commentary on the state of the U.S. political arena
Interesting set of topics:1. Can’t comment on the water situation, but it sounds like a serious issue, how can you grow crops without water and whose gouging who…
2. The school issue is tough. But charter schools even though they don’t have the same standard for their teacher or their curricula and for all their unconstrained methods of introducing new material to this point have had no more success than traditional public schools in poor areas. Their results have been mixed at best.
This perception that private or chartered education is light years better than public education has been framed and driven home with scientific precision and relentless marketing by those who stand to benefit from the massive failure of the public education system and it’s potential $350 billion dollar a year private yield.
Look at the wording and qualification standards of the “No Child Left Behind Act.” and it might as well have been called instead the “Public Schools De-funding and Charter Schools Replacement act.” And this with no mention of children because making teachers teach to test scores while measurable isn’t teaching children to think and value education.
Point blank once again the Bush Administrations religious and sold -out-to-the-machismo-of-the-market ideology preceeds sound methodology. This administration has somehow assumed that cheap 6-month trained teachers and Think-tank tested teaching methods will trump the challenges of gang violence, poverty, drug-addicted or alcoholic out-of-work parents, communication & cultural issues, teen pregnancy and a host of other issues that regularly face teachers in tough inner city schools. My wife is one of them and until you have faced the problem you don’t know how ineffective and one dimensional the no child left behind methodology.
I’m not saying public schools have no blame in all this, but I am saying that the simple short sighted solutions that seem to be a hallmark of this administration fall woefully short here just as in the Iraq war, Katrina and other areas.
3. Don’t really know what to say about the goofball Macau (But certainly by now, we’re all painfully aware with what at first glance (and second and third and 4th) appears to be the willful destruction of America’s Infrastructure and standing in the world at the hands of these aloof miscreants (all in the name of protecting us from the terrorists)
These are the actions of the most misguided, inept leadership our country has probably ever seen and it’s the actions of these folk and not the voices that oppose them that have weakened our country immensely in reality and in the eyes of the world.
But really this Macau clown is just one of the right wing nut jobs under-cover jonesing to stir the crock of feces. And so he has…
ADem…..NAILED IT.
Rap, we can argue about your false claim of Dems “wanting to care for everyone,” but I don’t want to, because (1)you will continue to believe what you wish, (2) I don’t speak for Democrats and (3) that’s hardly a criticism to begin with–unless of course you believe that a beneficial government and personal responsibility are mutually exclusive (as you do).
I would however, note, that this is a indisputable description of the modern Republican party:”"The weakening of individual rights, the “nannyism” of the government,. . .”
At least to anyone who hasn’t been in a coma the past 25 years.
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