Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 09, 2013

That’s about where I am as well.

Well, at least he’s not blogging.

last season of breaking bad. good for malcolm’s dad, hal.

Breaking Bad: One of the best shows ever, but I’m glad it’s ending.

Metadata mining isn’t listening in on phone calls. It is using huge amounts of data to find bad guys. You have to have a haystack to find a needle in it. We want to be safe. We have to give up a tiny bit of freedom in order to be safe.

Metadata mining has been going on before Obama, but some are now shocked, shocked, shocked.

Baby news? Talk about leaving us hanging here…

You might want to blame Congress too. Reauthorizing the Patriot Act and all. And let’s face it, if Obama let’s his nose hair grow too long he’s the worst President ever. This won’t stop for you guys until he’s out of office because he is a black man. God help the woman when one is elected, who ever it is.

NPP, not everyone hates a black president. Especially when the GOP began a dedicated effort to diminish his presidency on inaugural night. The GOP has set anchor and tried to drag down everything possible-even sacrificing the good of the country in many instances-just to oppose POTUS. What the GOP has revealed about itself in the last few years is: It is clearly a racist organization, It is not in favor of women and children’s rights, It is against social welfare for those who need it most-even at a time when the needy are increasing in numbers exponentially, and It is against job creation because that might improve the economy. My own perception of any GOP is that they are despicable-even many of my friends who are GOP, I no longer socialize with them. When it comes to reasoning-they know they have a bad party but they are sticking with it even if it kills them.

Walter White for President. Nobody would dare mess with the USA with good old Walt as POTUS. Seriously, attacking Obama when this strip had nothing to do with him. Unbelievable.

Bets on whether or not Alex made it to the hospital? I am sure MIT is not far from several great hospitals…

It’s on Netflix. My wife and I are watching it on there.

It is GT’s strip, he is allowed to do whatever he wants to in terms of writing/drawing the strip. He has always alternated between talking about popular culture and politics. He is allowed to have a political POV, yes, even if it is different from your own.

Ok, Susan. I am trying to be patient about the baby news. It is that comic strip time warp getting to me again. My reply button doesn’t seem to work on my iPad, which I use a little more than the laptop.

Season 3 episode 4 is where it really shines. You just don’t see bricks laid that way any more..

No. I’m just kidding…. :>

I am still amazed by the number of people that read a comic strip for free, and then complain that they aren’t getting their money’s worth because it is a comic strip and not Reuters.-I am amused by the feigned outrage when someone discovers that liberals don’t like black conservatives any more than they like white conservatives.

Bush didn’t “react” to 9/11, he used it to do what he planned from day one, which was his half-assed invasion of Iraq.

And thank you Redkaycel Repoc for also making a point I was going to make, though perhaps in a tiny bit different way. Same point.

I agree with you re: wishing we had a more progressive president.But as a man of color, the President is obviously concerned that any liberal stance he takes will be reacted to, by the right, as “Black guy wants to…decriminalize marijuana or allow illegals into our country or increase taxes on rich white men.”Therefore he is leaning towards being a moderate.Face it, when we do have a woman president, she will likely be a moderate or even a conservative (a la Maggie Thatcher). The chances of a liberal woman becoming president right now? Slim to none.Whatever garbage the right throws at Obama, they’d double down on a liberal woman.

Anyone who thinks Franklin was a staunch Tea Party style thinker should know that he was a strong supporter of free public health care. He badgered the Pennsylvania Assembly into funding a public hospital for “poor diseas’d Foreigners and others”:“But the Good particular Men may do separately, in relieving the Sick, is small, compared with what they may do collectively, or by a joint Endeavour and Interest.”

“Usurper Barry is extreme left. Your compass is just way off.”.No, your balance beam is off. To you, the Far Right is Conservative;The Right is Moderate;Moderates are Liberal andLiberals are Bolsheviks. Don’t blame others for your misdirection.

Check your local library – DVD section.

Historical footnote: the line about falsely shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater came from a court opinion approving of arresting people for peaceful protest.

Memorable line, though.

The reason Obama can’t get much done is the functional dysfunction of the American federal system. In Canada, people don’t vote for the Prime Minister (equivalent to American President). Everyone votes for representatives. Whichever party has the most representatives elected, their leader gets to be Prime Minister. That way the Prime Minister and the Parliament (like Congress) will work together well, not battle each other the way the President and the Congress do in the US.

“He is a Conservative and a Regressive.”.Sorry, can’t agree with you. He’s not governing as a Liberal, I agree, but even if his actions are out of necessity “conservative,” I don’t see him having that retrograde mindset that would classify him as a “regressive.”If he had a Congress to work with that wasn’t acting like a colossal road block, I truly believe his actions and policies would be far more progressive.

Okay, enlighten us. Tell us what you learned there. Aside from the WMDs that is.

I served in Iraq. And what I learned there says Verus is right.

We threw billions of dollars down a rat-hole. A third of it is most likely now deposited in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt Iraqi government officials. Another third went to enrich contractors, both American and foreign. A fraction actually produced usable infrastructure for the Iraqi people – remember them? The people we were “liberating”?

A paltry percentage went to pay our troops. Once we returned home, the military and the VA have been completely unprepared to handle the life-long consequences of the war, in terms of permanent physical and mental disabilities.

The thousands of troops who were killed and maimed there did not make us, as a nation, any safer or more secure than before the war.

GuardSGT, you want people to think that your opinions represent the opinions of military personnel. They do not. I served honorably for 21 years. You can spout your insults all day long, but the truth is that I put my life on the line for our nation. Now that I’m out of uniform, I can say what I could not say then. I served, I did my job to the best of my ability even though I knew that what we were doing was useless and wrong. That’s what a Soldier does. I would have stayed in if I could have, and I would have willingly deployed again. That’s what a Soldier does.

But now I can speak out, and I tell you that “G*****n Bush” (as my commander always referred to him in private) was wrong to send us into Iraq.

Go on, start frothing at the mouth and calling me a liar and a traitor. That’s all you have – insults. But I want people reading this to know that you DO NOT speak for all OIF veterans.

I correct myself:The way you see it,An ultra conservative is a moderate;A conservative is a liberal;A moderate is a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army;And a Liberal is a minion of Satan.Don’t claim to use the Constitution as your guide; like the Bible it is as Liberal or Conservative a document as you interpret it to be; you are choosing to interpret it as a conservative doctrine.That doesn’t make it one, other than to you.

GuardSGT, aside from the Iraqis thanking you (and I experienced it, too) and your observation of Saddam’s opulent residences (which is true – but one need not have served to know that), none of what you are claiming is anything that you observed or learned first-hand.Former Rep. Hoekstra’s imaginings about WMDs were debunked by the Penatgon. He is not a reliable source, and you most certainly did NOT see any WMDs yourself while in Iraq.Yes, the Clinton administration did think that Saddam had WMDs. So?None of the rest of your points are anything that you learned first-hand in Iraq. I respect the service of all military members, but your service does not make you any more credible with these tired talking points than anyone else who is parroting them. And strutting around saying “That should be a high honor” about yourself is disgusting.

Folks, I apologize for throwing peanuts to the resident clown. It just turns my stomach when he uses his military service to try and give credibility to his insults and crackpot theories.

Interesting how those on the Right always like to assume venomous hate from the other side’s fairly calm words here.

Projection is the GOP’s tell.

If there is nothing to interpret about the Constitution, kindly explain why we need The Supreme Court.Any document, including every religious text, is open to some kind of scrutiny, and the Constitution has had it’s interpreters since the beginning of the US, the 9 justices of The Supreme Court.

I’m going to respectfully disagree about his being regressive, but I will not fault you for wishing he was more Liberal.I do, too.

GuardSGT, you are the one consumed with hate. It was a mistake for me to even try to oppose your canned talking points, which you will no doubt continue to baaa out like the mindless sheep that you are.I do not usually detail my military service, because my father – a WWII USMC veteran – taught me that the heroes were the ones who did not return, and that respect for them includes not parading our own service.But since you claim expertise: I was a Master Sergeant. I was the Civil-Military Operations NCOIC for a medical battalion, and I also worked at the brigade level, in the CMO section, a brigade command staff section. Contact with Iraqi nationals and Iraqi officials was not incidental to my job – it was my job. I attended briefings, in person and through network, daily that involved the effectiveness of our operations. I traveled throughout the Iraq theater of operations, excepting only the Anbar area, where (because it was a USMC AO) medical operations were carried out by the Navy. I will only say once more: you do not represent the opinions of everyone in the ranks of the military, or of veterans.

And it turns my stomach to see you flaunt your military “credentials” in order to try and deceive others into thinking that you have some kind of moral high ground or any inside knowledge about WMDs or any other topic. You know nothing more than what you read in the emails forwarded to you by other far-right wing loons.

Enough. I’m done with you.

Broadcast television: pablum for the eyes, known (even with good writing/acting) as “filler”, whatever is between “commercials” (with, you may notice, better production values and much attention to detail), which is where the MONEY is. Watch the Cleo Awards sometime. Your eyeballs (and ears, on radio) are sold (as ‘demographics’) to the advertisers. Support local, community radio and TV, at least the ones with NO ‘endorsements’..

GuardSGT, you said:“I have served in Iraq.What I learned there says you are wrong.”None of what you claimed, aside from your observations of Saddam’s residences and Iraqi people thanking you, was anything that you learned in Iraq.