8 Minutes On High

My NY brick church

April 30th, 2009 by Max

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My NY classic columns

April 29th, 2009 by Max

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My NY big white house

April 29th, 2009 by Max

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My NY farm hill

April 28th, 2009 by Max

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My NY Peachtown

April 27th, 2009 by Max

Does this refer to the Clinton Sullivan Campaign?

They named the General Clinton Canoe Regatta after a man who killed and burned the crops of Native Americans all the way across My New York.

Why not take a classic symbol of New York Indians and use it to refer to a guy who killed by starvation all of the Indians in his path? Why not name a canoe event after an Indian killer?

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Obsessed

April 27th, 2009 by Max

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Well, its clear its cruel

April 27th, 2009 by Max

Here is a memo from this lawyer Bybee. It says we have a guy, an al Qaeda leader, who probably has information and we haven’t been getting as much as we feel we need from him. So we want to get rougher. But there’s a law against torture.

So the CIA asks the Office of Legal Counsel if the stepped up interrogation that they want to do is torture.

http://media.npr.org/documents/2009/apr/terrormemo_bybee.pdf

A couple thoughts.

Its certainly cruel.
You couldn’t do it (constitutionally) to an American citizen.
The bad guys are a criminal gang. Imagine doing these things to John Gotti?

This is why a big problem I have with the Bush Administration is their idea that you can grab anyone and declare them an enemy combatant. That removes all rules.

But its a “war” right? Like the war on drugs? Or the war on poverty?

Ok, we know these guys are bad guys (Some really are but do we allow the US government to declare anyone it wants to be an enemy? Richard Nixon had a whole list of enemies!)

But this guy is a prisoner and he really is bad. I believe that. And their only stressing him, right? And … its 2002. Less than a year after his buddies killed 3000 American innocents

He really IS a bad guy.

But what about Cruel and Inhuman? And what about My Lai? The court said if you get an illegal order, you are obligated to not follow it.

So this memo – these memos make it “legal” to do harsh interrogation. Is it torture? Does it matter?

They make the case that this doesn’t cause undue pain or psychological damage. But come on. If it causes someone to perceive that they are being drown, isn’t that psychological torture.

So lets say we are torturing this guy, just like the Office of Legal Counsel is torturing these definitions.

Should they do it anyway? If it saves American lives?

There is debate on the efficacy of these techniques and I don’t presume to know if they work or don’t.

I believe in saving American lives. And I believe in “preserve protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America.”

The question then becomes what happens when those two worthy ideals are in conflict with each other?

I believe that George W Bush is an idiot. I believe that Dick Cheney is “around the bend” with self righteousness (as is Abu Zubayda).

Should those two (Bush and Cheney) have been allowed to decide what is right and what is righteous? Especially since reports say that the then President Bush didn’t go to a lot of these meetings.

I don’t feel good about Cheney being the arbiter of right and wrong.

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Still that same weekend

April 23rd, 2009 by Max

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My New York

April 23rd, 2009 by Max

Pretty stream up near Aurora

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Hypocrites

April 23rd, 2009 by Max

Seriously. These Republicans need to look in the mirror. The rear view mirror.

When they were dragging the country through the most divisive exercise since Andrew Johnson by impeaching Bill Clinton for “disassembling” (sic) about extra marital sex, it was perfectly ok to be divisive. And if you remember, the country stopped cold. Things were VERY partisan. The Senate, which was Republican, impeached him on a party line vote. The House, which was Democrat, voted him not guilty along a party line vote.

Now that Democrats want to look into illegal, no, I should say unconstitutional behaviors, under the Bush administration, well then, Republicans say “that would divide the country”!

Hypocrites!

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The Constitution

April 23rd, 2009 by Max

Here’s why we need to have an investigation, an honest investigation, where ever it takes us, of the activities of the Bush administration.

We simply need to reestablish the Constitution of the United States, and not the whim of Dick Cheney or the hapless W, as the ultimate arbiters of who can be picked up and put in jail, whether or not they can be held without bail, and if they can be treated in cruel or inhuman ways.

We need to get back to the Constitution which may have been irreperably damaged by the W.

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More from ‘Zuma

April 22nd, 2009 by Max

Same trip – almost two weeks ago.

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Texas is controlling your schoolbooks …

April 20th, 2009 by Max

And its being run by a young earth creationist.

Don McLeroy is pushing his wacky, ideas into the selection process of public school science curricula. And the Texas decision influences almost all other states decisions … or at least they have in the past. You should work to have your states science curricula not follow the Texas lead.

http://tfnblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/what-does-don-mcleroy-really-want-to-teach/

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Things that bug Max

April 18th, 2009 by Max

Mr. Obama just appointed a “Border Czar”. How about a Border Manager?

The Czar’s were bad. Why do we keep naming things after them?

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More bird pictures from the ‘Zuma

April 13th, 2009 by Max

Yes, many many more pictures on the way. These are some of the birds I saw and a small portion of the pictures I took.

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PJ’s

April 12th, 2009 by Max

Ok. Baseball is conservative, old, old fashioned. I saw one of the Fab Five talking about how they started the hip hop fashion trend in the NCAA basketball finals some years ago at Michigan.

Hip hop baggy clothes have started to appear in baseball.

I’m old. Conservative. So I put the question to the public. When you see CC Sabathia or Prince Fielder in their pajama looking uniforms – do YOU think they look stupid?

And one more question – you think that clothes that hang so loosely would impede their athletic performance

Posted in Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Sports | 8 Comments »

Osprey!

April 12th, 2009 by Max

Here’s the first and may be the best picture from my trip to Montezuma yesterday. There’ll be more, I haven’t even looked at all of them yet.

She just landed in a nearby tree and started eating

Posted in Arts, My New York, Photos, Science | 3 Comments »

Millie Throughly

April 11th, 2009 by Max

My friend Linda and her friend Crystal have put on plays for years now; since Linda’s oldest was in third grade, and he’ll graduate from college in a couple more weeks!

Leah, the youngest, was in her senior play this year, and despite this being their first production completely without my help … they put on their best show ever. Here’s some evidence.

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More pictures

April 10th, 2009 by Max

Guess what? Birds!

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The mess (or only The W could have done this!)

April 6th, 2009 by Max

Yes. I’m going to rant on The W again. But here’s the thing. I was listening to the news about the N Korean missle launch, and how … really, there’s only one thing we can actually DO about the North Korean nuclear weapons program, and we realistically can’t do that, when it occurred to me that this one problem, if solved would be a great accomplishment, and the Big O has a raft of these to deal with.
Here are some that I can think of right now, that good ole W left for President Obama:
1. North Korean nuclear weapons program.
2. Iranian nuclear weapons program
3. Relations with China (if you think this isn’t too big of a problem, remember that China told us a couple weeks
ago, that America should make sure that we are good creditors. A not so vauge hint that we owe them a trillion dollars.
4. Speaking of the economy – The economy
4.a. The recession
4.b. The failure of 2 of three American car manufacturers
4.c The collapse of American home prices
5. The bank failures – no banks. No economy. Notice this is 5th!?
5.a The so called “Credit Crunch” – really the central economic problem. It affects all the others.
6. Global warming. (The Bush Administration worked against the acceptance of it. Score one for Al Gore.)
7. The war in Iraq. Remember that? We’re winning right? But I wouldn’t say “Mission Accomplished”!
8. The war in Afghanistan. People are now calling this Mr Obama’s war. (Really? Mr Clinton’s war would even be closer to it!)
9. The war in Pakistan! Potentially the greatest problem on the planet. Terrorists with 60 nuclear weapons. Not so hard to imagine any more!
10. Consider the aging baby boomers and Medicare. Health care costs in general.
11. Unemployment specifically.
12. You pick this one from what I missed …

I’m going to refer back to this list from time to time, and see how we’re doing.

Its a ridiculous array of problems (should I call them traumas?). And truly, only George W could have taken over during a time of peace and prosperity … and left with this mess!

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