"One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look," the president said during an appearance at a high school here.

His war on terror speech came after a moment of silence for the victims of the Monday shootings at Virginia Tech in which 33 people, including the shooter, died.

In a question-and-answer session, the president was asked by a student what he thought should be done to ensure safety in schools.

He said he didn't want to draw conclusions from the Virginia case because "they're still digging out the facts." But he suggested that concerns about privacy violations, while understandable, may be preventing people from taking needed action.

Could the man be anymore inane, uninformed, and patrician?

First of all plenty of people questioned Cho's behavior. What no one in authority was willing to do was turn him out of the university for his very aberrant behavior. His problems were so noticable that, at least one guy, guessed who was responsible for the rampage when he first heard of the shootings. (See post on my main blog)

Bush's statement coming from the kind of leader he has been and the government he has around him after he and his cronies placed underqualified overloyal lackies in important places, such a statement smacks of "1984".

I'm hoping he's just being extra stupid while trying to cover for the fact that this time he isn't even giving the dead at Virginia Tech the decency to call a commission to study what should be done so he won't have to deal with 'gun control' questions.

Add to your disturbance by reading further in the USA report to where Bush singles out Internet use as a source of danger. In fact, Cho actually did not have much of an Internet life. But many people in the Bush administration have decided the free speech of the Internet is a threat, and it is to the kind of lies they like to tell, the kind of grandstanding they do after every tragedy, even the ones that they have had a hand in producing or allowing.

Bush 41 and Don Rumsfeld are two other important Republicans that have warned that the free speech of the Internet is dangerous and needs to be controlled and now we have more hints that the Bush administration thinks the Internet is dangerous.

It is truly sad that they don't seem to be able to turn off the propaganda machine even at moments like this.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Why Does this Continue to Happen, and Still We Have No Effective Gun Control?

You may remember that, after the killings at the Amish School, the president called a big conference to act like he cared.

And at that conference he and others like him decided we didn't need effective gun control laws.

And their thoughts were, of course, what his government acted on. Those who actually wanted to keep people safe from whatever killer wants to start shooting in a public place were ignored.

So now the president, once again, goes into his speechifying pose ready to make much political hay out of the deaths of these young people while continuiong to block action on a truly effective gun control.

We did more after the assassination attempt on President Reagan than we will do for to keep our children from terror and death at the hands of someone who is having a bad week and decides to act out some Rambo-Matrix scenario to fix it.

I know the Democratic Congress is going to do something. We should support them all the way on that effort.

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Washington's Iraq Chimeras

John Brown and Ray McGovern write on the fallacies over Iraq that the Bush administration would like us to believe but aren't true.

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Sunday, November 19, 2006

Addendum to Internet Trolls Analysis

I forgot to add:

The mother.

The mother with a parcel of kids who has lots of time to post politics on the web.

That person is usually being paid (which means the family can eat pre-prepared foods etc.) or is a retired male. We found this in the more intimate forums and chats we used know (now unavailable), and I think it is pretty obvious in the behavior of some of the "mothers" that are for killing strangers in far countries because of "terra" and "Jesus" we see on the internet.

I think the Democrats are going to be investigating to see if Faith Based Charities are being used to promote Christian and right wing propaganda. That would be against the law for all parties involved down to the lowest levels. I don't know what the little people working such a scam think. Maybe they riff on the instance in the Bible in which the pharisees told the disciples not to preach. The Disciples answered back that they would obey a higher authority. But in that case it was a matter of preaching, not a matter of stealing (from the American taxpayer) to support one's preaching. I'm sure the Lord would never condone the theft of money to support one's preaching or more often propagandizing with a short reference to the Bible or something religious added in.

And in fact, a few years ago a southern preacher was arrested while robbing another bank (out of a series). He said he needed to rob banks so he could afford to continue preaching. I guess he thought the Lord would close his eyes to such a scam because it was supposedly for His own good. I'm sure he prayed before he did each job, not to get caught. God is not so easily fooled

My friend Lissa Sue (Lissa's Blog 4 Life-- see my profile) has found that mothers of young children don't have time to do a lot of politicking if they are doing it honestly.

My wife and I have yet to tell her that it just gets worse as the kids get older. As they grow they need rides constantly until they learn to drive and you can afford their insurance, but then they need oversight and lots more help than you can imagine. (Since she does read our blog here, I guess the cat is out of the bag. Sorry Lissa, but no one told us and it was quite a shock. You needed to learn this sometime.)

I know a lot of people give the oversight of their children off to the kids' peers or some church group and then they reap the whirlwind back. That is not a family idea or a good idea. It's more important to be there when your kids need to talk or some other help than to fix the fattening family dinner every night. (We are now finding the tremendous amount of help in time and attention even goes beyond the point where the kids get married and start having kids of their own. This is one of the reasons why my wife and I fight for a decent socio- economic and political climate in our country.)

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Internet Trolls: Identification, Anatomy, Psychology, and Management

Internet Trolls are not like the ones in Harry Potter, The Hobbit, or various fairytales, big, ugly, dumb, and violent. Well, sometimes they're not like that, at least.

The best basic way to describe Internet Trolls as a group is to note that they're all pretending to be something that they are not.

Of these pretenders, there are various kinds..

The name "Troll", I believe, first came from flying propagandists who would surf from forum to forum posting the same pre written propaganda in each (usually talking points from other people's writings or hate radio). This is how I first became aware of the word "trolling" and the name "Troll" as used on the Internet. (Smart Trolls have dropped the flying behavior as most forum users ignore such junk postings these days.)

The flying "Trolls" as I first encountered them were pretending that they cared about the forum, that the propaganda was their own work, and that they would be around to answer any discussion of what they were posting.

I'm going to make a guess since I had a father who was fishing every weekend that he wasn't rockhounding (didn't we all, Boomers?) that the word "trolling" as used for such forum spammers was based on "trolling" in fishing. For non-boat fishers "trolling" is where you have the line in the water while someone is moving the boat slowly. I've forgotten what that was good for besides the enhanced potential of upchucking breakfast due to seasickness.

Lately, I've seen the word used more for people pretending to be moderates when they are clearly right wing ideologues. (And, I'll be honest with you, I've heard of liberals who go play in Free Republic. I suppose they pose as "moderates", too.)

Many times older people will pretend to be younger, for various reasons, most of them pretty disgusting even when political.

Lots of posters pretend to be "in Iraq" fighting. People I know who have been "in Iraq" say the likelihood of a deployed soldier having free personal time on a computer and then wasting it in a political forum is little to none. We have caught nondeployed soldiers using government computers to post and have notified their superiors, but never have we seen proof of a deployed soldier using free time to work political forums. I'm sure they have a heck of a lot better things to do with the little computer time they get like emailing friends and family. I'd call these Military Trolls, but they most likely are not in the armed forces.

But, in the end, the most perverse "Troll" is the person who takes political discourse and then turns it into a barrage of insults.

Sometimes this is blamed on "young people", but the poster using character assasination techniques is no more likely to be young than to be old or even middle aged. (I belonged to a group with forum and chats in which we could get to know people. This is what turned out to be true there. I am assuming it is true elsewhere, too.)

The personal attacker is usually, right wing and has few verifiable facts with which to prove his or her case. Instead, he or she attempts to use psuedo facts learned from Rush Limbaugh or other hate radio or TV, or talking points emails, etc. Either pre-emptively or when challenged, the Troll begins to attack imaginary personal flaws of his or her challengers. Sometimes the Troll doesn't even offer his or her own arguments or pseudofacts, but starts in slicing and dicing instead.

But, though the purveyor of personal attacks must have a personality that allows such behavior, it is more than the result of a character flaw.

The technique of character assasination is described in some of Hitler's writings as a way to win at political discussion. It's also supposed to drive some of the most intelligent and capable of debaters from the table (or the forum board) in abhorrence, or sometimes even self doubt. At least that is the hope of the "Troll". I don't think it works as well as it did in Hitler's day, and partially that is because of the wild ways of the web. We've toughened up because we had to.

To counter a Troll who is into character assasination in the guise of political debate, you can start by outing the person as someone using a technique from Hitler's playbook. Then tell them that is not the way to debate decently.

If the attack Troll has actually put forward some psuedofacts, ask him or her to back them up with an Internet linkable sources.

And I admit that, for these kind of Trolls, I'd rather think of them as ugly things with warts and dirty hair. My graphics friend says he'll make me a pic or two of some Internet Trolls of the character assasination variety.

Remember "Shallow Hal"? I think it is perfectly reasonable to picture people on the outside being like they act from the inside.

It does help to laugh to yourself at the Internet Trolls who degrade the discussion by using personal attacks, pseudofacts, and false dealings.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Calif. congresswoman who has criticized airline no-fly list finds her name in database

A Congresswoman from Southern California who has gone to bat for some of here Arab-American constituents got a "taste" of the hassle they go through, herself last week.

Excerpt Boston Herald article (same title as above):

A California congresswoman said she was briefly denied access to a United Airlines flight last week because her name appeared on a "no fly list" set up after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat who has been a critic of the no-fly list, said her staff had booked her a one-way ticket from Boise, Idaho, to Cincinnati through Denver. But they were prevented from printing her boarding pass online and at an airport kiosk.

Sanchez said she was instructed to check in with a United employee, who told her she was on the terrorist watch list. The employee asked her for identification, Sanchez said.

...
"I handed over my congressional ID and he started laughing and said, 'I'm going to need an ID that has your birthday on it,"' Sanchez said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

The employee used Sanchez's birth date to determine she was not the same Loretta Sanchez on the list, and she was able to board her flight, she said.

Ms Sanchez knows that it might take 6 months to get a name off the terrorist watch list. As a busy Congressional she doesn't need the extra delay every time she tries to board.

"When they want to, TSA can make sure that you don't have that identification problem," she said. "Sometimes it's taken us months to get these people off the lists so they can travel in a normal way. I can't have to worry about that."

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California Governor's Ban on Gifts Doesn't Mean for Himself or Top Aide

Aides are ordered to not take so much as a cup of coffee from special interests while his top aide is signed up for 12 day junket in luxury hotel.

Excerpt LA Times article "Governor's ban on staff perks isn't perfect":

Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, sent a memo to the governor's aides in August explaining that by taking gifts, even if the law allows it, they could create a public perception that they have been compromised.

when in doubt … pay for the item yourself kennedy wrote.

In a separate letter to Schwarzenegger's staff, his legal counsel, Andrea Hoch, said aides could not attend any of the governor's campaign fundraising events unless they paid for their food and drink.

But the Spartan ethic comes with loopholes. Kennedy is scheduled to join lawmakers and state officials on a 12-day trip to South America next month that is sponsored by a tax-exempt group financed partly by energy companies and other businesses that lobby in Sacramento.

The visitors plan to stay at a hotel in Buenos Aires that is rated by one travel guide as "the most exclusive" in the city. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the trip doesn't violate the gift policy because Kennedy will deliver a speech as the governor's representative.
...

The trip's purpose is to study technologies aimed at reducing global warming, said Patrick Mason, president of the foundation. He would not reveal who is going, citing security concerns.

He sent an e-mail to participants this week asking that they not speak to The Times about the trip. The e-mail, which was obtained by the newspaper, was sent to officials at Chevron, Southern California Edison, the environmental group the National Resources Defense Council, and to some Schwarzenegger administration officials, among others.

Two companies that said they were planning to attend maintain a lobbying presence in Sacramento: Sempra Energy and the cable giant Comcast. Sempra owns San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas Co., both of which are regulated by the state Public Utilities Commission.

PUC Executive Director Steve Larson will be among the guests on the trip.

Sempra pays $30,000 a year in dues to the Foundation on the Environment and Economy. The firm is going because Sempra believes that it is important to "provide policymakers and elected officials some background that is helpful in making informed decisions," said company spokesman Art Larson (no relation to Steve).

Watchdog groups said the South America trip gives lobbyists extraordinary access to government officials — access that others don't get. They also said that if state officials think the trip is important and justified, taxpayers should pay for it.

Read rest at source (link above).

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Monday, October 23, 2006

Tillman's Brother Takes on the Bush Administration
Category: News and Politics

Which party supports troops, families, and veterans better? See post below.

Pat Tillman's Brother Blasts Iraq War, Bush

You go boy!

"Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this.

and to the Bush administration:

"Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes,"

Link to Truthdig article

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