Comments Posted By Brian
Displaying 11 To 20 Of 28 Comments
9/11 TRUTHERS GUT PUNCHED BY HISTORY CHANNEL
More than anything, I resent right-wingers implications that all liberals are so-called "truthers." I am a well-educated, white, middle-class, gay Democrat who does in fact, hate George Bush and his out-dated, offensive and hateful policies (blood for oil is a horrible reason to go war and attempting to deny civil rights to any minorty group is simply criminal). I do not however, subscribe to the conspiracy theories concerning 9/11, nor do any of the people with whom I associate (or they keep it pretty secret, if they do). Any rational person, regardless of his or her political inclinations, knows that the villains behind the events of 9/11 are Bin Laden and the members of al Qaeda, and no one else. The Bush administartion certainly dropped the ball in preventing the attacks, but they quite obviuously had nothing to with their orchestration and/or execution.
Comment Posted By Brian On 22.08.2007 @ 08:44
SCIENTIFIC DEBUNKING OF LANCET STUDY: DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
Mmm...http://crookedtimber.org/2007/07/27/alice-in-wonderland-and-the-lancet-study/ has a debunking of the rebuttal that looks pretty good. From it:
"And looking at the charts in David’s paper, it’s clear to see that the reason why the left edge of his estimate of the risk ratio has been dragged below 1 is that a substantial part of the distribution of his Bayesian estimate of the post-war death rate is below zero (and an even more substantial part is in regions of positive but wildly improbably death rates like one or two per 100K). That’s all there is to it, CT readers; the majority of the rest of the Deltoid thread consists of three or four people trying to explain that the Roberts et al. paper doesn’t make the same mistake."
That would tend to throw a rather large divide by zero moment in there.
Comment Posted By Brian On 27.07.2007 @ 10:05
Moose: "Your a weak-kneed conservative.There is something suspicious about you but i can’t put my finger on it."
It's called clear thinking - a trait often held in suspicion by cult members against the 'outsiders'.
Brian
Comment Posted By Brian On 1.06.2007 @ 15:23
"I guess six years of enduring the unhinged, BDS paranoia and conspiracy theories of the lickspittle left can do that to a man."
Rick, while I like your site and view you as honest (in that you call your side on things as well as the other side), this statement is far off. The Bush Admin. wasn't driven to this; they had the traits of demonizing the opposition early on - look back on contrary comments on Iraq and WMDs back in the day and see the attacks made.
Brian
Comment Posted By Brian On 1.06.2007 @ 15:21
Great article. That is my main problem with the Republicans - the "churchies" - don't get me wrong, I have spiritual beliefs, but I always get a bad taste in my mouth seeing Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, etc. with their pompous preachy utterances. The Democrats as a whole, are so wrong for this country/world, but they, along with the MSM, do such a great job of shaping opinions of those who won't dig for the underlying truth beyond the soundbites and slogans (tax cuts for the rich, culture of corruption, bush lied - people died, etc.). I'm fairly new to the politics game, but does it appear that we are headed for "coalition governments" of the european/israeli variety? And do those structures work well to get things done, or is it constant gridlock? What is one to do when it seems all the parties will be in flux thanks to the Democrats recruiting Republicans to be Republicrats? I guess just make a checklist of what your beliefs/tenets are and then start checking them off...
Comment Posted By Brian On 11.11.2006 @ 22:08
the Dragon:
So, saying MJF is faking his palsy or not taking his drugs to make his disease worse is the same thing as factual criticism of a position?
Okay.
You, poster, are a unicorn porn addict, and were probably writing your entry in between searches of "horny horns" and "forehead foreplay".
Oh, but if I'm wrong, I'll apologize. Maybe.
There - I've critiqued your position and made a vague promise to be big if I'm wrong.
Comment Posted By Brian On 26.10.2006 @ 13:46
2 points:
First, can someone post Rush's actual apology?
Second, doctors asked about this have said MJF was ON his meds when he did the interview. The meds cause the palsy. If he hadn't been on them, he would have been more rigid. The brouhaha about him not taking the meds b/4 Congress was 5+ years away, when the rigidness would not have been noticable but the shaking would have been.
And Rush is completely wrong about MJF never being this bad. I've seen him at awards ceremonies and the like, and he has ranged from being in complete control, to starting to have problems with shaking, to all-out palsy like the ad had.
I would like to see Rush's actual apology, though. Most of what I've read has him saying:
"So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances."
...and then the next day saying...
"I think what they're going to focus on is my statement yesterday that he was either acting or off his medications when he was doing these commercials. It turns out he was off his medication. He was not acting, but he was off his medication, and he has admitted in his own book that he goes off medication before Senate Appropriations Committee hearings and the like in order to illustrate the ravages of the disease."
And how do we know MJF was off his meds, as Rush states he was? Did MJF say he was?
Comment Posted By Brian On 26.10.2006 @ 10:04
THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN: THE DOUBLE PNEUMONIA EDITION
As a veteran of double pneumonia, trust me:
Take it easy.
This is a sickness that saps your energy, and you need all of it to get better. I pushed too hard when I felt better and came w/in 15 minutes of a ride to the hospital.
Comment Posted By Brian On 28.09.2006 @ 20:00
AL GORE: MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR ANTI-AMERICANISM
Leftists, whether speaking on American or foreign soil, who see no redeeming quality in this country, and bend over backward to explain away the actions of totalitarian or rogue governments by referring to America's endless crimes, leave the distinct impression that they are anti-American. There is no alternate explanation for this.
Gore or Carter taking digs at the administration in the presence of fawning foreign audiences is merely a subset of this anti-American tendency. It feeds into it, in fact.
Comment Posted By Brian On 31.05.2006 @ 18:36
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE FOR THE LEAKERS
Those who base their defense of this program on Bush's good-guy trust-me assurances that the government is not actually listening in on calls should pay more attention to what the government is actually doing.
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment...
"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal," Klein wrote....
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets
One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document instructing technicians how to wire up the taps
A "tap" is for listening in on conversations. If all the government wanted to do was data mine call sources and destinations, they wouldn't need "taps", and they wouldn't need to split phone signals into specialized processors.
Don't put your loyalty to Bush ahead of American ideals and your own intelligence.
Comment Posted By Brian On 11.05.2006 @ 17:15
