November 2006. World's last chance

well, this may reflect a diminution of my own bravado, but when Lynne Stewart was in town for an NLG pep rallly before her verdict, I eschewed attendance iout of (an abundance of?) caution vis-a-vis the inevitable surveillance.

Whereas in the old days, having a dossier meant perhaps employment difficulties if you needed security clearance, these days it can mean you disappear.

I don’t believe any president in the past has asserted the right to disapper american citizens indeifinitely and had the assertion supported by substantial components of public society.

Well, if Eutrolpeand Asia (a small country, but very vocal. Eut’s we’d call them back in the old days) can’t wait the month for Bush to leave office in 2009 then screw 'em, SCREW 'EM ALL!

Oh, no doubt it’s overblown. After all, we have almost gotten over the Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction, so we’ll get over this in time. However I do think GW in his lifetime role of fuckup will take some time to recover from.

The lack of the United State’s ability to continue with our current lifestyle really doesn’t have anything to do with George W. Bush.

Actually, I’d wager that the problem here is an overdose of happy pills.

I first assumed, of course, that you were just poking fun at yourself here, but that seems not to be the case. Good God. You implied earlier that you were going to proofread – dude, what happened?

overdose of happy pills?

now THAT is an oxymoron.

for the rest, I really MUST bump up to 2.25…

Don’t call his ox a moron. Now you’re just being mean.

how cheerful are you after 45 minutes tweezing YOUR carpet…

Um that was to be JEB bush in '09

Yes.

I can see this will be a long time living down…

I recall a character from old Superman comics called Mr. Mxplfxksk (or like that)

Maybe he tried typing on a laptop in the dark without his reading glasses too.

not prudent…

Err - what?

Regards,
Shodan

Self-imposed restrictions due to paranoia don’t count.

Not to defend the action, but Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.

The funniest part was when they made a Saturday morning cartoon of Superman back in the '60s (when I was a kid) and some poor voiceover guy had to actually try to pronounce “Mr. Mxyzptlk” out loud. And the plot always depends on tricking him into saying his name backwards to get rid of him. As if frontwards wasn’t bad enough, someone had to also pronounce “Kltpzyxm.”

**

*Arguably true–I might just be a punk;

On the other hand, I never much minded having a file till now; like I said, who care’s about the odd blacklisting here and there.

And, for what it’s worth, I fought in the old revolution.

(that would be the one we lost)

**True, but I don’t believe the conditions of incarceration were quite so, shall we say intrusive of body cavities and the like. Nor were the poor unfortunates held incommunicado, nor were the near and dear denied even the knowledge that they were being heldl, nor were they held without at least a broad categorical bill of

Moreover, the peril to the nation was,without peradventure, exponentially greater than anything we face from the most deeply embedded, fiendishly empowered, and larger than life islamicist.

I suppose we won’t belabor poor old FDR, since his atrocities at least did not extend to an assertion that the americans of Japanese descent “concentrated” in lush rustic hideaways could not communicate with their families

(ed note: Um, their families were there too…)

well, you get my drift.

Add the considerable technological resources available to the modern major-geeral, and I would submit that the net of which I complain is wider by a factor of 1000 than anything Lincoln could cast, the cross-references and inferences generated by the said net manifold, and the opportunity to defend oneself, even absent the availability of the Great Writ to Lincoln’s detainees, far more truncated.

Moderator’s Note: Alas, it does not appear that a Great Debate has flowered into being here.