Its about time for another open thread. This one will be pinned to the top. Enjoy.
96 Thoughts to “Open Thread August 26, 2010”
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All contents copyright Moonhowlings.net
Blogroll
- 9500Liberty
- Bacons' Rebellion Blogspot
- Bearing Drift
- Blue Virginia
- Citizen Tom
- Counts of Monte Cristo. The
- Derecho, The
- Dixie Pig, The
- My Side of the Fence
- My Star Journey
- NARAL Pro-Choice VA Blog
- New Dominion Project
- Nova Common Sense
- NovaTownHall Blog
- One Libertarians's Point of View by Al Alborn
- Pete Candland's Blog
- Potomac Local
- Prince William Muckraker
- PW Conservation Alliance
- PWC Moms
- PWCPolitics.com
- PWCPolitics.com
- Red NoVA
- Shad Plank, The
- She the People
- State of NoVA, the
- The Jeffersoniad
- Townhall
- VEA Daily Reports
- VivianPaige
- WDGolden.com
- You, Me and the Lamp Post
‘Are You Muslim?’ Question Leads to Cabbie Stabbing, Hate Crime Charge
Driver Answered Yes, Passenger Pulled Knife, Says NYPD
By AARON KATERSKY, MARK CRUDELE and RICHARD ESPOSITO
Aug. 25, 2010
A New York City cab driver was attacked Tuesday evening just after 6 p.m. by a passenger who asked him if he was Muslim, says the NYPD.
As the cab headed north on Third Avenue, Enright allegedly asked Sharif, who is of South Asian origin, “Are you Muslim?” When Sharif confirmed that he was Muslim, police say, Enright stabbed him multiple times.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/muslim-question-leads-cabbie-stabbing-hate-crime-charge/story?id=11480081
This was bound to happen given all the inflammatory rhetoric of late.
As GOP civil war rages, Democrats look to benefit
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer – Wed Aug 25, 10:23 pm ET
WASHINGTON – A Republican civil war is raging, with righter-than-thou conservatives dominating ever more primaries in a fight for the party’s soul. And the Democrats hope to benefit.
The latest examples of conservative insurgents’ clout came Tuesday at opposite ends of the country. In Florida, political newcomer Rick Scott beat longtime congressman and state Attorney General Bill McCollum for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. And in Alaska, tea party activists and Sarah Palin pushed Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the brink of defeat, depending on absentee ballot counts in her race against outsider Joe Miller.
The GOP is likely to survive its bitter intraparty battles in such states as Alaska and Utah, even if voters oust veteran senators in both. But tea party-backed candidates might be a godsend to desperate Democrats elsewhere — in Nevada, Florida and perhaps Kentucky, where the Democrats portray GOP nominees as too extreme for their states.
If Murkowski joins Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, as a victim of party activists who demand ideological purity, other Republicans are still likely to win in November, though Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would have to deal with more maverick members who are loathe to compromise. And the conservative insurgency is hardly all-powerful, as Sen. John McCain proved by easily winning renomination in Arizona despite a challenge from the right by J.D. Hayworth.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100826/ap_on_el_se/us_republican_fight;_ylt=Ajtk0bBfuopV59QMkSVgSQKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNqaDlzM2R2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwODI2L3VzX3JlcHVibGljYW5fZmlnaHQEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMyBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNhc2dvcGNpdmlsd2E-
I feel so bad about the Republicans’ having all these fights among themselves. I doubt they’ll win either chamber of congress back this fall.
So is this situation signal third party or what?
Trying to understand here….is this the pure ideological conservatives vs the Republcan party? Ideology generally doesn’t win in a general election, from either side. Most winners come from the center, whether it is real or a make over.
I don’t know. That Miller guy from Alaska wants to phase out Social Security and Medicare because he says they’re unconstitutional. That may play well in Alaska, but I don’t think that people in the other 48 states are going to like that idea.
I don’t think they will like it either. Lots of seniors to vote that guy out of office. Alaska has all that oil money. You betcha!
Tuesday’s tutorial: a GOP too far right
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Republicans are in the midst of an insurrection. Democrats are not. This vast gulf between the situations of the two parties — not some grand revolt against “the establishment” or “incumbents” — explains the year’s primary results, including Tuesday’s jarring outcomes in Florida and Alaska.
The agitation among Republicans is not surprising, given the trauma of the final years of George W. Bush’s presidency. After heavy losses in 2006 and 2008, it was natural that GOP loyalists would seek a new direction.
Liberals who saw Bush’s presidency as a failed right-wing experiment thought Republicans would search for more moderate ground, much as Britain’s Tories turned to the soothing leadership of David Cameron to organize their comeback. But this expectation overlooked the exodus of moderates over the past decade, which has shifted the balance of power in Republican primaries far to the right.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/25/AR2010082504997.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Looks like Herndon’s “Guard Dog” party is getting back into the game after a few months of licking the wounds from a nasty election defeat.
http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=2026
Though I have yet to seen any members of this new socialist faction accosting the poor innocent citizens of lovely Herndon, supposedly they are looking to mire the town in an immigrant/terrorist/ liberal town council socialist uprising…
How convienient that this group should just randomly pop up now…good thing our ever ready nativist militia leaders are ready to sic the dogs of justice on them.
Keep us posted Rod.
It see that Ken Mehlman, former Chairman of the Republican National Committee and head of President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, has publicly announced that he’s gay. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/08/former-rnc-chairman-ken-mehlma.html As a fellow American, I’m glad he has the right to choose to live his life however he sees fit, but I can’t overlook the irony given the draconian anti-gay positions the RNC and Republican party candidates took under his leadership. We may at some point run out of coal and oil but we’ll never have a shortage of hypocrisy.
Far From Ground Zero, Obscure Pastor Is Ignored No Longer
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: August 25, 2010
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If building an Islamic center near ground zero amounts to the epitome of Muslim insensitivity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of Terry Jones, the evangelical pastor here who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans?
Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”
But now the global spotlight has shifted. With the debate in New York putting religious tensions front and center, Mr. Jones has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment.
Muslim leaders in several countries, including Egypt and Indonesia, have formally condemned him and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center.
An Islamic group in England has also incorporated his efforts into a YouTube video that encourages Muslims to “rise up and act,” widening a concern that Mr. Jones — though clearly a fringe figure with only 50 members in his church — could spark riots or terrorism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
This could get very ugly.
A fatwah a day from the Grand Iman Cooch as he imposes
Tea Party shiria law upon the infidel moderates of Virginia.
@Big Dog
That’s Awesome Big Dog… Does that mean he’s part of the Tea Party Taliban?
yup, that’s right guys… “TEA PARTY TALIBAN!” and it’s not just a funny name, I see many similarities in both groups views on what a perfect conservative world should look like.
I’ll be interested to see this weekend how much closer Glen Beck will come to his Afghan based bretheren…
Bravo, Big Dog, bravo!!!
Brilliant. That is exactly what seems to be happening.
Moe, there seems to be a great deal of hypocrisy. Now John Edwards is just a crud ball and a liar but he isn’t a hypocrite like Sanford and many of the others. So we now have a new leader of the pack.
“Tealiban”
Glen Beck and Al Sharpton both holding rallies downtown this Saturday. That’s going to be quite a spectacle.
Anyone planning to attend?
Punchak, it sounds like a good way to get killed.
Rod, good one, Tealiban.
You gonna be around Nov 3 so I can laugh at you openly?
@Moon-howler
WHAT A WAY TO GO !!!
You may be overestimating Sharpton and his gang of merry race-baiters.
If there was even the remotest possibility of violence breaking out between the 8/28 crowd and Sharpton’s gang, I’d be there ready to go! But alas, the two events are separated by some time, I understand, so no fun….sorry!
@Starryflights
It’s truly frightening the way the Muslim haters have been able to stoke the fires.
The frothing at the mouth is almost as wild as just after 9/11.
Slow, who is it that you think is going to win in Nov? Anyone in particular? My US rep always wins. No point in even going to the polls.
No fan of Sharpton here. He has made too many blunders that he refuses to acknowledge. No fan of Becks. He is just full of it.
I will stay as far away as possible.
Moon
I find it immensly disturbing that two characters like Sharpton and Glen have been able to stir up so many people, and that the two of them will take over Washington on such a special date. Happenstance, Beck says! My foot!
Never thought I’d use the word but it does come to mind at this point: “SHEEPLE”!
Reminds me of the craziness about 2K coming and everything was going to collapse. People bought supplies to last them for months. A friend of mine in Calif. went out and bought a generator for her little house. Guess the majority is easily led. Then we had the swine flu that was going to be a pandemic; not enough vaccine; people in line for hours to get a shot, etc. etc.
Easy to scare the masses, it seems.
@Starryflights
I was going to post this, too. That anyone could think God would want hatred like that is beyond me.
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
Please don’t say that. My daughter will be there with her friend.
@punchak–it ought to get real weird in DC tomorrow– a great reason to stay as far away as possible.
Both Beck and Sharpton do what our friend George describes as Ready, fire, aim. Bad habit to get in to.
Not to defend Slowpoke but I am the one who said it.
I sure wouldn’t let my kid go to that. Shudder!
Just read that Pres. Carter is on his way back to the US with, now free, Aijalon Mahli Gomes who has been held in a North Korean prison for some time.
Last year Pres. Clinton brought back two women.
Former presidents are evidently good for SOMEthing 🙂
North Korea gives amnesty to illegal aliens.
August 26, 2010 10:55 A.M. EDT | By Matt Taibbi
Tea Party Rocks Primaries
The Fox/Rush/Savage crowd in the last 18 months has taken the anti-Muslim fervor that launched a phony war in Iraq, carried George Bush to re-election, and pushed through the Patriot Act, and re-directed that anger at a domestic nonwhite enemy. In doing so they’ve achieved a perfect storm of political cross-purposes: they’ve almost completely succeeded in distracting the public from the real causes of their economic misfortune (i.e. Wall Street corruption), they’ve re-energized a Republican party that was devastated by eight years of Bush-era corruption and incompetence, and, as usual, they’ve made Rupert Murdoch a shitload of money.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/195177/83512
An acquaintance posted this note this morning:
Today (Thursday), my wife & kids went to Bloom in Annandale to get some groceries. Another shopper walks up to her, signals something to her face and shouts to her and the kids, “No Muslims! Leave and go home! Go home!” My wife exits with the kids while Z, who’s 3 and a half, asks his mother, “Why was this man yelling at us?”
When Lee Greenwood sings “Proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free” I believe he needs to add another verse that lists all the caveats that now appear to apply to the free part or at least explain that “I” is not an inclusive term.
You didn’t MEAN for this to be funny, did you?
Yeah, we should be more like North Korea! Brilliant!
That is awful Moe, just awful.@Morris Davis
@Posting as Pinko
All I said was that nothing would happen because the events are separated by time. No worries!
@Morris Davis
So the question on everyone’s minds……….are they Muslim?
I’ll be there handing you the tissues when your down on your knees crying because the tea party split the republican vote and Obama just slid right back in…
That is if a Tea Party member does not assassinate the President before then.
Slowpoke:
I don’t get your comment. – Last year Pres. Clinton negotiated with North Korea and was able to get two American women, who had been imprisoned in North Korea, out of there and brought them back to the USA.
@punchak
I have always liked Bubba, but if it’s a dude, they send Carter. If it’s two attractive young chicks, Bubba is on that plane! Bubba is nothing if not a smooth operator!
You are right….if Obama is re-elected on Nov 3, nobody will be more surprised than me…….genius.
FYI – Second Manassas was fought August 28-30 1862 — 148 years ago.
May want to visit the railroad cut and reflect on marching up
hill with bullets coming at you “like a hail storm” or maybe
visit the NY5th monument and discover if you hear the ghosts of
Hood’s Texans just before they crash through the trees
and kill over 300 surprised Union troops in less than five minutes.
Historical Shock and Awe — just down the road.
Thanks for the reminder, Big Dog.
I cannot imagine the brutality of that war. What were they thinking?
Men standing out in open fields shooting at each other weapons that continually needed to be reloaded. Things sure have come a long way in 148 years in the killing business. Even more scarey is the thought of those who get saved…what strides have been made in battlefield medicine. shudder.
@rod2155
>You gonna be around Nov 3 so I can laugh at you openly?
>>I’ll be there handing you the tissues when your down on your knees crying because the tea party split the republican vote and Obama just slid right back in…
I didn’t realize Skittles was up for election this year.
@Starryflights
> August 26, 2010 10:55 A.M. EDT | By Matt Taibbi
Ah yes. Taibbi. That’s an objective mental giant to quote.
He also authored “The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death Of The Pope”.
http://www.nypress.com/article-11215-the-52-funniest-things-about-the-upcoming-death-of-the-pope.html
I am most uncomfortable with mention of assassinations being made on this blog. I don’t particularly want the FBI or other agencies at my door confiscating my hard drive.
Sorry, I didn’t see the comment or I would have spoken earlier.
Many of us have witnessed too many political assassinations in our lifetime to think that they are even remotely funny.
@Morris Davis
>>>An acquaintance posted this note this morning:
That’s terrible! I read something similar from my neighbor’s plumber’s friend. He said that when he was in Giant, the guy in the deli said his dentist heard from the cable guy that….[skipping: beer run]….and that Beck is not actually in the Illuminati but the scalper at the Verizon Center said his dog-walker told him that…. [skipping: nachos too!]…..and it was Palin, Cuccinelli and Stewart, and not the one-armed man, that actually did it! The Walmart greeter was innocent!
When Lee Greenwood sings “Proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free” I believe he needs to add another verse that lists all the caveats that now appear to apply to the free part or at least explain that “I” is not an inclusive term.
Well, don’t stop there. How would you suggest we re-write “America The Beautiful” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”?
@Moon-howler
Good call! I cringed, and I’m glad you caught it!