courtesy of the Clinton Presidency.

Also, regarding car loans; the increasing delinquency of car loans isn't surprising, giving the current housing crisis. First one, then the other.

for putting up these open threads! As an early riser I appreciate it.

the Bush administration agreed on Wednesday to show the Senate and House Intelligence Committees secret Justice Department legal opinions justifying harsh interrogation techniques that critics call torture.

It isn't as big a victory as it sounds. The Justice Dept is still not going to share all their secret opinions & Executive Orders. For instance:

"At the hearing, a department official, John P. Elwood, disclosed a previously unpublicized method to cloak government activities. Mr. Elwood acknowledged that the administration believed that the president could ignore or modify existing executive orders that he or other presidents have issued without disclosing the new interpretation....Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, challenged Mr. Elwood, saying the administration’s legal stance would let it secretly operate programs that are at odds with public executive orders that to all appearance remain in force...The hearing, of a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was called by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. Mr. Feingold accused the administration of a “sinister trend” of promoting “secret law.”

So....the bush43 Administration admits they can order up secret laws and hold American citizens to account for a law no one outside the Executive branch knows about.

I'm curious......what form of democratic government does that fall under? Oh! Yea, I guess it would fall under the totalitarian branch of democratic government.

Sorry but....I wasn't aware that a Democratic government had a totalitarian branch. What else don't I know that bushco won't tell us?

May Day

The holiday dates back centuries to pre-Christian Europe.

Leave a basket of flowers for a special friend to mark the beginning of summer.

And as irony would have it, in my neck of the woods, it's snowing. *sigh*

Also known as International Workers Holiday a day to honor the working class.

This is the day to promote workers rights, social justice and universal peace.

So skymutt, GoRight, and myself have been having a long and in-depth discussion about the Sean Bell case in last Friday's open thread. I would personally find it convenient to be able to easily find these posts in future.

I know that people have had similar sort of conversations in open threads that contain useful information and do a good job of exploring a topic, and it would be helpful for someone just getting interested in that topic to be able to find those conversations. For example "the administration lied about Iraq" debate has been hashed to death.

I would like to have a simple mechanism for "storing" long discussions. I would like anyone to be able to add or modify the links, and I would like it to be organized in an intuitive fashion.

This is sort of in line with the wikipedia-type function we talked about having for SC in the past, but an easier version because there is no need to write anything new, I just want links to past discussion.

Any suggestions? The easier the better =)

detailed here . Sample:

Me: Gotcha. Can she touch other parts of her body?

Her: She can, but it can’t be stimulating. So she can cup or squeeze her breasts, but she isn’t allowed to tweak her nipples, for example.

DATE: April 29, 2008
TO:   USF & NRA Member and Friends
FROM: Marion P. Hammer
      USF Executive Director
      NRA Past President

In the fight for your firearms freedom, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation were determined to kill Florida's HB503, the bill that protects your right to keep a firearm in your vehicle for personal protection. They even threatened the Legislature and the Governor with a lawsuit. The Legislature was not intimidated -- they passed the bill. Governor Charlie Crist (R) was not intimidated -- he signed it into law. They stood up for you. They stood up for law-abiding gun owners and your self-defense rights against the big business bullies that were trying to eliminate them.

Six days after Governor Crist signed the bill into law, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation rushed into federal court and filed a frivolous lawsuit to try to have the new law overturned. They had already bragged to the media that they would spend huge amounts of money to fight to negate your constitutional and statutory rights.

On April 16 the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported: "The Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation are ready to pay a legal tab they expect to total at least $250,000 to counter what they term an assault on private property rights."

They are relying on Disney, Publix, Walmart and other anti-gun corporate giants to fund their assault on the Legislature, Governor Crist, and on our right-to-carry.

We need your help to raise the money to fight this blatant attack on you and your right to protect yourself and your family.

PLEASE send a contribution TODAY. No matter where you live. No matter what city, what county, what state -- this is a fight that affects all of us. Right-to-carry laws are meaningless if corporate bullies are allowed to eliminate them on a whim.

Click here to send a contribution today.

All 29 ports on the West Coast, including the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, have been effectively shut down this morning as thousands of dockworkers stayed home to protest the Iraq war. The walkout comes two months before the contract between dockworkers and and port operators expires.

Interesting.