AdamSmith

Further, it occurs that Republicans are a bit stymied in that many of Obama's to me objectionable actions are right in keeping with conservative preference -- maintaining Guantanamo, drone-striking anything that moves, strengthening the police state at home, etc. ("Conservative" as practiced today, needless to add. Not anything that, say, Prescott Bush would recognize. Or even such as Alan Simpson, as he himself remarked the other day; ditto Bob Dole.)

In turn I agree, again, with your observation just now and a little bit earlier: If even the ACLU sounding alarms can't wake up a majority of the "liberal" polis, we have fallen sleep with the motor running and have only to wait for the carbon monoxide to fill up the garage.

That is to say: If the Republicans had kept their powder dry for the real targets that now present themselves, they might have stood a chance of starting a serious discussion about it. But they went all crazy over either fairly stupid or entirely imaginary shit, and thus blew their wad on, comparatively, nothing.

And do so before he kills himself and/or others speed-racing through the burbs of Calabasas. One of Bieber's managers quietly abducting and exiling evil influence Lil Twist would be a start.

Don't recall this being much if at all discussed here when it was released Sept. 2011. Still seems only too relevant. Report - A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years After 9/11 September 7, 2011 Download the Report » An ACLU report release to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 warns that a decade after the attacks, the United States is at risk of enshrining a permanent state of emergency in which core values must be subordinated to ever-expanding claims of national security. (More on Civil Liberties After 9/11 ») The report, entitled, "A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years after 9/11," explores how sacrificing America's values – including justice, individual liberty, and the rule of law – ultimately undermines safety. (Read the full report ») Everywhere And Forever War The report begins with an examination of the contention that the U.S. is engaged in a "war on terror" that takes place everywhere and will last forever, and that therefore counterterrorism measures cannot be balanced against any other considerations such as maintaining civil liberties. The report states that the United States has become an international legal outlier in invoking the right to use lethal force and indefinite military detention outside battle zones, and that these policies have hampered the international fight against terrorism by straining relations with allies and handing a propaganda tool to enemies. A Cancer On Our Legal System Taking on the legacy of the Bush administration's torture policy, the report warns that the lack of accountability leaves the door open to future abuses. "Our nation's official record of this era will show numerous honors to those who authorized torture – including a Presidential Medal of Freedom – and no recognition for those, like the Abu Ghraib whistleblower, who rejected and exposed it," it notes. Fracturing Our “More Perfect Union” The report details how profiling based on race and religion has become commonplace nationwide, with the results of such approaches showing just how wrong and ineffective those practices are. "Targeting the American Muslim community for counterterrorism investigation is counterproductive because it diverts attention and resources that ought to be spent on individuals and violent groups that actually pose a threat," the report says. "By allowing – and in some cases actively encouraging – the fear of terrorism to divide Americans by religion, race, and belief, our political leaders are fracturing this nation’s greatest strength: its ability to integrate diverse strands into a unified whole on the basis of shared, pluralistic, democratic values." A Massive and Unchecked Surveillance Society Concluding with the massive expansion of surveillance since 9/11, the report delves into the many ways the government now spies on Americans without any suspicion of wrongdoing, from warrantless wiretapping to cell phone location tracking – but with little to show for it. "The reality is that as governmental surveillance has become easier and less constrained, security agencies are flooded with junk data, generating thousands of false leads that distract from real threats," the report says. “A Call to Courage” points out that many controversial policies have been shrouded in secrecy under the rubric of national security, preventing oversight and examination by the public. "We look to our leaders and our institutions, our courts and our Congress, to guide us towards a better way, and it is now up to the American people to demand that our leaders respond to national security challenges with our values, our unity – and yes, our courage – intact." READ THE FULL REPORT » MORE ON CIVIL LIBERTIES AFTER 9/11 » Download» Download (1.69 MB)This PDF file can be opened with the free Adobe Reader http://www.aclu.org/national-security/report-call-courage-reclaiming-our-liberties-ten-years-after-911

I tend to agree. And your remark prompts the thought: Wonder if the broad middle ground of voters would have an easier time seeing the dangerous extremism in some of the Obama admin's actions if the opposing party were not so in thrall to its own extremisms at present? This occurs to me partly in context that even when liberal klaxons like the ACLU sound the alarm, nobody much listens. Think I'll now start a new thread on their 2011 report "A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years After 9/11," which was briefly reported, then seemed to sink like a stone.

P.S. Agree completely. Couple years ago I caught a few M.A.S.H. episodes on one of the rerun channels, and was surprised how tedious they seem now. One of those series great in its time that has not aged well.

Thank you!! I agree 1000%. But so few seem to like them -- or at least admit to it. I wonder if you, I and Letterman might be their biggest remaining fans. He thought they were the funniest thing on TV in their day.

...I am large; I contain multitudes. (Insert favorite image of double penetration here.)

Yeah, producing a live show with all that unpredictability must have been hair-raising. As for your other point, I can agree with stopping drinking before breakfast, so long as one resumes immediately afterward.

TY's point about Improv is well taken. As is RA1's similar point that performance is as important as the writing. Here a slightly different slant -- a whack at the 50 most influential shows ever, courtesy the U.K. Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2311378/The-50-TV-shows-time-After-experts-named-influential-shows-guru-goggle-box-say-left-stonking-classics.html ... which list reminds that our lists above could also have included Fawlty Towers, Brideshead (swoon), arguably Python ...

It is a video chat service, with document sharing, for 2 to 10 people I think, and it records the session. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/G/google_hangouts.html http://mashable.com/category/google-hangouts/ http://mashable.com/2013/05/09/google-hangouts-business/

The shooting of Ibragim Todashev: is the lawlessness of Obama's drone policy coming home?Once a state gets used to abusing the rights of foreigners in distant lands, it's almost inevitable it will import the habit George Monbiot The Guardian, Monday 3 June 2013 15.50 EDT Did the FBI execute Ibragim Todashev? He appears to have been shot seven times while being interviewed at home in Orlando, Florida, about his connection to one of the Boston bombing suspects. Among the shots was the assassin's hallmark: a bullet to the back of the head. What kind of an interview was it? An irregular one. There was no lawyer present. It was not recorded. By the time Todashev was shot, he had apparently been interrogated by three agents for five hours. And then? Who knows? First, we were told, he lunged at them with a knife. How he acquired it, five hours into a police interview, was not explained. How he posed such a threat while recovering from a knee operation also remains perplexing. At first he drew the knife while being interviewed. Then he acquired it during a break from the interview. Then it ceased to be a knife and became a sword, then a pipe, then a metal pole, then a broomstick, then a table, then a chair. In one account all the agents were in the room at the time of the attack; in another, all but one had mysteriously departed, leaving the remaining officer to face his assailant alone. If – and it remains a big if – this was an extrajudicial execution, it was one of hundreds commissioned by US agencies since Barack Obama first took office. The difference in this case is that it took place on American soil. Elsewhere, suspects are bumped off without even the right to the lawyerless interview Ibragim Todashev was given. In his speech two days after Todashev was killed, President Obama maintained that "our commitment to constitutional principles has weathered every war". But he failed to explain which constitutional principles permit him to authorise the killing of people in nations with which the US is not at war. When his attorney general, Eric Holder, tried to do so last year, he got himself into a terrible mess, ending with the extraordinary claim that "'due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same … the constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process". So what is due process if it doesn't involve the courts? Whatever the president says it is? Er, yes. In the same speech Obama admitted for the first time that four American citizens have been killed by US drone strikes in other countries. In the next sentence, he said: "I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any US citizen – with a drone, or a shotgun – without due process." This suggests he believes that the legal rights of those four people had been respected before they were killed. Given that they might not even have known that they were accused of the alleged crimes for which they were executed, that they had no opportunities to contest the charges, let alone be granted judge or jury, this suggests that the former law professor's interpretation of constitutional rights is somewhat elastic. If Obama and his nameless advisers say someone is a terrorist, he stands convicted and can be put to death. Left hanging in his speech is the implication that non-US citizens may be killed without even the pretence of due process. The many hundreds killed by drone strikes (who, civilian or combatant, retrospectively become terrorists by virtue of having been killed in a US anti-terrorism operation) are afforded no rights even in principle. As the process of decision-making remains secret, as the US government refuses even to acknowledge – let alone to document or investigate – the killing by its drones of people who patently had nothing to do with terrorism or any other known crime, miscarriages of justice are not just a risk emerging from the deployment of the president's kill list. They are an inevitable outcome. Under the Obama doctrine, innocent until proved guilty has mutated to innocent until proved dead. The president made his rejection of habeas corpus and his assumption of a godlike capacity for judgment explicit later in the speech, while discussing another matter. How, he wondered, should the US deal with detainees in Guantánamo Bay "who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted – for example because the evidence against them has been compromised or is inadmissible in a court of law"? If the evidence has been compromised or is inadmissible, how can he know that they have participated? He can suspect, he can allege, but he cannot know until his suspicion has been tested in a court of law. Global powers have an antisocial habit of bringing their work back home. The British government imported some of the methods it used against its colonial subjects to suppress domestic protests and strikes. Once an administrative class becomes accustomed to treating foreigners as if they have no rights, and once the domestic population broadly accepts their justifications, it is almost inevitable that the habit migrates from one arena into another. If hundreds of people living abroad can be executed by American agents on no more than suspicion, should we be surprised if residents of the United States began to be treated the same way? • A fully referenced version of this article can be found at monbiot.comTwitter: @GeorgeMonbiot http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/03/ibragim-todashev-drones-policy-obama?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-4%20Pixies:Pixies:Position4

Also, if we can include short-run series, then def I, Claudius and Upstairs, Downstairs.

Sorry! Got diverted by ihpguy's rectifications. Meant to say: I was just teasing hito. About his teasing me. By not letting me treat him as a sex object. Yet.

10 is a good tight number. Lacking the discipline to do that, nonetheless here are a few more that at least I think make it into the top 25 or so, one way or another: The Honeymooners I Love Lucy SCTV Fernwood2night (c'mon) The Carol Burnett Show (special notice to "The Family" skits & spinoff "Mama's Family" show) Star Trek (TNG at least) Sanford & Son (aww please "Naw, these are just the glasses I use to find my glasses" ) The Jack Benny Program Dr. Who Are You Being Served? SNL (the early years) South Park The Simpsons Twin Peaks (maybe?)

Actually I am finding an increasing number of software companies I consult to are holding meetings/briefings via Google Hangout.

Mmmmmm. Pics?

LOL For an electrical engineer, a rectifier converts AC to DC.

They also don't always seem to have quite the same feel of -- I would almost say authenticity, or at any rate urgency, or something like that -- as in the past. This may be just old-fogey nostalgia. But I took part in the Stonewall 25 event in NYC in 1994, and that was a tremendously moving time. I remember walking along beside Armistead Maupin for a little while, and listening to him exclaim softly how unbelievable it was how far things had come. But that was 19 years ago -- not that much less than the time span from the original Stonewall riots to that 25th-year anniversary. Maybe the feeling of urgency in publicly agitating for social change is beginning to ebb -- rightly or wrongly -- now that broad public acceptance is, slowly but apparently surely, on the horizon.

Hint: See the second of my 2 signatures here.

Did I not just rectify that?

I seem to recall differently.

Dear heart. It is from an online thing called Hollywood and Swine. Here is another piece from there: O.J. Simpson In Talks To Join Cast of Keeping ‘Up With the Kardashians’ “Naked Gun” star O.J. Simpson has revealed he has begun preliminary talks to join the cast of the E! Entertainment’s hit reality series, “Keeping up With the Kardashians,” if he’s successful in convincing a judge to release him from the Nevada prison where he’s currently serving a 33-year sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery. According to “Keeping Up with The Kardashians” producer, Ryan Seacrest, Simpson is the perfect addition to the show’s cast, since he’s as synonymous to the name Kardashian, as sex tapes and marrying NBA players. O.J. Simpson in his jail cell, watching episodes of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” in preparation for him joining the show. “Robert Kardashian helped get O.J. off for double homicide, just like Kim Kardashian helped Ray J get off in their famous sex tape,” Seacrest told Hollywood & Swine. “But O.J. joining the cast is far from a done deal. He has some major conditions he needs to meet first, like getting released from prison, and more importantly losing weight after he got so fat while behind bars.” E! Executives believe Simpson, who Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Rob called Uncle O.J. while growing up, will help breathe new life into the hit reality series, as it enters its upcoming eighth season. Most of the conflict will come from the fact that Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner is still holding onto her grudge against Simpson, for allegedly murdering her good friend, Nicole Brown Simpson, along with Ron Goldman in 1994. Bruce Jenner is also reportedly holding onto the same grudge against O.J., but no one knows for sure since years of plastic surgery have left the former Olympian’s face devoid of any emotion. “If you thought Kris hated Courtney’s boyfriend Scott Disick, you should see the looks Kris gives me,” Simpson said. “But Kris is a business woman so she’ll get past her history with me for the sake of the show, because even she’ll admit the one thing O.J. Simpson has never been accused of killing is television ratings.” http://hollywoodandswine.com/o-j-simpson-in-talks-to-join-cast-of-keeping-up-with-the-kardashians/

You would also have to hide all the turkey basters. But if we don't do something soon, we can sit back and wait for the viruses to do it for us -- the total H. sapiens biomass now seems too rich a host to pass up. If not some mutation of the emerging MERS virus (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57586716/scientists-on-mers-deadly-virus-may-linger-longer-than-once-thought/), then possibly some future variant of Ebola that does not kill quite so quickly, thus allowing time to spread before the host population is wiped out. Or etc., etc. Failing that, of course, collapsing food stocks and water supplies loom. A global population of 1.5 billion to 2 billion people is one commonly cited estimate of what the planet can realistically support, if we want any kind of sustainable life worth living.