1. Vladimir Putin poses for a lot of photographs, including on the official Kremlin website, with his shirt off. Sure, but didn’t Yeltsin used to do that?

2. Mitt Romney says things like “Gee Wilikers” and “Aw shucks” a lot. I believe it’s a Mormon thing. I will have to ask my Mormons.
3. George W Bush made a comparison between Vietnam and Iraq. I know from whence this is coming from. His neo-con advisers chest thumped their way to the idea of strong-arming the meaning of Vietnam to, as Bush noted previously, we lost because we quit. I think I knew this was coming right around when I saw the Weekly Standard cover promising that US public opinion had indeed turned in the pro-war favor — the neo-cons are getting feisty, and the Rove strategy is always said to be “Make the weakness into the strength; make the opponent’s strength into the weakness”.

It is amusing that he mentioned I.F. Stone, and This speech was certainly penned by one of the older drivellers from the Weekly Standard; no one else would think to mention I.F. Stone or Graham Greene. That part of Stone’s book is an old standby for a certain generation of “The Right” in their ideological battles, many believing IF Stone — Robert Novak including– was indeed a Soviet agent. Not figuratively, mind you, literally.

At the same time any number of libertarians are found of his quote “All governments lie”, and will use it in a manner that demands the answer to the question “Do you know who you are quoting?”

4. Sum Nunn is rumoured to be planning a “Unity 08” presidential bid. What is the point of that “Unity 08” contraption, again, and what issues are they trying to drive us toward?

5. A teenager took apart an i-phone and reassembled it to allow it to work more properly — ie: against Apple’s restrictions. Australia is in a tizzy. FREE AUSTRALIA!

I think I know, at least in parts, where Nick Benton is coming from with this, with concerns to “a Dennis King”.  I only suggest that it is not necessary for everybody to be singing “Kumbaya”, or on “the same page”.  An interesting thing for one to do is to run to the index of King’s book and go to “Benton, Nicholas” — which I have not done, though I have for “Kronberg, Kenneth”.  But keying in on this:

a Dennis King, in particular, who in his most recent posting, presents himself as the originator of the materials viz. Kronberg, etc., that he outlines in his typically brutish fashion.

and the source for this (whether or not it is Benton himself does not really concern me) makes a little more sense:

You need to know that Nick Benton’s Falls Church News Press was first out with the story of Ken’s suicide, the morning briefing that day, and the financial background.Check it out www.fcnp.com

August 5, 2007 8:11 PM

For whatever it is worth, the Washington Post obituary listed all those Larouche items without mentioning the connection to Larouche for any of the activities, which I believe was there before the FCNP.  The sourcing of Dennis King is attributable to the bear bones fact that the relevant parts of the morning briefing are at his website in its entirety.

In fact, I blame King’s one-dimensional, profoundly flawed book on LaRouche for the fact that many more former members have been intimidated against going public with their experiences in the organization. Who wants to be branded an anti-semitic fascist, even if now outside the organization? […]

I cannot sit back and watch this Dennis King continue trying to define my life from that era or this. He views ex-members as a meal ticket and his latest offering shows very little remorse or correction to his earlier, destructive work.

Then again, from a different angle the comments on his myspace page consist of:

Well Nick, I have to say that this article would make Chip Berlet proud. Shame it ruins your credibility.

AND

Being a slut has never been easy Nick. Be careful, uncle Rupert (Murdoch) is watching you!

The Murdoch reference a pure and undistilled present-day Larouchism — visa vie the current line of attack on myspace.

From parts known elsewhere:  Some of us dropped out with vague ideas of carrying out the battle to save the world on our own terms in a better way perhaps than Larouche. The trouble is, without Lyn the battle lines quickly disappear.
Where, for instance is the line dividing those for and against technological progress? Who are the ones calling for genocide in Africa as a form of population control?
How are we to come to terms with the fact that the most technologically advanced nations have the lowest birth rates? Genocide via advancement?
Most of us stayed in the org longer than we should have because we believed the mantra that “no one else is doing what we are”. It took me nearly a decade to accept the fact that what we were doing was…. nothing.

I found myself looking up a few names to old news articles, and thus I wound my way to the Student Strike at Columbia (though I don’t know that this was “Lyn’s” big burst onto the scene, and the practical start of NCLC) with regards to…

 Tony Papert, as SDS member and a spokesman for teh executive committee of the students Strike Coordinating Committee at Columbia, on both the circulation of the Rudd paper and The New Republic article, that “somebody fabricated this to make it look like a Communist Conspiracy.”

May 13, 1968 NY Times “Some Columbia Trustees Urge Study of October Plan for Sit-In”.
Or, if you want, I could say what The Sparticist had to say about “Lynn Marcus”, but I’m stuck at the mid-1980s with a random paragraph reflecting on an anecdote of a debate with Marcus’s group, and concerning firstly the down-fall of Healy and secondly a seemingly more important task of knocking around Tim Wolhforth — such is the pettiness of these Left wing polemics, it seems.

Somewhat inexplicably, I found myself baby-sitting a 3 year old (I believe that was his age) yesterday for about two hours. I laid out a rather loose ship for him to run around with, reigning him only when he had the desire to run into traffic and throw grass at passing cars. It wasn’t the tossing grass that that was the problem, even if that was an escalation of events that I did not really foresee.

I suppose aiming sticks at each other and going “Bang” was a frivolous enough activity. Which roughly explained my role in the scheme of things: shepherd his destruction to benevolence and away from self-destructive tendencies — he is destroying imaginary or lifeless objects as opposed to himself or others, if you will. I gather that is the m.o. such a boy.

Charming was his creation of “trees”. And somewhere after saying “I made a tree” and before saying “I made a tree” there was the “I made a potty”. Which his father will have to deal with shortly, naturally.

Jump to the final comment on this dailykos diary entry on the political history of interesting and admirable in his own manner but ultimately you’d just as soon leave him on the fringe Presidential candidate Ron Paul: 

Let me understand this…this is a website by communists, for communists and it is attacking the most respected man in congress?

Do I dare ask what you opinions are of Robert Byrd grand wazoo of the KKK? I guess he gets a pass because he’s a leftist racist, such as the ones who run this site?

Or how about Hillary’s demand that people are not allowed to look her in the eye when passing in the hall which is typical of narcissistic dictators? Her racism knows no bounds.

The whole article is not based on racism it’s based on facts of numbers.
The ideas about the Fed Reserve (that it’s a private entity) are true and accepted by those who are educated enough to find out about it.

Dr. Paul is far too beloved to have your petty smears stick in any way.
It won’t change his popularity one bit. He’s teflon. These comments by you are not going to hurt him any more than Bill Clinton’s sexism and racism or Ted Kennedy’s sexism and racism will hurt him.

This whole website which I happened on by accident is a joke written by 13 year olds and will hardly be anything anyone will take seriously.

No Ron Paul is not your friend, because he’s not a disgusting socialist.

This site is in fact run by racists. It’s on many lists of racist, terrorist hate groups because it is likely funded by George Soros a man who turned in his own Jewish counterparts to save his own skin.

So I doubt you are ones to talk.

Um.  Huh?

Regular photo ops with Coleman at Bush’s side aren’t likely. It’s not even certain that the Democrats will get the camera angle they seek a year from now at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. While most departing presidents of modern times have attended their party’s convention and been lavishly saluted there, Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican Convention, said Bush’s involvement “has not been determined.”

The game’s on to guess whether George W Bush will be speaking at the RNC Convention.  His absence would likely have to be more problematic than his presence — in 1984, the Democrats rushed through Jimmy Carter for that reason.  But then, he was not sitting president.

I cannot think of precedents for an absent sitting president not being spotlighted at their convention due to high unpopularity.  Woodrow Wilson was infirm in 1920 (and indeed, wife Edith pretty much the acting president), and unhighly unpopular nation-wide, but the Democrats churned out some well greetings or others.  I think Lyndon Johnson’s name was avoided at the 1968 Democratic Convention.  (If Nixon had staved off impeachment, he might have fallen into this trap, as it were President Ford made minor headlines by passing out his name in his speech.)  After those example, I’ve got nothing.

What does it take to be classified a think-tank?

I’m mulling that one over because of THIS ITEM, a piece of writing that appeared on the “Family Security Matters” website, a self-described think-tank which includes the likes of Laura Ingraham — who, we all know, as that brilliant conservative thinker behind a not terribly interesting or original radio talk show.

I also point to the fabled PNAC, and more to the point the signatures of the famous document — famous in liberal land and conspiracy land, with the references to needing a “Pearl Harbor like event” — which was signed by various officials you know and tend to think of as “thinkers”, and while not signed by George W Bush was signed by Leading Thinker Dan Quayle.

At any rate, Philip Atkinson’s call for President Bush to adopt a “Julius Caesar” model in handling the problems of Iraq and the problems inherent in being a “victim of Democracy” were, evidently, too much for “Family Security Matters”, and have been scrubbed from the site, along with all references to Philip Atkinson.  Whether this a matter of not being in sync with Atkinson’s views or a matter of being embarrassed that several websites found this jarring editorial, we might never know.

I await comments from Leading Conservative Thinker Laura Ingraham.

“Does anything more need be said in the matter of Ken’s suicide?”

Thus concludes that section of Larouche’s internal memo which states, for the record, that Molly Kronberg gave a donation to the George W Bush campaign. I would like to point out that this is roughly the Nth time that we’ve had a pounding at the tables with a demand of “CASE! CLOSED! QUIT LOOKING! MOVE ON!”

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, I suppose. Or creepy conjectures from megalomaniacs, as the case is here. Anyway, here in the real world you take political differences from loved ones with good humor. (Carville – Matalin?) There in Laroucheland, the donation to Bush settles it, the ENEMY OF THE MOMENT and the conspiracy that hinges out of it goes back to BLAME THE WIDOW FOR the death of her husband.

I have half a thought that maybe Molly Kronberg got stalled in Larouche’s rambling political journey sometime around the time Larouche was a Reaganite (adapting his general thrusts to the political climate of the time)? It doesn’t a whole lot matter — But therein lies an irony of his latest Clintonoid – “Right Wing Conspiracy” line, your “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” which for some unexplainable reason is now out to get Larouche has as its greatest hero the man Larouche keeps publishing the one photograph of him sitting next to (a New Hampshire 1980 candidates’ forum which I guess had the legitimate candidates and the fringe candidates all in one place).

While we stew over that — which, I suppose makes some sense to the LYMers infused at the height of a certain manichean world-view, but doesn’t make much sense to anyone else– I point to this as not a terribly good sign for the cabal in the boiler-room.

The big thing in one of the regions now is Dead LaRouche jokes. At least they are funnier than the MySpace jokes, which are stupid.

How will that halfwit Jeff Steinberg manage to exert authority when he doesn’t have a spine? That’s easy. Dead LaRouche will prop him up!

Who has a cure for the politics of male impotence? Dead LaRouche, of course. He’s always stiff.

What’s the stuffing for Dead LaRouche? Nobody knows, but it sure isn’t old copies of EIR. We gotta keep those to sell at full price during deployments.

I am picturing a lot of turned heads, making sure nobody “BIG” is witness to these shenanigans.