In response to my two colleagues here at Athene Biz regarding Carol Darr and the Champions of PAC rights, I say not to worry. They weren't counting that blogging would turn into what it has... their fear isn't justified but expected. I imagine though, that the day they try and control it, an outcry will come the likes they have never seen. They may be laying a ground-work for some attempted legislation, but in the end, the only way it can be stopped it is to turn off the internet, and we all know there is just too much money in the game to do that. They're going to have to deal with all of "us", like it or not. The real worry is that a plethora of "Psycho pundits" and "know-it- alls" will dilute the words of the wise.

CONCLUSION?

Much ado about nothing.

There's an IMPORTANT article at Crooked Timber, written by Henry. The focus is how two diametrically opposed blog titans, The Daily Kos and RedState have found something they actually agree upon... their dislike for Carol C. Darr and her statement:

"Political blogging could create loopholes, that should be closed."

She seems to have infuriated both sides:

"clueless embarrassment" (in the words of Daily Kos) who was peddling a "cheesecloth-flimsy" argument (RedState).

With blogging, in part, turning into journalism, she proposes certain types of blogs should fall under the umbrella of the campaing-finance law. No matter which side of the fence one might sit, what is really being proposed here is controlling our freedom of speech. Putting big government red tape on the little man that would in effect help to crush OUR voice.

We here at Athene Biz say, forget about whether you agree with Daily Kos or Red State's politics, that isn't the issue. The issue is, that THEY are trying to take OUR voice away by forcing poli-blogging into an endless sea of red tape. The beauty of the internet and what activists like Red State and Daily kos, as well as Josh Marshall and Ace of Spades has done is that they've forged a successful way for you and I and the rest of us to be heard. The real loophole here is how FATCAT politics is planning to take away your voice, by default. Support the right to freedom of speech and do everything you can to stop ANY political agenda that attempts to disrupt this process. WHATEVER the party!

Kudos Kos

Kudos Red State

The Iran Daily reports:

TEHRAN, April 26--Ministry of Defense announced it has successfully designed and manufactured the NBC protective clothing.

Do not confuse NBC clothing with a Jay Leno T-shirt or baseball cap, it stands for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological clothing roll, as seen above.

I'm not so sure what scares me more, that Bush is considering "nuking" Iran or that Iran is preparing for that eventual outcome. My conclusion is... (transmission interruptus)

...is that our President is SO funny!

You'd think that after 2400 U.S. deaths in Iraq, it might do something to dampen the spirit of the night, right?

Nope. He rocked!

He's SO funny!!!

 

 

On Friday, candidates seeking the Democratic Party nomination to run against U.S. Senator Conrad Burns met in Missoula for a debate on the issues. The format began with questions from the moderator, followed by questions from the audience, and concluded with a press question and answer session.

Montana State Auditor John Morrison left early in the debate to allow him to avoid questions from the audience and press – leaving many questions unanswered about Morrison's role in the David Tacke securities fraud scandal. Morrison has refused to comment on the revelations in a Missoula Independent cover story titled, Why the Morrison Affair Matters [hint: it's not the adultery]

Morrison declined repeated requests for an interview by the Independent. “We feel like we’ve already responded to this story,” Morrison campaign spokeswoman Tylynn Gordon told us, referring to a multi-hour sit-down Morrison conducted with Lee Newspapers’ state bureau reporters Mike Dennison, Charles S. Johnson and Jennifer McKee March 31. During that interview Morrison described his marriage, which survived the affair, as a story of redemption, which surely answered someone’s question. But when it came to his handling of a securities fraud case aimed at David Tacke, the husband of Morrison’s former mistress, the auditor has left more than a few questions unanswered.

Since the story broke, Morrison has continued to claim he was cleared by the press, while refusing to talk about the new revelations in the Morrison story. He recently told the Choteau Cantha:

In a separate interview, Morrison responded to a question about his 1998 affair and his office's handling of a securities fraud case involving the woman's husband in 2003. Morrison said the affair is ancient history and a subject that concerns only him and his wife. He said the press did a comprehensive investigation of the securities case and found that his office handled the matter in an appropriate way.

However, Morrison wasn't cleared by the press. The day after the initial report broke, the Great Falls Tribune reported:

Still, [the Cook Political Report's Jennifer] Duffy said that the fact that Morrison hired an outsider indicates "he knew there was a problem, and what he really needed to do was recuse himself entirely and put it in the hands of a deputy and never, never be involved with it."

However, a 2002 release from the Auditor's Office quotes Morrison as personally ordering Tacke to stop issuing, offering and selling stock in Venue Tech.

And the Missoula Independent story on John Morrison is changing people's minds about the affair. Democratic blogger Kos of Daily Kos first called it a non-scandal, but after reading the Independent article posted that the Morrison scandal IS serious:

However, it turns out that the first draft of the story omitted serious facts, and it turns out that the scandal really is a scandal. It's bad. [...]

It took the feds to hold Tacke accountable for his actions, which calls into question why Morrison was so unwilling to enforce the settlement. The obvious answer given the circumstances is that Tacke had that big ace up his sleeve -- if Morrison aggressively enforced the agreement, Tacke could reveal Morrison's affair with his wife and damage or end the auditor's promising political career.

Montana's election will be based in large part on ethics, given that Republican incumbent Conrad Burns was Abramoff's BFF in the Senate. Morrison is tainted in this scandal not just by the affair stuff, but by evidence that the affair affected his ability to carry out his official duties.

It shouldn't take federal investigators to protect Montana investors from sleazy con artists. That was Morrison's job, and he failed dramatically, all because he apparently wanted to protect his political career.

Likewise, this morning the Great Falls blog Electric City Weblog concluded "it's over" after reading the Independent piece on John Morrison:

I actually read the whole article, and it smells really, really bad. Mr. Morrison apparently put his _____ where it didn't belong and, worst case scenario, found himself in a position of having to investigate someone with knowledge of his indiscretion. It looks like the person under investigation received an awful easy deal in hopes of keeping his mouth shut.

I originally thought it could be written off as typical bureaucratic laziness and ineptitude, but the Independent author makes a good argument that there was actual misconduct here.

This story has legs, on Thursday, the Political Wire referred to the scandal as "brewing". The Montana bloggers are correct, John Morrison needs to come clean on the ethics question before the primary.

The blog was originally posted here on April 9th.

Today was Palm Sunday. In church this morning, children waved palm branches back and forth as we sang our opening hymn.

Dennise skipped church (don't tell...) to get down there early, and meet the other elected Latino/a officials who would be marching at the head of the parade. I'm proud to tell you that she was able to help lead the march, locked arm in arm on the front row, alongside our very good friend, Rafael Anchia (below, he's off screen, just to her left in the second picture...) on one side of her, and our friend Roberto Alonso on the other. Also leading the line were Hector Flores, Domingo Garcia, Dr. Elba Garcia , Pauline Medrano, Steve Salazar, and one of Dennise's mentors, Adelfa Callejo.

From left: Bill Callejo, Pauline Medrano, Adelfa Callejo, Hector Flores, Domingo Garcia


Continuing along the line: Domingo Garcia,(Roberto's son?), Roberto Alonzo, and Dennise (Rafael Anchia is just out of frame)

(stills from Channel 23)

Maria and I arrived a little after 1 pm, only to realize that the march was well underway at that point. In fact, we'd learn later that the police and organizers had actually started it early, because there was no more room for folks to line up behind them.

Maria and I marched with two other folks from our church, Ron Wilhelm and Marilaine Jones. There were probably more members there, but we were never able to hook up with them. We marched in line for almost three city blocks before we ever reached the STARTING POINT of the march. Here are a shot I took from my camera phone. As you can see, we're several blocks from the starting point of the march (the Cathedral on the right), and it's wall-to-wall people:



It went on like this for as far as you could see. In fact, Dennise called us on her cell phone about five minutes later, to say that she was already at city hall. That's when I knew this thing was going to be HUGE. Because her call meant that the entire parade route was packed with people, from start to finish, and beyond. Here is a link to some raw helicopter footage from Channel 5. (follow the link and click on the "raw footage" link for the best arial video I've seen...)

We marched down most of Ross, passing First Methodist on the way. The good folks of that church had set up with water and gatorade for the marchers. I saw my friend, Jay Cole, who is their minister of outreach. And I saw their Senior Pastor John Fiedler, fresh from preaching twice that morning, out in front of the church on the street with his shirt sleeves rolled up, dipping out cups of water as fast as he could. Made me proud of all of them.

We made a turn at the other end of downtown, traveling down one of the North-South streets. (The name escapes me now...) About then, the line divided into two waves that marched back down Commerce and Jackson Streets, toward City Hall. We got to City Hall, and stayed there for about an hour, leaving at around 4 pm. And even as we left, we could see folks STILL streaming into the area around City Hall for the first time...the march was still going on....THREE HOURS after it started!!!

Everyone in the crowd wore a white shirt, to symbolize peace. And almost everyone of the huge crowd waved American flags. I have never seen so many people in one place, and never seen so many American flags in one place.

And, to everyone who is reading about this march and more than a little afraid of the size and scope of it, hear this: half a million people marched through downtown today, and there was not one single arrest. Not one.

There were families of several generations walking side-by-side. Lots of those. There were mothers pushing baby strollers. Lots of those too. There were lots and lots of young people everywhere you looked. But nobody was throwing punches, or smashing in store windows. No one was swimming in the pool at city hall, or speaking words of violence.

Just half a million people there, to support America not badmouth it. They were there to show how much the love this country, not destroy it.

No one there, that I could see, had anything bad to say about white people or America. All they wanted was to be seen...to be acknowledged, to be affirmed as part of the American landscape. They wanted to show how they contribute to our society. In fact, we saw workers from the Magnolia Hotel, marching down the street in their work uniforms...straight from work, they came.

As we approached the stage at City Hall, we saw that there was a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty on the stage, and the song Neil Diamond's "America" was playing on the loud speaker.

All in all, an absolutely amazing day....
-------------------------------------------------
Although the bill has died in the Senate, those who support it are still alive. And they might well introduce something like it again. So, let me speak to parts of the bill that were most controversial to me personally. The bill out of the House would have made it crime to give aid to an immigrant who was here illegally. That House bill specifically referenced churches and clergy, and said that they too would be subject to a arrest should they aid illegal immigrants.

Imagine what this would mean for our friends over at North Dallas Shared Ministry! Imagine how much THEY might be in jeopardy each day! Or imagine what might happen to any minister anywhere who hopes to aid someone coming in off the street!

Such legislation is anti-Christian. That's right. You heard me say it...anti-Christian. I challenge anyone to point out the scripture where Jesus tells us to only help those from your home country. You know my email address...find it and send it to me. Go ahead.

In fact, several times in the Gospels, the local folks get really ANGRY at Jesus precisely BECAUSE he tells them to help those who are from foreign lands!!

Imagine if this law had been in effect at the feeding of the five thousand. You know that story...five thousand men --so, it was probably twenty thousand total-- gathered by the shores of Galilee. They are hungry. They are tired. It's late in the day. And so, the Bible says, Jesus "has compassion" on them. And through the miracle of the fish and loaves there is enough food for all.

Odds are that, among twenty thousand folk, there were a few that were immigrants from foreign countries. I mean, just do the math! There was no admission gate. Folks just came out by the lake shore. Can you imagine the scene? Just after Jesus gets done feeding these people, the authorities arrive:

"Um...I'm sorry Jesus...we're going to have to take you in....you've just given fish and bread to some illegal Samaritans. You have the right to remain silent...anything you say can be used against you...."

Outrageous!

Or, imagine that there was a wall between Samaria and Israel. (You will remember that one of the other provisions of the House bill was to build a wall to separate the US and Mexico). Had there been a wall between Samaria and Israel, there might not have ever been a "Parable of the Good Samaritan." And, of course, the whole POINT of that parable is to remind us how our "neighbor" is often the person we despise...the person from a different country and race...the person we think we have nothing in common with.

But beyond the bad ideas of these proposed bills, we must confront an ugly truth. The ugly truth is that Latinos and Latinas are
being used in this debate as political footballs for the upcoming election. This issue is being raised now for the same reason that the issue of gay marriage was raised before the last election. Because some people in our society know that spreading fear and dividing people sells.
----------------------------

Can you tell I feel a little passionately about all this? Well, I do. There's nothing like marrying someone named "Garcia" to help crystalize the issues for you. It becomes about your family. It becomes the stories of people you love most dearly in the world.

So, I want to tell you some of my own frustration these last two weeks, and some of the things I have heard said about Latinos and Latinas. For example, I have heard radio commentators encouraging us to remember that most Hispanics are not illegal immigrants. Which is, of course, true. Most Hispanics aren't immigrants of ANY KIND. Most Hispanics are proud and contributing members of our society, and people of deep and abiding faith. AND! Some of them have been here longer than you....

Which reminds me of a story.

When Dennise was in Junior High in Irving, she had to take Texas History, as we all do in Texas public schools. And she came home one day and her Mom, "Ma, we're learning about the Alamo in school!"

To which her mother said, "Oh! You had relatives that fought at the Alamo."

So, the next day, Dennise returned to school and gleefully told her teacher, "I had relatives that fought at the Alamo!!!"
To which the teacher asked her, "Which side?" Well, Dennise had never considered this. As an Irving girl her whole
life, she'd never thought about "which side."

So, she went home to ask her mother, "Ma, which side?"

To which her mother told her, "Oh, Mija, the side that won."

There are Hispanic families here in Texas that predate any of the rest of us. Some even once fought on what we assumed then was the "other" side. But they have been proud Americans for decades.

The other thing I have heard in the past week are ugly stories about how Latinos and Latinas do not assimilate. There are ugly things being said about people who speak Spanish as a first language, and the claim is being made that they'll never learn English.

Let me say this: I do not know a SINGLE Hispanic family where the parents do not want their children to learn English, learn it fast, and learn it well. Not one. In the families I know, in fact, they sometimes do not even speak Spanish to their children, in the hopes that the children will assimilate faster.

When my father-in-law, Richard Sanchez Garcia, was a boy in West Dallas, he made a mistake that he didn't know was a mistake. He went to his neighborhood Dallas Public School and he spoke Spanish one day. For this grave sin, a teacher locked him in the closet for the rest of that day.

He never forgot that lesson. And when he had his own children, he chose to not teach them Spanish at home, to the point that they had to pick it up by osmosis...at family gatherings around the tamales and menudo. Eventually they did pick it up.

But, paradoxically, thirty-years-later, when his own son, Richard Garcia Jr, got to school (not knowing more than a couple hundred words in Spanish) they took one look at his brown skin and put him in a Bilingual Education class!!

There is a lot of ignorance about Latino/a culture out there. And I certainly do not claim to know all there is about the culture myself. But I DO know enough to know this: The race card is being played by certain politicians, and it's been played here to divide
us all against each other. And we should not stand for it.

Maybe you have seen the pictures of the young people protesting in the past weeks, skipping school in many cases (something, by the way, I can't condone...). And I know what some of my friends have been thinking. They've been thinking "Look at all those unassimilated brown folks!!"

But nothing could be farther from the truth. As Macarena Hernandez wrote in the Dallas News last week, most of those kids are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. They speak English quite well. They have iPods, and they buy their clothes at The GAP. In some ways, this fight over immigration is not evern their fight. But they are, in fact, standing up for their parents and their grandparents. They are, in fact, living out one of our great commandments: honor thy father and mother.

Today was a day that honored all Americans.

And, as a person of faith, it was a day that reminded me a lot of Palm Sunday. Because, in every way imaginable --both at church and this afternoon-- that's what today was.

 

 

Have you ever noticed that anti-establishment and the Democratic party goes hand-in-hand? Ever notice they are the only cynics of American power? Ever notice how unless they can protest something, be against something--they have nothing to say?

Who else can find fault and accusation in every single issue, and with every single popular leader? According to the Democrats--all Republicans are rich, racist, and liars. According to the Democrats, Republicans are destroying this country--by not letting the Democrats change it. Only Democrats can save America from itself!

Yeah, right.

Democrats never have a plan--only taxes. Yes, if we only had more money--why, we could unite the the world, end racism, hunger, curb violence, stop terrorism, and stop teens from smoking and having sex. (Of course, if they do have sex, the Democrats think that is OK. Especially if they are born gay--then they are simply being free!)

Democrats have a knack for bumming out people who can see clearly. They have a knack for, well--whining. They also believe if a Republican is unpopular--he should therefore be impeached. But not Bill Clinton for receiving oral sex from a young intern (somebody's daughter)--and then lying about it and obstructing justice. Yes, forget about Bush trying to spy on terrorists--the "politics of personal destruction" against the popular Mr. Clinton was the real crime...

Do Democrats have any stands, unless theer is an opponent to cut down? NOt really. Do they have any values? Well we know they support gay marriage, abortion, stem cell, and absolute freedom of speech, ebonics, and removing restrictions on foul language and sex on TV. They oppose anything patriotic, wholesome, positive, and anything to do with 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, or American power. And, they love the UN, and hate religion.

Great values, guys....

No wonder despite his mistakes--the American People chose Bush over your candidates.

No successful society shows a spontaneous tendency towards multiculturalism or multiracialism. Successful and enduring societies show a high degree of homogeneity. Those who support multiculturalism either do not know this or, what is more likely, realize that if they are to transform Western societies into strictly regulated, racial-feminist bureaucracies they must first undermine those societies.

This transformation is as radical and revolutionary as the project to establish Communism in the Soviet Union. Just as every aspect of life had to be brought under political control in order for the commissars to impose their vision of society, the multiculturalists hope to control and dominate every aspect of our lives. Unlike the hard tyranny of the Soviets, theirs is a softer, gentler tyranny but one with which they hope to bind us as tightly as a prisoner in the Gulag. Today's "political correctness" is the direct descendent of Communist terror and brainwashing.

Unlike the obviously alien implantation that was Communism, what makes multiculturalism particularly insidious and difficult to combat is that it usurps the moral and intellectual infrastructure of the West. Although it claims to champion the deepest held beliefs of the West, it is in fact a perversion and systematic undermining of the very idea of the West.

What we call "political correctness" actually dates back to the Soviet Union of the 1920s (politicheskaya pravil'nost' in Russian), and was the extension of political control to education, psychiatry, ethics, and behavior. It was an essential component of the attempt to make sure all aspects of life were consistent with ideological orthodoxy – which is the distinctive feature of all totalitarianisms. In the post-Stalin period, political correctness even meant that dissent was seen as a symptom of mental illness, for which the only treatment was incarceration.

As Mao Tse-Tung, the Great Helmsman, put it, "Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul." Mao's "Little Red Book" is full of exhortations to follow the correct path of Communist thought, and by the late 1960s Maoist political correctness was well established in American universities. The final stage of development, which we are witnessing now, is the result of cross-fertilization with all the latest "isms:" anti-racism, feminism, structuralism, and post-modernism, which now dominate university curricula. The result is a new and virulent strain of totalitarianism, whose parallels to the Communist era are obvious. Today's dogmas have led to rigid requirements of language, thought, and behavior, and violators are treated as if they were mentally unbalanced, just as Soviet dissidents were.

Some have argued that it is unfair to describe Stalin's regime as "totalitarian," pointing out that one man, no matter how ruthlessly he exercised power, could not control all the functions of the state. But, in fact, he didn't have to. Totalitarianism was much more than state terror, censorship, and concentration camps; it was a state of mind in which the very idea of a private opinion or point of view had been destroyed. The totalitarian propagandist forces people to believe that slavery is freedom, squalor is bounty, ignorance is knowledge, and that a rigidly closed society is the most open in the world. And once enough people are made to think this way, it is functionally totalitarian even if a single dictator does not personally control everything.

Today, of course, we are made to believe that diversity is strength, perversity is virtue, success is oppression, and that relentlessly repeating these ideas over and over is "tolerance and diversity." Indeed, the multicultural revolution works subversion everywhere, just as Communist revolutions did: judicial activism undermines the rule of law; "tolerance" weakens the conditions that make real tolerance possible; universities, which should be havens of free inquiry, practice censorship that rivals that of the Soviets. At the same time, we find a relentless drive for equality:

the Bible, Shakespeare, and rap "music" are just texts with "equally valid perspectives;" deviant and criminal behavior is an "alternative life-style."

Today, Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" would have to be repackaged as Crime and Counseling.

In the Communist era, the totalitarian state was built on violence. The purges of the 1930s and the Great Terror (which was Mao's model for the Cultural Revolution) used violence against "class enemies" to compel loyalty. Party members signed death warrants for "enemies of the people" knowing that the accused were innocent, but believing in the correctness of the charges. In the 1930s, collective guilt justified murdering millions of Russian peasants. As cited by Robert Conquest in "The Harvest of Sorrow" (p. 143), the state's view of this class was, "not one of them was guilty of anything; but they belonged to a class that was guilty of everything." Stigmatizing entire institutions and groups makes it much easier to carry out wholesale change.

This, of course, is the beauty of "racism" and "sexism" for today's culture attackers – sin can be extended far beyond individuals to include institutions, literature, language, history, laws, customs, entire civilizations.

The charge of "institutional racism" is no different from declaring an entire economic class an enemy of the people. "Racism" and "sexism" are multiculturalism's assault weapons, its Big Ideas, just as class warfare was for Communists, and the effects are the same.

If a crime can be collectivized all can be guilty because they belong to the wrong group. When young whites are victims of racial preferences they are today's version of the Russian peasants. Even if they themselves have never oppressed anyone they "belong to the race that is guilty of everything."

The purpose of these multi-cultural campaigns is to destroy the self. The mouth moves, the right gestures follow, but they are the mouth and gestures of a zombie, the new Soviet man or, today, PC-man. And once enough people have been conditioned this way, violence is no longer necessary. We reach steady-state totalitarianism, in which the vast majority know what is expected of them and play their allotted roles.

The Russian experiment with revolution and totalitarian social engineering has been fully chronicled by two of that country's greatest writers, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. They brilliantly dissect the methods and psychology of totalitarian control. Dostoevsky's "The Devils" has no equal as a penetrating and disturbing analysis of the revolutionary and utopian mind.

The "devils" are radical students of the middle and upper classes flirting with something they do not understand. The ruling class tries to ingratiate itself with them. The universities have essentially declared war on society at large. The great cry of the student radicals is freedom: freedom from the established norms of society, freedom from manners, freedom from inequality, freedom from the past.

Russia's descent into vice and insanity is a powerful warning of what happens when a nation declares war on the past in the hope of building a terrestrial paradise. Dostoevsky did not live to see the abominations he predicted but Solzhenitsyn experienced them first hand.

"The Gulag Archipelago" and "August 1914" can be seen as histories of ideas, as attempts to account for the dreadful fate that befell Russia after 1917. Solzhenitsyn identifies education and the way teachers saw their duty as instilling hostility to all forms of traditional authority as the major factors that explain why Russia's youth was seduced by revolutionary ideas. In the West, during the 1960s and 1970s – which can collectively be called "the 60s" – we hear a powerful echo of the collective mental capitulation of Russia that took place in the 1870s and continued through the revolution.

One of the echoes of Marxism that continues to reverberate today is the idea that truth resides in class (or sex or race or erotic orientation). Truth is not something to be established by rational inquiry, but depends on the perspective of the speaker. In the multicultural universe, a person's perspective is "valued" (a favorite word) according to class. Feminists, blacks, environmentalists and homosexuals have a greater claim to truth because they are "oppressed." In the misery of "oppression" they see truth more clearly than the white heterosexual men who "oppress" them. This is a perfect mirror image of the Marxist proletariat's moral and intellectual superiority over the bourgeoisie. Today, "oppression" confers a "privileged perspective" that is essentially infallible. To borrow an expression from Robert Bork's "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," black and feminist activists are "case-hardened against logical argument" – just as Communist true believers were.

Indeed, feminist and anti-racist activists openly reject objective truth. Confident that they have intimidated their opposition, feminists are able to make all kinds of demands on the assumption that men and women are equal in every way. When outcomes do not match that belief, this is only more evidence of white-male deviltry.

One of the most depressing sights in the West today, particularly in the universities and in the media, is the readiness to treat feminism as a major contribution to knowledge and to submit to its absurdities. Remarkably, this requires no physical violence. It is the desire to be accepted that makes people truckle to these middle-class, would-be revolutionaries. Peter Verkhovensky, who orchestrates murder and mayhem in The Devils, expresses it with admirable contempt: "All I have to do is to raise my voice and tell them that they are not sufficiently liberal." The race hustlers, of course, play the same game: Accuse a late-20th century liberal of "racism" or "sexism" and watch him fall apart in an orgy of self-flagellation and Maoist self-criticism. Even "conservatives" wilt at the sound of those words.

Ancient liberties and assumptions of innocence mean nothing when it comes to "racism:" You are guilty until proven innocent, which is nearly impossible, and even then you are forever suspect. An accusation of "racism" has much the same effect as an accusation of witchcraft did in 17th century Salem.

It is the power of the charge of "racism" that stifles the derision that would otherwise meet the idea that we should "value diversity." If "diversity" had real benefits whites would want more of it, and would ask that yet more cities in the U.S. and Europe be handed over to immigrants. Of course, they are not rushing to embrace diversity and multiculturalism; they are in headlong flight in the opposite direction. Valuing diversity is a hobby for people who do not have to endure its benefits.

A multicultural society is one that is inherently prone to conflict, not harmony. This is why we see a huge growth in government bureaucracies dedicated to resolving disputes along racial and cultural lines. These disputes can never be resolved permanently because the bureaucrats deny one of the major causes: race. This is why there is so much talk of the "multicultural" rather than the more precise "multiracial." Ever more changes and legislation are introduced to make the host society ever more congenial to racial minorities. This only creates more demands, and encourages the non-shooting war against whites, their civilization, and even the idea of the West.

How is such a radical program carried forward? The Soviet Union had a massive system of censorship – the Communists even censored street maps – and it is worth noting there were two kinds of censorship: the blatant censorship of state agencies and the more subtle self-censorship that the inhabitants of "peoples democracies" soon learned.

The situation in the West is not so straightforward. There is nothing remotely comparable to Soviet-style government censorship and yet we have deliberate suppression of dissent. Arthur Jensen, Hans Eysenck, J. Philippe Rushton, Chris Brand, Michael Levin, and Glayde Whitney have all been vilified for their racial views. The case of Prof. Rushton is particularly troubling because his academic work was investigated by the police. The attempt to silence him was based on provisions of Canadian hate speech laws. This is just the sort of intellectual terror one expected in the old Soviet Union. To find it in a country that prides itself on being a pillar of Western liberal democracy is one of the most disturbing consequences of multiculturalism.

A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bartold Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men. This is almost a direct borrowing from Soviet-style socialist realism, with its idealized depictions of sturdy proletarians routing capitalist vermin.

Multiculturalism has the same ambitions as Soviet Communism. It is absolutist in the pursuit of its various agendas, yet it relativizes all other perspectives in its attack on its enemies. Multiculturalism is an ideology to end all other ideologies, and these totalitarian aspirations permit us to draw two conclusions: First, multiculturalism must eliminate all opposition everywhere. There can be no safe havens for counter-revolutionaries. Second, once it is established the multicultural paradise must be defended at all costs. Orthodoxy must be maintained with all the resources of the state.

Such a society would be well on its way to becoming totalitarian. It might not have concentration camps, but it would have re-education centers and sensitivity training for those sad creatures who still engaged in "white-male hegemonic discourse." Rather than the hard totalitarianism of the Soviet state we would have a softer version in which our minds would be wards of the state. We would be liberated from the burden of thought and therefore unable to fall into the heresy of political incorrectness.

If we think of multiculturalism as yet another manifestation of 20th century totalitarianism, can we take solace in the fact that the Soviet Union eventually collapsed? Is multiculturalism a phase, a periodic crisis through which the West is passing, or does it represent something fundamental and perhaps irreversible?

Despite the efforts of pro-Soviet elements, the West recognized the Soviet empire as a threat. It does not recognize multiculturalism as a threat in the same way. For this reason, many of its assumptions and objectives remain unchallenged. Still, there are some grounds for optimism, for example, the speed with which the term "political correctness" caught on. It took the tenured radicals completely by surprise, but it is only a small gain.

In the long term, the most important battleground in the war against multiculturalism is the United States. The struggle is likely to be a slow, frustrating war of attrition. If it fails, the insanity of multiculturalism is something white Americans will have to live with. Of course, at some point whites may demand an end to being punished because of black failure. As Prof. Michael Hart argues in "The Real American Dilemma" (published by New Century Foundation and available from American Renaissance (http://www.amren.com) for $11.95, postage paid), there could be racial partition of the United States. We may find that what happened in the Balkans is not peculiar to that part of the world. Race war is not something the affluent radicals deliberately seek but their policies are pushing us in that direction.

I have argued so far that the immediate context for understanding political correctness and multiculturalism is the Soviet Union and its catastrophic utopian experiment. And yet the PC/multicultural mentality is much older. In "Reflections on the Revolution in France," Edmund Burke offers a portrait of the French radicals that is still relevant 200 years after he wrote it:

"They have no respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure of confidence in their own. With them it is sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery."

Of course, multiculturalism is far from being a solution to racial or cultural conflict. Quite the contrary. Multiculturalism is the road to a special kind of hell that we have already seen in this gruesome 20th century, a hell that man, having abandoned reason and in revolt against

God's order, builds for himself and others.

While I do not disagree in the least with the thrust of Josh Riley’s piece, “Kudos to Sen. Wyden Standing Up to Big Oil,” I am disturbed by two notions posited that seem to rule current debate on rising gas prices. First, Riley says there may be "legitimate debate" over the causes of gas price hikes. Indeed market forces are having their way with the price of gasoline right now. It becomes absolutely clear in their pathetic efforts to stabilize or reduce prices that politicians have no means whatsoever of manipulating them in the short term. What disturbs me is that by far the most significant factor influencing the price of gasoline right now is not the market, but the political crises in the Middle East, crises which are to a very large extent the result of the Bush Administration's failed policies both in Iraq and with Iran. Noodling over market factors over which we have no control is hardly legitimate in light of Bush’s 800-pound gorilla trashing the marketplace.

High demand and tight supply make for a volatile market, but Bush's meddling has pushed volatility to explosive levels. In a more orderly scenario, with political tensions easing in the Middle East, the price of oil would inevitably rise to current levels eventually, and will most likely go far higher, but slower price fluctuations allow for more orderly economic and political adjustments.

The point I am trying to make is that Bush's policies are largely responsible for the increased volatility and market uncertainty, and this is especially important in light of the fact that his (unstated but obvious) policy objectives were to get Iraqi oil flowing into the marketplace to alleviate tight supply-driven price increases. The neocons' central premise (which they had dreamed up long before 9/11/01) for their Iraq invasion was to open Iraq's oil spigot as a way to counter an anticipated rise in Arab political power tied to their control over oil supply (ala OPEC 1970’s) and to keep energy price increases moderate. Bush's policies have had the exact opposite effect, and he should take a direct hit for the steep rise in prices.

My second problem is whether asking if oil companies are price gouging is a useful way of looking at the situation. I would say definitely not. In all but the most egregious violations, price gouging is very difficult to demonstrate. And while oil companies are probably not too concerned about what the public thinks of them, knowing as they do that even if we revile them, we will still buy their products (they really have us over a barrel here), demonizing oil companies misdirects the public's attention from the truly important questions: What policies have led to the oil industry’s stratospheric (and seemingly unfair) success of late, and what should we (we, the public, through our representatives in government) do to correct any apparent imbalances?

Rather than focus on questions of oil company good and evil, as implied in the price gouging dilemma, Americans should be encouraged to consider the effects of policy, such as tax breaks for companies that are among the most profit-generating in history, and whether those policies should be reconsidered, as indeed Senator Wyden is doing. When President Bush launched his oil supply-liberating invasion of Iraq, he said that the profits from Iraqi oil going to market would pay for the invasion. Unfortunately, Iraq has had a difficult time producing enough oil to pay for much of anything. However, the dramatic price increases resulting from the invasion have been very good to American oil companies, so why not get them to pay for the Iraq War? Recent oil company revenues could reimburse a significant portion of the cost of our military's price-boosting invasion, or directly for the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure.

Whether oil companies are sucking the marrow out of America’s bones or virtuous clerics of capitalism is ultimately irrelevant. We need to apply our values of what is good and bad, not to the companies we would judge, but to the policies that control them. What’s important is crafting policy that applies our values to the practical rather than moral realm of, in this case, the oil industry, through legislation.

-Ted Bucklin

As most everyone knows by now, Little, Brown has pulled Kaavya Viswanathan’s novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life from stores because of the substantial number of passages in it that are just too similar to passages in books by Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. The story is a sordid one—not so much because of what Viswanathan did (which is bad enough) but because of Little, Brown and the “book packager” Alloy Entertainment, Katherine Cohen of IvyWise, a private college counselor who pushed Viswanathan’s writing, and Viswanathan’s parents.

There have been many young geniuses in the arts, and Viswanathan may well be one, but she was used by all the people I mention for their own ends and backed into a situation that was beyond her ability to handle. The advance given to her by Little, Brown for two novels was in the realm of half a million dollars, putting pressure on a girl who was then only seventeen that very few could stand.

Though Viswanathan claims that she did not consciously plagiarize, she clearly turned to McCafferty’s work when she realized she could not produce what was expected of her—whether it was unconscious or not. She had to produce, and did so, finally, in the only way she could manage.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if she was conscious of what she was doing or not or who or what pushed her into the corner she couldn’t get out of otherwise. The fact remains: she plagiarized.

Looking at the situation that starkly and simply, however, doesn’t help us develop ways of avoiding similar situations in the future. Though the Viswanathan incident may be the plagiarism du jour, this sort of thing is happening all the time, though not generally on such an extravagant level.

College and high-school teachers have been pulling their hair out for a decade now, as plagiarism (always something of a problem) has grown into an epidemic. Most often, the response has been three pronged: First, explain exactly what plagiarism is, over and over again. Second, develop new methods for identifying plagiarism. And, third, set up draconian penalties for those who get caught.

None of these, unfortunately, addresses the reasons why students plagiarize. In Viswanathan’s case, the reasons are fairly clear. For many of the students who plagiarize on their papers they aren’t that far different: the students, for the most part, feel incapable of completing the assignment so turn to the easy way out. Most of them don’t feel they are deliberately cheating (I doubt Viswanathan feels she did, either), but are simply doing what is necessary to get out of a difficult situation.

Just as Viswanathan was thrown into the deep end before she had really learned to swim, so are many of our students. Just as all those people who were taking advantage of what they thought they saw in her were doing when they convinced themselves they were simply providing support, too many teachers don’t examine what they are doing when they present assignments to potential plagiarists.

There’s a great deal of learning that has to take place before anyone can start on any writing path, be it a college research paper of a novel for a major publisher. Too often, space for this is not provided: the student or author is simply told to write [I am preparing a longer piece on this for ePluribus Media that will appear in June].

Learning. Experience. Judgment. These cannot be gained through quick introductions to research methodology or even with the help of a “book packager.” It takes time and work to gain knowledge—and, for most of us, it requires guidance of a sort Viswanathan and too many of our students aren’t getting. Ability, even genius, isn’t enough.

In “A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall,” a song he wrote when he was quite young, a song that shows clear signs of influence (of the Childe-collected ballad “Lord Randal”) but that is still strikingly original, Bob Dylan wrote:

I’m going back out before the rain starts falling,

I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,

Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,

Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,

Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,

Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,

Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,

Where black is the color, where none is the number,

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,

And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,

Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking,

But I’ll know my song well before I start singing.

’Know my song well.’ That’s what we are not allowing our youth to do, these days. We are expecting too much from them too quickly. Viswanathan may be, as I said, a genius writer (though she may not be), but she has not had the time to develop her talent and her knowledge of the world. The same can be said of many students: they have the potential, but have not yet developed the ability to do what is being asked of them.

Rather than focusing exclusively on punishing the wrong-doers, we teachers (and parents) should be finding ways of opening up the avenues of experience to students. The best teachers and parents do this already. The better we all do at it, the less plagiarism there will be.

And the happier and more creative the next generation will be.

Danny Goldberg's post "George Packer's War" spawned a lively debate between those Iraq War apologists who, with Packer, view the decision to invade Iraq as good policy poorly executed and those who argue that the proof of the policy pudding is in its racid taste. 

Professor Ikenberry christened Iraq an "Icon of Disaster" on the order of Smoot-Hawley.  Gen William Odom pulls no punches and hits closer to the mark with "the Greatest Strategic Disaster in US History".  

So was the Iraq War  "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time", as Odom would have it, doomed from the start? Does the fact that the War became, in the event, George Bush's "Bay of Goats", as Gen. Zinni predicted it would in 2002, expose "Packer's war" as just so much revisionist sophistry?

A recently published study from the Army War College puts paid "Packer's War" apologias  in favor of the real war, the real course Bush set, planned, hawked, and stayed, stayed...stayed..and stayed.

Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War

Authored by Dr. David C Hendrickson, Dr. Robert W Tucker.

Though critics have made a number of telling points against the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war, the most serious problems facing Iraq and its American occupiers—criminal anarchy and lawlessness, a raging insurgency and a society divided into rival and antagonistic groups—were virtually inevitable consequences that flowed from the act of war itself. Military and civilian planners were culpable in failing to plan for certain tasks, but the most serious problems had no good solution. Even so, there are lessons to be learned. These include the danger that the imperatives of "force protection" may sacrifice the broader political mission of U.S. forces and the need for skepticism over the capacity of outsiders to develop the skill and  and expertise required to reconstruct decapitated states.

"Do you know why I have to believe that Saddam had UAV's loaded with Sarin and ready to strike New York?  Because our President would never send our brave fighting men and women off on a crap shoot like creating a democracy in Iraq."  Steven Colbert. George Packer Interview

Terrorist attacks worldwide may have increased substantially last year, according to a story in today's edition of The Washington Post. Despite methodological concerns, a fair-minded observer must acknowledge the consistent uptick in the last few years of government reports on the topic.

The administration concedes that the war on violent Islamists requires engaging an ideological contest, not merely relying on military and law enforcement fronts. It has pursued this war for hearts and minds in a number of ways, including by seeking, at times, to spread democracy, and by engaging in a dubious mixture of public diplomacy and propaganda. The latter project, in its current manifestations and context, is widely acknowledged as being of limited value (although many hawks and policymakers appear unaccountably to support paying for favorable Iraqi press, which surely only decreases our credibility -- buying temporary support is not the same as earning it on the ground).

The former goal, spreading democracy, is noble, but incomplete, and the means by which we are pursuing it (military force, threats, and often unilateralism) are largely counterproductive to actual progress on the ideological front in the forseeable future. Islamists enjoy an uncertain but substantial base of popularity in the Muslim world; according to one scholar, many Islamist leaders have endorsed elections in the view that "they would be the first to benefit from an expansion of democratic freedoms, at least in the short term." Well, a lot happens in the short term, and as has been noted elsewhere, Iraq's emergence as a liberal democracy after 20 or 30 years of this horror could not help dead Iraqis nor offer adequate recompense for the lives ruined in the transition. In the short term and in the real world, Iraqis despise the occupation and jihadists are finding abundant training and propaganda opportunities in the chaos there. Al Qaeda appears on some level to have improved its ability or willingness to use mass media to communicate its message. This complexity hardly means the administration is wrong to seek democracy (indeed, it has been unjustifiably selective in its advocacy on this score), but it does mean elections do not do enough to advance pluralism and stability, let alone a friendly attitude toward the United States and the West. "Free people," and especially partly free people whose lives we've helped to ruin and barely helped to rebuild, will not automatically like us; it's a narcissistic and almost solipsistic mindset that believes otherwise.

To look at these trends and maintain that we simply need mto do a better job "making our case", or especially to maintain that we're winning, seems merely to underscore the need for a more conceptually sophisticated public and political debate about terrorism and safety than the president's vague and grandiose rhetoric permits. Sometimes, to be sure, he allows that it's hard work. But President Bush has yet to admit that you cannot reasonably assume you're winning the battle for hearts and minds when evidence suggests otherwise.

For the past couple of days, we've been hearing a lot about how right David Brooks is about multiculturalism being dead. And this morning, we hear from Amitai Etzioni that singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish somehow amounts to too much diversity, and not enough unity.

It seems to me, though, that if we're interested in thinking about what direction the Democratic party should take, and about what grand philosophy it should adopt, we'd do better to listen a little less to David Brooks' suggestions, and a little more to the people who marched in the streets of Dallas, Chicago, and elsewhere.

Weren't there supposed to be some lessons learned from seeing hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to make their voices heard after having been marginalized for too long? Is it too much to hope that those lessons haven't been forgotten already, after only a few weeks?

Obviously, multiculturalism in its 21st century form isn't dead; it's barely just been born. The interests of people concerned about immigration and race issues will be of serious political importance, regardless of whether those interests are dicounted by some as too narrow and "special". The "Star-Spangled Banner" will be sung in Spanish. The Democratic party can make itself the poltiical home of those people who sing it that way, or it can continue to marginalize them.

Or anybody's, for that matter?

Kerry Sponsors Collective Punishment of Palestinians on Behalf of Israel

FBI seeks pro-Israel reporters` names

US likely to place Israel on priority watch list

The false morality of supporting Israel

911, Iraq, PNAC All roads lead to Israel

Israel's Silent Holocaust Against the Palestinians

A greater Palestine?

Aid and the Palestine Financial Crisis: A viewpoint on an ongoing debate

Palestinians Making Do With Less in Crisis

Western siege of Palestinians fuels misery, anger

Palestinian activists gather in Corrie's hometown

World Health Organization: Life Quality Dramatically Deteriorated for Palestinians

There is No “Israel Lobby”

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: 20 - 26 Apr

The Palestinian Files

The Palestine Files

Israel is ranked first in sexual trafficking

Israel crosses the threshold

Israel and the Bomb

The Israel Files

The Israeli Files

The Israel Lobby Files

The AIPAC Files

Let's Bomb Iran

So, is Israel our friend?

Just asking.

Robert Spencer asks the hard questions about Islam...and answers them.

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604280624.asp

Yes, gas prices are high. We know that. But both Republican and Democratic proposals are treating short-term symptoms--and avoiding the problem itself.

With the Republican Congressional majority, their proposal has started to gain some momentum and may end up passing. In summary, it entails a $100 "rebate" to taxpayers for relief on gas prices (though you are not required to own a car to receive this. . .but that is for a different post), with funding supplied by a few things, notably oil drilling in the Arctic. Of course, a rebate may be appreciated, but it is nowhere near a permanent solution.

Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) proposal is not much better. He suggests eliminating the federal gas tax (which is about 20 cents a gallon) for a time, and in turn cutting tax loopholes on oil companies to make up for lost revenue. Again, it misses the point.

See, pretty much every politician preaches to the importance of breaking our reliance on foreign oil and moving towards alternative sources of energy. But in a (mostly) free market, companies are going to do what is economically efficient, and at this time, good ol' petroleum is the way to go. Even if gas prices continue to fluctuate, it is unlikely that will change.

What we need (though any politician is unlikely to admit it) is substantially higher gas prices--say, in the form of a federal gas tax in excess of a dollar a gallon. Though it would certainly be painful to our pocketbooks for a time, only then would 1) fuel efficiency actually matter to car owners and 2) companies would have economic motivation to research and pursue alternative sources of energy. That would, in turn, take away our reliance and foreign oil and be positive for the environment.

If nothing of that nature is done, we (and our economy) will continue to be at the mercy of foreign companies, and burning fossil fuels will cause global damage. The current proposals do nothing to prevent this same situation from happening in a week, or a month, or in a year. Let's hope that someone will actually do something about it.

 "United 93" hit theatres today.  Finally.

 I don't have much I can say, but will say this: We should all see this movie.

 WHy?  I present here an excerpt of a review I read WHo said this is not the issue. I just agree and I totally align myself with his argument of why we should see this movie, besides simply entertainment.  He explains it perhaps better than I could.  Here, he starts off responding to those who are opposed to seeing such a movie--just yet:

Five years after the most devastating attack on American soil, people are asking if Americans are ready to see a film – not some fictional, politically driven.....but a film based on the phone conversations of the passengers and flight attendants, on the flight recorder tape, and approved by the families of all 40 passengers – one of the most terrible and heroic events in American history.

Did anyone ask in 1946, five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, whether Americans were prepared to see a film about the Japanese attack?...

Finally, a major studio comes out with a film reminding Americans about the nature of our enemy, about what really happened (to the best of our ability to reconstruct) on one of the 9-11 planes, and the press wonders if Americans are "ready" to see the movie.

...I believe it is just about every American's duty to see this film. There is no gratuitous violence – if anything, Universal went out of its way to prevent us from seeing the reality of the throat-slashing of passengers and crew – but there is unremitting tension and sadness, since we all know what will happen to these unsuspecting people, and we know this is real, not fiction.

There is also American heroism.

People completely unprepared for an airplane flight to become their last hour alive rise to the occasion and save fellow Americans from death and from the humiliation of having their nation's capitol building destroyed....

Teenage and older children in particular should see this film. If the younger teens have nightmares, comfort them. But young Americans need to know the nature of whom we are fighting. If they are attending a typical American high school or college, they probably don't know.

...go and see "United 93," to see why some Americans still take "Home of the brave" seriously; and to see why we have to win this war more than any since World War II. That's how bad our enemy is. You have an unfortunately rare chance to see that enemy at work when you see what happened to everyone who boarded United Airlines Flight 93 that left Newark on Sept. 11, 2001.

 

Whether you agree with this particular critic or not, GO SEE IT.

Every time you see a picture of the White House, or the Capitol dome--realize that these ordinary yet extraordinary passengers possibly saved one of them from being completely destroyed, and many more to be killed.  If that plane had struck of of those two central American symbols, just think of how emboldened the enemies of America would have been.  Because of the passengers of Flight 93--that did not happen--and the last hijacked aircraft on September 11th became the first American victory in the War on Terrorism.

Those who see this movie will be taken away with the eerie effect that one realizes as he leaves the theatre--that this movie really happened.  These characters were real people, just like any of us.  Also, a pretty bi-partisan production.  As a widely characterized accurate and non-political depiction--to see this gut-wrenching movie is the least you can do.  Especially, for those who fought back.

Monday, Proponenets of the Mexican "Illegal" Movement promise to shut down San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco--and also, more importantly--Chicago, Miami, New York. They want to shut these cities down.

This is, like the gas dilemma, A HOT topic. People are getting viscerally angry about this. Outraged.

One man said on a downtown St. Louis Street yesterday, "Somebody needs to get us some baseball bats"--and not for baseball. The Mexican Illegals and their protests were gaining some support--but are now pushing many Americans too far, and rubbing them the wrong way.

Today was a turning point in the debate. A Spanish version of the Star Spangled Banner was heard on radio stations today. One with different lyrics too--lyrics that many Americans believe change and pervert the meaning of our national anthem. "First, they want to break the laws. Then, they want to openly protest, and with Mexican flags, in our country. Now, they are changing our national anthem for their own purposes, with their language--not ours. What right do they have?" one man said.

I for one, am disgusted with the whole notion that police, public officials, and other immigraton authorities are watching as admitted law-breakers openly demonstrate and protest, and no one is being arrested; no one is enforcing our laws.

That sickens me.

The only reason is their numbers. I am ashamed.

I was actually supporting the cause of the workers who have been here for awhile early on, even overlooking the fact that they have broken our laws even longer than the newer ones, who seem to ignore American Culture or to try and adapt it to fit them. I was initially sympathetic with their plight. But now, I too am being rubbed the wrong way. I too am angry. I too am awaiting someone to just shut them up.

I was not eager to get to this point. I wish that they hadbeen more humble, more diplomatic, and more attuned to our language, our culture, and of common respect to a country which they profit from. A country that is trying to find ways to both accomodate and forgive them.

Now, they are just making people mad with their audacity, myself among them.

My cousin tried for years to live here in America. He is not a Mexican, but from Liverpool, England. He tried to do it the right way, not the wrong way. These illegals, who have ignored our laws, exploited our laws, made a joke out of our laws--are getting a better shake than he.

That just isn't right.

Those who say Westerners shouldnt enforce Western culture on other parts of the globe should not be hypocritical; These illegals are not respecting us--but are in fact, DISRESPECTING US, and to our face. In history, when such disrespect has ocurred, then comes the sparks which deteriorate into violence. Like I said--this is a hot topic right now with the American people. Today a match was struck. Riots, hate crime, lynching, civil unrest find their birth in such potential sparks. If this happens, it will catch like wildfire.

It happened in 1863 in New York. It happened in many American cities in the summers of 1917 through 1919. It happened throughout the 1960s. We are due. Many of those were about race, and rage. This is different; it is about how both races feel, about Mexican illegals. It is about crime. It is about terrorism. It is about culture. It is about our country as we know it. I fear for the illegals safety, if they continue to not only stimulate argument--but assault our cities with their protests and rhetoric. At first, they were concerning us. We got their message. But then it started getting, well--pushy. Now--They are inflaming us.

Some have even made the point that we American citizens have a right to protest--but, what right do illegal immigrants have to protest, and go unchecked by those who abide by the law? The laws are becoming a joke.

Furthermore--all any potential terrorists have to do is look to this situation, and spot some obvious weaknesses we still have in this country. Again, I am ashamed.

My message to the demonstrators and protesters: Enough. This is America. It will never be Mexico. I advise you to back off. Put away your Mexican flags. Put away your Spanish, and take up the language spoken in this country. Socialize, integrate, assimilate into our culture--do not push Mexican culture onto us. That is the way it is done here. Everyone else does, and so should you. Overall the big thing is this: You are pushing away anyone who was considering supporting your cause. You are becoming OFFENSIVE to those whose support you will need.

Do not be suprised if sometime soon the protests and the demonstrations become violent, if they are not already at this moment.

Either way, we are now at that place. Denial is not the way to go here. We are at the breaking point on this issue, and approaching the point of no return. If illegal immigrants wish to become Americans, then they need to demonstrate some respect for America, and for Americans.

An Islamic school in London is teaching that non-Muslims are akin to pigs and dogs, and it is doing so with subventions from the British taxpayer. More alarmingly, when notified of this problem, the British authorities indicate they intend to do nothing about it.

http://www.danielpipes.org/pf.php?id=3560

So, today we have the Moose

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You gotta love the cosmopolitan parochialism of New Yorkers, so smug in their Steinbergian view of the world. Preaching the inevitability of the New American Century, the neo-cons forgot the warning of Yogi Berra, the great Yankees philosopher, "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." The last time Bill Kristol was on Comedy Central, he was doing victory laps. He even went slumming and appeared on The Daily Show, taunting Jon Stewart "It's not too late to join us."

Then the wheels came off...

The war went into extra innings and the peripatetic cheerleader of the triumphalist march to the Tigris hunkered down on FOX. As time passed, he gamely tried to explain with increasing discomfort to an ever-shrinking audience of true believers how the best laid plans of mice and men oft gangly go awry. You could tell his heart wasn't in it.

Things went from bad to worse. The magic number of 3 dollars hit people in the face with more force than 300 Billion dollars and the mood of the country turned sour. Knowing a good offense was the best defense, Kristol decided to take the fight to the opposition's lair. One thing was certain; Kristol really should have had a few warm up fights before getting into the ring with Colbert.

The Fight:

Colbert entered the ring pumped with the enthusiasm he gleans from his audience. Kristol grinned gamely, but his eyes betrayed the glint of a deer searching for the source of that manly fragrance called "Scorn." He hugged the table like a girl who needed to go potty and wrapping himself in a defensive ball that screamed, "Don't hurt me!"

Colbert settled in and sized him up. Kristol came out strong trying to deflect any attack by preemptively taking credit for what will likely be a great performance by Stephen this Saturday night. Stephen stopped him dead in his tracks with a straight to the face.

Kristol rocked back on his heels a bit dazed at how badly his joke had backfired. Colbert laid into him..."How's that New American Century," he asked with all the sadistic glee of Edward G. Robinson asking, "Where's your God now, Moses?"

Unprepared for the frontal assault, Kristol stumbled, fumbled, and clutched the table to keep from sliding into oblivion. You could hear the little voice in his head screaming, "Help meeeeeee!" He took a standing eight count and wobbled back to the fray, realizing that he had sadly misread the situation, confusing his opponent for a friend.

In his confusion he blurted out "We can't let dictators kill their own people." The crowd waited for Colbert's response. Would he go nuts and suggest we demand dictators only kill people outside their country? Instead he hit him with a shocking flurry of probing questions ending with a hefty jab, "Where do we invade next?" He leaned back out of range and watched Kristol swing at air and lose his balance. Colbert put him in a head lock and made Kristol inhale the musky scent of Scorn, simply saying "I'm going to hold you to that," before letting him go.

Kristol fell to the mat. As he got up, Stephen pummeled him with a vicious flurry of jabs. What about boots on the ground? Who do we invade next? What about Iran? What about nuking someone?

Kristol went to one knee and cried "No mas!" Stephen clocked him with a right hook, "The best possible way to show them nuclear weapons are not what they want is to give them one." Kristol tried to absorb the double entendre but fell over. Stephen smirked and went to a neutral corner.

Realizing he had this fight won, Colbert started to toy with Kristol. He leaned against the ropes and let Kristol take his best shots. It was rope-a-dope at its finest. "Iraq will be better", "poor execution but right strategy", "we will prevail", whoosh...Kristol was hitting nothing but thought he was scoring. Stephen peeked out from behind his gloves and taunted him like Ali taunted Frazier with "You're preaching to the choir." Kristol thought it was an opening and took the bait. He replied, "That's the best kind of audience." BOOM...Colbert unleashed a vicious inside uppercut. "Don't turn your back on them, they're likely to put a shiv in ya," he chortled.

A few more jabs and then Colbert hit Kristol with a combo that confused him into treating Rumsfeld like senators treat Abramoff. Colbert answered with a stinging jab "That's like ratting out a frat brother!" Stephen circled to the right and caught Kristol stunned and flat-footed with a right hook to the body. "Why is everyone turning on the president?" he asked. Pressing the advantage, he got Kristol to open up and admit he had called Bush incompetent. Stephen finished the combo with a strong right cross to the face, lifting Kristol onto his toes with "Do you support the president?"

Kristol blindly responded in the affirmative and Stephen hit him with a straight right to the midsection. "That's like saying, `Honey I hit you cause I love you...'" The crowd went wild!!! Dazed and confused, Kristol reached for the ropes with, "Sometimes that's true..." The crowd mistook his groping for a low blow and starting booing... Kristol sheepishly admitted he doesn't really beat his wife. But the red in his face betrayed his thoughts. Hope you picked up some flowers on the way home, pal.

Stephen dances around a bit and starts working the body. "Where are you going to get the troops?" "Do you favor a draft?" Kristol slips the first few punches and says he doesn't. Stephen slips inside...gets Kristol to admit he was draft age in 1972,was in the lottery for a year, but after Nixon got rid of the draft he didn't volunteer. Stephen does a quick head fake, and tags Kristol while he is backing up! "Great Man." Kristol doesn't even realize what hit him , but the crowd sees it and loves it.

Having shown complete mastery over his opponent, Stephen settles back and just keeps putting a glove out ...testing his range but not really swinging. "How do we turn public perceptions around?" Kristol replies with a bunch of half-hearted lines, but doesn't even try to defend himself when Stephen says "Winning in Iraq is easy...what else?"

Realizing that Kristol is about to fall over, he tosses an obvious setup, "How many seats will the Republicans win in 2006?" Kristol said Democrats will take the House and the crowd went wild! He stumbled forward trying to tie Stephen up with the notion that Democrats in control of the House in 2007 will be great for Republicans in 2008, but Stephen decided to run out the clock and invite him back for another round.

Stephen's no fool. He knows the real money is in the re-match.

==

Mything the Point  ©:

"Examining unexamined beliefs Americans accept on faith value."

Hmmm...

Iran: Let the democratic process work

Bush's misbegotten Iran plan

Iran is Bush's bogeyman

Buchanan: Impeach if Bush attacks Iran

But...

House gives Bush go ahead on attacking Iran

WSJ/NBC Poll: By 48%-42%, Americans Say Strike Iran So... Let's Bomb Iran

General Pervez Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan, sat down recently with The Guardian of Britain for an interview to proclaim that he is not a dictator. Musharraf insisted that he is a believer in democracy and his mission is to bring democracy to Pakistan:

Gen Musharraf said his mission was to democratise Pakistan. "My popularity has gone down ... but at this moment my country needs me. I've put a strong constitutional democratic system in place. That will throw up a successor. I'm a strong believer in democracy."

Like President Bush, General Musharraf believes that democracy can be achieved with the power of the gun. While Mr. Bush is experimenting with gunboat democracy on an international level, General Musharraf is implementing this theory at the domestic level:

"It is ironic that I'm sitting in uniform talking of democracy ... but to bring democracy into Pakistan I thought I needed it," he said.

Democracy, according to Musharraf, must be properly nurtured and trained. One key element in Musharraf's theory of democracy is to ensure that there is no viable opposition.  What better way to encourage democracy than to send your opposition leaders packing to a democratic country to learn about democracy:

The leaders of the two main opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, are in exile and face arrest if they return home. Meeting in London this week they launched a fresh political alliance and called for western support.

In spite of General Musharraf's good intentions there are still those that criticize his stewardship of Pakistani democracy. To these unbelievers, he has this to say:

Criticism of his military-driven strategy came from "people who sit in drawing rooms and talk", he said, but added that a political solution was also being sought.

Clearly too much talk is not good for a healthy democratic society. General Musharraf also is nurturing freedom of the press. However, there are times when a General has to take matters into his own hands in dealing with the press. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of democracy:

An American Predator drone fired Hellfire missiles at a house in Bajaur tribal agency in January, killing 18 people but missing their target, al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The attack near the Afghan border caused public uproar and brought renewed accusations that Gen Musharraf was a US puppet.

Local journalist Hayatullah Khan, who photographed missile fragments linking the strikes to the US, disappeared four days later and is still missing. A western diplomat said he was probably being held by Pakistani intelligence and may have been mistreated. [Emphasis added by me]

Democracy in Pakistan is a high ideal. To achieve it, General Musharraf understands that he must get tough on some elements in his country. There are terrorists in Pakistan and they must be crushed if democracy is to take hold:

Gen Musharraf defended his tactic of using military force instead of negotiation to quell the violence and said some collateral damage was inevitable when militants' hideouts were attacked.

"We take extreme care to be 100% sure of the target from all sources of intelligence ... There is minimum collateral damage. If someone happens to be very close to [the target], that somebody is an abetter and they suffer the loss. Sometimes, indeed, women and children have been killed but they have been right next to the place. It's not that the strike was inaccurate but they happen to be there, so therefore they are all supporters and abetters of terrorism - and therefore they have to suffer. It's bad luck," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

There is no doubt that supporters and abetters of terrorism must be snuffed out. You certainly do not want to take any chances that a 2 year old (who is clearly already supporting terrorists) might one day grow up and become really dangerous. General Musharraf is, if nothing else, thorough. He will not only kill you, but he will kill your entire family, to ensure that freedom remains on the march.

General Musharraf also has a good handle on unrest in Pakistan. He has assessed the situation and decided that it is well in hand. He has also determined that his enemies are pygmies:

Gen Musharraf also played down unrest in the resource-rich province of Baluchistan, where nationalist militants are blowing up gas pipelines and trains and attacking army positions. He described the rebels as "mercenaries" and their attacks as "pin pricks", and said the disturbances were confined to one-twentieth of the province's area.

"So what revolt are you talking about? People talk about an East Pakistan situation," he said, referring to the secession of Bangladesh in 1971. "I understand strategy. These people are pygmies."

With General Musharraf in charge of the effort to bring democracy to Pakistan, I feel that Mr. Bush's vision of bringing democracy to the Muslim world is well on its way to fruition. It is reassuring to know that we have allied ourselves with such a courageous patriot and a lover of freedom and the rights of man. My hat is off to this thug named Musharraf.

Also posted at my web site.

Saving money is a wonderful thing, isn't it?  If you can manage to save a decent amount, it can provide you with a measure of much-valued security.  Indeed, some people think so highly of the habit of Saving they refer to it as a virtue.  So is that what it is?  A virtue?  Well, let's just ponder that concept for a minute.  What kind of world would we be living in if everyone were to start saving money and no one were to ever borrow again?

Well, we can be sure that one of the most celebrated benefits of saving money---the opportunity to earn interest income---would disappear.  It turns out that savers need borrowers.  So how can we say that saving is a virtuous act if it is necessary for some people to dis-save in order for the savers to benefit?

There is a certain ideal that all savers pursue as a sort of ultimate goal: to save a very large amount of money and then retire and live off their accumulated dollar wealth.  Isn't that what all the financial experts out there are advising us to do?  But just ask yourself what the world would be like if everyone were to somehow become extremely rich in dollars one day and then we all decided to retire and live off our accumulated money wealth.

We'd all be able to enjoy lives of luxury, right?  Well, no.  What we would soon discover is that we actually possessed no real wealth at all because no one would be producing anything of value that we could buy. In order for savers to benefit optimally from the saving of money, they need to have a lot of other people out there who are not able to save like them, but who are forced to work for a living, instead.  

The Real Wealth of the economy is its productive output: the real goods and services that are produced by our combined work efforts.  The more we collectively produce, the richer we collectively are, in real terms.  It ultimately doesn't make any sense for us to all seek to become millionaires, because we cannot all live off of the productive efforts of "others." But that's actually the Republican Party's 'solution' to the problem of poverty, isn't it?  

What we should all seek is to maximize the production of real wealth in our economy so that we can maximize our consumption of real wealth. Enhanced economic security is something we can provide ourselves with, but it's not going to come from everybody finding a way to save more money. The good news is that we can collectively provide ourselves with something (financial security) that we cannot all individually hope to provide ourselves with.

There is yet another very important reason why the practice of saving of money is not always a good idea.  If everyone were to "perfectly embrace" the ideals of thrift that are endlessly promoted by voices within the financial community, the result would be an economic disaster.  That is to say, if all Americans stopped borrowing money and they committed themselves, instead, to the practice of putting off all purchases until they had saved enough money to pay cash for them, America's economy would immediately collapse into an economic depression, perhaps one that would even exceed the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Why do we know that this is an absolute fact?  Because we know that ALL JOBS IN THE ECONOMY ARE DEPENDENT ON THE SPENDING OF OTHERS.  Just ask yourself where the money comes from that pays for nearly every job holder's income?  It comes from the SPENDING of other people.  An economic recession is defined as a period of time when there is a decline in aggregate spending (GDP).  When spending drops; jobs disappear.  That's what happened during the Great Depression; too much SAVING was going on.  People who had `extra' money that they could have spent, chose to save it instead.  Those who would have spent the money if it had been placed in their hands, did not have it in their possession.

There is no denying that---all else equal---an individual will benefit from saving money so long as not everyone else is also saving money.  But we need to understand that the practice of saving money is not a pure virtue because bad things can happen if too many people are saving too much.  Yes, go ahead and try to save as much money as you can, but understand that when there is any level of unemployment in the economy, the government is going to have to reduce total savings if it wants to improve the welfare of all.  The only issue then is which savers should be asked to give up some of their savings in order to help the national interest?  I say tax the savings of those who are in the best position to make a sacrifice: the extremely wealthy.

It may be prudent for an individual to save (or save more) in certain circumstances that are strictly defined, but it is ridiculous to refer to the act of saving money as a virtue.  So can we please stop referring to Saving as some kind of Absolute Good, one that a society can never get too much of?  If anything, economic history has taught us that exactly the opposite is true.

The Misunderstood Relationship Between Savings & Investment

Sweden's largest Muslim organisation has demanded that Sweden introduce separate laws for Muslims, according to Swedish television. Sweden's equality minister Jens Orback called the proposals "completely unacceptable".

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3674&date=20060428&PHPSESSID=44c547113163a3440b8b5ae314873291

http://haroldfordjr2006.blogspot.com

Tennesseans shouldn't pay for Congress' and President Bush's inaction, nor should they line the pockets of oil company executives

Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. is once again urging congressional leaders to pass a 30-day suspension of the 18.4 cent/gallon federal gas tax. Ford made the following statement earlier today:

"While President Bush and the Republican leadership in Washington dither on what to do about gas prices as high as $4 for some Americans, I believe a 30 day suspension of the 18.4 cent/gallon federal gasoline tax should be adopted. This temporary relief would provide much needed relief for the working man and woman in Memphis and our state.

"After the first 30 day suspension, we would assess whether it should be extended. The fact that this country, more than four and a half years after we were attacked, has no real energy plan to get us off Middle East oil is inexcusable. In the meantime, I believe temporary relief for Tennesseans is better than nothing, especially as we learn that oil company CEOs are pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars while we are all left to pay more than $3 a gallon. We can pay for this tax suspension with a temporary windfall tax on oil companies.

"The long term answer is to invest in the clean development and safe use of bio-diesel, wind, solar, coal and nuclear energy to fuel the enormous energy appetite of our country. We need a new energy policy for America that rewards energy efficiency through innovation and conservation.

“In the meantime, Congress should also pass legislation to do three things. First, we should provide incentives for automakers to deploy technology to dramatically increase mile per gallon standards, commonly called CAFE standards, in their new cars and trucks. Second, we should enact more aggressive tax credits for renewable sources of energy and provide tax breaks for companies in Oak Ridge and the East Tennessee Technology Corridor to develop technology that will reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. Third, we should promote technology that will allow farmers to convert crops like soybeans, corn and Tennessee switchgrass into alternative sources of energy.

“The President should stop blaming President Clinton for problems, and start fixing them. Tennesseans and the American people have had enough of the blame game. They want answers, and, most of all in the short term, lower gas prices."

Following the sudden spike in gas prices after Hurricane Katrina Congressman Ford was an original co-sponsor of the “Gas Tax Relief Act of 2005” (H.R. 3683). Under the bill, funding for state highways will not be reduced so states will not have to increase taxes.

According to Tennessee law, if the elimination or reduction in the federal gas tax results in reduced funding to Tennessee from the Federal Highway Trust Fund, then the state gas tax will be automatically increased to off-set the decrease in funding. H.R. 3683 includes a provision preempting state law and preventing states from increasing their state gas tax as a result of the suspension of the federal gas tax. In addition, the bill specifically appropriates funds out of the general fund to offset the funding shortfall to the Federal Highway Trust Fund that would have been caused by the suspension of the federal gas tax.

I had planned an exhaustive and exhausting rebuttal to Rabbi Gellman's moronic Newsweek column wondering why atheists seem angry, but I don't know if I have the strength. You religionists have all but defeated me. It's your world and I am subject to your every God-damned whim... even more so if I were to be a woman. And you don't understand why I'm angry, Rabbi?

You're an idiot.

I feel too defeated to do much, but I think I can squeeze out a sentence or two.

We are angry because we see a large part of the human race literally delegating their powers of reason to an obvious fairy tale. We see that the results of this collective insanity over the centuries is the single biggest thing causing chaos and strife in the world, and the central malevolent force that is stopping the human race from advancing.

We see a President who gets his Earth-destroying policies directly from God, or so his addled mind thinks. And you can't see the horror of this, because your own minds are equally addled. The President gets his instructions from God? Why, that's a wonderful thing!

Thank goodness he doesn't use a Ouija board. Because, as we all know, THAT'S a silly fantasy.

No, Rabbi, you needn't look in my childhood to try and label me as disturbed. A normal, healthy childhood goes like this: Oops, not really any such thing as the Easter Bunny. Well, OK. Oops, no such guy as Santa Claus. Well, OK. Oops, no such thing as God. Well, OK. The question really is, why do some people never get to that third step?

You are the demonstrably insane ones, believing in some sky-world filled with a constellation of exciting magical beings. The appropriate response to your complete inability to confront reality without your gods is anger.

Religionists aren't any good at thinking critically, but try. Imagine that you are all simply wrong and there isn't anyone up there after all.

If you can truly imagine this, then you will suddenly understand why we're angry. We have to share the world - no, we have to sit back and allow the Earth to be run by people who literally believe there's a magic genie in the sky pulling the strings.

Angry? We're lucky we can remain sane at all.

Posted by Don from The Ward Report

The absurd and cynical GOP proposal to attempt to bribe voters with a $100 rebate while maneuvering to save billions in oil industry tax breaks is less than certain to become law. For most of us, this is two tanks of gas at current prices.

My plan for spending this bribe: I'm going to thank the GOP by giving the entire amount to a progressive candidate for federal office.

We should all do this. Ask everyone you know, and post the same request on your blogs. Just think how happy this will make Frist and Hastert.

You can find thoughts on policy, strategy, and other organizational issues at my blog, http://orgtheory.net/.

In the last 24 hours, the embattled 2006 Senate campaign of Montana State Auditor John Morrison had its hat handed to it by bloggers wanting answers on his affair, his hypocrisy, and the ethics of his official actions.

The shitstorm (also know as a blog swarm) started late last night when Bozeman, MT blogger Wulfgar posted two key posts that have resonated throughout the local and national blogospheres.

The Montana blog Left in the West headlined, Wulfgar Rips Morrison a New Two here and here. Missoula blogger Touchstone says, "It's no-holds-barred Wulfgar! today! First he calls John Morrison a p*ssy," then he points out the... *ahem*...formerly adulterous candidate is a proponent of Montana's anti-gay "defense of marriage" amendment to the state constitution."

And the ethics questions continued to dog Morrison, especially on the front page of the most widely read Democratic blog, the Daily Kos:

However, it turns out that the first draft of the story omitted serious facts, and it turns out that the scandal really is a scandal. It's bad.

And the recap of the scandal made MyDD's breaking blue. After all was said and done, Wulfgar thought:

If Jon Tester showed up at my door tonight, with pizza in hand, asking for my vote, I would ask him why he deserved it. If he said "because I understand what it is to grow the grain from which that pizza is made, and I will grow such material for you in the Senate", I would be wowed, impressed, awed. If he said, "because I bring you pizza and you like pizza" I would thank him kindly, smile broadly, and send him packing. I'd keep the pizza, but I'd not vote the guy. I don't want someone to gimme the things I want. That's pathetic. I want someone who will provide the materials whereby I can have the things I want. That guy understands the work I do everyday, providing for people the material for what those folks provide everyday, and so on down the line. That's what we do, and that's what our government should be. I've railed before against the idea that our candidates must pander to our needs, because all they're really doing at that point is pandering to our desires. That encourages weakness in ourselves and corruption in them; they have no onus upon them to provide material after they are elected. The only promise they have to fulfill at that point is to fulfill more empty promise, such that we re-elect them.

Jon Tester is a farmer. He farms. He works the land and grows grain. Isn't that really simple? Yes it is. He wants to serve Montana as it's Senator. He wants to represent the things that are important in Montana, like helping us in growing the things that we need. It's not that complex, people. Tester is the guy who represents us. He holds no court with the idea that our greediest and laziest desires need to be pandered to to accept him as an elected representative.

This scandal has more questions than answers, which means there is more to come.

‘Twas the night before Fitzmas, and all through D.C.

The Senate stood empty, just waiting to see.

The Grand Jury listened to Fitz with much care,

He hoped that the votes all would be there.

Ken Mehlman and Rover all snug in their beds,

While visions of November danced in their heads,

And Dick in his bunker, as “W” did sip,

A drink from the flask he poured through his lips.

When out at the Post arose such a clatter,

They sprung from their cubes to se what was the matter.

Away to the phones they flew like a flash,

Called up their sources who asked for some cash.

The Times of New York had the lights all aglow,

As they savored the scuttle they knew soon would flow.

When, what to their wondering eyes should appear,

But a signature sheet with twelve names written so clear.

With Old Crow in his throat, George W then spits,

He knew in an instant it must be the Fitz.

More rapid he guzzled, his Party might lose,

So he bristled and shouted while chugging his booze.

Now Karl! First Libby!

Damn Fitz you vixen!

Lost Browny then Scotty!

Who else are you fixin’,

To topple from power!

We’re takin’ a lickin!

Now damn Fitzy, damn you!

Damn you this hour!

If not for those levees and Katrina’s wrath,

Dear God, why all these obstacles, who chose her path?

You live in the big house, but the White House is blue,

What else can go wrong, will Dick Cheney go too?

And then in a tantrum, he ran to the roof,

The stomping and kicking of each little hoof.

As he pulled out his hair and was turning around,

Up through the hatch big Barbara came with a bound.

In blue robe with white dots, from her head to her toes,

Yes her clothes were old fashioned, but everyone knows.

A bag of buckshot she held in her hand,

Then she told him that Karl could not take the stand.

His jaw how it twitched, his chin to and fro,

His cheeks were like roses, his nose white from blow!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

She pulled on his ear…you’re back on the snow!

The shaft of a pen he held tight in his fist,

And the smoke it encircled, man was he pissed.

He made a mad face, then reached for the lead,

He shook and he scowled, I wish he were dead.

Righteous and pompous, a nasty old soul,

She slapped him and said, pull Cheney from the hole.

A wink of his eye and a grin on his face,

Soon Fitz he would show that he should stay in his place.

He spoke not a word but went straight to his work,

And filled all the shotguns, then turned with a jerk,

And with shaking fingers, he dialed the phone,

Dick Cheney I need you, he said with a groan.

Dick called for his chopper, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight,

Happy Fitzmas to all and we’ll get him tonight!

read more observations here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Washington - Plummeting poll numbers in nearly every political demographic is being hailed as a success by Republican operatives, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Every country, every civilization goes down eventually," explained one high-ranking party official. "At the same time, the globalizing economy is rendering the concept of countries irrelevant and quaint anyway. We figured that we could speed up the country's downfall and still make out like bandits by looting the national treasury and planting our bounty offshore."

Asked if the public would approve of this approach, a House Republican laughed. "We deliberately set out to alienate every group we could think of. So far, we have angered the gays, Catholics, Hispanics, blacks, women, small business owners and energy consumers. That covers about everyone but the Amish. We have driven the economy into the ground, destroyed the social safety net, failed a major American city in a disaster, and then left it to rot. We badly botched an unnecessary war that has pretty much everybody disgusted with us. The funny part is that one third of Americans still support us and think we're doing a good job."

When asked who their steadfast supporters were, Republicans interviewed agreed that it had to be rural and suburban, under-educated religious white males. "Those guys are amazing," quipped one house staffer. "We could foreclose on their houses while seizing their guns, and they would still have little "Bush" flags waving". "But they vote", added another. "Make them visualize guys kissing each other and all other issues fly out the window." Pressed for why this particular group was easy to manipulate with non-issues, the answer was "because they are arrogant, entitled, bigoted and stupid. I know that sounds terrible, but ask Rove. He knows what I am saying. Do I have to pretend it isn't true?" Another staffer went further: "The voter whose big issue is homosexuality is most likely a latent homosexual himself. Voting Republican is a chance for him to express his self-loathing, and we know he won't pass that up.

Asked if this interview could finally alienate the white male vote, the house staffer smiled and winked. "What do you think electronic voting machines are for?"

In the broad scheme of international relations, Bangladesh hardly seems a country of consequence. But a recent article in Canada’s Globe and Mail sounds an ominous warning: Bangladesh today has more to do with our lives than may be immediately apparent.

A dirt-poor, densely populated, Bengali-speaking Muslim nation, Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan in 1971 and developed into a secular democracy. Once considered by most to be a moderate, peaceful country, the nation has recently become a new battleground between Islamic terrorism and democracy.

And democracy is losing. Despite hundreds of terrorist attacks against civilians -- most of whom are Muslims -- during the past three or four years, the government denies the role of Islam in the violence. In reality, the footprints of Jami’at el-Mujahideen, a terrorist faction, are clear. Yet the government has taken no substantive action in this matter.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=22167

Sure, it’s probably not politically viable at this time. But with the national debt reaching astronomic levels with no ceiling in sight, politicians need to be open-minded. Besides, a vast majority of Americans claim that it is “easy” to obtain marijuana with current laws—so why do we waste budgetary potential by enforcing laws that aren’t really working? And, for the record, I don’t use the stuff. So no, “it’s good shit,” is not one of my arguments. Anyway, let’s do this:

1) Legalizing and taxing marijuana will significantly increase revenue. We tax tobacco cigarettes; we tax alcohol; we tax gasoline. Doing the same for marijuana=more revenue. Even a tax of 50 to 60 cents a pack would raise billions of dollars annually.

2)Decriminalization would lower spending on crime. In 2004, there were 771,894 marijuana arrests, 89% of which were for simple possession(http://www.drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm). We’re talking serious cash here.

3) With legalization, violent crimes related to marijuana smuggling would be eliminated. Common sense, but still a valid point.

4) Marijuana could be used for medical purposes. Whether for cancer patients or glaucoma sufferers, there is a legitimate case for the drug’s medical value.

5) The country supports it. A 2002 Zogby poll found that 61% of Americans oppose arresting nonviolent marijuana smokers.

6) The fact that marijuana is illegal while alcohol and tobacco are not is hypocritical. Are there any adverse effects of marijuana use that could not be said for alcohol and tobacco? All are addictive, carcinogenic, and can cause detachment from society (and it is not possible to overdose on marijuana, which could not be said for either nicotine or alcohol). What is the logic behind picking and choosing which semi-dangerous substances to ban?

Additions. . .criticisms?

I love sensational headlines, don't you? Nevertheless, this is a serious and new article on a little discussed subject in the media, reflective of the immense power of the nuclear lobby in silencing what is effectively death in the air.

The author is associated with Lauren Moret whose work was recently featured in Bush's hometown newspaper(Bush's hometown paper on the DU poisoned world).

Worst President Ever

FEMA FUBAR
Senate Panel Recommends Start from Scratch

And it took him less than five years!
Imagine what he can do in 8!
Imagine what we would have found out but for the GOP CoverUp Congress!

Your war against Fear is not justified. It is actually a Resource War for oil, and a currency war for the dollar. Global Oil production has peaked and US will suffer the most from this crisis. The United States uses 25% of the world’s oil yet only has 5% of the world’s population. America is heavily in debt and bankruptcy is unavoidable. The coming housing bust will send the economy into a second greater depression.

While the Middle East countries find themselves targets in the "war on terror", China, Russia, and Latin America find themselves targets in the recently declared and much more expansive "war on tyranny." Whereas the "war on terror" is really a war for control of the world's oil reserves, this newly declared "war on tyranny" is really a war for control of the world's oil distribution and transportation chokepoints.

The dollar is in collapse, the economy is going to crash, oil is getting more scarce everyday. America is a nation that has its infrastructure built exclusively to be run on abundant cheap oil, with global demand of oil increasing exponentially and supply decreasing year after year, America has no other choice than to wage a global war on oil and currency and under the ruse of terror and freedom.

What? No believe? You still denial??

Anyone here still remember the scam of Al Samoud 2?

I totally forgot about it until today when I read that Iran has enriched a supply of uranium for the first time and Iran's president has said Iran won't back down ``one iota'' over its nuclear program.

Remember when Saddam backed down? Its been so long even MY memory's

been washed by Washington, but before the WMB bullshit we were hearing ranting and trash from Bush that it was because of Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missiles had 10 miles extra range than allowed by the UN [funny how US itself never follows UN regulations] that the US was going to attack Iraq. Al Samoud 2 was a big issue for a while, and Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum of a week or so to disarm and destroy all 90 some missiles or else the US EVIL EMPIRE was going to attack....

what happened?

Saddam disarmed all missiles.

and then...

US Charged in with Guns a Blazing....

SHOOT FIRST THEN ASK questions torture...

Quick Draw Trigger Happy Cheney saying GO FUCK YOURSELF to the world.

The point is, North Korea, Iran and indeed the rest of the world saw this and learn from Iraq's lesson. When dealing with EVIL like the US WHEEL OF EVIL EMPIRE there is no use in disarming your own weapons!!!!

Any country that still does that is PLAIN STUPID!!! LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO IRAQ!!!!

The Native Americans was too slow to learn the lesson, Iraq was too dumb to learn the lesson. Lets hope Iran does a pre-emptive strike FIRST this time and give Shrub a taste of his own medicine!!!

Now, to be fair I realize most Americans do not take lightly to criticism. But what about reason? Logic? Or plain common sense?

You seem to agree with the doctrine of pre-emptive strike correct? You say that if you know your enemy will attack you anyway, that it is your duty and obligation to attack them first to prevent damage to yourself.

So when I that Iran should attack America’s military and not wait until it is first attacked upon, what then do you have to object? I am simply praticing YOUR DOCTRINE OF PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE. If an enemy [the US in this case], will attack you anyway, (like how America will attack Iran, and how US with its proven track record DID attack Iraq) it is then Iran's duty and obligation to pre-emptive the pre-emptive strike. America has proven TIME AND TIME AGAIN that is PRACTICES THE DOCTRINE OF STRIKING FIRST, so why the hell should other nations not do the same? If I know a bully in my neighboorhood already took out 5 of my neighboors why the hell should I not practice what he does and take HIM out first?

So if you [US] can do it, why can no other country practice the same thing?

Let us not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All*manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and one for the others.

Your war against Fear is not justified. It is actually a Resource War for oil, and a currency war for the dollar. Global Oil production has peaked and US will suffer the most from this crisis. The United States uses 25% of the world’s oil yet only has 5% of the world’s population. America is heavily in debt and bankruptcy is unavoidable. The coming housing bust will send the economy into a second greater depression.

While the Middle East countries find themselves targets in the "war on terror", China, Russia, and Latin America find themselves targets in the recently declared and much more expansive "war on tyranny." Whereas the "war on terror" is really a war for control of the world's oil reserves, this newly declared "war on tyranny" is really a war for control of the world's oil distribution and transportation chokepoints.

The dollar is in collapse, the economy is going to crash, oil is getting more scarce everyday. America is a nation that has its infrastructure built exclusively to be run on abundant cheap oil, with global demand of oil increasing exponentially and supply decreasing year after year, America has no other choice than to wage a global war on oil and currency and under the ruse of terror and freedom.

What? No believe? You still denial??

Don’t forget what horrible unspeakable atrocities your nation did to the Native Americans who were here before them.

America is not a legitimate nation. It is a British renegade colony that should have been repatriated. The Evil Colony of America and the Evil Treacherous George Washington General Coward betrayed his own England and set up this Avarice Nation. The Evil American Colony sent a bitching letter to King George and in essence said they were tired of paying their fair share of the taxes, but used the ruse of ‘taxation without representation’ as a pitiful pathetic excuse to cheat the motherland of resources.

This is true beginning of the EVIL AVARICE NATION that you so ardently defend.

This nation later went on and killed all the Native Americans. This is the Evil nation that usurped land from the French and called it a so called “Louisiana Purchase”. That’s like me going to the BMW car dealership and driving off with the latest 760Li and paying only 15 cents. That’s a ‘purchase’ all right… Do I need to remind you America Robbed Texas from Mexico? And then the Evil wasn’t satisfied so it did a pre-industrial version of Operation Northwood’s and then went down to the capital of Mexico and forced the Pres. Of Mexico to give away all the rest of the West to the US Wheel-Of-Evil Empire.

Any nation that steals so VAST amount of virgin LAND, Territory, resources, will of course attract talent like light attracts flies. This is Darwinism in action here. Greediest of the Greediest people of the world immigrate the America. These Avaricious lovers of Lust and Evil procreate and mingle with other fellow most-greedy-of-the-earth evil lovers and pretty soon of a few short generations you have most avaricious, self-serving, underhanded, egoistic, hypocritical, lustful, greedy SOBs in the entire universe.

Nothing America has belonged to America. Nothing Americans have achieved was because of America itself. This country is one big party of a free ride that runs on the rape, murder, torture, usurping, robbery, thievery, hijacking, empirizing, conquering,

Of other peaceful innocent nations. It has never done anything good for anyone except itself own selfish pig citizens.

And it would be extremely hypocritical of you to say well that’s all in the past. It was not that long ago when you mass murdered the Native Americans. Why are you charging Saddam for a crime no did not commit over 30 years ago??

You still in denial?

Your country uses extremist Muslim religions as an excuse to fight them for oil. You have been thoroughly brainwashed if you believe what you have been told.

Always remember this, the Arabs are NOT the ones in our land attacking and bombing our children, destroying our homes and robbing our resources. The Arabs are not the ones with Gigantic Military Killing Machines that are targeting our homeland, bulldozing our buildings, knocking down our Statue of Liberty. They do not have soldiers occupying our land (technically not even our land), raping American woman or cutting off the balls of American men. Sure they did 9/11, but 9/11 was but a drop in the bucket compared to what the US did to them. 9/11 was the act of a few terrorists, that cannot be compared to the prolonged repeated conquering, occupy, exploiting, and repressing of entire nations at the thumb and whip of the US Wheel-of-Evil Empire.

They are not the ones imposing economical sanctions on our nation, starving our children and weakening our population. They are not the ones who have Mac Mansions and drive luxury SUV’s and have Comcast internetS and living the grandiose life at the expense of poor third world nations of the entire world.

Imagine if such things happened to America? Unimaginable..

Think about that..

The pitiful thing is they can’t even get a fair revenge..

Are you beginning to see the imbalance?

What freedom do we really have? Do you think the citizens of America could find a ‘basis of negotiation’ with the Big Corporations of America? or with its current government? Americans yell and scream freedom down the throats of other people, but they fail to see they themselves are the least free of all. Their addiction to oil and free shopping spree and lustful desires has not only enslaved themselves, but held captive are also the innocent citizens and youth of Middle Eastern nations and countless other countries across the world. They are so morally and fiscally deprived that they have dragged the chains of slavery unto the entire world. Is this anyone’s idea of a model of ‘freedom’? America's freedom and happiness directly comes from the expense of others, depriving them of their fair share of ‘freedom’, and yet these US hypocrites turn around and decree other nations need to be further ‘liberated’ to perpetuate their American Entitlement.

Do not for a second confuse standard of living for freedom, especially when you realize America’s high standard of living comes directly from the expense of those already much less fortunate.

I’m sure some Americans will do anything to defend the name of their country and their lifestyle, despite all facts to the contrary. Is that not as powerful or perhaps more powerful than Middle Eastern religious zeal? Too bad for the Middle Eastern religious nuts who don't know this, but in this world those with big weapons & Advanced Killing Machines ALWAYS WIN.. The existence of American in this universe proves that there is no justice and fairness in this world, and also that there cannot possibly be any ‘God’, for no God would be so cruel. Foolish Muslims….

It is not so bold an assertion nor an exaggeration to make to say that America is the single greatest threat to humanity. And the Greatest Disgrace and disservice to all life forms on earth.

What? You still in denial?

You can argue all you want. But who's better off? The American people or the people of nations it attacks?

Who sends their kids to private schools, piano lessons, soccer games, football games, to cheerleading tryouts, to UIL's??

American has manipulated global markets and currency in the past to pay of its massive debt, and then when the third world suffers directly because of its actions it gives a tiny little aid and call it a great humanitarian effort.

It's comparable to robbing a bank and giving back the spare change in your pocket. Its an PR act, you should see it for what it really is.

I'll bet anything that the Iraq people would much RATHER fix our national highways, if it means there citizens could live OUR lifestyle..

My question to you American's : would you switch places with the third world that you terrorize? if you can't say yes, then stop bitching.

Put your money where your mouth is you hypocrites.

Still no believe??

Metaphorically speaking, you and others like you are the type of people who would complain that handicap parking spaces are unfair because that means you have to walk furthur, or that its unfair that the homeless doesn't have to pay any taxes. But let me assure you that the handicapped would much rather have their HEALTH back than a handicap placard, and the homeless would much rather have a roof over their heads, a nice warm cozy bed with a family and kids and take vacations to exotic places twice a year and would be MORE THAN HAPPY to pay those taxes that you would so despise.

The point is, the grass is NOT always greener on the other side, certaintly not when the 'other side' is someplace in the Middle East.

Bottomline: who has benefited because of America's actions over the last two hundred years? Certaintly not the Native Americans.....

Something to think about ya know...

I should point out to you that terrorism is actually a war tactic.

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorists. If you apply

the strict definition of 'terrorism' and not that of the FOX 4 version, you would see that America sends their own 'terrorists' to foreign lands much more than the number of terrorists who have come here to attack the U.S.

Terrorism is much like asymmetric warfare. It is a tactic deployed by the weak against the strong. That fact in and of itself should answer your question as to why 'terrorists' don't rebuild power plants, schools and water systems...

If they had that ability, they would not need to resort to terrorism in the first place. And let it also be known that America is not doing such great services for the benefit of the Iraqi people but only for its own long term self interest and political agenda of worldwide domination.

Believing in anything else would be like a kid accepting a ride from a stranger for the benefit of the candy bar. He's giving me candy so he must have my best intentions at heart, right??

And please don’t use a religious excuse ever again.

religion is not the main issue here. Religion is NOT why we [US Army] are in Iraq. Religion is NOT why we will be in Iran. Religion is NOT why we were in Korea, or Vietnam, and its also not why we nuke Japan twice even though they were prepared to surrender.

When America fights China over oil and resources the U.S. will have to come up with something else besides 'religion' to explain away their addiction of usurping. I wonder to myself if the only the Native Indian Americans were Christians to begin with they might not have suffered their ultimate fate??? hmmm....

Religion is really not even the issue here at all. Your missing the real point. We [U.S.] are like the drug dealers who got these poor people into this hellhole and mess in the first place, and then we blame them for their condition. Wake up America! If you don't, [and I know you won't] peak oil will be your alarm clock that you can't shut off.

Still no believe?

Maybe you say since I live in American I should just shut up and stop complaining. Well, I have but this to say to you:

again, your argument that just because I live here in America I should shut up and stop complaining is [b]hypocritical.

When the Chinese government tells its own people the same thing, somehow the US WHEEL OF HYPOCRISY will intervene and starting bitching at Hu for not giving enough 'civil right' to the Chinese people.

Since when did the US GOV care about Chinese people? Last time I checked they very bitched about the trade imbalance and China’s growing oil demands. If they [US] are caring they sure as hell aren’t showing it by their actions.

You still denial?

Have you heard of Operation Northwood’s? If not I encourage you to do some research of it online or at a library. America Northwood’s was America’s EVIL PLAN to bomb and murder it own citizens and frame it on foreign nations in order to get ‘justification’ for an unpopular war. And this is just what is make public, your government is clearly capable of doing must more evil considering all the secret classified documents of plans such as Operation Northwoods that will never be make public.

And for those of you not in the know, there is ample irresputable evident that on 9/11 World Trade Center Building 7 was bombed by your own US Government. WTC 7 collapsed in a precisely vertical fashion. First, no building collapses exactly vertically unless it was engineered and rigged to do so. Second, WTC was a steel building. And no steel building has ever collapsed due to minimal fire. What is the motive you ask? Your EVIL EMPIRE propaganda machine loves drama. Americans citizens are the mob, and George Walker Commodus will use fear and drama to feeds American’s people to the lions (CEO Government, Big Business, Military-Industrial Complex) and you will THANK HIM FOR IT.

Isn’t that what you are doing now?

What, still denial?

Then let me give you this cool movie clip, perhaps it can enlighten you of reality.

http://festival.sundance.org/2006/watch/film.aspx?which=402&category=DOC

Best,

Bo Chen

Introducing the Purple Party

By Kurt Andersen

New York Magazine, April 24, 2006 issue:

Depressed about the Democrats? Revolted by the Republicans? You’re not alone. Here in New York (with its Republican mayor and Democratic voters), a third way is being plotted. Follow the purple-brick road.....

Less than a third of the electorate are happy to call themselves Republicans, and only a bit more say they’re Democrats—but between 33 and 39 percent now consider themselves neither Democrat nor Republican. In other words, there are more of us than there are of either of them....We are people without a party. We open-minded, openhearted moderates are alienated from the two big parties because backward-looking ideologues and p.c. hypocrites are effectively in charge of both. Both are under the sway of old-school clods who consistently default to government intrusion where it doesn’t belong....Both line up to reject sensible, carefully negotiated international treaties when there’s too much sacrifice involved and their special-interest sugar daddies object—the Kyoto Protocol for the Republicans, the Central American Free Trade Agreement for the Democrats....

More in same issue:

But Is a Third Party Possible?

By Ryan Lizza

Don’t look now, but factors like fund-raising on the Net and a new tribe of activist billionaires make a third party more possible than it has been in decades.

Building the Frankencandidate

By John Heilemann

Jon Stewart and everyone else knows the two-party system and its denizens are hopelessly, comically broken. And the condition is probably terminal. So how to breathe life back into politics? With a new kind of candidate, someone we haven’t met, but who seems strangely familiar.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Next President and Vice President . . .

(Not necessarily in that order) To create the perfect Purple Party people, we ran some of those listed on these pages through the computer, and these are the ones the machine came up with. They’re not gorgeous—but would you trust them if they were?

80 percent of oil and gas political contributions go to Republicans

With the price of a barrel of oil hovering at around $70 and a lot of pissed off voters paying more than three bucks a gallon at the pump, President Bush and his fellow Republicans are practically stumbling over each other as they seek to look tough on big oil and act to bring gas prices down before the November election.

But scramble as they may, there is no denying that the Republican majority and the Bush energy plan are bought and paid for by the Oil and Gas industry. According to data published by the Center for Responsive Politics, since 1990, the oil and gas industry has donated $140,870,847 to Republican candidates including the President and leading members of Congress. In the 2000 elections alone, in which George W. Bush was elected President, oil and gas companies gave more than $26 million to Bush and his fellow Republicans. A full 80 percent of oil and gas contributions, more than $20 million, went to Republicans during the 2004 election cycle.

It is these same oil and gas companies that are now reaping record profits. Exxon Mobil reported profits of $36.1 billion in 2005 -- the largest-ever annual profit for a U.S. firm. And numerous news reports say that the nation’s three largest oil and gas companies are expected to report combined 2006 first-quarter profits in excess of $16 billion, an increase of almost 20 percent from last year. These three companies, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Chevron Corp. have already given Republican candidates $390,000 to date in the 2006 election cycle.

So excuse me if I chuckle a little when I hear Rep. Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee say “ we may need hearings to determine how oil companies invest their profits,” as was reported by the Associated Press. Barton has received $109,450 to date in oil and gas contributions for his current re-election campaign and more than $879,000 in oil and gas contributions since 1994. Barton by the way is the guy who carried the water on the Energy Bill provisions providing oil companies with what the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates as about $10 billion in tax breaks that gas and oil companies will receive over the next five years.

I also don’t hold out much hope for rumors of a windfall profits tax being floated by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. and others. According the GOP website, President Bush is already on record saying that he would veto a tax on windfall oil profits. Bush, by the way, received more than $2.5 million in oil and gas contributions during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Meanwhile, any meaningful reforms such as increasing mileage standards for vehicles which the Union for Concerned scientists has said is the “single most effective way to curb oil use” has gotten no support from the Bush administration and was stripped from the recent Energy bill.

Instead Republican leaders apparently plan to use the current gas price crisis to ease restrictions on oil companies, open protected wilderness areas and circumvent environmental protections safeguarding air and water quality. Their first step is to blame Democrats for failing to vote to open the Alaskan Artic Wilderness refuge to oil drilling and to introduce new legislation to do just that. According to “The Hill” Republican leaders have scheduled a press conference Thursday at which House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) will introduce a legislative package that would include drilling in the refuge. Pombo by the way has received $66,200 in political contributions to date in 2006 from oil and gas interests in support of his current re-election campaign and more than $180,000 since 2000.

Never mind that oil analysts say that a shortage of crude oil is not the problem. The effort to tie gas prices to the need to drill in the Alaskan Wilderness Refuge first surfaced in a research-strategy memo developed by the Council of Republican Environmental Advocates (CREA) suggesting that the Bush administration use higher gas prices to promote increased drilling and open the Alaskan National Wilderness Area to oil exploration. CREA is a pseudo environmental front group funded by oil, gas and other energy companies that the organization Republicans for Environmental Protections says has a Steering Committee that includes lobbyists for Amoco, Texaco, Shell Oil, Total Petroleum, Lion Oil and others. The research memo was paid for in part by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who provided $250,000 in funds from his Indian tribe clients in support of the project. The memo was developed for the Department of Interior, then headed by CREA founder Gale Norton, and somehow apparently wound up in materials collected for Vice President Dick Cheney’s secretive energy policy planning process. Imagine that.

But don’t worry, I hear that Senate Republicans are going to introduce legislation providing consumers with $100 tax rebates to help them deal with rising fuel prices. Let’s see, $100 for consumers, billions for oil companies. Sounds fair. As for me, I’m going to give my $100 to a Democrat.

Martin Kramer:

Morbid fascination enticed me to accept an invitation to appear opposite John Mearsheimer at a Princeton University conference on "Energy, Security, and the Middle East" which met on Friday. This conference is an annual event, and it's always held off-the-record. The reason: oil analysts participate, and they want to be free to make predictions on supply, demand, and price that won't come back to haunt them. For that reason, I can't report what Mearsheimer or anyone else said--anyone, that is, except me.

In line with the theme of the conference, I decided to begin by asking a simple question. Here's how I put it:

http://sandbox.blog-city.com/israel_oil_realism.htm#

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! had an extremely informative guest on the other day, Antonia Juhasz, who has uncovered what really is an unreported area about the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Far from innocently pushing for freedom and democracy (or is it searching for WMDs this week?) the United States has imposed an economicsystem on Iraq, one that (naturally) favors foreign multinational corporations and

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest today is an author who has been tracking the Bush administration's goals in Iraq since the invasion. Antonia Juhasz has written about them in a new book. It's called The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. The book tracks the radical neo-liberal economic program the Bush administration has tried to impose on Iraq, which threatens to leave Iraq's economy and oil reserves largely in the hands of multinational corporations. It's an agenda, says Antonia Juhasz, that the Bush administration is trying to bring to all corners of the globe.

Antonia Juhasz joins us in our Firehouse studio. She’s a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. For years she was Project Director at the International Forum on Globalization. Welcome to Democracy Now!

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Thanks for having me, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: And congratulations on this book.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the leadership of Iraq?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, I would argue that the most important member of the new leadership is Adel Abdel Mahdi, who has been in every U.S.-appointed Iraqi government post-the-invasion. He was the Finance Minister of the interim government, the Vice President of the transitional government and was just named Vice President of the permanent government. He was actually the man that the Bush administration wanted to be the new prime minister of Iraq. The deal that was worked out was that another member of the Dawa Party, just like Mr. Jaafari, would become prime minister, and then Mahdi, who is a member of the SCIRI Party, would be vice president.

It’s a position that allows him to continue to be the most aggressive advocate of the Bush agenda in Iraq, which I argue is opening Iraq -- continuing to open Iraq to U.S. corporate invasion. Currently, 150 U.S. corporations have received $50 billion worth of contracts, as you said in the introduction, to utterly fail in reconstruction in Iraq, but the money has still been granted. And Mahdi is the person who advanced Paul Bremer's one hundred orders in Iraq that opened up the economy. But more importantly to the Bush administration, he is the person who has most aggressively pushed their agenda for a new oil law in Iraq, which would open up Iraq’s oil sector, the vast majority of Iraq's oil sector, to private foreign corporate investment.

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about the Bremer orders. You spend a lot of time in the book on them. Can you talk about Paul Bremer, Bremer's blueprint by BearingPoint, the orders themselves?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Yeah. You know, in the report that you were quoting in the beginning of the hour, which said that the reconstruction failed because of poor planning, it’s a myth that there was not a post-war planning done by the Bush administration. The reason why it failed was because the interests it was serving were U.S. multinationals, not reconstruction in Iraq.

That plan was ready two months before the invasion. It was written by BearingPoint, Inc., a company based in Virginia that received a $250 million contract to rewrite the entire economy of Iraq. It drafted that new economy. That new economy was put into place systematically by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the occupation government of Iraq for 14 months, who implemented exactly one hundred orders, basically all of which are still in place today. And everyone who is watching who is familiar with the policies of the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Bank, the I.M.F., will understand the orders.

They implement some of the most radical corporate globalization ideas, such as free investment rules for multinational corporations. That means corporations can enter Iraq, and they essentially don't have to contribute at all to the economy of Iraq. The most harmful provision thus far has been the national treatment provision, which meant that the Iraqis could not give preference to Iraqi companies or workers in the reconstruction, and therefore, U.S. companies received preference in the reconstruction. They hired workers who weren't even from Iraq, in most cases, and utterly bungled the reconstruction.

And the most important company, in my mind, to receive blame is the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco. They have received $2.8 billion to rebuild water, electricity and sewage systems, the most important systems in the life of an Iraqi. After the first Gulf War, the Iraqis rebuilt these systems in three months' time. It’s been three years, and, as you said, those services are still below pre-war levels.

AMY GOODMAN: BearingPoint. Why have we never heard of this company? Where does it come from?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: BearingPoint was KPMG Consulting, but had to change its name in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal, but BearingPoint picked up all of Arthur Andersen's old clientele and is essentially just the reborn KPMG. And BearingPoint, you probably haven't heard of, though, because they work in the back room. They write things like new economic policies, but are not the people seen on the ground implementing the policies.

Actually, there’s a wonderful story that I tell in the book by a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government in Iraq, who says, ‘One day these people from this place called BearingPoint came up and started telling us about these economic policies that were so unrealistic. I didn't know who they were and what they were talking about.’ Well, what they were talking about was an economic agenda that seemed completely ridiculous for the people on the ground who are looking at sewage flowing through the streets and Iraqis saying over and over and over again, ‘The most important thing we need is electricity. Just electricity. Just give us our electricity back,’ and failing to do it.

But this was BearingPoint, and they are still there. Their contract was renewed. They’re still focusing in particular on privatization of Iraq's state-owned enterprises. That's almost the sole focus of their current contract, and that contract goes, I believe, until 2007.

AMY GOODMAN: You have a quote of Lakhdar Brahimi, who is the U.N. Special Adviser to Iraq. A few years ago, he said, “Bremer,” talking about L. Paul Bremer, “is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money. He has the signature. Nothing happens without his agreement in this country.”

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Bremer became the dictator of Iraq. His orders laid out the law. Now, probably the most important thing to know is that that was completely illegal under international law. The Geneva Conventions are very specific about what an occupying power should do. It must provide basic security and services. It cannot change the laws or the political structure of the country it occupies. The Bush administration did exactly the opposite -- changed all the fundamental economic and political laws and utterly failed to provide for the security and the basic needs of the Iraqi people. What you hear most often in Iraq today is people saying, “Please just put us back where we were before you came.”

To read the entire interview, go here:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/25/1343214

FYI, here are just a few of Paul Bremer's 100 Orders. You decide how innocent our invasion/occupation really is:

Order #12 enacted on June 7, 2003 and renewed on February 24, 2004, suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq, and all other trade restrictions that may apply to such goods." This led to an immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap consumer products, which has essentially wiped out all local providers of the same products. This could have significant long-term implications for domestic production as well.

Order #17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq 's laws. Even if they do injure a third party by killing someone or causing environmental damage such as dumping toxic chemicals or poisoning drinking water, the injured third party can not turn to the Iraqi legal system, rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts under U.S. laws.

Order #39 allows for the following: (1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" of foreign firms; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses. Thus, it allows the U.S. corporations operating in Iraq to own every business, do all of the work, and send all of their money home. Nothing needs to be reinvested locally to service the Iraqi economy, no Iraqi need be hired, no public services need be guaranteed, and workers' rights can easily be ignored. And corporations can take out their investments at any time.

Order #40 turns the banking sector from a state-run to a market-driven system overnight by allowing foreign banks to enter the Iraqi market and to purchase up to 50 percent of Iraqi banks.

Order #49 drops the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40 percent to a flat rate of 15 percent. The income tax rate is also capped at 15 percent

It was a natural move, really.

When a Republican administration refuses ownership of its failures, instead painting its problems as those of poor communication, things like this happen. When a Republican network convinces the White House that better spokespeople, not better policies, are the answer and that they know just the right man for the job, already questionable relationships become incestuous in short order.

So it was no surprise to see former Fox News personality Tony Snow replace the beleaguered Scott McClellan as official White House mouthpiece. Equally unsurprising, sadly, is that many Americans won't recognize this for the shameless ploy it is. Then again, America has largely been unrecognizable since President Bush took office.

Behind-the-scenes, Fox officials are likley beside themselves with excitement at having one of their own - literally one of their own - at the podium. Publicly, however, network anchors are already attempting to beat back the notion that has long been accepted as common knowledge in progressive circles but is now gaining more mainstream awareness: That Fox is in the back pocket of the Republican Party at-large, the Bush administration in particular.

Wednesday, for instance, Neil Cavuto wondered aloud why those criticizing Snow's hire weren't similarly complaining when former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos took the helm at ABC's "This Week". Well, Neil, here's the short answer: Becuase these people aren't as dumb as you are. Revisionist history, like lying, comes part and parcel with working at Fox, so Cavuto must be living in a world where Stephanopoulos earned his liberal bona fides on ABC before he took a job with the Clinton administration. Because, if not, Cavuto must be an idiot. I'm sure you're just mixing up the timeline, right Neil?

Later that night, Bill O'Reilly, who is always quick to the defense of the indefensible, sang from the same hymnal as Cavuto. Wasting no time, O'Reilly bloviated about how the "far-left smear sites" were out to get his former colleague. "The smear sites spit out the usual out-of-context garbage, trying to portray Snow as anti-Bush because Tony did criticize the president on occasion, and at the same time saying he's a shill for Bush," O'Reilly said. He added, "Also, the far-left smear machine has a few so-called mainstream journalists in its pocket. So the propaganda often winds up in your newspaper."

To O'Reilly, "smear sites" must be a broadly defined concept, because, to him, they include Web sites that use one's own words. Outlets like Think Progress and Media Matters offered unedited Snow comments, which did far more to incriminate the former pundit as both a shill for an moderate critic of the president than any liberal could. If this constitutes an agenda, then, to O'Reilly, every single news outlet in the world - not only his - has an agenda.

It wasn't all anger Wednesday. Fox anchor Shepard Smith, himself no stranger to coming to his senses and criticizing the administration, joked that Snow's hire would lead people to think that "We're in bed with the White House." His guest, William Kristol, joined in the fun, suggesting other possible Fox employees who would make great administration hires. Sure, Smith was joking. But his panicked tactics, just like those of Cavuto and O'Reilly, were intended to brainwash Americans into thinking the hire doesn't raise any red flags.

But it does. No amount of network spin changes the fact that a Republican administration thinks it alright to hire a high-profile pundit from a Republican news network to parrot its views. Further, that the president, enjoying sub-zero approval ratings, thinks it's the message that's the problem, not his policies. This sort of incestuous relationship is more a hallmark of third-rate dictatorships than America. Until now, that is.

If, like the Bush White House does, you think that better messaging is the answer to the president's second-term malaise, Snow's hiring makes perfect sense. McClellan, after months of being rightly beaten up by the press corps for lying on behalf of the administration, was damaged goods. He was quickly becoming a liability to the White House, as he grew increasingly unable to fend off the circling vultures. Further, it's been reported that McClellan cared about his integrity.

The White House, however, doesn't care much for integrity. What they care about is spin. And in Snow, they've now got a living, breathing, Free Republic-posting, Kool-Aid drinking, spinning machine. A man unincumbered by the truth, free of the facts. To its short-term advantage, the West Wing has merged its bullshit with the home of some of the best bullshit peddlers out there. The move's long-term implications are equally distressing.

Though it has recently shown signs of life, the media has largely given the Bush administration a free pass. Will this continue now that one of their own has made the leap? I suspect it will, because in addition to spin, Snow is adept at the fine art of the schmooze. His lies on behalf of the administration will come in a much more pleasant package than McClellan's did.

What of his former employer? If you thought the access granted Fox by the administration was unprecendented before, just you wait. When Snow said, "I want to work with you," he wasn't referring to anyone other than Fox. And, as White House officials do when they become the story, Snow appeared on Fox Wednesday, speaking with fellow administration flack Brit Hume. There, he expressed regret that he had criticized his new boss in the past.

With his penance now paid, Snow can begin doing his lord's work.

Changing the world, one sixteen year old kid at a time.

Posted by Don from The Ward Report.

Everyone's talking about Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury. Rove's friends assure us this is actually good news for Rove.

The obvious explanation is that Fitz wants to indict Rove and needs more testimony. If Fitz didn't want to indict Rove, there would be no loose ends to tie up because there would be no grand jury. Besides, wasn't this their story for appearance 4?

The less obvious explanation that Fitz is preparing for the Libby trial.

Fitz may be using the grand jury to obtain sworn testimony from Rove for use in the Libby trial. It would be much easier for Fitz to get testimony from Rove through the grand jury than a deposition. Rove could resist a subpoena for deposition for weeks or months through legal process and Rove would have benefit of legal counsel has he testified at any depo, etc.

In the grand jury, it’s just Fitz and Rove. Rove is under oath and trying to save his own ass. Fitz locks down Rove’s story before the grand jury and has Rove by the balls when Rove testifies in the Libby trial. Rove changes his testimony during the Libby trial under penalty of certain prosecution.

Time will tell as to the purpose of yesterday's testimony by Rove, but one thing is certain: testifying before a federal grand jury is never good news.

The center of gravity in the civil war in Iraq is not Baghdad - it is Kirkuk. Kirkuk is the prize that the Sunnis lost, the Kurds want, and the Shia will not give. The Kirkuk oil field has about 10 billion barrels of oil reserves and produces almost half of Iraq's oil exports. He who controls Kirkuk controls Iraq's oil and Iraq's wealth.

[Click to see map of Kurdish region of Iraq]

Over the last year Kirkuk has become the central front in the struggle for control of Iraq's wealth. Kurdish peshmerga militias, Shia militias as well as Sunni insurgents have been slowly but surely taking up positions in and around Kirkuk in preparation for the bloodbath to come. The various militias in Kirkuk have been carefully maneuvering around each other under the watchful eyes of the American military. The battle for Kirkuk will likely begin when the American military begins its inevitable withdrawal from Iraq.

After the fall of Saddam the peshmerga quickly took control over Kirkuk. After Turkey expressed alarm at the possibility of Kurdish control of the Kirkuk oil fields (and the resulting wealth) the Kurdish militia withdrew to barracks outside the city. However, they have remained a presence in and around the city since that time. The Kurdish militias have also systematically infiltrated the Iraqi Army units in the north of Iraq:

Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

While the Kurds reinforce their control of the Iraqi Army, the Shia militias have begun to pour into Kirkuk in recent weeks and months:

Hundreds of Shiite Muslim militiamen have deployed in recent weeks to this restive city -- widely considered the most likely flash point for an Iraqi civil war -- vowing to fight any attempt to shift control over Kirkuk to the Kurdish-governed north, according to U.S. commanders and diplomats, local police and politicians.

The Shia militias in Kirkuk along with the Sunni insurgents in and around Kirkuk are bound together in this struggle as Arabs versus the Kurdish militias. The maelstrom in Kirkuk is a peculiar confluence of oil, wealth, Arab and Kurdish nationalism. Ever since oil was first discovered in Kirkuk in the 1920s, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen have been vying for control of this city's riches. Starting in the 1960s the ruling Baath Party began a process of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk. This ethnic cleansing, called "Arabization", forced Kurds, Turkmen and other ethnic groups from their homes and replaced them with ethnic Arabs from the south of Iraq:

Turkmens and Kurds alike were suppressed by the aggressive Arabism of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Official ''Arabization'' began in the 1960's and accelerated significantly in 1975, when the Iraqi regime began forcibly removing tens of thousands of Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrian Christians from Kirkuk and bringing in Arabs to take their place. This Arabization was chiefly motivated by the government's wish to consolidate its grip on the oil-rich and fertile region -- and to pre-empt a gradual demographic takeover of the city by the Kurds. Under Arabization, as many as 250,000 non-Arabs, mostly Kurds, were expelled north into Iraqi Kurdistan. Their former land titles were declared invalid, and ownership was assumed by the government, which rented the land to Arabs.

[Click to see map of proposed Kurdistan]

After the fall of Saddam the Kurds have reasserted control over Kirkuk. The Kurds consider Kirkuk to be the capital of a greater Kurdistan spanning from Turkey to Iran. The Kurds are prepared to fight in order to gain control of the city:

"Kirkuk is Kurdistan; it does not belong to the Arabs," Hamid Afandi, the minister of Peshmerga for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two major Kurdish groups, said. "If we can resolve this by talking, fine, but if not, then we will resolve it by fighting."

The Arabs, Shia and Sunni, are not prepared to hand over Kirkuk to the Kurds without a fight:

In a meeting here last week, Sadr's representative in the city, Abdul Karim Khalifa, told U.S. officials that more armed loyalists were on the way and that as many as 7,000 to 10,000 Shiite residents were prepared to fight alongside the Mahdi Army if called upon. Legions more Shiite militiamen would push north from Baghdad's Sadr City slum, he said, according to Wise.

"His message was essentially that any idea of Kirkuk going to the Kurds will mean a fight," Wise said. "He said that their policy here was different from in other places, that they are not going to attack coalition forces because their only enemy here is the Kurds."

The Shia militias in Kirkuk are currently outnumbered significantly by the peshmerga. However, any battle for Kirkuk is sure to draw in forces from Turkey and Iran. Both of these countries have Kurdish minorities that aspire for a greater Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran will both be concerned that a Kurdish controlled Kirkuk will give the Kurds the wealth needed to wage a war for a greater Kurdistan. 

However, under years of American and British protection, and the resulting autonomy, the Kurds of northern Iraq have worked steadily toward a Kurdish homeland. They are determined to make the dream of a greater Kurdistan a reality and any such state must include Kirkuk and its oil fields. The stage is thus set for a major confrontation in Kirkuk over the wealth of Iraq. Shia, Sunni, Kurd and Turkmen of Iraq are about to rendezvous with destiny in Kirkuk.

Also posted at my web site.

Ah, yes, when all else fails there is the “that would have been stupid defense”. It appears that Karl Rove has chosen this to be a piece of his final efforts to avoid indictment. I’ve always found the very notion of this defense flawed. The premise of the defense is that smart people wouldn’t do stupid things or make decisions that could rationally be expected to lead to negative consequences. In Rove’s case, as I understand the issue, the argument is being used to explain an oversight to reveal all the details of his conversation with Matt Cooper (specifically the part about Valerie Plame)…in essence he simply forgot that portion of the conversation but to lie would have been stupid…and Rove knows people don’t think he is stupid.

The unspoken assertion by those who use this defense (Tom DeLay comes to mind) is that they may use their intelligence to walk right up to the line, but they are also smart enough to never cross that line…basically they know the rules so well they can navigate them like a skilled tightrope walker. On the surface it sounds reasonable and plausible.

Unfortunately, history often seems to contradict this defense and the premise upon which it is founded. That’s not to say these individuals are stupid…they are actually quite bright. However, what people may miss is an understanding that whatever these people possess in terms of smarts sometimes pales in comparison to the zeal with which they seek wealth, prestige, or power. In essence, smart people, not unlike others who lie and manipulate, are not above self-deceit in order to augment lofty goals, obtuse egos, and an unbridled hunger for power.

In the end, it’s a mistake to evaluate these situations on the basis of the individual’s intelligence…and historically juries often don’t. It’s not difficult to understand that a jury also evaluates where arrogance, greed and the desire for power sit in relation to intelligence. One’s desire for the former has a direct impact upon the amount of intelligence that is applied to any particular activity to achieve the latter.

The mathematical genius who abandons math for theater is not necessarily stupid. He is simply motivated by other interests and the application of his intellect may or may not be the dominating part of his life equation. Those who know this individual may know that he is smart but they may also know that a passion for theater, despite its failure to be a reasonable and rational calculation, is able to override the application of intelligence. He may well fail in theater while still being a very smart man.

Why would anyone assume the actions of politicians are any different? A better analysis of how these individuals and their scandals unfold is described by the “choose your poison principle”…what compels; controls. In looking at Karl Rove there is little doubt he is passionate and motivated. His history is littered with demonstrations of aggressively pursuing his objectives. To presume he would never cross the line, given his obvious intensity, would shift the use of the “that would be stupid defense” to Patrick Fitzgerald and a full Grand Jury. That would likely require a lot of smart people to look stupid. Is Karl Rove smart enough to pull that off? Perhaps.

more observations here:

www.thoughttheater.com

Atrios posted language from the oil bill.

It's complete nonsense. "Unconscionability" in contract terms is already illegal under the laws of all 50 states. It comes out of the Uniform Commercial Code. The oil companies know this--it's the law that governs spot markets for oil and natural gas as well as every single piece of drilling, refining, and transportation equipment they buy. This makes it possible to look like they are actually doing something, but the bill's a complete tautology. It is, sadly, typical of the laws that the Republican Congress writes.

There's no link to the bill (and I gotta get some work done) but it would not surprise me if there's a preemption provision in there that would stop states from passing their own laws relating to the unconscionable selling of petroleum. In other words, the oil companies scream and yell about "freedom of contract," then hold their nose and take it and laugh all the way to the bank. Then the states can't pass more restrictive laws either against refiners or retailers. (It's what I would do if I were them.).

Dispatches from the Culture Wars brings us the latest warnings of Republican assaults on our freedoms.

The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.

Rep. Davenport "did not return several messages Friday to talk about his bill", but he is widely believed to be hiding somewhere near the North Carolina border, perhaps with other state legislators from So. Dakota and Mississippi.

Has anyone pondered the significance of this "War on Orgasms?" What would happen to America if the criminalization of IEOSD's (Improvised Explosive Orgasmic Sex Devices) were to spread through all 50 states?

"This group comes in direct contact with all kinds of Americans. They are found in every city, large or small, all across the United States".

"Forget high gas prices—think of the effect this would have on U.S. Consumers…. The economy…. On everyday life." Orgasams "are a central need of any American. Just think if we were scared to go to the corner and get it."

By now everyone knows that, going forward, Tony Snow will be reporting directly from the White House studios of Fox News. Other than formalizing an unseemly relationship that's existed since Bush took office, having the American public signing Tony's paycheck, and the temporary reduction in his pay, the significance of the change in reporting venues is minimal. In fact, there are a number of reasons to celebrate.

(cross posted - http://www.myleftwing.com and http://www.hairytruth.blogspot.com)

Scott McClellan functioned as a tuber, a tap root, an entity whose single purpose was to feed the vegetation flowering above. He may well be an entirely decent human being in other respects, but its difficult to see how a yam positioned at the podium would have performed much differently as a White House Press Secretary.

Tony Snow is not a yam. Score! (Set aside the obvious irony that having a Press Secretary who is not a yam counts as a "score" - its precisely that kind of cynicism that gives liberals a bad reputation.)

Tony Snow actually has something to lose by treating people in the White House press corps like useless sacks of shit. Going out on a limb here, but our brave, "you heard it here first" prediction is that, rarely, on occasion, Snow may accidentally convey useful information about the people's business.

And really, isn't anyone else looking forward to the sheer entertainment value of a reasonably media-savvy fellow trying to slather make-up on the administration's pig of a policy mess?

Petition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

[College & University Professors Only]

 

and Molly Ivins joins the struggle wiith

Let's call the Israel lobby the Israel lobby
Kooky lobby deniers pretend Israeli influence in U.S. is a myth

with a severe case of fundamentalist atheist jihadism (i.e., those who like to cry that "religion has caused all the evil in the world"):

Review, New York Times, April 21:

The World' s Spiritual Awakening, From Gods to God;

Karen Armstrong's "The Great Transformation; The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions"

By William Grimes

Excerpts from review:

...."The Great Transformation" looks far into the past. It begins with the first stirrings of religious consciousness, about 3,500 years ago among the Aryans of the southern Russian steppes, that would eventually lead humanity from nature worship and sacrifice to an inward-looking, self-critical and compassionate approach to life.

This transformation occurred independently in four different regions during the Axial Age, a pivotal period lasting from 900 B.C. to 200 B.C., producing Taoism and Confucianism in China, Buddhism and Hinduism in India, Judaism in the Middle East and philosophic rationalism in Greece....

The gradual elimination of violence from religion is one of Ms. Armstrong's great themes. In India priests in the ninth century B.C. had revised the sacrificial rituals to purge them of any practices likely to lead to violence, paving the way toward the guiding Axial concept of harmlessness. In China the concept of the ideal ruler changed from a warrior wielding magical powers to a serene, wise ruler whose "daode," or royal potency, "brought spiritual benefit to the people."

Ms. Armstrong tells a hopeful story. The Axial sages move humankind from a religious worldview mired in tribal loyalty and self-interest to an expansive spirituality that takes account of others. In writing of the Jains, circa 530 B.C. to 450 B.C., she writes, "The new ideal was no longer merely to refrain from violence, but to cultivate a tenderness and sympathy that had no bounds."

Greece is the great exception. At a time when the Hebrew prophets were preaching monotheism, Greece opted for polytheism....

 

The recent agreement on a Prime Minister and unity of the majority among Iraqi Shi'a factions was an important step.  When President George W. Bush and American troops held to the election deadlines and provided excellent election day security, those were concrete  goals that the troops could work for and accomplish.

The goal of Shi'ite or governing unity of factions was less concretely based on fickle human behavior in a culture that disagrees with many of our Western assumptions.  Many had doubts, not unreasonably, that Iraqi unity was a concrete goal which could be anything other than perpetually manipulated by those on whose behavior it depended.

Much remains to be seen as to how the unity was achieved, but it happened, and it is a significant victory for Iraqi self-determination, with constitutional, democratic features. That's a great accomplishment that everyone should applaud, even if its occurrence was a gamble.

Will it last? Let's hope so. Al-Zarqawi's sour puss video is some indicator that the unity government is exactly the right thing for Iraq. He's going to have to find a wagon train out of there soon, it seems, given these results.

So, here's a congratulations to American troops, intelligence pros and especially the Iraqi forces who have fought to make peace, order, sense and a form of democracy rule Iraq. May all of these efforts hold and fuse the ground in a future Iraq that enjoys lasting peace.

Can her neighbors allow that, focus on their own home fronts and not succumb to covetousness, envy or sabotage? Let's hope so. It would be a faster track to putting the Middle East back into Middle Eastern hands rather than inviting more outside intervention.

 

With ethical and legal questions dogging the credibility of Montana State Auditor John Morrison, his vague Iraq policy is drawing political fire. Morrison seems to be avoiding the issue (go to his campaign website and you will find an "Issues Page" that refuses comment on Iraq). In the first negative ad run by Senator Conrad Burns, he attacks Morrison for not having a policy on Iraq

ANNOUNCER: The Democrat Senate candidates just held a debate. The Great Falls Tribune had these quotes. Asked about foreign policy, John Morrison quote said we need to have a very specific policy in the Middle East, but never said what that might be. End quote.

Local Democratic blogger Wulfgar was at that debate and reported:

I understand clearly when I'm being snowed by pretty words, and John Morrison did that aplenty. He speaks very well, but as Gwen Florio of the Trib noticed, he tended to say a lot without answering the questions. He went over time more than any one else in this debate. As I said, John is very slick. He dodged the question of Iraq, saying that we need a consistent mid-east policy. What? We need to protect the troops, but how? Seriously, it was on foreign policy that Morrison was weakest.

Refusing an Iraq stance that recognizes the war was a mistake puts Morrison out of touch with voters, especially primary voters. The most recent Montana poll I could find was from December, so remember that back then Bush had a 2% pt. net job approval in Montana and has fallen to a -15% pt. net approval rating. But even last December a Mason-Dixon poll had 48% of Montanans disapproving of Bush's handling of Iraq, with only 45% approving. Wulfgar concludes:

Notice this, the primary attack being used by the Republicants takes two forms: the Dems have no ideas, and the Dems won't take a stand. Morrison might as well go hunting with Cheney as to take his current tact in this campaign. He's going to get blasted in the face either way. He has no ideas and he won't take a stand. That may have worked for Baucus in the 70's, but it sure as hell won't work for Morrison in 2006. If he doesn't come out boldly with issue statements and a clear agenda, he will lose, period.

And here's my thing, why should we, as Democrats, want him? Yes, he's pretty, and yes he speaks very well. But yet he does nothing to inspire my confidence that he will do jack to work for me. His silence about stances and his evasion of things that might appear negative to some allows for intuitive judgement, as touchstone notes, but it also sends a clear message that this guy wants to be elected more than he wants the job that he will be elected to. Add to that the fact that he is willing to play every hypocritical canard on the table and you have an unappealing candidate.

This is bad news for Morrison, his vague stances on the issues have given him nothing to fall back on now that he is caught up in an ethics scandal. Larry Sabato at the Center for Politics says:

So Morrison's candidacy has become a soap opera of scandal, precisely what Conrad Burns needed to share the pain and take the heat off of him. A Morrison-Burns contest may be a battle of yells: "Abramoff!" versus "Infidelity!"

When Burns yells "Infidelity" Morrison can't yell back "Iraq!" If Morrison won't stand up to Bush on an issue as unpopular as Iraq, how can voters expect him to stand up for anything?

2006 Democratic Primary and Democratic Party Message on Iraq

The "...insurgency will disappear if we promise not to build permanent bases" may be Morrison's message to try and not offend anyone, but it isn't the message the Democratic Party needs on Iraq. When Montana Senate President Jon Tester was attacked by Burns, the Montana press went beyond he said/she said journalism to actually call Burns out:

The advertisement claims Morrison hasn't articulated a policy for the Middle East, and that Tester and Richards haven't "explained how cutting and running from al-Qaida made us more secure." [...]

But Tester, on his Web site, does address al-Qaida by saying “Iraq has distracted America’s attention from important threats, including terrorist networks like al-Qaida and nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran.”

Tester said he believes al-Qaida should be the focus, and that Burns is mixing up the issues. “The Iraqi war has nothing to with al-Qaida,” he said.

“We need to start utilizing our friends and allies in the region and developing a strong presence there diplomatically instead of where we have an open ended commitment (in Iraq) with no end in sight,” he said.

In fact, last November Tester called for an exit strategy and timetable for re-deployment from Iraq:

“It is out of loyalty to those troops and those families that I believe the time has come for the administration and the U.S. Congress to articulate a well-defined exit strategy and to set a specific timetable for the departure of American troops from Iraq,’’

The sons and daughters of Montana “have borne a disproportionate share of the casualties in this war, and their families have shouldered a great share of its emotional and financial burden,’’ he said.

The war’s heavy reliance on National Guard and Reserve units have depleted the states’ ranks of first responders, he said.

Moreover, Tester said the costs and resources of the war in Iraq have distracted the nation from its missions in Afghanistan and from the larger war on terror.

Morrison seems to be taking a foxhole Democrat approach, which isn't a solution for Iraq policy. Even worse, he appears to be bunkering down, refusing to debate in Missoula following a front page story in the Missoula Independent on the John Morrison affair. But Morrison's vague, "electability strategy" isn't leadership, it is careerism. The Democratic Party needs a senate nominee that can be trusted. Democratic candidate Paul Richards of Boulder talked about this in Choteau, MT at the Teton County Democratic Central Committee candidate's forum:

In a separate interview, he said Morrison is a Democratic Leadership Council member and often votes with Republicans. He said Morrison does not have the wherewithal to say no to the lobbyists in Washington.

Tester once had some thoughts on this problem:

For too long, our party has been scared of its own shadow, unwilling to do anything for fear of facing political consequences. As a result, we've now got a President who thinks he can do anything without facing any consequences.

We need more Senators who will stand up to this administration.

Indeed. Especially when it comes to Iraq.

that the U.S. is not the only one "on Israel's side:"

April 26, 2006

Russia Helps Israel Keep an Eye on Iran

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOSCOW, April 25 — Russia launched a satellite for Israel on Tuesday that the Israelis say will be used to monitor Iran's nuclear activities.

The Eros B satellite was launched from Svobodny, in eastern Russia, said Aleksei Kuznetsov, a spokesman for the Russian space forces. The Itar-Tass news agency in Russia and Channel 10 television in Israel reported that the launching was successful.

The satellite is intended to help Israel gather information on Iran's nuclear program and its long-range missiles, which are capable of striking Israel, said an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity....

I bought a terrapass. I heard about it a while ago, it seemed like a good idea, and then forgot all about it...

But what finally got the credit card out was a little inspiration from Al Gore, who's on the cover of this month's Wired:

Gore says he and Tipper regularly calculate their home and business energy use - including the carbon cost of his prodigious global travel. Then he purchases offsets equal to the amount of carbon emissions they generate. Last year, for example, Gore and Tipper atoned for their estimated 1 million miles in global air travel by giving money to an Indian solar electric company and a Bulgarian hydroelectric project.

Carbon offsets are still an imperfect tool, favored only by a few early adopters...Gore acknowledges that the average US consumer isn't likely to join what is, for now, essentially a voluntary taxation system.

It's a tax I don't mind, and it seems like if we all do a few little things like this -- offset carbon use, recycle, support local/organic farmers -- it just might make a difference.

 

Osama Bin Laden is believed to be somewhere near the Pakistan Afghanistan border. Many of Al-Queda’s following has also crossed the border into Pakistan.

The majority of Pakistani businessmen who reside in the United States own grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, video stores and gift shops. This group comes in direct contact with all kinds of Americans. They are found in every city, large or small, all across the United States. Hardly any of the public get to know these people, many of whom barely speak english, nor mingle or assimilate into our social or cultural environment. Thus, we do not know them.

On September 11, 2001—19 hijackers turned commercial US airliners into missiles, and in their coordinated attack--killed 3,000 Americans in less than two hours.

We saw that ordinary, everyday objects could be used unconventionally as WMD.

On May 15, 2003, there were minor explosions caused by timed explosive devices at 21 gas stations in Karachi, attributed to terrorist organizations.

We might ask the question—what is to keep immigrants from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, or Egypt from simply blowing up American gas stations?

We are focused on the big picture, and yet Al-Queda operates in the small picture. They improvise. They use what means that present themselves. Their ingenuity has been not a knack for gaining strength—but rather exploiting weakness. Their method has been to adapt seemingly passive and constructive objects into destructive and somehow both ironic and symbolic weapons of terror. They seek not the world’s largest weapons primarily—but those which best serve their purpose, which is literally to “shock and awe.”

Why couldn’t an outwardly nice, friendly looking legal or illegal immigrant from pulling into a gas station and blowing it up? Isn’t that the Al-Qaeda tactic in Iraq—blow up on a small scale, but over a massive area, and on a continuous relentless scale, without let up?

What if a coordinated attack on hundreds of Gas Stations occurred in the United States? Has anyone pondered this potential eventuality?

Forget high gas prices—think of the effect this would have on U.S. Consumers…. The economy…. On everyday life. Gas is a central need of any American. Just think if we were scared to go to the corner and get it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114601699476036065.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Even as Patrick Fitzgerald questions Rove again on his role in Plame-gate, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial today throws all the “leaks” involving the CIA into the same barrel.

The discovery, both, of the NSA spying program, most assuredly unconstitutional, and the secret US torture prisons are very, very different than the outing of a undercover CIA operative.

The US government’s participation in domestic, warrantless spying, and in the rendition of prisoners to “black sites” for interrogation, is as anti-American as it gets. The “leaking” of these programs is akin to a whistleblower who has seen wrongdoing occurring and acted to make sure Americans were made aware that these programs existed so that they could be examined.

Purposefully identifying a covert CIA agent’s identity, under any circumstances, is an act of treason and needs to be punished as such. To out a spy in order to perpetuate a lie used to justify America’s illegal war in Iraq, makes it that much more despicable.

The reasons for the three disclosures do make a difference and they are why the Washington Post and New York Times’ writers were awarded Pulitzer Prizes and Robert Novak was not.

VOTE OR DIE

So street. So angry. So prominent. So what?

I don't know what name he's rolling with today, but it's clear that Puff or P or whatever his nom de jour is, has as much commitment to consistent political activism as he does to consistent brand identity.

The punk pimping the label "Vote or Die" has apparently voted to take the money and run.

The "Vote or Die" campaign to register young voters for the 2004 election seemed to be everywhere two years ago - as Combs promoted its message on high-profile TV shows and several voter registration events around the country via a private plane chartered specifically for the occasion.

(Hold that thought because we're going to come back to that jet.)

Now that the election is over, it seems as if the organization behind "Vote or Die" has ended as well. According to Fox411 columnist Roger Friedman, Diddy's political organization Citizen Change is pretty much a thing of the past.  Friedman says he was told by sources that Citizen Change was only meant to be an occasional thing. One person told him: "The group wasn't intended to be active between elections."

(Hold that thought because we're going to come back to continuity of coverage as well.)

The column also notes the expenses incurred by Citizen Change during its April to November 2004 run, which included approximately $80,000 in travel expenses for the "Vote or Die' plane tour, $100,000 for photography by Mark Seliger, $541,000 on advertising and $252,000 for billboards. Citizen Change's total expenses came to over $2 million.

Ok...now we're talking.  Let's look a little closer at the money here folks.  I don't like it when Delay, Gingrich, or Halliburton plays that game.  I don't like it when some colllege drop out entertainer takes a bunch of kids and leads them on a merry romp so he can launder money and evade taxes.

Why do I say that? Because it's an outrage.

The group's Web site is gone. Fine.

So are their offices. Fine.

But like a snail, they leave a trail of slime behind them. Their federal tax filing is available on Guidestar.org, which records the filings of not-for-profits.

To complicate matters, Combs' other not-for-profit, Daddy's House, states on its 2004 federal tax filing that it gave $245K to Citizen Change. Daddy's House, which runs summer camps for impoverished kids and is run by Sister Souljah (aka Lisa Williamson-Rodriguez), still posted a paper loss of $344K.

(I checked....it's true.)

By the way, I also noted that while Combs got no compensation, Souljah took home 75K from Daddy's House.  Oh, and they spent 52K in "transportation" costs.

Here's why I bring this to your attention:

I don't like it when Trent Lott tries to steal $700 Million by playing on people's sympathies.

I don't like it when The Pentagon misplaces $2.3 Trillion playing on people's patriotism.

I don't like it when The Hilton Family ® puts profits before people - especially wounded soldiers.

I sure as hell don't like it when a bunch of college drop outs take advantage of people's aspirations and pretend to offer them a political platform when they are really just pulling the wool over their eyes so they can pick people's pockets, launder the money and use it to pay for tax-free bling.

This damages legitimate political activism in communities that desperately need a voice.  This compounds the cynicism of people who are already alienated from the political process.  This makes it even harder for people who are doing the hard work of pounding pavement to register voters.  This trivializes the political process and turns it into another marketing vehicle for the latest fashion in clothing, music, or ring tones.

To be honest, I always figured Combs for an opportunist just grabbing as much money as he could ... he's juvenile.  The people I really hold accountable here are men who should know better...who profess to know better ...who claim to be in this struggle for the long run. Men like Russell Simmons and Al Sharpton.  All I can say is, if Russell Simmons is more interested in getting invited to Donald Trump's parties than building the Democratic Party... just get off the bus.

Of course, like the other outrages I have lamented, this one comes as no surprise to anyone who followed "Vote or Die."  Paris Hilton was one of their celebrity spokesmodels.  She didn't even register to vote!

==

Mything the Point  ©:

"Examining unexamined beliefs Americans accept on faith value."

Juan Cole's now in running gun battle with John Fund of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Check it out!

 Cole Goes After John Fund

Email address to write WSJ included

John Fund vs. the Truth
He lies about Juan Cole – and much else
Justin Raimondo

Startled by the energetic reaction to his poorly thought and weakly researched recent attack on university professors, David Horowitz has changed tactics, moving from attack (his usual mode) to plaint. He’s sounding like the title character of Lieber and Stoller’s (recorded by the Coasters) “Charlie Brown”: “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me.” He writes:

Prior to my academic freedom campaign, I published nearly twenty books and hundreds of articles over a forty-year period and without questions being raised about the accuracy or integrity of my work. Yet within a year of launching my academic freedom campaign a rash of articles, written by leftists, appeared across the Internet calling me a liar and someone who played loose with the facts.

Let’s see now, what’s the rest of that chorus? Oh yes:

He's a clown, that Charlie Brown

He's gonna get caught

Just you wait and see

What has happened, Charlie Brown--I mean, Mr. Horowitz--is that you just weren’t important enough for academics to debunk you before (actually, we should have been doing so, your The Art of Political War” How Republicans Can Fight to Win is one incredibly subversive and anti-American tract)—now, you have attacked us where we live. So what did you expect? You finally got caught.

Horowitz continues, in the face of so much that shows that “academic freedom” isn’t his goal at all, to claim he is fighting for just that. Of course that outrages those who really are working to instill the concept of freedom of thought into their students. Until he stops calling what he is doing his “academic freedom efforts,” he is going to continue to induce outrage.

It will also continue as long as Horowitz refuses to admit to his failings, rather than continuing his pathetic defense:

Without exception the bases for these claims are either differences of opinion presented as contradictions of fact, trivial errors common to any published text, and in one case a claim repeated from a source that proved to be incorrect. The campaign has been successful enough that whenever there is a liberal in the room now, the phony issue of my credibility is brought to the fore.

As anyone who has either looked at his book, listened (or read) his various statements on his “Academic Bill of Rights,” or who has seen the demonstrations of his falsehoods knows, there is no simple difference of opinion regarding these things or only “trivial” errors. The problems are substantial and amount to an attempt at deception. Unless he recognizes this, questions of Horowitz’s credibility will continue.

Not only is Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” campaign now dying, but his attack on academics has backfired on him completely.

If you want demonstration of Horowitz playing fast and loose, go to my older posts or go to Free Exchange on Campus, the group that seems to be annoying Horowitz the most these days by debunking, professor by professor, the falsehoods of his book.

Reocognize yourself, Mr. Horowitz:

Who's always writing on the wall

Who's always goofing in the hall

Who's always throwing spit balls

Guess who (who, me) yeah, you.

In less than a month, on May 25, Americans will commemorate the 45th anniversary of President Kennedy's 1961 pledge before Congress to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s. While the path from the earth to the moon wasn't known at the time, what was certain was the president's commitment to a bold, ambitious goal.

Decades later, another president faces a challenge as daunting as that Kennedy faced in 1961: Breaking the United States from its dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil. While Kennedy embraced the space race with a pioneering spirit, President Bush has repeatedly told Americans he lacks the "magic wand" to combat the looming crisis.

What was once a can-do attitude coming from the Oval Office has been replaced with a can't-do attitude embraced by the current Commander-in-Chief. A president who once asked of the American people great things has been replaced with a president who runs in panic from one of the greatest challenges in our nation's history. What a difference 45 years makes.

President Bush's shameful can't-do attitude has been especially pronounced since September 11. In the wake of that tragedy, Bush had the chance to unite Americans as Kennedy had before him. He could have helped end America's addiction to oil, an addiction he still bemoans and still perpetuates five years later. He could have asked scientists to help forge a new way. He could have asked Americans to become a part of the solution. But he didn't.

The president who pledged to be a uniter did anything but, dividing America in pursuit of goals that have only made things worse. He involved us in a costly war intended to establish a Middle Eastern beachhead for Big Oil. Further, he allowed his friends in the energy industry to set the agenda, prolonging the problem. His alternative energy policy seemed to only exist in his lofty rhetoric, not in the reality-based community.

Today, we're mired in record-high gas prices. Americans nationwide are feeling the pain at the pump, with reports indicating some individuals selling personal items for gas money. While our wallets suffer, the oil companies prosper. They're enjoying record profits, their leaders drawing salaries approaching $200,000 a day. These CEOs, who profit from our exploding demand, are fond of telling Americans who live paycheck to paycheck that "We're all in this together." If only that were true.

Where is the leadership? Where is the president mandating that America's will be a hybrid economy within ten years? Where is the president asking that his administration lead the way by replacing appropriate government vehicles with their hybrid or alternative-fuel counterparts? Where is the president locking the best and brightest minds in a room to for once follow through on his promises? Where is the president demanding accountability from his friends in Big Oil?

Again, where is the leadership? I'll tell you where it is: It isn't. The president's answer to this problem, so far, has been to tell Americans to drive less. Drive less? Most of us, Mr. President, have already cut back on unnecessary driving because of soaring gas prices. Most of us only drive to and from work. So, would you have us staying home, not doing our jobs? That's not "uniquely American" if you ask me.

While the president is asking us to drive less, his Republican colleagues continue to embrace a dying business model. Blaming everyone but themselves for the crisis of their creation, they're urging Americans to get behind their plan to drill for oil in the Arctic. So, to recap this plan: America is addicted to oil. We need to break this addiction. Let's drill for more oil. There's not a bullshit detector out there weak enough to not raise a red flag over that idea.

Imagine if, 45 years ago, Kennedy responded to calls for a moon mission by saying he didn't have a "magic wand" that could make the seemingly impossible possible. Imagine, too, if Kennedy hadn't asked Americans to serve their nation. Who knows what would have happened had everyone embraced such a can't-do attitude? The very same attitude that permeates the Bush administration.

America is a better place because Kennedy embraced a challenge with hope and determination. Six years into the Bush era, America is still waiting for this president to do the same.

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I really hate the retail-slavery-industry-complex. I really don't like focusing on sales, sales, and sales! Yes, I worked in it long enough to know that I hate it all. I don't care about monitoring numbers and projections and all the stuff that working for most corporations, and not only the ones involved in retail entail. While It's good to make a profit, I'm not all about the profit motive above all else. I don't see myself in a career where all I did was make money for some corporation and It's shareholders. I don't aspire to work my way up to some District Manager position or executive for any corporation, not only in retail.

Truthfully, most people who work in retail are just doing it because they're looking for something better and are forced to work there for now, or they are just content to be working wherever. They're not really thinking about a career with that company. I don't ever hear people actually saying that they want a "career" with Starbucks, Target, The Gap, Wal-Mart, A movie theater, or a bank for example. They just need a job ( just over broke ), and they will leave when something better comes along. They might as well remove the question "why do you want to work for company X?" on an interview, because most people aren't really there to be happy about working for your company retail or not, they're just there for a paycheck.

This is why like my mom always said, go to school! Get a freaking education kids! Then find a career in something that you actually want to do and will be passionate and excited to be working in. Hey, if you actually want to work for a corporation and be an executive then so be it, to each his own, but the education is key. Alas, in this Strapped world Generation X and the Millienials are going to have a very hard time.

As William Greider in his book The Soul of Capitalism says we are truly too fixated on "more". Yes, I'm probably becoming the most anti-corporate blogger in New York State. I hate corporate power and I say It's all good!

So here I am in my local Barnes and Noble ( Barnes & Noble, I want Google finance to pick up either spelling LOL) again ( there's no independent book store/cafe close by ), and once again the Store Manager seems to have a problem with not knowing how to say things in private, and not around people like me who hear everything. He's done this numerous times, talking about other employees to other employees and whatever else on the sales floor. I mean he seems like a nice person, but alas, he's just wrong. So yesterday I'm sitting there reading when I overhear him talking on the phone, on the sales floor, about how he's going to fire people.

And I know I'm not the only person who heard it either. His comments were something to the effect of come payday he's going to put a warning on everyone's paycheck that they will immediately be fired if they do a "re-sort" the way he's seen it done again. I would assume that a "re-sort" is when customers leave books and periodicals on tables and then the employees then have to put them back where there supposed to be. Oh, he was also upset that his news stand section is not being done right.

Hey look, I know he's a manager and I've been a manager in retail ( I'd never ever do it again ). I know that all the responsibility is on you. If something goes wrong or is not going the way It's supposed to, they come to you first and last. So he's right in wanting things done the way he needs them to be done. And if his employees are not doing them the way he needs them to be done, then discipline might be need to be used. But I've often found that when you threaten people with their job ( I've never done what he's doing, though I've seen many a manager do it ), it really does not help you at all. There's some authoritarian mindset that's been stuck in place for years that you have to scare people with "termination" and I resent that, and I know many others do to. There are other ways he could go about getting his people to do things the way he needs them to be done, he could try one on one feedback with each employee for example. He can discipline if he has to also, but he should always make sure It's a last resort. And you should always let the employee know that you don't want to discipline, but that they left him no choice. He should also make sure that he really shows that each employee is valued and that he wants to see them do well.

And if they really don't want to be there he needs to find that out too. That's why I won't work in retail or for many other corporations because if I don't want to be there, then I'm not going to be there. But alas, many people have to settle for those jobs for now. It's the vicious cycle of corporate America, greedy capitalism, conservatism, and the Bush administration. You get what you pay for as they say. Very often these companies have to realize that you're getting what you pay for, either through wages or through the economy in general. You're going to find lower morale and people who are just working for you because they have no choice. The saying goes "good help is hard to find," this current economic situation truly brings more meaning to those words.

But getting back to Mr. Store Manager, I'll also add that there's a reason why his cafe manager quit, he told me personally LOL. But all that is besides the fact that he's saying all this on the sales floor! Besides the customers hearing it I'm sure there were some employees in the vicinity who heard it too. That does not help morale at all.

And yes, I know that Barnes and Noble is a "blue" company they donate to Democrats and what not, but corpratism is corpratism no matter what.

Call To ACTION: The Threat Is Real - You MUST save the internet TODAY

Citizens Sign on to Co-Sponsor the Markey Amendment
Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California has opened the halls of Congress to you and me — but we must act today. She’s asked citizens to co-sponsor Rep. Ed...

No one but Al-Qaeda knew what would happen on 9/11. No one else had any clue.  Not one person.

The FBI, the CIA, the US Government, INTROPOL, nor any overseas intelligence gathering agency had one shred of evidence that would lead a person to think planes would be used against high-rise buildings.

No one had a date.

No one had a time.

No one had a location in mind.

All there was were threats, and hints--none of which, I might add, gave the above details.

Thus--9/11 happened.

The people who have claimed our current President should have acted on such threats, such gathering hunches and predictions--usually fail to see that what they wish we had done before 9/11, with no concrete evidence or leads--is precisely what WAS done before the War in Iraq.

They say that we should have connected the dots before 9/11--that we should have used every means available to stop terrorist acts on our country.  Now, when they see the full scope of what such intelligence gathering and surveillance involves--they seem to have lost their sense of duty in fighting terrorism, out of some primal fear of this President's motives.  They have forgotten what the purpose of the program is all about--catching terror cells.

The fact is, we have to increase, not decrease--our intelligence gathering capability.  We need to know what the terrorists are talking about.  We need to know what they sound like, and decode and dismantle their methods.  We need to know who is in our country.

Hence the Immigration tie-in.  We have to know who is in our country--thus, take inventory, and remove those who are not here legitimately.  Those who are here legitimately, we need to watch closely.  It is not a question of ethics--it is a question of national security.

Today, Abu Musab Al-Zarquawi finally showed his face.  His vow, "By God, America will be defeated in Iraq." 

His promise to Americans--"You will never live in peace until we live in peace."

The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the newly reformed Mujahedeen Shura Council--who personally beheaded Nicholas Berg, and headed the insurgency which has killed hundreds of American soldiers--directly addressed the US president, George W. Bush, saying: "By God, you will have no peace in the land of Islam. Your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse."

Two days ago, Osama Bin Laden explained the Al-Qaeda perspective in detail on a new tape from Al-Jazeera Television:

Despite the numerous Crusader attacks against our Muslim nation in military, economic, cultural and moral aspects, but the gravest of them all is the attack against our religion, our prophet and the our Sharia tenets. The epicentre of these wars is Baghdad, the seat of the khalifate rule. They keep reiterating that success in Baghdad will be success for the US, failure in Iraq the failure of the US.

Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars and a beginning to the receding of their Zionist-Crusader tide against us. Your mujahidin sons and brothers in Iraq have taught the US a hard lesson while in the fourth year of the Crusaders' invasion, they are steadfast and patient and keep killing and wounding enemy soldiers every day.

It is a duty for the Umma with all its categories, men, women and youths, to give away themselves, their money, experiences and all types of material support, enough to establish jihad in the fields of jihad particularly in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kashmir and Chechnya. Jihad today is an imperative for every Muslim. The Umma will commit sin if it did not provide adequate material support for jihad.

O fellow Muslims, pay no heed for the number of the enemy and their arsenal of arms because victory is a gift of God while the enemy, praise be to God, is experiencing a critical situation.

As we can see--to get lax on Terrorism now would be a grave mistake.  To leave Iraq now, would be a grave mistake.  To forget what we learned on 9/11--NOW--would be a grave mistake.

Over the past two years, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Canadian affiliate, CAIR-Canada, have filed a series of lawsuits against journalists and others who have traced the connection between CAIR and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=0677d74a-9ef4-4ae9-8f54-aaf1e39afbbc&p=1

On Sunday, Gwen Florio in the Great Falls Tribune seemed bored with the latest revelations in the Conrad Burns/Jack Abramoff scandal, surprised there isn't more interest in Montana State Auditor John Morrison's "sex" scandal and the 2006 senate campaign. She should read the front page headline in the Missoula Independent, Why the Morrison Affair Matters [hint: it's not the adultery]. The Morrison affair is an ethics scandal, not just a sex scandal, and it takes some time for details in ethics scandals to come to light. Since Florio does a great job recalling the advancement of the Abramoff/Burns reporting, I'll examine the time-lines of four other recent Montana scandals, two of which are ongoing, to demonstrate that it takes at least couple of months from the time the press goes after a story until there is reconciliation.

Montana Majority Fund

The Montana Majority Fund scandal rocked the Montana Republican Party and helped bring down the administration of then Governor Judy Martz. But the full story didn't come out overnight.

• On August 16, 2001 state House Majority leader Paul Sliter was killed following a Montana Majority fund drinkfest. It took six months before investigators realized that, although they suspected a cover-up, they didn't have enough evidence to bring charges.
• On February 28, 2002 Kathleen McLaughlin for the Lee Newspapers state bureau broke the story that linked Governor Martz office to fundraising for the Montana Majority Fund, including using state time and telephones to raise money for the organization.
• On March 9, 2002, Bob Anez reported for the A.P. that Gov. Martz had resigned as head of the Montana Majority Fund and that Judy Hill (wife of former Republican Congressman Rick Hill) had resigned from her job as "special projects director" for the Martz administration. At the same time Martz Chief of Staff Barbara Ranf released the results of an internal investigation showing Hill made 108 Majority Fund related calls and Shane Hedges had made five.
• On March 12, 2002 the A.P. reported that Martz office had admitted breaking state rules in awarding a $15,000 contract to Denny Miller McBee Associates, of which Mark Baker had been affiliated since 2000. Baker was founder and president of the Montana Majority Fund and legal counsel for the Montana Republican Party.
• On March 13, 2002 McLaughlin reported for the Billings Gazette that Mark Baker had resigned as chief lawyer for the Montana GOP and that Montana Majority Fund vice president Leo Giacometto had resigned his cabinet position in the Martz administration.
• On April 22, 2002 McLaughlin reported that the Montana Majority Fund was a "regular part of daily business" for the Martz administration as the criminal investigation began.

Martz approval rating nose-dived to 23 percent by September 2002 and was at 20% by May 2003. Martz didn't run for re-election and Democrats captured the Governor's mansion, swept both houses of the Montana legislature, and put to end any notions of a permanent Republican majority in the state.

Shawn Vasell

Former State Director for Senator Conrad Burns, Shawn Vassell is best known for being Jack Abramoff's lobbyist to flip Burns vote on sweatshops in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands and pleading the fifth during the investigation surrounding Abramoff's conduct with Native American tribes. Vassell worked for Burns in between the Marianas Islands scandal and the Saginaw Chippewa scandal. But he has already been convicted of a crime not just against the law, but against the law of the west.

• On April 25, 2005 Courtney Lowery broke a story for New West on a J.R. Reger web page with photos of Shawn Vasell and the Reger brothers in violation "of at least four" state laws governing big game hunting. After being asked about the details, Reger scrubbed his website. The story also noted that Vassell's bio on the Greenberg Traurig website brags about his successful passage of a program similar to the deal involving the Saginaw Chippewas tribe.
• On May 2, 2005 Lowery reported that Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Department District 5 Warden Jeff Scott had opened an investigation into the story and that he told New West, "there certainly seems to be some authenticity to this thing."
• On August 19, 2005 Jennifer McKee for the Helena Independent Record state bureau reported that Vasell was charged in Stillwater County on four counts of violating state law, including, "illegally possessing big game, hunting on private property without permission, hunting with someone else's license and hunting without a license, better known as poaching." Vasell pleaded not guilty to all counts and a trial date was set for September 20.
• On December 21, 2005 McKee reported that according to November 3 court documents, Vasell, "pleaded guilty to one count of hunting without a license and a second count of hunting on private property without landowner consent" in a deal to avoid possible jail time. McKee reported that Vasell was working for Hewlett Packard as a lobbyist in Washington, DC.

While Vasell's legal problems in the Jack Abramoff affair are still waiting to be resolved, it did take a full six months for him to be held accountable in a clear-cut case of illegally hunting big game in Montana.

Inland Northwest Space Alliance and the Northern Rockies Center for Space Privatization

On paper at least, the University of Montana used the Northern Rockies Center for Space Privatization to spin off a for-profit company, the Inland Northwest Space Alliance (INSA) as a new slush fund set up by some of the same players in the Montana Majority Fund scandal, but this time using government money instead of using government resources to get donations.

• On June 2, 2005 the A.P. reported that following news reports concerning travel by then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg had updated his reporting of special interest trips. The trip to Las Vegas was listed as being paid for by The Giacometto Group and Bigelow Areospace but was amended to say Bigelow footed the entire bill. On paper, this would no longer be a lobbyist-arranged trip, even though Giacometto was representing Bigelow at the time. Bigelow hoped Rehberg could do even better than a half a million dollar earmark and trip resulted in Bigelow hiring the Inland Northwest Space Alliance for research.
• On December 23, 2005 a man named George Bailey wrote a letter to the editor in the Missoulian that came to the defense of Senator Conrad Burns, claiming he is "good people" and talking about his position on the "powerful Appropriations Committee" in the U.S. Senate.
• On December 29, 2005 the Missoulian posted a letter from Montana Democratic Party executive director Jim Farrell that pointed out that Baily wasn't unbiased since he was running INSA and noted the $5 million in earmarks the non-profit has received. Farrell stated that Bailey's wife worked on Burns' re-election campaign, that Leo Giacometto was the INSA lobbyist, that INSA sources had contributed more than $15,000 to Burns and that the wife of Rehberg's chief of staff joined "numerous" former employees of Burns and Rehberg working there. Farrell called it a "jobs program for unemployed Republican staffers and their spouses."
• On February 26, 2006 Betsy Cohen of the Missoulian reported that Montana Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns had called for an independent audit of the University of Montanan's Northern Rockies Center for Space Privatization and its partnership with INSA (which it created as a spine-off company). The story noted that the creator of the space privatization center, Lloyd Chestnut had recently resigned from the University of North Texas where he was being investigated for "possible conflict-of-interest violations and manipulating federal documents". The story also noted that George Baily was an employee at the time he signed the incorporation papers for the for-profit INSA and that UM officials had now idea that the center had helped create INSA.
• On March 2, 2006 Daniel Person wrote in the University of Montana's student newspaper, the Kaimin that the Board of Regents would hold off on an official investigation and use an independent Legislative Audit Division investigation as a guide. Legislative Auditor Scott Seacat would expand his audit due in June that would examine both the space privatization center and INSA. The story also looked at whether the Board of Regents should have approved the center, quoting UM President George Dennison as having said, "There was no need for a center, so none was created, so none was ever talked about."
• On March 3, 2006 Cohen in the Missoulian reported the legislative auditors had started their investigation with Conrad Burns saying that oversight of the money was the responsibility of NASA and UM. Seacat said that if it becomes a criminal affair he will have to contact the criminal investigation division of the Attorney General's office.
• On March 16, 2006 Dylan Tucker wrote for New West that Burns' daughter, Keely Burns, served with Mark Baker on the advisory board, that the wife of Rehberg chief of staff Erik Iverson was an associate, that government relations and outreach coordinator Amy Jo Fisher had worked in Burns' office for a decade and noted that, "INSA has significant connections to Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg."

Like the six months it took for the Vasell poaching to be resolved, it will be have been six months until we see the first audit in this scandal (which will likely be followed by a second, more in-depth investigation).

U.S.-Asia Network

The U.S.-Asia Network first came to the attention of the press in the same manner as the Montana Majority Fund, with reports that a GOP booze-junket got out of hand. This is an ongoing investigation, involving many of the same people in the Montana Majority Fund and INSA scandals. More on this should be breaking soon.

• On May 29, 2004 Ted Monoson of the Gazette Washington bureau reported that Sen. Burns and Rep. Rehberg would be traveling to Kazakhstan on a trip organized by lobbyist and former Burns chief of staff Leo A. Giacometto and 3 of the 14 people who joined the trip would be employees of companies that are Giacometto's clients.
• On June 11, 2004 Mike Dennison of the Great Falls Tribune wrote about a story in Roll Call with about an anonymous e-mail that claimed Montana Congressman Dennis Rehberg and Senator Conrad Burns were "drunk the entire time" during a trip to Kazakhstan. Rehberg was examined at a Kazakhstan hospital after he either feel off his horse drunk or was stepped on by another horse, depending upon who you believe.
• On June 24, 2004 Allison Farrell wrote in the Missoulian that Montana Democratic Party Chairman Bob Ream had filed a Freedom of Information Act request to Colin Powell to find out if Rep. Denny Rehberg was rude and drunk during the Kazakhstan junket. Reid as inquired about Sen. Burns and Leo Giacometto in his letter. The article pointed out numerous differences between the accounts of Rep. Rehberg, his chief of staff and Burns press secretary J.P. Donovan. The article said it was Giacometto who arranged the trip.
• On January 5, 2006 Matt Singer of Left in the West looked at the fact Conrad Burns was the honorary Chairman of the US-Asia Network, Leo Giacometto was the official Chairman and CEO and Robert Arnesberg is President along with George Baily. Singer suggested that, "somebody should request some more information..."
• On January 10, 2006 Singer blogged that U.S.-Asia Network had scrubbed their website.
• On March 5, 2006 Lee Newspapers ran an expose on Giacometto and the U.S.-Asia Network that looked at whether the relationship between Burns and the non-profit was "ethically problematic" with Giacometto running it out of his lobbying firm.

This scandal still has a ways to go to hit the six month mark. Since the U.S.-Asia Network team is pretty much the same team in the INSA scandal, look for the June audit to shine more light on the situation involving two non-profits that look like the latest incarnation of the disgraced Montana Majority Fund.

Timeline and the Conrad Burns Campaign for U.S. Senate

The Jack Abramoff scandal is much clearer now than when it first broke due to a great deal of reporting by the press. The in-depth reporting on the INSA scandal and the resulting audit should answer more questions in June. And there is plenty of time for the press to research the U.S.-Asia Network. More shading dealings by Burns continue to break, including the report that Burns landed a $784,000 contract for Compressus via Montana State University (Keely Burns earned stock options for serving on the Board and Leo Giacometto was a senior vice president and lobbyist).

Timeline and the John Morrison Campaign for U.S. Senate

The news of the Morrison scandal came a full seven months before the general election, which in past scandals has been plenty of time for news to come out. Without a doubt, this will be a general election issue, as Blaine Harden in the Washington Post reported:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which distributes money to candidates, will not be shy about publicizing the affair, said Brian Nick, spokesman for the committee.

"Morrison has got his own ethical baggage," Nick said. "So his attempt to level criticism at Burns or anybody else is really going to fall on deaf ears."

It might be nice if the Montana press lets voters know the full story before the election, both the primary and general. For both Burns and Morrison.

Stopping the Culture of Corruption begins with exposing what has gone on.

Daniel Flynn, who spoke last night at Kutztown University, uses that question as the title of a book of his. But the question, of course, is dishonest, as dishonest as “When did you stop beating your wife?” Both questions assume something that has not been established.

And Flynn, most certainly, did not establish it last night.

The closest Flynn could come to proving that “the left” hates America was to claim that admiration for Fidel Castro and meeting with Saddam Hussein demonstrated it. Yet he gave no reason why someone couldn’t admire Castro and love America. And Saddam was an admirer of America who may even have felt that the US (in the person of ambassador April Glaspie) had given him permission to invade Kuwait. He may dislike the US today more from a sense of betrayal than from any ideological stance.

Overall, Flynn’s presentation was rather thin. He seems quite an affable man, but he plays fast and loose with facts and concepts. He tries to make a distinction, for example, between liberals and the left, but (after claiming that the left makes up 10% of America) then says that all such labels are subjective. Still, he tries to break down faculty political leanings by who they give to in presidential races, a nonsense exercise, given the breadth of opinion behind any American political leader. He also says that he interviewed 1000 protesters during anti-Iraq War demonstrations. Now, I conduct interviews and teach students to interview: I know what it takes to conduct a real interview. Flynn would not have had the time, even if he could have attended every possible anti-Iraq War protest, to conduct 1000 interviews. What he probably did (and this is confirmed by the clips he played) was to collect 1000 sound bites. And now, he uses these as evidence of how much “the left” hates America.

He doesn’t understand that he was “played” by his ‘interviewees.’ The hyperbole was deliberately and satirically over the top. The people he talked to don’t hate America—they simply hate what America is doing right now. But Flynn, by his own admission, isn’t a funny man. He recounts an incident of police climbing a building after a couple of protestors, some in the crowd below calling for the cops to fall—as if they really wanted or expected that to happen. He said that would never have happened elsewhere. One of the students piped up, “At a rock concert.” Case closed.

Flynn uses the demonstrations as “proof” that the left hates America under the idea that “birds of a feather flock together.” The group that got the permits for some of the bigger marches is unrepentantly leftist, but few who attended really knew anything about them, if they had heard of them at all. Most of the marchers went out of genuine concern and outrage over the path our country had started own—and rightly so. His “proof” just does not hold up.

Flynn also claims to have been attacked by a couple of “ageing flower children” at an anti-death penalty demonstration. I’m dubious, as I am about much that he said. When he listed off accomplishments of America, he included items such as the VCR, that were first produced by the Japanese (based on Ampex technology from America, it is true—but the VCR is not simply an American achievement). Flynn doesn’t seem to care about accuracy. Certainly, he could make his point and be accurate if he so desired.

But it is only a pretense of accuracy that Flynn is after. He’s one of those who thinks that the more footnotes, the more scholarly the work. His other book, Intellectual Morons, apparently has over 900 footnotes (I have never seen a real scholarly work extolled for the number of footnotes, by the way), but seems to be little more than a reworking of Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer—for Dummies.

Why does the left hate America? At one point, Flynn claims that it is “because American stands as a massive refutation” of leftist ideas. Perhaps that was Flynn’s most ‘massive’ error: not only does the left not hate America, but it sees those areas where America has not succeeded as confirmation of its ideas. The left loves America, and wants to improve it by implementation of its ideas. America, in the eyes of the left, has the possibility of being the greatest country this world will ever see—but is letting the chance slip through its fingers. And that, to the left, is extraordinarily frustrating and saddening.

Flynn is also a bit disingenuous, claiming, for example, to be ambivalent about the death penalty and to have been against the war in Iraq from the start. He provides no proof for either claim, however. I suspect this is simply a stance for deflecting claim that he is a knee-jerk rightist.

Like David Horowitz, Flynn claims that diversity on campus is only diversity of color and not of thought, and says that he speaks on campuses because he is “interested in starting up a dialogue.” Yet his real agenda was clear by his actions. When I spoke up during the question and answer period, saying I was perplexed by his characterization of the left, he moved for the first time back to the lectern and the microphone, where his voice would dominate the room. Equal dialogue is not what he is about.

He is right on one thing: there is too much similarity of thought on college campuses, and this does need to be addressed. He did not say whether or not he supports Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights,” but did indicate that he would like to see a broader range of opinions on our campuses. So would I, but not if it is enforced from outside. On the other hand, he clearly believes that his own views are the right views. He “knows” the truth of history, saying his was the “correct way to view the founding” of America. Having seen my own views on the Federalist Papers and the early debates of the republic change dramatically recently (due to research of my own), I am leery of anyone willing to make such a claim—and would not want them involved in academia at all.

Through two anecdotes, Flynn says that college campuses viewed 9/11 differently than did the rest of America. Now, when 9/11 happened, I was in my first weeks of teaching in years—and was doing it just across the Brooklyn Bridge. We heard the sirens from the classroom. When we tried to see, we could see nothing (for the smoke headed towards us in Brooklyn), but were all directly affected. Later that day, someone handed me an American flag lapel pin. I took it, but did not wear it. The time, I felt, was not one for jingoism, but for understanding. Flynn, to this day, sees that desire to understand why 9/11 happened (with the desire to use that knowledge to keep such a thing from ever happening again) as a sign of “hating” America.

More than anything else, Flynn sounded like a child complaining to his parents that he was being held to a higher standard than Joey down the street: “Why do you hate me?” He could come up with no better reason, certainly, for the left hating America. He said we don’t see the good, when the truth is we just want movement towards the better. We’re idealists not satisfied with a country that smugly points to its accomplishments and doesn’t address its problems.

Now, the reason I attended last night is that the assumption that the left hates America offends me deeply. As anyone who knows me or reads my blog diaries knows, I’m (perhaps overly) proud of my America heritage. Ancestors of mine first came here nearly 400 years ago. One ancestor was wounded, fighting with Washington at the battle of Trenton. Another (the one I am named for) was a colonel in the revolutionary army—and his brother, a poet and the man responsible for the Treaty of Tripoli of 1798, was the second US diplomat to die in service (trying to deliver a treaty to Napoleon during the retreat from Russia in 1812). One of my great-grandfathers served under Phil Sheridan as he defeated Jubal Early’s forces in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. One of my grandfathers was an artilleryman in France in World War I; the other lost his leg as the result of wounds received in Belgium a week before the Armistice. My father fought on Leyte Island in the Philippines in 1944.

When I went before my draft board to explain why I could not serve in Vietnam, my parents went with me. When asked by the board what they thought, and what my ancestors would have thought, my parents said they would be proud: they had all fought to uphold their beliefs in this country, and would understand that I was standing up for it in my own way. There was little time, so my father could not explain that he, himself, had started having doubts about war while in combat. He continued to serve, but after the war became a Quaker committed to nonviolence—and I was raised in that tradition.

Like most on the left, I love this country for reasons well beyond the wars and the service to the nation of my ancestors. In fact, because I can see its faults, I love this country more, and want to improve it.

Granted, Flynn is no intellectual. Maybe I am holding him to too high a standard. But he does come to speak on college campuses. Given that, I wish he would show more respect for me and mine (the left) than he does. He certainly does not contain in himself the same openness he asks for from professors (and that most of us provide for our students, even those who disagree with us). He has defined the left to his own satisfaction and has shut down his mind.

AP:

The country's three largest oil and gas companies are expected to report combined first-quarter profits this week in excess of $16 billion, a 19 percent surge from last year...

...The combined earnings expected from Houston-based ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. will be 14 times greater than the combined first-quarter profits of Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and Oracle Corp.

...But with world oil prices trading around $72 a barrel, analysts say full-year profits for the oil majors are likely to surpass the record-setting earnings of 2005, when Exxon reported a $36.13 billion profit — the highest ever for a U.S. company.

Because anything less would be socialism.

For those of you who can translate Arabic, here is Bin Laden's tape IN FULL--and not the edited version distributed in the US Media:

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???? ?? "?????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ???????? ?? ?????? ???????? ??????? ?????????? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ?? ????????? ?? ?????? ?????????? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ???? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ??? ????? ????? ????????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ????".

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????? ?? ???? "????? ?????????" ???? ??? ??? "???? ??? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?????????? ????? ??????? ????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ????? ???????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ??????".

????? "???? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???????? ?? ????????? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ??????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ??? ???????? ????? ???????? ?? ?????????. ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ???????? ?????? ??? ?????".

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??? ???? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ????? "???? ???? ?????" ???? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ????????? "?? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ???? (?) ??? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ??? ??????".

????? ?? "????? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???? ????? ???? ??? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ??????? ?? ?????".

????? ??? ?? "?????? ???? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ?????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ??????: ??? ??? ??? ????? ????? ???????? ??? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ????? ??????? ?????? ??? ??????? ???????? ???????? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ????????? ?? ?????? ??? ??????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ???????? ????? ??? ?? ??? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??????".

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?????? ?? ???? "??????? ????? ????? ??????? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??????? ??? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ?? ??????? ?? ??????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ????????? ?? ?????????? ?? ??????? ????? ????? ????? ???? ?????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ???????? ?? ????? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ??????? ??????? ???? ???????? ??????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ????? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ????? ??? ????????? ????????? ??? ?????: "????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ???? ????? ?????" ???? ????? "??? ?????? ????????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ????????".

????? ?? ???? ?? ????? ?? "????? ?????????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ???????? ??? ???????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ??????? ???????? ??? ?????? ???? ?????????? ??? ??? ??????? ?????. ????? ?? ??? ???????? ?????? ????? ??? ?? ????? ??????? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ??????? ????????? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ????? ??? ???????? ???? ???????? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???????? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ??????? ??? ?????? ????????? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ??????? ??????? ?? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??????? ?????? ????????? ?? ?????? ??? ???? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ???????? ?? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ??? ????? ???? ???????? ??? ?? ???? ?? ???????? ???????".

????? ?? ???? "?????? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ???????? ???????? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ????????? ???? ??? ?? ?? ????? ???? ????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ??? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????? ??? ?? ?? ????? ??? ???? ??? ???? ?????? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??? ????? ???? ????".

????? ???? ??????? "??? ????? ???? ?????? ????????? ????? ????? ???????? ??????? ???? ???? ???????? ???????? ????? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ??? ?? ???????? ????? ????? ?? ?? ?? ???? ??? ?????????. ???? ??? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ?? ????????? ???? ????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????????? ???????? ??????? ???? ???????? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ????????".

?????? ?? ??? ??? ??? ??? ????? "?? ??????? ?? ???? ????? ???????? ??? ????????? ??????? ???? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?? ??????? ??? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ????? ?? ????? ?? ????????? ?????? ?????????? ?? ??? ??????, ??? ??? ??????".

???? ?? ???? ?????? "?? ??????? ?? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ??? ?? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ???? ???????? ??? ??????? ??? ???? ??????? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ????? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ????????? ???? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ???? ???? ???????? ???????? ????? ????? ??? ??????? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ???????? ??? ??????? ??????".

????? ?? ???? ?????? "?? ????? ??????? ??????? ??? ?????? ????????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ????? ?????? ???????? ??????? ???? ??????? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??????? ????? ??? ?????????? ??????? ??? ????? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ???? ??? ??????? ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ??????? ?????????".

???? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ????? "????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ???????? ??????? ??? ????? ??? ??????? ??????? ??? ????? ???? ??? ?????? ???????? ???????? ??????? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ????????? ????? ?????? (?) ????? ????? ??? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ???? ???????. ???? ???? ??????? ???????? ??? ????? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ??? ?? ????? ??????? ??? ??????? ??????? ??? ????? ?????? ????? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ???????? ????? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ??????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????? ??????? ???????? ?????".

?????? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ???????? ?? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ????? "??? ?? ????? ??????? ?? ???? ??? ????? ????? ??????? ???????? ???? ?????? ?????? ??????? ??? ?? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ???????? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ???? ????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ??? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ??????? ??????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????? ???????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ?? ?????? ?? ?????? ???????? ???????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ??????? ?????????? ???????? ?????? ???????? ???? ???? ?? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ??? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ???????? ???????? ?? ?????? ???? ????? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ????? ????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?? ??? ????".

?? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?? ???? ???? ???? ???????? ???? ??????? ?? ????????? ??????? ??? "??? ????? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ????"

???? ???? ??????? ?? "????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?????? ??????? ????????? ????? ?? ????????? ??????? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ???????? ??? ????? ???? ????? ?? ?????? ???????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ??????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ????????. ??? ????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ????? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ??? ???.

???? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????? ????????? ???? ?????? ??????? ????? ?? ????????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ??????? ????? ??????? ???? ??????? ???????? ????? ?? ???? ????? (?) ?? ?????? "????? ?? ??? ?? ???? ????? ?? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????? ????".

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- ????? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? (?) ?? ????? ??????? ?? ????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? ???? ???? ???? ??? ???.

???? ?? ???? ????? ?????? "???? ????????? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ???? (?) ??? ???? ???? ???? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ??? ????????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ??? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ??? ?????? ???? ???? ??????? ????????? ???? ??????? ????? ??????? ??? ????? ??????".

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It seems that every time I open this particular window and fire up the editor, I'm about to tear up the Republicans. There's so much to criticize and expose that it crowds out things I'd like to be writing about. As a very good friend tells me, I'm more informative when I write or talk about Democrats. That's what I'm going to do here.

To borrow a line from a much better writer and speaker, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream. My dream is that a Democrat will stand up before a microphone with people paying attention and tell us about our great nation and party. That speech could go something like this.

I have a dream as well. My dream is that the people will elect a government willing to serve them instead of the highest bidder. My dream is that the people will elect a government that believes it is meant to make the lives of its citizens better.

In my dream, the conversation between the people and their government goes beyond lobbyists and organized groups. Instead, a multitude of conversations will take place in churches, union halls and auditoriums across the nation. That conversation will be about the common good. Kennedy asked what can we do for our government. I want to know what we can do for each other and what role government can play in that.

We are the greatest nation in the world but we fall far short of our potential. So far, we've asked what we can do to enrich ourselves and we've worshipped at the altar of greed. There's nothing wrong with profit in and of itself. The problem comes when we ask how we can use others to enrich ourselves without regard to their well being.

It is time for us to ask ourselves what we can do for the common good. There are a lot of very sick people in this nation. Some of them get very good health care while others suffer because our health care system is based on profit. Other nations have health care systems based on helping those who are sick. Why shouldn't we join them?

Some will tell you that that national health care will cost too much. That may be true but it will cost a lot less than the current system. The current system is so expensive that our most successful corporations are losing money while providing less and less for their employees. The least expensive and most efficient health system in this nation is traditional Medicare. (The drug debacle should not be allowed to detract from the original program.) We should be talking about Medicare for all. Adaptations may have to be made but it's a system that gives the sickest among us a surprisingly high level of choice. If you added in premiums from healthier people, it would be easy to expand coverage into new areas like prescription drugs.

A national conversation about drugs and the common good would likely end this false War on Some Drugs. What drugs are legal and illegal should be based on scientific study and not political dogma. If true scientific study determines that tobacco and pot are equally harmful, then the law should reflect that. Tobacco lobbyists should not be able to stop us from banning public use of a deadly substance. On the other hand, no one should be going to prison for smoking a joint with their friends no matter how many times they get caught. Driving drunk is already illegal and I see no reason not to extend that law to cover other substances. Let's save the prisons for the violent offenders whether drugs are involved or not.

We need to get together as a nation and talk about Civil Rights. Please notice that I did not say race. I say Civil Rights because we're all created equal without consideration of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or age. The common good requires that we recognise the humanity of every person.

This is the sort of democracy we should be promoting. Let's do the work that shows the pride we have in our nation and our beliefs. If we work together for the common good, we can make our nation into a shining example for all.

http://www.nysun.com/article/31472

Members of the Queens, New York based Islamic Thinkers Society shouted, "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!" in Arabic at a rally outside the Israeli consulate in New York on Saturday, WorldNetDaily reported.

The protesters held up signs saying, "Islam will Dominate," and a picture showing an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism said the Islamic Thinkers Society is part of a London group that celebrated the attacks of September 11, 2001, and refers to the hijackers as "The Magnificent 19." Its Web site Al-Muhajiroun, shows a picture of the Capitol ablaze.

There was a time recently when you couldn't go two minutes without hearing President Bush or one of his surrogates preach about the benefits of an "ownership society". Back then, he used the phrase to sell his Social Security plan and, by extension, his desire to see Americans take control of their health coverage.

Now that his Social Security plan has failed and he's experiencing sub-freezing approval ratings, the president has dropped the lofty rhetoric and instead faces a harsh reality. Since those haughty post-election days, what was supposed to be an ultra-successful second term has devolved into a disastrous march toward ignominy.

Owning an embarrassing record, the Republican Party is betraying the very concept its leader so praised a very short time ago. Refusing to be held accountable for its many failings, the party is fleeing the ownership society of its own making. But running won't get them anywhere. This mess we're in? Republicans own it.

Let's start with the administration's most glaring blunder: Iraq. Nearly 2,400 Americans have lost their lives on a pre-emptive war based on lies. Every day, the crisis further spirals into civil war. All the while, our troops are still there, facing dangers the president blithely overlooked when he declared three years ago next week, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

Does the administration take ownership of these massive failures? Does the president seek accountability from his Secretary of Defense? Do Republicans demand answers for what has happened? Of course not. Instead, the Republican Party would have you believe that the media is to blame for the lack of "good news" leaving Iraq. They'd also have you believe that the anti-war activists of the world are hurting our efforts by emboldening our enemies. But this disaster lies squarely on the Republicans' collective doorstep.

Republicans own it.

And, as the Atlantic hurricane season looms on the horizon, how could we forget Hurricane Katrina? Despite telling Americans that he didn't "think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," the president lied, doing so knowing that he had, in fact, been warned of such a possibility. With disaster approaching, Bush spent more time discussing the situation in Iraq than the impending tragedy. Further, with those grave warnings in mind, Bush still told state officials "We are fully prepared." Not only that, but while thousands were dying along the Gulf Coast, the president saw fit to pick up a guitar.

Did the president take ownership of his administration's costly inaction during Katrina? Did he hold himself accountable for the largely preventable aftermath? Did Republicans look to their leader for a buck-stops-here mindset? Of course not. Instead, the Republican Party and its friends in the media would have you believe that local officials dropped the ball. They'd also have you believe that, despite evidence to the contrary, no one could have prevented what happened after the storm. But this was a tragedy of the Republican Party's making.

Republicans own it.

Just this morning, I filled up my car's gas tank. A mid-sized sedan that achieves nearly 30 miles per gallon, my car cost nearly $40 to fill. For many of you, $2.85-a-gallon gas and $40 fill-ups are a dream, as your prices and fuel efficiency may cost you far more. As prices skyrocket and show no sign of reversing, oil companies will report record profits. Company executives, even as they tell Americans that "We're all in this together," enjoy salaries approaching $200,000 a day. The president, meanwhile, reminds us that he doesn't have a "magic wand" with which to solve the exploding problem and warns us that America is "addicted to oil".

Has Bush done anything to break that addiction? Has he fully funded the pursuit of alternative fuel sources? Have Republicans done more to pressure Big Oil? Of course not. Instead, Republicans would have you believe that environmentalists, a lack of drilling in the Arctic and trumped-up global tensions are the source of record-high prices. They'd also have you believe that Democrats are to blame, a response they've had to perfect thanks to myriad administration scandals, crises and blunders. But the pain you feel at the pump is one enabled by misguided Republican priorities.

Republicans own it.

See a pattern developing? It starts with an administration screw-up and ends with someone else being blamed for what went wrong. Just as it's easy to spot the Republicans' panicked responses to any given situation, it's similarly simple to recognize them running from their ownership society. But, as the president was fond of saying about the war on terror, they can run, but they can't hide. This disgrace is theirs.

Republicans own it.

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/03272006_BartonRushVideoBill.pdf

That is the bill bloggers say will give the Internet away and limit what we one day have access to on the Internet. The actual file doesn't say much. For someone who has time to decipher read this about policy regarding broadband etc.

14 ‘‘(d)

DEFINITION.—For purposes of this section, the 15 term ‘Commission’s broadband policy statement’ means 16 the policy statement adopted on August 5, 2005, and 17 issued on September 23, 2005, In the Matters of Appro18 priate Framework for Broadband Access to the Internet 19 over Wireline Facilities, and other Matters (FCC 05–151; 20 CC Docket No. 02–33; CC Docket No. 01–337; CC Dock21 et Nos. 95–20, 98–10; GN Docket No. 00–185; CS Dock22 et No. 02–52).’’.

 

then look up all the FCC files. Here is one that talks about taxing some providers and other things

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-02-42A1.pdf

 

Here is another link

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/SUBCOM_002_XML.pdf

Even though a well-orchestrated smear campaign has been largely successful in suppressing reporting of Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby, the Lobby has not been entirely sucessful. As the 105+ posts to JoAnn Mort's recent comment attest, many are daring to touch the third rail of US foreign politics. Hats off too for the intrepid Arnaud De Borchgrave of UPI

 Touching the third rail
 

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- A quarter of a million people marched in Manhattan. One hundred thousand squeezed into Madison Square Garden, many of them in uniform. Over 100,000 telegrams deluged the White House. All demanded the immediate recognition of the about-to-be-born new state of Israel. Most of President Truman`s cabinet was against it. The most formidable naysayer was then Secretary of State Gen. George Marshall.

 

Following World War II, foreign policy professionals wrote scores of position papers that warned an independent Jewish state would trigger a 'reject phenomenon' throughout the Middle East. David K. Niles, in charge of Jewish affairs at the White House, was a persuasive advocate of, and organizer for, Israel. The Holocaust of six million Jews, the telegrams and the marchers in New York clinched it for Truman.

Since [the] Israeli and U.S. interests have gradually merged, a perception carefully nurtured by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, arguably Washington`s most powerful lobby, or at least co-equal in influence with the NRA (National Rifle Association) and AARP (American Association of Retired Persons). With some 200 employees and 100,000 wealthy benefactors, AIPAC claims it doesn`t have to register as a foreign agent because all its funding comes from U.S. sources. There are also over 500,000 Israelis with dual citizenship, a number of them AIPAC contributors.

Over the years, AIPAC has maneuvered to make Israel the third rail of American foreign policy. The handful of Congressmen who have been critical of Israel over the past 40 years have been publicly chastised with a figurative dunce cap, or, worse, lost their seats to AIPAC-backed opponents. Israel is an integral part of America`s body politic.

Yet the recent publication of 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,' an 83-page paper published on Harvard`s website by two prominent academics, ran into a firestorm of vilification from government, academia and the media for documenting what is already well established.

I don't have a blog... and thank God for that... We all know what happens when I try and write in the middle of the night.

I have a question: Do Atheists believe in the spirit? Do they believe that a human being can be spiritual, or commune with another human being on some spiritual level? If not, is there any equivalent to it that an atheist would accept?

I will admit I am pretty stupid when it comes to such matters; I was raised in the church, and don't know any atheists. I have always wanted to know more about atheists, or midgets, or people from California. Maybe I want to know some, because I am as curious as Mr. Clark when it comes to such "VERBOTEN" topics, due to my Catholic genes.

I have to go get my insulin now, or I would hasten to add something about Mr. Bush, but I realize that you will not like that very much, so I will stick to a subject we can all mutually dump on. (Except me.)

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... ,....,.....,....!

The Bible Is Antiquated and Brutal

I HAD LOTS OF REPLIES ABOUT THIS POST SO I'M REPOSTING IT WITH SOME REPLIES OF THE CRITICISMS I RECIEVED. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU WROTE, AND KEEP IT COMING!

America has to forever live as a country haunted by the horrible stain of slavery, but the immorality and brutality of the institution has over the years been realized by nearly all Americans. It is my opinion that American Christians have thusly turned against one of their God’s acceptable practices. This may sound strange to many ears, but when one reads the Bible (all of it, not just passages selected by preachers) it is clear that the God of Abraham condones slavery. Exodus 21: 20-21 states:

 “And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.”

Passages condoning slavery are abundant: (1 Peter 2: 18, Collosians 3:22-25, Titus 2:9-10, Ephesians 6:5-8) Furthermore, many characters portrayed as beacons of virtue and goodness had slaves including Abraham himself. The basic rights that women fought for (and we now take for granted) are trampled on in the Bible. 1 Timothy 2: 11 says:

 “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Many more passages condone the subjugation of women (Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Corinthians 14:34-36, 1 Peter 3:1). The modern idea of tolerant pluralism is also not accepted in the Bible. 2 Chronicles 15:13 says:

 “Whosoever would not seek the LORD god of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.”

Deuteronomy 13:6-10 is even more personal and barbaric saying:

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son…entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,…kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death…”

When most people think of God they think of unconditional love and impeccable morality. But of course that’s because preachers usually don’t tell stories like the one in 2 Kings 2: 23 24. It reads:

“And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood and tare forty and two children of them.”

God sending wild animals to tear little kids to shreds for insulting one of his prophets is not exactly the view Christians have of their “benevolent” god. Is it? Most Christians who confront this riddle say that Jesus brought with him a new covenant that would erase all the Old Testament law. Besides the obvious glaring problem that Jesus seems to endorse slavery in the New Testament, and also says that “no jot or tittle” of the law will be thrown out; this explanation seems to be steeped in bad theology. Most Christians contend that God is all knowing and that he created a new covenant. I, however, don’t think this is possible. His desire to change his own religion would seem to rest on two possibilities: 1) He changed his mind or 2) The previous law was inferior to a new one. To change your mind, you must receive new information that changes your perspective. If a being knew everything his views would be infinitely static; he would never be able to receive new information to come to a new conclusion. For the Old Testament law to be inferior, wouldn’t it mean that an all-powerful God created something less than perfect (one might say that we are imperfect but Adam and Eve were perfect until they f’d up, a law cannot f up), and then realized that a new one is better. Of course an all-knowing God could not do this. Are we to truly believe that an all-knowing, perfect God created a system of laws that are obviously less moral than modern HUMANS are today?

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First of all, I'd just like to say thank you nightprowl for your post. (One that was on topic! and very insightful!) I'd just like to say a couple things:

I have read Sam Harris' work, by the way and am not in the least impressed with him; find him shallow. Ick.

I can easily understand how he would come off that way. And his book is misleading (some history is shoddy) and it goes off on tangents (the drug war?) but all books have flaws and his main thesis resonates with me. Mainly his call for new rules of conversation with religious people, to not back down just because of cultural taboos. (Also, he's quite funny, if you've ever seen him speak on c-span. And one more note: it doesn't help that the modern speaker for free-thinking resembles what I think the devil would look like. haha) But also, Sam Harris is hardly the only freethinker out there. Danniel Dennet, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Michael Shermer, Bart Ehrman, and Michael Martin come to mind. So don't assume that Sam Harris is the only perspective or view that feeds free-thinkers intellect.

But I think it is important to realize that the times in which the people of the Bible lived were almost unfathomable to us today -- not just in the way they lived, but how they thought, what they did not know that we do know and we just take for granted, as though we discovered it rather than having it handed to us pretty much on a silver platter. After all, how many of us could, from scratch, build a computer, a car, even a house? (And I mean from scratch, no raw material, no tools, other than nature -- and of course those who could do this today had the advantage of education these men did not have.)

I think you are possibly misunderstanding my argument. It seems that everyone here is oblivious to the fact that people (not you, of course) believe that the Bible is not solely the work of MAN. The way they lived had an immense impact on the way the Bible was written if you believe, as I do, that it was written by man, inspired by man. But fundamentalist (note I say the case against religion as a dogmatic institution) believe that it is a doctrine from God that should form every view. This is what I am arguing against, and in fact is the main chunk of my post. I am simply pointing out the glaring fact that if GOD gave man these rules (as most Christians and Jews believe) that it is strange that this all knowing, perfect god is less moral than HUMANS are today! (Pausing to watch Penn and Teller: Bullshit! , great show!) So if you want to view the Bible as a window to the views of man 2000 years ago or as a motivational tool, more power to ya! But when the Bible turns into a book of codes and strict morals and dogmas, you've gone too far.

To me, the story is far from complete. We are still living it. The Bible gave us the laws we live under today, not to kill or steal, for example. Even the mind of the most profound atheist in the Western World has been shaped by the values of the Bible.

This, I must say, is one of the most grandest fallacies of them all. To say that morals developed from the Bible (I'm sorry but I'm going to have to use your own words against you) such as the prohibitions of "killing" or "stealing" just shows an ignorance of history. Greece and Rome come to mind, and also ancient China. To say that human beings need a book to tell them not to steal or kill is an immense insult to human empathy and reason. (Aristotle anyone?)

My feeling is that the ills of the world would be with us with or without organized religion. I've seen no proof otherwise. Man doesn't need a divine reason to kill or commit other atrocities.

Very true. But it does make it a whole hell of a lot easier. Religion is just another way to divide people into "in-groups" and "out-groups." Hence, removing the "out-group" from the realm of morals. You can see this most frequently today in radical Islam, where suicide bombers have no problem blowing up innocent women and children. But this criticism of Islam is only so loud becuase Christianity and Judaism have "grown up," as I like to say, from the amazingly progressive push of human reason, empathy, and science. (Christian aboltionists didn't stop supporting slavery becuase the bible's text changed, it still stayed heavily pro-slavery. Evolving morals and the deft push of reason made them conform dogma into a pragmatic, empathetic worldview.) Religion also helps give reasons to push science to the sideline. But Americans don't seem to care about that...

I think religion was the first science, the first effort of man to see beyond his five limited senses. I don't think the stories in the holy books are only meant for the past -- I think we are living them as well today. And I think any real understanding of religion and man's need to experience existence itself will have to go beyond whether one thinks God is a nice old man with a beard who lives in the sky, on the one hand, or the equally mistaken belief, in my opinion, that man is all there is, and that consciousness is only to be understood by science and logic alone.

I don't think it was the first science, but I do believe it was the first attempt to EXPLAIN things. Explaining, however, does not follow the scientific method. Luckily we've progressed, and now have a method to discern truth from fiction. Also, I don't claim that there is not god, just that it is impossible to know, and that it is silly to try to pick god's brains through a 2000 year old book. It is especially silly since there are hundreds other books and traditions that claim supernatural origins that we don't pay attention too simply because they weren't within our culture.

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Thanks also, to Joe wood. You got beat up a lot. But got to say a few things between punches. Here's what I got:

Yes, we are all just under the illusions of the past, and wasting our lives for no good reason. Thank you so much for giving me the rest of my life to be as enlightened as you, so I can now tell my children, "No, sorry kids--there is no santa, no easter bunny--and guess what? Grandma and Grampy were lying bastatrds! There is no Heaven, no God! Grampy is rotting beneath the earth's surface,and you will too! Jesus lied!"

No, Grandma and Grandpa weren't lying Bastards. They just held creeds that are antiquated and now looked down upon. In the last 100 years America has overcome so much. Gender equality, racism, homophobia, class-warfare. In fact, what am I talking about, we are STILL trying to overcome these things. People's views change. It is not to discredit or to call the views of previous generations bunk. Humans evolve, culture evolves. VIEWS EVOLVE!

I love you Dev, but have you considered the fact that for centuries of tradition--millions of people have lived and died--all putting what you consider to be "fairy tales" as the central theme and model for their lives? Can so many be so wrong--and so few be so right--after thousands of years of debate and belief?

Yes, I have. And I find it very saddening that many people died for what I believe to be a mistaken belief. I also feel bad for all the people who died at the HANDS OF THE BELIEVERS. All the women who died in the salem with trials. All the victims of the spanish inquistion. All the victims of the crusades (both Muslim and Christian. This isn't suppossed to be an argument against Christianity, but an argument against religion as a dogmatic institution) All the victims of Muslim oppression. All the victims of the 9/11 attacks. All the victims of the Madrid and London Bombings, all the victims of the Egyptian bombings...Must I go on? Sure there have been men who did awful things that weren't in the name of religion, but that doesn't erase the people who did things BAD in the name of religion. Also, your assertion that after so much debate, the sides could not be skewed so widely is a fallacy. What debate? There is no debate in America right now between agnostics and atheists and religious people, because it is 1)almost an impossiblity becuase of immenslety different views and 2) religion is a taboo subject. And here wasn't anydebate 200 years ago, Joe. If you wanted to debate Christianity, you'd be debating it on a spike over a fire. And remember the majority is not always right. I could use the example of George Bush being elected twice, but you wouldn't like that. Instead, I'll use Hitler.

I seriously doubt that We Christians are all deluding ourselves--as were all of the millions of christians of each age. Same for Jews, and Muslims. If you do not believe--that is your choice. But why act as though there is something wrong with us?

There is nothing wrong with you. Believe what you want. Believe that humans all sprang out of cocunuts. But DONT teach that in my schools. DONT stop stem cell research because you want to to save cells (even though in-vetro fertilization already kills them). DONT start changing the right and left into the religious and non-religious. DONT hate gay people just becuase the Bible says too. DONT think feminists are nazis just becuase the BIBLE says its okay. DONT turn other ethnic and cultural groups into "out-groups" just becuase the Bible gives you the the comorting veil of solidarity. AND DON'T EVER CHANGE UNFOUNDED, IRRATIONAL, AND INTOLERANT VIEWS INTO LAW!!!! o...and...I love you too. haha

I might add also that--getting back to your post--everything in the Bible is not to be taken so literally. Parables, Symbolsm, and the "Mystery of Faith" is a large part of putting things into context. Just as the person who would jump at the 19th century humorist and author Mark Twain for his use of the "N" word in his prose, and neglect to realize the fact that not only was Twain NOT a racist, but had taken it upon himself to put a young black man through college at his own expense, at a time when the practice was still largely frowned upon here in good ole Missouri. He also wrote a moving paper entitled "to those who sit in darkness"--and there are many other literary works or whatever who cannot be relied simply on their literal meaning. Hence the mistake with John Milton's "Paradise Lost" Written many centuries after the Crusades even--here we find the central genesis to modern interpretation of Heaven, Hell, and the Devil.

 I don't think that I am misrepresenting the Bible's views on slavery as many people misrepresented Twain's alleged racism. They are pretty cut and dry.

Same with the Florentine Dante, and his "La Divina Commedia" where we get the first notions of a purgatory from. I am Catholic, so I have to be realistic with such knowledge. I understand that many of the things Christians are asked to believe are not derived from scripture, but from the poets and artists of centuries since. Hence, the "Mysterium Fidei"

As a Catholic you recognize that, and as an intellectual man I hope to recognize that that discredits the fundamentalist viewpoint. If the scripture and traditions weren't ordained by God than "Christianists" (as Andrew Sullivan would say) should stop using the Bible and religion as a political tool, a tool that is rigid, unflinching, and dogmatic in it's views. Thanks again to everyone who contributed!

The Bible Is Antiquated and Brutal

 I HAD LOTS OF REPLIES ABOUT THIS POST SO I'M REPOSTING IT WITH SOME REPLIES OF THE CRITICISMS I RECIEVED.  THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU WROTE, AND KEEP IT COMING!

America has to forever live as a country haunted by the horrible stain of slavery, but the immorality and brutality of the institution has over the years been realized by nearly all Americans. It is my opinion that American Christians have thusly turned against one of their God’s acceptable practices. This may sound strange to many ears, but when one reads the Bible (all of it, not just passages selected by preachers) it is clear that the God of Abraham condones slavery. Exodus 21: 20-21 states:

“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.”

Passages condoning slavery are abundant: (1 Peter 2: 18, Collosians 3:22-25, Titus 2:9-10, Ephesians 6:5-8) Furthermore, many characters portrayed as beacons of virtue and goodness had slaves including Abraham himself. The basic rights that women fought for (and we now take for granted) are trampled on in the Bible. 1 Timothy 2: 11 says:

“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

Many more passages condone the subjugation of women (Ephesians 5:22-24, 1 Corinthians 14:34-36, 1 Peter 3:1). The modern idea of tolerant pluralism is also not accepted in the Bible. 2 Chronicles 15:13 says:

 “Whosoever would not seek the LORD god of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.”

Deuteronomy 13:6-10 is even more personal and barbaric saying:

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son…entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,…kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death…”

When most people think of God they think of unconditional love and impeccable morality. But of course that’s because preachers usually don’t tell stories like the one in 2 Kings 2: 23 24. It reads:

 “And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood and tare forty and two children of them.”

God sending wild animals to tear little kids to shreds for insulting one of his prophets is not exactly the view Christians have of their “benevolent” god. Is it? Most Christians who confront this riddle say that Jesus brought with him a new covenant that would erase all the Old Testament law. Besides the obvious glaring problem that Jesus seems to endorse slavery in the New Testament, and also says that “no jot or tittle” of the law will be thrown out; this explanation seems to be steeped in bad theology. Most Christians contend that God is all knowing and that he created a new covenant. I, however, don’t think this is possible. His desire to change his own religion would seem to rest on two possibilities: 1) He changed his mind or 2) The previous law was inferior to a new one. To change your mind, you must receive new information that changes your perspective. If a being knew everything his views would be infinitely static; he would never be able to receive new information to come to a new conclusion. For the Old Testament law to be inferior, wouldn’t it mean that an all-powerful God created something less than perfect (one might say that we are imperfect but Adam and Eve were perfect until they f’d up, a law cannot f up), and then realized that a new one is better. Of course an all-knowing God could not do this. Are we to truly believe that an all-knowing, perfect God created a system of laws that are obviously less moral than modern HUMANS are today?

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First of all, I'd just like to say thank you nightprowl for your post. (One that was on topic! and very insightful!) I'd just like to say a couple things:

I have read Sam Harris' work, by the way and am not in the least impressed with him; find him shallow. Ick.

I can easily understand how he would come off that way.  And his book is misleading (some history is shoddy) and it goes off on tangents (the drug war?) but all books have flaws and his main thesis resonates with me.  Mainly his call for new rules of conversation with religious people, to not back down just because of cultural taboos. (Also, he's quite funny, if you've ever seen him speak on c-span. And one more note: it doesn't help that the modern speaker for free-thinking resembles what I think the devil would look like. haha)  But also, Sam Harris is hardly the only freethinker out there.  Danniel Dennet,  Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Michael Shermer, Bart Ehrman, and Michael Martin come to mind.  So don't assume that Sam Harris is the only perspective or view that feeds free-thinkers intellect.

But I think it is important to realize that the times in which the people of the Bible lived were almost unfathomable to us today -- not just in the way they lived, but how they thought, what they did not know that we do know and we just take for granted, as though we discovered it rather than having it handed to us pretty much on a silver platter. After all, how many of us could, from scratch, build a computer, a car, even a house? (And I mean from scratch, no raw material, no tools, other than nature -- and of course those who could do this today had the advantage of education these men did not have.)

I think you are possibly misunderstanding my argument.  It seems that everyone here is oblivious to the fact that people (not you, of course) believe that the Bible is not solely the work of MAN.  The way they lived had an immense impact on the way the Bible was written if you believe, as I do, that it was written by man, inspired by man.  But fundamentalist (note I say the case against religion as a dogmatic institution) believe that it is a doctrine from God that should form every view.  This is what I am arguing against, and in fact is the main chunk of my post.  I am simply pointing out the glaring fact that if GOD gave man these rules (as most Christians and Jews believe) that it is strange that this all knowing, perfect god is less moral than HUMANS are today! (Pausing to watch Penn and Teller: Bullshit! , great show!)  So if you want to view the Bible as a window to the views of man 2000 years ago or as a motivational tool, more power to ya!  But when the Bible turns into a book of codes and strict morals and dogmas, you've gone too far.

To me, the story is far from complete. We are still living it. The Bible gave us the laws we live under today, not to kill or steal, for example. Even the mind of the most profound atheist in the Western World has been shaped by the values of the Bible.

This, I must say, is one of the most grandest fallacies of them all.  To say that morals developed from the Bible (I'm sorry but I'm going to have to use your own words against you) such as the prohibitions of "killing" or "stealing" just shows an ignorance of history.  Greece and Rome come to mind, and also ancient China.  To say that human beings need a book to tell them not to steal or kill is an immense insult to human empathy and reason.  (Aristotle anyone?) 

My feeling is that the ills of the world would be with us with or without organized religion. I've seen no proof otherwise. Man doesn't need a divine reason to kill or commit other atrocities.

Very true.  But it does make it a whole hell of a lot easier.  Religion is just another way to divide people into "in-groups" and "out-groups."  Hence, removing the "out-group" from the realm of morals.  You can see this most frequently today in radical Islam, where suicide bombers have no problem blowing up innocent women and children.  But this criticism of Islam is only so loud becuase Christianity and Judaism have "grown up," as I like to say, from the amazingly progressive push of human reason, empathy, and science.  (Christian aboltionists didn't stop supporting slavery becuase the bible's text changed, it still stayed heavily pro-slavery.  Evolving morals and the deft push of reason made them conform dogma into a pragmatic, empathetic worldview.)  Religion also helps give reasons to push science to the sideline.  But Americans don't seem to care about that...

I think religion was the first science, the first effort of man to see beyond his five limited senses. I don't think the stories in the holy books are only meant for the past -- I think we are living them as well today. And I think any real understanding of religion and man's need to experience existence itself will have to go beyond whether one thinks God is a nice old man with a beard who lives in the sky, on the one hand, or the equally mistaken belief, in my opinion, that man is all there is, and that consciousness is only to be understood by science and logic alone.

I don't think it was the first science, but I do believe it was the first attempt to EXPLAIN things.  Explaining, however, does not follow the scientific method.  Luckily we've progressed, and now have a method to discern truth from fiction.  Also, I don't claim that there is not god, just that it is impossible to know, and that it is silly to try to pick god's brains through a 2000 year old book.  It is especially silly since there are hundreds other books and traditions that claim supernatural origins that we don't pay attention too simply because they weren't within our culture.

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Thanks also, to Joe wood.  You got beat up a lot.  But got to say a few things between punches.  Here's what I got: