Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Dear Power of Pride,

We attend a large Adventist church in central California. Our pastor is a well-known media personality, who finds that running his ministry is not enough of a challenge. So he pastors a big church too.

He’s the most personable, entertaining preacher you could ever wish for.

Just recently, he’s been preaching the importance of keeping “bedroom love” in the context of a marriage relationship.

And we say, Why not?

We’ve been a pair for several years now, in fact, ever since we were baby dykes. For the last three years, we’ve lived together in a Boston marriage. Gay marriage is legal in the State of California. So we are ready for our special moment at the altar.

Only problem is, our pastor is one of those conservatives. Not uptight or homophobic. Just old-fashioned. So we are thinking we’d best find another Adventist pastor to officiate. Do you have any suggestions?

Sandy & Karen

!!YOUR ANSWERS FROM POWER OF PRIDE - GAY ADVENTIST NEWS!!

Dear Girls,

I can perfectly understand your concerns. You have a fine pastor, but extremely conservative.

If you want to keep attending his church, you may just have to look elsewhere for someone to officiate at your wedding.

PERHAPS SOME COUNTIES DISTANT

Maybe a wedding in the Loma Linda area would be advisable — still in California, but some distance away from your home church.

Loma Linda University (LLU) is a Seventh-day Adventist educational health-sciences institution http://www.llu.edu/llu/about.html

Loma Linda University Center for Christian Bioethics

This prestigious Adventist university has a center for Christian ethics. One of the key players at the center is David Larson, DMin, PhD. http://www.llu.edu/llu/bioethics/

He’s also a professor in the School of Religion there http://www.llu.edu/llu/faculty/directory/faculty.html?uid=dlarson, and I think you will find his brand of religion very much to your liking!

While the professor has a few quirks:

BONDAGE, GAYS, AND “NEEDLESS PAIN”

“On the one hand, we have developed institutional patterns that needlessly hurt homosexual men and women. On the other hand, we relish the many ways they enrich our lives. In this sense, they are OUR SLAVES.” (David R. Larson, Comment of 01 January 2008 at 3:28, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/collegiate/
2007/12/27/gay_theology_without_apology)

SOLIDLY IN FAVOR OF EQUALITY FOR GAY UNIONS

He fights for equal rights for gays (at least for those who are not slaves, see above):

“If it were up to me, we would use the same term for both heterosexual and homosexual unions but it would be “domestic partnership” rather than “marriage.” This would put both on an equal footing in legal word and deed” (David Larson, Words Matter: The California Supreme Court on “Straight Marriages” and “Gay Domestic Partnerships”, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/node/699)

MODERN ADVENTIST THEOLOGY

You may be thinking this is all too good to be true. Well, think again!

David R. Larson is a Seventh-day Adventist minister and professor of Christian ethics at Loma Linda University
http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/film/2007/10/19/does_bible_condemn_homosexuality_look_bible_tells_me_so

Sure he’s a top professor at the leading Adventist university. And of course he’s an ordained Seventh-day Adventist minister. But he’s also a member of the Community:

This movie is not about them. It is about the rest of us. It is about how we straight—or pretending-to-be-straight—Christians (David R. Larson, David R. Larson Reviews For The Bible Tells Me So, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/reviews/film/2007/10/19/does_bible_condemn_homosexuality
_look_bible_tells_me_so)

On the other hand, if you expect a large number of guests from the Sacramento area, you may wish to consult an expert closer to home.

PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE INSTRUCTOR AND SOUGHT-AFTER GUEST AT GAY WEDDINGS

“Last week I attended the wedding of two Christians lesbian friends (one with an M.Div) who have been together for 14 years. Their legal marriage was such a meaningful ceremony for them and their family and friends gathered around. Tears, laugher, memories and prayers shared - having lived in places where folks don’t know out LGBT Christians I understand the hesitation and worry about the future”

Posted by: Alexander Carpenter | 05 August 2008 at 10:02
www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/08/05/
why_everyone_should_oppose_samesex_marriage

PACIFIC UNION COLLEGE: BIBLE TEXTS AGAINST GAYNESS DON’T APPLY TODAY

Dr. Carpenter has been on the faculty at Pacific Union College since 2008. http://www.puc.edu/academics/departments/visual-arts/faculty/visual-arts/acarpenter

“Pacific Union College is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a world-wide Christian community that runs one of the world’s largest Protestant school systems. The college is owned, operated and subsidized by the regional division of the Adventist Church, the Pacific Union Conference.” http://www.puc.edu/about-puc/about-our-adventist-faith

Someone who doesn’t trouble you with a lot of anti-gay Bible texts. Because he really doesn’t take the Bible seriously:

The biblical writers knew nothing of sexual orientations, mutual erotic relationships, or sexuality as the expression of a passion for equality. Our world is not their world; and theirs is not ours—and as a woman, I have to say, “Thank Goodness” to that. If the Bible really is, as some have argued, America’s iconic book, it becomes especially important to examine the values this icon encodes. The natural submission of women and the natural domination of men might not be the values most of us would like to see America emulate; yet, it is precisely those values that lie behind the very little the Bible does say about homoeroticism. In a very real way, to stand with the Bible in its rejection of same-sex erotic acts is also to stand with the Bible in its adherence to misogyny—and hatred of women is not a cultural value I will ever claim should be normative for contemporary culture, including Christian culture.
Posted by: Alexander Carpenter | 16 June 2008 at 8:06, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/06/16/why_adventists_should_consider_supporting_gay_marriage

Just face it. Many in the Community find the anti-gay Bible texts to be a burden.

KETTERING COLLEGE OF MEDICAL ARTS: THE BIBLE IS A BURDEN

“The Bible is at once a revelation and a…burden.” (Charles Scriven, Comment of 30 June 2008 at 5:38, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)

“Charles Scriven is president of Kettering College of the Medical Arts and chairs the Adventist Forum/SPECTRUM board.” (Alexander Carpenter, Reconstructing Seventh-day Adventism - Charles Scriven, 26 June 2008, http://www.spectrummagazine.org/podcast/2008/06/24/test)

“Owned and operated by Kettering Medical Center, KCMA is an integral part of the educational mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” http://www.kcma.edu/AboutUs/sdaInfo.html

JUST A SHORT TRIP AWAY FROM A TOP EXPERT

Yes, girls, you are located just 77 miles away from a true oasis of tolerance (if you travel through Winters).

Make the drive, and you will find one of the top experts on sapphism in the whole world!

Prof serves on the faculty, imparting his unique wisdom to the coming generation.

Ask for him by name, and either he will officiate at your wedding, or recommend an Adventist pastor who will!

Good luck girls!

pix:

http://www.eadventist.net/orgphoto/ANPIN6.jpg
http://www.stateuniversity.com/assets/logo/image/5222/large/UniversityCampus.jpg
http://religiousfreaks.com/UserFiles/Image/gay.christian.flag.gif
http://www.topnews.in/law/files/gay_marriage_large.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V80CVHNML._SL500_AA240_.jpg
http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper851/stills/4393f4465373c-99-1.jpg
http://www.sligochurch.org/images/gallery_photos/OSR/DSCN0416_edited.JPG
http://tv.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ellen-degeneres-portia-de-rossi.jpg
http://www.stateuniversity.com/assets/logo/image/3554/large/PUC-med.jpg

Dear Power of Pride,

REAL STORIES AND IN-DEPTH JOURNALISM

This is just a public way of expressing our thanks to Union College, The Clocktower, and Savannah Bowers.

The student body at Union College turns to The Clocktower when we need news and views about the tough issues of our day. Not that sugar-coated PR-style chit-chat you can read on the “official” website.

CRASS INGRATITUDE

Sadly, there are some students at Union who are complaining about Savannah’s hard-hitting investigative pieces. Savannah is not paid for her work at The Clocktower, and I think she’s doing a great job of building Community at Union!

Flash

!! Your Answers!!

Dear Adventist Scholar,

JUST TALKING ABOUT STUDENT INTERESTS

The fact is, The Clocktower would not exist at all were there not local news to report and were there not a demand for news of interest mostly to people at Union College. For otherwise, people could make do with worldly newspapers like the JournalStar.

If you want to know what’s on the mind of Union College students, you need only peruse the pages of The Clocktower.

Strangely, not everyone on campus is pleased with this powerful dose of reality.

UNION COLLEGE PAPER: WHY NOT MJ?

“Firstly, was the article featured in the most recent issue regarding legalization of marijuana necessary or representative of what we believe as Christians? I left a state school that promoted a drug and alcohol-centered lifestyle. Here, I pay for and expect to not have to be exposed to such worldly influences. While I understand the dangers of censorship, (and would be outraged over any form of censorship,) I am of the opinion that the choice to publish such an article makes evident that the writing priorities within the Clocktower staff are not Christian priorities. Is this something that should be given some thought or perhaps be discussed with the editorial staff by school administration? I know I would feel much more comfortable if this occurred.” (Ellen Hansen, Letter to the Editor - Is the CT Lacking Christian Priorities?, The Clocktower, 14 Nov 2008, p. 7)

THE DRUG BUSINESS

They may argue that MJ is a drug, well, hey, so is caffeine:

“Caffeine is a bitter white crystalline xanthine that acts as a psychoactive stimulant drug” (Caffeine, Wikipedia)

ADVENTIST INSTITUTION PUSHES POPULAR DRUG

This drug/stimulant is widely consumed:

“In humans, caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, having the effect of temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Beverages containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks enjoy great popularity. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike most others, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily.” (Caffeine, Wikipedia)

According to the Prophet Ellen White:

“Tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol we must present as sinful indulgences.” (Ellen White, Lifestyle and Activities of the Remnant, Last Day Events, page 81)

ENTRY-LEVEL DRUG

For many, caffeine is the entry-level drug. Its a milder stimulant. “Yet so insidious is the work of these milder stimulants that the highway to drunkenness is entered before the victim suspects his danger.” (Ellen White, Counsels for the Church, page 102)

While at least one Adventist university actively advertises “Coffee to Go”, some Adventists think there’s a difference between caffeine-sugar drinks and caffeine-coffee drinks.

ALL THE SAME

The Lord has a different counsel:

“Effects of All Caffeine Drinks.–The action of coffee and many other popular drinks is similar. The first effect is exhilarating. The nerves of the stomach are excited; these convey irritation to the brain, and this in turn is aroused to impart increased action to the heart, and short-lived energy to the entire system. Fatigue is forgotten; the strength seems to be increased. The intellect is aroused, the imagination becomes more vivid.” –The Ministry of Healing, page 326. (Ellen White, Section IV - Other Stimulants and Narcotics, Temperance, p. 77)

The Union College student newspaper illustrates Ms. Bowers’ outstanding article with the chart at right. Savannah Bowers points out that some drugs, like alcohol, sugar, and caffeine, are legal. In fact, Adventist colleges push sugar and caffeine. And if they’re all legal, how is MJ any different?

Sister White agrees. Whether we’re talking caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, or MJ, its all the same!

“To use drugs while continuing evil habits is certainly inconsistent, and greatly dishonors God by dishonoring the body which he has made. Yet for all this, stimulants and drugs continue to be prescribed and freely used; while the hurtful indulgences that produce the disease are not discarded. The use of tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, wine, beer, and other stimulants gives nature a false support.” (Ellen White, Chapter XXXVI. - Drugs, Healthful Living, page 247)

WHY NOT A FULL-SPECTRUM “HEALTH MINISTRY”?

Its really doesn’t make any difference. If the college is going to sell caffeine-based stimulants to the students, they might as well stock “healing herbs” as well.

After all,

“The effect of tea and coffee, as heretofore shown, tends in the same direction as that of wine and cider, liquor and tobacco.” (Ellen White, Effects of Stimulants, Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, page 34)

Savannah Bowers has done an excellent job of pointing the bony finger of reproof at this double standard.

“God’s Chosen Instrument–Luther was God’s chosen instrument to tear off the garb of hypocrisy from the papal church and expose her corruption. He raised his voice zealously, and in the power of the Holy Spirit cried out against and rebuked the existing sins of the leaders of the people.” –Ellen White, 1T 372.

Savannah Bowers is a modern-day Luther. Christians around the globe need to band together in prayer for her godly work, praying that she will proclaim the Holy Word of the Lord with boldness.

Pix:

Newspaper illustrations from The Clocktower.

Outlook, Feb 2008

Oh no they didn’t!

Yes I know she is only running for Vice President, but lets face it McCain is old and she is devious.

I have been reading as much as I can about Sarah Palin and frankly I am scared that the McCain/Palin team might actually win this election.

The main thing that scares me is the way she presents herself, even when she is hunting for a way out of the wet paperbag during interviews, she comes across as that attractive woman everyone knows from work, the library or coffee shop that seems intelligent but slightly ditzy in a cute 1950’s young wife stereotype kind of way.

That kind of woman has a serious advantage in the normal male to female and female to female dynamic in that most people don’t look past the ditz to see the danger. Others discount her ability to make choices, plans and enemies. People often believe that women like her are harmless and can be controlled. This may seem sexist, but it is just a facet of our current social environment. Like racism and homophobia, sexism dies hard, particularly when people are not even aware they are doing it.

Sarah has somehow managed to convice her supporters (most of republican party and many Hillary supporters) that her tenure as Mayor was a success and that leaving a town of 5k to 7k people with a 20 million dollar public debt, no sewers but a great sports complex makes her fiscally conservative and trustworthy steward of public interest. Forget the fact that Wasilla, AK had no debt when she took office, their annual budget was about $3 million dollars less when she got there than when she left and that she had implemented a personal jihad against those that stood up to her.

They seem to willingly overlook the fact she has admitted, proudly I might add, that she demanded the written resignations of all the top officials when she took office “as a demonstration to my administration”. Since when to public officials in the United States take an oath of fealty to the incumbent?

There has been some controversy over whether she wanted to ban books from the Wasilla public library. Sarah claims that she was only having a “rhetorical discussion” with the head librarian and she would never support banning books. This is an amazingly strange “rhetorical discussion” to have with anyone, much less a librarian, particularly one from whom you have demanded a letter of resignation to show loyalty to your administration. It is also peculiar timing that this “rhetorical discussion” occurred during a time when the church she attends regularly was in the midst of a petition drive to ban books in the public library, the school and in local book shops. The church apparently is not willing, yet, to claim their petition was only a rhetorical one.

I could repeat all the rumours and conspiracy theories here, but I will leave that for others to do. I just want people to think clearly about this woman and her abilities to misdirect attention.

Another great example is the GOP machine and Sarah backers who keep claiming she is enormously popular in Alaska. Funny thing is most interviews I have found with “regular citizens” pretty much declaim her as one step above a feudal lordling with an axe to grind. Not what I would deem popular by even the broadest standard.

So please do us all a favor, read up on her, seperate the wheat from the chaff, then go out a buy a snake to handle while you pray that the witch known as Sarah Palin flies away on her broom.

I am quite disgusted right now.

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

“If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Democrats had clung to the hope of only a partial repeal of the drilling moratorium, but the White House had promised a veto, Obey said.

The House is expected to act on the spending bill Wednesday. The Senate is likely to go along with the House.

“The White House has made it clear they will not accept anything with a drilling moratorium, and Democrats know we cannot afford to shut down the government over this,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We look forward to working with the next president to hammer out a final resolution of this issue.”

While the House would lift the long-standing drilling moratoriums for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, a drilling ban in waters within 125 miles of Florida’s western coast would remain in force under a law passed by Congress in 2006 that opened some new areas of the east-central Gulf to drilling.

Just last week, the House passed legislation to open waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and gas drilling but only 50 or more miles out to sea and only if a state agrees to energy development off its shore. It quickly became clear that measure would not get the 60 votes needed in the Senate.

Republicans called that effort a sham that would have left almost 90 percent of offshore reserves effectively off-limits.

The Interior Department estimates there are 18 billion barrels of recoverable oil beneath the Outer Continental Shelf, about half of it off California.

While the ban on energy development will be lifted if the Senate goes along with the House action, it doesn’t mean any federal sale of oil and gas leases in the offshore waters — much less actual drilling — would be imminent.

The Interior Department’s current five-year leasing plan includes potential leases off the Virginia coast but probably would not be pursued unless the state agrees to energy development. And the state is unlikely to do so without Congress agreeing to share federal royalties with the state.

The congressional battle over offshore drilling is far from over. Democrats are expected to press for broader energy legislation, probably next year, that would put limits on any drilling off most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Republicans, meanwhile, are likely to fight any resumption of the drilling bans that have been in place since 1981.

John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has promised to make offshore oil drilling a priority if elected president. He has called for developing the oil and gas resources along all of Outer Continental Shelf and for the federal government to share royalties with states who go along with drilling.

Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has said he would support limited drilling in certain areas — possibly the South Atlantic region — if it is part of a broader energy plan to shift the U.S. away from oil to alternative fuels and more energy efficiency.

The debate over offshore drilling is not expected to subside in the first months of the next presidency — no matter who sits in the White House.

Lifting the drilling ban gives considerable momentum to the underlying bill, which includes the Pentagon budget, $24 billion in aid for flood and hurricane victims and $25 billion in loans for Detroit automakers in addition to keeping the government open past the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year.

But Democrats decided not to use the must-pass measure as a battering ram to carry an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless past White House veto promises, prompting grumbling among some lawmakers. Efforts to boost food stamps and give states billions of dollars to help with Medicaid bills also fell through.

But the measure would double, to $5.2 billion, funding for heating subsidies for the poor, Obey said.

The measure also would provide more than $600 billion to fund the 2009 budgets for the Pentagon, Homeland Security Department and the Veterans Affairs Department. Nine other spending bills for the 2009 budget year starting Oct. 1 remain unfinished.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that don’t cut the number and cost of pet projects known as “earmarks” sought by lawmakers in half from current levels or cause agency operating budgets, taken together, to exceed his request. Obey said, however, the White House would reluctantly sign the measure.

Democrats have shown themselves to have all the spine of a wet noodle. They’ve got control of Congress and yet they’re still letting Republicans have their way? They’re letting the ban on offshore drilling expire even though we know that all the drilling in the world will do next to nothing to help?

Can we fire all these bastards? Something is very, very wrong when you’ve got one party that’s as red as a stoplight and the only alternative to that way of thinking has turned a pretty dark shade of pink.

The war’s dragging on, people are dying, Oklahoma has been under a heat advisory for almost over a week solid now, the government is gleefully stripping away our rights on both sides of the isle, and all the other outrages I may have missed have largely been unreported. So I have to ask this question;

Why is it, with all the things Americans should know and be aware of both within our borders and regarding the world at large, that when I turn on CNN I don’t see an article about any of that but a story running about how a 73-year old geezer is the most popular porn star in Japan.

Seriously, CNN, what the fuck?! Why is this news?

At best, I was a half-hearted supporter of Obama’s. I was never overly enthused by him, though there were some periods where I thought I’d be able to call myself an Obama supporter with a measure of dignity. Over the last few weeks, that illusion has been shattered.

For all his talk and all his charm, Obama’s showing me now what I can expect in the future; more of the same old G.W.B. bullshit. As I look on his stances on the FISA amendments and now the faith-based bullshit, I can’t help but be left to reflect on our current situation.

Over the last 8 years, two presidential terms, George Bush has pulled some of the most unlawful actions in American history with impunity. Anything he wanted, he got on a golden platter. Anything illegal he did was turned a blind eye to by those sworn to uphold the rule of the law. I am now convinced that this attitude has forever ruined American politics and will lead us into a new age where corruption runs unchecked.

Obama now knows he’s got a 50-50 chance of getting the presidency and that Americans are pretty pissed at Republicans so the pressure’s pretty well off him now. And he’s been shown that the president can snub his nose at the law and Congress will roll over like the impotent, toothless tiger that it’s become.

And really, what choice do we, the people, have but to grin and bear it? There’s nothing that I know of which can force a reform to the corrupt politicains we now have in office. There’s no third party I can vote for because rarely, if ever, does a third party get on the ballet here in Oklahoma. Any time a third party gets media attention, it seems, it is laughed down until it crawls back under it’s rock.

The only thing I can think of, which I’ve mentioned before, is revoke the guarenteed spots on the ballots for Republicans and Democrats, but I know that won’t happen with the government the way it is now. I honestly want to know what can be done to change the way things are. I know, call my senator and voice my opinion, but even then the shit that shouldn’t be passed through congress is still being passed.

I thought I was going to vote this year, but I’m now seeing myself with the same options as when I thought Hillary Clinton was going to get the nomination; a choice between a Republican and a Republican Lite. Which one will shit on the Constitution less?

Obama, I thought you were the voice of change, I thought you were a voice of hope, but now I see what’s under the sheep’s clothing and I’m not impressed.

Will America ever return to the way it was before Bush got into office?

According to a May 17,2008 AP article, Alabama’s county sheriffs are are given $1.75 per day to feed a prisoner - and are allowed to pocket the difference, if they can do it cheaper.

The report says “critics charge that Alabama, in effect, is paying law enforcement to skimp on food and might be rewarding sheriffs for mistreating prisoners. “It’s a bad system, and it ought not be that way,” said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.

I don’t understand the negative reaction to the fact that Alabama’s county sheriffs are allowed to profit by, in my opinion participating in what amounts to legal graft, by scrimping on food for prisoners. (Alabama jails bank on cheap meals - Law allows sheriffs to pocket leftover food allowance, AP May 17, 2008)

What’s the big deal? Isn’t this exactly what private prisons do? While condemning the practice by county sheriffs, I’m sure Mr. Sharpless would listen attentively to executives from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) making their pitch to privatize public jails and prisons.

CCA claims to save states and counties money by negotiating a per-head fee for housing and feeding prisoners. They profit by pocketing the difference between what they spend and what they charge the taxpayers. Contracting-out public services had been a gold mine for ARAMARK, too. In addition to prisons, ARAMARK also turns a tidy profit feeding children attending public schools.

I agree with Mr. Sharpless opinion, “It’s a bad system, and it ought not be that way.” As a taxpayer I want to know my dollars are going to provide public services, not lining the pockets of CCA and ARAMARK.

This week, CafePress sent us a cap as a free sample, to get us excited about selling clothes using a technology they call InfiniStitch. It’s a way to get an image made on a computer automatically stitched as a badge on a piece of clothing.

That sounds really great, but there’s a problem, as seen on the sample cap filmed in the movie below: The stitching doesn’t actually look very good, and the words in the stitching are almost impossible to read.

That’s small stuff compared to the problem I found on the tag: The cap is made in China by a company called Alternative Apparel. The name Alternative Apparel sounds great, but there’s more to a business than just a name.

Alternative Apparel makes a lot of promises when it comes to the ethical treatment of workers in its Chinese factories, and it says that it inspects factories a few times a year in order to see if things are on the up-and-up. However, Alternative Apparel doesn’t really know what’s going on in those factories in China except on those special inspection days.

What’s going on in Chinese factories has been exposed: Forced prisoner labor, worker abuse, and even child slave labor. The New York Times recently reported that “Big corporations have stepped up inspections of factories that produce goods for them. But suppliers have become adept at evading such scrutiny by providing fake wage and work schedule data that suggest they abide by labor laws.” They report the use of Chinese child slave labor as “quite typical”.

Alternative Apparel surely knows about these problems, and the insufficiency of inspections in revealing the problem. Yet, they choose to do business in China anyway.

Why? That’s easy. They do it for the money.

Alternative Apparel chose to have the clothes it sells made in China in order to save money, so that they could make big profits. They knew that China has low labor costs because it has low standards of worker protection.

Alternative Apparel chose to outsource its manufacturing to China in order to avoid American laws that guarantee fair treatment of workers and environmental protections.

Do you want to support that choice? It’s your freedom to do so, but if you buy from companies like Alternative Apparel, please don’t act shocked when you hear about children being forced to work as slaves in China. You helped make it happen, after all, with every cheap thing you bought that was made in China.

There is a true alternative in apparel. You can buy a shirt from Skreened, which prints here in the USA, only on shirts that are made in America, by American Apparel.

American Apparel is the real thing. They follow American labor and environmental laws. Alternative Apparel doesn’t. They went for the ethical loophole. They’re just posers.

Do you want to wear clothes made by posers?

I just saw an article at AfterDowningStreet.org claiming that Hillary Clinton, when employed by the House Judiciary Committee in investigating Watergate, was dishonest and unethical. The writer spoke to, among others, the committee’s chief of staff, Jerry Zeifman. Clinton was working on a memo supporting the position that Nixon had no right to counsel before the committee; Zeifman told her she should read and cite a recent case that gave the opposite precedent; when she finished the memo, he found that she had (a) ignored that case, and (b) removed it from the committee’s files. Apparently, she was taking this position in the first place because her political patron was tied to the Kennedys, who didn’t want Nixon defending himself too well—he could have excused his own abuses of power by digging up JFK’s.

There’s more (including from the chief Republican counsel), but, to me, that’s the worst of it. If this is true, then Clinton probably committed a crime, in order to strengthen her patron’s political standing.

How clean is John McCain? For that matter, how clean is the news media? Bloomberg news, which as a telecommunications company is mixed right up in the very telecom lobbying business it purports to report objectively upon, has quoted “a senior adviser to John McCain” as saying that John McCain is not inappropriately influenced by the large number of lobbyists that he associates with. This “senior adviser to John McCain”, Charles Black, is quoted as saying that “John McCain does no favors for, nor gives no special treatment to, any lobbyists — even if they are a friend of his.”

The thing is, Charles Black isn’t exactly a neutral, objective source in the matter. Charles Black is a top official in the John McCain for President campaign, but what’s more, Charles Black is a lobbyist himself.

Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a powerful lobbying company. Here’s what BKSH itself has to say about its lobbying work “BKSH’s capabilities encompass a broad range of economic, social, domestic and international issues. Our professionals have managed “front-page” issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. Our mission can be as targeted as securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation, or as broad as strengthening the bilateral relationship between a foreign country and the United States.”

Charles Black runs a lobbying firm with the goal of “securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation”. So, what is he doing serving as a top adviser of the presidential campaign of John McCain, a member of the U.S. Senate? Why is John McCain forming close political alliances with lobbyists who have openly declared their intention to help their corporate clients manipulate congressional legislation?

Furthermore, why does Bloomberg News cite Charles Black, a lobbyist who is professionally dedicated to influencing legislation in Congress through contact with politicians like John McCain, as a credible source to reassure Americans that John McCain does no special favors for lobbyists?

To use lobbyist Charles Black as a source on this story, Bloomberg reporter Edwin Chen makes himself appear either incompetent and naive or as corrupted by the influence of media business lobbyists as John McCain.

The three trillion dollar budget viciously cuts programs that benefit the American people, so how come it’s still the biggest federal budget in history? Part of the answer is that the budget proposed by George W. Bush contains the biggest military budget since World War II.

Are we really supposed to believe that the “War On Terror”, a fight against Islamic terrorist riff raff, our generation’s equivalent of a war against pirates, costs more than the global struggle against the forces of the Soviet Union and other Communist nations? No, don’t believe that for a second - you’re being asked to believe something even worse.

You see, when they say that the military budget requested for 2009 is the biggest since World War II, they aren’t even including the nearly trillion dollars extra that the Bush White House is expected to request for the military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Where is the money going this time? It’s going to fund corruption, fraud and waste. It’s going into the pockets of some very well-connected individuals - people in what the charitable refer to as the “defense” industry who have close working relationships with the Bush White House and members of Congress.

The military-linked corruption isn’t only going to the Republican side of the aisle, either. Think about the whopper unloaded upon the good people of Missouri by Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton: The Chicago Tribune cites Representative Skelton as saying that the military budget is necessary to ensure the health of the military.

The health of the military? My foot. The budget increase for the Pentagon ensures the financial health of military contractor corporations, and their investors and executives who are linked to politicians in Washington D.C. It’s a financial scheme for which members of Congress will be rewarded generously in the form of campaign donations. It’s dirty, rotten, stinking corporate pork barrel in the form of bullets and bombs.

En lieu of the recent posts on the main blog about the FISA ordeal, I thought I should share this little story I came across when I logged on to Yahoor today.

(Link)

Senate delays eavesdropping vote
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 39 minutes ago

The Senate on Thursday signaled support for granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct warrantless eavesdropping, a sign that the contentious provision may be headed for approval next week.

On a strong 60-36 vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have killed the immunity provision and strengthened the powers of a secret court to oversee the surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Further action on the legislation was delayed until Monday, pushing Congress closer to a Feb. 1 deadline for enacting a new law. If a new law is not signed by the president by then, some eavesdropping practices that are now legal would be prohibited.

The Bush administration is insisting that any new law also protect from potentially crippling civil lawsuits those telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., blamed Republicans for the delay, saying they were trying to block a series of amendments majority Democrats sought to offer.

“It appears the president and Republicans want failure. They don’t want a bill,” Reid said.

The draft bill, written by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law, first enacted in 1978, dictates when federal agents must obtain court permission before tapping phone and computer lines inside the United States to gather intelligence on foreign threats. Agents may tap lines outside the country without court oversight.

It was the second time in six weeks the Senate had taken up the FISA modernization bill, only to see action stymied. Reid abruptly closed down debate in December when it became clear the Senate couldn’t finish work before the holiday break.

Most vexing to the intelligence agencies, without an extension of the law the government would return to needing individual court orders to listen in on any communication that passes through U.S. telecommunications switches and computer servers — even those that are between people who are outside the country. This is not required by FISA, according to legal experts, but became the practice over time to provide firms with legal protections.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., on Thursday proposed extending the existing law for 30 days to buy the Senate additional time to produce a bill. The House completed its version of the bill last fall.

In a move to resolve the immunity issue, the key impasse on the legislation, the White House ended months of resistance Thursday and agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program.

The Bush administration is trying to persuade the House to agree to retroactively shield from liability those companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of the FISA court. About 40 such civil lawsuits are pending against telecommunications firms, and the administration says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security. It also contends that the companies could be bankrupted if the lawsuits are successful.

The companies were helping the administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still-classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the FISA court from Sept. 11, 2001, to Jan. 17, 2007.

Reyes and Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence panel, requested access to the White House documents in May. House Democrats say they will not support telecom immunity without seeing them first. Some senators were given access to the documents last fall.

The documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance.

I’m trying really hard to be surprised these days…really hard…

I’m still lazy, so here’s another comic;

Mike Huckabee loves to tell people about how he is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. What he has been more reluctant to share is that he took tens of thousands of dollars from a cigarette company while he was Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas.

Forty thousand dollars is more than what many Americans make from an entire year of work, but it’s what Mike Huckabee got for making just one speech in front of the group representing a secret source of money, which was in turn funded by a cigarette company. Huckabee claims not to have known about that, but witnesses place him meeting with an executive from the cigarette company about the fund and where its money came from.

Taking money from big corporations while he was in public office was no big deal, says Huckabee. If that kind of payoff is okay with you, then Mike Huckabee for President may just be your favorite campaign. If not, vote for a clean, progressive candidate for President instead.

(Source: Newsweek, December 17, 2007)

[This is the 4th post of the serial discussion regarding vital queries on existence and life. The 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd posts are “Is the Truth Attainable?”,“Evidence of Essential Existence in the Nature” and “Life: Evidence of Essential Existence” respectively.]According to the verdict of reason the ever-changing natural world is a possible existence and so its primary source must be an Essential Existence.Followers of religions believe in Essential Existence, however not by this name; they have given this Existence different name in different languages. That doesn’t matter. In English language this Existence is called God and for the sake of language we see no problem to use this name. But the problem is the definition of the Essential Existence or God. Religions differed each other regarding His definition. To solve these differences we must rely on the verdict of reason that is universally, irrespective of religions, common standard, hence should be accepted.Reason can find some positive attributes those are unavoidably necessary for the Essential Existence and some negative or relatively negative characteristics from which He must be free. In a nutshell we can say that He must have all the attributes necessary for perfectness and He must be free from all the characteristics those indicates directly or indirectly deficiency, weakness or need. Now we shall discuss regarding these attributes of perfectness and negative characteristics.

1) Life: The first attribute the reason can find essential for the Essential Existence is life. A lifeless existence can create neither a living thing nor a lifeless thing. A lifeless thing cannot inject or inspire life to a lifeless thing. Because we are living, so the Essential Existence must be a living existence. His life must be eternal i.e. beyond time. He is the Creator of time too, so He may not be limited within time.

2) Power: The Essential Existence must have unlimited power to do everything including creation of material and non-material living and lifeless existence, natural rules etc. If He had no absolute and unlimited power then He couldn’t start creation from nothing.

3) Will: The Essential Existence must have will to do or not to do anything, otherwise in spite of having absolute and unlimited power He wouldn’t create anything.

4) Knowledge: He must have absolute knowledge i.e. complete knowledge of His own existence and knowledge about all forms of past, present and future of His creation. Absolute knowledge means He is capable to plan and execute the plan of creation and its management. Otherwise He couldn’t do this or couldn’t do this in the best manner.

5) Unlimited: His existence must be unlimited, because limitation represents weakness. So He must be free from all sorts of limitations including that of space and time. Due to the same reason none of the created things; even the whole space can contain Him. So He cannot enter into the body or self of a creation.

6) Invisible: He must be invisible, because visibility is the characteristic of some material existences and they are naturally limited.

7) Non-Material: He must be non-material. Even He may not be semi-material. Matter and semi-material things are naturally limited. Being limited is one of the signs of weakness and imperfectness. So the Essential Existence cannot be material.

Without Limbs or Body: The Essential Existence must be free of having limbs or body. Body limits an existence, so the Unlimited Existence may not have a body and for the Existence without body question of having limbs or organs does not arise. Why do we need limbs, organs or physical senses? We need due to physical and qualitative limit of our existence. We see with our eyes, but all the scenes are reflected in the Essential Existence, so He does not need eyes; He can see without eyes and can see better than us. We have ears to hear and listen, but all the sounds are reflected in Him; He can hear and listen without ears and can hear and listen better than us. We smell with our noses, but all the smells reflect in Him. So He does not need any nose. We taste and talk with our tongues and throats, but He is the Creator of tastes and informative sounds, so all the tastes reflect in His Knowledge and He can transfer any message without voice and if will can create informative sounds or voices in ears or minds of listeners. We touch and catch with our hands, but everything is within the control of His will, so He does not need hands. We need our legs to move from one place to another place, but He is beyond place or space and is the creator of space, no space can conceive Him, so question of having legs for moving from one place to another does not arise for Him.Though no example, particularly material example matches to the very existence of the Essential Existence, yet to make the point more clear we can put an example. Suppose there is a living being with unlimited expansion of existence to the extent that all the material creations are within it and every particle of that existence has the capacity to see, hear, smell, taste and preserve & transfer all kinds of information of everything. Then should such an existence need eyes, ears, nose, tongues, throat, hands or legs? Then how may it be thinkable that the non-material unlimited Essential Existence, who is the creator of all material and non-material limited existences, should have necessity to have body and limbs or organs for Him? He does not need ears; He can hear.

9) Non-Dissectible: The Essential existence may not be a complex existence composed of parts or particles or atoms. Because an existence composed of parts is dependent on its parts, and the Essential Existence must be free of all kinds of dependency. So His existence must be non-dissectible and beyond analysis. He must be non-dissectible both from physical point of view and also from intellectual point of view i.e. from development of the very existence and qualities. Any kind of development is related to imperfect existence or quality that does not suit to the Essential Existence.

10) Oneness of Existence: It means any quality of the Essential Existence is the Existence Himself, not different from His very existence. So when we say that He is living it means His life is not different than Him. We can assume a human being or any other living being as lifeless too, but He Himself is His life. Similarly when we say that He has willpower it means He Himself is His willpower. On the other hand He sees and listens without separate seeing and listening power, but He Himself is His seeing and listening power.Though He is above any kind of material example yet this point may be understood to some extent from some worldly examples too. Generally people think that ear or hearing sense is necessary to hear and eye or seeing sense is necessary to see. But there are animals void of ears such as snakes that have no separate ears; a snake listens with its tongue besides tasting. Similarly an ant sees without eye by the help of its horns. So we can think about a living being that its body itself substitutes all of our five senses. This is regarding weak and imperfect created beings, so it is quite clear that the very ‘existence’ of the Essential Existence is capable of doing all the works those we do with our senses. Because He is the creator of senses, so He is free of the necessity of senses or qualities other than His ‘existence’.

Relative Qualities:

We can assume some qualities of the Essential Existence those focus upon His relationship with the creation. It means those are not essential for His existence for being essential existence, but emerge as the relationship with the creation Therefore, we can term these qualities as relative qualities. If He wouldn’t create anything then these qualities wouldn’t be conceivable. In a nutshell these qualities are: He is the initiator or creator, manager, guide, all-knowing, all-seeing, kind, judge, just, executioner of punishment etc. Some questions may arise and clarifications may be necessary regarding this attributes that may be discussed separately. We think in the present topic only mentioning (as done) is enough.

Why not Similar or son?

Some people ask question: If God is all-powerful then why is He unable to create another God or a Son for Him?

Such kind of question is illogical. Because, ‘being created’ is related to possible existence; related to neither the Essential Existence, nor impossible thing. If He creates anybody with all His qualities, yet due to being created and being limited within the frame of time, it may become neither eternal, nor essential, so it may not become His similar. The question of son is same. Son of a man must be a complete man and son of an ant must be a complete ant. So if the Essential Existence has to have a son that must be Essential Existence. But due to the same cause mentioned above a second Essential Existence is impossible.

In 1970, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature, but could not give the address. In the speech he prepared, however, he wrote:

“Let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle. At its birth, violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.”

I like the sound of what he says, but is it true? Isn’t violence a brutal form of honest communication? Isn’t any falsification of the violence separate from the violence itself?

If not, where does the falsehood come in, afterwards?

[This is the 3rd post of the serial discussion regarding vital queries on existence and life. The 1st and the 2nd posts are “Is the Truth Attainable?” and “Evidence of Essential Existence in the Nature” published in The Irregular Times on the 9th and 28th November 2007 respectively.]

This universe and everything in it (generally considered as material beings) are ever changing and dominated by some set of natural rules or causes and effects. When pre-conditions of emergence of something are prepared then that thing comes into existence. Thus all the present things are debtors to previous things. Thus we may go back to the primary source of this universe. But the source dominated by cause and effect rule cannot be the primary source, because in that case a cause would be necessary for that cause or source. So according to reason the primary source must be non-material and above domination of cause and effect rule, rather initiator of not only the first material existence, also initiator of cause and effect rule or natural rules. Such a source must be ever-existing i.e. above beginning and ending, birth and death, development and decaying. Such an existence is essential for the beginning of all the conditioned existence of our experience - existence of which is conditioned to preparedness of necessary causes. So we may term these material existences as possible existence and the initiator of the possible existence and natural rules dominating over these existences as the Essential Existence.

But materialists, particularly the atheists are not ready to accept this simple truth. They blindly deny the existence of the Essential Existence behind this material world, though they are not able to explain the origin of the universe that wherefrom emerged the material world and the natural rules dominating the world.

The origin of such kind of blind conception is their blind faith that existence is equal to matter and there is nothing other than matter. So they can’t understand the existence of a living all-powerful wise non-material Essential Existence. In this way of blind faith they advanced to the extent that they deny the existence of life, or in other words existence of themselves. They claim that life is nothing but chemical reactions of matter. Do they really “feel” it? No doubt that matters have physical and chemical reactions. But matter itself can’t feel anything. Then how do they “feel” it?

We may understand the reality of life from another characteristic of human beings. Mechanical reactions of matter are straight and there is no room for hesitation in such reactions. For example, if a piece of iron is put between two magnets on a point with same distance from the both free from other influential material elements, then it would proceed to the stronger one without any hesitation. But in question of many deeds we see hesitation in human beings before doing the work; they analyze many aspects of a work to take decision whether to do or not and if the decision is positive then they do it. Analysis of a future work by a human being sometimes includes not only material aspects of its reactions, but some non-material aspects, such as moral, cultural etc. too. Sometimes physical and biological needs and their fulfillment are explained as automatic physical reactions in the material sense. But it is evident that physical reactions are not mere material reactions. Because there is a personality in every living creature, though quality or level of personality varies among different kinds of creatures and among different individuals of one kind of creatures. But the non-material characteristics are more evident in human behaviour. When a hungry cow sees some grasses it do not hesitate to take it. But when a hungry human being get a fruit and sees no hindrance in front of him that may resist him/ her taking it or may create danger in future for him, yet sometimes he/ she does not take it. Here a non-material characteristic popularly called as morality resists him/ her from taking it. In fact terms like morality, kindness, honour etc. are purely non-material and are not applicable to matter. Human beings debate regarding many things including the existence of the Essential Existence and existence of a non-material entity in human being. Also this debate proves a non-material existence popularly known as soul or personality or self in the human being, because there may be no room of debate in matter. These characteristics do not conform mater. So it is quite clear that works of human beings are not limited to material reactions, but there is at least one non-material existence in a human being. It is beyond doubt that lifeless matter cannot create such non-material existences like life, soul or personality even through a billions of years’ process, because these sorts of existences are superior to mater and it is evident that inferior existence cannot bring a superior existence in to existence, rather there must be an existence more superior than these superior existences. This superior most existence must be the Essential Existence. The system of continuation of all the species and their inter-relationship is wonderful. Some species, such as plants and trees and some kinds of worms and germ-like small animals take non-living food items from the nature. Some species take only grasses and plants. Other species take at the same times mineral items, leaves & plants and flesh & blood of other animals. In general superior animals take other animals as food. But some animals having superior development than others take leaves and grasses instead of taking inferior animals and are used as food by animals those are superior to them. If this kind of animals (such as cows, ships etc.) would take meat like tigers, lions etc. then it wouldn’t be possible for human beings to make them domestic. Then they couldn’t collect enough meat. We see some categories of trees are giving fruits and human beings and birds take those. Many of the fruits have no direct relationship with reproduction. There are plants and trees those produce only seeds for their reproduction. Some plants and trees produces seeds those are fruits at the same time and are taken by other animals beside their role for reproduction. But there are other fruits those produces fruits having seeds within and other animals take these fruits leaving seeds. So the eatable parts of such fruits have no role for their reproduction Was there any harm if these trees and plants would produce only seeds for reproduction like the first group? So there is no doubt that these fruits grow not for those trees and plants but for other animals.

Another characteristics of living beings other than a few such as germs and viruses, is being male and female. However it was possible that every species would be genderless having capacity of reproduction or would be female having capacity of reproduction without help of the male. But then generations of every species would be like a tree having branches and sub-branches, instead of present network form. But that wouldn’t be enough helpful for sustaining of species. For example, at the present system, among many of the species after giving birth of child or laying egg one of the couple stays beside that or those for protection and the other goes for searching food. If only one was to do both the works then their enemies would easily take away that or those. Moreover, for superior animals particularly for human species this system helped formation of society and mutual cooperation and its benefit is evident. Progress of science and technology wouldn’t be possible in absence of social system in tree-like generation system due to absence of necessity of cooperation that exists in network system.

And the sex; it is the evidence of a wonderful programming. Sexual instinct is the strongest instinct after thirst and hunger; even sometimes it defeats thirst and hunger. This inspiration bounds the male and the female to unite and take the responsibility of continuation of the species. We see sexual instinct remain at its peak during the period the female has reproduction capacity (those who are unable to reproduce are in fact naturally defective or ill). It indicates that aim of this strong instinct is to make them bound to play appropriate role for continuation of species.

We can find the same target behind the affection and love for children without which the human race couldn’t continue its existence. Also the thirst for having children in human nature is very strong to the extent that in spite of risk for life women want to become mother. However, the western materialistic culture injected into human beings the tendency of consumption and enjoyment avoiding natural responsibility on the one hand and has invented methods elements to help sexual enjoyment avoiding responsibility of having children and risk-free delivery on the other. But during the period when there was no method or element for risk-free delivery women used to have children more than the present era though they were not unaware about the trouble and risk of delivery. Though sexual instinct is a very strong natural instinct, yet one can suppress it or can fulfill it through unnatural way to some extent and can avoid the risk of delivery. But always in the past the women folk used to welcome this risk. Why? Only due to the strength of the instinct for having child in them to the extent that it defeats the fear of life-risk. No doubt that this instinct assured the continuity of the human species.

Is it possible for the lifeless blind nature to programme the living creation in such a way even in billions of years? It is possible only for a living, wise and all-powerful Existence Who initiated the creation from nothing other than by His will.

If one stress upon one’s claim that the nature has done it, then surely the nature would be an existence other than matter and natural rules dominating the universe and He must have created matter and rules. Then the Nature (in this sense) must be everlasting, ever-living, willful, almighty and wise whom we call the Essential Existence and we have no objection if you call Him the Nature just like others who call Him God, Allah, Jehovah, Ishwar etc. The definition of this Existence is our concern, not the names given in different languages or groups of people.

There’s only 24 hours left to help Beth raise funds for her PA 18 race against naughty Tim, whether it be 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help Tim start packing. Please consider helping out PA-18 because this is sadly our current Congressman in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT3BEfcl-s

oh wait and also here on KDKA news:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwh-OCFCOTc

You can help us change direction and priorities by donating the the Hafer campaign at:
www.gecturf.com/bhafer

Your donation is greatly appreciated in these last 24 hours!!!
Check out Beth’s recent labor endorsement at www.midatlanticlabor.org

 

            The primary source of this universe and everything within it, those are possible existences, is an Essential Existence according to the verdict of reason. This is a simple matter, yet a section of people do not accept it. They blindly deny the existence of a conscious, wise and all-powerful Essential Existence though they are unable to show any reasonable substitute to the Essential Existence or explain the primary source of the universe. Beside the logical conclusion our experience and observation of the nature too prove the existence of a conscious, wise and all-powerful Essential Existence.

            If we simply look to the nature we must be astonished seeing its unique discipline, complexity and wide range of creation. But the mysteries and complexity of the nature the scientists have so far discovered make us perplexed though they acknowledge that they have discovered only a part of it.

Scientists have done so many things. But they have not created natural elements or natural rules. They have only discovered natural rules, intervened in the nature and given new shapes to matters according to natural rules. Still they have so many wonders of the nature to discover, but so far those they have discovered shows that natural rules dominating the world is very complex to the extent that it is not imaginable that the world may have developed to the present state accidentally, even in billions of years. Accidental emergence of natural rules is more impossible than emergence of the world. Some example may help to understand more clearly and deeply the complexity of the creation and natural rules.

Smallest and Largest Creations

            The range of this universe so far scientists have been able to discover is billions of light-years. They acknowledge that there may be more undiscovered and also may be that there are other universes of separate dimensions.

            But creation of smallest creations is more wonderful than the vastness of the universe and largest creations such as stars and galaxies. So far the scientists have been able to discover the smallest creations are electrons, protons and neutrons those form atoms. On the other hand among living beings smallest beings are some kinds of germs and viruses and largest beings are some kinds of whales.

            We see material things in three forms: Solid, liquid and gaseous. We see solid things as consolidated, but in fact particles of a solid thing are not consolidated; there is space among particles and the quantity of matter is unbelievably less than space to the extent that if it would be possible to really consolidate this earth perhaps it would become like a football.

Who is this Artist?

            Creations are not only evidences of their wise Creator; even there are evidences that the Creator has the sense of beauty and artistic outlook. We are charmed of the overall beauty of the nature, particularly of trees and plants. But some trees and plants are extraordinarily beautiful. Have you observed that leaves of traveler’s tree are expanded to two opposite sides, not around it? There is one kind of small flower when it blossoms it seems that a butterfly is sitting on it. Is it possible that such kind of artistic creations accidentally evolved from the lifeless nature? Or the conscious wise creator wanted to create beauty? What about the beauty of he-peacock? What’s its utility? Has the blind lifeless nature created it only to attract the she-peacock to the he-peacock? There are some small fishes; people do not eat them. They keep them in aquariums only to enjoy their beauty. What is the utility of their beauty for themselves? Has the Creator created them so that people be attracted to their beauty and keep them in aquarium to satisfy their thrust for beauty?

Is it possible for the lifeless blind nature to create such beauty? If it would be necessary then why didn’t it create such for other animals? Or the wise Creator wanted to create beauty not for themselves, but for other viewers (human beings)?

            A firework is thrown into the sky; when it explodes it becomes a bunch of flowers of colourful fire. But when there is an accidental explosion in a store of ammunition there is a fire without any artistic outcome. Why do we see difference between these two? Because the first explosion occurred according to plan of a planner (fireworks-maker) and the second one is a mere accident. It proves that above-mentioned beautiful things in the nature are result of a skilled and wise planner, not result of accident.

Ant: Wonderful Creation

            Among smallest living beings those we can see with our eyes, perhaps the smallest kind of ants are the most wonderful. This kind of ants is not more than one-tenth centimetre in length and not more fat than a hair. When it walks rapidly seems a piece of cotton-fibre driven away by breeze. But it can carry weight many times more than the weight of its body, so perhaps it is the most capable carrier animal. On the other hand it moves so swiftly, perhaps in comparison to the length of one’s body it is the fastest animal in the world.

            Ant is a social animal. Quality of their social discipline is, perhaps, nearest to that of human society. They have labours, soldiers & patrol squads and a queen as the centre of the society. They store food items for the bad season and store it for the community. They carry poison to defense themselves and also for aggressive wars. They use this poison for hunting too. This poison is dangerous to the extent that if an ant bites a man once that can transfer its poison to the victims body only the quantity of a needlepoint, it creates unbearable burning. If a needle-back quantity of that poison were transfer to a human body perhaps he/ she would die instantly. But the ant carries this poison in its body and it does herm itself. Moreover when it uses the poison to hunt then use it to the quantity that the hunt would not die, only become senseless. Then they store it and take it in appropriate time or season. If the quantity of poison is not accurate then the hunt would die and when they take eat (because they take dead animals too) they would die, or at least suffer from poison. So they never use the poison in the body of the hunt more than the necessary minimum quantity.

            If one pays attention to its body he/she must become perplexed. The smallest kind of ants has all the physical parts in its body as the biggest ant has. It has 6 legs to move, mouth to take meal, two teeth to bite, two horns (antenna?) to see and hear, breathing system (though may be simple), belly to contain food, digesting system to digest food, anus to oust undigested portions of food and sexual organ to enjoy the spouse and reproduce future generation; the female ant has special organ in the body to develop eggs. We shouldn’t forget that this ant is less than one-tenth centimetre in length and land its diameter is not more than that of a hair.

            One of the most wonderful products of scientists is computer that is the output of decades’ continuous effort of hundreds of scientists. But still they have not been able to produce an ant, even one of the biggest kind in their laboratory. Perhaps they will be able to do it in future. But it proves that creation of an ant is more difficult than that of a computer. Then is it possible that such a difficult creation would be created by the lifeless blind nature?

Human Being: Most Wonderful Creation

            Perhaps the human body is the most complex creation in the world. Latest discoveries of genetic science have exposed a new horizon of wonders.

            Scientists have discovered DNAs, RNAs genes (component parts of both) and many chemical elements in each of animal-cells. There are 150 to 6,000 nucleotides in a single gene. DNA of a small virus has 5,386 pairs of nucleotide-bases. In a cell of a human body there are 46 chromosomes (23 inherit father’s and 23 inherit mother’s characteristics). In a cell there are 100 thousand genes and 6.6 billion nucleotide bases and 3 billion bio-chemical elements. There are similarities and differences among human genes and over all there are nearly 3 billion kinds of pairs of genes in human body. Structures of DNAs are like ladders or zippers. DNAs are so narrow and long that if half a gram of genes are connected each other at their length they would create a 93 million miles long string (equal to distance between the earth and the sun). Every DNA of a person contains all the history (thinking, character, experience) of his/ her ancestors until separation of its earlier sources from their bodies and these information are recorded in every DNA as codes some of which have been traced out by scientists. But

 

 

The existence of this complex world and more complex set of natural rules is the undeniable self-evident proof of the Wise Initiator, the Essential Existence.

Hello Everyone,

The online fundraiser for Beth Hafer, leading candidate in the PA 18th District starts at midnight tonight and lasts until 11:59pm on November 29th.  Please consider giving 5, 10, or 25 dollars to help us get the change we sorely need in leadership in PA-18.  Check out the challenge BELOW! With your help we can keep the great momentum going:

http://www.gecturf/bhafer

Also, for those of you who want to check out her webpage: www.haferforcongress.com to read about her recent CWA endorsement as well as events coming up in the Keystone state.  Your help is greatly appreciated! 

A follow-up to the story of the Saudi government punishing a rape victem located here.

News Article

Saudis defend punishment for rape victim
Wed Nov 21, 9:19 AM ET

The Saudi judiciary on Tuesday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.

The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia’s rigid Islamic law requiring segregation of the sexes.

But in considering her appeal of the verdict, the Saudi General Court increased the punishment. It also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the woman, Saudi news media said last week.

The reports triggered an international outcry over the Saudis punishing the victim of a terrible crime.

But the Ministry of Justice stood by the verdict Tuesday, saying that “charges were proven” against the woman for having been in a car with a man who was not her relative.

The ministry implied the victim’s sentence was increased because she spoke out to the press. “For whoever has an objection on verdicts issued, the system allows an appeal without resorting to the media,” said the statement, which was carried on the official Saudi Press Agency.

The attack occurred in 2006. The victim says she was in a car with a male student she used to know trying to retrieve a picture of her. She says two men got into the car and drove them to a secluded area where she was raped by seven men. Her friend also was assaulted.

Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts according to the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Judges have wide discretion in punishing criminals, rules of evidence are vague and sometimes no defense lawyer is present. The result, critics say, are sentences left to the whim of judges. A rapist, for instance, could receive anywhere from a light sentence to death.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack avoided directly criticizing the Saudi judiciary over the case, but said the verdict “causes a fair degree of surprise and astonishment.”

“It is within the power of the Saudi government to take a look at the verdict and change it,” McCormack said.

Canada’s minister for women’s issues, Jose Verger, has called the sentence “barbaric.”

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict “not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”

I’m sorry, but you can try to make any excuse you want to explain away this type of behavior but I can’t view this sort of thing as anything less than the most outrageous, disgusting, immoral perversion of justice that I’ve seen in a very, very long time.

Every so often I’ll see something that can fill me with such disgust and outrage it becomes difficult to express my feelings. This is one of those times.

And to anyone who claims that the members and writers of Irregular Times give Islam a free ride while harping on Christianity, I’m about to prove you wong.

Female rape victim gets 200 lashes and jail
From correspondents in Riyadh
November 16, 2007 07:15am

A COURT in the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail.
The 19-year-old woman - whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms - was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape,” the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia’s Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”

Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.

Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shi’ite community.

But the woman’s lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.

In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Mr Lahem, also a human rights activist, said yesterday the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.

Mr Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and “contradicts King Abdullah’s quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system.”

King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

This is the kind of people who the USA supports. We’re allies with Saudi Arabia even though the majority of the terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 were from there and we’re even sending them military equipment.

When I first read this, I admit, I found I could easily renounce an anti-violence ideal if it meant I could deal some Old Testament type punishment on the people involved with this story, but right now it’s making me feel sick to my stomach.

Religion of peace my achin’ ass.

I’ve been browsing through some fundamentalist religious quotes on Fundies Say The Darndest Things and from what I can tell most of those quotes can be broken up into five basic categories:

-Anti-Evolution
-Anti-Homosexuality
-Anti-Abortion
-Anti-other religions
-Miscellaneous

Now, while I could go and tackle each and every one of those points and their reasons behind them, I want to focus on the Anti-Homo part of it during this entry.

I’ve heard many justifications for this type of bigotry and they’ve come in many forms from calm explanations to near hysterical SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS-LOCK!!!1!111!!

But whatever form it takes on it always seems to come back to one thing: “Its an abomination against God” and to support this stance and their own bigotry they’ll site Leviticus 18:22. However most of these same people, when you point anything else out they’ll say that the New Testament did away with the Old Testament and therefore the Old Testament is now invalid. Except, just now to confirm what I was already pretty sure of, I looked up the book of Leviticus, and guess what I found?

Leviticus is a part of the Old Testament.

Now, rather than use the point of eating shell-fish to counter their argument and show them as hypocrites, I’m just going to start pointing out what they already believe; that Jesus’ sacrifice rendered the Old Testament obsolete (seeing as they seem so intent on ignoring Matthew 5:18-19 and Luke 16:17 when it suits them) and that therefore Homosexuality must be just fine so long as those damn homos except Jesus as their savior. After all, the Old Testament is invalid according to them, right?

Now, if they somehow claim that homosexuality is a sin and yet the Old Testament is still void, I feel I’d be well justified in pointing out their hypocrisy.

Tonight I was researching various topics on paganism and ancient revivalism when I came across a Wikipedia article about a group of pagans in Greece who were trying to gain equal rights in the eyes of the Greek government. It seems that prior to 2006, all religions except Christianity, Judaism and Islam had been banned. An Athenian court seems to have overruled that.

The story regarding this can be found here (I may post a separate diary entry about this later).

When I read about their desire to be allowed to worship in the Parthenon, I looked it up on Wikipedia for clarification. The article listed pollution hazards and I found myself curious enough to read on. It seems that acid rain from the growth of Athens and the exhaust from cars has caused irreparable damage to the sculptures in the Parthenon.

Pollution is a bad thing, not only for the harm it does to ourselves and our environment but for the harm it does to our history. When historical landmarks and wonders of the ancient world are threatened by our pollution, isn’t it time to do something?

I see this and then I see conservatives calling for less restraints put on pollution control and I find it hard to believe that they could be so caviler and arrogant not to see the harm that is already happening. Is there nothing at all more important than grabbing for that extra dollar?

‘lo and behold, what do I find when I wake up and log into Yahoo this morning?

(link)

Bush vetoes water projects bill
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him.

Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation.

This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.

“When we override this irresponsible veto, perhaps the president will finally recognize that Congress is an equal branch of government and reconsider his many other reckless veto threats,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“More than two years after failing to respond to the devastation and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, he is refusing to fund important projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers that are essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region.”

The $23 billion water bill passed in both chambers of Congress by well more than the two-thirds majority needed to vacate a veto and make the bill law.

Bush objected to the $9 billion in projects added during negotiations between the House and Senate. He hoped that his action, even though it is sure not to hold, would cast him as a friend to conservatives who demand a tighter rein on federal spending.

But Bush never vetoed spending bills under the Republican Congress, despite budgetary increases then, too. Attempting to demonstrate fiscal toughness now, in the seventh year of his presidency, carried the risk being criticized for doing too little, too late or as waging a transparently partisan attack against the Democrats who now run Capitol Hill.

The president took the gamble, making it part of a broader effort to more pointedly and frequently take on Democratic leaders.

The legislation originally approved by the Senate would have cost $14 billion and the House version would have totaled $15 billion. Bush and a few Republicans complained that the final version was larded with unneeded pet projects pushed by individual lawmakers — sending the overall cost of the bill much higher.

“Only in Washington could the House take a $14 billion bill into a conference with the Senate’s $15 billion bill and emerge with a compromise that costs taxpayers over $23 billion,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

She also said Bush vetoed the bill because it is “fiscally irresponsible” and falls outside the scope of the Army Corps’ mission.

Critics noted that the bill piles more work on the Army Corps of Engineers, which already has a backlog of $58 billion worth of projects and an annual budget of only about $2 billion to address them.

If Bush is overridden, the measure would give a green light to projects in virtually every state. It only authorizes the projects; the actual funding must be approved separately.

The authorizations include:

_$3.6 billion for major wetlands and other coastal restoration, flood control and dredging projects for Louisiana, a state where coastal erosion and storms have resulted in the disappearance of huge areas of land;

_nearly $2 billion for the restoration of the Florida Everglades;

_nearly $2 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to build seven new locks on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers;

_$7 billion for various projects related to hurricane mitigation in Mississippi and Louisiana, including assuring 100-year levee protection in New Orleans;

_hundreds of smaller dredging, wetlands restoration and flood control projects across the country.

The Congressional Budget office says the bill includes projects that, if fully funded, would cost $11.2 billion over the next four years and $12 billion in the decade after that. The bill also calls for increased oversight of the Corps, requiring an outside review of water construction projects.

The veto was Bush’s fifth. Four of those have come since Democrats took over Congress in January, but this one was unusual because it also pits the president against a sizable number of lawmakers from his own party. Previous Bush vetoes include two of bills allowing expanded federal research using embryonic stem cells, and a spending bill that would have required troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Last month, Bush vetoed a major expansion of a children’s health insurance program, also over objections from some Republicans. But he has far more partisan unity on that issue than on the water projects bill. It was the first time Bush went into a veto knowing it was a futile effort. This turns the tables somewhat on him, as he has been criticizing Democrats almost daily for wasting time by passing legislation they knew he would not accept.

Isn’t it funny that now that there’s a Democratic majority in Congress Bush is finally taking the packaging off his veto pen? Ain’t it also funny that Bush considers things that will cost around 14 billion over the next 14 years to help fix some badly needed things is “fiscally irresponsible” and yet I just found an article that report economists are speculating that the war in Iraq could balloon to over $1 TRILLION dollars. Whether that is true or not that same article is reporting that the daily cost is over $200 million a day.

Which is fiscally irresponsible? Adding in things to help protect American citizens from natural disasters and restore the environment for $14 billion, or continue an occupation of a foreign nation that serves as nothing but a black hole for the economy and is turning this into the most expensive military campaign in American history?

You want to be fiscally responsible? Pull troops out of Iraq and STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO COMPANIES FOR OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS!

Bush veto of child health bill sustained
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago

House Democrats on Thursday failed to override President Bush’s veto of their pre-election year effort to expand a popular government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.

The bill had bipartisan support, but the 273-156 roll call was 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority that supporters needed to enact the bill into law over Bush’s objections. The bill had passed the Senate with a veto-proof margin.

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program now subsidizes coverage for about 6 million children at a cost of about $5 billion a year. The vetoed bill would have added 4 million more children, most from low-income families, at a cost of $7 billion annually. About 600,000 adults also participate in the program.

To pay for the spending increase, the bill would have raised the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 a pack.

“This is not about an issue. It’s about a value,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said just before the vote. “For the cost of less than 40 days in Iraq, we can provide SCHIP coverage for 10 million children for one year.”

Forty-four Republicans voted to override Bush’s veto; that was one fewer than the number of GOP members who voted Sept. 25 to pass the bill. Only two Democrats voted to sustain Bush’s veto, compared with six who had voted against the bill. The two were Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.

“We won this round on SCHIP,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. She said a million-dollar lobbying campaign by several labor unions and advocacy groups to turn enough Republican votes for a successful override did not work.

Bush, anticipating that the veto would stand, has assigned three top advisers, including Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, to try to negotiate a new deal with Congress.

“It’s now time for us to get to the hard work of finding a solution and get SCHIP reauthorized,” Leavitt said. “We also have a larger task, to provide every American with the means of having an insurance policy.”

Republican opponents of the bill said it would encourage too many middle-income families to substitute government-subsidized insurance for their private insurance. The bill would have given states financial incentives to cover families with incomes up to three times the federal poverty level — $61,950 for a family of four.

“That’s not low-income. That’s a majority of households in America,” said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.

The bill said that illegal immigrants would remain ineligible for the children’s program, but Republicans seized on a section that would have allowed families to provide a Social Security number to indicate citizenship. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said it is too easy to get a false number, which would give an opening for thousands of illegal immigrants to enroll.

But Democrats said the bill’s original focus remained intact. States would earn bonuses for signing up low-income children already eligible for the program but not enrolled.

“Under current law, these boys and girls are entitled to their benefits,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “Continuing to not provide them with coverage is a travesty.”

Bush has recommended a $1 billion annual increase, bringing total spending over five years to $30 billion — half the level called for in the bill that he vetoed.

Some public opinion polls indicate support for expanding the program. Sixty-one percent said Congress should override Bush’s veto of a bill expanding the program, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released Wednesday. Blacks were more likely than whites to favor overriding Bush’s veto.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, H.R. 976, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/

(This version CORRECTS in the second paragraph `two-thirds that majority supporters’ to `two-thirds majority that supporters …’)

Yeah, here’s a surprise.

I still find republican hypocrisy rather amusing. It’d be downright funny if it didn’t harm so many people.

I caught this when I came online today and it got me to grin a bit.

[b]Dems: Override children’s health veto[/b]
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 51 minutes ago

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana asked his colleagues on Saturday to override President Bush’s veto of legislation that would expand a popular children’s health insurance program.

“Every Republican must decide whether they will stand with the president and his veto, or stand with our children and their right to a healthy future,” Baucus said in his party’s weekly radio address.

House Democrats have scheduled for this week a vote to override the president’s veto of legislation that would increase spending for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has called for a $5 billion increase.

The effort is not expected to succeed. An override requires a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate, and the earlier House vote fell about two dozen votes short. The Senate approved the increase by a veto-proof margin.

The program provides health insurance to children in families with incomes too great for Medicaid eligibility but not enough to afford private insurance. Bush has said the bill is too costly, goes beyond the program’s original intent and shifts too much insurance burden onto the government rather than private providers.

Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Tuesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt had called him seeking to compromise on the bill, but he refused.

“We want to prevail,” Baucus said then.

He said Saturday that the president is telling millions of parents that they don’t deserve the same basic care for their kids that Bush had for his.

Are the Democrats finally growing a spine? Maybe not, but I still hope they can override this veto.

For a few years now I’ve had slight tinnitus. For those of you who have never heard of it, tinnitus is a ringing in the ear caused by exposure to unnatural loud noises and it can vary in intensity from just being perceptible in total silence to nearly or totally deafening. The mechanisms that cause this ringing are often torn fibers, called cochlear hair cells, in the eardrum. Its not a romanticized ailment like cancer or AIDS and is thus not well known but it is very prevalent to the point that about one in four people have reported a ringing of the ears. Its not a ringing that stops, and you can’t block it out because its not an external sound.

For years there has been no cure. For the better part of 30 or 40 years my dad has lived with it and has often said that in any given situation it is the loudest thing he can hear. When my ears started ringing after a concert about four or five years ago he told me there was nothing to be done and I’d just have to live with it. Back then I refused to believe there was nothing to be done because he hadn’t followed up on any medical advancements made since he was told about it.

Recently I found that there are things that can be done for it but I’ve also found that the next problem I’m facing is finding a doctor that even knows about tinnitus, even among audiologists. My dad has lived under the impression for so long that nothing can be done that he refuses to believe that nothing still can be done, even after finding a clinic in which they told him things can be done.

Now, a few hours ago I read an article that tells how stem cells can be used to stimulate the growth of cochlear hair cells in mice. With further research this could lead to a possible cure for things like tinnitus. This is an example of how Bush’s continued ban on stem cell research directly affects Americans. Not just a few, but one in four. People might ask me how a stem cell ban will affect me, and I can tell them that it deprives me of my right to silence.

Why be in denial? People who believe in a cause believe in it, act on that belief and the belief can be inferred from their actions.

It should be obvious to everyone, after today, as it has been obvious to many of us since the initial vote on the war, nearly five years ago now, that the Democrats always have favored the war, and there has never been any fundamental change in their attitude.

The vote in February to fund the war, and the current vote, speak louder than words.

Senate approves $150B in war funding

By ANNE FLAHERTY

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

RED DAVE

Bush: Kids’ health care will get vetoed

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 4 minutes ago

President Bush again called Democrats “irresponsible” on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children’s health insurance program.

“Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed,” Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. “Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point.”

At issue is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private coverage. It expires Sept. 30.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers announced a proposal Friday that would add $35 billion over five years to the program, adding 4 million people to the 6.6 million already participating. It would be financed by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack.

The idea is overwhelmingly supported by Congress’ majority Democrats, who scheduled it for a vote Tuesday in the House. It has substantial Republican support as well.

But Bush has promised a veto, saying the measure is too costly, unacceptably raises taxes, extends government-covered insurance to children in families who can afford private coverage, and smacks of a move toward completely federalized health care. He has asked Congress to pass a simple extension of the current program while debate continues, saying it’s children who will suffer if they do not.

“Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage — not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage,” Bush said.

The bill’s backers have vigorously rejected Bush’s claim it would steer public money to families that can readily afford health insurance, saying their goal is to cover more of the millions of uninsured children. The bill would provide financial incentives for states to cover their lowest-income children first, they said.

Many governors want the flexibility to expand eligibility for the program. So the proposal would overturn recent guidelines from the administration making it difficult for states to steer CHIP funds to families with incomes exceeding 250 percent of the official poverty level.

You heard it, folks. Bush keeps flappin’ his gums about how important the kids are but when it comes right down to it what is his message?

Fuck the little bastards.

THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded — not blamed — for their incompetence.

Featuring:

PAUL WOLFOWITZ
DOUGLAS FEITH
STEPHEN HADLEY
RICHARD PERLE
ELLIOT ABRAMS
SCOOTER LIBBY
JOHN HANNAH
DAVID WURMSER
ANDREW NATSIOS
DAN BARTLETT
MITCH DANIELS
GEORGE TENET
COLIN POWELL
DONALD RUMSFELD
CONDOLEEZZA RICE
DICK CHENEY
GEORGE W. BUSH

Read how your favorite war criminal is doing. Find out their “Role In Going To War.” Find out “Where He [or She] Is Now” And get a “Key Quote.”

RED DAVE

Help save Salvia in Illinois, Time is running out fast!!! Email our Governor or better yet fax, if you have a fax machine 

If Fax:  Address Fax to Governor Rod Blagojevich, subject line: Citizens request that you line item veto:  HB0457: page 7 LRB095 04451 RLC 26428 b and remove Salvia from the bill.  Governor at the following fax numbers:  217-524-6262 or 312-814-4862

This is what to fax or email the Governor: (COPY AND PASTE THE BELOW)

Governor Rod Blagojevich:  Citizens request that you line item veto:  HB0457: page 7 LRB095 04451 RLC 26428 b  and remove Salvia from the bill.  

Citizens request that you line item veto:  HB0457: page 7 LRB095 04451 RLC 26428 b and remove Salvia from the bill.  Salvia is not a plant that should be considered for this bill.  If you make this plant illegal not only will you be eliminating 100,000 of dollars a year in tax revenue to the state of Illinois, you will be shutting down businesses and putting people out of work.  Salvia is currently used in shaman rituals, religious ceremonies and for healing both by lisc. and holistic doctors and practitioners.  The plant has antioxidants, is a natural anti- depressant, is being used and researched to treat bipolar disorder,alzheimer’s (because it unlocks memory and helps recall), is being used to benefit suffers of rheumatism and joint pain, to aid others overcome severe drug additions and treat severe depression (documented in medical studies has been successful where other medications have failed), it has also be used to ease depression related to PMS and new cutting edge research of biosynthesis and medical applications of rosmarinic acid has been held promising. Hundred’s of thousands who could be helped by the benefits of Salvia will be left to suffer.  Medical research is very hopeful about how it can assist in a greater understanding of the brain. The state would also be rejecting alternative religions, cultures and societies that hold this plant SACRED, yes SACRED (American Indians, Shaman faiths, Alternative faiths and societies and peoples who immigrated from South and Central America into the US, use it to Salvia to commune with the Holy Mother and the Divine (God) and many of these people are in the US and Illinois.  It would cost Illinois taxpayers millions to police salvia.  People would illegally grow it, sell it, without the tax benefits going to our schools, roads, hospitals, cities and townships. Press accounts of efforts to ban Salvia often quote law enforcement and government officials who exhibit an inaccurate knowledge of the plant’s effects. Salvia has a nondescript appearance (being in the same genus as cooking sage), can be grown in a small space, has no odor and requires no elaborate lighting set-up. For these reasons, criminalization is likely to affect only the commercial sale of the plant, and not its private cultivation, which would be very difficult to police and extremely costly to tax payers.  

Citizens request that you line item veto:  HB0457: page 7 LRB095 04451 RLC 26428 b  and remove Salvia from the bill.  Salvia divinorum has begun to be researched and documented by a number of companies and universities on the medicinal applications of Salvia.  Including antioxidants, as a natural anti- depressant, use against rheumatism and joint pain, to aid others overcome additions and treat severe depression where other medications have failed (these cases have already been medically documented), to ease depression related to PMS and new cutting edge research of biosynthesis and medical applications of rosmarinic acid.  But if salvia is made illegal, it will greatly reduce the amount of research needed and treatment protocols that may result in ending the suffering of 1000’s of individuals.  Salvia is in no way a stimulant, a sedative, a narcotic, nor a tranquilizer.  Medical research has great hope for this plant. Be cautious about outlawing plants when you have yet to uncover its medicinal value.  For example, we have just found out in newly released medical research of another plant that has been crucified as a drug in the US for decades and is currently illegal in most states, yet NOW been proven by medical research that it slows and even stops the growth of tumors and may be especially beneficial to breast cancer research.  Thousands of women die each year from Breast Cancer and could have been saved had people who did their research, stopped and considered the long-term affects on medicine and society and got informed.  Thousands more could benefit from the treatments using Salvia.  Salvia has never caused anyone harm and does not have 1/10 the negative side affects of cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol or many, many prescription drugs (we know why no one bans them, money and lobbyist).  Thousands upon thousands die from addictions to tabacco and alcohol every year–yet not one tries to band these because it is big business.  Lastly, under the Federal Analogue Act, salvia fails to meet the “chemically similar” criteria and thus is not subject to the analogue act provisions.

SALVIA DIVINORUM should be available for all those over the age of 18. STOP THE WITCH HUNT AND BE THE GOVERNOR OF REASON AND LEAD THE WAY! 

Please also email the ACLU acluofillinois@aclu-il.org, please pass on to friends

Two weeks ago, Peregrin Wood noted that Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a professional lobbyist who has promoted political agendas because he has been paid to do so. That seems to put Fred Thompson in a nasty ethical position in which it won’t be clear, if he’s elected President, who he is really working for - the people, or the clients who are paying for his campaign? For a lobbyist like Fred Thompson, there may not be that much difference.

However, Fred Thompson’s position as the top lobbyist candidate for 2008 is being challenged by John McCain. The Chicago Tribune reports that John McCain has more lobbyists on his campaign staff than any other presidential candidate. John McCain is has so many corporate lobbyists working on his presidential campaign that one could easily question whether the McCain 2008 campaign is really a presidential campaign or just a public relations campaign used by lobbyists to promote the political agendas favored by their clients.

So, which one would you identify as the top lobbyist candidate of 2008 - Fred Thompson or John McCain?

To say that I’m indignant over this bit of news would be an understatement. I support a woman’s right to chose under any circumstances, and I find the idea that there’s not even a provision for a woman’s health to be…deplorable, to say the least.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

Justices uphold abortion procedure ban

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 9 minutes ago

The Supreme Court’s new conservative majority gave anti-abortion forces a landmark victory Wednesday in a 5-4 decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure nationwide and sets the stage for further restrictions.

It was a long-awaited and resounding win that abortion opponents had hoped to gain from a court pushed to the right by President Bush’s appointees.

For the first time since the court established a woman’s right to an abortion in 1973, the justices said the Constitution permits a nationwide prohibition on a specific abortion method. The court’s liberal justices, in dissent, said the ruling chipped away at abortion rights.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

Siding with Kennedy were Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman’s health, Kennedy said. “The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice,” he wrote in the majority opinion.

Doctors who violate the law could face up to two years in federal prison. The law has not taken effect, pending the outcome of the legal fight.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court.”

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the Bellevue, Neb., doctor who challenged the federal ban, said, “I am afraid the Supreme Court has just opened the door to an all-out assault on” the 1973 ruling in Roe. Wade.

The administration defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.

Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to defend the “sanctity of life.”

“I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion,” he said. “Today’s decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people’s representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America.”

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although Kennedy said alternate, more widely used procedures remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

“I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation’s laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life,” said Rep. John Boehner (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Jay Sekulow, a prominent abortion opponent who is chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said, “This is the most monumental win on the abortion issue that we have ever had.”

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: “This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women’s health and safety. … This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them.” She had argued that point before the justices.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday’s ruling. The Guttmacher Institute says 2,200 dilation and extraction procedures — the medical term most often used by doctors — were performed in 2000, the latest figures available.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

“Today’s decision is alarming,” Ginsburg wrote in dissent for the court’s liberal bloc. She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

Ginsburg said that for the first time since the court established a woman’s right to an abortion in 1973, “the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman’s health.”

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman’s uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.

In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions in a challenge also brought by Carhart. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman’s right to make an abortion decision in part because it lacked a health exception.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman’s health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday’s ruling.

Kennedy’s dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.

“The medical uncertainty over whether the Act’s prohibition creates significant health risks provides a sufficient basis to conclude … that the Act does not impose an undue burden,” Kennedy said Wednesday.

While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.

The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman’s life is in jeopardy.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.

Senator Hillary Clinton is using the bully pulpit of her presidential campaign to promote activism among citizens. Sign the petition Clinton started that demands Alberto Gonzales resign for inserting politics into Justice and then LYING about it. Unforgiveable! Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for giving Americans something better to do about injustice in the world than going shopping for duct tape.

Bush does it again. Everyone remember when King Shrub II got John Bolton jammed into the UN? Welp, he’s repeated his antics only this time with Belgium. Let’s read, shall we?

Bush Bypasses Senate to Name Ambassador

Bush bypasses Senate to name ambassador
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed Fox’s nomination.

The appointment, made while lawmakers were out of town on spring break, prompted angry rebukes from Democrats, who said Bush’s action may even be illegal.

Democrats had denounced Fox for his donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign. The group’s TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat’s election loss.

Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation in the Foreign Relations Committee, Bush withdrew the nomination last week. On Wednesday, with the Senate on a one-week break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation.

This means Fox can remain ambassador until the end of the next session of Congress, effectively through the end of the Bush presidency.

“It’s sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate,” Kerry said in a statement.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he plans to ask the Government Accountability Office to issue an opinion on whether the recess appointment is legal.

Recess appointments are intended to give the president flexibility if Congress is out for a lengthy period of time, such as the four-week adjournment in summer. But Dodd said the law was not intended to circumvent lawmakers’ approval.

“This is really now taking the recess appointment vehicle and abusing this beyond anyone’s imagination,” said Dodd, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. “This is a travesty.”

Bush also used his recess appointment authority to make Andrew Biggs deputy director of Social Security. The president’s earlier nomination of Biggs, an outspoken advocate of partially privatizing the government’s retirement program, was rejected by Senate Democrats in February.

Presidents since George Washington have made appointments during congressional recesses to fill positions in the executive and judicial branches. Bush has used the authority more frequently than some — but not all — of his most recent predecessors, making 171 so far, compared with 140 for President Clinton over two terms, 77 by his father in one term and 243 by President Reagan during two terms.

Some of Bush’s more notable recess appointments include John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton arrived at the U.N. in August 2005 after being appointed during a congressional recess because he twice failed to be confirmed by the Senate. Still unable to get Senate backing, he stepped down in December.

Others include include William Pryor and Charles Pickering (news, bio, voting record) as federal appeals court judges, in 2004, and Otto Reich as an assistant secretary of state, in 2002.

Fox, a 77-year-old St. Louis businessman, gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat group. He is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and was dubbed a “ranger” by Bush’s 2004 campaign for raising at least $200,000. He is founder and chairman of the Clayton, Mo.-based Harbour Group, which specializes in the takeover of manufacturing companies.

Fox has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s.

In answer to questions about the Swift Boat donation, Fox has said he gives when asked, insisting he was not involved with the writing of the ad scripts and never saw them before they aired but had been aware of the general thrust of the group.

Fox issued a statement saying he is “delighted and honored” to accept the ambassadorial appointment.

“As the son of a man who fled Europe to find freedom and a better life, I am especially humbled by the opportunity to return to that continent as this nation’s representative,” he said.

Justifying the White House’s demand that White House officials, including Karl Rove, only testify for Congress without swearing an oath to tell the truth, and behind closed doors, Press Secretary Tony Snow said that “behavior changes when cameras are off.”

Oh, yes, behavior changes when the cameras are off. When the cameras are off, and the doors are closed, and the public can’t see what’s going on, and no one is under oath to tell the truth, then people in the Bush Administration lie, and they break the law, and they make plans to ruin people for political gain.

Then, when they come out of those private meetings, behind closed doors, with no oath to tell the truth, and the cameras off, they tell us that it’s none of our business to know what they’re doing. They tell us to buzz off.

Democrats in Congress, please don’t lose your backbone on this, as you so often do. Demand open, public hearings, with Bush Administration officials testifying under oath, in front of cameras.

We all deserve to know the truth, and if White House officials won’t tell the public the truth voluntarily, then they must be legally compelled to do so, under punishment of going to prison.

Hell, subpoena Bush! We have already waited to long for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I would like to create a database of people who are connected.  These people are the ones who feature in our press.  These people seem “connected” and seem to have special treatment.  People like Cherie Blairs relations and friends or Tony Blairs relations and friends.

It would be very interesting to find out information about these people as they are at the top of the tree in our society. We could use them as role models or hate models depending on your particular system of values.

I would like this database to be a visual one with little spidersweb joining each one to others.

Just how connected are the likes of Paris Hilton and Gordon Brown

The people connected through business would be interesting.

What do you think of this idea.  I will be able to contribute to the computing aspect in June (presently enrolled in a study course) but require a connected person to supply the content.

You Hypocrites! I gave you a week to confess. You did not. Not only are you all registered Democrats. I have the proof. But also you are cutting down people who really care about this country. Just read what these people have to say. “Unity08 is a group of citizens deeply concerned that the wheels have come off our political system, that the American Dream is slipping away, and that time is short to get things back on track. We are of all ages, backgrounds, colors and beliefs and from both parties.”

“Unity08 believes that neither of today’s major parties reflects the aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both are excessively dominated by money.”

“For most of the 20th Century, the contest for the U.S. presidency was waged over those “in the middle.” Recent Presidential elections, however, have not been focused on the middle but on the turnout of each party’s special interest groups – with each party’s “base” representing barely ten percent of the American people.

We believe that, while the leaders of both major parties are well intentioned people, they are trapped in a flawed system – and that the two major parties are today simply neither relevant to the issues and challenges of the 21st Century nor effective in addressing them.

As a result, most Americans have not been enthusiastic about the choices for President in recent elections, the key issues they ran on, or the manner in which the campaigns were conducted.

Therefore Unity08 will act to assure that an alternative ticket is presented to the American voters in 2008.”

What problem do you sickos have with these laudable goals? It has become crystal clear that the leaders at Unity08 have done more and care more about this country than you sorry, twisted wrecks of souls will ever manage.

I’ve been reading the diaries on IT for the past few months and find “it” somewhat intriguing and semi-addicting to see what others are thinking politically, environmentally and culturally. However, my oldest child (who is still in elementary school) recently asked me, “Mom, can you name the only two honest Presidents our country has ever had?” I thought I knew the answer until he proved me wrong. Then, it made me stop and think for a moment how important it was to a 9-year-old that I get the answer right. I didn’t want to fail him, and yet, I didn’t want to look stupid either. Parents are supposed to know everything, especially when it comes to being honest. Isn’t that what we teach our children? Our future leaders? Honesty is the best policy? Short of a complete answer, I asked him if I could mail him the answer! He thought that was funny and agreed! So, I would like to hear who you honestly think were the only two honest Presidents our country has ever had.

Some people just can’t win for losing, can they? When I saw this on Yahoo News I was about to go to sleep, so I figured that if it wasn’t mentioned when I woke up I’d post it.

So here it is:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061021/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_detainees

U.S. jailed man once tortured by Taliban

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 21, 8:11 AM ET

Abdul Rahim insists he’s an apolitical student who fled a strict father. But he’s fallen into a black hole in the war on terror in which first the Taliban and then the United States imprisoned him as an enemy of the state.

Arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan in January 2000, Rahim says al-Qaida leaders burned him with cigarettes, smashed his right hand, deprived him of sleep, nearly drowned him and hanged him from the ceiling until he “confessed” to spying for the United States.

U.S. forces took the young Kurd from Syria into custody in January 2002 after the Taliban fled his prison. Accusing him of being an al-Qaida terrorist, U.S. interrogators deprived him of sleep, threatened him with police dogs and kept him in stress positions for hours, he says. He’s been held ever since as an enemy combatant.

Rahim’s story is one of several emerging from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay as defense lawyers make bids to free their clients while the Bush administration tries to use a new law to lock them out of federal courts.

After the Supreme Court overturned President Bush’s plans for commissions to try detainees, Bush obtained a new law from Congress barring federal courts from hearing appeals for release by any alien “properly detained as an enemy combatant.” The Justice Department told district and appellate judges this week they no longer have jurisdiction to hear dozens of such pending cases.

A court fight over that is certain.

Calling the move to strip jurisdiction “a direct attack on our constitutional structure,” Federal Public Defender Steven T. Wax in Portland, Ore., said, “We will litigate that as hard as we can in whatever forum we can find, because they are wrong.”

Other detainees whose lawyers filed new evidence in U.S. District Court motions this month include:

Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese charity worker arrested at 1:30 a.m. July 18, 2002, in his Peshawar, Pakistan, apartment. Co-workers swear he was a hospital administrator with no connection to terrorists. A dissenting U.S. Army major on the panel that reviewed the unclassified and secret evidence against him called it “unconscionable” to detain him because some employees of the same charity may have supported terrorist ideals.

Nazar “Chaman” Gul, a 29-year-old Afghani who thought he was working as an armed fuel depot guard for the Karzi government installed by U.S. forces. The man who hired him swears that was the case, but he is accused of being a member of a terrorist group. The lawyers say he has been mistaken for a commander of that terror group, named Chaman Gul, also held at Guantanamo.

All three are represented by Wax and his assistants. Wax’s staff traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates to gather dozens of sworn statements from co-workers, relatives, fellow inmates and people who knew these detainees but haven’t spoken to them in years. These newly filed accounts substantiate details of the detainees’ denials that they were terrorists.

“These clients are not enemy combatants,” Wax said in an interview. The new law “does not apply to people who are not enemy combatants,” he said.

Wax said it would be unconstitutional to apply the jurisdiction-stripping bill retroactively to existing cases. And he said the Supreme Court has ruled before that it has the final say over its jurisdiction in these so-called habeas corpus petitions for release from custody. Following President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war, the high court in 1866 set a man free after finding he was not a prisoner of war, Wax noted.

The government feels differently about Wax’s clients.

“Multiple reviews have been conducted since each detained enemy fighter was captured, including for these three individuals,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon. “There is a significant amount of evidence, both unclassified and classified, which supports continued detention of these detainees and others at Guantanamo.”

Now 28, Rahim, buttressed by testimony from friends and relatives, says he wound up in Afghanistan in a bid to escape his father, a strict teacher of Islamic education who objected to his borrowing money outside the family for a college trip. With his father holding his passport, he tried futilely to get from his home in the United Arab Emirates to Europe or Canada.

Finally a friendly diplomat got him deported to Afghanistan where he and others say he hoped to be declared a refugee and moved to Europe by international aid agencies. He says the Taliban conscripted him and sent him against his will to the Al Farouq terrorist training camp. When he tried to leave 18 days later, they imprisoned him, he says.

In spring 2000, Abu Dhabi television broadcast a video of a tearful, fidgeting Rahim saying a U.S. agent recruited him to find Osama bin Laden. “I deserve to die … but if the Taliban let me live, I want to spend the next 22 years fighting for jihad,” he said.

On Jan. 17, 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said U.S. forces found five videotapes in the ruined Afghan home of bin Laden aide Mohammed Atef — one of the men Rahim says directed his torture. Ashcroft said the tapes show young men delivering “martyrdom messages from suicide terrorists” and identified one as “Abd Rahim.”

Rahim’s attorney Stephen Sady said any Taliban tapes of Rahim “were the product of torture” and no different from false confessions Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made to stay alive in a North Vietnamese prison.

“After two years the Americans came and saved me from the prison,” Rahim told U.S. officers. “I told them about the videotape the Taliban made of me … it created confusion to the point that the Americans believed I was working with al-Qaida.”

He added: “Nothing changed in my life. I was taken from prison to prison.”

Welcome to the United States of Fear, ruled by King Shrub II.

Weed causes forgetfulness… Yep, an entire generation forgot they smoked the stuff!

It may seem a little extreme to say that I’m embarrassed to be a member of the baby boomer generation. After all, we’re the biggest and most successful generation since that small bunch of ex-Englishfolk baled on the Not-So-Great British tax structure and declared that this was the future home of hippies and millionaires. But alas, I must admit it - I can’t stand shoulder to shoulder with my gen-mates and hold my head up next to a bunch of people who smoked enough marijuana to stone the current population of India, whilst they start pounding their sagging middle-aged chests and spouting off about how kids today shouldn’t even think of experimenting with drugs.

Let’s get this announcement straight: Who the hell are they kidding? What a bunch of dime-store hyocritical bastards. “Just say No????” - like any one of us ever even considered that option when we were riding that six story waterslide called puberty into our early twenties. We grabbed for all the gusto we could handle, and occasionally reaped the fruits of overindulgence, which more than likely resulted in waking up on some lawn wondering why the comfy, green bed came complete with the occasional dandelion.

I might be willing to tolerate the Partnership for a Drug Free America if they were as anxious to stop the people popping unnecessary - but legally prescribed - drugs as they are to put an end to the only thing the first twenty-five years of human life are good for - Pushing the envelope to the fullest while one is still young and resilient. I might also be more tolerant of the drug war if we actually napalmed the hell out of poppy and coca fields that were doing the supplying. But we don’t - we pay their governments to stop their farmer from doing the only thing that makes them money - and SURPRISE, it doesn’t work.

Take the ‘kids in the basement’ commercial. There they are, safe at home, engaged in nothing more notorious than playing video games, when one of the throng implores his friend to ‘break out some of that weed.” Our friend cracks open his wooden stash box only to find a note that says “We need to talk - Mom”. Let’s assume that the conversation isn’t going to be about Mom having pinched little Marvin’s stash so she could get high. This is about her child’s descent into the writhing hell of - mary-ju-wanna. Yipe. Call the Cops or The National Guard or maybe even President Bush, who, it has been reported, was into the nose candy, back in the day. Jeez, ma, the kids could be drinking and driving…

But, hey, let’s run screaming to make commercials against smoking dope.

If mere rhetoric isn’t enough, try the following simple list of annual causes of death in the United States�

Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 400,000
Alcohol 85,000 / 101,653
Microbial Agents 75,000
Toxic Agents 55,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 43,000 / 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
Suicide 30,622
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000
Homicide 20,3084
Sexual Behaviors 20,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,000
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600
Marijuana 0

Yep. That’s right. Despite the valiant efforts of tokers from Baja to Bangor, NOBODY in the western hemisphere has gotten stoned to death since long before Shirley Jackson wrote “The Lottery” in 1948.

For the record, I am not a dope smoker - I did it when I was younger and it made me paranoid, an experience I don’t especially like, so I stopped. But that doesn’t mean that I am somehow now required to disavow the fact that often I had a very good time while high. Truth is, I am embarassed when anyone around my age starts blathering on about the ‘dangers’ of drugs�. After all, 100% of the people who tell you they did drugs (and you shouldn’t), managed to survive long enough to become hypocrites.

The more time passes on in politics, the more I want to vomit. All I see is corruption by all parties and it never seems to get better. So, I have an idea on how to get the kind of government we want.

Keep the three party system, but no longer give republicans and democrats and guaranteed spot on any ballot. Maybe if they actually had to work to get a spot on the ballot, they’d shape up and quit looking out only for themselves.

Yet more AP goodness about the loving treatment by American soldiers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060918/ap_on_re_mi_ea/in_american_hands

U.S. war prisons legal vacuum for 14,000

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer

In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.

Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries.

“It was hard to believe I’d get out,” Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release — without charge — last month. “I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell.”

Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq.

Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were “mistakes,” U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.

Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers’ photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it’s an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action.

Every U.S. detainee in Iraq “is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.

But dozens of ex-detainees, government ministers, lawmakers, human rights activists, lawyers and scholars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States said the detention system often is unjust and hurts the war on terror by inflaming anti-Americanism in Iraq and elsewhere.

Building for the Long Term

Reports of extreme physical and mental abuse, symbolized by the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photos of 2004, have abated as the Pentagon has rejected torture-like treatment of the inmates. Most recently, on Sept. 6, the Pentagon issued a new interrogation manual banning forced nakedness, hooding, stress positions and other abusive techniques.

The same day, President Bush said the CIA’s secret outposts in the prison network had been emptied, and 14 terror suspects from them sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face trial in military tribunals. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the tribunal system, however, and the White House and Congress are now wrestling over the legal structure of such trials.

Living conditions for detainees may be improving as well. The U.S. military cites the toilets of Bagram, Afghanistan: In a cavernous old building at that air base, hundreds of detainees in their communal cages now have indoor plumbing and privacy screens, instead of exposed chamber pots.

Whatever the progress, small or significant, grim realities persist.

Human rights groups count dozens of detainee deaths for which no one has been punished or that were never explained. The secret prisons — unknown in number and location — remain available for future detainees. The new manual banning torture doesn’t cover CIA interrogators. And thousands of people still languish in a limbo, deprived of one of common law’s oldest rights, habeas corpus, the right to know why you are imprisoned.

“If you, God forbid, are an innocent Afghan who gets sold down the river by some warlord rival, you can end up at Bagram and you have absolutely no way of clearing your name,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York. “You can’t have a lawyer present evidence, or do anything organized to get yourself out of there.”

The U.S. government has contended it can hold detainees until the “war on terror” ends — as it determines.

“I don’t think we’ve gotten to the question of how long,” said retired admiral John D. Hutson, former top lawyer for the U.S. Navy. “When we get up to ‘forever,’ I think it will be tested” in court, he said.

The Navy is planning long-term at Guantanamo. This fall it expects to open a new, $30-million maximum-security wing at its prison complex there, a concrete-and-steel structure replacing more temporary camps.

In Iraq, Army jailers are a step ahead. Last month they opened a $60-million, state-of-the-art detention center at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad’s airport. The Army oversees about 13,000 prisoners in Iraq at Cropper, Camp Bucca in the southern desert, and Fort Suse in the Kurdish north.

Neither prisoners of war nor criminal defendants, they are just “security detainees” held “for imperative reasons of security,” spokesman Curry said, using language from an annex to a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the U.S. presence here.

Questions of Law, Sovereignty

President Bush laid out the U.S. position in a speech Sept. 6.

“These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation,” he said. “We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle.”

But others say there’s no need to hold these thousands outside of the rules for prisoners of war established by the Geneva Conventions.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared last March that the extent of arbitrary detention here is “not consistent with provisions of international law governing internment on imperative reasons of security.”

Meanwhile, officials of Nouri al-Maliki’s 4-month-old Iraqi government say the U.S. detention system violates Iraq’s national rights.

“As long as sovereignty has transferred to Iraqi hands, the Americans have no right to detain any Iraqi person,” said Fadhil al-Sharaa, an aide to the prime minister. “The detention should be conducted only with the permission of the Iraqi judiciary.”

At the Justice Ministry, Deputy Minister Busho Ibrahim told AP it has been “a daily request” that the detainees be brought under Iraqi authority.

There’s no guarantee the Americans’ 13,000 detainees would fare better under control of the Iraqi government, which U.N. officials say holds 15,000 prisoners.

But little has changed because of these requests. When the Americans formally turned over Abu Ghraib prison to Iraqi control on Sept. 2, it was empty but its 3,000 prisoners remained in U.S. custody, shifted to Camp Cropper.

Life in Custody

The cases of U.S.-detained Iraqis are reviewed by a committee of U.S. military and Iraqi government officials. The panel recommends criminal charges against some, release for others. As of Sept. 9, the Central Criminal Court of Iraq had put 1,445 on trial, convicting 1,252. In the last week of August, for example, 38 were sentenced on charges ranging from illegal weapons possession to murder, for the shooting of a U.S. Marine.

Almost 18,700 have been released since June 2004, the U.S. command says, not including many more who were held and then freed by local military units and never shipped to major prisons.

Some who were released, no longer considered a threat, later joined or rejoined the insurgency.

The review process is too slow, say U.N. officials. Until they are released, often families don’t know where their men are — the prisoners are usually men — or even whether they’re in American hands.

Ex-detainee Mouayad Yasin Hassan, 31, seized in April 2004 as a suspected Sunni Muslim insurgent, said he wasn’t allowed to obtain a lawyer or contact his family during 13 months at Abu Ghraib and Bucca, where he was interrogated incessantly. When he asked why he was in prison, he said, the answer was, “We keep you for security reasons.”

Another released prisoner, Waleed Abdul Karim, 26, recounted how his guards would wield their absolute authority.

“Tell us about the ones who attack Americans in your neighborhood,” he quoted an interrogator as saying, “or I will keep you in prison for another 50 years.”

As with others, Karim’s confinement may simply have strengthened support for the anti-U.S. resistance. “I will hate Americans for the rest of my life,” he said.

As bleak and hidden as the Iraq lockups are, the Afghan situation is even less known. Accounts of abuse and deaths emerged in 2002-2004, but if Abu Ghraib-like photos from Bagram exist, none have leaked out. The U.S. military is believed holding about 500 detainees — most Afghans, but also apparently Arabs, Pakistanis and Central Asians.

The United States plans to cede control of its Afghan detainees by early next year, five years after invading Afghanistan to eliminate al-Qaida’s base and bring down the Taliban government. Meanwhile, the prisoners of Bagram exist in a legal vacuum like that elsewhere in the U.S. detention network.

“There’s been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it,” said Richard Bennett, chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.

Freed detainees tell how in cages of 16 inmates they are forbidden to speak to each other. They wear the same orange jumpsuits and shaven heads as the terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted inmates at that Cuba base. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.

Guantanamo received its first prisoners from Afghanistan — chained, wearing blacked-out goggles — in January 2002. A total of 770 detainees were sent there. Its population today of Afghans, Arabs and others, stands at 455.

Described as the most dangerous of America’s “war on terror” prisoners, only 10 of the Guantanamo inmates have been charged with crimes. Charges are expected against 14 other al-Qaida suspects flown in to Guantanamo from secret prisons on Sept. 4.

Plans for their trials are on hold, however, because of a Supreme Court ruling in June against the Bush administration’s plan for military tribunals.

The court held the tribunals were not authorized by the U.S. Congress and violated the Geneva Conventions by abrogating prisoners’ rights. In a sometimes contentious debate, the White House and Congress are trying to agree on a new, acceptable trial plan.

Since the court decision, and after four years of confusing claims that terrorist suspects were so-called “unlawful combatants” unprotected by international law, the Bush administration has taken steps recognizing that the Geneva Conventions’ legal and human rights do extend to imprisoned al-Qaida militants. At the same time, however, the new White House proposal on tribunals retains such controversial features as denying defendants access to some evidence against them.

In his Sept. 6 speech, Bush acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CIA’s secret prisons, believed established at military bases or safehouses in such places as Egypt, Indonesia and eastern Europe. That network, uncovered by journalists, had been condemned by U.N. authorities and investigated by the Council of Europe.

The clandestine jails are now empty, Bush announced, but will remain a future option for CIA detentions and interrogation.

Louise Arbour, U.N. human rights chief, is urging Bush to abolish the CIA prisons altogether, as ripe for “abusive conduct.” The CIA’s techniques for extracting information from prisoners still remain secret, she noted.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s willingness to resort to “extraordinary rendition,” transferring suspects to other nations where they might be tortured, appears unchanged.

Prosecutions and Memories

The exposure of sadistic abuse, torture and death at Abu Ghraib two years ago touched off a flood of courts-martial of mostly lower-ranking U.S. soldiers. Overall, about 800 investigations of alleged detainee mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to action against more than 250 service personnel, including 89 convicted at courts-martial, U.S. diplomats told the United Nations in May.

Critics protest that penalties have been too soft and too little has been done, particularly in tracing inhumane interrogation methods from the far-flung islands of the overseas prison system back to policies set by high-ranking officials.

In only 14 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings of detainees, the New York-based Human Rights First reports. The stiffest sentence in a torture-related death has been five months in jail. The group reported last February that in almost half of 98 detainee deaths, the cause was either never announced or reported as undetermined.

Looking back, the United States overreacted in its treatment of detainees after Sept. 11, said Anne-Marie Slaughter, a noted American scholar of international law.

It was understandable, the Princeton University dean said, but now “we have to restore a balance between security and rights that is consistent with who we are and consistent with our security needs.”

Otherwise, she said, “history will look back and say that we took a dangerous and deeply wrong turn.”

Back here in Baghdad, at the Alawi bus station, a gritty, noisy hub far from the meeting rooms of Washington and Geneva, women gather with fading hopes whenever a new prisoner release is announced.

As she watched one recent day for a bus from distant Camp Bucca, one mother wept and told her story.

“The Americans arrested my son, my brother and his friend,” said Zahraa Alyat, 42. “The Americans arrested them October 16, 2005. They left together and I don’t know anything about them.”

The bus pulled up. A few dozen men stepped off, some blindfolded, some bound, none with any luggage, none with familiar faces.

As the distraught women straggled away once more, one ex-prisoner, 18-year-old Bilal Kadhim Muhssin, spotted U.S. troops nearby.

“Americans,” he muttered in fear. “Oh, my God, don’t say that name,” and he bolted for a city bus, and freedom.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — The Associated Press staff in Baghdad and AP writers Andrew Selsky in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Pennington in Kabul, Afghanistan; Anne Plummer Flaherty in Washington, and Charles J. Hanley in New York contributed to this report.

I just saw this when I logged onto YIM. I thought everyone here would like to see it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060918/ap_on_re_mi_ea/photographer_detained

U.S. holds AP photographer in Iraq 5 mos

By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.

Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for “imperative reasons of security” under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative’s review of Hussein’s work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.

Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.

“We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable,” said Tom Curley, AP’s president and chief executive officer. “We’ve come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure.”

Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide — 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

In Hussein’s case, the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him, Curley and other AP executives said.

The military said Hussein was captured with two insurgents, including Hamid Hamad Motib, an alleged leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. “He has close relationships with persons known to be responsible for kidnappings, smuggling, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks and other attacks on coalition forces,” according to a May 7 e-mail from U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jack Gardner, who oversees all coalition detainees in Iraq.

“The information available establishes that he has relationships with insurgents and is afforded access to insurgent activities outside the normal scope afforded to journalists conducting legitimate activities,” Gardner wrote to AP International Editor John Daniszewski.

Hussein proclaims his innocence, according to his Iraqi lawyer, Badie Arief Izzat, and believes he has been unfairly targeted because his photos from Ramadi and Fallujah were deemed unwelcome by the coalition forces.

That Hussein was captured at the same time as insurgents doesn’t make him one of them, said Kathleen Carroll, AP’s executive editor.

“Journalists have always had relationships with people that others might find unsavory,” she said. “We’re not in this to choose sides, we’re to report what’s going on from all sides.”

AP executives in New York and Baghdad have sought to persuade U.S. officials to provide additional information about allegations against Hussein and to have his case transferred to the Iraqi criminal justice system. The AP contacted military leaders in Iraq and the Pentagon, and later the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

The AP has worked quietly until now, believing that would be the best approach. But with the U.S. military giving no indication it would change its stance, the news cooperative has decided to make public Hussein’s imprisonment, hoping the spotlight will bring attention to his case and that of thousands of others now held in Iraq, Curley said.

One of Hussein’s photos was part of a package of 20 photographs that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. His contribution was an image of four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms during the U.S.-led offensive in the city in November 2004.

In what several AP editors described as a typical path for locally hired staff in the midst of a conflict, Hussein, a shopkeeper who sold cell phones and computers in Fallujah, was hired in the city as a general helper because of his local knowledge.

As the situation in Fallujah eroded in 2004, he expressed a desire to become a photographer. Hussein was given training and camera equipment and hired in September of that year as a freelancer, paid on a per-picture basis, according to Santiago Lyon, AP’s director of photography. A month later, he was put on a monthly retainer.

During the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah in November 2004, he stayed on after his family fled. “He had good access. He was able to photograph not only the results of the attacks on Fallujah, he was also able to photograph members of the insurgency on occasion,” Lyon said. “That was very difficult to achieve at that time.”

After fleeing later in the offensive, leaving his camera behind in the rush to escape, Hussein arrived in Baghdad, where the AP gave him a new camera. He then went to work in Ramadi which, like Fallujah, has been a center of insurgent violence.

In its own effort to determine whether Hussein had gotten too close the insurgency, the AP has reviewed his work record, interviewed senior photo editors who worked on his images and examined all 420 photographs in the news cooperative’s archives that were taken by Hussein, Lyon said.

The military in Iraq has frequently detained journalists who arrive quickly at scenes of violence, accusing them of getting advance notice from insurgents, Lyon said. But “that’s just good journalism. Getting to the event quickly is something that characterizes good journalism anywhere in the world. It does not indicate prior knowledge,” he said.

Out of Hussein’s body of work, only 37 photos show insurgents or people who could be insurgents, Lyon said. “The vast majority of the 420 images show the aftermath or the results of the conflict — blown up houses, wounded people, dead people, street scenes,” he said.

Only four photos show the wreckage of still-burning U.S. military vehicles.

“Do we know absolutely everything about him, and what he did before he joined us? No. Are we satisfied that what he did since he joined us was appropriate for the level of work we expected from him? Yes,” Lyon said. “When we reviewed the work he submitted to us, we found it appropriate to what we’d asked him to do.”

The AP does not knowingly hire combatants or anyone who is part of a story, company executives said. But hiring competent local staff in combat areas is vital to the news service, because often only local people can pick their way around the streets with a reasonable degree of safety.

“We want people who are not part of a story. Sometimes it is a judgment call. If someone seems to be thuggish, or like a fighter, you certainly wouldn’t hire them,” Daniszewski said. After they are hired, their work is checked carefully for signs of bias.

Lyon said every image from local photographers is always “thoroughly checked and vetted” by experienced editors. “In every case where there have been images of insurgents, questions have been asked about circumstances under which the image was taken, and what the image shows,” he said.

Executives said it’s not uncommon for AP news people to be picked up by coalition forces and detained for hours, days or occasionally weeks, but never this long. Several hundred journalists in Iraq have been detained, some briefly and some for several weeks, according to Scott Horton, a New York-based lawyer hired by the AP to work on Hussein’s case.

Horton also worked on behalf of an Iraqi cameraman employed by CBS, Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, who was detained for one year before his case was sent to an Iraqi court on charges of insurgent activity. He was acquitted for lack of evidence.

AP officials emphasized the military has not provided the company concrete evidence of its claims against Bilal Hussein, or provided him a chance to offer a defense.

“He’s a Sunni Arab from a tribe in that area. I’m sure he does know some nasty people. But is he a participant in the insurgency? I don’t think that’s been proven,” Daniszewski said.

Information provided to the AP by the military to support the continued detention hasn’t withstood scrutiny, when it could be checked, Daniszewski said.

For example, he said, the AP had been told that Hussein was involved with the kidnapping of two Arab journalists in Ramadi.

But those journalists, tracked down by the AP, said Hussein had helped them after they were released by their captors without money or a vehicle in a dangerous part of Ramadi. After a journalist acquaintance put them in touch with Hussein, the photographer picked them up, gave them shelter and helped get them out of town, they said.

The journalists said they had never been contacted by multinational forces for their account.

Horton said the military has provided contradictory accounts of whether Hussein himself was a U.S. target last April or if he was caught up in a broader sweep.

The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. Horton said that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that time.

Hussein has been a frequent target of conservative critics on the Internet, who raised questions about his images months before the military detained him. One blogger and author, Michelle Malkin, wrote about Hussein’s detention on the day of his arrest, saying she’d been tipped by a military source.

Carroll said the role of journalists can be misconstrued and make them a target of critics. But that criticism is misplaced, she said.

“How can you know what a conflict is like if you’re only with one side of the combatants?” she said. “Journalism doesn’t work if we don’t report and photograph all sides.”

On one of my other commonly visited web-sites I posted an artical after reading this post by Peregrin Wood and it has sparked off a debate on terrorists and torture.

One of the members, whom I disagree with (to put it nicely and under a heaping helping of sugar) and whom is a conservative (but not a republican, oh no, perish the thought!) said he thinks torture should be illegal but is just fine with “extreme tactics.” This statement got me thinking about an anti-smoking commercial I once saw.

Tell me, if I take a rabid, vicious, snarling, snapping, growling German Shepherd named Fang and rename him “Fluffy”…is anyone gonna want to pet him?

That’s all they’re doing now. It’s not torture, it’s “extreme tactics!” Torture is immoral and illegal! We’re not doing anything illegal; we’re just using “extreme tactics.” That’s a mighty thick coat of veneer and sugar.

A pile of shit by any other name is still a pile of shit. If I call it mud, will the kids want to play in it?

After posting this on this other website I frequent, I felt it was too much for me to keep it only on one site. I’m reposting everything I’ve written there with just a few alterations that address that board specifically.

Before logging on, I had to sit for a while and seriously consider whether or not to post this. It’s a link to a flash video and I feel I should give Echolette credit because she sent me this a long time ago after she and I had a discussion about Pit Bulls, more specifically American Pit Bull Terriers, and back then I couldn’t watch it without crying.

I know, it’s unmanly for me to admit that I cried when I saw it but fuck all that shit, it’s the truth.

I bring this topic up because recently my dad and I adopted two stray dogs off the streets, the first of which was a female American Pit Bull Terrier whom my dad named Leona.

I feel I should tell the story of how we came about to adopting her.

For a long time (all my life, in fact) I had been bugging my parents for a dog. I’ve always been a cat person, always loved cats, always will love them. However, I had always felt that I was missing out on something when it came to cats and dogs and I’d always wanted a pet dog. I have three favorite breeds and I came about them in different ways and at different times.

My first love has been the Siberian Husky. The first time I saw it as a little kid that breed struck me as the most beautiful on earth. Everything about them was gorgeous from their eyes to their coats. I’ve been around a few of them and I’ve found them to be a good dog to have as a pet, so long as you don’t own other small animals and have a fence that’ll go down a few feet.

The second dog I’ve got on my favorites list is the German Shepherd for many of the same reasons as the Siberian Husky. But I think the real reason I was drawn to that type of dog was from watching the movie K-9 with Jim Belushi and Jerry Lee. That dog cracked me up. Recently my dad took me to one of his friend’s and he and his wife owned a pure blood German Shepherd named Queen. That dog was a goof, as long as you threw her tennis ball she’d adore you.

My third favorite dog was the Pit Bull. My friend Tim owned a Pit Bull named Dro and I had been around them off and on for a long, long time. The first time I met Dro I was scared shitless, not because I had heard all the bad news about Pit Bulls but because here’s this 80 pound mass of drooling dog and he’s wantin’ to jump on me. Being still in my early to mid teens I was scared shitless of that dog for a long time. The first time I’d met him, Tim opened the door and I swear it would have turned into a scene right out of Marmaduke if he hadn’t caught Dro by the collar. In all the years that I knew him he never once tried to bite me and only bit one person, that being a woman who surprised him at the wrong moment.

After my initial shock it took me a long time to keep from tensing up when I’d see him. How long you ask? Days? Weeks? Heh, try years. At first it was a grudging pet once in a while but he was persistent and so lovable that I finally started playing with him. Yes, that old dog won me over and it damn near became that I’d spend more time with that dog than I would with Tim.

He had a few quirks that made him lovable, one of which was this one time he took Tim’s mom for a drag down 19th street. I’m not talking walking along and tugging her after him, I’m talking she was off her feet and he was dragging her along behind him. You might be thinking “Oh, that’s not right” but all Tim’s life I never looked at her as a good mother so I was busting up when I heard about that little stunt.

Another of the things he would do that was so endearing was that he would start howling whenever we would sing “Happy Birthday” or when Tim would play “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera. That dog had some since in him after all.

Now Tim’s uncle had been at war with his neighbors for a long time for whatever reason and normally I wouldn’t mention that had it not been for the fact that Tim was living with his uncle during this time. One day, Tim was coming home from his friend’s place when he saw everyone was out back and there was an animal control truck out front. He went into the backyard and found Dro in the neighbor’s back yard, cowering in their dog house with blood running down his face. The neighbors had called in saying he was a mad dog and because my state has a No Tolerance law, all a dog (Pit Bull) has to do is be accused of being rabid or trying to attack someone and it’ll be put down. To this day we are convinced that his neighbors attacked Dro then had him put down.

I think the bloody pipe laying by his neighbor’s back porch had something to do with that suspicion. To this day I miss Dro, but he was the dog that won me over into liking Pit Bulls.

Now, a few months ago my dad told me about a stray dog in the neighborhood that was scared of it’s own shadow. I asked what kind it was and he said he didn’t know. The way he kept talking he made it out to be a small dog and with a rare exception, I hate small dogs. Most of them are toe biters to me. After I asked him about it, he was saying “No, no, it’s a large dog. Looks kinda like a boxer.”

Anyway, I hadn’t seen this dog at all for about a week or two after dad told me about it until one day we were leaving and I saw this black dog in our next door neighbor’s yard looking curiously over at me. First second I saw it I said to myself “That’s a Pit Bull.” I told my dad this and he refused to believe me and I kept pressing the subject because I knew I was right, damn it. He kept telling himself and everyone else that it was a boxer/lab mix and I just gave him a look like that let him know I wasn’t buying it and would say that he was full of shit. After a few weeks of drilling it into his head he started saying “She might have some Pit Bull in her” and I was just thinking “duh.”

It wasn’t until one of his friends who had raised Pit Bulls said that she was a Pit Bull without a doubt and that was all it took to convince him and here I am sitting here furious and thinking “WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I BEEN SAYING FOR THE LAST TWO FUCKING MONTHS?!” Just…motherfuck, he won’t listen to me just because I’m his son. I guess in his eyes I’m still a little baby shitting my diaper and don’t know what I’m fucking talking about so I have to tell his friends to tell him.

But this is not a rant post.

The first time I saw this dog it was clear she had been abused. She was all skin and bones, terrified of everyone, and had even chewed her leash in half to run away and was dragging it behind her when she came to our block. Everyone on our corner took pity on her. The Vietnamese people who live on the corner let her stay in a dog house in their back yard. My dad took to putting some of our cat food out for her at night because it was during the closing winter months when she came to us and was still kinda chilly. He had taken to befriending her and it took a month before she warmed up to him. I took her a week to get used to me.

After a while we had not only coaxed her into our yard but also onto this old couch we have outside.

Heh, that couch was her first real security zone and once she got on it you couldn’t get her off short of picking her up and carrying her off. She was also curious about new places and really enjoyed seeing our jungle of a back yard.

After that, it took her another month and a half before she would even stick her nose inside the door. She was terrified of about everything, but she eventually came inside and staked out a spot by the front windows.

For a long time that was her spot and she’ll still go over there from time to time.

I think it was around then that we’d officially adopted her.

But since then she has come a long way from when we’d first met her. She’s still a little skittish around people, but she won’t bolt at the first sight of them. She can also be fairly lazy and a regular couch potato when inside. She’s taken to sleeping in the recliner I enjoy sitting in (that hussy) and she’s really good with kids.

People are drawn to her to such an extent that it’s really a sight to behold.

Now some of you may be wondering why I’m posting this on a political website but I feel that the subject of Pit Bulls are very much a matter of both personal beliefs and politics since the introduction of Breed Specific Legislation.

BLS is a law that will restrict or ban pit bull type dogs and list them as “vicious animals.” People say that it’s in their nature to be mean. They say that they’ll just suddenly snap without warning or that they’re more prone to biting than any other dog. This is an image that has been trotted around in the media and is largely untrue. This has become so prevalent that San Francisco has enacted a mandatory spaying/neutering of Pit Bull type dogs and Denver has enacted an outright ban and started seizing Pit Bulls from their owners and having them put to sleep.

People miss identify all sorts of dogs and will call them Pit Bulls because of their general appearance. People have said right and left that Leona looks like a boxer but the only reason she does is because her ears and tail haven’t been cut off. Because of that, more often than not people will think she’s some other breed. It is the flip side of this reason that people lump all these different dogs into the Pit Bull heading.

I have come to find out that Pit Bulls were bred to be aggressive towards other animals but friendly towards humans. However, when raised around other animals they’ll generally be a sweet and even tempered kind of dog.

Now I come to the original reason I created this topic.

I’ve been telling you all about my experiences with American Pit Bull Terriers so you can understand my point of view as an owner of one of these dogs and maybe get an idea of my own experiences with this breed.

When I created this post I did so after watching again that flash video Echolette sent me so long ago. For me, it has become even more…relevant.

I want to pass it along to everyone here but I feel the need to warn you, if you have the same attitude towards these animals as Echo and me, this video and the images in it will be burned into your memory for a long time. I urge you to see it, but if you’re squeamish go ahead and click the back button on your browser.

The Pit Bull Problem

Apparently in order to be able to work for the government in any capacity especially in our military it is necessary that people be straight. Recently (as many of you I’m sure have heard) an Arabic linguist was dismissed from the military because he was gay. What is perhaps the most ridiculous and offensive however were some of the absurd questions that were asked in uncovering this (fairly unimportant) piece of information, for instance whether or not he had ever been involved in community theatre.

Quite frankly I don’t care if our men and women in the service are tap dancing to Hairspray in their spare time as long as they are pointing their guns at the right people. I’m quite curious as to why the military is perpetuating an absurd stereotype that has more basis in fantasy than fact. For those of you who stay up on the news in New York, or just happen to be fans of the LOGO channel you might of also heard of Rhonda Davis, a wonderfully sweet kind woman who was dismissed from our military because of her sexual orientation.

Perhaps the military should spend less time investigating their soldiers’ personal lives and more time investigating their soldiers’ actions, such as the rape of an Iraqi woman and the murder of her family by American soldiers. Or perhaps the notorious mistreatment of captured prisoners. But no, that is unreasonable. How could anyone suggest that we should pay attention to what is relevant and actually affecting our country as well as other countries and our image world-wide? Instead why don’t we stab ourselves in the back by getting rid of good soldiers for something as irrelevant as sexual orientation. Et tu, America?

I saw this linked from one web site I frequent to another that I visit less often, and I felt it was worth showing to everyone here. When I saw where this happened, I arched an eyebrow but in truth I wasn’t surprised. I have the misfortune of living in the same state so I know quite well what these people are like.

But, without farther adieu, I present you with the story written by Chester Smalkowski along with a foreword from the American Atheist News editor.

The original post can be found here.

JUST ANOTHER SALEM
by Chester Smalkowski

Web Posted: July 8, 2006

From the AANEWS Editor: Below, we are reproducing, “as is” and
un-edited, the account circulating on the internet and the
democraticunderground.com web site penned by Chester Smalkowski and
aptly titled “Just Another Salem.”

It is his personal story about the ordeal he and has family have been
swept up in after their daughter, Nicole, refused to join a prayer
circle during a basketball game at their local high school. Nicole,
instead, recited the “godless” Pledge of Allegiance.

From there, events went out of control. Chester Smalkowski and family
members attempted to hold a conversation with the high school
principal. That turned into a physical altercation, Mr. Smalkowski was
arrested under a battery of charges, and the authorities offered to
dismiss the case if the Atheist family fled the state.

monthly special American Atheists joined in the subsequent criminal
case, and Chester Smalkowski — battling incredible “Bible Belt” odds
in the courtroom — was found innocent of the charges. News of that
can be found on the American Atheists web site..

Edwin Kagin (ekagin@atheists.org), National Legal Director for
American Atheists, is preparing a federal action which will touch on a
number of issues in the Smalkowski case including violations of this
Atheist family’s civil rights.

Chester Smalkowski vented his thoughts about this experience on a
blog. AANEWS is reproducing this story for the benefit of our readers,
unedited and in its original format. This conveys the honest,
emotional, “from the heart” sentiments of Mr. Smalkowski, and
constitutes one man’s recollection of an agonizing experience due to
religious intolerance and fanaticism.

American Atheists welcomes support so that we may continue our efforts
on behalf of Chester Smalkowski and his family.

There are lessons to be learned. Perhaps the most important, though,
is that “it can happen here,” in America, in the year 2006.

— Conrad Goeringer,
AANEWS - American Atheists

JUST ANOTHER SALEM

The bailiff took the piece of paper from the foreman of the jury and
handed it to the Judge. He opened the paper and while staring at it he
nodded. The courtroom was silent and the jury stared straight ahead.

I have been in many situations where my life or limb were on the
line but I was still in the game and had a hand to play. But not here,
here I just sat waiting for the verdict.

Though I worried about being sent away for five years on bogus
charges, my dread was the Christian mob. They knew I must be found
guilty in order to slow or stop the civil case being filed in Federal
court. Since the start of my daughter’s stand against the public
schools disregard for the law of the land, it was imperative to run us
out of the county to make any civil action non valid. With me in jail
for five years running my family out would be a whole lot easier, or
so they might have thought.

The courtroom was packed for it is the Bible belt. There was no
love in this courtroom.

The loving Christians brought their children to hear the verdict.
They brought the town. They brought ministers. I even saw another
Judge in the back of the room. The Judge who in an earlier hearing
while slapping an inch thick stack of papers on his bench saying with
a list of witnesses this big you had better be a good boy. It was lies
then, it was lies now and the DA knew it! (She was later forced to
hand over a written statement she denied for over a year existed!)
People prayed openly for a conviction. Many holding their bibles.
During the trial the Prosecutions side of the courtroom was packed.
Only my son and Edwin Kagin’s wife, Helen sat behind me, but now there
was not enough room in the whole courtroom.

Yet now the so-called victim, the 325 lbs victim, the ex Marine,
hurrahs, was nowhere to be found. Neither was the woman assistant
district attorney anywhere to be found. Whose vindictive, bogus case
this was from the start.

What sort of place is this?

Well this is not the place for a little debate in a coffee shop
with the sweet salt air rolling up from San Francisco bay. This is a
place where the children write on their schoolbooks the south will
rise again. This is a place where they say that black people caused
slavery! Where they burn rock CD’s. Mormons are the tools of Satan.
That my daughter is gay cause only homosexuals vote for Kerry and
Christians vote for Bush. Atheists worship Satan! Where religious
fanaticism is fused with political rhetoric and political leaders
pander to this madness. This place has a sickness, a malignant disease
and it is spreading. Edwin saw it first hand.

There has not been many a trial with a Not Guilty verdict in this
county for years. The head DA is good friends with the self-righteous
in the courtroom and greets them all by name. You know the type.

Many old women in the courtroom are taking notes. Others have been
taking notes at every hearing for the past year and a half! They
strain to listen not wanting to miss one juicy word. With the pens and
pads they write continuously. The pads shaking with every push of the
pen. Even writing down what my children spoke amongst themselves.

Blue gray haired old Christian spinsters bitter for wasting all
those fruitful years now just waiting for those pearly gates. These
are truly the wicked. You have seen them before. With their bogus
self-righteousness they strut and sneer. How far we have not come.

Others had walked out into the hall and warned a police witness
saying that justice must be served, that justice better be served. The
judge called a hearing on the threat.

He warned the crowd that if it happens one more time he would have
no choice but to throw out the case. He was between a rock and a hard
place. He knows my lawyers are watching and the loving Christians are
out for my blood, and they are watching too. The law, elections and
politics were all in play. The Judge left the court for his chambers
and stayed away for a quite awhile.

The Christians, the loving Christians! Praying to a God whose wings
are dripping in the blood of innocent men, woman and children down
through the ages. Truly hypocrisy is one of their commandments and the
blood of the innocence one of their sacraments!

Christian against Christian, Christian against Moslem, Christian
against Mormon. Basically Christian against anyone or anything that
challenges their pathetic little fairy tale.

Go to any Indian reservation and see the lies and broken promises
by a country with “Under God” in their pledge.

I assume I need not have to explain about the loving hymns sung in
church on Sunday and beatings of black slaves on Monday. But on Monday
night the good old Master has a little tippy toe over to slave huts
for a little brown sugar. While the queen of the manor is in the
master bedroom past out on an opium tonic. Praise the Lord!

Well that was then but now the court was about to hear the verdict.
There was a feeding frenzy about to begin with the dirty little
atheist and his family put in their place with him in jail and the
family run out of town. Like the teacher told my daughter “This is a
Christian country and if you don’t like it get out!”

I could hear my heart beat in my ears and I dreaded the cheers from
the righteous mob that were about to begin. The pain of having my
family being in the front row to witness this swirling cesspool of
hatred come to its inevitable end with my head on a pike, sucked the
air right out of my lungs.

It was truly just another Salem. Different time and place. Same
characters with new names. Oh, no gallows or big oak tree this time.
But if they could they surely would. How far we have not come. I know,
I already said that but do you really understand what a tragedy it
means? The whole universe is ours if we want it but instead we must
gravel in the dirt having to debate the obvious.

I have been standing against injustice most of my life. It is my
nature. I am a child of the 60’s and proud of it. But what of my poor
family? They stood so proud and strong. They are tougher than I will
ever be. I had told them do not cry. Do not give these bastards any
satisfaction. I told my wife if I see you cry I will surely loose it.
I said it is in the Federal courts we will set things right and send
that wall higher than it has ever been. On the wall behind us was a
painting of the signing of the Declaration.

The judge handed the verdict to the clerk. The only sound was the
paper. The paper in the clerk’s hands with the hand written words that
spelled my doom, my family’s fate and the inevitable cheers from the
Christian mob.

With my guts in my throat and no air to breathe. The court clerk
read the decision of the jury.

We the jury find the defendant:

On the charge of Aggravated Assault and Battery:
Not Guilty!

On the charge of Assault and Battery:
Not Guilty!

On the charge of Assault:
Not Guilty!

On the charge of Battery:
Not Guilty!

Not a word, not a sound. The lynching had been cancelled. I took my
first free breath in almost two years. I looked at the jury and mouth
the words thank you. I gazed at the floor as floodgates opened, I
dared not move my head that others might see. Charley don’t cry, but
free air has its effects.

With all their praying, lies, crooked cops, warning that justice
better be done, packing the courthouse with their followers, Even a
teacher on the jury who had taught at the Hardesty School. (Our motion
to take her off the jury denied.) Not guilty was still the outcome.
The evidence was obvious. This was a bad case. And 12 men and women
had the guts.

From the start of this legal fight my lawyers said Atheism must be
kept out. That it was a no go in the Bible belt. I was just adamant
that Atheism be brought in. For it is the reason. It was the motive
for all the lies and hate. I felt it was about time that this dirty
little secret of hate, persecution, Christian madness and hypocrisy is
brought out into the light of day. When I told my lawyers this they
all gave me the same bewildered stare.

So one by one, I dropped one lawyer then two. Then I had a hard
time in finding another one. My third lawyer was still trying to
convince me to keep my atheism out even up till the day of the trial.
I still said no. Somewhere along the line I talk to the ACLU out of
San Francisco. Who let me know my first civil lawyer was not telling
me the whole story. I was advised by them and many others to complain
to the Bar about him.

You see he never told me that the prayer in itself is illegal. That
the schools in this area were not following the state and federal
funding guidelines. When I asked him after finding out from the ACLU.
He said yes it is against the law.

I told him I want to have it stopped. He told me he would not for
he was a Christian and he believed there should be school prayer. His
statement floored me for it bordered on madness. I said what you
believe and what you do for a client is two different things and that
you took an oath. He still refused.

It did not matter to him that I had already given him $10,000
dollars. He knows we are not rich. So I wrote a letter to him to
complain about his refusing to take my daughters civil case where it
should have gone from the start. And I asked for my money back. He
sent me a bill for another $5000 saying it was the charge for reading
my letter and wasting his time.

In my search for a civil attorney it became clear that no one would
touch this case. In all of Oklahoma I could not find an attorney. My
criminal attorney said he would look at it but only after I paid him
his $15000 for the criminal case. He sent me a letter that the funds
for the criminal were coming too slow and suggested that I seek other
counsel for the civil matter. But even after he got his $15000 he
would only take it if I paid him more. (Now that I have won the
criminal case he wants on the civil. Suffice to say he is off the
civil!)

Eventually I contacted the American Atheist, which was referred to
me by Edward Tabash, who was referred to me by a Mr. Robert Tierman. I
told them my problem in finding an attorney willing to take church and
state case in which the people are blatantly breaking the law. Yet no
one will take it. American Atheist, being out of another state, could
not refer me to anyone. But they said they would try to help. The ACLU
out of Oklahoma City refused. They sent me some standard letter. It
really hurt that I did not even rate a return call or a reason. I felt
betrayed, lost and confused.

Was this the United States? Where freedom reigns?

The whole family was under constant stress. Police trying to get
search warrants to the property by having ex-employees file false
statements. Other cops trying to hire ex-cons to beat me up. The whole
town knows of it! The Sheriff trying to have my bond pulled by the
bail bondsman when there was no legal way to do it. My kids have been
out of school since November. Principal’s son saying should he get a
gun when he sees my daughter and my son. DA has yet to reply to our
concerns. The Department of Human Services comes to my place saying
they received a complaint that I starve my kids. It was even obvious
to them the charge was bogus.

We have become very good at using back roads. The police follow us
around. Traffic tickets that when challenged were dropped in court.
Not to mention the stares and whispers, the betrayal from employees,
one of my healthy dogs dying. Brush fires starting up upwind.

An FBI agent even said, “You aren’t kidding”. When it was obvious
someone followed us and was watching our meeting out in the middle of
nowhere. I was told about a few things. All I can say is that some of
the crooks out here now charged with crimes wore badges and guns! But
he could not help my family and me. Not without witnesses willing to
come forward. One scared witness left the state. The last words she
spoke to me were, Chuck I don’t want to end up dead in a ditch!

Just what you would expect life to be like out here in the Bible
belt!

The roller coaster of emotions we went through every minute, every
day. It was truly a hell. There were days we spoke little. Other days
we spoke late into the night. You get to a point you become numb, but
it doesn’t last. For it is all aboard and you are on the roller
coaster again.

My poor family. They were standing tall. But they would not even be
in this place if it were not for me and my bright idea about
centralizing our business. We all missed the desert. The free open
Mojave Desert. My family did not ask for this. They deserved better. I
saw them all suffering.

Many a night I would sit in the barn alone with a pint of scotch
and look at the high beams and the rope on the wall.

Then out of the blue my wife received a call from Ellen Johnson who
said they had a lawyer that can help us, an Edwin Kagin who is their
legal director. Well I called him up, and our civil case is up and
running.

Edwin Kagin also by my request came to my criminal case for the two
cases are obviously interrelated. There were also other reasons.

Simply stated without Edwin Kagin, Ellen Johnson and American
Atheist I would be in jail now, or worse. Without them, we would have
no federal case on separation of church and state. The only group, the
only lawyer that would stand with my family and me to protect the wall
and not cringe at me wanting to put atheism as part of my defense.

In Edwin’s opening statement American Atheist magazine was shown.
The crowd almost rioted. He explained that Atheism was not a dirty
word and that it was a conclusion. That my family and I are not devil
worshippers. We just have no Gods. It was the basis of the case. It
was the danger. It was the truth. Yet the only lawyer to go there
freely was Edwin Kagin.

In a world where superstition is the norm and those who seek
another path are ridiculed or worse. Being an atheist takes guts.
Freedom is never freely given. The good fight is always there.

Oh you can hide yourself in the latest sitcom or have one or two
more scotch and waters but the good fight is still there. You can run
to your malls and buy yourself crazy with credit card frenzy. But the
good fight is still there. You can look away and deny allegiance. But
the good fight is still there. These are the times that try men’s
courage. You can debate till you’re blue in the face. It will not
change a damn thing.

Our forefathers are on our side in this fight. Trust me. From Adams
to Madison to Jefferson and Paine they all knew the dangers of a
Theocracy. They wrote the Constitution to assure it. And within the
federal courts we can protect this nation from a Theocracy.

The wall between the church and state must stand. But the wall is
being battered and cracks now appear. The Christians are at the gate
attempting to breach the wall and send us back down the road to an age
of darkness, bloodshed and fear. My family and myself are willing to
stand and fight the good fight. If we lose some skin, so be it. We
have no more else to give. We are financially done. Thanks to American
Atheist, Ellen Johnson and Edwin Kagin for the first time we do not
fight alone.

Please stand together with us and fight the good fight. The fight
that our forefathers began. Lets make the wall so high between Church
and State that they who wish to tear it down will know better and be
content with staying in their churches.

For freedom has never been free! There can be no freedom for all if
the wall does not stand.

The wall must stand.

Chuck, Nadia, Nicole, Czeslaw and Bridgette Smalkowski

Help Us Grow

Straight people of the world this post is for you, it is in no particular order and just a little informational piece that you might find interesting. Numerous court hearings have been held on the issue of same-sex marriage recently both in the United States as well as over seas. In light of these events I thought you might like to know what your government has said about you.

I’ll start with New York as it is my home state and I would like to address my fellow New Yorkers for a few moments. In New York State the highest court voted down same-sex marriage by a vote of four to two.

“. . .the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. . .The Legislature could also find that [heterosexual] relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. . .” - NYS Court of Appeals Decision (pages 5 and 6)

So lets take a look at that, shall we? The New York State Court of Appeals more or less says that heterosexual men are so careless and frivolous that they require a legally binding contract in order for them not to abandon the women who they will ineviably get pregnant and their offspring. As for heterosexual women, the court apparently believes that they are so free with themselves that they are all too likely to casually have kids (perhaps the nine month waiting period was removed without my notice). In addition the court finds that heterosexual people exist almost solely to produce offspring. Therefore, if you are unable to have children, uninterested in having children, or too old to have children you do not matter in the eyes of New York State. Don’t worry, you have a lot of company (For instance the one million plus New Yorkers who identify as LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender).

In Indiana a similar decision was handed down.

“The Plaintiffs assert that there are three possible, but ultimately unreasonable, reasons for the legislative classification: to promote procreation and child-rearing by both natural parents, to promote the traditional family unit, and to promote the integrity
of traditional marriage.” - Indiana Court of Appeals

But wait! Traditional marriage? How do we define this “traditional marriage”? If what I’ve read is correct traditional marriage was an institution in which African American couples couldn’t marry, inter-racial couples could not marry, and women had no rights? Hey, if it works for all of you it works for me, but somehow I
think there might be a few people with something to say about traditional marriage, just a hunch.

Other rulings against same-sex marriage have come down in Georgia, London, and Washington. Washington State recently upheld a DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which is a piece of legislation that defines the words “marriage” and “spouse” to exclude same-sex couples. With a vote of five to four. By 2004 33 states had amended their constitutions and passed these acts (as written by B.A. Robinson of Religious Tolerance.org).

DOMA bills are extremely important to the straight community because being gay is just so much fun that if same-sex marriage was legal all of you heterosexuals would say “To hell with opposite-sex marriage, I think I’m going to go out and do that!” (Not that I can blame you with a divorce rate of something like 50% and celebrities like Brittany Spears getting married and then getting it anoled the next day, if that was my choice would probably explore my other options as well). It’s a good thing we have DOMA bills to uphold the sanctity of marriage and keep all you frivoulous, lechers, nymphos, and machines of procreation on track. Otherwise the human race would die out like the dinosaurs. Of course, we could focus on teens who have babies in bathrooms and throw them in trash cans but hey, we have more important things to think about, like stopping homosexual marriage which is threatening the children and the straight people of the world.

(age 18)

If anyone has had the opportunity of reading the incredible book POWER VS. FORCE by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.[Hay House, Inc.], could you help me by turning to pages 68 and 69 [Map of Consciousness] and indicate to me where you think Rovian/Bushian consciousness is on that chart? Just indicate a level and maybe a reason or two, but please hold down the bi-polar political stuff.

You enjoy coming on here calling us chickens and cowards. Yet you ain’t even got balls enough to sign a user name to your posts.

I have a question for you, you festering pile of twat vomit. Can you find anything with some semblance of intellect to refute us with? I’ve got good money that says you can’t, hence why all you can do is spout