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Bush friends dropping like flies
From BAC for Yikes!
 When
you see a headline that says "Bush friends dropping like
flies ..." the next logical question is "when will
he?"
The latest pol to take a plunge is Australia's prime minister,
John
Howard. Howard suffered a major defeat on Saturday, losing
his reelection bid to Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd.
Howard's defeat, after 11 years in power, follows that of José
María Aznar of Spain, and political setbacks that lead to
Britain Prime Minister Tony
Blair's resignation. And what to all these former-leaders
have in common? They were staunch allies of the U.S. invasion
of Iraq.
The world "gets it." Even the electorate in this
country gets it, sending Republicans packing in the last
election. So when is the United States Congress going to
"get it" and start formal impeachment proceedings
against Vice President Cheney and then President Bush.
The citizen of this country deserve to see these two
war-profiteers forced out of office in disgrace.
Why do you think campaigning began last summer for the 2008
presidential election? Because the American public can't wait
for this administration's term to end.
Congress will be back in session soon. Email your Representative
to tell them you are thankful to live in a democracy that
includes an impeachment process to protect its citizens
against fascist leaders -- and urge them to use it!
No Doggone Rights For You
From Waymon Hudson for The
Bilerico Project
It’s another example of where our community’s relationships rate in
the opinions of some people.
Palm Beach Community College in South Florida has approved a discounted
group medical plan for employee’s pets. Sounds nice, right? It is,
until you look at the fact that last August the PBCC trustees voted
down a proposal for domestic partnership benefits.
That’s right, folks. The college thinks that pets deserve insurance
coverage, but people don’t. Actually, that’s not exactly true. They
don’t think pets are more important than all people- just LGBT
people in committed relationships. We rank somewhere below dogs,
cats, hedgehogs, frogs, guinea pigs, geckos, and iguanas (all of which are
covered by the insurance plan).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge animal lover (not in the gross, Rick
Santorum “slippery slope” way, I mean, I just love my
puppies…). But I also love my partner and think we both deserve basic
rights like medical coverage.
Maybe I should marry a goat, like the nut-jobs on the religious right
claim we all want. At least that way I can get insurance.
Mitt Romney Thinks
He's Better Than You, Continued
From Oliver
Willis
Oh, for the love of God, somebody tell the modern-day Eddie Haskell
that the rest of us live in the real world and not the monochrome
fairyland he
was coddled in.
Following his "Ask Mitt Anything" event in Amherst, Mitt
Romney told voters and reporters that presidential candidates should
refrain from discussing with young people their early life
"indiscretions."
The former Massachusetts Governor's statements were a response to
Sen. Barack Obama's visit to a Manchester high school Tuesday where
he told students he was a "goof off" in high school and
had experimented with drugs and alcohol.
"I agree with the sentiment that nobody's perfect and most
of us, if not all of us, in our youthful years have engaged in
various indiscretions we wouldn't want to have paraded in the front
of a newspaper," Romney said. "On the other hand if we're
running for president, I think it's important for us not to go into
details about the weaknesses and our own failings as young people
for the concern that we open kids thinking that it's ok for
them."
Romney is kind of like the dad who never tells his kids about sex,
going no further than the stork story then is surprised when his
daughter comes home knocked up. Sen. Obama is like the dad who is
actually, you know, being a dad and doing the right thing.
If we cannot trust our existing government to lead us, or even the
intelligence that our president uses to go to war, whom can we trust?
The DoD?
At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded
during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of
brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled
by USA TODAY.
The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans
Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain
trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept.
30. These
cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon's official tally of
wounded, which stands at 30,327.
If you cannot trust the numbers put out by the institutions who are
charged with doing it, how is it that people who are for the
"war" in Iraq base their support and continued trust laden
in the existing leadership?
Incidentally, the coalition of the willing is about to shrink by
another ally:
Also Friday, Poland's new prime minister said he plans to withdraw
troops from Iraq next year.
In a three-hour speech to parliament, Donald Tusk said that by the
end of 2008, Poland
will withdraw its 900 troops from Iraq, where it leads an
international contingent of about 2,000 soldiers from 10 nations in
the south-central part of the country.
Does Roberts' resignation point to a
wider evangelical crisis?
From The
Richmond Democrat
On Friday, November 23, 2007, Richard Roberts, son of
Oral Roberts, submitted
his resignation as president of Oral Roberts
University. Oral Roberts University is deeply in
debt, while millions of dollars have been channeled
out of university funds to support Oral Roberts'
lavish lifestyle in retirement on the West Coast.
Oral Roberts continues to serve as the school's
chancellor, even though he lives more than a thousand
miles away. The school supports his lavish lifestyle
to the tune of millions of donated dollars, apparently
on the theory that Oral Roberts occasionally
entertains potential donors at his palatial California
estate.[ 1]
To me, what is really significant about the Oral
Roberts University scandal is that it is being brought
by evangelicals against other evangelicals.
Evangelicals are beginning to violate Reagan's
"11th commandment," and are taking on key
figures within evangelical ministries, demanding an
end to corruption and hypocrisy.
Another sign of this crisis is the
investigation of six televangelists by Republican
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). This is an
investigation that quite simply could not be launched
by a Democrat:
it would be dismissed on partisan grounds. Until quite
recently, such an investigation would not have been
launched by a Republican, because doing so would have
jeopardized a key part of the Republican
base.
Grassley's current investigation has been going on for
two years. He has now requested critical financial
information from six televangelists to be delivered in
early December 2007. Grassley no doubt believes that
there is fire beneath the smoke. It will be
interesting to see what he finds.
Know a blog that
deserves to be featured on the Blog World Report? Contact Robert.
Real World Education
From Fran for Ramblings
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The story behind the CHEERS theme
From By
Ken Levine
 Got
a request for the full-length version of the CHEERS theme. There’s a
great story behind it.
1981. Songwriter Gary Portnoy had just been fired as a staff writer
from a major music publisher. His friend Judy Hart Angelo happened to
meet a Broadway producer at dinner one night who needed a score
written for a new musical he was producing. They decided to team up.
Gary had never written for the theater, Judy had never written a song.
Somehow a tape of one of their demo songs found its way to Hollywood
and the Charles Brothers. They thought it would be perfect for the
theme of the new show they were developing, CHEERS.
But that’s not the song you know.
When the Broadway producer found out one of his songs was to be a TV
theme he had a fit and legally blocked Paramount from using it.
Crushed, Gary and Judy wrote new songs for CHEERS. But none of them
connected the way the old one did.
Finally, after four or five rejected tunes they submitted “Where
Everybody Knows Your Name” and that one struck a chord.
But even that’s not the
song you know.
The original opening lyrics were changed to give it a more universal
appeal. These are those original opening lines:
Singing the blues when the Red
Sox lose
It’s a crisis in your life
On the run ‘cause all your girlfriends
Want to be your wife
And the laundry ticket’s in the wash
Once the song was written and approved there came the issue of who was
going to sing it? Gary had sung the demo. There were those who wanted
a big name and others who liked Gary’s rendition. With less than a
month to go before the premiere it was decided that Gary would sing it
and the arrangement would be simple just like the demo. Surprisingly,
the Charles Brothers did not attend the recording session. We were all
in the room writing one day when Glen Charles casually mentioned that
they were doing the theme on one of the scoring stages. But their
faith in Gary was rewarded.
The Portnoy-Angelo theme for CHEERS is one of the most memorable in TV
history. Several weeks after the premiere Gary went back into the
studio to record a full-length version of the song that actually made
the pop charts.
Here’s that expanded version. To my knowledge it only aired on the
show once, during the 200th episode.
Letter from the heart of a Burmese
national
Translated by Graw and posted by Thway
Ni for Burmese
Bloggers Without Borders
No place for generals
As days go by, the generals' brutality began to shape up. It is not a
gentle picture from the elite. It is like a dog, which defends itself
restlessly when it is locked in the corner. Then a friend of mine
jumped in and said, "Please do not compare with dogs, which will
commit suicide if they hear they are compared with the generals."
What
a pathetic life you have, generals! Your lives are inferior to dogs!
Lives of generals, Nothing to envy!
You, generals, can exploit the country's rich resources and spend on
the latest technology to your pleasure. How far you can go free in the
vast land! Do you dare to walk around freely among the civilians whom
you claim to protect! Who in the streets ever welcome you sincerely!
Do you even dare to take steps on the roads of China and ASEAN, whom
you said you are good friends with! You have no place to go freely,
run peacefully, and breathe fresh air. Even if you plan to give up,
there are many generations of your brutal youth waiting to gun you
down. What is left for you to do! You intimate your followers by
killing innocent civilians, lie to the world with your ineffective
diplomatic skill and broken English, and give up Burmese's rich
natural resources and vast soil to your father-figured China. What a
pathetic life you have, generals! According to the Buddha's teaching,
you will suffer from what you have done to the others. It is a form of
Karma for you to live fearfully everyday and take grudge against one
another within your organization.
Suffering Karma by your behaviors
Let’s look at why you are living your life with one eye open at night.
You have spent millions of tax dollars building school in the edge of the
capital so that you can destroy the lives of students who always were the
forefront of the fight for freedom. While the country’s education is
deteriorated, you have been giving out fake master and PHd Diplomas to
people. Even your sons and daughters been awarded with fake Phd degree.
Even Dr. Than Tun has said that while our universities were lack with
facilities, researches and books, professors were busy putting up fences,
painting the walls of the lecture halls and also serving as security
guards. The country’s education is so bleak that students can’t even
write their own Thesis in English. They have to hire and pay someone to do
it for them. Principle of the universities was hand picked by you so that
they can constantly serve you as the informers. Everyday they have to
guard the main gate and pick out students who didn’t wear properly or
have a name tag. Your generations hate the educated people so much that
you efficiently and effectively eliminated the generation of higher
educations for students and make them suffer by not offering quality
education.
The slogan “sixth grade educated generals is worse than a wild bull”
like a stab in your heart. That’s why you have decided to avenge by not
offering quality higher education. Ask yourself, was it successful?
Everyone knows that the books that been donated by international community
for students has been diverted to your military colleges around the
country. Are your sure that your modern day army lives up to your
aforementioned standards set by you? How can next generation of Defense
personals can have clear minds and thoughts if you don’t offer the
truthful news and media of the world? Everyone knows that any military
personals whom were caught red-handed reading world news, they been
dishonorly discharge from their unit and their pensions have been cut off.
Why can’t you even root out the KNU rebels even though your army
outnumbered them 10 to 1 ratio. It’s because you don’t have the modern
day weaponry and the tactics use by the modern army. Since you can’t
defeat the KNU, you turned to your attention to the people of Karen and
then slaughtered them. Was this torture method successful? Not only the
Karen tribe is still standing but also the other tribes who has withstood
your brutality. Why don’t you use the nuclear weapon on its own citizens
if you think that it is the only way to get the peace and stability?
Method of madness by Astrology.
Believing everything to what fortune teller and astrologer told to do is
like digging your own grave. Are you feeling the moment of sickness when
Burmese literary used the slogans that rhyme with a plant name and leader
Suu Kyi? Spending millions of dollars on cultivating that plant to avoid
the fate of having the leader Suu Kyi must be disastrous for you. Now not
only that plants you have cultivated has died, it also serves as pee place
for the dogs. Now you have another method of madness, using three sons to
divert the disaster. You been shooting yourself in the foot for so many
times that is there any flesh and blood left for you to bleed out? You
have been feeding the public with lies such as only 2% represents the
authentic monks who participated in demonstration. The world and public
knew that the streets of Rangoon were flowing with Maroon color during the
time of demonstrations. How can you lie like that? The only thing that you
have to fear most is the Angels and the Hell’s army because people have
been seeing and hearing the thunder and lightning even there is no heavy
rain. You should admit that it’s an security breach by your over sight
for failing to foresee this demonstration by the monks. No matter how hard
you try to suppress the monks by shooting, hitting, detaining and lastly
killing, there are still monks left to defend their rights and freedom.
Public already knew your fear even though you didn’t admit it. Everyone
knows that there are fingerprints left by you and your men for trying to
put a wedge between Christian and Buddhist Karen so that you can eliminate
the threat of KNU. No matter how hard you try to avert this fate by using
any voodoo or fortunetelling, there is no denying that you will never win.
Even you tried to bride people by giving the luxurious cars such as Land
cruiser and also throwing money at them.
Now you have no where to run since your plan back fire. According to your
beloved astrology and fortune telling you have to kill three sons. To kill
the three sons, you forgot to take in a count of solider is also the sons
of publics. What will you do? Since you are the one responsible for all
this actions, I suggest you do as what Astrologer told to do. So, don’t
left anything behind. Just finish your job by eliminating soldiers since
it’s part of your job now. Now public is standing on the side as
spectators for the damages that you have done since Karma will come and
haunt you.
Karma suffered by your sons and
daughters.
Please excuse the languages that I am going to use. Because of the public
outrage that was caused by the generals, I am going to use a very foul
language. The daughters of the generals who were wearing those diamond
studded necklaces are like hookers wearing diamond necklace. Now the
daughters you loved most is the daughter that made you lose your face
most. No matter how hard you try to cover up her ugly looking family faces
with diamonds and jewels, there is no hiding of her ever swelling tummy
that is ripe with pregnancy. Everyone knows that his pregnancy is not by
the groom who is agreed to marry your daughter. The child that she’s
carrying is the grandkid of the general that you got rid of earlier,
General Tin Oo. When your daughter was working in the ministry of Foreign
affairs, she’s been following the son of General Tin Oo everywhere he
went. Even though he got a wife and family, your daughter didn’t care.
Everyone knew about that situation. I can’t believe that you can put
this dirt under your rug and pretend like nothing to you. Now the blood of
the person that you got rid of earlier is permanently in your family blood
line. Talk about having Karma.
Karma given by your father
Now you had been kissing the feet of the Chinese to get your family
economy going, which in turns making the China rich rather than the
country you are in. You are suffering the Karma because once Socialist
leader Nay Win forcefully seized the property of Chinese owned business
and declared the state owned. Now in your hands, the Chinese has been
treating you like a door mat for their greater prosperity.
Losing war in Media
Even though I used the word battle, you don’t even have a defense to put
up this battle. Now you are losing landslide in this war front. Now the
whole war has seen your brutality of violently suppressing the monks and
people. Your fear of not wanting to lose power has been very unique and
original. You can even sentence the long jail terms to the country next
generations that is beamed with full of future. You been sentencing them 7
to 52 years prison terms for people who are peacefully participating in
the march.
Even you are scared of old people. You wanted to detain their sons and
daughter but you can’t catch them. Therefore you used a very cunning
method by threatening their families. Since your wives whom were bored
playing cards and spreading gossips, they have created a women association
to pretend do goods on public. But in the uprising, women from all walks
of life have participated courageously. Even though you have weapons, you
scared of the unarmed civilians so much that you elected to shoot and kill
them. You are the one who is responsible for forcefully separating the
women and children. Where is the women association to protect those women
in need in time like this? Where are your wives who always asked for women
protection? The world knew that they been putting on a show and pretending
like nothing is happened.
The country that has strong belief in Buddhism and also the country that
believed in donation towards monks had watched in horror when you elected
to use bats and bullets towards monks. Not only had the publics, the world
also seen the incident where you have used a brutal force towards monks
and tore down their robes with arms and bats.
Now because of the shooting by one solider, who didn’t even have boots
to wear, toward the Japanese reporter has created a huge back lash for
you. Now Japan has cut off all the economics ties that eventually went
into your pockets. Your lame excuse for telling the world that the
reporter looks similar to Burmese did not bode well because your excuse is
the proof of admitting killing its own citizens.
In this media war, your state run three public newspaper and two tv
stations can’t even effectively persuade or let alone win the hearts and
minds of 60 millions Burmese with their lies. Not only that your lies
can’t even put a dent in the world. You are just wasting the money on
spreading the lies by using printing press and precious air time. Everyone
has internet, a dish network now a days.
Now people understood the meaning of patriotism by looking at your defeat
in this media war. No one needs to ask or begged for this. Everyone is
doing this news spreading with their own decisions because they knew that
it’s their time. Now the news has spread to the world.
You been using the shadow writer’s names to spread your propaganda in
state run newspaper because you were too scared to come out and admit your
real name. Since public didn’t believe your lies, you have to rob spaces
from the private sectors newspaper and has to put those fake news stories
in there so that people will read it. Now you need more than one page to
spread your lies in this private newspaper. So, you were robbing their
business without paying the fair price. Everyone knows that a page worth
of full ad means a lot of money in the publishing industry. So what you
are doing is robbing the business from public so that you can have your
power indefinitely.
Freedom from Karma.
To free from this public shame and humiliation, not to mention karma,
first you have to unite all of your arm forces. If you succeeded, then you
have to ask for forgiveness from the monks and wash your blood stain hands
by offering alms to the monks. After that you have to admit your mistakes
to the public and the world courageously.
You have to get rid of the ideas of, what if we lose power and What if we
were put in the mercy of public hands, and come forward. You have to open
up dialogues with oppositions and ask for forgiveness from public. Ask for
truth and reconciliation. If you do that, I am sure public will able to
put your mistakes as water under the bridge.
If you don’t do that, then you and your followers will be haunted by the
actions and you will not be able to get free from the blood of the monks
and publics. Even the once merciful public is sickened and saddens by your
cunning actions. There will be new generations who will keep on fighting
you and your people no matter how hard it is. This is the consequence that
you have to live for the rest of your life. This is the victory for the
public because no matter how hard you try public will never give up the
hope for democracy in their hearts and minds.
(Written by “Min Thit Ti”)
BLOG RECOMMENDATION
From The
Boomer Chronicles
If you’re not one of the hordes who stormed the doors at the
Kohl’s department stores at 4 a.m. this morning you may enjoy
spending some time on a site called 6
Billion Others, which features a fascinating collection of brief
video testimonials from people all over the world. The topics of the
testimonials range from sadness and death to love and laughter.
The creator of this project — which will be greatly expanded
next year — is renowned French photographer Yann
Arthus-Bertrand. Born in 1946, Arthus-Bertrand is a man who
likes to think big. One of his other projects is Earth
from the Air.
I think his 6 Billion Others project can go a long way toward
showing people that we’re not so different from each other after
all.
The Republican Tiny Tent
From Ron Chusid for Liberal
Values
The Republican Party is rapidly turning into a minority party which is
becoming limited to the south and diminishing portions of the west.
They have driven out their moderates and only limited views are
allowed in the party. Mark
Steyn tries to argue otherwise but it is clear he doth protest too
much.
Steyn argues that the Republicans offer an anti-war candidate. This
is true but means little. Ron Paul does support getting out of the war
but he polls at only around five percent and much of his support comes
from people who generally do not vote Republican. The vast majority of
Republicans support the war. On related issues regarding the war on
terror they only disagree on points such as whether Guitanimo should
be preserved as is or doubled in size.
Steyn argues that there is a pro-abortion candidate. Giuliani
somewhat supports abortion but promises to appoint judges who will
help outlaw it. Giuliani also opposes so-called “partial birth”
abortions, supports parental notification laws, and supports the Hyde
amendment which prohibits federal funding for most abortions under
Medicaid. Support for abortion remains a minority view in the
Republican Party, and Giuliani’s slightly moderate views are so
radical to the Republicans that many are considering supporting a
third party if Giuliani gets the nomination.
Despite the attempts by Republicans to pretend they have a big
tent, they have a very tiny tent which is dominated by the social
policies of the religious right and the foreign policy of the
neoconservatives.
American People, Look at your Nation!!
From GEF for Suzie-Q
Last updated at 11:15am on
23rd November 2007
Authorities have confirmed they are speeding up
their investigation of a state trooper who shocked a
motorist with a Taser after video footage of the
incident was posted on YouTube.
The video, taken from Trooper John Gardner’s
patrol car, shows him drawing his Taser after Jared
Massey refused to sign a speeding ticket on September
14th and walked away from the officer in eastern Utah.
Watch the footage here…
Warning: Some may find the video distressing
youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMaMYL_shxc&e
Video Pulled today
Nov 25 2007
A surprised Massey asks, “What the heck is wrong
with you?”
Jared Massey is tasered as he walks away
Gardner fires, and Massey shrieks and falls.
“Face down! Face down! Put your hands behind your
back!” Gardner orders.
A woman screaming hysterically emerges from the
passenger side of the sport-utility vehicle Massey was
driving, and the trooper tells her to get back inside
“or you’re going to jail, too.”
The highway patrol declined to make Gardner
available for comment. “I can’t speculate on what
was happening in the trooper’s mind,” said Trooper
Cameron Roden, a patrol spokesman.
“We have an internal investigation going
on…With it coming out on YouTube, we have
expedited the investigation.”
The 10-minute video landed on YouTube after
it was released to Massey under a public records
request.
“We definitely have received a lot of feedback on
it, calls and e-mail,” Roden said.
Signing a speeding ticket is not an admission of
guilt, Roden said. He described it as a promise that a
motorist “will take care of the citation.”
Under patrol policy, troopers can use a Taser if
someone is a threat to themselves or others and other
means of control are unreasonable, Roden said.
Massey has filed a complaint, Roden said. He
didn’t know the status of the speeding ticket.
Halliburton, Cheney, Republicans, Bush
And You!
From Larry Sadler for Let's
Talk About It
Call this a conspiracy theory or just a
coincident, but while the MSM has been asleep
on the job. The President, Vice President and
the former Republican ruled House and Senate
were busy.
It would appear that Halliburton subsidiary
KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown and Root) was
awarded a $385 million contingency contract by
the Department of Homeland Security to build
detention camps.
Over 800 concentration camps are reported
throughout the United
States, all fully operational and
ready to receive U.S. Prisoners who disagree
with the government. The concentration camps
are all staffed and manned by full-time
guards, however, they are all empty. These
camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal
Emergency Management Agency) when Martial Law
is implemented in the United States (at the
stroke of a Presidential pen and the Attorney
General's signature on a warrant).
The camps
have railroad facilities as well as roads
leading to and from the detention facilities,
many have airports. Like Auschwitz, some of
the camps have airtight buildings and
furnaces. The majority of the camps can each
house a population of 20,000 prisoners.
Currently, the largest of these facilities is
just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan
facility is a massive "mental
health" facility and can hold
approximately 2 million people.
See Army
Regulation 210–35 Civilian Inmate
Labor Program: Confirming the government and
the Army's plans for U.S. based Concentration
Camps:
Military
Commissions Act
The enactment of concentration camps in the
U.S. and the ability of the President to throw
whoever he wants in the camps without
question. This act is one of the most
extraordinarily outrageous attempts to pass
unconstitutional law and is greatest assault
on the U.S. Constitution imaginable. All
involved in the commission of this unlawful
act have committed high treason against the
U.S.A. and should immediately be prosecuted.
In yet another astonishingly treasonous act
the U.S. administration has eliminated yet
another key check to control out of control
government, the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.
The Posse
Comitatus Act which abolished the
use of the U.S. military against our own
citizens since 1878 has also been wiped out.
This act which protected citizens through WWI,
WWII, the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the
Great Depression is considered by the current
administration as unnecessary and a hindrance
to the government's ability to prosecute
inside the U.S. This is particularly chilling
read more at this link: Military
vs. Citizens.
See March 24, 1997, letter from Congressman
Bill Hefner confirming the U.S. Concentration
Camps. 
Click
photoWhy exactly are prisons
being built for "the rapid development of
new programs". Halliburton's company site
confirms that the government is engaged in a
massive construction and preparation exercise
to build concentration camps and prisoner
processing facilities in the United States.
This is particularity astonishing and
disturbing considering that the U.S. already
incarcerates more orders of magnitude more
people than any other nation, about on-par
with U.S.S.R. at the height of Stalin's era.
The contract of the Halliburton subsidiary KBR
to build immigrant detention facilities is
part of a longer-term Homeland Security plan
titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the
removal of “all removable aliens” and
“potential terrorists.” In the 1980s
Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld discussed
similar emergency detention powers as part of
a super-secret program of planning for what
was euphemistically called “Continuity of
Government” (COG). These men planned for
suspension of the Constitution, not just after
nuclear attack, but for any “national
security emergency,” which they vaguely
defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988.
To find out how the new House and Senate are
looking into this very slowly, go to Let's
Talk. Is this just a conspiracy
theory, what say you?
How much official outrage should we
show?
From Eli Blake for Deep
Thought
There have been in the news recently two horrifying news
stories involving rape that show how differently the rights
of women are viewed in other parts of the world when
compared with the United States.
In the first of these cases, a nineteen year old Saudi woman
was brutally gang-raped. Initially, she was sentenced to
ninety lashes and six months in prison; that's right, SHE
was sentenced to this, for the crime of being in a vehicle
with an unrelated male (a friend of hers). When she appealed
her sentence, it was increased to 200 lashes, for daring to
speak out (her lawyer, who spoke to Saudi media about the
case, faces disbarment.) Her attackers, while they have been
sentenced to prison, initially received sentences of between
10 months and five years; subsequently those have been
increased but still they have received much shorters
sentences than rapists typically get in the United States.
In the second case, a fifteen year old girl in Brazil who
was arrested on suspicion of petty theft was placed in a
jail cell with 20 adult male inmates, who raped and tortured
her, while the local police ignored her screams for help and
kept her there for three weeks, during which time she was
burned as well as being raped multiple times. The police
then pressured her father to falsify her birth certificate
(presumably to claim her age was older than it was) and then
threatened to have his paternity rights revoked when he
refused to do so.
Both cases have provoked international outrage. The
Brazilians have at least acknowleged that there is a problem
(especially since the case has led to revelations of other
women being put into male prison cells and raped) and they
have appointed two commissions to investigate. The Saudis,
in contrast, have proven particularly intransigent,
justifying their sentencing by saying the woman in the case
was involved in 'an illegal relationship.'
Of course, everyone including Presidential candidates have
jumped on the cases and condemned them. Then again, it is
easy for someone who is simply a candidate to do so, since
there are no real consequences for whatever (s)he might say.
But what of the administration which does have to deal with
the consequences?
If I were President, I'd be tempted to recall my ambassador
to Saudi Arabia, as well as letting Brazil know I'd be
keeping a real close eye on their investigation and would
expect to see some heads roll. But then maybe it's a good
thing I'm not the President.
On the other hand, I've been very, very disappointed at the
complete lack of outrage expressed by the Bush
administration. Other than some muted statements expressing
disappointment they have said pretty much nothing.
First, let's make one thing clear-- there is public outrage
(for public consumption) and there is actual outrage (behind
the scenes). The textbook example of the difference came
just after the Tianenmen Square massacre, when the first
Bush administration publicaly expressed shock and anger at
the massacre of unarmed demonstrators in the square by the
Chinese army, while simultaneously dispatching Brent
Scrowcroft to Beijing with a message that the statements
were for American public consumption only, and should not be
construed otherwise by the Chinese government.
And we well know that both Brazil and especially Saudi
Arabia are very important to American foreign policy. We get
nearly half of our oil from Saudi Arabia, and they also hold
enormous amounts of American debt. So a real sudden and
complete break with Saudi Arabia would be a severe, perhaps
even deadly blow to the American economy. Like it or not,
that is an unquestioned fact, as of today. Brazil doesn't
send a lot of oil to the U.S., but with Latin America
increasingly hostile to America, and with the most powerful
politician in the region arguably Venezuela's Hugo Chavez,
America needs Brazil as the dominant economic power in South
America to provide a balance to Chavez.
That said, there are two things that the Bush administration
should be doing but are not:
1. they should publically, in the STRONGEST terms
condemn both sets of rapes. They must make it clear that the
way these women were treated by the judicial systems in
those countries is repugnant and that as civilized Americans
we reject it completely. This is necessary because inasfar
as the President speaks for all Americans, we must make it
clear as a nation that we won't accept this; if we are as a
nation silent on this kind of treatment of victims, do we
retain any moral authority at alL?
2. behind the scenes if it is necessary to offer the Saudis
a way out of their quandry it should be this: offer to grant
the woman, her husband (a man she was engaged to at the time
of the rape and who she has since married) and her lawyer
(unless they will reconsider the actions they took against
him) political refugee status in the United States and
suggest that the Saudis commute the sentence to exile (which
should be good enough to placate some of the hotheaded
fundamentalists at home).
I don't claim to have all the facts about what we should do
privately, but publically, to not condemn these actions is
to condone them, and I as an American demand that my
government condemn them. Because such behavior should never
be condoned.
North Carolina Corporation
Invades Indiana to Construct CAFOs
From Charlotte Weybright for
Berry
Street Beacon
Randolph and Jay Counties have led the state’s
expansion in adding swine last year to the area.
Randolph County 
received permits to add 126,866 animals and Jay County
received permits to add 47,800 animals. That trend is
continuing based on Indiana Department of
Environmental Management permit requests and
approvals. What a shocker there!
IDEM is making sure that Daniels and Skillman reach
their objective of doubling Indiana’s pork
production in the next few years. The heck with the
environment that is impacted by these industrial-sized
factory farms, and the heck with IDEM’s obligation
to protect our environment.
The CAFO free-for-all was triggered back in 2005
when Daniels and Skillman released their
“Possibilities Unbound” plan which included the
goal of doubling pork production for export. Assisting
in Daniels’ and Skillman’s plans, just
coincidentally, was the relaxation of time frames by
the Indiana Department of Environmental Managment.
Concurrently with the Possibilities Unbound plan, IDEM
passed a regulation which gave CAFO operators, present
and future, three additional years to formulate and
submit their waste management plans.
Thus, from only 7 permit requests filed from
January 1, 2003, up to January 1, 2006, the number of
permits filed in 2006 alone jumped to 198 permits.
Only 7 of those were withdrawn. Almost all - 77% or
144 - were approved by the end of the year. That means
144 factory farms added to the Indiana landscape.
But it isn’t enough that in-state operators are
increasing at an alarming rate. Out-of-state
corporations are also invading Indiana to set up
CAFOs. And, why not? Indiana has very few, if any,
restrictions on CAFOs at the state level or at the
county levels. Last year, even though three different
CAFO bills were introduced to address regulation, our
Indiana legislators couldn’t agree on passage of any
of them. Obviously, they didn’t think it was a major
problem, and, why worry, there’s always another year
to deal with it. Right?
North Carolina wised up and instituted a moratorium
on the expansion of the hog industry. The state went
from 2.6 million hogs in 1988 to almost 10 million
today. North Carolina saw the issue of the
mind-boggling amount of waste produced as a hazard
that pollutes the water, air, and soil and endangers
the public health.
Since North Carolina hog producers were stymied by
North Carolina’s moratorium, they just decided to
look around to see where they could plop down their
industrial factory farms. And, you guessed it, what
better place than Indiana with little or no
restrictions, a governor and lieutenant governor who
choose to ignore the environmental damage that can be
done in their relentless pursuit of bringing Indiana
into their vision of the “future”, and a
legislature that bickers about the issue while more
and more CAFOs spring up.
 One
North Carolina corporation is Maxwell Foods, Inc. of
Goldsboro, North Carolina. It has plans for growth in
Indiana by building three sow facilities in Randolph
County. Each facility will hold 5,842 adult breeding
females - that is a total of 17,526 breeding sows.
Permits are already in hand to proceed with the three
farms. In addition to the sow facilities, Maxwell was
also issued permits for three nursery pig farms each
holding 19,200 head - that is 57,600 nursery pigs.
Natural Pork Production ll (NPP II), an Iowa-based
corporation, bought a sow farm in Indiana from a
Crawfordsville operation which had a record number of
manure spills and fish kills resulting in the loss of
the producer’s permit and the eventual sale of the
operation to NPP II - bet they got a good deal out of
that. The company also has plans to obtain even more
facilities in Indiana.
In-state and out-of-state operations are rapidly
turning Indiana into one big industrial farm lot.
Unless the legislature and the counties are forced to
get off dead center by citizens, we will continue to
be the refuge for those operations which can no longer
operate in their home states. We will also continue to
see an alarming increase in these operations scurrying
to get their permit approvals before legislation can
be passed to regulate them.
|
When
you see a headline that says "Bush friends dropping like
flies ..." the next logical question is "when will
he?"
