Canadians and Spaniards Lead the Way for Gay Rights

The countries respectively known for curling and siestas are on the forefront of legislating equal rights for gays. How is it that we're so far behind?

While the laws in the Netherlands and Belgium also grant gays rights under a same-sex union category, they "fall short of full equality on issues like adoption, ... advocates [for gay rights] say." Today, Spain's Parliament granted full on marriage rights to gays. A similar law was passed in Canada this past Tuesday.

About the Spanish legislation >
The law lacks support from a largely conservative Senate. Too bad for the conservatives though as the Senate is largely symbolic and has no ability to prevent this law from being enacted. Spain is generally Catholic yet this issue of granting equality to their gay citizens is clearly more important than any outdated interpretations of religion or semantics.

The measure, passed by a vote of 187 to 147, establishes that couples will have the same rights, including the freedom to marry and to adopt children, regardless of gender.

"Today, Spanish society is responding to a group of people who have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, their dignity offended, their identity denied and their freedom restricted," Prime Minister José Luis Rodíguez Zapatero told Parliament.

About the Canadian Ruling >
Opponents say liberals sold out by getting votes from separatist Bloc Québécois but the liberals point out the hypocrisy of this assertion:

Even before the vote, the Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, questioned the legislation's authority because the Liberals needed the votes of the separatist Bloc Québécois to win passage. "Because it is being passed with the support of the Bloc, I think it will lack legitimacy for a lot of Canadians," he said in a televised interview.

The Liberals shot back that the Conservatives had made a tacit alliance with the Bloc just last month in an effort to call early elections.

By the looks of the pictures and descriptions of celebration, it seems like good times to come for gays in those countries. Hopefully, these recent laws will serve as models for open minded thinking in the US. It's so infuriating that people in the US use the semantic argument against gay "marriage" as a way to impose their religious and cultural tenets on others. If they really believed in equal rights for gays they wouldn't care what they called it. As the argument for civil rights has always gone: unequal treatment for any group of people implies inequality between those people and everyone else. Is that what this country is all about? Would opponents of gay marriage have any gripes if they were denied rights granted to others?

"Support Our Troops"

That's the big slogan you see around my neighborhood and probably yours too. I think supporting our troops entails posting a sign outside of my door, maybe a flag, or even a little yellow ribbon bumper sticker on my car. I don't think my neighbors are rushing to any VA hospitals or sending care packages to the soldiers in Iraq. I think what they meant to say is: I'm a sheep and I support my leader blindly, without weighing the consequences to our troops or the necessity of this war. So here's some facts on exactly how our military is being treated, by Chris White, an ex-Marine infantryman now pursuing his PhD in U.S. foreign policy.

Rarely has our military been used for national defense. I believe, that in its 228-year history, the War of 1812 and WWII were the only wars possibly fought to defend our country. On the other hand, mostly poor young men and women have fought hundreds of other engagements both here and abroad--defending the interests of the rich and the politicians they owned.

ABOUT COLLEGE BENEFITS:

They fail to tell you that you must pay $1,200 in your first year of the military in order to get the G.I. Bill, which is quite a chunk of money when your salary is only $700/mo. You will be lucky if you get your monthly G.I. Bill check in your first three months of college, since the bureaucracy is so inept. You had better have enough money saved up before you arrive.

Ask any veteran over 25 working in college, and they will tell you that the financial aid office determines your eligibility for grants and fellowships (free money) according to your income, and then deletes your income from the amount of aid you are eligible for. Therefore, if you were eligible for $9,000 in grants, but received $9,000 from the G.I. Bill, well, you get no grants. You can get loans though. All the loans you desire.

The Village Voice reported that army recruiters fail to mention that while they claim you can earn up to $70,000 for college or $65,000 to repay student loans this only applies to public college and repayment of federal student loans. If you've ever gone through the college loans system you know that federal loans amount to bupkis and private loans make up the majority of your debt.

ABOUT VETERANS BENEFITS:

I can use VA medical facilities if I want to wait five months for an appointment, but my wife cannot use them (at least in Kansas). We are both veterans, but I am 30 percent disabled, and she is not at all.

Of course, who would want to use the VA hospital in Kansas City anyway? According to an AP report in March 2002, the infestation of mice, maggots, and flies in the years leading up to 2001 created such a scandal as to pressure VA Secretary Anthony Principi to remove “the director and deputy director for the regional network, which includes Missouri, Kansas, and southern Illinois. The janitorial staff did not touch the food storage areas or cafeteria for a year, and maggots had nested in two of the comatose patients noses!

ACCESS TO YOUTH:

Recruiters now have even more access to the young minds of America. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 require every high school receiving federal education funds to hand over the names, addresses, and phone numbers of every junior and senior to local recruiters upon request.

That means that even 15 years olds, with no idea whatsoever about the real world, let alone the military, are now vulnerable to the manipulation and deception of recruiters in their own homes. If a school refuses to hand the information over, the Department of Defense steps in and pressures the school, after which federal funding may be withdrawn. [See The Pentagon Wants Your Babies]

Wal-Mart's Sphere of Decadence

So you never thought you'd see "Wal-Mart" and "decadence" 2 words apart? Don't worry, it's not what you think. In a classic case of irony, Wal-Mart's corporate culture of humility is being overshadowed on their home turf by the wealthy executives of Wal-Mart's own suppliers. The fact that Wal-Mart has anything resembling humility is news to me but apparently that is the culture ordained by founder Sam Walton.

In typical crack-ho to crack-den fasion, Wal-Mart's supplier companies have all gone scurrying to Arkansas to open offices around Wal-Mart headquarters in Benton County. The influx of wealthy executive types has resulted in an up-classing of the area so that it's now reminiscent of the newcomers' native Blue States.

Walton's spirit of restraint is harder to find ... at Fusion, a new fine-arts gallery that sells $2,500 abstract paintings and $1,200 urns. Or at the nearby Landers Hummer dealership, crowded with $62,000 sport-utility trucks. Or inside Shadow Valley, a gated community where four-bedroom houses fetch $1 million.
...
The result is an unprecedented migration of high-paid executives to the northwest corner of Arkansas -- professionals from amenity-rich cities like New York, San Francisco, Atlanta and Miami, who bring not only their six-figure salaries, but an appetite for Jaguars, sushi, pet day-care centers, Gucci shoes and Chanel sunglasses.

A million dollars for a 4 bedroom house in Arkansas? 'Nuff said.

Stem Cell Researchers Don't Want Your Babies! I'm So Seriously!

Sad that this has to be done but the International Society for Stem Cell Research is devoting a lot of effort (if not money) to educating the public on what stem cell research is and what it isn't. All this to combat the disinformation disseminated by the religious right including those in Congress. This article points out that House Majority leader Tom Delay described "embryonic stem-cell research [as] the 'dismemberment of living, distinct human beings.'"

Such statements are like fingernails on a chalkboard to stem-cell researchers like Leonard Zon, president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which is trying to get the message across that embryos are a microscopic mass of several hundred cells, and no body parts to dismember.

O, Snap, Guess What I Saw?

No, not a fella tongue kissing my girl in the mouth. The Downing Street Memo fool! Ok, so this has been around for a while but I've just been reading up on what the dill is recently. Check out this link for a good synopsis on what it is and a very well articulated rant against the indifferent and willfully ignorant in this country.


Here's an update from last week on the goings on in Congress over the new info. While the Brits have been fuming over this info since May 1st when the Times of London broke the story, we're only starting to react here in the U.S. I'm guilty of it myself but better late than never right?

[Update 6/26/05:]
Here's another link to an old article from Christian Science Monitor on some of the reaction (and lack thereof) to the appearance of this memo.

The Pentagon Wants Your Babies

With armed services recruitment naturally down, the Pentagon is into some shady dealings with some marketing companies that track information about high school age children. The Pentagon is using info such as classes taken and GPAs to target their recruitment efforts, often contacting kids at home. The Washington Post says the Pentagon is using an outside company to do this to circumvent laws preventing government agencies from collecting private information (the article lacks some detail on these laws).

It pretty much sounds like blackmail though as schools that refuse to give up the information can be denied certain types of federal funding. Sonsabitches.

"The purpose of the system . . . is to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service," according to the official notice of the program.

Privacy advocates said the plan appeared to be an effort to circumvent laws that restrict the government's right to collect or hold citizen information by turning to private firms to do the work.

Some information on high school students already is given to military recruiters in a separate program under provisions of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. Recruiters have been using the information to contact students at home, angering some parents and school districts around the country.

School systems that fail to provide that information risk losing federal funds, although individual parents or students can withhold information that would be transferred to the military by their districts. John Moriarty, president of the PTA at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, said the issue has "generated a great deal of angst" among many parents participating in an e-mail discussion group.

Italy's got balls

And you gotta lovem for it!

An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for allegedly helping deport an imam to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, an Italian official familiar with the investigation said Friday. The agents are suspected in the seizure of an Egyptian-born imam identified as Abu Omar on the streets of Milan in February 2003, according to the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The U.S. Embassy in Rome declined to comment.

Prosecutors believe the agents seized Omar as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, according to reports Friday in newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Giorno.

A judge also has issued a separate arrest warrant for Omar, news agencies ANSA and Apcom said. In that warrant, Judge Guido Salvini claimed the seizure of Omar represented a violation of Italian sovereignty, Apcom reported.

What exactly is "extraordinary rendition"? It is a program devised as a means of extraditing terrorism suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution. The unstated purpose of such renditions is to subject the suspects to aggressive methods of persuasion that are illegal in America, Europe, and most of the civilized world—including torture.

Anglican Church of St. Air Force Academy

This one is an update on a story we did back in May [see Laser Guided Evangelism].

I speak as a Christian when I say this, I am sick to death and a bit embarrassed by Christians. Let me be more specific; I am sick of Christians who "show off" their faith and proselytize to others. So here is yet another example of just why Christians have turned douche-baggy in this country:

The U.S. Air Force said Tuesday it will appoint a task force to investigate allegations of religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy. Some 55 complaints of religious discrimination have been filed going back to 2001, prompting school officials to require that all 9,000 cadets and faculty and staff members take a 50-minute course on religious sensitivity, academy officials said. In addition, a report last week by a Washington-based religious liberty group accused cadets and staff members of creating a climate that discriminated against non-Christians at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Among the allegations are that cadets are frequently pressured to attend chapel and take religious instruction, particularly in the evangelical Christian faith; that prayer is a part of mandatory events at the academy; and that in at least one case a teacher ordered students to pray before beginning their final examination. The report said it found that non-Christian cadets are subjected to "proselytize or religious harassment" by more senior cadets; and that cadets of other religions are subject to discrimination, such as being denied passes off-campus to attend religious services.

More than 90 percent of the academy's students identify themselves as Christians, with 60 percent saying they were Protestant and 30 percent Catholic. About 1 percent are Jewish and the rest is made up of Hindus and Buddhists, among others, according to academy officials. Complaints ranging from anti-Semitic slurs to teachers preaching in class were mounting with the school's chaplain last summer, according to school officials.

If You Ignore Gays, They'll Go Away

Here's an interesting ruckus happening at Seton Hall University, a traditionally Catholic University:

A student's efforts to establish a gay and lesbian group at Seton Hall University, a Roman Catholic institution, suffered a setback Wednesday when a state appeals court dismissed his lawsuit.

Anthony Romeo charged that the university's refusal to recognize the group violated the state Law Against Discrimination, which bars bias based on sexual orientation.

A three-judge panel, however, found that the law's exemption for religiously affiliated institutions applies to Seton Hall, and that the school did not waive the exemption with its anti-discrimination policy.

Romeo lawyer Marianne F. Auriemma said they had hoped the court would limit the religious exemption.

"Seton Hall is so secular in its nature, that it is hiding behind that exemption," Auriemma said, noting the school receives state and federal funds and is part of the NCAA.

The Flag Burning Amendment

The House votes today on a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban desecration of the flag. The issue has come up in Congress on a regular basis ever since the Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. Supporters of the amendment, like Georgia Congressman Phil Gingrey, say that "to burn a flag is to disrespect America..." While the proposed amendment has always passed the House, it has never gotten the two-thirds vote needed to get through the Senate.

The basic fact is that the only place and time in history where laws like this were state sponsored were in fascist, totalitarian, and dictatorial regimes like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia where it was illegal to burn the swastika or hammer and sickle flag. How can we claim to have a free society if this law comes into pass?

A Right Wing Sesame Street

See "Republicans Bashing PBS"

[6/22/05 Update]
I got this email from PBS this morning. I thought I should post it:

HELP SAVE PBS! The purpose of this mailing is to alert you to our current critical funding situation. The House Appropriations committee is proposing more than $220 million in funding cuts for public broadcasting, effectively a 46 percent reduction of public broadcasting's federal financial support. The vote is scheduled for this Thursday, June 23, 2005. To preserve the programs you know and trust, the shows that teach our children and the services that support our educators, PBS is urgently asking all Americans who value public broadcasting to call, fax, ore-mail Congress. For details on how you can help, visit http://www.pbs.org/takeaction.

Thank you!

Saddam says no to Froot Loops

Several of the GIs who guarded Saddam Hussein tell all about in the July issue of GQ. The soldiers were part of C Company, 2nd Battalion, 103rd Armor Regiment, a Pennsylvania National Guard unit from the Scranton area that was activated for duty in Iraq in late 2003. Instead of combat, they were chosen by the FBI to serve as guards at a U.S. military compound where Saddam was an "HVD," or high value detainee. The nine-month assignment was so secret that they could not tell their families, according to the article by GQ correspondent Lisa DePaulo. The article names five of the soldiers who agreed to discuss the experience, with the military's permission.

Saddam greatly admired President Reagan and thought President Clinton was "OK." One of the soldiers, Cpl. Jonathan "Paco" Reese, 22, of Millville, Pa., quoted Saddam as saying, "The Bush father, son, no good," but his fellow GI, Specialist Sean O'Shea, then 19, says Saddam later softened that view. "Towards the end he was saying that he doesn't hold any hard feelings and he just wanted to talk to Bush, to make friends with him," O'Shea, of Minooka, Pa., told the magazine.

O'Shea said when he told him he was not married, Saddam "started telling me what to do. He was like, `you gotta find a good woman. Not too smart, not too dumb. Not too old, not too young. One that can cook and clean.' Then he smiled, made what O'Shea interpreted as a "spanking" gesture, laughed and went back to washing his clothes in the sink." Evidently Saddam is a bit neurotic; the soldiers say Saddam was preoccupied with cleanliness, washing up after shaking hands and using diaper wipes to clean his meal trays, his utensils and the table before eating.

The article quotes the GIs on Saddam's eating preferences? Raisin Bran Crunch was his breakfast favorite. "No Froot Loops," he told O'Shea. He ate fish and chicken but refused beef at dinner. For a time his favorite food was Cheetos, and when those ran out, Saddam would "get grumpy," the story says. One day the guards substituted Doritos corn chips, and Saddam forgot about Cheetos. "He'd eat a family size bag of Doritos in 10 minutes," Dawson says.

WARNING: The government knows all about your little Harry Potter fetish

Just another infuriating example of how our government is taking things too far by enacting the so-called Patriot Act. (Remember when words like patriot, freedom, and democracy didn't make you cringe?) The American Library Association spent $300,000 on a study to examine a question that was central to a House vote last week on the USA Patriot Act, how frequently federal, state and local agents are demanding records from libraries. The Bush administration says that while it is important for law enforcement officials to get information from libraries if needed in terrorism investigations, officials have yet to actually use their power under the Patriot Act to demand records from libraries or bookstores.

The study uncovered that law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001, like lists of users checking out a book on Osama bin Laden. I guess if your writing a H.S. paper on the modern history of the Middle East, you best be careful what kind of books you check out lest you end up on some watch list.

"What this says to us," said Emily Sheketoff, the executive director of the library association's Washington office, "is that agents are coming to libraries and they are asking for information at a level that is significant, and the findings are completely contrary to what the Justice Department has been trying to convince the public."

"A fishing expedition like this just seems so un-American to me," Ms. Airoldi said. "The question is, how many basic liberties are we willing to give up in the war on terrorism, and who are the real victims?"

The survey also found what library association officials described as a "chilling effect" caused by public concerns about the government's powers. Nearly 40 percent of the libraries responding reported that users had asked about changes in practices related to the Patriot Act, and about 5 percent said they had altered their professional activities over the issues; for instance, by reviewing the types of books they bought... "What this demonstrates is that there is widespread concern among the American people about the government having the power to monitor what they are reading," Mr. Sanders said.

But I offer some hope from this Orwellian future. Last week the House of Representatives, offered by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), adopted the "Freedom to Read" proposal, which denies funding for FBI access to library and bookstore records under section 215 of the Patriot Act. A bipartisan majority (238-187) approved the measure as an amendment to a Department of Justice funding measure.

Bush Still Pushing Renewal of Patriot Act While Congress Comes Correct

Bush is continuing his downward spiral in to lame duckitude by clearly dissenting with the will of the people and even his fellow Republicans on renewal of the Patriot Act. While Bush is insisting on preserving the powers granted to law enforcement by the Patriot Act, GOP controlled Congress surprisingly voted to limit those powers. As a testament to Bush's unreasonable stance on preserving the Patriot Act, "a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy" and voted "238 to 187 [in a] rebuke to the White House."

Saudi Arabia Gets a Free Pass Again

I almost spit out my café latte this morning after reading this one. Board members of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency approved a deal Thursday that exempts Saudi Arabia from nuclear inspections. Saudi Arabia, the one country that everyone SHOULD fear is being exempt?!

The Associated Press reported that, "although the Saudis resisted Western pressure to compromise and allow some form of monitoring, the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency had no choice but to allow it to sign on to the agreement. Called the small quantities protocol, the deal allows countries whose nuclear equipment or activities are thought to be below a minimum threshold to submit a declaration instead of undergoing inspection." It should be called, the SaudiArabia's Got You By the Balls Cause You Need Our Oil, So Don't Even Think of Touching Us deal.

Seventy-Five nations, most of them small and in politically stable parts of the world, qualify for the protocol but adding Saudi Arabia to the list, despite serious misgivings about the arrangement in an era of heightened proliferation fears, is just insane. In the past two decades Saudi Arabia has been linked to prewar Iraq's nuclear program and to the Pakistani nuclear black market, not to mention all sort of harboring of terrorists and funding their activities.

Bush to Kerry: "I miss you baby!"

In the 2004 campaign, Bush basically ran on the platform of opposing all things Kerry and besmirching his opponent's character and leadership skills rather than promoting his own record as president. Now that he has nobody to run against, every day is a referendum on Bush and it's taking a toll.

Bush's approval ratings are among the lowest of his presidency. Voters are growing increasingly uneasy over the war in Iraq and the economy. His signature domestic issue, Social Security reform, was received coolly by Congress and the public. Some Republicans are raising the prospect that Bush could cost them control of Congress... Now, with nobody else to blame, Bush stands alone. He can't deflect voter concerns about the economy and other pressing domestic matters. With the death toll in Iraq pushed above 1,700, more than double the number of a year ago, it's no longer a choice between Bush and Kerry.

Voter discontent, troubles abroad, still sagging economy, ridiculous social security plan. How best to say this - we told you so suckas!

Future Tools of America

We like to let pictures do the talking here at Just To The Left and this one does it in spades:

I love how this little putz thinks he's too kool for skool. Keep in mind, this is the NY Times pic from an article on the new class of interns at the Heritage Foundation, the "capital's premier conservative research group."

From Tragedy to Inspiration to Censorship

Check out this op-ed piece from Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times that summarizes a tragic story he's been following. It fills you in on the backstory of "Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in Pakistan to be gang-raped because of an infraction supposedly committed by her brother." It goes on to recap her inspirational quest for justice and education and the current failure of the Bush administration to take a stand against Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for basic human rights.

Brad Pitt Asks You to Help Out

Now that he's helped himself to a little Angelina, Brad Pitt, all around saint Bono, and a bunch of other celebrities are helping to promote the ONE campaign. Rather than having me summarize it, check out what it's about here. Just know it's for a good cause and it won't cost you anything but a minute of your time.


Some more news on the recent campaign by Tony Blair to get Dubya to chip in with the rest of the world to help relieve third world debt and fight AIDS:
- Bush being a typical douche last week via Salon.com/The Guardian
- The US end of the bargain
- G8 Summit update

It's hard to say "I am sorry"

For the first time in U.S. history, the Senate offered a formal apology to African Americans for at least one wrong doing, the failure to establish anti-lynching laws. The formal apology, adopted by voice vote, was issued decades after senators blocked anti-lynching bills by a six-week filibuster. Lynching is defined as a violent act, usually racial in nature, that denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.

"The Senate failed you and your ancestors and our nation," Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, chief Democratic sponsor of the resolution, said at a luncheon. It was attended by 200 family members and descendants of victims, including a 91-year-old man believed to be the only known survivor of an attempted lynching.

He is James Cameron, who in 1930, as a 16-year-old shoeshine boy in Marion, Ind., was accused with two friends of murdering a white man and raping a white woman. His friends were killed. But as Mr. Cameron felt a noose being slipped around his neck, a man in the crowd stepped forward to proclaim Mr. Cameron's innocence. Mr. Cameron came here in a gray suit and a wheelchair, his voice shaky but his memories apparently fresh.

"They took the rope off my neck, those hands that had been so rough and ready to kill or had already killed, they took the rope off of my neck and they allowed me to start walking and stagger back to the jail, which was just a half-block away," Mr. Cameron told a news conference. "When I got back to the jail, the sheriff said, 'I'm going to get you out of here for safekeeping.'" He learned only later that the sheriff was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. "I was saved," Mr. Cameron said, "by a miracle."

There have been 4,742 recorded lynchings in American history [between 1882 and 1968]. Historians suspect that many more went undocumented. Although the House passed anti-lynching legislation three times in the first half of the 20th century, the Senate, controlled by Southern conservatives, repeatedly refused to do so.

How our government failed us on 9.11

Especially for those of us who live in New York and who witnessed the attacks first-hand, this new report does little to comfort us. In fact, it only confirms our strongest suspicions, that the FBI missed at least five opportunities to uncover the terrorist plots months before. This is now just being admitted in a Justice Department report, made public on Thursday after being kept secret for a year.

One of these missed chances was not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. In another instance, an agent assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to pass on information to the FBI about the two men in early 2000, 19 months before the attacks, but was blocked by a CIA supervisor and did not aggressively follow up. The report concluded that when the bureau did discover the presence of hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar in the United States shortly before the attacks, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority."

The main concern is the secrecy and lies that surround this entire thing. "Shortly after the attacks, the FBI indicated that it did not have any information warning of the attacks," the report said. "However, information was soon discovered that had been in the possession of the FBI and the intelligence community before Sept.. 11 that related to the hijacking of airplanes by extremists or that involved the terrorists who committed the Sept.. 11 attacks." (Remember Condoleezza's memo, Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. dated August 6, 2001)

But, as with all these amazing new developments, we will let it pass and think nothing more of it. Most Americans have already forgotten September 11th. Sure they wave their little flags and plaster silly yellow ribbons to their cars, but they don't really care. If they did, they would have already been outraged by the fact that the government now admits that we went to war (with the wrong country!) under the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. [see Still Wondering about those WMDs?] Yet, Osama bin Laden is running around free somewhere...

Jimmy Carter Speaks Out

Nobel Peace Prize winner and arguably our most effective living ex-president, called on the U.S. to shut down its prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and two dozen other secret detention facilities.

"Despite President George W. Bush's bold reminder that America is determined to promote freedom and democracy around the world, the U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation as a champion of human rights because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo," Mr. Carter said in a news conference following a two-day human rights conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

He also recommended that the United States stop transferring detainees to foreign countries where torture has been reported and that an independent commission be created to investigate where terrorism suspects are held in American custody.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld responded today that the Bush administration was not considering shutting down the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and he defended the treatment of prisoners under American military control as humane.

[6/20/05 update]
In an interview with the Financial Times published on Monday, former president Bill Clinton also expressed his views on the current state of the Guantánamo prison. "Well, it either needs to be closed down or cleaned up. It's time that there are no more stories coming out of there about people being abused." Adding that, "if we get a reputation for abusing people, it puts our own soldiers much more at risk.

Something's Fishy

MELBOURNE, Australia (Reuters) -- An Australian woman was found to be carrying 51 live tropical fish after custom officials were alerted by "flipping" noises coming from beneath her skirt as she arrived at Melbourne airport.

On closer inspection, officers discovered the woman had strapped on an apron of plastic water-filled bags containing the fish, the Australian Customs Service said in a statement on Tuesday. "During the search, customs officers became suspicious after hearing 'flipping' noises coming from the vicinity of her waist," said the statement.

The 43-year-old woman arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Singapore last Friday. Customs are still trying to determine what type of fish she brought into the country and have not yet charged her with an offense. She could face charges for breaking quarantine and customs laws for bringing in the fish without giving a declaration.

Doesn't Socialism Sound Like a Better Alternative?

Here's a good NY Times Op Ed piece on the growing gap between the Rich and the Not Rich in this country. The numbers are staggering:

Consider, for example, two separate eras in the lifetime of the baby-boom generation. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent between 1990 and 2002, Mr. Johnston wrote, each taxpayer in that top bracket brought in an extra $18,000.

If you haven't caught it already, check out the NY Times series on class segmentation in American society. Some really interesting articles in here. Do the rich really need to be this rich? Thanks Dubya!

Also, check out this other Op Ed piece to remind us how inaccessible college is becoming to the poor.

The Real Real World

Here's an interesting article from Wired News reminding us that little of what we see here stateside is really representative of the horrors of war. Some indie filmmaker types are putting together creatively taken footage of the goings on in Iraq. I've been wanting to see Gunner Palace and they mention some other interesting sounding ones in this article.

Some approaches to filmmaking in Iraq are quite innovative. For Voices of Iraq, two former MTV producers circulated 150 digital video cameras to more than 2,000 Iraqis and then compiled the people's personal stories
...
The vivid footage in [the film] Dreams [of the Sparrows] is unnerving, in part because it reveals Iraq as a place that's far more dangerous, complex and difficult to fix than American media consumers are led to believe.

FBI Gets Warm and Fuzzy

Here's a short story on the ongoing relationship management taking place between law enforcement and Muslims in the New York area. The FBI seems to be listening by holding meetings and vent sessions where Muslims get to voice their frustrations about the super-discriminatory vibe they've been getting since 9/11. However, the one quote below sure makes them sound unapologetic for tactics that often disregard basic civil rights.

Since Mr. [Special Agent Charles E.] Frahm took over New York's counterterrorism division in July 2004, he has impressed some skeptical Muslim leaders with his eagerness to make public appearances. "I think it helps the community to air their feelings," he said during a break on Thursday night. "This provides folks a forum for pent-up frustration. The emotion is real."
...
[To an audience of Mulsims] "I hear you, and I will continue to hear you," he said. "I can also say we make no apologies for actions we must take to protect Americans."

Pimping IS Easy

I don't know how she kept her ho's in line but 80 year old Vera Tursi of Lindenwold, N.J. has been running an escort service out of her apartment by arranging rendezvous over the phone.

The stooped old woman with the oxygen tank and the walker in Lindenwold, N.J., rarely left the apartment she shared with her grandson and his girlfriend. She was 80 years old and, according to the younger woman, had only one friend.

But the police said the woman, Vera Tursi, helped lonely men make new friends, by running an escort service called August Playmates. She took telephone calls from clients at her apartment and, depending on what they were in the mood for and who was available, sent escorts to meet them, the police said.

Alternate link here.

Finally Some Truth From Bush

From the lips of retards:

“If you've retired, you don't have anything to worry about. The third time I've said that. I'll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work you gotta keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kinda catapult the propaganda.”
-Greece, NY, May 24, 2005

And then, the audience clapped! Yay propaganda, WEEE!!! What a bunch of maroons...

Hear the audio here.

NIN vs. MTV

I wasn't sure weather to post this story since I have a bias toward NIN, but it's in keeping with our left leaning message. As many fans, like myself, have already heard, Nine Inch Nails was scheduled to perform the MTV Movie Awards later this month. However the band pulled out suddenly last week because they were not allowed to perform "The Hand That Feeds" with an image of George W. Bush as their backdrop.

From the Nine Inch Nails website:

Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV Movie Awards as previously announced. We were set to perform "the Hand That Feeds" with an unmolested straightforward image of George W Bush as the Backdrop. Apparently the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me."

MTV said in a statement to its news division that the network was disappointed the industrial rock band would not perform but had been "uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement."

So why is "in your face" MTV, the backers of "choose or loose," shying away from politics? It's not from politics you see, but specifically any anti-Bush sentiments. Sumner Redstone, Viacom chairman, [parent company of MTV] announced last September:

I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom. I don't want to denigrate Kerry, but from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal. Because the Republican administration has stood for many things we believe in, deregulation and so on. The Democrats are not bad people... But from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company." Read more about it here.

MTV has sucked donkey balls for a long time now, but this is just proof that they are also sucking on the balls of the White House.

Now that "Deep Throat" has been revealed...

Comparisons between the Nixon and Bush administrations have begun. Here are some excerpts from a great Salon.com article, Restoring the Imperial Presidency:

The two would-be hipsters -- Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were aides to the new president, Gerald Ford. At that time Rumsfeld and Cheney were persuading Ford to veto one of the most important Watergate-inspired reforms, an enhanced Freedom of Information Act, designed to guarantee public and media scrutiny of the FBI and other agencies. FOIA, the two aides warned, would take too much power from the executive branch. Ford indeed vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto and the FOIA became the law of the land -- at least until last October, when Attorney General John Ashcroft fulfilled Cheney and Rumsfeld's three-decade-old wish by pledging to fight any FOIA request that comes over the transom...

It is fashionable now to blame Watergate on Nixon's paranoia and rogue personality. But the crimes of Watergate grew directly from the kind of unchecked presidential powers now sought by the Bush administration both at home and abroad. FBI spying on political rallies and religious communities? The White House plumbers practiced either tradecraft breaking into the psychiatric records of dissident Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg. The "enemies list" grew from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's decades of spying on religious, civil rights and peace groups.

Expanded paramilitary covert operations abroad? The Watergate break-in team was conscripted from the CIA squad for covert Cuban operations. Restrictions on the flow of information to Congress and the public? The direct complicity of Nixon and other high officials in Watergate was proved only because senators who had subpoenaed White House records refused to knuckle under to claims of executive privilege -- a drama being replayed this month with Sen. Joseph Lieberman's subpoenas regarding the involvement of Cheney and other White House officials in Enron.

I guess we are doomed to repeat ourselves...

Tell Me We're in Bizarro World. Please.

So what happens when you screw up at work? I mean real badly. I mean so badly that 1,665 of your coworkers are killed, 20,000-100,000 civilians are killed, you cost your company about half a TRILLION dollars over the course of 8 years and ruin its reputation for eternity...

Well in Bizarro World, you get rewarded 3 times in each of the 3 years while this is all going down.

Bush Still Happily Oblivious to Reality

So it has begun: Democrats are already calling Bush a lame duck president though he's barely into his 2nd term. These Washington Post articles are good reading on the real State of the Union. As usual, Bush fails to take any responsibility for the lack of progress on the initiatives he's pushing. Rather than admitting that his plans really aren't in the best interests of most people in the U.S., he instead blames

...partisanship and timidity in Congress for the lack of action on his plans to bring change to the United Nations, restructure Social Security and enact a new energy policy this year.

Link to 2nd article here.