Detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay have complained about inhumane conditions there, but according to the admiral in charge, their living situation is "pretty much" like that in a fraternity house.
Labels: Gitmo
ABC News reports on the findings of a study that concluded 16% of U.S. science teachers are Creationists, and that, disturbingly, one in eight are teaching creationism as a valid science:You cannot educate a child and expect him/her to be competitive with students in more advanced countries that are receiving classical educations in true sciences and not the voo-doo, religiously based and biased educations being given to so many of our youth.
Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in U.S. schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science -- and especially evolutionary biology -- tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles...[…]
However, a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48 percent -- about 12.5 percent of the total survey -- said they taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species".
Labels: christian hypocrisy, Creationists, dinosaurs, disinformation, evolution, rant, science
Imagery in Bastrop school mural stirs controversySo after 5 years of the mural being displayed a woman who has nothing to do with the school except for proselytizing every week on school grounds complains and engenders a controversy.
Religious symbols, historical scenes cause some to call for painting's removal.
The painting in question, a student project completed in 2003, adorns a wall in the corridor leading to the Bastrop High School gym. It depicts the sometimes unpleasant history of the town, showing scenes of a Mexican and Comanche raid and slaves working in a cotton field, as well as unifying visions of children of different ethnicities reaching out to one another.
[...]
Patty Green, the art teacher who coordinated the project, said she doesn't understand why the issue is coming up now. Austin muralist Raul Valdez organized a group of Bastrop students to paint the mural using a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bastrop Association for the Arts.
"It sat up there for five years, and nobody had a problem with it," said Green, the head of the Bastrop association.
Bastrop resident Lauren Hansell, who made the original complaint, homeschools her children but visits the school on Fridays to pray with students at the flagpole.
A Christian, Hansell said she wants the mural removed because of the war and slavery scenes and depictions of Buddha and ancient gods.
[...]
Among the images on the mural are an Aztec sun, ancient Egypt's King Tutankhamen, Buddha and Shiva, a Hindu deity, dancing on a demon of ignorance.
Hansell, who at first interpreted Shiva's dance as a message in favor of abortion, said laws that bar Christian symbols from public schools should apply to the mural.
The First Amendment, which bans government-sponsored religious activities even as it protects religious expression from government interference, allows students to pray during school in informal settings, according to U.S. Department of Education guidelines.
Labels: bad Religion
John McCain opposed the farm bill. In an impassioned speech on Monday, he declared: “It would be hard to find any single bill that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it.”Yes, John McCain, as conservative as they come, head up bush's a$$, selling out to virtually every special interest, flip-flopping so fast no one can tell you where he stands until they read the morning paper, and a man who never met a lobbyist he didn't love like a rock.
McCain has been in Congress for decades, but he has remained a national rather than a parochial politician. The main axis in his mind is not between Republican and Democrat. It’s between narrow interest and patriotic service. And so it is characteristic that he would oppose a bill that benefits the particular at the expense of the general.
In fact, in this issue, McCain may have found a theme to unify his so far scattershot campaign. He has always been an awkward ideological warrior. In any case, this year may not be the best year for Republicans to launch a right versus left crusade. But McCain has infinitely better grounds than Obama to run as a do-what-it-takes reformer.
He has a long record of taking on not only the other party, but his own. In the current Weekly Standard, the brilliant young writer Yuval Levin suggests that McCain put reforming America’s decrepit governing institutions at the center of his presidential race.
Labels: bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, disinformation, Economy, elections, flip-flops, McCain, neocons, propaganda
Labels: movie
Labels: bush as chimp, bush hypocrisy, foreign policy
has by far the largest current-account deficit and is the leading importer, at great expense, of both manufactured goods and oil. The potential damage if the world soon undergoes the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s is incalculable. The loss of global economic leadership that overtook Britain and Holland seems to be looming on our own horizon.Quoted from a NYT Editorial. Looks like the Big Boys of Finance are finally waking up and realizing that what they're smelling isn't coffee.
Labels: Bush, bush as chimp, capitalism, corporate greed, economics, Economy
The Pentagon is moving forward with plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan, officials said, in a stark acknowledgment that the United States is likely to continue to hold prisoners overseas for years to come.It brings a tear to my eye that our American leaders are so concerned with the health of American's that work at those facilities while failing once again to get proper legal and medical attention to the people America would keep incarcerated forever.
The proposed detention center would replace the cavernous, makeshift American prison on the Bagram military base north of Kabul, which is now typically packed with about 630 prisoners, compared with the 270 held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Until now, the Bush administration had signaled that it intended to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan.[…]
But American officials now concede that the new Afghan-run prison cannot absorb all the Afghans now detained by the United States, much less the waves of new prisoners from the escalating fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.[…]
The proposal for a new American prison at Bagram underscores the daunting scope and persistence of the United States military’s detention problem…[…]
After the prison was set up in early 2002, it became a primary site for screening prisoners captured in the fighting. Harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used widely, and two Afghan detainees died there in December 2002, after being repeatedly struck by American soldiers.[…]
American officials also acknowledged that there are serious health risks to detainees and American military personnel who work at the Bagram prison, because of their exposure to heavy metals from the aircraft-repair machinery and asbestos. [I am really sympathetic to both prisoner and guards as I suffered two devastating cancers from Agent Orange exposure, so this is just plainly cruel. Bill]
“It’s just not suitable,” another Pentagon official said. “At some point, you have to say, ‘That’s it. This place was not made to keep people there indefinitely.’ ”
Labels: bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, casualties, criminal justice system, flip-flops, military industrial complex, police state, prison camps
Labels: Bush, cheney, civil liberties, civil rights, Congress, conspiracy, Crime, criminal justice system, disclosure, doom
Pakistani officials are making it increasingly clear that they have no interest in stopping cross-border attacks by militants into Afghanistan, prompting a new level of frustration from Americans who see the infiltration as a crucial strategic priority in the war in Afghanistan.[…]Oh, what lovely, friendly, caring, and concerned allies have we!
In an unusual step during a visit to Pakistan in March, Adm. Eric T. Olson, the commander of United States Special Operations Command, held a round-table discussion with a group of civilian Pakistani leaders to sound them out on the possibility of cross-border raids by American forces. He was told in no uncertain terms that from the Pakistani point of view it was a bad idea, said one of the participants.[…]
“Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side,” said Owari Ghani, the governor of North-West Frontier Province, who is also President Pervez Musharraf’s representative in charge of the neighboring tribal areas.
Mr. Ghani, a key architect of the pending peace accord, believes along with many other Pakistani leaders that the United States is floundering in the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan, he said, should not be saddled with America’s mistakes, especially if a solution involved breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty, a delicate matter in a nation where sentiment against the Bush administration runs high.
“Pakistan is a sovereign state,” he said. “NATO is in Afghanistan; it’s time they did some soldiering.”
Labels: bush as chimp, bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, lies, military industrial complex, neocons, Pakistan
Bush in Saudi Arabia to Make Oil PleaThen, for some real entertainment, click on the headline in the NYT (or click here) and you find the article is titled with the Saudi answer:
Bush Rebuffed on Oil Plea in Saudi ArabiaFollowed by this opening paragraph:
With the price of oil hitting record highs, President Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here Friday to make a second attempt to persuade the Saudi government to increase oil production and was rebuffed yet again.Actually I think the Saudis enjoy making bush jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and crawling away with his tail between his legs.
Labels: Bush, bush as chimp, bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, cheney, dogs, economics, Economy, Oil
Labels: communism, Karl Marx, Obama, propaganda
The Senate Thursday night voted to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media companies to own a newspaper and a television station in the same market.Because it won't. MSM is broken beyond repair. Don't listen to it and if you do listen to it, don't believe it.
Labels: MSM
The George W Bush administration's plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shi'ite militias in Iraq has encountered not just one but two setbacks.Then just start poking them with sticks until they react.
Iranian Embassy employees and their driver were shot Thursday in a Baghdad incident that some reports said involved Iraqi troops.
...
Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency was blaming the United States for the attack.
Labels: wapr prep iran
Labels: blogging
GOP leaders sought yesterday to "re-brand" the party with a new slogan and renewed pledges of fiscal rectitude and limited government. But the slogan -- "The Change You Deserve" -- came under mocking fire, because it parallels Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama's "Change We Can Believe In" motto and it mirrors the advertising slogan for the antidepressant Effexor. [ED: Take for depression, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. Common side effects include apathy, irritable bowel syndrome and sexual dysfunction. Take only if you are a republican.]And in a rare moment of honesty:
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner said "It's not that the party's going to change, it's what we talk about and how we talk about it"See, even Boner (R-loser) admits it's just talking points and nothing is going to change if McCain (R-bushleague) gets elected.
Labels: Bush, hypocrisy, McCain, republican party
Labels: flip-flops, McCain, snark
President Bush used a speech to the Israeli Parliament on Thursday to issue a veiled rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential contender, who has argued that the United States should negotiate with countries like Iran and Syria.We all know that even though bush is the most egregious admitted liar in the history of America that in this case we can take his word he is being honest this time and NOT being critical of Obama, so the reporter here obviously completely misunderstood bush and didn't listen to her White House handler.
Mr. Bush did not mention Mr. Obama by name, and the White House said his remarks were not aimed at the senator.
Drawing parallels to the transformations of Europe and Japan after World War II, Mr. Bush in his speech touched on themes familiar to him, including the triumph of democracy over terrorism. He predicted “free and independent societies” across the region. “Iran and Syria,” he said, “will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory.” Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas “will be defeated,” he said.bush added that he hoped America might one day again be free and not under the control of despotic egotist leaders such as the current administration.
Israeli officials have heaped accolades on Mr. Bush during his time here, a pattern that continued Thursday when Dalia Itzik, the speaker of the Knesset, said Mr. Bush was “a great friend, one of the greatest we’ve ever had.”Which shows how absolutely desperate Israelis are to make new, aw , hell, ANY friends. I had to research that word "accolades," which, in Israel is defined as, "Animal droppings of semi-solid nature and firm enough to inflict quite a sting when shot from a slingshot."
The Parliament rolled out the red carpet, literally, for Mr. Bush, who arrived on the plaza in the early afternoon under bright sunny skies.Unfortunately they pointed the carpet in the wrong direction and almost caused a very embarrassing international incident as bush and wife walked directly into the path of a landing F-18 causing the pilot to have to jettison its payload of nuclear weapons, which were all recovered by the small children playing on the flight line.
Mr. Bush is also expected to meet on Thursday with Tony Blair, the international envoy for Palestinian development, who earlier in the week announced a package of economic and security aid for Palestinians to improve life in the West Bank.And this is where the appeasement of demented world leaders ends. bush has sternly advised Tony Blair, in the harshest terms, that bush will no longer be appeased by the, "Mutual Pud Pounding," for which they had become famous.
Labels: bush as chimp, bush hypocrisy, bush war doctrine, disinformation, fear mongering, GOP, humor, hypocrisy, snark
Labels: 2008 election, MSM
Domestic Spying Far Outpaces Terrorism Prosecutions
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court — one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing — has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously.
Bush administration rules limit lawsuits
Faced with an unfriendly Congress, the Bush administration has found another, quieter way to make it more difficult for consumers to sue businesses over faulty products. It's rewriting the bureaucratic rulebook.
Lawsuit limits have been included in 51 rules proposed or adopted since 2005 by agency bureaucrats governing just about everything Americans use: drugs, cars, railroads, medical devices and food.
Government asks court to block wider testing for mad cow
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.
[...]
Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers.
[...]
Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound.
Labels: Bushco, more Bush lies
School Military Recruiting Could Violate International ProtocolThis was what Bush meant when he said 'No Child Left Behind.'
[...]
The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune“, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students.
[...]
While the United States is one of only two countries — the other being Somalia — to have never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making it binding under U.S., as well as international, law.
[...]
The army’s own Recruiting Programme Handbook, for example, instructs its more than 10,600 recruiters to approach high school students as early as possible, and explicitly before their senior year, which, for most students, starts at age 17. “Remember, first to contact, first to contract…that doesn’t just mean seniors or grads…,” according to an excerpt quoted in the report. “If you wait until they’re seniors, it’s probably too late.”
Once recruiters are inside their assigned high schools, the Army’s Recruiting Command instructs them to “effectively penetrate the school market” and “(b)e so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand”, with the goal of “school ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army enlistments.” That includes volunteering to serve as coaches for high school sports teams, involvement with the local Boy Scouts, attending as many all school functions and assemblies, and even “eating lunch in the school cafeteria several times each month”.
The report documents a number of specific cases, mostly in New York and California — the two most populous states with the largest number of minority high school students — in which recruiters clearly followed these instructions. In a survey of nearly 1,000 children, aged 14 to 17, enrolled in New York City high schools, the ACLU New York affiliate found that more than one five respondents — equally distributed among the different grades — reported the use of class time by military recruiters, and 35 percent said military recruiters had access to multiple locations in their schools where they could meet students.
The report also noted that the Pentagon’s central recruitment database systematically collected information on 16-year-olds and, in some cases even 15-year-olds, including their name, home address and telephones, email addresses, grade point averages, height and weight information, and racial and ethnic data obtained from a variety of public and private sources. The explicit purpose of the database is to assist the military in its “direct marketing recruiting efforts”. As the result of a 2006 ACLU lawsuit, the Pentagon agreed to stop collecting data about students younger than 16.
But recruitment efforts even dip below 15-year-olds, according to the report, which found that the Pentagon’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which operate at more than 3,000 junior high schools, middle schools, and high schools across the country, target children as young as 14 for recruitment. The report cited recent studies that found that enrollment in some JROTC programmes was involuntary.
JROTC “cadets”, of whom there were nearly 300,000 in 2005, receive military uniforms and conduct military drills and marches, handle real and wooden rifles, and learn military history, according to the report, which noted that the programme is explicitly designed to “enhance recruiting efforts”. African American and Latin students make up 54 percent of JROTC programmes.
JROTC also oversees the Middle School Cadet Corps (MSCC), in which children ages 11 to 14 can participate, according to the report. Florida, Texas, and Chicago schools offer military-run after-school MSCC programmes in which children take part in drills with wooden rifles and military chants, learn first-aid, civics, military history and, in some cases, wear uniforms to school for inspection once a week.
The Army also uses an online video game, called “America’s Army”, to attract potential recruits as young as 13, train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions. Launched in 2002, the video game had attracted 7.5 million registered users by September 2006.
Labels: class warfare, military, war crimes
Ex-State officials allege corruption in IraqIn related news:
The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.
[...]
The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or "OAT" team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.
[...]
Brennan charges the State Department never responded to his team's report, which was retroactively classified because agency officials said it could hurt bilateral relations with Iraq. Other recommendations by the group also were kept secret, including a negative assessment of Iraq's Joint Anti-Corruption Committee, Brennan said.
In July 2007, the OAT team concluded that the committee's only purpose was to provide a forum for complaints against Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, a top anti-corruption official in Baghdad whom many U.S. officials have hailed as the most effective in exposing fraud and abuse.
U.S.-Backed Head Of Iraqi Anti-Corruption Agency Now A ‘Destitute’ Undocumented Immigrant In U.S.
After the 2003 Iraq invasion, Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer created a major anti-corruption ministry in Iraq, the Public Integrity Commission (CPI). Last October, former CPI commissioner Judge Radhi al-Radhi, who was appointed by Bremer and whose work has been praised by top U.S. officials, told Congress about the “rampant” corruption in Iraqi ministries that had cost Iraq as much as $18 billion.
Radhi’s gripping account detailed how Prime Minister Maliki tried to subvert his commission and how nearly four dozen of his staff members were killed. Subsequently, he was forced to seek asylum in the United States.
But today, Radhi is living as an undocumented immigrant in Virginia.
[...]
The State Department turned against Radhi, according to Mattil and Brennan. They “said a senior State Department official had ordered agency employees not to give al Radhi references or contact him” about the asylum. Radhi is “destitute” in his current situation, they noted.
Labels: corruption, Iraq war, more Bush lies
NASA purposefully created an atmosphere of SUSPENSE to gauge our reaction to news of the "disclosure".See what I mean?
Labels: random thoughts, ufology
Labels: bush hypocrisy
In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he's doing tonight in West Virginia.So, basically, the phrase that's been peppered throughout the blogosphere this morning is that she's the "Al Sharpton of white people."
Despite the pomp and circumstance, Hillary's victory tonight pales in comparison to Obama's landslides... and it's beyond too late anyhow. Enjoy your night Senator Clinton. You did win. But you lost because you didn't win by 52%. This was your Most Lay-Up State... and your margin didn't eclipse Obama's most Favorable.Yet, she soldiers on.
Labels: 2008 election, clinton
vidiotspeak: vɪdiətspik [vid-ee-uht-speek] -noun
1.(sometimes capital letters 'V' and 'S' with no space) a style of writing or saying something using emotion and/or logic and snark, esp. in order to elucidate the obvious while pretending to be objective.
2. anything written by The Vidiot, The Sailor, Mr. Vidiot and anyone else they allow to post on the blog “vidiotspeak”
[Origin: loosely based on new + speak, coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984 (1949)]
And for godsakes, stay away from FOX, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It's ALL CRAP!!!
Watch the BBC news or ITN news instead.
