Stem Cell Research Petition
To the Honorable George W. Bush.
President of the United States of Ameirca
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Stem Cell Research Petition
president@whitehouse.gov
Dear Mr. President:
Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to help more than 100 million Americans who have deadly and disabling diseases and conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and many others.
However, the limits on the lines of stem cells available for Federally funded research has seriously hindered researchers' ability to help treat these diseases and conditions. Since the policy was announced on August 9, 2001, the number of viable embryonic stem cell lines available to researchers who receive Federal funding has plummeted from 78 to 19.
This research is immensely important and should be fully explored so that we are able to do as much as possible to find cures and alleviate human suffering. We ask that you expand the current policy so that Federal funds will be available for more embryonic stem cell lines.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Respectfully submitted this ______ day of ___________________ , _______ by
We The People of the United States of America:
Name Address City, State, Zip Code Phone E-Mail
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Pre-emptive War
The other day, Bush launched a new public relations effort on Iran to counter his record-low poll numbers. As part of the PR campaign, he is once again asserting his doctrine of the "pre-emptive war " as he used to justify the Iraq War. Join us now for a few looks at other pre-emptive wars or someone else’s invasion based on one’s point of view.
1941: Japan launches a pre-emptive war on the US over our efforts to rebuild our defenses following the Great Depression and our condemnation of Japanese attacks on China (a pre-emptive war started much earlier). Enhanced by our reluctance to sell Japan needed resources.
1917: Germany launches submarine attacks on the US over US aid to the Allies and rumors of American involvement in WWI.
1812:England launches an attack on the US over regaining lost territory from the Revolutionary War and rumors of spreading the revolt to Canada.
Most Americans did not view these pre-emptive strikes as good news and some might have even questioned the veracity of the threat posed. Certainly there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so can pre-emptive wars based on unsound judgment ever be justified? I say no.
1941: Japan launches a pre-emptive war on the US over our efforts to rebuild our defenses following the Great Depression and our condemnation of Japanese attacks on China (a pre-emptive war started much earlier). Enhanced by our reluctance to sell Japan needed resources.
1917: Germany launches submarine attacks on the US over US aid to the Allies and rumors of American involvement in WWI.
1812:England launches an attack on the US over regaining lost territory from the Revolutionary War and rumors of spreading the revolt to Canada.
Most Americans did not view these pre-emptive strikes as good news and some might have even questioned the veracity of the threat posed. Certainly there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so can pre-emptive wars based on unsound judgment ever be justified? I say no.
The Faces of Death
A. Study of the Texas death penalty under Governor George W. Bush was performed by three Chicago Tribune reporters – Steve Mills, Ken Armstrong, and Douglas Holt – in June 2000. Their study found glaring and pervasive failures in the death penalty process under the presidential hopeful. By the time of the study Gov. Bush had executed 131 alleged murderers.
The investigative journalists found that, of those 131 executions, defense attorneys in 40 cases presented either no evidence whatsoever or only one witness during the trial’s sentencing phase. In 29 of the cases, James “Dr. Death” Grigson testified that the defendant would commit future violent acts, although in most of these cases he had never interviewed the client. In 43 (one-third) of the cases the defendant was represented at trial or on initial appeal by an attorney who had been or was later disbarred, suspended, or otherwise sanctioned. In 23 of the cases prosecutors utilized jailhouse snitches, a form of testimony so notoriously unreliable that some states warn jurors to view it skeptically
B. On 9/11/2001 approximately 3000 Americans died and NORAD was nowhere. Since Sept. 11 government representatives have in fact promoted a series of mutually contradictory narratives of how the nation's air defenses responded to the unfolding attacks. Various chronologies were presented at different times by the high military command, the North American Air Defense command. Gen. Richard Myers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11 told the Senate that no fighter jets were scrambled to intercept any of the 9/11 flights until after the Pentagon was struck. Myers's statement to the Senate was incredible, given the standard U.S. air defense protocols for dealing with errant instrument flights (including off-course passenger planes).
In place many years before Sept. 11, these procedures are automatic and require no special order. Within minutes after a flight ceases to respond to ground control, the FAA is expected to alert NORAD - which scrambles jet fighters to intercept the errant flight for reconnaissance purposes. These are supposed to be airborne within 10 minutes of the problem arising. This routine was activated on at least 67 occasions in the year prior to June 1, 2001
C. Iraqi death totals range from 50,000 to 100,000 civilians but no accurate official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the outbreak of war in 2003. Some non-governmental estimates range from 100,000 to 300,000. About 3500 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department. Violent deaths — those brought about by the intentional act of others — were wide spread studies reported. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, researchers concluded.
D. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast suffered. Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the third-strongest landfalling U.S. hurricane ever recorded. Katrina formed in late August during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast of the United States. Most notable in media coverage were the catastrophic effects on the city of New Orleans,.
The storm killed at least 1,836 people, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. Criticism of the federal, state and local governments' reaction to the storm was widespread and resulted in an investigation.
Don’t you think it time to end the culture of death?
http://davidcogswell.com/MediaRoulette/LateMay05.html
The investigative journalists found that, of those 131 executions, defense attorneys in 40 cases presented either no evidence whatsoever or only one witness during the trial’s sentencing phase. In 29 of the cases, James “Dr. Death” Grigson testified that the defendant would commit future violent acts, although in most of these cases he had never interviewed the client. In 43 (one-third) of the cases the defendant was represented at trial or on initial appeal by an attorney who had been or was later disbarred, suspended, or otherwise sanctioned. In 23 of the cases prosecutors utilized jailhouse snitches, a form of testimony so notoriously unreliable that some states warn jurors to view it skeptically
B. On 9/11/2001 approximately 3000 Americans died and NORAD was nowhere. Since Sept. 11 government representatives have in fact promoted a series of mutually contradictory narratives of how the nation's air defenses responded to the unfolding attacks. Various chronologies were presented at different times by the high military command, the North American Air Defense command. Gen. Richard Myers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11 told the Senate that no fighter jets were scrambled to intercept any of the 9/11 flights until after the Pentagon was struck. Myers's statement to the Senate was incredible, given the standard U.S. air defense protocols for dealing with errant instrument flights (including off-course passenger planes).
In place many years before Sept. 11, these procedures are automatic and require no special order. Within minutes after a flight ceases to respond to ground control, the FAA is expected to alert NORAD - which scrambles jet fighters to intercept the errant flight for reconnaissance purposes. These are supposed to be airborne within 10 minutes of the problem arising. This routine was activated on at least 67 occasions in the year prior to June 1, 2001
C. Iraqi death totals range from 50,000 to 100,000 civilians but no accurate official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the outbreak of war in 2003. Some non-governmental estimates range from 100,000 to 300,000. About 3500 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department. Violent deaths — those brought about by the intentional act of others — were wide spread studies reported. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, researchers concluded.
D. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast suffered. Hurricane Katrina was the costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. It was the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the third-strongest landfalling U.S. hurricane ever recorded. Katrina formed in late August during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast of the United States. Most notable in media coverage were the catastrophic effects on the city of New Orleans,.
The storm killed at least 1,836 people, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. Criticism of the federal, state and local governments' reaction to the storm was widespread and resulted in an investigation.
Don’t you think it time to end the culture of death?
http://davidcogswell.com/MediaRoulette/LateMay05.html
The Words of History II
"If you tell a lie, tell a big one."
"When the Führer speaks it is like a divine service".
“The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it. “
Joseph Goebbels -http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/joseph_goebbels.htm
Why was so much effort put into propaganda?
At no time up to 1933, did the Nazi Party win a majority of votes at elections. They may have been the largest political party in 1933, but they did not have a majority of support among the people. Therefore, those who had supported the Nazis needed to be informed on how correct their choice was with an emphasis on the strength of the party and the leadership. Those who opposed the Nazi Party had to be convinced that it was pointless continuing with their opposition. The fact that Goebbels had so much power is indicative of how important Hitler thought it was to ensure that the people were won over or intimidated into accepting Nazi rule.
Hitler on Propaganda
In chapter six of Mein Kampf, Hitler reviewed the use of propaganda during World War I. In the course of his criticism of the German effort, he included comments on the function of propaganda in general. His statements offer insight into the methods used by the Nazi Party.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943.
The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.
All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction.
The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be. And this is the best proof of the soundness or unsoundness of a propaganda campaign, and not success pleasing a few scholars or young aesthetes.
The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.
Once understood how necessary it is for propaganda in be adjusted to the broad mass, the following rule results:It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance.
The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.
Thus we see that propaganda must follow a simple line and correspondingly the basic tactics must be psychologically sound.
What, for example, would we say about a poster that was supposed to advertise a new soap and that described other soaps as 'good'?
We would only shake our heads.
Exactly the same applies to political advertising.
The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.
A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE HOLOCAUST
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DocPropa.htm
"When the Führer speaks it is like a divine service".
“The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it. “
Joseph Goebbels -http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/joseph_goebbels.htm
Why was so much effort put into propaganda?
At no time up to 1933, did the Nazi Party win a majority of votes at elections. They may have been the largest political party in 1933, but they did not have a majority of support among the people. Therefore, those who had supported the Nazis needed to be informed on how correct their choice was with an emphasis on the strength of the party and the leadership. Those who opposed the Nazi Party had to be convinced that it was pointless continuing with their opposition. The fact that Goebbels had so much power is indicative of how important Hitler thought it was to ensure that the people were won over or intimidated into accepting Nazi rule.
Hitler on Propaganda
In chapter six of Mein Kampf, Hitler reviewed the use of propaganda during World War I. In the course of his criticism of the German effort, he included comments on the function of propaganda in general. His statements offer insight into the methods used by the Nazi Party.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943.
The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.
All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction.
The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be. And this is the best proof of the soundness or unsoundness of a propaganda campaign, and not success pleasing a few scholars or young aesthetes.
The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.
Once understood how necessary it is for propaganda in be adjusted to the broad mass, the following rule results:It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like scientific instruction, for instance.
The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.
Thus we see that propaganda must follow a simple line and correspondingly the basic tactics must be psychologically sound.
What, for example, would we say about a poster that was supposed to advertise a new soap and that described other soaps as 'good'?
We would only shake our heads.
Exactly the same applies to political advertising.
The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.
A TEACHER’S GUIDE TO THE HOLOCAUST
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DocPropa.htm
The Words of History
The people don’t want War ”Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." --Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
These words attributed to Hermann Goering are real. Goering was a reviled twentieth-century figure associated with the most chilling example of genocide in human history: Hermann Goering, Nazi Reich Marshall and Luftwaffe-Chief. He was one of the highest-ranking Nazis who survived to be captured and put on trial for war crimes in the city of Nuremberg by the Allies after the end of World War II. He was found guilty on charges of "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity" by the Nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence could not be carried out, however, because Goering committed suicide with smuggled cyanide capsules hours before his execution, scheduled for 15 October 1946. The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail.
Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess: Sweating in his cell in the evening, Goering was defensive and deflated and not very happy over the turn the trial was taking. He said that he had no control over the actions or the defense of the others, and that he had never been anti-Semitic himself, had not believed these atrocities, and that several Jews had offered to testify in his behalf. If [Hans] Frank [Governor-General of occupied Poland] had known about atrocities in 1943, he should have come to him and he would have tried to do something about it. He might not have had enough power to change things in 1943, but if somebody had come to him in 1941 or 1942 he could have forced a showdown. (I still did not have the desire at this point to tell him what [SS General Otto] Ohlendorf had said to this: that Goering had been written off as an effective "moderating" influence, because of his drug addiction and corruption.)
I pointed out that with his "temperamental utterances," such as preferring the killing of 200 Jews to the destruction of property; he had hardly set himself up as champion of minority rights. Goering protested that too much weight was being put on these temperamental utterances. Furthermore, he made it clear that he was not defending or glorifying Hitler. Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders: We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2003
These words attributed to Hermann Goering are real. Goering was a reviled twentieth-century figure associated with the most chilling example of genocide in human history: Hermann Goering, Nazi Reich Marshall and Luftwaffe-Chief. He was one of the highest-ranking Nazis who survived to be captured and put on trial for war crimes in the city of Nuremberg by the Allies after the end of World War II. He was found guilty on charges of "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity" by the Nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence could not be carried out, however, because Goering committed suicide with smuggled cyanide capsules hours before his execution, scheduled for 15 October 1946. The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail.
Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess: Sweating in his cell in the evening, Goering was defensive and deflated and not very happy over the turn the trial was taking. He said that he had no control over the actions or the defense of the others, and that he had never been anti-Semitic himself, had not believed these atrocities, and that several Jews had offered to testify in his behalf. If [Hans] Frank [Governor-General of occupied Poland] had known about atrocities in 1943, he should have come to him and he would have tried to do something about it. He might not have had enough power to change things in 1943, but if somebody had come to him in 1941 or 1942 he could have forced a showdown. (I still did not have the desire at this point to tell him what [SS General Otto] Ohlendorf had said to this: that Goering had been written off as an effective "moderating" influence, because of his drug addiction and corruption.)
I pointed out that with his "temperamental utterances," such as preferring the killing of 200 Jews to the destruction of property; he had hardly set himself up as champion of minority rights. Goering protested that too much weight was being put on these temperamental utterances. Furthermore, he made it clear that he was not defending or glorifying Hitler. Later in the conversation, Gilbert recorded Goering's observations that the common people can always be manipulated into supporting and fighting wars by their political leaders: We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." "Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2003
An American Vision
Ten score and 30 years ago our forefathers brought forth an American Covenant upon this Continent. It was a completely new government fueled by an American Dream of all men created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. These rights are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It was said that this nation can not endure without those rights and without this Dream. Our forefathers founded the Democratic Republican Party on these principals and they by their actions created the American Dream of Freedom and Representation within the law.
It is a Dream founded in law and nourished by economic freedom, a gift of the Backbone of Democracy, the small businessman and the Guilds. It is a gift of innocent till proven guilty, the right to face ones accuser, and to have a fair trial with an impartial jury of ones peers. It is a gift ensured by the availability of jobs and business opportunity. It maintained by fair trade to create enterprise and the jobs that go with them, not the sending of jobs overseas to the highest bidder, because men cannot be free when they are economically chained to poverty, illness, disease, and need.
It is a Vision inscribed upon the Statue of Liberty that said “send us men, women, and children from all lands yearning to be free.” It is the hope and was the foundation of a Nation of Immigrants to create this great new world. It was echoed in "give me Liberty or give me death,'' and it is tied to economic independence and the creation of jobs and free enterprise. Now we have two visions competing for this nation, one who wants tax breaks for ultra millionaires and hides scandalous behavior behind closed doors, and one who wants to create millions of new American jobs that give economic vitality to our hard working men and women and give our children back their future.
Over forty years ago, Martin Luther King also saw this Dream and spoke of it so eloquently. His I Have a Dream speech echoes even now as The American Vision of fair play and rights of all individuals with our society. Lyndon Johnson called for a Great Society; FDR a New Deal, John Kennedy a New Frontier, perhaps it is now time for a Fair Deal that grants the Working Class its rightful place at the economic table and affordable healthcare. Statistics show that under Republican leadership the gap between the Middle Class and the Wealthy has grown by leaps and bounds since the dawn of our 21st Century.
A clear choice is now available of what America has been and should be. There remains one real vision verses an alternative vision that has failed. It is time to now denounce with the righteous indignation that is building over the Scandals of Corruption, Crisis of Competence and a Climate of Cronyism, and the nightmare of a Moral Lack of Leadership that ignores legality and refuses the decency of resignation within the Republican Party. Perhaps the party that claimed personal responsibility and family values as their motto, needs to take the advice they are so willing to give, but in conduct so willing to ignore, and go quietly and quickly into that good night with what principals they do possess. They need to exit a failed direction of hype and failure that now threatens our economic and moral livelihood at its very roots. Certainly the choice is clear: the American Dream or the American Nightmare.
I urge you to choose the American Covenant that was and is the Democratic Party.
Thomas P. Love
The Constitution of the United States of America
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The First 10 Amendments to the
Constitution as Ratified by the States
December 15, 1791
Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
History
During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered.
On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States therefore proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. The first two proposed amendments, which concerned the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen, were not ratified. Articles 3 to 12, however, ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights
As the delegates gathered at the Pennsylvania State House in May 1787 to "revise" the Articles of Confederation, Virginia delegate George Mason wrote, "The Eyes of the United States are turned upon this Assembly and their Expectations raised to a very anxious Degree." Mason had earlier written the Virginia Declaration of Rights that strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. He left the convention bitterly disappointed, however, and became one of the Constitution's most vocal opponents. "It has no declaration of rights," he was to state. Ultimately, George Mason's views prevailed. When James Madison drafted the amendments to the Constitution that were to become the Bill of Rights, he drew heavily upon the ideas put forth in the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
It is a Dream founded in law and nourished by economic freedom, a gift of the Backbone of Democracy, the small businessman and the Guilds. It is a gift of innocent till proven guilty, the right to face ones accuser, and to have a fair trial with an impartial jury of ones peers. It is a gift ensured by the availability of jobs and business opportunity. It maintained by fair trade to create enterprise and the jobs that go with them, not the sending of jobs overseas to the highest bidder, because men cannot be free when they are economically chained to poverty, illness, disease, and need.
It is a Vision inscribed upon the Statue of Liberty that said “send us men, women, and children from all lands yearning to be free.” It is the hope and was the foundation of a Nation of Immigrants to create this great new world. It was echoed in "give me Liberty or give me death,'' and it is tied to economic independence and the creation of jobs and free enterprise. Now we have two visions competing for this nation, one who wants tax breaks for ultra millionaires and hides scandalous behavior behind closed doors, and one who wants to create millions of new American jobs that give economic vitality to our hard working men and women and give our children back their future.
Over forty years ago, Martin Luther King also saw this Dream and spoke of it so eloquently. His I Have a Dream speech echoes even now as The American Vision of fair play and rights of all individuals with our society. Lyndon Johnson called for a Great Society; FDR a New Deal, John Kennedy a New Frontier, perhaps it is now time for a Fair Deal that grants the Working Class its rightful place at the economic table and affordable healthcare. Statistics show that under Republican leadership the gap between the Middle Class and the Wealthy has grown by leaps and bounds since the dawn of our 21st Century.
A clear choice is now available of what America has been and should be. There remains one real vision verses an alternative vision that has failed. It is time to now denounce with the righteous indignation that is building over the Scandals of Corruption, Crisis of Competence and a Climate of Cronyism, and the nightmare of a Moral Lack of Leadership that ignores legality and refuses the decency of resignation within the Republican Party. Perhaps the party that claimed personal responsibility and family values as their motto, needs to take the advice they are so willing to give, but in conduct so willing to ignore, and go quietly and quickly into that good night with what principals they do possess. They need to exit a failed direction of hype and failure that now threatens our economic and moral livelihood at its very roots. Certainly the choice is clear: the American Dream or the American Nightmare.
I urge you to choose the American Covenant that was and is the Democratic Party.
Thomas P. Love
The Constitution of the United States of America
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The First 10 Amendments to the
Constitution as Ratified by the States
December 15, 1791
Congress OF THE United States
begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday
the Fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.
THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution
RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.:
ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
History
During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered.
On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States therefore proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. The first two proposed amendments, which concerned the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen, were not ratified. Articles 3 to 12, however, ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights
As the delegates gathered at the Pennsylvania State House in May 1787 to "revise" the Articles of Confederation, Virginia delegate George Mason wrote, "The Eyes of the United States are turned upon this Assembly and their Expectations raised to a very anxious Degree." Mason had earlier written the Virginia Declaration of Rights that strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. He left the convention bitterly disappointed, however, and became one of the Constitution's most vocal opponents. "It has no declaration of rights," he was to state. Ultimately, George Mason's views prevailed. When James Madison drafted the amendments to the Constitution that were to become the Bill of Rights, he drew heavily upon the ideas put forth in the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
An Open Thank You To Ron Reagan
Ron Reagan, I do not know what exactly it is that you believe. I know what I hear on TV, and I know what read in the newspapers about your stance on stem cell research. I have never met you and probably never will. But, my father died from Alzheimer's. He had a slow and terrible destruction of the very essence that made him human. He became a helpless silent remnant of what he once was. At the end, he was unable to talk, eat except through a feeding tube; helpless to dress him self, without control of his body functions, and once in a lucid moment asked why I kept him alive. This was a hard question, but the answer was I hoped medical science would find a way to restore hope where the only certainty was a gradual decline into death.
I realize stem cell research will take many years of trials before a person's loved ones might never again face this horrible reality. That there are probably worse deaths in the greater scheme of things, but few so painfully slow and agonizing to those left behind. In Boston at the Democratic Convention of 2004, you became the champion of us all. You were at least as eloquent as your father. He and all the victims and all the benefactors of the many cures that one-day will come will smile down and say, Well done, Thank You. That day, you grabbed the ball and won one for The Gipper.
Source: Alzheimer's Association
http://www.alzheimers.org/ http://www.bedfordresearch.org/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/reagan.democrats/index.htm
Thomas P. Love
July 29, 2004
I realize stem cell research will take many years of trials before a person's loved ones might never again face this horrible reality. That there are probably worse deaths in the greater scheme of things, but few so painfully slow and agonizing to those left behind. In Boston at the Democratic Convention of 2004, you became the champion of us all. You were at least as eloquent as your father. He and all the victims and all the benefactors of the many cures that one-day will come will smile down and say, Well done, Thank You. That day, you grabbed the ball and won one for The Gipper.
Source: Alzheimer's Association
http://www.alzheimers.org/ http://www.bedfordresearch.org/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/reagan.democrats/index.htm
Thomas P. Love
July 29, 2004
I'm Proud To Be A Democrat
I'm proud to be a Democrat
Where at last I know I'm free,
And I would never leave anyone behind
Who fought or died for me.
I'll always stand up what I believe
And those who gave that right to me.
Because I'll love this land for all eternity.
Thank you! Thomas Jefferson and the symbol of Liberty.
I'm just a working man.
I've worked hard all my life,
I've paid my dues with sweat and by my hand
For my children and my wife.
I've tried to save and protect my family through all strife
I've paid my taxes and my bills.
And I'll tell you here today.
I love this USA.
All across this country I see the awakening,
From Iowa to Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It's happening.
And from New York across Louisiana to California ,
From Massachusetts to North Carolina.
It's gathering.
From Maine to Vermont and New Hampshire
There is now pride and hope building in America.
The best is yet to come.
So, it's time to say.
I'm proud to be a Democrat
Where at last I know I'm free,
And I would never leave anyone behind
Who fought or died for me.
I'll always stand up what I believe
And those who gave that right to me.
Because I'll love this land for all eternity.
Thank you!
Thomas Jefferson and the symbol of Liberty.
Thomas P Love
Where at last I know I'm free,
And I would never leave anyone behind
Who fought or died for me.
I'll always stand up what I believe
And those who gave that right to me.
Because I'll love this land for all eternity.
Thank you! Thomas Jefferson and the symbol of Liberty.
I'm just a working man.
I've worked hard all my life,
I've paid my dues with sweat and by my hand
For my children and my wife.
I've tried to save and protect my family through all strife
I've paid my taxes and my bills.
And I'll tell you here today.
I love this USA.
All across this country I see the awakening,
From Iowa to Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It's happening.
And from New York across Louisiana to California ,
From Massachusetts to North Carolina.
It's gathering.
From Maine to Vermont and New Hampshire
There is now pride and hope building in America.
The best is yet to come.
So, it's time to say.
I'm proud to be a Democrat
Where at last I know I'm free,
And I would never leave anyone behind
Who fought or died for me.
I'll always stand up what I believe
And those who gave that right to me.
Because I'll love this land for all eternity.
Thank you!
Thomas Jefferson and the symbol of Liberty.
Thomas P Love
War and Consequences
There was a Republican administration in power and a belief that God was on our side and America was led by Manifest Destiny. Suddenly, there was a report of a terrorist attack against America and a rush to a preemptive war, despite no evidence of the foreign country having any connection to that attack. We quickly defeated the enemy and began an effort to win the hearts and minds of the people and build a new democracy where there had not been one before. Soon however, we were facing occupation not a war. There was no organized military facing us. There were instead Insurgents, for we had already won that war, but lost that peace. We won the war, but we continued to build up troops there as it was argued to leave would create chaos there and in the entire region for this was a region vital to Americans and filled with great natural resources. There were surges of troops and conflicting reports of massive civilian deaths, but America stayed to avoid defeat.
America stayed in the Philippians from 1899 to 1946 and had military bases for an additional fifty years. Estimates are the death of 1.4 million Filipinos as either collateral damage or victims of insurrection against the authority of the United States. The country still sees continual revolt among the Muslim insurgents and the left-wing New People’s Army. Both groups have been fighting for more than six decades now, since the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1946. Is it possible to make knee-jerk judgments on the character and fate of nationalist movements in colonized territories without looking at the complex relations between the “liberator” and the “liberated”?
Is there interaction between their forces as well as others caught in the conflict? To ignore this would be a disingenuous utopianism for the only remaining superpower claiming to act in the name of freedom and democracy. For one cannot escape the reality that over time the “liberator” becomes the foreign occupier and the “liberated’ become the ungrateful insurgents. For as in Vietnam, the Philippians, and in Iraq the” liberated” must control their own destiny to truly be free and the “liberator” must leave to truly give freedom.
America stayed in the Philippians from 1899 to 1946 and had military bases for an additional fifty years. Estimates are the death of 1.4 million Filipinos as either collateral damage or victims of insurrection against the authority of the United States. The country still sees continual revolt among the Muslim insurgents and the left-wing New People’s Army. Both groups have been fighting for more than six decades now, since the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1946. Is it possible to make knee-jerk judgments on the character and fate of nationalist movements in colonized territories without looking at the complex relations between the “liberator” and the “liberated”?
Is there interaction between their forces as well as others caught in the conflict? To ignore this would be a disingenuous utopianism for the only remaining superpower claiming to act in the name of freedom and democracy. For one cannot escape the reality that over time the “liberator” becomes the foreign occupier and the “liberated’ become the ungrateful insurgents. For as in Vietnam, the Philippians, and in Iraq the” liberated” must control their own destiny to truly be free and the “liberator” must leave to truly give freedom.
War is Peace from 1984 by George Orwell
The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started.
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard — a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army — row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers” boots formed the background to Goldstein's bleating voice.
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it.
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.
And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization.
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_p_1
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard — a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army — row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers” boots formed the background to Goldstein's bleating voice.
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it.
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies.
And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization.
It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity.
The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_p_1
Rick Perry, the PT Barnum of Texas
Rick Perry, the PT Barnum of Texas
A sucker is born every minute may not have actually been said by PT Barnum, but he and Rick Perry certainly believe just that. Not satisfied with having misled Texans on property tax relief, fast track TXU coal plant construction, the Trans Texas Corridor, and the sale of State Parks' mineral rights and management, Perry has huckstered up two new proposals. They are: the sale of the Texas lottery, and a mandatory HPV virus vaccine for 11 to 12 year old girls.
The lottery sale would be $14 billion to $20 billion lump sum payment of a proven billion dollar a year money maker. This deal is for a forty year exclusive revenue source or $14 billion for $40 billion guaranteed. This deal makes no accounting sense to anyone, but a quick change artist or someone who might pocket a handsome commission.
Merck brought us Vioxx; a medical mistake that was recalled under massive lawsuits and desperately needs another revenue source. Their record for public safety leaves much to be desired. Do you want you loved ones to be the guinea pigs courtesy of Merck?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vioxx
A sucker is born every minute may not have actually been said by PT Barnum, but he and Rick Perry certainly believe just that. Not satisfied with having misled Texans on property tax relief, fast track TXU coal plant construction, the Trans Texas Corridor, and the sale of State Parks' mineral rights and management, Perry has huckstered up two new proposals. They are: the sale of the Texas lottery, and a mandatory HPV virus vaccine for 11 to 12 year old girls.
The lottery sale would be $14 billion to $20 billion lump sum payment of a proven billion dollar a year money maker. This deal is for a forty year exclusive revenue source or $14 billion for $40 billion guaranteed. This deal makes no accounting sense to anyone, but a quick change artist or someone who might pocket a handsome commission.
Merck brought us Vioxx; a medical mistake that was recalled under massive lawsuits and desperately needs another revenue source. Their record for public safety leaves much to be desired. Do you want you loved ones to be the guinea pigs courtesy of Merck?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vioxx
Can You Afford to Vote Republican?
Many Americans are asking the most important question of their political lives this year; can you afford to vote Republican? Most are finding a simple answer and that is no. Past the mess in Iraq with billions and maybe more than a trillion dollars poured into that country, it is engulfed in a Civil War with no end in sight. Most Iraq output and production figures such as oil production, schooling open, jobs available, public utility service, and security is at an all time worst. The American job creation is at an all time low. Many American are seeing loss of real opportunities for their children and grand children because of cuts in funding and movement of American jobs overseas. For most of Americans the Living Wage and earning power is at an all time low. American Constitutional Freedoms seem under attack at every turn. The alarming price of energy is causing personal budget cuts and the cost of goods and services to increase rapidly. The American Budget Deficit is over eight trillion and headed to ten trillion dollars causing heavy borrowing and passing incredible debt on to future generations. Americans look at the disaster in New Orleans and see an America unprepared for the present, much less the future.
Every one knows that that the American Dream seems headed toward the American Nightmare. We seem beset with disasters all around and the lack of leadership, the stories of massive fraud in Iraq, massive fraud in the Gulf Coast, government employees making disastrous mistakes and lacking the qualifications to even hold the job in the first place. Government employees coming straight from an employer and making no bid decisions in favor of that employer and then not investigating billions of dollars in missing money because of lack of oversight. Policy decisions are constantly based on favoritism toward the big corporations and against the American public. We are losing respect and cooperation from our Allies abroad. We are forfeiting our claim and our heritage to the title of the Land of Opportunity and Freedom.
We are losing the culture that our Forefathers lived and died to create, not in merely the words, but the deeds. Republicans like to say to America that we have a choice and we do. Just like every other time anyone else in American history has failed the country, the people of America, the future generations of Americans have to say no. Enough is enough. It is time to say had enough, vote Democrat. America and your future deserve nothing less. Vote for your future, vote a straight Democratic ticket this fall and vote for America. Remember the future you save will be you own. Democrats are committed toward the Quality of Life and the American Dream, this now more than ever. Vote not for failure but for an America with shared prosperity and the American Dream for all.
-Thomas P Love
Every one knows that that the American Dream seems headed toward the American Nightmare. We seem beset with disasters all around and the lack of leadership, the stories of massive fraud in Iraq, massive fraud in the Gulf Coast, government employees making disastrous mistakes and lacking the qualifications to even hold the job in the first place. Government employees coming straight from an employer and making no bid decisions in favor of that employer and then not investigating billions of dollars in missing money because of lack of oversight. Policy decisions are constantly based on favoritism toward the big corporations and against the American public. We are losing respect and cooperation from our Allies abroad. We are forfeiting our claim and our heritage to the title of the Land of Opportunity and Freedom.
We are losing the culture that our Forefathers lived and died to create, not in merely the words, but the deeds. Republicans like to say to America that we have a choice and we do. Just like every other time anyone else in American history has failed the country, the people of America, the future generations of Americans have to say no. Enough is enough. It is time to say had enough, vote Democrat. America and your future deserve nothing less. Vote for your future, vote a straight Democratic ticket this fall and vote for America. Remember the future you save will be you own. Democrats are committed toward the Quality of Life and the American Dream, this now more than ever. Vote not for failure but for an America with shared prosperity and the American Dream for all.
-Thomas P Love
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Crises of Competence
The recent American disaster relief and particularily the response to disaster in the Gulf Coast underline the essential problem in America today and that is a Crises of Competence. Somehow lost in the great ideological debate whether there should be a strong national government or a strong local government was the concept that it must be a competent government most of all. It matters little to a fire victem in California, a drowning victim in New Orleans, or a displaced homeless family in Mississippi whether it is a private sector government led relief effort or a federal government led relief effort, but whether it is competent at doing the job in the first place.
During the Bush Administration much effort has been spent on ideological considerations that government should still spend lots of money, but it should go to the private sector not a federal government led project. This has led to needlessly wastefull spending with enormous blunders where ideology has been the controlling factor rather than competence. The scandalous revelations of FEMA's Michael Brown's resume come most to mind as an example of ideology and whom you know, rather than what you know. Apparently it was more important to find an ideological match than a competent one for FEMA Director.
Wake up! It never has been the amount of money spent on a project that determined its success, but whether the money was spent wisely to start with. Efficient and competent government is what should be the norm and not the concern of whether it should be either Big Government or Private Sector Government. If the government does not do its job, it is a bad government period.
Thomas P. Love
During the Bush Administration much effort has been spent on ideological considerations that government should still spend lots of money, but it should go to the private sector not a federal government led project. This has led to needlessly wastefull spending with enormous blunders where ideology has been the controlling factor rather than competence. The scandalous revelations of FEMA's Michael Brown's resume come most to mind as an example of ideology and whom you know, rather than what you know. Apparently it was more important to find an ideological match than a competent one for FEMA Director.
Wake up! It never has been the amount of money spent on a project that determined its success, but whether the money was spent wisely to start with. Efficient and competent government is what should be the norm and not the concern of whether it should be either Big Government or Private Sector Government. If the government does not do its job, it is a bad government period.
Thomas P. Love
Bet Your Life
Friends, I have got to tell you about the most amazing insurance plan ever from Old Republican NeoCom Life: Introducing Never Say Die Insurance.* Available now in Florida on a test basis this remarkable product will keep you from decomposing for years after your brain is dead. Simply consult one of our special peddlers today or call toll free 1-666-PLAY-GOD. Until now you may have wondered about your future, but fear no more; we have eliminated death here at ORNCL.* Just imagine no more death except for undesirables. Imagine the freedom of being kept alive for almost forever by feeding tubes, wires, and respirators. Imagine eliminating death for all good people and the Good News is once we hook you up, you are virtually isolated from all the world problems. Think of the freedom from negative thoughts, or uncomfortable news!
Friends, think of the possibilities of warehouses after warehouses being constructed right here in your hometown; and rows after rows of totally brain dead people all hooked up without anyone ever dying. Plan your next vacation with a respirator or a ventilator in mind and save money on costly repair bills for cars, homes, hotels, and boats. Never worry about the price of gasoline or the dreaded overweight problem again. So call today again for The Never Say Die Insurance Plan from Old Republican NeoCom Life at 1-666-PLAY-GOD. Or send a special E-Mail picture to Bill Frist, Tom Delay, or Jeb Bush of your brain dead loved one and we will be Right out to hook everything up.
* Licensed only in the State of the Imagination and subject to certain penalties for noncompliance. No minorities need apply and valid only with massive campaign contributions. Good only if invoked by special legislation during investigations by Grand Juries. Valid only if you are a Bush Family friend or have the Right Life Style, thoughts, opinions, and are available for video taping. If murderous criminal or undesirable, may be subject to execution first; then life support available on proof you are brain dead. If questionable circumstances arise, send a video to Bill Frist for picture analysis. Be sure to bring cash for the premium, preferably in large mail sacks of small bills and ideally be pre-measured for orifice incision.
-Thomas P Love
Friends, think of the possibilities of warehouses after warehouses being constructed right here in your hometown; and rows after rows of totally brain dead people all hooked up without anyone ever dying. Plan your next vacation with a respirator or a ventilator in mind and save money on costly repair bills for cars, homes, hotels, and boats. Never worry about the price of gasoline or the dreaded overweight problem again. So call today again for The Never Say Die Insurance Plan from Old Republican NeoCom Life at 1-666-PLAY-GOD. Or send a special E-Mail picture to Bill Frist, Tom Delay, or Jeb Bush of your brain dead loved one and we will be Right out to hook everything up.
* Licensed only in the State of the Imagination and subject to certain penalties for noncompliance. No minorities need apply and valid only with massive campaign contributions. Good only if invoked by special legislation during investigations by Grand Juries. Valid only if you are a Bush Family friend or have the Right Life Style, thoughts, opinions, and are available for video taping. If murderous criminal or undesirable, may be subject to execution first; then life support available on proof you are brain dead. If questionable circumstances arise, send a video to Bill Frist for picture analysis. Be sure to bring cash for the premium, preferably in large mail sacks of small bills and ideally be pre-measured for orifice incision.
-Thomas P Love
I Don’t Have a Skinny Bible
"I Don't Have A Skinny Bible. Show me where in the Bible, Jesus is pro rich and pro war, "Dr. Joel Gregory has stated. My knowledge certainly does not match his, but I do not find these seemingly central testaments of the Religious Right in my Bible as well. Perhaps, they are not there and the Christ who gave the Sermon on the Mount would not appreciate a false characterization of his word and his message. For those that can’t remember what is listed as a direct quote that information is below!
Sermon on the Mount (A Real Christian Message)
Both versions of the BeatitudesSource: New American Bible
Matthew 5:2-12
He began to teach them, saying: Matthew 5:3
- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is thekingdom of heaven.Matthew 5:4
- Blessed are they who mourn, for they will becomforted.Matthew 5:5
- Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.Matthew 5:6
- Blessed are they who hunger and thirst forrighteousness, for they will be satisfied.Matthew 5:7
, for they will see God.Matthew 5:9
- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be calledchildren of God.Matthew 5:10
- Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake ofrighteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Matthew 5:11-12
- Blessed are you when they insult you and persecuteyou and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because ofme. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."
Luke 6:20-26
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude andinsult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son ofMan.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward willbe great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in thesame way.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treatedthe false prophets in this way."
Catholic Encyclopedia Entry:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02371a.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
Beatitudes
The Beatitudes (from Latin, beatitudo, happiness) is the name given to a well-known, definitive and central, portion of the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In this section, Jesus describes the qualities of the citizens of the Kingdom of heaven (It refers to the reign or sovereignty of God over all things, as opposed to the reign of earthly or satanic powers), showing how each is/will be blessed. The Beatitudes do not describe many separate individuals, but rather the characteristics of those who are deemed blessed by God. Kodjak believes that this opening of the sermon was meant to shock the audience, as a deliberate inversion of standard values, but that today this shock value has been lost owing to the commonness of the text.
Each of the blessed individuals are generally not considered blessed according to worldly standards, but with a heavenly perspective, they truly are blessed. The word traditionally translated into English as "blessed" or "happy" is in the Greek original μακαριος; a more literal translation into contemporary English would be "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by the physical circumstances." Each of the Beatitudes presents a situation in which the person described would not be described by the world as "blessed," yet Jesus declares that they truly are blessed, and they are blessed with a blessing that outlasts any type of blessing this world has to offer.
These verses are quoted early in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom, which continues to be the liturgy most often used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Similar sayings are also recorded in a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and are found in Jewish sources that pre-date the Christian era. Four of the beatitudes are found also in Luke's Sermon on the Plain, which many scholars feel is the same event as the Sermon on the Mount. In textual criticism, these beatitudes are seen as originating in the Q document, and the large Sermon they appear within as Matthew and Luke to provide an reason for quoting them. Luke's Sermon has four woes in addition to the four beatitudes, and Matthew uses the woes elsewhere for use against the Pharisees, so some scholars, such as Gundry, see Matthew as having wanted to keep the eightfold structure and consequently having to create four additional sayings
Jefferson & The Danbury Baptists
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Jefferson & The Virginia Baptists
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
Sermon on the Mount (A Real Christian Message)
Both versions of the BeatitudesSource: New American Bible
Matthew 5:2-12
He began to teach them, saying: Matthew 5:3
- "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is thekingdom of heaven.Matthew 5:4
- Blessed are they who mourn, for they will becomforted.Matthew 5:5
- Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.Matthew 5:6
- Blessed are they who hunger and thirst forrighteousness, for they will be satisfied.Matthew 5:7
, for they will see God.Matthew 5:9
- Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be calledchildren of God.Matthew 5:10
- Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake ofrighteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Matthew 5:11-12
- Blessed are you when they insult you and persecuteyou and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because ofme. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven."
Luke 6:20-26
And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude andinsult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son ofMan.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward willbe great in heaven. For their ancestors treated the prophets in thesame way.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.But woe to you who are filled now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.Woe to you when all speak well of you, for their ancestors treatedthe false prophets in this way."
Catholic Encyclopedia Entry:http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02371a.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
Beatitudes
The Beatitudes (from Latin, beatitudo, happiness) is the name given to a well-known, definitive and central, portion of the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In this section, Jesus describes the qualities of the citizens of the Kingdom of heaven (It refers to the reign or sovereignty of God over all things, as opposed to the reign of earthly or satanic powers), showing how each is/will be blessed. The Beatitudes do not describe many separate individuals, but rather the characteristics of those who are deemed blessed by God. Kodjak believes that this opening of the sermon was meant to shock the audience, as a deliberate inversion of standard values, but that today this shock value has been lost owing to the commonness of the text.
Each of the blessed individuals are generally not considered blessed according to worldly standards, but with a heavenly perspective, they truly are blessed. The word traditionally translated into English as "blessed" or "happy" is in the Greek original μακαριος; a more literal translation into contemporary English would be "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by the physical circumstances." Each of the Beatitudes presents a situation in which the person described would not be described by the world as "blessed," yet Jesus declares that they truly are blessed, and they are blessed with a blessing that outlasts any type of blessing this world has to offer.
These verses are quoted early in the Divine Liturgy of John Chrysostom, which continues to be the liturgy most often used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Similar sayings are also recorded in a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and are found in Jewish sources that pre-date the Christian era. Four of the beatitudes are found also in Luke's Sermon on the Plain, which many scholars feel is the same event as the Sermon on the Mount. In textual criticism, these beatitudes are seen as originating in the Q document, and the large Sermon they appear within as Matthew and Luke to provide an reason for quoting them. Luke's Sermon has four woes in addition to the four beatitudes, and Matthew uses the woes elsewhere for use against the Pharisees, so some scholars, such as Gundry, see Matthew as having wanted to keep the eightfold structure and consequently having to create four additional sayings
Jefferson & The Danbury Baptists
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all of his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
Jefferson & The Virginia Baptists
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
George Bush & The Reverse Midas Touch
I don’t know when it exactly happened a friend of mine said the other day. It could have been when George was using coke. It could have been when he was drunk and urinating out the car door in Houston. It might have been over rumors of Robin having his child’s abortion. It might have been over how to win politically, but George cut a deal that would have made Faust proud. I know you are going to say it can’t be. I know you are going to say there is no way, but consider the circumstances and realize the cause and effect, my friend said, and I have. Thus was born Presdent Faustus with all appologies to Christopher Marlowe and Hugo Chavis. President Faustus with not the ability to as Midas turn things to gold, but the reverse Midas Touch, the ability to turn then to shit.
The Tragic History of President Faustus
Enter Chorus.
Not marching now in fields of Baghdad,Where Shiites did mate with the Sunnis,Not stopping in the defense of wisdom,Would be in courts of Kings where state is overturned,Not in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,Intends our Muse to start his unheavenly verse:Only this, (gentlemen: we must perform,The form of Faustus' fortunes good or bad.To patient Judgments we appeal our verdict,And speak for Faustus in his infancy.Now is he borne, his parents base of upper-stock,In Connecticut, within a town called New Haven:Of riper years to West Texas he went,Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up;So soon he profits in oil and rugby,The fruitful past of skulls and bones disgraced,That shortly he was graced with politician’s name,Excelling none, whose smell delights noneIn unheavenly matters of theology,Until swollen with cunning of a self deceit,No waxen wings did mount above his reach,And, wishing, heaven conspired his overthrow;For falling to a devilish exercise,And glutted more with learning's golden gifts,He surfeits upon cursed necromancy.Nothing so sweet as magic is to himthat he prefers before his putrid boast.Yet this man that in his study sits.
. Sc. 1 Enter President Faustus in his Office.
Faustus
Settle your studies, President Faustus, and beginTo bound the depth of that you will confess;Having claimed to be divine in show,Yet evil at the end of every art,And live and die in Isaiah’s works.Sweet Apocalypse 'tis thou has ravished me:
Is, to dispute well, Logic's chief’s end?Affords this Art no greater miracle?Then read no more, thou has attained the end;A greater subject fittest Faustus' wit.Bid Oncaymaeon farewell; Galen come:Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus,Be a physician Faustus, heap up gold,And be eternized for some wondrous cure.Summum bonum medicinae sanitas:The end of physic is our bodies health.Why, Faustus, have thou not attained that end?Is not thy common talk sound aphorisms?Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague,And thousand desperate maladies been eased?Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.Wouldst thou make man to live eternally?Or, being dead, raise them to life again?
Then this profession was to be esteemed.Physic farewell. Where is Justinian?Si una eademque res legatur duobus,Alter rem alter valorem rei, &c.A pretty case of paltry legacies:Exhaereditari filium non potest pater nisi, &c.Such is the subject of the instituteand universal body of the Church.His study fits a mercenary drudge,Who aims at nothing but external trash,The devil and illiberal for me :When all is done, divinity is best;Jerome's Bible, Faustus, view it well:Stipendium peccati mors est.
Ha! Stipendium, &c.The reward of sin is death: that's hard.Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, & nulla est in nobis veritas.:If we say that we have no sin,We deceive our selves, and there's no truth in us.Why then belike we must sin,And so consequently die.Ay, we must die an everlasting death.What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera,:What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu.These Metaphysics of Magicians,And Necromantic books are heavenly;Lines, circles, scenes, letters and characters,Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
O what a world of profit and delight,Of power, of honor, of omnipotenceIs promised to the studious artisan?All things that move between the quiet polesshall be at my command. Emperors and Kings,Are but obeyed in their several provinces:Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;But his dominion that exceeds in this,Stretched as far as doth the mind of man.A sound magician is a mighty god:Here Faustus try thy brains to gain a deity.Enter Wagner. Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends,The German Rove, and Cheney;Request them earnestly to visit me.WagnerI will sir. exit. FaustusTheir conference will be a greater help to me,Than all my labors, plod I ne'er so fast.Enter the Good Angel and the Evil Angel. Good. AngelO Faustus, lay that damned book aside,And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,And heap Gods heavy wrath upon thy head,Read, read the scriptures, that is blasphemy.Evil Angel
Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,Wherein all nature's treasury is contained:Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,Lord and commander of these elements. Exeunt. FaustusHow am I glutted with conceit of this?Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,Resolve me of all ambiguities,Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,Ransack the Ocean for orient pearl,And search all corners of the new found worldFor pleasant fruits and princely delicates;I'll have them read me strange philosophy,And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,And make swift Rhine circle faire Wertenberg;I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,And reign sole king of all our provinces;Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,Then was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,I'll make my servile spirits to invent.
Come, German Rove and Cheney,And make me blest with your sage conference.
Rove, sweet Rove, and Cheney,
Enter Rove and Cheney.
Know that your words have won me at the last,To practice magic and concealed arts:Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy,That will receive no object for my head,But ruminates on necromantic skill.Philosophy is odious and obscure,Both law and physic are for petty wits;Divinity is basest of the three,Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile,Until magic, magic that hath ravished Mephistopheles,Then, gentle friends, aide me in this attempt.And I that have with concise syllogismsGravel’s the pastors of the German church,And made the flowering pride of WertenbergSwarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits,On sweet Museums when he came to hell,Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.
Rove
Faustus, these books thy wit and our experienceShall make all nations to canonize us:As Indian Mores obey their Spanish Lords,So shall the subjects of every elementBe always serviceable to us three,Like lions shall they guard us when we please,Like Almaine rutters with their horsemen's staves,Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides;Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows,Than in their white breasts of the queen of love,For Venice shall they drag huge Argoces,And from America the golden fleece,That yearly stuffs old Philips treasury,If learned Faustus will be resolute.
Faustus
Rove as resolute am I in thisAs thou to live; therefore object it not.
Cheney
The miracles that magic will perform,Will make thee vow to study nothing else,He that is grounded in Astrology,Enriched with tongues, well seen in minerals,Hath all the principles magic doth require.Then doubt not, (Faustus, but to be renowned,And more frequented for this mystery,Then heretofore the Delphian Oracle.The spirits tell me they can dry the sea,And fetch the treasure of all foreign wracks,Ay, all the wealth that our forefathers hidWithin the massy entrails of the earth.Then tell me, Faustus, what shall we three want?
Faustus
Nothing,
Cheney;
O this cheers my soul.Come show me some demonstrations magical,That I may conjure in some lusty grove,And have these joys in full possession.
Rove
Then haste thee to some solitary grove,And bear wise Bacon's and Albanus' works,The Hebrew Psalter, and New Testament,And whatsoever else is requisiteWe will inform thee ere our conference cease.
Cheney
Rove, first let him know the words of art;And then, all other ceremonies learned,Faustus may try his cunning by himself.RoveFirst I'll instruct thee in the rudiments.And then wilt thou be perfected than I.FaustusThen come and dine with me, and after meat,We'll canvas every lucidity thereof,For ere I sleep I'll try what I can do; This night I'll conjure though I die therefore.
Exeunt.
The Tragic History of President Faustus
Enter Chorus.
Not marching now in fields of Baghdad,Where Shiites did mate with the Sunnis,Not stopping in the defense of wisdom,Would be in courts of Kings where state is overturned,Not in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,Intends our Muse to start his unheavenly verse:Only this, (gentlemen: we must perform,The form of Faustus' fortunes good or bad.To patient Judgments we appeal our verdict,And speak for Faustus in his infancy.Now is he borne, his parents base of upper-stock,In Connecticut, within a town called New Haven:Of riper years to West Texas he went,Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up;So soon he profits in oil and rugby,The fruitful past of skulls and bones disgraced,That shortly he was graced with politician’s name,Excelling none, whose smell delights noneIn unheavenly matters of theology,Until swollen with cunning of a self deceit,No waxen wings did mount above his reach,And, wishing, heaven conspired his overthrow;For falling to a devilish exercise,And glutted more with learning's golden gifts,He surfeits upon cursed necromancy.Nothing so sweet as magic is to himthat he prefers before his putrid boast.Yet this man that in his study sits.
. Sc. 1 Enter President Faustus in his Office.
Faustus
Settle your studies, President Faustus, and beginTo bound the depth of that you will confess;Having claimed to be divine in show,Yet evil at the end of every art,And live and die in Isaiah’s works.Sweet Apocalypse 'tis thou has ravished me:
Is, to dispute well, Logic's chief’s end?Affords this Art no greater miracle?Then read no more, thou has attained the end;A greater subject fittest Faustus' wit.Bid Oncaymaeon farewell; Galen come:Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus,Be a physician Faustus, heap up gold,And be eternized for some wondrous cure.Summum bonum medicinae sanitas:The end of physic is our bodies health.Why, Faustus, have thou not attained that end?Is not thy common talk sound aphorisms?Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague,And thousand desperate maladies been eased?Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.Wouldst thou make man to live eternally?Or, being dead, raise them to life again?
Then this profession was to be esteemed.Physic farewell. Where is Justinian?Si una eademque res legatur duobus,Alter rem alter valorem rei, &c.A pretty case of paltry legacies:Exhaereditari filium non potest pater nisi, &c.Such is the subject of the instituteand universal body of the Church.His study fits a mercenary drudge,Who aims at nothing but external trash,The devil and illiberal for me :When all is done, divinity is best;Jerome's Bible, Faustus, view it well:Stipendium peccati mors est.
Ha! Stipendium, &c.The reward of sin is death: that's hard.Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, & nulla est in nobis veritas.:If we say that we have no sin,We deceive our selves, and there's no truth in us.Why then belike we must sin,And so consequently die.Ay, we must die an everlasting death.What doctrine call you this, Che sera, sera,:What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu.These Metaphysics of Magicians,And Necromantic books are heavenly;Lines, circles, scenes, letters and characters,Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
O what a world of profit and delight,Of power, of honor, of omnipotenceIs promised to the studious artisan?All things that move between the quiet polesshall be at my command. Emperors and Kings,Are but obeyed in their several provinces:Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;But his dominion that exceeds in this,Stretched as far as doth the mind of man.A sound magician is a mighty god:Here Faustus try thy brains to gain a deity.Enter Wagner. Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends,The German Rove, and Cheney;Request them earnestly to visit me.WagnerI will sir. exit. FaustusTheir conference will be a greater help to me,Than all my labors, plod I ne'er so fast.Enter the Good Angel and the Evil Angel. Good. AngelO Faustus, lay that damned book aside,And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,And heap Gods heavy wrath upon thy head,Read, read the scriptures, that is blasphemy.Evil Angel
Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,Wherein all nature's treasury is contained:Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,Lord and commander of these elements. Exeunt. FaustusHow am I glutted with conceit of this?Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,Resolve me of all ambiguities,Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,Ransack the Ocean for orient pearl,And search all corners of the new found worldFor pleasant fruits and princely delicates;I'll have them read me strange philosophy,And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,And make swift Rhine circle faire Wertenberg;I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,And reign sole king of all our provinces;Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,Then was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,I'll make my servile spirits to invent.
Come, German Rove and Cheney,And make me blest with your sage conference.
Rove, sweet Rove, and Cheney,
Enter Rove and Cheney.
Know that your words have won me at the last,To practice magic and concealed arts:Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy,That will receive no object for my head,But ruminates on necromantic skill.Philosophy is odious and obscure,Both law and physic are for petty wits;Divinity is basest of the three,Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile,Until magic, magic that hath ravished Mephistopheles,Then, gentle friends, aide me in this attempt.And I that have with concise syllogismsGravel’s the pastors of the German church,And made the flowering pride of WertenbergSwarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits,On sweet Museums when he came to hell,Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.
Rove
Faustus, these books thy wit and our experienceShall make all nations to canonize us:As Indian Mores obey their Spanish Lords,So shall the subjects of every elementBe always serviceable to us three,Like lions shall they guard us when we please,Like Almaine rutters with their horsemen's staves,Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides;Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows,Than in their white breasts of the queen of love,For Venice shall they drag huge Argoces,And from America the golden fleece,That yearly stuffs old Philips treasury,If learned Faustus will be resolute.
Faustus
Rove as resolute am I in thisAs thou to live; therefore object it not.
Cheney
The miracles that magic will perform,Will make thee vow to study nothing else,He that is grounded in Astrology,Enriched with tongues, well seen in minerals,Hath all the principles magic doth require.Then doubt not, (Faustus, but to be renowned,And more frequented for this mystery,Then heretofore the Delphian Oracle.The spirits tell me they can dry the sea,And fetch the treasure of all foreign wracks,Ay, all the wealth that our forefathers hidWithin the massy entrails of the earth.Then tell me, Faustus, what shall we three want?
Faustus
Nothing,
Cheney;
O this cheers my soul.Come show me some demonstrations magical,That I may conjure in some lusty grove,And have these joys in full possession.
Rove
Then haste thee to some solitary grove,And bear wise Bacon's and Albanus' works,The Hebrew Psalter, and New Testament,And whatsoever else is requisiteWe will inform thee ere our conference cease.
Cheney
Rove, first let him know the words of art;And then, all other ceremonies learned,Faustus may try his cunning by himself.RoveFirst I'll instruct thee in the rudiments.And then wilt thou be perfected than I.FaustusThen come and dine with me, and after meat,We'll canvas every lucidity thereof,For ere I sleep I'll try what I can do; This night I'll conjure though I die therefore.
Exeunt.
Santa Claus Busted In Terrorist Plot
Santa Claus Busted In Terrorist Plot
Late last night Federal Agents of the Homeland Security Agency arrested Santa Claus after a brazen attempt to purchase weapons of Mass destruction and smuggle them into homes all over the country. We have had our eyes on him for sometime, declared the field agent for HSA.
We think he has been in contact with foreign elements all over the globe. He wants nothing less than to create some kind of dirty bomb using enriched snow and a cadre of demented elves. The distinctive yellow snow was recovered and is undergoing analysis along with a mysterious sleigh and a dangerous assortment of jingle bells. A suspicious sack containing hundreds of banned objects was also recovered.
Santa was finger printed and the id came back with several aliases including Kris Kringke, a suspected mastermind of a plot to infiltrate countries suspected of having ties to AL Qaeda and subvert impressionable minds. Reliable reports say Santa will undergo Extraordinary Rendition in an undisclosed location. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that’s fit to report.
Tooth Fairy Busted In Terrorist Plot
Late yesterday Agents of the FBI announced a gang of terrorists led by the notorious Tooth Fairy had been exposed in a fiendish plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel. Good intelligence uncovered this plot despite the fact that none of the gang was in the United States or except for the Tooth Fairy had ever even been to the US. Reports show the most reliable info came from interrogation techniques using water therapy in an undisclosed third world country. The techniques of water therapy are so reliable that it bears little further mention.
Basically the concept was developed to catch and apprehend witches during The Middle Ages. The suspect is strapped to a long plank and suspended horizontally over a deep vat of water. The questioner or interrogator asks them what they know and if they lie or say nothing, they are dunked till they nearly drown. This technique has been thoroughly modernized by the Bush Administration. In its old technique if the witches were suspended into the water for a longer period that was humanly possible to keep them from drowning and they in fact lived, they were burned at the stake. This crude method literally burned up too many terrorists so now the terrorists are kept around for further questioning and as new plots are revealed, they are brought back to the water for more therapy and further intelligence.
We think they have been in contact with foreign elements of Al Qaeda all over the globe said field agents speaking under deep cover from the office of Karl Rove. They want nothing less than to create mass panic and a feeling of fear to undermine the false sense of security enjoyed by most Americans who are only several terrorist plots away from the fall elections. The tricky thing is these clever fanatics usually hide behind a total lack of evidence, but we know how to outwit them. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that is fit to report.
British Intelligence Makes Big Bust
Late breaking news, British Intelligence has made a big bust in London. An Agent arrested the Coca Cola Polar Bear and several Arabic looking camel drivers in a massive plot to smuggle chemical explosives on airliners. In a plot reminiscent of the Hindenburg Disaster they were attempting to conceal liquid explosives in Coca Cola bottles and hidden as camel suppositories. Obvious links to Al Qaeda were brought to light when it was revealed that all had once seen a travel poster of Pakistan on the London Subway.
The fiendish Coca Cola plot was aimed at taking advantage of lax civil rights, reported Sir Henry Buttsniff a double aught British Agent speaking from the London office of Karl Rove. We will just have to make everyone hand over all liquids, tubes, gels, and sodas, he replied. When asked if the chemicals were so dangerous why they poured them in big containers at the airports this reporter was subject to an all cavity body search for his own protection.
We really think they were going down the tubes said Buttsniff who lab tested the explosives. We found that the suppositories, a mixture of beans, and airline meals produced a lethal substance, Buttsniff reported. They were going to hide the camel in the unchecked airline cargo and explode them in several major cities. They were promptly arrested and send to an undisclosed location near a Middle East country.
The Coca Cola Bear was finger printed and the id came back with several aliases including ties to Kris Kringke, a suspected mastermind of a plot to infiltrate countries suspected of having ties to AL Qaeda and subvert impressionable minds. Reliable reports say he is undergoing Extraordinary Rendition in an undisclosed location. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that is fit to report.
_Thomas P Love
Late last night Federal Agents of the Homeland Security Agency arrested Santa Claus after a brazen attempt to purchase weapons of Mass destruction and smuggle them into homes all over the country. We have had our eyes on him for sometime, declared the field agent for HSA.
We think he has been in contact with foreign elements all over the globe. He wants nothing less than to create some kind of dirty bomb using enriched snow and a cadre of demented elves. The distinctive yellow snow was recovered and is undergoing analysis along with a mysterious sleigh and a dangerous assortment of jingle bells. A suspicious sack containing hundreds of banned objects was also recovered.
Santa was finger printed and the id came back with several aliases including Kris Kringke, a suspected mastermind of a plot to infiltrate countries suspected of having ties to AL Qaeda and subvert impressionable minds. Reliable reports say Santa will undergo Extraordinary Rendition in an undisclosed location. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that’s fit to report.
Tooth Fairy Busted In Terrorist Plot
Late yesterday Agents of the FBI announced a gang of terrorists led by the notorious Tooth Fairy had been exposed in a fiendish plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel. Good intelligence uncovered this plot despite the fact that none of the gang was in the United States or except for the Tooth Fairy had ever even been to the US. Reports show the most reliable info came from interrogation techniques using water therapy in an undisclosed third world country. The techniques of water therapy are so reliable that it bears little further mention.
Basically the concept was developed to catch and apprehend witches during The Middle Ages. The suspect is strapped to a long plank and suspended horizontally over a deep vat of water. The questioner or interrogator asks them what they know and if they lie or say nothing, they are dunked till they nearly drown. This technique has been thoroughly modernized by the Bush Administration. In its old technique if the witches were suspended into the water for a longer period that was humanly possible to keep them from drowning and they in fact lived, they were burned at the stake. This crude method literally burned up too many terrorists so now the terrorists are kept around for further questioning and as new plots are revealed, they are brought back to the water for more therapy and further intelligence.
We think they have been in contact with foreign elements of Al Qaeda all over the globe said field agents speaking under deep cover from the office of Karl Rove. They want nothing less than to create mass panic and a feeling of fear to undermine the false sense of security enjoyed by most Americans who are only several terrorist plots away from the fall elections. The tricky thing is these clever fanatics usually hide behind a total lack of evidence, but we know how to outwit them. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that is fit to report.
British Intelligence Makes Big Bust
Late breaking news, British Intelligence has made a big bust in London. An Agent arrested the Coca Cola Polar Bear and several Arabic looking camel drivers in a massive plot to smuggle chemical explosives on airliners. In a plot reminiscent of the Hindenburg Disaster they were attempting to conceal liquid explosives in Coca Cola bottles and hidden as camel suppositories. Obvious links to Al Qaeda were brought to light when it was revealed that all had once seen a travel poster of Pakistan on the London Subway.
The fiendish Coca Cola plot was aimed at taking advantage of lax civil rights, reported Sir Henry Buttsniff a double aught British Agent speaking from the London office of Karl Rove. We will just have to make everyone hand over all liquids, tubes, gels, and sodas, he replied. When asked if the chemicals were so dangerous why they poured them in big containers at the airports this reporter was subject to an all cavity body search for his own protection.
We really think they were going down the tubes said Buttsniff who lab tested the explosives. We found that the suppositories, a mixture of beans, and airline meals produced a lethal substance, Buttsniff reported. They were going to hide the camel in the unchecked airline cargo and explode them in several major cities. They were promptly arrested and send to an undisclosed location near a Middle East country.
The Coca Cola Bear was finger printed and the id came back with several aliases including ties to Kris Kringke, a suspected mastermind of a plot to infiltrate countries suspected of having ties to AL Qaeda and subvert impressionable minds. Reliable reports say he is undergoing Extraordinary Rendition in an undisclosed location. Stay tuned for further breaking news on this the network that presents only fair and biased coverage of the news that is fit to report.
_Thomas P Love
NeoCons and The Greed Creed
Different eras in American history have been identified as the New Deal, The New Frontier, The Great Society, and The Jazz Age; this Republican era of Neo Conservative America is best called The Greed Creed. Their current attitude is what’s in it for me, not what can I do to help Americans. Unlike what John Kennedy said over 40 years ago, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Now the Republicans say it is not my problem, what is in it for me, and I have got mine, now you go get yours. The result has been a Culture of Corruption, a Crisis of Competence, and a Climate of Cronyism.
Where is the debate between Americans over our future direction? Where is the debate between what we want our country to be and what we want our state to become? How is our government representative and what is in fact going on there instead? Do we really want to make our American society and government work? Are we captives of slogans and concepts of political strategists? Do we hang on to power and the powerful because we can, and ignore promises of term limits? Or do we as Americans want a representative government that recognizes the needs of our people, not just of our corporations? Was George Bush right when he said to a gathering that, “Some call you the haves and the have mores, I call you my base?” In essence is We The People a slogan or a promise to us and future generations from our forefathers that our government serves the people by checks and balances and rules of rights and laws.
Recently, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington reported that the average CEO in America now earns nearly $11 million dollars a year, more in a single day than the average American worker earns in a year. All Americans are clearly not the tool of the rich and powerful, but it would appear that they are voting that way. Who will represent the hardworking men and women of America who have to feed, educate, clothe, and raise their children in times of outsourcing American jobs and $3 dollars a gallon gasoline? Is that not a question worthy of respect and debate?
- Thomas P Love
“>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060621/ts_nm/financial_pay_dc>
Where is the debate between Americans over our future direction? Where is the debate between what we want our country to be and what we want our state to become? How is our government representative and what is in fact going on there instead? Do we really want to make our American society and government work? Are we captives of slogans and concepts of political strategists? Do we hang on to power and the powerful because we can, and ignore promises of term limits? Or do we as Americans want a representative government that recognizes the needs of our people, not just of our corporations? Was George Bush right when he said to a gathering that, “Some call you the haves and the have mores, I call you my base?” In essence is We The People a slogan or a promise to us and future generations from our forefathers that our government serves the people by checks and balances and rules of rights and laws.
Recently, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington reported that the average CEO in America now earns nearly $11 million dollars a year, more in a single day than the average American worker earns in a year. All Americans are clearly not the tool of the rich and powerful, but it would appear that they are voting that way. Who will represent the hardworking men and women of America who have to feed, educate, clothe, and raise their children in times of outsourcing American jobs and $3 dollars a gallon gasoline? Is that not a question worthy of respect and debate?
- Thomas P Love
“>http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060621/ts_nm/financial_pay_dc>
Rotate the Crooks: Term Limits: Throw the Bums Out!
My father had a pragmatic approach to government. It was simply if a Congressman, Senator, or politician of any consequence had been in office for too long a period of time, then their capacity to misuse the common good of the electorate was too great to keep them in that post. His solution was to rotate the crooks, that is, throw the bums out and elect someone who had not acquired the resources to yet misuse the public trust. I look at this Legislature, this Governor, this Congress, and this Senate, and I remember the faint echo of such a promise that helped elect them in the first place. I look at a Culture of Corruption, a Crisis of Competence, and a Climate of Cronyism prevalent in disregard for Anglo American Jurisprudence and a government seemingly for sale to the highest bidder and I too say throw the bums out.
I look at the outsourcing and transfer of American jobs overseas. I look at the lack of open competitive bidding on government projects. I look at the eroding buying power of the working people of America and the erosion of respect and esteem for America in the world. I look at the deliberate lies that imply we are safe when we are not; and that we are economically sound, when we in fact, resemble the Titanic afloat on a sea of borrowed debt and head for the iceberg of future disaster. I loudly and with increasing vigor say throw the bums out!
I look at the empty promises of some Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and Legislators to terms limits in the past when they sought that office and I still say throw the bums out. When I ask them if they represent the public or Exxon, I know it is in fact, money, power, Exxon, Halliburton, and a foreign government from Dubai that controls their allegiance. The facts and the record demands term limits the only way we as Americans can be sure to achieve term limits: rotate the crooks, that is, throw the bums out and elect someone who had not acquired the resources to yet misuse the public trust, before we are the Titanic and they sink us all!
By Thomas P Love
I look at the outsourcing and transfer of American jobs overseas. I look at the lack of open competitive bidding on government projects. I look at the eroding buying power of the working people of America and the erosion of respect and esteem for America in the world. I look at the deliberate lies that imply we are safe when we are not; and that we are economically sound, when we in fact, resemble the Titanic afloat on a sea of borrowed debt and head for the iceberg of future disaster. I loudly and with increasing vigor say throw the bums out!
I look at the empty promises of some Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and Legislators to terms limits in the past when they sought that office and I still say throw the bums out. When I ask them if they represent the public or Exxon, I know it is in fact, money, power, Exxon, Halliburton, and a foreign government from Dubai that controls their allegiance. The facts and the record demands term limits the only way we as Americans can be sure to achieve term limits: rotate the crooks, that is, throw the bums out and elect someone who had not acquired the resources to yet misuse the public trust, before we are the Titanic and they sink us all!
By Thomas P Love
Where is Osama Bin Laden?
John Negroponte has disputed his own intelligence assessment that the Iraq War has made us less safe from Terror. OK, if you personal intelligence is better than all the rest, where is Osama Bin Laden? Every time you speak or every time anybody in the Bush Administration speaks, someone needs to ask this question. Condoleezza Rice, you say you have a clue, OK where is Osama Bin Laden? You have had 5 years and he is not getting any younger. Perhaps you need to look for a 6”4” to 6”6” Arab dragging around a dialysis machine? For those that can’t remember further details are listed below!
Bin Laden is often described as lanky; the FBI describes him as tall and thin, being 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 5" (195 cm) tall and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). He has an olive complexion, is left-handed, and usually walks with a cane. He wears a plain white turban and no longer dons the traditional Saudi male headdress, generally white. [11]
In terms of personality, bin Laden is described as a soft-spoken, mild mannered man, [12]; and despite his rhetoric, he is said to be charming, polite, and respectful. According to CNN's In The Footsteps of bin Laden television program, he is near-fluent in the English language
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [3]. In a 1998 interview, later televised on Al Jazeera, he gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. His father was the late Muhammed Awad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and with close ties to the Saudi royal family [4]. Before World War I, Muhammed, poor and uneducated, emigrated from Hadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter. Starting his own business in 1930, Muhammed built his fortune as a building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s.
In 1994 bin Laden's family publicly disowned him, shortly before the Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship for anti-government activity. He attended his son's wedding in January 2001, but since September 11 of that year he is believed only to have had contact with his mother on one occasion. [5].
There is no definitive account of the number of children born to Muhammed bin Laden, but the number is generally put at 55. In addition, various accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son. Muhammed bin Laden was married 22 times, although to no more than four women at a time per Sharia law. Osama was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas, nee Alia Ghanem[6], who was born in Syria. [7]
Al-Attas' step family in Jeddah
Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born, according to Khaled M. Batarfi, a senior editor at the Al Madina newspaper in Jeddah who knew Osama during the 1970s. Osama's mother then married a man named Muhammad al-Attas, who worked at the bin Laden company. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister. [8]
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. But from 1968 to 1976, he attended the relatively secular Al-Thager Model School, the most prestigious high school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, called "the school of the élite." [9] However, during the 1960s, King Faisal had welcomed exiled teachers from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, so that around 1971 or 1972, at Saudi high schools and universities, it was common to find many of whom had become involved with dissident members of the Muslim Brotherhood. During that time, bin Laden was exposed to those educators' banned political teachings during after-school Islamic study groups.
As a college student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, bin Laden studied civil engineering and business administration. He earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979 and also one in economics and public administration, in 1981.
At the university, bin Laden was influenced by several professors with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Among them was Muhammad Qutb, an Egyptian, whose brother, the late Sayyid Qutb, had written one of the Brotherhood’s most important tracts about anti-Western jihad, Signposts on the Road. The university at Jeddah is also where bin Laden met Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Azzam was a teacher there while bin Laden was in attendance, and he would later play a crucial role working with bin Laden in the Afghanistan resistance against the Soviets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_laden
September 11, 2001 attacks
Taken from the 12/27/2001 Osama bin Laden video.
Main article: Responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks
On September 9, 2001, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance in Afghanistan that opposed al-Qaeda and the Taliban, was killed by a bomb implanted inside the camera of suicide bombers pretending to be journalists. Waheed Mozhdah, a former Taliban official, is reported to have witnessed the two bombers known as Karim and Arbet picking up the modified video camera.[27]
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects. According to Waheed Mozhdah, Osama bin Laden wrote a letter two days later to Taliban leader Mullah Omar urging him to attack the Northern Alliance. In the letter, bin Laden noted that America's failure to respond to the September 11 attacks would signal its end as a superpower. [28]
Criminal charges and attempted extradition
As a result of international pressure, Sudan asked bin Laden to leave the country in 1996. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, "Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan," but would not accept offers to extradite him to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden chartered a plane and moved to Afghanistan that year.[3][4] There are conflicting claims as to whether Sudan offered to extradite Bin Laden to the United States in 1996. President Clinton, his administration officials, and the 9-11 commission deny such an offer was made[5][6]; businessman Mansoor Ijaz, former Sudanese officials, and former U.S. ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney claim that extradition offers were made "through unofficial channels" by Sudan[7].
Osama bin Laden, Prosecution exhibit from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.
On June 8, 1998 a United States grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 13 November 1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh[29]. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic terrorists worldwide.[29] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack.
On November 4, 1998 Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death[8] for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former AL Qaeda members and satellite phone records [9][10].
Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure[11]. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him. The U.S. Department of State currently offers a $25 million reward for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction [12].
Where is Osama Bin Laden?
Bin Laden is often described as lanky; the FBI describes him as tall and thin, being 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 5" (195 cm) tall and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). He has an olive complexion, is left-handed, and usually walks with a cane. He wears a plain white turban and no longer dons the traditional Saudi male headdress, generally white. [11]
In terms of personality, bin Laden is described as a soft-spoken, mild mannered man, [12]; and despite his rhetoric, he is said to be charming, polite, and respectful. According to CNN's In The Footsteps of bin Laden television program, he is near-fluent in the English language
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [3]. In a 1998 interview, later televised on Al Jazeera, he gave his birth date as March 10, 1957. His father was the late Muhammed Awad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and with close ties to the Saudi royal family [4]. Before World War I, Muhammed, poor and uneducated, emigrated from Hadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter. Starting his own business in 1930, Muhammed built his fortune as a building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s.
In 1994 bin Laden's family publicly disowned him, shortly before the Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship for anti-government activity. He attended his son's wedding in January 2001, but since September 11 of that year he is believed only to have had contact with his mother on one occasion. [5].
There is no definitive account of the number of children born to Muhammed bin Laden, but the number is generally put at 55. In addition, various accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son. Muhammed bin Laden was married 22 times, although to no more than four women at a time per Sharia law. Osama was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas, nee Alia Ghanem[6], who was born in Syria. [7]
Al-Attas' step family in Jeddah
Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born, according to Khaled M. Batarfi, a senior editor at the Al Madina newspaper in Jeddah who knew Osama during the 1970s. Osama's mother then married a man named Muhammad al-Attas, who worked at the bin Laden company. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister. [8]
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. But from 1968 to 1976, he attended the relatively secular Al-Thager Model School, the most prestigious high school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, called "the school of the élite." [9] However, during the 1960s, King Faisal had welcomed exiled teachers from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, so that around 1971 or 1972, at Saudi high schools and universities, it was common to find many of whom had become involved with dissident members of the Muslim Brotherhood. During that time, bin Laden was exposed to those educators' banned political teachings during after-school Islamic study groups.
As a college student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, bin Laden studied civil engineering and business administration. He earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979 and also one in economics and public administration, in 1981.
At the university, bin Laden was influenced by several professors with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Among them was Muhammad Qutb, an Egyptian, whose brother, the late Sayyid Qutb, had written one of the Brotherhood’s most important tracts about anti-Western jihad, Signposts on the Road. The university at Jeddah is also where bin Laden met Dr. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Azzam was a teacher there while bin Laden was in attendance, and he would later play a crucial role working with bin Laden in the Afghanistan resistance against the Soviets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_laden
September 11, 2001 attacks
Taken from the 12/27/2001 Osama bin Laden video.
Main article: Responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks
On September 9, 2001, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance in Afghanistan that opposed al-Qaeda and the Taliban, was killed by a bomb implanted inside the camera of suicide bombers pretending to be journalists. Waheed Mozhdah, a former Taliban official, is reported to have witnessed the two bombers known as Karim and Arbet picking up the modified video camera.[27]
Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects. According to Waheed Mozhdah, Osama bin Laden wrote a letter two days later to Taliban leader Mullah Omar urging him to attack the Northern Alliance. In the letter, bin Laden noted that America's failure to respond to the September 11 attacks would signal its end as a superpower. [28]
Criminal charges and attempted extradition
As a result of international pressure, Sudan asked bin Laden to leave the country in 1996. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, "Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan," but would not accept offers to extradite him to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden chartered a plane and moved to Afghanistan that year.[3][4] There are conflicting claims as to whether Sudan offered to extradite Bin Laden to the United States in 1996. President Clinton, his administration officials, and the 9-11 commission deny such an offer was made[5][6]; businessman Mansoor Ijaz, former Sudanese officials, and former U.S. ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney claim that extradition offers were made "through unofficial channels" by Sudan[7].
Osama bin Laden, Prosecution exhibit from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.
On June 8, 1998 a United States grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 13 November 1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh[29]. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic terrorists worldwide.[29] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack.
On November 4, 1998 Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death[8] for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former AL Qaeda members and satellite phone records [9][10].
Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure[11]. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him. The U.S. Department of State currently offers a $25 million reward for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction [12].
Where is Osama Bin Laden?
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