Mar 2008
American Freedom Campaign
25-Mar-08 10:28 PM Filed in: Current Events|Politics
I am a proud supporter of the American Freedom Campaign - an organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution and the battle against our civil liberties and the egregious misuse of executive power by the current administration. I am posting here an appeal for concerned citizens to get involved by signing the AFC petition and, if possible, giving financial support to their efforts. Please take a few minutes to learn more about the AFC, their mission, and why it is important to get involved. The following information is the property of the AFC and is published here at their request. Thanks for your time.
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What would you do to help save our Constitutional Republic?
The American Freedom Campaign has set a goal for itself. We want to expand our base of online supporters from 38,000 to 50,000 people over the course of the next month. With this 30+ percent increase, we will enhance our ability to influence Congress when important bills are under consideration. We will also be able to activate a larger number of Americans during the upcoming general election season when the issue of excessive presidential power should be at the top of the national agenda.
Why should you join the American Freedom Campaign - either by signing our petition or by signing up for AFC updates on our home page? That's a good question, and here is why:
http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/
We hope that you will consider making a financial contribution to the American Freedom Campaign. To visit our donation page, just click on this link:
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/2629/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2644
-------------------------------------------------------
What would you do to help save our Constitutional Republic?
The American Freedom Campaign has set a goal for itself. We want to expand our base of online supporters from 38,000 to 50,000 people over the course of the next month. With this 30+ percent increase, we will enhance our ability to influence Congress when important bills are under consideration. We will also be able to activate a larger number of Americans during the upcoming general election season when the issue of excessive presidential power should be at the top of the national agenda.
Why should you join the American Freedom Campaign - either by signing our petition or by signing up for AFC updates on our home page? That's a good question, and here is why:
- The American Freedom Campaign was launched less than eight months ago to build a grassroots movement to help restore the Constitution and reverse the violations of civil liberties and human rights that have occurred over the past seven years.
- Over the past few months, the American Freedom Campaign has filled an important role in Washington by leading the fight to restore our system of checks and balances. While there are many organizations fighting specific policies considered unconstitutional, few, if any, are focused almost exclusively on restraining executive overreach.
- Consistent with its mission to restore checks and balances, AFC aggressively - and successfully - pushed the U.S. House to pass a contempt resolution against Bush administration officials who refused to comply with congressional subpoenas. The Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, in an article about the contempt vote in the House, cited AFC as an example - in fact, the only example - of an advocacy group generating grassroots pressure on House members.
- AFC has also helped inject constitutional balance of powers issues into the debate over the nation's Iraq policy. As the Bush administration negotiates an agreement with the Iraqi government to establish the parameters of the two nations' bilateral relationship beyond 2008, AFC is working with members of Congress to ensure that no significant commitment is made without the approval of Congress. Toward this end, AFC hosted a conference call on which Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), joined by two constitutional scholars from Yale Law School, introduced a resolution expressing the sense of the House that any major agreement reached without congressional approval will be invalid.
- As the 2008 campaign moves forward, AFC will play a critically important educational role. We will aggressively push the message that the Bush administration's dramatic expansion of executive power makes the selection of the next president one of the most important decisions the citizens of this nation will ever make.
http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/
We hope that you will consider making a financial contribution to the American Freedom Campaign. To visit our donation page, just click on this link:
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/2629/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2644
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Don't Mess With McCain
22-Mar-08 09:47 AM Filed in: Humor|Entertainment
A Single Word Says A Lot...
If there were ever any doubts by anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past seven years, this adequately sums up the Bush Administration's attitude towards the majority of the American population and anyone else who disagrees with them. This little two letter word "So", very accurately portrays the sum total of the entire thought processes and intellectual reasoning that drives the decisions and the policies of the current administration. It doesn't matter what the topic is, whether it is the war in Iraq and the fact that 2/3 of the American people strongly believe that the cost of the war is not worth the astronomical costs to our nation, or whether you are talking about the far ranging dissenting opinions on the use of torture, domestic spying, invasion of privacy or civil liberty violations, The response to all dissenters, to all those who have a differing view, to those who dare not go along with the half baked policies of the megalomaniacs of executive power, is "so?" It's an abbreviated way of saying, "who cares?" Or another way of saying, "policies and decisions can't be based on the will of the people, unless they agree with us."
"Don't go to war in Iraq - they had nothing to do with 9/11" - 'SO"
"The cost of this war is going to be astronomically expensive" - "SO"
"It is against federal and international law to torture people" - "SO"
"Three years after the fact, many people in New Orleans are still suffering from Katrina" - "SO"
"Stem cell research offers the promise of finding medical cures for some of the most deadly diseases known to man" - "SO"
"Forty six million Americans are without health care insurance and stand to lose everything they own should their health fail" - "SO"
And the list goes on and on. Pick your topic, any topic, and the response from this administration is always the same.
This is arrogance completely out of control and it has to stop.
You Damn Dirty Liberal...
16-Mar-08 11:30 PM Filed in: Politics|General Interest
I am quite often amused at how some people throw around the word "liberal" as though it were a branding iron of death. To hear some people describe it, a liberal or liberalism is akin to the plague, leprosy, or any other vile type of repugnant disease which should be avoided and abhorred at all costs. Just recently I've seen writings circulating on the internet decrying the evils of Barack Obama by alerting everyone to the fact that he was a disciple of the evil practice of liberalism - a person that is so scary and radical that he should not be trusted lest he should become President and drag the entire nation down to the bowels of hell. Indeed - "liberals" have been given a bad name by a lot of people over the years, but I'm here to set the record straight.
To begin with, the purpose of this post is not to attempt a grandiose definition of the complexities of liberalism versus conservatism with all of it's various sub-sets and branch ideologies for that would be more the subject of a book than a simple post. Rather, I intend to keep this discussion short and very basic. I would maintain that there are a lot of folks out there who are misusing the word "liberal" and that they don't fully understand the meaning of the word. Therefore, I would like to present a simple definition from both the dictionary and the thesaurus on the word "liberal" and what that word truly means. Feel free to look it up in your own dictionary and thesaurus if you doubt anything you read here. But, if it is true that conservatives are indeed the opposite of liberals in practice, then it would stand to reason that the definitions of the two words would be opposite as well. I present only the word "liberal" as it appears in my copy of the dictionary and thesaurus. I trust that the next time you read or hear someone using the word "liberal" in a negative connotation that you will understand how the word is being misused today.
Dictionary:
liberal |ˈlib(ə)rəl|
adjective
1 open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values
• favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms : liberal citizenship laws.
• (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform
• Theology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 [ attrib. ] (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
3 (esp. of an interpretation of a law) broadly construed or understood; not strictly literal or exact
4 given, used, or occurring in generous amounts : liberal amounts of wine had been consumed.
• (of a person) giving generously
Thesaurus:
liberal
adjective
1 the values of a liberal society tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened; permissive, free, free and easy, easygoing, libertarian, indulgent, lenient. antonym narrow-minded, bigoted.
2 a liberal social agenda progressive, advanced, modern, forward-looking, forward-thinking, progressivist, enlightened, reformist, radical. antonym reactionary, conservative.
3 a liberal education wide-ranging, broad-based, general.
4 a liberal interpretation of divorce laws flexible, broad, loose, rough, free, general, nonliteral, nonspecific, imprecise, vague, indefinite. antonym strict, to the letter.
5 a liberal coating of paint abundant, copious, ample, plentiful, generous, lavish, luxuriant, profuse, considerable, prolific, rich; literary plenteous. antonym scant.
6 they were liberal with their cash generous, openhanded, unsparing, unstinting, ungrudging, lavish, free, munificent, bountiful, beneficent, benevolent, bighearted, philanthropic, charitable, altruistic, unselfish; literary bounteous. antonym careful, miserly.
To begin with, the purpose of this post is not to attempt a grandiose definition of the complexities of liberalism versus conservatism with all of it's various sub-sets and branch ideologies for that would be more the subject of a book than a simple post. Rather, I intend to keep this discussion short and very basic. I would maintain that there are a lot of folks out there who are misusing the word "liberal" and that they don't fully understand the meaning of the word. Therefore, I would like to present a simple definition from both the dictionary and the thesaurus on the word "liberal" and what that word truly means. Feel free to look it up in your own dictionary and thesaurus if you doubt anything you read here. But, if it is true that conservatives are indeed the opposite of liberals in practice, then it would stand to reason that the definitions of the two words would be opposite as well. I present only the word "liberal" as it appears in my copy of the dictionary and thesaurus. I trust that the next time you read or hear someone using the word "liberal" in a negative connotation that you will understand how the word is being misused today.
Dictionary:
liberal |ˈlib(ə)rəl|
adjective
1 open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values
• favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms : liberal citizenship laws.
• (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform
• Theology regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2 [ attrib. ] (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.
3 (esp. of an interpretation of a law) broadly construed or understood; not strictly literal or exact
4 given, used, or occurring in generous amounts : liberal amounts of wine had been consumed.
• (of a person) giving generously
Thesaurus:
liberal
adjective
1 the values of a liberal society tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened; permissive, free, free and easy, easygoing, libertarian, indulgent, lenient. antonym narrow-minded, bigoted.
2 a liberal social agenda progressive, advanced, modern, forward-looking, forward-thinking, progressivist, enlightened, reformist, radical. antonym reactionary, conservative.
3 a liberal education wide-ranging, broad-based, general.
4 a liberal interpretation of divorce laws flexible, broad, loose, rough, free, general, nonliteral, nonspecific, imprecise, vague, indefinite. antonym strict, to the letter.
5 a liberal coating of paint abundant, copious, ample, plentiful, generous, lavish, luxuriant, profuse, considerable, prolific, rich; literary plenteous. antonym scant.
6 they were liberal with their cash generous, openhanded, unsparing, unstinting, ungrudging, lavish, free, munificent, bountiful, beneficent, benevolent, bighearted, philanthropic, charitable, altruistic, unselfish; literary bounteous. antonym careful, miserly.
Neologism At It's Best
12-Mar-08 11:53 PM Filed in: Humor|Entertainment
I found this over at Chaikaroma's blog - I usually don't repost, but this one is too good to pass up.
Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
And the winners are...
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.
And the winners are...
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
Surf's Up - Grab Your Water-board
08-Mar-08 09:36 PM Filed in: Politics|Current Events
President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as water-boarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks. "The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. (from the Associated Press).
Bush cites the terrorist bombing attacks that occurred on July 7, 2005 in London as justification for why we should continue the practice of water-boarding so as to prevent future attacks. But, exactly "which attacks have been thwarted by the use of water-boarding?" This is the question that needs to be answered. Bush has stated on several occasions: "To the critics, I ask them this: when we, within the law, interrogate and get information that protects ourselves and possibly others in other nations to prevent attacks, which attack would they have hoped that we wouldn't have prevented?"
Indeed sir, which attacks specifically have been prevented by the diabolical use of water-boarding? I'd really like to know. Bush has also stated that the actions that he is taking on this are "within the law" and that the Justice Dept. will review to make certain that it is within the law. Guess what? The Justice Dept. has not done so and has never made a statement that water-boarding is legal, simply because it is not. It is a torture technique that simulates death by drowning and has been used through out history including the Inquisition and various wars including the Vietnam war.
Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, who has been vociferously opposed to the use of water-boarding and who has on a number of occasions reprimanded fellow Republicans for taking such a lax stance against it's use, has repeatedly said that there is no question that it is torture, and as such he questioned the effectiveness of it's use. But, alas, John McCain voted against the Senate bill that banned the use of water-boarding against detainees. I wonder why? It is very curious to see McCain change positions on such a poignant position. Could this also be a clue as to what kind of a President he might be?
Here is the problem in my opinion. We have an administration today that talks about morality and family values and decency and all the other virtues which are vital to any healthy society, and they are willing to push and promote these ideals (even at the expense of other people's civil liberties), that in their attempt to justify and condone the war in Iraq, their moral compass has spun so far off center that it is completely pointing in the wrong direction. They are so turned around and confused that they don't even recognize torture and abuse when they look it square in the eyes. How can one not understand that the practice of torture cannot yield verifiable, dependable information that can be acted upon? Just ask John McCain. A person will say anything to prevent pain, they will confess to anything to prevent suffering, and they will reveal as many terrorist plans as you'd like to deliver and not a shred of it will be necessarily true.
Understand, I am not questioning President Bush's or John McCain's patriotism or willingness to protect innocent lives, I am only attempting to point out what happens when you willfully choose to take the easy route instead of the hard one. If we were really serious about busting Al Qaeda and learning their secrets, we wouldn't resort to something as easy and primitive as torture - we would try to work harder to get real, tangible information; and I hope that we are doing that. In the words of Thomas Paine, a man wise beyond his years, he stated: "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." He also stated: _
It simply must also be noted that the use of torture on detainees who are caught on the battlefield does not mean that the only detainees who will be captured and potentially tortured are the bad guys. Where are the battlefields in the war on terror? It is the city streets and neighborhoods of towns and cities and many innocent civilians could easily be rounded up in a raid and because of their proximity to a known enemy encampment automatically be considered as enemy combatants. The likelihood then of receiving false information by torturing innocent civilians is even further exacerbated. That thought alone should make anyone recoil against the very notion.
And lastly, if the world sees that America openly supports, condones, and justifies the blatant use of torture as a permissible way to extract information from a prisoner, then that sends the clear signal that it is quite OK for the rest of the world to treat American military and civilians in the same manner. Because we fool ourselves into believing that "if we do it then it's OK, but if you do it then it's evil", we so blur the line of morality that we only deceive ourselves - no one else. In the end, we lose the moral high ground and we have started down the road to thinking and behaving in the same manner as the terrorists - and that is a really, really scary thought so we better stop for a minute and reconsider this matter again. These are my opinions; I welcome any comments that may differ.
Test Post
07-Mar-08 02:12 PM Filed in: Emergency
This is a test post only - this post is performing a series of emergency tests in the blogospheric domain. Had this been an actual emergency post it would have been followed by a series of enigmatic instructions and random color code designations of severity to further instruct you on just how serious the emergency actually exists. This concludes this test post publication - we return you now to normal blogging.
