Troops Supporter Unceremoniously Ejected!
Thankfully, the hard working people whose job it is to protect our leader from any exposure to dissent were on the ball last night. Rabble rouser Cindy Sheehan thought it would be cute to wear a brazenly anti-Bush t-shirt to the SOTU address.
Cindy Sheehan finally got her invitation to see President Bush again, but before she set eyes on him at the State of the Union address, Capitol Police removed her from the gallery overlooking the House chamber.
The offense: her shirt, bearing an anti-war message and other "unlawful conduct," police said.
Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was handcuffed and charged with unlawful conduct, according to Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. The charge was a misdemeanor and Sheehan was being released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.
Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to Tuesday night's speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed in the House chamber, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.
Good. The shameless hussy has no right to speak her mind unless she's ready to apologize to Our Leader for all the hell she's put him through – rudely camping out near his house and shrilly calling for policy changes that she is in no way qualified to have an opinion about.
So, good job on ejecting the wacko non-conformist peacenik, but, unfortunately, in their zeal to protect Our Leader from ideas that hurt, the Thought Police seem to have targeted an innocent Republican, a strong supporter of the war and, of course, the troops.
Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores, said she was ejected from the House gallery during Tuesday night's State of the Union address because she was wearing a T-shirt that said "Support the Troops - Defending Our Freedom."
Young said she was sitting in the gallery's front row, about six seats from first lady Laura Bush, when she was approached by someone from the Capitol Police or sergeant-at-arms office who told her she needed to leave the gallery.
She reluctantly agreed but argued with several officers in the hallway outside the House chamber.
"They said I was protesting," she said in a telephone interview late Tuesday. "I said, "Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, "We consider that a protest.' I said, "Then you are an idiot."'
She said she was so angry that "I got real colorful with them."
They told her she was being treated the same as Cindy Sheehan, an antiwar protester who was ejected before the speech Tuesday night for wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan and refusing to cover it up.
Young, 50, said her shirt was not a protest but a message of support for U.S. soldiers and Marines fighting for their country. She often wears the T-shirts when visiting her husband at the Capitol and during her visits to see the wounded at military hospitals.
Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police could not provide details about the incident but said, "She was not ejected from the gallery. She did leave on her own."
Young's husband, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, was unaware she was removed until after the speech. He said he was furious about the incident.
"I just called for the chief of police and asked him to get his little tail over here," Rep. Young said late Tuesday. "This is not acceptable."
Beverly Young said, "Wait until the president finds out."
Yeah, there's gonna be hell to pay if Our Leader ever finds out about this. Folks should be able to enjoy the right to express their lockstep support of Our Leader's policies, and everyone knows that the best way to support the troops and show fealty to Our Leader is to wear an uberjingoistic T-shirt. Or put on a campaign bumper sticker. Same thing.
Anyway, my point is that training obviously needs to be improved, because ejecting someone for expressing the correct point of view simply wont do.
Florida missionaries ordered out of Venezuela
Despite their fervent prayers for deliverance from the hateful edicts of a bunch of natives who obviously don't know what's best for themselves, God has allowed Hugo Chavez to oust the proselytizers who seek to foist the wisdom of Jesus as interpreted by a bunch of wealthy white colonialists into the lives of the indigenous peoples of Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatened to kick some Christian U.S. missionaries out of the country Wednesday, as he presented property titles to indigenous groups who he said had been robbed of their ancient homelands.
Hundreds of people from various indigenous groups gathered in this small village in southern Apure state for a ceremony recognizing their ownership of thousands of hectares of land.
''We are doing justice,'' said Chávez, dressed in military fatigues and a red beret. ``We can now start to say that there is a homeland for the Indians.''
Chávez said that he was also ordering the expulsion of a group of Christian missionaries working with indigenous groups, called the New Tribes Mission, accusing the Sanford, Florida-based religious organization of cultural imperialism.
''The New Tribes are leaving Venezuela. This is an irreversible decision that I have made,'' said Chávez. ``We don't want the New Tribes here. Enough colonialism!''
The New Tribes Mission specializes in evangelism among the 3,000 indigenous groups in the world's remotest tracts, places that remain isolated from the outside world.
It has assembled one of the largest missionary forces with 3,200 workers and operations in 17 nations across Latin America, Southeast Asia and West Africa.
Chávez accused the group of sharing ''sensitive, strategic'' information about Venezuela with the CIA, without elaborating. He also accused the missionaries of constructing luxurious camps next to impoverished Indian villages and circumventing Venezuelan customs authorities as they freely flew in and out on private planes.
''These violations of our national sovereignty has to stop,'' he said.
Chávez indicated the group would not be expelled immediately, but given time to leave.
Nita Zelenak, a New Tribes representative reached by telephone, declined to comment on Venezuela's decision or say how many missionaries were based here.
Chavez held the ceremony on the holiday known to many as Columbus Day, marking the arrival of European explorers in the present-day Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492. Chávez's government renamed the holiday ''Day of Indigenous Resistance'' three years ago.
Chávez, a nationalist who says he is leading a ''revolution'' for the poor, often praises Indian chiefs who stood up to their Spanish conquerors in the centuries after Christopher Columbus reached Venezuela in 1498.
Christopher Columbus made his first landfall on the South American continent in 1498 in what today is the country of Venezuela. Five hundred years later, the people who greeted him are thriving and enjoying new rights and prestige under Hugo Chávez’s Revolutionary Boliviarian government. Looking at recent political changes in Venezuela from the point of view of its original inhabitants helps reveal the nature of Chávez’s government, as well as highlighting why the elite see him as such a threat to their previously hegemonic control over the country.
......In Venezuela, on the other hand, rich resources allowed a disperse population to thrive based on hunting, gathering, and agricultural production. Without a tradition of social stratification leading to an easily exploitable subjugated population accustomed to providing labor and tribute to an elite class, the Spanish made slower progress in colonizing the region than they did in Mexico or the Andes. Instead, the Europeans turned to Catholic missions to “civilize” the aboriginal population and began to import slave labor from Africa to work on their plantations. Indigenous leaders such as Guaicaipuro led the resistance to European encroachments onto their lands, while western penetration pushed them further to the margins.
......Today, Venezuela has a small but diverse Indigenous population that mostly lives far from the capital city of Caracas on the country’s border regions with Guyana, Brazil, and Colombia. Numbering only about 1.5 percent of Venezuela’s 23 million people, they are divided into about 28 different ethnic groups. The largest group, with about 200,000, are the Wayúu (also known as the Guajíra) who live in the state of Zulia on the Colombia border. Smaller groups live in the southern and eastern states of Amazonas, Bolívar, Delta Amacuro, Anzoátegui, and Apure. In addition to the Wayúu, these groups include the Warao, Pemón, Añú, Yanomani, Jivi, Piaroa, Kariña, Pumé, Yekuana, Yukpa, Eñepá, Kurripakao, Barí, Piapoko, Baré, Baniva, Puinave, Yeral, Jodi, Kariná, Warekena, Yarabana, Sapé, Wanai, and Uruak.
They are all prime targets for civilization by New Tribes, even though it can be very frustrating dealing with ignorant savages who ignore the alarms on their Palm Pilots.
Carlos, who is missionary Fran Cochran’s co-worker in translating Scripture into the Maquiritare language, was saddened that some of his people haven’t learned that time does have a place.
When some church leaders failed to show for the opening day of the seminar, Carlos said, “If they knew the day and time that Jesus was coming back, they wouldn’t be ready.”
But seminar leaders were impressed by one group of church leaders from Mawashiña. They walked more than five days and then traveled another two days by boat to reach the seminar on time.
......Pray for the growth of the Maquiritare church, and pray that they will learn that there are some areas where time is important.
Because God really hates it when you're late for Carlos' seminar.
Bonus link: a little taste of indigenous life.
Webmaster arrested…
for porn. Yeah that's the ticket... porn!
A man who runs a pornographic Web site that includes pictures of Iraqi war dead has been arrested on sexual obscenity charges.
Chris Wilson, a 27-year-old former policeman from Lakeland, was taken into custody Friday night on one felony and 300 misdemeanor indecency counts unrelated to the grisly pictures from Iraq. The charges come a week after his site made national news and launched a Pentagon investigation into how war zone photos of charred and dismembered bodies described as victims of U.S. attacks could have surfaced.
Polk County sheriff's officials said he was charged because the Web site also features sexually explicit pictures and videos that users send of women who are supposedly their wives and girlfriends — including those who appear to be active-duty soldiers.
Sheriff's officials insist the charges are unrelated to the Iraq pictures, but Wilson's lawyer, Lawrence Walters, disagreed.
"Of all the hundreds of thousands of webmasters in the country, and even in central Florida, why would Chris Wilson be arrested a week after he hits national spotlight news on the Iraqi war photos?" said Walters, a First Amendment specialist. "I think any reasonable person would be suspicious of that.
Wilson remained in jail Saturday afternoon after the judge in his initial appearance denied his request to lower the $151,000 bail.
Now Thats Fucked Up - the site in question.
Priorities
In times of crisis, our government tends to prioritize the protection of the wealthy - both person and property. Warnings against looting the Wal-Mart are sounded even as thousands suffer and die. Clean, well fed hotel guests are given priority treatment during evacuations, and then weapons are seized, but only from the poor, lest they get any ideas about redistribution of wealth.
In contrast, Cuba is known for keeping all of its people safe and nourished during hurricanes. They practice and plan, and they watch out for each other. They've offered us some expert help in the form of hurricane provisioned medical teams. We wont return their calls.
Before Hurricane Ivan whipped Cuba last year with 160 mph winds, the government evacuated nearly 2-million people. The result: not a single death or serious injury.
Although it is a small, poor country in the heart of hurricane alley, Cuba is widely acknowledged to do an exemplary job of protecting its 11.3-million residents from natural disasters. Its record is even more impressive in light of the catastrophic loss of life that the United States - the world's richest and most technologically advanced nation - is experiencing from Hurricane Katrina.
......Cuba's form of government - communist and authoritarian - undoubtedly helps it to quickly mobilize in emergencies. But the real key to success is a "culture of safety" in which people at all levels of government and society are committed to reducing risks and saving lives, according to a study by Oxfam, a charity that works in ravaged areas worldwide.
"The single most important thing about disaster response in Cuba is that people cooperate en masse," the study found.
As Hurricane Georges approached in 1998, a foreign aid worker living in Havana was astonished by the attention to preparedness, she told Oxfam.
"We had a steady stream of neighbors in and out of our apartment, counseling us to fill the bathtub with water, tape the windows, unplug all electrical items, get batteries or candles and put the car in the garage."
At the same time, a neighborhood representative from the Federation of Cuban Women checked on the "vulnerable population," including elderly people and single mothers who might need help evacuating. "Everyone, even the children, knew what to do," the foreigner noted.
Despite its poverty, Cuba has a high literacy rate - almost 96 percent. Instruction in disaster preparedness begins in grade school and continues through higher education and into the workplace. Under a 1976 law, every adult receives civil defense training.
......Most important, all those living in high-risk areas know beforehand where to take refuge - in sturdy homes on high ground or in group shelters, usually schools. Every shelter is stocked with food, water and medical supplies.
There are even plans for moving electrical appliances and other valuables.
"That is interesting because in countries where this is not the case, some people are very hesitant to evacuate because they are afraid of looting," Zupka says.
......"They invented the science of hurricane forecasting, and they have a rather robust technical capability," says Frank Lepore, public affairs manager for the U.S. National Hurricane Center. To reduce economic losses, cattle are moved to higher ground and crops are harvested if time permits. All forms of transportation - buses, helicopters, even horse carts - are pressed into service to get people to shelter.
......In Katrina's wake, Castro has offered to send 1,586 doctors to the nearby Gulf Coast, where many people reportedly have died for lack of medical attention.
"These doctors . . . could already be there offering their services," Castro told volunteers Sunday as reported by Cuban media. "Forty-eight hours have passed and we have not received any response to our reiterated offer."
As of Thursday, the State Department said only that "every offer is still being considered."
Support Cindy Sheehan
Click the link to show your support for Cindy Sheehan.
The mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who started a quiet roadside peace vigil near President Bush's ranch last weekend is drawing supporters from across the nation.
Dozens of people have joined her and others have sent flowers and food.
Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., says she was surprised at the response.
"Before my son was killed, I used to think that one person could not make a difference," she said Wednesday under a tent where she has slept since Saturday. "But one person that is surrounded and supported by millions of people can be heard."
Although a few residents have complained about the protesters, no one has been arrested because the group has been on the public right of way, said Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office.
On Saturday, two high-level Bush administration officials, the national security adviser and deputy White House chief of staff, talked to Sheehan for about 20 minutes.
Sheehan called the brief meeting "pointless" and still wants to talk to the president.
......Although she doesn't expect Bush to meet with her in Crawford, she says if he did she would ask him whether he has encouraged his twin daughters to enlist.
"I want him to quit using my son's death to justify more killing," she said. "The only way he can honor my son's death is to bring the troops home."
BlogWood Redux: Blogged Again.
The following post first appeared in December, 2004.
December 21st, 2004
Blogged Again
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A Freeway Blogger has struck BlogWood International Headquarters. This is the second time this year that some unknown persons have taken advantage of the highly visible BlogWood campus.
This time, the Executive Residence Building was struck, and a large sign in the memory of a fallen American soldier was placed high up on the balcony fronting Tampa St.
With today's grim news still trickling in, this soldier is just one of at least 1319 dead American troops. That's over 1300 American lives, and counting, thrown away in a stupid, baseless, unwinnable war.
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Jim Davis shows lukewarm support for working class
The House narrowly approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement this morning, delivering a hard-fought victory to President Bush while underscoring the nation's deep divisions over trade.
The 217 to 215 vote came just after midnight, in a dramatic finish that highlighted the intensity brought by both sides to the battle. When the usual 15-minute voting period expired at 11:17 p.m., the no votes outnumbered the yes votes by 180 to 175, with dozens of members undeclared. House Republican leaders kept the voting open for another 47 minutes, furiously rounding up holdouts in their own party until they had secured just enough to ensure approval.
The House vote was effectively the last hurdle -- and by far the steepest -- facing CAFTA, which will tear down barriers to trade and investment between the United States, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
......During last night's debate, which lasted 2 1/2 hours, the bitterness of the Democrats' opposition shone through in condemnations such as that by Ohio's Dennis J. Kucinich, who thundered: "CAFTA is for multinational companies who want to make a profit by shutting plants in the United States and moving to places with cheap labor."
......The Democrats voting in favor were Reps. Victor F. Snyder (Ark.), Melissa L. Bean (Ill.), Dennis Moore (Kan.), William J. Jefferson (La.), Ike Skelton (Mo.), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Edolphus Towns (N.Y.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), John S. Tanner (Tenn.), Henry Cuellar (Tex.), Ruben Hinojosa (Tex.), Solomon P. Ortiz (Tex.), Jim Matheson (Utah), James P. Moran Jr. (Va.) and Norman D. Dicks (Wash.).
Jim Davis is not on this list. Call and thank him for doing the right thing.
WASHINGTON:
409 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-3376
FAX: (202) 225-5652
DISTRICT:
3315 Henderson Boulevard
Suite 100
Tampa, Florida 33609
(813) 354-9217
Florida Toll Free: 1 (888) 266-0205
Fax: (813) 354-9514
Satellite Office:
1186 62nd Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33705
(727) 867-5301
FAX: (727) 867-5302
More:
In west-central Florida, Reps. C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, and Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, voted for CAFTA. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, who is running for governor and usually supports free trade, voted against it.
Davis said he primarily voted no because he had concerns that the administration would not hold CAFTA countries accountable for enforcement of labor and environmental laws.
"Trade agreements are promises, and promises are only good if they are kept," he said.
Bring it on?
Wow. That whole strategy of swaggering “bring it on,” and “we'll draw them to Iraq and fight them there” is really working out, aint it?
Free societies will always be susceptible to attacks like this, but attacks grow much less likely if an effort is made to reach out to the rest of the world rather than fueling the hatred through violent and oppressive foreign policy.
I'm sure that the clamor from the usual suspects for more security and restricted civil liberties has already begun, but there's simply no way, short of an all out police state, to protect the vast vulnerable infrastructure that we rely on to go about our daily lives.
We're fond of invading sovereign nations, shattering innocent lives and spiriting suspects away to be tortured without trial. That's not how our system is supposed to work. Terrorists need to be arrested and tried in open court, with all the rights that every other criminal defendant in the US gets. Real trials. Real evidence. Real jail cells for those convicted. And, yes, freedom for those against whom the government cannot prove a case.
Until we get back to the ideals which we claim to hold dear, our gross hypocrisy, spewing words of freedom while denying freedom to others through brute force, becomes the most effective tool in our enemies' recruitment arsenal.
Happy 4th
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, 'are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Frederick Douglass - What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July 5, 1852
Rove: liberals want troops to die
The SP Times blasts Karl Rove and the White House today for Rove's nasty speech in NYC this week.
Before an audience of cheering conservatives this week, Karl Rove lambasted liberals for their "moderation and restraint" in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war," Rove said. "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
What a despicable smear coming from the political right hand of the president of the United States. Democrats are demanding that Rove apologize or resign, but the White House defended his remarks and - get this - accused Rove's critics of engaging in partisan attacks. Only last week Rove was demanding that Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., apologize for comparing U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the methods of Nazis, Stalin and Pol Pot. Durbin apologized. But Rove is hanging tough.
The Times gets it partially right: Rove's remarks were outrageous, and the double standards applied to this and the Durbin case are hypocritical, to say the least. Of course, Durbin was right. He apologized anyway, which just energized his detractors, and they continue to tenaciously attack him. This crowd sees an apology simply as a sign of weakness.
But the Times, like many other news outlets, is ignoring the most outrageous of Rove's remarks. Rove said that liberals strive to kill American troops. Not that liberals fail to support the troops or even that liberal policies would put them in danger, but that liberals want harm to come to American soldiers.
"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
The motives of liberals are to put our troops in greater danger. That's what he said, and that's what the White House is defending. They planned this offensive to distract from W's plummeting poll numbers, the Downing Street Memo and the rest of the increasingly bad news emerging from Iraq.
If these vicious clowns had simply dedicated the same energy and forethought to fighting terror, our troops would be safe at home right now celebrating the capture and trial of Osama rather than being sucked deeper and deeper into the Mesopotamian morass.
Now the White Hosue is trying to brush off the controversy as simply philosophical differences. Here's a philosophic reality check.
Democrats
Believe capturing the person primarily responsible for the attack should be a top priority.Republicans
It's been four years, and Osama bin Laden is still free, even though Bush's CIA chief says he knows where he is.Democrats
Investigate the intelligence failures that led to 9/11.Republicans
Do everything in their power to block the 9/11 Commission from doing its work.Democrats
Propose creating the Department of Homeland Security.Republicans
Push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.Democrats
Believe we should have stayed the course in Afghanistan, not allowing the Taliban to resurge, the warlords to take power, and the opium trade to skyrocket.Republicans
Ignore Afghanistan as the situation worsens.Democrats
Believe that we should be honest with our troops about the reasons we go to war, give them everything they need to be safe, and make sure we go in with an exit plan.Republicans
Manipulate intelligence to trump up reasons to go to war, don't give our troops the support they need, constantly mislead the public about the direction the war is going, and fail to make an exit plan. And turn Iraq into the ultimate terrorist training ground.
Enlisting the hawks
You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more troops to the war zone. But from the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight.
......The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids?
Help the flag-waving hawks with their important ethical question.