Vladislav Davidzonthe art of doing the impossible – thoughts on the great turning

Uhhh right…

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — The state’s school superintendent has proposed striking the word evolution from Georgia’s science curriculum and replacing it with the phrase “biological changes over time.”

The change is included in more than 800 pages of draft revisions to Georgia’s curriculum that have been posted by the Department of Education on its Web site. The middle and high school standards are expected to be voted on by the state Board of Education in May, after public feedback.

Superintendent Kathy Cox said the concept of evolution would still be taught under the proposal, but the word would not be used. The proposal would not require schools to buy new textbooks omitting the word evolution and would not prevent teachers from using it.

CNN’s homepage top headline of the day: “10 killed in Jerusalem terror attack.” A tragedy indeed, but why were the nine Palestinians who were shot by the Israelis the other day not the top headline?

This sort of biased coverage is precisely why Americans think that Israel is in fact defending itself, when the reality is that every suicide bombing is in direct response to an Israeli provocation. Every time, without failure.

Gee, I wonder why Europeans rank Israel as the #1 threat to world peace? Maybe because their media coverage is a bit more balanced? Just a bit?

So the news is out that the Pentagon has requested a budget of over $400 billion, right? It seems that since 9-11, everyone has all but forgotten that the Pentagon happens to have lost at least a trillion dollars (some estimates suggest as many as three trillion).

Now let us put that in perspective… with a budget of about $280 billion through the 90s, that means they cannot account for at least three and a half years of budgets… the money is just *poof* disappeared?

You can read the San Francisco Gate story for yourself…. Also one of several ABC News stories.

Uhrm. Yes. Twilight zone indeed.

Alternet has an excellent piece by Greg Palast about The Governator’s (that is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s) connection to Enron, and the way they stole yet another election.

In a nutshell: lawsuit was pending against Enron that would have resulted in a refund about about 9 billion dollars to the Californians. To settle the lawsuit, the Bush officials needed approval of the Governor. Previous one was pushing for the lawsuit, so these boys came up with a creative solution: recall him!

A friend I did not know died today.

Tom Hurndall, a 22-year old British volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement was getting a child out of the way of gunfire in Rafah (Gaza, Palestine) when an Israeli sniper directly picked him out for a bullet through his head. The sniper has since confessed to shooting Tom just to scare him, even though he knew he was unarmed and posed no threat. Tom has been in a coma since, and today he passed away.

Rest in peace, Tom. You made the ultimate sacrifice for justice, and it will not be forgotten.

This cartoon best summarizes my feelings…

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Oh boy.

WITH A WHISPER, NOT A BANG

On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the
signing – on a Saturday – as “the President signs bills seven days a week.” But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago – on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday.

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