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

I am not sure why, but I read this as good reason to curtail religion period in this country. The right-wing lunatics are leading us right into a religious war.

MSNBC – Poll shows U.S. views on Muslim-Americans
ITHACA, N.Y. – Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim-Americans, according to a nationwide poll.

The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims’ civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious.

Scott Ritter, former chief nuclear weapons inspector for the United Nations has written an incredible article giving a very to-the-point analysis of the uprising against the American occupation of Iraq.

It is just so amusing that the Americans haven’t learned from the Israelis — occupation DOES NOT WORK. People do not like to be occupied. Plain and simple.

Anyway, this is well worth a read…
Aljazeera.Net – The risks of the al-Zarqawi myth

You know Rummy’s in trouble when even William Kristol is calling for his resignation. Sadly, he wasn’t in nearly as much hot water when thousands of American citizens did the same thing last year. And as the good folks over at The Left Coaster point out, now’s a horribly convenient time for Kristol, Hagel, McCain, Collins and the like to develop such sudden concern.

By Stephen DeVoy from http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305622.shtml

Every morning Elizabeth joined her classmates in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. She never thought about what it meant, she just followed through with the other students repeating the words which came out like one very long run-on sentence. It was a mechanical exercise.

Today was different. A new girl, Amy, had transferred to her school from a school in another city. When the time came for the Pledge of Allegiance, she remained sitting, drawing on her notebook. No one ever gave much thought to the process before, until that day, but it was as if someone had scraped their fingernails on the chalkboard. Everyone felt very uncomfortable and they knew it was because one student was not reciting the pledge but they did not know why this bothered them.

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Naomi Klein at her best…

You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is: In Iraq, the US does eliminate those who dare to count the dead.

Naomi Klein Saturday December 4, 2004 The Guardian

David T Johnson, Acting ambassador, US Embassy, London

Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: “In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone – doctors, clerics, journalists – who dares to count the bodies.” Of particular concern was the word “eliminating”.

The letter suggested that my charge was “baseless” and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide “evidence of this extremely grave accusation”. It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.

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Apparently Shrub/Buck/Fush has selected the man who turned New York City into a police state to lead the Ministry of Homeland Security. Mmmph.

Let’s see. This is the dude who finds it acceptable to put boys with M-16 submachine guns into subways. So does this mean we’re about to start seeing the same guarding America’s corn fields against crows?

I could have swore that scarecrows do a fine enough job of that. When combined with all the nifty pesticides, of course. Then again, this guy has some serious experience fighting our so-successful War on Drugs (aka War on Blacks). Ya know, the one where the CIA pumps drugs into the black neighborhoods (see Iran/Contra scandal if you’re clueless) and then our heroic cops go to weed it out, while destroying any hope in black ghettos.

Kerrik is the right man to destroy America (MSNBC)

I must be having a bad nightmare…

“Antonin Scalia, the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, turned history on its head recently when he attended an Orthodox synagogue in New York and claimed that the Founders intended for their Christianity to play a part in government. Scalia then went so far as to suggest that the reason Hitler was able to initiate the Holocaust was because of German separation of church and state.”

Scalia truly *is* the US version of the Taliban. Just without the beard. Sheeshush.

Scalia To Synagogue – Jews Are Safer With Christians In Charge

Wow. Netherlands has taken yet another drastic step to legalizing (and thus regulating) doctors who euthanize children born with severe deformities. It only seems logical as this is routinely done all over the world, by all sorts of doctors and hospitals.

I, for one, would prefer that any life-and-death decisions made by doctors be regulated, rather than done under the table. There is just something very troubling about doctors making these decisions all by themselves, without any oversight and regulation.

I also find it immoral to allow for needless suffering. Anything less than this seems just plain wrong.

About time. Brazil has decided to say f’you to the mega corporations and break the drug patents. They will manufacture their own drugs, and distribute them free to people that need them. Now there is a concept

FREE medicine to people that need it? What a radical idea!

Of course this is yet more news that our media will ignore… Gotta love AlJazeera for reporting things like this.

Click here for the article on AlJazeera