April 30th, 2007
Fascist America in 10 easy steps.
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
Global warming! Global warming! We’re all going to die.
2. Create a gulag
Demand the ouster of people who do not accept the “consensus” about global warming from their jobs. (Prison to follow.)
3. Develop a thug caste
Send in the screeching hordes to shout down anyone who disagrees with global warming “consensus.”
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
Set up “global warming deniers database .” (If we weren’t before, we expect to be on it shortly).
5. Harass citizens’ groups
See 3.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
So far, only refusing to allow publication of opinions that disagree with “consensus” in scientific journals and threatening letters from US Senators - give it time.
7. Target key individuals
Expect to be reviled and accused of being a tool of the oil companies if you dare to speak out against the “consensus.”
8. Control the press
The New York Times. Case closed.
9. Dissent equals treason
See 4.
10. Suspend the rule of law
Give them a chance at power and the full set will be complete.
Amazing how that works, isn’t it?
April 13th, 2007
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, April 13, 2007
BEIJING — The Chinese government is launching a new crackdown on online pornography, complaining it has “perverted China’s young minds,” a state news agency said Friday.
The Ministry of Public Security says the six-month campaign will target cyber strip shows and sexually explicit images, stories and audio and video clips, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
“The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China’s young minds,” Zhang Xinfeng, a deputy public security minister, was quoted as saying Thursday.
Also Friday, police announced that two Web site operators were sentenced to four years in prison and a third got one year for distributing pornographic movies and other materials in separate cases last year, the Xinhua agency reported.
One of the Web sites had signed up 260,000 users when its operator was arrested last year, Xinhua reported. In another case, it said, four people were arrested for distributing material online and 400 computers were seized.
Police also have broken up crime rings that used the Internet to organize prostitution, Xinhua said.
The latest campaign also will target illegal online lotteries and contraband trade, fraud and “content that spreads rumors and is of a slanderous nature,” Zhang said at a news conference.
In China’s biggest online porn case to date, Web site operator Chen Hui was sentenced in November to life in prison. The government said his Web site had more than 9 million pornographic images and more than 600,000 registered users.
China has the world’s second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 137 million people online.
The communist government encourages Internet use for education and business but tries to block access to material considered obscene or subversive.
“The inflow of pornographic materials from abroad and lax domestic control are to blame for the existing problems in China’s cyberspace,” Zhang said.
According to Xinhua, the Beijing Reformatory for Juvenile Delinquents said 33.5 percent of its detainees were influenced by violent online games or erotic Web sites when they committed crimes such as robbery and rape.
April 11th, 2007
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
(04-10) 18:42 PDT — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, just back from a trip to Syria that sparked sharp criticism from Republicans and the Bush administration, suggested Tuesday that they may be interested in taking another diplomatic trip - to open a dialogue with Iran.
The Democratic speaker from San Francisco and Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were asked at a press conference in San Francisco Tuesday whether on the heels of their recent trip to the Middle East they would be interested in extending their diplomacy in the troubled region with a visit to Iran.
“Speaking just for myself, I would be ready to get on a plane tomorrow morning, because however objectionable, unfair and inaccurate many of (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s) statements are, it is important that we have a dialogue with him,'’ Lantos said. “Speaking for myself, I’m ready to go — and knowing the speaker, I think that she might be.'’
Pelosi did not dispute that statement, and noted that Lantos — a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust — brought “great experience, knowledge and judgment” to the recent bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia in addition to Syria.
“I find the president of Iran’s remarks to be so repulsive that they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior,'’ Pelosi said, referring to Ahmadinejad’s past comments that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map and his questioning of the existence of the Holocaust.
“But a person of Mr. Lantos’ stature and personal experience is saying that — even as a Holocaust survivor and even recognizing the outrageous statements of the president of Iran — it’s important to have dialogue. I think that speaks volumes.'’
Pelosi was criticized by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the administration for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who the administration said has meddled in the politics and fomented violence in Iraq and Lebanon and is a state sponsor of terrorism. Other Republicans, however, also visited Syria during the current congressional recess. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), visited Syria a day after the Pelosi delegation and said the Bush administration should be talking with Assad as a way of trying to bring peace to the region.
The president also has tried to isolate Iran, saying its government, too, has aided attacks against Americans in Iraq and elsewhere while ramping up its efforts to build nuclear weapons.
Lantos said that for more than a decade, he has been trying to obtain a visa to visit Tehran with the help of former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan — and to date neither he nor any other member of Congress has been successful.
Pelosi said that throughout the congressional delegation’s recent Middle East trip, “every place we went we had a constant message: the safety and security of Israel, fighting terrorism.'’
“There was, of course, a shadow over all of it, Iran: Iran’s support of terrorist groups is something that must be stopped,'’ she said. “Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon is something that must not happen and we must stop them with the strongest of diplomatic measures.'’
Lantos noted that “with the speaker’s support,'’ he has co-sponsored legislation in the House that calls for making available to all countries — including Iran — nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes under international oversight by establishing a “nuclear fuel bank.”
“So if the Iranian president says that he is developing (nuclear material) for peaceful purposes, we are assisting him in that process,'’ said Lantos, who anticipated the legislation could pass as early as May.
April 10th, 2007
As if this ever would have been allowed under Saddam’s reign of terror.
Followers of radical anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr tear up an American flag the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, Monday, April 9, 2007, on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to the US forces. Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Najaf and Kufa in a rally that was called for by al-Sadr who issued a statement ordering his militiamen to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq’s army and police should join him in defeating “your archenemy.” (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
April 9th, 2007
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© April 7, 2007
CHESAPEAKE - Two Marines in their dress uniforms - the ones with white hats, khaki shirts and blue trousers with red stripe - say they were accused of recruiting at a Target department store here and told to leave.
“We weren’t recruiting,” according to Cpl. Carlos Rodriguez, 22, who said he returned in October from his second combat tour in Iraq. “I just popped in to say hi to a guy I went to high school with. He works there.”
But an assistant manager who saw Rodriguez and the other Marine apparently thought otherwise and showed them the door, according to both servicemen.
Manager Brian Sherman, who was not in the Chesapeake South store Monday when the alleged incident happened, denied Friday that the Marines were ordered out. But he said he was told they were talking to employees.
“They were not asked to leave, in fact they walked around the store and continued to shop,” Sherman said.
Target has a strict no-solicitation policy, he said.
Rodriguez said he and the other Marine were in the Target about 10 a.m. Monday, when they had some slack time from their duties. The second Marine, a private, asked not to be identified because he’s new to the Corps, but he affirmed Rodriguez’s account.
Rodriguez, who is getting out of the Marines in June, and the private, who just completed boot camp training at Parris Island, S.C., are both on temporary duty back in their hometown of Chesapeake.
While they are assigned to a local recruiting office, they are not recruiters and work only as assistants, Rodriguez said.
He said he was talking to his high school friend in Target “briefly and then we were walking toward the CDs when this guy comes out of nowhere. He was the shift manager, or something, and the first thing he started saying was, ‘You guys are recruiters, right?’ “
Sherman declined to identify the assistant manager because he had not talked to him yet.
The assistant manager said he couldn’t have the Marines in the store soliciting workers for the military while they were on the company’s clock, Rodriguez said.
“I didn’t want to make a scene,” Rodriguez said. “We were representing Marines anyway just by wearing the uniform, so I kept my mouth shut.”
Then, Rodriguez said, “this retired Navy SEAL came up behind us and he said, ‘You forget what… country this is,’ and he goes off on (the assistant manager) saying, ‘You have no right to throw them out of Target just because they are talking to one of your employees.’ “
“He got everything out in the open that I was thinking, so I kind of left with a grin,” Rodriguez said.
George Rodriguez, the corporal’s father and a former Navy officer, said in an interview that he told his son, ” Now you know how I felt the first time I came back from Vietnam because it was like that all over the country.”
A Marine Corps official based in Norfolk, Col. Jenny Holbert, said Friday that while the uniform the Marines were wearing is typical of those worn by recruiters, Rodriquez and the private were not recruiters.
“Were they recruiting? That’s inconsequential really,” Holbert said.
Sherman said no one had filed a formal complaint.
He said he believed the incident has been blown out of proportion.
“We have a no-solicitation policy,” Sherman said. “It has been in the news before. It’s the same thing we went through with the Salvation Army and we give a lot of money to them. But we don’t necessarily allow them to solicit on our property.”
Target banned the Salvation Army’s Christmas-time kettles from all its stores in 2004.
Sherman provided Target corporate statements that say since 2002, it has been “the victim of a misleading e-mail campaign, which grossly misrepresents our support of veterans and our soldiers.”
“Target supports many charitable causes, including veterans’ organizations,” according to a statement. “For years we have donated funds and volunteer hours to local and national veteran and military organizations around the country.”
April 2nd, 2007
Considering all the e-mail’s floating around these days it’s hard to believe that any of them are true. To the best of my knowledge and a leading internet authority, this one is.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
Original e-mail
LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING 2 HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.
HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.
HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.
HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion)
is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.
HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on
a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush. So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON’T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it’s truly “an inconvenient truth”.
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