Not evil enough...

How evil are you?

Freedom?

What is freedom? Amendment I of the US Constitution guarantees certain freedoms.

Freedom for Dummies

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

There is a reason that these freedoms were placed first in the Bill of Rights. The founding fathers believed that words are a more powerful force than guns. If people are allowed to speak and write freely about political issues and their government it is less likely that they will find it necessary to overthrow the government by force.

In recent months anyone who has spoken out against thge war in Iraq has been labeled anti-American by the pro-war "patriotic" Americans. Many of those same people who are telling us that we should leave the country because we exercise our right to speek againstthe government also want to force us to comply with their religious beliefs. They want our children to be forced to pray in public schools; they want anti-abortion protestors to be able to block entrances to women's health clinics but criticize us for protesting the killing of thousands of Iraqi civilians by our bombs and bullets.

Most of the people who decided to populate this continent did so to escape religious persecution or to freely practice their faith. Many others were brought here against their will as slaves by those same people, but that's another story. Now many of those groups want write their religious beliefs into law.

The meaning of the Second Amendment has been debated for years and will continue to be debated. I am no constitutional scholar but I have my opinion.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

The first words of the amendment, "A well regulated militia", indicate that the purpose of the right "to keep and bear arms" is to protect the people of the states from the federal government. The NRA-types like to believe that this gives each of them the absolute right to keep an arsenal of weapons in their homes. I think that it could be argued that the states could prohibit individual ownership of firearms while keeping arms for use of a state militia.

Anyhow, those are just some thoughts. I don't claim to be 100% right, as some people do, so if you want to disagree with me please use the comments section.

"We do not even know the extent of our ignorance..."

Here is an excerpt from Professor Robert Darnton's op-ed piece in last Sunday's Washington Post

Few people appreciate the fragility of civilizations and the fragmentary character of our knowledge about them. Most students believe that what they read in history books corresponds to what humanity lived through in the past, as if we have recovered all the facts and assembled them in the correct order, as if we have it under control, got it down in black on white, and packaged it securely between a textbook's covers. That illusion quickly dissipates for anyone who has worked in libraries and archives. You pick up a scent in a published source, find a reference in a catalogue, follow a paper trail through boxes of manuscripts -- but what do you discover in the end? Only a few fragments that somehow survived as evidence of what other human beings experienced in other times and places. How much has disappeared under char and rubble? We do not even know the extent of our ignorance.

Imperfect as they are, therefore, libraries and archives, museums and excavations, scraps of paper and shards of pottery provide all we can consult in order to reconstruct the worlds we have lost. The loss of a library or a museum can mean the loss of contact with a vital strain of humanity. That is what has happened in Baghdad. But when confronted with the loss, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld appeared to be unperturbed: "We've seen looting in this country," he explained at a Pentagon briefing. "We've seen riots at soccer games in various countries around the world."

Next question.

(read the whole piece)

Tax cuts for the wealthy...Part II

In response to Jake's comment:

"It is a downturn, when your money goes down you have to spend less, duh.. the government should spend less." - Jake

Absolutely, the government should spend less. Where did I suggest otherwise? But, when more people are out of work it is not a good time to CUT funding for health care and education.

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
The Lord will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.'" Matthew 25:37-40

That sounds more like a "compassionate conservative" to me.

If you are "in poverty" you would only pay 15% (at most) on the next dollar of dividend income. (Our compassionate president lowered tax rates for all except "the least amonst us.") Dick Cheney would pay about 38% on his 491,000th dollar of dividend income. The president wants to lower Cheney's taxes by more than twice as much as yours. Is that fair?

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. -- Herman Goering

Tax cuts for the wealthy     

I was watching Dubya's rah-rah sessions in Ohio this morning where he was telling factory workers that they were be being cheated because dividend income is taxed twice. I have heard this argument many times and it makes sense at first glance: the company pays taxes when it earns the money and then the shareholders (owners of the company) pay taxes on that money when it is distributed to them as dividends.

Here's my real problem with his speech this morning: He is standing in front of people who are lucky to have jobs (in the defense industry) in this economy, who don't depend on dividend income to finance their lifestyle, who receive most of their dividend income in tax-free or tax deferred accounts accounts (401K, IRA, etc.). Guess who depends on dividend income. The wealthy. Bush's political supporters, his parents, their friends, retired CEOs, and the Cheneys.

The Vice President and his wife reported $490,999 in dividend income in 2002. I had about $60. And my retirement fund lost money...again.

And why are we cutting taxes for the wealthy when we can't pay for Bush's war? Wouldn't it makes sense to cut spending and leave tax rates steady? Okay, I'm no economist. Maybe one of my compassionate conservative friends can explain why we want to reduce taxes for rich people and cut fedearal funding for education and healthcare. I am sure that there is a good reason.

Foxnews: We Steal, You Decide

Gathered news, loot

Customs: Journalists smuggled Iraqi booty
By DEREK ROSE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Fox engineer Ben Johnson was found embedded with this Iraqi painting at Dulles Airport last week.

It's not just liberated Iraqis who have looted Saddam Hussein's palaces - some sticky-fingered reporters are in hot water after making off with war booty.

Fox News fired Ben Johnson, a satellite-truck engineer who is charged with smuggling 12 Iraqi paintings and undeclared Iraqi bonds into the U.S., the network said yesterday.

Johnson, 27, of Alexandria, Va., admitted liberating the paintings of Saddam and his son Uday from the walls of their Baghdad palaces. He was busted at Dulles Airport near Washington last week. read more

hmmmm...I can't seem to find it on Foxnews.com. Fair and balanced. We report, you decide. Uh-huh.

School Shooting Season Part II   

Student Kills Principal, Self at School


By MARC LEVY, Associated Press Writer

RED LION, Pa. - A heavily armed 14-year-old boy shot and killed his school principal inside a crowded junior high cafeteria Thursday morning, then killed himself, authorities said.

The shootings happened about 15 minutes before the start of classes at the Red Lion Area Junior High School, about 30 miles southeast of Harrisburg in south-central Pennsylvania. (read more)

That's what happens when people use their second amendment "rights" to express their first amendment "rights."

RJ Smith on The White Stripes

Jack sings like Robert Plant doing musical theater: His machismo is so tarted up it turns creepy before the night's over. -- Blender May 2003

I'm proud to be an American...

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution. -- Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA

What can I say about that? I am proud to say that I voted against this guy...twice. Oh, sure he has the right to think and say whatever he wants, but do you want him making the laws that you must live be? I don't.

Once again we see these people trying to put their religious beliefs into law. What business does the federal government have in telling two (or more) consenting adults what they can do in the privacy of their home? None.

Santorum has denied being a member of Opus Dei, a radical sect of the Roman Catholic Church, but says that he is an admirer of its founder. Find out more about Opus Dei.

Did I miss anything...

I'm back! I was home visiting the family and suffering from internet withdrawal.

TV Turnoff Week

It is TV Turnoff Week. I do watch a fair amount of TV. Well, I have it on - usually on MSNBC or ESPN - but not necessarily watching. I don't remember the last time I watched a prime time sit-com. My TV veiwing is limited now to Conan O'Brien, baseball, news, and an occasional movie.

PAX NORTONA

Thanks to Joel for the link. Please go and read this post.

more later

N E W S     F L A S H    

Not really.

I just wanted to let you know that blogging activity will be sparse for the next few days. I will be back to normal on Monday.

Everyone enjoy your high holy days or your days off from school or work, which ever the case may be.

So until I get back...the topic: religion/prayer in public school

...discuss.

HOW WE LOST THE IRAQ WAR  

After Saddam, the Deluge

by Ted Rall

NEW YORK--We wanted it to be true. It wasn't.

Anyone who has seen a TV taping knows that tight camera angles exaggerate crowd sizes, but even a cursory examination of last week's statue-toppling propaganda tape reveals that no more than 150 Iraqis gathered in Farbus Square to watch American Marines--not Iraqis--pull down the dictator's statue. Hailing "all the demonstrations in the streets," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld waxed rhapsodically: "Watching them," he told reporters, "one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain."
(read more)

US blamed for failure to stop sacking of museum

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles and David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
14 April 2003 Independent Digital (UK)

The United States was fiercely criticised around the world yesterday for its failure to protect Baghdad's Iraq National Museum where, under the noses of US troops, looters stole or destroyed priceless artefacts up to 7,000 years old.

Not a single pot or display case remained intact, according to witnesses, after a 48-hour rampage at the museum – perhaps the world's greatest repository of Mesopotamian culture. US forces intervened only once, for half an hour, before leaving and allowing the looters to continue.

Archaeologists, poets, cultural historians and international legal experts, including many in America itself, accused Washington of violating the 1954 Hague Convention on the protection of artistic treasures in wartime. (read more)

US forces did protect Ministry of Oil though. God bless the USA!

The azaleas are in bloom, the days are getting warmer...yes it's that time of year again...

School Shooting Season.

Ahhh Springtime...

I have the good fortune to "work" at home. I don't have get up at the same time everyday and punch a time clock. I don't have to sit in a windowless office shuffling paper and going to meetings. I don't even have to get dressed if I don't want to.

Anyhow, today is just a beautiful day. I have the windows open and the birds are singing. Right now I can see these birds in my yard: a common flicker, two bluejays, two male cardinals, one female cardinal, several robins, a mourning dove, and house sparrows and finches keep flying to the feeder at the window.

Fascinating, huh?

Oh well, I should get back to finishing my tax return.

Take me out to the...

I just realized that we are two weeks into the baseball season and I have not even mentioned it yet. I guess that I have been preoccupied with other stuff---hospital appointments, school, war. Well, the Phils are off to a good start. They scored 13 runs today (all in one inning). They are one game behind the first place Montreal/San Juan Expos (huh?) and best of all the Braves are currently in last place.

No Quagmire, but Still Some Questions

By Michael Kinsley

Friday, April 11, 2003; Page A27 washingtonpost.com

So we've won, or just about. There is no quagmire. Saddam Hussein is dead, or as good as, along with his sons. It was all fairly painless -- at least for most Americans sitting at home watching it on television. Those who opposed the war look like fools. They are thoroughly discredited, and, if they happen to be Democratic presidential candidates (and who isn't these days?), they might as well withdraw and nurse their shame somewhere off the public stage. The debate over Gulf War II is as over as the war itself soon will be, and the antis were defeated as thoroughly as Saddam Hussein.

Right? No, not at all.

To start with an obvious point that may get buried in the confetti of the victory parade, the debate was not about whether America would win a war against Iraq if we chose to start one. No sane person doubted that the mighty U.S. military machine could defeat and conquer a country with a tiny fraction of its population and an even tinier fraction of its wealth -- a country suffering from more than a decade of economic strangulation by the rest of the world. (read more)

Some more thoughts on invasion...

I think that everyone agrees that Saddam is (was) a bad man. Are most Iraqis happy that he is gone? Yes. My point all along has been that the US government has handled the situation very poorly.

We learned that there was a plan to invade Iraq by Bush's war team in the works for years. There are other ways to effect "regime change" than to roll into a sovereign country with hundreds of thousands of troops. What Bush and company attempted to pass off as diplomacy failed miserably.

So what is the story that we are going with now? Weapons of mass destruction? September 11? Liberate the good people of Iraq? And now that the people are "liberated" what next? Will we do for them what we did for Haiti when we "liberated" them?

In December 1989 the Romanian people managed to free themselves from the repression of their dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. They did it in less than two weeks and without Uncle Sam's tanks and troops. Also in 1989, The Velvet Revolution (November 17 - December 29) brought about the bloodless overthrow the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Again without American troops, bombs and tanks. My point is that it is possible for people to free themselves from oppressive governments without direct American military action.

So now that we've killed over a thousand civilians, over a hundred coalition troops, thousands of Iraqi soldiers, Kurds, and journalists in the process of removing one man from power, now what? Will we install another puppet leader? Will Iraq end up with an opressive theocracy once we pull out? Will Bush start another preemptive war with Syria or Iran or North Korea? Should we liberate the people of Cuba?

I know, I ask a lot of questions. More people should ask questions. I do give the Bush Administration credit for understanding its subjects supporters. If they say "evil", "regime", "terror", "liberate", etc enough times the people start believing them. Are there that many unthinking, uneducated people in this country who will blindly follow this guy in whatever he does?

Yes, that's another question. Feel free to let me know what you think. All views are welcome.

Thank you Mr. Bush

This is the face of a newly "liberated" Iraqi child. He is one of the lucky ones who has survived liberation.

The Emperor's New Clothes

So now Dubya can crown himself as Emperor.

May the sun never set on Dubya's Empire. (Texas, Great Britain, Afghanistan, and Iraq)

New URL!

Well if you are reading this you found it. I finally decided to shell out a few bucks for a real domain name. So no more pop-ups for those of you without pop-up stoppers.

blog: http://www.conniptions.net/blog/

everything else: http://www.conniptions.net

Everything is the same, I just moved it. Eventually I will update the rest of the site, but for now just daily blogging.

I am back from my second MRI. The bastards shot some stuff into my veins for this one. They could have let me know before I got there, that way I could have worried about it all night. It wasn't that bad, a little bit uncomfortable. So this one wasn't as relaxing as the last one.

The doctor's office just called and they want to do another MRI of my head tomorrow. They did not tell me why so now I am scared. Was it just a bad image, do I have a brain tumor, something else? I was just starting to think that all of this was in my head...well it is...you know what I mean.

Mass Civil Disobedience

Mass Civil Disobedience and Legal Protests were planned for today in NYC and Oakland and elsewhere. The only mention on the news has been that "it got out of control" and the police shot rubber bullets in Oakland and hit a Longshoreman (who wasn't even participating).

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow's peace.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(assassinated on this date in 1968)

Sartorial precepts of war...

At last, during the Pentagon press briefing this afternoon a reporter asked something that I had been wondering about. ABC's John McQwethy asked why the Pentagon keeps saying that it is a war crime for Iraqi soldiers to wear civilian clothes while it is acceptable for the US to have special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in civilian clothing. Tori Clarke refused to answer the question.

If anyone has some knowledge of international law regarding to war I would welcome an explanation. Although I do understand that America's definition of "international law" is much like Bierse's definition of "christian" in the post below.

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911

• Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
  
• Patriot, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
  
• Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
  
• President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom— and of whom only— it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
  
• Un-American, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.

This is the best essay I've read in a while. Please read it, even if you disagree with her it is worth reading.

Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates

How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words? And now the bombs are falling, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilization

by Arundhati Roy

On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colorful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.

On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an "embedded" CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty," Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11." (read more)

This is your brain on...

I just got back from my MRI. It was not at all uncomfortable, in fact I enjoyed it and I wish I had one of those tubes at home to sleep in.

The technician asked me what I wanted to listen to. I chose the local classical music station. She placed a cushion under my knees, put headphones on me, and covered my eyes with a cloth. Then I was moved into the tube where cool air was blown across my body while the machine made images of my head.

The test lasted about fifteen minutes, if it would have been longer they would have had to wake me up when it was over. So now I have to wait for results. I am not even sure what they are looking for.

Singer Edwin Starr Dead

Soul singer Edwin Starr, who topped the charts in 1970 with his fiery, iconic, anti-war song "War," died yesterday at his home in Nottingham, England; he was sixty-one. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.
(read more)

I said WAR!...huh...good God y'all,
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing...say it again
War! Huh...What is it good for
Absolutely nothing...listen to me

*listen*

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

The dissenting opinion is as true to the character of our democracy as of speech itself. — William O. Douglas

Well, people continue to call me un-American for voicing my opinion on our government's illegal invasion of Iraq. I will continue to do so, but I wanted to show that someone else agreed with me (well if he were alive he would.)

Civilized people -- Muslims, Christians and Jews -- all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.
-- Attorney General John Ashcroft,
Remarks to National Religious Broadcasters Convention on 19 Feb 2002

I guess that makes me uncivilized.

Who says history doesn't repeat itself...

When Democracy Failed:
The Warnings of History


by Thom Hartmann

from: CommonDreams.org, March 16, 2003 The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said... (read more)

My Apology to the U.S. of A.

After much thought and many sleepless nights I have come to realize that my opposition to the war in Iraq is just wrong. Thank you to Jake, Susan and Katie, Emily, Corey, Jackie D., and all of my Christian friends, you have made me recognize the error in my way of thinking.

It is now obvious to me that our President and his advisors know what they are doing. Saddam Hussein and Iraqis in general were indeed responsible for the September 11th attacks on the US of A. The people of Iraq want to be liberated by the Christian Forces of Great Britain and the United States of America. Also, once we bring democracy to Iraq we can expect Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, and all of the Middle East to quickly and peacefully convert to democratic forms of government.

Mr. Ashcroft I am ready to submit to random invasions of privacy in order to catch the Evil-doers among us. Now I realize that if I have nothing to hide I should not object to having the government search my home, my computer, my banking and medical records. It is also clear to me now that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.

We should make it easier (through family-friendly tax cuts) for good Christian women to stay home to raise their children. But, we should make sure that nobody gets a free ride. Single mothers who receive any government assistance should be forced to put their children in daycare and find work. If kids were forced to pray in school we would not have such problems in this country.

So, my fellow countrymen, please forgive me for speaking out against the government in the past. I am now on board! Consider me a right-thinking loyal Christian American.