Political disaster in the making....

I've written before in favor of the idea of proportional representation. However, it really has to be a universal national mandate, not simply through selective states.

For example, Maine and Nebraska have proportional representation and their votes are essentially nullified because all of the other states have "winner take all" and thus overwhelm the proportional delegations.

Essentially, the proposal below would take California out of the presidential elections. Since California's majority is Democrat (all of the major urban areas outside of Orange county) this would be a huge plus for the Republicans and guarantee that the Iraq war among other things would continue on for the next fifty years - perhaps much as the Korean peace action still persists with thousands of American troops there keeping the peace.

Extending the consequences of a Republican win in 2008 even further, I could see a Republican purge of all of their moderate members similar to the purge which took place in the sixties or seventies and on down the slippery slope to Christian fascism!

The secret to all of this is that it is OK for Republicans to have a mean and lean Republican minority as long as the votes of the majority party are rendered ineffective!

I certainly hope that the California Democrats are smart enough to see this and rally enough votes to scuttle the proposition. To their credit, they've stopped Republican millionaire candidates from ‘buying' their election through the ballot box (Huffington, Arianna's ex-husband).

California proposal could sway 2008 race
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - A Republican-backed ballot proposal could split left-leaning California between the Democratic and GOP nominees, tilting the 2008 presidential election in favor of the Republicans.

California awards its cache of 55 electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections — the largest single prize in the nation. But a prominent Republican lawyer wants to put a proposal on the ballot that would award the statewide winner only two electoral votes.

The rest would be distributed to the winning candidate in each of the state's congressional districts. In effect, that would create 53 races, each with one electoral vote up for grabs.

California has voted Democratic in the last four presidential elections. But the change — if it qualifies for one of two primary ballots next year and is approved by voters — would mean that a Republican would be positioned the following November to snatch 20 or more electoral votes in GOP-leaning districts.

That's a number equal to winning Ohio.

The so-called Presidential Election Reform Act is being pushed by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer in a Sacramento firm that represents the California Republican Party and has worked with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He did not return phone messages left Monday at his office.

A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman said the governor is not involved with the proposed initiative, and party officials said they have no connection to it.

Democratic consultant Chris Lehane called the plan "an effort to rig the system in order to fix the election."

"If this change is made, it will virtually guarantee that a Republican wins the White House in 2008," Lehane said in an e-mail.

Nineteen of the state's 53 congressional districts are represented by Republicans. President Bush carried 22 districts in 2004, while losing the statewide vote by double digits.

Only Maine and Nebraska allocate electoral votes by congressional district.

A draft of the proposed initiative says nixing the winner-take-all system would give presidential candidates "an incentive to campaign in California. ... Many of the geographic areas of the state would be as important to a candidate's chance for victory as many of the smaller states."

"We'll take a serious look at it, once it qualifies for the ballot," state Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said.

If it does qualify, Democrats probably would have to spend millions of dollars to defeat it, which could drain money from other races. And there are expected to be additional ballot proposals on abortion and other social issues that could drive up GOP turnout.

The state already moved its presidential primary to Feb. 5 in an attempt to increase its clout in national politics.

In that primary, Republicans will award delegates only to the top vote-getter in each congressional district. A Democrat can qualify for a delegate by winning at least 15 percent of the vote in a district.

Cover-ups don't work....

I'm generally not into this war hero stuff, but this is very interesting - and having served in the military - very plausible! I suspect that Tillman, who in civilian life was a BMOC, was probably big enough and arrogant enough not to be liked by many of his fellow soldiers. I venture that no one likes a hero when one's life is at stake. I recall during the Korean ‘peace action' that there was a call for Air Force enlisted men to voluntarily transfer to the Army and automatically be given 2nd Lt. bars if they would lead infantry platoons! Lieutenants were the rank most likely not to survive in battle. My guess is that Tillman was murdered just as many 2nd Lt's were murdered in Korea because they were leading men where they didn't want to go. I suspect that he was not liked because people don't like prima donna's. ... and the military couldn't do anything about it except cover it up as much as possible and hope for the best. ...so now the military has to answer to law and order - we do not justify murder. Of course, we'll never really know - and Tillman's death will be avenged to sports fans everywhere ! AP: New details on Tillman's death By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer SAN FRANCISCO - Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. "The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators. The doctors — whose names were blacked out — said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away. Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident. The medical examiners' suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Among other information contained in the documents: • In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling." • Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments. • The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman's death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn't recall details of his actions. • No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene — no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck. The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman's death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers. With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week. The Pentagon is separately preparing a new round of punishments, including a stinging demotion of retired Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr., 60, according to military officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the punishments under consideration have not been made public. In more than four hours of questioning by the Pentagon inspector general's office in December 2006, Kensinger repeatedly contradicted other officers' testimony, and sometimes his own. He said on some 70 occasions that he did not recall something. At one point, he said: "You've got me really scared about my brain right now. I'm really having a problem." Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, who has long suggested that her son was deliberately killed by his comrades, said she is still looking for answers and looks forward to the congressional hearings next week. "Nothing is going to bring Pat back. It's about justice for Pat and justice for other soldiers. The nation has been deceived," she said. The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case. "He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified. Also according to the documents, investigators pressed officers and soldiers on a question Mrs. Tillman has been asking all along. "Have you, at any time since this incident occurred back on April 22, 2004, have you ever received any information even rumor that Cpl. Tillman was killed by anybody within his own unit intentionally?" an investigator asked then-Capt. Richard Scott. Scott, and others who were asked, said they were certain the shooting was accidental. Investigators also asked soldiers and commanders whether Tillman was disliked, whether anyone was jealous of his celebrity, or if he was considered arrogant. They said Tillman was respected, admired and well-liked. The documents also shed new light on Tillman's last moments. It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again. But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed. The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your (expletive) mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..." ___ Associated Press reporters Scott Lindlaw in Las Vegas and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this story. << class="Main">Next >>

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Women's Stuff....

I find the following article very interesting because here in the USA, men are being routinely excluded from the problems of fatherhood by many modern women who choose to live alone with their immaculate conceptions acquired by various means.

As a man I get the strong impression that those dominant females of our culture with certain economic advantages would rather live with as little male association as possible. This, I've long suspected because I suspect there are at least ten lesbians to every gay male and that women tend to herd, while men typically hunt and kill. Let me add that this is not unnatural in the animal world from ducks to bears!

However, it seems in Africa there is a push in the opposite direction - to get men more involved in the family process. This, of course, is an economic effort because African women (and men) are not only primitive but simply poor and underprivileged by most standards and those of us who are concerned with mortality and socially good things desire to save as many babies as we can - regardless of the social situation.

There is good reason for this because women, although they don't have litters, the time for their offspring to be self-supporting is the longest in the animal kingdom - many years! This presents a huge economic burdon on all sympathetic societies.

Perhaps the concerns for Africa is that these poor souls are the descendants of the people who chose to stay in Africa after we all left and prospered elsewhere.

More power to the effort I say, because as a humanist I know that life is a one time experience for any creature and deplore that everyone born doesn't have the chance for a modicum of "happiness" before they return to dust.

As a pragmatist, I'm skeptical that the effort will produce the desired results - but, what the hell! It is worth the effort and it may help.

WORLD POPULATION DAY:
Enlightened Men Prescribed for Maternal Health
Moyiga Nduru, Inter Press Service (IPS) Wed Jul 11

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 11 (IPS) - What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth -- and contract HIV in smaller numbers? Men

That is the message for World Population Day 2007, which is being marked Wednesday under the theme 'Men as Partners in Maternal Health'.

"Experience shows that men's involvement and participation can make all the difference," notes Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in a statement for World Population Day.

"By discouraging early marriage, promoting girls' education, fostering equitable relationships, and supporting women's reproductive health and rights, progress is made."

The difficulties of breaking down gender stereotypes to free men to play a more positive role in the lives of their partners are well known.

But, to what extent are institutions being reformed to assist men?

According to Bafana Khumalo, co-founder of the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a non-governmental organisation based in Johannesburg, there is some way to go.

"When you talk about sexual reproductive health, for example, and you go to the hospital, you find that the system targets women. The environment is not friendly to men. The majority of the nurses are women," he told IPS.

"Some of the men come back complaining that they have been chased away by nurses. The nurses tell them that it's not a man's place."

In a bid to improve gender relations, the network holds regular workshops around South Africa.

"We encourage men to accompany their women to antenatal clinics. We tell them to continue with the process until their partners give birth," Khumalo said.

"We need to change the system and the mindset."

Women on the front lines of changing mindsets may face obstacles, however, says Lisa Vetten: a researcher at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women, also based in the economic hub of Johannesburg.

"It's difficult talking to men, especially when you are female," she told IPS. "But of course, men are not all the same. One can sometimes have success with older men. This is because older men fear losing their partners, children and property."

That progress is being made is shown by the Sonke Gender Justice Network's initiative in a rural farming community in the northern Limpopo province.

"They (male farm workers) are now helping with dishes. They clean the house -- and more men want to join their group. As a result, women from that community have been calling us and asking what we have done to their men," Khumalo said, laughing.

The network is also trying to include traditional leaders in its work through invoking the concept of "ubuntu" -- a term used in a number of South African languages that can be loosely translated as "humanity". More broadly, it refers to a traditional belief that a person's humanity is determined by the extent to which the humanity of others is upheld.

But, the NGO has found that approaching the leaders requires considerable tact.

"You don't start by criticising their way of life as being backward. They will close ranks and refuse to talk to you. It's safe to talk to the elders, for example, about the problems of women who have been kicked out of their matrimonial homes. Kicking out women goes against the spirit of ubuntu," Khumalo said.

The theme of this year's World Population Day echoes that of the UNFPA's annual 'State of World Population' report for 2005, titled 'The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity, Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals'.

"Partnering with men is an important strategy for advancing reproductive health and rights, which are so closely linked to the MDGs," notes the document.

"Husbands often make decisions about family planning, their wives' economic activities and the use of household resources, including for doctors' and school fees. These decisions influence the well-being and prospects of the whole family," it adds.

"The care and support of an informed husband also improves pregnancy and childbirth outcomes and can mean the difference between life and death in cases of complications, when women need immediate medical care."

According to the 2006 Human Development Report, produced by the United Nations Development Programme, 84 percent of deliveries in South Africa occur in the presence of skilled health workers -- the personnel who can ensure that complications do not result in maternal death.

This figure rises to 98 percent for deliveries in the richest 20 percent of the population -- and sinks to 68 percent for the poorest fifth of society.

The fact that many women give birth under dangerous conditions is reflected in maternal mortality statistics. The Human Development Report notes that 150 female deaths are reported annually for every 100,000 live births in South Africa -- compared to six for Norway, the state that ranks top of the report's Human Development Index (HDI).

The HDI lists countries around the world according to how they succeed in providing their citizens with a long, healthy life; knowledge -- and respectable living standards.

Contraceptive prevalence for South African married women aged 15 to 49 is 56 percent, while in Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States -- countries that rank in the top 10 of the HDI -- it is 82 percent, 79 percent and 76 percent, respectively.

South Africa was placed at position 121 of the 177 countries evaluated for HDI 2006.

However, in the report's Gender-related Development Index, where HDI rankings are adjusted to reflect inequalities between women and men, South Africa ranks at 92.

This does not appear to compare positively with figures released just five years previously.

In the 2001 HDI, which listed 162 nations, South Africa came in at 94 -- and 85 on the Gender-related Development Index.

Of the 5.3 million adults living with HIV/AIDS in the country, more than half -- 3.1 million -- are women, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

It is past time to leave....

We never should have invaded Iraq in the first place but we did. Having done so, we found ourselves with a moral responsibility to establish an independent Iraqi government, army and police force and help rebuild what we tore down. To a large extent we did that even though imperfectly.

Now, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the titular leader of the government elected by the Iraqi people, has diplomatically asked us to leave and let his nation take care of its own problems..

One of his aids has stated, that the U.S. military, "...was committing human rights violations, embarrassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq."

So why are we still there subjecting our military to even more casualties and costing the taxpayer about ten billion dollars per month in Iraq while 50% of Afghanistan is under the control of the Taliban?

So why are we rattling our swords over Iran and her supposed nuclear activities when Europe, Russia and even China are more vulnerable yet less concerned? I'm sure to the extent the rest of the world is threatened, it can take care of itself and, if necessary, put teeth into the United Nations where such problems should be handled.

We are indeed a "Rogue nation" since we seem to want to rule the world and/or create it in our image.

Iraq PM: Country can manage without U.S.
By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want," though he acknowledged the forces need further weapons and training.

The embattled prime minister sought to show confidence at a time when congressional pressure is growing for a withdrawal and the Bush administration reported little progress had been made on the most vital of a series of political benchmarks it wants al-Maliki to carry out.

Al-Maliki said difficulty in enacting the measures was "natural" given Iraq's turmoil.

But one of his top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, rankled at the assessment, saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory." He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarrassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Suneid's comments were a rare show of frustration toward the Americans from within al-Maliki's inner circle as the prime minister struggles to overcome deep divisions between Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish members of his coalition and enact the American-drawn list of benchmarks.

In new violence in Baghdad on Saturday, a car bomb leveled a two-story apartment building, and a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-packed vehicle into a line of cars at a gas station. The two attacks killed at least eight people, police officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorize to release details of the attacks.

Thursday's White House assessment of progress on the benchmarks fueled calls among congressional critics of the Iraqi policy for a change in strategy, including a withdrawal of American forces.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned earlier this week of civil war and the government's collapse if the Americans leave. But al-Maliki told reporters Saturday, "We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want."

But he added that Iraqi forces are "still in need of more weapons and rehabilitation" to be ready in the case of a withdrawal.

On Friday, the Pentagon conceded that the Iraqi army has become more reliant on the U.S. military. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, said the number of Iraqi battalions able to operate on their own without U.S. support has dropped in recent months from 10 to six, though he said the fall was in part due to attrition from stepped-up offensives.

Al-Maliki told a Baghdad press conference that his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks — "particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference."

"These difficulties can be read as a big success, not negative points, when they are viewed under the shadow of the big challenges," he said.

In the White House strategy, beefed-up American forces have been waging intensified security crackdowns in Baghdad and areas to the north and south for nearly a month. The goal is to bring quiet to the capital while al-Maliki gives Sunni Arabs a greater role in the government and political process, lessening support for the insurgency.

But the benchmarks have been blocked by divisions among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. In August, the parliament is taking a one month vacation — a shorter break than the usual two months, but still enough to anger some in Congress who say lawmakers should push through the measures.

Al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, bristled at the pressure. He called Thursday's report "objective," but added, "this bothers us a lot that the situation looks as if it is an experiment in an American laboratory (judging) whether we succeed or fail."

He also told The Associated Press that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus, who works along a "purely American vision."

He criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala, encouraging former insurgents to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said.

"There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," said al-Suneid.

He said that the U.S. authorities have embarrassed al-Maliki' government through acts such as constructing a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's eastern slum of Sadr City. He said the U.S. use of air strikes to hit suspected insurgent positions also kills civilians.

"This embarrasses the government in front of its people," he said, calling the civilian deaths a "human rights violation."

Iran rations gasoline!

It seems to me that Iran can't be much of a problem for the US - it doesn't have and can't get enough gasoline in order to fight a war or even supply its people!

The Iranian people have been miserably spoiled with virtually free gasoline at a mere 42 cents per gallon and less. Now, because the nation lacks refining capabilities and therefore can't afford to continue importing gasoline at world market prices, they've resorted to rationing - like 26 gallons per month for the average driver.

With a 17% inflation rate and these huge fuel subsidies, I can see where the average Iranian is unhappy with his government and on the verge of revolution. Thus the Iranian government has its own problems without having to take on the rest of the world or mess with Israel, its pet peeve.

Seems to me that if the U.S. could somehow revive its sense of diplomacy and re-establish a modicum of the international esteem lost by our present regressive administration, it could negotiate reasonable solutions to Iran's need for nuclear energy (they are running out of oil) and avoid that nation's need (and probable international right) to get into the nuclear weapons business along with France, China and Russia - which is certainly not a good idea.

I can see down the road that Iran has serious problems how the nation is going to support its population when it does run out of oil. After all, Tehran alone has 12 million citizens - they can't all revert to driving camels and selling rugs!

Reuter's article below.....

Iran fuel rations spark anger, pump stations burn
By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Angry Iranians torched pump stations and hurled abuse at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government after the world's fourth-largest oil exporter said it was imposing fuel rationing on Wednesday.

One Iranian news agency, ISNA, quoted an official as saying 19 gasoline stations were set ablaze overnight in Tehran after the government's announcement late on Tuesday that rationing would start from midnight.

Police detained 80 people in the capital over the unrest, the Fars News Agency quoted a judge as saying. "We are swimming in oil and all they do is just put pressure on people," said taxi driver Hasan Mohammadi, 44. "I'm using my last drop of gasoline."

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and must import about 40 percent of its gasoline, a sensitive issue when world powers have threatened new U.N. sanctions in a row with Tehran over its nuclear program.

Concerns Iranian imports would decline pushed down European gasoline paper prices on Wednesday, international traders said.

Some drivers scuffled while waiting to fill up their tanks before rationing began. Others chanted anti-government slogans and openly criticized Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago vowing to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly.

"Last night, in addition to setting fire to and stealing property of 19 fuel stations in Tehran, people threw stones and damaged others," Bijan Haj Mohammadreza, head of an association representing gasoline stations, told ISNA.

Seeking to rein in soaring consumption and costly imports, the government on May 22 raised the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents) [42 cents/gal] - the cheapest in the world - but rationing was delayed. Drivers rushed to pump stations after the Oil Ministry said the scheme would finally go ahead after weeks of confusion.

Private cars will get 100 liters [26 gal] of gasoline a month but less if they also burn compressed natural gas, state TV said. All drivers need electronic "smart" cards to buy fuel.

One fuel station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, was set alight while another in eastern Tehran was partially burnt, two of its pumps destroyed by fire, witnesses said. Windows at the one in Pounak were smashed, six pumps wrecked and walls blackened. State radio blamed "opportunistic elements." Police could not be reached for comment.

Judge Ali Namazi said 80 people were detained in Tehran and transferred to jail. "These people have destroyed public property," he told Fars News Agency.

INFLATION FEARS
Motorists still faced long lines on Wednesday in a country where many see abundant and cheap fuel as a national right. Short of public transport, people rely on cars or taxis to get around in the capital of 12 million. Some taxi drivers raised their fares by 20-80 percent on Wednesday, media said.

"Last night's riots were an expression of the anger of people with lower incomes," said government employee Saeed Sameti, although he said he in principle backed rationing.

Parliament had argued for offering fuel above the rationed amount at market prices, a step opposed by the government which fears this would stoke inflation, already at 17 percent. No announcement was made about whether drivers could buy extra fuel, but analysts said inflation would rise anyway.

"Either they are going to offer (extra fuel) at a high price or there is going to be black market at a high price," said Hatef Haeri, head of business consultancy ICG. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, National Iranian Oil Company international affairs director, in New Delhi said Iran might review the amount allocated to drivers in two months. Haeri said Iran had no choice but to curb consumption because of the burden on state coffers. All fuel is sold at heavily subsidized prices, encouraging waste and smuggling.

The United States, which is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear plans, has said Iran's gasoline imports are a point of "leverage." Washington accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Tehran and by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi)

Religious Bigotry????

Absolutely ridiculous! - "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place, ....There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today." --- really??? Stop and think, cousins! Religious bigotry is not the same as racial bigotry. The biological color of one's skin is not the same as the rational orientation of a candidate's mind! In fact, it is the latter which is what IT is all about! Do you think a Muslim or Atheist (like me) could ever be elected president? So what is so sacrosanct about being a Mormon, Catholic or Southern Baptist? Isn't a candidate's thinking and beliefs the paramount consideration we must make in determining who we wish to have lead us? We certainly don't need a religious zealot such as our present leader to continue to destroy our nation because of the demands of a religious minority - that would be to perpetuate a lesson we have already learned....? So why shouldn't we delve into the nooks and crannies of those who wish to lead us - including their religions? After all, we may have a constitutional right to the religion of our choice, but that doesn't in any way indicate or guarantee that any particular religion is good and right for all of us - or even good for its own membership - consider Jonestown for example. What one believes and to the extent that he/she will implement her own beliefs is of paramount importance for any voter to understand before they render their vote for a candidate. I am very much interested in whether Romney is a Mormon in spirit or deed, or Obama is a member of an evangelical version of Presbyterianism, or Hillery is a Methodist - what George Bush used to be, or why Brownback changed from being a Methodist to being a socially conservative evangelical Catholic!... or Rudy Giuliani being a socially liberal Catholic but fiscal conservative... With this in mind, read on.... Brownback aide chided on anti-Mormon bid By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Sun Jun 17 WASHINGTON - An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday. The e-mail requested help in fact-checking a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith" and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches." "Sen. Brownback completely disavows himself of this and any personal attacks on religion," said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the Kansas senator. Hart said the campaign apologized to Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, once they learned of the e-mail. "It was not originated by Ms. Nemecek and the purpose was to fact-check. But it was in violation of campaign policy and it won't happen again," he said. The controversy comes as Brownback and Romney are scrambling to attract socially conservative voters in advance of Iowa's Jan. 14, 2008, caucuses. Both candidates say they are ardently anti-abortion, although Brownback — a former Methodist who has become an evangelical Roman Catholic — has criticized Romney for supporting abortion rights as recently as two and a half years ago. A spokesman for Romney's Iowa campaign, Tim Albrecht, said the campaign accepted Brownback's apology but called the incident "unfortunate." "It's unfortunate that these attacks of religious bigotry were taking place," Albrecht said. "Sen. Brownback has apologized and we are glad he has worked to minimize these repugnant attacks in his campaign. There is just no place for these types of attacks in America today."

A Brief History of Disbelief

I realize that I'm writing to cousins who are Christians and truly believe there is a supreme being. In this country you are all part of the vast majority of citizens who actually find it hard to understand how anyone like me could believe otherwise. Every community has a plethora of churches which spread the word of the gospel, of Jesus or Mohamad or even Buddha - although the latter two have never been thought to be supernatural. There are many channels on TV which also give say to religious leaders from the Pope to the 700 Club to even Dr. Schuler, to say nothing of the international crusades of Billy Graham. And most certainly, I'm not attempting to change anyone's beliefs, but to share with you the personal wonderment of having a belief of mine which has at last been acknowledged by the mass media - not the mass-mass media, of course, but rather some select PBS stations across the country. Last night I was privileged to watch on our local (Flagstaff) PBS the show, "A Brief History of Disbelief" by Jonathan Miller. http://tinyurl.com/yq8rtn (when there, be sure and download the "press release" of the show to get a good perspective of how the topic is treated. The show itself was interesting, but to me it was much more important in that it was the first time in my 76 years that any form of the mass media ever presented my own religious beliefs to the public in a documentary/historical or any other form. It provided an authenticity to concepts I have which has been expressed only in books and written publications - or on the Internet. My own skepticism of God 'came to me' one beautiful summer Sunday after church while playing alone in the dirt with my toy cars and trucks. It was 1937, I was six. My paternal grandfather had died the year before in Wisconsin and we went from Montana by train to his funeral. That was my first view of human death. It was also the year my father decided after nine years, he didn't want to be married to my mother anymore and told her so after the funeral on the station platform as we were boarding to return to Montana - in my presence. My mother was blindsided and devastated! Our Presbyterian minister had sermonized against 'fallen' divorced women a few Sundays before my 'revelation'. His tirade not only angered me, but caused me to realize that neither he, my parents, nor anyone else I knew, except perhaps Grandpa, were to ever be believed without question - not because they were malicious, they weren't - they were simply ignorant! It was up to me to learn my own 'truths'. Perhaps I was too young to have been indoctrinated into having faith in a Faith, yet I was certainly old enough to learn through experience not to have faith in any human - sometimes, even myself... There has always been a large part of me wherein I have been an ‘island' in that I have always been on the outside looking in - not socially, but intellectually. But with the current contest between the separation of church and state - and now, with the PBS show, I feel the door opening to Dunne's view that: "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." http://tinyurl.com/39cfgr

Mexican immigration - the bottom line....

Living in Arizona and before that, California, I'm well aware that we live in highly populated Indian lands which were either stolen from the indigenous Indians or bought from the Mexican government a century or so ago. (Texas was stolen, remember the Alamo?)

Our concern is not and should not be concerned with the indigenous peoples but what to do with their southern cousins who live impoverished lives in Mexico and wish to join their more affluent cousins to the north.

Mexico, with a Christian ‘go forth and multiply' culture without the European work ethic has become one of the most populous nations in the world unable to support its own citizens. Obviously even with sympathy and empathy, we can't permit that culture to over-ride our own where we actually have a negative native population growth except for immigration. And we all know that capitalism requires some population growth of constructive citizens.

Thus we do need tough new border security to prevent being overwhelmed with the Mexican poor and downtrodden.

Let me say at this time that I think the nonsense concerning terrorists which has been injected into this problem is simply a tactic our national ‘fear-mongers' are using to attract those few ‘chicken littles' who really are fearful of terrorist attacks. But terrorism is a different subject for another day.

Personally, I think a ‘super fence' for up to 2000 miles is excessive, infeasible, and frankly, politically stupid - and it will never be built! We can do better than that by making it virtually impossible for an ‘illegal' to get a job in the US at any level, with ultra severe penalties for anyone who violates such laws by hiring such ‘illegal's. It seems that we are already doing that to a limited extent.

My reasoning is that the only motive for Mexicans to cross the border is economic and thus the best solution is also economic through enforced legislation.

Many, mostly Republicans are upset that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants may be allowed to become US citizens. They call it "amnesty" which rewards illegal immigrants who broke U.S. laws. Well, yes, but who are they, how long have they been here, what status have they achieved since they arrived?

Let me suggest that as we become aware of them for one reason or another, rather than deport them, we evaluate them individually in a good old capitalistic profit-loss manner. If they are solid citizens and have contributed to our nation's well-being without undue expense to the system - we keep ‘em and provide them with citizenship! Lets call it "amnesty with a touch of good old capitalistic greed".

The statement has been made that "Each low-skilled immigrant household that gets amnesty costs the American taxpayers nearly $20,000 each year...." I certainly don't have the ability to refute that statement and agree that those ‘illegal's who can't benefit our economy or cause severe loss through health or crime should certainly be returned - not accepted into our nation.

After all, we, as a people have never embraced welfare nor even shown much compassion - despite what you and I were taught in grade school about our history. The truth is that even before we were a nation we used the English system of "warning-out" described as follows:

Between 1750 and 1800, towns warned out thousands of unwelcome transients. The warning out system, used throughout New England, provided the means whereby town officials ensured that transients did not become eligible for poor relief in whatever community they were passing through. The settlement laws determined who had the legal right of residence in a particular town and hence who would be supported by that town if they fell on hard times. This was a system the colonists had brought with them from England, and for the most part, it ensured that everyone, pauper and property-holder alike, had some place where he or she "belonged." But in the increasingly mobile society of the late eighteenth century, the system became overburdened with large numbers of transients moving around New England in search of work, family, or opportunity.

Town officials spent a considerable amount of time keeping track of transients, warning them out, and sending them back to their supposed hometowns should they appear likely to require poor relief.
[Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England. By RUTH WALLIS HERNDON. Early American Studies. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.)]

So let us admit that nothing is new in this respect.

It is for these reasons that the present bill in congress places limits on family-based immigration. It is certainly because of the increased concern that the immigrant family can't be self-supporting and would be a drain on the tax-paying economy.

Of a totally different nature is the dire need by primarily farmers to have a labor force to bring in the crops! Gringos, quite frankly are not only unwilling, but physically unable to do the stoop labor required in the hot fields to harvest our food - regardless of pay! Thus we desperately need a temporary worker program referred to as "the guest worker program" so that Mexicans who live in Mexico can come across the border to work in our fields, send their earnings back home to their families and return home at the end of the season. Some Mexican-Americans think that is de-humanizing, but I don't agree at all. How does that differ from some Americans going to Saudi Arabia to work in the oil fields at outrageous wages?

The problem with the old Braseros program was that there were labor camps run for the American farmers to house the migrant Mexicans. The problem with that program was that neither the farmers nor the labor camps were monitored by any level of government and capitalism was at its ugliest!

Certainly protections for guest workers in any new program should be guaranteed - perhaps with at least input if not oversight by the United Farm Workers union (UFW)!

It has been suggested that even these workers who wish should be offered some sort of path to citizenship. Those opposed to the program have chosen to severely limit the numbers of temporary workers - but in my opinion, that program should be need based.

As you can see, Mexican immigration is neither simple nor brown and white. We Americans have many faces ranging from those who feel sorry for anyone who lives a miserable existence to those who hate anyone who doesn't look just like they do, or work harder, or are richer or poorer or....

The bottom line is that we need some Mexicans, but certainly not all of them and we'd like to have the ones we get to become either productive American citizens or to go home to help raise the standards and welfare of their families and homes in Mexico.

Mexican immigration off track

All along I have assumed that, aside from the "big fence" fruitcakes, the thrust of the immigration problem with Mexico should and would be aimed toward seasonal, temporary workers who would live in Mexico and work in the US.

However, as stated by AP news: "Many in Mexico — and U.S. employers who say they need workers for low-skilled jobs — had hoped Congress would expand the guestworker program and allow more to cross legally, work a few months and then return home with their savings to build homes and businesses."

It seems that most Americans including politicians think of Mexican immigration with the idea that Mexicans are no different than the Jews, Poles, Italians, Irish, etc. who preceded them and immigrated in the last century from the horrors of their European ghettos to live here permanently. I think that is the wrong mindset.

Sure, there may be many Mexicans who want to live the US rat race permanently, just as there are a large number of ‘white' Americans who find they can retire almost lavishly in Mexico on little more than their American Social Security. That kind of immigration reform along with the stupid 2,000 mile wall can and should take its time in congress. It certainly doesn't deserve the urgency of the guest worker program which it seems, is being ignored by everyone except George Bush.

The main thrust of the immigration bill should be aimed toward the seasonal, primarily agricultural, Mexican laborer. The ability to speak English is certainly not necessary and very few if any ‘taxpayer services' would be required. Of course their medical costs and temporary housing would have to be mandated by law (with enforced standards) and covered by their American employers.

Near the shores of Tripoli......

One wonders why under the circumstances of the international posturing between the U.S. and Iran that any American would ‘visit' that country or even be allowed to go there by our government. If you can't go to Cuba, then why can you still go to Iran, since they tend to enjoy detaining Americans.

It would seem to me that a simple naval blockade of any and all oil shipments out of Iran to anywhere in the world would cause them to change their attitudes quite quickly. It would certainly not result in war and would impress on a lot of people that there is a world-wide economic interest in solving these otherwise religious Christian/Muslim problems.

I suspect that the Europeans, Asians and American car-buffs enjoy Iranian oil and I'm equally certain that the Iranians don't want to have to become bedouins again without a pot to pee in!

Academic from U.S. center arrested in Iran

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Washington-based academic with dual Iranian and U.S. citizenship has been arrested in Tehran after meeting with officials at the Ministry of Intelligence, her U.S. institution said on Wednesday.

Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Middle East program, was arrested on Tuesday and taken to Tehran's Evin prison, according to a statement issued by the center and her family.

The statement also said she needed medical attention but did not say why. She was allowed one phone call from the prison, it said. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the arrest and said Esfandiari was among a number U.S.-Iranians being detained by Tehran.

Iran has also confiscated the passport of Parnaz Azima, a reporter based in Prague for U.S. funded Radio, Farda, which broadcasts programs about Iran. Azima went to visit her ailing mother in Iran in January and has been prevented from leaving.

"We want to see them returned back to their families," said McCormack. "These two women are an academic on the one hand, a journalist on the other. They are both grandmothers and so I am not sure what it is the Iranian government has to fear from these ladies," he added.

"It is an insight into the nature of this regime," McCormack said of the case of the two women.

Esfandiari flew to Tehran in December to visit her mother. As she drove to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington she was robbed of her belongings, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the statement said.

INTERROGATION
She applied for replacement Iranian travel documents and was interviewed by a representative of Iran's intelligence ministry, which was then followed by weeks of interrogations focusing on her work for the center, it said.

The center's president, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, sent a letter in February to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad explaining the work of the organization and seeking his help in securing Esfandiari's return to the United States.

"The president has yet to acknowledge or reply to it," the center said in the statement. "Attempts to resolve this issue through various channels and without publicity were also not successful."

Hamilton was the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group which last year issued recommendations for ending the violence in Iraq, including engaging with long time U.S. foe Iran.

The center's Middle East program focuses on the political, social and economic developments in the Middle East and examines American interests in the region and the threat of terrorism.

U.S. officials believe Tehran may also be holding former FBI official Robert Levinson who went missing early in March while on a visit to the Iranian island of Kish.

Levinson's wife was due to meet State Department officials in Washington on Wednesday to seek more information about her husband, McCormack said.

He said the United States still had no details on Levinson's whereabouts but believed the Florida resident was still alive. Iran has denied it is holding him.

Economics and Power

[Not sure who is reading my tirades any more, but what the heck.

I had always thought that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were altruistic functions of the wealthy nations of the world to make life better in the lesser successful peoples of the world.

However, I really started to wonder about that when Bush appointed Wolfowitz of all people, to head up the World Bank partly because I didn't know that the administration controlled the World Bank and partly because I didn't believe that even they'd install a person of such questionable character as its CEO!

(Latest news indicates: "World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz attempted to fight his way out of trouble last night – but hinted that he may be prepared to resign if the charges ...)

But now, I see below, that our southern neighbors are alive and prospering and don't need our questionable charity! It seems that for most people, socialism* actually works! Our nation was originally based upon socialism as opposed to royal tyranny but we quickly forgot as we succumbed to the lure of capitalistic greed - screw the other guy before he screws you....

*I should add that our first colony, Jamestown, started out communistic but slavery (and cotton) very quickly changed that! And after the market crash in 1929 when people lost everything, there were many communes established for people to work, contribute and survive. My conclusion here is that communism works when you're hungry. ...AG]

Venezuela pulling out of IMF, World Bank
By JORGE RUEDA, Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

"We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone," said the leftist leader, who has long railed against the Washington-based lending institutions.

Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters, recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule, saving $8 million. It paid off all its debts to the IMF shortly after Chavez first took office in 1999. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year.

Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, made the announcement a day after telling a meeting of allied leaders that Latin America would be better off without the U.S.-backed World Bank or IMF. He has often blamed their lending policies for perpetuating poverty.

Chavez wants to set up a new lender run by Latin American nations and has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. The regional lender, which he has called "Bank of the South," would dole out financing for state projects across Latin America.

Chavez has criticized past Venezuelan governments for signing agreements with the IMF to restructure the economy — plans blamed for contributing to racing inflation.

Under former President Carlos Andres Perez in 1989, violent protests broke out in Caracas in response to IMF austerity measures that brought a hike in subsidized gasoline prices and public transport fares.

Enraged people took the streets in violence that killed at least 300 people — and possibly many more. The riots came to be known as the "Caracazo," and Chavez often refers to it as a rebellion against the status quo.

During Sunday's talks with leaders from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti, Chavez predicted that "sooner or later, those institutions will fall due to their own weight."

"They will wear away — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and all those institutions," Chavez said.

Bolivian President Evo Morales raised complaints about a World Bank body that mediates disputes between governments and foreign investors. He said governments never seem to win their disputes against transnational companies at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Chavez suggested that Latin countries could instead create their own arbitration body for disputes with big companies.

Venezuela is not the only country in the region distancing itself from international lenders.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said Sunday that he hopes to "get out of that prison" of IMF debt and that "we are negotiating with the Fund to leave the Fund."

Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, recently asked the World Bank's representative there to leave and said the country paid off its debt to the IMF. Argentina also has paid back billions of dollars to the IMF.

Of mice and men....

I read an article in the Times which was, I think, overly long but is available in their achieves at the tinyurl below:
New York Times March 20, 2007
Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://tinyurl.com/27hbvx

My problem with the article has been one of my pet peeves for many years. It seems to me that humans in their fanatic desire (insecurity) to prove that they're superior to all beasties on this planet aren't willing to give the critters any credit for having thinking brains or even emotions similar to those we experience. This, of course, allows us to hunt and joyously kill them as we wish without remorse....

The article presents a clash between academic philosophers aided and abetted by some bookworm psychologists against academic biologists who work with non-human primates and have been surprisingly surprised that they exhibit some ‘human' qualities. Wow! Where is the Pulitzer committee?

Obviously the difference between philosophers and biologists is the fact that biologists have an infinitely better knowledge of animals while philosophers love to sit in their recliners by a cosy fire, late at night with a glass of wine and... ruminate about "the meaning of life"! Been there and done that but although very pleasant, not very productive.

Academics do provide some sense of organization to the study of man and to a limited extent, the rest of the animal kingdom such as in the article: "These four kinds of behavior — empathy, the ability to learn and follow social rules, reciprocity and peacemaking — are the basis of sociality."

I think anyone who actually ‘knows' animals rather than knows about them and has had many as personal ‘friends' is well aware that even cats and horses (pretty much the boundary of my own personal experience) posses at least simplistically, those four kinds of behavior. I'd even add a fifth behavior which is more subtle, complex, and not universal - but obvious when found, - a sense of humor, which often is not found even in many humans. But humor is often observable in cats and horses and maybe even Meercats! Perhaps, as with wives, one has to own one to love and understand them.

I agree with Dr. de Waal's (the biologist) assessment of religion being an exclusive human invention. He implied rather than stated (but I state) that religion is a means of social control (power) of individuals by the group to the group's advantage - pure and simple. Of course the philosophical community considers religion to be one of humanity's highest evolutionary attributes - especially since apes are apparently atheists!

Sometimes the best proof of something is through observations made when that something is missing. This is painfully true in the case of empathy. I understand that about one percent of the human population is incapable of such feelings. It has also been established that the lack of empathy is a physiological (brain) disorder and not resulting from societal training as in the military or the lack of proper parental indoctrination in childhood.

It appears that an absence of empathy is evident by the noted absence of remorse by psychopathic serial killers. These people are incapable of translating how others might feel to their own feelings. They know the difference between right and wrong intellectually, but not emotionally. They enjoy pulling the legs off bugs or murdering people - it doesn't make any difference to them.

All too often while play fighting with my kitties, they get excited and scratch me causing me to suddenly pull back and voice my pain. When they realize that they hurt me, they immediately change their behavior to being solicitous and often try to lap the wound or otherwise indicate that it was not their intent to cause me injury.

Granted, the intellectual abilities of animals other than humans is quite limited, but I submit that animals are as emotional as humans - not through facial expression but certainly in body language. Emotions are, of course, the most primitive function of a ‘thinking' brain and have been necessary in all animals to be able to make decisions concerning fight and flight, pecking orders and love.

After all, philosophers and mathematicians don't need to be human - they have their intellects and a box of wine to keep them warm!

Barack Obama

There are some people who actually consider Obama to be a black man! Yet, on CSPAN I watched a black caucus wherein the blacks were concerned whether Obama was "black enough"!

Of course there are bigots - even pundits on the LA Times who can't see anything beyond the color of a man's skin and who assume that all white's have some sort of guilt complex and are looking for a black messiah to follow to assuage their guilt.

I suppose it goes with the territory and Hillary will have the same problem with the women vote - is she "female enough"? And I'm certain there are some men who are insecure enough to resist giving any homage to a female president.

But these are very narrow people who can't see beyond their own indoctrinated (virtual religious) beliefs that the physiological differences between people define them more than the mental differences. That is why we can elect a stupid white man to the presidency and denigrate a very intelligent black man - or (even) woman! And, of course, it isn't just in the South.

I read a statement which rings with a certain appropriate truth - "If you see something wrong, try to change it with your hands. If you can't, then try to change it with your words. If you can't, remember in your mind that it is still wrong so you will never think it is right." [the prophet Mohammed] I was going to post the article on Footprints, but didn't want to clutter the site with other stuff while you post the New Orleans photos, Dee – it can wait.

Obama was on Larry King tonight for the full hour. He fielded King's questions to my satisfaction about current events, both domestic and foreign - despite the fact that he is a skinny semi-black Harvard man with a normal friendly voice and large white teeth - certainly not presidential in the George Washington sense (George didn't go to Harvard)! I'd be even more impressed if Barack had the deep melodic voice and robust black physiology of Paul Robeson singing "Old Man River"! But then, Barack's wife is pretty! And, I assume that Paul Robeson is dead by now....?

Rambling on about genealogy & DNA

I was still able to find my site on Cindy's list after at least seven years! It wasn't easy, but I eventually found me.... You wouldn't believe how hard I worked to get on her list, then - and also onto Google! You know, if you stop to think about it which at my age I do increasingly more, it may be Cindy's List and Google will be my eternal life! Perhaps even after I die which is pending, I'll still be found on Cindi's List and Google at Yahoo! At last! I have a vision of the only real Heaven! ...of course, I won't be able to answer the emails.... but perhaps then, I've said it all before somewhere anyway - and who cares anyway?.... I've noticed that if I Google my name I'll also find some argument or the other with others on the DNA List I participated in several years ago and which I think, is archived. Lots of theories and suppositions were argued during those early days of genealogical DNA - and as usual, I had a big mouth - so what else is new?! Before I go, I'd like to have the mitochondrial DNA of my granddaughter, Shannon, evaluated. I haven't had the chance to put it to her yet - and of course, I'd pay the couple of hundred for the test. The reason is that we all know that she is ½ Chippewa and, of course ½ Gleason. However, I suspect that her DNA (and that of her sister, Devin) would be European. I believe there would be no biological evidence that the girls are at all AmerIndians nor with any Asian ancestry! (Mitochondrial DNA determines maternal ancestry - not paternal). If interested, I'll tell you why. I'm still on Google, but very far down the list now. Google has changed (not because of that) and not for the better. It seems to have gotten more "commercial"... Has anyone noticed that? It still is the GREATEST source of things I want to know now! I suppose that Captialism destroys everything it touches sooner or later. I'm a semi-Capitalist, of sorts, since the other -ism's don't work well, but give me a better -ism and I'll certainly look into it. I rather hope for a form of SocioCapitalism which deals with such things as ‘level playing fields', avoidance of egregious wealth, leadership rather than the confrontational defiance of the six billion people on this planet who could have us for supper... and probably would still be hungry! Lets put it this way. Capitalism most certainly isn't the answer, but perhaps Capitalism can provide the answer through, maybe an evolution from facism and the demise of silly mysticisms, into what we might call Capitalistic-Humanism? I won't live to see it of course...

An alternative government....

Being a little bit snide, Viagra is for Republicans, Levitra is for Democrats and Cealis is for Libertarians. And since Ann Coulter thinks women should be armed but should not be allowed to vote, we can solve all of our national problems through four still awake senior citizens and disband Congress - especially since the Presidency was disbanded six years ago.

At least it shows that Howard Baker is not dismayed that the last commission he was in was totally ignored by his friend, Bush. I guess when you spend a career in politics you get used to bumping your head against stone walls to the point that it hurts when you stop.

BTW, since Cheney has pflebitis or.... whatever, perhaps they should send him to Walter Reed even though he doesn't qualify for such great treatment!

Ex-Senate leaders join bipartisan effort
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Four former Senate majority leaders are heading a new group aimed at putting aside partisan politics and offering solutions to the nation's biggest issues.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

"We've all been leaders and you know how difficult it is," said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. "We're all partisan in a way," Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that "compromise is not a bad word."

Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, "If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect."

Congress, evenly divided and sharply partisan, in recent years has turned to outside commissions for advice on politically sensitive topics. Two of those nonpartisan groups, the Sept. 11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group, have had considerable influence on policy.

The former senators believe the new group "can help create common sense solutions to key national challenges and can help foster a return to more civil political debate," Baker, the Senate leader from 1981 to 1985, said in a statement.

The center has a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million for 2007, funded by several philanthropic groups. At first, it plans to concentrate on projects dealing with agriculture, energy and national security policy.

Daschle and Dole currently head a study into 21st century agriculture and the opportunities for farmers in energy production, conservation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Dole said he hoped to have that report finished in the next 30 days.

The former senators also will advise a commission on energy policy and a national security initiative led by NATO's former supreme allied commander, retired Gen. James L. Jones.

Mitchell said he was interested in health care issues and hoped to contribute to the debate over port security. Dole said he would like to work on penal system reform and disability issues involving veterans.

On the Net: Bipartisan Policy Center: http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/

Dick Cavett - commentary

I know that this is copywrited and I really have nothing to say about Dick Cavett's opinion other than that I, too agree with what he has written and hope that everyone gets to read and understand what he says below - especially his story below the **********'s when he tells about Uncle Bill and war:

New York Times
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Opinion
Dick Cavett

February 28, 2007, 6:03 pm

What My Uncle Knew About War

Tell me, are you too getting just a little bit fed up with our leader's war? Isn't everybody? Do you actually know anyone who thinks it's all going to turn out fine? Except that chubby optimist Dick Cheney, of course, who thinks the Titanic is still afloat.

And am I alone in finding our leader's behavior at press conferences irritating? I mean that smirky, frat-boy joking manner he goes into while, far away, people he dispatched to the desert are having their buttocks shot away. It's worst when he does that thing of his that the French call making a "moue"; when he pooches his lips out and thrusts his face forward in a way that seems to say, "Aren't I right? And don't you adore me?"

As in his case, I was never a soldier, but God knows I wanted to be. Not in later years when my draft number came up for real, but back in my Nebraska grade-school days when Jimmy McConnell and Dickie Cavett watched John Wayne in "Sands of Iwo Jima" at least five times, one of us sneaking the other in free through the alley exit. Then we went home, got our weapons (high-caliber cap pistols) and took turns being John Wayne. The alley was Iwo Jima.

Years later I met Big John. It couldn't have been better. He was in full cowboy drag on an old Western (studio) street and mounted on his great horse Dollar. He looked exactly as he did in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and it took my breath away. I didn't just like him, I loved him. I sorta wished I hadn't liked him quite as much, so I could have asked him, "Duke, how come not you nor any of your four strapping sons ever spent one day in the armed services?" ("I'm merely asking," I might have added to lighten the tone. Or delay the concussion.)

I didn't dodge the draft, and unlike our V.P. I didn't have "a different agenda." I didn't have to. I had mononucleosis (imagine how the "nuke-you-lur" president would injure that word in pronunciation) and, my draft board said, they had way too many guys and nothing was happening, war-wise. Sound preposterous? And yet there was such a time.

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I have a statement: Anybody who gives his life in war is an idiot.

I guess I left off the quotation marks to let the words have their full effect. They aren't mine, but I'm related to them. They're my Uncle Bill's words, and his credentials for uttering the remark are a shade better than mine.

He may well have been the sole Marine to have survived driving landing barges on three bloody invasions in the South Pacific. I asked an old Marine vet once how rare Bill's survival was. He was gifted of speech: "I'd say survivors of what your uncle did could probably hold their reunion in a phone booth and still have room for most of Kate Smith." (We'll pause while youngsters Google.) "My guess is that your uncle is unique."

Bill said that aside from knowing that any minute was likely to be your last, the worst part of the job was having to drop the landing barge's front door so the guys could swarm out onto the beach. Despite the hail of bullets against that door, he had to drop it, knowing that the front five or six guys would be killed instantly.

The phrase Bill hated most was "gave his life." That phrase is a favorite of our windbag politicians; especially, it seems, the dimmer ones who say "Eye-rack."

"Your life isn't given," I remember him saying, "it's brutally ripped away from you. You're no good to your buddies dead, and when the bullets start pouring in you don't give a goddamn about God, country, Yale, your loved ones, the last full measure of devotion or any other of that Legionnaire patriotic crapola. You just want you and your buddies to see at least one more sunrise."

Bill also served on land and experienced something so god-awful that he thought he would go mad: "Tom [his best friend] and I were trotting along, firing our rifles, and I turned to say something to Tom and his head was gone." (Bill had great difficulty telling this. I guess I felt honored that he had not been able to speak of it for years.) He said the worst part was that while still holding the rifle, the body, now a fountain, continued for four or five steps before falling. He hated to close his eyes at night because that ghastly horror was his dependable nightly visitor for years — like Macbeth, murdering sleep.

By sheer chance I was out on the sidewalk in front of Bill's house (we lived next door) when he arrived home from the war. I wasn't even sure it was Bill at first, he looked so much older.

I blurted, "Hey, Bill, welcome home." He was two feet from me but neither saw nor heard me. I knew the phrase current then. Bill was "shellshocked." Not the current "post-traumatic stress disorder" or whatever the P.C.-sounding phrase is today. For the first six months he was home, he slept in the yard.

You will think less of me for this, but my friend Jim and I, noticing how poor Bill jumped at sudden sounds, thought a firecracker might be in order. Bill's training kicked in by reflex. He hit the ground so fast it looked like film with frames removed. And, lacking the standard-issue shovel, he started digging with his hands. He never knew who did it. As for Jim and me, I trust that this will be deducted from our shares in paradise.

Isn't it the excellent combat chronicler Paul Fussell who gets credit for the phrase "the thousand-mile stare"? It described the look of the haggard soldiers coming back from their first battle as the eager, fresh-faced kids — which they had been a few days earlier — filed past them on their way "in." By definition, both groups were the same age, but there were no young faces in the returning group. They looked more like fathers than sons.

It amazes me that this bungled war can still be considered controversial. Who are the 28 percent anyway, who think that George W., the author of this mess, has "done a heckuva job"?

The other word Bill hated was "sacrifice." Sacrifice is something you give up in order to get something in return. What good are we getting from this monstrous error? Cooked up as it was by that infamous group of neocons (accent on last syllable) who, draft-averse themselves, were willing to inflict on the (largely unprivileged) youth of this country their crack-brained scheme for causing democracy to take root and spread like kudzu throughout that bizarre and ill-understood part of the world, the Middle East.

What service is this great country getting out of all this tragedy, other than the certainty that historians will ask in disbelief, "Was there no one to stand up to this overweening president?"

I cringe at the icky, sentimental way the president talks about what we owe to the people of plucky little Iraq. You'd think we all grew up ending our "Now I lay me down to sleep…" with "… and please, Lord, be good to Iraq." They detest us now, along with just about everybody else. Personally, I don't give a damn what happens to Iraq, and don't think it's worth a single American life. Or any other kind. Haven't philosophers taught us the immorality of destroying something of infinite value — like a human life — in order to achieve a possible good? I guess not.

For weeks the word "cause" has rolled around in my head, attached to an elusive quote. I found it. It's from Shakespeare's "Henry V" (as distinct, I suppose, from Paris Hilton's "Henry V") and it's the part where the king, in disguise and unrecognized, sits at a fire listening to some of his men discuss the next day's battle and what it means to be fighting in a good cause. One says, "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, ‘We died at such a place,' … their wives left poor behind … their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle. … Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it."

Gay Marriage, Lite....

Hmmmm.... my question is whether same-sex teaching was a good complaint to bring before a federal judge. Of course, in Massachusetts and a couple of other states gay marriage and/or other types of co-habitation are legal and probably should and will be legal everywhere eventually, so it is reasonable to assume that the judge had the responsibility to rule as he did. And certainly using the argument of such teaching being a violation of "religious rights" is simply ridiculous! I do wonder who their lawyer was! The only religious "rights" a person has is in the 1st Amendment, ["Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"]. It doesn't say that others must cow-tow to an individual's (or church's) beliefs, but simply that one may have whatever beliefs one wants for himself! It doesn't even say that a parent may bring up her children with certain beliefs! Of course, I guess the Constitution doesn't say a lot of things. So, I think that if the parent(s) really wanted to change the policy rather than make a big political show of it, that it would have been much wiser to protest to the school board! After all, schools are still under local control and school boards can be easily replaced if they don't cater to the will of the local citizenry. I'm certainly not anti-gay, but ‘they' are most certainly a biological anomaly and usually not all that obvious unless one goes out of one's way look for them. Their behavior in society, I think, should be quiet and unobtrusive just as should be the more common heterosexual lifestyle. Personally, I don't like conspicuous sex from anyone, on stage, on a screen or on the street - but I guess I'm not typical, judging by our media which caters to the perverted interests of the masses in order to sell almost anything. For example, I was disappointed when Ellen De Generes announced her homosexuality on the tube several years ago because it had nothing to do with her TV personality - it had to do with her private life, which was her business, not ours. In effect she did it to show off and shock everyone. It was the adult version of sticking your thumbs in your ears, waggling your fingers and sticking out your tongue at someone. She was and is a quick wit and very funny comedienne - just not as, because she showed the world a flaw in her personality which diminished her as a person. I won't comment on Rosie because I had no interest in her stage character to begin with and it wasn't her name or her size because I liked Rosey Greer - the 300 lb linebacker who made needlepoint doilies! Neither she nor 'the Donald' come across as nice people you'd want to know. Anyway, back on topic. I don't think it is necessary to teach small children about sexuality or its social aspects. After all, by the age of seven, I had already learned all about sex from my friends - and they were amazingly accurate. Perhaps sex is better kept in its place through the mysterious silence of grown-ups and teachers. There's plenty of schooltime later on to teach the scary details about diseases associated with sexual malpractice. It doesn't hurt to believe in Santa Claus for a few years. Years ago, I recall when going over my college transcripts that ‘they' determined that I had to take a course called "Family Relations" in order to be mailed an AA degree! I pointed out (to 'they') that I was already married and had two children - to no avail, I had to take the dumb course which taught me that statistically, I'd marry a brown-eyed, raven-haired woman like my mother! My petite blonde blue-eyed wife got a kick out of that! Hmmm... wonder if I'd mentioned that marriage was against my religious beliefs, I could have gotten out of taking the course? U.S. court upholds same-sex teaching to children - Sat Feb 24 BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge in Boston has dismissed a suit by two families who wanted to stop a Massachusetts town and its public school system from teaching their children about gay marriage, court documents show. The families last year filed the suit asserting that the reading of a gay-themed book and handing out to elementary school students of other children's books that discussed homosexuality without first notifying parents was a violation of their religious rights. Federal Judge Mark Wolf ruled on Friday that public schools are "entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy." "Diversity is a hallmark of our nation. It is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation," he said. He said the courts had decided in other cases that parents' rights to exercise their religious beliefs were not violated when their children were exposed to contrary ideas in school. The complaint filed against the town of Lexington, about 12 miles west of Boston, had said the school had "begun a process of intentionally indoctrinating very young children to affirm the notion that homosexuality is right and normal in direct denigration of the plaintiffs' deeply held faith." The book that sparked the case was "King & King" which tells the story of a crown prince who rejects a bevy of beautiful princesses, rebuffing each suitor until falling in love with a prince. The two marry, sealing the union with a kiss, and live happily ever after. The Lexington school system had said reading the book was not intended as sex education but as a way to educate children about the world in which they live, especially in Massachusetts, the only U.S. state where gays and lesbians can legally wed. A lawyer for the families said they would appeal the ruling, the Boston Globe reported on Saturday.