Mike's Blog

"bringin' 'em freedum and demockrasy"

In your name    

                    

Five years of this shit.  Look at it.  It's our doing.

Two-year-old Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his family's home in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. The child, who later died at the hospital, was in one of four homes destroyed by U.S. missiles. More than two dozen people were killed when Shiite militants ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district, bringing the death toll in area on Tuesday to more than 30, a U.S. military spokesman and Iraqi officials said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim) (link Rising Hegemon)

Religion - "the new social evil"

Religion is ‘the new social evil’

Robert Watts

A CHARITY set up by an ardent Christian to fight slavery and the opium trade has identified a new social evil of the 21st century - religion.

A poll by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation uncovered a widespread belief that faith - not just in its extreme form - was intolerant, irrational and used to justify persecution.

Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.

The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the “dominant opinion” was that religion was a “social evil”... (link via Pharyngula)

Expelled, my blog and the Chinese firewall

I"m in China right now and my blog is blocked, but I can log in to the main site and post to it.  Very odd but that's the way it works.

This title of this is too funny not to post. Lots of good links and reading.

Expelled

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY APPARATUS DIRECTIVE
• OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY •  OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY •

We need to get the NCSE's counter-site  to the hideous little propaganda film, Expelled, to rank higher in the search engines. The way to do this is for lots and lots of you to link to the Expelled Exposed site with the word Expelled. It's not hard: just copy this code into a blog post.

<a href="http://expelledexposed.com/"><i>Expelled</i></a>

Whenever you write about the movie, use that link. Do it a bunch of times, if you want. It's more effective if many people use the same link every time, though, than for one person to be repetitive.

• OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY •  OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY •
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY APPARATUS DIRECTIVE

       

 

Bush admits to knowlege, consent and approval of war crimes

Why is Bush not impeached and in prison! He admits to war crimes and just doesn't give a shit as he knows he is immune. Bush admits to being a criminal and guilty of war crimes and thumbs his nose at the world.  I'm very thankful that most people in the world judge Americans as individual people and do not necessarily judge me solely because I am an citizen of a country who's government commits and openly admits to war crimes.

I can not see how anyone can "support the troops". I do not have any animosity for individual troops nor do I blindly "support" them. They are a pawn of the government. But I see no reason to praise and support them. Just as I do not see any reason to hate any older Germans just because they were part of the Nazi party in Germany. Other actions may rile up some hostility but I don't feel any sort of retroactive "support"for Nazi soldiers. The same feelings go towards Japanese WWI soldiers, Israeli IDF or Iraqis who feel they are fighting against oppression by occupying forces.,\

Bush Admits To Knowledge of Torture Authorization by Top Advisers (4/12/2008)

                   

ACLU Calls for Independent Counsel to Investigate Administration's Approval of Torture and Abuse

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (202) 675-2312, [email protected]; (917) 251-8654 or [email protected]

TAKE ACTION Demand Accountability for Bush's Top-Down Torture Policy

WASHINGTON – In a stunning admission to ABC news Friday night, President Bush declared that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's use of torture. Bush reportedly told ABC, "I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." Bush also defended the use of waterboarding.

Recent reports indicate that high-level advisers including Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet were part of the National Security Council's "Principals Committee" that met regularly and approved the CIA's use of "combined" "enhanced" interrogation techniques, even pushing the limits of the now infamous 2002 Justice Department "torture memo." These top advisers reportedly signed off on how the CIA would interrogate suspects – whether they would be slapped, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning. ...(link)

Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks

President Says He Knew His Senior Advisers Discussed Tough Interrogation Methods

By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG, HOWARD L. ROSENBERG and ARIANE de VOGUE
April 11, 2008

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President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

(ABC News Photo Illustration)

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news....(link ABC)

 

Lest there be any doubt about how stupid and backwards (and proud of it) most Texas politicians are

Politicians in Texas just want to make sure that everyone knows how stupid and backward they are so that put this in their "Texas Bill of Rights - Section 4".

I have a place in Texas that's really quite nice, the main thing that makes it nice is that it's 3 hours from a large city. I don't think I could deal with most Texans.

        Back to the subject -- the first thing Dawkins put up on view at the lecture (            (once he got started --         some technical glitches held things up for at least         half an hour) was the following:

Texas' Bill of Rights Section 4:
"RELIGIOUS TESTS: No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments

and then he put up the rest of it:

, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

(link sbrownblog)

"Well, when the president does it that means it is not illegal"

1977

...

FROST:  So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.

NIXON:     Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.

FROST:     By definition.

NIXON:     Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.

    ...(link to famous David Frost - Richard Nixon interview)

2003 - declassified 2008

  ...

Memo: Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators

Justice Dept. Official in 2003 Said President's Wartime Authority Trumped Many Statutes

By Dan Eggen and Josh White

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page A01

 

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

...(link Washington Post)