Political

http://ga3.org/campaign/lee_raymond 

Bush’s Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has hand-picked former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond to lead an influential study to develop policy solutions to America’s energy crisis. We can’t allow ExxonMobil and Big Oil to decide our energy future!

Now is the time for America to develop new energy solutions. We can’t afford to put our energy future -- and the future of our children -- in the hands of the oil industry.

Fill out the form below to tell Sec. Bodman to pull the project from Lee Raymond and his oil industry cronies and give it to an independent body NOT tangled up in Big Oil. 

As if we needed another reason to view the invasion of Iraq with horror...

 http://www.traprockpeace.org/bhagwat_du_29feb04.pdf  

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot ..that it do singe yourself.

- William Shakespeare

 The induction of Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons in 1991 in Iraq, the radio-active trash from nuclear plants broke a 46 year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war, an omnicidal weapon has since then continued to be used more and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years. )

The long-term effects from over a decade of DU exposures are emerging in Southern Iraq. They are devastating. The increased quantities of radio-active material ( including non-depleted uranium), used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5 times greater than Iraq 199. In Iraq 2003 they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991 and will travel through a larger area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000 mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected by radiation poisoning , that includes the Capital, New Delhi, where the ruling elite lives. The reported coming of an AIDS epidemic last year in India , down wind, may have a relationship to DU bombing in Afghanistan. If we think cancer is a problem now wait until more DU is released in wars against terror and for ‘regime change’, on ‘mistaken’ Intelligence reports.  More than 500 tons of DU munitions have been dispensed in Afghanistan. Professor Yagasaki calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs in a paper presented at the ‘World Uranium Weapons Conference’ in Hamburg in October 2003 ( 5 months ago ). The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs ( Busby and Leuren Moret have calculated that 1900 tons of DU is equivalent to 60 TBq of Alfa and Beta particulate activity).

When I started this site I didn't think I would be quoting ESPN, but this is more then worth it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2633793 

"Somehow, the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country. Somehow, this is tolerated. Somehow, nobody is accountable for this."

--Kevin Tillman, brother of Pat Tillman

PHOENIX -- The brother of an NFL player who was killed in Afghanistan after quitting the team to join the U.S. Army Rangers has broken his silence.

Kevin Tillman, a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with his older brother, Pat Tillman, has remained silent since his brother's death in 2004. But this week, he wrote a scathing indictment of the war in Iraq, the Bush administration and American apathy.

"Somehow, the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes," Kevin wrote on Truthdig.com, which purchased his work.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004799.html  

What really threatens us? How do we truly make ourselves safer?

The Cato Institute (a conservative thinktank) has released an outstanding paper, A False Sense of Insecurity (PDF), which makes the point that in any rational assessment, terrorism is really just not that big of a threat to the average person. For instance, about as many Americans have been killed by terrorists as have been "killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." Whatsmore, many WMD threats are overblown and largely preventable. Indeed, with exhaustive research, the authors can conclude that:

I've been having a running conversation (almost an arguement) with a co-worker about habeas corpus, being a Conscientious Objector as compared w/the teachings of Jesus, and various mutilations/ atrocities. The following basically won the debate and figured I should post it.

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Conflating the standards for being a C.O. and the teaching of Jesus is too big of a topic to address, but I will say it is the standards for being a C.O. are more the a little off the mark. Jesus opposed violence but wasn't a pacifist in currently viewed context of going limp. The commonly mentioned story of "turning the other cheek" is completely disconnected from the original context of using the power of the Roman empire against itself.

I'm quite aware of what happened at the hands of Zarqawi et al, and as Bush now has the power to disappear and torture people, disregard the Geneva conventions and throw out 800 years of progress basically negates any real moral high ground the US might have had. Of course the insurgence is not following the Geneva conventions but giving up your principles rarely leads to "winning the hearts and minds". The story line of we mutilate less then they do doesn't quite carry the day.