Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield
Topic: Society
4:21 pm EDT, Jun 30, 2008
“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.
The upshot? We've covertly invaded Iran. Oops part deux.
It doesn't matter. The ruling came down. "We the people" won. This should put us a step closer back to the "right" way of things--the government afraid of it's people, instead of the other way around.
The argument that was being made by pro-gun-elimination advocates was that the Constitution supposedly meant that a militia had the right to bear arms, but "the people" didn't. The problem there is that militias are usually controlled by the local governments (or they're declared terrorists and infiltrated and destroyed), which are controlled by the etc etc. Being that this section was put in there specifically because we'd just shed the British from our soil--and needed a lot of guns to do it--their "people shouldn't have guns" viewpoint would make the 2nd Amendment less than useless.
The Supreme Court very rightly decided that the only sane interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was that it was there to make sure that individuals could bear arms in order to be able to fight back against their government, should circumstances make this necessary.
This is especially important stuff since we've got King George in the White House. I'm still not wholly convinced he's actually letting go in November. I certainly don't want to see anyone get shot, but a few hundred thousand people showing up in DC asking politely with guns for him to leave office would probably not be such a bad thing.
Gosh, guess which area has a strict "you can't have a gun" policy.
For their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.
Photographic Artist Chris Jordan turns the statistics of consumerism into palpable images in his new photo series.
Please watch this video. From an artistic standpoint, it's irrelevant and the quality of the video belies what the actual work must provoke in person. The statement that it is making, which is what art is really for, is what is important. The last 60 seconds of the video is the most profound, but the whole thing must be watched in order for that last bit to resonate roundly.
By ANDREW MIGA Associated Press Writer AP - Friday, October 12
WASHINGTON - Rep. Barney Frank, a leading gay rights champion in Congress, on Thursday urged fellow gay rights advocates not to let their dispute over protecting transgender workers doom a job discrimination ban that could mark a major civil rights advance for gays in the workplace.
The debate over including transgender people has sharply divided gay rights activists, many of whom are trying to kill a stripped-down bill without protections for transgender workers that Frank and Democratic leaders hope will win House passage this year.
"We're not going to be split off this way," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "We're driven by principle. No civil rights movement has ever left a part of its community behind - and we're not about to be the first."
Frank, D-Mass., one of two openly gay members of Congress, supports transgender protections, but said they don't have the votes.
"Politically, the notion that you don't do anything until you can do everything is self-defeating," he said.
Frank said the public has more awareness because gay activists began educating people about the unfairness of prejudice based on sexual orientation a long time ago.
"These things take awhile," Frank said. "The transgender issue is of relatively recent vintage."
Legislation banning workplace discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals _ but not those who have had sex-change surgery or cross-dressers _ has stalled after an outcry from the transgender community and its allies, including many gay rights organizations.
"Transgender" is an umbrella term that covers transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance doesn't match their gender at birth.
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act would make it illegal for employers to make decisions about hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Churches and the military would be exempt.
But when Democrats took vote counts and realized the measure would fail, they substituted a new scaled-back version dropping transgender people from the bill. A second bill to ban workplace discrimination against transgenders was also drafted.
Gay rights groups that oppose a ban that leaves out transgender people have waged an aggressive lobbying campaign.
"Fighting your friends can sometimes be difficult," said Frank.
Foreman agreed.
"I never thought in a million years we would be on the opposite side of Barney Frank and it is painful," he said.
Federal law bans job discrimination based on factors such as race, gender and religion. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have laws against sexual orientation discrimination.
However, only nine states specifically protect transgender people from discrimination: New Jersey, Minnesota, Rhod... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]
Apparently the leading Russian "v!4gr4" spammer was recently found murdered, apparently by the mafia.
Let's hear it for the mafia! (...and how often is it you get to say that) ...although perhaps next time they'll just break a hand's-worth of fingers as a warning first. Spammers can [i]probably[/i] be rehabilitated just like any other criminal, so there's not much sense in wasting them like that.
While we're on the subject of using force as a legitimate part of your job vs. using force because you like hurting people and now you've got a job that gives you a passable explanation for having done so, the final public report on the UCLA taser incident from last November is available.
The conclusions of this report are that the officer's actions were completely outside of UCLA policy and that the policy is also too liberal. This is obviously unwelcome news to variouscommentators who supported this incident as model police behavior. However, for their benefit it there is also a second "internal" report that you and I are not allowed to read which concludes that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what happened. This enables UCLA management to change their policies without admitting that anyone has done anything wrong.
Which report is correct? Such questions completely miss the point. Its not about right or wrong. If you want to really understand all of this please refer to my previous post on how everything everywhere actually works.
At the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams, the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) conducted a seven- month, independent investigation of a November 14, 2006 incident at UCLA’s Powell Library in which the UCLA Police Department (UCLAPD ) arrested UCLA student Mostafa Tabatabainejad. This report sets forth our factual findings and conclusions.
This story has no heroes. The event triggering the repeated electrical shocking of Tabatabainejad was a declination by the UCLA student to produce a BruinCard identification in the Powell Library computer lab after hours. While the student should have simply obeyed the order to produce the card, and by not doing so brought trouble upon himself, the police response was substantially out of proportion to the provocation. There were many ways in which the UCLAPD officers involved could have handled this incident competently, professionally, and with minimal force. We find that one UCLAPD officer violated UCLA use of force policies in the incident. We further conclude that UCLAPD’s current policies are, in any event, unduly permissive, giving the police unnecessary latitude, and are inconsistent with the policies of other universities and leading police departments across the country, including other University of California campuses, the LAPD, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). The UCLAPD policy stands alone in its legitimization of the Taser as a pain compliance device against passive resisters. The current UCLA policy is more permissive than the Sacramento Police Department policy on which it was based and the Taser policy recommended by its chosen outside expert on the question.
YouTube - Rev. Yearwood speaks re: Police Brutality against him.
Topic: Society
9:24 pm EDT, Sep 13, 2007
Rev.Lennox Yearwood regarding being attacked, arrested, and hospitalized by Capitol Police
This man was denied entrance to the hearing because he had clearly been identified as holding opinions counter to the party line.
Bush's people will do everything in their power to keep dissenting voices away from the media when they have their official digs going on, and make no mistake about it, this is censorship of the worst kind.
Can we file a class-action suit yet, or do we have to wait until Bush's third term so that it gets lost in the shuffle of the switch to despotism?
