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The real winners are the vendors of scanning equipment, uniforms and staffing companies.

...and the people who made the decision to install the scanners just happen to own shares in those companies.

http://thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/5240-getting-rich-from-the-naked-body-scanners

I guess he wouldn't vote for it since it's not a bill before either house of Congress. It's a trade agreement which was already signed by Obama on October 1, 2011 despite the treaty not being ratified by the Senate.

Despite the scary headline, the following article was a decent summary of the issues.

Obama Tries to Bypass Congress with Deadly Global Internet Treaty ACTA

Hopefully, there will be constitutional challenge to the Obama administration as to whether the trade agreement is an "executive agreement" or not. Frankly, with the temporary defeat of SOPA and PIPA, I don't see how the US can fulfill the terms of ACTA (see what they did there?)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! How many times can the same story be recycled over the course of two years?

December 22, 2009 - Facebook's Other Top Trend of 2009: Divorce

April 12, 2010 - Facebook to Blame for Divorce Boom

June 28, 2010 - Facebook is divorce lawyers' new best friend

January 19, 2011 - Divorce cases get the Facebook factor

March 7, 2011 - Survey Shows Facebook an Increasing Factor in Divorce

January 1, 2012 - Facebook flirting triggers divorces

Slow news cycle? Nothing else to publish? Blame Facebook for divorce!

One of the largest tsunamis in the last century, which killed over 10,000 people, also lead to an industrial disaster with 5 fatalities (none of which were related to radiation). How does that in any way "shatter the credibility" of nuclear power?

(Source: http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/9537-no-fukushima-radiation-deaths-no-surprises)

"And you know this how?" http://thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary-mainmenu-43/8915-steve-jobs-charitable-contributions-he-gave-at-the-office This is why I don't believe he donated to any charities, and yea of course he could of done it secretly, but every story I have ever read about him gives me the impression he didn't.

Must be nice being right all the time. :-)

Meh. I'm wrong a considerable amount. Forgive me then for being overly boisterous on the few occasions when I'm right.

I doubt policy "came after them" unless it was solicited by a competitor. Or something they simply didn't like. Like I dont like speed limits.

The Gibson case is instructive, here. The only "profit motive" seems to lie entirely with Federal agents or bureaucrats. It's difficult to locate the origins of the targeting of Gibson, but when the company started going through the courts to get its property back, it's clear that the Feds started acting simply to retaliate and pressure Gibson to drop the case. People, especially in LEO, get very nasty when they are trying to cover up a mistake.

Why would government want to pick winners and losers?

It provides them power and press. You see, politicians do not have souls. They also react as reliably to positive and negative reinforcement as Pavlov's dogs. One of the strongest positive reinforcement for a politician is good press. So targeting a company, for whatever reason, real or imagined, can provide them that. So can propping up companies for praise or government programs.

Why is there such resistance to getting corporate money out of politics?

The resistance mainly comes from politicians, because the ideas that can really do that would reduce their power. There is also a question of law. A "corporation" is just a group of people organized as a business. There are very strict rules already in place to limit direct contributions. So lobbyists and lobbyist groups are used. But they represent a huge range of interests, including things like unions, religious groups, specific industries, farmers, citizen groups (really - some fairly small). The NRA and MoveOn both spend a lot of money on K Street lobbyists. None of those people want their ability to have their interests heard, and some of them are even lobbying to end corporate influence.

So what helps politicians is to pass a law that sounds good and praise what a change it's going to make in improving the political process, but what the end up passing is something like McCain/Feingold, which was really just an incumbent protection act, that only served to cause some groups to register their organizations differently, and to prevent another repeat of the success of a third party like the Reform Party had.

Regarding the last three statements:

1) Tea party people aren't blocking traffic, and generally obey the requests of the police, OccupyWall Street people are there protesting "the man" of which they view the police. If they acted more like Tea Party events, they wouldn't have this problem.

2) Occupy Wall street hasn't protested Obama, and is directly targeting Republicans. While it may not target Democrats to get elected, it certainly is left wing enough not to cross the line of running their own candidates against (D) party incumbents.. Tea Party got its fame by running their own candidates against established Republicans.

3)George Soros, which is kind of ironic since he is part of the people Occupy Wall Street is protesting. Let me know when OWS starts protesting Soros, okay? http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/9269-big-soros-money-linked-to-occupy-wall-street

http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/computers/8409-after-bilderberg-meeting-facebook-official-says-end-internet-anonymity

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=google+at+bilderberg

Whatever the above links tell you, I think it is a part of the move away from anonymity.

The types that attend the bilderberg meetings are probably not fans of anonymous people, nor people of anonymous.

Unfortunately Volt sales have been abysmal.

...I'd be surprised if they don't want to expand their coverage to trans and buses as soon as it's feasible.

Have you been living under a rock the last six months? They are already moving that direction. Here's a short list of links, for your reading/viewing pleasure:

In train stations.
...and again.
In a bus station.
Video of the Savannah, GA train station search.
TSA's spin^Wresponse to the Savannah, GA search.
What a VIPR operation is.
Napolitano musing about expanding the scope of TSA's operations before the above searches happened.

HTH!

With so many people posting their own version of facts, it helps knowing the past history of such people, so that you can disregard their claims. What made me google for this Anthony Watts was the claims he made that the UN had predicted 50 million refugees coming from Bahamas (population 330000), St. Lucia (population 173765), and Seychelles (population 84000).

With numbers like these, something looks wrong. So I googled for the original study to find out what it said. it was no surprise that neither Bahamas, Seychelles, or St. Lucia were mentioned there.

What it says is that there are million of refugees coming from regions affected by desertification and that number is increasing.

And you know what's the funny thing about all this? If you take the trouble to actually read the paper Dr. Norman Myers wrote, you will notice that he does not mention global warming at all. What he calls "environmental refugees" are, in his own words, "people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt."

In their haste to deny global warming, people like Anthony Watts do not even try to find out who they should write against...

In fact, this is one thing I cannot fathom. How the RNC and big business (which are essentially one now - with the other party quickly being subverted as well) have managed to still get support from the very people that they shaft over and over again.

That's why they brought us the Southern Strategy, the bedding-down with the Religious Right, and the new Southwestern Strategy.

I.e., they figured out that if they can make someone's knee jerk, they can make their finger twitch in the voting booth.

We've got a country full of citizens who will gladly vote away their freedoms, their privacy, their financial well-being, and their health, for the chance of foisting their prejudices and religious scruples off on the rest of society.

If Republicans ran on their real platform - making sure the rich get richer faster than they would without a Federal government - they wouldn't draw 1% of the votes. There just aren't enough rich people to get anyone elected, so they appeal to the basest instincts of the masses.

Demorats and their strategies. Good one. Yeah, it's not a Democratic problem. Democrats love the gays and atheists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps Democrats never lie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rizzo Democrats do their duty. http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/congress/6838-democrat-senator-caught-in-tax-evasion-scandal No Democrats here, just us rats.

Ooops! We did it again!

[trombone] Wa wa waaaaaaa! [/trombone]

After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."

There's a good article here that goes into the real difference. It's not about which party is in charge.

The word "republic" comes from the Latin res publica — which means simply "the public thing(s)," or more simply "the law(s)." "Democracy," on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to "the people to rule." Democracy, therefore, has always been synonymous with majority rule.

So, what do you want to put your trust in? A law, or a crowd?

1 - Stop snatching people off streets. Provide a Right to fair trial. (REALITY: No longer have Miranda rights even for U.S. citizens.) (Obama's advisers say americans can be held indefinitely w/o trial)
2 - Protect our Right to Privacy. (REALITY: They now spy on us via warrantless wiretaps and track our cellphones.) (Patriot Act renewed by Obama and the Pelosi Democrats.)
3 - Stop interrogation. Close Guantanamo. (Revoked - Club G is still open and now they interrogate US citizens too, not just foreigners.)
4 - End the war. (Nope. Instead it's been extended two more years and apparently involves killing children & journalists not soldiers (see wikileaks))

5 - Protect whistleblowers. (Instead of protecting them, Obama has decided to attack whistleblowers more strongly than any previous president. For example, Thomas Drake and Bradley Manning).
6 - Government transparency. (Obama negotiated away the public option in secret meetings with the big pharma companies)
7 - Obama has taken punishment without trial to a new level by authorizing assassination of US citizens who are no where near a battlefield.

Obama said a lot of great stuff during his campaign, it's too bad he has reversed himself on a lot of the most important issues.

Immigration raids benefit legal workers: http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/immigration/1929-immigration-raids-benefit-legal-workers Seems when a company can't get slave labor they are willing to pay more for legal workers. How unsurprising.

The States are a joke, and would never stand up to the Federal gov.

This is provably untrue. That article's from last February, and I think there are now 16 states which have introduced resolutions to reaffirm their rights under the 10th Amendment. Oklahoma's passed; their may be others by now. And it's not only abstract affirmations being passed--CA and other states' marijuana laws are out of sync with the federal government, and Montana has exempted its firearms from federal regulation.

Washington won't give up without a fight, as shown by the Supreme Court case regarding federal medical marijuana raids in CA in which the justices twisted "interstate commerce" to mean "intrastate commerce," and though Obama's administration has stopped raiding they still claim the authority to do so.

As a result, Montana went further by explicitly declaring,

A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured...in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce.

On the day the bill passed, a test case was filed to see what Washington's response will be, but that is of course unresolved. Since its passing, a dozen other states have introduced similar legislation. The outcome will be a very good indicator of what the federal government will put up with and what we will have to take back more forcefully. (It's almost unfortunate that my text is about guns, because I am certainly not talking about physical force here--that step is a long way off and likely unnecessary.)

And the people are just sheep. They're not going to stand up to the government either.

They will if given the option. Most don't know it exists, and others who might are disinclined to help because they're tired of being called "sheep" by everyone who thinks he has the answers. If you want people to think differently you have to give them the option by talking with them instead of only about them.

Swift fuels (company based out of a college in Indiana I think) are likely to come out and take over the old petroleum based vehicles. In that case, we are using stuff that is renewable by definition. They also emit CO2 and under the proposed legislation, they pollute even though it is clear they don't. Government (sometimes called "the man") often does stupid things especially when it is based on half baked science. All a lot of us are saying is if you want to spend 100s of billions, perhaps trillions of Dollars world wide, you had better be damn sure of what you are saying and doing. Fudging data, omitting data, their other conduct is reprehensible in that regard. Clearly unscientific, or it could and would stand on its own. It's science after all. You know, based on facts. The science isn't "settled" and they know it as shown in their e-mail.

My guess is that Man isn't causing GW to the point that we could do something about it. Their proposals for the most part confirm that. They still want us to spend billions, however. If they can show we are to blame and we could do something about it, that is another thing. We should do that. As things are, it is looking more and more like THE largest case of scientific fraud EVER perpetrated on mankind. I have my reasons for pointing out Al Gore. Very good reasons. It is also very important to not confuse him with a scientist. He isn't, not even close. In Vietnam he was a son of a Senator and was a news paper reporter. Then he was a news paper reporter after he departed the Army. Then he rode his father's coattails into the Senate. Otherwise he would still be a nobody.

ok, first of all, the EFF is not a legal authority so their claim of illegal has yet to be determined. Second, the EFF was going after the rerouting of the communications lines through central locations and the storage of numbers which to date is completely legal under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) as long as the government doesn't access it without proper justification. Finally, the EFF really has no idea of the scope and breadth of the secrete program- it's a fucking secret. Their initial lawsuit was an attempt to gain more information about it and their major claim is that it enables illegal activity or activity they claim is illegal. They have no proof that anything is illegal because despite any of their claims, the validity of them has yet to be adjudicated.

That being said, there is nothing to show that the scope of what the EFF is claiming is not in line with the courts rendition of allowable or reasonable warrant-less searches. The one article claims a court actually said they were constitutional because of measures taken to prevent abuse. Further more, the ACLU just lost their suit in which the court said their claims are that the violation is probable, not that it happened.

Furthermore, according to FISA, US persons can be US citizens.

If the telecomms only honored FISA granted warrants they would NOT need immunity. If they were really safeguards in place that prevent violation of the 4th ammendment then they do not need immunity either. They only need immunity if what they were doing was illegal and congress was trying to protect them post facto. I think that should be obvious to anyone.

Are you suggesting that the telecoms ignore the FISA law where it says that the president can through the attorney general, order a wiretap for up to one year under certain conditions? Or is your entire "only honored FISA granted warrants" inclusive of this legal warrant-less wiretap?

The problem is, they didn't use warrants, they used the orders as the FISA law allows. In this problem, a subject of the warrants were people that should have never been. The reason they need the immunity is because they are compelled by law to assist in the wire taps if they are presented certain documentation. This documentation includes FISA wiretap orders with absolutely no warrants at all. Now they have always had this immunity in title 18 section 2520 (d) that says if they were given the certain papers, it would be a complete defense against all criminal or civil actions. But wait, there is a problem here, the telecoms cannot present this documentation because they have been classified as national security secrets and disclosing them or anything on them would create a felony violation carrying 5 to life in prison and possably the death penalty.

Here enters the protect America act and the immunity clauses there. The immunity clause doesn't give blanket immunity for any and all actions that happened after 9/11. Instead, it creates a court of review, when a telecom is sued, they bring the documents to the court of reviews attention, they validate it with the AG or whoever authorized it, and then asks if it's still needs to be classified. Only then will the telecoms get the immunity. The new law is nothing more then a vehicle for the people who are legally compelled to assist the government in wiretaps and searches the complete defense promised in other laws.

Yeah fair enough, my point wasn't particular about taxes, tho.

It was about the crazy emphasis the U.S.A. puts on military spending and how much corporate welfare is going on courtesy of Mr Taxpayer - all at the same time we hear "U.S.A. No 1 - U.S.A. No 1" and it starts to get old real quick.

In fact I'm an idiot for biting the troll hand but I guess I snapped this one time.

Oh. Interesting to see you use wikipedia, but I am sorry to tell you that you are wrong. Since you just give me a link, I will give you one link that contains two links so you can read the other side: http://aryamehr.org/eng/19august/19august.htm No, we did not put theocrats in power. If you go through the events, there is no way. Explain why the American general Huyser visited Iran prior to the "revoluton" and talked to Iranian generals without the Shah knowing he was in Iran? Later it was exposed that Huyser told them to say "neutral" during the "revolution". Please read this: http://www.studien-von-zeitfragen.de/Eurasien/Shah_of_Iran/shah_of_iran.html and http://www.thenewamerican.com/history/world/1111 to learn what really happened.

Haha wow. You talk so much. Let's see, the Shah was a brutal despot? Wow. Interesting. How exactly was he a brutal despot? The fact that he made the people of Iran smarter? Built roads, electric installations, water dams? Provided food for the people? Donated his own land to farmers to end feudalism. He made Iran's economy of the the best, he built the 5th strongest non-nuclear army. http://www.thenewamerican.com/history/world/1111 Read and learn. The Shah was not a despot, he was a patriot that loved his nation and wanted to stop YOU WESTERN PEOPLE from exploiting Iran's natural resources and it's people. He said he will NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES renew the 25 year old oil contract with the British in 1979, thus - you can see how he was overthrown by western powers. US did not help anything. US hated the Shah.

Its not so much that an American can sue McDonalds for coffee that's offensive. It is thatMcDonalds could raise the temperature of coffee to a highly dangerous point knowing the 190F/87C temperature would cause 3rd degree burns in about 2-5 seconds. The lady in question was in the hospital burn ward for a week recoving from the 3rd degree burns to her groin and thighs. The "extreme" punitive damages ordered by the jury were the profits McDonalds made on their coffee in 2 days. The plaintiff originally had offered to settle for $20,000. And McDonals had already gone through this exact scenario hundreds of times with people who had suffered severe burns from their coffee.

British don't love crappy food, but they do have it, which is why Indian food has taken over the country.

Finns can still code neat kernels while drunk. And they drink a lot.

Russians are commies, or did you miss the whole rise to power of Vladimir Putin and his embrace of communist symbols.

And Germany is still struggling with right wing groups espousing Nazi views.

I would suggest you do a little research on this, look at the evidence and then decide. Unless you have proof he is alive that you'd love to share?

He was sick in 2001 - very sick. And on dialisis. The last video claiming to be Osama (2004) was a fake - compare it to previous ones. Oh, and his funeral was announced in an Egyptian newspaper.

Don't you think if he was alive that they would have not disbanded the CIA's Osama task force?

It does not make sense that this would happen when the guy has a $25M bounty on his head. You do not need a conspiracy to see that.

Next, one should examine who owns these RFID firms (Hint: with the one exception of Savi Technology --- owned by Lockheed Martin, the largest military contractor --- the major players in the RFID field can be traced to two, that's just two, private equity firms - and one of the two appears to be so financially interlocked with the other, it is most likely owned by the other --- so we're looking at one private bank here, guys. The end result could be awesome financial and business intelligence.

Help stop the Oman Free Trade Agreement, it will offshore more jobs, make legal the foreign ownership of senstive American infrastructure, and aid and abet a premier human trafficker on this planet!!!

Because when you have a gun, you can say whatever you want! That's why the CDC previously lobbied for the banning of guns, treating them like a disease. Trying to limit the first amendment with the same reasoning is the next logical step for this runaway bureacracy.

All of our Pacific fleet was bottled up in Pearl Harbor at a time when we were on alert over the Japanese. That's called putting your eggs in one basket and it certainly made Pearl Harbor the most strategically obvious target. We couldn't defend the Philillipines without Pearl Harbor. They wanted to wipe out our fleet to buy themselves some time. Obviously the Japanese thought it was the most strategic target, despite being a riskier one.

As for Kimmel and Short, they were recently cleared of any wrongdoing.

On the declaration of war, when was the last time we ever declared one? Yet we've been fighting them my entire life. We had the Japanese military codes broken. We knew what was coming. We worked hard to maneuver them into it. What's your explanation for why they bombed Pearl Harbor? Did they just hate us for our freedom? Do you think they really thought they could take us? They were backed into a corner and they fell for the provacations.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no25/vo 13no25_alarmism.htm

Perhaps, should we enter a new ice age, the northern countries will want to reconsider this idea...

Ah, yes, the mainstream media and global warming. Or was it global cooling? This writeup reminds us of some of the media's prior conclusions regarding global climate change, and the methods of scientists who use the media for promotion. I really liked the last paragraph which described Dr. Stephen Schneider's attitude toward informing the public:

Stephen Schneider once noted that "as scientists ... ethically bound to the scientific method ... we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts." On the other hand, "we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination," which entails "getting loads of media coverage." Consequently, that means "we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have." This dilemma for Schneider and his fellow catastrophic climatologists is made easier by the fact that the opinion cartel has assigned their embarrassing "ice age" predictions to the memory hole.

It seems to imply that the media doesn't understand either science or ethics. What a shock!

Ahem. "Today's" cars use R134a refrigerant, not ozone-depleting freon. This has been the standard for a little less than ten years now.

In all fairness r234a is probably more harmfull than freon because of it's chemichal structure, and freon is really not nearly as harmfull to the environment as people say it is. see here

Also, something should be explained to the naieve masses: Freon became illegal THE VERY MONTH that DOW Chemichal's patent expired! But did DOW suffer, NO! They still hold patnets on the few similar replacements These patnets would have been worthless had freon not been made illegal. But it is illegal, so they are very valuable. Are the replacemnets safer, NO, are they cheaper NO, are they more environmentally friendly NO. Do they work better in machinery NO. The only reason why we are using them today is because they are patented, and DOW wanted to preserve their revenue stream. That is all. It is not for the environment, it is not for the ozone, and never was - that was just a poor excuse to push freon out of the marketplace.

People would wise to learn that usually when a company talks about preserving the environment, what they mean in business talk is "increase the regulatory barriers to entry for potential competitors in their industry, and push up revenue by driving used products out of the market place"

This issue is very old, here is an article about the same thing from 1998:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no17/vo 14no17_id.htm

Back then, on Limbaugh, Boortz, and other conservative shows, people were screaming about the Democrats doing this - taking away our freedom, yada, yada. Now the bill is here and it will get passed - by Republicans. And the conservative talk shows... ho hum, no big deal, gotta fight terror, ya know.

Never voting Republican or Democrat ever again. The only things both parties care about is increasing their own power (i.e. the next election), control over citizens, and their taxation leverage.

For those wondering why this matters, we already have a "universal" ID - a State Driver's License and a Social Security Number. We don't need another ID from the Feds. We already have to show ID for everything including getting on an airplane and being admitted to a hospital. Having a Federal ID is simply another way to tag us as U.S. Property. Name any tangible benefit of this program to an individual citizen. It's completely for Federal benefit at our expense.

I have a feeling that a national ID is one of those things they will continue to push until they finally get it. President, Congress, none of that matters, they will do it regardless. They, Them - The Men In Black.

about national id under clinton
Know your customer
Lots of other articles on this, check with google. Type in "clinton national id" and "clinton know your customer".

It is my understanding that all of the 9/11 terrorists had valid U.S. IDs (drivers licenses, mostly) and/or valid passports which had been scrutinized at the border. These IDs were all in their own names (though perhaps not in the name under which they were wanted). So far as I know, no one has suggested that they had obtained these IDs fraudulently: they all could have gotten the new biometric IDs that so many seem to want.

We knew who they were, and some of them were on ``wanted'' or ``watch'' lists under the names on their legitimate IDs, the IDs which they used to board their planes. Identity was never a factor in the 9/11 hijackings. Therefore, obviously, what we need to make sure it never happens again is a new, improved National ID system which will further tighten the government's control over us. Yes, indeed. It kept the Jews safe in the 1930s, after all. We'll try not to think about what happened to them in the 1940s.

All this isn't to quibble with what the parent post said, but to reinforce it.

The United States is not a democracy, it is a Republic. Unfortunately, we have been slipping towards a Democracy for nearly 100 years now.

• Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct expression." Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic -- negating property rights. Attitude of the law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.(U.S. War Department's Training Manual No. 2000-25 of 1928)
• Virginia's Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy's inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy...."
• Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'"
• New York's Alexander Hamilton, in a June 21, 1788 speech urging ratification of the Constitution in his state, thundered: "It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." Earlier, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton stated: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."
• Welch understood that democracy is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Eighteenth century historian Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, it is thought, argued that, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." And as British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in the 20th century: "You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution."
• Another champion of democracy was Communist Mao Tse-tung, who proclaimed in 1939 (a decade before consolidating control on the Chinese mainland): "Taken as a whole, the Chinese revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party embraces the two stages, i.e., the democratic and the socialist revolutions, which are essentially different revolutionary processes, and the second process can be carried through only after the first has been completed. The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution. The ultimate aim for which all communists strive is to bring about a socialist and communist society."

According to the New York Times, the report claims that information gleaned through Echelon helped U.S. aerospace firm Boeing win a lucrative Saudi Arabian contract away from a European competitor, and that Echelon was used to help the American company Raytheon "win a bid for a $1.3 billion surveillance system for the Amazon forest away from Thomson-CSF, a French company."

The controversy over funding is just the tip of the iceburg wrt the NCLB.

The United States most certainly is a democracy.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

... and to the republic for which it stands ...

"A Republic, if you can keep it."

That agreement was with the U.N. Are we the U.N.?

Attempt to assassinate Bush Sr.

Was that a response to us attempting to assassinate Saddam? Or, Kaddafi, or Castro, or [insert long list of U.S. successful and unsuccessful attempts to assassinate foreign leaders from South America to Asia]?

Giving aid and comfort to terrorists

Who? The U.S.? If it were that, then why not invade North Korea, or Iran, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia...etc? The answer is below.

Refusing to cooperate with the UN.

Again, are we the U.N.?

Being a rat-bastard tyrant

Finally, the honest answer. But, only partially honest. His daddy was made a fool by Saddam, and everyone knew that if Shrub got into office, the Iraqis would pay. Shrub's Secretary of the Treasury reports that plans for invading Iraq were in the making only within a few days of Shrub's theft of the election. If it were simply a matter of being a rat-bastard, there are plenty of others further along the road to bastard-hood: North Korea's loony leader for one. The problem is, no oil there, so no business drive to get there. Afghanistan proved a perfect, inarguable cause. Not for the one you think. True, Bin-Loonie was there, but that was simply the inescapable argument for invasion. If we could tame that country (only an asteroid dropped from space could achieve that), we could finally lay that oil pipeline we've been planning on for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, CNN and FauxNews channels don't cover this little bit of history, but we've been in a chess game with the Russians and Chinese for this bit of inhospitable land for quite a while. By the way, this is also why we're "friends" with Pakistan.

Simple failture of Washington/Baghdad diplomacy

No. Simple failure of Shrub Administration/U.N. diplomacy. His daddy was better at it, but this numbskull couldn't control his trigger finger. His only half-way feasable argument (even Powell had to excise some of the outright lies from the deceptive rhetoric he was forced to spew to the U.N.'s collective face) of Weapons of Mass Destruction have vanished into thin air, leaving a unpleasant odor that the rest of the world blames us for.

'they're trying to get nukes'

Again, why not invade Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, or Pakistan? They're the biggest terrorist threats outside of Afghanistan. They've been attempting to get nuclear long before Iraq, and have actual terrorist ties. The reason is this was a personal vendetta and business agenda, and he used to this country to fulfill it. If he should force Iraq's oil wells within U.S. corporate controls in the process of taking revenge, all the better. This monkey has to go come November.

You're right in that Shrub didn't attack Iraq simply for Weapons of Mass Destruction. That's just what he used to sell it.

The truth is, the rest of the world was behind us going into Afghanistan because that's where t

The equal rights amendment would make voluntary, as well as compulsory, military service available to women and men on the same basis," declared New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug, a radical Marxist and founder of the modern feminist movement. Writing in the April 1971 Yale Law Review, Professor Thomas Emerson, another radical ERA proponent, insisted that exempting women from the draft would be intolerably "sexist":

Such obvious differential treatment for women as exemption from the draft, exclusion from the service academies, and more restrictive standards for enlistment will have to be brought into conformity with the Amendment's basic prohibition of sex discrimination.... Under the ERA, the Women's Army Corps would be abolished.... Women will serve in all kinds of units, and they will be eligible for combat duty....

Thus Rep. Schmitz was hardly an alarmist when he warned that under the ERA, the federal government would have "not merely the 'right,' but the 'constitutional obligation' ... to snatch our daughters into the Army, with all that would imply even now, when we at least maintain separate women's units and do not set the women to driving tanks or clearing minefields...."

well we Brits may be the only other major contributor of troops in Iraq, but that doesn't mean to say the British people support the war. In fact, according to this article at the Times newspaper (A generally conservative UK paper) only 1 in 4 Brits support the shrub's handling of Iraq, and he can expect to meet significant protests when he comes to see us next week. Personally I expect to see people burning the stars and stripes on the streets of London, and while I have many American friends, and think that American people in general are nice, friendly and sincere, I think your government is borderline fascist, with an unhealthy mix of Christian fundamentalism and neocons. Interestingly mussolini once said that fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it involves the merger of corporates and the and state and if corporatism doesn't neatly describe the current state of US politics and also coincidentally in so called "red" china then I don't know what does.

This article details, amongst other things how US taxpayers are eploited by US corporates to subsidize their ventures in China. Through the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank, corporate investments in China are subsidized, and any losses incurred are socialized -- while the profits remain private and legitimate market competition is undermined.

Of course many of the people who directly benefited financially from this are directors of companies who invested in China who now have significant influence on the current administration, not least Dick Cheney who now is I'm sure also benefiting quite nicely from Halliburton's sorry, America's, current adventure in Iraq.

I will probably take a karma hit for offering proof, but so be it. It'll be worth it if even just one abortionist changes their views ( or one innocent unborn child is saved).
Here is proof of survivors. This woman is now 24, but when she was 19 she testified before congress about her situation. She is an abortion survivor. Her mother chose to abort her, but she survived!

You tell me how that is this humane? You liberal and feminist assholes keep talking like a baby is a clump of cells, but this woman is proof that they are not just a clump of cell.
Pro-choice vegans are no better (especially PETA). They cry fowl about the inhumane teatment of animals, but it perfectly fine to kill a baby that's being born (partial birth abortion). See this link (fox is slow today) for a VERY BASIC description of what partial birth abortion. The way the abortion bill is phrased is what happens when a doctor performs a partial birth abortion. How are these things humane? Tell me this, and don't answer with the "it's a womans right to choose" crap because that's an excuse (and avoids the REAL QUESTION)!!!!
Here are some more links (1 and 2) to read if you have the guts to read them! There is more is you care to look, and it is very hard to find a written story that confirms that the doctors (or nurses) will kill a baby after it's born if it survives the abortion attempt--usually by strangling. If you anything on it, it's form the point of view that it's a womans right.

A few prominent republicans have recently chosen to ban the mean-looking guns. Guess who. Hint: His father did the same thing when he was president too.

No, actually, piracy is still alive and kicking...

Story 1 (search the page for 'piracy' to see statistics on deaths)
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Story 5
Story 6
Story 7

Note that most piracy occurs in the South China Sea, and off the coast of Africa, but there is still piracy in the Caribbean, which is very close to U.S. shores.

Just because modern day pirates don't usually have eye patches, and sail in many masted schooners with a black skull-and-crossbones 'Jolly Roger' flag, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It just tends to happen more often to pleasure craft than to cargo vessels, like it did centuries ago.

And the Renaissance was well under way and piracy was still common, as the U.S. Marine Corps was formed in 1775 specifically to combat the rampant piracy on vessels travelling to and from America. (Yes, the United States Marine Corps is technically older than the United States of America as a country.)

One of these days, Chairman Mao is going to call the President of the United States and tell him to surrender.

Chairmain Mao will explain that Chinese Corporations are the subcontactors to the subcontractors to the subcontractors of the Department of Defense Subcontractors and furthermore; China now makes ALL the key components for ALL of America's military weapons and machines.

Then he will let out an evil sounding Chineese Laugh! (The kind you hear in James Bond movies.)

How can the US maintain it's power if all it's strategic manufacturing capability is located offshore? Recently, we nearly lost the US Steel Industry and it's not over yet.

Sure we have rules and laws which on paper prevent this sort of problem, however as the FDA recently found out in the "Tainted Strawberry Harvest", these rules are not always followed. In this specific case the FDA had rules that all food used in school lunch programs must be grown in the United States. The subcontractors decided to ignore the rule and subcontract from Mexico and imported 1.7 million pounds of Hepatitis laced frozen Strawberries. The good news is that the fraudulent company was the lowest bidder and we saved tax dollars.

I won't even comment on the strategic technology which has been leaked to other countries by defense subcontractors.

Greed will destroy us!

Fox News is right wing propaganda brought to you by facist and sleazemonger, Rupert Murdoch.

The same Rupert Murdoch who donated $50k to the Gore campaign? What're the odds a real conservative would ever have done that? It's more likely that you're off your meds again. From the article:

After years of hard-hitting reporting on the Fox News Network savaging the Clinton-Gore administration in the United States, Murdoch has recently been termed an "über-Republican" and "legendarily conservative" by American media outlets. Yet Murdoch's personal money funded the presidential campaign of Al Gore. Murdoch served as "Vice Chair" of Gore's September 14th fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall, meaning that he personally contributed $50,000 to Gore's campaign. But that's not all. The on-line edition of Newsweek reported in September 2000 that "last spring, Murdoch's News Corp. contributed $50,000 at a Democratic National Committee fundraising event. But the mother lode of Murdoch's financial help to Gore came during the Democratic National Convention. As an in-kind contribution, the Staples Center didn't charge the Democrats for their use of the site -- a $3.5 million savings. News Corp. owns a 40 percent share of the facility. In addition, the Staples Center organization raised another $4.5 million to help fund the Los Angeles host committee, which organized the convention. Separately, News Corp. donated an additional $100,000 to the committee." On Murdoch's support of Al Gore for the Presidency, a Murdoch spokesman noted that Murdoch "knows the vice president and has a lot of respect for him as a public servant." In the same story mentioned above, Newsweek noted that Peter Chernin, News Corp.'s second-in-command, and News Corp. Director Stanley Shuman are also prominent Democratic Party activists.

National Review is an embarrasment to conservatism and Constitutionally-limited government. It's gone downhill ever since WFB fired Joe Sobran, the best columnist in America, as senior editor.

Now it's just an Israel-First rah-rah rag for GOP hacks with that intellectual paperweight Jonah Goldberg at the helm.

If you want real conservatism (and libertarianism, for that matter) check out

The American Conservative

OR

Chronicles

OR

The New American

You pussies retreat into government jobs or into defense contracting positions and then cheer for big government without any regard as to who the hell has foot the bill for the welfare-warfare state.

Socialism, communism, fascism, it's all the same collectivist, statist bullshit.

So oooh and aaah all you like about the kewl new military toys. Fact is it's a drain on society and those of you involved in defense contracting--no matter how neat you think it is or how many toys you get to play with--are part of the problem.

And now for a few shameless plugs for sites where you can learn more:

LewRockwell.com

Antiwar.com

The New American

The columns of Joseph Sobran

I think it's BS. I don't care if it's a 6yr old girl or a 30,000,000 verticies 3DS Max mesh: if it's lewdly pornographic it should be banned.

The reason, at least to me, is simple. We have enough psychos, rapists and stalkers who get worse because of pornography without adding to the problem 10x over by letting them get their hands on "virtual" children. Read this for more info.

Email your legislators as well. That's what I plan to do. You've got a better chance of audience with them, and they're the ones who actually draft the laws.

Here are three other good "letters" I've found. I like yours as well.

If you're worried about encroachments on your freedom, you should be voting Constitution or Libertarian.

In the 'Times of India' article reprinted on Emperor's Clothes under the title
"CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban", analyst Selig Harrison is quoted as follows:
"'The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.' The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent, Harrison said."
I disagree. The creation of Islamist terrorist organizations by the CIA has been a key part of U.S. policy, first in attacking the Soviet Union, and since, then, in an on-going war against Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union and against Yugoslavia.