Waiting for GODot
Topic: Dittohead Dogma
25:10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout [all] the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

25:11 A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather [the grapes] in it of thy vine undressed.

25:12 For it [is] the jubile; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

25:13 In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.

25:14 And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbour, or buyest [ought] of thy neighbour's hand, ye shall not oppress one another:

25:15 According to the number of years after the jubile thou shalt buy of thy neighbour, [and] according unto the number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee:

25:16 According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for [according] to the number [of the years] of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.

25:17 Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I [am] the LORD your God.

25:18 Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety.

25:19 And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.

25:20 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase:

25:21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.

25:22 And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat [yet] of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat [of] the old [store].

25:23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land [is] mine; for ye [are] strangers and sojourners with me.

25:24 And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.

25:25 If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away [some] of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.

25:26 And if the man have none to redeem it, and himself be able to redeem it;

25:27 Then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it; that he may return unto his possession.

25:28 But if he be not able to restore [it] to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of jubile: and in the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.

25:29 And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold; [within] a full year may he redeem it.

25:30 And if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, then the house that [is] in the walled city shall be established for ever to him that bought it throughout his generations: it shall not go out in the jubile.

25:31 But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country: they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubile.

Senate passes bankruptcy bill making it harder to shed debts
By Jennifer Brooks, Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON ? The Senate on Thursday passed sweeping changes of the nation's bankruptcy laws.

Stringent new standards would require tens of thousands of people who seek bankruptcy protection to repay at least part of what they owe and make it harder for them to wipe away their debts. The Senate voted 74-25 to pass the bill and it is expected to pass in the House.

The bill was blasted by consumer groups and the majority of Senate Democrats, who say the vast majority of people filing for bankruptcy protection were forced into it by medical crises, job loss or divorce ? not irresponsible spending. Critics said the bill would be unduly harsh on ordinary debtors, without closing loopholes still open to wealthy debtors and corporations.

"All that matters in this bill is for the credit card companies to have more profits," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.

Democrats tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to exempt veterans, active duty troops, senior citizens and families facing staggering medical bills from the new standards. The majority shot down dozens of proposed amendments, including efforts to link the bill to a minimum wage increase, an abortion provision and an effort to cap credit card interest rates.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who sided against his own party to support the bill, argued that it will reform serious problems with the current bankruptcy system, including a provision that allowed debtors to stop paying child support if they filed for bankruptcy protection.

The bill would tighten standards for people attempting to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which is set up for people who fall so deeply into debt they have no hope of repaying what they owe. Debtors turn over a portion of their assets and in return, their debt is wiped away. The bankruptcy bill would tighten the standards for this category, and sweep an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 people a year into Chapter 13 bankruptcy instead. In Chapter 13, debtors are put on a stringent repayment schedule, their wages are garnished for years, in an effort to repay as many creditors as possible.

The nation's creditors stand to recover millions of dollars in assets if the bill becomes law. Banks credit card companies have spent millions of dollars to lobby for the bill over the past eight years. They have contributed more than $24.8 million to federal candidates and political parties in the past five years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' study of campaign finance and lobbying disclosure reports.

President Bush has identified the bankruptcy bill as one of his top legislative priorities this year.

Topic: Dittohead Dogma
American Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments
By William Thatcher Dowell
An alternative lens for viewing the Decalogue cases.


March 8, 2005

Introduction by Tom Engelhardt

Whether the Ten Commandments, graven in stone, sit on a lawn by a government building or in a courthouse, isn't for me exactly a life-and-death issue -- and I think I'm not alone on this, which is why the Ten Commandments cases at the Supreme Court right now are so dangerous. The Bush administration and its various fundamentalist allies (religious and political) have proven especially skilled at finding wedge issues that, because they only seem to go so far, successfully challenge and blur previous distinctions, thereby opening yet more possibilities. The Supreme Court's decision in these particular cases holds great promise for further blurring the lines that once separated church and state in our country.

We're in a period, of course, when lines of every sort, involving civil rights, privacy, foreign and domestic spying, presidential power, Congressional rules, the checks-and-balances that once were such a proud part of our political system, and so many other matters are blurring radically. We also have a President who is in the process of casting off the constraints of any presidency, while placing religion with powerful emphasis at the very center of Washington's new political culture. He is now adored, if not essentially worshipped, by his followers as he travels the country dropping in at carefully vetted "town meetings"; and the adoration is often not just of him as a political leader but as a religious one, as a manifestation of God's design for us. It's in this context that the modest Ten Commandments cases are being heard; in the context, that is, of the destruction of what's left of an authentic American republican (rather than Republican) culture.

Below, William Dowell, a former Time magazine Middle Eastern correspondent and, at present, editor of the Global Beat ("resources for the global journalist"), a weekly on-line review of international security affairs published by New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, widens the religious lens to include the Middle East and so suggests another context in which the Ten Commandments cases might be considered. (A shorter version of this piece will appear Tuesday, March 8 on the op-ed page of the Los Angeles Times.)


American Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments
By William Thatcher Dowell

For anyone who actually reads the Bible, there is a certain irony in the current debate over installing the Ten Commandments in public buildings. As everyone knows, the second commandment in the King James edition of the Bible states quite clearly: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth." It is doubtful that the prohibition on "graven images" was really concerned with images like the engraving of George Washington on the dollar bill. Rather it cautions against endowing a physical object, be it a "golden calf" or a two-ton slab of granite, with spiritual power.

In short, it is the spirit of the commandments, not their physical representation in stone or even on a parchment behind a glass frame, which is important. In trying to publicize the commandments, the self-styled Christian Right has essentially forgotten what they are really about. It has also overlooked the fact that there are several different versions of them. The King James Bible lists three: Exodus 20:2-17, Exodus 34: 12-26, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Catholic Bibles and the Jewish Torah also offer variants.

If the commandants are indeed to be green-lighted for our official landscape, however, let's at least remember that Christianity did not exist when the commandments were given. It might then seem more consistent to go with the Hebrew version rather than any modified Christian version adopted thousands of years after Moses lived. Since the Catholic Church predates the Protestant Reformation, it would again make more sense to go with the Catholic version than later revisions.

It is just this kind of theological debate which has been responsible for massacres carried out in the name of religion over thousands of years. It was, in fact, the mindless slaughter resulting from King Charles' efforts to impose the Church of England's prayer book on Calvinist Scots in the 17th century which played an important role in convincing the founding fathers to choose a secular form of government clearly separating church and state. They were not the first to recognize the wisdom in that approach. Jesus Christ, after all, advised his followers to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's due and unto God that which was due God.

The current debate, of course, has little to do with genuine religion. What it is really about is an effort to assert a cultural point of view. It is part of a reaction against social change, an American counter-reformation of sorts against the way our society has been evolving, and ultimately against the negative fallout that is inevitable when change comes too rapidly. The people pushing to blur the boundaries between church and state are many of the same who so fervently back the National Rifle Association and want to crack down on immigration. They feel that they are the ones losing out, much as, in the Middle East, Islamic fundamentalists fear they are losing out -- and their reactions are remarkably similar. In the Arab Middle East and Iran, the response is an insistence on the establishment of Islamic Law as the basis for political life; while in Israel, an increasingly reactionary interpretation of Jewish law which, taken to orthodox extremes, rejects marriages by reform Jewish rabbis in America, has settled over public life.

In a strange way, George Bush may now find himself in the same kind of trap that ensnared Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. To gain political support, Saud mobilized the fanatical, ultra-religious Wahabbi movement -- the same movement which is spiritually at the core of al-Qaeda. Once the bargain was done, the Saudi Royal Family repeatedly found itself held political hostage to an extremist, barely controllable movement populated by radical ideologues. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has found himself in a similar situation, drawing political power from the swing votes of the ultra-orthodox rightwing religious and fanatical settler's movement, and then finding his options limited by their obstinacy to change. President Bush has spent the last several months cajoling evangelicals and trying to pay off the political bill for their support.

In Saudi Arabia, the Wahabbis consider themselves ultra-religious, but what really drives their passions is a deep sense of grievance and an underlying conviction that a return to spiritual purity will restore the lost power they believe once belonged to their forefathers. The extremism that delights in stoning a woman to death for adultery or severing the hand of a vagrant accused of stealing depends on extreme interpretations of texts that are at best ambiguous. What is at stake is not so much service to God, as convincing oneself that it is still possible to enforce draconian discipline in a world that seems increasingly chaotic. We joke about a hassled husband kicking his dog to show he still has power. In the Middle East, it is often women who bear the brunt of the impotence of men. Nothing in the Koran calls for the mistreatment of women or even asks that a woman wear a veil. What is at stake here is not religion, but power, and who has a right to it.

The Christian Right, the evangelical movement that provided the added push needed to nudge President Bush past a tight election, is equally prone to selective interpretations of scripture. The Ten Commandments are used as a wedge to put across what is essentially a cultural protest against social change, but in the bitter disputes that have followed these seemingly ridiculous arguments the message of the commandments is usually lost. The Christian Right pretends to be concerned about the life of an unborn fetus, but expresses little interest for the fate of the living child who emerges from an unwanted pregnancy, and is even ready to kill or at least destroy the careers of those who do not agree with them. Although the commandments prohibit killing, and Christ advised his followers to leave vengeance to God, the fundamentalists seem to delight in the death penalty, and in reducing welfare support to unwed mothers who are struggling to deal with the results of pregnancies that they could not control and never wanted to have.

In the United States as in the Middle East, the core of this Puritanism stems from a nostalgia for an imaginary past ? in our case, a belief that the U.S. was a wonderful place when it was peopled mostly by pioneers who came from good northern European stock, who knew right from wrong, and weren't afraid to back up their beliefs with a gun, or by going to war, if they needed to.

The founding fathers, of course, had a very different vision. They had seen the damage caused by the arcane disputes which triggered the religious wars of the seventeenth century. They preferred the ideas of the secular enlightenment, which instead of forcing men to accept the religious interpretations of other men, provided the space and security for each man to seek God in his own way.

The idea that religious values should affect, and indeed control politics, is something that you hear quite often in the Islamic world. But perhaps the strongest rationale for separating these two dimensions of our daily lives is that politics inevitably involves compromise, while religion involves a spiritual ideal in which compromise can be fatal. The conflict is easy to see in contemporary Iran. Iran's rulers have had to choose whether they consider politics or religion to be most important. Ayatollah Khomeini himself once stated that if forced to choose between Islamic law and Islamic rule, he would choose Islamic rule. The effect of that decision was to betray Islamic law and ultimately God. Iran's genuine Islamic scholars have found themselves under continual pressure to change their understanding of God in order to conform to political realities.

The appointment of Ayatollah Sayyid al Khamenei to replace Khomeini as the supreme guide, is a case in point. Khamenei's credentials as a religious thinker are comparable to a number of other Iranian ayatollahs. But his real power stems from his political status. Because of that, he is in a position to affect and ultimately censor the religious writings of religious scholars who may be more thoughtful than he is, but whose thinking is considered threatening to Khamenei's vision of a theocratic state.

Politics inevitably trumps religion when the two domains are merged. Religion, when incorporated into a political structure, is almost invariably diluted and deformed, and ultimately loses its most essential power. Worse, as we have seen recently in the Islamic world (as in the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials in the Christian world), a fanatical passion for one's own interpretation of justice often leads to horror -- as in the obsession of some practitioners of Sharia law to engage such punishments as amputations or stoning women to death.

The fact is that, as Saint Paul so eloquently put it, "Now we see through a glass darkly." We have a great deal of religious experience behind us, but only God can understand to the full extent what it really means. Men have their interpretations, but they are only human and, by their nature, they are flawed. We see a part of what is there -- but only a part. In that context, isn't it best to keep our minds open, the Ten Commandants in whatever version out of our public buildings or off our governmental lawns, and to lead by example rather than pressuring others to see life the way we do. As Christ once put it, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

William Thatcher Dowell is the editor of the Global Beat, a review of international security affairs published weekly over the internet by New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. He has worked for NBC News, ABC News, and TIME magazine. He was a Middle East correspondent based in Cairo for TIME from 1989 through 1993.


Copyright 2005 William Thatcher Dowell

This piece first appeared at Tomdispatch.com.

i am probably a godless heathen because i have read the bible, and i have yet to find this compassionate conservatism that Reichskanzler Bush and his nouveau riche Sturmabteilung so vociferously proclaim from the streetcorners and sinagogues!!!

Amerikkka joins civilized world
Topic: Dittohead Dogma
High court: Juvenile death penalty unconstitutional
Tuesday, March 1, 2005 Posted: 3:08 PM EST (2008 GMT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, ending a practice used in 19 states.

The 5-4 decision throws out the death sentences of about 70 juvenile murderers and bars states from seeking to execute minors for future crimes.

The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling continues the court's practice of narrowing the scope of the death penalty, which justices reinstated in 1976. The court in 1988 outlawed executions for those 15 and younger when they committed their crimes. Three years ago justices banned executions of the mentally retarded.

Tuesday's ruling prevents states from making 16- and 17-year-olds eligible for execution.

"The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

Juvenile offenders have been put to death in recent years in only a few other countries, including Iran, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia. Kennedy cited international opposition to the practice.

"It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty, resting in large part on the understanding that the instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime," he wrote.

Kennedy noted most states don't allow the execution of juvenile killers and those that do use the penalty infrequently. The trend, he said, is to abolish the practice because "our society views juveniles ... as categorically less culpable than the average criminal."

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia disputed that there is a clear trend of declining juvenile executions to justify a growing consensus against the practice.

"The court says in so many words that what our people's laws say about the issue does not, in the last analysis, matter: 'In the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty,"' he wrote.

"The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards," Scalia wrote.

The Supreme Court has permitted states to impose capital punishment since 1976 and more than 3,400 inmates await execution in the 38 states that allow death sentences.

Justices were called on to draw an age line in death cases after Missouri's highest court overturned the death sentence given to Christopher Simmons, who was 17 when he kidnapped a neighbor, hog-tied her and threw her off a bridge in 1993. Prosecutors say he planned the burglary and killing of Shirley Crook and bragged that he could get away with it because of his age.

The four most liberal justices had already gone on record in 2002, calling it "shameful" to execute juvenile killers. Those four, joined by Kennedy, formed Tuesday's decision: Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Justice Clarence Thomas and Scalia, as expected, voted to uphold the executions. They were joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

The 19 states allow executions for people under age 18 are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Texas and Virginia.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

Topic: Three-card Monty
Pass legislation to force disclosure of drug info

Many consumers are still reeling from the recent run of frightening news about the safety of prescription drugs in the U.S.

The parents of children taking the antidepressant Paxil were stunned last year to learn not only that the medication was not effective in children but also that it may increase the risk of suicide in children and teenagers. In September, millions of Americans taking the arthritis-pain drug Vioxx saw it pulled from the market after its link to heart-attack risk was firmly established. A few months later came the news that Celebrex, the most widely prescribed arthritis-pain medication, raised similar concerns.

How can drugs approved by the federal government and heavily advertised sometimes do more harm than good?

The answer lies primarily in gaps in our nation's drug-safety system. Before new drugs are allowed on the market, pharmaceutical companies must test them on individuals for safety and effectiveness, and the information is submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. But after a drug is approved, neither the drug company nor the FDA is required to make details of clinical-trial results public; how the drug was tested, its effectiveness, and information on possible side effects can remain hidden from the public for years.

This can lead to situations such as the one involving Paxil. GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, had a study of the drug published in a psychiatry journal, but it referred to the increased suicide risk as mere emotional instability. Two other studies showing that the drug was ineffective were never published. Those three studies circulated at the FDA for close to a year and a half before the agency required that the strongest warning be placed on Paxil.

Reports show that the drugmaker Merck and the FDA were aware of the heart-attack risk of Vioxx for years; Merck changed the package-insert information but did not publicize the change.

Critics inside and outside the FDA say that after drugs are approved, the agency does not adequately monitor or effectively address subsequent safety problems. The public needs an independent, effective, and vigorous office to follow and act on ongoing studies, one that is not stymied or influenced by the office of drug approval.

The results of all clinical drug trials should be available to the public in an easily understandable format. Ensuring that consumers, doctors, and researchers know about possible safety problems will help ensure that drugmakers and the FDA quickly address any negative finding raised in a study. These drug trials should be registered as they begin, in a central, public location, perhaps on the Internet.

Pharmaceutical industry trade groups have said that they will voluntarily register and release results of some of their trials. But without a legal requirement for disclosure, the incentive to hide or downplay safety information is too great.

Consumers Union supported legislation last year in Congress that would require registration of clinical trials and make their results public. This session, there has been a renewed bipartisan call for these reforms, and we will work to ensure their passage. Look for updates on legislation and other drug-approval and safety developments in a future issue.



What you can do

For more information on this issue and on Consumers Union's other efforts to make prescription drugs safe, effective, and affordable, go to our public-policy Web
site at www.ConsumersUnion.org.

The median salary for a Clinical Research Associate at the FDA is $50,946. When you consider that the CEOs of the top eleven HMOs make $15.1 million on the average, you have to wonder---Is the FDA a stepping-stone to a corporate job???

Topic: kayla's korner
Jeopardy! is now in the process of running a 15-week tournament so that they can find a worthy opponent for Ken Jennings!!!

Besides having over 800,000 entries on Google, Jennings now has a television commercial for some cell phone company's family plan, and you have to wonder when the Mike Tyson of intelligence is going to host his own game show. It is good to see a wholesome American hero for a change, to see mind triumphing over muscle...but the question remains---CAN KJ be beaten???!!!!

IN CASE YOU FORGOT...As reported on Howard Stern---
Topic: Dittohead Dogma

New AIDS discovery met with fear but little shock

By Richard Perez-Pena And Marc Santora

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE


NEW YORK - As news spread of a rare and deadlier form of AIDS, communities already hard-hit by the disease reacted with fear and skepticism but little surprise, given that the sense of urgency about the disease had waned.

"They should have been doing more teaching about safe sex and the virus itself, the seriousness of it," said Albert Wright, 59, who is HIV-positive and lives at a treatment center in East New York, Brooklyn. "I'm afraid for the public. People probably have it and don't know that they have it."

City health officials announced Friday that they had detected a rare strain of HIV that is resistant to virtually all anti-retroviral drugs and appears to have led to the rapid onset of AIDS in a New York City man. That combination, the officials said, could signal a new, more menacing strain of the virus, and it set in motion an anxious search by city workers to find the man's sexual partners and have them tested.

Those who specialize in HIV treatment and prevention were particularly focused on news that the more virulent infection had appeared in a man who used methamphetamine during extended episodes of unprotected sex with multiple partners. It is a pattern experts have seen repeatedly in recent years.

Yesterday at the Big Cup, a popular coffee shop in Manhattan, the customers, most of them gay men, all talked about how the fear of AIDS had declined, especially among a younger generation that did not have the searing experience of watching friends die. Some said they feared that a new strain of the disease might have emerged, but none were surprised, given the prevailing attitude.

"People got so comfortable with the drugs that they have started becoming complacent," said Will Elosei, 37, from Jersey City. Now, he said: "I think people are going to be more paranoid about everything."

Among people who deal with HIV, the response was tinged with caution, with many saying it was too soon to say whether the single infection reported in New York was truly something new.

"We need better characterization of the virus in this man," said Dr. Marcus Conant, a professor at the medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. "What does it look like genetically?"

But he added: "All of us have been expecting for some time there would be the multidrug resistance. This virus has mutated around what we've thrown at it."

The prophet Howard Stern
Topic: Fourth Reich Blues
Heard about the "controversial" GODADDY commercial in the Super Bowl???!!!! Click HERE to see that so-called controversial commercial!!!

You cannot see a photo for this commercial on the Fox Sports site!!!

As Howard Stern gets ready to take the plunge on to satellite, everything he warned the industry about seems to be as visionary as Marshall McLuhan's prediction that television would make the world a global village, not to mention George Orwell's perspicacious observation that television would eventually be the preferred medium for fascist propaganda.

In the February 14th issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria states that much of the progress in Iraq over the past eight months can be traced to Bush's willingness to reverse himself.

While Mr Zakaria shows how President Bush has been forced to re-evaluate his foriegn policies, if no one has ever said it let me say it here now---fascism begins at home.

Even though Hitler began his "illustrious" career with the Anschlauss of Austria, it was his domestic policies of intolerance that left a mark on history...and the persecution of Howard Stern AND Janet Jackson...a nigger and a Jew...demonstrates the direction this cuntry is headed.

In the November/December issue of Mother Jones, Todd Gitlin pointed out---The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States singled out the press for special mention and protection not because the founders admired the press of their time--it was raucous and wildly unreliable--but because they well understood the self-aggrandizing tendencies of unbridled power. They shielded the press not because they believed publishers to be saints or savants, but because they knew it might take unshackled sinners to curb the grandest sinners of all. Had they imagined global carnage and global warming two centuries hence and more, they might well have thought, "In the face of such dangers, now we will be vindicated for caring so assiduously for the liberty of the press. Surely in times that retry men's souls, the watchdogs of the press will bark." Imagine their chagrin if they could see the press becoming that sagging branch of distraction, "the media."

Although Mr Gitlin was writing about the failure of the press to accurately report on the plans for "war" in Iraq, the media has failed miserably in regards to Stern and Jackson, as it allowed George the Second and the reich-wing fundamentalists to goosesteop all over the First Amendment!!! In juxtaposition to what has happened in Iraq, the Stern/Jackson problem seems insignificant, but when your rights are being routinely denied, you should be questioning the quality of "democracy" you are living in...and THIS is one of the primary functions of the press, or at least it used to be.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said--Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere--and as this country rolls back to the Dark Ages of McCarthyism and Lenny Bruce-like obscenity laws, you have to wonder how far will the Fourth Reichers go before there is a call for re-education camps???

Yeah, i realize it is fashionable to compare Bush and his cohorts to Nazi Germany, but i think they could be more aptly compared to the Stalinists of the former Soviet Union. While there are no gulags, yet, we can already see the tentacles of the New World Order touching our every day lives!!!

On Xanga, a blogging community that used to be a free forum for ideas, the blogmiesters are busy trying to enforce this new pseuber-morality of the Bush fundamentalists, and that is only one example of how the new "morality" is cutting into the lives of people who once were able to exercise their First Amendment priviliges. And privileges are what the Bill of Rights has now degenerated into.

The press has dropped the baton, but thanks to the internet, many bloggers have taken up the torch, but now the same fascistly restrictive mentality that has the press running scared is slowly poisoning this last bastion of freedom. Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the LIBERAL Party is steadfastly becoming an un-American activity, but conservatives will also see the backlash of this neo-Victorian morality plaguing the country, because fascism tend to feed on itself, as George Orwell aptly displayed in Animal Farm.

Rush Limbaugh was hit with it when he criticized Donovan McNabb's popularity because of his race, and while you don't have to agree with him, it sets a precedent---opinion will soon be regulated by the FCC if said opinion can be found to be offensive.

Like Malcolm X, i LIKE knowing what the average Amerikkklan is thinking, but in their mad rush to prove themselves compassionate, the neo-cons will soon find themselves in the same boat as the alleged "liberals."

Just as the Bush fundamentalists believe that the poor will always be with us was a commandment rather than an ovservation, The Bill of Rights will soon be pared down to some version of All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.

Click here for a must see video

Let's say THREE-peat
Topic: Football
Yeah, i ralize that Phil Jackson has a patent on the word, but fuck him, these New England Patriots ain't no pampered Air Jordanasskissing Bulls, THIS is more America's team than any other team in the history of sports can claim to be!!!

With the exception of Corey Dillon and Mike Vrabel, New England is so devoid of superstars.Tom Brady, who many, including myself, thought should share the MVP with Deion Branch because he was playing with the death of his grandmother weighing down on his soul, would not be starting on any other team in the NFL!

As the bostonbrat.net shows---Opinions on the pro prospects for Tom Brady were mixed. Scouts had no quibble with his attitude. He was fearless, hard-working, and willing to learn. They also gave him high marks for his accuracy on passes to the flat and over the middle. It was Tom's body that had many concerned. He stood 6-4, but weighed only 205 pounds. He didn't run well and couldn't throw deep with much effectiveness. Most pegged him as a career back-up--someone who could fulfill a support role, but certainly not a player worthy of a high pick.

Most of the Patriots would be struggling for a starting job on any other NFL team, but under the auspices of Bill Belichick, they are all shining now, and everyone is now enviously looking on. Belichick and owner Robert Kraft exemplify something that is missing in corporate America today--FAITH in their workers, or at least their football team since i don't know how many jobs the Kraft corporation has outsourced.

In a country where a C student can be president but too many bright young men are forced to go to Jude Fawley University, the Patriots are a dynasty that working Americans can live with.

Unlike the Yankees, the Patriots are not a checkbook dynasty, and any free-agent with sense will be looking to play there next season to be part of that historic THREE-peat team, and for the first time in their history New England might be teeming with superstars!!!

The road to the THREE-peat is a lot harder in the NFL than it was for the Bulls...while the refs in the NBA would go out of their way to protect Michael Jordan--you used to get called for a foul if you looked at him wrong!!!

In the NFL there are a plethora of rules against the New England Patriots, and in addition to calling for the bookies, the refs enforce these rules with the fanaticism of an SS officer.

Am i saying that the refs are working in concert with the bookies???

Let's say that Ray Charles could have seen a certain pick that wasn't called, but instead they saw a costly New England penalty, and instead of the penalties offsetting, the Patriots were heavily penalized!!!

"> ALSO courtesy of THE MAXX!!!


Arbeit Macht Frie

We also got to see the first PC Super Bowl,with only godaddy.com daring to go against the dictates of our theocratic FCC!!! Listening to Howard Stern this morning i was appalled by the hoops godaddy.com had to go through to get this commercial on the air, and i was saddened that SIR Paul McCartney didn't have the chutzpah of John Lennon, who would probably have had a "wardrobe malfucntion" and would have mooned Amerikkka.

Posted by eminemsrevenge at 9:50 AM EST

Updated: Monday, 7 February 2005 1:26 PM EST

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Topic: Football
Courtesy of THE MAXX!!!