Steve's Thoughts

Multiple thoughts this morning.

Vice President Cheney - 200 protesters at Brigham Young University turn out to rally against the Vice President speaking there - counter protesters (?) passed out brownies and asked students to sign a letter thanking Cheney got 400 sigs in 40 minutes.

Isn't it strange how the press always gives a number for the Anti crowd but never for the Pro crowd?  Could it be that's because the Pro crowd is larger than the Antis?  I'd say from the number of signatures thanking Vice President Cheney that the Pros were there in larger numbers.  Same thing happened at the Gathering of Eagles.
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American University Karl Rove - According to a university spokesman, as Rove tried to leave a building, he was confronted by more than a dozen protesters. Some started throwing things at Rove and his car. Others tried to block his vehicle.
American University security guards moved in and forced the protesters away so Rove could leave. Campus police described the protest as peaceful, and there were no arrests.

"Campus police say the protest was peaceful".  Ok, since when is throwing objects at someone and ILLEGALLY detaining them by force "peaceful"?  I think the Faculity and the rent-a-cops at American University may be closet liberals.  Ya think? 
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Erin Conaton, the committee's staff director, sent out the 15-page memo titled "Style Guide for Defense Authorization Report."

"When referencing military operations throughout the world, please be as specific as possible. Please avoid using colloquialisms such as, 'the war on terrorism, or the 'Long War' Please do not use the term 'global war on terrorism,' " according to the memo.

Are democrats really this stupid?  They really believe that by not calling the global war on terrorism the global war on terrorism it will make it not so.  Terrorism is war.....this is a war on a global scale.  The only Americans stupid enough to fall for this "play on words" are the ostrich-emulating defeatocrats.
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Freshmen Angelopoulos and Anklesaria are both foreign citizens; Anklesaria is British and Angelopoulos is Greek. Akbar, a senior, was born in Pakistan, according to police, but is a U.S. citizen. Both Anklesaria and Angelopoulos had to turn over their passports (Yale students)

Aw come on boys will be boys.  They did admit it was a stupid thing to do.  I have news for them.  It would have been a lot more stupid if they had set the Flag on fire in front of me.  It would have been an experience they would never forget and always regret.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- The lawyer and parents of an American-born Taliban soldier are asking President George W. Bush to commute his 20-year prison term.

John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 by American forces sent to topple the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks.

He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and supporting terrorists but pleaded guilty to lesser offenses, including carrying weapons against U.S. forces.
 

Lindh's lawyer and father said the one-year sentence given recently to Australian David Hicks should be reflected in Lindh's case. Attorney James Brosnahan said it's a question of fairness and proportionality.

 

Poor Taliban Johnny!  This......animal's lawyer seems to forget, Lindh was (I repeat was) an American.  He received a VERY light sentence to begin with.  He should have been executed by firing squad and I would have volunteered to pull a trigger!  If President Bush releases this punk, they also better deport him back to Afghanistan, because he certainly has no right to live in America!  Oh yes, his Mother thinks what he did was Patriotic!!!!!??????  She says, "It helped bridge the gap between the muslims and the west."  How the hell does she figure that!?  Delusional?  Definitely!

Waxman's ‘1984' Law Would Impede Citizen Lobbying<br><br>

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My favorite "Stupidisms" Are noted in red, my comments to some are in blue.   Steve

Altman, Robert -  "If George W. Bush is elected president, I'm leaving for France."
      

Aniston, Jennifer - "Bush is a f**king idiot." 
      
Asner, Ed   - "We didn't have a free election in 2002."
      
Baldwin, Alec - "Bush wasn't elected, he was selected — selected by five judges up in Washington who voted along party lines."

Behar, Joy - "What I think we should do is draw up a petition, everybody sign in crayon, and then he'll [Bush] understand."

Belafonte, Harry - "I don't think that [U.S. President] George Bush...is a man of honor." 
 
Bernhard, Sandra - "The real terrorist threats are George W. Bush and his band of brown-shirted thugs." 
      
Carlin, George - "I especially like those terrorist fellows in the Middle East who run around blowing themselves up along with other people; they strike me as interesting guys. 

Cher - "I don't like Bush. I don't trust him. I don't like his record. He's stupid. He's lazy."  
      

Clennon, David - "I'm not comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler - because George Bush, for one thing, is not as smart as Adolf Hitler. And secondly George Bush has much more power than Adolf Hitler ever had."  
      
Clooney, George -"The problem is we elected a manager, and we need a leader. Let's face it: Bush is just dim."  "We can't beat anyone anymore."

Cusack, John - "... I'm not saying I loved Gore, but I'm saying I don't want that mother-f*cking Bush in the White House."
 
DiFranco, Ani - From her song Self Evident: "and we hold these truths to be self evident:
                     #1 george w. bush is not president
                     #2 america is not a true democracy
                     #3 the media is not fooling me"

Dixie Chicks - "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
 
Duncan, Sandy -"I don't have all the facts, and who knows what's really the truth, but I don't really respect his (Bush's) way of dealing with this situation. It would have been great to have someone really, really smart in that office, and someone who is globally aware."
 
Farrell, Mike - On the Clinton war with Kosovo: 
"...the bottom line is that I think it's appropriate for the international community in situations like this to intervene. I am in favor of an intervention. ...On some level you have to say that at least somebody is doing something."
On the Bush war with Iraq: 
"It is inappropriate for the administration to trump up a case in which we are ballyhooed into war." 
      

Fonda, Jane - "I would think that if you understood what Communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists." -- Michigan State University, 1970
                    

"I don't know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world."
 

Garofalo, Janeane - "This [Iraq war] is a manufactured conflict for the sake of geopolitical dominance in the area. 
                          
"There is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. You never even get that idea floated in the mainstream media. If you bring it up, they hate the messenger. You've ruined everyone's good time."
 
Gere, Richard - "Why is it when we have 10 million people in this country who say 'no,' we still have a president who says 'yes.' In a democracy, something's wrong here." (geez stupid what about the other 290 million!  Steve)
                       
 "Bush's plans for war are a bizarre bad dream. There doesn't appear to be any sort of basis for any this. I have a feeling something hidden is at work here that will someday see the light of day."
 

Glover, Danny - "It's basically this rabid nationalism that has its own kind of potential of being maniacal. As we march down and wave the flags, we must be sure of what we're waving them for.  "Something is happening now that is very dark and very sinister in this country, and for us to not admit it is happening is, in some ways, for us to be blind."
 
Goldberg, Whoopi - "I don't agree, you see, I don't really view communism as a bad thing."
 
Hagman, Larry - "[Bush is a] sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism."

"It's all the same to me, he wouldn't understand the word fascism anyway."

Harrelson, Woody - "This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them 'hawks', but I would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist."

Harris, Ed - "I haven't even been drinking, but, at all, but, you know, being a man, I've got to say that we've got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, you know, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity, and he's a good old boy, and he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck, etcetera like that. That's not the definition of a man, God Dammit!"

But this is being a man:

"She [my wife] has educated me over the 20 years we have been together to the point where she's got me in her hip pocket."

Hoffman, Dustin - "For me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible."
  
Hynde, Chrissie - "Have we gone to war yet? We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on."

"Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!" (what a foolish woman......I guess she's a masochist)
      

Lange, Jessica - "The atmosphere in my country is poisonous, intolerable for those of us who are not right-wing" 
      
Lee, Spike - "They are trying to sell the world something that isn't true. When Donald Rumsfeld makes statements like,'If you don't support our war you are supporting terrorism,' I feel disgusted. They have shown no evidence of a link. This has nothing to do with disarmament. It's about oil. We all know Iraq is a country with a great reserve of natural resources. I find it difficult to buy what Bush is telling us about this being a moral war."  
      
Madonna - "If I were President, Howard Stern would get kicked out of the country -- and Roman Polanski would be allowed back in!"

 So how does "President Madonna" justify ejecting Citizen Stern for exercising his constitutional right to free speech -- but welcoming a foreigner who was 44 when convicted of raping a 13-year-old American child he plied with drugs and booze? She says it's "because artists are allowed to make mistakes and have unconventional ideas . . . !" (they need to get her into rehab!)
 
Matthews, Dave - "I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge."
 
Moore, Michael(aka fat, ugly, and stupid) - Speaking about 9/11, "Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California --these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!""... You know he's [Bush] there illegally. You know he was not elected either by the popular vote or the vote in Florida."... we know all those facts about Florida and what Katherine Harris did, and the private firm that took African-Americans off the voting rolls and prohibited them from voting. But I've been surprised in this first week how many average Americans were not aware of all of the trickery and deceit that took place in the year before the election to fix it for George W. Bush."
 
Mortensen, Viggo - "And now just because we focused on Iraq for many reasons, not the least of which is oil... and some kind of vendetta maybe that our President's father has... Who knows what the reasons are? It doesn't really matter" 
      

Norton, Edward - "As an actor I know in my mind, watching him [Bush], what a low-quality mind he has. Because I've been doing this since I was 5 years old, I know when a person is saying words that aren't their own -- and it's apparent as it could possibly be to me that he's a mouthpiece, and not even a good mouthpiece. [Ronald] Reagan was a B-movie actor, but at least he had the ability to touch certain emotional notes. Bush is just utterly incapable of it."(this from a man who's just admitted he's never done a real days waork in his life.)
 
Pearl Jam - "With three Supreme Court positions opening in the next administration, I'm frightened to think of a Republican in office, especially one raised by a father who was in the CIA. I'm moving to a different country if little Damien II gets elected." 
     
Penn, Sean - "I don't know if people value the thought of revolution any more. I think it would be an enormously patriotic movement to invest in the possibility of revolution." (sounds like advocating sedition here. Isn't that illegal?)
 
Robbins, Tim - The non-violent Robbins said to the journalist who interviewed Sarandon's Republican mother, "If you ever write about my family again, I will [bleeping] find you and I will [bleeping] hurt you."

"I'm against this whole 'Let's bomb a new country because things aren't going our way.' It's, let's change the subject from Cheney and Halliburton and the crumbling confidence in the stock market. Talk about cynical! Because it's the cost of human lives that I resent... to put American soldiers in harm's way and to do everything to change the subject so that Republicans can keep control of the House." 
      
 Roberts, Eric - "Bush is a "fascist" and a co-conspirator (with Osama bin Laden) in deliberately "wrecking the American economy."
 
Roberts, Julia - "Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant... I looked up Democrat. It's of the people, by the people, for the people." "He's embarrassing. He's not my president. He will never be my president."  (and Julia Roberts needs to look up the word stupid, she'll find her name there)
 
Sarandon, Susan - "I'm tired of being labelled anti-American because I ask questions." (poor baby....)
                        

"In the name of fear and fighting terror we are giving the reigns of power to oil men looking for distraction from their disastrous economic performance."
  
Scorsese, Martin - "There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of this rut." 
      
Sheen, Martin - "George W Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd, a moron, if you'll pardon the expression." (no I don't pardon the expression you moron!)  Sheen declared of President Clinton: "I think he was probably the brightest President of the 20th century."

Q: When has it become criminal to express yourself in this country? 
Sheen: Right now.

Q: Assess the Bush Administration. 
 Sheen: In order to understand this Administration it is helpful to have a background in [Alcoholics Anonymous's] Twelve Step, because it is real clear to those of us who understand the Twelve Step program that these are very dysfunctional times. We live in a very dysfunctional society, and this is a very, very dysfunctional Administration. The proven way for this Administration to keep power is to keep us all in fear. As long as we are afraid of the unknown and afraid of each other, he, or anyone like him, can rule. It's like they will take responsibility for protecting us. It's when we take back the responsibility for protecting ourselves that they get scared. I am amazed by the level of arrogance within the Administration. 
 

Stone, Oliver - "They [corporations] control culture. They control ideas. And I think the revolt of September 11th was about 'F-- you! F-- your order!'"

"We should look to (Castro) as one of the Earth's wisest people, one of the people we should consult."
 
Streisand, Barbra - "We cannot let the right wing roll back more than thirty years of social progress."
                          
"We have a president who stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities."
 
Vidal, Gore - "I don't see us winning the war. We have made enemies of one billion Muslims."

"As dumb as this administration is, they don't look ahead. They don't know where any countries are. They don't know how to make deals. They don't really know much about anything. There is no plan."

"Whatever Saddam has that might be atrocious - mustard gas, pox, viruses - we will ensure that he uses it."

"Now you have people [in Washington] who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil."

"The media [have] never been more disgusting in my lifetime. Every lie out of Washington - they're out there doing war dances."
 
Williams, Robin - "We're here tonight because of the Shrub, you know who I'm talking about. George W. Bush, Jr. The W stands for 'where the Hell is it?' You know, you look at George W. and you realize some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some get it as a graduation gift. So sad. I just want to ask the   Secret Service, is it true that his Secret Service code name is Gilligan?"

 "We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself."

Anti-Americanism is the prevailing disease of intellectuals today. Like other diseases, it doesn't have to be logical or rational. But, like other diseases, it has a syndrome--a concurrent set of underlying symptoms that are also causes.

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Americans hear conflicting messages about how to think and talk about terrorism. As a result, the message of freedom and justice is often muted or muddled.

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They loaded it up with "pork", and Pelosi just did this to make Bush look bad if he vetos the legislation, and Pelosi wants Code Pink to stop camping on her doorstep.
Steve

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MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — The two women named Violeta Blanco have never met. But for a long time they shared not only a name, but the same birth date and the same Social Security number.

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Boyhood Friend and Teacher Say Obama Was Muslim

The issue of Sen. Barack Obama’s Muslim past has surfaced again as his campaign steps back from its flat denial that he ever belonged to the Islamic faith.

Earlier this year several media outlets reported that Obama had attended a radical madrasa, or Islamic school, when he lived in Indonesia. At the time, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declared: “To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.”

The report about the radical madrasa turned out to be false.

Now, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, Gibbs amended that declaration, saying: “Obama has never been a practicing Muslim,” the key word being “practicing.”

But a boyhood friend of Obama in Indonesia, Zulfin Adi, told the Times: “His mother often went to the church, but Barry [Barack’s name at the time] was Muslim. He went to the mosque.”

The Times sent a reporter to Jakarta, capital of the Muslim nation, to delve into an issue that could have a serious impact on the Democratic presidential candidate’s White House aspiration, as voters “react to a candidate with an early exposure to Islam, a religion that remains foreign to many Americans,” the Times noted.

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan, and Kansas-born Ann Dunham. The couple separated when Barack was 2. They later divorced, and Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, a Muslim. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, where Obama was known as Barry Soetoro, and he remained there from age 6 to 10.

Obama attended first grade at a Catholic elementary school near his home, St. Francis of Assisi Foundation School, which accepted students of any religion.

His first-grade teacher Israella Dharmawan told the Times: “At that time, Barry was also praying in a Catholic way, but Barry was Muslim. He was registered as a Muslim because his father was Muslim.”

In the third grade, Obama transferred to a public school, where he was also registered as a Muslim.

Muslim students at the school attended weekly religion lessons about Islam, taught by a Muslim.

In his autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama mentions studying the Quran and describes the public school as “a Muslim school.”

Boyhood friend Adi said Obama occasionally went to Friday prayers at a local mosque.

“We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque,” he told the Times.

Sometimes, when the call to prayer sounded, Barry and Lolo would walk to the mosque together, Adi added.

Obama’s half-sister Maya Soetoro, in a statement issued Wednesday by the Obama campaign, said the family attended the mosque only for “big communal events.”

New revelations about Obama’s Muslim past could provide ammunition for his critics — and political opponents.

One such critic is Chicago-based Internet journalist and broadcaster Andy Martin, a lawyer and consumer advocate who wrote earlier about Obama’s connection to Islam.

Reacting to the claim from Obama’s sister that the family went to the mosque only for “big communal events,” Martin wrote on Thursday: “Tens of millions of ‘Christians’ flock to churches for Easter and Christmas. And they would slap you down if you told them they were not Christians merely because they only appear twice a year for ‘big communal events.’”

He also wrote: “Obama no longer denies he was a Muslim. Now he says he wasn’t a ‘practicing’ Muslim.

“People in general will accept most anything from public officials as long as they don’t lie about it.”

 

In the wake of community criticism, Target Corp. is reassigning its Muslim cashiers who refuse to ring up pork products for religious reasons to other jobs at the stores.

Target received a wave of criticism earlier this week after the Star Tribune reported in a front-page article that some Muslim cashiers at Target declined to scan bacon and other pork products. They would call over another cashier to ring up the products, or in some cases, ask customers to do it themselves.

Some customers called and wrote Target to complain about the practice; a few called for a general boycott of Target on the Star Tribune's community blog, buzz.mn.

After the story appeared, Target asked Muslim cashiers who refuse to handle pork to wear gloves or transfer to other areas of the stores. In some cases, Muslim cashiers will be given the option of transferring to other stores. "We are confident that this is a reasonable solution for our guests and team members," Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said in a statement. It remains unclear whether wages would be affected by any job transfers; cashiers are generally entry-level positions at Target.

"Blown way out of proportion"

The move is an effort by Target to balance the religious rights of its employees with customer demands for prompt service. However, some Somali Muslims in the Twin Cities said that the retailer is overreacting to public pressure and that stores should be able to accommodate Muslim cashiers without disrupting service.

"This is being blown way out of proportion," said Abdi Sheikhosman, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Minnesota Law School. "Pork products represent a very small percentage of Target's overall products. ... Accommodations could have been made."

Target's new policy is similar to ones at other grocery stores in the area. Spokespeople for the chains that operate Cub and Rainbow food stores said Muslims who share concerns about pork during the interview process are told of opportunities in departments such as dairy, floral or customer service that don't involve handling pork.

"There are many jobs in the grocery store that do not involve handling pork," said Vivian King, a spokeswoman for Roundy's, which owns Rainbow stores.

Each Target store appears to have some leeway in implementing the new policy. At the downtown Minneapolis Target, employees were called into one-on-one meetings Thursday and asked whether they were opposed to handling pork for religious reasons. Those who said yes were told they could no longer work as cashiers during the store's busiest hours, 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., according to an employee at the store who requested anonymity.

At the SuperTarget off Hwy. 7 in St. Louis Park, which has a full grocery section, Muslim cashiers who said they refuse to handle pork were transferred Thursday to the sales floor to stock shelves or fold clothes. It remained unclear whether that change is permanent. The store manager declined to be interviewed, and Thornton-Greear said the company wouldn't discuss the situation at specific stores.

Suhara Robla, a 20-year-old employee at the store, said more than a dozen Muslim cashiers were asked Thursday to do other jobs. "They told all of us who don't touch pork to go to the sales floor," she said. "They really didn't say why. They just said it was a new policy."

Sinful to sell pork?

Many Muslims believe the pig is an unclean animal and consider it a sin to eat pork. The Qur'an has multiple passages in which Allah instructs believers to avoid eating pig flesh. It is so core to their beliefs that some consider it sinful to sell the meat, because that encourages others to participate in a sinful act.

In the Muslim world, there is even a stronger taboo against pork than alcohol, said Owais Bayunus, an imam at the Abu Khudra Mosque in Columbia Heights. Wearing gloves will not solve the issue, he said. "There is a school of thought within the Muslim community that if you sell pork or alcohol to someone, then you are contributing to the propagation of a sinful activity," he said. "Many Muslims do not want to see non-Muslims involved in a sinful product."

At Target stores, some Muslim cashiers opposed to selling pork had grown accustomed to waving over other employees whenever they came across bacon, ham or other pork products, even pepperoni pizza. In many cases, they simply switched on a little light above their registers and another cashier would rush to their side and swipe the product for them.

The practice seemed to work well for Robla. She said she needed help scanning pork products only "about two or three times a day." In other cases, customers would volunteer to swipe the items themselves.

Occasionally, however, Robla said, people would get annoyed when she told them it was because of her religion. "Some people would say, 'If you won't scan it, then I don't want this thing,' " she said. "I don't understand it. Some people don't even want to wait a few seconds."

Mohamed Muse, who also works at the St. Louis Park store but not as a cashier, has no problems with the new policy. "If someone is trying to buy pork, you can't just say, 'Wait here,' " he said. "You can't put a hold on the work system."

Muse, speaking to a reporter Friday afternoon at the Somali mall just off Lake Street, said when he applied for his job six months ago, a human-resources worker asked him whether he could handle pork. Muse, who arrived in the country eight months ago after immigrating with his family from Nairobi, Kenya, said no. "They said OK. So I work mostly with fruits and vegetables overnight," he said. "It was really no problem."

Still, he understands some of the controversy, which has included discussions on area talk-radio stations. "People are sensitive," he said. "They say, 'You are trying to force me to [your] religion! You are losing my time!' All that stuff."