It's Who COUNTS the Votes... that Counts!

As background for this article, I present you with this review of "The Conyers Report," written for Amazon.com by Edwin C. Pauzer, of New York City. (With thanks to Amazon. Clicking on the link will take you to this review, and provide you with access to purchasing the book. Emphasis within the review, below, is mine. --Ed.):

In his book "Armed Madhouse..." author Greg Palast quotes Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "It's not the votes that count. It's who counts the votes." After you read the dry but factual 116 pages of this book, you will come to the inescapable conclusion that the election was stolen from presidential candidate John Kerry and given to Mr. Bush. The book is divided into facts (what happened) and analysis (the motive and how it could have happened). It starts with Ohio's secretary of state, a republican, Kenneth Blackwell who promised to "fill in the blanks" regarding voting anomalies but has kept silent in the finest tradition of "political omerta." He has refused to initiate any investigations, and has tried his best to have the ballots destroyed. Here's some of what Conyers uncovers: Republican challengers were at every precinct causing massive voting delays. This is called caging, and it is illegal. Republican challengers targeted 97% of new voters in black areas. They only challenged 14% of new voters in white areas. There were voting machine lockdowns preventing observation of ballot counts. This too is illegal. There were flipped votes. Voters reported that they had voted for Kerry and watched their vote register for George Bush. These "glitches" were called "calibration problems." The number of votes vs. voters. In many places the number of voter turn-out exceeded 100%. (?) In one case nearly 19,000 votes were added after all precincts reported. There were repairs being made by the electronic voting machine company while the ballots were being recounted. This too is illegal. In Ohio. The exit polls which asked the people how they voted, showed that Kerry had won. Men and women voters gave a majority to Kerry. These polls are usually very accurate. So, how did exit polls that put Kerry ahead 52% to 48% turn around after the ballots were counted? After reading this book, you can only arrive at one conclusion: There's something rotten in the state of Ohio. Update: Blackwell ran for governor in Ohio this past November and was defeated. Those ballots he could not manage to hide.

If you can possibly read the above review, and the book itself, and not realize that nothing less than American democracy is at stake, then you are most assuredly part of the problem. And if you do recognize this threat, but do nothing to help counter it -- BEFORE the General Election in November, 2008 -- then you are very assuredly no part of a very desperately-needed solution!

This article could turn long and tedious, if I filled it with more documentation. And then fewer people would read and act upon it, which would defeat its purpose. So I suggest that you please do this:

Do a Google search of these words, exactly as presented, and you'll have an abundance of information: "diebold" "voting" "fraud".

You'll have all the proof that you need! (And, should you run across anyone who poo-poos this, or claims it's "conspiracy theory," ask yourself these questions: "With which party does he affiliate himself?" And, "WHY is he so anxious to keep you from learning the facts?")

The SOLUTION

It seems almost too easy, but if enough of us do it, it cannot help but work!

Contact both of your U.S. Senators, and your Representative in Congress, and tell them that this must be done no later than during the springtime of 2008, so as to allow all of the relevant states enough time to prepare and adjust for it:

All states using electronic voting devices must ensure that those machines generate a paper vote simultaneously with the electronic one, and that the voter must be able to see and verify the printed vote before leaving the polling place.

All electronically talllied votes must be regarded as preliminary -- just to give the country an idea of how things seem to be developing, on Election Night. And then ALL of the paper ballots must be tallied under strict supervision from representatives of all parties on the ballot. ONLY after ALL of those paper ballots have been properly and honestly tallied, can victories be declared. And the tallied PAPER ballots, and their tally, are the only OFFICIAL results. No matter how lopsided the election may appear to be.

(Please enclose a copy of the above book review, and ask that the legislation be written to explicity and enforcably PROHIBIT all of the abuses that are cited within it.)

If this Congress -- which currently has a Democratic majority in both houses, and therefore may be our very last hope for heading off permanent disaster, passes this legislation... but then President Bush were to veto it -- that should set off a firestorm from the electorate! Since the only possible reason to do that would be to wreck the democratic process!

Finally -- Use the Internet to promote the above measure. Post to blogs. Use text messaging. Phone in relentlessly to radio talk shows.

If democracy in the USA is to survive into 2009 -- it is up to us -- WE, the PEOPLE -- to get the job done! Please don't make the mistake of thinking this can be put off. Because it almost certainly is now or never! Do or die!

The Internet address of this article (URL) is spelled out below. Please e-mail it as far and wide as you possibly can! Thanks -- and good luck to us all!

http://apifar.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-who-counts-votes-that-counts.html

I just learned about a very REFRESHING book!

It's not a brand-new book, but it's an intriguing one. And I stumbled upon it accidentally as I was doing a Google search to determine which of the world's nations still were hobbled by mindless taboos regarding casual sex.

Published in 2001, Taboo: Sex, Religion & Magick, by Christopher S. Hyatt, Ron Milo Duquette, Diana Rose Hartmann, and Gary Ford appears to be quite an unusual and delightful digression from the usual treatment of sex, as noted by several customer reviewers. Including this review from Amazon, written by a person calling himself, "A Customer:"

The following is a review of this spicy little bombshell written by Leticia Marquez of Magical Blend Magazine:

Robert Anton Wilson says of "Taboo"...

"I assure you that what you are about to read is obscene, lewd, blasphemous, subversive, and very interesting, and that all right-thinking people will agree that it should be banned, bowdlerized, censored, suppressed, and burned by the public hangman...I think it is safe to predict that almost every organized group of idiots in this country will regard this book as extremely dangerous."

Wilson is probably right, Taboo's challenge to unite sexual and religious practices probably won't go over well with the New Right. But for the rest of us, the authors present a roller-coaster of a read complete with case histories, theories, and secret sex rituals of interest to both "adepts' of esoteric sex cult societies as well as "ordinary" people. Full of interesting quotations and anecdotes from alchemists, sex magicians, and vampires -- not to mention old Yawey himself -- this is a fascinating a colorful work that seems predestined to upset many people in our sex-negative society. Those who believe that taboos are made to be broken, however, should find Taboo and enjoyable and entertaining read.

The above review is pretty typical, and any contribution to breaking down the abject mindlessness of taboos regarding sex gets my vote! Taboos born of ignorance indeed do deserve to become extinct. Just as quickly as possible. (And it's good to keep in mind that those whom the reviewer called "right-thinking people," above, are the repressive loons of the RRR Cult -- the "Religious" Radical Right. And that's not the way that normal Christians typically think. Normal Christians generally are sensible and tolerant people. And the noisy and noisome pseudo-Christians of the RRR Cult comprise only 5% of the American population.)

So how does the USA stack up in terms of making progress out of the repressive morass of Puritanism, according to this book's authors? Well -- you'll have to read the book.

And remember, seven more years have gone by since this book came off the press, so hopefully, even more progress in that direction has already taken place since then.

Barack Obama's Serious "Mask" Problem...Is he a "Bargainer" or a "Challenger?"

Shelby Steele, author of "A Bound Man," shares something with Barack Obama that most blacks don't. They both have white mothers and black fathers. But beyond that, the similarities fade and diverge. Obama grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii in more modern times, after segregation in the American South had become a savage blot in the history books, and the older Shelby grew up while segregation still prevailed -- ironically on the south side of Chicago (now Obama's home turf), which might as well have been Birmingham, Alabama for all the racial tensions that prevailed there during that earlier era.

Steele is concerned that blacks are almost expected by both their peers, to be either white-accomodating "bargainers," or more edgy and confrontational "challengers." Often, the bargainers are seen by their fellow blacks in a disparaging way, because today's bargainers used to be regarded derisively as "Uncle Toms" by their peers. Sellouts to their own race. And are still perceived that way by millions of blacks.

Steele is proud of his race, and of his black heritage, and rightly so. He looks back on such people as George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., and a host of other accomplished blacks as major contributors to both their race and to society as a whole. He says that, even though he's of mixed racial blood, he grew up in a society where the "one drop rule" prevailed. If a person had so much as one drop of black blood (much less the 50% that he has), they were black, plain and simple. No wiggle room. Black! That was it!

Both Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby are excellent example of successful bargainers who have managed to very successfully have great appeal to both races. However, Cosby has more recently seemed to have become far more of a challenger. Which Steele thinks is a mistake, because Cosby had been riding a very successful horse as a bargainer... and now both races really don't quite know what to expect from this edgier and more confrontational person.

"Masks" are the problem, as Steele sees it. Most people in those two races still think of themselves racially first, and simply as individual human beings second. And more often than not, a black person finds himself compelled to wear a "mask" that hides his true sentiments, in order to get along. Obama wears the mask of bargainer almost all the time among whites, but when speaking to crowds made up mostly of blacks in Harlem and South Carolina, he's worn the challenger mask.

Challengers usually are more successful in getting along with their peers because that's where most blacks think that their power lies, as a race. That if they confront, they are perceived as more capable of achieving their goals. Obviously, that doesn't play too well with whites, even though that's what most whites in the 21st century have come to expect that from the blacks.

This year, blacks have a real problem. Steele points out that for a long time, now, 92% of blacks have voted Democratic, because social liberalism has been good for them, and their advancement in society, in many ways. But now what do they do? They are faced with choosing between a black candidate for the first time ever, and a woman, for the first time ever, who both are social liberals -- to possibly become their next President of the United States. Obama has race going for him, among the blacks, along with vigorous youth and a drive to make real changes in Washington. On the other hand, Hillary's husband, Bill, has for a long time been regarded by blacks as "the first black President," because he had such strong empathy for them, and sought to help with their problems. If you're black, and vote Democrat, how do you make a choice like that, in the primaries?

Further complicating things for Obama (and favoring Hillary's chances) are two other racial factors. The first is "hidden" racism among whites. In Iowa, under the caucus system, people literally had to stand up and be counted, publicly, in front of their precinct neighbors. What white American wants to be identified as a racist in this century; to be labeled as a bigot by his very own neighbors? That would be worse than embarassing. It would be humiliating! Especially in a 96%-white, northern state like Iowa. So Obama, having this advantage going for him, won the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. But New Hampshire -- now that was an entirely different breed of cat! In that state, the voters were able to vote their secret hearts and sentiments in the privacy of a voting booth, with secret ballots. And if a given white voter were afflicted with racism, he could let that all hang out in the ballot box, with impunity, and no fear of ever being found out. There's no way to prove that this was the key factor, but I'm guessing that this very well may be why the pollsters and pundits were so egregiously far off in their predictions of a huge Obama victory, even scant hours before Hillary beat him by three percentage points and won the primary. Publicly, the white voters -- including whatever racists were among them -- had been coming out in droves to see and hear Obama. But in the case of the racists, their motivation may just have been great curiosity about this strange phenomenon. And then came the secret balloting...

The second racial problem that Obama faces, and will face more and more intensely as the race progresses -- especially if he becomes the Democratic nominee, and then the Republican attack dogs come after him (which might make the Swift-boating of John Kerry in 2004 seem like heaven by comparison!) -- is his "mask" management. More than ever, now, he'll be walking an increasingly tenuous tightrope as he chooses carefully between accomodating the blacks, who can make or break him in this race, and making the whites (who can do likewise) comfortable, by alternating between being an edgy challenger and an appeasing bargainer. Oprah Winfrey is an attractive and established bargainer, and most people of both races are delighted with her. But Obama doesn't have that luxury. All Americans want to know what to expect of him if he gets to be President, and racism in this nation, unfortunately, still is far from being interred

Complicating this even further for Obama is media scrutiny. In the past, he's been able to be a challenger in front of a black crowd in Harlem, and get away with it. But from here on, whichever mask he wears will be seen by the whole nation, virtually instantaneously, thanks to a hungry news media that will be watching him, just like all the other front-runners. like a hawk. And will be broadcasting sound bites like mad. To the entire nation! And that doesn't even take the additional exposure afforded by the Internet into consideration.

My conclusion in light of all of this is that, unless he is an extremely talented politician, Obama may not be able to keep switching masks and pull this off. People will increasingly be demanding to know the REAL Obama, and learn precisely what he intends to do for the country. Very specifically. And that will make it difficult or impossible to reconcile with both races in a still-too-racially-sensitized nation.

It's almost midnight at the ball. The REAL Obama will soon have to stop swapping masks, and show us all who he truly is. And in the case of race, that means letting us all know whether, at bottom, he's a bargainer or a challenger. And then we'll all have to see how that plays out.

If he gets very lucky, he may get to beat Hillary for the Democratic nomination. But if that happens, then from that moment on, he'll need to become a miracle-worker to keep from being converted into dog meat by a Republican Party that has proven itself to be very adept at deception and viciousness.

I'm sorry to have to draw this conclusion, because it's a sad commentary on a society that still has a lot of racial growing up to do, but for all the reasons above, I believe that on the Democratic side, only Hillary is truly electable to the Presidency in November. Since John Edwards no longer has much of a chance of being nominated. And then only if she can sucessfully run the gauntlet certain to be emplaced by potent and proven Republican corruption, and their hackable electronic voting machines.

If America is to turn away from the downhill slide to tyranny that the Republicans have potently initiated, I truly believe that there is only one fork remaining in that road, and that our ONLY chance will be to elect a Democrat to the White House this November. And it will really help if the nation can become determined between now and then to chuck a LOT of Republican rascals out of Congress at the same time! (And that has to be their own rascals, or it won't work. Whining about other peoples' rascals accomplishes nothing! If you have a Republican rascal in Congress that can be voted out this year, then it's up to you to get that job done. Your very own rascal. Ousted at the ballot box by you! THIS year, let's DO it!)

Perception of Women as Equals...What CENTURY is this?

by "Mysticsister" in the Huffington Post website -- 1/9/08

If a woman shows emotion, she's weak. If she doesn't, she's conniving. So tell me, how do we win? How do we play the game and beat a man, any man, at anything? Because as soon as you show that you're tough, intelligent and ready to take them on, they start bashing your brains in. And women are worse. We don't seem to want other women to be leaders. As long as this double standard isn't focused on and brought to light, it won't stop. Cry? Who wouldn't?!! Being relentlessly attacked because of the fact that you want to be president is one thing. But attacking her for being a woman who wants to be president is hard to watch. There could be a dialogue about this -- that would use up some air time. But no -- it's more fun to watch her have a so called "break down." What year is it again?

My Comment: You're right on the money with this! Hillary can't win for the losing. She shows she's human, and she gets stomped on for it. Same if she talks tough. Then she gets accused of being a witch with a capital "B." What do people expect from her? Lukewarmness? THEN who would vote for her? And -- it never ceases to amaze me how vicious women can be toward other women. E.g., I'll bet women get referred to as "sluts" far more often by their fellow women than by men. (Usually behind their backs!) Go figure!!

Are we going to have to wait for the 22nd century for society to grow up?!?

Here's how EUROPE was lucky enough toescape infestation by the RRR Cult

To appreciate the full magnitude of the content of this article, I encourage you to click on each of its internal links, as you read it.

America's internal terrorists are the leaders and lemmings of the RRR Cult. The UN-Christian "Religious Radical Right." America's very own, personal-liberties hating, home-grown version of the Taliban.

And as unlucky as America is to be infested by it... Europe is lucky enough to have completely escaped it! Talk about dodging a very sociopathic bullet!

Ironically, it is the very structure of the RRR that saved Europe from it! And which will continue to protect the hundreds of millions of people living on that very fortunate continent. Because the RRR Cult is different from all other cults, in one very important way. A factor that enabled it to infest American society and threaten our freedoms -- while simultaneously preventing it from infesting Europe.

You see, almost all other cults recruit their lemmings and immediately isolate them with the other lemmings, within the cult. Sometimes so extremely as to isolate them from most of the rest of society. But the RRR's crafty leaders did exactly the opposite, right from Day One, back in the 1970s -- when the late Jerry Falwell (to his eternal shame) started the cult, and called it the "Moral Majority. (What a misnomer that was, since the cult he started was never even remotely a majority... and today still comprises only 5% of the U.S. population. Nor was there anything "moral" about it.) The RRR primarily targets the more ignorant folks who have already been conned into populating the congregations of fundamentist churches. I could have said "Christian fundamentalist churches," but those are often far more UN-Christian than Christian. After all, how Christian can any church or denomination be which rejects Christ's clear command that we show compassion to our neighbors? But instead espouses and promotes such loathsome agendas as the one that seeks to force girls and women to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term against their will? Which would deprive millions of them of countless of their pre-ill-timed-pregnancy future opportunities.

The cult infests those churches from within -- and then, here is the key to its success -- it leaves its lemmings in place, where they can influence and convert their other congregants into adopting the cult's heinous agendas.

The United States has always had a pretty stable percentage of Christian believers, and a solid percentage of those are church-goers. That's a good thing in its own right, and as a Christian myself, I could hardly think otherwise. In fact, per a recent Gallup Poll, fully 83% of Americans profess Christianity. OF that number, 94% are actual, normal, senisible, relatively-intelligent and generally-tolerant, actual Christians. While the remaining 6% are the lemmings of the RRR Cult, who subscribe to the loathsome agendas of the cult's oligarchical leadership and organizations.

No one seems to be sure why there is such a disparity between the Americans and the Europeans with respect to numbers of Christians, and numbers of church-goers. But I have a theory.

European history goes back thousands of years, and except for Native Americans, that of the USA only 400. And the beginning of this nation was hugely influenced by the ultra-conservative (to the point of being downright nutty) Puritans. Any ducking-stool mentality that can be found in today's RRR cultists can likely be traced back through time to that cult.

So Europe was far luckier. At least as far as being threatened by a ubiquitous, continent-wide, liberty-threatening cult is concerned. Because, thanks to its long history and its great diversity, the following important comments and aspects pertain to it:

[Phil Zuckerman wrote]: "The last time I was in Europe, I was told by two different sets of friends that we would be 'going out to the church' for the evening. In both cases (one in Oban, Scotland, and the other in Cologne, Germany) the churches turned out to be religious institutions in facade only; both were former churches that had been gutted and turned into popular pubs and night clubs. Indeed, throughout much of Western Europe--with the unique exception of Ireland -- churches are being turned into bars, discos, warehouses, and laundromats. Not only is church attendance way down, but so is religious belief."

* In Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1851, 60 percent of the adult population attended church; in 1995 that was down to 11 percent (Bruce 1999).
* In 1899, 98 percent of Dutch citizens claimed to belong to a particular church. In 2001, only 40 percent did so (Grotenhuis and Scheepers 2001).
* Only 34 percent of West Germans, 31 percent of Belgians, 24 percent of the British, 17 percent of the French, 11 percent of Finns, and 9 percent of Icelanders attend church at lease monthly (Inglehart, Basanez, and Moreno 1998).
* Only 6 percent of Danes, 7 percent of Swedes, and 9 percent of Norwegians attend church at least monthly (Bruce 2000).
* Only 2 percent of Danes, 2 percent of Swedes, and 2 percent of Norwegians attend church on an average Sunday (Bruce 2000).
* 12 percent of Danes claimed to "never attend church" in 1947; that was up to 34 percent in 1996 (Bruce 1999).
* 32 percent of Swedes and 33 percent of Norwegians claim to "never" attend church (Bruce 2000).
* The percent of the population in the United Kingdom in 1900 which had attended Sunday school as children was 55 percent; in 2000 it was down to 4 percent (Bruce 2002).
* Among West Germans in 1967, 42 percent believed that Jesus is the son of God; this dropped down to 29 percent in 1992; among East Germans, the number drops as low as 17 percent (Shand 1998).
* 43 percent of the British in 1940 claimed to believe in the existence of a personal God; that dropped to 26 percent in 2000 (Bruce 2002).

The best available empirical research reveals is that secularization is unambiguously observable in most of Western Europe, but not in the United States. In fact, religion remains remarkably strong in the United States. For instance, more than 95 percent of Americans claim to believe in God or a universal spirit or lifeforce, compared to 61 percent of the British; nearly 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in heaven, compared to 50 percent of the British; 84 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is God or the son of God, compared to 46 percent of the British (Gallup and Lindsay 1999). Comparing additional traditional religious beliefs, over 70 percent of Americans believe in life after death, compared to 46 percent of Italians, 43 percent of the French, and 35 percent of Scandinavians (Gallup 1979). And over 70 percent of Americans believe in bell, compared to only 28 percent of the British (Greeley 1995). Concerning traditional religious participation, nearly 45 percent of Americans attend church more than once a week, compared to 23 percent of Belgians, 19 percent of West Germans, 13 percent of the British, 10 percent of the French, 3 percent of Danes, and only 2 percent of Icelanders (Verweij, Ester, and Nauta 1997).

The referenced sources of the above information, and the data itself, can be found here.

Very interestingly, if one of the Puritans had chopped a hole in the bottom of their ship while it was still in mid-Atlantic, he likely would have been one of the greatest American heroes of all time -- without ever having even reached America! And we'd never even have known his name.

Without the influence of the Puritans at the very inception of American society, it is highly probable that the United States today would be very much like Europe in this regard... and that the RRR Cult would never have existed.

And that if Jerry Falwell had existed, and had tried to organize that loathsome faction under those circumstances, he almost surely would have been told, very properly, to go fly a very large kite.

Finally -- what about Canada? With whom we share a common border over 4,000 miles long. Did it escape the RRR Cult, despite its adjacency and proximity? For the most part, yes! Very fortuitously! As pointed out by Zuckerman:

"Interestingly enough, Canada maintains a sort of middle ground between the United States and Western Europe concerning traditional religious belief: In 1995, 70 percent of Canadians claimed to believe in God or a universal spirit, standing between over 90 percent of Americans and 61 percent of Britons; 61 percent of Canadians claim to believe in heaven, standing between 78 percent of Americans and 50 percent Britons (Gallup and Lindsay 1999). Concerning church participation, 30 percent of Canadians attend church weekly (Bruce 1999), standing between 45 percent of Americans, 19 percent of West Germans, and 13 percent of Britons."

It wasn't as good as having a vast ocean seperating them from the land of the Puritans, as was the case for the Europeans. But developing as a separate nation undoubtedly afforded the lucky Canadians a great deal of protection against such repressive and irrational hatefulness. A strong enough filter, through which an insufficient amount of the cult's poison was able to pass, to result in an infestation.

For example -- there is nothing more harmless than same-sex marriage (SSM). It doesn't make people gay. It doesn't cause gay people to have sex any more often than they already do. (Not that that's anyone else's business than theirs; RRR cultists are some of the world's worst busybodies. And busybodyism & abject ignorance go together!) And there is no way in the world that SSM could do on one whit of harm to opposite-sex marriage, or to the marriage of any opposite-sex couple. Any notion that opposite-sex marriage somehow needs to be "defended" against it is one of the RRR Cult's most blatant and loathsome lies. Yet -- in the still-too-Puritanical USA, that hateful cult has scared Congress and state legislatures into passing so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws and state constitutional amendments. How utterly MINDLESS!

But by stark comparison, Canada fully legalized same-sex marriage. With no significant opposition from within its borders. As has a growing number of European nations. Intelligence and the RRR Cult are mutually-exclusive. Nor does the RRR emanate any compassion. Just a ducking-stool mentality and hateful irrationality.

There is very little that is Christian about America's very own Taliban.

And as long as that cult continues to infest America, and weild its influence upon our courts and our elected representatives, it is imperative that we keep this analogy in mind:

The RRR Cult : Society :: 5% Arsenic Solution : Glass of Drinking Water

Just as segregation infested and poisoned the South, 50 years ago, this insidous, loathsome, and ignorance-laden cult threatens vital and important liberties of tens of millions of Americans today. Blacks were the targets before. Today, it's gays and girls & women.

And just as society outgrew and rejected segregation, we need to fight, outgrow, and reject the toxic RRR Cult and its hate-laden agenda today. What a sad commentary on America that such an infestation can still manifest itself and survive into the 21st century!

Almost ALL of USA's 14 Million ILLEGAL Aliens OUTwithin a Month's Time? Yes! Here's How to Do It!

This is my proposal for solving America’s illegal immigration problem without bloodshed and at virtually no expense.

The first presidential candidate who states categorically that he will do THIS just might win the nomination, and then the election, handily!

Before getting into that though, I remind everyone that any person who's not already a U.S. citizen who enters the USA without documentation has broken a serious law. The moment he does that, he becomes a criminal! Anyone who thinks that these criminals should be given some sort of "amnesty" needs to ask himself this question: "Would you favor an amnesty program for burglars and bank robbers?"

A criminal act is just that. Something for which a penalty must be paid, in almost all cases. This plan provides a reasonable way for those 14 million criminals to avoid prosecution by simply choosing to leave. Any reasonable proponent of amnesty should love that! And so should everyone else! Here it is:

Pass a federal law that mandates a minimum of one year of penitentiary time and a $25,000 minimum fine to be assessed to any employer who either hires, or continues to employ, any illegal (undocumented) alien. These penalties to be enforced upon both the personnel manager who does the hiring and the head of the company, for companies that have personnel managers. No exceptions! The buck stops at the top!

This would make it impossible for any illegal aliens (other than a handful of them having sugar daddies) to survive in the USA, and thus, we could expect to see almost all 14 million of them scrambling back south of the border within a month or so after this law takes effect.

NO wall or fence necessary, and NO risk to any officers, since there'd be no need for forcible deportations.

Finally, rescind, retroactively, the citizenship status of all "anchor babies," regardless of their age, even if they've become adults. If they were born here to illegals, then they are illegal, too, and are therefore automatically rendered unemployable. This already is constitutionally legitimate. Per the U.S. Constitution, those "anchor babies" never had legal citizenship status in the first place. (Thus, no "anchor.) See the response to this article that immediately follows it in this posting.

This plan would end almost ALL illegal immigration overnight, and do so bloodlessly, at virtually no taxpayer expense.

Once back outside of the country, they could apply for legal immigration (including legitimately-obtained work visas), and, in the process, get in line behind everyone else who's doing it the right way.

And the first candidate of either party to promise their serious intention to accomplish this could very well become our next President!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

In Yahoo! Answers, a person calling himself "hockey g" gave this in-depth and substantive response to the above proposal. (If he gives me permission to give him proper credit by citing his actual name, I’ll replace the paragraph you now are reading with that.) ---

I agree 100%. Rescind all citizenship that was unconstitutionally granted in the first place. The 14th amendment, and specifically the citizenship clause, was carefully worded such that it denied citizenship to "foreigners and aliens."

This is how it was introduced to the 39th congress by the author of the citizenship clause, Senator Jacob Howard. If you read the debates that ensued, as recorded in the Congressional Globe, it is clear to anyone of average intelligence that the Congress that passed the 14th amendment did not intend to hand out citizenship like some kind of cheap carnival prize.

The key to undoing the current misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is this odd phrase: "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

The whole problem is caused by the fact that the meaning of this phrase, which was clear to anyone versed in legal language in 1868, has slipped with changes in usage. Fortunately, there is a large group of court precedents that make clear what the phrase actually means: The Fourteenth Amendment excludes the children of aliens. (The Slaughterhouse Cases (83 U.S. 36 (1873))

The Fourteenth Amendment draws a distinction between the children of aliens and children of citizens. (Minor v. Happersett (88 U.S. 162 (1874))

The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" requires "direct and immediate allegiance" to the United States, not just physical presence. (Elk v. Wilkins 112 U.S. 94 (1884))

There is no automatic birthright citizenship in a particular case. (Wong Kim Ark Case, 169 U.S. 649 (1898))

The Supreme Court has never confirmed birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens, temporary workers, and tourists. (Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 211 n.10 (1982))

There are other cases referring to minor details of the question. In essence, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant, at the time the amendment was written, a person having a reciprocal relationship of allegiance and protection with the United States government. It was thus understood not to apply to persons whose presence in this country is transitory or illegal.

That the Fourteenth Amendment does not grant automatic birthright citizenship is also made clear by the fact that it took an act of Congress in 1922 to give American Indians birthright citizenship, which would obviously not have been necessary if they had it automatically just by being born here. The courts have also long recognized an exception for the children of foreign diplomats, which exception would be unconstitutional if the Fourteenth Amendment granted automatic birthright citizenship to everyone.

The REAL Republican Platform -- 2008

There's a LOT of truth in this. A LOT of truth!!
Source: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=1675801 Further substantially enhanced within this blog. (And, be sure to click on its internal links.)

When you "re-elect" us, we Republicans will continue to implement the following platform:

o We will make laws promoting the Judeo-Christian family unit and preventing all alternative or vicarious ways to channel your sexuality.

o We will persecute people who are homosexual, those who do not adhere to the Christian religion and those who are not white.

o We will force girls and women to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term against their will. Despite the fact that the Bible never condemns abortion, nor does it ever defend human life in any form that exists prior to birth, as people. If anyone challenges the irrationality and/or hatefulness of this stance, we will respond by lying that "the Bible says so."

o We will force women to have unwanted children and make them work while their children are growing up alone.

o After forcing single pregnant women to bear unwanted children, we further will force them to give them up for adoption, and then later drive those kids into the military to be cannon fodder for the unconstitutional wars that we lyingly start and then perpetuate.

o We will never make direct references to Biblical passages in which Jesus commands His followers to show compassion for their neighbors. With a platform like this, we could never begin to defend ourselves if challenged on that!

o We will disavow, disregard, and disrespect the value and worth of any and all non-Judeo/Christian religions, and disparage and discredit them whenever we think we can get away with it.

o Even though none of us have ever yet discovered any way that opposite-sex marriage (which we will continue to deceptively call "traditional") could possibly need to be "defended" against same-sex marriage, we will continue the charade of claiming that the latter is harmful. If anyone challenges us on this, we'll cite the Bible -- while omitting, of course, any mention of the fact that the Bible never appointed nor authorized any person or group to act as a Gestapo to enforce its precepts versus society in general. And of course, in keeping with that, we will never make any reference to 1 Cor. 5:12-13!

o We will take the gloves off large trans and multi-national corporations and allow them to run roughshod over you and the environment.

o We will give these conglomerate businesses the ability to push down your wages as far as possible.

o We will allow companies to eliminate your health benefits and pensions.

o We will continue to expand the powers of the executive branch and render oversight by Congress irrelevant.

o We will abolish unions to take away any voice and collective power you have as workers.

o We will create a new class of people called the 'working poor' who work full time jobs but can't afford basic living expenses.

o While we're lowering your standard of living, we will remove all of the public services and the safety net that you'll need to survive.

o We willl destroy competition and promote monopoly power, particularly in the media, energy, prison and military manufacturing industries.

o We will allow, promote, create and support immense monopolies that crush small and medium sized businesses.

o We will represent and implement the will of these massive monopolies no matter what the people say or want.

o We will increase our stranglehold on national, state and local government and continue to make them more subservient to business.

o We will penalize you if you are not married, and we will make it more difficult for you to form relationships that might lead to marriage.

o We will ensure mass unemployment, start wars and send poor children off to these wars so that we can make more money.

o Multiculturalism is fine as long as it works to our advantage. At all other times, it is anathema, and should be publicly decried as being detrimental to American "values."

o We will expand the reach of law, the powers of law enforcement and allow government officers to operate in complete secrecy.

o We will imprison you and your children longer and longer for petty offenses and we will torture you when we think it is needed.

o If your skin is not white, we will tolerate you only as long as you work for very low wages and cower in front of us.

o We will tax corporations and rich people less and give them much more in return for campaing donations.

o We will tax the middle class more and give them much less in return whether they donate to campaigns or not.

o We will do away with the constitution and the rights of individuals in favor of the rights of corporations.

o We will make sure our seniors have to work to make ends meet and we will ensure that they will have little to no free health care available.

o We will continue to cut services and funding for disabled or wounded war veterans and their families.

o We will make sure that your child is educated only enough for menial work or entry into the armed forces.

o We will use your tax money to put our children through private schools while your children get the worst education possible.

o We will lie to you at every turn.

o We will make all our decisions in secret. If you start sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong, we will throw you in jail with no bail, charges or lawyer.

o Even though the rest of the world easily sees our hypocrisy, and loathes America for it, we will continue to imprison suspects for years at secret locations in foreign lands, and at Guantanamo, torture them at will, and deprive them of the fair trials they otherwise could expect our Constitution to guarantee them if they were on U.S. soil.

o Because we were able to get away with it so blatantly in 2000 and 2004, we will continue with the methods we've developed to ensure perpetual Presidential power and occupancy of the White House. And of course, whenever challenged on this by anyone, we will simply refer to them as "conspiracy theorists." Our nation of sheep hasn't yet learned to become properly suspicious of those who are derisive of conspiracies. Someday, they may start wondering just WHY a person would be so anxious to make fun of conspiracies, and realize that conspiring isn't all that difficult, and happens all the time. But until that day arrives, if ever, we'll just continue with the formula for dealing with this that works.

o Even though we probably have already accomplished this KEY objective, we will continue to stuff the U.S. Supreme Court with anti-personal-liberties "conservative" justices every chance we get. Now that the High Court no longer has an egalitarian majority, for the first time in 80 years, we can have our way with the entire system!

o If you disagree with us, you are a traitor and will be ostracized, imprisoned and killed at our discretion. You are irrelevant, but we do like to play the game of getting you to vote for us.

Why the ANTI-CHOICE Agenda is Doomed to Extinction

This is an insightful analysis that was written and posted to some Usenet Newsgroups on Oct. 31, 2001.

By Mark Sebree

"You simply wish to kill peoples' freedom to live their lives as they wish, shackling them to live as you demand that they do. You wish to kill not their bodies, but something more important, their hopes and their dreams.

"I have seen almost nothing except this type hate and vitriol spewed forth from the postings of many Anti-Choice 'persons' [in Usenet]. Not all are like this, but many are. This type of post demonstrates the desire for control over women, their subservience, and the intolerance of any ideas except their own. They would fit right in with the Taliban.

"People don't like hate, and they don't like hateful agendas. It is people like [those described] above that make people see the true face of the far religious right, and of the anti-abortion movement. People are repulsed by such hate, and will join the opposite end of the political spectrum just to distance themselves from it. It's for the reasons of this type of hate and forced subservience required that the far religious right and the anti-abortion movements will eventually fall into disrepute and be effectively swept under the carpet of history where it belongs, with such groups and the KKK and other hateful, segregationist groups."

A Discussion of Casual Sex...Control-Freakism vs. Open-Mindedness

I originally posted this in several Usenet Newsgroups on July 3, 1998, and repeated it, unchanged, in 2006, and now present it here, unchanged, today -- Dec. 30, 2007. It was written as a challenge and refutation of a narrow-minded viewpoint on casual sex. For those interested in the subsequent discussions, it can be found in Google's Usenet archives under the subject header, "Sex outside of marriage is a sin," in these groups: alt.abortion, alt.abortion. inequity, alt.christnet, alt.christnet.second-coming.real-soon-now, alt.fan.jesus-christ, alt.religion.christian.episcopal, alt.religion.christian.lutheran, alt.support.abortion

To keep track of the participants, the following attributes apply for each comment:

None = Craig Chilton
> = Lisa D. (Open-minded virgin, by choice.)
>> = Craig Chilton
>>> = Theodore M. Seeber (Draw your own conclusion.)
>>>> = Craig Chilton
>>>>> = Theodore M. Seeber

>>>>> It's selfishness to have sex when you don't want a child. <<<<<

>>>> A totally unrealistic attitude. <<<<

>>> Only for people who have no self control. <<<

>> Self-control applies to actions that people may be tempted to take, but really don't want to do. Such as eating a sundae while on a strict diet. If enjoying recreational sex is a self-control issue for some people, I'm very glad NOT to number among them. <<

> In some ways it is a matter of self-control. Eating a sundae while you're on a diet is giving in to temptation, where the consequences are something you'd rather not deal with. Same with recreational sex. Temptation... (maybe) consequences you'd rather avoid. <

Life without a bit of living on the edge would be akin to television programming if the likes of Donald Wildmon and his scissors-happy American Family Association ever got its way with it (Perish forbid!!!): Pablum.

People who live TOTALLY sheltered lives from all risks probably deserve the boring existence they have in return. (Or, as a button I once saw, read: "Chastity is its own punishment!) :)

To each his own, of course, but for me, VIVA safe recreational sex. Some risks, but at an acceptable level.

Sex is the world's favorite form of recreation.

> I thought that was soccer? :-) <

Scarily, you may be right... at least among soccer fans. Seems that a poll of men was taken lately (caveat: I have no idea how reliably), and 80% polled said that... get this!... they would prefer to WATCH (not play... only watch) World Cup Soccer if given the choice between that, or a having a date on which they could do anything they wanted with the girl of their dreams. 80% !!!!!!

I found that to be utterly incomprehensible! I mean, I know that I'm not really a fan of any sports, but how could any guy (assuming he's heterosexual) choose watching any GAME over such a DREAM date??!

Gals... if men are really coming to that, romance is dead!

The GOOD news: If a larger percentage of women are themselves romantic, then the 20% of us guys who are romantic have a better shot at finding Miss Right.

> Abstinence is not a religious issue (at least not for me). <

Nor for me.

> It's a safety and self-respect issue. Of course, I don't mean to say that everyone who has sex has no self-respect... <

I'd hope not! I certainly know that I have no such problem!

> ...but I respect myself more for being able to wait. <

To each his own. If that works for you, go for it.

> Some people see sex as a neutral, just-for-fun activity; I see it as more. <

It can be... but it doesn't have to be.

>>> Perhaps you need to take a closer look at the ability of the human mind and the value of sexual deprivation to spirituality. <<<

>> I don't see your point with the former. As for the latter, I cannot even imagine there being any "spiritual" value to be derived from going without sex. As I see it, there is nothing positive or beneficial about going without sex -- spiritual or otherwise. <<

> I disagree. I feel that my decision to remain abstinent has been very beneficial on an emotional level. <

Been there. Done that. Was abstinent until age 25. Wished afterward that I hadn't totally blown all the great opportunities I'd had between 15 and 25!! Given the chance to do it over again, I'd never make that mistake again, thank you!

> At the very least, I am able to avoid conflicts that occur when two people have different ideas about sex; ideas that don't surface until after the fact. As I said, for some, sex is just fun... for me it's not that simple. <

>>> To draw on a completely different tradition for a second, Zen Buddhism asks monks to be celebate on their journey to enlightenment for a reason. Perhaps if our society was not quite as sexually-oriented, we'd have fewer problems with sexual deviancy. <<<

>> Remind me never to become a Zen Buddhist monk! :) <<

> Me neither. I'd hate to shave my head, and those orange robes... not my colour. LOL !! <

Mine, either!

>> As for sexual "deviancy??" Among consenting adults, no such thing exists. What they choose to do together is absolutely no one else's business . <<

> Or what they choose to do by themselves. Hee hee. <

LOL!! Whichever!

Harris Poll Reveals a VERY Pro-Choice America

The article below was posted on March 24, 1996, by Dr. Bruce Forest, to the following Usenet Newsgroups: talk.abortion, alt.religion.christian, alt.feminism, and alt.abortion.inequity. Even though other significant polls have been done since, this remains one of the most fascinating and revealing ones done on the topic of abortion. With that in mind, we now get to revisit those findings with this re-posting of Bruce's report and analysis.

(Bruce hasn't posted to the abortion groups for a long time, now, so I have no idea whether or not any of his own e-mail addresses, which he provided in his sign-off, below, are still valid.)

"Harris Poll on Abortion Rights... Prolifers have Lost the War"
by Dr. Bruce Forest

Here is the latest Harris data on abortion and abortion rights.
Design and Analysis by Louis Harris Conducted by Peter Harris Research Group, Inc., New York, N.Y.

The Results... (methodology below) --

The issue of a woman having the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion with the advice of her doctor is as clear-cut and decisive an issue as any in America in the mid-1990s. Up until 1985, the division on this issue was close nationwide. But, after the Webster decision, the balance shifted from a close 48% to 46% in favor to a pro-choice majority that climbed to the mid-50 percent range and then into the 60 percent range in the 1990s.

In this survey, on the basic right of a woman to choose to have an abortion, with the advice of her physician, the division nationwide is 71% to 24% in favor of choice. By the same token, an even more decisive 74% to 20% opposes a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. There is little doubt that the margins favoring abortion have been heightened by public outrage over the recent murders at abortion clinics, condemned by 94% of the public. Three in every four people favor the Justice Department sending in marshals to take action to protect abortion clinics from attack.

Abortion has become a major, front and center issue with women in America. And it is an active issue in elections. In 1992, for example, the actions of the Republican Platform Committee in Houston on the choice issue triggered a defection from President Bush of white suburban women in key big northern states from which he never recovered. Over 1 in 6 voters -- 17% of the electorate -- say they are certain they would shift their vote away from a candidate who took a position opposite their own on the right to choose. That 17% comes down 71% to 29% on the side of those who are Pro-Choice. This means that 12% of the vote nationally could switch against an anti-abortion candidate, while only 5% would switch against a Pro-Choice candidate. This represents a potential swing of 7 full points in the standing in a presidential race, meaning a 50-50 contest could be turned into a 57% to 43% landslide for a Pro-Choice candidate on that issue alone.

The vast majority of these potential switchers are women, 60% of the total.

The Poll methodology ---

In all, a cross-section of 1364 adults was interviewed nationally and a cross-section of 800 adults was interviewed in California. However, in order to have special breakdowns of key groups of women, it was decided that the national sample would consist of 955 women and 409 men. In the final results, men were weighted up to 48% of the national sample. In California, the unweighted sample consisted of 443 women and 357 men, but this sample was weighted 50% men and 50% women, according to correct census estimates on gender in the California adult population. A copy of the complete question- naires used, along with annotated overall results for each question are included in the back of this report. The national questionnaire contained questions on all of the subjects in the survey. The California survey included only the questions dealing with affirmative action, abortion, and political behavior, along with full demographics. Inquiries about special breakdowns of the results can be obtained from the office of Peter Harris Research Group, Inc. in New York at (212)-427-8072.

The sampling, field work, computer tabulations, charts and tables, and report preparation were contracted with the New York research firm of Peter Harris Research Group. All women were interviewed by female interviewers and all men by male interviewers, in order not to introduce cross-gender bias. Interviewing was conducted by telephone using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system operated by MKTG, Inc. of East Islip, N.Y. Louis Harris has served as an independent consultant and analyst on the study. Mr. Harris has had long experience in surveying racial and gender issues, including affirmative action. He wrote the questionnaires and the analysis of this report. He must bear the responsibility for the content, wording, and analytic portions. This study follows the practice of releasing the results of every question asked and the wording used in each question, as well as the question sequence. This is in the best practice of the field of public opinion research. Field work on the study was conducted from March 16 to April 3, 1995.

I think we have little worry about the prolifers [Anti-Choicers] having a hope in hell of restricting abortion.

-- Bruce Forest...
bforest@futuris.net
bforest@interramp.com
bforest@bliss.demon.co.uk
104165.2044@compuserve.com
droopus@aol.com

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
My Comment on December 29, 2007

The chances are good that if that same Harris Poll were taken again today, the results probably would be very much the same. Little or nothing has happened since 1995 to make Americans more hateful. In fact, if anything, we should be more egalitarian than ever, having just gone through seven long years of a highly-bigoted Bush Administration, and seeing the repulsiveness of hatefulness, first-hand.

That said, though, I wish I could share, today, the optimism that Bruce Forest held 12 years ago about the future of the right of all girls and women to access the hugely-important and -beneficial remedy of abortion. He wrote his comments before GW Bush poisoned the U.S. Supreme Court against personal liberties by appointing two young repressive, RRR-Cult-oriented justices to it... for life! Prior to those appointments, the Court had had an egalitarian majority for 80 years. But often only by a thread. Many of its most important freedom-defending decisions were 5-4 cliffhangers. From now on, we can expect only hatefulness from the High Court on social issues. Perhaps for as long as any reading this may live. It is a radically-different Court now. A Court the likes of which almost NO one alive today has ever seen at work.

For example -- even though nothing could possibly be more harmless than same-sex marriage, we can count on the Court's coming down against it, first chance it gets, if it continues in its current composition. It'll be the diametric opposite of what we could have expected from the former Court. Instead of benevolently bestowing Emancipation, it'll be wreaking mindless and hateful Repression.

On the abortion front, the greatest danger is to the greatest act of Emancipation since Lincoln freed the slaves -- Roe vs. Wade. The Court could reverse that in a heartbeat at any time, and hurl America spinning and reeling back into the Dark Ages of FORCED gestation.

At this point, we have just ONE chance remaining, and even it is a tenuous one, for the damage done by Bush may already be irreversible. We must elect a Democrat to the Presidency in 2008, and hope and pray that he'll have the chance to re-set the Court, with new appointments, to its former egalitarian status. If another Republican President gets the chance to make more appointments, it'll be all over for sure.

If that happens, it'll be time for us to dust off our copies of George Orwell's 1984, and refresh ourselves on the society to come.

The "Virginity Mystique." Were YOU ever a Pizza Virgin?

This was originally posted a decade ago, and is re-presented now in this blog, almost 100% free of changes, since almost nothing it contains has changed over the last 10 years. (Except, of course, for the fortunate aspect that society has significantly outgrown the described syndrome, over those years) --

Original posting: Wed, Dec. 31, 1997, to these Usenet groups: alt.teens.16-18, alt.teens.sexuality, and alt.abortion, as "The Virginity Mystique."

Has anyone ever given serious consideration as to why a significant portion of an otherwise fairly-enlightened society persists so much in regarding virginity to be something special?

Before I ever ate my first slice of pizza, I was a "pizza virgin." Before I ever bowled, I was a "virgin" in that respect. Likewise for sex.

But every time I left one type of virginity behind, the effect invariably was that my life had been enhanced, and my horizons had been expanded.

Putting virginity on a pedestal is precisely the same as ascribing value to ignorance. "Losing" one's virginity is to gain a new dimension in one's life, whether it be with pizza, sex, bowling, or anything else.

The only significance of whether one is a virgin or not with respect to sex is a totally artificial, arbitrary, and meaningless one. The only change that scrapping sexual virginity produces is to enhance one's life experiences -- unless you've been brainwashed into some primitive and pointless belief system. (Which you can just as easily scrap.)

In short, "virginity" is no big deal. It is not something that one "loses." It is something that one should willingly seek to get rid of, just as we so willingly get rid of other forms of virginity with first experiences of any sort. Pizza, bowling, or whatever.

Therefore, if you regard sexual virginity to have any special significance, all I can say to you is this:

Fer Pete's sake, get a life! And then enjoy it !!

(Please feel free to copy and distribute this to any and all who are hung up on that silly syndrome.)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 22, 2007 Update:

When this article originally ran, some people made the mistake of thinking that I openly advocated that virgins simply scrap virginity for the sake of getting that done. Looking it over again now, I can see how they got that impression. So now I'll clarify that.

What I meant then, and still mean now, is THIS:

Retaining one's sexual virginity for virginity's sake -- as though there were supposedly some "special" quality, or some sort of "purity" associated with it, is abjectly stupid. That said, however, there are some good and valid reasons for doing so. And the most valid of those is the fact that abstinence still is the greatest defense against catching or transmitting STDs. If such a reason as that is given for retaining virginity, that's good thinking. But... if a person does so because they've been conned into thinking that there's some sort of "purity" associated with virginity -- then that is about as dumb a reason as anyone could fall for. A person's life is exponentially more fascinating after he or she has become sexually-active. It's good to realize this early on, rather than to discover it years later, and then find yourself reflecting on all the wonderful opportunities that had been irretreivably blown and lost forever -- that could never be recaptured!

How IGNORANT are the Lemmings of the RRR Cult?Here's an Excellent Example!

In one of the Internet's many well-known public forums (fora) today, December 20, 2007, I had pointed out that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee carries heavy political baggage, in that he is both a hateful bigot of the "Religious" Radical Right (the RRR Cult) who seeks to destroy the personal liberties of tens of millions of Americans for NO good reason... but also very much deserves his nickname of "Tax-hike Mike" -- having raised taxes three times more in his 10 years in office as Governor of Arkansas than had been done in the previous 12 years.

It's hard to imagine anyone's packing more bigotry and sheer ignorance into one short paragraph than a person calling himself "Loyal" (his alias) did in his response to my pointing out those facts. He wrote:

"Wow! Thanks for giving people still more reasons to vote for Huckabee. I am very pleased that he is not only against the senseless slaughter of people because they are too young to defend themselves within their mother's womb, but he is against giving homosexuals special preferences for their sinful lifestyle. It is about time someone stood up to homosexuals and child killers."

To see just HOW loony all his mindless hate-tripe truly is, just click here!

U.S. Television's ASS-inine Censorship Again Makes Puritanical USA the World's Laughingstock.

Right off the bat, in the beginning minutes of tonight's season finale of "Survivor - China," one of the female contestants' posterior was fuzzed-over for apparently coming too close to treating the audience of a view of "too much" cheek. How ASSinine is that?!

We have both the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and most of our witless and hyperconservative loons in Congress to blame for that -- since the FCC can heavily fine "offending" networks and stations for airing verbal and visual instances of things that are against their idiotic and censorious rules... and since Congress not long ago (following Janet Jackson's fun Super Bowl halftime reveal) dramatically increased the penalties that the FCC would have to impose.

Most of the developed/civilized world gets to see most of the more popular programs that air on U.S. television... especially the game and reality shows. So once again, the world has gotten to see just how moronic American institutions often are.

The supreme irony of all this is this: on an individual, case-by-case basis, Americans are some of the randyest and most sexually-active people on the face of the earth! With the exception of a relative handful of the RRR cult's lemmings... since most of them are closeted sex-o-philes, themselves, and pretend otherwise for acceptance by their peers. (Since they have no idea which of them are the same way, and which of them are actually the stick-in-the-mud prudes that they seem to be.) As for Congress -- same thing. Take Senator Larry "I am not gay" Craig (R-ID), for example. Whose congressional actions were among the most hateful and homophobic toward the gay community! How many of those lawmakers really wanted to give heavier enforcement to TV censorship -- and how many of them did so just for appearance's sake, to give their hypocritical constituents and their fellow hypocrites in Congress what they believed those folks and peers expected and wanted?

Most sensible people deplore the moronic censorship to which we are subjected by network TV (and even by most of the non-premium cable channels, even though the FCC's enforcement doesn't even apply to them -- go figure!)... and all-too-often hypocritically pretend otherwise. For the sake of the hundreds of millions of people who truly deplore this as much as I do -- I fervently hope that we all get to live long enough to see America OUTGROW this mindless hypocrisy and lunacy. And get to enjoy TV the way the far-more honest and sensible Europeans usually do.

Steroids in Sports? Big harry deel!!

As in, big whoop! Who gives a flying rat's patoot? I certainly don't.

Just for the record, I don't use any illegal substances (or even questionable ones, as steroids might be considered to be, outside of the sports world). So I have no axe to grind in writing this short opinion piece. The only time I made an exception to that was around 1972 (when pretty much everyone of college age was doing it) when I tried smoking a little pot. Once! And there was a very good reason for my not doing it a second time. It was in the evening, and as I drove home that night on a highway having a 45-mph speed limit, I knew I was driving that speed only because the speedometer said so. But my perception was that I was travelling only at about 25 mph or so. By what I regard common sense, I have opposed the legalization of pot for just that reason, and no other, ever since. If that experience affected my perception as it did, it probably would have the same effect on most other people, since I have a very normal physiology. What would happen if drivers didn't travel according to the speedometer, as I did, that night, but instead were to drive according to their perceptions? What if they drove at a perceived 65 mph? Their actual speed might well be more than 100 mph! And that could endanger them, and everyone else around them! So -- legalize pot? No. For that reason only. That reason is quite sufficient! It's not a freedom of choice issue, with pot. It's a public safety issue.

Steroids, though... that's a totally different breed of cat! There are many ways steroids can be used legally, and outside of the sports world, that's usually the case.

If an athlete can beef up by frequent use of such body-building techniques as weight-lifting and the exercise gyms, then what the blue blazes difference does it make if he or she adds steroids to his repertoire? If a baseball player, for example, didn't work out, he'd probably flunk out. So I think it's a safe bet that all successful athletes probably work out. And if the most successful of them also happened to use steroids, then fine. Let the less successful ones either follow suit, or keep on being mediocre. Their choice. Steroids are legal pharmaceuticals, and the imposition of artificial and pointless rules and strictures on athletes by those who have the capability to make such impositions is unfair and laughable. Whether it be in the world of professional sports, or in the Olympics. We just recently saw the case of an Olympic runner stripped of her medals -- and her relay team equally cheated out of their medals, over this idiotic extremism. That was hateful, cruel, stupid, and uncalled-for!

The newly-released Mitchell Report, which "exposes" more than 80 professional baseball players for steroid use, is just that mindless and ludicrous.

Do the fans care, one way or the other? THIS fan certainly doesn't! And any fans that do give a hoot about it, or whine about it, need to lighten up. It's NO big deal! And Mitchell can go fly a kite!

A Surreal Alternate Reality...If the Democrats LOSE in 2008.The Return of the Underground Railroad!

If the Democrats don't re-take the White House in 2008, America could be in for a nightmare scenario not seen since 1865.

FREE states and SLAVE states. And an Underground Railroad system to assist the victims.

Doesn't that seem surreal and impossible? Unfortunately, it is not. Mark my words well -- the above scenario could become a grim and horrific reality as soon as mid-2009, and probably not much later than 2012, at best, if the Republicans were to retain their grip on the White House. (Which probably could only happen with the combination of crooked and rigged electronic voting machines, and apathetic sheeple who go along with it... as happened in Ohio, in 2004. That's fully documented in The Conyers Report.)

Here's how it would play out, almost surely, in a continued Republican administration.

ALL of the Republicans are Anti-Choice. You think Giuliani is an exception? Think again! He's said that he's perfectly willing to let the states decide when it comes to abortion rights. And he has promised that he will appoint ONLY "conservatives" to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Well -- it already may be too late. Thanks to G.W. Bush's having appointed two anti-egalitarian justices to it, that court may now already have an anti-personal-liberties majority for the first time in 80 years. You think those won't be "activist" judges? Just watch! Those so-called "constructionists" will interpret and skew the Constitution against vital rights just as surely as the fair-minded and compassionate majority of judges before them scoured the Constitution with an eye to defending our liberties. The only difference between the "activist" judges that the RRR Cult screeches and yowls about, and the the "constructionist" judges that are just one step lower than the angels in their eyes, is what they will do FOR us -- the people -- or TO us. One thing about appellate court judges is this -- they are ALL activists, and they ALL create Judicial Law.

Judicial Law, which stems from such courts' right to apply judicial review to legislation, is a key part of the Constitution's checks-and-balances system, and was reaffirmed over 200 years ago (in 1804, barely after America became a nation) in the landmark Marbury vs. Madison Decision. Thus, it is well-established law!

That function is what the RRR Cult's leaders snidely call "legislating from the bench." And they have their millions of lemmings -- who are mostly too doltish to understand the reality -- parroting that dishonest catch-phrase.

"Legislating from the bench" (legitimately, as described above) is FINE when it stands up for our rights and defends our personal liberties. In other words, it's fine when the majority of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are compassionate and fair-minded. Such majorities have been in place for longer than just about anyone alive today can remember. We have never known a Court having an ANTI-personal-liberties majority. But we probably have one now!

The best evidence that this disaster has already occurred is the Court's upholding the mindless law against so-called "partial-birth abortion." First off -- there's no such thing! The ID&E procedure that is so dishonestly described that way by the RRR's lying leaders is "Intact Dilation and Extraction." And it is a mid-SECOND-trimester procedure, almost always! It is done four or more months before birth normally would occur. And by that time in the pregnancy, the abortion usually isn't even elective. Women are 'WAY smarter than to wait 4-1/2 months to have an elective abortion! Thus, this newly-outlawed procedure is generally done as a medical necessity -- and is often the safest procedure to employ for her when the woman is that far along.

Who's dumber? The RRR Cultists... or the current majority of justices in the U.S. Supreme Court? Because the RRR's crafty leaders surely know these facts -- and those justices darned well should know them! One thing's for sure -- neither group of those educated people give a flying rat's patoot for teenage girls and women! This was a great example of where "legislating from the bench" went terribly WRONG. As it usually WILL. In the wrong hands!

Back to other cases of supposed "legislating from the bench." Here's what Judicial Review accomplished over the last 50+ years prior to the present makeup of the Court, when the majority was still in the right hands:

Brown vs. Board of Education -- 1954 -- Spelled the ultimate demise of segregation.
Loving vs. Virginia -- 1967 -- Struck down all the hateful laws against interracial marriage.
Roe vs. Wade -- 1973 -- Emancipated girls and women from being forced to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term. The greatest mass emancipation of Americans ever, and the first since Lincoln freed the slaves in 1865.
Lawrence vs. Texas -- 2003 -- Kicked the government OUT of the bedrooms of the American people.

There are many more, but those are some KEY ones. And with today's composition of the Court, every single one of those probably would have gone the wrong way!

Okay. WHY do we need a Democrat to win the White House in 2008? Just this -- whoever is president, as of the 2009 inauguration, he or she will almost surely get to appoint at least one, and possibly two, Supreme Court justices. A Republican would irrevocably destroy the Court for as long as any of us alive today are likely to live, and this can lead America inexorably and irrevocably down the road to ultimate tyranny. But a Democratic President would have a chance to possibly restore the Court to its former egalitarian majority.

We just have this ONE shot at it! After that, between Diebold, Republican dishonesty, and a Supreme Court corrupted against personal liberties, we almost surely will never have another chance!

Finally, let's go back to the scenario at the start of this article, to see just what almost surely WILL transpire if Bush is replaced by another Republican.

The Supreme Court, in its present composition, is almost certain to repeal the earlier Roe vs. Wade decision, and then the states would again each be able to regulate or deny abortion. We already know that many state Republican-majority legislatures are poised to make it flat-out illegal. And many states still have their former anti-abortion laws still on the books, ready and waiting for the 1973 Court's mandate against them to be lifted.

At the moment that the Supreme Court destroys Roe vs. Wade, all of that will come into play. The USA will be comprised of a hodgepodge of FREE states and SLAVE states, all over again. In the latter, girls and women having UNwanted pregnancies will either be enslaved to unwanted full gestation, and the horrific economic and social defvastation that would wreak upon their furure plans and opportunities. Or they'd have to make their way to FREE states to obtain their abortions.

For teens and the economically-deprived women, this would be a huge burden. Insurmountable for most.

But for the fortunate thousands who could obtain round-trip passage, a newly-created (after the fall of Roe vs. Wade) and fully-legal Underground Railway would be the only recourse. It almost surely would be privately-run, and would function on the contributions of fair-minded and compassionate Pro-Choice people.

Would emancipation from that nightmare scenario ever come about again? EVER? Perhaps not!

That's why we MUST elect a Democrat to the Presidency in 2008!

Ron Paul's seemingly-libertarian stance is interesting to some -- on the surface. But he has a Terrible FLAW!

Ron Paul (one of the lower-tier Republican candidates for President) would like for abortion rights to be back in the hands of the individual states. If that disaster were to befall America, the USA would be a hodgepodge of *free* states and *slave* states. In order to enable economically-deprived women who desired abortions to get them, a new (and legal) charitable "Underground Railroad" system would HAVE to be created to ferry them from the slave states to the free ones, and back. And many thousands of them would still fall through the cracks.

Thus, Ron Paul is a BIGOT. And we've had more than enough of that in the White House already, with G.W. Bush!

Bush Continues to be RRR Cult's TOADY...Appoints Another Anti-Choice LOSER.

From NARAL -- October 17, 2007

Bush Puts Another Anti-Birth-Control Activist in Charge of Family Planning
Washington, D.C. –

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called reports that President Bush has named Susan Orr, a right-wing activist with ties to anti-birth-control groups, as acting director of the federal office that oversees the nation's family-planning programs yet another example of Bush putting political ideology before women's health.

Orr's temporary appointment comes months after another anti-contraception leader, Eric Keroack, resigned as director of the Office of Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services amid allegations of fraud.

"This president continues to go off the deep end in attacking basic birth control," Keenan said. "Americans are tired of this administration using government resources to reward individuals who are hostile to family planning and improving women's health. Even though Ms. Orr's appointment is not permanent at this time, it represents another missed opportunity by this president to put women's health before pleasing his far-right political base."

In addition to this temporary appointment, Orr continues to serve as associate commissioner in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to joining the Bush administration, she was senior director for marriage and family care at the Family Research Council—a group notorious for its attacks on contraception.

While at the Family Research Council, Orr made this comment after Bush proposed cancelling federal employees’ contraceptive coverage: "We're quite pleased because fertility is not a disease. It's not a medical necessity that you have it" (Washington Post, 4/12). [As reported by American Political Network, American Health Line, Volume 6 No. 9, April 12, 2001]

Contact: Ted Miller (202) 973-3032

"It's not the votes that count. It's who counts the votes." --Soviet Dictator, Joseph Stalin

As background for this article, I present you with this review of "The Conyers Report," written for Amazon.com by Edwin C. Pauzer, of New York City. (With thanks to Amazon. Clicking on the link will take you to this review, and provide you with access to purchasing the book. Emphasis within the review, below, is mine. --Ed.):

In his book "Armed Madhouse..." author Greg Palast quotes Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. "It's not the votes that count. It's who counts the votes." After you read the dry but factual 116 pages of this book, you will come to the inescapable conclusion that the election was stolen from presidential candidate John Kerry and given to Mr. Bush. The book is divided into facts (what happened) and analysis (the motive and how it could have happened). It starts with Ohio's secretary of state, a republican, Kenneth Blackwell who promised to "fill in the blanks" regarding voting anomalies but has kept silent in the finest tradition of "political omerta." He has refused to initiate any investigations, and has tried his best to have the ballots destroyed. Here's some of what Conyers uncovers: Republican challengers were at every precinct causing massive voting delays. This is called caging, and it is illegal. Republican challengers targeted 97% of new voters in black areas. They only challenged 14% of new voters in white areas. There were voting machine lockdowns preventing observation of ballot counts. This too is illegal. There were flipped votes. Voters reported that they had voted for Kerry and watched their vote register for George Bush. These "glitches" were called "calibration problems." The number of votes vs. voters. In many places the number of voter turn-out exceeded 100%. (?) In one case nearly 19,000 votes were added after all precincts reported. There were repairs being made by the electronic voting machine company while the ballots were being recounted. This too is illegal. In Ohio. The exit polls which asked the people how they voted, showed that Kerry had won. Men and women voters gave a majority to Kerry. These polls are usually very accurate. So, how did exit polls that put Kerry ahead 52% to 48% turn around after the ballots were counted? After reading this book, you can only arrive at one conclusion: There's something rotten in the state of Ohio. Update: Blackwell ran for governor in Ohio this past November and was defeated. Those ballots he could not manage to hide.

If you can possibly read the above review, and the book itself, and not realize that nothing less than American democracy is at stake, then you are most assuredly part of the problem. And if you do recognize this threat, but do nothing to help counter it -- BEFORE the General Election in November, 2008 -- then you are very assuredly no part of a very desperately-needed solution!

This article could turn long and tedious, if I filled it with more documentation. And then fewer people would read and act upon it, which would defeat its purpose. So I suggest that you please do this:

Do a Google search of these words, exactly as presented, and you'll have an abundance of information: "diebold" "voting" "fraud".

You'll have all the proof that you need! (And, should you run across anyone who poo-poos this, or claims it's "conspiracy theory," ask yourself these questions: "With which party does he affiliate himself?" And, "WHY is he so anxious to keep you from learning the facts?")

The SOLUTION

It seems almost too easy, but if enough of us do it, it cannot help but work!

Contact both of your U.S. Senators, and your Representative in Congress, and tell them that this must be done no later than during the springtime of 2008, so as to allow all of the relevant states enough time to prepare and adjust for it:

All states using electronic voting devices must ensure that those machines generate a paper vote simultaneously with the electronic one, and that the voter must be able to see and verify the printed vote before leaving the polling place.

All electronically talllied votes must be regarded as preliminary -- just to give the country an idea of how things seem to be developing, on Election Night. And then ALL of the paper ballots must be tallied under strict supervision from representatives of all parties on the ballot. ONLY after ALL of those paper ballots have been properly and honestly tallied, can victories be declared. And the tallied PAPER ballots, and their tally, are the only OFFICIAL results. No matter how lopsided the election may appear to be.

(Please enclose a copy of the above book review, and ask that the legislation be written to explicity and enforcably PROHIBIT all of the abuses that are cited within it.)

If this Congress -- which currently has a Democratic majority in both houses, and therefore may be our very last hope for heading off permanent disaster, passes this legislation... but then President Bush were to veto it -- that should set off a firestorm from the electorate! Since the only possible reason to do that would be to wreck the democratic process!

Finally -- Use the Internet to promote the above measure. Post to blogs. Use text messaging. Phone in relentlessly to radio talk shows.

If democracy in the USA is to survive into 2009 -- it is up to us -- WE, the PEOPLE -- to get the job done! Please don't make the mistake of thinking this can be put off. Because it almost certainly is now or never! Do or die!

The Internet address of this article (URL) is spelled out below. Please e-mail it as far and wide as you possibly can! Thanks -- and good luck to us all!

http://apifar.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-not-votes-that-count-its-who-counts_25.html

Someone asked how the Presidential candidates stand on Same-Sex Marriage.

This was my response --

Fortunately for America (since our next President will probably be a Democrat, barring vote-count fraud), none of the Democratic candidates are bigots with respect to same-sex marriage SSM). They mostly are amenable to legalization of "civil unions," rather than actually calling it marriage. (Pandering, of course, to voters who get whiney about using the word, marriage... as ignorant as such voters are.) But otherwise having all of the benefits of marriage.

Once the unconstitutional blocks to SSM (since nothing in the Constitution restricts the gender makeup of married couples) have fallen, and SSM is fully legal nationwide, I think that the semantic "civil union" challenge to that terminology will vanish. Because it almost certainly suddenly will dawn on people that all opposite-sex marriages that are now being performed in the USA by JPs, Mayors, Ship Captains, Vegas-style Wedding Chapels, etc., are not religious ceremonies. (So much for "sanctity" of marriage, since if any marriages are to be considered sacred at all, it would only be the religiously-performed ones.) And therefore all of those are civil unions. And with there being no difference in benefits accruing from "marriage" vis-a-vis "civil unions," that will likely spell the the end of this silly battle over semantics waged by religious extremists. All couples legally joined, either by civil or religious ceremonies, will be married, plain and simple. Whether opposite-sex or same-sex.

As the race for the Presidency heats up -- no matter what the candidates may say -- don't trust any Republican to be an egalitarian, when push comes to shove, after taking office, if America should be so unfortunate as for one of them to be elected. (Or if the Republicans should manage to steal yet another election, with help from the Diebold electronic voting machines.) Not even Giuliani. He talks like an egalitarian now, but don't expect him to walk the walk. I don't think he'll go to the mat for the assurance of equal rights for all. And we must strive to the utmost to elect the Democratic nominee, so that this won't have to be put to the test.

Finally, you probably noticed the links, above, having to do with vote fraud via electronic machines. If anyone reading this thinks that the Republican Party, heavily steeped in dishonesty since and including Watergate, wouldn't pull out all possible stops to steal the 2008 election, please contact me about a nice bridge in New York that I can sell you.

For more on this most insideous threat to democracy, Google: "diebold" "voting" "corrupt". And -- get yourself a copy of "The Conyers Report" from Amazon.com, or elsewhere.

S.J. Haye (his real name) of Ridgecrest, California made a chilling prediction for the 2008 election -- back on October 20, 2005, in writing a review of "The Conyers Report" for Amazon.com. Reading it, it's hard to believe that more than two years have passed since he wrote it... since nothing has changed to correct this situation. Indeed, the party in power -- the Republicans -- have had two more years since then to fine-tune the mechanisms for destroying democracy in their favor. Here is what this reviewer wrote:

Rep. John Conyers, (D - Michigan, the ranking minority chair of the House Judiciary Committee, led eleven Democratic Congressman (Republicans boycotted this investigation) and their staffers into the swamp that was the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. Conyers had come to answer an essential question -- What Went Wrong in Ohio? The investigation was conducted despite the difficulties caused by Bush (whose selection in 2000 led to an apology from Justice John Paul Stevens for the behavior of the 5-4 majority of the Court in the matter of Bush vs. Gore) and of the Republican majority in Congress. In the introduction, Gore Videl says that when asked who would win in `04, he said that Bush would lose again, but he was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004, creative propaganda and the fixing of elections might very well be perfected so as to ensure an official victory for Bush. As this report shows in great detail with very thorough documentation of sources, Ohio was carefully set up to deliver an apparent victory for Bush even though Kerry appears to be not only the popular winner but the Electoral College winner. This report states categorically, "With regards to our factual findings, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio." These were caused by officials, chiefly Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell who was co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, and included deliberate misallocation of voting machines so that thousands or even hundreds of thousands of predominately minority and Democratic voters had to wait in long lines, or couldn't even vote, "cheat sheets" supplied to numerous counties to guide those counting the ballots so that Bush would have the proper number of votes to beat Kerry, denial of the right to observe the counting of ballots by impartial observers, illegally removing voters from the voting rolls, and other acts designed to ensure a Bush "win". The outlook for 2008? To date, nothing has been done, either by Congress or the States, to clean up this mess. After all, those benefiting by the corruption are in charge. So, as things stand, expect a Republican "win" in 2008, regardless of who happens to be running. [Emphasis is mine, above. -- ed.]

Stem Cell Research -- Good News on TWO Fronts!

On November 20, 2007, it was announced that a major breakthrough had occurred almost simultaneously on two continents, with respect to stem-cell research. It looks as though, in years to come, thousands of labs will have the capability to reprogram skin cells to function in much the same way as embryonic stem cells.

Two research groups have found different genetic recipes to give ordinary skin cells the power to turn into virtually any kind of human tissue, just as embryonic stem cells do.

"If the recipes live up to their promise, they could someday end the [pseudo-]ethical debate over embryonic stem cell research — and usher in an era when a person's own cells could be manipulated to mend a broken spinal cord, heal a damaged heart or regenerate other failing tissues.

"But in their current state, the recipes are too risky for disease treatment, and even the scientists behind the latest studies cautioned that therapies are still years away. In announcing their discoveries, they emphasized that much more research still needs to be done on stem cells that have been derived from human embryos."

"'It's not the time to say human embryonic stem cell research is dead,' James Thomson, a biologist at the Univerity of Wisconsin at Madison, who is behind a study appearing in the journal Science, told msnbc.com.

"Kyoto University's Shinya Yamanaka, the principal author of a study published by the journal Cell, echoed that view, saying it would be "premature" to conclude that the cells created in his lab could replace embryonic stem cells.

"Like embryonic stem cells, these reprogrammed cells become 'pluripotent' — that is, they're capable of turning themselves into virtually any tissue type in the human body, including neurons and heart tissue. They also exhibit many of the other biochemical properties of embryonic stem cells, although they're not genetically identical to stem cells. [Emphasis mine, wherever colored type, italics, or boldfacing appear, within quoted statements in this article. No verbiage was changed in those.]"

"That bright future depends on a series of big ifs.

"First of all, the function of the reprogrammed cells will have to be compared closely with the function of actual embryonic stem cells. "I'd be surprised if these cells do all the same tricks as stem cells derived from embryos," Advanced Cell Technology's chief scientific officer, Robert Lanza told msnbc.com.

"Also, in both experiments, the four-gene recipe was added to the skin cells using a virus as the delivery package. "The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] would never allow us to use these virus-modified cells in patients," Lanza said."

A back door to human cloning? Yamanaka also said the reprogramming technique could allow for the creation of egg cells as well as sperm cells from the same person, male or female.

This Breakthrough is NOT a Substitute for ongoing Ebryonic Stem-Cell Research

On one network newscast, today, it was noted that this breakthrough would take decades to refine and make available to humans, and that it was something our kids might see happen in their lifetimes, rather than us.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa has pushed for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research and said he will continue to do so.

"Our top researchers recognize that this new development does not mean that we should discontinue studying embryonic stem cells," he said in a written statement. "Scientists may yet find that embryonic stem cells are more powerful. We need to continue to pursue all alternatives as we search for treatments for diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries."

"He added that Tuesday's announcement 'reiterates the need for federal support for medical research and again points out the president's misplaced priorities in vetoing the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill which included a substantial increase for the National Institutes of Health.'"

Senator Harkin has been an important advocate of valuable medical progress, very consistently. Not just in the case of embryonic stem-cell research, but also with respect to human cloning, which could become a huge benefit to humanity in the not-too-distant future, once all the whinings of its generally-ignorant opponents have been summarily rejected by the developed world's societies.

On March 12, 1997, Harkin very enthusiatically endorsed all forms of medical technologies, including human cloning, when he said this after the successful cloning of Dolly, the sheep:

"This has enormous potential for good. There should be no limits on human knowledge, none whatever. To those like President Clinton who say we can't play God, I say OK, fine, you can take your side alongside Pope Paul V who in 1616 tried to stop Galileo, they accused Galileo of trying to play God too. [ ... ] I don't think cloning is demeaning to human nature. To attempt to limit human knowledge is demeaning. It's not legitimate to try to stop cloning. What nonsense, what utter, utter nonsense to think we can hold up our hand and just say 'stop.' Cloning will continue, the human mind will continue to inquire into it. Human cloning will take place and it will take place in my lifetime, and I don't fear it at all. I want to be on the side of the Galileos and those who say the human mind has no limits, rather than trying to stop something that's going to happen anyway."

Back to MSNBC's story, "A lead author of one of the landmark studies, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, urged that reprogrammed cells not wholly supplant embryonic stem cells in research. 'I don't like the idea of pulling the plug,' he told reporters in a conference call.

"He added that Tuesday's advances in reprogramming cells would not have been possible without the advancements in embryonic stem cell research over the past decade.

"Thomson and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin were the first researchers to isolate human embryonic stem cells, in 1998."

Interestingly, another cause for concern was raised in both the NBC Nightly News and on NBC's Today Show -- the possibility that the stem cells derived from this breakthrough may be flawed, in that they may have the potential to become cancerous.

My Own Conclusion

Senator Tom Harkin (whom, I am proud and happy to say, is my senator, as an Iowan) said it all in the comments I highlighted above. In America, today's equivalent of the sort of mindless opposition that Galileo faced, is the loathsome and ignorant RRR Cult -- the "Religious" Radical Right.

Early in this article, where it said "ethical debate," I inserted "[pseudo-]" before "ethical" because the opposition to embryonic stem cell research has about as little to do with an actual debate as fighting a duel with cream puffs at 60 years would if the opponent had a howitzer. There is nothing ethical about the RRR, which is comprised almost entirely of people having the sort of mentality and mindsets that we saw in Southern segregationists, 50 years ago. To most sensible and intelligent people, they are a joke. But UNTIL their loathsome and hateful agendas against progress, and individual liberties/human rights are relegated to the same permanent extinction that befell those of the segregationists, they are America's own home-grown version of the Taliban. And for as long as that UN-Christian cult continues to function, and have any influence in our society, we must continue to regard it the USA's greatest internal threat, and deal with it accordingly. Which means vigorously opposing it and properly & honestly de-legitimizing it, 24/7, 365-1/4 days a year. Because ---

The RRR Cult : U.S. Society :: 5% Arsenic solution : glass of drinking water.

Its ludicrous and antisocial agendas are toxic to American society, and the rights of tens of millions of people. And we cannot accept those, any more than we could accept equally mindless and sociopathic racial discrimination and segregation.

And fortunately for medical science, embryonic stem cell research will continue to be pursued, unabated, alongside other avenues of research involving stem cells. No matter how much the doltish RRR Cult whines about it! And that is why I entitled this article, "...Good News on TWO Fronts."

TOUGH LUCK, President Bush! We’re Very Happily Blowing the Lid Right OFF of Your Tight-lipped Secrecy!

Plain and simple, Bush clearly was afraid to acknowledge that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad LIED! And thus possibly provoke him! Read on! ---

Over these last seven very dismal years, most Americans have gotten wise to "President" Bush’s doltish stubbornness and terribly grievous mistakes. Such as his lying to the whole world about nonexistent WMD, his subsequent invasion of the sovereign nation of Iraq and slaughter of, to date, more than 100,000 of its innocent citizens – making him the worst mass-murderer the world has seen since Pol Pot, and probably staining the world’s perception of America forevermore. And his idiotic and thoughtless veto of the expansion of embryonic stem-cell research. And on and on, ad nauseum.

And then he refused to say anything about the incursion by Israel (with U.S. assistance and collusion) into Syria on September 6, 2007. At a press conference later, I’ve never heard Bush utter so many instances of "No comment" in so short a time. And now, it’s late November, and he still won’t say a word about it.

Well – tough, Bush. We have the FACTS now, and we are more than happy to tell everyone what happened, despite your moronic secrecy.

Readers – here’s the story! From The Philadelphia Trumpet, based in Edmond, Oklahoma. Below, we quote salient excerpts from the article, entitled "Close to Armageddon," in its November-December 2007 issue.

Most journalists agree that Israeli F-151 jets made a surgical strike on a military installation inside Syria. The date was September 6.

The Syrians are not talking because they have been humiliated. Other top government officials who know about the attack are not talking either. In fact, they have never been so abnormally secretive about anything. Israel has had almost total censorship, which is nearly unheard of. Why are they so secretive?

The Spectator quoted "a very senior British ministerial source" as saying this: "If people had known that day how close we came to World War III that day, there’s have been mass panic." ... [Prime Minister Gordon] Brown really would have been dealing with the bloody book of Revelation and Armageddon" (October 3). ...

This seems to be about the worst description he could give us.

Another statement from the Spectator: "According to American sources, Israeli intelligence tracked a North Korean vessel carrying a cargo of nuclear material labeled "cement" as it travelled halfway around the world. On September 3, the ship docked at the Syrian port of Tartus, and the Israelis continued following the cargo as it was transported to the small town of Dayr az Zawr ... in northeastern Syria. ...

"Three days after the North Korean consignment arrived, the final phase of Operation Orchard was launched. With prior approval from Washington, Israeli F-151 jets were scrambled and, minutes later, the installation and its newly-arrived contents were destroyed.

"So secret were the operational details of the mission that even the pilots who were assigned to provide air cover for the strike had not been briefed on it until they were airborne." (ibid.)

The world knows that Israel has nuclear bombs and submarines with nuclear cruise missiles.

Syria already has one of the world’s deadliest stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. It wanted the nuclear material to complete its weapons of mass destruction program. ... Syria is second only to Iran in state-sponsored terrorism. It isn’t hard to imagine Damascus giving nuclear devices to terrorists.

SIDE NOTE: One of the Bible’s most intriguing and as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies is found in Isaiah 17:1 (NIV) – An oracle concerning Damascus: "See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins." And all of the Bible’s prophecies whose time have already come, came to pass flawlessly!

One of the Trumpet’s contacts in Israel said he wondered why Israel was calling up its national guard before the September 6 attack. After he learned some sketchy details of what happened, he knew why. Israel was preparing for war – possibly a war involving WMDs. And we can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons, even from the Arab side.

There seems to be clear evidence that the Russians had some nuclear weapons stolen. Who got them? Syria? Iran? Many journalists think it was Iran.

This problem goes much deeper than Syria and Israel. Syria is a surrogate of Iran. The king of the Muslim world is Iran.

Charles Krauthammer wrote this in his September 21 Washington Post column: "Iran’s assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are poised and ready. [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s message is this: If anyone dares attack our nuclear facilities, we will fully activate our proxies, unleashing unrestrained destruction on Israel, moderate Arabs, Iraq and U.S. interests – in addition to the usual, such as mining the Strait of Hormuz and causing an acute oil crisis and worldwide recession. ...

"The new president of France has declared a nuclear Iran ‘unacceptable.’ The French foreign minister warned that ‘it is necessary to prepare for the worst’ – and the worst, it’s war, sir."

France is a member of the European Union. You can see that the EU is being drawn into the Middle East vortex.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Israel must be "wiped from the map." That statement indicates that he plans to use nuclear weapons to achieve that goal.

President George W. Bush said on October 18: "I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [the Iranians] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." ...

The Middle East is rapidly becoming more volatile, and everybody knows it. We are frighteningly close to World War III.

Okay. From what we see above, the reason Bush wouldn’t comment on the strike on Syria’s nuclear facility almost surely stems from the fact that Syria IS a surrogate of Iran, and thus, an attack on Syria’s nuclear facilities would perfectly serve to trigger Ahmadinejad’s promised HUGE retaliation, as presented in red, above.

Ahmadinejad LIED!! The retaliation he promised was not carried out – even though we assisted Israel to attack a nuclear facility in one of his surrogate nations. And to this day, Bush obviously is afraid to make that known, and splash some very well-deserved OMELET on Ahmadinejad’s face.

The truth is out, GW Bush. Your "no comments" have come to naught – and I am very happy to have joined The Philadelphia Trumpet and its sources in spectacularly blowing the lid off of your cover-up!

Be an Active Egalitarian! Keep up to date on the Issues: Same-Sex Marriage

Is there anything in the world that is more harmless than same-sex marriage? After all, it doesn't even remotely threaten any thing or any one. No matter how much the anti-gay-rights bigots whiningly LIE otherwise. People are born with their sexual orientations, so straights will just keep right on marrying their opposite-sex partners, no matter how many gays happen to marry their same-sex ones.

Valuable information for both Gays and their millions of Straight Allies can be found in this very active group in Yahoo -- Same Sex Unions.

It’s a discussion forum that advocates marriage equality for couples of same sex.

Egalitarians, unlike their doltish and bigotry-brainwashed RRR Cult counterparts, are fully aware that same-sex marriage is totally harmless, could have no adverse effect on any opposite-sex couples’ marriages, and that all of the RRR-instigated (and so-called) “Defense of Marriage” legislation is nothing but an immensely-viscious, lying, and hateful sham. The pseudo-Religious Radical Right is America’s very own version of the Taliban, and until its loathsome agendas have all been relegated to extinction (where they will join their first cousin in mindless bigotry, segregation), it will continue to pose a grave threat to the personal liberties and individual freedoms of hundreds of millions of Americans.

A reminder of just how dangerous they are can be seen in the way that they succeeded in reversing the polarity of the U.S. Supreme Court. For longer than any American has been alive, that Court was the greatest defender and advocate of liberty on the face of the earth. But now, thanks to the RRR’s toady, President GW Bush, it has been horribly poisoned for decades to come... against many very important personal liberties. Bush is a real piece of work! He invaded a sovereign nation under lying false pretenses, thus proving to the world that America, tragically, is no longer a benign and friendly good neighbor that can be trusted. Which earned us the enmity of billions of people, worldwide. And he then proceeded to become the worst mass-murderer the world has seen since Pol Pot. Bush has made Iraq – which had nothing to do with 9/11 – his own personal Killing Fields. At least 100,000 innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered at his commands, and no end is in sight. Even the Democratic candidates for President have proven themselves a pack of cowards by backing away from doing the right thing, and getting us the hell OUT of there, once one of them has been elected. Meanwhile we, the SHEEPLE, sit back and do nothing! Therefore, we have blood is on OUR hands, too. Every American who isn’t actively opposing this war, and demanding Congress that they present a united front to immediately end this bloodbath – is an accomplice to it! And is just as guilty as Bush, by being an accomplice.

We can’t expect any help from the U.S. Supreme Court in this, or any other matter. It has been destroyed for decades to come, as just mentioned. Thanks to Bush, and the U.S. Senate who confirmed his repressive appointees, it is very possible that no American alive today may ever again see the benevolent sort of Court that emancipated American women, via Roe vs. Wade, from being forced to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term, against their will. Or which ended the hateful discrimination against interracial marriage in its Loving vs. Virginia decision. Or which made the ultimate demise and subsequent extinction of segregation inevitable in its key Brown vs. Board of Education decision, back in 1954. We will be very lucky if we can go another 20 years without seeing the fulfillment of George Orwell’s ghastly societal vision, in his novel, 1984 – merely a few decades later than he’d prophesied.

The issue of same-sex marriage (SSM) is one that the U.S. Supreme Court (as it existed before Bush and the Senate ruined it) could easily have settled in favor of fairness, just as it did in the case of Loving vs. Virginia, in 1967. But now, thanks to this unthinkable disaster for liberty, we (the gays and their straight allies) will have to fight tooth and nail for it – state-by-state. What a sad commentary on what America has already become, thanks to the RRR Cult, and its founder (may he suffer eternal torment for that!), the late Jerry Falwell.

Back to the Same-Sex Unions group. Its stated mission “is to secure the freedom and the right of same-sex couples to enter into legally-recognized civil marriage, having all the federal and state benefits (in all 50 States!) and responsibilities which that entails.”

Whether you are GLBT, or a Straight egalitarian ally of the gay community, I encourage you to subscribe to it, and participate in it. Let’s all unite and fight the RRR Cult and its loathsome agendas, 24/7, 365-1/4 days a year -- all the way to its well-deserved extinction!

Vital WARNING Unseen & Unheeded -- Now America is TRULY in for it!

I wrote the article below in October, 2004, and posted it in several relevant Usenet newsgroups. And thus, of course, it was seen by FAR too small an audience. Even if all who read it had heeded its warning, it would have been a drop in the bucket. Too little, and 'way too late. What really was needed, back then, was a means by which tens of millions of Americans could have seen it, read it, and then acted upon it. But now it's 2007, and I still have no idea of how such widespread dissemination of it could have been accomplished. (Feel free to add a comment, below, if you can suggest a solution!)

I really wish I could have the answer to that -- because in the 2008 general election, we MAY have one final chance to reverse the horror that GW Bush has almost surely made inevitable for America, possibly for all time to come. One last, and very frail, chance. If only people can learn about what has been happening, and the utter gravity of the situation, in time to act! Any concerned American could have sounded an alarm like this one, while there was still time -- and I only wish that thousands of them had done so! The terrible danger should have been obvious to millions. Why weren't enough people thinking?!? And why are so many millions of people still unaware of this process?

Flashback to October, 2004... and the warning that I issued. Which few ever were able to read in time, and which thus went unheeded ---

If we want to continue living in a FREE America, then we absolutely must elect John Kerry on Tuesday. Read on, and you'll see for yourself that that is absolutely true.

The above is not in the least an exaggeration. If Bush wins, then tyranny such as America hasn't experienced in its worst nightmares is likely inevitable, and inexorably right around the corner. And from Nov. 3rd on, unpreventable and irrevocable.

Quite literally, this country's best chance to remain free is for the huge block of tens of millions of voters between 18 and 35 to make sure that they get out and vote overwhelmingly for Kerry today. This article explains in detail precisely why that is the case.

PLEASE do yourself the biggest favor of your whole life, and spend the five minutes that it takes to read and digest the full contents of this article.

[[[ The following is my own analysis. I'm affiliated with no groups nor PACs, and my writing, and the concerns expressed herein, are entirely my own. And just for the record, I'm a registered Republican... but only because I'm doing all I can from within that party to help to wrest it free of the RRR ("agendas, regardless of their party. ]]]

If the mistake of electing (not re-electing) Bush is made, then there will be no way that the horrific consequences detailed below can be averted. An irrevocable & unstoppable process will have been set in motion, and our lives would never be the same again.

Just as many historical geologists think that the last ice age may have been sudden -- as evidenced by frozen mammoths having been found in the Arctic with vegetation still in their mouths -- the end of the American system we have always treasured and assumed to be indestructable could be upon us almost without warning. We can be caught just as surely -- and almost as suddenly -- as the residents of Pompeii were cooked and buried without warning by a pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius.

The society that results won't make the one described in George Orwell's "1984" look good. But it may very well look like a close parallel to the American system that would result from that horrendous mistake. And that would be incomprehensible.

For those for whom the Bible has meaning -- THIS could easily be HOW the long-prophesied Tribulation Period described in Revelation can begin.

If you read this post fairly and without prejudice, you will see for yourself that the situation is EXACTLY as I just described. Maybe you've seen an earlier vesion of the pargraphs below before, and maybe you haven't. But either way, now is the time for you to take what it says very seriously!

If you care about America -- and your personal liberties, then it is imperative that GW Bush NOT be elected to a second term.

This is why ---

It's October 19, 2004, and Hal Lindsey (author of "The Late, Great Planet Earth") has just pointed out on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) that it's almost a certainty that whomever is President between 2005 and 2009, he will get to appoint "two, and possibly as many as four, Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court."

A favorite refrain from the RRR Cult's leaders, and its lemmings who parrot them, is that "unelected, activist judges legislate from the bench." So let's take a look at the ramifications of those proclamations about our Judicial Branch of government, by the "Religious" Radical Right.

FIRST of all, consider that the only "legislating" from the bench that ever is done is 100% legitimate. It's called "Judicial Law," and when it's a majority decision that's an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by the U.S. Supreme Court, it supercedes ALL statutory law, and can be contravened only by a later reversal by that court, or by a Constitutional Amendment. So this obvious absence of a basic knowledge of American civics on their part of the cult's lemmings (and the depth to which its leaders will reach in order to spread its lying propaganda) is duly noted. As well as the lemmings' typical -- and unquestioning -- obvious gullibility that's proven by their consistently falling for the cult's lies and propaganda, hook, line and sinker!

It's called the Balance of Powers, and checks-and-balances. That's in the Constitution. It's what keeps the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial) from overreaching their power, in each case. (Think "rock, scissors, paper.")

Congress has the power to enact statutory law, and to initiate Constitutional Amendments. In the case of statutory law, those can be nullified -- totally legally -- by the U.S. Supreme Court. But if the Supreme Court appears to go too far, then the Constitution can be amended to override its decision.

All Supreme Court Justices are "activists" or they wouldn't be there. Including the socially-conservative ones. The only reason that the RRR cult whines about that is because their activists happen to be in the minority.

Oh. And their "activist" judges (whom they refer to as "constructionists" -- thus, a dishonest attempt to make a distinction with regard to "activism") also happen to be "unelected." No surprise, since that's what the Constitution specifies: that Supreme Court Justices will be presidentially appointed, subject to confirmation by Congress. (And thus, not elected by the people.)

What hypocrisy, and what stupidity, on the part of the "Religious" Radical Right. Americans can thank God, their lucky stars, or whatever else anyone may happen to believe in, that the Supreme Court's majority still is comprised of social liberals who stand up for the personal liberties and rights of the people.

If Bush wins this election, American society very likely will quickly and inexorably begin to devolve into one that could make the former Soviet Union look tame. There IS a "slippery slope," but it doesn't lead toward expanded liberties, as hyperconservatives seem to fear. It leads precisely in the opposite direction, once the catalyst has been triggered. That is not an overstatement. Our personal liberties and rights have been defended for all of our lives by a Supreme Court having an egalitarian majority. And that's hanging by a very fragile thread right now, since many of its recent decisions have supported liberty by only a 5-4 majority. As Hal Lindsey pointed out, it is almost certain that at least two, and possibly as many as four, of the Court's Justices will not be able to hang on for another 4 years if Bush is elected. The Court has at this point gone longer without any turnover than it has at anytime in the nation's history.

Suppose that the majority had voted the OTHER way, just in these decisions, over the last 50 years:

1954 -- The beginning of the end of segregation would not have been initiated by the Court's "Brown vs. Board of Education" decision.

1967 -- Many states' hateful bans on interracial marriage would have survived, and might still be in force today. The Court's "Loving vs. Virginia" decision ended that discrimination.

1973 -- Tens of millions of women who were enabled by a beneficent Supreme Court to put their lives back on track by having access to safe and legal abortion would instead have been forced to gestate unwanted reproductive-process entities to term against their will, or seek dangerous or exorbitant illegal abortions, or travel to a free state for one. The latter would exclude millions of lower-economic-level women, and it would impose unconscionable second-class-citizen status upon all American women. We know even today, [35] years later, that many states would still choose to repress or prohibit this vital human right, if they could. The Court's "Roe vs. Wade" decision emancipated ALL of America's girls and women!

1997 -- Without our sensible and benevolent Court, on June 26th, the repressive, so-called "Communication Decency Act" (CDA) which would have severely impacted freedom of speech, and imposed censorship upon the internet, would have survived.

2003 -- The government would not have so very sensibly been kicked out of the bedrooms of American citizens. ("Lawrence vs. Texas")

And those are just some of the key cases. A repressive Court obviously would have disregarded our rights just as consistently in many lesser cases, as well.

If that weren't bad enough, consider this: The liberty-defending courts (U.S. Supreme Court included, but don't forget such ones on the state level as Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court, which sensibly recognized that there is no valid or Constitutional reason to deny marriage to same-sex couples), can directly stand up for our rights and nullify attempts to repress them. But -- there's far more to this than that. There's the psychological impact upon legislators as they write their proposed laws, who currently (and sensibly) keep a gimlet eye on the courts that could (and usually still would, in today's America) strike them down in a heartbeat if they didn't work hard to ensure that their legislation doesn't trample on any of our liberties.

The passage of the ban on the SECOND-trimester ID&E abortion procedure (lyingly called "partial-birth" by its dishonest proponents) was an exception to that. The Republican majority in both houses of Congress were under intense pressure by the neocon (RRR Cult) constituents that they perceive as being their base, to pass the measure -- again without the exception for the health of the woman that the Supreme Court has indicated would have made the act viable. So it's already been invalidated by three federal judges, and when it gets to the Supreme Court, it almost surely will be struck down, just as Nebraska's similar law was -- for the same reason.

But most of the time, state legislatures and Congress don't swim so obviously against the current -- because thay already know ahead of time that an egalitarian-majority Supreme Court stands in the wings, ready and able to scour the Constitution with a fine-tooth comb with the clear intention of doing whatever they legitimately can to defend our personal liberties whenever possible.

WHAT IF -- the Supreme Court no longer were of that mind?

THEN what would the state legislatures and Congress -- so many of which now are controlled by neocon Republicans who harbor open and blatant disdain for so many of our rights -- DO?

THINK about that!

And then -- all who are reading these words -- PLEASE vote for Kerry (and please not for Ralph Nader, which would be the equivalent of handing your vote to Bush) -- and help save America from such an awful and unthinkable cataclysm. Remember -- Supreme Court appointments are for life! And if that Court becomes repressive, very few (if any) Americans alive today will ever again know a Supreme Court that consistently and fairly defends their rights. If there EVER were a time not to take freedom for granted, THIS is that time. More so by far than at any other time in any of our lifetimes. Exponentially more so.

This IS the most critically-important election in our lifetimes.

Kerry has promised to appoint egalitarians to the Supreme Court. And Bush has pledged not to, almost in as many words.

If we want to remain a free country -- it's entirely up to US. And the time already is here! It's already possible to vote, either in real-time, or by absentee ballot, in most states, as you read this, and millions already have. (If at all possible, try to get a PAPER ballot, rather than voting electronically. Electronic voting machines are vulnerable to tampering. Particularly the Diebold ones!) WE, the registered voters of America, are the only ones who can prevent the horrendous scenario above from playing out.

Remember, too, that we are the world's only military superpower, and thus, we still (at the time of this writing) are the STRONGEST bastian of liberty on the planet. If the USA loses its freedom, there will be NO place for *any* of us to run!

We have only this ONE shot at remaining a free nation. Please consider that with the utmost gravity. If we fail to ensure the continuance of that on Tuesday; if we fail to elect Kerry -- there'll be no second chances.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Well -- Now that it's 2007, DO we still have ANY chance to avert this disaster, now that Bush has already damaged the Supreme Court so grievously? Probably ONLY if Bush is unable to further poison the Court with a third anti-liberty appointee. And then ONLY if we elect a Democrat President in 2008. (On the Republican side, there's no chance at all; the only potential social liberal, Rudy Giuliani, has already promised that he will appoint only "conservatives" to the Court, if given the opportunity.)

Dumb Cluck MITT ROMNEY doesn't even know that Hillary is a Democrat!

If you live in Iowa, you've gotta love this, because it's running on TV ad nauseum! A campaign ad in which Mitt Romney starts out by referring to "Hillary Clinton and the Democrats."

Now, it would have been fine if he'd said, "Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats." But he didn't. Dumber than that, it doesn't get!

(I invite you to click on the links within this article, as you go along. They will hugely enhance the information pertaining to the points being made herein. For your convenience, each of those will open in its own window. Thus, you can observe the content of each, and then close that window, and continue easily in this article.)

That ranks right up their with his purchase of votes, in order to artificially (and unscrupulously) "win" the Republicans' Iowa Straw Poll, back in August. He bussed people in from all over the state, free-of-charge, paid the admission fees for all of them, and lavished free eats upon them when they got there. All in return for their non-binding straw poll "vote" of support. To con Iowans and the country into thinking his candidacy was running strong. (Giuliani is FAR ahead of him, nationwide, and has been for months. But Romney is banking on his millions being able to buy the Iowa Caucus, as well as the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Which, he figures, will have enough psychological impact on the campaign to position himself favorably for beating Giuliani on Tsunami Tuesday, and thereby lock up the Republican nomination. He's trying to buy the Presidency with an infusion of millions of his own dollars -- and if Americans don't get wise to this, and reject that tactic at the primary-election polling places, he could get that nomination!)

And then there's his being moronic enough to have flip-flopped on abortion in order to curry favor, quite transparently, with the hateful bigots of the RRR Cult... the pseudo-Religious Radical Right. Most people know that he used to be sensibly and honorably Pro-Choice. And Pro-Choicers (i.e., egalitarians) simply do not suddenly turn overnight into sociopaths who support a loathsome agenda that seeks to force girls and women to gestate-to-term against their will... a very real, 9-month-long form of rape. Not without having something pathologically wrong with their brains. So he obviously is faking it in a desperate attempt to glean support from that tiny minority of bigots that the Republicans seem to regard as their "base." (Out of 300,000,000 Americans, only a mere 5% are RRR cultists. That's only 15 million people. And not all of them vote.)

And he further is stupid enough to think that same-sex marriage (SSM) could actually do some sort of harm to the marriages of opposite-sex couples. And therefore, to "protect" opposite-sex marriage (OSM), it's necessary for people to pass so-called "Defense of Marriage Acts" all over the place. And he even supports the passage of a Constitutional Amendment to that effect. (Which, of course, in order to succeed, would require that the vast majority of Americans would have to be hateful, mindless, or both.)

Personally, I have yet to hear of even so much as one single way that any opposite-sex couple's marriage could be adversely affected by any same-sex couple's having gotten legally married in Massachusetts, Canada, or Europe -- or if SSM were to become fully legalized throughout the USA. Have you? So the enactment of such an amendment would hatefully and ignorantly exclude from marriage hundreds of thousands of people who don't deserve to be excluded any more than interracial couples once were.

By the way -- SSM technically is legal in all of the USA, for the same reason that Massachusetts' Supreme Court recognized that it was legal, there. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that would exclude same-sex couples from marrying. Once that becomes fully realized, as happened for interracial couples, that will be that. (And by a few weeks later, just as we saw in 1967, hardly anyone will whine about it anymore.)

So as for Romney, the last thing America needs is to have another bigot as its President. Eight years of that (under GW Bush) is far more than enough!

So what we have in Mitt Romney is an inconsistent and dishonest dolt who thinks his millions of dollars and his lies can leverage him into the White House. Well -- the really scary part of that is that this formula worked perfectly for the Warmonger-in-Thief who currently and dishonestly occupies that residence.

Suppose Mitt Romney were running for dogcatcher, instead. That wouldn't be good, either.

Then we'd have to have real concern for the well-being of dogs.

Beware of Desperate Republicans! Dirty Tricks are their stock-in-trade!

It's about the only way they can win important elections, and retain power. By conning enough ignorant people to go to the polls for them, lest the common-sense Americans win the day.

I love this commentary which was posted in the Internet, by a gay person, in anonymity (unfortunately... I wish I could give him or her proper credit for it!), to exemplify those tactics:

"To be successful Republicans need some one or something to hate. In the 1950s and ‘60s it was the Communist threat and Communist dupes in the government. In addition, there were "outside agitators" demonstrating for Civil Rights. In the 1980s it was big government and deficit spending, and in the 1990s it was the feminist threat to make everyone use unisex toilets, and birth control by abortion; now it's our turn! We threaten Christianity and the "traditional" family with complete and utter destruction. Look at the bright side. We are now the most powerful group in society! I keep wondering with all of this power how come same-sex marriage is not a fact of life in all the states and territories of the U.S.?

"People complain about negative political advertising. Yet it works to sway voters and win elections. And, [in a rare case of hateful tactics by Democrats], it worked in 1964 when the Johnson campaign used the "Daisy Commercial" to strike fear into the hearts of all human beings that if Goldwater got elected he would unleash an atomic war that would wipe out humanity. Then there was the Willie Horton ad [aired by Republicans] in the 1988 campaign that used race to invoke the same kind of fear. Now it's our turn to become the hated group du jour. There isn't a thing any one can do about it because these kind of attacks are useful to win elections. They always have been and they always will be."

In addition to the points he/she made, above, I also remind everyone of Watergate, the Thanksgiving Day, 2000 intimidation of vote-counters in Palm Beach County by bussed-in THUGS, on the part of Bush's operatives... and the Republicans' "Swift-Boating" of John Kerry in 2004.

The Republican Party, purveyor of the vast majority of such dishonest acts of desperation, is NOT a party for the intellegent and the sensible. As fair-minded and honest progressives, egalitarians need to repudiate, nullify and neutralize these hateful and dishonest tactics AS they surface. Without delay! Before the ignorant can fall for such lies.

CORRECT name for Iraqi "insurgents:" The Resistance

Remember how France dealt with its occupation forces during WW II? Countless numbers of loyal French were a constant thorn in the German forces' side, and they were known simply as "the Resistance." You can see a good example of it in the movie, "The Great Escape," in which they shoot a carload of German officers at a sidewalk cafe, and then help an escaped American POW escape to Spain.

Today, we are seeing the Resistance reborn. In Iraq. A sovereign country that never should have been invaded. And we can expect to see those patriots continue to resist until ALL of the invading combat troops have left. We do NOT belong there, and in this "war," foisted upon the world by GW Bush, our lying Warmonger-in-Thief, we never have belonged there.

Unfortunately, not all of the so-called insurgency is comprised of Resistance patriots. Since a lot of the violence is directed against civilians, and often where troops aren't even present. That violence is a manifestation of the Civil War that currently is in progress, and is unforgivable, just as all such violence always is. But this doesn't let Bush, or the USA, or its coalition nations in the invasion of Iraq off the hook. Because if it hadn't been for that illegal and tragic invasion, Iraq today would not be having a Civil War!

GW Bush needs to correct his grievous error (albeit 5 years late) and get our troops out of Iraq. NOW! That'll be good for the troops. Good for the world. Good for America (and its worldwide image). And good for Iraq! They may still be having a civil war after we leave -- but we had one of those too. We sorted it all out. And so can they. On their own!

Meanwhile, let's all be honest enough to call those patriotic Iraqis, who simply are defending their own country against occupying forces, what they really are... not "insurgents." They are "The Resistance." And whenever the news media refers to these disruptive patriots as "insurgents" instead, we need to CALL them on that!

FAR Worse than Watergate! The Media didn't follow up. And the Sheeple just sat back and TOOK it!!

Remember that bungled break-in at Democratic HQ in the Watergate that ultimately caused a dishonest President (Nixon) to resign in disgrace?

That was nothing, compared to THIS!

And as far as I've been able to determine, the news media mentioned it only this ONE time!

Woodward and Bernstein should have had a field day with this amazingly blatant and future-altering dirty trick! Why didn't they? Or someone else high enough in the media?

If the tape of this momentous event, or a transcript of it (which you are about to read now) becomes lost to historians, our posterity may NEVER learn or realize that -- THIS was the key event that made G.W. Bush's THEFT of the 2000 Election inevitable and irrevocable. This WAS the turning point! And by now, almost NO one even remembers it -- to the media's eternal shame!

I had fortuitously videotaped ABC's World News Tonight on Thanksgiving Day, 11/20/2000, while it aired live in the Central Time Zone. And immediately realized the magnitude of this story that was included in it. So I transcribed it, and put it out in the Usenet Newsgroups BEFORE the pre-recorded newscast aired on the West Coast. For those who read it right away, out there, this actually was a preview!

THE ULTIMATE DIRTY TRICK!
The Bombshell that the Media Mysteriously DIDN'T Sieze Upon

This is exactly as I presented the transceipt on Usenet. In this transcript, for the greatest accuracy, I have italicized the words to denote the inflections they bore when actually spoken during the event. Those italicizations are not, in any instance, an emphasis on my part.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

NARRATOR (ABC's Bill Redecker): "At the time, it seemed spontaneous -- angry residents denied the right to see their votes recounted. But the reality is, it was an orchestrated Republican protest. And most were not even from here."

REPORTER: "Are you local? Are you... ?"
NARRATOR: "Her guide, a Republican public relations officer, cut that conversation short."

NARRATOR: "And so it has been, all week long. A public relations effort that has not always been so public. Camped out in a motor home, in the middle of the media staging area, you would think they would want to talk about their mission."

MAN IN RV: "It's a Bush operation."
REPORTER: "It's a BUSH operation?
MAN IN RV: "Yep."
REPORTER: "What goes ON inside this trailer?"
MAN IN RV: "Oh... can't talk to you right now."

(The man in the RV then abruptly closed the door in the reporter's face.)

NARRATOR: "In all, an army of 75 operatives came to Miami to shape public opinion. 'To help the media,' they said."

(A reporter walks alongside one of them, trying to interview him...)

REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: "And we provide a service for you for surrogates who you'll want to speak to..."

(Scene shifts to an outdoor crowd of protestors, many armed with professionally-printed signs identical to the earlier Democratic campaign signs -- except that instead of "Gore Lieberman," these read "Sore Loserman." Several of them were wearing printed signs on their backs that read, "Enough is Enough.")

NARRATOR: "But they also got involved in leading demonstrations. And were even willing to dress up in seasonal outfits to provide so-called 'protestor color,' for local news reports."

(Camera shows a person dressed in a turkey costume, with another person next to him/her holding a 3' x 4' sign reading, "STUFF THE TURKEY NOT THE BALLOT BOX." Many protestors gathered around them, holding printed signs reading, "Gore. Let our MILITARY VOTE.")

NARRATOR: "In the end, it apparently made a difference. 'Intimidation,' some called it."

DAVID LEAHY, Miami-Dade Election Supervisor: "If what I had envisioned [had] worked out, and there were no objections, we'd be up there now, counting."

[[[ MY Observation: That statement by David Leahy is key! Later, he tried to backpedal on it! But fortunately, the truth was already out -- with the above stunning statement. ]]]

NARRATOR: "They are not. And that Bush operations trailer -- has moved on. Bill Redecker, ABC News, Miami."

= = = = = = = = = = = =

My comments, continued, in the post to Usenet. (Words in italics from here on are emphases on my part, just as I added emphasis to my own comments in that Usenet post, after the presentation of the transcript.):

The above is an exact transcription of the report, which I videotaped from the broadcast. Very surprisingly, since this is such an obvious subversion of the election process, ABC News has not yet put this report on its abcnews.com website -- even though this evening's other stories are detailed there. (????)

If Gore loses this election, there will be three key factors:

(1) Nader's independent run catalyzed this. Without his siphoning tens of thousands of Florida votes away from Gore, the count for Gore would have been overwhelmingly high enough to make all of this Republican dishonesty impossible. (A tragic circumstance, but a legal one. If only Nader had simply put his country first, and stayed out of the race!)

(2) The fouled-up "butterfly" ballot in Palm Beach County, and no concerted attempt to obtain a county-wide revote to correct that. (Legal, but very unfortunate.)

(3) The above DIRTY TRICK. How legal is deliberate partisan intimidation of county officials while engaged in an official ballot re-count?

What a shame for America if Bush should win, in light of this.

And if he does, we should remind him for the next 4 years that -- not only did he get in via the dinosaur of the electoral college (since he lost the popular vote) -- his thugs LITERALLY stole the election through the implementation of the above very sleazy action.

= = = = =

Concluding comment, on 2-9-2001 --

(And as we know now, his inauguration was the result of all of the above, and via judicial fiat on the part of the U.S. Supreme Court. Bush is not even remotely the elected President. Gore is. Bush is the appointed President. And the Court ran roughshod over the will of the people, to do that. The REPUBLICAN-appointed, partisan Justices, only, accomplished that infamous, shameful, and inexcusable deed.

The ONLY Biblical passage that "defends" a fetus considers it only to be PROPERTY. And the passage condones slavery! Ex. 21:20-25.

Let's look first at Ex. 21:22-25 ---

22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she has a miscarriage but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

First off, the person being defended by those verses clearly is the woman. (There's no suggestion that her fetus be removed and evaluated for injuries, so that the appropriate penalties of "an eye for an eye" or "a tooth for a tooth" could properly be imposed upon the assailant. And verses 23-25 make it quite clear that only the woman's injuries are being considered, here.) (Emphasis in verses 22-23, above, is mine.)

And the penalty for causing a miscarriage only (covered by verse 22, clearly could be pretty much anything -- or nothing! There's nothing in there to imply that a capital offense had been committed.)

Next -- I love it whenever Anti-Choicers/RRR cultists draw upon that passage, thinking that it somehow supports their stance. Because it would be hard to come up with one that could be used as a better example of just how UNlikely it is that the Bible would to the extent of defending RPEs.

GLOSSARY RPE -- Reproductive-Process Entity. Any entity of the four stages of the human reproductive process: gametes (sperm & ovum), zygote, embryo, and fetus. ALL four are living, potential people. Interesting Fact More than 1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's a quadrillion) Stage One potential people are electively aborted DAILY, worldwide, by men, while the Anti-Choicers hypocritically look the other way and whistle a tune. And while they continue to seek to disrupt and wreck the lives and future opportunities of millions of women.

Here's another reason why. Ex. 21:20-21 (NIV) ...

20 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

Here we see the Bible treating:

A. An already-human being (person) as mere property.

B. The slave can be either a male or a female.

C. There is no penalty to the assailant if death doesn't occur.

D. If death does occur, the penalty is unspecified.

So let's consider this scenario: A 13-year-old girl (or it could be a boy) suddenly and inxplicably provokes the wrath of her owner, who takes a rod and violently thrashes her mercilessly to within a millimeter of her life, and leaves her lying in a senseless and unconscious bloody heap in the middle of a dusty road. She lies there in abject agony, mixed with periods of unconsciousness, for two days and nights. Then, 47 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds after the beating, she manages to struggle to her feet and stagger off, crippled and maimed, teeth broken off, arm broken, and with an eye put out. The penalty to her owner for having inflicted such horrendous, unconscionable and cruel damage? NONE!!

Or she DIES. What is her owner's penalty then? It's unspecified. For all we know, it could be 3 lashes on the back of his hand by a fellow slave owner, wielding a wet noodle.

Given all of this, any notion that the Bible would be concerned with mere RPEs becomes totally ludicrous.

Abortion Rights Worldwide -- Good Progress, but still a long way to go!

Green is excellent, and blue is good, in the world map below, which comprises part of a really neat poster that is published by The Center for Reproductive Rights. If you're as concerned for the accessablity of this vital remedy as most egalitarians are, it can be a valuable addition to your freedom-enhancer resources.

According to this source, 61% of the world's people currently live in countries where induced abortion is permitted either for a wide range of reasons or upon request, without restriction as to reason. In contrast, 26% of akk people reside in countries where abortion is generally prohibited. Think about that! This means that more than 1/4 of the world's 2 billion teenage girls and women of gestational age are subject to being forced to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term, against their will. Put another way, all those women are in danger of being subjected to a 9-month-long form of rape.

The information below is included in the .pdf file above, and I urge you to read it, because it is far more detailed and complete... concisely packaged as a 2-page document. But for this blog, I think it's good to show the lists of the MOST free and the MOST repressive nations.

The FREE Nations --

Unfortunately, several of these nations (including the USA) saddle teenage girls with parental authorization or notification requirement... which leave the door wide open for potential abuse, rejection, or forced future-opportunities-disrupting gestation at the hands of repressive (RRR Cult-type) parents! In those cases, a "PA" notation follows the name of the otherwise-free country. And as free as they are, several of these nations have gestational limitations. "SA" indicates a requirement for spousal authorization.

Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina–PA, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, China, Croatia–PA, Cuba–PA, Czech Republic–PA, Dem. People's Rep. of Korea, Denmark–PA, Estonia, France, Fmr. Yugoslav Rep. of Macedonia–PA, Georgia, Germany, Greece–PA, Guyana, Hungary, Italy–PA, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro–PA, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway–PA, Portugal–PA, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia–PA, Singapore, Slovak Republic–PA, Slovenia–PA, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey–SA/PA, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United States–PA, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.

The SLAVE Nations --

Exceptions as follows, when so noted: F -- Fetal impairment. I -- Incest. R -- Rape. U -- Law is unclear. x -- Recent legislation eliminated all exceptions.

Afghanistan, Andorra, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Bangladesh, Bhutan–R/I, Brazil–R, Brunei, Darussalam, Central African Republic, Chile–x, Congo (Brazzaville), Côte d'Ivoire, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador–x, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea–Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya–PA, Madagascar, Malawi–SA, Mali-R/I, Malta, Marshall Islands–U, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico–R/F, Micronesia–U, Monaco, Myanmar, Nicaragua–x, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Palau-U, Panama–PA/R/F, Papua, New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, San Marino, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Soloman Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan–R, Suriname Syria–SA/PA, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, United, Arab, Emirates–SA/PA, Venezuela, West Bank & Gaza Strip, Yemen.

Nations that are not listed in either group, above, are the semi-slave nations. Ones that impose difficult restrictions that still end up forcing many millions of women to gestate to term against their will.

Per the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 50 million abortions are performed annually, worldwide. Only about 3% of those are provided in the USA. This means that over any given recent 20-year-long period, fully one BILLION (yes, with a "B") teenage girls and women potentially have their life options restored to pre-ill-timed pregnancy levels. Where abortion is safe and legally, we can pretty much drop that word, "potentially." Unfortunately, though, thanks to the world's still being subjected to enslavement of its female population in this regard, a huge number of those women never get to have futures. Because of those 50 million abortions performed worldwide, annually, only 20 million are legal, and the other 30 million are illegal! Those latter nations need to outgrow and reject such criminal stupidity!

Here in the USA, millions of women don't realize just how lucky they are that in 1973, a beneficent and fair-minded U.S. Supreme Court (diametrically unlike the repressive on that G.W. Bush has saddled us with, probably for decades to come) EMANCIPATED them in the greatest act of egalitarianism since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and '65.

President G.W. Bush's greatest legacies will be the shameful ones of causing the wanton and illegal murder of over 100,000 innocent citizens in a sovereign nation that threatened no one (and he lied our way into it), getting countless tens of thousands of our own soldiers wastefully destroyed or maimed for life -- and POISONING the U.S. Supreme Court, making it the first non-egalitarian Court in more years than any American has been alive.

Freedom really is NOT free! Never has been. And now we are TRULY going to have to fight tooth and nail to retain it, and to advance it... thanks to that tragic turn of events!

"What is a Liberal?" By JFK. (Education for Neocons!)

"What is a liberal?"

Speech by Sen. John F. Kennedy
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination, September 14, 1960

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.

In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo: I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.

Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.

Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.

Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.

Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.

Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads. In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."

And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend. This is an important election -- in many ways as important as any this century -- and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort.

The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.

I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.

Some pundits are saying it's 1928 all over again. I say it's 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.

(Emphasis, above, is mine.)

May we never forget that JFK not only went on to become a fine President, but he also was a great statesman. We have a real shortage of those, these days! Along with a serious misperception by many that liberals aren't some of the most intelligent and sensible people this nation has to offer.

Source: http://cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/whatis.html

Have you EVER told a LIE? (Key Talking Points!)

If you have, then guess what? You've broken one of the Ten Commandments! (Read on, no matter what your faith may be, or what you may or may not believe. This gets good!)

What about shopping? Have you ever done it on Sunday? (Or Saturday, if that happens to be your religion's sabbath?) Then, by golly, you've broken yet another Commandment!

Have you ever attended a seance? Played with Tarot Cards? A Ouija Board? Had some tea leaves read, or in any other way had dealings with a soothsayer or fortune teller? ANY of those things? Yeah? Hoo boy!! You're in BIG trouble now! The Bible says that associating one's self with attempting to divine the future, or with trying to contact the spirit world is an "abomination" to God, and engaging in any such practices carries a penalty of DEATH!

SIDE NOTE: As a normal Christian (and we should never be confused with the hateful and delusional pseudo-Christians of the "Religious" Radical Right -- the RRR Cult), any proselytizing I do is of the passive (non-invasive) variety -- such as leaving sensible (non-bigoted) tracts lying around for people to either take or leave. So I won't be discussing salvation in here. Just in case you might have thought that was coming. It is very important that society comes to the full realization that normal Christians are everyone's sensible, fair-minded, pretty intelligent, ordinary, unobtrusive, work-a-day next-door neighbors. Unlike the RRR cultists, we are quiet, low-profile, and friendly people who usually have a live-and-let-live attitude with respect to the personal affairs and behaviors of other people. Very few of us ever engage in any form of busybodyism or discrimination. In America, 83% of the population professes Christianity. Only a mere 6% of those are obnoxious and bigoted RRR Cultists. The other 94% of us are normal and tolerant. We comprise about 250,000,000 of the USA's 300 million people. IF we were anything like the RRR cultists, America would be a tyrannical theocracy that would make Iran look benign by comparison. So PLEASE -- keep these two completely opposite groups of people straight in your minds, and don't blame "Christians" when you see hatefulness and bigotry. We do NOT deserve to be wrongfully painted with the RRR Cult's brush. (And one more thing... the RRR loves to make people think that Christians oppose abortion. That's a major LIE. Fully 2/3 of Americans support the right to choose, and reliable polls show that has been consistently true for over 30 years. And 5/6 of Americans are normal Christians. Do the math. Most of us are sensibly Pro- Choice! When it comes to breaking that Commandment against lying, RRR cultists are experts at it.)

The above comment needed to be said, in context with this post, and should always be kept in mind. I invite you to make copies of it to pass out and e-mail to your friends.

Whether or not the Bible is relevant to you, the reader of this, it is very relevant to the RRR cultists. Or, at least, they do a really good job of pretending that it is. Since they practice cafeteria theology with it constantly. Whenever any passage seems to support their hate-agendas toward personal liberties, they cite it to beat the band. But when a passage contradicts them, or would prove them to be a collection of hypocrites, they studiously ignore it! Just as they usually ignore soothsayers and mediums... and have no major agendas against them.

And, for example, you will never see an RRR Cult leader cite I Corinthians 5:12-13. (And thus, the mostly-ignorant lemmings of the cult are generally unaware of its very existence!) Here's what it says, in the NIV Bible.

12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside.

Do you have ANY idea of the very magnitude of the command issued to Christians in that passage? It literally tells the RRR Cult (and anyone else who feels so inclined) to BUTT OUT of the personal affairs of people in society, in general. It makes it crystal clear that the Bible neither authorizes nor appoints ANY person to act as an enforcer of its precepts vis-a-vis society! In short, the Bible authorizes NO Gestapo!

That is DEVASTATING to the RRR Cult. It de-legitimizes ALL of their intrusive and obnoxious agendas against personal liberties.

Here's why. Take note of the words, "Are you not to judge those inside?" That refers to the only controlling action that the Bible authorizes for Christians: CHURCH discipline. Congregations are authorized to take certain (non-torturous or lethal) measures to "correct" the "misbehaviors" and "sins" of fellow believers. But NO one else!

And there goes the very linchpin of all of the hate-agendas of the RRR Cult, right down the drain! Society needs to learn this, and to -- on that basis -- reject all of the cult's loathsome agendas against tens of millions of people in society.

Okay -- that being said, let's get back to LYING.

The RRR Cultists do that habitually. For example, they claim that abortion is sinful, and that the Bible opposes it. Wrong. Abortion is nothing but a hugely-valuable remedy, and it harms people no more than a squirrel's dining on acorns affects oak trees. And it's not even mentioned in the Bible, much less condemned. (And it could have been, if God had felt so inclined when He inspired the writers of the Bible. Since abortion was already being practiced (mostly via abortifacients) in biblical times. And already had been for at least 1,000 years before that.)

And they lie about same-sex marriage (SSM), claiming that "traditional" marriage must be "defended" against it. So we've seen a rash of so-called "Defense of Marriage" laws and state constitutional amendments passed at the cult's urgings. But in reality, there's nothing around that could possibly be more harmless than SSM. There's no way that any opposite-sex couple's marriage could be harmed in the slightest if a gay couple in their community were to be legally married. And gays don't engage in more sex because they get married, so gays' having sex can't be used as an argument against SSM. Any sexually-active person, gay or straight, will have sex whether he/she is married or not. (Those "sanctity of marriage" arguments that the RRR loves to spew are meaningless, too. Consider: How "sacred" are the millions and millions of NON-religious marriages that are performed by JPs, ship captains, judges in courthouses, etc.? And those arguments that "marriage is for producing children" doesn fly, either, as a reason for excluding gay couples from the institution. Since millions of couples are sterile, or prefer not to have kids... and yet are allowed to marry, without challenge.)

There's a LOT of ammo in this post that you can use against the RRR Cult. Not the least of which is to point out all of the hypocrisies I've revealed about them in here. They whine about gays, and seek to make the lives of millions of them miserable by subjecting them to dismissal from military service, and discriminating against them in the areas of housing and the workplace. And they oppose SSM.

Isn't that interesting? Don't we always hear the RRR cultists claiming that they are "pro-life?" Consider this: One of the key things that marriage does is to provide an extra incentive for the couple to remain monogamous and faithful to one another. Now granted, we all know that this doesn't work out that way, a large percentage of the time. But suppose that SSM were universally legal, and that tens of thousands of gay couples got married. That extra incentive to remain monogamous would work with some of them, and that means that some folks who otherwise would likely contract HIV/AIDS via casual sex -- wouldn't. So legalizing SSM clearly would save some lives. So -- the next time you talk to an RRR cultist, remind him/her of this, and then ask the person this question: "How much is ONE person's life worth? By opposing SSM, which is harmless, you are contributing to the condemnation of some people to deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. And you call yourself 'pro-life?'"

Finally, ask them why they are picking on homosexuals and their behavior when there are FAR MORE people engaging in practices that the Bible condemns at least as much. If you happen to be gay, tell them that you might listen more to them AFTER they have launched an all-out campaign (of at least the magnitude of their crusades against women and gays) against Tarot Card and Ouija Board Players, fortune-tellers, and mediums.

Take the above talking points and run with them! The RRR Cult is eminently defeatable!

More FUN than you could ever imagine!

Enjoyment of freedom comes in many forms, and if you love to travel, and enjoy the freedom of the open road, why not turn all of North America, Europe, or Australia into your back yard -- and be paid to explore it at will? Part-time, full-time, seasonally, or even just on weekends? And take the oodles of frequent-flyer miles that you'll be accumulating in the course of doing that, and explore the rest of the planet, air-fare-free? Learn all the details for yourself, right here.

Enjoy!! Life just doesn't get much better than that! (Just picture yourself inside a scene like the one above... whenever you'd like to be there!) And we invite you to tell us of any other ways that you have discovered, which enable you to maximize enjoyment of the liberties that you possess!

The "Religious" Right. Was It REALLY Bush's "Base?"

The Big CON: The "Religious Right" as Bush's "Base."

Here are the Indisputable FACTS.

It has been well-documented by 11-02-04's accurate exit polls that only 17.16% of those who went to the polls voted for Bush on the basis of so-called "moral" issues.

(Derived thus: 22% voted primarily of the basis of "values," and 78% of those who did so voted for Bush... for a total of 17.16% voters who voted for "values" from the standpoint of REPRESSING liberties. The remainder voted for Kerry, having defending personal liberties as their most important issue.) That means that 82.64% of those who voted for Bush -- for Bush! -- not voters overall -- voted for him for OTHER reasons than "values" being foremost. For them, if "values" were an issue for some, they took back burner position to such relevant issues as the war and the economy. Thus, the "values-voter" control-freaks who voted for Bush were outnumbered by those who voted for him based upon relevant issues by a ratio of about six to one.

(Bush can consider himself very lucky that 82.84% of his voters actually were obtuse enough to vote for him based on any issues, considering what a proven dishonest and thug-employing warmonger he is.) (It's like the "Mirror" in the UK astutely asked: "How can 59,054,087 Americans be so DUMB?")

That's the KINDEST possible cut to the bigots. But another aspect to the reality of all of this comes from factoring in the voters who went for Kerry... virtually NONE of whom (obviously) did so in hopes of seeing the above repressive agendas being supported.

Let's use these total vote tallies (which each increased somewhat since they first were reported, but the percentages didn't change)...

Bush .... 59,459,785
Kerry .... 55,949,407
Nader ........ 400,706

...and omit Nader, since I haven't seen exit polls regarding how "moral"-issues-voters related to voting for him. If I could include those votes in this analysis, though, it probably would be even WORSE for the bigots, since Nader supporters tend to siphon off more would-be Democratic votes than Republican ones. So that's a point worth remembering.

17.16% of Bush's vote works out to 10,203,299, using the above tallies. 0% neocons voting for Kerry, of course, is zilch, numbers-wise. So -- without factoring in the irresponsible losers who were eligible to vote, but didn't, that means that out of a total
of115,409,192 votes actually cast for Bush and Kerry on 11-2-04, only a mere 8.84% were cast by neocon/RRR cult-type "values" voters; i.e., voters who had NO regard for some of out most important personal liberties.

Then it REALLY goes downhill fast for those pathetic bigots!

Those who didn't vote, even though they were eligible to, no doubt included some passive/apathetic sympathizers to the RRR cult's agendas. But, for however many of those there may have been, those neocons were of the harmless variety that are of no concern at all for fair-minded and egalitarian defenders of human rights. Why? Because for a person to pose ANY kind of threat to human rights, they must to SOME degree be activists in that respect.

Consider the fact that pretty much the easiest way to be an activist in the most minimal degree these days is to VOTE. Why? Because recently it has become universally possible, in America, to vote by mail, or ahead of time in person, or via absentee ballot. So when a person doesn't even make that minimal an effort to support agendas that interest them, then they have proven their passivity on these issues. So the percentages of bigots among those voters doesn't matter, since passive bigots are not the sort of bigots that anyone needs to be concerned with.

Thankfully, even with everything else that Bush has done to America since his cronies (along with his own dishonesty) slipped him into the back door of the White House, the Thought Police that George Orwell envisioned in 1984 haven't come onto the scene as yet. And without them, we really have no idea how many Americans are closet racists living in America who used to be segregationists, up until their loathsome agenda became extinct, 40 years ago. By being closet racists, they are harmless. No one cares about a person's thoughts. What counts is the way he acts toward others. Even though there probably are millions of such people.

I've been unable to find an exact figure for the percentage of eligible voters that didn't get to the polls, but extrapolating from the figures cited in this article,it must have been very close to 44%. That gives us a total of around 206,087,824 total eligible voters: both the ones who went to the polls, and the 90,678,632 or so who weren't sufficiently motivated by any of the issues, either real or misperceived, to bother to vote. Again -- there is no reason for pro-human rights activists to be concerned about the eligible voters who didn't vote, because such tepid people don't do human rights any harm, nor do they do the forces of bigotry any good. They're like the neutrons in an atom; they add mass/bulk/volume to the population, but when it comes to these issues, they do little or nothing else. So we have a total 90,678,632 lukewarm people who proved that the bigoted agendas of the RRR Cult -- the "Religious" Radical Right -- are of little or no importance to them, so they didn't bother to vote for the candidate most closely aligned with those issues. (Nevertheless, it would be very nice if we could help them to become voting egalitarians!)

Of the U.S. electorate eligible to vote on Nov. 2, 2004, we thus have a total of only 10,203,299 out of 206,087,824 who supported bigoted agendas by voting for Bush with that being the foremost reason for casting that vote. That's only a mere 5%.

An "X" factor could be the 80 million or so NON-eligible voters living in America. Exit polls showed that the younger voters who were old enough and who did vote tended to support Kerry by around 56% vs. 44%. And the voters over 65 tended to support Bush in higher percentages than average -- but there are fewer of those than there are of younger voters.

But there's no real way to come up with figures for how NON-eligible voters might have voted if their viewpoints could be considered, so we're forced either to ignore them, or simply figure that they were fairly evenly split, as was the case for the overall election... which went 51% Bush, 49% Kerry, and less than 1% Nader.

BOTTOM LINE: Of the American electorate eligible to vote, only a mere 5% are active supporters of the RRR Cult's heinous agendas against human rights and personal liberties. FIVE PERCENT. That's a ratio of 20-1 of people who either support human rights actively or for whom opposition to them is of a low enough priority that they didn't even bother to actively support those loathsome agendas against safe & legal abortion-upon-request and equal rights for gays by voting for Bush. VERY heartening!!

There is NO mandate for Bush that can be ascribed to the RRR Cult, and it is ludicrous for him to consider those hateful loons to be his "base." Only a mere 5% of America's eligible voters supported him on that basis.

Nineteen out of every 20 of America's 206 million eligible voters either are opposed to the loathsome agendas of the RRR cult, or are not sufficiently interested in them to even minimally support them.

Out of all that, the only bad news is this: A glass of drinking water that's comprised of 5% arsenic would be deadly poisonous. And that is precisely the danger currently posed to personal freedom in America by the hateful and control-freakish RRR cult as it exists today. The RRR Cult is a dangerous infestation afflicting society. Its lemming-like adherents are every bit as ignorant and bigoted as were the segregationists that preceded them (in the South). As long as it exists, we can't safely ignore it, and its vicious and insidious agendas, any more than we could safely ignore the arsenic in this analogy. The activists of the RRR Cult are dedicated, 24/7, to the absolute destruction of many valuable liberties that hugely benefit many tens of millions of people, and they constantly are concocting new ways to accomplish that. Methods and tactics that need to be countered and nullified.

More than ever before, thinking, sensible, and egalitarian Americans need to work HARD to oppose the loathsome RRR Cult on all fronts, and neutralize and get rid of that poisonous threat to our individual liberties. STARTING with vigorous and vocal opposition to any more nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court who are Anti-Choice.

We are just ONE scary vote away from a reversal of the Court's emancipation of teen girls and women in 1973. If that were to happen, this nation would become a divisive hodgepodge of "slave" states and "free" states -- and countless thousands of economically-deprived girls and women would be unable to travel to free states -- and thus would be FORCED either to gestate UNwanted pregnancies to term against their will (at a cost of countless of their pre-ill-timed-pregnancy future opportunities which would have been immediately restored), or be faced with getting dangerous or exorbitantly-expensive illegal abortions. If this happens, America, having been free in this vitally-important regard for more than three decades, will surely become nightmarish.

We CAN make America a Bigotry-Free Zone. The arsenic CAN be filtered out! Especially when 95% of the population is comprised of a combination of human rights activists and a huge number of apathetic people who pose no opposition to our accomplishing that.

And we must do so. Starting today!!!

And we must get a Democrat back into the White House on Jan. 21, 2009!

Gays vastly outnumbered by their Straight ALLIES.

On Jan. 28, 2004, a Usenet participant challenged an earlier post that I'd made, by asking this question:

Please prove that "straight allies almost certainly are in greater numbers than the gays".

To which I responded as follows ---

That's one of the easiest things in the world to do!

Pretty much the highest percentage of gays that anyone claims, in the population, is 10%. But just for fun, let's assume for a moment that figure were true. However... recent polls have shown that the percentage of people in America who would be supportive of same-sex civil unions (but not "marriage,' semantically-speaking... and really, that's the ONLY difference) is now very close to 50%. Any straight person who would not object to same-sex civil unions is an ALLY of the gays. And if we used only 40% (and there are more allies than that, as I just said), then we'd have the following:

Gays -- 10%... 29,000,000 Americans

+ Straight Allies -- 30%... 87,000,000 Americans

= TOTAL Gays & Allies -- 40%... 116,000,000 Americans

Ratio: 3-1. Three times more straight allies than gays. (At least!)

Using more realistic numbers, let's assume that 5% of the population is gay, and that 45%of population favors the granting of the right of gays to have same-sex civil unions. This gives us the following figures, which probably approximate today's reality very closely:

Gays -- 5%... 14,500,000 Americans

+ Straight Allies -- 45%... 130,500,000 Americans

= TOTAL Gays & Allies -- 50%... 145,000,000 Americans

Ratio: 9-1. NINE times more straight allies than gays.

Using either set of figures, those who think (wish) that straight allies of the GLBT Community are few in number, lose, big-time. A ratio of three-to-one is the best they can do with such a claim, but that's unrealistically low. Straight ALLIES of the gays vastly outnumber the gays, themselves. By approximately NINE-to-one.

The source of this next information is:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Relationships/same_sex_marriage_poll_040121.html

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Views of Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Unions:

"Marriage" -- Make legal: 41% ... Keep Illegal: 55%
"Civil Unions" -- Make legal: 46% ... Keep Illegal: 51%

________________________________________________

This reliable ABC News Poll proves the ignorance of homophobes when they attempt to claim that gays have relatively few straight allies. They can wish all they want, but these facts are devastating to their antisocial hopes.

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And -- per CNN's exit polls at the Wisconsin Primary, fully 61% of the people in that HEARTLAND (not "liberal" coastal) state who took the time and effort to actually get out and VOTE --said that they SUPPORT same sex civil unions/marriage. And that was an open primary, in which people from ALL parties, including Republicans, were allowed to vote. The Wisconsin Primary was held more than a week after the same-sex marriages had started in San Francisco, so people were well aware of what they were supporting.

In conclusion, I offer this food for thought. Even by 2004, it was becoming very evident that the agendas of homophobic bigots were entering a fast track toward the Drain of Extinction. Where they ultimately would end up, forevermore, with the equally-hateful and ignorant agenda of the oh-so-similar segregationists, 50 years earlier. Which is HUGE progress toward an egalitarian America, when one considers that even as recently as 1970, it's likely that opposition to same-sex marriage probably would have exceeded 90%... if the issue even were to have been raised at all.

The legalization of same-sex marriage is inevitable, thanks to egalitarian activists. And when it arrives... guess what? It'll be just like 1967 all over again -- when the U.S. Supreme Court's "Loving vs. Virginia" decision struck down all remaining laws against interracial marriage. The sky didn't fall then, and it won't this time either. Because, after all, it's hard to imagine anything more harmless than same-sex marriage. It'll do NO harm to any opposite-sex couples' marriages. And by five years later, the likelihood is that almost no one will even give it a second thought, anymore. And wonder what the fuss had been all about!

WELCOME to Freedom-Lover's Country!

If you live in the USA -- or anywhere else on earth -- and you value and cherish personal freedoms, and loathe any form of repression, censorship, or tyranny, then this is the place for you! You're going to LOVE the information you'll find in here!

The primary purpose of this blog is to provide ideas, talking points, and concepts that can enable the readers -- that's you! -- to devise, employ, and implement effective strategies and tactics that will enable you to both promote and defend any and all personal liberties against ALL of its enemies... from the hateful and UN-Christian RRR Cult (That's the "Religious" Radical Right -- America's very own home-grown version of the Taliban, started 30 years ago by Jerry Falwell), to all other terrorists or terrorist wanna-bes, internal and external. And everyone in between who disrespects or seeks to deny or curtail individual liberties to ANY person or group of people.

Friendly humor in here is encouraged, whenever appropriate. After all, it's FUN to defend things and principles of value. So whenever an agenda that's antithetical to personal liberties takes a hit, and suffers a significant defeat, that is GOOD for society, and good for all of us, as individuals. And accomplishing that is just soo-o-o satisfying!

New strategies, tactics, talking points, relevant facts and articles will be added herein constantly, so come back often, and invite your friends!

You'll see articles to which you may post comments -- and your input will be very welcome. Just one thing about that, though. We cherish freedom of speech, but we will view comments that oppose liberties with the same regard that society holds for shouting "Fire!!" in a crowded theater. There is no place for the promotion of bigotry or discrimination in here, so any such hatefulness appearing in comments will be deleted. As will overt instances of profanity. Say whatever you want, just as long as you don't do those two things. Meanwhile, we will welcome any new talking points, tactics, or ideas for opposing all forms of tyranny, with open arms! And if you learn of a defeat for an agenda or vocal opponent of personal liberties, please provide us with the delicious details. (But please -- always be FACTUAL, and cite sources whenever they are relevant, and it's possible to do so. We want to maintain HIGH standards of integrity. Both because it's the right thing to do... and because the negative other side, which usually is devoid of facts, so has to rely mostly on propaganda and emotional appeals... will find that upsetting. The more challenging we can be to them, and the more we can counter their specious arguments with solid facts -- the more we can erode their antisocial agendas. And the better we can thereby serve society.)

Even though many countries don't defend (or too often, even allow) freedom of (and from) religion, the USA does, and so do we. We believe that every person on earth has the right to believe (or not believe) in any way that he or she chooses, and that all religions are equally valuable, person-by-person. Please remember this, too. We won't appreciate the denigration of any person's religion -- whether atheist, agnostic, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, or anything else. And religion should never be used as an excuse for seeking to deny liberties to people. Only pseudo-religious cults strive to bludgeon personal liberties. (Such as the RRR Cult.) Nothing justifies bigotry. Opposing individual freedoms is always inexcusable.

Before leaving the subject of the RRR Cult, may I suggest that you visit the article that shows the enormity of the difference between it, and actual Christianity. Click on its title, Have you EVER Told a LIE? (Key Talking Points!)