Students for War is an ad-hoc committee established to build support across America for military action against the murderous regime of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.Looks to me that someone’s trying to blame the Clinton administration for allowing this to happen. Perhaps this is not from a lack of military action on our part but because of a certain direction our foreign policy has taken in the region for the last thirty years? Maybe?Let us be clear — we regret immensely the pain and suffering that inevitably result from armed conflict. However, we feel the events of September 11th demonstrate clearly the terrible cost of inaction in the face of danger from America’s avowed enemies.
If the United States would have have acted decisively against Al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan before September 11th, the tragic events of that day might well have never taken place. Thousands of Americans who died that day ? mothers, fathers, children and students — would still be alive.
Instead, our government hoped for the best while the danger posed by Al Qaeda grew.
In 1993, Al Qaeda trained the murderers of 18 American soldiers in Somalia.
In 1996, Al Qaeda bombed the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans and injuring 500 others .
In 1998, Al Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 223 and injuring thousands.
In 2000, Al Qaeda bombed the U.S.S Cole, nearly sinking it and killing 17 American sailors.
Yet, even as the threat posed by Al Qaeda grew, the American response remained primarily diplomatic. Talk, talk, and more talk. Al Qaeda continued to operate openly from bases in Afghanistan, building their worldwide terrorist network and preparing to turn U.S. airlines into weapons of mass destruction.
Finally, our government’s inaction caught up with us. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda hijacked four airliners, destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon and killing thousands Americans.
The war against Iraq has NOTHING to do with Al Qaeda. Osama hates Saddam more than we do and Saddam would never give weapons to Al Qaeda because they’ll eventually use them against him. Any association is one of convienience that we forced upon them.
In recent months the “anti-war” movement has claimed to represent the voice of the world, and particularly of students and youth. Our purpose in founding Students for Protecting America is to declare that these groups do not speak for everyone. We believe that in the aftermath of September 11, Americans can no longer remain complacent in the face of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among rouge states. The threat we face is as grave as any that we have encountered. We support the Bush Administration’s efforts to defend America and defeat terrorism. We believe Iraq poses a dire threat and should be disarmed immediately.A little more PC, but still missing the point. Iraq does not pose a direct and dire threat to America, not immedeaetly nor in the near future. It does poes a threat to our interests (oil, Israel, etc) but America itself is not at risk because, as I said above, Iraq and Al Qaeda are not the best of buds. Any attack on Iraq needs to rest on an argument of human rights backed by the facts that Saddam has let his people suffer and die while he continued to build palaces and thumb his nose at the international community. He allows his people to starve because he wants to remain in power. He is a dictator that chooses to make his own people suffer for his own personal advancement and on those reasons above all others we should remove him. In my opinion.
Bible verses regarded as hate literature
Court rules Scripture exposed homosexuals to ridicule
Certain passages of the Bible can be construed as hate literature if placed in a particular context, according to a Canadian provincial court.I’m torn here. Truthfully, anything can be bent to represent one’s views and therefor construed as hate literature, but, technically, these people ARE using the Bible to incite hate. And, like I said earlier last week CONCERN YOURSELVES WITH GOD’S TOP TEN BEFORE YOU WORRY ABOUT HIS SIDE NOTES!!!!! Christ, when was the last time you saw a religious campaign against lying or stealing or adultry? God put those in the Ten for a reason folks, worry about those first and cover your own asses before you start attempting to tell other’s they’re damned.The Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatchewan upheld a 2001 ruling by the province’s human rights tribunal that fined a man for submitting a newspaper ad that included citations of four Bible verses that address homosexuality.
A columnist noted in the Edmonton Journal last week that the Dec. 11 ruling generated virtually no news stories and “not a single editorial.”
Imagine “the hand-wringing if ever a federal court labeled the Quran hate literature and forced a devout Muslim to pay a fine for printing some of his book’s more astringent passages in an ad in a daily newspaper,” wrote Lorne Gunter in the Edmonton, Alberta, daily.
Under Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of Regina, Saskatchewan, was found guilty along with the newspaper, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, of inciting hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500 Canadian dollars to each of the three homosexual men who filed the complaint.
Isn’t passing judgment a sin? I think Jesus himself said something about not doing that. Yeah, and I think it was a bit more literal and forward with a lot less to be loss to translation.
Transplant Teenager’s Family Criticized for Refusing to Donate Girl’s Organs
Jesica Santillan’s family grieves her death after a botched heart-lung transplant and a rare second one, they have become the target of criticism for refusing to make the girl an organ donor herself.Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Those organs are pretty well worn by now. What a horrible tragedy, though.
“We have received several scathing e-mails from people who are concerned that the family refused to donate Jesica’s organs,” said Mack Mahoney, head of the foundation created to pay for the girl’s medical bills.Like most details surrounding Jesica’s death and the bungled transplant that preceded it, survivors and doctors at Duke University Medical Center differed Monday on why a family that benefited from two transplants in as many weeks would refuse to donate organs.
One medical ethicist said the criticism is unfair.
“My bottom line is - let the family grieve now,” said Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center, a medical ethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y. “It’s a horrendous thing to lose a child.”
Laura Wright, who received a transplant of a kidney and a pancreas six years ago and heads a Charlotte transplant support group, said she doubted that any of Jesica’s organs could have been reused.
“You’ve got tubes and wires everywhere,” she said, “and the amount of drugs they pump through you is astronomical.”
Pornography goes from XXX to zzz
‘Pop Porn’ now has become part of everyday lives (Ha, ‘pop porn’, get it? Like ‘pop corn’ only with a second ‘p’? Oh, MSNBC, you crack me up.)
The popularization of pornography is everywhere. In the suburbs, the shopping mall, the movie theater, the radio, the television, our living rooms: Pop Porn.Well thank God we have fine organizations like Fox who are willing to stand up and stay ‘no more!’It’s in the news: Brian Heidik, winner of “Survivor: Thailand,” starred in soft-core porn movies. George Mason University grad Sarah Kozer, a finalist on “Joe Millionaire,” acted in bondage videos. Have you heard “Porn Again,” a rap CD by the Smut Peddlers? How about the interviews with porn stars on Howard Stern’s morning drive-time radio show? Have you seen the Porn Star T-shirts teenagers wear?
“Pornography has lost its political purposes and is now ‘naturalized’ as just another form of representation,” says Lynn Hunt, author of “The Invention of Pornography” and a professor of history at UCLA.
“Years ago, you could think it was somebody else’s problem,” says Bruce A. Taylor, president and chief counsel of a Fairfax-based anti-porn group, the National Law Center for Children and Families. “It was a big city problem. A guy problem. A dirty old man problem. But the Internet has put hard-core movies in everybody’s home.”
Rules of Cock Blocking and the Penalties Thereof
A. Cock Block DefinedAre Software Salvagers Criminals or Heroes?Cock Block /kok-blok/ v. 1. To interfere with or obstruct another’s attempt at courtship. 2. To delay impending romantic activity between two individuals.
Cock-blocker /kok-blok-er/ n. 1. Someone who takes part in the act of cock-blocking.
Piracy is a black-and-white issue: Using software without owning the license for it is theft. But supporters of a new type of piracy believe they have found a gray area: abandonware. Distributors of abandonware define it as software that is at least five years old and is no longer being sold or supported by its publisher. Abandonware pirates don’t see themselves as lawbreakers. Software publishers vehemently disagree.Wait, so if you’re not selling it or making any money off of it anymore through any of your efforts, what’s the big deal? If it’s “obsolete” or not even worth your effort to sell it, why not let it fall into the public domain?There are more than 100 abandonware sites offering up to 1,000 software titles, predominantly games but also applications and operating systems, free for download. Although these Web sites have existed since the early 1990s, antipiracy groups have only recently begun to target abandonware. Despite their efforts, however, abandonware piracy continues to thrive as more and more people take advantage of the abundance of free software.
Piracy costs the software industry billions of dollars annually. But, abandonware pirates argue, if publishers are no longer promoting a product, profiting from its sale, or even supporting it, then there’s no harm in distributing abandonware. Software publishers see it differently, saying that abandonware piracy is in violation of copyright law, clear and simple.
That most lamentable duct tape suggestion last week by a Homeland Security official — which drove countless panicked citizens out to buy the product — has been widely derided as useless and pretty crazy.GASP! Our security is riding on political favors!!!!But maybe not so crazy. Turns out that nearly half — 46 percent to be precise — of the duct tape sold in this country is manufactured by a company in Avon, Ohio. And the founder of that company, that would be Jack Kahl, gave how much to the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle? Would that be more than $100,000?
His son, John Kahl, who became CEO after his father stepped down shortly after the election, told CNBC last week that “we’re seeing a doubling and tripling of our sales, particularly in certain metro markets and around the coasts and borders.” The plant has “gone to a 24/7 operation, which is about a 40 percent increase” over this time last year, Kahl said. The company had more than $300 million in sales in 2001.
What to do with all that extra duct tape. Make purses and sell them.
Overboard Shoes Drifting Toward Alaska
Thousands of pairs of Nike basketball shoes are washing up on beaches from Washington state to Alaska after spilling from a container ship in Northern California.Deal May Freshen Up Google’s LinksThere’s just one hitch to finding a free pair.
Google’s recent purchase of Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service for publishing the online soapboxes known as Weblogs, was a happy ending for a much-loved startup that at times seemed on the edge of collapse.Why Did Google Want Blogger?But people who follow Weblogs are curious about what Google, the world’s leading search engine, expects to gain from the deal.
The combination of Pyra and Google seems unlikely on the surface. Google helps people find information online, while Blogger helps them publish it.
People with knowledge of the deal, which gave Pyra founders and investors shares in privately held Google, say it was signed without any real plan as to how the two companies would work together.
But leading bloggers were bursting with ideas last week. Many said that by tapping into Weblogs, or blogs, which link to and comment on the freshest material on the Web, Google will be able to build more human intelligence and timeliness into its already formidable search engine.
Forget war and strife, the only news that mattered on the Web this week was Google’s acquisition of Pyra Labs, the scrappy San Francisco startup behind the Blogger weblogging tool.The world wants to know!News of Pyra’s sale for an undisclosed sum broke on Feb. 14, but details about the deal have so far been scant. Neither Google nor Prya is saying much about it. Evan Williams, Pyra’s co-founder, blogged his day-to-day life for the last three years right up until it got interesting. Williams pulled his blog offline earlier this week.
Meanwhile, thousands of weblogs and weblog indexes like Daypop and Blogdex have been loaded with debate about what the deal meant for the Web, for searching and for blogging. The acquisition has puzzled some onlookers: what would a search company want with a tool for making weblogs?
Police: Snowball fight led to girl’s shooting
A man whose daughter was hit with a snowball by a group of girls returned to the scene and opened fire with a gun, critically wounding a 10-year-old youngster, police said.Damn.Joseph Best, 32, was arrested Monday and jailed on charges including attempted murder.
The victim was in critical condition with a head wound.
Best’s daughter was hit with a snowball as she and her friends walked past a group of girls having a “friendly snowball fight” Sunday, police Capt. Charles Bloom said.
A scuffle then broke out among the dozen or so girls, who ranged in age from 10 to 15. The groups soon parted ways, but Best returned with an older daughter and another brawl erupted, this time between adult relatives of both groups, Bloom said.
Police broke up that fight, but said Best came back again hours later, leaned out the passenger side of a moving car and fired at least five shots into the group of children still playing on the street. Authorities were trying to determine who was driving.
