Six Muslim men who were removed from a U.S. plane last fall after being accused of suspicious behavior for praying are suing not only the airline but the passengers who complained.
Some folk are upset by that. They fear that it could discourage travelers from speaking up when they see something outlandish, and some lawyers are so alarmed that they are offering to defend the unnamed passengers free of charge. The lawyers say it is vital that the flying public be able to report suspicious behavior without worrying about being dragged into court.
They have a point. If I saw Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim Whittington, praying and carrying on in an airport, I would fear for my life and report them, too.
I know my soul would be in danger.
We are going to launch an unjustified immoral murderous blitzkrieg on Iran,
or an attack utilizing "shock and awe" if you prefer modern language.
The American public is against it, but they don't count.
The neocons in the White House are for it
The Republicans are for it
The Democrats are for it
The pundits are for it
The corporate media is for it
So who needs the public?
The only way this could be avoided if we gathered our courage and impeached the president and vice president. If they are busy protecting their asses, they probably won't unleash the dogs of war.
Which, of course, it isn't going to happen. What is going to happen is utter disaster. Sell your SUV, you won't be able to afford the gas.
Take a look at the country we're going to let the barbarians destroy:
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
Congress is holding hearings on FBI abuse of the Patriot Act.
That's nice.
But who is going to hold hearings on Congressional abuse of the Constitution by the passage of the Patriot Act?
The Christian Science Monitor said the other day that the "Support our troops" yellow ribbons express a sentiment that is "in danger of losing its meaning."
The Monitor claims that "For many Americans, the phrase still evokes heartfelt compassion toward US soldiers... no matter what their views about Iraq. That generosity of spirit is more than a tailgate slogan."
Which is, of course, pure bullshit. It has always been nothing more than a "tailgate slogan."
Before the start of the first war on Iraq by the first King George, I wrote an essay for the Palm Beach Post entitled 'Yellow Ribbons a Cop Out', that said in part:
Yellow ribbons are everywhere now, symbols of our concern for our fellow citizens fighting a war halfway around the world.
That's the theory anyway.
In truth, the yellow ribbons are a cynical and sentimental sop to our conscience.
Don't know why we are fighting? Tie a yellow ribbon.
Wonder if pounding a nation that never attacked us into oblivion is the right thing to do? Tie a yellow ribbon.
Some people say that we 'have to support our troops.' By that, of course, they mean sending them into battle to kill and die. By a peculiar inversion of logic, then, those who want the war ended and the troops brought home unharmed are considered disloyal people who 'don't support our troops.' If the logic puzzles you, you can tie a yellow ribbon.
Far fewer people today support this murderous and outrageous war, but those few who do and show the yellow still espouse that peculiar logic.
Ah, the good old days, when a corrupt vice president would actually resign.
When Nixon's vice president Spiro Agnew was caught with his fingers in the till, he was forced to resign.
The Justice Department had investigated him for corruption extending back to his days as an official in Maryland. He was charged with taking kickbacks from contractors. He pled no contest to a single charge, was fined, placed on three years' probation and resigned in 1973.
Today we have Cheney, a man who makes Agnew look like a choirboy, but is untouchable because the Republicans are corrupt and the Democrats are unprincipled cowards.
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Thoughts on Hilary Clinton:
She's Bush in drag.
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A friend just sent me a .WMV that was interesting but it got me reflecting on the new video age.
I don't much like it.
When someone sends me a .WMV, or a YouTube or some other variation of information in a visual form instead of text, I get very impatient. "Cut to the chase," I frequently say, or more often shout, "get on with it, get to the point, I don't have time for this."
Maybe that's the only way to move information to the MTV generation these days, but it's far too frequently a waste of everyone's time.
A writer should never say this, but I have to:
Don't show me, tell me.
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I find it hard to be vitriolic, perhaps because I spent too much time as a newsman -- in the good old days, that is, before Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter -- when calm reasoning and fair and balanced news coverage was the holy Grail.
I wish I could be vitriolic, because the Bush administration has driven the country closer to fascism and totalitarianism than any time in my life. And that includes the Cold War, with all its insanities, and the McCarthy era.
But it's not in my nature, so let me quote you a bit from a splendid bit of invective from Dorothy Reik, President of the Progressive Democrats/Santa Monica Mountains. It's in the form of an open letter to Pelosi:
"Speaker Pelosi, I am sick and tired of constantly being in a state of barely controlled rage over the ludicrous proposals you and John Murtha keep putting forward. The only way to stop this war is to stop funding it....Stop being an idiot. Do what we elected you to do. Get us out of this stupid war..."
But Ms Reik doesn't address the only thing that is really going to change things -- the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.
Confronted by the ugliest and most dangerous president in American history, the nearly equally ugly Democrats - certainly the most gutless opposition party in history - once again refused to condemn him or steer the country away from disaster.
All signs point to an administration that is willing, even eager, to go to war against Iran, a conflict that will make the mess in Iraq look like a picnic.
The Democrats had a chance to take a stand and demand that President Bush get approval from Congress before starting a new war - you know, just like the Constitution mandates. Instead, they blinked.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders agreed to remove the requirement concerning Iran after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel.
On Israel? Funny, I thought the congressmen were Americans.
The insanity escalates.
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