Well written! do you have some more resources to recommend? Thanks

I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read.

I was thinking today that we are facing an unthinkable possibility that the criminals in charge of the executive branch, up to now aided and abetted by a lap-dog congress, might really destroy the America we have known and loved.

The leaders of our country are not loyal to our heritage or values. They are loyal to an ideology which embraces concepts of collective punishment, and torture, and racism, and ‘pre-emptive’ war, and ‘might makes right’. I watch in horror, realizing that our ‘leaders’, by chosing inaction vis a vis Israel’s destructive bombings, are actively complicit in the deaths of hundreds of innocents in the Mid-East. They shun the teachings of Jesus in order to find hell-fire and brimstone passages which can be twist-interpreted to justify their own and their friends’ evil actions and power-over war-mongering.

This non-action, and insane purposeful delaying of relief to those Lebanese and Palestinians pleading for help reminds me of Katrina when hundreds of Americans perished because the administration had been busy turning FEMA into a scrumptious patronage pie instead of caring about actually serving and protecting Americans.

Again, about the Mid-East crisis, I ask CUI BONO? Can this Israeli war behavior be about territory and resources, all of course, hidden behind the headline grabbing rhetoric? [Just as the Bush administration is all about benefitting their buddies].

In the news this last 24 hours are two clues about CUI BONO.
1]The Israeli government now wants a ‘buffer zone’ carved out of south Lebanon. Right, this means that the Israelis would now be able to stop the Lebanese villages from getting drinking water from the Wazzani River, to which the Lebanese have riparian rights from a 1953 ruling. When Lebanon actually tapped into the Wazzani to get just a small portion of their water rights in 2002, Israel threatened ‘war’ then….and that conflict was only stemmed with international help from U.S. mediators. [Did you know that the Israelis control water use in the occupied territories and that they allow Jewish settlers to dig wells as deep as 750 meters but allow Palestinian wells to be only 140 meters deep?]
Israel could well create a ‘buffer zone’ on their side of the border, but, like the ‘wall’, prefer to create it using up the land of others, especially if, in this instance, that allows them control of Lebanese water use.
2]In today’s NYT: “Israel may now decide not to evacuate their [illegal] settlements in the West Bank” [the West Bank being the most valuable of water-served land]. The reasoning goes like this: Well, since we’ve given up territory in Lebanon [occupied for some 20 years] and given up Gaza,…. we have had [nit-picky]border problems. So if we give up our [illegal confiscation] use of West Bank territory, that might mean just more border problems. Whew, self-serving logic! Hey, as I said, Israel benefits from these wars, what with the powerful USA providing tons of money and munitions, because each war always lead to more ‘justified’ grabbing of what belongs to others. It is the perfect ‘dance of evil’ with Israel stomping the life out of its neighbors, then feeling justified in stealing from its neighbors because of ‘terrorism’. The Israel I watch play this game needs the other side to always be collectively ‘terrorist’ defined. [Which is why both Hamas and Hisbollah really threatened Israel when they joined the political route and won elections] The Bush team and far too many American weenie leaders also know this game. Yell ‘terrorism’ and watch what can be stolen from others and the masses while the attention-diverted public meekly goes along because of the ‘threats’.

The only requirement needed to get in as a player in this ‘dance of evil’ is to give up your caring about the value of life, and to be able to ramp up the rhetoric about whomever you want to target as ‘ok to kill’. I am not saying that the Israeli public or the American public is evil, but I do think both are failing to see the evil in their own governments.

Which leads to my prayer: “Dear God, please help us to know the truth and help us to stand firm against evil wherever we find it. Especially help us to know when evil has lodged itself in our own actions and reactions. Amen.”

Logical fallacy: All people were once embryos, but all embryos do not become people. Large number spontaneously abort.

If you’re religious, you could comfort yourself by positing that god created a special place for these flecks of humanity. Even the R.C. church is catching on (for strictly pragmatic reasons). For quite some time (its whole history?), the R.C. church said that unbaptized babies did not go to heaven. If I remember right (it’s been half a century since I knew this), they went somewhere just as nice, but never got to see god’s face. Now recently, given the R.C.’s quest to convert Africans who often can’t get to a priest easily, the R.C. church, in its infallible wisdom, has decided that unbaptized babies go to heaven after all. If the R.C.s can do it, why not the rest of the christian wingnuts?

Veto vs. Signing Statement

Let’s say the Dems control both houses after the fall elections. We finally pass this stem cell bill by veto proof margins. Will Bush negate this law, or any future law passed by a Democratic Congress, by his “signing statement”?

Bush has previously said that the “signing statement” defines his interpretation of the law and also the “weight” of the effort to enforce this law.

The question is: Are signing statements going to be the same thing as a Veto of a veto-proof law? This is a very scary question. Remember, Bush’s “signing statements” have been on Repug passed legislation. What will these “signing statements” have on Democratic passed legislation?