Welcome to the Enlightenment

Borders Books and Waldenbooks Capitulate Amidst (the threat of) Islamist Thuggery

2006-03-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

In response to a decision by Borders and Waldenbooks not to carry the most recent issue of a magazine titled Free Inquiry, due to an article inside the publication discussing the Muhammad Cartoon fiasco, Robert Bidinotto, former editor for Readers Digest, and current editor of The New Individualist, wrote a letter to those organizations demanding that they amend their policy.

Additionally, within the same blog entry, Bidinotto provides some interesting information behind recent "business relations" and policies at Borders yielding a greater perspective on this issue- they have just accepted an offer to host stores in United Arab Emirates and other GCC countries. (I could understand if the Borders stores in those countries cannot carry such media- obviously, respecting the customs of a nation wherein a business operates is critical, BUT this should not be the case in the United States!)

-etw

Welcome to South Dakota!

2006-03-30T11:40:00.000-05:00

The First Publication in the United States to Host A 'Muhammad Cartoon' on Its Cover!

2006-03-28T20:06:00.000-05:00

Flemming Rose: Courage Under Fire!

2006-02-27T13:35:00.000-05:00

Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish publication that releashed the cartoons that satirized aspects of Islam, could not have been more efficacious at articulating how crucial the state of "free speech" is within our society and what the results from the publishing of the cartoons have illustrated.

He is quite a courageous individual, unlike the majority of integrity-lacking and ethically-bankrupt government and media officials in the West who are unsucessfully trying to appease both sides, most notably censoring the cartoons and ceasing their dissemination. Why haven't our citizenry seen them and why are they not being released more widely in Europe? We are seeing a frightening precedent by many government and media authoritarians in the West controlled by fear who claim that people have a responsibility within the tenets of "free speech" to not offend religious sensitivities; effectively indicating that religion - especially its tyrannous consequences upon humanity - should never be criticized and is untouchable!

Just like in a dysfunctional familial environment, if people in authority and their ideas can never be addressed, questioned, and criticized, how can such a failing and abusive system ever be rectified? How can such malignant tyrants ever be held accountable? Problem-solving and change only occurs within an open-communicative environment, not one where fear rules!

-etw

Homeland Insecurity: As the White House Stalls the Congressional Investigation of the Fed's Response To Hurricane Katrina...

2006-01-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

... the decisive issue of a critical government oversight of the past is (conveniently) being marginalized and forgotten- the funding of the levee infrastructure that could have prevented the disastrous flooding that destroyed New Orleans. If the United States government officials at all levels- national, state, and/or local - were truly sincere about protecting the citizenry of New Orleans from catastrophic flooding, surely they would have coordinated funding to fully construct such a vital barrier? Apparantly not. New Orleans' vulnerability to flooding that a Category Three and above storm can cause was voiced for years by many scientists and local emergency planners prior to Hurricane Katrina's catastrophic Category Four conditions, which easily ravaged the levee barrier causing New Orleans to be buried under many feet of water, plunging the city into chaos... Sure, the millions of dollars that were needed to fully build an efficacious defense against the potential floodwaters of nearby Lake Pontchartrain were exorbitant, and as a result, government officials and probably even residents themselves became reluctant to pay, but here we are after the disaster that has already cost just as much money and maybe even more to rescue the city, and the city still hasn't even been rebuilt, not to mention all the lives that were lost and up-rooted!

Yes, the federal government's slow, censured, mismanaged, and confused response to Hurricane Katrina and their irrational and irresponsible excuses are important issues, as is the government's unbalanced priority on consequence management of a terrorist-borne disaster - allowing for negligent oversight in response to the effects of a natural catastrophe, but let us not forget why New Orleans had to endure the chaos of post-Hurricane Katrina.

-etw

"In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need."
-President George Bush, Jr

Senators: White House Stalls Katrina Probe

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 24, 6:51 PM ET

The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.

In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won't answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.

A White House spokesman said the administration is committed to working with separate Senate and House investigations of the Katrina response but wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisers.

"No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House."

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record) of Maine, the committee's Republican chair, said she respects the White House's reluctance to reveal advice to President Bush from his top aides, which is generally covered by executive privilege.

Still, she criticized the dearth of information from agency officials about their contacts with the White House.

"We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period," Collins said. "So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day."

She added, "It is completely inappropriate" for the White House to bar agency officials from talking to the Senate committee.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the administration's deputy homeland security adviser, Ken Rapuano, has briefed House and Senate lawmakers on the federal response. A "lessons learned" report from Homeland Security Adviser Frances Fragos Townsend also is expected in coming weeks, Duffy said.

But he defended the administration's decision to prohibit White House staffers or other presidential advisers from testifying before Congress.

"There is a deliberate process, and the White House has always said it wants to cooperate with the committee but preserve any president's ability to get advice from advisers on a confidential basis," Duffy said. "And that's a critical need for any U.S. president and that is continuing to influence how we cooperate with the committees."

Collins and Lieberman sidestepped questions about whether they plan to subpoena the White House to get the information they seek, though Collins said she does not believe subpoenaing the Homeland Security Department is necessary.

The Senate inquiry is scheduled to conclude in March with a report detailing steps the federal government took — and didn't take — to prepare for the Aug. 29 storm.

Investigators have interviewed about 260 witnesses from federal, state and local governments and the private sector. Additionally, the committee has received an estimated 500,000 documents — including e-mails, memos, supply orders and emergency operation plans — outlining Katrina-related communications among all levels of government.

But Lieberman said the Justice and Health and Human Services departments "have essentially ignored our document requests for months" while HHS has refused to allow interviews of its staff. He described the Homeland Security response as "too little, too late."

Collins offered a rosier view of Homeland Security's cooperation, noting that Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson and department chief of staff John Wood were scheduled to talk to investigators later this week.

A special House committee created to review the government's readiness for Katrina is to release its findings by Feb. 15. Although Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the panel's chairman, earlier considered subpoenaing the White House, the panel backed away after the Rapuano briefing.

The panel ultimately did subpoena the Pentagon for Katrina documents, but one lawmaker, Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., said he believes Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has not handed over enough to fully comply with the legal order.

But in a letter to Melancon on Tuesday, Davis said he is satisfied the Pentagon has complied with the subpoena, which yielded "massive mounds of documents," including classified materials from Rumsfeld.

America's Most Popular Dual Political Party System is a Failure!

2005-12-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

As the United States enters a New Year full of new possibilities and the learning of new ideas, maybe the citizenry of my fine nation will step closer to realizing just how much further the United States has morphed into a tyrannous, sly theocracy under the Bush Administration, while under the watchful eye of the Democratic Party. (Sure, the Republicans aren't the only ones to blame- the Democrats haven't done much to repel the Vatican invasion...) Both the Conservatives and Liberals are corrupt, authoritarian, collectivist, and unlibertarian. Their ideologies operate under the same premise where the individual exists for the sake of a collective- the Republicans immolate the citizenry in the name of The Church and to secure a better, so-called "afterlife" and the Democrats offer up their livelihood and welfare for the sake of collective harmony. Not only do they espouse an irrational and unethical code of morality based upon the repression of the human being, but both ethically-bankrupt political parties do nothing to support the foundation of a truly free society, in which a citizenry would only tolerate a limited government authority, so that they be better positioned to "own their life" resulting in greater self reliance, personal responsibility and achievement, individual choice and tolerance, and a celebration of a happy life here on Earth!

-etw

On War and Selfishness

2005-12-28T02:53:00.000-05:00

Just recently, I finished reading the book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, which I found to be an incredibly moving and rational indictment against war. However, in my case, since I am not anti-war, a position that Trumbo asserts in this book, I still found this book to efficaciously illustrate why war should rarely, if ever, be fought. Which leads me into the reason why war should be fought- only in support of fighting to defend one's individual sovereignty in the face of a tyrannical and/or a totalitarian government after all civil methods have been ruled out; not for reasons of imperialism, procurement of natural resources, or for charity, as has been customary for centuries. For a well-reasoned defense of a "just war" see Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff's speech at West Point.

-etw

“You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else’s life. They’re plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That’s their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead. Hmmmm. But what do the dead say? Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god I’m glad because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I’m glad I died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it’s good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me I’m dead but I died for decency and that’s better than being alive? Did any of them ever say here I am I’ve been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but that’s wonderful to die for your native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I’m happy see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?

Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can’t talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn’t know what death is. He isn’t able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn’t know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death before dishonor let him go ahead and die.”

-Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, pages 115-116.

An empowering song from an inspiring band!

2005-11-25T01:59:00.000-05:00

Living For Today

"You look around what do you see?
I'll tell you what I see is a world belonging to me
Take time to find what you may dream
It's all right there within your grasp
Just beyond what you can see

We're the ones, only ones, strong ones, proud ones
We're living for today
Those for the past and tomorrow well they'll have hell to pay

And if your days are going by too fast
It's time for you to slow down
It's time for you to make it last
Before you trip and slip
And you will miss
This happy little stepping stone
Just before eternal bliss

Your life goes by
Before you know
You gotta take time to slow down
Better take time to veer off the road
Enjoy the sights
While you are here
There's nothing to fear but fear itself
Who knows when the end is near

Don't make plans
With your hands tied
You'll never know
You're missing out repeatedly
On the things that help you grow
You've got to own your soul
You've got to take control
Find a one day plan young man
Get this straight
Live for today"

-Written and performed by the band Pennywise from their self-titled debut album

Individualism vs Collectivism

2005-11-20T22:25:00.000-05:00

"... individualism does not deny that we have responsibilities toward others, but it defines them differently from the way collectivism does. Individualism teaches that a person has the right to exist for his or her own sake. It views help to others as benevolence, not as duty, and as a choice, not a mortgage on our life that one was born with. Collectivism asserts that the individual exists to serve others. Collectivism rejects the entire notion of individual rights. It treats not the individual but the collective, the group, the tribe, as the primary moral unit to which the individual is subordinate, as we have seen in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Red China, and other countries ruled by some variant of this ideology. Individualism holds that the primary responsibility one has toward others is to respect their rights and freedom, not to initiate force or fraud against them. Beyond that, we have the obligation to honor those agreements and commitments into which we have voluntarily entered. Finally, we must not be willing participants in a slave society."

-Taking Responsibility: Self Reliance and the Accountable Life by Nathaniel Branden, page 221.

Christian Coalition Founder Pat Robertson Threatens Pennsylvania Town With Biblical Disaster!

2005-11-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

... and now for the "looney-tunes moment" of the week! This is hilarious!

(It never ceases to amaze me how folks such as Robertson are so oblivious to how irrational their concept of reality is.)

-etw

Pat Robertson warns Pa. town of disaster

Thursday, November 10, 2005 · Last updated 8:03 p.m. PT

The Associated Press

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" - the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power - as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

Eight families had sued the district, claiming the policy violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The federal trial concluded days before Tuesday's election, but no ruling has been issued.

Later Thursday, Robertson issued a statement saying he was simply trying to point out that "our spiritual actions have consequences."

"God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever," Robertson said. "If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them."

Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

A Victory for Rational and Efficacious Education!

2005-11-09T19:11:00.000-05:00

'Intelligent-design' school board ousted in Penn

By Jon HurdleWed

Nov 9,12:35 AM ET

Reuters

Voters on Tuesday ousted a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an "intelligent-design" alternative to teaching evolution, and elected a new slate of candidates who promised to remove the concept from science classes.

The board of Dover Area School District in south-central Pennsylvania lost eight of its nine incumbents in an upset election that surprised even the challengers, who had been hoping for a bare majority to take control of the board.

The new board, which includes teachers, opposed the incumbents' policy of including intelligent design in science classes.

The ousted board was the first school board in the country to implement such a policy. The challengers also criticized what they called arrogance and secrecy by the incumbent board.

For the last six weeks, the teaching of intelligent design has been challenged in federal court by a group of Dover parents. They said the concept is a religious belief and therefore may not be taught in public schools, because the U.S. Constitution forbids it. They also argue that the theory is unscientific and so has no place in science classes.

Bryan Rehm, one of the winning board members and a former teacher at Dover High School, said the new board will hold a public meeting to decide the precise future of the policy. He said intelligent design will no longer be a part of the science curriculum, regardless of how the court rules.

Defeated board members were not immediately available for comment.

Dover residents have been split on the issue of intelligent design since the board adopted the policy in October 2004.

The policy requires that students be read a four-paragraph statement that says there are "gaps" in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and that students should consider other explanations of the origins of life, including intelligent design.

Intelligent design holds that some aspects of nature are so complex they must be the work of an unnamed designer, rather than the result of random natural selection, as argued by Darwin's theory.

The trial, which attracted national and international media attention, was watched in at least 30 states where policies are being considered that would promote teaching alternatives to evolution theory.

U.S. President George W. Bush, whose re-election was boosted by many Christian-conservative votes, has said he believes intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution.

U.S. District Judge John Jones is expected to rule on the case in December or January.

Dept of Defense Blocked a Critical 9/11 Intelligence Issue Testimony From An Open Congressional Hearing

2005-11-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

It is interesting to note how Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his office within the DoD have something to hide regarding alleged key information that the US national security apparatus may have known about a key Al Qaida leader and their activities prior to the 9/11 attacks. (Recall that this terrorist attack has been a major "rallying cry" that the Neocon establishment has used to sow much fear throughout the United States... Fear that this tyrannical mob is using to justify so many short-sighted and so-called defense and homeland-security spending and initiatives to lock-down the country... Fear that it is using to deceive Americans into believing that 1) A catastrophic threat of terrorism is real and imminent against the country, 2) In order to counter such a threat, Americans need to pass unlibertarian laws to protect them... Laws that will only make authoritarianism possible and act as a stepping-stone to potential totalitarian governance.)

Oh yes, the Neocon's have much to hide... how about the Iraqi War Memo from the UK? Recall that Operation Iraqi Freedom has been an irrationally-justified and unethical war from the beginning that the Neocons have used as a further rallying cry for their nationally-socialist and authoritarian policies dressed up in so-called patriotism. Once the initial reason for the US to initiate hostilities against Hussein's dictatorship were outed, President Bush and the rest of the Neocon leadership have used a second reason for war- terrorism! However, once the evidence for this was illustrated to be specious and tenuous at best, the Neocon propaganda machine kicked in and is now declaring that the US cannot leave Iraq due to a need to finish what was started in rebuilding their nation into a democracy...

-etw

Pentagon Blocks Testimony at Senate Hearing on Terrorist

New York Times
21 September 2005
by Philip Shenon

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 - The Pentagon said today that it had blocked a group of military officers and intelligence analysts from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about a highly classified military intelligence program that, the officers have said, identified a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.

The announcement came a day before the officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify about the program, known as Able Danger, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement that open testimony about the program "would not be appropriate - we have expressed our security concerns and believe it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in an open public forum." He offered no other detail on the Pentagon's reasoning in blocking the testimony.

Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the committee, said he was surprised by the Pentagon's decision because "so much of this has already been in the public domain, and I think that the American people need to know what happened here."

Mr. Specter said in a telephone interview that he intended to go ahead with the hearing on Wednesday and hoped that it "may produce a change of heart by the Department of Defense in answering some very basic questions."

Two military officers - an active-duty Navy captain and a reservist Army lieutenant colonel - have said publicly in recent weeks that they were involved with Able Danger and that the program's analysts identified Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian-born ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, by name as a potential terrorist by early 2000.

They said they attempted to share the information with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the summer of 2000, more than a year before the terrorist attacks, but were blocked by Defense Department lawyers. F.B.I. officials, who answer to the jurisdiction of Senator Specter's committee, have confirmed that Defense Department abruptly canceled meetings in 2000 between the bureau's Washington field office and representatives of the Able Danger team.

The Pentagon has said that it has interviewed three other people who were involved with Able Danger and who said that they, too, recalled the identification of Mr. Atta as a terrorist suspect. But Defense Department investigators said they could find no documentary evidence to back up the assertion; they acknowledged that much of the information might have been routinely destroyed.

Mr. Specter said his staff had talked to all five of the potential witnesses and found that "credibility has been established" for all of them.

"There are quite a few credible people who are prepared to testify that Mohamed Atta was identified long before 9/11," he said. "Now maybe there's more than one Mohamed Atta. Or maybe there's some mistake. But that's what we're trying to find out."

Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said that in place of members of the Able Danger team, a senior defense official would be sent to the Wednesday hearing to discuss "what the law and policies are on domestic surveillance and to provide some insights about information-sharing between agencies."

Germany's Christian Democratic Union Brings Salvation to the Homeland!

2005-10-19T02:10:00.000-04:00

"The campaign motto is 'Du bist Deutschland'--You are Germany. Appearing until January in movie theaters, magazines and on television, the ads tell Germans they are pugilist Max Schmeling, race car driver Michael Schumacher, Olympic figure skater Katarina Witt and other famous and not-so-famous citizens. Germans are also asked to picture themselves as butterflies and Porsches.

'Achieve what you are capable of achieving,' says conductor Justus Frantz in the crusade sponsored by 25 media companies."

... and the people of the world continue to disregard the power of their mind in favor of collectivism and misguided emotion- just trying to "feel-good" by using emotion to blind oneself to a harsh reality.

As people increasingly look to their their governments (and to their gods) to help them get through a life they would rather not live- to give them an identity, a purpose, their self esteem - to ultimately save their ass - they forego so much liberty... They want to forget that they are an individual and are, ultimately, alone and on their own to make life as wonderful or as horrible as they desire...

Most importantly, it's crucial to note how intertwined personal responsibility and liberty are... The more access a government has into the personal lives of its citizenry; the more the people ask of its government to do for them, the more it can demand of its people...

-etw

To Defy the Laws of Tradition!

2005-10-18T19:03:00.000-04:00

What if Christmas didn’t come this year
And no one paid for Christmas cheer?
Who would cry the biggest tear,
The child or the store?
Why do brides wear virgin white?
Most do not deserve that right.
But to choose a color of their delight
Would surely bring on the frowns.
To defy the laws of tradition
Is a crusade only of the brave.
Suppose the taxman, he comes to town,
And you don’t lay your money down.
Yet Mr. Jones he killed Mr. Brown the other day.
Well I wonder, who’s gonna go to Hell.

-"To Defy the Laws of Tradition" by Primus from their "Frizzle Fry" album

U.S. Government Loses $245 Million Dollars in Welfare-State Scam!

2005-10-18T00:45:00.000-04:00

$1 Out of $5 in 9/11 Loans in Default

By FRANK BASS, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 17, 7:54 PM ET

Roughly $1 of every $5 in loans the Small Business Administration directly made to companies hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks has fallen into default, leaving the government with an uphill effort to recover millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

The agency is just now learning about the magnitude of businesses that went under or stopped making payments. Its Sept. 11 direct disaster loan program often gave recipients two years before their first payments were due, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The SBA directly lent $1.2 billion to more than 10,000 companies that made specific arguments about how their businesses were hurt by the suicide hijackings in 2001 that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon in suburban Washington. A plane bound for Washington crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

Of that amount, $245 million is in default, the records show. The SBA investigators consider a loan in default if it has been charged off or liquidated or is more than 60 days delinquent.

SBA officials say they have written off less than $10 million of the default total and will make strong efforts to recover much of the rest of the money by collecting collateral, negotiating settlements with borrowers, or bringing delinquent loans up to date.

The $245 million "does not represent the actual loss to the government, which, because of settlements and recoveries on collateral, will be less than this amount," SBA spokesman Michael Stamler said.

Among the loans already written off, taxpayers are picking up the tab for a $992,000 loan made to an Atlanta hotel; $986,000 to a Florida boat dealer; $620,000 to a Maine broccoli farm; and $38,900 to a Lubbock, Texas, computer store.

Even some who are making their payments are concerned about their recovery.

"Business just isn't doing as well as it was in the past," said Winnie Mou, owner of Manhattan Travel Inc., located about a mile from the World Trade Center site. Her company began paying back its $11,600 loan last year.

Rep. Nydia Velazquez (news, bio, voting record), who represents New York City and is the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, wants the SBA to extend the period of time before companies are required to make loan payments, hoping to ease the burden.

"A lot of these companies are just beginning to have to pay back their loans," said Velazquez. "What is the government going to tell them when they can't?"

A second SBA-backed Sept. 11 program, which guaranteed loans made by banks to businesses across the country more broadly hurt by the economic downturn, has a much smaller default rate, records show.

Of the $3.7 billion lent by the Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief program, only $191 million has been charged off or liquidated or become 60 days overdue. That's a 5 percent default, compared to 20 percent for the SBA's direct lending program.

Historically, other government disaster lending programs have written off about 5 percent of loans. The largest SBA write-off in the last quarter-century came in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when taxpayers absorbed $122 million of $356 million in loans, slightly more than a third.

The SBA loan programs received increased scrutiny from Congress and elsewhere after an AP story in September disclosed that some companies with Sept. 11 relief loans from banks under the STAR program weren't harmed by the attacks and didn't even know their money was being drawn from the program.

AP also reported that some businesses far removed from New York and Washington — like a Utah dog boutique and a Virgin Islands perfume bar — got loans directly from the SBA while businesses closer to the World Trade Center were either turned down or unaware of the aid.

The SBA says that while some loans might have been made in haste, the agency is vigorously prosecuting people who obtained tax dollars or loan guarantees under false pretenses.

In June, for example, a former New York attorney pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering after receiving a $247,000 SBA loan. The attorney claimed his offices at 40 Wall Street were damaged by the Sept. 11 attacks and the firm lost clients as a result.

A joint investigation with the IRS found that the firm's offices had never been located at that address.

Associated Press Writer Dirk Lammers in Sioux Falls, S.D., contributed to this report.

Indiana: Legislating Gross Immorality- A Woman's Body Comes Closer to Becoming the Property of the State

2005-10-08T11:37:00.000-04:00

If this bill in the Indiana Legislature becomes law, it would make it a crime for a woman to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy, such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, without court approval- a sanction that forces a woman to be married in order to be officially (and legally) eligible for this process.

-etw

In Celebration of Vulgarity, Man's Natural Roots, and Freedom!

2005-09-25T22:20:00.000-04:00

I really enjoyed Natalie Angier's article "Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore" because it brings the world back to reality with regards to so-called issues of obscenity and decency in our society; especially since the current U.S. government administration has begun fighting an authoritarian domestic war, using taxpayer money, against such frivolous behavior... I do agree with her that decency is a fallacy. I do think that this is just one of many tactics used by so many in our society to control another person. Just as philosopher Eric Hoffer says below, it is much easier for a person who lacks personal responsibility, integrity, and a rational ethical disposition to suppress the things in others that remind him or her of their own inadequacies, personal failures, and things that they wish not to see...

"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."

-Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, page 14.

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice."

-John Adams

"Every race determines for itself what indecencies are. Nature knows no indecencies; Man invents them."

-Mark Twain

Roman Catholic Pope (Church) Is Above Accountability

2005-09-20T20:14:00.000-04:00

Apparently, the diplomatic relations between the United States and the Roman Catholic Church-State of Rome are more important than for their leader, Pope Benedict XVI, to be held accountable for hiding the unethical actions (molestation) of a past subordinate of his...

Oh, but the U.S. government will persevere in obtaining an extradition and prosecution of a Canadian citizen for mailing hemp seeds into the U.S. ...

-etw

U.S. Says Pope Immune From Abuse Suits

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press WriterTue Sep 20, 3:46 PM ET

The U.S. Justice Department has told a Texas court that a lawsuit accusing Pope Benedict XVI of conspiring to cover up the sexual molestation of three boys by a seminarian should be dismissed because the pontiff enjoys immunity as head of state of the Holy See.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Peter Keisler said in Monday's filing that allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests."

There was no immediate ruling from Judge Lee Rosenthal of the U.S. District Court for the southern district of Texas in Houston. However, U.S. courts have been bound by such "suggestion of immunity" motions submitted by the government, Keisler's filing says.

A 1994 lawsuit against Pope John Paul II, also filed in Texas, was dismissed after the U.S. government filed a similar motion.

Keisler's motion was not unexpected, as the Vatican Embassy in Washington had asked the U.S. government to issue the immunity suggestion and do everything it could to get the case dismissed.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit by three plaintiffs who allege that Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, a Colombian-born seminarian on assignment at St. Francis de Sales church in Houston, molested them during counseling sessions in the church in the mid-1990s.

Patino-Arango has been indicted in a criminal case by a grand jury in Harris County, Texas, and is a fugitive from justice.

The lawsuit alleges Ratzinger, who headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before becoming pope, was involved in a conspiracy to hide Patino-Arango's crimes and help him escape prosecution.

The lawsuit cites a May 18, 2001, letter from Ratzinger written in Latin to bishops around the world, explaining that "grave" crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors would be handled by his congregation and that the proceedings of special church tribunals handling the cases were subject to "pontifical secret."

Daniel Shea, attorney for one of the plaintiffs, has said such secret proceedings amounted to a conspiracy to cover up the crimes.

The Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have insisted the secret church procedures in the sex abuse case were not designed to cover up abuse nor to prevent victims from reporting crimes to law enforcement authorities. The document deals with church law — not keeping secrets from secular authorities, they say.

The pope's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, said Tuesday it was "appropriate" the Justice Department had determined the pope was "the sitting head of state of the Holy See."

In a telephone interview, Lena said the motion would now be considered by the Texas court, "which should be bound by the executive's determination" and rule accordingly.

Many lawsuits stemming from the U.S. church sex abuse crisis have named the pope, the Vatican and other high-ranking church officials, but they failed because the officials could never be served with the papers. This case got further than most because Ratzinger was actually served with the documents.

Shea said Tuesday he would challenge the constitutionality of the U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Holy See on the grounds that it goes against the First Amendment's "establishment clause" that bars any laws respecting the establishment of religion.

Shea noted that in trying to have the case dismissed, Ratzinger's lawyers have already admitted in court papers that the Holy See is a church. A May 26 motion to dismiss the suit, citing the First Amendment, says the case should be thrown out because it would "invite court intrusion into the internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church."

However, legal experts said such a challenge would be difficult to win, partly because previous challenges have failed and because the U.S. has maintained diplomatic relations with the Vatican since 1984.

"The courts have become a lot less interested in the establishment clause in the last few years," said Kent Greenawalt, a professor of First Amendment and legal philosophy at Columbia Law School.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See said they were familiar with the case but had no other immediate comment. The Vatican said it had no comment.

Along with the pope, the lawsuit names as defendants Patino-Arango, the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza and the Rev. William Pickhard, Patino-Arango's vocational director.

2005-09-17T16:00:00.000-04:00

"That is the idea - that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion."

-Bertrand Russell

The Welfare State Forces Support for Christianity In Colorado

2005-09-11T19:19:00.000-04:00

Corporate Welfare for Jesus
by Ari Armstrong
Boulder Weekly
September 8-15, 2005

Whom would Jesus tax? Taxes for Jesus. Welfare for God. You're paying $115,200 in taxes to a Christian publisher in Loveland called Group Publishing, Inc. ACLU lawyers practically have a coronary every time a teacher whispers "God" in a classroom, yet the state is forcing all Colorado taxpayers to subsidize Christian proselytizing.

It's a practice even many Christians find offensive. Fellow Weekly columnist Wayne Laugesen, a Catholic, said, "That's the last thing on Earth that you want. You don't want the state sticking its tentacles into religion. I want the state out of my religion."

The Economic Development Commission's 2004 activity report notes that Group Publishing "was founded in 1974 when Tom Shultz [actually spelled 'Schultz'] (now CEO) began to publish church ministry resources from his apartment in Loveland, Colo. Today, Group Publishing has grown to over 250 employees and sells its materials throughout the world... The EDC approved an incentive grant in the amount of up to $64,000..." The grant is listed as "pending" in that document.

The EDC's report also lists a $51,200 grant from Colorado First, another tax-funded bureaucracy.

The website for Group Publishing—www.grouppublishing.com—notes that Schultz's mission was to help people "experience a genuine, life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ" and "help people experience God's love."

The website also states, "We're on a mission from God... to help people build their friendship with Jesus Christ... to help churches apply more effective methods of Bible learning and ministry... to provide real ways for people to serve God and others... to help people of all ages actually experience God and grow a lasting faith."

Serve God or else, ultimately, armed agents will seize your property and, if you resist, throw you in jail or kill you. "I was sent by Jesus, and I'm here to help you." You're going to feel Jesus's love whether you want to or not.

The Jesus tax is wrong on two main levels. First, Jefferson desired a "wall of separation between church and state." He also said, "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Forcing people to fund the ideas of Group Publishing, Inc., is a violation of their rights of property and free speech.

On a broader level, corporate welfare is inherently wrong. People should not be forced to subsidize any business. The proper role of government is to protect individual rights, not forcibly redistribute funds to special interests.

If enough people like what a business has to offer, that business will succeed without corporate welfare. If a business is unsuccessful at attracting customers, then it should not be propped up by subsidies. Corporate welfare destroys wealth by redistributing resources from higher-valued uses to lower-valued uses. And corporate welfare violates the individual's right to spend his or her income.

I was unsuccessful in reaching Schultz. However, Bill Korte, vice president of marketing and sales, returned my call.

Korte said, "Group publishes resources and offers services to churches. That's what we do."
I asked, "Would you consider your business to be successful?" He said, "Yes... We currently employ around 350 people."

Korte said the grants, in part, "were for training for employees." At the time of the call, he didn't know if his corporation has received the grant money yet.

"So what are your company's general views on corporate welfare?" I asked.

Korte said, "We basically are able to, each year, tithe from our profits, and give back to the local community, to the general churches across the country, as well as internationally. So each year we do give back."

Me: "OK, that's great, but that wasn't my question."

Korte: "OK."

Me: "So what are your views or your company's views on corporate welfare?"

Korte: "Corporate welfare. You define that for me, and then I'll answer."

Me: "Well, it's money that the state gives to a corporation, such as Group Publishing, Inc."

Korte: "Our view would be if we are providing services that benefit Colorado, then it would be something that we would participate in, and see if, in the eyes of those who have the grants, we qualify for."

Me: "So Thomas Jefferson said the following: 'To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.' Do you agree or disagree with Mr. Jefferson that to take money for this sort of corporate welfare is sinful?"

Korte: "I guess I would have no comment on it."

How about this for a comment? "Thou shalt not steal."

Every profitable business offers a beneficial service. But most beneficial Colorado businesses are not subsidized by the state. Only politically favored businesses get corporate welfare.

But Group Publishing, Inc., is certainly not alone. The same year EDC also approved grants for Kodak, Munich Air Service, ProLogis Inc., Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc., Stanley Aviation Corporation, and others.

Evan Metcalf of EDC says that, from 2001 through 2004, EDC approved grants totaling $11,948,041, though about $2 million of that money was later withdrawn or returned.

And because we pay so much in corporate welfare, now some politicians want to raise our taxes even higher.

Mass Media and the Repression of an Individual's Intellect In Society

2005-09-05T20:23:00.000-04:00

“When did it all start, you ask, this job of yours, how did it come about, where, when? Well, I’d say it really got started around a thing called the Civil War. Even though our rule book claims it was founded earlier. The fact is we didn’t get along well until photography came into its own. Then – motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass."

"And because they had mass, they became simpler,” said Beatty. “Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of pastepudding norm, do you follow me?"

"Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending."

"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet… whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more."

"Speed up the film… quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom... Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in midair, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!"

"School is shortened, discipline is relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"

"The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour."

"Empty the theaters save for clowns and furnish the rooms with glass walls and pretty colors running up and down the walls like confetti or blood or sherry or sauterne…"

"…More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns turn into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before."

"Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can still be happy all of the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals."

"…with school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word ‘intellectual,’ of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright,’ did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world… there were no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges, and executors…"

"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Haven’t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides them plenty of these."

"Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. Five minutes after a person is dead he’s on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man’s a speck of black dust. Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriums. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean."

"…If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ that they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe, which won’t be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely. I know, I’ve tried it; to hell with it. So bring on your clubs and parties, your acrobats and magicians, your daredevils, jet cars, motorcycle helicopters, your sex and heroin, more of everything to do with automatic reflex…”

-Captain Beatty addresses Guy Montag once Guy becomes disillusioned with his job as a “state censor” fireman in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, pages 54-62.

An Ironic Consequence of the United States' Intervention In Iraq...

2005-09-01T19:53:00.000-04:00

...as religious dominionism invades Iraq's new Constitution and society thanks to the U.S. Neoconservative Administration's insistance on conducting Operation Iraqi Freedom to liberate the citizenry of Iraq from their dictator; although for Iraq's women, such liberty may be short-lived and, legally, may become less than it was under Saddam's regime...

-etw

Change Might Not Be Good for Iraqi Women
By Marie Szaniszlo
Boston Herald
Sunday, August 14, 2005 - Updated: 10:14 AM EST

In a chilling irony, women may actually have fewer rights under Iraq's new, ``democratic'' constitution than they did under Saddam Hussein.

``The United States government has poured millions of dollars into democracy training for Iraqi women, and more than 1,800 Americans have died for Iraqi freedom. But it may turn out to be for Iraqi male freedom,'' said Katheryn Coughlin, program administrator for the American Islamic Congress, a nonprofit doing democracy training in Iraq.

`That's a sad return on such an enormous investment.''

On the eve of the deadline for the final draft of Iraq's new constitution, Hub Iraqis blasted attempts to replace the country's secular civil code with Islamic Shariah law, which restricts women's rights to an education, to careers and marriage partners of their choice, to divorce and to inheritance.

``It appears Islam will be a major source in the constitution,'' said Ahmed Al-Rahim of Boston, whose parents were born in Iraq and who served as adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority.

``And under Islamic law, it appears women won't necessarily be equal.''

Iraq has been governed by civil law since 1959. And that law guaranteed women most of the same freedoms their Western counterparts enjoy.

But during the past year, Shiites have applied mounting pressure to replace the civil code with Shariah, under which questions of education, work and marriage are decided by male guardians, said Coughlin.

Although many Iraqi women's groups had lobbied for a female quota of at least 40 percent of Parliamentary seats, by the time Al-Rahim left Iraq, where he worked with the constitutional committee, there was some debate whether the quota would even be 25 percent.

``The majority of women in the Assembly are just silent,'' he said. ``They really haven't spoken up.''

Their silence is troubling. Under some interpretations of Islamic law, Al-Rahim said, girls can be married off when they are as young as 9, men who divorce automatically receive custody of their children and a woman whose father dies inherits only half the amount her brothers do.

``Under many interpretations of Shariah, women have no legal identity,'' Coughlin said. ``The question is: Are they going to be treated as property or as equals?''

2005-08-19T22:32:00.000-04:00

"This nation under sedation...

This nation under sedation...

So let us not be the crops to the insects!

So let us not be the crops to the insects!"

-"Daily Ethic" by Codeseven from their "A Sense of Coalition" album

Senator Rick Santorum: American Taliban Leader Advocates A National-Socialist Transformation for the U.S.

2005-08-18T00:57:00.000-04:00

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-Sinclair Lewis, "It Can't Happen Here," 1935

If you think that President Bush, Representative Tom DeLay, Senator Bill Frist, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia are threats to religious and overall individual liberty in the U.S., here is one person who I think may be the worst of them all- Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the spokesman for the fascist Religious Right.

Santorum speaks out against all the typical issues that religious extremists have with the various personal freedoms that we Americans enjoy, such as: abortion, sexual liberty and our right to privacy, birth control, empowered and industrious women, divorce, marriage in support of the good of society and children; NOT just for individual satisfaction and happiness, and other irrational concepts of morality that seeks to control and to shackle the individual to the “collective good” of society. Frighteningly, he is quite adamant in propagandizing that the Founding Fathers' vision of American governance (and life, in general) is the direct opposite of the state of liberty that we all enjoy in the US... As you'll see, he really isn't much different from the new Roman Catholic Pope Ratzinger...

Here are some videos showing Santorum in his full Dominionist spirit:

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/This-Week-Sanrtorum-7-31.wmv

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/NewsNight_Santorum_Griswold.wmv

Santorum’s views on sexual freedom and right to privacy are not much happier…

According to the deceitful and ignorant Senator, The Pursuit of Happiness is NOT a founding principle of the United States of America…

While being interviewed on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to promote his new book, Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, Santorum asserts the following claims at the noted times within this audio clip that I take the following quotes from...

At about 11 minutes: “I believe that mothers and fathers raising children provide something unique to our society and should be higher valued than other families.”

At about 12 minutes and 40 seconds, “…the real village is the community, is the neighborhood, is the Church, is the local community around the individual who actually knows the name of the people in the community, who actually identifies this person. What I see as the real village of ‘The Left’ is not the real village, it is the government, it is the elite institutions, it’s the experts in the educational institutions of our society.”

At about 16 minutes into the interview Santorum asserts his views on “radical individualism” and the state of freedom in the U.S.: “…’The Right’s’ view of freedom is traditionally oriented… is traditional as our founders understood it; freedom with responsibility to something beyond yourself, a freedom to do not what you want to do; not simply choice, but the freedom to do what you ought to do. And I would argue that the freedom on ‘The Left’ has been devolved down to a word – choice – the choice is an autonomy, personal autonomy is really the rule of how ‘The Left’ understands freedom. And I use a quote throughout the book, which some of your listeners may be familiar with, which is what I think is sort of the motto of the understanding of the liberty by ‘The Left’ and it comes from the United States Supreme Court and I’ll quote it, ‘our obligation is to define liberty to all, not to mandate our own moral code. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.’ That comes from Planned Parenthood v Casey. It is the liberal view of freedom – I have the right to define my own concept of existence of what’s right and what’s wrong, it’s personal autonomy and it is not how societies function well… I would make the argument that I don’t think that is a healthy view of freedom.”

I sincerely have trouble believing Santorum that the Founding Fathers of the United States of America would disagree with the state of liberty in the U.S. today, especially considering that the Declaration of Independence written by this illustrious group proclaims in its Preamble the following:

1) The people have such unalienable rights as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,
2) Governments are established to safeguard such rights and derive their just power from the consent of the governed, and
3) Whenever a government neglects its duties, the people have a right to change it…

At 22 minutes, “…Marriage has devolved into being more about adults than more about children. I think that’s wrong too and I think we need to reorient marriage to be more child-focused as opposed to parent-focused.”

At 22 minutes and 35 seconds, “What I see, what I believe as the great reasons for laws is to make sure society continues and continues in a healthy way. That means we need to set up institutions to try to strive for the ideal, not necessarily requiring everyone to achieve that ideal, but we should have the ideal in place to give children the best chance for a healthy life.”

I keep noticing how Santorum, in this radio interview and even on the video clips that I provided, asserts a viewpoint that he has, and then he contradicts it by saying that “he has no problem if people want to hold a viewpoint that he disagrees with” and that he just wants to open up a debate with dissenting opinions, as he erroneously groups together all in ‘The Left’ to discuss how American society needs to be reengineered. What? He does have a problem with many facets of our society and does tell us this, BUT then he says “he has no problem and only wants to debate.” This is so typical of many sneaky “high and mighty” moral authoritarians who don’t have the courage and integrity to take FULL responsibility for a position that they may hold because they want to appear as NOT being a pushy control-freak, when in fact, if this clown did get more power he would do everything in his power to take our rights away and to unethically infringe upon our individual sovereignty- all in the name of the collective- in his case, the family and religion and where supposedly the government takes a backseat, which I think is quite irrational on his part. Obviously, a government is needed to sanction, through direct legislation, funding and/or by force, or indirectly through legislation and funding, that organizations – religious or non – are going to be allowed to transform the American ideal of an individual existing for their own person and not for anyone else…

Here are some quotes from this intellectually-corrupted official's appearance on The Comcast Network's "Nitebeat With Barry Nolan" on July 28, 2005:

"I don't think it works. I think it's harmful to women, I think it's harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young. I think it has, as we've seen, very harmful long-term consequences for society. So birth control to me enables that and I don't think it's a healthy thing for our country."

“I don’t believe that people should be empowered to do what pleases them the most. We have a responsibility beyond our self.”

“Particularly in the area of sexual freedom and personal issues… this is the mantra of ‘The Left’ which is ‘I have a right to do what I want to do’ and that is not the kind of freedom that our Founders envisioned, it’s not the kind of freedom that makes up a society that is devoted… to the common good.”

“The definition of liberty as our Founders understood it was freedom with responsibility… It was a responsibility to others.”

“You’ve heard of the ‘me generation,’ if it feels good do it, just do it. It’s an entire culture that focuses on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness and personal pleasure and it is harming America.”

Am I irrational in thinking and asserting that this is the path that the United States is heading down with all the self-sacrificing Christians that are in power now who truly do want to reengineer American society? One only has to observe how many officials in the Bush Administration have asserted such similar beliefs and took actions congruent with such controlling positions- acting like a surrogate parental structure. Most recently, the Terry Schiavo case being the most notable example of a government being pushed to intercede into an issue that it has absolutely no business getting involved in… However, I have to remind myself that many officials within this Administration echo the sentiments of Sen Santorum and vice versa… These folks are against individual liberty and personal autonomy… These people are in control of much of the Legislature and Executive branches and soon they will be in control of the Judicial branch- the last bastion of the defense of individual rights in the U.S.; up until now, the guardians of the Bill of Rights… The “Religious Right” knows this- just think back to the Terry Schiavo case when the courts stood against the pressure from the religiously-fundamentalist-controlled (and compromised) Legislature and Executive branches- President Bush, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Sen Bill Frist, and Rep Tom DeLay, who lead the crusade to rob Terry Schiavo of her desire to die, BUT the courts upheld her individual sovereignty, and now they (and the country) may pay dearly for this…

I will now leave you with several quotes from the Founding Fathers of the United States of America:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
-James Madison

"Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another."
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Whittemore, June 5, 1822

“Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.”
-John Adams

“The federal government is our servant, not our master.”
-Thomas Jefferson

"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society."
-George Washington, Letter to Sir Edward Newenham, June 22, 1792

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Million of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Religion, passed in the Assembly of Virginia, in the Year, 1786

"How has it happened that millions of myths, fables, legends and tales have been blended with Jewish and Christian fables and myths and have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed? Filled with the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?"
-John Adams, Letters to F.A. Van Der Kamp 1809-1816

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending to too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
-Patrick Henry

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”
-Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
-Thomas Jefferson

-etw

An Interview With Scientist Richard Dawkins!

2005-08-14T22:32:00.000-04:00

A life-affirming, pro-reason, pro-science evolutionist!

-etw

Religious Fundamentalist Becomes Advisor to FCC Chairman Martin

2005-08-09T18:40:00.000-04:00

"Martin Makes A Move"
By Paul McLeary
Columbia Journalism Review

'...Martin has hired lobbyist and activist Penny Nance as an advisor to the FCC.

As the magazine's Todd Shields writes, Nance is a long-time anti-pornography activist and has worked as a lobbyist for groups that "push for Christian precepts in public policy."

Until recently a board member of Concerned Women for America, which describes its mission, in part, as "helping ... to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy," Nance also worked as a lobbyist for a group called the Center for Reclaiming America. On its Web site, the Center claims that it "focuses on five key fronts of the modern-day culture war: (1) Religious Liberties, (2) the Sanctity of Life, (3) the Homosexual Agenda, (4) Pornography, and (5) Promoting Creationism."

The site also says that its aim is to "defend and implement the Biblical principles on which our country was founded."'

...and the religious takeover of the United States government continues unchallenged by America's governing officials. Apparently, none of these officials have the courage and the ethical integrity to stand up for America's true foundations of separation of church and state, tolerance, and individual liberty and unite against these clowns.

-etw

US News and World Report Article "Rallying the Humanists" Is Flawed

2005-08-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

This magazine article incorrectly asserts that atheism is not a vital foundational component to the philosophy of Secular Humanism when in reality it is.

-etw

Abortion Rights Are Pro-Life!

2005-08-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

I find it so contemptible how the morally repugnant concept of individual self-sacrifice is exalted by many death-seekers in our society. In this case, the issue of self-immolation pertains to a fully developed human being sacrificing her life for that of a potential human being that she rationally has the natural right to terminate if she determines that it will be too much of a sacrifice over her life...

Women deserve just as much liberty as men regardless of our differences. Just because women have a natural capacity to create human life, does not mean that such a capacity should coerce them into being a slave for an irrational, collectivist "common good" concept of morality.

Women do NOT exist as an incubator for the state!

-etw

"Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself."

-John Locke

A simple, but effective premise under which slavery is allowed to exist!

2005-08-06T20:08:00.000-04:00

"A man who surrenders his value, is at the mercy of anyone's will."

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, p.897

A Marvelous Treehouse!

2005-08-04T18:45:00.000-04:00

Retiring from his third career as a social worker, Jack Barnhart, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa is nearing completion of a five year construction project in his back-yard: an "advanced" treehouse featuring various amenities, such as electricity, water, rooftop patio, and a wet bar! The treehouse even comes with a 65 foot boardwalk- the only entrance into his oasis. Wow, I am so impressed with this man's ingenuity and creativity.

-etw

Another Bloodthirsty U.S. Government Official Who Would Rather “Get Even” By Any Means Possible Against an Enemy; Disregarding Ethics in the Process

2005-08-01T23:44:00.000-04:00

Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, several weeks ago “hypothesized” in response to a question raised during a radio interview that he would destroy Islamic holy sites, such as Mecca in response to a nuclear attack in the U.S. by extreme Islamic terrorists!

All I can say is: WTF! Although, this guy was just “hypothesizing” I question the reasoning capability of his brain because destroying sites that represent a religion and that are in a number of different countries unethically violates the national sovereignty of various nations and targets the vital foundation of millions of peoples’ religious beliefs. Are the Muslim nations of the Earth responsible for the Islamic terrorist cells that roam the planet? Much of these terrorists are located in non-Islamic states. This is like comparing apples to oranges… For example, how would the millions of Catholics globally respond if Iran were to destroy Rome in response to a nuclear strike against various cities in Iran by a radical Catholic terrorist group? What madness… Two wrongs don’t make a right, but to those who seek power, control, and domination, such an action would just be “business as usual.” I am quite skeptical if my government officials who supposedly represent the U.S. ever reverse the situation to understand how the world community is affected by the various imperialist and arrogant actions of the current cabal that rules the U.S.

-etw

The United States: The Snitch State?

2005-07-31T23:49:00.000-04:00

"Any doctrine that weakens personal responsiblity for judgement and and for action helps create the attitudes that welcome and support a totalitarian state."

-John Dewey

"Enter HR 1528 – Defending America’s Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005. Introduced into Congress by Wisconsin Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner, this initiative mandates harsh, draconian prison sentences and, most importantly, it will force Americans to inform upon each other for even very minor drug offenses.

"If codified into law, it will create a new offense for persons who witness or learn about certain drug offenses that fail to report the drug offender to the police within 24 hours or fail to provide full assistance to the police in tracking and prosecuting the offender. Offenses that would get someone a 2-year minimum sentence, including failing to report a neighbor that is storing or selling drugs when that neighbor has kids, failing to report anyone that gives a joint to someone under the age of 21, and failing to report a college student that is selling marijuana on a college campus."

In its desperate, irrational moral crusade to stop people from using all illegal drugs in any amount, the increasingly U.S. “snitch state” may come to embrace collectivism on a whole new level by usurping a vital tenet that the United States was founded upon - individual responsibility; also a key foundation of a person’s self esteem supporting a healthy and efficacious lifestyle and even a society. The hallmark of “collective responsibility” is an environment where individuals lose the concept of “free will” or freedom of choice for their actions. No longer are they responsible for their actions solely, but also for the actions of another. Such a concept is NOT what the American ideal was founded upon, but bears resemblance to the unhappy state of life that was characterized by collectivism and fear in Nazi German, the former Soviet Union, and other past totalitarian Communist regimes.

-etw

On Decency

2005-07-30T22:22:00.000-04:00

"Every race determines for itself what indecencies are. Nature knows no indecencies; Man invents them."

-Mark Twain

Will Big Brother Ensure That All Citizens of the U.S. Will Use Their Prescription Drugs As Directed?

2005-07-29T15:53:00.000-04:00

"The Act would require anyone dispensing a controlled substance to report, within one week, the name, address and telephone number of the user, quantity of drugs dispensed, estimated time the quantity should last, whether it’s a first time request or a refill, number of refills ordered and original date of prescription."

-Mike Krause of the Independence Institute

Fortunately, this initiative has not been made into law yet, but it is illustrative of the desire in the U.S. by many officials for a greater amount of government oversight into the lives of Americans... I'm sure the officials who support such a measure would say that this is for the "common good and safety of the country! Don't worry, you can trust us with your information..."

-etw

Trusting the U.S. Government With Your Personal Information?

2005-07-29T14:15:00.000-04:00

"Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people's activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the nonprofit could give us the names."

-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff

Within the same U.S. government organization, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who violated government Privacy Act regulations by secretly collecting information on hundreds of thousands of people, the current DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, desires to create a nonprofit organization, to not raise suspicion by privacy and freedom-minded citizens that a government organization would be spying on Americans, to gather more information on people to be used by DHS.

-etw

Punishing the Terrorists at all Costs?

2005-07-26T23:31:00.000-04:00

... even if they may be victims of mistaken identity! It never ceases to amaze me of the ineptitude of those in positions of power who have the ability (not necessarily the right) to infringe upon the individual sovereignty of another human! Personally, I am completely skeptical the CIA's Rendition operation in its entirety, but, what I find truly disheartening, are the mistakes that some intelligence officials are making in their assessment of who a terrorist may or may not be before the "dogs of war" are released upon them.

If this report is accurate, the United States government is not only complicit in torture, but this key piece of counterterrorism policy countermands the most important doctrine of U.S. governance- The Bill of Rights! If these were citizens of the U.S., our government would be committing a crime by compromising Article Four (Protection from unreasonable search and seizure) and Article Five (Right to due process / fair trial) in the execution of this program.

-etw

A Reminder of the Horrors of a Theocracy

2005-07-26T20:31:00.000-04:00

I realize that this is old news, but I think it is quite pertinent as a reminder of the absolute terror and oppression against individual liberty that a government founded upon and/or operated concurrently with religion can and will bring on to its citizens.

Back in March 2002 in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, police officials of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice impeded the rescue and escape of 15 girls from a burning school because they were not dressed appropriately; in accordance with Islamic law. Before these girls died, many of them were beaten senselessly back into the flames as they tried to escape...

By the way, regardless of the type of a religion that a government rules with and/or favors in much of its civic duties, Christianity can be just as extreme as Islam in its intolerance and sacrifice of all individual happiness in favor of collective appeasement and control from the fear of the unknown! Just review the Puritan era in America's history...

-etw

In Praise of the Human Intellect!

2005-07-25T00:08:00.000-04:00

"Unique among nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus."

-Former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft

The most vile of all contradictions in society is the one pertaining to the disrespect of the mind by the so-called authorities of our world- government, religion, and the media - who champion the brainless and overly emotional individuals over the intellectually (and especially, the rationally) superior. If it was not for such cerebrally-gifted people who brought civilization out of the Dark Ages and who continue to advance humankind through each generation by possessing the courage to stand by their minds and to use them, society would still exist in the gutter without the various modern conveniences and infrastructure that we all enjoy, depend upon, and that keep us healthy and living much longer than ever envisioned...

Frighteningly, as illustrated in the quote above, the so-called "moral" authority of the unified-front of the Religious Right and the Neoconservative establishment of the United States government would like to see the U.S. grind back to the days of such a nightmarish period in the history of the world, with its contempt for science, health, individual liberty, and humanism in favor of control and domination via religious dogma and faith and repression of the capacity and potentiality of humanity to live a happy and free life. Ironically, these religious zealots would still like the U.S. to exist in a pseudo-capitalist fashion so they can continue with their comfortable standard of living, without realizing that science is foundationally key to the technology that any modern society takes for granted and that intellectual integrity is vital to such scientific advancement...

-etw

“Through all the ages, the mind has been regarded as evil, and every form of insult: from heretic to materialist to exploiter – every form of iniquity: from exile to disfranchisement to expropriation – every form of torture: from sneers to rack to firing squad – have been brought down upon those who assumed the responsibility of looking at the world through the eyes of a living consciousness and performing the crucial act of a rational connection. Yet only to the extent to which – in chains, in dungeons, in hidden corners, in the cells of philosophers, in the shops of traders – some men continued to think, only to that extent was humanity able to survive. Through all the centuries of the worship of the mindless, whatever stagnation humanity chose to endure, whatever brutality to practice – it was only by the grace of the men who perceived that wheat must have water in order to grow, that stones laid in a curve will form an arch, that two and two makes four, that love is not served by torture and life is not fed by destruction – only by the grace of those men did the rest of them learn to experience moments when they caught the spark of being human, and only the sum of such moments permitted them to continue to exist. It was the man of the mind who taught them to bake their bread, to heal their wounds, to forge their weapons and to build the jails into which they threw him. He was the man of extravagant energy – and reckless generosity – who knew that stagnation is not man’s fate, that impotence is not his nature, that the ingenuity of his mind is his noblest and most joyous power – and in service to that love of existence he was alone to feel, he went on working, working at any price, working for his despoilers, for his jailers, for his torturers, paying with his life for the privilege of saving theirs. This was his glory and his guilt – that he let them teach him to feel guilty of his glory, to accept the part of a sacrificial animal and, in punishment for the sin of intelligence, to perish on the altars of his brutes. The tragic joke of human history is that on any of the altars men erected, it was always the man whom they immolated and the animal whom they enshrined. It was always the animal’s attributes, not man’s, that humanity was shipped: the idol of instinct and the idol of force – the mystics and the kings – the mystics, who longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason, that knowledge came in blind, causeless fits, blindly to be followed, not doubted – and the kings, who ruled by means of claws and muscle, with conquest as their method and looting as their aim, with a club or a gun as sole sanction of their power. The defenders of man’s soul were concerned with his stomach – but both were united against his mind. Yet no one, not the lowest of humans, is ever able to fully renounce his brain. No one has ever believed in the irrational; what they do believe in is the unjust. Whenever a man denounces the mind, it is because his goal is of a nature the mind would not permit him to confess. When he preaches contradictions, he does so in the knowledge that someone will accept the burden of the impossible, someone will make it work for him at the price of his own suffering or life; destruction is the price of any contradiction. It is the victims who made injustice possible. It is the man of reason who made it possible for the rule of the brute to work. The despoiling of reason has been the motive of every anti-reason creed on earth. The despoiling of ability has been the purpose of every creed that preached self-sacrifice. The despoilers have always known it.”

-John Galt addressing Dagny Taggart in Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Chapter 1, Part Three, pages 682-683.

Perseverance: One of the Most Beautiful Phenomenons In Our World!

2005-07-21T21:55:00.000-04:00

A Slow Chariot to the Clouds

By MARK HAYWARD

Union Leader Staff

June 30, 2005

Battling loose gravel, rain showers and exhaustion, a Pennsylvania man wheeled himself just two miles short of the Mount Washington summit on Tuesday, Auto Road officials said.

It is the farthest any unassisted wheelchair rider has ever made it up the 8-mile road.

At the worst stretch, Sean O'Neill, 39, had to lean back and move forward in a long-distance wheelie after his front wheels bogged down in gravel, said Marc Durant, a North Conway resident who accompanied O'Neill on the trek.

"It was just amazing to see the tenacity with which he was going for this," Durant said.

O'Neill, who lives in East Lansdowne, Pa., spent nine hours on the trek, according to Jesse Mosston, marketing director at Mount Washington Auto Road, the company that operates the road.

Mosston said no wheelchair has ever topped the mountain unassisted. Some have gone up the road being pushed at times, others have used a ratchet device to prevent rollback.

O'Neill's father, Tom O'Neill, walked ahead of his son, carrying a pack and supplies. Durant followed, providing water, food and rain gear. Riders in autos that passed the three cheered O'Neill on, Mosston said.

O'Neill started at the base shortly before 6 a.m. Tuesday. The temperatures were in the 80s. He made his first mile in 30 minutes.

But Mount Washington lays claim to the world's worst weather, and O'Neill sampled Mount Washington misery beyond Mile Marker 5 — a pelting rainstorm; fog-shrouded visibility of 50 feet; threatening thunderheads; wheel-taunting gravel.

It took another two hours to reach the Mile 6 marker. "OK, we're done," O'Neill said, according to a press release issued by the Auto Road. "Now I know what it takes."

O'Neill was traveling home yesterday with his father and could not be reached for comment.

Durant figures the prospect of two more miles and threats of lightning did him in.

"I thought he was going to make it, to tell you the truth, just out of shear force of will. He didn't waiver at all," Durant said.

Had he persisted, O'Neill would have faced about a half-mile of steep roadway, then a generally level stretch known as the Cow Pasture. The final 50 yards are a heart-pounding 22 percent grade, Mosston said.

O'Neill expects to find out what it's like eventually.

"I'll train, change my diet, hopefully have better wheels and start earlier. I think I can make it," he said.

So does his brother, Tim O'Neill, a professional mountain climber who spoke en route to his home in Colorado.

"That was his exploration run at the peak," his brother said by telephone. "He's an extremely tenacious, unconventional wheelchair boy — bad to the bone. Don't mess with him."

A Critical Skill That Too Many People Lack!

2005-07-21T00:32:00.000-04:00

On Sex...

2005-07-20T23:19:00.000-04:00

I have always been disgusted at how so-called authorities in our society - government, religion, and media - exalt two extremes of human sexuality: sex (and its desire) is either mindless and purposeless – solely an animalistic craving to be subjugated with anyone or a sin that alienates a person from their body; repressing and disconnecting a large part of an individual's identity and a form of pleasure that should be understood, embraced and accepted, explored, and enjoyed!

-etw

“The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think – for the same reason – that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one’s mind, choice, or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you – just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selfishness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity – an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or to fake – a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer – because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut…”

“He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises – because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him. Otherwise, the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives – and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values – and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws – and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing but boredom, and sex – nothing but shame.”
-Francisco d’ Anconia’s speech to Henry Reardon in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Chapter Four, Part Two on pages 455-456.

Bill Moyers for Chariman of the FCC!

2005-07-17T23:29:00.000-04:00

Here is the amazing speech that the journalist Bill Moyers gave at the 2005 National Conference for Media Reform where he observantly and articulately commented on the state of the ongoing consolidation of the mainstream (and the majority) of the media towards pro-Republican (and Neoconservative) bias in their analysis and the propagandization and indoctrination of the people of the United States. The most notable portions of the speech have to do with three topics I will highlight: censorship, deception, and patriotism.

About twelve minutes into this video, Moyers discusses the case of government censorship.

“The story I’ve come to share with you, goes to the core of our belief that the
quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined. I can
tell this story because I’ve been living it… As you know CPB [Corporation for
Public Broadcasting] was established almost forty years ago to set broad policy
for public broadcasting and to be a firewall between political influence and
program content. What some are doing on its board today, led by its Chairman
Kenneth Tomlinson, is too important, too disturbing, and, yes, even dangerous
for gathering like this not to address it. We’re seeing unfold a contemporary
example of the age-old ambition of power and ideology to punish the journalists
who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable… Who are they?
I mean the people obsessed with control using the government to threaten and to
intimidate… I mean the people who squelch free speech to obliterate dissent and
consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality, from which any
deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy… A free press is one where it’s okay to
state the conclusion you’re lead to by the evidence… One reason why I’m in hot
water is because my colleagues and I didn’t play by the conventional rules of
Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans,
Liberals and Conservatives and allow journalists to pretend they have done their
job of instead of reporting the truth behind the news; they merely give each
side an opportunity to spin the news."

At twenty-two minutes into this video, Moyers makes a comparison of our government influenced media majority to the propaganda-indoctrinated state in George Orwell’s 1984.

“Without a trace of irony the powers that be have appropriated the Newspeak
vernacular of George Orwell’s 1984. They give us a program vowing no child will
be left behind while cutting funds for disadvantaged children, they give us
legislation surely calling for clear skies and healthy forests and give us
neither while turning over our public lands to the energy industry. In Orwell’s
1984, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society’s
dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, ‘Don’t you see that the whole
aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you,
Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being
will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having right
now?’ The whole climate of thought, he said, will be different. In fact, there
will be no thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking; not
needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness… Hear me. An unconscious people;
an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion and
confirm their own bias. A people made morbidly obese in mind and in spirit by
the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions,
and be skeptical. Just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of
orthodoxy can kill us too."

About forty minutes into this video, Bill Moyers reviews his actions and observations that he asserted on his PBS Now show one Friday night regarding the reasons for putting a flag on his lapel.

“I wore my flag tonight; first time until now, I haven’t thought it necessary to
display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough
to vote, to pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans… It no more occurred to me to flaunt the
flag on my chest then it did to pin my mother’s picture on my lapel to prove her
son’s love. Mother knew where I stood, so does my country… So what’s this doing
here? [Moyers motions to his lapel.] I put it on to take it back. The flag’s
been hijacked and turned into a logo… a trademark of a monopoly on patriotism.
On those Sunday morning talk shows official chests appear adorned with the flag
as if it’s the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. During the State of the
Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No
administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies and the flag
bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels I
think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s little red book of orthodoxy on
every official’s desk; omnipresent and unread. But more galling than anything,
for all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their
lapel or writing books and running websites and publishing magazines attacking
dissenters as un-American. They’re people whose ardor for war grows
disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They’re in the same
league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol
Hill for tax breaks even as they call for spending more on war. So I put this on
[Moyers motions to his lapel] as a modest repost to men with flags on their
lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks or argue
that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it or approve of
bribing governments to join the “coalition of the willing.” I put it on to
remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of
Baghdad what bin Ladin did to us… The flag belongs to the country, not to the
government and it reminds me that it’s not un-American to think that war, except
in self defense, is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and
diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”

-etw

Grab the Popcorn - It's Movie Time!

2005-07-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

Pentagon strike- what really hit the Pentagon on 9/11 and what's up with all the secrecy surrounding the event?

Did the people of the United States get “the Memo?” If not, at least this issue has made the mainstream media…

Can the Neoconservatives, a cabal that efficiently dispenses with integrity and ethics in favor of utilizing fear, deception, and other propaganda to support its political philosophy of aggression, war, control, and domination, be trusted to respect global individual sovereignty, liberty, and happiness?

At least some government officials, such as Representatives Tim Ryan, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Jr, and Henry Waxman, and saving the best for last, George Galloway, a member of United Kingdom’s Parliament, have the guts to stand up and even provide a dissenting leadership to the nightmarish policies and actions of the slick Neocon tyrants.

It does suck that the only officials who seem to be standing up against President Bush and his cronies are Democrats. It appears that the majority, if not all, of the Republicans in the US are too limp-dicked to stand against the abuses of their Neocon-hijacked Party. [Recall the article I posted below regarding the 450 sheep that jumped to their death in Turkey a few weeks ago?]

-etw

...and the Neocon's Endeavor to Wrangle Another One of Their Thugs Into a Key Position!

2005-07-15T23:02:00.000-04:00

Can politician John Bolton be trusted to efficaciously act as the US Representative to the United Nations when his own principles that he vehemently stands by are counter to world diplomacy and tolerance?

Oh, by the way, Bolton’s ethical code, or lack thereof, is in question due to serious allegations levied against him asserting:

He misused highly sensitive intelligence information to obtain an edge over various government adversaries, and
His efforts of bullying and/or intimidating dissenters and his attempts at having various people fired whose policies and/or assessments were counter to his political viewpoints and policies. This includes the head of the global Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and an intelligence analyst at the State Department.

-etw

This Kid Is Adorable!

2005-07-15T12:15:00.000-04:00

This is a hilarious in-store video of a kid with lots of attitude arguing for his money that supposedly got swindled...

-etw

Patrick Henry College's Unethical Education Curriculum That Mixes Government and Religion

2005-07-14T22:05:00.000-04:00

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people."

-James Madison

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

-Bertrand Russell

"The Mission of Patrick Henry College is to prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding. Educating students according to a classical liberal arts curriculum, and training them with apprenticeship methodology, the College provides academically excellent baccalaureate level higher education with a biblical world view.

The Vision of Patrick Henry College is to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence."

It's important to note how PHC's previously mentioned programmatic objectives of molding their students' worldview through a humanitarianly just and merciful lens is inconsistent with Christianity's most important doctrinal text- the Bible, wherein you can find illustration of the following issues. -etw

"The Mission of the Department of Government is to promote practical application of biblical principles and the original intent of the founding documents of the American republic, while preparing students for lives of public service, advocacy and citizen leadership."

I'm sure the college's new Strategic Intelligence Program Director will do his best to infiltrate these fundamentalists into our intelligence community so that various members of our leadership will utilize their irrational and subjective intelligence products to influence their international and domestic policy actions appropriately. Intelligence analysis (or any analysis for that matter) cannot be objective when the person conducting the assessment has a personal goal to contaminate such work through a religious lens- a viewpoint that does not hold reason and rational inquiry in esteem, but rather elevates superstition and supernaturalism in its place... -etw

"The academic purpose of the Government major is to provide students with a systematic study of politics and government. Students learn to apply the Creator's great gifts to humanity that aid us in the ordering of civilization: His special revelation (the revealed word of His Scripture) and His natural revelation (the light of right reason and the knowledge that humans develop). Using these tools, we can bring clarity and purpose to the understanding and practice of government."

For Christ and For Liberty?

Unethical News Item of the Day

2005-07-14T20:52:00.000-04:00

Just recently, while helping his wife to deliver a baby, a guy passed out, fell, and cracked his head and died after helping steady his wife for an epidural injection at a hospital in Los Angeles, CA. The really horrible thing is that his wife is suing the hospital where it happened, claiming "wrongful death!" All I can say is: WTF! It wasn't the hospital's fault this guy got so grossed out from the environment that he had "to check out." It's extremely disheartening to read how he cracked his skull on the way down, but the hospital staff have nothing to do and cannot control how a person feels and his body's reaction to such a feeling!

-etw

450 Sheep Jump to Their Deaths in Turkey

2005-07-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

The theme of the following AP article illustrates an excellent metaphor for what "living life" means to so many people in our society... -etw

Fri Jul 8, 9:59 PM ET, Associated Press

First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam. [This is quite an accurate articulation of the current state of affairs of so many peoples' brains! haha! -etw]

The estimated loss to families in the town of Gevas, located in Van province in eastern Turkey, tops $100,000, a significant amount of money in a country where average GDP per head is around $2,700.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," Aksam quoted another villager, Abdullah Hazar as saying. "But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."

US House of Representatives Backs Down From Demanding the Air Force Academy to Cease the Christian Propagandization of its Cadets

2005-07-06T22:56:00.000-04:00

Yeah, this is definitely more evidence that illustrates how biased and compromised our government is becoming in the midst of the rise of Dominionism in the US. The Religious Wrong definitely has a lot of government officials spooked to dissent against their unethical and vehement need to bring the United States closer to a theocratic form of governance. It never ceases to amaze me just how fear controls mature (age-wise, at least) men and women...

I never did like or trust the concept of "professional politicians" because I do think that many politicians lose the principle of who and what it is that they are supposed to be legislating for: The Freedom of the People! It is so rare when there are people of integrity in Congress who stand up for the true principles of the American Dream: tolerance, private property, individual liberty, and free markets. Unfortunately, government actions are so Hollywoodized and emotionalized… it just all seems like a deadly farce in the face of all the collectivism and authoritarianism, especially as of late...

-etw

Distrusting the Legal System in America...

2005-07-06T22:22:00.000-04:00

... is easy to do when prosecutors are treated to being "above the law," and are still allowed to practice! When prosecuting attorneys and their supervising echelons care more about elevating the importance of achieving a “zero tolerance” image against certain crimes over the care and respect of the individual sovereignty of the defendant(s) in question, this is when corruption has been realized within the legal system and in the government, in general!

-etw

When Loves Becomes Idealized

2005-07-06T22:14:00.000-04:00

An essay that I wrote on dysfunctional romantic relationships and the treasonous nature that drives such vulgarity...

-etw

“If one loves, one loves the whole person as he or she is, and not as one might wish them to be.”
-Leo Tolstoy

“Only when you stop fighting the fact of your ultimate aloneness are you ready for romantic love”
-Nathaniel Branden’s Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality

As the great number of lovers in our society wonder why they are so unfulfilled,
unchallenged, misunderstood, and so incredibly bored,
it is because they possess the inability to truly connect with their mate.
An arrangement based not upon reason and respect for true experience and exploration of the other;
A union whose objective is not the celebration of life together,
but a longing for who someone could be, a blind faith resting upon one’s potentiality;
a shortsighted endurance just to experience what one likes the most about a mate.

The highs and lows of toxic relationship matching are what so many become addicted to.
The rollercoaster of infallible and utopian love;
the myopic need of what one should “bring to the table”
to appease the dysfunction of the self that is trying to hide.
Everything begins so mystically and supernaturally impeccable…
“A person who couldn’t be better because they are crazy about me,
the person who has everything that has been longed for, or
whose best and most inspiring traits are all that are needed…”
That nothing else seems to matter to the idealistically romantically intoxicated.

Ah, but one cannot outrun their self-reflection in the other for ever!
The reflection that illustrates a heinous contempt…
The disregard for the self,
for the individual in his or her entirety- both positive and negative!
Many just try to deny their inadequacies and shoo such pesky gnats of reality away from their conscience.
The disowned self is who such a person becomes,
lacking in the most honorable and noble trait of integrity to oneself!

It is for this reason that so many romantic relationships are destined to fail.
Although, they will experience the highest and most euphoric levels of superficial ecstasy,
they will also encounter the most ignominious levels of human despair,
in the grandest race of self-deception
for all a person will see in the other is the failed existence of them self.

A is A

2 + 2 = 4

-etw

One of my Favorite Songs!

2005-07-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

Free Spirit

"We've taken too much for granted
the basis that some are denied
some choose to ignore this right
while others would give up their lives.
For the chance to voice their opinions
through all of the torture and crime
lies and deception won't change the direction
of will in it's fight to survive

FREEDOM - NOT FREE - FREEDOM

Even when kept in restraint
the spirit continues to thrive
lies and deception won't change the direction
of will in it's fight to survive

Figures of oppression
breathing down our necks

FREE SPIRIT continues to thrive
FREE SPIRIT in the face of denial

this oppression, this depression
answer it with indignation"

-Written and performed by the band "Sick of It All" from their "Scratch The Surface" album

On Ignorance and Disregard for Affairs of Governance by a State's Citizenry...

2005-07-01T19:35:00.000-04:00

... who supposedly have something better to do with their time.

"In a way, the world-view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."

-"1984" by George Orwell

Precious Moments of Life!

2005-06-30T13:46:00.000-04:00

What a mischievous little rascal!

A Victory for Humanism in Spain...

2005-06-30T12:41:00.000-04:00

...and for individual rights worldwide as Spain officially legalizes homosexual marriage!

"Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy said after the vote that [Prime Minister] Zapatero has deeply divided Spain and should have sought a consensus in parliament that recognized same-sex unions but didn't call them marriage. Rajoy said that if the vast majority of countries in the world don't accept gay marriage, including some run by Socialists, there must be a reason. "I think the prime minister has committed a grave act of irresponsibility," Rajoy told reporters."

Ah, these are moments that I cherish- when government administrators stand up in the face of overwhelming adversity to support the individual rights of its citizenry against the oppressive force of religious extremism and fundamentalism... Despite how Rajoy and the rest of the irrational and inhumane moralists of the world think, feel, and maneuver, this is a rational and ethical act that those in power have the right and responsibility to fight for!

Although I am straight, I am not narrow! It is so inspiring to see, despite being closer to Rome, how humanism seems to prosper more in Europe than it does in the Western Hemisphere, such as in the United States... There are more atheists, greater sexual liberty, and a deeper respect for individual tolerance. (Sadly, there is also a higher amount of socialism, as well. It is so ironic how many people stand up for their social liberty, but think that economic controls over their individual sovereignty actually provide them more freedom... This reminds of Orwell's 1984- Slavery is Freedom... Oh well, I'll stop and enjoy this moment of positivity.)

-etw

2005-06-26T11:26:00.000-04:00

Friendship is like peeing in your pants... everyone can see it, but only you can feel its true warmth...

-etw