Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war....
The world, he said, is now unipolar: “One single center of power. One single center of force. One single center of decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign....”
“They bring us to the abyss of one conflict after another,” he said. “Political solutions are becoming impossible....”
Of course the Americans in attendance were quick and vociferous in their denials and cry of Putin trying to restart the Cold War, but what they fail to realize is that this is the way he, and quite probably most of the rest of the world, see it. One of the things that the Bush administration can easily be accused of is tunnel vision and viewing the world with blinkers on their heads. They tout global economics and policies but only in the way that they want it to be. F*^# the rest of the world. We know best. We are the ultimate democracy. We are the example the rest of the world should use. We should tell everyone else how to live. We must control the world's resources (or at least set the policy.) So, what happened to diplomacy? Good neighbors? Leadership by good example? Sharing? a democratic world? if the US wants to spread democracy of any kind, shouldn't the US be doing it democratically? just asking...
Gay question is 'not central to faith' says Tanzanian bishop
THE Bishop of Central Tanganyika, the Rt Revd Godfrey Mdimi Mhogolo, has dissociated his diocese from the statement issued in December by the House of Bishops of Tanzania, the province where the Primates Meeting is to be held this month....
Bishop Mdimi goes on: "We live in our cultural context where gays and lesbians are regarded as criminals, punishable by long-term imprisonments. We also live in a country where gays and lesbians are violently persecuted, mistreated, hated, and ostracised. . . We as Black Africans know the hurts and permanent damage caused by our past experiences, which still linger on to the present. . . We have gone through that, and we don't want to go that way again."
If the day ever comes when Jesus comes down from heaven to oversee the final judgment, I would love to be there when the self-righteous wingnuts with the sweep of JC's hand they are sent to damnation for lacking christian charity and tolerance, for not keeping the commandment of love thy neighbor, and for using god's name to foster their own self-deluding agendas. I would just love to see their faces. They will be the true whores of Babylon at that moment. can you just see it?
'Air Pelosi': Payback for 5-Day Week?
One of the lesser-known aspects of the "Air Pelosi" controversy is the degree to which the fuss is payback for the House speaker's decision to hold legislators to a five-day workweek instead of the three- or four-day schedule adopted by the Republicans in the past....
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has sided with Pelosi. But GOP insiders say the issue has a lot to do with Pelosi's work-week requirements, which many legislators consider a PR stunt that imposes a real burden on them getting home to be with their families and constituents.
My job is literally considered a 24/7, 364 day position. Literally. I am on call all the time. Over the years I have been at the school at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning either with the police or waiting for the canine unit because the alarm has gone off or someone actually did break in. Most all of you probably have 9 - 5 jobs that exact a 5-day week schedule. In what would seem to me to be one of the most important jobs in our country, legislator, I should think that there would be more in terms of dedication and skill than a lot of other jobs. So, the Republicans are bemoaning the fact that they are being asked to earn their salary along with the myriad of perks that goes along with being a legislator? I mean, when the Morning Agenda starts at 2:00 pm some days, what do you expect from us? Empathy? I have only one thing to say to these legislators:
It's the job, stupid!
US accuses Iran over Iraq bombs
The US military has accused the "highest levels" of Iran's government of supplying increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraq's insurgents.
They said US intelligence analysts believed the bombs were manufactured in Iran and secretly sent into Iraq on the orders of senior officials in Tehran.
The US has claimed in the past that Iranian weapons were being used in Iraq, but have never before accused Iranian government officials of being directly involved....
Now, is this a bargaining chip in the nuclear negotations going on between the US and Iran? Or is it just plain stupid? What would be the purpose behind the Bush administration pursuing another conflagration in the Middle East? Oil? Supremacy? Cowardice? Stupidity? (There was enough stupidity in the previous post, sorry.) Oh, wait. Oil? If I were to choose one of these possible reasons, or any other one for that matter, I would probably opt for...
Stupidity!
"Who will rid me of this meddlesome president?" a la Henry II
Preacher Appeals To Supreme Court To Erect Homophobic Billboard
In 2003 New York billboard company PNE removed the sign bought by Okwedy after then-Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari wrote a letter of protest to the company.
Okwedy paid PNE Media about $2,500 to design billboard signs that quoted a passage from Leviticus: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination."
In his letter to PNE's president Molinari, a Republican, said "I want to inform you that this message conveys an atmosphere of intolerance which is not welcome in our borough." He went on to remind the company made a lot of money from billboard signs in Staten Island.
Yes, I agree that the billboard is homophobic. Yes, I agree that Mr. Molinari, the Republican, may have come close to issuing a threat, but no, I do not like what this is all about. It definitely smacks of a denial of freedom of speech. It butts up against separation of church and state in reverse: the state saying a religion can't believe/espouse something. It, also, puts the community in a struggle that we are trying to combat of using tactics that are pernicious and hateful - mainly, silencing our opponents. The right wingnuts, in their ostentatious, sefl-righteousness (twice in one blog entry) employ tactics to subvert free speech and freedom of religion, rather than freedom from religion, to push their agenda of denial, hatred, and discrimination and to destroy a segment of the populace. Even if I find these tactcs obnoxious and anti-democratic, more important, though...
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Evelyn Beatrice Hall in The Friends of Voltaire, 1906.
can i be assuaged? just asking...
Sources: New York Times, Sunday, February 11, 2007, Virtue Online: , USNews.com, bbc,com, TEXT, 365gay.com
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