Small Tennessee Town Understands Separation of Church and State

I can’t even imagine this town allowing something like this to happen… especially the Flying Spaghetti Monster… without pitching a fit.

So Condi Lied About Something? Say It Isn’t So…

Carter says Rice ‘untruthful’ over Hamas meeting

WASHINGTON (AFP)

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of being untruthful over remarks made about his controversial meeting with the Islamist Hamas group.

Rice had chided Carter for meeting with Hamas, saying U.S. State Department officials had told him such talks would not help the Middle East peace process.

But a statement from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which speaks on the ex-president’s behalf, said no one from the U.S. government told him not to meet with exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal or other leaders of the group.

“President Carter has the greatest respect for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and believes her to be a truthful person,” the statement said.

“However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true,” it said.

According to the statement, “No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President Assad or leaders of Hamas.”

Rice had said Tuesday that the United States would not deal with Hamas and “we certainly told President Carter that we didn’t think meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians who (are) actually devoted to peace.”

Following his talks with Meshaal on Monday, Carter said Hamas told him it would recognize Israel’s right to live in peace if a deal is reached and approved by a Palestinian vote.

But Meshaal said later that Hamas would not recognize the Jewish state and would insist on the right of some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.

Before leaving on his Middle East trip, President Carter placed a telephone call to Rice to describe his itinerary and to inform her of his intended conversations, the statement from the Carter Center said. Rice was in Europe and her deputy returned his call, it added.

“They had a very pleasant discussion for about fifteen minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments… He never talked to anyone else,” the statement said.

The Fight Is Pointless

Dutch police union chair: legalise cannabis

Published: Wednesday 23 April 2008 08:32 UTC
Last updated: Wednesday 23 April 2008 12:59 UTC

Amsterdam - The chairman of the Dutch police union NPB Hans van Duijn says it is pointless to fight against the supply of cannabis. He thinks it only leads to more crime and he would much rather see soft drugs legalised in The Netherlands. Further, Hans van Duijn is in favour of letting long time addicts use hard drugs under supervision. In his opinion this is the only way to effectively fight drug related crime.

Drug crimes take up a great deal of the police’s time and energy and other crime issues suffer from it, says the retiring NPB chairman. He thinks most senior police officers feel the same way.
According to Hans van Duijn, Dutch politicians are reluctant to look at the possibilities of legalising soft drugs. Under international pressure they prefer to put their heads in the sand, says Mr Van Duijn.

Now ask yourself just “who” this “international pressure” might be from. I have spoken to several police officers (a few fairly close friends from high school who are now quite high up) and by and large, this is true (however, they cannot openly admit it for fear of losing funding and having the administration attack them as unAmerican or unserious in their job).

The population, in general, has no idea about this drug and its benefits. All they know is what the government tells them. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, IF you will ONLY stop listening to the same ones who have been lying to you for your entire lives.

Pissed At Your Old Lady? Then Piss On Her Kids

Man Charged With Urinating On Child

29-Year-Old Accused Of Being Intoxicated

CLERMONT, Fla. — A man was arrested on Sunday after he urinated on a 3-year-old child during a disturbance at a Clermont home, police said.

I can say that I have never been so drunk that I wanted to piss on a child. Come to think of it, the thought of pissing on a child has never occurred to me until I read this article (h/t Jonathon Turley). I am sure there is a redneck inmate with this fool that can teach him a little lesson in excrement handling.

Trent Leaves a Lott to be Desired

As a Mississippian for the vast majority of my life and having known what an elitist crook this cheerleading dickhead has always been, is it any wonder that he has made THIS kind of money in the first quarter of this year (since starting his new crooked business)?

From RollCall (h/t ThinkProgress):

Breaux-Lott’s Fat 1st Quarter

By Tory Newmyer
Roll Call Staff
April 23, 2008

Less than four months after he left office, former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has already scored a major payday downtown. The firm he founded with former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) earned at least $945,000 during its first quarter in business, according to House filings.

Guess Which Company Is The World’s MOST Profitable?

Wal-Mart?

Good guess, but no. From Amanda at ThinkProgress:

Exxon Mobil ranked as #1 most profitable company for fifth year straight.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil takes second place on the new Fortune 500 list, with first place going to Wal-Mart. Exxon Mobil, however, was the most profitable company for the fifth year in a row, “raking in a record-breaking $40 billion in 2007 earnings.”

I made a decision last year to avoid Exxon, unless running on fumes and there is not another source for petro. Last chance, as it were. We don’t have many choices, so they have a stranglehold on this country.

Sort of like rebelling against telephone companies due to their complicity with Bush on eaves dropping and spying on Americans. There aren’t many to choose from that DIDN’T work with Bush. And those that refused end up in jail on trumped up charges (imagine that).

I swear, I would buy some alternative energy car just so I would not have to buy gas anymore and give these crooks even more profit.

BTW: if you rednecks still think that it is just a coincidence that Bush and Cheney are Oil Men and that the price of gas has more than tripled since “Mission Accomplished” then you are surely a fool.

Stand Tall for America | Senator Ron Wyden | Stand Tall for Health Care Reform

Job Lock… or have you even noticed?

My Friends –
Our health care system is broken.  That’s obvious.
It’s broken in many ways, but one of the big ways that it’s broken is our continued reliance on employers to provide health care to their employees.
But our employer-based health care system is melting away, like a popsicle on a hot summer sidewalk.
If you hate your job, but need your health care, you’re stuck.  If you want to go back to school, start a business, find a new job, or just plain quit, you’re stuck.
It’s called job lock.
Whether you love your job or hate your job, you should be able to keep your health care no matter what you choose to do.
At CareYouKeep.com, watch the 90-second video that tells Americans that it doesn’t have to be this way.
I won’t give away the punchline, so watch my video.
And when you’re done, share it with a friend.  Share it with a co-worker. 
You can even share it with your boss.
 
Senator Ron Wyden

from www.standtallforamer posted with vodpod

The Costs of War To The Children

B’Man: No… not our children, even though they WILL be paying for this mess that Bush and his crooked crew created. And yes, our children in America are losing alot… money that could and SHOULD be spent on our schools is now being spent on a perpetual game plan of keeping their children (yeah, them, the little camel jockey Muslims that don’t matter to Christian Americans…) in ignorance and turmoil.

What I believe is happening is intentional. For IF and when we ever leave and allow them to finish whatever it is they are going to do WITHOUT our puppet government and our armed forces installed to control their countryGreen Zone and finally establish the end result, the jig is up.

Another Iran was created due to our idiotic notion that their resources are ours to control. But, I believe that the game plan is working pretty much as they always wanted… or they would have done what the military leaders called for early on… hundreds of thousands of troops to handle the situation after the fall of Saddam. They intentionally DID NOT want that. They wanted turmoil and unrest and they continue to feed from that.

All the while, the children suffer:

Iraqi children desperate to learn in ruined schools

 

Editorial From Gorilla’s Guide: Before you read the text click the image to see two photos from AFP which give an idea of life for school children in Sadr city: 

• At the end of the 1980s, after pouring oil money into schools, Iraq had virtually eliminated illiteracy.
• The education system in Iraq, once the envy of the Middle East, is now in tatters.
• After two decades of economic sanctions and war, one third of Iraqi adults now cannot read
• “The school is crowded and in constant need of repairs. “The most important thing is the plumbing. The pupils’ toilets are closed because of the bad sewage, and there is no running water.”
• Schools in violent areas have shut, while schools in safer areas have been overwhelmed with children from displaced families.

BAGHDAD, April 22 (Reuters) - Even after clashes erupted in the Sadr City slum in Baghdad, Thamir Saadoun still tried to go to school, hoping it would be open. When he got there the guard told him to go home. That was more than two weeks ago.

“I miss my friends. I haven’t seen them for weeks, I want to play with them,” said Saadoun, 12.

“I am fed up from sitting at home. I want to return to school to study and to be a doctor, to treat wounded people in the future if attacks happen.”

 

The education system in Iraq, once the envy of the Middle East, is now in tatters.

Violence, a collapse of school infrastructure and the mass displacement of both pupils and teachers have turned many of Iraq’s schools into fetid overcrowded ruins, jeopardising the futures of millions of children like Saadoun.

At the end of the 1980s, after pouring oil money into schools, Iraq had virtually eliminated illiteracy.

But after two decades of economic sanctions and war, one third of Iraqi adults now cannot read, Education Minister Khodhair al-Khozaei told Reuters.

“It is a problem that cannot be fixed by a magic wand. We need more than 4,300 new schools, existing schools are in bad condition and the population is growing,” he said.

No part of Iraq shows the severity of the crisis more than Thamir’s neighbourhood, Sadr City, a vast east Baghdad slum with an estimated 2 million people and more than 500,000 school pupils but just 260 school buildings, many barely usable.

Its neighbourhoods have been a battle-zone in the past few weeks, as security forces have fought the Mehdi Army militia of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. U.S. attack helicopters constantly hover overhead, hunting gunmen.

In many cases two or even three “schools” operate out of the same school in the slum, using the classrooms in shifts staggered throughout the day.

Hundreds of thousands of people moved into the rapidly expanding Shi’ite slum in the 1990s and few new schools were built for them.

“There is no balance between the continuous growth of the population and a number of schools that is almost fixed,” said Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the education directorate for east Baghdad.

On a recent visit to the al-Khaldiya Primary School in Sadr City, raw sewage was seeping onto the ground from blocked and leaky pipes, filling classrooms with an oppressive stench.

Three separate “schools” share the same 12-classroom building — about 1,600 pupils in total — arriving in morning, afternoon and evening shifts.

“The school is crowded and in constant need of repairs,” said headmaster Ali Abid Sulaibi. “The most important thing is the plumbing. The pupils’ toilets are closed because of the bad sewage, and there is no running water.”

At the al-Fadhila secondary girls’ school nearby, 50-70 teenage girls are packed into each classroom, with three at each desk that is supposed to seat two.

“How can they understand and cooperate with the teacher inside the classroom?” said English teacher Maani al-Yassiri.