‘Not us. We’re not going.’

While America remains a deer stuck in the head lights, the soldiers continue to die. Here's the story of a unit that couldn't function anymore because they had been through too much. A shining example of the result of an incompetent administration. We need to get our boys out of Iraq, now.

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Dealing with Iran

While the Bush Administration, Fox News & nearly everyone in the Washington beltway is talking up how scary the Iranian threat is SNL offers a refreshing different view on Ahmadinejad.

Had Enough?

For a DailyKos diary

Enough of seeing the Constitution trashed? Enough of the corruption? Enough of the war? Enough of the gutless response of our elected Democratic representatives?

I don't think our reps read our e-mail or listen to our phone calls. Hell, they didn't even listen to the 2006 election in which we told them to stop the war. Scooter Libby is the last straw and I'm not going to take it anymore. I've had enough.

Cenk Uygur and I were talking this morning about what to do. We've decided it's time to tell America we've had enough. We'll be standing outside the Federal Building in West L.A. at the corner of Veteran and Wilshire for one hour this Sunday. If you'd like to join us, just wear a t-shirt or bring a sign that says you've had enough.

If you're not in L.A., just go to whatever the most common protest site is in your home city with a shirt or sign that says you've had enough from noon to one p.m. this Sunday. You don't have to march, chant, play drums, pass out pamphlets or build puppets (not that we're against those things). All you have to do is stand there with one word: enough.

Cenk and I don't care if we're the only two people there. We don't care because the next Sunday, each of us has pledged to bring two more people with us, and we'll ask them to make the same pledge. And we'll keep standing out there every single Sunday, doubling our numbers, from now until we've got so many people with us that we cannot be ignored.

So how about it? Have you had enough? Will you stand with us?

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The Declaration of Independence

Happy Birthday America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Can we show veterans we care?

Reasonable people might still disagree about what to do about Iraq. But this isn't about that.This is about contacting Congress and tell them the VA Colonel, James Nicholson is not the man to fix the problems at the Veterans Administration, he is part of the problem.Stand up for our vets and make a call. Don't they at least deserve that?



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Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring

A provocative medical experiment conducted recently by neuroscientists at Harvard, Caltech and the University of Southern California strongly suggests these impulsive convictions come not from conscious principles but from the brain trying to make its emotional judgment felt.

In his book, The God Delusion, Dawkins points out other examples of morality being biologically based. The fact that people from all over the world with different belief systems all answer questions of morality in similar ways is a pretty good indication that are concept of good and evil have a biological underpinning. Sort of like our ideas of what taste good and what taste bad. Fatty foods, sweet foods, salty foods are all important to survival and it's not surprising we like those things. Dung beetles on the otherhand surviving on a different diet not doubt have tastes in snacks.





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HPV isn't just linked to cervical cancer

The HPV virus, transmitted orally through fellatio, makes you 8.6 times more likely to get throat cancer according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. That's a higher risk factor than smoking or drinking heavily!

Just get the damn vaccine already.



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stop for a second

look at this picture.
1.3 billion kilometers from Earth
Saturn backlit by the sun
launched nearly a decade ago
Cassini sends us stunning images
As beautiful as anything a mind can imagine
It is humbling to remember that gas giant has been there billions of years and will continue to long after life is but a echo.

But we humans can create
machines that explore the heavens
revealing such beauty

And if you look closely at the image
to the left of the planet, just inside of the ring
you may see a tiny dot
where everyone who has ever been has lived
calls home

Bahrain preparing for US/Iran war

"Bahraini officials said the Gulf Arab kingdom has been working with Western allies to protect strategic sites from Iranian missile strikes amid any war with the US. They said Bahrain has been introducing measures to protect against Iranian infiltration and respond rapidly to any missile or insurgency strike."Another reason to go over to www.StopIranWar.com



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Clark on the Arts, economic policy, the concept of corporate welfare

Long time no see, I know.
Life has called and blogging went by the wayside.

All has been good here. With you? Great!

Listen, you know I don't shy away from talking politics. I don't even mind the "liberal label". I'm proud to call myself a democrat and there are a lot of good choices seeking the nomination this time around. I could truthfully write something good about each one of the declare candidates.

I'm holding out hope though for an extraordinary person to declare however.
Since he hasn't tossed his hat into the ring yet, Wes Clark doesn't make it on the news everyday. Heck, in '04 he hardly made it on the news even though overall he trailed only Kerry in the primaries.

But even away from the media spotlight, Wes has been busy. Along with VoteVets.org , Wes has been working to walk all sides away from the brink of war with StopIranWar.com
Before you head over there and sign the petition (which you really should do) watch this video. It's only about 8 minutes long. You'll understand why so many people think Wes Clark will be an extraordinary President.

Get off your high horse

It's human nature to believe that each one of us is special in some way.
I'm smarter than most people. I've got special insight on the way the world works. I get it.
It's a normal trait to think that in some way, we aren't normal.

It is also innate in our minds to believe that those around us have the same values as we do.

No matter how much our egos rail against it, the sad truth is that not only are the people around us just as stupid as the average stiff working the checkout line at Wal-Mart, but also you nor I would be considered the clever ones in the room- unless you tend to hang out with the retarded.

No matter how many books you read, how well you keep up with current events, no matter what degrees you hold or shiny bobbles you collect, within 70 years you'll likely be dead and the effect you had on those left alive will be miniscule. In the "great scheme of things" your life is no more important than any random member of a troop of baboons. And like the baboons, your opinions and values have little more inherent worth beyond your own comfort and survival.
"Killing is bad", "Lying is wrong", "investment in infrastructure is important" are no more of fundamental truths than "mint chocolate chip is the best flavor of ice cream". You may or may not agree those values and we can argue for weeks to come on the merits of different flavors but the universe does not care a bit and still you have just a few score years left to worry about anyway.

So what is my point?

My point is don't expect there to be a point to any of this. We all get involved in our own little diversions - I tend toward politics on this blog - but it's just a diversion. Sure there are consequences in politics, even life and death at times do try to remember that Orggk the tribal chief 65,000 years ago had no better insight in how to lead than our current proto-human President.


But what do I know, I'm just an idiot.

proud to be an american

meh.

over half of Americans surveyed have no problems with the US keeping suspected terrorist in prisons over seas where US laws do not apply.