News -- November 24, 2005

US never had burden of proof: Cheney - ""We never had the burden of proof," he said, adding that it had been up to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to prove to the world that he didn't have such weapons." -- So, apparently one has to prove their innocence rather than the accusing party having to supply the proof of guilt. Now does that make sense? If you are innocent, how can you prove you are inncocent if the accusing party believes you are guilty? The answer: you can't.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1304604.cms

Piecing together the story of the weapons that weren't - "Note: This reconstruction of what happened on the road to war in Iraq is based on government inquiries, official documents, fresh interviews and other sources." -- Worth the read.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-09-02-WMD-indepth_x.htm

Newspaper gagged over Bush memo - "English daily newspaper The Daily Mirror has been threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if they reveal any further details of a document revealing US President George W. Bush’s plans to bomb Al Jazeera news agency." -- Freedom of the press my ass.
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/WorldNF.asp?ArticleID=194598

I'll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera - "If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/11/24/do2401.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/11/24/ixopinion.html

The Things That Iraqis 'Cannot Understand' - "Some Iraqis may understand that it is beyond the power of the government or the mighty U.S. Army to put an end to the insurgency. But they cannot understand why atrocities like those of Abu Ghraib and most recently of the secret jail run by the Interior Ministry can happen. They cannot understand why Iraqi and U.S. forces cannot put an end to the abduction of innocent people and the assassination of university professors, medical doctors and other professionals. Every now and then the government sets up an investigation committee to look into incidents like these, but to no avail. We know that these committees are formed, but we are never told about the outcome. So the killers, the torturers, the kidnappers, the corrupt officials, the liars and the cheats are free. We, the innocent people, have become their prisoners. This is the reality of the current situation in our country, an ominous harbinger of even worse to come."
http://www.watchingamerica.com/azzaman000047.shtml

A New Map! - "“Survey USA has just released the latest 50-state poll on George Bush and it spells more bad news. Bush's approval, in line with most other polls, pegs him at 37% while he loses more ground in individual states." -- I'm not quite sure what's wrong with Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho.
http://gaelicstarover.blogspot.com/2005/11/new-map.html

Public ignores Iraq war naysayers - "Negative press coverage of the war in Iraq in recent weeks has emphasized rising pessimism among the American public about the conflict. But a new survey found that 56 percent of the public thinks that efforts to establish a stable democracy in the country will succeed." -- Do these people live under a rock?
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051124-121037-1013r.htm

Bush critics get goon treatment - "Is the Internal Revenue Service starting to police free speech in America? Has it, in this administration of cronies and corruption, become an arm of the White House, using tax law to squelch those who would question the president? The IRS pursuit of All Saints Church in Pasadena makes you wonder if our tax agency is turning itself into Big Brother."
http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse22.html

Corporations Scared To Sponsor Natural History Museum's Evolution, Darwin Exhibition... - "An exhibition celebrating the life of Charles Darwin has failed to find a corporate sponsor because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution." -- Jesus.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/11/23/corporations-scared-to-sp_n_11153.html

Why the Sudden Clampdown on Revisionists? - "Virtually unreported by the mainstream media and given little prominence even by those outlets that have reported it – probably so as not to alert too many – recent weeks have seen a major clampdown across the planet. On both sides of the Atlantic, historians, researchers and investigators have been arrested, detained and deported to Germany to face charges of “Holocaust denial.”"
http://mathaba.net/z.htm?http://www.nationalvanguard.org/printer.php?id=6950

Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate - "A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."" -- God damn that's funny.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051122/ap_on_re_us/intelligent_design_course&printer=1

NYCLU Files Complaint Against Catholic School For Firing Unmarried Pregnant Teacher - "The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed an official complaint to the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a Queens teacher who says she was fired because she got pregnant out of wedlock."
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=10&aid=55110

The exit exam end-around - "Call me a cynic, but I think the educrats plan it this way. They wait for challenges to pass from the scene, like Prop.s 74 and 75, and then, once they have won, they literally spit in voters’ faces. The latest outrage: a plan hatched for some community college districts to issue diplomas to high school students without regard to the state requirement that students receive a high school diploma only after they have passed the official state high school exit exam. This end-around maneuver is intended to bail out our failing K-12 system, another effort by state educrats to avoid accountability for doing their jobs."
http://www.cppf.us/OnlineOriginals/Columns/2005/11Nov05/112305RH.html

Fox News Won't Show Ad Opposing Alito - "Fox News is refusing to air an ad critical of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, citing its lawyers' contention that the spot is factually incorrect."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/22/D8E1O868K.html

Terrorism threat to Net overblown - "The U.S. government gives a lot of money to fight terrorism, so cyberterrorism is hyped. I hear people talk about the risks to critical infrastructure from cyberterrorism, but the risks come primarily from criminals. But at the moment, criminals aren't as "sexy" as terrorists. We should not ignore criminals, and I think we're underspending on crime. If you look at ID theft and extortion, it still goes on. Criminals are after money."
http://news.com.com/Terrorism+threat+to+Net+overblown/2008-7348_3-5969380.html?tag=nefd.lede

Who's Afraid of Google? Everyone. - "Is the sky falling? That's how it looks to panicked tech companies across the Valley as they contend with Google's ever-expanding power and ambition."
http://wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/google.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

The Enemy in Our Living Room - "But all is not well in Bhutan. They finally became the last country on Earth to allow television in 1999, and within a couple of years, they were experiencing their very first crime wave, with reports from many villages and towns of fraud, violence, and even murder. An editorial in the national newspaper, Kuensel, put it this way: "We are seeing for the first time broken families, school dropouts and other negative youth crimes. We are beginning to see crime associated with drug users all over the world - shoplifting, burglary and violence." And here is a letter from a reader of the Kuensel: "Dear Editor, TV is very bad for our country... it controls our minds... and makes [us] crazy. The enemy is right here with us in our own living room. People behave like the actors, and are now anxious, greedy and discontent.""
http://www.faulkingtruth.com/Articles/FaulkingAround/1039.html




Quote of the Day
"We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth... for my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it."
~ Patrick Henry