Messages

For all of you who are reading this again, or for the first time, I want to call attention to the fact that I don't necessarily think the following is a great discourse or even that enlightening...I posted this because I think it is food for thought.  I believe all mankind should come together and drop arms...on the same note, however, I think terrorism needs to be stopped at any cost.  I believe the world is threatened by terrorists from sundry locales...not just the Middle East.  There are terrorists from the US as well as from Europe and Africa, etc.  The evil behind terrorism cannot be routed out and destroyed physically, let this be known...I do think, however, that there are individuals and organizations that stand out as propagators of violence and terror and I fully support those who intend on routing them out.

What is an American?

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was
actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So, an Australian dentist wrote the following to let everyone know whatan American is, so they would know when they found one.
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans." An American may come from any country in the world"

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or
Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America, they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that,
>he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs
>claiming to speak for the government and for God.
>
>An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the
>world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and
woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every
other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army twenty years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, 2001, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

Americans welcome the best -- the best products, the best books, the
>best music, the best food, the best athletes. But they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty, welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest-tossed. These, in fact, are the people who built America. Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families. I've been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least thirty other countries, cultures, and first languages -- including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So, you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did
General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao, and every blood thirsty tyrant in
the history of the world. But, in doing so, you would just be killing
yourself, because Americans are not a particular people from a
particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit and
freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

While everyone continues to debate the war, it's already started.  Psychological operations are happening right now.  The CIA is dropping leaflets, setting up contact, spying and even CALLING generals on their personal cell phones and sending emails to PERSONAL accounts telling them to turn on Sadaam right when the war starts.

The ball is rolling.  It's now a matter of when/how everything else going to happen.

On July 24, 1979 a teenage girl was lying in bed watching TV when she said she had a transportation" experience. She was not asleep and it was not particulariy late. She suddenly found herself going though a tunnel which placed her in a beautiful country landscape. she noticed flowers all around that looked like "curly Snapdragons" with soft, muted colors.
She was confronted by an Alien Family; a man, woman and child, who seemed surprized but not "very" surprized to see her there. The man introduced himself as Parz and the woman as Arna. She spent some time with them and they showed her around their city, then she suddenly found herself back in bed, still fully awake, just as she had "left" things and herself. She said the family as well as all the other 'people; she saw on her trip wore badges over their left breasts and she reproduced them here:
go to http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Alien_Writing.html
click on: Astral badges  (sorry I couldn't post the image here myself, the computer I am on at the University won't allow me to, although I will do it later at home)

I just got a new computer, yesterday in fact.  It's nothing special, although I got a lot for a little ($550 before tax got me 2.0 GHz Celeron, 40 GB, 128 DDR, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, 17" monitor, printer, speakers, keyboard, mouse, etc.)

Anyway, I want to through in 256MB more ram and get my hands on some good speakers.  Any suggestions about where to find good, name brand RAM for CHEAP?  

Also, anyone know of any good, free, downloadable CD burning software?

Let me know.  

Thanks!
-Dan

Please share you feelings by answering this question:

OBE is important to me because....

[]
Funny Posts ONLY Place:
[]
With all of the serious discussions going on all the time, I think it would be great to have an ongoing place where we can all post funny jokes and quotes.  Then, when we are feeling down or sik of hearing about the impendning doom that the world seems to be facing, we can come here and have a good laugh.

To start off, here are a few of my faorite Jack Handey quotes.  I hope you like them as much I as I did when I first read them:
(http://quotes.prolix.nu/Humor/Jack_Handey/)

If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mister Brave Man, I guess I am a coward.

Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers?

My favorite uncle was Uncle Caveman, we called him that because he lived in a cave and every once in a while he eat one of us, later on we found out he was a bear.

Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.

To me, it's always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?," you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."

I bet a real big problem in Yodeling class is people just coming and yodeling right off the bat. You see, we build to that.

---------------------

Me: The Astral is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth...to blind you from seeing that reality IS the astral.

You: What truth?

Me: That you are a slave, my friend.  Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Astral is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.


Me: You sign out of this website and the story ends. You wake tomorrow in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (a copy of Astral Dynamics is in my other hand) You read this book, among other things, and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; newbie begins to reach for the book) Remember -- all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.
(newbie takes the book and and glances at the cover...)

Michael Jackson, as you can read in the articles below, is straight crazy!  He admits to sleeping with children, claims he's Peter Pan and ran out of the hospital with his baby when it was born without letting doctors clean it.  Wait...there's more...

Michael Jackson, Too Close For Comfort

By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page C01

We could sit here and analyze the effects of stardom on a person's psyche, on the role of celebrity vis-à-vis the public obsession with wanting to know. We could do that. But most likely, you're reading this not for a scholarly treatise on narcissism and the public gaze, but because you'd like to know if Michael Jackson could be any freakier than what we already believe him to be.

We've seen the much-hyped and much-fought-over "Living With Michael Jackson" documentary (airing tonight at 8 on ABC's "20/20"), so we'll spare you the faux psycho-social analysis and just tell you:

Yes.

In an unprecedented gesture of candidness -- or was it desperation? -- Jackson opens the proverbial kimono to Brit journalist Martin Bashir, who spent eight months trailing Jackson from his home in Neverland to Las Vegas to the singer's famously ill-fated trip to Berlin. And the result is we wish he'd kept it shut.

All the more reason, many might think, to tune in tonight. Some 15 million Brits watched the documentary when it aired in the United Kingdom on Monday. ABC, not one to underestimate the American public's fascination with celebrity weirdness, reportedly paid somewhere between $4 million and $5 million for the rights to air it stateside. If it was weirdness they wanted, we'd say the suits at ABC got their money's worth. Here are a few tidbits from the prime-time freakfest:

• There's Jackson confessing that his favorite things to do are "water balloons and climbing trees." Michael tearfully recounting his father's sadism and how he'd "regurgitate" at the sight of his dad. Michael, after claiming that his youngest child's mother was someone he "had a relationship with," later admitting that she was a black surrogate mother who used his "own sperm cells."

• There's Michael joyfully recalling the day his 4-year-old daughter, Paris, was born. He was so excited, he said, he grabbed her as soon as the umbilical cord was cut, dashing out of the hospital without bothering to clean her first -- leaving his then-wife, Debbie Rowe, behind.

• Then there's a very agitated Jackson, shoving a bottle in baby Prince Michael II's mouth. The child, whose face is covered in a green chiffon scarf, whimpers as Jackson -- his leg jiggling up and down, up and down -- angrily defends dangling the child from a balcony: "Why would I put a scarf over the baby's face if I was trying to throw him off a balcony? We were waving to thousands of fans below and they were chanting to see my child, and I was kind enough to let them see."

This makes for good television, if you consider good television watching an apparently troubled individual reveal things about himself that are profoundly disturbing. One television exec, perhaps referring to Jackson's admission that he would throw himself off a balcony if the world's children suddenly disappeared, described the show as "the longest suicide note in history."

There is obviously a prurient quality to all this. Jackson's career may be careering off course, but there's money to be made exploiting the spectacle of the car wreck. It's one thing to joke about Wacko Jacko, quite another to witness a man's disturbances and his justification for them. Even Bashir -- the journalist who scored the famous interview with Princess Diana -- is at first sympathetic to Jackson, then seems to grow increasingly discomfited, admitting in a voice-over, "Jackson's behavior was beginning to alarm me."

Perhaps most alarming is his relationship with children: Children, his and everyone else's, seem to be props in his elaborate fantasy life. His first two kids, Prince, 5, and Paris, he says, were a "gift" from his wife. He wanted children so badly, he explains, that he was walking around the house all the time, playing with "baby dolls." And so his "gifts" are paraded around Neverland, docile and complacent, wearing elaborate masks that completely cover their faces. You can't see their faces, but you can see Prince's bleached hair -- with tell-tale dark roots -- peeking out from around the mask. He takes them to the Berlin Zoo, shortly after the baby-dangling episode, as a massive crowd of fans and paparazzi gather around them, shoving and pushing. The kids appear terrified. Michael appears oblivious.

Later, when an incredulous Bashir tells Jackson that Prince told him, "I don't have a mother," Jackson beams.

Then there are other people's children, like Gavin, a 12-year-old cancer survivor who sits cuddled up to Jackson, his head nuzzling against the entertainer's shoulder. Gavin clutches Jackson's hand as he cheerfully recounts spending many a night in the 44-year-old man's bed. Jackson, he said, slept on the floor. (The Santa Barbara, Calif., district attorney who prosecuted Jackson in a 1993 child sexual abuse case is reportedly showing an interest in the documentary.)

"Why can't you share your bed?" Jackson asks. "The most loving thing is to share your bed with someone." He's slept with plenty of kids, he says, including the Culkin kids, but the sleepovers were never sexual, more like milk-and-cookie deals in which he tucked the kids in.

"I am Peter Pan," Jackson tells Bashir.

"But you're Michael Jackson," counters Bashir.

"I'm Peter Pan in my heart."

And therein lies the rub.

Peter Pan, famously, never grew up. And Jackson appears like a case of severely arrested development. There is little talk about the man and his music. Instead, he comes off as the idiot savant of the pop music world, a man who can't articulate his prodigious singing and dancing talents, a man who dismisses criticisms of him as "the dumbest, stupidest thing I ever heard."

Here is a man who grew up in the public eye, and both loathes the attention he gets at the same time he feeds on it, like a vampire.

In the documentary, he confesses that his father rehearsed him and his brothers with a belt. As a teenager, when Jackson's face was stuck in the acned limbo between adulthood and childhood, his father taunted him about his looks, telling him that his nose was "huge" and that he didn't get his features from his "side of the family."

Still, when Bashir at first questioned him -- gently -- about this, suggesting that perhaps this was why he'd sought out plastic surgery, Jackson vehemently denied it, insisting that he'd had "no plastic surgery" on his face beyond "two operations" on his nose. The nose surgery, he said, was to help him breathe better so that he can hit the high notes.

Perhaps most poignant is the scene where Michael sits with Bashir in his movie screening room, watching old television of himself performing "I Want You Back" with the Jackson 5. The camera jumps from the young Michael -- cute, brown, innocent -- to the middle-aged Michael -- ravaged, white and clinging to the illusion of innocence, and that moment says more than nearly two hours of shock TV that comprises "Living With Michael Jackson."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company
------------------------------
A Neverland World of Michael Jackson
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY


artin Bashir, the British television journalist who followed Michael Jackson for eight months, should have introduced his interview floating face down in a swimming pool and speaking in a voice-over, like William Holden in "Sunset Boulevard."

Ethroned behind the gates of his private amusement park, the Neverland Ranch, Mr. Jackson comes off in this two-hour ABC special as the Norma Desmond of Motown: creepy, but almost touching in his delusional naïveté: a victim of an abusive father, of his own psyche and also of his interviewer's callous self-interest masked as sympathy.

ABC paid Granada Television of Britain about $5 million to broadcast the documentary on "20/20" Friday. If this was an effort to atone for Diane Sawyer's memorably bungled 1995 interview with Mr. Jackson and his soon-to-be ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley, the money is well spent.

Barbara Walters introduces the interview, but that is the extent of her contribution.

Mr. Bashir brings forth an older, sorrier Michael Jackson with fantasies intact but stripped of his publicity fog of marriages and platinum-selling CD sales. After assuring Mr. Bashir that he has had romantic relationships with women, Mr. Jackson later admits that surrogate mothers had his children, though he called their surrogacies "a present," and Mr. Bashir did not press him to find out how they were compensated for their gifts.

Mr. Jackson explained that he frequently invites young children on sleepovers in his bedroom and looked injured when Mr. Bashir suggested that could seem inappropriate. He denied repeatedly that his obsession is in any way sexual.

He even claimed he has had only two surgical procedures on his tip-tilted, Mitzi Gaynor nose. The ferocity of his denials, even when confronted with the entirely different face he had as a 20-year-old, was persuasive in at least one way: like the child he claims to be, Mr. Jackson seems to think that saying something makes it so.

"I am Peter Pan," he says in a soft, fluttery whisper belied by the 5 o'clock shadow creeping up his cheeks. Mr. Bashir rather boorishly corrects him, pointing out that actually he is Michael Jackson. "No," Mr. Jackson replies. "I am Peter Pan in my heart."

Whether his denials could provide fodder for future lawsuits, as they did when he told Ms. Sawyer that all the allegations made in a sex abuse case that ended in a $25-million settlement were false, is unclear. But as a public relations move, Mr. Jackson has done himself more good than harm with this latest interview.

People began to suspect there was something amiss long before Mr. Jackson dangled his baby from a balcony in Berlin last November. He may strike viewers as crazy, but insanity is a defense.

Mr. Jackson was interviewed while strolling through his private amusement park, seated before a portrait of himself as a Botticelli-esque male Venus surrounded by winged putti, and on a shopping trip for $250,000 Empire vases at a boutique in the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. However pathetic or repellent his life may seem to some, he is shown as he wishes to be viewed: as a little boy trapped in the body of Michael Jackson.

He does occasionally show glimpses of a flintier adult self. "Everybody in Hollywood gets plastic surgery," he retorted after yet another question about his nose. "Plastic surgery was not invented for Michael Jackson."

ABC is hoping that its coup will draw huge ratings, even though it is competing with special hourlong episodes of "Friends" and "Will & Grace."

In Britain, where the interview was shown on Monday, it got a peak audience of 15 million — more than watched England play against Denmark in the World Cup, and more than the Queen's Jubilee Concert. Later this month, NBC's magazine show "Dateline" plans to devote an hour to whatever happened to Mr. Jackson's nose.

Society's fascination with Michael Jackson may be unhealthy, but it is hardly baffling. Like junk bonds or fen-phen, Mr. Jackson is one of those phenomena that seem destined to be yanked from the public at any minute but are irresistible while they last.

Most celebrities have at least one disgrace that can win them a spot on a television magazine show. Last December, 21.3 million viewers watched Whitney Houston deny crack use to Diane Sawyer. ("First of all, let's get one thing straight," she told Ms. Sawyer. "Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack.")

Mr. Jackson talks about his a gruesome childhood: if true, it explains a lot. He describes how his father managed the Jackson Five through fear and beatings: "He practised us with a belt in his hand."

Mr. Bashir, who is most famous for interviewing Diana, Princess of Wales, about infidelity and bulimia in 1995, casts himself here as a character in a Michael Jackson reality show, cutting to himself driving pensively across city streets and country highways.

After Mr. Jackson denies having extensive plastic surgery, he mused, "I knew I had to return to the subject of his face before we were through."

He was in the hotel room during Mr. Jackson's baby dangling gesture, which was so reckless it made the front pages of newspapers.

"His behavior was beginning to alarm me," Mr. Bashir confided in a voice-over. He seemed less alarmed by the way Mr. Jackson traveled with his two older children, Prince Michael I, 5, and Paris, 4, who always wear masks in public.

The show weaves Mr. Jackson's famous hits "Billy Jean," and "Thriller" around the interviews as a kind of musical score of his arrested development.

Perhaps in a reflection of how much of a pariah Mr. Jackson has become, the show did not include any testimonials from his many celebrity friends, though he mentioned buying jewelry for Elizabeth Taylor.

The main signs of support are found in the weepy adulation of autograph-seekers in malls and hotel parking lots. And also in a defense laid out by one of his young protégés, Gavin, whom Mr. Jackson befriended when the boy was being treated for cancer. The two hold hands, and Gavin explains to Mr. Bashir that society cannot dictate when people must act as grown-ups.

As Mr. Jackson listens admiringly, Gavin explains, "You are an adult when you say you are."

I guess whether you are or not you are for taking military action against Saddam, the war seems like it is going to happen...for better or for worst.

UNITED NATIONS, New York Secretary of State Colin Powell, offering a steady stream of raw intelligence that included intercepted telephone calls, satellite photographs, diagrams, and eyewitness accounts, accused Iraq on Wednesday of harboring and hiding weapons of mass destruction and said that allowing Baghdad's military capacity to evolve, even "for a few months," was no longer an option.
.
"Unless we act we are confronting an even more frightening future," Powell told a special meeting of the Security Council in a highly anticipated and strongly worded speech lasting slightly more than an hour. "Saddam Hussein will stop at nothing unless something stops him."
.
Powell delivered the White House's brief against Saddam's regime in lucid, incriminating tones, describing a country that houses large stocks of chemical and biological weapons that have been tested on human beings. He asserted that Baghdad maintains a small network of elusive mobile weapons labs transported by truck and rail, and possesses an active nuclear weapons program - much of which, Powell said, Baghdad has concealed from the UN weapons inspectors who have spent the last two and half months examining Iraqi arms programs.
.
Powell, who said that Iraq's sleight of hand violated the terms of Resolution 1441, the UN decree adopted last autumn that requires Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspectors, also said that Iraq has aided terrorist groups, including key cells linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
.
"I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," Powell said. "Iraq has now placed itself in danger of serious consequences." Iraq gave no indication that it planned to change its attitude, which thus far has been to challenge White House criticisms and offer its own pugnacious responses. Baghdad's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, attended the Security Council meeting and flatly contradicted even the weakest weapons charges leveled a by Powell and UN inspectors.
.
Aldouri accused Powell of fabricating the audiotapes presented here and said "we have no relationship with Al Qaeda." He criticized Powell's presentation as nothing more than an effort to "sell the idea of war" without "legal, moral, or political justification."
.
In Baghdad, an adviser to Saddam, Lieutenant General Amir al Saadi, disparaged Powell's presentation. "From what we have heard, any third-rate intelligence outfit could produce such recordings," he told reporters. "It is simply not true and not genuine. The reason is simple - because we have nothing to hide."
.
"This is simply manufactured evidence," he added.
.
Amid speculation that the Bush administration is prepared to launch a war against Iraq by the middle of next month, China, France and Russia reasserted their desire Wednesday to see weapons inspections continue and advocated efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully. Britain, which has allied itself with the U.S. in the debate and has sent troops to the Gulf, offered strong criticism of Iraq here Wednesday and supported Powell's contention that Iraq is not complying with weapons inspectors.
.
Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who has not supported military action against Iraq, said on German television Wednesday that he believed Iraq could be brought into compliance if weapons inspectors are given more time to carry out their duties.
.
On Tuesday, Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector for biological and chemical weapons, said that the war clock with Iraq stands at "five minutes to midnight."
.
In presenting his speech, which was transmitted globally on live television, Powell was accompanied by the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, and the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte. Powell raised the curtain on his presentation by offering what he described as an intercepted telephone conversation between a colonel and a brigadier general in Iraq's elite Republican Guard last November that proved Iraq was playing cat and mouse with weapons inspectors.
.
In the conversation, the two officers banter about the pending arrival of Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector. "What do we say if one of them sees it?" one of the officers asks, referring to a "modified vehicle" from the Al-Kindi company, an Iraqi concern suspected of producing prohibited weapons. "We evacuated everything," the other officer replies. "We don't have anything left."
.
Another phone conversation, intercepted in January, just four days after inspectors discovered 12 empty chemical warheads, has an Iraqi officer from Republican Guard headquarters referring to "forbidden ammo" and telling a field officer about a visit by inspectors.
.
"We sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas," the officer at headquarters says. "Make sure there is nothing there." The senior officer then orders his underling to "destroy the message, because I don't want anyone to see this message." Powell accused Saddam himself of orchestrating the deception program through a high-level committee specifically established to spy on UN inspectors and prevent them from doing their jobs. Powell said the committee, headed by Iraq's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan, includes one of Saddam's sons as well as Lieutenant Amir al Saadi, the primary point of contact for UN inspectors and the Iraqi government. Playing on continued concerns about the exact reach and movements of Al Qaeda operatives, Powell said that Baghdad's illicit weapons programs can be connected to terrorism and to terrorist organizations. "Iraq and terrorism goes back decades," he said.
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The nexus with Al Qaeda, Powell said, originates with a branch headed by Abu Massab al Zaqawi, a senior associate of bin Laden. He said Zaqawi has a camp in the northeastern corner of Kurdish Iraq teaching terrorist operatives how to produce ricin and other extremely lethal chemicals. He said Zaqawi has received medical treatment in Baghdad and that there are also other Zaqawi brigades operating in Baghdad. "From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zaqawi can direct his terrorist network in the Middle East and beyond," Powell said. He also accused Zaqawi of providing money and weapons used in the killing of Lawrence Foley, an employee with the Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan last October. He noted that "Al Qaeda continues to have deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction" and that Qaeda operatives trained with chemical weapons in Iraq between 1997 and 2000.
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Powell presented satellite photos of the Taji weapons facility, one of 65 such facilities in Iraq that he said houses chemical weapons. He said Taji is home to 15 active chemical munitions bunkers, and that soldiers relocated munitions just before weapons inspectors arrived, indicating that the Iraqis had advance knowledge of the inspectors' schedule. He added that the White House has observed "this type of housecleaning" at 30 military sites. He also said the Iraqis have limited access to their scientists, going so far as warning them that providing information was "punishable by death" and creating a false death certificate for one scientist who was then sent into hiding. Powell brandished a small tube, noting that less than a teaspoon of anthrax had killed two postal workers in 2001. He said Iraq declared it had 8,500 liters of anthrax in 1995, while weapons inspectors estimated that Iraq had 35,000 liters and that Iraq had not accounted for "even one teaspoonful" of anthrax since then. He said that Iraq has a total stockpile of 100 to 500 tons of chemical agents. He said Iraqi informants said Baghdad has 18 trucks that it uses as mobile biological weapons labs and played a taped communiqu?of a few weeks ago in which an Iraqi officer identified as Captain Ibrahim told a colonel to remove the expression "nerve agents" wherever "it comes up" in wireless instructions shared by the military. "This is evidence, not conjecture," Powell said. "Why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't." He presents intelligence data to UN and says delay is not an option

UNITED NATIONS, New York Secretary of State Colin Powell, offering a steady stream of raw intelligence that included intercepted telephone calls, satellite photographs, diagrams, and eyewitness accounts, accused Iraq on Wednesday of harboring and hiding weapons of mass destruction and said that allowing Baghdad's military capacity to evolve, even "for a few months," was no longer an option.
.
"Unless we act we are confronting an even more frightening future," Powell told a special meeting of the Security Council in a highly anticipated and strongly worded speech lasting slightly more than an hour. "Saddam Hussein will stop at nothing unless something stops him."
.
Powell delivered the White House's brief against Saddam's regime in lucid, incriminating tones, describing a country that houses large stocks of chemical and biological weapons that have been tested on human beings. He asserted that Baghdad maintains a small network of elusive mobile weapons labs transported by truck and rail, and possesses an active nuclear weapons program - much of which, Powell said, Baghdad has concealed from the UN weapons inspectors who have spent the last two and half months examining Iraqi arms programs.
.
Powell, who said that Iraq's sleight of hand violated the terms of Resolution 1441, the UN decree adopted last autumn that requires Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspectors, also said that Iraq has aided terrorist groups, including key cells linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
.
"I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," Powell said. "Iraq has now placed itself in danger of serious consequences." Iraq gave no indication that it planned to change its attitude, which thus far has been to challenge White House criticisms and offer its own pugnacious responses. Baghdad's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, attended the Security Council meeting and flatly contradicted even the weakest weapons charges leveled a by Powell and UN inspectors.
.
Aldouri accused Powell of fabricating the audiotapes presented here and said "we have no relationship with Al Qaeda." He criticized Powell's presentation as nothing more than an effort to "sell the idea of war" without "legal, moral, or political justification."
.
In Baghdad, an adviser to Saddam, Lieutenant General Amir al Saadi, disparaged Powell's presentation. "From what we have heard, any third-rate intelligence outfit could produce such recordings," he told reporters. "It is simply not true and not genuine. The reason is simple - because we have nothing to hide."
.
"This is simply manufactured evidence," he added.
.
Amid speculation that the Bush administration is prepared to launch a war against Iraq by the middle of next month, China, France and Russia reasserted their desire Wednesday to see weapons inspections continue and advocated efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully. Britain, which has allied itself with the U.S. in the debate and has sent troops to the Gulf, offered strong criticism of Iraq here Wednesday and supported Powell's contention that Iraq is not complying with weapons inspectors.
.
Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who has not supported military action against Iraq, said on German television Wednesday that he believed Iraq could be brought into compliance if weapons inspectors are given more time to carry out their duties.
.
On Tuesday, Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector for biological and chemical weapons, said that the war clock with Iraq stands at "five minutes to midnight."
.
In presenting his speech, which was transmitted globally on live television, Powell was accompanied by the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, and the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte. Powell raised the curtain on his presentation by offering what he described as an intercepted telephone conversation between a colonel and a brigadier general in Iraq's elite Republican Guard last November that proved Iraq was playing cat and mouse with weapons inspectors.
.
In the conversation, the two officers banter about the pending arrival of Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector. "What do we say if one of them sees it?" one of the officers asks, referring to a "modified vehicle" from the Al-Kindi company, an Iraqi concern suspected of producing prohibited weapons. "We evacuated everything," the other officer replies. "We don't have anything left."
.
Another phone conversation, intercepted in January, just four days after inspectors discovered 12 empty chemical warheads, has an Iraqi officer from Republican Guard headquarters referring to "forbidden ammo" and telling a field officer about a visit by inspectors.
.
"We sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas," the officer at headquarters says. "Make sure there is nothing there." The senior officer then orders his underling to "destroy the message, because I don't want anyone to see this message." Powell accused Saddam himself of orchestrating the deception program through a high-level committee specifically established to spy on UN inspectors and prevent them from doing their jobs. Powell said the committee, headed by Iraq's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan, includes one of Saddam's sons as well as Lieutenant Amir al Saadi, the primary point of contact for UN inspectors and the Iraqi government. Playing on continued concerns about the exact reach and movements of Al Qaeda operatives, Powell said that Baghdad's illicit weapons programs can be connected to terrorism and to terrorist organizations. "Iraq and terrorism goes back decades," he said.
.
The nexus with Al Qaeda, Powell said, originates with a branch headed by Abu Massab al Zaqawi, a senior associate of bin Laden. He said Zaqawi has a camp in the northeastern corner of Kurdish Iraq teaching terrorist operatives how to produce ricin and other extremely lethal chemicals. He said Zaqawi has received medical treatment in Baghdad and that there are also other Zaqawi brigades operating in Baghdad. "From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zaqawi can direct his terrorist network in the Middle East and beyond," Powell said. He also accused Zaqawi of providing money and weapons used in the killing of Lawrence Foley, an employee with the Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan last October. He noted that "Al Qaeda continues to have deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction" and that Qaeda operatives trained with chemical weapons in Iraq between 1997 and 2000.
.
Powell presented satellite photos of the Taji weapons facility, one of 65 such facilities in Iraq that he said houses chemical weapons. He said Taji is home to 15 active chemical munitions bunkers, and that soldiers relocated munitions just before weapons inspectors arrived, indicating that the Iraqis had advance knowledge of the inspectors' schedule. He added that the White House has observed "this type of housecleaning" at 30 military sites. He also said the Iraqis have limited access to their scientists, going so far as warning them that providing information was "punishable by death" and creating a false death certificate for one scientist who was then sent into hiding. Powell brandished a small tube, noting that less than a teaspoon of anthrax had killed two postal workers in 2001. He said Iraq declared it had 8,500 liters of anthrax in 1995, while weapons inspectors estimated that Iraq had 35,000 liters and that Iraq had not accounted for "even one teaspoonful" of anthrax since then. He said that Iraq has a total stockpile of 100 to 500 tons of chemical agents. He said Iraqi informants said Baghdad has 18 trucks that it uses as mobile biological weapons labs and played a taped communiqu?of a few weeks ago in which an Iraqi officer identified as Captain Ibrahim told a colonel to remove the expression "nerve agents" wherever "it comes up" in wireless instructions shared by the military. "This is evidence, not conjecture," Powell said. "Why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't." He presents intelligence data to UN and says delay is not an option

UNITED NATIONS, New York Secretary of State Colin Powell, offering a steady stream of raw intelligence that included intercepted telephone calls, satellite photographs, diagrams, and eyewitness accounts, accused Iraq on Wednesday of harboring and hiding weapons of mass destruction and said that allowing Baghdad's military capacity to evolve, even "for a few months," was no longer an option.
.
"Unless we act we are confronting an even more frightening future," Powell told a special meeting of the Security Council in a highly anticipated and strongly worded speech lasting slightly more than an hour. "Saddam Hussein will stop at nothing unless something stops him."
.
Powell delivered the White House's brief against Saddam's regime in lucid, incriminating tones, describing a country that houses large stocks of chemical and biological weapons that have been tested on human beings. He asserted that Baghdad maintains a small network of elusive mobile weapons labs transported by truck and rail, and possesses an active nuclear weapons program - much of which, Powell said, Baghdad has concealed from the UN weapons inspectors who have spent the last two and half months examining Iraqi arms programs.
.
Powell, who said that Iraq's sleight of hand violated the terms of Resolution 1441, the UN decree adopted last autumn that requires Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspectors, also said that Iraq has aided terrorist groups, including key cells linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
.
"I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," Powell said. "Iraq has now placed itself in danger of serious consequences." Iraq gave no indication that it planned to change its attitude, which thus far has been to challenge White House criticisms and offer its own pugnacious responses. Baghdad's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, attended the Security Council meeting and flatly contradicted even the weakest weapons charges leveled a by Powell and UN inspectors.
.
Aldouri accused Powell of fabricating the audiotapes presented here and said "we have no relationship with Al Qaeda." He criticized Powell's presentation as nothing more than an effort to "sell the idea of war" without "legal, moral, or political justification."
.
In Baghdad, an adviser to Saddam, Lieutenant General Amir al Saadi, disparaged Powell's presentation. "From what we have heard, any third-rate intelligence outfit could produce such recordings," he told reporters. "It is simply not true and not genuine. The reason is simple - because we have nothing to hide."
.
"This is simply manufactured evidence," he added.
.
Amid speculation that the Bush administration is prepared to launch a war against Iraq by the middle of next month, China, France and Russia reasserted their desire Wednesday to see weapons inspections continue and advocated efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully. Britain, which has allied itself with the U.S. in the debate and has sent troops to the Gulf, offered strong criticism of Iraq here Wednesday and supported Powell's contention that Iraq is not complying with weapons inspectors.
.
Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who has not supported military action against Iraq, said on German television Wednesday that he believed Iraq could be brought into compliance if weapons inspectors are given more time to carry out their duties.
.
On Tuesday, Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector for biological and chemical weapons, said that the war clock with Iraq stands at "five minutes to midnight."
.
In presenting his speech, which was transmitted globally on live television, Powell was accompanied by the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, and the U.S. ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte. Powell raised the curtain on his presentation by offering what he described as an intercepted telephone conversation between a colonel and a brigadier general in Iraq's elite Republican Guard last November that proved Iraq was playing cat and mouse with weapons inspectors.
.
In the conversation, the two officers banter about the pending arrival of Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector. "What do we say if one of them sees it?" one of the officers asks, referring to a "modified vehicle" from the Al-Kindi company, an Iraqi concern suspected of producing prohibited weapons. "We evacuated everything," the other officer replies. "We don't have anything left."
.
Another phone conversation, intercepted in January, just four days after inspectors discovered 12 empty chemical warheads, has an Iraqi officer from Republican Guard headquarters referring to "forbidden ammo" and telling a field officer about a visit by inspectors.
.
"We sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas," the officer at headquarters says. "Make sure there is nothing there." The senior officer then orders his underling to "destroy the message, because I don't want anyone to see this message." Powell accused Saddam himself of orchestrating the deception program through a high-level committee specifically established to spy on UN inspectors and prevent them from doing their jobs. Powell said the committee, headed by Iraq's vice president, Taha Yasin Ramadan, includes one of Saddam's sons as well as Lieutenant Amir al Saadi, the primary point of contact for UN inspectors and the Iraqi government. Playing on continued concerns about the exact reach and movements of Al Qaeda operatives, Powell said that Baghdad's illicit weapons programs can be connected to terrorism and to terrorist organizations. "Iraq and terrorism goes back decades," he said.
.
The nexus with Al Qaeda, Powell said, originates with a branch headed by Abu Massab al Zaqawi, a senior associate of bin Laden. He said Zaqawi has a camp in the northeastern corner of Kurdish Iraq teaching terrorist operatives how to produce ricin and other extremely lethal chemicals. He said Zaqawi has received medical treatment in Baghdad and that there are also other Zaqawi brigades operating in Baghdad. "From his terrorist network in Iraq, Zaqawi can direct his terrorist network in the Middle East and beyond," Powell said. He also accused Zaqawi of providing money and weapons used in the killing of Lawrence Foley, an employee with the Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan last October. He noted that "Al Qaeda continues to have deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction" and that Qaeda operatives trained with chemical weapons in Iraq between 1997 and 2000.
.
Powell presented satellite photos of the Taji weapons facility, one of 65 such facilities in Iraq that he said houses chemical weapons. He said Taji is home to 15 active chemical munitions bunkers, and that soldiers relocated munitions just before weapons inspectors arrived, indicating that the Iraqis had advance knowledge of the inspectors' schedule. He added that the White House has observed "this type of housecleaning" at 30 military sites. He also said the Iraqis have limited access to their scientists, going so far as warning them that providing information was "punishable by death" and creating a false death certificate for one scientist who was then sent into hiding. Powell brandished a small tube, noting that less than a teaspoon of anthrax had killed two postal workers in 2001. He said Iraq declared it had 8,500 liters of anthrax in 1995, while weapons inspectors estimated that Iraq had 35,000 liters and that Iraq had not accounted for "even one teaspoonful" of anthrax since then. He said that Iraq has a total stockpile of 100 to 500 tons of chemical agents. He said Iraqi informants said Baghdad has 18 trucks that it uses as mobile biological weapons labs and played a taped communiqu?of a few weeks ago in which an Iraqi officer identified as Captain Ibrahim told a colonel to remove the expression "nerve agents" wherever "it comes up" in wireless instructions shared by the military. "This is evidence, not conjecture," Powell said. "Why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't."

The following is from a recent discourse by a leader of the church to which I belong.  (the full talk can be found at
http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,2043-1-2074-1,00.html  )

Anyway, healing is such an important topic because healing is vital to both our minds, bodies AND our souls.  Whenever true physically healing takes place, it has it's roots in the spiritual dimension of reality.  From the miraculous healing of a seriousy injured person to the healing that takes place thanks to medicine or good, nutritious foods, the original movement takes place in the spiritual/mental sphere (ie. Someone who is over weight sees a need to change in order to improve/preserve health, so they then take the physical steps necessary to change...but the original plan happened because they say the good it would do).

Anyway, this exerpt points out that our spirit bodies, our souls (and emotions) can and need to be healed as well.  Evil, in any form, must be abolished from within and this is one of the most important kinds of healing that must take place.  Even if you don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as I do, you can still see the truth in these words.  Regardless of your religion, belief system (or lack of), it is true that we must purge negativity and darkness from within ourselves in order to find true happiness and peace...and power.  

Here is that exerpt:

"Healing the Inner Self"

"The healing that we all so often need is the healing of our souls and spirits. This can come through a transfusion of the spiritual into our lives. The seventh article of faith states that, among other spiritual gifts, we believe in the gift of healing. To me, this gift extends to the healing of both the body and the spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks peace to the soul, and this spiritual solace comes by invoking spiritual gifts, which are claimed and manifested in many ways. They are rich, full, and abundant in the Church today. They flow from the humble and proper use of a testimony. Christ is the Great Physician who rose from the dead "with healing in his wings" (2 Nephi 25:13), and the Comforter is the agent of healing.

If we are to further strengthen the inner person, the inner self must be purged and cleansed of transgression. Companionship with evil causes our whole being to die spiritually. The spiritual tap in our lives will not turn on until all transgressions, particularly those involving moral turpitude, are purged. I refer not only to sexual sins but also to all forms of wrongdoing, including lying, cheating, stealing, and consciously or recklessly inflicting injury upon others."

By President James E. Faust
Second Counselor in the First Presidency
of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

With all the talk of war and politics I needed something funny...and I think this is funny...can you imagine how embarassing this would be?  
------------------------

MP says sorry for war game goof
By Nick Farrell [31-01-2003]
Norwegian Conservative caught playing on Pocket PC in parliament

 
A Norwegian member of parliament created a storm when he was caught playing a game on his Pocket PC during a debate on his country's military involvement in Iraq.
According to the BBC, Trond Helleland was captured on national television playing the space-set war game.

Helleland said he had been tempted to try out the game, Metalion (in which players shoot laser cannons at drones), as he checked his diary for appointments.

He played the game for about seven minutes in full view of TV cameras, which had zoomed in on him from behind.

In his defence, Helleland said that he had at least turned off the computer's sound.

"I realise it was very stupid of me ... I will not do it again," he was quoted as saying.

The chamber had been debating defence issues, including Norwegian participation in coalition forces in Afghanistan and whether to join in any US-led military action against Iraq.
------------------
Related article:

Norway MP plays PDA game during war debate
Caught in the act
Friday, January 31, 2003 Posted: 9:36 AM EST (1436 GMT)


 This is, of course, very embarrassing and should never have happened.  
-- Trond Helleland  
 

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- While parliament hotly debated the actions of Norwegians fighting in Afghanistan, one lawmaker passed the time by playing a war-game of his own on his handheld computer.

What Conservative lawmaker Trond Helleland, chairman of the justice committee, didn't know was that national television was taping Wednesday's heated debate and zoomed in on him from behind as he played.

Helleland and the game made national television news Wednesday and major papers on Thursday, drawing furious responses.

"A member of parliament sitting and playing war-games in the meeting hall when such serious questions as war and peace are being discussed puts us all in a bad light," Marit Nybakk of the Labor Party told Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang.

Among the topics debated was the use of a Norwegian fighter plane supporting coalition forces in Afghanistan. The plane dropped bombs during fighting Monday, the first time since World War II that Norway, a country of 4.5 million people, has been involved in combat. Lawmakers also debated what stand the NATO-member nation should take on a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq.

Helleland said he had intended to check his schedule on his Palm personal digital assistant but couldn't resist a round of Metalion, a war-game set in space that lets players shoot laser cannon at targets. He played it for about seven minutes in full view of cameras.

"This is, of course, very embarrassing and should never have happened," said Helleland, who claimed he followed most of the debate while he played the game.

This stuff is SCARY...just this last weekend there was the "Slammer" attack virus that infected a bunch of computers and hurt gov't servers and even shut down some 911 emergency lines.  But, as the second article points out, a bigger more devestating attack is planned and could really bring down the net for a few days.  Big deal, right?  That's what I thought...but it would actually cost the international economy BILLIONS and billions of dollars.  And besides, we couldn't post on the astralpulse!  

-----------------------------------------
Slammer VIRUS
January 27, 2003
Internet Recovering From Slammer Attack
By Sharon Gaudin
The Internet was recovering Monday from a virulent worm attack that slowed or halted Web traffic around the world this weekend.

The new worm, dubbed SQL Slammer, hit the Internet on Saturday, taking advantage of a known vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s SQL 2000 Web servers. The worm, which doesn't damage the infected machine or delete or change files, generates massive amounts of network packets, overloading servers and routers, slowing down network traffic -- sometimes bringing it to a complete stop under the weight of the attack.

F-Secure, an anti-virus company, reports that as many as 200,000 computers have been infected so far, and the worm brought down as many as five out of the 13 Internet root name servers.

The Slammer worm disrupted business around the world. Bank of America Corp. reported that customers were unable to withdraw money from its 13,000 ATM machines here in the United States. Finnish telephone service was down. And in South Korea, where three-quarters of the population have Internet access, services were shut down nationwide for hours on Saturday. Outages or slow downs were reported in Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, India and Malaysia.

But security analysts say network administrators stepped up to the plate around the world and kept the start of the business week from bringing on even more Slammer-related problems. Mikko Hypponen, manager of anti-virus research in F-Secure's Helsinki office, says administrators worked through the weekend installing the needed patch, which has been available for months.

Hypponen, speaking to Datamation at what was the end of the business day in Helsinki, says Europe experienced some network slowdowns today but they are definitely on the mend. Email was slow across a widespread area and Voice over IP telephone calls were hindered but the worst of the attack seems to be over.

"It's one of the smallest network worms we've ever seen," says Hypponen, who adds that initial signs point to the worm originating in China. "That's why it's so fast. It's only 376 bytes and that makes it so aggressive in spreading that it slows down network traffic."

Chris Wraight, a technology consultant with anti-virus company Sophos, explains that part of the reason the worm acts so aggressively is because of the indiscriminate way it attacks. Slammer spreads entirely in memory and affects the process space of SQL Server 2000 by exploiting a buffer overflow. That allows it to start running as part of SQL server itself and then the worm sends itself from SQL to as many other IP addresses as it can.

"It's not discriminating," says Wraight. "It probes everything. It causes a lot of traffic and runs as an infinite loop."

Security experts agree that while network traffic was slowed and some major businesses were affected around the world, it would have been much worse if the worm had carried a more damaging payload. Files weren't changed or deleted. That would have made the worm much more devastating.

But F-Secure's Hypponen says he suspects the "success" of the Slammer worm will lead to similar attacks in the future.

"We've never seen such a small worm spread so fast and cause so many problems," he says. "That means this could be the beginning of something. Now they see that making it small and making it fast really pays off."

White House
cyber-security chief resigns

Clarke cites 'worm' attack, warns Net remains at risk

ASSOCIATED PRESS


WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 —  Richard A. Clarke, President Bush's top cyber-security adviser, has resigned from his post and issued an ominous warning to colleagues about the destructive effects of future attacks on the Internet.    

'More sophisticated attacks against known vulnerabilities in cyberspace could be devastating.'
— RICHARD A. CLARKE
White House cyber-security adviser          CLARKE, IN AN e-mail sent overnight Thursday to colleagues, cited damage from the weekend's infection that struck hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide, slowing e-mail and Web surfing and even shutting down some banking systems. He called the attacking software "a dumb worm that was easily and cheaply made."
      "More sophisticated attacks against known vulnerabilities in cyberspace could be devastating," Clarke wrote. "As long as we have vulnerabilities in cyberspace and as long as America has enemies, we are at risk of the two coming together to severely damage our great country."
      A spokeswoman confirmed Clarke's e-mail as authentic. It was forwarded by the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center to operators of Internet early-warning centers.
      The Associated Press, citing people familiar with Clarke's plans, reported his decision to resign on Jan. 24. Clarke has spent 11 years in the White House across three administrations, and he was the president's counterterrorism coordinator at the time of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
      Clarke has focused most recently on preventing disruptions to important computer networks from Internet attacks, compiling recommendations to improve security into a "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace." In his e-mail, Clarke urged companies and government agencies to adopt these recommendations.  
Advertisement
 
 



        He said it was "essential to the health of the nation's economy and the security of the country."
      Clarke indicated he would seek a job in the private sector, after spending three decades inside the government. He worked at the Departments of Defense and State, then was hired at the White House.
      "I hope now to learn how to contribute to these issues as a private citizen," Clarke wrote.
     
      © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
     
       


 

I believe that racism was and still is wrong.  Using race as a factor in determining who should or should not get jobs is plain wrong.  No matter how you look at it or feel about it, you must admit that affirmative action is a racist policy because it uses race to determine who gets ahead or doesn't.  

Lately here in the US the topic has heated up because a number of students were not admitted to law school due to the fact they, despite their qualifications/grades, had the wrong color skin (white).

President Bush has chosen to stand up and defend these students and, of course, he is going to be labeled a racist.  It's totally absurd.
(read about this:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/01/16/11947-ap.html

Here are some articles regarding the topic I have chosen to post:
---------------------------
Affirmative Action
Affirming Another Kind of Racism

Affirmative action policies often times determine an individual's place and relative income position in society by the ethnic or gender group to which that person belongs as well as that group's "fair share" of jobs, education, and monetary reward. But is atoning for the sins committeded against minorities in the past fair to people who are not minorities in the present?

According to scholars ranging from well-known philosophers like the late Robert Nozick to minority activists such as Ward Connerly and Walter Williams, affirmative action is not just wrong -- but also morally wrong. Government quotas and state-enforced affirmative action usually harm the very people they are intended to help, amounts to "reverse discrimination," and punishes the innocent for the past inequities of the guilty.

Before we can understand the problem caused by affirmative action, it is necessary to understand the argument for affirmative action. There are two arguments for affirmative action, according to Brian W. Jones: "The remediation of disadvantage caused by past discrimination; and the desire to promote diversity" (1).

Theodore M. Shaw, a defender of affirmative action, is largely concerned with societal diversification. "The goal of affirmative action is to break the cycle of discrimination, and to enlarge opportunity for everyone"(2) according to Shaw.

But, as Jones notes, major diversification centers "such as college campuses and municipal employment have often become toxic as a result of increasing racial antagonism." For every Tracy Davis whom affirmative action has helped, there is a Cheryl Hopwood (of Hopwood v. Texas) who has paid a price. The price paid by those who are denied acceptance because they are not a minority is reverse discrimination, a plainly un-American concept.

"Our Constitution is color blind and neither knows nor tolerates class among citizens (3)," said Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. America is based upon equality of status; that is to say that everyone should be allowed the same rights regardless of race, creed, religion, ethnicity, background, or sexual orientation. Could Marshall have ever imagined that the America he knew -- the America based upon not denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws (4)" -- presently fosters inequality in the form of allocating "special rights" to "special people?"

Affirmative action is not the best way to help minorities, as even well respected minority community members admit. According to Walter Williams, a black Economics Professor at George Mason University, "We can better serve the interests of large numbers of blacks by focusing our energies on ... education, disintegrating families, and inner cities with climates that are hostile to economic development and personal safety" (5).

But not only is affirmative action not a good program -- it is also blatantly unfair. Women, African-Americans, and Hispanics are not the only groups that have been oppressed or discriminated against by the U.S. government, yet they are the only groups who claim the need for affirmative action. Why? Because there are strong, well-financed groups in those communities (such as NAACP or NOW) that have a lot of special interest power. If the case for affirmative action ever will be fully established, those who argue in its favor must take into account past U.S. government oppression of minorities such as Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, and homosexual Americans -- few of whom are currently calling for affirmative action.

In 1939, a ship filled with about 1,200 European Jews headed to Florida with hopes of dropping the Jews off in America. It was denied entrance into the port of Florida, and returned to Nazi Germany. Why? Because of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, always hailed a political hero. Are the Jews asking for affirmative action? No.

In the early 1940s, internment camps were set up in the western U.S.; they harbored Japanese Americans, who were considered barbaric animals to American standards. Are the Japanese asking for affirmative action? No. Because the Jews and the Japanese have made it in America through the only way you can make it in America: hard work, smart investing, and personal responsibility. Groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics, and women should learn from the experiences of their oppressed brethren (namely, the Jews and the Japanese).

Affirmative action amounts to no less than reverse, government-enforced racism, as the U.S. Supreme Court upheld -- both through the U.S. Constitution and through Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- in 1978's University of California Regents v. Bakke (6). "Affirmative action has also failed to reach the most economically and or socially disadvantaged minorities in our country. The fact is that affirmative action currently disproportionately helps those (middle class and wealthy minorities and women) who need it the least (7)," according to the Congress of Racial Equality, an organization led by black brothers Niger and Roy Innis.

Think about it. People are kept down because of the past actions of their ancestors. The innocent are punished because of what the guilty have done. In his essay on affirmative action, James Webb states that the isolated leaders have "mandated an equal opportunity bureaucracy in the military, government,
and even industry that closely resembles the Soviet 'political card'." In this system, the sole function is to report 'political incorrectness' and to encourage the promotion of literally everyone but him and his kind (.

The goal of affirmative action is to "improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women (9)," a notable, worthwhile and reasonable goal. Unfortunately, affirmative action often harms the very people it is attempting to help. At the University of California Davis, every 16 out of 100 openings are automatically given to minority students. What happens to white students who may be smarter than the minority students? The white students are left behind because, if they aren't left behind, "racism" is screamed.

While there are compelling arguments on both sides of the issue, it has been well over thirty years since affirmative action programs began. The time to end
them -- once and for all -- is now. Equality of status is an important concept that America is based upon. It should be fostered and taught to our children and children's children. God forbid that Americans once again stand tall for equal rights and pounce upon special rights granted to special individuals -– regardless of ethnicity, religion, creed, or sexual orientation.

Notes:

1. DeGeorge, Rob (ed.). Government by the People. Pearson Education (2002): 363.

2. DeGeorge, Rob (ed.). Government by the People. Pearson Education (2002): 362.

3. Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896), cited in DeGeorge, Rob (ed.). Government by the People. Pearson Education (2002): 360.

4. U.S. Constitution, Amendment 14, cited in Woll, Peter. American Government: Readings and Cases. Longman (2002): 470.

5. Williams, Walter. "Affirmative Action Can't Be Mended." The Cato Institute. December 15, 1997.

6. DeGeorge, Rob (ed.). Government by the People. Pearson Education (2002): 361.

7. Innis, Roy and Niger Innis. "Advice to the next President of the United States on matters of Race." The Congress of Racial Equality. August 22, 2000.

8. Webb, James. In Defense of Joe Six-Pack. Bedford Publishers (1997): 400-401.

9. Merriam Webster College Dictionary OnLine. 2000.
Read article online at: http://www.rationalreview.com/archive/guestcolumnists/aaronbiterman050102.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------

...or do you even drive?  Or do you care?

I think this is an interesting topic because here in the US, we Americans are, in my opinion, obsessed with cars.  People judge your character, financial security and success by what kind of car you drive.  Not everyone does this (and I personally think it is absurd) but it is common practice.  Is it like this where you live?

-------
I personally drive a 1994 2 wheel drive pick up truck.  It's small, fuel effecient....and to be frank, beat up.  I don't want to buy a new car for a while because for now my wife and I don't want another car payment (she drives a Ford Focus).  In about a year I am thinking about getting into a Honda (Accord)...I like Japanese cars because of their reliablility, practicality and style.  

What do you drive?  What would you drive if you could choose any car?

Child obesity is out of control, people accross the world...at least in US, Canada and many Western European countries are unhealthy.  Here are a few articles I thought were interesting.  What can we do about the problem?  Our bodies were designed to burn more and take in less....what do you all think about this?
------------
Overweight and Obesity Facts

One in three or 58 million American adults aged 20 through 74 are overweight. According to data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), the number of overweight Americans increased from 25 to 33 percent between 1980 and 1991. The survey also shows that minority populations, specifically minority women, are disproportionately affected: approximately fifty percent of African American and Mexican American women are overweight. By a similar definition, more than one in five children and adolescents aged 6 through 17 are also overweight. Even using a more rigorous definition recommended for youths, 11 percent of children and adolescents are overweight, up from approximately 5 percent in the 1960s and 70s. Overweight and obesity is a known risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, gallbladder disease, arthritis, breathing problems, and some forms of cancer.

What Is Overweight and Obesity?
Overweight is the excess amount of body weight that includes muscle, bone, fat, and water. Obesity is the excess accumulation of body fat. One can be overweight without being obese: a body builder who has a lot of muscle, for example. However, for practical purposes, most people who are overweight are also obese.
How Is Obesity Measured?
Doctors and scientists generally agree that men with more than 25 percent body fat and women with more than 30 percent body fat are obese. However, it is difficult to measure body fat precisely. The most accepted method has been to weigh a person underwater. But underwater weighing is a procedure limited to laboratories with special equipment.
Two simpler methods for measuring body fat are skinfold thickness measurements and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Skinfold thicknesses are measures of the thickness of skin and subcutaneous (lying under the skin) fat at targeted sites of a person's body such as the triceps (the back of the upper arm). Measurements of skinfold thickness depend on the skill of the examiner, and may vary widely when measured by different examiners.

BIA sends a harmless amount of an electrical current through the body, which estimates total body water. Generally, a higher percent body water indicates a larger amount of muscle and lean tissue. Mathematical equations can translate the percent body water measure into an indirect estimate of body fat and lean body mass. BIA may not be accurate in severely obese individuals, and is not useful for tracking short-term changes in body fat brought about by diet or exercise.

In addition to skinfold thickness measures and BIA, doctors also use weight-for-height tables and body mass index measures (BMI) to determine if a person is at a desirable body weight. Doctors and obesity researchers prefer BMI to other measurements. Body mass index is found by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. When a man's BMI is over 27.8, or woman's exceeds 27.3, that person is considered overweight. The degree of obesity associated with a particular BMI ranges from mild obesity at a BMI near 27, moderate obesity at 30, severe obesity at 35, to very severe obesity at 40 or greater.1 An estimated 41 percent of the population has a BMI greater than 25.1 Like weight-for-height tables, BMI does not measure body fat. While limited, these measures nevertheless help doctors, patients, and the public assess a person's desirable body weight.

The Prevalence of Overweight in the United States
Total number of overweight adults: (20 through 74 years old) approximately one-third or 58 million Americans.2 (numbers derived from NHANES III, 1988-91, which defines overweight as a BMI value of 27.3 percent or more for women and 27.8 percent or more for men)
 

Overweight adult females (20-74 years old): 32 million (1990)2
 

Overweight adult males (20-74 years old): 26 million (1990)2
 

Total number of overweight youths: 6 through 17 years old approximately 11 percent or 4.7 million children in this age group.3 (numbers derived from NHES II and III, which defines overweight by the 95th percentile of BMI)
Other Overweight/Obesity-Related Statistics
The percentage of dietary fat American adults eat.
34 percent 4

The percentage of saturated fat American adults eat.
12 percent 4

The number of extra calories a person must eat to gain a pound or burn to lose a pound.
3,500 calories 5

The percentage of adult American women trying to lose weight at any given time.
33 to 40 percent 6

The percentage of adult American men trying to lose weight at any given time.
20 to 24 percent 6

The average number of calories a person burns eating.
.023 kcal per minute/per kilogram of body weight 7

The annual number of deaths attributable to poor diet and inactivity.
300,000 deaths 8
Economic Costs of Chronic Conditions Linked to Overweight/Obesity
Noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM)
Nearly 80 percent of patients with NIDDM are obese.9 Much of the estimated $11.3 billion dollars spent each year to diagnose, treat, and manage NIDDM, including treatment for diabetic ketoacidosis, diabetic coma, diabetic eye disease, and diabetic kidney disease, stems from obesity. 9
Gallbladder disease
The incidence of symptomatic gallstones soars as a person's body mass index (BMI) goes beyond 29.10 Nearly $2.4 billion dollars or 30 percent of the total amount spent annually on gallbladder disease and gallbladder surgery are related to obesity.10
Heart disease
Nearly 70 percent of the diagnosed cases of cardiovascular disease are related to obesity.
Obesity
Obesity accounts for $22.2 billion, or 19 percent, of the total cost of heart disease. 10
High blood pressure
Obesity more than doubles one's chances of developing high blood pressure, which affects approximately 26 percent of obese American men and women. The annual cost of obesity-related high blood pressure is close to $1.5 billion dollars.10
Breast and colon cancer
Almost half of breast cancer cases are diagnosed among obese women; an estimated 42 percent of colon cancer cases are diagnosed among obese individuals. Obesity-related breast cancer and colon cancer account for 2.5 percent of the total costs of cancer, or $1.9 billion dollars, annually.10
Indirect costs:
Americans spend an additional $33 billion dollars annually on weight-reduction products and services, including diet foods, products, and programs. 10

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are we in danger of becoming nation of Homer Simpsons? Jan 16 2003




By David Greenwood Daily Post Staff

 
AFTER a day at work, people in North Wales like nothing better than heading straight for the TV remote control, popping down to the pub or gorging themselves on food from the fridge.

One of the last things on their minds is spending time in their local gym.

The striking insight into the "well being" of the region's stressed-out workforce, the focus of new research, has found that two out of three people take little or no exercise and alarmingly have no interest in eating healthily.

And last night health officials, particularly in Anglesey, which has one of the highest rates of heart disease in Britain, expressed alarm at the revelations.

Through the Calon L,n initiative, Llangefni-based Ynys Môn Local Health Group has launched its own island-wide survey targeting 5,000 homes.

Co-ordinator Mari Jones said: "We will be able to build up a detailed lifestyle study of our own.

"So far we have had 1,800 of our questionnaires returned and will be sending out reminders next week.

"Heart problems and a need to encourage people to take more exercise is among our top priorities."

Meanwhile, according to statistics from the latest nationwide Centrum Feelgood Factor Report, only 6pc of the Welsh people go to the gym "as often as they can".

Other findings include;

* Only 32pc of Welsh respondents try to eat healthily and have a balanced diet.

* 44pc cite work as the greatest cause of stress.

* 35pc relax by watching TV - the second high-est figure in the UK.

* Just 19pc, the second lowest in the UK, have a positive outlook on life.

"The study was conducted throughout the UK by Centrum, a leading adult multi-vitamin brand, and has unearthed some alarming statistics concerning the state of the Welsh population's health - especially relating to stress at work, diet, levels of fitness and attitudes towards exercise," said a spokeswoman for Centrum.

When it comes to "beneficial" activities, 35pc of Welsh respondents love a good night out with their friends, followed by 23pc who prefer to go shopping.

If they split from their partner, 44pc - the highest figure in the

UK - would turn to their friends for a shoulder to cry on while 10pc would wallow in their own misery and 13pc would immediately look for someone else.

Welsh women's fantasy "training" partner in a gym would be either Robbie Williams or Brad Pitt, while the men's thoughts turn to tennis s tar Anna Kournikova, with 28pc, with singer Britney Spears and model Elle Macpherson close behind.

 
 

Before reading this article, I just want to say that while I am Christian, if someone from another religous group or belief system gave me some token of their religion I would be pleased/honored.  If it was something I found offensive I would simply turn it down or throw it away later.  I think this kind of thing is insane:

The Case of the Offensive Candy Canes
Jerry Falwell
Monday, Jan. 13, 2003

Seven high school students in Westfield, Mass., have been suspended solely for passing out candy canes containing religious messages.

Here's the background on this case: In December, the student members of the L.I.F.E. Bible Club decided to pass out candy canes to their fellow students. The candy had attached messages contained Scripture verses and told the story of a candy cane maker who wanted to invent a candy that was a witness to Christ. The distribution of the candy and the attached literature was to occur one day prior to the Christmas break on December 19.

Members of the Bible Club decided to ask their principal for permission to distribute the candy canes during non-class time. The principal refused the request, saying that the Christian message contained in the literature may be "offensive" to other students. He then consulted with the school superintendent, who agreed that other students might be offended by the Christian message. The request was denied.

The students had a tough call to make. They believe that God has called them to share the Gospel message with their classmates. Should they abide by the school's decision or follow through with what they see as a greater calling?

The students determined that they would go ahead and distribute the small gifts, handing out about 450 candy canes to fellow students during non-class time.

After these seven students returned from Christmas break on January 2, they were summoned to the principal's office and told that they would be suspended for their actions.

The courageous young people now stand at a crossroads that could impact the rest of their lives. For example, senior Sharon Sitler, a member of the National Honor Society, is currently in the process of applying to several colleges and universities for admission and scholarships. She faces the prospect of being removed from the National Honor Society because of the school's disciplinary actions against her, which could place her at a disadvantage when she competes for admission and scholarships.

Another student, Paul Sitler, is currently a freshman at Westfield High School. He has aspirations to attend the United States Air Force Academy upon graduation. Again, the disciplinary action taken against him may result in his disqualification from any military academy.

My friend Mathew Staver, founder and general counsel at the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Westfield Public Schools, the superintendent and principal. The lawsuit requests that the policy and actions of the school district and officials be declared unconstitutional and that the suspensions be immediately removed from the files.

Mr. Staver, who is representing these students, says this case underscores several important principles.

"These students faced a dilemma in which they had to make a decision whether to compromise their Christian beliefs by remaining silent or to stand up for Christ and face the consequences," he said. "These courageous students chose to do what was right rather than what was expedient."

I agree that this case reveals the blatant hostility by school officials toward the Christian message and exposes the ignorance of these officials – who are representative of educrats across the country – regarding the constitutional rights of religious students.

Staver, who has represented dozens of students in similar cases, notes that as far back as 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that public school students do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse gate. Why should they? These students are citizens under the Constitution and are protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

The fact is, students have the right to free speech in the form of verbal or written expression during non-instructional class time. And yes, students have just as much right to speak on religious topics as they do on secular topics – no matter what the ACLU might propagate. Quite simply, school officials may not censor religious or Christian messages solely because another person might be "offended."

Virtually every day I learn about Christian students who are persecuted and mistreated because they dared to voice their beliefs. I thank God for every one of these young people. They are to be admired. I am committed to doing everything I can to make known their trials and to help them win their rights to endure in their faith.

Once upon a time Mr. Bruce's presence graced the forums...he would often add his opinion to a thread and would post his own topics, but in the last few months he has been absent.  Any idea why?

fides quaerens intellectum

I may not agree with all of these and you may not either, but here's an interesting list from newsmax.com:


Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2002

Most Corrupt Leaders of the Year

Everyone else is making year-end lists, so here's Judicial Watch's roster of the most corrupt politicians, government officials, lobbyists and business leaders of 2002.

Judicial Watch, you'll recall, is the anti-corruption law firm the mainstream media smeared or ignored during the Clinton years but suddenly embraced when it criticized the Bush administration.

# No. 1: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. "Like a modern-day Gollum, Mrs. Clinton's quest for political brass rings frequently descends into evil, from Whitewater to FBI Filegate to Travelgate to taking over 2 million dollars in illegal contributions for her Senate campaign from Judicial Watch client Peter Paul." Judicial Watch hopes to throw her ring into the judicial "Cracks of Doom."

# No. 2: Bill Clinton. The "King of Corruption" for eight tawdry years. Judicial Watch looks forward to taking his testimony under oath in the Dolly Kyle Browning vs. Clinton case and many others.

# No. 3: Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, a Republican. "The most corrupt and inept FBI Director in the history of the agency, Freeh recently suffered a blow from the Supreme Court," which refused to acknowledge his claim of immunity in a lawsuit filed by JW on behalf of Notra Trulock, the Energy Department's former director of intelligence.

# No. 4: Jesse Jackson, Democrat. "Judicial Watch sued the so-called 'Reverend' Jesse Jackson, his son Jonathan and others for alleged civil rights violations and assault and battery on behalf of conservative black activist Rev. Jesse Lee Petersen."

# No. 5: Rep. willy Gephardt, D-Mo. Judicial Watch sued Gephardt and his campaign staff for alleged assault, civil rights violations and abuse of process and other wrongdoings on behalf of Bill Federer, who ran for, and nearly won, Gephardt's House seat in 2000.

# No. 6: Democrat national chairman Terry McAuliffe. He parlayed $100,000 into 18 million dollars in the bankrupt company Global Crossing. JW is suing McAuliffe over his ties with the corporation.

# No. 7: Former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti, a Republican. "Used the Internal Revenue Service as a political weapon that would have made even Richard Nixon proud."

# No. 8: Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. "A supreme embarrassment to the nation even before his recent foot-in-mouth statement at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday, Lott was instrumental in making the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton a total joke."

# No. 9: Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J. Like the fictional (?) Sen. Geary in "The Godfather," the "'Torch' couldn't find an offer or a big-screen TV that he couldn't refuse. His corrupt career on Capitol Hill sleeps with fishes."

# No. 10: Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. Judicial Watch has filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act to expose the former Senate plurality leader and his wife, powerful lobbyist Linda Daschle, in the selection of faulty bomb-detecting equipment for the airline industry. The law firm says its book "Fatal Neglect" shows how the couple reduced airplane safety inspections and compromised national security, in exchange for campaign donations.

# No. 11: Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, friend of Presidents Bush and Clinton. The disgraced "Kenny-Boy" used investors' money "like his own personal cookie jar, playing the fiddle while this Houston-based company burned."

# No. 12: Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. "For his tireless efforts to obstruct justice whenever Democrat wrongdoing is involved."

# Honorable mention: Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "'The Hammer' smashed his thumb when he tried to sell White House access to contributors a la Lincoln bedroom-style."

Not a bad list, but how oh how could they too overlook the Taliban's woman of the year, Sen. Patty "Osama Mama" Murray?

Read more on this

fides quaerens intellectum

Whoa...people think Iraq is a problem, I think this whole N. Korea thing has the potential to start some MAJOR global conflict(s)... here is some of the latest news on the subject:
---------------------------------------
Experts Assess N. Korean Nuclear Threat

By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Winston Churchill once suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union were engaging in overkill with their propensity for building large numbers of nuclear weapons.

Beyond a certain point, he said, these weapons would serve no purpose other than to "bounce the rubble."

North Korea now has one or two weapons and Secretary of State Colin Powell says that number may soar to six in a matter of months. Pyongyang, according to analysts, is a long way from the nuclear redundancy that Churchill found in superpower weapons development programs decades ago. Yet, at North Korea's levels, there is broad agreement inside and outside of government that each new weapon is significant.

"North Korea's options increase exponentially with each additional nuclear device that it has in its arsenal," says Nicholas Eberstadt, a Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

He acknowledges that the largest leap North Korea took occurred when it went from "zero to one" and made itself much more of a force to be reckoned with.
But with six nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, a whole range of targets in South Korea and Japan, not to mention U.S. military bases in Northeast Asia, "can be credibly threatened," Eberstadt says.

Robert Einhorn, a former State Department Korea expert who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees with Eberstadt's thesis.

But he cites an additional concern. "With one or two weapons, you're not going to sell any to any country or group," he says. "But if you have six or seven, and you're desperate enough ... you might be tempted to export the technology" - with incalculable consequences for international power balances, he says.

Powell is concerned about Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions but says it is not yet time to hit the panic button. He noted in interviews on Sunday that North Korea has had nuclear weapons for some time without serious consequences. He is hopeful that international pressure can induce the North to dismantle its program.

"We have months to watch this unfold to see what happens," he says.

Powell says he does not want to reward the North's "bad behavior" by opening negotiations.

But Alan Romberg, an Asia expert formerly at the State Department and now at the Henry L. Stimson Center, says the administration may have no choice but to cut a deal with the North.

He says the United States should be willing to offer the North formal security assurances under circumstances in which the Pyongyang would agree to dismantle its nuclear programs.

Romberg acknowledges that, given the North's propensity for violating promises to become a non-nuclear state, comprehensive verification of any such arrangement would be critical.

Eberstadt believes the outcome of the standoff with North Korea could well be influenced by whether the United States goes to war with Iraq and, if so, whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is removed from power.

If that goal is achieved, that would mean the elimination of one-third of President Bush's "axis of evil." North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Il knows he also is on the "axis" list and there would "certainly be the implicit threat" that if Saddam goes Kim could be removed next, Eberstadt says.

How Kim would react is not clear. If Saddam survives, the Korea crisis would take on a different - but difficult to predict - coloration.

Sandy Berger and Robert Gallucci, who were top foreign policy aides to former President Clinton, say the Bush administration should give equal priority to both Iraq and North Korea.

The administration cannot afford delay on North Korea because Pyongyang, left unchecked, can make the Asia Pacific region a far more dangerous place within months, Berger and Gallucci wrote in an opinion piece in Tuesday's Washington Post.

Deferring action on Iraq also would be a mistake, they wrote, because it would send a "chilling message" if the United States were to be "knocked off course in one arena by trouble-making in another."

Both developing crises should be dealt with at once, Berger and Gallucci say. "There are no safe back burners."

---
----------------------------------
S. Korea Rebuffs North in Nuclear Crisis

By PAUL SHIN
Associated Press Writer

Torchia reports that the U-S-South Korean alliance will probably weather this storm. (Audio)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea rejected a proposal from the communist North to work together against the United States and told Pyongyang on Thursday to stop saber-rattling.

South Korea Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun also said the North's leadership "should not attempt to test the limit of the patience of the international community."

Jeong, whose ministry handles inter-Korean affairs, said his government will use upcoming inter-Korean Cabinet-level talks to urge North Korea to stop efforts to restart its nuclear facilities.

The meetings, which are the highest channels of dialogue between the two sides, will provide the first opportunity for South Korea to directly raise the nuclear issue with the North.

"The nuclear issue is a matter that affects the destiny of our people," Jeong said. "Therefore, we should actively search for a solution that can make all parties - South and North Korea and related countries - the winner."

Also Thursday, South Korea claimed critical Chinese support in its drive to speed diplomacy to end the crisis.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed in Beijing that their countries would try "to resolve North Korea's nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue," a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

"The two sides will work to prevent the situation from further aggravating," said Shin Jung-seung, director of the ministry's Asia-Pacific affairs section.

At the United Nations, diplomats said Beijing wanted to deal privately with the situation through diplomatic channels rather than bringing it to the Security Council where Chinese diplomats could wind up - because of the long-standing alliance with the North - publicly defending Pyongyang.

Seoul has also acknowledged the desire of South Koreans for their government to assume a larger role in determining the outcome of the dangerous standoff and vowed to lead the campaign to damp down the confrontation with the isolated, Stalinist North.

"We must mobilize all our diplomatic resources to find a peaceful solution to the problem that is directly connected to our nation's stability and prosperity," said South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong.

President Bush, however, sharply rebuked North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday, saying he has "no heart for somebody who starves his folks," though he remains confident in a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff.

In early December, North Korea alarmed the world by deciding to reactivate its plutonium-based nuclear program. It since has removed monitoring seals and cameras from its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, expelled U.N. inspectors who visually monitored those facilities and signaled it may quit the global nuclear arms control treaty.

While Washington has vowed to use diplomacy, the North suspects Washington eventually will use military force. And North Korea's state media said the country would not bend to U.S. pressure.

"If the U.S. tries to settle the issue with (North Korea) by force, (North Korea) has no idea of avoiding it," said the North's government newspaper, Minju Joson, in a report carried on the North's foreign news outlet, Korean Central News Agency.

It said the North's army was strong and ready to fight.

The North, sensing opportunity in widespread anti-American sentiment in South Korea, also urged the South on Wednesday to back its confrontation with the United States.

This emphasis on "cooperation" with South Korea comes at a time when Seoul is criticizing a possible U.S. plan to use economic sanctions to force North Korea to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

North Korea's overtures also are driven by economic needs, experts said.

South Korea, under President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine" policy of engaging the North, has launched a series of unfinished inter-Korean projects, including a cross-border rail link and tourist and industrial parks, that would bring the impoverished North badly needed investment.

North Korea, which can hardly feed its 22 million people without outside relief, risks losing key sources of aid with its actions in recent weeks.
----------------------------------------------
U.S. to host talks on N. Korea

Thursday, January 2, 2003 Posted: 2:26 PM EST (1926 GMT)
Bush
Bush criticized North Korea's Kim Jong II as a leader who "starves his folks."
  Story Tools

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States, Japan and South Korea will have a "trilateral" coordination group meeting next week to discuss the nuclear situation in North Korea, a State Department spokesman said Thursday.

The meeting will be held in Washington. James Kelley, assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, will lead the U.S. delegation, and will go to the region shortly thereafter, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

U.S. officials have spoken in recent weeks of a peaceful resolution to the standoff with North Korea over its recent moves toward a nuclear build-up.

Earlier in the day, after talks in Beijing, South Korean officials announced that South Korea and China will try to settle the North Korean nuclear crisis through negotiations.

"South Korea and China reaffirmed the principle of resolving North Korea's nuclear problem peacefully through dialogue," said Shin Chung-Seung, director general of the Asia-Pacific office of the South Korean foreign ministry.

He offered no details, however, on how the two nations planned to go about that effort.

A senior U.S. administration official called those talks "encouraging," and said "nobody is ruling out talks" with North Korea.

"We want them to reverse their course," the official said. "We will not negotiate with North Korea, we will not give them indu

cements. But we are not ruling out talks."

In statements at his ranch in Texas, President Bush criticized North Korea's Kim Jong II as a leader who "starves his folks." But the president reiterated his belief that the standoff with the isolated nation over its development of nuclear weapons could be resolved diplomatically.

"It was right here at this spot where Jiang Zemin, the leader of China, and myself got together and put out a joint declaration that we expect for the Korean peninsula to be nuclear-weapons-free," Bush said. "I believe the situation with North Korea will be resolved peacefully. As I said, it's a diplomatic issue, not a military issue, and we're working all fronts."

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.

Diplomats said Lee was believed to have urged China, an ally that has given impoverished North Korea substantial economic aid, to play a more active role in ending the standoff.

South Korea also plans to send Assistant Foreign Minister Kim Han-Kyong to Moscow later this week for talks with Russian officials as part of its diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Eui-Take.

North Korea announced last week it would reactivate the Yongbyon plant -- which is capable of producing enough weapons-grade plutonium to make two or three nuclear bombs per year -- and then told International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to leave the country.

The North Korean news agency KCNA carried a statement over the weekend hinting North Korea was considering pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it threatened to do in 1993.

-- CNN Producer Elise Labott and White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.
--------------------------------------------------------------------



fides quaerens intellectum

Although this is a bit embarassing, I am going to share with you my New Year's resolutions...I thought that if I shared them and then periodically announce how things are going that it might help me attain these goals:

1.  Lose 25 pounds.  
2.  Be more patient and kind to everyone around me (don't get me wrong, I always try to do this....but I want to try to completely control my temper, even when I am driving!)
3.  Stop biting my nails (a horrible habit I've had since childhood)
4.  Stop procrastinating (especially my studies)
5.  Talk less, listen more.
---------------------------------------------
What are you resolutions??

fides quaerens intellectum

I am very interested in the Kabbalah and would like to know if anyone here knows of any websites that contain high quality, traditional Kabbalah "stuff"...

I am also looking for actual hard copies of the Kabbalah but really don't know which versions are the most original.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
-Dan

fides quaerens intellectum

A while back I posted some info about human cloning and a few of you were very interested....so here is the big news (claim) that was heard 'round the world today....we'll see if it's true.  (Also, after this article I posted some other interesting stuff, including a "pregnant man"):
---------------------------------------------------------------
Group claims first cloned human born
Clonaid founded by Raelians, who believe aliens created humans
Friday, December 27, 2002 Posted: 4:44 PM EST (2144 GMT)

Brigitte Boisselier, CEO of Clonaid, said the first cloned human baby was born Thursday.  
"I am very pleased to announce that the first baby clone is born," said Brigitte Boisselier, the CEO of Clonaid and a bishop in the group, called the Raelians. "She was born yesterday at 11:55 a.m. in the country where she was born. She is fine."

Boisselier refused to disclose where Eve was born but did reveal that the mother is a 31-year-old American citizen. She said Eve was created using DNA from the mother's skin cells and is a twin of her mother.

In an exclusive interview with CNN after the announcement, Boisselier said advances in the field of human in-vitro fertilization and cow cloning added to her success.

"We have experts with 24 years of experience in the reproduction of humans and benefited from that.... (and also from) the work that has been done on cow cloning, of course," Boisselier said. "My expert, the one technician that did the embryo, did more than 3,000 cow embryos before touching any human eggs."

At the news conference, Boisselier said four other cloned babies are expected to be born by February.

Boisselier offered no immediate proof of her claim -- or photographs of the baby. She said the baby is healthy, and that the family is "very happy."

She said that she is allowing a freelance journalist to verify her claim. To that end, freelance journalist and physicist Dr. Michael Guillen has picked a panel of independent experts to investigate.

"I have accepted on two conditions: that the invitation be given with no strings attached whatsoever and that the tests be conducted by a group of independent world-class experts," Guillen said.

The experts will begin their tests in a few days when Eve returns home, Boisselier said. Results of the tests are expected in eight to nine days.

Clonaid, which calls itself the "first human cloning company," was founded by the Raelians in 1997. The Raelian movement professes that life on Earth was created through genetic engineering by extraterrestrials.

The Raelians believe the Raelian Movement Leader -- former French journalist Claude Vorilhon who now calls himself Rael -- is a direct descendant of these aliens. He says he has met with aliens and visited their planet. Rael told CNN in July 2001 that the long-term goal for human cloning is to live forever.

Rael says the Raelians eventually want to learn how to clone an adult and then "transfer the brain to the clone." Boisselier said she hopes to one day open cloning clinics on each continent to help infertile couples have families.

The Christian Coalition, in a press release, called baby Eve an "aberration" and said they will push the 108th Congress to ban human cloning in the United States.

"The cloning of human embryos for the purpose of performing destructive research and experimentation, such as that which just occurred today of 'Baby Eve,' is an aberration. It shows a total lack of respect for life and must be prevented," said Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America.

More clones on the way?
To make a clone, scientists first take an egg and remove all of its genetic material. Then the nucleus of a cell -- any cell in the body -- is taken from the individual to be cloned and inserted into the hollowed-out egg.

The cell is then given a jolt of electricity or put in a chemical bath to activate cell division -- essentially tricking the cell into doing what a fertilized egg would normally do. Then the embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus who carries the baby to term.

Boisselier said Clonaid used this procedure of electricity to activate cell division for Eve.

At the conference, Boisselier defended human cloning, saying she is giving hope to infertile parents.

"Is my science, giving babies to parents who have been dying to get one with their own genes, is my science worse than the ones who are preparing bombs to kill people?" Boisselier said. "I am creating life."

Eve is one of ten implantations done by Clonaid. Five babies were spontaneously terminated during the first few weeks of pregnancy, Boisselier said. The next baby is expected to be born next week in northern Europe. Three other cloned human babies should be born by early February; Boisselier revealed that two of the expecting sets of parents are from Asia and another is from North America. She also said one couple is lesbian and two had babies who died and were then cloned by Clonaid.

'Not a monster'
Despite the success of the procedure, Boisselier said the event should be kept in perspective.

"It's very important to remember we are talking about a baby," Boisselier said. "She is not a monster or some result of something that is disgusting. She is a very healthy baby with very happy parents."

Rael and the parents of Eve were not at the press conference.

The Raelians are also not the only group claiming to actively try to clone a human.

Italian doctor Severino Antinori made several announcements in recent months, claiming that a woman was carrying a human clone, which would be born in January. And former University of Kentucky professor Panos Zavos has also announced plans to clone a human, but he told CNN earlier this year he had not successfully created an embryo yet.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President Bush "believes like most Americans that human cloning is deeply concerning and he strongly supports legislation banning human cloning."

The cloning was pursued "despite widespead skepticism among scientists and medical professionals," Buchan said.

The announcement "underscores the need for the new Congress to act on a bipartisan bill to ban human cloning."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE RAELIAN MOVEMENT

Founded:  1973, France

Founder: Claude Vorilhon, who took the name Rael; his book is "The Final Message"

Basic tenet: The old Hebrew phrase "Elohim" -- usually translated as a name for God -- should have been interpreted as a reference to non-Earthlings "from the sky."  These entities are, Raelians say, responsible for the creation of life on Earth.

Membership: The organization says it comprises some 40,000 members worldwide, with highest concentrations in France, Canada and Japan. Outside researchers have suggested the membership may be smaller.
Source: The University of Virginia's New Religious Movements source
HOLLYWOOD, Florida (CNN) -- A company founded by a religious group that believes humans were created by extraterrestrials said Friday that it has created the first human clone -- a 7-pound baby girl it dubbed "Eve."

----------------------------------
The other story:
go to:
http://www.malepregnancy.com/


fides quaerens intellectum

Nothing I say in this post will spoil the film in any way, so fear not!

****Saw it tonight...in a word, STUNNING.****

 As a fan of Tolkeins wonderful work, I wholeheartedly endorse this film which, in many respects, is superior than it's predecessor.

1) The cinematography is once again breath-taking.  I can't imagine a more ideal location than New Zealand that would capture the "forgotten Europe" that Tolkein tried to convey in his novels.

2) The acting is top-notch, as is the cast,

3) The computer generated animation is by far THE BEST I have ever seen in any film!  Gollum (Smeagol) blends in seemlessly with the live actors!

4) The pace of the film, despite a bit of a lull in the middle, is fast and in many ways keeps ones attention better than the first Lord of the Rings...

I can't wait to see it again!

-Daniel

fides quaerens intellectum

Sometimes, as I am waking up or returning from a dream, a lucid dream or an OBE...and sometimes right as I am waking up, I get this overwhelming feeling of "I finally understand!"  or "I know IT!"

It's that feeling that you have found some great secret, or you have realized who you really are...or some other great idea...but of course it fades immediately as you wake.  I think this can be related to a "download' problem as Bruce puts it...I also think we could be communicating with our higher self or some other being, but when we return it wouldn't be "fair" for us down here to have that knowledge because it is here in the physical (as well as in the astral, but more so in the physical) that we are really being tested and tried...and where growth really comes.

Anyway, the bottom line is: do you guys wake up with this feeling sometimes, or expereince it in your dreams?  I would be interested to hear about it if so...

fides quaerens intellectum