Dissent is the highest form of patriotism -Howard Zinn

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Back to School!



It's Great to Be a Florida Gator

Saturday, August 20, 2005


Frist the nut job


Frist: Teach intelligent design, too

This is getting ridiculous. Here is the explanation of intelligent design, that Bill Frist wants taught in schools:

The theory of intelligent design says life on earth is too complex to have developed through evolution, implying that a higher power must have had a hand in creation.

First of all, at what point does something become too complex and automatically jump to something else? As in, life on earth is too complex to be explained through the scientific theory of evolution and instead must be explained through the crack pot idea that a higher power must have created the world exactly as it is today.

It's that same black and white mentality Republicans have always had. It seems like solely for political gain to help themselves with the radical right, they promote twisted religious views to be taught in public schools, all in the name of plurality? You have got to be kidding. (It's fine to teach anything you want in a cult, private school, just don't have the state accredit you.)

Or maybe republicans in the public eye are really this screwed up, in which case America is in a lot more trouble. Don't forget that evolution is a scientific theory based on FACTS. It is a theory, yes, because there are pieces missing. I mean come on, it has been millions of years..
The Intelligent design theory, and for that matter, creationism, are religious theories based solely on FAITH. As far as I am concerned, the word "theory" to describe creationism and intelligent design is misleading at best. It leads people to believe that these ideas can be tested through a hypothesis, which they can not.

If Intelligent Design is allowed to be taught in school, then the Flying Spaghetti Monster must also be taught. I actually like this one better.


Thursday, August 18, 2005

All in the family

That's my mom practicing what she believes and supporting Cindy Sheehan at a local rally in Daytona Beach. The local paper caught her looking her most serious. But now the image dissappeared...

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Be all you can be...and then get killed by an insurgent... for Bush to say "our soldiers will not die in vain,"...but then really do


Even after all the commercials and the money incentives; after all the recruiting at wakeboarding events, at high schools, on the internet, over the phone, and even offering plastic surgery; the Army still can't reach their quotas of Army enlistees.

How about a new plan. Pull out of Iraq so Americans stop dying. Then you might get enlistees who actually think they aren't signing their own death sentences.

And don't forget the untapped group of young republicans, chickenhawk politicians, and bumper sticker patriots who all unequivocally support the war but still haven't found the time to enlist.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Cindy Sheehan, I would want a reason for my family members dying in a war as well



The angry mother of a slain U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch Saturday, demanding an accounting from Bush of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.


She said she decided to come to Crawford a few days ago after Bush said that fallen U.S. troops had died for a noble cause and that the mission must be completed.

"I want to ask the president, `Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Last week, you said my son died for a noble cause' and I want to ask him what that noble cause is?"


And so did she get to talk with Bush? A wild guess here...NO. Wow, not even a little time for a mother who's son he killed in his completely unexplainable war. This is just one of the many reasons why I dislike Bush and don't think to highly of people who support him either. Simply because they are supporting actions like these.

More and more stories, each equally gruesome and infuriating

Recent story from Terry Rodgers, freshly back from Iraq:


He's sitting in the living room of his mother's townhouse in Gaithersburg, telling the story of his last night in Iraq. He's still got his Army crew cut and he's wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on the chest.

"We're driving down this road and there's this tiny bridge over a little canal," he says. "They had rigged up this bomb and they had a tripwire running across the bridge and we hit it and it blew up."

Like the rest of the 13,877 Americans wounded in Iraq, Rodgers has a story to tell. He tells it in a matter-of-fact voice, like he's talking about making a midnight pizza run or something. He's sitting in an armchair with his right leg propped on an ottoman, the foot encased in a soft black cast that reaches almost to the knee. His crutches are lying on the rug beside the chair.

"The Humvee finally comes to a stop and the right side is just torn apart and I hear my squad leader screaming, 'I think I lost my arm!' And my best friend Maida was in the front passenger seat where the bomb went off and he was screaming, 'Where's help? Where's help?' And then he went quiet.

"And me, I'm trying to crawl out of the Humvee and I get most of my body out and just this leg is stuck and I thought it must be caught on something in the twisted metal. I look back and I see it's just laying there on the seat, so I'm like, 'Why is it stuck?' So I try to lift my leg up and it won't lift. I just had to pick up my leg and crawl the rest of the way out."

He mimes the action of picking up his leg with his hands, then he continues the story.

"I started patting myself down and that's when I noticed that my face took some shrapnel," he says. "It was all swollen on this side, so when I'm patting myself down, my middle finger went, like, this deep into my cheek where the shrapnel went in."

He points to a spot about halfway down his finger, showing how far it went into the shrapnel wound behind his right eye, which is still pretty much blind, unable to see anything but bright light.

"Then I started checking out my leg. I knew my femur was broken, but at that time I didn't know my calf was missing," he says. "And that's when I hear my best friend Maida and he started heaving."

Rodgers takes a few loud, quick breaths to show what Mark Maida sounded like.

"And he breathes like that for a few seconds and then he just stops. And that's when he died."