Mondo News: 2005-06-12

"Daily Show" Clips

Nice clips of great shows like the Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher etc.

http://www.overspun.com/?cat=2

Source: asim99

Free DVD - Last Best Chance

http://actnow.saferworld.org/video/

Last Best Chance was produced with support from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, with additional funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Last Best Chance is a docudrama that shows the threat posed by vulnerable nuclear weapons and materials around the world and underscores what the stakes are.

In the movie, al Qaeda operatives organize three separate operations aimed at getting nuclear weapons. The material is then fabricated into three crude nuclear weapons by small groups of trained terrorists, who have recruited bomb-making experts to help them manufacture their weapons.

Governments around the world discover clues to the plot, but are unable to uncover the scheme before the weapons are en route to their destinations. The film clearly demonstrates that the hardest job for terrorists is gaining control of a nuclear weapon or material. Because the governments had failed to take sufficient action to secure or destroy the nuclear weapons material, they are helpless to prevent an attack.

The film stars Fred Thompson and features an epilogue moderated by Tom Brokaw.

“When people are moving too slowly to respond to a danger, one option is to make it more vivid. Seeing the danger is the first step to reducing the risk.”
—Ted Turner, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative

Tell the Truth About Iraq

Last month the Times of London published a “smoking gun” memo on President Bush’s lies leading up to the Iraq war. Six months before the invasion the administration admitted to British officials that, contrary to what the American public was told, the White House was determined to go to war and was “fixing” intelligence on WMDs to justify the move.

Bush has refused to address the evidence in the "Downing Street Memo," but pressure is building from the people and the press. Representative John Conyers has launched a citizens petition to demand answers. When we reach 500,000 signers Rep. Conyers will personally deliver your comments to the gates of the White House. Help get out the truth – please sign today.

Click here for the full text of Rep. Conyers's letter.

http://www.moveonpac.org/tellthetruth/
Sign the petition here.

Morgentaler honoured. Only 300 protest.

Dispite predictions that "thousands" of anti abortionists from anti-abortion sites only 300 turned out to protest out of a country of almost 30 million and after an appeal to the United States with their population of almost 400 million. According to the news the protest had a religious and and elderly slant to it.

Quote:

Outside, the school's Alumni Hall, about 300 protesters waved placards carrying slogans such as “abortions kill children” and “protect the life of women and baby.”

University vice-president Greg Moran, introducing Dr. Morgentaler, reminded those in the audience that debate is a key element in a liberal education and important to the formation of a strong society.

Through much of his address, Dr. Morgentaler recounted his own 37-year battle to ensure that women have control over their own reproductive health, saying that – in the end – it has resulted in a safer, more just society.

“The right to abortion on request is part of the struggle for the emancipation of women. Women cannot fully participate in society and assume their full potential unless protected against the vagaries of unwanted pregnancies.

“Women cannot be fully equal unless they have control over their reproductive functions.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...Story/National/

Props to Roninvancouver @ RFD

Great stuff from "The Parking Lot is Full"

Officer runs over hit-and-run victim

GASTONIA, North Carolina (AP) -- A police officer responding to an emergency call of a man struck by a car accidentally ran over the victim with his cruiser Thursday, authorities said.

Investigators remained uncertain whether the victim was already dead when he was struck a second time by the police car, said Sheriff's Department Capt. Tony Robinson.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol was investigating.

The 911 call was received early Thursday, police said. After reaching the scene, officer J.C. May was blinded by the high beams of a parked car and struck the victim.

The man was in the road and was pronounced dead at the scene. His name was not available, Robinson said.

May was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Source

Where does freedom of religion end?

Originally Posted by d_jedi

I don't pretend to know why the church does what it does. But if for some reason that's a part of their faith, then that should be respected.

Originally Posted by JAC
Part of my faith involves banging your wife and pissing on your lawn.
We meet Thursday nights. See you there

Gay advocates fight churches' charity status

Institutions fear losing tax breaks if they oppose same-sex unions; Rightly so, gay-rights group says

by Alex Hutchison

Ottawa Citizen
June 12, 2005

Churches that oppose same-sex marriage legislation have good reason to fear for their charitable status, a leading gay-rights advocate is warning.

"If you are at the public trough, if you are collecting taxpayers' money, you should be following taxpayers' laws. And that means adhering to the Charter," says Kevin Bourassa, who in 2001 married Joe Varnell in one of Canada's first gay weddings, and is behind www.equalmarriage.ca.

"We have no problem with the Catholic Church or any other faith group promoting bigotry," he said. "We have a problem with the Canadian government funding that bigotry."

Several Liberal backbenchers have been pressuring Prime Minister Paul Martin to amend the controversial gay-marriage bill, which is now before the House, to protect the tax status of churches that refuse to perform such marriages.

Under current rules, donations to religious groups are tax-privileged as long as the church refrains from partisan political activity.

"They can't connect their views with any political candidate," said Peter Broder, the director of regulatory affairs at Imagine Canada, an umbrella organization for charities and non-profit groups.

But the role of the Catholic Church in public debate is legitimate and legal, according to Bede Hubbard, the associate secretary general of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Right from the very beginning, the representatives of the government have called on Canadians to express their opinions," he said. "And certainly, Canadian churches are among Canadian citizens."

Even if the churches are in compliance with tax laws --with or without an amendment to the marriage bill -- they could still be subject to a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But this is unlikely to succeed, Mr. Broder said.

"It's hard to see how that would happen," he said. "For example, I'm not aware of any religious group having been challenged on their refusal to marry divorced people."

Churches rely heavily on their charitable status to encourage more frequent and more generous donations, according to Janet Epp Buckingham, the director of law and public policy for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

"The loss the charitable tax status would really affect the ability of these ministries to carry out their functions," she said. "That includes a lot of things that are beneficial to society, like homeless ministries, outreach to the poor, and international development."

As a result, the Evangelical Fellowship favours an amendment to the bill guaranteeing that charitable status will not be challenged-- even though the group opposes the bill as a whole.

"If they're going to redefine marriage anyway, we would like to see these kinds of amendments in the bill," Ms. Buckingham said.

Bonnie Greene, a retired United Church official who specialized in tax issues, said the charitable status of churches is not under any immediate threat.

However, the regulations governing charities are greatly in need of updating, she said.

"In Canadian law, the definition of charitable activity is over 400 years old, based on a legal case in England," Ms. Greene said. "This is not good for democracy in Canada."

For Mr. Bourassa and Mr. Varnell, who run the website www.equalmarriage.ca, the distinction between advocacy and partisan politics is artificial.

"Our website is completely self-funded," Mr. Bourassa said.

"We are not a charity, because fighting for our Charter of Rights is considered by the government to be advocacy. What is the difference between fighting for equality and fighting against equality? There's none."

Currently, groups promoting human rights, the environment and peace are not considered charities. The rules should be changed to reflect the needs of civil society -- needs that were not present 400 years ago, Ms. Greene said.

Any new rules will need to keep faith and politics separate to satisfy Mr. Bourassa, who is a member of Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto.

"During the last election, my church removed all linkages to political non-charitable groups that were fighting for same-sex marriage from their website because of the political implications and the tax implications," Mr. Bourassa said.

And he intends to make other churches follow the same path.

"There are charitable activities that are legitimate within faith communities," he said.

"Political activities are not charitable activities."

The time has come for Democrats to fight back

Democrats, don't put muzzle on Dean

By DeWayne Wickham

Instead of muzzling Howard Dean, Democrats should give him a bullhorn. Rather than urging him to retreat from his attack on Republicans, party leaders ought to send him off to a political war college — preferably the one the late GOP strategist Lee Atwater attended.

As chairman of the Democratic Party, which is teetering between political renewal and functional extinction, Dean should be making war, not peace. But that's exactly what his critics within the party seemed to be suggesting last week when they admonished him for his tough talk about Republicans.

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They're a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same, and they all look the same," he said days earlier. He also said the GOP is "pretty much a white, Christian party" and Republicans "never made an honest living in their lives."

Understandably, Dean's verbal barrage drew a return salvo from Republicans, who accused him of hitting below the belt. Surprisingly, it also sparked friendly fire from some Democrats, who worried aloud that he was unnecessarily alienating Republicans.

While, in fact, what he said about the GOP stretches the truth, it also rallies the Democratic troops, something the party has had difficulty doing since Bill Clinton left the White House.

Lesson from GOP

Ironically, Dean's negative talk is something Atwater, who managed the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, turned into an art form. When the story broke that Willie Horton, a black convicted murderer, raped a white woman and assaulted her fiancé while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison, Atwater went on the attack. He vowed to link Horton so closely to Bush's opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, that people would think the career criminal was the Democratic candidate's running mate.

Republican leaders, eager to extend their party's control of the White House beyond the eight years of Ronald Reagan's presidency, didn't chastise Atwater for playing to racial fears and stereotypes in linking Horton to Dukakis. Instead, they made him party chairman.

Not long after he assumed that post, Atwater put his crosshairs on then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, a Democrat he correctly feared might keep Bush from winning re-election. Atwater plotted to use allegations of drug abuse and womanizing to derail Clinton's political career. "We may or may not win, but we'll bust him up so bad he won't be able to run again for years," Atwater said, according to The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, a 2000 book by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons.

Liberal label

Despite expressing his regret for these actions shortly before his untimely death in 1991, Atwater's go-for-the-jugular brand of politics has become a lethal weapon in the Republicans' arsenal. It is what motivates GOP operatives to quickly label Democrats as liberal — and to treat liberalism as a dirty word.

To his credit, Dean has broken ranks with those Democrats who think the best defense is to seek cover and then throw themselves on the mercy of voters on Election Day. The time has come for Democrats to fight back. They should explain what it means to be a liberal, not allow Republicans to define them. They should answer hyperbolic attacks with exaggerated speech of their own, if that's what it takes to stave off political annihilation.

For much of this decade, right-wing Republicans have dominated the public square, shouting down some on their political left and drowning out others who have tried to counter their bombast with civil responses. The time has come for Democrats to give as good as they get.

Americans, for the most part, love politicians who fight for what they believe — and they abhor political wimps. Dean is a fighter, albeit one who needs to learn that in an ideological spat, a well-placed jab often can do more damage than a barrage of roundhouse punches.

But he can't learn that lesson if Democrats won't let him take the fight to the GOP.

DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY.

Source

Legalizing pot could bring B.C. big bucks

Gotta love that This National Post affilate paper will publish a dissenting view - but then toss in the most foolish looking picture that only partially ties to the article. Fuckers...

Letter

June 12, 2005

CREDIT: The Associated Press

Holland's self-declared 'King of Cannabis' poses before pot plants in Oosterhout.

What were you people thinking to ask for more research into

marijuana before legalizing it?

Since the LaGuardia Commission report of 1946 that addressed and destroyed the myths around pot and its use, many other investigations on both sides of the border have backed up its findings.

It's not a gateway drug.

It's less addictive (if at all) than coffee or soap operas. It does not lead to insanity or a rapid

spiralling down into moral decay by individuals or society.

My generation and subsequent ones do not believe your distortions and misinformation.

And comparing it to tobacco, please. No one I've known has ever smoked the equivalent of one to two ounces of pot a day for 30 to 40 years. And thus no one has ever been known to die of cancer through smoking pot.

Talk about "reefer madness," what were you guys drinking?

Erik Kirkpatrick, Vancouver

Source