I don't get it

If you read the web you will start to notice a trend.

A lack of care about what is going on in the world.

A need to focus on small issues while hiding the head in the sand to ignore big issues.

You will be hard pressed to find people talking about how the president lied to the american people (oh I am sorry he mis-spoke because the information he was given was incorrect)and that thousands of people have died, an entire region has been destabilized and country has been destroyed and America is less safe now then it has been at just about any point in our history.

But you will be able to find site after site of people who seem to think they have the right to make decisions concerning other people.

All women have to breastfeed...never mind the info they post in support of their stance is debateable...*THEY* know what is best for others.

Nobody should be allowed to smoke in public places...but god forbid a law be passed to reform pollution and wood smoke exhaust..both of which are bigger dangers to health then second hand smoke. (for info on the dangers of wood smoke including a comparison to second hand smoke check out http://www.burningissues.org )

Get a clue people....The US is in serious trouble....while you are focusing on the little issues that in most cases are none of your damn business...you are allowing a government to turn this country into a place where your civil liberties no longer exist.

And no the wiretaps, patriot act, library usage, etc etc etc scandals are not just something *terrorist* need to worry about and loyal patriotic americans are safe from....at least that is not true unless you believe the Quakers are terrorist threats to America?

Is this the USA or the USSA?

Which do we live in? The Country founded on Freedom...or the Country becoming a clone of the old Soviet Union...

Nothing more I can say will tell as much as the following news items..

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-17-05/a09lo650.htm
A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book." Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program. The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said. The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/19/nsa/index.html
President Bush defended Monday a secretive program that eavesdrops on some international phone calls involving U.S. citizens, saying the United States must be "quick to detect and prevent" possible near-term terrorist attacks.
At an end-of-the-year news conference, Bush spent much of his time answering questions about the program, which bypasses the normal procedure of attaining a court warrant and is designed to intercept communications between suspected terrorists in the United States and other countries.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/19/bush/index.html
President Bush defended using government wiretaps without court authorization to monitor terrorism suspects and urged the Senate to renew the USA Patriot Act during his year-end news conference Monday.
The president said he intends to continue using secret international wiretaps to monitor activities of people in the United States suspected of having connections to al Qaeda.
"To save American lives we must be able to act fast and to detect these conversations so we can prevent new attacks," Bush said during the event, in the East Room of the White House. (Watch Bush defend using secret wiretaps -- 2:23

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn't know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/06/24/afx2110388.html
US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan - UN 06.24.2005, 11:37 AM GENEVA (AFX) - Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said. The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.

http://hrw.org/campaigns/torture.htm
Each day brings more information about the appalling abuses inflicted upon men and women held by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world. U.S. forces have used interrogation techniques including hooding, stripping detainees naked, subjecting them to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light, and depriving them of sleep—in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This apparently routine infliction of pain, discomfort, and humiliation has expanded in all too many cases into vicious beatings, sexual degradation, sodomy, near drowning, and near asphyxiation. Detainees have died under questionable circumstances while incarcerated.This must end. Torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading practices should be as unthinkable as slavery. U.S. Department of Defense officials have announced that certain stress interrogation techniques will no longer be used in Iraq. But President Bush should ban all forms of abuse during interrogation in Iraq and everywhere else that the United States holds people in custody. It is wrong in itself and leads to further atrocities.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-22-gitmo-cover_x.htm
President Bush ordered the Pentagon to create the tribunal system to try foreign terrorism suspects while guarding U.S. intelligence-gathering methods.
But Begg and the others won't have the range of traditional rights that defendants get in U.S. civilian courts. A year after the Pentagon began releasing rules for the tribunals, a picture is emerging of a system in which the scales of justice are tipped against foreign terrorism suspects in favor of protecting national security.
The system contains twists on defendants' rights that likely will be unfamiliar to U.S. citizens who are used to civilian and military courts anchored by independent judges and unbiased juries.
•There will be no independent judge, and no jury will be selected to decide a case.
The government will have broad discretion to hold portions of trials in secret.
Terrorism suspects who are acquitted by tribunals still could be detained indefinitely.

Not so Intellent Discussion of Intelligent Design

There is lots of talk about Intelligent Design and Evolution...

I see two problems that are occuring here.

One is a misunderstanding of what Evolution is about. Evolution has nothing to do with creation. Evolution has nothing to do with WHY we are here. Evolution teaches about what happens as life progresses. It says nothing about HOW life came about.

In other words Intelligent Design has absolutely nothing to do with Evolution.

That is one reason why Intelligent Design has no place in the science classroom.

A second reason is a basic misunderstanding of the word THEORY.

Theory in scientific terms has a different meaning then it does in non-scientific terms. One word but two completely different meanings.

In laymans terms a theory is a hunch or a guess....something that may or may not have a basis in facts.

In scientific terms though a theory is not an unsubstantiated hunch or guess...it is: Theories are typically ways of explaining why things happen, often, but not always after the fact that they happen is no longer in scientific dispute. In referring to the "theory of global warming" for example, the worldwide temperatures have been measured and seem to be increasing. The "theory of global warming" refers instead to scientific work that attempts to explain how and why this could be happening.
In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from or supported by experimental evidence (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified.
In physics, the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework derived from a small set of basic principles, capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems. A good example is electromagnetic theory, which encompasses the results that can be derived from Maxwell's equations. This theory is usually taken to be synonymous with classical electromagnetism.
The term theoretical is used in science to describe a result that is predicted by theory but has not yet been observed. For example, until recently, black holes were considered theoretical. It is not uncommon in the history of physics for theory to produce predictions that are later confirmed by experiment; failed predictions, however, also occur, and sometimes work to falsify a theory. Conversely, at any time in the study of physics there can also be confirmed experimental results that are not yet explained by theory.
For a given body of theory to be considered part of established scientific knowledge, it is usually necessary for it to characterize a critical experiment, namely an experimental result not predicted by any existing established theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

A case might be able to be made for including Intelligent Design in a Cosmology Class...but only if you are going to cover other Non-Scientific theories of how life began....like the theory that a giant ape sneezed and life was the result of that mucus explosion...

But you know I have a better idea...lets keep science (made up of facts and scientific theories) in the science classroom..and lets keep religious beliefs and non-scientific theories about the origin of life in religion and humanities classes...

Because science is about the HOW not the WHY.

Tookie or Teminator...who is the real monster?

Last night the state of California put a man to death.

This man epitomized a human monster..a master of evil. He is responsible for thousands of deaths, millions of lives ruined because of drugs, uncountable numbers of beatings, rapes and robberies.

He was the co-founder of the Crips.

But since his incarceration he had became someone different. He had been redeemed. He had been rehabilitated. He had been transformed.

He had become an example of everything that we claim prison is there to achieve.

Prison is supposed to be a punishment for your crimes, but also a place for rehabilitation.

Tookie Williams was the posterboy for both.

So what was achieved by his execution?

The Terminator showed that in California prison is simply about vengence and punishment.

The US showed that it follows Paul the Zealot and has no use for the words and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

Maybe someday the US will become a Christian nation, as it claims it is, but for now the US has once again shown that it is a Paulian nation that doesn't care about redemption, but only about Vengence.