“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.†– Mike Huckabee
In some parts of the world, they have a special name for a system of laws based upon “God’s standards.”: Sharia Law. It is quite strange that many of the same folks who recall in horror from the idea of Sharia law, are the same folks who would relish Evangelical Preacher Mike Huckabee becoming the next President of the United States. As things stand now, he is one of the front-runners for the Republican nomination, having won in Iowa. He is likely to win the upcoming South Carolina primary also.
“A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.” – Mike Huckabee.
“I don’t think the issue’s about being against gay marriage. It’s about being for traditional marriage and articulating the reason that’s important. You have to have a basic family structure. There’s never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived.” – Mike Huckabee.
“If a person dresses provocatively, they’re calling attention — maybe not the most desirable kind — to private parts of their body.” – Mike Huckabee. Perhaps if the women were to wear some sort of full body covering, or a veil, that might solve the problem, Mike.
“If you want to believe that you and your family came from apes, that’s fine. I’ll accept that. I just don’t happen to think that I did.” – Mike Huckabee
“It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and paedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.” – Mike Huckabee.
In 1997, Huckabee requested an amendment to a state Senate bill stating “that it is Arkansas public policy to prohibit sodomy to protect the traditional family structure.†. That was as Governor of that state. Would he take similar actions as governor of the whole country?
As the video shows, he desires to alter the Constitution of the United States to fit into his own narrow view of what it is that God desires. How far would such a man be willing to go? I move that if all his beliefs were enshrined into the Constitution, it would be very similar to Sharia indeed.
Bible literalism is incredibly dangerous.
HAYDEN, Idaho (AP) — A man who believed he bore the “mark of the beast” used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.
The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies arrived Saturday in this northern Idaho town. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.
“It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived,” sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. “He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn’t bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad.”
It was not immediately clear whether the man has a history of mental illness. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality.
The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury.”
The book of Matthew also contains the passage: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Sigh. Because apparently even Giuliani’s own adverts can’t stop playing with themselves, I’ve had to put it on it’s own page. It keeps repeating randomly. Not what you want when you’re trying to read happy stories about giant playmobil. Click below for the story.
A. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.
• We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.
• We judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (Because of intelligence gaps discussed elsewhere in this Estimate, however, DOE and the NIC assess with only moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.)
• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.
• Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.
B. We continue to assess with low confidence that Iran probably has imported at least some weapons-usable fissile material, but still judge with moderate-to-high confidence it has not obtained enough for a nuclear weapon. We cannot rule out that Iran has acquired from abroad—or will acquire in the future—a nuclear weapon or enough fissile material for a weapon. Barring such acquisitions, if Iran wants to have nuclear weapons it would need to produce sufficient amounts of fissile material indigenously—which we judge with high confidence it has not yet done.
C. We assess centrifuge enrichment is how Iran probably could first produce enough fissile material for a weapon, if it decides to do so. Iran resumed its declared centrifuge enrichment activities in January 2006, despite the continued halt in the nuclear weapons program. Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz, but we judge with moderate confidence it still faces significant technical problems operating them.
• We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.
• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. (INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize the possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.
D. Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so. For example, Iran’s civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. We also assess with high confidence that since fall 2003, Iran has been conducting research and development projects with commercial and conventional military applications—some of which would also be of limited use for nuclear weapons.
E. We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely while it weighs its options, or whether it will or already has set specific deadlines or criteria that will prompt it to restart the program.
• Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs. This, in turn, suggests that some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might—if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible—prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program. It is difficult to specify what such a combination might be.
• We assess with moderate confidence that convincing the Iranian leadership to forgo the eventual development of nuclear weapons will be difficult given the linkage many within the leadership probably see between nuclear weapons development and Iran’s key national security and foreign policy objectives, and given Iran’s considerable effort from at least the late 1980s to 2003 to develop such weapons. In our judgement, only an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective would plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons—and such a decision is inherently reversible.
F. We assess with moderate confidence that Iran probably would use covert facilities— rather than its declared nuclear sites—for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon. A growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium conversion and uranium enrichment activity, but we judge that these efforts probably were halted in response to the fall 2003 halt, and that these efforts probably had not been restarted through at least mid-2007.
G. We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.
H. We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.
So, the facts I take away from that are that Iran did put it’s nuclear weapon programme on hold in 2003, just like they said they did. It is true that they still have the capability to eventually develop a weapon if they choose to, but not until 2015 at the earliest, if they restarted their programme this year, which they show no sign of doing.
Thus, though there may be a long-term threat, there is certainly no imminent one. Almost certainly there will be a change of Government in Iran before then, and I would hope that this is going to result in a reduction of belligerent language from Bush, Sarkozy, Brown, and Merkel. The Iranian drive for nuclear weapons was always driven by a sense of vulnerability, rather than an intent to wage wars of aggression, and threats do nothing to assuage that.
As the report says, the Iranians are guided by a cost-benefit approach. We should offer non-aggression and defence pacts, aimed to reduce Tehran’s level of paranoia (Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?), and try to increase trade and trust between our peoples. It appears we now have several years to try the friendly carrot approach, and please, let us make good use of them.
In a related incident, Iran has offered the GCC (The Gulf Co-operation Council, comprising Bahrain, the UAE ,Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) a mutual defence and trade pact. I hope they agree, as this would also do a great deal to make Iran feel safer from random aggression, and help integrate them more positively into the local international community.
These developments leave me feeling fairly hopeful. We have a window now to pursue a peaceful path of diplomacy, and it would be a crime to waste it.
Did I ever mention how great John Oliver is? I’m so glad that the presenters are showing solidarity with the cause. Jon Stewart is funding the writers out of his own pocket while the strike continues.
Sort it out, Viacom. Start giving writers their rightful share from the proceeds of new media.
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Nearly 300 CBS News writers who belong to the Writers Guild of America have voted to authorize a strike against the network, the union said Monday.
Some 81% of voting writers moved to approve a possible strike, the WGA said.
The television and radio writers, working in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., have been working under an expired contract since April 2005. The workers have not received pay raises since April 2004.
CBS News writers voted to spurn CBS’s contract offer in November of last year, and since then, the network “has refused to put forth any new proposals, insisting on the offer membership rejected,” the WGA said in a statement.
Among other details, the CBS offer would give the network the right to combine WGA-represented entities with non-WGA units. At stations such as WCBS-AM and 1010 WINS in New York and KNX and KFWB in Los Angeles, this could amount to forcing the union out, it said.
If that spreads to the other networks, it might seriously impact news coverage. A lengthy strike might have a real effect upon the primaries, though who it will be good for, I know not. Maybe they’ll have to resort to giving us pure news, without it being shaped to the liking of the proprietor.
Perhaps folks will have to start buying newspapers again. Are newspaper journalists in the WGA too?
It’s not all bad though. If we’re really lucky, Rush and Billo’s joke writers are in the WGA.
The internet is buzzing about Ron Paul. For those who have managed to miss it, he is running for the Republican nomination for the 2008 US Presidential election. This is mostly on the back of his opposition to the Iraq war, and as a result, he seems to be drawing support from the left as well as the right, which makes it fairly interesting to watch. Anyhows, I thought I’d just jot down a few of my thoughts on him.
I must be clear that I am talking very much from the perspective of someone who is not an American. While US citizens quite rightly want a stable economy, healthcare, and education, all we in the rest of the world really want is for the US to stop going around blowing things up, and stop using more than its fair share of global resources.
So for the purposes of this entry, I am going to try to ignore a lot of things that would have me howling with rage if I lived in the US. Such as:
Ron Paul has stated that he will end US engagement in Iraq. This is good. But is it so good that we in the peace movement should hope for his success? Even if we are willing to cast aside concern for the well-being of US citizens trapped in an extreme libertarian right-wing country
He is opposed to US citizens being subject to international law. No real change there from the current administration.
He believes that gun control is a UN plot to weaken America’s ability to resist an armed UN takeover:
For more than a decade the United Nations has waged a campaign to undermine Second Amendment rights in America. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called on members of the Security Council to address the “easy availability†of small arms and light weapons, by which he means all privately owned firearms. In response, the Security Council released a report calling for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control, a report that admonishes the U.S. and praises the restrictive gun laws of Red China and France!
It’s no surprise that UN officials dislike what they view as our gun culture. After all, these are the people who placed a huge anti-gun statue on American soil at UN headquarters in New York. The statue depicts a pistol with the barrel tied into a knot, a not-too-subtle message aimed squarely at the U.S.
They believe in global government, and armed people could stand in the way of their goals. They certainly don’t care about our Constitution or the Second Amendment. But the conflict between the UN position on private ownership of firearms and our Second Amendment cannot be reconciled. How can we as a nation justify our membership in an organization that is actively hostile to one of our most fundamental constitutional rights? What if the UN decided that free speech was too inflammatory and should be restricted? Would we discard the First Amendment to comply with the UN agenda?
In a 2003 piece Ron Paul asserts the US right to go to war with whomever they damn well feel like, with no respect towards international law.
Our anticipated war in Iraq has been condemned by many around the world for the worst of all reasons: namely, that America is acting without United Nations approval. The obvious implication is that an invasion of Iraq is illegitimate without such approval, but magically becomes legitimate when UN bureaucrats grant their blessing. Most Americans rightfully resent this arrogant attitude toward our national sovereignty and don’t care what the UN thinks about our war plans. Perhaps our heritage as a nation of people who do not take kindly to being told what to do is intact. Still, only the most ardent war hawks connected with the administration have begun to discuss complete withdrawal from the UN. I have advocated this for twenty years, and have introduced legislation to that effect.
The administration deserves some credit for asserting that we will go to war unilaterally if necessary, without UN authorization. But it sends a mixed message by doing everything it can to obtain such authorization. Efforts to build a “coalition†through the promise of billions in foreign aid dollars only reinforce the perception that we’re trying to buy support for the war. The message seems to be that the UN is credible when we control it and it does what we want, but lacks all credibility when it refuses to do our bidding. The bizarre irony is while we may act unilaterally in Iraq, the very justification for our invasion is that we are enforcing UN resolutions!
Our current situation in Iraq shows that we cannot allow U.S. national security to become a matter of international consensus. We don’t need UN permission to go to war; only Congress can declare war under the Constitution. The Constitution does not permit the delegation of congressional duties to international bodies. It’s bad enough when Congress relinquishes its warmaking authority to the President, but disastrous if we relinquish it to international bureaucrats who don’t care about America.
Noted constitutional scholar Herb Titus has thoroughly researched the United Nations and its purported “authority.†Titus explains that the UN Charter is not a treaty at all, but rather a blueprint for supranational government that directly violates the Constitution. As such, the Charter is neither politically nor legally binding upon the American people or government. The UN has no authority to make “laws†that bind American citizens, because it does not derive its powers from the consent of the American people. We need to stop speaking of UN resolutions and edicts as if they represented legitimate laws or treaties. They do not.
In short, I do not believe that Ron Paul is a man of peace. He is an anti-UN paranoiac, with no more respect for such international treaties as the Geneva Conventions than George Bush or Kim Jong-il. (I wonder if he has been reading the Left Behind series.) Whatever he gets up to in internal politics, which is, I suppose, the US’s own business much as we wish the citizens there well, it is clear that he desires to end all the positive actions the US takes in the world (of which there are many). He has stated that he would totally scrap the foreign aid budget. While it is true that a lot of that money is used to prop up dictators, it is also used to do a great deal of good, and is one of the few aspects of US foreign policy at the moment likely to help improve international opinion.
For the US to withdraw from the UN would probably be the end of the UN. Or at least they’ed need to start looking for a new HQ. There would be upheaval as the powerstruggles began to fill the vacuum.
He is against the Iraq war, that is clear and good, but is he against war? Evidence would suggest otherwise. While his reasons may be different, it would appear he is just as willing to project US power through violence, anywhere in the world, with even less heed to international opinion than the current administration. (I would especially not want to be Mexico if Ron Paul got elected).
The world needs a US that will play nice with others. The US needs to work with others in order to achieve its global policy goals. I do not think Ron Paul is the person that is going to make that happen. I’ll keep on praying for Kucinich, in the absence of Gore running.
I certainly don’t think Ron Paul is the worst of the Republican nominees (he might actually be the best of them), and I am also encouraged by his excellent American Freedom Agenda Act which would go some way to pushing back the Bush assault upon the US Constitution. But heck, I don’t get a vote anyway. What do you think?
The BBC reports that the actor Jim Caviezel, playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion Of Christ”, has been struck by lightning for a second time. Grief man, take a hint!
Describing the second lightning strike, McEveety told VLife, a supplement of the trade paper Variety: “I’m about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel’s ears.”
Sadly only literal pretend messiahs get thunderbolted. Which neatly links us to Oz as:
The Great KerfuffleTM continues!
George W Bush has addressed the Australian Federal Parliament. His speech, once it got past the Howard love-in, and George showing his aptitude for foreign languages, “You might remember that I called him a man of steel. That’s Texan for fair dinkum.”, was a standard-issue denunciation of Saddam, and all evil-doers.
During the speech, Ahmed Habib, the son of one of the two Australians being held at Guantanamo, was in the public gallery as a guest of Green MP Bob Brown.
“What about my father’s rights?” he called out before security guards escorted him from Parliament, making him the only person removed during the address.
The complete speech, courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald, is watchable on the web. Worth it for the rare occasion of Bush being heckled. (Actually, it looks like the only part of the speech cut is the heckling. Garrr! They cunningly split it into three parts, with the heckling in the bits between the parts.)
Luckily the BBC has a little film story about the event, and even shows some protestors. Heavens forbid!
Brown interjected on the President: “Mr Bush, this is Australia. Respect our nation’s laws. Return our Australian citizens from Guantanamo Bay. If you respect the world’s laws the world will respect you.”
The Speaker ordered him from the chamber, but he did not move. Shortly afterwards Kerry Nettle also piped up, was likewise ordered out, and stayed put. Now they will be barred from the address today by Chinese President Hu, where they planned to protest about human rights violations.
But they managed to draw the one unscripted line in Bush’s address. “I love freedom of speech,” he said after Nettle’s outburst.
Anyhows, Bush stayed less than 24 hours in Oz, and by now should be safe and sound back in the land of the free and the hope of the brave. So that is the end of W’s Oriental Adventure.
Grieve not, adventure lovers! George will be coming to England soon, and we’re getting a real nice welcome ready for him.