The MooCow's New Blog
Monday, November 29, 2004
Going Backwards??? :=8/
:=8D
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Need any further proof that the Jesus filks are bound and determined to dumb-down our country back to the stone-age, like every udder theocratic regime in history? Check out this bombshell:
The long-simmering battle over how evolution is taught in high school biology is boiling again.
Nearly 80 years after the famous "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee teacher John Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in violation of state law, 24 states this year have seen efforts to change the way evolution is taught.
And because of a requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind law that states must review science standards over the next two years, the debate is likely to intensify. That requirement provides an opportunity for critics of evolution to help reshape how it is taught in public schools.
The battlegrounds include small school districts as well as state school boards that write policy for every district in the state. Among them:
• In western Wisconsin, the small Grantsburg School District now requires that alternative theories of evolution be taught. • In Ohio, the state school board passed a measure that encourages the teaching of evolution and "intelligent design," a hypothesis that says life is so complex that some intelligent force was responsible.
• In Kansas, the defeat this month of a "pro-science" incumbent on the state school board by a candidate who had questioned evolution has shifted the balance of power on the 10-member board and ensures that the issue will come up again. The board ended the teaching of evolution in 1999, then reversed that decision after a subsequent election. It has been deadlocked since.
Debates over religion, science and natural phenomena are not limited to schools and evolution. The bookstore at Grand Canyon National Park sells Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a Colorado River guide. The book says the Grand Canyon was created during Noah's flood, not through millennia of erosion by the Colorado River.
:=8O
The fight over evolution is heating up as the country tries to come to terms with the role of religion in government. The American public remains divided. In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 1,105 people conducted Nov. 19-21, 48% said religion has too much political influence in American life, and 40% said it has too little influence. Seven percent said religion has about the right amount of political influence. The poll's margin of error was +/—3 percentage points.
The debate over evolution has itself evolved. It is no longer a clear-cut argument between creationists who support the Bible's version of the origin of life and evolutionists who back Charles Darwin's theory that complex life forms, including humans, developed through genetic changes over millions of years. Now, those challenging Darwin want evolution taught as a theory whose validity is questioned. They also want alternative views taught so students are exposed to all views.
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, says the new approach is politically smart.
"They have no science," Scott says. "But they can argue to the American public that it's only fair to teach alternative science theories or evidence against evolution. That resonates in American culture. We are a very fair people."
But giving equal time to alternative views, critics such as Scott say, suggests that they are on par scientifically with evolution, which is grounded in scientific fact.
"Part of the job of the public school system is to make professional judgments about what children ought to learn," says Jack Krebs, a teacher and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science. "It doesn't make any sense to give equal time to all these other ideas that are vastly unsupported. It's misleading to kids."
The most popular alternative is "intelligent design." Proponents of intelligent design do not publicly identify the "intelligent force," although they privately say it is God.
The hypothesis has been promoted to school districts by the Center for Science & Culture, an arm of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that is involved in other issues, such as regional transportation, and boasts as its largest donor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Some features of the natural universe are best explained as products of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process like natural selection," says John West, the center's associate director. But identifying the cause, he says, is "outside the scope of science."
:=8O
The Dover, Pa., school district recently became the first in the nation to require teaching intelligent design. Two school board members, Jeffrey Brown and his wife, Carol, resigned in protest.
"I don't think we should be teaching it. It is not a scientific theory, it is only a hypothesis," Brown says. Opponents call intelligent design "creationism in a tuxedo" that attempts to blur the line between religion and science in a way that will survive an inevitable court challenges.
In 1987, the Supreme Court found that teaching creationism in public schools violates the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Scopes in the Tennessee Monkey Trial in 1925 — and lost — is now involved in litigation in Georgia and is considering suing in Dover.
"We've been fighting this since 1925,"says Witold Walczak, a Pennsylvania ACLU lawyer. "Why aren't people questioning atomic theory? Why aren't they questioning the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun? That's because evolution conflicts with their religious beliefs."
The lawsuit in Georgia was filed on behalf of six parents who objected to a disclaimer sticker the Cobb County school board placed on ninth-grade biology textbooks. The case was tried earlier this month in federal court in Atlanta. The judge's ruling is expected soon.
The disclaimer sticker states: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
Ken Miller, a Brown University biologist and co-author of the textbook, testified at the trial. He says the sticker "gives the impression that it's a very shaky theory." He adds: "When you say theory, not a fact, you're confusing the word, that it's something that we are not certain of. Theories in science explain facts."
Georgia state science standards require that evolution be taught. But in 2002, the district decided to add the sticker after 2,100 parents complained that the text failed to present other views about the origins of life.
The lawsuit illuminates the problem educators face as they attempt to straddle the divide over religion.
"We're trying to ... improve our evolution instruction and at the same time acknowledge that religious beliefs do enter into it," says Linwood Gunn, the district's attorney. "It is permissible to acknowledge there might be a conflict. Otherwise, you are ignoring the real friction there."
Nice to see that Ignorance is alive and well in the good ol' USA. Oh, and its kissing-cousins, Superstition and Stupidity, too. And, as usual, the Jesus-thumpers aren't happy with brainwashing their own spineless, moronic children, they have to make sure that EVERYONE comes out of school without a brain and ready to masturbate with a flag and a bible, so the government can send 'em off to kill darkies in other countries and make sure the oil flows to keep their gas-guzzling SUVs full so they can buy moore and moore Chinese prison-labor and children-produced cheap knock-off goods at Death-Mart.
Just brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?
:=8/
Thanks, John! :=8D
- posted by The MooCow @ 9:50 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 22, 2004
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Jesus Wants Your Children! :=8O
:=8D
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Hmm, this is interesting:
Couple Accused in Plot to Sacrifice Kids
ROCHESTER, N.H. - A woman and her boyfriend are accused of plotting to sacrifice the woman's three children on a church altar.
Nicole Mancini, 29, and John Thurber, 35, were arrested at St. Mary's Church on Wednesday after workers said they heard the woman say she wanted to sacrifice the boys.
"We could tell this woman was not right," said church secretary Donna Landolfi. "She said, 'Let's go make the sacrifice.'"
Mancini and Thurber were in jail Saturday on more than $25,000 bail. They were arraigned Friday on three counts each of misdemeanor child endangerment. Thurber was also charged with marijuana possession.
The children, ages 9, 7 and 2, were not harmed and were placed in state custody. Police said Thurber is the father of the youngest boy.
Police said Mancini told them that Jesus sacrificed himself for her, so she was going to sacrifice the boys to free her soul.
"Eighteen years I've been doing this and I've never come across anything like it," police Lt. Paul Callaghan said.
Mancini's attorney, Kimberly Shoen, said her client meant the children no harm.
"They were never tied to the altar, there was no blood, there were no constraints for sacrificial use," she said.
Linda Slamon, Thurber's attorney, said Mancini had been acting "irrationally" recently and Thurber accompanied her to the church to get her help.
"If anything, he was there to protect the children and protect Miss Mancini," Slamon said.
A judge ordered Mancini, of Farmington, to undergo a mental evaluation.
Gosh, glad those Bible-Bashing Jesus Thumpers decided the election for us. Gonna be a whole lot moore of this going on purty soon.
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 1:11 AM 0 comments
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Whatever...
:=8(
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
It has been difficult to write anything due to the post-election maliase which has swept the MooCow's Barn. Putting together cowherant thoughts and sentances into something like an intereting op-ad has been very difficult lately - well at least I won't get fired for interrupting CSI for breaking news about Arafat's death, or the udder producer fired over cowparing Bush's rise to power like that of Hitlers:
'Hitler' Exec Producer Fired Over Remarks
The executive producer of a CBS miniseries about Adolf Hitler's rise to power has been fired after giving an interview in which he compared the current mood of Americans to that of the Germans who helped Hitler rise to power.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ed Gernon was fired Sunday from Alliance Atlantis, the production company making "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" for CBS. He had worked there 11 years and was head of the firm's long-form programming division.
The Peterson trial is finally over, making that long, overhyped, pointless trial rival those of OJ and Joan Benet Ramsey as the moost wretched pieces of journalistic floatsom ever. These 3 trials helped denegrate even such traditional high-minded newspapers as The New York Times and the Washington Post into 'yellow journalism' (so-called because they are good for nothing except cowllecting urine at the bottom of cages). What will be the next hyper-exposed trial to be over-exposed to the country by sensasionalist hacks, time can only tell. Don't expect any serious journalism delving into Bush's plan to drill for oil in the pristine Alaskan wilderness, or any serious mention that Alberto Gonzales (replacing the mooch-hated John Ashcroft) is the mook responsible to redefining what "torture" means, which lead directly to the Abu Gharib prison atrocities. Or the fact that Republican Senator Arlen Spector is going to be hounded out of his Chairmanship for making 'anti-Bush' remarks for stating that George II would not have an easy time even now to appoint an extremist, pro-Christian, militant Right-Wing Supreme Court nominee. Spector may be the last moderate conservative with any kind of power in the RNC, and the jack-booted Bushite will do everything they can to get rid of him, if not now then by not supporting him for his 2006 re-election campaign. If yer in the RNC, its either be a yes-man or shut the hell up.
At least Spector is not on the coveted and highly-anticipated Hate List for 2004 - the MooCow will be running that one very soon, so keep an eye peeled, folks...
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:23 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Partisan Fighting Forever??
:=8D
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Yes, Baby Bush remarked in his spech about the need for a spirit of cooperation to replace the bitter partisanship which charactorizes American politics these days - yeah, that's gonna happen....
:=8/
The MooCow, far wiser, predicts moore, and even bloodier, factional fighting between the sides, which cud very well lead to some unpleasant extremes. Let us remember Thucydides, who wrote about an-udder, older factional partisan struggle which tore apart a democracy(as edited by Donald Kagan):
"... Party membership and loyalty came to be regarded as the highest virtues, overshadowing all others and justifying the adandonment of all the restraints of traditional morality. Fanaticism and the treacherous intentions to plot the destruction of an enemy behind his back were regarded as equally admirable: to recoil from either of these was to disrupt the unity of the party out of fear of the enemy. Oathes lost their meaning and became tools of duplicity.
This state of terror arose as a result of the personal greed, ambition, and lust for power that typically emerge once factional war has broken out. While the leaders of each faction adapt a fine-sounding slogan - 'political equality for the people' for one, and 'the moderate rule of the best' for the other - they resorted to any evil trick available to them, and even murdered those who belonged to neither party 'either because they would not join them in the fight or out of jealousy that they should survive'. (3.82.8)
This new species of evil-doing spread throughout the various states of the Greek world along witht he revolutions.
'In general, the men of lower intelligence won out. Afraid of their own short-comings and of the intelligence of their opponants, so they would not lose out in reasoned argument or be taken by surprise by their quick-witted opponants, they boldly moved into action. Their enemies, on the contrary, contemptuous and confident in their ability to anticipate, thought there was no need to take by action what they could win by their brains'.(3.83.3-4)
Starting to sound familiar???
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:24 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Here's An-Udder Column...
:=8D
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Here is a commentary from the Daily Mirror -- a UK paper (thanks John!):
WAR MORE YEARS Nov 4 2004
America's global battle against terrorism stays on the offensive From Anthony Harwood In Boston GEORGE Bush now has a mandate to do whatever he likes. With the lion's share of the popular vote and his Republican buddies even stronger in Congress, he will relish the political clout.
He is now an unfettered right-wing president in a second term, who knows he doesn't have to face the electorate again.
Mr. Bush opposes abortion and gay marriage, doesn't give a stuff about the environment, is against gun control and believes troops should stay in Iraq for as long as it takes.
Expect to see more of the current national security advisor Condoleezza Rice strutting the world stage. She's favourite to take over from Colin Powell as Secretary of State.
Powell is stepping down to spend more time with his family - but the real reason is he's probably fed up with the Rumsfeld-Cheney pincer movement frustrating him at every turn.
Attorney-General John Ashcroft is also expected to quit with the cries of millions of Americans ringing in his ears, wondering what happened to their civil rights under the Patriot Act. Tom Ridge at the Department of Homeland Security is also off - too many sleepless nights for him.
On the world stage, we can expect some sort of showdown with North Korea and Iran over nuclear proliferation - and who knows where that will take us.
In the Middle East we can only hope that Bush finds his way again on the Road Map to Peace.
With Yasser Arafat's failing health, a Palestinian succession crisis is round the corner and the President will need to hold his nerve.
POLLS show Bush won Florida largely through the Jewish vote, because of his strong backing of Israel.
But he mustn't show any favours if he is to live up to his promise of the establishment of two separate states, one Palestinian, one Israeli.
On the environment, Bush's record is terrible and don't expect it to get much better.
Apart from kissing goodbye to the Kyoto global warming accord, you can also expect Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge to be opened up for oil drilling.
Clean air laws will be scrapped and moves to cut pollution from power plants left to the ravages of the market place.
Where Kerry had high ideals about freeing America from its dependence on Middle East oil, Bush's big idea on the environment was to splash out £550million on developing a hydrogen- fuelled car.
But the most worrying thing for most people will be what Dubya will do about terrorism.
Nobody knows where his policy of "staying on the offensive" against al-Qaeda will take us.
"Axis of Evil" countries like Syria, Iran and North Korea are still out there, defying Washington to whip them into line.
THE one consolation is that with Iraq in such a mess, America just doesn't have the troops to get bogged down in another theatre of war.
If you think Iraq was bad, it would be a picnic compared to Iran. With Bush still at the White House, al-Qaeda's position in the world - and particularly the Middle East - can only get stronger.
He is their biggest recruiter and that will not change as long as Iraq descends into civil war.
Bush will continue to portray it as a fight for freedom against tyranny - and that's fine with Osama bin Laden, who talked in last week's videotape about Bush being intoxicated with oil .
Bush spent much of the campaign boasting about how his policy of staying on the offensive had kept the terrorists from America's door.
And while it is true that there has been no outrages on US soil since the September 11 attacks, the rest of the world in the meantime has burned.
A SECOND Bush term will use its power to overhaul the US Supreme Court, which has several members who are about to retire.
Currently six of the nine-strong panel support the famous 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, which backs abortion.
But a new wave of Bush appointments, buttressed by a strongly Republican Congress, could produce a reversal.
That would mean a return to a patchwork of state laws, some of which would probably ban the procedure.
A Bush victory also challenges the legacy of Christopher Reeve and his campaign for stem cell research to aid the fight against major illnesses.
The president has warned: "Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of life to create a stem cell...science is important, but so's ethics."
One Kerry supporter was pictured in prayer at the Democrat contender's post-election rally. Her sentiment is shared by many across the world today.
a.harwood@mirror.co.uk
Geeze, even the Brits, our "staunch allies", are rolling their eyes in disgust. Yep, gonna be a fun-filled four years folks... :=8(
- posted by The MooCow @ 11:30 PM 0 comments
Post-Election Blues
:=8/
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Hmmm, looks like we're not the only ones saddened, frustrated, and fearful following yesterday's debacle at the polls. Udder outside Jesusland had a few interesting things to say, and you can always count on peopleliving outside the prison to have intereting things to say about those inside it.
Here's what Emma Brock of the UK's The Guardian had to say about the election:
Thursday November 4, 2004
The Guardian
The mistake we all made was in getting our hopes up. Until lunchtime on Tuesday, in accordance with the rules of superstition, lay supporters of John Kerry kept their outlook pessimistic. In bones, waters, winds and related vapours across the land, the election was divined by pro-Democrats to be in the bag for Bush. This is what is known as preparing a soft landing; it is measured in units of unhatched chicks.
We will never know who was first to break rank. But the earliest note of dissension I heard was at 7pm on the Heathrow Express. A man sitting in front of me called the election for Kerry, bold as brass, without qualifying it by spitting three times or chucking salt over his shoulder. "The young people will win it for Kerry," he said, as a shudder moved through the carriage and people reached for things to throw at his head. "The families of people in the military will win it for Kerry."
"Do you think so?" said his companion.
"Yes," he said, and it was as easy as that. The journey up, to be followed by a stomach-sliding descent some 12 hours later, had begun.
When people woke yesterday morning, those for whom Bush's overnight gains were unwelcome weathered two sensations: a slug of shock, followed by a surge of recognition. We had been here before. This was 1992, the morning after the general election when, despite hatred for the Tories having peaked over the poll tax, they still managed to bring home a 21-seat majority. And so, not even callers to 5 Live could summon any outrage; despondency was instant and lethal. On the way to work, the faces of people on the tube looked like chalk pavement pictures after a downpour. (OK, so they look like this every morning; but they had particular resonance yesterday, suspended as they were above front-page pictures of Bush smugly meditating). By 10am, as people got to their desks and began a day of low productivity and high personal email exchange, it became clear that the most pressing post-election question was not, "Where were you when you heard Bush was winning?" but rather, "Where were you when you allowed yourself to think it could ever have been otherwise?" Dismally, people asked each other how long they had stayed up the night before. "Until 4.30am," said my friend Jim. "Long enough to start crying like a girl."
Here's what Sidney Blumenthal, former Chief Advisor to President Clinton, had to say about the election:
"This country is going so far to the right you are not even going to recognise it," remarked John Mitchell, Richard Nixon's attorney general, in 1970. Mitchell's prophecy became the mission of Nixon's College Republican president, Karl Rove, who implemented the strategy of authoritarian populism behind George Bush's victory.
In the aftermath, the Democrats will form their ritual circular firing squad of recriminations. But, finally, the loss was not due to the candidate's personality, the flaws of this or that adviser, or the party's platform. The Democrats surprised themselves at their ability to raise tens of millions, inspire hundreds of thousands of activists, and present themselves as unified around a centrist position. Expectations were not dashed. Turnout was vastly increased among African-Americans and Hispanics. More than 60% of the newly registered voters went for John Kerry. Those concerned about the economy voted overwhelmingly for him; so did those citing the war in Iraq as an issue. But the Democrats' surge was more than matched.
Using the White House as a machine of centripetal force, Rove spread fear and fused its elements. Fear of the besieging terrorist, appearing in Bush TV ads as the shifty eyes of a swarthy man or a pack of wolves, was joined with fear of the besieging queer. Bush's support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was underscored by referendums against it in 11 states - all of which won.
The evangelical churches became instruments of political organisation. Ideology was enforced as theology, turning nonconformity into sin, and the faithful, following voter guides with biblical literalism, were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture. White Protestants, especially in the south, especially married men, gave their souls and votes for flag and cross. The campaign was one long revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval and it galvanised evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike.
While Kerry ran on mainstream traditions of international cooperation and domestic investments, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God". During the closing weeks, Bush and Cheney ridiculed internationalism, falsifying Kerry's statement about a "global test". They disdained Kerry's internationalism as effeminate, unpatriotic, a character flaw, and elitist. "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Cheney derided in every speech. They grafted imperial unilateralism on to provincial isolationism. Fear of the rest of the world was to be mastered with contempt for it.
This was linked to what is euphemistically called "moral values", which is social and sexual panic over the rights of women and gender roles. Only imposing manly authority against "girly men" and girls and lurking terrorists can save the nation. Above all, the exit polls showed that "strong leader" was the primary reason Bush was supported.
Brought along with Bush is a gallery of grotesques in the Senate: more than one new senator advocates capital punishment for abortion; another urges that all gay teachers be fired; yet another is suffering from obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's. The new majority is more theocratic than Republican, as Republican was previously understood; the defeat of the old moderate Republican party is far more decisive than the loss by the Democrats. There are no checks and balances.
The terminal illness of chief justice William Rehnquist signals new appointments to the supreme court that will alter law for more than a generation. Conservative promises to dismantle constitutional law since the New Deal will be acted upon. Roe v Wade will be overturned and abortion outlawed.
Now without constraints, Bush can pursue the dreams he has campaigned for - the use of US military might to bring God's gift of freedom to the world with no more global tests and at home the enactment of the imperatives of "the right God". The international system of collective security forged in the second world war and tempered in the cold war is a thing of the past. The Democratic party, despite its best efforts, has failed to rein in the radicalism sweeping the country. The world is in an emergency, but also irrelevant. The New World, with all its power and might, stepping forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old? Goodbye to all that.
Finally, here is columnist Ian Black:
Europe badly wanted John Kerry to win the US presidential election, hoping for a fresh start that would turn the bitter disagreements of the Iraq war into a thing of the past, even if it was always widely acknowledged that achieving it would be far from easy. But a second term for George Bush means that the transatlantic gap is now likely to yawn even wider than before.
It is true that some EU leaders - Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder in particular - calculated privately that life would be easier without a demanding, fence-mending Democrat in the White House. But the sensible, longer-term calculation was that Mr Kerry would at least moderate the unilateralist instincts sharpened by Mr Bush and the powerful neoconservatives on his team by wooing and consulting America's traditional allies.
Private European dismay at the outcome was masked by predictable and diplomatic public statements of determination to work together - though exactly how this will happen remains to be seen. "Despite the issue of our differing positions in the past, we all have to contribute to ensuring that the situation in Iraq stabilises," declared the German interior minister, Otto Schily. In Britain, Tony Blair will be hoping to benefit from the continuity of his much-vaunted "special relationship" with a re-elected Mr Bush, ineffective though many believe it has been, and highly damaging to his domestic standing as it undoubtedly is.
France, which led Old Europe's opposition to the Iraq war and spent months swapping furious insults with the US, was resigned to the inevitable. Michel Barnier, the foreign minister, could only praise American democracy for its vigour and a high turnout at the polls. His colleague Franco Frattini of Italy, another wartime Bush ally, spoke for countries on both sides of the divide when he talked of the need to maintain a close relationship with Washington.
EU leaders will be discussing the US election result when they meet at a Brussels summit on Friday. But their top foreign policy priority will be to seek urgent progress in the Middle East, where Mr Bush enfuriated many of them earlier this year by appearing to abandon the internationally backed "road map" to peace and endorsing Ariel Sharon's plan for holding onto the West Bank while unilaterally quitting Gaza. Mr Blair said again that he would doing whatever he could to create movement on this most volatile of fronts.
The other looming global issue is Iran, whose plans to develop nuclear weapons are likely to end up at the UN security council later this month, with demands from US hawks for sanctions or perhaps Israeli-style pre-emptive strikes against this member of what the president famously dubbed the "axis of evil." North Korea is a similarly complex and high-stakes dossier.
Iraq is likely to prove an extremely difficult issue in terms of transatlantic relations. Germany and France had been unlikely to respond to a call for troops from a President Kerry - thus the private relief in Berlin and Paris - but they will certainly not do so for Mr Bush, despite hoping for a successful outcome to the Iraqi elections in January.
Europeans will be watching very carefully to see who gets which jobs in the second Bush administration: every embassy in Washington is desperate to know who will succeed the retiring Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and Colin Powell at the state department, who may be replaced by the current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
On another front, Nato's European allies are likely to come under renewed pressure to contribute more to the difficult job of nation-building in Afghanistan, as well as to cooperate whole-heartedly in the "war on terror." But they will want to know that human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal will not recur. No guarantees are likely to be forthcoming.
Other likely bones of transatlantic contention are the Kyoto treaty on global warming, which the US has refused to sign, and the international criminal court, supported by the entire EU but flatly rejected by Washington.
Wider philosophical differences between the old and new continents seem certain to persist: these include attitudes to the UN and international law, exporting democracy to the Middle East - ridiculed by outgoing EU commissioner Chris Patten as the idea of "Jeffersonian tanks" - and the gap in development aid to the world's poorest countries.
It is a commonplace of discussions about transatlantic relations that it makes no sense at all for European to define itself against the world's unassailable superpower. But for all the brave faces and bland words emanating from European capitals, that now seems a very real possibility.
Welcome to the New Theocracy, my friends. Have you made a close and personal relationship with Jesus yet? You'd better, if you want to stay employed, fed, and out of jail.
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 7:49 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
ss
:=8(
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Well I hate to say I told you so... no, really, I HATE it....
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:50 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 01, 2004
1 last time
:=8D
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Oh what the heck, here is some last minute encowragement: BUSH OUT THE DOOR IN '04!!!
:=8D
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:39 PM 0 comments
Almoost Time! :=8.
:=8D
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Yep, election day is almoost here, and we're getting desperate here in the cow barn. In an effort to sway even one vote from going to Baby Bush, I have decided to let R. Joe Brandon do his anti-Bush rant for me... well, ok, I swiped it from his mass e-mail which went out to the archaeological cowmoonity on Shovelbums. He pretty mooch sums it all up - here's the long version:
I am preaching to the choir when I say every election in every country is important. However I strongly feel that this 2004 US election is of paramount importance, not only to the US, but the world in general. As we creep into this new millennium the United States is arguably the principle powerhouse of the world. Because ofgeographic isolation from threatening forces, abundant food resources and no major continental war to impede our development in the last 150 years we are at a enviable place in history. And this place is the one that so often fascinates us in our pursuitof the past – the maximum florescence of a culture. Unfortunately in the last four years I believe the United States, under the direction of the George Bush Jr. administration, has begun down a path which if traveled only a bit further will provoke irreconcilable results and thereby grossly effect the potential of the future. And as we are collectively the docents of the past we see more than others that any change in political power affects the future of that culture. We also see that there are certain points in history when a single political doctrine has a much more profound effect on the future path of a society. In the case of the current US election this is not a butterfly effect on our future per se but instead it is a sledge hammer effect. That being said, and combining this with the Nader observations above it is imperative that you get out and vote tomorrow for Kerry, and more importantly, ifyou have a friend, family member, etc that is pro-Kerry (or Nader) but is apathetic about getting out to vote PLEASE make it your priority to motivate them to get off their duff and get out and vote. If the election is to be lost, it is not so much for not enough of you voting, but instead it is for the loss of votes from those who *would* have voted for Kerry but choose not to.
A bit about me is in order. I grew up in the corn fields of NW Illinois. This is in the part of the state that is heartland of Ronald Reagan country, so much so that my grandfather went to grade school with Reagan in Tampico, Illinois and some of my good friends were Reagan's relatives. The farm I spent many weekends visiting with my friends at a yard Reagan would play football on when he was a boy. (As an aside I always found it funny in later years to reflect that while out at `grannies' place– she was Ronnies cousin – when Reagan was in office she still did not have an in door toilet…). So needless to say – there were a number of conservative views I was exposed to as a child. I use this description to demonstrate that while we are often disenfranchised because of the enormity of the political process – the great thing about the US is that a bunch of farmers in BFE Illinois all knew a person who would one day be the president of the US. So the top of the ladder is often closer than you might imagine. Coincident with this is your ability to change who is on that ladder. Like anyone I often lament the views, actions, and goals of those with principally different ideas than I have (and heck – you might feel that way about this election). However, the great thing about being in the US (currently) is that you*are* allowed those views, and the ability to express them. Now this does manifestitself in unattractive ways sometimes. For example the rampant lies and misrepresentations in the dearth of political ads this year (I am in Ohio – the "new" Florida so I am particularly inundated). But as Kristy and I were talking about this the other day we realizedthat we would rather have this type of exposure to information rather than having someone MAKE that decision FOR US. I believe that the Bush administration is moving us in that direction. i.e. one where the only correct point of view is that of the ruling party. Kristy came back from DC the other day with Kerry/Edwards t-shirts for us (and a pink "future president of the US" onsie for Samantha). We were able to wear these to a "slacker uprising tour" on Saturday night with Michael Moore. Samantha was equally into the political commentaries as she was the Goo Goo dolls and seeing Vigo Mortensen :). But in other parts of the world, none of that could have happened without flagrant civil liberty violations. But if our country heads down the course I feel we are on – I think we might end up in a place no one wants to be. With all that being said I do not particularly think Kerry is the ideal candidate, I voted for Edwards in the primary: however I unequivocally know that GeorgeBush Jr. is NOT a viable candidate in any fashion. His simple mindedness and inability to compromise is a huge liability in the political arena. And with much of the world at a crossroads this is a terrible time to have such inflexibility. The greatest lesson we all have from time is that NO society is forever. Growth IS a state of compromise. Using the Nader example from above – if you want to elect Nader vote for Kerry this time –you are compromising your immediate views today to give you the opportunity to expand your ways tomorrow. The bottom line? Don't just get yourself out to vote, bring someone along with you. If you know someone who is having troubles deciding. During the last election while Al Gore won by over 500,000 votes in the popular media, he lost for less than 500 votes for the electoral college. Your vote DOES matter. These links below might be useful. Here are a few links to useful information:-
C-span coverage of the debates: http://www.c-span.org/2004vote/debates.asp?Cat==Current_Event&Code==PresVP_04&Rot_Cat_CD==PresVP_04
Pull up the first on and go to 40 minutes 37 seconds. This is 67 seconds into Bush's 90 second response to a question. He is facing away from both the moderator and Kerry when he suddenly says to no-one visible "I-I-I…Now let me finish….". From what I have seen of various camera angles this without question shows that he is being prompted during a DEBATE for facts, figures, and points of view. This often is interpreted to explain his very odd speech pattern during events like this.
http://www.factcheckorg
Both of the candidates lie. It just seems Kerry lies less. In particular if you know of someone who was swayed by the "swift vets" ads. Those things are so chock full of lies it is not even funny.
http://www.factcheck.org/article244.html
The transcript of the most recent Osama Bin Laden video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3966817.stm
The important thing about this transcript is that it outlines, from his bizarre view of the world, the history of WHY terrorists have lashed out at the US actively on 9/11 and other nations historically. The attacks on the US are directly tied to both Bush senior and Bush Jr's involvement with oppressive regimes in the mideast. Most Americans are sadly ignorant of world politics and the profound growth of these deadly, and increasingly well heeled, radical groups is fundamental to understanding how to stop this madness. We are at a point where extremism in both directions is tearing at the very fabric of a great future. The other important thing about this video is that it underscores howNOT liberal the US media is (though conservatives would have you believe otherwise). In a truly liberal media would have at least provided more than 10 words from this diatribe (i.e. "the security of the US is in your hands"). This transcript clearly points a finger at the failings of the Bush(s) administrations and how they have fostered this type of terrorism under the guise of `democracy'. I find it odd that Bush is so intent on liberating Iraq and blessing it with democracy when his good friends the Saudis are a royalty-based country which STILL publicly beheads people. In 2003 they beheaded 53 gays, etc… http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/25/world/main626196.shtml
I could go on – but in the interest of getting this out I am going to curtail my rant here. Please vote.
Sincerely, R. Joe Brandon
Well done, R. Joe - although, technically speaking a "royalty-based country" would really be a moonarchy... ;=8)
I wish I cud be hopefull, but as I am cowvinced that this country is full of selfish, stupid, ignorant, careless, easily-terrified yokals, I am almoost 100% sure that we're going to end up with Baby Bush and his sickening sidekicks for yet an-udder 4 years. And since he won't have to worry about a second term, the gloves will really come off and he will try to pass all sorts of oppressive, hatefull, short-sighted legislation.
I hope I am dead wrong.
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 6:12 PM 0 comments
