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Sunday, November 20, 2005
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 A Teacher in the US has been sacked for showing his English class the movie Elizabeth.
Although the more sensible UK have the movie rated at a mere 15, the US have it classed as an R rated movie. That means the movie should have been shown to his class in the presence of an adult...ermmm...what was the 62 year old English teacher with 37 years at the school? According to the Guardian:
An American high school teacher who screened the Oscar-winning film Elizabeth for his students lost his job following complaints from parents. Ed Youngblood, 62, had taught at South Gwinnett High School in Atlanta, Georgia, for 37 years before screening the film to his advanced British literature class earlier this month. He says that he was given the choice of quitting or being fired after being informed that an official investigation was under way.
Oh, I like that too. He was told quit or be fired while the investigation was ongoing? Now that's justice, and all over the screening of an historical English drama to his advanced English class...Surely there's nothing wrong with that?
(Via The Movie Blog.)
5:45:09 PM 
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Evacuees Face Housing Crunch, Thousands of evacuees from the Gulf Coast are staying in hotel rooms in Georgia and Texas, but they will have to find other accommodations in about two weeks.
At the federal Housing and Urban Development office in DeKalb County, several evacuees sought help Thursday at the agency, but were given little assistance.
"It's stressful," said evacuee Crystal Stanton. "It's cold out here and we have until the 31st, and FEMA is going to put us out on the street."
Meanwhile,Storm Hit Little, but Aid Flowed to Inland City, The only damage sustained by most of the nearly 30,000 households receiving aid was spoiled food in the freezer.
[. . .] What happened in Jackson and its suburbs - in Hinds, Madison and Rankin Counties - might not be unique. Emergency officials elsewhere in Mississippi and in parts of Louisiana have also questioned how so much federal aid could have been authorized, given the limited damage they documented.
[. . .] The disaster area in Mississippi - which is led by Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican ally of President Bush's - extends 200 miles farther north than that in Louisiana, which is led by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat who at times criticized the federal storm response.
(Via Seeing the Forest.)
4:47:33 PM
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Remember when, back during the days of the Clinton Presidency, American forces were involved in U.S. campaigns in Kosovo and Iraq? Listening to Republicans today, we hear that it's unpatriotic to criticize the war in Iraq. By opposing the war and favoring a withdrawal and a timeline for leaving, we're "playing partisan politics".
It's an absurd argument, but let's jump past that for a momemnt. Here's the icing on the cake: read these statements from Republicans who criticized President Clinton for directing U.S. forces into military campaigns abroad:
"The suspicion some people have about the president's motives in this attack [on Iraq] is itself a powerful argument for impeachment," Armey said in a statement. "After months of lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons."
- Rep. Dick Armey, former GOP Majority Leader
"It is obvious that they're (the Clinton White House) doing everything they can to postpone the vote on this impeachment in order to try to get whatever kind of leverage they can, and the American people ought to be as outraged as I am about it," Solomon said in an interview with CNN. Asked if he was accusing Clinton of playing with American lives for political expediency, Solomon said, "Whether he knows it or not, that's exactly what he's doing."
- Rep. Gerald Solomon (R - NY)
The foregoing review of the Clinton Administration's prevarications on Kosovo would not be complete without a brief look at one other possible factor in the deepening morass. Consider the following fictional situation: A president embroiled in a sex scandal that threatens to bring down his administration. He sees the only way out in distracting the nation and the world with a foreign military adventure. So, he orders his spin-doctors and media wizards to get to work. They survey the options, push a few buttons, and decide upon a suitable locale: Albania.
- Sen. Larry Craig, U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative activist, said Clinton's decision to bomb on the eve of the impeachment vote "is more of an impeachable offense than anything he is being charged with in Congress."
"I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time. Both the timing and the policy are subject to question."
- former GOP Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott
"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)
"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."
-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99
"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)
"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."
-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99
"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99
"Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)
Conservatives cannot deny it - these quotes are real.
Who's playing partisan politics? It's the GOP.
Where's the skepticism and cynicism towards Bush's actions abroad? It doesn't exist. It's difficult to find Republicans who don't wholeheartedly support the war.
How ironic is it all? Well, just take Santorum's quote...and replace Clinton's name:
"President Bush is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
That's right - unjustified preemptive warfare does not make for a sound foreign policy. The Bush administration is destroying the fiscal health of this nation by wasting billions upon billions of dollars in the debacle that is the Iraq conflict.
The adminisration refuses to plan for a resolution to the conflict, which leaves us mired in Iraq for the forseeable future, until we get a change of leadership.
It is time to bring our troops home. We do not have to abandon Iraq completely, but we need to conceptualize a plan for leaving, and execute it! And if Bush will not lead, then the Congress must.
If we Democrats retake Congress in 2006, one of the things we must do is to refuse to put a single penny more into Iraq until Bush produces a withdrawal plan. And if he ultimately won't, the Congress should approve a budget that includes money for leaving but not continued operations, and force Bush to veto it.
The Republicans are good at campaigning and winning elections and terrible at governing. They are the party of double standards. They love to accuse us of "playing partisan politics", but oddly enough, that seems to be the only thing they're good at.
All we need to do is simply become better at telling voters what we stand for and show them that we share their priorities, and we'll get the sane governance America deserves.
(Via Northwest Progressive Institute.)
1:05:43 PM
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Sad news: Link Wray, pioneering instrumental-rock guitarist, has died at age 76, and has been buried in Copenhagen. The English-speaking press hasn't picked up on the story yet, so this Danish article is all I have to go on. Since my Danish is limited to "I'd like to have a hamburger," I can't say if the article identifies the cause of his death. Here's a French article translated into English, which says the cause hasn't been released yet.
I saw Link perform with Robert Gordon, many years ago; the passion in his playing was incredible. He will be missed.
So long, Ray, and thanks for all the great licks!
(Via Eye of the Goof.)
12:58:49 PM
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Ah, Utah. If they are not going to learn it in schools you can expect folk are going to have to pick it up in the taverns of the nation: Wasatch Beers is changing the label on its 2002 Unofficial Amber Ale — a title that once raised a ruckus with Olympic officials — to "Evolution Amber Ale." The company says the change is inspired by Utah legislators and the debate here and nationally over whether public school evolution lessons should be balanced with "intelligent design," or the idea that life is too complex to be explained by Darwin's theory of evolution alone. Wasatch Beers founder Greg Schirf, called a "counterculture brewer master" in a company press release, said the new label was intended to be light-hearted. But Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, isn't laughing. "I guess some people are going to get a chuckle out of it. I don't see anything funny about it," Buttars said. "Anytime someone (tries to) sarcastically exploit issues of morality in those kinds of ways is very unappealing. But it doesn't bother me, whatever they put on there."
(Via A Good Beer Blog.)
12:54:03 PM
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"I didn't advocate invasion, I wasn't asked." - Rumsfeld on THIS WEEK, this morning.
Now keep in mind, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, says he wasn't asked either.
If true, that means George Bush went to war in Iraq without asking the opinion of the Secretary of Defense of the Secretary of State. Who did he get his advice from, anyone?
(Via AMERICAblog.)
11:59:33 AM
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...what have we here:
The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official.
Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades -- usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each -- begin pulling out of Iraq early next year.
But I thought John Murtha was the coward who wanted to cut and run. What gives?
(Via Sadly, No!.)
11:51:47 AM
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The Boston Globe is practicing journalism, and I for one, love it. Four pages of straight reportage chock full of facts and stats, yet it's eminently readable and more damning than any op-ed I can recall.
The only problem I have with the whole wonderful piece is the title: “Congress reduces its oversight role. Since Clinton a change in focus.” My choice would be: “Congress not only ignores corruption from the executive branch, they enable and excuse it.”
It's worth registering for too:
WASHINGTON — Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.
In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
The jarring comparison reflects the way Congress has conducted its oversight role during the GOP's era of one-party rule in Washington.
While congressional committees once were leaders in investigating the executive branch and powerful industries, the current Congress has largely spared major corporations and has done only minimal oversight of the Republican administration, according to a review of congressional documents by The Boston Globe...
(Via All Spin Zone.)
11:37:25 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 12/2/2005; 7:09:48 PM.
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