Today’s Talk

I really don’t call this a joke because a joke is something you don’t mean. But I really believe this guy would love to kill all of them. John McCain is a disaster waiting to happen!

PITTSBURGH — Cindy McCain’s jab to her husband’s back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran’s main import from the United States: cigarettes.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.

“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain told reporters, smiling as he waited for a cheesesteak sandwich at the Primanti Brothers restaurant. His wife, sitting next to him at the counter, poked his back without looking up.

“I meant that as a joke,” McCain quickly explained. “As a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years,” he began to say, when his wife corrected him: 29 years.

Source

About the book

Visit the Bugliosi website 
In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.

As a prosecutor who is dedicated to seeking justice, Bugliosi, in his inimitable style, delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity.
A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office.

Vincent Bugliosi calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.

Great stuff Dennis, you are one of the few that is actually abiding by your oath you took.

Kieth Olbermann’s Countdown

So what makes the U.S. think Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear program is anymore genuine than Iran’s??

NewsBlaze 

President Bush met with Saudi King Abdullah to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations and announce a new agreement pledging U.S. support for Saudi Arabia as it builds a civil nuclear energy program that benefits its people, observes international nonproliferation standards and prevents the spread of nuclear weapons.

“This agreement will pave the way for Saudi Arabia’s access to safe, reliable fuel sources for energy reactors and demonstrate Saudi leadership as a positive nonproliferation model for the region,” a May 16 White House fact sheet said. The agreement is one of four reached between Bush and Abdullah during a day of private talks at al Janadriyah, the King’s horse farm and retreat outside Riyadh.

Read more here

The official death toll for Burma’s cyclone disaster has jumped to almost 78,000 people, with nearly 56,000 missing, according to state TV.

Previously, Burma was giving a toll of 43,000 dead and 28,000 missing while the Red Cross and United Nations had estimated a death toll above 100,000.

Aid agencies are frustrated at the slow progress of aid to areas worst hit.

Cyclone Nargis battered southern regions of Burma, including the Irrawaddy Delta, on 2-3 May.

A BBC reporter in the delta this week saw little sign of official help and foreign aid workers have been barred from the area.

Heavy rain has been lashing the region, compounding the misery of survivors.

The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator, John Holmes, is due to visit Rangoon, Burma’s main city, on Sunday in a bid to persuade the military government to grant more access to UN relief workers and expand its aid effort.

Earlier, the EU’s top aid official, Louis Michel, was denied permission to visit the delta region. He said he was given no explanation why disaster emergency experts were being refused visas.

However, Burma - also known as Myanmar - has promised to take foreign diplomats on a tour of the region this weekend.

Continue reading »

Truly awesome! Shut the hell up President BUSH!

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• D.O.B: 9/19/1986
• Residence: Toronto, CA
• Nationality: Pakistani
• ISN: 766
• Date of Arrest: July 27, 2002
• Place of Arrest: Ab Khail, Afghanistan
• Age at time of arrest: 15

The below is from Cageprisoners:

Omar Khadr was born in 1986. He is the son of Ahmad Said Khadr, Egyptian, who came to Canada from his native Egypt in 1977, and Maha, a Palestinian-Canadian.

He has three brothers, Abdullah, Abdul-Rahman (21), Abdul-Rahim (14), and two sisters, Zaynab (23) and one who is the younger than him.

Whilst born and raised in Canada, the family moved to Afghanistan in the 1990’s, engaging in refugee work and establishing schools, to rebuild the country under the rule of the Taliban.

When the Americans began bombing Afghanistan, he went to Logar, East Afghanistan. After the Northern Alliance entered Kabul, Omar, now separated from his brother (In Kabul) and his family (who had fled to Pakistan) ended up at a suspected al-Qaeda base near Khost, Afghanistan, which was raided by American and Afghan troops in July 27, 2002. He allegedly killed an American medic with a hand grenade but was shot three times, captured and taken to Guantanamo. He lost one eye. He was 15 at the time of his arrest and has since been detained in Guantanamo Bay. There he has been denied medical treatment, due to his non-co-operation with his interrogators. He had an operation whilst in Afghanistan but remains in constant pain, without being treated with painkillers.

Abdul-Rahman, his brother, was also held at Guantanamo Bay from early 2003 until July 2003. He returned to Canada in November 2003. He admitted several months later to having been recruited into the CIA on his arrest in Afghanistan, and informing on his family, and al-Qaeda members in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Bosnia- Herzegovinia.

His father was killed in a gun battle, with the Pakistani forces, in South Waziristan in October 2003.

His younger brother, Abdul-Rahim, was shot in the firefight, in his spine, leaving him paralysed from the waist down.

His mother and sister remain in Pakistan, living off the charity of locals.

His elder brother remains in hiding in Pakistan. If he is captured it is probable that he will be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

Please take a moment to send a card to Omar. Something simple is fine. Remember he speaks and reads English, which makes it pretty easy to send something. Be sure not to write anything about current events, or it will be redacted.. Just a little note - anything at all, just to let him know that we are out here and we know he’s still stuck there. The address to write is below this one. You don’t even need an overseas stamp. If you can afford it, please consider donating a few dollars to his mother in Pakistan. Even just five US dollars can go a long way.

Write to him:Omar Khadr
Camp Delta
P. O. Box 160
Washington DC 20053
USA

To Donate to his family:
Family of Omar Khadr
c/o Cageprisoners
PO Box 45798
London
SW16 4XS

Buddhist monasteries are among the few institutions in China which have the potential to organise resistance and opposition to the government - so the Chinese Communist Party constantly worries about them.

Are some monks secret supporters of the Dalai Lama? Could they be working towards Tibetan independence? Beijing’s fear is so great that being found with just a photograph of the Dalai Lama in your possession could land you in jail.

Government regulation of the monasteries started almost as soon as the People’s Liberation Army marched into Tibet in 1950.

The recent protests mark the 49th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising of 1959 when anti-Chinese and anti-communist demonstrations erupted on the streets of Lhasa, and were put down by force.

Lhasa’s three major monasteries - the Sera, Drepung and Ganden, were seriously damaged by shelling. The Dalai Lama was forced to flee into exile and the Tibetan government-in-exile estimates that 86,000 Tibetans died.

Source: BBC