Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
my indie heart is a flutterin'
Gosh I love her.
You can get the song off of her album with M. Ward. She & Him is the name of their little duo.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
As seen on stephmodo's blog:
A 100 meter photograph taken in Berlin...the photo consists of 178 different people on the same railroad bridge but on different days. 20 in fact.
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
These are the most famous of Ronald Reagan’s remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987. Now, more than two decades later, these words need to be repeated, not to the Soviet Union but to the United States Congress regarding the Secure Fence Act.
On Oct 26, 2006, the Secure Fence Act was enacted by Congress to try “to establish operational control over the international land and maritime borders of the United States.” Hardly a fence, the border wall fails to decrease the number of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, according to a report commissioned by Congress.
We need to cease this $46 billion security blanket that has failed to gain control of the border, or, lets be honest, take attention away the failures in Iraq. Now, with Bush out of office, and the wall continuing to use up taxpayer dollars, congress needs to reconsider building this not-so-white picket fence.
The idea of throwing a wall up between two countries, which is what it sounds like to those who don’t have the time to read the whole bill, is an unintelligent solution that presents the USA as scared and irrational. It is a simple-minded answer that doesn’t fix the problem.
This new wall is blazing through communities, creating division and impacts on the culture and environment of border towns. According to the CRS Report for Congress, updated in June 2007, the border fence has had little impact on overall apprehensions in California and Arizona, where the largest stretch of fence has been completed.
Yesterday, KGVR, a local TV station, reports stated that the border wall will cut off water pumping stations along the Rio Grande valley. This is just one of many changes to which the wall is forcing border town communities to adhere.
There does seem to be some positive impact to the border fence. On Oct. 15, 2008 the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector reported that agents were able to save 443 illegal aliens from possible death after being abandoned by their smugglers, during fiscal year 2008, while reducing the number of deaths by 17 percent from 202 in fiscal year 2007 to 167 in fiscal year 2008. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like the initiative is designed to save lives.
While US Border patrol stand around talking on their cell phones, munching snacks and hoping to catch at least a few migrant workers in action, US tax dollars are being wasted.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, after visiting Brownsville in May 2008 to investigate the fence, estimates that the costs of building and maintaining the fence could prove astronomical, ranging "from $300 million to $1.7 billion per mile, depending on materials."
A 700-mile wall at $3 billion (which is the lowest price estimate) per mile adds up to $2.1 billion. This money, which is not delivering an answer to the problem of illegal immigration, should be used to pay off federal debt or help fund President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.
These are the most famous of Ronald Reagan’s remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany on June 12, 1987. Now, more than two decades later, these words need to be repeated, not to the Soviet Union but to the United States Congress regarding the Secure Fence Act.
On Oct 26, 2006, the Secure Fence Act was enacted by Congress to try “to establish operational control over the international land and maritime borders of the United States.” Hardly a fence, the border wall fails to decrease the number of immigrants who are in the United States illegally, according to a report commissioned by Congress.
We need to cease this $46 billion security blanket that has failed to gain control of the border, or, lets be honest, take attention away the failures in Iraq. Now, with Bush out of office, and the wall continuing to use up taxpayer dollars, congress needs to reconsider building this not-so-white picket fence.
The idea of throwing a wall up between two countries, which is what it sounds like to those who don’t have the time to read the whole bill, is an unintelligent solution that presents the USA as scared and irrational. It is a simple-minded answer that doesn’t fix the problem.
This new wall is blazing through communities, creating division and impacts on the culture and environment of border towns. According to the CRS Report for Congress, updated in June 2007, the border fence has had little impact on overall apprehensions in California and Arizona, where the largest stretch of fence has been completed.
Yesterday, KGVR, a local TV station, reports stated that the border wall will cut off water pumping stations along the Rio Grande valley. This is just one of many changes to which the wall is forcing border town communities to adhere.
There does seem to be some positive impact to the border fence. On Oct. 15, 2008 the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector reported that agents were able to save 443 illegal aliens from possible death after being abandoned by their smugglers, during fiscal year 2008, while reducing the number of deaths by 17 percent from 202 in fiscal year 2007 to 167 in fiscal year 2008. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like the initiative is designed to save lives.
While US Border patrol stand around talking on their cell phones, munching snacks and hoping to catch at least a few migrant workers in action, US tax dollars are being wasted.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, after visiting Brownsville in May 2008 to investigate the fence, estimates that the costs of building and maintaining the fence could prove astronomical, ranging "from $300 million to $1.7 billion per mile, depending on materials."
A 700-mile wall at $3 billion (which is the lowest price estimate) per mile adds up to $2.1 billion. This money, which is not delivering an answer to the problem of illegal immigration, should be used to pay off federal debt or help fund President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.
Monday, February 23, 2009
The land of the free...
Complete isolation from the world, confined in a small cell with an opaque window covered with plastic, separation from loved ones, newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television. Residing in a cell that contains only a steel bed, a sink and a toilet. This must be hell. This must be in a barbarian country - maybe an Afghan prison. This certainly wouldn’t happen in America. Right? Wrong.
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the last “enemy combatant” incarcerated in America, has been (barely) living in the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charelston, South Carolina. A citizen of Quitar who was studying at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, he was incarcerated for being an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent. His conditions are appalling.
According to al-Marri’s complaint, when was interrogated, government officials threatened he would be sent to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where they told him he would be tortured and sodomized and his wife would be raped in front of him.
The living conditions and threats are only the beginning of the assortment of human rights issues connected to al-Marri’s case. Two months after arriving in America with his family on September 10, 2001, al-Marri was arrested as a material witness in connection with the 9/11 attacks. When he was on the verge of trial in June 2003, President Bush ordered that he be incarcerated and held indefinitely.
If this can happen, can an American civilian be arrested and taken from his home and family at the request of a president?
In August of 2005 al-Marri filed a lawsuit, a lower court affirmed the government’s right to detain him indefinitely and after several appeals the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear his case in April. The Court requires that the Obama Administration file a reply to challenge by March 23rd.
In his memorandum, filed on January 22, 2009, President Obama stated that it is “in the interests of the United States that the executive branch undertake a prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal basis for al-Marri's continued detention, and identify and thoroughly evaluate alternative dispositions.
The Supreme Court needs to come up with a legal theory for what to do with al-Marri, because keeping him in custody as an enemy combatant is inhumane and unconstitutional.
Marri is being treated like a soldier of war and the Supreme Court needs to ask if he should be treated like a civilian. Is a war on terror indeed a war? Al-Marri’s detention far from armed conflict separates him from the laws of war. The court needs to rule that indefinite executive detention is illegal and al-Marri should be classified as a civilian, not an enemy combatant, allowing that he either be charged with crimes or released.
In a call for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse al-Marri’s affirmation of military detention, the New York Times wrote, “People accused of bad deeds should be tried in court – not in sham proceedings. They should be put in jail – not secret detention.”
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the last “enemy combatant” incarcerated in America, has been (barely) living in the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charelston, South Carolina. A citizen of Quitar who was studying at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, he was incarcerated for being an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent. His conditions are appalling.
According to al-Marri’s complaint, when was interrogated, government officials threatened he would be sent to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where they told him he would be tortured and sodomized and his wife would be raped in front of him.
The living conditions and threats are only the beginning of the assortment of human rights issues connected to al-Marri’s case. Two months after arriving in America with his family on September 10, 2001, al-Marri was arrested as a material witness in connection with the 9/11 attacks. When he was on the verge of trial in June 2003, President Bush ordered that he be incarcerated and held indefinitely.
If this can happen, can an American civilian be arrested and taken from his home and family at the request of a president?
In August of 2005 al-Marri filed a lawsuit, a lower court affirmed the government’s right to detain him indefinitely and after several appeals the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear his case in April. The Court requires that the Obama Administration file a reply to challenge by March 23rd.
In his memorandum, filed on January 22, 2009, President Obama stated that it is “in the interests of the United States that the executive branch undertake a prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal basis for al-Marri's continued detention, and identify and thoroughly evaluate alternative dispositions.
The Supreme Court needs to come up with a legal theory for what to do with al-Marri, because keeping him in custody as an enemy combatant is inhumane and unconstitutional.
Marri is being treated like a soldier of war and the Supreme Court needs to ask if he should be treated like a civilian. Is a war on terror indeed a war? Al-Marri’s detention far from armed conflict separates him from the laws of war. The court needs to rule that indefinite executive detention is illegal and al-Marri should be classified as a civilian, not an enemy combatant, allowing that he either be charged with crimes or released.
In a call for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse al-Marri’s affirmation of military detention, the New York Times wrote, “People accused of bad deeds should be tried in court – not in sham proceedings. They should be put in jail – not secret detention.”
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