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Easing the Body Burden -- THK Blog Tour, Day 3
Teresa Heinz Kerry is no stranger to the spotlight. She's been on stage in front of crowds larger than most of us can even imagine. But as far as she's concerned, her most important work takes place behind the scenes. As head of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, she has long been a leader in promoting responsible, sustainable social action.
One of Teresa Heinz Kerry's more visible projects is the ongoing Women's Health and the Environment Conference series. This year's keynote conference will be held in Pittsburgh on this coming Friday, April 20, and will feature a number of outstanding speakers, scientists, and activists discussing critical health issues facing women today.
We will be attending the Women’s Health & the Environment: New Science, New Solutions conference and will posting reports about it here at the DCP blog. Today, however, we're also participating in a special 17-stop virtual blog tour (see the complete tour schedule here). And that gave us the opportunity to ask Teresa Heinz Kerry a few questions of particular interest to members of the DCP community:
DCP: Most of us usually think of the environment as being something that is "out there", something outside ourselves. But that is not the case. The world around us is not just external; we make it internal ourselves, every day. We interact with the environment around us by eating it in our food, breathing it into our lungs, and in many cases applying it directly to our skin.
You recently wrote an article citing Douglas Fischer's investigative reporting about how much accumulated toxins build up in each of our bodies over time. What is this "body burden", and how can we take steps to guard against its effects on ourselves even though we are surrounded by those substances every day?
THK: Recently, our foundation launched an on-line environmental newsletter focused on Women, Health and the Environment. As you note, in the first issue I recount a story written by journalist Doug Fischer of The Oakland Tribune. In his prize winning series, “A Body’s Burden: Our Chemical Legacy,” Fischer reported on the environmental toxins in the blood of an average family in the area. The hair, blood, and urine of two San Francisco Bay area children contained concentrations of a pervasive flame retardant at levels higher than those known to cause reproductive and brain damage in rats. Surprisingly, the concentrations were much higher in the 18-month-old boy and his five-year old sister than in their parents. Fischer’s newspaper spent $17,000 on laboratory tests and on an independent scientific verification of an elaborate testing protocol to document these alarming concentrations.
Doug spoke in Boston at our 9th annual conference on Women, Health and the Environment. I will never forget his chronicle of how the story evolved from a simple report to the shocking conclusion concerning chemicals in our body and especially our children. “Our ability to detect these compounds, invisible even five years ago, has outstripped our ability to interpret the results,” he explained, “but if it was your two-year-old, would you want to know?”
Every person in the world has industrial chemicals in or passing through their bodies, the result of five decades of intensive (and continuing) chemical use in industrialized nations. Scientists call this the human "body burden" of chemicals. Because of gaps in our system of public health protections, health effects of the human body burden are mostly unknown.
Pioneering work on the “body burden” has been done by the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org), which spearheads the Human Toxome Project, the largest non-governmental biomonitoring program in the country. EWG’s testing programs have uncovered nearly 500 chemicals in children, teens, and adults, including nearly 300 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood collected from a sample of 10 babies at the moment of birth. In every person tested EWG has found complex mixtures of industrial chemicals never tested for safety.
To guard against the onslaught of chemicals, each of us needs to understand what I call the “consequences of our actions”, that is, to educate ourselves about the products we use and buy everyday -– from household products to sun screens to soaps. What I have found very useful is going to the Environmental Working Group website where they list their analysis of lots of specific products –- what we need to know and why. By doing so, I become a better informed consumer and better understand the kinds of chemicals in the products I might want to purchase.
DCP: Women in particular seem to be more at risk for body-burden issues than men are because they traditionally apply so many external substances to their own body in the form of cosmetics, nail polish, hair spray, etc. Don't the cosmetics manufacturers test for any negative reactions to these products before releasing them to market, and doesn't the FDA enforce regulatory standards to make sure that there are no long-term effects of using these substances for personal decoration? Should women stop using such products entirely, or are there ways in which they can protect themselves against the unwanted side effects?
THK: Three important points here. First, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have as their mandate safety testing for cosmetics. Second, the Agency does not systematically review ingredient safety. Third, in their 30-year history the cosmetic industry’s self-policing safety panel has reviewed the safety of just over 10% of the ingredients used in products.
Many organizations are working for policy reforms that would ensure that chemicals and products are safe before they are sold, particularly for children and other vulnerable populations. Finally, I would never tell a woman or a man to stop using products entirely, but I would and do encourage people to understand the kinds of chemicals that are in these products and to find out whether any have been tested or found to be linked to cancer or other health problems.
I might sound like a broken record, but the first place I would check is the website of the Environmental Working Group -– they have studied and analyzed many different products. Second, check the website for the National Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org). Their 2006 special report entitled “Bad Chemistry” found hundreds of man-made chemicals -- in our air, our water, and our food -- could be damaging the most basic building blocks of human development.
As Gay Daly reported in 2006 for NRDC, There are now more than 100,000 synthetic chemicals on the market and these chemicals are everywhere. They enter our bodies and those of other animals through every possible route of transmission. They are in our food supply, so we eat them. They drift in the air, so we breathe them. (Carried on thermal currents, they have long since reached the Arctic, so polar bears breathe them too.) Present in landfills, they leach into the water supply, so we drink them. Released as effluent into lakes and rivers by factories, they affect the habitat of fish, frogs, and all aquatic life, right down to plankton. Ubiquitous in cosmetics, they are absorbed through our skin. Pregnant women pass them to their fetuses; mothers feed them to their newborns when they breastfeed.
Finally, use your own common sense. Your greatest strength is the power of the dollar -– if you identify specific products that are not safe for you, your child or family, tell your friends and other parents and write to the corporation manufacturing these products and ask any or all of your questions. If you do not hear back from them, write again, but keep track of each letter. Then, if there is still no response, send a letter to the local newspaper, your local Congressman and other elected officials explaining that the specific company has refused to answer your questions.
And, if you really want to get their attention, find out what public employee pensions plans hold that company’s specific stock as part of their investment portfolio. Share your concerns with the investment fund managers of the pension fund, the union (if there is one) and others. We change behavior by challenging the status quo -– something we all learn at one point or another in our political lives.
These kinds of steps help make you a better consumer –- and ultimately help you make more or better informed choices.
We appreciate Teresa Heinz Kerry taking time to answer questions for our DCP readers as part of this virtual blog tour. Yesterday's stop on the tour was at Light Up The Darkness, and tomorrow's will be at A Dem Fine Woman. The full virtual tour schedule is listed in our introduction to the series here.)
Teresa Heinz Kerry also sat down with a reporter from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for an extended interview this weekend. You can view the full story, complete with MP3 segments of the recorded interview, on the paper's website here. In the course of that interview, she went into more detail about the upcoming Conference on Women’s Health & the Environment:
Dr. Christine Gabriel, hired from Carnegie Mellon University by the Heinz Endowments last year, is fiercely described as a "brilliant engineer," while one of the conference's speakers, John Peterson Myers, is "amazing." A reporter is repeatedly urged to read his book, "Our Stolen Future," about how chemical contaminants interfere with hormones in humans and wildlife. Devra Davis, director of the groundbreaking Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh, is doing a "tremendous job... very important stuff."
At the same time, Mrs. Heinz Kerry seems to know what will catch and hold an audience: Fran Drescher, a cancer survivor and nasal-voiced star of the long-running TV show "The Nanny," will also be speaking about her best-selling book, "Cancer Schmancer." Ms. Drescher carries a lot of credibility with women, Mrs. Heinz Kerry believes, with her compelling story about navigating the health care system and a strong message about prevention.
Cosmetics, too, will be a focus: Jane Houlihan, from the Environmental Working Group, will talk about her organization's Web site, ewg.org, which tells consumers which cosmetics to choose and which to avoid. A recent study by the group showed that children's shampoos contained higher than government-recommended amounts of the cancer-causing agent para-dioxane.
"These are the needless and horrific things we are doing to ourselves," said Mrs. Heinz Kerry, who noted the relatively thin body of research that exists on the environmental causes of cancer, and the medical establishment's tendency to stress treatment over prevention.
"We do this to ourselves, nobody's doing it to us. We've got to change direction and change attitudes. There are chemicals, there are products that we spray in a room, products we put on our bodies, things that we eat, things we take or things we drink, like water. It's the whole realm of what touches our skin, which is our largest organ, after all."
What a bright light she is. In the past few years, with the husband working in the enviro arena once again, it has become horrifyingly clear that we are wreaking havoc on our children's lives.
The cosmetics thing is something we have not emphasized enough with our girls, that's for sure. Time for a family talk...
Mrs. Heinz-Kerry,
Thank you for the work you've done on behalf of women and the environment. I wish I could come up with something wise and pithy to say but I am not as well versed in environmental studies as I should be.
We certainly have not emphasized the cosmetic thing enough with our daughters. It practically seems like a right of passage that girls go into Claire's and buy the makeup even when they're 5 or 6 for playing dress up. Then like clockwork, around age 13 they want real makeup. And of course most married women I know give up the daily make up after they have kids since there's no time or incentive to wear it.
But I know from experience, a trip into the beauty shop or a stroll through the perfume section in the department store can cause me to get a severe headache.
Yet, I remember a project one of my daughter's did on women and their clothes and make up during the Victorian times. Apparently, they use to put arsenic in makeup back then. The whole class giggled and were quite incredulous. Of course it's assumed that we have safer makeup than they did.
Now after your comment, I'm wondering why we ever thought that it would be safer these days --just because there is no arsenic in our makeup!!
After all, we still can't pronounce the names of the ingredients used in it today.
I had college chem. so I remember the benzenes are all carcinogenic but how many people know to watch out for the benzenes? I always watch the labels for those, but most makeup isn't labeled.
A lot of brands ARE seeking more transparancy in ingredients, just not the main cosmetic companies... Mostly you can find these brands at places with a lot of vegetarian/vegan shoppers... THese people(myself included) need to know when something is made without cruelty to animals, adn tend to require that biproducts of animals are clearly labeled... in addition to being more consious of other ingredients. Chain stores such as Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader Joes, have some... Also a lot can be made locally, and found at naturopathic stores... Its just a question of finding the resources... When i lived on the East coast, new jersey put out a "natural resources" yellow pages that listed everythign from health food stores, to makeup companies, to midwives, to reiki practitioners and yoga teachers. Just have to learn whats in your area!
Nolie
Hemp Organics make very good lipsticks, its a bit more expensive, but they don't have the chemically taste, and you can read the ingredients list without difficulty! Its safe to ingest...
As for unsafe ingredients to be shared with all of y'all....
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. I used to work at a natural food store, and one of our products(dr Bronners, highly recommended!) for hands soap carried a lot of info about it, about how many "organic" brands still used it. but its pretty harmful, and in most major brands of soap, even shampoo or body wash.
http://www.healthy-communications.com/slsmostdangerousirritant.html
Its scary to think of how many other things like this there ARE, but i've found its not terribly hard to make some of your own things, that way you know what goes into it. I've made chapstick before, seen a lot of soap recipes... You can't necesarely be lazy about it, but i guess if you can set even one saturday aside for trying to do household stuff in a safer way...
Thanks, nolie!
One of the best sites I've seen for safe cosmetics info is this one:
http://www.safecosmetics.org/
And in line with our need to take action, here is their "take action" page:
http://www.safecosmetics.org/action/
Britain stops using 'war on terror' phrase
Expression makes militants feel too important, minister says
LONDON - (AP) The British government has stopped using the phrase “war on terror” to refer to the struggle against political and religious violence, according to a Cabinet minister’s prepared remarks for a Monday speech.
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, a rising star of the governing Labour Party, says in a speech prepared for delivery in New York that the expression popularized by President Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks strengthens terrorists by making them feel part of a bigger struggle.
Extracts from Benn’s speech at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation were released by his office.
“We do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can’t win by military means alone, and because this isn’t us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives,” Benn said.
“It is the vast majority of the people in the world — of all nationalities and faiths — against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger.”
Call for U.S. to use 'soft power'
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesman said he was unsure when Blair had last used the phrase.
“We all use our own phraseology, and we talk about terrorism, we talk about the fight against terrorism, but we also talk about trying to find political solutions to political problems,” he said on condition of anonymity, in line with government policy.
According to the advance text, Benn urged Americans to use the “soft power” of values and ideas as well as military strength to defeat extremism.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18133506/
WASHINGTON - (AP) President Bush, prodding Congress to extend the Iraq war without calling troops home, said Monday that Democratic leaders owe it to veterans and their families to pass the war-spending bill he wants.
"Listen, I understand Republicans and Democrats in Washington have differences over the best course in Iraq," Bush said from the White House. "That's healthy. That's normal, and we should debate those differences. But our troops should not be caught in the middle."
Surrounded by families of veterans, Bush sought to set expectations for his meeting Wednesday with congressional leaders of both parties. In particular, he aimed to pressure Democratic lawmakers to fund the war without trying to limit or wind down the military mission.
"That's what we're supposed to do - we're supposed to talk out our differences," Bush said. "I'm looking forward to the meeting. I hope the Democratic leadership will drop their unreasonable demands for a precipitous withdrawal."
Both the House and Senate have passed bills to both fund the war and start drawing troops home. They are expected this to week to begin negotiating a final version to send to Bush. He has pledged to veto it if it is not stripped of the provisions he opposes.
Stubborness vs. stubborness
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "refuse to listen or acknowledge the other voices. They are isolated in their thinking, and are failing our troops and our country."
Reid, D-Nev., indicated he would be just as stubborn during Wednesday's meeting with the president.
"The offer is that the president sign the bill," he said.
Bush spoke in the orate East Room surrounded by mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and sons and daughters of U.S. troops who have been killed in Iraq. Members of military service support organizations filled out the crowd.
The president said he would deliver their message to Congress - as he put it, U.S. troops "want to finish the job."
"The families gathered here understand that we are a nation at war," Bush said. "Like me, they wish we weren't at war, but we are. They know that the enemies who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, want to bring further destruction to our country."
Iraqi accountability
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, responded that Bush and Republican congressional leaders have abandoned efforts to hold the Iraqi people and government accountable.
"As they rush to embrace the Bush plan for more of the same in Iraq, the Republican policy is to make U.S troops bear the full burden of the war on their shoulders," Emanuel said.
The Senate bill would require a U.S. troop exit in Iraq to begin within 120 days, with a completion goal of March 31, 2008. The House bill would order all combat troops out by Sept. 1, 2008. Most Republicans stand with Bush on grounds that a timetable is a dangerous war policy.
In the same breath, Bush offered to discuss "any way forward" with Congress and declared what he would not accept - restrictions on his military commanders, timetables for troops to come home, or billions of dollars in emergency spending unrelated to the war.
He said Democrats are the ones who should put partisanship on hold. "We should not legislate defeat in this vital war," Bush said.
Bush told the military families that he had just spoken with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "He said, 'Please thank the people in the White House for their sacrifices, and we will continue to work hard to be an ally in this war on terror,' " Bush said.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18132601/
Our troops should NOT be caught in the middle, yer right...but WHO THE F*** put them there?
Posted by: karen at April 16, 2007 11:48 AM
That safe cosmetics site is really good (and also really slow...sigh.) It's very enlightening to see the list of products that are rated low to moderate; many are available in drug stores and are comparatively inexpensive. Thanks for the link.
Since we're talking about cosmetics (except for monkey, who's on the war path -- not that there's anything wrong with that) & their affect on our bodies : one thing that concerns me is the attitude & culture many of us older women (and men!) are creating for the younger ones...one of anti-aging at any cost.
I wonder what the long term effects of things like Botox, laser peels, etc. will have on those who prescribe to them.
Perhaps we should work on changing attitudes as well -- like, it's really ok to look your age & to do so naturally.
madame--just was talking about exactly that with a friend! She was commenting on how "young" dance movement women look, and how beautiful we are (hahaha)--I pointed out that some of that at least is in how one carries one's weight and how one fills the space.
Attitude has a lot to do with it. But it's more than "thinking young". It really has to do with accessing an inner state of being that works for each one of us.
I, for one, use very little in the way of cosmetics or beauty products (except for that reddish-blonde thing that happens to my hair periodically!). I FEEL my age but I can transcend the negative aspects of that age with a lot of water and a few naps. Oh yes--and the chocolate.
Great stuff you guys! I hope everybody takes a minute to check whether their cosmetic company is on the safe list. I don't use those products very much, but its nice to know I'm not contributing to this problem when I do. Can't wait for tomorrow!
Posted by: karen at April 16, 2007 03:19 PM
Wonder if someone would dare to do a study to see if Democrats look & feel younger naturally than Republic Party people...
Keep those at Virginia Tech in your thoughts.
Damn it, it's way past time to do something about gun control in this country!
http://www.freedomstatesalliance.com/mission.php
Wonder if someone would dare to do a study to see if Democrats look & feel younger naturally than Republic Party people...
Posted by: madame defarge at April 16, 2007 03:31 PM
You could put a pic of me next to the Mann, and do the comparison right there. :)
Posted by: madame defarge at April 16, 2007 03:33 PM
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia.
“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed,” Perino said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18134671/page/2/
Posted by: monkey at April 16, 2007 04:58 PM
unuther 'uh' dum moment brought to you by the guy who took away our law enforcement and spent the money on his friends.
YES!!!
Dr. Victoria Wulsin — who lost to GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt by roughly one percentage point in 2006 — will take on Rep. Schmidt again in 2008, the local Ohio press is reporting. According to The Cincinnati Enquirer, Wulsin has just sent out a press release announcing that she's definitely in the race. From her release:
"When Americans are fighting in Iraq, going without affordable health care, and struggling to support their families, we need an independent voice in Congress, not a rubber stamp for special interests and the Bush Administration. The people of the Second District deserve a Congresswoman who will be honest with her constituents."
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/apr/16/victoria_wulsin_to_challenge_jean_schmidt_again_in_2008
That's one race I'd like to help!
Real Money: The Ugly Side of Cosmetics
http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/cosmetics.cfm
Posted by: not my president at April 16, 2007 02:32 PM
nmp posted this at the end of the last thread and it's worth the read (it also has links at the bottom).
The very first thing that gave me a clue to my own autoimmune system reacting to anything was many years ago when I woke up one morning and my eyes were so swollen I could barely see. The eye doctor (after the second episode) referred me to an allergy specialist. I'd reacted to one of the mascaras I was using. They did a "patch test" of all of my make-ups on my back, I reacted to that one mascara and a couple of other products and the most startling reaction was the fact that I broke out in a rash from the adhesive in the "hypoallergenic" tape! Band-aid adhesives can rip off my flesh. Yikes!
Like Suz, I get an instant headache from the smell of certain perfumes and/or aftershaves and/or other odors from some personal products. The odor hangs in the air like skunk smells, and I've been known to leave stores and even the library because of that. Additionally, the aisles in stores that produce headaches and/or sneezing are the soap and fabric softener aisles, the scented candles and places with potpourri are also hazardous. I found out how life-threatinging those store aisles the last two years my mother was alive (she died from asthma and emphysema). Those store aisles would send her into coughing sessions, and if you've ever listened to anyone with asthma cough, you'll appreciate how terrifying and helpless that feeling is.
I can only use one brand of laundry detergent (perfume-free, dye-free), now use the same for dish soap since the one brand I was using is no longer made (even the one I had used must have changed formula; it used to make my hands dry out and the skin flake off like really bad dandruff; I resorted to using rubber gloves to wash dishes, and still do). There's only one brand of hand/body soap I can use (it has to be the version for sensitive skin; the same company makes an 'unscented' version, but since 'unscented' is a chemical perfume, it gives me a headache). There's only one brand of anti-perspirant I can use. There's only one brand of hand soap I can use. Baby oil now is overpowering in it's scent, but since the primary ingredient is mineral oil, I went to the laxative aisle and buy that to use on my skin after a shower; it has no odor at all, and it's much cheaper (and I've never used it for the intended purpose of laxative, only as a body lotion). I no longer use cosmetics, and I miss it because whatever 'attractiveness' I used to have facially was enhanced by them. Now they only make me itch and/or break out, so the chemical concentration levels must be worse than when I used to use cosmetics. Most cosmetics just outright stink, so I don't bother to spend my money on something I'd only end up tossing in the garbage if it entered my domain.
I do know that besides embalming fluid, formaldehyde - a carcinogen - is used in many cosmetics. It's also used in carpeting glues, and as part of the bonding agent in plyboard, so that's why some manufactured furniture stinks so badly (it also concentrates in enclosed spaces, not dissapates, so breathing that stuff is unhealthy for humans and animals). Carpeting is anathema and the smell of new carpeting (a petroleum product!) does horrible things to the human body; in me it produces pain in my liver (which has to process toxins in one's body), so I can only imagine what it does to babies and animals who are closer to the carpeting than taller adults.
Myself and several other people in my family have horrible problems with certain chemicals; many of us have horrible allergies, so we're more sensitive to chemicals than most people (quite aside from being allergic to long lists of various pollens and foods). It used to be called petrochemical sensitivity, but now I think it's called multiple chemical sensitivity because usually more than one hazardous chemical is found in things to which we have autoimmune reactions. We can't use polyester, for instance. Clothing has to be 100% cotton or silk (linen is okay if one is not allergic to the plant that makes it).
I'm totally obsessed with reading labels (certain food allergies can produce three-day migraines if ingested). I'm more aware than most of the hazards of chemicals in various products. I'm forced to be this way because of my own and family members' sensitivities, and I resent it. I have to vacuum the heck out of everything (I use the filters for allergic people), and I use a diluted solution of vinegar and water on paper towels to dust furniture or other things if I can't vacuum them.
I'm also more than aware of the fact that these ugly chemicals get put in landfills when thrown in the garbage, end up in waste water, and all of that seeps into the ground water. In a state famous for it's lakes, this gets hazardous on more levels than one. My heart goes out to the animals who suffer because of human ignorance, and the innocent humans who buy into the media hype about toxic products (what they do to their children out of ignorance is sad on multiple levels).
My life has had to end up being 'environmentally friendly' because to be otherwise could endanger my life and the lives of my loved ones. The only consolation in that is the fact that corporations who advertise so liberally on TV and try to brainwash people into buying their toxic products can't make even a few pennies' worth of profit off of me.
I'm shallow. I love makeup.
Almost everything I just looked at from the local mall has parabens and they're carcinogenic. I couldn't find ingredients on some Bath & Body Works stuff til the shop person peeled back a label & the ingredients were under that vs prominently displayed.
I have friends in Florida with skin cancer (not melanoma but the kind they periodically have to have removed, like the Laura Bush and W), because they had mass exposure when young. They did alot of research on sun blockers and found out that most of them increase skin cancer vs protecting from it. It's amazing. They pretty much just cover up now (they repair boats so can't avoid sun) and are moving to Britich Columbia where there is less sun. (That isn't the only reason, as they'll also be political expats.)
School massacre is a big story here in the US.
Meanwhile, in Iraq:
Mosul, Apr 16, (VOI) – Unknown gunmen on Monday killed a college dean and a professor from Mosul University in two separate incidents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a source from Ninewa police department said on Monday.
"A group of armed men shot and killed the dean of the Political Sciences college while he was leaving the Mosul university campus this afternoon," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
He added, "the incident took place while Dr Talal Younis al-Jelili had just past the university main gate."
Only one hour later, the source said, "Gunmen opened fire against Dr Jaafar Hassan Sadeq, a professor from the Faculty of Arts of Mosul University, killing him on the spot."
"The attack took place outside the dead man's house in al-Kafaat neighborhood, northeastern Mosul," he added, noting that the attackers fled the scene after the attack.
Read more: http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name...
Posted by: monkey at April 16, 2007 04:58 PM
---
Yup. So this reactionary asshole who's squatting in the White House taking the place of the guiys who are legitimately supposed to be living in it instead hears about a horrible event of random gun-fueled carnage in a Virgina university, and his first public response is to suck up to the NRA and talk about protecting the rights of gun owners rather than focusing his concerns on the dead and the dying and the families of same?
Okay, strike that. He's not an asshole. He's a friggin psycho/sociopath. And we have to drive that heartless friggin bastid out of Washington NOW, not later.
If he was a dog, we'd've already put him down for being rabid by now. But he's not, so we can't. And besides, we wouldn't even really want to do that anyway.
I say, let's frog-march his psycho/sociopathic chimpy ass out of the White House in handcuffs, stat!
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003571876
Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans Watch 'Daily Show' and 'Colbert'-- and Visit Newspaper Sites
Excerpt:
Other details are equally eye-opening. Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.
Posted by: Otter at April 16, 2007 05:31 PM
I agree. High-fives with both paws...!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/16/alberto-gonzales-hearing-postponed/
Alberto Gonzales hearing postponed…
Sources tell me that:
The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed its Tuesday hearing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because of the Virginia Tech shootings.
{{{I wonder if this is true....?!? I'm paranoid about "anonymous" sources nowadays....}}}
http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/04/041607_whitehouse_emails.html
Sadr Ministers Quit Iraqi Government Over US Troops
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607A.shtml
Dilip Hiro | Sadr's Rising Star to Eclipse Bush's Surge?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607D.shtml
Military Forces Journalists to Delete Images of Civilian Killings
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607B.shtml
Justice Probes Abramoff Ties to White House
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607E.shtml
The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is investigating connections between disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House, a probe that may be affected by missing White House emails.
Le Monde | Wolfowitz's Departure
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607G.shtml
"Paul Wolfowitz's credibility at the head of the World Bank is now too damaged for him to remain. He must resign, and if he refuses, the board of directors must replace him."
Paul Krugman | Way Off Base
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607C.shtml
Paul Krugman writes: "The public hates this war, no longer has any trust in Mr. Bush's leadership and doesn't believe anything the administration says. Iraq was a big factor in the Democrats' midterm victory. And far from being a risky political move, the confrontation over funding has overwhelming popular support: According to a new CBS News poll, only 29 percent of voters believe Congress should allow war funding without a time limit, while 67 percent either want to cut off funding or impose a time limit."
Excerpt:
If all this sounds like a setting in which Democrats could win big victories in the years ahead, that's because it is.
Republicans will, for a while at least, be trapped in unpopular positions by a base that's living in the past. Rudy Giuliani's surge into front-runner status for the Republican nomination says more about the party than about the candidate. As The Onion put it with deadly accuracy, Mr. Giuliani is running for "President of 9/11."
Democrats don't have the same problem. There's no conflict between catering to the Democratic base and staking out positions that can win in the 2008 election, because the things the base wants - an end to the Iraq war, a guarantee of health insurance for all - are also things that the country as a whole supports. The only risk the party now faces is excessive caution on the part of its politicians. Or, to coin a phrase, the only thing Democrats have to fear is fear itself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6559407.stm
Yangtze pollution 'irreversible'
Large parts of China's longest river, the Yangtze, have been irreversibly polluted, state media quotes a report as saying.
Posted by: Otter at April 16, 2007 05:31 PM
Gunman plus 32 more are dead. Worst shooting in US history, according to MSNBC.
This is senseless. We have to make sure guns are (1) regulated for safety and (2) kept out of the hands of the wrong ones. And as you mention, W will do neither.
Posted by: NonnyO at April 16, 2007 06:06 PM
And remember, Democrats should NEVER get complacent, and should NEVER take any single demographic (blacks, Jews, Catholics, gays, whoever) if they really want to win at all.
I just don't see it in my neighborhood yet, where I am pretty sure W still has 70-90% approval rating. It's up to you, the rest of the country, to force your civilized ways down our barbarian throats.
should NEVER take any single demographic *FOR GRANTED*, I meant...
Ray McGovern | Is Cheney Right? Will Democrats Cave on Iraq Funding?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041607R.shtml
"The rhetoric over recent days and this morning makes it clear that Vice President Dick Cheney is still in charge of Iraq policy," says Ray McGovern. "He seems supremely confident that the Democrats can be intimidated into giving the White House the only thing it really wants - enough money to stave off defeat until President George W. Bush and Cheney are safely out of office. That, of course, is also what lies behind the 'temporary surge' in troop strength."
I'm shallow. I love makeup.
Posted by: not my president at April 16, 2007 05:23 PM
I'm shallower. I *sold* makeup. I was one of those Mary Kay ladies.
How a tranny managed to sell Mary Kay and put up with all the Dominionism and homophobia of some of the fellow saleswomen - don't ask me.
Air Pollution Rules Relaxed for US Ethanol Producers
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041607ED.shtml
The federal government said today that it will permit corn milling facilities that make ethanol for fuel to emit more than double the amount of air pollutants previously allowed. The new rule is expected to increase the amount of ethanol available for fuel.
"Today's ruling by the EPA is a major step forward for the homegrown production of one of America's cleanest renewable fuels - ethanol," said Senator John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who sent a letter to the EPA, supported by 32 members of Congress, which called for the reclassification of ethanol production.
"This decision will result in greater, more efficient ethanol production, which will lower fuel costs for consumers and reduce automobile pollution and America's dependence on foreign oil. In addition, ethanol production emits 20 percent less greenhouse gasses than petroleum production, which ultimately means less pollution on a per-gallon basis when people fill up their vehicles using ethanol blended gasoline," said Thune.
Ethanol, also known as ethyl alcohol, drinking alcohol or grain alcohol, is the alcohol found in liquors. It is also used for human consumption as a solvent in dissolving medicines, food flavorings and colorings that do not dissolve easily in water.
Examples of industrial uses of ethanol would include ethanol used in perfumes, aftershaves and for cleaners.
The vast majority of ethanol produced in the United States is used for fuel. It is blended with gasoline to increase the fuel blend's octane or to produce a cleaner burning fuel.
A primary difference between production of industrial or fuel ethanol and ethanol for human consumption is that a small amount of gasoline or solvent is added to the fuel ethanol to make it undrinkable and the process does not generally use food-grade equipment. Otherwise, the processes are generally similar. For that reason, the EPA says it has decided to treat all ethanol manufacturers equally with regard to air pollution emissions.
Ethanol manufacturers will get another break under the new EPA air pollution rule.
Pollutants released to the air other than those from stacks or vents are called fugitive emissions. They can be due to equipment leaks, evaporative processes, and windblown disturbances.
Before today's rule, fuel and industrial ethanol facilities were required to include fugitive emissions of criteria pollutants in their emissions threshold totals.
{{{Don't the relaxed rules defeat the purpose of having ethanol in the first place?!? Just exactly how stupid are our Congress Critters?!?}}}
Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041607EB.shtml
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of millions of the bees that pollinate crops.
Excerpt:
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.
The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.
~~~~~
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".
No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides, global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.
{{{There was a few-second blurb on this on the noon in-state snooze about this. The conclusion the anchor mentioned was that failed crops would mean a loss of money for people - no mention of the potential for people and domestic animals starving to death as a result of unpollenated crops, whether in fields, orchards, etc. I don't think the person who wrote those few seconds of words truly understands the implications of a world without pollenators like bees; profits are the least of anyone's worries if it comes to a world without bees or other pollenators.}}}
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20070416/cx_nq_uc/nq20070416
Non Sequitur
Posted by: monkey at April 16, 2007 04:58 PM
Anything to do with guns & war seems to be the only part of the Bill of Rights he seems to remember or support. It's probably his secret message to the NRA that they don't need to worry about him making gun control an issue.
I'm shallower. I *sold* makeup. I was one of those Mary Kay ladies.
How a tranny managed to sell Mary Kay and put up with all the Dominionism and homophobia of some of the fellow saleswomen - don't ask me.
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at April 16, 2007 06:29 PM
OH. MY. GOD. That is priceless--and a movie or theatre piece is forming in my mind right now...
And so, Ally, I am afraid I WILL have to ask you...
And as horrible as today's shooting was, in Iraq, it would be just another day...
This diary says it so well...
Now Do You Understand?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/16/134740/977
On the Va Tech shootings: my friend Marcy teaches at the NoVa campus and so I called her right away to make sure she wasn't by chance down there, or that no one in her dept. had been killed or hurt. She was shaken and she said that they had no information at that point b/c the campus was in lockdown.
We talked about what a beautiful spot Blacksburg is, and what a sweet campus VPI has. And yet, dark concerns flourish there too. I don't know if the shooter was a disgruntled student, but I do know it is possible for highly intellectualized students to come to believe many wrong things; not the least of which is that no one cares about them. Another thing they can come to believe: that they have no choices.
Posted by: monkey at April 16, 2007 02:15 PM
Gee I feel better now.
Ally
You probably didn't sell Mary Kay long enough to get one of the pink Cadillacs? My sister-in-law once sold me some by telling me the container was made out of the same plastic as telephones. So I guess I'm simultaneously a nerd and shallow.
No doubt the commander-in-chimp was playing air guitar somewhere while his spokesperson spouted the company line about the right to bear arms.
Posted by: karen at April 16, 2007 07:14 PM
Posted by: not my president at April 16, 2007 07:39 PM
Karen, you are more than welcome to ask me questions, anytime.
Though DiAnne is correct in that I never sold long enough. I was forced to discontinue selling Mary Kay after just 6 months - though it was my parents, not the fellow saleswomen, who stopped me.
I wasn't gonna get a pink Cadillac until I recruited 30 new saleswomen, anyway. 5 recruits would've been the base car, a Pontiac Grand Am (now G6), and somewhere in between was the favorite of many Dominionist mothers - the Chevy Blazer SUV.
I think I was pretty much the only one without a husband and 2 1/2 kids in Christian school (tuition paid for by my sales revenues) in my sales group.
More shallow reporting. Ben Smith shows what a crack pot reporter he is by doing John Edward's do!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/16/its-gotta-be-the-hair/
A call to action in Michigan.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/16/95834/5076
Howell, Michigan - home of the Livingston County seat, the Michigan Ballonfest Challenge, the Howell Melon Festival, Cleary University, former KKK stronghold, a 95.97% white population and one of the next stops on Ann Coulter's tour of Hate and Intolerance.
Sadly, the Livingston Economic Club (LEC)has opted to pay Coulter 30K plus travel expenses to preach hate and intolerance to a crowd of 200+ at Cleary University in October. Even worse, Coulter kicks off the Cleary University Founders Week Celebration. According to the Cleary Website -
Through special programs and events, Cleary University attempts to increase it awareness to the community, our alumni, faculty, staff, and current students by highlighting achievements, activities, projects, and future goals.
We at Cleary University have a strong past and proud tradition as a specialized business university and we remain committed to the enhancement of society through the many successes of our alumni and their employers.
(emphasis added)
Despite local outrage and protest over the appearance, according to the Livingston County Daily Press and Argus, the LEC has no plans to rescind the offer.
Here's an excellent opportunity to confront those who are providing a platform for Ann Coulter's sadly common and factually-challenged hate rhetoric to see if they feel Ann Coulter speaks for them. Keep in mind, NO ONE is trying to take away Coulter's right to say anything she wants. But if the group is willing to pay her and give her a platform to speak to students, then I want to say that Ann speaks for them.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.
That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave.
Gonzales was scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, but his testimony was postponed until Thursday because of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University.
When Gonzales appears before the committee, a central focus will be the extent of his involvement in the firings.
Gonzales has insisted he left those decisions to his staff, but ABC News has learned he was so concerned about U.S. attorney Carol Lam's lackluster record on immigration enforcement in San Diego that he supported firing her months before she was dismissed, according to a newly released e-mail from his former chief of staff.
The e-mail, which came from Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson, appeared to contradict the prepared written testimony Gonzales submitted to Congress over the weekend in advance of his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. In his prepared testimony, Gonzales said that during the months that his senior staff was evaluating U.S. attorneys, including Lam, "I did not make the decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/16/182844/610
French secret services produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001 looking at the Al-Qaida threat to the United States, and knew it planned to hijack an aircraft, the French daily Le Monde said on Monday. (Reuters via Ha'aretz).
According to Le Monde:
Hundreds of pages of notes and analyses of the General Directorate for External Security [DGSE, the French agency responsible for military intelligence as well as for strategic information, electronic intelligence, and counterespionage outside the borders of the national territory] show that the Sauudi billionaire Usama Bin Laden and his organization, Al-Qaida, were infiltrated by French spies. According a person close to Pierre Brochand, current director of the DGSE, a cell had been devoted to Ben Laden since 1995. A note of January 5, 2001, transmitted to the chief of the CIA station in Paris provided an alert about "a project to hijack a plane".
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/16/91939/7856
The American Civil Liberties Union today made public hundreds of claims for damages by family members of civilians killed or injured by Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ACLU received the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request it filed in June 2006.
The hundreds of files provide a vivid snapshot, in significantly more detail than has previously been compiled and released, of the circumstances surrounding reports of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.[..]
The ACLU pointed out that during both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department has instituted numerous policies designed to control information about the human costs of war. These policies include:
Banning photographers on U.S. military bases from covering the arrival of caskets containing the remains of U.S. soldiers killed overseas;
Paying Iraqi journalists to write positive accounts of the U.S. war effort;
Inviting U.S. journalists to "embed" with military units but requiring them to submit their stories for pre-publication review;
Erasing journalists' footage of civilian deaths in Afghanistan; and
Refusing to disclose statistics on civilian casualties.
The files made public today are claims submitted to the U.S. Foreign Claims Commissions by surviving Iraqi and Afghan family members of civilians said to have been killed or injured or to have suffered property damages due to actions by Coalition Forces. The ACLU released a total of 496 files: 479 from Iraq and 17 from Afghanistan. The documents released by the ACLU are available online in a searchable database
http://www.aclu.org/civiliancasualties
http://www.aclu.org/natsec/foia/29316prs20070412.html
I had been wondering when something like this would come out
France Knew Of Hijack Plot Before 9/11, Officials Confirm French Spy Service Warned CIA Of Al Qaeda Plot In Early 2001 - CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/16/world/main2689205.shtml Just in case you missed this....
Posted by: Suz at April 16, 2007 08:29 PM
Posted by: not my president at April 16, 2007 09:35 PM
Confirms what many have suspected all along - that W knew of, and had a chance to stop, 9/11, but either failed to do so, or deliberately let it happen for political gain.
And in an act of "shoot the messenger," the French got crucified for coddling Iraq, which was supposed to be an al-Qaeda ally but in reality was anything but.
And speaking of the French...
Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front are doing what the Republicans have done in the US: push a xenophobic agenda AND court immigrant votes at the same time.
8% of Muslims - that's almost as high a number as Le Pen's support level among the general French public - support Le Pen, mostly because France is too pro-gay and Le Pen is gonna do something about it.
Disgusting.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6558949.stm
A Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,141 adults, conducted April 12-15, found that 58 percent trusted the Democrats in Congress to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, compared with 33 percent who trusted Bush.
The president has taken advantage of Congress's spring recess to pound Democrats over their legislation, which would impose benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet; create strict rules for resting, equipping and training combat troops; and set a 2008 date for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Despite those efforts, Bush has lost a little ground to Democrats, who in February were trusted by 54 percent to set Iraq policy.
Pessimism about the war has continued to grow. For the first time, a narrow majority of Americans, 51 percent, said the United States will lose the battle, compared with 35 percent who said the United States will win. Bush continued yesterday to say that victory in Iraq is pivotal to the larger fight against terrorism, but Americans are increasingly agreeing with the Democratic view that the issues are separate. About 57 percent now say the United States can succeed in the terrorism fight without winning the Iraq war, an increase of 10 percentage points since January, when Americans were almost evenly divided on the question.
The number of Americans who favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, even if that means civil order is not restored, held steady from February at 56 percent.
rest at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601099.html
Gonzales has insisted he left those decisions to his staff, but ABC News has learned he was so concerned about U.S. attorney Carol Lam's lackluster record on immigration enforcement in San Diego that he supported firing her months before she was dismissed, according to a newly released e-mail from his former chief of staff.
Posted by: Suz at April 16, 2007 08:17 PM
Immigration enforcement?
Our immigration policy has been a sorry joke under Republican administrations. Automatic deportation for some nationalities, and automatic amnesty and residency for some others. Hardly fair.
Ally
When my friend Marc went to vote for the fisrt time, he saw too French Arab guys getting Muslim ballots. It's nuts. They, of course, use the wedge issues that you know all too well, to trick immigrant communities.
This was on topic a few topics ago, but it certainly right up there in THK's field of interest and educating all of us. Polar bears are endangered due to the melting of the arctic polar ice caps. Russia's solution - legalise shooting them.
Russia proposes legal hunt to save polar bears
Steven Lee Myers, Vankarem, Russia
April 17, 2007
ON THE frozen edge of the Arctic expanse, where a changing climate has brought polar bears into greater contact with people, Russia has embraced a counter-intuitive method of preserving the creatures: hunting them, legally.
For the first time since the Soviet Union banned the practice more than five decades ago, the Government is preparing to allow hunters to kill the bears.
Cont. .....
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/russia-proposes-legal-hunt-to-save-polar-bears/2007/04/16/1176696758240.html
Pete McCloskey has reregistered as a Democrat.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/155323/258
finally something nice
Posted by: not the president at April 16, 2007 11:37 PM
Good news in a state that could definitely use some. Thanks for sharing!
The Party of Brownshirts
By Paul Craig Roberts
Neoconservatives have turned the Republican Party into a Brownshirt Party.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17541.htm
Torture, Secrecy, and the Bush Administration
By Scott Horton
We have a duty to posterity, and that is to bear witness to these events. We must document them carefully. We must act to avoid the destruction of valuable evidence-and recognize, as we have already seen, that it is in the character of those who commit crimes to destroy the evidence of their misdeeds. In this way we lay the path for the justice which will in good time be meted out to those who betrayed a nation's trust.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17540.htm
The body burden issue is a big one. So many women don't get the importance of using natural cosmetics and body products. The fact is natural is so much better for skin care than products loaded with mineral oils and chemicals. As someone who has been in the natural skin care industry for 11 years, I'm glad to see THK talking about this.
Thanks for posting the link to Campaign for Safe Cosmetics here Karen. I've been a signer to compact for a few years now.
Ally if you're reading this...I have a question for you...I'll be in IRC for a bit or drop me an email
Speaker Pelosi is at 53% approval rating.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_041607.html
That's pretty good considering she's doing an incredible balancing act. I think the first 100 days helped. Obviously, the left is pretty upset with her about 'taking impeachment off the table' but as far as I'm concerned I think it will be back on the table when evidence comes forth and we demand it of them.
Here's an excellent op-ed by Jane Smiley RE: guns.
What I Think About Guns
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/what-i-think-about-guns_b_46037.html
Posted by: madame defarge at April 17, 2007 08:57 AM
The final paragraph of madames posted article...
Here's what I think about guns--guns have no other purpose than killing someone or something. All the other murder weapons Americans use, from automobiles to blunt objects, exist for another purpose and sometimes are used to kill. But guns are manufactured and bought to kill. They invite their owners to think about killing, to practice killing, and, eventually, to kill, if not other people, then animals. They are objects of temptation, and every so often, someone comes along who cannot resist the temptation--someone who would not have murdered, or murdered so many, if he did not have a gun, if he were reduced to a knife or a bludgeon or his own strength. I wish that the right wing would admit that, while people kill people and even an "automatic" weapon needs a shooter, people with guns kill more people than people without guns do.
Yep, monkey, that's the money paragraph alright.
And to add insult to injury, George & Laura are attending the convocation today.
How friggin' callous, manipulative, & selfish. But then what else do we expect from them...
The security alone will destroy the emotional sanctity of the memorial service.
It's just another cheap political stunt to make people think he cares about others. If he's so damn concerned about the loss of young lives, why the hell hasn't he attended even ONE funeral for any soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan...
(It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer...)
Callous, manipulative, & selfish, or just another cheap political stunt to make people think he cares about others?
This is where the term "loss of credibility" comes in. The dude could crap a gold pile of bricks at this point, and all except the sheep would think it was lead painted cinderblock spray painted gold.
Not the best analogy I've ever whipped out, but point is, I have zero faith in the sincerity or motivation of this adminstration, and of this president in particular, even in times of incredible national angst.
His emotions and actions, whether real or not, just strike me as so damn contrived, and like, not even well.
I suppose he's damned if he goes today, and damned if he doesn't.
I can live with that.
(sorry for the offtopic rant, but madame put a quarter in my scream machine)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech.shooting.victims/index.html
Posted by: monkey at April 17, 2007 09:34 AM
Monkey, I agree with you completely. As you said, "guns have no other purpose than killing someone or something. All the other murder weapons Americans use, from automobiles to blunt objects, exist for another purpose and sometimes are used to kill. But guns are manufactured and bought to kill. They invite their owners to think about killing, to practice killing, and, eventually, to kill, if not other people, then animals."
Now, I understand that gun owners sometimes buy the guns to kill animals for food. Since I'm not a vegetarian and do eat meat, I can not really complain about people doing this. (I'd love to be a vegetarian but I actually get ill on the vegetarian diet. Sometimes, when eating meat, I actually feel physically ill knowing what I'm eating.) But hunting is a traditional way of providing food for your family.
Regardless, many gun owners are not buying the gun for hunting. They claim they're buying it to keep their family safe. And yes, I believe they have a right to keep their family safe too. However, I know people who just like to take the gun out and shoot for 'sport' and for target practice.
But how many of these gun owners actually need automatic weapons? Remember in 04, the Bush administration refused to renew the ban on automatic weapons. And the NRA considers the ban on automatic weapons a means of 'eating away at gun owner's rights as well as a means of eliminating the second amendment.'
There was one person a long time ago who recognized the same thing you are saying. Her name was Sarah L. Winchester. Allegedly, Sarah Winchester felt so much guilt over the invention of the Winchester gun and the deaths that resulted as a result that she was haunted by the ghosts of the dead. According the the Wikipedia a 'median' and the median told her, "she needed to leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must "build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die." Whether this tale is true or not, Winchester did move west, settling in California. Some believe Winchester followed the medium's directions to distract the spirits she believed were hunting her, and commenced construction on her new home."
When we went to San Francisco we toured the Winchester house. She apparently followed this median's advice and built nonstop until the day she died.
Yet, the Winchester gun continued to bring in vast profits to her. She inherited more than $20 million upon her husband's death. She also received nearly 50 percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which gave her a daily income of $1,000 per day, and none of it was taxable until 1913. This amount is roughly equivalent to $21,000 a day in 2006 dollars.
In my view, the entire weapons industry is similar to the Winchester's profit by causing death.
This is why I can't help hoping that the people in this administration and the war profiteers will be chased by the same ghosts that Sarah Winchester was chased with.
(On a side note...like the government chosing war over peace industries, Sarah Winchester could have put her death money into doing good things in this world. Instead she threw her money into a mausoleum and a crazy nut-house.)
Posted by: madame defarge at April 17, 2007 09:52 AM
Madame,
That's exactly why the "Now do you get it?" diary was so important.
The psychopath in the White House doesn't get anything.
Hey, anyone available to come to the irc?
Calling once...
Going twice! ;)
gone!
(sorry!)
Ally if you're reading this...I have a question for you...I'll be in IRC for a bit or drop me an email
Posted by: V at April 17, 2007 02:10 AM
Hey V, you missed me, I was in bed! Sorry!
Just got the word that the Virginia Tech shooter was a Korean immigrant in the US since 1992.
Now, don't tell me the Koreans are soaking up every right-wing evil in America, INCLUDING the gun culture.
I notice that W and McCain are still sucking up to their Korean darlings.
South Korea will send some diplomats to the US to investigate and apologize. I hope they BETTER have apologies for the actions of Reverend Moon, and his destruction of American democracy, as well.
More on VT shooter's identity:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6563565.stm
Reminder of this action alert at kos.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/16/94758/2984
Tommy Thompson's stereo typing of Jewish voters yesterday is as dispicable as what Imus said. I'm sorry, that is just not enough.
How do we intelligently deal with the gun issue. Progressives have walked away from even mentioning rational assault weapons laws. Its time to 'at least' have a calm rational discussion with the NRA about common sense gun laws, after our respects are given to the people in Virginia and Blacksburg. Fortunately 2 of my nieces and nephews at Va Tech were not on campus yesterday but had friends who were shot. Its too serious a situation to play politics with the situation A caller to Ed Schultz yesterday wanted to make a political thing, second amendment issue and believed all 26,000 Tech students, teachers and high school students should be able to bring guns on campus. That position along with those who want to ban all guns are not being rational. But we need a common sense conversation about gun safety listening to all sides and positions to make sure that we have done everything possible as a society to make sure yesterday's debacle is never repeated. But our discussion should have zero to do with politics. Just as in Iraq, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, dems and republican lives were all destroyed yesterday regardless of political affiliation, and it is important that it be understand that we are all in this together and need to come together with reasonable gun rules that will respect the second amendment, but also respect our right to be be safe from gun violence. We need to keep guns away from those with criminal histories and mental disorders without threatening those who strongly worry about their second amendment provisional rights.
I don't know if this is true, but according to Mary Ann Akers from the WAPO, Kucinich is going to introduce articles of impeachment against Cheney.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/04/articles_of_impeachment_to_be.html
Good news. According to TPM, they will be voting on if they should give Monica Goodling immunity. Rep. John Conyers has confirmed this.
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003031.php
Posted by: Bubba at April 17, 2007 12:30 PM
There are some nutjobs who think the solution to preventing another 9/11 is to have EVERY airline passenger carry a gun.
And there are places like Arizona, where you are considered an imbecile and a moron if you support gun control and/or don't own a gun.
Guns, like free speech, have their place.
Bubba, you mention that progressives have pretty much surrendered the gun issue. This is one of the many areas (healthcare being another such area) where they just cowered and sang that song by the Culture Club, whenever Reagan and the reactionaries came out swinging. This needs to stop.
Also, the shooter was an immigrant. We need to make sure that we are setting a good example of citizenship, so that our newest Americans are learning good things from us. The Republicans and their Korean buddies have completely flunked on that score; the Koreans have learned tax evasion, greed, Dominionist Christianity, sexism, racism, homophobia, and now gun violence, from their Republican masters.
Ally I disagree, this is not an immigration issue. I was in Austin in 1966 and it was an anglo Eagle Scout who killed 16 at UT, who had mental problems aggravated by a brain tumor, not a korean immigrant.
Suz I had posted 2 weeks ago the need to immunize Ms. Goodling, Transational Immunity is a common legal practice to extract testimony from an important witness to a crime, and as I had suggested weeks ago a strategy most good criminal defense lawyers, including Ms. Goodling's used to protect his client. Its just plain good lawyering and I am glad our friend Congressman Conyers apparently understood that today. But its a good thing that he did, hope you agree suz.
Posted by: Bubba at April 17, 2007 12:58 PM
You sure did! And I give you the extra bonus points and a some free land in Florida as a grand prize.
Posted by: Suz at April 17, 2007 01:29 PM
PS. No sarcasm intended.
You have to give away land in Florida right now, ya sure can't sell it.
Posted by: monkey at April 17, 2007 01:32 PM
Sure you can sell it. Just have to sell it for peanuts though.
Monkey...Can you pop in the irc really quickly?
Ban all handguns and concealed weapons, period.
I have broken off social relations with all individuals that I know have a gun other than for hunting.
Posted by: sparrow at April 17, 2007 12:31 PM
My hopes that the House would wake up and smell the coffee have been shipwrecked on these rocks before when I thought Pelosi was smarter than she's turning out to be. Ditto Conyers who has had impeachment papers for Bu$hCo for at least a year that I know of, maybe longer.
I like Kucinich, what he's said at anti-war rallies. However.... Proposing the filing of impeachment articles and actually bringing a bill to the House floor for a vote are vastly different things, and I do not genuinely believe it will happen. Talking about it doesn't get it accomplished.
I won't believe articles of impeachment have been filed - and voted on - until it's a done deal and I hear about it from exploding bobbleheads in Lamestream Media. Then, of course, there's the matter of whether or not the Senate will try the slimy worm(s).
The only way this will be accomplished is if the neoCons up for re-election in '08 see the handwriting on the wall in flashing neon: If they keep supporting this failed administration and keep financing the war crimes involved with Iraq & torture, they're out the door with the '08 election without some action in getting rid of the millstones around their necks.
If/When the Cons figure out they're gonna LOSE in '08 if they don't bring the troops home and stop Georgie's illegal war (since the danged thing was lost before it began because it was a war crime to begin with, and then face the horror of Georgie approving torture and opening prison camps), and if/when they figure out it's political suicide to keep Georgie's illegal war going, then MAYBE they'll DO SOMETHING for a change instead of sitting around blathering pontificating patriotic platitudes on Sunday morning bobblehead shows about "progress being made." The only "progress" being made is death and destruction and the occupation just foments more hatred of the US the longer this agony is drawn out.
Meanwhile, regarding impeachment, the Cons will continue to put roadblocks in the way of doing what's right by the people they purport representing, and the Dems will still allow the roadblocks and say they can't do anything without a majority. States have proved them wrong by already voting on articles of impeachment. What's taking our Congress Critters so danged long to figure out the majority of Americans want Bush AND Cheney OUT of office?!?!?
Wake me in time for the vote on the House floor if articles of impeachment are actually filed....
Yes I heard McCain sucking up to gun owners.
It's getting to the point where if no candidate speaks out on getting rid of the violent, armed society, then I would consider not moving, or even leaving to a less violent country. If it comes down to where I'm safer carrying a gun, then please just shoot me now too.
P.S.
IF Kucinich is successful, IF this isn't just all blather and bluster and bluff, he could take the Dem candidacy and win in '08, regardless of the money Hillary and Obama are getting....
But I gotta see results first....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070417/wl_nm/japan_shooting_repeat_dc
Japan's Nagasaki mayor critical after being shot
TOKYO (Reuters) - The mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, who was shot by a man police said belonged to a crime syndicate, remained in a critical condition on Wednesday and his chances of survival were slim, doctors said.
~~~~~
Japan has very strict gun control laws and firearms are mostly in the hands of "yakuza" gangsters or hunters.
{More on link.}
NonnyO
My cubicle mate just told me same - lived in Japan for 12 years. So much for the "outlaws will get guns" argument. So if outlaws get guns regardless, does it follow that having everyone armed helps?! She also said the Yakuzi mostly kill each other. She was outraged Bush and McCain immediately brought up gun rights.
is that gator/swamp land I just won?
Still think that we need to enter a discussion about fair gun control laws.
Posted by: Bubba at April 17, 2007 04:00 PM
Depends on if you need some gator boots.
Posted by: not my president at April 17, 2007 02:58 PM
So far... every time there's a tragic mass murder with guns, it's the Cons who blather on about upholding gun rights. Yes, that kind of talk outrages me, too. It's sickening.
Guns are used to kill people or animals. Things like automatic weapons are more efficient killers of human beings. No hunter in his/her right mind who was going to shoot an animal for food would use an automatic weapon; it would ruin the meat. True hunters with any sense of ethics and morals go for one clean shot of an animal, preferably through the brain so none of the edible meat is spoiled (and it kills the animal faster so they don't suffer).
My dad was still the strictest gun owner I ever knew. He took out his deer hunting rifle a day or two before deer hunting season, cleaned it, shot a couple of rounds at a target to make sure the aim was good and the sight was on, shot one deer the first or second day (we had different meats in the locker in the basement for winter stores, and next to it was the shelves full of veggies my mother canned every fall), then cleaned his gun and put it in the locked gun closet for another year. He also had a little rifle that had to be used less than half a dozen times on skunks that roamed near the house (we lived in the country). We all knew where the key was for the gun closet, but the guns were out of sight, out of mind, never talked about (i.e., no one in my family was ever obsessed with guns). Dad was more strict about gun safety than the NRA instructor we