Conservatives Update

Republicans and Other Jerks

Wireless Wiretaps Plus
So it turns out that the Feds have a backdoor into absolutely everything about you on one of the larger wireless carriers *cough* *cough* Verizon *cough*.

Every single customer, call, both contents and origin/destination, billing records, personal information, all of it.

Not one warrant.

Source: Wired

Court is the Only Way
Legal jeopardy is simply the only way to make a Republican do their job.

Responding to a lawsuit by Michigan and eight other states, the Bush administration is reconsidering its policy on mercury emissions from cement plants, which critics say allows too much air pollution.

Whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changes the rules will depend on test results of technology that could reduce the emissions, spokesman Dale Kemery said Thursday.

But an environmental law firm that has battled the EPA for a decade over the matter said the agency promised in a court filing last month to set standards it previously had resisted.

"They've turned 180 degrees," said James Pew, attorney for Earthjustice, based in Washington, D.C.

Mercury comes from raw materials used to make cement — such as limestone, clay, sand and iron ore — and from fuels such as coal that fire the kilns where the ingredients are baked. Mercury is a neurotoxin linked to learning disabilities and is most dangerous to fetuses and young children, usually by eating fish contaminated through environmental exposure.

The agency in December 2006 set limits on mercury and hydrocarbon emissions from cement kilns built after Dec. 2, 2005. But for kilns built earlier, the EPA imposed lesser requirements.

The states sued in February 2007, saying the federal Clean Air Act requires mercury emission limits for all plants, not just new ones. Earthjustice, which had sued the EPA three previous times over cement kiln mercury, filed a separate case on behalf of several activist groups.

Activist groups and nine states. Nine states that are sick and tired of mercury poisoned kids.

The nine states include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania

Source: Raw Story

What, Israel Again?
The little country that could demonstrates that it won't just stand by and let the US get all the bad press.

In Jerusalem, more ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Harediim, are leaving their cloistered neighborhoods for cheaper housing in the suburbs. In one suburb, that has led to rising tensions and sporadic violence with their modern Orthodox and secular neighbors.

Religious fanatics! Is there anything they can't ruin?

A small group of ultra-Orthodox extremists has been intimidating fellow Jews who they deem to be not kosher or modest enough, or who don't keep the Sabbath the way they want them to.

One resident of the sprawling, quiet suburb of Ramat Beit Shemesh, a half-hour outside of Jerusalem, is Solly Wahlbe, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who spends his days studying the Torah.

In an outdoor shopping area near a local supermarket, the slight 18-year-old says he approves of the big signs posted everywhere around by his fellow ultra-Orthodox, which implore women to dress modestly.

Women wearing jeans or pants, Wahlbe says, are a distraction to what he calls "the focused, settled minds" of the Harediim.

"When dealing with this issue of Torah, your mind has to be much more settled and can't be jumping around to all sorts of different planets and all sorts of different fantasies and thoughts that might come up on a teenager's head," he says.

Or, he says softly, "into the head of a married man. ... We're not trying to change people," he says, "but they must respect our way of life."

They're not trying to change people. They just can't control themselves because they've been brought up in a goddamned cult, and thus they want to force everyone to agree with them or else get stoned to death.

The problem is that Wahlbe is in a public shopping center in a mixed suburb where Harediim make up a little more than a quarter of the population. A minority of ultra-Orthodox have tried to impose "respect" using rocks, fists and intimidation.

Oh yeah. This is going to end well.

Dr. Hahvah is a modern Orthodox woman who dresses modestly, keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath. One day driving home, she saw that someone had put up a sign in her neighborhood that read "Don't pass here unless you dress modestly."

"I find that offensive," she says. "I don't think that anybody should impose dress codes on the public."

When she tried to haul the sign down, some ultra-Orthodox pelted her and her car with rocks. Dr. Hahvah, who asked that her full name not be used, went to the local police, but she says they did nothing.

"It's very hard. I know the people who attacked me and when their families come to see me as a doctor and I can't say anything or do anything because it's unprofessional," she says.

That rock attack was hardly an isolated incident. People driving on the Sabbath have been bombarded with rocks. Earlier this year in Beit Shemesh, a young Haredi woman was sitting next an Israeli soldier on a public bus when ultra-Orthodox men assaulted both of them and forced the woman off the bus. Men and women, they said, should be segregated. Later, an ultra-Orthodox man who stood up to the zealots within his own community was himself brutally beaten. He said it was like a pogrom.

Hehe. Silly religious idealists. You thought getting your own country to play with would end the violence and hate? Haven't any of you read Durkheim? Society is DEFINED by its outsiders. In the absence of real ones, imaginary outsiders are always invented.

But what will the powerful government, with its legal monopoly on violence, do about this problem?

"One of the problems with this group of violent fanatics, I would call them, is that they don't know how to handle when they have a disagreement," says Shalom Lerner, the deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh.

...

"Culturally, it's a big change for them," he says. "This is the first time these group of peoples are moving out of Jerusalem, out of Mea Shariim. They're not used to seeing a woman in pants, they're not used to seeing a woman with uncovered hair, and they find it very hard to adjust."

Lerner, an observant, modern Orthodox, says Beit Shemesh leaders said enough is enough after some businesses received mafia-like threats to put up modesty signs — or else. Then a family whose television was allegedly visible through a window got a threatening letter demanding they cover it up or face attack. Lerner says the town made it clear to the ultra-Orthodox that there will be big legal, financial and political costs if the threats, bullying and violence continue.

"If it's a school they want, the school will be the last one to get allocation," he says. "It won't be where they want. We won't give them any financial help. If they want to be tough, we'll be tough."

Paperwork! Holding that up will solve everything!

Last summer, community members started a group that's trying to narrow the religious and cultural divide through dialogue. Organizers say they have made some progress, but both sides acknowledge the goal of the dialogue, in the end, is not wider integration but a kind of peaceful segregation.

"If they want to be the way they want [and] we want to be the way we want, we can't put them together," says David, a 25-year-old ultra-Orthodox who studies Torah full time, "because it's two different things — it's two different worlds."

He's 25 and he wants to segregate the nation and spend the rest of his life studying a single book written by crazy people a few thousand years ago.

Seriously. There's no long-term peaceful coexistence with these people. They either have to adapt, or eventually they'll rise up like our South did in the Civil War, and you'll have to crush them. Don't say I didn't warn you, Israel.

Source: NPR

I Always Thought Heavy Drinking Led to Republicans
Though I was more inclined to believe it was Fetal Alcohol Syndrome than adult drunkenness that actually caused the disorder.

A Minnesota state senator has withdrawn a bill which would have extended drinking hours at local bars during the Republican National Convention next summer.

The legislation would have changed the closing time from 2 am to 4 am for bars in the seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul area between Aug. 29 and Sep. 8.

Legislator Linda Scheid gave up her effort following just an hour of debate in the state legislature, after she found that the police had concerns that it would affect all bars, not just those near the convention.

Republicans love to hold their conventions where they're just not wanted. First New York, where the cops had to install a fascist police state to create a quasi-Disneyland part of the city for the GOP, now Minneapolis, where, apparently, the Republicans need a steady supply of hard liquor just to stand all the liberal, functional government and tolerance.

Jerks. Go back to the inbred South already.

Source: Raw Story

Salvia
Conservatives are looking to ban another drug now, because the state-corporate monopoly on your brain tissue needs more protection.

On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of Salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: "Time is running out!" and "stock up while you still can."


That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.

"As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one," said Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, who has introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Ahh, Prohibition. Is there any social ill it can't turn into an epidemic of greed, corruption and violence?

Mike Strain, Louisiana's Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner and former legislator, helped his state in 2005 become the first to make salvia illegal, along with a number of other plants. He said the response has been largely positive.

"I got some hostile e-mails from people who sold these products," Strain said. "You don't make everybody happy when you outlaw drugs. You save one child and it's worth it."

THINK OF THE CHILDREN

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

Among those who believe the commotion over the drug is overblown is Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that does research on psychedelic drugs and whose goal is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription medication.

"I think the move to criminalize is a misguided response to a very minimal problem," Doblin said.

Doblin said salvia isn't "a party drug," "tastes terrible" and is "not going to be extremely popular." He disputes the fact teens are its main users and says older users are more likely.

"It's a minor drug in the world of psychedelics," he said.

Yes, people are really going to get in line for a short-lasting, terrible tasting mild hallucinogen. Woe betide us if they do, as well.

Meanwhile, tobacco, which has killed millions of Americans? Legal. Alcohol? Legal. Yes, if you like killing yourself or your brain, we have two and only two options available. You even have to consume them the way WE, I mean the government, tell you (witness the efforts to ban alcohol inhalers, which make it cheaper to get drunk and thus cut down on the profit margin).

Not that I'm advocating banning tobacco or alcohol. Just noting the inherent hypocrisy here.

Source: Raw Story

Surrounded by Jerks!
So it seems it isn't safe to walk the corridors of school without the threat of being accosted on all sides by jerks.

LANCASTER, Pa. - The family of a middle school student who was given detention for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a gun has filed a federal freedom of speech lawsuit against the school district.

Donald Miller III, 14, went to Penn Manor High School in December wearing a T-shirt he said was intended to honor his uncle, a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq.

The shirt bears the image of a military sidearm and on the front pocket says "Volunteer Homeland Security." On the back, over another image of the weapon, are the words "Special issue Resident Lifetime License - United States Terrorist Hunting Permit - Permit No. 91101 - Gun Owner - No Bag Limit."

Isn't that cute? He thinks being a gun owner and remembering the date a terror attack happened makes him a licensed vigilante!

Normally I am vehemently opposed to this t-shirt banning nonsense, but this one actually implies that the kid will murder people, with a gun (bag limit, anyone?) and get away with it, so I could see it frightening, say, some poor brown student who already gets the hell harassed out of him for having a 'funny sounding' name.

Let's see if the school can overgeneralize this one racist, jingoistic misbehavior into a sea of troubles, though.

But an attorney for the school district said school must create a safe environment for students in the post-Columbine era, and bringing even the image of a gun to school violates the district's policy.

"There's a much higher level of sensitivity these days," Penn Manor attorney Kevin French said. "But it's based on reality."

The lawsuit was filed in January. A federal judge will hold a conference on the case March 31.

That poor judge. He'll be up late many a night, with only a bottle of Scotch to comfort him, trying to find a way to rule that doesn't let the morons win. Either side.

Our thoughts are with you, good sir or madam.

Source: AZ Central