Described by the American adminstration as a coup de theatre, the film showing Saddam strolling among his adoring citizens vowing their lives for their ruler astonished the American Adminstration that it is still suffering the Denial Syndrome
Yesterday, I received more than 17 telephone calls from friends, neighbours and mere acqauintances urging me to switch on the TV and see “The Caliph” among his loving people in the streets of Baghdad. For more than 24 hours, the Egyptian capital exchanged cheers over Mr. Hussein’s lovely demeanour. The man walked proudly smiling unperturbed by any potential assassin. The CIA which claimed to know what brand of undershirt Hussein wore could not even tell whether that was Mr. Hussein in his own flesh smiling to the camera! Jokes about the CIA and American technological superiority were exchanged all day long.

The American media could not hide away the film from their audience since it was “big news”. Highly embarrassing to the American adminstration claiming that Mr. Hussein and both his sons were dead, the CIA saw it necessary to ’suspect’ it was not Saddam.

To all of us his people and neighbours, it was Saddam. But what difference does it make if it were not him. Iraqis in the streets flocked to kiss the hands of whom they took to be their reverent ruler. Women chanted: ” Bush listen carefully; listen well! For Saddam we will kill”. The typical cheers heard all the time was: “Our souls and blood, a sacrifice for you Saddam!” Does it still matter whether that was Mr. Saddam or his look-alike?

For the past 50 years which is the whole history of Arab countries past colonization, the only person who enjoyed the cheers: Our Souls and Blood..was Nasser - no less. Nasser, the Egyptian dictator to the West, was the one who sowed the cult for this spirit of Arabism that still hurts the West so much. Nasser died; his teachings live.

Saddam, who is but a faithful fan of Nasser desrves the same respect his predeccessor garnered. A la Nasser, Saddam strolls the streets of his capital shaking hands, receiving kisses and hugs from his fellow men deprived of showers for days, to be sure.

Iraq, the land of great Muslim rulers before the Ottomans, is showing the head of its Caliph, Saddam Hussein to the rest of the muslim and Arab world, in military uniform. The image projected is one of dignity, courage, humility and jihad. Try convincing those not to believe in their lore, symbolised by Saddam the Caliph, and fall in love with a cowboy in blue eyes and bluer jeans! The meagre entourage of the Caliph busied themselves with clearing the path for the Master’s strides rather than watching out for “unfriendly” weapons. While citizens were holding guns, no one, including Hussein, even bothered to look at their nozzles. Does it bother you that that was Saddam?

Arabs outside Iraq bowed to the Iraqi media and the Media Minister. Mr. Sahaf gained so much respect and millions of fans through his daily press conference run from Palestine Hotel (what else?) in Baghdad. Many journalists started crticizing Arafat for his failure to have a Sahaf talk on his behalf.The main reason Sahaf is wining the war against Cospiracy Forces led by America, is that he has yet to be caught lying. Every single claim he made and was denied by the White House, was confessed (usually by the British) few days later. Confessions pertaining to dead alien forces, Iraqi severe resistance, or the confiscation of Saddam International Airport.

As one Iraqi friend who happened to be one of the dismissed Iraqis living in London told me last week: ” Do those people have brains? If I have a problem with my dad, will I welcome his enemy murdering him in my name?” The “dad” he was refering to was no one else but the one who dismissed him out of his homeland, shocking as it may sound to those sitting at the Pentagon with their alert system rendered dead forever.

About the Author

Al Seidi, Nevine, Egyptian-born (1961) obtained her BA in English Literature(Honours) from Alexandria University Egypt. She grew up in an artistic literary home where her dad acted and wrote scripts while keeping a private office of law as a Solicitor. To please him, she had to read the concise version of Shakespeare at 8 for her summer holiday. She trained as a painter at 6 under the patronage of world-famous Seif Wanli. At the age of 13, she started composing poetry in both English and Arabic. She won many contests as a painter and a poet. She has been a writer to her own circle of literary society, eversince. At the age of 18, she started getting interested in fashion seriously.She was determined to follow a career in fashion albeit studing literature. Highly, interested in theology, philosophy,sociology, economics, politics and very well informed in fashion, beauty and business. She tapped into various professions, before a career in fashion that ended at the threshold of creative writing again.Her moment of initiation was the birth of her only son Omar,now3. “Suddenly, the fashion world seemed a little too selfish a pursuit; motherhood anchored me to the reality of things. Unfortuanately, reality is not as beautiful as the fashion world” - She explains. She is an active journalist writer and poet with a deep interest in political and social affairs. She writes on many web sites on various subjects as well as various publications and periodicals. As a poet, she is published in the US. Some of her work appear in an anthology published by the L ibrary of Congress entitled: Nature’s Echoes One of her most interesting poems is published in Millennium Poets by Cader Publisheing. The Poem is titled : Surrogate God . Though amusing, it hardly expresses the poet’s belief. It is rather an expression of a mood. She is presently writing her first book: The Cultural Predicament of the Third World The Ethical vs. the Ethnical

V For Vendetta is a comicbook decalogy set in the UK in a dystopian alternature future. Alan Moore wrote and David Lloyd illustrated the series. The plot concerns a rebellious character called V who is trying to cause the downfall of the existing tyrannical government.

An atomic war has eliminated much of the population in this particular milieu, and the tyrannical power in charge is called Norsefire. V wears a Guy Fawkes mask and is flamboyant in his revolutionary efforts. A movie based on the comic book series was released in 2005.

V For Vendetta was originally published in Warrior magazine in black and white, but the magazine was canceled before the series reached completion. DC Comics republished the original black and white comics (now in color) in 1988, and the series was completed in the new format.

V For Vendetta was a preview of the dense narrative style that Alan Moore would later perfect with his more well-known work, Watchmen. The artwork often contains hidden clues and details which add meaning and depth to the story. Literary allusion is used to good effect. V even speaks in iambic pentameter, as often as not.

The movie and the original decalogy are both considered quite quotable, and whole sites have been devoted to V for Vendetta Quotes. There will likely never be a sequel.

Seven Democrats and seven Republicans signed the “Memorandum of Understanding” detailing an agreement which averted a senatorial crisis in the Spring of 2005.

The crisis centered around the use of the filibuster rule by Democrats in the Senate to indefinitely stall judicial nominees from getting an up or down vote on the Senate floor.

The Republican party has 56 members in the U.S. Senate while the Democratic party has 43 and there is 1 independent in the 107the Congress. An agreement between 7 senators of both parties provided the necessary math for any judicial vote.

A filibuster is an open ended debate on the merits of any issue. “Cloture” places a time limit on debate and moves the issue to the Senate floor for a vote of all Senators. Cloture requires 60 votes. By using the filibuster to block judicial nominees from attaining a floor vote, the Democrats have essentially required a “super-majority” of 60 votes to confirm a nominee, rather than a simple majority of 51, thus retaining an effective veto over nominees that they view unfavorably.

With this tactic successfully used to thwart certain judicial nominees of the Bush Presidency from gaining an up or down vote for years in some cases, Senate Republicans threatened a parliamentary procedure that would remove the filibuster rule for judicial nominations. In retaliation for removing a long held and time honored protection of minority party rights, the Democrats threatened to grind all Senate business to a halt. A constitutional crisis hung over the capitol for months in early 2005.

The “gang of 14″, organized by Senator John McCain bound themselves by an agreement to end the crisis, whereby the seven Democrats would vote in favor of cloture for future nominees except in “extraordinary circumstances”, allowing each signatory to decide if such circumstances exist. If 56 Republicans were in agreement to end a filibuster, the 7 additional Democratic votes would equal 63 votes, and be enough for cloture, ending debate and allowing a vote. In exchange, the seven Republicans agreed to oppose any rule change in the Senate that would end the filibuster rule for judicial nominees. The total votes of 43 Democrats, 1 Independent (who usually votes Democratic), and 7 Republicans is 51 votes, enough to defeat any attempt at a rule change.

The Memorandum of Understanding also ended filibuster on 3 of 5 nominees who had been thwarted from receiving consideration on the Senate floor through this tactic: Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor, and Priscilla Owen. All were subsequently confirmed by the Senate. No agreement for cloture was made for two other nominees, William Myers, and Henry Saad.

Signatories of the “Memorandum of Understanding”

John McCain (R) AZ
Lindsey Graham (R) SC
Mike DeWine (R) OH
Olympia Snowe (R) ME
Susan Collins (R) ME
John Warner (R) VA
Lincoln Chafee (R) RI

Ben Nelson (D) NE
Mark Pryor (D) AR
Mary Landrieu (D) LA
Ken Salazar (D) CO
Robert Byrd (D) WV
Joseph Lieberman (D) CT
Daniel Inouye (D) HI

Rick David writes for http://www.Legal-News.Info. A copy of the Memorandum of Understanding may be downloaded.

A hero’s words die slowly once his body has been given back to the earth. A last kiss. A song. A sunrise. A breeze. A memory of what it was once like.

Millions of children have had to grow up in a world that believed virtue, goodness, and strength to be male traits, and believed that lust, viciousness, and betrayal to be female traits. Long years of battling, using the weapon of argument and the shield of rhetoric, have gained territory for the Feminist movement. Everywhere there could be seen an injustice, a brutality, a thoughtless act of cruelty, an act where women were treated differently on account of their gender — the commonplace of this sort of inhumanity I shall call the Sexist tragedy. And everywhere that these brutal and heartless crimes were committed, there was a mind developing a thought, that maybe what is happening is unjust and careless. Freethinkers and Anarchists began to develop their minds as they fought for a more just society. People began to think, that just maybe, because society believes in something, that doesn’t necessarily give it merit — because it is common, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is satisfactory to the spirit of justice — because it is well-accepted and a part of “civilized society,” it does not mean that we should honor or cherish it. Let me assure you, too, that these were crimes, for though they violated no lawbook or legislation, they tore asunder the conscience in every good person’s heart. And every philosopher who rose his voice against the Sexist tragedy was called the attacker, the warrior against society, for it was believed that by giving liberty to women, there would be a downfall in civilization as the basic family unit was destroyed.

When we read the epic tales today of how a small fragment of society revolted against the mainstream, all for the sake of asserting the rights of an oppressed group — it fills us with hope and inspiration, and maybe the idea that we, too, can do the same.

The pain stings more when we believe in honesty and we must tell a lie to retain social status — so I have vowed to tell no lies for this motive.

A person who argues that the Sexist tragedy does not still pervail in some form today is as ignorant of it as they are of Sexism. Whether the origin is biological or not, there is no denying the prevalence of the idea that sex for women is considered vicious or unhealthy or rampant, while sex for men is considered necessary, healthy, and virtuous. A man who has sex often is given the status of hero, but a woman whose actions are not different from those of this man will be given a low ranking status. Those men who treat women poorly because of their sexual appetite, and those women who believe themselves immoral because of what they do — they make up the Sexist tragedy of today that pervades. The man who treats a woman without respect because of what may be known of her sexually is doing himself a disservice. He has succesfully disconnected half of the human species from his mind — those spirits that cherished goodness and felt the rush of happiness at thoughts of family, those women who has decided to spit on, will be strangers to him. He may never know the truth of affection, the beauty of sex, the justice of independence, if he forever views a good woman as a chaste woman — if he continues to believe that sexual women are of an inferior quality, that a woman’s lust determines her goodness, that a member of the female species is inherently cruel because of whom she allows to have sex with her. A gentle, kind soul may be found within a woman, regardless of her sex habits. Only a person without courage or boldness will suppress their desires when it is to be accepted by a culture that has forgotten the meaning of beauty. In this respect, every woman who follows through with what her heart tells her has accomplished what only the strongest of mind can do.

If a man has done himself a disservice by treating women differently than he treats his fellow men, then think of the women who have been brought up in this society. Think of the thoughts that may collect and gather in their minds, think if a person had to believe that they were themselves immoral because of naturally occuring sexual ideas. A culture that subjects women to the idea that they are inherently bad for thinking about sex is cruel, vindictive, and heartless. These ideas and thoughts, they destroy the last thread of human dignity by debasing the female gender, they promote malice, they ignore gentle instincts, they are negligent of everything that has meaning. And they are only believed by our society because children, deprived of any meaningful education or independence, or forced to swallow these ideas whole. It is a disservice to our children to convince them that the rules of sex are different for the genders — and once those children grow up, they are without liberty of the heart and mind if they continue to uphold these ideas. The Sexist tragedy pervades still, as we are told by every center for culture that sex for men is a sign of pride, but a sign of shame for women. It goes against the rules of logic, against the meaning of justice, against the declarations of humanity. It is an utter contradiction in a society that has claimed to support goodness.

The sort of beauty that can arrise out of nature has been a source of inspiration for every thinker who has felt outcast.

There are few crimes so painful, so utterly thoughtless and culturally supported, than that of Sexism. As a victim, to know that others consider you less because of some attribute that you had no control over. To know that to others around you, some you may care about, some you may have brought yourself to love, some you have formed relationships with and created a place in your heart for them — to know that they think it is normal that think you are inferior because of your gender. A Sexist, one who has believed that the emotions of a female are debased, that their role in society should be limited, that their souls and spirits were of a poor quality — a Sexist has caused the misery, the suffering, the pain of half of the human species. And while small societies revolt, led by Freethinkers and Feminists, all of them with the dream of liberty and freedom, the Sexist will see this as civilization losing its meaning and purpose. Prejudice and discrimination are not friends of humanity, nor are they components of justice, nor are they allies to liberty. Prejudice has been the shield to injustice, the sword to persecution, the reason to rebel to liberators, the strength to rogues. It has been overthrown by every person to think for themselves and erected by every person to listen to cultural superstition.

And to us, it is a reason to fight back.
http://www.punkerslut.com

For Life,

Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has been writing essays and poetry on social issues which have caught his attention for several years. His website http://www.punkerslut.com provides a complete list of all of these writings. His life experience includes homelessness, squating in New Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from college for “subversive activities,” and a myriad of other revolutionary actions.

Mexican has tariffs on goods, which come into its country from the United States. The tariffs in many cases are 50%. This is said to help Mexico’s economy. But if you look at all the money being shipped to Mexico each week by migrant and illegal alien workers you see a much different issue brewing. You see their economy growing and not very much money coming back for US Goods in trade. Thus we are upside down in the trade deficit.

Since Mexico will not cooperate in curbing the drug trade into the United States to any large degree and they will not extradite felons which have committed murder in the United States for a fair trial here; we need to charge a 50% export tax on money leaving our country to Mexico. Surely such a radical departure in policy will immediately trigger Mexico to reduce or eliminate entirely that 50% import tax on American goods.

Free trade is fair trade and there is nothing fair about a lopsided import tax system on one side of the equation. The lower or voided out import tax on American goods to Mexico will trigger better quality of life, lower prices and better quality merchandise for Mexican citizens.

The United States is far to lenient on such nations with lopsided trade policies. When we sit down at the trade table and everyone starts talking about level playing fields we need to be firm and slam our fists down on the table when the BULL starts flying our way about how America is greedy or does not care. Sure we do, if these other countries would get rid of their own corruption they would not need such an advantage. The truth is when we lend money to these nations the top tier families steal it and no significant infrastructure is built. Before anyone points a finger at this great nation, they need to get their own greed and corruption figured out on their side of the fence. If they did that maybe we would not need a fence in the first place; think on it. One estimate was 15 Billion dollars per month was going being sent to Mexico from labor here. The export their labor yet we are charged when we export products? What gives? The products that we export do not need public services, like their labor does when it comes here? The trade deficit with Canada and Mexico is said to be 100 Billion per year. Obviously it is more than that if you factor in the costs of public services that the labor uses up?

Do not get me wrong; I am an advocate of free and fair trade with every essence of my soul, but let’s get real we are getting a raw deal.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/