An article by Conn Hallihan titled Death at a Distance: The US Air War indirectly highlights the political cowardice of the American people as a whole, the politicians of both the corporate parties that the American people have been glued to for so long, and the Pentagon itself. The article focuses on how the Americans are turning to using pilot less drones to bomb targets located in civilian areas.

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Do you care whether Tucker Carlson head-bashed a gay man in a bathroom stall, or was on the receiving end, or wants to pretend he could have done it, or that it didn’t happen at all? The point is, Carlson described it with a gay-bashing swagger, and his TV colleagues laughed about it like they would have loved to have been there. Gay bashing and laughing about it, is not only not PC, it’s not acceptable. Tucker Carlson is a little creep for many reasons, and now for hate speech. Profuse apologies and commitment to sensitivity training or bye-bye.

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Canadian police caught, rock in hand, trying to incite riot among protesters at the Bush visit.

Freedom to express oneself, to think independently, was the lure that led the masses to our shores. Safety from abusive and intrusive government is the dream that continues to draw people to our borders. Our military men and women are in Iraq and elsewhere fighting for these same principles on behalf of those who cannot battle tyranny alone. Yet here in Colorado Springs, where so many are at great personal risk because of American ideology, we do not recognize the basic Constitutional freedoms of our own citizens.

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We stood outside City Hall today, holding our banners against the Pinon Canyon expansion. We watched the pro-military-business suits stream past us. Most were cordial, some pretended we were not there. A fully uniformed OIF soldier greeted us warmly, explaining that he’d been in Iraq twice and would go again in a heartbeat. He loved “killing the Iraqis and stacking them up like cord-wood. An enemy is an enemy” he said laughing as he ascended the steps.
 
But the worst was Colorado state senator John Morse, Democrat.

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I took a detour to meander along Las Vegas Road today, and got to see a Prison Nation.
 
Las Vegas is a notorious turn off to the middle of nowhere, but smack in the middle. It’s possible to take major roads on every side and never know what you missed. It runs along Fountain Creek, home of the water treatment plant, car part junkyards, used tire stores, piles of construction aggregate, and the county jail.
 
(On this satellite picture, the vehicle impound lot is at 11, juveniles are kept at 3, the half-way facility is at 5, and the County Jail is at 8 and 9.)

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Did you hear Senator Salazar say at this morning’s city council chambers meeting, that he’d like to see as part of the Fort Carson expansion, a local national military cemetery to rival the one at Arlington? Because as retired General Bentley Rayburn reported, there’s a growing need, “and Fort Logan’s filling up.” Always thinking about our boys, aren’t they?

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Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
 
A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder- monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined.

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Six NATO ships sailed into South African waters yesterday to play war games with the South African government. This is certainly far away from the North Atlantic, is it not? This is certainly far away, too, from being a defense alliance.

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When he says “I did nothing wrong,” does conservative Senator Larry Craig mean:
I did not lead the attack against gay rights as well as carp on and on about Bill Clinton’s impropriety?

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The shirts versus the skinheads as child and companion look on

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Friends of Wolf Creek is struggling against out of state developers screwing up Colorado’s natural areas. I might start a group called Enemies of Tom Gallagher. He is the Colorado Springs city councilman most paid for and bought by local developers.

What’s with up with Republican legislators and men’s rooms? I love that the media is complicit in trying to limit the damage: disorderly conduct, ’nuff said. Though I also loved the subversively dismissive: what happened was “he said, he said.”
 
What are so many undercover cops doing in public men’s rooms? If they are following these senators, fantastic. But I rather think they’re targeting the usual suspects, gay men.

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Those who support the Saint Patrick’s Day Seven here in Colorado Springs are not making a fetish out of this case. There are many other worthy causes out there we support, too. Everywhere the US Judicial System is miscarrying justice. Below is an appeal from supporters of The Jena Six of the lousy state of Louisiana.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Dear Supporter,

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A pious colleague asks: “Must nonviolence be effective to be significant?” To be fair, he explains “How do we honor our nonviolent lifestyles and principles when we are faced with the choice to accept or reject available strategies and tactics.” (Punctuation his!)

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I have done sort of a personal poll recently by asking folk if they have heard of Camp Bucca. Almost nobody has, since after Abu Ghraib Doctor Franken Rummy and Attorney General ‘Cinco de Mayo’ Gonzalez set out to hide away the continuation of Abu Ghraib from public (and media) scrutiny.

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I’m sure you missed it, since most of us have long since given up on reading the idiotic editorials of The Gazette, our Far Right Wing local daily paper. But there it was this Tuesday morning as they attacked the notion of giving our country’s children government guaranteed health care. Oh horror of horrors they said, ‘This will keep people from buying health insurance for the tiny tots!’

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To all supporters of the SPD7, please forgive our dropping our eyes from the ball. The city charged us with intentionally obstructing the parade, and we got caught up refuting the argument.
 
After the mistrial, we the defendants are now being led to understand that the city is pondering other charges, perhaps failure to disperse, perhaps resisting arrest. Fine. None of us failed to respond to a legal order, nor resisted arrest, even considering no one was being told we were being arrested. But that is to catch us up in another semantic argument.

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Ken Salazar has called a meeting at the COS City Council chambers Wednesday Aug 29 to solicit the opinion of local area representatives about the proposed Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion. The public is invited to attend (10am tomorrow) but the 15 representatives have already been selected. Invited to speak are:

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Would you entrust your children to the care of a teacher who didn’t have a Kucinich 2008 bumper sticker on their car? Or a sign in their window reading “What are you doing about global warming?” I know another elementary school teacher who distributes peace buttons wherever he goes, and another who teaches at peace camp during the summer.
 
What do the other teachers think they’re doing? Worrying about not getting fired by school administration lackeys, to hell with the children?

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Someone’s rebuilt the World Trade Center in Second Life, just for 9/11. You’ll find it in the Elegua Sim. We poked around the virtual erections and could not find any demolition charges set in the intact towers, but you can teleport to the observation deck and grab a snapshot of yourself jumping in the pre-war-on-terrorism age.

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