“Unidentified men on a motorbike handed Reuters an audio cassette yesterday said to be of supreme Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, two years to the day after his hardline regime fled Kabul. The recorded speech, which admonishes commanders who have given up the ‘jihad’ against foreign troops in Afghanistan, was made in the last few weeks, said Mullah Abdul Sama, a spokesman for the ousted militia. ... Meanwhile, at least four Afghans were killed and three hurt when their car was blown up by a remote-controlled bomb, witnesses said yesterday. They said the intended target in the incident in Manogi district of Kunar was probably a vehicle from US-led forces driving just in front of the car that was destroyed.” (11/14/03)

Via: Rational Review

After joining the Gay Straight Alliance at her Oakley, Calif., school, high school freshman Lisa McClelland, 15, noted the school had a Black Student Union, a chapter of Latinos Unidos, and an ALOHA Club for Asian Americans. Why not a Caucasian Club, wondered the girl, who is of Scottish, German, American Indian, Latino and Irish descent, so she got more than 300 student signatures on a petition to start one. But “Some people would say words like ‘racist’ when they see me,” she said later, and the NAACP called the club’s name “culturally insensitive”. She says the proposed club would be open to anyone who wanted to talk about race, or express pride in their European heritage. But she says she was harassed so much for her idea that she transferred to another school. The school she left? Freedom High School. (San
Francisco Chronicle) ...

“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.”—Martin Luther King Jr (1929-1968), American minister and civil right leader.

Via: This is True

U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices

Cuba is a totalitarian state controlled by Fidel Castro, who is Chief of
State with the titles of President, Head of Government, First Secretary of
the Communist Party, and commander in chief of the armed forces. Castro
exercises control over all aspects of life through the Communist Party and
its affiliated mass organizations, the government bureaucracy headed by the
Council of State, and the state security apparatus. The Communist Party is
the only legal political entity, and Castro personally chooses the
membership of the Politburo, the select group that heads the party. There
are no contested elections for the 601-member National Assembly of People’s
Power (ANPP), which meets twice a year for a few days to rubber stamp
decisions and policies previously decided by the governing Council of State.
The Communist Party controls all government positions, including judicial
offices. The judiciary is completely subordinate to the Government and to
the Communist Party.

David Pogue

The New York Times

“”If there’s one thing you learn as you grow older, it’s that life is
painted in shades of gray. I find it harder and harder to view any issue
in black and white; if you really think about it, you can almost always
see the other guy’s point of view.

Take electronic voting, for example. In 2000, it sure looked like the
old voting systems punch cards, hanging chads, all that were
desperately in need of upgrading. It seemed pretty obvious that
electronic voting systems would have avoided the whole Florida ballot
controversy. I, for one, spent two months walking around muttering,
“Gimme a break. They can drive the Nasdaq to 5,000, but we’re still
voting with punch cards?!”

Then came last Sunday’s New York Times, which presented a terrifying
report on Diebold, a leading maker of paperless touch-screen voting
machines. Eight million of us will be tapping on Diebold computers in
the next Presidential election.

So what’s wrong with that?

Wrong Thing 1: Wally O’Dell, the company’s chief executive, is a
Republican fundraiser. He writes letters to wealthy Bush contributors
vowing to “deliver” his state’s electoral votes to the Bush campaign. He
hosts campaign meetings at his house. He’s also a member of Bush’s
“Rangers and Pioneers” club (each member of whom must contribute at
least $100,000 to the 2004 re-election campaign).

No matter what your politics, you can’t deny that there’s a strong whiff
of conflict of interest here.

Still, Mr. O’Dell wouldn’t and couldn’t go so far as to program his
voting machines to deliver the next election to Mr. Bush, right? Even
Oliver Stone would laugh at that conspiracy theory. But then:

Thanks to Limbik (http://www.limbicnutrition.com/blog/) for this entry

Here we go again, another racial shakedown. Six figures? Hundreds of
thousands of pounds of taxpayers money extorted a major race industry
player.

When institutions like the police try and find out whether there is racism
in the ranks, it is officers like this that they ask.

A working assumption seems to be that the minority staff, often highly
politicised in racially exclusive unions and groups (Black Police Officers
Association), are used as the measure for diversity training effectiveness
or the ones polled when asking about racism.

So the the only ones with power in the E.U. be France and Germany?

http://www.iht.com/articles/117509.html

Idea of closer ties spurred by larger EU

PARIS Out with the European Union! In with the Franco-German Union? That was the gist of a series of articles in the Thursday edition of Le Monde claiming that France and Germany are “studying a project of unity.”
.
The newspaper said that Paris and Berlin were emboldened by their collective
opposition to the war in Iraq and were fearful of losing influence once the
European Union admits 10 new members next May.
.

This is an interesting bit of information that you don’t hear much about in the media:

a) Enron’s chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.

b) Enron gave $420,000 to the president’s party over three years.

c) It donated $100,000 to the president’s inauguration festivities.

d) The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times.

e) The corporation had access to the administration at its highest levels and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

f) The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction. Scandalous!!

g) BUT…the president under whom all this happened WASN’T George W. Bush.

h)It was Bill Clinton!