"'Is this ship ready for fishing?' we ask. 'Yes, of course', he looks around, gestures at the deck. He seems surprised that we would ask. We're amazed it's even floating."
Bush blames Iraq's instability on Hussein - Mar 29, 2006
"President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government." If a dictator in prison has more power than the president of the invading country, we have light years to go!
GovTrack: H.R. 4437: Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005
"H.R. 4437: Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" The straight facts.
12/6/2005--Introduced.
Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 - Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) to: (1) take all appropriate actions, including development of a national border strategy, to maintain operational control over the U.S. international land and maritime borders; (2) report on cross-border security agreements with Mexico and Canada; (3) provide for biometric data enhancements; (4) report on the One Face at the Border Initiative; (5) increase port of entry inspection personnel and canine detection teams; (6) report on the airspace security mission's impact on the National Capital Region; (7) reimburse private owners along the border for certain property damage; (8) establish at least one Border Patrol unit for the Virgin Islands; (9) report on Central American gang travel across the U.S.-Mexico border; and (10) deploy radiation portal monitors at US ports of entry to screen inbound cargo for nuclear and radiological material.
Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) with respect to alien smuggling and illegal entry and presence to: (1) revise the definition of aggravated felony; (2) provide mandatory minimum sentences on smuggling convictions, and expand seizure and forfeiture authority; (3) make illegal US presence a crime; (4) increases penalties for improper US entry and for marriage and immigration-related entrepreneurship fraud; (5) provide mandatory minimum sentences for aliens convicted of reentry after removal; (6) impose on smugglers the same sentences that the aliens they have smuggled would receive; (7) include among smuggling crimes the carrying or use of a firearm during such activity; and (8) revise voluntary departure provisions.
Directs the Secretary: (1) and the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan to increase the availability of Department of Defense (DOD) surveillance equipment along the US international land and maritime borders; (2) to assess border security vulnerabilities on Department of Interior land directly adjacent to the US border; (3) conduct a training exercise on border security information sharing; (4) establish a Border Security Advisory Committee; and (5) establish a university-based Center of Excellence for Border Security.
Authorizes the Secretary to permit the use of DHS grants for border security activities.
Expresses the sense of Congress with respect to border security cooperation with sovereign Indian Nations.
Requires the mandatory detention of illegal aliens apprehended at a US port of entry or along the US land or maritime borders. Permits release with notice to appear only if the alien: (1) is not a security risk; and (2) provides a specified bond. Denies admission to the nationals of a country that refuses or delays acceptance of its nationals ordered removed from the United States.
Requires that the Secretary place an alien (other than from Mexico or Canada) who has not been admitted or paroled into expedited removal if apprehended within 100 miles of the border and within 14 days of unauthorized entry.
Directs the Secretary to take specified actions to ensure coordination of DHS border security efforts.
Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to establish in DHS an Office of Air and Marine Operations whose primary mission shall be to prevent the entry of terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband into the United States.
Directs the Secretary to transfer to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement all functions of the Customs Patrol Officers unit operating on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation (the "Shadow Wolves" unit). Authorizes the Secretary to establish within United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement additional Customs Patrol units to operate on Indian lands.
Bars an alien: (1) deportable on terrorist grounds from receiving withholding of removal; (2) convicted of an aggravated felony, unlawful procurement of citizenship, or domestic violence, stalking, or child abuse from admissibility; (3) convicted of an aggravated felony from refugee or asylee status adjustment; (4) removable on terrorist grounds from becoming naturalized; and (5) from being naturalized while in removal proceedings.
Revises and enhances detention provisions for certain dangerous aliens subject to removal, including establishment of a detention review process for cooperating aliens.
Increases penalties and sets mandatory minimum sentences for aliens who fail to comply with removal provisions.
Makes an alien deportable for: (1) three or more drunk driving convictions; and (2) social security number and identification fraud.
Authorizes (and reimburses) local sheriffs or sheriff coalitions in specified counties along the southern border to enforce the immigration laws and to transfer illegal aliens to federal custody. Establishes in the Treasury the Designated County Law Enforcement Account.
Makes an alien inadmissible for US entry if: (1) such alien has been deported for criminal street gang participation; or (2) the consular officer or the Secretary knows or has reasonable grounds to believe that such alien is a member of a criminal street gang seeking US entry in furtherance of gang-related crimes or activities, or is a member of a designated criminal street gang. Makes an alien deportable who: (1) is a street gang member convicted of committing or attempting to commit a gang crime; or (2) is determined by the Secretary to be a member of a designated criminal street gang. Authorizes the Attorney General to designate a group or association as a criminal street gang. Requires mandatory detention of alien gang members subject to removal. Makes such aliens ineligible for asylum and protection from removal to certain countries.
Authorizes expedited removal for aliens inadmissible for security or criminal grounds.
Makes sexual abuse of a minor an aggravated felony for immigration purposes.
Directs the Secretary to establish, and sets forth the provisions for, an employment eligibility verification system. Expands the employment eligibility verification system to include: (1) previously hired individuals; and (2) recruitment and referral. Sets forth civil and criminal penalty provisions for noncompliance.
Provides for: (1) voluntary employer verification utilizing such system two years after enactment of this Act for previously hired individuals; (2) mandatory employer verification three years after enactment of this Act by federal, state, and local governments, and the military for employees not verified under such system working at federal, state or local government buildings, military bases, nuclear energy sites, weapons sites, airports, or critical infrastructure sites; and (3) mandatory employer verification six years after enactment of this Act for all employees not previously verified under such system.
Makes employer participation in the basic pilot program mandatory two years after enactment of this Act.
Authorizes the Board of Immigration Appeals to reverse an immigration judge's removal decision without remand.
Eliminates judicial review of visa revocation.
Authorizes reinstatement of a prior removal order against an alien illegally reentering the United States.
Requires an alien applying for withholding of removal to establish that his or her life or freedom would be threatened in the country of return, and that race, religion, nationality, or political or social group would be a central factor in such threat.
Subjects removal appeals to an initial certification of reviewability process by a single court of appeals judge.
Requires all nonimmigrant applicants to waive any right to: (1) review or appeal a determination of inadmissibility at port of entry; or (2) contest, other than through asylum, any action for removal.
Words from a founding member of Delta Force - Counter terrorism unit.
Immigration bills send protesters to city streets - Mar 24, 2006
Immigration bills send protesters to city streets - Mar 24, 2006: "Congress is considering bills that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The proposals have angered many Hispanics." Land of the free if you were here first? Right, oh yeah that's right, wrong! Though there is a need for cheap labor to stop, to protect both the employee and the economy, this is not the way. This country that most would like to posess as theirs was built by migrants of all races of through slave labor. Imposing a felony on any undocumented human will no doubt clog up the justice system and the prison system wasting millions of tax dollars on sustaining the influx of people sent to trial and convicted.
Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video
Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video: "Bush Pre-senile Dementia Video
The big story - 'a striking decline in his sentence-by-sentence speaking skills.' The reason? One doctor says 'pre-senile dementia' a catch-all term for earlier-than-normal cognitive declines (probably 'dry-drunk syndrome'). This video intercuts footage from 10 years ago with recent footage - the difference is dramatic and disturbing. And obvious." Just hilarious
Happy 150th birthday: a new era looms for old age - Yahoo! News
"Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, experts said on Wednesday."- Excuse me sir, can you please not drag you skin on the floor, look at me when I'm talking to you, all the skin from his forhead is just hanging in his eyes. All thanks to Rx's, but what is the quality of life after 50, change my perception thanks.
Hunter S. Thompson, George W. Bush and the Free Republic - Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com
"‘Fear & Loathing in America,’ Sept.12, 2001
* 'The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.'
* 'It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. . . We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows'?
* 'This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.'
‘When War Drums Roll,’ Sept. 17, 2001
* 'The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now. The party's over, folks. . . [Censorship of the news] is a given in wartime, along with massive campaigns of deliberately-planted ‘Dis-information.’ That is routine behavior in Wartime -- for all countries and all combatants -- and it makes life difficult for people who value real news.'
‘Domestic terrorism at the Super Bowl,’ Feb. 11, 2002
* '[T]his blizzard of mind-warping war propaganda out of Washington is building up steam. Monday is Anthrax, Tuesday is Bankruptcy, Friday is Child-Rape, Thursday is Bomb-scares, etc., etc., etc.... If we believed all the brutal, frat-boy threats coming out of the White House, we would be dead before Sunday. It is pure and savage terrorism reminiscent of Nazi Germany.'
'Extreme behavior in Aspen,' Feb. 3, 20"
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harper Lee tops librarians' must-read list
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Harper Lee tops librarians' must-read list: "To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn"
Court Allows Church's Hallucinogenic Tea
"The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.
Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. Federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision.
The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies. more......
Ubersite - The Ultimate MS Paint: It Will Make You Cry
Ubersite - The Ultimate MS Paint: It Will Make You Cry: "This drawing was done entirely in MS Paint with a Logitech laser mouse. I did not use the copy and paste tool, or the text tool. There was no color sampling or pasting from other images, but I did view some seperate images as reference, as do most artists. "
NPR : Restoring Kesey's Famed 'Acid Test' School Bus
NPR : Restoring Kesey's Famed 'Acid Test' School Bus: "Four years after Ken Kesey's death, a restaurateur in Los Angeles has stepped forward in a serious bid to restore the author's famed bus 'Further' -- the vehicle that carried the Merry Pranksters on their 1964 'acid test' trip across the country. Alex Chadwick talks to Kesey's son Zane about the legacy of the 1939 International Harvester and what it will take to restore it. It sat for years in a swampy area of Kesey's Oregon farm, rusting and covered with moss."
Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring
Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring: "1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond
The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.
2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value
The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.
3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value
Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original 'value.'
4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS
Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.
5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats
Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.
6. Diamond Mine-Owners Violate Indigenous People's Rights
Diamond mines in Australia, Canada, India and many countries in Africa are situated on lands traditionally associated wit"
Wired News: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?
Wired News: LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?: "'It must be changing something about the internal communication in my brain. Whatever my inner process is that lets me solve problems, it works differently, or maybe different parts of my brain are used, ' said Herbert, 42, an early employee of Cisco Systems who says he solved his toughest technical problems while tripping to drum solos by the Grateful Dead -- who were among the many artists inspired by LSD."
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