the/diseased/republik

Posted on Jun 5, 2007 Police killed 21 members of the banned Mungiki sect in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday in retaliation for alleged attacks by the outlaw group in recent weeks. The Kenyan government recently instituted a shoot-to-kill policy for the sect, according to the BBC. BBC: The security forces in Kenya have spent the past three months trying to crack down on criminal elements in the Mungiki—a sect which it is claimed runs an extensive extortion operation and is reported to have connections high up in Kenya politics. The police have blamed them for the beheading of six people last month in central Kenya. Read more

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them just pick themselves up and hurry off, as if nothing had ever happened" - Winston Churchill "If someone can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities". - Voltaire And was Churchill and Voltaire absolutely on target. The first Bush action was to create a reason to get some of those pesky Constitutional laws out of the way. You know the ones - Rights of the citizen, Restraint of Abuse of Authority, Habeas Corpus - i.e. "The Rule of Law". Immediately after the Towers were down, even before the smoke cleared, the assault of our Rule of Law began. The Rationale presented was "It's necessary to fight off the enemies of America". Or "we'll fight them over there instead of over here." But why did this Administration bring their assault on the Constitution to full fury? The reason is clear for all but the Ignorant to understand and those inept people took...

NYTimes WASHINGTON, June 4 — If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can blurt out vulgar language, then the government cannot punish broadcast television stations for broadcasting the same words in similarly fleeting contexts. That, in essence, was the decision on Monday, when a federal appeals panel struck down the government policy that allows stations and networks to be fined if they broadcast shows containing obscene language. Although the case was primarily concerned with what is known as “fleeting expletives,” or blurted obscenities, on television, both network executives and top officials at the Federal Communications Commission said the opinion could gut the ability of the commission to regulate any speech on television or radio. “We find that the F.C.C.’s new policy regarding ‘fleeting expletives’ fails to provide a reasoned analysis justifying its departure from the agency’s established practice,” said the panel. Emily A. Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. ...

Who & What are THEY ?: Social ecology While the field of ecology focuses on the relationships between organisms and their environments, social ecology is concerned with the relationships between human populations and their environments. Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, "a coherent profound critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends" as well as "a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society". Social ecology is a profound view of ecology and of social/political systems. Social ecologists believe that the current ecological crisis is the product of capitalism. They believe it is not the number of people, but the way people relate to one another that has fueled the current economic, social, and ecological crises that the world currently faces. Over-consumption, productivism and consumerism are thus symptoms, not causes, of a deeper issue with ethical relationships within societies. Socia...

The two presidents, smiling and looking relaxed, have not met since Putin attacked the Bush administration in February, accusing it of trying to force its will on the world and become its "single master." "There's a lot of constructive work we can do and so I'm looking forward to my dialogue with Vladimir Putin this afternoon," Bush said on Thursday. Bush said he would discuss with Putin at a bilateral meeting later in the day his proposal to invite Russian generals and scientists to the United States to reassure them on his plans to put a radar system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The White House has insisted the shield is planned to block any future Iranian nuclear missiles, not Russian ones. But Putin warned he may aim nuclear weapons at European targets unless Washington abandons its proposal. The diplomatic row coupled with harsh criticism over faltering democratic reforms in Russia has soured relations between Washington and Moscow, raising fears t...

Proof by assertion is a logical fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to it not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam). In other cases its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies. This logical fallacy is sometimes used as a form of rhetoric by politicians. In its extreme form, it can also be a form of brainwashing. Modern politics contains many examples of proof by assertions. This practice can be observed in the use of political slogans, and the distribution of "talking points," which are collections of short phrases that are issued to members of modern political parties for recitation to achieve maximum message repetition. The technique is also sometimes used in advertising. The technique is described in a saying, often attributed to Lenin, as "A...

John Hanson, American Patriot and First President of the United States (1715-1783) George Washington was definitely not the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the United States under the Constitution we follow today. And the first seven Presidents are forgotten in history. John Hanson, American Patriot and First President of the United States (1715-1783) Six other presidents were elected after him - Elias Boudinot (1783), Thomas Mifflin (1784), Richard Henry Lee (1785), Nathan Gorman (1786), Arthur St. Clair (1787), and Cyrus Griffin (1788) - all prior to Washington taking office. Why don't we ever hear about the first seven Presidents of the United States? It's quite simple - The Articles of Confederation didn't work well. The individual states had too much power and nothing could be agreed upon. A new doctrine needed to be written - something we know as the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation only allowed a President to serve a one...