Nuclear Weapons
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Saddam did have nuclear program
Topic: News

The wee little article on Page 4A of the July 6 edition of The Daily Sentinel turns the history of the last six years upside down and no one notices. After all, it was Page 4.

The last of 550 tons of Saddam Hussein’s uranium yellowcake, used in nuclear-weapons building, leaves Iraq and we don’t even get an, “Oops, we were wrong,” from the “no WMD/Bush lied” crowd?

There have been many instances of chemical artillery shells being found over the time we have been in Iraq, with scant media attention, but this takes the cake. Yellow cake?

So how does this change the scorecard? Joe Wilson, who reported that Saddam had not been trying to procure yellowcake, is a liar. His wife, Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent who got him the assignment, is most likely complicit. Richard Armitage, who outed her, wanders around free. Scooter Libby, who was uninvolved, gets jail time. President Bush, who was right all along, gets no credit.

Someday, maybe after the first Obama administration makes a real mess of things, the real history of events will come out. A white paper will be issued listing in detail Saddam’s weapons programs and his support of terrorism. Bush will be exonerated.

The paper will ask how the obvious was hidden from the American people. The white paper will be duly reported by the press, in a paragraph on Page 4.

DENNIS GORSETT
Grand Junction

Muslims in Europe/Bridgitte Bardot
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Bridigitte Bardot
Topic: France

There's reason to hate this ruling from France

Friday, June 06, 2008

In the seemingly never-ending reminders that it’s a crazy world we live in, there was news last week that none other than Brigitte Bardot was convicted by a French court for “inciting hatred against Muslims.”

Her transgression? She wrote the interior minister of France complaining about the way Muslims kill animals that they use during religious holidays. It seems the Muslim way of slaughtering animals is much the same as the radical Muslim way of beheading Westerners: They refuse to stun them before killing them.

Bardot, long an animal-rights activist, finds the practice barbaric and decided to let the government know what she thought.

Included in the letter was this sentence: “I’ve had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, (and) destroying our country by imposing their ways.”

That prose, in France, apparently is beyond the bounds of acceptable speech and amounts to inciting hatred.

Bardot’s letter netted her a fine of $23,325, and nearly landed her in jail.

What baloney.

Every civilized country in the world should condemn France for violating Bardot’s — and anyone else who dares to questions any Muslim practice — free-speech rights.

We’ve often wondered about the logic, or rather illogic, of making “hate” a crime. “Hate” is a natural human emotion — just as is joy, love and grief. The Ayn Rand Institute, in a compelling argument, noted that hate is the natural reaction to evil. To make it illegal, as France does, is to make any moral judgment illegal.

That is like outlawing human nature.

Bardot’s conviction and fine are an affront to anyone who believes in the freedom of speech and it should be overturned.

If Muslims find religious practices of others offensive, as they have, they should have the right to say so, as they have. And if others find the religious practices of Muslims offensive, they, too, should have that right to speak their minds.

 

Global warming
Global warming is just more

Chicken-Little hysteria, not actual

science. We are in a warm cycle.

Immirgration
Now Playing: Labor problems
Topic: Immigration
Our current welfare system encourages illegal immigration by discouraging American citizens from taking low-wage jobs. This creates greater demand for illegal foreign labor. Welfare programs and minimum wage laws create an artificial market for labor to do the jobs Americans supposedly won't do.

Natives and the Grand Canyon
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: SKYWALK at GRAND CANYON WEST, ARIZONA
Topic: Travel



March 8, 2006—Don Havatone (top), of the Hualapai tribe, watches the rollout of the Skywalk on the Hualapai Indian Reservation at Grand Canyon West, Arizona, on March 7. When it opens later this month—with a $25 admission fee—the U-shaped glass walkway should look somewhat closer to the concept illustration (bottom).
Extending 70 feet (21 meters) from the canyon wall, the 30-million-dollar Skywalk will put a few scant inches of glass between visitors and a 4,000-foot (1,220-meter) plunge to the Colorado River.
As it was inched out by an industrial-strength pulley system yesterday, the glass bridge was balanced by half-million-pound (227,000-kilogram) steel weights on its back end. Once in place, the Skywalk was welded to four-story steel poles inserted into the canyon wall.
Prone to erosion, the porous limestone cliff is the wild card that could determine how long the walkway holds, one of the project's architects told National Geographic News in December. (See "Grand Canyon's Glass Walkway to Open Next March" [December 15, 2006].)
Hualapai elder Delores Honta, 70, gave the bridge "15 or 20 years," and sees it as something of a desecration. "It's very sacred ground to us," she said.
But, said tribe member Robert Bravo, also speaking in December, "This is what's going to feed our tribe."

WELCOME EVERYONE
Mood:  special
Topic: INFO FOR BLOG
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