Name the city and state this happens in? sm
Posted By: Democrat on 2005-12-15
In Reply to: People are not believing this because their told - hh
I'm sorry this is foreign to me.
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Two Border State Governors Declare Illegal Immigration State of Emergency
Two Border State Governors Declare Illegal Immigration State of Emergency
SIGN THE PETITION!
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You can have our federal money along with a new state motto: "Michigan - The Slave State". n
NM
Laws vary state-to-state
Many people were confined against their will just because someone wanted them "out of the way." These were normal people with no mental illness - that is why it is so difficult - don't blame the liberals. Blame your state.
CONFINING THE MENTALLY ILL
In the legal space between what a society should and should not do, taking action to restrict the liberty of people who are mentally ill sits in the grayest of gray areas.
Our notions about civil and constitutional rights flow from an assumption of "normalcy." Step beyond the boundaries and arrest and prison may legally follow. Short of that, government's ability to hold people against their will is severely and properly limited. Unusual behavior on the part of someone who is mentally ill is not illegal behavior. Freedom can't be snatched away on a whim, or on the thought that a person is hard to look at, hard to hear, hard to smell.
It was only a few decades ago that the promise of new medications and a change in attitude opened the doors of the mental hospitals and sent many patients into society. There, they would somehow "normalize" and join everyone else, supported by networks of out-patient facilities, job training, special living arrangements and regular, appropriate medication. But the transition has been imperfect, long and difficult.
In some parts of urban America there is little professional support for those with mental health problems. A new generation of drug and alcohol-fueled mental illness has come on the scene. People frequently end up on the street, un-medicated and exhibiting a full range of behaviors that are discomforting at the very least and threatening at their worst.
since McC was in my city
yesterday morning taking credit for rounding up his party to pass the bill that ultimately failed, I assume hw is now willing to take responsibility the bill failing for being an ineffective leader in his own PAR-tay. Lurching about again trying to make political hay. Bill Maher on the View today commenting, very funny. He said he always knew Bush had one more big catastrophe in him. Bill said W will not be satisfied until the white house is on fire and black plumes of smoke are rising behind him as walks away. He asked that ditz Elizabeth if she thought Obama was the anti-Christ and laughed at her wide-eyed "NO!!!"
It's already happening in my city
People are getting fed up here with the lack of law enforcement and judicial enforcement that they are taking the law into their own hands. On average of three times a month owners are shooting intruders and attackers in their own home or own their property because they know that law enforcement will either #1 show up way to late to stop the crime or #2 not show up at all! Even if the subject is apprehended the likelihood that they'll only get a slap on the wrist (if even that) by the judicial system is very high.
People are plain fed up where I live---especially with crimes against children and families.
Here's the scenario in my city
I've been keeping up with what happens to people who actually shoot people in their house or on their property in my area. The majority of the shooters have been store clerks who are tired of being victims. However, there have been several home invasions in the last year where the owner has shot the intruder. Just a few weeks ago a man saw another man breaking into his backyard storage building, and he shot the guy from his house. The subject fled and then wrecked his car about a mile from the break in. When all was said and done the owner was not charged eventhough he shot the man eventhough the man never entered his living space.
As far as I know none of the store clerks or home owners have been charged in the last year (at least that is what the media reports).
Eventhough I believe in gun ownership and defending your property and home I think the recent law passed in Florida where you can shoot anyone who is threatening you (anywhere) is a little broad and I think will be used to get criminals off, because all they have to say is I felt threatened so I shot the dude. I think though when somebody comes on your property then you should be able to take any action to defend yourself within reason. Now, this shouldn't be an excuse for shooting your neighbor because they are piling leaves on your property etc. Common sense should rule, and every case should be judged individually on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
I agree with you completely about the child criminal sentencing aspects. Personally, I don't think these monsters should live but at the very least they should be castrated....seems harsh but its the only way to *neuter* the animal that lives inside these monsters.
Chicago is no different that any other big city...sm
New York, Miami, LA and many others.
I live in PA and not in a city.
It used to be called rural agricultural, but now it's suburban housing.
Did ya hear the news that the city
mayors are now looking for handouts? Where will it all end? They don't think the governors should get it because it will be used to pump up their balance sheet, but the city mayors think they should get it because they will use it to get jobs for the people. Are they now going to wave a magic wand and have jobs appear?
Like DH says, "We have nothing anymore. No production jobs at all. They're all overseas. When they left the steel industry go down the tubes, that was the beginning of the end."
well that's fine if you live in the city
but like I said, people who live in the country like myself and our neighbors also have livestock to protect. What are they supposed to do when their guns are taken?
We have a single shotgun in the home. It is unloaded. We have no children. Now if we do have children we will have a locked gun cabinet and they will be taught from an early age that guns are not toys. It's called teaching responsibility. You can't just "do away" with all things dangerous in this society. Rules do not apply to crooks and criminals.
Yes, there needs to be legislation on guns. There is no reason for people to own semi automatics and stuff like that. But I believe we have a right to own shotguns, handguns, and rifles (rifles are used for deer hunting and other big game hunting).
Why would you say I need counseling? Just because I believe we have a right to bear arms? (I think some other folks believed that too...)
Don't know what you are talking about, I am a city girl.
But enjoy!
I never liked Circuit City. I didn't like how it's -
set up, how you sort of go into a 'lockdown' situation once you're in there, and that it's impossible to simply browse without being followed and harrassed by their too-many salespeople.
I bought a CD player there a number of years ago, and never went back. I prefer Fry's for electronics, and Walmart for just about everything.
First of all, a whole city didn't drown.....
the ones who found themselves in a horrible situation ALSO live in a free society, unfortunately, it is a society to them that only knows how to let government do their thinking for them.........
If they had half a brain, they would be screaming at their wonderful crooked little mayor, demanding to know where all those billions went he was given many years ago to fix the levy to prevent just this type of catastrophe, but of course all they know to do is hold the government responsible for everything they don't like about their world. Well, get in line...I could certainly make a long list as well but I still do NOT want the government living my life and doing my thinking for me. If they had been proactive in the first place and had actually taken an interest in their government, they would have been demanding to know why the levy wasn't upgrade years and years ago!!
The war has nothing to do with their ignorance. If I choose to keep myself ignorant, then I will or I can teach my children to read, educate themselves, and think for themselves. That's not what's happening. When someone is completely dependent on the government generation after generation, it becomes obvious they do not want to think for themselves and certainly have NO ideas about a FREE society and what that entails.
I have family down there. They have always tried to get answers as to the use of that money that just disappeared down the tubes, thanks to their crooked mayor and to this day, no one has made him answer to that. The flooding was horrific and there is no question about that. My daughter has taught children in our state who lived through it and saw family members drown before their eyes. No diminishing the trauma on those folks. But you can't start using the war expense as an excuse not to hold their politicians responsible for where the billions of dollars already received went to.
She also served in city council and mayor...
and on term as a governor gives her one year more governing experience obama has. And she DOES mean change from Washington politics...she is fAR removed from that. She has a reputation for reform, took on the good ol'boys in her own party and won. Those wanting change should be happy to see her.
She has an 80% approval rating in her state. That is unheard of. SHe must be doing something right, because not only Republicans live in alaska.
She is pro life. That is true. But you on this board have told me repeatedly I should not be a one-issue voter. So, lead by example.
Where should president be while major US city drowns?
nm
For a city of 4 million plus and then having to bus in people from Cobb
even if they had 20,000 which I heard crowd estimates about 15,000, that is not a lot of people. With radio personality Sean Hannity here, think probably most went to see his spouting off. That man is going to have a stroke if he keeps on with his rantings.
How does this relate to the mayor of Salt Lake City??
nm
Oh, that is just decay of modern society; found in any city.
Issue is the maintenance and you can bet your sweet probably big butt that if there were mansions (campaign donators) rather than shabby homes but generation after generation of welfare recipients in the way of a levy failure, the Corp of engineers would have reinforced the barriers long long ago.
Losing millions of low income, noncontributing citizens just isn't seen as a big problem, is it?
What can we expect should H5N1 take ahold and go into epidemic proportions may be a magnified version of NO only we will be the unlucky irrelevant citizens. Sure would solve a lot of problems by whipping out 1/4 of the world's population, the bottom 1/4 though, not the top; they are special.
The only problem I can see with what you are describing is 20 years of suboptimal Family Planning strategies. Thanks to republicans right wing religious zealots who have a magical view of life thanks to very effective brainwashing techniques. I see it worked on you.
Pretty hard to fight city hall........
There isn't a whole lot he can do with the pubs obstructing everything he is trying to accomplish. My theory is, they put up McPalin because they KNEW they wouldn't win because they have NO IDEA how to clean this freakin' mess up either. That way, just possibly, the RNC can gain some ground since they have all but buried themselves. Kinda like Carter inheriting Nixon's upstanding accomplishments. Gotta love the RNC, they are such an honest, upstanding, homophobic and value-oriented tribe. How's that for a wide stance?
Could Tony Blairs Tight Fist be Coming to a City Near You...sm
I ran across this article today and it explains from British citizens point of view what happens when you allow leadership to dismantle the principles (Constitution) of a nation. I understand the *concept* behind the Patriot Act, wiretapping, and detainee laws (where the president is the decider), but if the public lets the powers that be slip in laws like this with no protest we could find ourselves under arrest and DNA swabbed for not returning a child's ball that landed in your yard.
(Long read but interesting.)
The Way Police Treat Us Verges on Criminal
Guilty until proven innocent now seems to be the watchword of a government that increasingly treats its law-abiding citizens with absolute contempt
Henry Porter
Sunday October 29, 2006
The Observer
A father and his eight-year-old son got off a train at Blackpool on a Friday evening two weeks ago to be confronted by a number of police officers moving passengers towards a scanner. There was a mildly threatening manner about them and it was clear that they expected everyone to pass through the scanner, which they said was being used to search for knives.
The man, whose name is Danny, quietly told the police that unless they had a very good reason, he would not be searched. One or two passengers hesitated, then joined him in refusing to go through the scanner. The police were clearly disgruntled, but couldn't do anything because Danny was right: they had to have reasonable grounds for suspecting he was carrying a knife in order to search him. 'I am not some rabid left winger or civil libertarian,' he wrote in an email to me. 'It just seems we are allowing a police state to be developed without an argument.' On the phone, he seemed to modify this by saying that the police behaviour had been oppressive.
Thank God there are still people like Danny who know the law and understand that part of its fragile essence is the respect for the rights of the innocent citizen when confronted with authority. The British Transport Police may insist that its Operation Shield, as this random trawl is known, is for the common good in that it fights knife crime, but think twice about the attitude it betrays and you realise that it is another small erosion in the esteem for the individual. Such behaviour makes everyone a suspect.
Tony Blair talks incessantly about respect, yet there are few who have done more to degrade authority's respect for the public. Nowhere is that better seen than in the behaviour of the police, which gradually becomes more coercive and imbued with the idea that we are all bad hats until we prove otherwise. We now live in a country where the idea of wrongful arrest has become a historic curiosity and where anyone can be arrested for the slightest offence and compelled to become part of the government's DNA database.
We live in a country where young boys - one was just seven - are taken aside and questioned for trying to knock conkers out of chestnut trees on public ground. Where a grandmother whose neighbour accused her of not returning a ball kicked into her garden was arrested, fingerprinted and required to give her DNA. The police went through every room in her house, even her daughter's drawers, before letting her go without charge or caution.
Where two sisters can be arrested after a peaceful protest about climate change, held in solitary confinement for 36 hours without being allowed to make a phone call, then told not to talk to each other as a condition of their bail. As this paper reported, their money, keys, computers, discs and phones were confiscated, their homes searched.
There is much more, all of it enabled by Blair's laws and encouraged by a vindictive and erroneous contention that defendants' rights must be reduced in the pursuit of more and quicker prosecutions. Our prisons are full, problem teenagers are, by default, exiled to a kind of outlawry and every citizen becomes the subject of an almost hysterical need by the authorities to check up on and chivvy them.
The government regards us not just as wedded to too many regrettable vices - smoking, speeding, drinking too much, eating unhealthy food and taking no exercise - but also as innately prone to law-breaking. Perhaps with good reason, since, according to the Liberal Democrat homes affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, some 3,000 criminal offences have been created by Labour. The more crimes there are, the more criminals there will be.
Mass surveillance has begun on our motorways and in our town centres. Metropolitan drivers increasingly find themselves pressed into numberplate-recognition camera traps on the same principle that inspires Operation Shield. Everyone has something to hide unless they can prove otherwise, which is why the police also enthusiastically pursue samples for the DNA database. (Incidentally, by next year, the total number of profiles will rise to three million, one in five of which will belong to black people.)
The police are in their very own heaven and demand more and more powers of instant justice, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one. These will allow them to crush people's cars, issue more on-the-spot fines and ban 'undesirables' from any area they choose without having to go to court. Even parish councils are to become part of this culture of minatory bossiness. Instead of having to apply to central government to introduce new bylaws, they are to be given powers by Ruth Kelly, the Communities and Local Government Minister, to levy instant £100 fines for skateboarding, not cleaning up dog mess, busking and, no doubt, scrumping for apples and playing Pooh sticks. How will it end - with CCTV cameras watching small boys for inappropriate behaviour in the vicinity of horse chestnuts?
In his frantic terminality, Blair plans the sinister information-sharing index, otherwise known as the universal child register, and last week was musing that we should all have our DNA stored on the national base. Link this to his earlier remarks about identifying problem children who might grow up to be a menace to society by intervening before they were born and you begin to feel the chill of the technology-driven authoritarianism.
What runs through all this seems to be a rather surprising dislike of the British people. It was once possible to believe the government's unusual attention to law, order and behaviour was benevolent yet ill-conceived. Now it looks more like the result of late-onset sociopathy, influenced by a long period in power and the degenerate entanglement between Downing Street and the seething red-top newspapers.
The prevailing account of Britain in the current political establishment has become deeply pessimistic and, to my mind, wrong. Yes, we have problems with home-grown terrorism, loutishness, a swelling underclass, unintegrating minorities, but there is another story. Britain is also a success and it should occur to one of our political leaders to defy the orthodoxy of decline and compliment the nation on its adaptability and deep reserves of virtue and toleration.
Think of the charitable activity in this country, of the level of public debate that wells up in BBC programmes such as Any Questions, the deep interest in history, the eagerness of the audiences at arts festivals all over Britain, the humour and generosity of spirit, the commitment to local communities, to understanding each other's needs and of the array of passions and hobbies which absorb so many millions of people whose quiet, law-abiding fulfilment as Britons goes undescribed by the furious negativity of the moment. It is these people, with their stored-up virtue and unself-conscious decency, who the government seeks to turn into suspects and infantilise by its morbid intrusion.
It is not the government's business to encroach on our experience as individuals in a democracy, to threaten us with so much oppressive legislation and always to assume our guilt. But there is another reason and that is because we are soon going to have to have the debate about individual liberty in the context of rapid climate change. That will only work if the government treats us like adults and says: 'Look, this is potentially the greatest crisis civilisation has ever faced and we need your help.' The resulting contract must be between equals - the people and the state - and in a relationship where respect flows both ways.That, ultimately, is what this nagging and suspicious government threatens.
Great speech by the mayor of Salt Lake City. sm
Speech by Mayor Rocky Anderson, democrat, on 10/27/07. They should bump Hillary and put this guy out there.
Salt Lake City, Utah --
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”
“You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”
“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.”
“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”
“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before.
It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling – and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand? What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand?
Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t take it any more!’ ”
“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”
In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.
It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.
In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.
We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility.
As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions.”
“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”
If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the world – that we support the status quo.
Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part.
Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.
It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later.
How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses.
Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness?
We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising heck on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.
Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”
I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No more” and mean it?
I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.
If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.
The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.
Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.
In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.
ACORN hired inner city people, paid by commission, probably to buy
dd
Some educational advice. Go to your local hospital and city hall....sm
Ask them how births are recorded. I think you will be surprised. EVERYTHING is now computerized. Even old birth records.
Red state, blue state?
Written last Thanksgiving: "Some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.
Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world's imagination, you couldn't have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.
So ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts' gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in actual fact, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas - which until recently made private gay sex a criminal offence - has a divorce rate of 4.1. A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. And the states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every single one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.
Some of this discrepancy can be accounted for by the fact that couples tend to marry younger in the Bible Belt - and many clearly don't have the maturity to know what they're getting into. There's some correlation too between rates of college education and stable marriages, with the Bible Belt lagging a highly educated state like Massachusetts. But the irony still holds. Those parts of America that most fiercely uphold what they believe are traditional values are not those parts where traditional values are healthiest. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. A more insightful explanation is that these socially troubled communities cling onto absolutes in the abstract because they cannot live up to them in practice.
But doesn't being born again help bring down divorce rates? Jesus, after all, was mum on the subject of homosexuality, but was very clear about divorce, declaring it a sin unless adultery was involved. A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics. Moreover, a staggering 23 percent of married born-agains have been divorced twice or more. Teen births? Again, the contrast is striking. In a state like Texas, where the religious right is extremely strong and the rhetoric against teenage sex is gale-force strong, the teen births as a percentage of all births is 16.1 percent. In liberal, secular, gay-friendly Massachusetts, it's 7.4, almost half. Marriage itself is less popular in Texas than in Massachusetts. In Texas, the percent of people unmarried is 32.4 percent; in Massachusetts, it's 26.8 percent. So even with a higher marriage rate, Massachusetts manages a divorce rate almost half of its "conservative" rival.
Or take abortion. America is one of the few Western countries where the legality of abortion is still ferociously disputed. It's a country where the religious right is arguably the strongest single voting bloc, and in which abortion is a constant feature of cultural politics. Compare it to a country like Holland, perhaps the epitome of socially liberal, relativist liberalism. So which country has the highest rate of abortion? It's not even close. America has an abortion rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. Holland has a rate of 6.8. Americans, in other words, have three times as many abortions as the Dutch. Remind me again: which country is the most socially conservative?
Even a cursory look at the leading members of the forces of social conservatism in America reveals the same pattern. The top conservative talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, has had three divorces and an addiction to pain-killers. The most popular conservative television personality, Bill O'Reilly, just settled a sex harassment suit that indicated a highly active adulterous sex life. Bill Bennett, the guru of the social right, was for many years a gambling addict. Karl Rove's chief outreach manager to conservative Catholics for the last four years, Deal Hudson, also turned out to be a man with a history of sexual harassment. Bob Barr, the conservative Georgian congressman who wrote the "Defense of Marriage Act," has had three wives so far. The states which register the highest ratings for the hot new television show, "Desperate Housewives," are all Bush-states.
The complicated truth is that America truly is a divided and conflicted country. But it's a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states. Many of America's biggest "sinners" are those most intent on upholding virtue. In fact, it may be partly because they know sin so close-up that they want to prevent its occurrence among others. And some of those states which have the most liberal legal climate - the Northeast and parts of the upper MidWest - are also, in practice, among the most socially conservative. To ascribe all this to "hypocrisy" seems to me too crude an explanation. America is simply a far more complicated and diverse place than crude red and blue divisions can explain.
I don't know what state you live in but in my state
they are adding police and only in the big cities do they have paid firemen. The rest are volunteers.
I look at it this way: If a state can't stay in the black, then they have to cut spending some place that wouldn't jeopardize the safety of the citizens. Threats of cutting essential services like Barney Fife stated today are unjustified. Cut the non-essential services first.
Our governor talks about cutting back on services, laying off government workers, which I think is a good idea because government is too big anyway, but then he turns around and spends more money on non-essential items. Doesn't make sense.
Europe - Swastika vigilantes kill foreign students to keep their city 'clean' ...see article.
Swastika vigilantes kill foreign students to keep their city 'clean'From Jeremy Page in Moscow
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![src=http://images.thetimes.co.uk/images/trans.gif]() |
THE African students did not even see the man raise the swastika-emblazoned shotgun as they emerged from the Apollo nightclub in St Petersburg.
When he opened fire from the shadows behind them, some of the group thought it was a firecracker going off.
Then they saw Samba Lampsar Sall, a 28-year-old student from Senegal, lying dead on the pavement with his throat blown apart.
Within hours, a sinister message had appeared on the website of a group called the Party of Freedom. “The clean-up of the city continues,” it said.
Mr Sall had come to study at St Petersburg’s State Communications University in 2001 in the hope of finding a better life when he went back home.
Instead, around dawn yesterday, he became the latest victim of a hate campaign by neo-Nazi extremists on the streets of Russia’s cultural capital.
“How can people be so evil?” asked Michael Tanobian, an African student who was with Mr Sall when he was killed. “We come here just to study, for nothing else. We don’t take anything here.”
Mr Sall’s brutal murder exposes one of Russia’s most disturbing problems as President Putin prepares to host the G8 summit in St Petersburg in mid-July. For all its grandeur and impressive art collections, Russia’s second city is fast becoming the racist capital of the world.
Critics say that the authorities are not doing enough to combat the extremists who routinely attack, and kill, Africans, Asians and immigrants from the Caucasus or Central Asia.
Seven people have been killed, and 79 injured, in more than 40 racist attacks this year, according to Sova, a non-governmental organisation that monitors extremism in Russia.
Last year, 28 people were killed and 366 injured in racially motivated crimes, it says.
The Interior Ministry sent a team of special investigators from Moscow to work on yesterday’s murder. The Foreign Ministry expressed “sincere condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased”. The Prosecutor’s Office said that the case was being treated as a racist killing.
But dozens of similar cases have been treated as “hooliganism”, a crime that carries a far lighter sentence. One of the most shocking attacks occurred in 2004, when teenagers stabbed to death a nine-year-old Tajik girl in St Petersburg. Last month, a court convicted them of hooliganism, giving six of them 18-year jail sentences and one of them five years.
Desire Defaut, chairman of the local community group African Unity, urged Mr Putin to lead the fight against neo- Nazism. “They must make an announcement at a state level that such a problem exists and state organs must work on it,” he said. “We can’t say they are doing enough if there are two attacks within one week.”
Last week, the nine-year-old daughter of a Russian woman and her African husband was wounded in a knife attack in St Petersburg. “What more proof of extremism do they need in St Petersburg?” asked Juldas Okie Etoumbi, chairman of the Association of the African Students of Moscow. But, he added, the problem is not confined to St Petersburg. In the past week, skinheads in Moscow beat up a journalist of Caucasian origin and the culture minister from the Caucasus region of Kabardino-Balkaria.
Mr Putin has called racism “an infection” and pledged to stamp it out. But critics say that the Kremlin has tolerated, and even encouraged, ultra-nationalist groups to foster loyalty to the State and make itself look relatively liberal.
MURDER CITY
Sept 2003 Tajik girl, 5, beaten in St Petersburg
Feb 2004 Tajik girl, 9, stabbed
Mar 2004 Syrian student pushed in front of train
June 2004 Anti-Nazi campaigner shot dead
Oct 2004 Vietnamese student stabbed
Sept 2005 Congolese student beaten
Dec 2005 Cameroonian student stabbed
Feb 2006 Malian medical graduate stabbed
Apr 2006 Senegalese student shot |
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I'm from that state and...
He paid for his Senate campaign with the earnings from one malpractice suit.
In my state......
the welfare reform has gotten so rigid - it isn't worth it. $115 per person per month and adults have to work a 40-hour week to get it. I WOULDN'T live in the low income housing areas - crime is too high, get knifed getting the mail. The unemployment rate is at an all time high in this state.......so getting a job is really tough and then you are lucky to get minimum wage which would prevent you from any type of subsidy (food stamps) from the government. The help on the heat bill? Well you might get some help at the beginning of winter, but by January the funding has run out, so you're screwed on that one. They can't shut your heat off in the winter, but by spring they can and they won't turn it back on until you pay the whole amount due. So those lucky welfare recipients are just having a ball at the expense of us self-righteous, key-pounding, pull yourself up by your bootstraps gods. Indeed, why work?
And in a state that had.........sm
over 860,000 new registrations or changes of address filed this year alone. The estimated population of people over the age of 18 in 2006 (last year data available) is 8,711,807. I think 860,000 is a significantly large portion of that population.
as far as state goes
I do know there is some truth to some states having sent out IOUs as some people have actually gotten them, but I just didnt know for sure about federal. I guess as far as states go, it would depend on the financial stability of each state? I have read a news article that 46 states are on their way and in serious danger of being bankrupt within the next few months to a year. Go ahead and flame me any of you, but it is the truth.
We are having them in my state also.....
In fact, I am on the organizing committee for the one in the town where I live. It will be on 4/15/09.
I doubt it will do much good, but it is time to take back our country from the "anointed one" and his cronies and become the great country that people once looked up to.
If we do not act now, America will become just another 3rd world country complete with universal health insurance that includes forced coverage for abortions, firing of the health care people who listen to their conscience, and refuse to perform abortions, and (by extrapolation) euthanasia or worse for the people who are older and not in good healthhave who have been deemed not as important as a younger, healthier person, and therefore should not have access to the best health care around.
This is a ramble, but it needs to be said. We have been thrown under the proverbial bus.
The US is becoming a police state.sm
It is not full-fledged yet, but 95% there. There is a rush to incarcerate (1 in 136 Americans are in jails and prisons). National ID card by 2010, RFID chips, face scanners installed at high schools, those who disagree with government are called homegrown terrorists (another false flag) or traitors. It is very well known that both Bush presidents support the one world government (NWO). The USA no longer resembles the Constitutional Republic it is supposed to be. Land of the free is an illusion.
Sad state of affairs.
So very very sad.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0704-04.htm
Are you governor of a state? sm
if you are, then run. Bill Clinton had only been a governor when he ran. Obama has only been a senator. At least she has actually run a government. Her #2 opponent has not. The #1 on the Dem ticket has not.
Somehow I don't think the American people are going to lose any sleep because you think they are stupid. :)
it is either state and local's
responsibility and he should stay away until things calm down OR he blew it last time and he doesn't that memory to to influence the election. You can't have it both ways.
and she is from the coolest state too. Get it?
.
you state "probably" and then
go off on your own fantasy with nothing to support it!!! DailyKos is merely a website where people go to express liberal opinions. The AIP is a radical group that is involved with weapons. There leader was MURDERED or he would be on the govt terrorist list. Research, research, research. Or else clearly label your posts "my fantasy about what ...... probably. said or did or thought ......"
Let me categorically state that
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if he is indicted and found guilty. The evidence so far looks pretty convincing. I will be reserving further comment until the story has matured a bit, other than to say that if he did what they say he did, he gives all liberal democrats a bad name (fair or not) and deserves to go down.
For the sake of clarity, I am an AVID Obama supporter and am as left as they come. I think Illinois and Chicago should continue to strive to clean up their plates (as they have been trying to do) until they get it right. Having said that, let's not pretend here that the GOP is squeaky clean in this arena:
1. Ted Stevens, AL senior senator, abuse of power, failure to repot gifts, making false statements, possible misuse of federal funds.
2. Tom DeLay, TX former representative and majority leader, money laundering
3. Bob Ney, OH rep, bribery.
4. Randy Cunningham, CA rep, bribery.
5. Scooter Libby, Cheney Chief of Staff, assistant to president, obstruction of justice, perjury, making false statements.
6. J. Seven Guile, Deputy Sect of the Interior for W, obstruction of justice.
7. Mark Foley, FL rep, sex scandal involving 16-year-old white house page.
8. Bill First, TN senator, conflict of interest in stock holdings
9. Curt Weldon, PA rep, trading political influence for lobbying contracts
10. Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the house and IL rep, Mark Foley coverup, taking illegal contributions.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the general drift.
My state already is using almost the same plan as....sm
Obama's and it seems to be working just fine.
SOCIALIST STATE
I agree with you 100%.
How do you know 'gimmeabreak's' state is
ESP?
At least your state is not last on the list. LOL (nm)
x
I know and it's a sad state of affairs that is already
happening.
I don't know about Arizona, but in my state
if you have not voted in so many years, you have to re-register, and you cannot vote until you have, and you CANNOT do it at the polling place. There is a deadline for that a month before the election.
No, no. Of course Obama won the state....
not what I meant. What I meant was that California is a generally very liberal state, and they have passed this ban twice now...once as a proposition that was overturned by the california supreme court, and now as an amendment to the state constitution. And the majority of those who supported Obama were liberals also. I just found it odd that they voted for a far left liberal for President, and also voted in the majority to ban gay marriage, which most liberals support. That's all I meant.
What's different is that on a state level in CA,
in the form of ballot measures, ballot initiatives, propositions or referendums. They can be heard in the California Supreme Court on any or all of these bases and are entitled to seek relief.
My state has legalized
same sex marriage since 2004. It has not made one bit of difference to me, my marriage, or my children.
Secretary of State....(sm)
She's more than qualified and is already respected worldwide. I think it would do wonders in the effort to improve foreign relations.
Did she state a reason? sm
I just wonder from a Muslim perspective what fueld her belief?
I, too, first heard of Obama about 2 years ago in an email that someone had sent me. I didn't think anything of it at the time and, of course, didn't keep the email because I didn't think it meant anything. I remember the email painting him a very good light, though.
Has anyone noticed that the YouTube that was posted yesterday or the day before about the NY Daily News interview with Rahm Emanuel was done in 2006 and not (for example) last week? More to the fact that this has been in process for a number of years????
sad state of affairs
Good grief!!! "CHANGE??" I think not!!! and Hilly for SECRETARY OF STATE -- well, we transcriptionists are in deep poop -- we have a new Prez -- NO track record and I have been involved with "Illlinois politics" all of my life -- what people don't realize and it is this way in ANY major city, is that THAT particular city RULES -- look at the "print media" -- I come from DeKalb, which last Valentines Day was the LAST massive campus shooting but the media reported "downstate Illinois" while we are 60 miles to the west ---
Regressing and living in Laramie WY when Matthew Shepard was MURDERED -- I typed his preliminary reports -- I could not go out and get groceries without the press HOUNDING -- the day after Matt died, I was watching Dateline and here was MY apartment with my curtains open on NATIONAL television -- thing of it was, I found out they took shots from I-80 -- FIVE miles from my home!!!!
Think about it and the press and SENSATIONALISM!!!!
Since the Constitution does not state
That to be POTUS the parents of a US born child also has to be US born themselves....then that's what I mean. Maybe you should study up on the Constitution. It was written for a reason.
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