Month: March 2006

Going to Gaza?

Buck Banks

Adventure travel: Just in case you are considering vacationing in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, The U.S. State Department doesn’t think it’s a good idea. Here’s the latest travel alert for the region:

The Department of State urges U.S. citizens to carefully weigh the necessity of their travel to Israel in light of the risks noted below. The Department also urges U.S. citizens to defer unnecessary travel to the West Bank and avoid all travel to the Gaza Strip.

American citizens in the Gaza Strip should depart immediately, a recommendation the State Department has maintained since the deadly roadside bombing of a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza on October 15, 2003. Unless specifically authorized,U.S. government personnel are prohibited from all travel in Gaza. Overall conditions of lawlessness prevailin the Gaza Strip, Israeli military operations continue, and areas of violent conflict shift rapidly and unpredictably. Militants have abducted Western citizens and held them for short periods, and terrorist organizations have threatened attacks against U.S. interests.

American citizens should stay away from demonstrations and generally avoid crowded public places, such as restaurants and cafes, shopping and market areas and malls, pedestrian zones, public transportation of all kinds, including buses and trains and their respective stations/terminals, and the areas around them.

Violence between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and militant groups based in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank can flare up without notice in the form of rocket attacks into Israel by Palestinian militants, targeted assassinations of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, and ongoing IDF security operations in the West Bank. The uncertain security conditions within the West Bank and Gaza continue as well, with the potential for violent protests, kidnappings, including of foreign nationals, and fighting between various armed factions.

In recent months, citizens of Western nations, including Americans, involved in pro-Palestinian volunteer efforts were assaulted and injured in the Occupied Territories by Israeli settlers and harassed by the IDF. Those taking part in demonstrations, non-violent resistance, and “direct action”, are advised to cease such activity for their own safety.

Now that Hamas is in power, I’m sure Gaza and the West Bank soon will be the Riviera of the Middle East.

Public Thinks Bush is Doing a Lousy Job of Handling Even Nonexistent Terror

Trish

The president’s handling of terrorism was highly criticized by those who responded to a recent Bloomberg poll.

That’s kind of startling, considering Bush hasn’t had any terrorism to handle since Sept. 11, 2001.

Americans just seem pissed off with their leader’s flawless record of failure.

Americans just seem pissed off with their leader’s flawless record of failure.

U.S. public opinion turned against President George W. Bush’s handling of terrorism, his signature political strength, last month amid overwhelming opposition to plans to let a Dubai company operate U.S. port facilities.

For the first time, a majority of Americans, 54 percent, disapprove of Bush’s dealing with terrorism…

Bush’s job approval rating fell to 38 percent, a five-point drop from a month ago, fueled also by rising discontent over the Iraq war.

The poll taken from Feb. 25 to March 1 found that almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, amid a surge in sectarian violence there. Sixty-four percent say the U.S. is on the wrong track, while 30 percent say it’s going in the right direction.

The poll found similar discontent with the economy and health care under Bush. The environment was only referenced within the issue of oil consumption, although global warming is to me the biggest threat to our future on a round planet.

A curious part of the survey was asking people how they felt about Bush economic policies compared to Clinton’s. Not surprisingly, Bush came out the loser, with only 26 percent saying they favor the economy now over the economy then.

“For all his personal issues, if you try and lay that aside, Clinton was a very good president,” said Henry Lennon, a 59-year-old surgeon in Boca Raton, Florida, who voted for Bush in the last election. “Under the current economy the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. As a responsible person I think that’s wrong,” poll respondent Lennon said in a follow-up interview.

So as a responsible person, Henry, why’d you vote for Bush in 2004? You are what we around Pensito Review refer to as, “the problem.”

Pensito Review: Off the Wires

Buck Banks

In Letter, Charles Criticizes Right Act
LONDON – Prince Charles criticized landmark human rights legislation in correspondence printed in a British newspaper Thursday, a leak likely to fuel criticism of the heir to the throne’s role in politics. EXCERPT: “What a silly idea! If I were king, I would simply grant everyone human rights”

Document: Al-Qaida Encourages Oil Attacks
CAIRO, Egypt – Al-Qaida has encouraged its followers to attack oil pipelines and facilities in Muslim countries but not wells, according to a document posted on a Web site by the group that targeted the world’s largest oil-processing complex in Saudi Arabia. Renind us again why we need illegal wiretaps when al-Qaida is posting its secret terrorism plans on the Web.

McCartneys Join Effort to End Seal Hunt
CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island – Opponents of Canada’s seal hunt have a powerful ally in their bid to end the annual slaughter: Paul McCartney, who has pledged to take to the ice floes and frolic with the doe-eyed pups before the harvest gets under way. However, it was McCartney’s threat to reunite Wings that finally convinced the hunters to spare the seals.

Gunmen Shut Down Kenyan Paper, TV Station
NAIROBI, Kenya – Masked gunmen who identified themselves as police shut down Kenya’s second largest media group Thursday. Since then, programming has consisted of 24-hour reruns of “Hill Sreet Blues,” “NYPD Blue” and “Cops.”

Abbas: Al-Qaida Has Infiltrated Gaza Strip
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview published Thursday that the al-Qaida terror network has infiltrated the Gaza Strip and West Bank. “And now it’s calling itself Hamas,” he said.

Bush: ‘I Did Not Have Sex on That Levee’

Jon Ponder

Now there is videotape of President Bush being briefed on Katina in which damage to the levees is anticipated:

So when the president told Diane Sawyer on September 1 that, “No one could have anticipated the levees being breached,” it was a lie.

Federal officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief of possible devastation just before Hurricane Katrina struck.
Six days of video footage from briefings and transcripts were obtained by The Associated Press.

The warnings were that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelm rescuers.

A-P reports Bush didn’t ask any questions during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on August 29th.

He assured state officials that the government was fully prepared.

Several hundred thousand Louisiana evacuees ended up in Texas and other states after Katrina hit.

The tapes and documents show federal officials were fatally slow to realize they didn’t have enough resources.

So when the president told Diane Sawyer on September 1 that, “No one could have anticipated the levees being breached,” it was a lie.

At Last: What Total Lack of Separation of Church and State in America Looks Like

Trish

A bizarre town is taking shape in Southwest Florida, built by Domino’s Pizza C.E.Nutcase Thomas S. Monaghan. Monaghan will rule his town according to Tali-Catholic-ban guidelines.

Jesus will be hanging just overhead at all times, in case anyone starts thinking about doing anything that might lead to a need to prevent pregnancy

The pizza magnate, raised by wolves nuns in orphanages, is bankrolling the town called Ave Maria with millions of dollars, calling its construction “God’s will.”

Stores won’t sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies won’t carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will carry no X-rated channels, he said in a speech last year to the Boston Catholic Men’s Conference…

The town is being built around Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in four decades, which Monaghan also founded.

The community…will be set on 5,000 acres with a European-inspired town center. It will encircle a massive church and what planners call the largest crucifix in the nation, standing nearly 65 feet tall.

So Jesus will be hanging just overhead at all times, in case anyone starts thinking about doing anything that might lead to a need to prevent pregnancy. Of course, some people are wondering if it’s constitutional to do all this banning of perfectly legal activities.

“This is country club Christianity,” said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which opposes the church’s bans on abortion and birth control.

Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, agreed.

While Simon notes there are religiously homogenous communities across the country, none can “wield governmental power along the lines of religious principle.”

The folks in charge of Florida are currently punting.

“The community has the right to provide a wholesome environment,” [Florida Attorney General and candidate for governor Charlie] Crist said Tuesday. “If someone disagrees, they have the right to go to court and present facts before a judge.”

Gov. Jeb Bush, at the university’s recent groundbreaking, lauded the development as a new kind of town, where faith and freedom will merge to create a community of like-minded citizens.

And I just love it when that happens. Meanwhile Monaghan has no qualms, but all the self-assurance of a true religious fanatic and extremist.

“I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don’t want to be on the sidelines,” Monaghan said in a recent Newsweek interview.

No worries there, Tommy. You bought a seat in the front row.

Ethics Quietly Removed from Defense Spending Bill

Buck Banks

Oxymoron — military ethics: Where do the Pentagon’s military officers go after their retirement from active service? Many go to work for big defense contractors as liaisons between the contractors and the people who sign the contracts on Capitol Hill.

For instance, one of the more notorious cases involved Darleen Druyun, a high-ranking Air Force procurement official who was in charge of overseeing Boeing Co. air tanker negotiations at the same time she was applying for a top Boeing job. Talk about padding your resume!

She pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and in 2004 was sentenced to nine months in prison.

Duh — problems likely ahead in changing ethics rules for both lawmakers and lobbyists.

The Senate unanimously passed a plan last November to officially identify former Pentagon officials who go to work for defense contractors as part of the $491.5 billion defense authorization bill. But somewhere in the House-Senate conferences of December, the provision disappeared, quietly, without a peep of conscience.

Congress Daily offered this insipid insight that’s one for the “Duh” file: “The removal of the provision from the defense bill that would have required the defense companies to report the names of former members and military officers to benefit from government contracts signals the problems likely ahead in changing ethics rules for both lawmakers and lobbyists.” (emphasis added)

The provision would have required companies with defense contracts over $10 million to name former defense officials or military officers who received compensation from the contractors in an annual report to the Pentagon. Now that doesn’t sound too egregious, does it?

Contractor disclosure apparently got scrubbed after the Pentagon raised objections, according to one top Senate staffer involved in the talks.

The department apparently felt “there were too many people covered” by the provision, and there also was resistance by the House during a short conference meeting prior to the lawmakers’ departure for the Christmas holidays.

In the fiscal free-for-all that characterizes the Bush administration, such week-kneed attempts to inject an iota of ethics into the self-enrichment process will undoubtedly continue to fail. All hail the Commander-In-Thief!

Bush Greeted by 100,000 Protesters in India

Jon Ponder

Here’s a bet: There will be scant coverage of these protests on American news broadcasts:

Tens of thousands of Indians waving black and white flags and chanting “Death to Bush!” rallied Wednesday in New Delhi to protest a visit by President Bush.

Surindra Singh Yadav, a senior police officer in charge of crowd control, said as many as 100,000 people, most of them Muslim, had gathered in a fairground in central New Delhi ordinarily used for political rallies.

“Whether Hindu or Muslim, the people of India have gathered here to show our anger. We have only one message — killer Bush go home,” one of the speakers, Hindu politician Raj Babbar, told the crowd.