Let’s face it - censorship sucks. The suppression of thought, ideas and knowledge by religions, countries, school districts need to be stopped. These books were at one time, or are now, banned by a school district, country, or religion. You should read every one of these books

I created this list on amazon.com so if you want to send me a book, you’ll help me complete my library

“I ask you being an Iraqi person that if you reach a verdict of death, execution, remember that I am a military man and should be killed by firing squad.” - Saddam Hussein, July 26, 2006.
Is a man like this entitled to a choice? Either by Iraq’s refusal to recognize him as a military man, to spite him, or merely out of traditional Islamic law, he was hanged today, instead.
On April 5th, 2006, during cross-examination he was accused of sentencing children to death, to which he responded “I sentence an underage Iraqi to death? I wouldn’t do it even if you were to carve my eyes out.” (source: bbc)
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi presented the court with some of the identification cards of the children and read out their dates of birth. But Saddam said ID cards could easily be forged. He told the court: “There is a clear ulterior motive by those who have given you these documents,” the Associated Press news agency reported. “You can buy IDs like this in the market. Is it the responsibility of the head of the state to check the IDs of defendants and see how old he is?” (source: bbc)

More Saddam quotes can be found here.

---

That’s the problem with being the judge, jury & executioner — you get blamed when there’s a breakdown in due process. Saddam isn’t the first to fall prey to this. Power Corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely..I don’t think Saddam truly cared to find out if those he ordered killed were children. For this reason, he was tried, sentenced and hanged.

The problems in Iraq don’t end with the death of Saddam. In fact, the problems will likely get worse before the situation there gets better. The United States has committed a large number of troops there, and to what end? What is the goal–Democracy?There’s an old star trek quote, used once or twice during the Deep space 9 years. It roughly stated that the only way to fix a problem with a Klingon, was to get another klingon to help you. This probably holds true in Iraq. I think the U.S. will need the help of Saudi Arabia to get any real progress in Iraq. I just hope someone over there is willing to help, or even take over–We’re not doing much of any good I fear.The rub is, how will this make America Look? Pretty bad, I presume. Many eastern countries already view us as bullies. Some Arab leaders view us as Zionists, and power-hungry. Time will tell, but I pray for peace.p.s. - No, I can’t speak klingon–beat it, kid.

Problems run rampant in the Iraqi Police force. At least that’s what the Pentagon says. The pentagon released the following information today:

1. Many are largely illiterate.
2. Some have criminal backgrounds.
3. Some have physical handicaps.
4. Some are even rumored to be “insurgents”.

This will seriously put a damper on Bush’s exit strategy in Iraq, and his goal of making a constitution by August 15th.

Yesterday attempts to meet the August 15 deadline for a new constitution received a boost when Sunni Arab representatives said they would return to the negotiating table, and drafters announced agreement on several key articles of the new charter.


The Sunni Arab members on the constitutional committee had walked out of talks last week after one of their colleagues and his adviser were shot dead outside a Baghdad restaurant.


I guess it should be no surprise. If even 1 or two police officers were insurgents, surely they could communicate back with others the wherebouts of these Sunni leaders.
Now these Sunni leaders want assurances as to the security of their people, but to whom can they turn when even the police force cannot be trusted? That’s right: The loyalty of these police officers has come into question. Can they be blamed if they’re being murdered daily?


The loyalty of Iraqi police to the new authorities in Baghdad has also come under question, most notably last November in Mosul when three-quarters of the city’s police force either abandoned their posts or assisted insurgents during an uprising. Surprising?

Read the CNN article on this issue.

Donna Marie Norman, 19, and her common-law husband, Ivan Castaneda, 21, of Houston, TX were arrested for sexually assaulting and critically injuring their 6 month old baby! Police say the baby also “suffered broken bones from head to toe, and had her tongue nearly severed.”

C.P.S. was called to take the children. (The baby’s 15 month old sister, also had a fractured skull and ribs). Spokeswoman (of C.P.S.) Estella Olguin said the baby had been sexually abused, had two broken legs, a broken arm, a fractured skull, a fractured vertebrae and a broken rib. Olguin said if the baby were to survive, there is a strong possibility that she could be both blind or paralyzed.

“Norman told doctors the infant’s tongue was severed when she tried to remove a quarter from the baby’s mouth that had been placed there by her 15-month-old sister”.

These two people are sick! Why would someone do this to their own children, or anyone else’s for that matter? I can’t even imagine what would cause someone to even think about, let alone act on abusing your child. I hope both these parents go to jail, stay in jail, and be forced to some form of psychiatric help. I don’t care if one of the parents didn’t aid in the abuse. Due to the fact that if they knew or even scensed that something was wrong, they shuld have gotten help. One is just as guilty as the other if you condone something that you know is wrong.

http://askapnews.myway.com//article/20050208/D8842K480.html

MSNBC Reports …”A federal appeals court has ruled that Boston’s mass-transit agency violated free-speech rights by refusing to display advertisements from a group that wants to legalize marijuana.”

Change the Climate submitted 3 ads to the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority in 2000, and all 3 ads were rejected. The Transit Authority said the ads encouraged children to smoke pot.

“But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Monday that the MBTA, a quasi-government agency, does not have the right to turn down ads based on its viewpoint. Doing so violates the First Amendment, the court ruled.


The ads at the center of the dispute question marijuana laws and penalties for people arrested on minor possession charges.”
Click here for more info: Boston transit agency loses in court on pot ads

In his September 13th commentary in a popular technology magazine, “E-Voting does work,”
Harris Miller proved he is more out of touch with reality than Mr. Rothke
when he compared elections with Internet commerce and wrote that “No
verifiable instance of e-voting machine tampering has occurred.”

First of all, let’s define the distinct difference between an E-Commerce
transaction and E-voting.

If I order a DVD online, there are only two possible outcomes:

1) I will receive my DVD
2) I will NOT receive my DVD

Either way, I will ultimately know if my electronic transaction was
successful or not. I expect to receive a physical product or service as a
result of that electronic transaction.

With E-voting, even if I received a printout stating who I voted for,
there is no verifiable way of knowing if my electronic vote “actually
counted” towards the candidate that I voted for. If my candidate gets
elected or not, how do I know that my particular individual vote, actually
“registered” as a vote for that candidate? What if I wanted to vote for a “write-in” candidate?

To the contrary, traditional paper ballots leave a physical trail
(including hanging chads) as a means of challenging election results if a
controversy were to ever arise.

While E-commerce and electronic tax filing are potentially vulnerable to
Internet hackers, at least most individuals are able to produce a paper
trail and are able to account for their financial records (i.e. balancing
a check book, etc.). Even if someone’s identity is stolen, it is very
possible to recover from identity theft.

E-voting, however, was dropped from the U.S. Deparment of Defense because
there was no way to be certain that a specific vote came from a specific
voter. The argument of E-voting tampering is not the only issue; there is
also the issue of computer bugs or bad programming code. A missing
semicolon could cause a voter to to inadvertently cast a vote for
Candidate A instead of Candidate B.

It was stated in the September 13th article that the E-voting (DRE)
machines are not connected to the Internet but it was not mentioned that
some DRE machines have the capacity for remote connections. This is how
the vendors download software patches to these devices.

I’ve never met a “remote connection” that a hacker didn’t like.

Besides that, what’s to keep some rogue DRE machine vendor from altering
the election results?

Let’s say that instead of tampering via “remote connection” that someone
or some group physically vandalizes a DRE machine. What method would be
used to recount the electronic ballots?

Electronic voting is proven and practical? Perhaps we should ask the
voters in Alameda County, California and in San Diego County, California
where as recently as this past March, over 600 DRE machines either failed
or displayed faulty information on the screen. As a matter of fact, the
California Secretary of State has banned these DRE machines from at least
four counties altogether for this season’s upcoming elections.

Or what about North Carolina’s 2002 general election where the DRE
machines deleted over 400 votes due to a software bug?

Or what about a 2002 Kansas primary election where a microchip error was
blamed for a miscount of votes?

So much for “proven and practical.”

What happens when you fire a bullet in the air? It must come down. Most people ignore the possibility that a bullet fired might come down on top of them, or even close by.

That’s exactly what happened to the KKK This weekend.
The Associated Press has reported that Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, fired a bullet in the air during a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony and the bullet struck a participant in the head, critically injuring him.

A bullet struck Murr on the top of the head and exited at the bottom of his skull, authorities said.


Freeman fled the ceremony but was arrested near his home, authorities said. He was released on $7,500 bail.

Full Story here

The “Patriot Act II” coming?

The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information.

However, senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee minority staff have inquired about Patriot II for months and have been told as recently as this week that there is no such legislation being planned.

Some of the key provision of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 include:

• Section 201, “Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information”:
  This proposed legislation would enhance the Government’s ability to deny releasing material on suspected terrorists in government custody through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).
• Section 202, “Distribution of ‘Worst Case Scenario’ Information”:
  This subtitle would cloud and confuse an established level of transparency between private industry and the public, making it harder to get this type of information.
• Section 301-306, “Terrorist Identification Database”:
  These sections would authorize creation of a DNA database on “suspected terrorists”, expansively defined to include association with suspected terrorist groups, and noncitizens suspected of certain crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist.
• Section 312, “Appropriate Remedies with Respect to Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities”:
  This section would terminate all state law enforcement consent decrees before Sept. 11, 2001 that limit such agencies from gathering information about individuals and organizations (except for racial profiling and other “civil rights violations”).
• Section 405, “Presumption for Pretrial Detention in Cases Involving Terrorism”:
  This section will allow suspected terrorists to be held in jail before trail without bail.
  A Justice Department summary memo states “This presumption is warranted because of the unparalleled magnitude of the danger to the United States and its people posed by acts of terrorism, and because terrorism is typically engaged in by groups — many with international connections — that are often in a position to help their members flee or go into hiding.”
• Section 501, “Expatriation of Terrorists”:
  This provision would establish that an Americal citizen could be expatriated if “he becomes a member of or supports a group that the U.S. has designated as a ‘terrorist organization’”.
  Before, a citizen had to state his intent to relinquish citizenship, but now it can be “inferred from conduct”. So engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a “terrorist organization” by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation.

To read more on this, Go here [The Center for Public Integrity]. (The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization, was founded by Charles Lewis following a successful 11-year career in network television news.)

That link also has a full copy of the “Patriot Act II”, but in case you’re lazy, I’ve saved it Here as well.