Pastacution

(Tip to AllSpinZone)

Since ASZ didn't have a dedicated link, here's a different one

When you’re a pirate, some dangers just come with the territory: scurvy, grog hangovers, a walk down the plank at sword point.

But being kicked out of school for a day?

Bryan Killian doesn’t think that’s a fair reaction to his decision to come to North Buncombe High School wearing an eye patch and an inflatable cutlass.

The sophomore spent today at home after an administrator took issue with his accessories.

...

“I feel like my First Amendment was violated,” Killian, 16, said. “Freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That’s what I tried to do and I got shot down.”

Freedom of religion?

Yes, Killian says, his “pirate regalia” is part of his faith – the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The parody religion, whose “Pastafarian” members worship a sentient, airborne clump of noodles and meatballs, originated in a letter to the Kansas school board urging them to add the religion to its plans to teach evolution and intelligent design side by side.

Thoughts On Court Ruling On Internet Porn Law

A federal judge on Thursday dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography, striking down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material.

In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.

The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison. - (Source)

I won't argue that children shouldn't be looking at porn and that simple age verification methods aren't enough to block certain website content from being available. Anyone with about two ounces of common sense about how the internet works, including young children, can find porn on the internet without ever leaving even the most popular search domains such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN.

Just yesterday, I was looking for the image I ended up using in my post entitled Forcing Women, a post that dealt with a North Carolina law proposal that would require (force) women to view ultrasounds of their unborn fetus before getting an abortion. I wanted an image depicting a women being subjected to duress at the hands of an authoritarian figure to emphasize the post. At first, I tried searching "SVU," "Law and Order," and other various police/interrogation style searches to get an appropriate image. But I wanted one involving a woman and so I next tried searching the phrase "interrogation of women" and on my computer I have the "Safe Search" feature turned off on my search engines because sometimes I'm looking for images for my posts that would normally be blocked by the internet filter.

Whoa baby did I get an eyeful of porn. And not just porn but sado-masochistic- wrapped-in-leather-dominatrix style porn. Group porn, guy porn, all sorts of porn. Sometimes, it seems, finding porn on the internet is almost unavoidable. For example, turn your search engine off and do a search on 'bushes' and see what pops up. And uh...if you are going to try that search and your children are with you reading this site (which itself has been found objectionable to children), please tell them to look away or leave the room.

My point is that it's almost unavoidable to see some porn on the internet but that through a variety of safeguards, filters, and software, as the judge pointed out, a lot of objectionable material online can be filtered out.

Kind of seems to ring with the whole small government/personal responsibility/accountability meme that some wings of society ascribe to. Why they're not speaking up and being more vocal in support of this ruling...

That said, I agree with the ruling because of how the law would have criminalized those websites. If the law is intended to criminalize based on material that is deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards," than there are plenty of other sites that should be subject to the same types of standards. Sites that could fit that classification include:

God Hates Fags - a site which has protested even soldiers funerals and blamed homosexuals for all the ills of the nation
Aryan-Nations which proclaims on it's home page "Violence Solves Everything"
Hal Turner - one of the most outspoken racists today.
Free Republic from time to time, where a commenter last year had suggested alerting sexual predators to the location of child day care centers used by employees of The New York Times. If that's not harmful to minors...

Porn sires are not something I want my children looking at. But I don't want them looking at racist or hateful sites either so as a defense of free speech, either we restrict them all equally across the board or we don't restrict them at all. It's a terrible argument, I know, but to be fair, that's the only conclusion I can come up with.

Then again, what type of country do we become when we begin censoring websites and their content and start actively denying a forum that has been created for like-minded people? Does not agreeing with it on a personal level provide all the justification to add such a law onto the books? Some people happen to like porn just like some people happen to feel that whites are better than anybody else and some feel that god blames all the woes of the world on homosexuals.

How do we decide what to block and what not to and based on what criteria do we levy fines and penalties or censorship efforts against violators? It's certainly a slippery slope but I think the judge made the only decision he could. Some will surely argue, and already they are:

"It is not reasonable for the government to expect all parents to shoulder the burden to cut off every possible source of adult content for their children, rather than the government's addressing the problem at its source," a government attorney, Peter D. Keisler, argued in a post-trial brief.

Since when is it the government's business to legislate morality? Again, where are the small government and personal accountability groups supporting this judicial decision to put the responsibility back on the parents, where it belongs? Government should not be the body telling children what they should and should not be looking at online; that's what parents are for through communication, education, and support networks.

Perhaps if this brand of today's religious conservatives weren't working so hard to make anything and everything that had the words "skin" and "ass" in it so socially and morally unacceptable as well as making anything regarding sex taboo, parents wouldn't face so much difficulty discussing these topics with their children. Furthermore, if they'd just stop decrying sex-ed in schools, perhaps some of our children might learn a thing or two about sex, the consequences of sex including pregnancy, STD's, and life-altering changes associated with the latter, and perhaps walk away from that class with a greater respect for themselves which is what is really needed to make morally grounded decisions regarding ones' own sexual conduct.

Shhhhhhhhhh

Secret And Unwilling Govt. Informer Speaks Out About Receipt Of NSL

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

...

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

I apologize if the above excerpt seems a little weak in really giving you an impression of what's being said in the letter. The op/ed itself isn't gripping and of course, more details surrounding this case would certainly be helpful. But I wanted to highlight the main point of the article and I felt was one of the most impassioned statements within the article and then send you off to read the entire thing yourself. Don't worry, it's only a page long.

When you're finished reading it, ask yourself what would you do if you were issued one of these National Security Letters and ordered to not only work in what is effectively an intelligence gathering capacity for the US government, but also to risk criminal punishment yourself if you talked to anyone about it, including your spouse or significant other, children, or closest friends?

Imagine the difficulty alone in hiding this from your spouse, especially if you've ever had problems with your spouse in the past that you're trying to reconcile. I'm not saying that's the case with the author of tthis op/ed but for the sake of argument, it's worth considering.

But if that were the case, what happens if he or she begins asking questions and becomes suspicious that you're messing around on them or acting secretive or in some other manner that makes them uncomfortable? How do you explain to them that they just have to trust you? You know how many people have had that line thrown at them?

Is it fair for the government to come in and totally disrupt your life by threatening that non-compliance can result in incarceration for yourself?

"Trust me..."

Funny. Isn't that what George Bush wants us to do?

Before I sign off on this, there's just one more thing I want to point out in the article that leaves me fuming mad about.

I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

The government is effectively done with this guy and still they hold him to the gag order, years after they first issued him the NSL and after they decided they don't even need the information he may or may not have been able to provide. And still he can't return to normalcy, made evident by the fact that this letter isn't even signed and had to be published anonymously and as such, WaPo had to publish a disclaimer just to run the article.

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author's attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

And The Award For Most Ridiculous Headline Goes To:

Lemme guess...Democrats hate America and support the terrorists because Fox news has sand in their vagina over John Edwards and the rest of the Dems saying "You know what? No thanks." on Fox's "offer" to host the Dem debate on Nevada.

Cry me a river.

I've Been Banned!

Ha ha!

"Unhinged" Indeed

In case video isn't showing up properly, it can be viewed here.

Video: 16 Yr. Old Arrested For F*ck Bush Sign

H/T to Delaware Watch and some backstory here.

Ironically, the police were seen shortly afterwards holding up the same sign in the face of traffic.



Seems perhaps we need police for the police...

Listening To Your Gut

I wrote yesterday about a pro-war/troop bulletin I had received as a bulletin on MySpace yesterday, how I found it highly inappropriate, and how I had responded. My gut told me that there was something wrong with the bulletin and that, although I responded in terse honesty, I should probably withhold judgement until I hear back from the sender. My gut rarely lets me down and this just validates why I often listen to it:

[name],

I'd like to thank you for the well-wishes for me and myfamily. Don't worry. I hold no ill-will against you. I applaud you for your opinions as I have some of the same as you. I am against this war totally. I saw this post ( orginally posted by my aunt) and I read it and reposted it beofre I really had time to think about it. That and I was alittle I am not sure of what I was feeling as I thought about my nrother going to BT today. So, I probably should have read it a little better before posting. I had alot going on today ( its my little girls 2nd birthday so I was little scatterbrained!!). Thank you for writing me. I appreciate it. I hope you are well!!
your friend,
[name]

I feel better getting that back.

So I Got A Pro-War/Troop MySpace Bulletin Today

Today I got this as a "bulletin" from someone on my friends list, a girl I went to summer school with years ago when I was in high school. She's a nice person and I'm sure she meant no harm, but as you will see, sending this out as a bulletin to everyone on your list sometimes can create problems. My reply to her follows afterwards. The areas I take specific issue with I've emphasized.

It may take you two minutes to read this, but if you do not take the time to read this you are one of the people this post is talking about.

You stay up for 16 hours

He stays up for days on end.
_________________________

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.

He goes days or weeks without running water.
__________________________

You complain of a "headache", and call in sick.

He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.
__________________________

You put on your anti war/don't support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.

He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.
__________________________

You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.

He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.
__________________________

You talk trash about your "buddies" that aren't with you.

He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.
__________________________

You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.

He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.
_________________________

You complain about how hot it is.

He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.
__________________________

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.

He doesn't get to eat today.
__________________________

Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.

He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.
__________________________

You go to the mall and get your hair redone.

He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.
__________________________

You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.

He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.
__________________________

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.

He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.
__________________________

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.

He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.
__________________________

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.

He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet
__________________________

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.

He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.
__________________________

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.

He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.
__________________________

You see only what the media wants you to see.

He sees the broken bodies lying around him.
__________________________

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.

He does exactly what he is told.
__________________________

You stay at home and watch TV.

He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.
__________________________

You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.

He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.
__________________________

You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.

If only there were more men like him
___________________________
If you support your troops, repost this.

If you don't support your troops well, then don't repost, it's not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your right

My reply:

[Name], I'd appreciate it if you read this all the way through.

To be perfectly honest with you, things like this are divisive and because of that I will NOT repost this. Hopefully the last statement in it won't still apply.

For the record, I AM anti-war. However, I take strong issue with a number of statements in your post.

"You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him."

I don't know ANY jokes about the war and I certainly don't find anything funny about war or about people dying, being hunted, kidnapped, executed, beheaded, set on fire, or for that matter, being the target of such actions. War is a serious gambit, something to be taken up as a last resort when all other options have been exhausted.

This next statement is clearly wrong as well:

"You see only what the media wants you to see."

Like Fox News telling me I'm a terrorist enabler because I'm anti-war, or Ann Coulter laughing about how best to execute liberals and that the only thing I'm good for is target practice or for that matter, Fox News, again, and recently, trying to imply that Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama poses a Muslim terrorist threat because he attended for two years a Muslim school that teaches extremist views which, I might add, was a complete load of crap and has been thoroughly debunked just yesterday by CNN. Bet you won't hear that on Fox News. What was that about hearing what you want?

There are media biases and they run on on both sides so you watch your media and I'll watch mine. I, however, will try to do the research both on and off the major media companies in order to derive the truth of the matter.

But of all the statements in your post, the one I disagree with more than anything else in this bulletin of yours is this:

"You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him."

I don't judge the troops but I can find nobody LESS deserving of MY respect than someone who will suggest or accuse ME of harboring such thoughts against American troops without first talking to me to see where I stand in the first place and then imply that "it's not like I know the men and women fighting to begin with."

Let me tell you a brief story before I make my last point.

I remember one of my best friends [name], who is in the Army, coming to visit me before the Iraq invasion while he was on leave. I hadn't seen him since high school when he moved out west.

We got to hang out for a week before he shipped back to Texas and where shortly after his arrival, I got an email that his company had just gotten orders to prepare to ship out. He was scared out of his mind and he didn't want to fight, but he knew that's what he had to do.

And then my emails stopped getting returned. I figured he had shipped, him AND his brother. For roughly 4 years now, I've been searching news links, military websites, deceased and injured lists looking for my friend, all to no avail. For roughly 4 years I knew not what had become of my friend and whether he was alive or dead or what.

And then, just a few weeks ago, I found him right here on MySpace. I found him two days after the last time he updated his MySpace page. I've requested to be his friend and sent him messages. I haven't heard back from him yet. Maybe he looked me up .. while serving and saw my website and wrote me off as just another anti-war person. Or maybe he's just busy with school and his girlfriend.

But either way, I still have not heard back from my friend who went to fight in Iraq. For the time being, all I can do is look at his picture on his MySpace page and read what he's written about this war. The only thing I can tell you about it is that you and him might have a VERY stark difference of opinion.

Would you suggest that he "doesn't know the men and women fighting to begin with?"

I judge the people who send the troops out to defend America against whatever threats are posed to us. And since I've raised the specter of "threats that face us," read this other statement in your post and try to think about it with what I'm about to say:

"He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting."

Any soldier who is in Iraq or Afghanistan right now is brave and a hero, no question about that. But that statement indicates that the reason "he" is fighting is because of torture and killing at the hands of...someone. Iraqis, Al-Qaeda, insurgents, whomever.

Yet that was NOT the reason we went to Iraq, was it? There was no mass genocide occurring there along the lines of what's occurring in Darfur that Iraqis and the global community were demanding that something be done about. Sure, Saddam was a bad guy and the world's better off without him. But...

The reason we were told we had to go to Iraq was because of a whole bunch of reasons including an imminent threat posed by WMD's which, at the mouth of Condoleeza Rice included the possibility of "the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud," links to Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden (who I might add is still roaming free...), some supposed link to 9/11, etc.

The reasons and justifications given for our invasion of Iraq are too numerous to get wrapped up in here or at this point in the game.

So tell me again "what" this soldier remembers "when" he remembers why he's fighting because I certainly don't remember Americans torturing and killing Americans here, or there, for that reason. All I know is that right now American soldiers are in Iraq in the middle of a civil war that really doesn't have much to do with American forces now as much as it does with Shiites and Suni Muslims battling along sectarian lines because of previous grievances against each other.

I don't mean to be harsh but please bear this in mind the next time you consider sending one of these out to your friends. It's a VERY quick way to lose them.

And although I'm not a religious person who will "pray" for your brother, I will wish him, and you, safe travels and good luck in the event he has to serve in a more dangerous region of the world. It takes a special person to commit to that line of work and it's something everyone should be proud of.

I've removed my Army friends name because of the fact that although it appears he is pretty against this war, he's got some things to say about both Democrats and Republicans and as such, based on the fact that I haven't talked to him yet, I don't want to definitively put any words into his mouth without first discussing it with him. I can only go by what he has written on his page.

Colbert: White House Correspondents Dinner (2006)

From Attytood, we learn about the restrictions being imposed on Rich Little to the tune of not mentioning Iraq or Presidential ratings at the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner:

Rich Little won't be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents' Dinner April 21.

Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves.

"They got a lot of letters," Little said Tuesday. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq.'"

Little, who hasn't been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he'll stick with his usual schtick -- the impersonations of the past six presidents.

"They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy," added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

Controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert? Searing satire? Whatever could they mean?

Oh....you don't mean this, do you?







Memories.....

All Out Hilarity In Iraq

After the absurdity of Bush and his love affair with fair trials and then the Iraqis learning the art of legal workarounds, it appears the Iraqis have learned the next imperative for efficiently operating a democracy: banning media outlets from operating in Iraq...

...Forever

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Iraqi government said it has banned private television channel Al-Sharkiya from reporting in Baghdad after accusing the station of inciting sectarian violence.

"The channel has been ordered to stop work in Baghdad forever," said interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf on Monday.

...

Iraq banned two television channels, Al-Zawra and Salaheddin, in November for their "one-sided" coverage of Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity during which he received the death penalty.

The government had also earlier banned pan-Arab station Al-Arabiya for a month in September and has permanently banned its better known Arabic-language rival, Al-Jazeera, from reporting in Iraq.

Banning media for one-sided reporting? With the reporting we've been getting from Faux News, not to mention our own White House Spokesman, perhaps it's time we took a lesson from the Iraqi's this time around?

What's next, free-speech?

Free Speech

Bad cop, no donut

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A woman who was ticketed for having an obscene anti-Bush bumper sticker filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday against a county in the state of Georgia and its officials.

Denise Grier, 47, of Athens, Georgia, got a $100 ticket in March after a DeKalb County police officer spotted the bumper sticker, which read "I'm Tired Of All The BUSH**."

A DeKalb judge threw out the ticket in April because the state's lewd decal law that formed the basis for the ticket was ruled unconstitutional in 1990.

Grier is seeking damages from the county for "emotional distress," according to the lawsuit.

Grier also seeks a declaration in federal court that her bumper sticker is considered constitutionally protected speech because she is "uncertain and insecure regarding her right to display her bumper sticker in DeKalb County," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

Grier, a nurse who works at Emory University and other hospitals, also is seeking punitive damages against the DeKalb police officer who gave her the ticket because he "acted with reckless disregard" of her rights, the lawsuit said.

The state law prohibited lewd or profane stickers and decals on vehicles.

What is it about bumper-stickers being protected free-speech that people just seem to forget?

WTF Indeed