Norris repeatedly jokes about what he would do to those he did not approve of, and for some reason I am reminded of Stalin at that point.

Video from Crooksandliars.com
And to all three idiots in the video, if you want to get back to the original core values of the Republican party, you should probably know this:

The Republican Party organized in 1854. Besides opposition to slavery, the new party put forward a progressive vision of modernizing the United States—emphasizing higher education, banking, railroads, industry and cities, while promising free homesteads to farmers. (Emphasis added)

From Wikipedia

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Progressive Republicans promising free homesteads to farmers?  Good lord, they’re commies -  Quick Chuck Norris, roundhouse kick yourself in the head!

Link to longer 33 minute speech, including statements by Prime Minister Hatoyama and questions from the press.

The Mormons are a strange bunch, with their “revelations” regarding polygamy coming just in time for Utah to be declared a state, and things like that.  I will never forget a forger from the 1980’s, who claimed to have found new letters from Joseph Smith, were Smith talked to a chameleon for a while.  The Mormon church tried in vain to cover this up, but eventually just started telling their members that chameleons were what people used to call the old Ben Franklin stoves, since those stoves did indeed change colors when heated.  Now to me, this seemed as crazy as a person talking to a lizard, but for the majority of those that belonged to the LDS (Mormon) church, this explanation that their founder was talking to a stove was good enough for them.  Of course it was found out later that the letter was a forgery, and most of the members quickly forgot the whole chameleon letter episode.  To me, there was no clearer indication of how the church quickly covered up whatever was unpleasant than the fact that they actually made up the story about the Ben Franklin stove, as if it was normal for people to have conversations with stoves.  The LDS Church just made up a story out of the blue to cover up what it later turns out was to be a forgery, and few members seemed to think that this was odd.  Actually for Joseph Smith, something like talking to a stove might have indeed been normal.

But that was many years ago, and the church has come a long way as shown by their change of heart regarding people who are gay, and what protections those people should have against discrimination.  Salt Lake City Utah looks to try to make things almost equal, which seems odd considering the staggering amounts of money they have recently spent to defeat gay marriage in other states. 

From The Salt Lake City Tribune:

by Rosemary Winters and Peggy Fletcher Stack

The LDS Church’s unexpected endorsement of two Salt Lake City gay-rights measures has many observers wondering if another surprise could follow: a friendlier reception in the 2010 Legislature for such protections statewide.

Even an LDS apostle — continuing the string of stunners –thinks Salt Lake City’s ordinances could be a model.

“Anything good is shareable,” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said in an interview Wednesday, referring to Salt Lake City’s new policy aimed at protecting gay and transgender residents from discrimination.

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Well that seems like they have had a change of heart, until you get to the exceptions…

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…Last year, Equality Utah launched the Common Ground Initiative, arguing that even those who disagree on gay marriage can agree on things like making it illegal to fire someone for being gay or providing health-care safeguards to same-sex couples. The bills were modeled after rights the LDS Church said it did not oppose. But Mormon officials snubbed an invitation to join the campaign. All three bills fizzled in the 2009 session.

At least one of the measures is poised for a 2010 comeback: an anti-discrimination statute that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state’s fair employment law. The bill includes the same exemption for religious organizations and their affiliates that Otterson praised in Salt Lake City’s ordinances.

That means the capital’s new rules, prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers, homebuyers and renters, do not apply to churches or small businesses. The LDS Church and its wholly owned subsidiaries, such as the towering City Creek Center condos taking shape in downtown Salt Lake City, are exempt. (Emphasis added)

Link to full story
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So in a state where the Mormon church owns quite a bit themselves, as chance would have it they are exempt from the new rules.  It would have been one thing if the religious institutions themselves were exempt, but things like small businesses and Condos?  

I guess they haven’t really changed all that much.  Even though they have granted themselves this exemption, as meager a step as it is, I suppose these new laws regarding discrimination are still a step in the right direction.  Just a really small step.

While Iran changes its collective mind on a nearly daily basis as to whether or not they will be on board with having uranium refined in other countries to be shipped back to them for use as fuel in civilian nuclear power plants, Russia had seemed reluctant to try and force Iran’s hand.  To me, all this means is that Iran already has a deal worked out with Russia, and they will simply pretend that now that Russia is in favor of sanctions that this changed their mind and so they decided to play nice.

From Agence-France-Presse via AAJ TV:

 Russia is ready to support sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, the daily Kommersant said Saturday citing sources in the administration of President Dmitry Medvedev.

“Recently our sources in the presidential administration are saying more often” that Moscow is “100 percent ready” to support sanctions against Iran, the newspaper wrote.

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Russia and Iran have had a long working relationship together, and it really isn’t all that likely that Russia actually cared what the international community wanted.  They tend to make whatever deal that is beneficial to them, so you could say that the government of Russia operates in the same uncaring, callous, and even murderous manner that most of Wall Street does.  But I am old, and often see Russia as just the Soviet Union in a not-so-clever disguise, so maybe it is just my paranoia acting up again (confound it!).  Then again, why the hell would we trust Iran or Russia?  Sure, nice people live their, but as usual it is the governments I do not trust, but then I don’t trust ours either.

But it still looks nice when Russia pretends to be on the same page as the rest of the world, so good for their P.R. department.

The country of Turkey has offered to store uranium for Iran in order to ease international tensions, but there has been no formal request for this so this was a weird thing to just throw out and offer.  Well it seemed odd to me.

I know that the costs associated with space exploration can be difficult to understand given our debt (and other uses for those funds), but if we stop exploring, an avenue of discovery will be lost to us.  And that may cost us so much more.

Additional from AAJ TV Pakistan:

At least 17 persons were killed and over 85 injured in two powerful suicide bomb explosions in Peshawar and Bannu districts on Friday morning, police said.

The suicide bombers, who were driving explosive-packed vehicles, detonated themselves while trying to target the buildings of security agencies in both the gory incidents and killed at least 17 people most of them security personnel and wounded around 85. 

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…In a similar incident, a suicide bomber targeted police station Bakakhel in FR Bannu by exploding his explosive-laden mini truck with the building of police station and killed seven persons including five police and FC personnel and injuring 25 others.

 

Khan sustained injuries.Riazuddinwere martyred along with five others and three inmates, two FC personnel and 18 policemen including SHO  Bacha QamarJan and  WakeelAs result of which Constables

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Also the P.R. Director for the Iranian Consulate was killed in Peshawar.

From The Pakistan Observer:

Director Public Relations Iranian Consulate in Peshawar, Ab-ul-Hassan Jeffery was shot dead by unknown armed men near his house at posh location Gulbarg in cantonment area here on Thursday.

Rated among the veteran journalists of Peshawar, late Jeffery also served Pakistan Observer as senior reporter in 1992-93.

The Police and the eyewitness said the gunmen opened fire at Ab-ul-Hassan as he came out to leave for the consulate in his car at about 8.10 a.m.

He was showered with bullets by two unknown assailants who managed to make good their escape after committing the heinous crime.

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The military continues to battle militants in the far reaches of Pakistan, but the insurgent terrorists are obviously operating within the larger cities all too easily.

Now to be fair, Coburn seems to be the only Republican dickish enough to say F.U. to our returning troops with this hold on the bill before the Senate.  If Senator Coburn is so worried about the government spending money, he really shouldn’t be accepting any salary as a Senator, not to mention his health care benefits.

From The Times of India:

by Chidanand Rajghatta

China’s dirty little secret of nuclear proliferation to Pakistan, including virtually giving Islamabad two nuclear weapons on a  platter while the U.S. remained oblivious and smug, has exploded in Washington.

Embarrassingly for President Obama the disclosures come on the eve of his much-anticipated visit to Beijing.

The broad story is known to every Tom, Dinesh, and Hamid in strategic circles — that sometime in the early 1980s, China provided Pakistan with nuclear know-how and materials to enable it to make the bomb, in part to weigh down India and in part out of gratitude to Islamabad for facilitating its opening to US. But astonishing details of the transaction, which China has blithely denied because it is in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations, have been exposed courtesy A.Q.Khan, Pakistan’s Dr Strangelove, to spite the military which incarcerated him.

Link to full story

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Now a short while back, a story came from A.Q. Khan which told things a bit differently, though it seems fairly clear that China and Pakistan have had a working relationship regarding nuclear technology for decades now.

David Schultheis is a Republican Senator from Colorado,  had some months ago said that pregnant mothers should not be tested for the HIV/AIDS because then if the baby was born with AIDS, then the mother would feel guilty.  He later tried to make things just a smidge ”better” by saying that it simply was not the government’s role to protect people from their own promiscuity, but never backed down from his earlier statements at all, insisting that if people were forced to live with the fact that they had contracted HIV and passed along to their baby, then they would feel the guilt that this Senator evidently feels that they should be feeling.  So while there is no doubt this nut is pro-life times 10, it seems he doesn’t care if a baby is born with AIDS.  Kkklassy. 

He has sunk once again down amongst the muck and slime, this time on his Twitter account, which he evidently doesn’t realize can be seen by the entire frikken world.

His tweet:

Don’t for a second think Obama wants what is best for U.S. He is flying the U.S. plane right into the ground at full speed. Let’s roll.

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WTF is wrong with people like this?  More importantly, how did this freak get elected to anything other than dung muncher?  Well, not that this is an elected position, at least not that I know of.  And Schultheis would probably consider dung munching a form of cannibalism anyways.  No, I take that back, Schultheis is so much lower than fecal matter.

So according to the brave Marine that used a tire iron to beat up a priest,  first the Greek Orthodox priest Alexios Marakis was saying “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) which is why Jasen Bruce attacked him and even chased him, knowing that he was a terrorist, and now Bruce is saying that Marakis sexually assaulted him.  Well sure, that sounds reasonable and completely believable, and not weird at all.  And didn’t Bruce-y also say that the priest tried to rob him at one point?  Way to go Marine, you’ve made us all so proud of our military. 

Maybe we shouldn’t let steroids ruin the military like it did baseball.

And Bruce, as soon as you are out of the military, it will then be O.K. to tell everyone you’re gay.