Sound Familiar? Think IRAQ!!

Doesn't this story sound familiar? Think IRAQ!!

Decision time for US over Iran threat

Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - enough to begin industrial-scale production of nuclear fuel and build a warhead within a year, the UN's nuclear watchdog reported last night.

The report by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will intensify US and European pressure for tighter sanctions and increase speculation of a potential military conflict.

The installation of 3,000 fully-functioning centrifuges at Iran's enrichment plant at Natanz is a "red line" drawn by the US across which Washington had said it would not let Iran pass. When spinning at full speed they are capable of producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium (enriched to over 90% purity) for a nuclear weapon within a year.

The IAEA says the uranium being produced is only fuel grade (enriched to 4%) but the confirmation that Iran has reached the 3,000 centrifuge benchmark brings closer a moment of truth for the Bush administration, when it will have to choose between taking military action or abandoning its red line, and accepting Iran's technical mastery of uranium enrichment.

US generals are reported to have warned the White House that military action would trigger a devastating Iranian backlash in the Middle East and beyond.

Russian officials yesterday called for patience, insisting Iran could still clinch a deal with the international community in the next few weeks. They pointed to other parts of the IAEA report showing Tehran had been cooperating with the agency's inspectors on other nuclear issues.

"We are most concerned to prevent Iran being cornered so that they walk out of the Non Proliferation Treaty, and break relations with the IAEA," one Russian source said. He said Chinese officials were stepping up diplomatic pressure on Iran, with Moscow, to avert a collision.

"They are on high alert that something has to be done quickly," the source said.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also seized on positive parts of the IAEA report, noting increased Iranian cooperation with inspectors, as vindication for Tehran. He said: "The world will see that the Iranian nation has been right and the resistance of our nation has been correct."

Last night, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "If Iran wants to restore trust in its programme it must come clean on all outstanding issues without delay."

Gordon Brown has called for increased pressure on Tehran, including an international ban on investment in the Iranian oil and gas industry. But UK officials are nervous about pressure from the US vice president Dick Cheney and other hawks for military action against Iran before a new administration takes office in January 2009. They emphasise that Iranian scientists could be months if not years away from getting the 3,000 centrifuges to function properly, at top speed, for a sustained period, and insist there is no imminent pressure for military intervention.

However, they also point out that Israel's red lines for military action are unclear.

Against the fraught backdrop, a meeting of senior officials from the UN security council's five permanent members and Germany to decide on sanctions, planned for Monday, was put off after the Chinese delegation said it could not attend.

The critical meeting has been pushed back to later this month, giving time for the six-nation group's negotiator, Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, to hold last-ditch talks with Iranian officials.

The ElBaradei report gave a mixed account of Iran's cooperation with inspectors looking into Tehran's nuclear activity in the two decades before it declared its enrichment programme. "Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions," it said, but added that "cooperation has been reactive rather than proactive".

David Albright, a former UN inspector and now an independent nuclear expert in Washington, said ElBaradei appeared to be trying to put "a happy face" on a worsening situation. "The main issue is that Iran now has 3,000 centrifuges," he said. "The report doesn't even judge the quality of the information being offered, but it's clear it is giving minimal answers."

The same thing was said about Saddam, and look where that got us!! It's only a matter of time before the bombs start dropping in Iran.

To all the WAR LOVERS out there who are so gung-ho to bomb Iran, I suggest that each and every last one of you volunteers your own ass for duty. I'm not dying for these war criminals in this administration, and I'm certainly not dying so King George can fulfill his quest to rule the world!!

And CHRISTIANS Say That Muslims Are Insane!!

Thanks once again to Chris for sending me this story.

Russian doomsday sect threatens mass suicide

To locals in the Russian village of Nikolskoye they were simply a group of eccentric Christian believers. And when 29 members of the sect abruptly vanished last month, villagers assumed they had packed up and gone.

In fact, the religious doomsday cult had taken up residence in a remote underground cave. They had decided to barricade themselves inside until May 2008 - the date when their spiritual leader told them the world was going to end.

Today, authorities were attempting to talk to cult members by bellowing through a ventilation shaft cut into the cave's roof. So far, however, the members - who include 25 adults and four children, one of them a 16-month-old baby - have refused to emerge.

"They have covered the entrance and refuse to come out and are threatening to blow themselves up. They threaten to detonate a gas tank," an official in the local prosecutor's office said. "They say they are fine. They tell us to go away," another added.

The sect members are hiding out in a snow-covered hillside in the Penza region of central Russia, about 60 miles from the town of Penza.

The chief prosecutor of the region's Bekovsky district, Alvetina Volchkova, said they moved in at the end of October.

"I talked to them last Thursday," she told the Guardian today. "The temperature outside was freezing. They told me they were fine and that the temperature inside the cave was plus 17C. They've lit candles and paraffin lamps. I asked if I could come in and have a look around but they wouldn't let me in.

"They don't have a name as such. They don't regard themselves as a sect but refer to themselves as 'the chosen ones'. They also say that they are representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church."

The police had sealed off the area and were trying to negotiate, she added.

"No-one wants to take on the responsibility of provoking them ... because our information is that there are children among them,' a police spokeswoman told Reuters.

The cave is two miles from the modest tin-roofed prayer hall where sect members used to gather to sing songs. Elders began secretly preparing the cave last month - bringing in supplies of gas and kerosene, as well as half a tonne of honey and a lot of jam, locals said.

The sect's leader is Pyotr Kuznetsov - a divorced 43-year-old architect from Belarus. Kutnetsov travelled across Belarus and Russia, spreading his message of apocalyptic doom, before settling in the village 18 months ago, locals said.

Several dozen believers followed him. They moved into abandoned houses, refusing to use electricity. "They are simple Christians," a local priest, Father Georgy, told NTV television. "They say: 'The church is doing a bad job, the end of the world is coming soon and we are all saving ourselves.'"

After decades of state suppression, the Russian Orthodox Church is now enjoying a revival. But many Russians and ex-Soviet nationals have also fallen under the sway of local and foreign sects. Some even refuse passports and taxpayers' numbers, claiming the figures conceal "satanic" meanings.

However, the tradition of religious dissent in Russia and defiance of secular authority goes back much further. In the seventeenth century, one group, the Old Believers, founded their own church in protest at reforms to orthodox rituals. To escape persecution, many settled in extremely lonely communities.

The cave in Penza was discovered after the daughter of one of the missing cult members complained to the local prosecutor, Russian media said. Police then arrested Kuznetsov - who led investigators to the entrance. When they tried to approach together with another priest gunshots were fired in the air, NTV reported.

"Kuznetsov is their spiritual leader. He told them that the world would end in May and that the only way for them to save themselves was to go underground," Pavel Shishkin, a reporter with Komsomolskaya Pravda in Penza told the Guardian today. "They believed him. They've gone to sit it out."

Izvestiya newspaper yesterday reported that Kuznetsov suffered from schizophrenia and that in the last few months he had been sleeping in a coffin.

"He said his followers should not be disturbed, that they are the chosen ones, and that no one else is allowed to get in the cave," a law enforcement officer told the paper.

Police and ambulances have sealed off the approach to the cave, which is scarcely visible from the outside and hidden by a sloping ravine. Relatives of cult members are expected to arrive at the scene shortly from Belarus and Ukraine to try and persuade their loved ones to give up. This may be tricky, however, as cult members have apparently taken a vow of silence.

Asked whether Russian special forces would storm the cave, Volchkova said: "For the moment the police are making sure that the situation is OK and under control."

Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation under article 235 of Russia's criminal code, against illegal religious societies, she added.

And CHRISTIANS say that Muslims are insane!! When was the last time you heard a Muslim declare practically every damn day that this date or that date is going to be the one when the world comes to an end? Hmm, how about NEVER!!

I recently saw a CHRISTIAN prediction in a supermarket tabloid that the world would end on the day before Thanksgiving this year. I guess I won't be eating that turkey next Thursday!! Damn!! I was so looking forward to it!!

Another Example Of The Dehumanization Of Women By The Catholic Church

For those of you who are regular readers of my blog, you know that I have a problem with the Catholic Church for many reasons. As usual, I was not surprised when I read this Catholic story. Thanks Chris for the story!!

Nuns fired for refusing to be maids

Nuns know they are signing up for a hard life when they take their vows, stretching from dawn prayers to gruelling missionary work, but three nuns working in a community near Rome decided they had been pushed too far when the local bishop demanded they double up as personal cleaners for two ageing priests.

The nuns, supported by their mother superior back at their order in Lucca, refused to interrupt their good works with local youngsters to pick up mops and start cleaning.

After digging in their heels they were fired for their disobedience by the bishop, Marcello Semeraro, according to La Stampa newspaper.

By asking the nuns to leave the parish Semeraro ignored the wishes of parishioners in the parish of St Peter and Paul in Aprilia, south of Rome, 1,500 of whom signed a letter rallying to the nuns' cause and expressing their "bitterness and incredulity" with the church.

"We have here an ecclesiastical hierarchy which will give a role to women who have taken vows if they are prepared to first go and work as housewives for priests," local people wrote in an angry statement that was issued after the nuns were pulled out of Aprilia by their order on October 21.

"We hope very much his excellency is not really convinced that taking such a commitment is a condition that the sisters can remain in our community."

The three unnamed sisters had been dispatched to Aprilia by the order of St Gemma in Lucca, an order named after a 19th-century Italian woman who suffered from meningitis before reportedly experiencing stigmatic wounds which bled copiously. She died of TB at the age of 25.

"No one in the church considered that these nuns are a spiritual point of reference in people's lives," wrote the parishioners. The two priests in question, they added, had not even asked for nuns to wash their floors, but the bishop had insisted.

The diocese of Albano takes in Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the Pope. Semeraro, 60, who has taught theology at the pontifical Lateran University and who heads the board of administrators at Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian bishop's conference, was not available for comment.

The nuns that I interacted with when I was in college were treated with respect. They weren't treated like fucking Cinderella. They weren't ordered to be maids, and they certainly weren't fired for refusing to do something.

It's rather sickening to see how women in the Catholic Church are treated. They're treated like the shit on the bottom of a man's shoe. This story is just another example of that. What really gets me though is that women actually put up with it. Fight back!! Tell men (including the priests, the bishops, and the Pope) where they can shove it. If they still don't get the message that you're not going to stand for this bullshit and abuse any longer, leave!! The cloud being (God, if you actually believe in HER) is not going to strike you dead for standing up for yourself. The cloud being is not going to punish you for demanding respect and equality.

Grow a spine ladies!! You're human beings too, and it's way past time that the Catholic Church understands that!!

Sign Up For Your CIA Sponsored "Swimming Lesson"

People are pathetic and completely asinine. During a discussion about waterboarding on CNN, right-wing lunatic Rachel Marsden said “One man’s torture is another man’s CIA’s sponsored swim lesson.”

Conservative dismisses waterboarding as a "swim lesson"

On Wednesday night on CNN’s The Situation Room, conservative columnist and “Republican strategist” Rachel Marsden dismissed worries over Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s refusal to say waterboarding is torture, saying “One man’s torture is another man’s CIA’s sponsored swim lesson.”

As Steve Benen notes, earlier in the interview, Marsden claimed that history would look kindly on President Bush in the same way it had vindicated Joseph McCarthy.

First of all, McCarthy was NEVER vindicated except for maybe in Rachel Marsden's deluded pea-sized brain. Second of all, history is not going to "look kindly" upon the Boy King. He will be labeled for what he truly is, A MURDERER AND THE NUMBER ONE TERRORIST IN THE WORLD.

But while we're on the subject of torture, Rachel Marsden should sign up for her "CIA sponsored 'swimming lesson'". If she survives choking on all of that water, I want to hear her declare that waterboarding is not torture!!

What a stupid, psychotic BITCH!!

Martial Law Declared In Pakistan!! Is The U.S. Far Behind?

Martial law has been declared in Pakistan, and the United States supports it!! Is the U.S. far behind? I don't think so!! When I first heard the story this morning, my immediate thought was Musharraf just handed King George an idea for his greatest coup d'état since the 2000 election.

Activists detained in Pakistan emergency

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police wielding assault rifles rounded up opposition leaders and rights activists Sunday after Pakistan's military ruler suspended the constitution, ousted the top justice and deployed troops to fight what he called rising Islamic extremism.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup but had promised to hand over his army fatigues and become a civilian president this year, declared a state of emergency Saturday night, dashing hopes of a smooth transition to democracy for the nuclear-armed nation.

"Gen. Musharraf's second coup," read the headline in the Dawn daily. "It is martial law," said the Daily Times.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the extraordinary measures would remain in place "as long as it is necessary." He also said parliamentary elections could be postponed up to a year, but no such decision had been made.

Aziz also said that up to 500 opposition activists had been arrested in the last 24 hours.

Among those detained were Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; cricket star-turned politician, Imran Khan; Asma Jehangir, chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan; and Hamid Gul, former chief of the main intelligence agency and a staunch critic of Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terror.

Some 200 armed police stormed the rights commission office in Lahore on Sunday and arrested about 50 activists, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, a legal officer for the body.

"They dragged us out, including the women," he said from the police station in the eastern city. "It's inhuman, undemocratic and a violation of human rights to enter a room and arrest people gathering peacefully there."

Musharraf's leadership is threatened by an Islamic militant movement that has spread from border regions to the capital, the reemergence of political rival and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and an increasingly defiant Supreme Court, which was expected to rule soon on the validity of his recent presidential election win. Hearings scheduled for next week were postponed, with no new date set.

Attorney General Malik Mohammed Qayyum denied claims by Bhutto and others that Musharraf had imposed martial law — direct rule by the army — under the guise of a state of emergency. He noted the prime minister was still in place and that parliament would complete its term, ending Nov. 15.

In Islamabad, phone service that was cut Saturday evening appeared to have been restored by Sunday morning. But transmissions by television news networks other than state-controlled Pakistan TV remained off the air.

Scores of paramilitary troops blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Otherwise streets in the capital appeared calm, with only a handful of demonstrations. But one, attended by 40 people at the Marriott Hotel, was broken up by baton-wielding police.

"Shame on You! Go Musharraf Go!" the protesters shouted as officers dragged some out of the crowd and forced them to the ground. Eight were taken away in a van.

Western allies had urged Musharraf not to take authoritarian measures despite recent his country's recent turmoil.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a return to democracy, as the American embassy urged citizens in Pakistan to remain at home and defer all nonessential travel. But Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the emergency declaration "does not impact our military support" of the Muslim nation or its efforts in the war on terror.

In his televised address late Saturday, Musharraf, looking somber and composed, said Pakistan was at a "dangerous" juncture, and that its government was threatened by Islamic extremists who were "imposing their obsolete ideas on moderates."

The military ruler, wearing a black button-down tunic rather than his army uniform, also blamed the Supreme Court for tying the hands of the government by postponing the validation of his recent election. The court was expected to rule soon on opponents' claims that Musharraf's Oct. 6 victory was unconstitutional because he contested while army chief. He was elected by a Musharraf-led legislature.

Bhutto, who had traveled abroad following an Oct. 18 suicide bombing that narrowly missed her but killed 145 others, immediately returned to the southern city of Karachi declared Saturday the "blackest day" in Pakistan's history. "Judicial decisions have to be accepted even if they don't suit you," she said.

Musharraf replaced the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who had emerged as the main check on the president. Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer who represented the judge, also was arrested.

Musharraf vowed to go ahead with parliamentary elections, originally due by January, but gave no timeline.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem said Sunday he hoped the polls would go ahead soon: "But unfortunately everything has been put on the back burner. I can't give you the exact date."

Musharraf's emergency order suspended the 1973 constitution. Seven of the 17 Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the order, and only five agreed to take the oath of office under the new provisional constitution.

The emergency comes as Musharraf's security forces struggle to contain pro-Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants who have gained control of large tracts of the volatile northwest, near Afghanistan.

Violence has reached major cities with deadly suicide attacks in Islamabad and Karachi underscoring the failure of Musharraf's administration to combat the threat despite huge financial support from the United States.

Analysts, meanwhile, said the imposition of emergency rule may only postpone Musharraf's political demise.

"He's obviously not very popular, and it's not going to increase his popularity," said Rick Barton, a Pakistan expert at the Washington-based Center for International and Strategic Studies.

Musharraf issued two ordinances toughening media laws, including a ban on live broadcasts of "incidents of violence and conflict." Also, TV operators who "ridicule" the president, armed forces, and other powerful state bodies face up to three years in jail.

This is happening in Pakistan. Now replace Pakistan with...oh...I don't know...Iran...or...Syria!! We wouldn't be responding with words of support. We would have our planes in the air and our troops on the ground bombing the hell out of the innocent people from these countries, all in the name of trying to bring "DEMOCRACY" to them. Instead of condemning Musharraf for what he has done, we're SUPPORTING what he has done.

Isn't it lovely to see how this country picks and chooses when to actually support democracy, human rights, and free speech? Clearly they could care less about what Musharraf is doing because he's being investigated over the bombing that was aimed at Bhutto, and the Supreme Court has not declared him the winner of the recent elections. Hmm, does the United States know that he's behind the bombing? Or could it be that the United States had a hand in it too, and that's why they're not condemning the declaration of martial law in Pakistan?

It's Better To Be Dead Than Gay, According To Mitt Romney!!

Screw being polite. I'm done keeping my mouth shut. This piece of shit wants to be President of this country, and he's out there touting the idea that it's better to be a dead parent than a gay parent. Isn't that a great message that he's sending to children? He's telling them that it would be better for them if their mommy or daddy were STRAIGHT and DEAD instead of being GAY and ALIVE. Nice!! What a scum sucking piece of shit!! Man, these religious assholes make me sick!!

Dead parents better than gay ones says Romney

A candidate for the Republican party nomination for President of the United States has said that he thinks a child would be better off with a dead parent rather than a gay one.

Mitt Romney, a former Governor of Massachusetts, was speaking at a college in rural Iowa.

Asked what he would say to a gay couple wanting to get married, he pointed out his support for a change to the US Constitution to bar gay and lesbian Americans from marriage.

"I believe that maintaining the strength of the marriage relationship, the family relationship, is critical to the strength of an entire society," he said, according to Rocky Mountain News.

"And I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home.

"Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad.

"And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child.

"I'm in favour of promoting, as a society, the marriage of men and women and the development of children in that kind of setting."

Mr Romney is attempting to portray himself as more conservative than his Republican opponents on the issue of gay marriage.

The leading candidate, former Mayor of New York Rudy Guiliani, is pro-gay rights.

Massachusetts is the only state in America to have legalised gay marriage.

This was not the work of Mr Romney, a Mormon who once worked as a missionary in France.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts established the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry.

American liberals are worried about the candidacy of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mormons believe that homosexuality, and homosexual desire, are sinful.

The church has opposed all efforts in America to legalise same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Mr Romney has experience in state government and in business: he was the CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

However, he has no experience in Congress, or international politics.

This may not be a barrier, as four out of the last five Presidents have come to Washington straight from state politics.

Last December it was revealed that Mr Romney once courted the gay community for their support in a 1994 campaign for the US Senate.

In a letter, published by Massachusetts newspaper Bay Windows, he promises to represent his gay and lesbian constituents.

"I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party, and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts," he wrote.

The revelation angered conservatives in the US.

The Republican candidate will be announced at the party's convention at the start of September 2008.

The Presidential election will be held on 4th November 2008 and a new President will take office on 20th January 2009.

He can take his religion and shove it straight up his ass. The closest he'll ever get to becoming President is if he ever decides that he wants to be the IOC President. Even then, nobody would vote for that piece of trash!!