"Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control."
~Richard Kline
http://zoeticgeek.com/job-motivational-quote-2011-10-24/
I Prepared, I Conquered!
Well...at least I gave that impression! :D
By DIONNE WALKER
The Associated Press
ATLANTA
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=6479903
A Muslim woman arrested for refusing to take off her head scarf at a courthouse security checkpoint said Wednesday that she felt her human and civil rights were violated. A judge ordered Lisa Valentine, 40, to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court, said police in Douglasville, a city of about 20,000 people on Atlanta's west suburban outskirts.
Valentine violated a court policy that prohibits people from wearing any headgear in court, police said after they arrested her Tuesday. Read More »
A large protest against anti-gay marriage amendments was held in Atlanta last Saturday, Nov. 15. Georgia Equality Executive Director Jeff Graham spoke to the crowd of about 1,500 at the state capitol (estimate from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). In his remarks, Graham talked about the upcoming runoff in Georgia on December 2.
What many progressive Democrats may not realize is that there is also a very important runoff for the Georgia Court of Appeals, in addition to the critical runoff race between Sen. Saxby Chambliss and former state Rep. Jim Martin. I don't seem to be able to embed the video of Jeff Graham's speech here. I'm not sure if it's not allowed on the new Democratic Website (which is awesome!) or if there are a few bugs to be worked out. In any case, I can't get it to post here--so please take a look at what Graham had to say about LGBT rights in Georgia and what's at stake in the runoff races in Georgia here.
After our stunning Election Day sweep of the White House and Congress, Democrats still have one remaining opportunity to finish 2008 with a win. Even as Senate races pending recounts in Minnesota and Alaska hang in the balance favoring Democrats, one Senate runoff in Georgia remains offering Democrats the possibility of a 60% majority in the upper house of Congress. Recent polls show the Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss (pictured on left) holding a narrow lead over Democratic challenger Jim Martin (pictured on right) with just two weeks to go until the Dec. 2 runoff.
Chambliss remains infamous for his attacks on Democratic opponent Max Cleland in 2002, including an ad showing pictures of disabled Vietnam veteran Cleland along with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, suggesting dishonestly that Cleland would allow terrorists like those who struck America on 9/11 to strike America again. Chambliss' GOP colleague John McCain called the ad "reprehensible" and "worse than disgraceful" for its attack on the patriotism of a man who lost three limbs fighting for the United States in Vietnam. Ever ready to flip on previously-held principles, however, McCain appears to have forgiven Chambliss for his attack on McCain's fellow Vietnam veteran, and is currently campaigning for Chambliss in Georgia. A noted chicken-hawk, Chambliss avoided service in Vietnam with five student deferments and a medical deferment for a "football knee."
Chambliss is also infamous for his remark, shortly following the 9/11 attacks, that Georgia ought to "arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line."
This year, Chambliss took to race-baiting in the effort to stem a Democratic tide in Georgia that threatened both to unseat Chambliss himself and to deliver the state's electoral votes for Barack Obama. As in other Deep South states, Democratic voters in Georgia are largely African American while white voters tend strongly to vote Republican. Unlike in other regions of the United States this year, white voters in the Deep South broke even more strongly Republican this year than in previous years, owing to racial antipathy toward Obama. Meanwhile, African American voters in Georgia turned out in massive numbers for Obama, producing an electoral result strongly divided along racial lines, and holding McCain's ultimate Georgia victory to a relatively narrow 5.2 percentage points.
Fearing the loss both of his own Senate seat and of his state to the Democrats owing to heavy African American voter turnout, Chambliss not-so-subtly warned his conservative white base of this on more than one occasion as a way of getting them to the polls. In one instance during early voting in Georgia featuring huge African American turnout as expected, Politico quotes Chambliss telling his white supporters that "the other folks are voting" as a warning that they too had better get out and vote. In another instance, Chambliss told the New York Times that the "rush to the polls by African-Americans" in Georgia "has also got our side energized, [because] they see what is happening." Finally, after failing on Nov. 4 to reach the 50% majority required under Georgia law to avoid a runoff, Chambliss again referred in a Fox News interview to the "high percentage of minority vote" this year and the the fact that "we weren’t able to get enough of our folks out on Election Day."
Saxby Chambliss is a liar, a bigot, and a disgrace. In 2001, he openly suggested collective punishment of Muslims for the 9/11 attacks. In 2002, he won his Senate seat by shamefully attacking the patriotism of a disabled veteran in a time of fear shortly following 9/11. This year, he used race-baiting in the attempt to save his own Senate seat and keep Georgia in the Republican column. His Democratic challenger, Jim Martin, is a Vietnam veteran, an accomplished legal scholar, and served for 18 years as a Georgia state legislator. Readers are encouraged to visit Jim Martin's campaign website, to contribute there or at Act Blue to Martin's campaign, to spread the word to other Democrats, and to contact Georgia voters on Martin's behalf.
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
Michael Collins: Not One Dime for Georgia
The president of the Republic of Georgia eats his tie on national television. BBC
$1.1 Billion Giveaway for the Republic of Georgia Announced:
"The United States Supports The Recovery, Stability,
And Continued Growth Of Georgia's Economy"
The White House, Sept. 3, 2008
(Wash. DC) We're not talking about the great state of Georgia, which deserves everything it has coming to it and more. We're talking about the Republic of Georgia, a nation of 4.5 million people wedged between Russia and Turkey.
On Wednesday, September 3, the White House announced a comprehensive aid package valued at $1.1 billion dollars to help the Republic of Georgia recover from the whipping it took after it attacked Russian peace keeping forces in South Ossetia, a breakaway province of Georgia near the Russian border. That region experienced a major war in 1991 and varying tensions since.
Russian personnel were in Georgia as part of a multi-national peace keeping regime created by the United Nations and endorsed by the European Union in 2006.
Read More »Or a differnt perspective courtesy of www.eurasianet.org
The Kremlin received a rude diplomatic surprise on August 28, when some of its closest allies offered only a tepid endorsement for Russia’s incursion into Georgia, while reaffirming the principle of the territorial integrity of states. Moscow now finds itself more diplomatically isolated than ever over its continuing military presence in Georgia and its recognition of the independence of the separatist entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russian leaders headed into the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe – a group comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – expecting to receive unqualified support for its recent actions in Georgia. Instead, they were on the receiving end of a stinging rebuke over Moscow’s hasty recognition of Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence.
"The participants [of the SCO summit] underscore the need for respect of the historical and cultural traditions of each country and each people, for efforts aimed at the preservation, under international law, of the unity of a state and its territorial integrity," the alliance’s statement said.
Using convoluted language, the SCO member states appeared to sanction Russia’s incursion into Georgia, but seemingly admonished the Kremlin for taking things too far. SCO members "support the active role of Russia in assisting peace and cooperation in the region," the statement said, going on to stress an ongoing need for "peaceful dialogue
DUSHANBE (AFP) — China and four Central Asian nations signed a statement Thursday supporting Russia's role in the Caucasus but also expressing "deep concern" over the Georgia conflict and calling for a negotiated settlement.
In a joint statement, the leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan said they "support the active role of Russia in assisting peace and cooperation in the region."
The six in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) also "express their deep concern over the recent tensions surrounding the South Ossetia question and call for the sides to peacefully resolve existing problems through dialogue."
Echoing language used in the West over the conflict, a portion of the statement also said the summit members supported the principle of "territorial integrity" of states.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the statement showed a "united position" on the Georgia conflict, and Kremlin officials indicated they were happy with its phrasing
Excerpt courtesy of afp.google.com
The following is an excerpt from an August 14th, 2008 article which can be found at: www.alternet.org:
"A pipeline that runs through Georgia is the second largest in the world, and American tax dollars helped fund big oil projects in the region.
It has to do with the role of the two government agencies, the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), that lend money to private companies doing business overseas.
These agencies exist to promote U.S. business abroad, which they do by giving loans and guarantees for projects that are too big or, in many cases, too risky for the tastes of private banks and financiers.
"We exist to take risks that the commercial markets either cannot or are not willing to make," said Phil Cogan, spokesman at the Ex-Im Bank. "That's the reason for export credit agencies for the most part. It's to support the exporters of the United States because those exporters wouldn't be able to make the sale unless there was a guarantee or direct lending."
In the case of this pipeline, the Ex-Im Bank gave a $160 million guarantee to a group of banks that wanted to lend money to the companies involved in the project. If the project fails or goes up in flames (which it could do, literally) Ex-Im will bail out the private banks, and taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
Same deal for OPIC, which gave the project $100 million in "political risk insurance." In other words, the companies apparently weighed the risk of just the sort of conflict the region is now facing, and then went to a government agency for insurance.
Critics see these guarantees as a form of corporate welfare"
But there isn't enough money for middle class tax cuts, or health care, or veterans programs.
Well it seems that Poland is in the middle of the controversy again by agreeing to sign into the US's Missile defense program that Russia is opposed to. One has to wonder if this is the action that is going to push the recently aggressive Russia over the top again. It is a scary time because it seems to me that Russia is similar to a dog backed into a corner and ready to bite at the US for continuing to push on it. First there was Georgia and now this? I think we are on the verge of some very serious military conflicts which is not at all what this country or the world needs. I am a little freaked out by this because I can see it happening, I mean this isn't the first time that Poland has been in the center of a war starting...
Clearly recent events in South Ossetia are the stake in the heart of this theory which is based on a fundamentally flawed view of the how capitalism operates in the world. Way back in the 1990's, the argument was naively purported, that the free markets being introduced in Russia (and more gradually in China) would lead to prosperity, peace, and liberty for those nations. Evidence to the contrary however, might suggest that theory be scrapped. Russia's economy is a disaster area, aside from the enormous treasure of oil. In China, corporatism has fit far too neatly into the communist political system, and has empowered the state repressive apparatus rather than the citizenry. Worse yet, despite the liberalization of their economic systems, these states have come to view the United States as foe. Moreover, the United States and its Western European allies have not in any sense disarmed themselves against Russia and China. Read More »
"From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly."
Of course they did. As I have written before, there is more money to be made in stalemate than in victory.
But as I recall President Kennedy stood up to them in Berlin AND in Cuba.
Buchanan also wrote:
"The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO."
If Georgia had been admitted to NATO they might not have been silly enough to have done some of the things that they have done.
Another quote:
"And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship?"
Patriot??????? Nationalist maybe. Patriot - I don't think so. He fed the Russian people to the economic dogs. That's not a patriot in my book.
But then, I don't see anything patriotic in
The (Un)Patriot(ic) Act either.
Then he finally wrote something I can agree with:
"Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation."
Yes - and the guilty should be publically humiliated, then placed on trial for related criminal actions by them.
Here is the Web link to the full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18biden.html?_r=1&sq=biden&st=cse&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=2&adxnnlx=1219064871-VKq02KOaajsYXEeL3l4fOA Read More »
One avenue lies east of the Caspian Sea and would require the Russian military to conduct an approach march of approximately 700 miles before finally reaching northeastern Iran. These forces would then be approximately 200 east of Tehran, 500 miles north of the Persian Gulf, and 500 miles northeast of Iraq.
During this approach march the Russian forces would have to pass through the territory of at least two other nations - Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
On February 1 of this year Reuters reported that, "On a visit to Kazakhstan, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence Mitchell Shivers signed a new five-year cooperation plan with Kazakhstan envisaging fresh U.S. assistance in matters ranging from military reform and equipment to education....in remarks sent to Reuters by the U.S. embassy," Shivers said, "As a member of NATO, the U.S. is committed to helping Kazakhstan in improving its inter-operability with equipment and training to U.S. and NATO standards."
The CIA World Fact Book states, "Kazakhstan, the largest of the former Soviet republics in territory, excluding Russia, possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves and plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals."
On August 1, 2007 the internet newspaper GAZETA.KZ
reported that, "Turkmenistan co-operates with the NATO also through the "Partnership for Peace" programme and on the bilateral basis usual for the Central Asian states. Moreover, it is interesting to note that Turkmenistan was the first ever Central Asian state that joined the programme in May 1994. The training and retraining of military specialists and supplies of equipment are carried out per the programme."
The second avenue west of the Caspian Sea would require an approach march of approximately 120 miles through the country of Azerbaijan. The military force would then be approximately 300 miles northwest of Tehran, 200 miles northeast of Iraq, and 600 miles north of the Persian Gulf.
These forces would, therefore, be on the northern flank of any military forces entering Iran from Iraq and positioned to cut them off from their supply bases in Iraq.
Alternatively, the Russian force could enter northern Iraq and threaten Baghdad which is approximately 250 miles from that area.
In conjunction with an advance west of the Caspian Sea the Russian military would also probably cover the flank of their forces by entering at least some portions of Georgia and Armenia.
In the event of military intervention in Iran it is far more likely that Russian Federation military forces will advance into Iran by routes west of the Caspian Sea rather than by routes east of the Caspian.
It is possable that the Russians are laying the foundation for such an advance with their current operations in Georgia.
Georgia: Russian Cluster Bombs Kill Civilians
Stop Using Weapon Banned by 107 Nations! [except of course the USA and Israel]
(Tbilisi, August 15, 2008) – Human Rights Watch researchers have uncovered evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas in Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called upon Russia to immediately stop using cluster bombs, weapons so dangerous to civilians that more than 100 nations have agreed to ban their use.
GO TO HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FOR THE STORY
Therefore, U.S. foreign policy frequently appears misguided and even irrational to us because we insist upon viewing it through the distorted lense of nationalistism.
Putin has flexed his muscles in Georgia and will - for the moment at least - refrain from any military action which might provoke a serious response from the U.S. and Europe.
We will happily deliver mass quantities of "humanitarian supplies" from stocks which will then have to be replenished and this replenishment will then fuel U.S. economic interests for an acceptable period of time.
We will then rebuild the Georgian armed forces which have obviously proven to be inadequate and this will further fuel U.S. economic interests.
Russian nationalism and imperialism will eventually have to be confronted but from an economic point of view that time is better delayed - at least until after the military forces of all of the new NATO members have been rebuilt - further fueling economic interests.
Viewed from this perspective the obvious question is - what does the average U.S. citizen get from all of this economic activity??????
More on that later.
Robert
Coalition For Economic Equality
At that time Thomas Gomart, director of Russian Affairs at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) in Paris said, "We have enough trouble in the world without adding tensions with Russia,"
Such thinking totally ignores Russian history. The Soviet Union was not imperialistic just because it was communist.
The Soviet Union was imperialistic because at its core it was Russian and Russia has been imperialistic for at least 400 years.
Like Germany in 1918 the collapse of the Soviet Union was due to internal forces and like that Germany their armies have not been defeated on the battlefield.
Russian imperialism was rolled back from eastern Europe by the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will have to be kept from reasserting that domination by a ring of alliances which must include all the states formerly subject to Russian imperialism.
To omit even one of these states is to invite the resubjugation of all of the others. If NATO will not defend Georgia can it be expected to defend Poland or the Baltic States???
To ignore Russian agression in Georgia is to accept the risk of Russian miscalculation elsewhere and a much more destructive conflict.
The Pentagon threw away almost 30 years of post Vietnam mobilization planning after the 911 attacks. I have seen senior Army generals testify that Don Rumsfeld questioned them, "why do we need an army?"
Apparently none of them thought to reply. "To take and to hold ground." This miscalculation was finally corrected with the so called "surge" in Iraq but there has yet to be a surge in Afghanistan.
How can you say that the army is overstretched when hundreds of thousands of soldiers remain inactive in the National Guard, Army Reserve, the Inactive Ready Reserve, and the Retired Reserve. Since 911 how many hundreds of thousands of others have completed their enlistments and been discharged???
Are these the policies of a nation fighting for its existence??????
Speak softly and carry a big stickwhile we are mired in Iraq.
We can not, stay in Iraq, and be capable of having any credibility as being able to stand up against the national crisises which have, and will pop up.
McCain can rase as much of a ruckus as he wants, but as long as he and his friends at BushCo want to keep us mired in Iraq, McCain's protestations are as impotent as a certain Republican pitchman for a pharmaceutical corporation.
No matter what, we can't credibly threaten to being yet another war, while we have already strained our troops to the breaking point, in the two wars which we are already embroiled in.
Especially when the newest international threat is the Russian invasion on Georgia.
With our capable troops over-extended on two fronts, our national guard troops being over-deployed, there is no way that we can even think of begining another war, let lone one with Russia.
There goes our big stick...
Here are two quotes from the article:
"By acting disproportionately with a full scale attack on Georgia, and seeking the ouster of Georgia's democratically-elected President Mikheil Saakashvili, Moscow is jeopardising its standing in Europe and the broader international community -- and risking very real practical and political consequences."
"..in the past two months I sponsored two legislative measures intended to nudge Russia toward a closer, more constructive relationship with the United States, including action to allow for increased collaboration with Russia on nuclear energy production. Russia has also lobbied to repeal an old trade provision -- the Jackson-Vanik Amendment -- which currently blocks the country's integration into the World Trade Organization. The fighting in Georgia has erased the possibility of advancing those and other legislative efforts to promote US-Russian partnership in the current Congress. It may derail them permanently if Russia does not reverse course."
And here is the Web link to the full article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/707f4ebe-686b-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c.html
Senator Biden is running for re-election to the Senate; to make a contribution to his campaign please visit his Web site at www.JoeBiden.com.
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