And Thank our Father for it.

It's a fine kettle of rotten, smelly fish here.

------------------------------------------------ dddd, that's 4d, forget eating cat dung.

How to Win World War IV by Norman Podhertz(sp) was unenlightening, sophomoric goobledygook. One aircraft carrier has more ordnance than was dropped in all of World War II. The Us can bomb them into a stone age, and they will hurl those stones back at us. The US govt. will fight battles but not ever win a war.

The Portugese were attacked continuously by Muslims along the trade routes (I forget which century, I will say the 1400's) while vying for the lucrative trade with India. The Portugese were not fond of Muslims either and sought revenge.

I do not think Muslims are going to roll over and die, so seeking peace is going to be better than warring with them. Peace is the only option we have.

from:
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/la-shootdown.html

Background

AOPA fought long campaigns in 1989, 1994 and 1998 to defeat proposed legislation authorizing various government agencies to shoot or force down civilian aircraft suspected of drug trafficking domestically and internationally.

In 1994 Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.)john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov added, over AOPA's opposition, a provision in the Defense Authorization Act of 1995 that grants immunity from prosecution to U.S. officials and contractors who assist foreign governments in tracking and shooting down aircraft suspected of drug operations. Representative (now Senator) Bob Torricelli (D-N.J.) senator_torricelli@torricelli.senate.gov introduced similar shoot down legislation in the House. Congressmen Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) http://www.ff.org/about/mwbio.html and Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) http://www.house.gov/gilman/contact.htm spoke out against this shoot down provision. In a floor statement on September 12, 1994, on the Defense Authorization Act of 1995, Senator Wallop said,

"For many years we have opposed, for both legal and safety reasons, other countries' occasionally announced intentions to shoot at civil aircraft. Once such a practice begins, it could have dangerous and widespread consequences that could affect the safety of innocent people worldwide. As the world leader in civil aviation, the United States would have more to lose than any other country in the development of such a practice...By elevating drug trafficking to the level of a threat to national security - justifying the use of deadly force against civil aircraft - [this provision] fundamentally departs from accepted standards of international law and long-held U.S. policy."

Necessitated by the tragic incident in Peru, Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) http://wwwa.house.gov/collinpeterson/ has introduced legislation (H.R. 1818) to repeal this shoot down authority provision and Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) http://www.house.gov/hoekstra/ has added an amendment to the FY02 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that will withhold funding for the Peru portion of the Andean Counterdrug Initiative unless Congress receives a full report on the Peru shoot down incident of April 20, 2001. As we stated in our June 1994 letter to the U.S. Department of State, "How can anyone feel assured that a Cessna carrying members of Congress on an overseas fact-finding mission could never be mistaken for an identical Cessna full of drug smugglers?"

Critics of the foreign shoot down authority fear U.S. liability if an innocent aircraft is shot down. There are effective alternatives to the use of deadly force, alternatives in which the consequences of mistake are far less likely to result in injury or death.

While AOPA supports efforts to fight drug smuggling, we believe the use of deadly force against aircraft is fundamentally wrong and a violation of international law intended to protect civilian pilots and their passengers.

Most individuals maintaining pro-drug websites provide a disclaimer, which they believe shields them from law enforcement scrutiny. When these disclaimers appear on websites that contain a great amount of information promoting the drug culture and the use of illegal substances, it can be inferred that the disclaimers lack sincerity. In many cases, drug offenders operate websites on subdomains, space which registered domain owners give or lease to others for personal use. Drug offenders also operate on domains that are registered in another country, which means their websites are not subject to U.S. law.

The National Drug Intelligence Center

Established in 1993, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice and a member of the Intelligence Community. The General Counterdrug Intelligence Plan, signed by the President in February 2000, designated NDIC as the nation's principal center for strategic domestic counterdrug intelligence.

Our Mission is:

• To support national policymakers and law enforcement with strategic domestic drug intelligence
• To support Intelligence Community counterdrug efforts
• To produce national, regional, and state drug threat assessments

...a new report suggests the DOJ is actively working on an Internet strategy to target the Web as a source for infiltrating raves, as part of its crackdown on ecstasy, LSD and GHB, commonly called "club drugs."

That has set off alarm bells at the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Much of what the government seems interested in is protected by the First Amendment," said ACLU lawyer Graham Boyd, who is in charge of tracking the government as it begins a crackdown on the electronica dance scene.

The NDIC said five types of people should be targeted, including previous drug offenders, legalization advocates, anarchists and people promoting "an expanded freedom of expression" that pushes the boundaries of the First Amendment.

Most individuals maintaining pro-drug websites provide a disclaimer, which they believe shields them from law enforcement scrutiny. When these disclaimers appear on websites that contain a great amount of information promoting the drug culture and the use of illegal substances, it can be inferred that the disclaimers lack sincerity. In many cases, drug offenders operate websites on subdomains, space which registered domain owners give or lease to others for personal use. Drug offenders also operate on domains that are registered in another country, which means their websites are not subject to U.S. law.

However, individuals and groups that operate websites on their own registered domains often can be identified. To acquire a registered domain, a person must provide some personal information that may include name, business, address, phone number, and credit card number. This information, which is posted publicly on the Internet, can help law enforcement identify or physically locate a person, assuming the information is not fictitious. Registered domains have to be paid for, usually on an annual basis, and payments usually provide a direct link to a person.

"Truth never damages a cause that is just."- Mohandas K. Ghandi

Ghandi worked.

If the law enforcement resources are so limited in Cuba, then why do they persist in squandering those resources on the persecution of intellectual and cultural dissidents?

Besides, McCaffrey has been running around telling the world how safe the streets are in Havana, so it doesn't sound like they're in such bad shape.

Epileptic wins lifetime right to marijuana

http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20020318/366634.html

I know FoM will get this posted soon, probably while I'm typing this, but watching Canada's impending decrim gets me so excited I just had to post it!

-TM