How do I avoid looking and acting American while traveling in Europe?

"devil" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 17:46:28 -0700, Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the

Second, your argument is all based on urban legend. None of these
"terrorists" came from Canada.

True.

What is, however, a real problem, is American terrorists trying to
smuggle guns into Canada.

Interesting, devil. I hadn't heard this before. Do you have any source
material?


Orm

"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
...
It being a dull day, I decide to respond to what Gunner
fosted Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:23:26 GMT on
misc.survivalism , viz:

But more importantly, you continue missing the point. Crime rate is
lower
in Canada and it remains lower. The rest is episodes.

You keep denying the point..Canadian crime rate was always lower than
in the States. Now its rising, while that of the States is falling.

You are really in denial, arnt you?

Starting to sound to me that De Nile is a river in Canada.

Selah.

Sigh...I pity you.

It doesn't matter whether the crime rates are going up or going down in
either jurisdiction, until the lines on the graph actually pass each other,
and the Canadian crime rates exceed those of the USA.

J/

SOTW: "Human" - Goldfrapp

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 01:56:35 -0700, Ormond Laplunk wrote:


"devil" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 17:46:28 -0700, Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the

Second, your argument is all based on urban legend. None of these
"terrorists" came from Canada.

True.

What is, however, a real problem, is American terrorists trying to
smuggle guns into Canada.

Interesting, devil. I hadn't heard this before. Do you have any source
material?

Well, I am just referring to what is the main source of guns in Canada:
smuggling across the border. Now tell me, isn't that terrorism?

"devil" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 01:56:35 -0700, Ormond Laplunk wrote:


"devil" wrote in message
news
Well, I am just referring to what is the main source of guns in Canada:
smuggling across the border. Now tell me, isn't that terrorism?

I don't think so. It might be illigal, like drugs and other commodities,
but hardly terrorism.
It would only be "terrorism" if the guns were to be used against the
Canadian people.

Orm

Miguel Cruz wrote in message ...
Bill Bonde wrote:
People in Canada want guns and the government there is trying to prevent
them from having them so people smuggle them in. It's the law of supply
and demand. It happens with tobacco too.

And heroin and child prostitutes.

What the hell is going on in Canada?

"Jeff McCann" wrote in message ...
"Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St. Helena goat's pelt to the
deck'' )" wrote in message
...


jenn wrote:




agree -- this is a president who smirks at us 'I told them to obey
the
law' when asked about torture -- and refuses to answer clearly --
because of course, he has seen that his justice department defines
the
law as 'anything the President as Commander in Chief wants to do.'

I'd like a cite for this claim. And I'd also like a cite which shows
what laws the administration is supposedly breaking.

This is just "tip of the iceberg" type stuff, but its a start . . .

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
Newsweek
Updated: 9:14 a.m. ET May 19, 2004May 17 - The White House's top lawyer
warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted
for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the
Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal
White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the
issue.

I was wondering if you knew what the title of this "memo" was. I do.
You should too. Can you look it up?

The concern about possible future prosecution for war crimes-and that it
might even apply to Bush adminstration officials themselves- is
contained in a crucial portion of an internal January 25, 2002, memo
by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges
President George Bush declare the war in Afghanistan, including the
detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, exempt from the provisions
of the Geneva Convention.

In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law
passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any
Americans from committing war crimes-defined in part as "grave breaches"
of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S.
officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death
penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with
confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in
the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language
in the Geneva Conventions-such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal
dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners-was "undefined."

One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did
not have Geneva Convention protections is that it "substantially reduces
the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act,"
Gonzales wrote.

"It is difficult to predict the motives of prosecutors and independent
counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges
based on Section 2441 [the War Crimes Act]," Gonzales wrote.

THE WAR CRIME MEMOS
. Click here to read the Gonzales Memo

. Click here to read Colin Powell's response

The best way to guard against such "unwarranted charges," the White
House lawyer concluded, would be for President Bush to stick to his
decision-then being strongly challenged by Secretary of State Powell- to
exempt the treatment of captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from
Geneva convention provisions.

"Your determination would create a reasonable basis in law that (the War
Crimes Act) does not apply which would provide a solid defense to any
future prosecution," Gonzales wrote.

The memo-and strong dissents by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his
chief legal advisor, William Howard Taft IV-are among hundreds of pages
of internal administration documents on the Geneva Convention and
related issues that have been obtained by NEWSWEEK and are reported for
the first time in this week's magazine. Newsweek made some of them
available online today.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/site/newsweek/

Published on Friday, August 1, 2003 by the Seattle Times
Bush's High Crimes Against the Nation
by Walter Williams

George W. Bush has knowingly deceived the American people on the two
overriding policy issues of his presidency - the invasion of Iraq and
the deep tax cuts.

Other presidents have lied. Only Bush has repeatedly duped Congress and
the public to thwart their exercise of informed consent.

He is the first president to use propaganda as the main weapon in
selling his policies. Bush's unprecedented pattern of deception may
constitute an impeachable offense.

To date, only the deception in Iraq has brought forth the "I" word. The
case for impeachment is materially strengthened, however, when Iraq is
combined with Bush's 2001 and 2003 propaganda campaigns to convince the
public that tax filers with lower levels of income benefited more from
his tax cuts than the nation's richest families.

Hoodwinking the public that Saddam posed a perilous immediate danger to
the United States is Bush's greatest treachery. New York Times columnist
Paul Krugman observed: "If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the
war is arguably the worst scandal in American history."

John Dean, counsel to the president during Watergate, wrote in mid-June:
"Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence
data, if proven, could be a 'high crime' under the Constitution's
impeachment clause."

Before the U.S. invasion, the strong consensus based on intelligence
community information held that there were only negligible Iraqi ties
with al-Qaida, no nuclear weapons program of any consequence, and
limited chemical and biological weapons programs at most.

Lacking hard facts, as evidenced by his now much-discussed deception in
his State of the Union address that Iraq sought to buy uranium in
Africa, Bush mixed misinformation, distorted allegations and
unsubstantiated rumors to persuade the public of the imminent danger
posed by Saddam Hussein.

The experience with the massive tax cuts for families and individuals in
both 2001 and 2003 makes patently clear how Bush used the same
unscrupulous tactics over time. Moreover, the level of the deception is
staggering, as indicated by Bush's 2003 proposal to eliminate taxes on
taxable corporate dividends.

Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities pointed out: "The group with incomes over $1 million - which
consists of about 226,000 tax filers in 2003 - would receive roughly as
much in benefits as the 127 million tax filers with income below
$140,000. Stated another way, the top 0.2 percent of tax filers would
receive nearly as much from the tax cut as the bottom 95 percent of
filers combined."

Claiming that the 127 million tax filers with incomes of under $140,000
are the big winners when 226,000 of the richest tax filers benefit
nearly as much is surely world-class policy deception.

But is it a high crime that warrants impeachment, as was the case with
Watergate?

Republican operatives breaking into the Democratic Party's national
committee headquarters and President Nixon's covering it up clearly
constituted crimes. Bush's propaganda campaign to hide how much the tax
cuts benefited the rich is more likely to be viewed by the public as the
stuff of politics in which politicians make inflated claims about the
importance of a proposed policy and its likely benefits and ignore
potential problems.

In actuality, the president's purposeful duping of the public on the
nation's most critical policy issues strikes at the heart of American
constitutional democracy when it robs the electorate of informed
consent. This fraudulent act makes a mockery of Abraham Lincoln's
immortal words in the Gettysburg Address, "that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

Deeming presidential deception a high crime under the impeachment clause
can open a Pandora's box of problems. Yet, President Bush's actions
appear to be a far more serious assault on the Constitution than
Watergate. I hold that interpreting Bush's pattern of deception on his
most important policy proposals as a high crime against the nation is a
necessary step in rescuing American democracy.

Walter Williams is a professor emeritus at the Evans School of Public
Affairs, University of Washington, and author of the forthcoming book,
"Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy."

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0801-07.htm

*****

Articles of Impeachment
of
President George W. Bush
and
Vice President Richard B. Cheney,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and
Attorney General John David Ashcroft

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United
States, shall be removed from
Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other
high Crimes and
Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of
Defense Donald H.
Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed
violations and
subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an
attempt to carry out with
impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and
deprivations of the civil rights
of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers
of an imperial
executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the
Judiciary and those
reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S.
Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law;
carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that
was not threatening the United States, resulting
in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of
U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N.,
providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians,
civilian facilities and
locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently
changing its
government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

4) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary
executions, kidnappings, secret
and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and
psychological coercion of
prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of
governments and
individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing
U.S. forces and agents
elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth,
Sixth and Eighth Amendments
to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

5) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about
the conduct of foreign
governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel;
manipulating the media
and foreign governments with false information; concealing information
vital to public
discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and
possession, or efforts to obtain
weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear
and destroy opposition to
U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

6) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and
international law, both a
part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of
the Constitution, in an
attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and
war crimes in wars and
threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping
powers of the United
Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other
corrupt acts and by rejecting
treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with
treaties in order to destroy
any means by which international law and institutions can prevent,
affect, or adjudicate the
exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international
community.

7) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and
human rights, ordering
indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without
charge, and without
opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the
detention, based solely on the
discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy
combatant."

8) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States
and elsewhere, and without
charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the
Secretary of Defense.

9) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial
orders of release of
detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after
full hearing determines a
detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

10) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of
persons who are not citizens
who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as
indicting official,
prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

11) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and
locations of persons who have
been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the
United States, including in
response to Congressional inquiry.

12) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and
elsewhere and denial of the right
to public trials.

13) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client
privileged communications by the
government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an
incarcerated person has not
been charged with a crime.

14) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the
United States, prior to
hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity
that at the discretionary
designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

15) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and
authorization of domestic spying by
federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in
noncriminal religious and
political activity.

16) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate
for the constitutional
right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

17) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and
abrogation of the obligations of
the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and
obligations without
consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM
treaty between the
United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature
from the Treaty of Rome
which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.
http://www.votetoimpeach.org/articles_rc.htm


it is hard to imagine that the string of assaults on the Republic by
this administration could occur -- but that have and almost without
comment by the press or the opposition

Or maybe you two just made it all up.

I'd say millions of thoughtful, well informed, non-paranoid Americans
are beginning to ask questions, and not like the answers they are coming
up with. History will be the final judge, to the extent that the facts
ever see the light of day, given the Bush Regime's paranoid secrecy
fixation.

the only way Kerry can win is by a landslide -- if it is close
Diebold,
Bush, Jeb Bush and those who stole the last election will fix it
again.

Of course, it it isn't the high tech voting machines cheating for
Bush,
it will be the low tech chad based ones. The level of paranoia
exhibited
by Liberals is amazing.

Sometimes the proper question isn't "are you being paranoid?" Its "are
you being paranoid enough?"

Jeff

"Tom Bellhouse" wrote in message ...
"Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St. Helena
goat's pelt to the deck'' )"
wrote in message
...


Tom Bellhouse wrote:

"Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St.
Helena
goat's pelt to the deck'' )"
wrote in message
...

(SNIP)
You might learn something if you paid
attention
to Conservatives. "Ultra
right wing" sounds like something out of
Europe
in the 30s.


How about "NeoCon?" Better?

What does 'NeoCon' mean?

Once upon a time there was a balance in the
Republican party, with a liberal and a
conservative side.

Was this before the Republicans took the White House and the House of
Representatives and the Senate?

The conservatives believed in
balanced budgets. They tended to be isolationist,
and probably would not take military action
against another country unless it posed an
innediate threat to the US. They were protective,
to the point of paranoia, of individual rights and
liberties under the Constitution. They demanded
absolute separation of church and state. I agree
we could learn a lot from them.

The ship of fools we now have in D.C. evidently
loves deficits, and refuses to learn the hard
lessons offered by earlier trickle-down schemes.
They led us into an unnecessary, preemptive war
that still slogs on. They believe that the U.S.
must be not just a world leader, but THE world
leader -- a divine mission. They stoke the public
paranoia to justify attacks on civil rights and
liberties. They want prayer in schools (a bone
tossed to the Bible Belt) and the Ten Commandments
posted in the courthouse. They pay lip service to
noble ideals, pass beautifully-entitled laws, and
then work tirelessly behind the scenes to disable
and underfund them. They are not conservatives.
They are NeoCons.

Tom
Alto, Georgia, USA

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 13:04:59 -0700, Ormond Laplunk wrote:


"devil" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 01:56:35 -0700, Ormond Laplunk wrote:


"devil" wrote in message
news
Well, I am just referring to what is the main source of guns in Canada:
smuggling across the border. Now tell me, isn't that terrorism?

I don't think so. It might be illigal, like drugs and other commodities,
but hardly terrorism.
It would only be "terrorism" if the guns were to be used against the
Canadian people.


Silly me, I thought nowadays "terrorist" translated into more or less
"anyone I don't like." Oh well.

Or maybe it has necessarily to be that someone's "terorist" must
translated into someone else's "freedom fighter?" (As in "contras" I
suppose?)

Miguel Cruz wrote:

Bill Bonde wrote:
I'm not changing the subject.

Actually you (or your newsreader) changes the Subject: header every time you
post by inserting a bunch of extra spaces.

Who cares?



We can start with the terrorist who was going to blow up LAX on the
millennium change over.

You pretty much have to stop there too.

Really? Why?


--
"I always vote for the most stupid." -+Georges Clemenceau

westprog wrote:

"pyotr filipivich" wrote in message
...
It being a dull day, I decide to respond to what Gunner
fosted Tue, 22 Jun 2004 17:23:26 GMT on
misc.survivalism , viz:

But more importantly, you continue missing the point. Crime rate is
lower
in Canada and it remains lower. The rest is episodes.

You keep denying the point..Canadian crime rate was always lower than
in the States. Now its rising, while that of the States is falling.

You are really in denial, arnt you?

Starting to sound to me that De Nile is a river in Canada.

Selah.

Sigh...I pity you.

It doesn't matter whether the crime rates are going up or going down in
either jurisdiction, until the lines on the graph actually pass each other,
and the Canadian crime rates exceed those of the USA.

When average folks don't have guns to defend themselves, property crimes
tend to go up. Breaking into an occupied home in most of the US is like
asking to die.



--
"I always vote for the most stupid." -+Georges Clemenceau