The world is facing a huge problem in the coming months. Iran wants to pursue a nuclear program claiming it is to power their country. Considering how oil rich Iran is, the world stage sees through that claim and knows they want to pursue the technology for weaponry purposes. Ok, so what’s new? North Korea seems to pull this stunt every six months. Granted, Iran and North Korea are very similar. They both want to be players in the world market, show that they can do things true superpowers can, but they also want to hold the cards. You could call Iran and North Korea attention whores–but in a horribly terrifying way.The problem with the recent surge of nuclear demands on Iran’s part is that it has been simultaneous with anti-Israeli rhetoric. The new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said that he is skeptical that the holocaust happened, and that Israel should be “wiped off the map” and moved to someplace where people are more sympathetic to the Jewish cause, ie Europe or Canada. So needless to say an antisemitic Iran equipped with a nuclear bomb in firing range of Israel would be a huge problem–especially because Israel, also nuclear capable is of the sort to bomb first and ask questions later.
The chances of nuclear war escalating out of this situation are slim, but the there is another consequence to the current Iran situation–oil. Apparently 50% of the worlds oil passes through Iranian controlled ports, which means, if they wanted to, they could throw a huge wrench into the world oil market. Even though the USA doesn’t receive a single drop of Iranian oil, thanks to various trade embargoes, our price of oil will skyrocket if Iran were to slow down supply. Remember Hurricane Katrina, and the mass panic and fear that oil was going to be interrupted sending gas prices as high as $5 and $6 a gallon in some places? Yeah, we’d be looking at that again, or even worse. So you may be thinking that China and Russia wouldn’t stand for a huge cut in oil production and would step into intervene–or maybe Saudi Arabia would so as not to loose money on oil sales. Fact of the matter is no one seems to know what would happen. Russia buys oil from Iran under the table so maybe nothing would change. Fact of the matter is there are three things that need to happen in the next few months.
First, America has to address our dependency on foreign oil. This means calling the five big oil executives back to congress to testify, this time under oath. They are making money hand over foot thanks to high gas prices and congress should force them to start cutting into their prices to alleviate the price at the pump, and force them to start reinvesting some profits into alternative fuel production–we’ve got enough corn fields to produce ethanol until the cows come home, or what about hydrogen? If we force big oil to pay for the research we’ll have these technologies perfected and running safely in a few years.
Next, we need to open up oil drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Yeah, it’s a wildlife refuge in Alaska that is the ancestral home of two Indian populations. One of the two wants to allow drilling. So that makes one Indian tribe and a boat load of Democrats who constantly kill this bill in the Senate. ANWR drilling would produce one million barrels of oil a day. Granted, it isn’t much but that is one million fewer barrels we have to rely on from the seemingly endless supply of hostel oil rich countries.
The final thing we need to do is enact a regime change in Iran. Though, this time it can’t be done militarily. Iran is simply too large of a country to pull off a successful ground campaign. It would require taking all of the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and calling up a boat load of others to pull it off successfully. This is not an option. We know it, Iran knows it, it just wont work. Even if it could, President Bush would never get congress to approve it. So you turn to the UN to place sanctions on Iran. Ok, even if Iran hadn’t recently moved all it’s money to untouchable Swiss accounts, we all know that UN sanctions are next to useless. Alright, so then how do we put pressure on Iran and remove Ahmadinejad from power? The answer lies in the successful fall of Communism fifteen years ago.
Communism fell throughout the world in just a few months because of educated students living in the Communist countries who wanted freedom from oppression. Supposedly there is a huge percentage of the Iranian population that desire the same freedoms though have yet to come forward and act upon it. In fact, we as a country have been waiting for the Iranian situation to solve itself in this way since the Clinton administration. Well, it is now more apparent then ever that the time for a social uprising and potential coup is now. With the inspiration from a few special forces units and CIA agents, the right people in Iran can be convinced that it’s time to act. The way to a safer Iran is through it’s own people. We learned this with the fall of Communism and frankly we are relearning it in Iraq. We just need to light a fire under the Iranian people and get them started.
The year is drawing to a close and while this means many things, it also means lists of all different sorts. From the Top Ten Failed Tech Trends of 2005 to the Top Ten Grossing Films of 2005 to the Top Ten Junk Emails of 2005 to the Top Ten Sexy Geeks of 2005 which I unfortunately was left out of. While these lists try to nicely encapsulate 2005 into little categories, I think it takes a broader look at the years huge–and I do mean huge, as in colossal, giant, just plain ole big–news stories to see just how crazy 2005 was. So here we go, a look back at 2005 from the eyes of Mindless Chatter.
While the histories books have yet to be written, no one is going to be able to think of 2005 without thinking of Hurricane Katrina. In terms of shear devastation, there hasn’t been a storm to hit America that is quite like Katrina. One of the fiercest storms in recorded history, Katrina killed thousands of people and left New Orleans under water for over a month. Rebuilding is going to take years and the population of the region will never be the same. Katrina also brought racial and economical issues back into the forefront of American politics and because of this the total effect of Hurricane Katrina will not be felt for years to come.
Terrorism was in the news again this year with the horrific train bombings in London. Coordinated attacks went off on three London subway trains and a bus within thirty minutes of each other. London, however, turned the tide and released video footage of the bombers which lead on a swift investigation leading with arrests of other terrorists living and potentially operating in London.
The Supreme Court saw huge changes this year with the resignation of Sandra Day O’Connor and the death of William Rehnquist. John Roberts, first named to replace O’Connor, was then nominated, confirmed, and sworn in as the 17th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Alito has been nominated for O’Connor’s seat and confirmation hears have been set for early 2006.
Perhaps the biggest story of the last thirty years or so from a religious standpoint was the passing of Pope John Paul II and the Conclave that followed. After four elections, Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected the new Pope of the Catholic Church.
For a good portion of the year Nattalee Holloway dominated the news. First it was the story of her disappearance, then of the suspects, and eventually the ineptitude of the Aruban government. While all this coverage is just a little ridiculous, the tragedy of it all is that this girl was probably raped, killed, and dumped in the ocean and a few teenagers are going to essentially get away with the perfect crime.
In the legal world there was the Scott Peterson trial, the crazy ass “Runaway Bride” and of course, the lovable petifile Michael Jackson. Thats right folks, Jacko was acquitted of molesting that boy. There isn’t really much more to say about that case.
While I’m pretty much over writing this article as it became quite boring and I’m sure it’s quite boring to read, I’m going to wrap it up by saying that Iraq held three elections this year. Three. Incredible. Here is to 2006 and what the news will bring us in the coming 365 days. Perhaps I should start campaigning for next years Sexiest Geeks list.
Done.
Here we go. The fight of the decade is about to get started, and no it has nothing to do with Iraq. Today, Sandra Day O’Connor–the first female appointed to the Supreme Court–announced her retirement after 24 years of service. Shortly there after, the gloves came off.
For a while now both sides of the political isle have been preparing and making threats about what will happen once a vacancy was made in the high court. Now that the time has come, the rhetoric has gotten worse. Seemingly minutes after Justice O’Connor announced her retirement Senate Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, came out with a statement demanding a moderate nominee. The White House announced no name would be released for at least a week though, a short list is no doubt already in place.
Whoever receives the nomination, however, is no doubt about to face the fight of their lives. Senate approval is required and if you thought the filibuster and so called ‘nuclear option’ talk of a few months ago was bad, just wait–it’s all about to come back. Dems will threaten to filibuster to hold the vote, Republicans will threaten the nuclear option to push the vote. Hopefully this will all be settled before the court begins its next session in October–though it probably won’t.
Whoever comes to replace O’Connor will hopefully bring some common sense back to the court. Lately the rulings handed down from the Supreme Court have been questionable at best. Two opinions referring to displaying the Ten Commandments were rendering practically contradicting each other. In one opinion the Commandments were allowed to be shown in front of a Texas statehouse, in the other it was not allowed to be shown in a Kansas courtroom. Another opinion, which is perhaps the most ludicrous in the past few years, sates that local governments can take private property and give it to another private owner so long as the new owner can build something on the property that generates more tax revenue–i.e. take your house and build a strip mall. Is this fair? No. Does it make sense? No. Has the court lost its mind? It is highly likely.
Part of this has to do with the fact that Supreme Court Justices serve for life. Perhaps term limits are a good idea to bring new blood and fresh ideas to the court. But that will be a debate for another day. For now, Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat is on the table and that is really all that matters.
This post was written by guest author, Shannon.
Disclaimer: I did not write or compile this information. I merely received it in an email and therefore, I cannot vouch for its accuracy. However, from what I can tell, it seems to be a very unbiased compilation of information regarding Florida’s proposed amendments.
AMENDMENT 1
Official Title: Parental Notification of a Minor’s Termination of Pregnancy
Official Ballot Language: Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to authorize the Legislature to require by general law for notification to a parent or guardian of a minor before the termination of the minor’s pregnancy. The amendment provides that the Legislature shall not limit or deny the privacy rights guaranteed to minors under the United States Supreme Court. The Legislature shall provide exceptions to such requirement for notification and shall create a process for judicial waiver of the requirement for notification.
Amendment Type: Legislative
Sponsor: Florida Legislature
Proponents: Florida Right to Life Committee
Proponents’ point of view: Proponents argue that it is critical for parents to be involved in helping their daughters make important decisions when pregnant and that parents should know when their daughters undergo surgery. Based on evidence from other states, proponents believe teenage abortion rates will go down if this is passed.
Opponents: Planned Parenthood and ACLU
Opponents’ point of view: The proposed amendment will limit the fundamental right to privacy. They believe notification laws postpone medical care and increase risk to patients. In addition, the opponents believe the ballot language is misleading to voters.
Your Vote: If you support this issue being added to the Florida Constitution as an amendment, vote yes. If you would like to keep this out of Florida’s Constitution, vote no.
This post was written by guest author, Andy Gately.
I admit that the intro to my article made fun of Bush’s inarticulation, but my article focused on his policies. But you gotta admit, its pretty embarrasing having a president who builds up our nuclear program, but can’t pronounce “nuclear.”
To begin with, all that crap on the Bush website about saving the environment is just talk, sure he “supports those proposals,” that doesn’t mean he’s gonna make it happen. That’s a token gesture if there ever was one, and only lip service to placate the environmentalists, most of which see right through it. Why is Bush drilling all over the god damn place if he’s such a fan of renewable energy and conservation? He talks a lot of game, but his actions reveal his real allegiances — to the companies that financed his campaign: big oil and multinational corporations.
Your response to my referring to the average American as politically stupid and easily misled completely missed the point. Clearly, Americans have proven that they can be manipulated by their leaders since the public has just backed a completely unjustified war. How can you in good conscience vote to send more people our age to die in a country that (a) has never attacked us, (b) has never threatened to attack us, (c) is one of at least a half dozen hot spots around the world in which there are human rights abuses, and yet we are ignoring those because they are of no strategic interest, and (d) had no physical evidence of WMD’s, before OR after our invasion. The whole pre-emptive strike is the most ludicrous concept ever. If our inspectors had found evidence of nuclear weapons, MAYBE we could then send in troops, but when they didn’t find shit, we’re like “Too bad, we’re still gonna come kick your ass. Fuck the rest of the world’s protests.” That’s the basic message we sent — if you disagree with us, tough shit, cause we can bomb whoever we want, with our without global consensus. The president even sabotaged the whole inspection thing — he sent in a few CIA agents DISGUISED as weapons inspectors to spy on the Iraqis. Way to make a sham of the whole peace process, chief.
The old line about how Saddam is evil and had to removed is a bullshit argument. Of course Saddam’s evil, but it is documented and commonly known that we tolerated his massacres of the Kurds as long as he continued to facilitate our access to oil in the region. It was ONLY once he decided to invade Kuwait that we said “enough already.” But it wasn’t to protect the Kuwaiti people, oh no, we just used that as the perfect excuse to get into Kuwait and set up air bases there to further extend our imperial stretch into the Middle East and our leverage over oil prices. Bush senior clearly didn’t give a shit about the people there, because he promised the Iraqi people military support if they rose up and fought Saddam, then once Saddam retreated out of Kuwait, he REFUSED to go after him and left Saddam to murder all the Iraqi people we encouraged to resist. That’s the kind of people we’ve got leading us. Liars who seize any opportunity to further ensure “American” interests.
Here’s another fun fact. Did you know that immediately after Saddam heard that the US was pissed off about his invading Kuwait, he offered to settle the dispute with the US through peaceful negotiations, and made MULTIPLE peace offerings, even offering to retreat back into Iraq? And what did Bush Sr. do? He rejected them all flat out, saying “we won’t negotiate.” Why would he do this? Because he used the invasion, like I said, as an excuse to get his greedy little hands further into the Middle East. Then, to top it off he lied to the American people and said “I went to war as a last resort, only after all chances at diplomatic resolution repeatedly failed.” Sounds familiar. What a fucking liar. And the average American bought it completely, despite the fact that, if they bother to get their info from something other than the Bush-worshipping Fox network, they could learn the truth for themselves, from plenty of published sources. Hence, THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS STUPID. Or, they just don’t care unless it directly affects them. Probably a combination.
9/11 was Bush Jr’s excuse to go back to the Middle East under the bullshit allegations that Saddam was somehow connected to Bin Laden. Are you beginning to see a family pattern here? This intelligence claim came from ONE IRAQI INFORMANT, as the 9/11 commission discovered. That is clearly not enough evidence to send a country to war. And yet we did. And I cannot understand how you think it was a good idea for Bush to ignore the U.N.’s protests. What the fuck good is a global peace organization when we can just circumvent it anytime we damn well please? Explain that to me, please. We act like we’re the God of this planet.
Here’s another idea — hypothetically, even if Iraq did have nukes, who the fuck are we to say they can’t? They didn’t threaten us, we shouldn’t get in their affairs. What, we can have nukes but no one else can? Why? And if we are deciding to play global police, then we should LISTEN TO THE REST OF THE WORLD when they disagree. But our administration is too self-righteous to back down or admit they’re wrong. I’m not saying previous presidents were much better, I’m saying the whole system is corrupt. Consider that India and Pakistan have nukes, and we’re not trying to take those away. They’re unstable too. Why all the double-standards? If you can offer some insight, Shannon, by all means, enlighten me.
You ended stating “And finally, you said that ‘there are intelligent responses to provocative material, and then there is Shannon’s response.’ If you are going to say that, at least get it right. There was only one response besides mine, so there was ‘an intelligent response’ not ‘responses.’ ”
Wow. I didn’t say there are intelligent responses to “my article,” I said “there are intelligent response to provocative material,” meaning not just mine, ALL material out there. I would think that was obvious. Read carefully first so your quips at least make sense.
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