There's two kinds of looting going on in New Orleans. Anyone stealing food and water and supples to stay alive is totally understandable. But there's just a lot of stealing property that is just pure theivery.
I don't know if it was just not in the news but I don't remember hearing reports of this kind of looting after the tsunami last year in other countries. It seems that a lot of people in New Orleans are just criminals taking advantage of an opportunity to steal.
Letter to the Editor
Normally we would have a national guard to come in and deal with natural disasters like the hurricane in New Orleans. Thousands of people are likely to die for lack of resources to evacuate people and bring in emergency aid. But we don't have a national guard in our own country anymore because they are all over in Iraq. Poor judgment has put America at risk.
Letter to the Editor
A few months ago I was driving behind a very large SUV that had a bumper sticker that said, "I'm changing your environment." From what I see with all the hurricanes I know exactly what that person is talking about.
Better fill up now because in a few days gas is going to be a lot higher than it is now - if you can get it.
New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen and this hurricane is probably going to demonstrate why that is. New Orleans is 15 feet below sea level, on the coast surrounded by water on 3 sides. With the right storm surge conditions it could instantly fill with water in a way that the dikes that normally protect it could actually hold the water in.
I'm definitely glad I'm not living there as I sit on the adge of the San Andreas fault watching it on TV.
If you are still in New Orleans and reading this - GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN !!!!
Letter to the Editor
Whether or not you agree with the Iraq conflict Cindy Sheehan is asking an important question that should be answered. She is asking what the noble cause is that her son died for.
If Americans are being asked to give the lives of their sons and daughters, their wives and husbands, and their parents then America should at least be able to articulate why it is that we are there and what we hope to accomplish. The reason we went in has proved to be false. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has recently failed to agree on a constitution and the unsupported proposed constitution to be voted on establishes and Islamic state. So - is establishing an Islamic state the noble cause that we are fighting and dying for? I sure hope not!
The real issues that Cindy Sheehan is trying to point out is that we don't know why we are there and we don't know what we are doing. The problem is that there is no plan. Even the most hawkish of the war supporters need to at least know that Bush has a plan.
Letter to the Editor
After listening to Pat Robertson openly advocating assassination I'm not sure who scares me more, him, or the one million Christian followers he has that think the way he does. This is why we Realists find Christians scary. We are watching to see if the Christian community comes out against this or continues to remain silent. The way I read the Bible, advocating to murder is wrong. Is this some sort of Christian fatwa?
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This is why Christians are so scary to us Atheists. The want to be as radical as Muslims and they have this total disconnect with reality to where the million followers don't get it why murder is wrong, even when it's right in their own Bible.
Letter to the Editor
TV evangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and the 700 Club, is calling for Bush to assassinate democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stating, "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."
I find it disturbing that a pro-life Christian leader who supposedly believes in "Thou shalt not kill" would be so comfortable advocating murder for oil. This is a man who supposedly has the spirit of Jesus Christ in his heart and a role model for Christian morality and politics. Is this the way a spirit filled Christian acts? If so, I will have no part of it. People like Pat Robertson make me thank God I'm an Atheist.
Here's an exchange between President Clinton and Peter Jennings From November of 2004 at the opening of the Clinton presidential library. A little something I found amusing.
JENNINGS (Discussing rankings by presidential historians]: They gave you a forty-first in terms of moral authority - after Nixon.
CLINTON: They're wrong about that. You know why they're wrong about it? They're wrong about it.
JENNINGS: Why, sir?
CLINTON: Because we had $100 million spent against us in all these inspections. ... In spite of it all, you don't have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job, where I have let the American people down. And I had more support from the world when I quit than when I started. And I will go to my grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care about what they think.
JENNINGS: Oh, yes you do.
CLINTON: They have no idea ...
JENNINGS: Excuse me, Mr. President. I can feel it across the room. You care very deeply.
CLINTON: No, no. I care. I care. You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here. Not after what your people did. And the way you - your network - what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every little sleazy thing he did. No one has any idea of what that's like.
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Peter Jennings was one of the media whores who stomped on Clinton and helped Bush sell us this war. So - screw you Peter, glad you're gone!
Letter to the Editor
There are a lot of headlines like "Bot Attacks U.S. Media Giants" as if the computer worm were targeted at them. But my question is - where were their system administrators? The news agencies reported the vulnerability a week ago. Then they reported that a worm was in development. Then they reported that Microsoft developed a patch to fix the problem. Now they are complaining about being hit.
My question is - why didn't the tech staff at the news agencies download and apply the security patches that Microsoft provided before the worm hit?
Although it's a nuisance, these attacks are a part of online life these days and are generally preventable by keeping current on all the latest patches and having a properly configured firewall to keep intruders from getting in. If their tech staff were listening to their news reports these news agencies wouldn't have been hit.
If I were CNN, ABC, and The New York Times I would be asking their own tech staff why they didn't install the security patches rather than imagining that they were targeted. And - if you're running Windows, always install the latest patches.
Letter to the Editor
Sixty years ago was one of the darkest days in the history of the human race. It was then that America exploded an atomic weapon over Hiroshima and a few days later Nagasaki killing 300,000 civilians. At the time some scientists worried that exploding an atomic weapon might ignite the atmosphere turning this planet into a sun and destroying all life on Earth. Fortunately they were wrong, but taking that risk was humanities most chilling experiment.
In 1945 then President Truman could have demonstrated the power of the bomb by targeting an uninhabited area, something that he considered and rejected. He decided instead to target highly populated cities to demonstrate the full killing power of this weapon against men, women, and children.
We now have weapons that are hundreds of times as powerful as those two bombs and over 20 nations now have the bomb. To posses such a weapon is a curse because we now have the ultimate responsibility to never never never use these weapons under any conditions whatsoever. I want to say to the world that as an American I am deeply ashamed of what this country did and the terrible legacy we left behind. The sins of our past shall live on as long as anyone possesses nuclear weapons. To have an atomic weapon is a sin against the human race.
Open Letter to the Muslim Community,
We, the People of the United States ask that you not vent your anger on us citizens for the acts George Bush. Our ballots are rigged and our elections are fixed. We no longer have a free press. We used to be a democracy but like you, we are occupied by a power that is hostile to freedom and liberty. When you attack the American people you only strengthen the hand of our common oppressor. I live in the San Francisco area where Muslims, Palestinians, and Jews march hand in hand for peace and social justice.
We too are angry about the state of the world, but we need to ask ourselves what we want for the future. Do we want live in violence or peace? What do we have to do to make sure that the future that we leave to the next generation is better that what we inherited?
Letter to the Editor
Rafael Palmeiro is now suspended from Baseball because he tested positive for steroids use after swearing that he never, never. never takes steroids. Even after steroids were found in his body he still denies taking steroids. President Bush says Palmeiro is "a friend" and said, "He's testified in public, and I believe him." What a surprise. No wonder we're stuck in Iraq!
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Of course Bush doesn't believe drug tests - that's science and science is against faith.
Letter to the Editor
Bush said that schools should teach the so called Intelligent Design theory in schools. Intelligent Design merely states that life is complex and had to be designed by "someone", and stops there. But when you ask who the designer is, they don't want to talk about that, because all of a sudden ID becomes a thinly veiled front for Creationism. If life requires a designer, then who is the designer and who made the designer? If you think through what ID is saying, you could conclude that God doesn't exist because something as complex as God couldn't "just happen".
The difference between science and fictional beliefs is that science isn't afraid of scrutiny. Those who promote ID run when you ask the question, "Who is the designer?" Science isn't afraid to think things through and ask the tough questions. Trying to rename Creationism as Intelligent Design is dishonest, and Christians aren't going to win over any souls by being caught taking liberties with the truth. They should think about their own commandments about bearing false witness.
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Read more on the Church of Reality Evolution Page.