Monday Confessional
Wow its been so busy as of late. My new job is taking a lot of my free time. It will get better soon. Seems as if the blog and the site has taken a bit of a vacation. Not to worry, after the initial training period I should have more time to add a lot of new content that I have laying around.
I have been working 12-15 hour days getting this house ready for its new residents. Painting, scraping, more painting, cleaning, more painting, fixing things, cleaning, you get the idea. At the same time I am trying to learn how to be a house leader as part of a residential non-profit, while trying to figure out how to get my new members not to hate me. Did I mention that I also really miss my girl friend? Its been a lot to deal with.
Lucky for me the weeks seem to be going by fast, and the training will be over soon. And today I scored a free lunch, and Tess is coming to visit on Sept 2nd. So its not THAT bad.
All In Perspective
Monday Confessional
First day of work. Well I am off on my new adventure. Met some of the other people I will be working with for the next ten months. They all seem very cool. Tess has gone back to NH and that makes me very sad, but I will be seeing her this weekend so good. And I just got an email from my old friend Alicia and she said that she might be around next week so that would be sweet if I could hang out with her for a day. I have been doing lots of work on the house I will be living in, cleaning, getting everything ready to go. Lots of work but its going to be a great year.
I am glad that the fighting in Lebanon is over. Even if its not a lasting peace any day that people are not blowing each other up is a good one. Lets just hope that these people wake up and realize that while they fight over stupid religious/land/oil issues the world is going to shit. Who cares who owns what land when global warming is going to wipe out the human race. Wake up people, all you are doing is wasting time and resources that we need to clean up our planet.
The Constitution Article I Section 3 Clauses 4-7
Article I Section 3 Clauses 4, 5, 6, 7
[4] The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
[5] The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.
[6] The Senate shall have sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for the Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.
[7] Judgement in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial Judgment and punishment, according to Law.
This is a big one, sets out what role the VP will have in the senate (a tie breaker role), when the VP is not around the President pro tempore (meaning literally “for the time being”) runs the joint. The President pro tempore also is in line to become president if something were to happen to the President and VP. Modern custom dictates that the President pro tempore will be the senior member of the majority party.
The House votes to impeach someone, its the Senates job to convict them (or not to convict them). If the President is the one put on trial the Chief Justice runs the show. This is because the VP has too much to gain and could be tempted to axe the President just so she/he could get the job.
A two thirds majority is required to (67 if all 100 senators are present) remove someone from office. When Clinton was on trial, two votes were held one of 55 not guilty 45 guilty, and one of 50 not guilty and 50 guilty. Nowhere near what is needed to remove him from office. As such successful impeachments tend to be political in nature. If one party is in control of the house and senate it is unlikely that any of there party members will be impeached or removed from office (even if like GW they seem to have broken many laws).
Those convicted by the Senate are removed from office, and can be barred from holding further office. The Congress can’t do anything else to them, but they are still able to be prosecuted criminally or sued, just like any other citizen.
No Liquids
So it seems that no one can bring any liquids on any plane in America or the UK today. All this because we foiled an alleged attack. This of course could be another Miami Seven (a bunch of idiots that had no bombs, no guns, no plans, but one time maybe said something about sort wanting to blow up the sears tower). Or it could be real.
It seems that even when we foil the attack we still lose. Americans still have to deal with all the security, still have to dump out there fancy face wash, expensive bottled waters, and perfume. What is the point of stopping the terrorists to protect our freedom if we gladly give up that freedom the moment we foil a plot against us?
So the war on terror has cost us the liquids. Whats next, solids, gases, and sometimes plasmas? When will this end. It wasn’t even in this country for pete’s sake. Let the British toss out the toothpaste, god knows it doesn’t seem to be doing them any good.
This fiasco simply illustrates the problem with fighting a never ending war on a tactic. Its like fighting a war on sadness. Terror has been used as a tactic for hundreds of years, and will continue to be used as a tactic for hundreds more. Genghis Khan used to kill everyone in a village but one guy, and have him go to the next village and let them all know what he did. When he got to the next village dinner was already on the table, and the villagers were bowed in submission.
The point is we have to fight the motivation to harm Americans. We have to do things that are not sexy. Things that are not simple (if I hear GW talk about how these people hate us for our love of liberty one more time I will puke). We have to understand that its not good and evil, black and white. That these issues involve things like global poverty, our dependence on foreign oil, our oppression of third world countries for cheap shit, and a long history of religious and colonial violence.
The war on terror is a scam. We are losing our freedoms weather we stop the plot or not. The root causes of terror are still present, no amount of bombs and strip searches in the airports will solve that. We need to create a world in which people are not hungry, in which people have hope for the future, can get a good job, and are not oppressed. This might mean that Americans will have to give up cheap oil (or oil altogether), give up cheap crap from the third world, and most importantly realize that guns and bombs can not solve all problems.
I propose we fight a war on global poverty, a war to move towards renewable energy, a war against rabid consumerism, a war against oppression, a war against AIDS, a war against war. Only peace, science and compassion are going to solve the “war on terror.” Guns and bombs have not and will not fix this problem. We need to learn about the people we think of as evil, we need to understand that they are humans too. We need to help them get food, water, shelter, a good job, and a good education. These are the tools we should be using.
If we fight a war on terror, we will be fighting a war that lasts forever. If we really want to make America a nation that is safe from attack, we need to remove the motivation to attack us. We need to make the rest of the world a better place to live.
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