Another interesting comment in today's Olympian:

"Ross Perot free thinker non politician who lost the presidential election warned the people about the wrongness of NAFTA. Remmember him saying if NAFTA passed you would hear a giant sucking sound of jobs going overseas! I do. I voted for this intelligent man!!!!!! Where are we now? In a society going down the crapper in many ways. It's not about democrat, republican, or libertarian. Our government has to stop the in- fighting and cooperate for the good of America. By the way, dip shit Gore gave the deciding vote to pass NAFTA!!!!!!!
z | 08.12.07 - 5:47 pm"

Now I have no argument with Ross Perot's candidacy, although I didn't vote for him.

I have to chuckle a bit that this commenter says "it's not about democrat, republican, or libertarian" and then goes on to call Democrat Al Gore a "dip shit".  The deciding vote is cast by whoever is in that place when the count is tallied.

Methinks his partisanship is showing.

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Led by Democrats since the start of this year, the US Congress now has a “confidence” rating of 14 per cent, the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 1973 and five points lower than the Republicans scored last year.

The voters put the Democrats in to end the war and it’s escalating. The Democrats voted money for the surge. They voted for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement is to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wire tapping for “foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.” Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush.

The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she’d really wanted to. But she didn’t. The Democrats’ game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base about to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.

The row over the U.S. attorneys and the conduct of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has always been something of a typhoon in a teaspoon. The Democrats love it since they imagine it portrays them to the public as resolute guardians of the impartial administration of justice, a concept whose credibility most Americans sensibly deride. The Democrats now plan to track Gonzales’s firing of the US attorneys back to that comic opera villain of the Bush era, Karl Rove, another great provoker of dust storms.

What do you hope to achieve before the end of summer 2007?

Are you going to work outside? Do you find yourself reflecting on the past? Is your focus on family?

And a question to the weather gods: Is summer already over?

Oly Bloglines

This comes via one of my very favorite web sites: lifehacker.com.

Tips for Keeping the Peace

I figure the tools of conflict resolution are always good to have in anyone's toolbox. Like any tool, not always needed for every situation but useful when appropriate. I think these are even good survival skills, knowing how to de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation is important.

The first tip Slow down the action is my kind of tip, short and to the point and oh-so-true.

July 23, 2007

Olympia Port Militarization Resistance achieved a significant victory this weekend in the city's refusal to host naval warships at the port for Lakefair.

In preparation for their annual event in downtown Olympia, organizers for Lakefair committed the mistake of inviting naval warships: the U.S.S. Ingraham and the Canadian vessels HCMS Saskatoon and HCMS Whitehorse. It was the intent of people like Lakefair president Teri Chmielewski to bring the warships to our port to honor our military. But in accordance with our stated intentions to keep the military out of our port, PMR established a quick response designed to point out Lakefair's errors in conducting such a divisive, provocative invitation.

With support from Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, Veterans for Peace and the support of our community, the commitment to our democratic obligations prevailed. Several members of these organizations and members of the community attended Olympia City Council, Port of Olympia Commission and Lakefair committee meetings to display their dissatisfaction.

At an Olympia City Council meeting on July 10, an overwhelming majority of the public attending vocally opposed the ships’ presence at Lakefair. Under the impetus of our economic obligation to resist, even city council members questioned the Lakefair organizers’ hasty plans to ask for and expect financing for an increased amount of security to counter “protesters”.

Herein lies PMR's outstanding achievement. Our sustained resistance has shown other port towns the impracticality of consenting to military operations when the public doesn't want them around. The community of Olympia in resistance to war has established a reputation so non-violent, practical and forthright that we now have the power to prevent 'war as usual' operations from being conducted beyond the point of consideration.

Please sign and pass on this petition via myspace/facebook/craigslist/other blogs etc...I'll be reposting this one once a month or so...I've got another petition for people to sign, but I'll post that one next week.

China cannot be allowed to host the olympics if they are going to break so many international human rights laws. This is berlin 1936 ALL OVER AGAIN. They are intensifying their persecution to try and erase all traces of it. http://www.boycottccpolympic.org/ol/en/ol2.jsp#

 Please Sign this petition if you are against; organ harvesting of so called "political prisoners" for profit, the torture of those who have broken no law, slave labor, child labor, and psychological abuse (including testing unknown substances on those illegaly detained).

Petition

Promises Cynically Broken Over the 2008 Beijing Olympics By Robert Ménard Reporters Without Borders Aug 10, 2007 (Reporters Without Borders)

Much remains to be done before tens of thousands of athletes, sports enthusiasts and journalists turn up in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games on August 8 next year. Not just all the construction work for a great sporting occasion, but work on human rights, which are still being abused throughout the country on a daily basis.

Despite clear promises China made before it was awarded the Games in 2001, it has done almost nothing to improve human rights. A Chinese official had told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that if it accepted China's candidacy, "you will be helping the expansion of human rights." But six years later, things are still very bleak. At least 30 journalists and 50 Internet users are in prison in China, and some have been there since the 1980s. Many have been tortured. They are serving heavy jail sentences for "disclosing state secrets," "subversion" or supposed defamation – after just writing an article or sending an e-mail. The government blocks access to thousands of Internet news websites and broadcasts in Chinese, Tibetan, and Uighur by a dozen foreign radio stations are jammed. After removing allegedly dissident messages from online discussion forums, the authorities are now targeting blogs and video-exchange sites. Censors have fitted all the country's blogtools with devices to filter out "subversive" key words. Rules for foreign journalists working in China have been eased but foreign media are still banned from hiring Chinese journalists or traveling freely to Tibet and Xinjiang.