How Vulnerable Is the Power Grid? Less Than Some Fear, Experts Say

By BOBBY GHOSH / WASHINGTON Bobby Ghosh / Washington – 1 hr 2 mins ago

The attack could come when we’re most vulnerable – a blistering hot July afternoon or a freezing cold January night. Suddenly, vast sections of the U.S. power grid go black. The lights go out, air-conditioning (or heating) shuts down. Once it becomes clear that this is no temporary brownout, the public begins to panic. At the power utilities, engineers can’t understand why the network shut off, and can’t get it to start up again. It’s hours before the truth emerges: a terrorist group (or a hostile country, or some evil-genius hacker) has broken into the computer networks that control the power grid, bringing the U.S. to its knees.

 

If that worst-case scenario crossed your mind last week, it was probably because you’d just read news reports that federal authorities had detected signs that hackers – likely from Russia and China, countries with militaries known to be pursuing cyberwarfare capabilities – had penetrated the computer systems that control the power grid. It was unclear when these intrusions had taken place, but they had left a software signature. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a Congress-authorized regulator, issued an alert that the utilities had not adequately surveyed their computer systems to detect vulnerabilities. (Read “Can We Prevent Another Blackout?”)

 

As bad as all that may sound, there are several reasons not to panic about our power grid’s vulnerability.

 

•No national power grid anywhere in the world has been brought down by a cyberattack. And it’s worth keeping in mind that most countries have much fewer defenses from cyberattacks than the U.S. “It’s virtually impossible to bring down the entire North American grid,” says Major General (Rtd) Dale Meyerrose, a cybersecurity expert who recently retired as chief information officer for the Director of National Intelligence. The electricity-distribution system is highly decentralized, and there’s no central control system; at worst, cyberattackers may be able to damage sections of the grid.

 

•The most critical power users – the military, hospitals, the banking system, phone networks, Google’s server farms – have multiple contingencies for uninterrupted power supply and backup generation. In the event of a cyberattack on the grid, they would be able to operate for long periods – days, weeks and, in some cases, indefinitely – without much difficulty.

 

•The power grid is far from perfect. On any given day, 500,000 Americans experience an outage, says Arshad Mansoor of the Electric Power Research Institute, which is funded by the utility industry. Why is this a good thing? Because it means the grid deals with breakdowns all the time, and the industry knows how to fix them. The grid has built-in redundancies and manual overrides that allow for restoration of supply. Mansoor is careful to point out that these are “not defenses against cyberattacks, but for dealing with the consequence of such attacks.”

 

•The larger point is that in most cases, damage done to the power supply can be undone. “In the banking system, if someone hacks the system and steals information about 500,000 credit cards, it’s incredibly tough to undo that damage,” says Mansoor. “But if a section of the power grid goes down, we start it up again.”

 

Of course, every power outage comes with a cost, not least to the economy. Mansoor would not discuss how long it would take to recover from a cyberattack – there are too many variables involved – but said the longest delays in restoring power are typically caused not by technological glitches but by major acts of God, like hurricanes and earthquakes that destroy physical infrastructure. (Read a TIME blog on China and hacking.)

 

This is not to suggest that the power grid can’t be hacked into. In 2007, CNN reported that researchers working for the Department of Energy had mounted an experimental cyberattack against a power generator and were able to get it to self-destruct. Details of the experiment were kept from the public at the request of the Department of Homeland Security.

 

While Meyerrose, Mansoor and other experts agree that the utility industry’s vulnerability will grow as its command-and-control systems rely ever more on computer networks, those concerns are not new. Some security experts have cautioned against the growing use of “smart grid” technology – which relies even more on computer networks to allow both utilities and individual consumers to monitor and reduce power usage. There are already 2 million smart meters in use in the U.S., and the Obama Administration’s 2010 budget includes $4.5 billion in spending on such technology. The fear is that these meters may allow hackers access to the grid’s control systems. But smart-grid backers say the opposite is true: the use of more-sophisticated monitoring systems makes the grid safer.

 

The timing of the recent reports about the power grid’s vulnerability to cyberattacks may have more to do with politics than anything else. The news flurry coincided with the introduction of a new bill, by Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, to impose cybersecurity standards on private industry – regulations that would likely affect the utilities and other vital infrastructure. And this week marks the end of a 60-day review by the National Security Council of the nation’s cybersecurity polices and practices; the results will be submitted to President Obama any day now, and will likely be made public later this month.

 

As the review has drawn to a close, a turf war has broken out in Washington over which agency should be put in charge of cybersecurity – and get the billions of dollars of federal money that comes with it. Last month, Rod Beckstrom quit as director of the National Cybersecurity Center, citing turf battles between the Department of Homeland Security (which oversees the center) and the National Security Agency. His take on the sudden alarm bells over the power grid’s cybersecurity? It’s a power grab: a competition between two government agencies to become the main player in cybersecurity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090416/us_time/08599189156200

this is how the government is scaring us!

Call for carbon tax to fight warming

Paul Austin

April 11, 2009

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//–VICTORIAN Governor David de Kretser has called for consideration of a carbon tax, to increase the price of goods produced using energy from high-pollution power stations.

He has also implicitly criticised the Rudd Government’s planned emissions trading scheme, saying many people suggest it will “favour polluting industries and dissuade community actions to move to more renewable energy sources”.

In a speech to an environmental sustainability conference at Monash University, Professor de Kretser suggested a carbon tax might be a more effective weapon in the fight against global warming, because it would drive high-polluting developing countries towards renewable energy.

Under his proposal, consumers in developed nations such as Australia would pay more for many imported goods.

“Given that the production of goods takes place in developing countries, there will be a need for the developed world to subsidise them in building more renewable sources of energy,” Professor de Kretser said.

The Governor was criticised by state Liberal MP Bernie Finn last week for involving himself in what Mr Finn called the “highly contentious political issue” of global warming.

In his previously unreported Monash speech, delivered last month, Professor de Kretser said Australians needed to remember that many of the greenhouse gas emissions from countries such as China, India and Indonesia were the result of “our desire for the goods that they manufacture and sell to us”.

“In effect, we have moved the factories that service our needs to their land to take the benefit of the low cost of their labour.”

Professor de Kretser said Australians should recognise that the emissions caused by the personal actions of most of India’s 1 billion people “can be considered as ’survival’ emissions, rather than ours, which can be considered ‘lifestyle’ emissions”.

He called on individual Australians to reduce their “environmental footprint”, and on governments to legislate “to change people’s lifestyle”.

“Unlike war-time approaches, where people have tangible evidence of life-threatening issues, climate change is insidious and slow to demonstrate its effects,” Professor de Kretser said. “We have, therefore, been slow to take up the challenge.”

Professor de Kretser urged Australians to think carefully about how they spent the “economic stimulus” grants from the Federal Government.

“Should it prop up rampant consumerism that takes no note of the reality that we live on a planet with finite resources?” he said.

“Or should it be spent on building a sustainable lifestyle that emphasises the values of a society that cares for this planet, that cares for and values its biodiversity, that creates a framework where citizens respect each other, where children and adolescents are nurtured, mentored and cared for and in return who respect the older generations for their wisdom and contributions?”

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/call-for-carbon-tax-to-fight-warming-20090410-a2×6.html

Alex Jones and Fox News co-conspirators of Richard Poplawski’s cop-killing spree?

The Smoking Argus Daily
April 9, 2009

Whose fault is it when a man shoots another man? Or in the case of Richard Poplawski, whose fault is it that he shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers? Do we blame the actions of Richard Poplawski for the deaths of these officers, or are we going to put the right-wing propaganda machine and so-called conspiracy theories on trial?  Because, by the tone and accusations thrown about by the liberal blogosphere, it seems that the latter is more-so the case.

In article after article, Richard Paplawski is labeled  as a conspiracy nut, an avid Fox News absorber, and a tin foil hat wearing, Alex Jones following young man who apparently let the crazy out of the bag.  And according to David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars, the media ought to be embarrassed for the important role they play in “whipping up the far-right crazies out there.”  Neiwert goes on to say that,

Because not only did Richard Poplawski avidly participate in white-supremacist online forums and right-wing conspiracy-theory sites, he also avidly consumed mainstream conservative media, particularly Fox.

I am reading this correctly?  To paraphrase, not only did Poplawski engage in white-supremacist online forums, because that is bad enough, but to top in off, Poplawski couldn’t get enough of conservative media, mainly the Fox News machine.  Now, I’m not interested in the least bit to defend any white-supremacist group or forum.  I do not support their whacked out ideas or their very blatant racism, however I do support their inherent right to the freedom of speech.  I am not aware of any online forum that coerces people to join, which leads me to understand that Poplawski likely sought out the forum based on his own beliefs.  Fox News, on the other hand, no one can escape them, right?

Laughable, nonetheless, and yet Media Matters has attempted to seriously postulate to its readers that Alex Jones’ appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch is just the sort of hyperbolic act that people like Poplawski will use as a launch pad for violence and death.  Eric Boehlert writes,

Jones also noted with excitement that Fox News’ Glenn Beck had recently begun warning about the looming New World Order on his show, just like Jones had for years. “It is great!” cheered the conspiracist. (Like Jones, Beck recently warned viewers that “the Second Amendment is under fire.”) Concluding the interview, Fox News’ Napolitano announced “it’s absolutely been a pleasure” listening to Jones’ insights.

We don’t know if Poplawski tuned in to watch Jones’ star turn for Fox News last month. But is there any doubt that Fox News is playing an increasingly erratic and dangerous game by embracing the type of paranoid insurrection rhetoric that people like Poplawski are now acting on? By stoking dark fears about the ominous ruins that await an Obama America, by ratcheting up irresponsible back-to-the-wall scenarios, Fox News has waded into a territory that no other news organization has ever dared to exploit.

Well, yes, I would say there is plenty of doubt that “people like Poplawski” are becoming cop-killers as a result of too much Fox News programming, Alex Jones or not.  And interestingly, that type of accusation is much akin the “Marilyn Manson caused Columbine” ridiculousness that typically comes out of the mouths of the right wing nuts to begin with.

But, most important is what is truly at stake here.  And what’s very telling is that since the right wing lost its mojo when George W exited the stage, they have found a way to leech on to the momentum of the liberty movement, while distorting it the way only the spin masters of Fox can do.  And while the lefties want to feel secure in their Obama win, they do not, and as they too feel threatened by liberty and tea parties, they have in turn exploited themselves and their enemies at Fox.

Rest assured, and to use the term so well coined by Alex Jones, the “left/right paradigm” is not only unraveling, but exposing itself more now than ever.

http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-and-fox-news-co-conspirators-of-richard-poplawskis-cop-killing-spree/

Terrorists Show Interest in Twitter

Terrorists Show Interest in Twitter

by Mickey McCarter
Tuesday, 28 October 2008

Army report examines terrorist ideas for communication via Web Terrorist plotters have shown interest in using Twitter and other Web technologies to plan and carry out acts of terrorism, according to a recent analysis of content on terrorist Web sites in a US Army report.

The draft report, titled “al Qaida-Like Mobile Discussions and Potential Creative Uses,” studies open source intelligence available through terrorist forums to examine the use of various Web and mobile phone networking technologies for terrorist communications. Although the draft report, dated Oct. 16, is marked “for official use only,” it was released to the public Monday by the Federation of American Scientists.

The open source intelligence report examines five specific topics discussed on terrorist forums and cites examples of how terrorists could exploit specific technologies. The report first examines pro-terrorist propaganda in mobile interfaces, which denotes the use of mobile phones to exchange pictures, videos and texts between terrorists or terrorism sympathizers. The report next looks at the use of GPS on mobile phones for movements, operations, targeting and exploitation, such as the use of maps to facilitate border crossings on a Nokia 6210 Navigator.

Third, the report documents discussions on the use of mobile phones as surveillance devices to observe terrorist targets and choose the timing of a terrorist attack. Then the report examines how terrorists might use voice-altering software to disguise their voices when making phone calls on applications like Skype, which media reports have documented the use of by the Taliban.

Finally, the report takes a look at the potential use of Twitter to facilitate a terrorist attack.

“Twitters is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspective,” the report states. “There are multiple pro- and anti-Hezbolloah Tweets. In addition, extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already…in use by hactivists and activists for surveillance. This could theoretically be combined with targeting.”

The report describes a scenario in which a terrorist operative could send and receive messages via Twitter and combine those with a Google Maps Twitter Mash-Up of his location. The terrorists could then plot an attack on specific locations in near real time, coordinating their activities over their mobile phones.

The Army intelligence report adds a caveat that its information was gleaned from al Qaeda Web sites and not independently tested; therefore, it could not provide any estimation on how well its research into terrorist ideas would actually work.

http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/5799/128/

this is how the government is going to shut down the web!

Cybersecurity!

Cybersecurity Bill Gives Obama Dictatorial Power Over Internet

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
April 6, 2009

As we reported on March 22 when Jay Rockefeller was peddling nonsense about a pimple-faced kid in Latvia taking down the power grid in America with a laptop computer, the current wave of fear-mongering about cyber terrorism is just that — unsubstantiated fear-mongering. Critical networks are largely protected and “nightmarish tales of their vulnerability tend to be largely apocryphal,” according to Gabriel Weimann, author of Terror on the Internet. “Psychological, political, and economic forces have combined to promote the fear of cyberterrorism.”

Indeed, there are political forces are behind Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who declared last month that we would all be better off if the internet was never invented. Rockefeller meant the government would be better off if the internet was never invented. If the internet was never invented, the corporate media would dominate news and information and alternative media restricted to print would have a far more difficult time counter balancing government propaganda. Government and the elite behind it are sincerely worried about the fact increasing numbers of people get their news from alternative media sources on the internet and corporate media newspapers are falling like dominoes.

“If we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina,” said fear-monger Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who is co-sponsoring the bill. “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs – from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records – the list goes on,” added Rockefeller.

Rockefeller’s bills introduced in the Senate — known as the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 — would create yet another government bureaucracy, the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor. It would report directly to Obama. Rockefeller’s legislation would grant “the Secretary of Commerce access to all privately owned information networks deemed to be critical to the nation’s infrastructure “without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access” (see a working draft of the legislation here).

In other words, Obama would have a Cyber Czar in the Commerce Department and the power to shut down the internet.

The cybersecurity fraud now in motion will grant the Department of Commerce oversight of “critical” networks, such as banking records, would grant the government access to potentially incriminating information obtained without cause or warrant, a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition against unlawful search and seizure, Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Mother Jones.

“The whole thing smells bad to me,” writes Larry Seltzer for eWeek. “I don’t like the chances of the government improving this situation by taking it over generally, and I definitely don’t like the idea of politicizing this authority by putting it in the direct control of the president.”

Obama’s internet agenda is an extension of his effort to impose government control over the private sector. Republicans call this socialism. In a way it is socialism, but not the kind you were told about in high school — it is a socialism devised by the Trilateralists and Council on Foreign Relations. It is a system of control that will be imposed by the bankers and has nothing to do equality for all individuals or a fair or egalitarian method of compensation for workers. Banker socialism is about serfdom and poverty.

It should be obvious what is going on here. Not if but when the next false flag attack occurs here in America, the elite will turn off the internet in order to control the flow of information. They will tell us they were forced to do this in order to deny terrorists in caves or driving around with Ron Paul bumper stickers on their cars the ability to sabotage the power grid and banks.

Senate bills No. 773 and 778 are about controlling information. The bills have nothing to do with mischievous kids with laptops in Latvia.

New World Order?

G-20 Shapes New World Order With Lesser Role for U.S., Markets

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By Rich Miller and Simon Kennedy

April 3 (Bloomberg) — Global leaders took their biggest steps yet toward a new world order that’s less U.S.-centric with a more heavily regulated financial industry and a greater role for international institutions and emerging markets.

At the end of a summit in London, policy makers from the Group of 20 yesterday delivered a regulatory blueprint that French President Nicholas Sarkozy said turned the page on the Anglo-Saxon model of free markets by placing stricter limits on hedge funds and other financiers. The leaders also pledged to triple the resources of the International Monetary Fund and to hand China and other developing economies a greater say in the management of the world economy.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who helped prepare summits for presidents Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. “The U.S. is becoming less dominant while other nations are gaining influence.”

A lot was at stake. If the leaders had failed to forge a consensus — Sarkozy this week threatened to quit the talks if they didn’t back much tighter regulation — it might have set back the world’s economy and markets just as they’re showing signs of shaking off the worst financial crisis in six decades.

That’s what happened in 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt torpedoed a similar conference in London by rejecting its plan to stabilize currency rates and in the process scotched international efforts to lift the world out of a depression.

More Conciliation

Seeking to avoid a repeat of that historic flop, President Barack Obama junked the at-times go-it-alone approach of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and adopted a more conciliatory stance toward his fellow leaders.

“In a world that is as complex as it is, it is very important for us to be able to forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions,” Obama told a press conference at the conclusion of the summit.

Stock markets rose in response to the steps taken by the G-20 leaders. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 2.9 percent to 834.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 216.48 points, or 2.8 percent, to 7,978.08. Both closed at their highest levels since the second week of February.

In an effort to promote harmony, Obama soft-pedaled earlier U.S. demands that the summit agree on a specific target for fiscal stimulus in the face of opposition from France and Germany. Instead, he settled for a vague pledge that the leaders would do whatever it takes to revive the global economy.

Repudiation of Past

The president also signed on to a communiqué that Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said repudiated the previous U.S.-led push to free capitalism from the constraints of governments.

“This is a major step forward and a reversal of the ideology of the 1990s, and at a very official level, a rejection of the ideas pushed by the U.S. and others,” said Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University. “It’s a historic moment when the world came together and said we were wrong to push deregulation.”

In bowing to that view, the leaders conceded in a statement that “major failures” in regulation had been “fundamental causes” of the market turmoil they are trying to tackle. To make amends and to try to avoid a repeat of the crisis, they pledged to impose stronger restraints on hedge funds, credit rating companies, risk-taking and executive pay.

“Countries that used to defend deregulation at any cost are recognizing that there needs to be a larger state presence so this crisis never happens again,” said Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Financial Stability Board

A new Financial Stability Board will be established to unite regulators and join the IMF in providing early warnings of potential threats. Once the economy recovers, work will begin on new rules aimed at avoiding excessive leverage and forcing banks to put more money aside during good times.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had unsuccessfully sought to convince the U.S. and Britain to sign on to similar steps before the crisis began in mid-2007, hailed the communiqué as a “victory for common sense.”

The U.S. did, though, take the lead in getting the summit to agree on an increase in IMF rescue funds to $750 billion from $250 billion now. Japan, the European Union and China will provide the first $250 billion of the increase, with the balance to come from as yet unidentified countries.

“This will provide the IMF with enough resources to meet the needs of East European nations and also provide back-up funding to a broader set of countries,” said Brad Setser, a former U.S. Treasury official who’s now at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

IMF Allocation

The G-20 also agreed to an allocation of $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, the artificial currency that the IMF uses to settle accounts among its member nations. The move is akin to a central bank such as the Federal Reserve effectively creating money out of thin air, except it’s on a global scale.

The increase in Special Drawing Rights will allow countries to tap IMF money without having to accept changes to economic policies often demanded as a condition of aid. The cash is disbursed in proportion to the money each member-nation pays into the fund. Rich nations will be allowed to divert their allocations to countries in greater need.

The G-20 said they would couple the financing moves with steps to give emerging economic powerhouses such as China, India and Brazil a greater say in how the IMF is run.

Emerging Markets Benefit

Citigroup Inc. economists Don Hanna and Jurgen Michels called the summit agreement “a boon to emerging markets” in a note to clients yesterday.

Mexico said Wednesday it will seek $47 billion from the IMF under the Washington-based lender’s new Flexible Credit Line, which allows some countries to borrow money with no conditions.

Emerging-market stocks, bonds and currencies rallied yesterday on speculation other developing nations will follow Mexico’s lead. Gains in Polish, Czech and Brazilian stocks helped push the MSCI Emerging Markets Index up 5.6 percent to 613.07, the highest since Oct. 15.

In a bid to avoid another mistake of the depression era, G-20 leaders repeated an earlier pledge to avoid trade protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbor policies that could aggravate the decline in the global economy.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted this week that global trade will shrink 13 percent this year as loss-ridden banks cut back on credit to exporters and importers.

Trade Finance

To help combat that, the G-20 said they will make at least $250 billion available in the next two years to support the finance of trade through export credit agencies and development banks such as the World Bank.

The summit took place amid speculation among investors that the deepest global recession in six decades may be abating. Data released yesterday showed orders placed with U.S. factories rose in February for the first time in seven months, U.K. house prices unexpectedly gained in March and Chinese manufacturing increased. Still, a report today is forecast to show U.S. unemployment at its highest in a quarter-century.

“If the economy turns more favorable, this meeting will probably be viewed as a milestone,” said C. Fred Bergsten, a former U.S. official and director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

The G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union. Officials from Spain and the Netherlands were also present.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rich Miller in Washington rmiller28@bloomberg.net; Simon Kennedy in Paris at Skennedy4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 2, 2009 20:22 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601014&sid=axEnb_LXw5yc

http://www.prisonplanet.com/

New World Government?

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

World Bank President and Bilderberg elitist Robert Zoellick openly admitted the plan to eliminate national sovereignty and impose a global government during a speech on the eve of the G20 summit.

Speaking about the agenda to increase not just funding but power for international organizations on the back of the financial crisis, Zoellick stated, “If leaders are serious about creating new global responsibilities or governance, let them start by modernising multilateralism to empower the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank Group to monitor national policies.”

In other words, give global institutions the power to regulate national policy as part of the creation of global government.

What Zoellick is outlining is essentially the end of national sovereignty and the reclassification of national governments as mere subordinates to a global authority that is completely unaccountable to the voting public of any country.

The more cynical amongst us would call this a global dictatorship. Zoellick couches the plan in flowery rhetoric of helping the poor and alleviating poverty, but as we have documented for years, the global elite’s goal of world government has little to do with saving the planet and everything to do with creating a global fascist state.

Zoellick, former Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae and advisor to Goldman Sachs, is a top elitist who was intimately involved in the Enron scandal and the 2000 presidential election debacle. He was also a signatory to the Project For A New American century document that called for invading Iraq as part of implementing a brutal world empire in 1998. He was later a foreign policy advisor to George W. Bush.

As to be expected, Zoellick is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. He also attended the annual invitation-only conferences of the Bilderberg Group in 1991, 2003, 2006 and 2007.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will use the G20 summit in London to extend an olive branch to China, offering them a central role in the construction of a new world order and a global government, according to reports.

“Brown will hold talks with Hu Jintao, China’s president, following discussions with Barack Obama, amid signs that developing countries see the G20 summit as a chance to impose a new world order and end the era of Anglo-European dominance,” reports the Guardian.

Under the proposal, China will vastly increase its IMF funding in return for more voting rights.

A central focus of the G20 summit will be the proposal to supplant the dollar with a new global currency. Both the IMF and the United Nations threw their weight behind the implementation of a new global reserve currency system to replace the dollar, in the same week that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CFR globalists that he was “open” to the idea.

China and Russia brought the issue to the forefront of this week’s G20 when they jointly called for a new global reserve currency a week ago.

Brown has consistently called for global regulation of the financial system as a means towards global governance. In a speech at St Paul’s Cathedral in London yesterday he again called for a new “global society”.

Luke Rudowski Arrested!

Luke Rudkowski Arrested for Attempting to Question Mayor Bloomberg

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 28, 2009

Alex Jones’ emergency broadcast on the arrest of Luke Rudkowski

WeAreChange founder and activist Luke Rudkowski was arrested at the Hilton Hotel on Manhattan today for attempting to question New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his refusal to pay for the health care of 9/11 first responders. Rudkowski had Infowars press credentials and a video camera when he was singled out by Bloomberg’s security in the lobby of the hotel located at West 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue).

Luke Rudowski.

According to a post on the WeAreChange blog Rudkowski and other members of WeAreChange were confronted and asked questions by hotel security and Bloomberg’s security detail. Rudkowski was apparently singled out and forcibly detained at the hotel and subsequently handed over to the New York Police, who arrested him on a charge of trespassing. Rudkowski was also charged with impersonating a member of the press.

Infowars is a bona fide press organization. Alex Jones operates numerous news websites in addition to hosting a nationally syndicated talk radio show that is currently rated as the most listened to talk show over the internet. Jones’ Infowars and Prison Planet have broken numerous stories, including one covering the MIAC controversy that was picked up by the Associated Press and mentioned by Fox News host Glenn Beck and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Luke Rudkowski has worked as an Infowars journalist for several years and his journalism is featured in Alex Jones film Truth Rising: 9/11 Chronicles, released in 2008.

As of this writing, Rudkowski is being held at the 18th Precinct at 306 West 54th Street on Manhattan. An officer Fagan answered calls in regard to Rudowski’s arrest. Infowars staff report Fagan abruptly hung up the telephone when inquiries about Rudkowski were made.

The 18th precinct phone number is: 212-760-8300. A NYC information page on the internet lists the following number for the precinct: 212-767-8400.

Alex Jones and Infowars are requesting calls be made to the police asking about Luke Rudkowski’s whereabouts and the trumped up charges against him. The New York Police and Mayor Bloomberg need to be made aware of the fact there is a First Amendment in this country and it is an egregious violation of that amendment when members of the press are unduly arrested and charged.

Please remember to be polite when contacting the police and other New York City officials.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/luke-rudowski-arrested-for-attempting-to-question-mayor-bloomberg.html

Ontario resident in Tents!

Officials begin thinning out the encampment, saying the city can provide space only for those who once lived there and can prove it.

By David Kelly, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 18, 2008

Dozens of Ontario police and code enforcement officers descended upon the homeless encampment known as Tent City early Monday, separating those who could stay from those to be evicted.

Large, often confused, crowds formed ragged lines behind police barricades where officers handed out color-coded wristbands. Blue meant they were from Ontario and could remain. Orange indicated they had to provide more proof to avoid ejection, and white meant they had a week to leave.

Many who had taken shelter at the camp — which had grown from 20 to more than 400 residents in nine months — lacked paperwork, bills or birth certificates proving they were once Ontario residents.

“When my husband gets out of jail he can bring my marriage certificate; will that count?” asked one tearful woman.

Another resident, clearly confused, seemed relieved to get a white band — not understanding it meant she had to leave.

Pattie Barnes, 47, who had her motor home towed away last week, shook with anger.

“They are tagging us because we are homeless,” she said, staring at her orange wristband. “It feels like a concentration camp.”

Ontario officials, citing health and safety issues, say it is necessary to thin out Tent City. The move to dramatically reduce the population curtails an experiment begun last year to provide a city-approved camp where homeless people would not be harassed.

Land that includes tents, toilets and water had been set aside near Ontario International Airport for the homeless. Officials intended to limit the camp and its amenities to local homeless people, but did little to enforce that as the site rapidly expanded, attracting people from as far away as Florida.

“We have to be sensitive, and we will give people time to locate documents,” said Brent Schultz, the city’s housing and neighborhood revitalization director. “But we have always said this was for Ontario’s homeless and not the region’s homeless. We can’t take care of the whole area.”

Officials believe the local homeless number about 140, less than half of those currently in residence. Schultz wants to reduce Tent City to 170 people in a regulated, fenced-off area rather than the sprawling open-air campsite it has become.

No other city has offered to take in any of the homeless who Ontario officials say must leave.

“So far I have heard nothing,” Schultz said.

Even before the large-scale action Monday, police last week moved out parolees and towed about 20 dilapidated motor homes. A list of safety rules, including one banning pets, has been posted. The city says there is a threat of dog bites and possible disease from the animals.

The no-pet order caused widespread anger and tears Monday as some homeless people said they could not imagine life without their dogs. Many have three or four and vowed to leave Tent City before giving the dogs up.

“I will go to jail before they take my dog,” said an emotional Diane Ritchey, 47. “That’s a part of me as much as anything. The dogs are as homeless as we are.”

Cindy Duke, 40, hugged Ritchey, who was sobbing.

“I had to give up my 6-year-old son because I was homeless and I’ll be damned if I give up my dog too,” Duke said.

Celeste Trettin, 53, rolled up in a wheelchair. She and her husband have an Ontario address but have lived for years in a truck, parking wherever they found a safe place. Trettin, who got an orange wristband, said she believed she would be able to find the paperwork to prove she was from Ontario.

“We thought if we came here we could save some money, but now they have pulled the rug out from under us,” said Trettin, who has fibromyalgia, a painful disorder.

Marty Tovar took it all in stride. The 53-year old Mentone man had fresh bumps and cuts on his face after being on the receiving end of a recent assault. He didn’t seem to care if he had to leave.

“It doesn’t anger me; it angers a lot of other people here but not me,” he said, wearing no shirt under his blue overalls. “If I got to go I’ll just catch the next bus to the next town. Every town has a park.”

Still, by noon only one man had taken up an offer of free taxi rides back to their home cities, returning the 50 miles to Victorville, said Det. Jeff Higbee, spokesman for the Ontario police.

“By next Monday we should have everyone who is supposed to be gone out of here,” Higbee said. “The wristbands are only temporary so we can identify everyone.”

As the local homeless people were separated from the others, city workers were busy setting up fencing for the new encampment. Those who are approved will get 90-day renewable permits to stay.

Peter Bibring, staff attorney with the America Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, toured Tent City and spoke with local officials.

“We are concerned that however they go about trying to reduce this population they don’t depend on arrests or property seizures for people who have no other place to go and are just looking for a place to sleep,” he said. “We will continue to monitor the situation.”

Although no one at the camp seemed happy about efforts to shrink Tent City, some tried to see Ontario’s point of view.

Tina Gove, 39, was evicted from her Pomona home and has been at the encampment for three months. Like many others in Tent City, her life has been marked by drug problems and mental illness.

Her four children, she said, were taken from her because of a past methamphetamine addiction.

“If they throw me out I’ll be back on the street, and I don’t want to be back on the street because it’s scary,” she said. “But I think we should all be grateful because if Ontario hadn’t opened this place for us, where would we be today?”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-tents18mar18,1,7073495.story

Come on people! Think for yourself for once!

Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions, sometimes based on projection, that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image about what people in that group are like. The image is often wrong and doesn’t take one person into account. It can lead to prejudice and might even lead to discrimination. There are stereotypes about every culture and every religion in the world, the Indians, the Asians, the English, the French. But the most common stereotyped people today is the Muslim people.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. If one did research about Islam, one will find that out.  If one does research about Islam and listens to what the media, like television, says about Islam, they will find two completely different images. One very common image that the media portrays the Muslims as terrorists. We carry bombs and we do all the killings. From these images on televison, people create negative stereotypes about Islam and the Muslim people as a whole.

Now people think that Muslims are terrorist and they think that Muslims are bad people. They follow what the Qur’an says, so the Qur’an must preach violence. They see the women wearing the hijab and “restricting” their freedom to show off their bodies. And they don’t see any women going to drunken parties and having boyfriends and having fun in the streets. So people think the women are oppressed and they should be “freed” from that oppression. They look at images on the television and see how “poor” the Arab world is and think there’s no schools and everyone is running in the streets. And so they make the conclusion that no one is learning anything, especially women. They think that Islam doesn’t believe in Jesus, peace on him, since Islam doesn’t believe that he is the son of God or anything.

And one has an identity and one forms that identity by identitying against. To identify against, first we define the “other” and then we define themselves as “not the other.” People believe that the Muslims ar terrorists and carry bombs and people are not terrorist and people don’t carry bombs.

            These are some of the stereotypes the Islam as a religion has.

All Muslim women are oppressed.
           

To tell you the truth, Muslim women are not oppressed.

If Muslim women are so oppressed, then why dont they just convert to another religion?
            Yes, Muslims don’t drink at bars and women wear the scarf, but Muslims believe that God put those rules for a reason. Muslims believe that God doesn’t want us to be tempted to do bad stuff. If you take away the temptation, you’re not tempted. Why does He put the temptation there in the first place? He wants to see if people like us will listen to Him.

Muslims are freed from having to make bad decision that will sometimes change their lives, like drinking. When people drink, they very often lose control of themselves and they could do stuff that are uncalled for, and on top of that, alcohol gives you a lot of problems in the future. One does get addicted to alcohol, so one spends a lot of money on alcohol. If one drinks too much, one could pass out. If one drinks and drives, one could get into an accident. In the long run, alcohol causes so many health problems, one of them being liver damage. One’s liver is one of the most important organ in the body.

We pray five times a day, so that we could think of God all the time. Many Christians only go to church on Sunday and think of God only then. Muslims fast in the month of Ramadan from even before sunrise to sunset; one of the reasons is learn self control. Another reason is to feel what the poor people have and to think of food as a gift instead of a necessity, like people always do.  Muslim give alms, so that we don’t think we are the richest people. Greediness is common around people.

Muslims believe that God put rules. If you follow them, you will be saved, in this life and in the one after.

 

True feminists should work to free the Muslim women.

 

 

From what? There’s nothing to be freed from. We are not oppressed, so there’s not we need to be freed from. They are actually a lot happier than any other religion, because again, the temptation is taken away. They call Islam a backwards, tradition religion, but what is wrong with being traditional?

Muslim women are forced to cover their heads.

 

 

Wearing the hijab is in the Qur’an, but Muslims are not forced to do it. Our dads don’t have a gun at our heads saying that if we don’t do it, he will shoot. Not all the Muslim wear the hijab. The hijab takes commitment. One can not wear it one day and take it off the next.

 The hijab is a beautiful thing. One who wears it doesn’t have to worry about how their hair looks in the morning. But one who wear it should cover everything except their hand and face, unless their face is beautiful, then they also have to cover it. If you are beautiful, it’s better to hide it than show it off. When women are all out there showing everything, they are usually called sluts and whores and hoes. One who wears it gets a lot more respect than one who flaunts their stuff. Wearing the hijab doesn’t distract the guy from his work. Men actually get their work done instead of thinking about the women next to him. Men treat women who wear the hijab like a person, instead of being distracted by her beauty. Wearing the hijab is also an attitude and a behavior rather than only just a fashion statement.

The concept here is temptation, too. Men are tempted to pursue a woman by her beauty. Men are usually looking for a short term relationship after they pursue the woman.

 

 

Muslim women are generally not allowed to be educated.

 

That’s the silliest stereotype there is. It’s very hard for a Muslim to fathom how did that become a stereotype. Why would God not want Muslims women to be educated?  Education for Muslim women is no sin. Women have the same rights to be educated as men do. Muslim women do too. Women go to college and even pursue their own careers. Muslim women do too. Edcuation in the Arab world is a actually a duty. It’s a duty to educate men and women alike! Is that really hard to believe? In fact, my mom came all the way to the United States just for our education. Besides without education, where would Muslim women be?

 

 

Most Muslims support terrorism.
 

If you took a survey to give to all Muslims in the world and ask them this question, you will find that about 98% don’t support it. Muslims DON’T support terrorism. I don’t support terrorism. Heck! I didn’t even know the word existed before September 11, 2001. Muslim actually hate the word terrorism. It’s so overused. Thats is just the propaganda that is on the televsion trying to brainwash you folks to thinking that, to give the United States justification to go into Iraq. The United States is not at war with the religion. It is at war with one country, Iraq. They have something that the United States wants. So the United States gets jealous and makes up all these stories about the Muslim people. And people use to defense mechanism of projection. The government “hates” the Muslim people and so the United States “hates” the Muslim people. So in return, they think the Muslim people “hate” them, when it is completely the opposite.

Islam preaches voilence.

 

 

If Islam did preach violence, then why are Muslims on the news right now? Why werent Muslims on the news before September 11, 2001? If it did preach violence, we would have been on the news since television news started. And beside the literal translation ofthe word Islam is “peace and submission to God.” It preaches voilence and yet its the fastest growing religion in the world. Come on, people, think!

Islam and Christianity have no common beliefs.

 

 

Islam and Christianity both belief that there’s a God. They both know Jesus, peace on him, but Islam dont believe that he’s the son of God. If he was the son of God, that means God was married and He had kids. Thats the literal translation of the son of God. They both believe in Adam, peace on him, and Eve and Noah, peace on him, and the flood. They both believe in Moses, peace on him, and the ten commandment. They both believe in the end of the world and Judgement Day. They both believe in Abraham, peace on him, and his son and that he almost sacrificed his son because God told him to. Islam even had a day where we celebrate that day, which is the big Eid. So they have so many common beliefs.

 

So in conclusion, all these stereotypes are wrong and if one want to know the truth, one has to do his own research because not all what the media says is true. It doesn’t take a rocker scientist to figure out that Islam preaches violence or know that Muslim women are not getting educated are false. People need to start thinking for themselves and stop letting the media dicate to them what to think and how to react to it.

Give Me Respect!

its true! so true! so true!

i have always wondered why God put the rule:
women have to wear the scarf

i finally found out why…

u know how shuttles have the machine where it takes the money or the id
well when i was going through the machine…
my backpack is so huge… and i almost got stuck in the machine…
sounds funny i know… but it did happen…
this guy was passing by and saw me and he asked me if i was ok….
and i said yes and nodded…
i didnt have to say that i was muslim or anything…

people respect you more if you have the scarf on then if u dont
guys dont think you are sex objects if you have the scarf on
guys are not likely to call you a slut or a hoe if you have the scarf on
guys are not distracted from their work if you wear the scarf
you get treated like a person rather than a lady, if you wear the scarf
if you hide your stuff, it entices the imagination… instead of it being all there,
you have some imagination…

its so true! people respect you more if you wear the scarf!

I still believe God does everything for a reason!

I believe God does everything for a reason.
We humans are just too blind to see it right now.

One reason I picked french over spanish was because spanish is a stupid language. jk.

even though french is not used much today, i still like it…
i learned to love french and love the culture there

i was always asking myself why did i move to peurto rico?
If u don’t know, in peurto rico, they speak spanish.
i didnt pick spanish up as fast as my sister did.
so i decided to hate the lanuage and not persue it.
God was pushing me away from spanish.

so my freshmen year of high school, i started out in latin,
when mom found out it was a dead lanuage, i changed my mind,
thanks to my mom.
so i went to french because i had no other choice but german and spanish.
i didnt like that i chose french until i met phil in my class…
well we didnt actually meet, but thats a different story.

so last semster, i racking my brain, trying to figure out why was i not accepted because i believed there was a reason.

And now I finally know what the reason is…
If I had taken french 203, I would have taken it last semester, and would never have met richard.
Richard taught me to love myself, something I have been struggling with for years and years.
I believe God wanted me to meet him and that was why I dropped math and ended up 3 credits short and had to stay the whole semester at home.

There might be something else, something even bigger, but that’s all I could see right now…

i was in wisconsin for my senior year and for my first year of college…
and so my senior year, i was applying for colleges and my guidance counselor just mentioned i could go to university of wisconsin – madison (the best college in the state) if i get 24 transferable credits in the university of wisconsin-waukesha. i applied there.

and later i wanted to apply to university of wisconsin -milwaukee.
i got into waukesha, but not milwaukee and i was sad i didnt get into milwaukee. so i went to waukesha.

summer came and i decide to take classes in waukesha to be able to transfer them to wvu.

i met an egyptian professor 3 months before his class that i took during the summer and he was nice and want me to take up his class. so he was giving a class during the summer.

i knew nothing about the class, but i said what the hey, i will take it anyway. the class was sociology 101 and i just fell in love with the class. its my major right now.

so now i know why i went to waukesha and not milwaukee and very grateful to God, too.

i believe God wanted me to pick sociology as a major and that’s why i went to waukesha instead of milwaukee. i still can’t see why but i still believe theres a reason.

The Concept of “Emo”

“Emo” is short for emotional
There’s nothing wrong with being emotional…
If that’s who you are, then be proud…
You stand out…. That’s all you do….
You don’t cut…. That’s only what the media says…
This society doesn’t work with emotional
They work with intelligence…
And the media doesn’t want people to stand out
That’s why they attack you…. And label you “emo”
So there’s nothing wrong with being “emo”
If you are emo, flaunt it and just don’t care!

We all have to look a certain way, huh?

We all have to look a certain way, dont we?
You have to be perfect…
You have to have the perfect hair, the perfect teeth, the perfect weight, the perfect size…
Otherwise you won’t get the perfect guy to fall for you…
Oh is that right? And what if there’s no such thing as perfect …
Then how does that work?
Perfection only in heaven that everything is perfect and we are not in heaven
Even though people know that, they still stive for it
You have to look a certain way to look beautiful….
Girls put on make up… and they want to lose weight…
Girls in movies have big breats… and big breats are beautiful…
Or so guys say… right?
Its not only in girls too though….
Guys have to have a six pack…
Or so girls say… right?
And what is this all for?
to be “hot”… could someone please give me the definition of “hot”?
We all are flawed, that’s a part of life… and there’s nothing we could do about it…
We have to learn to accept our flaws and learn to love ourselves, even though we are flawed…
It gets so pathetic when people get so blind….
People only judge on the outside….
I would rather be known for my wisdom or kindness or even intelligence…
Looks after a while fade… and what will guys do after that?
When guys look at me, they just turn their heads….
They don’t take the time to get to know me better…
You know the old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
If you look again and take one better look at me… you will see the real me…
The real me is wise
The real me is kind
The real me is smart
People don’t see that … because the concepts are abstract…
Everyone is different… and everyone is not you….
I am actually happy that we are not all the same… life would have been so boring….
We shouldn’t try to change that… that we are flawed…
Because if we are not flawed, then we wouldn’t have any flaws to work on…
People try to generalize other people… you can’t put people in categories…
So next time you see someone who you think is “ugly,” please look past that and remember that every person is different and a world with same-ness would be a very boring world.

Little miracles!

Little miracles

Some people think miracles have to be big
They don’t have to be something huge
I believe they can be very small
If you look around, you will find them

A miracle is walking past someone
Whom you have never met or seen before
And your eyes meet theirs
And that person smiles at you

A miracle is as simple as breathing
And In and out the air goes
The most amazing thing about it is
We don’t have to think about it

A miracle is just opening your eyes waking up
Bright and early in the morning,
And while you are eating or bathing
You find yourself in your own body

And in stressful times, a miracle is a friend
Who is willing to help you when you are in need,
Whether you need help in homework
Or just a friend to talk to and listen to them

A miracle is a mother saying “No!” to something
If it’s going out with friend or just leaving the house
She is doing everything she can to protect the child
From any harm from the harsh and cruel world

A miracle is just sitting there and listening
To a friend or a friendly neighbor,
And when it’s really quiet and everything still
You could hear a beautiful song in the wind

A miracle is looking to yourself for comfort
And hugging yourself for no good reason
Tell yourself that you are a beautiful person
And finally loving yourself for who you really are

A miracle is thanking God that you are alive every day
Not only on your best day, but on your worst days too
“You only live once; make the most of it,” the saying goes
And one of these days, you will go to a new life.

A miracle is looking out in the crowd
And find a person who acts different from everyone else
Or wears clothes that are “strange” or “weird”
And finally finding a person who stands out

A miracle is seeing someone trying to impact a life
Not necessarily putting your life on the risk
But helping people, making a difference in someone’s life
Or if you can’t suceed, to at least try to do something

A miracle is when everyone else is telling lies
And someone in the crowd speaks out against it
And you find out by accident that it’s the truth
The person being that one voice for the truth

A miracle is not finally finding the man of your dreams
It’s not kissing someone or flaunting what you have
It’s not trying to “fit in” or being popular in school
I hope you see that it’s so much more than that

To see them brings joy and happiness to my world
And I encourage you to try to find them
And see if they bring happiness to your world
I want to tell you one more little thing

I love and live for these little miracles!

If God is good, then why is there so much conflict?

i would like answer this question…

God is not good
God is not bad
but God is fair
and God is wise

we may not know why we do things
we may not know why things are there
but its there for a reason,
thats all you need to say
its there for a reason

without conflict, there would be no wars
without conflict, the world will be always at peace
without conflict, people would have nothing to live for
without conflict, people would have nothing to die for
without conflict, there would be a lot less words in our vocab
without conflict, the world would be boring

if everyone in the world was the same, everyone would walk the same
if everyone in the world was the same, everyone would talk the same
if everyone in the world was the same, everyone would have the same face
if everyone in the world was the same, there would be no wars, no conflicts
if everyone in the world was the same, no one would stand out and be different
if everyone in the world was the same, the world would be dark and gray
if everyone in the world was the same, the world would be a boring place

a world without conflict and all the people the same!
what a world that would be! huh?

Oh! God Almighty! I still believe!

I believe God does everything for a reason.
I believe there’s a reason I am here.
There’s a reason God put me on this Earth.
There’s a reason God put you on this Earth too.
But I believe I have found the reason I am here.
I believe here is the reason God put me on this Earth.

 “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is about 50 years old!

 

 

 

And yet, the dream still hasn’t come!
Even though we think it did… 

 

We still judge people by how they look on the outside,
and we don’t take time to get to know them on the inside.
I don’t think it’s fair. I really don’t think it fair.

There’s so much more to a person than what they look like.
There’s intelligence and wisdom.
There’s kindness and there’s personality.

 

But people become so blind and they can’t look past the looks.

And if they look good, we tend to associate them with a good personality. I mean it is sometimes true, but most of the time it isn’t.

 

And there IS still so much racism in the world today…
and discrimination and prejudice too!

 

The only reason: We already have this image set in our heads of what they would be like if we ever talked to them because, God forbid, getting to know them past their looks is a sin, right?

But I have the same dream!
Martin Luther King’s dream.
The dream he introduced to us fifty years ago.
The dream of hope and equality.
The dream that was fought against the Jim Crow laws.

 

But that same dream, even after all his hard work and all that time between then and now, still hasn’t come.

 

After three hundred and sixty years, we still have same stereotypes.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still have same prejudices.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still discriminate against people.
After three hundred and sixty years, some people even support it.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still use violence to get the word out.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still hate the people who are not like us.
And after three hund and sixty years, we still haven’t made much progress.

 

 

And we think racism just disappeared because nobody talks about it anymore.

Just because we dont talk about it doesnt mean that its not there anymore… 

 

 

I still believe in this dream!
I still believe we can achieve this dream!
I still believe! Oh God Almighty! I still believe!

 

Yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel! And yes I too also see it! Dr. King saw it fifty years ago, and I see it too!
Yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of true equality, where everyone, and i mean everyone around the world, is treated in the same way, no one lesser, no one better!
And yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of our true liberties, where we have all of our liberties and they are not taken away from us!
Yes! I have the same dream, the same of honesty, a day when saying the truth and fighting for your rights and your true liberties will be rewarded, not punished.

 

 

Oh! But I still believe in the dream! One must have faith in humankind! I still do!

 

Yes! I have the same dream that one day all the people around the world would come together as one species, as one human race, and we would not be judged whether we are African, Asian, Indian, or Muslim,
A day when white and black are considered the same,
A day when African and Indian are considered the same,
A day when Muslim and Asian are considered the same!

 

Yes! I have the same dream that one day we will see that we are all the same in the eyes of God and no one superior 
A day when we see there’s no right religion or right color of skin or right way to look beautiful,
A day when one day when we find out that beauty is in everyone,
A day when one day we won’t have to look for it. 

 

Oh I still believe! Oh God Almighty! I still believe!

 

Yes! I have the same dream that one day, people will learn and to listen to each other and teach each other to listen with all their hearts,

A day when people will learn to speak and teach each other to speak with all their hearts,
A day when one day we the people won’t be weakened or destroyed by our concept of race but be strengthened by the concept of listening with our hearts!
A day when we won’t be weaken by the facts that our eyes say, but be strengthened by listening to our hearts
A day when we will finally abandon what our eyes say.
A day when we use of eyes to find good in all people.

 

I have the same dream that one day we the people will not categorize ourselves into “races” and people will see who the others really are,
A day when the saying, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” would be on everyone’s lips, and people will look into each other eyes and truly see their soul.
A day when love is taught and to hate someone is be punished,
A day when there’s no concept of racism and the concept of identifying against,
A day when the miracle of hope is present in every heart and mind
A day when we have time and take the time to get to know each other

 

I still believe in the dream! One must have faith in humankind! Oh I still believe!

I still have the same dream that one day people will abandon stereotypes and not act on their prejudices and not support the discrimination,
A day when true hope will shine in the hearts of little children,
A day when we are not afraid to show who we are
A day when we are truly happy to be who we are,
A day when we abandon all the anger and hate
A day when we know that these stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination will only lead us to go round and round in a vicious cycle.

Oh I still believe in the dream! Yes! I do believe!

 

I have the same dream that one day we will finally see that race is not based on the biological aspects,
A day when we finally see that race is a social concept
A day when we finally abandon it, and see each other for the way we truly are.
A day we won’t be too busy fighting to see the real problem on the earth. 

But I have the same dream that one day people will not be judged by the clothes they wear or how fat or skinny we are or how much make up we put on,
A day when we are all considered beautiful in our own way because everyone is different,
A day when the outside will not become a barrier to look what is really inside the person,
A day when a person will show true happiness inside and outside.

 

 

 

Oh yes! God Almighty! I still believe!

 

I have the same dream that one day we will teach our children to love all “races” and teach them to love themselves too,
A day when we don’t teach our children the poison of hate of the “others” and the hate toward their bodies,
A day when our children could be truly free to express themselves without being judged by their friends or classmates

 

I have the same dream that one day people will see though other people and look past that other people are different from them,
A day when we are not consumed in what a person looks like,
A day when we still have hope for people,
A day when we say that we are sad, we truly mean and when we say that we are happy, we truly mean it.

Oh yes! God Almighty! I still believe!

 

I have the same dream that one day we will teach our children that you don’t have to look a certain way to be beautiful and that the word “hot” really doesn’t biologically exist,
A day when people will judge other people and other people judge us by the character they and we have,
A day when people will realize that we are flawed and we can’t be perfected, no matter how hard we try,
A day when we realize we don’t need to be perfected,
A day when people won’t be so blind to the media!

 

I have the same dream that one day we will all finally break free from these chains, break free from the chains of discrimination, break free from the chains of prejudice, break free from the chains of the hatred and anger that is in this world right now.

 

I have a dream that one day we will get to understand why God made the world the way he did!

 

And that will be the day when people are going to be truly happy and the people won’t be so blind anymore.

 

One must have faith in humankind! And oh! I still believe! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indulging Oneself!

I was reading my psych book about stress for the quiz, which I got a 22 on! Yay! But that’s not my point…
Something caught my eye…
Here’s the passage…

“Stress sometimes leads to reduced impulse control, or self-indulgence. When troubled by stress, many people engage in excessive or unwise patterns of eating, drinking, smoking, using drugs, spending money, and so forth. It makes sense that when things are going poorly in one areas of their lives, people may try to compensate by pursuing substitute forms of satisfaction.”

And I agree.
The first time I used self-indulgence was my senior year and I ate a whole lot. I thought to myself, “I am much stronger than that.” But it turns out I was as weak as the next person. But it felt so good to eat how much I did that I did that for about 4 days or so. Then I stopped because I realized that wasn’t the way to go. All I will do is just get fat, even thought that was something I really needed, that was still not the way to go because I thought I was going to get addicted to food.

“Thus, it’s not surprising that studies have linked stress to increase in eating, smoking, and consumption of alcohol and drugs.

A new manifestation of this coping strategy that attracted much attention recently is the tendency to immerse oneself in the online world of the Internet. Kimberly Young has described a syndrome called Internet addiction, which consists of spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet and inability to control online use. People who exhibit this syndrome tend to feel anxious, depressed, or empty when they are not online. Their internet use is so excessive, it begins to interfere with their functioning at work, at school, or at home, which leads victims to start concealing the extent of their dependence on the Internet. It’s difficult to estimate the prevalence of Internet addiction, but the syndrome does not appear to be rare. Research suggest that Internet is not limited to shy male computer whizzes, as one might expect. Although there’s active debate about wisdom characterizing excessive Internet surfing as an addiction, It’s clear that this new coping pattern is likely to become increasingly common.”

Well, this is an iffy subject for me.
I mean some people are not addicted to the Internet, but addicted to the computer! But like the only fun thing to do on the computer is get on the Internet! Or playing games too! And don’t forget listening to music too!
But I would agree and know why they do that. But I also have another theory instead of that one.

The Internet works as something that would numb the stress, and by that I mean you forget about it for a little while. It’s kind of like a cocaine addiction. The more you use it, the more you forget about your stress and sometimes even the real world. So you are conditioned to think that it works and you deceptively actually think it does. That’s why it’s called an addiction, not because you compensate for something, but because it acts as a buffer, and you start to think you need that buffer, and that’s how you can get addicted to the Internet and the computer.

I guess I would know because I think I do have it, not the internet addiction, but the computer addiction.

“People who exhibit this syndrome tend to feel anxious, depressed, or empty when they are not online.”

A few days ago, I was cleaning all day, so I didn’t get to go on the computer all day, and when I realized that, I became a little depressed. And I realized that I was depressed, and I thought there was nothing I could do except to get on the computer. But I know I took a wrong action by actually getting on!

It’s really hard to believe that people before us actually lived without computer and the Internet and television and cell phones, too.

Where’s the love?

I love this song so much!

Not because it shows some of the bad stuff we do to ourselves

But it shows that some people still have faith in humankind

After all the things we do to ourselves

And we need it, so bad.

I know I still have faith!

 

Where’s the love?

By Black Eyed Peas ft. Justin Timberlake

 

What’s wrong with the world, mama?
People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas

 

 

I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that’ll bring you trauma
(because it makes life interesting,

as long as its not happening to u)

Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin’
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK
(shows that the US is a big hippocrit)

 

But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate, yeah
(i love this part so much)

 

Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how anger works and operates
(the media does show “madness,”

and so we get mad at each other) 

 

Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate

Let your soul gravitate to the love, y’all,

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek?
(probably not the US)

 

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above

(he did already, God did send guidance,

Hundreds of years ago)
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love?

(Love)

Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love,
The love, the love?

It just ain’t the same, always unchanged
New days are strange, is the world insane?

 

 

If love and peace is so strong,
Why are there pieces of love that don’t belong ?

 

 

Nations droppin’ bombs
Chemical gasses fillin’ lungs of little ones
With ongoin’ sufferin’ as the youth die young

 

 

So ask yourself, is the lovin’ really gone?

So I could ask myself, really what is goin’ wrong?

 

 

In this world that we livin’ in people keep on givin’ in
Makin’ wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
(hmmm, I wonder who is he talking about here)

Not respectin’ each other, deny thy brother

(Respect is a big thing for me)

 

 

A war is goin’ on, but the reason’s undercover
The truth is kept secret, it’s swept under the rug
(so you have to look for and find the truth,

Instead of the media giving it to u)

 

If you never know truth, then you never know love
(this line is so true)

 

Where’s the love, y’all? come on (I don’t know)
Where’s the truth, y’all? come on (I don’t know)
(its hidden, its invisible, but its there)

 

Where’s the love, y’all?

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek?

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love? (Love)

Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love,
The love, the love?

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I’m gettin’ older, y’all, people gets colder
( that’s why I look for the people who smile at me,

 

It usually means that they are warm)

 

Most of us only care about money makin’
Selfishness got us followin’ our wrong direction
( I believe this is going to be our downfall)

 

Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
(show me the wrong information, now)

 

Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
(now the childrean believe the wrong information,

and would act on the wrong information)

 

Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

 

 

Yo’, whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality

 

 

Instead in spreading love, we spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading years away from unity
(the ignorance among people is something bad,

and the lack of understanding will keep us apart)

 

That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ under
That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ down
There’s no wonder why sometimes I’m feelin’ under

 

 

Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found
(people must have faith in humankind

I know I still do)

People killin’, people dyin’
Children hurt and you hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’
Where is the love? (Love)

Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)
Where is the love? (The love)

 

What does American owe African Americans for Slavery and Genocide?

Considering recent legislation in favor of reparations to blacks from corporations that have profited from financing slavery like JP Morgan Chase, Aetna and others, do you agree or disagree that modern African Americans deserve an apology for the wrongs committed against their ancestors during the slave trade in America?  Would you consider what happened to the slaves and those 6 million or more that were lost in the Atlantic during the Diaspora a genocide?

http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/128178/What-does-America-owe-blacks-for-Slavery-and-Genocide%3F

i dont think they want an apology…

apologizing will get us nowhere…

they just want to be treated as an equal…

is it really that hard to see what is going on and fix it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plQpLPy1eao

racism reborn…

racism was always there….

in the 1700’s, 1800s and 1900s and today…

if u think about it, u will see it…

racism is a big black stain in Americas history…

not only Americas, but everywhere….

looking in the past will get us nowhere!

why islam?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Clk5lNUdQ&NR=1

i think islam is the most misundrstood religion in the world
not just by non muslims… but by muslims as well

many of the information about islam is based of what they see on television and in the movies
and many muslims are born into this religion without anyone really explainin it to them…
and unfortunately, their actions and behavior reflects their lack of understanding…

and finally you have people who twist the verses of Qur’an in order to spread their hate

the end result: a lot of confused people and a lot of confusion on what islam really teaches…

prove to me that this book is perfect… just like the Creator…
otherwise if the book even has one error… it proves its been written or editted by man…

today if you watch tv long enough, you will believe its a religion of fanatics…
where actions are not based on reason or rationality…
rather, its the exact opposite!

islam is very comprehesive, very practical….
in fact, when it comes to discuss the extistence of the Creator,
islam teaches you to think and reflect
to obverse the world around you…
because when you start investigating you realize how complex things are….
and though our human experince, we realize that complex thing just don’t come out of nowhere….

even though you dont see the engineers and the builders of the buildings…
it doesnt mean that they dont exist…

you get an idea how intellignence of the the creator, just by checking out his creation
the amazing thing is that all these man made structures are simple when you compare it to a thing such as a living organism…

1400 years ago, it was impossible for anyone to have this accurate information…
especially when these things have been discovered in the past century…

and the Qur’an challenges you to write a book like it, if he is in doubt that this book is from the Creator,
to prove that this book can not be written by a human being….
so many have tried, all of them have failed…. and many of them ended up becoming Muslims…

keep in mind that the meaning of Qur’an translated from the is not the Qur’an
any translation is a mere attempt to translate it…

these days, you see people taking verses of the Qur’an and twisting them to try to fool the people
but in reality, they are only fooling themselves…

yes there are gonna be people who are like sheep and they wont think…

islam is also colorblind, so theres no race, color, culture that makes one superior over another…
not even muslims have a free ticket to paradise…
each muslim will be judged by their intentions and actions…

If Islam really taught violence….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Clk5lNUdQ&NR=1

5 to 8 million muslims live here in the united states

if islam really taught violence, then ask yourself, “WHERE IS THE VIOLENCE?”

so all that kill all the infidel stuff is nonsense,
because if it was true,

then HOW WOULD THE CHRISTIANS AND JEWS LIVE GENERATION AFTER GENERATION FOR 1400 YEARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST? AND THEY STILL LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT!

Why do I support interracial?

We are all human beings… in the eyes of God, we are all the same
We are all one human race…. one species
That’s what creatures with higher intelligence do… they devise plans to catergorize themselves
We shouldn’t try to categorize ourselves, even though we are all different
We should celebrate our differences, not try to use the differences against us
Like someone on youtube said, we use the concept of race for our survival, we tend to catorgize ourselves because we feel more comfortable our people who are like us.
The concept of race is a social thing. 
Theres no gene that says you are african american, or asian or white or even hispanic.
If u analyzed what makes a hispanic a hispanic, u will find out that they either speak spanish, or if not they are from spanish america… that has nothing to do with what u look like or anyhting like that…
Its not racism if u look at someone that is very different from you and hate them because they are different, and not taking the time to get to know them. its called being superificial.
We need to look past our differences. And again, we need to celebrate our differences and not use those differences against us.

She attacked my religion and I attack back!

someone commented on my comment on do jews, christians, and muslims worship in the same God?
i said yes and that person commented and said this and this is my reaction…

don’t feel discouraged or put off.
well i am and its the truth, theres only one God and we all worship him.

Lots of people believe what you said to be true.
It isn’t true, but not having studied this doesn’t make you a bad person or a stupid one.
EXCUSE ME? if you really did have studied this stuff, you would have found out that its the opposite.

Muslims are commanded to destroy infidels.
i didnt even know what was an infidel until like very recently…
thats one more stereotype that the MEDIA portrays. we are NOT commanded to “destroy” the infidels.
THINK ABOUT IT! if we were commanded to do that, then there would be no christians and jews in the middle east! if you look for christians and jews there, you will find out, OH MY GOD! there are christians and jews in the middle east… GOD! PEOPLE THINK!!!! THE MEDIA IS TAKING AWAY UR MINDS!

True, in other places in the Koran, they’re commanded to be tolerant of the “people of the book”, but later Koranic passages take precidence over earlier ones. Even the earlier passages are repressive of “infidels”, but the later ones are pretty terminal with regard to treatment of people who refuse to convert to or, even worse, who convert away from Islam.
what the crap? what are you talking about here? treatment of people who refuse to convert to islam, or even divert away from islam… we treat them like people… we dont treat them like dogs and make them convert or we will shoot. if they dont want to convert, its their choice… not ours….

Jews have an incomplete view of God.
Muslims have a different God.
how the crap do we have a different God? please elobrate on that…

Or to put it their way, Christians and Jews worship three gods (the father, the mother, and the son)
wait i thought it was the father, the son, and the holy spirit…
not sure that the jews worship three Gods too… if you do research, instead of listening to the media, you might know just a tad bit more than you know right now… or maybe a lot more… it depends on how much research you do on this topic here.

Mohammed got his ideas of what Christians believe from the gnostics
our prophet (saw) did NOT get his ideas from the Christians, he was NOT even living near Christians to begin with…. he was living near people who worshiped statues…

Mohammed (saw) said: “Far be it from god that he should have a son.”
i think here, he is talking about God having a son and if you think about it, if you define the word son,
you have to have a wife for a son and the son has to have been given birth by the wife!

Historically, the Muslim god evolved from the moon god. Originally, El Al had three daughters (in deference to the people of Mecca, who were, at the time, militarily superior to Mohammed). Mohammed wanted his people to have their own monotheistic religion, like everybody else. So he created one by taking bits from Judaism and Gnostic “Christianity” and adding in a few of his own inventions.
where the crap did you get this information… what the crap is the “moon god?”
he was not even living near the jews.

Who knows. Maybe he really did see an “angel” who gave him decrees. Satan presents himself as an angel of light. I think it more likely he, like Joseph Smith of more modern times, invented the whole thing for personal gain.
what the crap would he had gained? he couldnt even read or write… and if he did make all this up… then he was so accurate in his predictions and the only thing who could have given him those predictions is God… 

Mohammed was mure successful at actually benefitting from his new religion than Smith was.
Mohammed lived in luxury,
he lived in poverty

having 13 wives,
he had 9 wifes and that was the only prophet who could have that many wives

one 6 years old when he married her, great power, and all the luxuries he admonished his followers to shun.
i dont think he married a 6 year old… but i know he didnt have “great power and luxuries.” so explain to me what luxuries he had…

As to living lives of integrity, Hear, Hear! You are absolutely right, Lee. There’s no need to debate Muslims.
OUCH that hurts.

They have their own problems. What they need from us is not condemnation or logical or historical reasons to leave Islam.
*sigh* i would never leave islam, even if there was a gun to my head and someone saying to leave it.

They need to see our love, which is pretty hard to see sometimes
we dont hate you! and we know u dont hate us!

Especially since they really believe the US is a Christian nation–ouch!
well its kinda too bad that the US isnt a Christian nation,
because if it was, i would have great respect for it… more than i do for it now.
religion brings order to your life… instead of going through life doing whatever you want, like having sex before you are married or drinking when ever you want and then becoming addicted to alcohol after that and THEN wishing you have never started to drink in the first place, or ending up to have sex and ending up pregnant and then you have a baby and unplanned pregnancy or getting high from cocaine or LSD or any other drug and then getting angry and end up beating your child or wife, you have order in your life and you know not to do these thing because your religion is protecting you from doing those things…

Guess whos ignorant now?

all-in-all, i really have no idea where you got this information and its really sad that whoever is giving you doesnt know what he’s talking about and is giving you wrong information because then you will never know the truth and its a sad day when people don’t know the truth and they talk because it makes them look so stupid here…

PEACE BE WITH YOU!

Sweetangel16175

Biography of Our Prophet (saw)

http://delhi4cats.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/biography-of-prophet-muhammad-pbuh/

Dear Mr. President!

“Dear Mr. President”
(feat. Indigo Girls)

by PINK!Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let’s pretend we’re just two people and
You’re not better than me.
I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say
No child is left behind?
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind.
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don’t know nothing ’bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You’d never take a walk with me.
Would you?

 

 

 

Crazy!

Crazy by Simple Plan

Tell me what’s wrong with society
When everywhere I look, I see
Young girls dying to be on TV
They won’t stop till they’ve reached their dreams

Diet pills, surgery
Photoshopped pictures in magazines
Telling them how they should be
It doesn’t make sense to me

Is everybody going crazy?
Is anybody gonna save me?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on?
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something is wrong

I guess things are not how they used to be
There’s no more normal families
Parents act like enemies
Making kids feel like it’s World War III

No one cares, no one’s there
I guess we’re all just too damn busy
And money’s our first priority
It doesn’t make sense to me

Is everybody going crazy?
Is anybody gonna save me?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on?
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something is wrong

Is everybody going crazy?
Is everybody going crazy?

Tell me what’s wrong with society
When everywhere I look I see
Rich guys driving big SUVs
While kids are starving in the streets

No one cares
No one likes to share
I guess life’s unfair

Is everybody going crazy?
Is anybody gonna save me?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on?
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something, something is wrong

Is everybody going crazy?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on?
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something is wrong

Stanley Milgram’s Experiment of Obedience!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w

stanley milgrams claim is the obedience to authority is stronger than the personal conscience…

 

“Obedience is a form of compliance that occurs when people follow direct commands, usually from someone in position of authority.

Milgrams studies…

Stanley Milgram wanted to study this tendency to obey authority figures. Like many other people after WWII, he was troubled by how readily the citizens of Germany followed the orders of dictator Hitler, even when the orders required shockingly immoral actions, such as the slaughter of thousand of jews. Milgram, who had worked with Solomon Asch, set out to design a standard laboratory procedure for the study of obedience. The clever experiment that Milgram devised became one of the most famous and controversial studies in the annals of psychology.

Milgrams participants were a diverse collection of 40 men from the local community. They were told that they would be participating in a study concerned with the effects of punishment on learning. When they arrived at the lab, the drew slips of paper from a hat to get their assignment. The drawing was rigged so that the subject always became the “teacher” and an experimental accomplice became the “learner.”

The learner was strapped into an electified chair through which a shock could be delivered whenever he made a mistake on the task. The subject was taken to an adjoining room that housed the shock generator that he would control in his role as the teacher. Although the apparatus looked and sounded realistic, it was fake and the learner was never shocked.

As the “learning experiment” proceed, the accomplice made many necessitated shocks. The teacher was instructed to increase the shock level after each wrong answer. At 300 volts, the learner began to pound on the wall between the two rooms in protest and soo stopped responding to the teachers questions. From this point forward, participants frequently turned to the experimenter for guidance. Whenever they did so, the experimenter firmly indicated that the teacher should continue to give stronger and stronger shocks to the now-silent learner. The dependent variable was the maximum shock the participant was willing to administer before refusing to go on.

The shock levels went from 15 to 450 on 30 intervals.

26 out the 40 subjects administered all 30 levels of shock. Although they tended to obey the experimenter, many subjects voiced and displayed considerable distress about harming the learner. The horrified participants groaned, bit their lips, stuttered, trembled, and broke in sweat, but continued administering the shocks. Based on these results, Milgram concluded that obedience to authority was even more common than he or others anticipated. Before the study was conducted, it was predicted that 1% of the subject will continue until the end of the series of shocks!

In interpreting his results, Milgram agrued that strong pressure from an authority figure can make a decent person do indecent things to others. Applying this insight to the Nazi war crimes and other traversties, Milgram asserted that some sinister actions may be due to the actors evil character so much as to situational pressures that can lead normal people to engage in acts of treachery and violence. Thus, he arrived at the distrubing conclusion that given the right circumstances, any of us might obey orders to inflict harm on innocent strangers.”

 

this is what i wrote before we studied this experiment:

i disagree that obedience to authority is stronger, even though this experiment shows that.

it’s just so hard to believe.

i think he did an unethical experiment because people had to live with the guilt of killing someone if they raised the machine to 450 volts.

i agree that if you gradually do something, it becomes easier and easier.

 

and this is what i wrote after we studied this experiment:

i believe people are generally good, unless you prove me otherwise, they are good.

people should know right from wrong and should know that hurting someone is wrong, and people should have ethics. if someone told me to do that experiment, i wouldnt do it, even if i didnt know what the experiment was about.

It’s not race!

so i have heard the word race being refered to muslim

i have heard the word race being refered to jews (Semitism)

i have heard the word race being refered to hispanic

but if you take the time to analyze it, you will find that the are not really races

so i thought i would try to enlighten people with this post on why i dont believe they are really are really races….

the word muslim refers to the word religion islam and it would be belonging to the religion of islam….

the word semitism refers to being jewish and its the same concept as being muslim…

if you analyze how to be hispanic, you will also find out that to be hispanic, you need to at least be spanish…

theres no different feature that they have… they dont have an extra nose or and extra ear…

or different skin color or different eyes… and a rounder face…

so my agrument is that they say that they are…

i say that its not…

Has it really gone?

crazy racist family on tyra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdi_VHvCR3A&feature=related

easings responds to crazy racist family on tyra
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTllN2jPKMU&feature=related

easings responds to crazy racist family on tyra part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pqKq-Jpxgw&watch_response

racism reborn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plQpLPy1eao

racism in petersburg, russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQde-vHlLh8

racism in hollywood!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzck-_MROrI

police brutality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfFfUxBDMDY

racism on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oour5Sa6TU8

planned parenthood racism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eygv8qEkiFE

obama faces racism in west virginia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-q4MDQ0cDI 

and this is only the beginning!

The Stanford Prison Experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological study of what it meant to be a prisoner and a prison guard, psychologically. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The students who were assigned to be the prisoners were paid $15 a day as an incentive, which is worth about $80 per day in 2008 dollars.

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited “genuine” sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. Finally, Zimbardo terminated the experiment because he realized that his experiment was unethical.

Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr wrote in 1981 that the Milgram Experiment in the 1960s and the later Zimbardo Experiment were frightening in their implications about the danger which lurks in the darker side of human nature.

Zimbardo and his team intended to test the hypothesis that prison guards and convicts were self-selecting of a certain disposition that would naturally lead to poor conditions. Participants were recruited via a newspaper ad and offered $15 a day to participate in a two-week “prison simulation.” Of the 75 respondents, Zimbardo and his team selected the 24 males whom they deemed to be the most psychologically stable and healthy. These participants were predominantly white and middle-class.

The “prison” itself was in the basement of Stanford’s Jordan Hall, which had been converted into a mock jail. An undergraduate research assistant was the “warden” and Zimbardo the “superintendent”. Zimbardo set up a number of specific conditions on the participants which he hoped would promote disorientation, depersonalization and deindividuation.

Guards were given wooden batons and a khaki, military-style uniform that they had chosen at a local military surplus store. They were also given mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact. Unlike the prisoners, the guards were to work in shifts and return home during off hours, though at times many would later volunteer for added duty without additional pay.

Prisoners were to wear only intentionally ill-fitting muslin smocks without underwear and rubber thong sandals, which Zimbardo said would force them to adopt “unfamiliar body postures” and discomfort in order to further their sense of disorientation. They were referred to by assigned numbers instead of by name. These numbers were sewn onto their uniforms, and the prisoners were required to wear tight-fitting nylon pantyhose caps to simulate shaven heads similar to those of military basic training. In addition, they wore a small chain around their ankles as a “constant reminder” of their imprisonment and oppression.

The day before the experiment, guards attended a brief orientation meeting but were given no formal guidelines other than that no physical violence was permitted. They were told it was their responsibility to run the prison, and they could do so in any way they wished.

Zimbardo provided the following statements to the “guards” in the briefing:

You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they’ll have no privacy… We’re going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we’ll have all the power and they’ll have none.

— The Stanford Prison Study video, quoted in Haslam & Reicher, 2003.

The participants who had been chosen to play the part of prisoners were told simply to wait in their homes to be “called” on the day the experiment began. Without any other warning, they were “charged” with armed robbery and arrested by the actual Palo Alto police department, who cooperated in this part of the experiment.

The prisoners were put through a full booking procedure by the police, including fingerprinting, having their mug shots taken, and information regarding their Miranda rights. They were transported to the mock prison where they were strip-searched, deloused, and given their new identities.

The experiment quickly grew out of hand. Prisoners suffered — and accepted — sadistic and humiliating treatment from the guards. The high level of stress progressively led them from rebellion to inhibition. By experiment’s end, many showed severe emotional disturbances.

After a relatively uneventful first day, a riot broke out on the second day. The guards volunteered to work extra hours and worked together to break the prisoner revolt, attacking the prisoners with fire extinguishers without supervision from the research staff.

Prisoner counts, initially devised for the prisoners to learn their identity numbers, degenerated to hour-long ordeals where guards tormented the prisoners and imposed physical punishments, including long bouts of forced exercise. The prison became dirty and inhospitable; bathroom rights became privileges, which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were forced to clean toilets with bare hands. Mattresses were removed from the “bad” cell block and the prisoners forced to sleep naked on the concrete floor. Moreover, prisoners endured forced nudity and even sexual humiliation.

Zimbardo cited his own absorption in the experiment he guided, and in which he actively participated as Prison Superintendent. On the fourth day, he and the guards reacted to an escape rumor by attempting to move the entire experiment to a real, unused cell block at the local police station, because it was more secure. The police department refused, citing insurance liability concerns; Zimbardo recalls his anger and disgust with the lack of co-operation, between his and the police’s jails.

As the experiment proceeded, several guards became progressively sadistic. Experimenters said that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Interestingly, most of the guards were upset when the experiment concluded early.

Zimbardo argued that the prisoner participants had internalized their roles, based on the fact that some had stated that they would accept parole even with the attached condition of forfeiting all of their experiment-participation pay. Yet, when their parole applications were all denied, none of the prisoner participants quit the experiment. Zimbardo argued they had no reason for continued participation in the experiment after having lost all monetary compensation, yet they did, because they had internalised the prisoner identity, they thought themselves prisoners, hence, they stayed.

A replacement prisoner was introduced; Prisoner No. 416, horrified at the guards’ treatment of the other prisoners, went on a hunger strike in an attempt to force his release. Instead, he was forced into a small closet for three hours of solitary confinement while forced to hold the meal he refused to eat. The other prisoners perceived Prisoner 416 as a troublemaker. To exploit this feeling, the guards offered the prisoners a choice: Either the prisoners could give up their blankets, or No. 416 would be kept in overnight solitary confinement. All but one of the prisoners chose to keep his blanket.

Zimbardo concluded the experiment early when Christina Maslach, a graduate student he was then dating (and later married), objected to the appalling conditions of the prison after she was introduced to the experiment to conduct interviews. Zimbardo noted that of more than fifty outside persons who had seen the prison, Maslach was the only one who questioned its morality. After only six days, of a planned two weeks’ duration, the Stanford Prison experiment was shut down.

The Stanford experiment ended on August 20, 1971, only 6 days after it began instead of the 14 it was supposed to have lasted. The experiment’s result has been argued to demonstrate the impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing ideology and social and institutional support. It is also used to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority.

In psychology, the results of the experiment are said to support situational attributions of behavior rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed the situation caused the participants’ behavior, rather than anything inherent in their individual personalities. In this way, it is compatible with the results of the also-famous Milgram experiment, in which ordinary people fulfilled orders to administer what appeared to be damaging electric shocks to a confederate of the experimenter.

Shortly after the study had been completed, there were bloody revolts at both the San Quentin and Attica prison facilities, and Zimbardo reported his findings on the experiment to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.

The experiment was widely criticized as being unethical and bordering on unscientific. Current ethical standards of psychology would not permit such a study to be conducted today. The study would violate the American Psychological Associate Ethics Code, the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and the Belmont Report. Critics including Erich Fromm challenged how readily the results of the experiment could be generalized. Fromm specifically writes about how the personality of an individual does in fact affect behavior when imprisoned (using historical examples from the Nazi concentration camps). This runs counter to the study’s conclusion that the prison situation itself controls the individual’s behavior. Fromm also argues that the amount of sadism in the “normal” subjects could not be determined with the methods employed to screen them.

Because it was a field experiment, it was impossible to keep traditional scientific controls. Zimbardo was not merely a neutral observer, but influenced the direction of the experiment as its “superintendent”. Conclusions and observations drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal, and the experiment would be difficult for other researchers to reproduce.

Some of the experiment’s critics argued that participants based their behavior on how they were expected to behave, or modeled it after stereotypes they already had about the behavior of prisoners and guards. In other words, the participants were merely engaging in role-playing. Another problem with the experiment was certain guards, such as “John Wayne”, changed their behavior because of wanting to conform to the behavior that they thought Zimbardo was trying to elicit. In response, Zimbardo claimed that even if there was role-playing initially, participants internalized these roles as the experiment continued.

Additionally, it was criticized on the basis of ecological validity. Many of the conditions imposed in the experiment were arbitrary and may not have correlated with actual prison conditions, including blindfolding incoming “prisoners”, not allowing them to wear underwear, not allowing them to look out of windows and not allowing them to use their names. Zimbardo argued that prison is a confusing and dehumanizing experience and that it was necessary to enact these procedures to put the “prisoners” in the proper frame of mind; however, it is difficult to know how similar the effects were to an actual prison, and the experiment’s methods would be difficult to reproduce exactly so that others could test them.

Some said that the study was too deterministic: reports described significant differences in the cruelty of the guards, the worst of whom came to be nicknamed “John Wayne.” (This guard alleges he started the escalation of events between “guards” and “prisoners” after he began to emulate a character from the Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke. He further intensified his actions because he was nicknamed “John Wayne” though he was trying to mimic actor Strother Martin who played the role of the sadistic “Captain” in the movie.) Other guards were kinder and often did favors for prisoners. Zimbardo made no attempt to explain or account for these differences.

Also, it has been argued that selection bias may have played a role in the results. Researchers from Western Kentucky University recruited students for a study using an advertisement similar to the one used in the Stanford Prison Experiment, with and without the words “prison life.” It was found that students volunteering for a prison life study possessed dispositions toward abusive behavior.

Lastly, the sample size was very small, with only 24 participants taking part over a relatively short period of time. This means that it is very hard to generalise across a wider scale. Also, the sample selection only contained males, meaning that the sample then is ‘androcentric’ again, leading to a lack of representativeness.

my response
it shows that if you give a person the opportunity to feel superior and to make someone feel inferior, even if it’s just for a day, he would take it… it also shows how self we can be.
and i wanted to point out that it’s exactly like what we did in the jim crow laws before the 60’s. it was all about race and inequality, and the whites were “superior” to african americans. so the whites treated the african american very badly. and the african americans were “helpless” until the 50’s.

How do stereotypes create prejudice or even discrimination in today’s society?

I saw someone post this question and i would love to address that…

“to be prejudice is to have a negative attitude that is held toward members of a group…
like other attitudes it has three components:
belief: all indians are alcoholics, muslims are terrorist, african americans are gangsters
emotions: i hate jews, i loathe asians, i despise iraqis
behavorial dispositions: i would never hire a mexican, i would never sit with an african american, if my kid was a lesbian, i would kill her.

prejudices are not limited to racial groups. women, homosexuals, the aged, the disabled, and the mentally ill are also targets for prejudices. even cliques at schools are targets too. thus many people hold prejudicial attitudes toward one group or another, and many have been victims of prejudice.

prejudice may lead to discrimination, which involves behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward members of a group.”

processes that promote prejudices…
where do we get most of our stereotypes from?
if you think about it for a sec, you will realize that almost everyone in the US has a television.
and so almost everyone watches it.
theres so much, these days, about how muslims are terrorists and about how muslims are commanded to kill the “infidel”, so i believe we get most of our stereotypes from the media.

why is stereotyping so easy to promote?
i have two reasons…
the media takes advantage of the fact that people are ignorant…
they have no prior knowledge of the subject… they won’t know if it’s right or wrong…
some people are like sheep and believe what the media tells them… 
so the people in the media say, “lets give them the knowledge, and they will believe anythin we say. they wont know if it’s right or wrong.”
this is the most obvious way of the promoting the stereotypes of islam.

and one of the reasons is fear…
when people are afraid of something, they tend to keep away from it.
my impression is that racist people are afraid that african americans will rob them.
people are afraid to admit that they are gays because they are afraid to be hated on by their family and friends and society.
people are afraid to admit that they are ocd or schizophernic because of the stigma that the mentally ill have…
people are afraid to be identified as muslim because of the stigma that the muslims have

“according to the social identity perceptive, self esteem depends on both personal and social identity. social identity refers to the pride derive from membership in various groups. the theory purposes that self esteem can be undermined by either threat to personal identity or social identity. threats to both personal and social identity may motivate efforts to restore self esteem, but threats to social identity are more likely to provoke responses that promotes prejudices and discrimination. when social identity is threatened, individuals may react in two ways to bolster it. one common  response is to show ingroup favoritism, for example, tapping an ingroup member for a job opening, or rating the performance of an ingroup member higher than that of an outgroup member. a second common reaction is to engage in outgroup derogation, in other words, to “trash” outgroup that are perceived as threatening. outgroup derogation is more likely when people identify especially strongly with the threatened ingroup. when people degorate an outgroup, they tend to feel superior as a result, and this feeling helps to affirm self worth. these unfortunate reactions are not inevitable, but threats to social identity represent yet another dynamic process that can foster prejudice.”

note: the first part and the last part is from my psych book, the middle part is from me.

Come on people! Think for yourself for once! 2

i edited my paper so i hope you like it and understand it!

Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions, sometimes based on the defense mechanism projection, that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image about what people in that group are like. The images could be positive or negative. However, the image is often wrong and doesn’t take one person into account. It can lead to prejudice and might even lead to discrimination. There are stereotypes about every culture and every religion in the world, the Indians, the Asians, the English, the French.

Where are most of our stereotypes coming from? If you think about it for a sec, you will realize that almost everyone in the US has a television. and so almost everyone watches it.Theres so much, these days, about how muslims are terrorists and about how muslims are commanded to kill the “infidel”, so I believe we get most of our stereotypes from the media. The media  is trying to brainwash people into thinking that there are only categories of people. We don’t have to go ahead and meet them because we think we know what they will be like when we really have no idea what they are like, and, God forbid, it’s a sin to walk up to a person and meet them, right?

Why is stereotyping so easy to promote? I have two reasons. There could be more, though. The media definitely takes advantage of the fact that people are ignorant. They have no prior knowledge of the subject. They won’t know if it’s right or wrong. Some people are like sheep and believe what the media tells them, and don’t think for themselves. So the people in the media say, “Lets give them the knowledge, and they will believe anything we say because they won’t know if it’s right or wrong.” This is obviously way they promote the stereotypes of islam.

And another reasons is fear. The media promotes these stereotypes by repetition, so over and over we see those stereotypes. That’s how people learn these stereotypes. People have lived with these stereotypes for quite sometime now, and they start to get afraid because they start believing those stereotypes, and when people are afraid of something, they tend to keep away from it. My impression is that racist people are afraid that african americans will rob them because they show that a lot in the media. People are afraid to admit that they are gays because they are afraid to be hated on by their family and friends and society, so they hate on them back. People are afraid to admit that they are ocd or schizophernic because of the stigma that the mentally ill have because of the media. They show a lot of mentally ill people as wild and crazy and they need to be institionalized because they are crazy. People are afraid to be identified as muslim because of the stigma that the muslims have.

And these stereotypes promote prejudices, not that the media wants the people to be prejudice against the muslims. “According to the social identity perceptive, self esteem depends on both personal and social identity. Social identity refers to the pride derive from membership in various groups. The theory purposes that self esteem can be undermined by either threat to personal identity or social identity. Threats to both personal and social identity may motivate efforts to restore self esteem, but threats to social identity are more likely to provoke responses that promotes prejudices and discrimination. When social identity is threatened, individuals may react in two ways to bolster it. one common response is to show ingroup favoritism, for example, tapping an ingroup member for a job opening, or rating the performance of an ingroup member higher than that of an outgroup member. A second common reaction is to engage in outgroup derogation, in other words, to “trash” outgroup that are perceived as threatening. Outgroup derogation is more likely when people identify especially strongly with the threatened ingroup. When people degorate an outgroup, they tend to feel superior as a result, and this feeling helps to affirm self worth. These unfortunate reactions are not inevitable, but threats to social identity represent yet another dynamic process that can foster prejudice.”

And its much easier for people to use outgroup derogating, because its easier to trash talk people that are not from your “kind” because it’s more accessible. Not many people could do ingroup favoritism because there’s not a lot of opportunities to do it. And people do tend to feel superior and so that helps with their self-esteem because everyone want to feel good and superior to another person.

The most common stereotyped people today is the Muslim people. So people hate on Islam because of all the stereotypes out there, and because it makes them feel superior since they are not “savages,” like all the muslims are. And they are much more “civilized” than the Muslims are. Its much easier to trash talk Islam then to find out the truth and then spread it around.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. If one did research about Islam, one will find that out.  If one does research about Islam and listens to what the media, like television, says about Islam, they will find two completely different images. One very common image that the media portrays the Muslims as terrorists. We carry bombs and we do all the killings. From these images on televison, people create  an image in their heads about the religion of Islam and then project it to all the Muslim people and mainly on the religion of Islam. If one think about it, they will see how unfair it is for a Muslim, actually for anyone, living in Western society may feel about these very unfair stereotypes that the media is projecting on Islam and the Muslim people as a whole.

Now people think that Muslims are terrorist and they think that Muslims are bad people. The holy book is the Qur’an and they follow what the Qur’an says, so the Qur’an must preach violence. They see the women wearing the hijab and “restricting” their freedom to show off their bodies. And they don’t see any women going to drunken parties or going to bars and having boyfriends and having fun and running around in the streets. So people think and assume that the women are oppressed and they should be “freed” from that oppression. They look at images on the television and see how “poor” the Arab world is and think there’s no schools and everyone is running in the streets, and there’s no education and think that the only reason that there’s no education is that they are so “poor.” And so they make the conclusion that no one is learning anything, especially women. They think that Islam doesn’t believe in Jesus, peace on him, since Islam doesn’t believe that he is the son of God or anything.

And to make their stereotypes and prejduices possible, they use the concept of identifying against. One can see that everyone has an identity. Some people form their identity by identitying against. To identify against, first we define the “other” and then we define themselves as “not the other.” The media gives these stereotypes and people now believe that the Muslims ar terrorists and carry bombs and people are not terrorist and people don’t carry bombs. So people who don’t think for themselves think that the Muslims are “savages” and would kill anyone in sight. That makes them not want to convert to such a peaceful religion such as Islam and people don’t want to be identified as Muslim because it’s associated with all these bad images in the media and the overused word of terrorism.

 

            These are some common stereotypes the Islam as a religion has.

All Muslim women are oppressed.
           

To tell you the truth, Muslim women are not oppressed.

If Muslim women are so oppressed, then why dont they just convert to another religion?

If they are so unhappy with the rules that God put on them, then when why don’t they just convert to Christianity or Judaism? They would be a lot happier, huh?
            Yes, Muslims don’t drink at bars and women wear the scarf, but Muslims believe that God put those rules for a reason. Muslims believe that God doesn’t want us to be tempted to do bad stuff. If you take away the temptation, you’re not tempted. And you must be asking yourself, “Why does He put the temptation there in the first place?” He wants to see if people like us will listen to Him.

Muslims are freed from having to make bad decision that will sometimes change their lives, like drinking. When people drink, they very often lose control of themselves and they could do stuff that are uncalled for, and on top of that, alcohol gives you a lot of problems in the future. One does get addicted to alcohol, so one spends a lot of money on alcohol. If one drinks too much, one could pass out, and one could even die from drinking too much alcohol, which would be exactly like suicide and if you killed yourself, you would be going to the most bottom part of hell, which is what the Muslims believe. If one drinks and drives, one could get into an accident. In the long run, alcohol causes so many health problems, one of them being liver damage. One’s liver is one of the most important organ in the body.

We pray five times a day, so that we could think of God all the time. Many Christians only go to church on Sunday and think of God only then. Muslims fast in the month of Ramadan from even before sunrise to sunset; one of the reasons is learn self control and that patience is a virtue. Another reason is to feel what the poor people have and to think of food as a gift instead of a necessity, like people always do.  Muslim give alms, so that we don’t think we are the richest people in the world. Being selfish and greedy is common around people.

Muslims believe that God put rules. If you follow them, you will be saved, in this life and in the one after.

 

True feminists should work to free the Muslim women.

 

From what? There’s nothing to be freed from. We are not oppressed, so there’s not we need to be freed from. Again, if Muslim women are so oppressed, then why don’t they convert to another religion? They are actually a lot happier than any other religion, because again, the temptation is taken away. They call Islam a backwards, tradition religion, but what is wrong with being traditional?

Muslim women are forced to cover their heads.

 

Wearing the hijab is in the Qur’an, but Muslims are not forced to do it. Our dads don’t have a gun at our heads saying that if we don’t do it, he will shoot. Not all the Muslim wear the hijab. The hijab takes commitment. One can not wear it one day and take it off the next.

 The hijab is a beautiful thing. One who wears it doesn’t have to worry about how their hair looks in the morning. But one who wear it should cover everything except their hand and face, unless their face is beautiful, then they also have to cover it. If you are beautiful, it’s better to hide it than show it off. When women are all out there showing everything, they are usually called sluts and whores and hoes. One who wears it gets a lot more respect than one who flaunts their stuff. Wearing the hijab doesn’t distract the men from their work. Men actually get their work done instead of paying attention or thinking about the women next to him. Men treat women who wear the hijab like a person, instead of being distracted by her beauty. Wearing the hijab is also an attitude and a behavior rather than only just a fashion statement.

The concept here is temptation, too. Men are tempted to pursue a woman by her beauty. Men are usually looking for a short term relationship after they pursue the woman. So if that is taken away, then they are not tempted to persue the women in front of them.

 

Muslim women are generally not allowed to be educated.

 

That’s the silliest stereotype there is. It’s very hard for a Muslim to fathom how did that become a stereotype. Why would God not want Muslims women to be educated?  Education for Muslim women is no sin. Women have the same rights to be educated as men do. Muslim women do too. Men go to college and even pursue their own careers. Muslim women do too. Edcuation in the Arab world is a actually a duty. It’s a duty to educate men and women alike! Is that really hard to believe? In fact, my mom came all the way to the United States just for our education. Besides without education, where would Muslim women be?

 

Most Muslims support terrorism.
 

If you took a survey to give to all Muslims in the world and ask them this question, you will find that about 98% don’t support it. Muslims DON’T support terrorism. I don’t support terrorism. Heck! I didn’t even know the word existed before September 11, 2001. I didn’t even know what the word hijack mean. Muslim actually hate the word terrorism. It’s so overused. Thats is just the propaganda that is on the televsion trying to brainwash you folks to thinking that, to give the United States justification to go into Iraq. The United States is not at war with the religion, even though some people think it is. It is at war with one country, Iraq. They have something that the United States wants, which is a small three letter word, but it makes a big difference, oil. So the United States gets jealous because it doesn’t have any and makes up all these stories about the Muslim people. And people use to defense mechanism of projection. The government “hates” the Muslim people and so the United States “hates” the Muslim people. So in return, they think the Muslim people “hate” them, when it is completely the opposite.

Islam preaches voilence and muslim are commanded by God to “kill all the infidels.”

 

If Islam did preach violence, then why are Muslims on the news right now? Why werent Muslims on the news before September 11, 2001? If it did preach violence, we would have been on the news since television news started. And beside the literal translation ofthe word Islam is “peace and submission to God.” It preaches voilence and yet its the fastest growing religion in the world? Come on, people, think! I didnt even know what was an infidel until like very recently. Five to eight million muslims live here in the united states today. So if islam really taught violence, then ask yourself, “WHERE IS THE VIOLENCE?” So  all that kill all the infidel stuff is nonsense, because if it was true, then HOW WOULD THE CHRISTIANS AND JEWS LIVE GENERATION AFTER GENERATION FOR 1400 YEARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST? AND THEY STILL LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST! THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT!

Islam and Christianity have no common beliefs.

 

Islam and Christianity both belief that there’s a God. They both know Jesus, peace on him, but Islam dont believe that he’s the son of God. If he was the son of God, that means God was married and He had kids. Thats the literal translation of the son of God. They both believe in Adam, peace on him, and Eve and Noah, peace on him, and the flood. They both believe in Moses, peace on him, and the ten commandent. They both believe in the end of the world and Judgment Day. They both believe in Abraham, peace on him, and his son Issac and that he almost sacrificed his son because God told him to. Islam even had a day where we celebrate that day, which is the big Eid. So they have so many common beliefs.

 

Muslim people are forced to make the non muslims convert and they treat the non muslims bad if they don’t convert.

 

We are not forced to make non muslims convert. We are not telling them to convert and we don’t have guns to their heads if the don’t convert. Treatment of people who refuse to convert to islam is the same as all the other people. Muslim don’t treat people who wont convert like dogs and then the people who are converting or are already Muslim like angels, same with the people who divert away from islam. If they want to divert, it’s going to be their problem in the future, not ours. We treat all people alike. If  they dont want to convert, bravo! Its their choice, not ours.

 

So in conclusion, all these stereotypes are wrong and if one want to know the truth, one has to do his own research because not all what the media says is true. The media is giving wrong information to the people and it’s not fair that the media is doing that. However, it doesn’t take a rocker scientist to figure out that Islam preaches violence or know that Muslim women are not getting educated are false because there are a lot of Muslim women at my college. People need to start thinking for themselves and stop letting the media dicate to them what to think and how to react to it.

 

 

Eating Disorders

two words… that i still dont get why they even have them…
the stereotype of beauty is being skinny…
eating disorders are severe disturbances in eating behavior characterized by peroccupation with weight concerns and unhealthy effort to control weight. the vast majority of cases consist of two sometimes overlapping sydromes: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

anorexia nervosa involves intense fear of gaining weight, disturbed body image, refusal to maintain normal body weight, and dangerous measures to lose weight. two subtypes have been observed. in restricting type anorexia nervosa, people drastically reduce their food intake, sometimes literally starving themselves. in binge-eating/purging type anorexia nervosa, individuals attempt to lose weight by forcing themselves to to vomit after meals, by misusing laxatives and diuretics, and by engaging in excessive exercise

both types suffer from distrubed body image. no matter how frail they become, they insist that they are too fat. their morbid fear of obesity means that they are never satisified with their weight. if they gain a pound or two, they panic. the only thing that makes them happy is to lose more weight. the frequent result is the relentless decline in body image; people who are entering treatment for anorexia nervosa are typically 25-30% below the normal weight. because of their disturbed body image, individuals suffering from anorexia nervosa generally do not appreciate the maladaptive quality of their behavior and rarely seek treatment on their own. they are typically coaxed or coerced into treatment by friends or family member who is alarmed by their appearence.

anorexia nervosa eventually leads to a cascade of medical problems, including amenorrhea, loss of menstrual cycles, gastronintesinal problems, low blood pressure, osteroporosis, and metabolic disturbances that can lead to cardic arrest or circulatory collapse. anorexia is a serious illness that leads to death in 5-10% of patients.

bulimia nervosa involves habitually engaging in out-of control overeating followed by unhealthy compensatory efforts, such as selfinduced vomiting, fasting, abuse of laxatives and diuretics, and excessive exercise. the eating binges are usually carried out in secret and are followed by intense guilt and conern about gaining weight. these feelings motivate ill advised strategies to undo the effects of overeating. however vomiting prevents absorption of only about half of the recent consumed food, and the laxative and diuretics have negligible impact on caloric intake, so individuals suffering from bulimia nervosa typically maintain a reasonably normal weight. medical problems associated with bulimia nervosa include cardic arrythmia, dental problems, metabolic deficiencies, and gastrointestinal problems.

obviously bulimia nervosa shares many features with anorexia nervosa, such as a morbid fear of becoming obese, preoccupation with food, and a rigid maladaptive approaches to controlling weight that are grounded in naive all-or-none thinking. however the sydromes also differ in crucial ways. first and foremost, bulimia is a much less life-threatening conidition. second, although their appearance is usually more normal than seen with anorexia, people with bulimia are much more likely to recognize that their eating behavior is pathological and are more likely to cooperate with treatment

so where in the torah, the bible, or the qur’an does it say that fat people are ugly or skinny people are beautiful? thin is not the new beautiful. i hate it when people think like that. young women are comparing themselve to the girls in the media. otherwise they wont get men to love then. look at queen latifah, shes big and beautiful and a successful woman.

beauty should come from within because, as i said earlier looks fade very easily. we dont have to look a certain way to be beautiful because we are all beautiful in our own way. i think people who are anorexic and bulimic should try to focus more on their intelligence and kindness because in the end only those two things will matter more, much, much more than beauty.

“in the end, only kindness matters.”

To Clique is to Stereotype

and i am not talking about clicking the lights on or the television…
i am talking about cliques in school
theres a lot of stereotypes about cliques in school…
sorry if i offend anyone. i am truly not trying to offend anyone. i am just trying to show all the stereotypes that are associated with these cliques… and i know they are not true… but this is what i think about when you say these cliques…

nerds are supposed to be smart, always wearing glasses, girls always are in two pig tail braids, the glasses are usually black rimmed, they usually are awkward and clumsy, they are usually in love with the most popular guy in school, they usually are not dressed up in petite clothing, the are more concerned about getting good grades, they usually make all A’s, they usually dont date or are not dating anyone

jocks are supposed to be buff, tall, hot, big guys who are into sports, like football, basketball, or hockey, the head jock usually always get the head cheerleader and they usually slept with her, they are concerned about making the next touchdown, basket, or goal, the head of the team will always get into college with a scholarship,

cheerleaders are supposed to be skinny, bitchy. little, blonde. hot girls who wave pompoms in your face at pep rallies, they usually sleep around and they usually are dating the quarterback of the football team, they usually are airheads who dont know anything, they some of the time have people do they work for them, they are usually like the plastics in mean girls, and say “like” and “whatever” and “oh my God” a lot

bad boys are supposed to wear a black leather jacket, sometimes jean jacket will do, sometimes they wear gloves, most of the time he’s hot, they always have to act “cool,” otherwise people wont think they are cool, they always have to get in trouble to impress the girls, some of the time its them who has the girl, 

goths are supposed to wear mostly black, with black nail polish and black lipstick, and make up and pale white face, they are usually called emo, and girls usually wear tiny vests and leggings, they are usually dark and write a lot of poetry about dark stuff, they usually have piercings in places besides the ear, they dont always have visible art on their body, 

punks are supposed to be rather the same as goths, except they dont wear mostly black, they too wear the vest, they too write dark poetry and usually have piercing other than in the ear, they love to listen to hard rock music,

and again this post is not here to offend anyone, i am just trying to show the stereotypes…
and every public school has them, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the nerds,
but if u strip them down to their undies, you will see that they are human, just like everyone else,
i didnt like “stick to the status quo” in high school musical, because it shows all the stereotypes of the cliques, but i do like it because people are trying to break free of these stereotypes…

i am trying to show that there are stereotypes for cliques and i really dont think its fair when you say nerd and cheerleader, you get two completely different images in your mind.

you cant categorize people based on what they wear or how they look and get the whole picture of who they are… maybe someone is a nerd, but they secretly take karate classes… and you will never know because you didn’t take the time to get to know them…

Almost here

i wrote this poem a long time ago…
but i like it…

almost here

closing my eyes as tight as i could

i could almost see his skin
a little darker than mine
and his beautiful smile,
and his rich deep brown eyes,
his eyes glistening in the light
as he looks into my eyes

i could almost smell his cologne
like the day his skin
accidently brushed mine
and i was in pure esctasy
he smells like a summer breeze
as it washes over me

i could almost feel his hand
he held my hand and let go
as we put our hands up
and our hands were like
the opposite poles of a manget
colliding with each other

i could almost hear his voice
as it rises and falls to
the melodious tune as he sings
my name to his own harmony
above the song of the wind
and i clap for him

i could almost taste his lips
that time we kissed under
the beautiful starlit sky and
and i felt him suck very softly
on my bottom lip and tongue
and i felt butterflies in my stomach

i hear an loud ringing sound
in the distance and all the beautiful,
vibrant colors were eradicated,
and i wake up, face up
looking at the white ceiling
i want to moan and groan

it takes me a second, then i smile
and get up out of my bed
my mom waiting in the next room
asks why i am smiling
i dont hesitate at all
i sit next to her and tell her

i was dreaming of someone special

Voting for Obama! Shocking, I know!

when i heard obama was running for president
i said to myself…. people are not gonna vote for him
they will be too absorbed that hes african american that they wont see past that and they are not gonna vote for him because of that… they wont listen to him…
i am shocked. America really shocked me. i was wrong. people are voting for him.
and to think, just about sixty years ago, african americans were fighting for there rights to vote and fighting the jim crow laws… *sigh* those were the days…

I still believe! Oh God Almighty, I still believe!

here it is, the hopefully soon to be famous speech by moi!

I still believe! Oh God Almighty, I still believe!

I believe God does everything for a reason.
I believe there’s a reason I am here.
There’s a reason God put me on this Earth.
There’s a reason God put you on this Earth too.
But I believe I have found the reason I am here.
I believe here is the reason God put me on this Earth.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

The “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is about 40 years old!

And yet, the dream still hasn’t come!
Even though we think it did…

We still judge people by how they look on the outside,
and we don’t take time to get to know them on the inside.
I don’t think it’s fair. I really don’t think it fair.
There’s so much more to a person than what they look like.
There’s intelligence and wisdom.
There’s kindness and there’s personality.

But people become so blind and they can’t look past the looks.
And if they look good, we tend to associate them with a good personality. I mean it is sometimes true, but most of the time it isn’t.

And there IS still so much racism in the world today…
and discrimination and prejudice too!

The only reason: We already have this image set in our heads of what they would be like if we ever talked to them because, God forbid, getting to know them past their looks is a sin, right?

But I have the same dream!
Martin Luther King’s dream.
The dream he introduced to us forty years ago.
The dream of hope and equality.
The dream that was fought against the Jim Crow laws.

But that same dream, even after all his hard work and all that time between then and now, still hasn’t come.

After three hundred and sixty years, we still have same stereotypes.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still have same prejudices.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still discriminate against people.
After three hundred and sixty years, some people even support it.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still use violence to get the word out.
After three hundred and sixty years, we still hate the people who are not like us.
And after three hund and sixty years, we still haven’t made much progress.

And we think racism just disappeared because nobody talks about it anymore.

I still believe in this dream!
I still believe we can achieve this dream!
I still believe! Oh God Almighty! I still believe!

Yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel! And yes I too also see it! Dr. King saw it fifty years ago, and I see it too!
Yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of true equality, where everyone, and i mean everyone around the world, is treated in the same way, no one lesser, no one better!
And yes! I have the same dream, the same dream of our true liberties, where we have all of our liberties and they are not taken away from us!
Yes! I have the same dream, the same of honesty, a day when saying the truth and fighting for your rights and your true liberties will be rewarded, not punished.

Oh! But I still believe in the dream! One must have faith in humankind! I still do!

Yes! I have the same dream that one day all the people around the world would come together as one species, as one human race, and we would not be judged whether we are African, Asian, Indian, or Muslim,
A day when white and black are considered the same,
A day when African and Indian are considered the same,
A day when Muslim and Asian are considered the same!

Yes! I have the same dream that one day we will see that we are all the same in the eyes of God and no one superior,
A day when we stop categorizing people into groups,
A day when we know we are all different and learn embrace and celebrate those differences
A day when all the anger in world will be gone,
A day when we see that there’s no right religion or right color of skin or right way to look beautiful,
A day when one day when we find out that beauty is in everyone,
A day when one day we won’t have to look for it.

Oh I still believe! Oh God Almighty! I still believe!

Yes! I have the same dream that one day, people will learn and to listen to each other and teach each other to listen with all their hearts,
A day when we will learn to speak and teach each other to speak with all their hearts,
A day when one day we the people won’t be weakened or destroyed by our concept of race but be strengthened by the concept of listening with our hearts!
A day when we won’t be weaken by the facts that our eyes say, but be strengthened by listening to our hearts
A day when we will finally abandon what our eyes say.
A day when we use of eyes to find good in all people.

I have the same dream that one day we the people will not categorize ourselves into “races” and people will see who the others really are,
A day when the saying, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” would be on everyone’s lips,
A day when people will look into each other eyes and truly see their soul.
A day when love is taught and to hate someone is be punished,
A day when there’s no concept of racism and the concept of identifying against,
A day when the miracle of hope is present in every heart and mind
A day when we have time and take the time to get to know each other

I still believe in the dream! One must have faith in humankind! Oh I still believe!

I still have the same dream that one day people will abandon stereotypes and not act on their prejudices and not support the discrimination,
A day when we will be respected for who they are and not hated because we dont support who the other people support,
A day when discrimination will be truly punished and put to jail for,
A day when true hope will shine in the hearts of little children,
A day when they are and we are truly happy to be who we are,
A day when we abandon all the anger and hate
A day when we know that these stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination will only lead us to go round and round in a vicious cycle.

Oh I still believe in the dream! Yes! I do believe!

I have the same dream that one day we will finally see that race is not based on the biological aspects,
A day when we finally see that race is a social concept
A day when we finally abandon it, and see each other for the way we truly are.
A day we won’t be too busy fighting to see the real problem on the earth.

But I have the same dream that one day people will not be judged by the clothes they wear or how fat or skinny we are or how much make up we put on,
A day when we are all considered beautiful in our own way because everyone is different,
A day when the outside will not become a barrier to look what is really inside the person,
A day when a person will show true happiness inside and outside.

Oh yes! God Almighty! I still believe!

I have the same dream that one day we will all teach our children to love all “races” and teach them to love themselves too,
A day when we teach our children that you dont have to look skinny to be beautiful,
A day when we don’t teach our children the poison of hate of the “others” and the hate toward their bodies,
A day when our children could be truly free to express themselves without being judged by their friends or classmates
A day when we teach our children that they dont have to fit in or be popular to be themselves, or to be liked by other people,
A day when people will see that standing out is not the worse thing in the world,
A day when we wont conform with people, even though we know they are wrong,
A day when there’s no jocks, and cheerleader, and punk, and goths, but there will be just children in our school,

I have the same dream that one day people will see though other people and look past that other people are different from them,
A day when we are not consumed in what a person looks like,
A day when we still have hope for people,
A day when we see something wrong being done, we do something about it,
A day when we stand up for what we believe is right,
A day when we say that we are sad, we truly mean and when we say that we are happy, we truly mean it.

Oh yes! God Almighty! I still believe!

I have the same dream that one day we will teach our children that you don’t have to look a certain way to be beautiful and that the word “hot” really doesn’t biologically exist,
A day when people will judge other people and other people judge us by the character they and we have,
A day when people will realize that we are flawed and we can’t be perfected, no matter how hard we try,
A day when we realize we don’t need to be perfected,
A day when people won’t be so blind to the media!

I have the same dream that one day we will all finally break free from these chains, break free from the chains of discrimination, break free from the chains of prejudice, break free from the chains of the hatred and anger that is in this world right now.

I have a dream that one day we will get to understand why God made the world the way he did!

And that will be the day when people are going to be truly happy and the people won’t be so blind anymore.

One must have faith in humankind! And oh! I still believe!

A Man on Youtube that tells it like it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEGpBIQfkMs

talking about the racist t-shirt that has obama…
I LOVE THIS GUYS INSIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ignorance can make people look so stupid!

ISLAM IS FASCISM
ISLAM IS TERRORISM

By
Larry Houle
www.godofreason.com
intermedusa@yahoo.com

ISLAM IS TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY BOGUS, A SHAM AND A FRAUD

Islam is not a religion but an evil, political, military ideology.
it’s too bad you think that way and how about doing some research? you will find out cool stuff about. 

The ten commandments teach: Thou Shalt Not Kill.

The Koran teaches: Thou Shalt Kill Infidels.
have you even read whole the Qur’an? i dont think so…

In Islam, it is a holy religious duty to murder infidels.
i didnt even know the word infidel until very recently and i am a muslim…

The Quran is written in the language of terrorism.
oh and you think the bible was orginially written in English, huh? it was written in aremric, how would you know if its translated in the right way? i am not trying to attack the bible, i am trying to show that its not the langauge of the terrorist. well the christians were persecuted, a long time ago, when christian was first introduced. and if i am correct, they were persecuted when the bible came out, so the Qur’an was introduced how many years ago, and they are attacking it right now? doesnt really make any sense to me.

It is filled with numerous verses urging the Muslims to terrorize the non Muslims, kill them, and take possession of their lands and properties.
which are actually twisted by, ummm who do we listen to for the news? OMG! its the media, so if they twist the verses, i wonder what else they twist…

The important points to remember is that whatever Muhammad did to terrorize the infidels was actually the actions of God.
did you even live back then to even know? if you did, then you must be very very very old and then you would break the guiness world record for the oldest person on Earth, and last time, i checked i didnt see your name on there. 

Among the many verses which exhort Islamist terrorism, the following verses stand out as naked aggression of Allah/Muhammad on the unbelievers: 2:63, 3:151, 8:12, 8:60, 8:59, 9:29, 9:50 9:55, 11:102, and 17:59
and omg they are all out of context, right?

 These are the Eternal Laws of Allah authorizating murder and extermination as a holy duty. THIS IS THE EVIL INSANITY THAT IS ISLAM.

Islam is murdering infidels, raping their women and little girls, selling and breeding them as slaves,
looting and pillaging their property and keeping 80% of the proceeds from the looting and selling slaves, and distributing the women not sold into slavery as sex slaves.
so if you did some research, you would probably find out, our prophet saw actually married to get the women out of slavery… so how the crap would we still have slaves? if we did have slaves, where are they then?

Murder, rape, looting, slavery are all ETERNAL LAWS OF ALLAH in the KORAN. These LAWS OF ALLAH are divine and can never BE CHANGED.
i am muslim and i am 20 and i never heard of them, so please enlighten me here, and tell me what they are…

All Muslims believe the Koran is the Eternal divine word of God ��” the Eternal laws of God. All Muslims believe that God authored the Koran and a copy of the Koran is in heaven. The Koran remains for all Muslims, not just “fundamentalists,” the uncreated word of God Himself. It is valid for all times and places forever; its ideas are absolutely true and beyond all criticism. To question it is to question the very word of God, and hence blasphemous. A Muslim’s duty is to believe it and obey its divine commands without question.
well if we start to question God’s existence, we come back to the same place…

Muslims can be killed (beheaded) for doing any of the following:

Reviling Allah or his Messenger; (2) being sarcastic about ‘Allah’s name, His command, His interdiction, His promise, or His threat’; (3) denying any verse of the Quran or ‘anything which by scholarly consensus belongs to it, or to add a verse that does not belong to it’; (4) holding that ‘any of Allah’s messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent’; (5) reviling the religion of Islam; (6) being sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law; (7) denying that Allah intended ‘the Prophet’s message . . . to be the religion followed by the entire world.’

This means exactly what it says. ALL MUSLIMS BELIEVE that the Koran is the ETERNAL word/teachings of God to be followed without question. If a Muslim challenges or questions the Koran, HE IS NO LONGER A MUSLIM BUT AN APOSTATE OF ISLAM and can be killed.
if we start to question, we see how complex things are and from human experience, we know that complex things just dont come out of nothing… so we can question… but we are always brought back to the same thing… 

The Koran can never be changed not even one word. When you are reading teachings of the Koran, you are reading the word of God himself and you must OBEY. THERE IS NO CHOICE. There is no exercising free will, no employing logic, reason, rationality, morality. These teachings are for all time FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.
if you read the qur’an, you will find out that there is rationality and morality.
so i encourage you to read it, and try to write a book like it.

This is the most important insanity that ALL Muslims believe THAT MEANS ALL MUSLIMS. This belief in the KORNIC ETERNAL LAWS OF GOD is a disaster that has the potential to destroy humanity and civilization as we know it.

Again all the teachings of murder, rape, slavery, looting, sex with little girls etc are FOREVER.
there you go with the slavery again…

They are Islam.

Islam is not a wonderful religion of peace and love that has been hi ��” jacked and perverted by a few bad apples of evil Islamo Facsists, Islamic militants, Islamic Fundamentalists, jihadists, Wahhabism, radical Islam, political Islam, Islamists etc There has been no hijacking. There has been no perversion. These demented souls are following exactly the teachings of the Koran and in the footsteps of the Prophet – Muhammad. ITS ALL ABOUT ISLAM STUPID INFIDEL
ouch that really hurt me here.

The reality is that Osama bin Laden is a true Muslim, a holy man of the book who is following exactly the teachings of Islam as recorded in the Koran.
dont you think its very funny how the dont know who killed martin luther king, but they quickly blame osama for sept 11, 2001? and it’s been like 40 or 50 years ago since the death of mlk and his death happened in the US, not outside the US and we still after about 40 years dont know who killed him… 

By not exposing the perverted teachings of Islam, those who use the term Islamo Fascism etc are elevating Islam to an equal footing with Christianity and other world religions.

so you think islam teaches violence, 5 to 8 million muslims live here in the united states. if islam really taught violence, then ask yourself, “WHERE IS THE VIOLENCE?” so all that kill all the infidel stuff is nonsense, because if it was true, then HOW WOULD THE CHRISTIANS AND JEWS LIVE GENERATION AFTER GENERATION FOR 1400 YEARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST? AND THEY STILL LIVE IN THE MIDDLE EAST! THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT IT! THINK ABOUT!

and you give israel and palestine as an example,
well people in palestine think that israel is not a country and that its occupation from israel that makes you mad and want to fight back. now put yourself in that place. say canadians started to come in gradually and then they started to take back the lousiana purchase that was made back in 1803, and they started to say that this is their land and they want it back, and started occupy the land, and i dont think we still have the document of the purchase, and since we have no proof of that purchase they are going to take in back anyway, and even if we did have it, they would go after it and try to destroy any proof. wouldnt you go fight them? because its your land and they are occupying it. i mean they gave it to us, right?
same thing happened with the palestines and israel….

Women in the west are treated better?

In the west, yes, women are treated a great deal better, but if the west were to come under Sharia law as the Koran demands, I feel absolutely certain this would change quickly. I don’t say this because I believe all Muslim men are evil. I say it because of human nature and the nature of power, whether in the hands of men or of women.

“In the west, yes, women are treated a great deal better”, well, that is a completely untrue statement. There are more rape and cruelty against women in west than in any other muslim countries. In west rape cases are not given any importance because they are considered as part of society. According to UN in USA alone there are more than 50000 rape cases.

Whereas in muslim countries due to Sharia Law these numbers are very low. Iam not saying these crimes are not taking place in muslim countries as always there are “black sheeps” in every community and we should not point finger on any religion due to few of these criminals.

Yes, Muslims don’t drink at bars and women wear the scarf, but Muslims believe that God put those rules for a reason. Muslims believe that God doesn’t want us to be tempted to do bad stuff. If you take away the temptation, you’re not tempted. Why does He put the temptation there in the first place? He wants to see if people like us will listen to Him.

Muslims are freed from having to make bad decision that will sometimes change their lives, like drinking. When people drink, they very often lose control of themselves and they could do stuff that are uncalled for, and on top of that, alcohol gives you a lot of problems in the future. One does get addicted to alcohol, so one spends a lot of money on alcohol. If one drinks too much, one could pass out. If one drinks and drives, one could get into an accident. In the long run, alcohol causes so many health problems, one of them being liver damage. One’s liver is one of the most important organ in the body.
does that sound like someone who is very happy?

Yes all muslim men are evil…. and all christian men, and jew and hindu men and even the chinese and the japanese, and the english and the french and the egyptian and the israeli men and the omg! even men from the united states! all the men of the world are evil, even women from japan and china and korea and laos, even vietnam, and russia and the german, the spanish and even omg! even in the US!
even little children are evil too.
because come on, even you should know this… even the declaration of independence said it…
“we hold this truths to be self-evident; that ALL men are created equal,” so we all have good intentions and bad intentions, so to say that just one kind of people is evil is mispeaking and it would be prejudice against that kind of people.
yes but 10 years ago, when someone would have asked you about islam and where is was practiced, you would have said indian and moved on… you would have probably known nothing about the shari’a law or stuff like that.

oh the irony!!! the most unreligious country attacks the most religious part of the world…
and its using the freedoms and the so called lack of freedoms against them…

Being different and people who discourage it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cb2JIlM5e4&feature=related

i like this video!

she  IS absolutely right and i am trying to tell the world that… because i truly believe that… truly believe that it IS better to be yourself and be who you are than to fake something and pretend that you are something else just to please others….

White privilege = white supremacy?

What does it mean to be White?
the white privilge… is that the same as white supremacy?
where the white man is superior to all the other races…
what if theres no such thing as race… would we think the same way?
would we still teach our children to hate people that are not like them?
would we still use the concept of identifying against?
would our children ask why people are different? would they still use the identifying against?
or would they be tolerant, more than us, about race?

the white privilge

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
do u really wanna do that? having everybody think the same way? and no varitey of thinking?
you could be missing about a lot by doing that, because there could be an african american or an asian with better, more inventive ideas.

2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
i would disagree with that because if a white man hangs out with an afican american man, hypothetically, the white man would also be trained to mistrust the african american man. 

3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
wealth and status, the stereotype that the african american community is poor and white american community is rich

4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
unless you were born a bitch! then they might think of you as the opposite

5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
the saddest thing too…

7. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
ouch!

12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.

13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
not the best idea in the world…

15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

16. I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.
unless your child is a total bitch and gets out of his/her seat every once in a while. 

17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.

19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.

24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.

25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.

27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.

28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.

30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.

31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.

32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.

33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.

34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.

37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.

39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.

41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.

42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.

43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.

44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.

45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.

48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.

49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.

50. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.

http://mylifeasanalien.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/what-does-it-mean-to-be-white-or-act-white/

The French take over the United States!

so lets say…
within the next couple of years or so,
the French started to come gradually into the United States,
they have been planning this for years, 
and then they just decided they wanted to take back the Lousiana Purchase that we bought back in 1803,
and they started seizing it back,
saying that this is their land and they want it back,
and started occupy the land,
and i dont think we still have the document of the purchase,
they say its theirs, but we bought it from them a long time ago… 
and since we have no proof of that purchase they are going to take in back anyway,
and even if we did have it, they would go after it and try to destroy any proof,
and if you want to pass by to get to the other side of the US, you have to go though so many check points…
even to fly across the air, you would have to go through a check point.
lets say, the French destroyed all our military, and thats the first thing on their agenda to do, so that we cant fight back, and we have no military, and even if we try to build a military, the French would try to occupy washington to destroy it…
and then that would give Mexico license to go attack California, because our nation is divided, and we would end up like what we were like before the 1800’s.
and they are backed by a lie, they have a right to be there because they were there before, and they want sympathy, so they use the fact that they were in the dark ages for quite some time.
and Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Spain, Australia, and most of the countries in Europe and supporting it…
and they want it to happen, they want to make United States to be a poor country and the European are supporting it by giving the French money to bring the United States down, because we have been a great nation for quite some time now and they dont want any more people going to the United States…
and we didnt see it coming and we had no idea what hit us…
wouldnt you go fight them? and destroy them? and take back the land what is rightfully ours?
because its your land and they are occupying it.
i mean they gave it to us, right? its in history books, but they say that all the history books we have are liars, and they burn all our history books…
wouldnt you be mad at them? wouldnt you want to fight them?
and who would you blame more, the european countries or the French?
well, if you got mad at this, you just felt how the palestines feel. Now you know how the palestines feel. Now you know what the palestines go through every day.

The First Chapter of the Qur’an

Muslims believe that the Qur’an is a revelation from God in the Arabic language. Translations into other languages are considered by many to be merely superficial “interpretations” of the meanings and not reliable versions of the Qur’an. Although some Qur’an alone and liberal Muslims use translations as part of their daily prayers, they are used mainly for personal spiritual use by non-Arabic speakers.

The Arabic text with transliteration and translation in English is as follows: ^{[Qur'an 1:1]}.

1:1 بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيم

Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm

In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful:

1:2 الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِين

Al ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-’ālamīn

Praise be to God, the Lord of the Universe.

1:3 الرَّحْمـنِ الرَّحِيم

Ar raḥmāni r-raḥīm

The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

1:4 مَـالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّين

Māliki yawmi d-dīn

Master of the Day of Judgment.

1:5 إِيَّاك نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِين

Iyyāka na’budu wa iyyāka nasta’īn

You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help

1:6 اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيمَ

Ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭ al mustaqīm

Guide us to the straight path;

1:7 صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِمْ غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِمْ وَلاَ الضَّالِّين

Ṣirāṭ al-laḏīna an’amta ‘alayhim ġayril maġḍūbi ‘alayhim walāḍ ḍāllīn

The path of those whom You have favoured, not of those who have deserved Your anger, nor of those who stray.

When recited during daily prayers, some schools of thought follow Sura Al-Fatiha by the word Amen (normally pronounced Amin).

Notes

The first verse, transliterated as “bismillāhir rahmānir rahīm”, may be familiar to non-Arabic speakers and non-Muslims because of its ubiquity in Arabic and Muslim societies. This verse appears at the start of every sura in the Qur’an (except for surah at-Tawbah). The verse is said before reciting a sura or part of a sura during daily prayer, and also before public proclamations and indeed before many personal and everyday activities in many Arabic and Muslim societies as a way to invoke God’s blessing and proclaim one’s motives before an undertaking.

The two words “ar rahmān” and “ar rahīm” are often translated in English as “the beneficent” and “the merciful” or “the generous” and “the merciful.” They are often also translated as superlatives, for example, “the most generous” and “the most merciful.” Grammatically the two words “rahmaan” and “raheem” are different linguistic forms of the triconsonantal root R-H-M, connoting “mercy.” (For more information, see the section on root forms in Semitic languages.) The form “rahmaan” denotes degree or extent, i.e., “most merciful,” while “raheem” denotes time permanence, i.e., “ever merciful.”

The reading of the first word of the fourth verse, translated as “master/king” above, has been the subject of debate. The two main readings, or qira’at, of the Qur’an, Warsh and Hafs, differ on whether it should be “maliki” with a short “a,” which means “king” (Warsh, from Nafi’; Ibn Kathir; Ibn Amir; Abu ‘Amr; Hamza), or “māliki” with a long “a,” which means “master” or “owner” (Hafs, from Asim, and al-Kisa’i). Both “maliki” and “māliki” derive from the same triconsonantal root in Arabic, M-L-K. Both readings are considered valid by many practitioners, since both can be seen as describing God.

In some Muslim societies, Al-Fatiha is traditionally read together by a couple to seal their engagement, however this act is not recorded in the sunnah and is seen by many to be an innovation].

You tell me.

i found this article on another persons blog.

you tell me. is this fair?

“It seems that last night, my step brother, Creepy took some stranger home from the bars. Once they got to this kids house, the very dim witted Creepy was convinced by said stranger, to get out of the car where some other jack ass proceeded to pound his face in….with a shovel! Creepy never saw it coming but he’s a really tough kid and he immediately started to defend himself against a slew of other guys who just happened to be at this place quite conveniently where the stranger wanted to be dropped off.

Meanwhile, in the back seat, my other step brother, Creepy’s twin Brow was waking up to the tussle. He jumped in to defend his brother.

…and this is where I stop the recount of what happened to let you all in on a dirty little secret. I live in Indiana in a piece of shit town in the Midwest of the United States where it’s illegal to be Hispanic. Oh, no, wait, I got that wrong, I mean, where alot of the white folks around here would like to see it made illegal to be Hispanic…oh, and Black too, yeah that would be good for them.

It just so happens that there are certain groups of people in this here city that don’t take a liking to people of pigment and they are not afraid to make it known. Hell why would they be afraid. The police in these here parts has made it pretty damn clear that they believe there should be a racial war and they’ve made it clear whose side they are on.

I sound crazy, paranoid even…I know…but I’m not.

Back to the recounting of last night’s events…

Once the police arrive guess who gets carted off to jail? Is it the collection of crazy white kids with shovels? Nope, it’s the two Brown kids who got their asses kicked for being stupid enough to take a complete stranger home for the night.

The police officer says to Creepy something to the effect of “you Mexicans should have stayed where you come from.” Of course, to these uneducated morons think every Hispanic is a Mexican. How would you like it if we mistook you for a Canadian…you all look alike to me. Now that is offensive and I’m sorry. Because I don’t feel that way.

I hate racism. I hate that it’s so prevalent here and that it makes me feel so small and impotent. Why are people so stupid? What the hell is that cops problem? And a shovel? Really? Do you hate Brown people that much that you had to go and hit one of us with a shovel for no reason at all?

Senseless violence and pointless hatred. I don’t get it.”

i dont think its fair, the white kid should have gotten arrested.
if this was a white vs white, the kid with the shovel would have gotten arrest.

http://avoidancejunkie.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/wtf

Chris Crocker makes his point!

the video that i wanna share with you all is titled:
when people say, “that’s so gay.”
please no hate comments!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgpgRgwM8c&feature=related

soemthing that has always pissed me off,
and not because i am a gay person, its because i am a smart person,
because it doesnt make sense when people say it,
when people say, “that’s so gay.”

it sends off a red flag in my mind, and it really makes me feel bad for this generation.
honestly, when i see a five year old say, “thats so gay,” i want to kill, i will say it, to kill the person who taught them to say that.
it’s not only subconciously spreading homophobia,
but its pretty hypocritial when people say, “no, i like gay people,” but they still say it,
because when you say it, you say it as if, you speak about something negatively,
you’re sending a negative connotation, like, “that’s so gay.”
you’re speaking about something you don’t like, right?
ok then think about the word you are using in place of “thats so awful,” “thats so ugly,” “thats so whatever.”
you get the message. ok?

not only that, but it just doesnt make sense. gay isnt an adjective. i just feel so bad for this generation.
and the last person that said around me ended up in a mental institution, because i called the mental institution on them and said, “this person looked at a CD today, and this hallucinated and saw a gay person.”
i mean, when people are looking at a grapefruit, it could be any inaminite object, and they say, “that is so gay,” theres a problem, people. there’s a problem when you look at a grapefruit, and say that’s so gay.

because, you know what? you straight people have had your fun for way to long, i think its time for everyone to stand up and say, “thats so straight,” and not about the good things, about the negative things, because you know what? i am not afraid to say this. its the straight people, that are this country’s problem.
look at the president, that’s all i got to say.

this country is so straight that it makes me sick. maybe if this country was a little bit more gay, then we would be so screwed up right now. so everyone when you see something negative, say “that’s so straight.” ok?

Handlebars by Flobots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs

Handlebars by Flobots

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

Look at me, look at me
hands in the air like it’s good to be
ALIVE
and I’m a famous rapper

even when the paths’re all crookedy
I can show you how to do-si-do
I can show you how to scratch a record
I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together

I can tie a knot in a cherry stem
I can tell you about Leif Erikson
I know all the words to “De Colores”
And “I’m Proud to be an American”

Me and my friend saw a platypus
Me and my friend made a comic book
And guess how long it took
I can do anything that I want cuz, look:

I can keep rhythm with no metronome
No metronome
No metronome

I can see your face on the telephone
On the telephone
On the telephone

Look at me
Look at me
Just called to say that it’s good to be
ALIVE
In such a small world

All curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine sixty four
Miles to a gallon of gasoline

I can make new antibiotics
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions
I know how to run a business
And I can make you wanna buy a product

Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance

I can lead a nation with a microphone
With a microphone
With a microphone

I can split the atoms of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule

Look at me
Look at me
Driving and I won’t stop
And it feels so good to be
Alive and on top

My reach is global
My tower secure
My cause is noble
My power is pure

I can hand out a million vaccinations
Or let’em all die in exasperation
Have’em all grilled leavin lacerations
Have’em all killed by assassination

I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don’t like’em and
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command

I can guide a missile by satellite
By satellite
By satellite

And I can hit a target through a telescope
Through a telescope
Through a telescope

And I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handle bars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

[ Handlebars Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

i like this song
it has a lot of messages

Grapvine student with top grades wont be valedictorian

Grapevine High School senior Anjali Datta holds the highest grade-point average of the 471 students graduating from Grapevine High School this year.

Grapevine senior Anjali Datta denied valedictorian title

In fact, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school’s history.

It’s still not enough to make her the valedictorian, which brings a one-year college scholarship from the state.

Her closest competitor’s GPA is 5.64. No one disputes that she’s the top student in her class numerically. The problem rests with another number entirely.

Anjali rocketed through high school in only three years.

But a school district policy states: “The valedictorian shall be the eligible student with the highest weighted grade-point average for four years of high school.”

The dispute over Anjali’s status as valedictorian comes down to interpretation: Does four years mean calendar years of school attendance or does it mean completing the credits it takes most students four years to earn?

It depends on whom you ask.

The 16-year-old started taking high school classes in middle school and says her teachers encouraged her to graduate a year early because she had more than enough credits for graduation.

She said a counselor assured her that doing so wouldn’t affect her valedictorian status because she earned her four years of high school credit in the district’s schools. Officials had no comment about what a counselor may have said.

The policy was created to protect students from others who might transfer into the district close to graduation and usurp the class ranking of longtime students.

Though that’s not the situation in this case, the district’s attorneys interpreted the policy literally.

So at graduation ceremonies, 18-year-old Tyler Scott Franklin of Colleyville will be the Grapevine High School valedictorian.

Anjali will be “Valedictorian – Three-Year.”

District officials said the title was created for this situation.

“We’re doing what we can to extend an additional honor within accordance of school board policy,” said Megan Overman, a district spokeswoman. “I’m not going to say that this has been an easy situation. This is something that is new for all of us. We’ve not faced this situation before.”

Ms. Overman said the district researched the decision for months.

“There was a lot of thought involved in this. There is no perfect answer,” she said.

Anjali says she and her parents are baffled.

“I have not heard of any educational institution penalizing a student for excellence – for completing a demanding set of classes ‘too quickly,’ ” said her father, Deepak Datta. “Anjali’s experience will surely send a strong negative signal to other talented students trying to excel.

“They will most certainly be discouraged from trying to do their best – instead will be more focused on gaming the system.”

On Tuesday, Grapevine High School principal Jerry Hollingsworth notified the family via e-mail of the district’s position that would arrive this week by certified letter.

“The determination of valedictory honor is one that rests squarely on Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board policy,” Dr. Hollingsworth wrote. “In determining an appropriate interpretation of our policy, inquiries were made to both the school district’s attorney as well as an attorney at the Texas Association of School Boards.

“Both were clear in their opinions that this honor should go to a student who has four school years in his or her high school career. We are compelled to adhere to school board policy,” he wrote.

So, Tyler will receive the college scholarship.

His mother, Kathy, said her family didn’t raise the issue with the school district. She said someone brought the district policy to her family’s attention.

“We feel obviously that the other student deserves recognition as well,” she said. “Considering all of the different factors, this was a good solution.”

Anjali says she’s struggling to understand the move because the Texas Education Agency doesn’t even mention the word “valedictorian” when defining eligibility for the college scholarship.

The state provides Texas high schools with an “Honor Graduate Certificate.” The certificate is to be presented to the “highest ranking graduate” in the senior class, according to Texas Education Code.

State officials say it is the local school district’s responsibility to determine the highest ranking student, and the state has no authority to get involved. At graduation June 7, Anjali will be honored for her perfect ACT score. She will be acknowledged as an honor graduate and allowed to address her classmates.

But Anjali said it still doesn’t feel quite right.

“This really diminishes the value of the valedictorian title,” she said.

is this fair?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/052908dnmetvaledictorian.3b254412.html?npc&nTar=OPUR

Why the Americans cant get over race

(CNN) — In 1835, Alexis DeTocqueville, in his seminal work, “Democracy in America,” prophesied that the abolition of slavery would not eliminate racial prejudice, which he declared was “immovable.”

Sen. Barack Obama, in running for the presidency of the United States, is challenging DeTocqueville’s bleak assessment of the human heart. It remains unclear whether the Illinois senator is on a hopeless mission, or whether the American people will decide to make history by breaking with it.

Any discussion of race or racism inevitably stirs uncomfortable reactions. America is, indeed, a nation of immigrants. Most of our ancestors came here in search of a better life. Africans, however, arrived here in chains to make a better life for others. Yet to date, we have been unable to discuss the horrors of the enslavement, lynchings, segregation and degradation of African-Americans without prompting resentment or indifference.

“That’s all in the past,” is a common retort. “We had nothing to do with it. It’s history. Get over it.” The problem, however, as the results in a number of the primary states reveal, is that racial prejudice is not history, and neither whites nor blacks are over it.

While Obama has moved the subject of prejudice out from the shadows, more than his exotic name, origin and religious affiliation are at issue. When Colin Powell, one of America’s most accomplished military leaders and diplomats, contemplated running for the presidency in 2000, his family feared for his safety. Also, during that same year, when Sen. John McCain ran for our highest office, he was the victim of a vile, racist smear in South Carolina.

There are deep grievances held by black Americans over their past and present treatment by the white majority and equally profound resentments held by many whites over what they see as preferential treatment for the black community. Unfortunately, a discussion of the racial divide in our country is too often reduced to sound bites or shouting matches. Moreover, the preachings and exhortations of several prominent religious leaders, rather than nurturing and appealing to our spiritual needs, have instead served to inflame passions and reinforce old falsehoods and antagonisms.

We are convinced that what is needed in America is a serious, open, civil dialogue on racial, ethnic and religious prejudice. To this end, in July, we are convening a conference in Washington on race and reconciliation with political, spiritual and business leaders. Our goal: to further a national conversation about the need for truth, tolerance and reconciliation.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/29/cohens.race.politics/index.html?iref=hpmostpop

i dont think it would help much to jut talk about it here! we need to do something more than that!

One of my favorite part of Heroes!

 

MY NAME IS SYLAR!!!!!

HRG walks in the room and turns on the light. All the walls are gray. it looks like a prison cell, there’s only one big window in the room, the only contact to the outside world. HRG is behind it, to keep him safe. He walks to the middle of the window, where Sylar could clearly see who he was.

HRG:
(indifferent)
You lost a lot of blood.
We sewed you up the best we could.

Sylar wakes up, looks around, and he finds himself in the bed of a tiny room where all the walls are gray, and looks straight on to see the only person who is standing behind the window, looking in, is the one and only HRG.

(confident)
Turns out you’re not so untouchable after all.

(Sylar takes the covers of the bed off him with one swing. He is looking straight ahead to look at HRG. He looks confused, but angry.)

Oh, no.
No,you’ll find your abilities won’t work.
Not here.

(a bit scornful)
You’re not going anywhere, Gabriel.

Sylar: (calm)
My name is Sylar.

HRG :
Now it is.
Wasn’t so long ago that you were Gabriel Gray.

Sylar gets out of bed very slowly, wincing, looks like he’s in pain . He is looking down.

An insignificant watchmaker.

Sylar :
I restored timepieces.

Sylar looks up, angry at what HRG said. But his voice doesnt show it. His face does.

Do you know why I was so good at it?

HRG :
No, why don’t you tell me.

Sylar starts walking around the bed.

Sylar :
Because I can see how things work.
What makes things

(sylar stops walking)

…tick.
Like you.

HRG has a smug smile on his face.

HRG :
We’re interested in how things work as well.
Everyone else we’ve…met has had only one ability.
You’ve taken on several.

Sylar :
I guess that’s what makes me special.

HRG :
That’s important to you, isn’t it?
Being special.

Sylar :
It’s important to everyone.

HRG :
I think you’re insane.
I think the infusion of so many alterations to your DNA
has corrupted your mind.
All this power is degrading you.

Sylar starts limping, up to the window.

Sylar :
And yet here I am, alive and well.
And as soon as I get out,
I’m gonna collect one more ability
from your daughter.

(HRG smug smile fades quickly)

Sweet, innocent.

HRG:
(HRG looks angry)

That’s enough.

Sylar:
Ripe, indestructible.

HRG:
I said that’s enough, Gabriel.

Sylar:
(Sylar gets very angry at HRG and throws himself against the window, with his hand up against the window and shouts at the top of his lungs)
MY NAME IS SYLAR!!!