>> ^K0MMIE:
I was in the long line for Columbus... I waited 4 hours to vote... this year I am doing an absentee ballot even though I will be in the city on election day.


I was in a long line in Columbus too, 6 hours for me.

I'm gonna do the in-person early vote this year. Too make fake/invalid absentee ballots out there right now.

I was in the long line for Columbus... I waited 4 hours to vote... this year I am doing an absentee ballot even though I will be in the city on election day.

Can't wait for all the remixes to come using the head thump as the bass track and humans reenacting the whole ordeal. Kind of exciting to be here at the birth of a new meme. Sort of like being beside Christopher Columbus when he discovered the new world.

*looks around for agreement*

No? Oh, okay. Nevermind.

hey irishman?? what do you think of some of these Americans who actually believe this "right and left" or "republican/democrat bullshit???

like how the NPR tool adds "yet"..."there's no realty to those red veins at the northern part" after he assures that the main path is green-go....always distrust anyone who chuckles at grave proposals from a small number of sources
-they all laughed at Christoper Columbus, when he said the earth was round....

sweet - I tuned in just in time to see Columbus moved into RTL (ready-to-latch) position.

[edit] apparently one of the astronauts had to attach a tether to his ball stack first. seriously - that's what he said!

If they come to my town.. oh wait... I live in Columbus OH, they are already HERE!

FYI: Columbus has the largest gay population between coasts in USA

One Nation “Under God”
Questions & Answers

In 2002, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled 2-1 that public schools may not sponsor recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, due to its religious content through the inclusion of the phrase "under God." This ruling sparked much comment in the media and was denounced by many political leaders. The U.S. Supreme Court later announced that it will hear
an appeal of the decision. The high court’s ruling is expected by late June or early July 2004.

Q. Why did the 9th Circuit Court rule the way it did?
A. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates the separation of church and state. Under this time-tested arrangement, government is given no authority to meddle with religion or religious matters. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that public school sponsorship of the Pledge furthers religion. Thus, the court declared the action unconstitutional. The court noted , "A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical…to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus,' a nation 'under Vishnu,' a nation 'under Zeus,' or a nation 'under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect of religion. The coercive effect of this policy is particularly pronounced in the school setting given the age and impressionability of schoolchildren, and their understanding that they are required to adhere to the norms set by their school, their teacher and their fellow students."

Q. Isn't this a radical ruling?
A. Not at all. The court simply applied the constitutional principle that government has no business promoting religion. Courts have been particularly vigilant when it comes to public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that religious instruction is up to parents, not government officials or public school personnel. Public schools serve children of many
different religious perspectives (and some who practice no religion at all). Thanks to the protections of the Constitution, students cannot be pressured to participate in prayer or other forms of worship at public schools. The appellate court's ruling on the Pledge is simply a logical continuation of that wise judicial precedent. Furthermore, the 9th Circuit judge who wrote the
opinion, Alfred Goodwin, could hardly be called a radical. He is a Presbyterian elder, a World War II combat veteran and was appointed to his position by President Richard M. Nixon.

Q. Did the court declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional?
A. No. The court ruled that public schools may not sponsor daily recitation of the current Pledge of Allegiance because of its religious content. If the Supreme Court upholds the 9th Circuit ruling, public schools could continue to recite the pre-1954 version. Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Q. What did the Pledge say before 1954?
A. Students used to end the Pledge, "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Despite the controversy surround the 9th Circuit's ruling, many Americans thought the Pledge was just fine as a patriotic ritual without religious references. After all, America survived the
Great Depression and won two world wars with a secular Pledge, and neither religious devotion nor patriotism suffered.

Q. How did "under God" get into the Pledge of Allegiance?
A. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister. Bellamy crafted the Pledge for a magazine called The Youth's Companion as part of a patriotic exercise to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the New World. Bellamy, who was an advocate of church-state separation, did not include religious references in his Pledge. In
1954, Congress inserted the phrase "under God" into the Pledge after a lobbying campaign led by the Knights of Columbus. This was during the McCarthy era, and the change was seen as a blow against "godless communism" in the Soviet Union.

Q. Does the ruling mean that public schools can no longer open the day by reciting the
Pledge of Allegiance?
A. The ruling currently affects only those states in the 9th Circuit -- California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii and is currently on hold while the Supreme Court considers the matter. If the high court upholds the lower court ruling, it will apply that decision nationwide. Public schools would have to stop sponsoring recitation of the
Pledge or use the pre-1954 version.

Q. What's wrong with a generic reference to God in the Pledge? Who does it hurt?
A. The Pledge was a purely patriotic exercise until Congress in 1954 made it a patriotic and religious exercise. Millions of Americans who have no religious beliefs or who object to religious-political entanglement were alienated by that change. When it altered the Pledge, Congress sent the signal that in order to be a patriotic American, one must also be religious.
Many Americans disagree with this assertion. Not all religious people agree with so-called “generic” references to God. These references tend
to reflect Judeo-Christians understandings of God that may not be shared by Buddhists, Hindus and others. Other believers oppose phrases like “under God” because it is a form of watereddown spirituality. They note that religion has thrived in America due to the separation of church and state and do not want to violate that principle.

Q. Haven't some courts said that references to God in the Pledge are permissible because
they are ceremonial and don't really promote religion?
A. Some courts have said this and have even asserted that such usages are acceptable because they are merely "ceremonial deism" -- the practice of government co-opting generic religious Americans United for Separation of Church and State language for ceremonial purposes. Religious believers ought to be appalled by such statements. The phrase "under God" has obvious religious meanings. It is not drained of its religious
meaning merely because of frequent repetition. In addition, religion is not some prop designed to give heft to government functions. For believers, faith is to be taken seriously. It demeans religion to claim that phrases like "under God" are no longer religious because they have been so
frequently used by government.

Q. How have politicians reacted to this controversy?
A. Many overreacted. There were immediate calls to amend the Constitution, even through the Supreme Court has not issued its decision yet. Both houses of Congress have also passed resolutions condemning the 9th Circuit's ruling and expressing support for "under God" in the Pledge. Some political strategists have also recommended using the decision for partisan
purposes. President George W. Bush and his allies in the Senate said they would use the ruling to press for confirmation of Bush's judicial nominees.
Bush himself said that the decision shows that "we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. And those are the kinds of judges I intend to put on the bench." Bush's statement implies that he has a type of "religious test" in mind for judges, a violation of Article VI of the Constitution, which forbids religious tests for public office.

Q. What about Religious Right groups -- how did they react?
A. Several Religious Right groups used the controversy to raise money, foment hysteria and attack the separation of church and state. Many groups also hoped the ruling furthers their farright political agenda and urged President Bush to use the decision to argue for more judges who oppose church-state separation. TV preacher Jerry Falwell, for example, sent a message to his supporters telling them that he believes it is "time to go to war" over this issue. TV preacher Pat Robertson said the Pledge ruling may cause more terrorist attacks, concluding, "[I]f something much more terrible than
September 11th befalls our beloved nation, the answer to the question 'Where was God in all of this?' may well be 'He was excluded by the 9th Circuit.'" Ultra-conservative newspaper columnist Cal Thomas suggested that the Pledge ruling may have been even worse than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Thomas wrote, "On the eve of our great national birthday party and in the
aftermath of Sept. 11...the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists."

Q. What happens now?
A. The Supreme Court will issue its decision most likely by the end of June or early July. The high court could uphold the 9th Circuit’s decision or overturn it. The court could also dismiss the case and rule that the man who brought it, Michael Newdow, lacks “standing” (the right to sue)
because he does not have full custody of his daughter, a public school student who is exposed to Pledge in school.

Q. Could this case result in a tie ruling? What would happen then?
A. It is possible that the Supreme Court’s decision could be a 4-4 tie. Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments about the case in January of 2003. Justices are not supposed to pre-judge cases, and Scalia was asked to remove himself from the deliberations. He later recused himself from the case. If the court splits 4-4, the decision will still apply to the states in the 9th Circuit but will not be extended nationwide.

if you would like to learn more about religious liberty, please contact:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
518 C Street N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
Phone: (202)466-3234 Fax: (202)466-2587
e-mail: americansunited@au.org
website: www.au.org

Great followup Drachen_Jager. I'm a product of the US school system, so I see where US citizens frequently get their history wrong. US history courses neglect to show that the US had early warning of Pearl Harbor, yet did not react (one can debate the reasoning). They also neglect to teach that the war was well over and done with BEFORE the nukes dropped. Japan was in shambles and was powerless. The nukes were not necessary, but were dropped simply to 'flex muscles'. Lest we forget, many public school children are still told that Christopher Columbus discovered America(tm). Any person half educated would know that is complete trash. The continent was named after Amerigo Vespucci, and the first recorded settlers (the true discoverers) came tens of thousands of years before. As far as 'Europeans' arriving. The Norse/Vikings had small pre-colonization era settlements in what is now the eastern parts of Canada. All too often, people forget they are taught through a propagandist lens, and refuse to acknowledge that what they have been taught, while maybe not an outright lie, is only portrayed through a limited, patrio-favorable perspective. Often hiding past atrocities.

The stupidity of it all is that Columbus didn't discover America. America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. Not Columbus. The native Americans arrived to the continent tens of thousands of years before from Asia.. and hundreds of years before Columbus even concocted the notion of his trip 'west', the Viking/Norse had already landed in what is now eastern Canada. Some evidence (still discussed in scientific circles) suggest some peoples from the south Pacific may have even arrived in western South America by boat and settled there. The evidence being local pottery styles/methods being identical to certain south Pacific cultures.

* Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
* Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion."
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it."
* On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him."

* Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ."
* In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess."
* On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead.
* The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
* As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous."
* The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell."
* What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs."
* The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated."
* "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next."
* Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
* "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead."

When Israel is under review by the U.N. the USA ensures nothing happens.
The USA sends 10 billion in aid + military equipment to Israel yearly.
The USA models the Iraqi occupation on the Israel occupation. ( this is just a guess)

Gaza strip documentary" is another documentary worth watching.

Are you a christian? Think of what Israel did to millions of Lebanese christians in last year's invasion of Lebanon.

Is this an underground movement? *No.* You will probably hear soon how a drama of Rachel Corrie's death will be banned from your city.

Here in Columbus, Ohio, there were images drawn by Palestinian Children, you know, crayon drawings. These images were banned from the campus.

From YouTube Description:

Tornadoes - the nature's fury. A collection of spectacular tornado footage. The locations of the tornadoes you can see in this video are:

0:00 - 0:05: unknown tornadoes (F?)
0:06 - 0:07: Tornado in Dallas TX, April 2nd, 1957 (F3-F4)
Also see: Hypothetical F5 tornado hits downtown Dallas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3u0Vu...
0:08 - 0:18: unknown tornadoes (F?)
0:19 - 0:31: Tornado near Attica KS, May 12, 2004 (F3?)
0:32 - 0:39: Tornado at Warner Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, April 30, 1953 (F4)
0:40 - 0:47: Fort Worth tornado TX, March 28, 2000 (F2)
More info:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WECdzI...
0:48 - 0:52: Oklahoma tornado, May 3, 1999 (F5)
Extensive footage here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJH4ry...
0:53 - 1:03: Tornado in L'Espluga de Francolí, Spain, August 31,1994 (F1-F2)
1:04 - 1:23: McConnell Air force Base, Wichita (Andover Kansas tornado), April 26, 1991 (F4)
Detailed footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfxVQs...
1:24 - 1:46: "Forest" tornado near Fridley in Minnesota, July 18, 1986 (F2)
1:47 - 2:34: Manchaster tornado, South Dakota, June 24, 2003 (F4)
More footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX4lGc...
2:35 - 3:26: Tornado near Columbus in Nebraska, June 17, 1998 (F3?)
More about the Columbus tornado: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzL5GG...
3:27 - 4:00: Pampa tornado TX, June 8, 1995 (F3-F4)
The spotlights (3:37 + 3:46) are showing a flying car and a minivan.
4:01 - 4:42: Jarrell tornado TX, May 27, 1997 (F5)
More about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrCLJu...

Damage footage:
5:38 - 5:46: destroyed truck in Simsboro Louisiana, November 30, 1996
5:47 - 5:58: destroyed car, Andover Kansas tornado, April 26, 1991
5:59 - 6:03: destroyed car, Jarrell tornado TX, May 27, 1997
6:15 - 6:28: Jarrell TX after the tornado, May 27, 1997
The other damage footage shows unknown places.

The best John Pilger documentary I've seen, detailing the legacy of imperial power held by the UK government (and Royalty, to some degree). It documents the horrifying use of England's empiric past to 'acquire' an island ideal to the US government in order to further it's international bombing range. From the Google Video post comment:

STEALING A NATION (2004) is an extraordinary film about the plight of people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean - secretly and brutally expelled from their homeland by British governments in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to make way for an American military base. The base, on the main island of Diego Garcia, was a launch pad for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Stealing a Nation has won both the Royal Television Society's top award as Britain's best documentary in 2004-5, and a 'Chris Award' at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival.

A brochure of the film is available at www.bullfrogfilms.com/guides/stealguide.pdf.

Scent of a Woman is a 1992 film which tells the story of a preparatory school student who takes a job as an assistant to an irascible blind, medically retired Army officer. It stars Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, James Rebhorn, Gabrielle Anwar, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It won the Academy Award for Best Actor (Al Pacino) and was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

This should be watched by everyone growing up. Some trivia for you

* Al Pacino was helped by a school for the blind in preparation for his role. He says he made himself look blind by not focusing his view on anything, and that using prosthetic contact lenses would "fake" his performance.

* During the disciplinary meeting, the headmaster tells Slade "You are out of order!", a line told to another of Pacino's characters in ...And Justice for All (1979).

* Director Martin Brest disowned the version of the film shown on airlines and television.

* In order to get Charlie out of the hotel room Slade asks him to buy some aspirins and a Montecristo no. 1 cigar, a Cuban product banned in the US due to the Cuban embargo. As this task is impossible it would keep Charlie away for a long time.

* Pacino prepared for the famous "tango" scene in the movie by taking intensive Argentine tango lessons at DanceSport, a Manhattan dance studio located near Columbus Circle.

* Slade notices the girl he will tango with a few minutes later by her smell. When Slade and Charlie talk to her, she tells her name was Donna - which is the Italian word for "woman". The approach scene therefore is a homage to the title of the original 1974 movie Profumo Di Donna.

Ahhh the electric car..
"They all luaghed at Christopher Columbus when he said the earth was round; they all laughed when Edison recorded sound!" They all laughed at Nikola Tesla, when he tried to give it free-now the laughs on us courtesy of Raytheon and the Dept of the Navyyyy!!!