Powerful Stupid Port Management

Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the royal family that runs the United Arab Emirates (and which has been implicated in terrorist financing through its banking institutions), won approval for a $6.8 billion deal to manage six U.S. ports from a secretive U.S. panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.

We here at Consider The Future think they ought to reconsider.

This decision is possibly the dumbest damn thing I've heard in my 30-something years of life.

And that's saying something, because I've heard some whoppers in my time ("We're not selling arms for hostages", "We don't torture people", "Nelson Mandela is a terrorist", "Trees cause pollution", "AIDS is a gay disease", "JFK was killed by a 'magic' bullet", "Star Wars Missile Defense works, give us more money", "Your water is safe to drink, ignore the arsenic in it", etc., etc., etc.....)

But giving control of our ports to a nation whose citizens helped kill 3000+ Americans on 9/11?

Jesus, that's powerful stupid.

As previously mentioned, with this deal, the United Arab Emirates would have control over significant operations at six major American ports. Additionally, this deal would place the UAE in control of shipments of military equipment for the U.S. Army.

Objections to this functionally retarded decision have THANKFULLY come from both sides of the political aisle.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Reps. Chris Shays (R-CT), Vito Fossella (R-NY), and Mark Foley (R-FL) all objected to the decision, and two Republican Governors with effected ports in their states, George Pataki of New York and Robert Ehrlich of Maryland, threatened to block compliance with the deal. Even noted Bush Administration suck-up Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who will obediently twist himself into an ideological pretzel on command, is speaking out against this!

This one is too dumb even for Republicans.

According to the British paper Lloyd’s List:

P&O (the company bought by Dubai Ports World) had just renewed a contract with the United States Surface Deployment and Distribution Command to provide stevedoring (loading and unloading) of military equipment at the Texan ports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi through 2010.

According to the journal Army Logistician “Almost 40 percent of the Army cargo deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom flows through these two ports.”

Thus, the sale would give a country that has been “a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea, and Libya” direct control over substantial quantities U.S. military equipment.

Homeland "Security" Chief Michael Chertoff, just off his massive disaster prep and implementation "successes" during Hurricane Katrina, claims this decision was "extensively reviewed", but of course also says all those reviews are secret, so he conveniently doesn't have to defend the "thinking" behind the approval of this deal.

Yeah. Anybody else tired of the secrecy excuse being used YET AGAIN?

"Guns Don't Kill People, Vice-Presidents Do"

That really should be the NRA's new slogan.

Over the past weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot Harry Wittington, a companion on a quail hunting trip.

Many facets about the story don't hold water. Supposedly, this shot was fired from 92ft away (though other reports say 30ft). But either way, there's not much velocity on a spread shot like that, as compared to a regular bullet. When firing such a gun, you're trying to spray a wide are to hit a small, easily penetrated target - a bird - not blast through hard bone and cartilage like ribs, the sternum, and the muscle structure of the chest.

Cheney then didn't rush Harry to the hospital and wait there to see if he was ok, he went and had dinner at the ranch. If you shot your friend, would you send him off to the hospital and then go eat dinner? Would you even be ABLE to eat after that? Cheney then waited 22 hours before talking to the Sheriff, and the Secret Service turned away the low-level cops who hadn't gotten the memo to ignore this and were still acting like regular cops when they showed up at the ranch to investigate.

If this gentleman had died, even WITH the obvious cover-up, Cheney would have been guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Involuntary manslaughter is when someone did not intend to cause death or serious injury but cause the death of another through recklessness or criminal negligence. The law differentiates between voluntary and involuntary based upon mens rea (Latin for "guilty mind").

Of course, since Cheney was hunting without a proper permit, he probably should have been charged with misdemeanor manslaughter, which is when a person causes the death of another while committing a misdemeanor violation of the law.

And who was the man who was shot? What is his relationship with Cheney? How does he know the Vice President?

Well, let's do the math:

• Wittington gave the GOP $100,000.
• He also gave George $40,000 for his campaign.
• He was a lawyer for Kenyon International, the company whose subsidiary was guilty of the body-dumping scandal in Texas - the one Dubya put a stop to the investigation/prosecution of while he was Governor.
• The same company that got the no-bid contract to "clean" up the bodies left on the streets after Katrina.
• And there are hearings being held about Katrina presently.

Gee, do you think buck-shot to the face is enough of a warning not to testify?

But at Faux News, they are spinning, spinning, spinning --- unsuccessfully.

Dick Morris: It's hard to speculate, but usually when there is something like this alcohol is involved....
Sean Hannity: You're insinuating he was drunk which is totally irresponsible.
Dick Morris: Well why would he not go to the hospital?---He could have followed him in a car.
Sean Hannity: The Vice President, who does not have a history of drinking at all, was stumbling down drunk?

More proof that nothing you hear on Rightwing Faux News is true... Fact is, Dick Cheney has not one, but two DUI's on his record, and was forced to leave Yale University because his love of beer dwarfed his love of learning.

Boy, if you get kicked out of college for drinking..... now THAT'S BAD.... You must have had a keg permanently attached to your face.

But for Hannity? Nope, that's no drinking problem at all.....

The DUI's? "Youthful indiscretions"..... Just like Bush's similar "youthful" indiscretions with alcohol - in his mid-40's.

During his softball interview on Faux News, Cheney said this was the, "Worst day of his life." One can't help but ask the question, "Gee Mr. Cheney, I wonder how those soldiers you sent off to Iraq for no reason feel when they have to shoot some angry 15 year old kid in the confusion inherent to the battlefield? Do you have any compassion for them now?"

But now Mr Witttington and his pock-marked and bruised face, has held a press conference to lay the blame where it properly belongs. On himself. Not with the moron who fired the gun. Now why on EARTH would someone do that.....?

Who gets shot in the face by someone ELSE, then says it was THEIR OWN fault, and takes the blame for the man who actually did the shooting?

Only somebody neck deep in incriminating naughtiness himself.

But Ann Coulter refers to all this as just a "bumbling incident". Ann...... a "bumbling incident" is when President Ford falls down the stairs. Shooting a guy in the FACE is a tad bit more significant, you twit.

Dangerous T-Shirts

Cindy Sheehan, who had been invited to attend the State of the Union speech by Congressional Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), wore a t-shirt to the event, which read, "2,245 Dead. How many more?" on one side, and "Support the Troops" on the other.

She was arrested. For the ever-so-scary "threat of t-shirt" presumably....

People who think it is even remotely approriate to arrest her or anyone else for such things, are democracy's worst enemy. Seriously, pick up a book.

Its called Cohen v. California. Look into it.

The Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional to arrest a man who wore an anti-war T-shirt into a state courthouse way back in 1971.

She was arrested ILLEGALLY. Her t-shirt was an expression of political speech, the MOST protected form of speech in our democracy, and in a public place - THE PEOPLE'S HOUSE. Apparently even the halls of Congress aren't a "free speech zone" in George Bush's Totalitarian America.

This type of expression is SUPPOSEDLY what makes us so much better than places like Communist China, where they would ALSO arrest her for such things, and THERE it would be LEGAL (though still IMMORAL) for the police to do so. There, it's like "Up against the Great Wall, motherfucker!" Do people really want it to be like that here?

Why are some people so hot for totalitarian tactics like these? Why are they so un-American? Why do they hate America?

DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN?

Cindy Sheehan, following her release from jail recounted the events:

"My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat. I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled, 'Protester!' He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like, 'I'm going, do you have to be so rough?' The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, 'That's Cindy Sheehan.' At which point the officer who arrested me said, 'Take these steps slowly.' I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, 'That's because you were protesting.' I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for 'unlawful conduct.'"

Alito's been on the court for less than an hour, and already simple free speech is "unlawful conduct"? She continued:

"What did Casey die for? What did the 2,244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shirt that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing."

Well said.

People are dying in an illegal and immoral war, and some are more concerned with POLITENESS? They don't deserve the democracy they enjoy.

The State of the Union or ANYWHERE in the presence of the President of the United States -- who is supposed to be OUR servant -- is PRECISELY the "appropriate" place to express concerns over the direction of the country.

When someone protests, you should REJOICE that we have the ability to do so, not make Miss Manners comments about "appropriateness."

Honestly, I don't care if she gets up and MOONS Congress and the President. They deserve far worse.