Subject: [business] Youtube footage of Rally/March

http://67.177.58.96:8080/101YOUTB/

The hottest issue this election season is Referendum 1, the private school voucher referendum. This Friday (Nov. 2nd) at the Piper Down (1492 S. State St. in SLC) we will have representatives from both the pro-voucher and anti-voucher camps who will be there to answer all your questions about the bill.

Dr. Patrick Byrne will be answering questions for the pro-voucher side, and Pat Shea will be answering questions for the anti-voucher side.  Dr. Byrne is the Chairman & CEO of Overstock.com.  Mr. Shea is an attorney and a former Director of the BLM under President Clinton.

We will allow each side to briefly state their case in support or in opposition to vouchers, and then we will open it up to questions from the group.

If you haven’t yet made up your mind on this issue, or if you just want some clarification on the bill, join us in what is sure to be an insightful night.

Add this event to your Facebook calendar: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5499338499

I came here today to talk to you about life and death and the choices of a nation and its people. And as of this morning the careless choice to go to war in Iraq has cost the lives of 3839 soldiers. So the question is how many is enough and to what end? Are we truly safer standing here today because of the sacrifices being made in Iraq? Incredibly when asked that very question, even General Petraeus wasn’t able to say yes. We have recklessly sent our sons and daughters to war. These brave patriots, who have answered this call to duty, belong to each and every one of us, and whether someone serving shares your blood or not.we are all in this together and together must bring it to an end.

I was raised in a military home. My dad was an Army officer who served 2 tours flying a Huey in Vietnam, and my son who followed in his grandfather’s footsteps has served 2 tours flying a Black Hawk in Iraq. I am not ignorant to the military way of life, I fully understand the risks inherent in military service and I accept that. I couldn’t have been more proud when my son chose to follow our family tradition in service to his country. What I cannot accept and what we cannot allow is this administrations abuse of the finest and bravest among us to continue in the name of an ideology driven, totally mishandled war. Our soldiers have accomplished every mission given to them, and yet our presence as occupiers in Iraq is the greatest recruiting tactic for terrorists ever devised. It is long past time to end this madness and bring our soldiers home.

Minutes and minutes of fun – if you throw him around hard enough his arms will even come apart for a second or two.

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

Pass this on to your friends!

http://www2.oct27.org/brave_new_video/?q=brave_new_video

It usually takes me days to get through the Sunday paper because I’m often so easily distracted. This week I was working backward – the A-section being the last to read. Switching between the paper and my computer I read a Mother Jones e-mail referencing a series of articles on the hazards of manufacturing plants in China.

The article in Sunday’s paper is the first in a series of four articles by Loretta Tofani (the whole series can be found here) who spent 12 months in China researching the story. Although many of the Chinese laws regarding occupation safety and exposure limits are stricter than here in the U.S., China has much less enforcement. Obviously there’s a whole range of issues that contribute to the working conditions, but one of those is the lack of organized labor. While organized labor in the U.S. is just a shadow of what it used to be, it’s still enough to keep most Americans safe from businesses that will exploit workers as much as they can. Obviously there are some glaring exceptions to this, but it’s not on the same scale with China.

Where business fails, should it not become the responsibility of the government to protect their people from harm and exploitation? Especially in a “communist” country like China? Yet the government of China does not seem to care. Do you have enough faith in your government to think that they would protect Americans from exploitation for the sake of a buck? If so, it’s time to come out of your little bubble. All over the country there are people – maybe they’re not all citizens, but people nonetheless – who are being exploited so that millions of lower-middle class and middle class Americans can save a few cents on a head of lettuce or a tray of strawberries at the Wal-Mart.

The ethics bar at the Utah Legislature is set so low on conflicts of interest that a legislator is simply supposed to declare that he or she may have a conflict with a piece of legislation—that’s all.

Yet, that was too much to ask of Rep. Mike Noel (R-Kanab) and Rep. Aaron Tilton (R-Springville) today as they continued to deny any conflict of interest with the nuclear power legislation their committee has been looking into and literally laughed off any suggestion to the contrary.

The situation would be funny were it not so egregious. Apparently, if you are the CEO of a company with plans in motion to build a nuclear reactor in Utah and, as a legislator, you are a driving force behind efforts to make it easier to bring nuclear power to Utah—as is the case for Rep. Tilton—that does not present a conflict of interest. Nor is it a conflict of interest—as in Rep. Noel’s case—if you are the chair of the committee tasked with drafting nuclear power legislation and your employer stands to make millions should your colleague Rep. Tilton succeed in his plans to build a nuclear reactor.

If you are at all upset by this situation, please take a minute to email this story to your state senator and representative. Let them know you are concerned when legislators are allowed to act as lobbyists for their own personal interests (or those of their employer). Any legislation that comes out of such a process is tainted, and all legislators need to know that.

Here are the links to yesterday’s Deseret News story: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695219044,00.html and today’s story in the Salt Lake Tribune: http://www.sltrib.com//ci_7200144
To look up your legislators, go to: http://le.state.ut.us/maps/amap.html

Ex-Commander Says Iraq Effort Is ‘a Nightmare’
Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top American commander in Iraq, in Baghdad in 2004.
By DAVID S. CLOUD Published: October 13, 2007 WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 – In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”
Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage » Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who retired in 2006 after being replaced in Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, blamed the Bush administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not achieve long-term stability.
“After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” General Sanchez said at a gathering of military reporters and editors in Arlington, Va.
He is the most senior war commander of a string of retired officers who have harshly criticized the administration’s conduct of the war. While much of the previous condemnation has been focused on the role of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, General Sanchez’s was an unusually broad attack on the overall course of the war.
But his own role as commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal leaves him vulnerable to criticism that he is shifting the blame from himself to the administration that ultimately replaced him and declined to nominate him for a fourth star, forcing his retirement.
Though he was cleared of wrongdoing in the abuses after an inquiry by the Army’s inspector general, General Sanchez became a symbol – with civilian officials like L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority – of ineffective American leadership early in the occupation.
General Sanchez said he was convinced that the American effort in Iraq was failing the day after he took command, in June 2003. Asked why he waited until nearly a year after his retirement to voice his concerns publicly, he responded that it was not the place of active-duty officers to challenge lawful orders from the civilian authorities.
General Sanchez, who is said to be considering writing a book, promised further public statements criticizing officials by name.
“There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.”
White House officials would not comment directly on General Sanchez’s remarks. “We appreciate his service to the country,” said Kate Starr, a White House spokeswoman.
She noted that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the current top commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador to Baghdad, said in their testimony to Congress last month that “there’s more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq. And that’s what we’re focused on now.”
General Sanchez has been criticized by some current and retired officers for failing to recognize the growing insurgency in Iraq during his year in command and for failing to put together a plan to unify the disparate military effort, a task that was finally carried out when his successor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., took over in mid-2004.
General Sanchez included the military and himself among those who made mistakes in Iraq, citing a failure by top commanders to insist on a better post-invasion stabilization plan. He offered a tepid compliment to General Petraeus. The general, he said, could use American troops to gain time in Iraq but could not achieve lasting results.
Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, criticized General Sanchez for implying in his speech that the current military strategy of relying on additional troops and on protecting the Iraqi people is little different than the strategy employed when he was in command.
Noting that calls by members of Congress for troops were rebuffed by the Bush administration in 2003, Mr. O’Hanlon said, “Sanchez was one of the top military people who condoned that, if not directly, then by his silence.”
General Sanchez’s main criticism was leveled at the Bush administration, which he said failed to mobilize the entire United States government, not just the military, to contribute meaningfully to reconstructing and stabilizing Iraq.
“National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone,” he said. “Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”
Asked after his remarks what strategy he favored, General Sanchez ticked off a series of steps-from promoting reconciliation among Iraq’s warring sectarian factions to building effective Iraqi army and police units – that closely paralleled the list of tasks frequently cited by the Bush administration as the pillars of the current strategy.
General Sanchez, now a Pentagon consultant who trains active-duty generals, said the administration’s biggest failure had been its lack of a detailed strategy for achieving those steps and “synchronizing” the military and civilian contributions.
“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder responsibility for the catastrophic failure, and the American people must hold them accountable,” he said.
His talk on Friday at the annual convention of the Military Reporters and Editors Association was not the first time that General Sanchez has been critical of the administration.
He said in an interview in June with Agence France-Presse that the best the United States could achieve in Iraq would be stalemate. And he drew a standing ovation at a gathering of veterans last month when he argued that the country’s problems in Iraq were the result of a “crisis in national political leadership.”
Though General Sanchez remained on active duty after leaving Iraq in 2004, he never received a fourth star, in part because, though he was popular with Mr. Rumsfeld, the Bush administration feared that his nomination hearings in the Senate would turn into a bitter partisan fight and a public replay of the details of the Abu Ghraib scandal.

You don’t have to look far these days to find some reason (or excuse) to be sad, disenchanted or cynical. There appears to be enough anger and divisiveness amongst us to span the globe many times over, and what we’ve got is a mighty mess as a result. How has this come to be in a nation founded on the belief of a better way? Accusing one another, pointing fingers. Aren’t we all to blame? What has gone wrong isn’t the Democrats fault any more than it is the Republicans. It is us, the American people who have abdicated our civic responsibility. What I’m searching for is hope, and something (someone) to believe in again. Not by way of stump speeches by would be presidents, but from every day people. People who will no longer remain apathetic or follow sheepishly as we continue to lose our way. I so desperately want to see us care enough to actually step out of our comfort zones, and become advocates and activists. The fate of our soldiers in Iraq isn’t up to someone else, it is up to us. If we are enraged that the United States has lost stature and credibility in the world, who do we turn to to remedy that? Hasn’t it been our own neglect that has allowed this environment to flourish? How many of us are still “shopping” as prompted by Bush, rather than paying attention to the disintegration of our founding principals? If it bothers you that money spent in Iraq could be better appropriated to save lives rather than end lives, what have you done to impart that sentiment to those who are continuing to make these life and death decisions? Do pictures and stories coming from New Orleans haunt you? Are you the slightest bit embarrassed that the greatest nation on earth has not kept it’s promises to it’s most vulnerable citizens 2 years post Katrina? Are you worried about the politicizing of the justice department and what that really means to the principal of “blind justice”? Is it okay with you that at any given time and for no apparent reason your phone calls or emails may be monitored without due process? And, if that is okay with you in a Republican administration, what if the shoe is on the other foot come Jan, 2009? Would you be willing to look the other way regarding expanded executive power if the occupant of the White House doesn’t share your particular ideology? Where are the Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King Jr’s of the world when we need them? Those who see injustice and inspire legions of others to act? Where are the John Lennon’s? Those who would urge us all to “give peace a chance”. There was a time the people of these “united” states actually worked together during times of crisis. What saddens me most is I feel the crisis we are facing now is that of an identity lost in the haze of war and arrogance of power. Who are we and what have we become? Have we really thrown up our hands in defeat? Fixing all that has gone awry will be left to those who come next? Our president obviously feels that way, telling us the next commander in chief will have to figure out Iraq, not to mention the myriad of other messes that need tending to. I can’t look my new born grandbaby in the eye and not feel the urgency to do my part. Waiting for someone else to take responsibility is waiting too long. Everything we are and aspire to be depends on how we pull together now for our own common good . Our conscience won’t allow us to continue to turn a blind eye will it?
Carla

Just a reminder to you all that our annual “Treats for Troops” endeavor is currently underway at Valley Fair Mall.
Come visit our pumpkin patch and help us in our efforts to make sure our soldiers serving far from home will receive gifts from home for the Holidays this year.
Our soldiers deserve no less than all we can do on their behalf.
Can’t wait to see you at the mall!!
Carla

TREATS FOR TROOPS
It is once again that time of year. “We Love Our Soldiers” (www.sendyoursupport.org) annual “treats for troops” endeavor with Valley Fair Mall is on. For the entire month of October we invite you to stop by center court, visit the pumpkin patch, and contribute to the gift boxes that will be sent to our troops serving overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. All items donated will be sent in time to reach our soldiers for the Christmas season. They need each and every one of us to participate in order to help make their Holiday one that they will remember for the support they received from home during this difficult time.
Please support this effort generously. Our soldiers need and deserve all that we can do on their behalf. In order to make this happen for them, we urge you to give from your heart, and tell everyone you know what a difference they can make for a soldier this year by donating also.
We need financial contributions, as well as the fun items to send in the boxes. Each box costs about 40 dollars to send, and is filled with enough items for 4 soldiers. That is only 10 dollars per soldier. What a small price to pay to put a smile on the face of a lonely, homesick, tired soldier far from home. We’re counting on your support. And, you will feel marvelous knowing you have done such a generous and thoughtful thing for someone who is sacrificing so much for all of us.
You can also come trick or treating at the mall on Halloween from 5-7 pm, and visit us at our table. At that time, you can also write a card or note to soldier we will be enclosing in our care packages.
As always, we thank you for your continued support!!
Look forward to seeing you at Valley Fair Mall.
Carla J. Hitz