Utah County parents protest schools' promotion of 'democracy'

By GottaLaff

The D word! Oh noes! Kids, cover your ears! Adults, watch your mouths!

Some Utah County parents are calling on the Alpine School District to stop spreading "false educational ideas." First and foremost, the parents say, the district needs to clamp down on its use of the D-word: "democracy."

Why... sputter, sputter... How. Dare. They? Words like d... de... de-e-m-m o... democracy (whew! I barely got that out, it was made of such nasty dirty filthy wrong) should be banned! Redacted! Removed from dictionaries!

Why, why... that's a gateway word!! Next thing you know, an innocent child may slip and morph right into big f***ing deal!

Yes, it's actually come to this:

This week, a spokeswoman for Utah's Republic, a group that advocates for a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, asked the Alpine Board of Education to scrap its democracy-centered mission statement. [...]

But this nation is a republic, not a democracy, said Oak Norton, a Highland father of five and the founder of Utah's Republic. The Constitution guarantees every state a "republican form of government." "Karl Marx said, 'Democracy is the road to socialism,' " Norton said. A true democracy, he said, relies solely on majority rule and inevitably devolves into anarchy, which then sprouts socialist dictators.

That's commie Marxist gay abortionist French fascist socialist Jewish Muslim dictators to you, Elm.

Sorry... Oak.

But never fear, the board stands by its language. Good. We'd hate for a guy named after a tree to dictate anything to a place of education.

The Alpine board:

"We chose 'our democracy' to reflect both a government with power vested in the people and our freedoms. We not only recognize that our government is a republic, but we value and participate in this form of government with an elected Board of Education," the statement said. "The use of the word democracy underscores the type of republic found in the United States."

Gee, ya think?

You can read more about the end of the United States as we know it here.

Quote of the Day

Via Taegan-

"As long as I have served ... I've never seen, as my uncle once said, the constitution stood on its head as they've done. This is the first time every single solitary decisions has required 60 senators... No democracy has survived needing a supermajority."

-- Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by Politico, slamming the rising use of the filibuster at a fundraiser Sunday.

Iraq has a "confused partner in the United States right now"

By GottaLaff

(Photo: The U.S. Army)

My talented pal Allen McDuffee has an interesting piece over at Truthout. Here are a few excerpts about something we don't hear much about because, you know, Tiger is "real" news, and information about the evolution of Iraq just gets in the way:

"If I had one word to describe Iraq, I would just use the word 'complicated.' If I had two words to describe Iraq, they would be 'very complicated,'" said Qubad Talabani, the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq to the United States . [...]

These circumstances are further complicated, according to Talabani, because Iraq has a "confused partner in the United States right now. A partner that has from 2003 up until now been heavily engaged in every aspect of political and military development of the country and a partner that is going through its own transition right now." [...]

Talabani also pointed to a "'culture of insecurity' that has been bred throughout Iraq - because of its history, because of its present, because of its geographic location, because of its partners - that makes reaching political agreements on key outstanding issues" an extremely difficult enterprise and that insecurity is "at the heart of every political impasse right now."

It's not a long piece, so please go read the rest here.

So. Didja hear about Gilette distancing itself from Tiger..... ?

VIDEO: Bill Moyers on Health Care as a Human Right

By GottaLaff

Mandatory viewing. Why? Because this was just superb:

H/t: Heather at Crooks and Liars

Video- President Obama: “The Iranian people and their voices should be heard and respected”

Ahmadinejad Declared Winner of Iran Election

Not what we were looking forward to yesterday.

TEHRAN, June 13 -- Iran's Interior Ministry declared Saturday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a decisive victory in Friday's presidential election, but the incumbent's leading challenger protested the results, and clashes broke out between the two candidates' supporters.

Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who waged a heated campaign against Ahmadinejad's bid for reelection, urged his supporters to reject a "governance of lie and dictatorship." He attributed the results to widespread vote fraud and vowed to resist a "dangerous manipulation" of the balloting.

Later, fighting broke out at Tehran's Vanak Square among hundreds of Iranians who backed the rival candidates, Reuters news agency reported. Up to 2,000 Mousavi supporters sat down in the street, chanting: "Mousavi take back our vote! What happened to our vote?"

Police wielding batons then moved to disperse the protesters, the news agency said.

U.S. backed Hariri coalition claims victory in Lebanon vote

All kinds of good news in this, can't wait to see what happens in Iran.

BEIRUT (AFP) – A US-backed coalition in Lebanon claimed victory on Monday over an alliance headed by the fundamentalist Shiite militant group Hezbollah after a fiercely-contested election.

"This is a big day in the history of democratic Lebanon," a triumphant Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian grouping known as March 14, told cheering supporters at a rally after Sunday's vote.

(snip)

Hariri's coalition -- which held the majority in the old parliament -- was set to win 70 seats in the new 128-seat assembly against 58 for Hezbollah and its Christian and Shiite allies, according to his Future television station.

Some Iraqis already skeptical of democracy

By GottaLaff

Wasn't "democracy" the reason one of the kazillion reasons that Bush illegally invaded a sovereign country that hadn't attacked us first? Why yes. Yes it was:

Some are so soured on the government's ability to get things done, they've already turned apathetic in Iraq's early days of democracy.

"I won't participate in the upcoming elections," said Nahar Fakhri Sadoon, 58, of the southern city of Basra. [...]

But Iraqis said it is difficult for them to have faith in government when they don't see it working for them. In the nearly six years since the U.S. invaded Iraq, the government has been unable to fix major infrastructure problems, leaving the majority of Iraqis without reliable running water and continuous electricity. [...]

And unemployment remains high, with Iraqis seeing little or no improvement in their personal economic situations, the report states.

In a nationwide survey, only 16% of Iraqis reported being "somewhat" or "very" satisfied with the amount of electricity they were receiving.

On the bright side, 16% is higher than Cheney's final approval rating.

Abu Abdullah, 52, a mechanical engineer:

"These are things in touch with your everyday life. . . . At least what I want to see in the future is that we return to the same level of infrastructure as before 2003." [...]

Many Iraqis also cited corruption as an ongoing problem in Iraq. Leaders rise to positions they don't deserve and relatives are awarded lucrative contracts, several said.

Khazraji Ali, 35, who runs a clinic in the southern city of Diwaniya and teaches at a medical school said...

...most of the people he knows plan on voting for a friend or relative who can benefit them once in office.

Just like BushCo and their Bestest Big Biz Buds! See what a swell model Bush's America is for Iraq? Democracy in action.

Barack Obama Elementary

I posted about it here, and now we have video. LOVE the kids initiative!!!

h/t C&L.