End Torture Now
Join thousands of other Americans for Human Rights and sign Human Rights First’s petition to the presidential candidates asking them to commit to ending policies that have led to torture and tarnished the United States:
Elect to End Torture 08 is a nonpartisan campaign to make sure that the next President puts an end to policies allowing torture and cruel treatment and adopts a strong national security policy that is consistent with the laws and values of our nation.
The Liberty Amendment
The Liberty Amendment? Huh? I had never heard of it, until I stumbled across it on digg.com.
Essentially, the proposed amendment would:
give back to the Constitution its full force and effect in limiting the powers and activities of the Federal Government and restoring those powers reserved to the States and to the people.
The text of the amendment reads as follows:
Section 1. The Government of the United States shall not engage in any business, professional, commercial, financial or industrial enterprise except as specified in the Constitution.
Section 2. The constitution or laws of any State, or the laws of the United States shall not be subject to the terms of any foreign or domestic agreement which would abrogate this amendment.
Section 3. The activities of the United States Government which violate the intent and purpose of this amendment shall, within a period of three years from the date of the ratification of this amendment, be liquidated and the properties and facilities affected shall be sold.
Section 4. Three years after the ratification of this amendment the sixteenth article of amendments to the Constitution of the United States shall stand repealed and thereafter Congress shall not levy taxes on personal incomes, estates, and/or gifts.
Very interesting. I don’t know if I could even imagine the impact! Apparently, nine states have already endorsed it, which is a good sign. Unfortunately, there are only four years left to take action.
So, without further ado…
Check out the Liberty Amendment site, and take action today:
Cut and paste the contents of the Liberty Amendment – Sample Letter into your email program, modify appropriately, and send to your Senators and Representatives today!
Please note: most of these politicians make it really hard to contact them. You’re supposed to use the contact forms on their sites. Direct emails I’ve sent have been rejected.
I Voted, Did You?
I’m ever surprised and disappointed by the lack of voter turnout. It just seems silly that people choose not to vote, for whatever reason, then spend their lives complaining about the very things they could have voted about.
Perhaps we take things for granted in this country. Perhaps if we lived under a dictatorship we might realize what we had…
On a positive note, it was nice to see a line of unregistered first-time voters stretching out of the voting hall. There is hope.
Dear Reader
Dear reader,
Please look carefully at the web address in the URL field of your browser. It should read ‘http://romanedirisinghe.com‘. In case you see a web address containing the word ‘bitacle’ or ‘bitacle.org’, you’re not looking at the original page on which this text was posted. If this is the case, the text you are reading right now might be incorrect or out of date. After I place a post on my weblog, I always try to keep published information up to date, or incorporate additional information, which I receive from readers. You will never find this information on bitacle.org.
Bitacle.org copies the content of weblogs without permission of the author, the holder of copyrights or the licensee. By visiting bitacle.org, you create income for the people who run bitacle.org, at the expense of me and other owners of a weblog, without permission and often without respecting copyrights and/or terms of use as in a license. So please, next time you want to view my posts, do so by using the web address of my weblog, which is ‘http://romanedirisinghe.com‘. Please make a bookmark of my weblog’s address, if you would like to visit it again.
Thank you!
The paragraphs were obtained from stopbitacle.org, a site devoted to stopping the continued, blatant theft of people’s blog content by Bitacle and other splogs.
Bootz & Burma – Approaching the World Record
Michael Bootzin (Bootz) has been reading since 7:15 p.m. Friday night.
The record will be achieved around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 21, 2006, but Michael will attempt to break the existing record by 24 hours. He will be available for interview any time after the record has been broken.
The event is being held at Futuregreen. The address is 2352 S. Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207, Tel (414) 294-4300, http://futuregreen.net.
View the videos
Check out the photos
Wikipedia article about Aung San Suu Kyi
For Immediate Release: June 21st, 2006
Contacts: Jeremy Woodrum, US Campaign for Burma, (202) 223-0300
Michael Bootzin, (414) 294-4300
World Record Attempt To Bring Voice To Voiceless
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin) Beginning on 16, June 2006 at 7:00 p.m. Milwaukee native Michael Bootzin, representing the U.S. Campaign for Burma, will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for speaking almost 111 consecutive hours.
The marathon effort is dedicated to the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong Sawn Sue Chee) and all people in the Southeast Asian country of Burma. The event will take place three days before Suu Kyi’s 61st birthday.
“I am trying to give a voice to the voiceless,” said Bootzin. “Aung San Suu Kyi can not speak so I am going to speak out to support her.”
That same weekend, more than 250 related events will be taking place in thirteen countries and thirty states in the United States. At the event in Milwaukee and elsewhere, participants will raise money for the grassroots organization U.S. Campaign for Burma.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for over ten of the last seventeen years, even though her political party won 82% of the seats in parliament in Burma’s last democratic election. The military regime that rules Burma refused to hand over power and placed member of her political party the National League for Democracy in prison or house arrest. According to Amnesty International, over 1,100 political prisoners remain behind bars and Aung San Suu Kyi lives in virtual solitary confinement.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s admirers include music bands U2, and R.E.M. and political leaders Madeleine Albright, Senator John McCain, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Many know her as the “Nelson Mandela of Asia”.
Burma’s military regime has forcibly recruited 70,000 child soldiers (more than any other country in the world) as well as forced over 1 million refugees to flee the country. The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, has called for international pressure on the military regime for its use of forced labor, a modern form of slavery.
Wisconsin Senators Russell Feingold and Herb Kohl have been strongly supportive of peaceful change in Burma by most recently voting for the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. Feingold has encouraged the UN Security Council to take further action, and the Council will meet to discuss Burma this week.
The event will be held at one of Milwaukee’s best socially responsible businesses, Futuregreen. The address is 2352 S Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207 Tel (414) 294-4300 http://www.futuregreen.net
Bootzin, a Guitar/Piano instructor performer as well as stage hand for Alpine Valley Music Theater and the Bradley Center, has been an active local volunteer at the Hunger Task Force, Indian Council for the Elderly, The Family House and others. Most recently he helped Running Rebels, an after school program for at risk kids, obtain keyboards for a fundamental keyboard class that he taught.
“I believe we are all connected and we have a responsibility to support international human rights as well as throw our support to important local needs,” says Bootzin, as he gets ready to focus on the world record.
The current Guinness World RecordTM is 110 hours and 45 minutes of continuous reading. Bootzin plans to begin the event with published works by Aung San Suu Kyi with a personalized slide show based on his experiences working for human rights in Burma and Thailand.
For more information on Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma, visit http://www.uscampaignforburma.org
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