Music video interpretation of the song 'Sex is Not the Enemy' by Garbage based loosely on comments made by Manson. Shirley Manson: Sex Is Not The Enemy" is sort of a manifesto in a way. I had no idea it was until I looked back and thought 'Oh my god, this really is an anthem to my sexual politics". "This is a party song on the surface, but it's actually dealing with my amazement at how the Bush administration in America is really reactionary and clamping down on gay rights, and women's reproductive rights and civil liberties in general. I thought it really weird that when Janet Jackson revealed her tit at the Super Bowl it was on the cover of USA Today for three days in a row and, meanwhile, there was no mention of the Iraq war. It was only focusing on Janet's beautiful tit, which I thought was bizarre".

Author: Aviam
Keywords: Garbage Sex is not the Enemy War
Added: July 19, 2006

These are some pictures that go with this article "Meet the Iraqi People: Civil Affairs" by Caleb Schaber Northern Nevada News Wire BAGHDAD, Iraq—The fate of the Iraqi people and the reconstruction of Iraq are a common question for many people in the world. The United States Army directly interacts with the Iraqi people through the Army Civil Affairs (CA). For Maj. Raymond Pfahl, Jr. from Warsaw, Ind., the Iraqi people are no mystery to his soldiers. Pfahl, 50, is Company Commander of Charlie Company of the 414 Battalion CA, from Syracuse, depolyed to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Camp Taji, 30 km north of Baghdad. While many soldiers who serve in Iraq have limited interaction, or at best, hostile engagements in Iraq, Pfahl's company of soldiers works with the Iraqi people outside the comforts of the base nearly everyday. "I think we are doing a wonderful job a lot of people do not hear about." Building schools, fixing water pumping and treatment plants, building women's centers and helping maintain the gas and electricity for the Iraqi people in the Taji area are a few of the successes. Pfahl was layed off from his job with a medical company in Warsaw prior to his deployment. He retired from the military but stayed on the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) list. Had he not been on this list, Phafl wound not have been called up for duty. His wife, a retired a captain in the Army, is used to his deployments. Pfahl previously served in the Special Forces, but he said, "That was many moons ago." Although CA are deployed to help the Iraqi people, they do get attacked. "I did have a team get hit up here in May," said Pfahl. "The Humvee took most of the blast and people were able to walk away." Over 95% of the of the CA are reservist. The theory is that CA works best with reserve soldiers because they need to think outside the box of the military and interact with civilians in foreign lands. Pfahl, like most of his team, was on the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) list. Some of the soldiers on the IRR stay on the list and get money from the Army to be ready for call up. Others, such as officers, are commited to several years of IRR after they serve active duty. Just after Pfahl and his company arrived, their sister Unit the 490 Civil Affairs lost three soldiers from an Improvised Explosive Device (IED.) "I try not to go out as much as possible," said Pfahl. He added that the mission requires the CA to go out and work with the Iraqi people, so his team has no choice but to drive around the Northern Baghdad area, where they work. I spent a week working with three of the five teams in Charlie Company. I regret that I do not have many photos of the CA working with the Iraqi people. This is not because they were not with the people, but rather a matter of survival. A photo is death, at times. If one of the insurgent groups acquires a picture of an interpretor, or someone else working with the US troops, they, or their family, will likely be killed. One writer here in Baghdad told me that two of his stories in a row resulted in attacks on the places he wrote about, where Iraqis were working with the US Army. The type of work that Civil Affairs started evolving after World War II, establishing a temporary military government for things like reestablishing water, sewer, transportation, police, fire, and other basic services to war torn Europe, North Africa and Japan. In Vietnam, the Special Forces were tasked with Civil Affairs job as part of the "hearts and minds" campaign. The U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command of today officially began in Ocober 1985 with the formation of the 1st Special Operations Command Augmentation Detachment, which evolved into the United States Army Reserve Special Operations Command (USARSOC). On Nov. 27, 1990, USARSOC was renamed United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (A), coinciding with Operation Desert Shield.

Author: Panzwayi
Keywords: Schaber Iraq Civil Affairs
Added: August 6, 2006

Bush has declared war on the environment - says Richard Nixon's former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Russel Train. "We're at war in Iraq. They tell us we're at war against terrorism. I'd say that George W. Bush has declared war on the environment. And I think that people ought to stand up and be counted in opposition to that. The first National Park, Yellowstone, was created in 1872. Now that was a Republican year, right after the Civil War. General Grant, then the president, was the person you have to give credit to for Yellowstone. You can go back to Teddy Roosevelt and say he Roosevelt was a great conservationist. He created our National Forest and our national wildlife refuges and he took a strong interest in conservation. You get to Richard Nixon and you get a fantastic blooming of environmental interest and initiatives on the part of the administration. The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, was a creature of Richard Nixon. The Clean Air Act of 1972, the Clean Air Act of 1970, ocean dumping controls, clean drinking water, the Noise Control Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, you name it. So, during the Nixon administration and the Ford administration we accomplished a great deal. I was never officially part of the administration of George H.W. Bush -- Bush the First. We were good personal friends and our families were friends. He asked me for advice on the environment; he asked me to explain the environment to him, although that wasn't exactly an easy thing to do in a short while, but we sat down and talked in Florida for an hour or so. He really wanted to know. He entered the presidency with the intention of being a good environmental president. He sponsored the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, and that's the law under which we live today. He had a very good environmental record, and his heart was very much in the right place on the issue. I feel George W.'s heart is in the wrong place on this issue. Calling something the Clean Air Act, the Healthy Forest Act when what you're really doing is opening up the forest to logging. It's almost an ideological antagonism. And there's no understanding, I feel, of the importance of this issue. It's addressed from the standpoint of, "What is such-and-such a regulation going to do to a particular industry that is a pretty good contributor to our campaign cause. And I think that's what's motivated its approach to environmental matters. There has been a tendency on the part of this administration, this White House, to -- some call it -- distort science. And if they don't like the science, they take out that particular finding. As I understand it, the EPA did do a study -- at least a preliminary study, in New York, which showed some very troublesome, hazardous air pollutant problems. And they were told by -- I don't know whether the White House or the Council on Environmental Quality -- to change those results. I think this administration is not a conservative administration. I think it's a radical administration. It represents a radical rollback of environmental policy going back to a period many, many years ago. It's backward." USA Today - Courts mow down development strategy http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-10-federal-lands_x.htm Learn more about the Bush administrations evironmental record. http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/2005.asp

Author: THXl138
Keywords: climate environment warming bush
Added: October 12, 2006