Community: Save Berkeley Iceland

This is not political, but it is personal. The ice skating rink in South Berkeley is at risk of closing. At the risk of seeming a bit off-topic for the blog, I’d like to remind you all of the dearth of opportunities for social and athletic pursuits which exist for both children and adults in our community(-ies).

(one of our ‘lil hockey players)

Case in point, Tom Ratliff, Board Member for the Berkeley YMCA attended the most recent meeting of the SaveBerkeleyIceland.org non-profit group, which is now meeting weekly to discuss structural and fund raising issues. Tom indicated that the demographics the rink serves with its public skating, ice hockey and figure skating programs are irreplaceable in our area of the Bay Area. I can attest to this, as I have been coaching ice hockey in this facility for ~18 years and have received feedback from countless families and former players.

The lessons learned in this environment are what I’ve heard referred to as CO-CURRICULAR. These are complimentary to the traditional educational experience. Coaching to me has more to do with teaching life lessons than teaching a 10-year old how to skate faster, make his/her slapshot faster or the latest strategies in the game. Hockey, like figure skating is merely a vehicle, a conduit for expanding one’s mind and providing an opportunity for exercise as well.

Berkeley Iceland is my rink. I learned to skate there as a little boy and now I’m hoping to find others who feel it is a worthwhile candidate for their attention and participation in this time of need.

Berkeley Iceland is the current home of the Cal Ice Hockey team, the Berkeley Bulldogs Youth Hockey program, the St. Moritz Ice Skating Club and former training facility for both Brian Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi. Previous teams who have practice and/or played at our rink are the USA Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey team, the Japanese Olympic Ice Hockey team and the California Golden Seals (NHL).

Hmmmmmmm………

Gore to testify before Congress on Global warming.

And there are still ’some who say…’ that Gore ain’t gonna run.

Sure Hillary, sure honey, doan worry your head about it.

Blogswarm Alert: The Democrats in the Senate are Not Listening!

And some of them are truly showing their DINO stripes. Sorta like polecats with their vile manipulation of the weak-kneed Harry Reid. Yep, I’ve made up my mind about the Senate Majority Leader. He’s not fit to lead the Democratic Party. Not if we want it to become the force for progressive change our nation so desperately needs. And so I intimated to him with this hand delivered letter I had sent to his office. Others like the stupid Joe ‘Obama-be-smart-fer-a-negro’ Biden just Do. Not. Get. It.

But I do and I know you do too. It’s real simple there must be no attack on Iran, oh yeah the NeoCon fucktards are still planning on that, and, what this post is about, the Spineless Dems are planning on letting them. We must seek a diplomatic solution in Iraq while withdrawing our troops. Not plunge the region into a wider war which even the oligarchy at Davos are scared shitless of

Mr. Bush’s ’support’ is in free fall. The right thing to do morally and for our country is in the Democratic Majority’s grasp.

Simple.

Too simple for many in the Senate to grasp; and to be fair to them many are bought and paid for by the MI complex and/or AIPAC.

But one thing still works as the mid-terms of 2006 showed. Voting. We sent Senators Webb, Tester and Brown to the ‘Greatest Deliberative Body in the World’. We can send more. We can let Senators Reid and Nelson and Biden and Schumer, especially,  know in no uncertain terms that we will not accept their weak, immoral, acquiescence to Mr. Bush’s plans to plunge our nation into an even wider war which we cannot win.

Here is the contact info for the Senate and the House: Congress.org

Contact your Senator and Senator’s Reid, Nelson, Biden, and Schumer and tell them that non-binding resolutions are ‘off the table…’.

Let us know what the response was in the comments if you would please.

Listen Up, Democrats!

This suggestion and analysis from former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter was taken from Booman Tribune which was in turn taken from The Nation:

If I were to address [the Democrats in Congress], I would focus my effort on trying to impress them with the issue that will cost them political power down the road. This issue is Iran. While President Bush, a Republican, remains Commander in Chief, a Democrat-controlled Congress shares responsibility on war and peace from this point on. The conflict in Iraq, although ongoing, is a product of the Republican-controlled past. The looming conflict with Iran, however, will be assessed as a product of a Democrat-controlled present and future. If Iraq destroyed the Republican Party, Iran will destroy the Democrats.

I would strongly urge Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, to hold real hearings on Iran. Not the mealy-mouthed Joe Biden-led hearings we witnessed on Iraq in July-August 2002, where he and his colleagues rubber-stamped the President’s case for war, but genuine hearings that draw on all the lessons of Congressional failures when it came to Iraq. Summon all the President’s men (and women), and grill them on every phrase and word uttered about the Iranian “threat,” especially as it has been linked to nuclear weapons. Demand facts to back up the rhetoric.

Summon the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or any other lobby promoting confrontation with Iran, to the forefront, so that the warnings they offer in whispers from a back room can be articulated before the American public. Hold these conjurers of doom accountable for their positions by demanding they back them up with hard fact. See if the US intelligence community concurs with the dire warnings put forward by these pro-war lobbyists, and if it doesn’t, ask who, then, is driving US policy toward Iran? Those mandated by public law and subjected to the oversight of Congress? Or others, operating outside any framework representative of the will of the American people?

If a real case, based on facts as they pertain to the genuine national security interests of the United States, can be made for a confrontation with Iran that leads to military conflict, so be it. America should never shy away from defending that which legitimately needs defending. The sacrifice expected of our military forces, while tragic, will be defensible. But if the case for war with Iran is revealed to be as illusory as was the case for war with Iraq, then Congress must take action to stop this conflict from occurring. This is the Democrats’ issue now, the one that will make or break them in 2008 and beyond.

If hearings show no case for war with Iran, then Congress must act to insure that the United States cannot move toward conflict with that nation on the strength of executive dictate alone. As things currently stand, the Bush Administration, emboldened with a vision of the unitary executive unprecedented in our nation’s history, believes it has all of the legal authority it requires when it comes to engaging Iran militarily. The silence of Congress following the President’s decision to dispatch a second carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf has been deafening. The fact that a third carrier battle group (the USS Ronald Reagan) will probably join these two in the near future has also gone unnoticed by most, if not all, in Congress.

And this summary also taken from Booman Tribune:

The time is now, right now, to call for these hearings before it is too late. Before Bush decides to pull the trigger, or allows Israel to pull the trigger for him. Before the initial strikes occur. Before whatever excuse for war can be concocted by Cheny’s fertile imagination and sold to the lapdog media by Karl Rove’s spin.