Thank God All People Can Be Treated Equally

I’m a happily married heterosexual Christian who is relieved and pleased that gays and lesbians will soon be able to marry legally in California (May 15, 2008 ruling by the California State Supreme Court).

Now my many heterosexual and homosexual friends can benefit equally from the institution of marriage for their families, relationships, and children.

The United States was founded on the basis of equality for all humankind. We continue to discover and benefit from the natural, but sometimes slow to arrive, consequences of this simple yet momentous premise.

Declaration of Independence:
.... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

US Constitution:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...

Safe Cycling

Many believe that bicycling is unsafe and that cyclists are more often at fault than motorists. However both are untrue. A recent article on SF Weekly.com is somewhat more accurate in discussing the risks of cycling and who should become more educated.

Just Imagine What Positive Work We Could Do With...

Just Imagine What Positive Work We Could Do With...

4000 living young American men and women,
1001 living American contractors,
29,000 unwounded young American men and women,
90,000 living Iraqi Civilians,
500 Billion US dollars,
and 5 Years...

With those resources we could have reduced global warming, saved millions of lives, fed billions, and ended illiteracy worldwide. ( http://icasualties.org/ , http://iraqbodycount.org , http://costofwar.com , http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.3584667/ )

Instead, this is what President Bush and his supporters chose to spend starting and waging war in Iraq. And the war is not over. The United States is likely to spend many more years, countless more lives, and around 2 trillion US dollars, perhaps more, on this war.

What a horrendous waste of resources.

What do you think works better to reduce terrorism?
1) Killing the friends and families of others? Or,
2) Educating others so they can live decently with their friends and family?

Tonight I spent 2 hours with 50 other peace loving patriots at a vigil in Mountain View, California to honor the 4000 American soldiers who have died so far in Iraq. We spent 30 minutes reading aloud each name of the over 400 Californian soldiers who have died in the past 5 years.

This evening I met Karen Meredith whose only son Ken Ballard died on May 20, 2004. Please read more about Ken at http://www.ltkenballard.com

Five years ago my father, an ardent peace activist, died just as the war began. Please read what I said during his memorial service on March 23, 2003 at http://oeyweb.com/sunny/MemServTim.htm

Finally, Greg Mortenson worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan, could see a catastrophe about to happen, and saw the best way to prevent terrorism permanently. To learn more about his work please read the book "Three Cups of Tea" http://threecupsoftea.com

Just imagine what Greg could have done with the resources that have been wasted on the war in Iraq. He could have really ended terrorism instead of creating conditions that generate more terrorism.

I hope each of you who read my message here will do your own small part to end this war, save lives, and save our world.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Tim Oey
http://timoey.blogspot.com

Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks gets its domain name back

The judge who closed the Wikileaks domain reversed his decision. Wikileaks.org is a whistle-blowing site that focuses on posting leaked documents. Wikileaks alleges that the documents in question show that the Swiss bank, Julius Baer, supports the "ultrarich's offshore tax avoidance, tax evasion, asset hiding, and money laundering.

"The court denies the motion for preliminary injunction, and the court hereby dissolves the injunction against (domain name registrar) Dynadot, and the litigation may now proceed," said U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in reversing his earlier ruling.

I'm glad that Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation were all able to help turn this around.

read more | digg story

Additionally, as of March 5, CNN reports that the Swiss bank has now abandoned its lawsuit. As mentioned in an earlier post, this lawsuit clearly backfired as it drew far more attention to the documents it was trying to "hide" than if it had done nothing. For further details, please read:
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9886855-38.html

EFF: Lawyer Trademarks "Cyberlaw" Threatens Legal Action

"I wish I could say I was surprised by this one, but such overreaching invocations of IP rights are all too common -- even where, as in this case, there are no actual "rights" to speak of. But an IP lawyer should know that courts...."

Yes the trend continues, some businesses want to own language and prevent others from speaking by misusing trademark law -- from freecycle to cyberlaw. See also: http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.cyberlaw21feb21,0,1813223.story

read more | digg story

Obama: America must talk with enemies; Clinton won't budge

As the Democratic CNN/Univision debate kicked off Thursday night, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) faced off over Cuba, with Obama reiterating his position that America "has to talk with its enemies," with Clinton holding to an earlier position that no president should meet with Cuba's new leader unless conditions are met.

I believe that everyone should be willing to talk and keep talking. It is the only way to understand each other's position so that war, bloodshed, and terrorism can be averted.

read more | digg story

Wikileaks shutdown causes opposite effect

In an ironic twist, the "shutdown" of Wikileaks.org by Judge Jeffrey S. White and the company Julius Baer Bank to reduce distribution of certain documents has probably caused more publicity, focus, and re-publication of the alleged infringing documents than if the site had been left alone. Oooops!

For more details please read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/19cnd-wiki.html
and
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_hi_te/wikileaks_shutdown_2