Rosie O'Donnell's new cruise arrived in Keys today

[Jason]

Rosie O'Donnell's new cruise line is getting a warm welcome in sunny Key West today.

The talk-show maven is expected to receive the key to the city today when her cruise, billed as the first that caters to gay and lesbian families, stops at the island port on its inaugural voyage.

The Norwegian Dawn's seven-day trip was scheduled to depart New York Sunday and is the first cruise of R Family Vacations, the O'Donnell-backed company that promotes family-friendly vacations for gays and lesbians.

[DaCruzNut]

[prop]

Here's a story from the Keys News:

Rosie rips Bush during her cruise stop in Key West

BY CHRIS TITTEL

Citizen Staff Writer

KEY WEST  Rosie O'Donnell said Wednesday that although she was pleased with the outcome, she was not surprised that the U.S. Senate ultimately rejected a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit same-sex marriages.

"I actually believed that the Senate would do what they did," O'Donnell said. "With the vote today in the Senate, I think even the senators are looking at President Bush in a different light."

The Emmy Award-winning talk show host and gay rights activist spent the day touring Key West, just one of several ports of call on a weeklong cruise that she and her family began Sunday in New York.

Shortly after docking in Key West, O'Donnell was presented with a key to the city and participated in a showing of her artwork at Luis Sottil Studios.

O'Donnell accused President Bush of using the same-sex marriage issue to draw the American public's attention away from the war in Iraq.

"George Bush would like to distract Americans from the fact that he has started a war based on pure fabrication and that over 900 of America's poor have been killed in action," she said. "I'm very supportive of our military and when we ask them to go to war that it's for a worthy cause. This war, there is no worthy cause."

O'Donnell reiterated the same sentiment in recalling the landmark moment earlier this year when she and her spouse, Kelli Carpenter, traveled to California to exchange vows in one of the first same-sex civil ceremonies held in the United States.

"Going to San Francisco really was inspired, in many ways, by the fact that during a war our president held a press conference to denounce gays and marriage as the big issue in our nation," she said, "just as he was sending our 22-year-olds off to be killed.

"I thought it was absurd and was so transparent, his motive was so transparent. I think America feels that, too. We have done such damage to ourselves, as a nation, in the eyes of the rest of the world."

O'Donnell suggested that voters take note of which senators voted for and which senators voted against the proposed amendment, particularly at election time.

"I hope that what will happen is the opposite of what the president expected, which was that anyone who voted to reject this amendment would be chastised, that it would hurt their career," she said. "I think the opposite is going to happen. I would love just to get the list and the faces of every single person who voted for the amendment and support the person running against them."

O'Donnell and Carpenter are on the cruise with Parker, Chelsea and Blake, three youngsters whom O'Donnell adopted several years ago. A Florida law preventing gays and lesbians from adopting children forced O'Donnell, a resident of Miami, to file for adoption in another state.

In addition to same-sex marriage, O'Donnell has become a champion of gay adoption rights. She is lending her support to Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau, a same-sex couple suing the state for the right to retain custody of one of five foster children that they have been raising for more than 10 years.

"It's a sad situation," she said.

O'Donnell and her family are booked on the maiden voyage of R Family Vacations, the O'Donnell-backed company that promotes holidays for both traditional and not-so-traditional families. The 2,000-plus passengers reportedly include male-female, same-sex, multiracial and one-parent families. In addition to typical cruise ship activities, passengers can participate in discussion groups on a variety of issues of interest to gay parents.

"Everybody's having fun," she said. "There's a lot of people with lives that don't allow them to be as open as they could be on the cruise. To see the sense of freedom that they and their children feel is very fulfilling."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story published on Thu, Jul 15, 2004

[Dan]

huh??

[DaCruzNut]

The major reason that we went to war was President Bush’s assurances that Iraq had huge stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the means to deliver them, and posed a major threat. We went before the United Nations, and offered false “proof,†of these WMD, which the U.N. rejected.

The lie continued, and nine days after the war began, Rumsfeld said, We know where they are (weapons of mass destruction), ( March 30 interview with ABC's "This Week")

President Bush also told us that another reason that we needed to go to war was that Iraq was attempting to buy Uranium from an African nation, in order to develop nuclear weapons.

Rumsfeld appeared before the committee a day after the White House acknowledged that President Bush's claim in his State of the Union speech that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa was based on forged information.

Prior to the war, President Bush linked Iraq, and Saddam Hussein, to Al Qaida, and Osama Bin Laden. On September 11, 2003, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stated that, “a great many of [Osama] bin Laden's key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq." (ABC's "Good Morning America.")

The administration has produced no credible evidence of direct Iraqi sponsorship of al-Qaida attacks on America or its interests abroad – an alleged conspiracy the U.S. intelligence community dismissed before the war in a 90-page classified report to the president, though he still suggested otherwise in public speeches and remarks.

In arguing for war, Bush insisted the U.S. had to disarm Saddam's regime of alleged weapons of mass destruction before it could share them with al-Qaida terrorists and top the 9-11 attacks with possibly a "mushroom cloud." He said his regime posed an imminent threat to America, making preemptive invasion justified.

There were only two bona fide reasons that we wewnt to war, and, to date, over 900 of our young men and women have died:

The first is all about money! The almighty oil dollar, and the Bush’s connections to it. No reason to go into detail, since we Americans have been made very well aware of this motive.

But the major reason for the war was a very personal one for President Bush. In September of 2002, long before there was any murmur of an “Iraqi Ear,†President Bush, gave the world a hint of what was to come, and the truthful reason that it was going to happen. It was a very personal issue; one that he had harbored for several years. Now was his time to settle an old score… In discussing the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Bush said: "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."

A majority of American voters did NOT vote for George W. Bush four years ago, and even less will vote for him this time around….

[Dan]

Uh, what I was "huh-ing" about was where Rosie said "900 of America's poor".

I think it's been quite a while since a President was voted into office by a majority of the popular vote (not that popular vote has anything to do with it anyway).

Jeff, you should be a campaign worker for Kerry. You can help them win the same way the left beat the right here in Canada in our recent election. By saying how bad the other guy is without saying what's good about themselves. I think once people think about that (a strong assumption there that people think before they vote), it might not be such a landslide against Bush. Although, I'm betting Kerry will win his own state LOL. Too bad Gore didn't, or Florida wouldn't have mattered.

[Iggy]

Unfortunately there are still some Americans who would rather have a war monger such as Bush in office then Kerry and his "questionable" service record. I've been on a few forums where us Canadians are not only despised but hated for our stance on the war. Try explaining Bush's motives to the parents of those men and women lost because Bush Junior wanted to finish of Bush Senior's mistakes.

[Dan]

Well, considering the gutless way our thankfully former leader handled it, I'm not surprised how some people look down on us now. Instead of deferring to the UN like a coward, all he had to do was say Canada cannot participate because of our commitments in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and that we remain committed to the fight against terrorism. In fact, at the time the Iraq war was starting, a Canadian ship was in command of the multi-nation (including the US Navy) naval task-force in the Arabian Sea. And even though we weren't "participating," we still had ships attached to the carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf, and were providing more support than most members of the so-called "coalition of the willing" (according to US Ambassador Cellucci)

Nobody in the US government (or any American citizen with a clue) really thought Canada had anything to contribute to Iraq militarily anyway. They just didn't want our hopeless group of imbeciles lead by Chretien to act like we were against them. Of course, why would Americans think we were against them, when Chretien calls Bush a moron, and his press aide says she "hates those bastards", with no punishment. That's the kind of stuff that makes the news in the US.

I wonder how many people in the US know who Major Harry Schmidt is?

[DaCruzNut]

Dan-

I'm not a Kerry/Edwards supporter.... I'll, most probably, vote for them, but only because I am so opposed to the Bush's!

Right now, I've got George W. in Washington, and Jeb, here in Florida! We've got to get rid of both.

We have a little saying, here, in the Sunshine State: "Under every Bush, you find dirt!"

As for the "..900 of America's poor..." Remember, we have a "volunteer" Army, now.

The vast majority of our soldiers are from low-income families, because it offers the poor an opportunity to better themselves. The soldiers get on-the-job training, and vets get college scholarships, etc; Ritchie Rich doesn't need to volunteer...

[JohnG]

Tell that to the pro football player who volunteered and died in Afghanistan. He was not a poor American. I'm glad we went and did what we did. And Bush stood up for what he believed, just as Kerry did....alongside Hanoi Jane Fonda. I just see Iraq as a a quagmire we will have a hard time disengaging from. I guess everyone here would rather Saddam were still in power. Enough politics. Back to cruising.