Stop Me Before I Rant Again

Eric Prince - Catholic Crusader

2009-08-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

His right hand to God, his left hand in the tax payer's pocket. Let's hope that they are able to make these charges stick and this menace to our nation's sovereignty is taken out for good. The fact that the Obama administration's State Dept. still uses Blackwater (renamed Xe, for obvious PR reasons) points up the lack any real change in this new administration. reminds me of a rant Bill Hicks gave once on democrats vs. republicans (two sock puppets controlled by one individual) "I like the sock puppet on the left.... no I like the sock puppet on the right" ... sheesh.

Any way this article is an eye opening read....

AWESOME Illustration of How Gov't Spends Your Money (Pic)

2009-04-15T21:54:00.001-07:00

This is quite some wall chart

read more | digg story

Bush's Buddy get a break ... what American Heroes

2008-11-24T21:22:00.000-08:00

Two months left to go ... this may just be the beginning
On the latest pardon list were:

_Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo. She was convicted for unauthorized use of a pesticide and violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

_Milton Kirk Cordes of Rapid City, S.D. Cordes was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which prohibits importation into the country of wildlife taken in violation of conservation laws.

_Richard Micheal Culpepper of Mahomet, Ill., who was convicted of making false statements to the federal government.

_Brenda Jean Dolenz-Helmer of Fort Worth, Texas, for reporting or helping cover up a crime.

_Andrew Foster Harley of Falls Church, Va. Harley was convicted of wrongful use and distribution of marijuana and cocaine.

_Obie Gene Helton of Rossville, Ga., whose offense was unauthorized acquisition of food stamps.

_Carey C. Hice Sr. of Travelers Rest, S.C., who was convicted of income tax evasion.

_Geneva Yvonne Hogg of Jacksonville, Fla., convicted of bank embezzlement.

_William Hoyle McCright Jr. of Midland, Texas, who was sentenced for making false entries, books, reports or statements to a bank.

_Paul Julian McCurdy of Sulphur, Okla., who was sentenced for misapplication of bank funds.

_Robert Earl Mohon Jr. of Grant, Ala., who was convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

_Ronald Alan Mohrhoff of Los Angeles, who was convicted for unlawful use of a telephone in a narcotics felony.

_Daniel Figh Pue III of Conroe, Texas, convicted of illegal treatment, storage and disposal of a hazardous waste without a permit.

_Orion Lynn Vick of White Hall, Ark., who was convicted of aiding and abetting the theft of government property.

Bush also commuted the prison sentences of John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., and James Russell Harris of Detroit, Mich. Both were convicted of cocaine offenses.

Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.

Some sad truth

2008-10-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center: "Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years." The analysis goes on to say: "Neither candidate's plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified."

I am hoping for the best

McCain unfit to serve due to VP choice (if nothing else)

2008-10-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

It really completely shows the level of incompetence of McCain that he had not vetted his VP choice better

Joe "the plumber" six-pack fake christian

2008-10-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

"Joe the Plumber" (sic) may run a plumbing business but he is not a licensed plumber. His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes a bit in back taxes." NY Times Oct. 16, 2008

Joe’s not really qualified to be a plumber?

No problem for the McCain decision process.

Mrs. Palin isn’t really qualified to be VP of the US, either.

The premise of his question to Mr. Obama about taxes may also be flawed, according to actual non-partisan tax analysts.

Okay, This guy really pisses me off. He is pretending to be undecided and then you listen to this interview and discover that he is a conservative yahoo wth the same fake christian values as Sarah Pallin and all the other nonspiritual Crusaders. He is using that same conservative criterion of calling anyone that criticizes they way America is under the most inept leadership in our time (W ... etc.) with being unpatriotic. I am so sick of that line of thinking.

We are criticizing America in this way because we are unsatisfied with the stupidity of the War and the mishandling of the economy. No one likes taxes, but everyone needs to pay them to support our infrastructure. I personally am not in favor of privatizing the fire dept., for example. This guy hates Social Security and yet is willing to throw 700 thousand million dollars at this foreign land rather than support his own children's future. This sort of fake christian we don't need in our country. Go back to Poland or where ever your unfortunate ill bred relatives came from. We want our America back from the likes of you. Fake moderate.

Very funny video

2008-10-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

At the Polls ..

2008-09-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

Target Women: Sarah Palin

2008-09-06T11:48:00.001-07:00

Palin and the Alaska Independence Party

2008-09-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

True American?

from:
The Guardian

Over at samefacts.com, Mark Kleiman appears to have nailed down the AIP membership story. Current party chair Lynette Clark says:

Yes, Governor Palin was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party. She joined the Party and attended the AIP Statewide Convention held in Wasilla in 1994, along with her husband, Todd. In 1996 she changed her registration to Republican and Todd re-registered as undeclared, a registration he holds today.

Now we have a situation where one of three people is lying. Clark is lying or Palin is lying to the McCain team or the McCain team knows the truth and is lying. Of the three, Clark would seem to have the least motivation to speak with forked tongue.

For backup read this in The Dailykos
Also, tracking some of this stuff in DIGG

HER words from her speech: "While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay"

is a whole lot different than the FACTS:

"After going unsold for months, the jet was put into the hands of Turbo North Aviation, an Anchorage aircraft broker, which put an asking price of $2.45 million on the nearly $2.7 million jet. It quickly sold to Alaska businessman Larry Reynolds for $2.1 million ($31,000 of which went to Turbo Aviation). Today the Westwind II jet spends its days ushering wealthy hunters around Alaska and Russia."

It goes to credibility, of which she is devoid.

Here she is back pedaling but still appeasing this whack job constituency

End Times "the video"

2008-03-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

This is hillarious. I should do a disappearing trick on a video so I can bilk naive rubes out of money. Like listening to right wing talk radio as a way of finding out what these fascists really think is going on.

I am glad to see that Michael Savages' suit of the Islamic Defense League is being thrown. What if he had made the same claims about these kooky theories of "End times",
He said,

the Quran a "hateful little book ... a document of slavery" and said, "I don't want to hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it."

Wow, with one out of every 100 Americans in jail and 1 out of every 9 Black American males between 20- 34 are in jail ... and these clowns are doing this. Stirring up more hatred and intolerence ... Our God does not believe in this

New Paradigm for Structure of the Solar System

2008-03-06T17:13:00.001-08:00

It will be curious to see the impacts that these new discoveries about the solar system will have on astrology. ``No more misfits. Plutos abound.'' The solar system now was thought to be composed of three zones not two. Most members of the solar system weren't born where they are now, and making planets is a common process in the universe.

read more | digg story

Thought you might enjoy the future

2008-01-19T12:19:00.000-08:00

Earthship Biotecture

2007-12-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

I have become very interested in these new types of self sustaining structures. Made of rammed earth in tires, they are self sustaining stuctures. Check out this video to get the idea, and click on this banner to go to the site

I am reminded of an article that I read in the Sierra Club Compass online magazine. "Brokeback Bush

It's a little-known fact that Bush's Crawford getaway boasts some environmentally sensible technology, including geothermal heat pumps, rainwater collection and wastewater recycling. The ranch house also incorporates daylighting and passive solar heating and cooling. It's true. Just don't expect to hear it from the White House.

Sounds like George and Laura will retire to an earthship ... who would have guessed?

Decode ... then act

2007-11-18T09:58:00.001-08:00

I can think of no more patriotic act right now than to work towards ridding ourselves of this republi"con". We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis where the balance of power between the branches of government has been severely changed and skewed to the executive branch. This includes the tipping of the judicial branch as well. Additionally, the legislative branch has been unable to act effectively since the the domination of the "super" majority has made it impossible for the representative majority to act.

This is all been orchestrated by our current leader and I do not mean the cocaine addled frat boy who can not complete sentences. I mean the real leader, who took over NORAD during 9/11 in an unprecedented maneuver of the administrative branch usurping the control of our nations air defense. This criminal needs to be excluded from power. Please contact the Judiciary Committee of Congress today and urge them to support Dennis Kucinich. He introduced H Res 333 as a privileged resolution (now called H Res 799) a motion to impeach.
Take Action: Contact the House Judiciary Committee.

It is becoming too late to act, it probably is already ..

How is this possible?

2007-11-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

This is a particularly strange photo. Maybe this poor victim, oops I mean brave soldier, will vote for Bush even one more time, or may they can make him a "wolf-helmet" to cover his disfigured head. He was trapped in a terrible fire from a road side bomb ... Genna Bush was not, because she was down in Paraguay helping Grandpa Bush and the Carlyle Group buy the largest aquifer on the South American continent.
This family of criminals have been at it for decades and despite the allusions to their Texas background Bush's grandpa was the Nazi sympathizing Senator from Conn. not Texas. The Bush son and grandson went to Yale, not U of T. Is it possible that you ignored all this?

Prescott Bush is a story on to himself ... Recently in the Guardian:

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

Why this never came to light during Bush the elders sprint to Armageddon is beyond me. This goes very deep. Maybe the ghost of Vince Foster can help us.

The fatigue is getting deeper and deeper.

General Petraeus or General Betray Us?

2007-09-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

This was the actual quote from the "Move On" ad in the NY Times. It is a question. Is General Petraeus "Cooking the Books for the WhiteHouse" ? was the sub-title. As it ends up, he did, and therefore if you you are a citizen that wants the people you have entrusted with power to speak with honesty and clarity, the David Patraeus' testimony was a disappointment when compared to the independently reported facts on the ground in Iraq. In this sense he did betray the trust of a majority of the American people and in no way does "MoveOn" deserve censure.

It is clear that this is the an ongoing tactic of these warlords, these chicken hawk liars. Attack anyone who speaks truth to power as in some way unpatriotic. Again, MoveOn, was making a request, "Don't sugar quote the truth with fake projections ... do not betray us with false analysis, yet again"

Elected leaders that lie to congress and the American people, over and over, those are the ones that deserve censure and scorn.

I am reminded of the the whole "Swift" boat controversy surrounding John Kerry during his abortive run for the president. John Kerrry wasn't perfect but one thing that is clear is that when he was commander of his swift boat in Vietanm he preformed valiantly and risked his life on several occasions to save those under his command. Some how these lying bastards, wh never served a day in the service of their country turned this into a liability.

Dan Rather's censure comes to mind. He simply pointed out that our fake president who continues to play war with an ever increasing deficit went AWOL while he served in his slaker rich boy unit of the Alabama National Guard. Some sloppy reportage was uncovered, but no refutation of these facts. Yet, Dan Rather was censured and fired and baby Bush goes calavanting along destroying our country and being hailed as a patriot. This is truly disgusting.

This video is the topper. Video of Dick Cheney saying that invading Iraq would be a mistake back in 1994. what changed? The truth probably is that in 1994, Cheney couldn't have guaranteed Halliburton the major contracts he has been able to score them since he got the VP position in the White House. We are in serious trouble, but lets attack the people that are pointing it out ... that's the ticket

BioInitiative Report

2007-09-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

I think everyone should take a moment to look at this.

An international working group of scientists, researchers and public health policy professionals (The BioInitiative Working Group) has released its report on electromagnetic fields (EMF) and health. They document serious scientific concerns about current limits regulating how much EMF is allowable from power lines, cell phones, and many other sources of EMF exposure in daily life.

http://bioinitiative.org/

Reflections on 9/11/2001

2007-09-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

I agree that the people responsible for 9/11 should be hung by thumbs until dead, no doubt.

My problem with this feeling is that there is a lack of clarity about who is actually responsible and our collective outrage was manipulated to meet other ends, that I agree less with.

To quote an unbiased wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda :
" Due to its structure of semi-autonomous cells, al-Qaeda's size and degree of responsibility for particular attacks are difficult to establish. However, this may also be because its size and degree are exaggerated. Although the governments opposed to al-Qaeda claim that it has worldwide reach, other analysts have suggested that those governments, as well as Osama bin Laden himself, exaggerate al-Qaeda's significance in Islamist terrorism.The neologism "al-Qaedaism" is applied to the wider context of those who independently conduct similar acts through political sympathy to al-Qaeda ideology or methods or the copycat effect."

No link has been established between any of the high jackers and the Bathists in Iraq under "So Damn Insane" Saddam Hussien. They are both Sunni and that is about it. Most sources researching Al-Qaeda believe that Bin Laden was just a financier with no real strategic connection to these heinous acts. Also, the BBC traced the names released by the FBI regarding the high jackers and found:
BBC world edition Sunday, 23 September, 2001, 12:30 GMT 13:30 UK
--- Hijack 'suspects' alive and well ---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.

My point is that there was never enough real intelligence on many levels regarding who was really responsible and it is clear now that motives of profit and manipulation of world markets and global strategic domination by the neo-cons took precedent over justice that was correct and proportional to the crimes.

This isn't a James Bond movie where from a secret evil lair a mastermind plans to take over the world as it has been portrayed.

My personal feeling is that Bush dropped the ball on the intelligence leading up to the attack, he had just taken a 2 month "summer vacation" and only returned a week and a half before the attack. There are many facts surrounding the actions of the Bush administration in that period, but one thing clear is clear, like the Kennedy assassination, no one will ever really know who was and was not involved.

What urks me more than anything is to have my patriotism questioned when asking for clarification of these obvious misrepresentations.

Daily Show: Rove subpoenaed after Leahy's balls grow three sizes

2007-08-13T16:58:00.001-07:00

Really funny clip about Rove's subpoena. I particularly liked Asif's contempt graph. The Daily show really got it right this time. I recommend you check it out.

read more | digg story

Turdblossom getting flushed?

2007-08-13T14:24:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of the two criminals burping each other.
This is very suspect move. Why would Karl Rove suddenly need to spend more time with his family? It is almost certain that the RNC has picked the horse they want to fix this upcoming horse race with and they need Rove's patented criminal corporate sponsored lying and mass manipulation skills to come to bear on the unwitting "patriotic" dupes out there. If that last sentence enraged you, then obviously you are such a fool.

The war of words is beyond redemption. As he slithers away, it is clear that he is the one, along Overlord Dick Chenney needs to be tried for treason, nothing less. Impeachment is to good for these traitors, don't kid yourself.

So what is the real story? I think we are in store for some sort of maneuver that will require the lifting of the constitution, marshall law, and then president for life George " I am not popular only because you don't understand" Bush. It could happen.

Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?

Read that if you think I am being hyperbolic ... Why would Karl Rove get out just when the fun was going to start? Only George Bush's polyps know for sure.

General Strike on 9-11

2007-08-07T10:16:00.001-07:00

Dear friends,

Just heard about this.

Please send it out to 20 people you know ...

I hope we can all do something together to try and get our country back

I am so tired of feeling helpless in the face of all this.

This seems very appropriate action to me.

from

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/26/18437428.php

A general strike has been proposed for 9/11/07. No work, school or shopping. Even a low number of participants can make a difference. The event will show up on the radar of the Powers That Be.

Endless War.

Hundreds of Thousands of Dead Iraqis.

Torture.

Surveillance.

Civil Rights and Habeas Corpus: Gone.

Executive Privilege: No Accountability.

9/11 Questions?

Corporate Media.

Corporate Government.

Tyranny. Fascism. Lies.

The Time Has Come.

To Say NO.

While We Still Have a Chance.

GENERAL STRIKE

Tuesday 9/11/07

No Work. No School. No Shopping.

Hit the Streets !!!

Bush fatigue

2007-08-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

from Belacqua Jones Dictionary:

Slave: A man behind the wheel of his BMW with an iPod in his ear who thinks he is a rebel

En pleine catastrophe nationale (l’ouragan Katrina), nous voyons décrit, W. s’improvise chanteur de country.

Grab your "freedom fries" (l'pomme frittes du liberte') and sing along.

This is just one of many times this Conn. cowboy has horrified any sensible person, but the the real inspiration for my writing today is this "Bush fatigue" phenomenon.

The gruelling reality of 6 years in which I am outraged, not just annoyed, by action after action of this administration. For example:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Boston Globe April 30, 2007

Clinton had started this trend with 105 signing statements, 3 times more than any other president, but in keeping with the seemingly unstoppable destruction of our system of government, the sock puppet on the right has out done the sock puppet on the left.

To clearly understand the scope of this across the aisle collusion and national integral atrophy just look at the "United North" agreements that are being set up with no congressional or judicial oversight in the video below. This is as you can expect a grab from the power elite to widen profit margins by dropping tariffs, not a bad idea in itself, but without legislative oversight and with the history of the last two decades (GATT, NAFTA, etc.) this will not be designed for universal advantage, but rather the advantage for the same elites that are complicit in the staging of the "war on terror".

I am so "fatigued" and yet I continue with this quixotic ranting. If nothing else it is like my own little "Anne Frank" diary.

In the Baghdad citadel, the “Green Zone”, from which America ruled Iraq, Mr Shadid encounters a breed of chirpy young Republicans, unflaggingly loyal to their government and wholly inadequate to their tasks: “Iraqis rock!” two of them tell him.

Economist

Yes we are going to pull right out of Iraq next year and leave this 10 billion dollar citadel for our new free Iraqi friends, who love the USA for all they have done .... right, and I am not fatigued.

J.G. Ballard dystopic visionary

2007-07-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

'The danger is that consumerism will need something close to fascism in order to keep growing. The consumer society is a kind of soft police state.' -Dr. Maxted in J.G. Ballard's "Kingdom Come"

I will admit that one of my favorite novelists is the hard to place speculative fiction author, J.G. Ballard. It is an admission because his vision of the future is so dysfunctional and penetrated with a sadness that I have never experienced, but at the same time I can see that his vision of the future of humanity is sadly ringing true. Take the most extreme plot line and you will see what I mean (from Hello America):

In Las Vegas, roaming bands of Mexican teenagers welcome them to the citadel of late 20th century glitter. Their charismatic leader — a William Burroughs look-alike addressed reverently as President Charles Manson — invites Wayne into his cybernetic stronghold.

How far is this fictional mass murdering president from our own current president? Amy Goodman recently asked Ralph Nader if George Bush was irrelavent now. His answer, without hesistation, was, "Of course, he is a National Security Threat" How Ballardian is that. It is amazing that there is such a term as "Ballardian",

" Resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J.G. Ballard’s novels & stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes & the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments". Collins English Dictionary.

And yet with all of his dire "Empire of the Sun" malaise always boarding on malaria, there is an undertone of the desire for a real utopia, a knowledge that we all share of a world without the tawdry realism of our individual perversions and unhealthy desires. A world without cults or pathos. Unfortunately, this is the unreal world of dreams that never end.
Ballard is reaching for this dream in his most pastoral, his most haunting book"Unlimited Dream Company"
The main character Blake, already has a Messianic belief in himself:

Rejected would-be mercenary pilot, failed Jesuit novice, unpublished writer of pornography … for all these failures I had a tenacious faith in myself, a messiah as yet without a message who would one day assemble a unique identity out of this defective jigsaw.

The ghost of my mother visited me in the dream world last night. She was turning her head away and moving into the new light, the light inside our dreams.

Life long Republican Gen. John Batiste speaks truth to power

2007-05-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is a remarkable interview that is totally appropriate to memorial day, retired General John Batiste discusses his experience as the commander of the First Infantry Division of the United States Army, which was deployed to Iraq in December 2003, during the war.

The Associated Press reported Batiste said, on CBS's The Early Show:[3]

"...we went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served under a secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, and who didn't build a strong team."

The remarkable thing is that this interview reveals Batiste to be the sort of strong back bone American patriot that I grew up knowing and respecting in the U.S. military, and while I have sometimes had trouble with the strict adherence to autocracy characterized by this culture, I have always realized that the mind set represented by this frame of reference is what is needed in a disciplined military. Obviously, he is a very conservative fellow and yet the outrages of the current administration are so blatant and so contrary to true conservative values he has chosen to speak out and sacrafice 31 years of service for what he believes.

From VoteVets.org

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I have always said that I will listen to the requests of our commanders on the ground.

MAJ. GEN. JOHN BATISTE: Mr. President, you did not listen. You continue to pursue a failed strategy that is breaking our great Army and Marine Corps. I left the Army in protest in order to speak out. Mr. President, you have placed our nation in peril. Our only hope is that Congress will act now to protect our fighting men and women. Senator McCain, protect America, not George Bush.

In my estimation he is a true American hero.

THE RADIOACTIVE BOY SCOUT

2007-05-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

The True Story Of A Boy and his Backyard Nuclear Reactor, by Ken Silverstein, Random House, N.Y., 2004, 209 pgs., 2004

Reviewed by Doug Baker (Thanks Doug - SGL)

If the spirit of Roderick Mac Arthur—who thought up the award to honor his father, with his father’s money-- were to settle on the awards selection of another “genius” Mac Arthur fellow, “ to give greater freedom of choice to the creative individual who vibrates to his own iron string.”, David Hahn would be funded as a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow. Jim Clark would ring the boy’s chimes in his quest

For the next new profitable thing.

David Hahn swam in a tide pool so controlled that only two per cent remainder out as an Eagle Scout. The boy’s interests were what Buckminister Fuller would call, “elemental”. The Boy earned an Atomic Energy Merit Badge.

If the boy couldn’t spell well in English, it didn’t stand in his way of being a linguist of the old school, knowing his A B C’s—atomic, biological and chemical. He built from scratch a working neutron gun, made alcohol for his Boy Scout camp councilors, and isolated melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH) that could have been taken into the market place, amped his rocket fuel so his rockets reached greater heights than an ordinary off -the-hobby-store-shelf rocket would, and he made chlorine gas—to skim the top of his cauldron of achievements.

Ken Silverstein has written a wonderful book without once using the “A” word showing how the boy followed his bliss as an alchemist.

He understood reduction, distillation, the use of temperature and pressure to midwife change. According to David, “I’d imagine an atom of uranium that had been sitting around, in all practicality, for eternity. Then a stray neutron enters it, and a new birth takes place. When one element is transformed into another, the universe is slowly recycling itself.”

The boy understood nature is structured like a language. And he understood the importance of time and temperature as the cosmos got cooler and more complicated moving from “The Big Bang” to our number one element, hydrogen and as more time passed to the whole periodic table of the cosmic elements.

The boy became an elemental collector. As best he could he gathered samples of the elements including in America, the illegal radioactive ones. Like the old alchemist the boy couldn’t see quarks, nucleons, atoms, molecules, or cells; but he could and did use his powers and skill to get something pure and change it. The boy may not have read Latin but he understood,

Lucretius, who wrote: “But atoms, our basic stuff, can claim more patterns of change whence countless things may be created.”

At age 16 and a half the boy could have been a poster boy for John Bradshaw’s On The Family or an incarnation of John D.’s, or Sun Tsu’s art of the Indirect approach to get what you want as he attempted to bring his model breeder reactor to life.

When the pluses of radioactivity increased the boy worried that he didn’t have a shut off valve. “With his Geiger counter picking up radiation five doors down the block, David saw no choice but to oversee an emergency shutdown of his baby reactor.”

The EPA took David’s lab—a pottery barn and the soil under it and buried it Utah’s Salt Desert along with other radioactive garbage from the authorized atomic bomb factories and nuclear power plants and radioactive industrial and mining sites.

“Some local scout leaders attempted to deprive David of his Eagle Scout status…’He lied, stole stuff, and put people in jeopardy.’” They didn’t understand that David was as devoted to his experiments as John D. was to his and to fly like an Eagle you don’t birdy like a chicken.

After high school joined the Navy and learned to smoke on the USS Enterprise where his ship mates nicknamed him, the Nuclear Kid.

Silverstein notes, “government scientists still worried that his previous exposure to radioactivity may have seriously shortened his life span.”

Last year David reenlisted in the navy. With dark matter and dark energy abroad in the cosmos, “given the central role of the atom in his emotional and intellectual life, it’s almost certain that David has reached a fork in his nuclear road, not its end point.”

Pelosi makes way for the State Dept.

2007-04-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

How come there has been no comment about the Republicans that joined Pelosi on her recent trip? What about the "Iraq study groups" recommendation to do just this sort of shuttle diplomacy with both Iran and Syria? The elephant in the room is not that Pelosi's acts are treasonous as the now knee jerk neo-con response would have, but that the republicans are missing their opportunity to reframe the context of foreign policy.

Obviously, with Bush's failed foreign policy it is time for some real leaders to step forward. Personally I was hoping that the Republicans would pick up the ball more than Pelosi, and I am sure that those Republican house members that were on the trip with her are thinking the same thing.

The Bush administrations absolutely failed foreign policy has left the U.S. as the third most hated country in the world after North Korea and Cuba, in a recent poll. Something has to change and I am at least thankful Pelosi is creating a dialog and an opportunity for the State Dept. to finally move forward as they should have right after the "Iraq study group" recommendations.

Pelosi should however get out of the way and let the real diplomats negotiate from here. They are in a better position to support our various deployments,etc.

Conceptual link

2007-03-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Pictured on the the left is $206 million in cash that DEA agents recently siezed during raids in border towns in Mexico. It looks like a lot of cash, but >>> "Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management"
CNN Jan 5, 2007

If you take this huge pile of cash and think of it as a pile 40 times larger, this is how much U.S. tax payer money went to ... well no one knows, except for maybe Al' Queda in Iraq since you can bet they got a big piece of this cash. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Yale and Havard "Skull and Bones" chum of Bush (and Kerry for that matter), Paul Bremmer, let this happen on his watch, under his instruction.

We should all want to know "how the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) could have shipped $12 billion in cash from the Federal Reserve in New York to Baghdad and handed it over to Iraqi ministries with only the sketchiest accounting controls. The cash, all 363 tons of it, was shrink-wrapped into $400,000 bricks and carried on C-130 cargo planes."

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?" Senator Waxman asked. And with limited oversight, he said, "we have no way of knowing whether the cash shipped into the Green Zone ended up in enemy hands." - Seattle Times Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Maybe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can authorize sending some goons out to put a bag over Bremmer's head and water board him until he confesses to funding the insurgents in Iraq and planning 9-11, since the planes did kill 295 of his employees in his offices in the World Trade Center in Sept. of 2001. Very suspect, lets warantlessly tap his phones.

But that would be unjust, unfair, and just plain wrong. In America we don't do these things ...

Christians find your voice

2007-03-09T12:04:00.000-08:00

Reading the news I discover: Faith's battlefield: "Pop culture faces a controversial assault in San Francisco this weekend when Ron Luce aims to bring 22,000 evangelical Christian teenagers closer to Jesus " This fake culture war has nothing to do with the reality for having faith. The leader Luce says, "Evangelicals have been too passive about protecting teens from cultural pollution." I think that is the least of their worries.

My own suspect christianity has been tested throughout my life, but one thing is clear. The neo-con criminals in power are not Christians. If the scripture is to be literally believed as their brainwashed minions would have. Satan is in control of human governments. I can really believe that.

Luke 4:5-7: The devil led him up to a high mountain and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and power, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish. So if you worship me, it will all be yours."

"Throughout the Gospels Jesus was faced with liars and hypocrites. Direct, open, and honest, Jesus condemned these people and called them what they were, liars and hypocrites." Later Jesus says:

Luke 4:8: Jesus answered, "Get behind me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'"

So if you are a Christian conservative and reading this, you need to take a real close look at what you actually believe.

I personally am not sure about faith in general and certainly not such a literealist as these self annoited crackpots that are falsely calling themselves evangelical. The actual meaning is a belief in the scripture, especially the 4 gospels. Then read Luke on this.

Watching the recent documentary on HBO "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" I was struck by the absolute and undeniable evil of these supposed Christians. It is as appaling as, no maybe even more appalling than the fake Islamists that are killing innocents in suicide bombs, at least they have the decency to kill themselves so they can't go on to continue killing more innocent people.

More proof that we live in the most morally corrupt period in recent history. Let us pray, but let us not forget to act, as well.

9/11 won't go away

2007-02-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

Mormon BYU physicist Steven Jones discussing the physics of 9/11 steel

As true American citizens we can not let this stand.

The truth of all the various facts, real indiputable physical evidence, makes the conclusions undeniable.

More supporting evidence at:
http://journalof911studies.com

Bill Moyer speaks truth to power

2007-02-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."- Harry S. Truman

The veteran broadcast journalist Bill Moyers spoke on January 13, 2007 before 3,500 at the opening of the National Conference on Media Reform in Memphis. He announced his return to the airwaves and outlined his vision of media reform. "As ownership gets more and more concentrated, fewer and fewer independent sources of information have survived in the marketplace; and those few significant alternatives that do survive, such as PBS and NPR, are under growing financial and political pressure to reduce critical news content and to shift their focus in a mainstream direction, which means being more attentive to establishment views than to the bleak realities of powerlessness that shape the lives of ordinary people."

Quoted from Democracy Now

It is so refreshing to hear an articulate speaker discussing issues with current and historical quotes. Occasional, stumbles but clear and thoughtful ideas that speak directly to a major concern of mine. In my ongoing fantasy regarding which bumper sticker I would put on my car. (see my previous post on the subject ) I am thinking of a new one:
WE -THE PEOPLE- ARE THE DECIDERS

In other news:

Current pontiff Pope Benedict XVI has criticized video games that "exalt violence and portray anti-social behaviour" and may be targeted at teenagers, as part of a new public message themed around the 41st World Communications Day.

from Gamasutra.

I am very interested in the Art and Technology of Gaming, but in an area where I don't find myself as much of a papist, I have to agree. This cultural phenomenon has been hijacked by the darkest part of the sub-concious. I have this unusual interest in game technology, because I can see the potential of this technology to revolutionize art and culture. It is mired in the very profit motives that are destroying our media as Bill Moyer's so ablely has pointed out.

Ad that won't make it to the Superbowl

2007-01-31T17:32:00.000-08:00

<>
Move on, those lefty queer terrorist lovers are trying to put this on during an ad break on our precious super bowl. Will these progressive stop at nothing?
<< /satire >>

Political XML

Actually, an estimated 400,000 in the streets in DC this weekend.

I am liking the tact that says, why should we trust the administrations estimate that the end of US occupation would erupt in chaos. When have they been right before, and so what if they are? Iraq is in such disequilibrium any way. I think we need to let them sort it out.

James Baker and the gang are going to have to give up on their dream of privatizing the oil of Iraq

Speaking of Super Bowl, there was an interesting article in the SF Chronicle:
SUPER BOWL GAMES VS. COMMERCIALS
Are ads superior to game?

I used to like football some, but when it got all tied up in the fake patriotism of the right, I lost my taste ... I am reminded of my short story from 1973,
"God drinks Bud"
-He's the king of kings and it's the king of Beers-

Please remember George Wallace was a Democrat ...

2007-01-26T18:03:00.000-08:00

Not that anyone notices but I haven't "ranted" since the elections in Nov. I have been sitting back and just watching. As evidencenced by the cowardly inaction of this new congress, nothing new under the sun. It was refreshing to see Nancy Pelosi behind the commander and thief at the non-descript state of the union. I had a conversation with the great progressive theorist Michael Parenti on the winter solstice. He pointed out that this "surge" is win win for these criminals. No support equals anti-patriotic, support and Haliburton, Exxon, BlackWater, and the rest continue to rain death on the Iraqi people.

I have taken to listening to right wing radio, just to try and understand their thinking. I am so glad I took logic in class in college. Listening to the Mike Savage, Mark Levy, and Bill O'Reilly's of this world it is a great exercise in recognizing the various fallicies. Top of the list, ad hommo nim attacks, and attacking the man (or woman lately) and not the idea that is being expressed. "The Washington Compost, the New York Slime, etc.

Next is ignoratio ellenchi, the logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but which proves or supports a different proposition than the one it is purporting to prove or support. "I support our troops, therefore everything I say is true and right" ....

Have you noticed this ...

Gonzales: ‘There Is No Express Grant of Habeas Corpus In The Constitution’

Yesterday, during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed there is no express right to habeus corpus in the U.S. Constitution. Wow .. and yet it is only a blip on the media radar. To me this is monumental, not since the throws of the civil war when in 1861 Abraham Lincoln acknowledged habeus corpus as the law of the land by suspending it. Lincoln was mostly motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in "Copperheads" or Peace Democrats. hmm ... Does anyone else find this ironic?

How can this stand? Why isn't the Attorney General up on charges of high treason, like the rest of these criminals ... but again where is the outrage over this clearly illegal stance by the head of the justice department.

The Constitution of the United States provides that “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it" Is that clear enough Alberto ...

Post election wariness

2006-11-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of war criminal, Donald Rumsfeld visiting the scene of the only exposed site of his many crimes: The prison at Abu Ghraib.

Clinton was a criminal not for Lewinski, but Kosovo, but these guys make him look like a piker.

As I noted before: "Lancet article sets Iraqi deaths at 600k plus ..." and the media was scrambling to get Carrey to apologize for stating the obvious. Only morons would join the military

Seeing the pictures from Thailand, I could only imagine the military finally getting fed up with these current criminals and rolling the Bradley fighting vehicles surrounding the White House.

My reference to impeachment was based around an article I had just heard on "Democracy Now" Coalition of Antiwar, Veteran Groups Launching National Movement to Impeach Bush and Cheney

but I agree justice will only be served with full on trial for war crimes.
War Crimes Suit Prepared against Rumsfeld

The freaky part of all this is that Bob Gates, Rumsfeld's replacement was William Casey's errand boy during the Iran Contra affair. He was the first nominated director of CIA to require two passes on the Senate to get approval. In actuality he was more of a traitor than the convicted and then pardoned by Bush the elder, John Poindexter. He remains a lap dog of the Carlysle Group and the real lever tweakers.

Nancy Pelosi one heartbeat and one regular electronic pulse away from the presidency.

A commentary worth watching

2006-10-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Very articulate defense of our country. Anymore, to my mind, to support this administration is to be anti-American.

Lancet article sets Iraqi deaths at 600k plus ...

2006-10-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

More than 650,000 people have been killed since the start of the war in Iraq, new research has claimed.

The figure, published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, is far higher than previous estimates.

From ITV News and the chart is from actual Lancet article.

I woke this morning to a press conference with the U.S. president where he said he had heard of the report and it's methodology had been disproven and the US military and the Iraqi "government" don't think the survey is "credible". This lead me to do a little research including actually reading the report. This is a pdf. Then I heard an interview of Dr. Gilbert Burnham the lead author of the article. He systematically discussed the techniques that they used in putting the report together, emphasing the "off the shelf" techniques of standard epidemiology that were used. There were some doubts about an earlier report in 2004 since the windowing levels used were too broad for (mostly conservative) critics.

The bottom line is that this seems to be a legitimate estimate and the most asstounding part of it is that it is an order of magnitude higher than any I had read before. I had always depended on the excelent site Iraqi body count which tracks verifiable news accounts. They currently set the total at a minimum of 43,850 which is certainly awful, but no where near this much more horrifying figure. It is bordering on genocide at this point. To me, it is tangible proof of the misguided and, to my estimation, criminal policies of the Bush administration.

I recently heard an amazing analysis of the situation in Baghdad. The commentator George Packer the author of "The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq " made an interesting point. What would, say, San Francisco be like if the federal and state government officials were rounded up after a massive routine of "shock and awe" bombing. All of the prisons were opened up and when looting insued only the oil refineries and banks were protected. The water system and electricity systems are destroyed and all the major bridges and traffic arteries are destroyed or have series of "checkpoints" along them. Then systematically over the next three years, any progress towards a civil government was thwarted by an invading army or let's say "scientologists" or fill in whatever unlikely religion you might imagine. They are benevolent and "tolerate" your backward religion, but also patrol the streets looking for the "insurgents" that are working to get them to leave the San Francisco area and let them have self determination. Imagine a population the size of the Bay Area with no tangible civic government with an occupying army like this, with all the "reconstruction" effort riddled with graft and inefficiency because of the ongoing resistance and generally augmented un-policied criminal population. After 3 years, it is pretty clear what state any community would be in under this sort of pressure.

The repeated invocation of Christianity in this context is sickening to me. I pray for these poor people and hope that we will not have to suffer for what these dubiously elected criminals have done to their poor country.

Bush slouching towards Stockton

2006-09-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

- end of Second Coming by W.B. Yeats

This powerfully indicting line from Yeats has me rethinking the entire context of our current Christian misappropriation. I was touched by a recent interview with Jonathan Kirsch the author of""A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization"

He posited that the writer of the Book of Revelation's was not the Prophet John, that this has been proven untrue by biblical scholars for centuries and that the 2nd century AD writer was a disgruntle Jewish/Christian convert who hated all aspects of the imperial society which was dominate. He was an ascetic. Disallowing pleasure in this life, in other words a dangerous kook, to my mind not unlike those that point to "Revelations" as some sort of omen of change. The lines of Revelation 19:11-14

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a “White Horse and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon “white horses”, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

My feeling is that the Jesus I grew up believing in entered Jeruselum on a donkey and accepted martyrdom in lieu of violence. He ultimitly proved that non-violent resistance is the path to righteousness if he proved anything, but these nut jobs have taken our 2000 years of sanctity away ... yet again. Using this prior quote from Revelations as their battle cry. It is not a battle cry it is a metaphor, it is poetry.

Let us not take Yeats literally, but certainly keep this in mind from earlier in the "Second Coming"

" Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned

The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Certainly, our "innocent cermony" is getting drowned in the very real blood of taking a metaphor as if it were reality and I am daily reeling from the worst's passionate intensity.

On another front ....
"Tyranny, government. The violation of those laws which regulate the division and the exercises of the sovereign power of the state. It is a violation of -its constitution." hmmm...

Another definition includes the proviso that the leader of a tyranny, yes a tyrant, can not travel among the people without a cohort of protectors. Bush is coming to the Nor Cal, but the AWOL draft dodger doesn't have the courage to face his actual detractors. We will be going to Stockton to see if we can get within 1/4 mile of the weasel and chief. He can not debate Barbara Lee or Boxer. He is incapable of articulating his ideas. He is going to Stockton the city embroiled in a controversy over the privatization of their water supply and the un-met contractural obligations of that privatization.

>this stuff is driving me crazy ... obviously

Find where you sit in the political spectrum

2006-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sort of puzzling and a comment on the strength of the republican oriented psycholinguistic machination, but I am a little disappointed to be labeled as a democrat, but I guess I am. I believe very strongly in economic equity and social justice and so there you have it. It is quite fun to take this test!

Click here to take your own test ...

You are a
Social Liberal
(61% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(28% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid
Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

2006-08-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

"As the study notes, the Defense Department recently put the “burn rate” — a term for the sums being spent — for Iraq and Afghanistan at $6.8 billion a month." from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

I should point out that that is BILLION not milllion ...
from the Dept. of Education:
$57.6 billion in discretionary appropriations and $31.3 billion in mandatory appropriations

In other words the entire federal education appropriation for all 50 states could be paid for a little over 4.5 months of OUR money going to fund these debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Special thanks to a good friend fo pointing me at this NY Times article

Very Interesting 911 videos

2006-08-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

and

Be Afraid, be very afraid ....

2006-08-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

"Because the plot involved taking liquid explosives aboard planes in carry-ons, passengers at all U.S. and British airports, and those boarding U.S.-bound flights at other international airports, are banned from taking any liquids onto planes."

Doesn't this seem a little dangerous? Doesn't this fellow realize that all the various terrorists were planning on his careless dumping of these confiscated liquids in a crowded public area?

I continue to feel unsafe. I really hope hope they change terror alert color, quickly.

Bumper Stickers

2006-07-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

These bumper stickers were compiled by Jerry Paull, a former Methodist
minister in Lakeside, Ohio, who writes: "The following actual bumper stickers are now on cars. I didn't write any of them. I'm only the messenger" :

BLIND FAITH IN BAD LEADERSHIP IS NOT PATRIOTISM
IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION
IF YOU SUPPORTED BUSH, A YELLOW RIBBON WON'T MAKE UP FOR IT
POVERTY, HEALTH CARE & HOMELESSNESS ARE MORAL ISSUES
OF COURSE IT HURTS. YOU'RE GETTING SCREWED BY AN ELEPHANT
BUSH LIED, AND YOU KNOW IT
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM: A THREAT ABROAD, A THREAT AT HOME
GOD BLESS EVERYONE (No exceptions)
BUSH SPENT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY ON HIS WAR
PRO AMERICA, ANTI BUSH
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?
IF YOU SUPPORT BUSH'S WAR, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? SHUT UP AND SHIP OUT FEEL SAFER NOW?
I'D RATHER HAVE A PRESIDENT WHO SCREWED HIS INTERN THAN ONE WHO SCREWED HIS COUNTRY
JESUS WAS A SOCIAL ACTIVIST - THAT IS A LIBERAL
MY VALUES? FREE SPEECH. EQUALITY. LIBERTY. EDUCATION. TOLERANCE
IS IT 2008 YET?
DISSENT IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PATRIOTISM -- Thomas Jefferson
DON'T BLAME ME. I VOTED AGAINST BUSH -- TWICE!
ANNOY A CONSERVATIVE; THINK FOR YOURSELF
VISUALIZE IMPEACHMENT
HEY BUSH! WHERE'S BIN LADEN?
CORPORATE MEDIA = MASS MIND CONTROL
STOP MAD COWBOY DISEASE
GEORGE W. BUSH: MAKING TERRORISTS FASTER THAN HE CAN KILL THEM
KEEP YOUR THEOCRACY OFF MY DEMOCRACY

sad for the improv scene in beruit

2006-07-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

My good friend Virginia who grew up in South America under several various military juntas, says America now feels identical to those regimes. The successful coup d'etat of 9/11 has made the framework to justify the use of excessive force. This latest set of counter rocket attacks being Israel mimicking our junta.

Here is a pointer to an interesting blog from a trumpet player from the burgeoning improv scene in Beruit.

" Come down here you cowards, I will kill you all with my pen" .... wow

Make a joyful noise unto the lord, all ye lands - psalm 100

I am not as hopeful.
Is there some sort of noise we could all make? It would be great if it was joyful

Afraid for our future

2006-07-16T21:12:00.001-07:00

I have come to the conclusion that the incidents of Sept. 11, 2001 were not as they were reported. This is an opinion that I have come to after years of looking at the facts in an attempt to refute what I thought were foolish unfounded claims. After all that, it seems evident that the current "selected" administration had a heavy hand in manufacturing this deception. Before dismissing these ideas as complete foolishness. Isn't it worth just a little effort to find the faults with the various arguments supporting this point of view. What does it meant if any of these claims are true?

The clincher for me was listening to to noted scholar and theologist David Ray Griffin "9-11 and the American Empire; How should religious people respond?" and watching the video "Loose Change"

I have become convinced of the validity on many of the questions raised.
I recommend you check it out.

The moaning about the bad decisions of this current administration pale compared to this stuff.

I have been doing more research into all this and it has lead me to:

Scholars for 9/11 Truth

If you reach any of the same conclusions I have I urge you to take whatever action you feel appropriate, but inaction

As evidence of how far this has gone. .. How many of you feel just a little bit paranoid into these questions? If it were just paranoid conjecture what is the harm in releasing clarifying evidence, yet the more you look into the facts the more blind alleys are presented. The immediate destruction of the forensic evidence of the structures, the billions in missing gold, Missing flight recorders, the mysterious stock market "put" options, 9 "Al-Quidea highjackers" declared dead on the scene that show up in Mecca, Egypt, Jordan never having been to the USA, the mystery of WTC 7 etc. etc.

Occams razor isn't cutting through all the evidence for me.

editorial from sf chronicle July 4 2006

2006-07-04T18:14:00.001-07:00

Military Families Speak Out is an organization of people opposed to the war in Iraq who have relatives or loved ones in the military. Click on the image to the left to go to their site.

I don't know or care if Riley B. VanDyke is a progressive or a conservative, all I know is that I agree with him. At this point these distinctions are unimportant.

Here it is:

'I'd like to declare independence ...'

Editor -- As America celebrates Independence Day, I find myself wishing I, too, could declare independence.

I'd like to declare independence from the overly simplistic rhetoric from both the left and the right that has virtually eliminated all rational political dialogue in this country.

I'd like to declare independence from a national government that noisily decries "interference" in the form of government regulation, but quietly enacts new regulations that award politically influential corporations more direct control over my daily life than "big government" ever had or wanted.

I'd like to declare independence from a foreign policy that labels all other nations as either subordinates or enemies, and from a government that invariably seeks to package its morally ambiguous uses of military force as new and improved versions of World War II.

I'd like to declare independence from a country that secretly and extrajudicially abducts suspects, holds them incommunicado in secret prisons, tortures them while in custody, then claims that it's spreading democracy.

Ultimately, I'd like more than anything to declare independence from what America has become in the last five or so years. It's impossible for me to believe that our nation's Founding Fathers wouldn't have wanted to declare independence from these things, too.

Have a happy Fourth of July.

RILEY B. VANDYKE

San Francisco

original source

Here is a quote that the criminal master mind behind the abuses at Abu Gahrib and Guantanamo General Geoff Miller surely never read:

" He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."
Thomas Paine

Also, To quote Andy Jacobs Jr., combat veteran and retired congressman in Indiana, " To die for one's country's politicians as a campaign gimmick is to be victimized by a cold blooded atrocity etched in eternity."

The need to "Power Down"

2006-06-19T22:42:00.002-07:00

I have just finished reading an amazing analysis:
Powerdown : Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg

from the publisher:
"If the US continues with its current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The political elites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation and have in mind a punishing game of "Last One Standing."

Given the decline of oil resources he predicts that our 6.5 billion will dwindle down to a more sustainable1.3 billion or so by 2220. That will make for a colorful century. My poor kids.

Seeing the Smart Cars in Paris has prompted me to become a "ZAP" or Zero Air Pollution affiliate. I already use an electric bicycle and my wife and I are planning to convert the southside of our roof to solar.

An interesting article buried away in the Sierra Club online newsletter is entitled "Brokeback Bush" and points out all the cool ecological features of Bush's Crawford, TX ranch. The irony and disconnects of this administration are something I am getting used to. Their vision of the compassionate and passionate Christ allowing the torture of evil doers ... might makes right, just talk to the ghost of Pontius Pilate. He was just as clever.

more ranting later

Dam about to break

2006-05-28T21:17:00.001-07:00

Associated Press
Sunday 28 May 2006
is my reference for these comments -
As usual the last two paragraphs of a long article carry the real information. It leads with
"The U.S. military is bracing for a major scandal over the alleged slaying of Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha"

then some filler and finally

"Some analysts, however, say the killings of civilians also reflect frustration among young troops fighting a difficult war with no end in sight. They say these young fighters have been thrust into an alien culture for repeated tours in a war whose strategy many of them do not understand. "What we're seeing more of now, and these incidents will increase monthly, is the end result of fuzzy, imprecise national direction combined with situational ethics at the highest levels of this government," said retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner, a former planner at the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

To me this is a clear analysis. The real bottom line is that with no clear rules of engagement and a living clearly with a pack of lies from top to bottom these soldiers crossed over the fuzzy line. The real difference between this and thousands of over incidence is that the relative of some one high up in the Iraqi interim government was killed among the innocents and it was video taped. Time magazine got the video and sat on it, but other Arab news networks were not so reticent.The thing about telling the truth is that you don't have to remember the lies you told later. Lets get me get this straight Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Chenney ... Why are we in Iraq, again? Was that three year old they shot an Al-Qaeda terrorist? In an impossible situation, impossible things can happen. This is not an isolated incident and these Marines are not from my America. You can be a conservative and still not go along with this administration. Complicity with their crimes is nothing more than cowardice and treason to our great country.

West Bank Settlers in Renaissance pose

2006-04-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Tim Perkis pointed out this shot from the AP wire, I think it is from the NY Times front page, but I have lost the attribution for the photographer. It looks like a painting, and as soon as I find the attribution I will add it. This photographer deserves a Pulitzer prize.

Cheney getting 1.9 Million Tax refund

2006-04-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

My brothers family just had a brood of puppies,
Pomeranian - Shih Tzu mix
In other words:
Shiteranians

Sounds like a good name for the neo-conservative political movement.

from MSNBC:
" The White House also released the 2005 tax return filed by the Cheneys. They reported adjusted gross income of nearly $8.82 million, which was largely the result of exercising stock options that had been set aside in 2001 for charity.
<= ( note that it was not used for charity however, just a a tax dodge for Haliburton profits, editor)

According to the return, they have overpaid their taxes this year and are entitled to a refund of about $1.9 million."

I am not gruntled

I miss William Buckley. He doesn't like these facists either.

Relentless Cruelty

2006-03-19T21:40:00.001-08:00

Here is the pointer to an excerpt from a midi rendition a new orchestra piece.

It is an ode to the inhumane machinations of the USA's current government. I was trying to capture that sense of relentless dread that we have all lived with for the past 5 years.

Daily factoids like:
Food packages the same color as cluster bomb-lets.
Haliburton 292% profit margins in the last three years
The use of the word "crusade" in describing their current policies .... etc.

David Mamet recently said, " None of us has ever referred to our country as The Homeland. It is a European construction, as Die Heimat, or The Motherland, or Das Vaterland. " and you know where that leads.

You can get access to a whole boat load of other various music at my music blog

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ... Pericles (430 B.C.)

Open Letter to Bill O' Reilly

2006-03-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

I am baffled by the popularity of talk show host such as Limbaugh and O' Reilly. This latest wrinkle made me want to rant, yet again. Here is the letter I sent to the email address that you don't have to pay to use and Bill "sex perv" O' Reilly will never read. Maybe he should try oxycodin ... like Russ.

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Delivery to the following recipients failed.
oreilly@foxnews.com
Reporting-MTA: dns;phoenix.foxnewsnyc.com
Arrival-Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 19:03:53 -0500

Final-Recipient: rfc822;oreilly@foxnews.com
Action: failed Status: 5.2.2 X-Display-Name: Show -O'Reilly

Mr. O'Reilly,

I have never listened to either you or Keith Olberman of MSNBC, but I have heard the absolutely un-American comments you made after one of your callers was making a comparison of your show and Mr. Olberman.

Basically," We have your phone number and "fox security" is going to come after you .... "

What the heck? This is America, buddy, not some despotic regime. Freedom of choice is more than the choice between Pepsi or Coke, and discourse of ideas includes intelligent discussion of both sides of an issue. For example, your shout down of Terry Gross did not take away from the fact that you never answered some very legitimate questions about your style of "journalism" she was asking. If you are so concerned with the "truth" you need to think this one through a little more.

Having read the NPR ombudsman report on this incident and then listening to the interchange, I agree that her reading of the People's magazine comments to your empty chair was not appropriate, but listening back to your inability to intelligently refute legitimate questions was equally if not more inappropriate.

Please find the middle again you have drifted way too far from the rest of us. I want our old America back where policies are discussed in an open forum.

Read one of the great American president's last speeches to get a real sense of what I am talking about:

Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

Respectfully,
Scot Gresham-Lancaster

Blog readers here is an interesting analysis from the NYU journalim school of that rather shocking Terry Gross interview.

At the end of that analysis is a pointer to an incredible 1964 Harpers article: The Paranoid Style in American Politics

This ranks up there with Eisenhower's last speech that I alluded to at the end of the letter.

Great Essay by Mark Morford: Worth Reading

2006-03-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

I encourage everyone to read this very articulate and colorful essay by columnist Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle. America, Narcoleptic Pit Bull
It is truly brilliant.

Here is a short quote just to give you a taste:
"Violence, as we seem to forget in some sort of collective denial, begets violence. Intolerance breeds intolerance. And war begets war. It self-perpetuates, feeds on itself, sucking and teething on the blood and exploded limbs and the punctured hearts of the dead, growing in the soil of hate and ignorance and my-God-can-beat-up-your-God. "

That is out of context bit of a brilliant essay, in my opinion.

I saw Bruce Bartlett the author of "Impostor" that I mentioned in my previous post on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" and he made an interesting slip, "Republicans are better at making the trains run on time" an interesting allusion to Italian facist, Mussolini.

The potential closing of Abu-Ghrab prison in Iraq today is emblamatic of our national shame. Our once great and proud nation, destroyed and subverted by something that you should really read this Morford essay to really get a feeling for.

To date more than 20,000 wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. It makes me think of the struggle and troubles of my grandfather and his paralyzed legs. Do these chicken hawks have any idea of the depth of this suffering? I some how doubt it.

Am I allowed to pray anymore? ... Because I am going to do it any way. I hope I don't get arrested. A recent bumpersticker captured some of this, "Orwell was an optomist"

Iran to crash US Economy, torture won't help

2006-03-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

While Bush meets with his chum, despotic dictator Gen Musharraf of Pakistan, the real truth about all this Iran and Nuclear threat it poses is really a smoke screen.

Check this out

In the supporting article, Author Mike Whitney writes:

"The Bush administration will never allow the Iranian government to open an oil exchange (bourse) that trades petroleum in euros. If that were to happen, hundreds of billions of dollars would come flooding back to the United States crushing the greenback and destroying the economy. This is why Bush and Co. is planning to lead the nation to war against Iran. It is straightforward defense of the current global system and the continuing dominance of the reserve currency, the dollar."

I was amazed to hear the interview with staunch fiscal conservative and Reaganite on Fresh Air, Bruce Bartlett. I ran out and go his book, Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy The title says it all. Finally these guys are wising up. His most insightful observations, fo me, were regarding the absolute danger of their anti-intellectual stance. Complex problems require complex and thoughtful solutions. Bush's cheerleader mentallity is running low, actually it started during the Gore-Bush campaign.

Finally, Fred Branfman wrote and interesting essay for Yuba Net On Torture and Being 'Good Americans

" To ask what it means to be a "good American"is not to compare Bush to Hitler or Republicans to Nazis. The question does not arise only when leaders engage in mass murder on the scale of a Hitler or Stalin, which Bush has not. It requires only that they engage in actions that are clearly evil, which Bush has."

hmmm ....

Nice quote from Harry Truman on that site as well:
"I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

Bush ratings at 34%

2006-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Bush job rating falls to all-time low: poll

How stupid are the 34% that still support this administration?
Finally, even the bible thumpers are waking up to these criminals. I just wish Cheney would take Bush hunting.

Have you all seen this:
Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy
by Bruce Bartlett

"Bartlett, an economist and former Reagan administration official, attacks the Bush administration hard but from the political Right. Challenging Bush's conservative principles of operation and credentials, Bartlett actually gives former president Clinton more credit for following conservative economic principles. In contrast, the Bush administration has been marked by shortsightedness, if not anti--intellectualism, too willing to reward friends without regard to competency and to punish as enemies those who deviate from the party line. Bush's shortcomings include his drug bill, trade policies, and expanded regulatory requirements. Interestingly, Bartlett concludes that Bush's relentless effort to cut taxes will leave an unenviable legacy for a conservative--the need for America's largest tax increase. Bartlett also takes the administration to task for corruption that violates the principles of difference the Republican Party declared during the campaign against Clinton. This is a worthy critique, one that the administration will not be able to dismiss as liberal propaganda."

I heard this guy speak and he is a George Wills, Irving Cristol conservative that is just ripping this administration to shreds. Now if there was only an alternative, the Democrats seem to be waiting for permission to use the handicapped access to the political system.

No need to vent

2006-02-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

Suprisingly calm lately, despite the fact that unelected criminals continue to run our once great country. I have discovered SLIDE and I have added a pointer to the current news photos from Yahoo at the top of this blog. It will be interesting to see how it changes. There is a good chance that I am the only one that ever looks at this site anyway. Its main purpose is to stop me from spamming the moronic "conservatives" I know that continue to mistake blind following of illegal spin masters with patriotism. Fiscal conservative, I get, but this fake Christian, muderous liar that is running our country into the ground with amazing bad fiscal policy, I don't get it. What is wrong with all of those on the right? Ooops starting to vent and I promised I wouldn't. Until next time. - S

Curiouser and curiouser

2006-02-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

I was listening to speech by David Ray Griffin on KPFA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ray_Griffin
Asking some real interesting questions about Sept. 11th ...

Looking into it I just found out something weird and it made me think to write you.

Bush's younger brother Marvin was the CEO of the company that oversaw security at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11th.

and that he took over a investment firm started by Salim bin Laden the deceased brother of Oasama bin Laden

Now tell me that isn't weird ...

this lead me to this very disturbing bits of info

really makes you wonder ...

Missed Opportunities due to fear of wiretaps

2006-02-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

From recent NY Times headline:
"Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities"

You think?
The non existent Alito filibuster comes to mind ...

However, the LA Times got one headline right:
A Eulogy for King, a Scolding for Bush

Our war criminal president has a lot of nerve showing up at this event. I just wish they would have decried him more clearly. Both Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King would have taken the opportunity to call down this despotic menace.

I particularly liked a letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle.
After describing the righteous and unified patriotism after Pearl Harbor, it ends:
" Today, our country has never been so divided since the 1860s. Once again we are embroiled in war; however, this time the war was begun under false pretenses with questionable motives. Those people who slavishly adhere to "My president, right or wrong!" are not loyal to their country, they are loyal to a man and his rhetoric."

The part of the comparison to the civil war is apt. At this point if I speak to anyone who supports these child killers, I make it clear that I do not support "our" troops. These supposed "war" heros need to be brought home immediately to help rebuild New Orleans 9th ward and our nations failing infrastructure.

A telling story from a recent truthout.org article by Marjorie Cohn, " Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths"

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

This problem has become so acute that the Army has set up its own sexual assault web site. Support our troops, yeah right ...

This is the same Col. Karpinski who was "in charge" at Abu Gharib, but was unable to go to her command post during the evenings, held back by CIA intelligence officers and used as a "fall" person in the "investigation" into the ongoing torture in Iraq and else where.

Decisive acts of civil disobediance must be next. These corporate lackeys in both parties are destroying our great and free nation and yet I am certain that the robotic NSA email and web scanning program, the predecessor to the decried and illegal "Carnivore" program, is looking at all of our electronic posts without a warrant. This software is surely adding this to a file along with countless other Americans who like the American patriots of the late 18th century have the nerve to speak truth to power, who have the urge to love the real America and stand up for actual truth and justice based on reality and not ideology.

Excelent Quote

2006-01-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

With this post I have decided to let others do my "ranting" for me. In this age of "Fair and Balanced" anyone with a fair and truthful perspective is seen as a fanatic. I can just hear the "fair and balanced" crowd arguing the pros and cons of racial discrimination and the abortive war in Vietnam. History has proven the truth of these concepts of "balance".

"Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic.
It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and
expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on
terrorism."
-
retired U.S. Army general, William Odom

Also, I am reminded of poet Sharon Old's fantastic letter of refusal for a dinner at the white house. It encapsulates an essence of outrage that more true American's should be expressing.

Begin the Quote of Sharon Old's letter:
Laura Bush
First Lady
The White House

Dear Mrs. Bush,

I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.

In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.

And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who, in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.

When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique story and song.

So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.

I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.

But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.

What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.

So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it.

Sincerely,
SHARON OLDS

Arts Funding

2005-12-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

I will grant you that there is a strong argument for letting the Arts be funded by their own earnings.

NEA funding is at $117.480 million in fiscal year 2004. That's for all the arts ... Music, dance, theater, arts, new media, community art centers etc.

That is is 6.8% of 8 billion dollars

and yet:
From the Government Accounting Office //
Burgeoning Corruption.

" Between May 2003 and June 2004, U.S. officials shipped nearly $12 billion in cash to Iraq. As government audits later found, the cash was spent and disbursed by U.S. officials with virtually no financial controls or reliable accounting. The Administration cannot account for over $8 billion that was transferred to Iraqi ministries. This unsupervised flood of cash into Iraq became an open invitation to corruption. A senior U.S. official already has been charged with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks from a U.S. contractor in exchange for steering up to $3.5 million in fraudulent contracts his way.

Government investigators have said that there are dozens of other criminal corruption cases being processed."

It is one thing to object to public funding of the arts, it is another to throw away almost 7 times that much money to "patriotic" crooks that are trying to figure how to rip off everyone in sight, most fundamentally the American taxpayers.

An interesting factoid is that the top 25% of the top income earners are sure they are a member of the top 1% that are getting 90% of the benefit from the Bush administration tax cuts. So 24% of these richest people in America are deluding themselves.

"Arts funding is really research and development. Are we going to say that anything that sells is OK? Or, like the British, are we going to spend billions on the arts? Unless you're willing to subsidize the arts, you're just handing down what's been done before." Peter Coyote, Chairman of the California Arts Council

Rant 01

2005-12-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

Be gone o'pesky welfare Queens ...

Announcing my new political blogsite "Stop Me Before I Rant Again"

What the heck ... Happy Holidays.

My wife found this great site, for putting it all in perspective.

I gave $2300 to the military last year for a war that I was never able to vote against, and was in the streets to try and stop. That's way more than we spent on ourselves. Kathy and I bought a canoe on Craigslist for $200 that's about it.

I put the cost of the IRAQ debacle, the "mess o' potamia" as they call it on the "Daily Show" on my blog and home page.
233 Billion Dollars!! and counting

, absolutely ridiculous waste of my money.

Looking at it I realized if they would just stop the war for 40 seconds, they could payoff my mortgage ;-) Now that's what I call freedom ...

If you are a conservative and/or a christian , please compare the result of this neo-con agenda to your core beliefs.
This is a pdf file, but an interesting, if frightening read.

Predicting an ascendency of their position only after "a Pearl Harbor scale event" is very spooky when postulated in 1998.

Next time do us all a favor vote for a real conservative, a Goldwater conservative, if such a thing exists. Looking at Trent Lott, Tom Delay, Newt, etc. I am beginning to have my doubts.

I only support troops that are defending our freedoms, not insuring our energy resources into the future, not in the name of chicken-hawk slognaeering.
( Chickenhawk n. A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically when that lack of experience came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.)
Bush's military record if you look objectively at it, is very suspect.
Chenney used political connections to defer his draft commitment 5 times etc.

In which America is it that we are okay to consider torturing anyone? Why is there even a question about this? Is there some psycholinguistic inversion of christian values that focuses on Christ's death before the resurrection and not his message, not the very meaning of the resurrection itself?

Hussein was responsible for a horrible tragedy, gassing 5000 Kurds in Halabja (with munitions supplied by then under secretary Donald Rumsfield, by the way)

The current conservative civilian death total in Iraq since the recent invasion is 27,383. That is confirmed civilian deaths.
Not to mention 2152 US causalities, 8567 seriously wounded (poor duped suckers)

Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Eil, Tito, the descendants of Sheikh Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, maybe even Putin, now there are some real tyrants.

Saddam Hussein was a poser by comparison, but had control of very real oil-fields, no doubt.

I agree with the minority leader of the House Intelligence committee, someone who know the inside scoop:
REP. JOHN MURTHA, (D-PA): "Our military has done everything that has been asked of them. The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It's time to bring the troops home."

Don't be fooled by Bush's new round of back pedaling.

Do you even know what has happened in Haiti in the last year and half? ... oh never mind. I'll save that for another rant ;-)

Our freedom, our legacy of liberty, and truth is at stake.

Please write your congressman and senators today.

Peace on Earth ... Good Will to All