Saturday, January 31, 2009

Let's Party - We Got Our Bailout Money!

The robber barons of the US in our time purportedly first raised their ugly heads during the great depression long ago.

But their progeny, still at "work" today, have the same genetic disposition to look at the rest of us as the little people.

We are pests who bring up that constitution thingy and all that other quaint jazz that irritates them so much.

They are so brazen in today's great depression that they really do not try to hide it.

They fly in to beg for champagne and campaign money in personal or corporate jets when their PR people have not gotten the "don't do this and don't do that" memo to them yet. After wards they may be chided with "you gotta know how to deceive the little people fool" by their handlers.

It got so bad that their base had to feign righteous indignation and feign being against giving them our money.

Well, actually they all give it out like they think it is their money don't they?

"Progressives" v "Zionists" is A Ruse

Even in the face of history the blogs of self righteous indignation are against "Zionism" I guess.

Whatever they think that ism is.

That ism to their way of thinking seems to be synonymous with "Isreal", which is equal to "Jew" I gather.

So Zionism = Isrealism = Jewism?

These blogs of self righteous indignation and racism have progressed about sixty years backwards to another time when their self assessed righteous ancestors ran amok after being infected with the same meme such blogs are infected with.

One difference that throws them off, in terms of identifying what it is they stand for, is that the meme infecting them sixty years ago had a host wearing a NAZI uniform.

The host today dresses and acts differently. The host today also claims to be chic and cool and wise and intelligent and sophisticated.

As if the old host did not claim the same.

Try peace for a change and drop the loser meme.

Purple Haze or Fickle Finger of Fate?

Today the often endangered people of Iraq will go through an election cycle.

They will cast their vote, get a purple finger, and return to their homes or jobs pondering their future and their past.

I followed the life of an Iraqi woman on her blog for a long time.

Before her output went cold in October of 2007 after she and her family had to flee Iraq along with millions of other Iraqis.

She noted many things about their "barbed wire elections" (At least eight of the 14,000 candidates have been killed in the run up to the election today).

She revealed, among many other things, that Iran had been harbouring many Shia outcasts. They had been expatriated by the Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq and were waiting their turn to leave Iran and return to power at home.

When the bushies invaded, those expatriates returned to Iraq and instilled themselves into the Iraqi government at various locations when bushies banned Baathists from the Iraqi government.

These Shia expatriates did it undetected to the bushies and in many cases right under the very long bushie noses. The bushies were doing a heckuva job in both Iraq and in Louisiana in the purple haze of those daze.

The Sunni population of Iraq was less than impressed with the bushie lack of performance, and to them, misguided focus on the Iraqi oil fields. I mean they even went so far as to think the invasion and occupation might be about drill baby drill. And so they mounted an insurrection. The bushies figured that out about four years later.

This election today in Iraq will probably hurt the feelings of those who feel elections are a magic panacea for democracy in the fertile crescent. Again. Somewhat like our own elections here in 2000 and 2004?

But this Iraqi election will be over before the ongoing election in Minnesota for the other US Senator is over. You see, Iraqi election officials are not soft on counting.

So is neoCon "democracy" fast and furious, steady as she goes, or just plain old willy nilly?

Friday, January 30, 2009

I Can See Redoubt From My House

Most Alaskan people can see Mt. Redoubt from their house.

However, not many of them would advance the notion that such proximity to Mt. Redoubt is tantamount to being a volcanologist. And you surely would not want to bet your life on one who did.

I was building a horse barn to hold thirty or so horses for a municipal authority, in 1986 I think it was, when a volcano further south and near Homer, Alaska blew its top.

Saint Augustine volcano's contributions that day looked like the mushroom cloud a nuclear explosion makes. I was less than sixty miles from the volcano but there were no negative results.

But it was a small volcano compared to Redoubt, which in a worse case scenario could distrupt Anchorage just like Mt. Rainier could disrupt Seattle. Significantly.

One thing is for sure, the people of Anchorage do not need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. But if Redoubt blows lets hope the winds are not blowing from the direction of Russia.

Habemus Papam or Steely Don?

Well, some thought it could never be. An African American at the head of something republican.

I mean there are zero republican members of the US Congress who are African American Right?

Now Michael Steele is chairman of the RNC after a hard-fought battle in that beleaguered party.

It took many votes, but finally the main contender, the one who sent out "Barak The Magic Negro" CD's to those voting in this election of their chairman, lost to the good Mr. Steele.

It remains to be seen whether or not this is like Bush I appointing Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. You know, just another time the republicans steeled themselves against real America. Or whether they are in the process of returning to the sand box with their toys.

The sand box called America that they know oh so well has begun to reject them with steely determination.

Yes we can hope.

Clean Coal Mythology

A coal plant in Tennessee went nuclear and spread a disaster upon the land, staining the propaganda efforts to instil the notion of clean coal into the mind of America.

Twice recently coal sludge dams burst sending a toxic flood upon the healthy earth, terrifying the residents for miles around.

Meanwhile jobs in the wind power industry overtook the number of jobs [it got lost, so Wayback Machine Version] in the coal mining industry.

Gentlemen, start your clean engines.

It is too late to stop some disasters, but not too late to save the planet. Yet.

Robert Kennedy Jr. made the astonishing statement that either solar or wind, if either were developed to the maximum potential, could supply all electricity needs for the entire United States.

Even if we used 100% electric cars for all of our personal transportation.

So we have double the potential we need, just in those two endeavors. So we must build a smart grid that will carry and deliver renewable energy generated power.

And do it now, begin it now, or continue it now, as the case may be!

A Shame Under Any Other Name

Oil companies once again have registered record profits.

Unimaginable profits during any "time", but especially in this "time". They eat steak and cavort in an area where a heart has grown cold.

And remember that "these times" have been spurred on in significant degree by the fact that oil prices went up so high they seemed to have attained earth orbit. You know, sky high.

And all this while the American economy went and continues to go lower and lower and lower. You know, the tank.

During this time Haliburton, past employer of Dick Cheney and a company Cheney has large amounts of stock in, profited from no-bid contracts and then moved its headquarters to a land run by oil sheiks. Dubai UAE.

Is this nation suffering from a country last attitude in high places?

The oil barons claim they have no effect on oil prices. And those who believe that story are on their payroll in one way or another.

It is time to be horrified.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

A Heart Grown Cold

In some places the heart of America is becoming like the character Silvio in a Bob Dylan song.

Evidently Silvio thought he had better things to do than rescue fellow citizens who were having problems.

Millions of problems, like freezing to death and starving to death.

So, one of the bards of anti-establishment counter culture laid down some lyrics to shine some light on the scene:
Silvio
Silver and gold
Won't buy back the beat of a heart grown cold
Silvio
I gotta go
Find out something only dead men know
(Silvio, by Bob Dylan). The homeless American in the photo attached to this post had frozen to death and was encased in solid ice.

Who knows for how long. Kids played hockey near by, noticed the homeless American, and went on about their business.

House republicans played their fiddles and went on about their business today after voting against an economic recovery package yesterday. As homelessness, joblessness, and hopelessness continued to increase in America.

Meanwhile, in the world around America, tens of thousands of children starved to death just like they did yesterday.



Election Integrity Lack of Integrity

We recently criticized the EI ('election integrity') movement of the moment, at least some of them, for not having a positive effect and instead for having a negative effect.

What they can't be criticized for is providing soap opera quality entertainment.

Their daily delight lately is the Franken v Colman debacle in Minnesota. And we thought that Brad Blog was so Shakespearean didn't we?

The people of Minnesota are without their full compliment of senators, but that does not matter to this cadre of EI self assessed experts.

"This is the way it should be" they have opined. "Take as long as it takes" to count the votes is their empty mantra that means nothing. Like deja vu all over again.

Months after the dust has settled on all other elections, including electronic voting machine based elections, they are as happy as pigs in slop to have this one senate election lingering on and on and on and on.

While Minnesota suffers a lack of senators.

Put some popcorn in the microwave and listen to a blather of voters dredged up from the bottom of electiondom's darkest corners, deep down dregs of implausibility, and then parade them before the world so they can see the glory of paper ballot elections? That is simply pathetic.

But the cruel joke is on Minnesota and our sympathies go out to them. Minnesota has the right to two senators but are being deprived of that. That is not good ... EI dogma notwithstanding.

Will it eventually become a curse to say "May the EI movement enjoy your election"?

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

"I Was Following Orders"

During the hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which resulted in the committee voting approval (17-2) of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General, several of the republican senators kept adhering to an old idea.

They kept asking Holder if he was going to prosecute individuals who tortured prisoners at Gitmo.

Individuals who were "only following orders" to torture.

The implication those republican senators not only alluded to, but specifically stated, was that if a lower level individual was "only" following orders, then that lower level individual is not guilty and should not be held to account for the torture he or she did.

Two things come to mind.

First, that is the defence the NAZI fascists presented who were tried at Nuremberg for war crimes. It is called the Nuremberg defense, and is invalid pursuant to international law, which states:
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
(Nuremberg Principle IV). Why do the republican senators want us to follow the misguided wrongs of the NAZI ideology promulgated under Hitler?

Second, even the American military manuals, where the rules of conduct are printed, say that a soldier should not follow criminal orders.

These republican senators believe that the NAZI fascist defence is a good one for America.

Are they advocating NAZI fascist dogma? Isn't it the ideas an individual espouses which define who and what they are?

Who but a NAZI fascist would want America to become like NAZI Germany?

Modern day Germans recoil at that notion much more severely than republican senators do. It is a crime in that nation.

And it is a crime in the Fifth Circuit where a Texas sheriff, and several of his deputies, were sent to prison for waterboarding prisoners. The case is US v Lee, 744 F.2d 1124 (5th Cir., 1984). In that case a deputy raised the Nuremberg defence and it was rejected.

If only those republican senators had done their history homework.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Stimulation or Skimulation Package?

To many politicians "service to country" means getting an "earmark".

Ear mark like what Sister Pure or Sista Solja gave me when she came upside my head when I misbehaved?

No.

Nor the earmark beatniks get, a hole where an earring hangs.

No, they mean pork: Grade A, Establishment Sweet, and Pure American Pork (PAP).

It is no wonder then that porky and the pigs have all shown up to "save America" from what they, porky and the pigs (some call them bushies), have done these past eight years. So now they are going to save us from them?

And have they all shown up to bring us back from where they have taken us? Singing their same tired 'it is uneconomical dude!' anthem?

These skimulators think that, since they caused the problems, they are the only ones qualified to stimulate the economy according to "principle"? But isn't their rhetoric really the mantra of a bad symbiont ... just another bad political leech?

These skimulators want to skim off the cream, the credit, for fixing what they did wrong, what they have done these past 8 years. Like Rush Limbaugh, they want to take it away from the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party at any cost. They don't care if our economy does not recover?

These republican skimulators want glory instead of shame. But they do have their shame. So I think they should now wear it for 8 years.

One year of blame for each year of shame.

The House and Senate republican members are all over television land extolling the virtues of their republican plans to save us. We are not buying it.

Couldn't they have saved us long ago by simply resigning?

Monday, January 26, 2009

Groundhog Day Deja Vu All Over Again

Karl "Moi?" Rove, under the umbrella of bushies, refused to testify before congress.

Two others who also refused have been issued contempt citations, but bushie AG Mukasey refused to prosecute them.

Obama is not in a mood to tolerate more and more blatant insubordination and law breaking nor is Obama Attorney General Eric Holder.

The Honorable John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary committee, has just issued a subpoena to Rove. Rove is to testify in a deposition on Ground Hog Day (Feb 2).

We don't need Al Franken, there is already someone in congress with the senses of a comic.

Rove won't think it is funny, but he will talk either to congress or to cell mates. His choice.

And each morning Rove wakes up the same thing is going to play on the radio.

Stay tuned.

The Cavemen Did It

There are some comical ads on television about cavemen who do not see themselves in a negative light.

Those cavemen recoil at the stereotypical image they think society has of them.

It seems that those cavemen on TV commercials seem to be saying "hey, we cavemen are sophisticated".

The 9/11 Commission was of the same opinion that cavemen were sophisticated enough to orchestrate hijacking and flying airliners into the tallest buildings in the world, thereby destroying them. Organized from caves in Afghanistan no less.

Many architects, airline and fighter pilots, fire fighters, and thousands of other professionals are not so sure.

On TV pundit shows like Hannity & Colmes these folks have consistently been ridiculed, diagnosed as insane, and made fun of for thinking anyone but cavemen pulled off the destruction of the World Trade Center.

One of the "cavemen did not do it" members, thinking the FBI could care less about their concerns, wrote the FBI to complain about the lack of respect they were getting.

Wonder of wonders, the FBI did not make fun of them, but instead wrote:

Agent Hemlock
This letter is in response to your correspondence, dated November 7, 2008, to Director Robert S. Mueller, III in which you urged the FBI to consider the work of Mr. Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and his supporters in the on-going federal investigation into the World Trade Center attacks. The Director's Office forwarded your letter to the Counterterrorism Division for direct response to you.

First, let me thank you for offering to provide information to the United States Government. The information the FBI receives from concerned individuals is critical to its mission of protecting the U.S. and its citizens against terrorism. As with all cases, the FBI will continue to examine the 9/11 investigation from every angle as new evidence develops, utilizing all leads available. Mr. Gage presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis. The case agents in charge of the investigation will undoubtedly review all relevant information before making an unbiased decision.

Please be advised that your observations and concerns have not gone unheeded. The FBI is committed to identifying terrorist threats at home and abroad, and using the full force of the law to prosecute these individuals.

Thank you for your time and efforts regarding this matter.

Sincerely yours,
/s/
Michael J. Heimbach
Assistant Director
Counterterrorism Division
National Security Branch
(Get Copy of Letters). I note at least two very interesting statements in the FBI letter.

First of all the Assistant FBI Director used the language "the on-going federal investigation into the World Trade Center attacks", which indicates that the investigation is not over.

This is made more clear with his language "the FBI will continue to examine the 9/11 investigation from every angle as new evidence develops, utilizing all leads available".

Additionally, he compliments Mr. Gage by using the language "Mr. Gage presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis".

The talk show pundits have always tended to dismiss professional architect Mr. Richard Gage as a wacko along with anyone else who would question the official conspiracy theory that cavemen in Afghanistan conspired to do it and then did it.

Are things getting "curiouser and curiouser"?

A major skyscraper fire in China, in a steel structure building about the size of WTC 7, just became a raging inferno.

That raging inferno was far, far worse than the WTC 7 fire, however, the building in China did not collapse into its own footprint in 6 seconds.

It did not collapse at all nor did it deform.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Throw The Textbook Out

The planet Mars has water.

It is no longer said to have been a dead planet of deserts forever as once opined.

What were those channels that Lowell and Schiaparelli, two famous astronomers, saw in the 1800's?

A temporary global warming on Mars that went away? Not sure.

But there is growing evidence that liquid water is placed onto the surface via springs at times. And it has evidently happened many times in the past.

Mars has vast amounts of water, in the form of ice, at the poles. Enough to cover it 30 or so feet deep over its entire surface. It has glaciers under a cover of dust and rubble near the equator. And it once had more water. Much more, and it was liquid.

Methane gas has been discovered during massive releases of that gas at mid summer. Since methane dissipates quickly the release of that gas means that it may be being created now. Which is a possible sign of microbial activity, because microbes on earth produce methane.

And recently carbonates were discovered in rock layers which indicates that non-acidic water was there in large quantity in the past. Lotsa cool clean water a long time ago!

Was that before the planet was bombarded when the planet between Mars and Jupiter was destroyed? A prominent astronomer, who died a few weeks back, thought so. And I certainly do too.

All that is left of that planet now is vapor, asteroids, and chunks of it orbiting other planets or embedded in craters they made on planets and moons throughout the solar system.

The exploration machines on Mars and around Saturn are finding information that is causing headaches for the people who print the textbooks. The textbooks that tell us the great truths about our solar system.

Throw some more of the books out. They are out of date. We are finding strange goings on there.

And there are very strange discoveries on Saturn too.

Country Last

Have you noticed how Rush Limbaugh is like the marines at gitmo in the movie A Few Good Men, starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson?

They had a chain-of-loyalty code: "unit, corps, God, country" ... in that order.

Here is the disgusting article entitled Country Last, about Rush saying he wants Obama to fail.

Hey, it is a gitmo thang ... country last.

Would you think that God is glad to have not come in last for a change?

Open Thread


Share what's on your mind here if there are no posts which cover the subject you have in mind.

Why Trial By Jury?

This post has been moved to the Toxins Of Power blog.

Beware of The Military Oil Complex

This post has been moved to the Toxins of Power blog.