You Say Robots They Say Soldiers

Shall I translate the newspeak coming from the halls of the robed ones with the test tubes?

Listen to the latest:

An armada of robots may one day fly above the mountain tops of Saturn's moon Titan, cross its vast dunes and sail in its liquid lakes.

Wolfgang Fink, visiting associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena says we are on the brink of a great paradigm shift in planetary exploration, and the next round of robotic explorers will be nothing like what we see today.

"The way we explore tomorrow will be unlike any cup of tea we've ever tasted," said Fink, who was recently appointed as the Edward and Maria Keonjian Distinguished Professor in Microelectronics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "We are departing from traditional approaches of a single robotic spacecraft with no redundancy that is Earth-commanded to one that allows for having multiple, expendable low-cost robots that can command themselves or other robots at various locations at the same time."

(JPL, Cal. Inst. Of Tech). In other words, "the Pentagon is paying us well so we are making an army of robots to fight the next world war because you people are too smart to want to obliterate yourselves".

Robots are so "faithful" aren't they? It's tea time tea baggers and blokes.

Army "Intelligence" Watching The Tubes

The post about the CIA yesterday generated more visits from USAISC, HQ, and other Pentagon subordinates than usual.

Like the photo to the left, all we can see are their boot tracks, we cannot see who they are or why they came; but here are two different times and locations:

16:43:05 (4:43 PM) from Lawton, OK (155.219.241.10) [Newsweek 1]

17:23:25 (5:23 PM) from Lawton, OK (131.92.133.22) [Newsweek 2]

The dot quad IP address is not the same for the two visitors, nor were the Newsweek pages Dredd had made comments on the same Newsweek pages (the location the soldier spies came to Dredd Blog from).

What was the same was the Dredd Blog post here that caught their eye, the post about the CIA linked to above.

Thus, it is possible that different soldiers watch different Newsweek correspondents.

In light of that, it seemed appropriate to inform you of some of the unclassified operations (ops) that they are involved in.

There are indications that the military is again spying on anyone they think advocates peace:

CIFA's similar collection and retention of data on peace groups and other activists has promoted parallels to be drawn between the two programs by civil rights groups like the ACLU, and intelligence officials who find the prospect of the military tracking peace groups again to be worrisome.

After ACLU filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding information gathering on peace groups and NBC did a report citing a Quaker group planning an anti-enlistment action that was listed as a "threat", a review of CIFA activities was ordered by then Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone, who stated at the time that it appeared that there had been several violations.

(Wikipedia, emphasis added). Some of the paranoid types in the military who would allow their minds to consider "anti-enlistment action" to be a "threat", would certainly also allow their paranoid minds to consider Dredd Blog posts to be threats too. After all, they have even put U.S. Senators on the terrorist watch list haven't they?

Nevertheless, somebody has to be the free press, and that certainly is not going to be the military's media lackeys who are bought and paid for by the Pentagon.

Bob Dylan's Songs Are Blowin Minds

People are surprised often when they hear me say that one of the lyrics of Bob Dylan is the most quoted song in federal court opinions.

That lyric is "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".

The celebrated lyric is of course from his Subterranean Homesick Blues hit of yesteryear.

Now it seems that he has "gone and done it" by allowing one of his songs to be featured in the NCIS official TV soundtrack.

I tell fake progressives that saying "no" all the time, bitching, carping, and in general being a fake gadfly is unavailing.

Work with the system any time and every time it will improve that system, even if you wrote the song Masters of War.

Hate Takes A Hit

Dear [Dredd],

In July, I asked you to urge my congressional colleagues to pass the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, to tackle the scourge of hate crime in America. Thanks to you and the efforts of more than 10,000 LeahyForVermont.com activists, this long-overdue anti-hate crime legislation is finally law.

Hate crimes are an unacceptable reality in America. A hate crime occurs somewhere in America every hour, and sadly the number of hate groups has grown dramatically in recent years. Many of these crimes are directed toward gay and transgender Americans, who were previously unprotected by any federal anti-hate crime statute.

That's why I introduced the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to strengthen federal anti-hate crime laws to cover crimes motivated by gender, disability status, or sexual orientation.

Last week the Senate passed it as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, and I was proud to visit the White House to witness President Obama signing it into law earlier today.

Our community of activists has once again helped to affirm the principle of equality and secure the rights of all Americans to live free from fear. Working together, we have enacted what Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese has called "the first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act bears the name of a gay college student from Wyoming who was brutally tortured and murdered by two attackers in 1998. Its passage also honors the memory of Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought tirelessly for more than a decade to expand federal anti-hate crime protections to include such crimes.

This historic anti-hate crime law will:

• Allow federal authorities to more easily investigate and prosecute crimes motivated by race, color, or beliefs;
• Update the law to include crimes motivated by disability status, gender, or sexual orientation; and
• Strengthen federal support for state and local law enforcement agencies in the investigation and prosecution of hate-motivated violence.

I cannot thank you enough for coming together to show that violence against members of any group because of who they are will not be tolerated in our great country.

Sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

Listen To The Music

The ambassadors of peace make music not war.

I ran across Shahin & Sepehr in the 90's when an Iranian friend introduced me to their music.

They came to the U.S. on a peace mission. They are Persians.

They felt our countries were better off exchanging the good things of life rather than the bad things of death.

So they speak the language of music which is more often than not the music of peace.

Like the Doobie Brothers said, Listen To The Music, not the drums of war.

---

---

CIA Stars In A New "Karzai" Movie

That the CIA has been paying one of the Karzai clan, who is the brother to another Karzai clan member, President Karzai is well known.

The fact that someone is being paid to do the CIA's bidding is portrayed by the neoCon controlled press as some new shocking incident.

Ok, so it is probably shocking, but it is not "news", it is "olds" to those who follow the poppy truth.

There is some news about a guy I met at U.C.L.A. where he talked about his life as a drug enforcement officer in the Los Angeles Police Department.

The CIA became a part of his life, since his mother, father, and fiancé were all CIA agents.

Mike Ruppert got his Burn Notice when he discovered that his fiancé was the CIA operative who was in charge of the CIA's smuggling of drugs into the U.S. under cover of various complicit operatives in his own beloved department.

My take on it is that his mother, father, and fiancé pleaded for his life, which was obviously granted. However, the CIA part of the bargain was to destroy his reputation and brand him as a kook (standard CIA burn notice operating procedure you know).

A new movie about what his pet peeve has become since then is being released with the title Collapse. It tells the story, in documentary format, about why he anticipates the collapse of western civilization as we know it.

It will be interesting to those who know of CIA "going rogue" episodes, those who are concerned about global climate change, and those who are interested in the real blueprint used by military industrial complex warmonger intellectuals.

A Grid We Can Believe In

A move toward a more sane power grid in this country is becoming more realistic.

We have mentioned the frailties of our power grid from time to time, urging the notion that while we upgrade the grid to handle "green energy" it could also be beefed up to resist solar flare ups at the same time.

That should result in savings of stimulus fund expenditures, compared to doing it at any other time.

The idea has been given a boost by President Obama:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday will announce $3.4 billion in government grants to help build a "smart" electric grid that will save consumers money on their utility bills, reduce blackouts and carry power supplies generated by solar and wind energy, the White House said.

It marks the largest award made in a single day from the $787 billion stimulus package approved by Congress, and will create tens of thousands of jobs while upgrading the U.S. electric grid, according to administration officials.

The grants, which range from $400,000 to $200 million, will go to 100 companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners in 49 states.

(Reuters). It is a perfect time to do this. There is widespread focus on the energy issues, clean energy, security, and the stimulus package.

Good!

President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail

Ronald Reagan was in office as U.S. President from 1981 - 1989.

In 1983 his DOJ prosecuted a republican Texas Sheriff for the crime of waterboarding:

In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. [NPR Link]

Humpy Parker was at the center of a law enforcement scandal in the 1970s and 80s that was finally interrupted in 1983 when an undercover FBI agent was arrested and subjected to water torture and other illegal tactics. Gary Parker was a patrol sergeant at the time the corruption scandal was uncovered. Parker’s deputies testified at trial that they would park on U.S. 59 and watch for “long-hairs” driving vehicles displaying a bumper sticker for Houston radio station K-101.

“Humpy” Parker died in 1999 of cancer after he served a 10-year sentence in federal prison. The American Civil Liberties Union also won a judgment against San Jacinto County for three Kentucky residents and a Baytown man. The county was ordered to pay $40,000 per year until each person named in the class action lawsuit received $1,500. News reports at the time indicated thousands of people may have joined the class action lawsuit. The long-running corruption scheme was the subject of a book and movie, “Terror on I-59.” [East Texas News]

(Amazon Askville). Dick "Chain Man" Cheney is openly advocating the use of waterboard torture in the United States, which is the same as telling people to commit felonies.

He and his cronies, like Rush Limbaugh, are talking about how Ronald Reagan is their mentor, as they try to justify the federal crime of torture.

Ronald Reagan would have been their jailer, not their mentor.

Government A La Carte

When politics and government are a la carte the people can only select, choose, or vote for what someone else puts on the menu.

The frustration, anger, and disillusionment comes when all the items taste bad and are not good for you either.

Compare our debate about bailout for crappy rich criminal banks and the debate taking place in Kuwait concerning bailouts.

In Kuwait the debate is about bailing out every consumer, not about bailing out the elite bankers who brought the problems on us in the first place:

Lawmakers in Kuwait, which is richer per capita than Germany, are demanding a government bailout of all consumer loans, reviving a power struggle that’s already shut down the assembly twice in 18 months.

At least half of the 50 elected lawmakers say they’ll back a plan for the government to buy all 6 billion dinars ($21 billion) of bank loans taken by Kuwaiti citizens to buy homes, cars, holidays and other purchases, write off interest payments and reschedule the rest. The government opposes the bailout. Parliament convenes on Oct. 27 after a four-month break.

“It’s my right as a citizen to enjoy the wealth and resources of my country,” said Essa al-Malki, a 32-year-old teacher of philosophy and psychology, who took out a 15-year 23,000 dinar loan in 2000 and supports the plan.

(Bloomberg). So are you really sure that we are the source of and the greatest exporters of ideas in the whole world?

The Illusion of Environmental Security

This post has been moved to the Ecocosmology blog.