“Fighting for our freedom”

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Brother Jonah

That’s a theme that comes up from time to time.
I’ll point out something a couple (literally, they’re married to each other) of Air Force Sergeants boast about, from when they were on TDY in Turkey, their wing was doing the Northern No-Fly Zone over Kurdistan, another ethnic group without a National Identity Recognized by the Great Powers.
They make jokes about the time one of their pilots murdered a Kurdish shepherd. One of the Kurds they were allegedly “protecting”.

Blew him and his sheep smooth away, took away his family’s support and all their property, and said he thought the sheep were Militants.

Not long thereafter, the Same Sources Of Information the Trolls Keep Citing as “accurate” told that there had not been one single incident of Civilians being killed, that the “smart weapons” like the ones sold to the Israeli and Saudi armies and air forces were so precise they only took out Militants.

The two Air Force Sergeants, one of them I grew up with, knew her since childhood.

And she was boasting and LAUGHING about making a widow and orphans out of the mans family and destroyed their means of surviving as well.

The Joke they tell about it is “The Pilot was feeling “SHEEPISH because he was having a BAAADDD DAY”

The Trolls may feel free to use it as a party joke at their next Klan Rally…
or Campus Republican Meeting…

…same difference, like Yogi Berra says.

Activism heroics and roadkill

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Eric Verlo

This is by no means a complete list of contemporary populist heros, but I’d like to start with comedian Stephen Colbert, who roasted President Bush at a Washington Correspondents Association Dinner, like a court jester gone rabid. With celebrated White House correspondent Helen Thomas’s help, Colbert belittled the decider-in-chief to his face right in front of his friends.

Don’t Taser Me Bro
There was University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, who held his ground asking critical questions of Senator John Kerry. Meyer was tackled and tasered for his impertinence, while Kerry kept mumbling, to divert attention from “Don’t taser me Bro.”

Bidder 70
Then Utah environmentalist Tim DeChristopher disrupted a government land auction, driving up prices and buying several leases raising paddle number 70, until federal agents took him away. Extraction industry spokesperson Kathleen Sgamma may have miscalculated the degree of DeChristopher’s popular support. She earned no one’s sympathy when she complained: “There’s a democratic process in place if you don’t like what’s happening. If we all just decided we wanted to change the laws unilaterally, that would run counter to our democracy.”

The Shoes
And Iraqi Journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi is in jail for throwing his shoes at that dog Bush, when our president was making a farewell visit to Baghdad. (His trial date is fast approaching actually.) The shoes missed, but Bush was made to duck, which is the closest anyone’s come to getting reality to register with the cretinous bitch.

Barack’s first press conference
Let’s also mention Helen Thomas again, at Barack Obama’s first press conference a week ago. When Obama ceremoniously called on Thomas to lob the last question, Thomas asked the president to name who in the Middle East had nuclear weapons. It was something of a leading question, because the answer is known, but bears reminding when the argument is repeated that Iran acquiring nukes would lead to proliferation. Thomas put Obama in the position of having to utter recognition of Israel’s never-mentioned nuclear program, or very conspicuously avoid the subject. Which is what he did.

Israel Divestment Movement
Now the Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine have succeeded in getting their school to divest in Israel, just as Hampshire College led the way in the nationwide divestitures which contributed to the fall of Apartheid in South Africa. Board of trustees chairman Sigmund Roos tried to explain that the school’s actions were in no way a repudiation of Israel, and accused the students of falsely claiming otherwise. Of the 800-signature petition, Roos explained: “We never took it up. Students know that.”

Really? A petition signed by 800 of your students and faculty, and the Hampshire College board of trustees wouldn’t even read it? Roos doesn’t know what hit him.

Costa Rica a prototypical Western Democracy

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Eric Verlo

PUERTO JIMINEZ, CR- Touring Costa Rica has been interesting. Considering the turmoil of Central America, it may be a shining example of a functional Capitalist Democracy. It´s got a healthy middle class and a relatively contented populace. Can it offer a lesson to its strife torn neighbors? Sure. Get rid of the Indios.

Citizens of the “Rich Coast” pride themselves on being light skinned, owing to a Spanish heritage of course. They´re the descendants of settlers, mixed some with labor imports from the Caribbean. But the indigenous people are gone. Which makes for scarce land redistribution demands.

When Columbus first came to Costa Rica, there were 400,000 inhabitants. When they saw that the Spaniards were enslaving whoever they conquered, the tribes hid in the mountains. As a result, Costa wasn´t properly subjugated like elsewhere. The Spanish didn´t want land that didn´t come with ready slave labor. But hiding didn´t save the indians. As the Spanish settled the land, the original population dwindled, to 10%, then 2% within 200 years. They are, as Randy Newman sang it: “Gone, real gone.”

There is an inspiring history to Costa Rica´s present relatively egalitarian government, and I´m going to write more about some of their laudable leaders. But I have to argue that CR smacks of US artifice. And lo, even as I cringe at the camo themed souvenir caps that remind me of the Contras, it turns out Oliver North operated his Contra army and drug smuggling operation out of an airfield in northern Costa Rica. There´s a surfing destination near there called Ollie´s Point, named after the would be filibuster himself. Those apolitical surfer fucks.

(It is hard to surpress disdain for the hard-recreating American asses despoiling CR toilet paper. I cannot bear their vibes of inutile indifference.)

So the Costa Ricans are less Central Americans than good old Americans. And that never meant Native American.

The shipping news

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Marie Walden

The whining and hang-wringing about the “credit crunch” is getting on my nerves. It was this supposed crisis that led to the $700 billion bailout and we’re told every day that it must be solved quickly, no matter the cost, or we’re toast. But why? How many of us are actively seeking credit right now? Surely the developers and retailers want us to have lots and lots of it so we can keep hyper-consuming their goods; the bankers want us to have it so they can collect their interest and fees but, seriously, is free-flowing credit what the American public needs right now? Living beyond our means is what caused the credit meltdown in the first place!

Here’s a meaty statistic: the Baltic Dry Index, which measures the demand for global shipping capacity, dropped from 11,793 last May to, get this, an inconceivable zero. The complexity of the BDI is beyond the scope of this post but, suffice it to say, there are lots of cargo ships sitting at anchor today. The collapse of the BDI augurs a rapidly evaporating demand for foreign goods. Combine this with the massive deterioration in domestic consumption during the fourth quarter of 2008, and wager a guess as to the meaning of it all. We’re not buying anything and the world is following suit! So tell me, Wall Street wizards, why the continued hyperbole about a credit crunch?

How could our purchasing habits change so dramatically overnight? Currently, Americans own an estimated 250 million personal computers and 175 million iPods. There are 9 million mobile homes within our borders, approximately 102-130 million single-family homes, and countless million apartments. One could safely assert that there’s a home, an mp3 player and a personal computer for every man, woman and child in the United States. I’ll go on. Everyone has a television, a cell phone. Nearly everyone owns a car. Most have closets full of clothes they never wear, and we all have too many shoes. So when Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke or anyone else talks about freeing up the flow of credit, we should ask ourselves why.

Recently, through the dense economic fog came a thin ray of revelation: I may actually have enough stuff. Perhaps, just maybe, I can stop buying new stuff for awhile. I can keep my slightly dented iPod for yet another year. My Toyota with 90,000 miles is probably good for another road trip or two. I won’t move to a bigger house just yet, or buy the 52″ flatscreen Santa forgot to leave under the tree. I may have to forego the spring sales and make do with last summer’s tank tops, wrong color though they may be.

I don’t mean to minimize the hardship of doing without, but we are a nation of excess inventory. Somewhere in our stuffed dressers and overfull garages, there is room to accommodate a changed perspective.

Wall Street is telling us that all will soon be well. If we just give them hundreds of billions, they’ll take their cut and loan the rest to us so we can get back to “business as usual”. But what if we don’t cooperate with their economic “recovery” plan? What if we collectively turn our backs on Wall Street and Madison Avenue and live simply, buying what we need and paying as we go, stopping to share with others along the way?

Remember, our banks and investment companies built themselves toward inevitable failure during the economic boom. Don’t expect them to act nobly in the coming recession because they won’t. You can bank on that. So stop worrying about their silly market indices and their credit machinations. Let the Federal government give them another trillion pieces of worthless paper. Help them plaster their walls with negotiable instruments. Make them eat derivatives for breakfast, sell them short against the box and leverage them to outerspace. Leave them with their excess shipping capacity and their phantom dollar bills.

It’s time for the rest of us to disembark this sinking stinking ship for good.

Buffalo Bill Lives at Fort Cody Nebraska

Posted on November 25, 2008 by Eric Verlo

FT CODY, NEBRASKA- On I-80 as you pass North Platte, sits the Fort Cody Trading Post, home of the Free Buffalo Bill Museum Emporium. What had been the Ogallala, Neb, Sioux Trading Post, moved in 1969 to follow the travelers rerouted from Hwy-30 to the new interstate, and changed its focus from the Native American to the Ugly American.

Buffalo Bill Cody earned his moniker by eradicating America’s buffalo herds. Over a million buffalo were killed each year during the 1870s. According to the museum, Mr. Cody labored to feed a sudden East Coast appetite for buffalo tongue, and a fad for buffalo fur coats. The display confessed: “Unfortunately the buffalo carcasses were left to rot on the plains.”

History books had been less forthcoming. They record that Cody was hired by the railroad builders to supply food for their workforce. He and his team were contracted to supply twelve buffalo a day. Does that come a little shy of a million? Accounts also wink at the risk Cody ran of coming against unfriendly Indians while engaged in the task.

When BB Cody wasn’t scouting for the railroad and the US cavalry, he was touring the world to exhibit the red skinned savage. Fort Cody featured a miniature 20,000 piece, hand-carved, animated model of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

On an opposite wall, among a fantastic collection of western guns, clothing and cowboy gear, was an undated tintype depicting Bill posing with fellow scouts, cradling his favorite rifle which he called “Lucretia Borgia.”

In recent years, government documents have revealed a different story. It turns out the white men leading the charge westward were frustrated that the Plains Indians had what looked like an unlimited food supply. The buffalo kept them clothed and fed, and the nomadic tribes followed the herds like their own moveable orchards. One of the strategies to force the Native Americans from their land was to eliminate their source of food, and basically their livelihood.

Most Americans have been kept oblivious to this version of history. Should we doubt that most of the participants were keenly aware of the strategy, if perhaps indifferent to the fate of the red savage? Does it matter?

Under the pretext of building a security wall in Palestine, Israel is separating the Palestinians from their olive orchards, often by uprooting the orchards outright. American troops in Iraq have destroyed date palm orchards using the excuse of having to clear the populated areas of cover for insurgents. In Vietnam, defoliants were used to despoil large areas, rendering them incapable of yielding food. Troops also poisoned wells. It’s called the scorched earth policy, and by the way, it’s a war crime.

If Americans don’t come to terms with the crimes we committed here, or are committing elsewhere, how can we expect our soldiers to find cause to refuse the orders next time? The public’s consent is always being manipulated by having to hold a certain regard for the soldiers. Out of respect for the memory of its veterans, in current events, to “support the troops.” After a point, we have to lay the blame with both commanders and perpetrators. Vietnam was genocide. Iraq is genocide. Those over there are doing it.

Somali pirates make black Blackbeards

Posted on November 22, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Gilbert and Sullivan pointed it out: One man’s captain of industry is another man’s pirate. Which is the pirate depends on who’s making the law.

The global corporate media is up in arms about the Somali pirates, in actuality a militia mounted by Somalia’s fishermen to protect their fisheries from international predators. Elsewhere, illegal commercial fishing ships are considered “pirates.” The Somali protectors are called the
Central Regional Coast Guard.

Elsewhere in the world, when national fisheries are threatened by lawless fishing, privateers can capture illegal fishing ships and earn bounties of approximately one million dollars per ship. What a coincidence that’s the figure we’re given about the ransoms demanded by the Somali “pirates” who are seizing international ships off their coast.

Setting aside of course the opportunistic actions by the Somali renegade entrepreneurs to prey upon ANY international vessel, on the pretext that NONE are licensed in Somali waters, since even the temporary US-backed government there is unlicensed, here’s the reason Western warships can’t just blow them out of the water.

Setting aside too, that even as Somalia is lawless, the waters inside Somali’s maritime boarder are sovereign. A foreign navy may declare its helpful intentions, but it has no jurisdiction to order Somalian boaters about.

I’ve seen many varieties of fishermen skiffs. So I puzzled at the uniformity of the pirate raiders in their long white open boats. Have you? Because the pirate enterprise is a uniform flotilla of 100 of such boats. It’s how they can tell each other from would be interloping privateers, and it also gives them their cover of legitimacy.

Foreign would-be sheriffs can’t target the Central Regional Coast Guard because it is basically a militia mounted by the local fishermen, to enforce their claim to their home waters.

Fisheries the world over are regulated. Wherever a government is not capable of enforcing its laws, predatory opportunities arise. Since Somalia fell to war and lawlessness, foreign fishing boats have been poaching the Somali coast without limit. Local fishermen complain that the fisheries are being depleted, but there is no authority to save them.

Somalia and the Pentagon Pirates of the Indian Ocean

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Tony Logan

pirate It is a clear indication of how iron clad government controlled is the US corporate press that news reporting about Somalia in the last couple of weeks has been centered on the stoning to death of a young girl and ‘pirates’. Never mind those millions of starving refugees in the country that the Pentagon has created, it’s ‘Indiana Jones’ time here for the American media! And pirates are always fun to play with! But who are the real pirates off the coast of Somali in the Indian Ocean? Asia Times Online gives us some insight into just that question… NATO reaches into the Indian Ocean

India was once a neutral player in the old Cold War, but not anymore these days and times. The US has captured another satellite government to use in its geopolitical warfare against China and Russia… and that country is India. That old ally of the US, Pakistan?… well let’s just say that their new role is to be turned into a battlefield zone in Southern Asia for the Pentagon. The US based military industrial complex needs to get the Pentagon firmly into that region for more sales for them to be funded from US taxpayers. How better to keep the welfare system for them going? They need Federal ‘bailout’!

As to the Somali ‘pirates’ seizing ships inside their coastal waters? Look at it from their viewpoint? Nobody complained much about the US/ Ethiopian piracy in their homeland, now did they? How about those $300,000,000 of fish annually pirated from their coastal waters by international fisheries based in other countries? Who cares about fish piracy stealing from the starving Somalians? Did you even hear about it? Then why not Somali ‘pirates’ getting into the big game?

The US government is into a big geopolitical play to corner the world’s last remaining natural resources away from China and Russia. Southern Asia is the new zone of combat and the Indian Ocean sits strategically placed between Asia and Africa and most of all, the Middle East. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now into piracy in the Indian Ocean in a big way, all under the direction of the USA, and that wonderful little building in Northern Virginia, the Pentagon! Peace Now, Y’all. I’m sure that Obama plans to deliver ‘PEACE’… lol. He’s going to fight the Big Bad ‘pirates’ in Africa!

Extrajudicial murders [air-] strike terror

Posted on November 19, 2008 by Eric Verlo

PATHRI- It’s Pakistani for a new computer chip/beacon which agents can throw in a window or over a wall to direct precision US missile fire to the domicile. Such that now: “People are sleeping outside the houses, in case somebody has thrown this pathri inside. It’s created fear in the area.” Umm, would that define terrorism? Imagine the fun to be had tossing jump-drives over your shoulder at anyone who’s displeased you, as you tour areas where US drones are known to be marauding!

In Pakistan, the US military reports having taken out an al-Qaeda leader and henchman, causing limited collateral damage, with a drone missile strike deep in Pakistan, so deep, this time it was outside the al-Qaeda controlled area. There is the usual outrage from Pakistanis, but initial Western media reports tell of Pakistani neighbors appreciative of the tidiness of the single-dwelling air-strike. Would those be the same neighbors who threw in the chip?

Who’s to say, post-missile-delivery, exactly what people were in the targeted house? Were they the al-Qaeda fighters the agents say they were? Were they guilty as charged? Oh, sorry, no time to make a case for charges.

If al-Qaeda or Taliban leadership wanted to direct a missile strike to where US military decisions were being made, in the US (as we are alleging is happening in Pakistan), such a retaliation would be denounced by us as a terrorist act. And they wouldn’t even be involving a third party sovereign nation, the US being their declared adversary.

Off the coast of Somalia, an Indian warship reports having blown to smithereens a pirate ship, a pirate mother ship in fact. In the wake of the weekend’s oil tanker capture by pirates, public support would seem to be behind India’s military strike. But what evidence is there that the ship struck was offending anyone? Might it be reasonable to expect rule of law from warships purporting to enforce maritime law?

Whether the Indian warship targeted an authentic pirate ship or not, the strike served its purpose to put everyone on notice that the military means business. That’s state terrorism.

Turbine industry wants young new wife

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Alternative energy ventures, through the efforts of their lobbyists, can’t find the workforce they need in Ohio. While the area boasts one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, many of those workers are from the decimated steel industry. NPR Morning Edition reported yesterday that would-be wind turbine manufacturer Rotek Inc, for example, doesn’t agree that United Steel Workers Union members are right for the job.

Unions assert that the jobs aren’t offering sufficient wages. NPR uncritically countered that “The starting salary with benefits at many wind turbine plants in Ohio can range to $30,000 a year.”

The NPR report left the impression that manufacturers wanted to move into the alternative energy field, but were being thwarted by the unreasonable expectations of US labor. This may be true. But an industry promising new poor jobs is no gift horse. Shouldn’t workers look it in the mouth before entrusting futures, communities and livelihoods to it?

NPR’s Julie Grant summarized the manufacturer objections with, thankfully, a some-people-say type attribution:

“the new companies, the ones already making part for wind turbines, say they don’t want burned out workers with low morale. What they need are workers open to spending a couple of years in training, who can think on their feet, and are excited to be part of the new economy they’ re helping to create.”

The “new economy they’re helping to create?” Would that be the new economy placing the employee as being working poor? What would a radio reporter herself think of a job that requires two years of training, at the employee’s expense, to yield a $30K salary? The workforce in question are already experienced steelworkers. The wind turbine jobs are steel manufacturing jobs. They’re not looking for high tech design positions.

Lobbyist group the Apollo Alliance, which NPR labeled a Clean Energy think tank, suggests the government should subsidize the training period.

So here I believe is the crux of what alternative energy investors are after. We can’t argue that low wages are here to stay. America’s new economy will no longer support the upward middle class American Dream of the Baby Boomers. So factory workers are going to work for half the pay, if they want work at all. But do they need to be trained to do it?

The wind turbine manufacturing industry is suggesting that its labor force needs two years of training, paid for by the US taxpayer. Does that make sense to you? You get the bill, the workers get subsistence wages, and the factory owners get free labor. For two years. Likely employees are not going to stick around for the promise of $30K/yr, so the two year transitions will last as long as the government subsidies allow.

Industrialists are always looking for low wage workers, even slave labor, when they can.

NPR cited the example of Rotek Inc. “Rotek one of 75 companies here that have started making parts for wind turbines.” The report mentions an $80 million investment, but implies that Rotek is a startup that requires subsidies, tax credits and willing partner-employees. NPR didn’t mention that Rotek is a subsidiary of Rothe Erde, of Dortmund, Germany ($15.3 billion, 55,000 employees), which is a subsidiary of the ThyssenKrupp Group, Essen, Germany ($68.7 billion, 191,000 employees) of Krupp infamy. Founder Alfred Krupp was tried in Nuremberg for using concentration camp labor in his factories during the war, some of them even prisoners of war.

Krupp was the chief architect of the Nazi armaments machine. Hitler even passed a law which established the Krupp family as a monopolist dynasty immune from inheritance tax. After Krupp’s conviction, a New York Banker succeeded in lobbying for a pardon for Alfred Krupp, and reversing the sentence that his industrial holdings be forfeited.

Colo. Springs celebrates underage vets

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS- The average age of a uniformed participant in this year’s Veteran’s Day Parade was underage! The high school Junior ROTCs, the Young Marines, the Devil Pups, and the scouts, pulled the age downward against the ever diminishing number of retired combat vets. I think the Hussar-clad HS marching bands brought the mean down too.

While officially the youthful paraders were there to cheer the old vets, it’s hard to imagine the cries of “thank you” were not intended for the ears of those in attendance who were still part of the military. Actually a large number of those involved in the Veteran’s Day Parade are active duty, when not on deployment.

Belonging to a pro-militant fan club such as the Colorado Springs Young Marines does not make you a soldier, nor I should hope a soldier-to-be. But their recruits are already veterans of US militarism and the warrior indoctrination process.

The Young Marines are sponsored by the Marine Corps, a rather audacious recruiting beachhead considering Colorado Springs is an Army and Air Force town. Note: the Marines have no JROTC program here, and the fewest nationwide. What does that say about the age they target?

Not to be outdone by the Young Marines, the Colorado Springs Youth Marine Club goes by the name DEVIL PUPS, although it offers its conscripts the chance to “learn code of conduct from Godly Veterans.”

Note the better fitting uniform and helmet, sized for infants. The Devil Pups are affiliated with a Camp Pendleton Devil Pups Inc. Though They claim to be neither a mini-boot-camp, nor a para-military outfit, the Devil Pups require that children “must pass a Physical Fitness Test, cannot be on any type of medication for any reason, [and] cannot have asthma (no exceptions).”

Do you doubt the Boy Scouts are a para-military organization? These scoutmasters don’t. STILL SERVING THROUGH SCOUTING read one banner. Another read RETURNING TO THE VALUES SCOUTING NEVER LEFT. Were those the values of Kit Carson to which you’re alluding?

Here are elementary school students riding on a float sponsored by the Globe Charter School. They hold posters celebrating the four branches of the military, plus the National Guard and the Coast Guard.

Rampart High School’s marching band, the “Rampart Regiment” costumed in deaths-head Hessian uniforms.

Our land-locked state also has a JROTC for students interested in the Navy. Three out of the four Colorado high schools enrolled in the Navy program are in Colorado Springs. They are Mesa Ridge, Wasson and Widefield. Oddly, none of Colorado’s 21 Army JROTC high school programs are in COS. The Air Force has five of seven participating high schools: Harrison, William Mitchell, Air Academy, Falcon and Sand Creek.

The parade of vintage cars provides a suitable reminder that all modern wars, post WWI, like these models, have been fought over the resource needed to fuel them.

Unafraid to make that point directly, the Military Vehicle Collectors Club solicits donations to KEEP ‘EM ROLLING.

This 40s staff car ferried former Waves who served the Navy in WWII. Resembling what most of us expect from a parade for honored veterans.

When imperialists talk to sheep of ‘Self Determination’

Posted on November 7, 2008 by Tony Logan

sheep at election “Nor does it change the right to self- determination fundamental to our relationship with all of our Overseas Territories” -Gillian Merron, British Foreign Minister, on behalf of British Labor Party Prime Minister. Govt agrees new constitution for Falklands

Baah, baah, baah…. You see, there are close to 600,000 sheep on these some 778 islands off the coast of Argentina called Las Malvinas. And less than 3,000 people there, most of them connected to the British military in some way or another (like with the sheepherders’ importation there to help justify British colonial occupation of these foreign islands).

Sweet Gillian blathers on about ‘self determination’ which has become code word these days, for colonialist imperialist control over other peoples affairs. And she does it out of the same breath while talking about ‘Overseas Territory’… CUTE! You have to admire such clever abilities at double talk like this!

Now that Barack Obama is in in the US White House look for the US government to probably be borrowing more of this rather pathetic vocabulary from the degenerative British Labor Poli-class, that Prime Minster Gordon Brown and his team use. ‘Humanitarian’ imperialism is back in style once again! Oh, Whoopee!!! (Do sheep eat carrots like donkeys, I wonder?)

(PS …couldn’t find a sheep picture from the land where sheep outnumber people 20,000 to 1, and not just 3-1 like the words say on the pic…. Sorry. But sheep are sheep in whatever numbers. Baaa…..)

Scary negro seen approaching the White House. Details at 11 on Fox News.

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Thomas Mc

"When I hear `Republican’ these days, the words that comes to my mind are: arrogance, ignorance, and just plain dumbness. Religious fundamentalists have become the bedrock of the Bush presidency. Today, 44-50% of Republican voters call themselves born-again Christian fundamentalists who believe every word of the Bible is true. Their most urgent foreign policy goal is to recreate Biblical Israel so their Messiah can return and destroy the planet. " —Eric Margolis

The Sarah Palin Chronicles: McCain campaign insider called Sarah and Todd “Wasilla Hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus coast to coast”, and another said that she didn’t even know Africa was a continent, not a country, and couldn’t even name all three countries in North America.

mKKKain supporters burn black church in retaliation for Obama win.

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Nov 6 notes, thomasmc.com.

Pope says, ‘Piss in the jar, Please.’

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Tony Logan

piss christ New scientific ‘advances’ are being made by God these days! The Pope has just ordered that all priest applicants must now pass psycho-illogical profiling tests! The BBC reports that wannabe Priests to face ‘sex drive tests’ What next? Peeing in the cup? Lie detector tests for archbishops of the Liberation Theology category?

If they take out all the pedophile, gay, and heterosexual masturbating men that apply (apparently there was no hair openly growing in the palms of these men’s hands making more intensive testing necessary), they will have to allow lesbian nuns into the priesthood, and that would certainly change the nature of the Catholic Church all for the better…. but still?

Plus, this move encourages the Marine Corps to start doing these tests on their ever so normal American youth recruits. Then we would only have nice young normal men torturing and shouting ‘KILL! KILL! KILL!’ This seriously shows the dangerous wave of communism that is moving like a tsunami towards our Atlantic Coast from Rome by way of Barack Obama. I am now more likely to vote for John McCain. Also to mention that I had a wet dream just last night about Sarah! She was whipping America!

By the way… That picture above is an art work that shows Jesus Christ crucified on a cross in a jar of urine, which I find very personally offending. See how bad these communist artists can get? John McCain is the type of leader than can bomb the beJezus out of these American communist art centers, and YES, even those abroad. He’s for real change! And I think that he could work quite well alongside The Pope to help make the universe a much safer place and help reunite the EpiscoPalin Church back with the Catholic.

Election canvassing trick or treat?

Posted on October 14, 2008 by Eric Verlo

In our neighborhood, we don’t have to think twice about opening our front door. Most days we leave it open. On the rare occasion that someone comes by, it’s a neighbor or a delivery man. At the extreme it might be a Jehovah’s Witness or small urban youth on a candy drive. So we found ourselves challenged this weekend at the sight of a grown black male in threatening urban attire on our doorstep at dusk. Behind him, a middle-aged white woman stood like a parent escorting a trick-or-treater. Much as I would have liked to know what their visit was about, we didn’t open the door.

I can admit I came late to the decision process, but I wouldn’t have advised any different. We have an African-American neighbor, but otherwise everyone outside in our neighborhood is white and dressed appropriate to what they are doing. This visitor wasn’t suitably dressed to deliver a pizza. Who had time to divine whether he had along a parole officer or a hostage? Answer the door? Not by the hair of our chiny-chin chins. Doesn’t that adage look very strange after all these years? See how far we’ve come.

I came on the scene after the third or fourth time our dark visitor rapped on the door. The decision already made to decline this particular solicitation, I listened as he tried to stuff some literature under our storm door before he walked back to a car. Only when I heard a motor start did I look to see a sporty black Infiniti pulling out of our driveway. When the coast was clear, I retrieved what he’d left under our door, finding two brochures promoting Barack Obama for president. This of course left me completely intrigued, and growing more so as the opportunity escaped to catch up with that car to ask what it was they had wanted.

I would not have been eager to explain our racist timidity, nor I suppose did I want to be faced with having to decline a solicitation for a campaign contribution. I would have had no qualms asking what the gentleman hoped to project with the knit cap and jacket getup. Was he armed too?

Our address isn’t listed as being Democrat, or even possibly receptive I think, so were they attracted by our yard sign?

We have an Obama sign on our lawn, entirely out of desire to show solidarity with the too few Progressives in our neighborhood, as well to encourage the election enthusiasm of our kids. The sign may have been the only reason our would-be canvassers picked our house. In these parts, Obama signs are few and far enough between that election canvassing requires a car.

It turns out the literature our visitors left was generic information about how to use mail-in ballots, and something else equally insignificant to voters presumably already in their camp. This afternoon I’m going to check with the regional Obama headquarters to ask after what we missed.

Really, what might have been their thinking? We’re not deterred about supporting a black candidate (Cynthia McKinney!), but was that an inadvertent aim? The racial divide has certainly come to the forefront of our minds. Now I’m hearing it formalized on the news as “the Bradley Effect.” The tendency of voters to say they will vote for a non-white California governor when later they will change their mind. Those media bastards! It’s really the corporate media auto-suggestion of a so-called effect that we have to worry about. And strange twilight dissonance canvassers.

Naturally my thoughts immediately run to Rovean schemes of bogeyman Obama surrogates sent into suburban neighborhoods to spook the white folk. Is that improbably despicable?

Do Americans want a president in the White House who they would not even be comfortable to see at their front door? I’m sure we can all open our door to a half-black lawyer in a cashmere coat. Some may need to hold out until they recognize the elaborate entourage that marks a dignitary. But such a distinguished visitor would be an honor for even the whitest cracker.

These days I have a feeling that just a uniform from a bonded company is the authorization an African-American male needs to be appreciated for his expertise in your hour of need. And that’s a far cry from wearing a dark knit cap accompanied by his social service officer.

I mentioned that our African American visitor knocked several times to try to get our attention, but we had neither television nor reading light visible. I’m not sure our visitor had any telltale indication we were home. It’s possible of course that nobody in our part of town was showing receptivity on his round. This persistence, loud knocks across our quiet dark house, was the incongruous element I could not reconcile with a friendly campaign call. Hence my suspicion that somebody was playing Big Bad Wolf.

The Law of the Jungle

Posted on October 12, 2008 by Tony Logan

THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE

Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God.

In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages.

Now, as far as the countries is concerned, there are differences between those with a better climate and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; the ones mastering technology, having greater development and handling unlimited media resources and those who, on the contrary, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between the rich and the poor nations.

It’s the law of the jungle.

There are no differences between ethnic groups, however, when it comes to the mental faculties of the human being. This has been thoroughly proven by science. The present society is not the natural way in which human life evolved, but rather a creation of the mentally developed man without which his life would be inconceivable. Therefore, what is at stake is whether the human being will be able to survive the privilege of having a creative mind.

The developed capitalist system, epitomized by the country with a privileged nature where the European white man brought his ideas, dreams and ambitions, is today in a crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis happening once in a number of years; not even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s but the worst of all crises since the world started to pursue this growth and development model.

The current crisis of the developed capitalist system is taking place when the empire is about to change leadership in the elections to be held in twenty-five days; it was all that was left to see.

The candidate of the two main parties that will say the last word in these elections are trying to persuade the bewildered voters –many of whom have never cared to cast a vote— that as candidates to the presidency they can secure the wellbeing and consumerism of what they describe as a people of middle class only, even though they are not planning to introduce any real changes to what they consider the most perfect economic system the world has ever known. The same world that, in their respective minds, is less important than the happiness of over three hundred million people who account for less than five percent of the world population. The fate of the remaining ninety-five percent of human beings, peace and war, the fit or unfit-for-breathing air, will highly depend on the decisions of the administrative leader of the empire, whether or not that constitutional position has any power at a time of nuclear weapons and space shields moved by computers in circumstances where every second counts and when ethical principles keep loosing their value. Still, the more or less nefarious role of the President of that country cannot be overlooked.

Racism is deeply-rooted in the United States where the mind of millions of people can hardly reconcile with the notion that a black man, with his wife and children could live in the White House, which is precisely called White.

It’s a miracle that the Democratic candidate has not met the same destiny as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and others who only a few decades ago dreamed of justice and equality. He is in the habit of looking at his adversary with serenity and of smiling at the dialectic predicament of an opponent gazing into space.

The Republican candidate, on the other hand, who likes to enhance his reputation as a belligerent man, was one of the worst students in his class at West Point. He has confessed that he did not know any Mathematics; it can thus be assumed that he knew less of the complicated economic science.

The truth is his adversary surpasses him in cleverness and composure.

Something McCain has aplenty is age, and his health condition is not safe.

I am bringing up these data to indicate that eventually –if anything went wrong with the candidate’s health, in case he is elected— the lady of the riffle, the inexperienced former governor of Alaska could become President of the United States. It can be noticed that she does not know a thing.

Meditating on the current US public debt –$10,266 trillions— that President Bush is laying on the shoulders of the new generations in that country, I took to calculating how long it would take a man to count the debt that he has doubled in eight years.

A man working eight hours a day, without missing a second, and counting one hundred one-dollar bills per minute, during 300 days in the year, would need 710 billion years to count that amount of money.

I could not find a more graphic way to describe the volume of money that is practically mentioned every day now.

In order to avoid a general state of panic, the US administration has declared that it will secure deposits that do not exceed 250 thousand dollars. It will be managing banks and such funds as Lenin would never have thought of counting with an abacus.

We might be wondering about the contribution of Bush’s administration to Socialism. But, let’s not entertain any illusions. Once the banking operations go back to normal, the imperialists will return the banks to the private business as some other countries in this hemisphere have already done. The peoples always foot the bill.

Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on selfishness and on man’s instincts.

The only choice left to human society is to overcome this contradiction; otherwise it would not be able to survive.

At this time, the ocean of money being poured into the world finances by the central banks of the developed capitalist countries is dealing a hard blow to the Stock Exchanges of the countries which resort to these institutions in an effort to beat their economic underdevelopment. Cuba has no Stock Exchange. We shall certainly find more rational and more socialist ways of financing our development.

The current crisis and the brutal measures of the US administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of the national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for basic export commodities and more unequal exchange. But, they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth, a greater conscience, more rebelliousness and more revolutions.

We shall see how the crisis develops and what happens in the United States in twenty-five days.

Fidel Castro Ruz
October 11, 2008 6:15 p.m.

Greg Palast suggests election theft theft

Posted on October 9, 2008 by NMT

Steal back your vote One fifth of all Colorado voters have already been purged from the rolls. The Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson who accomplished this now heads the US Elections Assistance Commission where she purged the report which examined voter fraud.

But why be discouraged by GOP election fixing? Greg Palast has accompanied his upcoming Rollingstone expose with a comic book STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE.

1. Don’t mail in your ballot. 2. Vote early. 3. Register and re-register.
4. Do not accept a Provisional Ballot. 5. Assist voters in swing states.
6. Go to the polls with friends. 7. Prepare for: No Vote Left Behind!

Greg Palast explains:

DON’T DON’T DON’T MAIL IN YOUR BALLOT
For those of you who mailed in your ballot, please tell me, what happened to it? You don’t know, do you? I can tell you that officially, three-fourths of a million absentee ballots were never counted last time, on the weakest of technical excuses. And you won’t even know it. Furthermore, tens of thousands of ballots are not mailed out to voters in time to return them—in which case you’re out of luck. In most states, new voters must now include a photocopy of your ID. Which is, like, nuts. Every time I hear of a voter going “absentee” to avoid computer screens, I want to “go postal” myself.

VOTE EARLY … VERY EARLY
Every state now lets voters cast ballots in designated polling stations and at county offices in the weeks before Election Day. Do it. Don’t wait until Election Day to find out you have the wrong ID, your registration’s “inactive,” or you’re on a challenge list. By Election Day, there’s little to do but hold up the line.

REGISTER AND REGISTER AND REGISTER
Think you’re registered to vote? Think again. With all this purg’n going on, you could be x’d out and you won’t know it. Check online at http://www.votersunite.org/info/RegInfo.asp. Then register your girlfriend, your wife, your mailman and your mommy. Contact the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Rock the Vote, and your local party organization, and commit to a couple of days of door-to-door registration, especially in minority neighborhoods or at social service agency offices. And if you’ve served the time, you can sign: in almost every state, ex-cons can vote.

VOTE UNCONDITIONALLY, NOT PROVISIONALLY
In 2008, they’ll be handing out provisional ballots like candy, especially to Hispanic voters. If your right to vote is challenged, don’t accept a provisional ballot that will likely not get counted no matter what the sweet little lady at the table tells you. She won’t decide; partisan sharks will. Demand adjudication from poll judges on the spot; demand a call to the supervisor of elections; or return with acceptable ID if possible. And be a champ: defend the rights of others. If you’ve taken Step 1 above and voted early, you have Election Day free to be a poll watcher. Run into trouble —you’ve been caged or purged or challenged—call Election Protection at 1-(866) OUR-VOTE. Then challenge the challengers, the weird guys with Blackberrys containing lists of “suspect” voters. Be firm, but no biting.

OCCUPY OHIO, INVADE NEVADA
The revolution will not be podcast. Let go of that mouse, get out of your PJs and take the resistance door-to-door—to register the vote, to canvass the voters, to get out the vote. Donate time to your union (if you’re not in a union, why not?) or to the troublemakers I’ve already listed here and on our site. This may seem a stupendously unoriginal suggestion, but I know of no other method more effective for confronting the armed and dangerous junta that has seized the White House.

DATE A VOTER
Voting, like bowling and love, should never be done alone. As our sponsor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, says, make a date to ‘Arrive with Five.’ And keep this comic book in your holster – with our 800 numbers and your photo ID in your hand. And Bobby, make sure your ID says, “Robert Kennedy JUNIOR” or your vote is toast.

MAKE THE DEMOCRACY DEMAND: NO VOTE LEFT BEHIND!
I have this crazy fantasy in my head. In it, an election is stolen and the guy who’s wrongly declared the loser stands up in front of the White House and says three magic words: “Count the votes.” You can have all the paper ballots in the world, but if you don’t demand to look at them, publicly, in a recount, you might as well mark them with invisible ink. Democracy requires vigilance The Day After. That’s when you check in at www.stealbackyourvote.org one more time.

Bank steals roof from over the head of a 90 yr old woman who lived in her house for 38 years!

Posted on October 4, 2008 by Tony Logan

How many years do you need to pay a mortgage off in the US to make it go away? When this woman in Ohio first started making payments on her mortgage she was 52 years old, and yet at 90 the banks were stealing her property from her! Outrageous! The story turns even more tragic as the woman now has tried to commit suicide with a gun. Ohio woman, 90, attempts suicide after foreclosure

One wonders just how it might have been, too, if the gun loving nuts had worried more about mortgages and banks instead of their stupid guns? We might have control over the banks and control over gun proliferation both and it would be a better world altogether!

The man in Nebraska who abandoned his 9 kids at the hospital this week was worried about losing his home, too. Kin of 9 abandoned kids say they would’ve helped

What a country we live in today! These types of stories are going to be popping up soon all over the place. No bailout for the people down below at all. Look, too, at the Gulf Coast. The rich have no compassion for the Common People! They seem to think of us as cattle?

Obama said The Ukraine not Ukraine tsk

Posted on October 2, 2008 by Eric Verlo

On the subject of spinning the debates…

Did you hear about Barack Obama’s horrible gaffe in the first debate?! According to public radio, Obama referred to “The Ukraine” instead of the less diminutive “Ukraine” sans-the. PRI’s The World trotted out tsk-tsks from a Ukrainian-accented expert who derided Obama for his un-PC insensitivity to her country’s post-Soviet independence.

Self-respecting nations don’t require “the” to distinguish them apparently. “The” is only for provinces or regions, the expert explained. The Balkins, the Riviera –I can’t remember her examples. Certainly you wouldn’t say The France, unless you were referring to the ocean liner. How undiplomatic for Obama to malign poor proud “Ukrayina.” The would-be statesman [in evident need of more experience] should come visit, suggested the expert. But the report revealed [Instead] Obama was campaigning in Ohio.

Shall we look into what the Ukrainian expert didn’t explain: why English speakers unconsciously need to add “the” before Ukraine? Is it simply because we used to, when Ukraine was a part of Russia, and then a member of the USSR. But we didn’t say the Georgia, or the Belorusse…

Unless we meant THE Republic of Belarus. But that rule applies to every formal title. Then also we say the United States, we say the UK, and we say the People’s Republic of China. We say the Netherlands, but not the Finland, nor the Afghanistan. We do not add THE to any of the -stan states, which was a Russian suffix meaning “land.” Perhaps as we don’t use THE for nations ending in -land either.

We say the Philippines. We say the the Maldives. There seems to be a pattern related to territories in the plural. So it’s nothing to do with client states but rather collected lands.

As usual, I’ve entertained myself before doing the research.

1. The Ukraine
Is the Ukraine (I can’t help but say it that way) a reference to plural regions? Or is there some other idiomatic pattern which governs usage for English-speakers? The answer turned out to be the former.

Apparentely, Ukrayina is named after the Old East Slavic for “border region.” The Territories of Ukraine were the old Russian empire’s western edge. Perhaps this suggests why Ukrainians want to be considered their own land, and not part of someone else’s.

There, the expert is right. A historically geographical name does not suggest a sovereign nation. The Transvaal, the Yukon, the Sahara, the Midlands on England’s border to Scotland. I think it’s interesting that no US state needs a “the,” compared to their previous incarnations as the Dakota Territories, the Louisiana Purchase, etc.

But to complicate the matter, in the Ukrainian language the word means “country.” Doesn’t it go against their own tongue to eliminate the definite article? To refer to either concept, country or border, requires “the.” At least I know it is so in English. Which is my point here.

Since their independence from the USSR the Ukraine has asserted an identity minus “the.” The distinction is for diplomatic papers. So I’m not sure that international conventions govern how foreign languages bend to suit another’s domestic decree. Germany for example is known by as many names as it has neighbors, and none of them is Deutschland.

How appropriate is it to try to mock Obama for speaking the King’s English, aka English?

Isn’t your interest piqued about other places to which a “the” wants to cling to an earlier vestige? The Ivory Coast would seem to have become an effortless Ivory Coast, maybe because the plurality of “coast” is ambiguous.

2. The Sudan
What about the Sudan versus Sudan? We know it through the English colonials as “the Sudan,” but now the post-colonial English-speaking diplomatic class asserts it’s just Sudan. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some Globalization edict for nation-state nomenclature compliance. Is it for the sake of easier alphabetization?

That reminds me of how China lined up the Olympic participants in the 2008 Opening Ceremonies. Nations were ranked based on how many strokes were required in their Chinese character. American commentators thought viewers would probably consider the order nonsensical. How much sense does it make to require state names to conform to an anglo-file system?

As an aside, is the French “Sud” for South, related to the Arabic “Sudan” for “Blacks?” Both that direction from the then-known world. Not so further aside, the French say “Le Sud” in the same way we use “the” to differentiate the destination from the direction.

In any event, in Arabic, the language of the population of Sudan, the country calls itself “al-Sudan.” Post-9/11 westerners know “al” translates to “the.” That would be Sudan with the “the.”

Not Sons of Bitches, Dems are bitches

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Eric Verlo

When the Democrats were the minority they seemed so weak. Now in the Majority they’re positively wimps. Pundits tell us it’s a lack of leadership. Why would the corporate media overlook who’s at the whip? It would seem clear that the corporations writing the legislation, funding the campaigns, and paying for the free lunch, are driving the agenda. The GOP is paid to play the white hats, and when a bill is unpopular, the Dems are pushed forward to play the creeps.

On the proposed bailout ripoff, the Dems were not the sons of bitches, they’re just the bitches. I heard a Dem scare-mongeree explain that in spite of loathing the idea of a solution which benefited the wrong people, the bailout was our only option. “All economists agree we have to do this” he said, ignoring quite a few who have urged the opposite. The interviewer interrupted to announce, this just in, the vote had failed and as a result the DOW had plunged by 700 points. She wanted his response: “Oh. My. God.”

As Bush and his GOP team stand in the shadows, the Democrats are thrust forward to “lead” the support for this criminal legislation. Whether the bill won or lost, either way the Democrats would come out looking like shits.

I’m reminded about how an invading army flushes out defenders still hiding. Send your captives into the buildings to spring the booby-traps. Make them open the doors to draw the fire. Among thugs in prison the dirty work is done by the bitches.

Except for Democracy Now, the media won’t report the authentic Democratic efforts to lead. Here’s Dennis Kucinich on the floor of Congress speaking against the bailout and asking: why, why why:

“The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered.

Why aren’t we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren’t we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers’ money?

Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren’t we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess?

Why aren’t we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren’t we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?

“Why aren’t we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren’t we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren’t we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street?

Isn’t it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks?

Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls.”

Michael Moore is more charitable about the Democrats’ actions yesterday. Here’s his update:

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan’s finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here’s what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin’ on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this “financial crisis” reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of “the people.”

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I’d seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That’s what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn’t get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it’s bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That’s exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It’s a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody “lost” anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won’t last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats’ hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people’s money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people’s mortgages to avoid foreclosures — this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like “suggested” when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the “financial crisis” and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It’s over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We’ve bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore

Sympathy for Sarah Palin’s self mockery

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Even with the official CBS transcript cleaned up, the Couric-Palin interview remains a riveting embarrassment. Fortunately online videos have archived poor Sarah Palin in all her Bush-league ignobility, if you can bear it. Don’t the Republicans appear to be unfathomable mockeries of themselves? Yet they elicit sympathy as they are seen being mocked.

If a person says something so irresistibly stupid that a bystander cannot fail to laugh, even if it’s embarrassed laughter, and if a third party characterizes the laughter as mockery, who comes out the winner?

(I once watched someone walk out of the bathroom with a tail of toilet paper sticking from his pants. Wherever he turned people were stifling their laughter, especially as he looked into our faces for what we found so funny. Finally he discovered the toilet paper, and I still ache at the memory of anticipating his next eye contact. I have no question who emerged the loser.)

But let’s resume our previously scheduled laugh track:

1. The Interview

COURIC: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada. […]

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our — our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia —

The entire world has got to be referencing Miss South Carolina’s famous “US Americans, SUCH AS” essay answer. But these days who can doubt Ms. Upton was plenty qualified to be Miss Teen USA. It seems so long ago now, what was it? Early 2008? Now she could stand in for GOP running mate.

I’ll address the […] in a moment.

So now even some media talking heads are piling on, as if they cannot bear NOT TO call Sarah Palin on her obvious lack of qualification beyond the wading pool. I think the moral outrage is refreshing, and I love watching Wolf Blitzer for example, cling to the party line in the face of a colleague’s truth talking.

But I have to wonder, where were the dissenters when George Dubya was performing his interview follies? Did these now-malcontents think George Dubya was doing just fine? Were his answers making them proud? Was Dumbya’s imbecility just opaque enough that these same pundits could reassure us in good conscience that they thought Bush was the right man for the job?

2. The Debate
For yet other TV news personalities, next week’s Vice-Presidential debate cannot come soon enough. I’m sure their eagerness matches overwhelming public anticipation for Palin’s moose-in-the-headlights face plant. Oh My God is that going to be some Reality Television! It’ll be the Special Olympics, in the Roman Coliseum, costarring the Honorable Senator from Delaware as the lion.

I do not envy Joe Biden as he tries his best to be a kindly Ray Bolger Lion enlisting Dorothy’s help to find his heart. (Do you doubt that’s a task tailored for him?) While everyone knows he’s expected to eat her.

No, I think Senator Biden is going to prove his worth as a politician if he can pull this off. It’s hard enough for a man to play a woman in tennis without being seen as ruthless cad, or worse, a ruthless patronizing cad. You have to lob your serves, declare long balls to be in, spoil your swings, take foolish risks, fall behind in the score, and still rally for the win. Or not. To win.

I’m intending here only to contrast stronger athlete versus weaker, against a duel of experienced versus fish-out-of-league. But certainly sexism is going to be an elephantine domestic hazard for a rich white male, if not likely an imposing statesman chauvinist.

But mostly I do not envy Sarah Palin. She may be stupid. She may be stupid as a pit bull, as her hockey boast turns out to be more than literal. In a dog, Palin’s quality describes tenacity, in a human it distills into temerity. To judge from her interview performances so far, Sarah Palin doesn’t know much. I think it’s also clear, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin knows what she doesn’t know.

Would you have the courage to ascend a stage knowing what Sarah Palin knows? I’d sooner go up against Mohammad Ali.

* […]
Here’s the unexpurgated snippet:

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to caric– I don’t know, you know reporters…

COURIC: Mocked?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.

3. “Mocked”
It was the worst acting I’ve nearly ever witnessed. Sarah Palin didn’t want to be seen accusing reporters of mockery, because a proper victim doesn’t point the finger. Nor could she be seen choosing the precise word which she wanted Couric to interject. So Palin started the word “caricature” but interrupted herself and then waited for her interviewer to finish the sentence.

Now if Couric was genuinely trying to fill in Palin’s phrase, she would have had to suggest “mock” in the present tense. Not “Mocked.”

And if Palin had really intended to use the word “caricature,” she would have had to preface it with something like “paint a caricature” to make sense. Although, should I presume to straighten Palin’s English mis-usage? Maybe she was about to invent the word “caricaturize,” the way I’m self-satisfied with misusage.

I am confident enough, however, to conclude that Couric was holding the “mocked” term at the ready. And Couric was probably plenty embarrassed at the awkwardness Palin displayed in delivering her cue. And to further taint Couric with complicity, it was imperative that “Mocked?” be conjugated in the past tense because it is declarative of a deed done, not timidly alleged.

Mockery has been an Election 2008 keyword ever since the RNC, where Rudy Giuliani led the Republicans in unspoken ridicule of the Democrats. “Community Organizer.” Arms punctuating the term as if it was a question. Pause for laughter. That was mockery, and yet ever since their convention, the inherently accusatory “mock” has been attributed as a perpetration of the Democrats. When Barack Obama criticizes McCain, it’s mockery.

Of course, if Obama so much as debunks an accusation of McCain’s, it’s mockery. But isn’t that due to the simplistic dishonesty of the Republican lie? Someone accuses you of being a Martian, any refutation is going to be a mockery of their intelligence. It’s a brilliant trap.

Probably there are a wonderful variety of words to describe it, but the media is keeping it simple for the American public. One slander fits all: MOCK. Specifically, Dems Mock GOP. I’ve yet to see it the other way around.

4. “Pushback”
Here’s another term that the media has been happy enough to adopt en masse. What does it mean? You tell a lie, you are called on that lie, you PUSH BACK. Tada!

Refutation doesn’t cut it, because you don’t actually make a case to justify your initial lie.

Repudiate fits. So does reject. So does deny. But those words explain a little too much about what you’re doing. If the media reported that the Republicans were standing behind their lie, and rejected what’s on record as contradicting the lie. They wouldn’t get far in the court of public opinion.

And the news reporter’s current function of avoiding having to challenge untruths would become untenable.

PUSHBACK gives the illogical untruth longer legs. It turns the debate into a shoving match, where arguments are treated as having equal weight. Push and push back. Playground verbal exchanges of nonesense. I know you are but what am I?

Gulf Coast poor versus Wall Street RICH

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Tony Logan

Bailouts for the big boys and slander for the poor! What else is new in America? Not a word in the corporate press about the irresponsible criminal investments by the super rich of the banking and insurance companies, but look how they talk about the supposed irresponsibility of those who chose to try to ride the big storm out? And not one iota of examination of why so many people choose to not physically flee these hurricanes that come their way over and over and over each Hurricane Season?

Who gets the public assistance, too? Most of those that choose not to leave storm areas do so because they simply don’t have the savings to just drop everything and run. Whether people run or not who comes to their aid? And who comes to the aid of the rich with their bad investments? It’s two different stories now.

Our hurricane emergency systems seem to have much in common with those of Haiti. You’re on your own, Suckers! ‘Cause the good old government of the USA is way too busy invading and occupying other countries to actually provide people inside our country with the necessary relocation and re-development funds to adequately protect themselves. It’s too busy bailing out the Big Boys. In short, it’s just too busy saving the wolves and killing the sheep. Thank much about you and your family? Not likely.

You can lead a horse to water, but can you keep him from pissing in it?

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO COLLEGE, COLO- I just attended an INDY “Sustainability Movement” event at CC’s Shove Chapel featuring Reverand Richard Cizik, orchestrated to unite Evangelicals and Environmentalists along the “non-wedge” issue of eco-stewardship. The two demographics find themselves traditionally polarized, even in the face of an imminent climate cataclysm. A shared concern for health and survival would seem only rational, but isn’t rationality precisely what divides them?

First of all, kudos to the Independent for bringing the issue before a public audience. But shame on Colorado College for preventing any discourse.

To better understand the disparate perspectives, let’s narrow the comparison using a neutral control group. What’s the difference between someone concerned for the environment, and someone not, regardless of spiritual belief? Would the answer have to do with being educated about the issues? Becoming informed is certainly also limited to people who have the curiosity, and the capacity to acknowledge complexity. NASCAR minds, to pick on an example, may lack the dexterity to absorb personal responsibility in the abstract, or the fertile mind to grow in consciousness.

What’s the difference between Evangelicals and non? Adherents who require literal absolutes, as opposed to figurative nuance? There might also be a differential having to do with personal initiative, because by very definition, evangelicals are followers. The news offered tonight by one of their leaders, the Reverand Richard Cizik, is that Evangelicals are on board the sustainability bandwagon, awaiting to be led. If environmentalists would kindly please befriend them.

My take? Whoa Nelly! There was no mention tonight of accusations of nature-worship idolatry, or signs of the Revelations being welcomed by end-timers. Are Evangelicals setting aside those arguments out of self-interest for their own worldly preservation? I’ve no doubt that could be in their character, but I’d like to hear it from their ambassador. Instead, he stressed that environmental wrongs are now being sold to his flock as a moral issue.

On a side note, could this Evangelical outreach be something else altogether, characteristic of the church’s usual call to witness? Specifically, was this minister’s outreach really aimed at us Environmentalists, to recruit non-believers into a dialog about morality, the pretext of which appear to be on our terms?

These might have been my arguments if Colorado College had allowed public discussion. Instead CC Dean Celeste smarmly declared the presentations to have been a “full meal” and entreated the audience to repair to the much smaller Gates Common Room where private questions could be asked of the speakers. Of course he offered the audience the option of awkwardly juggling a microphone in Shove Chapel versus a convivial exchange of camaraderie over snacks. The net effect was to curtail a public discussion.

Which it can be noted has been the direction many Colorado College symposiums have been taking. The school provides a forum for unquestioned indoctrination. And the voices visiting the campus have become progressively regressive.

You might think there’s nothing to argue about “sustainability.” In fact, the tone of all the speeches was feel-good encouragement. Reverand Cizik praised people willing to go against the grain, though there was not a single dissenter in the crowd.

The program featured Cizik’s homey homily and personal witness about his conversion to Sustainability. His act followed a Jim Hightower pep talk about the positive signs that a grassroots revolution is happening around us in spite of our cynicism. Hightower was preceded by announcements from local charities, assembled under the Sustainability banner. Sustainability is the new Green. Address eco-sensibility and you’re a member.

The best news was that Richard Skorman is opening an Environmental Hardware Store which will sell eco-oriented hardware at cost.

Care N Share was represented, promoting a sustainability concept of redistributing bounty, from abundance to need. They boast a state of the art warehouse system at Powers and Constitution, that’s built according to Green standards, but I think that’s it. How sustainable is it to have affluent people purchase canned goods to fill paper bags to deliver to the warehouse, to be distributed to the poor?

Had critical voices been permitted, would those really have been my questions? No, actually. There are far easier concerns to raise about this wunder-ideal “sustainability.” It’s a new mind-set. It’s a quantum leap into an evolved consciousness. It embraces Capitalism in a warm-fuzzy Jesus way. Is that sustainable? No really?

A friend of mine might have brought up the example of Israel’s Kibutzes. Those were environmentally sustainable communes which taught higher ideals to Israeli youth, and international Jewish youth recruited to support Zionism, while in actuality providing cover for illegal Zionist settlements upon conquered lands. The self-important “sustainability” ideal was warped to turn desert land into oasis, at the cost of the water of others. The Kibutz fad is largely over, and in its place we now have unbridled Zionist Fascism, a religious state where non-Jews are second and third class citizens, and what remains of Palestine is kept under permanent occupation. So that was Zionist “sustainability.”

Before that, who did we see posing in the boots of sustainable agriculture? Why, that be the Nazis, promoting Aryan supremacy and glorifying the equilibrium of the German farmer. We found out where sustainable genetics got us. In America the movement was called Eugenics. Bad enough when it was simply Behavioral Sociology hacks. What happens when religion gets in on the act?

Both the Zionists and the Nazis had God on their side. Now the American Evangelicals want to bring morality into the cause. Reverand Cizik explained that the coming Climate Crisis “will separate the winners from the losers.” I kid you not. We’re at a turning point in history, he warned, where mankind can decide who survives and who will not.

What exactly will be Capitalism’s version of sustainability? The sustainable exploitation of underclasses sounds damn Fascist to me. Doubtless those making the pitch in Shove Chapel know it too. No questions allowed.

The Stop the Foreclosures and Evictions Movement arises

Posted on September 16, 2008 by Tony Logan

Foreclosures People are losing the houses they live in, the jobs they depend on to pay the rents and mortgages, and the retirement pensions they thought secure. Michigan and Florida are especially hit hard, as well as the Gulf Coast areas hit by tropical storms and left half way abandoned by Federal relief agencies. The formation of Michigan’s Coalition to Stop Foreclosures & Evictions is a clear sign of our times, and we shall see coalitions like this one now begin to form in area after area almost everywhere around the US. You can bet on it.

A letter from an American Soldier

Posted on September 7, 2008 by Eric Verlo

I received a well written letter yesterday from an American Soldier. It was addressed to me, but I thought I’d post his arguments for general comment.

Mr. Verlo,

I stumbled upon your website by a pure stroke of accidental misfortune while searching for current news on the Fort Carson Installation.. My wife, my son and I are from Colorado, and I am an American Soldier. I am college educated and studied Middle-Eastern history, and I am well versed as it pertains to Mesopotamia, global-terror and global insurgencies.

I have deployed to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once. In 2003-2004 I served in Al-Fallujah and Ar-Ramadi in the Al-Anbar province, and in 2005-2006 in Tal’afar in the western Ninewah province with the 3d Armored Cavalry from Fort Carson (maybe you heard about the letter that Najim Abdullah wrote to George Bush about my unit?).

I spent seven months in Afghanistan training Afghani Security Forces, and would go back again to either country to serve for one reason only: to support my Soldiers. Although I am career-military, I do not now, nor did I ever support the Bush Administration or the pretenses under which we invaded Iraq. But, unfortunately, our elected officials thrust us into this mess, and we (Americans and American Military alike) are essentially left to deal with it. I am writing to you to comment on a few articles that you have authored, and provide my own opinions and citations.

First, in your article titled: “It’s in the Percentages”, you note that “apparently” 30% of Soldiers don’t have a high school education, 30% are returning with PTSD and 25% percent of their children are considered “special needs”. These are very interesting statistics, yet, you provided no citations. You go on to state that (and I quote): “I find it an absolute nightmare to imagine soldiers in positions of authority, making life and death decisions over others, who don’t know right from wrong, history from high stakes poker, or intelligence from drunken stupor. How do you reason with someone whose only motivation is their next beer?” and “It’s a war crime to subject civilian populations to rule by incompetents”. Again, very interesting. Here are some solid statistics for you, as well as citations. I chose to contrast military service members to college students in this case, but the same could be applied to any demographic (i.e., individuals who were recently laid off nation-wide, or illegal immigrants).

– 40% of college students who come from middle to upper class families engage in binge drinking on a regular (weekly) basis, as opposed to 26% of military personnel who have recently returned from combat tours overseas, where they suffered some sort of physical and/or emotional trauma (ABC news poll, 2007/2008). In addition, over 22,000 service members have called suicide hotlines in an attempt to get help (VA poll, 2008).

– 20% of college students engage in heavy drug use, as opposed to less than 5% of military personnel (ABC News Poll, 2007).

Here’s my favorite one:

3% of all college women report sexual assault at some point in their college career. In 2007, there were 2,212 reported cases of sexual assault on military installations by service members. In a military that exceeds roughly 2,000,000 people, that’s less than 1%.

Second, in your article titled: “Turning out to support fewer Troops”, you allude to Soldiers “riding in on a black cloud”. Hmmm, I’m not quite sure I understand that one. Is this a reference to the environmental damage we do with our vehicles, or the perceived “evil” that we bring with us because we are all, in fact, rapists, murderers and psychopaths?

Third, in your article titled: “Colorado Springs Military Community”, you state that (and I quote) “FIVE MAJOR MILITARY INSTALLATIONS ALREADY AND THE CITY AND COUNTY ARE BROKE”. El Paso County is broke? Since when? I would love to see a citation in reference to this one, because I have “Googled” it to no end and have found nothing that would lead me to believe anything but the contrary. The Colorado Springs Economic Development Corporation reports that: “Colorado Springs has a 3.1 million labor force within an hour radius, a Fast track permitting and planning program (30-60 days), 27 Fortune 500 Companies and a quality of life which is 70% the cost of coastal communities” (CSEDC 2008).

Sir, I have read your opinions on the media (many of which I share with you, by the way), so I would presume that you think this is a fabrication. Here’s the bottom line; the military presence in Colorado (the big, scary war-machine that we are) boosts the economy of the area due to its service members buying cars, houses (and paying taxes on their properties), shopping at local businesses, applying for and receiving loans from local banks, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that if the military left Colorado Springs, the city would continue to thrive, but the economy would noticeably decline anywhere that 30,000 people leave, military or not.

Fourth and final, in your article titled: “On Jan 14 let us not expand Fort Carson”, you state that more military in the area would make (and I quote) “Colorado Springs even more dependent on poor paying jobs, predatory businesses, and skyrocketing social problems. Only developers, car-dealers, pawn shops, strip clubs, liquor stores, social workers, jails and mortuaries benefit from a higher soldier population”. Wow, seriously? These are only issues tied to the influx of more military in the area? So, if 3,000 recently released convicted felons chose Colorado Springs as their new home, it would have less of an impact? Or how about 3,000 illegal immigrants, or 3,000 pregnant teenagers?

Well, let’s go ahead and analyze this a bit further. Developers and car-dealers will benefit from ANY new arrivals to the area, not just military. In reference to pawn shops and strip clubs, the owners of these businesses know exactly what they are doing by placing them outside of military installations. Service members are targeted by these establishments. That’s why they are placed where they are in the community. The same can be said for pay-day loan houses and used car dealerships on Powers and Academy blvd. But if you placed strip clubs next to colleges, would it still be the military that held the higher attendance record? It’s all about business strategy my friend, not the assumption that all military service members are sex-crazed, alcoholic lunatics.

Social workers, jails and mortuaries benefit wherever there are people with problems, criminals and people who have died. I suppose that again, it’s only military who fall into these categories. Ah yes, and our children are even more screwed up than we are. The fact that you said (and I quote): “The rest of us suffer increased crime and their children’s behavioral problems in our schools” vividly displays your utter incompetence and lack of any compassionate notion. You realize that less than 30% of military children who have been separated from a parent experience behavioral issues (USA Today poll, 2008)? The percentage of non-military children who experience behavioral issues as a result of a parent’s incarceration, or divorce, or even domestic abuse is almost twice as high.

Sir, I will be the first to admit that military service members are not perfect. But we are human beings, who are susceptible to the same things that civilians are. We are an easy target, because so many of us are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe problems, after having served in a war that has lost most of it’s public support (and rightly so).

What I have a hard time understanding is why people such as you exercise your freedoms of speech, protest, religion, etc, and then malign the very people who provide, protect and preserve those liberties? I am as anti-Bush as the average American left-wing protestor, but to blame service members for the actions of their elected leadership is immoral. You are essentially grouping us with Nazi’s, which is absolutely ridiculous. The Nazis’ goal was global domination, and they had no clearly defined rule of engagement. They knew that what they were doing was wrong, and did it anyway.

Does the US Military have people who behave in this manner? Absolutely, and they are dealt with within the justice system for their actions. We are in fact “just following orders” with our presence in the Middle-East. As I realize that this was also the defense of Nazi war criminals at Nurnberg, allow me to elaborate. The US military has clearly defined Rules of Engagement, and our greater mission is to stabilize an unstable region, not global control as conspiracy theorists would have everyone believe. Unless you have a solid understanding of counter-terror and counterinsurgency doctrine, you are in no position to presume anything about the US Military in the Middle-East (unless YOU have been there) other than the fact that we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. I’ll give you that one, and take it for myself as well.

Sir, have you ever held a young Iraqi child in your arms, returning him to his parents as they kiss you and your Soldiers’ cheeks, after he had been treated at a US facility because terrorists sodomized him and cut out his tongue? Have you ever looked straight into the eyes of a terrorist, who swore allegiance to Zarqawi and proclaimed himself a “holy warrior”, and seen pure evil? And while your medical personnel treated him for burns (which were sustained when he poured kerosene on a child and his father and attempted to set them on fire publicly, only succeeding to set himself on fire) he spoke perfect English and vowed to remember your name and kill your family? I presume you would view this as our fault, correct?

But here’s the difference between the American Soldier and everyone else: when it is our fault, we acknowledge it, and DO something about it. We help people, good and bad, bottom line. Do bad things happen? Of course. Are all Soldiers and Marines upright citizens? Of course not.. That’s why one Marine out of 30,000 threw a puppy off of a cliff, and four Soldiers out of 121,000 raped a 14-year old girl and killed her family. These actions were inexcusable and tragic, and the individuals in question were/are being dealt with. To generalize every American service member based on these isolated incidents vividly shows your lack of any rational thought.

So in closing, allow me to say that whether you care to acknowledge it or not, it is the MILITARY who grant and preserve liberties and who TRULY make a difference, not politicians, protestors, or half-minded anti-war bloggers. And understand (or don’t) why we are involved in the Global War on Terror, it is because it doesn’t matter whether or not you are white, black, Canadian, American, gay, straight, blind, deaf, or how many anti-Bush websites you manage or protests you attend, there are fundamentalist extremists who want to murder you and your family because you represent western culture.

I want this war to be over so badly that it consumes me at times. I do not want my son to have to see what I have seen as a result of a failed administration. Sir, we are human beings also, and I gladly serve to protect the liberty and freedom of individuals like you who don’t support me at all. So at your next rally, or the next article you write which slanders US service members, take a moment to reflect on your freedoms, and understand who it is that truly grants them. I wish you all continued health and happiness.

Sincerely,

[D.]

Let the Games begin!

Posted on August 7, 2008 by Marie Walden

BEIJING- I’ve run myself ragged over the past five days trying to get a sense of China as she gears up for the Debutante Ball, and so far I have a pocket full of threads awaiting a tapestry. I must say, China is a country of great contrasts. A communist country with in-your-face capitalism everywhere. A landscape of unbelievable beauty made hazy by poisoned and polluted air. Oppressive heat and humidity and noisy throngs of people outside; feng shui, gentle music, and cool crisp air inside.

I’m staying at the Beijing Hilton, temporary home of the United States Olympic Committee. As you can imagine, the level of service is over the top. Since the Bush family’s arrival at the hotel next door, security has been tightened and my perfect oasis is now tainted by the presence of wand-wielding uniformed guards.

Worse still, the trophy wives of important men have invaded, and they are putting the staff through their paces. The upside is that they are fun to watch and secretly mock. Regal lionesses to my happy little mountain goat. Ha!

Today the torch arrives in Beijing. The city is electric. I don’t have a ticket to the Opening Ceremonies — no surprise since they run about $3,000 each. But my friend with Olympic connections tells me that we may meet with some last-minute luck, so I’m dressed and ready to go.

For now, I leave you with some pictures of the mountain goat on location!

Mt Huashan, China trail
Mt Huashan, China meditation
Mt Huashan, China gold locks

Beijing Tiananmen Square One World
Beijing Tiananmen Square One Dream

	LL on Owl City writes lyrics most fo…
	lizzie on The ‘success maker…
	gary cummings on Common Dreams? Or is it censor…
	kennetha on The Stiles Unit of Beaumont
	Cristian on Shlomo Sand and shattering a n…
	Vic Currier on Why should you attend the Denv…
	Vic Currier on Sovereign constitutional oath…
	Robyn KenyaStar Prui… on White Native Americans
	Debra Gill on The Stiles Unit of Beaumont
	Xaldyn on The ‘success maker…

Not My Tribe

The Myth of Middle Ground

Tag Archives: OAS