The Front Yard

Last night I stopped by the creek. (hand held in low light)

I'm traveling for a few days...

S

I wanna be Elected....

How about these little tidbits via Americablog:

(Dem)St. Paul mayor who supported Bush in 2004 was crushed (by another Dem)



The Dem's really had a big day yesterday with convincing governor victories in Virginia, New Jersey and Arnold was handed a serious slap as well in California, with all three of his ballot initiatives losing. Yesterday was a nice start and sets an excellent tone for 2006.


"Intelligent Design" proponents SLAUGHTERED in PA election


americablog


CHETA? You gotta be kidding? From the Blogger formerly known as Bubba:

"Cockfighters also established a political action committee, Citizens for the Humane and Ethical Treatment of Animals, or CHETA, which gave $1,000 each to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas."

Facing South



So does anybody besides me think it's funny that the Intelligent Design people are running around scared to death that the Bird Flu virus will EVOLVE so that it can be transmitted from human to human?

How intelligent is that?

Truth is, Avian Flu cannot be transmitted by humans!

Fear, on the other hand, is incredibly contagious.

Peace,

Steve

Dance, Billy, Dance!

The Illustrated Daily Scribble

Bush was never Elected president.

As we learn more aboutthe Ohio election, we can see that this is the plain truth.

When a recount of ALL the votes cast in Florida in 2000 was completed, Al Gore had won. This does not take into account the obvious manipulations of voter eligibility roles that prevented tens of thousands of rightfully eligible black voters from being allowed, the famous butterfly ballot that took 3000 votes away from Gore, or several other suspicious incidents, all of which manipulated the vote talley in one direction only...For George W. Bush.

As a result of an incorrect talley in Florida, Bush won the election. the most outrageous occurrence of all was the Supreme Court decision by 5-4 vote that said, in essence, that it would be unfair to actually recount the Florida votes.

The Supreme Court stopped us from finding out who Florida voters actually voted for and installed Bush as President.

Now we have the Government Accounting Office report that essentially says the Ohio vote was manipulated in 2004. As a part of the report, there are sworn statements claiming that votes were altered in favor of Bush. There were over 57,000 complaintsof incorrect vote talleys and nearly 100% of those detected went in one direction only...For George Bush!

"...It therefore was no big task for a single programmer to flip vote numbers to give Bush the 118,775 votes."

"These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign."

With several Ohio elected and appointed officials currently indicted or under investigation, it does appear that a little thing like the Law is not much of a deterrent. Millions of dollars have been stolen and a portion of the stolen money was given to the Bush reelection campaign.

It appears that America had better sense than to elect George bush either time!

Now what?

With last night's results handing Bush and company resounding defeats, in spite of their really nasty campaign tactics and huge amounts of money from corporate donors, it appears that enough people wil step forward and cleanse the Whitehouse and Congress. how much damage will be done in the meantime?

Here's the story from the GAO:

GAO Report

courage,

Steve

Hickories from the tub

Folks, I just can't get this shot to come out right. I can't get the yellows to glow like they are back lit in the morning sun. You'll just have to come over and see for yourself.

Presidential Speech

Speech by a candidate for President of the United States:

"For the record: Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the A.C.L.U. But the more important question is why aren't you, sir?

This is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question.

Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for president, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, then, folks, you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago. Everybody knows American isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship.

You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free. I've known my opponent for years. I've been operating under the assumption that the reason he devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong.

My opponent's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. His problem is that he can't sell it. Nobody has ever won an election by talking about what I was just talking about.

This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they're terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment.

We are a nation afraid to go out at night.

We're a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, My opponent is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid... and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

Now that took courage! Don't you agree? There is only one problem...That speech is from a movie...It never happened...And that is what is wrong with America.

Oddly, there was a great presidential debate on TV last night on the West Wing. Too bed we never get real candidates like that. Here's the thread that put me on to the speech above.

dailykos

Courage,



Steve

Beat a Child for Jesus

37% of Americans believe that Aliens have secretly contacted the United States Government.

19% of Americans approve of the job Dick Cheney is doing as Vice President.

40% of Americans believe Astrology is Scientific.

35% of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as President.



More people believe in the public beating of children than approve of Dick Cheney...How can that be?

I thought those were the same people!

If Cheney has lost his child beater base...can the end be any closer?

Peace,

Steve

Poll info thanks to:

bobharris


And in our weird world, we can't get real analysis from the news people so we have to rely on the Tooners. Here's one of the best, Tom Tomorrow, explaining the CIA leaks:

workingforchange

Al Gore

The science is extremely clear: Global warming may not affect the frequency of hurricanes, but it makes the average hurricane stronger, magnifying its destructive power. In the years ahead, there will be more storms like Katrina, unless we change course. Indeed, we have had two more Category 5 storms since Katrina -- including Wilma, which before landfall was the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic.

We know that hurricanes are heat engines that thrive on warm water. We know that heat-trapping gases from our industrial society are warming the oceans. We know that, in the past 30 years, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes globally has almost doubled. It's time to connect the dots:


Last year, the science textbooks had to be rewritten. They used to say, "It's impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic." We had the first one last year, in Brazil. Japan also set an all-time record for typhoons last year: 10. The previous record was seven. This summer, more than 200 cities in the United States broke all-time heat records. Reno, Nev., set a new record with 10 consecutive days above 100 degrees. Tucson, Ariz., tied its all-time record of 39 consecutive days above 100 degrees. New Orleans -- and the surrounding waters of the Gulf -- also hit an all-time high.

This summer, parts of India received record rainfall -- 37 inches fell in Mumbai in 24 hours, killing more than 1,000 people.

The new extremes of wind and rain are part of a larger pattern that also includes rapidly melting glaciers worldwide, increasing desertification, a global extinction crisis, the ravaging of ocean fisheries, and a growing range for disease "vectors" like mosquitoes, ticks and many other carriers of viruses and bacteria harmful to people.

All of these are symptoms of a deeper crisis: the "Category 5" collision between our civilization -- as we currently pursue it -- and the Earth's environment.

The entire speech is well worth your time:

Al Gore

Warrior?

KH writes:

...I have a happy little spider living in my bathroom underneath the sink. She’s been there for awhile now and shows no signs of leaving. What is the life expectancy of a spider anyhow?

I have always assumed a spider lives about one year, but now that I think about it...I don't know. Anybody out there in the Blogosphere got the 411?

I figure it's all about timing. When will the babies best be able to survive and find food in the Darwinian contest? I've seen spider hatchlings in the Fall and Spring, each having its advantages, alternating between dispersal and ready access to prey.

There is one other amazing sight on Fall afternoons in the gorge...Flying spiders!

As the late afternoon light momentarily cracks the shadow within the gorge, spiders fly. They climb to an appropriate launch point and release a long strand of silk with which to sail the air currents. it doesn't matter which way the winds go at the time, sometimes upriver, sometimes down. The spider silks glisten in the sun as the arachnid airforce fly where the wind takes them. Thousands of them float by my field of vision from the rock I like to sit upon on such days. It is a common occurance. Nothing rare about it except for someone to appreciate it.

Much wonder to be observed!


KH also said:

Did ya hear Jimmy Carter on NPR this morning? He was very well spoken. I’m not very familiar with him or his presidency, as he was in office when I was born. But I was impressed by what I would consider his ability to ‘quietly persuade’.

Me too!

James Earl is a good and wonderful man. I glanced at his new book in Borders a day or two ago but put it down in favor of "The Onion"...Must have my satire! ...The mind's most nutritious food group.

Anyway, Jimmy Carter is at the top of my list of great people who could have made a difference...but didn't. Ronald Reagan lied his way into the Whitehouse, and Jimmy Carter let him. That was the turning point in world history...America's descent into fascism.

You folks probably know that I am in constant search for the methods of honest persuasion in the never ending battle against Cognitive Dissonance. I believe very few things, though I suspect many. One thing I do believe with all my being, is that we are at war with the forces of evil within all humans. I don't see it in terms of any supernatural mythology, but merely the choice the human race must make in detemining its future, and ultimately whether it will have one.

Jimmy Carter is an honest man, and he proved that the Untied States government cannot function with just one honest man in power. It was him against the world. Even his own political party worked against him (something Howard Dean is facing today.)

What Carter lacked was the warrior nature required to deal with his enemies. He truly loved them in his Christian heart....and he let them survive. This was terribly wrong, as it turns out. The vermin that were not dealt with have now done away with truth in America. Speak the truth and you will be visciously attacked, as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame found out. People who speak the truth must be revered or America is doomed.

Jimmy Carter is one of those....But he won't save our country. There must be more.

Where are our Warriors?

Courage,

Steve

She shrunk!

She was huge last time I saw her and now she's nice and petite. Bad news is, she'll die soon. I don't know when or how long she's got, but I'll keep watch hoping I can find out.

Ok, she's a spider. Big mamma spider until sometime in the last day or so. She's still hanging upside down in the corner of one of the large windows in the dining room, right next to the silk covered ball of spider eggs. A big Mamma spider lays a lot of eggs. I counted and there's exactly one Brazillian of them.

I'm not much on washing windows, particularly when they sit about twenty feet off the ground, but this is the time of year when I can't stand it any more. The leaves are dropping out of my view of the gorge, hidden for the last six months, and I get to see the cliffs with the freshness caused by absence. Of course they were there all along but I would have had to cut something to see them. Now it's time for Mom Nature to show me her stuff and drop those leaves out of the way. Suddenly, the spots on the glass become significant. That brilliant red soft maple tree on the far side is about the same size as the smudge that lies in direct line of view. Smudge gotta go!

...Time for the window washing contraption I make up out of aluminum poles, a sponge mop, and duct tape. Clean windows are coming...except for one. Folks are generally too polite to ask why we have one dirty window. (Actually, folks who know me marvel that any of them get washed in the first place, let alone all but one.) As it is, I'm not about to abort one Brazillian spider babies. Only about six of them will make it to adulthood anyway.

Fishing in the air can be a tough way to make a living.

And if you're a male spider...Your life ends with being eaten as part of sex. I mean really eaten...

Peace,

Steve

*****

Personally, I get the maddest at people who try to manipulate me with false information. Here is something written by Mike Scanlon, a former aide to Tom Delay, who, like his boss, has now been indicted.


Via Kos:


"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

...Scanlon confessed the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.


"Where's the threat?" Factoid of the day:

Deaths in the United States from Terror during the Clinton and Bush administrations: Less that 3500.

Deaths in the United States from medical mistakes in the last 12 months: Approximately 195,000 (Business Week)

Think we spend 50 times more on health care than terrorism?

At the Tennessee Theater last night:

I looked up the origin of the word "Politics."

"Poly" is from the Greek word meaning "Many"...

"Tics" are a bunch of blood sucking parasites!
Tommy Smothers

Why It's a Big Deal

I can't believe the capacity of the Right wing noise machine!

Tom Delay didn't do anything illegal...just launder money to subvert Texas State Law. All trumped up charges from a partisan prosecutor and judge. Forget, if you will, that most of the other people who worked for Tom's Pac are under indictment, too.

Senator Frist is being investigated for stock fraud but he grandstands, outraged that Harry Reid wants Frist to move forward with the investigation into who manipulated the CIA intelligence and got us into the Iraq War under false pretenses. "Can't trust Harry! any more" said Frist. Harry wants us to find the truth.

Truth? Truth got no place in the Republican world! This is an outrage! I mean take Sccoter Libby for example.

Scooter, Scooter, Scooter! Tried to punish Joe Wilson for telling the truth. Then Lied to a Federal Grand Jury, plain and simple. But no worries, Nobody knows who he is, anyway...Why he's only the Vice President of the United States' right hand man...No biggie, eh? And who'd he lie to protect, anyway? Hmmm.

..Check these quotes compiled by Tom Tomorrow:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
George W. Bush, President
Speech to UN General Assembly
9/12/2002

Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have
George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002

After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas
George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002


The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/4/2002

Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it’s time has run out.
Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Senate Speech
3/7/2003


The rest of some Interesting reading From Tom Tomorrow:


thismodernworld


Peace,

Steve

Funny

Well done, sir. Wish I'd written this:

Berube

Bullies Squall the Loudest!

So my much beloved Tennessee Senator, Bill Frist is all upset with Harry Reid for wanting the same classified information that the Republicans have. Frist doesn't like it when people want him to play fair

...Not the Frist family way, you understand

...just vote like we tell you and shut up. Sure, we're destroying the country, but we're getting rich, rich, rich! That makes it ok, right?

Billy is just a little stressed out what with being caught lying, and investigated for stock violations, and his buddies, Tom and Scooter, being indicted, and the Republican party going down in flames, with the Prez hovering at a 40% approval in this reddest of states.

Billy was all upset and claimed he had been slapped in the face, figuratively speaking, just because he was stone walling a little investigation into Whitehouse treason...Not like it's anything serious. Providing false info to Congress is only an impeachable offense. Not anything like having sex.

Don't be fooled by the dark glasses, anyway...he can see right through them into blind trusts and secret financial shenanigans. Cheney has pair, too! I'm sure you noticed that Halliburton stock bopped right on by Cheney's stock option prices, making the toad in the vice presidential office even more millions that he will never live to spend.


Go Charlie, Go!



The Scribble










Personally, when I find everything to be so incredibly screwed up that I can't make sense of it, I like to read a bible. Try this little test to see how mush you really know...and be sure to check your answers!

Bible lesson for today:

Bible Study

Sorry about all that blood and lice and stuff...bible study ain't for the delicate!

Peace,

Steve

Why do you hang around with that sadist?

"Beats me..." said the masochist.


I keep asking myself things like, "Why aren't Republicans really angry at President Bush?"

I mean, isn't it painfully obvious that they've been lied to and manipulated beyond all reason? Can it be that they really all are in an abusive relationship?...And they like it?

Why do Republicans choose ignorance? They do you know! Here, try this little test just to prove it to yourself:

Ask a Republican this question:

"Who was George W. Bush first business partner?"

I will be shocked if any of you receive the correct answer, which is, of course, Salem Bin Laden, Osama's big brother. Let me know what you hear...I'm curious.

And if anyone questions whether Karl Rove is recovering from his near death experience by indictment, The first business day after his cohort in the Whitehouse was charged...Bush announces the appointment of a crazy guy to the Supreme court.

There goes the right to privacy! That's only for big Corporations anyway, Suckers!

Peace,

Steve


Paul Krugman:

"...the long nightmare won't really be over until journalists ask themselves: what did we know, when did we know it, and why didn't we tell the public?"

Krugman

Aaron McGruder:

"Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the devil and the government is lying about 9/11."

Boondocks will be animated on the Cartoon Network:

Boondocks

Dappled...

The leaves are several weeks behind, but the Fall light is right on schedule. We finally have frost, but only in the low spots. All the things a hard frost is supposed to take care of are still hanging around... Mosquitos, gnats, and most insidious of all, kudzu.

My Carolina cabin is in deep woods. There are several color changes over the seasonal progressions but the color is never grey. With white pine, yellow pine, holly, and, for afew more years at least, Hemlock trees scattered about, there is always green, just more or less depending on the calendar. There's far more green than there should be right now, we're naming tropical storms after Greek letters, and even Republicans are starting to worry about global warming.

When climate change starts trashing gambling casinos and beach houses of the rich and well connected, it may be time to go ballistic. I sense a new round of tax cuts and no bid contracts to ease the pain and suffering of the mega corporations and those who love them. The best way to help the tens of thousands of hurricane homeless is obviously by spending billions with contractors with no real plan on what to do, while at the same time, eliminating the need to pay a living wage to those who desperately need a paying job.

Well away from the coast and mindless of global events, Spiders are enjoying a brief immortallity granted by the absence of coherant weather. They are still doing spidery things along the pine board walls of the cabin. We've stopped the flying squirrels from getting in, but not so the arachnids. I don't really mind the time spent with the broom for the first thirty minutes of each visit, but now the beasties are getting a little too large to share the shower with...they have to go...I sentence them to Death by vacuum cleaner!

The low angle of Fall sunlight gives it no advantage in its attempts at penetrating the canopy of deciduous hangers on. In a few weeks, the season will catch up, and the leaves will lie on the forest floor, but for this cold morning, the light is a patchwork of angled beams. Brilliant illumination here, dark green there. The pileated woodpeckers flash red, now white, now black, as they fly among the tall trunks and pass through the spots of light. It is a light show, unexpected in the harshness of morning light in the forest.

There is metaphor in the forest. The events of this past week reveal themselves in a similar way, as harsh light is shined upon the players and their mean spirited actions in this sordid time in National events. There is momentary brilliant light showing us the cowardly actions of three of the four highest ranking men in the Whitehouse. One is indicted, not for his real crime of treason, but for cowardice...lying...trying to save his own ass from justice... Unindicted so far, For the scurrilous act of attempting to harm the wife of a man who had the gall to stand before the world and call his President a liar.

With the lie exposed, there was no defense...Only the task of political punshment for the man who dared to have personal honor.

"Expose my lie," said the Whitehouse, "...and I will harm your family."

"Let this be a warning to others who would dare stand before the world and speak the truth." said Official A speaking from the shadows.

These were the actions of mobsters committed in the darkness provided by a frightened and cowardly press corp, who scurried about to do the bidding of the Don...

But the season must advance, no matter how delayed. and the parasol will turn its colors and drop to the forest floor, unleashing the sun. There will be brilliance everywhere, and all will be seen by those who have the personal courage to look. This will be a time of challenge, when it comes, for those who have existed in denial, peering only into the darkness and refusing to see the true colors exposed in the brilliance of the dappled patches of truth lying about this nation's forest floor.

Will they have courage, these friends of ours, to look into the light?

We will know very soon.

Peace,

Steve

Evil

I heard this as I was driving "up the mountain" as they say in places where you can drive up to a higher elevation. Frankly there's usually not much of a mountain involved but that's what they say.

I had a complicated day...one of those where a lot of noise was made but nothing actually got done and won't anytime soon. My head was buzzing around in that space between inaction and doing nothing, trying to find a door out of the rabbit hole when this came on the radio. The show was Marketplace on NPR. This is a commentary and it has me really scared or mad or something I can't identify, but if the commentator wanted to scare us all for Halloween, he couldn't have done a better job.

Ultimately I guess my true emotion comes down to a deep sadness that this is portrayed as something good in America...a worthy ideal. How have we come to this?

Listen for yourself:

marketplace


Peace,

Steve

Bible Study

Well, congratulations!

The Jawbone of an ASS has now killed TWO thousand Americans.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? The Ass lied.

Yellowcake uranium? The Ass lied.

Terrorists in Iraq? 9-11 connection? the Asses lied.

And so on, and so on!

Today should be the day we see indicted, a man that you and I pay the salary of, the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. Not for being a coward, necessarily, but for lying...for treason...for crimes against America!

Indicted, not for lying about a sex act between consenting adults...For lying about...

SCREWING America!

Two thousand dead!















I say we go biblical on them...

Here's some fun reading for you. Try quoting this one sometime...Really breaks the ice at parties and church picnics:


Deu 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.


And there's more:

Hey! Stealing a little bit is OK...But no sharp instruments:

Deu 23:25 — When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn.

And for camp sanitation:

Deu 23:13 And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee:


Here's a fun spot for biblical amusement and edification:

blueletterbible.com

Peace,

Steve

And the Blind shall See

I'm a regular reader and fan of the Scribble. Here's a good example of why:





Daily Scribble

Gun Guys Talk Back

Agree or not, it does make for interesting reading. Here's a comment posted to the Gun Guys:



"So could i sue Chevrolet for a drunk driver hitting me? Or maybe sue McDonalds for thier cheese burgers making me fat? How about Phillip Morris for thier cigarettes giving me cancer? How about Rock Star games for making “the children” more violent? Or Capitol records for making violent song lyrics. I could go on for hours but i think you get the picture…"

-gunn men

And he answers:

"What if Chevrolet made a car built and designed to hit pedestrians? Or McDonalds made a burger that was injected with so much fat, it was meant to cause heart attacks? Or Phillip Morris loaded up their cigarettes with so much junk they cause cancer (oh wait, they do, and they are facing class action lawsuits for it).

The gun industry manufactures things that are SPECIFICALLY meant to kill. They sell pain, plain and simple. And yes, if your product is meant to cause pain, you should be in a courtroom, facing a judge and the victims of your products. That’s the difference, and that’s why this law is so wrong."

-Gun Guys

Talking Head

Ah, Sunday morning...The first real chill of Autumn in the air, leaves of every color (including, of all things, green?), deer stands popping up on posted land near piles of corn, catalogues appearing in the mail with size 11 camo neglige models, idiot weathermen talking to idiot Florida commisioners standing out in the middle of the world record tying hurricane saying "we're prepared", talking heads on TV saying the Iraq war is going really well, and Tom Delay and Karl Rove are the poor innocent victims of partisan politics...Yep! It's the season for craziness.

It's amusing how the Rove troubles came about. Near as I can tell, President of the United States in bunkerum, Richard Cheney, while trying to dig up nasty things to say at the United Nations (and more importantly, on American TV) about Saddam Hussein, had the CIA send someone to find out more about the Niger uranium connection. A good Republican, if you will, Joseph Wilson was sent by the CIA operative with knowlege of the situation who happened to be the Mrs. Wilson, also known to CIA insiders as Valerie Plame. Mr. Wilson came back with exactly the opposite findings from what Mr. Cheney wanted him to find. When the Bushistas went ahead and said "Saddam tried to buy Uranium" Mr. Wilson, now being an expert on the subject, went public and made the point that this simply wasn't true, Mr. Cheney is lying. You wanna start a war, you need to tell the truth...

Now, you see... good old Mr. Wilson has become a bad man in the eyes of Karl Rove. It's like football!

(I have worked very hard to come up with a football analogy, folks...You should be proud of me.)

Phil Fulmer, the coach of the University of Tennessee Volunteers, got booed as he entered the stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama Saturday. Alabama was cheating...violating NCAA rules, and, for once, Tennessee was NOT! A player who chose to attend Tennessee after being recruited by Alabama told all kinds of tales about how he was wined and dined, and other things I won't go into in a family blog, and Fulmer passed the info on to the NCAA. He would have been in violation of NCAA rules if he hadn't, actually.

So you see how it works? Alabama cheated and Tennessee is the bad guyfor getting them busted. Alabama gets five years probation for cheating, Fulmer gets booed... and sued, by the way.

Way to go, Alabama fans! Showing your class, eh?

So Cheney put out a bunch of lies to get the Iraq war started. Good old Mr. Wilson pointed out that at least one of them was a lie, and the man in charge of destroying to lives of honest people, Karl Rove and his trusy sidekick, Scooter Libby, did the most chicken shit thing a man can do. They wouldn't face the man, Wilson, himself...they went after his family... attacked Joe Wilson's wife, treasonously exposing her as a CIA operative and ruining her career along with the lives of all the undercover operatives she was coordinating. And I do mean "lives"...at least one of them has been executed.

Now it gets fun!

The "Plays one on TV" President, George Bush, asks Karl is he was involved. Karl looked him in the eye and said "No way, Boss! Going after a man's wife, just to get back at him, is a real chicken shit thing to do. That would be doing something like calling Hillary a lesbian just to try and hurt Bill Clinton...Or saying that John McCain ha a black baby! Really bad, sir. Never do anything like that. Nope, nope, nope!"

"Well, since nobody in my administration had anything to do with outing a clandestine CIA operative...which would be treason... which is a firing offense in my administration, by the way... I guess it's ok to let Ashcroft investigate, then." said the President for photo-ops, George W. Bush.

Then Ashcroft, who may be totally evil but who ain't stoopid, said, "Uh, I recuse myself, on account of this is going to be real bad and is a chicken shit thing to have done and I don't want any of that stuff on me...no way!" And a prosecutor of the "Special" kind was appointed.

Now here is how the Republicans are so much smarter than Democrats.

When President Clinton was being investigated, the Dems let a Republican prosecutor be appointed, just be fair. And when special prosecutor Walsh turned out not to be enough of a partisan Republican, they appointed Ken Star, who spent 64 million dollars more than the Alabam Booster club did, and got Bill to say, "Ok. I did sorta mess around with that woman."

I mean hey, this is SEX I'm talking about...Not something silly, like 2000 soldiers dying in Iraq, or blowing up an entire under cover operation, killing a few of them in the process, or something!

So the Republicans appointed a good Republican to investigate the Republicans.

Well now the amazing part in all this is that the Republicans seemed to have appointed, as their "Special" Prosecutor, the last remaining person in the Republican party with honor. One guy who still has a sense of right and wrong and real duty to one's Nation, and they find him...Not what they wanted at all.

Patrick Fitzgerald is by all accounts, a very honorable man and a damned good prosecutor. The fun's just beginning.

Peace,

Steve

Peace Takes Courage!

2K Why?

Iraq war dead is officially at 1993 as I type this. Our 2000th American military death may have already occurred but will certainly be announced in the next day or so, and no one can give us the real reason why.

Friends, This war is a sordid stain upon the honor of our country.

There is no scenario I have heard of that results in a good outcome. It is simply a matter of which particular group will run the new totalitarian government that will eventually emerge from the slow burn civil war that is killing our children and friends in Iraq.

With no clear plan except to stay this disasterous course, I say it is past time to cut our losses and come home. If we do stay, we must know the true reason Two thousand are dead and more must die!

Now let me ask you this...What are you going to do about it?

Let me know your ideas by email and comment.

Tell all America that it is time...


To join the campaign!

www.freewayblogger.com



Peace takes Courage, Folks!

Steve

Truth

President Bush has hit a new low in this here "Red" state..Those who approve of him have dropped to only 40% of our fair minded citizens. Active disapproval is 57% so there is a clear divide.

Good job, Republicans! 40% of you hang in there no mater what. The Captain is getting ino the lifeboat but you guys are going to stay there and make sure the band keeps playing. But don't worry...We know what your problem is.


You can't think!

Read on:

Pat sent a link to Massimo. All I can say is that he has an intillectually rigorous essay on what we should already know...The real war is not between Religion and Science...It is between Religion and Clear Thought. Here's a snip from a really smart person:

"The fact is, the teaching of critical thinking and understanding of the nature of science are more properly – or at least equally – seen as the domains of philosophy, and require engaging philosophers as well as scientists in the response to fundamentalism. Moreover, as I have tried to argue above, much of the roots of anti-intellectualism and anti-science thinking are to be found in issues of ethics and religion, again the proper domain of philosophy, and areas in which scientists usually find themselves unprepared and uneasy. We need not turn scientists into philosophers, nor can we pretend that the general public be knowledgeable of the depth of scientific and philosophical inquiry. What we can and need to do – urgently – is to promote wide, inter-disciplinary efforts at educating scientists, science educators, and the public at large about the best ways to see the science-society-religion triangle. Nothing short of the future of modern civilization depends on it."

massimo

Quote of the Day:

"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

Thomas Jefferson

When someone wants to discuss politics, religion, or science with me, I try to start with the premise that we can do this only with each of us considering the possibilty that we may be wrong and that the other side may, in fact, be correct. This can sometimes prevent arguments with fundamentalist or "FundXtians" as the Commander calls them. But usually, all folks want to do is win the argument...they don't want to join in the search for the truth...That search for truth is what Science is all about.

Nothing more...Nothing less!

Science is Truth.

Peace,

Steve

Pay Toilet

Grapes and Beans

Clayton Ga.





Quarters go to the local food pantry.

Excellent!

Peace,

S

Private, Keep out?

Lying awake listening to whatever beast was snorfling around the woods below the window at 4 am on a just past full moon night, I was wondering about stuff. Not about the beast, really, there's lots of 'em and it's their home too. I figured out not to throw leftovers in the woods and not to put up birdfeeders, so the bears just pass through instead of hanging out and breaking into things, now. The neighbor killed the state record black bear at the request of the wildlife folks because it had learned about garbage and associated people with food. It's the old adage humans have to learn, "A fed bear is a dead bear."

So I was thinking that wasn't a bear but it was making a fair amount of noise so maybe...Whatever it was it kept on going, and I kept on thinking.

"People are soooo stupid!" I was thinking.

Not all of them, but maybe enough for the forces of darkness to have their way. (Pretty serious stuff, I get to thinking in the night, sometimes.)

There's a big rumble about the next Supreme Court Justice and it seems to be centering on whether She will vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the decision that removed states' ability to pass laws limiting abortion except under terms sugested by the court. The decision was based not on whether abortion was good or bad, leaving that to those involved. It was based on a women's right to privacy.

There is no "Right to Privacy" in the Constitution. I think there should be. I don't have any business knowing anything about your private life except the things that affect me...and back atcha! Why should I know what you and your significant other like to do in the privacy of your bedroom? I mean as long as both of you agree on the field of play and the rules and nobody gets seriously wounded...What do I care?

Why should any government have the ability to stick its nose into your bedroom, or where ever it is that you like to play? Well as long as it IS in private, that is. You go public, chasing each other around naked in front of my kids, well that's different...and hold the noise down, eh?

That is what the Supreme Court debate is actually about... Privacy!

It ain't ROE V Wade! It's your private life that's at stake.

And check this! The U.S. Government...the one supposedly "of, by, and for" the People...can keep secrets. Corporations...can keep secrets...What the Bush appointees are put on the court to do...is to keep you, YOU PERSONALLY, from being able to keep secrets. Your privacy is at stake. Your financial records, your medical records, and the most private decisions in your life that should be made by you, in consultation with your personal and private doctor...THEY don't think you should have that right.

The right to privacy...may be an elusive myth if George W. Bush has his way. But not to worry...You'll have the state religion to help you come to grips with it.

One Nation, Under Pat Robertson's Personal God...and whatever follows after that doesn't count for anything...because you, as a private individual, don't exist anymore...It's all about Corporations now.

I pledge alliegance to the flag, and to the Corporations for which it stands.

You have no right to privacy. It's over!

Peace,

Steve

PV=nRT

Well...I have a quandary on my hands.

You guys probably remember the bomb scare at the school a week or so back. It was concocted by two students to get out of end of period tests and was quite the adventure. It blew out the entire day's classes. Several teachers told the students that tests would probably be rescheduled by one day...one teacher didn't do that. When the students walked into class expecting the review day they had missed because of the bomb scare, they were handed the test instead.

I know that a case can be made that the kids should have been prepared but ask yourself if you would have been? These are sixteen year olds we're talking about. "Cramming" is the way of life. About Half the class seems to have tanked. The student in our home dropped two letter grades from his excellent midterm reports, and he's bummed.

The teacher in question has a history. He is old, sick, and heavily medicated. He has been known to fall asleep in class. The students try not to get noticed because he can get irrational and scream at them. "Flying under the radar" is the term the kids use for surviving his class.

When we discussed the situation with our son, we mentioned going to talk with the teacher as an option, since his grade in this class is very important to his options in the future... he was against us meeting with the teacher. As we continued the discussion with the comment that this man shouldn't be teaching, our son said...

"It's not worth an old man losing his job."

So now what do we do? With all the stress we put on academics and physical fitness, the greater concepts have always been the just treatment of others and compassion, and there it was, back in our faces. End of discussion...

I am stumped now, not having a clear step to take next, but one thing is certain...It is a proud Papa that will be helping with the homework.

Peace,

Steve

*****

And now for some politics:

Keith Olbernmann has my respect. He makes a very strong case for the notion that when George Bush has bad publicity hit the fan, we have a terror alert. Forget about Dick Cheney being investigated for treason and perjury!...There might be a bomb on the New York subway!

This is the very last paragraph in a piece I hope you read:


"But, if merely a reasonable case can be made that any of these juxtapositions of events are more than just coincidences, it underscores the need for questions to be asked in this country - questions about what is prudence, and what is fear-mongering; questions about which is the threat of death by terror, and which is the terror of threat."

Bloggerman

This little time waster is way too much fun!
(Thanks to Robert}

Nosing around

A Man Outstanding In His Field

I had put together a nice long post while sitting at a favorite hangout of mine in Clayton, Georgia. Grapes and Beans is one of those places you can just go, whether you have a reason or not. I rarely look at the menu. When I'm there for lunch I just order the special, get my drink, and sit down. Usually I wouldn't know what it was anyway...It's almost always tasty and novel. This time it was called "Pie", but it was the first time in my life I had ever had pie with artichokes in it. Like I said, "Tasty!"

"G and B" is a wine store deli that sells Crocs. Crocs are those Birkenstock style sandals made of plastic foam that I wish I had thought of myself. I have three pairs of them around the house, though I have never worn a pair out, and somehow I wind up collecting a new color or whatever...Best dog feeding slippers going.

I lost the post I had worked on for a half hour... "Computer ate my homework!"

I know better than to do it the way I did, but I did, and it got me. Great piece! Sorry you missed it.

I do remember sitting at the Bean, staring at the carefully selected stock of vintages along the wall, and wondering if a 1985 Noble Reserve was worth that much money? In some ways. life was so much simpler when I was happy with a "jug" of wine and didn't even know there was such a thing as a "vintage." It is the same old cautionary tale told in the "Garden of Eden" myth... Naked and stupid is not a bad way to hang out in Paradise. I've tried it a few times but it never lasted. Got a taste for good Merlot and there's no going back.

Here's a shot of Grapes and Beans. Stop in when you can...The link is listed over on the right under "Official coffee houses od WhitesCreek Journal:
















One of the major religious holidays in East Tennessee seems to be Holloween. Here's one of the early warning signs:




Peace,

Steve

Dylan

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Bob Dylan


Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Old Orchard

When I read this...well read it yourself:

Old Orchard

(Thanks to Bob in Texas)

Happiness is a warm...

I am fond of saying things like "everyone, and I mean everyone, is FOR gun control...We only differ on where we propose to draw the line."

I am old enough (though still proudly immature!) to remember the pervasive paranoia of the cold war. "Mutually assured nuclear destruction" was supposed to make us feel safer.

Right!

The presidents of antagonistic countries go about their daily routine along with a guy who has a briefcase hancuffed to his arm that contains the "red button" that can essentially destroy life on this planet if pushed." This was supposed to make us safe from nuclear war? If I die, you die. Well on some levels it makes sense...but only in a world populated entirely by the sane.

We still have this button in a briefcase. I was thinking about the presidents that have had the power to destroy the world and how safe I felt with each one's finger on the trigger:

Eisenhower... Very safe
Kennedy... sorta safe but not really
Johnson ... Very safe...
(man was no fool though he did escalate that "fight them over there" thing in the sixties)
Nixon... The world was safe....not so, you personally... a deeply cowardly man
Ford... Nice guy, wasn't around long enough to say
Carter... Totally safe
Reagan... No way safe...asleep at the wheel, surrounded by crazies
Bush one... Safe...to greedy to mess things up
Clinton... Safe...sense of self preservation too highly developed
Bush again... no way safe...Stupid man surrounded by megalomaniacs

I relate arms control to going into a bar. Which bar would you feel safest in?

Guns required?...No guns allowed?

How about a "No Smoking" pub?...A cigar bar?

A Republican Bar?...A Democrat Bar?

I got pulled over by a State trouper Wednesday for speeding...Who me? And as he walked up to my car (passenger side, interestingly) I am sure he could see my "Blue person in a Red State" bumper sticker. Think he felt more...or less safe than if the bumper read "They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers?"

Or how about "Sorry for weaving...I'm reloading!"

Same thing with all forms of weapons. I have a few and I'm a fair shot. I consider a gun a tool for specific uses but I don't feel safer when I consider a room full of people where everyone has the weapon of their choice loaded and handy. I frankly cannot escape the concept that everyone in the room is safest when no one has a weapon.

This comes up because Florida is considering a law that would prevent employers from banning guns in the workplace. Are they crazy?

The most intense of the gun people don't see the problem.

I do!

I draw the line a little closer to the "Well regulated militia" end of things and well back from everyone in the bar having an Uzi.

Peace,

Steve


*****

What? A Gun Guy quote that sounds thoughtful and considerate? What's up with that?
"The Founding Fathers added the right to bear arms to the Constitution to ensure “a well regulated militia.” They didn’t do it to create a cramped, suspicious society in which every citizen keeps every other one in check through the tacit threat of blowing them away."


http://www.gunguys.com/?p=177

Quote of the Day

OK, I'm running errands today and didn't have time to stir you guys up much. But there's some good stuff I want to share. Don't go here if you are one of those painful folks who think the ACLU is evil because they want to take "In God We Trust" off our copper coins. How silly!


Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?

James Madison...Pricipal architect of the First Amemndment on why we have freedom from religion.

Try this for your Reading today...Thoughtful and challenging.

Cafe

Cheers,

Steve

Firewood Time

I'm starting to realize how sore I'm going to be later on. Son Thomas and I cut split and stacked firewood this weekend and the body is a year older and further deteriorated as a result. Why does it feel good and satisfying to be in certain kinds of pain? The ache of a muscle, underused of late, forced into a long day of toil, can only be described by the old saw, "Hurts so Good!"

Sort of like the pain and suffering generated by the Thai meal I whipped up for the family Saturday night that only I could eat. (Loved the leftovers for Sunday lunch, too!) Spicy food "Burns so Good" I can't wait to have more...Hey...It said "Mild" on the side of the curry paste...How was I to know that the Thai scale of hotness starts at "blistering" and goes all the way up to "cremated" ?

Yum!

I finished up and went outside, excitedly, to count the number of meals left in the basil patch before the first frost while the wife cooked herself a veggie burger alternate meal. "Sorry, Dear."

It's not quite cool enough yet for the hot tub on winter setting. I realized, too, that I have been neglecting my water quality duties with the bromine tabs, when I saw the number of tree frogs that had moved into the tub. I decided to crawl in amongst them and had a fine old time chasing them around to eject them before I gave the tub a shock treatment. I figure I do enough for the flora and fauna of the world for them to cut me some slack in the tub. Hot, bubbly, and clear! That's my goal...And as it gets cooler outside, I'll push the temperature all the way up to...

"Hurts so good!"

That's the way, uh huh, uh huh, we like it!



Peace,

Steve


Jay Leno:

President Bush’s top advisor Carl Rove testified before the grand jury for the fourth time this week. Maybe Bush should nominate him for Supreme Court. He’s been in more courtrooms then Harriet Miers now.

The Republicans are having their problems. Karl Rove is testifying as I said for the fourth time next week. Tom Delay was indicted for the second time and Bill Frist is being investigated. For a party that hates trial lawyers they sure do hire a lot of them.

Homeland Security officials are now telling people in New York City to be on the look out for men traveling alone and speaking a foreign language. That’s pretty much the Yankees pitching staff. Isn’t it?

Oil is under $60 a barrel and you know what that means for the American consumer? Nothing.

Bush’s number one choice, Harriet Miers issued a statement today saying that she is getting closer and closer to having an opinion on something.

The former FBI Director Louis Freeh has a new book out. He goes after President Clinton, says that Clinton's closets were full of skeletons. Skeletons? So I guess there were some skinny chicks we didn't know about. It wasn't just chubby interns.

(60 minutes aired Freeh's discredited claim as if it were true, by the way...damned Liberal bias!)
Freeh discredited

"First Lady Laura Bush will appear on an upcoming episode of 'Extreme Makeover.' Tom DeLay will be on 'Cops.'" --


'Commander In Chief' over there on ABC was one of the highest rated shows. It's about the first female president of the United States. Or, as Hillary Clinton calls it, a reality show. Or, as Republicans call it, 'Fear Factor.'-

Sunday Sermon

Ahem....

Welcome Sisters, welcome Brothers, and welcome to all the others, also..All three super kingdoms of life...Howdy!

Today I ask you to consider the question, "What form of life, if any, will replace humans in the future?"

Change is inevitable. Only its form is in question. If the human race is hell bent to destroy the very features of its home planet that keep it alive, as it appears, whatever replaces us must be able to survive in the new ecosystem or lack thereof. Climate change caused by humans will eventually create the evolutionary filter that will remove us from this planet's future. The ratio of scientists, that accept human generated climate change ,to those that don't... is roughly 400 to 1, at a minimum and rising. If you remove the scientists whose research is funded by energy corporations from the count, the ratio becomes ridiculously large.

In fact...The fraction of scientists, who do not accept human generated climate change, is far less than the fraction of people in the general population who are mentally delusional. They may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.

So what now?

In the 20's and 30's of the last century, science and the industrial age converged to create a monumental acceleration in the creation of machinery. The possibility of artificial intelligence dawned on several scientists as a future reality instead of mere fantasy. Science Fiction writings exploded with the gravest self conceived threat to humanity yet...The Robot!

Humans immediately wallowed in a new fear...that of being replaced. Replaced by something human like, but not. Fantasy writers explored the questions of whether a machine could ever have emotions, and, like religious writers, they also explored not just whether humans possessed a "soul" but whether a machine could be produced of such complexity that it too could possess such a thing. If so, Possessing a soul, would such a machine be actually alive? Would it be superior to human kind? Would it have god's favor?

Fears abounded...consolations did not.

Today we have all sorts of artificial intelligence (though the natural kind seems to be waning). I am fond of telling the story of the memory banks in the electronic switching systems I worked on back in the 70's. Sixteen thousand bits of memory were contained in a bank that stood eight feet high, twelve feet wide, and that had its own airconditioning system. Today, my coffeemaker has more processing power than Georgia Tech did then. The complex workings of my digital camera were unthinkable, and the memory it contains in the black box I hold in my hand would have required several city blocks of climate controlled buildings less than thirty five years ago...But, even so...my camera is not very smart! It does exactly what I tell it to...it has no emotion of its own...no "soul."

There are entities that appear to the observer to mimic humans in awareness but these things will not replace us. The real threat is far graver than the cute puppie robot or the fearful battlebot of cartoon. The realization of those things is so far in the future as to be completely discountable. Nothing to be afraid of there. No, we need not fear future evils...Our real enemy is now among us.

We were warned by the great World war II General and Republican President, Dwight David Eisenhower. "Fear the Military Industrial Complex!" he said....And we did not listen!

"Society" is an evolved thing..a function of evolutionary modifications of the human hippocampus, a small cluster of cells in a portion of the brain permits humans to accept group dynamics. If it is damaged, by stroke for instance, the poor human cannot understand societies. The formation of bonds and work groups greater than the individual is impossible. The human can not comprehend political parties, unions, garden clubs, or religion.

Yes, religion can be surgically removed from a human being. Fascinating, eh?

But we do have this group of cells and we do have organizations and societies. We have political parties and nations. We have armies and wars. We used to think we would all die from the ultimate war, and this is still possible. More so now than in the past because of the lack of control of nuclear arms.

War may kill us all but it will not replace us. What will, is a monstrosity of our own creation...No, not a robot...something far worse...something that also has no "soul"...no conscience...only the insatiable primal drive to devour resources and grow. it is the embodiment of greed, A cancer that is the child of humanity known as the "Corporation."

The evils that may be attributed to Corporate greed are among the greatest the world as known. International corporations brought slavery to America. The great German financial and industrial corporations gave rise to

Adolph Hitler. But not only did the German Banks and corporations back Hitler, so did any number of transnational corporations, including those controlled by Prescott Bush...grandfather of the current President. Hitler had promised a "New World Order" to the leaders of these corporations involving these leaders as the prime members of a new world aristocracy. Those who controlled these corporations would control the world and the world would be bent to their service. War, slavery, genocide, all repugnant to the conscience of a moral human, would now simply be tools relegated to the service of transnational corporations, controlled by the aristocracy.

Adolph Hitler is a tragic sidebar in the true ultimate war for human existance. Hitler was permitted to exist as a servant of corporations. He had delusional ideas of just who would serve whom, however, and the ensuing war destroyed the infrastructure of the Trans National corporations as much as it did Hitler himself.

A short period of idealistic revival in America followed the end of World War II, but was quashed by the use of fear generated by the cold war. Corporations created the "Arms Race" out of this fear. They have no conscience...only greed.

Today, the New World Order consists of these same trans-national corporations and those who controll them. They are the energy companies, the arms companies, the mining companies, among others, and the great financial institutions, including those controlling the World Bank.

I could go on. The history is abundant and frightening. What keeps me awake in the night is the realization that these same corporations are nearly complete in their takeover of the American Constitution, the highest law of our country. The law that protects the people of his great nation from the government of this great nation.

Why do I say all this? it is because it has come down to the last moment in the fight to save America. John Roberts was not nominated to the Supreme Court because he was anti-abortion, pro-life, or supported religious teaching in public schools. he was nominated because he was pro-Corporation! John Roberts supports legal language that says...

"A Corporation is a person."

So does Harriet Miers.

Long after the legal drama of Karl Rove's indictment for treason and the naming of George W. Bush as an unindicted co-conspirator has played out...What will remain is the Supreme Court legacy that will give corporations paramount right to become the replacement for humanity.

Consider the possibility that a corporation, owned by foreign investors, will have all the rights of citizenship in the United States of America. More so, in fact, since it would have neither the obligations of a person, nor the built in restraints that make us civilized.

I do not know if humans have a soul. I do know that most of us have a conscience. I also know for a fact, that Corporations have neither.

Courage!

Steve

*****

If you aren't afraid enough already...here's a nice piece to read...

The_History_of_Neo_fascism_in_America


John Dean was Richard Nixon's lawyer and was convicted of conspriracy during Watergate. He has the most reasoned play by play of where we are now with Tom DeLay's indictments. this is a good and balanced read:

White House Council

You go, Girl!

The most blatant act of corruption yet and what happens? The Democrats don't tuck their tails between their legs and whimper off into the dark.

Nancy Pelosi:

"The fact that the Republicans are handmaidens of the special interests is nothing new. The fact that they would shamelessly display their servitude should come as no surprise. But today's extortion is an especially shameful display - a sad day for democracy. The people spoke and the vote was clearly against this bill.

"How long will the Republican caucus condone this behavior? Until the rank-and-file Members break with the culture of corruption, they are all complicit and they all enable. The American people must object."

Read her speech at the press conference. It is short and to the point. Even Republicans are coming around to the deep deep sickness that has control of their party:

www.dailykos.com




Prairie Weather put me on to this one...Robert Bork, yeah, THAT Robert Bork, has a fairlystraight forward take on the Bush nomination of Harriet Miers:


Former federal judge Robert Bork whose nomination to the Supreme Court the Senate rejected in 1987 described the choice of Miers as "a disaster on every level."
"It's a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you're on the court already," Bork said on "The Situation" on MSNBC. "It's kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who've been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years."

I don't know whether to feel good or bad about that..I still think there has been absolutely nothing to convince me that the appointment of the Bush Consigliore is nothing more complex than Karl Rove wanting a "Bought Juror" on the Supreme Court pending his indictment and conviction on treason charges.

Courage,

Steve


Charles Pugsly Fincher:



daily.scribble

Fun with Fear

Thursday...headed in to town and I get a call from Mrs. Creek. This was one of those calls that send giggles rippling through society in all directions. Ripples that turn into waves and even storm surges of chicken little over reaction born of paralyzing paranoia.

"Some students" had heard "some students" talking about bombs "that would make people sick" and "Whammo!" The whole Emergency Management thing kicks into high gear and disrupts everything. So much for the end of term test schedule and any semblence of rationality in the public decision making process.

Rules! We got rules! We know for a fact that not everybody has a rational thought process that would bubble to the fro and say, "Uh...Why don't we go talk to the "some students" and ask them about this before we go flying off the handle into Red Alert? or is it Orange? Anybody remember how that went and where, exactly, did we put the duct tape?

(I would paint this whole thing a bright chickenpoop Yellow, myself)

"They want us to check them out of school," Mrs. Creek said over the phone. So off I go, to pick up the highschool son at wherever they marched them in the rush to evacuate the bowels of Roane County High.

First it was the bleachers at the football field. Bleachers...excellent spot to hide from bombs. Fine, except that it was raining...a much more serious threat than a bomb, this rain.... so the evacuees were marched down the street to the Baptist Church gym for safety. Personally, I do not consider my child particularly "safe" inside a Baptist church and, yes, this was THE Baptist Church that is making the world a safer place by protecting young minds from the poetry of ralph Waldo Emerson. The palpable threat is to my child's critical thought processes whilst incarcerated inside a Baptist Church..."Oh my god!" went the paranoid little man living in my head..."he's been captured by... Baptists!...Oh the Humanity!"

I arrived at the first Kingston police car with the flashing lights Three of Kingston's finest huddled together against the fender. this part of my quest went very smoothly and they sent me to the church gym to rescue my son.

"They told us not to let them go," said the nice lady, when I told her I was there to get my son.

"Has he been arrested?" I asked.

"No, but 'They' told us not to let them go."

Reality set in as I realized...My progeny is being held captive...The Baptists have finally gotten him!

One mother had seen her child inside the gym. he came out and his mom took him by the hand...but he was taken away from her...ordered back into the gymnasium...snatched away by the evil clutches of the offspring of bureaucracy married to fear.

Then the words were uttered! The most feared words ever heard by the inner child of anyone who has attended school in the United States of America, "Go to the Office!" they said..."Go to the Office and you can have your child."

The children had been distributed all over the church by now, and were having a fine time calling each other on their cell phones. their main concern was becoming more and more obvious...Lunch! Sure it was fun for a while but now they're hungry. What's the government going to do about that? Not much, as it turned out. When "Some Students" were overheard talking about a bomb that would make people sick...Logical thought processess demanded that the school cafeteria, known to be a source of the much dreaded "gut bomb", be shut down.

I stood in the atrium where church and school officials scurried about asking each other what was going on and what to do. The church receptionist had tried to send everyone away at first but she was overwhelmed, if not subdued, by the crush of parents waltzing in through the doors she was wishing she had locked. "They sent us here!" the parents all said. "Oh," said the church lady.

"Mr. S______, Mr. S______," said a voice from above...Mr. S______ would be me!

The voice from above said my name again..."Mr. S______"

"Oh, Damn!" said my inner pagan. "The voice from above is calling my name!"

"Hi, Got anything to eat?" said the son of a friend of mine from the balcony.

Looking up I saw several teachers I knew...one of whom is on our blogroll..."It's kind of like when they rounded us up back in the sixties at the Nixon protest march," he said.

Finally, we got to sign a piece of paper and wait some more. The line to sign went pretty slowly. (Some Roane Countians take a long time to make the capital letters at the start of their names.)

My son had called me..."Where are you?" "I don't know...I think I'm in the basement."

I was standing next to a stairwell and, since none of the school people seemed to have a gun, I walked through the door and down the stairs just like I was in charge. Stepping out of the stairway and into the hall, there he was, grinning big as always. His teacher was standing next to him. The teacher leaned over to me and asked in a confidential voice, "Uh, what's going on?"

"the parents are signing the kids out so they can leave." I told him. Not entirely untrue. I smiled at him, he smiled back (knowingly), and my son and I went back into the stairwell. Thinking about how best to make our break, I decided the brazen path was best...back through the gaggle of school and church officials we went with the confident air of the righteous. Into the atrium we strode smiled at everybody and out the door we went.

It was a great escape. Might even make a good movie if I could think of a catchy title. I looked at my son and he looked back at me..."Can we get something to eat?" he said.

Two hours later we were driving back through town after running errands and having a fine meal together at the coffee shop and deli. The woman who had been right behind me in the signing line was just walking out of the church with her son in tow.

"M___ is just getting out of there...You broke me out, didn't you dad?

"Maybe."

OK, So....I've had some fun wiht this but in all, the folks who were in charge really were trying to do a good job. Even the church people were concerned and tried to do everything they could to help. I'm glad the kids could stay inside and out of the rain. The problem is that 4 years after 9-11, we still don't really have a plan or a clue! Confusion was the order of the day, though the teachers and staff did muddle through. I have been told that two students(?) have been arrested...for what, I don't know.

The real problem is that while we still don't have a good plan...we do still have the fear!

Our blogroll teacher was joking about it being "Bush's fault" but in actuality...it really is!



Courage,

Steve

Contradiction

Things have gotten so bad in the U.S. that we now have to have an amendment to an appropriations bill that says "As a Nation, we shouldn't use torture."

Why didn't we just say that the US will adhere to the Geneva Conventions? I guess that coming from the conservative view point, whereby it is good to beat your own children with rods and put them on leashes for restraint, torturing a few prisoners to death for no real reason seems fine. So who can they torture? Anybody George W, Bush says to!

Feel safer now?

Bush threatened to veto the bill, but it was passed on a 90 to 9 vote.

Who were the Pro-Torture votes?

I mean besides Senator Frist and the two nut jobs from Alaska? Anybody know?

Congress is also doing away with the last vestiges of the Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. Can't let things like the public welfare stand in the way of Corporate profits...

Air pollution turns out to be increasing deadly health risks three times more than previously thought. Each increase of 10 micrograms of pollution means an 11% to 17% increase in premature deaths.

But it is OK to kill people if corporations make money. New Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is a big friend to corporate interests. Killing for profit is fine...but what about doctor assisted death?

Forget it! he wants the terminally ill to suffer long and hard before they die. His first actions on the Supreme court have given him away. Why does he care? why does he feel like the government has the right to interfere with your most personal decisions? Why is it, in George Bush's bizarro culture of "life", Ok for a corporation to sicken and cause the premature deaths of millions of Americans, but wrong to ease the dying as a fulfillment of their own desires to stop suffering?

George Bush and all the rest of the nutjob right wingers love torture! They want to see you and your children and your granparents suffer...That's all I can come up with.

Courage!

Steve

Y2K

Quick! Tell us why we went to war in Iraq?

Anyone who said, "So we can fight 'em over there so we won't have to fight 'em here," put on your "I am sooooo gullible" cap and sit in the corner. If you truly believe that, you think Rush Limbaugh tells the truth, Fox news is a reputable news organization, and by the way, I have a nice moldy car with Louisianna liscense plates I want to sell you.

You also believe there is such a thing as "ConservativeThinking"...Duh!

I sorta think it was about the convergence of flawed conservative ideology called the Project for the New American Century, Karl Rove wanting a perpetual war to prop up his incompetent loser President, a few Generals with all sorts of toys they'd never been able to play with, and George Bush wanting to find something in the Middle East he was never, ever able to find in any of his companies...Oil.

Oil companies, by the way, were nearly unanimously opposed to the war. There! I said something nice about oil companies. As it turns out, this part of Bush's war dream has turned into a nightmare. Iraq oil will probably never flow to the United States in any amount capable of justifying the carnage..even if there were such a thing.

Oil won't Flow

After the propaganda for the war turned out to be lies...not just false...Lies!...The reason morphed into removing an evil dictator. Damned sure was, that Saddam, but guess what? There's worse things! (Daddy knew that.)

Under Saddam, the streets were safe. Women had more freedoms in Iraq than in nearly any other Arab country. They wore skirts, walked around in public with their faces uncovered, and for the most part, could marry whomever they chose. With Saddam gone, the race is on to see whether iraq becomes an oppressive Shi'ite theocracy or an oppressive Kurd theocracy...or both, which looks likely.

George W. also strutted around with his package all puffed up saying things like, "Saddam tried to kill my Daddy." Never mentions the little fact that Daddy tried to kill Sadam first, eh?

Never mentions that Saddam tried to smuggle in a couple of hit men to cleanly take out Daddy while Daddy dropped a bunker buster on top of an underground shelter killing over 400 mostly women and children. Conservatives think those children deserved to die, though...Probably would have grown up to be Muslims or something, right Mr. Ashcroft?

Well the war we are fighting for who the hell knows what is going along just peachy!

Soon, we will celebrate the death of the 2000th American warrior in iraq. At least we can feel good about their deaths being for a good cause...Can't we?

Must be my Oldtimers disease acting up, though...I've blocked on exactly why those Americans died...

Tell me again, George....2000 dead....why?


The bumper sticker says...

Y2K

It would be funny if it weren't so damned sad.

Courage,

Steve

Interesting...

We live in interesting times. It's a curse!..But then, it is also, well, interesting.

Poor Congressman DeLay. Spent his entire career nudged up against that line between merely unethical and completely illegal...Now he's squalling like a brat child that just got his hand slapped for stealing his sister's underwear.

"But she had all that nice frilly underwear, and all I had was those ugly white jockeys," we can imagine Tom sniffling. "I didn't steal 'em, they should have been mine in the first place!" Wahhhh...

And then there's Harriet Miers, President Bush's family consigliore, who has been nominated for promotion to SCOTUS. Sound's dirty, doesn't it? Well some folks wonder about a woman who's 60 and has never been married, and maybe doesn't have any frilly underwear either, Tom.

I don't care, but the FundXtians seem to be in serious moral quandry. that would be two of them, counting Condi Rice, who violate the FundXtian prime directive for women..."Serve your husband!"

I say put them in the category with the old testament concubines and extra wives, so well loved by King David and other godly and deserving representatives of FundXtian virtue.

My problem with the Bush SCOTUS appointees is not their religions or persuasions...it is that they are corporate pimps and prostitutes, maybe not even possessing a higher ethical base than even Tom DeLay. Harriet Meirs headed a law firm that repeatedly had to pay millions in fines for "Aiding Fraud".

Reporter David Sirota writes:

...the 9/20/00 Texas Lawyer reported, Miers' firm helped a now-convicted con man "defraud investors and allowed the firm's [bank] account to be used as a 'conduit.'" The suit said "money from investors that went into the firm's trust account was deposited into [the con man's] bank accounts and was used to pay for his 'expensive toys.'"

Harriet was the head of the Law firm, the leader, the "CEO"...got fined 8 million dollars...and this was just one of several instances where fines, around 25 million dollars, were issued to her firm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/miers-led-law-firm-repeat_b_8277.html

So we have to wonder exactly why Bush has nominated two dedicated servants of Corporations and their deeds, evil or otherwise, to the SCOTUS? Add this little jewel to the stew: Harriet Meirs personally dealt with the morass surrounding the disappearance of George Bush's National Guard records...the ones where he got reprimanded for not showing up and was ordered to serve additional time in the guard or go to Viet Nam.

Ms. Miers has earned a reputation for taking care of "dirty laundry". Got busted several times for it, actually. Why does Bush think she ought to be on the Supreme Court?

Washington insider whisperers are naming Dick Cheney and George Bush directly in the illegal and treasonous release of a CIA agent's name, ruining her career and causing the murder of at least one undercover operative...compromising the security of America...for Political dirt. In the next two weeks, Patrick Fitzgerald will issue indictments that could go all the way up to the Presidency.

Sure would be nice for George to have a friendly juror with a long history of being bought and paid for...Most recently, by him!

Like I said...Interesting times!

Peace,

Steve

Supreme Corp.

Odd that my rant today was about Corporate money laundering in politics aiding and abetting the enemies of a free America, and now, Bush nominates a Lawyer with absolutely ZERO judicial experience to be a Supreme Court Justice. Hmmmm...What does she have experience in?

Representing Corporations... legally, of course, unlike Mr. DeLay:



* Ms. Miers had a very distinguished career as a trial litigator, representing such clients as Microsoft, Walt Disney Co. and SunGard Data Systems Inc.

What we believe in:

Finally! Someone says it well...


Core Beliefs of Democrats

Thankyou, Tom

Every once in a while, I watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or read the Editorials in the Knoxville News Sentinel. I do this, not to self inflict a brutish punishment, but in order to understand why people around me believe the goofy things they believe.

Yes, there are some thoughtful editorialists, like Don Williams and Molly Ivans, who will get called names by the writers of letters to the editor...Liberal, being chief among them. Those writers will never, never, never, offer a reasoned and factual rebuttal. Since the right wing can't rebutt Bill Moyers, they scream insults. Conservatives have always been quick to insult and slow to reason, but things have risen to a fever pitch at present.

I have to remind myself, when I see the likes of David Brooks, Bill Krystal, Brit Hume, or Sean Hannity, that the reason they sound batshit crazy is not because they are...not all of them, anyway.

No, the reason Sean Hannity will tell you that George Bush is a good President, the war in Iraq is going just peachy, and that Tom DeLay is a good Congressman...the reason these people will tell you a well chosen lie, and all look smilingly at each other and nod their heads in agreement...is that they all feed at the same pig trough of corporate money.

The reason George W. Bush has no real plan to hold down the cost of gasoline is the same reason that Dick Cheney has no real plan to end the war in Iraq, and it is the same reason that Senator Bill Frist has no plans whatsoever to hold down the cost of medical care for the average person. Bush is deeply indebted to the Saudis for his personal fortune (and we are just beginning to find out what the Carlyle Group is up to), Cheney has greatly increased his personal fortune while in office thanks to the war proffiteering of Halliburton, and Senator Frist has personally driven the cost of Medicare through the roof and eliminated hundreds of million dollars in fines for the family business, HCA.

The reason Tom DeLay's deeds are so evil and wicked is not just that his personal ethics would disgust a Sicilian gangster, it is that America is harmed in a deep and lasting way by his actions.

The concept of "one person, one vote" has been driven from the electoral lexicon by allowing corporate money into elections. It is now, "one dollar, one vote!" The State of Texas passed laws to eliminate corporate money form their state elections. Corporate money is exactly what Tom Delay was so good at delivering for politicians who are willing to bend over and lube up for the interests of corporations.

Wonder why tobacco is still legal? Corporate money given to poiticians.

Wonder why it is legal for one corporation to own all the newspapers and television stations in a major media market? Corporate money given to politicians.

Wonder why it is legal for power companies to belch the very pollutants that have been nailed as causing up to thirty thousand premature deaths a year in the eastern United States?

(...ever also,, wonder why you know so many children with asthma and it didn't used to be that way?)

Corporate money given to politicians.

And wonder why corporate money being given to politicians is legal in the first place? Corporate money being laundered...and given to politicians.

Wonder why Tom DeLay has been indicted and why his crime is such a great and evil thing? Tom DeLay is guilty of funneling millions and millions of dollars into the electoral process in order to make sure that your vote is not well informed...

Corporate dollars aimed at keeping you, the voter, from having any clue as to what evil schemes are afoot.

Informed and thoughtful voters are crucial to the very survival of American Democracy. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison...All of those guys thought so.

Bush, Cheney, DeLay, Hastert, Frist...They don't think you should be informed.

Hannity, Limbaugh, Brooks, O'Reilly...It is the Corporate Media that pays them to think what they think and say what they say. The Knoxville News Sentinel censors its columnists as much as Fox news for exactly the same reason...

Corporate money.

Now make this connection! The Saudis and other Middle Eastern interests have been given the lion's share of all our oil money over the years. You know it's true!

Did you also know that the Saudis alone, own between 7 and 11% of the Corporate interests in America? Osama Bin Laden's family being chief among them...

The Bin Ladens...Set George W. Bush up in his first oil business...Are one of the main financial interests behind the Carlyle Group...the defense industry conglomerate, for which, George H. W. Bush has the front man.

All possible because of Corporate money being allowed to flow to our elected officials.

Thankyou, Mr. DeLay, for your part in ruining America.

Peace,

Steve

*****

Michael Moore has a new letter:

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?...

...

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

Michael Moore

Letter from Michael

Large Blazing Star

Liatris Scariosa, or one of the close variants.

Thanks to all those who sent info. Now get inspired and go take a hike!

Peace,

Steve

Blue in the Yard

Anybody know what this is?




It lives at the edge of the woods and has been blooming for a week or so. I've noticed it for two years now. Stands about two feet high and is actually a little more blue than the picture shows. I'm a moron with PhotoShop or I'd have dressed it up more.

The closest I can come in my search is a Blazing Star, which are shown as pink in my books. They are similar, though.

Here's the WCJ Joke of the day:

"Remember when Republicans, like Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston, when they got in trouble it was for sex scandals? See Tom DeLay is in trouble for money. Or as Republicans would call it -- this is a return to traditional values." --Jay Leno

And my favorite Internet game of the moment?

"Catch a Conservative Lying"

Yeah, I know...Ain't that hard, is it? But now you have the proof!

Here's a great resource. Want to see a list of lies by particular conservative, like say Dick Cheney stating that he did not have relations with that Halliburton Stock and the proof he was lying?

This is really fun!

claim-vs-fact

Enjoy,

Steve