Kate/A/blog

Proof

2012-01-21T08:05:00.002-06:00

All black folks can sing. (Not really, I have a grandchild with a voice that will make babies cry, dogs howl, and empty out a room.)

On the flip side is Herman, singing Imagine.

But leave it to John Ashcroft to pen and sing his own "Let the Eagle Soar."

We're all rock stars now.

My Brother

2011-11-29T07:19:00.001-06:00

Joseph 12/15/45 - 11/18/11

To Get It

2011-11-14T08:18:00.002-06:00

Herman Cain latest accuser, Sharon Bialek, said Herman groped her and made a sexual suggestion; when she told him no, he stopped. That is not "harrassment" lady, that's a lewd pass. Most females have been there done that. Most of us don't make a case out of it.

Cain's wife says: “You hear the graphic allegations and we know that would have been something that’s totally disrespectful of her as a woman,” says Gloria Cain. “And I know the type of person he is. He totally respects women.”

Well, Cain may totally respect some women, but he's a typical man if he has ever made a lewd pass. Hillary would say Blowjob Bill totally respects women too, but does his philandering history support that?

Sadly, in the '80s and '90s I saw too many women sleep their way to the top. I didn't want to believe it - but they did. And most were not that physically attractive so I can only conclude their talents were elsewhere. It was the women under them who did the work they put their name to. There were a lot of brilliant secretaries. Of course, political correctness will keep male executives from publicly discussing the women who "spread it to get it" up the career ladder. Good news is such women are the first to go during cutbacks or downsizing (unless they have good video).

The least we can be grateful for, considering current sexual mores, is that Cain's targets were adult females.

Here Come the Mummies

2011-10-31T08:08:00.001-05:00

Believe

Thrills

2011-10-21T22:22:00.004-05:00

OccupyWallStreet. What will eating, sleeping, defecating/urinating, sex in sleeping bags and trashing a public park accomplish? Catching a glimpse of Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon?

Do folks wonder which Wall Street stocks Moore and Sarandon are invested in? All their money in tax-free municipal bonds? They have no investments in Big Banks?

Remember in 2005 when author Peter Schweizer published the tax return for Michael "I don't own a single share of stock" Moore's foundation, which held stock in Halliburton, Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Ford, General Electric, Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, and numerous other evil capitalist corporations. Why do you think I harp so often on the wealthy and their "foundations"? Places to hide their money and hypocrisy.

Where OWS should be protesting is in D.C. Even the Tea Party folks had enough sense to protest against bailouts and the health care bill in D.C. The WS protests don't seem to be cutting into the flow of Wall Street and Big Bank money to Obama's next campaign (Goldman Sachs investment bank top donor to BHO last time around). Wall Street knows their man in the big house is jiving the Occupiers.

Just heard OWS protested the Chamber of Commerce in D.C. Should I put on my Vee mask and help kill business?

I saw Harry Belafonte a few days ago, giving his 84-year-old opinions. I wonder sometimes why so many folks seem to be stuck in the 1960s. Belafonte said he is heartened by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he sees as "connected to the Arab Spring uprisings." What? Connected to bloody confrontations as in Libya and Syria, or Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen? That Arab spring uprising?

Do Americans want to drag a president from a spider hole and hang him or beat him to death? Then shoot their weapons into the sky and cheer about freedom and democracy, and hand power I suppose to men and woman they admire, like Moore and Sarandon?

On OWS page they say "We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent."

That is pure b.s.

I've been around too long and know that most everyone losing their homes were living beyond their means or living large because they could, and have done so for years, and it catches up doesn't it. The only folks I know who are forced to choose between rent or food are the hoochies here in the hood who sell their food benefits to buy a new outfit or use the rent money to get their hair and nails done. Or, as one family member of mine, used part of her rent money to buy Paula Deen cookware. She also complains she can't run to the doctor every week because the $20 copay is too much. There's uncle Buck who claims his emphysema is from air pollution (not his 40-year 4 pack a day Marlboro habit). And cousin Linda's bad teeth are due to dental care being too expensive (not her crack habit).

Doesn't most everyone think they work long hours for too little pay? Except maybe Michael Moore and Susan, etc.

Some of the "stories" on the OWS site say things such as "I'm a single mom of 3 making $800 a month, helping support my sister and her 3 kids, thankful for Ramen noodles, and haven't bought a pair of shoes in 2 years."

Well, join a big human club hon. The hard-luck stories we could tell you ....

We have worked some real godawful jobs for low pay - because we had to at the time. So what. For a long time I swallowed the sob stories, even had my own, but doesn't work for me anymore. What's that old phrase, can't shit a bullshitter, or something like that.

Six kids between the lady above and her sister, and where's daddy's contribution? Guess what, many folks live on Ramen to put themselves through college or save seed money to do something. I haven't bought a pair of shoes in years either, I like old shoes. My dad used to say - I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

Your shoes, your income, your sister, your pack of kids, your noodles - are not my responsibility or the government, although I'm sure celebrities and Big Daddy helped you get to where you're at.

My youngest daughter is 31, had her first baby this year. She waited. She waited until she had a college degree, waited until she married, waited until she had a good job, waited until she could buy a home. Have you folks ever waited for anything other than someone to take care of your past and present mess, and give you a future?

I've heard all my life that the US is going to fall in the same manner as the Roman empire, but gave that little attention until this week. I watched a program about the fall of the Roman empire and was surprised at how the factors contributing to Rome's downfall parallels many of our own. The political corruption, greedy elite, pandering to the lower classes (Nero was hero of lower classes), then overtaxing the wealthy and powerful until they were no longer wealthy or powerful and the poor had to pay the bills, debasing their currency, losing their revenue base, depleting the treasury, and a super power limped into the dark ages.

Sometimes I wonder today if folks are so bored, so careless, so lost, not satisfied with the chaos they make of their own lives, they want a country in chaos and mayhem, perhaps for that thrill they believe they're missing in life.

Michael Moore would be a good Nero-ish hero. Fat and fiddling.

Latest Great Hope

2011-09-24T12:13:00.002-05:00

Elizabeth Warren: "You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

---- Not just "the rest of us" pay for roads, education, police/fire - so do the factory builders. And honestly, if every hard working family's tax bill was the same as mine (and most are less) for roads, schools, public safety - you would be up spit creek without a paddle or canoe. Warren, typically and politically, fails to mention that the government which would take that "hunk" would squander it on bogus programs and crony contracts (aka spreading the wealth around).

Aside from the obvious pandering of her remark, also consider how times have changed since the era she speaks of, more fitting for the 1930s to 1970s, because most builders now are building factories in China or India or the Mexican maquiladoras. Will Warren's soapbox pander change anything? No, but what the hay - her rhetoric strikes a warm note around progressive campfires. Some say she is what they wanted Obama to be. Huh? Obama was what they wanted him to be until he be. (Excuse my fit of laughter here.)

Lets remember too that in the last few decades the "next kid who comes along" is quite likely stoned and/or drinking on the job and not nearly as dependable as his daddy or granddaddy might have been. And not just in factories. For all the education the rest of us paid for, most folks today cannot handle simple tasks, be it in an office or factory or anywhere. In reality, the decent, honest, working class is disappearing in the land of money for nothing and the chicks are free, or whatever requires the least effort if you can't be a star.

At least once a day I run into one employed person incompetent and unequipped to the point that I ask myself, how has this human managed to survive this long in the world. I can only conclude that equally dull-witted folks cover for one another. And a good deal of the population has somehow come to accept incompetence and indifference in the workplace as a-okay. Or because they are the workplace and dumb enough to believe they are doing their job well.

(I've learned here in Podunk that when I ask for the best plumber, drywall, electrician, etc. in town, the most educated and experienced, they are dumb - which leaves dumber and dumbest who charge less. It's not just in Podunk - big city folks tell me it's the same for them. Once upon a time the phrase "you get what you pay for" meant something. Not true now. Quality these days is custom made with uberprice tags.)

Sometime I wonder, which came first? The greedy cost cutting factory owner or the "next kid" with a hangover and whining, since they both seem to believe "the rest of us" should pay for both of them opting out.

It will not matter how big a "hunk" anyone gives back - unless we stop making excuses for, and pandering to, dumb and dumber who just bark and bark and bark without a real dog in the fight. God bless.

100 Pounds of Clay

2011-09-21T22:18:00.000-05:00

Gene McDaniels February 12, 1935 – July 29, 2011

Generational

2011-09-11T08:14:00.003-05:00

My Grandfather's War

My Dad's War

My War

My Sons' War

Busy Bees

2011-09-04T10:05:00.003-05:00

Some folks are shilling about what's really going on in Libya (or as Gaddafi named it, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya): "... the Libyan "rebels might actually be under the overall supervision of the international banking industry, rather than the oil majors." (Cockburn)

"... taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations." (Brown)

And then the usual socialist accolades for the colonel's free health care, education, free electricity, subsidized food, unemployment and social security benefits, government pays 1/2 the price of a new car, cash wedding gifts to buy homes,$7000 to each newborn, and that the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state owned and charges 0% interest rates, etc. etc.

If all that's true, why would anyone be rebelling? Because, bring in the usual suspects, the evil enslaving Rothchild bankers, racist US killing brown folks, PNAC, NWO, and globalists are behind it, absorbing yet another nation into their hive. Does it seem "they" have been "absorbing" since time began?

Of course, no one in their right mind would consider Libya a utopia of freebies. Gaddafi, Cronies, & Sons, own or control most of the wealth, or did until dozens of nations along with the UN froze their assets.

But who can you trust for just the straight data on how good life is for average Mo(hammed) Blow in Libya under the colonel? WHO, CIA World Fact Book, UN, UNICEF publications? The UN child mortality chart ranks the US 34, Cuba 33, and Libya 79. Sources say Libyan unemployment is 30% and that 1/3 of population lives below poverty line. But, in a nation of only 6 million sitting on a lot of oil, the colonel could hand out enough to keep the masses happy - until the bankers, racists, globalists entered to absorb it all.

That 0% bank interest rate might be questionable too. Arab banking, under Sharia law, has found a way around that. Have you ever known a religion that doesn't find a way around itself?

The bank simply buys the item you want, car, house, computer, whatever, and then resells it to you at a higher price - no interest, but profit for the non-profit bank. You make payments to the bank, no late fees penalties either. Sort of like rent-to-own or leasing in the US, where you eventually pay 3-5 times the value, if you pay until you own it, and if you don't pay the note holder retains ownership and can sell it again. It's a tactic that rationalizes "interest" by calling it something else. Sharia bankers have it all figured out, how to "not charge interest" and still make money, while giving leftists/progressives in the West the ideal of kum-bah-ya banking.

And then, there's that info floating around about ... the Bush administrations sent terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, despite that country's reputation for torture, according to documents found in the abandoned office of Libya's spy chief ... a close working relationship between the CIA and Qaddafi's intel service.

The case of ... Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, commander of the anti-Qaddafi rebel force that now controls Tripoli. Belhaj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant group with links to al Qaeda. Belhaj says he was tortured by CIA agents at a secret prison, then returned to Libya. But holds no grudges.

Hmmm. I guess Bush's terrorist is Obama's freedom fighter.

#11

2011-08-28T16:38:00.003-05:00

Wyatt Joseph b.08/28/11 in Washington.

Mad Dog Exposure

2011-08-28T10:06:00.003-05:00

Wikileaks : WikiLeaks cables expose Washington’s close ties to Gaddafi.

From the headline I would think US pols are good buddies with Gaddafi but reading the one cable that WSWS linked to doesn't prove the headline. And of course WSWS makes accusation without proof. (i.e. Libyan terrorist group merged with al-queda are now active leaders in the so-called "rebels". Although that may be true as one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, etc.)

And what would a progressive piece be without the usual accusation of oil, "Cables from 2008 and 2009 raise concerns about US corporations not getting in on billions of dollars in opportunities for infrastructure contracts ..."

Fact is, there are dozens of international oil and gas companies in Libya which are not US. Considering that Russia, China, Iran, Germany, Italy, India, Indonesia, Austria, Canada, Algeria, Great Britain, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil have a stake. Even the US companies that are in Libya today are not the largest producers.

Is the US not supposed to compete for Libyan contracts?

The "left" will not be happy until Joe Blow pays $10/gallon and pulls the thermostat off the wall. Some day Joe Blows will all be closely hogtied in the anti-US whitey doing business propaganda, willingly or not, knowingly or not, all the while demanding the US government stop doing anything but taking care of him. So many so disappointed that Barry is not their Obamao. Give it time. Rome wasn't felled in a day.

If you want to talk about close ties - remember when Billy Carter was a registered agent for Gaddafi? And the $220,000 loan (700,000 in 2010 dollars) to Billy in 1979? Also known as influence peddling and/or billygate.

WSWS also says "Those like Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Berlusconi who have branded Gaddafi a criminal to be hunted down and murdered were all his accomplices. All of them collaborated with, armed and supported the Gaddafi regime, as US and European corporations reaped vast profits from Libya’s oil wealth."

Is that why the Libyan "rebels" recently, when they took over areas held by Gaddafi, discovered weapons that were from N. Korea, packed in crates labeled bulldozer parts? Gaddafi also secured arms via Iran. (Though WS may be close to the truth about Sarkozy/France. There's more reason than perfume for the term "french whore".)

In what parallel world did the US collaborate, arm, and support Gaddafi? For decades the US and UN had embargoes against Libya of one sort or another, arms embargo, trade embargo, diplomatic embargo. The US isolated Libya and Gaddafi for a long time. In 1974 Gaddafi nationalized US oil companies and announced an oil embargo.

Sometime post-9/11 Libya/Gaddafi became a potential US friend. But it hasn't worked out. While wiki linkers insinuate US reps chatted warmly with Gaddafi, I would bet behind closed D.C. doors the talk was Muammar is still the fruitcake a-hole he's always been. One or more of the fruitcake's sons might become US new BFF - you just never know when the world's ruling class will throw an entire bloodline under the bus, or oil rig.

But the only "close ties" or accomplice Gaddafi ever had in the US was when Billy was his friend.

Buffoonery

2011-08-24T21:06:00.003-05:00

Buffett at it again. He wants to pay more taxes. Heh heh heh. Sure he does. Then he should pay himself more than the $100,000 a year income he gets as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

However, his billions are tied up in long-term investments, generated through capital gains and dividends, and the capital gains tax is only around 15%. Is Buffett calling for higher capital gains?

Clinton lowered capital gains tax from 28% to 20% and Bush dropped it to 15%. Taxes on capital gains and dividends are really double taxation. The corporation pays taxes, and then the stockholder pays taxes again when he sells his shares.

Berkshire doesn't pay out dividends so no tax on that for Warren. No tax if he doesn't sell the shares, and Warren doesn't sell his shares - he gives them away to his 5 favorite charitable foundations (Gates Foundation and his own kids' foundations). And while Buffett argued to keep the "estate tax" - why not, since the best way to avoid the death tax was give it away before you're dead, which Buffet and others are doing.

Buffett is a smart man. His true income is not his "taxable" income because of his investment and income generating methods. He invests in stocks on a long-term basis, avoids realization of capital gains, avoids taxes on capital gains by giving to charity the appreciated assets, and holds tax-free municipal bonds.

An increase in capital gains tax or income tax will change little for the rich as they have advisors who know how to manipulate loopholes so the tax they pay is not on their true income. How many times do I have to say that.

If Warren really wants to be fair he should demand a tax on assets, as they do in Switzerland. Probably wouldn't hurt Buffett as he owns a simple life in Omaha - but many super rich hold mega assets.

Remember Donald Trump's 2000 proposal of a one-time 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more. Trump claimed that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt. Kinda makes me wonder, how would tax advisors get their clients assets out of that tax. Nonprofit foundation anyone?

Liberating

2011-08-20T23:03:00.005-05:00

After decades and decades of life experience it has dawned on me that there really is nothing much that can be done by the "common" folks to effect change, if for no other reason than Average Joe gets his opinion from media outlets who delight in screwing his head on for him. Once, yes, Joe might have had an honest effect, when the nation was younger, less bureaucracy, fewer bureaucrats, smaller government. But with population growth, and it's only getting worse, the common folk have little to no say in either how they are governed or by whom. In 2000 the US population was predicted to be 1 billion by 2100 but the same guesstimators predicted 300 million by 2050, way off their guesstimate. At the current rate of breeding and immigration, expect 1 billion Americans by 2050. But by then government control will be so tight that all knothead Americans will accept their place in the order of the universe.

Just take a look at Google headlines a few minutes ago to see what interests Joe:
* Top Stories
Muammar al-Gaddafi
Kim Kardashian
Peyton Manning
Mobile Industry
Donald Faison
Sarah Palin
West Memphis 3
Russell Armstrong
Steinem
Israel

Gaddafi - US messing around where we don't belong, again, Obama's war of liberation.

Kardashian - please stop the worship of this heifer and her family. Her stepdaddy Bruce Jenner is one procedure away from being a male Joan Rivers. When will folks tire of phony people on reality t.v.

Manning - footballer with a bad neck, oh woe are the Colts but no scandal, such as electrocuting and hanging dogs. Or behaving like college players accepting money, prostitutes, and paying for abortions.

Mobile Industry - the hottest cell phone! I'm still trying to understand how millions of Americans living in poverty continue to afford cell phones. Have they figured out a scheme where the government pays the monthly bill that I don't know about?

Faison - black t.v. celebrity engaged to a white girl named Cacee who once was an assistant to Jessica Simpson. Isn't it cute how white folks now mimic Sheani'quisha when naming their kids - creative trailer-ish spellings are everywhere. Free to be Sheelee or Caylee or Madysen. Oh well, at least white folks can still pronounce their names.

Palin - will she or won't she run (does anyone really care?). Palin is to liberated conservatives what Kardashian is to ... to ... moral liberals? Lol.

West Memphis 3 - see how Johnny Deppstick and publicity can free 3 child killers by insisting that 2 hairs "consistent" with someone else means the 3 didn't do it. Even though the hairs were family members and could easily have transferred to the victims clothing innocently enough. We've reached the point that unless a perp leaves a truck load of DNA on the victim, perps will go free. Never mind a mountain of circumstantial evidence and even confessions (just recant later). Or if your name is Casey Anthony, then a hair with a death band has no significance because daddy George did something. Americans becoming so addle brained they can no longer serve justice. The progressive dream of no prisons may come true - no guilty, no inmates. Shangri la la land. Ohhmmmmmmmmm.

Armstrong - reality celeb hangs himself with extension cord. Reality t.v. made him crazy. Or was it his overspending, monstrous grinning plastic wife Taylor (Barbie)? Was it the $50,000 birthday party for their 5-year-old daughter? Is it further proof that even the rich have money problems and when the government redistributes the wealth we can all hang ourselves.

Steinem - too late to duct tape her mouth. Steinem interview with bloggers : "Reese Witherspoon, whom I don't know very well, told me she did Legally Blonde because of me. I said, 'No kidding. How come?' And she said, 'Because I heard you say you should be able to dress any way you f--ing well please and be safe.'' A concussion wave went through the room. The bloggers, momentarily distracted from their laptops, realized they had just been part of a moment."

What? What moment? The writer's hyperbole moment? In Legally Blonde Witherspoon never wore anything that showed everything. These days men have so little respect for the "fairer sex" that a female isn't safe in ankle length burlap bags and hijab. The only concussion felt was by those women who believed it's okay to have abortions, okay to have babies alone, and okay to be "liberated" and do whatever the celebrifakes do. Steinem did nothing more than enlarge the work pool of uneducated, single struggling mommas for corporations needing cheap labor. Women are more sex object today than ever. A few more female CEOs and female pols have done nothing to improve anything for women - unless you believe subsided housing and childcare and foodstamps are liberating. By the way, Gloria wants to boycott the Playboy Club. I'm sure her fans will do that - after their shopping spree at Victoria's Secret. ;)

Israel - 80 rockets fired into southern Israel from Gaza. Well, if the Jews would leave, the Palestinians would not have to bomb them, right? Can't Palestine just accept the Jews were only looking for a better life for their families when they displaced Palestinian workers ... oops, no, that's the US border problem.

I saw nothing about the economy - even when I do it's either "the sky is falling" or "things are looking up" depending on which outlet and which political party is in the oval office.

Speaking of the oval office, tell Obama to water the yard. Just look at that pic I took a couple of weeks ago.

Cold People

2011-07-26T09:16:00.004-05:00

The lawyer for the suspect in the Norway twin attacks says his client is a "very cold" person who took drugs before the rampage to be "strong, efficient, awake."

The lawyer, Geir Lippestad, spoke to reporters today about his client, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused for killing more than 70 people in a bombing on government buildings in Oslo and a shooting spree at a [Labor Party] youth camp last week, the Associated Press reports.

Breivik, 32, faces terror-related charges carrying a maximum 21-year sentence. But prosecutor Christian Hatlo tells the newspaper Aftenposten that he might also be charged with crimes against humanity, which would carry a longer sentence.

Breivik's father, Jens Breivik, a retired Norwegian diplomat now living in France, tells Norway's TV2 that he has not seen his son for about 15 years and is shocked by the killings.

"I will never have more contact with him," he tells TV2. "In my darkest moments, I think that rather than killing all those people he should have taken his own life."

Breivik said both parents supported Norway's centre-left Labor Party, which he viewed as infiltrated by Marxists.

His mother won a custody battle, but Breivik said he regularly visited his father and his new wife in France, where they lived, until his father cut off contact when Breivik was 15. The father told Norwegian newspaper VG that they lost touch in 1995, but that it was his son who wanted to cut off contact.

Another article states that "Former diplomat Jens Breivik, 76, said he was ‘completely bereft’ and would never speak to his son again. And that "Despite being Anders's step-mother, Mrs. Breivik has never met him, while Mr. Breivik only had a 'short, bland' telephone call with him 10 years ago."

----------- Anders did not commit mass murder for a political cause, that's his excuse. This is more like an adolescent school shooting - societal hatred, a search for fame, and revenge against those he didn't have the courage to confront (mom and dad?). Passing it off as a political killing or "revolution" is how he romanticizes his hatred. Homegrown terrorist - product of his environment? Some appear shocked such a thing could happen in Norway.

So, I'll reiterate once again for those Americans who believe Michael Moore's Norway (pop. 4.6 million) is a model of successful redistribution since the 1970s oil wealth - it's not. Norway is experiencing the same problems as the US - aging population, unstable families, marriage becoming obsolete, physical and sexual abuse of children, drugs, immigration problems, racism (though most of their immigrants are Euro whites), inflation and poor selection of goods, rise in "treatment errors" in healthcare, and using "stimulus" cash to keep jobs afloat, etc. etc. Just don't deplete the oil too soon.

Contrary to popular belief Norway's prison recidivism rate was 50% in the 1990s after which time they changed their method of keeping or sharing crime statistics and crime/recidivism appears low now. Juvenile and drug related crimes doubled 2008-2009. A woman shouldn't walk alone in Oslo at night anymore than she would in Chicago or Detroit.

Bottom line, no matter what American backpackers or the "left" says, there's really not much difference in countries like Norway and the US. Both breeding cold people.

Name Your Poison

2011-07-23T10:03:00.003-05:00

Disparities in health tend to fall along income lines everywhere: the poor generally get sicker and die sooner than the rich. But in the United States, the gap between the rich and the poor is far wider than in most other developed democracies, and it is getting wider. That is true both before and after taxes: the United States also does less than most other rich democracies to redistribute income from the rich to the poor.

------- I knew before I read the above third paragraph in the article that I would not agree with the premise - that money/wealth means you live longer. A decade of serious genealogy research has proven many of my ancestors, mostly poor, lived to ripe old ages of 80s, 90s, and my great grandmother to 100. They knew how to live, love, laugh. They knew how to make choices.

Assuming one is born without health problems, and to parents who provide a child with adequate love and care, it is lifestyle that determines longevity. Barring major accidents or disease, personal choices go a long way in determining how long we live.

Obesity, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, etc. are choices. Genes are a minute part of our destiny. There is no gene that makes a person fat, doped, a drunkard, a "sex addict." Although every couple of years junk medicine/science tries to claim there is a "gene" for every bad act or choice. Or some fame seeking expert claims a brain image can predict a criminal. All humans have the capacity for addiction and criminality - just depends on the yes/no decision made in every moment, until good or bad becomes a habit. If poor judgement and bad choices were genetic the human race would have died out long ago.

There is what I call a "justify gap" though. Not a wide one, as most folks can apologize and seek treatment to justify and hide the fact that they're pretty much self-absorbed egos operating on whim and pity parties, or the worst - empty vessels stalking among us.

Probably can thank the likes of Betty Ford for outing herself as the first bored housewife fueled on pills and martinis. I've nothing against Betty - I just wish folks would keep their dirty laundry in the hamper. Her "addictions" didn't seem to effect her longevity so I gotta wonder how severe was her addiction. I believe it began with a 1962 pain pill prescription and ended with a family intervention in 1976. Had she not been in the White House, would she have remained an embarrassingly buzzed housewife on the D.C. cocktail circuit? (By the way, I'm going to D.C. next week for a "vacation.")

I know more than a couple of women, who found themselves entangled in legal problems and/or moral dilemmas after wild partying, and used addiction as excuse, becoming lifelong spokespersons for having "overcome" their addiction. Sorry, but the occasional drunken screwup does not an addict make. I think they were just scared from a close call and tired of partying - hangovers get damned harder after age 25 or so, just ask the revolving door at treatment centers. And Betty, being high on pain meds is at least as old as the Dilaudid deluded housewives of 2 centuries ago.

I have a family member, almost 80. She was in good health until about 20 years ago. She stopped working and very quickly gained weight, developed diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension. Before she became completely housebound, about 10 years ago, her hobbies were bingo, which she couldn't afford, and eating. No gardening, no mall walking, no road trips, no walking the dog, who also got fat. She has a daughter who is in her 50s, she too no longer works, is housebound, heavily medicated (high), slowly dying in front of a television. She had the usual trendy "diseases" of the 1980s, carpal tunnel syndrome, bad back, bad knees - had surgeries on all of them more than once, thanks to government healthcare. By age 50 she was stiff, overweight, diabetic, and on disability, major organs deteriorating - she will not live anywhere near her mother's age of 80. These are their choices. Not their genes, not their level of wealth. They and millions of other "poor" shorten their own life span.

At one time I tried to convince the family members above to eat healthier to reverse their health problems. They claimed healthy food was too expensive, an excuse I've heard from many syndrome-lovin' folks. But, which costs more - a couple of pieces of fresh fruit or half of a cheesecake? A piece of broiled fish with lemon or those crispy deep fried fatty pork steaks and butter loaded mashed potatoes?

Their grandchildren will be (and are) dying much, much younger than 80 - completely unrelated to "income gap" and solely related to gluttony, sloth, envy, and "cool" stuff like promiscuity, drugs, alcohol. (Ask an honest gynecologist what "free love" is doing to health and quality of life). The same choices kill the wealthy the same way (i.e. Elvis, Mama Cass, Belushi, Farley, Monroe, nouveau riche).

"Studies" also show the gap between wealth and obesity is closing. So, on the fairness side, the wealthy will also get sicker and die sooner - their big fat choice.

What makes a life long - diet, exercise, work, rest, and wanting what you have - available to all Americans regardless of what the income gap babblers constantly babble.

Note too that the same ideology/folks who push redistribution/mo' money as a cure all also excuse and/or encourage the behavior that creates many of the ills in the first place, in the name of freedom and your right to do, use, eat, drink, screw, take, try, whatever you want, even if it kills you. (Sometimes with "in moderation" in the fine print.)

Bella Vita

2011-07-16T19:05:00.003-05:00

I was trying to detox from this story but so many people, particularly talking heads, seem completely off the mark regarding the dynamics of the Anthony family.

First of all, to those who think Casey Anthony was sexually molested by her father and/or brother. Not true. George Anthony is a distasteful man, a liar, a boor, a phony, a philanderer, and somewhat of a deadbeat as his "retired cop" career was 4 years as a deputy in Ohio and 6 years in the police department as what no one has ever said. He's a ne're-do-well, former used car salesman, security guard, now on disability. His wife earned the money for this family for most of the marriage.

Brother Lee, also a liar, though not to the extent of mom, dad, and sister. Lee grew up keeping his head down and his mouth shut while the lies, pretense, and family rants hurricaned around him. The storms became very ugly when Casey hit puberty. Lee is still a simpering frightened 30-year-old little boy with his head down.

The Anthony family worked with the defense put on by Baez and his dream team. That is how the defense had the photos of little Caylee with her hand on the sliding door, the photos of Caylee climbing up the pool ladder with grandma. Collusion explains the act put on by George as a witness - his calculated hesitation before answering the sexual abuse question, his feigned combativeness toward Baez, his obvious lying on the stand about a mistress. Collusion explains Lee's act regarding Caylee's birth - his sobbing how hurt he was that he was not included in the pregnancy. The fact Lee was tested for Caylee's paternity. Insinuation that Lee too was an incestuous pervert who some thought might be Caylee's father.

Lee was simply ashamed of his sister's promiscuity and pregnancy as only a big brother would be. But weeping about it on the witness stand gave him the role of potentially creepy, sister groping Chester the molester.

George and Cindy knew Caylee was dead the day they picked up the car with the smell of decomposition. It's why some of the jailhouse taped conversations between Casey and her parents sound as if they're talking in code. I.e. Cindy: "Are we going to be able to find her?" Casey: "I hope we can, Mom." Cindy was really asking if the body was disposed of so it would never be found. The Anthony's could then for eternity continue the "missing" or kidnapped saga.

I don't believe Casey made chloroform, not successfully anyway. Too many other knock-out drugs available, prescription or over-the-counter. She lacked the patience and intelligence to whip up of a batch of usable chloroform. She may have attempted it and put the mess she made in the trunk to dispose of elsewhere and that caused the high forensic reading for chloroform in the trunk. Or just as likely pappa George or Cindy tried to wet vac the car with calcium hypochlorite or other pool chemical they had in the garage, to remove the stench, creating detectable chloroform.

Casey Anthony, like Megan Hogg and dozens of others, smothered her child with duct tape. Having to hook up with Tony she didn't have time to dispose of the body and was quite busy for a few days until the odor forced her desperate dump in the swamp down the street. After a couple of months with no discovery of the body she likely thought animals and the elements had saved her from it ever being discovered. Her first few months in jail gave her plenty of time to hear other inmate gossip and tales, choosing which ones might work for her - accidental drowning, incest, abuse.

Not to say the grandparents didn't grieve over their loss - but their grief was secondary to the need to save face because in such a family, who believe they are superior to everyone in the world, only they have the right to judge, punish, or kill, their own. The deed was done, the family switched into "save face" mode. It's all they know how to do. Leave people wondering who is lying about what until no one knows which Anthony and which lie is to blame. They mastered the method with friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members - and now the judicial system.

The family's entire act was to aid Baez in casting doubt, confusion, and conspiracy on the case - and they succeeded better than even they or Baez expected. Baez, his love of the camera may only be outmatched by his client's love for the Bella Vita.

Throw in accusations or innuendo of tainted evidence and shoddy police work ... the prosecution thought they would dazzle the jurors with forensics, unaware that the defense would baffle them with bullshit.

I was watching an interview with Jesse Grund, Casey's one time fiancé, who said this is not the Casey he knew. That she did not lie to him, etc. Yet, 2 questions later he comments that a few months after their breakup she texted him that she was pregnant and he was the father. He did the math and doubted it, and had paternity testing which proved he was not the father. Yep, she didn't lie to him.

Grund seems like a decent guy, willing to step up to the plate and be a husband and father - but nice guys finish last with a gal like Casey. Five months after Casey agreed to marry Jesse, she ended the engagement. "She claimed I loved Caylee more than I loved her," Grund said. When asked if he thought Casey killed Caylee, Grund says "Honestly, I don't know … The Casey that I knew was incapable of hurting a hair on Caylee's head … But this person, this dark, selfish, remorseless individual that sits in jail right now, I'm not sure what she's capable of." Maybe it's hard admitting we didn't really know someone when we thought we did. What do we often hear in some of the most heinous cases - he/she was such a nice person. Such foolery is partly due to most folks having instinct and intuition culturally bred out of them by kindergarten. Play along to get along.

Casey tired of competing with her mom for Caylee's affection. Then tired of competing with Caylee for the attention of the men in her life - dad, bubba, lover.

The Anthony's successful "not guilty" was also directly related to a majority of the jury being lazy, mentally deficient, conspiracy minded, and a few perhaps corrupt. Lazy because they did not spend the time necessary to connect the dots, did not review the evidence, did not deliberate. A couple of straw votes and filling out the verdict forms was not deliberation. Mentally deficient because they did not understand their charge and were too narcissistic to ask for elucidation - i.e. they wanted a motive and the prosecution does not have to prove motive. Although competition for affection and attention is more than enough for some murders.

One juror has said that Casey was seen by her dad as she left the home that day but doesn't show up again until hours later renting a movie with her boyfriend - so she asks did Casey kill Caylee at the mall or at a public place? Duh, in evidence was the cell phone pings for Casey that day showing that she hung around her neighborhood for hours after she supposedly left for work. Most likely returning to the house after George went to work, where she murdered the child, double bagged, stuffed her in the laundry bag, tossed her in the trunk, then went to meet boyfriend Tony.

A juror has said they didn't like George Anthony's shifty behavior on the stand - but said Casey's 31 days of partying behavior as her daughter was rotting down the street wasn't a factor in their decision. Tell me that's not deficient thinking.

The jury expected CSI style proof - found with tweezers and a Q-tip and presented by analysts with cleavage and/or good looks wearing sunglasses. Within hours of the verdict some jurors were offering to sell their interviews to the highest bidders. Interviews less valuable had the verdict been guilty as charged.

The television gasbags now ask is it possible for Casey to ever have a relationship with her parents again? Of course she will, the relationship was never broken. Her parents did what they have always done for her - lie, connive, cover up, placate, kid gloves and sweethearts. But you can bet that Cindy will never again try to force Casey to behave as a responsible adult.

Now numerous states are passing Caylee laws - making it a felony to not report a missing or dead child within xx amount of hours. Shame on us for needing the State to force caregivers to do to the right thing. As if child killers are going to obey the law anyway.

Oddly, it seems those who are outraged when someone is wrongfully convicted are the first to tell us when a murderer is freed that it's the way our judicial system works and we have to respect the verdict. I can accept that it is what it is, but I don't have to respect the players or the outcome.

I'll keep rubbernecking to see how the karma comes back around to the main players, who are guided not by conscience and common sense, but greed and narcissism.

MJ Interprets For the Herd

2011-07-09T09:53:00.004-05:00

Bachmann Signs Pledge with Questionable Slavery Reference. Rep. Michele Bachmann is the first Republican presidential candidate to sign the Family Leader pledge disavowing gay marriage, premarital sex, and porn. But perhaps the most outrageous part of the pledge is the section that implies that maybe slavery wasn't all that bad for black families.

Declaring that "[u]nmistakably, the Institution of Marriage in America is in great crisis," the document states:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

Maybe they should get a bit of credit for acknowledging that slavery was "disastrous" for black Americans. But that passage seems to suggest that maybe things actually were better for black Americans then. Yes, being kept as property, forced into marriages arranged by slave masters, and raped by those masters was great for black people. As Jack & Jill Politics also points out, breaking up families to sell off slaves was hardly pro-family values. It's an insensitive comparison that ignores history.

------- Bachmann is not to my liking if for no other reason than she's dull as dishwater. And although I wouldn't call her a bimbo as some do - one would think she knows that politicians cannot voice an honest opinion about gays, free love, porn, or minorities - unless it's endorsement. She gives her opposition so much to work with here. Homophobe, racist, bible thumping gun clinging prude, prig ... gosh, whatever is she thinking ...everybody knows gays are normal and premarital sex is hunky dory, especially for teens, porn is just adult entertainment (ask Ted Bundy) and it's mass incarceration that takes away baby daddies.

Bachmann's "pledge" does not imply "that maybe slavery wasn't all that bad for black families." Before the day is over someone will say her remarks are "code" for racist white folks, if they haven't already. Bachmann is right about black children and two-parent households.

The marriage rate for black Americans has been dropping since the 1960s, and today, has the lowest marriage rate of any racial group in the United States. In the 2001 census 43 percent of black men and 42 percent of black women in America had never been married, whites were 28 and 21 percent. Black females are the least likely to marry in America. " ... a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today" according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin.

Why buy the cow when the milk is free - and more often than not "the Man" is paying for the stable and feed, and vet bill. Isn't freedumb wonderful...

Love & Lying

2011-06-26T09:35:00.002-05:00

Had enough of Casey Anthony yet? What a disgusting circus. Folks sleeping on the sidewalk to get court passes, trampling, fighting, screeching like howler monkeys when someone cuts in line.

And the best guess "expert" pundits hyping and sometimes obviously lying about the day's court proceedings and what it all means. Asking why is the public so fascinated with the case. Half the interest in it is the media telling folks they should be interested, the media creating drama where there really is none, and media speculating on what it means for all of us. Or at least what it means to those who have nothing better to do than witness the possibility of yet another female getting away with murdering her own.

Fathers who murder, or murdering someone else's children can get you the death penalty or life behind bars - but a woman killing her own has psychological babblers to schmooze the act as some sort of blues or depression or temporary insanity and not the cold-blooded calculating heifer who stabbed, shot, beheaded, suffocated, drowned, tortured, starved, or beat her child to death. Most such heifers eventually walk away to breed another day.

Somewhere in all the media ratings a 2-year-old was murdered, and began decomposing in her mama's trunk before being dumped in the neighborhood swamp. Meanwhile a few blocks away mama, grandma and grandpa wore her innocent face on tee shirts and collected funds to "find little Caylee" all the while knowing she was dead.

How is it allegedly loving grandparents like the Anthonys never met their granddaughter's nanny, who supposedly babysat Caylee for a couple of years? How is it they had no clue their daughter didn't really have a job? They knew, they just chose to pretend tart mom had a life, was the responsible career single mom rather than the high school dropout party girl she was. And they continue to pretend. Pretend their daughter didn't really murder her child. Pretend the stench from the car trunk was a slice of abandoned pizza. Cindy spraying Febreze in the trunk pretending her grandbaby had been kidnapped.

So far, grandma Anthony and uncle Lee have lied under oath to aid mama's case. Daddy George may do the same if the trial continues. And this "falling on the sword" by grandma and uncle is deemed "love" by the big-mouth pundits - Nancy Grace, Jane Velez, and all the others. Nancy names Casey Anthony "tot mom." But tart mom is more applicable.

Folks, lying is not loving. Lying is the sociopathology of this family. Fortunate for the rest of mankind their first murder victim was their own grandchild, not a friend, lover, neighbor, coworker, or total stranger. What's frightening, and perhaps why so many middle class whites are "fascinated" with the case, is the Anthonys remind them of them. Phony people, pretending to be the Cleaver family, but once the front door closes, it's an armed camp, each going to their corner with teeth and fist clenched, dreaming up new ways to torment one another. Angry narcissists incapable of bonding. Everything is for the sake of appearance. Although the suburban family image they had has been blown away Cindy and George are recreating themselves as loving victims, standing by their daughter, claiming now they only want the truth.

The truth. Truth is the whole family is pathological liars (ask George's first wife). Truth is George and Cindy devoted their time doing paid interviews to promote the "kidnapping" lies of their daughter, and soliciting funds for The Caylee Marie Anthony Foundation, while her body skeletonized a few blocks from their home. They didn't want the truth then and they don't want it now. They want their perfect image back, or what they perceived as perfect, an image free of fault or defect.

The experts have coined a term to explain/excuse the boozing, screwing, and tattooing Casey did after she murdered her child - it's called "ugly coping."

Yep. Ugly coping. More b.s. from the psychiatric community, who also do a lot of pretending. Pretending they know human nature. Pretending we all react or "cope differently." Truth is, people who can love and feel and think, pretty much react the same in similar situations. Some liars can simulate something close to the correct reaction, but real people can see the difference.

Sadly, the photos of Caylee's last few months of life show a little girl with faint circles around her dull sad eyes. Not the sparkling lively eyes an almost 3-year-old should have, she already knew she was an emotional and physical weapon her family used on one another.

In a post below I said "Each generation getting slicker and meaner and more mentally deficient." The Anthony family is a fine example of that.

Oscar Winners

2011-06-13T08:27:00.002-05:00

I watched several videos of the Oscar Grant shooting and read the stories a couple of years ago when the incident took place. Grant was involved in a fight on a transit train.

I do believe the BART cop, Johannes Mehserle, intended to use his taser, not a pistol. The look on Mehserle's face at the sound of the gunshot shows his shock at what he had done. Most videos uploaded online or played on the evening news did not show Mehserle's shock, simply because it did not fit the agenda of those making a case for racism and police brutality, or making political brownie points.

What irritates me is that Oscar Grant was an Oakland gangbanger with a thug sheet for drugs and violence, some baby's daddy, the stereotypical dependent on the same "system" that activists have convinced so many to disrespect - as a dead "victim" he is worth millions to his family and their attorneys, a martyr for the cause, support for a politician pimping votes.

Of course Grant's young daughter and her momma will need some support, not that he was contributing much support anyway. Of course BART should be held responsible for not training their rent-a-cops better - but who is responsible for not training Oscar Grant better?

While the Grant and Mehserle families grieve over the tragedy, the lawyers line up for lawsuits, the Grants go shopping, "justice seeking" pols pander the black vote, and the taxpayers bend over. Squawking about the "system" calms down, all the way to the bank.

It's a sad, sad day when you're more valuable dead than you are alive.

Weiners

2011-06-07T22:06:00.002-05:00

Anthony Weiner. What a schmuck. Self-centered, egotistical, lascivious. Immoral, vulgar, dishonest. Licentious, liar. Disloyal, unfaithful, shallow. A weasel. Representative of modern man?

Or, if you believe some pundits and experts, he's a victim of social networking and technology. I had to laugh at the t.v. bimbo who was desperately trying to excuse Weiner's behavior with babble tech victimology. There is no excuse for a 45-year-old man who is either dumb enough or arrogant enough to think a code of honor doesn't apply to him.

Technology does not turn men into liars and toads. Upbringing and personal choices do.

But what the hay, since Slick Willie set the bar at knee level in the oval office - what's a little lewd twittering between strangers. Seems whatever a politician does, someone can spin it to make him/her a victim of facebooks and tweets, or a victim of the opposition party.

In my day, high tech was a Polaroid camera. Instant pics. Still, most of us had enough sense not to pose for lewd photos.

You could also order anything back then that's around today - it just took a few days longer to get it and it arrived in plain brown wrapper. "Swingers" advertised in print rather than the internet. Everyone had an uncle who had a magazine glorifying the beauty of a nudist colony. Aunt Myrtle's vibrators were for sore neck and back muscles.

We had the same "sex aids" decades ago, although today they're advertised on network television as "yours and mine" gel. A dab of Ben-Gay would have the same effect and cost less. There's a cable channel dedicating hours to the modern miracles of dildotic engineering. And is it really worth it - having to hide a pillowcase full of battery operated loveware from the kids... although today's parents seem to hide nothing from the kids.

But maybe the babble heads have a point - social networking is so much harder today - what with folks being distracted by IM'ing, and crotch shots and muscles in the mirror pics for anyone and everyone on their worldwide friend's list.

Beating and Bleeding

2011-05-22T10:40:00.003-05:00

I guess you know the "racially charged" stories of 2 women*, Tanya McDowell of Connecticut and Kelley Williams-Bolar of Ohio, who were arrested for theft of services - lying to send their children to a better school district.

This district jumping for schools goes on everywhere, by all races. Usually the kids are pulled out of school and enrolled in the correct district, sometimes the parent/parents have to agree on a restitution amount, which these women were unable to agree to. Makes me wonder if they're being used as pseudo-martyrs for political gain.

I know folks who have used the wrong addresses for a different school, not always for better education, sometimes simply more convenient for one reason or another. Sometimes for sports programs. Sometimes for behavior problems which the parent blames on the school and a different school will show Little Johnny is perfectly normal elsewhere. He never is, but there are plenty more excuses to choose from.

After reading dozens of different articles on the two cases above, the prevalent meme is: these women just want a better education for their children, these women are targeted simply because they are Black, these women are being attacked by local racist republican officials, yada yada yada and on and on into idiocy such as education is "free" and the government cannot do this. I did see one comment that mentioned had the women been illegal immigrants they would be okay. There might be a point there.

Another common theme in the grousing commentors on the stories is that the "rich" districts get more Federal money while the "poor" get very little, "unequal funding." These folks don't seem to understand that a large part of funding comes from local and state property taxes.

Schools were more equitable until the early 1980s when all 50 states increased their education budgets to fund more than 50 percent of nonfederal school costs. This was to end inequalities in "property rich" and "property poor" districts, so the states upped their education budgets. We know now how mismanaged, corrupt, and bankrupt states have become. Too much of the money earmarked for equalizing ended up in other pockets and silly useless "enhancement" programs and to accommodate those who whine and wheedle about little wild Johnny Medicated's special needs. All the special programs for special kids who are the result, not of congenital ailments, not of poverty, not of inequality, but simply indiscriminate indifferent parenting (all races). A nationwide epidemic of folks who expect the world to bend over backwards to make them comfortable. For 2 or 3 generations now.

Lest we forget, gambling/numbers rackets were legalized with the promises of billions going to education and/or wildlife/conservation, environmental programs, etc. Yet, we're dumber and dirtier than ever.

Something I noticed years ago locally. Podunk has 1 high school, rated as one of the best in the state, 1 middle school, 1 kindergarten center, 1 "alternative" school (read screw-ups and future inmates), and 3 elementary schools. Lets call them Best Elementary, Second Best Elementary, and SlugFest Elementary. I noticed this because of my 4 grandchildren (all attending Best). I noticed because all the white folks want their kids to go to Best and are quite angry when Johnny is assigned to Second Best or SlugFest. I noticed that usually only the attentive, intelligent, well-behaved, unmedicated kids are assigned to Best. Second and Slug, as the names imply, get the potential problem and definite problem kids. Rich or poor is not relevant.

From kindergarten a child's school career is more or less sealed here in Podunk. The last chance equalizer in Podunk is high school, since there is only one. By then the Second Besters and SlugFesters who still have serious behavior problems will drop out, or just move through the motions and graduate functionally illiterate, or be the kid most likely to bring a gun or baby to school.

I truly think most people here have not noticed this is how it's done, although they all want their kid to go to the "good" elementary school, they haven't figured out it's the "good" kids assigned to the "good" school, because that would mean it's their fault Little Johnny is a muckup already, in kindergarten. They claim it's based on "rich" and "poor" too. The "two Americas" at the local level.

The average spent per child nationwide can range from $10,000 to $15000. Many good private schools spend as little as $5000. As with all things, it's not the money - it's the parental commitment, love, respect, hope that's taught at home those first few years and sets the child on the road he will travel.

But back to Tanya and Kelley. It's not a race issue, although god knows the NAACP and Black and white soapboxers say it is. For political reasons of course. One more shilling headline to keep folks angry, bitter, to sit on their ass doing the bare minimum while demanding someone else hand them the life they want. You could give some folks everything and a year later they would have nothing but their original grievance.

No, I don't think Tanya and Kelley's legal problems are racism. It may be unease, of the impending encroachment of folks who do everything assbackwards. Have kids first, have fun, live on the dole and then expect the "rich" suburbanites to fund you the same perks they waited, sacrificed, and delayed gratification for, so they could make money, live in the 'burbs and raise their kids.

If you want life's perks - earn 'em. Frankly, if the "poor" put as much energy into cleaning up the 'hood as they do in trying to beat and bleed the system, their schools and kids would fare fine.

* Ms. Williams-Bolar and several other families enrolled their children at the school although they did not live within the district. The school confronted all the families, around 48. The other families agreed to some sort of restitution but Ms Williams-Bolar chose not to pay and go to trial, she lost, even with the NAACP provided lawyer and 4 blacks on the jury. She was sentenced to 10 days in jail (she served 9), probation and community service. After her probation and community services the charges will be dropped to a misdemeanor so her future job chances will not be mired with a felony.

Her father has other legal problems because he filed documents for Ms Williams-Bolar and children. His problems are worse, as he is being indicted for knowingly falsely filing documents to receive monetary, medical and food assistance from the Dept. of Job and Family Services, connected to the children.

The other lady, Ms. McDowell, supposedly homeless, sleeping in her van, but sometimes overnight at a male friend's house. Her babysitter, Ms. Ana Rebecca Marques, was evicted from her public housing by helping Ms. McDowell falsify documents.

Front Runners

2011-05-15T14:16:00.003-05:00

If this is the best the republicans have to offer ... run Forrest run ...

Mitt Romney. Apparently a sharp and successful businessman. Although a "conservative" some folks say Obamacare looks a lot like the Romneycare enacted in Massachusetts which some also claim is a dismal failure. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about Mitt that my instincts say no no no. Sort of like the way the hair stands up on the back of your neck in the subway when you're uncomfortably close to the man in a dirty raincoat fiddling with something in his pocket.

Newt Gingrich. Personal and political life too messy, 4 marriages, adulterous affairs, sleazy, 84 ethics violations as house speaker which he managed to squirm out of all but one and for that was "reprimanded". To hear Newt tell it he was the victim of a "coup" attempt to remove him as speaker. But claims he has asked forgiveness from god for his personal sins and is a changed man (winky wink). (Why is it most men who claim religion do so after they have spent most of their life as marauding barbarians and "get closer" to god only when age and Viagra no longer work for them?)

Sarah Palin. LOL. A perennial debutante. Couldn't finish her last year as Alaska governor because of lusting for the camera, the book deal, the documentary, putting foxiness in Foxnews contributor, etc. Had to strike while the greed iron was hot, understandable, but certainly not what a sane person would want in the first woman president. Besides, her voice makes the ear canal cringe.

Huckabee not running. Thank god.

Ron Paul. At 75 Ron should be enjoying retirement not humping a campaign trail to the White House.

Donald Trump. Hmmm. Nothing would be accomplished as the world would be focused on his puzzling 'do don't and anal sphincter mouth.

Tim Pawlenty. ....Who? Just another former businessman turned political addict with 5 terms in Minnesota house and 8 years as governor. An "evangelical Christian" meaning he believes the Bible is authoritative, has had a born-again experience, and shares the message of faith. (Not much in the news regarding Pawlenty's ethics and accountability problem with appointment of Vicki Tigwell as chairwoman of MAC, a $1 billion airport expansion project, back in 2003. She stepped down in 2006 citing - you guessed it - family and personal reasons.)

Arnold. Can't run because of citizenship issue but would if he could. And it would have saved his marriage, at least until after his presidency. Like so many Hollywoodies, his marriage was near perfect until it wasn't.

So, unless some other termite crawls out of the woodwork - in 2012, to borrow from Charlie, Obama will be a "winner," a warlock with tiger blood and all that... until 2016 when he leaves office and writes a bestseller, Audacity of bin Laden Down.

Momma 1903-1966

2011-05-08T07:59:00.003-05:00

CCR

Mammy Blue

Anything Is Possible

2011-05-07T09:05:00.003-05:00

I guess most all bloggers felt compelled or obligated to blog on the death of bin Laden. I didn't feel one way or the other, but it's a slow day here in the Heartland and the water is rising.

Bin Laden. All the conspiracy is up and running strong. Is he dead or did he die years ago? Was he ever really on dialysis? Does Obama deserve credit for taking out Osama? Do we now officially know his name is spelled Usama rather than Osama? If so, why is that? How's your ratings now.

Osama/Obama - 1 letter folks, 1 letter, has to mean something ... surely some experts of one sort or another have decoded the nostrodamology or Mayan calendar meaning of that 1 letter.

Does it matter if the death pic is released or not? Will it inflame a world already on fire?

Or as our leader said of releasing photos "It would be of no benefit to gloat." Never mind the college-age herd cheering outside the White House moments after Obama announced OBL was dead. That's not gloating - that's celebration. Ding dong the wicked witch is dead my little winkies and munchkins. Ding dong' the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low ... let them know.

How about the 1.5 billion a year paid to Pakistan who couldn't find their own butt with both hands and a flash light? Our BFFs.

Will the ACLU or progressives sue because bin Laden was not read his rights or given the opportunity to surrender? Will they sue on behalf of the men who were water-boarded for information that led to finding OBL? Or do we just continue to argue the "torture" issue... and deny one thing one day, then deny the opposite tomorrow? Dementia - every day a pseudo-new version of the same old issues that shouldn't even be issues.

What was the objective going into Afghanistan? To smoke out bin Laden? Can the troops come home now? Let's get to the real news: The man who refused to shave until OBL was caught - finally shaved. The school boy who had to wash a painted flag off his face. The man in the gated community who was told to take down his flag. Letterman said ... Jay Leno said ...

Why is Hillary claiming her situation room photo of hand on mouth was stifling a yawn or cough rather than fear/anxiety? Afraid she doesn't look butch enough in a room of steely-eyed steely-jaw men watching the live action take down of OBL? Does her gasping photo remind anyone of Bush Junior's instantly released photo-ops? The flight suit, the deck, the plane window.

Political pap to look manly, strong, yet concerned, pensive. Do they wear Old Spice? Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me... Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.

Marlo Expectations

2011-05-01T14:17:00.002-05:00

From Huff Po, Marlo Thomas laments the integration of Take Our Daughters to Work Day - because they now must take sons too. I hope this woman isn't paid for her silliness. (If you wish to make a tax deductible donation in order for the Foundation to continue its work, or buy a t-shirt, please make checks payable to: Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Foundation, 209 East Fearing Street, Suite 1, Elizabeth City, NC 27909.)

Marlo says "Like a lot of women my age, it reminded me of the low expectations that were thrust on us when we were growing up. I'll never forget struggling with a math problem when I was in the 7th grade at Marymount, and complaining to the math nun about it. "Don't worry, dear," she said to me. "You won't need it."

As the daughter of a millionaire, and preppy in a private Catholic prep school rubbing elbows with other Los Angeles bratpackers, perhaps the math nun knew Marlo would never have to work like other women folk. How much math do you need being That Girl! or a "social activist."

We should be so lucky to have a math nun and the struggle of a math problem as a memory we'll never forget.

Michelle Obama hosted 200 children of White House employees. Michelle doing her part so low expectations are not thrust upon today's boys and girls. And can you say p-h-o-t-o op.

Marlo hasn't a clue that millions of women cannot take their daughters (or sons) to work. Or that the majority of kids who are taken to work are not minimum wage worker kids but are kids who come from homes where self-confidence, education, knowledge, and skills for success are a given.

And to think I used to listen to Marlo and Phil. Eeek.

I had a chuckle as one respondent to Marlo commented: "This program should be called "Take our [privileged] daughters to the white-collar business office to teach them how to kiss ass and exploit the poor." Even the majority of the huffpo posters seemed irritated with her pettiness. Has the "women's movement" finally petered out (pun intended).

As for St. Jude's, the hospital founded by Danny Thomas, I supported that for many years, crying in every commercial, but stopped after finding much of the clinical staff is low paid while the topcats make almost a million a year, that St. Jude insinuates credit for medical discoveries not theirs, that they have 2 billion in assets for a 56 bed hospital, and a good deal of money goes to research and programs that I question the efficacy of (research often funded by pharmaceutical giants and government grants), and that they take in almost a billion annually from corporate and individual donations and grants - yet have received low ratings at Charity Navigator; I heard they amended a few practices to raise their rating again. And though St. Jude's has done a lot of good for some children, fact is their giant fundraising footprint has drained away donations from other hospitals that treat childhood cancer but don't have the high profile of St. Jude. St. Jude's will not take kids who have been treated with chemo or radiation at other institutes, and turns away kids who fail to meet other St. Jude criteria. (Thirty years ago we had a daughter diagnosed with brain cancer at Denver Children's, her treatment could not have been better anywhere else.) A pediatric oncologist told me once that although we've improved the methodology, the equipment, and the survival rates - we still basically use the same old cancer treatments of "cut, burn, and poison."

Not that any of that is Marlo's fault. The nuns didn't teach her math and she never had a kid of her own to take anywhere.

Bemused

2011-04-27T09:13:00.003-05:00

Saying he has long been “bemused” and “puzzled” over the fascination the controversy surrounding his birth certificate, President Obama said he released the long-form version of his birth certificate in order to help get the nation’s attention back on the “enormous challenges” facing the country.

Obama noted that during a recent stretch where he and Republicans were laying out their budget visions for the future, the primary news story has been about the so-called “birther” controversy.

------ That document "release" was so easy. Kinda makes me wonder why the pols, pundits, and press were so intense on picking this nit, and why Barack let it go on so long for his bemusement. And the "birthers" will not believe the certificate is legitimate at this point.

Obama - A Step Forward

2011-04-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

Peg & Les

2011-04-22T09:23:00.005-05:00

Kentucky drug overdose deaths soar.
By Ryan Rahilly
22 April 2011

Recent studies reveal increasing rates of prescription painkiller addiction, methamphetamine production, and fatal overdoses in the state of Kentucky. The drug problem has been compounded over the past decade by cuts to funding for drug treatment programs, which have increasingly been replaced with jail terms.

In an investigative series published in January and February, the Louisville Courier-Journal found that Kentucky drug addiction deaths have risen to 1,000 deaths per year, surpassing traffic fatalities in the state, and more than double the drug death toll of a decade ago. Deaths from prescription drug abuse rose from 403 in 2000, to 978 in 2009. Traffic accidents killed 791 Kentuckians in 2009.

Kentucky spends less than a quarter of what many states spend to contend with addictions, and drug policy programs have not seen an increase in funding for more than 10 years. What little funding has been earmarked for drug prevention, control, and treatment has been cut by millions of dollars. The Office of Drug Control Policy was cut last year by $2.1 million, forcing the agency to reduce its staff from 10 to only 4 employees. The $1.5 million budget for the Kentucky family and juvenile drug courts, which provide alternatives to prison or foster homes for drug-devastated families, was entirely eliminated January 1, 2011.

Operation UNITE, a non-profit agency focused on the epidemic of drug abuse in the Appalachian coalfields region of Kentucky, saw its 2007-08 budget slashed from $10.3 million to $4.6 million the following year.

The Appalachian region, and particularly eastern Kentucky, southwestern West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio are stricken with poverty and high unemployment, which has fed a black market economy and led to rising drug addiction rates. Eastern Kentucky registered a prescription drug overdose death rate of 26.3 per 100,000, which is almost twice as high as the rest of the nation.

The Courier-Journal investigation found that eastern Kentucky’s Bell County registered a staggering prescription drug death rate of 54 per 100,000, and advocates have reported treating children as young as 9 for addiction.

-------- I suppose the agenda behind such writing is to push for mo' money and government intervention. But, I know many of these unfortunate folks the WSWS is referring to, for example - Peggy and Leslie from Kentucky.

In the late 1960s and '70s both barely 18, they worked in factories, nursing homes, restaurants. They had 3 sons. Life was economically tough, but even uneducated and unskilled they managed to pay off a piece of land with a doublewide trailer, a car, a truck.

Some time around 1980 they determined life was easier without a job and with a lot of Wild Turkey and prescription medication. They began a career of minor car accidents and falling in grocery stores over spills they had manufactured themselves - before the days of everything caught on camera. Lawsuit Les and Settlement Peg. Medicaid, Medicare, disability followed.

Peg and Les spent most of the 1980s and '90s in overstuff chairs, drooling, slowly deteriorating physically and mentally, high on prescription drugs from the pain management clinic and numerous physicians in the tri-state area. Their 3 boys have followed in their footsteps, worse as the boys have been hardcore methheads, in and out of more jails and treatment centers than their parents. One son had 3 children before his 18th birthday - wards of the State now.

As the boys got older they too found they were eligible for government aid for one thing or another, thus they commit less crime now. Why steal for drugs if you can get the government or some agency or program to give you the means to get it free... and this generation has discovered that if your children are diagnosed with certain syndromes or disorders, they too can get a check and medications. All the kid needs is a little coaching and a parent willing to doctor shop until he finds that one who will fill out government forms, putting a lifetime label on the kid, worth a government check.

Les and Peg's land and trailer, the car and truck, are long gone. Sold to raise bail and buy black market drugs as the prescriptions never last until the next legal refill. Peg is gone now too - overdosed at age 55. Les awoke one morning to find her dead in the chair in front of flickering reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies. Les remarried a couple of years later, found a lady with a great prescription plan and a disability check bigger than his own. Les and Peg, and now this wife, always fight (one usually sporting a black eye or busted lip) usually over one or the other stealing the other's pills or who took the last slice of pizza.

They have spent most of their lives and all of their energy on scheming how and where to get more drugs. They want nothing to do with treatment programs - unless court ordered - because they're not addicts - they just have health problems, their life is not their fault, they have just been unfortunate, punished by fate, and in need of chronic pain medication (staying high).

It will not matter if government funding for treatment and/or prevention is slashed or infused with 10 times more. It will not cure the millions of Les and Pegs across the nation. It will not matter if jobs open up tomorrow - the Les and Pegs of the nation are too ill to work. Too brain damaged to think beyond the next dose and reruns of I Dream of Genie. As are their children and grandchildren. Each generation getting slicker and meaner and more mentally deficient.

Now some will say they are deeply offended by this post. Where's my empathy, where's my sympathy. More than likely, if you feel offended, it's because you, or someone close to you, are guilty of some or all of the above (or because your livelihood is dependent on pandering to Les and Pegs). And it's not offended that you feel, it's anger, because you're being called on your b.s.

The Next Black President?

2011-04-19T20:42:00.002-05:00

Lt. Col. Allen West - Republican congressman from Florida.

The Dufus Don & Others

2011-04-16T17:46:00.003-05:00

The Donald: Trump gives Democrats a boost by pretending to be a Republican or Independent who is a "birther." And a gasbag Tarzan yodeling his own praise. Despite his 2 or 3 business bankruptcies, shell games, arm candy marriages, and bad hair - some people think Donald is a real American hero.

Obama's birth certificate: Yes, he was born in Hawaii. His original long form certificate, not made public, is probably for no other reason than his birth is listed as illegitimate. Most states now have changed this classification because of the unmarried explosion of mama's baby, daddy's maybe, but in 1961 it would say such.

William and Kate: Waity Katie most likely will do better than her late mother-in-law. Kate knows her odds of being queen are very good. Princess Diane and most of the world knew Di would never be queen because the royal creep Charles would never be king. Some of the body language I've seen when William is with Kate tells me he will not be a good husband but Kate's language says that's okay considering the trade-offs, or trade ups. Sometimes a crown does cure a headache. (I do want to see her wedding gown though.)

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Newly diagnosed bipolar II disorder. Just another bored homosapien who, despite life's many blessings, gets the blues when life gives her some shit. But celebs with "disorders" serve the purpose of lending credence to junk medicine and pillheads.

Charlie Sheen: This is your brain on drugs. Careful Charlie, you're beginning to look the part of a ghoulish crackhead with hairpiece, dental work and Botox.

Movie critics: All holding out for the perks that come with a thumbs up. Limp wristed gladiators in the theater pushing or panning for pay. Atlas Shrugged. Awful reviews. Probably because the author believed "... civilization cannot exist where men are slave to society and government, and ... the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society."

Joe Bageant, 1946-2011

2011-03-29T10:53:00.001-05:00

After a vibrant life, Joe Bageant died yesterday following a four-month struggle with cancer. He was 64. Joe is survived by his wife, Barbara, his three children, Timothy, Patrick and Elizabeth, and thousands of friends and admirers. He is also survived by his work and ideas.

---- I didn't always agree with Joe but he had a vivid memorable way with words.

Amused to Death

2011-03-27T08:50:00.004-05:00

I read this a couple of days ago.

The Telegraph (UK) says:
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

---------- I heard nothing about al-Hasidi on cable news, or why we are now backing someone who came to the aid of those fighting against US "invaders" and supporting al-Qaeda.

Surfing again this a.m. I checked Kos to see if any diarists were on it and found this at Iconic Surrealism: Daily Kos Scrubs "THIS is who we’re helping in Libya? Al-Qaeda?" Diary. And indeed, it's been scrubbed from Kos.

Over at HuffPo a comment was made mentioning the al-Hasidi story, but as usual on blog sites it immediately became a barb-fest between posters who drink the kool-aid and those who don't, all with the bravery of being out of range.

My favorite posters are those who resort to pithy humor or song lyrics because they know nothing said on Kos or HuffPo or anywhere else makes any difference in the grand scheme of things .... amused to death ...

Hey bartender over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir, turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great
For righting wrongs
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range.
(Roger Waters)

CAGW Ad

2011-03-25T10:56:00.002-05:00

Popular Uprisings

2011-03-20T08:45:00.008-05:00

God help me, old tricky Dick Nixon might have been right when he said, "Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting." Problem is that's how all systems operate.

Does it make a difference if the sanctions or bomb says Johnson or Carter, Reagan or Clinton, Bush or Obama? Made in China, made in Russia, made in Israel, made in the US?

Who do you think is behind "popular uprisings"? Capitalists? The US? Communists, pinkos, left, right? The people? Republican, democrats? Freemasons? Illuminati? Rockefellers? Jesus or Allah? Foppish Europeans?

Who or what is really behind the popular uprisings in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. ... let's take an uprising I'm familiar with - the Sandinistas versus the Contras.

Folklore tells us the Sandinistas were a group of poets and idealistic middle class college kids who wanted to bring hope and change to Nicaragua. They took the name of Augusto Sandino, the 1930s Nicaraguan rebel, freedom fighter, who also fought to throw off the yoke of imperialism, to rid the country of presidents who were puppets of the US, you know the slogans. Viva Sandino! Patria libre.

Sandino was the illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner, his mother a servant. He moved in with his father at age 9. Most wealthy latino men claim, raise, and educate their "outside" children, especially sons.

Pop culture sites say Sandino left home in 1921, around age 28, traveling to Mexico where he worked at Standard Oil and became involved with anti-imperialists, socialists, anarchist groups. True, but he fled Nicaragua because he had attempted to murder the son of a prominent "conservative" townsman, over remarks the man made about his momma. He returned to Nicaragua in 1926 or so when the statute of limitations ran out on his charges.

Isn't 28 a bit old to try and kill someone talking trash about your momma? In Sandino's own words he also returned to Nicaragua to marry his cousin Maria Mercedes, had saved enough money to open his own grain business in Managua, and his father had pleaded for him to come home now that the statute had ran out. So a poor indigenous peasant of the people or a favored son of a wealthy conservative landowner? Hard to separate fact from propaganda when studying dead heroes. When his business venture did not get off the ground he turned to making fame and fortune using the techniques he witnessed during his years in Mexico - become a rebel with a cause. There's a lot to Sandino but a good deal of it is myth and happenchance.

But until at least age 28 and until he fled to Mexico, Sandino was not all that political, although you'll find snips that say he was affected at 17 when he saw the body of General Zeledon being carried on an oxcart by the US Marines after a coup attempt. But if he hadn't tried to kill a guy for talking about his momma, had he stayed in Nicaragua and not spent those 5 years in Mexico's leftist community, had his grain business succeeded on his return, would he have become a rebel? Sandino was said to be a prolific writer and gifted speaker. So apparently someone provided a decent education. If you read far and wide, particularly Sandino's own writings you might begin to wonder if he was just a little man in a big hat with an even bigger ego.

The then president Bautista and his commandante Somoza within a year or so wiped out the band of Sandinistas and killed Sandino, who then became a people's hero, to be revived in the 1960s by the aforementioned older Nicaraguan poets, preppies and college kids, specifically Tomas Borge and Carlos Fonseca. Take it to the masses, the poor. Promise them anything if they support the popular uprising. Nicaragua's factions have always been the Liberal and Conservative. Which have today, like the US and elsewhere, blurred their platforms to the point it's hard to tell them apart. Say anything to get elected and reelected. Possibly because that's the only way governments can keep real revolution at bay - simply agree to take turns screwing the people and call it democracy. Would you like some ink on that finger? A sticker for you hon? says "I Voted."

Who organizes, trains, arms, funds, and manages these "popular uprisings"? Do guerrillas awake to find rifles and grenade launchers under their hammocks or camels or huts? Along with detailed logistics and long-term strategy?

No, my friends. The super players are their handlers. Super players grease the wheels of revolutions aka popular uprisings - once they see a certain group has serious potential and a leader to lead an armed rebellion.

Although still denied by old Sandinistas and lefties everywhere - Russia was in the mountains long before they began overtly supplying the junta that marched victoriously into Managua in1979. In fact, a Sandinista cofounder, Carlos Fonseca wrote a book in 1957, after a trip to Moscow, chronicling his visit to the USSR entitled Un Nicaraguense en Moscu (A Nicaraguan In Moscow). He praised the achievements of the USSR ... its "free press, complete freedom of religion and the efficiency of its worker-run industries". And Fonseca was a Sandinista intellectual.

Fonseca died long ago, 3 years before the Sandinista victory, but Borge lives on. Ambassador now, twittering for the little people about the awful conservative millionaires who despise him, and Hugo Chavez and other leftists (although Borge himself a millionaire). This from a man who believed "either the rich will exploit the poor, or the poor will free themselves by wiping out the privileges of the millionaires," excluding those millionaires like Borge who lead you to the millionaires who are to lose their privileges.

(One of Sandino's daughter, Blanca, and family lived in Cuba from 1961 to 1979 when grandson Walter Sandino returned to Nicaragua, about the same time the Sandinistas took power, and took a post in the Sandinista government for a while. Tubby and decadent Walt was educated in Russia. Daniel Ortega supposedly married into the Sandino bloodline and Danny too trained in Cuba in the 1960s. Still think USSR and Cuba weren't involved in the Sandinista's popular uprising? Maybe it really is just a family/clan activity.)

I knew 2 brothers in Nicaragua, actually knew the whole family of 22, counting the patriarch's outside children. Some were Sandinista, some were Contra, some managed to get to L.A. or Miami and sit the war out. Some sons were Sandinista, the others Contra. Truly brother against brother. Although the Contra sons initially fought with the Sandinistas, like many others a couple of years after "victory" they left disillusioned, to join the Contras. It took about 5 years for most campesinos to realize that the Sandinistas were not going to deliver much of that hope and change they had promised. Perhaps that is why pols favor 5-year plans - it takes that long for the people to recognize it's b.s. so they need a new plan every 5. And years ago I believed the results might have been different had the US left well enough alone in Nicaragua - but no longer believe that to be true. Isn't hindsight great.

The Contra presence, their threat, their engagement, their resistance was limited. Simply put - the Sandinistas lost the support of the people. And they lost that support because once in power, like all pols, they were too occupied with maintaining power to do what needed to be done for the people. The people (fodder) were their means to an end (power).

Oh sure, the Sandinistas confiscated some land from the rich absent landlords and set up co-op farms but that doesn't work on a large scale, unless you have a guy with a whip on a horse patrolling the fields. And more than a few of the remaining co-op farms today have been saved only because US or International nonprofits stepped in to pay off loans on the land, buy products (usually coffee) at above Fair Trade prices, charging the customers on the consumer end a whopping price for a cup of coffee. The 21st century style of how to make profit and feel warm fuzzies doing it. There are world fair trade organizations globally providing such aid - community organizing on a global scale. They help farmers survive. The third world farmers will not become rich nor even middle class, they will never have a car or a garage or 2 chickens in every pot, but they will survive, crop to crop, hand to mouth. They still do not own their land as the 40 other families on it are technically owners and bankers will forever hold the deed for equipment and seed, and they are still beholden to white progressive capitalists far away who help keep prices inflated by paying the difference. Twenty-first century "free market." Some day some of their children may move up and out, then who will work the farms. But let's not borrow trouble. As long as the underclasses breed like rabbits, and they will, there will always be plenty of field hands and uprisers.

Nicaraguans today are no better off than they were under Somoza. In fact, some might say worse as a local there told me as much as he says those who returned from the US brought their drugs and crime and immorality back with them. I suppose it depends solely on perception, as anywhere. If you're part of the class that has a bigger retaining wall around your house and heavier bars on the windows, you have a rosier outlook.

As I said before, it's not about "sharing the wealth" - it's who gets to control the wealth. One side offers the little people slightly more chance of lifting themselves up by their own abilities, the other side offers no chance of that but they will see that you "survive." And if you can't figure out which side is which you're probably supporting the wrong side.

Point is, if there is a point, is the men and women in government will never live up to their promises because they do not want to and never intend to, and we do not hold them to their promises. Anymore than Clinton brought peace and prosperity, or Bush the Boy brought back integrity, or Obama brought hope and change, or the Sandinistas a utopia of social equality. Heroes are rare. So they are invented out of any handy man (or woman) who steps up, after being properly groomed, to play the role and lead an uprising which more or less maintains the status quo but with slightly different rhetoric.

So Viva .... whomever!

The Real Enemy

2011-03-07T09:33:00.002-06:00

I don't know if this guy Ron Legro is truly dense or just writing puff pieces for the "left progressive" faction.

His argument:
Number of teachers in Wisconsin: 59,552
Number of millionaires in Wisconsin: 89,977

Yes, it's amazing, but true: Wisconsin by far has more millionaires than school teachers. Suffice to say, the two categories do not appreciably overlap.

Average Wisconsin teacher salary: $46,390 (US rank: 28th among all states)

Typical wage cut faced by a Wisconsin school teacher if Gov. Scott Walker's non- negotiable give-backs are enacted: $5,567 to 6,958 per year (based on net total compensation reduction caused by Walker's plan).

Continuing average income boost for millionaires in Wisconsin and elsewhere, thanks to the recent extension of 2001 Bush-era federal tax cuts: Approximately $100,000 per year.

So here's the bottom line no one on the red side of the political aisle will ever bother to acknowledge:

If the State of Wisconsin increased taxes on resident millionaires to take back just one-twentieth of the extra money they've been keeping in their pockets thanks to the Bush tax cuts, that would totally wipe out the need to slash teacher salaries under Walker's scheme. Totally.

-------- As pointed out to Legro by a reader, his facts regarding Wisconsin's number of millionaires are misleading, the 89,977 is "total net worth, not annual income." As I blogged before, there's a huuuuuge difference between what you're worth (wealth) and your income (wages).

I might mention that the "Bush tax cuts for the rich" also included tax cuts for all. If the cuts were not extended you would have noticed more withholding tax on you pay stub, which the majority of wage workers will receive back, some or all of it, in a tax refund, unless of course BigDaddy government keeps it for back child support, student loan default, back tax for not filing for years Bubba, etc., etc.

One reader on Legro's blog commented: Great post! The more people talk about this, the more the country will see who the real enemy is. Wherever appropriate I mention that I am old enough to remember the 90% tax bracket for income tax. Nelson Rockefeller, the former governor of New York and Vice President, was in this bracket, solely because of his thieving grandfather. He paid his income taxes without complaint.

Who the real enemy is? If the reader is old enough to remember the 90% tax bracket for income tax and that Rockefeller didn't complain he should also know that said bracket was not for total net worth because of a thieving grandpappy, but for income over $400K. He should know that Nelson could pay himself an annual income of $4 or $400 or $4000. He should know that the 90% was AGI, after deductions, and rich folks have lots of deductions. He should know that it was these high tax brackets that gave birth to thousands of tax free "foundations" where family money could be donated to family foundations, tax free. (Although tax free foundations were established earlier by Warburg, Rockefeller, and Carnegie.)

And in case you're not old enough to remember, when Nelson Rockefeller wanted to become Gerald Ford's vice president, he had to disclose his tax returns which revealed that in 1970 Nelson hadn't paid one cent of income tax.

The "progressives" who seem more capable than I of spotting the "real enemy" would have you think the sole and simple solution is Robin Hoodish. Soak the rich.

Even one of their own, Oprah, legally only resides in California half the year, to avoid the resident tax rates - she's not soaking for anyone. And good old Charlie Rangel, forgetting income and interest free loans, etc. Or the memorable "African-American" Theresa Heinz Kerry, who reluctantly released 2 pages of her tax return showing an income of about 5 million from trusts, paying about 600K in federal tax of which 200K was overpayment which she elected to apply to the following year's taxes. Nothing released on the numerous family trusts that earn millions if not billions in interest. Her gross wage income was approximately $8000 based on the $1200 social security tax she paid.

The only time you'll see a decent tax return from a politician is when he knows he'll be running for office and might have to release one to the public, otherwise you would be speechless at the final amount on line 43. AGI is whittled to a nub when no one is going to see it. The list of "progressives" who are closet hardcore capitalists is long. It's not about "sharing the wealth" but who controls the wealth.

What do I think about public school teacher salaries? Most teachers are underpaid. But! Most teachers are also incompetent. Half of what's wrong with public education is piss-poor parenting, the other half is ineffectual teachers and administrators. More funding never has and never will solve the problem of a people who just don't care about things that matter.

So do the leaders of the "left" or the "progressives" really think they're going to soak the rich ("real enemy") for your benefit? No, but they know the village is full of idiots who fall for simple-minded rhetoric.

Guerrero del Amor

2011-02-22T20:31:00.003-06:00

Guardabarranco

Presidents Day

2011-02-21T09:49:00.002-06:00

And the "left" progressives have, agaaaaain, dutifully written their condemnation and avoidance of celebrating George Washington and any other president "who profited from trafficking in and ownership of human beings." According to Freedom Rider "The celebration is not for anyone who is committed to truth telling." Because folks, Washington was "one of the godfathers of the human bondage Mafia..."

The original rich old white man? the root cause of all world problems ... bro.

The condemnistas include brief quotes from Washington documents about pursuing a runaway slave, or quotes from "truth telling" professors who compete to interpret history as egregiously as they possibly can. They mention George's wealth, acreage, number of slaves, his aristocratic lifestyle based on slave labor. I don't think I've ever seen anyone accuse GW of raping his female slaves but that may only be because there were no mulattos attributed to the sterile president. George did seem to be strict about morality and principles, notwithstanding the ownership of human beings.

(None mention the personal letters between Washington and his aide, Tobias Lear, when George was attempting to sell off most of his holdings at Mt. Vernon and willed a portion of his estate to free slaves, set up pensions for them, teach them to read, write, and a trade, etc. Historians give various reasons for his decision, ranging from an old man's guilt, to a recognition that abolition was inevitable if the US was to survive, to an act of personal generosity toward those who had served him during his life.)

But from the "left" progressives - this is your heritage American whitey. Do not commemorate this evil, devious, old goodfella from the bondage Mafia. Whatever contributions George made on the plus side for the grand experiment in freedom - let us cherry-pick from biased sources and dwell forever on "the man's" offensive negatives; call it truth telling.

Bipartisan Busy Work

2011-02-19T08:36:00.002-06:00

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan trio of senators has introduced a new cybersecurity bill that eliminates the president's authority to switch off the Internet.

The "kill switch," as it's known, exists in the 1934 Telecommunications Act, which was amended in 1996. It gives the president powers to shut off all regulated telecommunications if he or she deems it vital to national security interests.

But that's not going to fly any more, say Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

-------------- Remember about 2001 to 2008 the left circulated stories that Dubya would shut down the internet because it was a threat to his regime, the net was a "new era of outreach and information for the common man" ... that average folks would use this newfound tool of knowledge to unite and challenge the status quo. 'Course, all that outreach and info and uniting only gave us Obama and more quo.

Too many ISPs and too much economic activity for any US president to use a "kill switch." And if by some snowball in hell chance TPTB deemed a telecommunication blackout necessary it would be done legitimately as an emergency act, with certain websites and networks having their plug pulled (gamers and porn addicts are safe). Or just have Big Business refuse to host offending websites (e.g. Amazon/Wikileaks). No need to kill the entire internet.

Joe, Tom, Suzie - busy work, defined as a time consuming activity, but not useful (written by staffers, I'm sure Joe, Tom, Suzie have not read their own bill).

Cactus Cuties

2011-02-07T11:50:00.000-06:00

Free Egypt

2011-02-06T09:09:00.003-06:00

Okay, lets talk about Egypt. The first neighbor who said anything to me says the riots/protests in Egypt are the US fault. Blame America first I guess. We support a tyrant/dictator, etc., Egyptians want freedom/democracy, etc.

The usual phrases from those who prefer to think their sorry life, and the world's problems, are due to the machinations of rich, old, American white men.

The self-titled 21st century-socialist, Hugo Chavez, says US role in Egypt is shameful. "Now you are seeing comments from Washington and some European nations. As President Gaddafi said to me, it's shameful, it makes you kind of sick to see the meddling of the U.S., wanting to take control."

Yessirr, Chavez, (ruling for 12 years and counting) and Gaddafi (Libyan ruler since 1969 and counting) think it's shameful. The US wants to take control. Yes, Chavez and Gaddafi say so. And who better to understand how control works than tinpots of the world united.

What's shameful is the extra billions Chavez is making because of the "Egypt effect" on oil prices. But, even Chavez is tiptoeing around this "crisis" in Egypt, none of his fiery speeches in support of Egyptian protestors or claiming he smells sulfur. Hugo is sitting on the fence until he sees which "ism" looks like a winner. Besides, his advisers know too much "Egypt effect" could trigger a world recession and drive down oil prices, and Hugo's checkbook popularity.

Long live the struggling masses who can take control of vast resources and use them to benefit themselves. How many times have we heard that in the last 100 years? Workers of the world unite - for permanent revolution. Yawn. You can bury the bodies in the forest and swear you don't know where they are.

Let Egypt trade one despot for another and call it freedom (or socialism) or winning, or whatever.

Is there any truth that the Muslim Brotherhood may come to power in Egypt? Sure there is. The country is 90% Muslim. Since the assassination of Sadat, groups like al-Jihad and Gamaat have waged military style campaigns against the government. Usually using the police as their targets. Their goal - to bring down Mubarak's regime and install their own Islamic ruled Egypt. Such "revolutions" are always done by promise of using a country's vast resources to uplift the poor and punish the rich. Never works out that way but you can always count on the masses not to know that.

Hmmm... can you think of any other country where cops are the hated "enemy" and oppressors? Works the same all over huh.

Oh god, does an Egyptian revolution mean another era of almost broke white lefty backpackers roaming around pyramids in support of the localistas? And blogging about it? Groan.

Remember, the US "left" supported the Iranian revolution in 1979 against Shah Pahlavi, the "US puppet" in Iran. Iran has not had much uplifting since, but the "left" had other revolutions to support and chant for.

When discussing the crisis, don't forget to soap-box on Tunisia and Arab reawakening nationalism as being in the revolutionary mix, blah blah blah, and always remind folks that the US spends billions to mubarakish dictators to suppress their own people. And if you lean too far to the right you can tell folks that US/Egypt involvement is also some sort of racist expansionist Zionist plot.

There is never a shortage of someone or another struggling against rich old white men. Surely, you are willing to lower your standard of living in order to free Egypt, no? Oh, wait, no one explained how that works at your last solidarity get-together?

High 5

2011-01-27T08:55:00.003-06:00

Did Obama do his 5-year plan SOTU speech? I didn't listen. State of the Union speeches are always how far we've come and how much further we have to go. Does that 5-year plan sound like the Soviets or what...

On a "progressive" site I saw a comment on Obama's spending freeze that said "... but no freeze for the Pentagon ... sez it all." Well, no, it does not really say anything. Anyone with any connection to the military knows the DoD has cut spending, downsized, etc.

Remember though, DoD does not cut much from worthless projects or bloated defense contractors. First cuts are the benefits to those lower on their food chain. Even the neocon we loved to hate, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted a military that could do more with less (leaner, meaner military).

Reportedly the 2011 Pentagon budget is $708 billion, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What I find curious is that Jimmy Carter's 1980 Pentagon budget was $303 billion - but, with inflation calculation that's $781 billion in 2010 dollars. And the US was not at war anywhere. The 1962 Kennedy defense budget was $364 billion, equivalent today to $2.5 trillion. And we had yet to ramp up massive involvement in Vietnam.

Looking at the above figures, seems to me machismo costs less today than under any previous progressive heroes.

God, remember 1962. Bread was 10 cents a loaf. My mom and I took a road trip that year and gas was 28 cents a gallon. A studio apartment in Chicago was $135 a month. A Saturday matinee was 20 cents. Today, bread doesn't taste any better, gas doesn't go any further, and I haven't seen a movie yet worth more than 20 cents.

January 17 #10 :)

2011-01-17T21:28:00.004-06:00

Jillian Eleanor
7 lb 10 oz 19"

Responsive Politics

2011-01-15T08:42:00.002-06:00

Will President Obama be the first billion-dollar man?

He raised and spent $750 million in the 2008 campaign, and there is already speculation that the cash-collection operation for his 2012 reelection bid will crest the once-unimaginable sum of $1 billion raised. (That's a one and nine zeros. Nine!)

"It's not unrealistic at all, given the amount raised and spent in 2008 and the amount Republican interest groups and 527s will spend against him," said a former Obama administration official.

A look at the trend line of fundraising for presidential candidates over the past several elections suggests a doubling effect every four years.

Four years earlier, President George W. Bush brought in $367 million while Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) collected $328 million. Total spending in 2004 was about half that of 2008's: $718 million.

The key difference between 2004 and 2008 was that Obama became the first person to opt out of public financing for the general election since the adoption of the current campaign finance system in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

----------------------------- Okaaaaaaaay, bring out the idiot slogans for bumper stickers, t-shirts, caps, pins. Voting makes a difference, one man one vote, rock the vote, team you are the one. Blah blah bla blah bla blah blah ba blah bla. Ba blah bla blah blah. Blah bla ba blah. Hoot whistle scream swoon applause chant. Blah ba blah bla blah ba bla blah. Ka-ching ka-ching, ka-change ka-change you been waiting for ... blah ba bla blah blah take back America folks ka-cling ka-clinging to god and guns ... blah bla blah ...

Blame Game

2011-01-11T11:00:00.003-06:00

The conspiracy theories begin. "That was a LOT of damage done by ONE SHOOTER? Who drove him there?" (WRH). "Well it's not just health care. Lotta issues going on in this guy's head." (BFN) "Right wing radio and right wing blogs express violence openly, without apology." (Kos)

Blame the media, blame political issues, blame the right wingers, blame Wall Street, blame the media, blame poverty, blame wealth, blame bullying, blame Palin.

How about blaming the perp, Jared Loughner. Blame the household that shaped him. Blame the political correctness that says we cannot cause anyone to feel bad about themselves, thus tolerating dysfunctional behavior from toddler to old age.

Everyone looks for Loughner's motivation behind the killings. People like Loughner have no motivation. They have hatred and targets. He targets the government, targets the system, targets Giffords. He is not mentally disturbed, he is not brain damaged. He is not a product of the local sheriff. Jared is the product of his parents and himself.

A few decades ago folks like Loughner would have been considered "retarded" early on and kept on a short leash by family, straightened out by family, or institutionalized. Thanks to political correctness and parental consent, emotionally retarded kids are now Adderall-ed and Ritalin-ed, excused, catered to, and pushed along until they can be dumped into adulthood, emotionally botched, sadistic, and without conscience. There's a whole lot of 'em. Their targets are usually family, friends, neighbors, or random strangers - not high profile politicians.

This is what you get when you have a majority of society willing to encourage everyone to have a chip on their shoulder, to whine that life is unfair, aiding and abetting folks to act on impulse and addictive lifestyles (addiction to drugs, TV, food, sex, shopping, gambling, whining). It's what you get when you tell parents little Johnny's behavior is not their fault when it damn well is their fault.

I know, I know, blaming parents is an outdated belief system.

(Link from a reader: Newsy.)

Low on Sympathy

2011-01-10T17:54:00.004-06:00

Keeping up with the release of the Scott sisters "wrongful conviction." The sisters, Gladys and Jamie were convicted in Mississippi in 1993 of armed robbery and given life sentences. They have recently been freed, sentences suspended by Gov. Barbour (R), after agreeing one sister would donate a kidney to the other sister if they match, if not they still have their freedom.

Yes, life terms for armed robbery without serious injury sounds excessive. On the other hand, when lighter sentences are given and the parolee then commits a more heinous crime the same sympathetic folks are screaming - why was this guy not behind bars..... The sisters were eligible for parole in 2014. The Scott sisters reportedly did not have any previous criminal record.

There are a few theories out there as to why the judge handed down such a stiff penalty, one being that a black deputy sheriff was shaking down the Scott sisters dad (James "Hawk" Rasco) who owned a night club, selling liquor in a dry county. Also reportedly a Rasco nephew gave evidence against a crooked white sheriff who was sent to prison for corruption and kickbacks.

If you know anything about dry counties there are always juke joints and illegal booze, and the sheriff is paid off. The fee was $100 per week to sell illegal liquor, but when the black deputy came for his shakedown, Rasco didn't feel he had to pay. So the theory goes that the sisters stiff sentence was revenge - by the black deputy sheriff Marvin Williams. Deputy Williams is said to have promised the father (Rasco) that he would "get" him, even if through his daughters. Robbery with double life terms is the method deputy Marvin Williams used to "get" Mr. Rasco. The sisters' mother says it was payback for her family giving testimony in a corruption case against the white sheriff (Glenn Warren) which sent him to prison.

Let me say this, good ol' boys are not brought down by anyone's testimony - they are brought down by others in the good ol' boy inner circle (ask Blagojevich), testimony gives the appearance of due process. I don't believe the deputy "got" Rasco by framing his daughters. That's not how the good ol' boys work down here. The system could have busted Rasco for bootlegging liquor and a dozen other connected crimes and sentenced his butt to prison for life. And then have their prison guard cousins give Rasco extra hard times.

But imagine, if true, a black deputy in Mississippi was powerful enough to trump up charges, coerce witnesses, convince the prosecutor to charge them, with evidence for a jury to convict them, and tell an elderly white judge to hand out life sentences to the sisters.

Was it revenge? Was it Mississippi racism? Was it wrongful conviction or excessive sentencing? Is there truth to the Biblical statement that the sins of the father are visited upon the child? Seems that way sometimes (i.e. the sins you teach your children come back to visit you.) You don't have to be black though. Our state recently freed a white boy who served 15 years for a murder he did not commit. Folks said the same things about the "good ol' boy" system and justice in his case, just no cries of racism around it. Of course, the ones who hate our local sheriff the most are the ones in and out of jail, or their family members. Apparently, if you keep your nose clean and mind your business - the good ol' boys don't even notice you.

In most cases of injustice it's people in the wrong place at the wrong time, usually because they're doing something they shouldn't be doing anyway, and life hammers them hard for it. Life tends to do that unfair thing to us from time to time. It's up to us individually and as families to guard ourselves against life's smack downs.

The saddest thing about the whole Scott story is not that the sisters were in prison for years but that they were both mothers when they went to prison. Jamie, the oldest has 3 children, ages 15, 18, and 21. Gladys has 2, ages 15 and 22. The girls were arrested when they were 19 and 22 and already had 5 children between them. They began their birthing careers in their early teens. They now, at age 36 and 38 have 2 grandchildren each, ages 3, 4, 5, and 7. Which means their children began their birthing careers in their teens. And how much do you wanna bet there are no marriages or a father's commitment in any of these young lives?

According to this story the sisters' children are all mentally handicapped to some degree. "Courtney's father lives in Jackson, Mississippi. He had also been sentenced under the same judge (Marcus Gordon) as Gladys and Jamie. He received a 30 year sentence for drug charges. He has been out of prison for about a year. He stays in close contact with Courtney and tries to help her as much as he can. The other children's fathers have not been in their lives at all."

The Scott sisters' mother, Evelyn Rasco, at one point was raising 10 grandchildren, 5 of the Scott sisters kids, and 5 more from other children. The saddest part of the story is, this is 3 generations in or on the prison and/or welfare system. My oldest daughter said once, discussing the epidemic numbers of lone women raising grandbabies and great grandbabies, that if you raise your kids right you won't be raising grandkids. And, honestly, I wonder how many more children would the Scott sisters have contributed to the system, had they not been incarcerated.

I do hope the sisters used their years in prison to become productive thinkers and doers who can convince those around them to break the cycle of welfare/prison, dependency/ignorance, and blaming mighty whitey's justice for everything wrong in their lives. But, as we are entering the 4th generation of degrading behavior I'm not expecting much to change.

One of These Mornings

2011-01-08T12:56:00.001-06:00

Diane McCauley & Moby

'O marenariello

2011-01-01T00:59:00.002-06:00

Jerry Vale

Vicin'ô mare,
facimmo 'ammore,
a core a core,
pe' nce spassá...
Só' marenaro
e tiro 'a rezza:
ma, p''allerezza,
stóngo a murí...

Happy New Year.

Death Panel

2010-12-28T08:03:00.003-06:00

Medicare to Cover End-of-Life Planning Talks By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today

WASHINGTON -- Starting Jan. 1, Medicare will reimburse physician discussions with patients about end-of-life treatment options -- a provision Democrats had to drop to get healthcare reform passed.

The new regulation requires only that Medicare cover end-of-life consultations for patients who want it. The "voluntary advance care planning" language was included in a regulation issued in early December that deals with annual wellness visits.

The regulation was issued quietly, the New York Times reported, in hopes of avoiding the hue and cry raised early in the reform debate when opponents claimed such counseling would create "death panels."

The new Medicare rule will pay for elective annual discussions about end-of-life plans, which can, in turn, be used to prepare an advance directive stating what treatments a patient would want and treatments they would not want.

In contrast, the provision that ignited the firestorm of rhetoric in 2009 would have paid for such consultations every five years.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) chimed in a week later, saying the bill would "start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

The "death panel" label was given to such counseling sessions by former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin who alleged they would pass judgment not only on older people's right to healthcare, but on others' as well.

-------- Who to believe, who to believe. Is this the initiation of "death panels" and government encouraged euthanasia - or - is it an act of magnanimous politicians because they love and respect us so darn much.

I lean toward the former, and Palin is correct, end-of-life won't be just for seniors. End of Life Planning will eventually cover everyone insured by Big Daddy Government. Big D sees the coming tsunami of much younger folks in poor health. Those younger folk afflicted with major disabling lifelong health problems due to obesity, drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, craziness, laziness, bad backs and mood disorders. "Disability" like so many social programs has fast become a career, a generational lifestyle. One in 19 Americans today, give it another decade. The trend now is not only ill health for yourself - but for all the kids in the family. Bipolar babies. It's not hard to find physicians who go along with it.

There will be no shortage of healthcare professionals willing to counsel the space wasters that they really should die sooner rather than later. Not that bluntly of course. And if you think HMO physicians liked those end-of-year bonuses for cutting costs, just wait until Big Daddy rewards physician performance.

Will Big Daddy really want to cover a kidney or heart transplant for 30-somethings who weigh 300+ pounds, having already spent a small fortune on years of medical care for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, depression, insomnia, asthma, knee replacements. Will Big D want to spend a million dollars on medical care for the 40-year-old Neanderthal who was badly burned when his meth lab exploded? Will Big D continue to spend millions on preemies or trauma victims who's future will be decades of drooling on an air mattress in front of the TV?

"Palliative" or comfort care options will be a burgeoning field. Keep you high 'til you die. And you will call it the best in modern medicine. I call it one helluva an undignified and unnatural method to cull the herd of the deadbeats, the stupid, the poor, the unproductive. Pols and pundits are con artists. Swindlers, exploiting the confidence of their victims. Death panel is ominous so I'm curious as to what warm fuzzy phrase will be used to describe your SOL options.

The current bill contains a "utilization review program" which on the surface sounds protective of patient's rights. But basically, and this is already SOP, what it means is the utilization review department, the medical staff, and the hospital/government administrative bodies will work in close harmony to survive these trying economical times, and ... oh, yes, serve your healthcare needs, and in that order. (Name one government program that has not been perverted from its original intent.)

Bogus & Bravado

2010-12-20T23:44:00.002-06:00

Alan Bock: Things we shouldn't have had to learn from WikiLeaks. December 17, 2010|By ALAN BOCK

"There have been expressions of alarm over the possibility that the release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks could endanger Americans and others, notably human-rights activists in other countries, leaving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "with blood on his hands." To date, however, the government has not described a single instance of a life being endangered, or even of a diplomatic initiative threatened, by the document dumps – which you know it would do if it had a credible example.

I'm not saying there aren't a number of things the government justifiably should keep secret, but I've come to believe it's a fraction of what is actually classified. When I worked in the nation's capital in the 1970s, including three years as a congressional aide with limited access to classified material, I got the distinct impression that a significant reason for classifying so much information was to give those with access a boost in self-esteem; yes, they were entrusted with facts about the nation's business that were so vital, only they could know. I can't tell you how many times at cocktail parties staff members, state department workers and others would explain that if we knew what they knew, but which, unfortunately, they couldn't tell us, we wouldn't be questioning policies or actions so vigorously. Out of curiosity I tracked down a few such boasts and found them to be bogus or bravado."

----- Ever notice when someone wants to sound knowledgeable on secret government stuff they always mention they worked X number of years in government, etc. etc.

Of course the amount of material that is classified is much larger than what should be, but not to boost the self-esteem of low level staffers and diplomats so they can feel important at cocktail parties. It's done our of sheer laziness. It's easier to stamp classified or confidential on most everything than to actually make an honest determination and accept responsibility.

If the Assange supporters are correct and the leaks endanger no one - then basically Assange is a dufus, boasting like a puffed up government employee at a D.C. cocktail party, but letting us know the secrets he knows.

According to WaPo Wikileaks "unveiling" of State Department cables exposes the inner workings of U.S. diplomacy. Oh my. Putin is described as an alpha-dog. Karzai is driven by paranoia. Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative." Silvio Berlusconi is "Putin's mouthpiece" after receiving "lavish gifts."

Classified gossip, opinions, or assessments that should remain out of the public realm? Death to diplomacy? Would you want to have a sit down with someone who thinks you're a bit cowardly and uncreative, or a mouthpiece, or a paranoid.

Bock writes: "To date, however, the government has not described a single instance of a life being endangered, or even of a diplomatic initiative threatened, by the document dumps – which you know it would do if it had a credible example."

You know, wikileaks began redacting heavily after its initial leaking. (The military was in the process of notifying some 300 Iraqis whose names were in the documents. You think all 300 dodged that bullet?)

I can think of a couple of reasons the government has not given a single instance. One, the dumps are petty ... crappola ... making Assange yet another among many bogus heroes. Or two, the government, being slow and incompetent, will have a credible "instance" in the future but by that time it will matter only to the person it directly effected - as the crappolistas will be busy unveiling the newest peoples' hero to fill the chattering lives of on-line forum fighters who haven't a clue to what is going on under their nose.

Hopefully, Assange will wikileak those secrets from Russia and China that he claims access to. Although he may end up eating polonium if he does.

Fall For Anything

2010-12-05T09:18:00.006-06:00

It is amazing how quickly the months pass when giving only cursory attention to the world outside my window. After 5 years of blogging it is pretty much the same ol' same ol' as far as politics and society are concerned. Same reelection of the same corrupt unethical pols, same "outing" of the "truth" by the same old and new players who "speak truth to power." Yawn. Same cinematic reruns.

But, let us hope that we are not subjected to a second term of Reverend Obama the Impotent, or worse yet, a 4 year stint of the rather empty-headed nasal twanging Palin. Both who's stars have burnt, flashed in the pan, but who likely will have lifelong careers in the public limelight - if media moguls deem it so.

Are Palin and Newt the Gingrich the best the republicans have to offer? Who in their right mind would recycle the check kiting Newt, who is as unethical as his democratic counterpart Charlie Rangel, both reelected term after term no matter how many times they are smacked on the wrist. Although granted, Newt is a major producer of conservative Christian propaganda and contracts on America, while Charlie is just your typical pimp and porker working hard for "monuments named after me", cleaning up the Harlem that is never cleaned up, supporting Israel, etc.

What the heck - like all pols, nothing is a disgrace anymore - unethical and immoral is merely an error of omission, a lapse in judgment. Folks don't lie anymore - they misspeak. Folks don't get caught with their hand in the till anymore - they thought the till was their legal personal fund. Folks don't bribe, coerce, or extort anymore - they schmooze for the good of all mankind.

And for those folks who cannot squirm out of trouble, are caught red-handed, have to admit wrong doing, whatever their income bracket, society has an excuse - they couldn't help themselves (insert a syndrome). They're not really evil or dastardly - you just failed to give them universal healthcare to repair their heads being screwed on wrong.

News programs, most evenings, a pundit will mention that "republicans and democrats must come together." That line, as so many others, is so worn out. They are working together - to their own elitist benefit.

Also on a quarterly or annual basis, the crypt keepers Poppa and Barb Bush issue sound bytes of supposed wisdom and warm nostalgia. As does Bill Clinton with his W.C. Fields nose, and the up and coming statesman George Junior Bush who may finally have faked sobriety so long that he really is sober, or perhaps slick Willie has coached Dubya on how to be a highly functioning drunk skunk.

I still shake my head at the level of stupid that is displayed in the media, socially and politically. Movies, music, television, print. For me, it's similar to watching a horror show - I don't like it and don't go out of my way to see it, hear it, or read it, but I usually cringe through to the end. Then swear for wasting my time.

The phoniest shows are labeled "reality" TV. Ghost hunters are taken seriously when they catch a blur or crackle on film or audio, haunted houses and ghosts of animals are real. Jesse Ventura theories are taken seriously - why not, Jesse once fought the predator with governor Arnie of California. Meathead entertainers turned politicians.

And who knew there were so many women who didn't know they were pregnant until the newborn dropped in the toilet? Who knew that 16 and pregnant would get your 15 minutes. Who knew fame could come from shopping, ho'ing, petty drama and cat fights, or being bored housewives.

Who would have thought that sleazy skanky folks with no talent could be nipped and tucked into celebrityhood. Or worse, the fat, the bony, the inked up who are Revlon-ed and Cover Girled, and sold as having the talent and bravery to be repo men and women, or chasing bad guys around their mama's house.

How many episodes can anyone really watch of Dog Chapman stalking meth heads and petty thieves. How many episodes of the greasy Kardashians - and now, god help us, David Hasselhoff, the slobbering cheeseburger eater. Commercials for the "Hoff" have a toddler running along the beach with a hairy chest - an oddly perverse way to claim that "some people are born awesome" - seems most folks think the ad is "cool" and "funny" but that's to be expected from a public with a spiraling double-digit I.Q.

Who knew that so many would be so famous for so little.

You know, as cynical as I may appear I did have hope for the Republic, but I can only conclude that folks who pay more than a little attention to anything going on today are either under the influence or were dropped on their heads in childhood. If the garbage that fills the media is a reflection of our political and social ideals - then abandon hope all ye.

Juke Joints

2010-12-02T23:01:00.002-06:00

Juke joint (or jook joint) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by Blacks. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly. It could also derive from the Irish language "deoch dionta" (drinking roofed place). Classic juke joints found, for example, at rural crossroads, catered to the rural work force that began to emerge after the emancipation. Plantations workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments by Jim Crow laws. Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle buildings or private houses, juke joints offered food, drink, dancing and gambling for weary workers. Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providing cheap room and board. (Wiki)

Minnie Memphis - Kissin' in the Dark

It Was You Baby

Election Trick or Teat

2010-11-01T09:56:00.001-05:00

Wow, October passed so quickly I barely noticed. And here it is time to vote again.

Since 2000 it seems the pundits and talking heads make grand attempts to create drama where there is none. They dissect political speeches and off the cuff comments as if they have great import. Howling and wailing or glowing and supporting one pol over another. One would almost believe elections have meaning. As if the voters don't continually return the same corrupt porkers back to office. As if the president doesn't spend his first 2 years in office stumping for party buddies and his last 2 years stumping for his second term. While the behind the scene national rulers assign them all what to say and which bills to sign.

Elections are like auditions. Rewarding mediocre actors, to play the same roles over and over. Corporate/wealthy casting couches determine national policy, until politicians decrepit, sotted old bones die and they get a week of good reviews for all they have done to us. Many times their spawn carry on the tradition.

I'm flabbergasted that folks still believe their vote for best actors really matters.

I Owe You A Dream

2010-10-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

Rosana - Te Debo Este Sueño

Operation Wallet

2010-09-28T11:56:00.003-05:00

Washington (CNN) -- The Department of Defense recently purchased and destroyed thousands of copies of an Army Reserve officer's memoir in an effort to safeguard state secrets, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

"DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham said.

In a statement to CNN, Cunningham said defense officials observed the September 20 destruction of about 9,500 copies of Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer's new memoir "Operation Dark Heart."

--- It's that time again. Remember Anthony Shaffer? He was the "confidential source" used by Curt Weldon in Weldon's Countdown to Terror, a book supposedly exposing other dark secrets of the government, the operation "Able Danger" the left/progressives went wild over for a minute.

Weldon served in the House (R-PA) from 1987-2006 (also vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, and co-chair of the Duma-Congress Study Group, the official inter-parliamentary relationship between the United States and Russia.)

I mentioned Shaffer in this August 2005 KAB post, so I believe I can just use the same idea from 5 years ago, why not - the "activists" and "truth to power" people keep using the same formula for the same phony outrage.

My ending paragraph from that blog post: "Weldon + Shaffer = tabloid news = another distraction. Watch for my future exposé : Countdown to Another Phony Book While Planning the Real Bad Things For America: Top-Secrets Leaking Like a Sieve As Fast As We Can Write Them ... and How the People Eat it Up."

Forget the left/right progressive or whatever spin about Pentagon book burning, censorship, truthsayers, etc. etc. Here's the real scoop: Operation Dark..." is published by St. Martin's Press which is the textbook subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers which is owned by Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, a Stuggart-based holding company.

Georg von Holtzbrinck (joined National Socialist German Students' League in 1931) established a German book club back then and the von Holtzbrincks have been buying publishing houses worldwide ever since. Today run by inherited billionaire Stefan von H.

(That reminds me, many years ago when my oldest daughter was in her teens, an old fellow told her to make sure she married a man with a good job. She told him something we did not teach her ... she said she didn't want a man with a job - she wanted a man with an inheritance.)

Now with that worthless info aside ... the truth is that some bigwig in the aforesaid publishing houses called some bigwig buddy in government/DOD and said we got a pointless book we need to hype so you buy the first 10,000 printing (minus the ones we send to reviewers) and let the media know DOD is "book burning."

Yep, with dozens already in the hands of reviewers, who are already publishing excepts from the uncensored first run version, it seems kind of stupid to buy up the remaining 9,500. But I suppose it will make those 500 floating around more valuable, for at least a week.

I hear Wikileaks has a coveted first printing copy. Another thing - average first hardback printing for an unknown/unproven author is rarely more than 5000 (everyone waits for the paperback).

Rumors are the Pentagon paid $250,000 for the books and another $45,000 to pulp or burn them. That's a good margin for the publisher as the book is pre-selling for $14 on Amazon. And in a couple of months you will be able to buy the book for $3 in the can't-give-it-away bin at Barnes and Noble.

But ditto what I said years ago, people eat it up.

American Made

2010-09-24T20:16:00.001-05:00

Paved With Intentions

2010-09-13T14:11:00.002-05:00

Census figures for 2009, to be released Thursday, are expected to show that the poverty rate soared last year to nearly 15 percent. One out of every seven Americans is now living below the official poverty level, the highest proportion since the 1960s. One in five American children is living in poverty.

The Associated Press reported the sharp rise in the poverty rate after interviewing six demographers who have been tracking the preliminary census figures, and finding “wide consensus that 2009 figures are likely to show a significant rate increase to the range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.”

That rate would indicate that some 45 million people were living below the official poverty line in 2009. The official poverty level, an annual income of $22,000 for a family of four, grossly understates the income required for a decent life. The real number of people living in actual economic distress is much higher, probably over 100 million.

The rise in the poverty rate from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 15 percent in 2009 is the largest year-on-year increase since the US government began collecting such statistics in 1959. The previous largest increase came in 1980, a year of double-digit inflation.

Conditions in the poorest large city in America, Detroit, give a glimpse of the future for wide layers of the working class. Several thousand people lined up at a west side Detroit church Saturday to get free bags of groceries and school supplies. Parents with small children, retirees and low-income workers starting lining up at 8 a.m. for the event that started at 11 a.m., and the queue circled around the city block.

----- Fact is, the US poverty rates from 1959-2006 have ranged between 12-22%, and went just over 15% in 1995. The 22% was 1959. Gotta wonder if the statisticians adjusted how they defined poverty or if the federally funded "war on poverty" was a tremendous success.

As for Detroit, we know what went on there (white flight) and what is going on now. Detroit is today 82% black, 12% white, the remainder "other." It also boasts a family household statistic of 74% "female, no husband present." You can find similar poverty stats for cities like Milwaukee and Cincinnati. That 74% is approximately the same illegitimate birthrate for black America (okay, out-of-wedlock if you insist).

In 1995 Detroit's unemployment rates were also double the national average. That was just after Detroit's first black mayor, 5-term Coleman Young, finally retired.

Many of Detroit's problems could be laid to rest at the feet of "progressive dissident" Coleman Young, power broker, and mayor from 1973-1994. Maybe Young did some good things for Detroit, I try to find the fruit of the tree. He did add more black cops.

He eliminated STRESS (Stop the Robberies and Enjoy Safe Streets), a unit of white cops accused of violent racism against black youth. Although Detroit is still notorious for excessive force. It's just now it's more likely black cops killing blacks so ...

Young was accused of taking kickbacks but was a fierce and often successful advocate for federal pork projects. Many felt he was the mayor of black Detroit, not white Detroit. Young blamed Detroit's postwar (WWII) decline on white racism and claimed his strident black rhetoric did not interfere with his call for racial unity.

By 1976 though the social activist turned mayor Coleman was described by The Workers Advocate as a "... lackey of monopoly capital."

Many whites felt Young hated whites and did whatever he could to screw them over. And sometimes he probably did - but - I think Young was a man on that famous road of good intentions; he just carried too much racial baggage for too long, alienated too many who could have been allies, and felt blacks were owed a debt, and in that I think he set the tone and policies for much of what turned Detroit into a toilet. Dennis Archer, Detroit's second black mayor and Clinton friend, couldn't seem to turn the city around after 2 terms in office, if he even bothered to try. And then came Kwame.

Some believe Young did not marshal his political energy in constructive ways, some believe he was misunderstood. Jimmy Carter called Young "one of the greatest mayors our country has known." In his biography Young spoke openly of his disdain for "pansy ass liberals", Walter Ruether, the white suburban media, the FBI, and the federal government as a whole. Carter would have been a pansy - but Carter promised Coleman a lot of CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act) funds and he backed Carter's campaign.

My opinion - Detroit will turn itself around when the people turn themselves around. Ain't nobody and no federally funded program going to do it for you. Ditto for other failed towns and cities. And you might want to do it soon folks because you're losing you base of sympathizers.

The Other 9/11

2010-09-12T07:45:00.004-05:00

Another September 11 that the progressive/left like to discuss is September 11, 1973 - the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. With the usual US/CIA bad guys behind it. Particularly with alleged declassified documents that show funds and sterile weapons were handed to Allende's opponents to assist in a coup. A coup the same documents show the US decided it wanted no part of and aborted after the botched kidnapping and killing of Rene Schneider, head of the Chilean military. With Schneider's death, Allende won the election by 39,000 votes.

What the one-siders fail to mention is the part the Soviets played in Chile during that time period.

Vasili Mitrokhin (1922-2004) worked for 30 years in foreign intelligence, archivist for the KGB where, at great risk to himself, he made notes of the contents of highly secret files that passed through his hands. Over many years, he assembled a huge collection of material, some in manuscript and some typed. He retired from his job in 1985, never officially defected; he left Russia in 1992 after the fall of the USSR. In 1999 Mitrokhin published his material in The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. He first approached the American embassy around 1992 but the CIA was not convinced he was credible, however, the British were and helped relocate him, his family and the retrieval of his documents.

Remember though, this was during the Clinton/Gore era of peace and prosperity and the headiness of having "won" the Cold War, etc. which may have influenced the CIA's reception of an old codger with reams and reams of paperwork on decades of KGB activity, or because US intelligence, after the fall of the USSR had more talkative "defectors" than they could handle. Or maybe the CIA just isn't as spyful as it was in its youth. After all, the CIA has done very little to thwart the recent rise of "socialists" to power in Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc.

Now, granted, we could say Mitrokhin the man spent a lifetime making up things, hiding and hoarding tens of thousands of documents and notes in tin containers under his floor boards, that he invented the intel from the creative recesses of his own mind. Or, he might have genuine KGB information. After publication, the FBI described the archive as "the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source."

In the Mitrokhin Archives, Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, KGB case officer in Chile during Allende, noted that "In the KGB's view, Allende's fundamental error was his unwillingness to use force against his opponents. Without establishing complete control over all the machinery of the State, his hold on power could not be secure... According to Allende's KGB file, he "was made to understand the necessity of reorganizing Chile's army and intelligence services, and of setting up a relationship between Chile's and the USSR's intelligence services", and he was said to react positively... In 1972, Moscow downgraded its assessment of the prospects of the Allende regime. The "truckers' strike", backed by CIA funding, virtually paralyzed the economy for three weeks, which Moscow saw as evidence of the weakness of the Popular Unity (Allende's) government.

Allende was the first Marxist anywhere in the world to win power through the ballot box. He was unlike any stereotype of a Marxist leader. During his visits to Havana in the 1960s, he had been privately mocked by Castro's entourage for his aristocratic tastes: fine wines, expensive objets d'art, well-cut suits and elegantly dressed women. Allende was also a womanizer. He was described as "a gallant with a touch of the old school about him, perfumed notes and furtive rendezvous."

Despite the private mockery which was aroused in Allende's Communist allies, however, his bourgeois appearance and expensive lifestyle were electoral assets, reassuring middle-class voters that their lives would continue normally under an Allende presidency. As even his opponents acknowledged, he had enormous personal charm.

In October 1971, on instructions from the Politburo, Allende was given $30,000 "in order to solidify the trusted relations" with him. Allende also mentioned to Kuznetsov his desire to acquire "one or two icons" for his private art collection. He was presented with two icons as a gift.

---- A man of the people - or an aristocratic fop for himself? Or the typical politician... looking for trusted relations.

In 1972 the mounting evidence of chronic economic mismanagement made Moscow reluctant to provide large-scale support.

The KGB later complained that Allende paid too little attention to its warnings of an impending disaster. When Pinochet and a junta launched their coup in the early hours of 11 September, the Communist leadership, who had also been kept informed by the KGB, were better prepared than Allende.

Allende, however, failed to live up to his promise six weeks earlier to summon the people to arms to defend his regime. Instead of seeking support in the working-class areas of Santiago, he based himself in the presidential offices in La Moneda, where he was defended by only 50 to 60 of his Cuban-trained guards and half a dozen officers from the Servicio de Investigaciones. Allende’s lack of preparation to deal with the coup partly derived from his preference for improvisation over advance planning. His French confidant, Régis Debray, later claimed that he "never planned anything more than 48 hours in advance."

Conspiracy buffs prefer to believe that Allende was murdered by Pinochet's men, but "In reality, it seems almost certain that, faced with inevitable defeat, Allende sat on a sofa in the Independence Salon of La Moneda, placed the muzzle of an automatic rifle (a present from Castro) beneath his chin and blew his brains out."

---- But isn't this what it seems to always come down to? One superpower or the other is going to control the game. Does the domino theory make more sense now? Do you really think the US will be better off as #2? Or are you dufus enough to believe no one is planning to fill the #1 spot? No matter how you look at it, you can squint, wear tinted lenses, cross your eyes but - eventually you have to pick a side. And if you choose the losing side, and there's always a losing side, you may end up on the couch with a muzzle under your chin, especially if your efforts to redistribute wealth result in stagnant production, food shortages, rising inflation, and widespread strikes.

(The backlashes are a bitch - to wit Pinochet, a rancid man. Oddly enough, Mexican drug lords and corrupt officials have murdered more civilians than Pinochet but the American "left" hasn't noticed - or think the solution is open borders and legalization of drugs.)

Régis Debray is/was the 1960s "radical" who's name usually shows up whenever reading romanticized b.s. about Cuba, Fidel, Che, Allende, Bolivia, Chile, etc. A guerrilla warrior with a pen, a sort of traveling cheerleader for revolutions. I probably have a couple of his works in a box in the attic smelling as musty as his ideas.

When "leftist" Francois Mitterrand was elected president of France in 1981 he appointed Debray as a "special adviser" on foreign affairs. "At first sight it was an odd choice. After what had happened to Guevara and Allende, Debray could hardly be seen as a lucky mascot. And given the quality of his previous predictions, the standard of advice he could offer was scarcely guaranteed.

It seems more likely that Mitterrand imagined that Debray's reputation would enhance the president's "left" image while he pursued ever more right wing policies. Debray did, however, do a number of odd jobs for Mitterrand, and acted as ghost writer: "I could churn out kilometers of pure Mitterrand nonstop." Debray finally resigned in 1988, noting that there was nothing socialist or even republican about Mitterrand's policies. True enough, but he took his time noticing it."

---- Hmmm, I guess the "left" is often smitten for those presidents with a "left image" who pursue right wing policies. Remind you of anyone in US politics recently?

In Debray's autobiography Tears of a Clown he bashes the Soviets, Castro, and Che. The "world-weary French writer and ex-revolutionary turned minor statesman" today writes about himself and other uninteresting topics, brooding that the left is not left enough, but too comfortable and too old now for trotting behind phony revolutions. Rumor is Debray has apparently came "to a total rejection of the idea that collective human action could change the world for the better." Well he should, he's 70.

But then ... some folks have always instinctually known that.

Post 9/11 Thinking

2010-09-11T13:31:00.002-05:00

After 9 years has your thinking changed in regard to the who, why, wherefore of the terrorist attacks? Do you believe the official story, the 911Truthers, or some religious icon or prophet of disaster?

I still believe there were "insiders" involved in the attack or had prior knowledge - but have changed my idea on who that might be. They may have been members of the US government or ruling class - but I don't think it is necessarily BushCo. In fact, I think the guilty parties would be names the public is not generally familiar with, perhaps even people with great wealth and clout, yet may or may not be American born.

Also, as for the "how" it's plausible to me because many many people were simply not doing their job. Hard to connect the dots when half the dots fall through the cracks because of incompetence and sheer laziness at the state and federal employee level. So many want a fat paycheck and prestige but not actually have to work for it.

The mantra that the US was attacked because "they hate our freedom" is not enough motive. Although in an abstract sort of way, it might be possible, if freedom were defined as our right to think for ourselves - those who want to control the US wouldn't want us thinking ... and therefore might deplore that trait in us, but most Americans haven't practiced that freedom in the last 50 years, although they swear they think for themselves.

While so many like to cite and/or interpret our failure to follow the foreign policy beliefs of the "founding fathers" I no longer feel our foreign policy is a valid motive either. Attacked because we have troops in Saudi Arabia? Puleeeeeze.

Recently I reread some of the writings of Jefferson, Adams, and Washington's farewell address and think it's a false argument when someone uses the notion that Washington's warning of "foreign entanglements" is an admonishment to avoid foreign wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Once a believer, I now think the argument that we were attacked because of our foreign policy is the dumbest of dumb ideas. It may be an excuse, but it's not a motive. People looking for excuses always find one, no matter how flimsy or unbelievable, and a grain or two of truth makes it seem on the surface more plausible.

I get the impression that George Washington's idea of avoiding foreign entanglement, was a warning to not be so politically entangled with other nations that the republic would be influenced, particularly by Europe. Understandable as he had just fought the British empire. He believed free trade and free men would set the example. And both of those have dwindled in the last few decades.

Washington was issuing a warning to followers of Franklin and Jefferson, both Francophiles, and the French Revolution going on at the time. The founding fathers were also surrounded by dozens of delegates to the Continental Congress, most had extensive political experience, many with military service, many with European ties. If Washington put his finger in the air in the 1790s I'm sure he felt there were men around him who had not cut the umbilical cord to Europe. Many wanting to be actively involved in the French Revolution, which was not as successful as America's - giving France the guillotine, Robespierre, a reign of terror, and the anti-monarchy revolutionaries who thought naming Napoleon commander-in-chief of the army and then First Consul was a good idea. Contrary to popular bumper stickers the French have never got it right.

The words and writings of the founding fathers must be taken in context of the era and what was politically going on around them. If anything, George Washington sounded more isolationist than anti-war. At the time of his farewell address the US didn't have much of a standing army or navy and he believed a strict neutrality would keep the peace.

The founding fathers and their immediate successors had no problem waging war. Jefferson's Barbary or Tripolitan Wars, the War of 1812, meddling in Hawaii, the domestic Indian Wars, the Mexican-American War, the Monroe Doctrine.

But, back to motive of 9/11. I can think of only 2 viable motives. One is, there are extremists who enjoy perpetrating death and mayhem on others, even if for no other reason than thrill killing. There are hate-filled people in the world who create suffering because they take pleasure in it. Secondly, there are those who would like to collapse the US in order to save it, or slave it. If the two factions work in collusion, or if one uses the other ... they could easily pull off a 9/11 and confuse the hell out of the American public for eternity. And the more confused an American is the more loudly he will shout his certainty about everything.

Another thought I factor in, if 9/11 was an inside job, is the perpetrators would put figureheads in place who lead no trail back to them. That alone would absolve Bush/Cheney of being the inside jobbers. Bush in place because he was slow-witted enough to do as told, Cheney because he could be manipulated by perps who are much more clever.

The "war for oil" meme sounded good initially but it was apparent early on that the US would not be the beneficiaries of the bulk of Iraq/Afghanistan oil and gas. Yes, US companies are getting contracts, but China and Russia are reaping the biggest rewards.

What surprises me sometimes is that no one in positions of power or with a respectable soapbox has even proffered the idea that the US was infiltrated decades ago by those wishing to destroy the country from within. Looking at the social and political insanity today, is that such a far-fetched idea? Of course, anyone who would or does make the suggestion is quickly branded a bigot, or a -phobe of some sort.

Glenn Beck may come close with valid ideas on "infiltration" but he puts most of it at the feet of ObamaCo and infuses too much God rhetoric. Obama and company, like the last dozen or so presidents, are figureheads, who do as their advisors advise, the advisors getting their advice from advisors who got advice from their advisors and so on until only god knows where the advice really comes from. And God, well, some people need god, some people behave better with a god, and some of us are turned off by godspeak. Beck is dopey when he stops the buck at Obama or Bill Ayers or Van Jones or the dozens of other metrosexual radicals at Barry's elbow. They are all only water carriers for the real artists of change, and probably believe the b.s. coming from their own lips, and believe they formed their ideology by deep thought and intellect, not propaganda and narrowed thinking.

Honestly, sometimes I think I need to better research the McCarthy era as he may have been on to something.

What to make of the recent arrests of Russian spies? One was Vicky Peláez who "spent more than 20 years working as a columnist for one of the New York's best known Spanish-language newspapers, El Diario. Her specialty was strident criticism of US policy in Latin America, with a strong defence of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez." Is that part of the "insiders"? Part of the change to the mindset of mainstream Joe Blow - make US bad, and the socialist world warm and do-goody? How many others with a "specialty" live, love, breed, and promote their ideas among us?

If these "spies" are just a sliver of a titanic iceberg ... a second generation of them just might feel they are Americans with a better ideology. In some ways it justifies to me why the US deported or interned Germans, Italians, Japanese, etc in WWII. For how certain can one be of the loyalty an immigrant truly holds when his native country or that of his parents is at war with the US? For decades I've known foreign folks who believe the US should do certain things the way it is done in the country they fled - and some of those things have changed to accommodate these folks in the name of "tolerance." Of course, it also drags the US toward the same sociopolitical structure of those godawful countries immigrants are running from.

We have went from a nation run by intelligent knowledgeable men to one run by pols who think there are 58 states and do not know that Arizona borders Mexico. A nation born of men willing to give their life and fortunes to founding a nation - now to grown men who want the country to give them their life and fortunes.

Whoever the "insiders" and whatever their objective, they are closer - and I will probably live to see even more of a change I don't believe in.

Tax Burdens

2010-09-10T22:08:00.003-05:00

Calculate your coming tax burden if the Bush "tax cuts for the rich" are extended or if they are not extended, or under the Obama / congressional Democrats plan.

Greatest Show on Earth

2010-09-08T15:17:00.002-05:00

Moore really plays to a low forehead audience. In this 730 word piece for Labor Day, attacking a fellow "liberal" ( Rahm Emanuel) Moore uses the f-word 30 or so times. He also employs a limited or twisted knowledge of history, but then so do his docutainment productions.

Moore: "Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn't get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own f---ing home, nobody could take a f---ing day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their f---ing job. ... Nonetheless labor unions did create a middle class for the majority (even companies that didn't have unions were forced to pay at or near union wages in order to attract a workforce) and that middle class built a great country and a good life. You see, Rahm, when people earn a f---g good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good paying jobs, and then the middle class grows f---ing big. Did you know that back when I was a kid if you had a parent making a union wage, only one parent had to work?! And they were home by 3 or 4pm, 5:30 at the latest! We had dinner together! Dad had four weeks paid vacation. We all had free health and dental care. And anyone with decent grades went to college and it didn't f---ing bankrupt them."

---- There has been a "middle class" for centuries; the class between nobility and peasants was the "middle" class. Does he define middle class by income, education, upbringing, social network, manners, values, etc. or as the materialistic petit bourgeoisie according to Marxists and other anti-capitalist folks? Maybe it's the proletariat. Or maybe Moore is speaking for and to the blue-collar class, or gray-collar, or pink-collar, green collar, or Lumpenproletariat, or lower middle class, or working class ...

Is Moore, the creator of Capitalism: A Love Affair , a real anti-capitalist ... or just pandering to an unhappy segment of folks who think blame, complain, and using the f-word is cool? How can Mike be all f---ing for the capitalist middle class if he's anti-capitalism?

I remember when we were warned to look to areas other than agriculture/farming because machinery was taking over farm jobs - one of the reasons for the great migration north to factories. Then we were warned in the 1970s to plan for a future in technology because hi-tech automation was one of many things that would change the future of manufacturing jobs. Then we were told it would become a service economy. Your choice to be an RN or aide wiping butts. Your choice to own the franchise or flip burgers in it. Your choice to open a barber shop or just sit and bitch about the price of a haircut. Your choice to have a skill/service to offer or be of no use to anyone and yourself.

Moore believes capitalism in the US today is evil. Maybe he's unaware that capitalism in America has for decades been socialism-lite in disguise. There's no room for a large middle class in socialism - plenty of room for wage earning proletariats and their wayward family members the Lumpenproletariat, and "progressive" limo activist proletariats such as Moore.

Moore: "Had World War II not begun and had FDR not died, there would have been an economic revolution that would have given everyone — everyone — a f---ing decent life."

Yessirree Mikey. "Give" that's the operative word. A revolution that would "give" everyone a decent life. You know, where we can all have free health and dental, dad home at 5 p.m., having dinner together Rockwell style, a month's vacation, college degrees because a mind is a terrible thing to waste, and money to spend on stuff. A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage, no child left behind, every man a king ... and there are no f---ing tomorrows.

Joseph H. Rainey

2010-08-28T10:27:00.004-05:00

Joseph Hayne Rainey, a slave born in Georgetown, South Carolina 1832, became on December 12, 1870, the first African American to serve in the United States House of Representatives. He was elected to Congress four times as a Republican, serving until March 3, 1879 which made him the longest serving black Congressman during the Reconstruction era. He won his second term by 60%, his third term by 84%, and the fourth term ran unopposed.

In a speech given on the floor of Congress in 1871, Rainey challenges a New York Democratic representative who made disparaging remarks about the black members of the South Carolina state legislature. That speech appears below.

"The remarks made by the gentleman from New York in relation to the colored people of South Carolina escaped my hearing, as I was in the rear of the Hall when they were made, and I did not know that any utterance of that kind had emanated from him. I have always entertained a high regard for the gentleman from New York, because I believed him to be a useful member of the House. He is a gentleman of talent and of fine education, and I have thought heretofore that he would certainly be charitable toward a race of people who have never enjoyed the same advantages that he has. If the colored people of South Carolina had been accorded the same advantages—if they had had the same wealth and surroundings which the gentleman from New York has had, they would have shown to this nation that their color was no obstacle to their holding positions of trust, political or otherwise. Not having had these advantages, we cannot at the present time compete with the favored race of this country; but perhaps if our lives are spared, and if the gentleman from New York and other gentlemen on that side of the House will only accord to us right and justice, we shall show to them that we can be useful, intelligent citizens of this country. But if they will continue to proscribe us, if they will continue to cultivate prejudice against us; if they will continue to decry the Negro and crush him under foot, then you cannot expect the Negro to rise while the Democrats are trampling upon him and his rights. We ask you, sir, to do by the Negro as you ought to do by him in justice.

If the Democrats are such staunch friends of the Negro, why is it that when propositions are offered here and elsewhere looking to the elevation of the colored race, and the extension of right and justice to them, do the Democrats array themselves in unbroken phalanx, and vote against every such measure? You, gentlemen of that side of the House, have voted against all the recent amendments of the Constitution, and the laws enforcing the same. Why did you do it? I answer, because those measures had a tendency to give to the poor Negro his just rights, and because they proposed to knock off his shackles and give him freedom of speech, freedom of action, and the opportunity of education, that he might elevate himself to the dignity of manhood.

Now you come to us and say that you are our best friends. We would that we could look upon you as such. We would that your votes as recorded in the Globe from day to day could only demonstrate it. But your votes, your actions, and the constant cultivation of your cherished prejudices prove to the Negroes of the entire country that the Democrats are in opposition to them, and if they [the Democrats] could have sway our race would have no foothold here.

Now, sir, I have not time to vindicate fully the course of action of the colored people of South Carolina. We are certainly in the majority there; I admit that we are as two to one. Sir, I ask this House, I ask the country, I ask white men, I ask Democrats, I ask Republicans whether the Negroes have presumed to take improper advantage of the majority they hold in that State by disregarding the interest of the minority? They have not. Our convention which met in 1868, and in which the Negroes were in a large majority, did not pass any proscriptive or disfranchising acts, but adopted a liberal constitution, securing alike equal rights to all citizens, white and black, male and female, as far as possible. Mark you, we did not discriminate, although we had a majority. Our constitution towers up in its majesty with provisions for equal protection of all classes and citizens. Notwithstanding our majority there, we have never attempted to deprive any man in that State of the rights and immunities to which he is entitled under the Constitution of this Government. You cannot point me to a single act passed by our Legislature, at any time, which had a tendency to reflect upon or oppress any white citizen of South Carolina. You cannot show me one enactment by which the majority in our State have undertaken to crush the white men because the latter are in a minority.

I say to you, gentlemen of the Democratic party, that I want you to deal justly with the people composing my race. I am here representing a Republican constituency made up of white and colored men. I say to you deal with us justly; be charitable toward us. An opportunity will soon present itself when we can test whether you on that side of the House are the best friends of the oppressed and ill-treated Negro race. When the civil rights bill comes before you, when that bill comes up upon its merits asking you to give civil rights of the Negro, I will then see who are our best friends on that side of the House.

I will say to the gentleman from New York that I am sorry I am constrained to make these remarks. I wish to say to him that I do not mind what he may have said against the Negroes of South Carolina. Neither his friendship nor his enmity will change the sentiment of the loyal men of that State. We are determined to stand by this Government. We are determined to use judiciously and wisely the prerogative conferred upon us by the Republican party. The democratic party may woo us, they may court us and try to get us to worship at their shrine, but I will tell the gentleman that we are republicans by instinct, and we will be Republicans so long as God will allow our proper senses to hold sway over us. " (My emphasis.)

---- Genealogy: Joseph H. Rainey b.1832 in South Carolina, son of Edward J. (1805) and Teresa Rainey (1810). Brother Edward Jr. b.1831. Edward Sr. was a slave on a rice plantation in Georgetown County, SC, and also worked as a barber; allowed to keep part of his wages he bought his family's freedom in approximately the mid 1840s.

Joseph appears a registered voter on the 1868 Edisto Island, SC voter list. I found Joseph H., age 37 listed in 1870 census in Charleston, SC, head of household, occupation State Senator, wife Susan age 31, born Philadelphia, PA, sister-in-law, Anna Lewis age 33 b. PA, Anna's son Randolph age 8, born SC, and 2 female servants. Later census show Joseph and Susan with 2 sons and a daughter.

The 1880 census shows Susan, age 42, and children Joseph Jr. age 8, Herbert age 6, and Olive age 4, in Windsor, CT, where Rainey had purchased a summer home. Rainey Sr. not listed as presumably he was working in D.C.

Rainey served in congress from December 12, 1870, to March 3, 1879; appointed internal-revenue agent of South Carolina on May 22, 1879, and served until July 15, 1881, when he resigned; engaged in banking and the brokerage business in Washington, D.C.; retired from all business activities in 1886, and in ill health returned to Georgetown, S.C., where he died August 2, 1887; buried in the Baptist Cemetery.

Wife Susan Rainey is in the 1900 US census in Massachusetts living with son Joseph Jr. and his wife Catherine.

Gene Pitney (1941-2006)

2010-08-24T22:42:00.001-05:00

Nessuno Mi Può Giudicare - SanRemo 1966

Non Lasciamoci

Citta Spietata

Cara Mia

Spare a Dime

2010-08-24T09:27:00.003-05:00

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It. By Laurence Kotlikoff:

Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills. What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.

Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.

And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.

Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.

----- Kotlikoff may be right that the US is bankrupt. But I'm not impressed with his solutions. Yes, let's get real.

Kotlikoff proposes reforms of the U.S. financial system, tax system, health care system, and retirement income system. His proposes reform of the financial system, transforming all financial companies with limited liability, including incorporated banks, insurance companies, financial exchanges, and hedge funds, into pass-through mutual funds, which do not borrow to invest in risky assets, but, instead, allows the public to directly choose what risks it wishes to bear by purchasing more or less risky mutual funds. --- Hmmm "allows the public to directly choose" ... how would that be accomplished? By choosing what the smartest guys in the room advise?

He proposes "Limited Purpose Banking" which forces financial intermediaries to limit their activities to their sole legitimate purpose—financial inter-mediation. Limited Purpose Banking substitutes the federal and state financial regulatory bodies with a single financial regulator called the Federal Financial Authority (FFA). The FFA would have a narrow purpose namely to verify, disclosure, and oversee the independent rating and custody of all securities purchased and sold by mutual funds. --- Ahhhh, FFA, another federal bureaucracy and its bureaucrats are born.

He backs replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax. Or consumption tax. Or "fair tax" as the three (sales, consumption, fair) seem to be more or less the same taxation method (government hand in your pocket), perhaps with a tweak here or there. Value-added tax is a similar animal, used in Europe and Japan. China has a consumption tax and income tax (taxed at 25% for a factory worker income plus overtime and bonuses equivalent to US $3670, 45% tax if one of the lucky $100,000 earners). But so much is "free" in China - healthcare, housing, some food, sometimes utilities, etc. and a lifetime membership in the Party.

Sounds good on the surface, only taxed on what you consume, but in the real world, every consumption tax hits low and middle income households to a greater extent than the income tax does. What?! You think the wealthy will never again find a way around taxes? Just ask John Kerry, expert in yacht sales and excise tax. Economists and politicians promise there are "conceptual ways" to avoid any burden on lower/middle households - but you must hold your breath until those concepts are actualized.

On healthcare Kotlikoff proposes one system that works for everyone: "Participants - including all who are currently uninsured, all Medicaid and Medicare recipients, and all with private or employer-supplied insurance - would receive annual vouchers for health insurance, the amount of which would be based on their current medical condition. Insurance companies would willingly accept people with health problems because their vouchers would be higher. And the government could control costs by establishing the values of the vouchers so that benefit growth no longer outstrips growth of the nation's per capita income. It's a "single-payer" plan - but a single payer for insurance. The American healthcare industry would remain competitive, innovative, strong, and private."

--- Government already covers over half of US healthcare costs. "Insurance companies ... would willingly accept ... vouchers ... would be higher." Lobby those vouchers higher and higher K Street. What's that sound? Oh, government expansion, but the industry is still private (and war is peace). "Government could control cost ..." ROTFL hahahahahahahahaha. Gimme a minute ... hahahahahahahaha.

You know, simply eliminating corruption and the crooks who game the system, and dumping the hundreds, maybe thousands, of failed programs/departments, would be sufficient - lets call it budget cuts and draining the swamp. Instead, the experts (pols and e-con men) claim we need bigger government to save us from government.

Tids Bits

2010-08-21T12:18:00.002-05:00

CDC releases report stating smoking in movie scenes is at an all time low and is a good thing as the experts claim onscreen tobacco use encourages youth to smoke. Amazingly, really cool scenes of sex, drugs, pregnant teens, violence - have no effect on viewer behavior.

Wikileaks boss, Julian Assange, has been accused of rape and molestation by 2 different women in Sweden. Assange and disciples claim it's "dirty tricks" by you know who. How convenient. Even Charles Manson claims the CIA set him up.

A week or so ago Obama signed a $26 billion dollar bailout package for teachers unions that will be paid for mostly by cuts in the food stamp program and the Department of Energy’s renewable energy loan guarantee program. Not to worry, the cuts are supposedly not to begin until 2014 and by then we will all have high paid jobs and lots of money. The teachers unions will send some of the money back to democrat campaign coffers with a thank you note.

Obama takes 6th vacation. Signing bailouts and finagling funnels for political campaign donations are hard work.

A recent Pew poll shows a majority of the American public are in the dark regarding Obama's religion. Christian or Muslim. The real questions are - why is a majority of the American public dumber than the Taliban, and, has Obama pulled his friend and spiritual mentor, Reverend Jerry, from under the bus?

Speaking of Obama's penchant to fire folks - Counterpunch finally has something worth reading. The Other Side of Shirley Sherrod."While it is true that loan discrimination and relentless creditors can be cited for the eventual demise of New Communities Inc. in 1985, NCI’s unfair labor practices and poor leadership, were equally, if not more, to blame. Ask Shirley Sherrod about this part of her history. I know this story well, for I was one of those workers at NCI." -- I'd say poor leadership led to NCI's demise. Sherrod and friends did receive funding from Rockefeller (Cooperative Assistance Fund - New Communities, Inc., 1968-1976). And did receive government loans prior to 1981-1984 (the years she claimed in her discrimination suit). Simple: Sherrod and NCI's poor performance was due to a lot of funds going into someone's purse and wallet. I watched the same programs locally do the same thing - and then yell discrimination when the money runs out. It's the reason she was so quickly "forced to resign." Her bosses know she's a dirty bird from way back.

Spotted on Antiwar.com link to CS Monitor, In Nicaragua, A Return to the Contras? "Hidden somewhere in the rugged mountains of Estelí, in northern Nicaragua, a former contra commando with CIA training says he’s organizing an armed rebellion against President Daniel Ortega." --- No, the former commando is wanted on murder and extortion charges. It must be a really slow news day. There are 3 types of former contras/sandinistas: Those that returned to the same peasant life they had before the war. Those who stayed in Miami. And those who became politicians and/or criminals. Ahhh the beautiful and rugged Esteli - the things I could tell you about ... hmm ... where was I...

The ground zero mosque/community center. Distraction, petty. Not to build would show class, empathy, the high road. But since when do we expect those traits from anyone with power and money and agenda?

The 14th amendment. Anchor babies. Give the baby his/her birthright. Deport mama. Use some of Mexico's immigration laws which are: "Outsiders must enhance the country's economic or national interests and cannot be physically or mentally unhealthy. Do not admit those who show contempt against national sovereignty or security. They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care." Mexico is cleaning house - we get those unwanted by their own country. Okay, as ugly as it sounds, I'll say it, we get the dregs of society (the least valuable).

But wait, saying stuff like that, according to the black and white Progressive Activist and Organizers Bible, means you are a "...supremacist who wants to "take America back" to 1857, or 1953, or 1968..." but then they probably don't know when Juan calls them "mayata" or "galleta", it's not a term of affection (it's spanish slurs for the "n" word and cracker).

The Progressive Bible also says that focusing on reproduction is racist too and the 14th amendment is sacred (but some progressive Bible holders are anti- 2nd amendment). According to the latest CDC stats the illegitimate birth rates for Asians is 16.5%, whites at 27%, Latinos 50%, native Americans 65%, blacks 71%. Hey, that matches the SAT score statistics I posted a while back, Asians the smartest, then whites, Latinos, natives, and blacks the dumbest. Hmmm....you think stupid and promiscuous are connected?

But, lets not resort to stereotypes, even if there be a grain of truth - because according to NYT more women with college degrees are having illegitimate babies too. For instance, Nadya Suleman - Octomom.

Pornland

2010-08-19T15:51:00.003-05:00

Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality; should be mandatory reading in high school sex ed. (Thank you to my youngest daughter for bringing the book to my attention.)

While I don't agree with all of Ms. Dines "progressive" views on politics and society, etc. she definitely has it correct on pornography and hypersexualization.

Link to an interview with Dines at Pulse, and to an excerpt from Pornland.

If you cannot see how pornography has shaped (and twisted) society ... you're probably more screwed up than you think (pun intended).

Deluded Susans

2010-08-15T15:28:00.003-05:00

I'm seeing a good bit of harping from left/progressives and democrats' base about Obama. For many folks it seems Barack is not the president they thought he would be. He has not delivered enough of whatever they thought he was carrying.

One pleasant late afternoon in the late summer/early fall of 2008 I was in the front yard, dead-heading rose bushes, taking cuttings from my jungle of houseplants which I put outdoor every year, when an older white lady walked up the driveway. About my age so we were from the same '60s era. She carried Obama's Dreams of My Father, and wore Obama pins. I'll call her Susan.

We sat on the porch and she asked, no, she assumed I was an Obama supporter. When I surprised her by stating that I was not impressed with Barry, wasn't voting for him, she began a spiel about "hope and change" Ooh ooh ooobama. She asked if I had read his book. Yes yes, but I sped read as I didn't really find the book interesting.

When she realized I was not going to gush with her over the potential "first black president" she sat back puzzled (ain't all folks in the 'hood votin' for Obama), then continued her chatter about the charisma and charm of Barry O. His life, his achievements, his anti-war stand, his proclamations to end petty grievances and false political promises, and how we will walk this common good journey with him. Electrifying. All the Susans across the land inhaled.

She gave the standard excuses for Obama's connections to Ayers, Rev. Wright, his inexperience, his connections to Blago, Rezko, the Chicago political machine, and a myriad of nagging little insulting lies that seemed to bother no one but me, i.e. Barry's attempt to portray himself as a typical black child of a single mother on foodstamps, abandoned by his daddy, an embarrassment to his grandma - rather than a child of privilege, private school, ivy leagues.

I stared in amazement at Susan.

This woman on the surface sounds intelligent - but has poor judgement and understands little on how the social and political system works. She gives me the phrases of her latest favorite pundit, author, blogger, news channel, or political comic. For the Susans of the world, the solution is simple - take from the obscenely wealthy and redistribute to the tired huddle masses.

It will be these white women, many who had flings as '60s flower-type children, who put Obama in the White House. Gone is their fall (hairpiece), the Mandarin style collar on an orange dress, and go-go boots. Their bloom has faded. Now the hair is neatly trimmed every 5 weeks by the gay guy at Blades, now wearing Crocs and beige Chico bermuda shorts. Her brief toe-in-the-water experimentation with drugs and promiscuity from the past are "youthful follies" which she either never admits to or uses as a badge of victory and recovery. Sort of like her hero's excursions into pot and cocaine, and "community organizing."

On and on she talked about her heart knows, just knows, Obama is who we've been waiting for.

Susan probably holds a college degree or at least a couple of years of higher education. But her life is more like her mother's than she originally wanted - 3 bedroom house in a mostly white neighborhood, 2.5 kids, drives a van or SUV, married to her second husband for 35 years, vacations at Disney or Mazatlan or Yosemite. This woman, and many like her, have always lived in a fantasy of "hope and change." For them, reality has always been dull and unfair. For them, electing Obama (or any educated attractive black male) is a validation of progressive whitedom. As if all those years of their struggle to preach we are all "equal" - will once and for all be proven under Obama's wise and caring governance. He will erase our differences and we can all just along. She may even be silly enough to have believed that only a black man could bring true social justice to America.

Susan reminds me of a quote of Libertarian Robert Heinlein who said "Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well." And only a "... tiny fraction think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion..."

Now what Susan? As the one you've been waiting for continues the policies of the last dozen ethically bankrupt presidents and sinks the nation deeper and deeper into dysfunction, now what?

Random Age

2010-08-13T09:27:00.002-05:00

You can gauge how cash-strapped, broke or near bankrupt a government/society is by the vice it legalizes. Marijuana, casinos, gambling, numbers racket, prostitution, etc.

For instance, while the government spends millions in anti-tobacco efforts it will never completely ban smoking because the high tax on tobacco is big revenue. Even while making smoking socially unacceptable - folks are still subtly encouraged to smoke, we now have social smokers and closet smokers and fatcats with cigars. I wonder which room in the WH Obama hides in to light up.

Pols, who once spouted about drugs and gambling as a "threat to our way of life," change their rhetoric when considering the same vice as a means to generate tax revenue. It's just a matter of convincing the sheople to agree, which is no problem if the vices are easily available anyway.

Soon the fat tax, tanning tax, marijuana tax will be with us. Prostitution too, why should Vegas have all that revenue from an old and now "victimless" vice. We've made pornography an acceptable career choice for women haven't we? What's a little S&M and donkey show filmed between consenting adults. Today's porn industry produces a whole lot of jobs and respectable tax revenue. (Acceptance of pedophilia is on the horizon, trust me.)

Legalizing vice won't stop black market entrepreneurs, never has, never will - there's just too much money to be made in illicit sex, drugs, gambling - but imagine the nationwide revenue on legalizing and "regulating" vice, the jobs created from enforcement and the never-ending cleanup. A libertarian's wet dream.

What the lower classes fail to understand about taxing vice is it's simply another way to tax the have-nots so the wealthier among us can avoid paying more tax. And it has the added bonus of the self-destructive masturbatory have-nots wallowing in the sewer while the haves remain out of touch and untouchable from the profitable stench.

All the revenue collected from the "sin tax", as we've heard so often in the past couple of decades, will be used for education, wildlife, healthcare, environmental programs. Promise, really. Just look how well these areas have done since legalizing the numbers racket/gambling, hiking taxes on tobacco, alcohol, etc.

I suppose I'm getting old - as the vices that make me uncomfortable don't seem to make most folks flinch at all.

I'm appalled at least once a day by what I see either in mainstream media or my local vicinity. I remember years ago being shocked if someone was publicly vulgar - now I'm shocked when someone is publicly polite.

Instead of icons like Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn - we have modern popstar skanks, toting illegitimate children, telling us women don't need men to have babies; greasy tattooed mannequins posed on the red carpet pretending they think for themselves. Some of today's biggest female icons can't seem to exit a car without showing labia. Others are aging gracelessly, nipped and tucked, becoming a "spokesperson" for one cause or another. That reminds me ... Betty White.

I used to like Betty. A sweet, talented, funny lady, champion of animal rights - now reduced to an old woman reading dull sexual one-liners from cue cards on the banal and boring "Hot in Cleveland." Why oh why Betty, why... oh and Sandra Bullock, admirable and classy, now given to swapping tongue with Meryl Streep and Scarlett Johansson - why? Competing with Britney and Madonna? Miley Cyrus? Girls Gone Wild? Since it's obviously not spontaneous, is it planned from the publicist/agent's couch?

Perhaps it's America's culture of randomness that grieves me... random sex, random breeding, random relationships, random lives, millions living on a haphazard course, no purpose ... where anything and everything can be done without remorse, shame, or guilt. People adrift.

Is it just me that misses the days of censorship? When vomit, feces, mucus, semen, urine, blood, were not part of nightly prime time. When heroes didn't have to gut and/or decapitate someone to look strong. When we had to use our own imagination to complete a scene that faded to black. When children were never portrayed as the victim in a gruesome graphic crime scene. When parents were counselors, not props for 10-year-old mini-adults making smartass remarks to canned laughter. Scoff and snort at Ward and June or Cliff and Clair if you want.

Folks are so confused they think debauchery is elegance, think perversity is sophisticated. I remember when we shunned and pitied the coarse and stupid, now we reward them with reality shows, record contracts, book deals, offices, power, status.

I ask myself, is it me getting old now that thinks we're legalizing and accepting social degeneration. Am I just uncool because I see more and more of American society as horribly offensive, repulsive?

John Stevenson, retired Air Force, engineer, old coot philosopher of sorts, says: "The Western Culture came to America with the early settlers from western Europe, primarily the British Isles. It was predominantly based on the Christian religion with elements of English jurisprudence and commercial law. It was a productive and uniform culture which extended into the minute detail of human behavior. It was extremely successful in the development, in a space of only two centuries, of the United States from a small isolated community of pioneers to the productive, wealthy and powerful country that it is today. This culture is now under mortal attack, is severely wounded and will succumb in the near future. It has already lost over half of its supporters and its enemies have the high ground in the media, justice, governing, and education institutions. Its life expectancy is now less than two more generations through our public schools."

There's a lot of truth in that statement.

In my lifetime I've witnessed the denigration of this western European Christian culture's achievements in the US. Seldom a mention of the wrongs that were righted. From a community of pioneers, including people of color, we have become a nation of special interest pimps and whores, appreciating nothing that came before. A citizenry so dumbed down we nod our heads and follow those who flagellate us with our own history. A nation of sociopaths, we participate in our own national suicide ... and call it progress.

Whistleblown Follies

2010-08-01T11:44:00.002-05:00

Thank God for the Whistle-Blowers. By Robert Scheer. "What WikiLeaks did was brilliant journalism, and the bleating critics from the president on down are revealing just how low a regard they have for the truth. As with Richard Nixon’s rage against the publication of the Pentagon Papers, our leaders are troubled not by the prospect of these revelations endangering troops but rather endangering their own political careers. It is our president who unnecessarily sacrifices the lives of our soldiers and not those in the press who let the public in on the folly of the mission itself."

--- Scheer's an old leftish liberal journalist from way back. Does he know the Wikileaks documents allegedly come from a low-level analyst who would not have access to high level classified information? Or does he just like hyperbole... The scheers of the world can make all the grand pronouncements of brilliance and revelations they want - fact is Manning did not have the security clearance such info requires. Sitting in Iraq, Manning most definitely did not have access to the systems which store the real "revelations." And, just because something is "classified" does not mean it is fact - at Manning's clearance level there is a lot of low-grade classified junk.

Scheer admits that the 9/11 attacks were launched from Afghanistan "That is, in fact, just how their nation came to be the launching pad for the 9/11 attacks, which is the ostensible purpose of our occupation. We meddled in their history in a grand Cold War adventure to humble the Soviets by attacking the secular government in Kabul with which Moscow sided."

Secular. Is that the word for nonreligious (communist) progressive government? Lets look see:

1973: Mohammed Daoud Khan, Afghan prince and politician, in a bloodless coup overthrew the monarchy of his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and became the first President of Afghanistan. (The longest period of stability (1933-1973) in Afghanistan was under the Zahir Shah monarchy. ) Daoud Khan was assassinated in 1978 as a result of the Saur Revolution led by the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Khan was known for his progressive policies, especially in relation to the rights of women, but even he established a one-party rule.
1978: Nur Muhammad Taraki became president after Khan and his family assassinated. Taraki also belonged to the PDPA.
1978: Nur Muhammad Taraki overthrown and murdered shortly afterwards. The new president was Hafizullah Amin. Also of the PDPA.
1979: Hafizullah Amin held office about 100 days and was either assassinated or died of an "undisclosed illness." General story is he was executed by the USSR who came at the request of the newly installed president and more pro-Soviet, Babrak Karmal. Karmal too a PDPA party member.
1979-1986: Karmal president. He is the best known of the Marxist leadership. In 1986 he left Afghanistan for Moscow, where he died in 1996. Also PDPA.
1986: Karmal is replaced by Dr. Mohammad Najibullah, also PDPA. After the Soviets pulled out, and two hard winters, the Najibullah government collapsed in 1992. Najibullah's career ended with him dangling from a lamp post, at the hands of the Taliban.

What's wrong with the picture Scheer paints... "We meddled .... by attacking the secular government in Kabul with which Moscow sided." Shouldn't that read - we meddled as the USSR meddled and installed the Communist PDPA? If you look closely the only difference between the PDPA and Taliban is the purse strings. Some seem to think the US is always and the only instigating bad guys.

And yes, it was the world renown humanitarian Jimmy Carter who initiated the program to fund, train, and equip the Mujahideen. The b.s. that the US intentionally drew the USSR into Afghanistan, "their Vietnam," is bogus. Moscow had been meddling years before and propping up one puppet after another; their invasion was foreseeable, or at least predictable. But the idea of tricking the Soviets made US intel and Grampa Reagan look like wise men.

As I've asked before - do you really think we "won" the Cold War? Why? Because the USSR "broke up" with itself?

If "meddling" is the meme the "left" and progressives (sometimes posing as libertarianistas) like to use for the 9/11 attacks - it would make just as much sense, if not more, for Islamic fundamentalists to target the godless Kremlin which also fueled a decade of civil war. Not so long ago the Mujahideen's "holy war" fighters were shouting death to Soviet infidels.

Still, we believe 4 planes were simultaneously hijacked by Al-Qaeda cave men acting alone, or if they had any inside help, why ... it was BushCo and/or Israel ... couldn't be any other old nemesis ... wonder who funds this multinational, stateless jihad army now.

Oh, yes, funding is via the "drug trade," which also funds the Taliban, international drug cartels, the CIA, global ruling elites, warlords and/or freedom fighters in Asia, Africa, Mexico, Colombia, international bankers, worldwide organized crime families, the Sandinistas, the Contras, the Illuminati, Freemasonry, The New World Order, Rothchilds, Russian Jews, Queen Elizabeth, heavy metal music, the ghettos of L.A., the Bush family dynasty and Governor Clinton's cocaine drops in the Ozark Mountains.

So lets say hand-offs Afghanistan - no US meddling - since it seems, according to anti-meddling folks, that the US has no strategic rationale for being there. Let some other world power assume the folly of dealing with the brutality, corruption, ineffective state institutions, thousands of miles of unguarded borders, illiteracy, poverty, and dysfunction in Afghanistan. We have plenty of all that right here at home to deal with.

Fat Cats Hungry Rats

2010-07-31T08:58:00.002-05:00

Charles Rangel: Pompous, corrupt, egotistical, and believes he is above all others. Fairly common traits in congressional lifers. They forget they are public servants and see the public as serving them. Two things our "leaders" rarely or never mention: Political corruption and term limits. To do so would put 99.9% of them out of work. Rangel is the obligatory political sacrifice at the public's alter so the remaining pols can rest easy for a few years, until the next crook is chosen for public embarrassment with a wrist slap. Besides, Rangel knows where his peers bury their fraud and graft.

Alvin Greene: Uncomfortably heartbreaking to see someone so fumbling and dense in the spotlight of his own making. But, it proves my theory that for at least the last 50 years the average American voter has no business voting, will vote for the first name on the ballot under their party affiliation, will vote for tingles, for personality, or for whomever their momma, daddy, husband, boyfriend, neighbor, or coworker say they're casting a ballot for. Please lord, force folks to pass a literacy and history test for voting eligibility.

Obama Rama: Shameful. Honestly, The View? I have never watched the View as I cannot stomach Joy Behar, never liked her as an actress or comedienne. She's a bull in a china shop - no grace. And how anyone who can listen to Baba WaWa... I have the feeling Obama has little to do with the presidency, he just plays one on TV. It doesn't appear Biden is Barack's brain, so who is really running the sideshow?

Opposers of Arizona Immigration Law: Reality TV, an episode of hoarding. Hoarding millions of unskilled uneducated workers - not because you love them, but because it makes dysfunctional little ol' you feel special, important, or you baby's daddy is from the barrio. If you want to see the future of the US simply look at the worst of Juarez, Tijuana, Nogales. A. Philip Randolph, radical, socialist, black civil rights leader, said in the 1920s: "This country is suffering from immigrant indigestion. It is time to call a halt on this grand rush for American gold which over-floods the labor market, resulting in lowering the standard of living, race-riots, and general social degradation."

It struck me a while back that rather than immigrants becoming more American - Americans are becoming more Latino. Something I noticed in Latin America, at least in a dozen countries, is the average male doesn't do much. Millions of males spend their time at the cantina playing pool or in a hammock, and/or sssssttt ssssssttting at the females. The workforce is predominantly women and children.

The poorest countries have the highest birth rates, the largest informal economies and the weakest social policies – Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Paraguay – and also have the highest female participation in the workforce. I have witnessed the American male shuffling down the same path. Supporting one's family is not a source of pride anymore. Modern American males expect the female to pull her own weight or, and too often, pull his weight too, while he hustles for a disability check or sells dope, maybe works odd jobs now and then, or waits on a settlement from that last frivolous lawsuit. Or, again too often, women have come to believe - who needs a male at all. I've heard more than one woman say men are only good for fixin' lawn mowers and f******.

I'm not saying latinization is to blame for the problems in the US - but if some enemy wanted to drop the US to its knees, what better way than using the structures of social degradation that work so well in third world nations. The "fat cats and hungry rats" method. Change the morality of the average male so that he is no longer the protector of women and children, but the predator.

Phyllis Schlafly's recent comments, bashed by liberals of course, may have a grain of truth. Schlafly says "unmarried women" overwhelmingly support President Obama and are on welfare. But does anyone really care what gasbag Schlafly thinks or says? "Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider," said Schlafly."

But, Obama does have a lot of mommas. Marriage is for white people. I was stunned to learn that a black child was more likely to grow up living with both parents during slavery days than he or she is today, according to sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin. Factor in the employment and poverty stats of single women/mothers, specifically minority women, and most receive some form of government provided aid.

Some day soon the money will run out. Change is coming. If you want to see America's future - just look south of the border. Yessiree, fat cats and hungry rats.

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

2010-07-27T08:59:00.006-05:00

Antiwar: They said the huge cache of classified documents – including 250,000 diplomatic messages passed from US embassies around the world to Washington – was a fantasy, “boasting” by Pfc. Bradley Manning, the intelligence analyst who gave Wikileaks that video of US soldiers laughing and shouting “good shot!” as they mowed down Iraqi civilians. The “hi tech” media, especially Wired magazine, did everything they could do discredit and smear him, including spreading rumors about his alleged sexuality. Now, with the release of over 91,000 internal US government communications, intelligence analyses and incident reports via Wikileaks, the motive behind the determined effort to smear Manning and shut down Wikileaks is all too apparent.

----- I guess I'm out of the loop - I didn't know Manning was being smeared with his demotion for assaulting another soldier and don't ask don't tell sexuality. Or his brief pre-enlistment career in food service and retail. I almost feel sorry for the kid. He has bitten off more than he can ever chew.

Interestingly, the leaked documents tell us Osama bin Laden is alive - and for years the nay-sayers have said he was dead. For years the leakers and knowers and bloggers have said dialysis toting OBL died of kidney disease, and was not Osama, gravely ill and hooked up to dialysis, meeting with a CIA agent in a Kuwait hospital in 2000? That's one of the worldwide "facts" that went around after 9/11. Today I read Osama does not use dialysis - but he does suffer occasionally from kidney stones. Too much black tea...

The documents also tell us the sensational claim of the Taliban having acquired heat-seeking missiles, and that NATO has covered this up or so says the Telegraph. UK Telegraph reports Taliban militants have used a heat-seeking surface-to-air missile to attack a Western aircraft over Afghanistan for the first time. Courtesy of Iran.

Justin of Antiwar says: ”Like all raw intelligence, however, I would take some of these “revelations” with a very large grain of salt, such as one report that says a top bin Laden adviser flew to North Korea to buy weapons."

I think we'll need a few of the salt blocks we used in the cow pasture.

Daniel Ellsberg said he considers Manning and Wikileaker Julian Assange heroes for publicizing information the government wanted suppressed. He said Manning’s alleged leak was possibly more significant than his own, which exposed the secret expansion of the Vietnam War.

Most if not all of this leak reveals nothing we don't already know. If anything comes out of this mass of documentation that's of use to anyone - who will verify it's the truth?

I don't expect to see Manning become anything other than a jailed martyr/cause for the "left" because unlike Jewish Harvard/Cambridge/Quantico PhD Ellsberg - Manning is a grunt born in Oklahoma, reportedly attended secondary school in England, returned to the US, working food service and retail, a few community college courses before enlisting. Ellsberg had his honorable discharge in hand, Manning is active duty. Ellsberg leaked his information to arms of the establishment, the NYT, WaPo, etc. Manning leaked his to a foreign national.

Ellsberg got a lifetime of kudos and boards to sit on. Manning will have a lifetime of grief. If Manning, by some stroke of the gods, has his charges dismissed as Ellsberg did, the best Manning can hope for is to be a temporary folk hero such as Cindy Sheehan or Ehren Watada (but minus the GI benefits and/or general discharge). Maybe a book deal since everyone gets one these days, then fade to a footnote. But I predict the kid will do hard time.

Does one have to be a deserter, dissenter, or defector to be a people's hero? Who are these people who make heroes out of criminals? When history asks what went wrong in Afghanistan will the Manning Papers be a primary source? It should be obvious by now that since WWII the US doesn't fight to win - it fights to enrich international contractors. As one of my sons said years ago from Iraq - the suits are running this war.

Although I'm against the war on the Middle East, Manning's method is not the way to accomplish anything. Neither was Ellsberg's - do you really think the esteemed Mr. Ellsberg, at the time working at Rand think tank, made his treasonous decision all by his lonesome? As always, the public is or will be manipulated to benefit a few, the power and money seekers. Manning will have his supporters and Free Manning followers, but for most of them - he's not a keeper.

Have you seen Julian Assange, the "leader" of Wikileaks? All I can think is who drained his blood and stole his eyebrows?

Sherrod vs. Vilsack

2010-07-22T10:02:00.002-05:00

RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

Minority Farm Settlement Justice Achieved - Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!

We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960's. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country. Now with a cash award of historic proportions, the group will be able to begin again.

In 1969, New Communities received a planning grant from OEO and was encouraged to expect substantial funding for implementation, but Governor Maddox would not permit further funds for the group to come into the state.

Nevertheless, New Communities built up farming operations to help retain the land. They had highway frontage where they had a farmers market to sell their crops. They raised hogs and sold the processed meat in a smokehouse they built on the highway. Their sugar cane mill on the highway also attracted customers. New Communities was ahead of the times in raising eight acres of Muscatine grapes, which are now widely grown in the area. They also farmed 1,500 acres of row crops, including corn, peanuts and soybeans.

Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

In 1985, as the land was being lost, Shirley entered the RDLN program. Previously, she had worked behind the scenes, but as she participated in RDLN, she began to realize her capacity as an up-front leader. She invited the Federation of Southern Cooperatives to sponsor her in the RDLN program, earned her master's degree with a thesis that continues to provide a blueprint for her ongoing work with black farmers and others, helped orient all succeeding groups of RDLN Leaders, and became vice chair of RDLN's Board of Directors. As you all know, Shirley is Georgia Lead for both the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund and the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative. She has also chaired the board of the Farmers Legal Action Group, which has been active in the minority farmers law suit, along with the Federation and other groups. FSC and SRBWI hosted RDLN's National Network Assembly in 2006, during which Network members had a chance to immerse themselves in Civil Rights history, with the guidance of Shirley and Charles (the first field director of SNCC), Albany singers and others, and to visit the economic development projects that have grown out of that Civil Rights history.

The cash award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. (President Reagan abolished the USDA Office of Civil Rights when he became President in 1981.) New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

---- New Communities, Inc., founded by Shirley and Reverend Charles Sherrod in 1970, went bankrupt in 1985. It was a 6000 acre communal type farm of family and friends. During Clinton's administration New Communities filed a lawsuit against the USDA. In 2009, days before her USDA appointment, Sherrod learned New Communities had won a $13 million lawsuit. The Pigford lawsuit to date has cost taxpayers over $1 billion.

Ca-ching ca-ching.

Shirley is considering a lawsuit against Breitbart. Shirley is considering the new job offer from Vilsack, and is holding out for a call from Obama. I think my first impression of the lady may be correct after all. She knows how to game.

More About Shirley

2010-07-21T15:54:00.004-05:00

Getting the apology she deserves, I think.

Both sides of the aisle are using the issue to make the other look bad. Sherrod and others have blamed Fox and Glenn Beck, which actually didn't air the story until after her resignation. And Glenn Beck did not rail against her at all, in fact sided with her based on known information. Although I had the impression Beck relished using her situation to make ObamaCo look bad, not so much in defending her.

NAACP now claims it was "snookered." No, they reacted with a knee-jerk because they know that this sort of black racism is common. So did the White House, and have now sent Vilsack to pull Shirley from under the bus.

Here is a transcript of the speech in question. Quite a speech. In one part she says:

"I want to just share something with you and...I think it helps to -- it -- you know, when I learned this, I'm like, "Oh, my goodness." You know, back in the late 17th and 18th century, black -- there were black indentured servants and white indentured servants, and they all would work for the seven years and -- and get their freedom. And they didn't see any difference in each other -- nobody worried about skin color. They married each other. You know, these were poor whites and poor blacks in the same boat, except they were slaves, but they were both slaves and both had their opportunity to work out on the slavery."

I learned the same thing during my genealogy research. I saw in the 1700s and 1800s black and white married. Indian men and white women married. I was shocked as my cowboy history was under the impression that Indians kidnapped white women and made squaws of them. I found that Irish men married black women most often (true in my family). Many of the records I've read through portrayed a different idea than what public schools taught me. I saw slave families married and baptized on the plantations and attending church with their owners - I thought all slave marriage outlawed. I found black lawyers, doctors, business owners, politicians.

And I began to suspect that extreme racism was created after the Civil War by a political party that had no platform. Democrats. They pandered to the poor southern whites in the 1870s/1880s, and the party of victimhood was born. The defenders of poor Johnny Anywhere and poor Southern Johnny. Democrats birthed the Jim Crow era in the 1890s. They gave poor whites one thing to feel good about - they might be poor but at least they weren't Negro. Until then I found blacks and whites living side by side in the census in the north, the south, big cities, small towns, in whatever neighborhood they could afford. It was in the 1889-1890s that laws appeared banning interracial marriage and enforcing segregation. The Democrat party strengthened along with racist laws.

What's missing from the Democrats history:

* There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. There were six from 1840 through 1860.
* There is no reference to the number of Democratic presidents who owned slaves. There were seven from 1800 through 1861
* There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms that either supported segregation outright or were silent on the subject. There were 20, from 1868 through 1948.
* There is no reference to "Jim Crow" as in "Jim Crow laws," nor is there reference to the role Democrats played in creating them. These were the post-Civil War laws passed enthusiastically by Democrats in that pesky 52-year part of the DNC's missing years. These laws segregated public schools, public transportation, restaurants, rest rooms and public places in general (everything from water coolers to beaches). The reason Rosa Parks became famous is that she sat in the "whites only" front section of a bus, the "whites only" designation the direct result of Democrats.
* There is no reference to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, which, according to Columbia University historian Eric Foner, became "a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party." Nor is there reference to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease's description of the Klan as the "terrorist arm of the Democratic Party."
* There is no reference to the fact Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The 13th banned slavery. The 14th effectively overturned the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision (made by Democratic pro-slavery Supreme Court justices) by guaranteeing due process and equal protection to former slaves. The 15th gave black Americans the right to vote.
* There is no reference to the fact that Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was passed by the Republican Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson, who had been a Democrat before joining Lincoln's ticket in 1864. The law was designed to provide blacks with the right to own private property, sign contracts, sue and serve as witnesses in a legal proceeding.
* There is no reference to the Democrats' opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1875. It was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses Grant. The law prohibited racial discrimination in public places and public accommodations.
* There is no reference to the Democrats' 1904 platform, which devotes a section to "Sectional and Racial Agitation," claiming the GOP's protests against segregation and the denial of voting rights to blacks sought to "revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country," which in turn "means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed."
* There is no reference to four Democratic platforms, 1908-20, that are silent on blacks, segregation, lynching and voting rights as racial problems in the country mount. By contrast the GOP platforms of those years specifically address "Rights of the Negro" (1908), oppose lynching (in 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928) and, as the New Deal kicks in, speak out about the dangers of making blacks "wards of the state."
* There is no reference to the Democratic Convention of 1924, known to history as the "Klanbake." The 103-ballot convention was held in Madison Square Garden. Hundreds of delegates were members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Klan so powerful that a plank condemning Klan violence was defeated outright. To celebrate, the Klan staged a rally with 10,000 hooded Klansmen in a field in New Jersey directly across the Hudson from the site of the convention. Attended by hundreds of cheering convention delegates, the rally featured burning crosses and calls for violence against African-Americans and Catholics.
* There is no reference to the fact that it was Democrats who segregated the federal government, at the direction of President Woodrow Wilson upon taking office in 1913. There \is a reference to the fact that President Harry Truman integrated the military after World War II.
* There is reference to the fact that Democrats created the Federal Reserve Board, passed labor and child welfare laws, and created Social Security with Wilson's New Freedom and FDR's New Deal. There is no mention that these programs were created as the result of an agreement to ignore segregation and the lynching of blacks. Neither is there a reference to the thousands of local officials, state legislators, state governors, U.S. congressmen and U.S. senators who were elected as supporters of slavery and then segregation between 1800 and 1965. Nor is there reference to the deal with the devil that left segregation and lynching as a way of life in return for election support for three post-Civil War Democratic presidents, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.
* There is no reference that three-fourths of the opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Bill in the U.S. House came from Democrats, or that 80% of the "nay" vote in the Senate came from Democrats. Certainly there is no reference to the fact that the opposition included future Democratic Senate leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia (a former Klan member) and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore Sr., father of Vice President Al Gore.
* Last but certainly not least, there is no reference to the fact that Birmingham, Ala., Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor, who infamously unleashed dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protestors, was in fact--yes indeed--a member of both the Democratic National Committee and the Ku Klux Klan.

--- The party did so well for so long with pandering to southern whites and poor whites that, as the winds of change blew, they made appeals and promises to other oppressed groups, blacks and women - more "have not" votes. I began to think about this a couple of years ago. My oldest daughter asked me recently, "Where is my mother and what have you done with her?" I pointed out that if she looks close she will see that my ideas on justice, fairness, liberty, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, have not really changed. I simply started to question what didn't make sense when facts began to collide with what I thought I knew.

It explained why my dad, having been born in 1890, was a republican - he knew this. Some folks believe the Democrat and Republican parties have flipped platforms. I don't think so. The Democrats simply capitalized on ignorance and keep it always about "us" versus "them", a term I'm thoroughly sick of. Of course current politicians seem to meld into one party - the party of Reelection.

It used to be "us" was southern, "them" were yankees. It used to be "us" was colored, "them" was white. Now "us" is poor, "them" is rich. And usually when one of us is supposedly working for "us (poor)" we become one of "them (rich)".

Unfortunately Sherrod used us/them ideology in her speech. There's really no "we" in America.

Shirley Sherrod

2010-07-20T12:00:00.006-05:00

A U.S. Agriculture Department official from Georgia said Tuesday that she was forced to resign by the Obama administration after she was caught on tape describing how, 24 years ago, she did not help a white farmer as much as she could have because of his race.

Sherrod said the calls came from Cheryl Cook, USDA deputy undersecretary for rural development. "The administration was not interested in hearing the truth. They didn't want to hear the truth," she said. Sherrod said she and the white farmer she referred to in the video, Roger Spooner, became friends. Spooner's wife, Eloise, confirmed to CNN that she and her husband considered Sherrod friends. "She helped us save our farm by getting in there and doing everything she could do," Eloise Spooner said. "They haven't treated her right." Sherrod said she told the story to make the point that at the time she thought that white farmers had the advantages because of their race but she learned that was not the case.

-------------- Did Obama administration and others overreact to the Sherrod/USDA incident? Sherrod says the Tea Party scares the Obama administration so that's not likely to help her on the next job. She said her civil rights record is better than some of those on the NAACP board.

I watched the CNN interview with Sherrod this morning, in which Eloise Spooner phoned in. She's the white farmer's wife.

Here's my take on the situation. I didn't feel good about Sherrod's body language. I trust my reading of "tells" and body language for information about a person's inner workings. Sherrod's body language felt deceptive, or at least insincere.

And there's the question, if Sherrod knew her heart was innocent of the accusations, why she did not stand up for herself harder and longer to the Obama administration. She's been in bureaucracy long enough to know how to do that. Self-defense is the first thing a bureaucrat learns.

Now, barely a day later she is hitting the airwaves to say it's all a misunderstanding - so I guess she's recalling the how-to of self-defense. Likely too much too late. She is scheduled to appear on Fox any moment. More minutes of the tape make her look less bigoted and racist, and make Breitbart mean and nasty for their editing.

On more of the tape, Sherrod does mention the "haves" and "have nots" which is the usual progressive rhetoric - but that was her audience. More tape does not make her more appealing. She admits she had no interest in agriculture but others encouraged her to get into it because there were not enough blacks in government agricultural jobs, and you know how sweet a government job is... in essence admitting what 99% of our government is: Folks going into the work for money and perks - not because they care and are good at it.

In Mrs. Spooner's call to CNN and from what I could sort out, Sherrod and the Spooners have not talked to one another in many years, and had very little contact, other than Mr. Spooner's (now age 87) original meeting with Sherrod, a few phone calls, and Eloise dropping by Sherrod's Georgia office to give her some tomatoes - that's the extent of the "good friends" relationship. Appears Sherrod sent Spooner to a lawyer twice with the second lawyer helping them save their farm, end of story. Sherrod was unaware that Mr. Spooner was still living. Maybe the definition of "friends" has changed.

But, having been born and raised in the south - let me tell you something about southern folk, black and white.

We tell tales. Big tales and little tales. We embellish mundane events. We exaggerate the commonplace and everyday ordinary events in our lives. Quite frankly, we b.s. A lot. As I'm looked upon as a "worldwide traveler" and "educated" my tales carry a lot of weight and importance, but I try not to capitalize on that.

We southerners do this because we like story telling, we like an audience, we like feeling important and we are almost always the main character in our own stories. We like to entertain any ears that will listen. We will tell these tales our entire life, editing old tales as we go along, and adding news tales at every chance we get. Tales can be half-truths, quarter-truth, or sometimes truth be damned.

Our children will tell our tales, sometimes our grandchildren, prefaced with "my mom told me one time ..." or "my grandpa told me one time ..." Our tales are a form of oral family history. Jumbled memories - as sometimes I hear my brother telling a tale that was mine. Some tale tellers adopt other people's tales as their own and the polite thing is not to call them on it.

In our tale telling we always come out the winner, the good guy, the one-up, the important one. We want our listeners to feel ... "geewhiz I wish that had happened to me..." or "wow, you really had a special moment" or "glad that wasn't me 'cause I couldn't have been as brave, as big, as bad ..." etc. etc. We especially like tales where we appear to have epiphanies, an awakening, enlightenment, our shining moment, and nothing is better than the tale of having been next to, touched, looked at, spoken to, or met anyone deemed an important person or famous person (even if just the local small town VIPs).

I think Shirley and Eloise are both using personal tales, embellishments of an ordinary event, that became a story to tell around the Sunday dinner table or use in a public speech.

But, for this to be a cautionary tale, I would say - white folks probably shouldn't bet the family farm on Shirley.

Their Own Kind

2010-07-19T23:30:00.003-05:00

Washington (CNN) -- A black Agriculture Department employee resigned Monday after conservative media outlets aired a video of her telling an audience she had not given a white farmer "the full force of what I could do" to help him save the family farm.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said he had accepted the resignation of Shirley Sherrod, the department's state director of rural development for Georgia.

The poor quality video shows Sherrod telling her audience that the farmer she was working with "took a long time ... trying to show me he was superior to me." As a result, she said, she "didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."

To prove she had done her job, she said, she took him to a white lawyer.

"I figured that if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him," she said.

Sherrod mentioned that the lawyer would help the farmer with a bankruptcy filing but did not say whether his farm was saved.

------ Supposedly "Sherrod's remarks were delivered March 27 to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet." The video comes from Breitbart.

Sherrod, Obama appointee, resigned already. Wonder who ordered that... she has only held the position since last August. Can you believe some folks are trying to justify this by saying her comments were taken out of context? It's clear the lady was laughing, along with the audience, about basically stickin' it to the white man.

I wonder how much money she has pocketed during her career in "rural development" at the local and state level.

After reading/hearing this story today I thought of Tim Wise, prolific race writer, poster boy for white guilt and "anti-racist" writer/lecturer. I remembered a piece a few years ago where Wise explains that reverse racism is not possible/blacks cannot be racist - because " ... when a group of people has little or no power over you institutionally, they don't get to define the terms of your existence, they can't limit your opportunities..." I guess Sherrod has accomplished something - institutionalized reverse racism - change you can believe in.

The rise of Wise to expert/authority on race and privilege made me uncomfortable. There are hundreds of black Americans who have written and lectured on the subject long before the subject was trendy or lucrative or even safe, yet Wise, as pseudo-intellectual, has been elevated to exalted white person, making a good capitalist living pimping diversity and anti-racism seminars, hustling books, and folks follow him right along as the white prophet of enlightenment.

Amazing huh how many folks I can insult in one short post.

Public Service Denouncement

2010-07-19T14:47:00.002-05:00

On CBS' Face the Nation, NAACP President Ben Jealous faced off against David Webb of the National Tea Party Federation. Webb said Mark Williams, the former chairman and spokesman of Tea Party Express who came under fire last week for writing a satirical letter in which he called slavery a "great gig," and his group had been expelled from the National Tea Party Federation. Webb blasted the NAACP's "selective condemnation of racism," which he attributed to "fringe elements" within the tea party, and called on Jealous to denounce members of the New Black Panther Party for saying they want to "kill cracker babies."

"We absolutely denounce the New Black Panther Party," Jealous said, adding that the NBPP is a very small organization. "But they aren't in our group. These folks are in your groups."

Webb and Jealous agreed to make joint appearances to discuss race relations and other issues.

Vice President Joe Biden said on ABC's "This Week" that the tea party "is not a racist organization," but added that "the truth is that at least elements that were involved in some of the Tea Party folks expressed racist views."

------- Let the denunciations begin.

Williams "satirical letter" from NAACP president to Abe Lincoln:
Dear Mr. Lincoln:
We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement’.

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Sincerely
Precious Ben Jealous, Tom’s Nephew NAACP Head Colored Person

--- Among many offenses, Williams "satirical letter" stereotypes blacks as a group using government assistance money to put "a wide screen TV in every room". That taxation and spending is of benefit only to black folks. Obviously, Williams has not noticed all the white folks on welfare with widescreens, new Dodge Ram trucks, doublewides, and deer rifles.

Williams has been booted from the Tea Party party for his clearly offensive parody letter, which he has removed from his blog. It's a shame he didn't have one black friend to run this letter by before posting for all the world to read.

What a dufus, I'd say he's dumber than Dubya. He doesn't know social decay and political corruption is colorblind. I don't know anymore whether to pity people this ignorant or just say piss on 'em. Give him his 15 minutes.

Caught On Tape

2010-07-18T21:05:00.003-05:00

Huffington Post: Netanyahu In 2001: 'America Is A Thing You Can Move Very Easily'

A newly released video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could add some additional strain to the sometimes tense relationship between him and President Obama.

In the video, which is from 2001, Netanyahu -- who reportedly did not know his speech was being recorded -- speaks frankly in Hebrew about relations with the Clinton White House and the peace process.

As noted in Haaretz, Netanyahu seems to boast of his knowledge of the US by saying, "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way."

The video was broadcast on a TV program called "This Week With Miki Rosenthal" titled "The Real (And Deceitful) Face of Benjamin Netanyahu." In Israel's Haaretz newspaper, columnist Gideon Levy said of the video:

"These remarks are profoundly depressing. They bear out all of our fears and suspicions: that the government of Israel is led by a man who doesn't believe the Palestinians and doesn't believe in the chance of an agreement with them, who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes. There's no point in talking about Netanyahu's impossible rightist coalition as an obstacle to progress. From now on, just say that Netanyahu doesn't want it."

-------- Good lord, so much in this Huffington blogger slop I don't know where to begin. First of all it's from HuPo - a site where progressives have blurb orgies and know-it-all comments from folks who believe they found the truth and have the ability to solve world problems, sort of like Jesus Freaks but without Jesus.

By the way, have you noticed that this sort of nonreporting rumor milling, biased hit-and-run "reporting" is now sometimes in the NYT or WaPo? Not as a legitimate article, although by some of the paper's bylined journalists, but on a blog with a grand name such as WaPo's blog Checkpoint Washington. Is that a strategy for presenting b.s. as serious journalism? Checkpoint Charlie, me love you long time.

Second, I do not speak Hebrew so have no idea what Netanyahu is saying in this supposedly "leaked" home video. I do not know who interpreted it, or if they are honest, or if the interpretation even comes close to what he says. And what the hay does "They won't get in their way" mean? Who is "they" and who is "their way" referring to? Did he boast about manipulating the US, the accords? Whaaa ... a pol who manipulates and admits it? Bibi Netanyahu's comment is not as noxious as one attributed to Ariel Sharon.

Coincidentally (wink wink), in October 2001 something very similar was all over the internet, attributed to Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio, and interpreted as "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

Hmmm. So devious Israeli leaders are caught on tape bashing the hand that feeds them billion$?

Third, who is the quoted Gideon Levy? Born in 1953 in Tel Aviv he's been with Haaretz since 1982 as an editor, columnist, an author, etc., who, when he discovered the truth, became an opponent of Israeli policies regarding Palestinian territory. Some call him a propagandist for Hamas, others hail him as a heroic journalist. I do not know him, but do know the Westerners who believe in him are also part of the "speaking truth to power" mimicry crowd. Levy has not, however, taken fellow journalist Helen Thomas' advice to leave Israel and go back to where he came from. His supporters claim he's "putting his life on the line" writing in Israel - I suppose if Mossad hasn't ended his long career by now they're not too worried about his politics.

(In fairness, Haaretz did report on Reuters altering of the Gaza flotilla photos. Not the first time Reuters creatively cropped photos.)

Personally, I have no problem with the US withdrawing military and economic support from Israel - how about the same time we pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq (dream on). Would heroes like Gideon Levy then be able to further the cause of peace? Would Russia or China become Israel's new BFF and Israel/Palestine continue as is?

Along with most of the world, I do not and cannot know the objective truth regarding the situation in Israel, Palestine, or Hamas (Islamic Resistence Movement), etc. I do know, at home and abroad, presstitutes are servicing both sides of the aisle. And, from experience with the wars in Central America, I do know that underdogs are not nearly as romantic as portrayed by their supporters.

Playing Cards

2010-07-18T16:12:00.004-05:00

What's behind yet another summer of racial discontent in America?

On one side are largely-white "tea party" members depicting President Obama as an African witch doctor, sparking a condemnation from the NAACP last week. On the other is the charge that the Obama Justice Department is "openly hostile" to enforcing civil rights laws against black racists, including members of the New Black Panther Party.

Who this summer of racial discontent will ultimately benefit is the open question. For both sides, playing the race card could backfire.

While many middle-class Americans may share the "small government" ideals of the tea party movement, its racialized aspects could scare many voters, including many conservative blacks, away from the conservative tent and ticket. Others may be turned off by liberals trying to squelch legitimate debate about the direction of the nation by playing the race card.

---- It seems to me a small faction of both right and left "leaders" want a race problem and actively contribute to racial division and hostile rhetoric, for without the "politics of division" they are out of a job (and funding).

What I find disturbing is the NAACP climbing in bed with the NBPP (New Black Panther Party). NBPP has been around about 20 years but only recently has the group managed to get widespread publicity. Original Panthers and Bobby Seale consider the new panthers illegitimate. If you put any faith in the Southern Poverty Law Center the SPLC has categorized NBPP as a "black racist" hate group. And judging from their writings and activities, I agree.

I'm not saying there are no racially motivated crimes, of course there are, but we're trending toward calling too many white on black crimes as racially motivated.

NBPP involve themselves in cases they claim are racially motivated hate crimes when the cases may be crimes of passion or plain wickedness. Such as the Anthony Hill case. Hill, age 30, was drinking with 19-year-old coworker, Gregory Collins, in Collins home, when during an argument Collins shot Hill in the back of the head. Collins then tied Hill to his truck bumper and dragged him, a motorist found Collins body on the highway and the blood trail led back to Collins trailer.

Collins has been charged with murder. It has not been officially classified as a hate crime and some locals believe it was because both men were sleeping with the same woman. I find next to nothing on the background of Collins. There's no mention if Collins used drugs, although his photo has the classic look of a meth head. But NBPP automatically labels this a racist crime b/c of the dragging. I label that evil and perverse but there is no evidence the motive was racism. Or a case may be plain incompetent accidental (Oscar Grant case) which served a handful of Oakland thugs with an excuse to burn and loot.

The sheep are encouraged to blame another race for their personal misery, whether warranted or not. But you can't blame another race if you lack basic education. You can't blame another race if you lack language skills. No one forces you to speak Ebonics or Spanglish or cracker vernacular. You can't blame another race because you won't relocate for a job, not wanting to leave mama's house or 'cause your baby's mama won't move with you. You can't blame another race for a rap sheet as long as your arm. You can't blame another race for your moral choices or angry mental state. Racism is not the biggest enemy, ignorance is.

It's a small but loud group who want to blame black on white or white on black crime as racially motivated when race is clearly not the motive. Well funded and bullhorned loudmouth agitators promote the issue as gospel and the worst among us will follow along.

Then again, like the article said, maybe the race card will backfire.

Is that why Biden today "defended" the Tea Party? Democrats concerned about backfire? When I looked at the poll accompanying this article at 11 a.m. today, the question "Do you believe racism is part of the Tea Party's attacks on President Obama?" the results were 37% yes, 60% no. Looking at it now, 3 p.m. says 76% yes, 23% no. NYDNews has been described as the "pulse of New York City" and "midway between liberal and conservative" and a "serious tabloid." It seems to depend on ownership and issue. Daily News endorsed Obama, owner billionaire Bilderberger and CFR member Mort Zuckerman has admitted to writing a speech for Obama. One thing that's correct - its a tabloid.

Seventy-six percent of NYD readers believe Tea Partyers attack Obama because of racism. Are folks really that stupid?

I know a black couple locally who wanted to attend a Tea Party event because they agree with its platform - but decided not to because of the negative publicity regarding racism, they were uncertain they would be safe. Is that the democrat's goal?

So really, what's behind "another summer of racial discontent"?

Is this a summer of racial discontent or just TPTB trying to sow discontent?

Here You Go

2010-07-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Toussaint McCall - Nothing Takes the Place of You

Hattie Littles - Here You Come

Exciters - Hard Way to Go

Subdudes - Tired of Being Alone

Bogus Living

2010-07-16T08:43:00.006-05:00

For the first time in 25 years, medical experts are proposing a major change in the criteria for Alzheimer’s disease, part of a new movement to diagnose and, eventually, treat the disease earlier. The changes could also help drug companies that are, for the first time, developing new drugs to try to attack the disease earlier. So far, there are no drugs that alter the course of the disease.

---- Key words here "drug companies" and "treat" and "developing new drugs."

I grew up surrounded by older folks, my parents were older when I was born. My grandparents, aunts, uncles lived into their 80s, 90s, and a great grandmother to 102. None had Alzheimer disease.

Alzheimer, like many other "modern" diseases, is a cash cow, golden goose. Not to say there are not folks losing brain cells, it's obvious many folks have degenerating brain cells, but prevention is the answer - not more treatment and prescriptions after the fact. To date there are no drugs proven to stop or reverse Alzheimer. Not Namenda, not Aricept, not Exelon, not Razadyne. They "appear to" or "may" help slow the disease, according to BigPharma. Alzheimer drugs of any use are those that calm the "behavior issues" associated with the disease - combativeness, agitation, the grouch. Such drugs create a more tranquil nursing home.

Risk Factors for Alzheimer:
Smoking after age 65 up your chances of Alzheimer’s by 79%.
Obesity in midlife makes you 3-1/2 x as likely to have Alzheimer’s.
Diabetes makes you twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
Genetics account for only 25% of Alzheimer’s cases.
Chronic stress may quadruple your risk.

Of course smoking takes first place blame for all things these days, even though my ancestors smoked like chimneys, unfiltered cigarettes and pipes, and did not develop Alzheimer disease. None were obese. None had diabetes. And they handled stress in a healthier way - known as "deal with it." A few were more forgetful in later years, but not to the point they forgot how to eat , use the bathroom, or who they were and who you were. I think Alzheimer is the disease of "use it or lose it" and more folks are using less of their brain.

Much of today's "genetic" excuse is nothing more than the environment you were born in. Fat parents, drug using parents, sedentary parents, chronically stressed parents typically produce fat kids, hophead kids, lazy kids, stressed out unpleasant kids. Parents and children with unhealthy habits. Hence families usually develop the same diseases and conditions.

In the last 50 years or so, since socialized medicine was introduced (Medicaid/Medicare), there have been hundreds of diseases discovered and what were once rare conditions have become epidemic: Fibromyalgia, autism, diabetes, obesity, restless leg syndrome, epilepsy, migraines, chronic pain syndrome, chronic back pain, neuropathy, ADHD, adult onset this and that, depression, anxiety, bipolar, obsessive compulsive disorder, PMS, PEMS, eating disorders, PTSD, Asperger syndrome, anything "cyclical", body dysmorphic disorder, Tourette's, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel, on and on and on.

Tell me your disease and I will know your lifestyle, your upbringing, and your social status/philosophy. I will know what you are by the "disease" or syndrome you hide behind.

(A few trendy surgeries whether you really need it not: Cholecystectomy, hysterectomy, C-section, knee surgery, back surgery, tonsillectomy, carpal tunnel, sinus surgery, and the "exploratory" surgery because no physician can find anything wrong with your literal bellyaching.)

Yes, some of the above diseases are valid - epilepsy, PTSD, but all can and are also faked. Healthcare professionals will not tell you to go home and get a life - you're a dollar sign for the billing department. Stop using a body part, or abuse it, and you eventually have your disease. Fake it 'til you make it.

Sixty years ago folks with some of the above "diseases" would have been considered retarded - and they are, emotionally and psychologically retarded. Hypochondria was seldom seen until it was taxpayer funded. Malingering was for the occasional bored middle/upper class white housewife with a vodka bottle and Valium - now anyone can pretend to suffer.

Don't expect to see a lot of the above afflicted folks living to retirement. Obesity alone is shortening the lifespan and lowering age expectancy in the US. Society and government now encourage us to pick a pain - an excuse to be nasty, mean, lazy, hateful, encourage us to be failures, losers, selfish, unable to help ourselves or anyone else because we have a syndrome that debilitates us. Do or say whatever nasty vile thing you want and excuse it with having one of your "episodes" or one of your "spells" that is connected to your syndrome or disorder. Or do nothing because the excruciating pain of your "disease" won't let you lift anything heavier than a beer, a bong, or a bigmac.

Years ago we did not see t.v. shows of folks living in their own filth and say it was the disease of "hoarding." Drunks and addicts were a family shame, not an intervention episode for all the world to watch someone put a needle in their arm or pass out drunk on the curb. The unfocused, ill-mannered, rowdy kids would have been in special education, not going to the school nurse to get their noon fix. Back then folks had to make a life and living, now they only need a syndrome that insurance and SSI (or government) will cover.

I remember when there was no syndrome or disorder or disease to excuse a low life - society did not condone screwed up choices and government did not fund them. When and if Obamacare kicks in - expect to see a sicker nation.

Elements & Activities

2010-07-14T18:22:00.004-05:00

A billboard advert in the US state of Iowa that linked President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin was removed on Wednesday morning. The sign, which was funded by a group of local Tea Party activists, has been replaced with a community service announcement. Text on the sign had read: "Radical leaders prey on the fearful & naive." The billboard had angered many in the local community, including other Tea Party activists. A representative of the Iowa group called the billboard's owner and requested the sign be removed on Tuesday evening.

On Tuesday, America's largest civil rights group passed a resolution condemning the Tea Party for tolerating racism and bigotry. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has not released the language of the motion, but a spokesperson has said that it calls on Tea Party members to "repudiate the racist element and activities within the Tea Party".

--- As if the "left" did not compare Bush to Hitler - the strategy of fear, etc. I still have my Bush mugs and tee shirts with Bushitler wearing an Adolph mustache. I notice now that Obama is waging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - we no longer here the term "war criminals."

Maybe the North Iowa Tea Party billboard doesn't bother me because I'm immune after 8 years of the same comparison to Bush. Could the billboard have warned against socialism without Obama's mug shot? I don't see the billboard as racist and bigoted - it's politically incorrect. Everyone knows only republicans can be compared to Hitler.

Ah, the NAACP. An organization that has become as useful as teats on a bull. Such a shame so many organizations have become self-serving institutions (as have our pols).

NAACP recently lost their suit against Kyle TX for discriminatory zoning. Seems City of Kyle set their minimum lot size and standards for single-family homes to such that it raised the price from $100k to $133K - supposedly pushing out blacks and Latinos and against the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The NAACP was first and foremost when pushing for easy lending a couple of decades ago but in 2007 they found their calling is to sue the same mortgage companies for "predatory lending." Oh, oh, no wait ... the NAACP dropped their case because "Wells Fargo pledged to follow the group's principles on fairness and lending."

It all depends on what pledge is pledged to the NAACP I guess.

I know of a half-dozen cases locally in the last few years where the NAACP has come to stand up for social justice and fight discrimination. One particularly comes to mind. Let's call the main participate Sandra. Sandra, a 20-year-old black college student had a scuffle and words at a local Wal-mart. Other customers thought she was cutting in line, she thought they were picking on her, and the clerk asked her to leave, she refused and took a swipe at the clerk, the police were called, and it escalated from there. Sandra eventually was charged with assaulting a cop, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace, etc. etc. (Wal-mart footage, inside and out, shows Sandra made quite an ass of herself.)

Here comes the NAACP lawyer to fight racism in a small southern town. That is until Sandra's daddy told him he was going to kick his ass because he gave the defense witness list to the prosecutor (required by law). The lawyer packed his bag, checked out of Holiday Inn and went back to St. Louis. Sandra and the DA settled on a misdemeanor charge and probation, along with anger management classes - but not before the regional chapter of NAACP organized a march to the courthouse, which drew about 20 people. No KKK, no skinheads, just a couple of dozen friends and family members of Sandra's and the regional NAACP leader, locking arms to march and demand that Sandra get justice.

The remaining cases around here are just as pointless but more humorous. The head of our local NAACP is a lewd, old ex-con recently turned Reverend who still schemes and scams, so I guess there's no vetting. Surely somewhere though there are good members doing the right thing? I dunno. Too many folks seem to think "social justice" equals acting a fool and getting away with it, and praised, and sometimes paid.

More White Man Bias

2010-07-10T15:51:00.005-05:00

New Study Shows Racial Bias in SATs. Or so say the progressive experts from this or that source.

"The latest study was conducted for the University of California system, and replicates most of the results of the 2003 study. Researchers concluded that Black students did worse than whites on easier questions with more common words because some of those words have different connotations in Black and white cultural settings. For example, simple words like “bad,” “tight” and “slick” carry different meanings in colloquial Black speech than in white usage. The SATs test the “white” meanings, putting Blacks at a disadvantage for the easy questions."

------ Are they serious? Yep, guess so, slap mah 'fro, black Americans are apparently unaware that simple words used as slang have a totally different meaning in the real white world.

From a year ago, USA Today article, SAT scores show disparities by race, gender, family income.

Average SAT scores by group:
1707: AP students (advanced/college prep high school courses).
1702: Students reporting family incomes of $200,000+ a year.
1623: Asian students.
1581: White students.
1506: Students reporting family incomes of $60-$80,000 a year.
1448: American Indian or Alaskan native students.
1364: Latino students.
1345: Puerto Rican students.
1276: Black students.

Males scored better than females, on average, at 1523 and 1496 respectively. Obviously, uncolloquialized Puerto Ricans, Latinos, American Indians, Eskimos, and Asians, like white folks, have a better understanding of simple words. (Particularly the average Asian.)

Black folk should be ashamed of that list, it's "bad" (white folks simple word usage). Stop using the worn-out, progressive-provided excuse of disadvantaged "race bias," you see where that's gotten you? Try reading more, and befo' yu knowed it, yu be done aced dem tesses."

In the News 2

2010-07-03T11:45:00.002-05:00

Labor report another indication that economic recovery losing steam. "Government spending prevented the U.S. economy from tipping into a depression," ... "But beyond that, the government cannot, short of war, get private companies to increase hiring if they don't want to."

Government jobs produce little to nothing. Government jobs are of 2 sort - temporary, short-term, such as the census workers, or government contracts for everything from highways and bridges to nowhere. The second sort of job is more permanent, pointless, and usually overpaid, desk jockeys who administer and/or distribute information and/or funds, and pretend their existence is to benefit the rest of us. Again, however, producing nothing tangible other than their own paychecks and padded expense accounts. Example: I know a woman recently retired from a government job who for most of career earned a yearly $200,000 plus benefits to die for, but she was basically nothing more than a glorified secretary/file clerk with a title for the IRS. The "green" jobs will be such as this. Departments and contractors given billions in tax dollars to retrofit a few homes and buildings, build a few windmills, fund a few organic farmers. Any construction/farm jobs created will be temp but the government handlers of the department will be permanently ensconced, busily creating documents to justify the need for their existence. It's the nature of the beast.

Buffett donates $1.93bn in shares to charities. There's a big reason that wealthy people set up their own private foundations, often donating appreciated stock in their companies. They avoid paying capital-gains taxes on the value of the gift and get an immediate -- but potentially limited -- tax deduction. They also benefit because the invested assets of the foundation will continue to grow tax-free. That enhances their ability to give generously in the future." For as little as $10k you too can become your own charitable foundation. And appoint/employ your family, friends, and cronies as overseers of those $500 college scholarships, $100 dollar micro loans to third world women, and purchase vaccines from other buddies to eradicate polio, malaria, and diarrhea although such eradication endeavors will take eons. But god bless those few thousands peasants who benefit in anyway from charitable tax break foundation havens.

$400M boost for Colorado solar firm. President Barack Obama planned to announce the loan to Abound Solar during his weekly radio address Saturday. Abound is in the photovoltaic industry, planning to manufacture PV technology for solarizing commercial and industrial developers - shopping malls, factories, large office complexes, etc. Nearly 1/2 billion to a privately owned company that manufactured their first solar panel a few months ago. Abound says it plans to keep everything in-house while their competitors are outsourcing. China of course has its PV industries, as do former leaders in the PV field (Europe, Germany). Competitors, having stumbled and lost revenue and market shares in the past few years, claim future success is "commoditization and outsourcing of manufacturing ... believed to be a key development in the solar market." Companies also note it may be 2 decades until average folk are using made in China solar panels (unless you've more money than you know what to do with or $50,000 to retrofit your average crib), as the cost is still somewhat prohibitive for other than the mogul developers with unlimited investors and/or government contracts.

Some of the bigger PV companies plan on going into the "developing and financing end of it." You know, becoming real estate developers to raise a building, having their own finance company to make the loan to their own PV company who will then build the project using the products purchased with funds from their own lending institute. I see more ghost malls and empty office space in our future, and government housing projects with broken solar panels. Commoditization ... hmm you mean public, commodity, trading, stock market, Wall Street, shareholders ? Government handout disguised as warm fuzzy green saving the environment jobs? Reminds me of the Crédit Mobilier of America scandal.

Robert Byrd funeral. Hundreds of West Virginians, two presidents and dozens of family members and friends gathered. Hundreds? "His heart belonged to you," President Obama told the crowd of West Virginians. "Making life better here was his only agenda. Giving you hope, he said, was his greatest achievement." Well, if that didn't make Obama gag I don't know what would. Byrd was a proven bigot/racist well into his 60s - he didn't have a change of heart, he had to change political strategy. His constituency, one word, Appalachia.

Serena wins Wimbledon. And she didn't go ghetto on anyone. ("If I could, I swear to God I would take this f... ball and shove it down your f... throat and f... kill you ... ")

Albert Gore's Oregon massage. I told you years ago the only thing Al was good for was doorman. In a spiffy uniform and gloves.

Have a good July 4.

In The News

2010-06-28T08:33:00.001-05:00

California welfare cards used in casino ATMs will be stopped according to state officials. Darn. Now folks will have to stop at the corner store ATM before heading to the casino.

Robert Byrd (D-WV), the Apologizer, finally succumbs to nature's term limits. Former KKK member (1942-52) , in 1997 Byrd explained the office he held in the KKK was a youthful indiscretion. He dropped out of the KKK after 10 years because he saw a similar, more lucrative group, suited to his talent and ambitions - Congress. In 2005 he continued to apologize for his KKK activity, because he no longer used terms like "race mongrels." He later claimed he regretted filibustering for 14 hours the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The King of Pork - a life spent having political epiphanies. A classic liberal progressive man of the people (white people).

The Obama administration's bungling incompetence in handling the Gulf of Mexico/BP oil disaster makes hurricane Katrina/Bush look like a job well done. Coastal southern states - is this collective karma or what?

Elena Kagan - Supreme Court vapid and hollow charade nominee. Kagan has never served as a judge, never married, never had children, never came out of the closet. As with many of "the chosen" the past decade or so, SCOTUS members are no longer chosen on ability - but on quotas. We are missing a dwarf/midget though. In 1995 Kagan said Senate confirmation hearings had become a "vapid and hollow charade." How true, especially hers.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal relieved of command to be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus (or if you're a liberal progressive democrat - Gen. Betrayus). The Runaway General and his staff's disparaging comments to Rollingstone, however true they may be, should not have been spoken to a reporter. One cannot publicly call the boss and/or his minions, terms like Joe Bite-Me, clowns, etc. Does this mean Rollingstone mag is now in charge of foreign policy?

Obama says he is serious about tackling the deficit. At the Group of 20 summit in Canada Barry endorsed a goal of cutting government deficits in half by 2013 and stabilizing the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product by 2016. Not expected to meet these targets but ouch ouch ouch when they try. Sources close to somebody said "Most of the savings will come from winding down the war in Iraq, increased (tax) revenue from those making more than $250,000 a year, and savings from making government work more efficiently and eliminating programs that do not work." The newly formed Ministry of Smoke and Mirrors will implement this policy.

Government Intervention

2010-06-25T09:36:00.008-05:00

Commiedreams still dreaming. Right to Rent: "When the foreclosure hurricane first hit, subprime borrowers absorbed the brunt of it. Homeowners who had been fooled with teaser rates suddenly faced balloon payments they couldn't afford. Others couldn't refinance because of prepayment penalties they hadn't been aware of. And some people had made bad decisions and were now paying for it with their homes."

One would think as loud and long as "progressives" have been screaming about the evil greed of Big Business, particularly bankers, that folks would not be so easily "fooled" by big business and bankers.

"From the outset of this crisis, little relief has been in sight for foreclosure victims. In contrast, the big banks were on the receiving end of a $700 billion bailout and have been given the right to decide which homeowners sink or swim ever since."

Although I'm against the bank bailouts, are you prepared to experience what would happen to the economy if the big banks fail? Would those fooled folks, clueless about their own mortgage contracts, be prepared for mass worldwide bank failures? Can the FDIC just print the money they need to cover millions of depositors, and by the way it could take years to get your insured funds. Can you tread water that long?

The five most foreclosure troubled states, last I read, were California, Florida, Michigan, Illinois and Nevada. Hmmm. Now why would those states rank the top 5 ...

"Instead of foreclosures increasing blight, crime and homelessness, neighborhoods would keep people in their homes who care about them and their communities. Instead of decreasing property values and tax revenues, and consequent layoffs and cuts in services, communities would be far more stable and better able to contribute to the economic recovery. And Baker points out declining property values-especially in bubble markets-mean that people are sometimes paying twice as much on their mortgage payment as they would pay to rent the same home."

"... consequent layoffs ... if layoffs come after the foreclosure then why are folks not making their mortgage payments? Rent the same house for half the price of the mortgage? How often ya think that's happening. How many folks used the "foreclosure hurricane" as an excuse to get out of the responsibility of home ownership? There's a huge problem now with renters trashing rental property - think losing a home and having to rent it will make them better caretakers?

Fact is most home loss/foreclosures are due to: Job loss. Divorce. Too much debt. Filing bankruptcy and the home liquidated to pay debts. You could say this hurricane is often caused by personal behavior. How many helpless victims will draw every last dime of unemployment insurance and government foodstamps/medicaid before getting serious about job hunting?

Other facts: Foreclosures are heavily concentrated in Latino and black neighborhoods, particularly Latino immigrants. Oh my, is that politically incorrect or what.

Some try to make the case that this is the result of heartless greed and taking advantage of helpless minorities by evil corporations. The truth is a lot of mortgages were given to people who turned out not to be creditworthy. The granting of such mortgages was encouraged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which promised to take them off lenders hands, and then injected $1 trillion of what turned out to be toxic paper into financial institutions all over the world.

"A right to rent sure beats listening to Obama administration officials continuing to promise to punish banks that aren't modifying mortgages and somehow never getting around to doing it. And it definitely beats continuing to watch our nation bleed generations of wealth, entire communities and human capital."

...bleed generations of wealth and human capital." Now doesn't that evoke strong emotions, sounds like progressive tabloid writing.

Another piece this week, from World Socialist website, a demand to nationalize public utilities, particularly Detroit's DTE:

"In an article that appeared on the Huffington Post web site Thursday, Mike Langford, the president of the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) and an executive board member of the AFL-CIO, called for private utility companies such as Detroit-based DTE Energy to be placed under “public ownership.”

The transformation of DTE into a genuinely public-owned utility, which serves the interests of working people, not the super-rich, requires a fundamental restructuring of the entire economy and breaking the stranglehold of the financial aristocracy. Not only would the utility companies have to be nationalized under workers’ control but also the banks and major industries.

Hahaha, "placed under" rather than confiscated, good one.

As in many cities and towns across the nation my local Board of Municipal Utilities is publicly owned and a member of APPA (American Public Power Association). I will grant that our area has one of the lowest rates in the state, but still comparable to Michigan's rates.

Supposedly a not-for-profit status – lowers costs and prevents any split allegiance between customers and stockholders, although you could be a bondholder. Still, our public owned utility cost goes up every year - as they have most everywhere.

Socialists fail to mention, as always, that regardless whether utilities are owned by for-profit corporations or publicly owned - your monthly utility bill has to be paid and profits have to be made to cover salaries, maintenance, improvements, repairs, upgrades, pay bondholders, and to fund attempts at keeping rates lower, etc. etc.

Publicly owned utilities shut power off for nonpayment too. Publicly owned utilities have the same problems as those in the private sector - corruption, cronyism, political agendas, lack of competition, subject to state and federal regulations, rising costs, becoming local monopolies, etc. etc.

In many developing/third world countries the public owned utilities more often than not provide service only to wealthier neighborhoods, to tourist spots, industrial parks, i.e. folks who pay for it. Barrios and shanty towns do not have utilities.

In China there are communes/co-ops where local government provides healthcare, education, heat, electricity, housing, basic foodstuffs, and even furniture. At the mere cost of 70% of your paycheck from the job the government has given you in a village-owned company. But, once a month the community bosses make inspections to determine that you are taking proper care of what has been provided, that you are still worthy of your cracker-box house, 1 child, couch and bed, the dim light bulb dangling in home sweet home. All part of your "benefits" package. These benefits are awarded on a point system - points for cleanliness, progress toward "behavioral goals", and obedience to the Party line.

Already in the US too many folks depend on the commune to provide housing, food, education, utilities, jobs, healthcare - once the majority is dependent, you can be sure of the necessity of implementing a point system. Nearly all the folks shut off today will be shut off under a "publicly owned" system. But we won't hear about it and such folks will be sent to some euphemistic "zone", so as not to mess the mood of those who are obediently earning their points.

Remember, "those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."

Glorious Future

2010-06-11T23:03:00.006-05:00

PIRAEUS, GREECE -- Nearly bankrupt and sullied in the eyes of foreign investors, Greece is moving to rebuild its economy by tapping the deep pockets of another ancient civilization: China.

Spurred on by government incentives and bargain-basement prices, the Chinese are planning to pump hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of euros into Greece even as other investors run the other way. The cornerstone of those plans is the transformation of the Mediterranean port of Piraeus into the Rotterdam of the south, creating a modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe and North Africa.

The Chinese have plunked down billions from Angola to Peru to ensure the delivery of natural resources to feed China's red-hot economy as well as to guarantee unfettered and cost-effective shipment of its exports abroad. The investments here in Greece, analysts say, are part of China's plan to create a network of roads, pipelines, railroads and port facilities -- sort of a modern Silk Road -- to boost East-West trade.

--------- Latin America, Africa, Europe, US. Your made-in-china spending, trickling around the world. Chinese corporate leaders creating personal fortunes like all self-made billionaires - through government contracts.

Some on the "right" claim China's coming world dominance is galloping right along due to Obama policies but come on ... you could blame it on Nixon and Kissinger for opening the door to China in 1972 and lifting the US trade embargo.

Or blame Jimmah Carter, the crypt keeper of global human rights - he granted the Chinese communist regime formal diplomatic recognition on January 1, 1979, and has expressed his belief that the U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Never mind China's pesky human rights violations and that one party rules the whole show. The US puppet leader sends an emissary at least once every 4 years to scold the Chinese emissary on human rights violations, and cable news will show a 30 second soundbyte to prove it. Good job Mr. or Madame Bureaucrat.

You could blame it on Reagan who did nothing to keep US manufacturers at home and even held the door for them as US corporations sprinted for cheaper labor and tax packages in China. You could definitely blame Clinton-Gore who used a good amount of Chinese yin yang to further their campaigns, although they don't seem to have personally figured out the unity and harmony part - what with all the yang and hankyspanky in the oval office, and 40 years and a Tipper looking for oneness.

Or blame it on Theodore Roosevelt who favored the emergence of a strong and prosperous China, expecting China to favor the US. The early half of the 1900s, Americans spent a lot of time and money building schools, hospitals, finding Jesus, etc. in rural China, and of course leading the fight to liberate China from Japan's aggression in WWII. But along came Mao who would have none of that US friendliness. Mao had difficulty getting along with folks - other than buddy Stalin. After Stalin's death Mao didn't play as well with Khrushchev because Mao believed the USSR Marxists were "revisionists" and that he, Mao, had a superior understanding of Marxism.

The first time I heard the phrase "cult of personality" was decades ago in regard to Mao. And as stupid would have it, black Americans, in particular Black Panthers, studied Mao and his Little Red Book for guidance on establishing a peasant-led revolution that would expose decadent American society and take what is due. China is one of the most racist, class-ist, nationalistic cultures on the planet - what a role model. History has been kind to the BP though. Personally, in the '60s, every Panther I new was immoral, thuggish, thieving, and worse. I used to think maybe I was wrong, maybe I was just unlucky and met the felonious party members. But now ... I think maybe the panthers morphed into ACORN.

Shock and awe, in 2006, the government in Shanghai issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao. Socialism is still said to have a "glorious future" in China, but not so much the old-style revolutionary peasant struggle or "people power" that left millions dead, but a new "industrial revolution" a new "information revolution." Market-based socialism - ka-ching ka-ching ... and you thought only rich white men could b.s. the world.

Hmmmm ... Stalin, Mao, the men of purge - purged from their pedestals. Karma I tell ya, karma.

I wonder ... as the new China replaces the old US ... will the US become more the old China? You know ... a nation of struggling peasants and workers ... a little thinning of the herd when the collectives become overcrowded or disagreeable ... knowing our place in the world, as we lemming onward to our glorious future.

Adriano Celentano

2010-06-10T13:09:00.003-05:00

Pregherò 1963 (Celentano is the Elvis of Italy)

Il Ragazzo della via Gluck (live 2006)

Eros and Adriano

It's Karma

2010-06-09T13:28:00.004-05:00

Helen Thomas - long time grand dame of liberalism, the doyenne of the WH press corps, supposedly asking for decades the "tough" questions of several presidents, Kennedy through Obama, has finally retired. Some say "forced to retire" because of recent comments she made.

The episode apparently stems from Thomas' comments suggesting that Israelis should go somewhere else, that Jewish folk in Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go back to where they belong," (Poland, Germany) or something along those lines.

Hmmm seems I remember agitated white folks in the '60s yelling "go back to Africa" where you belong.

I remember Thomas asking, not "tough" or even objective, but intelligent questions of Ronnie Reagan - regarding the US and USSR, peace/disarmament, etc. but recall no tough or intelligent questions posed to Slick Willy, in fact Thomas thought the Clintons were unfairly dogged over Whitewater, Paula Jones, Monica, etc...

Her supposedly tough posers to Bush II and Obama seem to be more "leftwing" heckle than "tough" questions.

Her "inaugural" question to Obama was "Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?" Duh, we know with 99.99% certainty that Israel does. That's not posing a tough question, that's baiting. We all know any presidential answer to that will be "I cannot speculate..." or similar yadayada. Is the Lebanese Helen trying to show us Obama is a Jew lover? That the US is one-sided when it comes to Israel? And that she supports the other side?

Thanksgiving after the election, she was "thankful for having a black president"? Yessssam Mz. Helen, you sound like one of those liberals who thought black folks didn't bathe before Obama was elected. Is he now not liberal enough, black enough, what? (You're not alone Helen, millions who thought Barry was a flame burning bright now see only a flicker.)

But thankful? Thankful? Why? What did the election of Obama signify for you? Imagine if McCain had won and a public figure had said he/she was "thankful for having a white president."

Will Helen's press chair in the WH be sent to the Smithsonian? She is the symbol after all of the first feminist movement token female in the White House Press Corp. Will she have sufficient years left to write a good and dirty tell-all? Will she go back to where she came from?

Days of Whine and Roses

2010-06-01T17:32:00.002-05:00

I'm just really content this spring/summer to not watch news or politics - roses and honeysuckle bloomed, the purple Clematis. Azaleas grown a foot already. Have picked a few garden tomatoes for a salad - this early. The pepper plants look a bit puny but the season is young.

BP, latest anti-planet evil-doer, has not aggravated me. Mother Nature has seen worse spills and survived. The usual pundits claiming the usual cause for the Horizon Deepwater disaster - greed and capitalism. Although I fail to see how greediness is helping their bottom line now, stock falling 15% - as of today a 70+ billion dollar whuppin' . Not to mention future lawsuits and cleanup, and heads rolling. Valdez didn't ruin Exxon .... And never fear, top cop Eric Holder will launch tax payer paid loooong criminal investigations and for millions of dollars we get to see someone at BP smacked on the buns as they tap dance off stage to a well-paid job (probably government employment in a new department with an oily title). Only makes sense, as with each natural or manmade disaster we get another agency to create new legislation promising to protect us from the next dilemma - never does, but maybe that's where "hope" is supposed to come in. You know, hoping that doing the same old thing will produce different results. Or, sometimes as happens, a honcho or two will commit suicide and/or have a heart attack. Case closed. Open for business. Stop whining.

Let's see... what else has been in the news... oh yes, those awful Israeli (Jews) are at it again. IDF killing innocent foreign activists on a flotilla to Gaza in international waters, leaving 3 to 16 dead, depending on who you read, unarmed activists or armed, again depending on who you read. Both sides claim the other side's actions are deplorable. Aid ships have been allowed previously but for a couple of years now, since the blockade/offensive against Hamas rulers, IDF has said no flotillas. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the activists planned and wanted this "bloody raid." After all, they knew they would not be granted passage as Israeli, told them: "The Israeli government had urged the flotilla not to try to breach the blockade before the ships set sail from waters off Cyprus on Sunday and offered to take some aid in for them." But who you gonna believe - Israel with its bad rep or Euro-activists who have no problems to whine about in their own countries?

Al and Tipper Gore separating after 40 years of marriage. Kinda late for a mid-life crisis don't you think? Maybe the inconvenient truth is it was too politically inconvenient to quit sooner. I'll never understand how you can put up with someone 40 years and then part company. Geeeeze. I'm still mentally scrubbing the image of the Gores liplock during the 2004 election. The only kiss worse was Michael Jackson and that Presley woman.

Obama Obama. Ho-hum. Read a rant somewhere this a.m. about Glenn "Goofus Grubworm" Beck picking on and making fun of the Obama children. I think it was HuffPost I read that on. Something about a radio show and Beck pretending to be Malia talking to Daddy about stopping the oil spill. I'm not sure what Beck's point was, unless illustrating that Obama's kids think their dad can work miracles, plug leaks and part the waters or something. But all little girls with good dads think that. I know for a fact the sun rose and set with my mom and dad. Beck will do an episode apologizing for it. I can't remember the last time I had to apologize for something I said - don't folks think before they speak? Guess not, too many seem to think if it comes from their brain and across their lips it must be great - no weighing of words - just throw it out there, until the junkyard pundit dogs jump on it. When was the last time you heard an apology from a public figure that sounded sincere? Expedient, practical, well-written, but sincere? They claim to misspeak, regrettably, while defenders shout and whine it was taken out of context.

What else, what else. The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." The House of Representatives voted by a 234-194 margin last Thursday to repeal the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays in the military. A vote to repeal the ban on gays serving in the military is on the horizon. President Obama said in a statement that he was "pleased" by the House vote. Yeeehar. With 0.75% of military personnel being gay, maybe more will rush to enlist when this is repealed. Does this cover the transgendered, transvestites, cross-dressers, bisexuals? Are those redundant? What kind of sentences will be handed out to those jarheads who slug the gay guy? After all, the progressives tell us our troops rape and mistreat their fellow female soldiers, so when they beat the crap out of a gay soldier, will that be a hate crime? While the younger generation is more acceptable of homosexuality, will it stop large numbers of straight men from enlisting? Seems to me repealing the policy is begging for trouble. My granddaughter has a good friend who is gay and joined the Army 4 years ago after high school graduation. He's doing well and plans to re-up. For the life of me though he is so obviously gay you wouldn't have to ask to tell.

And, I'm not keeping up with the celebrity perverts and addicts and citizen baby killers, other than the occasional sound byte or two from Nancy "Ain't I The Most Caring Person On Earth" Grace and her former panelist Jane "Loudmouth Lesbian and Former Drunkard" Velez-Mitchell - both rolling in the dough of following other people's tragedies, and still, when opportune, dredging up their own lives to milk it for popularity. Can't we find anyone who has led a somewhat typical mundane life anymore to host anything? Do they all have to be former something-or-other, previous victim, past addict, snot-nose minority of some sort, blinking and glistening tears on cue?

Time to go out and smell the roses. I'm so laaaazy I don't even want to provide links...

This Week in Savagery

2010-05-10T20:33:00.002-05:00

From World Socialist, "100 years ago: 36 black prison workers die in stockade fire.

Convict labor in the US South.

Thirty-six black prison laborers were killed after the coal mine stockade where they were forced to work caught fire. There were “few survivors” according to a press account, among them three white inmates. The men were leased to the Red Feather Coal Company by the state of Alabama’s penal system.

There was little media coverage of the disaster. The New York Times dutifully repeated company claims that the fire was started by an inmate attempting to escape. “Among those who burned is the Negro who started the blaze,” according to the Times. How this could have been established if the man had died, the Times did not bother to report.

The “rescue” effort was primarily concerned with seeing to it that no one escaped. Or, as the Times put it, the effort “to guard the prisoners who were hurried outside greatly hampered rescue work.” Indeed, one of the 36 killed “was fatally shot by guards while attempting to escape.” The Times concluded that “it was with much difficulty” that the few survivors “were prevented from eluding the guards.”

The forced labor of prison convicts emerged in the South in the 1870s after the US Civil War (1861-1865) had abolished slavery. “Southern justice” routinely rounded up black men, as well as poor whites, who were then sold for a fee to mines, railroads, and other interests. The men were not paid, had no rights, and were subject to savage beatings."

---- Although prefaced with "convict labor in the US South" and a photo of black men on a chain gang, the gist of the blurp is saying look, look, see how racist the US South is - burning poor black prisoners who were forced to labor under god awful conditions. "They" abolished slavery and made us inmates, while the North paid pennies to lock white women and children in factories - leave it to the racist South to force the black convict into labor to benefit the companies who sold coal to fuel the factories in the progressive North.

WSWS insinuates that "the Negro who started the blaze" was framed because the NYT did not explain how his guilt was established since he died in the fire. Typical, just typical, blame the black man. Although I suspect the remaining prisoners and guards who survived pointed fingers as to who and how the blaze began.

Then there's the obligatory WSWS reminder of Hillbill Whitey and his "southern justice" for black men. Hinting times haven't really changed that much for the poor downtrodden black man - still a target for those evil white capitalists.

I'll further the convict labor history a bit. From 1866 to 1937, all across the US, states leased convict labor. The Brits did the same thing between 1607-1776 by sending convicts to US colonies - particularly Quakers, Scottish Covenanters, Monmouth Rebels, and other political and military trouble makers. After the Revolution they had to ship their criminal, mainly white folks, to Australia.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, U.S. miners were strongly against the convict-lease system, as it depressed wages, and the practice instigated several miner rebellions. In 1891 Tennessee miners initiated guerrilla attacks at Briceville in Anderson County. In the initial confrontation, three hundred miners surrounded the stockade, took charge of the forty prisoners, marched them and their guards five miles to Coal Creek, sealed them in boxcars, and shipped them to Knoxville. The miners requested the intervention of Governor John P. Buchanan to protect the rights of labor. The governor agreed to meet with the miners, but ordered three companies of state militia to restore order and return the convicts to Briceville.

Of course, nothing changed much until around 1930s, about the same time child labor was outlawed. Convict labor did help spur the growth of unions.

Even so, prison labor was not abolished, simply "restricted" and spruced up a bit and today, psychologists and social experts agree, work is considered a necessary part of the rehabilitation of criminals. (Is calling a convict a "criminal" P.C.?) The main work of prisoners now is maintenance activities, outdoor public works (farming, road building, reforestation), telemarketing... And of course the living conditions are much much much better. Mandatory labor today is termed "work-release" and "job training" or the "prison industries" sort of like cottage industries but without the home-based warm fuzzy ... well, I guess it is home to some men.

Today, compared to previous times, prisons are quite comfortable - cable tv, gym, clean clothes, regular meals, health care, counselors, religious or spiritual accommodations, college courses, libraries, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Hmm ... taxpayer provided food, clothing, shelter, education, entertainment, medical care ... prison almost sounds like ... socialism? Maybe we are all in the process of being rehabilitated for USA Supermax.

Frederick Douglass, in 1893 wrote of the convict-lease system, giving 2 reasons why the majority of convicts were black. First: "The religious, moral and philanthropic forces of the country — all the agencies which tend to uplift and reclaim the degraded and ignorant, are in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon. Not only has very little effort been made by these forces to reclaim the Negro from the ignorance, immorality and shiftlessness with which he is charged, but he has always been and is now rigidly excluded from the enjoyment of those elevating influences toward which he felt voluntarily drawn. In communities where Negro population is largest and these counteracting influences most needed, the doors of churches, schools, concert halls, lecture rooms, Young Men's Christian Associations, and Women's Christian Temperance Unions, have always been and are now closed to the Negro who enters on his own responsibility. Only as a servant or inferior being placed in one corner is he admitted. The white Christian and moral influences have not only done little to prevent the Negro becoming a criminal, but they have deliberately shut him out of everything which tends to make for good citizenship."

Fred, that is rather disappointing. Douglass, born into slavery, sold, beaten, escaped, self-educated, world traveler, author, statesman - did not wait for the Anglo-Saxons or the YMCA to lift him from "ignorance, immorality, and shiftlessness."

Douglass' second reason is the same still heard today, although certainly more true in 1900 - that of the unfair sentences meted out to black men.

(Also irksome to me, Douglass was president of the Freedman's Savings Bank (1865-1874) which collapsed taking million$ from the black community - due to corruption, shady investments, speculation, etc., like today. Douglass stepped in at the last minute to "boost the morale of depositors and investors." An intelligent man, he had to know what was going on - what did he know and when did he know it.)

Anyway, I'm tired of the redundant stories of life's unfairness, particularly to black America.

Perhaps Douglass was the forerunner to Jessie or Al - you know, in one breath calling you an ignorant degraded shiftless nigger and in the next breath blaming it on whitey.

(That reminds me, anyone ever explain why Jessie wanted to cut off Obama's huevos? )

Mom Song

2010-05-09T07:56:00.000-05:00

Worthy Politics

2010-05-02T09:13:00.004-05:00

Gosh Bubba, wasn't it more interesting when we had Bush the Younger to bash and gnash our teeth on?

Now, again, we get to hear the "right" yammer about socialism coming to America - never mind that's it's been arriving in increments over the last 70 or so years.

The republicans would have you think Obama is ushering socialism in - even as he bails out the big business of banking, insurance, healthcare, housing, auto, etc. and creates more bureaucracy and bureaucrats - just as Bush the Boy did under the guise of "security." Obama does it under the cover of "economic recovery."

Surely, soon, we will all be safer and richer. And the woooooooorld will live as one ...

Arizona toughened up its immigration laws and "activists" are in an uproar. Obama says the bill is "misguided" and "his administration is examining whether it would violate civil rights."

Damn near anything can be condoned or undone now under "civil rights."

The sad fact is the majority of Latino hordes crossing the border are not coming to do the jobs Americans won't do - but come for the benefits, come as deadbeats to live with cousins who may or may not be legal but have settled in, and/or the trafficantes. So stop kidding yourself ... the illegals today drift back and forth across the border leaving a trail in the US of crime, debt, and illegitimate babies with fat white girls on the system (as if America needs help with that). So you say illegals put a lot of money back into the US economy? Yes, my daughters-in-law (Mexican nationals) say the money not sent south of the border is spent on diapers and beer. Have you ever lived in a US barrio? It's just the inner city 'hood speaking Spanish with brighter paint.

As I've said before, if you had millions of blacks illegally crossing the border, D.C. would solve the problem in a week. And while progressives would claim sympathy for those poor black folks only trying to feed their families, they would say illegal immigration depresses US wages, burdens our entitlement programs, and encourages criminal activity. Because you see, deep down in their hearts, progressives prefer their voting slave sheeple light-skinned. Hordes of illegal Africans crossing the border - no way. Hordes of lighter-skinicans - okay.

A couple of weeks ago Obama instructed his Health and Human Services secretary to draft rules requiring hospitals that receive Medicare and Medicaid payments to grant same-sex couples "visitation right." Hailed and cheered as some sort of advancement for gay rights. Every gay couple I've known over the last 40 years never had a problem in a hospital setting. Pure barrypandering.

Obama recently recognized iconic godmother of civil rights, Dorothy Height. She died at 98 after a long, long career in social activism. She stood with MLK during his "I Have a Dream Speech." Betcha never heard of her. Black History month has worked so well. I bet Obama never heard of her until shortly before her memorial, in fact he said "We came to know her in the early days of my campaign."

I suppose in the heyday of women's rights, Gloria Steinem was spokesperson enough for white women demanding equal pay and equal orgasm (and still failing at both), and Angela Davis for black women. Dorothy wasn't sufficiently militant for that time period or TPTB-guided social change. Height was a lady, but the poster-girl plan called for an in-your-face black woman on the FBI wanted list.

Obama panders as well as any president, in fact, democrats seem to be better at it than republicans. Dems make you believe, as you bend over, that they're doing something for you while they further the agenda of the powers that be. Republicans don't care if you believe they're doing something for you or not - bend over.

Have you scanned the headlines on "progressive blogs"? If they're not talking about themselves and how intelligent they are, or banning someone who doesn't agree - they're ranting about Arizona immigration apartheid, gentrification, reparations, black sell-outs i.e. black conservatives, and fundraising for a former 1960s thug now known as a political prisoner. And/or a mention of the latest skit on the Comedy Channel, as this is where the average progressive gets his ideology (versus the hilarious Sean Hannity on the right).

Never mind that polls show the majority of Americans support the Arizona immigration law, or support domestic oil drilling, or are against things like same-sex marriage - you're gonna get whatever it takes for TPTB to create the America they want - one where the majority is puerile, tingling and palpitating over elected personalities rather than real leaders.

When my teen high school granddaughter watched clips from something on t.v. showing presidents and other pols on late night talk shows, she commented "...hard to take them seriously when they do talk show t.v., it's seems undignified."

Yep, it's hard to take politicians seriously or see them as having any dignity, but maybe that's the goal, since dignity would imply they're worthy.

Almost

2010-04-23T18:04:00.002-05:00

Almost Persuaded

Rock n Roll

Seven Day Fool

Uh Uh Uh

2010-04-22T08:04:00.001-05:00

Wiki Show

2010-04-06T13:00:00.003-05:00

The much promoted Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" video is released.

According to Wikileaks and kind, this is proof positive of wanton murder, and US denial and coverup, although the US did admit to killing Namir Noor-Eldeen, a photographer, and his driver Saeed Chmagh, when it happened in 2007.

Those who are eager for US troops to be demonized as cold-blooded killers do not mention that air support was called in because of a firefight in the vicinity. They do not mention the reporters were not wearing press vests. Nor do they mention 2 AK47s were recovered. The guy peering around the corner of a building has what could be an RPG, but is holding, according to progressives, what is obviously clearly without a doubt a camera. Hindsight stop and replay is 20/20 vision for armchair warriors.

I can understand the 22-year-old Noor-Eldeen going into harm's way, eager for photos of chaos, but his driver, 40-year-old Chmagh was a longtime experienced Reuters employee and one would think he would use more caution. And I do not know whether the 2 men were sympathetic to insurgents or were pro-West, nor does any one of the thousands commenting on the video. I cannot prove the other men were innocent civilians or insurgents. I do not know why the van driver, with children, drove into the line of fire so quickly to pick up wounded, with an Apache still overhead. There is talk from the Apache about taking small arms fire but no scenes of that in the video. I do not know how much if any Wikileaks or the Pentagon or the "leakers" edited the video before it hit youtube.

For all I know or you know this video is what the Pentagon gave Wiki since the Government prefers to keep folks focused on tidbits of b.s. that come to nothing, change nothing, and mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. We seem to get these over-hyped government coverup tidbits at regular intervals. They never go anywhere - but made you look, nanner nanner.

Time mag, along with hundreds of other sites, use terminology such as "the crew converses casually about those they are about to kill ... then blowing them and 10 others to smithereens ... the new objective reporting heh?

True to American "progressive" left mentality - many viewers are inflamed and outraged claiming a dozen men were murdered just for the hell of it by evil US personnel. As unfortunate as it is, I do not see or hear the glee and laughter and wanton murder that progressives seem to in this video. I don't believe these troops returned to base and had orgasms about the incident.

Worldwide webbed Americans are subjected to more horror and lack of conscience in mainstream media news and entertainment than in this never-before-seen video.

I see this video as propaganda for a faction who's goal is nothing more than the continuing attempt to undermine that portion of the US which doesn't already loathe the US. Unknown to this faction, which saturated the last 2 generations in violence and pornography disguised as "freedom of expression/speech," the majority of the American public can no longer discern what's truly horrific and what is not.

Flim-Flam Leakers

2010-03-31T09:05:00.006-05:00

I seesaw between laughing or pitying so many gullible folks out there. Making the rounds, again, is the "leaked" documents by Wikileaks: Web Publisher Under Attack.

Basically its fundraiser time, send money.

Wikileaks is billed as having "... some significant organizations behind it. Associated Press, the Gannett Company, and the Hearst Corporation are listed as steadfast supporters..." and "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa." Well at least you vaguely know a little about who and what is leaking on you. AP, Gannett, Hearst - the conservative equivalent of trusting Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and Fox News.

WIKI: A never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003. It is unclassified, but designated "For Official Use Only." It hit the web last Wednesday on Wikileaks.org. The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting -- since October 2003 -- a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document."

Well if the ACLU is suing for it - it must be important.

Wiki-type scams have been around at least as long as I have. It sells to the wannabe revolutionaries and armchair pseudointellectuals. Such documents are prefaced with phrases like "never-before-seen" Such documents are among millions of pages of government generated paperwork that may or may not say "classified" but contain nothing more than mundane military operational rules.

The never-before-seen SOP manual is all over the internet, specifically in University libraries and every Wired, Raw Story, and PrisonPlanet website pretends, it seems without reading it, that it contains horrific information on the G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T.

The WaPo adds about 2 cents worth: The SOP manual deals with everything a guard at Guantanamo would need to know, from how to remove detainees' clothing when they first arrive (cut it off, Station 1, because detainee is shackled, Station 2 is showering, Station 3 cavity search, Station 4 new clothing) to what guards should do if they find a detainee's plastic foam cup with writing on it (confiscate it). Rolls of toilet paper are considered "comfort items" that can be given to detainees as rewards. (If you ever visit the Middle East, be forewarned that many folks without this comfort wipe with their robes.)

Some websites are saying such things as "The document exposes, among other matters, systematic methods to prevent prisoners meeting with the Red Cross and the use of extreme psychological stress as torture."

That would be Chapter 17 regarding the ICRC. There were 4 types of Red Cross visitation allowed: No Access, Restricted, Unrestricted, and Visual. One whole page is devoted to Red Cross/Detainee procedure rules, page 105. I saw no mention of "methods to prevent prisoners" meeting the Red Cross.

There is nothing at all regarding the use of stress as torture - that is a bald-face lie, but you only need to look at the folks who are believing and/or donating to keep the leakers/hypesters funded; Wikileak needs $700,000 yearly. A lot of money just to "leak" SOP manuals hinting as somehow exposing "systemic methods" of government gone wild.

WaPo also insinuates something nasty with: "The manual also confirms previous reports about dogs being used at the facility and detainees spending time in "segregation cells," either as punishment or for intelligence gathering."

They are patrol dogs people. Patrol dogs. Military K9 units. Nothing about unleashing the dogs on prisoners but doesn't that comment call up images of Abu Graib, especially for progressive folks. "Segregation" is known as solitary in civilian prisons, which by the way most progressive/liberal folks believe is also torture. I agree, so lets put all those pedophiles and child murderers in the general population, then you can complain about the State not protecting them after the gen-pop is finished with them.

DailyKos includes several links, including how to donate, to Wiki stuff. Because, you see friends, Wiki is under attack. Here's a link to an official-looking 34 page document which Wiki interprets as an attack on them by US Intel. I trudged through and conclude the report is reporting how Wikileaks using a variety of public sources and leaked sources with a high degree of technical capability and resourcefulness to portray the US as the bad guys, with no editorial oversight, fact checking, or accountability. The report also discusses the legal challenges Wiki faces in some foreign countries regarding the privacy of individuals and corporations, etc. It alleges that some believe the website is an instrument of propaganda and/or a CIA front.

The report also admits that Wiki and other such sites are likely to proliferate and could represent a potential threat to the US Army in the foreseeable future, some very dry technical info on the how and what of Wiki software, etc. Although looking at that paragraph on page 1 of SECRET/NOFORN, they do not have a spellchecker. It seems to me Wiki pulls a lot of information together to create spreadsheets and invites everyone to offer an opinion. Doesn't mean the info is reliable or accurate but an "open society" type geek would be in hog heaven in forming his opinion about it. And we all know where opinions come from.

WIKI states on page 1 of the under attack report: This document is a classified (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into Wikileaks. “The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out”. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since Wikileaks uses “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whistleblowers”, the report recommends “The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site”. [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no Wikileaks’ source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justification for the plan, the report claims that “Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Okra, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website”. The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by Wikileaks—U.S. equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable U.S. violations of the Chemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay." (I used a spellchecker.)

Hmm ... as two years have passed since the date of report ... with no sources exposed, it appears this plan was ineffective." Or, it may be the information Wiki hypes as monumental earth shaking "leaks" is of no dire concern to US Intel. Or maybe, maybe Wiki is an intel front ... Or, the "plan" as stated is to find government employees who leak information and fire/prosecute them, not uncommon in any enterprise, and thus crimp Wiki's style. What does it say to you when the US government, with the best and latest technology available, cannot identify the folks running Wiki or its leakers ...

For you folks who love all things leaked my advice is go to Ebay or Craig's list because there are numerous salespeople selling never-before-seen unclassified and declassified bound and collated crap that you can eagerly force yourself to read through hoping the next page or the next page will reveal some "rare glimpse" and irrefutable proof about the sins of the US government - because surely the government has written and admitted in detail their evil deeds for us to read. I have a few such never-before-seen documents leaking in my attic from 40 years ago - back then we sold them at quirky little stores, on street corners, flea markets, protests ...

All Sex, All the Time

2010-03-28T13:02:00.003-05:00

All Sex, All the Time - Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels)

... But few people are averse to the message that one can indulge appetites freely without bad consequences to oneself or others, and so Mead's book passed as authoritative. And if youthful sexual libertinism was possible in Samoa with only beneficial social and psychological effects, why not in Sheffield and Schenectady? Even had her depiction of Samoa, per impossible, been accurate, no one paused to wonder whether Samoa was a plausible model for Europe or America or whether the mere existence of a sexual custom—the celibacy of religious communities down the ages, say—should warrant its universal adoption.

So generations of educated people accepted Mead's ideas about adolescent sexuality as substantially correct and reasonable. They took the Samoan way of ordering these matters as natural, enjoyable, healthy, and psychologically beneficial. No doubt Mead's ideas were somewhat distorted as they filtered down into the class of people who had not read her (or any other) book: but it does not altogether surprise me now to meet people who started living in sexual union with a boyfriend or girlfriend from the age of 11 or 12, under the complaisant eyes of their parents. Only someone completely lacking in knowledge of the human heart—someone, in fact, a little like Margaret Mead—would have failed to predict the consequences: gross precocity followed by permanent adolescence and a premature world-weariness.

For example, an intelligent young woman patient of 20 came to me last week complaining of the dreariness of life. She had given up on education at the age of 13 to pursue sexual encounters full-time, as it were, but the initial excitement had worn off, leaving only grayness and a vague self-disgust behind. At the time of her induction into the sexual life, of course, she had been led to believe that it was the key to happiness and fulfillment, that nothing else counted: but as with all monochromatic descriptions of the ends of life, this had proved bitterly disappointing.

And, of course, once boundaries, such as the age of consent, that are to some extent arbitrary but nonetheless socially necessary are breached, they tend to erode entirely. Thus children inhabit a highly sexualized world earlier and earlier, and social pressure upon them to exhibit sexualized behavior starts earlier and earlier. A schoolteacher friend recently told me how she had comforted a seven-year-old who was in tears because a girl in his class had insulted him, calling him a virgin. She asked whether he knew what the word meant.

"No," replied the little boy. "But I know it's something horrible."

The sexual revolutionaries' ideas about the relations between men and women—entailing ever greater sexual liberty, ever less mastery of the appetite—were so absurd and utopian that it is hard to understand how anyone could have taken them seriously. But mere absurdity has never prevented the triumph of bad ideas, if they accord with easily aroused fantasies of an existence freed of human limitations.

One of the earliest of the sexual revolutionaries, the English doctor and litterateur, Havelock Ellis, had strong opinions about marriage and relations between the sexes in general. For many years, this supremely strange and repulsive, though learned, man—who looked like a tripartite cross between Tolstoy, Rasputin, and Bernard Shaw; who was one of the many semi-pagan ideological nudists that England produced at the end of the nineteenth century; and who never achieved full sexual arousal until his second wife urinated on him in his late middle age—won respect on both sides of the Atlantic as a sexual sage. His works enjoyed immense prestige and wide circulation during the first third of the twentieth century. He attached supreme, almost mystical, importance to the sexual act (perhaps not surprisingly, given his great difficulties with it); his conception of ideal relations between men and women was completely untouched by any awareness of human reality and was at the same time implicitly sordid. Many venerated his views and made them the basis of an entire philosophy of life, as did D. H. Lawrence, another English sexual pagan.

... What is left but personal whim in the determination of sexual conduct? It is precisely the envelopment of sex (and all other natural functions) with an aura of deeper meaning that makes man human and distinguishes him from the rest of animate nature. To remove that meaning, to reduce sex to biology, as all the sexual revolutionaries did in practice, is to return man to a level of primitive behavior of which we have no record in human history. All animals have sex, but only man makes love. When sex is deprived of the meaning with which only the social conventions, religious taboos, and personal restraints so despised by sexual revolutionaries such as Ellis and Comfort can infuse it, all that is left is the ceaseless—and ultimately boring and meaningless—search for the transcendent orgasm. Having been issued the false prospectus of happiness through unlimited sex, modern man concludes, when he is not happy with his life, that his sex has not been unlimited enough. If welfare does not eliminate squalor, we need more welfare; if sex does not bring happiness, we need more sex.

... Another rhetorical technique the sexual revolutionaries favor (apart from the appeal to a fantasy of limitless eroticism) has been to try to dissolve sexual boundaries. They preached that all sexual behavior is, by nature, a continuum. And they thought that if they could show that sex had no natural boundaries, all legal prohibition or social restraint of it would at once be seen as arbitrary and artificial and therefore morally untenable: for only differences in nature could be legitimately recognized by legal and social taboos.

The arch-proponent of this viewpoint was Alfred Kinsey, author of the famous reports, a man who spent the first half of his professional life studying and classifying gall wasps and the second half studying and classifying orgasms: though in the event, he was to find the taxonomy of gall wasps far more complex than that of orgasms, since he came to the conclusion that all orgasms were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, etc.

Kinsey's program had two pillars, designed to free people of the sexual restraint that he considered the cause of all their miseries. The first was to establish by means of extensive survey that the sexual behavior of Americans was very different from what it was supposed to have been according to traditional morality. Without doubt, he skewed his survey to ensure this intensely desired result. He had a personal ax to grind, of course: he was himself a man of perverted sexual appetite, though like most sexual revolutionaries he was a very late developer. He pierced his own foreskin and put metal wires up his urethra, and his filming of 2,000 men masturbating to ejaculation (ostensibly to discover how far they could project their semen) must rank as one of history's most prodigious feats of voyeurism.

... It isn't necessary, of course, for people to read the original sources of ideas for those ideas to become part of their mental furniture. But the ideas and sensibilities of the sexual revolutionaries have now so thoroughly permeated our society that we are scarcely aware any longer of the extent to which they have done so. The Dionysian has definitively triumphed over the Apollonian. No grace, no reticence, no measure, no dignity, no secrecy, no depth, no limitation of desire is accepted. Happiness and the good life are conceived as prolonged sensual ecstasy and nothing more. When, in my work in an English slum, I observe what the sexual revolution has wrought, I think of the words commemorating architect Sir Christopher Wren in the floor of St. Paul's Cathedral: si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

---- si monumentum requiris, circumspice - (If you're searching for a monument, look around.) Initially I had a brain cloud moment with that phrase but if interpreted as "If you're looking for a monument, it's all around you" it makes sense, as in the fruits/labor, reap/sow, etc. can clearly be seen today.

Pricing Free Stuff

2010-03-27T07:49:00.003-05:00

AT&T Inc. said it would take a $1 billion charge against earnings tied to the federal health-care overhaul, joining a number of other companies in reporting an impact from the bill signed into law this week. On Friday, 3M Co. joined AT&T in saying it would take a first-quarter charge, in 3M's case of $85 million to $90 million. Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and AK Steel Holding Corp. also said they were taking such charges.

--- Cost of phone and post-it notes to rise, as will the cost of living (AK Steel in automotive, appliance, construction, Deere agriculture/food,etc. etc. more to come) - the "tax" is passed on to consumers. You know, to pay for government healthcare and other "free" stuff.

Earth Hour

2010-03-27T07:12:00.003-05:00

It's lights out in Baltimore today. The city, as well as Annapolis and 3,500 other municipalities around the world, will be turning off their lights for 60 minutes tonight in observance of Earth Hour, an effort to reduce energy use.

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake is encouraging residents to turn off lights and appliances from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Seven municipal buildings, including City Hall, will go dark. Maryland and 32 other states have passed Earth Hour resolutions.

---- Brought to you by the same symbol-minded thinkers who, 60 years ago, reminded us to "duck and cover" and more recently "plastic and duct tape," or tie a yellow ribbon. Let's just have the government shut off the grid at designated hours - that's how it's done in the developing/third world - they call it rationing. Americans need to get used to that word.