Eric Lightborn's Blog

America in 2011 (Occupy Wall Street)

2011-09-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

This is America in 2011: citizens protesting the social injustices of the financial sector upon the middle class and working poor are being brutalized by police and subject to a blackout by the mainstream media that is slowly being lifted.

It's an unfortunate truth that the Occupy Wall Street movement(s) are revealing before us today: scream about the evils of government health care or murdered fetuses and they will grab the news cameras, scream about the evils of corporate monopolies or the corrupt practices of Wall Street and they will grab the pepper spray.

:P

2011-05-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

I don't feel like writing anything too serious today. I'll just keep typing into this laptop to fill up the space in my head that creeps and crawls. I have plenty to say, too much in fact. But it's not going on the Internet. Sorry but my ever so interesting life story is not something I'll put on here. I know all about tearing my heart out and wearing it on my sleeve for complete strangers. I'm the master of TMI ("too much information") and I ramble as bad in conversation as I do online. But the person I am changes too fast to even keep track of anymore these days. I will say this though: for someone so young I've lived a rather full and complex life. Even though I've barely lived at all I could die with a smile on my face today, I've made my mark and changed cold hearts with my compassion as well as hardened hearts with my malice. I can finally view existence as something that makes sense and remembered that believing in myself is the only thing that ever made sense to me.

One Year After The BP Spill

2011-04-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

April 20th, 2011, marks the one year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

I mark the BP Spill as a point in time which it became even more clear to me that the United States government is invested in protecting corporations and industry over protecting its citizens from harm.

The reckless disregard for both human life and the environment of BP and Transocean has not met with any criminal prosecution. Serving as an example that a company is free to cause death and mayhem without any consequences but an individual who caused the death of eleven workers and poisoned the Gulf for decades to come would receive no such special treatment.

America continues to be a cowardly nation when it comes to holding the people responsible for the industrial homicide that took place one year ago.

Add atop all this that the government lied to the public regarding the location and magnitude of the spill on multiple occasions and approved a toxic dispersant that has been banned in the U.K. to be sprayed into the environment in quantities previously unheard of for use in an oil spill clean up.

Considering all this I don't trust the EPA or the federal government when they proclaim the seafood as safe as the Gulf as non-toxic. The health and safety of the public is secondary to promoting the needs of the private sector industry forces, so if the feds and the EPA have to lie and cause a few people to get sick as a direct result then that is exactly what they will do.

As a single solitary citizen there is not much I can do to bring the inhuman monsters responsible for this to justice nor can I hope to see those in the EPA and the federal government who would lie to public be fired and replaced with people who would actually do their jobs rather than bend knee to the oil industry. Beyond voicing myself on a blog the only avenue I have to act upon is this: boycott BP forever.

A corrupt government we can change, though I don't see it as an easy road it is entirely possible if people only stand together in a common cause. But changing a multinational corporation is much more difficult than changing a government and in all reality corporations are beyond all laws and beyond taking responsibility for the death and destruction they bring about in their narrow, greedy quest for ever-increasing profits. When faced with such a power the only recourse of a ordinary person is to not contribute to the empire of death with everyday purchases like gas or food.

When every former BP station has rebranded itself and the company is treated like the pariah they are in the United States then I might consider reviewing their corporate policies and considering put an end to the calls for boycott, not a moment before.

If consumers continue to reward corporations guilty of industrial homicide with business then there shall never be any hope of a private sector that doesn't cause these horrific disasters in the first place.

Jeffrey Sachs: 'The People's Budget'

2011-04-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Sachs has posted an excellent piece on The Huffington Post regarding the only sane budget proposal floating around Washington D.C.

HuffingtonPost.com:

Just when it seemed that all of Washington had lost its values and its connection with the American people, a bolt of hope has arrived. It is the People's Budget put forward by the co-chairs of the 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their plan is humane, responsible, and most of all sensible, reflecting the true values of the American people and the real needs of the floundering economy. Unlike Paul Ryan's almost absurdly vicious attack on the poor and working class, the People's Budget would close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, taming health care costs (including a public option), and ending the military spending on wars and wasteful weapons systems.
...

The fact is that the People's Budget is the public's position. That's why it is truly a centrist initiative, at the broad center of the U.S. political spectrum. Ryan reflects the wishes of the rich and the far right. Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists that Obama courts for his re-election. Many Democrats in Congress have also gone along with the falsehood that deficit cutting means slashing spending on the poor and on civilian discretionary programs, rather than raising taxes on the rich, cutting military spending, and taking on the over-priced private health insurance industry. Only the People's Budget speaks to the broad needs and values of the American people.

Gutting America

2011-04-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

Now that the budget cuts have been released for public viewing I am reminded that we have a Democratic president who enjoys passing Republican policies.

This budget as it stands now is the gutting of America and the road to ruin. Slashing every domestic program in sight and leaving the wasteful military spending alone is the sort of move I would expect from a Republican, but if this is indeed the budget Obama supports then it amounts to yet another huge failure of this president to stand up for progressive values.

Gutting $415 million from state and local law enforcement, $438 from energy efficiency and renewable energy, $786 million from FEMA first responder grants, $1,045 million from HIV AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD and TB prevention -- all of these proposed cuts represent a desire to see Americans suffer and to see this country fail as a competitive nation.

Combining these facts with the $5 billion increase in military spending illustrates to me that the whole of Washington DC is hell-bent on turning America into a war state with permanent rampant poverty. I expect such destructive and illogical policies from Republicans, they maintain the role of the uninformed saber rattlers, but to see such a ruinous and hideous budget plan being endorsed by Democrats is disgusting.

It's obvious to me, as things stand now, that Obama along with the Democratic Party have thrown the middle class and the American worker under the bus. All the while holding up the bloodthirsty military industrial complex and the heartless desires of corporate America as paramount.

It is nothing short of a lie that the nation is "broke" and if either party was serious about trimming waste without gutting vital social services the first on the chopping block would be the Pentagon budget.

What this country has is a tax revenue problem. As any conservative will tell you GE paid nothing in taxes last year. That is only the tip of the iceberg, but a good place to start. Closing all the corporate tax loopholes combined with raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans would free more than enough tax revenue to manage the debt while at the same time avoid gutting important government services in the process.

The failure of American Democracy is perfectly represented by the non-choice of Democrats who cave on if not directly promoting anti-American policies and Republicans who pander to racists if not openly endorse fascist laws. The choice between moderate conservatives calling themselves Democrats and extremist conservatives calling themselves Republicans is no choice at all.

Government Shutdown Narrowly Averted

2011-04-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

(Monsivais/AP)

Just before the midnight deadline Congress has passed a temporary budget deal that will prevent the furlough of thousands of workers and ensure that U.S. combat troops do not go unpaid. Reportedly this budget contains $39 billion in cuts and the numerous policy riders proposed by Republicans (regarding Planned Parenthood and EPA funding along with taking school lunches away from kids) have been removed.

I place the majority of the blame for the possible shutdown on the shoulders of House Speaker John Boehner. His inability to control his caucus led to these abortion and environment policy riders to be attached to a budget bill in the first place, which in turn created the deadlock. (You can find a comprehensive list of all the policy riders here.) To have presented such a poison pill laden budget to the Senate represented a huge lack of leadership from Boehner, and put this matter of a government shutdown on the political map as a reality instead of a mere talking point for conservative broadcasters.

Make no mistake, the GOP/Tea Party almost just furloughed thousands of Americans and put a question mark above combat troop pay all in the name of federal funding for abortion which is already covered by the Hyde Amendment and the unconstitutional attempt to strip previously passed legislation regarding not only the EPA but also the Consumer Protections Bureau, Medicare and legislation dating as far back as FDR's school lunch program.

It's Not Just Beck That Is Losing The Cable Ratings War

2011-04-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

BusinessInsider.com:

Fox News has the top 12 most-watched shows so far this year.

Which is perhaps not totally surprising since this marks the network's ninth straight year as the number one channel in cable.

That is not to say it's all rainbows and unicorns. (Or cupcakes and caliphates.) All of Fox's top shows posted double digit losses year over year.

Glenn Beck suffered the biggest drop, losing 30% of his audience compared to the first quarter last year. But he wasn't alone. Top ranking O'Reilly lost 14% of his audience, Sean Hannity, up a spot from 2010, lost 19%, and Bret Baier, who pushed Beck out of the top three, lost 13%.

Greta Van Susteren, who has been bleeding viewers to Anderson Cooper this month, is down 22.86%.

All in all Fox News actually lost 21% of its primetime audience during the quarter.

Compare this to CNN which is up 28% in primetime and MSNBC which is up 9% (Rachel Maddow increased by 16.65% and Anderson Cooper by 18%) and then take into consideration all the breaking news there's been since Christmas, and one might begin to draw the conclusion that people are beginning to turn elsewhere for news news coverage.

Another explanation, of course, is that this time period last year was dominated by the health care debate and for much of that period Fox operated as an extension of the opposition. Now that the nation's focus is international it's harder to figure out an angle where Obama is bad and ... nuclear meltdowns and Qadaffi are good.

*All numbers from Neilsen.

The View criticizes Palin for "cross hairs" list 10 months before shooting

2011-01-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

Fox News War on Christmas Anti-ACLU Lie of 2010?

2010-12-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

Bill O'Reilly Lies to Bill Maher on Fox News Misreporting Cost of Obama ...

2010-11-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

What They Won't Tell You- - National Debt

2010-11-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2010-10-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

	Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck

2010-10-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

Burn the Koran? We're Praying On It -The Daily Beast -

2010-09-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

Burn the Koran? We're Praying On It -The Daily Beast -

Government Officials Tell Fisherman To Shut Up About Oil Found On Shrimp In BP Gulf Oil Spill Waters Open To Fishing

2010-08-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

Government Officials Tell Fisherman To Shut Up About Oil Found On Shrimp In BP Gulf Oil Spill Waters Open To Fishing

'Boo' On Facebook & 'Hooray' For Google

2010-08-26T16:43:00.001-07:00

Facebook has an ad-filter that allows you to, as you go along, set which ads will appear on your account. You can mark an ad as offensive or misleading, and "Like" an ad that appeals to you.

I received endless disgusting right-wing Glenn Beck ads and marked them all as offensive. Now they have stopped.

Seeing as how this is the case I don't see why Facebook has taken extra measures to ban images of a pot leaf found in the legalization movement's ads from their network.

Google is now accepting the same image ads that include pot leaves.

A Facebook spokeswoman stated that they "don't allow any images of drugs, drug paraphernalia, or tobacco in ad images" and "Just Say Now, the Libertarian Party, and other organizations with similar objectives can continue to advertise on Facebook using different images."

But isn't it interesting the hateful right-wing never has to conform to any such standards to appear on Facebook.

This ban only hurts the message of the legalization movement, and considering that these are clearly political image ads there is no question in my mind about the factor of freedom of speech involved here that Facebook is obviously ignoring at their own peril.

It is one thing if they don't want to advertise head shops, but quite another if they want to put up every racist border rally ad but end up blocking the Prop 19 movement from the same exposure.

This Facebook policy is absolute bull crap, and Google obviously sees an opportunity to take advantage of the near-sightedness of Facebook on this matter.

Fox News Spins Net Neutrality

2010-08-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

CATO & Fixed News

CATO is a lot like Fox News in that they are really "think tanks," or rather propaganda machines, that are paid to work backward from the point of view that conservative policies are fantastic then produce a product that is supposedly "unbiased." However, with a smack of intellect anyone can see they are fudging their numbers / playing word games.

The sad fact of the matter is that 2 million some Americans will watch this Fixed News crap and love it and call it "credible" no matter how many racist witch hunts they engage in.

The very essence of capitalism keeps them alive; CEO Rodger Ailes has committed to making a billion dollars a year with Fox News & Fox News Talk and so far he done exactly that. Trouble is the way he is making that much money with just broadcasting platforms.

It's bully-tactics applied to news, and something called "oppositional journalism" that was unknown to cable news until these bastards came to town.

I enjoy what Bill Press said about Fox News:

"If one more person complains to me about Rupert Murdoch [or Rodger Ailes] I'm going to scream! We on the left need to start our own Rupert Murdoch."

I've been saying the same for years: money is going to decide The News Wars.

Progressives need some ultra rich backer doing media-battle with Murdoch to even things out a bit.

Microsoft is the man behind the curtain at MSNBC and Monsanto the man behind the curtain at PBS.

So there is room for a truly "progressive network" to do our own "news."

With quotes on it!

Why Don't I Dream?

2010-07-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those people who scare the crap out of roommates by opening one eye on you when you get too close to me when I'm sleeping.

I don't dream, or at least so it seems. I close my eyes, then I wake up. Every single night for more than a year.

Perhaps I move around in an astral body, floating between time and space learning the vast secrets of the universe then return to my physical body where I am not allowed to remember such things.

Perhaps I have the same vivid and graphic nightmares every night that I had as a child and my mind blocks out these images because I can't stand the mental trauma.

Whatever it is, I know that as far I'm concerned I don't have dreams.

They say a dream is a wish your heart makes. Maybe I don't have any wishes, so I don't have any dreams. But that doesn't make any sense. My wishes for the world are so grand that I could easily be labeled an "idealist."

It could be a chemical thing, when I went puritanical (straight-edge) for awhile my dreams sort of came back. At least occasionally anyway. Maybe alcohol and marijuana disturb my sleep. I like that one, my understanding of science agrees with the notion that each of us have unique body chemistry that reacts differently to compounds released into the bloodstream.

I believe our dreams are significant to understanding our psyche, and I feel cheated by not knowing what they are.

It's kind of hard to start a dream journal, like some have suggested to me when I mention this to them, when every entry would read "no dreams last night."

Another explanation might be that I expend all my creative juices with my constant flights of fancy and then when I fall asleep my mind is fresh out of imagery to dance in front of me.

Most take their dreams for granted, most hardly give them a second thought. But take them away from someone and they would feel a loss.

Well I don't miss what I barely ever knew.

Dreams, for me, are like treasures denied to me. I envy you dreamers, you all have something I have not had in years. It is a gift, to dream in the mind eternal.

***

Get this:

I wrote the above text last night before going to sleep. After writing this, I dreamt last night. I guess it served as a dream journal, priming my mind to draw the dreams denied to me for more than a year to the part of my brain that allows me to remember them.

They were weird dreams, extremely weird.

The first dream was me cleaning out the trunk of car with Bill O'Reilly helping me. No seriously, I'm not kidding that was really my dream. We were having some sort of political debate, the context of which I cannot recall. The part that stands out is that he made some kind of point to me while we dug through the crap in my trunk and I was parsing this comment by saying "you are right about..." and then he interrupted me to say "damn right, I'm right!" Last part I remember of that dream was me giving him a sour puss as we aired out a dirty comforter.

The second dream was more like my typical dreams that I have remembered from the past: it played out like a horror movie. I was on a house boat, or a barge, with a big hole in the middle of the deck leading down into the water. There were people diving underneath us (I don't know who the other people were) and a big crane running a rope down into the water. Suddenly the rope snapped and there was screaming coming from whoever was with me. I was panicked and staring down into the water, which was amazing blue and clear like the waters of Hawaii or Jamaica, and felt as if someone I cared deeply for was in danger. The last image of the dream was a huge black octopus coming into view in the depths of the sea.

Pt.2 THE RISING NON-VIOLENT MOVEMENT IN PALESTINE

2010-07-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

THE RISING NON-VIOLENT MOVEMENT IN PALESTINE

2010-07-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

MSNBC Slams Fox News For Being Racists "Akin to KKK" 3/22

2010-07-27T00:52:00.000-07:00

Adventures In Modern Marketing

2010-07-26T23:34:00.000-07:00

The Great Internet Marketing Guru takes a few questions and concerns from his clients.

Let's listen in:

"My internet ad campaign was a total wash. I ended up taking a bath and nobody even visited my site!"

"Did you put boobs all over it like I told you to?"

"No, I thought that was too superficial and sensationalistic."

"And that would be why you failed. You forgot your audience is nothing but superficial and craves sensationalism."

"So what do I now?"

"Take a picture of your penis and put it on Craigslist."

"Okay ... but what is that gonna help?"

"Nothing. I just want you to relive the shame of former roommates of mine."

***

"I saw this ad making a claim I shouldn't buy a product. Should I believe it?"

"Of course! Ads were created to tell you what not to buy, not what to buy. So when an ad tells you to buy something, you know it's fake because they are trying to advertise to you. But when an ad tells you not to buy something, you know it's real because they are not advertising to you."

"Wait ... what?"

***

"So I got all these people reading my blog about tech and travel but I want to use my blog audience to expand my business promotions as well. How can I retool my blog without loosing readers?"

"It's easy: Dramatically announce you will be leaving the blog, probably the whole Internet, forever. Send that out and then wait a few days, then come back with some false tale of woe and then start selling hub caps and spark plugs off your blog-doohickey."

"That really works?"

"Oh yeah, totally! People usually use it to switch from catatonic to mildly psychotic instead of non-monetized to monetized, but all blogging is pretty much the same thing."

***

"I was thinking of opening up a singles dating service online and..."

"Get the hell out of my office."

***

"I heard that Twitter was the new tool for marketing professionals with the hottest and latest ideas."

"Who told you that?"

"That guy in the rabbit suit trying to give out fliers."

***

"Someone told me you could market products on Facebook more effectively than using banner services."

"Depends on what you mean by 'market.' If by that you mean annoy people and be ignored, then yes it is very effective."

***

"I bought up all my domain names and registered on every social network that exists. Is there anything else I should do before I set out to rule the digital landscape?"

"Yes. Hire a mafia. You are late to the game, the only way you'll get any traction now is to break kneecaps and go gangsta on Google."

***

Thus concludes another session of ultimate wisdom from The Great Internet Marketing Guru.

How Much Is A Human Being Worth?

2010-07-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

Ans: About the market value and resale value of a jar of table salt.

Element - Mass of element in a 70-kg person

oxygen 43 kg

carbon 16 kg

hydrogen 7 kg

nitrogen 1.8 kg

calcium 1.0 kg

phosphorus 780 g

potassium 140 g

sulfur 140 g

sodium 100 g

chlorine 95 g

magnesium 19 g

iron 4.2 g

fluorine 2.6 g

zinc 2.3 g

silicon 1.0 g

rubidium 0.68 g

strontium 0.32 g

bromine 0.26 g

lead 0.12 g

copper 72 mg

aluminum 60 mg

cadmium 50 mg

cerium 40 mg

barium 22 mg

iodine 20 mg

tin 20 mg

titanium 20 mg

boron 18 mg

nickel 15 mg

selenium 15 mg

chromium 14 mg

manganese 12 mg

arsenic 7 mg

lithium 7 mg

cesium 6 mg

mercury 6 mg

germanium 5 mg

molybdenum 5 mg

cobalt 3 mg

antimony 2 mg

silver 2 mg

niobium 1.5 mg

zirconium 1 mg

lanthanium 0.8 mg

gallium 0.7 mg

tellurium 0.7 mg

yttrium 0.6 mg

bismuth 0.5 mg

thallium 0.5 mg

indium 0.4 mg

gold 0.2 mg

scandium 0.2 mg

tantalum 0.2 mg

vanadium 0.11 mg

thorium 0.1 mg

uranium 0.1 mg

samarium 50 µg

beryllium 36 µg

tungsten 20 µg

Humans are cheap. From a logical and scientific perspective we are nothing more than deluded carbon, salts and simple sugars thinking to ourselves we have some value beyond decaying in the soil to nourish plant life.

I personally don't accept a purely scientific view of the world and the life all around us. But this here is the solid truth when people ask what a human life is worth, what value a human has to the world.

It's something like $ 2.50, or less. When we are disassembled to our base components there is nothing to look at except a small pile of materials from the chemistry room. Rather mundane ones at that.

That is provided we define "worth" as having to do with money, which we all know is the only thing that matters anyway.

NAACP Receives Racist Death Threat

2010-07-26T23:32:00.000-07:00

After the passing of this week's resolution to encourage Tea Party leaders to repudiate racism within their ranks, the NAACP has received a number of death threats at local units and chapters around the country.

The following chilling voice message was left at the NAACP's Hollywood Bureau.

Warning: the language is intense, disturbing, and definitely not safe for work. The FBI has been notified.

I just got done talking to a conservative in live chat saying just about the same thing to me, minus the death threat only because an admin was watching.

No doubt this outright death threat ala "the streets will run red with blood" fails to represent all conservatives out there, but I really need people to stop fooling themselves here: this brand of hatred is not uncommon and not unheard of when we are talking right-wing politics.

All you have to do is take a look and a listen to the real live conversation going on and not the bullshit filtered form of mass communications via the Internet. These people make entire media empires built on the bedrock of hate for blacks, for the poor, for immigrants, for civil servants, for liberals, for everyone but themselves.

People in the U.S. need to stop acting so surprised when rabid dogs taught only how to attack and incite violence by their media overlords stand up and express themselves like this man did.

There you have it. That's why I hate conservatives so much, because they take the time to talk like this directing their comments directly at me. And why? Because they don't like anyone messing with their lies and racist comments, they seriously believe they can spread hate speech unchallenged.

I'll never stand down. You'll have to kill me to get me to stop speaking the truth. The only thing I did wrong was ever let a lowlife conservative get under my skin, even the highest caliber among them are not worth the mental effort. You can't fix stupid.

This phone call from a tea party racist is a great example of why the unpatriotic tea party is nothing but the destruction of American Democracy from within. These vile people are not welcome in this blog and not welcome anywhere near me. Since they refuse to reject the racist scum in their mix, they are all racist scum now as far as I am concerned.

Anyone with a functioning brain feels the same at this point. This shit has run its course, it's time for the conservative racists like Breitbart and Beck for be called out for the pieces of trash they are.

Not One Red Cent For Fox News

2010-07-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

Until today I was a subscriber to the only (pseudo) liberal voice on Fox News.

No more.

How do I cancel my subscription with PayPal?

* Log in to your PayPal.com account, and click the profile link to update your credit card.

* Click History, then select Basic.

* Filter the results by Subscriptions to locate your Fox News Radio subscription

* Then, click the cancel button.

Read more: http://radio.foxnews.com/2008/12/29/podcast-faq/#ixzz0uO3qAXfy

"This subscription has been canceled."

I'm not giving one more red cent to this racist enterprise.

On the long list of voices to hear on talk radio Alan Colmes is hardly the evil cretin that others prove themselves to be on a daily basis, but he is a man who sits there and allows outright harassment to take place against himself and others then proceeds to try and defend the haters at the expense of the victims.

As long as he doesn't open his mouth about Fox News bull crap all is dandy in fact-checking respects, but I've grown tired of his inability to stand up for the people that matter.

I'm proud to cancel my small amount of dollars going to Roger Ailes and the rest of the racist goon squad at Fox News.

Since the only person they would ever hire not a Nazi racist is someone like Alan Colmes, I don't think they deserve any support even for their so-called "liberal voice."

Sherrod, Spooner and Breitbart (News Media BS)

2010-07-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

For all the lies told up until this point in regards to Shirley Sherrod's supposed "racism" it might have been wise for some of these conservative race baiters (Sean Hannity, Andrew Breitbart) to actually talk with the "white farmer" (Rodger Spooner) in question before they report this non-story as anything but Chapter Two of the Racist Witch Hunts via Breitbart.

SPOONER: "I've never been treated no better ... I don't know what started the racism mess ... they just want to stir up some trouble, it seems to me."

Just like the racist witch hunt against ACORN, and prior to that Van Jones, this is all a perfect example of why conservatives are not to be trusted in the media. They will lie at the drop of a hat and care nothing for the consequences of spreading hatred, racism and bigotry. If even one person checked out the facts before running this story on any cable news network, it never would have aired in the first place.

And shame on Obama for bending over backwards in each of these cases to people who obviously are nothing but fascist, racist scum.

The sooner Obama sees that no conservative anywhere wants anything but to lie and deceive the better off we will all be. Anyone not sick of this bullshit at this point is obviously not interested in truth, democracy or freedom. They have their racist talking points and their scape goats and they will burn the United States to the ground before they give them up.

What Is Art?

2010-07-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

The Newsweek cover story for this week examines the issue of "The Creativity Crisis."

If there is any truth to a decline in creativity in the U.S. it likely stems from a lack of value for the arts and a lack of healthy national discussion over the value of art itself in our society.

But the discussion almost always goes straight to:

I like to go through it backwards, because I'm weird.

Renaissance art is soft-core porno. Or ... pornography is art. No cheap smut film can match a masterpiece, that's not what I am saying. It is just a matter of prudish mentalities that separates one form of nudity from another.

The truly obscene becomes a form of art all on its own. Even without the creator ever holding such an intent. It's really, really bad art. But what the SCOTUS defines "protected obscene speech" is bunk. The more obscene something becomes the more we should be taking cares not to expose young impressionable minds to this art, but I would defend it as free speech even when I find the expression itself downright immoral and disgusting.

I do draw some lines, however. The most recent example that helps to define my view of what art is would be the SCOTUS ruling on 'crush' films as protected. This violates my standard of harm being caused to living creatures for the sake of art, therefore I must stand opposed to protecting 'crush' films for they are not fictional animals being slaughtered for entertainment. This standard of mine applies to all art forms, as long as no harm is done in course of making your art I have no desire to shut you down even if you produce a product I find more than merely questionable in nature.

One example of 'questionable art' finding its way into American Culture would be the appearance of anime featuring a naked young vampire girl slaying people on Hulu and YouTube with partial white blurring over the scene. I found that single scene not only offensive but outrageous. However, I would be upset to hear of people trying to get the videos pulled for the crime of poor taste.

Art of value is able to invoke any topic and any feeling without being merely obscene, but I have always argued that the only way we will ever be able to discover and reveal the great works of art to be found in our times is to loosen our neck-ties about what exactly we call "art" in the first place.

My medium is words, mostly written but spoken word as well. I used to be able to produce illustration that did not stink, most recent attempts looked like I was five years old. I have focused too much on my writing and any drawing talent I have has fully withered at this point. I've also always enjoyed pottery especially wheel pottery. I have never produced a painting I would want to show anyone, and having so little success with that medium I have never been privy to its joys.

This here is art, this post and this blog and this account. It's a hybrid art, something like 'HTML Art' should apply here. Some of you might think I'm playing games or being annoying with something I post, but this is just a place to express for me. And the art I find most interesting is usually the art that pushes out our sensibilities and confronts the subject matter directly.

And that is essentially what I think art is: all creative expression under the limit of doing real harm. I wonder if anyone has a shorter definition and if anyone thinks the SCOTUS definition of "socially redeeming value" has any merit. I personally think that such an absurd and arcane definition of art in the United States and the absolute lack of focus on the importance of the arts in our mainstream culture is why the Torrance study cited in Newsweek showed a decrease in the creativity in our kids.

Until we out-grow our puritanical stage, we cannot grow as a larger society.

We Didn't Start The Flame War

2010-07-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

We didn't start the flame war. Peeps were hatin' on it 'fore I left my comment. We didn't start the flame war. Let the whole wide world know I'm a big ol' asshole.

***

My Soul Put To Music

2010-07-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

Rise Against is the music of my soul.

This world of corporate lies and blood for profit needs more voices of radical outrage against the corrupt establishment.

Rise Against - Hero of War from João Moreira on Vimeo.

Rise Against - Ready To Fall (uncut) from Ben Hutchins on Vimeo.

***

(People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

NAACP vs. Tea Party

2010-07-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

HuffingtonPost.com:

A plan by the NAACP to condemn perceived racism in the Tea Party movement has sparked fiery attacks between the NAACP and Tea Party leaders.

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous addressed a resolution being debated at his organization's annual convention in Kansas City, Mo. on Tuesday.

"Expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take the responsibility for them and their actions," Jealous said. "We will no longer allow you to hide like cowards and hide behind signs that say 'Lynch Our President' or anyone else."

In his speech the NAACP leader also took aim at ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul -- two political figures who have emerged as icons for many Tea Party supporters.

"Sarah Palin says, 'Let's party like it's 1776.' My white daddy would say be careful what you wish for because the 18th century, Sarah, wasn't good for anybody, even folks like you," Jealous said. "And if you want to debate civil rights, and the Civil Rights Act, Rand Paul, my message to you is this: show the backbone and answer my challenge, set a date and I and the NAACP will be there."

The Republican lobbyist created 'tea party' has been nothing but a front for racist rhetoric delivered via Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh from day one.

Support for the neo-Confederates, support for the racist 'Birthers' and the racist John Birch Society end all debate over this issue. Point at signs all you like, the bottom line is they support racist groups like these joining their ranks and taking on their branding.

The NAACP has come out to speak the truth minus the media bullshit filter that moronic Americans rely on to feel good about their racism and bigotry. Unsurprisingly the racist right-wing has responded by both denying it and calling the NAACP racist in response.

God forbid these racist bootlickers could denounce the liars in the racist 'Birther' movement.

Asking for honesty from a conservative is like asking a rapist to treat a woman with respect.

Immigration Policy Center Q&A Guide To SB 1070

2010-07-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

It deserves some revisiting, because the IPC has backed up almost every single point I made in my post addressing AZ SB 1070. The professionals at the IPC have redoubled my words minus the flowery injections of mine.

Determining whether or not someone is in the country unlawfully is not as simple as checking a database. Under the civil immigration system, most people are entitled to appear before an immigration judge before they are officially determined to be here illegally and in the process they have the right to challenge that determination, apply for relief from removal (such as asylum), and have their day in court. The Arizona law circumvents that process, potentially punishing people for being here illegally based solely on the determination of a state law enforcement officer or a federal agency before a full determination has been made.

In a strange contrast Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judaical Adviser Fox News, repeats my case that the very first measure of unconstitutionality to the SB 1070 bill will defeat it in the courts before every single measure of unconstitutionality is unpacked the way it was when I last wrote on this topic.

Immigration policy is the express business of the federal government, not the states. No state is able to set new immigration policy, let alone a bill this vague is nothing but a racist witch hunt designed to destroy all civil liberties. In my legal understanding, all the explorations beyond the point that proposals for immigration policy are not handled by the states are merely intellectual exercises.

SB 1070 fails every constitutional test, but the real tragedy here is the lie that supporting this bill is anything but akin to supporting racism via racial profiling. It's not.

Kira's Kingdom

2010-07-11T05:50:00.000-07:00

"We'd be better off if the rotten people died." - Kira

For those not on board the anime train Death Note is a supernatural suspense thriller in which the main character seeks to create a better world, by killing people. He uses a notebook from a 'Shinigami' ("death god") to write the names of criminals who then die after having their names transcribed in this 'Death Note.'

Generally speaking I am against capital punishment and using fear to install world peace. However, on any bad day (which today rates rather high on the list) I operate on a very different plane of thought.

Who decides what is justice? Who determines what is moral? You? Some old book that most people never read cover to back?

I have said many times in regards to politics that I don't care at all the vehicle for positive social change. The Democratic Party, The Republican Party, The Green Party ... I really couldn't care less about the branding. All I care about is results. Any political party or movement that can show me they will affect positive change to serious societal issues has my support.

This same pragmatic approach is exactly why in my dark moments I find myself speaking as if I were Kira. I've even been known to throw down some fire & brimstone at the same people who throw it on me. I don't believe in a Hell outside of this living world, but enough readings of the Bible would make anyone start wanting to shove some sulfur and endless torment on the bullies, stalkers, racists, bigots, homophobes and zealots who make it their business to inform us of their vile nature.

Kira's kingdom is a false paradise bathed in blood. Beyond that once the new world was founded, Kira must then die. He could never live as the 'god' of his kingdom for he would be a collection of more mass genocide on his hands than could ever be tolerated in this new utopia.

But my mind wanders on these topics at times, even without the aid of gothic anime shows.

Would this fictional world founded on fear and death be so vastly different from our world of today?

People decide every day that life in this world is not worth living.

Would Kira's kingdom truly be so awful to live in that people would continue to see existence as vile and loathsome?

There is no question in my mind that true peace is not founded on a pile of corpses.

But how long must the world sit bleeding and dying in wait for true peace?

In my experience reality is not a decision between ideology versus ideology, but rather between a destructive status-quo versus a catastrophic realism.

"Two wrongs don't make a right." But this supposes there is anything but "wrong" in the world in the first place. If everything in the world is nothing but "wrong" to begin with then "two wrongs" is just nothing more than the world in motion, and the question becomes only what world will we be left with after the actors have played their parts and exited the stage.

Translation of lyrics from Death Note's closing video:

This single page,

Forever depressing,

A fleeting tactic in the eyes,

Without petition,

Evil against the law,

Chain it in a prison,

Poison in the notebook,

Fear the lust,

Delusion of being deceived,

Perpetually drooling,

Judgment is "crime control" they driveled,

Who has the Rx for that?

A decriminalized world,

A sanctioned world,

Taking heat just like "Pirates of Death,"

Atone with the game of laws,

Billy in despair,

Now it's time for ethics,

Now the unstoppable Eraser Rain,

Billy in despair,

Now it's time for ethics,

Now the unstoppable Eraser Rain,

The unstoppable Eraser Rain.

Police Execution Is Now 'Manslaughter'?

2010-07-09T19:48:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This Mehserle verdict is a blood stain on democracy.

This is not justice.

This is the condoning of ruthless murder by police officers, even when video evidence shows the execution in plain view.

Oscar Grant was executed in public, on camera, and the best the legal justice system has for the murderer is 'involuntary manslaughter'!?!

Time and time again this society proves to me that they have no rights to the words "justice," "equality," & "freedom."

Perhaps increased video surveillance of police activities will have no effect on limiting police corruption. If they can commit homicide on camera and receive this kind of treatment in the courts they have very little to fear from us. Maybe next time it will make more sense to execute the person with a camera as well to the police officer.

I've watched the video and slowed it down. Mehserle stands up and shoots Grant in the back, if he intended to use his taser he would not have needed to stand. This was a citizen execution, most likely non-premeditated and calling it anything but second degree homicide is an insult to all of us.

Buffet Offers Optimism To Krugman

2010-07-09T00:33:00.000-07:00

Warren Buffet has presented a rosy sunshine picture of the U.S. Economy to contrast against the desolate landscape in Paul Krugman's warnings of "the early stages of a third depression."

I believe Buffet may be practicing the concept that psychology rules a large part of every economy. As strange as it is, it might help change a 'fragile recovery' to a 'full recovery' just by beating the drums of "we are coming back."

The stimulus is working, though more money should have been allocated directly to the states that need it the most. And in the next two or three years is certainly the time frame in which we will know if Krugman or Buffet was right.

Boston Judge Rules Gay Marriage Ban Unconstitutional

2010-07-09T00:30:00.001-07:00

A touch of good news out of Boston.

It is about time the simple issue of a violation of equal protection under the law created by gay marriage bans of any sort was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal court.

HuffingtonPost.com:

BOSTON (Associated Press) — The federal law banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define the institution and therefore denies married gay couples some federal benefits, a federal judge ruled Thursday in Boston.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, a 1996 law that the Obama administration has argued for repealing.

The rulings apply to Massachusetts but could have broader implications if they're upheld on appeal.

The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

Tauro agreed and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens in order to be eligible for federal funding in federal-state partnerships.

"The Eyes Of Fear" (Bill Hicks)

2010-06-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

"The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." - Bill Hicks

Some Facts On Handgun & Firearm Violence

2010-06-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

“Guns in the home are the primary source of firearms that teenagers use to kill themselves in the U.S.”

StopHandgunViolence.com:

5 children were killed every day in gun related accidents and suicides committed with a firearm, from 1994-1998. An average of 5 children were killed every day in gun related accidents and suicides committed with a firearm, from 1994-1998. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, National Injury Mortality Statistics, 1994-1998

40% of American households with children have guns. Peter Hart Research Associates Poll, July 1999 22 million children live in homes with at least one firearm. 34% of children in the United States (representing more than 22 million children in 11 million homes) live in homes with at least one firearm. In 69 percent of homes with firearms and children, more than one firearm is present. The RAND Corporation, "Guns in the Family: Firearm Storage Patterns in U.S. Homes with Children," March 2001, an analysis of the 1994 National Health Interview Survey and Year 2000 objectives supplement. Also published as Schuster et al., "Firearm Storage Patterns in U.S. Homes with Children," American Journal of Public Health 90(4): 588-594, April 2000

A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting, a criminal assault or homicide, or an attempted or completed suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. Journal of Trauma, 1998

NewYorkTimes.com:

In 1992, handguns were used in the murders of 33 people in Britain, 36 in Sweden, 97 in Switzerland, 128 in Canada, 13 in Australia, 60 in Japan and 13,220 in the United States. Those are the latest annual statistics available. They were released yesterday by Handgun Control Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.

Here is some other information about guns and violence in America: In 1991 -- just one year -- 38,317 people were killed by firearms in homicides, suicides and accidents. That's more than 100 people a day. It's also more than the total number of Americans killed in battle in the Korean War.

A new handgun is produced every 20 seconds.

WashingtonCeaseFire.org:

Who is a Victim of Firearm Violence?

Firearm Victims By Race

White

Fatalities: 21,442 / Rate: 8.79 / 100,000

Injuries: 16,110 / Rate: 8.06 / 100,000

African-American

Fatalities: 7,448 / Rate: 18.30/100,000

Injuries: 29,951 / Rate: 69.85 / 100,000

Hispanic

Fatalities: 3,278 / Rate: 7.46 / 100,000

Injuries: 9,694 / Rate: 24.45 / 100,000

Asian/Pacific-Islander

Fatalities: 398 / Rate: 2.79 / 100,000

Injuries: n/a

Native American

Fatalities: 218 / Rate: 8.48 / 100,000

Injuries: n/a

Victims by Gender

Males:

Fatalities: 25,498 / Rate: 17.66 / 100,000

Injuries: 57,730 / Rate: 39.96 / 100,000

Females:

Fatalities: 4,071 / Rate: 2.73 / 100,000

Injuries: 6,557 / Rate: 4.40 / 100,000

KQED.org:

Manufacturing Every 8 seconds, a new firearm is made in America. (ATF, "Commerce in Firearms in the US", 2000 Report)

Over a twenty-five year period, from 1972 to 1997, over 59 million handguns were manufactured in the U.S.

The top 5 gun manufacturing states during that time:

1)Connecticut - 25,472,564

2) Massachusetts - 18,360,915

3) New York - 7,119,769

4) California - 6,337,544

5) Florida - 2,334,206

According to a data analysis by the Violence Prevention Center, just 3 states (top 3 listed above) accounted for 75 percent of all the domestic firearms manufactured in America during that 25 year period of time.

Also, the VPC notes that states with rigid gun control laws such as Massachusetts, California, and New York, were actually the leading makers of firearms. ((Violence Policy Center, "Firearms Production in America 1972 - 1997, A State by State Breakdown", 2000)

Did You Know?

Every hour in America, four people are killed by firearms. (Centers for Disease Control)

A gun in your home makes it three times more likely that you or someone you care about will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner (Kellerman,New England Journal of Medicine v329, n.15 1993)

Gun violence is the second-leading cause of injury-related fatalities in the US after car accidents. In Alaska, Maryland and Nevada as well as D.C., firearm death rates in 1998 exceeded those for car accidents. (CDC & Natnl. Vital Statistics Report, 1999)

One million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings since 1962. (Fatal Firearm Injuries in the United States 1962-1994. Violence Surveillance Summary Series, No. 3, 1997; Deaths: Final Data for 1995- 1997, National Vital Statistics Report)

State/Local Contrary to popular opinion, gun violence isn't endemic only to certain cities or neighborhoods - it can happen anywhere.

Beating The Dead Horse Of Right-Wing Racism

2010-06-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

I’m sure by this point that most people who are political types have already formed an opinion of the matter of tea party racism and to the larger issue: if the Republican political strategy includes pandering to racist Americans.

I repeat again and again, too little avail, that not all tea party members are de facto racists.

I found it very unfortunate that so many on progressive side of politics were so quick to call Rand Paul a “racist” for expressing a standard libertarian point of view in regards to the Civil Rights Bill and the ADA. (Private enterprise craps rainbows is the short version of this pure libertarianism ideology.) Those perspectives are not racism, though they do tend to excite the racists out there. This alone, it is vital to point out, is not enough to place a person on the wrong side of the core issue of racial sensitivity or a lack thereof.

It is very easy to throw out a label, like “socialist” or “commie pinko,” but it’s harder to back it up. That was frustrating to see the left-wing doing the same unintelligent labeling based on ignorance that the right-wing has honed to a daily art.

I hear the sentiment more and more that people want to do away with labeling, but I only want to do away with all the negative labeling. I don’t see how we can escape the principal of using labels on groups of people as we so often do in politics. Something must have a name to become a movement, without a name to describe whatever ideological bent we are talking about it would be impossible to even discern accurately between them all.

The labels we choose to recognize ourselves by, and attribute to ourselves, are obviously the labels by which we wish to use and have function for us. I feel that we ever get beyond labels it will because all people stopped using them, and not before.

Then we come to issue of the dreaded label: racist. I’ve never been one to take away any fine glory from calling another person racist, but I also cannot simply remain silent as I witness specific cases over and over again.

There are many fine conservatives and even honest tea party-types out there, but they are the most hushed and pushed into the corner minority of the right-wing I’ve ever seen. Wherever these people be, I hear very little from them or of them.

***

My first experiences with the tea party were seeing a small protest with one sign reading:

“It‘s the White House, not the Black House”

No n-words, no overt racist slurs, no neo-Nazi symbols … just this kind of rhetoric. I found it to be racist in nature, in my personal opinion at the time.

Now Janeane Garofalo was downright mean on Keith Olbermann’s show, but I won’t link that video or repeat any of that here. But did she speak intelligently about the tea party with Rosie O’Donnell so I find it likely she was playing to the YouTube crowd with that one.

My complaints are more to the inclusion of fringe groups known for racism like the John Birch Society in CPAC as to the conservative side and the acceptance of “Birthers” (for lack of a better term) into the tea party side. These actions, and the glorifying of characters like Beck and Limbaugh who incite racial hatred for profit, amount to a very “toxic stew” to borrow a bit of their language.

I never said everyone right-wing was a racist, what a wild claim that would be! I’ve said people who did specific things, like write a sign about the “Black House” or suddenly find a love for the term “commie-socialist” (which makes zero sense by the way), are looking like they are motivated by white racism.

Am I supposed to say “in my opinion” like every other sentence or something?

We just has this opinion about comparing Obama to Hitler passed around and discussed like it was rational by Sara Palin and other far right extremists. Helen Thomas expressed an opinion in a manner I found distasteful and crass, but everyone seemed to forget she is was an opinion journalist.

Though how we state our opinions is important, I realize this well.

So I avoid the term ’teabaggers’ as much as possible (recently) and make a strong effort to declare what I present in the manner of an opinion be understood as an opinion.

But without getting too twisted into a pretzel here:

We all have to remember that you don’t get to control what other person’s opinion of your opinion is.

I personally believe the problems here are tied exactly to that, like the days of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Making statements in a vacuum, from any side of politics, is just getting really annoying.

I’ll back it up, we can have a Constitution quote-off over SB1070 or a Wiki-battle over Southern Strategy Republican racism. I do it all the time, it’s not a new thing it just happens in lightning speed transactions these days instead of “let me go home and grab a few books and we’ll pick this up later.”

I find myself desiring an Edward R. Murrow like figure to appear in our times … we desperately lack that kind of brutal and much needed honesty today. Perhaps more than ever.

***

(No horses were harmed in the course of this posting.)

BP Oil Spill: Kindra Arnesen Venice LA Needs to Evacuate

2010-06-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory

2010-06-24T02:05:00.000-07:00

Now is the time, to make real the promises of democracy.

Now is the time, to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

Now is the time, to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

Now is the time!

I have a dream...

Every valley shall be exalted.

I have a dream...

Every hill and mountain shall be made low.

I have a dream...

My children will not be judged by the color of their skin. [but upon the content of their character]

This is our home.

Let us rise up tonight...

I've been to the mountain top, and I've looked over and seen the promised land.

I may not get their with you, but I want you to know that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.

I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

***

The battle against racism and prejudice has changed form; become a game of innuendos and conspiracy theories rather than blatant slurs of days past.

But we can reach the promised land. We have come far since the days of these fateful words that resound with us still.

We have elected a black man to the highest office in the United States, we have forced openly racist elements to the fringe of society where they always belonged.

But these are not the days that the lies and fabrications about the first black president and over those coming here to seek a better life from Mexico will come to end.

These are the days that such bile is standard for the same people who sought to silence Rev. King and continue to abuse and distort his message of non-violence and anti-war stances for their own purposes.

But if you believe you may stand aside, may be allowed to ignore the progression of injustice and those who help maintain its veil from the world, and ever see the promised land for yourself or your children or their children ... you would be gravely mistaken.

Those who stand now in the mighty echo of Rev. King and the Civil Rights Movement must see that failing to carry the torch that lights up injustice is to do an injury and show disrespect to all that was fought for up until this point.

If this country will stand idly by while a white television broadcaster calls a black president "racist" ... then we are further from the promised land than I ever imagined.

If this country will stand idly by while white lawmakers establish fascist racial profiling laws upon those of only brown skin living in Arizona ... then we are further still from the promised land.

The dream has yet to fade into the darkness.

It will take the truly righteous rising up once more, rediscovering our lost value for honesty and truth in the dead of this wretched night.

"Let freedom ring!"

Gay Pot Smoking Hippies & Lady Gaga Shakedowns

2010-06-22T03:30:00.000-07:00

The market value of pot would do down, down, down.

If you legalized it, and supersized it.

Right now, now, now!

$4,000 an ounce.

That's way too much.

$400 an ounce.

That's ten times the blunts!

Don't fuck with the Gaga...

Elton John: "I know, he's a racist homophobe but I needed the money!"

You think you're weird, girl, but I'm weirder than you.

Let me tell of the weird things that I like to do:

Yesterday I went to church and made out with a nun, then I went up on the roof and stared into the sun.

Ouch!

(Don't miss Ke$ha's intervention either.)

SB1070 For Dummies & Hayward Hung By The Toes

2010-06-14T03:37:00.000-07:00

This YouTube video from 4409 "Wake Up America" Productions is what people really need to understand about 'that law' that everyone is talking about when not picturing BP exec Tony Hayward in some contraption from one of the Saw movies.

==================================================

"Please don't kill me, America! I promise another ad campaign and more toxic dispersant!"

==================================================

This is not about immigration. This is about encroaching on civil liberties first with racial profiling and then moving forward from there to effect all groups.

At least five lawsuits have been filed thus far to fight against the Arizona law coming on behalf of the ACLU and others.

AZCentral.com:

A group of 14 civil and immigrant-rights organizations and 10 individuals on Monday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona's new immigration law. It is the fifth legal challenge of the law, which goes into effect July 29 and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

All the lawsuits seek to prevent the law from going into effect. However, this latest case names Arizona's county officials as defendants, while previous suits were filed against state officials.

Participants in this case include the American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Immigration Law Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

Since I put "for dummies" in my headline I'll move forward slowly about the why on this show-me-your-papers law signed by Jan Brewer is unconstitutional. Instead slamming a bunch of legalese at you it's much better to simply look closely at the Section B paragraph of AZ SB 1070:

"For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official ..."

This just means anything at all that might be contact with the police. If they flag you down on the street when you are walking, that is a "lawful stop." It has very little to do with vehicles and everything to do with the security of your person from harassment from the police. Even when a police officer who has mistaken your identity, let's say, it is still a committing a "lawful stop" to detain you and discover your true identity. In short, this opening clause of the law is both sweeping and overreaching in terms of the authority it grants. In this language alone that law has isolated undocumented workers from seeking police services should they be attacked or threatened in their safety for even requesting police services: a 911 call is nothing more an invitation to legal harassment and then deportation.

"... where reasonable suspicion exists that a person is alien and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made ... to determine immigration status of the person"

Many advocates for this draconian law claim it mirrors the existing federal immigration law, but this is completely false. No standing U.S. law fails to define what exactly "reasonable suspicion" is to be recognized as in regards to infraction in question. You may have heard the phrase: "What does an illegal look like?" This is what these people are referring to. There is no standard set within any part of this law as to what exactly is the definition of "reasonable suspicion" of being here under undocumented ("alien") status. This failure to define what the terms of "reasonable suspicion" entail creates a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against "unreasonable search and seizure" which requires "probable cause" be clearly established prior to such "reasonable attempt"s of the Arizona law to toss you in a cell or search your person in any manner. Furthermore, the Fifth Amendment also protects any person, be they citizen or not, from incriminating themselves so this very act of having state authorities asking a person to identify their status with the federal immigration bureau is a "reasonable attempt" to force the affected party to admit to a minor misdemeanor. Which still ultimately amounts to a form of self incrimination. Another way to understand this is know that if a undocumented worker knew their rights at the time of a "lawful stop" taking place they would be within their rights to claim the Fifth Amendment protections while being asked by a state official their federal immigration status.

"... may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of the subsection ..."

This clause was added after the initial drafting of the law and fails to clarify just exactly how an officer is to determine immigration status without the use of "race, color and national origin" as the primary factor is raising the question. Had the misguided authors of this law inserted their media commentary that "clothing" was a factor to be decided upon it would have held more weight than this rather self defeating clause. As I stated above, without the method of attaining "reasonable suspicion" of being here under undocumented status outlined in the this law it remains the only standard in which to enforce such a law would be racial profiling. This clause turned a simply unconstitutional law into a literally unenforceable law.

The greatest layer of the unconstitutionality of AZ SB 1070 is the very top layer:

It is not the business of state authority to tread upon the direct charge of federal agencies. Even when they have a false charge of "inaction" on behalf of the federal government, the state laws never supersede federal authority on existing issues. Before any of the other elements of unconstitutionality would be considered this first brazen disregard for the Constitution will get this anti-civil liberties and pro-racial profiling law thrown out of court.

My point from the beginning is it is disgusting and un-American of all involved with this law to even have to drag this veiled racism mixed with an unconstitutional power-grab into our courts in the first place. Striking down this law effectively and immediately is the only course of action that will save both money and freedom in one swift movement.

==================================================

Colbert knows what to do with those Tony Hayward types...

What I myself find especially funny lately is this strange group of people out there, I guess we'll call them the "Blame No One Party" because that seems to be their game here. They are trying to convince us that blaming someone for the catastrophe that they oversaw and helped create is some act of mad lunacy. That we all should be looking forward. To what exactly I'm not too clear. The next environmental disaster that Big Oil will bless us with? I'll be over here with my burning Tony Hayward effigy and "Boycott BP" signs, thank you very much.

Don't forget this is the "worst oil spill in U.S. history" and has turned the Gulf of Mexico "into a dead zone."

I'm for cutting all our government contracts with BP, and cutting their jet fuel arrangement with the Pentagon as well. A company like BP has no place working under federal auspices of any sort. They have effectively destroyed America. Were this deliberate and not rampant greed and arrogance it could easily be classified as some form of terrorist or economic attack on all of America.

It seems when extremists blow people up: it's a crime and everybody is mobilized to catch the criminals. But when careless suits at BP blow people up: it's something to be ignored and just accepted as part of modern life.

UPDATE:

IPC has backed up my statements regarding SB1070 in their Q&A Guide.

Arizona Protest Images & Immigration Cartoons

2010-06-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Imagine All The People

2010-06-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

A Short Poem

2010-06-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

Thorns

Thorns of truth rip through us all,

Stand silent in your peace,

And be rended bloody across your back,

Step forward with me,

And be rended bloody across your face,

Handed down through the generations,

These truths are ours,

Yours and mine,

Without the pain of these thorns,

No roses can bloom.

Examiner: BP Buys Google, Yahoo Search Words

2010-06-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Examiner.com and Maryann Tobin are reporting that BP is trying to keep search engines from displaying the facts on the environmental disaster taking place in the Gulf of Mexico:

BP buys Google, Yahoo search words to keep people away from real news on Gulf oil spill disaster

In their most tenacious effort to control the ‘spin’ on the worst oil spill disaster in the history, BP has purchased top internet search engine words so they can re-direct people away from real news on the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

BP spokesman Toby Odone confirmed to ABC News that the oil giant had in fact bought internet search terms. So now when someone searches the words ‘oil spill’, on the internet, the top link will re-direct them to BP’s official company website.

This would not be the first time that BP has tried to control information to protect the company’s public image.

Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, BP executives quickly underestimated the size of the disastrous oil spill. Some suggest they did it to avoid costly EPA per-gallon spill fines. The less oil spilled, the lower the fines.

A month into the spill, the public learned through independent science, that the spill was in fact a million gallon a day gusher. BP got caught in their own lie when the used a syphon pipe in one of the broken riser pipes and proudly proclaimed that they were capturing 5,000 barrels of oil a day.

With the oil obviously still gushing, they had to up their spill rate to explain the reported discrepancy in their earlier estimates.

As the dead bodies of birds, turtles and dolphins began showing up on land, BP used a private security company as their ‘oil spill police’ to try to keep photographers and reporters away from the true death toll from their spill.

Tides of black goo lapping a shore lined in corpses did not portray the company image Tony Hayward and his oil rich executives wanted.

MLA: Open Letter to Arizona Governor

2010-06-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

At its May 2010 meeting, the Executive Council approved the following open letter to Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona.

Dear Governor Brewer,

We write regarding legislative and policy initiatives in the State of Arizona that concern us as teachers and scholars of language and literature. You have recently signed legislation (SB 1070) that may place nonnative speakers of English and speakers of other languages in legal jeopardy. In addition, we understand that the Arizona Department of Education has decided to bar teachers from teaching English if they speak English with an accent. Furthermore, you have signed legislation (HB 2281) critical of ethnic studies curricula.

These actions raise several concerns regarding education and language, topics at the heart of the mission of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). We urge you to keep the following in mind as the State of Arizona pursues its education policy:

(1) There is no rational basis for making language ability an indicator of an individual’s citizenship or residency status. This is especially the case in the United States, where many different languages are spoken on a daily basis. The MLA documents this diversity of language speakers in the United States with its Language Map (http://www.mla.org/map_main), which we urge you to consult. Many native as well as immigrant populations use languages other than English, and English language fluency is, of course, hardly restricted to the United States: a speaker of English is not necessarily a United States citizen or legal resident.

(2) Native and nonnative speakers alike always display considerable variation in accent. This fact holds for speakers of American English—compare accents from the Northeast with those from the Southwest—as well as for speakers of other languages. Indeed, there is no unaccented English. There are only speakers with different accents. It therefore makes little sense to bar individuals from teaching because they “have an accent,” since accent is always unavoidable. Efforts to exclude individuals on the basis of accent will likely be arbitrary and discriminatory. The recruitment and retention of effective teachers should not be impeded by concerns that are irrelevant to the important goal of facilitating student learning.

(3) For several decades, ethnic studies curricula have provided important gateways for students to learn about the diversity of heritages in the United States, a key educational goal of the liberal arts education that is the bedrock of American higher education. The field has developed sophisticated pedagogies that stretch across the humanities and the social sciences, providing significant insights into American history and society. Students in ethnic studies classes gain an appreciation for a wealth of cultural expression in literature and the arts and a recognition of the multiple traditions that have found a home in our nation. Policies that curtail this vision will weaken the quality of education, thereby depriving students of key learning opportunities as they move on to higher education institutions.

Because citizens of the United States speak many different languages in addition to English, because every speaker of every language has an accent, and because ethnic studies is important to contemporary American education, we urge you to work toward reversing the policy decisions we cited at the beginning of this letter.

The MLA would be delighted to cooperate with you to formulate educational and language policies that are based on sound research and scholarship and that reflect the state of the art in contemporary American education.

Telemundo: Mentally Disabled American Deported

2010-06-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

These are the kinds of incidents we can expect more of under the unconstitutional Arizona immigration power-grab and racial profiling law.

TelemundoChicago.com:

LOS ANGELES -- The family of a mentally disabled man claims that the federal and local governments mistakenly had an American citizen deported and said U.S. officials should help find him in Mexico.

Relatives of Pedro Guzman, 29, are suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit this week over what the civil rights group contends was the wrongful deportation of a developmentally disabled man.

Pedro Guzman was serving time in Los Angeles County's Men's Central Jail for misdemeanor trespassing when he was deported to Tijuana on May 10 or May 11, according to the ACLU. The family said they've been looking for their loved one in Tijuana for a month. Michael Guzman said his worst fear is that his brother is "no longer living."

He said Michael can't read, gets lost and often can't remember the family phone number.

The suit said Pedro Guzman was sentenced in April to 120 days in jail for a misdemeanor trespassing violation. The suit said that sometime after that the Sheriff's Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to federal authorities for deportation.

Guzman, who knows no one in Tijuana, was last heard from on May 11, when he phoned his brother and sister-in-law's home to say he had been deported to that city, but the call was interrupted before he could say exactly where he was, according to the ACLU.

Guzman's mother, brother and sister-in-law traveled to Tijuana and searched shelters, jails, churches, hospitals and morgues, but have not found him and fear for his safety, ACLU officials said.

"This is a recurring nightmare for every person of color of immigrant roots,"

Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director of the ACLU's Southern California branch, said in a statement.

There are no circumstances under which a U.S. citizen can legally be deported.

2010 CA Primary Wrap-Up

2010-06-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

California just finished our primaries and voted on a few ballot measures. The semi-official results have just been released moments ago.

CA Attorney General and former governor Jerry Brown has received the Democratic nomination for the gubernatorial race. He will be running against former eBay CEO Meg Whitman from the Republican ticket.

Whitman has already run afoul with many California voters when it surfaced she has rarely voted in California with the one proven exception of 1999 in Palo Alto. She apologized, calling her own voting record "atrocious." But the fact remains that this a woman who never took the time to weigh in on important matters effecting the state time and time again, who then suddenly decided she wants to be governor. It rings of the notion that Whitman thinks she can just buy her way into the seat.

Jerry Brown, on the other hand, is a person of good ethics. According to Wikipedia: "he refused many of the privileges and trappings of the office, forgoing the newly constructed governor's residence (which was sold in 1983) and instead renting a modest apartment at the corner of 14th and N Streets, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento. Instead of riding as a passenger in chauffeured limousines as previous governors had done, Brown was driven to work in a compact sedan."

Incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer will be running against Republican candidate Carly Fiorina.

The salvos have already begun to fly between Boxer and Fiorina over abortion, as you can read about here at the LA Times Web site.

Most notable for the "demon sheep" political ad that was widely circulated on the Internet, Carly Fiorina represents the far right-wing extremism of dirty pool politics (ala Karl Rove) and this pandering to the false notion that business experience amounts to good leadership in government.

Like Whitman, this appears to be a very wealthy woman who believes she can just buy her way into office.

Carly Fiorina has notably supported the "right to carry" for people on the terrorism no-fly list, saying this at a public discussion forum just prior to her nomination to the Senate candidacy. Obviously a person who thinks suspected terrorists should maintain any rights to carry guns is not fit to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Conversely Senator Barbara Boxer has a steadfast record of pro-education, pro-women's rights, and pro-environment stances to draw from. Boxer should also be noted to have co-authored the Jumpstart Broadband Act. Quoting Wikipedia: "This bill would make more spectrum available for use by devices that incorporate new broadband technology, such as WiFi."

Cities in Support of Boycotting Arizona

2010-05-18T16:27:00.000-07:00

Many U.S. cities across this nation have taken a respectable stance against the state of Arizona for its "immigration law."

Austin, TX became the latest in a growing list of cities that are boycotting Arizona in some capacity to protest the law, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires local law enforcement to ask for documentation from people they suspect are in the country illegally.

A List of Great Cities in Support of Boycotting Arizona (or are considering to boycott AZ and its so-called immigration law):

Los Angeles, CA

San Francisco, CA

Madison, WI

Austin, TX

West Hollywood, CA

Boston, MA

Oakland, CA

El Paso, TX

St. Paul, MN

Springfield, MA

Worcester, MA

Washington D.C.

Milwaukee, WI

Chicago, IL

NYC, NY

Boulder, CO

St. Paul, MN

Tacoma, WA

Lawrence, MA

Amherst, MA

Sacramento, CA

Baldwin Park, CA

South el Monte, CA

Santa Cruz, CA

And the list continues to grow!

May Day Riot in Santa Cruz (Video)

2010-05-09T17:40:00.000-07:00

WATCH: "Anarchy Riot Santa Cruz Ca May Day 2010" on YouTube by alansitarbrown & "Violent May Day March in Santa Cruz" on YouTube by ksbwtv

Santa Cruz has suffered an incident of mass vandalism that is being labeled an "anarchist riot" in the news media. Cowardly and misguided individuals appeared at an un-permitted "May Day party" in Downtown Santa Cruz with masks, spray cans, paint bombs and rocks to destroy the message of international workers' rights. Instead they terrorized and destroyed our city, for the name of what exactly I'm not at all clear.

These nut jobs smashed a series of windows and sprayed anarchist graffiti on local businesses after turning a workers' rights rally into a riot. Whatever misguided notions they have about anarchism, or whatever message they were trying to convey, was smashed right along with the glass. Compounded by that only cowards wear masks to get "the word out," for whatever that means to them. If you have a cause that you are passionate enough to protest about, use your face and real name to stand behind this cause and not the cloak of a mask.

These supposed connections between a local "anarchist's cafe" and the madness in Downtown are weak, in my mind. Those groups are usually book clubs, not bomb-throwers and masked vandals like in some common misconceptions. But I do not speak from any personal experience on this specific group.

I've asked around a little and nobody knows who did this. I'm going with the theory it's just some cretins with no message at all beyond destruction and fear-mongering the public.

The real tragedy here is the taint to the righteous cause of workers' rights worldwide that started when the organizing group, who are now under FBI scrutiny, refused to gather the proper permit.

I can report that unnamed local leaders were urging these people to file for the permit, hoping to close the open door to incidents like this one.

I think the poor police response time is the real story here. Reportedly, police were led away from the rally by a pair of false 911 calls designed to distract them from the situation brewing Downtown; however, according to multiple eyewitnesses (of which I am not one) as well as the included YouTube video the police took over an hour to respond.

Merced Sun-Star:

"We don't think this was an unsophisticated group of protesters; we think this is an organized group of anarchists," Santa Cruz Police spokesman Zach Friend said Monday, adding that investigators believe the anarchists had sought to strain city resources.

--

In the Political Internet this riot is being framed as having some connection to liberal progressives by the far right-wing. This is entirely untrue and goes to show how little these misguided conservatives understand how liberals feel about might-makes-right kind of messages like terrorizing people with riots and the mass destruction of property.

Unlike the cases of obvious tea party vandalism against pro-health care reform Democrats, there is no resounding vocal effort to excuse the actions of all these possibly politically motivated vandals and domestic terrorists on behalf of liberal progressives as there most certainly was on behalf of the "tea party conservatives."

Whatever Free Speech you want to spread is fine, and odds are we'll disagree about something somewhere, but making threats, inciting violence, destroying property and wearing masks is just the tactics of terrorists and fascists.

Arizona Expresses Their Racism

2010-05-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

The Arizona Senate and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer have passed an unconstitutional and pro-racial profiling law that has sparked intense debate across the nation over the issue of illegal immigration.

The law was written to pander to racist elements in the Republican Party and on the political right-wing. It does nothing to solve the problem, and creates a police-state devoid of civil liberties.

It is nothing more than lies that the federal government has done nothing about the issue, thereby making Arizona justified to pass an unconstitutional and immoral law.

FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.

Revisions to the AZ SB 1070 have changed "lawful contact" to "lawful stop, detention, or arrest" which changes nothing.

A "lawful stop" and a "lawful contact" is the same thing. These revisions are a waste of the nation's time. Until the law is abolished utterly there is nothing but racism and fascist tyranny being brought forth by Arizona.

This law violates the U.S. Constitution, requires that police officers engage in racial profiling (which is illegal), opens the door to endless lawsuits that will bankrupt the state, and validates the racist lies of immoral monsters in regards to undocumented workers.

I stand proud with the Boycott AZ movement. Those who love freedom and love American values must boycott all Arizona tourism and encourage a complete cancellation of all events and meetings held within the state until the governor and the state senate abolish this draconian law.

I also support the notion of Major League Baseball pulling out of the Phoenix All Star Game unless the state wishes to return to morality and constitutional enactment of laws.

The U.S. Constitution protects persons, not just citizens. The right to be secure in your person, and not be subject to this "show me your papers" fascistic law is a foundation of our country's values.

These people spouting racism and excitedly endorsing this Arizona law are not Americans, in my view. They are the most disgusting and vile element of our society who hold no love for freedom, truth, or liberty.

WSJ: Drilling Process Attracts Scrutiny in Rig Explosion

2010-05-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

(Gerald Herbert / The Associated Press)

Russel Gold & Ben Casselman of The Wall Street Journal:

An oil-drilling procedure called cementing is coming under scrutiny as a possible cause of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that has led to one of the biggest oil spills in U.S. history, drilling experts said Thursday.

The process is supposed to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. Cement, pumped down the well from the drilling rig, is also used to plug wells after they have been abandoned or when drilling has finished but production hasn't begun.

In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, workers had finished pumping cement to fill the space between the pipe and the sides of the hole and had begun temporarily plugging the well with cement; it isn't known whether they had completed the plugging process before the blast.

Regulators have previously identified problems in the cementing process as a leading cause of well blowouts, in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force. When cement develops cracks or doesn't set properly, oil and gas can escape, ultimately flowing out of control. The gas is highly combustible and prone to ignite, as it appears to have done aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which was leased by BP PLC, the British oil giant.

Concerns about the cementing process—and about whether rigs have enough safeguards to prevent blowouts—raise questions about whether the industry can safely drill in deep water and whether regulators are up to the task of monitoring them.

The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week. The disaster, which killed 11, has left a gusher of oil streaming into the Gulf from a mile under the surface.

Federal officials declined to comment on their investigation, and Halliburton didn't respond to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

There are serious questions to be asked of Halliburton Co. and their unwillingness to talk to a source as reputable as the Wall Street Journal begs the question if indeed they do hold some serious level of responsibility in this recent oil drilling disaster.

A Gangland Murder Down The Street

2010-04-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

A young man, Carl Reimer (R.I.P.), was brutally killed no more than a block from where I write to you now. This small beach town of Santa Cruz, California is fast becoming not a small town at all. We are fast becoming a city that has young men killed in public parks then proceeds about our daily lives as if nothing ever happened.

I am reminded of when Tyler Tenorio was stabbed to death in front of a 7-11, and the community outrage over this incident. Where are these same people when it comes to this recent gangland killing? Does community involvement stop and end around the popularity of the victim murdered?

I have a mind to take the fight to these murderers, to show them the residents in this area have guns too. Another element here is the complete incompetence of the local police department. Myself and many others are skeptical that the SCPD will be able to do anything to put behind bars the murderer of a 19 year old local. We feel they lack the experience or the tools required to aggressively investigate a murder case to a conclusion.

Police presence has increased ten-fold since the murder in the immediate area, but I don’t feel any safer. I feel I need to openly brandish weapons and start my own “community involvement” group centered in violently resisting criminal elements by any means we deem necessary.

The rumor about town is that this young man was killed for wearing gangland colors at the wrong place and the wrong time. According to my sources he enjoyed wearing red plaid and backwards hats, which many gang members in this area associate with gang affiliation. It is extremely unlikely that Reimer had any gang affiliation of any sort, and likely this was a case of gang members mistaking his identity for a rival gang member. Regardless this recent act of gangland violence in my town has me thinking it’s time to stop playing by the rules with ruthless murderers and psychotic gang-bangers.

His honorary grandmother is quoted in a Letter to the Editor appearing in the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Wednesday, April 28^th 2010) as saying:

Gang members are nothing but cowards. They travel in groups and shoot and stab unarmed people. I want them to know how devastated his family and friends are, and they have taken the life of a beautiful, intelligent, multi-talented and beloved human being.

Cowards don’t respond to fair play and status quo responses. Either these murdering gang-bangers get the message they will be hunted down like animals for this, or they will boldly kill again.

Maybe next time I’ll be the crime statistic, maybe next time a stray bullet will kill one of the many young children who live on the block. Then the community will be sure to rise up, but if you kill a 19 year old in a public park that’s apparently not enough to incite people to do something about it.

Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event

2010-04-07T02:46:00.000-07:00

"Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" by Deftones

No more gold lights,

For the Queen Earth,

To keep you warm,

In your Kingdoms,

High on the waves,

You made for us,

But not since you left,

Have the waves come,

The bar is dead,

And the rocket's rain,

Is keeping you wet,

In your deathbed,

So high on the waves,

You made for us,

And not since you left,

Have the waves come...

Political Facebooking

2010-04-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

Many people use the Internet in many different ways. This Social Networking Internet has become incredibly popular in recent years and the majority of that which I am involved in is the Facebook side of the Social Web.

More often than not I'm not using this platform in a highly political fashion. Commenting on political groups and sending personal messages to people inflaming political hatred against me or others.

Quickly I am seeing this is all just a road with no end. I only end up "blocking" people as they only lie and deceive even when confronted in a respectful and fact-based manner. This leaves me thinking that it's all pointless to be civil and be fact-based in the first place.

It's possible that much of the dishonesty and vile rhetoric is more tied to the nature of the "no consequences" Web, but I don't think so. I think the art of political debate itself is dead, murdered by the Tea Party and Fox News. Without facts and without any interest in civil discourse on both sides of a debate, the debate is by its very nature non-productive exchanges of name calling and ad hominem attacks of other natures.

How often do people question your faith, or lack thereof? Think on this for a minute. Now realize that on this Easter Weekend I have had some vile Facebooker question my faith. And for what reason? Because I called him out on spouting bigotry.

People want me to be meek, to be "Christian" in my words. I think not. I see all this vile fringe underground of politics coming to surface and I will fight the racist code speak, the outright bigotry, the partisan lies and the anti-American rhetoric. If they want to use their KKK tactics of ganging up on me and hiding behind the sheets of their fake accounts and fake names then so be it.

I shall be the stone that weathers the storm, and if I must die or be made a straw man or made an enemy of civility in the process then so be it.

I see not the strength to stand fast on the Left-wing. I see a lot of good people backing down or letting a pack of comedians lead the way when they are not the best people to bring forth the important issues.

The big part about Facebook that is highly deceptive is that many believe either that people are full of it and being insane or hyperbolic anytime they say anything online, or they believe that Facebooking is the answer to getting their voice out. In all honesty I am no different in the real world than I am online with only minor exceptions.

Some guy is currently trying to pick a fight with me, and I'm not joshing around when I'm trying to set up a time and place to just have the brawl. I don't care. Not anymore.

As the war criminal George W. Bush once said:

"Bring it on!"

YouTube Changes Its Face On Us

2010-04-07T02:17:00.000-07:00

This new streamlined YouTube is improved in the sense that we can see a billion & one videos lined up, but somehow it feels like they just made the whole site a video version of Twitter.

--

I think it's all a big grand master plan to get everybody on Facebook in the whole universe. We will make you Facebook even if you don't own a computer, all devices must have Facebook Apps to be worthy of creation!

Tea Party Terrorists & Code Pinkos

2010-04-07T02:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update on American Politics:

If you are anti-war you are a "pinko" and if you are anti-taxes you are a "terrorist."

Just so we are all perfectly clear...

Why The Health Care Debate Is So Contentious

2010-03-28T14:22:00.001-07:00

Even prior to the abortion issue being pointlessly dragged into the debate over health care reform the issue has been one of the most contentious debates I have ever seen in politics.

The question quickly becomes: Why?

I feel I have an answer, and it mirrors the matter of the abortion debate as well.

It is simple:

Both sides view the other as disingenuous and downright evil.

From the perspective of the anti-reformists all support for this bill is a disguised effort to destroy capitalism and / or expand the federal government to an unreasonable size.

From the perspective of the pro-reformists all rejection of this bill is a disguised effort to spread hatred, intolerance, racism and violence under the banner of a “tea party” and / or purely strategic politics of conservatives seeking to undermine all bills proposed under President Obama.

(There is, of course, a great deal more complexity at play here in both positions.)

In a situation where both groups view the other as “liars” there is no debate to be had. No discussion that will bare fruits. None.

The fear and lies surrounding this health bill entirely native to the rightwing has no bartering point from which to start from. There is no common ground to find with a person who lies about the record and rejects all evidence that does not compliment their existing preconceptions.

Throughout this year long national debate I have strived to pull the emotions out and put the facts in their place, but such actions only serve a purpose when there remains holdouts on both sides. In the course of this I have seen new levels of hostility directed at me personally more so then ever before in my experience.

I have never “un-friended” and “blocked” so many people in my entire ten-plus years on the Internet.

The incitement toward violence, the death threats, the partisan hate; all existed prior to the matter becoming national in the death threats against Democrats post-HCR. All of this existed in the venom directed at health reform advocates on a daily basis from individuals of a very low moral fiber and very poor understanding of democracy.

In matters discussing life and death, I’d rather not see so many and myself give in to fear; but it truly doesn’t surprise me in the least to see this country explode in mindless paranoia. Big changes equates to big fears, bad economy equates to paranoia on the rise.

In the solid matter of facts, this health bill is a net-positive for America.

But this issue will not lose any of it’s contentious nature no matter how many facts are interjected in the mass spreading of paranoid myths. For too many Americans it is simply easier to believe the worst, and the biased conservative media is sure to provide them endless piles of red meat.

Tea Party Death Threats & Vandalism

2010-03-27T14:33:00.001-07:00

(USAToday.com)

The fractious ultra-conservative Tea Party Movement has finally morphed from bazaar partisan rancor into death threats and vandalism against the Democratic health care reform agenda. The racist language directed at John Lewis, the homophobic slurs directed at Barney Frank, the coffin placed in Russ Carnahan’s lawn; the list of examples continues on.

Bigoted anti-Semitism has erupted in talk radio and Internet circles as the threats with possibly bullets behind them find their way to Eric Cantor’s office.

The Tea Party tactics that we see coming to fruition in all this recent hostility toward Democrats and any progressive or liberal who does anything but stand mute are designed to sour and squelch all civil debate over health care reform, this is not and never was about taxes.

The Republican Party and the biased Fox News media have done nothing prop up these radicals who exhibit these untruthful and violent features. Now these same hypocrites attempt to lay the blame for this vandalism at the feet of Democrats and those who support the health care reform agenda.

The far right has revealed itself as a anti-life & anti-freedom movement in this reform backlash, while the mainstream right reveals itself to be completely accepting of this domestic terrorism.

I want to see these Tea Party bloggers posting an address that is attacked with vandalism to be arrested on charges of willfully contributing to wanton destruction of private property.

Two conservative Tea Party activists posted the address of the home on the Internet on Monday, mistakenly believing it was the home of the congressman. One of the activists urged others to “drop by” and “express their thanks” for Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform.

Tuesday evening, Perriello’s brother’s family smelled gas and discovered the propane line of a gas-powered grill on their screened-in porch had been slashed.

Yes We Can Have Health Care!

2010-03-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

We have talked about it.

We have fought about it.

We have gotten upset about it.

But now it's over, and I called this shot from months back.

Some said I was counting my chickens before they hatched, others believed in my crystal ball.

But here we have it! Health Care Reform in the U.S. has passed!

And not a moment too soon.

11th Hour of U.S. Health Care Reform

2010-03-20T23:20:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON — After a frenzied push to nail down final commitments and resolve lingering disputes in their ranks, House Democrats today are poised to pass the most sweeping change to the nation's health care system since the creation of Medicare nearly half a century ago.

President Obama has at long last starting stumping for health care reform and started speaking the truth to the power of the health insurance companies strangling American families worse and worse every year. Whatever strategic issues I have with Democratic Health Care Reform, the bottom line is the party and the president have stepped up to do the right thing and put forward the agenda of the American people instead of the agenda of corporate America being placed in the highest priority. Whatever enhancements I myself would add to this bill (Public Option) it is nonetheless a step in the right direction and beyond that point, if we failed to complete at the bare minimum of this reform in the system there will be dire consequences on the overall national economic stability in years to come.

This is the eleventh-hour of health care reform in the U.S., and this political blogger is predicting we will see these reforms pass.

Good news, to be sure.

After more than forty years of inaction and failures to address this most important issue we shall at long last see moral standards in our health care system and some limit placed on the corrupt practices of the insurance companies.

Things I Didn't Want To Show You

2010-03-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

Release

My heart should be pounding out of my chest, my knees should be shaking, my mind should be racing, but I feel kind of ... peaceful ... up here. Pigeons flutter out into the wind between these giants of steel, concrete, and glass. My feet inch closer to the edge. The wind should be up enough for kite flying in the park ... that shouldn’t matter to me now ... I’ll be falling soon.

I stand on the small granite lip before a two-hundred story plunge atop the tallest building I could find without fences or locked doors blocking off the roof. The cars below look like the small toys I once had, the people like specks of paint moving across a gray canvas of sidewalk. I can feel the wind doing what I want it to ... pulling me closer toward the edge. My fingers are wrapped around a metal pipe just below the short granite wall running the parameter of the rooftop. With each slow second that passes I can feel my grip loosening.

Voices, probably police, are behind me but I can’t hear them. I can’t hear anything but the rushing of wind between the skyscrapers and the birds cooing and flapping their wings at both sides of my feet. The time, I hadn’t noticed before, the time up here is slowed. Like time itself is attempting to run underwater, to swim upstream. Every second an hour, every hour a day. I could have been on this ledge for a year, or a decade, by now. I could stay another decade or two for all the wondrous peace I’ve found.

Like the crack of a whip my reasons return. Not a soul in the god-forsaken city cares about me more than they care about a stray cat, or these filthy birds at my feet. I have no one close, not the way I want ... not the way I need. Sure I have a mom and a dad and all that; it doesn’t matter now though. Everybody tells you you’re doing good if you got that but I think everybody has something more, something they hide from me, and they say all that crap to make people like me feel better. What good is someone if you can’t really talk to them? What good is life if you get nothing from it? ... The quiet up here is really, peaceful. Not even the birds can make a sound anymore, every single sound muted except for the wind howling, and pulling.

Some are sure to say I was living in my fantasy of not having what I needed of this world. Some are sure to say I’m selfish and blind what the world holds for me. Some people are worth even less than I. There isn’t anyone in this life who wants to hear the infinite melancholies and ever-resilient droning; but I spared as much for the worst of them. There isn’t anyone not bound to love who did so for very long. They could say they love me when I’m gone but do they? People who love one another - even a little in the only way that matters - give all they have, every effort, every pain, every single word, to see those they love be complete and at peace in even the smallest way. She wouldn’t do that for me and I’ve done it for everyone I could ever have hoped to ... everyone ... so drained of anything that was ever whole.

These reasons mean nothing, I mean nothing, this day is nothing, this instant is nothing. The process of birth to death is nothing, nothing. I let some tension out of my fingers and lean out to look over the edge ... only the tips of each of my fingers remain clutching that cold metal pipe. I can see each ray of sunlight bounce off the windows below, I can feel each singular beat of wings against the air as every bird takes flight at once - enveloping me in feathers, a bed of feathers - as a the pure taste of cold wind forces it’s way into my mouth. I spread my arms into the sky as a forceful gust pushes my chest and face back from the edge and then let my weight pull me over.

Untold

If these words were writ in snow, the sun would melt them in a glance.

If these words were writ in a riverbank, the water would rise to wash them as the earth churned.

If these words were cast to the sky, the air would smolder then burn.

If these words were carved to stone, the land would swallow itself whole.

If these words were made to flesh, a soul would cross the divide as the first breath came to be.

These words cast unto me. Forever shall be the same, forever within me.

Tribute to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson

2010-03-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

Science literacy is at unacceptable lows in the U.S.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the few figures in science that can explain and outline scientific facts in a way that is both entertaining and informative.

St. Petersburg College:

Authors@Google:

CNN: Coffee vs. Tea

2010-03-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Coffee vs. Tea: A political movement is brewing

Washington (CNN) -- The new Coffee Party movement deemed its official kickoff Saturday a "huge success," with dozens of talks held at coast-to-coast coffee shops as members came together to discuss the issues most important to them.

Billed by many as an answer to the conservative Tea Party movement, the Coffee Party was born on Facebook just six weeks ago. While the group has become an instant hit online -- it boasts more than 141,000 Facebook fans as of Saturday -- gauging the success of this weekend's coffee meetups was predicted to be an indicator of the group's strength.
...

"Just like in the American Revolution, we are looking for real representation right now. We don't feel represented by our government right now, and we don't really feel represented well by the media either," Park said last week on CNN's "American Morning." "It's kind of a simple call to action for people to wake up and take control over their future and demand representation. And it requires people standing up and speaking up."

Sound familiar? Tea Party activists use much of the same language in describing their year-old protest movement that's steeped in fiscal conservatism and boiling-hot, anti-tax rhetoric.

"It's a response to how they are trying to change our government," Park told CNN, referring to the Tea Party. "It's their methodology that we are against. We may want some of the same things, but their journey is so alienating to us."

Me and High Places

2010-03-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

I hate heights.

I get sick just looking at this picture.

I couldn't do that, what those kids are doing. I'd probably pass out if you made me sit there.

I grew up in San Francisco, and I've gotten seriously dizzy just looking up from this same angle. Looking down is nothing less than fearful for me, even in just a picture.

Recently I was talking about a bridge on the local college campus as "the bridge with ridiculous low railings" and the person I was talking to said:

"What do you consider 'ridiculously low'?"

Heck, pretty much anything below my waist is too low!

But I've fought this fear from as far back as I can remember.

I rock climb, both indoors and outdoors. Scares the living hell out of me to get more than ten or so feet off the ground, but it still love climbing even minus the rope.

I peak out over the edge, sometimes crawling up to it, even when every part of me is screaming to just leave it alone.

I don't think you can conquer this kind of fear, this isn't fear of spiders or of social situations. I'm afraid of falling, or to be more specific the fall would probably be nice (not that opposed to sky diving even though I'm sure I'd have a nervous breakdown in the process) it's the landing part that scares me.

Ever seen the movies where people fall to their deaths off buildings? Almost never done realistically.

If you reached critical velocity, you would be flattened in an instant. Not even worth putting that to a movie scene, no drama and splat. Just one second you are whole, the next you are liquid.

If you didn't you would bounce, yup that's right ... bounce.

You would still die, but not before flying up into the air once again as a fleshy blob before returning once more to Earth.

People yell and scream about guns, disease, crime, predatory animals, extremist fundamentalists, insects, warlords, bio-terrorism, nuclear warfare, street riots, climate change, federal budgets...

But none of that scares me all that much.

Death itself doesn't scare me that much, not as much as it should anyway.

But no matter how hard I try to beat it back I have to admit my fear is that of high places, and if you mess around and joke like you are going to push me I'm more likely to either hit you or start crying than I am to join in on the joke.

Quote of the Day

2010-03-07T20:42:00.000-08:00

"We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion - a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and... fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply."

- Edward R. Murrow

Suicidal Thoughts On The Internet

2010-03-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

I just had a person share some suicidal thoughts with me while on the internet.

I am not that disturbed by it, perhaps I know this pain all too well.

The endless pit of apathy.

I offered only my simple perspective: it's okay if things suck, it's not okay to give up.

They mentioned they were switching meds for the night, so most likely that is all this was.

I'm hardly qualified to give anyone advice, I'm not exactly doing too hot here myself.

But I see no problem with reaching out and telling people that they don't have to be alone, and remind them that internet can't replace human interactions.

I feel though that there is a great deal of anxiety out there, and it needs to be validated. I feel it too. Some dreadful uncertainty about just about everything.

But some of us so often forget that there are real people on the other end of the these screens, and a cry for help is a cry for help.

I am not so cold as to ignore that, and I have found it be nothing be than am issue of people knowing that somebody gives a damn.

That somebody on this madness of the internet actually understands that not everything in the whole world is one big joke, that people matter. We shouldn't ever give up on ourselves regardless of how ugly things get.

Moonhowlings: Al Alborn Part 3

2010-03-02T03:03:00.000-08:00

U.S. Army veteran Alan P. Alborn expands upon his thoughts found on the Coffee Party USA YouTube channel:

Coffee Party USA

You might remember the two videos featuring me that Moon Howler posted on the anti-BVBL website earlier this week. I was approached by Annabel Park ant Eric Byler for the past couple of weeks asking to discuss my view of the world. There was no “set-up”, no “prompting”, no “feeling me out to see how I felt about the world”… frankly, they just wanted to learn what “an old white guy” thought about the state of our Government. I qualify. They conducted a straight and professional interview. It’s my opinion that they did a “fair and balanced” piece that accurately captured my thoughts about a variety of subjects. The first video is now all over the internet… so I’ve gotten my fifteen minutes of fame. I was humbled by the product.

To my surprise (because of the subject, not the Producers), they created a couple of pretty good videos and posted them on their youtube website http://www.youtube.com/user/coffeepartyusaand Facebook. That was followed by a get together with a Washington Post reporter who just watched us in action and an article in the Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022505517.html After the article in the Washington Post appeared, something interesting happened… people started establishing local chapters and signing up on Facebook to learn more. The last time I checked http://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty?ref=ss , the number of people signed up was approaching 18,000 with chapters in well over half of the states (and growing by the minute).

So, here’s my question. Do you think we should start a Coffee Party here in Prince William County? I’m an “old soldier” who thought I had fought my last battle; however, I’m beginning to think that perhaps I have one more battle in me. This battle would be to try to go against the forces of the status quo, the Neocons from the last century, the groups who would like to turn personal religious beliefs into public policy, the people who don’t recognize the value of a multicultural society and the fact that America isn’t lily white any more (and that’s ok), and any other group who hasn’t quite made it across Midnight, 1 January 2001 to step into the twenty-first Century.

Any group is the sum of its parts. The Coffee Party is growing quickly and absorbing a variety of views and opinions. The one thing we all agree on is that Government has to change… and we would like it to change for the better instead of rolling back to the last Century. I would appreciate your thoughts. I’m not hiding behind an alias; however, I respect your privacy and will engage in any respectful conversation.

If I get a lot of positive response, I would propose that those of us interested get together and throw our first Coffee Party to decide what’s next. Ask your friends and tell them about this site. I am not happy with the way America is going and don’t plan to sit this one out. I think I’ll find the energy for one more battle… this could be the big one.

The Coffee Party Movement Inspires Me

2010-02-28T16:42:00.000-08:00

If you are anything like me then the recent lapse in any kind of reasonable or civil debate in our politics has you feeling frustrated and uncertain of what to do.

I fall back upon my classic standards of political partisanship and playing to the left-base, but in truth I am not satisfied by this in the least.

We don't need word-wars over labeling and branding, we need solutions for America that work.

We don't need more spin and more talking points, we need honest debate and informed decision making.

What Coffee Party USA offers is civility and a place for democracy to take place in a honest fashion.

I encourage any person who has formed an opinion of me that is one of "ultra-left" to understand I was most moved by U.S. Army veteran Alan P. Alborn's words that anything I have seen in a very long time. I understand far more about what motives are behind conservatives and libertarians than I let on and ultimately my views are no different from Alborn's views in regards to the matter of the free market or the size of government.

This is one element that was always part of what makes me "independent," and I am tired of being brought nearly to tears dealing with these Tea Party activists who seek to do nothing more than rewrite history and stop all rational debate while neglecting the more important issues of health care and insurance reform.

The Coffee Party Movement is the answer we have been looking for to send the message to Washington that we sent them there to get something done, not just play procedural games while Americans suffer.

We'll see if they even want me around, they have a statement about "no pundits and partisans and strategists" ... that's me three for three. But punditry can be declared, partisanship can be avoided and they will want my strategies if they ever give me a chance to share them ... so maybe I am reading too much into that statement.

I encourage you to join the Coffee Party, too!

We are a group of concerned Americans who want government "that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices; NOT corporate interests as expressed by misleading advertisements and campaign contributions."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Official Websites:

http://www.coffeepartyUSA.org

http://facebook.com/coffeeparty

http://www.youtube.com/user/coffeepartyusa

(other "dupe" web-groups have already begun to spawn in response to the Coffee Party, only these websites are Coffee Party Movement)

The Truth Before The Summit

2010-02-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) brought forth the truth to power that has been so lacking in the liberal progressive movement as of late.

The Bush Tax Cuts, COBRA, & S-CHIP, were all passed by the same tactic these Republicans are now calling the "nuclear option."

Anyone watching the plays on health care reform knows that it is nothing less than the simple truth that the Republicans are wholly owned by the insurance companies.

And their partisan conservative media with them.

Jon Stewart Castrates The Blogosphere

2010-02-22T01:12:00.000-08:00

As is usually the case, it is left to the Comedy Central programming of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to point out these funny aspects of our media and our society that go mainly overlooked.

From "The Blogs Must Be Crazy" segment:

It's almost as if these headlines are freakishly out of proportion to the content contained within them.

Oh, did you Comedy Central writers notice that too?

A good headline makes all the difference, and if somebody isn't getting castrated, eviscerated and then decapitated its just not a good headline.

I guess the real title of this post is:

Lightborn Eviscerates The Blogosphere

But I have a suggestion: the "versus posts."

Someone vs. Someone, instead of Someone metaphorically cannibalizes Someone else.

Just a thought...

Cry Havoc, And Let Slip The Dogs Of War

2010-02-21T23:11:00.000-08:00

Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1601

The battle cry is laid, and I intend to slay this paper-dragon of bipartisanship and Americanism returning to these lands.

The declaration of war against progressive liberalism has changed this from a country of individuals that disagree to a battlefield of blood that none shall escape unscathed.

To deny this, is to perish.

For they will not halt their spears and draw back their arrows simply for those who heard not the war drums and ignored the pronouncement of their guilt upon the mount. They will run down all of us like wheat before the scythe unless we gather out strength and fight back.

The enemy is conservatism, the worst that America has to offer the world.

The enemy seeks to alter the history of our times, to escape all consequence for that which they have wrought and lay waste to the lands with fear, poverty and misinformation.

They would replace science with rhetoric, replace reason with bigotry, replace love with vengeance, replace wisdom with pride.

The Commander told us, "I am not an ideologue."

Well I am, sir.

Not an intractable ideologue, I'll hear out the terms of the parley of the enemy forces gathered against us.

The Commander Obama will not lead us in this field, he refuses to lead the liberal movement.

So I say it is time for the Captains to start giving out some orders.

I have but one order to the Liberal Blogger Squadron that remains true to the cause:

CRY HAVOC, AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR!

That which is us, remains under seige.

Lose not faith in to the Commander and those we sent to the wreckage of Bush-Cheney, but we shall rise in this moment not dither and fade.

We have been declared the enemies of America, and I believe it time to illustrate some proven facts we all hold within ourselves for fear of the ripples they might make.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to racism.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to bigotry.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to domestic terrorism.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to all violence.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to lying to get ahead.

Conservatism is all too together friendly to tyranny.

Richard Dawkins - The Virus of Faith

2010-02-21T22:12:00.000-08:00

"Some say that while religious fundamentalists betray reason, moderate believers betray faith and reason equally. The moderates position seems to me to be fence-sitting, they half-believe in the Bible. But how do they decide which parts to believe literally, and which parts are just allegorical?"

As a member of the religious moderate camp, I take issue with these statements. There is no question that fundamentalists betray reason, but a moderate does not betray faith nor reason and here is why: scientific facts are not rejected by a moderate as they are by a fundamentalist therefore that which accounts to the betrayal of reason for the fundamentalist is not true of the moderate; by drawing upon a more personal and perhaps more primal sense of faith and understanding the moderate is only leaving the confines of faith that are formed as preconceived misconceptions in the minds of others while never betraying the true nature of their own faith. By my logic, moderates are neither betraying faith nor reason. While there is nothing less than truth in the statement, "they half-believe the Bible" I believe the position is not "fence-sitting" in the least and here is why: The Bible is a flawed book, like trying to look at the truth through broken glass; if we draw a distinction between a precept or a series of moral teachings against certain stories that the vast majority of our number believe are purely allegorical in nature that is not failing to take a position but rather the act of taking the position that these pieces should be venerated while others diminished. The question posed by Dawkins is profound and requires a more lengthy response than I am willing to formulate at this moment. The short and witty answer is: arbitrarily. But that is mostly in jest and mainly meant to point out that there is no one definition of moderate religious belief so much as there is a loose grouping among many faiths and churches. It cannot to be answered to the satisfaction of Dawkins and others that would apply strict logical reasoning to the equation but the difference between allegory and literalist in the Bible comes from divine interpretation or, to use a less provocative term, personal spiritual guidance.

"We are privileged to be alive, and we should make the most of our time in this world."

I could not agree more with Dawkins on this point.

Life is precious and should not be given any less value to every waking moment of it.

Where I divide greatly from Dawkins is centered around this conflict between God and science.

Religion, expressly organized and established religion, are in direct conflict with science. There is no doubt of this whatsoever.

But I and many others do not see God and religion as one in the same.

God exists as a metaphor for the unknown, in one mode of thought, and the very practice and essence of science relies entirely upon an unknown in order to exist.

The day we know everything, we will have little more use for science.

This is much the same I feel about God or more loosely the concept of a "higher power": the day we control life and death, the flow of time, and have attained all power the universe has to bestow is the day none alive would see a use for a "God".

The unknown itself, defines both science and faith.

Faith is irrational, and taken to extremes it is always dangerous. While science has no such pitfalls.

But I still do not advocate the eradication of faith, though I do agree with Dawkins in regards to religious upbringing not being a healthy psychological practice to put a child through.

I believe, and I shall surely write more of this in days and months to come, that faith combined with reason is not a flawed stance or lacking any amount of logical context.

I would also argue from a more emotional standpoint that a purely scientific view of the world, as I once held myself, is "sterile" and "overtly plain".

Senate Reconciliation Now!

2010-02-21T22:06:00.000-08:00

The Republican obstructionism on the health care reform agenda is not "principled objections" as Senate minority leader Eric Cantor suggests. It is non-principled, pure nihilistic policy of poisoning the well and deception on behalf of conservatives.

The liberal majority that elected Democrats to office in 2008 has spoken.

The Public Option must survive in a final health care bill, and the process of reconciliation between House and Senate bills is the only avenue by which Democratic representatives can claim to have made any "meaningful reform" come reelection time.

Make it clear that this will not go away, and we the liberal progressives will not be silent.

This push did not come from the White House, or the Progressive Caucus, or from the desk of Sen. Harry Reid. This push for a strong public option through reconciliation came from the people who understand that health care is a moral issue, not merely a budgetary issue.

Both President Obama and Senator Reid remain open to the pursuit of Senate reconciliation, but I believe it important to state that this in itself is the "failure to sell health care reform to the American people" I spoke of before.

Instead, we will have to make perfectly clear that the public option must go forward and does not continue to be the "public optional."

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Friday afternoon that he would work with other Democrats and the White House to pass a public option through reconciliation if that's the legislative path the party chooses.

The party has spoken. The ball is their court now in congress, but we must not allow this to fade into the night.

Just as Paul Krugman recently closed an op-ed with, "Health Care Reform Now!" I would say the as he except in different words given the changing of the situation but holding the same meaning:

Senate Reconciliation Now!

Michael Gerson: "Defending the word 'retard' is not heroic"

2010-02-17T14:51:00.000-08:00

Former George W. Bush presidential speech writer Michael Gerson has come out strongly in a recent op-ed against the use of the "r-word" in our commonly used dialectic.

The media is least attractive when it offers the pretense of fairness to cover a desire for self-serving controversy.

Professor Christopher Fairman of Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University takes to The Post today to defend the word "retard" against taboo, censorship and other forms of social repression. He argues that the r-word must be rescued from the terrible fate of the f-word. Even the n-word has "varied and evolving uses."

Defending the r-word is not the protection of free expression; it is the defense of bullies.

There is a long tradition of religious and and moral reflection on the words we choose to speak. According to the Hebrew scriptures, "Death and life are in power of the tongue." Jesus of Nazareth argued, "It is not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man."

Epithets gain and lose currency. Which means that standards of morality, respect and tact must be constantly reapplied in new circumstances -- not that all standards should be abandoned entirely.

What the Special Olympics is proposing is not government censorship, it is social stigma. In this case, such stigma is a sign of moral maturity.

I have signed the pledge at www.r-word.org. I hope you do as well.

I also encourage you to sign the Special Olympics pledge against using the derogatory label "retard" against any person for any reason.

I would also challenge any person of any variety of partisan politics, which includes myself as well, to try and refrain from personal attacks and all statements that most people would honestly agree is a simple lack of "standards of morality, respect and tact" as Gerson describes it.

Texas Joins In On The Science-Denial Trend

2010-02-17T01:25:00.000-08:00

The state of Texas has jumped on the science-denial bandwagon currently gripping the right-wing. Texas has challenged the EPA findings that greenhouse gas emissions are classified as "dangerous," claiming that the findings are based on flawed science. This is of course a false and absurd claim coming from the leading greenhouse gas emitter of the U.S.

Al Armendariz, the EPA's regional director over Texas, said the agency is confident the finding will withstand any legal action. He also said the move isn't surprising considering Texas' pattern of opposition to the EPA.

"Texas, which contributes up to 35 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by industrial sources in the United States, should be leading the way in this effort," he said. "Instead, Texas officials are attempting to slow progress with unnecessary litigation."

EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said it's the first legal challenge by a state, though industry groups have also challenged it.

Texas says the EPA's research should be discounted because it was conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore in 2007 for its work on climate change but has since been embarrassed by errors and irregularities in its reports.

(Nobody ever successfully connected the so-called "Climategate" hacking incident, which I assume are the "errors & irregularities" mentioned, and the matter of the Greenhouse Gas Effect or the Climate Science findings as a whole in any way except political partisans with obvious Big Energy funding and absolutely no facts to back up the case they make.)

The guys and gals of The Great State of Denial, good ol' Texas, seem to hold different standards of The Scientific Method and Comparative Analysis. Maybe those words are just too big for Texas.

I see this as just a symptom of a much larger problem breeding under the surface: the praise of ignorance over knowledge; the willful destruction of critical thinking.

The "debate" over climate change can be settled in moments by the most simple process of comparing the credibility of the sources and the amount of raw data on both ends. There is not a debate going on in the scientific community, there is a consensus with a few skeptic holdouts that have almost all published debunked papers at some point or another, but within the political community and the business community they would like very much for this issue to be up for debate. But it's not, an overwhelming body of evidence exists in favor of Climate Science and skeptics fail to bring any new data ("Climategate" was the biggest joke on conservatives and their complete inability to rationally review data ever) so it's simply "denial" and nothing more from these Big Money influenced talking heads. The Deniers and the Consensus; Texas just put itself on the side of the Deniers.

What lies under the surface here is the desire to squelch all rational discussion and replace it with bumper-sticker sound bytes. If anyone dares speak out against these ridiculous claims circulating and tries to use facts instead of rhetoric, then you can bet they will start up the personal attacks and just making even more broad claims about more unproven garbage. If you are even perceived as "smart" then you must be a "elitist liberal" who will only "lie to confuse you." They are teaching people to hate intelligence and love stupidity in the once great state of Texas, all in the name of keeping their rich friends happy and scoring cheap political points while they are at it too.

Cut It All Right In Two

2010-02-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

"Right in Two" from 10,000 Days by Tool

Angels on the sidelines,
Puzzled and amused,
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused,

Don't these talking moneys know that,
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys,
When there's one you are bound to divide it,
Right in two,

Angels on the sidelines,
Baffled and confused,
Father blessed them all with reason,
And this what they choose,

Monkey killing monkey, killing monkey,
Over pieces of the ground,
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They forge a blade,
And when there's one,
They're bound to divide it,
Right in two,

Monkey killing monkey, killing monkey,
Over pieces of the ground,
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They make a club,
And beat their brother down,
How they survive so misguided is a mystery,

Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to life an eye to heaven conscious of his fleeting time here,

Cut it right all,
Right in two,

Fight over the clouds, over wind, over sky,
Fight over life, over blood, over prayer,
Over head and light,
Fight over love, over sun,
Over another, Fight...

Angels on the sideline again,
Benched along with patience and reason,
Angels on the sideline again,
Wondering when this tug of war will end,

Cut it right all,
Right in two,

Right in two...

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I cast the Judgment of Solomon upon my fellow Americans.

This swaddled child of fragile democracy passed down to us from generations of proud Americans shall be for neither the leftwing nor the rightwing -- we shall divide it in half. For we cannot come to terms and no aggrieved party shall ever be satisfied henceforth.

Just as the internet already has become complete in its utter division and quartering-off into tightly bound untouching spheres; as shall the the Union be broken forever and the United States shattered to nothing but individual states so that if any union is to be formed it may be formed anew. The same sword that the slew the free web should also slay the entire United States for the electronic landscape is but a mere reflection of what we are as a modern people and as a modern society.

We as a people, as a political and deliberating body, do not communicate any longer and as such it is time to crush the false former preconception that there is such a structure in this world called "The United States of America" as such an entity does not currently exist.

There is but one fair solution: we part our ways from the notion of unity altogether.

People need not tolerate one another any longer, we shall cast our entire social structure into rigid fixtures that do not touch one another. People need not be confused by differing views any longer, we shall keep our intellectuals isolated unto themselves in tight-knit groups that do interact with each other let alone the outside world.

Freedom and liberty can be redefined, just as morality and justice have been in the present day.

We will survive, but first we have to lay down and die.

We will thrive, but first we must lay our head in the guillotine.

MediaMatters: Palin's Tea Party Speech Full of Misleading Claims

2010-02-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

(CSMonitor.com)

From MediaMatters.org Research section:

Palin's tea party speech full of false and misleading national security claims

During her address before the National Tea Party Convention, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin made numerous false and misleading claims about national security and foreign policy, including suggesting that the Obama administration doesn't use the word "war," that interrogators didn't ask alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab about his training and future al Qaeda plots, and that Abdulmutallab has not provided information since he "lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent."

PALIN: What followed was equally disturbing after he was captured. He was questioned for only 50 minutes. We have a choice in how to do this. The choice was only question him for 50 minutes and then read his Miranda rights. The administration says then there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants. But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent. [CNN Transcripts, 2/6/10]

REALITY: Administration source reportedly says Abdulmutallab currently "cooperating," officials say he provided intelligence after being Mirandized.

Responding to Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Sen. Diane Feinstein in a February 2 hearing (accessed via the Nexis database), FBI Director Robert Mueller agreed that "Abdulmutallab has provided valuable information" and that "the interrogation continues despite the fact that he has been Mirandized." Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified in the same hearing: "There are decisions that have to be made in which you balance the requirement for intelligence with the requirement for a prosecution and the sorts of pressure that you bring onto the people that you arrest in either form. It's got to be a decision made at the time. And I think the balance struck in the Mutallab was a very -- was an understandable balance. We got good intelligence, we're getting more."

Sara Palin vs. Rush Limbaugh

2010-02-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

Resigned Alaskan governor and rightwing activist Sara Palin has come out strongly against those that believe tossing around the "R-word" is acceptable in public discourse and should be included into the modern lexicon. I strongly agree. Though I remain baffled as to why Sara Palin will not strongly admonish radio host Rush Limbaugh for doing exactly just that to a very large listening audience.

It all began with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel referring to congressional liberal as "f---- retarded," as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

A stern defender of the developmentally disabled, Sara Palin came out strongly against those who would use such derogatory language that hurts not just the people the insults are aimed at, but also injures the people that care for and love with all their heart developmentally disabled children as well.

"Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the 'N-word' or other such inappropriate language, Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities -- and the people who love them -- is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking," Palin wrote on her Facebook page.

While I would disagree that Rahm Emanuel should resign over his poor choice of words, I support Sara Palin in her indignation against this kind of language. It is important to note that Rahm Emanuel has apologized in public for his statement and there is no reason to believe it was anything but very poor choice of words and the expression of an honest opinion that illuminates exactly what I have long thought may be true of the White House chief of staff.

Under my observation, Rahm Emanuel is misguided in some of reasoning in so far as in my view he should be in support of the congressional liberal agenda and attempting to balance that against the presidential agenda if he were a "true blood" liberal / progressive himself. Somewhat like his boss, he is just not liberal enough for me. But I chalk it up to personal political differences between those of the "grassroots" left and the "big tent" left.

Enter conservative radio-talker Rush Limbaugh:

Limbaugh took the occasion to double-down on Emanuel's remark. On his radio show, Limbaugh made an even more derogatory comment, insisting that there can be no insult in "calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards."

The real news, Limbaugh continued, was that Emanuel had directed his "retard" comment at Obama supporters. "So now there's going to be a meeting," he said. "There's going to be a retard summit at the White House."

Not only did Limbaugh use this hurtful word repeatedly but he outright refuses to apologize to God's children for his venom spread as a public figure. What is more, Limbaugh has decided to use the words "retard summit" to embellish his point which removes the question if we are talking about Limbaugh believing others to be simply misguided in their thinking and he is slurring them in sport, or if he is talking about a group of people as "inferior" examples of humanity than himself. The question of if we are talking about persons or talking about ideas is made clear in Limbaugh's statement but Emanuel's statement could be taken either way.

This combined with the large difference in stature between a radio shock-jock and a White House chief of staff makes for a situation in which surely Sara Palin must see the need to say more about Rush's "slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities -- and the people who love them" as there is no doubt it was and remains to be "unacceptable, and heartbreaking" that slurs and vile contempt for fellow human beings is so widely accepted in modern political lexicon.

There seems to be some confusion in the Sara Palin camp as to the seriousness of this kind of language being used by public figures in our politics. She has decided to issue an statement through a representative in regards to the offensive words of Rush Limbaugh rather than, as I believe is the proper format for a public figure of her stature, post her thoughts onto her Facebook page in regards to these onslaughts thrown at God's children from the EIB studios.

This confusion persists as Sara Palin continues to hold her true feelings in about those who use mass media and public formats to attack the developmentally disabled in regards to this, possibly intentional, slight against her child and her family by Rush Limbaugh.

As it stands it appears that either Sara Palin was simply trying to score cheap political points by chastising Rahm Emanuel when "it doesn't matter who said 'r-word'" or she has merely yet to properly address the seriousness of Limbaugh's attacks against the developmentally disabled. There is no question that EIB & Rush Limbaugh thrown down the gauntlet against the rights of the developmentally disabled to be treated will respect and dignity. What remains to be seen is if Sara Palin will continue to waffle the issue by having her spokesperson, Meg Stapleton, speak for her or if she will stand proud and tall against all those who would cast such spiteful injuries unto those who deserve our greatest compassion in this modern lexicon.

==========================================

UPDATE!

Rush Limbaugh was won, unquestionably. Sara Palin has laid prostrate before his mighty slurs.

President of Fox News Lies Twice on ABC

2010-02-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

Rodger Ailes, President of Fox News, appeared recently on ABC's "This Week" and was at long last confronted on his recent condoning of the most intense fear-mongering and incitement toward violence ever seen in modern U.S. politics & punditry via Glenn Beck of Fox News.

Ailes proceeded to make two non-factual statements and then attempted to dismiss the issue when confronted by Ariana Huffington. Two more pieces of misinformation to throw on the great pile of growing nonsense that is News Corp and Fox News. (And kudos to Ariana for bringing this topic to the table, as it is a very serious matter going mainly ignored.)

Ailes said that he believed it "accurate" to compare to this administration to that of Stalin or Hitler, or his words leave the question hanging as it is obvious to anyone that Beck was not speaking in a past tense of historical nature but in a wild-eyed screaming call to the present situation. Rodger Ailes lied on ABC airwaves in saying that Beck was talking about "Stalin and Hitler" when he spoke of "leading people to the slaughter."

I could by the same tokens that Glenn Beck tosses around say that Rodger Ailes & Fox News are leading us to slaughter. Slaughter of the truth, slaughter of free speech, slaughter of ethical journalism. If Rodger Ailes truly supports the insane logic of Glenn Beck then surely he still understands the need to balance out perspective and provide everyone the opinion of people who think that they are the ones destroying America and intentionally creating fear and hate for the sake of sheer greed. Would that not be "fair and balanced"?

Ailes also created a false apology from Glenn Beck, that never happened. Glenn Beck never apologized for spreading racist lies about an elected leader of the United States of America, he only apologized for his phrasing and inserted literally the exact wording I used when mocking him here on the internet; almost verbatim.

Glenn Beck: "It is a serious question that I think needs serious discussion."

Beck never apologized for what offended so many on many sides of politics, and we are supposed to believe that begging the same race baiting line of questioning is some kind of "apology"!?!

Rodger Ailes lied once again, in a very tight time constraint, to defend Glenn Beck from facing the truth and the light of day.

This would be very much like if I called it an "apology" to just repost "Did Glenn Beck Commit a Murder-Rape in 1990?" & links to GB1990.com and at the top of the post just inserted: "I phrased myself poorly before but this issue is very important and I think needs a serious discussion."

One matter was settled though: Fox News is not a news agency.

When the president of an outfit states that he is "not in the news business, he is in the ratings business" then it proves case-and-point exactly what I, and many others, have said for a very long time: Fox "News" is not news, it's just pure entertainment from every last inch of it right down to the news tickers.

It's like a window into what it's like to be a conservative for the sake of pure entertainment, and nothing more. Like an episode of "Lost" or watching "Family Guy" it is just a big bunch of fun ... but when you really get down to it, it's pure fiction just built to get ratings.

I'm glad that Rodger Ailes was honest to this regard, at least. Because he most certainly is not in the news business.

LiberalViewer Tackles "Citizens United v. FEC"

2010-01-31T19:59:00.000-08:00

LiberalViewer of YouTube attempts to set the record straight on mischaracterizations of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

It appears based on watching this video that the ruling is greatly misunderstood by both sides and I myself am inspired to try and read the whole 180+ page Opinion of the Court.

I am in no way advocating the chilling of free speech by value of it simply coming from a corporation or union.

It is a falsehood to state that this ruling allows for "unlimited contributions to political candidates" and also a point that is not within the primary argument against this ruling, as it did not effect those existing limitations.

I believe, personally, that the argument made that this will benefit non-profit advocacy organizations over private sector special interests has some serious flaws in it, while it is not altogether untrue.

It's true that some of the confusing regulations surrounding political advocacy have been discarded in this recent decision, but it is the structure and measure of what they have done that is so reprehensible.

Were it to be the case that a corporation had to declare their logo and "I Support This Ad" with the CEO standing there; then this decision would be far different in implications to our political process.

This logic that major multinational corporations will for some reason "not go there" with political issues is true to a certain extent but it precludes the simple truth that when seeing itself as threatened, as the insurance companies did the early days of the Health Care Debate, they will spend whatever they can as fast as they can to flood us with ... media. Media like television ads.

How quickly we forget as a nation, as a people, that Sen. John Kerry was literally "slimed" out of his equal opportunity at the democratic process in a bid for president no less by what we now call "swing voting" but if you track this story out it was a bunch of frauds who demeaned their personal character in a outright smear campaign. One of them lives right here in Santa Cruz, California and just like the Bush administration itself they are taking no responsibility for this in public.

How easy it will be now for a nameless silent corporate partner to just bankroll a bunch of TV ads either pro or con for a candidate that had policies that just might ask them to give a little back after they take so much from the environment, for instance. If understand that McDonald's is Pro-McCain, just as a random example, then many of my concerns go away. But as it stands the Sierra Club, the NRA and the example of the video clip Microsoft could all wildly flood a campaign with media while grassroots money and dedicated social advocates of any position would be overshadowed.

Also this argument that money doesn't win elections is also partly false. Money is not enough, as the examples of Ross Perot and Mitt Romney illustrate, but the 2008 Campaign for the White House was in part decided on the dollars and cents. Of course you need the solid candidate, as the Democrats held with Obama, to seal the deal but my studies in Political Science completely disagree with the scoffing of this notion of looking at the financial impact and earnings to get the best picture.

As I stated before, I believe I may have to read this entire decision before I am totally satisfied I understand it fully.

For now, I am strongly standing with the words of President Obama in his State of the Union address calling this decision a means by which we will "open the floodgates" to foreign special interests and corporate lobbyist influence over the actual results of our elections themselves.

I feel both the SCOTUS and perhaps LiberalViewer as well have concerned themselves too much with entities that deserve very little concern or express protections of the court while neglecting to see the ramifications of said decision on the people that truly represent democracy at it's core.

To put it plainly: this appears a "open door" policy in terms of slash-and-burn negative political ads at the end of a campaign cycle to force a candidate to lose based on hyperbole, as we have seen before in politics. Slime works, and I as I understand it the SCOTUS just ruled in favor of slime in our elections.

============================

UPDATE!

Russ Feingold at CounterPunch.org explains what Sam Donaldson was speaking about that I referred to as "inaccurate" in the above piece.

I was under the impression that he was saying that Soft Money limits are now gone under this ruling but in fact it he was speaking to the issue of spending directly out of the treasury without limit.

***Thanks to Paul J. Rourke for bringing this to my attention and providing the link.

Obama Rocks The House In Baltimore

2010-01-30T04:41:00.000-08:00

“I am not an ideologue.” - President Barack Obama

This was a high point in the entire Obama presidency, and a rare move on behalf of any president to appear in a oppositional party forum to answer questions directed at them on the public record.

This was the clear and transparent dissolving of the talking points and misinformation spread by conservatives at an alarming rate since the election of Barack Obama.

He was polite, concise, accurate and took a great deal more responsibility of his missteps than is common in politics; whereas the questioners seemed to be mostly delivering boiler-plate talking points that resound across conservative-talk mediums but have little factual basis if any at all.

This was a move of a bipartisan, non-ideologue president seeking a solution and not just a ceasing of partisan fires throw at him. What I have serious doubts about is if the Republican opposition can see clearly enough in this atmosphere to hear his simple words about the Health Care Reform being far less than “radical” and his simple statement that if a better plan that cost less and worked was available from Republicans he would gladly implement it.

This is what I believe of President Obama: he is a pragmatist. He will work with those who have solutions that get results and not by simple partisan standards.

"Snow Crash" and "Reefer Madness"

2010-01-30T00:08:00.000-08:00

I have two reading suggestions for you today:

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson

I have but scratched the surface of this science fiction novel that has been recommended to me many times over. I am fast seeing this book as one that sits in the all-time-favorite pile for me, as well as just being a lot of fun.

"Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market" by Eric Schlosser

I have also only just begun to read this book but it is obviously a highly informative, if somewhat outdated (2003), observation of the American Black Market. This is the "unspoken" piece of the economy as a whole.

There are strange parallels between these two books that I am only just being to piece together.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Political Freedom

2010-01-29T04:36:00.000-08:00

In an appauling U.S. Supreme Court decision that came down recently there will be no monetary limit on how much corporations can spend on political campaign advertisement. The party-line ruling is disturbing to me in that so clearly endorses big-money special interests while leaving the American public behind. No "grassroots" movement can challenge the private slush funds of corporate CEOs but the opinions of the people are the driving force of democracy, so these few private interests will crush any movement they desire from Tea Party to Anti War groups alike.

I believe we may very well be standing upon the critical moment in the U.S. where we must decide as a people if we want to have a country of principals and values or a country of slanders and greed.

I am reading the Opinion of the Court and it spends much time worried about "chilling free speech" while their ruling will have that ultimate effect. The free speech of a corporation is not threatened it is the voice of against the corporation that is "chilled" by the ruling. The constitutional right of those who speak out against corporate monoplies are the forms of speech that deserve the highest protections and considerations of the court. Instead the court refuses to "adopt an intrepation that requires case-by-case to determinations on banned political speech" which to me would be the purpose of the highest court and the highest legal minds being put all together to decide just such matters.

Conservative Propagandist Arrested for Illegal Wiretap

2010-01-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

Once again, I have been proven to have been correct in my assessment of both the motives and character of one of the right-wing's poster boys: James O'Keefe III.

The same man who lied before the American public with the assistance of Fox News and Sean Hannity has been caught trying to once again fabricate vicious lies against others for the sake of political gain.

This time around O'Keefe tried to shakedown Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Here is the story on NOLA.com:

Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.

When Flanagan and Basel entered the office, they told the staffer they were there to fix phone problems. At that time, the staffer, referred to only as Witness 1 in the affadavit, observed O'Keefe positioning his cell phone in his hand to record his co-horts.

After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn't working. Flanagan did the same.

They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located.

A witness from Landrieu's staff said O'Keefe was present in the office and claimed to be "waiting for someone to arrive."

Let's also not forget that these pundits of Fox News such as Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly have all used this vile propaganda against ACORN to advance their own careers in hate-broadcasting.

This time we caught the con in the act, but this is the "new media" that conservatives and the Tea Party alike support: frame jobs, illegal wiretaps & outright lies.

This is Nixon Era politics in 2010.

The Port-au-Prince Earthquake

2010-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

(ReliefWeb)

The capital of Haiti has been struck with a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that the Haitian government is estimating has taken the lives of 200,000 people. This tragic loss of life in the wake of horrific devastation has gripped my heart, and the hearts of many others, as the horrible images and stories pour out of Haiti.

International humanitarian aid efforts have been working around the clock since the beginning of the disaster and there always remains a need for private donations to help get aid out faster to suffering Haitians.

Google has donated $1 million to relief efforts and have a donation page where you easily donate to a charity of your choosing with a Google account.

Save The Children and World Vision are both accepting donations that will directly effect the people of Haiti.

Mobile customers can text from their mobile device the word "HAITI" to the number "90999" to make a $10 donation the Red Cross, as described in this press release:

According to AT&T officials, wireless customers of the company can send $10 donations to the Red Cross International Relief Fund by sending a text message from their mobile device. Standard text messaging rates may apply. The company officials said that a customer has to simply type the word HAITI and send it to 90999. A confirmation message will arrive within a few minutes, to which the customer replies “yes” to finalize the donation. 100 percent of all money donated will be passed on to the Red Cross, the company officials said.

(I am not certain if this works on all mobile networks, but apparently it does.)

I Believe Glenn Beck is Dangerous for America

2010-01-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

This all bounces around in circles, just as Glenn Beck had hoped it would.

He is supporting unconstitutional rhetoric and calling the people as doing the same.

He is hiding behind a shroud of lies and then claiming that the scorn that befalls him is an attempt to silence truth.

It seems the new right-wing meme to just accuse the other guy of exactly what you are doing so they have trouble calling you out on the ugly that you just spread all over the table.

Liars of this magnitude are not just merely irritating, as some have suggested to me, they are dangerous when given a platform of supposed credibility.

Beck spends much of his time smearing progressives and Obama; but by the same tools he uses to falsely blame progressives / liberals are all of societies woes I could turn about and say that conservatives are the core of what is diseased and sick with the country. The same vile venom could be reversed to make the “enemy” the other side. There is no discourse to be had and that is exactly the goal from the beginning for this latest vein of populist-conservative banter.

Glenn Beck will lie at any cost and continue to destroy democracy with his fear-mongering theories until people like you and me stand up and will say we have had enough of this vile anti-American propaganda.

Partisan bullies like Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the corporate tools will always jump to defend the likes of these mindless hateful notions touted by Glenn Beck. The disgusting angle on both of these men is they claim to be “bipartisan” but they constantly attempt to demean and fabricate facts about liberals but never use the same dirty tactics against conservatives.

Glenn Beck is the most unpatriotic broadcaster in U.S. History, and the fact that he remains on the air proves that racism and hate-speech sells better than Americanism and education. Perhaps Rodger Ailes made a simple business decision: that selling fear-mongering and race baiting was more important than representing American values.

--

After watching this video one could conclude, as Bill O’Reilly wants everyone to, that all voices against Glenn Beck have been those of the political left. But this is in fact not true. The Anti Defamation League is not a political-left group and they have gone out of their way to illustrate how dangerous and hateful this man’s chosen rhetoric is.

What these people engage in just simply a labeling-game of a highly partisan nature of any ideological group that disagrees with their positions. Their own policy positions and tactile logic being so lacking they resort to defining the opposition instead of sharing their own perspective weighed against another extreme position. That is the definition of “fair & balanced” or “bipartisanship” … both sides of the political spectrum; not just one side amplified to an unrealistic height.

Everyone has to be a “far left radical” or a red baiting term like “socialist” or “Marxist” because if they are not then people might realize that being a patriotic American means respecting the difference of opinion rather than allowing yourself to be so broken and dishonest a person to believe or spread unsubstantiated slurs about liberals / progressives / Democrats instead of your own differing policy ideas and world view.

It is Glenn Beck leading the charge, with the other pundits of Fox and the Tea Party riding behind him, to destroy the political debate and corrupt the political dialect in this country as much as possible. This man toys with racism, McCarthyism, political bigotry and fear-mongering about the government like they were all harmless tools when they deadly weapons that will destroy our democracy if left to spread like a virus throughout the country.

To put it another way: Beck seeks to destroy the middle and push everyone into hateful opposing camps instead of negotiating parties.

I have for many weeks been mulling over exactly what could be said that is truly “bipartisan” about Glenn Beck and all his noise.

That is what I come up with, just that alone. He seeks to destroy the middle and aggravate existing social tensions for profiteering motives at the expense of our very system of democracy were his notions and supposedly genuine “fears” followed through to their logical conclusion. Glenn Beck paints an America that is dark and filled with myths that become reasons to hate the world.

However, all is not lost. I suggested we “Hit Glenn Beck Where It Hurts,” in the advertisers. And to some extent we were successful: a reported total of 20 sponsors dropped Glenn Beck after his racialist statement about a U.S. President was not apologized for nor retracted formally by the network at the reported request via multiple letters to Rodger Ailes. Many people saw the truth: that this was not about political opinions anymore and that Beck had purposefully been race baiting when he called Obama a “racist.”

The case that defines Glenn Beck is a case that they will never air or likely ever speak out on any version of Fox News. That being the most “extremist” internet-attack against Beck, that in fact illustrates quite well what his common tactic is when creating his fantastic tales of fiction. Minus the shock-value, the point is more on a legal aspect as to where his true allegiances lie. Beck went outside the United States, and sought European-brands of justice to serve him when he became of this “rumor” about him and wanted them squashed. He could have sought to U.S. Constitution that he claims to love so dearly to help defend him in what he saw as a violation of his rights, but instead he opted to try and simply destroy the opposing voice with a foreign court. It did not stop there, from there Beck has used his big-money influences to try and push this website promoting this “rumor” as “satirical comedy” off the bandwidth with dirty corporate tactics; the very same tactics he claims to despise so much. The website remains, and freedom of speech is protected despite Beck’s attempt to destroy it. I reposted that website-content on to my blog in the spirit of “rodeo clowning” that Glenn Beck is so found of himself. I refuse to take it down even if I don’t completely enjoying having it up.

--

Glenn Beck is smarter than he wants his audience to know. A trend popular with women working at Fox, but Beck has taken it up for himself and it seems to work rather well for him.

He saw out over the horizon the same unwarranted fears and same old social tensions coming to rise in this country that I did nearly two years ago now. I mused that the time that I could go out into the lands as the healing suave, to bring some truth to matter and some real policy differences that people could see rather than hollow boiler-plate talking points. But what he decided to do was to pour gasoline on the fears and start putting Hitler-moustaches on anyone not giving to these ever-present right-wing propagandists that he frequently has as guests on his television and radio programs.

He and I are not so different, in that that he is an embodiment of someone like myself in my “extremes of opinions” except minus all morality, patriotism and ethical standards. It’s all very clever word-plays and out-of-context quotes and rewriting of U.S. History; but it’s not impressive because I could have done it too. Lying is easy, but the question is: Is it worth it?

In the end his soul will have to answer for the racism and many, many lies he has told. The money he makes while treating his audience like they are severely lacking intelligence (many unfortunately are) will buy him his ticket to the country club with Limbaugh and O’Reilly and the rest, but the currency of his character is forever darkened by the path he has chosen for himself.

Justice for ACORN

2010-01-10T14:46:00.000-08:00

I do ever so love being vindicated!

What most call “the Acorn scandal” is the “O’Keefe Smear Crusade” to me. This whole so-called “scandal” was all the brain-child of one sick and very likely racist individual.

To his discredit President Obama signed into law the bill that temporarily defunded ACORN.

I have remained steadfast in my stance against this propaganda promoted by the right-wing, and heavily by the far right-winger Glenn Beck.

I’ll admit it takes a few brain cells and a willingness to do more than just sound-byte a news story to understand exactly what James O’Keefe & Hannah Giles were doing in this “expose.”

But the bottom line here is that outright lies were told by O’Keefe on Sean Hannity’s show (named “Hannity" … vanity? No, Hannity) that the network refuses to clear up that directly address the credibility of all the accusations by these heartless propagandists.

Another day will decide if justice shall ever ring down on Fox News, but I wish to express that I didn’t point out some of the new revelations in a story I have taken up.

I smell justice and I like it because this age is lacking it a great many times over! Justice for ACORN means justice for America.

The removal of Senate funds based on nothing but a media-crusade was unconstitutional in nature, and I referred to it as a “war on the poor.”

It took a New York District Court Judge by the name of Nina Gershon citing separation of powers to see justice done in this case:

Gershon ruled Congress withdrew all funding with the "absence of a trial". She said the withdrawal would cause permanent harm to the organization. The Constitution requires "due process", which is normally interpreted as the jurisdiction of the judicial branch, not Congress's legislative branch.

These people still supporting this myth about ACORN truly believe that they can lie to the public and just cover it up with more lies. It is cases like these that draw the line between what is ideological differences and what is simply destructive, mindless, bigotry.

Let us not forget as well that this decision emboldens my argument that the popular figures on right-wing are standing against the very Constitution they claim to love as they fabricate reality and refuse to practice journalistic ethnics.

Vanda Felbab-Brown: "It's All or Nothing in Afghanistan"

2010-01-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

Vanda Felbab-Brown has written an excellent piece on the situation as it stands in Afghanistan.

She is less in favor of the "golden path" in the middle between war-hawking and peace-doving than I myself am but I see well the point she has made in this article and where it conflicts with my own views on the situation.

We should not delude ourselves that the middle is the golden path. Instead, we need to decide how much we care about the stakes and whether we are willing to resource the mission properly to achieve them.

In the Afghanistan strategy debate, two basic options have crystallized: a militarily beefed-up counterinsurgency or limited counterterrorism through selective strikes, many from the air and offshore. Public support seems limited for the former. Given the importance of the on-ground human intelligence, the effectiveness of the latter is questionable and, anyway, narrow counterterrorism was essentially the U.S. policy in Afghanistan until 2005 while the Taliban grew and al Qaeda regrouped. Hence strategists are proposing options that lie seductively “in the middle.” But these are unlikely to reverse the deteriorating security and produce a self-sufficient Afghan government.

My point here is simply that counterterrorism strategies need time in order to work, if they are going to have any positive effect at all, and that the true measuring bars of success in the region being brought into a more realistic framework is a step in the right direction. What remains to be seen is if these recent strategic changes will impact the situation for the better, so we might exit the region sometime before I have grandchildren, or if these new solutions have only further aggravated the situation in Afghanistan.

Should all our efforts prove fruitless and our options only include massive counterinsurgency troop build-ups with no clear exit in sight that we should then consider the complete withdrawal as the only reasonable option and to dismiss or diminish the need to seek a workable solution in Afghanistan or start realistically considering complete withdrawal. Just as Vanda put it: "we need to decide how much we care about the stakes and whether we are willing to resource the mission properly to achieve them."

Neither A Dove, Nor A Hawk

2010-01-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

(Air America)

I realize I am casting myself unto outcast island with my support of the Afghan Surge, but this was exactly the policy I was advocating the president take in the first place. A increase in troops only under the predication of a withdrawal time line and clear goals set that are attainable. In essence the nation building that they do, that they don’t want to call nation building, needs to be either stabilized or abandoned. That is the hard truth of the matter, like any other war that we start as a nation we must come to bring it to an end-point.

It sounds rather strange, but I reject the rejection of the proposed draw-down in 2011 as being nothing but a smoke-screen or a political ruse on the left. Even in the announcement of this policy it sparked immediate reaction from President Karzai in terms of a statement about not being ready to handle security for “fifteen years.” That, of course, is absurd but it proves that much needed pressure is being applied for Karzai to take up a stronger level of national security in Afghanistan. There is also the larger foreign policy issue in terms of the surrounding regions being aware that the US is there to fight, but not there to stay on into infinity. Senator John McCain, who aspired to the highest office and did not take the seat that would have made this very decision, disagreed on this point of the Obama war policy utterly and advised against it in his “wisdom.” Then finally we have the matter of simple follow-through in terms of the campaigning in 2008 over Afghanistan being the “right war” from the Obama camp.

Many view it as Obama has placed himself in a box of being trapped to deliver on campaign promises, but I believe his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize was by far the most important and the most revealing speech of his entire political career. He placed himself on one side of an old argument started long ago by Saint Augustine as to if there is such a thing as a “just war” and I happen to be of the view that there is no such thing as this. However, if you remove that element of theological disagreement between President Obama and myself then I believe this speech answers almost every point of contention coming from the left toward the Afghanistan war policy.

This not the policy of a dove, any more than this is a policy of a hawk.

What we must avoid is creating the power vacuum of our sudden absence but at the same balance that fact that you and me everyone else is sick of war and just done with it for no real reason beyond just that. Which is good! But let’s do it right. Let’s bring about an actual “end-game” to this war and if deadlines are extended and we are left with “half a war” as we have in Iraq then I say that it still better than the McCain / Bush policy of “muddling through” in Afghanistan.

I am far from beating the war drums over here and as I have stated before my heart just cries out to “bring them home now!” but there is element of rationality that needs to be applied here to anything that is within the realms of war policy discussions. I am yet another of these “not a dove, nor a hawk” individuals who seek balance out an ugly reality against desires for peace. My support of “troop surges” and “soft power solutions” dissolves quickly as deadlines become discarded like the public option or when the troop increases become “like a drink of water” but as this policy stands I believe that we have to give these strategies a chance to work in order to ensure a future that might finally see an end to the war.

I’m certainly willing to admit to a possibly overly optimistic view on the matter, but I think this was the right policy for Afghanistan as the situation stands now.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T00:16:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong went all out for 2009.

London always has a great display.

But the numero uno New Year's Eve celebrations are always held in NYC of the USA.

I think I'll skip the craziness this year just because I hate going to things solo and I just got off work and everyone else is no doubt already drunk and getting louder by the minute.

Happy New Year; a joyous ending of the annual calendar to you!

:-)