Things that go pop

Bubble-gum goes pop.
Weasels, at least anecdotally, go pop.
Tires go pop.


Will the US bond market go pop?

Rhetoric and reality

The Rhetoric
------------

During his inaugural speech, President Bush spoke thusly:

"The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.""

The Reality
-----------

Former Army Sgt. Erik R. Saar has written a book about interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. Every man woman and child star-struck by the glory and the piety of George W. Bush should ponder one of the stories he tells. It fills me with a sickness of spirit that will not genuflect before the throne of our dear leader. If this kingdom be the kingdom of God, send me to hell with glee:

Imagine a prisoner far from the softness of hope under interrogation. Imagine the interrogator a woman. Imagine the prisoner being told that he can either "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving Guantanamo or talking to a lawyer"

Imagine that the man closes his eyes and begins to pray.

Imagine now that the interrogator removes her uniform top and taunts the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on the contents of his trousers (to put it as politely as I can).

Imagine that the interrogator leaves the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she can "break the prisoner's reliance on God".

I will not tell you the linguists advice, nor the events that followed. If you care to know what the President that speaks with God has wrought, you may find out by reading this. I must warn you, though, that it is an abomination to kindness and betrays the Sermon on the Mount:

Inquisition II

How long can we maintain our freedom under the rule of a just God?

Dick Cheney fashion faux pas

Here Dick Cheney's clothes remind one of a snowmobile outfit, which isn't very appropriate to commemorate the holocaust.

Real dignified

BRIC wall?

This news story discusses a BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) alliance ready for military confrontation with George W. Bush should neo-con dementia attack Iran and/or Syria.

Violence begets violence


I would like to assume that even the paranoia of Dick Cheney's mind is insufficient to provoke this kind of catastrophe, but the essensce of dementia is blindness to reason, and I am fairly certain he resides in dementia's grip.

George Washington's Farewell Speech

I have an inner calling that I do not understand.

"You must!", it says, nothing more.
When I wonder what it is that "I must!" I am simply met with urgency.
And time races, generating more urgency.
It feels like a trap.

What must I do/be/find?
What is so important, so vital, so attention-grabbing that "I must!"

Since I have tried to trust my heart, or that part of me which guides via instinct, this impossible task fills me with confusion and I am beginning to feel like the object of a joke.

Perhaps this is what we call mid life crisis, but it doesn't feel like a traditional crisis. It feels more like an effort to understand something...something I must understand because it is vital. I know this because my heart tells me so.

So I only know that I am searching, but not what I seek, and I don't know how to succeed nor even recognize my destination if I get there. Perhaps I will walk on by in ignorance.

One of the books I am currently reading, perhaps in Self defense, is "Time and the Soul" by Jacob Needleman. It suggests that I am struggling to remember my One True Self, which only adds more confusion at the moment, yet rings true somehow. If he is right, then I suppose my One True Self will instead have to remember me, since doing the opposite seems impossible. How can I find that within me which is unknowable?

By now you might wonder what this all has to do with George Washington's farewell speech (assuming that you have bothered to read this far). In a moment of comedy I realized that if I am searching for something I should try Google (which by the way is derived from googol, or the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros). Not knowing what to type, though, I typed in Jacob Needleman which led to this piece he did for NPR talking about George Washington's views on religion. This piece might surprise you as it did me, and now you can know the path that brought me here and us together:


George Washington's Farewell Speech


Now, if you'll excuse me I think I'll go check under my carpets to see if I have misplaced myself. I hope this is not as difficult as searching for car keys.

Kerry proposes health coverage for all children

I think it is a moral disgrace that the United States of America doesn't have Universal Health Care, that our elderly have to drive to Canada to find drugs they can afford, and that our children's health is allowed to suffer because we are collectively too cheap or too selfish to care.

Finally, though, John Kerry has been inspired to at least try and cover the children. He said that spending two years in America's living rooms made him realize that policy is about people, not politics, and that right now people are hurting.

Let's cover the kids

Republicans like to brag about supporting "family values" and "moral principles" and this provides them with a two-for-one, however I will have to see a doctor myself if that pack of wolves does anything other than howl at the impudence to suggest what morality and family values insist.

Few things bedevil my conscience like knowing some American children can't see a doctor when they need to. Mr. Kerry this is the best news I've seen in a long time. There is more to the golden rule than "do unto others" and it is time to call these moral imposters on their empty rhetoric.

Cartoon terrorism

With Osama on the loose and the war in Iraq going badly a Bush-backing coalition of Christian do-gooders is working diligently to save us from an axis of evil gay-tolerant cartoons.

It seems that the gaydar of the Religious Righteous is telling us that when Sponge Bob Square Pants holds hands with a starfish pal it projects a message of tolerance for gay couples:

Evil gay Bob

In another affront to the high moral standards of bigots, PBS's Buster the Bunny visited Vermont and encountered a lesbian couple that made maple syrup.

Sugar time

Do people really think a gay cartel is inserting homosexual propaganda into our cartoons? Has anybody else tried to imagine what sex between a sponge and a starfish would be like? Is the gaydar of a child advanced enough to know whether or not a pair of women from Vermont making maple syrup are lesbian?

What cartoons would Jesus watch?

Jan 26 becomes new "deadliest day" for U.S. in Iraq war

A hellicopter crashed in Iraq today and killed it's crew of 31 US marines.

5 soldiers were killed in other incidents.

Dammit

When does the soul of a nation awaken?

Shall we now take down 36 more yellow ribbons and hand the Bush administration $80 billion for more of the same?

Guns and butter

Here come the guns:

$80 Billion more for war

There goes the butter:

Bush Plans Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts

Any questions?

A cat named Chomsky

Noam Chomsky has been exposing America's untidy places for years, and I like to think of him as the psychoanalyst of the nation. He is formally a Professor of Linguistics at MIT, but enjoys rock-star parking at the world's greatest universities.

In this lengthy article entitled Imperial Presidency, he discusses America's foreign policy hypocrisy and the education that comes from the business end of a club.


If you enjoy the article you can enjoy interviews, books, letters, and more articles here:

Chomsky Info

Large-scale falsehoods

Something to reflect upon:

"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes."

- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Chapter 10 -

A companion piece to reflect upon:

Disarm Saddam Hussein (from White House)

The gravest danger we face in the war on terror is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

* Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm all weapons of mass destruction. For 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement.

* Three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam his final chance to disarm. He has shown his utter contempt for the U.N.

* The U.N. and U.S. intelligence sources have known for some time that Saddam Hussein has materials to produce chemical and biological weapons, but he has not accounted for them:

. 26,000 liters of anthrax—, enough to kill several million people
. 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin
. 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents

* Almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents

* From three Iraqi defectors, we know that Iraq in the late 1990s had several mobile biological weapons labs. But he has not disclosed them.

* The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on methods of enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb. He recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa [lie], according to the British Government. He has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons [lie], according to our intelligence sources. Yet he has not credibly explained these activities.

* Thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN inspectors.

* Iraqi officials accompany all inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.

* Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the U.N.

* Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with the UN be killed, along with their families.

* Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including al-Qaida members. He could provide hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. It would take just one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

The United States will ask the UN Security Council to convene next week to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. We will consult. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will act for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world.

One final reflection:

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

- Donald Rumsfeld -

Calling Bush's bluff

Freedom seems to be a word empty of meaning when it crosses the lips of George W. Bush. Juan Cole must feel so too, because he posted a pictoral rebuttal of the first line in President Bush's Inaugural speech here:

Broken articles

Juan correctly points out that if President Bush is such a lover of freedom he ought to let the sun set on the Patriot Act in 2005. He also challenges Congress to uphold the Constitution and that's a challenge I'd like to see accepted (at least by Democrats).

We could be rid of the cowardly Patriot Act this year with a timely burst of patriotism, and restoring our Rights would add conviction to the President's position.

Devotion

The north-eastern United States is being blanketed with snow and high winds on the heels of below-zero daytime temperatures. Understandably, many churches cancelled services today since roads are very difficult to clear when snow meets with high winds. As I was watching cancellation of this service and that service scroll across the bottom of my television, the morning program turned it's attention to tonight's Patriots Steelers match.

Apparently worshipers of God will take a devotional break from the churches, but nothing will stop a football game from taking place in the US of A. So, 68,000 people will be piling out onto Pittsburgh's roads, and if they make it to the stadium, they will sit in freezing temperatures and high winds to watch the Steelers and Patriots clash.

I have to wonder if God doesn't feel offended.

Click photo to satisfy blood-lust 

Deliver us from evil

The glaring, tragic problem with the way we have organized our economy is that we have arranged it such that the pursuit of profit is more highly rewarded than the pursuit of happiness.

Since ugly, gargantuan schools are cheaper than local, manageably-sized schools, we send our kids to boxy test-factories and celebrate our efficiency.

Since baseball must make ever-more profit, watching a game on television becomes a blur of sales promotions and the game itself becomes a vehicle for the selling.

The music industry is so debased with risk aversion that products like Hillary Duff can be designed in a boardroom and puked out on the industrial airwaves to consumers that have become zombie-like celebrity addicts.

Why are we doing this to ourselves and how do we create a happiness economy or a love economy? How do we take our economy's good attributes, like it's ability to move goods efficiently and reward hard work, and get rid of it's bad attributes like it's ability to ruin baseball and create poverty?

A child should no more starve for lack of money than a bird should fail to sing for want of notes. Both are intellectual constructs and both scenarios are equally silly, yet we allow the child-starvation scenario to play out every single day.

If a doctor's passion is to heal the sick and there are sick to be healed, why should money be allowed to stand between happiness and fulfillment, need and service?

Are the rich (or possessive) any happier than anybody else? Are they any more free?

Are the poor (or dispossessed) less entitled to economic support by circumstance, birth, or genetics?

Why should our servitude to money be more persistent than to a child's hunger?

Think of the disease, the starvation, the wars, the wretched poverty blanketing the earth and imagine your celestial self rolling the karma dice. What do you think the odds are that your karma will take you to a decent standard of living if you are to reincarnate?

Before anybody thinks I favor Karl Marx's solutions, I would like to state that I feel Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, Islam and Democracy are all corrupted by the influence of money (along with any other form of government you can name). What I propose, therefore, is to get rid of money and come up with a better system of government by default.

Do you ever wonder what such a world would look like?

I do, and I think I will hash some of this out. There are lots of Utopian novels out there and maybe reading some of them will point the way to a better society, one more nurturing and happiness rewarding.

If God is to ever deliver us from evil I'll bet he starts with money.

What mandate?

With sharp-shooters, closed city blocks, military parades, anti-aircraft guns, overhead jets, machine-gun nests, and an army of agents, Washington will resemble a May-day parade in Moscow as President Bush takes the oath of office today. You would think that a mandate-holding man of the people would not need such protection, but he seems to have more to fear than fear itself.

Speaking of mandate, or the authority to command inferiors, the folks over at Not in My Name intend to gently remind President Bush that this is America and we have done away with the tyranny of kings. On Friday, the first full day of President Bush's second term, this message will be published in the New York Times:

Welcome back George

It also seems a fitting moment to remind readers that this President has less public support (at 49% according to NYT and CBS news) than any returning American President in 50 years. In other words, mandate my arse!

Howard Zinn on Optimism

If you're happy and you know it
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it
and you really want to show it
If you're happy and you know it
clap your hands.

Clap
Clap

If, on the other hand, you're feeling a bit low on this day that the idol of idiot worshipers is getting inaugurated again, then perhaps a tale of hope will help:

Howard's optimism

RIP MLK 

Poetic Inauguration

President Bush continues to use our armed forces as props in his pageant and they continue to play along like Ken dolls. Here the stage is being set once-again for lock-step and glory.

Expensive Party in Wartime

The production is billed as a "salute to those who serve", but will really be a genuflection to those that didn't. Our troops were sent to war with inadequate armor and would probably love to have the day off to attend 9 parties, but instead have to live in the filth conjured up by the minds of the Bush administration.

A more fitting homage to this President would be a rousing 3-stooges-like march/shuffle and nyuk-nyuk chorus, led by a baton-twirling minister of silly walks. People in the audience could show their backsides to the passing motorcade and midget-clowns could circle it on go-carts. Pomp and circumstance would have to be played backwards on Kazoos by a deaf symphony, and the President could emerge in a tutu and cowboy boots and stride confidently to the microphone, which would be adjusted much too low for him.

The crowd would hush as President Bush opened his mouth to speak, except for 1369 mothers that would wail in unison, which would be the signal for a company of amputees to slowly walk, hop, or wheel in front of the podium, and each would be blindfolded with an American flag and led by a proud parent.

Then as President Bush tried again to speak everyone walks away except for a small girl in a red dress. She gives him the finger and then follows the crowd, singing "You've got the whole world in your hands" as she skips away.

The President doesn't follow.

Man date

President George Bush sure does use the word mandate a lot. You ever look it up in the dictionary?


Mandate: an authoritative command; especially : a formal order from a superior court or official to an inferior one.


Here is something which Eleanor Roosevelt said, in answer to George's power-lust: "Nobody can make me feel inferior without my permission."