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01-07-09

• Dem leaders go to the mat for their two-tiered justice system--leniency for the rich and powerful (our present system) and throw-away-the-key for everyone else (also our present system). Sen. Richard Durbin cries crocodile tears (huffingtonpost) over convicted and imprisoned corrupt Republican, former Illinois governor George Ryan. What yet unreturned favor is this all about? Sen. Harry Reid (firedoglake) does the same for convicted but still unsentenced corrupt Republican, former senator Ted Stevens (AK). I've really had it with the Democrat wing of the Capitalist Party. (It is a foregone conclusion that most of the Republican wing should already be in prison.) These Dem leaders are the same light bulbs whose party is presently skewering Democrat Roland Burris because indicted but unconvicted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed him--their customary circular firing squad--and the same guys who along with an endless parade of their so-call patriotic Democrat colleagues failed completely to ardently defend this country and the Constitution against the endless onslaught of probably irreparable damage by the illegal, fundamentally criminal Republican regime of the past eight years.
• Pete Johnson say, "Any hope of prosecuting the perpetrators of the stolen 2004 presidential election ended when Mike Connell died Dec 19 in a plane crash." (freepress) Did it? Is that all there is? Is that how it goes down for the greatest unindicted criminals of the 21st Century--George W. Bush and the Republican operatives who illegally enthroned him for eight horribly disastrous years? (See also my entry on 12-29-08" (Mayday Over Ohio . . .")
• Obama likes right-wing stooge Dr. Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General (nyt). I lost all respect for this guy during his disingenuous attacks on Michael Moore on CNN over Moore's new movie Sicko. What a perfect shill for the health insurance industry that, together with the pharmaceutical industry, have bled the American healthcare system to death and have driven up US health care costs to the highest in the world. Surely Obama could find a more qualified nominee than this pretty-faced flimflam man--whatever would Gupta do without his pounds of orange makeup? If Obama likes show biz doctors so much, he could nominate former ophthalmologist Dr. Dean Edell, who has been broadcasting regularly since 1978, when Gupta was only 11 years old. For cryin' out loud! There has to be a better qualified representative to be Surgeon General of the United States of America!
• Obama picks East Timor genocide supporter Dennis Blair as his new Director of National Intelligence (democracynow).
• Once-in-a-century solar blast could wipe out huge sections of the national power grid -- for months (spaceweather). I'll add this to my list of "interesting times" that would make us bend way over and kiss our asses goodbye, like Yellowstone blowing up, a bird flu pandemic, an asteroid hit, or an exchange of nukes between a couple of pissed off and very stupid countries. Ah yes, the fear-mongering History Channel, Sci-Fi Channel, and Discovery Channel love to promote this kind of stuff so we'll all be fearful, gelatinous blobs that will eagerly accept anything our military-industrial complex leaders would like to experiment with next. There has already been a sci-fi done on this one.
• Project Censored's # 4 story for 2009: ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America? (projectcensored) International Law Enforcement Academy, now a decentralized function of the former notorious School of the Americas, is a Bill Clinton love-child from the mid-'90s to provide safe regions for foreign investment (of course!). With ample reason, human rights advocates are very concerned. Follow UpsideDownWorld, TowardFreedom, and SchoolOfTheAmericasWatch for updates on this situation.
• The Galactic Core in Infrared (apod), wherein lies the great swirling drain of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

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01-06-09

• Donate free rice while honing your vocabulary (freerice-voc) or other (freerice-other) cognitive skills.
• Oregon church to stop signing marriage licenses until same-sex couples can legally wed (washblade) Way to go CUCofC!
• Bush a total jerk to the end. WH lied about 119-room Blair House or any reasonable part of it being unavailable to the Obamas during the time they requested to stay there early in January. (youtube)
• Israeli-occupied territory, aka, Capitol Hill, preparing pro-Israel resolution (jta). "AIPAC lickspittles Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Howard Berman (D-CA and definitely a weirdo) back resolution supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza. Hoyer's sister is a one-time executive director of AIPAC" (waynemadsenreport).
• Feinstein And Rockefeller To Obama: We Liked Bush’s Appointees More Than Panetta (thinkprogress). Now, why does that suddenly make Leon Panetta a much more attractive nominee for Director of the CIA? Still trying to wash off that damned spot after shaking Lady Di's hand a couple times. Not enough soap. Can't say I've had the pleasure with Sen. Rockefeller, although I'm sure the situation would be similar.
• Democrat senators soil themselves yet again by barring the seating of Roland Burris (abcnews), without presenting a single shred of evidence that he is corrupt or otherwise undeserving of the Senate seat yet unimpeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has bestowed upon him. Such cajones Democrat senate leaders have, now that it is one of their own they are attacking, instead of one of Bush's draconian and unconstitutional assaults on the foundations of the nation. By sending Burris to Washington, a black man and a man who is generally regarded as having an impeccable reputation, Blago has stuck his thumb into the eye of his US Senate detractors.
  
• Jupiter Eclipsing Ganymede (apod). When I first started peering through a telescope at Jupiter, there were 8 moons. As of May 7, 2008, there were more than five dozen (nasa). How the truth changes when you're trying to live in a reality-based world! How safe and secure it must feel to evangenital nutjobs (one example from a nauseatingly long list) who never have to worry about such trifles as changes in scientific reality. It's only science, unless, of course, you need an ER to save your life. But hey, Bush just gave health care providers the right to refuse to treat anyone they object to on religious moral grounds. How long will it be before some non-theist ER workers decide to deny evangenitals emergency care on the basis of their own religious moral beliefs about evangenitals?

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01-05-09

• Big-Brother capital of the West, the UK has become even more snoopy (independent). Police have been given the power to hack into personal computers without a court warrant. What an idea! How long will it take before the US imports Britain's great snooping ideas? Whoa there, Trigger! It's already happening where major cities like Chicago are setting up vast video surveillance networks. Time to watch Enemy of the State again and multiply it times - - - 20?
• Two-Thirds of US Companies Avoid Paying Federal Income Taxes (abcnews). As part of his weakening stimulus plan, President-elect Obama plans to give yet more tax breaks to those remaining businesses that still do pay some US taxes (bloomberg). One of those breaks is geared toward rewarding those companies that hire new employees. Something tells me, however, that few companies are going to hire new employees--with all their attendant costs--only for Obama's tax break, though I'm sure for some it will be enough to tip the scale. When times improve, yes, they'll do it then, take the tax break and perhaps some few will thank him for his generosity. His other business tax cuts do not directly relate to hiring new employees, but merely give businesses a little support in this troubling time. Obama figures his tax reductions should come to about 40% of the stimulus package. [See update 01-22-09 (Obama scrapped funding . . .)] Ouch! is Obama going Republican-Lite on us? I sure (was hoping for more infrastructure projects and the new jobs and essential end-products they would produce. Nobel-prize-winning economist Paul Krugman questions Obama's judgment on this plan (nyt). (See also my comments 12-30-08 (Obama is considering . . .) - Oh, and by the way, President-elect Obama, isn't there something you could do to force more US companies to pay their fair share of federal income tax? What they don't pay, the middle class has to offset. How else could the US Department of War have enough money to bomb to smithereens all those innocent "collateral-damage" men, women and children in countries where the US has strategic interests?
• Comet Lulin and Meteor (apod)

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01-04-09

• Democrat Al Franken to be declared Senate victor in Minnesota, with a lead at the moment of 225 votes (reuters). This has been a grueling ordeal for him and for Minnesota. The only reason it was possible to do such a recount at all is that there were paper ballots available to recount. If Minnesota were a DRE black box voting state like Georgia and too many others, there would have been no possible way to do such a recount. Republican incumbent Norm Coleman has tried to throw every possible roadblock in the way of a complete and accurate recount and will continue to try to get the courts to turn it around for him. Franken, never a fan of the election integrity movement, is the only host on liberal radio network Air America (Listen) who would never invite Brad Friedman (The Brad Blog), election integrity blogger and expert, to come on his show to discuss election integrity issues. I wonder if Franken is still as closed-minded and myopic -- or has The Universe spoken to him in a way he can finally understand?
• Orwell, blinding tribalism, selective Terrorism, and Israel/Gaza (Glenn Greenwald, salon) A look at the sociopathic logic regarding Israel's form of "terrorism" against Hamas leaders (a 2000-pound Israeli bomb dropped from an airplane, that wipes out not only the target individual, but also 18 others in his home, including his four wives and nine of his children -- "the good kind" of terrorism) versus Hamas's form of "terrorism" against Israelis (suicide bombs and poorly guided homemade rockets that kill and maim indiscriminately -- "the bad kind"). Greenwald says, "There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term."
  
• Israel's goal in Gaza is to utterly crush any semblance of Palestinian resistance to Israel's continuing theft of Palestinian lands (map of shrinking Palestinian borders), brutal occupation, apartheid, and inhumane and illegal cruelty toward the Palestinian people. Israel basically fears the Palestinians because they produce large families and one day could far outnumber Israelis in the land of Canaan. To indulge in a little belated quarter backing, Israel should never have been reestablished in the Middle East, but it served the Western powers' desire to plant a strategic wedge deep in the Arab world to try to control future Arab growth as a unified power. Maybe better that Israel had been created in some other place, like West Texas on the Mexican border, for example, brutally uprooting hundreds of thousands of Texans and appropriating their assets. After all, West Texas is also stolen land. Perhaps by now we would have an expanded Israel down there on the Rio Grande, with enlarged borders in every direction, at continual odds with both Texans inside and outside of Israel, and Mexicans--and, of course, all in the name of Israel's national security against any who would like to destroy her and wipe her off the face of the map. Israel has no inherent right to be in its present location in the Middle East, other than the legal claim given it by the League of Nations. The land was Palestinian and had been so for hundreds of years. Prior to all this, those Israelis still living there and their Palestinian neighbors had gotten along generally well. However, in the late 1940's, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were both driven out of their homes and killed in order to appropriate their lands and assets. Israel often sanctimoniously proclaims that the land belongs to Israelis because Israel is God's Chosen People and that He gave it to them--Eretz Yisrael. Such utter, unequivocally self-serving nonsense! If over centuries in the Bronze Age I were concocting a national history to justify my national existence and security among my neighbors, I suppose I might be tempted to include claims of great miracles and victories over my enemies at the hands of the gods, the greatest masters of heaven and universe, and the granting of my country their/His special blessings and protection, and, of course, the deed of ownership to the land. --- Has any of the foregoing rant anything to do with anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Well, yes and no. YES to anti-Zionism and NO to anti-Semitism. Zionism has to do with politics, with the political state of Israel and Israel's policies, and all that that engenders in Israel's present location--and, well, what you see is what you get. Semitism, on the other hand, is all about the people as people. Some of my best friends from infancy on up through the years have been Semites, and I have treasured them all.
  

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01-03-09

• Beyond Bailouts: On the Politics of Education After Neoliberalism (truthout) What did Ronald Reagan unleash on the world by pandering to his greedy plutocrat base? Possibly far worse than any of us have yet envisioned. It's far from over.
• One activist CAN make a difference: 27-yr-old student land-auction meddler has a new plan (commondreams). University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher explains how he “bought” 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from drilling (democracynow video).
• Project Censored's # 3 story for 2009: InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business (projectcensored). Thousands of businessmen are spying on fellow Americans for the FBI and DHS (Homeland Security). In return they receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public gets them, and even before some elected officials. One of the various perks: members have permission to shoot to kill with legal impunity in the event of martial law. That's just great! How many of the internet-based companies we routinely do business with are eagerly passing on our information to Big Brother? Local businesses where we shop and talk? When will it be our next-door neighbor? The mailman (zdnet)? The fireman (watchdog)? Bush's and Rove's Nazi family connections are bleeding through, I fear (commondreams). Rotten apples truly do fall close to the tree.
• Some researchers are now hypothesizing that an asteroid impact 12,900 years ago could explain the extinction of North America's giant ice age mammals and even the Clovis people, who then were established in parts of North America. (iht). It's gratifying to see IHT correctly using the term hypothesis to describe this notion, rather than the commonly misused term theory. In science the two terms have distinct meanings that the general public usually does not appreciate, thus creating considerable confusion among creationists and those undecideds casually looking at their bronze-age arguments. In common usage, people say theory when what they really mean is notion, or unproven idea. To a scientist, however, it is the hypothesis that is the unproven idea, and it often takes a lot of experimenting to finally determine the correctness of an hypothesis. Moreover, it takes a lot of tested and proven hypotheses to finally establish a theory. For the scientist a theory is the organized structure where everything that is finally known, understood and settled about a matter is housed. Quite a difference, huh? - Oh, and by the way, you talk funny. I've got a theory about you, pal.
• Flashback--Slavery Is Alive and Well in the U.S. (alternet)
• Alaskans passionately lust for their own permafrost socialism (mcclatchydc). Remember Republicans' and Theocratia Palin's hypocritical whining about Obama's "socialist" (or was it "Marxist") plans to redistribute wealth downward--that is, when there still was some wealth available to redistribute? (Olbermann, youtube)
• Wall Street Up on First Trading Day of 2009 (reuters). You want market directional indicators? Ok. First day. First week. First month. - Economists who use obviously flawed models to find reasons to be optimistic, saying the worst may soon be over (iht). Oh the other hand, Nouriel Roubini at New York University, who called the 2008 collapse correctly, expects "a deep and protracted contraction lasting at least through the end of 2009," adding that in 2010 the recovery may be so weak "that it will feel terrible even if the recession is technically over." I'll trust the guy who's been right, rather than a bunch of economists who are paid to be optimistic and have been wrong.
• The 111th Congress will convene next week (ap). Will they be as destructive to the foundations of our democracy as prior congresses? Can a congressman really smell money a mile away, hermetically sealed and buried 100 feet underground?
• Israel's righteous fury and its victims in Gaza (electronicintifada). Is Israel gradually becoming like its former Nazi oppressors? The victim becomes the abuser. - Israel launches ground invasion of Gaza (guardian.co.uk) (cnn) - Civilians take brunt of 7th day of Gaza offensive (malaysiastar)
• Thousands of shoes litter Miami freeway (mcclatchydc). Beginning of a movement? With more Republicans now leaving Congress and the Bush Crime Gang leaving the White House on January 20, I guess one could happily conclude that this January the world is indeed having a desperately needed bowel movement.
• Double Open Star Cluster in Perseus (apod)

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01-02-09

• Crawford shops marking down Bush memorabilia (theaustralian). Is it time to pick up a few Bush gewgaws for the long term? Maybe they'll become collectors items like Nazi trinkets are now. Don't forget to include a Turd Blossom bobblehead or two.
• Portland, Oregon now the largest US city with an openly gay mayor (oregonlive). Way to go, Sam!
• Crescent Moon and Brilliant Venus (apod)

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01-01-09

• One year in 40 seconds (youtube)
• Having handed Bush since 2001 nearly everything he ever wanted for dismantling what might have still been left of our dying Democratic form of government, Democrat leaders now act tough and bloviate about not seating tainted Illinois governor's choice, Roland Burris, to fill Obama's vacated seat (latimes). Rather than consider Burris on his merits, senate leaders have armed police standing ready to bar him from the senate floor. Give me a break! These preposterous milquetoast Democrats look completely ridiculous in this spectacle of their own making now that Blagojevich has called their bluff. These light bulbs would rather force a special election in Illinois--one that they just might lose--than accept a Democrat appointed by Blagojevich now that Bush-appointed Republican prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has held up Blago's dirty linen for the whole world to snicker at.
• Chalmers Johnson discussing his three books on the overreach and decline of the American military empire--Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, Nemesis (video.google). Johnson, a professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego, remarks that if you have a little money, it probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to invest in a home away from home up in Canada.
• Palestinian Massacre in 6th Day - Israel destroys Palestinian government buildings in Gaza (reuters) - 4 Israeli and Israeli-Arabs dead. - 400 Palestinians dead. Anything out of balance here? Israel rationalizes that if it takes out 30 nearby innocents while successfully killing one target, everything is fine and dandy--fully justified. Somewhat similar to US military thinking in its modern-day massacres of innocents from high flying bombers. Therefore, 4,221 US troops dead, 100,000+ innocent Iraqis killed as collateral damage. This in no way accounts for the remainder of the nearly 1,500,000 Iraqis killed in all ways as a result of George W. Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq. Israeli troops dance as they await the ground invasion of Gaza (mcclatchydc). Whatever became of the thundering drumbeat? Q: What helped the rise of Hamas? A: US and Israel policies (mcclatchydc)
• Glenn Greenwald, 2008 Another brutal year for liberty (salon)
• Annie (1982) - "It's A Hard Knock Life" (youtube) - "Tomorrow" (youtube)