Resistance Is Futile

As advanced as we like to think we are, thee are several forces that still kick our butt and Mother Nature is the greatest of these.  Whether it is an earthquake, tsunami, volcano, tornado or hurricane, nothing is the same afterward.  Lives are lost, property is destroyed and everyone runs around blaming someone other than themselves.  The further from the event, the more likely it will be perceived to be the victim's fault.  And the more likely it is that someone will take advantage of the circumstances.

Katrina had my bells going before she made landfall.  Actually, ever since and probably for the rest of my life.  Four years later and American citizens are still suffering from the effects of both Mother Nature and deliberate criminal negligence on the part of the government.  Make no mistake, the federal government took full advantage of the opportunity to rearrange a city and state to their advantage.

Mother Jones has an article fleshing out some of the background on the situation in New Orleans after Katrina that deliberately escaped the notice of the media.  True to form most people are upset about the racial implications, which are pretty bad and more than likely to be true, whereas I find the police state aspect to be even more frightening.  All the people currently proudly strutting around with their firearms on display would be in for a rude awakening if the same tactics were used in their area as were used against the citizens of New Orleans.

It started immediately after the storm and flood hit, when civilian aid was scarce—but private security forces already had boots on the ground. Some, like Blackwater (which has since redubbed itself Xe), were under federal contract, while a host of others answered to wealthy residents and businessmen who had departed well before Katrina and needed help protecting their property from the suffering masses left behind. According Jeremy Scahill's reporting in The Nation, Blackwater set up an HQ in downtown New Orleans. Armed as they would be in Iraq, with automatic rifles, guns strapped to legs, and pockets overflowing with ammo, Blackwater contractors drove around in SUVs and unmarked cars with no license plates.

"When asked what authority they were operating under,'' Scahill reported, "one guy said, 'We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.' Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, 'He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary.' The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck.''

The Blackwater operators described their mission in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods," as if they were talking about Sadr City. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting "the insurgency in the city." Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force, told the paper, "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

Ten days after the storm, the New York Times reported that although the city was calm with no signs of looting (though it acknowledged this had taken place previously), "New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers." The local police superintendent ordered all weapons, including legally registered firearms, confiscated from civilians. But as the Times noted, that order didn't "apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property…[who] openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles."

Isn't it fascinating how some people on the right are so worried about Obama taking their guns at will when Bush had already accomplished it and there wasn't a peep from the NRA before, during or after he did it?

The poor, not necessarily black (Barry Cowsill being one sad example), people had no way to get out of town before the storm.  Not being able to drive, they're the ones who use public transportation the most, they were dependent on those who had cars or the aforementioned public transportation.  Since history seems to show that disaster plans are practiced but rarely implemented, it is no surprise that bus drivers were evacuated with the rest of the middle class and there was no one left to drive the buses that everyone later saw underwater.  After the levees broke the poor's only hope was a coordinated rescue.  And we all know how well that turned out.

Rescue and return was never the point.  Collection and dispersion was the goal, even to the point of separating children from their parents.  Katrina is a shameful chapter in American history and the ramifications will not be going away soon.  Now that the government has had a satisfying taste of martial law and seen how willing the citizens were to turn on each other, any disaster can be turned into a public relations tool to convince the citizenry that everything will return to normal as long as they follow the directions of those wearing uniforms and carrying weapons.  You will be assimilated.

Or you will die. From the elements, be they weather related or lead poisoning.


BBB

Will The Democrats Screw Up?

Wow, how clueless do you have to be?  Of course the Dumocrats are going to screw up.  Unfortunately for the Repubs it won't be as bad as they themselves have done in the last eight years.  William Jacobson. a law professor from Cornell (I thought you had to be smart to attend there much less teach) sets out his reasons why the Specter defection will turn out to have a silver lining for the GOP.

So I'm not depressed about the long-term future of the country, although the next few years will be tough politically. The Democrats will screw up big time, as they did during the Carter years, and the damage they cause will be generational. But the clean-up is worth looking forward to, even if the mess is not.

How...kind of him.  As if the problems created by the last eight years aren't going to be generational.

His first argument is no surprise because I've been saying the same thing for years. The first duty of a politician is to get themselves reelected, preferably to higher office but staying in the Senate is a no brainer if you can't be President.  And just like any other party, if your date gets obnoxiously drunk it is better to go home with someone else.  Especially if you plan on getting there in one piece.

Now, in regard to the torture hearings, if America sits on its ass and does nothing to rectify or show shame about the situation, it will give those who hate us even more ammunition, not less.  As my father pointed out to me in 1967, the people in America have short memories and the people in the Middle East have extremely long ones.  The Turkish-Armenian situation is but one sad example.  Plus, and this is a big one, they are willing to die for their beliefs.  The majority of Americans aren't and our recent behavior more than makes this clear.

To accuse the Democrats of being the isolationist party is one of the most laughable arguments I've heard in years.  I was a Republican because I was an isolationist and a fiscal conservative until they lost their freaking minds.  Republicans ran up the national debt, like they always do, and went nuts on immigration.  If you were born brown and out of town you became the reason that everything went wrong in America.  Sheesh, get a grip.

Last time I checked we were a Republic, not a dynasty.  As history (there's that word again) has shown many times, the balance of power shifts across the globe pretty frequently.  Maybe if we hadn't spent all our resources, wasted our good will and destroyed our military in two useless wars we wouldn't be in the position of having to watch other countries pick up where we left off before we had our mental breakdown.  America is no longer a free society.  Our phones are tapped, there are surveillance cameras in almost every town, the police become more like the military every day and while the Second Amendment is in no danger, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth definitely are.

The national debt was way out of control before the Democrats were elected to power.  It got that way while the Republicans held sway and decided that the rich needed to be richer at the expense of everyone else.  Young people aren't stupid and since recent studies show that math scores are increasing they will be able to do the arithmetic.  A simple math problem might consist of something like this.  In 2000 there was a surplus and in 2008 there wasn't.  By a wide margin.  Yes, the deficit is going to be bigger for the next couple of years but that wouldn't have happened if the GOP hadn't engaged in a reverse Robin Hood scheme for the last eight years while at the same time increasing the size of government with duplicate agencies that contained their unqualified cronies.

Human rights, that's rich.  And who says it's only three members of al-Qaeda that were tortured?  It's much more widespread than that and everyone knows it.   Pregnant women wouldn't have joined the cause to blow themselves up if they and their baby had something to live for.  They don't.  We have turned their homes, fields and farms into one gigantic war zone in an effort to get revenge on people who are already dead.  Human rights belong to everyone, even if you're brown from out of town.  Other countries, who are much smaller than us geographically, have survived terrorism for years.  We have one instance of terrorism and now the nation wears diapers and cries for mommy.  They aren't destroying us, we are doing it ourselves.

I've been buying foreign cars for years and Detroit has been the reason.  As a woman I require that my car be dependable and affordable.  As an example in 1987 my brother and I got new cars at the same time.  I got a Honda CRX and my brother got a Pontiac Fiero.  He sold his car at the end of six months because it had spent three of those months in the shop and still didn't run right.  I drove the Honda for fourteen years and was grateful every day that I got over 40 mpg.  Detroit's solution was to build bigger and more unstable gas guzzlers.  And now there's no more Pontiac.  The government certainly can't do any worse than the auto execs did.  Unless it's run by people who say their goal is to drown it in a bathtub.

Health care.  Don't make me puke.  I grew up on Air Force bases using military healthcare.  It was nowhere near as bad as going to the doctor today.  Oops, I don't go to the doctor, I can't afford it and I don't qualify for health insurance because I have a preexisting condition called asthma.  The emergency room is my fallback for when it gets out of control and I think I'm going to suffocate.  We won't even go into that dental and vision thing, they don't seem to be on the radar of the entitled so why bring up another problem that those who have everything they need would like to ignore.  Oh yeah, that argument about waiting months for a surgical procedure?  Maybe you should talk to all the people who have health insurance and been denied procedures so the insurance companies can give their executives and shareholders enormous bonuses and dividends.

I'm black, there is racism, get over it.  When you have black communities in states where local governments have built services around them and they didn't have running water like their neighbors did for the last fifty years, that's racism.  When things like education and skills are equal and blacks and Latinos are earning less (provided they got hired) than their melanin impaired compatriots, that's racism.  When you cut essential school programs in poorer districts that are predominately black and politically mrginalized, that's racism.  When prisons are filled to the brim with people of color who have committed petty crimes against themselves while rich melanin impaired executives who destroyed the lives of millions go free, that's racism.  Those are facts and they aren't going away.

The GOP is in trouble for a reason and the reason is this.  They are out of touch with the average American.  Their base consists of angry people who vote on single issues by claiming that the Bible disapproves of certain behaviors they deem immoral while ignoring the rest of the Bible teachings that encourage them to take care of their fellow man and to have compassion and pity for those who are suffering.  The elite of the party are just that.  Elite and as far removed from their base as they can get in their personal lives as they can manage and not get outed.

The party of Lincoln is falling apart and the more they scream about how unfair it is and the more rabid they are to return to a time that only exists in their imaginations, the further from the mainstream they will be.  As so many other Republicans have said before me, I didn't leave the party the party left me.

BBB

Freakin' Unbelievable!

The out of touch with reality old fogies have struck again.  My take on the Supreme Court determination that the FCC can fine television stations for unplanned "fleeting expletives"?  Fuck 'em!  I hardly ever curse on this blog but I do in real life.  As do most people, especially those under pressure or who have had a little too much to drink.  And have you heard the kids of today?  They learned those words at home, not from watching broadcast television and if they are watching cable that's a parental problem, isn't it?  Hearing the F or S word does not make me think about sex or using the bathroom, they make me think the person was either really surprised or really upset.

"It suffices to know that children mimic the behavior they observe -- or at least the behavior that is presented to them as normal and appropriate," Scalia wrote. "Programming replete with one-word indecent expletives will tend to produce children who use (at least) one-word indecent expletives."

Deadwood was not the issue, Cher and Nicole Ritchie were.  I guess frak" isn't allowed either.  A one off is not a show replete with one word expletives and if children are mimicking the behavior they see on television, then shows such as Survivor, 24, and the Power Rangers shouldn't be allowed.  Or maybe their parents could pay more attention to them and what they're watching so they can explain that it isn't real and life doesn't really work that way.

So, it's okay to penalize a station for unplanned speech by an individual they can't control but not okay to penalize a station for inciting to riot, deliberately spreading falsehoods, encouraging intolerance towards others or lowering the IQ of the nation under the guise of "fair and balanced" news?  What's next boys, strip searching 13 year old girls for Advil without their parents being notified?  That smacks more of pedophiliac sexual tendencies on the part of those who think it's okay than expecting an accidental curse on live television to affect children for the rest of their lives.  Big Brother, indeed.

BBB

Clothing Is Not Optional

Safety and discipline.  Wow!  And here all this time I thought kids went to school to learn.  When I first started high school way back when, they had a dress code for girls.  We weren't allowed to wear pants unless it was raining.  Mornings were almost always overcast in Lompoc so we would go to school in pants and say that we thought it was going to rain.  Fortunately for us they lifted the ban on pants.  As soon as it got warm we started wearing hot pants, I think the male teachers really liked those.

Dress codes are supposed to reduce violence and bullying by taking style differences out of the equation, according to the National Association of Elementary School Principals. Since the Clinton administration, the Education Department has encouraged schools to go further by adopting uniforms, saying they promote safety and discipline.

Ah yes, the schools are no longer trying to educate youth and prepare them for the real world, they are doing their best to turn out little automatons that aren't capable of independent thought and obey without question.  No wonder we keep falling behind the rest of the industrialized nations in math and science.  If you don't learn how to reason and trying to express your individuality is banned so that everyone is exactly the same,  it makes it very hard to think for yourself.  Which I guess is the point.

And in Gonzales, Texas, near San Antonio, parents are considering legal action over a new policy that requires students who come to school dressed inappropriately to either go home or put on a school-provided prison-style jumpsuit — one actually made by Texas inmates. Police had to restore order at a recent school board meeting where parents heatedly complained about the new policy.

“You’re punishing the children,” Gracie Mercer, mother of a Gonzales student, told board members. “You guys aren’t concerned about their education.” 

Officials rebuffed the critics and said the policy would stay in place. 

“We’re a conservative community,” Deputy Superintendent Larry Wehde said. “We’re just trying to make our students more reflective of that.” 

snip

But sometimes, school officials will admit they’ve gone too far. That’s what happened in Fresno, Calif., last month when administrators at Dos Palos High School apologized to Jake Shelly, a sophomore whom they forced to change into a shirt bearing the words “Dress Code Violator.” 

Jake’s proscribed apparel? A T-shirt sporting the American flag. The Dos Palos-Oro Loma Joint Unified School District’s dress code prohibits “shirts or blouses that promote specific races, cultures or ethnicities.” 

 Yup, that's the ticket, indoctrinate them young.

BBB

Odd Observation

I'm sitting at a stop light and I see a church with a sign saying "Are You Chipped?"    I've been driving past this place for two years and never really thought about what it was asking.  Having some experience with the Pentecostal church in my youth I recognize that it refers to the number of the beast and the impending "Rapture".  I also realize that one doesn't have to have a chip to be marked with the number of the beast.  Technology got around that problem and most people don't realize that it has happened.

So the question is this, why in the world would you need to chip people since almost everyone has a cell phone with GPS tracking?  And how many people have bought a car equipped with Onstar?  Supposedly it can help you if you are in an accident, run out of gas, find a restaurant, etc, which means it can also keep track of your daily activities.  Home telephone calls can be transferred to your car if you have to go somewhere and don't want to stop talking.  Obviously you don't need to be chipped if they can track you without you ever knowing it.

Ten years ago Hollywood gave us Enemy of the State and showed how many places can keep an eye on you with you being aware of it and most people blew it off as fiction.  Which it was, but that doesn't mean it was totally inaccurate.  Now Hollywood has given us Eagle Eye and it shows that the technology to track you without you being aware has advanced even more.  I've seen it four times (because of work) and yes, I know it has flaws and that it is fiction, but how many people are aware of the fact that very little of everyday life isn't on film somewhere?

Spend a little time during your daily activities to spot the cameras and you realize that you are on camera almost as soon as you step out of your house.  And that's without a satellite tracking you.  Either way I leave my residence, the first light I come to has cameras.  As a matter of fact, most of the lights have cameras.  In an effort to catch shoplifters almost any store you go into has cameras in action.  The grocery store has cameras, the bank has cameras, casinos have cameras, hotels have cameras, the train station has cameras, clothing stores have cameras.  RFID tracks almost everything you buy at this point and most people don't even notice.

So, why does anyone need to be chipped?

BBB

Trials, Tribulations and Flat Out Bull Excrement

The only other thing I have to say about the FISA frakking is that everyone who voted for it should be replaced by whatever challenger they're facing in the next election.  Whether they are Humpty Dumpty or Freddy Krueger, they have to be a better representative of the people than the bought and paid for "representatives" we have now.  That is if we ever have another election, they might decide we don't need those either.  And the really sad part of the current crop of of highly paid deceivers on the public dole is that more than a few of them are lawyers and have no excuse for the way they voted except that they don't care about the American people or the Constitution.  What they seem to care about is not looking weak on whatever issue they are confronted with.  Instead of standing up for themselves and their country, they represent the interests of the corporations that donate to them in lieu of the people who voted for them and have proved they aren't fit to lead a horse to water.  Or, as my dad used to put it, if your friends jump off a cliff are you going to jump to?   The Congressional response was "hell yeah!"  But they did manage to pass these important resolutions.

How...white of them.

The great scam continues.  Foreclosures are up 53% over a year ago,  rivaling the Great Depression.   And bank seizures have tripled.  The much vaunted home ownership society continues to destroy the lives of innocent people.  People who bought into the dream that obscured reality.  Unfortunately reality will follow these people for the rest of their lives, continually holding them and their children back.  On the other hand, it makes for a ready made supply of indentured servants.  Just like in days of yore. Under the last King George.

Cops covering for one another, say it isn't so.  Good thing she didn't kill anybody.

Snicker.

With what?  Our good looks?

I'm pretty sure that the economy will take care of this problem, most people will have no choice except to work until they either die or become so feeble that they are put on the street to die.  That and the fact that the younger generation have had individuality and independent thought trained out of them.

BBB

When Choice Is No Choice At All

It's so sad watching the happy lights go out of Obama supporters eyes.  It's never good watching people whose hopes and dreams are being shattered.  After all the rhetoric, the nasty comments directed at people (one of which was me) who didn't believe what he said about hope and change, they are waking up this morning to a candidate who cannot be distinguished from any other politician running for office.  Oh, they were s proud of themselves when they vanquished Clinton, made Edwards out to be too pretty to be effective and gloated unceremoniously when their candidate was anointed the winner by the same people who have been bought off by the telecom companies.  Now they are beginning to realize that what they got was a wolf dressed up in Little Red Riding Hood's clothes on the way to Grandma's house.  My, what big teeth he has.

In return for this uncritical devotion, their candidate didn't just move to the center, he hightailed it for the right so fast that even Regan MacNeil (I hear Bobby Jindal wants to be VP and he will fit right in with this current course of action) wouldn't be able to keep up with his changing positions.   Obama has abandoned his original base as fast as he could while telling them that he would compromise.  Yes, the former head of the Harvard Law Review is going to vote to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment, a subject I have ranted on before, and seal our republic's death so we can be a ruled by a dictator with no checks or balances and Buy n Large will control our every move.  Power corrupts.  Absolutely.

Last night I was talking with a friend and her sister and mentioned Obama's recent comments on late term abortion and that the psychological health of the mother wasn't a good reason.  Turns out the sister had lived in Texas at one time, had an abusive husband who beat her so badly that the baby died in utero and she was forced to carry it for ten more weeks until it was born.  Dead.  Needless to say, he will not be getting her or any member of her family's vote.  She was willing to forgive Obama everything until she heard that.  Makes you wonder what other positions he is going to reveal now that he feels that he has the power of inevitability.

Once again the Demowienies have picked a candidate on his "electability".  The only problem with that strategy is that you end up with a candidate that people are forced to vote for only because they dislike the other guy even more.  This is not an effective way to run a country that is supposed to be for, by and of the people.

I can't vote for either candidate because I believe they are both dangerous, they both stretch the truth to the point of unbelievability and neither one is going to make my country or my life better.  Or safer.  What they are going to do is finish destroying a Constitution that stood for over 200 years, right up until the current reign of error.

I always remember where I was on August 9th, mainly because it's mom's birthday, but 1974 was notable for several reasons.   I was leaving basic training at Ft. Jackson and rode a bus through Georgia before arriving at Redstone Arsenal, AL to learn how to repair guidance systems.   In that amount of time one President resigned for lying about his involvement in a cover up to bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and another arrived in office never having been elected to any office by more than a few thousand people.  At least it was for 28 years.

This year I hope to spend it with mom and hoping that the results from the Strangebedfellows moneybomb has an impact.  It isn't as if we had an independent media who reported instead of trying to make the news or that we were marching in the streets like we were in the '60s and '70s to let our representatives know that we were serious.  Nope, today we send money via the internet a month after the damage has been done.

3b's

Obama Ranks Ninth

At least in this post.  I wonder if it will get me locked out of my Blogger account like others who didn't show the proper appreciation of the new boy wonder.

Yippee!  100 members of the California National Guard return to San Jose from a yearlong tour in Iraq.  Unfortunately they won't be able to enjoy their time at home because there are so many fires that firefighters are having to let some fires rage in an effort to save communities.  So they can flood if we get any rain this coming winter.

He could be looking for Larry and Curly or he could be looking for a member of the opposite sex. 

When I was a teenager one of my chores was to take the cars to the gas station and wait in line to fill them up.  Both of our cars had odd numbered plates and I would waste a whole afternoon filling up the '63 Galaxy 500 and then the '69 Mustang.  I'd take a book, crank up the AM radio and off to wait in line I went.  I didn't mind because it gave me a real excuse to be out of the house and Dad didn't know how long the lines were.  Or weren't.  At no time did I have to dodge bullets or push my car towards a station I couldn't see and then when I got there find out it wasn't working because there wasn't any electricity.  For the Iraqis it's like the old saying, "water, water everywhere, nor a drop to drink."

I'm so happy that troop deaths are down in Iraq.  Too bad the same can't be said for Afghanistan.

Coming soon to a home near you.  And if you complain about the government, it will probably be sooner rather than later.

We don't take care of our own veterans, we certainly aren't going to take care of Iraq's.     Out of sight and out of mind.  Just the way America likes all of its problems.  That way we can pretend we had nothing to do with destroying their lives.

Meryl Streep is not the reason I want to see Mamma Mia!  Nor is it Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skaarsgard or Colin Firth and it's definitely not the ABBA music.   My reason is Amanda Seyfried, who's character's untimely death was the reason for Veronica Mars first season.

This reminds me of  In The Year 2525 except the that we won't have to wait until the year 6565 to pick our kids from the bottom of a long glass tube.

Last, and most certainly not least, Obama wants to not only continue a Bush plan, he wants to expand it.  Even if it doesn't work and encourages religious discrimination.  He will do anything and say anything to get elected.  Next thing you know, he'll be encouraging the citizenry to believe we want to stay in Iraq and bomb Iran.   Politicians may look different, but they all want the same thing.  Power, fame and fortune.  And they don't care who they have to step on to get it.

Circling The Drain

People have been so worried about the United Nations imposing a new world order on the United States, that us imposing a new world order on the rest of the planet has been overlooked by all but true freedom advocates. 

The controversial proposed pact, a "framework agreement" on common data protection principles, is likely to enable the Americans to access the credit card histories, banking details and travel habits of Europeans, although senior officials in Brussels deny US reports that the Americans will also be able to snoop on the internet browsing records of Europeans.

"Everybody's keen on this and sees the benefit of it. The French are very keen to continue the work," said a senior official in Brussels. "There's all sorts of information stored on computers nowadays that may be of interest to law enforcement agencies. If we reach agreement, we may well contemplate turning it into a binding international agreement."

snip

Under separate agreements being negotiated, Washington is insisting on having armed guards on flights from Europe to the US, is introducing a new electronic travel authorisation system where travellers to the US would need to apply online for permission to fly before buying a ticket, and last year the EU yielded to American pressure to supply the US authorities with 19 pieces of information on passengers flying from Europe to America.

Land of the brave?  Geez, what a joke.  Land of the broken income is more like it.  For those who toiled all their lives believing that they were working and saving for retirement,  reality is becoming harder to survive and being told to "ride it out" is as foolish a piece of advice as being told that  plastic sheeting and duct tape will make you safe from airborne pathogens.  Oh well, maybe they can go back to the old standby from the seventies, cat food.

Turns out I regularly eat nine of the eleven best foods recommended for good health, at least while I an afford them.   I'm growing both beets and chard, but I can't afford pomegranate juice and haven't really tried pumpkin seeds.  Canned pumpkin, turmeric, and cinnamon  must be in a recipe somewhere and this one includes dried plum, which is also on the list.  This recipe also includes pomegranate and candied pumpkin seeds to go on top of polenta.  Not too bad for a squash that most people think of as a dessert or Halloween ornament.

Why yes, we have become a rogue nation.  We could be our own little axis of evil, which leads to my favorite quote of the week.  And it's only Monday.

So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot.

We believe in the culture of life only as it applies to preventing abortion.  After one is born, you deserve to die because you were born in the wrong country or to a family that doesn't make enough money to support the parents much less their kids.

My gas budget is $100 a month, so every month I drive less and less.  I use the car to go to the grocery store where I find food  prices higher than they were the week before.   I'm dropping my gym membership because even though it relieves stress, contributes to my health and gives me a little time away from taking care of my mother, I can't afford the gas.  Thanks to the policies of the crew without a clue, seniors who were born during the Depression of the 1930s are going to suffer and die during the Depression of the early 21st Century.  Great reward for all the hard work rebuilding this country after the Second World War.  Hopefully they won't have to suffer through another World War before they get to rest in peace.

BBB

Blowing In The Wind

Newsflash!  Republican's are in to recycling.   Who knew?  And spoken by the master flip-flopper McCain himself so he can try and distract the populace all the times he's changed his mind in his decades long pursuit of being master of the free world.   According to McCain, a politician's word can't be trusted.   I can't tell you how surprised I...wasn't.  Almost without exception, a politician's goal is to get elected.  Then it's to be reelected and the naive fall for it every time, believing that the the next guy who promises them change will be the "one", when in reality the change the politician is talking about is to turn the power of the position they are campaigning for over to themselves.

But since Obama dispatched Clinton, he has seemed rather more attuned to what the people want to hear or perhaps he has simply traded the wants of a liberal audience for those of a more moderate one. Either way, he is treading that reliably time-worn path every nominee follows to the political centre. And the question for Democrats is whether to applaud Obama as a cunning politician who knows how to win or fret that he's given undecided voters reason to think his 'politics of hope' are just politics as usual.

First, let us count the repositionings. This past week, Obama expressed surprising disagreement with a Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the death penalty for child rapists (he had previously questioned the rationale of capital punishment). He resisted criticising another high court ruling that affirmed gun owners' rights, even though he had previously seemed to support the gun-control measure at issue.

Obama also dropped his once-stern opposition to a Congressional measure, despised on the left, that would legally shield telecommunications companies that co-operated with extra-legal US government eavesdropping. To some, even the contents of Obama's iPod, recently revealed to Rolling Stone, smacked of political calculation, combining as it did Baby Boomer classics (Stones, Springsteen, Dylan) with highbrow jazz (Coltrane, Miles Davis) mindless top 40 pop (Sheryl Crow) and edgy-but-not-too-edgy hip hop (Jay-Z, Ludacris). Perhaps this playlist should be titled 'Majority Coalition'.

I almost feel sorry for the those who have swallowed this election's Kool-Aid.  McCain is dangerous but there is no guarantee that Obama will appoint judges that are beneficial to women.  In this regard he is just like Bush.  All talk (albeit much more intelligently) about changing America for the good, with  no actions to back it up.  In Obama's favor, at he hasn't signed any death warrants, but on the other hand  he isn't willing to defend the Fourth Amendment.   If for no other reason that that he is a black male, he should fight this latest attempt to remove all expectations of privacy in one's home.

The next few months should be pretty interesting as the base who got Obama where he is, is discarded in favor of a center that doesn't exist except to the pollsters.

I'm being brave.  Number one, I've taken a less than popular view on the anointed one and two, I'm trying out some of the new features from Blogger in Draft.

The Founding Fathers Go Down In A Hail Of Bullets

All that fighting and dying during the Revolutionary War was for nothing. The new boss is just like the old boss that they risked everything to get rid of.

Amendment One

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. We can complain about being screwed and the Government will stop the bad behavior. Wow, what a cool idea.

Amendment Two

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. A militia is no longer necessary, shoot at will. So what if innocents death by gunfire increases? It isn't as if Virginia Tech, Columbine or Charles Whitman were isolated instances. It's much more important that some gap toothed, banjo playing idiots have the right to own a gun even though murder is illegal and very few people hunt for their dinner. You just know they'll be out celebrating and shooting their guns into the air with no concept of gravity.

Amendment Three

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. How quaint. I'm sure that the Supremes will find some way around that. Maybe political officers to make sure that you don't complain about the government while in your own home.

Amendment Four

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures , shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. That's been toast for a while and the new telecom bill will ensure that you are monitored from birth to grave. I guess they won't need those political officers after all.

Amendment Five

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. Starting with making kids pee in a cup in school to the political prisoners in Guantanamo, the only part of this amendment that is still valid only useful if you've done something wrong and have to testify before Congress.

Amendment Six

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. Unless you are in Guantanamo or have the misfortune to be either brown or poor. Then you're guilty because the prosecutor said so, so there's no need for fair trial.

Amendment Seven

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. Since when?

Amendment Eight

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Unless you are a person of color or a child molester. Bobby Jindal could give a flying crap about those who rape women, but he wants to chemically castrate child rapists since the Supremes said you can't kill them.

Amendment Nine

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. But 9/11 changed everything, didn't it? Our rights need to be constrained because we need to be protected from the latest bogeyman and the little people would only get in the way of bringing "justice". Besides, if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about, do you? And if the government says it's wrong tomorrow, well you should have known better.

Amendment Ten

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Unless it imperils the drug companies.

Freedom of speech has been restricted, we practice cruel and unusual punishment, the rights of the people to hold assemblies is being limited, the press rolls over bet than Fido, the government doesn't listen to the people who elected them and the average American neither knows the rights they used to have or why they were written down and ratified in the first place. What a fucked up country we have become.

BBB

Not Into It Today

I miss George Carlin. I first saw him on the Flip Wilson show and had enjoyed him ever since.. Everyone posted the Seven Words you can't say on tv, but my favorite skit was the fractured Nursery Rhymes. Especially the Seven Dwarfs. Thank you for all the years of laughs. Rest in peace George, you will be missed. Greatly.

Eight drugs that doctors in the know never take.

That's the way it works in America.

No job, no prospects, no way to feed the family. Of course the food banks are being overwhelmed.

No child left behind is having serious consequences. According to Time, fewer kids are pursuing tech degrees. That's what you get with rote memorization and continuous testing. People that don't know how to think logically or creatively. The corporations don't care, they can always get someone from India or China to do the job.

Papers please. Plus your fingerprints and first born child.

Gutting The Fourth Amendment

Wow! Just watched the first two episodes of John Adams from the HBO miniseries. My, how far we have fallen. And how disappointed he would be at how willingly we have given up everything he and his compatriots fought, and were willing to die, for.

The acting was good, but the speeches were phenomenal. Culled from the history records. Now all we have is a shrub with a poor command of the English language and an inability to use it without sounding like an idiot. Every. Single. Time. He. Speaks.

If it was up to the current generations, we wouldn't be a Republic. Oops, my bad, we no longer are. I guess the truths are no longer self evident. Interesting how people are so adamant about protecting the Second Amendment and the other Amendments are just additions to an old piece of paper.

I'm reordering my Netflix queue so that I get the rest of the episodes as soon as possible.

3Bs

Rambling Thoughts

Man's inhumanity towards man is one thing, directed at a child is another. Unlike most recent police shootings, this one was totally, absolutely justified. I may not have seen the preceding events, but my imagination is good enough that the image will probably never leave my mind. Thank goodness I wasn't there, I would have probably tried to run him over with my car. Rabid animals are dangerous.

Cheez'n'rice! What has to happen before America gets a clue and realizes that we aren't wearing white hats anymore?

Bush and his imagination are no where near reality. I guess insanity is a better defense than incompetence. Or stupidity.

They're coming to take me away, ha haa, hee hee. Except it isn't to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time.

No? Really? I wish I could be surprised and outraged, but I'm not. It's the cost of doing business nowadays. Just not for the little guy.

Monkey see, monkey do.

3Bs

This 'N That

At noon on January 20, 2009, Obama might declare victory, until then he's just having Bush moments such as Mission Accomplished and Bring It On and we all know how well those turned out.

The digital age has seriously arrived. At the Kremlin. Our media, while deficient in way too many respects, has at least had token coverage of opposing points of view, in Russia, not so much. While some people in America put little gaffe they can find on YouTube, the media in Russia does the exact opposite. You so know that Bush and Cheney would love to be able to do the same thing. Erase their opponents from the media. Completely. Not just what they said, but their images too. Along with his parental issues, now he's probably got a serious case of Putin envy. One can only hope that Bush and Cheney don't discover some political Viagra before January 20, 2009.

I addressed this yesterday but Time does it better. I've been getting my news from various sources for all of my life and by no stretch of earthly imagination can I be considered young. It's called research and it used to be required in order to graduate from high school. But I guess when you can buy your term papers off the web it removes the necessity of finding different sources that say the same thing, but in a different way. It also lessens the ability to think through and sort information into retainable categories and realize when you've read the same thing before so that you don't get confused.

I love BART. In San Jose we have the Light Rail but it isn't very convenient to get to or to get somewhere useful. Like Fremont. If we had decent public transportation, I would use it as much as possible. When I hang out with the BARBarians, I take the bullet CalTrain to Millbrae and then switch to the BART. If we meet on the Oakland side, I have to drive to Fremont and then take the BART. Not as much fun. And while ridership is increasing by leaps and bounds due to the encouragement of the high price of gas, Schwarzenegger's response is to take money away from public transportation in an effort to balance a budget that needs money coming in, not just cutbacks. I guess he isn't as much of an environmentalist as he says. But the Hummer and the cigars told us that a long time ago.

Chavez has Bush envy, now Venezuelans have as little protection from illegal spying done by the government as US citizens do. Boy, that Patriot Act sure comes in useful when you want to control the population. Welcome to the Americas, the new Russian wannabes.

Where there is CONTROL, there must be KAOS. Please let Get Smart be as funny as the original, since the trailer was pretty good. I wonder what Maxwell is going to drive since they don't make the Opel GT anymore. My brother had one and he gave it to me. Crunchy was a great car. Oops, my bad. There's a new one! And it looks really cool. Interesting commercial, the woman's fantasy shows you more of the car, the man's is all about speed. I want one.

3Bs

Thursday Morning Ramblings

How far is too far? Some areas should be fragrance free, such as the doctors office, hospital and certain workplaces, but getting one's nose bent out of joint because someone is wearing body butter is overkill. Sheesh, some people really do think they are the only one in the world with rights and that everyone should accommodate their wishes or failings. My asthma is usually triggered by a certain perfume when it is really cold outside but I have no idea what it is since I'm more concerned with breathing and getting away than I am with trying to determine what other people do with their bodies. When my lungs are weak (before or after) an attack, I also can't walk down the soap aisle in the grocery store without wheezing. So, I avoid that aisle. I used to have a client who was a fanatic about scent, what a pain she was. My clothes had to have no fabric softener and I couldn't use a scented soap or lotion. I rarely wear fragrance because I find them too overpowering and I don't enjoy smelling like a fruit but I don't make the people around me dance to my tune, I just find somewhere else to go.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't watching you. What the article doesn't bring up are the amount of cameras and other devices that are omnipresent in our society might be triggering low levels of anxiety in everyone, so as a result most of society is suspicious of one another.


Pandering to the male ego. A few minutes is best. Three minutes of intercourse aren't worth taking your clothes off, let alone running around bragging about satisfying a woman in bed. It isn't about lasting forever but some effort should be made to match a woman's rhythm. Thirteen minutes is closer to the mark, but if it makes men feel better to think that three minutes will get the job done...

Oh good grief! The idea of school is to learn and be exposed to different ideas and ways of thinking. A federal lawsuit because a teacher says something that goes against your world view is just someone trying to make money that they haven't earned. I had a cop tell me that most of the sexual deviants were Catholic and I'm pretty sure he has more experience in this area than I do. Maybe the teacher has more experience than the student?

Please, no. Next thing you know, Vanilla Ice will be back touring. With Rick Astley.

3Bs

Not Fooling Around

Who says kids can't get along and plan ahead? Nine kids in Georgia were suspended for being in a plot to harm their teacher. They had a broken steak knife, toy handcuffs, tape and other assorted items to do the job. My question is this: How bad of a teacher do you have to be for a group of third graders otherwise known as eight year olds to plot to harm you? The commenters believe that God, discipline and better parenting would have prevented this, but for a group of eight year olds to plan anything this devious there had to be a triggering factor.

I don't like to carry a purse, they are usually too big and bulky and I don't understand why they have to match my shoes. I usually carry a wallet if I have pockets, otherwise it's just my ID, debit, cell and keys. I leave everything else at home or in the car until needed. Pepper spray and chapstick? Whatever, I think the trick here is to consider the source.

Besides an empty bank account, here are seven signs of pain you shouldn't ignore. Great, the first one up is the worst headache of your life. Which I've had for the last three weeks. Don't think it is an aneurysm, I think it's stress from the empty bank account, no job (got screwed royally by Jose and the landlord) and mom's mind continues to wander away. The pain in my back and shoulder are on the right side and I think it's because I have a rib out of place from all the coughing I did during last month's asthma attack. If I had money I would go see a chiro and get things snapped back into place.

In 1967 the Atlantic published an article about computer databases and erosion of civil liberties. Not quite 1984, but we're getting there.

A quick primer on the Middle East. Too bad the crew without a clue don't have something like this. And somebody really should give a copy to McCain, it might help him be less confused.

Unfortunately, this isn't an April Fools joke. The Red Army choir and the Leningrad Cowboys performing one my most hated songs. I was stationed in Alabama when the song came out and they played it on every station, from rock to classical and the country stations played it every hour on the hour. Just not this version.


3Bs

There's No One Like You

OMG! Whatever happened to having a sense of humor? I've been reading (and starring) Stuff White People Like almost since it began. What a hoot! When he did the top 10 ten rap songs and I realized that I have a couple of them on my iPod, but Going Back to Cali by LL Cool J (this video is hysterical and helps to prove the point) didn't make the list I was so heartbroken I almost choked on my tea. I think I'm white but somebody forgot to inform the genes that determine how much melanin I display. As usual the commenters at ABC have gone off the deep end, proving that they come from the shallow end of the gene pool. Oops, Gato Barbieri just finished and the Scorpions are up, my German blood shows up occasionally.

Armchair warriors, indeed. On to the next milestone that people will ignore. The only thing that Cheney regrets is not being able to drop a nuclear bomb. He probably gets a stiffy just thinking about it. Noble, necessary and just. That would be my description of the war crimes that Bush and Cheney should both be charged with, not a description of an illegal and immoral war perpetrated on people who had done nothing and were capable (at the time) of doing nothing to us.

How can he go back to something he can't do in the first place?

I'm running the new Firefox Beta and while I like some aspects of it, I miss some of my extensions. Specifically Tab Mix Plus (just found a build that works), Colorful Tabs (now that one is working) and Forecastfox. There are a couple more that I wish were working, but I'll just have to wait.

Don't drink the water. Or bathe in it, brush your teeth or cook with it. No wonder people think that bottled water is better. If you live in Alamosa, CO, it is. Makes you wonder how many other city's community water systems are in trouble. Other than all the drugs and hormones that they admitted to a few weeks ago.

Selfish and stupid. Deliberately bringing a child into the world when one knows it will die shortly after it's born, usually painfully and completely unaware, is cruel. No matter what your religious beliefs, you are not putting the child's welfare ahead of your own personal interests. Purposefully having a child whose mental impairment means that someone will have to care for it for the rest of its life, is cruel. With the technologies of today, that child could outlive the parents by many years and then who is going to love them? Who is going to fight for the benefits that they will need? Because with the growing lack of compassion people have for those less fortunate, they will have a miserable and lonely life after the parents are gone. What kind of parenting is that? Maybe because I'm watching my mom lose her mind and realize that if it happens to me there will be nobody to make sure that I'm not living on the street that allows me to take the "cold" view.

I'm more than a little tired of the sexism/racism question in the race for president. For me it's empty suit against another dynasty. I can't and probably won't vote for Obama. I live in California so my vote really doesn't count. Otherwise John Edwards would be my candidate but the media made sure that wasn't an option for me.

Oh boy, another day, another stolen laptop with unencrypted patient data. No wonder people aren't as worried about their phones being tapped and their internet habits being tracked as they should be. With all the data that has been lost over the last five years it's no surprise that the average person doesn't care.

You don't say. Wow, a newspaper that states the obvious like it was a new phenomenon. Of course health costs are cutting into wages, Bush's plans have done so much to help the economy. Of his friends and cronies. Walgreen showed a profit for its second quarter, what a surprise. Not.

BBB

You Don't Say

A transparent society only works when the balance of power is equal. In other words, watching the watcher watch you only works if you are able to prevent the watcher from using what he watched against you indiscriminately. No wonder everybody who isn't on some kind of watch list wants immunity.

Today I pick up my new phone and I'll find out if the echo is because of the crappy phone or if someone is listening in. I'm betting that it won't make a difference because I've been hearing the same clicks and echoes for the last three phones. And why yes, I do have Verizon.

Officials ignore the will (and the votes) of the people.

Eye contact? Or a new way for the narcissistic to be noticed? I wonder how long it will take for the usual suspects (Britney, Paris, Nicole, Pamela Sue, Jeremy Piven) to participate?

Home foreclosures hit a record high. Again. Unfortunately, records are also being set that include people who are falling behind on their payments. That cliff is getting awful close and the lemmings are headed there full speed ahead.

Umm, eff u? Or how about this oldie but goodie, we got ours we don't care about you?

If corporations such as subsidiaries of Halliburton manage not to pay Medicare or Social Security taxes, among others, what makes anyone think that they are going to use their part of the economic stimulus package here in the US? All that money is going to be spent and the US economy won't see a dime.

Gotta go, I have a 10 am meeting with a lawyer to declare bankruptcy while I qualify for Chapter 7. The ambulance bill was the last straw, so I'm going to try the preemptive strike strategy. Beat everyone else to the courtroom.

3Bs

Questioning Authority

Will not be an option for our youngest generation. As in there will be conformity, or else. Suspension from kindergarten for a Mohawk is just another way of trying to turn kids into obedient little robots. Forty years later and we are still fighting the battle of kids haircuts in school, but it used to be because it was too long. I, of course, am going to come down on the side of the kid and the Mohawk (there's a kid in the neighborhood and we compare our short haircuts, he usually wins for originality, me for convenience), unlike the commenters. At six years old he knows what he wants his hair to look like and it doesn't necessarily reflect his mother's or school's idea of grooming, but it was clean, not purple and he definitely doesn't have lice. There were lots of things that bothered me in school, a student's hair definitely wasn't one of them but stupidity ranks pretty close to first place.

One curious parent decided to find out why her four year old kid was being accused of acting out so she hid a digital recorder in the kid's backpack and what an ear opener that was. What it revealed was a teacher who yelled inappropriate things at the kids and this was after having already served a one day suspension for slapping a child the previous year, yet she still has a job working with impressionable young kids. But then the commenters once again revealed the hate (must be the kid's fault because they are probably the offspring of illegal immigrants), bigotry (her mom is overweight) and general stupidity (doesn't sound like some of them completed grade school on their own) of some of the people who hang out at ABC News.com.

Searching kids for a missing five dollars in an envelope. They didn't find it on the kids but at least the principal had a little common sense. One of those teachers will probably discover that they used it as a bookmark and just forgot where they put it, but it's always easier to blame someone else.

3Bs