Cue: Opening Title.....DRIVE ABOUT

Scene One:

Dark screen...cars on highway sounds

(Instrumental music lightly swelling in background)

Grey sedan passes...camera follows car

(music:

"I like to dream yes,

yes, right between my sound machine

On a cloud of sound I drift in the night

Any place it goes is right

Goes far,

flies near,

to the stars away from here")

Car is moving down an Interstate highway heading North. On the Left side of screen sunlight breaks through a cloud and shines on the car....

Title fades in over scene.

DRIVE ABOUT

Music swells...plays... fades

("Well, you don't know what we can find

Why don't you come with me little girl

On a magic carpet ride

You don't know what we can see

Why don't you tell your dreams to me

Fantasy will set you free

Close your eyes girl

Look inside girl

Let the sound take you away")

Scene two:

Front seat of the car Old man and a woman are talking....

(Tires whining on pavement ...intermittent wind sounds)

Old man: "Finally damn it. Next time princess try not to schedule a writer's conference the same weekend we are supposed to leave on a trip! Damn inconvenient! What were you thinking?"

Woman: (quietly) ar-hump

Old man: "Did you remember to pack my underwear?"

Woman: (turns and looks out side window in silence)

(Music swells:

"Well, you don't know what we can see

Why don't you tell your dreams to me...")

Cut To Commercial......

It Is No F....ing Big Deal, Or Is It?

What happens when you push things just a bit too far?
On March 32, 2010, at the Heath Care Bill signing:

The VP leaned over an whispered quietly in the Presidents hear, "This a really big fucking deal!" It was a heart felt, private, whispered comment.

"Vice President Joe Biden, perhaps overcome with excitement during his speech congratulating President Obama on the passage of health care reform, dropped an F-bomb on live television when he turned to Obama and said, "This is a big fucking deal."
The microphone just barely catches it, but listen closely and you'll hear it. This is surely a high point in Biden's long history of verbal gaffes."

Surely this a high point in the media bad manners and stupid intrusiveness into private moments not intended to be public(West Wing examples aside). It is little more than a kind of gotcha embarrassment. A prime example of our schadenfreude

On March 27, 2010:

But now the private moment is being exploited:

"South Pasadena High School student McKay Hatch says he'll ask Biden to apologize for letting a profanity slip during a bill-signing ceremony earlier this week. Hatch says he'll also mail Biden one of his No Cussing Club's penalty jars and an official club T-shirt.
Hatch founded the No Cussing Club at his junior high school in 2007. Since then he says it has grown to include chapters in all 50 states and 20 countries."

Exploited you say? How is a kid that wants to clean up foul speech exploiting this?

Ask his Daddy.
This kid has been getting "death threats" for the last few years.

Promo graphic from daddy's web-site

NPR:"You have to know that McKay's parents are authors of a book titled 'Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-rated World' (Sales rated 579,384th at Amazon). Profanity was frowned on at home. Hatch says none of his friends in elementary school ever swore, but it seemed like when they got to middle school, "everyone started cussing," he says. "The reason it bothered me the most is 'cause it was something they were using every other word, kinda like the word 'the.' They kept using it and using it."

If you check out daddy's web site you find videos for sale, offers for dad to speak for fees, the book, hug cards, and a 9-11 survival kit. Assuming the "death threats" are real and more will come now after this network publicity, is this not child endangerment?


So Biden's private whisper is no big f...ing deal. But the purposeful exploitation of it may be.

Another promo graphic from Daddy.

Post No Bumper Stickers

After coming back from Nam I had all of the venom from other people I cared for.

Until two years ago I forbid any bumper stickers on any of our family cars.

I finally relented.

My truck has a bumper sticker that says: "Say No To Hate".

My sedan has one that says: "No Child Left A Dime, Education Still Underfunded".

I think after the crap that went down in Tennessee recently, I may re-consider and re-institute a total ban on bumper stickers.

Why did this bumper sticker....

Harry Weisiger

....cause this man (nice mug shot) to commit assault with a deadly weapon (his SUV)?

Thanks to GKS for alerting me to this particular act of of anti-Obama insanity.

Tom Coburn Violates The Hippocratic Oath (AGAIN)!

"First, Do No Harm."

As an M.D. Tommy took that oath.
What part of "Do No Harm" did he not understand?
Maybe being a Senator is a higher calling than being a doctor.

Tom Coburn Stops Jobless Benefits and COBRA Subsidies

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Andrew Taylor, Fri Mar 26, 3:00 am ET

"WASHINGTON – As Congress raced to leave Washington for its Easter recess, a Republican senator blocked a stopgap bill to extend jobless benefits, saying its $9 billion cost should not be added to the national debt.
As a result, some people who have been out of work for more than six months will at least temporarily lose benefits. Newly jobless people won't be eligible to sign up for generous health insurance subsidies.
At the center of the battle is Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who's insisting that the measure be "paid for" so as not to add to the nation's $12.7 trillion debt.
"What we are doing is stealing future opportunity from our children," Coburn said Thursday."....

Is it Spite? Is it Stupidity? Does he have worms in his head? Can he not see the children in his own State from whose mouth he is taking bread NOW?

I am mortally ashamed that Senator Tom Coburn is from my State.
Ashamed!

Yes, I have worked to remedy that situation, but is like pissing into the Oklahoma wind. The blow-back smells. Never-the-less I'll do it again in the November 2010 campaign.

May God for give you Tom for the harm you have caused in the name of discredited secular ideologies and pig headed personal certainty. I know that you subscribe to the belief (of the Family) that you are one of God's Special Chosen Men, then act like one.

Dear Lord there are More: Needle Eye Artist

OK, I should be packing, the car needs an oil change, I need to buys some batteries at the store, and yes I am still digging into the world where work is done "between heart beats" to keep the hand steady.


If ever there was a tangible product of Zen and Yoga these little things are it.


This series of works are from a man named Hagop Sandaldjian.
He worked in the 1970-80's so the photos are not as sharp as Wigan's digital ones.

For more of his work and explanations of the photos above, check out The Museum Of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.

But these is still one more:

Henry Dalton 1829-1911

What makes these special is that the mosaic are built from scales obtained from butterfly wings.

Once again they are at The Museum Of Jurassic Technology.

As I Go Out The Door: In The Eye Of A Needle or The Head Of A Pin

Willard Wiggan, yes they are real.

Late Winter Drive About

I am about to go on an early Spring (possibly late Winter) Drive About. I will end up at the Pacific Ocean and then turn around and come back. I may or may not check my e-mail/blog/etc. as I tootle along singing my song, me and my wife side by side.

So, you all enjoy, and I shall return.

New Harris Poll: Americans Are Out Of Their Minds

Scary stuff from John Avlon:

"To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.
Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party(and all of us overall as well). Here's new data to prove it:"

1. 24% of Republicans ( 14% overall) think Obama is the Anti-Christ.

2. 38% of Republicans (20% overall) think Obama is doing the same things Hitler did.

3. 45% of Republicans (25% overall) think Obama was not born in the U.S.A..

4. 57% of Republicans ( 32% overall) think Obama is a Muslim.

5. 67% of Republicans (40% overall) think Obama is a socialist.

The above numbers all come from a brand-new Louis Harris poll... "which surveyed 2,230 people right at the height of the health-care reform debate, also clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."

These people are walking the streets. They are sitting in the pew next to you in Church. They are driving beside you on the road. They are your child's school teacher, the traffic cop that stops you, the hair stylist doing your hair, the nurse giving your shots......be afraid very afraid!

OK, enough of Glenn Beck, but seriously we are gone bonkers folks.

True Colors Shinning Through

Bill O'Reilly opines of uninsured:

"I earned it, let them earn it"

March 22, 2010 8:42 pm ET
From the March 22 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor

That is really where it is at. I got mine and you can't have any of it.

Really, Really, Really Sore Losers or Instigators of Sedition?????

The new Health Care Bill is now on the way to the President for its signature. It will soon be law, with or without the Senate "fixes".

Yet, you would think that is was still up for debate. Indeed the rhetoric is actually worse today than yesterday. The lies about what is in it have actually increased in fantasy. I have even heard the words treason and impeachment. Have the Republicans opened Pandora's box? Is the lawful process of government going to be supplanted by fear mongering and sedition?

Fox News is acting like the "Health Care Battle" is still going on. The Republicans are openly saying they will oppose the implementation of the Law. Republican led State Legislatures are getting ready to try to overthrow the Law as it applies to their States before they have any real idea what the Law means to their States.

Tea Party people are looking for someone to take revenge upon. Pro-Life groups are damning people that they gave awards to in good faith years ago.

It is like the entire Nation to the right of center is indulging in a sixth grade tantrum and expects the rest of us to give them their way. Is that what they consider a "National discourse"?

What now? How far will the tantrums go? Saturday it was spitting on Congressmen and calling them Niggers, and Faggots. What next?

No, it ain't over till it is over.

We Drink Our Fill and Still We Thirst for More

"It is not over, till it is over!"
If the House and Senate do correctly today, Americans will get a few slices of bread out of the loaf of Health Care. At least now the seal on the package has been broken.

Watching the sour countenances and hard faces of the opposing side reminded me of the fact that these guys don't intend to quite fighting against this or any other "social justice" concept requiring equity that cross their path.


It is the ultimate cosmic mystery: "(Ecclesiastes 8:14) There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless."

Shit Just Happens.

And a lot of it is happening now. Of course the Republicans are the good guys as they themselves know. What 'we' see as lies, they see as truths we can't seem to grasp. What we see moving forward they see as the fall of the Nation. We are at an impasse.

Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 "When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth—his eyes not seeing sleep day or night- then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it."

Republicans are not Ecclesiastians.
They know God's mind.
They know that He is on their side for they are the Righteous.
They claim His promises as they see them having been made.
They can't stop, because if they do stop, then they were wrong about what God wanted, and they can't be wrong because they know the mind of God in these things.

Republicans know that under the Law, Their King can do no wrong!
Democrats believe in Justice and that they should not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy!

It is not over, it will never be over.

"O the dragons are gonna fly tonight
They're circling low and inside tonight
It's another round in the losing fight
Out along the great divide tonight

We are aging soldiers in an ancient war
Seeking out some half remembered shore
We drink our fill and still we thirst for more
Asking if there's no heaven what is this hunger for?

Our path is worn our feet are poorly shod
We lift up our prayer against the odds
And fear the silence is the voice of God
And we cry Allelujah Allelujah
We cry Allelujah"

----Emmylou Harris: The Pearl

Murdoch's Fox TV Studio Kills Saving Grace

It is old news for the TV industry, having been announced last August, but recent promos for the three final episodes of the Oklahoma City based cop show "Saving Grace" have finally alerted its fan base to its demise.

TNT wanted to renew the show, but the Fox TV Studios that produced the show said it was too expensive to make. Shades of "Firefly". It wasn't that "Saving Grace didn't make money, it did. It was that it didn't make as much money as Fox wanted it to.

Actually I think was just a bit too edgy for the Fox temperament (a.k.a. Rupert's taste). I mean there is this angel right out of the book of Job(that looks like the bar tender from HBO's "Deadwood") catering to the whims of God by trying to save this fornicating drinking gun toting Oklahoma City police female murder detective that is screwing her married police pardner and can't seem to keep her clothes on and has a brother who is a Priest while at the same time she was molested by a Priest as a child and has stolen a cow with Jesus Christ emblazoned in the black and white pattern on its side. It isn't in good taste if you are a fundamentalist Okie Bible thumper or an uptight type from Australia. I doubt dollars were the real reason.

Want more information? Google it yourself.

Holly Hunter after all doesn't really fit the Fox executives' demonstrated vision of the right kind of woman to be on TV does she?

Anyway. It is over. The memo has come down.

Fox, what have you wrought?

By the way does anyone know where one might find an "action figure" of that cow with Jesus on its side?

Earth Invaded By Immortals

I loved typing that title!

It is even more fun because it is actually TRUE




Turritopsis Nutricula The Immortal!

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if our life cycles
were reversed, that is if we were born old and died young? Well, there’s one animal that comes close and has achieved immortality in the process, just to top it off. Meet the Turritopsis nutricula, a small saltwater animal or hydrozoan related to jellyfish and corals. "

"Turritopsis nutricula most likely originated in the Caribbean but can now be found in the temperate to tropical regions in all of the world’s oceans, spreading further through the ballast water that ships discard in ports. According to Dr. Maria Pia Miglietta from the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute: “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion.”

Read About it here. And Here. Or Here


A Yellow Belly Version




And here are the detailed cycles! Comprede?
Me neither.

The American Rift Valley : Looking Across The Chasm

Early in the 1970's the discovery of Plate Tectonics provided Geography and Geology with the mechanism to understand how Earth's landmasses and Oceans have formed and reformed over the eons. The places where continents split apart and where their parts move away from one another are called Rift Valleys. The valleys are usually very long with high perpendicular valley walls dropping straight down to a flat and widening valley floor.

Any given day now we can see a similar phenomena in our American Culture.
To travel from one side of the Rift to the other requires a steep perilous decent a trip across the valley floor and a steep difficult climb. Of course if or when you get to the other side, you are not welcome or wanted.

Truths About The Others:

1. Always expect the worst from the Others and you will never be surprised.
2. Never try to reason with an Other. They disregard any evidence that conflicts with their beliefs.
3. You can always tell what the Others are up to by what they accuse you of doing.
4. The Others don't debate, they argue.
5. The only standards the Others have are double standards.
6. The Others feel, We think.
7. Whenever you don't understand an Other's motive, just look for the money.
8. The Others cannot be embarrassed. They lack the gene to blush.
9. The Others' creed is, "Do as I say, not as I do.
10. Others get older, but they never get smarter.
11. There are no honest Others. If they were honest -- especially to themselves -- they would not be Others.
12. An Others' business is nobody's business, but everyone's business is an Others' business.
13. The Others have an inflated sense of self-worth. They are like house flies that criticize the air-worthiness of a Stealth fighter.
14. Others lack a sixth sense that is standard equipment in Us -- common sense.
15. The Others never stop hating.
16. There are only two types of Others -- the deceivers and the deceived.
17. Every time Others get on their high horse, they get bucked off.
18. The Others' programs are so wonderful that they have to be forced on people.
19. The Others always choke on their own medicine.
20. When given a moral choice, the Others always come down on the wrong side of the fence.
21. The only way the others can build themselves up is by tearing Us down.
22. The Others not only refuse to admit their mistakes, they refuse to learn from them.
23. The Others can dish it out, but they can't take it.
24. The Others are incapable of attacking the message, so they always attack the messenger.
25. Others' diversity is only skin deep.

Thanks to the Lone Ranger for this list.

Just remember anytime you think the Others just might be like you and can be trusted. Anytime you think that you might be able to work with them to your mutual benefit, then go back and read this list and just substitute Us for the Others because that's what the Others really think of Us.

Just in case the Ranger or I left anything off the list, do you know of anything that should be added? Actually what I really want to know, is there any real agreed upon provable difference between the two sides of the Rift? The only one I have documented so far is that the Conservative side is more likely to be happy (44% to 25% in one study). What else?

The Survival Advantage to Republicans of Kindchenschema

What do President Eisenhower, Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, and Mickey Mouse have in common?

Kindchenschema!

"Ethologist Konrad Lorenz defined the baby schema (“Kindchenschema”) as a set of infantile physical features, such as large head, big eyes, high and protruding forehead, chubby cheeks, small nose and mouth, short and thick extremities, and plump body shape, that is perceived as cute and motivates caretaking behavior in the human . In a species whose young depend on care, such bias could be evolutionary adaptive and enhance offspring survival . The behavioral effects of the baby schema have been experimentally confirmed , with implications for infant-caretaker interactions . In ethological terms, baby schema is classified as a “releaser” (or “key stimulus” in the context of social communication), which is defined as a set of specific stimulus features sufficient to selectively elicit a particular pattern of behavior .

Examples of low (narrow face, low forehead, small eyes, big nose and mouth), unmanipulated, and high (round face, high forehead, big eyes, small nose and mouth) baby schema faces. (Modified from ref. 10, copyright Blackwell Verlag GmbH.)

Baby schema affects the beholder. Ike's baby face attracted women voters.

"A sweet little face produces a reaction in the beholder. Scientists from the Universities of Münster and Pennsylvania have for the first time identified a region of the brain which, in the case of women, is activated by looking at a child’s cute face. This region, located deep in the brain, is also known as the reward centre.
The baby schema felt to be cute contains a series of child-like physical features, e.g. a large head with a high forehead, round cheeks and big eyes. Numerous behavioural studies have confirmed the effect of the baby schema on adults.

I have wondered for years why Rove hasn't been tied to stake and buried in rotten tomatoes? Is it because he is so cute. Dear God.

Not only is Beck adored by Ubercon women, but they feel protective of him. Women, especially nulliparous women (childless) want to protect Beck from the evil liberals that would do him harm. Of course they know someone so cute wouldn't pull their leg.

The contradictions to kindchenschema must be the reason that this happy face from "The Watchmen" is so disturbing.

Do You Ever Have That "I've Just Been Milked" Feeling?

Ever heard of a "Cash Cow"?

"Cash cow" is used sarcastically by money people to describe a customer or organization that has no control over its spending. The poor slobs that provide them with excess revenue to be invested elsewhere, somewhere not beneficial to the cash cow themselves.

If you have received a degree from any postsecondary institution within the last 20 years all you have to do is look in the mirror to see one. Seriously, you paid too much for what you bought and you have been paid too little for what you are doing with it. In addition if you borrowed money to pay for your education you are what is known in the trade as a "perpetual cash cow."

Once-upon-a-time in the 1990s the Congress created a series of offices in each State Called the State Postsecondary Review Entity (SPRE). To simplify what it was to do, it was supposed to make sure that the students got their money's worth and could benefit from the cost of going to school and borrowing money to do so. It examined in every State every postsecondary school, proprietary, private, and public. Guess what it found? Yep, every college, university, and proprietary school was overcharging and under delivering. All of them. Yes, even those where the students were fully funded by the State like many Vo-techs are.

Would it be a surprised that at that point, it was the largest and most prestigious universities that got the U. S. Senate to kill SPRE?

Down in Tillman County we had a saying," What goes around comes around." So here it is back again. But just like last time we will start with the trade schools (proprietary) and then when the attention shifts upwards to the State Universities it will be shut down once again.

Maybe not this time. The sins are so egregious, maybe, just maybe, there will have to be repentance and retribution, or not.

Fox News' Hannity Says Developing A Bee Size UAV Is A Boondoggle

About a month ago I did a blog on UAV's and Drones and how really far the technologies they represent has come. Imagine my surprise then Friday night when I caught the tail end of Sean Hannity's diatribe on Fox News naming the Harvard University's bee size UAV project as the number one wasteful expenditure of the recent Recovery Act Funding.

So tonight I forced myself to watch the whole thing 'Waste 102'. It was the most ridiculous display of ignorance and obliviousness I have ever seen even for Fox News. Read about it for yourselves.

It was simply serial snideness against projects that are common place efforts to attract tourist, move people from place to place, and paint a lot of bridges etc.. But yes, the thing he railed against as number one was the funding of a bee sized UAV at Harvard.

I know that teaching "critical thinking" is not "in" these days. Texas for example has replaced it with "more grammar". But really even a moron should be able to imagine the value of having an independent spy platform the size of a bee that could fly into an Al Qaeda stronghold land on the wall and transmit back everything happening there, or tiny robots to pollinate food crops when bees can't. Not Hannity and not Fox News it seems. Do you think his listeners realized his....no, probably not.

Even Ailes and Murdoch should be embarrassed by this particular exercise in dumb.

A Ghost In The Machine or What Is Japanese For Vagen Geist

Memo: Investigators can't replicate runaway Prius

Some years ago I owned a VW Vanagon. It was the second VW bus I had ever owned. Both of them were haunted. They were infected or blessed with Car Spirits: Vagen Geist. I won't elaborate here but the Vanagon had one who loved Country and Western Music, and I do mean C&W nothing after 1974. If I played anything else through its speakers the engine would miss and stall and .... well you get.

So it was not a surprise to me when years latter a friend's new Cadillac showed the same tendencies. Except this time it was in his car's computer. Every time his wife got in the car it would run for about 20 minutes and then die and would not start again. Five trips to the dealer and each time they could find nothing wrong with it, even when his wife rode with them. Finally he traded it in. Years latter he got a telephone call from a guy Maine who had tracked him down as the original owner. Sure enough, the guy said every time his wife got into the car it would die on him.

So maybe Toyota needs to get a priest (catholic/ shinto/whatever) to purge the company and exorcise their cars.

One thing to remember is that what we are really talking about in the Prius Toyotas are computers, not mechanical systems, but the mind behind the mechanical system, the Toyota AI if you please. Also we must remember that at the end of the day computers have Compugeist.

Jesus On My Bumper Not

Rational thought in Florida is not dead entirely. In 2008 the Florida State Senate voted to allow this license plate to be sold as a specialty plate by the Florida DMV. But don't rush out to buy it just yet. I've checked with the DMV and it is not available. It seems another bill passed both the House and Senate of Florida that contained a clause that did not allow any new specialty plates to be created between July 2008 and July 2011. Now I know there is a story out there about this that should be juicy. Any body know what it is?

It Is Time For Rational America To Cut its Losses (updated)

It is time for rational America and Americans to cut their losses. I've recently blogged about kicking Newsweek out of my house, and declining any further support for Higher Education until it reforms. There will many more things I personally intend to do to cut my losses.

America as a Nation should start doing similar things. Let's start with Israel. Cut it loose. Let them kill each other until all of the Community of Nations decide to do something about it. Shit people, we did that for Uganda and Cambodia why not Israel? I know, I know, Uganda was Black and Cambodia was Yellow and Israel is White. But if we do this now we won't have to do it later. I mean, do you think the White Zionist Lobby will have the same power in 2050 when there will be no more White majority among American voters? That would be a bad bet.

It is obvious that the Israeli nut jobs in charge there now are aligned with the American nut jobs who want to be in charge here, and behind it all is the shadow of bigotry.

So we try a peace mission to Israel. What Happens?

We send the VP Joe Biden over and he gets the Palestinian President to agree to talk with Israel.
The rest is detailed in this Daily Beast Article.

Then:
"The day before he showed up, Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu appeared onstage with Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem. Hagee, of course, is the right-wing Christian evangelical leader who thought New Orleans got what it had coming to it with Katrina, and is dead-set against any kind of peace settlement that recognizes Palestinian statehood. “If America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem, we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness,” Hagee has said. “Amos 3:2 states that any nation that divides the Land of Israel will come under the severe judgment of God.”"

And then:

"The following day, before Biden arrived, the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, despite having agreed in November to curb settlement growth in partial fulfillment of Israel’s obligations under the Bush administration road map. But that was just a warm-up, apparently, for the announcement later in the day by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee that it had authorized the construction of 1,600 units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood north of downtown Jerusalem."

Yes, all of this was planned and deliberate:

"Why were the Israelis so intent on insulting the visiting vice president? Plenty of reasons, undoubtedly—some big, some small. Obama is unpopular in Israel. Netanyahu wants to shore up his support with his right-wing coalition. The argument over Iran is real and has no obvious solution. But the real reason Israel is acting against its own self-interest, insulting its strongest supporter, refusing to honor the commitments it made not only to the United States but to all four members of “the Quartet,” and refusing to face up to the situation it has created for itself is that its leaders have decided that peace is off the table."

So Peace is off the table? So be it. Let them follow through on their own then.
Let us simply back off.
Stop giving Israel those trillions of dollars.
No more tax dollars for that lost cause.
Let them have their preferred radical Oligarchical Police State and they solve their own problems.
The Israel we have stood behind and help saved for mankind since 1949 is not there any more, indeed if it ever was. No this current Israel is a self constructed ghetto of multiple faceted hate and bigotry.
Let Israel heal itself.
We can't do for them.
The Israelis have to do it on their own or go completely insane trying.
Let's cut our losses and back away.

I know, I don't understand all there is to understand. Well that's what I was told back 43 years ago when Israel intentionally blasted the hell out of the USS Liberty and murdered a bunch of...lets call them my like type colleagues. I knew more than I wanted to then, the same as I do now. Wake up America and cut your losses.

Update:

Sun Mar 14, 11:07 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – "Israel's announcement of plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem was not only an "insult" to the United States but "destructive" of the Middle East peace process, a top White House official said Sunday.
"This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," said David Axelrod, one of President Barack Obama's closest advisers.
"We have just started proximity talks, that is shuttle diplomacy, between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and for this announcement to come at that time was very destructive," he said on NBC television's Meet the Press show."

So maybe it has started.
Maybe Israel will understand it has to give to get. Maybe Palistine will too.

NEWSWEEK : Please Cancel My Subscription

Newsweek Magazine:
First it was Karl Rove as an editorial writer.
Then a whole bunch more like type crap.
Then they started slipping over to the Right of Center and publishing half-thoughts as opinion, and opinion as fact.
Then they did REAL HARM with their tirade on anti-depressants.
Now today they put out simplistic garbage that bad teachers are causing our schools to fail and the teachers unions are behind it. No actual solutions mind you just blame and platitudes.
Enough.
I canceled my remaining 110 issue subscription to Newsweek Magazine.

Sad.

Tsavo's Ghosts Are Darker Than We Knew

Here is an update related to my blog The Ghost And The Darkness : Spirit Killers Of Tsavo

The reasons for the Tsavo lions being mankillers have been studied for over a hundred years. It has been noted that over-hunting and a recent drought at the time may have driven the lions to seek easy game. Also one lion had teeth and jaw problems which made hunting game difficult. But what has been left out of the narratives is the geographic and historical context of the Tsavo region. Author Allen Weisman discusses this below.

“The destination for black slaves in East Africa was not America but was Arabia. Until the mid-19th century, Mombasa, on Kenya’s coast was the shipping port for human flesh, the end of a long line for Arab Slavers who captured their merchandise at gunpoint in Central African villages. Caravans of slaves marched barefoot down from the Rift, herded by armed captors mounted on donkeys. Slaves, shooters, and whichever prisoners had survived the journey made for the fig-shaded oasis, Mzima Springs. ….
For days slave caravans paused here, paying Waata bow-hunters to replenish their stores. The slave route was also the ivory route … As demand for ivory grew, its price outstripped that of slaves, who became chiefly valued as ivory porters. … Jackals and hyenas followed the caravans, and Tsavo’s lions developed reputations as maneaters by dining on dying slaves left behind.”

"The World Without Us" pp. 77-78

The famous but failed lion catcher.

And of course the route of the railroad would have been the same route as the old slave caravans in that both would have followed the easiest and most direct route and both would have required water be available along the way. Remember in the late 1800's railroads ran steam engines that needed water every 15 miles or so.

This seems to me to add a much greater dimension to the story of the Lions of Tsavo. The lions were not the evil. They were the natural result of generations of greed and inhumanity by man. If the lions seemed evil, they were so because they fed on the evil produce by man.

Unless... unless they were a manifestation that had arisen from blood and flesh shed there.... the ghosts of the darkness perhaps

What Ever Happened To The Guy That Did That Fox thing, The 1/2 Hour News Hour

Watching the Daily Show tonight with Marc Thiessen whimpering that John Stewart wouldn't let him talk reminded me that once-upon-a-time the Fox News Channel had a Daily Show knockoff called "The 1/2 Hour News Hour".

It was an attempt by Joel Surnow, the creator of the UberCon torture and killfest "24" to create a Right Wing Comedy and Satire Show to counter the Liberal Bias in Comedy. It was A Bomb, but not like the one on "24". Not the bomb, but a bomb.

The show started airing on May 13, 2007 but fizzled quickly and was cancelled. The final episode aired on September 23, 2007. UberCons are great dealing in fear, loathing, & hate like that on "24" but really suck at comedy and satire. I think it is because they are missing the gene for those things.

Recent research has shown that the genetic source for satire is closely connect to the irony gene, and comedy is an integral component of the critical thinking/logic gene. So it is understandable that that they would not exhibit these inherited characteristics.

So where is Joel Surnow now? He clocked out of "24" back in 2006 and "The 1/2 Hour News Hour" was over in 2007, So where is he now?

Well luckily I've found him. He is working on a new project. He is writing a History Channel mini-series about the Kennedys. Neat, he is writing about another "Jack". The liberals are going nuts about this. Gee guys, Surnow has every right to do this, and the History Channel has every right to broadcast it. Lighten Up! At least we can expect some entertaining violence and sex.

Joel Surnow's work will again be immortalized right up there with, Ax Men, Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, and Monster Quest. He will fit Right in (yes, that was a pun).

Wealth and Taxes in America : Unprotected Sex For The Bottom

Net American Wealth:

"Top 1% own 38.1%

Top 96-99% own 21.3%

Top 90-95% own 11.5%

In the aggregate the top 10% owns 79.9% of America's wealth.

And it gets much uglier as you proceed downward.

Bottom 1-40% of population has 0.2% of all wealth."

"I believe in free markets, but this distribution of wealth is not a normal distribution in any way (meaning it is not subject to natural forces- i.e. statistics 101). It can only exist within an un-natural (non-free) system, where the relative nature of freedom is constrained."

Source: --- Ron Paul

See why Ron Paul's original Tea Party was popular. Now it has been stolen by Dick Army and the UberCons as a Brownshirt device.

Taxes:2007 tax year

If the federal taxation rate is compared with the wealth distribution rate,

the net wealth (not only income but also including real estate, cars, house, stocks, etc) distribution of the United States does NOT coincide with the share of income tax -

the top 1% pay 36.9% of federal tax (wealth 32.7%),

the top 5% pay 57.1% (wealth 57.2%),

top 10% pay 68% (wealth 69.8%),

and the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (wealth 2.8%).

What this shows is that the bottom 50% of Americans are royally screwed on taxes.

The lower 50% are actually paying proportionally 19% MORE in taxes than their level of wealth. (remember a chunk of that bottom 50% don't actually shell out taxes except for sales taxes so it is even worse than it looks)

The top 10% however only pay 3% MORE than their proportional wealth. But here is the wierd part. The top 1% pay 18% more proportionately than their wealth. (even so if the top 1% paid that additional one percentage point like the bottom 50% do at a plus 19% portional to wealth it would be more than all of the taxes collected by the bottom 50% of tax payers.)

But look at the near super wealthy, the 90 t0 99 percenters. They are paying nothing over their proportional wealth , ZERO extra. And that is where the problem is, in the wanna-be-big-rich category. The pretenders to the super class are being subsidized by the bottom and the top.

There ain't nothing "graduated" about the current tax system. Indeed it is working backwards. Those with less pay proportionally more. The entire system has become a regressive tax and wealth system.

Do most of the three million of the top 1% really want to destroy America just so they can have a little more wealth than they can't actually use? I don't think so, they can easily afford that one percentage point increase. Do the the 90 to 99% want to destroy America just to move up a notch or so. I don't know. But that is where the injustice is. Deficit Reduction? Get it there!

In a Class War the Uppers always wins. The Uppers must see that it is in their interest to change. If they can not understand that then we all, top to bottom, will lose.

America, do you really want to give the lower upper wanna-be-richer Republicans and their UberCons back the power of Government?

Do you feel like you been had?

Do you feel like an indentured servant?

Do you feel like a Slave?

Is your stomach turning yet?

So what is to be done?

Will Hypoxia Eutrophication Lead to Dystopia

More Climate Change Effects:

In 1973 the movie "Soylent Green" came out. The basic premise of the movie was that Earth's population was subsisting on phytoplankton products from the oceans and the oceans were dying from hypoxia. So the governments had resorted to recycling human protein into Soylent Green as food for the population.

In 1973 I was a graduate assistant. Most Friday afternoons the students and faculty of the university Geography department where I was working on my graduate degree left around noon. The graduate assistants being un-supervised would go to lunch at the Pizza Hut and stay for the afternoon for a Geographic seminar lubricated by liberal amounts of wine and 7-Up coolers. The premise of Soylent Green was the subject of several of these seminars. We even scrounged up the oceanographic charts showing the areas of oxygen depletion both natural and man made. The school was in Southern California and the subject of the oceans dying were of high interest.

Now almost 40 years latter the subject is coming up for real. Since 2002 there has been a consistent layer of Hypoxia off the coast of the NW United States. The area of Hypoxia at the mouth of the Mississippi is growing.

Climate change changes more than climate.