Dubya, Dubia, and the SMU Institute of Giving America Away

Dubai government will not guarantee Dubai World's debts, says top finance official!

Remember when George W. Bush wanted to award all of our seaport's management contracts to Dubai Ports?

I'm just saying, you know Dubai Ports a sub subsidiary of Dubai World which is...

"DP World is a company owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, via a holding company. This holding company is under the direct control of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the prime minister of the UAE."

This is the same guy that says no the UAE will not back DW's losses because that means he would have to back the losses. I'm just saying ain't we lucky that the the Democratic Congress had balls at least to spare the United States this embarrassment.

Say, I wonder if Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum will cover the losses of his good friends the Bush family who hold a whole bunch of DW's paper. Does SMU hold DPW or DW paper?

If I were an SMU alumni I would be shitting all over the current board and administration for embracing this fool and his corruption, "birds of a feather" you know! I can just invision George W. and Karl Rove getting a coke at the student union at SMU. What a picture that makes.

For These I give Thanks:

For these I give thanks:

...that my father stopped the old Case tractor before it's front wheels got to my head while it was running over me when I was two years old.

...that I had a little brother to play with and torture as I grew up.

... that my Dad got me the best dog in the whole world when I was six, His name was Rocky.

... that both milk cows died before I was old enough to milk them.

... that I was raised on a farm in Southwestern Oklahoma where I could see the horizons and the stars every day and walk as far in any direction as I wanted to.

... that I went to a small school where the first grade teacher knew I was bright and taught me to read even though it was hard for me and on her, because even though she had never heard of someone being dyslexic, she knew I could do it.

...that none of my car wrecks ever killed me.

... that I never actually made it to the mission field for the Southern Baptist Convention.

... that the first woman I asked to marry me married my college room mate instead.

... that the Air Force "annulled" my commission when they discovered that they had made a mistake on how bad my eyesight was.

... That even after being drafted I had the good sense of becoming Regular Army and joining the Army Security Agency.

... that I met the cutest little girl while I was waiting to go into the Army; 42 years and counting with her.

... that I was ignorant of the future and decided to have kids, which is the best thing I ever did.

... that I came home from Vietnam, alive.

... that the PTSD is manageable most of the time.

... that I haven't killed anyone in over 40 years.

... that nine months before my second son was born that my wife told me, but I don't have my diaphragm in, and I said, what the hell...

... that true madness is always temporary.

...that I had meaningful work careers for most of my life, but that work was always just a means to an end.

...that all of my children have turned out to be honest, true, and good people.

...that somewhere I learn the joy of learning, and that I live in the age of the Internet and Google.

...that my last employers were greedy when they constructed their golden parachutes so that when they told me to jump they at least gave me a bronze one.

...that I'm retired.

...that my wife's retired.

...that I have some disposable income left over at the end of each month (so far).

...that my Internist Doctor seems to give a shit about my staying alive.

...that my one and only wife is still my best friend even knowing what we know about each other.

The Sisters Of Mercy, They Are Not departed Or Gone

Miaziar Bahari changed a song for me. I've been a Leonard Cohen fan since 1967 when I bought a book of his poetry and discovered he wrote " Susanne". His song "Sisters of Mercy" I've listened to for years. Starting today, I will never be able to hear it with out thinking of Bahari's story or this image of him and his daughter.




Photo by Tom Stoddart?Getty Images


118 Days, 12 Hours, 54 Minutes
"On June 21, reporter Maziar Bahari was rousted out of bed and taken to Tehran's notorious Evin prison—accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6, Mossad…and NEWSWEEK. This is the story of his captivity—and of an Iran whose rampant paranoia underpins an ever more fractured regime." ----Newsweek Magazine

"The interrogator sat me in a wooden chair. It had a writing arm, like the chair I'd had in primary school. He ordered me to look down, even though I was already blindfolded: "Never look up, Mr. Bahari. While you are here—and we don't know how long you're going to be here—never look up." All I could see from under the blindfold was the interrogator's black leather slippers. They worried me. He had settled in for a long session. "----Maziar Bahari

Beatings, solitary confinement, threats, isolation, were Maziar's life in prison....

"My true refuge, though, was music. Once, after a particularly brutal beating, I swallowed three migraine pills and passed out. Two women came to me in a dream. They had kind faces; in fact, they reminded me of my sister Maryam, who had died of leukemia in February.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Sisters of mercy," they answered."


Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.

And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.

Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.

It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.

They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn

They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.

Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.

And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right,

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.

---Leonard Cohen


No, I won't hear it the same as I did before.

The Vanishing Wilderness

MSNBC showed a documentary named "100 Heartbeats" as part of the series Future Earth.

"Welcome to MSNBC's 'Future Earth'
In "100 Heartbeats," the second premiere in MSNBC's landmark Future Earth series, famed naturalist Jeff Corwin tells the story of the "Sixth Extinction" — caused by people and which can only be stopped by people. Keep checking futureearth.msnbc.com for information about the next premiere, "Future Earth: 2025," which will air on Dec. 20. You can catch "100 Heartbeats" on MSNBC again on Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. ET"

As a Geographer ecological disaster has been part of my focus for half a century. Over time I have found that many concerns are over stated and hyped.

For example in 1970 I was enthralled by a PBS series called "The Vanishing Wilderness".

"OUR VANISHING WILDERNESS
40 years ago, a small crew of filmmakers set out to document some of the more pressing issues involving wildlife in America. They made eight half-hour films around the country–it ended up being the first environmental tv series in the US. Shot in 1969, the issues weren’t new, but hadn’t been handled much yet on television–the medium had yet to embrace the environmental movement. "

"‘Our Vanishing Wilderness’ started as a book. Created by husband and wife team Shelly Grossman, nature photographer, and Mary Louise Grossman, nature writer, it was a kind of hybrid: part environmental report, part natural history, and part nature photography coffee table book. "

Expose', is the word used by Time magazine to describe the series when it aired.
The current MSNBC documentary certainly deserves that label as well.

Normally it is not quite as bad as these things make it out to be.
For example they just found and extra 150,000 or so gorillas in the Congo, adding a bunch of animals to a supposed population of about 50,000 gorillas. That's a 300% increase in the last year.

Another example: "FEDERAL SCIENTISTS reported last fall that the northwest Montana population of grizzlies was more than twice as large as experts had previously thought..."

"Several years ago, Kate Kendall oversaw the fermenting of 2,200 gallons of rotting fish and cow blood for bear lure. “You can imagine the fun we had opening up those barrels a year later,” says the U.S. Geological Survey biologist. That would have been the summer of 2004, when Kendall deployed 230 field workers to construct more than 2,500 bear hair traps across 7.8 million acres of rugged wilderness in northwest Montana. The odor emanating from the lure poured in the center of each trap compelled hundreds of grizzlies, federally listed as threatened, to cross under or over a surrounding strand of barbed wire, usually leaving behind enough hair for DNA fingerprinting. The feat earned Kendall the stump-speech ridicule of presidential candidate John McCain, who cited her DNA study as an example of pork-barrel spending—his laugh line being, “I don’t know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but it was $3 million of our taxpayers’ money.”


So much for McCain's 25 watt intelligence and insight.

So when you hear the expose' claims that everything is falling apart it is hard sometimes to believe it.

That's part of the problem with Climate Change, it has become a liberal versus conservative football. Trouble is the conservatives are just pissing in their own beer on this question. The liberals however just see it as cause that will help them "green up" the planet.

Neither are even close to correct.

Climate Change?
Think asteroid headed towards the earth!
Think nuclear winter!
Think California falling into the ocean!
Think movie "The Day After"!

Over the top you say?
Here's the deal, the effects of climate change will be as problematic as those doomsday scenarios.
Jeez, Drlobo you done fallen off the wagon again?

No, we have passed a tipping point several years ago.
The only reasonable public policy decisions to be made right now are those to decide what to do as it happens to protect our population, agriculture, and economy.

None of the models are bad enough to predict what will really occur (Academics are always 10 years behind the curve).
None of the scientists involved are willing to stick out their necks and say what they are really thinking (they need to keep their salaries so as to save enough to move to the Rockies).
If you live in an area less than 50 feet above current 2009 sea level, move to higher ground.
If you want a great investment, invest in land around Churchill, Manitoba (fiftey feet above sea level that is).
If you want to see Polar bears in the wild do it next year.
If you like to eat, keep at least a year's worth of food in your pantry.
Want to see Venice without having to use SCUBA gear, go now.
If you are a Climate Change Denier change you name and move inland.

Everybody is telling you that the changes will be slow. Bullshit! Think years instead of decades, think months instead of years, think days instead of months, think, hey what's that outside my window...

Oklahoma Hurricane Erin August 19, 2008 (No Shit!)

The good thing is that we will survive the climate change and will handle most of it pretty well, but for a few.....

The Media Whore of Babble-On

This blog will be just an Amen among thousands, but I feel compelled to put it on the WWW anyway.

First the title: The privilege of authorship goes to Justlen

Second: Although I seldom link to another blog in this case that's the most interesting source for this story. Thank you rumproast!

Check out the facebook page of Ms. Palin.