Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Republican politics in Washington D.C. brings us this polluted equation:

40 billion dollars of profits for ExxonMobil in 2008 plus record oil prices plus ever escalating economic damage due to fossil-fuel-fueled climate change equals continued tax breaks for ExxonMobil

This is no joke. It’s what’s really going on. We’re getting another record-breaking federal budget next year, but ExxonMobil won’t be paying its share.

The Republicans in DC are nothing but an oil slick across America’s pocketbook.

The headline was the first thing that struck me as off-target: “So many questions, so little time”. The article was about the 2008 presidential election. Reading that headline, I thought, it’s been over a year since the current presidential candidates declared their intention to run. Who hasn’t had the opportunity to consider questions about the qualifications and agendas of the candidates?

Oh, but that’s not what the writer, NBC News political editor Chuck Todd, was talking about. On the eve of Super Tuesday, Chuck Todd is in no mood to talk about substance. Here are the questions Todd had on his mind:

- Is Hillary Clinton perceived as the defacto incumbent in this race?
- What will have a greater impact on viewers Tuesday night? The dead even delegate fight between Clinton and Obama? Or the potential for one Dem to win a plurality of states by 52-48 while still splitting the delegates evenly?
- What if Obama wins California narrowly plus a bunch of other swing states but trails in the delegate count by, say, 50? Will the media treat Obama as the winner of Super Tuesday because of an upset California win? Or what if Clinton wins a majority of states, including California, Missouri and Arizona but the delegate count is basically even (another likely outcome)? Will Clinton be treated as the winner?
- The question is, who will come out on top?
- In how many states will John McCain break the 50 percent threshold and should that matter?
- How valuable will Mike Huckabee be for McCain?
- What about Obama’s percentage in New York vs. Clinton’s percentage in Illinois?
- Could Obama net a greater share of delegates out of Illinois than Clinton does out of New York?
- Assuming he believes he’s the presumptive nominee after Tuesday night (and he needs a victory in California to lay claim to that title), how will he begin to position himself for the general election?
- Will he continue to try to make the case to conservatives that he’ll look out for their best interests or will he start to make an appeal to the middle?
- And at what point does McCain pick his Democratic foe? Will McCain’s camp attempt to influence the other primary and if so, how?

What a boring, insipid bunch of questions.

Chuck Todd is treating the Super Tuesday presidential primaries as if they’re the Super Bowl, and that it’s just a game, and that the ideas promoted by candidates don’t matter, except inasmuch as they help a candidate win.

How spiritless.

You’d think that the political editor for NBC News would have more on his mind than who wins. You’d think he’d be able to keep in mind what politics means, and consider the likely impacts of the candidates’ proposed policies.

You would think that, if you didn’t know how NBC News and the rest of the mainstream news media work. The last thing they want to do is encourage their viewers to think about things of substance… that might cause them to ignore the commercials.

The three trillion dollar budget viciously cuts programs that benefit the American people, so how come it’s still the biggest federal budget in history? Part of the answer is that the budget proposed by George W. Bush contains the biggest military budget since World War II.

Are we really supposed to believe that the “War On Terror”, a fight against Islamic terrorist riff raff, our generation’s equivalent of a war against pirates, costs more than the global struggle against the forces of the Soviet Union and other Communist nations? No, don’t believe that for a second - you’re being asked to believe something even worse.

You see, when they say that the military budget requested for 2009 is the biggest since World War II, they aren’t even including the nearly trillion dollars extra that the Bush White House is expected to request for the military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Where is the money going this time? It’s going to fund corruption, fraud and waste. It’s going into the pockets of some very well-connected individuals - people in what the charitable refer to as the “defense” industry who have close working relationships with the Bush White House and members of Congress.

The military-linked corruption isn’t only going to the Republican side of the aisle, either. Think about the whopper unloaded upon the good people of Missouri by Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton: The Chicago Tribune cites Representative Skelton as saying that the military budget is necessary to ensure the health of the military.

The health of the military? My foot. The budget increase for the Pentagon ensures the financial health of military contractor corporations, and their investors and executives who are linked to politicians in Washington D.C. It’s a financial scheme for which members of Congress will be rewarded generously in the form of campaign donations. It’s dirty, rotten, stinking corporate pork barrel in the form of bullets and bombs.

Liberals may decry Republican double standards, citing the proliferation of prostitution whenever the Republicans are in power. I say,  bring back the hookers.  It lets the interns off the hook.

There were many who said that Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions were a personal problem and had nothing to do with the way he was able to govern the country.  I thought that too, until I became part of the federal government through the United State Peace Corps.

Think of this: Monika Lewinsky was an employee, an intern.  Bill Clinton was her boss.  Is any employee ever really free to turn down the boss?    And when the CEO of a corporation is doing something, can the rank and file ever really say there is anything wrong with someone else doing it?

The culture within the federal government during the time I was associated with it said no.  If you turn down one of those Washington types, the current wisdom went,  your career wouldn’t last. Maybe that’s why the Peace Corps publicizes it’s surveys about “feelings” instead of the actual number of assaults or its fifty percent attrition rate, which they try to hide from the public.  Sexual harassment within the agency is a totally taboo subject–the people most likely to do it are the same people responsible for reporting and stopping it. Maybe that’s why Peace Corps volunteers feel pressured to find a romantic interest with local clout as soon as they are in country. Or why the Peace Corps–and Chris Dodd–worked so hard to defeat the Peace Corps Safety and Security bill that would have established an Ombudsman for volunteers as well as an independent Inspector General.

Can you imagine–the IG, the guy responsible for oversight of the agency, reports to the agency’s director.  That might be all right for agencies where those making judgments have some job security in the form of civil service protection, but Peace Corps is under a five-year rule. Most employees have their contracts renewed every two and a half years, up to a maximum of five years, a good formula for producing rubber stamps.

Bill Clinton didn’t just have an affair, like former President Harding and presidential hopeful McCain.  He got involved with an employee, and he got away with it, creating a predatory atmosphere for female employees throughout the federal system.  His actions paralyzed his administration and its ability to enact any of its ideals in his second term.  Hillary Clinton did not have any good options.  If she stood by her man, she would be an enabler of something corrosive in the political system.  If she didn’t, she would lose everything she had worked for in her entire political life, as well as the opportunity to make a difference in the future with her considerable talents. I have nothing but admiration for the way Hillary Clinton has carried herself and served the country.  But I have a bad taste in my mouth about bureaucrats who are sexual predators and the corporate cultural that lets them get away with it.

Let’s get that out of the government offices and back into the brothels where it belongs.

You shouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because her husband Bill Clinton abused his power when in office? What an outdated, outmoded and frankly sexist way of looking at things, as if a woman inherits the sins of her husband. As if! What’s next? The return of the “rule of thumb” whereby a woman can be beaten by a small stick, just don’t make it too big? Hillary Clinton should be judged on her merits, not the demerits of Slick Willie. And Hillary Clinton has the greatest command of detail of any of the presidential candidates including John McCain. Hillary Clinton is prudent in her pursuit of policy options, not wild crazy and out of hand. Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to be a good or bad president for women. Hillary Clinton has to be a damned good president for EVERYBODY. I am confident that with her diligence and her attention to detail, she will be. Hillary Clinton will never give up on you. Don’t you give up on her.

Given the considerable dominance of Bill and Hillary Clinton in New York State Democratic party politics, it was never a question that Hillary Clinton would get the largest share of presidential convention delegates in the 2008 primary. What is surprising, however, is that she had to work so hard in New York State to maintain her victory.

Barack Obama made a surprisingly showing in the New York State Democratic presidential primary yesterday. Hillary Clinton got 91 congressional district delegates, with Barack Obama not far behind at 60 delegates.

The solid wrap-up of New York’s large number of delegates wasn’t delivered. That will make it all-the-more challenging for Hillary Clinton to get the presidential nomination, and leads to the question of how much New York State Democrats really approve of the job Hillary Clinton is doing for them in the U.S. Senate.

It’s honesty time. Although I’ve written some things in favor of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, the truth is that there are a lot of things about Barack Obama I don’t like. Here they are:

- Playing footsie with anti-gay sentiment. It’s not just Donnie McClurkin. Look at his statements against gay marriage.
- Antiwar record gone soft. The military occupation of Iraq is a useless drain of hundreds of billions of dollars, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives lost. Can we please just end it?
- Against impeachment, and wouldn’t even support censuring Bush.
- Promotes new coal burning technology
- Seems to think he really is as charismatic as everyone says he is
- Tries to play both sides on separation of church and state
- Isn’t talking about undoing the Bush laws that take away civil liberty

These things about Barack Obama bug me. Still, I think he’s the better choice on the Democratic side. An honest supporter can admit imperfections. Can Hillary Clinton’s supporters be as honest about her many flaws?

The still red branches
make autumn planted dogwoods
February’s hope.

I just found the results of the Green Party caucuses in California on Super Tuesday, provided by the League of Women Voters. I have to say that I’m pretty disappointed in the results.

The candidates who have been out and hustling their way around the Green Party state meetings for months and months now got a minority of the vote.

Cynthia McKinney got 26.0%

Elaine Brown 1,330 got 4.6%

Kat Swift got 3.1%

Kent Mesplay got 2.0%

Jesse Johnson got 1.8%

Jared Ball 467 got 1.5%

Along comes Ralph Nader, waltzing in at the last minute, with his surrogate Howie Hawkins, suggesting that he just might, maybe, run for President, but he’s not sure. How much of the California Green vote did Nader get? 61 percent.

I’m groaning. Ralph Nader fails pathetically in his Green Party presidential run in 1996. So, what does the Green Party do? They nominate him again in the year 2000. Then, in the year 2004, Ralph Nader ran as an independent candidate, courted Republican support, and trashed the Green Party. So, now, in 2008, what are the Greens doing? Nominating Ralph Nader for President again.

Pardon me, is the Green Party really a political party, or is it just a stage upon which we all get to watch the Ralph Nader melodrama unfold in excruciating slow motion?

Do you doubt how serious a threat to American freedom it is that Congress is about to pass the FISA Amendments Act, unamended, and allow the President of the United States to spy against Americans’ emails, telephone calls and Internet use without any requirement to justify the spying, and without any congressional oversight? Don’t just listen to the warnings of us liberals over here at Irregular Times. Listen to the financial conservatives over on Wall Street.

Here’s what Rex Nutting, the Washington Bureau Chief of Marketwatch, has to say about the consequences of the passage of this law:

“If Al Qaeda is fighting us because they hate our freedoms, as President Bush often says, then they’re winning the war.

Pretty soon, we won’t have any more freedoms for them to hate.

Scratch the Fourth Amendment off the list of freedoms that we thought we had.”

Marketwatch is not some progressive publication like The Nation. It’s “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company”.

When Wall Street fiscal conservatives ring the bell of alarm about the imminent loss of American freedom, it’s time for even optimistic skeptics to listen, and move to action.

The Senate is due to vote on the FISA Amendments Act any time now. Get out of your chair and tell your senators to vote NO.

The number of the congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif) died Monday from complications of cancer.  He was 80.

Mr. Lantos cosponsored the bipartisan H.R. 4060 the Peace Corps Safety and Security Act of  2004.  The legislation would have established an ombudsman, an office of safety and security, and an independent Inspector General for the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps opposed the legislation, and it passed the house but not the senate.  But for a time, the safety of the volunteers was very much in the public eye and the Peace Corps was forced to make some internal changes as it tried to marshal arguments to fight this legislation. There is still more that could be done, but the support Mr. Lantos showed us in this battle has made the Peace Corps a safer place for the volunteers who will follow us.

Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

The real moral values of the Republican Party are demonstrated in brutal, sadistic form in the last federal budget proposed by George W. Bush.

The federal budget President Bush proposes for 2009 begins a program of cutting 196 billion dollars from Medicare health care benefits for the elderly and extremely impoverished Americans.

Why would the Republicans do such a cruel thing? Well, part of that money taken away from Medicare will go to pay for policies that make rich Americans even richer.

But, some of the money the Republicans will save by cutting Medicare benefits for senior citizens will go to pay for something even more inhumane. The Republicans propose using some of the money taken away from Medicare to pay for a new generation of nuclear bombs.

What do we need new nuclear weapons for? Terrorists cannot be defeated with nuclear missiles. Nuclear weapons are designed to kill civilians by destroying entire cities, vaporizing them, melting them, burning them into nothing more than radioactive cinder and ash.

These are the moral values of the Republican party: Less medicine for the sick, and more nuclear weapons to kill people by the millions.

This isn’t about getting tough, or being fiscally conservative. It’s inhumane. It’s just plain insane.

The Republican Party agenda, led now by George W. Bush, and to be continued by John McCain, leads on a path of fear and destruction.

America can do better. We must do better.

I was just having a conversation about the 2008 presidential election, and the reasons that so many people have decided to support Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Some people might express it in terms of which candidate is better able to strongly campaign against John McCain. Bill Clinton himself has said that Hillary Clinton and John McCain are such great friends that any campaign between the two of them would probably put voters to sleep if they ran against each other. Bill Clinton couldn’t seem to understand that such a thing would be unattractive to Democrats.

What the trouble of a Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain presidential campaign boils down to, however, is that Hillary Clinton is just too much like John Kerry. She’s got the same vulnerabilities, the same indefensible position of criticizing the Iraq War while refusing to say that it was a mistake to start the war, and having gone along with Bush’s whole Iraq invasion idea from the start. Hillary Clinton was for the Iraq War before she was against it.

Not Barack Obama. Barack Obama was against the Iraq War before he was against the Iraq War.

Let’s set this issue straight with some direct documentary facts proving that Barack Obama was against the Iraq war from the start - before the war began, and has stood by that position. These videos have historical footage of Barack Obama speaking out against the Iraq War before it was begun, and since then.

Barack Obama’s rivals cannot produce such video documentation of their early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War. There’s a simple reason why. They were in favor of starting the Iraq War from the start.

John McCain was an eager booster of invading and occupying Iraq. McCain even said that the whole operation would be quick and easy.

Hillary Clinton supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq from the start too. Since then, what’s Hillary Clinton’s position on Iraq? That’s really difficult to say - I’ll let Clinton boosters try to explain it. The simple fact is that Hillary Clinton gave her assistance to George W. Bush and helped him start the war. When a million Americans took to the streets to demonstrate popular opposition to the invasion of Iraq, Hillary Clinton did not join them. In fact, Hillary Clinton spoke out against the agenda of the antiwar protests.

Has Barack Obama always done exactly as I would have liked him to do on the issue of Iraq? No. However, only one presidential candidate has gotten it anywhere close to correct on Iraq from the start. Thus, only one candidate deserves our support for President of the United States. That candidate is Barack Obama.

The following is from a conversation I had with a white woman, maybe fiftyish.

We need to have a Methodist for President.

First of all it’s not true that Methodists are going to all vote for Clinton. The ones that are voting for Obama have their own reasons.

The country is really messed up after so many years of Bush, so we need someone really pious in the White House. It’s going to take someone really religious, like a Methodist, to straighten everything out.

Did I really have this conversation? No, of course not.

If the statement is true, then it’s a stupid thing said by one person. Is there a trend of such stupid things being said, on the record? Are such things being said by the Clinton campaign? If so, then that’s a worthwhile basis for conversation. If not, then it’s just about as informative as me saying that I had a conversation with a person who said that we should not vote for Bill Richardson because Hispanics should be working at gas stations.

Whatever happened to the days when people would patiently wait in line for their turn? The great unspoken issue of the 2008 Democratic presidential election is that it is not Barack Obama’s turn to be President. It is Hillary Clinton’s turn.

For all of her life, Hillary Clinton has selflessly worked to promote her husband Bill. She has put up with more Monica Lewinskies than we will ever know about. But has Hillary Clinton stepped out of line? No, she has waited, patiently, for her turn.

With all that Hillary Clinton has been through, she deserves to be President of the United States. People in the Democratic Party who have any sense of decency can understand that. Others, who are trying to push their way ahead in line, need to remember their place.

Fidel Castro is retiring, and I don’t care.

I won’t go so far to say that it doesn’t matter, and I’m not trying to say that Castro’s release of power, coming on February 24th when the Cuban government shall select a new President, is uninteresting, as far as it goes.

Still, in the larger scheme of things, it isn’t within the larger scheme of things. Cuba is now just an island. It never managed to overthrow the United States from our soft Gulf underbelly. There is no international Communist conspiracy any more, except for the one to have more potlucks.

Castro may be retiring, but outside of Cuba, he was already irrelevant.

Communism only matters politically to the extent that it serves as an insult that right wing zealots can hurl against progressive policies that they do not understand. To our everyday lives, Fidel Castro mattered in the end only to the extent that he interfered with our ability to get good cigars.

According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, jackrabbits have suddenly disappeared from the area around Yellowstone National Park. They disappeared so quickly that no one even noticed that the jackrabbits were in decline until they were all gone.

Scientists say that they have no idea what actually caused the sudden disappearance of rabbits from Yellowstone. All they have to offer is a bunch of guesses: Disease, maybe. Predation, maybe. Weather events, maybe.

In the face of this ecological calamity, wouldn’t you rather have certainty? It’s time to turn to religion.

I say that Jesus is the explanation. It’s clear to me that the rabbits of Yellowstone have experienced the first wave of Rapture. Isn’t it just as the End Times prophets have predicted, that all of a sudden, people would turn around and notice that all the rabbits had disappeared?

The only proof I need is the Bible. Did you know that the Bible never once mentions rabbits? Just like there are no rabbits anymore in Yellowstone? It is as if God himself told the ancient Israelites that the Rapture of jackrabbits from Yellowstone would be a sign of the imminent return of Jesus.

The time is at hand! Prepare ye for the coming of the Lord! Greet him with carrots!

The mayors of Akron and Canton, Ohio, anchors of the old Ohio industry, have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. They know Clinton is the one to bring the industrial majesty back to the Buckeye State. Akron and Canton are also anchors of rural Ohio, and as a rural American I know I appreciate Hillary Clinton’s plan to revitalize America’s rural areas with reinvestment projects and country-of-origin labeling that will stop our local products from having to compete with cheap foreign-made substitutes.

Barack Obama has got the endorsement of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The hometown newspaper explains,

Who wants to relive the soap operas of the 1990s?

Bill Clinton says his wife excelled at “making positive changes in other people’s lives.” Consider that construction. Then listen as Obama talks of bringing people together to change their own lives.

America needs a fresh start. Barack Obama is the Democrat to provide it.

Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray has also endorsed Barack Obama, and was out in Youngstown campaigning for him yesterday.

Obama has the endorsement of Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman too.

Of course, the endorsement that matters is the endorsement of Ohio’s voters, and that won’t be given for another two weeks.

I was listening to the speech that Hillary Clinton gave recently at the Wisconsin Founders Day Gala this afternoon, and I just couldn’t help getting a tear in my eye when I heard Senator Clinton talk about her strong leadership on the issue of the war in Iraq. She said,

“We also have to do everything we can to make it clear that restoring our leadership and our moral authority in the world starts with ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home responsibly and quickly. I have said that I will start bringing them home within the first 60 days. From my position on the Senate Armed Services Committee I’ve been working to make sure that we are prepared to do that.”

This is what Barack Obama supporters are so unfair about. They never give Hillary Clinton credit for making America ready to bring soldiers home from Iraq in 60 days. Hillary Clinton has been working hard on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting everything in place, and standing strong against the Bush Administration, like she has from the start on the issue of Iraq.

Finally, American soldiers are ready to come home within 60 days. Everyone recognizes that. But, as usual, no one is willing to give Hillary Clinton credit. There’s that glass ceiling again.

Without Senator Clinton’s hard work on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting a firm withdrawal date set and pushing President Bush to accept the Democratic position on the war, we would still be in the middle of a war without any direction, and without any end in sight.

I will give credit where credit is due. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for making this possible from your position on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

If we had listened to you from the beginning, Hillary Clinton, we never would have invaded Iraq in the first place. I will never forget the strong speeches you made trying to get Americans to wake up to the gathering danger of an unwise rush to war. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for your forward vision.

It’s that vision, seeing the best course in matters of war and peace before anyone else, that makes Hillary Clinton my choice for President of the United States.

Me Ooma. Me come from Bloodfang Clan. Me for Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton say Obama bad. Hillary Clinton say, “It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words, but on work, hard work, to get America back to work!”

Obama rely on words. Bad man. Bad, bad word man. He no work. Lazy man go Senate take nap. Lazy Harvard Law Review President. Lazy lazy community organizer. Lazy professor use words man! Bad. Obama no smash rocks!

Hillary Clinton no rely on words. Hillary Clinton no talk. Hillary Clinton work. Hillary Clinton be good president smash rocks.

That why Hillary Clinton say — Wait!

Hillary Clinton say?

Hillary Clinton use words! Hillary Clinton rely words! No worky! Hillary Clinton no smash rocks hard work? Hillary Clinton two face word user!

Me Ooma say — Wait!

Ooma say?

Ooma rely words! Bad Ooma! Bad Bad talky Ooma!

Ooma go smash rocks!

Supporters of Hillary Clinton are getting very upset that their candidate, who they thought a few months ago was “inevitable”, is now losing to Barack Obama. They’re using arguments against Barack Obama that just don’t make any sense.

One of my favorite arguments they use is that Barack Obama will never be able to withstand attacks from the Republican Party because the only Republican he’s ever had to run against is Alan Keyes. What these Hillary Clinton supporters don’t seem to understand is that such an argument only works in Hillary Clinton’s favor if Barack Obama is not winning in the electoral competition against Hillary Clinton.

Think about it for just a little bit. If Barack Obama really is such a sissy wimp who will be ripped apart by the Republicans, and Hillary Clinton is such a tough campaigner who can take on anybody, then how come Hillary Clinton is losing to Barack Obama?

Another argument that Hillary Clinton supporters have begun to use that I really don’t like is that Barack Obama will be defeated by the Republicans because he isn’t Republican enough. This argument suggests that the Democrats ought to nominate a Democrat who supports Republican policies, in order to get the Republican vote. It’s the best justification that they can come up with for Hillary Clinton’s vote to help George W. Bush go to war in Iraq.

That argument was used by Thomas Buffenbarger, a Clinton supporter in Youngstown, Ohio who took to the stage at a Clinton rally yesterday to warm up the crowd before Hillary Clinton herself arrived. He didn’t speak much in praise of Hillary Clinton. Instead, he attacked Barack Obama. Here’s a sample Buffenbarger had to say:

“The Barack show is playing to rave reviews sold out at college campuses after college campus. Standing room only crowds to hear his silver-tounged orations. Hope, change, yes we can? Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak. This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.”

This latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing slur ought to sound familiar. It’s the same attack that the Republican Club For Growth used against Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004. Why are surrogates for Hillary Clinton using Republican attakcs against Barack Obama?

I would like for the Hillary Clinton campaign to come out and explain what it has against lattes, and why Birkenstocks are to be hated. I would really love for Hillary Clinton to explain why she is arranging for people to speak on behalf of her campaign who hate hybrid cars.

I’ve got news for the Thomas Buffenbargers of the Democratic Party: If you think that you can arrange for Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination by attacking environmentalists, attacking young people, attacking institutions of education, and for goodness sakes attacking people who like coffee, you’ve got another thing coming.

Here’s a clue to understanding the language of Homeland Security: If you want to discover the torture devices they’re developing for use against prisoners, search for the phrase, “nonlethal weapon”.

Case in point: The LED Incapacitator.

The LED Incapacitator is a special kind of flashlight that is designed to emit light in certain patterns and wavelengths in such a way as to force people to vomit.

The blog Mind Modulations says of the LED Incapacitator that it could be used to bring “a bad guy” into custody.

Substitute “criminal suspect” for “bad guy”. This LED Incapacitator may be nonlethal, but it is a form of physical and psychological attack.

The same blog relays the idea that a larger could be used against “a mob”.

Substitute “group of protesters” for “mob”, and you see another way in which this kind of attack technology can go terribly wrong.

We know that our government follows the Joseph Lieberman school of torture: That so long as you don’t leave a permanent mark, you can inflict whatever kind of suffering you want to against prisoners and criminal suspects.

The LED Incapacitator is one more instrument of torture that can be used by the Homeland Security goons against us.

The national government of Iraq, as well as the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan have demanded that Turkey end its invasion of Iraq and withdraw its soldiers from Iraqi territory. The US military, on the other hand, continues to share information with the Turkish military in order to assist in the invasion.

It’s a clear test of Iraqi sovereignty: Do the Iraqi central government and its provincial governments have control over Iraq’s borders and military security? No.

There is no Iraqi sovereignty. There is no genuine Iraqi government. Iraq continues to be a possession of the United States military.

How clean is John McCain? For that matter, how clean is the news media? Bloomberg news, which as a telecommunications company is mixed right up in the very telecom lobbying business it purports to report objectively upon, has quoted “a senior adviser to John McCain” as saying that John McCain is not inappropriately influenced by the large number of lobbyists that he associates with. This “senior adviser to John McCain”, Charles Black, is quoted as saying that “John McCain does no favors for, nor gives no special treatment to, any lobbyists — even if they are a friend of his.”

The thing is, Charles Black isn’t exactly a neutral, objective source in the matter. Charles Black is a top official in the John McCain for President campaign, but what’s more, Charles Black is a lobbyist himself.

Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a powerful lobbying company. Here’s what BKSH itself has to say about its lobbying work “BKSH’s capabilities encompass a broad range of economic, social, domestic and international issues. Our professionals have managed “front-page” issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. Our mission can be as targeted as securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation, or as broad as strengthening the bilateral relationship between a foreign country and the United States.”

Charles Black runs a lobbying firm with the goal of “securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation”. So, what is he doing serving as a top adviser of the presidential campaign of John McCain, a member of the U.S. Senate? Why is John McCain forming close political alliances with lobbyists who have openly declared their intention to help their corporate clients manipulate congressional legislation?

Furthermore, why does Bloomberg News cite Charles Black, a lobbyist who is professionally dedicated to influencing legislation in Congress through contact with politicians like John McCain, as a credible source to reassure Americans that John McCain does no special favors for lobbyists?

To use lobbyist Charles Black as a source on this story, Bloomberg reporter Edwin Chen makes himself appear either incompetent and naive or as corrupted by the influence of media business lobbyists as John McCain.

It’s a clear contradiction of the political narrative that’s been presented by faith-based hacks in the Democratic and Republican Party. Even as they have been claiming that the United States is growing more religious, the just-released Pew Forum Religious Landscape Survey shows the opposite. “The biggest gains due to changes in religious affiliation have been among those who say they are not affiliated with any particular religious group or tradition,”, the report on the survey’s results says.

The Pew study contains a category of Americans it calls “unaffiliated”. Included in this group are those Americans who call themselves atheists or agnostics, and those Americans who respond that their religious affiliation is “nothing in particular”. Of this “nothing in particular” group, a little more than half are non-religious (called “secular”), and a little less than half are vaguely religious but not affiliated with any religion.

In a lot of areas of the report, the Pew Forum seems to edge away from reporting on atheists, agnostics and the secular unaffiliated. It’s as if the people at the Pew Forum don’t really know what to make of this group, given that they’re dedicated to examining “religion and public life” - not people who are apart from religion.

Some things are clear, however. Christians are older than the population in general, with fewer adherents of Christianity in the newest generation of adults. Atheists, agnostics, and secular unaffiliated Americans, on the other hand, are more abundant in the new generation of American adults.

In the general population, 20 percent of people are in the age range of 18-29 year-olds. 37 percent of atheists, however, are aged 18-29. 34 percent of agnostics are in that age range, and 29 percent of secular unaffiliated Americans are. No religious group shows anything like that high percentage of representation by the young.

That this age dynamic is a generational shift, and not the reflection of some kind of permanent dynamic in which young people start out as non-religious and then become religious later in life, is indicated by the relatively low percentage of adults leaving the religiously unaffiliated groups.

This is one area in which the Pew Forum does not differentiate between secular and religious unaffiliated. I’m sorry that I can’t fully describe these numbers. Call the Pew Forum to complain. What I can say, based upon their statistics, is that more far people become atheists as adults than leave their atheist identity behind. The same is true for agnostics, and for people who say that their religious affiliation is “nothing in particular”.

The number of people who currently say they were atheists as children is only a third of the number of people who currenly say that they are atheists as adults. Agnostics show a doubling of numbers in the move from childhood to adulthood, and generally unaffiliated Americans show a tripling in numbers. Catholics and Protestants, on the other hand, tend to lose some adherents as they age.

So, it seems that non-religious identity is something that Americans tend to mature into, and Christian identity is something that Americans tend to mature out of - although some members of all groups retain their identity lifelong.

This trend in maturation, combined with the disproportionately young character of non-religious Americans, suggests that the new generation is distinctly more non-religious than previous generations, and that this generation will probably remain more non-religious than its predecessors.

This trend ought to serve as a wakeup call for politicians to pull back on the kind of religious pandering we’ve seen so much of during the 2008 presidential election so far. Atheists, agnostics and non-religious secular Americans make up 10.3 percent of the population.

That means that non-religious Americans are a larger group than Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Unitarians, New Agers, Quakers, Pagans, Wiccans, and religiously-active members of Judaism and Native American tribes combined.

There are almost as many non-religious Americans as there are evangelical Baptists. Episcopals are puny in number compared to non-religious Americans. So are Methodists, Congregationalists, Orthodox Christians, Presbyterians, and Seventh Day Adventists.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both spent a lot of time courting the support of what are called “historically black churches” in the Pew Forum survey. However, non-religious Americans easily outnumber the people affiliated with those churches.

Catholics? Well, yes, Catholics outnumber non-religious Americans a little bit more than two-to-one. However, the Catholic portion of the population of the United States is in sharp decline, whereas the non-religious portion of the US population is strongly increasing.

Pay attention, politicians - non-religious Americans are on the rise. The days when our right to equal protection under the law can be ignored are numbered.

Me Ooma! Ooma car crash in ditch go fire! Ooma sit repair shop watch talky talky.

Ooma stop talky soft computer man! Ooma change channel go Spike TV. Ooma watch World’s Most Amazing Videos.

Ooma like man smash rocks. Spike TV man smash rocks. Spike TV man drive snowmobiles on water in winter. Spike TV man go zoom! Spike TV man burn fuel go fast. Spike TV man punch wimpy man eye pop on floor.

Ooma go home Spike TV eat mastodon blood pudding.

The Adventists are building a new wellness center on the campus of their university. The university is blessed with a forward-looking management team, and they are in laboratory trials for a cure for aging.

Don Juan Ponce de Leon was looking around in Florida in 1513 for a fountain of youth. Little did he know he should have been looking for “cookies of youth” instead of a “fountain of youth”.

The research professor (pictured above, click to enlarge) “is constantly searching for ways to make her cookies healthier”. She uses margarine, sugar, eggs, baking soda, and white flour in her anti-aging cookies (ingredients at left, click to enlarge). The professor makes a batch of 288 of these special cookies at a time, and they are quickly snapped up!

The experiments have gone well. According to this eminent scientist, students experience a “calming” and “rejuvenating” effect on eating these wonder cookies.

With the research breakthroughs at the Adventist university, the wellness center will be booked solid. If these cookies really do “rejuvenate” (to make youthful), as the research professor claims, the world will be standing in line.

This is probably the first scientific study in which cookies actually make people younger!

source:

http://adventistsnotcult.blogspot.com/2008/01/priming-pump.html

Just when we thought things could not get worse, there is a new threat to the survival of humankind: Killer military robots. Dr. Noel Sharkey is speaking before the Royal United Services Institute with a stark warning: Military organizations around the world, especially in the United States, are developing killer robots that can be used on the battlefield - and in government actions against resistant domestic populations, instead of human beings.

The United States military plans to spend four billion dollars in the next two years alone to enhance its current program to develop homicidal robots. Have these people not seen the Terminator movies? Have they not read I, Robot?

These robots have no compassion. They have no mercy. They will not stop until their violent missions are completed.

You won’t be able to negotiate with them, if they are sent against you. You can hit them with your fists, kick them with your feet, and it won’t make a difference to their armor plating. You can run, but they can track you down with global positioning software and sensory equipment that goes far beyond the human range of sight, sound and smell.

Once these murderous military robots are unleashed against, us, we will not stand a chance. We will all die, and if the robots escape the control of their military masters, there might not be anyone left to care.

Daniel Gardner of Oberlin, Ohio is cool. George Luna of Atascadero, California is cool. John Bork of Grafton, Iowa is cool.

Is your mayor cool? You can check at Cool Mayors.

A mayor is counted as cool if he or she has committed the municipal government of his or her city or village to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign (CCP) or the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. In other words, these mayors are trying to get around the inaction of the Bush White House in confronting climate change, and working to make things better where they live.

Cool.