On a typical day:
- three American soldiers in Iraq are killed
- a few dozen Iraqis are killed in bombings
- 120 Americans are killed in motor vehicle accidents
- Two Americans are killed as a result of the accidental discharge of a firearm
- 81 Americans are injured by firearms
- 47 Americans are killed in homicides
- Nine Americans are drowned
- Eight Americans die from complications of medical care
- 13 Americans die from injuries in the workplace
- 46 Americans die as a result of accidental poisoning
- 123 Americans die from drug- and alcohol-related toxicity
- 13 Americans die from injuries in the workplace
- 37 Americans die from an HIV infection
- 1520 Americans die of cancer
In our nation,
- As of 9:00 EDT this morning, the national debt stood at $7,813,306,228,172.99. Every man, woman, child and infant in the United States owed $26,363.17 as a result of this public debt.
- In the time it took me to write the above sentence (four minutes), the nation added another $5,070,000.00 in national debt — another two pennies in debt for you.
- On an hourly basis, the increasing national debt decreases a minimum-wage worker’s pay by 6 percent.
- 45 million Americans are without health insurance.
In our world,
- 852 million people are undernourished
- the globe is warming
- atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is higher than it has been in at least 420,000 years, and possibly longer.
Given all this, to what crucial policy initiative have the House and Senate chosen to dedicate their time in the next week and half or so?
Why, a constitutional amendment to ban the burning of the American flag in protest.
Number of flag burnings in the United States so far in 2005, according to the Citizens Flag Alliance, which is pushing for this amendment:
Not two every day.
Two during the whole year, and it hasn’t even been established that they were burned in protest.
Given all the above problems and many more, the House and Senate are going to devote their precious time, resources and attention to this?
How sadly typical.
—
Addendum:
Pingback: The Cretin Papers
Remember, The Great Oz’s command, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”
I went to that Cretin site and eventually came across this nibble:
Rumsfeld said “If anyone lived in the Middle East and watched a network like the Al Jazeera day after day after day, even if he was an American, he would start waking up and asking what’s wrong. But America is not wrong.”
— start waking up?! —
Watching your loved ones get blown apart by bombs will wake you up damn quick. Don’t need TV for that.
When I was in DC, I had Al Jazeera via satellite because of Egyptian friends. I simply didn’t consider that you folks never got to see Iraq (esp. Bagdad) getting bombed the same way I did. They aired rescued video of people in what looked like a shopping mall while it was being blown away. Mothers rushing children inside as machine gun fire passed overhead. Crying over a son that didn’t make it in time. Shouting into the camera ‘When will they leave us alone? It was never this bad before!’
I just got an idea for a photo essay.. I’ll be back later.
[Editor's note: we just got this SPAM from Ecostructure. I encourage you to write the SPAMMERS at om@ecostructure.us and tell them what you think of
SPAM. Call them at 208-882-8858 and give 'em a piece of your mind.
Meantime, I'm, going to have some fun with editing. Cheers!
J. Matthew]
SPAM!!
For Immediate Stupid Fucking SPAM Release [ -- June 22, 2005
Ecostructure Financial to Provide No-Cost "Coaching" to Losers Who Can't Figure Out Shit For Themselves
Moscow, Idaho -- Ecostructure Financial announced today it will begin providing business coaching and financial development services to ecological entrepreneurs at no cost. No it won't. Just kidding. There's a catch in there somewhere. They're just hiding it.
While we're at it, don't you just hate how these press releases speak in the third person when it's clearly written by the people themselves? It would be more honest if they said, "Um, hi, here WE are. WE've got something that WE want you to buy. Um, please?" But, no, they've got to pretend it's a review or news piece or something. How lame.
"As a lifelong ecological entrepreneur, what I've most wanted are good free advice and access to capital. Now we are fulfilling my dream to provide this for others who are passionate about the biosphere," said founder Mark Winstein. "I'll translate that, shall I? What I just said is that I want to scam other people and get lots of money. Now I've got a scam in which I try to convince you you can make money, but really you just are going to give money to me. Haw, haw! You'll wish you hadn't, SUCKER!"
Winstein estimates there are 2000 to 4000 ecological entrepreneurs worldwide developing for-profit business strategies to deal with global ecological challenges such as climate change, water quality, open space, declining fisheries and farmland, and loss of native habitat and species. Winstein pulled this figure out of his ass, where he found it one day after breakfast. "Boy, am I glad I checked before I flushed," Winstein acknowledged.
"How can we help this many environmental leaders for free?" asks Winstein. "By selling subscriptions to our online newsletter The Ecological Finance Review to people who want to see these green entrepreneurs succeed." Winstein clearly hasn't heard of Grist. Why didn't he just sell Grist when he was a Boy Scout? Because it DOESN'T WORK! What an asshole! "Yes, my Marky is quite the asshole," agrees wifey Lucinda Winstein. "Why, just the other day he pooped all over the kitchen table just for kicks. Who do you think is going to have to clean that up? Hello, hygiene! Talk about ecology -- this isn't humus, you creep."
The newsletter is Ecostructure's first mass market ecological product. The cost of a subscription starts at just $1 per month. Using advanced strategies, namely spamming lots of people and hoping they'll buy this camel turd of a publication, the company can provide meaningful income to Marky Mark while pretending to provide coaching and assistance to 100 promising eco-preneurs for every $2000 the company earns monthly from newsletter subscriptions.
"Someone stop me, quickly," said Marky "Fresh Prints" Winstein at the end of the interview, "before I coin another annoying phrase like "eco-preneurs" again!
For more information, please visit [
SPAM!!] or contact Lisa Allenbach, who probably wishes she had another job, at 208-882-8858.
So, what do we think the best way is to go about humanising the Iraqis?
There is WAY too much racism aimed at the Iraqis and Muslims at the moment, how do we go about trying to get rid of it?
Well my idea went down the tubes. Instead, I found this essay about the state of health care.
[url]http://www.jsonline.com/news/insideiraq/slideshow01/01-01.as2[/url]
I think showing these situations, getting people to understand that America’s actions cause(d) them, might help move a few more people to think and act.
Zero, did you have something like this in mind?
http://irregulartimes.com/dead.html
Thanks. This site is so big I miss a lot.
My idea was to take those kinds of scenes and ‘americanize’ them for impact. (put well known faces in) Then I hit the laws about using children in pictures and stopped.
That one with the beds, some with people/remains of people in them, and some empty with blood stains, is eerie…
Odd how the disregard of how similar we all are (ONE SPECIES) seems to remind some people of it… Wonder how many of the people in those photos comforting people or trying to help kids aren’t even related to them…
Hi there. Mark Winstein here. I just read your interesting account of our release. Many good criticisms.
I have no idea how our release got to you. I only sent it to people I know personally or who subscribed already to our newsletter. If you can help me to find what we did wrong, I’ll gladly correct it. We don’t do spam, certainly not intentionally.
For the record, your proposal that I am just trying to scam people is 100% wrong. Also, your assestment that my stats are b.s. is also wrong.
I am willing to talk. Before you trash me again, you could just give me a call and find out the truth. We all make mistakes. We’re all “flawed”.
You have my contact info.
Yours,
Mark