Happy New Year, Folks...It'll sure be happier if George, Dick, and company resign-or are finally impeached!

High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Talkin' About the "I"-Word
By RALPH NADER
Richard Cohen, the finely-calibrated syndicated columnist for the Washington
Post, wrote a column on October 28, 2004 which commenced with this straight
talk: "I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But
if I were to write the headline for one, it would be 'Impeach George Bush'."
Cohen stated the obvious then. Bush and Cheney had plunged the nation into
war "under false pretenses." Exploiting the public trust in the Presidency,
Bush had persuaded, over the uncritical mass media, day after day, before
the war, a majority of the American people that Saddam Hussein possessed
chemical, biological weapons and nuclear weapons programs, was connected to
al-Qaeda and 9/11 and was a threat to the United States.
These falsehoods, Cohen wrote, "are a direct consequence of the
administration's repeated lies--lies of commission, such as Cheney's
statements, and lies of omission."
Fourteen months later, no widely syndicated columnist or major newspaper
edi
torial has called for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Not even Cohen again. Yet the case for impeachment is so strong that,
recently, hardly a day goes by without more disclosures which strengthen any
number of impeachable offenses that could form a Congressional action under
our Constitution. An illegal war, to begin with, against our Constitution
which says only Congress can declare war. An illegal war under domestic
laws, and international law, and conducted illegally under international
conventions to which the US belongs, should cause an outcry against this
small clique of outlaws committing war crimes who have hijacked our national
government.
An illegal, criminal war means that every related U.S. death and injury,
every related Iraqi civilian death and injury, every person tortured, every
home and building destroyed become war crimes as a result--under established
international law.
There are those on talk radio or cable shows who scoff at international law.
They rarely tell their audiences that the United States has played a key
role in establishing these treaties, like the Geneva Conventions, and the
United Nations Charter. When these treaties are agreed to by the U.S.
government, they become as binding as our federal laws.
By these legal standards and by the requirements of the U.S. Constitution
(Article 1, Section 8, the war-declaring authority), George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney are probably the most impeachable President and Vice President in
American history. An illegal war based on lies, deceptions, cover-ups and
their repetition even after being told by officials in their own
administration--not to mention critical retired generals , diplomats and
security specialists--of their falsity should have prodded the House of
Representatives into initiating impeachment proceedings. But then, Bush did
not lie under oath about sex.
A majority of the American people have turned against this war-quagmire,
against its intolerable human and economic costs, against the increased
danger this war is bringing to our nation's interests. They want the
soldiers to return safely home. In increasing numbers they sense what Bush's
own CIA Director, Porter Goss, told the U.S. Senate last February. He noted,
along with other officials since then, that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are like a
magnet attracting and training more terrorists from more countries who will
return to their nations and cause trouble. Many national security experts
have said, in effect, you do not fight terrorists with policies that produce
more terrorists.
Now comes the most recent, blatant impeachable offense--Bush ordering the
spying on Americans in our country by the National Security Agency. This
disclosure stunned many N.S.A. staff who themselves view domestic
surveillance as anathema, according to Matthew M. Aid, a current historian
of the agency.
Domestic eavesdropping on Americans by order of the President to the
National Security Agency violates the 27-year-old Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act unless they obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. This court meets in secret and has rejected
only four out of 19,000 applications.
So why did Bush violate this law and why does he defiantly say he will
continue to order domestic spying as he has since 2002? Not because the FISA
Court is slow. It acts in a matter of hours in the middle of the night if
need be. The law actually permits surveillance in emergencies as long as
warrants are requested within 72 hours or 15 days in times of war.
Bush violated the law because of the arrogance of power. Ostensibly, he
believes that a vague Congressional resolution after 9/11 to fight al-Qaeda
overrides this explicit federal law and the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution. Bush even claims he can unilaterally decide to domestically
spy from the inherent powers of the Presidency to fight wars. (To him
Congressionally-undeclared wars are still wars).
Other than his legal flaks in the White House and Justice Department making
such transparently specious arguments as "good soldiers", the overwhelming
position of legal scholars is that Bush and Cheney have violated grave laws
protecting the liberties of the American people.
The crime, says Professor David Cole of Georgetown Law School, is
"punishable by five years in prison." Professor Jonathan Turley of George
Washington University Law School said that the President ordered such a
crime and ordered US officials to commit it.this is a serious felony.what
happened here is not just a violation of Federal law, it's a violation of
the U.S. Constitutionan impeachable offense."
It matters not that a Republican-dominated Congress has no present interest
in moving to impeach Bush-Cheney. What matters is that impeachment in this
case-- based on the authority of Congress to charge the President and Vice
President with "high crimes and misdemeanors"--is a patriotic cause rooted
in the wisdom of our founding fathers who did not want another King George
III in the guise of a President.
As Senator Russell Feingold said a few days ago: The President is not a
King, he is a President subject to the laws and Constitution of the land.
Apparently, George W. Bush seems to believe and behave as if his unlimited
inherited powers flow from King George III, given the way he has shoved
aside both federal law and the nation's Constitution.
Both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney should resign. They have disgraced their
office and bled the nation. They have shattered the public trust in so many
serious ways that will only become worse in the coming months.

This is how the Bush Misadministration brings our soldiers home?

I am shocked, SHOCKED!!!

Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman October 26, 2005

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its thorough, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.

Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.

According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.

The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."

The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.

Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.

Among other things, the GAO confirms that:

1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.

2. "It was possible to alter the files that define how a ballot looks and works so that the votes for one candidate could be recorded for a different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.

3. "Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level." 3. Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards can easily be done, according to the GAO.

4. The GAO also confirms that access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network. This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.

5. Access to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.

6. The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.

7. One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.

8. GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel, confirming still more easy access to the system.

In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned.

The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple software.

The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:

The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility.

A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in Auglaize County

Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems inFranklin County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously low.

A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.

In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.

In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.

In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.

In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.

Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.

In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount could take place.

In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were used.

In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."

But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.

Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear
that's exactly what happened.

GAO Report

Revised 10/27/05


Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available via http://freepress.org and http://harveywasserman.com. Their What Happened in Ohio?, with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published in Spring, 2006, by New Press.

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link to entire article:

Huffington Post article

New State Slogans for Delaware

Thanks to the person who stated these in the Sound Off column in the Delaware State News...


1. Welcome to Delaware-We're for sale. Bring lumber, concrete, wire and pipe.


2. We have land we haven't ruined yet.


3. Bring plenty of money; We approve everything.


4. We grow homes, Not corn.


5. We always say "yes".


6. Rehoboth: Indian word for Gridlock.


7. Hurry! We're not full yet.


8. Land of the invisible governor.


9. Small wonder-We haven't sunk yet, But we're trying!


My personal favorite:


10. Time to move away.


11. Chicken farms smell worse than asphalt-We need you.


12. Plant a tree, Plow the rest.


13. Dig a hole, Cover with a box.




And, my own submission: The new state name for Delaware is:

"WEST NEW JERSEY"!

The last SLUUUURRRRRRP of the global chocolate milkshake...

Some homegrown killers...

...oh, and the CIA, too...

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

Nooo..., ya think???


"We've also got to understand, in order to power the power-generating plants that are now being built in California, we need more energy."

---- Washington, D.C.; April 24, 2001

Pat your puppy, kiss your kitty

Too many people think that human beings are the only species that matters on this planet, but we need to reconsider. Everything is interconnected. We have become disconnected from the source of our sanity, Mother Earth, and as a species, we are becoming insane. The earth will not put up with humanity's nonsense forever, and I believe that we are headed for a rude awakening, when the earth shakes humanity off her back like a bad case of fleas. Gloom and doom? Hardly. We are part of the system of life. It's time to start acting like we are a part of it, instead of thinking that we are entitled to dominion over it. Don't say you haven't been warned!

US army accidentally killed civilians

Vietnam all over again, indeed.
We should all support Congressman Murtha; he's the only one who's talking any sense about this fiasco in Iraq. It's time to get out of this national delusion that many are under.

dumbass...

COMMON SENSE

A Look at the Real George W. Bush

More Cheery News for the Masses...

For the Working People

And so the Revolution begins...


Wake up! It's time!

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

Gov. Bush:Because the picture on the newspaper. It just seems so un-American to me, the picture of the guy storming the house with a scared little boy [Elian Gonzalez] there. I talked to my little brother, Jeb--I haven't told this to many people. But he's the governor of--I shouldn't call him my little brother--my brother, Jeb, the great governor of Texas.

Jim Lehrer:Florida.

Gov. Bush:Florida. The state of the Florida.


----- The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; April 27, 2000

Is the dawn finally breaking?

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

"It was just inebriating what Midland was all about then."


----- From a 1994 interview, as quoted in First Son, by Bill Minutaglio


George W. sure knows from inebriating...


From a Labor Day parade flyer put out by Philly Activists-
..................................................................................................

NEW ORLEANS & BUSH’S CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

We’ve all seen the horror and devastation in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina. What makes these images more shocking
is the realization that much of the death and destruction
could have been prevented.

While beyond our control, natural disasters do not have to
be catastrophes if plans are made in advance to protect
people and their homes. These plans were not made. The
criminal negligence and racism displayed by all levels of
government preceding and during this crisis sends a clear
message that, to those in power, the lives of poor people,
especially poor Black people, are of absolutely no
concern.

For the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, there was no
provision for evacuation or shelter. It was “everyone for
themselves,” and those who didn’t have the ability to flee
or the means to finance their own evacuation were left to
perish. Those without cars, credit cards, and hotel
reservations had few alternatives but to stay home and
face the coming deluge.

Trains, airlines and buses could have been put to use
evacuating people. Convention centers, hotels, and
college dorms throughout the region could have been used
for shelter. The government uses eminent domain to take
working people’s property for the benefit of corporate
developers; this would have been an excellent opportunity
to use eminent domain in a way that actually benefits
people.

President Bush has diverted funds that were needed to
prepare for this type of natural disaster to fund a war of
conquest in Iraq . He did this despite being warned of the
potential for danger by FEMA (the Federal Emergency
Management Agency). The Houston Chronicle reported on
Dec. 1, 2001: “ New Orleans is sinking. And its main
buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River
delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city
perilously close to disaster. ...So vulnerable, in fact,
that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management
Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among
the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing
this country.”

The flooding was exacerbated by the elimination of
wetlands, which provide a natural buffer. The Bush
Administration has removed Federal protection from as much
as 20 million acres of wetlands.

Yet the Bush Administration slashed the budget of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers in the area by $71.2 million.
This cut eliminated hurricane and flood protection
projects and a study to determine ways to protect the
region from a Category 5 hurricane. This cut was part of
the Bush policy of slashing essential programs to pay for
a tax cut for the wealthy and for the occupation of Iraq.

The National Guard, who would normally be deployed to aid
in evacuation and disaster relief, is unable to respond
adequately because 40% of the Mississippi National Guard
and 35% of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq . So
is much of their equipment, including dozens of high water
vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators that are
essential to dealing with this type of emergency.

The massive loss of life in Louisiana and Mississippi was
avoidable, if those making decisions were interested in
funding emergency measures rather than spending money on
war and occupation. Cuba lies directly in the path of
many hurricanes, and yet the loss of life is usually
minimal, because the government has systems in place to
aid orderly evacuations, provide emergency shelter, and
look after the elderly, the handicapped, and the poor.

While George W. Bush and his friends at the Big Oil
companies are growing rich from escalating oil prices,
working people, who are already suffering from the
economic policies of the Bush Administration, have to
spend more of their shrinking paychecks to pay for gas to
get to work and school.

The real looters are not the hungry people taking what
they need from an abandoned corporate superstore. The
real crime is that they were left in this situation by a
government that puts war and corporate profits ahead of
human needs.

The Bush regime has looted billions of dollars of the
people’s money, slashing programs that provide basic
necessities and robbing from agencies that are tasked with
preparing for natural disasters in order to fund a war of
conquest against the people of Iraq . There are dangerous
looters, but they are Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, not the
poor people of New Orleans trying to feed their families.
It is the Bush Administration that is increasingly
putting the entire population of the country in growing
danger by relentlessly slashing every social program,
infrastructure maintenance program, and environmental
protection program.

We call on the Bush Administration to:

* Provide emergency unemployment relief to the thousands
who have lost their jobs because of the devastation.

* Provide a massive jobs program at union wages for
rebuilding. Millions of unemployed workers could be hired
to help construct housing, schools, and other public
facilities.

* Food, water, clothing, medical supplies, and other
necessities should be immediately commandeered for the
emergency from agribusiness, supermarket chains, and
pharmaceutical companies. Government food storage supplies

in warehouses should be made available immediately.

* Stop funding war and occupation. Use the money instead
to fund emergency relief and rebuild our cities.

Philadelphia International Action Center,
215-724-1618; Phillyiac@action-mail.org
_______________________________________________
This is the Philadelphia activist announcement list.

Anyone can subscribe to this list.
Send an email request to
PhillyActivist-subscribe@organizerweb.com

To unsubscribe PhillyActivist-unsubscribe@organizerweb.com

Subscribing and unsubscribing can also be done on the Web at
http://www.organizerweb.com/mailman/listinfo/phillyactivist

This must be where all our National Guard troops and helicopters are...too bad they're not here where they're supposed to be-aiding our own people in Louisiana and Mississippi, instead of wasting time, money, and lives for Empire over in Iraq!

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

a classic...


"There's an old saying in Tennessee-I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee-that says, fool me once, shame on-shame on you. Fool me-you can't get fooled again."

----- Nashville, Tennessee; September 17, 2002


and in regards to the homeless people in New Orleans...


"Home is important. It's important to have a home."


Doofus.

HE'S BAAAAACK!!

Welcome back, Mike, we need your voice right now.

I never thought I'd see such suffering in this country, although I knew it'd be inevitable...

Things actually go better WITHOUT Coke!

Hurricane Katrina

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a disaster in every sense of the word. There are people dying: old, young, infirm, poor. Looting is rampant, gangs bearing guns robbed from vandalized stores. In a way, you can't blame some of these folks; people need food, medicine, water. But others are just taking advantage of a bad situation-stealing TV's, beer, stuff like that. This is just the tip of the iceberg-too many poor people with no chance at supporting themselves; now their situation is made unbearable by the hurricane and its resulting difficulties.

Next is the gas situation-prices going through the roof; probably most of it due to gouging by the gas companies. Working folks don't stand a chance. I don't care about the yuppies.

My alarmist revolutionary heart is telling me that this is the beginning of the long period of grave difficulties that the U.S. will face in the coming decades. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Left Behind to Face the Worst

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

----- Townsend, Tennessee; February 21, 2001

For all you coffee hounds (like me)

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

ah, fantasies...


"I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to come and witness my hanging"

--- at the dedication of his portrait; Austin, Texas;
January 4, 2002


On the same tedious subject...

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

"God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear."

--- Los Angeles; March 3, 2004

ABSURD DUBYA QUOTE OF THE DAY

"There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like."

--- Washington, D.C.; December 11, 2002

We need to all hit the streets to express our displeasure at this guy and to get him and his sycophants out of Washington!

The main reason I haven't done much blogging lately...*sigh*...

Happy 4th of July, folks (not really).

Moving Forward, maybe.

A brave woman.

Heh. Heh.

Maybe you have to take the Viagra, then indulge in some self-gratification...lol...

THE AVERAGE PEOPLE AND THE WORKING POOR GET SCREWED ONCE AGAIN...

I haven't posted anything here in a while (mainly because my time is being taken up by a hot new relationship ;o) ), but I was at work today and heard a report on the top-of-the-hour news that made me wanna run out of the room screaming.

You know, all this crap that the oligarchy and the globalistas are dishing out just isn't going to end without the working class of the world joining together and saying we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!!
Maybe we're too beaten down, I don't know, maybe we're not mad enough yet, or we're too tired.

People, it's not primarily about race anymore; it's about class. Our rulers in Washington laugh their asses off when they see us fighting among ourselves all the time; it solidifies their power because we can't organize. If we all joined together and said to them ENOUGH!, and kicked them out of their posh offices and luxurious condos to experience what we've been experiencing our whole lives, they might once again be responsive to those that supposedly voted them in office.

Aw, hell, who am I kidding, this system of ours is broke.

When I heard that the Supreme Court decided that economic development is enough of an excuse to seize someone's personal property under 'eminent domain' , I saw red. This decision isn't going to affect the rich, it's going to hit the poor and working class the hardest, as usual. Isn't it bad enough that our social safety net is being dismantled? Isn't it bad enough that out jobs, blue- and white- collar are being sent overseas? That we're in a Vietnam-style, illegal, immoral war in Iraq?

Now the State has the power to seize our hard-earned personal property.

How much more are we going to take?

Like old TV show theme songs?


I stumbled across this site this morning while drinking my much-needed cup of coffee, and thought it was exceedingly cool. Although I would rank some of those in the 75-100 range MUCH higher!

Dad

My dad passed away suddenly on April 25; he was a good man who loved us, his family. We had our ups and downs like all of us. These pictures tell a little story of his life...







In the lower right picture, Dad is second from the left.
Thanks, Dad, for being a terrific role model, showing, by your actions, how to live a good life.

The Olduvai Theory (Back to the Ancient Future)

Another Fiasco of a News Conference

Photo courtesy of a TRUE pro-democracy website.

Support the filibuster...

NOTE: LINK WAS NO LONGER FUNCTIONAL AND WAS REMOVED.

I found out about this website while watching Washington Journal on Cspan this morning, and it looks pretty cool, and useful. Check it out and sign the petition!

I hate to be a Party Pooper, but...

Seriously, people, we need to wake up. Most folks can't see the forest for the trees, and the evidence is all around us. Shoot, on my 11 mile drive to work every day, I can see it! I've been in this location on the East Coast of the U.S. for 10 years now, and I can see the degradation in my surroundings occuring just in that time period. Not to mention the drastic changes in climate and weather in the last 45 years.

People act as if they are entitled to use and abuse the planet that they depend on for life, but Mother Earth can only take so much. I hate to sound like a Doom-and-Gloomer, but the evidence is there, and I refuse to rationalize humanity's total disrespect for the planet it lives on!

Start locally. Refuse to have any children (I have), or to have any more. If you smoke, use the ashtray; don't just toss your used butts out your vehicle window. Keep a trash bag in your car and throw stuff away there. Use less gas, less water, less food. Sounds radical, but it will help. Countries like China and India are now following our lead, but here in the U.S. we are the original overconsumers. And we will pay for it, eventually, and probably sooner than we think.THE EARTH IS NOT OUR PERSONAL TRASH CAN!!!

One case in point, bees, a small and often ignored part of our ecosystem, are just about all gone, the wild ones anyway. And this is just a tiny fraction of the changes going on all over our planet while we go about our daily lives-working, playing, begetting children. We are like the proverbial frog that is put into a pot of water with the heat being turned on-it doesn't realize it's being boiled alive until it's too late.

Dear Terri...

...so the vigil for your final hours has begun in earnest-I can't believe no one beside your family and those keeping watch in Florida have truly spoken for you. Food and water are basic human rights, not 'medical treatment', so depriving you of nutrition and hydration is truly appalling, and nothing but torture and murder. I am a person who believes in the right of a woman to control what happens to her own body, I support the validity of written living wills and advance directives, and I even think it's a person's right to decide when it's time to leave this world, as long as he/she doesn't take anyone else with him. Michael Schiavo's actions through the years of his wife's incapacitation stink to high heaven.

Rest in peace, Terri.

Peace Be to Terri Schiavo

Maybe I'm watching too much news, but all the crap that's going on in the world is really bugging me right now. Terri Schiavo is being murdered, and people with some sense are trying to help her, it seems right now to no avail. Normally, I am in agreement with those that have written living wills, preventing them from receiving extraordinary care keeping them alive, when they don't want that. Terri doesn't have that, but what her husband is having done to her is being done through something he says that Terri told him. I think he has ulterior motives, whether they be money or whatever, my opinion is that he may be trying to cover something up. Possibility of abuse, perhaps?

I just don't understand, really, all the cruelty visited upon people, by other people. Are we getting like rats that are so overcrowded that they start turning on each other? I think so, sometimes. Tonight, the news was busy covering the school massacre in Minnesota-"Death! Mayhem! Violence!. The creator of that violence, a 16 year old boy Jeff Weise,is being vilified by the media. Of course, he caused much suffering, and the needless deaths of a number of innocent people. But we, as a country, need to take a deeper look at what's behind such horrific actions. One of the news reports stated that Jeff's dad had committed suicide four years ago, and that his mother was long in a nursing home with injuries sustained in an automobile accident. I'm not being an apologist for Jeff, but my God, didn't anyone see what he was dealing with, and try to help? Obviously not. So many people suffering, especially our children, and we are still too busy chasing the almight dollar or trying to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs, to pay the needed attention to the young people who, in their own often misguided way, are screaming out for our help.

Giuliana Sgrena

Yet another occurence in Iraq that is blowing up in this administration's face. Who knows if it is true that Sgrena and her entourage were targeted, but enough is known about the screw-ups of the folks in charge in Washington that it does give one pause to think it may be true. As is usually true, the truth is somwhere in between the Bushies' claim of a 'tragic accident' and others' opinions that it was a targeted assassination. In either case, it was something that never should have happened.

When are we going to realize that our presence in Iraq (and other places in the world) is not wanted, or appreciated, and that the best thing our country could do right now is to back off and let other countries take care of themselves? Then maybe we here in the U.S. can concentrate on making this country better for ALL of its citizens, not just the wealthy few?

Excuse me?!?

While visiting Google News, I read a short article that sent a chill down my spine. The U.S. seems to just keep heading toward a more and more repressive way of doing things. Blogs have become a whole new way of getting news of all types out, news one would not normally see on any mainstream 'news' site.


Now, this. I think bloggers SHOULD have the very same rights (and responsibilities) as professional journalists. This situation just illustrates how far we as a country have gotten from our original intentions as a place where people can live, work, worship, and express themselves as they see fit, within reason.


If all we have to refer to as 'news' are the mainstream organizations we have here now, we'll never really know what's going on, or what is truth or lies. What with the GOP paying off journalists and radio personalities to sell their high-risk schemes being the norm, where do we really stand, as a country?


I'm afraid to ask.

A Short Joke

John was having computer problems, and was trying everything he knew to fix the thing, to no avail. So finally he took it to a computer shop to let a professional take care of it. When he got it back, repaired, the invoice from the computer shop had the notation 'ID ten T error'. Curiosity piqued, John asked the technician what kind of error 'ID ten T' was, so he could be familiar with the problem if it happened again. The tech said, 'You don't know what a ID ten T error is? Just get a piece of paper and write the phrase down, and it'll explain itself'.





ID ten T?



ID 10 T?



IDIOT!


:o)

Good Ol' Walmart...

I was catching up on some of my email, and reading some stories on Alternet, and came upon an article about everyone's favorite loved/hated store. I've got a Walmart Supercenter close to my workplace. That makes it very convenient to stop by after a shift ends, but I feel guilty whenever I do stop, because I know what a behemoth it is. That fact makes America's #1 retailer blatant about short-changing its employees and disregarding common decency along with labor law. This article is one small example.

I laughed my tail off at a $100,000-and-change fine for Walmart. You can read for yourself in the article just how much time that equals for this beast of a store. It reminds me of what my grandmother used to tell us about the company stores in the mining towns of N.E. Pennsylvania, that the miners and their families were so beholden to these company stores that they were always in debt to them. Or another apt comparison might be to the state-run stores in the old Soviet Union. It sure seems like Walmart is the lifeblood of the State here in the U.S., and they sure do seem to have plenty of influence.

February 22: Global Blogger Action Day

This blog entry is dedicated to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers, Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad. They are being detained because of their blogging activities. With the blogosphere expanding at an incredible rate, more and more people have at their fingertips the means to express their opinions and get out facts or occurrences that may not be seen on the mainstream news, and get it out quicker than any traditional news source. This worries governments and people who obtain their power and influence through suppressing others' rights and points of view.

This action was initiated by The Committee to Protect Bloggers, started by U.S. blogger Curt Hopkins, and fired flight attendent blogger Ellen Simonetti is deputy director and started the International Bloggers' Bill of Rights.


The Committee to Protect Bloggers

The Bloggers' Rights Blog

The Tip of the Iceberg

When I read this article while whittling down my always-prodigious email, it hit me like a 2-by-4 over the head. So many things that I have read and seen through the too-numerous years of the BushReich had finally started coming together into a semicoherent whole. Including just why, suddenly, finding Osama bin Laden was WAY down on the list of Bush II's priorities.

Read it and weep.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions