British flooding shows global warming is here?

this picture,
as the author of this article states, is only a product of "cinematic trickery". but, in order to BEAT THE MESSAGE INTO OUR STUPID SKULLS, it's got to be used in order to show WHAT COULD HAPPEN if we don't start listening to the global warming crowd and start doing what they tell us we need to do. (btw...is that photo from "An Inconvenient Truth"? i never saw it.)

(environmental editor for the Telegraph.co.uk) Charles Clover's article is interesting...in my opinion for how he manages to undercut his argument. for example, while he warns that this flooding is caused by global warming, he writes:

"Of course, nowhere in the country are flood defences built to a higher standard than in London, because of the value, strategic and otherwise, of what lies behind them, so Trafalgar Square is unlikely ever to be as vulnerable as Tewkesbury, even though most of the capital is on a flood plain.'

i've never been to England before, so i don't know this for sure, but i would guess that these "defences" have been around for awhile. i would also guess that, given London's age, that it has been known forever that it was built in a "flood plain"....which, suggests that these floods are not really all that weird, huh? Clover continues:

"We now know that the storm of last Friday was the worst summer flood since the early 19th century. For the counties affected it was as bad as the spring floods of 1947."

does he mean the early 19th century when we didn't burn fossil fuels or run air conditioning and whatnot?

the global warming crowd claims that it uses predictive models which tell us of the upcoming danger our planet faces. but, even according to his own article, the weather service in Great Britain had a tough time even giving Brits a heads-up about the upcoming storm:

It was on Monday last week, July 16, that Met Office forecasters studying computer models of what the weather over the Atlantic might have in store for us began to believe that this summer's second burst of exceptional rain might be about to strike somewhere in England and Wales, bringing with it severe flooding.
Even though the Met Office did not have satellite images of the clouds forming until Thursday, by Wednesday night its computers had predicted accurately that severe weather would hit the south-west Midlands last Friday. By Thursday they knew we would be getting at least 4in (100mm) of rain.

then, on cue, the GOVERNMENT stepped up to the plate:

The Environment Agency flood-warning centre, which works with the Met Office, went into action and from late Thursday duly began delivering its automated alerts to people in high-risk areas who had signed up for them. Only 40 per cent of those living in high-risk flood areas had, but 123,000 people were successfully warned.

good job, GOVERNMENT. maybe you could try a bullhorn next time, or use TV or radio...

the story continues:

But it was only at 2pm on Friday that the order was given to take the large temporary flood barriers that protect properties on the banks of the River Severn out of their store in Kidderminster and to take them north to Upton upon Severn.

They never made it. Even though the agency vehicles carrying them had police outriders as they raced up the M5, they were caught in a tailback. A flash flood had preceded them and the carriageway was blocked.

i'm guessing that the term "outriders" is akin to what we call "escorts" here in America...but, that's neither here nor there. the end result is that lives were lost and billions of dollars damage occurred which the police couldn't prevent. an apt metaphor...

why didn't the british gov't act on these weather forecasts sooner? was it a bureaucratic snafu, or is the credibility of weather forecasting agencies on the line?

remember, this was forecasting for a few days out. and, apparently, scientists were fully aware that there was an uncommon atmospheric condition:

But it was more exceptional than that because it happened in the summer. Meteorologists say that in the short term the rain was caused by the jet stream, the ribbon of very strong winds in the upper atmosphere that largely determines where weather systems will bring rain across western Europe.

For much of the summer the jet stream has been further south and stronger than in a typical summer.

Clover did not blame the position of the jet stream on global warming. he instead uses journalistic sleight-of-hand to get us to "the big question":

The big question is not just why it rained but why the rainfall has been so intense. Is it within the range of past events, or are we in new territory thanks to man's influence on the climate? And if so, what are the implications for future flooding and, more widely, for the way we live?

one could argue that, well, "duh!"...these things have happened before! and they'll probably happen again!!

this after-the-fact "blame it on global warming" game is getting old. who can forget that on the day that Hurricane Katrina smashed into Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama, causing widespread catastrophic damage,
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was gleefully posting over at HuffPost that Mississippi gov. Haley Barbour should accept some of the blame:

As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.

not to mention that when that treaty was sent to the US Senate in 1997 it went unratified, to put it lightly. to put it more blunt, it got skunked 95-0. about a year and a half later, then VP Algore symbolically signed the protocol...

if global warming is such a slam dunk, why are the believers using kids (as i've written on before here on NGNG), hollywood types, and rock stars to warn us? how about some debates featuring real scientists who may have differing views? no, i guess that would be impossible. instead, we get this cabal of marxists, washed-up pols, and UN-sanctioned scientists that are going to tell us how we're bad people.

this speech by author Michael Crichton on the subject of global warming skepticism is interesting. and his book, "State of Fear", should at least be on as many schools' required reading lists as Algore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is required viewing...but, oh, i forgot: Crichton is "Big Oil's" favorite journalist...

i admit it: years ago i was WRONG about the Pat Tillman case

"You've got me really scared about my brain right now. I'm really having a problem."

--from the testimony of Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger, Jr., before the Pentagon inspector general's office in Dec. 2006.

conservative bloggers (e.g. :"my pet jawa", not to pick on them..) have been in a tizzy the last few days because of this post on Daily Kos, and other similar ones around the blogosphere, which insinuate that Pat Tillman was murdered as a part of a Bush Administration conspiracy to silence Tillman, who, as the conspiracy theory goes, was going to become an anti-iraq war activist as soon as his stint in afghanistan was over.

i admit it. i believed the original story where he died charging up the hill, killing 571 taliban and al-queada dudes, or however the story went. after the incident was then labeled a "friendly fire" accident, i grudgingly acknowledged it, though i fought like crazy against the notion that PAT TILLMAN could've been a "fan" of the writings of noam chomsky, because everybody knows that AMERICAN SOLDIERS wouldn't be caught dead reading the anti-american hate spewing from prof. chomsky's mouth...(here i was in October 2005 denying that Tillman could've been a fan of Chomsky and just generally wanting to believe the propaganda)...until it dawned on me that i read noam chomsky, too!!! for laughs, y'know...

if what's been reported about the just-released report re:Tillman is true, i.e., that the bullet holes in Tillman's head are consistent with an M-16 fired from about 10 yards away, well, that raises all kinds of questions about what really happened out there. was it "fragging"? did Tillman step over the line with his exhortation to a fellow ranger to "stop sniveling"?

i'm still not buying into the bush/cheney angle...YET.

my dog would never do that...

meet "sigourney".

a complete picture of innocence.

my girlfriend insists that, even though sigourney has ripped my flesh on multiple occasions while "nipping" me, and half of her friends are afraid to come over, that this dog is NOT dangerous.

i beg to differ.

this dog is the spawn of satan himself. or, at least has undergone years of breeding malfeasance which has emphasized a killer instinct.

thursday night in interlachen, florida, about 20-25 minutes from where i live,
19-year old Amanda Boyles was playing on the floor with the family's pit bull, when, out of the blue, this playful pup latched onto her face and clamped down. her father, Felton Boyles, pried the dog's jaws off of Amanda's face as it was shaking her head back and forth. i've seen this "shaking" thousands of times. substitute "infant's head" for "grown woman's head", and you probably have a pit bull with a head in it's mouth, wagging it's tail, and the rest of the infant in a bloody pool nearby.

it took 900 stitches to sew up Amanda's face, according to her father. 900!!!

Boyles declined to comment further, except to say the dog did not make any aggressive noises when he attacked Amanda and that the dog had not been aggressive in the past.

the gainesville sun talked to Putnam Sheriff's Dept Capt. Steve Rose. i'm not quite sure what the writer's point was here:

Rose said his department does not get dog mauling reports very often, and he said it simply illustrates the unpredictability of owning pets like pit bulls.

...i guess the "unpredictability" explains the infrequency of reports. okay, now that i read it like that, it makes sense. Capt. Rose continues:

"This father said he's had pit bulls for years and has never had a problem until now," Rose said. "Pit bulls are notorious for sometimes being unpredictable, even as pets. And that's what we tell people when they are considering getting a pit bull."

breasts, not bombs

code pink & their pals crash hillary! campaign debate party

NSFW.

thanks to zombietime.

god, i hope i don't grow old with a peace activist.

YouTube/CNN debate live blog

the intro featured some guy asking the candidates to do something radical--actually ANSWER the questions...

what got rejected--people in costumes...kids...kids asking adult questions...

the "most viewed" didn't necessarily make it to the final questions...anderson cooper called out sen. biden as being the instigator of trying to get a particular question on..

they're at the Citadel...hmmm...

1st question: will you be different than do-nothing officials who can't do their jobs?
dodd--blah blah blah
obama: we're not doing anything about health, education, yada yada i'm a community organizer blah blah blah...
2nd question (to kucinich):
kucinich: i'm the only guy who has been 100% against this war the whole time. "strength through peace"
clinton: we can't take another 4-8 years of republican leadership. i've got 35 years of being awesome.
obama: this is a problem of both parties. i don't take special interest money.

3rd question (for hillary!): how do you define "liberal"? would you describe yourself as liberal? hillary: it means you are for freedom, ability to achieve. i prefer the term "progressive".
gravel: none of these other guys are gonna be any different than anyone else...(takes a huge shot at obama regarding some shady donor)
obama: responds, claims he has introduced legislation to stop this...?
4th question: what republican would you pick as a running mate?
biden: sen. chuck hagel
edwards: hagel good choice...goes on to dis "triangulation"...says how he fights big corporations & etc...

5th question (for edwards): is african americans ever gonna get reparations for slavery (sic sic sic)?
edwards: not for reparations, but he's got other ways (mortgages, etc...) to help AA's along...
obama: investment in schools (huge applause).
kucinich: FOR reparations. the only one to respond in the affirmative to anderson coopers question: is anybody for this?
A: <>
6th question (for dodd): do you think that if katrina hit somewhere else the response would be different?
dodd: one of the most shameful incidents in history. if it would've hit whitey, there would be a much more aggressive response.

7th question (for clinton/obama): everytning written about u2 is about your race or gender. what say you?
obama: we want to get beyond race...but the legacy of jim crow is still felt.
clinton: i'm proud to be running as a woman. break glass ceilings. i'm the most qualified to hit the ground running in 2009.
cooper: sen edwards, your wife says you would be a better advocate for women than hillary. ? edwards: more women affected by min wage than men. raise it to $9.50/hr by 2012. i've got the strongest, boldest ideas.
clinton: i've got the strongest admiration for elizabeth edwards. i went to beijing for women's conference.

8th question: gay marriage?
kucinich: yes. because the constitution says we're equal.
dodd: civil unions, not marriage. richardson: full civil unions, ability to serve in military, no discrimination.

9th question (for edwards): why does edwards think gays don't deserve full & equal rights? edwards: i have ENORMOUS PERSONAL CONFLICT. i'm on a journey. elizabeth for it, i'm not.
**(pee break...plus beer) oh, lucky me...commercial time!!**

Q: darfur? send troops?
richardson: diplomacy, UN troops, no-fly zone. don't just worry about oil, europe, etc... PERMANENT UN force.
biden: we should send troops. by the time diplomacy is done they'll be dead. we can save them.
gravel: we need global governance. african nations afraid of us.
clinton: we need to act, not talk. divestment, sanctions, get china involved, no-fly zone. american troops don't belong. UN troops do. we're losing in afghanistan to bin laden.

Q: how do we pull out (of iraq) now?
obama: i opposed this from the start. we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. begin phased withdrawal, troops out by March 31 next year.
biden: we can't pull out now. 1) it'll take at least a year. 2) split the country up along sectarian lines. 3) ?

Q: 2006 election gave mandate to pull troops. do the dems fear withdrawal will be used by republican spin machine?
clinton: there is no military solution, iraqis REFUSE to do political solution. i got dissed by the pentagon...(haha)
kucinich: the voters expected us to END the war. CUT THE FUNDS.
dodd: i don't support timetables usually, but the iraqis need to have a kick in the ass.
cooper: are the democrats playing politics?
richardson: bring the troops home. it's a quagmire.

Q: vietnam deaths in vain? (for gravel):
gravel: soldiers in vietnam died in VAIN!!! you can buy a baskin robbins ice cream cone now in saigon!!
obama: i don't think the troops die in vain. the civilian leaders need to make sure the plans are good.
edwards: they don't die in vain. turn up the heat on bush.
Q: should women register for the draft?
dodd: against draft, for a national service.
clinton: yes. doesn't support draft. it is fair to call upon every young american. supports public service academy.
obama: something about tuskegee airmen....blah blah blah
edwards: women can serve courageously and honorably
gravel: i ended the draft, but if we have one, women should be in it too

Q: (from military dude) muslims see women as 2nd class citizens. sen clinton, do you think they would take you seriously?
clinton: thanx 4 your service. i've met with a bunch of leaders in muslim countries. women leaders are taken seriously all over the world.

Q: meet with iran, syria, venezuela, north korea, etc...to bridge the gap?
obama: even reagan spoke to enemies. find ways to move forward.
clinton: i won't promise to meet these leaders in the first year, i won't be used for propaganda. test the waters with hi-level envoys, etc...
edwards: i would meet with chavez, castro. the president needs to tell the world "who we are"...

Q: how many of your children are serving? dodd: non-answer, he was in the reserve.
richardson: get troops out in 6 months, no residual forces. our troops are targets.
biden: we can't get the troops out in 6 months.

Q: who was your favorite teacher & why?
.....................

Q: would you scrap or revise the no child left behind program?
richardson: scrap. min wage for teachers 40K/year. emphasize science & math.
biden: i voted for it, will scrap it. i respected ted kennedy.

Q: send your kids to public or private school?
edwards: all my kids went to public school.
clinton: chelsea went to pub school thru 8th grade...security reasons for private after
obama: i taught at private school, so my kids went to private school
biden: private school i'm a catholic so i believe in catholic school
kucinich: public
gravel: we need competition
dodd: public
Q: (planned parenthood): do you support age-appropriate sex education?
edwards: me and my wife taught our children about inappropriate touching and i think where babies came from
obama: i've got a 9 and a 6 year old and we've taught them how to tell us when somebody's touching them wrong.

Q: (from weird hillbillies from tennessee) is al gore running again? does that hurt your feelings?
biden: i think people in tennessee's feelings are hurt (laughter)

Q: (snowman question) global warming--what will you do to reduce it?
kucinich: i'm the best on global warming...i get the whole connection.
-----------
(MY FAVORITE MOMENT!!)
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Q: how do you get americans to conserve ( to reduce GW)
gravel: (whatever he said)
dodd: 50 mpg standard by 2017, corporate carbon tax, move away from fossil fuels
cooper: who took a private jet? show of hands?
everybody: (looked around to see who raised hands)

Q: there's a consensus about man-made climate change. opinion about nuclear power?
edwards: against, too expensive, etc...
obama: explore nuke power, solar, etc...
clinton: do what america does best...technology

Q: why can't we standardize voting?
richardson: paper trails, get republicans to stop suppressing votes
Q: national minimum wage: would you be willing to serve as president for the national minimum wage?
gravel: we need a living wage
clinton: sure
obama: most folks on this stage are rich
biden: i don't have obama money
kucinich: my neighbors need an increase in min wage

Q: social security:
dodd: trust fund something...
obama: preserve social security, do like reagan & tip o'neill and put it on a firm footing

Q: raise taxes or cut benefits to stop US from going broke?
richardson: (missed it…oops)
biden: there's people who need to pay more taxes, don't need tax breaks.
Q: over-taxed.
kucinich: duh. No.

----------------------------

to hell with all of the post-debate spin...(editor's note: i made the big mistake of drinking a full 16 oz can of miller hi life every time i heard someone pandering..)

anderson cooper got a great line in at the end when dennis kucinich pointed out that there was nobody on his left (the question was ~"say something good about the candidate on your left and say something bad about them"). cooper pointed out to kucinich that there was NOBODY on his left (but kucinich completed the circle by praising gravel on his support of the pentagon papers etc........)
oh yeah, and so that old perv joe biden said he liked kucinich's wife...



all in all, this was a FUN debate. the candidates were animated in their responses, which was a lot different than their usual lame scripted answers to questions from "respected journalists".

i've got to say, hillary was the most impressive of the democratic candidates tonight. i'm a big believer that she has been in the white house and was probably a decision-maker while she was in there, and she probably knows the deep underground of the problems we face with islamist terrorism etc..., and is probably the strongest in that area.

this is GOOD STUFF

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one of my favorite songs ever done by one of the greatest vocalists ever...

John Kerry: Liar or simply Delusional?

here is C-Span video where Sen. John Kerry denies that there was a bloodbath following the US pullout from Vietnam.

KERRY (in answer to a question from a caller): "Let me just say to the first part of your question with respect to boat people and killing, everybody predicted a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There were reeducation camps, and they weren't pretty and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I've met a lot of people today who were in those education camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today."

i italicized the latter part of this quote because it seems that Kerry is constantly meeting with people--be they foreign leaders or ordinary citizens--who support his contentions, BUT THEY NEVER GET NAMED. he gets away with this ALL THE TIME, and nobody in the MSM calls him out on this.

but...to the substance of his contention...which is part of his rationalization for the "need" to "redeploy" (a.k.a. "withdraw") our troops from iraq, his effort to obscure the analogy to the post-vietnam situation is woefully incorrect, if not diabolically misleading. even the new york times, in this piece, would agree.

"The 1975 Communist victory in Indochina led to horrors that engulfed the region. The victorious Khmer Rouge killed one to two million of their fellow Cambodians in a genocidal, ideological rampage. In Vietnam and Laos, cruel gulags and “re-education” camps enforced repression. Millions of people fled, mostly by boat, with thousands dying in the attempt."

and, in a piece run by the washington post, author Natan Sharansky argues:

"...many who supported that withdrawal in the name of human rights did not foresee the calamity that followed, which included genocide in Cambodia, tens of thousands slaughtered in Vietnam by the North Vietnamese and the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of "boat people."

In the final analysis, U.S. leaders will pursue a course in Iraq that they believe best serves U.S. interests. My hope is that as they do, they will make the human rights dimension a central part of any decision. The consequences of not doing so might prove catastrophic to Iraqis, to regional peace and, ultimately, to U.S. security."

not to mention that Kerry should AT LEAST remember that his buddies in Hollywood documented this in the 1984 movie, "The Killing Fields".

here, Kerry, just as i blogged earlier concerning hillary!, is engaged in "politicking" over national security. and, by "politicking", i mean strengthening the Democratic party, NOT the US as a whole. if their strategy is indeed the right one, well, god bless 'em. they should present this without the media hype which they are seeking by opposing the current administration...which i repeat WILL BE USED BY THE ENEMY TO KEEP UP THE FIGHT AGAINST OUR WEAKENING RESOLVE...a.k.a. "aid and comfort to the enemy".

what has the huffington post in a lather this morning

this story, which arianna linked to from TMZ.com, is complaining about Mitt Romney (republican candidate for Prez) holding up this silly sign, which "compares" obama and hillary! to terror mastermind osama bin laden.

"Not everyone is a fan of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but comparing them to one of the most dastardly pieces of human excrement of all time -- that might be bit much. Especially for a presidential candidate."

puh-leeeeeease...

adding Senators Obama and Clinton to a list of things to "say no" to is only a "comparison" in the broadest sense of the word. this is a list of things that these voters are against. and, it's pretty harmless.

on the other hand, THIS is a "popular" comparison which leaves no such wiggle room:



do i sense a double standard? this is not just a "comparison", it's an EQUATION.


UPDATE: according to the kooks over at the Daily Kos, the sign Romney's holding constitutes "hate speech"...oh, the irony...

new program from congress to "help" with the "war on terror"

thanks to atom smasher.

congressional democrats are blocking an amendment offered by Rep. Peter King which would protect "John Doe" from being sued for reporting suspicious activity.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Canadian TV

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our neighbors to the north seem to think they live on the border of Nazi Germany...

here, Ayaan calmly and eloquently states her case of what she sees as the problems with Islam, then, as she is goaded into commenting on how America is itself a terrible place, she defends this country.

my favorite quote:

..."You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you don't know what it is to not have freedom"...(Ayaan to Canadian tele-journalist Avi Lewis)

Lewis' demeanor is as clownlike as his worldview is childlike.


order Ayaan's awesome book, "Infidel", here.

see more video clips of Ayaan on the right side of this blog.

the Pentagon brands Hillary! a traitor (?)

it's been reported in the news for the past few days or so that a reply to Sen. Clinton from an undersecretary at the Pentagon, does, in effect, suggests that for her to inquire about Pentagon contingency plans to withdraw US troops from Iraq amounts to, in the Pentagon's opinion, to an act of treason.


read for yourself the letter to Sen. Clinton, via CNN, who had this leaked to them from somebody...

this article which appeared friday at slate.com, by former policy advisor to Rep. Les Aspin (dovish congressman who was Pres. Clinton's Sec. of Defense), Fred Kaplan, is a perfect example of the hyperbolic extent to which critics of the iraq effort will go to to damage the Bush administration (and in this case help the Hillary! for Prez effort).

in the two-page letter to Sen. Clinton, undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman details the current happenings on the ground in iraq, stating the Pentagon's position, strategic plan, and their hopes for how this strategy will help attain their goals of securing stability. this all amounts to "boilerplate" blather, in the eyes of Kaplan... finally, Edelman gets to the "offending" part (as highlighted by Kaplan, as well as others in the MSM):

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. … Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risk in order to achieve compromises of national reconciliation. …"

Edelman concludes:

...As you know, it is long-standing departmental policy that operational plans, including contingency plans, are not related outside of the department.

to Kaplan, and others who are helping Hillary! along, Edelman is essentially saying:

"...First, you're practically a traitor for even asking these questions. Second, maybe we do have contingency plans for withdrawal, but we're not going to tell you about them. Third, run along now, little lady, I've got work to do."

at every stage of this entire effort in iraq, it seems that we here in the US have a HUGE contingency of citizens who are intent on us "showing our hand" to the enemy. whether it's the New York Times releasing classified information detailing the techniques being used to track communications between suspected terrorists, or Newsweek magazine making the (proven false) claim that Korans were being flushed down toilets at Gitmo, or the constant carping of politicians..."what's OUR PLAN?", "what's our EXIT STRATEGY?"...and the never-ending claim that THE WHITE HOUSE IS TRYING TO "STIFLE DISSENT"...this whole contigency of the "anti-war" gang seems to think that we exist in a bubble.

for better or for worse, we're in iraq now, and probably stuck there until it's fixed. the enemies of our effort there can't match us "militarily", but they realize that "body counts" don't determine the outcome of a war....wars are won and lost based upon the willingness to fight on. the object of the violence of war is to demoralize the enemy to the point to which they surrender. THIS is why there is an effort to downplay talk of withdrawal. talk of "withdrawal", whether or not it's intended to be interpreted this way, is perceived by an enemy as SURRENDER.

Sen. Clinton's letter to the Pentagon was, i would hope, meant to be an earnest, private inquiry. but, once she got the reply--it was broadcast to the world via the media. cynics may derive from this action that she intended it for political advantage. why else would her campaign make this public?

i didn't detect from Edelman's response any hint that he was calling her a "traitor". he basically told her that the Pentagon wasn't going to broadcast contingency plans. obviously, some of the folks over at the Pentagon realize that the jihadists watch the omnipresent American media and realize that they don't even need spies...we'll tell you everything we're going to do, and we'll broadcast our hand-wringing to the entire planet, like some weird geo-political version of the Dr. Phil show.


UPDATE: Sen. Clinton's response to Def. Secretary Gates, conveniently provided to the media.

a country song for folks who don't like country

"Show Them to Me".

completely NSFW.

"Dead Earth" concert

hat tip to my good buddy rob dark from big oil who's mum and dad turned him on to this!

Ted Nugent on "The Summer of Drugs"

The Nuge nails it again.

i'm not sure i would characterize san francisco music from that era as "soulless", but we have a slightly different aesthetic. but, as far as the devastating effects of that generation on society as a whole, i couldn't agree more.

another story that the mainstream media won't pick up on

thank you, Carl Hiassen. at least a few people (in florida) will have this on their radar, even though you did your best to make it a joke:

Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla)'s mom gets Cadillac Escalade from rich Boston developer.

Rep. Meek and his mom, former Rep. Carrie Meek (D-Fla), apparently had no clue that they both had dealings with the developer, Richard Stackhouse. it's a familiar tale of government trying to do good things for the poor folks, but, because in order to be able to do such good things, it has to involve politicians. and, in this case, former politicians as well.

predictably, lotsa money was appropriated...nobody is accountable for it...it gets siphoned off...and, in the end--nobody will care.

it's all about the "intentions", though...right?

"those who cure you will kill you"

ALL eight suspects now in custody in Great Britain in relation to the bombings over last weekend ARE DOCTORS, or at least involved in British health care. they're all muslim, too:

An al-Qaeda leader in Iraq boasted before last week’s failed bombings in London and Glasgow that his group was planning to attack British targets and that “those who cure you will kill you”, The Times has learnt.

The warning was delivered to Canon Andrew White, a senior British cleric working in Baghdad, and could be highly significant as the eight Muslims arrested in the wake of the failed plot are all members of the medical profession.

Canon White told The Times that he had passed the general warning, but not the specific words, to a senior official at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in mid-April. A Foreign Office spokesman said last night that it was forwarding the actual words to the Metropolitan Police.

more and more, we find that these people are not just "disaffected youth". i would assume, from the fact that they were doctors in Great Britain, that they at least had some stake in society. but, they apparently were doctors who have not embraced the hippocratic oath.

well, that's kind of "old-timey", anyway...

how much does Great Britain need to import doctors? how about doctors from countries who sponsor terrorism? the U.S. imports a ton of doctors, too. i feel nervous constantly when i deal with some of them.

at least one of these "doctors" who attempted to pull off these attacks was ON FIRE. literally. apparently, he was trying to detonate a bomb that was strapped to him. to paraphrase bill maher, that takes "courage". ...or, a heapin' helpin' of radical islam.

these people have access to whatever they want in hospitals. what if they decided to use medicine against us? there are plenty of anesthetics which could be utilized to disarm anyone who may get in the way of someone taking over a hospital for ransom, for example..

i swear, this gets more hollywood all the time. you can't make this stuff up.

Oliver Stone film project denied

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of our FAVORITE terrorist-sponsor state, Iran, says "no" to Stone's planned film about him.

the reason? "even though Stone is considered a member of the opposition group in the US, it is still part of the Great Satan"!!!! sorry, democrats...

meanwhile, in other Oliver Stone news...not content to not lay any blame in "World Trade Center" on islamo-fascists, Stone plans to make a film dealing with 9/11 conspiracies.

pass the bong...

Howard Zinn on the Fourth of July

the following quotes by Zinn (linked in the title) were submitted for publication in 2006, and reprinted this year on theprogressive.org:

"On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking -- cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on -- have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power."

the first thing i would like to point out is that the 4th of July is a day to celebrate America's Declaration of Independence from the imperialism of Great Britain, who the colonialists didn't so much "hate" as much as they just felt it was immoral to be subject to. the imperialism of Great Britain, as "evil" as it may seem to an observer like Zinn, probably did more to civilize a great portion of the world than any other factor...

...but, to Zinn, this "civilization" is more an imposition of alien values than a positive thing. he may be right. many agree with him. the simple, uncorrupted by modernity lifestyle may be superior. but, in the eyes of the world, "modernity" is the goal. for example: millions of "westerners" have traveled to countries in the "third world". to get there required the building of airports or airstrips to land their planes...to navigate the air, the pilots required the use of the international language of air travel, ENGLISH...countries in the less-developed parts of the world covet the influx of american/western world dollars into their economies...and, the very fact that westerners can fly to these edges of the earth required american ingenuity--the creation of machines which could fly.

zinn states that "nationalism" is "useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power". if one takes his statement the way he wants you to read it, it may be true. but...he's leaving out of the equation the fact that "nations", especially the ones he criticizes most, take the lead in any effort to right "wrongs" which may befall those who can't deal with the problems themselves. true, it may be slow at times, but one must remember that international problems usually have to be dealt with through a prism of many different factors: cultural, economic, religious, etc...

zinn continues:

"National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours -- huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction -- what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves."

in WWII, "national spirit" raised it's ugly head in germany, japan, and, to a lesser extent...italy. it was the "national spirit" of countries like great britain, the U.S, canada, et. al...who decided to take on those who wanted to impose values that were antipathetic to the values which had made the world a more civil place. it's true, great britain was still exerting it's imperial influence throughout the world, but it's influence was felt on many levels in a positive way.

"Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession."

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day."

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence." After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: "We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went to
war."

zinn fails to realize that in order to conduct a "war", at least two parties are involved. does he quote what's being said in mexican media on the eve of the "Mexican War"? No. does he acknowledge the fact that any lands gained by "mexicans" were probably gained by force? No.

every single slice of any parcel of land on this entire planet was gained by someone taking it from someone else!!! the mexican's "ownership" of the land was as much an "imperial" move against peoples who had migrated from elsewhere as any other entity's claim on this particular land...unless one can prove that a particular human had risen from this particular piece of the earth.

"As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: "The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness."

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government's lies."

no mention of the enemy's atrocities offered here. and why would he? to balance his historical account? why would he do that??

"How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for "liberty," for "democracy"?"

i don't know, how many times? do you, professor zinn, have an answer? is the problem the quantity of times it's mentioned, or the fact that it's mentioned? is the acknowledgement of the sacrifice the problem?

"One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq."

the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were NOT the revenge for Pearl Harbor. it was the culmination of events leading up to it, and the realization that the other options were more deadly to American soldiers and not likely to produce surrender. whether it was, in the strictest sense, a morally correct decision, depends on thinkers such as Professor Zinn to decide.

the "Sept. 11" decisions have to be seen in the context of a generation of actions directed against the United States and it's allies. from reading Mr. Zinn's own words, in this case a condemnation of the Israeli response to the Hezbollah "war" with Israel, written with a number of notable "scholars" such as Noam Chomsky,...we see that Mr. Zinn sees the US as the incubator of the world's problems.

he continues:

"And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him."

first of all, i wish he would provide this quote.

short of that, i wish he would name a president who didn't at some point look to "the heavens" for support of his argument. i.e. - didn't President Clinton, during the monica lewinsky ordeal...call on the Rev. Jesse Jackson for spiritual guidance? is this not the same thing? or was it just a politacally inspired stunt? but, even if it wasn't sincere, ......isn't it doing the same exact thing? ....or, is it meant to win over "stupid christians"?

"We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation."

W is doing his best to completely align the US with Mexico. what more do you want???