Monday, June 23, 2008
There's a humorous side to every situation. The challenge is
to find it.
George Carlin
George Carlin died last night, he was 71... 6 years older than
me. Hell of a way to start my birthday.
The idea of a world without George around to feed us sacred
cow for lunch is hard to digest (NPI). It may have been some sort of projection
of retrospective anxiety but I felt that (to rob from Star Wars) there was
'disturbance in the Force' as I was writing in my journal last night. There is
no one to take his place, he was a genius and a fearless commentator on the
human condition... We have Conan O'Brian, Lewis Black, Jay Leno and a few others
but George was the man with the scalpel... he was the Mark Twain of our era.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails,
and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy
to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
I am not pleased with the direction my IRA is going, as a
matter of fact I am sort of depressed about it. We can't survive without the
income and there has been no income since mid-March. We spent over eighteen
hundred bucks on gas almost that much on food. There was a lot of traveling
last... shit... this is turning into a whine... everybody is in the same boat. I
just have to suck it in like everyone else.
Things should turn around when people start to feel
comfortable with our leaders again. I just wish I felt like Obama can overcome
the racist vote... Just in case you hadn't noticed, there is no longer a Red and
Blue America, it's a Black and White America. I wish it were different...There
are still conservative folks out there who think that the 'status quo' is a
viable strategy... hard to believe but it's true. Kill more Afghani and Iraqi's,
drill for more oil, make more efficient coal plants, give Industry free rein,
impose more 'morality' laws, make this a CHRISTIAN NATION.... Get down on your
knees and pray to the Christian God as defined by Dobson... Because Dobson read
the bible and only he has been able to interpret it correctly... shit... I think
self promoting, self important pinheads like Dobson ought to suck up on some of
that humility he professes to have and stop telling people how to think and what
to believe. If you read Obama's whole speech, in context, he makes a hell of a
lot of sense, he is actually saying some of the things I have been saying over
the years... only he says it a hell of a lot better.
There are bible scholars all over the planet and no two of
them agree on everything and in some cases they don't even agree on anything.
Screw Dobson and all the other bible thumpers who presume to be in possession of
the "True Word of God". What a bunch of arrogant assholes, the audacity of being
able to say I am right because I say I am right and you are wrong because you
don't agree with me, with a straight face is unfathomable to me... what kind of
shit is that anyway... what is the world coming to that anyone would even listen
to that jerk, let alone get front page headlines... disgusting.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tear man out of his outward circumstances; and what he then is; that only is he.
Johann Gottfried Seume, author (1763-1810)
Colville with Monica today, she drove... we got her shot and
did a little shopping & came home
I wrote this a month ago to a friend who had heart surgery, I
never sent it to him but I put a lot of thought into it and it should be in my
journal.
When Christy told me she had a lump in her breast I was the
personification of a calm, supportive and reasonable husband. I really surprised
myself. As things progressed through:
"I have a lump"
to “Yup, it’s Cancer”
to Lumpectomy
to “I am going to cure this with prayer & vegetables”
to “Now you have Invasive Breast Cancer”
to Chemo
to Mastectomy
to Radiation
to Possibility of Uterine Cancer
to Hysterectomy…
...all the way through her battle, outwardly, I was a rock… but in
my mind, I was banging into walls and screaming. I felt like a five year old
locked in a closet.
When I had my heart attack it was intellectually blissful, because
for me, except for a few physical inconveniences, it was a cake-walk. It was
like getting on a train and going for a ride, completely out of my hands and out
of my control. Christy’s ordeal was the hardest thing I have ever been though in
my life, in bed at night I would look at her sleeping and cry like a baby
knowing that I might lose her and be absolutely helpless to do anything about
it. I came to grips with a new sort of reality, another matter of altered
perspectives again. When I realized I could die, it was a matter of looking
around and thinking to myself, looks like things will be fine here… so… what’s
for dinner. I was actually amazed at how at peace I was with dying… then came
the other
epiphany, I realized that dying is easy, it’s losing a friend that frightens me…
…. when I was sick Christy was my rock. So, the other thing I had
to come to grips with is that she went through the same feeling of helplessness
watching me sleeping… this marriage business is a complicated affair, lots
of subtle and not so subtle stuff going on, it's a burden some times but more
often than not the burden is shared... Marriage, over the years, is equal parts
Want -
Need -
Care..
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in
opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because
you differ from yourself ten years ago.
Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)
I am impressed with people who can express in two sentences
what I struggle to say in two pages.
We (Christy, Autumn, Calie & Trevor) went to Colville to pick
up Monica from Drivers Ed. and then to Spokane Valley to take Calie to the
Dermatologist then to the Airport to pick up Amanda... Along the way we stopped at two
Stihl
distributors looking for a part... didn't find one, we went to the North-town
Mall and dropped of Calie, Trevor & Monica then Pet Smart, Right-Aid, &
McDonalds... twice. It has become mandatory that we make the optimum use of time
and gasoline these days.
I wore my new hat today, it's interesting to make note of how
much more polite people are... most people get the joke, but some are just not
sure what to think
Friday, June 27, 2008
Fear is not in the habit of speaking
truth
Publius Cornelius Tacitus
I took Monica to Colville for her shot, she drove over...
The Stihl Dealer called to say the case cover for the saw was
in... I got there and the part was not there, he had forgotten to write the
model # on the order sot they sent tie order back,,, not the part.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
"So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be
advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be
to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action
constitutes an advantage is pernicious."
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
Calie Trevor, Craig Garpstad and Angelina MacArther have a three man
team, three players and at least one alternate, for
Hoopfest in Spokane. Monica
and I went down there to watch them play, 98 degrees in the shade. I have not
walked as far as I did today since I was in my 30's, damn I was tired, Hoopfest
is an gigantic affair, I can't imagine how they manage to coordinate it all
Sunday, June 29, 2008
"If
you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will
create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore,
maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and
ineffectual."
Frank Herbert
Hoopfest, the kids won all their games today in the
consolation bracket... they get a Thirteenth Place T-shirt ... not bad.
Jerry & Joanne Noyes came in today, they got her
about about 1500, They must have been doing a lot of driving. I figured that
they would have to average 65 mph and drive 12 hours a day to get here by
2100... amazing. I have always enjoyed being around Jerry, he is an innovative
thinker and always looking for ways to make a buck, he is a very good 'handyman'
and has an easy way about him that people relate to, he can schmooze anyone and
make you feel like he values your companionship. I wish I had his gregarious
nature. Joanne is very nice too and also fun to talk to.
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced
to the Villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the
forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply
started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced
that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they
started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their
farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so
little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to
go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.
In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. "Look at all these
monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at
$35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50
each."
The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then
they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!
Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.
Monday, June 30, 2008
"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of
convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that
do."
William Blake
THAT ISN'T FOOD
A couple were discussing people's
eating habits.
A devout meat-and-potatoes man, the husband
listened as his wife described a friend who was a vegetarian.
"Could you imagine never having a steak again," she asked
him, "and living on food like tofu, fruit, vegetables, and salad?"
"That stuff isn't food," he snorted.
"That's what food eats!"
The New US Bankruptcy Law: Expensive, Mandatory Tips for the Penniless
The latest bankruptcy law passed by Congress restricts the ability of broke
Americans to obtain Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection from their creditors despite
the fact that approximately 50% became impoverished as a result of sudden
catastrophic or chronic medical problems, and less than 10% have any real
potential to remunerate their debts. Another part of the law makes it
mandatory for anyone filing for bankruptcy in the future to attend a financial
responsibility course at their own cost. So what are some of the things
such courses will impart to their students?
• Learn to do without non-essential luxury items such as underwear and protein
• Instead of getting a fancy new prosthetic hand to replace the one you lost at
the slaughterhouse, get something that would be useful at a new job and that’s
less expensive – like a hammer or a squeegee
• Subscribe to the “Financial Prudence for a Solid Future” DVD series for $19.95
per month
• Ask yourself whether your wife really needs that quadruple bypass operation.
After all, she’s bound to die of something else sooner or later, and there are
plenty of fish in the sea
• If you happen to be rich or own a corporation, you can still protect much of
your assets by transferring them to an offshore account and/or get the tax
payers to cover what you owe by threatening to go out of business or move
states. If not, this represents poor planning on your part, underscoring
the importance of tip #3
• Find a way to take advantage of the financial opportunities the systematic
erosion of the middle class and its attendant suffering is currently creating.
Sorry, teaching expensive mandatory financial responsibility classes to the
destitute is already taken.
• Eliminate costly service costs from your budget by doing things for yourself –
like haircuts and dental work
• Sell your car and take the bus. If there’s no bus where you live or if
it takes too long to get from one job to another, quit your jobs and become a
stripper
• If you know of anyone else who might anticipate filing for bankruptcy in the
near future, tell them to go to a country where such public safety nets are
still in place - like every other civilized nation on Earth.
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"If the
American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their
currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until
their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people,
to whom it properly belongs." -
Thomas
Jefferson, Letter to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin
(1802)
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"Every man
is guilty of all the good he didn't do"
Voltaire
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But why
should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's
gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's,
it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something
like that?" :
Barbara
Bush on ABC - Good Morning America, March 18, 2003
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" ... No
"terrorist" gene is known to exist or is likely to be found... Surely
the(y), and their supporters were afflicted by something that caused their
metamorphosis from normal human beings capable of gentleness and affection
into desperate, maddened, fiends with nothing but murder in their hearts and
minds. What was that? Simple logic says that we must go to the roots of
terror. Only a fool can believe that the services of a suicidal terrorist
can be purchased, or that they can be bred at will anywhere:
Ouch
Borith: Permanent Representative Of The Kingdom Of Cambodia
To The UN: 10/03/2001
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The
problems of this world are so gigantic that some are paralysed by their own
uncertainty. Courage and wisdom are needed to reach out above this sense of
helplessness. Desire for vengeance against deeds of hatred offers no
solution. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. If we wish to choose the
other path, we will have to search for ways to break the spiral of
animosity. To fight evil one must also recognize one's own responsibility.
The values for which we stand must be expressed in the way we think of, and
how we deal with, our fellow humans: - From the Christmas Message 2001 of
HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands |
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"We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression,
while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace." George
W. Bush UN Speech Sept 2004
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Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation,
whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him
to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a
purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should
choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the
British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see
no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be
silent; I see it, if you don't.'" : Abraham Lincoln.
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"So let us regard this as settled: what is morally
wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain
that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that
some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious."
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) |
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"The United States must cultivate a mental view toward
world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own
terms, amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana.": - U.S. Department of
State - Source: Minutes S-3 of the Security Subcommittee, Advisory
Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, 6 May, 1942, Notter File, Box 77,
Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, National Archives, DC.
"We could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for
self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there
worse than Spain's was ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take
them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them." - William McKinley - (1843-1901) 25th
US President - Source: 1899, on the Filipinos, following the U.S. invasion
of the Philippines in 1898. During the invasion and occupation, U.S. forces
killed an estimated 200,000 Filipino civilians. Address to the Methodist
Episcopal Church; cited in Olcott, The Life of William McKinley (1916), v.
2, p. 110; estimate of civilian casualties from U.S. Library of Congress,
"The World of 1898: The Spanish-American War," 1998.
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"This country is not pro-American. It is United States
property."- Juan Bosch - President of the Dominican Republic
Source: In 1965, the U.S. invaded the Dominican Republic to prevent the
displacement of Donald Reid Cabral by Bosch's constitutionally-elected
government. New York Times, 6 June 1975
"You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between
what is moral and ethical, and what is legal." -- John De Armond
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is
wrong."- Voltaire - [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778) |
Regarding Occupation
The Second Treatise of Civil Government 1690
"That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another,
and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an unjust war, never
come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men,
who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whom
so ever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises
which unlawful force extorts from them.
Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make
me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title?
Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into
submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the
wearer of a crown or some petty villain.
The title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference
in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great
robbers punish little ones to keep them in their obedience; but the great
ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for
the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own
possession which should punish offenders." John Locke - 1632-1704
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm
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It's all about Oil...
Published: Monday, 23 June, 2008
By Eric S Margolis
PARIS: The
ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally emerged into full view
last week.
Four major Western oil companies, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Total, are about to
sign US-brokered no-bid contracts to begin exploiting Iraq’s oil fields. Saddam
Hussain had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalised Iraq’s
foreign-owned oil industry for the benefit of Iraq’s national development. The
US-installed Baghdad regime is turning back the clock.
The same oil companies that used to exploit Iraq when it was a British colony
are now returning. As former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan recently
admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. Vice President Dick Cheney stated in
2003 that the invasion of Iraq was about oil and for the sake of Israel.
Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1,680 km long
pipeline project expected to cost $8bn. If completed, the
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and,
later, oil from the Caspian Basin to Pakistan’s coast where tankers will
transport it to the West.
The Caspian Basin located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Kazakkstan, holds an estimated 300tn cubic feet of gas and 100-200bn
barrels of oil. Securing the world’s last remaining known energy Eldorado is a
strategic priority for the western powers. China can only look on with envy.
But there are only two practical ways to get gas and oil out of land-locked
Central Asia to the sea: through Iran, or through Afghanistan to Pakistan. The
US Israel lobby has blocked any dealings with Iran. That leaves Pakistan, but to
get there, the planned pipeline must cross western Afghanistan, including the
cities of Herat and Kandahar.
In 1998, the Afghan anti-Communist movement Taliban and a Western oil consortium
led by the US firm Unocal signed a major pipeline deal. Unocal lavished money
and attention on Taliban, flew a senior delegation to Texas, and also hired a
minor Afghan official, one Hamid Karzai.
Enter Osama bin Laden. He advised the unworldly Taliban leaders to reject the
US deal and got them to accept a better offer from an Argentine consortium,
Bridas. Washington was furious and, according to some accounts, threatened
Taliban with war.
In early 2001, six or seven months before 9/11, Washington made the decision to
invade Afghanistan, overthrow Taliban, and install a client regime that would
build the energy pipelines. But Washington still kept up sending money to
Taliban until four months before 9/11 in an effort to keep it `on side’ for
possible use in a war against Iran.
The 9/11 attacks, about which Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext to
invade Afghanistan. The initial US operation had the legitimate objective of
wiping out bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. But after its 300 members fled to Pakistan, the
US stayed on, built bases – which just happened to be adjacent to the planned
pipeline route – and installed former Unocal `consultant’ Hamid Karzai as
leader.
Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan occupation
was to fight ‘terrorism’, liberate women, build schools, and promote democracy.
Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims when they occupied
Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The cover story for Iraq was weapons of mass
destruction, Saddam’s supposed links to 9/11, and democracy.
Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the pipeline
route by US, Canadian and Nato forces. As American analyst Kevin Phillips
writes, the US military and its allies have become an `energy protection force’
.
From Washington’s viewpoint, the TAPI deal has the added benefit of scuttling
another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered Iranian gas and oil
to Pakistan and India.
India’s energy needs are expected to triple over the next decade to 8bn barrels
of oil and 80mn cubic meters of gas daily. New Delhi, which has its own designs
on Afghanistan and has been stirring the pot there, is cock-a-hoop over the new
pipeline plan. Russia, by contrast, is grumpy, having hoped to monopolise
Central Asian energy exports.
Energy is more important than blood in our modern world. The US is a great power
with massive energy needs. Domination of oil is a pillar of America’s world
power. Afghanistan and Iraq are all about oil. After last week’s news, those who
pretended otherwise looked like fools.