tar sands oil pipeline lies

I spent a few days with a worker from a tar sands camp in Alberta.  This person lives in one of the 2,500 people stacked trailer camps, your fired for taking any pictures in camp or on the job, any wolf or bear sighted is shot on sight.

A few years ago the tar sand looked like this.

Today it looks like this, miles and miles of stripped land, filled water ways, dead bears, dead wolfs.  Oil companies and pipeline builders want us to believe this will be oil for the US, very little will be for us, Valero and others have already sold contracts for much of it to go to Europe and South America.

Veteran of the war on christmas back home

Went to Austin to be with family for the war on christmas, foolish though to drive thru texican lands  without our shots.  Excellent dinner my son made, spent lots of time with extended family one is a phd climate scientist, very interesting he and his studies.
Will expound on some of these climate things eventually and maybe share some kick ass vegan soups recipes that had everyone over-eating they were so damn good, people were going on and on, they were book worthy.
Good news though, got back to Kansas to find the city has without discussion just one day brought up and voted to OK guns in all city properties and buildings except a police station, anywhere the city council is holding a meeting or official function, and two sports complexs.  Of all the sports fields and parks why these two, only, must be their kids play there.  Also, a guy the same day went to a shooting range where you can just walk in and rent guns to shoot, picked out a gun slapped a clip in it whipped it into his mouth and splatted his brains all over the walls.
Merry xmas

A stolen Christmas poem

‘Twas the night before Iowa, when all through the state,
The wingnuts were fuming, their heads fat with hate.
The caucus was planned, in just over a week,
Yet the GOP candidates were unelectable freaks!

The reporters were nestled in bedbug motels.
Their noses recoiling from strange Iowa smells,
Of corn syrup fields, and thick manure dollops,
and visions of Newt giving trinkets to trollops.

When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
Candy Crowley ran out to see what was the matter.
Out by the remote truck, a big plane had crashed.
And a zombie crawled out with a sackful of cash.

The moonlight it bounced off the black salted ice,
As the undead old man told the same dumb joke twice.
Then he turned mean and weird and his voice was a bark,
Aimed at eight tiny cretins holding hands in the dark.

This grim wrinkled ghoul in his Air Force One slippers,
I knew in a flash that it must be The Gipper!
More vapid than talk shows, more empty than air.
Could this rotten old corpse save the eight cretins there?

“Now Bachmann, now Huntsman, on Ricky and Mittens,
Ron Paul and Johnson, Santorum and Gingrich:
To the top of the polls, to the top of the Oh-Twelve.
You jellybean oafs with the stature of elves.”

Like the insane extreme weather the Republicans caused,
by burning all carbon and flapping their jaws,
The eight tiny cretins leapt in front of the jet,
And heaved and then ho’d, which Gingrich liked best!

And then in a news cycle, I heard on the tube,
The prancing and mincing of each GOP dude.
As I drew back in horror and ran for the hills,
There went Crazy Bachmann with a brain full of pills.

The old man chuckled grimly like that Dickens’ creep Fagin.
There was no doubt about it, this monster was Reagan.
He was in a blue suit with a red boring tie.
And his hair was greased back and all blackened with dye.

His dead eyes did glisten, his skin loose and scary.
His cheeks were all rouged, like cough syrup cherry.
His grim lifeless mouth like a wall-mounted fish,
While the cold snow collected his falling-off flesh.

A Chesterfield filter clenched tight in his dentures,
While his imp, Wee Lee Atwater, burst forth from Hell’s ventures.
“This fella will help you,” Reagan said with a snigger.
“To win next November ‘gainst that slick Kenyan Hitler.”

Gary Johnson got drowned, no-one knew he was swimmin.’
Herman Cain put his pecker in too many women.
Bachmann was nutty, Rick Perry was frothy,
Like blobs of Santorum in ruined morning coffee.

Huntsman worked for Obama, imagine the gall!
That left only the Newt, Romney and Paul.
A swollen crook piglet in a war of attrition,
A Taxachusetts Mormon who kept changing positions.

And then there was Ron Paul, a fringe whining elf,
At the top of the polls, in spite of himself!
With his harsh words of Negroes and worship of gold,
And he, just like Reagan, about a thousand years old!

The Gipper then read from a cue card in space:
“You keep Rove and Atwater, you can still take first place.
The corporations will still run the wars that they bring,
While you whine about freedom, because facts are stupid things.”

Adapted from “Desolation Row” by William Jennings Bryan, 1776.

ripped from Wonkette, 

What kind of sportsmen hunt dogs? Ok, other than Sarah Palin?

Join, or at least visit a site and hit the "take action" button and see what you can do in a few minutes.

http://www.nrdc.org
http://www.sierraclub.org/
http://www.worldwildlife.org/

buy Chiquita bananas, screw the tar sands, screw the oil companies

Inter industry warfare?  The fossil fuel industry is asking for the public to boycott Chiquita bananas.  The fruit company came out a few days ago with a brave position against the the XL pipeline moving tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to the US gulf coast, mostly for export to other nations, was "all risk, and no benefit"to the US.   They also made reference to resulting dirty oil smoke harming the tropical fruit business.

The tropical Fruit Farmers and their marketing organizations know production of fruit is being harmed by rising global temperatures and pollution.   Boycott farmers and marketers that dare to care about their fruit production, and your ability to buy it?  No, I think the opposite will happen, I think people will reward  Chiquita.

Another GOP cure for something that was not real.

OK, now the FBI won't kick down your door and pistol whip you for using tungsten filament lights and pissing away 3 to 5 times as many of your energy dollars, well your safe now thanks to the GOP passing another law protecting you from Obama's lighting thugs.
Neither will the EPA shoot farmers off their tractors for making dust, the GOP has rumored for months the EPA would outlaw dust on the farm, think about that for a minute.
What's next, oh more voter fraud or gay plots will have to be outlawed by the party who is against government rules.

Life style of the wretched and famished, they are surplus to the capitalist system, not needed, please just go away.

The US budget deal of today was designed to let the poorest fall further into third world mode.  Example:
Cut 518 billion from Pentagon, that is a 1% boost in the military.  WTF?  It's being called a cut because they had intended to buy so much shit they can't now, this is only a cut in the jump, it's not a fucking cut, it's an increase.
Cut 3.5 billion for low-income heating and utility subsidies, a 25% cut, it is an actual cut.  Somewhere some will freeze, some will fall ill, some will have to move out, some will forego meds for heat.  Welcome to the lifestyle of the wretched and famished.

Yesterdays economic model insured by the corporations that own the US government

Tuesday China decided to boost it's solar energy installations goals from now to 2015 again by 50%.  That's  50% over an earlier boost.  The rapid pace and success of bringing new energy sources on line in a matter of months when they thought it would be years is the main reason.  Nothing succeeds like success.

Above you can see the oil industry spending on dirty energy sources, renewables, and the welfare they take from tax payers to keep the US in yesterdays economic model.

2.5 million kids have health care that would be without if the GOP had their way

According to Secretary of Health K. Sebelius because of Obama care 2.5 million kids and young people in the US got to stay 1 year longer on their parents policy (age limit increased) and younger kids could not be denied due to their health history gave us at least this many receiving health that would not have otherwise.   If the GOP gets their way, these kids will be cut off, parents will go bankrupt caring for them, kids will die.
What do the Gingrich and Romney death panels look like? A GOP win at the ballot box.

One percent are job killers, look at the last few years what they did.

The richest of the capitalist corporations and individuals in the US have between 1.4 and 3 trillion dollars in cash setting around right now.  Its thought to be equal to between 8 and 15% of the nations annual GDP.

How the hell can the GOP get people to listen to their plans for tax cuts, how the hell can they say with straight face that if we would just cut tax on the rich and the corporations, remember precious and rare job creators, then.......then the economy will grow and jobs will return.

These rising trillions in cash setting idle are proof of just the opposite.  The so called "job creators" do not create jobs  with money, they kill jobs with money by taking it out of circulation.   The 99% better pay attention, your paying the taxes, your paying the price, you better pay attention.

One of those 8 or is it 9 of Perry's Supremes recuses herself, again.

Justice Kegan recuses herself for the 12th time, not something Scalia or Thomas are use to in their many  years on the bench senior to Kegan.  It must be bewildering to the right to see an "activist" judge set out, what kind of trickery is this?  What if this becomes expected of conservative Supremes as well?  Nah, never happen.

Warm weather and drought in Europe could be a lack of political ignorance

Ski slopes in many parts of the Alps are still without snow, missing the late Oct. early Nov. opening.  Downslope the snows should be feeding into the Rhine and Danube rivers, which in Europe are major freight ways.  The Rhine as it leaves Switzerland should be 4 meters deep, about 13 feet, but it's 1.5M, about 5 feet.  Near Koblenz Germany it is so low WWII bombs are spotted laying in the mud, causing 45,000 people to be evacuated while a brittish one tonner was disarmed.  Barges are running with 1/4 the normal tonnage of freight to avoid dragging bottom.  In one wide spot the Rhine is 20" deep, most barge operators have halted operations leaving a scramble for trucks and rail capacity driving up rates and slowing commerce.  
See in Europe they are having global warming, if they had the politicians we have they wouldn't have global warming.

I wanted to buy a congressman, but this wasn't enough.

How will I ever get rich enough to not pay tax?

Tin foil helmets and rubber spears to fight the upper class

Results of various polls these last few weeks, some are overwhelming, some are a mere 51% here are the publics positions on various issues in the US.  And for most of these items the public is willing to pay more for the product or in taxes to have it, yet the GOP blocks these things on behalf of their capitalist owners.

When polled, we want: higher milage lower polluting vehicles, more bus/train service, reduced noise in cities and on the job, increased energy efficient building standards, cleaner air, cleaner water, removal of dangerous yard and farm chemicals, energy from solar/wind/thermal and an end to coal power plants, stronger banking laws and prosecutions, stronger regulations on markets, outlaw payday loan companies, increase testing of food/restaurants, enforcement of consumer and product safety laws, get corporations out of the process at FDA, harsh laws on lobbyist access/support/legislative input to government and elected officials, protection for wildlife, increase in tax on the richest/corporations, increase in education at all levels, restore cuts that punished the poor, stop blocking judge appointments, the senate and congress should be exempted from any government pension plan and buy their own insurance.

There are very few outside the GOP hard core who are against these things, yet this is the norm of the day with the GOP and a few of the running scared Dems.

Here is my new law for lobbying:  lobbying (or having a sibling-spouse-child-parent lobbyist) disqualifies you from ever holding any government job, or I would compromise at 10 years after ceasing and being estranged from the firms and key people represented.  Also one would be forbidden to lobby for 10 years after leaving any government job or elected position or the military if at a rank above E7 (a high level sergeant).  Senators and Congress should not have government pension but plan their own  401K or savings account, Senators and Congress should have to work in DC 4 full days a week.  Lobbyist should have to enter/exit any government building by the citizen/tourist door and stand in line.  No staff member can be on "loan or receive value, promise or retainer from outside government and must be on the Senator or Congress staff's payroll.

Class warfare?  Yep,  you see I am jealous beause I can't afford to buy a congressmen, or even the city council.  But the capitalist upper class can.  I can't afford to run lies on TV, secretly, to smear the minorities and unemployed,  or cause doubts about science.  I don't even make enough money to pay the millionaires lower tax rate.  All I cling to is a little hope and my class warfare fantasy.

Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Pushing back on the icebreaker. .........  Ice cover in the Polar Bears home fell to a new low last summer, more ships are coming.

A Reichwing wordsmith gives the GOP the latest spin lesson.

Progressives need to know these code words the GOP will use these next few months, and keep the original terms in use, don't fall into their language patterns.  Below is the GOP's lesson plan:

1. Don't say 'capitalism.'

"I'm trying to get that word removed and we're replacing it with either 'economic freedom' or 'free market,' " Luntz said. "The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we're seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we've got a problem." 

2. Don't say that the government 'taxes the rich.' Instead, tell them that the government 'takes from the rich.'

"If you talk about raising taxes on the rich," the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But  "if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no.Taxing, the public will say yes."

3. Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the 'middle class.' Call them 'hardworking taxpayers.'

"They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the 'middle class' and the public will say, I'm not sure about that. But defending 'hardworking taxpayers' and Republicans have the advantage."

4. Don't talk about 'jobs.' Talk about 'careers.'

"Everyone in this room talks about 'jobs,'" Luntz said. "Watch this."

He then asked everyone to raise their hand if they want a "job." Few hands went up. Then he asked who wants a "career." Almost every hand was raised.

"So why are we talking about jobs?"

5. Don't say 'government spending.' Call it 'waste.'

"It's not about 'government spending.' It's about 'waste.' That's what makes people angry."

6. Don't ever say you're willing to 'compromise.'

"If you talk about 'compromise,' they'll say you're selling out. Your side doesn't want you to 'compromise.' What you use in that to replace it with is 'cooperation.' It means the same thing. But cooperation means you stick to your principles but still get the job done. Compromise says that you're selling out those principles."

7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier: 'I get it.'

"First off, here are three words for you all: 'I get it.' . . . 'I get that you're angry. I get that you've seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system."

Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem.

8. Out: 'Entrepreneur.' In: 'Job creator.'

Use the phrases "small business owners" and "job creators" instead of "entrepreneurs" and "innovators."

9. Don't ever ask anyone to 'sacrifice.'

"There isn't an American today in November of 2011 who doesn't think they've already sacrificed. If you tell them you want them to 'sacrifice,' they're going to be be pretty angry at you. You talk about how 'we're all in this together.' We either succeed together or we fail together."

10. Always blame Washington.

Tell them, "You shouldn't be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it's the policies over the past few years that have created this problem."

BONUS:

Don't say 'bonus!'

Luntz advised that if they give their employees an income boost during the holiday season, they should never refer to it as a "bonus." 

"If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you're going to make people angry. It's 'pay for performance.'"

How did the police go from our best buddies to looking like the Egyptian army?

I am sure this lady was such a threat to the safety of these guys in riot gear that stepping on her head was the only way possible to ensure public tranquility.  

Question: Under the law voted last night by the United States Senate, if one of these officers said the person being stood on made a threat against the nation, she could be turned over to the military for a life time of imprisonment with no lawyer or legal recourse, no rights, back to the middle ages, dungeons.  Obama must veto this military budget, he must not sign it with this law as part of it.  This creates a police.  We have all heard of planted evidence, lies and corruption of some police over the years resulted in innocent in jail, even executions.  Well........  If bat shit crazy Bachmann, Noot, and Fox news so easily claims some democrats should be jailed for perceived ties to terrorist, muslims and so on, then where the hell do you think this law will lead to if those people are running the nation?

"Stream of Conscience" Music Video by 2/3 Goat

GOP "inequality good, government bad, unemployed bad, lay offs good, WTF?

We should all remember this.  We hear often that all the spending and public works programs didn't get the US out of the great depression, it was WWII that finally did it.  This, though partially correct it did not return industry to a rolling boil it provided work for millions planting forests, building parks and roads, but this popular myth bends us to an absurd logic if taken to conclusion, seeing the Axis powers as the best job creators this nation ever had.  Which leads me to suspect the GOP would gladly land us in another war one day to have the excuse to do what they cannot do now, stimulate the economy through government spending.

If you only remember one thing about this episode, remember that bureaucrats in the government running up massive debt and  borrowing launched full employment overnight.  Industry did not wake up in Dec. 41 and decide to build bomb fins or recycle scrap steel.  No, government cut the checks and mailed them out to make it happen.  Like it or not the government is the only thing that can quickly restart a stuck economy the size of the US.  Within days of Pearl Harbor money was flying out with the plans and orders, they ordered thousands of precision grinding machines, purchased land for new air bases, increased hundred fold every armament contract on the books.  Industry built the machinery of war but it was overseen, planned and funded by government agencies, the "job creators" of the day were firmly attached to the pigs tit, sure they had some latitude, but it was a massive socialist system that they profited from and the nation won the war with.

As to government debt, it can be a scary thing indeed.  However, we should not view it as a number out there that sets alone.  The debt is not so scary if it is set next to a good growth rate, if the population of future workers is growing, if revenues are increasing.  Republicans, especially the really stupid ones, talk about *Greece or other nations in dire straights as comparison, but there is none.  Greece has a crazy big  debt per cap than us, it has defaulted on it's debt a couple dozen times since WWII, tax cheating is national hobby, the economy is tiny and very narrow compared to the US, they don't have a currency of their own, so it's hardly worth the discussion. The lesson we should be learning, the experiment under way in the US, in the states, in the cities, is to cut governments income (revenues) and the services provided.  Under the voodoo economics theory this will stimulate growth.  This experiment is taking place also in parts of Europe at the same time.  Already the results are becoming evident.  Laying off hundreds of thousands of government workers, teachers and food inspectors does little to stimulate houses to be built or the next educated work force to emerge.  Cutting hiway projects cause private sector jobs to dry up, this too apparently fails at stimulating a housing boom.  The experiment is already a failure, it should be stopped before the patient dies.  You cannot help the out of work become workers and tax payers by making it free for the rich to live among us while we reduce every form of service for the common good and meanly add to the unemployed rolls.

Now, the job creators of today.  Where are they?  If we are to believe the GOP, the upper 1%, or 10% ,use what you will, are the blessing of the world delivered to the USA by God to trickle down on us, and most important to give us jobs for our share of the American Dream.  Bull shit.  I think it was a politician of the faire sex from Maine if I have it right, a few days ago said something like ....... very few of the 1%ers are job creators.  Think about it.  Many of these people make their money off the markets and by speculating or collecting royalties.  They are not tinkering in an R&D shop with some craftsmen they hired to invent washable toilet paper or a faster power window for the Lexus.  No, the closest they come to job creation is contracting for maid service when they visit their homes in Aspen or Cayman Islands.  She suggest we devise a way to tax the idle rich and leave the job creators alone.  Excellent, but sure as shoot'n their lobbyest will claim they are all job creators if they hold a poor guys mortgage papers, or if they own Boeing stock.  Look, stock trading is a secondary market, buy stock and you don't invest one fucking cent in the company, you invest in speculation, a bet that someone else will want it enough to pay more some day.  The exception, the guys that started the company, and the IPO stock buyers, everyone else who buys stocks later on can pound trash up there ass and have the same impact on job creation at that corporation.
There are job creators, the guy that put the roof on my house, the guy that bought a machine and started making widgets.  But collecting dads insurance policy, or trading foreign currency, or overlooking the bay in Miami while collecting oil well payments from the Texas desert isn't job creating.  It's good that these people are able to eat and have shelter, but they should not own the government, nor should we buy the myth they are our blessing, our manna from heaven.  Should manna smell like nursing home piss?

(*the reason Greece and some other Euro nations are getting so much attention from the world for it's debt, is in part due to those so called job creators, the bankers and traders who bought these debt/default/swap instruments that brought us to our knees in 2008, in other words, at the same time some try to save it, some take the bet it will fail, if it fails none of these people or banks know the ramifications, other than billions will be swept into the hands of a few somewhere on a sunny isle or penthouse in Dallas while other banks and the Greeks could be brought down.)

American airlines tits up in the deep end

They have between 3 and 4 billion in cash in the bank, this doesn't sound like bankrupt.  This was a ploy to hose the employees and some of their suppliers.  This self made hari-kari was to dump health care for it's employees, that was stated as goal number one, getting out of the pension business was next, wages after that.  This is the wave of the future, or wave of the current era.  Speculators say they will now lay off,  merge, and lay off again.  This will end in lower fares for major heavy use routes, and higher fares on the rodeo circuit, Amarillo, Wichita, Fargo.
Fuck the corporate world, this is a method to enrich themselves further.  Ever hear a bunch of businessmen bitching that the lay-abouts declare bankruptcy every few years to get out of their obligations?

Venezuela preparing for crackdown.

Chavez is bringing all the gold the nation holds in reserve in banks in Europe and the US to Venezuela.  Last week a cargo loaded with gold bricks flew from France, a hugh army force met the plane and carried the gold to storage, others are scheduled.  He has seen this year the news, when dictators OK shooting people in the streets, torturing and killing people snatched from homes, offices and off the streets, the rest of the world retaliates by taking over your gold.    I think he is doing this for a reason, and it's not fear of Swiss or Japanese banks have a security issue.

Slate snake

5" long, real thin, a piece of salvaged blackboard from a school remodeling.  Not so good, but the first time working with slate, I have more of it, I will do better next time.

the poor are not needed

Latest numbers show something like 42 million US citizens are living in poverty.  Unemployment is at 9% as accounted, the actual number is thought to be in the mid teens.  Another million met the requirement for food stamps the last accounting period.

Retailers say the start of the Christmas shopping season saw a 7 to 9% jump in stores and 24% jump on line, a good chance this could be a record setting Christmas.

Parallel universes exist.  Why help the poor, we don't need them, they are a drag on the economy.  Imagine what the economy would look like if it weren't for the unemployed.  Take a lesson from Kansas and the Governor Brownback, when they closed mental therapy centers for children, immediately a state GOP dipwad announced it had resulted in an improvement of mental health in the state based on the lower number of new cases.  See, stop helping the poor and counting the poor and your numbers will improve.    Economic Darwinism is pointing the finger at who we do not need, so stop helping them, learn the lesson people, stop helping them.  (this public announcement brought to you by the Republican party)

Sarge wanted to know, what vegans do for turkey day

Dressing; toasted whole wheat bread cubes, mushrooms, onions, hazel nuts, dried cherries, celery, fresh parsley.
Mashed potato.
Gravy; add flour to hot walnut oil and stir, when it starts to fry add vegetable broth,  black pepper, paprika, thyme, salt, red pepper flakes.  Simmer a few minutes add a dusting of corn starch if not thick enough.  (Not to much flour or it will taste like crap.  Also, we think the best tasting vegi broth is "Imagine" Organic, some vegi broth can be disappointing, try a few brands to find a good one.  Follow this recipe and your gravy will taste like it was meat based, or at least almost.)
Cranberry relish: the wife made this Wednesday, not sure but it had cranberries, walnuts, golden raisins, a little sugar.
Green beans (frozen).
Fresh spinich leaf salad.
Pumpkin pudding; (pie without the crusts)  We baked several pie pumpkins a month ago, scraped out the meat, mashed it up and froze it in small containers.  My wife substitutes ground flax seed for eggs in the pie, it tastes fantastic, but it makes for a browner appearance.  The pie looks better when made with eggs, but we are OK with it and prefer the flax.  Flax can take the place of eggs in baking, but it requires some adjustment of liquid volumes in the mix, experiment before you try it on a valued guest.
Multiple glasses of wine.

It was really good, I don't miss meat, I didn't once wish I had a piece of turkey.    Eating a big vegi meal is different than a meat pig out, you get stuffed, and in a few minutes you can get to work, I spent almost all afternoon working on two sculptures, I got a lot done.  Then I diluted some orange and lemon juice with rum, and watched the sun set.

We are over 3 months, almost 4 maybe, into the vegan diet.  My wife has had salmon at home 3 times, cod in a restaurant once.  I have had fish the same amount, plus a small sliced beef sandwich and a salad with a small grilled chicken breast, so 6 times non vegan.  The beef and chicken were at business lunches at places without any good vegi choices, but later I figured out I could have ordered a number of sides and made it work, since then I do that and it works just fine.   I don't mind eating meat if I must, but I prefer not to, and really do like damn near every fruit and vegi, even mustard greens and chard.  Follow the asian african and south american poor peoples recipe, I swear many are more fantastic in flavor than meat dishes.

The best Thanksgiving song of all time

Oh the good ole days, when turkey and congress didn't smell of *%#&

The public view of congress is at an all time low.  Amazingly about 9% of us are so high we think congress is doing a good job.  The rest of us know the Republican led Congress serve much the same function as feces washed turkeys do for your countertop on Thanksgiving morning.

Yet, aside from helping to sell clorox and drugs to combat septic gut ailments, there is an upside, well, no there isn't, unless we can learn from our mistakes.  That lesson should be that our way of making congress and turkey birds must change, over feeding and washing them in shit is a bad idea.

And here is the proof things can be better, it's in our recent history.  Turkeys that walked on the earth, fed without medications, on small farms, killed by axe and washed with well water made for mighty safe eating.  And the last congress, the democratic controlled congress had a 40% approval, stellar compared to the GOP's 9.


Which sound better?  9, or 40?  Turkey or a petri dish project?

Clearly women sitting on the ground hold the upper hand, it's asymmetrical violence on her part, the bitch.

Pepper spray can swell eyes shut, throat and airways shut depending if it is sprayed in the mouth and how much is inhaled.  A pregnant women miscarried a couple days following being sprayed in Calif last week (and she did announce she was pregnant and ask to be let out of the line just before she was first struck then sprayed).  No doubt her sitting down did violence against bankers, speculators, lobbyist, corporations, the GOP.

Fux news continues it's proud tradition of keeping republicans stupid

A new study finds that Fux news viewers are the most ill informed viewers out there.  The most amazing part of it is this finding......people who watch no news at all are better informed about current events and complex issues than Fux viewers.
This is the 6th such study in as many years, but the first time they were found to rank below feral cats.

Washington Lobbyists Crafted $850,000 Secret Plan For Bank Lobbyists To Undermine Occupy Wall Street

Washington Lobbyists Crafted $850,000 Secret Plan For Bank Lobbyists To Undermine Occupy Wall Street: pThis weekend, the MSNBC show Up! With Chris Hayes broke a stunning story about how Washington lobbyists are scrambling to undermine the protesters on Wall Street and across the country. Hayes’ report, which can be viewed here, details how the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford (CLGC) compiled a secret plan to [...]/p

U.S. meat supply flying at half staph

Why not have a few more meat free meals, it's better for you, and you reduce your risks from drugs, drug resistant bugs, heart disease, gout, on and on.  Vegans, pissing people off by not eating meat.

can you go there without "the man" knowing it, marketing it, storing it?

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2011/11/salman_rushdie_and_facebook_s_pseudonym_policy_.html

1% protected from you, and, 1% more destructive than 7 billion people

In the last few days Obama quietly signed a bill passed with most the senate and congresses voting for it, to protect the privacy of owners of private aircraft.  This bill prevents the live internet tracking/displaying/identifying of private and corporate aircrafts movements in real time.  It seems our national security and those (mostly) millionaires need their travels kept quiet.  Yet, all the new cell phones have a tracking device in them, as do many new cars (on star and other like services), but the wealthy felt they needed another "gated community" to shield them from.........you!

7 billion, gonna eat up everything, waste everything, pollute everything.  Or, are the 1%ers more destructive?  A watchdog group reports that the worlds 3,000 largest corporations are responsible for more pollution than the whole of the population are.  The top 1% own about 3/4 of the corporate resources and land either directly or through the governments they control.  The corporations and governments who control the standards of pollution are held by these few million people of the world.  The Putins and Kochs and the Saudi family and so on, create (in dollars) pollution which if it were a nation would be the 3rd or 4th most wealthy nation in the world.  US, China, Germany, Pollution.

A bit of good news.  Also, quietly a few days ago, the Obama administration through the power given it by  a pit bull California, Sierra Club, and NRDC new MPG standards were set on top of those from a couple years back.  Depending on the type of car, within the next decade MPG will jump into the low 50's on some, and in the high 20's on pickups.  Honda, Toyota, GM, Ford, and a few others were actually (somewhat) eager to agree to this.  California and some other states, and Canada (Canada often copies Calif. standards) were going to set their own standards which would have been a nightmare for automakers working with so many state regs.  This agreement is estimated to save the consumer $4,000 to $8,000 in fuel cost during the life of the car.  For some models the purchase price may be higher, a few hundred to $2,000 but it will save the nation 1/4 of it's daily imports.  Thanks to the left coast.

Bill Moyers on Plutonomy

"and then on April 15th, this is the funny part, the middle class & poor put those little checks right in the mail box, stop stop my sides hurts."

 In 2009, 1,470 households reported income of more than $1 million but paid no federal income tax on it, through their use of various tax loopholes and shelters. Tax rates for millionaires have fallen by 25 percent since the mid-’90s, while one quarter of millionaires currently pay lower tax rates than the average middle-class household.

(text copied from Politico.com, check it out)

In consideration of pleasure, 2

Almost done.  My goal, finish by thanksgiving, seems doable.  I will put the final picture up in a few days.

Higher price for natural gas is in your future.

The lovely adds on TV and in the newspaper announce fracking is going to give us flower covered fields, low cost natural gas for baking cookies .  It is clean, and it is right here, so lets get at this benign freebee.

Last night I read a number of oil industry news sites.  In the last few weeks, an executive being questioned by a government body testified that the cost of: exploration, piping new fields, and the very high cost of fracking means this gas is expensive compared to traditional gas wells.  Once in the pipeline it's mixed, so this raises the overall cost of gas.  Thus...........the public will see higher prices for NG.

Let me explain it further because it flys in the face of economic logic.  The more supply they bring to market the higher the price will become.  Supply up, demand flat, should mean lower prices, but that ain't gonna happen.  Add to that, some of this gas is already promised for liquidification and sale to other nations.  So, more supply means higher prices and not much of an increase in the actual supply for the domestic consumer, just the risk to ground water and the ever present danger of gas line explosions, of which there are dozens each year, remember the biggest recently in San Francisco and south of Dallas.   (and earthquakes?)

the good die young

About 3 years ago we jumped in the car and drove 1500 mile to a family thingy way out yonder.  Some family also invited their friends.  Over 3 days of picnics and dinners and huddled at kitchen tables we had a ball.  One couple (friends of distant family) my wife and I really liked, and they us.  Had we lived near by there is no doubt we would have been hanging out together, it was friendship at first sight. 

A few days ago we heard that a suddenly discovered liver cancer took the mans life.  He passed away a couple of weeks ago. 

He had a most extraordinary job.  For 20 years he worked for the petroleum industry, to educate the top executives on global warming.  There is an umbrella group they pay into which does all sorts of unsavory things I suppose, he worked for them, but as the voice of the real science. 

He traveled all over the US and Canada visiting the offices of managers and presidents and lawyers, giving them the real science on temperature increases, pollution, sea levels, predictions. 

He said privately, in their offices, these guys were eager to have a session with him, they never challenged the data he cited or the gloomy predictions he gave.  Their most common question was “how long do we have?”, sometimes it was how long until we screw up the whole planet, and sometimes it was how long until the public and governments make us stop, but it was always “how long do we have?”.

Our friend of three days was so happy, I ask him how can you be when these guys set through your lecture but keep damaging the planet?  He said "privately these are nice guys, I have to believe some of them are going to do the right thing soon”.

Let it be.  And let it be soon.  
They know, they absolutely know, and they will fill their pockets for as long as they dare, or as long as we let them. 

Janis Joplin - Cry Baby (live in toronto 1970)

beautiful visit to North Carolina

Tennessee was beautiful, some areas we were to late for peak leaf color, but most was very nice.  Stayed with friends on the outskirts of Charlotte, 7 acres of steep hills and dense tall woods, it was so relaxing.  We had a really good time playing canasta and walking around in the woods.  Trader Joe's had some amazing wine, cheap, good, not excellent, but good, did I say cheap.  Drank a few bottles with friends, brought a case home.

Along I40 in East Tennessee in the country on a farm pasture hillside we saw workers installing maybe 60 acres of solar PV, that was kind of cool.

The friends daughter lives in NYC, she has been going to a few of the occupy protests, she went to bank of amerika a few days ago, after the action date to close bank accounts, and even on that day a loud group was outside waiting to close, the bank manager refused to let them in except two at a time.  Cool they said, we will raise hell while we wait, so they had a good ole time singing and blocking the door until she got in, the process was extremely slow and rude, and she was even told they were fine with her decision, they want only to work with good people.
Way to go BofA, that pissed off her parents, who we were staying with, they are interviewing credit unions in Charlotte and local owned banks, they are very methodical and live by self set deadlines, they will have a new bank by mid Dec.  Our friend has a super duper job, not the kind of account BofA wants to lose, I guarantee it.
Last I heard, the first week of Nov. credit unions signed 1.2 million new accounts, and small local banks about the same.  Not much really in the banking overall, but this is what has to be done, consumers must punish big corporations for greed in business, disregard for customers, and for buying politicians, they have to be driven from ownership of our governments, local or national.

Then we heard from our daughter-in-law, they have a busy Nov and Dec, but plan to get out of BofA by Feb. 1.   Like I said, punish big corps.

road trip

Gonna go poking around in the fall colored hills and little towns through Arkansas, Tennessee, over to Charlotte NC.
"swoop down don't you lose control"  the Mills brothers

Maybe when I get back to southern Kansas, those damn earthquakes coming off the fracking fields east of Oklahoma City will stop rocking the house every few hours.  It's like standing up fucking in a hammock, it's fun, but it's kind of scary to.

Keep Wall Street Occupied (Part 1)

More Junk Science from the fringe

Most of us can't really understand the phrase "carbon foot print", what do they mean when they say our fire place or driving released some tons of carbon, what are they talking of, we might do more to save the environment if we understood it just a little.  Perhaps you will get a rough idea from my tutorial.  Perhaps you'll get a good mark on the test.

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

When I was in the 7th grade (mid 1960'a) my old science teacher told of an experiment going on while he was at university.  They wanted to figure out where the weight of a tree comes from.  A large tank was built, all the dirt was weighed that went in and a tree was planted .  The tree was growing in it's container, one day it would be pulled up and weighed, and the soil weighed again. Well, it had been years, they had yet to complete it so far as he knew though he thought he knew the outcome.  We all imagined (with his prompting I suspect) the dirt became wood and so it might weigh less, it made sense since we were often told wood rots and returns to dirt one day.  

Today I can tell you our imagined results had little to do with what happened.  What really happens is trees absorb only a few ounces of elements and minerals and carry them into its wood.  If we re-weigh the dirt in that container, it will be virtually the same volume and weight as before.  So where did the mass of the tree come from?  

Carbon, a constant on earth.  The volume of carbon does not change.  What changes is where the carbon is.  The danger to us, to the planets current life forms and our current form of agriculture lies in where that carbon goes, or where we are putting it.  

Carbon is the primary ingredient in plants and animals.  Now science knows the weight of that tree was about 90% carbon, 10% water,a few ounces of trace minerals and elements. The volume of the dirt it grew in did not change. If a storm blows down a big tree behind your house and you leave it lay, slowly over the years it molders away. The water and the carbon are released during the rot and insect activity, released into the atmosphere. The tons of carbon simply float away in the air.  Some minerals remain; bugs and microbes wallow in the humus and build a little soil there, but the weight of the tree, those tons, the carbon, it just floated off.  Now if the first winter after the tree fell, you had cut it up to burn it, those tons of carbon are released right then by the flame, immediately into the atmosphere.  If the storm that fell the tree had instead been a landslide and the tree had been covered deep under ground, these tons of carbon would not have made it into the atmosphere for a long time, perhaps centuries, perhaps it could have become oil or coal in millions of years.

When we dig up coal, oil, or natural gas, which were the trees meadows and animals of earlier biospheres and burn it in our car or power plant, we are taking that CO2 from one place on earth, deep underground, and shooting it immediately into the atmosphere, tons and tons of it all day every day.  Most of this ends up in the atmosphere, the thin layer of balanced thermal and light wave protection system only 1/1000^th as thick of the diameter of earth, where it disturbs that balance.   Remember, the volume of CO2 hasn't changed, only it’s location and concentration, creating a greenhouse of rising temperature and chemical reaction disaster at the earth’s surface such as ocean acidification.

The fact is, dirt does not become trees that become dirt again, ashes to ashes is not a true description of the natural world.  CO2 is taken in from the atmosphere by cell respiration of plants and resides there in forms that are useful and support the current biosphere.   Since the industrial revolution, 200 years now, we have been releasing ever-increasing volumes of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, at the same time clearing the earth of our best carbon storing plants.  Saving and replanting the worlds forests, low till farming, energy conservation and alternative energies are the only way to halt the migration of CO2 into dangerous locations. 

Better plant a tree now, carbon will build you a shade tree, tons and tons of shade.

Who's side are you on? Do you have a survival instinct?

A year or two ago this lady threw a fit at Target and it got on utube and Target took some grief.  Then netflix caught it, 1 million left the service, about $15 million a month kick in the bag,  when they just decided the customer is hooked and stupid, I dropped part of their service, and we are dropping it all at the end of the year.

Next that cute little gal in California threw a hissy and got the banks to back off their debit card charge, and it is estimated she influenced several hundred thousand to move accounts to credit unions and locals.  My accounts are all in in state banks and mortgage company.

The big banks have said they are backing off those charges, but they also said the hundreds of millions a  year income from it is necessary and will be created with other new service fees.  That is no idle threat.  They will not leave the poor and middle class alone, they have a stupid cow, and they intend to milk it.  Get out if you are in one of these big multistate banks, go to a new one, or credit unions are the cheapest, they will help you move automatic deposit (retirement or whatever) and automatic payment systems over.

The only way the 99% can get these corporations and their stooges in congress attention is through boycotts and walkouts and demonstrations.  (I would say voting but that is not evident lately.)  Do it for yourself, for all of us.  Don't you have a survival instinct?  Fucking use it, fight or flight.

"In consideration of pleasures"

Part way through a block of limestone.  Still lots of work to do on this new sculpture,  done in batches of 15 minutes or an hour each evening, hope to be finished before Thanksgiving.  My plan for the hair is going to be a lot of work.  Will post a final pic when done.

Crime down, yes, despite fux news and others scaring old aunt Mini

I wrote a while back that crime is down and environmental pollution is helping.  Scientist see less mercury and lead in young men all the time, both cause problems with reasoning and both can cause bizarre and violent behavior.  Thanks to unleaded gas, paint, and continued EPA efforts to remove more sources, all of which the GOP threatens in their attacks on EPA and health agencies.  Do not fall into the trap of believing harsh punishment is responsible, our surroundings contribute as well, as now we see with girls growing more violent, in their case it's not these chemicals but plastics.  Interesting isn't it, that the sexes would be hit by different chemicals?

Every day solar, wind, wave energy announces a "biggest" ever project somewhere, but not in America

It will happen when the Koch brothers have exclusive rights to sun light.

my annual retelling of my finest bed time story, happy Oct. 31st

A bed time story.

One day a self-edifying group of subniveal conservative lemmings rushing through the forest came upon a magnificent bull stuck in the mud.  After some discussions with the bull it was decided is they could profit they would help the bull free himself.  At first it was great chaos as the lemmings bragged and argued amongst themselves and to the bull that they were each the true center of conservative strength.   The neo-cons begged for assination of foreign heads of state as policy, the paleo-cons cried for a return to Nietzche ideals, constitutionalists demanded repeal of the Amendments, veiled racist denounced emigrants, business swore against consumer rights, traders called for social security to be privatized for their firms to manage, the religious right prayed for control over women and war in the middle east, the union haters scorned living wages and the health care act, the birthers blathered, fossil fuel supporters blustered at science and solar energy, others were content to just cry no no no.  

Eventually just enough conservatives pulled to free the bull, where upon chaos resumed as each boasted his political view was the conservative power that had accomplished the task.

A few days later the magnificent bull happened upon a rocky pit, looking down he saw all the lemmings were in it, helpless as a group to get out.  Seeing the bull they demanded he repay his debt at once.  The bull straddled the pit lowering his immense penis and testicles into the stony crease.  The conservative lemmings scampered up the bulls’ member to safety and ran off to persecute the doves cooing nearby.

Moral of the story: It’s better to have a big dick than a wilderness of conservatives. 

At last, lawyers are doing something to earn some kudos, at least from me.

Re: Occupy Wall Street.  The first amendment right to protest is being ignored or squeezed down by selling permits to protest by some cities, and/or forbidding being to close to the state house, or to city hall, or in a park.  These are methods for selecting who can protest, and saying no to groups the party of power doesn't like.

Nation wide there is an army of pro bono attorneys working to guide the protests in dozens of cities through the legal maze of exercising their first amendment rights.  Thanks to the lawyers, it is said it is the biggest pro bono legal event since the Viet Nam war protests.  Thanks.

And........what the hell are the cops doing beating and pepper spraying and turning sprinkler systems at night on these people who so far as I know they have yet to find anyone with so much as a can opener let alone a gun or large knife, but to look at the swat team battle gear of the cops it seems they come prepared for a 1980's Belfast riot.  What the hell is going on with the cops, these people have more in common with them than the rich who are begging the politicians they own for a crack down. Wake up cops!  These protestors are more likely to support more police hired and at better pay than those asking for busted heads from their penthouses.

Do something, spend 5 minutes to tell congress don't crap in our water.

The House of Representatives will soon vote on a bill that would make it next to impossible to protect Americans' health or the environment in the future. The "Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny" (or REINS Act) would require both houses of Congress to approve every proposed major standard that would protect health or the environment -- or anything else. Urge your representative to oppose and vote No on the REINS Act (H.R. 10)


http://www.nrdc.org


Go to NRDC, click take action.  OK they want your address, they may ask you to join.  You could do worse, NRDC may be the most successful environmental group out there, and they use a very small percent of their income for fund raising or executive pay.  If you get any junk mail from them, it won't be much, just recycle it.