Tell-A-Vision = Why Not Try Love Again?
[Viewing Suggestion: Play Both Videos At the Same Time]
William Burroughs, 1983
Silent footage of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and others in New York, Summer 1959
The unsuspecting (but intended) victims of SOPA and PIPA
By Sebastian Anthony on January 20, 2012 at 12:40 pm, Article Source
The SOPA- and PIPA-fueled furor that resulted in the blacking out of Wikipedia, Reddit, and WordPress, shows no sign of slowing down. It's interesting to note, though, that most people don't seem to actually understand what the end goal of SOPA and PIPA are. Many warning messages displayed during the blackout, including those displayed by Reddit and Wikipedia, proclaimed the end or radical altering of the internet if SOPA or PIPA is enacted into law -- but they didn't say how.
While it varies from publication to publication, SOPA and PIPA have generally been described as anti-piracy laws. This is true, but as the full name of PIPA suggests -- PROTECT IP Act -- these bills are about much more than simply shutting down The Pirate Bay or your favorite pirate movie/music streaming service. In reality, if SOPA and PIPA become law, American rights holders will have the power to shut down millions of websites that span the gamut of almost every commercial enterprise, from selling fake pharmaceuticals and bootleg Vera Wang purses, to sites that stream StarCraft 2.
To get some idea of the scale of SOPA and PIPA, take a look at the list of industries and organizations that support H.R. 3261: Stop Online Piracy Act. It's true that Printing & Publishing, Commercial TV, and Entertainment Industry are all big supporters, but they're actually beaten out by both Pharmaceuticals and Wine & Distilled Spirits. Heck, if you needed confirmation that this isn't all about piracy, bear in mind that one of the top supporters of SOPA is the Tobacco & Tobacco Products industry. Also high on the list are Building Trades Unions and even the Civil Servants/Public Employee sector, neither of which have an obvious link to piracy, copyright infringement, or intellectual property theft.
In short, then, the supporters of SOPA and PIPA were hoping for a lot more than merely mopping up piracy on the internet. Both SOPA and PIPA are far-ranging bills that give just about any American company the ability to shut down and remove a website without due process.
What follows is a list of websites that could be shut down if SOPA and PIPA pass into law. Once you've checked out the list and realized that most of your favorite websites are on there, be sure to write to write to Congress and make your voice heard.
Justin.tv, Ustream, etc. - One of the biggest issues with SOPA is that it requires online services to screen everything that passes through their system. Justin.tv, which features a lot of live-streaming gamers and webcammers playing music, could be shut down.
YouTube, Break, Cheezburger, etc. This goes without saying, but almost any site that hosts multimedia content, be it The Pirate Bay, Megaupload (!), or YouTube is free game for any American company to shut down.
Canadian & international online pharmacies - SOPA has a clause that targets any site that "endangers public health." Ostensibly this is to target fake pharma sites (the kind that get filtered into your spam inbox), but the wording of the bill is so vague that perfectly-safe pharmacies based in other Western countries could be shutdown. This could have serious repercussions for Americans who currently save a lot of money by buying their pharmaceuticals online.
Cheap booze and tobacco stores - Likewise, if you like the liquor or partake in the 'baccy, the same clause of SOPA could mean that your favorite non-domestic off-license gets shut down. Are you starting to see why SOPA has such wide-ranging sponsors?
Tor - Beyond the ability to block infringing sites, SOPA also (obviously!) outlaws tools that can circumvent such blocking. Tor is just one example, but you could even stretch the circumvention clause to include SSHing to your own dedicated server outside the US. Building up a list of IP addresses of your favorite sites, in case they get blacklisted from DNS, would also be illegal.
Social networks, forums, or just about any "sharing" site - One of the most important aspects of SOPA and PIPA is the onus they put on service providers. Historically, ISPs, YouTube, Facebook, and other "middlemen" were granted safe harbor, as long as they complied with DMCA take-down requests. With SOPA and PIPA, these services have to monitor their users all the time. If I send a file to a friend, and my ISP doesn't spot it, my ISP could get shut down. Likewise, if I upload a copyrighted work to a forum, that forum could be shut down. SOPA and PIPA basically mandates that service providers become police. I'll let you work out whether it's a good thing to have millions of cops on the web.
In conclusion, then, Reddit and Wikipedia weren't being hyperbolic when they said that SOPA would destroy the web -- but now you know why. If we've missed an important website or service that would be hit by SOPA or PIPA, please let us know in the comments.
The Aftershock Survival Summit
Benoit Mandelbrot thinks we're all screwed
Deepest Mandelbrot Set Zoom Animation ever - a New Record! 10^275 (2.1E275 or 2^915)
Göbekli Tepe
We're Discord's Titans
Things Don't Change, People Do
2007
2007.12 - 2007.11 - 2007.10 - 2007.09 - 2007.08 - 2007.07 - 2007.06 - 2007.05 - 2007.04 - 2007.03 - 2007.02 - 2007.01
2008
2008.12 - 2008.11 - 2008.10 - 2008.09 - 2008.08 - 2008.07 - 2008.06 - 2008.05 - 2008.04 - 2008.03 - 2008.02 - 2008.01
2009
2009.12 - 2009.11 - 2009.10 - 2009.09 - 2009.08 - 2009.07 - 2009.06 - 2009.05 - 2009.04 - 2009.03 - 2009.02 - 2009.01
2010
2010.12 - 2010.11 - 2010.10 - 2010.09 - 2010.08 - 2010.07 - 2010.06 - 2010.05 - 2010.04 - 2010.03 - 2010.02 - 2010.01
2011
2011.12 - 2011.11 - 2011.10 - 2011.09 - 2011.08 - 2011.07- 2011.06 - 2011.05 - 2011.04 - 2011.03 - 2011.02 - 2011.01
Magnitude 3.8 - 6 km (4 miles) WNW (289°) from Clearlake, CA - ARPSN shows >= 4.0 Magnitude
There is usually an explosive sound before motion, during Induced seismicity.
Heliplot - 201201.24 Magnitude 3.8 - 6 km (4 miles) WNW (289°) from Clearlake, CA - ARPSN shows greater than 4.0 Magnitude
FFT - 201201.24 Magnitude 3.8 - 6 km (4 miles) WNW (289°) from Clearlake, CA - ARPSN shows greater than 4.0 Magnitude
Clearlake H2S - Hydrogen sulfide PDF Document
Clear Lake Earthquake 201201.24 - Google Map
Remediation of Clearlake Natural Hydrogen sulfide leak
By: Rosemary Stephen PMed, (cert) EOH, IPM, Elements: Environmental Health Intelligence, MARCH 26, 2010, Article Source
A hydrogen sulphide (H2S) leak was detected on 10 Feb 2010 in an empty residential lot in the town of Clearlake, in north central California, USA. Eye witnesses saw water bubbling from the ground and noticed a smell of rotten eggs. Lake County’s air pollution control officer, Doug Gearhart, explained that the soil’s natural fissures had became sealed due to recent heavy rains which, in turn, caused the release of H2S through any available channel [1]. Lake County Air Quality Control and Calpine Corporation environmental staff reported that the H2S, sampled at the source, showed a potential health hazard for residents living in close proximity [2, 3]. No residents were overly exposed to the gas leak, but one family was evacuated for precautionary measures.
Hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide and methane gases leach out from underground magma through hot springs and during volcanic activity. The area of Lake County where Clearlake is located has numerous geothermal sources and mineral springs that release gases through surface vents [4]. It is also the home of Mount Konocti a large volcano only 5.13 miles (8.25 kilometers) from Clearlake. In the week prior to the leak, a swarm [2F] of small earthquakes registered at the Unites States Geological Survey (USGS). The center of the swam was 23.5 miles (37.85 km) west of Clearlake.
Hydrogen Sulfide is a flammable, colorless gas that has a characteristic smell of rotten eggs at low concentrations. Once released, H2S can remain in the atmosphere for an estimated 18 hours [5]. The World Health Organization recommends that exposure to H2S be avoided [6]. Children are readily affected by H2S because it is heavier than air; the gas accumulates in poorly ventilated, low-lying areas and travels along the ground [7]. At concentration between 0.00011–0.00033 ppm there are no health effects except exposure may trigger eye and nose irritation as well as breathing difficulties in asthmatics [8]. Most people can tolerate exposure levels up to 20 ppm for some hours without any harm [9]. At 500 ppm victims will look intoxicated and at 700 ppm, H2S will cause loss of consciousness and death if the victim is not resuscitated within three minutes [10]. Survivors suffer from long term, or permanent health effects, such as headaches, poor motor function, poor memory and poor attention span [11].
The natural venting of H2S in Clearlake resulted in the collaboration of numerous agencies; a Hazmat team, comprised of officials from Lake County Fire Protection District (LCFPD), Clearlake Public Works (CPW), Lake County Air Quality Control (LCAQC), Lake County Environmental Health (LCEH), Lake County Office of Emergency Services (OES) and Lake County Public Health Services (LCPHS) joined forces in the effort to resolve the issue [12].
The team opted for an emergency method that would decrease the presence of H2S in the air. Doug Gearhart, Lake County’s air pollution control officer, supervised the installation of a “scrubber system” [13]. This system consisted of a gravel cone installed into the ground and covered with soil. A vent pipe equipped with a charcoal filter was pushed into the cone to allow H2S to escape. A small battery operated fan created a negative pressure within the system which helped divert H2S into a venting hose attached to a power pole. This is just a temporary measure which may require other intervention depending on the season and weather patterns [14].
Researchers from Sejong University, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, have published the results of experiments to remove H2S. They found that a scrubbing technique using silver nano-particles is showing promise [15]; silver is safe to the human body and it is widely used in baby products, medical products and household items. Silver has the capability to remove compounds such has H2S in its gas phase. They explained that “organic compounds were oxidized by oxygen ions on the surface of silver. As a result, the structure of silver nano-particles retained reactive oxygen for the effective removal of malodorous compounds” [16]. This technique could become a tool with numerous applications in both occupational and non-occupational settings.
References:
[1] Larson, E. Officials install equipment to deal with natural hydrogen sulfide leak (2010) Lake County News California. (On-line) Available:
http://lakeconews.com/content/view/12563/919/. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[2] Ibid. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[3] Health officials release update on geothermal gases release (2010) Lake County News reports. (On-line) Available:
http://lakeconews.com/content/view/12581/919/. Cited 2010 Feb 18
[4] Norlander, B. Slime hunters: scientists brave deadly gases and flesh-burning acid to discover what’s hidden in a cave in Mexico (2004) Science World, BNet. (On-line) Available:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1590/is_4_61/ai_n9485102/. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[5] Hydrogen Sulfide (2006) Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, Department of Health and Human Services. (On-line) Available:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts114.html. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[6] Hydrogen Sulfide: Human Health Aspect (2003) Concise International Chemical Assessment Document 53, WHO. (On-line) Available:
http://www.who.int/ipcs/publications/cicad/en/cicad53.pdf. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[7] Hydrogen Sulfide (2006) Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, Department of Health and Human Services. (On-line) Available:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts114.html. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[8] Ibid. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[9] Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) (2010) The International Volcanic Health Hazard Network. (On-line) Available:
http://www.ivhhn.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[10] Essentials of Power Engineering: Plant and Safety Theory “A1” (2004) Power Engineering Ùtraining Systems, PanGlobal Ltd. (On-line) Available:
http://books.google.ca/... &f=false. Cited 2010 Feb 18.
[11] Hydrogen Sulfide (2006) Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, Department of Health and Human Services. (On-line) Available:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts114.html. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[12] Rockenstein, D., Pocket of sulfuric acids prompts Hazmat response (2010) Lake County Record-Bee. (On-line) Available:
http://www.record-bee.com/ci_14394519. Cited 2010 Feb 18.
[13] Larson, E. Officials install equipment to deal with natural hydrogen sulfide leak (2010) Lake County News California. (On-line) Available:
http://lakeconews.com/content/view/12563/919/. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[14] Ibid. Cited 2010 Feb 15.
[15] SeungKyu Shin and al., Removal of Hydrogen Sulfide in Terms of Scrubbing Techniques using Silver Nano-Particles. (2009) World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (on-line) Available:
http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v59/v59-58.pdf. Cited 2010 Feb 23.
[16] Ibid. Cited 2010 Feb 23.
End Notes:
[1F] Swarm: sequence of earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time in the order of days, weeks or months. Not a single earthquake in the sequence is obviously the main shock. Swarms typically preced volcanic eruption.
Earthquake Swarm (2010) Wikipedia. (On-line) Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_swarm. Cited 2010 Feb 18.
Atlanta Jewish paper says, Israel Should Consider Assassinating Obama
Obama and Netanyahu: up close and personal - Steve Bell
The Dirty Work of Zionism Is Not Finished Yet
Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there [?9/11?], I don't care. And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal… What you lot don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. - Ariel Sharon, Ex Israel Prime Minister, Zionist, 1982
Hasidic = Good & Zionist = Evil
Hasidic Rabbis Against Zionism - Photograph: Bill Perry, VVAW/VFP/IVAW
A Few Weeks After 9/11:
Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it. - 3 October 2001 - Israel Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, Zionist
Assassinate Obama if he won’t attack Iran for Israel, Jewish monthly suggests
PAUL KORING, WASHINGTON - Globe and Mail Update, Sunday, January 22, 2012 1:54PM EST, Article Source
Musing openly about murdering President Barack Obama is certain to stir some attention.
So is publicly suggesting it’s a job for Mossad – Israel’s no-nonsense spy agency with its long record of assassinating enemies of the Jewish state.
Yet that’s just what the editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, did in a column laying out the three options Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has when faced with Mr. Obama’s unwillingness to wage war on Iran.
Option three, wrote Mr. Adler, is for the Israeli leader to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”
With a usual readership of only a few thousand, the Atlanta Jewish Times rarely reaches beyond the Georgia’s genteel suburbs. But Mr. Adler now has readers worldwide.
In Washington, Secret Service agents, already coping with record numbers of threats against America’s first black president, falsely accused by some of being a Muslim or a non-native-born citizen ineligible to be president, will “make all appropriate, investigative follow-up in regard to this matter,” the agency said.
Gawker, the news and gossip site, gave Mr. Adler’s violent musings global exposure.
Mr. Adler now insists he wasn’t seriously urging the assassination of the President.
But in his original column, he makes clear that he considers a “hit” a genuine option.
“Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?” he wrote. Options one and two were all-out Israeli attacks on Hezbollah or Iran’s nuclear sites.
Now Mr. Adler says: “I feel really bad,” and promises an apology and a retraction in the next, monthly, issue of the Atlanta Jewish Times. There’s no mention either of the “hit” option, nor the intended apology on his website.
Mainstream Jewish groups hammered Mr. Adler.
Calling the “hit” option, “shocking beyond belief,” Dov Wilker, director of American Jewish Committee in Atlanta, added: “How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?”
But some see Mr. Adler’s musings as a rare public reminder of the usually unspoken and viciously hostile view of a President many regard as anti-Israel.
“Adler’s crazy and criminal suggestions are not the ranting of some loony-tune individual,” opined Chemi Shalev, a political analyst at the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “They were not taken out of thin air. Rather, they are the inevitable result of the inordinate volume of repugnant venom that some of Obama’s political rivals, Jews and non-Jews alike, have been spewing for the last three years.”
Others blasted Mr. Adler, although there was widespread acknowledgment that he was only saying what many others believe. “The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists – even in some segments of our community – that maliciously labels President Obama as an enemy of the Jewish people,” said Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Grateful Dead - Throwing Stones 1987
Why Doesn't Joint Responsibility Rule of Conspiracy Apply to Palin and the attempted murder of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, like it did for Charles Manson?
Family Values: Using daughters from your first wife to convince everyone that your second wife is lying about your third wife
Whoremonger Adulterer Pussy for President
Etta James: 10 classic performances
Richard Williams remembers the great blues and soul singer at her absolute finest
Soul legend … Etta James. Photograph: Eamonn Mccabe
Posted by Richard Williams, Friday 20 January 2012 18.27 GMT, guardian.co.uk, Article history, Article Source
Etta James was born in Los Angeles and spent some of the key years of her professional life in San Francisco and Chicago, but there have been few more convincing interpreters of soul music associated with the southern states. Many of her classics were indeed cut in Muscle Shoals and Memphis, but it didn't really matter where she was standing at the time. In LA or the Windy City, Etta could dig out the heart of a good song and present it raw, with the blood still running red. So this list of 10 personal favourite Etta James tracks contains a preponderance of deep-soul ballads with a southern accent.
1. Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (1974)
Etta turns Randy Newman's great song into an epic portrait of sexual conspiracy. Gabriel Meckler's restrained production sets her suplhurous voice against Lowell George's slide guitar, which takes centre-stage for a piercing solo that ends with a gorgeous dying fall. From the album Come a Little Closer.
2. Almost Persuaded (1968)
Co-written by Billy Sherrill, produced by Rick Hall at the Fame studios in Muscle Shoals, this is a piece of prime late-60s Memphis soul: a black singer taking a country song and turning it inside out. Etta meets a man at a party, and they take a shine to each other. They drink and talk. He puts his hand on hers. Come away with me, he says. Then she looks into his soft brown eyes, and sees the reflection of her wedding ring. "I was almost persuaded …" One of her finest 45s.
3. Damn Your Eyes (1988)
Another country song taken for a walk through the shadows on the other side of town. This one is by Barbara Wyrick and Steve Bogard, and comes from the album Seven Year Itch, its title referring to her prolonged absence from the recording scene. Produced by Barry Beckett in Muscle Shoals, it features Reggie Young's guitar. Etta could shout the blues with the best of them, but she could also under-sing when necessary, and she pitches this one perfectly. Impossible to play just once.
4. Pushover (1963)
A playful slice of pre-Beatles black pop, co-written (with Roquel Davis) by Tony Clark, a Northern Soul hero (Ain't Love Good Ain't Love Proud, Landslide, The Entertainer). Pushover itself was an early favourite with that audience, and demonstrates Etta's versatility.
5. I'd Rather Go Blind (1968)
In her 1995 autobiography, Rage to Survive, Etta wrote that she heard an early version of this song from its writer, her friend Ellington Jordan, before helping him to complete it. Recorded with Rick Hall at FAME, it ended up on the B-side of Tell Mama. A year later Christine Perfect sang it with Fleetwood Mac, paving the way for countless cover versions. The original is still the greatest, by a country mile.
6. Misty Blue (2011)
Bob Montgomery, Buddy Holly's songwriting partner, wrote this yearning ballad in 1966 for Brenda Lee, who wasn't interested. Ten years later Dorothy Moore gave it the soul treatment and had a huge worldwide hit. This heartfelt version comes from The Dreamer, Etta's final album, sensitively produced by her sons Donto and Sametto – long a part of her road band, on drums and bass respectively – to minimise the limitations of a voice losing its range and flexibility but none of its intelligence and interpretive power. "Listen to me good," she urges.
7. If I Can't Have You (1960)
After her initial run of hits dried up, Etta signed with the Chess brothers in Chicago. This wailing duet with Harvey Fuqua takes its place in a tradition running from Brook Benton and Dinah Washington to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.
8. Lovin' Arms (1975)
Tom Jans was a folk singer from southern California who toured and recorded with Mimi Farina, Joan Baez's sister, and died of an overdose in 1984, aged 35, a year after a serious motorbike crash. He left this wonderful song, which exists in powerful versions by Elvis Presley and Millie Jackson but also drew the best out of Etta, even though she insists on changing "Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains" – the key line – to "Looking back and hoping for the freedom of my chains".
9. I Worship the Ground You Walk On (1968)
Written by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, in the grand tradition of their majestic country-soul ballads (Out of Left Field, Dark End of the Street and so on). Produced by Rick Hall and released as the B-side of Etta's cover of Sonny and Cher's I Got You, Babe.
10. In the Evening (2011)
Another track from The Dreamer, this stately and perfectly understated version of the old Ray Charles song goes deep into Etta's heritage, with an excellent band purring through the altered 12-bar changes as she meditates on the most basic verities of the blues: in the evening, when the sun goes down, and your good lover is not around … No more to be said.
Undercover police had children with activists
Disclosure likely to intensify controversy over long-running police operation to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups
Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012 20.15 GMT, Article history, Article Source
Bob Lambert (far left), with his child. The undercover police officer had a relationship with a
woman who is now taking action against the police
Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.
In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children's mothers for many years.
One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.
The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child's mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother's political activities and life.
The disclosures are likely to intensify the controversy over the long-running police operation to infiltrate and sabotage protest groups.
Police chiefs claim that undercover officers are strictly forbidden from having sexual relationships with the activists they are spying on, describing the situations as "grossly unprofessional" and "morally wrong".
But that claim has been undermined as many of the officers who have been unmasked have admitted to, or have been accused of, having sex with the targets of their surveillance.
Last month eight women who say they were duped into forming long-term intimate relationships of up to nine years with five undercover policemen started unprecedented legal action. They say they have suffered immense emotional trauma and pain over the relationships, which spanned the period from 1987 to 2010.
Until now it was not known that police had secretly fathered children while living undercover. One of them is Lambert, who adopted a fake persona to infiltrate animal rights and environmental groups in the 1980s.
After he was unmasked in October, he admitted that as "Bob Robinson" he had conned an innocent woman into having an 18-month relationship with him, apparently so that he could convince activists he was a real person. She is one of the women taking the legal action against police chiefs.
Now the Guardian can reveal that in the mid-1980s, just a year into his deployment, Lambert fathered a boy with another woman, who was one of the activists he had been sent to spy on.
The son lived with his mother during the early years of his life as his parents' relationship did not last long. During that time, Lambert was in regular contact with the infant, fitting visits to him around his clandestine duties.
After two years, the mother married another man and both of them took responsibility for raising the child. Lambert says the woman was keen that he give up his legal right to maintaining contact with his son and cut him out of her new life. He says the agreement was reached amicably and he has not seen or heard of the mother or their son since then.
Lambert did not tell her or the child that he was a police spy as he needed to conceal his real identity from the political activists he was spying on. The Guardian is not naming the woman or the child to protect their privacy.
Lambert was married during his secret mission, which continued until 1988.
The highly secretive operation to monitor and disrupt political activists, which has been running for four decades, has come under mounting scrutiny since last year following revelations over the activities of Mark Kennedy, the undercover police officer who went rogue after burying himself deep in the environmental movement for seven years.
Police chiefs and prosecutors have set up 12 inquiries over the past year to examine allegations of misconduct involving police spies, but all of them have been held behind closed doors. There have been continuing calls, including from the former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald, for a proper public inquiry.
The second case involves an undercover policeman who was sent to spy on activists some years ago. He had a short-lived relationship with a political activist which produced a child.
He concealed his real identity from the activist and child as he was under strict orders to keep secret his undercover work from her and the other activists in the group he infiltrated. He then disappeared, apparently after his superiors ended his deployment. Afterwards, she remained under surveillance as she continued to be politically active, while he carried on with his police career.
The Guardian understands that as he had access to the official monitoring reports, he regularly read details of her life with a close interest. He watched as she grew older and brought up their child as a single parent, according to an individual who is aware of the details of the case.
The policeman has been "haunted" by the experience of having no contact with the child, whom he thought about regularly, according to the individual.
• If you have information please contact paul.lewis@guardian.co.uk
The Adventures of Alice Cooper and Noel Fielding
In an exclusive cartoon, Noel and Alice head for a few rounds of goth golf by Noel Fielding
Raise Your Hand If You Support Political Evil
Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective - a new world order - can emerge: a new era - freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.... A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak. - George H. W. Bush
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. - George W. Bush, Insane Republican War Criminal, Destroyer of the United States - HAARETZ.COM - Congress says use George's quote as a defense in court ???
MORPHEUS: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
MORPHEUS: Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
NEO: I was...
MORPHEUS: Look again!
MORPHEUS: Freeze it!
NEO: This... this isn't the Matrix?
MORPHEUS: No. It is another training program designed to teach you one thing: if you are not one of us, you are one of them!
The revolution will be composted: adventures in radical gardening
Gardening isn't all about pottering among the petunias: Ruth Jamieson on the rebel gardeners who are using plants to say something political
Posted by Ruth Jamieson, Friday 20 January 2012 09.10 GMT, guardian.co.uk, Article history, Gardening BLOG, Article Source
Type "gardener" into the Google in your head and you'll probably get something a little like this; gentle, patient, fond of pottering, sartorially biased towards corduroy.
Yes, yes, not all gardeners are like that, but that's undeniably the stereotype. Anyway, this post is not about that type of gardener. It's not about tending our own private utopias behind a safe boundary of leylandii. It's about something altogether more dangerous and sexier than that. It's about rebel gardeners: those people who use their botanical skills to make political, economic and social statements rather than say something about new directions in decking.
They are the kind of activists who carry farming equipment not to symbolise the proletariat, but because they've got some serious hoeing to do. They're not mild-mannered; they're angry. And while they may be patient when it comes to buds flowering, when it comes to urban wastelands, unsustainable town planning, the food industry, unemployment, social exclusion and the relentless grey, grey, grey of our towns and cities they are extraordinarily feisty.
Over the coming seasons, we'll visit various rebel gardening projects. Every month we'll talk to the people involved and, should you choose to take up the thorn-proof pruning gauntlet, we'll find out how you can muck in and get involved, or even start a similar project in your area.
We'll visit radical socialist gardeners like those in Incredible Edible Todmorton. This Yorkshire town is planting every available surface with veggies. They are on a mission to reject the global food industry and become the UK's first food self-sustaining town. We'll drop in on The Plant in Chicago where rebels are transforming a disused industrial building into a zero emission farm.
As our high streets wither in the shadow of recession, radical gardeners are reimagining our shared social spaces as green ones. We'll meet the people following in the muddy bootprints of Ebenezer Howard, creator of the original garden city, Letchworth: like the team behind Cardiff's vertical gardening project, How Green Is Your Alley? Or Elephant and Castle's original guerilla gardening Richard Reynolds, currently busy with his Mobile Gardeners project.
We'll meet Wayward Plants, masters of temporary conceptual gardens. In the past they've brought us the Urban Physic Garden in Southwark, the Union Street Orchard also in South London and Algaegarden, a garden planted with pond grasses and hung with plastic tubes filled with different coloured algae that appeared at the 2011 Metis International Garden Festival in Quebec.
Elsewhere we'll visit gardeners expressing ideas about equality and opportunities for disadvantaged groups. We'll look at organizations like The Comfrey Project which works with refuges and asylum seekers on allotment sites across Newcastle and Gateshead. Or the Redhall Walled Garden where people with mental health issues are introduced to the therapeutic benefits of green fingers.
We'll speak to the people answering the question "how do you eat local when you live in a tower block?" These are people like Something & Son who have transformed a Hackney shop into a farm with their Farm:Shop. And Food From The Sky [link no longer available], the edible garden above a Crouch End supermarket. A flight of stairs! How's that for reduced food miles?
Depending on how historical we're feeling we may look at the roots of radical gardening too. The Green Guerillas of 1970s New York, the original community gardeners and throwers of seed-bombs. And the UK's own Meanwhile Gardens near Westbourne Park, where the wasteland turned adventure garden boasted the UK's first skateboard pit.
For now I shall leave you with this: the word "radical", whether you take it to mean reformist in the political sense, or unconventional in the cultural sense or just plain awesome in the 1970s teenage sense, derives from the Latin word "radix", meaning "root". Radish is also derived from radix. So gardening and revolution, not such unlikely allotment-mates after all.
Do you know a gardener, greener, community gardener or adopter of feral lands who's digging for a better society? Perhaps there's someone in your life who's on a mission to change the world one vegetable patch at a time? Let us know below about the projects you find inspiring and perhaps we'll feature them here.
In the meantime, remember, the revolution will be composted.
Amestizo - BLOG
The Kinks - Tired of Waiting
The Mamas & The Papas - California Dreamin'
Rolling Stones - Not Fade Away
"The Rocket Man" (1954) - Theatrical Trailer - Script by Lenny Bruce, Et al.
Leningrad Cowboys, Rockin In The Free World
Etta James, Gladys Night, Chaka Khan, BB King & Friends - Ain't Nobody Business
Boston Legal Speech on America
Blackout 201201.18
English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout
To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012 , Modified on 17 January 2012, at 15:15.
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate — that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst:
It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,
We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.
The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.
Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.
That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place — many do! — but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.
My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States — don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?
The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.
Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Source: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout
Expert Opinions
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television"
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957
"But what is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind"
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
-- Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University , 1929
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre , France
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University
"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-- The head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse , 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon."
-- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, President, Chairman and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
Breaking News: GOP Will Run Nobody for President in 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. In an unprecedented move, The RNC announced today that the Republican Party has decided to cancel its primaries and run nobody for president in 2012.
Speaking to reporters, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus explained the decision: “We think that running nobody will rally Republicans of all stripes and garner more votes than any of the other potential candidates.”
He may be right. A recent nationwide poll of likely Republican voters revealed that, given a choice between all the other contenders and a blank space, 88% would vote for the blank space.
Priebus continued: “We strongly believe that the only candidate that has a chance of beating President Obama is nobody.”
Click for RNC Chairman Priebus making his announcement photo
Republican pollster Frank Luntz agreed, saying that the other GOP candidates simply have too many negatives. “Let's face it," he said, "Tim Pawlenty is the human equivalent of Ambien; Michele Bachmann will not appeal to voters who can tie their shoes without help; Romney? Who knows whether evangelists will vote for a Moron, er... I mean Mormon? "
Luntz continued: "Ron Paul knows a lot about the Constitution, which is a turn-off for many Republican voters; Newt Gingrich is unappealing because his first name is a type of salamander. Salamaders are amphibians. Republicans tend to vote for reptiles. And Mitch Daniels looks too much like Calvin Coolidge."
Click for Mitch Daniels or Calvin Coolidge? photo
Support for nobody seems to be unanimous among Republican leaders.
Speaker of the House, John Boehner told reporters: “Compared to all the other potential candidates, the best choice is nobody. I'm totally behind nobody. Does anybody have a hanky?"
The new strategy has enlivened Republican donors “We intend to raise a billion dollars for the nobody campaign,” the Koch brothers vowed. "Getting nobody elected will be our highest priority."
Click for The Koch Brother$ photo
Iowa Republican activist Don Flam was enthusiastic: “We all feel that this is a fabulous move. Our grassroots organizations can really get behind nobody. Nobody will really unite the party."
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell could barely contain himself when he heard the news. "Nobody's perfect," he said.
But perhaps House Minority Leader Eric Cantor summed it up best: “Just think how great it would be for Republicans if nobody was elected President.”
Photos courtesy: hapblog.com, explore theoldwest.com, veracitystew.com, Article Source
Bacon linked to higher risk of pancreatic cancer, says report
Study claims eating two rashers or one sausage a day can increase threat of contracting disease by nearly 20%
Press Association, guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 January 2012 04.10 EST, Article history, Article Source
Daily consumption of bacon and other red meat products can raise cancer rates,
according to the study. Photograph: Thomas Firak Photography/Getty Images
Eating two rashers of bacon a day can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer by 19% and the risk goes up if a person eats more, experts have said.
Eating 50g of processed meat every day – the equivalent to one sausage or two rashers of bacon – increases the risk by 19%, compared to people who do not eat processed meat at all.
For people consuming double this amount of processed meat (100g), the increased risk jumps to 38%, and is 57% for those eating 150g a day. But experts cautioned that the overall risk of pancreatic cancer was relatively low – in the UK, the lifetime risk of developing the disease is one in 77 for men and one in 79 for women.
Nevertheless, the disease is deadly – it is frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage and kills 80% of people in under a year. Only 5% of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis.
The latest study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, is from researchers at the respected Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. They examined data from 11 studies, including 6,643 cases of pancreatic cancer. They found inconclusive evidence on the risks of eating red meat overall, compared to eating no red meat.
They found a 29% increase in pancreatic cancer risk for men eating 120g per day of red meat but no increased risk among women. This may be because men in the study tended to eat more red meat than women.
They concluded: "Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that processed meat consumption is positively associated with pancreatic cancer risk.
"Red meat consumption was associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in men.
"Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings."
The study adds to understanding about the risk factors for developing pancreatic cancer. Overall, smoking is thought to account for around a third of all cases of the disease, and smokers have a 74% increased risk of developing it compared to non-smokers.
Associate Professor Susanna Larsson, author on the study, said: "Pancreatic cancer has poor survival rates. So as well as diagnosing it early, it's important to understand what can increase the risk of this disease.
"If diet does affect pancreatic cancer then this could influence public health campaigns to help reduce the number of cases of this disease developing in the first place."
Around 8,090 people were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK in 2008 – 3% of all cancer cases – and around 7,780 people died from it. Sara Hiom, director of information at Cancer Research UK, said: "The jury is still out as to whether meat is a definite risk factor for pancreatic cancer and more large studies are needed to confirm this. But this new analysis suggests processed meat may be playing a role.
"We do know that, among lifestyle factors, smoking significantly ramps up the risk of pancreatic cancer.
"Stopping smoking is the best way to reduce your chances of developing many types of cancer and other diseases as well."
Dr Rachel Thompson, deputy head of science at World Cancer Research Fund, said: "There is strong evidence that being overweight or obese increases the risk of pancreatic cancer and this study may be an early indication of another factor behind the disease.
"Regardless of this latest research, we have already established a strong link between eating red and processed meat and your chances of developing bowel cancer, which is why WCRF [World Cancer Research Fund] recommends limiting intake of red meat to 500g cooked weight a week and avoiding processed meat altogether."
Alex Ford, chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: "Pancreatic Cancer UK is keen to see more research like this that helps improve our understanding about which aspects of diet and lifestyle may have a bearing on the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
"These findings, if confirmed by further studies, could help inform people on which lifestyle factors could play a role in limiting their chances of developing the disease."
Amestizo - BLOG
curtis,
the mcdonald's cheeseburger story [you sent] enforces a view of how unhealthy acceptance in our food chains need to have us eat to become more brainless, gain dis-ease, one more step away from natural reality!
this is the de-basing process to abuse and break the link of living in balance with this earth. the long term corruption is what "predators" demand for health industry's disorientation process to be effective!
sure reminds of the songs below. you be well, aho, randy
Wild goose chase - Steel Pulse [Lyrics] - A Who Responsible - Steel Pulse
Bob Dylan - BBC - With God on Our Side (1964) - Joan Baez - With God On Our Side (Live 1965)
Bob Dylan - Masters Of War (Live, Carnegie Hall 1963)
Sex and the over-60s
Older people are living longer and in better health than ever -- so of course they're continuing to have sex. Why is it so hard to talk about, asks the editor of Gransnet
Geraldine Bedell, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 January 2012 21.00 GMT, Article history, Article Source
Sharon Gless and Barry McCarthy in A Round-Heeled Woman. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Ten years ago in New York, I interviewed Helen Gurley-Brown, the kittenish but formidable creator of Cosmopolitan, who was then 80. Without preamble, she launched into enthusiastic endorsement of a lubricant called Astroglide: "You be sure," she said severely, "that you're all goopy before you get into bed." At the time, I was taken aback. Now I am older, it seems less funny.
Young people are often surprised that older women have sex at all. On Gransnet, the social networking site for grandparents that I edit, one poster described celebrating her 55th birthday at work and being asked by a much younger colleague at what age she had given up sex. She replied that she'd let her know when it happened; the other woman, she said, "looked horrified".
In fact, people over 60 are now the fastest-growing group contracting sexually transmitted diseases, according to government agency figures. Since 2002, syphilis has tripled in the over-65s in the UK, and HIV is up by 60%. Even allowing for the fact that we're starting from a low base, this is clearly not post-menopausal purdah.
Much of the ignorance about sex and the older person stems from resistance to thinking about old people at all, least of all their yucky bodies. There is a profound cultural fear of ageing, which glorifies the young and deprecates anything old: "ageing infrastructure", "sunset industries". This distaste tends to feed a perception of older people as a homogeneous group – which is absurd, because we tend to become more diverse, more assertive about our likes and dislikes, as we age. This is likely to be as true of sex as of anything else. Certainly, the impression that discussions on Gransnet give is that there's a spectrum of activity, from "none and not bothered" to "lots and up for more". Some of it may also be highly inventive, if only out of necessity.
When one Gransnetter asked recently: "If 16 is considered too young for sex, when is too old?" the majority view was summed up as, "when you can't remember what sex is", and "I'll tell you when I get there". There's clearly one big plus to being older, in that intimacy benefits from time and a lack of toddlers and teenagers. "Thank God for HRT and retirement – it's better than ever (aged 58)" says one poster. "I don't care who's programmed to do what or when," says another. "I've been married for nearly 40 years and have no intention of giving up our siestas and weekend lie-ins."
As the HRT reference suggests though, menopause can trigger a crisis. Those who sail on through it may well have to adjust, to make use of Astroglide-type aids or other chemical assistance. But among those who do slow down, it isn't necessarily (or mainly, according to our admittedly self-selecting panel) women who make the decision. "My husband has never tried to have sex since a 'failure' (the first ever) 16 years ago – since then it has never been discussed."
"We haven't bothered since 1999," says another woman. "There was no discussion or decision, it's just never been mentioned since then – on a holiday to Tunisia, to be precise." A combination of reticence and a bland assumption by young GPs that menopause will put paid to sexual desire leaves some people accepting that sex doesn't go on for ever, though not all are reconciled to the idea. Some are left with a sense of mourning: "I miss wanting sex as much as the sex itself."
Menopause may not, of course, be the only or main cause of waning desire, even when it takes the blame. New relationships have a suspicious habit of reviving enthusiasm. "It's much better when you live alone and have 'visits'," says nanachrissy. "When I was married, I think sex was spoiled by underlying resentments and suppressed anger. Now there are no strings and sex is the best ever. Also I have no hangups about my body, because I don't really care what he thinks (although he is very kind!)."
The memoirist Diana Athill writes, in Somewhere Towards the End, of her sadness that making love with her "dear habitual companion" had staled: "Familiarity had made the touch of his hand feel so much like the touch of my own hand that it no longer conveyed a thrill." She assumed this was a question of her age – she was in her late 50s – until she met someone else and experienced what she thinks of as a reprieve: "I found, to my amusement and pleasure, that novelty could restore sex."
Film director Nora Ephron says that sex in your 60s is very different to sex in your 20s. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Nora Ephron, who has written entertainingly about ageing, maintains that if you're lucky enough to be having sex in your 60s, you won't be having the sex you had in your 20s. This is probably true, although it doesn't have to be worse. Some Gransnetters claim to be having the best time of their lives. The ingenuity of people with dodgy hips should not be underestimated, nor, for those with less than fighter-pilot reactions, should Slow Love.
When Jane Juska was 66 and living in Berkeley, California, she placed an ad in the New York Review of Books: "Before I turn 67, next March," she wrote, "I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works fine."
Her bestseller, A Round-Heeled Woman (and the play adapted from the book, starring Sharon Gless, which finishes a West End run this week) catalogues a sexual odyssey that is by turns alarming, sad, funny and pleasurable.
Menopause, according to Gloria Steinem, can give women a new drive and confidence. "What we lose in those menopausal years is everything we needed to support another person," she argues. "What we keep is everything we need to support ourselves." Former Columbia Journalism Review editor Suzanne Braun Levine takes this as her cue in a new book, How We Love Now, arguing that older women have more satisfying experiences of intimacy because we can shuck off expectations of femininity, niceness and acceptability, to be more honest about desire.
Internet dating sites have made finding someone to suit this new, more assertive state easier. There are some that are specifically (and by some accounts successfully) targeted at people in the second half of life, though one Gransnetter warns, to no one's great surprise: "All the old men of 70 think they are only 40, so that's the age of woman they are looking for."
Sex, for most people, does tail off at some point, though there's little consensus about the timing or rate of decline. For some, it may stop abruptly on an otherwise unremarkable holiday; others have every intention of continuing to the end of their days and will point out that less frequent doesn't always mean less intense.
Greater longevity and improved health mean that a phase of life never previously seen now exists: an extended middle-age: fit, competent and interested in sex. The novelty of this means that very little is understood about its erotic possibilities – but these are likely to be as varied as for any other group and, probably, more so. "Don't give up hope," one woman posted recently. "I speak as one who met the love of my life (and he really is just that) six years ago after 15 years of (intentional) celibacy. I'm nearly 74 and he's 56." Meanwhile, another poster reported that she knows of one 80-year-old care-home resident who insists on having her vibrator passed to her every night. - gransnet.com
The Lonely One Dave Mason 1973
George Harrison - Horse To The Water ... or ... NOT
Reasons 2B Happy! by Xeth:
ONLY 27% OF AMERICANS CONSIDER THEMSELVES REPUBLICANS.
Alerts - Notes from ~@~
What's Shakin'
201201.11 Disclaimer: I have been an amateur in seismology, volcanology, and related fields for close to 40 years and the following has absolutely nothing to do with prediction. I fool around with some seismic stuff that is not accepted by the scientific community, YET, (smile) because I can (smile), and there are weird patterns showing up on my models, that I have no history of, ... but there are similarities to other things I have previously recorded and reported:
Earthquakes occurring near Potosi, Bolivia have caught my attention because I can not tell if I am looking at a possible earthquake or volcanic eruption. Here is the most recent one that occurred at: 22.246°S, 67.393°W. (imo) It is worthwhile to note longitudes and latitudes that are close to the 'recent earthquake,' listed above, on this list of volcanoes in Bolivia, where one will find eight (8) volcanos in the same, general area, which is why I am probably getting confused; however, if something does occur, I would like a notation of it, and why this note has been posted.
Mike Wilhelm - Charlatans, Flamin' Groovies, and more - Local - Alternative
Mike Wilhelm & Hired Guns at Blue Wing Saloon
Monday, January 16, 2012. 6:00 til 9:00 pm
Special Guest: Delta Bluesman Kenny Neal
Kenny Neal and Mike Wilhelm
Rainbow Puddle - Stellar Light Shows
Hey Curtis,
KQED will be presenting a film I did some of the camera work for. It is called: This Is Where We Take Our Stand and the local, Bay Area, broadcast is Thursday, January 26 at 11pm and Friday, January 27 at 5:00am.
Best, Hal, Rainbow Puddle
Dear friends,
We are happy to announce the initial scheduled PBS broadcasts of This is Where We Take Our Stand. This isn't the final schedule. New broadcasts are announced every week, and the process of getting the film onto PBS stations is still very much alive.
This is Where We Take Our Stand is not an easy film for PBS, and we are very grateful to the stations that have decided to air it. In that context, please note that so far, a relatively small number of cities are showing the film on their "main" PBS station. Most of the broadcasts to date are scheduled for secondary digital stations that are often very hard to find. For example, in New York the film will be shown on WLIWDT3. BORADCAST SCHEDULE
There are two things you can do to help broaden the impact of this film.First, spread the word about what station it will be on in your area. If you don't know how to find the station it is on from the list below, go to your local PBS web site. As you can see from the list, many of these smaller stations are broadcasting the film multiple times.
Second, if you don't see a broadcast scheduled in your area, contact and encourage your local PBS station to broadcast it. It is important that they know there is an audience that very much wants this film and these veterans to be seen and heard broadly in society.
To read an interview with David Zeiger and Bestor Cram on the importance of this film today, please go tohttp://beyondthebox.org/american-warriors-up-close-in-this-is-where-we-take-our-stand/
And again, thank you!
Notes from ~@~
This is the hum I have been following with no opinion (period), but will say, it is interesting:
Unusual geological event in Germany on Monday, 02 January, 2012 at 15:05 (03:05 PM) UTC.
Fresh activity near a dormant 'super volcano' in Germany has left experts worried about a possible eruption. Britain's Daily Mail wrote the eruption from the 'monster' underneath Laacher See lake near Bonn, could eject billions of tons of magma which in turn could cause widespead devastation in Europe and even 'short-term global cooling'. The mountain last erupted 12,900 years ago. Volcanologists have estimated the mountain's size to be similar to that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines - responsible for the biggest ejection of the 20th century. Pinatubo threw up '10 billion tons of magma, 20 billion tons of sulphur dioxide 16 cubic kilometres of ash and caused a 0.5C drop in global temperatures'. Experts near the Laacher See site have detected carbon dioxide bubbles on the lake's surface and believe the mountain in Germany could be active again. RSOE EDIS Event Report:
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/?pageid=event_desc&edis_id=UGE-20120102-33614-DEU
Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi diagnosed with cancer
Guitarist reveals he has early-stage lymphoma but intends to proceed with band's long-awaited comeback
Sean Michaels, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 January 2012 08.05 EST, Article history, Article Source
Black Sabbath in 2011 … From left: Bill Ward, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi. Photograph: Lester Cohen/WireImageBlack Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has cancer. The 63-year-old musician is "upbeat and determined" after being diagnosed with early-stage lymphoma, and intends to proceed with his band's comeback album and tour.
Black Sabbath announced Iommi's illness on Facebook, explaining he is "working with his doctors to establish the best treatment plan". "[Tony's] bandmates would like everyone to send positive vibes to the guitarist at this time," they wrote. "[He is] determined to make a full and successful recovery."
The lymphoma diagnosis comes about two months after Black Sabbath announced the reformation of their original lineup, featuring Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. The heavy-metal legends still plan to complete a new album – their first in 33 years – with producer Rick Rubin. But they will relocate recording sessions from Los Angeles to England, allowing Iommi to participate while he undergoes medical treatment.
There remains the question of Black Sabbath's forthcoming tour, which begins in May. For now, the gigs are still on, although Iommi may not be well enough to perform. "Further information will be released as it becomes available," the band said.
Many of Iommi's fans and friends offered support over Twitter. "Best wishes for a full recovery," wrote Slash. "FUCK YOU, cancer!" declared Sebastian Bach. Or as Anthrax put it: "This really does suck. GET WELL SOON TONY!"
Van Halen - Tattoo from Van Halen on Vimeo.
Wilco, Nick Lowe & Mavis Staples rehearse The Weight
CORPORATE COMMUNISM
The[1%] oligarchs are the lords of the earth. Everything exists for their benefit.
The ordinary people, the workers - are their slaves. - 1984 - George Orwell
"Oligarchical Collectivism" Instituted by Bush Administration, Congress, and the new Five Horsemen
[In case anybody forgot, Bush's Other Wife, Condoleezza Rice, is a Soviet specialist on Communism]
Since the events of 9-11 all governments of the civilized world have been treating their citizens to a dose of what people living under Communism experience. Just because they're doing it under the guise of "to keep us SAFE" doesn't make it any different from what it is. It's still Communism in one form or another.
Its form in our time is the worst of two evils. The worst of the right (unfettered Capitalism) has joined together with the worst of the left (iron-heel Communism).
It can be best described as CORPORATE COMMUNISM because CORPORATIONS own everything - including ALL governments - and run them with COMMUNIST tactics.
In CORPORATE COMMUNISM there are no boundaries. Politicians from Communist AND Capitalist countries are shareholders in multi-national corporations. They benefit financially and otherwise from policies dictated by Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) who, collectively, own everything in the world, coming and going.
In 1984 Orwell called the system OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM, because the oligarchs (another name for CEOs) collectively owned everything. He said: "The oligarchs are the lords of the earth. Everything exists for their benefit. The ordinary people, the workers - are their slaves." ~ Jackie Jura [Click to Continue Reading]
Ingsoc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Source
The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, describes the Party’s ideology as an Oligarchical Collectivism, that “rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism”.
Big Brother personifies the Party, as the ubiquitous face constantly depicted in posters and the telescreen, thus, Big Brother is constantly watching. Ingsoc demands the complete submission – mental, moral and physical – of the people, and will torture to achieve it, (see Room 101). Ingsoc is a masterfully complex system of psychological control that compels confession to imagined crimes and the forgetting of rebellious thought in order to love Big Brother and The Party over oneself. The purpose of Ingsoc is political control, power per se; glibly, O'Brien explains to Smith:
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
Has America become Communist?
Based on Marx’s Ten Planks of Communism
by Mark Jaquith, August 27, 2005, Article Source
1). Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose
The Kelo vs. New London decision gives the government to take private property away and keep it for itself or give it to another private entity.
2). A heavy progressive or graduated income tax
Yep. The more you make, the higher tax percentage you pay, and the effect is not at all subtle.
3). Abolition of all rights of inheritance
We’re maybe halfway there. The death tax can take more than 50%… sometimes 100%.
4). Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
The IRS can take property without due process, and is often used by politicians to target enemies.
5). Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly
The Federal Reserve.
6). Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State
FCC, DOT, FAA… acronyms are fun.
7). Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan
Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency.
8). Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture
No. [UPDATE: MONSANTO BOUGHT A PRIVATE ARMY - See Below]
9). Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country
Absolutely.
10.) Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Yeah, we have government education, but it’s not yet combined with industrial production.
George W Bush, Judas Goat of Communism in the United States?
A Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse and in general animal herding. The Judas goat is trained to associate with sheep or cattle, leading them to a specific destination. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter, while its own life is spared. Judas goats are also used to lead other animals to specific pens and onto trucks. They have fallen out of use in recent times, and in fact are now illegal in the European Union[1] but can still be found in various smaller slaughterhouses in the rest of the world.
When I was in the 5th grade, over a half century ago, my social studies teacher said, "In the future, the Soviet Union will become more Democratic and the United States will become more Communist," and it appears he was correct.
Is George W. Bush a Chinese Communist Sleeper?
Photo by Bart. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)
During the giddy days immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I remember having one of those freewheeling, caffeine-fuelled late-night conversation sprees with a couple of friends, jacked on too many cigarettes and the sheer thrill of conversational calisthenics.
A topic that emerged, was batted around like a helium balloon, then rudely punctured, was the notion that Mikhail Gorbachev was a U.S. intelligence asset, a sleeper inserted like a virus into the heart of the Soviet system in order to destroy it from within.
Of course, we ultimately rejected the idea, even as an premise for rhetorical thrust-and-parry. After all, the Soviet system was visibly rotted from within and had been for years. Only the Pentagon super-hawks, stridently pushing for their pet weapons systems -- "the only thing that will allow us to maintain parity" -- could actually point to the Russian bear as a viable threat with anything like a straight face once the long retreat from Afghanistan began. In fact, there were those that made a convincing argument that the high point of the Soviet menace was the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that for the Sov military and apparatchiks it was all downhill from there (although all through the 1970s, it was a great rear-guard action...)
Maybe, though, it's time to resurrect this mildly paranoid notion, but this time on the other side of the Cold War polarity. As Jimmy Carter recently pointed out when he called George W. Bush's administration the 'worst in history' where international relations are concerned, the President's two disastrous terms could hardly have damaged the United States worse if he were programmed to do so by a Chinese "Manchurian Candidate" brainwashing lab.
Before examining the specifics of this hypothesis, let's first acknowledge and then dispense with the observation that Carter criticizing Bush or anyone else on foreign policy is very much a case of a well-used porridge receptacle referring to a bodum as being darkened. Despite having the sage counsel of foreign policy (and Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission) heavyweights like Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Carter's Iran hostage crisis blunders were a nadir in American prestige almost deeper than that caused by the entire Vietnam War. They also laid the seeds of the current polarization in the U.S. political climate and set the stage for the Right Wing Triumphalism (with all of the "ends justify the means" international sleaze and covert backdoor-dealing that entailed) which culminated in the NeoCon renaissance of the first G.W. Bush term.
But still, the two-term administration of the "Catastrophe from Crawford" has arguably caused more (possibly fatal) damage than the U.S. has ever suffered: to its military; to its international relationships; to its ability to serve as a global leader; and to its economy.
The Military: Mortgaging the Future
The ongoing pressures of funding the operational costs of the war, including expensive line items such as the costly ($25 billion) Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle program slated to replace all humvees in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking a continuing toll on the military's biggest-budget transformation programs. These are the systems designed to give the American military such a vast technology overmatch that even militaries the size of China -- regardless of their own rush to modernization -- cannot possibly compete in a conventional warfare scenario.
These programs -- notably the high-priced Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) and the ambitious Future Combat System (FCS) -- are beginning to suffer the death of a thousand cuts as defense procurements feel the twin sting of increasing national debt load coupled with the cost of maintaining an increasingly creaky and war-weary military machine.
Other programs less high-profile and 'transformative' than the JSF and FCS, but equally at risk include the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), Osprey Tilt-Rotor, and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (the hybrid-electric, post-MRAP, future-humvee replacement).
The endangered status of these programs raises the spectre of a U.S. Army in 2020 facing off against a distant foe (one against whom it is thus difficult to project expeditionary forces) with 40-year-old tanks, and with its most high-tech equipment being late 1980s technology on platforms such as armoured personnel carriers and the F-22 Raptor. At the same time, potential combatants will have dramatically increased arms spending and development. The most notable example of this trend is, once again, China, whose defence expenditure analysts suggest may be three times its public figure.
International Relations: A Case Study in the Squandering of Goodwill
Immediately following the events of 9/11, the United States had the goodwill -- even the probable cooperation -- of the entire planet with the exception of a few countries whose leaders were clearly insane. Even Moammar Khaddafy felt the love, volunteering to lay down his AK-47 and behave himself. The artistry, economy, restraint and sheer prowess displayed during the destruction of the Taliban in Afghanistan subsequently did nothing to harm this planet-wide sense of goodwill.
Then came Iraq.
Even the run-up to the invasion was marred by feelings of unease. Jeremiah figures like Scott Ritter said what many were thinking but too timid to say. Staunch allies like Canada opted out, and publicly voiced skepticism by NATO allies like Germany and France about the administration's WMD claims led to Rumsfeldian pronouncements about 'old Europe'.
And while the actual invasion went swimmingly, as was expected by most in the Pentagon establishment (note: for an interesting description of the degree to which the reality clashed with the expectations and the media version, David Zucchino's Thunder Run is particularly instructive), within weeks the cracks began to show as looters helped themselves to the country's treasure and heritage while undermanned U.S. forces could only look on. Throw in some manufactured heroics a la Jessica Lynch, a dash of Abu Ghraib and some mercenary hijinks, and voila! Soon the entire world was palpably anti-American. So much so, in fact, that even those with the most to lose in the case of a U.S. withdrawal -- the Maliki government -- are now saying that they would prefer to see the gringos go home.
In the early days of the 'Bush Doctrine' there was much bombast from administration spokesmen, think-tank talking heads and media pundits about how the U.S. could 'go it alone', if it had to. Now, thanks to the careless squandering of a vast font of goodwill, it appears that this hypothesis is going to be tested.
Global Leadership: A Beacon of Hope No More
Despite the tainted motives for the invasion, there was a brief shining moment when it appeared that the publicly-traded Neocon argument for invasion was going to bear fruit. There was a week or two after the Saddam statues came down when it appeared there might have been a chance for a democratic Iraq, able to serve as a shining beacon in a troubled region. Such a model's purpose would have been doubly salutory; firstly, to demonstrate that democracy and Islam could indeed co-exist peacefully, and secondly, to show the doubters, once and for all, that U.S. intentions are honourable. That despite decades of realpolitick, U.S. values of freedom and democracy are meant for everyone, and not just fat-cat U.S. citizens. That murder, torture, imprisonment without process were antithetical to the American Dream.
Sadly, the chance came and went, squandered by a borderline megalomaniacal defense secretary and a desert-boots-and-Brooks-Brothers U.S. proconsul, and aided by the oddly flip-flopping Commander-in-Chief, profoundly authoritative one moment, overly obsequious to elders like Cheney the next..
Today, tragically, very few would point to the U.S. as any kind of exemplar of freedom. Certainly not Omar Khadr, imprisoned in Guantanamo at the age of 15 and still behind bars at 20, even after all charges against him were dropped by a military tribunal last week. Certainly not Maher Arar, a Canadian man deported from the U.S. to Syria after arriving in New York for a connecting flight and subsequently imprisoned and tortured for over a year. Earlier this year, an inquiry in Canada found him innocent of all wrongdoing.
Most worrisome, these are just the high-profile cases. There are many more cases, just as disturbing, that get little or not coverage. And most recently -- today, in fact -- comes news that as many as 39 individuals may have simply disappeared while in U.S. custody.
This development may be most critical in the easterly precints of Asia, where emerging countries and those trying to shrug off dictatorship are most in need of a champion. At this point, they can perhaps be forgiven from speculating that the Chinese may be a better bet to serve in that role.
The Economy: What's a Few Trillion Between Friends?"
For a conservative, and the chief representative of a party long billing itself as fiscally responsible, George W. Bush's two terms in office have been financially disastrous for the American economy, the currency of which is now in danger of being eclipsed by a dollar known popularly by its northern neighbour as the "Loony". On June 7, Reuters reported what many already knew, that "foreign central banks, particularly those of Asia, were net sellers of U.S. Treasuries" according to federal reserve data, and that they held over one-quarter of that debt. This reality puts the U.S. at some risk of suffering economically should holders of this debt -- particularly China -- decide to exercise the leverage it gives them. A peek into the consequences of such an act was unveiled in late February of this year, when a sell-off in the Shanghai market sent the Dow plummeting more than 400 points and awakening fears of global recession.
So on many fronts, American authority, moral and otherwise, has been watered down, weakened and put at risk. It's a measure of that authority that taken individually, none of these fronts would even be cause for concern. For example, despite increased Chinese military spending, U.S. defense outlay is still more than that of China and the rest of the world's combined. But, with all these factors building up in a synergistic and logarithmic manner, perhaps it's time to be concerned that U.S. ascendancy could be checked by Chinese long-range plans for global power. Perhaps it's time to openly wonder if George W. Bush is a Chinese communist sleeper?
(Probably not. But it's hard to imagine how he could benefit them more if he were.)
The Bull Shirt Brigade
via Hal (Phoenix)
Genetically Engineered Rice is a Trojan Horse: Misled by Bill Gates and Monsanto
Bill Gates, Monsanto hijack 'humanitarian aid' efforts to push GMO agenda
Monsanto Now Owns Blackwater (Xe)
It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of “market competition” of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.
One Question: With all the new Windows releases, why are major hospitals still running Windows XP?
A Martin Rowson cartoon of Megalomaniac of Torture, Harbinger of U.S. Communism,
Condoleezza Rice spouting, AS I WAS SAYING... ISN'T DEMOCRACY WONDERFUL?
Remind Us: Why did the United States invade Iraq?
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Radar Guns May Beam Danger to Officers
Law enforcement: Cancer in police personnel has prompted lawsuits, changes in training and cautionary note from FDA.
by Myron Levin, Times Staff Writer, Article Source
[Note: This article was written January 13, 1992 and posted here to show 1% corporatists do not care who they subject to profits not people; including law enforcement, who are, in reality, part of the 99%.
Because of the large number of law suits against manufacturers of emitting devices, the government was forced by corporate lobbyists to do a study titled: Occupational Exposure of Police Officers to Microwave Radiation From Traffic Radar Devices where it concludes:
To Reduce Exposure
The health concerns of officers who have used traffic radar in the past cannot immediately be resolved because of a lack of definitive scientific information on chronic, low-level effects of microwave radiation. It is possible, however, to make concrete recommendations about the use of traffic radar devices that will reduce or prevent future exposure. These recommendations are based upon reasonable and pragmatic work practices, can be implemented with existing technology, and can be used to guide future acquisitions of traffic radar devices. Based on our exposure assessment, these measures are simple, effective, and can be implemented immediately without compromising the operational effectiveness of traffic radar use. Adoption of these procedures is prudent public health practice even in the absence of an identified health risk.
To reduce or prevent exposure to microwave radiation emitted from traffic radar devices, the following procedures or techniques are recommended:
1. Hand-held devices should be equipped with a switch requiring active contact to emit radiation. Such a switch, referred to as a "dead-man switch," must be held down for the device to emit radiation, even though the electrical power to the device is on. Adherence to this recommendation should permit the continued use of one-piece, or hand-held radar units.
2. Older hand-held devices that do not have a "dead-man switch" should not be placed with the radiating antenna pointed toward the body, whether it is held in the hand or placed near the officer. A holster or other similar device should be used as a temporary holder for the radar when not in use.
3. When using two-piece radar units, the antenna should be mounted so that the radar beam is not directed toward the vehicle occupants. The preferred mounting location would be outside the vehicle altogether, although this may not be practical with older units that cannot withstand adverse weather conditions. Other options, e.g., mounting on the dashboard of the vehicle, are acceptable if the antenna is at all times directed away from the operator, or other vehicle occupants. Mounting the antenna on the inside of a side window is not recommended.
4. Radar antennas should be tested periodically, e.g. annually, or after exceptional mechanical trauma to the device, for radiation leakage or backscatter in a direction other than that intended by the antenna beam pattern.
5. Each operator should receive training in the proper use of traffic radar before operating the device. This training should include a discussion of the health risks of exposure to microwave radiation, and information on how to minimize exposure to the operator.
These exposure control recommendations can be implemented without delay, and are not contingent upon further epidemiologic studies.
For Future Study
As noted above, several papers were identified in the literature suggesting that police are at greater risk than the general population for a number of adverse health outcomes. Excess risks have been observed from all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, homicide, suicide, and certain malignant neoplasms (cancers). The results of these studies and the total aggregate number of municipal, state, and federal police officers demonstrate the public health importance of improving our understanding of the relationship between the many occupational exposures and health problems experienced by police.
It would be feasible to construct a large group or cohort of police and follow them for mortality and specific morbidity. Then, if specific disorders emerge for which police appear to be at higher risk (e.g., testicular cancer), specific epidemiologic analyses could be completed more quickly and economically. If a study of police officers were to be initiated, several scientific and practical issues would have to be addressed, such as defining the optimal size of the study cohort and the type of police (state, municipal, sheriff's department or combination) to be studied. Once these issues were addressed, this type of study of police officers, using a nested case-control design, has the potential to lead to intervention efforts. As a result of our feasibility assessment, such a study would be the best alternative for addressing occupational health hazards of police officers.
(fwiw) I get an impression the above response was not what corporate 1% wanted to hear, because further research into this subject appears to have been buried (examples of buried things at the great site: Project Censored), so if one is interested, one can do their own research. I do know the majority of lawsuits against these large corporations were dismissed by courts, there seems to have been no follow-up to these and other related emission studies, and one might want to watch/listen to the George Carlin video "The Owners of America" at the bottom of this page, or read about CASHCPR - Citizens Against Second Hand Cellular Phone Radiation.]
Traffic radar guns, which are used to save lives by catching speeders, have come under suspicion as a possible cause of cancer in traffic officers exposed to their microwave beams.
And that has triggered a series of lawsuits by an Agoura Hills lawyer, John E. Sweeney, on behalf of five former traffic officers who contracted lymphatic or testicular cancer. They are seeking millions of dollars in damages from radar equipment manufacturers, whom they accuse of failing to warn of health risks.
The suits--filed in San Francisco and Wisconsin, and apparently the first of their kind--have raised concerns in police and scientific circles, and have prompted some agencies to change the way the devices are used.
Los Angeles police and sheriff's department officials said their training programs stress safe usage of the guns.
The first case, filed by a former Petaluma officer with lymphoma, is set for trial March 17 in U. S. District Court in San Francisco.
"We're plowing new ground in prosecuting these cases, but I don't have the slightest doubt in my mind that they're justified," Sweeney said.
The litigation breaks new ground scientifically as well because studies on such chronic, low-level microwave exposure do not exist.
The U. S. Food and Drug Administration, which has the authority to set safety standards for radiation sources, has no grounds to regulate the devices, said Dr. Larry Cress, medical officer for the FDA's radiation biology branch.
"This issue is something that's recently reared its head," said Mays Swicord, director of the FDA's radiation biology branch. "There's still no biological database for us to suspect that there is a problem."
Nonetheless, Sweeney said he expects to file more suits here soon. A lawsuit and three workers' compensation claims were filed in Connecticut by officers who allege they got cancer from prolonged use of radar.
Others could follow. Gary Poynter, an Ohio state trooper who is an activist on the issue, said he has amassed 85 to 100 more reports of cancer among traffic officers.
Radar guns are usually hand-held, or mounted on patrol cars. They measure speed by bouncing low-power microwave beams off moving vehicles and catching the return signal.
Depending on how the gun is used, an officer's exposure could be nil or continual. Some radar is mounted behind officers, and the beam passes through their heads. One type of hand-held radar is left switched on, transmitting continually during an officer's shift.
When they are not beaming the devices at cars, officers typically have rested the guns on their laps or against a leg. Although the emissions are low--and fall off sharply with distance--the gun can still be transmitting against the body for minutes or hours a day.
Three of Sweeney's clients say they used hand-held units this way. One has testicular cancer, and the other two developed lymphatic cancer with tumors in the groin and leg.
But manufacturers contend that the beam is too weak to cause cancer no matter how the gun is used.
"You've got to come up with some medical evidence to say there's a cause-and-effect relationship," said Mark Oium, attorney for Kustom Signals Inc. of Lenexa, Kan., a defendant and leading manufacturer of radar guns.
Traffic police "are exposed to more auto exhaust than you and I are, yet nobody's saying it's the auto exhaust, which contains known carcinogens, that's causing their cancer," Oium said.
Defendants note that the traffic guns register well below safety limits set by the American National Standards Institute and other organizations.
However, health officials say those groups were mainly concerned with avoiding thermal effects--tissue heating--from microwave ovens.
"It's very questionable whether the ANSI standard is even applicable" to cancer questions, said Norb Hankin, an environmental scientist with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency's office of radiation programs.
While conceding that officers' exposures were low, Sweeney said they were far greater than the general public's. There is "an enormously important distinction between these traffic officers and the population at large," he said, one that is "far more than adequate" to explain the increase in certain cancers.
Although there is no medical evidence that traffic officers suffer unusual rates of cancer, at least one study into the matter is under way.
In the climate of uncertainty, the FDA has recommended that officers stop putting radar guns within six inches of their bodies while the devices are transmitting.
In October, the Connecticut State Police stopped using hand-held radar. It moved its units to the outside of patrol cars.
Some California police agencies have changed training and procedures.
The Los Angeles Police Department continues to rely mainly on hand-held guns, but a year ago it bought a set of so-called "instant-on" guns that transmit only when being beamed.
Their training stresses safety, said Dale Turner, radar coordinator for the department's Valley Traffic Division--more so, he said, than when he became a traffic officer in the 1970s and was told: "Turn it on, kid, point it down the road and what you see is what you get."
Paul Rice, a radar instructor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, said health allegations seem to relate to improper use or mounting of radar. He said deputies are taught "that you don't place yourself in the path of an emanating radar beam."
At the California Highway Patrol, officers learn to avoid looking directly into the beam while calibrating radar equipment, and to mount radar to minimize reflections of the beam inside a patrol car, said Paul Crescenti, traffic radar coordinator.
"We don't have any concrete evidence" of danger "but we also have no concrete evidence . . . that they're safe," Crescenti said.
Making the Public Pay For Budget Cuts
by Steven Greenhut, Special to the Register, Published: July 22, 2011 Updated: July 23, 2011 7:47 a.m., Article Source
Sacramento – Last year, one of my reporters and her adult son were walking in downtown Sacramento when a couple of young toughs tried grabbing her purse. She pulled back her purse, and the robbers lunged at the two of them, leaving the son's face covered in blood. Despite a frantic call to 911, the Sacramento police never showed up, nor did they respond to her repeated attempts to file a police report. Mom and son were OK, but a violent attack midday in downtown Sacramento apparently is not a serious-enough crime to warrant any police response.
Apparently, this incident is not unusual. "Armstrong & Getty," a talk-radio show in Northern California, recently featured a morning drive-time discussion during which listeners shared similar stories of police indifference.
Police officials are blaming budget cuts for their cutbacks in service, but it's hard to accept this explanation. The other day I saw an officer giving tickets to three teen-agers who were caught riding their bicycles without helmets. One downtown Sacramento officer rides around on a horse and gallops after people who jaywalk. There's clearly the manpower to hand out tickets (but not to clean up the piles of manure the horses leave behind). It's a question of priorities.
A recent Modesto Bee report points to this trend: "The California Highway Patrol is handing out more traffic citations than it did a few years ago, and that has generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue for state and local governments." Another relevant statistic:
The average CHP officer who has retired in the past couple of years is bringing home a guaranteed pension of $98,000 a year (after 25 years of work), with automatic cost-of-living increases.
Police departments aren't available to provide the services that the public depends upon, but they do have the manpower to increase their revenue-generating ticket operations. They are spending incredible amounts on salaries and benefits. And public safety budgets are consuming the lion's share of city budgets. In crime-plagued Stockton, where, because of budget cuts, police will respond only to violent crimes or crimes in progress, 80 percent of the city's entire budget goes to "public safety," according to the city manager. If cities spend more on police and fire services, that will leave less than a pittance for everything else.
Police officials acknowledge they are cutting back on services. For instance, in 2010, in the face of budget cuts in the notoriously crime-ridden city of Oakland, the police chief "listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to, and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism," according to an NBC report. According to a USA Today report last year, "Budget cuts are forcing police around the country to stop responding to fraud, burglary and theft calls." As budgets have tightened up, the problem is only getting worse.
I previously wrote about Alameda city firefighters who refused to save a suicidal man drowning in San Francisco Bay, then blamed the inaction on budget cuts that deprived firefighters of training for cold-water conditions. This sparked widespread outrage in Northern California, especially after the fire chief told a TV news show that he would not even save a drowning child because of the budget-caused restrictions.
Also, don't expect better service if you have a civil lawsuit pending before any of the state's court systems. "San Francisco Superior Court Judge Katherine Feinstein announced drastic cuts ... to the city's civil court system in response to funding slashes in the current state budget," according to the Pleasanton Weekly. "'We will prioritize criminal, juvenile and other matters that must, by law, be adjudicated within time limits.
"'Beyond that, justice will be neither swift nor accessible,' said Feinstein."
This is a hissy fit. First, officials look everywhere they can to drum up new revenue. Notice all the new "fees" added to traffic tickets.
Sacramento charged drivers or their insurance companies fees of $495 to $2,275 when drivers were involved in a collision that requires a firefighter response, then repealed it in the face of public outrage.
When officials can't find enough pennies under the sofa cushions, they engage in what is known as "Washington Monument Syndrome." When the multitrillion-dollar federal government "closes," the first thing the officials do is close down the low-cost attractions in the hopes that tourists run home, clamoring for higher taxes. When we see tough times in local budgets, angry officials try to inflict as much pain as possible on the public by denying us services. At every step, they try to scare us into giving them more money. But they also work to assure that we cannot take care of ourselves.
We're supposed to wait patiently for a police response that might never come. A 1982 state Supreme Court decision (Davidson v. City of Westminster) reminds us the police do not have to help us.
But don't take matters into your own hands! California's Draconian gun laws, for instance, put severe limits on our ability to protect ourselves. The public-sector unions also have assured that cities cannot contract out police and fire services to private bidders, where competitive pressures might improve customer service and efficiency.
Governments could improve the bang for the taxpayer's buck if they reformed pensions, cut back on work rules, brought salaries in line with the marketplace and reduced the special protections that make it nearly impossible to discipline or remove ill-performing employees. Don't hold your breath.
In the private sector, companies would minimize the pain on customers, who can take their business elsewhere. In the public sector, agencies spend money like crazy, and when they run out, they withhold services.
This is why government is supposed to be limited to the few tasks that cannot be provided in the marketplace.
We need to reject the scare tactics and insist on real, competitive reform. Otherwise, we might be the ones left waiting for the squad car that never comes.
Steven Greenhut is editor of www.calwatchdog.com; write to him at sgreenhut@calwatchdog.com.
Traffic Tickets Are Big Business
Traffic tickets are a multi-billion industry. They have virtually nothing to do with highway safety, but they have everything to do with money.
When you begin to grasp the full magnitude of the public and private interests that depend on ripping off motorists through traffic tickets, you begin to understand why this unethical system continues to expand every year.
No one knows how many traffic tickets are actually issued. Many local units of government deliberately hide this information so they don’t have to split their traffic ticket revenue with the state. Not including parking tickets, we can estimate that somewhere between 25 and 50 million traffic tickets are issued each year. Assuming an average ticket cost of $150.00, the total up front profit from tickets ranges from 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars.
If just half of these tickets result in insurance surcharges (typically at least $300 over a period of three years), you can add another 3.75 to 7.5 billion dollars in profit for insurance companies. This is why insurance companies “care” so much traffic “safety” programs and are willing to donate millions of dollars worth of radar and laser guns to the police. For them, it’s simple: more tickets equal more money!
Realistically, there is no connection between receiving an occasional traffic ticket and the likelihood of being in an accident. So, there is no justification for charging a person more for auto insurance because they were convicted for a random traffic violation. The purpose of insurance is to cover unusual risk. The act of exceeding an unreasonably low limit is hardly an “unusual risk.” That means speeding ticket surcharges are pure profit for the insurance industry.
In total, we’re talking about 7.5 to 15 billion dollars annually from tickets for government agencies and insurance companies. That’s more money than several states take in from all taxes! Worse still, that total doesn’t even include the money that “traffic schools,” attorneys, radar-detector manufacturers, and scanner producers make.
To keep the money coming in those that benefit from traffic ticket revenue have to do several things:
1. Pass enough laws so that anybody can be stopped at anytime and be given a ticket for a traffic violation. Trivial or concocted traffic law violations are also frequently used as an excuse to stop, detain, and search persons for whom the police have no other legitimate reason to do so.
2. Blow out of proportion the effects of various traffic violations. They constantly talk about “carnage” on our roads, despite the fact that we have the lowest level of traffic fatalities in history.
3. Maintain a public relations campaign that claims traffic tickets are only given to bad drivers, and that these drivers should pay for the cost of enforcement. This is how you make it appear logical that the police and courts are funded through traffic ticket receipts.
4. Keep the ticket prices below the pain threshold that would compel motorists to aggressively contest traffic citations in court. They know that if fines got too high, motorist would fight heir tickets, and trials eat up all the profit.
5. Remove as many due process protections for traffic law offenders as is politically possible. This not only further discourages people from contesting their tickets, but it also ensures that those that do will have a much more difficult time defending themselves.
The police enforce laws that result in direct benefits to police agencies and personnel. Judges hear cases in which a “guilty” verdict would have tangible financially rewards for the court and courthouse personnel. No other class of “crime” is as profitable for state and local governments as is that of traffic tickets. Traffic courts cannot be fair and unbiased when their financial welfare depends on traffic fines. Additionally, local government encourage traffic enforcement practices that rip off travelers to support local government services and to reward government employees. Yet these hypocrisies go largely unnoticed.
A few simple changes can radically alter this unjust system:
1. No court or police department should directly benefit from the collection of traffic fines.
2. No police department should be permitted to rate its officers based on how many tickets they write.
3. No local government should retain traffic fines. The money collected in local courts should be transferred to the state and returned via a local aid formula based on population.
Until these changes are made, you should forget the general notion that traffic tickets are fair and traffic courts are just. The entire system focuses on maximizing income. That’s why most of the people who seriously contest a traffic ticket either win or are offered an good plea bargain. They don’t want anyone “making waves“, that would cost them money. That’s yet another good reason why you should fight your traffic ticket! - Source
Paul Krassner - The Realist/Writer/Comic
Predictions for 2012
Politics: The electoral college will be replaced by a system where voters will choose the polling firm they trust the most. Barack Obama will be re-elected because his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden will be replaced by Hillary Clinton, thereby gaining the women’s vote. Failed Republican campaigners will all take other jobs. Mitt Romney will start smoking a pipe and portray the character Bob Dobbs in a movie about the cultish Church of the Subgenius. Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain will launch the bipartisan Adultery Party in 2016, joined by Democrats John Edwards and Bill Clinton. Ron Paul will unite with Ru Paul and they’ll perform on Dancing With the Stars. Rick Santorum will be caught in an airport bathroom stall enjoying a gay encounter. Michelle Bachmann will launch a lie-detector company. Rick Perry will copyright the word “Oops.” And it will be revealed that Donald Trump was actually born on Mars; he will have a birth certificate to prove it, along with a photo of him as a typical Martian baby with a comb-over.
Show Business: Vegetarian converts will include Lady Gaga, who will wear a dress made entirely of heirloom tomatoes, and Meatloaf will change his name to Tofuloaf. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will win Academy Awards for best male and female actors. Angelina Jolie will legally adopt Brad Pitt. Kim Kardashian will get married and divorced on the same day. The Tea Party will become a popular sitcom. Capital-punishment executions will become a top-rated reality-TV series. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur live on a three-hour special to be telecast on every single channel simultaneously, with an offstage voiceover narration by God. Atheists and agnostics will picket the production, only to be struck by lightning. Howard Stern will expose himself on America’s Got Talent. The Taliban and al-Quaeda will be the final competitors on The Biggest Terrorists. Hulu and Netflix will merge as Huflix.
Fashion Trends: Square Hitler-style mustaches will finally become stylish after decades of ridicule. Botox will become a soft drink that will get rid of unwanted wrinkles from the inside. Pornography will be allowed in public libraries, but moaning out loud will definitely not be permitted. Fetus transplants from poor pregnant girls to wealthy anti-abortion women will become a controversial new fad. Arizona, Mississippi and Tennessee will refuse to recognize Leap Year. Lottery winners will be fingerprinted. Private prisons will be turned into ashrams. Inspired by Steve Jobs, many industries will continue his legacy by transforming planned obsolescence into a virtue. Prescription drugs will become children’s names, such as Ambien and Lipitor. Travel agents will begin arranging guilt trips for clients who have given up on airplanes. Combination vibrators and insomnia cures will be invented, trademarked as Dildoze. Pope Benedict XVI will permit condoms to be marketed if there are tiny pinhole pricks in the reservoir tips in order to ensure a fighting chance for spermatozoa to get through. Serial pedophiles, gay bashers and Internet hackers will form unions.
The Economy: The Department of Energy will release a report concluding that so-called “clean coal” is, in point of fact, “filthy dirty.” The Bank of America will stop doing business with Verizon and switch to Credo. The largest protest in history will take place by ongoing Occupy-the-Federal-Reserve-System demonstrations. The recession will evolve into a depression, which will end quickly as the war on drugs morphs into the legalization of every single strain of cannabis will be designated as medical marijuana. Facebook members will be taxed for every friend, Twitter users will be taxed for every tweet, Monsanto will be taxed for every genetically modified food, and masturbators will be taxed for every ejaculation. The Supreme Court will download all corporations into embryos. Several million jobs will be created as Unemployment Insurance clerks.
International Relations: North Korea’s new Beloved Leader will be caught cheating on his SAT examination, but he will redeem himself when he allows almost 70 McDonalds restaurants to open all over his dictatorial realm; however, in keeping with his father’s policies, he won’t allow them to sell any food. Saudi-Arabia will outlaw laughter. Iraq will become our 51st state. Afghanistan will require all men to wear burkas. Iran will develop a nuclear bomb, than drop it by accident on Libya and Syria. World War III will be fought entirely by drone planes attempting to destroy each other in the air. Products made in China will be increasingly pirated by American entrepreneurs. Global warming will continue to melt icebergs as well as Sarah Palin’s cold heart. The world will end on December 21st, but will begin all over again on December 23rd, just in time for last-minute Christmas shopping. The most popular gift will be cans of pepper-spray in a variety of flavors. Pakistan will continue to be bribed by us. And the Nobel Peace Prize will be secretly awarded to Anonymous.
These predictions for 2012 were originally published in Metro Newspapers. Paul Krassner publishes the infamous Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster. His latest book is an expanded and updated edition of his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, available at paulkrassner.com and as a Kindle e-book.
The American Dream - A cartoon Alternative for The Owners of America video by George Carlin
santorum according to Google is:
1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.
Rick Santorum's homophobic frothing
The Republican candidates now vying to be most anti-gay will find they're on the wrong side of American voters in November
Dan Savage, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 January 2012 16.11 EST, Article history, Article History
Rick Santorum's 'Google problem' may come back to haunt him. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP
Alfred Kinsey famously – and, as later studies seemed to prove, erroneously – reported that 10% of the American population was gay. For decades, the American gay rights movement celebrated and pointed to the Kinsey Report; "1 in 10" and "10%" were popular gay rights slogans when I came out in the 1980s. But later research would show that our numbers were smaller. A recent study conducted by the Williams Institute at the University of California found that 3.8% of adults in the United States were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Just as gay America once celebrated Kinsey's 10% figure, America's religious conservatives/extremists celebrate these newer, lower estimates. They argue that the LGBT community is so tiny – just 9 million Americans, according to the Williams Institute – that our calls for civil rights protections and full civil equality shouldn't be taken seriously. Rights, they implicitly assert, should be awarded only to minority communities that have attained some sort of critical mass. (The Williams Institute's estimates, for the record, are believed to underestimate the size the LGBT community, just as Kinsey once overestimated it – people lie about their sexual orientations; how do you control for the closet; what about LGBT children, etc.)
This is a curious argument coming from the same people – evangelical Christians – who seem to regard Israel as the 51st state in our union. There may be "just" 9 million LGBT Americans – but that number that is greater than the entire population of Israel (7 million). And if we are "just" 3.8% of the US population, the LGBT community – a figure that includes hundreds of thousands of LGBT Jews – is still more than twice the size of the total Jewish community in the United States (1.4% of the population), to say nothing of the Mormon community (1.7%). There are 3 million more LGBT Americans, according to the William Institute's figures, than there are Mormon Americans. And some of those American Mormons, of course, are gay.
LGBT Americans, in short, are not "too small in number", or too insignificant a portion of the American electorate, to be equal under the law – or to be taken seriously as a political force. There may "only" be 9 million of us, if the Williams Institute got it right, but here's a fun fact: Barack Obama beat John McCain in 2008 by 9,000,000 votes and change.
And as more and more of LGBT Americans are out of the closet, fully integrated into our communities and workplaces, and fully embraced and valued by our families, we are a minority community that punches above its weight at the ballot box. Our heterosexual mothers and fathers, and friends are less likely to vote for politicians who bash LGBT people, lie about us, and pledge to discriminate against us.
Which brings us to the Republican primaries.
At every GOP debate over the last few months – and there were a shitload of them – the GOP candidates competed for the title of Most Hostile to LGBT Americans. Michele Bachmann, whose husband Marcus offers gay-to-straight "conversion therapy" among his Christian counselling services (and who has been the butt of a thousand jokes told by our late night comedians), stated that bans on gay marriage weren't discriminatory because gay men, like straight men, were free to marry women. In Rick "Oops" Perry's alternate universe, American children are not allowed to celebrate Christmas because gays are serving openly in the military. Herman Cain insisted that being gay is a choice. (I notoriously challenged Cain to prove it by choosing it himself: "Suck my dick, Herman.") And Mitt Romney, who once promised voters in liberal Massachusetts that he would do more to advance gay rights than his then-opponent for a Senate race, liberal icon Ted Kennedy, backpedalled furiously – pledging to push a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
But it was Rick Santorum – the most notorious homophobe in the race – who wound up being the biggest winner of the Iowa caucuses. Santorum, who once compared consensual sexual contact between adults of the same sex to child rape and dog fucking, technically finished second, eight votes behind Mitt Romney. But Santorum's come-from-behind near-victory was the story of the night, and the political press has declared that Santorum has, ahem, the big 'mo.
I have a history with Rick Santorum. In 2003, when Santorum, in an interview with the Associated Press, first compared gay relationships to child rape and dog fucking (have I mentioned that Santorum has compared gay relationships to child rape and dog fucking?), I held a contest to redefine Santorum's last name. The winning definition: "the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." ("Sometimes" is the most important word in the new definition of santorum; if you're doing anal sex correctly, there won't be any santorum – lower- or upper-case.) And since 2003, the new definition has the been the No1 Google return when you search "santorum".
This has been dubbed "Santorum's Google problem", as more Americans than ever are using the online media to learn about politicians. But Rick Santorum and the GOP have a much bigger problem on their hands than a joke my readers made at Santorum's expense nearly eight years ago. The GOP's doubling down on homophobia, the non-stop gay bashing, is going to cost them votes – and not just the votes of 9,000,000 (or more) LBGT Americans out there, but, again, the votes of tens of millions of our straight family members, friends and coworkers.
The numbers of LGBT Americans aren't growing. We may not know what are true numbers are – we may never know – but we do seem to be a set and constant percentage of the population; despite what Herman Cain believes, people do not and cannot choose to be gay. Republican politicians can go on describing us as a threat to the family or, as Rick Santorum once described us, a threat to "homeland security", but the American people aren't buying it anymore. The homophobes now find themselves outside the mainstream: Americans supported the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell by a three-to-one margin, yet nearly every GOP candidate for president has pledged to reinstate the policy. A majority of Americans now support marriage equality – equal rights and responsibilities for same-sex couples – but almost the entire GOP field pledged to write anti-gay bigotry into the US Constitution.
The GOP has doubled down on homophobia in an attempt to appease its increasingly elderly, marginalised and out-of-touch base. Betting on homophobia may pay off politically in the short run (ask Rick Santorum), but it is a losing bet for the GOP in the long run – one that will cost them at the ballot box this November.
Proof of Republican 'doublethink'
The Republican world view is a mash-up of Orwell's 1984 and It's a Wonderful Life – with 'doublethink' at its heart
Hadley Freeman, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 August 2011 20.00 BST, Article history, Article Source
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
"Isn't the Democrat/Republican choice in the US really a choice between good and evil?" someone tweeted me during last week's Republican debate in Iowa. On the one hand, such a reductive perspective only exacerbates the dysfunctionally hyper-partisan current state of American politics, with the Republicans retreating to a wing so far right it would have given their beloved Ronald Reagan whiplash.
On the other hand, the message did arrive just moments after the morally repulsive Rick Santorum had finished explaining that abortions must be denied even to victims of rape and incest because the baby shouldn't be "victimised twice", concentrating so deeply on maintaining his sanctimonious facial expression that he hadn't the mental space to consider that maybe it would be the raped woman who would be victimised twice if she were to be denied an abortion if she wished to have one. But then, of course, it's hard to answer intelligently when one talks out of one's arse and the brain is therefore so far away from one's speaking orifice.
Anal vocalisation is not the only explanation for much of the Grand Old party's (GOP) behaviour and pronouncements in recent days: rather, it is, I can exclusively reveal, currently engaged in a mash-up of 1984 and It's a Wonderful Life, two pieces of fiction created over 60 years ago, which goes some way to explaining the distinct smack of irrelevance to the party today.
Despite having been written by one of those dreaded European socialists, 1984 appears to be the guidebook for today's Republican contenders. Even aside from the crazed fascination with sex some of them have (the Iowa debate also provided a platform for Santorum to explicate, again, his theory that gay marriage is the same as polygamy, having presumably decided that his worn-down-to-the-nub rib-tickler that homosexuality is analogous to bestiality needed a bit of sprucing up) which would impress 1984's Junior Anti-Sex League, the frank use of doublethink has been if not quite impressive then certainly unembarrassed.
Doublethink is, according to Orwell, "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient …"
This is different from simply lying, which – as we live in what Tom Cruise once snarled is "a cynical, cynical world" – is expected from most politicians. Doublethink is looking at the truth and seeing just a reflection of one's desired self. It is the only explanation for Michele Bachmann's insistence that the credit downgrade was due to the raising of the debt ceiling, even though it was largely, S&P said in its statement, because of her and her fellow Tea Partyists' "contentious and fitful" wrangling. She claimed on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that one should never "mess with the full faith and credit of the United States", and yet that is precisely what she did.
Bachmann has said that wives "are to be submissive to their husbands" and, as Sarah Posner wrote this week on Salon, this idea, of the woman being "the obedient helpmeet, the vessel for the children, the devoted mother and warrior for the faith" is "central to the faith of many evangelicals". Yet when asked about it directly in the Iowa debate and again on Sunday on NBC, Bachmann retranslated "submit" to mean "respect", even though one could argue that their meanings are if not diametrically opposite, then at least on the quarter angle. It's enough to make one sentimental for English reappropriation of the "refudiate" kind. But where Palin only seeks publicity, Bachmann is a far scarier proposition.
Just as Bachmann was explaining her "submit"/"feminist" theory in the Iowa debate, John McCain's wife, Cindy, took to Twitter to complain: "I am so disgusted with how disrespectful the media is to all Republican woman [sic] in politics." Aside from the striking originality of accusing others of misogyny against a woman who was at that moment explaining the value of submission to one's husband, McCain presumably hadn't heard some of the things members of her own family had said about a certain Republican woman in the past, such as Meghan McCain's complaint that Sarah Palin was ruining her love life.
Perhaps the most blatant use of doublethink was Mitt Romney's self-serving claim last week that "corporations are people, my friend", which managed to be both deeply Orwellian as well as sounding like an offcut from It's a Wonderful Life. It doesn't even require a tiptoe of imagination, let alone a leap, to envisage Lionel Barrymore as evil Mr Potter cackling to James Stewart as poor George Bailey: "Corporations are people, George!"
(Incidentally, a version of this self-entitled mentality was echoed by Megyn Kelly on Fox News, the GOP mouthpiece, last week when she ferociously defended her right to maternity leave, despite having derided "entitled programmes" in the past. As Jon Stewart pointed out: "They're really only entitlements when they're something other people want. When it's something you want, they're a hallmark of a civilised society.")
Doublethink is the inevitable result of a Republican party that has become so McCarthyite; where homophobia, anti-abortion beliefs, Christianity verging on the evangelical, disbelief in science and a refusal to accept that rich people should be taxed more are essential so as not to be accused of being a Rino (Republican in name only). And there is no colder proof of doublethink than the look of moral superiority on a candidate's face when they are describing their wholly immoral beliefs that exist purely to cause misery, such as an "unblemished record" of homophobic policies (Bachmann). Is this evil? It's dystopian.
New US Government Symbol
The government announced it is changing its symbol from an Eagle to a CONDOM, because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance .... A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects criminal Republicans & Democrats, and gives one a sense of security while being screwed!
Nobody's Button, Dave Sheridan, 1980 - [ Click for Nobody's Pictures ]
U.S. OUT OF NORTH AMERICA, Nobody for President
Anonymous - Message To Obama
ANONYMOUS - Proof we are the Last Generation on Earth
Peaceful Marine Veteran shot in the face by government projectile at Occupy Oakland protests
Peaceful Marine Veteran beaten by government receives lacerated spleen
at Occupy Oakland protests
Peaceful UC Davis Student Protestors Brutally Pepper Sprayed by Government
Republicans and Democrats Are Traitors
Obama Re-Introduces "N" word: Nobody
Recall the NDAA Traitors
How to Recall US Senators and Congressmen
Posted by Ralph Lopez, Source: http://recallthetraitors.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-recall-us-senators-and.html
Below is a list of the senators and congressmen who voted to sell us and our American rights down the river as if we had never been born with them. The right to recall federal officials is firmly established by the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as a power "not prohibited" by the Constitution and therefore "reserved to the states" and "to the people." As proponents of limited government, the Constitution was to be viewed as a straitjacket on the government, outlining limited powers, not a straitjacket on the people, whose rights only ended where they began to infringe on the rights of others. The Tenth Amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Treasonous 369
SENATE: YEAs ---86
HOUSE: AYES 283 --
Do not let any state legislator tell you that you cannot recall senators or congressmen. Only two state courts have decided this, Idaho and New Jersey, which do not apply to other states. In both cases the reasoning was weak and specious. The Idaho court said that the law was unconstitutional because it would constitute a new "qualification" for office in addition to age, residency and inhabitancy, the existing stated qualifications in the U.S. Constitution. This reasoning is weak and a poor crutch for other states.
In NJ Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote "The court finds that ... the federal Constitution does not allow states the power to recall U.S. senators." This is odd because in fact the Constitution explicitly allows, by not disallowing ("prohibiting" in the Tenth Amendment,) the states the power to recall US senators and congressmen.
"The powers not...prohibited...are reserved to the States...or to the people."
The states' right to recall is even more firmly anchored in the document antecedent to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, which states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it... -- Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776."
The Supreme Court declared in 1897:
The Constitution is the body and letter of which the Declaration of Independence is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution itself connects itself to the Declaration of Independence by dating itself from the date of the Declaration of Independence, thereby showing clearly that it is the second great document in the government of these United States and is not to be understood without the first.
The Constitutional includes provisions for the expulsion of a member from either House by a vote of other members. It would be absurd to conclude that the Founders, who reserved all rights to the people including the right to "abolish" the government, and who held that all governance was only by "consent of the governed," intended for congressmen to be more responsible to their colleagues than to the people they represent. If members of the Congress can expel members, their own constituents certainly can, given properly constructed recall laws.
"Properly constructed" should be taken to mean of gravity and import. Being a member of Congress should not be a popularity contest. But when it comes to questions of Constitutional import, these are questions which properly revert back to the people and the states. These are questions to be resolved in properly designed recall legislation.
18 states presently have recall laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. In some of these states federal officials are excluded, but not in others. States without recall laws would need them passed in the state legislatures, which boils down to lobbying state representatives and senators hard.
State representative and assembly districts are small and can be run for easily by ordinary citizens with little money. They are a tiny fraction of the size of a congressional district and can be door-knocked in a few months. State senators and representatives seeing challenges coming over their stand on the federal recall issue are more likely to get on the side of the people.
Almost as importantly, active recall drives and drives to pass new recall laws over the NDAA's indefinite military detention of American citizens keeps the issue in the fore. This vital since most people still are unaware of what is taking place. This will require a long-term, voter to voter education campaign for which recall can serve as the vehicle. "Why would you want to recall old Senator So-and-So?" - your neighbors will ask. Wait until they find out.
Here is one possible model recall law to present to your state representatives, just change the name of the state it is will serve as a first draft.
[MODEL RECALL LAW, WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE I.]
Here is an excellent link to state house contacts and your state representatives:
http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=17173
Be sure to study this short history of the federal recall, written by an attorney, as well as the other links here, so you can be ready to knock down your state representative's arguments that senators and congressmen cannot be recalled: "Recalling US Senators and Congressmen."
Finally don't forget to join the Facebook "Recall Every Congressman Who Voted for the NDAA" The Internet will be a powerful tool for different states to communicate with each other and share information and advice.
Power now reverts back to the states, since the federal government has egregiously violated and sought to overturn our "unalienable rights," and we must call on our state legislators, who are closest to us, to recall our federal representatives from Washington who voted for this.
A Longer View
Taking the longer view of a nationwide wave of recall drives against politicians who have broken their oath to "protect and defend the Constitution," these are vital to show that the American people will not let this stand and will fight to reclaim our birthrights as Americans in a peaceful and democratic way. What the congress and the president have done constitutes nothing less than a threat to us and our families, by declaring the authority for what amounts to kidnap, torture, and execution without trial or due process. We are taking this threat seriously.
But the government's over-reach into our sacred rights might also finally bring us, at long last, to that national re-examination so long overdue since 9/11, which started the train of federal government usurpation of basic rights in the name of "security." For although George W. Bush declared that the terrorists "hated us for our freedoms," it was never Al Qaeda which took a vote on the Senate floor to abolish the Bill of Rights, but our very own "domestic enemies" of the Constitution.
That the breath-taking power grab takes place just as a fresh awakening has occurred, taking aim at the corrupting influence of money in our political system, cannot be ignored. The monied powers which rob the taxpayers of trillions in bailouts for irresponsible business practices have been challenged by Occupy Wall Street. The connection between this challenge and the attempted usurpation of our rights is hard to know.
Recall drives against a good number of federal elected officials, based on clearly righteous grounds, might open the way to a new responsiveness in our ossified institutions, by shadowing incumbents at re-election time, encouraging resignations, or, perhaps even, prompting the lawmakers themselves to mend their ways, and become true advocates for their constituents rather than for the bags of money which prowl their halls. It is truly a shame that many of these politicians who had noble entrances into political life, as reformers and mavericks, now conclude these careers as the worst traitors to their sworn oaths that the nation has ever seen.
We're Asking All Media To Refrain From Airing or Publishing Any Mention of the U.S. Constitution, As That May Contain Coded Messages To The Public.
You Can Lead A Horse To Water, But You Can Not Make'em Drink
by Dahbud Mensch
Nobody cares Republicans spent 55 million of your tax dollars to discover if Monica swallowed and 3 million on the 9/11 Commission.
Nobody cares about Florida, Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court and the 2000 Presidential Election.
Nobody cares about President Bush's military record.
Nobody cares about Bush Family dealings and past association with the Nazi Party.
Nobody cares about IRAN/CONTRA.
Nobody cares about the Bush Administration's inability to find a traitor in the White House, who revealed Wilson's wife, but were able to supply photos of 9/11 hijackers within hours of the mass murder.
Nobody cares about who ordered the Air Force to stand down on 9/11.
Nobody cares about where the Weapons of Mass Destruction are and that Saddam was not involved in 9/11.
Nobody cares about six corporations owning most media and that General Electric, who owned most of NBC, is one of the largest exporters of WMD on the planet.
Nobody cares about Bush making the planet unsafe and creating a never ending world of terror.
Nobody cares about Israeli and Christian extremists who hate their lives because they believe they are with sin and want to murder the rest of the world in God's name.
Nobody cares about Chemtrails.
Nobody cares about children left behind by a budget that supports war and destroys education.
Nobody cares "The War/Rape/Torture President" disgraced Flag and Country.
Nobody knows the truth about a lying Republican Bush Neocon Administration and dimwitted Democrats who took us into an illegal war, murdered tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and caused gas prices to 'skyrocket.'
Nobody cares Peter King, Barak Obama, with Republican and Democrat Traitors, Destroyed the Bill of Rights on December 31, 2011
Nobody wants to subpoena God to find out whose side she is REALLY on.
John Titor on Civil War
I remember 2036 very clearly. It is difficult to describe 2036 in detail without spending a great deal of time explaining why things are so different.
In 2036, I live in central Florida with my family and I'm currently stationed at an Army base in Tampa. A world war in 2015 killed nearly three billion people. The people that survived grew closer together. Life is centered on the family and then the community. I cannot imagine living even a few hundred miles away from my parents.
There is no large industrial complex creating masses of useless food and recreational items. Food and livestock is grown and sold locally. People spend much more time reading and talking together face to face. Religion is taken seriously and everyone can multiply and divide in their heads.
Life has changed so much over my lifetime that it's hard to pin down a "normal" day. When I was 13, I was a soldier. As a teenager, I helped my dad haul cargo. I went to college when I was 31 and I was recruited to "time travel" shortly after that. Again, I suppose an average day in 2036 is like an average day on the farm.
There is a civil war in the United States that starts in 2005. That conflict flares up and down for 10 years. In 2015, Russia launches a nuclear strike against the major cities in the United States (which is the "other side" of the civil war from my perspective), China and Europe. The United States counter attacks. The US cities are destroyed along with the AFE (American Federal Empire)...thus we (in the country) won. The European Union and China were also destroyed. Russia is now our largest trading partner and the Capitol of the US was moved to Omaha Nebraska.
One of the biggest reasons why food production is localized is because the environment is affected with disease and radiation. We are making huge strides in getting it cleaned up. Water is produced on a community level and we do eat meat that we raise ourselves.
After the war, early new communities gathered around the current Universities. That's where the libraries were. I went to school at Fort UF, which is now called the University of Florida. Not too much is different except the military is large part of people's life and we spend a great deal of time in the fields and farms at the "University" or Fort.
The Constitution was changed after the war. We have 5 presidents that are voted in and out on different term periods. The vice president is the president of the senate and they are voted separately.
http://www.johntitor.com/Pages/CivilWar.html
Rep. Peter King – Islamophobe and Phony
Supports Zionist Terrorists Who Murder and Maim U.S. Navy
Republican & Democrat Traitors Support Terrorism Against U.S. Military: Israeli attack on USS Liberty
Codebreaker Alan Turing gets stamp of approval
Gay mathematician convicted of gross indecency in 1952 among those to be celebrated in Royal Mail stamps in 2012
Caroline Davies, The Guardian, Monday 2 January 2012, Article history, Article Source
In 2009, Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology to Alan Turing (above), saying the country owed him a huge debt.
The mathematician and second world war codebreaker Alan Turing is to be celebrated on a special stamp as an online petition calls for a posthumous pardon to quash his conviction for gross indecency.
The computer pioneer is one of 10 prominent people chosen for the Royal Mail's Britons of Distinction stamps, to be launched in February, which includes the allied war heroine Odette Hallowes of the Special Operations Executive, composer Frederick Delius and architect Sir Basil Spence, to mark the golden jubilee of Coventry Cathedral.
Turing worked as part of the team that cracked the Enigma code at Bletchley Park, and went on to help create the world's first modern computer. This year marks the centenary of his birth.
He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK, and sentenced to chemical castration. He killed himself two years later by taking cyanide. The e-petition says his treatment and death "remains a shame on the UK government and UK history".
In 2009, the then prime minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology on behalf of the government to Turing, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". Brown said the country owed him a huge debt.
Hallowes, who was born in Amiens, France, in April 1912 and married an Englishman in 1931, was awarded the George Cross (the only woman to receive the honour while alive) and the Légion d'honneur for her work in Nazi occupied France.
She was imprisoned, tortured and condemned to death in 1943 after being betrayed, but survived Ravensbrück concentration camp and the war. She died in 1995 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
The Olympic Games and the Queen's diamond jubilee also feature in the 2012 special stamp programme.
House of Windsor stamps will feature the five monarchs from the start of the 20th century, with the Queen taking pride of place on the final stamp to mark the 60th year of her reign. A special miniature sheet issued on 6 February will bring together six portraits of her taken from stamps, coinage and banknotes.
Giant peaches and a famous chocolate factory will feature in a set of six stamps on 10 January to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl.
The first of several stamp issues to mark the London Games go on sale on 5 January. Other stamp subjects during the year include Charles Dickens, born 200 years ago this year, great British fashion, comics, dinosaurs, space science and classic locomotives of Scotland.
Whaling: campaigners use drones in the fight against Japanese whalers
US military technology adapted as 'eye in the sky' by eco-activists in the Antarctic seas
Jonathan Franklin in Santiago, Chile, The Observer, Saturday 31 December 2011, Article history, Article Source
The drone is launched from the deck of the Steve Irwin.
Environmental activists in the rough Antarctic seas have launched a new tool in the fight to stop a Japanese operation to kill hundreds of whales -- remote-controlled drones.
Every morning for the past week, a battery-powered drone with a range of 300km (190 miles) has been launched from the MV Steve Irwin, which is attempting to disrupt the annual Japanese whale hunts in the waters off Antarctica.
"We first found the Japanese fleet when they were 28 nautical miles away," said Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an international marine wildlife protection group based in the United States.
Subsequent attempts by Japanese whaling ships to block the anti-whaling flotilla and allow the whale factory ship Nisshin Maru to escape were foiled by the activists, who repeatedly launched the drone, which uses GPS co-ordinates and provides both video and still images to track the whaling ships.
"Our helicopter pilot, Chris Aultman, has been lobbying for this technology for the past two years and now that we have this 'eye in the sky' it makes it much harder for the whaling fleet to escape," said Watson in a telephone interview from the Steve Irwin. "The other day they switched back from east to west and we detected this with the drone."
Watson has 88 crew on three ships, two of which are equipped with drones. They act as spotters, finding the whalers in the vast expanse of ocean and allowing Watson's ships to home in on them.
Watson has embarked on his annual expedition to stop the slaughter of thousands of whales – the Japanese consider this to be scientific research while critics call it cruel and archaic. "Last year they had a quota of over 1,000 whales and only caught 16%. We saved at least 800 whales," said Watson, who has been known to ram the Japanese boats as part of his anything-goes tactics.
The advent of new technologies such as drones may finally put an end to the Japanese hunt, said Watson, who is also bringing publicity to the cause in Whale Wars, the Discovery channel documentary series that tracks the hunts: "Our goal is to bankrupt them and destroy them economically. Now that we can track them, it is getting easier."
Once exclusive to Israeli spy forces and the US air force, drones and other types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being sent on civilian missions such as crop inspections or marine mammal surveys. In April, drones hovered inside highly radioactive areas at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and recorded data from areas too dangerous for humans to enter.
Federal bodies in the US, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), are scrambling to monitor the burgeoning industry. According to the Los Angeles Times, the FAA will issue proposals this month to clarify rules for the use of UAVs in civilian and commercial roles.
While drones used to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, some are now available for less than £500. The unit used by Sea Shepherd is a highly durable model known as the Osprey, which can run for hundreds of hours .
It was given to Sea Shepherd by Bayshore Recycling, a New Jersey-based solid waste recycling company committed to environmental protection. In addition to paying for the drone at an estimated cost of £10,000, Bayshore also paid for pilot training to run the remote control equipment.
"Everyone here at Bayshore is thrilled with the Sea Shepherd's news of not only saving the lives of many whales, but knowing our drone will continue to track the Japanese whaling fleet in this chase," said Elena Bagarozza, marketing co-ordinator at Bayshore.
Watson expects drones will be used to patrol environmentally sensitive areas ranging from the Galapagos Islands to other famed wildlife areas, including South Africa's Kruger National Park.
"There is huge potential and great value in this technology – for our expedition it is wonderful," said Eleanor Lister, 20, a Sea Shepherd crew member from Jersey, who spoke by satellite phone from aboard the Steve Irwin from a location that, she said, "was about 1,000 miles south-west of Australia".
She described the daily routine that begins when the ship's first mate holds aloft the Osprey drone, then tosses it into the headwinds. After tracking the Japanese whalers, the drone ends its mission as it homes in on the Steve Irwin and is flown into a thick net, where crew members inspect it for damage and download the video and photographs from the latest mission.
Despite severe weather in the Antarctic, the drone has flown dozens of flights and had no problems so far with ice buildup on the wings or trouble negotiating the gusty winds.
"The Osprey is comfortable in the wind and can handle 40 knots," said Jimmy Prouty, systems engineer at Hangar 18, the Kansas-based company that manufactures it. "This unit is waterproofed and has multiple security backups so that if it has problems or low battery it automatically returns to base."
The Jive Aces present: Bring Me Sunshine = A Happy New Year via Rita
Karl Cohen - Association International du Film d'Animation-SF Newsletter
ASIFA-SF NEWSLETTER
Association International du Film d'Animation
(International Animated Film Association)
December 2011LEONARD COHEN, AN UP-AND-COMING ANIMATOR FROM PARIS, HAS MOVED TO BERKELEY. HE WON TWO MAJOR PRIZES AT ANNECY AND DID THE ANIMATION FOR SPIKE JONZE’S “TO DIE BY YOUR SIDE”
Leonard Cohen’s Plato won both the Best Graduation Short and the Junior Jury Prize at Annecy 2011. His first big commercial work, animating Spike Jonze’s To Die By Your Side, is a hit at festivals and on the Internet. Continue
Keith Lampe - Co-Founder of YIPPIE and Progressive Activist Groups
Bodhisattva Associates
+ Tools for Activists +
Stabilizing Neurality for Mood Enhancement Within Today's Urgencies
Via <prez@usa-exile.org>
December 25, 2011Dear Friends and Colleagues,
What's below [Myths of Mass Deception] is not intended as a rain on folks' various Christmas parades.
Rather, I want to feature another major example of the degree to which homeplanet history is falsified by the 1% before it's circulated among us 99%.
This is why I'm so pleased that some locales within the vast Occupy Movement have begun taking "education" (inducation, actually) into their own hands in order to begin a truly higher one--that is, one that truly "leads out" rather than merely leading/inducing/inducting into the narrow, tightly controlled heritage of the ill-fated Occident.
Here's part of a post on one such effort from Angelina Llongueras of Occupy San Francisco:
"Special Guest" Circle Chat on Sunday January 1st at 4 pm at El Rincon Center Lobby, 101 Spear Street at Mission.
Special Guest: Eden of #OB-FSU: Occupy Boston's Free School University. FSU scheduled 150+ teach-ins, mostly in Dewey Square, and has 25+ teach-ins videoed on YouTube. See wiki and YouTube for more info:
http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/Solidarity/FSU
http://www.youtube.com/user/FSUOccupyBoston
Eden is also a member of #OB-Interoccupy connecting #Occupys Internationally and OB-RADIO.
I hope especially that these Occupy folks can blast their way out of the constricted Newtonian physics of the Occident and open to the fullness of High Himalayan physics as presented, say, in Tarthang Tulku's TIME, SPACE AND KNOWLEDGE.
This way, they then can blast out of solar and wind as the best replacements for coal/oil/nuclear/gas--and open to much better modes like cold fusion, zero point and advanced hydrogen/water.
In High Himalayan physics they lift boulders with carefully quantified sonic frequencies via drums and trumpets. Please see:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/antigravityworldgrid/ciencia_antigravityworldgrid08.htm
Meanwhile, Merry Saturnalia.
Yours for tapping the ether, Keith Lampe, Ro-Non-So-Te, Ponderosa Pine
PS: And let's also hope that these Occupy folks can blast their way out of the simplistic capitalist propaganda of Darwin's biology and open to the fullness of Kropotkin's biology where relationships in nature are seen as primarily cooperative and only secondarily competitive.
PPS: Of course chemtrails should be a major topic within any free curriculum.
Paul Krassner - The Realist/Writer/Comic
Paul has been invited to participate in the LA Times Festival of Books, during the weekend of April 21st–22nd, 2012, where he will discuss his forthcoming book, Pot Stories for the Soul, as part of a group discussion. (smile) Here is Paul's reply:
Maren,
Definitely. Absolutely. Positively. I swear I was thinking about this earlier today, wondering if Soft Skull would have a presence at the festival.
I can't tell you how delighted I am about this. It's already on my calendar.
I've been a panelist a few times there -- my favorite was with Christopher Hitchens, Arianna Huffington and Larry Beinhart, which can be Googled on YouTube (a phrase that would've sounded like gibberish a couple of decades ago) -- so I'm excited about returning to the scene of the crime.
I look forward to working with you in promoting the book.
Happy Holidaze, Paul
Steven Leech - Writer/Poet/D.J.
Hi Curtis,
You might wanna check out the website, www.jazzonmymind.com, and the live television broadcast imbedded therein. I've been showing up as a somewhat frequent guest there. The site/program is produced by Richard Blackwell, who used to do broadcasting in Los Angeles, but moved to Wilmington because his wife is a native here. Richard's been a guest on the "Clifford's Corner" segment on Boptime and from time to time will be sitting in with me and some of the other regulars. Maurice, who will be 86 on Christmas, will continue to sit in with me, but because of his advancing age, not every time.
My Best to you, Steve
Alerts - Notes from ~@~
A Happy New Year via ~@~Libraries, Technology, and Learning at MIT in the 21st Century
presented by Ann J. Wolpert via MIT Club of Northern California by Hank Magnuski
tags: education learning libraries media books MIT MITCNCMIT students learn individually, collaboratively, and interactively, often in fast-paced, technology-enabled environments. They must be able to acquire knowledge and manage information whether they are 300 miles from campus, in a campus library, or sitting in a classroom.
MIT's libraries are acknowledged leaders among research libraries for their innovative and experimental approach to academic library service. They share MIT’s creative drive, commitment to research, and passion for excellence in support of MIT students.
Learn about the ways MIT's libraries use new technology and new ideas to empower students to thrive at MIT and prepare for a lifetime of learning. Click to view: http://vimeo.com/33447268
Gallery d'Ann - Currently showing clay sculpture
Bodhisattva On the Metro = A Happy New Year via Ann
Marliese's Corner - San Francisco Events
Friends,
There are some great events coming up at the Book Smith, 1644 Haight Street, between Clayton & Cole.
Love, Marliese
Amestizo - BLOG
happy new year,
The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.end world suffering, Amestizo
Reasons 2-B Happy by Xeth #112: THE MAYANS ARE PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT 2012
RAP NEWS X - #Occupy2012 (featuring Noam Chomsky & Anonymous) = Turn Your Eff'n TV Off
World Health Organization has classified Smart Meter Radiation
as "possibly carcinogenic to humans."
PG&E Smart Meters via prez @ usa-exile
Devo - Beautiful World
Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello - The ghost of Tom Joad (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 2009)
George Carlin - The Owners of America
Nobody Brought Peace To Our Times
"None of the Above" Should Be On Voter Ballots
Oh, I hope that I see you again I never even caught your name As you looked through my window pane -- So I'm writing this message today I'm thinking that you'll have a way Of hearing the notes in my tune -- Where are you going? Where have you been? I can imagine other worlds you have seen -- Beautiful faces and music so serene -- So I do hope I see you again My universal citizen You went as quickly as you came -- You know the power Your love is right You have good reason To stay out of sight -- But break our illusions and help us Be the light -- Message by Michael Pinder
Freedom of expression and freedom of speech aren't really important unless they're heard...It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war. And there's nothing more scary than watching ignorance in action. So I dedicated this Emmy to all the people who feel compelled to speak out and not afraid to speak to power and won't shut up and refuse to be silenced. - Tommy Smothers
The man whispered, "God, speak to me" and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled "God, speak to me" and the thunder rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen. The man looked around and said, "God let me see you" and a star shined brightly. But the man did not notice. And the man shouted, "God show me a miracle" and a life was born. But the man did not know. So the man cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are there" Whereupon God reached down and touched the man. But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.
Don't miss out on a blessing because it isn't packaged the way you expect.