Archive for the ‘Headlines’ Category
An OPP Bedtime Story…
Peter Falk demonstrating a rehabilitative choke-hold…
Once upon a time, there was a tween named Billy in New Orleans, not yet a teenager, but no longer a small boy.
He’d been having a difficult life, but his mother taught him the best she could. Billy loved his mother and Billy loved his house. Billy loved his friends and Billy loved his faithful dog, Rex, more than anything.
One day, after school, where he studied good and hard, he realized he would need some money to buy tasty snacks for Rex, but he didn’t have any money. What was Billy going to do? Billy thought long and hard about this and walked all over New Orleans trying to find a job cleaning pots and pans so he could buy Rex the snacks that made Rex as happy as Billy.
But Billy was treated bad by the people he asked for a job. Billy tried really hard, but there were very few jobs and nobody hired Billy.
Billy really liked to see Rex happy and Billy didn’t know what else to do so finally, Billy did what he felt he had to do.
Billy sold crack, hot solids around his school and very soon, Rex had more snacks than he could eat and everything was fine. Rex was very happy. And this made Billy happy, but when Billy’s mom found out Billy’s mom was really angry.
“You can’t sell crack!” Billy’s mom yelled, “Your cousin and dad are in prison for misbehaving like that already!”
Billy was sad and soon Rex ran out of snacks.
So Billy didn’t stop. Billy’s friends didn’t want him to stop and Rex didn’t want Billy to stop either.
One day, when Billy was making money, he was stopped by Officer Friendly. Officer Friendly was really angry at Billy too, more angry than Billy’s mom. He slapped Billy. He punched Billy. He held a gun to Billy’s head and begged Billy to give him a reason, but Billy didn’t. He had watched what happened in his neighborhood very closely and he knew that Officer Friendly wasn’t really friendly.
Officer Friendly said, “We’re going to take you to a new school, where you can be rehabilitated.”
“What’s rehabilitation?” Billy asked.
“You’ll see,” said Officer Friendly.
So Billy went to his new school and he didn’t get to go home at night either. He had to sleep there and eat there and Rex was not allowed to visit. Soon, Billy found out that his new school didn’t even have classes and Billy knew he was falling behind those people at regular schools.
Billy was sad.
On the fourth night at his new school, two older boys beat the shit out of Billy while a teacher looked on and then walked away. Billy didn’t understand why the teacher didn’t protect him. Two nights later, another teacher gave two older kids crack, weed and brown powder and when they all saw Billy watching them. They beat up Billy again. This teacher walked away too.
Billy was angry.
Billy didn’t like getting beat up at his new school and he didn’t understand why he had to be rehabilitated when the teachers were doing what Billy had done to buy Rex his snacks. Billy decided he needed to make friends with one of the teachers so he could get a shiv, to protect himself, but that night before Billy could get his shiv another older boy attacked him while he was sleeping and pulled down Billy’s pants.
Billy was humiliated.
Billy had never beaten anyone up before, but now after being rehabilitated, Billy was afraid, sad, angry and humiliated. Billy decided he not only needed a shiv, he needed new friends. So he got new friends at the new school and Billy’s new friends taught Billy to fight. Then one of Billy’s new teachers gave Billy a shiv and later that day placed bets on Billy’s fights. He didn’t give Billy any of the money he won, but he did promise to buy Rex some snacks.
Billy thanked him, but Billy really didn’t give a fuck about Rex anymore.
What Billy cared about now was where to hide at the new school so he wouldn’t be on camera when he beat up the other students. Billy wanted to learn which teachers would look away when he used his shiv, but Billy soon found out that nobody cared when he used his shiv. Then Billy wanted to get in on the drug trade, on the guns and the graft at his new school and in time Billy got good and rehabilitated, so rehabilitated Billy didn’t give a fuck about nobody or nothing anymore.
One day, the Headmaster of the school deemed Billy a total success and just like that, Billy was free.
Free and much more skilled, much more angry and though Billy didn’t know it, much more traumatized than Billy had ever been before…and Billy didn’t go home. Billy found friends of his new friends at the school and moved in with them. They liked Billy and Billy liked hurting the people Billy’s new friends didn’t like. It made Billy feel like he belonged.
He liked it so much, Billy didn’t concern himself too much if other people got hurt in the process.
Soon enough, Billy did what most people considered to be a really fucked up thing to do and some people got hurt really bad, but Billy shrugged. Billy was just doing what he had to do, what he knew how to do, what he had learned to do.
Officer Friendly grabbed Billy two days later and told him he would have to go back to get more rehabilitation.
Billy was really angry and really scared, so much so that it all just made Billy feel vaguely numb. Billy didn’t want to show all his crazy feelings so he just shrugged and said to Officer Friendly, “New school, old school. All the same to me motherfucker.”
And just like that, Officer Friendly and Billy rode off into the sunset, breathing in lead from the surrounding environment.
The moral of the story?
Whereas I won’t say tragedies like the second line shooting and the high murder rate in New Orleans are a direct result of Gusman’s fucked up jail and its utter disregard for inmate safety, the idea that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other is a bunch of conservative law and order bullshit focused on easy answers to problems that don’t go away. Climates are created by lack of concern. Trauma often leads to more violence. There are a hundred and one reasons why people can turn, but when people get arrested out of an unforgiving environment and are remanded to ones even harsher, the creeping desperation can blow up and shut all systems down. If there’s no rehabilitation to be had, and very little supportive service or education…not to mention a lack of housing upon release, or jobs, or training, or any sort of real mental health assistance, what can we expect to happen when people leave OPP and elsewhere?
Simply put, little good.
Have a nice day.
World Series Bound…
Being as I can’t go to the Superdome and the Sharks season is questionable, sometimes you have to take what you can get. And what we got is pretty damned good.
Giants going to the World Series!!!
Hells yeah…
Have a nice day.
A GOP meteoroligist – on climate change…
Paul Douglas, GOP meteorologist who believes global warming is happening and must be addressed with business solutions, alternative energy and the creation of jobs...and according to Rush, Sean, Rick, Mitt and Newt, needs to be excommunicated, stripped of his earthly possessions, flogged in a public square and then burned as the heretical witch that he must be...oh, and he's probably a socialist too...
As any who check this site with any regularity are sure to know, my politics run to the left, really far to the left…
Left like Obama?
No…fascist.
Left like Russ Feingold?
No…he’s nothing more than a covert member of the Heritage Foundation.
My politics…they run further left than professionals of this ilk, they rumble along similar tracks laid by a Noam Chomsky, an Alexander Berkman or Pierre Proudhon and that being the case, I understand that when it comes to the majority of Americans, when I shake my head thinking everyone’s gone crazy as I examine their belief systems and life choices…I understand my opinions are oft the minority.
Fair enough. I can accept that…
Especially when it comes to the realities of climate change global warming…
I understand that when I look at people who have children, even my own family members and I question such choices, feeling offspring in this day and age is really a whole lot of selfish vanity and lack of control when it comes to biologic impulse…I get that my opinion is in the minority. I know when I see someone purchasing a 3-D television, and I feel that both the cost to purchase it and the energy required to run the thing is morally repugnant, again…I get it, minority opinion.
And again, fair enough.
However…my leftist opinions don’t change the reality staring at this country and the world, at it’s children and that reality is global warming is fucking real and the time is coming soon when no one will have a choice anymore to accept or reject this reality. Flooding, temperatures, sea level rise, storm intensity, heat waves…maybe even new epidemics…all here, or on the way and pretty soon, like in a few years soon, if nothing concrete is in the works, it’ll be too late.
But again…leftist opinion…my leftist opinion.
So, what about the right?
What about God declaring us stewards of the land, about the free market, about myths, ice ages, Palinesque trumpetings and so many other lines of crap from climate deniers…and yes, I include such rightists as Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other pseudo-democrats who attempt token changes in environmental policy that really don’t amount to shit in that mix as rightists…yeah, what about them, what about all of that?
Okay…well how about Paul Douglas?
From a GOP meterologist and businessman:
“I’m going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I am a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment, and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I’m a meteorologist, and the weather maps I’m staring at are making me uncomfortable. No, you’re not imagining it: we’ve clicked into a new and almost foreign weather pattern. To complicate matters, I’m in a small, frustrated and endangered minority: a Republican deeply concerned about the environmental sacrifices some are asking us to make to keep our economy powered-up, long-term. It’s ironic. The root of the word conservative is “conserve.” A staunch Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, set aside vast swaths of America for our National Parks System, the envy of the world. Another Republican, Richard Nixon, launched the EPA. Now some in my party believe the EPA and all those silly “global warming alarmists” are going to get in the way of drilling and mining our way to prosperity. Well, we have good reason to be alarmed.”
And he only goes on from here with further climate denier debunking…
He discusses how believing climate science doesn’t make you a liberal, how Christianity is no defense of being a flat-earther, of how 30 year old “alarmist” predictions from climate scientists are coming true, and faster than expected – one by one…of how capitalism, yes…capitalism can even help be a proponent to alternative energy sources if people would finally stop buying the bullshit from people making money hand over fist from rising gas prices and finally reinvest not only in newer, less destructive forms of energy, but in your own kids’ futures. And of course, he points out how getting responsible when it comes to the environment used to be a Republican thing by way of the National Parks System and the EPA, and it could be again through alternative energy job creation…
That’s right!
Jobs!
And finally, to my Louisiana friends, especially in New Orleans and southwards…to those who understand the environmental situation…grand. Good, what are we going to do about all of this? But to those in climate denial down there…seriously? You realize where you live, right? Rising sea levels and all that? No? Okay, how about this: do you honestly think all those assholes funding the war on science (which in all truth is a war on you) are going to be down on the disappearing Louisiana shores lamenting their houses as rising water makes living in them no longer tenable, or do you think they’ll be on the high ground, with a lot of your money, in gated communities, forgetting to apologize for all the lies they told you while they made that money and screwed your childrens’ futures?
Hmm…I’m guessing gated communities and major cash.
Paul Douglas, in his blog post…he concludes with the following:
“The climate is warming. The weather is morphing. It’s not your grandfather’s weather anymore. The trends are undeniable. If you don’t want to believe thousands of climate scientists – at least believe your own eyes: winters are warmer & shorter, summers more humid, more extreme weather events, with a 1-in-500 year flood every 2-3 years. For evidence of climate change don’t look at your back yard thermometer. That’s weather. Take another, longer look at your yard. Look at the new flowers, trees, birds, insects and pests showing up outside your kitchen window that weren’t there a generation ago.
This is a moral issue. Because the countries least responsible will bear the brunt of rising seas, spreading drought and climate refugees. Because someday your grandkids will ask what did you know…when…and what did you do to help? We’ve been binging on carbon for 200 years, and now the inevitable hangover is setting in. Curing our addiction to carbon won’t happen overnight. But creative capitalism can deal with climate change. I’m no fan of big government or over-regulation. Set the bar high. Then stand back and let the markets work. Let Americans do what they do best: innovate.
We can figure this out. Frankly, we won’t have a choice. But I’m a naïve optimist. We can reinvent America, leaving us more competitive in the 21st century, launching thousands of new, carbon-free energy companies – supplementing, and someday surpassing anything we can expeditiously suck out of the ground and burn, accelerating an already-warming planet. We don’t have to bury our heads in Saudi sand – we’ll never “frack” our way to a sustainable future. It’s time for a New Energy Paradigm. There’s no silver bullet. But there’s plenty of (green) buckshot, if we aim high and point America in the right direction. We need real leadership, and a viable, bipartisan blueprint for inevitable energy independence from President Obama and Congress. Yes, healthcare is important. So is the long-term health of our air, land and water.
There are steps all of us can take today. I own one hybrid, another on order. I bought a home a mile away from my office, to reduce my carbon footprint (and preserve some sense of sanity). But there’s much more I can do. Let’s challenge ourselves to reinvent our own energy ecosystems.”
Read the entire post…
It’s a new atmosphere floating overhead…
Have a nice day.
In case you missed the martyr…
Empathy? This much...
So sayeth the self-celebrated:
“I am constantly pressured to do the right thing,” Feinberg said. “You know, the shrimpers, the crabbers, the oystermen and the GCCF, they all say we need to do more, and that they are still at risk. On the other hand, I get correspondence from BP, saying you should not give two times, or four times. In fact they say that two times is too much, the Gulf has recovered. So I get pressure from both every side. I do what I think is right.”
It’s gotta be hard to be Ken Feinberg, living in the middle like that…the fishermen saying he hasn’t done enough, the evil oil corporation who says he has done too much…so very difficult…I almost feel bad, like I should invite him down to Flanagans on St. Phillips, do my social work thing, listen, empathize…and then of course, dump my beer all over his head, kick him off the bar stool and then, standing over him, remind him how he has turned this whole “neutral arbitrator” schtick into a multimillion dollar business…the agent orange fund, the 9-11 fund…etc…and while he is going on and on about how hard it is to wear his shoes, I’d remind him how he put them on, and how they’re some of the most expensive shoes money can buy, and how the people his decisions affect have lost quite a bit more than a few hours sleep so sorry, tell it walking, tell it to the MSM who oftentimes feel content to give him a pass because he is at least paying something unlike the Road Home Program…
Yeah, a celebration of mediocrity…perfect.
Oh, and Ken would just like to add:
Feinberg emphasized that anyone who so wishes, can still seek interim payments from the Gulf Coast Claims facility, and not accept any final payment.
To which a observor such as myself might respond:
Yeah, and you can go buy lottery tickets too.
Read the article:
Feinberg: It’s Hard to be a Gangster
Have a nice day.
Sitting at the kid’s table…
You can't handle the truth...
Time magazine, in honor of Thanksgiving dinners across the country, felt it appropriate to put its American readers at the kids table this week, giving them a cover they could handle while the rest of the world got the real news, the scary stuff…
So, in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific, their readers were greeted with a cover depicting the ongoing struggles in Egypt, demonstrated by a photo of a revolutionary, who stands in defiance of their miliary and still forming government, demanding democracy.
In America, we got a cover story about how anxiety is actually good for us…
And this is probably a good thing considering our politicians don’t listen to the people, they listen to think tanks…our police departments are now militarized and in many major cities, assaults, murders and even rape investigations are given lower priority than drug cases, which make money for police departments…oh, and our state leaders are trying to push through a settlement with the major banks over their fraudulent foreclosure practices that will do nothing to help the victims of their fraud…and again, no one in the banking industry sees the inside of a jail cell…
Our democracy is the dog and pony show for those who purchased their own rule of law.
So yeah, Time magazine would certainly not want Americans, in light of the growing unrest in this country, to be greeted by images of what some people outside this country are doing, are seeing as a solution to many of the same problems being experienced here, in America, where truth and reality exist as someone else’s version, the correctness of which can only be confirmed by big media outlets owned by those with a vested interest in keeping the vast majority of people powerless.
It’s a closed system they don’t want opened…but it is time to open it…
Get involved in your community, discuss your own versions of the truth, and your own solutions and then make your own demands…and don’t stop. What’s the worst that can happen, maybe a little less isolation and the realization that you can work with your neighbors to make your lives better?
Hell, we all might even wind up a lot more empowered…and a little less anxious.
Have a nice day.
An open letter to the President, and both the Democratic and Republican Parties…
- Hell, even GW Bush is impressed with how far to the right you managed to push budget negotiations… you know, to help the people you uh, you promised to help?
Hello…
So, I might as well address this to the highest ranking of you, though I’m not so sure that’s something to be proud of these days…in fact, from where I sit it’s something to be rather ashamed of but nonetheless, this goes out to Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Cantor, Reid, Geithner, Bernanke, McConnell…
Yeah, all of you public servants(?)
Okay, something is happening in this country that none of you really seem to understand…I mean, have you looked around yourselves lately? In the cities? Have you read the polls? Have you bothered for a moment to look past your office walls, your meeting rooms and political staffers and handlers and their gratuitous nods of the head?
I don’t think you have…
You see, I and a lot of other Americans read the news and I don’t know about you politicians, but what I’m reading lately simply doesn’t make sense.
Poll after poll shows that Americans want taxes raised on the wealthy and the safety net? They want it left alone. It’s almost universal, bipartisan…consider these headlines of late: 68% of Millionaires support raising taxes on millionaires and Poll: Tax the rich, corporations and Vast Majority Of Americans Favor Buffett Rule’s Millionaire Tax: Poll Also consider these: Washington Post/Bloomberg poll: Even GOP majorities say tax rich, protect Social Security, Medicare and New Poll shows Republicans have it all wrong with Social Security and Attacks on Social Security called “un-American” and Faith groups target ‘Super Committee’ on poverty
That all seems a pretty clear message.
Yet, then I read this bullshit: Boehner Dismisses Democratic Super Committee Proposal As Unserious
Now, I happen to agree with Boehner about this, but me and the majority of Americans? Our reasons are quite different from Boehner and the GOP’s reasons for disagreeing with the proposal. Boehner says the Dem proposal is unserious because it raises taxes on the wealthy whereas I disagree with the Democratic’s proposal because it proposes billions in dollars in cuts to Medicare, even more extensive cuts than the Catfood Commission’s proposal. The cuts however, Boehner is almost fine with except he wants them to go deeper than the Democrats have proposed…
Okay, so…in light of all this, what the hell is wrong with you politicians?
You’re not listening…or maybe you are. Maybe you are listening quite intently, you’re just not listening to the majority of Americans, instead keeping your focused ear intently on your campaign donors, the financial institutions, big money lobbyists…essentially anyone but the American people.
Seems fairly evident, but I suspect you all might disagree with this assessment. Yeah, two words to that…fuck you. I’m not stupid, please stop treating me as such.
So then, if you are there in DC to do the work of the people, why is it you choose to ignore the people completely? This is why you have a 9% approval rating, Congress. Oh, and Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and the rest of you GOP hacks, what the American public really wants are jobs. Jobs!!!! And jobs aren’t created by lower taxes on the wealthy. Stop your bullshit, they aren’t. Jobs are created by demand. Demand is created by people with money to spend, keeping the social safety net and unemployment benefits puts money in people’s pockets, which they then spend which creates demand, which creates jobs. Know what else creates jobs? Spending on infrastructure, which again puts money in people’s pockets…and so on and so forth. Austerity makes everybody broke, nobody spends, no demand…it ain’t that hard to figure out…are you all just fucking stupid? Now, I know you have said that you’re spending cuts thus far enacted have created jobs, but they haven’t. In fact, they have done the opposite: REPORT: House GOP’s ‘Job Creating’ Spending Cuts Destroyed 370,000 Jobs.
Oh, and Barack and Nancy? Let’s not get all full of righteous indignation on this one. Last week, the GOP decided to put you guys in the corner by agreeing to one part of your jobs agenda, while linking it with a budget cut item: House GOP Lays Trap For Obama On Jobs Plan. Yeah, the GOP agreed to end a three percent withholding tax on private contractors intended to keep corporations from cheating the government on taxes, and in return the GOP proposed to pay for this by limiting Medicaid eligibility for people who also receive social security benefits.
Wasn’t that nice of them?
Private contractors get the a-ok to cheat on their taxes, paid for by kicking grandma and the disabled off their health insurance.
Well, it would seem this GOP proposal was tailor-made for the Democrats to stand up, just say no, go to bat for those less fortunate and tell the GOP to blow while explaining to the American people what the GOP was trying to get away with…except the Democrats didn’t do this. Nope. Instead, they agreed.
More money for the wealthy, more costs for the poor.
I seem to be picking up on a pattern here…Barack, Nancy, Harry…who are you standing up for?
You agree to Medicare cuts on the poor and kicking some people off Medicaid, which runs counter to what the American people have said they wanted. And you…Eric, John, and Mitch…you are giving more and more money to the wealthy, at the expense of the poor, which again, is the opposite of what the American people have said they want to see happen…
Yes, a pattern.
And then you wonder why thousands of people are hitting the streets nationwide, fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Oh wait, I forget, many of you have said you understand the people’s frustrations. Yeah, great…well I understand that you’re all a bunch of self-righteous assholes, but that don’t turn you into good people, now does it? Nope. And none of you are doing much about that frustration you claim to understand either, except presenting proposals that either do nothing to address income inequality, or will only serve to make it worse.
In these occupy demonstrations, in all of these different cities, stand Americans of every race, age, class and creed. And you know what else they are? They are the disenfranchised of this country. Do you think these people would be suffering the elements, the police brutality if they really felt that voting for one of you frauds would change anything? Doubtful. These protests, these people are the fruit of your labors, those who believe the system to be broken, or if it is working, it sure ain’t working for them…and not for me either. I’ve attended a few of these rallies in different cities and you know what I see? I see middle-aged couples, the elderly, the young, white, black, hispanic…and all these different members of society, they are uniting against you, against your bullshit ways, your bankrupting ways…your Republican power-grabs and your Democrat craven cavings to the financial industry and the banks…
And speaking of banks…
Hey Bernanke and Geithner, do you honestly think we haven’t been paying attention to what you’re currently letting Bank of America get away with? And Barack, these assholes were appointed by you…so you’re on the hook as well. Right now, your crew, with GOP assent, is seeing fit to allow Bank of America to set up American tax-payers for another huge debt, all so this bank doesn’t have to pay for their own investment mistakes, again. Yes, Bank of America has moved 75 trillion dollars in potentially bad derivatives from its holding company, into Bank of America proper…want to know why?
Because unlike its holding company, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America is FDIC insured, so if these 75 trillion dollars in bad derivatives fail, the government (FDIC) will have to pay out, which of course means, the taxpayers have to pay out, bail out Bank of America for more bad investment decisions. Bernanke, Geithner and Obama are allowing this to happen. They are allowing this to happen to you… once again taking the money from the middle class and potentially giving it to the wealthy to compensate for their poor choices.
So back to that pattern:
The Democratic leadership, in the form of Pelosi, Reid and Obama have shown they are quite willing to cut the social safety net, to cut benefits to the poor and disabled, to the elderly so long as the Republicans are willing to allow some marginal taxes on the rich. The Republican leadership in the form of Cantor, Boehner and McConnell are of course unwilling to do this, no how, no way, and in return for their refusal, they want even deeper cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security than the Democrats are willing to offer. Meanwhile, the Fed is letting Bank of America off the hook for bad investments again, with American tax-payers potentially footing this bill if the derivatives go bad…again moving money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy.
Yes, a pattern.
These politicians, elected by the American people only agree on one thing, doing whatever it is the American public doesn’t want you to do while at the same time, doing very little about job creation.
Yet all of you feel you should be reelected.
Why is that?
Since the occupation protests have begun, thousands of protestors have been arrested across this country…but of the people working in the financial institutions who caused the recession that led to millions of lost jobs, of bankrupted pensions, savings, cities and states?
Nobody arrested. None. Zero.
Again, why is that?
Are you simply admitting in cold hard arrest statistics that the rule of law is dead, provided you are wealthy enough to have received a Bush tax cut, extended further by Obama? Is that the established line in the sand? If you qualify to receive a tax break due to wealth, the law no longer applies to you?
I’m thinking that rather than being reelected, what should really happen here is Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Bernanke, Cantor, Boehner, McConnell and Geithner, all of you need to wind up in a cell right next to the heads of the major banking institutions in this country. You all, who have taken it upon yourselves to damn your children’s futures for your own selfish gain.
Pathetic, all of you.
Off to jail, lock them in the Bastille…why not? What do we really have to lose anymore? This way, the rest of us can try this again, we can have our country back, see if we can do better and I’m betting we can. After all, you pathetic politicians have lowered the bar so far…be pretty damned impossible to do worse.
Or better yet, get involved with the Occupy Protests in your city, what else you gonna do? Sit bitching on the sidelines? Vote? Yeah, good luck with that…the people currently in power, and the politicians too would like nothing better than for you to just stay home and vote at the appropriate time for one of the politicians they’ve hand-selected to serve (them) you…
Think about it.
And have a nice day, even the aforementioned politicians…right before you trip down your front steps and chip your tooth on the sidewalks our taxes paid for…and if you bloodied your nose, that’d be cool too. Okay…I’m sorry about that last part, not that I didn’t mean it…I’m just sorry about being petty sometimes, trying to work on that…kind-of.
Oh, and P.S. – To the mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan…resign, and take the members of the Oakland Police Department who caused the violence with you…you’re all one collective disgrace…and to San Francisco (interim) mayor, Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr, stop with the games already…you really want another Oakland on your hands? Seriously…let it go.
Occupied thought, beyond demands – from the desk of Chris Hedges…
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein
From Chris Hedges at Truthout…concerning the Occupy Movement…
“…These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back.
This is a goal the power elite cannot comprehend. They cannot envision a day when they will not be in charge of our lives. The elites believe, and seek to make us believe, that globalization and unfettered capitalism are natural law, some kind of permanent and eternal dynamic that can never be altered. What the elites fail to realize is that rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished. It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. That is why they keep asking what the demands are. They don’t understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind…”
Read the article:
Have a nice day.
Oil spill may be causing infertility problems…
"Obviously, this Dr. Williams, if that is her real name, has failed to realize I already said there are no health problems that can be directly attributed to the oil spill..."
A scientist at the University of New Orleans says people with direct contact to the oil spill are having serious health problems which could be felt for decades to come.
Apparently, as goes marine life, so goes human beings in contact with the heavy metals and PAH’s associated with the oil. Dr. Patricia Williams, a UNO scientist with the Pontchartrain Institute of Environmental Sciences, reports, “There are voluminous studies after oil spills, especially with the Exxon Valdez, that shows a syndrome of impairment of the heart development, yolk development and changes in curvature of the spine in different fish species,” said Williams, “I’ve interviewed tar ball workers and what we’re finding is that any problem we’re seeing in wildlife, we’re seeing in humans, with reproductive and neurological problems.”
She says the people who spent weeks cleaning beaches and on boats near oil burn offs are the most at risk and are already experiencing problems.
BP reports it is spending $500 million on a more definitive study to look at long-term impacts on both human and marine populations, but Dr. Williams insists she’s seen enough.
“We’re talking about a diverse group of chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that interact with each other,” said Dr. Williams. “They are powerful carcinogens and powerful reproductive toxins.”
Read the article:
UNO scientist claims BP spill produced carcinogens, toxins
Have a nice day.
Saints Versus Bears…
Urlacher's the blue one...
Since every team in the division lost, can we just pretend the season starts today? A destruction of the Chicago Bears would sure be a nice place to start…because as I wander around the windy city on my day off tomorrow, it would be a beautiful thing to wear some Saints gear and laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh again kinda steely-eyed creepy…you know, cause its fun and increased anger in Bears fans quickly ruptures already strained arteries.
And on a completely unrelated note, have I ever told of my absolute hatred for that pinhead NCAA Football announcer, Brent Musburger? Oh yeah, they invented the head-on collision for jackasses like that, but I suppose I’ll save that tale for another time.
Enjoy the game all…
Have a nice day.
GOP job killers…
It's just this simple...
Tonight is Obama’s jobs speech. That’s nice and all, but not really important as evidenced by the reactions of Republican Senators like Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint who have already figured out nothing Obama could propose will work. “Same failed approach,” McConnell called it.
Interesting, considering for the past two years the GOP hasn’t said much about jobs at all…
But that was then, this is now…of late, taking their cues from the Chamber of Commerce and ALEC, Republicans have decided it is finally time to talk about these jobs. Well, not creating jobs exactly, moreso they want to talk about what kills them. This would appear key to the platform. They cite regulations as being high on the list of what kills jobs in businesses big or small, despite the McClatchy poll of small business owners which found small business owners didn’t agree, nor did the business owners feel taxes were the problem, another key job killer Republicans like to talk up. Oh, and Republicans now say the deficit kills jobs too…and unions, don’t forget the unions. They kill jobs like a motherfucker, worse than a repeal of the Bush tax cuts ever could.
So, we get the GOP list of top job killers and surprisingly, it would appear everything Republicans have a problem with? Yep, somehow kills jobs.
Top 15 job killers:
1. Higher taxes on the wealthy, killing the jobs big time, the less money they have the fewer guards they can employ to make sure liberals don’t steal it.
2. Regulations on the financial industry, it’s a super-duper killer of jobs, especially the jobs’ pension plans.
3. Regulations on the coal industry, kills more jobs than their pollution kills people.
4. Abortion, kills all the jobs them fetuses might of one day created.
5. Obamacare, kills way more jobs than government doctors can save.
6. Unions, their demands for living wages and benefits – jobs assassin.
7. Social Security, money for grandma could be used to create jobs for grandma, jobs she’ll soon need – horrid job killer.
8. Obama’s skin color, kills jobs nationwide, even worse than Boehner’s spray tan or Cantor’s air of self-righteousness.
9. Gay Marriage, if this happens, wealthy people will be too afraid to leave home and create more jobs with all their tax savings.
10. Government Jobs, if people don’t have to work in the private sector, why would wealthy people try to create jobs for them? Job destroyer.
11. Big Government, when government gets too big, it can kills jobs just by taking a step.
12. Teachers, see #6 Unions, and teachers might teach people to think, which in turn might show people that Republican obstructionists might be better replaced by people who care more about their country and less about power.
13. Atheists, because they love to have so many abortions, see #4.
14. Women, because if women just stayed at home where they belong, we wouldn’t need so many jobs.
15. Food Stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Energy Assistance, Welfare to Work, Planned Parenthood, National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, NPR, NOAA, FDA, because this is all money stolen out of the wallets of the top 1% and if they had their money back, just think of all the extra jobs they’d be creating right now. Seriously. Drowning in jobs. Wouldn’t be able to even see the sky the jobs would be piling up so high, all around us, everywhere, blocking the sun.
Have a nice day.
