October 2008 archive

This Saturday is National Solar Tour Day

Saturday October 4, 2008.  solar tour logo

Solar homes, active and passive, all across the country are open to the public for viewing and learning about solar energy through the ASES National Solar Tour Day

To find a location near you, go to the ASES website.

Every year, the first Saturday in October is National Solar Tour Day, as part of National Solar Awareness month.

We’re participating for the second time.  Over the last two years we had more than 120 people from all over the state visit our partially earth sheltered, passive solar designed home, to which we added 4kw of photovoltaic panels in July,’06.

<solar panels looking NE

Iran on Israel’s Radar, manned by USA

An article on CASMII’s website reported that:

U.S. establishes permanent radar site in Israel to watch Iran by Matthew Fisher (source: Canwest News)

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

JERUSALEM – The Yanks have landed in Israel.

For the first time in the Jewish state’s 60-year history, the U.S. has established a permanent military presence here, according to Defense News.

About 120 American troops have arrived in the Negev Desert to set up an early warning radar that will track missiles launched in Iran, the authoritative U.S.-based weekly says in its current issue. [/blockquote]

Help these Progressives in their campaigns!

Dennis Kucinich is running for re-election to his House seat in Ohio’s 10th District.  Please donate to his campaign.

http://www.kucinich.us

Cindy Sheehan is running to unseat Nancy Pelosi in California’s 8th District.  She needs your help to remove the failed speaker.

http://www.cindyforcongress.org

Anthony Pollina is running for governor of Vermont on the Progressive Party ticket.

http://www.anthonypollina.com

Also on the Progressive Party ticket in Vermont is state attorney general candidate Charlotte Dennett, who vows to prosecute the shrub for murder.

http://www.charlottedennettfor…

Thomas Hermann, an Iraq war veteran running on an anti-war platform, is another Progressive – he’s running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

http://www.votepeacevt.com/hom…

Ralph Nader is running for president again.  I’m not voting for him, for reasons I’ll explain later, but I do support his message.

http://www.votenader.org

Cynthia McKinney is running for president on the Green Party ticket.  She, more than Nader, perhaps has the organizational power to make some kind of impact in November.  She isn’t going to win, obviously, in this rigged system – but enough votes may begin to help build the Green Party further.

http://votetruth08.com

Please donate whatever you can to these progressive candidates.

Four at Four

  1. In the proving ground for Internet spying, the NY Times reports Surveillance of Skype messages has been found in China. “Canadian human-rights activists and computer security researchers has discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives certain Internet text conversations that include politically charged words.”

    Researchers in China have estimated that 30,000 or more “Internet police” monitor online traffic, Web sites and blogs for political and other offending content in what is called the Golden Shield Project or the Great Firewall of China…

    The list includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence and the Chinese Communist Party, according to the researchers. It includes not only words like democracy, but also earthquake and milk powder. (Chinese officials are facing criticism over the handling of earthquake relief and chemicals tainting milk powder.)

    The list also serves as a filter to restrict text conversations.

    And make no mistake, if the Chinese government can snoop text messages, then the U.S. government will not be far away.

    In 2005, … the National Security Agency was monitoring large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program, intended to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Four at Four continues with another deadly day in Iraq, bailout grows by $110 billion in tax cuts, and the HIV virus found to be 100 years old.

Literary America: “Too isolated, too insular”

A couple days ago, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy — the body that decides who will be the laureate for the Nobel Prize in Literature — stated Europe was the center of the literary world and America was “too isolated, too insular”.

This is what Horace Engdahl said in an interview he gave exclusively to the AP:

“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States.”

Just Blow Up Already!

A little over a month to go. Polls showing an increasing Obama lead. Voters refusing to blame Dems for the Republican economy, in spite of the usually game changing and reliable whining by the Repubs. The whining of the Repubs not working! Despite McCains continued attacks on the Press, culminating in sequestering Palin as if Wingnuttery were a contagious disease, the press seems to shockingly no longer be McCain’s Base. In fact they even say bad things about him….occasionally. But most of all….

He is just plain losing.

How long will it be before he truly loses it?

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Truth is utterly optional

Rarely does my blogging divert from energy and environmental issues, as we so desperately need to Get Energy Smart! NOW!!! on the path to Energize America toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society.  Rarely …

Amid the flood of revelations of biblical proportions about Sarah Palin, which seems destined to last for at least 40 days and 40 nights, here is an item that might not be receiving the focus that it merits.

I’ve been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, the second grade.

Obviously, this is the attempt by the running mate of a 72-year old ill man to try to make an issue of Joe Biden’s 65 years and over 30 years of public service.

But, importantly, this is clearly a lie, an untruth, not even rating into the category of truthiness.

Open Thread

 

Thread is its own reward.

Justice for Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims: 2008

Again this year Vietnamesse Agent Orange victims are touring the United States seeking justice, Our Responsibility, for the long term damage done to their countries citizens from our occupation of their country not so long ago.

Tiny Archers Save America From Wall Street Fat Cats

While normal Americans were watching the Dodgers-Cubs game on Wednesday night, the Senate passed the bailout bill on a 74-25 vote.  The House was unable to pass the bill on Monday, but the Senate fixed the glaring problems of that bill and it breezed through with bipartisan support.  How did the Senate fix and pass the bailout bill?  They added a provision to repeal an excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.  Now why didn’t the House think of that?

Senators attached a provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children to an historic $700 billion financial-markets rescue that passed tonight by a vote of 74-25. The provision, originally proposed by Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, will save manufacturers such as Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon, about $200,000 a year.

(snip)

Representatives for Wyden, a Democrat, and Smith, a Republican, didn’t immediately return calls.

This wasn’t enough for Senator Wyden (D), who still voted against the bailout.  But it apparently swayed Senator Smith (R), who voted in favor of the bailout.

Better Friends

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painting from Sweep Da Leg

Recently, I needed some money so I could complete a project I was working on.  So I called up my friend, Tom, and I asked him if I could have $10,000.  He said he’d have to discuss it with his spouse, but then called by later and said, “Sure.  Happy to do it.  When can you pay it back?”

It’s the last sentence that’s the issue here.  Can you imagine my outrage that he wanted to be paid back, that he wasn’t just going to give me the cash?  I need a better set of friends.  I need friends who will just give me money when I say I need it.  I need friends who make gifts and don’t appear to expect anything in return.      

Maybe I should have responded to his request for repayment by telling him that very, very bad things would happen not just to him, but also to his family, and that they would all be afflicted for the next seven generations if he didn’t just pony up the cash and drop the repayment talk.  I wouldn’t explain how this would happen, or provide details.  I’d just emphasize how very, very bad things would be for him, etc etc.  It’d just be a strong threat of very bad things.  If I had said that, I think he probably would have thought I was committing a crime, trying to extort funds from him by threatening him and his family.

Maybe if I had been making many big monetary gifts contributions to Tom for the past decade, he would have considered my request for payment a “pay back” of some sort.  But I don’t have any relationships like that, where it’s about me buying a potential, future favor.  I just try to be generous when friends ask for something.  And I always ask when they will pay it back.  And I hope my friends will be generous when I ask for something.  And I don’t ask if I think that there’s any chance that I cannot pay it back.

If I lent my friends money for a business venture, I’d expect them to give me some stock in the company, or a promissory note that paid interest.  I’d expect to be protected and to be paid back. Silly  me.

So evidently, Wall Street has far better friends in Congress than I have in my life.  I hope that’s not true, but if the bailout bill passes, it will prove the point.

Maybe I could have the right kind of friends if I started befriending a new class of people, people I presently disdain for being fools and suckers.  Who else will make a gigantic gift to people who apparently don’t need it and expect nothing in return?

Please tell your Congressperson to vote no.  Not one centavo.  Not one cent.  Not one penny.  Please email and FAX and telephone them.  

Future Historians Will Argue about America’s Death Date

Was it 911, or perhaps Patriot Acts 1,2 and 3.  I still find it too calculated, too planned to not be the work of the an Illuminati lead by the ant-christ himself.  The symbolism leading to October 1, 2008 is dramatic.  The stock market crash to -777, a known signigicant number.  The Pravda “press” all pushing for “a package” as I got my “package”, a forced “retirement” deal.  A bailout of known felons whose only purpose in life is the exploitation of others.  It is the institutionalized S&M dominatrix effect to make global citizens out of us all.  They want you to take it up the ass and say thank you Sir may I have another.

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