October 2010 archive
Oct 04 2010
Open Dandy
Oct 04 2010
you mean if the republicans win
.. dems won’t have any chance of passing their progressive agenda?????
is that what you’re all going on about? if the dems lose… the rethugs are gonna do what?
ladies and gentlemen, i propose the following:
we have all, from tea parties to progressive, been David Kuo’d.
Oct 04 2010
The CIA’s War on ALBA is a War on YOU!
It never ceases to amaze me how little attention North American’s pay to the CIA-backed gunboat diplomacy attacks on our South American neighbor’s Democracies.
“Another year, another South American coup!” Are we naive enough here to just think “those people are violent and unable to govern themselves peacefully…”?
Sorry, not so. It is our neo-liberals attacking people who want the best for themselves, so that our businesses can exploit them unencumbered by a government that has their People’s interests at heart.
The latest attack was on Ecuador. Remember last years Honduran Coup, where the US backed a right-wing ousting of an ELECTED leftist President? No worries, I will remind you below the fold.
Forgive me for taking it down to basics here, but I fear half of the US is not even aware what the acronym ALBA stands for. This coalition of self-determination, people’s power against US hegemony and imperialist exploitation is always our targets.
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or ALBA) is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of social, political, and economic integration between the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is associated with socialist and social democratic governments and is an attempt at regional economic integration based on a vision of social welfare, bartering and mutual economic aid, rather than trade liberalization as with free trade agreements. ALBA nations are in the process of introducing a new regional currency, the SUCRE. It is intended to be the common virtual currency by 2010 and eventually a hard currency. On Tuesday, July 6, 2010, Venezuela and Ecuador conducted the first bilateral trade deal between two ALBA countries using the new trading currency, the Sucre, instead of the US dollar.
Members are Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuala. Observer states of the organisation are Grenada, Haiti, Paraguay and Uruguay.
Oct 04 2010
The Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments Reflect on Everyone
When news broke last week about how the United States government funded and carried out syphilis experiments in Guatemala that had absolutely no scientific value whatsoever, the response was swift. A tone of harsh, unforgiving condemnation characterized nearly every media story, along with a punitive desire to punish those actively involved in the process. As is often true, we wished to wax indignantly about it and vent our frustration. What we might not have wanted to contemplate is our own individual role in the entire sordid mess.
Oct 04 2010
Public Lands, the Solar Fast Track, and a Greener Future … hopefully
In case you didn’t know, Solar, Wind, Geothermal Projects, are being “Fast Track” by the Obama Administration.
Fast Tracking attempts to minimize the red tape, in order to get the boots on the ground as soon as feasible.
They are OUR Public lands by the way. We should use them to secure our Energy Future while protecting our wonderful Natural Heritage.
Here are the highlights:
BLM> California> California Desert District> Alternative Energy> Fast-Track Projects
Fast-Track Renewable Energy Projects
Solar
Ivanpah BrightSource Solar Project
The 400-megwatt project would incorporate seven 459-foot tall power towers and 214,000 heliostats (each holding two flat mirrors).
The project’s power plants would share an administrative complex/construction logistics area on approximately 4,073 acres of public land.
Oct 04 2010
“Even Jesus couldn’t save their souls”
BP and the Feds have fooled America and the entire world into thinking the BP Gulf Oil Spill is over, that the beaches are clean and that the seafood is safe, and everything is OK.
Titled “The Gulf Oil Spill isn’t over!” here’s a little bit of mournful Louisiana blues to tell the real story.
Uploaded to YouTube Oct. 02, 2010 by:
Holt Webb – writer/photographer & publisher of
The Vanishing America Project
http://vanishingamerica.net
“a multi-year journey I’ve undertaken to use my skill as a photographer and a writer to promote conservation and raise awareness about what we are losing – our culture, our wildlife, and our landscape – in hopes that some of it will still be around for future generations to enjoy.”
Hat tip to Alexander Higgins who for months on his blog has been collecting every bit of news you can imagine about the BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe.
Oct 04 2010
SplatterGate
Exploding school children over AGW!
http://www.infowars.com/sony-f…
European response to America’s latest al-CIA-duh hype!
They actually attack one of those Google data mining cars!
Excellent Excellent Excellent!
Carbon exempt swine flu eugenics victims of the world unite!
Hearts and minds huh.
http://www.google.com/#q=1010g…
Oct 04 2010
Muse in the Morning
Muse in the Morning |
An Opened Mind XXXVIII
If you want to look like the people next door, you’re probably smothering yourself and your dreams.
–Clive Barker |
Film at 11
|
Oct 04 2010
Internet chatter
A couple of items I found interesting from “comments” and “letters” sections on the web.
It’s not just an American problem, score big blogospheric points by accurately identifying the nation this letter is about! And no, it’s not the US, but then, it could be a lot of countries, couldn’t it?
The _____ government has got it wrong again, but the clue to why is not in the “dozy government” line. It is hidden in your quote that “the elite directing the _____ economy is more tightly closed than an oyster shell”. _____ operates like a one-party state and the government is just the political wing of that elite comprising developers, bankers and newspaper owners, with a whole network of vested interests descending into almost every corner of the _____ state and economic life.
___________________________________________________________________
And a rant about our general system failure by a commenter at Chris Floyd’s blog who offers the forlorn hope that eventually the plunderers will have nobody to plunder but themselves; use of the term ouroboros always worms its way into my heart.
A fatal cancer has spread in the body politic, metastasized to all parts, no organ remains untouched. The corruption of politics and government, of law and the courts, of education and the schools. Warning was given and separation of secular self-direction from self-righteous belief was instituted, a wall was built and accepted as correct for some generations until one generation came along, in glorious, arrogant ignorance, was set upon and dismantled, manipulated by devious politicians to their own ends. Those ends, the access to power that their ideology would not support otherwise. Masters of marketing and mendacity, they gained the keys to the treasury and converted the nation from being a creditor to a debtor, whilst devouring every asset they could set their hands to, depleting the accumulated wealth built for generations, held in trust for those generations to come. All is gone now, only the insurance to ease the aged remains. That will not be intact for long, the appetite of power must be fed.
Absolute power has corrupted absolutely. However, that power, as great as it is cannot sustain itself, it will consume everything in its path until there is nothing left but itself and it will turn on itself in the end, an ouroboros. Like the monkey trap, this creature’s grasp on the fruits of power will not allow its escape from the trap and it becomes prey to greater forces that will destroy it, if it doesn’t eat itself first.
Until this comes to pass, the corruption of power is complete and collapse of power is inevitable. In politics and in government, in law and in the courts there is no place to place the fulcrum required to operate the leaver of change. Power has become the end in and of itself, it can no longer direct the affairs of state or the welfare of citizens.
Oct 04 2010
Sunday Train: 1:36 NYC/Boston, 1:23 NYC/DC, $117b, 30yrs
Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence
As The Transport Politic reported earlier this week: Amtrak Unveils Ambitious Northeast Corridor Plan, But It Would Take 30 Years to be Realized
After months of sitting on the sidelines as states and regional agencies promoted major new high-speed rail investments, Amtrak has finally announced what it hopes to achieve over the next thirty years: A brand-new, 426-mile, two-track corridor running from Boston to Washington, bringing true [Express] high-speed rail to the Northeast Corridor for the first time.
Some questions and answers, over the fold.